CXCVI.—To EARLSTON, the Younger.
CXCVI.—To EARLSTON, the Younger.
(SUFFERINGS—HOPE OF FINAL DELIVERANCE—THE BELIEVER IN SAFE KEEPING—THE RECOMPENSE MARRED BY
TEMPTATIONS)
WORTHY AND DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear from you. I remain still a prisoner of hope, and do think it service to the Lord to wait on still with submission, till the Lord's morning sky break, and His summer day dawn. For I am persuaded that it is a piece of the chief errand of our life (on which God sent us for some years, down to this earth, among devils and men, the firebrands of the devil, and temptations), that we might suffer for a time here amongst our enemies; otherwise He might have made heaven to wait on us, at our coming out of the womb, and have carried us home to our country, without letting us set down our feet in this knotty and thorny life. But seeing a piece of suffering is carved to every one of us, less or more, as infinite Wisdom hath thought good, our part is to harden and habituate our soft and thin-skinned nature to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, wo hearts, as those that are looked upon by God, angels, men, and devils. Oh, what folly is it, to sit down and weep upon a decree of God, that is both deaf and dumb to our tears, and must stand still as unmoveable as God who made it! For who can come behind our Lord, to alter or better what He hath decreed and done? It were better to make windows in our prison, and to look out to God and our country, heaven, and to cry like fettered men who long for the King's free air, "Lord, let Thy kingdom come! Oh, let the Bridegroom come! And, O day, O fair day, O everlasting summer day, dawn and shine out, break out from under the black night sky, and shine!" I am persuaded that, if every day a little stone in the prison-walls were broken, and thereby assurance given to the chained prisoner, lying under twenty stone of irons upon arms and legs, that at length his chain should wear into two pieces, and a hole should be made at length as wide as he might come safely over to his long-desired liberty; he would, in patience, wait on, till time should hole the prison-wall and break his chains. The Lord's hopeful prisoners, under their trials, are in that case. Years and months will take out, now one little stone, then another, of this house of clay; and at length time shall win out the breadth of a fair door, and send out the imprisoned soul to the free air in heaven. And time shall file off, by little and little, our iron bolts which are now on legs and arms, and outdate and wear our troubles threadbare and holey,