CCXXV.—To his Parishioners.
CCXXV.—To his Parishioners.
(PROTESTATION OF CARE FOR THEIR SOULS AND GLORY OF GOD—DELIGHT IN HIS MINISTRY, AND IN HIS LORD—EFFORTS FOR THEIR SOULS—WARNING AGAINST ERRORS OF THE DAY —AWFUL WORDS TO THE BACKSLIDER—INTENSE ADMIRATION OF CHRIST—A LOUD CALL TO ALL.)
DEARLY BELOVED AND LONGED-FOR IN THE LORD, my crown and my joy in the day of Christ,—Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I long exceedingly to know if the oft-spoken-of match betwixt you and Christ holdeth, and if ye follow on to know the Lord. My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts are of you: while ye sleep I am afraid of your souls, that they be off the rock. Next to my Lord Jesus and this fallen kirk, ye have the greatest share of my sorrow, and also of my joy; ye are the matter of the tears, care, fear, and daily prayers of an oppressed prisoner of Christ. As I am in bonds for my high and lofty One, my royal and princely Master, my Lord Jesus; so I am in bonds for you. For I should have slept in my warm nest, and kept the fat world in my arms, and the cords of my tabernacle should have been fastened more strongly; I might have sung an evangel of ease to my soul and you for a time, with my brethren, the sons of my mother, that were angry at me, and have thrust me out of the vineyard; if I would have been broken, and drawn on to mire you, the Lord s flock, and to cause you to eat pastures trodden upon with men s feet, and to drink foul and muddy waters. But truly the Almighty was a terror to me, and His fear made me afraid. O my Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me, but not so dear by many degrees as Christ my Lord! God knoweth the sad and heavy Sabbaths I have had, since I laid down at my Master s feet my two shepherd s staves. I have been often saying, as it is written, "My enemies chased me sore like a bird, without cause: they have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me" (Lam. iii. 52, 53). For, next to Christ, I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights, to preach Christ my Lord; and they have violently plucked that away from me. It was to me like the poor man s one eye; and they have put out that eye, and quenched my light in the inheritance of the Lord. But my eye is toward the Lord: I know that I shall see the salvation of God, and that my hope shall not always be forgotten. And my sorrow shall want nothing to complete it, and to make me say, "What availeth it me to live?" if ye follow the voice of a stranger,