“O blessed Lord! in thy merit I confide, and trust to be heard. Lord,
some of my brethren have run wild; and forgetting their duty and
obligations to their father in the gospel, they threaten me with the law
of the land. Weaken, I beseech thee, their designs in this, as thou
didst wither the arm of Jeroboam; and soften them, as thou didst soften
the mind of Esau, and disarmed him of his warlike temper against thy
servant Jacob, after the wrestling at Penuel. So disarm them, for I do
not know the length of Satan’s chain in this case, and in this
unbrotherly attack. But thou canst shorten the chain as short as it may
please thee. Lord, I anticipate them in point of law. They think of
casting thine unworthy servant into the little courts here below; but I
cast my cause into the High Court, in which thou, gracious Jesus, art the
High Chancellor. Receive thou the cause of thine unworthy servant, and
send them a writ or a notice immediately—sending into their conscience,
and summoning them to consider what they are doing. O, frighten them
with a summons from thy court, until they come and bow in contrition at
thy feet; and take from their hands every revengeful weapon, and make
them deliver up every gun of scandal, and every sword of bitter words,
and every spear of slanderous expressions, and surrender them all at thy
cross. Forgive them all their faults, and clothe them with white robes,
and give them oil for their heads, and the organ, and the harp of ten
strings, to sing, for the trampling of Satan under our feet by the God of
peace.”
Having thus poured out his heart to God, he felt some confidence of
security. But he was never satisfied in such cases without an inward
assurance of acceptance and success. So he went again and again; and
when, like Jesus, he had “offered up many prayers, with strong crying and
tears,” like Jacob “he had power with God, and prevailed.” “At the
seventh time,” says he, “I came down in full confidence that Christ had
taken my cause into his own hand, and would be my Savior. I felt as
cheerful and happy as Bunyan’s Pilgrim, when his load fell off and rolled
into the grave of Christ; or as Naaman, when he came up from the waters
of Jordan, cured of his leprosy.”
It is scarcely necessary to add, the threat was never executed. The
Throne of Grace is the good man’s sure resort in every emergency.
Jehovah “hides him in his pavilion from the strife of tongues.”
CAERPHILLY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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