Читать книгу Sermons of Christmas Evans - Evans Christmas - Страница 18

During the above-mentioned tribulations he received an insulting letter, threatening him with a civil prosecution. “They talk,” said he, “of casting me into a court of law, where I have never been, and hope I shall never go; but I will cast them first into the court of Jesus Christ, the source of law and authority.” So saying, he retired to his chamber, and falling upon his knees, he wept and made supplication in the following pathetic strain: —

“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.”