"Were my blackness and Christ's beauty carded through other, His beauty and holiness would eat up my filthiness.
"Christ's honeycombs drop honey and floods of consolation upon my soul; my chains are gold."
When Rutherford was on his deathbed, his enemies sent for him to stand trial for treasonable conduct. His treasonable conduct was his fearless preaching of the Gospel and heralding the royal glory of Christ, which included severest denunciation of the king's arrogant claim of authority over the Church. He replied, "Tell them I have got a summons already before a Superior Judge, and I behoove to answer my first summons; and ere your day come, I will be where few kings and great folks come." As he lay dying, he opened his eyes, and his familiar vision of Christ and the world of glory breaking upon him with unclouded luster, he exclaimed: "Glory, glory in Immanuel's land." With this outburst of joy on his lips, he joined the white-robed throng to take up the heavenly song.
The same source of strength is yet available. Power comes through holy familiarity with God, personal relation to Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Are we full of power in the Lord's service?
POINTS FOR THE CLASS.
1. What event intensified the issue between the king and the Covenanters?
2. Wherein lay the moral strength of the Covenanters?
3. How did they show their love for the Church of Christ?
4. What aroused their jealousy for the Church?