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33. AFFLICTIONS WILL ATTEND US TO OUR LAST.

33. AFFLICTIONS WILL ATTEND US TO OUR LAST.

At times, I may be ready to say—"Is there any trouble like my trouble with which the Lord has afflicted me?" Yet I know that I should never complain of my difficulties. However numerous or uncommon some of my afflictions may be, I thereby am conformed to the happy souls before the throne, who came out of great tribulation and fiery trials. I am to acquit Sovereignty in the kind and in the duration of my afflictions. 

Nothing should grieve me, but my sinfulness. Divine Love, Infinite Wisdom, and Sovereign Grace, can turn this shadow of death into the morning, and out of this roaring lion bring forth food to my soul!

(In the following short meditations, Meikle writes as though he were in heaven—and was looking back on his conduct on earth.)

While I find myself in the arms of bliss, with what language shall I condemn my conduct in time! Why was I content to have dwelt on the other side of Jordan forever—to put up with a fool's paradise for eternity!

O! why did my soul not go out more after God? Why did not my love center on him alone? How could I treat my best, my heavenly friend—worse than a common traveler! My house received the one, but my heart bolted out the other! How low was my esteem of the fairest One whom ever angels saw, or seraphs sung! O that ever worldly trifles should have called my meditations off that work that would have kindled my love and heightened my joy!

Why did I look always through a false medium, on everything that concerned me? Is it possible that this vast inheritance of glory could appear in my eyes, as a little despicable island which lay beyond an unknown ocean? O! have you bestowed this boundless inheritance of bliss on me—who once gave my affections so much to passing vanities! Was my love ardent to every other object but the God of love? Oh! was not my esteem for earthly trifles beyond what all their excellencies put together deserved?

Why did not the fire of my love burn continually with a most vehement flame—a flame that many waters could not quench? Why did I not consider that you are consummate love, and that eternity, where I have now arrived, was a land of love, and that the song of the redeemed is just the warmest breathings of divinest love, "To him who loved us!"

O what a hard, adamantine heart was mine, that in the midst of your flames of love—was not melted into love! But now the furnace is heated seven times hotter—and the cloudless emanations of eternal love make every grateful power of my mind rise to the throne of God, like savory incense from the smoking altar!


Can I ever forget, in this exalted state, my folly when in time? How unfitting for an heir of heaven to take so much thought about the earth! Did I believe that such immense treasures were reserved for me in the land of promise—yet my unbelief distracted me about the trifles of a day! Where now is the advantage of all my corroding cares, and disquieting concerns?

How unfitting for one whose strength was the joy of the Lord, to feel grief for the perishing things of time! Why did I think it so bad to be poor in the world, where my dearest Savior, whose hands created the golden mines—beautified the sparkling diamond—and enriched the precious stones with brilliant glow—lived and died in extreme indigence? Why did any sorrow that was bounded by time, and ended in death—disquiet my soul? Whatever I lost in time being of a perishing nature, could not enrich me now in heaven. It matters not what I lost while on earth—for all is reserved for fire.


Another error I was guilty of in the days of my pilgrimage below, was joy in the perishing things of the world. And yet all that I possessed, when I came to the hour of death, could neither avert the stroke, nor mitigate the pangs of dissolution. How like the ungodly, was I to rejoice in that which is bestowed on the basest of men, and often tends to the basest of ends! Yet was I bewitched with 'shining dust'! How lonely would my passage have been, O best Beloved, through the valley of death—with all the treasures of the world—without your presence!

With triumph I walk along the golden street, and with endless joy trample the shining gold, that dared once invade my heart, and decoy my affections from divine things! Ah! was I ever so stupid, so brutish, as to make any comparison between riches and righteousness; gold and glory; earth and heaven; the creature and God? Now I would not stop my worship one moment—to possess the whole world; nor stir one foot from the throne of God—to sway the scepter over the nations. Now I am happier than the nobles, higher than the kings of any land!


O King Eternal, how am I changed since I came into your presence! the emanations of your cloudless glory have made me exceeding pure; and you have bestowed upon me excellent majesty. How is this—for a vile worm, to rise into a pure spirit before your throne, and grow fairer and fairer in your assimilating beams? Sin would not know me now—though it often blackened my conscience, and saddened my countenance; for now my conscience sings, and countenance shines, having full redemption in Jesus' blood. Who would ever think that my heart, which is now a garden of delights for my well-beloved—was once a field of daily battle?

Fellow-sufferers would not know me now—but take me for an ancient inhabitant of the land of bliss, and not for one that lately sojourned in dreary Mesech, and dwelt in the dark tents of Kedar. O what a heavenly change, what a divine metamorphosis is this! in which all my powers of mind so deeply share. In the day of grace it was much to be like David the man of God; but now in the eternity of glory, I am like the angel of God! Ah! deeper wonder still! like the God of angels! Hosanna, Hallelujah!


No wonder that in the world I did not think more of salvation, and the work of redemption—for I dwelt in darkness, and tabernacled in clay. But since I have entered within the veil, and come into the presence of God himself, the mystery is revealed, and my enlarged powers of mind are filled with wonder and amazement! I once thought that I was something—but since arrived into the more immediate presence of the Being of beings, I see I was absolutely nothing—a mere non-entity!

Had the shining seraphim left their sparkling seats, and rapturous songs, to lead such emmets through the howling wilderness, it would have been a wonder. But for him—at whose throne the prostrate angels fall, and on whose glory Gabriel cannot look—the Father's fellow, the God of angels, the fountain of happiness, and the king of heaven—to descend to time, to clothe himself with flesh, to humble himself to death, and to encounter all the storms of his Father's tremendous wrath! and that for the very wretches that rebelled against him—is, and will be the wonder of eternity!


Here in the highest heavens I see the extravagance of my folly, when on the footstool of earth. How did I mourn for my expiring friend, as if I had never heard of immortality; and sorrow for the dead as one who had no hope! To what purpose were my tears, my anguish and my wounded heart? Did I dispute the will of God, or envy them their bliss? Did such sadness in my countenance make my heart better? Why did not faith behold afar off this happy day, when so few moments intervened between their decease and mine?

Now earthly relations are lost—but not forgotten; lost in the dearer tie and diviner unity of the heavenly family. Not a godly relative is lost—the dear loved one retains not the putrid disease—but appears beauteous as the smiling morning, and lovely as a holy angel. In some, imperfect grace and perverse nature might raise domestic storms, and impede their prayers at the throne of grace; while in others, too high esteem and fond delight might prove as fatal to their soul's concerns. But now all sinful defects and lawless excess are removed—and we share in others' bliss, and join in others' songs, triumphing over death and weakness through eternal day!


While walking through the valley of tears, how many have my mournful melancholy Sabbaths been! While sin and Satan, objects without, and distractions within, have harassed and perplexed my mind—while sadness seized on my soul! Now that I have arrived this eternal day of rest, what streaming joys dilate my ravished soul, to find myself possessed of everlasting Sabbath! Nothing from without, and nothing from within—can defile my soul, or distract my devotions.

This is the day that I have longed for! In your presence, O adorable Redeemer, O majesty of heaven—shall eternity be one Sabbath-day! And all the everlasting day, I shall worship at your throne; and the length of the day shall be the delight of my soul! Nor shall my sanctified heart need a constant watch, as once against her ravings, seeing it is essential to the perfect state, and heavenly frame—to pour out all my affections on God.


The heirs of heaven need not take it amiss that they are mourners while traveling through the fields of Bochim, the valley of Achor. So short is the duration of their sorrow—compared to the eternity of their song—that they have hardly time to heave the deep fetched sigh, until their heart-strings snap, and their joyful soul flies into their heavenly Father's arms, and enters eternally into the joy of their Lord!

Such is now my happy state above! And though in the 'dark night of time' I mistook every 'mole-hill of trial' for 'mountains of distress'; yet it was only the 'shadow of trouble' which attended me—the 'shadow of grief' which waylaid me, and the 'shadow of death' that I walked through. In reality—that trouble could not devastate me; nor grief destroy me; nor death devour me!

But now even the shadow of evil is past—and solid, sure, substantial good is mine! I enjoy the essence of joy, the quintessence of bliss—even God in his own heaven, God in his own Son! Richness of glory—rivers of pleasures—fullness of joy—oceans of ecstasy—ages of communion with God—entrance my every ravished power!


How happy are all the multitudes around the throne! How content those who have been often disappointed! How cheerful the mourners, and how happy all the sons of sorrow! Glory is such a weight, and God is such a portion—that every power of soul is ravished and blessed above conception! In the fullness of the heavenly bliss there is neither want nor woe, vanity nor vexation—preying on any soul! But God, in his divine perfections—fills and overflows all!