He saith also, "He that overcometh, I will make
him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out
thereof, and I shall write upon him the name of my God and the name
of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which descendeth from
heaven from my God, and I shall write on him also my new name." If
we wished to enlarge upon this, and were able to declare these
special gifts, with yet others that are specified in the second and
third chapters of the Apocalypse, then would it appear how far
those heavenly joys shall surmount above all the comfort that ever
came in the mind of any man living here upon earth.
The blessed apostle St. Paul, who suffered so many perils and so
many passions, saith of himself that he hath been "in many labours,
in prisons oftener than others, in stripes above measure, at point
of death often times; of the Jews had I five times forty stripes
save one, thrice have I been beaten with rods, once was I stoned,
thrice have I been in shipwreck, a day and a night was I in the
depth of the sea; in my journeys oft have I been in peril of
floods, in peril of thieves, in peril by the Jews, in perils by the
pagans, in perils in the city, in perils in the desert, in perils
in the sea, perils by false brethren, in labour and misery, in many
nights' watch, in hunger and thirst, in many fastings, in cold and
nakedness; beside those things that are outward, my daily instant
labour, I mean my care and solicitude about all the churches," and
yet saith he more of his tribulations, which for the length I let
pass.
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