13 “I believed and therefore I spake” (Ps. cxvi. 10). I know that there was in the writer of those words the same Spirit that utters itself now. I too believe, and however ardently the wicked may wish my death, I speak,
14 — having faith in the eternal Power who raised our Lord from the dead, and will raise us and keep us in that safety with him where death and danger have no power over us.
15 All this wonder is for your sakes, that the overflowing gratitude of great numbers may testify to the grace and glory of the divine.
16 There is no thought of fatigue or failure or surrender here; the outward man begins to give place before the advent of that inner man who is for ever renewed, even whilst the outer man shows the evidences of death.
17 A far more exceeding weight of glory and hope is coming into the light, and completely counterbalancing and outweighing these temporary trials.
18 We are looking no longer on the surface of things; our inner eyes are fixed on the invisible which is eternal and which endures for ever; this short-lived evidence of the outer eyes has no corresponding significance but is only transitory. We behold in the invisible realm the house and the body of Spirit, substantial and endurable, whilst the outer man is no more than a transitory tabernacle, like that which the people carried through the wilderness, which can be furled up and laid aside for ever.