(_CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH, AND PROPERTY IN US--REASONS FOR
RESIGNATION._)
MISTRESS,--My love in Christ remembered to you. I was indeed sorrowful
at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness
after your daughter's death. Yet I do persuade myself, ye know that
the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth
upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, "In all your afflictions
He is afflicted" (Isa lxiii. 9). O blessed Second who suffereth with
you! and glad may your soul be even to walk in the fiery furnace with
one like unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage! up
your heart! When ye do tire, He will bear both you and your burden
(Ps. lv. 22). Yet a little while and ye shall see the salvation of
God. Remember of what age your daughter was, and that just so long was
your lease of her. If she was eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old,
I know not; but sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your lease
run out, ye can no more justly quarrel your great Superior for taking
His own at His just term day, than a poor farmer can complain that his
master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is
expired. Good mistress, if ye would not be content that Christ would
hold from you the heavenly inheritance which is made yours by His
death, shall not that same Christ think hardly of you if ye refuse to
give Him your daughter willingly, who is a part of His inheritance and
conquest? I pray the Lord to give you all your own, and to grace you
with patience to give God His also. He is an ill debtor who payeth
that which he hath borrowed with a grudge. Indeed, that long loan of
such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ (as I
believe), deserveth more thanks at your Creditor's hands, than that ye
should gloom and murmur when He craveth but His own. I believe you
would judge them to be but thankless neighbours who would pay you a
sum of money after this manner. But what? Do you think her lost, when
she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? Think her not absent
who is in such a friend's house. Is she lost to you who is found to
Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although you should never see
her again, your care for her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not
with a dear Friend? and gone higher, upon a certain hope that ye
shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when (be ye sure) she shall
neither be hectic nor consumed in body? You would be sorry either to
be, or to be esteemed, an atheist; and yet, not I, but the Apostle,
thinketh those to be hopeless atheists who mourn excessively for the
dead (Thess. iv. 13). But this is not a challenge on my part. I do
speak this only fearing your weakness; for your daughter was a part of
yourself; and, therefore, nature in you, being as it were cut and
halved, will indeed be grieved. But ye have to rejoice, that when a
part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven.
Follow her, but envy her not; for indeed it is self-love in us that
maketh us mourn for them that die in the Lord. Why? Because for them
we cannot mourn, since they are never happy till they be dead;
therefore we mourn for our own private respect. Take heed, then, that
in showing your affection in mourning for your daughter, ye be not,
out of self-affection, mourning for yourself. Consider what the Lord
is doing in it. Your daughter is plucked out of the fire, and she
resteth from her labours; and your Lord, in that, is trying you, and
casting you in the fire. Go through all fires to your rest; and now
remember that the eye of God is upon the bush burning and not
consumed; and He is gladly content that such a weak woman as you
should send Satan away, frustrate of his design. Now honour God, and
shame the strong roaring lion, when ye seem weakest. Should such an
one as ye faint in the day of adversity? Call to mind the days of old.
The Lord yet liveth. Trust in Him, although He should slay you. Faith
is exceeding charitable, and believeth no evil of God.[85] Now is the
Lord laying, in the one scale of the balance, your making conscience
of submission to His gracious will, and in the other, your affection
and love to your daughter. Which of the two will ye then choose to
satisfy? Be wise, then; and as I trust ye love Christ better than a
sinful woman, pass by your daughter, and kiss the Lord's rod. Men do
lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end they may grow
up high and tall. The Lord hath this way lopped your branch in taking
from you many children, to the end you should grow upward, like one of
the Lord's cedars, setting your heart above, where Christ is, at the
right hand of the Father. What is next, but that your Lord cut down
the stock after He hath cut the branches? Prepare yourself; you are
nearer your daughter this day than you were yesterday. While ye
prodigally spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting
after her. Run your race with patience. Let God have His own; and ask
of Him, instead of your daughter which He hath taken from you, the
daughter of faith, which is patience; and in patience possess your
soul. Lift up your head: ye do not know how near your redemption doth
draw, Thus recommending you to the Lord, who is able to establish you,
I rest, your loving and affectionate friend in the Lord Jesus,
ANWOTH, _April 23, 1628_.