(_VANITY OF EARTHLY POSSESSIONS--CHRIST A SUFFICIENT PORTION--DESIGN
OF AFFLICTION._)
DEAR AND LOVING SISTER,--I know that ye are minding your sweet
country, and not taking your inn, the place of your banishment, for
your home. This life is not worthy to be the thatch, or outer wall, of
the paradise of your Lord Jesus, that He did sweat for to you, and
that He keepeth for you. Short, and silly, and sand-blind were our
hope, if it could not look over the water to our best heritage, and if
it stayed only at home about the doors of our clay house.
I marvel not, my dear sister, that ye complain that ye come short of
your old wrestlings which ye had for a blessing; and that now you find
it not so. Bairns are but hired to learn their lesson when they first
go to school. And it is enough that those who run a race see the gold
only, at the starting-place; and possibly they see little more of it,
or nothing at all till they win to the rinks-end, and get the gold in
the loof of their hand. Our Lord maketh delicates and dainties of His
sweet presents and love-visits to His own: but Christ's love, under a
veil, is love. If ye get Christ, howbeit not the sweet and pleasant
way ye would have Him, it is enough; for the Well-beloved cometh not
our way; He must wale His own gate Himself. For worldly things, seeing
there are meadows and fair flowers in your way to heaven, a smell in
the bygoing is sufficient. He that would reckon and tell all the
stones in his way, in a journey of three or four hundred miles, and
write up in his count-book all the herbs and the flowers growing in
his way, might come short of his journey. You cannot stay, in your
inch of time, to lose your day (seeing that you are in haste, and the
night and your afternoon will not bide you), in setting your heart on
this vain world. It were your wisdom to read your account-book, and to
have in readiness your business, against the time you come to death's
water-side. I know that your lodging is taken; your forerunner,
Christ, hath not forgotten that; and therefore you must set yourself
to your "one thing," which you cannot well want.
In that our Lord took your husband to Himself, I know it was that He
might make room for Himself. He cutteth off your love to the creature,
that ye might learn that God only is the right owner of your love.
Sorrow, loss, sadness, death, are the worst of things that are, except
sin. But Christ knoweth well what to make of them, and can put His own
in the cross's common, so that we shall be obliged to affliction, and
thank God who taught us to make our acquaintance with such a rough
companion, who can hale us to Christ. You must learn to make your
evils your great good; and to spin comforts, peace, joy, communion
with Christ, out of your troubles, which are Christ's wooers, sent to
speak for you[224] to Himself. It is easy to get good words, and a
comfortable message from our Lord, even from such rough serjeants as
divers temptations. Thanks to God for crosses! When we count and
reckon our losses in seeking God, we find that godliness is great
gain. Great partners of a shipful of gold are glad to see the ship
come to the harbour;--surely we, and our Lord Jesus together, have a
shipful of gold coming home, and our gold is in that ship. Some are so
in love, or, rather, in lust, with this life, that they sell their
part of the ship for a little thing. I would counsel you to buy hope,
but sell it not, and give not away your crosses for nothing. The
inside of Christ's cross is white and joyful, and the far-end of the
black cross is a fair and glorious heaven of ease. And seeing Christ
hath fastened heaven to the far-end of the cross, and He will not
loose the knot Himself, and none else can (for when Christ casteth a
knot, all the world cannot loose it), let us then count it exceeding
joy when we fall into divers temptations.
[224] See 1 Kings ii. 18.
Thus recommending you to the tender mercy and grace of our Lord, I
rest, your loving brother,