(_CHRIST'S MANAGEMENT OF TRIALS--WHAT FAITH CAN DO--CHRIST NOT
EXPERIENCE--PRAYERS._)
MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I dare not say that I
wonder that ye have never written to me in my bonds, because I am not
ignorant of the cause; yet I could not but write to you.
I know not whether joy or heaviness in my soul carrieth it away.
Sorrow, without any mixture of sweetness, hath not often love-thoughts
of Christ; but I see that the devil can insinuate himself, and ride
his errands upon the thoughts of a poor distressed prisoner. I am
woe[284] that I am making Christ my unfriend, by seeking pleas against
Him, because I am the first in the kingdom put to utter silence, and
because I cannot preach my Lord's righteousness in the great
congregation. I am, notwithstanding, the less solicitous how it go,
if there be not wrath in my cup. But I know that I but claw my wounds
when my Physician hath forbidden me. I would believe in the dark upon
luck's head, and take my hazard of Christ's good-will, and rest on
this, that in my fever my Physician is at my bedside, and that He
sympathizeth with me when I sigh. My borrowed house, and another man's
bed and fireside, and other losses, have no room in my sorrow; a
greater heat to eat out a less fire, is a good remedy for some
burning. I believe that when Christ draweth blood, He hath skill to
cut the right vein; and that He hath taken the whole ordering and
disposing of my sufferings. Let Him tutor me, and tutor my crosses, as
He thinketh good. There is no danger nor hazard in following such a
guide, howbeit He should lead me through hell, if I could put faith
foremost, and fill the field with a quiet on-waiting, and believing to
see the salvation of God. I know that Christ is not obliged to let me
see both the sides of my cross, and turn it over and over that I may
see all. My faith is richer to live upon credit, and Christ's borrowed
money, than to have much on hand. Alas! I have forgotten that faith in
times past hath stopped a leak in my crazed bark, and half filled my
sails with a fair wind. I see it a work of God that experiences are
all lost, when summons of improbation, to prove our charters of Christ
to be counterfeits, are raised against poor souls in their heavy
trials.
[284] Sad.
But let me be a sinner, and worse than the chief of sinners, yea, a
guilty devil, I am sure that my Well-beloved is God. And when I say
that Christ is God, and that my Christ is God, I have said all things,
I can say no more. I would that I could build as much on this, "My
Christ is God," as it would bear. I might lay all the world upon it. I
am sure, that Christ untried, and untaken-up in the power of His love,
kindness, mercies, goodness, wisdom, long-suffering, and greatness, is
the rock that dim-sighted travellers dash their foot against, and so
stumble fearfully. But my wounds are sorest, and pain me most, when I
sin against His love and mercy. And if He would set me and my
conscience by the ears together, and resolve not to red the plea, but
let us deal it betwixt us, my spitting upon the fair face of Christ's
love and mercies by my jealousies, unbelief, and doubting, would be
enough to sink me. Oh, oh, I am convinced! O Lord, I stand dumb before
Thee for this! Let me be mine own judge in this, and I take a dreadful
doom upon me for it. For I still misbelieve, though I have seen that
my Lord hath made my cross as if it were all crystal, so as I can see
through it Christ's fair face and heaven; and that God hath honoured a
lump of sinful flesh and blood the like of me, to be Christ's
honourable lord-prisoner. I ought to esteem the walls of the thieves'
hole (if I were shut up in it), or any stinking dungeon, all hung with
tapestry, and most beautiful, for my Lord Jesus; and yet, I am not so
shut up but that the sun shineth upon my prison, and the fair wide
heaven is the covering of it. But my Lord, in His sweet visits, hath
done more; for He maketh me to find that He will be a confined
prisoner with me. He lieth down and riseth up with me; when I sigh, He
sigheth; when I weep, He suffereth with me; and I confess that here is
the blessed issue of my sufferings already begun, that my heart is
filled with hunger and desire to have Him glorified in my sufferings.
Blessed be ye of the Lord, Madam, if ye would help a poor dyvour, and
cause others of your acquaintance in Christ to help me to pay my debt
of love, even real praises to Christ my Lord. Madam, let me charge you
in the Lord, as ye shall answer to Him, to help me in this duty (which
He hath tied about my neck with a chain of such singular expressions
of His loving-kindness), to set on high Christ; to hold in my honesty
at His hands[285]; for I have nothing to give to Him. Oh that He would
arrest and comprise my love and my heart for all! I am a dyvour, who
have no more free goods in the world for Christ save that; it is both
the whole heritage I have, and all my moveables besides. Lord, give
the thirsty man a drink. Oh, to be over the ears in the well! Oh, to
be swattering and swimming over head and ears in Christ's love! I
would not have Christ's love entering into me, but I would enter into
it, and be swallowed up of that love. But I see not myself here; for I
fear I make more of His love than of Himself; whereas Himself is far
beyond and much better than His love. Oh, if I had my sinful arms
filled with that lovely one Christ! Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, who
sendeth not away beggars from His house with a toom dish. He filleth
the vessels of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich
(if we were wise) if we could hold out our withered hands to Christ,
and learn to suit and seek, ask and knock. I owe my salvation for
Christ's glory, I owe it to Christ; and desire that my hell, yea, a
new hell, seven times hotter than the old hell, might buy praises
before men and angels to my Lord Jesus; providing always that I were
free of Christ's hatred and displeasure. What am I, to be forfeited
and sold in soul and body, to have my great and royal King set on high
and extolled above all? Oh, if I knew how high to have Him set, and
all the world far, far beneath the soles of His feet? Nay, I deserve
not to be the matter of His praises, far less to be an agent in
praising of Him. But He can win His own glory out of me, and out of
worse than I (if any such be), if it please His holy majesty so to do.
He knoweth that I am not now flattering Him.
[285] To keep up my character with Him.
Madam, let me have your prayers, as ye have the prayers and blessing
of him that is separated from his brethren. Grace, grace be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,