(_STATE OF THE CHURCH--BELIEVERS PURIFIED BY AFFLICTION--FOLLY OF
SEEKING JOY IN A DOOMED WORLD._)
DEAR BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--There is no
question but our mother-church hath a Father, and that she shall not
die without an heir: her enemies shall not make Mount Zion their
heritage. We see that whithersoever Zion's enemies go, suppose they
dig many miles under ground, yet our Lord findeth them out: and He
hath vengeance laid up in store for them, and the poor and needy shall
not always be forgotten. Our hope was drooping and withering, and man
was saying, "What can God make out of the old dry bones of this buried
kirk?" The prelates and their followers were a grave above us. It is
like that our Lord is to open our graves, and purposeth to cause His
two slain witnesses to rise on the third day. Oh, how long wait I to
hear our weeping Lord Jesus sing again, and triumph and rejoice, and
divide the spoil!
I find it hard work to believe when the course of providence goeth
cross-wise to our faith, and when misted souls in a dark night cannot
know east by west, and our sea-compass seemeth to fail us. Every man
is a believer in daylight: a fair day seemeth to be made all of faith
and hope. What a trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the
fire! but to keep gold perfectly yellow-coloured amidst the flames,
and to be turned from vessel to vessel, and yet to cause our furnace
to sound, and speak, and cry the praises of the Lord, is another
matter. I know that my Lord made me not for fire, howbeit He hath
fitted me in some measure for the fire. I bless His high name that I
wax not paler, neither have I lost the colour of gold; and that His
fire hath made me somewhat thin, and that my Lord may pour me into any
vessel He pleaseth. For a small wager I may justly quit my part of
this world's laughter, and give up with time, and cast out with the
pleasures of this world.
I know a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh or sport.
Surely our Lord seeketh this of us, as to any rejoicing in present
perishing things. I see above all things, that we may sit down, and
fold legs and arms, and stretch ourselves upon Christ, and laugh at
the feathers that children are chasing here. For I think the men of
this world like children in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play
and make sport with the white foam of the waves thereof, coming in to
sink and drown them; so are men making fool's sports with the white
pleasures of a stormy world, that will sink them. But, alas! what have
we to do with their sports which they make? If Solomon said of
laughter, that it was madness, what may we say of this world's
laughing and sporting themselves with gold and silver, and honours,
and court, and broad large conquests, but that they are poor souls, in
the height and rage of a fever gone mad? Then a straw, a fig, for all
created sports and rejoicing out of Christ! Nay, I think that this
world, at its prime and perfection, when it is come to the top of its
excellency and to the bloom, might be bought with an halfpenny; and
that it would scarce weigh the worth of a drink of water. There is
nothing better than to esteem it our crucified idol (that is, dead and
slain), as Paul did (Gal. vi. 14). Then let pleasures be crucified,
and riches be crucified, and court and honour be crucified. And since
the apostle saith that the world is crucified to him, we may put this
world to the hanged man's doom, and to the gallows: and who will give
much for a hanged man? as little should we give for a hanged and
crucified world. Yet, what a sweet smell hath this dead carrion to
many fools in the world! and how many wooers and suitors findeth this
hanged carrion! Fools are pulling it off the gallows, and contending
for it. Oh, when will we learn to be mortified men, and to have our
fill of those things that have but their short summer quarter of this
life! If we saw our Father's house, and that great and fair city, the
New Jerusalem, which is up above sun and moon, we would cry to be over
the water, and to be carried in Christ's arms out of this borrowed
prison.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,