(_WHAT AM I?--LONGING TO ACT FOR CHRIST--UNBELIEF--LOVE IN THE HIDING
OF CHRIST'S FACE--CHRIST'S REPROACH._)
REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--I am refreshed with your letters. I would
take all well at my Lord's hands that He hath done, if I knew that I
could do my Lord any service in my suffering; suppose my Lord would
make a stop-hole of me, to fill a hole in the wall of His house, or a
pinning in Zion's new work. For any place of trust in my Lord's house,
as steward, or chamberlain, or the like, surely I think myself (my
very dear brother, I speak not by any proud figure or trope) unworthy
of it; nay, I am not worthy to stand behind the door. If my head, and
feet, and body were half out, half in, in Christ's house, so that I
saw the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my greening
and love-sick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at work,
and speaking in the name of our Lord Jesus, I think myself but an
outcast, or outlaw, chased from the city to lie on the hills, and
live amongst the rocks and out-fields. Oh that I might but stand in
Christ's out-house, or hold a candle in any low vault of His house!
But I know this is but the vapours that arise out of a quarrelous and
unbelieving heart to darken the wisdom of God; and your fault is just
mine, that I cannot believe my Lord's bare and naked word. I must
either have an apple to play me with, and shake hands with Christ, and
have seal, caution, and witness to His word, or else I count myself
loose; howbeit, I have the word and faith of a King! Oh, I am made of
unbelief, and cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground!
Alas! Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying
waters,[348] as a dyvour and a cozener! We can make such a Christ as
temptations, casting us into a night-dream, do feign and devise; and
temptations represent Christ ever unlike Himself, and we, in our
folly, listen to the tempter.
[348] Jerem. xv. 18.
If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would my soul be!
But I myself, which is the greatest evil, often mistake the cross of
Christ. For I know, if we had wisdom, and knew well that ease slayeth
us fools, we would desire a market where we might barter or niffer our
lazy ease with a profitable cross; howbeit there be an outcast natural
betwixt our desires and tribulation. But some give a dear price, and
gold, for physic which they love not, and buy sickness, howbeit they
wish rather to have been whole than to be sick. But surely, brother,
ye shall have my advice (howbeit, alas! I cannot follow it myself),
not to contend with the honest and faithful Lord of the house; for, go
He or come He, He is aye gracious in His departure. There are grace,
and mercy, and loving-kindness upon Christ's back parts; and when He
goeth away, the proportion of His face, the image of that fair Sun
that stayeth in eyes, senses, and heart, after He is gone, leaveth a
mass of love behind it in the heart. The sound of His knock at the
door of His Beloved, after He is gone and passed, leaveth a share of
joy and sorrow both. So we have something to feed upon till He return:
and He is more loved in His departure, and after He is gone, than
before, as the day in the declining of the sun, and towards the
evening, is often most desired.
And as for Christ's cross, I never received evil of it, but what was
of mine own making: when I miscooked Christ's physic, no marvel that
it hurt me. For since it was on Christ's back, it hath always a sweet
smell, and these 1600 years it keepeth the smell of Christ. Nay, it
is older than that too; for it is a long time since Abel first
handselled the cross, and had it laid upon his shoulder; and down from
him, all alongst to this very day, all the saints have known what it
is. I am glad that Christ Jesus hath such a relation to this cross,
and that it is called "the cross of our Lord Jesus" (Gal. vi. 14), His
reproach (Heb. xiii. 13), as if Christ would claim it as His proper
goods, and so it cometh into the reckoning among Christ's own
property. If it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is not the
author nor owner of sin, would not own it.
I wonder at the enemies of Christ (in whom malice hath run away with
wit, and will is up, and wit down), that they would essay to lift up
the Stone laid in Zion. Surely it is not laid in such sinking ground
as that they can raise it, or remove it; for when we are in their
belly, and they have swallowed us down, they will be sick, and spue us
out again. I know that Zion and her Husband cannot both sleep at once;
I believe that our Lord once again will water with His dew the
withered hill of Mount Zion in Scotland, and come down, and make a new
marriage again, as He did long since. Remember our Covenant.
Your excuse for your advice to me is needless. Alas! many sit beside
light, as sick folks beside meat, and cannot make use of it. Grace be
with you.
Your brother in Christ,