Cclxxxii.—To The Lady Robertland.
CCLXXXII.—To the LADY ROBERTLAND.
[This is probably the Lady Robertland (her own name was Fleming) mentioned in Livingstone's "Characteristics" as "one deeply exercised in mind, who often got as rare outgates." She was a great help to the poor people of Stewarton, during the time of the awakening there. One of her sayings was, "With God, the most of mosts is lighter than nothing; and without God, the least of leasts is heavier than any burden."]
(AFFLICTIONS PURIFY—THE WORLD'S VANITY—CHRIST'S WISE
LOVE.)
MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I shall be glad to hear that your soul prospereth, and that fruit groweth upon you, after the Lord s husbandry and pains, in His rod that hath not been a stranger to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kindness that He will take the scum off us in the fire. Who knoweth how needful winnowing is to us, and what dross we must want ere we enter into the kingdom of God? So narrow is the entry to heaven, that our knots, our bunches and lumps of pride, and self-love, and idol-love, and world-love, must be hammered off us, that we may thring in, stooping low, and creeping through that narrow and thorny entry.
And now for myself, I find it the most sweet and heavenly life to take up house and dwelling at Christ's fireside, and set down my tent upon Christ, that Foundation-stone, who is sure and faithful ground and hard under foot. Oh if I could win to it, and proclaim myself not the world's debtor, nor a lover obliged to it, and that I mind not to hire or bud this world's love any longer; but defy both the kindness and feud of God's whole creation whatsomever! especially the lower vault and clay part of God's creatures, this vain earth! For what hold I of His world? A borrowed lodging and some years' house-room, and bread and water, and fire, and bed and candle, are all a part of the pension of my King and Lord; to whom I owe thanks, and not to a creature. I thank God that God is God, and Christ is Christ, and the earth the earth, and the devil the devil, and the world the world, and that sin is sin, and that everything is what it is; because He hath taught me in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus, nor to intermix Him with creature-vanities, nor to spin or twine Christ or His sweet love in one web, or in one thread, with the world and the things thereof. Oh, if I could hold and keep Christ all alone, and mix Him with nothing! Oh, if I could cry down the price and weight of my cursed self, and cry up the price of Christ, and double, and triple, and augment, and heighten to millions the price and worth of Christ! I am (if I durst speak so, and might lawfully complain) so hungredly tutored by Christ Jesus my liberal Lord, that His nice love, which my soul would be in hands with, flieth me; and yet I am trained on to love Him, and lust, and long, and die for His love whom I cannot see. It is a wonder to pine away with love for a covered and hid lover, and to be hungered with His love, so as a poor soul cannot get his fill of hunger for Christ. It is hard to be hungered of hunger,1 whereof such abundance for other things is in the world. But sure, if we were tutors, and stewards, and masters, and lord-carvers of Christ's love, we should be more lean and worse fed than we are. Our meat doeth us the more good, that Christ keepeth the keys, and that the wind and the air of Christ's sweet breathing, and of the influence of His Spirit, is locked up in the hands of the good pleasure of Him who "bloweth where He listeth."
I see there is a sort of impatient patience required in the want of Christ as to His manifestations, and waiting on. They thrive who wait on His love, and the blowing of it, and the turning of His gracious wind; and they thrive who,