36. The False Glory of the World
36
The False Glory of the World1
The fashion of this world passeth away.
—1 Corinthians 7:31
I bless our Lord, through Christ, who has brought you home again to your own country from that place2 where you have seen with your eyes that which our Lord’s truth taught you before—to wit, that worldly glory is nothing but a vapor, a shadow, the foam of the water, or something less and lighter, even nothing; and that our Lord has not without cause said in His Word, “The countenance,” or fashion, “of this world passeth away” (1 Cor. 7:31)—in which place our Lord compares it to an image in a looking glass, for it is the looking glass of Adam’s sons. Some come to the glass and see in it the picture of honor—and only a picture indeed, for true honor is to be great in the sight of God. Others see in it the shadow of riches—and only a shadow indeed, for durable riches stand as one of the maids of Wisdom upon her left hand (Prov. 3:16). A third sort see in it the face of painted pleasures, and the beholders will not believe that the image they see in this glass is not a living man until the Lord comes and breaks the glass in pieces and removes the face, and then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say, “And behold it was a dream.”
I know your Ladyship thinks you have little in common with this world, for the favorable aspect of any of these three painted faces, and blessed be our Lord that it is so. The better for you, Madam; they are not worthy to be wooers, to suit in marriage your soul, that look to no higher match than to be married upon painted clay. Know, therefore, Madam, the place whither our Lord Jesus comes to woo a bride. It is even in the furnace. For if you are one of Zion’s daughters (which I ever put beyond all question, since I first had occasion to see in your Ladyship such pregnant evidences of the grace of God), the Lord, who has His fire in Zion and His furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. 31:9), is purifying you in the furnace. And therefore be content to live in it and every day to be adding and sewing to a pasment3 to your wedding garment, that you may be at last decorated and trimmed as a bride for Christ, a bride of His own busking,4 beautified in the hidden man of the heart. “[Forgetting]…thy father’s house; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty” (Ps. 45:10–11).
If your Ladyship is not changed (as I hope you are not), I believe you esteem yourself to be of those whom God has tried these many years and refined as silver. But, Madam, I will show your Ladyship a privilege that others want and you have, in this case. Such as are in prosperity and are fatted with earthly joys and increased with children and friends, though the Word of God is indeed written to such for their instruction, yet to you who are in trouble (spare me, Madam, to say this), from whom the Lord hath taken many children and whom He hath exercised otherwise, there are some chapters, some particular promises in the Word of God, made in a most special manner, which should never have been yours, as they now are, if you had your portion in this life as others. And, therefore, all the comforts, promises, and mercies God offers to the afflicted are as so many love letters written to you. Take them to you, Madam, and claim your right, and do not be robbed. It is no small comfort that God has written some Scriptures to you that He has not written to others. You seem in this to be envied rather than pitied; and you are indeed in this, like people of another world and those that are above the ordinary rank of mankind, whom our King and Lord, our Bridegroom Jesus, in His love letter to His well-beloved spouse, has named beside all the rest. He has written comforts and His hearty commendations in Isaiah 54:4–5 and Psalm 147:2–3 to you. Read these and the like, and think your God is like a friend that sends a letter to a whole house and family but speaks in His letter to some by name that are dearest to Him in the house.
You are, then, Madam, of the dearest friends of the Bridegroom. If it were lawful, I would envy you, that God honored you so above many of His dear children. Therefore, Madam, your part is, in this case (seeing God takes nothing from you but that which He is to supply with His own presence), to desire your Lord to know His own room and take it even upon Him to come in, in the room of dead children. “Jehovah, know Thy own place and take it to Thee,” is all you have to say.
Madam, I persuade myself that this world is to you a strange inn, and you are like a traveller who has his bundle upon his back and his staff in his hand and his feet upon the door-threshold. Go forward, honorable and elect lady, in the strength of your Lord (let the world bide at home and keep the house), with your face toward Him who longs more for a sight of you than you can do for Him. Before long, He will see us. I hope to see you laugh as cheerfully after noon as you have mourned before noon. The hand of the Lord, the hand of the Lord be with you in your journey. What have you to do here? This is not your mountain of rest. Arise, then, and set your foot up the mountain; go up out of the wilderness, leaning upon the shoulder of your Beloved (Song 8:5). If you knew the welcome that waits for you when you come home, you would hasten your pace; for you shall see your Lord put up His own holy hand to your face and wipe all tears from your eyes; and I believe, then you shall have some joy of heart.
1. Letters, no. 42, 108–110.
2. Edinburgh
3. pasment: strips of lace sewed on a dress for decoration
4. busking: adorning