Grace be with you.
Your sympathizing brother,
S. R.
London, Oct. 15, 1645.
[CCCXIII.—To the Viscountess Kenmure.]
(CHRIST'S DESIGNS IN SICKNESS AND SORROW.)
M ADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.—Though Christ lose no time, yet, when sinful men drive His chariot, the wheels of His chariot move slowly. The woman, Zion, as soon as she travailed, brought forth her children; yea, "before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child" (Isa. lxvi. 7): yet the deliverance of the people was with the woman's going with child seventy years. That is more than nine months. There be many oppositions in carrying on the work; but I hope that the Lord will build His own Zion, and evidence to us that it is done, "not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord."
Madam, I have heard of your infirmities of body, and sickness. I know the issue shall be mercy to you, and that God's purpose, which lieth hidden under ground to you, is to commend the sweetness of His love and care to you from your youth. And if all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs, heaviness, and inconstancy of the creature, be expounded (as sure I am they are) the rods of the jealousy of an Husband in heaven, contending with all your lovers on earth, though there were millions of them, for your love, to fetch more of your love home to heaven, to make it single, unmixed, and chaste, to the Fairest in heaven and earth, to Jesus the Prince of ages, ye will forgive (to borrow that word) every rod of God, and "not let the sun go down on your wrath" against any messenger of your afflicting and correcting Father. Since your Ladyship cannot but see that the mark at which Christ hath aimed these twenty-four years and above, is, to have the company and fellowship of such a sinful creature in heaven with Him for all eternity; and, because He will not (such is the power of His love) enjoy His Father's glory, and that crown due to Him by eternal generation, without you, by name (John xvii. 24, x. 16, xiv. 3), therefore, Madam, believe no evil of Christ: listen to no hard reports that His rods make of Him to you. He hath loved you, and washed you from your sins; and what would ye have more? Is that too little, except He adjourn all crosses, till ye be where ye shall be out of all capacity to sigh or be crossed? I hope that ye can desire no more, no greater, nor more excellent suit, than Christ and the fellowship of the Lamb for evermore. And if that desire be answered in heaven (as I am sure it is, and ye cannot deny but it is made sure to you), the want of these poor accidents, of a living husband, of many children, of an healthful body, of a life of ease in the world, without one knot in the rush, are nobly made up, and may be comfortably borne.