I perceive your case in this world smelleth of a fellowship and communion with the Son of God in His sufferings. Ye cannot, ye must not, have a more pleasant or more easy condition here, than He had, who "through afflictions was made perfect" (Heb2:10). We may indeed think, Cannot God bring us to heaven with ease and prosperity? Who doubteth but He can? But His infinite wisdom thinketh and decreeth the contrary; and we cannot see a reason of it, yet He hath a most just reason. We never with our eyes saw our own soul; yet we have a soul. We see many rivers, but we know not their first spring and original fountain; yet they have a beginning. Madam, when ye are come to the other side of the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer the bottom of God's wisdom, ye shall be forced to say, "If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory." It is your part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on; for I protest, in the presence of that all discerning eye, who knoweth what I write and what I think, that I would not want the sweet experience of the consolations of God but for all the bitterness of affliction. Nay, whether God come to His children with a rod or a crown, if He come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome, Jesus, what way soever Thou come, if we can get a sight of Thee! And sure am I, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw by the curtains, and say, "Courage I am Thy salvation," than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God.
-Samuel Rutherford, From His Letters.
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