Saturday 23 November 2013

REFLECTIONS

Love Forever

About Christopher Love, a 17th Century Christian Martyr; the following letter was written to his wife:

“July 15, 1651 [the day he expected to be executed]
From the Tower of London

My Dearest Beloved,

I am now going to my long home, yet I must write thee a word before I go hence and shall be seen no more. It is to beg thee to be comforted in my gain and not to be troubled in thy loss. Labor to suppress thy inward fears now that thou art under outward sorrows. As thy outward sufferings abound, let thy consolations in Christ also abound. I know that thou art a woman of a sorrowful spirit. My time is short; I have but few words of counsel to give thee, and then I shall leave thee to God who careth for thee and thine.

1.     While  thou art under desertions, labor rather to strengthen and clear up thy evidences for heaven than question them.
2.     Remember a faith of adherence or reliance on the Lord Jesus brings thee to heaven, though thou want the faith of evidence or assurance.
3.     Labor to find that (and more also) in God which thou hast lost in the creature.
4.     Spend not thy days in heaviness for my death. If there were knowledge of things below or sorrow in heaven, I should grieve to think my beloved should mourn on earth.
5.     Lie under a soul-searching ministry. I know thou are not a spongy hearer, sucking in foul water as well as fair. God hath given thee a good understanding, to be able to discern things that differ. As the mouth tastes meat, thy ear trieth words
6.     Be conversant in Christian meetings and much in the exercises of mortification, in fasting and prayers,yet have respect to the weakness of thy body and thy present condition.
7.     Have a care of thyself and babies. God will take care of thee and them. I can write no more; farewell my dear, farewell, farewell.

My dear, I beg thee to be satisfied. My heart is greatly comforted in God. I can quietly submit to the good pleasure of His will, and I hope thou dost so also. I am delivered by the determinate counsel of God; the will of the Lord be done. Read for thy comfort when I am dead and gone Jeremiah 49:11 and the beginning of 12; Isaiah 9:6-8; Psalm 146:9; 2 Corinthians 4:17-18; and Hebrews 12:6-7.”
-From A Spectacle Unto God the Life and Death of Christopher Love  by Don Kistler Soli Deo Gloria  Morgan, Pa  1994.

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