Rich meditations...

A friend of mine from church wrote on the wall of my facebook with these most beautiful quotes from Samuel Rutherford. (You can check out my friend's blog here) Samuel Rutherford was a true doctor of the heart and these thoughts are precious. May they bless you as well.

I know grace roots not out the affections of a mother, but puts them on His wheel who makes all things new, that they may be refined; therefore sorrow to a dead child is allowed to you, though by measure and ounce weights; the redeemed of the Lord have not a dominion or lordship over their sorrow and other affections, to lavish out Christ's goods at their pleasure. 'For you are not your own, but bought with a price'; and your sorrow is not your own, nor has He redeemed you by halves; and therefore you are not to make Christ's cross no cross.

He commands you to weep; and that princely One, who took up to heaven with him a man's heart to be a compassionate High Priest, became your fellow and companion on earth, by weeping for the dead (John 11:35). And therefore you are to love that cross, because it was once on Christ's shoulders before you; so that by His own practice he has over-gilded and covered your cross with the Mediator's lustre. The cup you drink was at the lip of sweet Jesus, and He drank of it; and so it has a smell of His breath. And I conceive you love it not the worse, that it is thus sugared; therefore drink, and believe the resurrection of your child's body...

It is true, the child died before he did so much service to Christ on earth... but that were a real matter of sorrow, if this were not to counterbalance it, that he has changed service houses, but has not changed services or Master (Rev. 22:3, 'But the Lamb shall be there, and His servants shall serve Him'). What he could have done in this lower house, he is now upon that same service in the higher house; and it is all one, it is the same service, and the same Master, only there is a change of conditions.

And you are not to think it is a bad bargain for your beloved child, where he has gold for copper and brass, eternity for time. I believe Christ has taught you... not to sorrow because he died. All the knot must be, he died too soon, he died too young, he died in the morning of his life, this is all; but sovereignty must silence your thoughts... The supreme and absolute Former of all things gives not an account of any of His matters.

The good Husbandman may pluck His roses and gather in His lilies at midsummer, and, for ought I dare say, in the beginning of the summer of the first month; and He may transplant young trees out of the lower ground to the higher, where they have more of the sun, and more of the free air, at any season of the year. What is that to you or me? The goods are His own… and he cannot be too early in heaven… and you cannot adjourn Christ’s love, which has taken him there.

-S.R.