Samuel Rutherford — A Garden of Spices

Resolve upon suffering for Christ; but fear not ten days' tribulation, for Christ's sour cross is sugared with comforts, and hath a taste of Christ Himself.

Oh so broad and so deep as the sea of His desirable loveliness is! Glorified spirits, triumphing angels, the crowned and exalted lovers of heaven, stand without His loveliness and cannot put a circle on it.

O thrice-blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with dreams, shadows, night vanities, and night fancies, of a miserable life of sin! Poor fools! who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair…

I love Christ's glooms better than the world's worm-eaten joys. Oh, if all the kingdom were as I am, except these bonds! My loss is gain; my sadness joyful; my bonds, liberty; my tears comfortable.

The Bush hath been burning above five thousand years, and we never yet saw the ashes of this fire.

His love has stronger fingers than to let go its grips of us bairns, who cannot go but by such a hold as Christ.