Quaker Heritage Press > Online Texts > Works of Isaac Penington > Isaac Penington to Sarah Elgar
THE child which the Lord hath taken from thee was his own. He hath done thee no wrong, in calling it from thee. Take heed of murmuring, take heed of discontent, take heed of any grief, but <9> what truth allows thee. Thou hast yet one child left. The Lord may call for that too, if he please; or he may continue and bless it to thee. Oh, mind a right frame of Spirit towards the Lord, in this thy great affliction! If thou mind God's truth in thy heart, and wait to feel the seasoning thereof, that will bring thee into, and preserve thee in a right frame of spirit. The Lord will not condemn thy love and tenderness to thy child, or thy tender remembrance of him; but still, in it be subject to the Lord, and let his will and disposal be bowed unto by thee, and not the will of thy nature above it. Retire out of the natural, into the spiritual, where thou mayst feel the Lord thy portion; so that now, in the needful time, thou mayest day by day receive and enjoy satisfaction therein. Oh, wait to feel the Lord making thy heart what he would have it to be, in this thy deep and sore affliction!
I. P.
Nunnington, Sixth Month, 1679
Now, let the world see how thou prizest the truth, and what truth can do for thee. Feed on it; do not feed on thy affliction; and the life of truth will arise in thee, and raise thee up over it, to the honor of the name of the Lord, and to the comfort of thy own soul.