M UCH HONOURED AND DEAR FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—The necessary impediments of my calling have hitherto kept me from making a return to your letter, the heads whereof I shall now briefly answer.
I approve of your going to the Fountain, when your own cistern is dry. A difference there must be betwixt Christ's well and your borrowed water; and why but ye have need of emptiness and drying up, as well as ye have need of the well? Want and a hole there must be in our vessel, to leave room to Christ's art. His well hath its own need of thirsty drinkers, to commend infinite love which, from eternity, did brew such a cellar of living waters for us.
Ye commend His free love; and it is well done. Oh, if I could help you! and if I could be master-convener to gather an earth-full and an heaven-full of tongues, dipped and steeped in my Lord's well of love, or His wine of love, even tongues drunken with His love, to raise a song of praises to Him, betwixt the east and west end, and furthest points of the broad heavens! If I were in your case (as, alas! my dry and dead heart is not now in that garden), I would borrow leave to come and stand upon the banks and coasts of that sea of love, and be a feasted soul to see love's fair tide, free love's high and lofty waves, each of them higher than ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost clay. Oh, welcome, welcome, great sea! Oh, if I had as much love, for wideness and breadth, as twenty outmost shells and spheres of the heaven of heavens, that I might receive in a little flood of His free love! Come, come, dear friend, and be pained that the King's wine-cellar of free love, and His banqueting-house (oh so wide, so stately! oh so God-like, so glory-like!) should be so abundant, so overflowing, and your shallow vessel so little to take in some part of that love. But since it cannot come into you for want of room, enter yourself into this sea of love, and breathe under these waters, and die of love; and live as one dead and drowned of this love.
But why do ye complain of waters going over your soul, and that the smoke of the terrors of a wrathful Lord do almost suffocate you, and bring you to death's brink? I know that the fault is in your eyes, not in Him. It is not the rock that fleeth and moveth, but the green sailor. If your sense and apprehension be made judge of His love, there is a graven image made presently, even a changed god, and a foe-god, who was once ("When ye washed your steps with butter, and the rock poured you out rivers of oil," Job xxix. 6) a Friend-God. Either now or never, let God work. Ye had never, since ye were a man, such a fair field for faith; for a painted hell, and an apprehension of wrath in your Father, is faith's opportunity to try what strength is in it. Now, give God as large a measure of charity as ye have of sorrow. Now, see faith to be faith indeed, if ye can make your grave betwixt Christ's feet, and say, "Though He should slay me, I will trust in Him. His believed love shall be my winding-sheet, and all my grave-clothes; I shall roll and sew in my soul, my slain soul, in that web, His sweet and free love; and let Him write upon my grave, 'Here lieth a believing dead man, breathing out and making a hole in death's broadside, and the breath of faith cometh forth through the hole.'" See now if ye can overcome and prevail with God, and wrestle God's tempting to death, quite out of breath, as that renowned wrestler did: "And by his strength he had power with God; yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed" (Hosea xii. 3, 4). He is a strong man indeed who overmatcheth heaven's Strength, and the Holy One of Israel, the strong Lord: which is done by a secret supply of divine strength within, wherewith the weakest, being strengthened, overcome and conquer. It shall be great victory, to blow out the flame of that furnace ye are now in, with the breath of faith. And when hell, men, malice, cruelty, falsehood, devils, the seeming glooms of a sweet Lord, meet you in the teeth, if ye then, as a captive of hope, as one fettered in hope's prison, run to your stronghold, even from God glooming to God glooming, and believe the salvation of the Lord in the dark, which is your only victory, your enemies (that are but pieces of malicious clay) shall die as men, and be confounded. But, that your troubles are many at once, and arrows come in from all airths, from country, friends, wife, children, foes, estate, and right down from God who is the hope and stay of your soul, I confess is more, and very heavy to be borne. Yet all these are not more than grace; all these bits of coals casten into your sea of mercy cannot dry it up. Your troubles are many and great; yet not an ounce-weight beyond the measure of infinite wisdom, I hope, nor beyond the measure of grace that He is to bestow. For our Lord never yet brake the back of His child, nor spilled His own work. Nature's plastering and counterfeit work He doth often break in shreds, and putteth out a candle not lighted at the Sun of righteousness; but He must cherish His own reeds (Isa. xlii. 3), and handle them softly (never a reed getteth a thrust with the Mediator's hand!), to lay together the two ends of the reed. Oh, what bands and ligaments hath our Chirurgeon of broken spirits, to bind up all His lame and bruised ones with! Cast your disjointed spirit into His lap; and lay your burden upon One who is so willing to take your cares and your fears off you, and to exchange and niffer your crosses, and to give you new for old, and gold for iron; even to give you garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
It is true, in great part, what ye write of this kirk, that the letter of religion only is reformed, and scarce that. I do not believe our Lord will build His Zion in this land upon this skin of reformation. So long as our scum remaineth, and our heart-idols are kept, this work must be at a stand; and, therefore, our Lord must yet sift this land, and search us with candles. And I know that He will give and not sell us His kingdom. His grace and our remaining guiltiness must be compared; and the one must be seen in the glory of it, and the other in the sinfulness of it. But I desire to believe, and would gladly hope to see, that the glancing and shining lustre of glory coming from the diamonds and stones set in the crown of our Lord Jesus shall cast rays and beams many thousand miles about. I hope that Christ is upon a great marriage; and that His wooing and suiting of His excellent Bride doth take its beginning from us, the ends of the earth. Oh, what joy and what glory would I judge it, if my heaven should be suspended till I might have leave to run on foot to be a witness of that marriage-glory, and see Christ put on the glory of His last-married bride, and His last marriage-love on earth; when He shall enlarge His love-bed, and set it upon the top of the mountains, and take in the Elder Sister, the Jews, and the fulness of the Gentiles! It were heaven's honour and glory upon earth to be His lackey, to run at His horse's foot, and hold up the train of His marriage-robe royal, in the day of our high and royal Solomon's espousals. But oh, what glory to have a seat, or bed, in the chariot of King Jesus, that is bottomed with gold, and paved, and lined over, and floored within with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem (Cant. iii. 10). To lie upon such a King's love, were a bed next to the flower of heaven's glory.
I am sorry to hear you speak in your letter of a "God angry at you," and of "the sense of His indignation;" which only ariseth from suffering for Jesus all that is now come upon you. Indeed, "apprehended wrath" flameth out of such ashes as "apprehended sin," but not from "suffering for Christ." But, suppose ye were in hell for bygones and for old debt, I hope ye owe Christ a great sum of charity, to believe the sweetness of His love. I know what it is to sin in that kind. It is to sin (if it were possible) the unchangeableness of a Godhead out of Christ, and to sin away a lovely and unchangeable God. Put more honest apprehensions upon Christ. Put on His own mask upon His face, and not your vail made of unbelief, which speaketh as if He borrowed love to you, from you and your demerits and sinful deservings. Oh, no! Christ is man, but He is not like man. He hath man's love in heaven, but it is lustred with God's love, and it is very God's love ye have to do with. When your wheels go about, He standeth still. Let God be God. And be ye a man, and have ye the deserving of man, and the sin of one who hath suffered your Well-beloved to slip away, nay, hath refused Him entrance when He was knocking, till His head and locks were frozen: yet what is that to Him? His book keepeth your name, and is not printed and reprinted, and changed, and corrected. And why but He should go to His place, and hide Himself? Howbeit His departure be His own good work, yet the belief of it, in that manner, is your sin. But wait on till He return with salvation, and cause you to rejoice in the latter end. It is not much to complain; but rather believe than complain, and sit in the dust, and close your mouth, till He make your sown light[424] grow again. For your afflictions are not eternal; time will end them, and so shall ye at length see the Lord's salvation. His love sleepeth not, but is still working for you. His salvation will not tarry nor linger; and suffering for Him is the noblest cross that is out of heaven. Your Lord had the wale and choice of ten thousand other crosses beside this, to exercise you withal; but His wisdom and His love waled and choosed out this for you, beside them all. And take it as a choice one, and make use of it so as ye look to this world as your stepmother, in your borrowed prison. For it is a love-look to heaven and the other side of the water that God seeketh; and this is the fruit, the flower and bloom growing out of your cross, that ye be a dead man to time, to clay, to gold, to country, to friends, wife, children, and all pieces of created nothings; for in them there is not a seat nor bottom for soul's love. Oh, what room is for your love (if it were as broad as the sea) up in heaven, and in God! And what would not Christ give for your love? God gave so much for your soul; and blessed are ye if ye have a love for Him, and can call in your soul's love from all idols, and can make a God of God, a God of Christ, and draw a line betwixt your heart and Him. If your deliverance came not, Christ's presence and His believed love must stand as caution and surety for your deliverance, till your Lord send it in His blessed time. For Christ hath many salvations, if we could see them; and I would think it better-born comfort and joy that cometh from the faith of deliverance, and the faith of His love, than that which cometh from deliverance itself. It is not much matter, if ye find ease to your afflicted soul, what be the means, either of your own wishing or of God's choosing. The latter, I am sure, is best, and the comforts strongest and sweetest. Let the Lord absolutely have the ordering of your evils and troubles; and put them off you by recommending your cross and your furnace to Him who hath skill to melt His own metal, and knoweth well what to do with His furnace. Let your heart be willing that God's fire have your tin, and brass, and dross. To consent to want corruption is a greater mercy than many professors do well know; and to refer the manner of God's physic to His own wisdom, whether it be by drawing blood, or giving sugared drinks. That He cureth sick folks without pain, is a great point of faith; and to believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as He Himself is a Friend, is also a special act of faith. But when ye are over the water, this case shall be a yesterday past a hundred years ere ye were born; and the cup of glory shall wash the memory of all this away, and make it as nothing. Only now take Christ in with you under your yoke, and let patience have her perfect work; for this haste is your infirmity. The Lord is rising up to do you good in the latter end; put on the faith of His salvation, and see Him posting and hasting towards you.
Sir, my employments (being so great) hinder me to write at more length. Excuse me; I hope to be mindful of you. I shall be obliged to you, if ye help me with your prayers for this people, this college, and my own poor soul.
Grace be with you. Remember my love to your wife.
Yours, in Christ Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews, Feb. 13, 1640.
CCXCVI.—To the much honoured Peter Stirling.
[He may have been related to James Stirling, minister of Paisley, who, along with Sir J. Stuart of Goodtrees, wrote "Naphtali;" or to John Stirling, minister of Edinburgh, one who suffered much, and is referred to in the notice to Letter XCI.]
(BELIEVERS' GRACES ALL FROM CHRIST—ASPIRATION AFTER MORE LOVE TO HIM—HIS REIGN DESIRED.)
M UCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—I received yours, and cannot but be ashamed that mistaken love hath brought me into court[425] and account in the heart of God's children, especially of another nation. I should not make a lie of the grace of God, if I should think I have little share of it myself. Oh, how much better were it for me to stand in the counting-table of many for a halfpenny, and to be esteemed a liker, rather than a lover of Christ! If I were weighed, vanity would bear down the scale, as having weight in the balance above me, except my lovely Saviour should cast in beside me some of His borrowed worth. And oh if I were writing now sincerely in this extenuation, which may be (and I fear is) subtle and cozening pride! I would I could love something of heaven's worth, in you and all of your metal. Oh how happy were I, if I could regain and conquer back from the creature my sold and lost love, that I might lay it upon heaven's Jewel, that ever, ever blooming Flower of the highest garden, even my soul-redeeming and never-enough prized Lord Jesus! Oh that He would wash my love, and put it on the Mediator's wheel, and refine it from its dross and tin, that I might propine and gift that Lord, so love-worthy, with all my love! Oh, if I could set a lease of thousands of years, and a suspension of my part of heaven's glory, and frist, till a long day, my desired salvation, so being that I could, in this lower kitchen and undervault of His creation, be feasted with His love, and that I might be a footstool to His glory before men and angels! Oh, if He would let out heaven's fountain upon withered me, dry and sapless me! If I were but sick of love for His love. And oh, how would that sickness delight me! How sweet should that easing and refreshing pain be to my soul!
I shall be glad to be a witness, to behold the kingdoms of the world become Christ's. I could stay out of heaven many years to see that victorious triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of His soul-conquering love, in taking into His kingdom the greater sister, that kirk of the Jews, who sometime courted our Well-beloved for her little sister (Cant. viii. 8); to behold Him set up as an ensign and banner of love, to the ends of the world. And truly we are to believe that His wrath is ripe for the land of graven images, and for the falling of that millstone into the midst of the sea. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews, March 6. 1640.
CCXCVII.—To the Lady Fingask.
[This lady has been supposed to be Lady Anne Moncrieff, wife of Sir John Dundas of Fingask in Perthshire. She was daughter of William Moncrieff of that ilk, and her mother was one of the Murrays of Abercarnie. See notice prefixed to the letter to "The Laird of Moncrieff." At the same time, it is not impossible that Rutherford, who was then at St. Andrews, may be writing to a lady in the neighbourhood; for we find ("Inquisit. Retornat. Abbreviat.") that the ancestors of the martyr Thomas Forret possessed the estate of "Fyngask, in regalitate Sanctæ Andreæ."]
(FAITH'S MISGIVINGS—SPIRITUAL DARKNESS NOT GRACE—CHRIST'S LOVE INIMITABLE.)
M ADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Though not acquainted, yet, at the desire of a Christian, I make bold to write a line or two unto you, by way of counsel, howbeit I be most unfit for that.
I hear, and I bless the Father of lights for it, that ye have a spirit set to seek God, and that the posture of your heart is to look heavenward, which is a work and cast of the Mediator Christ's right hand, who putteth on the heart a new frame. For the which I would have your Ladyship to see a tie and bond of obedience laid upon you, that all may be done, not so much from obligation of law, as from the tie of free love; that the law of ransom-paying by Christ may be the chief ground of all our obedience, seeing that ye are not under the law, but under grace. Withal, know that unbelief is a spiritual sin, and so not seen by nature's light; and that all which conscience saith is not Scripture. Suppose that your heart bear witness against you for sins done long ago: yet, because many have pardon with God that have not peace with themselves, ye are to stand and fall by Christ's esteem and verdict of you, and not by that which your heart saith. Suppose it may, by accident, be a good sign to be jealous of your heavenly Husband's love, yet it is a sinful sign; as there be some happy sins (if I may speak so), not of themselves, but because they are neighboured with faith and love. And so, worthy Lady, I would have you to hold by this, that the ancient love of an old husband standeth firm and sure. And let faith hing by this small thread, that He loved you before He laid the corner-stone of the world, and therefore He cannot change His mind; because He is God, and resteth in His love. Neither is sin in you a good reason wherefore ye should doubt of Him, or think, because sin hath put you in the courtesy and reverence of justice, that therefore He is wroth with you: neither is it presumption in you to lay the burden of your salvation on One mighty to save, so being that ye lay aside all confidence in yourself, your worth and righteousness. True faith is humble, and seeth no way to escape but only in Christ. And I believe that ye have put an esteem and high price upon Christ: and they cannot but believe, and so be saved, who love Christ, and to whom He is precious; for the love of Christ has chosen Christ as a lover. And it were not like God, if ye should choose Him as your liking, and He not choose you again. Nay, He hath prevented you in that, for ye have not chosen Him, but He hath chosen you.
O consider His loveliness and beauty, and that there is nothing which can commend and make fair heaven, or earth, or the creature, that is not in Him in infinite perfection; for fair sun and fair moon are black, and think shame to shine before His fairness (Isa. xxiv. 23; Job xxv. 5). Base heavens, and excellent Jesus! weak angels, and strong and mighty Jesus! foolish angel-wisdom, and only wise Jesus! short-living creature, and long-living and ever-living Ancient of days! Miserable, and sickly, and wretched are those things that are within time's circle, and only, only blessed Jesus! If ye can wind-in into His love (and He giveth you leave to love Him, and allurements also), what a second heaven's paradise, a young heaven's glory, is it to be hot and burned with fevers of love-sickness for Him! And the more your Ladyship drink of this love, there is the more room, and the greater delight and desire for this love. Be homely, and hunger for a feast and fill of His love; for that is the borders and march of heaven. Nothing hath a nearer resemblance to the colour, and hue, and lustre of heaven than Christ loved, and to breathe out love-words and love-sighs for Him. Remember what He is. When twenty thousand millions of heaven's lovers have worn their hearts threadbare of love, all is nothing, yea, less than nothing, to His matchless worth and excellency. 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 (Ps. xvi. 2), and cannot put a circle on it. Oh if sin and time were from betwixt us and that royal King's love! that high Majesty (eternity's Bloom and Flower of high lustred beauty) might shine upon pieces of created spirits, and might bedew and overflow us, who are portions of endless misery and lumps of redeemed sin.
Alas! what do I? I but spill and lose words in speaking highly of Him who will bide and be above the music and songs of heaven, and never be enough praised by us all; to whose boundless and bottomless love I recommend your Ladyship, and am,
Your Ladyship's, in Christ Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews, March 27, 1640.
CCXCVIII.—To his Reverend and dear Brother, Mr. David Dickson, on the Death of his Son.
["When told that Mr. Dickson had some children removed by death, Mr. S. Rutherford presently called for a pen, and wrote a profitable letter to Mr. Dickson; 'for' (said he) 'when one arm is broken off and bleeds, it makes the other bleed with it'" (Wodrow's "Analecta").]
(GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY, AND DISCIPLINE BY AFFLICTION.)
R EVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Ye look like the house whereof ye are a branch: the cross is a part of the liferent that lieth to all the sons of the house. I desire to suffer with you, if I could take a lift of your house-trial off you; but ye have preached it ere I knew anything of God. Your Lord may gather His roses, and shake His apples, at what season of the year He pleaseth. Each husbandman cannot make harvest when he pleaseth, as He can do. Ye are taught to know and adore His sovereignty, which He exerciseth over you, which yet is lustred with mercy. The child hath but changed a bed in the garden, and is planted up higher, nearer the sun, where he shall thrive better than in this outfield muir-ground. Ye must think your Lord would not want him one hour longer; and since the date of your loan of him was expired (as it is, if ye read the lease), let Him have His own with gain, as good reason were. I read on it an exaltation and a richer measure of grace, as the sweet fruit of your cross; and I am bold to say, that that college where your Master hath set you now shall find it.
I am content that Christ is so homely with my dear brother David Dickson, as to borrow and lend, and take and give with him. And ye know what are called the visitations of such a friend: it is, Come to the house, and be homely with what is yours. I persuade myself, upon His credit, that He hath left drink-money, and that He hath made the house the better of Him. I envy[426] not His waking love, who saw that this water was to be passed through, and that now the number of crosses lying in your way to glory are fewer by one than when I saw you. They must decrease. It is better than any ancient or modern commentary on your text, that ye preach upon in Glasgow. Read and spell right, for He knoweth what He doeth. He is only lopping and snedding a fruitful tree, that it may be more fruitful. I congratulate heartily with you His new welcome to your new charge.
Dearest brother, go on, and faint not. Something of yours is in heaven, beside the flesh of your exalted Saviour; and ye go on after your own. Time's thread is shorter by one inch than it was. An oath is sworn and past the seals, whether afflictions will or not, ye must grow, and swell out of your shell, and live, and triumph, and reign, and be more than a conqueror. For your Captain, who leadeth you on, is more than conqueror, and He maketh you partaker of His conquest and victory. Did not love to you compel me, I would not fetch water to the well, and speak to one who knoweth better than I can do what God is doing with him.
Remember my love to your wife, to Mr. John,[427] and all friends there. Let us be helped by your prayers, for I cease not to make mention of you to the Lord, as I can.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews, May 28, 1640.
CCXCIX.—To my Lady Boyd, on the loss of several Friends.
(TRUST EVEN THOUGH SLAIN—SECOND CAUSES NOT TO BE REGARDED—GOD'S THOUGHTS OF PEACE THEREIN—ALL IN MERCY.)
M ADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Impute it not to a disrespective forgetfulness of your Ladyship, who ministered to me in my bonds, that I write not to you.
I wish that I could speak or write what might do good to your Ladyship; especially now when I think we cannot but have deep thoughts of the deep and bottomless ways of our Lord, in taking away, with a sudden and wonderful stroke, your brethren and friends. Ye may know, that all who die for sin die not in sin; and that "none can teach the Almighty knowledge." He answereth none of our courts,[428] and no man can say, "What doest Thou?" It is true that your brethren saw not many summers; but adore and fear the sovereignty of the great Potter, who maketh and marreth His clay-vessels when and how it pleaseth Him.
The under-garden is absolutely His own, and all that groweth in it. His absolute liberty is law-biding. The flowers are His own. If some be but summer apples, He may pluck them down before others. Oh what wisdom is it to believe, and not to dispute; to subject the thoughts to His court, and not to repine at any act of His justice? He hath done it: all flesh be silent! It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes; as, "Oh the place!" "Oh the time!" "Oh if this had been, this had not followed!" Oh the linking of this accident with this time and place! Look up to the master-motion and the first wheel. See and read the decree of Heaven and the Creator of man, who breweth death to His children, and the manner of it. And they see far into a millstone, and have eyes that make a hole to see through the one side of a mountain to the other, who can take up His ways. "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" His providence halteth not, but goeth with even and equal legs. Yet are they not the greatest sinners upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. Was not time's lease expired? and the sand of heaven's sand-glass, set by our Lord, run out? Is not he an unjust debtor who payeth due debt with chiding?
I believe, Christian lady, your faith leaveth that much charity to our Lord's judgments as to believe (howbeit ye be in blood sib to that cross) that yet ye are exempted and freed from the gall and wrath that is in it. I dare not deny but "the king of terrors dwelleth in the wicked man's tabernacle: brimstone shall be scattered on his habitation" (Job xviii. 15); yet, Madam, it is safe for you to live upon the faith of His love whose arrows are over-watered and pointed with love and mercy to His own, and who knoweth how to take you and yours out of the roll and book of the dead. Our Lord hath not the eyes of flesh in distributing wrath to the thousandth generation without exception. Seeing ye are not under the law, but under grace, and married to another Husband, wrath is not the court that you are liable to.
As I would not wish, neither do I believe, that your Ladyship doth "despise," so neither "faint" (Prov. iii. 11). Read and spell aright all the words and syllables in the visitation, and miscall neither letter nor syllable in it. Come along with the Lord, and see; and lay no more weight upon the law than your Christ hath laid upon it. If the law's bill get an answer from Christ, the curses of it can do more. And I hope you have resolved that, if He should grind you to powder, your dust and powder will believe His salvation.
And who can tell what thoughts of love and peace our Lord hath to your children? I trust He will make them famous in executing the written judgments upon the enemies of the Lord ("this honour hath all the saints," Ps. cxlix. 9), and that they shall bear stones on their shoulders for building that fair city that is called "The Lord is there" (Ezek. xlviii. 35). And happy shall they be who have a hand in the sacking of Babel, and come out in the year of vengeance for the controversy of Zion, against the land of graven images. Therefore, Madam, let the Lord make out of your father's house any work, even of judgment, that He pleaseth. What is wrath to others is mercy to you and your house. It is faith's work to claim and challenge loving-kindness out of all the roughest strokes of God. Do that for the Lord which ye will do for time: time will calm your heart at that which God hath done, and let our Lord have it now. What love ye did bear to friends now dead, seeing they stand now in no need of it, let it fall as just legacy to Christ. Oh how sweet to put out many strange lovers, and to put in Christ! It is much for our half-slain affections to part with that which we believe we have right unto; but the servant's will should be our will, and he is the best servant who retaineth least of his own will and most of his Master's. That much wisdom must be ascribed to our Lord, that He knoweth how to lead His own, in-through and out-through the little time-hells and the pieces of time-during wraths in this life; and yet keep safe His love, without any blur upon the old and great seal of free election. And, seeing His mountains of brass,[429] the mighty and strong decrees of free grace in Christ, stand sure, and the covenant standeth fast for ever as the days of heaven, let Him strike and nurture. His striking must be a very act of saving, seeing strokes upon His secret ones come from the soft and heavenly hand of the Mediator, and His rods are steeped and watered in that flood and river of love that cometh from the God-man's heart of our soul-loving and soul-redeeming Jesus.
I hope that ye are content to frist the Cautioner of mankind His own conquest, heaven, till He pay to you, and bring you to a state of glory, where He will never crook a finger upon, nor lift a hand to you again. And be content, and withal greedily covetous of grace, the interest and pledge of glory. If I did not believe your crop to be on the ground, and (your part of that heaven of the saints-heaven) white and ruddy, fair, fair, and beautiful Jesus were come to the bloom and the flower, and near your hook, I would not write this. But, seeing time's thread is short, and ye are upon the entry of heaven's harvest, and Christ, the field of heaven's glory, is white and ripe-like, the losses that I wrote of to your Ladyship are but summer-showers that will only wet your garments for an hour or two, and the sun of the New Jerusalem shall quickly dry the wet coat; especially seeing rains of affliction cannot stain the image of God, or cause grace to cast colour. And, since ye will not alter upon Him who will not change upon you, I durst, in my weakness, think myself no spiritual seer if I should not prophesy that daylight is near, when such a morning-darkness is upon you; and that this trial of your Christian mind towards Him (whom you dare not leave, howbeit He should slay you) shall close with a doubled mercy. It is time for faith to hold fast as much of Christ as ever ye had, and to make the grip stronger, and to cleave closer to Him, seeing Christ loveth to be believed in and trusted to. The glory of laying strength upon one that is mighty to save is more than we can think. That piece of service, believing in a smiting Redeemer, is a precious part of obedience. Oh what glory to Him to lay over the burden of our heaven upon Him that purchased for us an eternal kingdom! O blessed soul, who can adore and kiss His lovely free grace!
The rich grace of Christ be with your spirit.
Yours, at all obedience in Christ Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews, Oct. 15, 1640.
CCC.—ToAgnes Macmath on the Death of a Child.
[Agnes Macmath was the daughter of Mr. Macmath, a merchant in Edinburgh, and the sister of Rutherford's second wife.]
(REASON FOR RESIGNATION.)
D EAR SISTER,—If our Lord hath taken away your child, your lease of him is expired; and seeing that Christ would want him no longer, it is your part to hold your peace, and worship and adore the sovereignty and liberty that the Potter hath over the clay, and pieces of clay-nothings, that He gave life unto. And what is man to call and summon the Almighty to His lower court down here? "for He giveth account of none of His doings." And if ye will take the loan of a child, and give him back again to our Lord laughing (as His borrowed goods should return to Him), believe that he is not gone away, but sent before; and that the change of the country should make you think, that he is not lost to you who is found to Christ, and that he is now before you; and that the dead in Christ shall be raised again. A going-down star is not annihilated, but shall appear again. If he hath casten his bloom and flower, the bloom is fallen in heaven, into Christ's lap. And as he was lent a while to time, so is he given now to eternity, which will take yourself. The difference of your shipping and his to heaven and Christ's shore, the land of life, is only in some few years, which weareth every day shorter; and some short and soon-reckoned summers will give you a meeting with him. But what! With him? Nay, but with a better company; with the Chief and Leader of the heavenly troops, that are riding on white horses, that are triumphing in glory.
If death were a sleep that had no wakening, we might sorrow: but our Husband shall quickly be at the bedsides of all that lie sleeping in the grave, and shall raise their mortal bodies. Christ was death's Cautioner, who gave His word to come and loose all the clay-pawns, and set them at His own right hand; and our Cautioner, Christ, hath an act of law-surety upon death, to render back his captives. And that Lord Jesus, who knoweth the turnings and windings that are in that black trance of death, hath numbered all the steps of the stair up to heaven. He knoweth how long the turnpike is, or how many pair of stairs high it is; for He ascended that way Himself: "I was dead and am alive" (Rev. i. 18). And now He liveth at the right hand of God, and His garments have not so much as a smell of death.
Your afflictions smell of the children's case; the bairns of the house are so nurtured (Heb. xii. 6, 7, 8). And suffering is no new life, it is but the rent of the sons; bastards have not so much of the rent. Take kindly and heartsomely with His cross, who never yet slew a child with the cross. He breweth your cup: therefore, drink it patiently and with the better will. Stay and wait on, till Christ loose the knot that fasteneth His cross on your back; for He is coming to deliver. And I pray you, sister, learn to be worthy of His pains who correcteth. And let Him wring, and be ye washen; for He hath a Father's heart, and a Father's hand, who is training you up, and making you meet for the high hall. This school of suffering is a preparation for the King's higher house; and let all your visitations speak all the letters of your Lord's summons. They cry—1. "O vain world!" 2. "O bitter sin!" 3. "O short and uncertain time!" 4. "O fair eternity that is above sickness and death!" 5. "O kingly and princely Bridegroom, hasten glory's marriage, shorten time's short-spun and soon-broken thread, and conquer sin!" 6. "O happy and blessed death, that golden bridge laid over by Christ my Lord, between time's clay-banks and heaven's shore!" And the Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!" and answer ye with them, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus! come quickly!"
Grace be with you.
Your Brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews, Oct. 15, 1640.
CCCI.—To Mr. Matthew Mowat.
(WORTHINESS OF GOD'S LOVE AS MANIFESTED IN CHRIST—HEAVEN WITH CHRIST.)
R EVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—What am I to answer you? Alas! my books are all bare, and show me little of God. I would fain go beyond books into His house-of-love to Himself. Dear brother, neither you nor I are parties worthy of His love or knowledge. Ah! how hath sin bemisted and blinded us, that we cannot see Him. But for my poor self; I am pained and like to burst, because He will not take down the wall, and fetch His uncreated beauty, and bring His matchless, white, and ruddy face out of heaven once-errand, that I may have heaven meeting me, ere I go to it, in such a wonderful sight. Ye know that majesty and love do humble; because homely love to sinners dwelleth in Him with majesty. Ye should give Him all His own court-styles, His high and heaven-names. What am I, to shape conceptions of my highest Lord? How broad, and how high, and how deep He is above and beyond what these conceptions are, I cannot tell: but for my own weak practice (which alas! can be no rule to one so deep in love-sickness with Christ as ye are), I would fain add to my thoughts and esteem of Him, and make Him more high, and would wish a heart and love ten thousand times wider than the utmost circle and curtain that goeth about the heaven of heavens, to entertain Him in that heart, and with that love. But that which is your pain, my dear brother, is mine also. I am confounded with the thoughts of Him. I know that God is casten (if I may speak so) in a sweet mould, and lovely image, in the person of that Heaven's Jewel, the Man Christ; and that the steps of that steep ascent and stairs to the Godhead is the flesh of Christ, the New and Living Way; and there is footing for faith in that curious Ark of the humanity, wherein dwelleth the Godhead, married upon our humanity. I would be in heaven, suppose I had not another errand than to see that dainty golden Ark, and God personally looking out at ears and eyes and a body such as we sinners have, that I might wear my sinful mouth in kisses on Him for evermore. And I know all the Three blessed Persons would be well pleased that my piece of faint and created love should first coast upon the Man Christ. I should see them all through Him.
I am called from writing by my great employments in this town, and have said nothing. But what can I say of Him? Let us go and see.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews, 1640.
CCCII.—To my Lady Kenmure, on her Husband's Death.
(GOD'S METHOD IN AFFLICTION—FUTURE GLORY.)
M ADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.—I am heartily sorry that your Ladyship is deprived of such a husband, and the Lord's kirk of so active and faithful a friend.[430] I know your Ladyship long ago made acquaintance with that wherein Christ will have you to be joined in a fellowship with Himself (even with His own cross), and hath taught you to stay your soul upon the Lord's good-will, who giveth not account of His matters to any of us. When He hath led you through this water that was in your way to glory, there are fewer behind: and His order in dismissing us, and sending us out of the market, one before another, is to be reverenced. One year's time of heaven shall swallow up all sorrows, even beyond all comparison. What, then, will not a duration of blessedness so long as God shall live, fully and abundantly recompense! It is good that our Lord hath given a debtor, obliged by gracious promises, far more in eternity than time can take from you. And I believe that your Ladyship hath been, now many years, advising and thinking what that glory will be, which is abiding the pilgrims and strangers on the earth when they come home, and which we may think of, love, and thirst for. But we cannot comprehend it nor conceive of it as it is; far less we can over-think or over-love it. Oh, so long a Chapter, or rather so large a Volume, as Christ is, in that Divinity of Glory! There is no more of Him let down now to be seen and enjoyed by His children, than as much as may feed hunger in this life, but not satisfy it. Your Ladyship is a debtor to the Son of God's cross, that is wearing out love and affiance in the creature out of your heart by degrees. Or rather the obligation standeth to His free grace who careth for your Ladyship in this gracious dispensation; and who is preparing and making ready the garments of salvation for you; and who calleth you with a new name, that the mouth of the Lord hath named; and purposeth to make you a crown of glory, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God (Isa. lxii. 2, 3). Ye are obliged to frist Him more than one heaven; and yet He craveth not a long day; it is fast coming, and is sure payment. Though ye give no hire for Him, yet hath He given a great price and ransom for you; and if the bargain were to make again, Christ would give no less for you than what He hath already given. He is far from ruing. I shall wish you no more (till time be gone out of the way), than the earnest of that which He hath purchased and prepared for you, which can never be fully preached, written, or thought of, since it hath not entered into the heart to consider it.
So, recommending your Ladyship to the rich grace of our Lord Jesus, I am, and rest, your Ladyship's at all respectful observance in Christ Jesus,
S. R.
St. Andrews.