W ORTHY AND MUCH HONOURED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
1. I am glad of our more than paper acquaintance. Seeing we have one Father, it reckoneth the less, though we never see one another's face. I profess myself most unworthy to follow the camp of such a worthy and renowned Captain as Christ. Oh, alas! I have cause to be grieved, that men expect anything of such a wretched man as I am. It is a wonder to me, if Christ can make anything of my naughty, short, and narrow love to Him; surely it is not worth the uptaking.
2. As for our lovely and beloved church in Ireland, my heart bleedeth for her desolation; but I believe that our Lord is only lopping the vine-trees, but not intending to cut them down, or root them out. It is true (seeing we are heart-atheists by nature, and cannot take providence aright, because we halt and crook ever since we fell), we dream of a halting providence; as if God's yard, whereby He measureth joy and sorrow to the sons of men, were crooked and unjust, because servants ride on horseback, and princes go on foot. But our Lord dealeth good and evil, and some one portion or other to both, by ounce-weights, and measureth them in a just and even balance. It is but folly to measure the Gospel by summer or winter weather: the summer-sun of the saints shineth not on them in this life. How should we have complained, if the Lord had turned the same providence that we now stomach at upside down, and had ordered matters thus, that first the saints should have enjoyed heaven, glory, and ease, and then Methuselah's days of sorrow and daily miseries? We would think a short heaven no heaven. Certainly His ways pass finding out.
3. Ye complain of the evil of heart-atheism: but it is to a greater atheist than any man can be, that ye write of that. Oh, light findeth not that reverence and fear which a plant of God's setting should find in our soul! How do we by nature, as others, detain and hold captive the truth of God in unrighteousness, and so make God's light a bound prisoner? And even when the prisoner breaketh the jail, and cometh out in belief of a Godhead, and in some practice of holy obedience, how often do we, of new, lay hands on the prisoner, and put our light again in fetters? Certainly there cometh great mist and clouds from the lower part of our souls, our earthly affections, to the higher part, which is our conscience, either natural or renewed: as smoke in a lower house breaketh up, and defileth the house above. If we had more practice of obedience, we should have more sound light. I think, lay aside all other guiltiness, that this one, the violence done to God's candle in our soul, were a sufficient dittay against us. There is no helping of this but by striving to stand in awe of God's light. Left light tells tales of us we desire little to hear; but since it is not without God that light sitteth neighbour to will (a lawless lord), no marvel that such a neighbour should leaven our judgment, and darken our light. I see there is a necessity that we protest against the doings of the Old Man, and raise up a party against our worst half, to accuse, condemn, sentence, and with sorrow bemoan, the dominion of sin's kingdom; and withal make law, in the New Covenant, against our guiltiness. For Christ once condemned sin in the flesh, and we are to condemn it over again. And if there had not been such a thing as the grace of Jesus, I should have long since given up with heaven, and with the expectation to see God. But grace, grace, free grace, the merits of Christ for nothing, white and fair, and large Saviour-mercy (which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy, or Law-mercy, yea, a thousand degrees above angel-mercy), have been, and must be, the rock that we drowned souls must swim to. New washing, renewed application of purchased redemption, by that sacred blood that sealeth the free Covenant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor sinner. Till we be in heaven, our issue of blood shall not be quite dried up; and, therefore, we must resolve to apply peace to our souls from the new and living way; and Jesus, who cleanseth and cureth the leprous soul, lovely Jesus, must be our song on this side of heaven's gates. And even when we have won the castle, then must we eternally sing, "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved us, and washed us in His own blood."
I would counsel all the ransomed ones to learn this song, and to drink and be drunk with the love of Jesus. O fairest, O highest, O loveliest One, open the well! Oh, water the burnt and withered travellers with this love of Thine! I think it is possible on earth to build a young New Jerusalem, a little new heaven, of this surpassing love. God either send me more of this love, or take me quickly over the water, where I may be filled with His love. My softness cannot take with want. I profess I bear not hunger of Christ's love fair. I know not if I play foul play with Christ, but I would have a link of that chain of His providence mended, in pining and delaying the hungry on-waiters. For myself, I could wish that Christ would let out upon me more of that love. Yet to say Christ is a niggard to me, I dare not; and if I say I have abundance of His love, I should lie. I am half straitened[347] to complain, and cry, "Lord Jesus, hold Thy hand no longer."
Worthy Sir, let me have your prayers, in my bonds. Grace be with you,
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
[We have no means of ascertaining who this correspondent was.]
D EAR BROTHER,—The constant and daily observing of God's going alongst with you, in His coming, going, ebbing, flowing, embracing and kissing, glooming and striking, giveth me (a witless and lazy observer of the Lord's way and working) a heavy stroke. Could I keep sight of Him, and know when I want, and carry as became me in that condition, I would bless my case.
But 1. For desertions. I think them like lying lea of lean and weak land for some years, whill it gather sap for a better crop. It is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight. Oh, if I could but creep one foot, or half a foot, nearer in to Jesus, in such a dismal night as that when He is away, I should think it an happy absence!
2. If I knew that the Beloved were only gone away for trial, and further humiliation, and not smoked out of the house with new provocations, I would forgive desertions and hold my peace at His absence. But Christ's bought absence (that I bought with my sin), is two running boils at once, one upon each side; and what side then can I lie on?
3. I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.
4. It is mercy's wonder, and grace's wonder, that Christ will lend a piece of the lodging, and a back-chamber beside Himself, to our lusts; and that He and such swine should keep house together in our soul. For, suppose they couch and contract themselves into little room when Christ cometh in, and seem to lie as dead under His feet, yet they often break out again; and a foot of the Old Man, or a leg or arm nailed to Christ's cross, looseth the nail, or breaketh out again! And yet Christ, beside this unruly and misnurtured neighbour, can still be making heaven in the saints, one way or other. May I not say, "Lord Jesus, what doest Thou here?" Yet here He must be. But I will not lose my feet to go on into this depth and wonder; for free mercy and infinite merits took a lodging to Christ and us beside such a loathsome guest as sin.
5. Sanctification and mortification of our lusts are the hardest part of Christianity. It is in a manner, as natural to us to leap when we see the New Jerusalem, as to laugh when we are tickled: joy is not under command, or at our nod, when Christ kisseth. But oh, how many of us would have Christ divided into two halves, that we might take the half of Him only! We take His office, Jesus, and Salvation: but "Lord" is a cumbersome word, and to obey and work out our own salvation, and to perfect holiness, is the cumbersome and stormy north-side of Christ, and that which we eschew and shift.
6. For your question, the access that reprobates have to Christ (which is none at all, for to the Father in Christ neither can they, nor will they come, because Christ died not for them; and yet, by law, God and justice overtaketh them), I say, first, there are with you more worthy and learned than I am, Messrs. Dickson, Blair, and Hamilton, who can more fully satisfy you. But I shall speak in brief what I think of it in these assertions. First, All God's justice toward man and angels floweth from an act of absolute sovereign free-will of God, who is our Former and Potter, and we are but clay; for if He had forbidden to eat of the rest of the trees of the garden of Eden, and commanded Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that command no doubt had been as just as this,—"Eat of all the trees, but not at all of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." The reason is, because His will is before His justice, by order of nature; and what is His will is His justice. And He willeth not things without Himself because they are just; God cannot, God needeth not hunt sanctity, holiness, or righteousness from things without Himself, and so not from the actions of men or angels; because His will is essentially holy and just, and the prime rule of holiness and justice, as the fire is naturally light, and inclineth upward, and the earth heavy, and inclineth downward. The second assertion, then, that God saith to reprobates, "Believe in Christ (who hath not died for your salvation), and ye shall be saved," is just and right; because His eternal and essentially just will hath so enacted and decreed. Suppose natural reason speak against this, this is the deep and special mystery of the Gospel. God hath obliged, hard and fast, all the reprobates of the visible church to believe this promise, "He that believeth shall be saved:" and yet, in God's decree and secret intention, there is no salvation at all decreed and intended to reprobates. And yet the obligation of God, being from His sovereign free-will, is most just, as is said in the first assertion. Third assertion: The righteous Lord hath right over the reprobates and all reasonable creatures that violate His commandments. This is easy. Fourth assertion: The faith that God seeketh of reprobates, is, that they rely upon Christ, as despairing of their own righteousness, leaning wholly, and withal humbly, as weary and laden, upon Christ, as on the resting-stone laid in Zion. But He seeketh not that, without being weary of their sin, they rely upon Christ, as mankind's Saviour; for to rely on Christ, and not to be weary of sin, is presumption, not faith. Faith is ever neighbour to a contrite spirit; and it is impossible that faith can be where there is not a cast-down and contrite heart, in some measure, for sin. Now it is certain, that God commandeth no man to presume. Fifth assertion: Then reprobates are not absolutely obliged to believe that Christ died for them in particular. For, in truth, neither reprobates nor others are obliged to believe a lie; only, they are obliged to believe that Christ died for them, if they be first weary, burdened, sin-sick, and condemned in their own consciences, and stricken dead and killed with the Law's sentence, and have indeed embraced Him as offered; which is a second and subsequent act of faith, following after a coming to Him and a closing with Him. Sixth assertion: Reprobates are not formally guilty of contempt of God, and misbelief, because they apply not Christ and the promises of the Gospel to themselves in particular; for so they should be guilty because they believe not a lie, which God never obliged them to believe. Seventh assertion: Justice hath a right to punish reprobates, because out of pride of heart, confiding in their own righteousness, they rely not upon Christ as a Saviour of all them that come to Him. This God may justly oblige them unto, because in Adam they had perfect ability to do; and men are guilty because they love their own inability, and rest upon themselves, and refuse to deny their own righteousness, and to take them to Christ, in whom there is righteousness for wearied sinners. Eighth assertion: It is one thing to rely, lean, and rest upon Christ, in humility and weariness of spirit, and denying our own righteousness, believing Him to be the only righteousness of wearied sinners; and it is another thing to believe that Christ died for me, John, Thomas, Anna, upon an intention and decree to save us by name. For, 1st, The first goeth first, the latter is always after in due order; 2ndly, The first is faith, the second is a fruit of faith; and, 3rdly, The first obligeth reprobates and all men in the visible kirk, the latter obligeth only the weary and laden, and so only the elect and effectually called of God. Ninth assertion: It is a vain order; "I know not if Christ died for me, John, Thomas, Anna, by name; and, therefore, I dare not rely on Him." The reason is, because it is not faith to believe God's intention and decree of election at the first, ere ye be wearied. Look first to your intention and soul. If ye find sin a burden, and can and do rest, under that burden, upon Christ; if this be once, now come and believe in particular, or rather apply by sense (for, in my judgment, it is a fruit of belief, not belief), and feeling the goodwill, intention, and gracious purpose of God anent your salvation. Hence, because there is malice in reprobates, and contempt of Christ, guilty they are, and justice hath law against them, and (which is the mystery) they cannot come up to Christ, because He died not for them. But their sin is, that they love their inability to come to Christ; and he who loveth his chains, deserveth chains. And thus in short. Remember my bonds.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
M Y LORD,—I cannot expound your Lordship's contrary tides, and these temptations wherewith ye are assaulted, to be any other thing than Christ trying you, and saying unto you, "And will ye also leave Me?" I am sure that Christ hath a great advantage against you, if ye play foul play to Him, in that the Holy Spirit hath done His part, in evidencing to your conscience that this is the way of Christ, wherein ye shall have peace; and the other, as sure as God liveth, is the Antichrist's way. Therefore, as ye fear God, fear your light, and stand in awe of a convincing conscience. It is far better for your Lordship to keep your conscience, and to hazard in such an honourable cause your place, than wilfully, and against your light, to come under guiltiness. Kings cannot heal broken consciences; and when death and judgment shall comprise your soul, your counsellors, and others, cannot become caution to justice for you. Ere it be long, our Lord will put a final determination to Acts of Parliament, and men's laws, and will clear you, before men and angels, of men's unjust sentences. Ye receive honour, and place, and authority, and riches, and reputation from your Lord, to set forward and advance the liberties and freedom of Christ's kingdom. Men, whose consciences are made of stoutness, think little of such matters, which, notwithstanding, encroach directly upon Christ's prerogative-royal. So would men think it a light matter for Uzzah to put out his hand to hold the Lord's falling ark; but it cost him his life. And who doubteth but a carnal friend will advise you to shut your window, and pray beneath your breath. "Ye make too great a din with your prayers;" so would a head-of-wit speak, if ye were in Daniel's place. But men's over-gilded reasons will not help you, when your conscience is like to rive with a double charge. Alas, alas! when will this world learn to submit their wisdom to the wisdom of God? I am sure that your Lordship hath found the truth. Go not then to search for it over again; for it is common for men to make doubts, when they have a mind to desert the truth. Kings are not their own men; their ways are in God's hand. I rejoice, and am glad, that ye resolve to walk with Christ, howbeit His court be thin. Grace be with your Lordship.
Your Lordship's, in his sweet Master and Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
R EVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus.—I am laid low, when I remember what I am, and that my outside casteth such a lustre when I find so little within. It is a wonder that Christ's glory is not defiled, running through such an unclean and impure channel. But I see that Christ will be Christ, in the dreg and refuse of men. His art, His shining wisdom, His beauty, speak loudest in blackness, weakness, deadness, yea, in nothing. I see nothing, no money, no worth, no good, no life, no deserving, is the ground that Omnipotency delighteth to draw glory out of. Oh, how sweet is the inner side of the walls of Christ's house, and a room beside Himself! My distance from Him maketh me sad. Oh that we were in other's arms! Oh that the middle things betwixt us were removed! I find it a difficult matter to keep all stots with Christ. When He laugheth, I scarce believe it, I would so fain have it true. But I am like a low man looking up to a high mountain, whom weariness and fainting overcometh. I would climb up, but I find that I do not advance in my journey as I would wish; yet I trust that He will take me home against night. I marvel not that Antichrist, in his slaves, is so busy: but our crowned King seeth and beholdeth, and will arise for Zion's safety.
I am exceedingly distracted with letters, and company that visit me; what I can do, or time will permit, I shall not omit. Excuse my brevity, for I am straitened. Remember the Lord's prisoner: I desire to be mindful of you. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
M UCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I can do no more than thank you on paper, and remember you to Him whom I serve, for kindness and care of a prisoner.
I bless the Lord, that the cause I suffer for needeth not to blush before kings: Christ's white, honest, and fair truth needeth neither to wax pale for fear, nor to blush for shame. I bless the Lord, who hath graced you to own Christ now, when so many are afraid to profess Him, and hide Him, for fear they suffer loss by avouching Him. Alas, that so many in these days are carried with the times! As if their conscience rolled upon oiled wheels, so do they go any way the wind bloweth them; and, because Christ is not market-sweet, men put Him away from them.
Worthy and much honoured Sir, go on to own Christ, and His oppressed truth:—the end of sufferings for the Gospel, is rest and gladness. Light and joy are sown for the mourners in Zion, and the harvest (which is of God's making, for time and manner) is near. Crosses have right and claim to Christ in His members, till legs and arms, and whole mystical Christ, be in heaven. There will be rain, and hail, and storms, in the saint's clouds, ever till God cleanse with fire the works of the creation, and till He burn the botch-house of heaven and earth, that men's sins have subjected unto vanity.
They are blessed who suffer and sin not; for suffering is the badge that Christ hath put upon His followers. Take what way we can to heaven, the way is hedged up with crosses; there is no way but to break through them. Wit and wiles, shifts and laws, will not find out a way round the cross of Christ; but we must through. One thing, by experience, my Lord hath taught me, that the waters betwixt this and heaven may all be ridden, if we be well horsed; I mean, if we be in Christ; and not one shall drown by the way, but such as love their own destruction. Oh, if we could wait on for a time, and believe in the dark the salvation of God! At least we are to believe good of Christ, till He gives us the slip (which is impossible); and to take His word for caution, that He shall fill up all the blanks in His promises, and give us what we want. But to the unbeliever, Christ's testament is white, blank, unwritten paper.
Worthy and dear Sir, set your face to heaven, and make you a stoop at all the low entries in the way, that ye may receive the kingdom as a child. Without this (He that knew the way said) there is no entry in. Oh, but Christ is willing to lead a poor sinner! Oh what love my poor soul hath found in Him, in the house of my pilgrimage! Suppose that love in heaven and earth were lost, I dare swear it may be found in Christ.
Now the very God of peace establish you, till the day of the glorious appearance of Christ.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
M UCH HONOURED AND CHRISTIAN LADY,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear how it goeth with you and your children.
I exhort you not to lose breath, nor to faint in your journey. The way is not so long to your home as it was; it will wear to one step or an inch at length, and ye shall come ere long to be within your arm-length of the glorious crown. Your Lord Jesus did sweat and pant ere He got up that mount; He was at "Father, save Me!" with it. It was He who said, "I am poured out like water; all My bones are out of joint." Christ was as if they had broken Him upon the wheel: "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels." "My strength is dried up like a potsherd" (Ps. xxii. 14, 15). I am sure ye love the way the better that His holy feet trod it before you. Crosses have a smell of crossed and pained Christ. I believe that your Lord will not leave you to die your lone in the way. I know that ye have sad hours, when the Comforter is hid under a vail, and when ye inquire for Him, and find but a toom nest. This, I grant, is but a cold "good-day," when the seeker misseth Him whom the soul loveth; but even His unkindness is kind, His absence lovely, His mask a sweet sight, till God send Christ Himself, in His own sweet presence. Make His sweet comforts your own, and be not strange and shame-faced with Christ. Homely dealing is best for Him; it is His liking. When your winter storms are over, the summer of your Lord shall come. Your sadness is with child of joy; He will do you good in the latter end.
Take no heavier lift of your children than your Lord alloweth. Give them room beside your heart, but not in the yolk of your heart, where Christ should be; for then they are your idols, not your bairns. If your Lord take any of them home to His house, before the storm come on, take it well. The owner of the orchard may take down two or three apples off his own trees before midsummer, and ere they get the harvest-sun: and it would not be seemly that his servant, the gardener, should chide him for it. Let our Lord pluck His own fruit at any season He pleaseth. They are not lost to you; but are laid up so well as that they are coffered in heaven, where our Lord's best jewels lie. They are all free goods that are there; death can have no law to arrest anything that is within the walls of the New Jerusalem.
All the saints, because of sin, are like old rusty horologues that must be taken down, and the wheels scoured and mended, and set up again in better case than before. Sin hath rusted both soul and body: our dear Lord by death taketh us down to scour the wheels of both, and to purge us perfectly from the root and remainder of sin; and we shall be set up in better case than before. Then pluck up your heart; heaven is yours! and that is a word which few can say.
Now, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and the very God of peace, confirm and establish you, to the day of the appearance of Christ our Lord.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
R EVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I am refreshed with your letters. I would take all well at my Lord's hands that He hath done, if I knew that I could do my Lord any service in my suffering; suppose my Lord would make a stop-hole of me, to fill a hole in the wall of His house, or a pinning in Zion's new work. For any place of trust in my Lord's house, as steward, or chamberlain, or the like, surely I think myself (my very dear brother, I speak not by any proud figure or trope) unworthy of it; nay, I am not worthy to stand behind the door. If my head, and feet, and body were half out, half in, in Christ's house, so that I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my greening and love-sick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at work, and speaking in the name of our Lord Jesus, I think myself but an outcast, or outlaw, chased from the city to lie on the hills, and live amongst the rocks and out-fields. Oh that I might but stand in Christ's out-house, or hold a candle in any low vault of His house! But I know this is but the vapours that arise out of a quarrelous and unbelieving heart to darken the wisdom of God; and your fault is just mine, that I cannot believe my Lord's bare and naked word. I must either have an apple to play me with, and shake hands with Christ, and have seal, caution, and witness to His word, or else I count myself loose; howbeit, I have the word and faith of a King! Oh, I am made of unbelief, and cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground! Alas! Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying waters,[348] as a dyvour and a cozener! We can make such a Christ as temptations, casting us into a night-dream, do feign and devise; and temptations represent Christ ever unlike Himself, and we, in our folly, listen to the tempter.
If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would my soul be! But I myself, which is the greatest evil, often mistake the cross of Christ. For I know, if we had wisdom, and knew well that ease slayeth us fools, we would desire a market where we might barter or niffer our lazy ease with a profitable cross; howbeit there be an outcast natural betwixt our desires and tribulation. But some give a dear price, and gold, for physic which they love not, and buy sickness, howbeit they wish rather to have been whole than to be sick. But surely, brother, ye shall have my advice (howbeit, alas! I cannot follow it myself), not to contend with the honest and faithful Lord of the house; for, go He or come He, He is aye gracious in His departure. There are grace, and mercy, and loving-kindness upon Christ's back parts; and when He goeth away, the proportion of His face, the image of that fair Sun that stayeth in eyes, senses, and heart, after He is gone, leaveth a mass of love behind it in the heart. The sound of His knock at the door of His Beloved, after He is gone and passed, leaveth a share of joy and sorrow both. So we have something to feed upon till He return: and He is more loved in His departure, and after He is gone, than before, as the day in the declining of the sun, and towards the evening, is often most desired.
And as for Christ's cross, I never received evil of it, but what was of mine own making: when I miscooked Christ's physic, no marvel that it hurt me. For since it was on Christ's back, it hath always a sweet smell, and these 1600 years it keepeth the smell of Christ. Nay, it is older than that too; for it is a long time since Abel first handselled the cross, and had it laid upon his shoulder; and down from him, all alongst to this very day, all the saints have known what it is. I am glad that Christ Jesus hath such a relation to this cross, and that it is called "the cross of our Lord Jesus" (Gal. vi. 14), His reproach (Heb. xiii. 13), as if Christ would claim it as His proper goods, and so it cometh into the reckoning among Christ's own property. If it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is not the author nor owner of sin, would not own it.
I wonder at the enemies of Christ (in whom malice hath run away with wit, and will is up, and wit down), that they would essay to lift up the Stone laid in Zion. Surely it is not laid in such sinking ground as that they can raise it, or remove it; for when we are in their belly, and they have swallowed us down, they will be sick, and spue us out again. I know that Zion and her Husband cannot both sleep at once; I believe that our Lord once again will water with His dew the withered hill of Mount Zion in Scotland, and come down, and make a new marriage again, as He did long since. Remember our Covenant.
Your excuse for your advice to me is needless. Alas! many sit beside light, as sick folks beside meat, and cannot make use of it. Grace be with you.
Your brother in Christ,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
D EAR BROTHER,—I received your letter. I cannot but testify under mine own hand, that Christ is still the longer the better, and that this time is the time of loves. When I have said all I can, others may begin and say that I have said nothing of Him. I never knew Christ to ebb or flow, wax or wane. His winds turn not; when He seemeth to change, it is but we who turn our wrong side to Him. I never had a plea with Him, in my hardest conflicts, but of mine own making. Oh that I could live in peace and good neighbourhood with such a second, and let Him alone! My unbelief made many black lies, but my recantation to Christ is not worth the hearing. Surely He hath borne with strange gawds in me; He knoweth my heart hath not natural wit to keep quarters with such a Saviour.
Ye do well to fear your backsliding. I had stood sure if I had, in my youth, borrowed Christ to be my bottom. But he that beareth his own weight to heaven shall not fail to slip and sink. Ye had not need to be barefooted among the thorns of this apostate generation, lest a stob strike up into your foot, and cause you to halt all your days. And think not that Christ will do with you in the matter of suffering as the Pope doth in the matter of sin. Ye shall not find that Christ will sell a dispensation, or give a dyvour's protection against crosses. Crosses are proclaimed as common accidents to all the saints, and in them standeth a part of our communion with Christ; but there lieth a sweet casualty to the cross, even Christ's presence and His comforts, when they are sanctified.
Remember my love to your father and mother. Grace be with you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
M UCH HONOURED IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am still in good terms with Christ: however my Lord's wind blow, I have the advantage of the calm and sunny side of Christ. Devils, and hell, and devil's servants, are all blown blind, in pursuing the Lord's little bride. They shall be as a night-dream who fight against Mount Zion.
Worthy Sir, I hope that ye take to heart the worth of your calling. This great fair and meeting of the people shall skail, and the port is open for us. As fast as time weareth out, we fly away; eternity is at our elbow. Oh, how blessed are they who in time make Christ sure for themselves! Salvation is a great errand. I find it hard to fetch heaven. Oh that we would take pains on our lamps, for the Bridegroom is coming! The other side of this world shall be turned up incontinently, and up shall be down: and those that are weeping in sackcloth will triumph on white horses, with Him whose name is The Word of God. Those dying idols, the fair creatures that we whorishly love better than our Creator, shall pass away like snow-water. The Godhead, the Godhead! a communion with God in Christ! To be halvers with Christ of the purchased house and inheritance in heaven, should be our scope and aim.
For myself, when I lay my accounts, oh what telling, oh what weighing is in Christ! Oh how soft are His kisses! Oh love, love surpassing in Jesus! I have no fault to that love, but that it seemeth to deal niggardly with me; I have little of it. Oh that I had Christ's seen and read bond, subscribed by Himself, for my fill of it! What garland have I, or what crown, if I looked right on things, but Jesus! Oh, there is no room in us on this side of the water for that love. This narrow bit of earth, and these ebb and narrow souls can hold little of it, because we are full of rifts. I would that glory, glory would enlarge us (as it will), and make us tight, and close up our seams and rifts, that we might be able to comprehend it—which is yet incomprehensible.
Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
[Lady Rowallan, whose maiden name was Sarah Brisbane, being the fourth daughter of John Brisbane of Bishoptown, was the third wife of Sir William Mure of Rowallan (Robertson's "Ayrshire Families"). "In 1639 Lady Rowallan lost her husband, who died in the sixty-third year of his age. He was a man of strong body, and delighted much in hunting and hawking." ("The History and Descent of the House of Rowallan. By Sir William Mure, Knight, of Rowallan.")
Rowallan is a mile and a half from the village of Kilmaurs, in which churchyard is a curious tomb of the old Glencairn family. Rowallan Castle was not large; it is now nearly a ruin, though the gardener's family occupy two rooms. It was a mansion as well as a castle. It stands on a rocky ledge, with the ground sinking low on all sides, and a burn flowing near, which sometimes in rainy seasons formed a lakelet, and could at any time be dammed up so as to form a moat to protect the castle.
It is so situated that you do not see it until close upon it, and hence was all the better fitted for a place of meeting in Covenanting times. The room on the highest floor, near the turret, is pointed out as that in which conventicles were held. More than a hundred could assemble in it. The old campstools used to be preserved, but now only the remains of two exist. Another turret is said to be that from the window of which King Robert II.'s queen escaped in olden days.]
M ADAM,—Though not acquainted, I am bold in Christ to speak to your Ladyship on paper. I rejoice in our Lord Jesus, on your behalf, that it hath pleased Him, whose love to you is as old as Himself, to manifest the favour of His love in Christ Jesus to your soul, in the revelation of His will and mind to you, now when so many are shut up in unbelief. O the sweet change which ye have made, in leaving the black kingdom of this world and sin, and coming over to our Bridegroom's new kingdom, to know, and be taken with the love of the beautiful Son of God! I beseech you, Madam, in the Lord, to make now sure work, and see that the old house be casten down, and razed from the foundation, and that the new building of your soul be of Christ's own laying; for then wind nor storm shall neither loose it, nor shake it asunder. Many now take Christ by guess; be sure that it be He, and only He, whom ye have met with. His sweet smell, His lovely voice, His fair face, His sweet working in the soul, will not lie; they will soon tell if it be Christ indeed; and I think that your love to the saints speaketh that it is He. And, therefore, I say, be sure that ye take Christ Himself, and take Him with His Father's blessing: His Father alloweth Him well upon you. Your lines are well fallen; it could not have been better, nor so well with you, if they had not fallen in these places. In heaven, or out of heaven, there is nothing better, nothing so sweet and excellent as the thing ye have lighted on; and therefore hold you with Christ. Joy, much joy may ye have of Him: but take His cross with Himself cheerfully. Christ and His cross are not separable in this life; howbeit Christ and His cross part at heaven's door, for there is no houseroom for crosses in heaven. One tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one thought of trouble, cannot find lodging there: they are but the marks of our Lord Jesus down in this wide inn, and stormy country, on this side of death. Sorrow and the saints are not married together; or, suppose it were so, heaven would make a divorce. I find that His sweet presence eateth out the bitterness of sorrow and suffering. I think it a sweet thing that Christ saith of my cross, "Half mine;" and that He divideth these sufferings with me, and taketh the larger share to Himself; nay, that I and my whole cross are wholly Christ's. Oh, what a portion is Christ! Oh that the saints would dig deeper in the treasures of His wisdom and excellency!
Thus recommending your Ladyship to the good-will and tender mercies of our Lord, I rest, your Ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
M UCH HONOURED AND DEAREST IN OUR SWEET LORD JESUS,—Grace mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus.
I know that the Lord will do for your town. I hear that the Bishop is afraid to come amongst you: for so it is spoken in this town. And many here rejoice now to pen a supplication to the Council, for bringing me home to my place, and for repairing other wrongs done in the country: and see if you can procure that three or four hundred in the country, noblemen, gentlemen, countrymen, and citizens, subscribe it; the more the better. It may be that it will affright the Bishop; and, by law, no advantage can be taken against you for it. I have not time to write to Carleton and to Knockbrex; but I would you did speak them in it, and let them advise with Carleton. Mr. A. thinketh well of it, and I think the others will approve it.
I am still in good case with Christ; my court is no less than it was; the door of the Bridegroom's house-of-wine is open, when such a poor stranger as I come athort. I change, but Christ abideth still the same.
They have put out my one poor eye, my only joy, to preach Christ, and to go errands betwixt Him and His bride. What my Lord will do with me, I know not: it is like that I shall not winter in Aberdeen; but where it shall be else, I know not. There are some blossomings of Christ's kingdom in this town, and the smoke is rising, and the ministers are raging; but I love a rumbling and roaring devil best.
I beseech you in the Lord, my dear sister, to wait for the salvation of God. Slack not your hands in meeting to pray. Fear not flesh and blood: we have been all over-feared, and that gave louns the confidence to shut me out of Galloway.
Remember my love to John Carsen, and Mr. John Brown.[349] I never could get my love off that man: I think Christ hath something to do with him. Desire your husband from me, not to think ill of Christ for His cross. Many misken Christ, because He hath the cross on His back; but He will cause us all to laugh yet. I beseech you, as ye would do anything for me, to remember my Lady Marischal to God, and her son the Earl Marischal, especially her Christian daughter, my Lady Pitsligo.[350]
I shall go to death with it, that Christ will return again to Scotland, with salvation in His wings, and to Galloway.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
"And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it."—Zech. xii. 13.