Letters of Samuel Rutherford

With a Sketch of His Life

by Samuel Rutherford

Table of Contents

Preface
Sketch of Samuel Rutherford
1. To Marion M'Naught.—Children to be Dedicated to God
2. To a Christian Gentlewoman, on the death of a Daughter.—Christ's Sympathy with, and Property in us—Reasons for Resignation
3. To Lady Kenmure, on occasion of illness and spiritual depression.—Acquiescence in God's Purpose—Faith in exercise—Encouragement in view of Sickness and Death—Public Affairs
4. To Lady Kenmure, on death of her infant Daughter.—Tribulation the Portion of God's People, and intended to wean them from the World
5. To Lady Kenmure, when removing from Anwoth.—Changes—Loss of Friends—This World no abiding Place
6. To Marion M'Naught, telling of his Wife's illness.—Inward Conflict, arising from Outward Trial
7. To Lady Kenmure.—The Earnest of the Spirit—Communion with Christ—Faith in the Promises
8. To Marion M'Naught.—His Wife's Illness—Wrestlings with God
9. To Marion M'Naught.—Recommending a Friend to her Care—Prayers asked
10. To Marion M'Naught.—Submission, Perseverance, and Zeal recommended
11. To Lady Kenmure.—God's Inexplicable Dealings with His People well ordered—Want of Ordinances—Conformity to Christ—Troubles of the Church—Mr. Rutherford's Wife's Death
12. To Marion M'Naught.—God Mixeth the Cup—The Reward of the Wicked—Faithfulness—Forbearance—Trials
13. To Marion M'Naught, when exposed to reproach for her principles.—Jesus a Pattern of Patience under Suffering
14. To Marion M'Naught, in prospect of the Lord's Supper.—Abundance in Jesus—The Restoration of the Jews—Enemies of God
15. To Marion M'Naught.—The threatened Introduction of the Service Book—Troubles of the Church—Private Wrongs
16. To Marion M'Naught.—Proposal to Remove him from Anwoth—Babylon's Destruction, and Christ's Coming—The Young invited
17. To Marion M'Naught.—The Prospects of the Church—Arminianism—Call to Prayer—No Help but in Christ
18. To Marion M'Naught, in prospect of the Lord's Supper.—Prayer Solicited—The Church's Prospects
19. To Lady Kenmure.—Encouragement to Abound in Faith from the Prospect of Glory—Christ's Unchangeableness
20. To Lady Kenmure.—Assurance of Christ's Love under Trials—Fulness of Christ—Hope of Glory
21. To Lady Kenmure.—Self-denial—Hope of Christ's Coming—Loving God for Himself
22. To John Kennedy.—Deliverance from Shipwreck—Recovery from threatened Death—Use of Trials—Remembrance of Friends
23. To Lady Kenmure.—Exhorting to remember her Espousal to Christ—Tribulation a Preparation for the Kingdom—Glory in the End
24. To Marion M'Naught.—Christ and His Garden—Provision of Ordinances in the Church—Our Children
25. To a Gentleman at Kirkcudbright, excusing himself from visiting
26. To Marion M'Naught, after her dangerous illness.—Use of Sickness—Reproaches—Christ our Eternal Feast—Fasting
27. To Lady Kenmure.—Love to Christ and Submission to His Cross—Believers kept—The Heavenly Paradise
28. To Lady Kenmure, after the death of a child.—The State of the Church, Cause for God's Displeasure—His Care of His Church—The Jews—Afflicted Saints
29. To Marion M'Naught.—Christ with His People in the Furnace of Affliction—Prayer
30. To Lady Kenmure.—Rank and Prosperity hinder Progress—Watchfulness—Case of Relatives
31. To Lady Kenmure.—A Union for Prayer Recommended
32. To Marion M'Naught.—State and Prospects of the Church—Satan
33. To Marion M'Naught.—In Prospect of Going to the Lord's Table
34. To Marion M'Naught.—Prospects of the Church—Christ's Care for the Children of Believers
35. To Lady Kenmure, on the death of a child.—God Measures our Days—Bereavements Ripen us for the Harvest
36. To Marion M'Naught.—Choice of a Commissioner for Parliament
37. To Lady Kenmure.—On the Death of Lord Kenmure—Design of, and duties under, Affliction
38. To Marion M'Naught.—Christ's Care of His Church, and His Judgments on her Enemies
39. To Lady Kenmure.—Preparation for Death and Eternity
40. To Lady Kenmure.—When Mr. Rutherford had the Prospect of being Removed from Anwoth
41. To Marion M'Naught.—The Church's Trials—Comfort under Temptations—Deliverance—A Message to the Young
42. To Lady Kenmure.—The World passeth away—Special Portions of the Word for the Afflicted—Call to Kirkcudbright
43. To Marion M'Naught.—When Mr. Rutherford was in difficulty as to accepting a Call to Kirkcudbright, and Cramond
44. To Marion M'Naught.—Troubles threatening the Church
45. To Marion M'Naught.—In the Prospect of the Lord's Supper, and of Trials to the Church
46. To Marion M'Naught.—Tossings of Spirit—Her Children and Husband
47. To Marion M'Naught.—Submission to God's Arrangements
48. To Marion M'Naught.—Troubles from False Brethren—Occurrences—Christ's Coming—Intercession
49. To Marion M'Naught.—Spoiling of Goods—Call to Kirkcudbright—The Lord Reigneth
50. To Marion M'Naught.—Christ coming as Captain of Salvation—His Church's Conflict and Covenant—The Jews—Last Days' Apostasy
51. To Marion M'Naught.—Public Temptations—The Security of every Saint—Occurrences in the Country-side
52. To Marion M'Naught.—In the Prospect of her Husband being compelled to receive the Commands of the Prelates—Saints are yet to Judge
53. To Marion M'Naught.—Encouragement under Trial by prospect of Brighter Days
54. To Marion M'Naught.—Public Wrongs—Words of Comfort
55. To Marion M'Naught.—When he had been threatened with Persecution for Preaching the Gospel
56. To Lady Kenmure.—Reasons for Resignation—Security of Saints—The End of Time
57. To Marion M'Naught.—In the Prospect of Removal to Aberdeen
58. To Lady Kenmure.—On occasion of Efforts to introduce Episcopacy
59. To Earlston, Elder.—No Suffering for Christ unrewarded—Loss of Children—Christ in Providence
60. To Marion M'Naught.—When he was under Trial by the High Commission
61. To Lady Kenmure, on the evening of his banishment to Aberdeen.—His only Regrets—The Cross unspeakably Sweet—Retrospect of his Ministry
62. To Lady Culross, on the occasion of his banishment to Aberdeen.—Challenges of Conscience—The Cross no Burden
63. To Mr. Robert Cunningham, at Holywood, in Ireland.—Consolation to a Brother in Tribulation—His own Deprivation of Ministry—Christ worth Suffering for
64. To Alexander Gordon of Earlston.—His Feelings upon Leaving Anwoth
65. To Robert Gordon of Knockbreck, on his way to Aberdeen.—How Upheld on the Way
66. To Robert Gordon of Knockbreck, after arriving at Aberdeen.—Challenges of Conscience—Ease in Zion
67. To William Fullerton, Provost of Kirkcudbright.—Encouragement to Suffer for Christ
68. To John Fleming, Bailie of Leith.—The Sweetness and Faithfulness of Christ's Love
69. To Lady Kenmure.—His Enjoyment of Christ in Aberdeen—A Sight of Christ exceeds all Reports—Some ashamed of Him and His
70. To Lady Kenmure.—Exercise under Restraint from Preaching—The Devil—Christ's Loving-kindness—Progress
71. To Mr. Hugh M'Kail, Minister of Irvine.—Christ to be Trusted amid Trial
72. To William Gordon of Roberton.—How Trials are Misimproved—The Infinite Value of Christ—Despised Warnings
73. To Earlston, the Elder.—Satisfaction with Christ's Ways—Private and Public Causes of Sorrow
74. To Lady Culross.—Suspicions of God's Ways—God's Ways always Right—Grace Grows under Trial
75. To John Kennedy, Bailie of Ayr.—Longing after Discoveries of Christ—His Long-suffering—Trying Circumstances
76. To Robert Gordon of Knockbreck.—Benefit of Affliction
77. To Lady Boyd.—Aberdeen—Experience of himself Sad—Taking Pains to win Grace
78. To Lord Boyd.—Encouragement to Exertion for Christ's Cause
79. To Margaret Ballantine.—Value of the Soul, and Urgency of Salvation
80. To Marion M'Naught.—His Comfort under Tribulations, and the Prison a Palace
81. To Mr. John Meine (jun.).—Experience—Patient Waiting—Sanctification
82. To John Gordon of Cardoness, Elder.—Win Christ at all Hazards—Christ's Beauty—A Word to Children
83. To the Earl of Lothian.—Advice as to Public Conduct—Everything to be endured for Christ
84. To Jean Brown.—The Joys of this Life embittered by Sin—Heaven an Object of Desire—Trial a Blessed Thing
85. To John Kennedy, Bailie of Ayr.—The Reasonableness of Believing under all Affliction—Obligations to Free Grace
86. To Lord Craighall.—Episcopalian Ceremonies—How to Abide in the Truth—Desire for Liberty to preach Christ
87. To Elizabeth Kennedy.—Danger of Formality—Christ wholly to be Loved—Other Objects of Love
88. To Janet Kennedy.—Christ to be kept at every sacrifice—His incomparable Loveliness
89. To the Rev. Robert Blair.—God's Arrangements sometimes Mysterious
90. To the Rev. John Livingstone.—Resignation—Enjoyment—State of the Church
91. To Mr. Ephraim Melvin.—Kneeling at the Lord's Supper a species of Idolatry
92. To Mr. Robert Gordon of Knockbreck.—Visits of Christ—The Things which Affliction Teaches
93. To Lady Kenmure.—God's Dealings with Scotland—The Eye to be directed Heavenward
94. To Lady Kenmure.—The Times—Christ's Sweetness in Trouble—Longing after Him
95. To Lady Kenmure.—Christ's Cross Sweet—His Coming to be Desired—Jealous of any Rival
96. To Lady Kenmure.—Christ all Worthy—Anwoth
97. To Alexander Gordon of Earlston.—Christ Endeared by Bitter Experiences—Searchings of Heart—Fears for the Church
98. To Mr. Alexander Colville of Blair.—Increasing Experience of Christ's Love—God with His Saints
99. To Earlston, Younger.—Christ's Ways Misunderstood—His increasing Kindness—Spiritual Delicacy—Hard to be Dead to the World
100. To Lady Cardoness.—The One Thing Needful—Conscientious Acting in the World—Advice under Dejecting Trials
101. To Jonet Macculloch.—Christ's Sufficiency—Stedfastness in the Truth
102. To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.—Grounds of Praise—Affliction tends to misrepresent Christ—Idols
103. To Lady Cardoness, Elder.—Christ and His Cause Recommended—Heavenly-mindedness—Caution against Compliances—Anxiety about his Parish
104. To Lady Kenmure.—Painstaking in the Knowledge of Christ—Unusual enjoyment of His Love—Not Easy to be a Christian—Friends must not mislead
105. To a Gentlewoman, upon the death of her Husband.—Resignation under Bereavement—His own Enjoyment of Christ's Love
106. To Lady Kenmure.—Weak Assurance—Grace different from Learning—Self-accusations
107. To Lady Boyd.—Consciousness of Defects no argument of Christ being unknown—His Experience in Exile
108. To Lady Kaskiberry.—Gratitude for Kindness—Christ's Presence felt
109. To Lady Earlston.—Following Christ not Easy—Children not to be over-loved—Joy in the Lord
110. To Mr. David Dickson.—God's Dealings—The Bitter Sweetened—Notes on Scripture
111. To Jean Brown.—Christ's Untold Preciousness—A Word to her Boy
112. To Mr. John Fergushill.—The Rod upon God's Children—Pain from a sense of Christ's Love—His Presence a Support under Trials—Contentedness with Him alone
113. To Mr. Robert Douglas.—Greatness of Christ's Love revealed to those who suffer for Him
114. To William Rigg of Athernie.—Sustaining Power of Christ's Love—Satan's Opposition—Yearnings for Christ Himself—Fears for the Church
115. To Mr. Alexander Henderson.—Sadness because of Christ's Headship not set forth—His Cause attended with Crosses—The Believer seen of all
116. To Lord Loudon.—Blessedness of Acting for Christ—His Love to His Prisoner
117. To Mr. William Dalgleish, Minister of Kirkdale and Kirkmabreck.—Christ's Kindness—Dependence on Providence—Controversies
118. To Mr. Hugh M'Kail, Minister at Irvine.—Christ's Bountiful Dealings—Joy in Christ through the Cross
119. To Mr. David Dickson.—Joyful Experience—Cup Overflowing in Exile
120. To Mr. Matthew Mowat, Minister at Kilmarnock.—Plenitude of Christ's Love—Need to use Grace aright—Christ the Ransomer—Desire to proclaim His Gospel—Shortcomings and Sufferings
121. To William Halliday.—Diligence in securing Salvation
122. To a Gentlewoman after the death of her Husband.—Vanity of Earthly Possessions—Christ a sufficient Portion—Design of Affliction
123. To John Gordon of Cardoness, Younger.—Reasons for being earnest about the Soul, and for Resignation
124. To John Gordon of Cardoness, Elder.—Call to Earnestness about Salvation—Intrusion of Ministers
125. To Lady Forret.—Sickness a Kindness—Christ's Glooms better than the World's Joys
126. To Marion M'Naught.—Adherence to Duty amidst Opposition—Power of Christ's Love
127. To John Carsen.—Nothing worth the Finding but Christ
128. To the Earl of Cassillis.—Honour of testifying for Christ
129. To Mr. Robert Gordon, Bailie of Ayr.—Christ above All
130. To John Kennedy, Bailie of Ayr.—Christ's Love—The Three Wonders—Desires for His Second Coming
131. To Jean Brown.—His Wisdom in our Trials—Rejoicing in Tribulation
132. To Jean Macmillan.—Strive to enter In
133. To Lady Busbie.—Complete Surrender to Christ—No Idols—Trials discover Sins—A Free Salvation—The Marriage Supper
134. To John Ewart, Bailie of Kirkcudbright.—The Cross no Burden—Need of Sure Foundation
135. To William Fullerton, Provost of Kirkcudbright.—Fear not them who kill the Body—Unexpected Favour
136. To Robert Glendinning, Minister of Kirkcudbright.—Prepare to meet thy God—Christ his Joy
137. To William Glendinning.—Perseverance against Opposition
138. To Mr. Hugh Henderson, Minister of the Gospel.—Trials selected by God—Patience—Looking for the Judge
139. To Lord Balmerinoch.—His happy Obligations to Christ—Emptiness of the World
140. To Lady Mar, Younger.—No Exchange for Christ
141. To James Macadam.—The Kingdom taken by Force
142. To William Livingstone.—Counsel to a Youth
143. To William Gordon of Whitepark.—Nothing lost by Trials—Longing for Christ Himself, because of His Love
144. To Mr. George Gillespie, Minister of Kirkcaldy.—Suspicions of Christ's Love Removed—Three Desires
145. To Jean Gordon.—God the Satisfying Portion—Adherence to Christ
146. To Mr. James Bruce, Minister of the Gospel.—Misjudging of Christ's Ways
147. To John Gordon, at Rusco.—Pressing into Heaven—To be a Christian no Easy Attainment—Sins to be Avoided
148. To Lady Hallhill.—Christ's Crosses better than Egypt's Treasures
149. To John Osburn, Provost of Ayr.—Adherence to Christ—His Approbation worth all Worlds
150. To John Henderson, in Rusco.—Continuing in Christ—Preparedness for Death
151. To John Meine, Senior.—Enjoyment of God's Love—Need of Help—Burdens
152. To Mr. Thomas Garven.—A Prisoner's Joys—Love of Christ—The Good Part—Heaven in Sight
153. To Bethaia Aird.—Unbelief under Trials—Christ's Sympathy
154. To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.—Prospective Trials
155. To Grizzel Fullerton, daughter of Marion M'Naught,—The One Thing Needful—Christ's Love
156. To Patrick Carsen.—Early Devotedness to Christ
157. To the Laird of Carleton.—Increasing Sense of Christ's Love—Resignation—Deadness to Earth—Temptations—Infirmities
158. To Lady Busbie.—Christ all Worthy—Best at our Lowest—Sinfulness of the Land—Prayers
159. To John Fleming, Bailie of Leith.—Directions for Christian Conduct
160. To Alexander Gordon of Earlston.—Hungering after Christ Himself rather than His Love
161. To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr.—Commercial Misfortunes—Service-Book—Blessedness of Trials
162. To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr.—The Burden of a Silenced Minister—Spiritual Shortcomings
163. To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr.—View of Trials past—Hard Thoughts of Christ—Crosses—Hope
164. To Ninian Mure, one of the family of Cassincarrie.—A Youth Admonished
165. To Mr. Thomas Garven.—Personal Insufficiency—Grace from Christ alone—Longings after Him
166. To Cardoness, the Elder.—A Good Conscience—Christ kind to Sufferers—Responsibility—Youth
167. To Lady Boyd.—Lessons learned in the School of Adversity
168. To Mr. David Dickson.—Christ's Infinite Fulness
169. To the Laird of Carleton.—God's Working Incomprehensible—Longing after any Drop of Christ's Fulness
170. To Robert Gordon of Knockbreck.—Longing for Christ's Glory—Felt guiltiness—Longing for Christ's Love—Sanctification
171. To the Laird of Moncrieff.—Concert in Prayer—Stedfastness to Christ—Grief misrepresents Christ's Glory
172. To John Clark.—Marks of Difference betwixt Christians and Reprobates
173. To Cardoness, the Younger.—Warning and Advice as to Things of Salvation
174. To Lord Craighall.—Idolatry Condemned
175. To John Laurie.—Christ's Love—A Right Estimate of Him—His Grace
176. To the Laird of Carleton.—A Christian's Confession of Unworthiness—Desire for Christ's Honour—Present Circumstances
177. To Marion M'Naught.—Christ Suffering in His Church—His Coming—Outpourings of Love from Him
178. To Lady Culross.—Christ's Management of Trials—What Faith can do—Christ not Experience—Prayers
179. To Mr. John Nevay.—Christ's Love Sharpened in Suffering—Kneeling at the Communion—Posture at Ordinances
180. To John Gordon of Cardoness, the Elder.—Longings for those under his former Ministry—Delight in Christ and His Appearing—Pleading with his Flock
181. To Earlston, the Younger.—Dangers of Youth—Christ the best Physician—Four Remedies against Doubting—Breathing after Christ's Honour
182. To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.—Joy in God—Trials work out Glory to Christ
183. To Mr. J—— R——.—Christ the Purifier of His Church—Submission to His Ways
184. To Mr. William Dalgleish, Minister of the Gospel.—The Fragrance of the Ministry—A Review of his Past and Present Situation, and of his Prospects
185. To Marion M'Naught.—Longing to be Restored to his Charge
186. To Robert Stuart.—Christ chooses His own in the Furnace—Need of a Deep Work—The God-Man, a World's Wonder
187. To Lady Gaitgirth.—Christ Unchangeable, though not always Enjoyed—His Love never yet fully poured out—Himself His People's Cautioner
188. To Mr. John Fergushill of Ochiltree.—Desponding Views of his own State—Ministerial Diligence—Christ's Worth—Self-seeking
189. To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr.—Hope for Scotland—Self-submission—Christ Himself sought for by Faith—Stability of Salvation—His Ways
190. To the Laird of Carsluth.—Necessity of making sure of Salvation—Vanity of the World—Nothing worth having but Christ—Flight of Time
191. To the Laird of Cassincarrie.—Earnestness about Salvation—Christ Himself sought
192. To Lady Cardoness.—Grace—The Name of Christ to be Exalted—Everything but God fails us
193. To Sibylla Macadam.—Christ's Beauty and Excellence
194. To Mr. Hugh Henderson, Minister of Dalry.—The Ways of Providence—Believing Patience
195. To Lady Largirie.—Christ the Exclusive Object of Love—Preparation for Death
196. To Earlston, the Younger.—Sufferings—Hope of Final Deliverance—The Believer in Safe Keeping—The Recompense Marred by Temptations
197. To Mr. William Dalgleish, Minister of the Gospel.—Thoughts as to God's Arrangements—Winning Souls to be Supremely Desired—Longings for Christ
198. To the Laird of Cally.—Spiritual Sloth—Danger of Compromise—Self, the Root of all Sin—Self-renunciation
199. To John Gordon of Cardoness, the Younger.—Dangers of Youth—Early Decision
200. To Robert Gordon, Bailie of Ayr.—The Misery of mere Worldly Hope—Earnestness about Salvation
201. To Alexander Gordon of Earlston.—Christ's Kingdom to be Exalted over all; and more Pains to be taken to Win farther into Him
202. To the Laird of Cally.—Youth a Precious Season—Christ's Beauty
203. To William Gordon, at Kenmure.—Testimony to Christ's Worth—Marks of Grace in Conviction of Sin and Spiritual Conflict
204. To Margaret Fullerton.—Christ, not Creatures, worthy of all Love—Love not to be measured by Feeling
205. To Lady Kenmure.—Difficulties in the way to the Kingdom—Christ's Love
206. To Lady Kenmure.—The Use of Sufferings—Fears under them—Desire that Christ be Glorified
207. To John Henderson of Rusco.—Practical Hints
208. To Alexander Colville of Blair.—Regrets for not being able to Preach—Longings for Christ
209. To Mr. John Nevay.—Christ's Surpassing Excellency—His Cause in Scotland
210. To Lady Boyd.—His Soul Fainting for Christ's Matchless Beauty—Prayer for a Revival
211. To a Christian Gentlewoman.—God's Skill to bless by Affliction—Unkindness of Men—Near the Day of Meeting the Lord
212. To William Glendinning.—Search into Christ's Loveliness—What he would Suffer to see it—His Coming to Deliver
213. To Robert Lennox of Disdove.—Men's Folly in Undervaluing Christ—It is He that satisfieth—Admiration of Him
214. To Mr. James Hamilton, Minister of the Gospel.—Suffering for Christ's Headship—How Christ visited him in Preaching
215. To Mistress Stuart.—Personal Unworthiness—Longing after Holiness—Winnowing Time
216. To Mr. Hugh M'Kail, Minister of Irvine.—Advantages of our Wants and Distempers—Christ Unspeakable
217. To Alexander Gordon of Garloch.—Free Grace finding its Materials in us
218. To John Bell, Elder.—Danger of Trusting to a Name to Live—Conversion no Superficial Work—Exhortation to Make Sure
219. To Mr. John Row, Minister of the Gospel.—Christ's Crosses better than the World's Joys—Christ Extolled
220. To Lord Craighall.—Duty of being disentangled from Christ-dishonouring Compliances
221. To Marion M'Naught.—Her Prayers for Scotland not Forgotten
222. To Lady Culross.—Christ's Way of Showing Himself the Best—What Fits for Him—Yearning after Him insatiably—Domestic Matters
223. To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.—State of the Church—Believers purified by Affliction—Folly of seeking Joy in a Doomed World
224. To Fulwood, the Younger.—Vanity of the World in the light of Death and Christ—The Present Truth—Christ's Coming
225. To his Parishioners.—Protestation of Care for their Souls, and for the Glory of God—Delight in his Ministry, and in his Lord—Efforts for their Souls—Warnings against Errors of the Day—Awful Words to the Backslider—Intense Admiration of Christ—A Loud Call to All
226. To Lady Kilconquhar.—The Interests of the Soul and Urgent—Folly of the World—Christ altogether Lovely—His Pen fails to set forth Christ's Unspeakable Beauty
227. To Lord Craighall.—Standing for Christ—Danger from Fear, or Promises of Men—Christ's Requitals—Sin against the Holy Ghost
228. To Mr. James Fleming, Minister of the Gospel.—Glory Gained to Christ—Spiritual Deadness—Help to Praise Him—The Ministry
229. To Mr. Hugh M'Kail, Minister of Irvine.—The Law—This World under Christ's Control for the Believer
230. To Lady Kenmure.—Believer Safe though Tried—Delight in Christ's Truth
231. To Lord Lindsay of Byres.—The Church's Desolations—The End of the World, and Christ's Coming—His Attractiveness
232. To Lord Boyd.—Seeking Christ in Youth—Its Temptations—Christ's Excellence—The Church's Cause concerns the Nobles
233. To Fulk Ellis.—Friends in Ireland—Difficulties in Providence—Unfaithfulness to Light—Constant Need of Christ
234. To James Lindsay.—Desertions, their Use—Prayers of Reprobates, and how the Gospel affects their Responsibility
235. To Lord Craighall.—Fear God, not Man—Sign of Backsliding
236. To Mr. James Hamilton, Minister of the Gospel.—Christ's Glory not affected by His People's Weakness
237. To the Laird of Gaitgirth.—Truth worth Suffering for—Light Sown, but Evil in this World till Christ come
238. To Lady Gaitgirth.—Christ an Example in Bearing Crosses—The extent to which Children should be Loved—Why Saints Die
239. To Mr. Matthew Mowat, Minister of Kilmarnock.—What am I?—Longing to Act for Christ—Unbelief—Love in the Hiding of Christ's Face—Christ's Reproach
240. To Mr. John Meine, Jun.—Christ the Same—Youthful Sins—No Dispensing with Crosses
241. To John Fleming, Bailie of Leith.—Riches of Christ Fail Not—Salvation—Vanity of Created Comforts—Longing for more of Christ
242. To Lady Rowallan.—Jesus the Best Choice, and to be made sure of—The Cross and Jesus inseparable—Sorrows only Temporary
243. To Marion M'Naught.—His own Prospects—Hopes—Salutations
244. To Marian M'Naught.—Proceedings of Parliament—Private Matters—Her Daughter's Marriage
245. To Lady Boyd.—Imperfections—Yearnings after Christ—Christ's Supremacy not inconsistent with Civil Authority
246. To Mr. Thomas Garven.—Heaven's Happiness—Joy in the Cross
247. To Janet Kennedy.—The Heavenly Mansions—Earth a Shadow
248. To Margaret Reid.—Benefits of the Cross, if we are Christ's
249. To James Bautie.—Spiritual Difficulties Solved
250. To Lady Largirie.—Part with all for Christ—No Unmixed Joy here
251. To Lady Dungueich.—Jesus or the World—Scotland's Trials and Hopes
252. To Jonet Macculloch.—Cares to be cast on Christ—Christ a Steady Friend
253. To Mr. George Gillespie.—Christ the True Gain
254. To Mr. Robert Blair.—Personal Unworthiness—God's Grace—Prayer for Others
255. To Lady Carleton.—Submission to God's Will—Wonders in the Love of Christ—No debt to the World
256. To William Rigge of Athernie.—The Law—Grace—Chalking out Providences for ourselves—Prescribing to His Love
257. To Lady Craighall.—The Comforts of Christ's Cross—Desires for Christ
258. To Lord Loudon.—The Wisdom of adhering to Christ's Cause
259. To Mr. David Dickson.—Danger of Worldly Ease—Personal Occurrences
260. To Alexander Gordon of Earlston.—All Crosses Well Ordered—Providences
261. To Lady Kilconquhair.—The Kingdom to be taken by Violence
262. To Robert Lennox of Disdove.—Increasing Experience of Christ's Love—Salvation to be made sure
263. To Marion M'Naught.—Hope in Trial—Prayer and Watchfulness
264. To Thomas Corbet.—Godly Counsels—Following Christ
265. To Mr. George Dunbar, Minister of the Gospel.—Christ's Love in Affliction—The Saint's Support and Final Victory
266. To John Fleming, Bailie of Leith.—Comfort Abounding under Trials
267. To William Glendinning, Bailie of Kirkcudbright.—The Past and the Future—Present Happiness
268. To the Earl of Cassillis.—Anxiety for the Prosperity of Zion—Encouragement for the Nobles to Support it—The Vanity of this World, and the Folly and Misery of forsaking Christ—The One Way to Heaven
269. To his Parishioners at Anwoth.—Exhortation to abide in the Truth, in prospect of Christ's Coming—Scriptural Mode of Observing Ordinances such as the Sabbath, Family Prayer, and the Lord's Supper—Judgments Anticipated
270. To Lady Busbie.—His Experience of Christ's Love—State of the Land and Church—Christ not duly Esteemed—Desire after Him, and for a Revival
271. To Earlston, Younger.—Prosperity under the Cross—Need of Sincerity, and being founded on Christ
272. To John Gordon.—Christ all Worthy—This World a Clay Prison—Desire for a Revival of Christ's Cause
273. To William Rigge of Athernie.—Comfort in Trials from the Knowledge of Christ's Power and Work—Corruption—Free Grace
274. To James Murray.—The Christian Life a Mystery to the World—Christ's Kindness
275. To Mr. John Fergushill.—Spiritual Longings under Christ's Cross—How to bear it—Christ Precious, and to be had without Money—The Church
276. To William Glendinning.—Sweetness of Trial—Swiftness of Time—Prevalence of Sin
277. To Lady Boyd.—Sense of Unworthiness—Obligation to Grace—Christ's Absence—State of the Land
278 To the Earl of Cassillis.—Ambition—Christ's Royal Prerogative—Prelacy
279. To Marion M'Naught.—A Spring-tide of Christ's Love
280. To John Gordon of Rusco.—Heaven hard to be won—Many come short in Attaining—Idol Sins to be renounced—Likeness to Christ
281. To Lord Loudoun.—True Honour in maintaining Christ's Cause—Prelacy—Light of Eternity
282. To Lady Robertland.—Afflictions purify—The World's Vanity—Christ's wise love
283. To Thomas Macculloch of Nether Ardwell.—Earnest Call to Diligence—Circumspect Walking
284. To the Professors of Christ and His Truth in Ireland.—The Way to Heaven ofttimes through Persecution—Christ's Worth—Making sure our Profession—Self-denial—No Compromise—Tests of Sincerity—His own Desire for Christ's Glory
285. To Robert Gordon of Knockbreck.—Not the Cross, but Christ the Object of Attraction—Too little expected from Him—Spiritual Deadness
286. To the Parishioners of Kilmalcolm.—Spiritual Sloth—Advice to Beginners—A Dead Ministry—Languor—Obedience—Want of Christ's Felt Presence—Assurance Important—Prayer-Meetings
287. To Lady Kenmure.—On the Death of her Child—Christ Shares His People's Sorrows
288. To the Persecuted Church in Ireland.—Christ's Legacy of Trouble—God's Dealings with Scotland in giving Prosperity—Christ takes Half of all Sufferings—Stedfastness for His Crown—His Love should lead to Holiness
289. To Dr. Alexander Leighton.—Public Blessings alleviate Private Sufferings—Trials Light when viewed in the Light of Heaven—Christ worthy of Suffering for
290. To a Person unknown.—Anent Private Worship
291. To Henry Stuart, and Family, Prisoners of Christ at Dublin.—Faith's preparation for Trial—The World's Rage against Christ—The Immensity of His Glorious Beauty—Folly of Persecution—Victory Sure
292. To Mrs. Pont, Prisoner at Dublin.—Support under Trials—The Master's Reward
293. To Mr. James Wilson.—Advices to a Doubting Soul—Mistakes about his Interest in God's Love—Temptation—Perplexity about Prayer—Want of Feeling
294. To Lady Boyd.—Sins of the Land—Dwelling in Christ—Faith awake sees all well
295. To John Fenwick.—Christ the Fountain—Freeness of God's Love—Faith to be exercised under Frowns—Grace for Trials—Hope of Christ yet to be exalted on the Earth
296. To Peter Stirling.—Believers' Graces all from Christ—Aspiration after more Love to Him—His Reign Desired
297. To Lady Fingask.—Faith's Misgivings—Spiritual Darkness not Grace—Christ's Love Inimitable
298. To Mr. David Dickson, on the Death of his Son.—God's Sovereignty, and Discipline by Affliction
299. To 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
300. To Agnes Macmath, on the Death of a Child.—Reason for Resignation
301. To Mr. Matthew Mowat, Minister of Kilmarnock.—Worthiness of God's Love as manifested in Christ—Heaven with Christ
302. To Lady Kenmure, on her Husband's Death.—God's Method in Affliction—Future Glory
303. To Lady Boyd.—Sin of the Land—Read Prayers—Brownism
304. To James Murray's Wife.—Heaven a Reality—Stedfastness to be grounded on Christ
305. To Lady Kenmure—Sins of the Times—Practical Atheism
306. To Mr. Thomas Wylie, Minister of Borgue.—Sufficiency of Divine Grace—Call to England to assist at Westminster Assembly—Felt Unworthiness
307. To a Young Man in Anwoth.—Necessity of Godliness in its Power
308. To Lady Kenmure.—Westminster Assembly—Religious Sects
309. To Lady Boyd.—Proceedings of Westminster Assembly
310. To Mistress Taylor, on her Son's Death.—Suggestions for Comfort under Sorrow
311. To Barbara Hamilton.—On Death of her Son-in-Law—God's Purposes
312. To Mistress Hume, on her Husband's Death.—God's Voice in the Rod
313. To Lady Kenmure.—Christ's Designs in Sickness and Sorrow
314. To Barbara Hamilton, on her Son-in-Law slain in Battle.—God does all Things Well, and with Design
315. To a Christian Friend, on the Death of his Wife.—God the First Cause—The End of Affliction
316. To a Christian Brother, on the Death of his Daughter.—Consolation in her having gone before—Christ the Best Husband
317. To a Christian Gentlewoman.—Views of Death and Heaven—Aspirations
318. To Lady Kenmure.—Christ never in our Debt—Riches of Christ—Excellence of the Heavenly State
319. To Mr. James Guthrie.—Prospects for Scotland—His own Darkness—Christ's Ability
320. To Lady Kenmure.—Trials cannot Injure Saints—Blessedness in Seeing Christ
321. To Lady Ardross, in Fife, on her Mother's Death.—Happiness of Heaven, and Blessedness of Dying in the Lord
322. To M. O.—Gloomy Prospects for the Backsliding Church—The Misunderstandings of Believers cause of great grief—The Day of Christ
323. To Earlston the Elder.—Christ's Way of Afflicting the Best—Obligation to Free Grace—Enduring the Cross
324. To Mr. George Gillespie.—Prospect of Death—Christ the true support in Death
325. To Sir James Stewart, Lord Provost of Edinburgh.—Declining Chair in Edinburgh
326. To Mistress Gillespie, Widow of George Gillespie.—On the Death of a Child—God Afflicts in order to save us from the World
327. To the Earl of Balcarras.—Regarding some Misunderstanding
328. To Colonel Gilbert Ker.—Singleness of Aim—Judgment in regard to Adversaries
329. To Colonel Gilbert Ker.—Courage in Days of Rebuke—God's Arrangements all Wise
330. To William Guthrie.—Depression under Dark Trials—Dangers of Compliance
331. To Colonel Gilbert Ker.—Courage in the Lord's Cause—Duty in regard to Providence to be observed—Safety in this
332. To Colonel Gilbert Ker.—Christ's Cause deserves Service and Suffering from us
333. To Colonel Gilbert Ker, when taken Prisoner.—Comforting Thoughts to the Afflicted—Darkness of the Times—Fellowship in Christ's Sufferings—Satisfaction with His Providences
334. To Colonel Gilbert Ker.—Comfort under the Cloud hanging over Scotland—Dissuasion from Leaving Scotland
335. To Lady Kenmure.—Difference between what is Man's and Christ's, and between Christ Himself and His Blessings
336. To Lady Ralston, Ursula Mure.—Duty of Preferring to Live rather than Die—Want of Union in the judgments of the Godly
337. To a Minister of Glasgow.—Encouraging Words to a Suffering Brother—Why men shrink from Christ's Testimony
338. To Lady Kenmure.—A Word to Cheer in Times of Darkness
339. To Grizzel Fullerton.—Exhortation to Follow Christ fully when others are cold
340. To Mr. Thomas Wylie.—Regarding a Letter of Explanation
341. To Lady Kenmure.—Present Need helped by past Experience
342. To Colonel Gilbert Ker.—Deadness—Hopes of Refreshment—Distance from God—Nearness Delighted in
343. To Colonel Gilbert Ker.—The State of the Land
344. To Mr. John Scot, at Oxnam.—Excuse for Absence from Duty
345. To Lady Kenmure.—Thoughts for a Time of Sickness about the Life to Come
346. To Simeon Ashe.—Views of the Presbyterians as to Allegiance to the Protector
347. To Lady Kenmure.—Unkindness of the Creature—God's Sovereignty in permitting His Children to be Injured by Men
348. To Lady Kenmure.—God's Dealings with the Land
349. To Mr. John Scot, at Oxnam.—Protesters' Toleration
350. To Mr. John Scot, at Oxnam.—Gloomy Times—Means of promoting Godliness
351. To Mr. James Durham, Minister of Glasgow, some few days before his Death.—Man's Ways not God's Ways
352. To Mr. John Scot, at Oxnam.—Adherence to the Testimony against Toleration
353. To Lady Kenmure.—Trials—Deadness of the Spirit—Danger of False Security
354. To Lady Kenmure.—Prevailing Declension, Decay, and Indifference to God's Dealings—Things Future
355. To the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright.—Union—Humiliation—Choice of a Professor
356. To Mr. John Murray, Minister at Methven.—A Synod Proposal for Union—Brethren under Censure
357. To Mr. Guthrie, Mr. Trail, and the rest of their Brethren imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh.—On Suffering for Christ—God's Presence ever with His People—Firmness and Constancy
358. To Several Brethren.—Reasons for Petitioning his Majesty after his return, and for owning such as were censured while about so necessary a Duty
359. To a Brother Minister.—Judgment of a Draught of a Petition, to have been presented to the Committee of Estates
360. To Lady Kenmure, on the Imprisonment of her Brother, the Marquis of Argyle.—God's Judgments—Calls to Flee to Him—The Results of timid Compliance
361. To Mistress Craig, upon the Death of her hopeful Son.—Nine Reasons for Resignation
362. To Mr. James Guthrie, Minister of the Gospel at Stirling.—Stedfast though Persecuted—Blessedness of Martyrdom
363. To Mr. Robert Campbell.—Stedfastness to Protest against Prelacy and Popery
364. To Believers at Aberdeen.—Sinful Conformity and Schismatic Designs reproved
365. To Mr. John Murray, Minister at Methven.—Proposal of a Season of Prayer

PREFACE

MOST justly does the old Preface to the earlier Editions begin by telling the Reader that "These Letters have no need of any man's epistle commendatory, the great Master having given them one, written by His own hand on the hearts of all who favour the things of God." Every one who knows these "Letters" at all, is aware of their most peculiar characteristic, namely, the discovery they present of the marvellous intercourse carried on between the writer's soul and his God.

This Edition will be found to be the most complete that has hitherto appeared. It is the same as that of 1863, in two vols., with two slight alterations, viz. the footnotes are for the most part removed to the Glossary, and a few of the notices are condensed, but nothing omitted of any importance. On the other hand, one or two slight additions have been made. Attending carefully to the chronological arrangement, the Editor has sought, by biographical, topographical, and historical notices, to put the Reader in possession of all that was needed to enable him to enter into the circumstances in which each Letter was written, so far as that could be done. The appended Glossary of Scottish words and expressions (many of them in reality old English), the Index of Places and Persons, the Index of Special Subjects, and the prefixed Contents of Each Letter, will, it is confidently believed, be found both interesting and useful. The Sketch of Rutherford's Life may be thought too brief; but the limits within which such a Sketch must necessarily be confined, when occupying the place of a mere Introduction, rendered brevity inevitable.

Every Letter hitherto published is to be found in this Edition. The ten additional Letters of the Edition 1848, along with two more, added since that time, are all inserted in their chronological place. The publishers have taken great pains with the typography.

SKETCH OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD

"WHEREVER the palm-tree is, there is water," says the Eastern proverb; and so, wherever the godly flourish, there, we are sure, must the Word of God be found. In the history of the Reformation we read of Brother Martin, a poor monk at Basle, whose hope of salvation rested solely on the Lord Jesus, long before Luther sounded the silver trumpet that summoned sin-convinced souls to the One Sacrifice. Having written out his confession of faith, his statement of reliance on the righteousness of Christ alone, the monk placed the parchment in a wooden box, and shut up the wooden box in a hole of the wall of his cell. It was not till last century that this box, with its interesting contents, was discovered: it was brought to light only when the old wall of the monastery was taken down. The palm-tree speaks of the existence of water at its root; the pure Word of God taught this man his simple faith. And herein we learn how it was that Basle so early became a peculiar centre of light in that region; the prayer and the faith of that hidden one, and others like-minded, and the Word on which they fed, may explain it all.

There is a fact not unlike the above in the history of the district where Samuel Rutherford laboured so lovingly. The people of that shire tell that there was found, some generations ago, in the wall of the old castle of Earlston, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, a copy of "Wickliffe's Bible." It was deposited in that receptacle in order to be hid from the view of enemies; but from time to time it was the lamp of light to a few souls, who, perhaps in the silence of night, found opportunity to draw it out of its ark, and peruse its pages. It seems that the Lollards of Kyle (the adjoining district) had brought it to Earlston. We know that there were friends and members of the family of Earlston who embraced the Gospel even in those days. In the sixteenth century, some of the ancestors of Viscount Kenmure are found holding the doctrines of Wickliffe, which had been handed down to them. May we not believe that the Gordons of Earlston, in after days, were not a little indebted to the faith and prayers of these ancient witnesses who hid the sacred treasure in the castle wall? As in the case of the monk of Basle, their faith and patience were acknowledged in after days by the blessing sent down on that quarter, when the Lord, in remembrance of His hidden ones, both raised up the Gordons of Earlston, with many others of a like spirit, and also sent thither His servant Samuel Rutherford, to sound forth the Word of Life, and make the lamp of truth blaze, like a torch, over all that region.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD was born about the year 1600. His father is understood to have been a respectable farmer. He had two brothers, James and George. But the place of his birth was not near the scene of his after labours. It is almost certain that Nisbet, a village of Roxburghshire close to the Teviot, in the parish of Crailing, was his birthplace; the name Rutherford frequently occurs in the churchyard. Not long ago, there were some old people in that parish who remembered the gable-end of the house in which it was said that he was born, and which, from respect to his memory, was permitted to stand as long as it could keep together. And there was there a village well where, when very young, Samuel nearly lost his life. He had been amusing himself with some companions, when he fell in, and was left there till they ran and procured assistance; but on returning to the spot they found him seated on a knoll, cold and dripping, yet uninjured. He told them that "A bonnie white man came and drew him out of the well!" Whether or not he really fancied that an angel had delivered him, we cannot tell; but it is plain that, at all events, his boyish thoughts were already wandering in the region of the sky.

He owed little to his native place. There was not so much of Christ known in that parish then as there is now; for in after days he writes, "My soul's desire is, that the place to which I owe my first birth—in which, I fear, Christ was scarcely named, as touching any reality of the power of godliness—may blossom as the rose" (Letter cccxxxiv.). We have no account of his revisiting these scenes of his early life, though he thus wrote to his friend, Mr Scott, minister of the adjoining parish of Oxnam. Like Donald Cargill, born in Perthshire yet never known to preach there even once, Rutherford had his labours in other parts of the land, distant from his native place. In this arrangement we see the Master's sovereignty. The sphere is evidently one of God's choosing for the man, instead of being the result of the man's gratifying his natural predilections. It accords, too, with the example of the Master, who never returned to Bethlehem, where He was born, to do any of His works.

Jedburgh is a town three or four miles distant from Nisbet, and thither Samuel went for his education; either walking to it, and returning home at evening,—as a school-boy would scarcely grudge to do,—or residing in the town for a season. The school at that time met in a part of the ancient Abbey, called, from this circumstance, the Latiners' Alley. In the year 1617 we find him farther from home,—removed to Edinburgh, which, forty years before, had become the seat of a College, though not as yet a University. There he obtained, in 1621, the degree of Master of Arts. A single specimen (not elegant, however) of his Latin verse remains in the lines he prefixed to an edition of Row's "Hebrew Grammar," published at Glasgow, 1644—

Verba Sionææ gentis, submersa tenebris

Cimmeriis, mendax Kimchius ore crepat.

Quæ vos Rabbini sinuosa ænigmata vultis,

Nunc facilem linguam dicite quæso sacram.

Falleris, Hippocrates; male parcæ stamina vitæ

Curta vocas, artem vociferare μακραν;

Sit cita mors, rapido sit et hora fugacior Euro,

Bellerophontœis vita volato rotis:

Rouæi Hebracis sit mors male grata Camoenis.

Haec relege, ast artem dixeris esse brevem.

Soon after, he was appointed Regent, or Professor, of Humanity, though there were three other competitors; for his talents had attracted the notice of many. But, on occasion of a rumour that charged him with some irregularity—whether with or without foundation, it is now difficult to ascertain—he demitted his office in 1625, and led a private life, attending prelections on theology, and devoting himself to that study.

That there could not have been anything very serious in the rumour, may be inferred from the fact that no church court took any notice of the matter, though these were days when the reins of discipline were not held with a slack hand. But it is not unlikely that this may have been the time of which he says in a letter, "I knew a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh or sport." It may have been then that he was led by the Spirit to know the things that are freely given us of God.2 We have no proof that he was converted at an earlier period, but rather the opposite. He writes, "Like a fool as I was, I suffered my sun to be high in the heaven, and near afternoon, before ever I took the gate by the end." And again, "I had stood sure, if in my youth I had borrowed Christ for my bottom."4 The clouds returned after the rain; family trials, and other similar dealings of Providence, combined to form his character as a man of God and as a pastor.

In 1627 he was settled at Anwoth, a parish situated in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, on the River Fleet, near the Solway. The church stood in a wide hollow, or valley, at the foot of the Boreland Hill. Embosomed in wood, with neither the smoke nor the noise of a village near, it must always have been a romantic spot—the very ideal of a country church, set down to cherish rural godliness. Though at this period Episcopacy had been obtruded upon Scotland, and many faithful ministers were suffering on account of their resistance to its ceremonies and services, yet he appears to have been allowed to enter on his charge without any compliance being demanded, and "without giving any engagement to the bishop." He began his ministry with the text, John 9:39. The same Lord that would not let Paul and Timothy preach in Asia, nor in Bithynia, and yet sent to the one region the beloved John,7 and to the other the scarcely less beloved Peter, in this instance prevented John Livingstone going to Anwoth, which the patron had designed, and sent Rutherford instead. This was the more remarkable, because Livingstone was sent to Ancrum, the parish that borders on Nisbet, while he who was by birth related to that place was despatched to another spot. This is the Lord's doing. Ministers must not choose according to the flesh.

During the first years of his labours here, the sore illness of his wife was a bitter grief to him. Her distress was very severe. He writes of it: "She is sore tormented night and day.—My life is bitter unto me.—She sleeps none, and cries as a woman travailing in birth; my life was never so wearisome." She continued in this state for no less than a year and a month, ere she died. Besides all this, his two children had been taken from him. Such was the discipline by which he was trained for the duties of a pastor, and by which a shepherd's heart of true sympathy was imparted to him.

The parish of Anwoth had no large village near the church. The people were scattered over a hilly district, and were quite a rural flock. But their shepherd knew that the Chief Shepherd counted them worth caring for; he was not one who thought that his learning and talents would be ill spent if laid out in seeking to save souls, obscure and unknown. See him setting out to visit! He has just laid aside one of his learned folios, to go forth among his flock. See him passing along yonder field, and climbing that hill on his way to some cottage, his "quick eyes" occasionally glancing on the objects around, but his "face upward" for the most part, as if he were gazing into heaven. He has time to visit, for he rises at three in the morning, and at that early hour meets his God in prayer and meditation, and has space for study besides. He takes occasional days for catechising. He never fails to be found at the sick-beds of his people. Men said of him, "He is always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying." He was known to fall asleep at night talking of Christ, and even to speak of Him during his sleep. Indeed, himself speaks of his dreams being of Christ.

His preaching could not but arrest attention. Though his elocution was not good, and his voice rather shrill, he was, nevertheless, "one of the most moving and affectionate preachers in his time, or perhaps in any age of the church." "In the pulpit (says one of his friends), he had a strange utterance—a kind of skreigh, that I never heard the like. Many times I thought he would have flown out of the pulpit when he came to speak of Jesus Christ." An English merchant said of him, even in days when controversy had sorely vexed him and distracted his spirit, "I came to Irvine, and heard a well-favoured, proper old man (David Dickson), with a long beard, and that man showed me all my heart. Then I went to St. Andrews, where I heard a sweet, majestic-looking man (R. Blair), and he showed me the majesty of God. After him I heard a little, fair man (Rutherford), and he showed me the loveliness of Christ."

Anwoth was dear to him rather as the sphere appointed him by his Master, than because of the fruit he saw of his labours. Two years after being settled there, he writes, "I see exceedingly small fruit of my ministry. I would be glad of one soul, to be a crown of joy and rejoicing in the day of Christ." His people were "like hot iron, which cooleth when out of the fire." In a sermon on Song 2:8, he complains of it being spiritually winter in Anwoth. "The very repairing of God's house, in our own parish church, is a proof. Ye need not go any farther. The timber of the house of God rots, and we cannot move a whole parish to spend twenty or thirty pounds Scots upon the house of God, to keep it dry." Still he laboured in hope, and laboured often almost beyond his strength. Once he says, "I have a grieved heart daily in my calling." He speaks of his pained breast, at another time, on the evening of the Lord's day, when his work was done. But he had seasons of refreshing to his own soul at least; especially when the Lord's Supper was dispensed. Of these seasons he frequently speaks. He asks his friend, Marion M'Naught, to help with her prayers on such an occasion, "that being one of the days wherein Christ was wont to make merry with His friends."3 It was then that with special earnestness he besought the Father to distribute "the great Loaf, Christ, to the children of His family."

Another church was filled, but not altogether by parishioners. Many came from great distances; among others, several that were converted, seventeen years before, under John Welsh, at Ayr. These all helped him by their prayers, as did also a goodly number of godly people in the parish itself, who were the fruit of the ministry of his predecessor. Yet over the unsaved he yearned most tenderly. At one time we hear him say, "I would lay my dearest joys in the gap between you and eternal destruction." At another, "My witness is in heaven, your heaven, would be two heavens to me, and your salvation two salvations." He could appeal to his people, "My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts are of you;" and he could appeal to God, "O my Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me; but not so dear by many degrees as Christ my Lord."2

All classes of people of Anwoth were objects of his care. He maintained a friendly intercourse with people of high rank, and very many of his Letters are addressed to such persons. He seems to have been remarkably blessed to the gentry in the neighbourhood—more far than to the common people. There was at that time some friend of Christ to be found in almost every gentleman's seat many miles around Anwoth.

OLD CHURCH OF ANWOTH.

But the herd boys were not beneath his special attention. He writes of them when at Aberdeen, and exclaims, "O if I might but speak to thee, or your herd boys, of my worthy Master." He had a heart for the young of all classes, so that he would say of two children of one of his friends, "I pray for them by name;" and could thus take time to notice one, "Your daughter desires a Bible and a gown. I hope she shall use the Bible well, which, if she do, the gown is the better bestowed." He lamented over the few that cry "Hosanna" in their youth. "Christ is an unknown Christ to young ones; and therefore they seek Him not, because they know Him not."

He dealt with individual parishioners so closely and so personally as to be able to appeal to them regarding his faithfulness in this matter. He addresses one of them, Jean M'Millan: "I did what I could to put you within grips of Christ; I told you Christ's testament and latter-will plainly." He so carried them on his heart (like the priest with the twelve tribes on his breastplate), that he could declare to Gordon of Cardoness, "Thoughts of your soul depart not from me in my sleep."2 "My soul was taken up when others were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a bride in that part of the land," viz. Anwoth. He so prayed over them and for them, that he fears not to say, "There I wrestled with the angel and prevailed. Woods, trees, meadows, and hills, are my witnesses that I drew on a fair match betwixt Christ and Anwoth." It is related that, on first coming to the parish, there was a piece of ground on Mossrobin farm, in the hollow of a hill, where on Sabbath afternoon the people used to play at foot-ball. On one occasion he repaired to that spot, and pointed out their sin, solemnly calling on the objects round to be witnesses against them, especially three large stones5 close at hand on the slope of the hill, two of which still remain, and are called "Rutherford's Witnesses." The third was wantonly dislodged some years ago; and it is said that the other two were removed to the other side of the stone dyke, where they are now, for the sake of security. This is the spot which is especially taken notice of by Dr. Chalmers, in recording a visit to Anwoth and its neighbourhood (Life, vol. iii. 130):—

"Wednesday, August 23, 1826.—Started at five o'clock; ordered the gig forward on the public road to meet us after a scramble of about two miles among the hills, in the line of 'Rutherford's Memorials.' Went first to his church; the identical fabric he preached in, and which is still preached in. The floor is a causeway. There are dates of 1628 and 1633 on some old carved seats. The pulpit is the same, and I sat in it. It is smaller than Kilmany, and very rude and simple. The church bell is said to have been given him by Lady Kenmure, one of his correspondents in his Letters. It is singularly small for a church, having been the Kenmure house bell. We then passed to the new church that is building; but I am happy to say the old fabric and Rutherford's pulpit are to be spared. It is a cruel circumstance that they pulled down (and that only three weeks ago) his dwelling-house, his old manse; which has not been used as a manse for a long time, but was recently occupied. It should have been spared. Some of the masons who were ordered to pull it down refused it, as they would an act of sacrilege, and have been dismissed from their employment. We went and mourned over the rubbish of the foundation. Then ascended a bank, still known by the name of Rutherford's Walk. Then went further among the hills, to Rutherford's Witnesses,—so many stones which he called to witness against some of his parishioners who were amusing themselves at the place with some game on the Sunday, and whom he meant to reprove. The whole scene of our morning's walk was wild, and primitive, and interesting."

Once, while in Anwoth, his labours were interrupted (Letter xii.) by a tertian fever which laid him aside for thirteen weeks. Even when well recovered he could for a long time only preach on the Sabbath: visiting and catechising were at a stand. This was just before his wife's death in 1630, and he writes in the midst of it, "Welcome, welcome, cross of Christ, if Christ be with it." "An afflicted life looks very like the way that leads to the kingdom." And some years thereafter, when his mother (who came from Nisbet and resided with him six years after his first wife's death) was in a dangerous illness, he touchingly informs one of his correspondents, to whom he writes from Anwoth, "My mother is weak, and I think shall leave me alone; but I am not alone, because Christ's Father is with me."

And what was his recreation? The manse of Anwoth had many visits of kind friends, who, in Rutherford's fellowship, felt that saying verified, "They that dwell under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn." The righteous compassed him about, because the Lord had dealt bountifully with him. His Letters would be enough of themselves to show that his friendship and counsel were sought by the godly on all sides. One of his visitors was his own brother, George, at Kirkcudbright. This good man was a teacher in that town, who often repaired to Anwoth to take sweet counsel with Samuel; and then, together, they talked of and prayed for their only other brother James, an officer in the Dutch service, who had sympathy with their views, and, in after days, conveyed to Samuel the invitation to become Professor at Utrecht. Visits of those friends who resided near were not unfrequent—such as the Gordons, Viscount Kenmure and his lady, and Marion M'Naught. But at times Anwoth manse was lighted up by the glad visit of unexpected guests. There is a tradition that Archbishop Usher, passing through Galloway, turned aside on a Saturday to enjoy the congenial society of Rutherford. He came, however, in disguise; and being welcomed as a guest, took his place with the rest of the family when they were catechised, as was usual, that evening. The stranger was asked, "How many commandments are there?" His reply was "Eleven." The pastor corrected him; but the stranger maintained his position, quoting our Lord's words, "A NEW COMMANDMENT I give unto you, that ye love one another." They retired to rest, all interested in the stranger. Sabbath morning dawned. Rutherford arose and repaired, as was his custom, for meditation to a walk that bordered on a thicket, but was startled by hearing the voice of prayer—prayer too from the heart, and in behalf of the souls of the people that day to assemble. It was no other than the holy Archbishop Usher; and soon they came to an explanation, for Rutherford had begun to suspect he had "entertained angels unawares." With great mutual love they conversed together; and at the request of Rutherford, the Archbishop went up to the pulpit, conducted the usual service of the Presbyterian pastor, and preached on "the New Commandment."

BUSH O' BEILD—RUTHERFORD'S HOUSE.

Scarcely less interesting is the record of another unlooked-for meeting. Rutherford had one day left home to go to the neighbouring town of Kirkcudbright, the next day being a day of humiliation in that place. Having no doubt spent some time with his like-minded brother, he turned his steps to the house of another friend, Provost Fullerton, whose wife was Marion M'Naught. While sitting with them in friendly converse a knock at the door was heard, and then a step on the threshold. It was worthy Mr. Blair, who, on his way from London to Portpatrick, had sought out some of his godly friends, that with them he might be refreshed ere he returned to Ireland. He told them, when seated, that "he had a desire to visit both Mr. Rutherford at Anwoth, and Marion M'Naught at Kircudbright; but not knowing how to accomplish both, had prayed for direction at the parting of the road, and laid the bridle on the horse's neck. The horse took the way to Kirkcudbright, and there he found both the friends he so longed to see." It was a joyful and refreshing meeting on all sides. Wodrow tells another incident that, in part, bears some resemblance to this. Rutherford had been reasoning at Stirling with the Marquis of Argyle, and had set out homeward. But his horse was very troublesome, and he was feeling in his mind that he should have been more urgent and plain! He returned, and dealt freely this time. And now his horse went on pleasantly all the way.

In 1634 he attended the remarkable deathbed of Lord Kenmure, a narrative of which he published fifteen years after, in "The Last and Heavenly Speeches and Glorious Departure of John Viscount Kenmure." The inroads of Episcopacy were at this time threatening to disquiet Anwoth. His own domestic afflictions were still affecting him; for he writes that same year, in referring to his wife's death many years before, "which wound is not yet fully healed and cured." About that time, too, there was a proposal (never carried into effect) to call him to Cramond near Edinburgh, and another to get him settled at Kirkcudbright.

Meanwhile he persevered in study as well as in labours, and with no common success. He had a metaphysical turn, as well as great readiness in using the accumulated learning of other days. It might be instructive to inquire why it is that wherever godliness is healthy and progressive, we almost invariably find learning in the Church of Christ attendant on it: while on the other hand, neglect of study is attended sooner or later by decay of vital godliness. Not that all are learned in such times; but there is always an element of the kind in the circle of those whom the Lord is using. The energy called forth by the knowledge of God in the soul leads on to the study of whatever is likely to be useful in the defence or propagation of the truth; whereas, on the other hand, when decay is at work and lifelessness prevailing, sloth and ease creep in, and theological learning is slighted as uninteresting and dry. With Samuel Rutherford and his contemporaries we find learning side by side with vital, and singularly deep, godliness. Gillespie, Henderson, Blair, Dickson, and others, are well-known examples. Nor less distinguished was Rutherford, who was led by circumstances in 1636 to publish his elaborate defence of grace against the Arminians, in Latin. Its title is, "Exercitationes de Gratia." So highly was it esteemed at Amsterdam, where it was published, that a second edition was printed that very year; and repeated invitations were addressed soon after to the author to come to Holland, and occupy one or other of their Divinity chairs. Soon after, the contest for Christ's kingly office became increasingly earnest and keen. To Rutherford it appeared no small matter. "I could wish many pounds added to my cross to know that by my suffering Christ was set forward in His kingly office in this land." July 27, 1636, was a day that put his principles to the test. He was called before the High Commission Court, because of nonconformity to the acts of Episcopacy, and because of His work against the Arminians. The Court was presided over by Sydserff, Bishop of Galloway, and was held at Wigton, about ten miles from Anwoth, accross the Bay. He appeared in person there, and defended himself. The issue could not be doubtful, though Lord Lorn made every exertion in his behalf. He was deprived of his ministerial office, which he had exercised at Anwoth for a period of nine years, and banished to Aberdeen. The next day (writing at evening on the subject), he tells of his sentence, and calls it, "The honour that I have prayed for these sixteen years." He made up his mind to leave Anwoth at once, observing, with a submissiveness which we might wonder at in the author of "Lex Rex," "I propose to obey the king, who has power over my body." His only alarm was lest this separation from his flock might be a chastisement on him from the Lord, "because I have not been so faithful in the end as I was in the two first years of my ministry, when sleep departed from mine eyes through care for Christ's lambs."

On leaving Anwoth he directed his steps by Irvine, spending a night there with his beloved friend David Dickson. What a night that must have been! To hear these two in solemn converse! The one could not perhaps handle the harp so well as the other; for David Dickson could express his soul's weary longings and its consoling hopes in such strains as that which has made his name familiar in Scotland, "O mother dear Jerusalem;" but Rutherford, nevertheless, had so much of poetry and sublime enthusiasm in his soul, that any poet could sympathise with him to the full. Many of his letters "from Christ's palace in Aberdeen" are really strains of true poetry. What else is such an effusion as this, when, rising on eagles' wings, he exclaims, "A land that has more than four summers in the year! What a singing life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field, but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion, to the High Prince of that newfound land. And verily the land is sweeter that He is the glory of that land." "O how sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly in Christ; to dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and live in that sweetest air, where no wind bloweth but the breathings of the Holy Ghost, no sea nor floods flow but the pure water of life that floweth from under the throne and from the Lamb, no planting, but the tree of life that yieldeth twelve manner of fruits every month! What do we here but sin and suffer? O when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee away, and the morning of the long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn? The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' O when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say, 'Come?' "3 Whoever compares such breathings with David Dickson's hymn will see how congenial were their feelings and their hopes, and even their mode of expressing what they felt and hoped, though the one used prose and the other tried more memorable verse.

We follow Rutherford to Aberdeen, the capital of the North, whither he was accompanied by a deputation of his affectionate parishioners from Anwoth, in whose company he would forget the length and tediousness of the way. He arrived here in September 1636. This town was at that time the stronghold of Episcopacy and Arminianism, and in it the state of religion was very low. "It consisted of Papists, and men of Gallio's naughty faith." The clergy and doctors took the opportunity of Rutherford's arrival to commence a series of attacks on the special doctrines of grace which he held. But in disputation he foiled them; and when many began to feel drawn to him in consequence of his earnest dealings and private exhortations, there was a proposal made to remove him from the town. "So cold," writes he, "is northern love! But (added he) "Christ and I will bear it;" deeply feeling his union to Him who said to Saul, "Why persecutest thou Me?" Often, on the streets, he was pointed as "the banished minister;" and hearing of this, he remarked, "I am not ashamed of my garland." He had visitors from Orkney, and from Caithness, to the great annoyance of his persecutors. Some blamed him for not being "prudent enough," as we have seen men ready to do in similar cases in our own day; but he replies, "It is ordinary that that should be part of the cross of those who suffer for Him." Still he enjoyed, in his solitude, occasional intercourse with some of the godly ones, among whom were Lady Pitsligo, Lady Burnet of Largs, Andrew Cant, and James Martin. His deepest affliction was separation from his flock at Anwoth. Nothing can exceed his tender sorrow over this flock.

MARKET CROSS, ABERDEEN.

It was a saying of his own, "Gold may be gold, and bear the King's stamp upon it, when it is trampled upon by men." And this was true of himself. But he came out of his trial not only unscorched, but, as his many letters from Aberdeen show, greatly advanced in every grace. The Latin lines prefixed to the early editions of these Letters scarcely exaggerate when they sing—

"Quod Chebar et Patmos divinis vatibus olim;

Huic fuerant sancto claustra Abredæa viro."

But we err if we suppose that it was only while there that he experienced that almost ecstatic enjoyment of his Lord. He carried it away with him; for is not this the same strain as pervades his Letters, when, preaching in 1644, before the House of Commons in London, he exclaims, "O for eternity's leisure, to look on Him, to feast upon a sight of His face! O for the long summer day of endless ages to stand beside Him and enjoy Him! O time, O sin, be removed out of the way! O day! O fairest of days, dawn!"

He was, during part of two years, closely confined to that town, though not in prison; but in 1638 public events had taken another turn. The Lord had stirred up the spirit of the people of Scotland, and the covenant was again triumphant in the land. Rutherford hastened back to Anwoth. During his absence, "For six quarters of a year," say his parishioners, "no sound of the Word of God was heard in our kirk." The swallows had made their nests there undisturbed for two summers.

His Letters do not refer to the proceedings of the Glasgow Assembly of 1638. It is well known, however, that he was no mere indifferent spectator to what then took place, but was present, and was member of several committees which at that time sat on the affairs of the church. Presbytery being fully restored by that Assembly, it was thought right that one so gifted should be removed to a more important sphere. He was sent by the church to several districts to promote the cause of Reformation and the Covenant; and at length, in spite of his reluctance, arising chiefly from love to his flock—his rural flock at Anwoth—he was constrained to yield to the united opinion of his brethren, and be removed to the Professor's Chair in St. Andrews in 1639, and become Principal of the New College. He bargained to be allowed to preach regularly every Sabbath in his new sphere; for he could not endure silence when he might speak a word for his Lord. He seems to have preached also, as occasion offered, in the parishes around, especially at Scoonie, in which the village of Leven stands.

His hands were necessarily filled with work in his new sphere; yet still he relaxed nothing of his diligence in study. Nor did he lack anything of former blessing. It was here the English merchant heard him preach so affectingly on the loveliness of Christ; while such was his success as a Professor that "the University became a Lebanon out of which were taken cedars for building the house of God throughout the land."

In the year 1640, he married his second wife, Jean M'Math, "a woman," says one, "of such worth, that I never knew any among men exceed him, nor any among women exceed her. He who heard either of them pray or speak, might have learnt to bemoan his own ignorance. Oh how many times I have been convinced, by observing them, of the evil of unseriousness unto God, and unsavouriness in discourse." They had seven children; but only one survived the father, a little daughter, Agnes, who does not seem to have been a comfort to her godly mother.

In July 1643, the Westminster Assembly began their sittings; and to it he was sent up as one of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotland. A sketch of a "Shorter Catechism" exists in MS., in the library of the Edinburgh University, in Rutherford's handwriting, very much resembling the Catechism as it now stands, from which it has been inferred that he had the principal hand in drawing it up for the Assembly. He continued four years attending the sittings of this famous synod, and was of much use in their deliberations. So prominent a part did he take, that the great Milton has singled him out for attack in his lines, "On the new forcers of conscience, under the Long Parliament." Milton knew him only as an opponent of his sectarian and independent principles, and so could scorn measures proposed by "Mere A. S. and Rutherford." But had he known the soul of the man, would not even Milton have found a sublimity of thought and feeling in his adversary, that at times approached his own lofty poesy? How interesting, in any point of view, to find the devoted pastor of Anwoth, on the streets of London, crossing the path of England's greatest poet.

During his residence in London he was tried with many afflictions. Several of his family died; and his own health began to give way, so that he and his brother minister, Mr. G. Gillespie, visited Epsom to drink the waters. Yet such was the amazing spirit of the man, under a sense of duty, that amid the trials and bustle of that time he wrote, "The Due Right of Presbyteries," "Lex Rex," i.e. "The Law, The King," and "Trial and Triumph of Faith." Nor was he soured by controversy. In the preface to one of his controversial works, he discovers his large-hearted charity and manly impartiality in regard to what he saw in these parts. He writes: "I judge that in England the Lord hath many names, and a fair company, that shall stand at the side of Christ when He shall render up the kingdom to the Father; and that in that renowned nation there be men of all ranks, wise, valorous, generous, noble, heroic, faithful, religious, gracious learned."

Returning home to St. Andrews, he resumed his labours both in the college and in the pulpit with all his former zeal. In 1644, it appears from the old minutes of Lanark Presbytery, a vacancy having occurred, Rutherford was unanimously called to Lanark. He was inclined to go, but the Presbytery of St. Andrews refused to loose him. He had often preached at Lanark. He declined two invitations to the professorship in Holland; one from Harderwyck in 1648, the other from Utrecht in 1651; though the former offered the chair both of Divinity and of Hebrew. He joined the Protestors in determinedly opposing the proceedings of the Commission of Assembly, who had censured such as protested against the admission to power of persons in the class of malignants. His friend David Dickson keenly opposed him, and Mr. Blair also, though less violently. It was this controversy that made John Livingstone say, in a letter to Blair, "Your and Mr. D. Dickson's accession to these resolutions is the saddest thing I have seen in my time. My wife and I have had more bitterness in this respect, these several months, than ever we had since we knew what bitterness meant." Rutherford wrote too violently on this matter.2 Some say he was naturally hot and fiery; but at this time all parties were greatly excited. Still he did not lose his brotherly love—the same brotherly love that led him so fervently to embrace Archbishop Usher as a fellow-believer. We may get a lesson for our times from his remarks on occasion of these bitter controversies. "It is hard when saints rejoice in the sufferings of saints, and redeemed ones hurt, and go nigh to hate, redeemed ones. For contempt of the communion of saints, we have need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of before.—Our star-light hideth us from ourselves, and hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all." And then he subjoins (and is he not borne out by the words of the Lord in John 17:22?): "A doubt it is if we shall have fully one heart till we shall enjoy one heaven." The state of things lay heavy on his mind: "I am broken and wasted by the wrath that is upon this land."

It was in 1651 that he published his work "De Divinâ Providentiâ," a work in which he assailed Jesuits, Socinians, and Arminians. Richard Baxter (tinged as he was with the Arminian theology), in referring to this treatise, remarked (says Wodrow), that "His Letters were the best piece, and this work the worst, he had ever read." Of course, this was the language of controversy, for the book is one of great ability. It was this work, indeed, that drew forth several invitations from foreign Universities. The ten years that followed were times of much distraction, being the times of Cromwell and the Commonwealth, as well as of the Protesters and Resolutioners. In 1651 the Scottish nation resolved to crown Charles II., as lawful king, at Scone; and when the young king was at St. Andrews, in prospect of that event, he visited the colleges. It fell to Rutherford to deliver, on that occasion, an oration in Latin before His Majesty, on a subject which he could handle well, both as a patriot and a Christian, "The Duty of Kings."

Milton sings—

"God doth not need

Either man's work, or His own gifts; His state

Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait."

It is mentioned in "Lamont's Diary," 27th Sept. 1653, that at the Provincial Synod of Fyfe, which met at St. Andrews, Mr. Samuel Rutherford presented a paper to the Moderator, relating to the sins of the ministry, which was not accepted. Upon the refusal of it, some words passed between Rutherford and Mr. Robert Blair, the Moderator, anent the public business. At the close of that meeting, two English officers entered; upon which they were asked, "If they had come to sit and voice with them?" They said, "No; only to see that they ruled nothing in prejudice to the Commonwealth." The days were evil, and Rutherford was longing now for such quiet service. He sometimes refers to this desire; he wishes for a harbour in his latter days; only (adds he), "failing is serving"—and he did delight in serving his Lord to the last. His friend M'Ward, in an advertisement prefixed to the earlier editions of the Letters, bitterly laments the loss of a Commentary on Isaiah, on which "this true Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God,"2 employed his leisure time during the closing years of his life. "His heart travailed more," says he, "in birth of this piece than ever I knew him of any; neither was there ever anything he put his hand to that would have so powerfully persuaded this panter after the enjoyment of his Master's company, to have had his heaven and the immediate fruition of God suspended for a season, as the eager desire he had to finish this work before he finished his course." But all these papers were carried off, and never recovered. So true is it, that of the seed we sow, we "know not whether shall prosper, either this or that" (Eccles. 11:6).

When Charles II. was fully restored, and had begun to adopt arbitrary measures, Rutherford's work, "Lex Rex," was taken notice of by the Government; for, reasonable as are its principles in defence of the liberty of subjects, its spirit of freedom was intolerable to rulers, who were, step by step, advancing to acts of cruelty and death. Indeed, it was so hateful to them, that they burnt it, in 1661, first at Edinburgh, by the hands of the hangman; and then, some days after, by the hands of the infamous Sharpe, under the windows of its author's College in St. Andrews. He was next deposed from all his offices; and, last of all, was summoned to answer at next Parliament a charge of high treason. But the citation came too late. He was already on his deathbed, and on hearing of it, calmly remarked, that he had got another summons before a superior Judge and judicatory, and sent the message, "I behove to answer my first summons; and, ere your day arrive, I will be where few kings and great folks come."

We have no account of the nature of his last sickness, except that it was a lingering disease. He had a daughter who died a few weeks before himself. All that is told us of his deathbed is characteristic of the man. At one time he spoke much of "the white stone" and "the new name." When he was on the threshold of glory, ready to receive the immortal crown, he said, "Now my tabernacle is weak, and I would think it a more glorious way of going home to lay down my life for the cause, at the Cross of Edinburgh or St. Andrews; but I submit to my Master's will." Some days before his death, after a fainting fit, he said, "Now I feel, I believe, I enjoy, I rejoice." And turning to Mr. Blair, "I feed on manna: I have angels' food. My eyes shall see my Redeemer. I know that He shall stand on earth at the latter day, and I shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air." When asked, "What think ye now of Christ?" he replied, "I shall live and adore Him. Glory, glory to my Creator and Redeemer for ever. Glory shineth in Immanuel's land." The same afternoon he said, "I shall sleep in Christ; and when I awake, I shall be satisfied with His likeness. O for arms to embrace Him!" Then he cried aloud, "O for a well-tuned harp!" This last expression he used more than once, as if already stretching out his hand to get his golden harp, and join the redeemed in their new song. He also said on another occasion, "I hear Him saying to me, 'Come up hither.' " His little daughter Agnes (the only survivor of six children), eleven years of age, stood by his bedside; he looked on her, and said, "I have left her upon the Lord." Well might the man say so, who could so fully testify of his portion in the Lord, as a goodly heritage. To four of his brethren, who came to see him, he said, "My Lord and Master is chief of ten thousands of thousands. None is comparable to Him, in heaven or in earth. Dear brethren, do all for Him. Pray for Christ. Preach for Christ. Do all for Christ; beware of men-pleasing. The Chief Shepherd will shortly appear." He often called Christ "His Kingly King." While he spoke even rapturously, "I shall shine! I shall see Him as He is! I shall see Him reign, and all His fair company with Him, and I shall have my large share"—he at the same time would protest, "I renounce all that ever He made me will or do as defiled or imperfect as coming from myself. I betake myself to Christ for sanctification as well as justification." Repeating 1 Cor. 1:30, he said, "I close with it! Let Him be so. He is my all and all." "If He should slay me ten thousand times I will trust." He spoke as if he knew the hour of his departure; not perhaps as Paul (2 Tim. 4:6) or Peter (2 Peter 1:14), yet still in a manner that seems to indicate that the Lord draws very near His servants in that hour, and gives glimpses of what He is doing. On the last day of his life, in the afternoon, he said, "This night will close the door, and fasten my anchor within the veil, and I shall go away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning." And so it was. He entered Immanuel's land at that very hour, and is now (as himself would have said) "sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty," till the Lord come.

We may add his latest words. "There is nothing now between me and the Resurrection but 'This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.' " He interrupted one speaking in praise of his painfulness in the ministry, "I disclaim all. The port I would be in at is redemption and forgiveness of sin through His blood." Two of his biographers record that his last words were, "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land!" as if he had caught a glimpse of its mountain-tops.

It was at St. Andrews he died, on 30th March 1661, and there he was buried. "Lamont's Diary," p. 133, says: "He was interred on the 30th of March, in the ordinary burial place." Had he lived a few weeks his might have been the cruel death endured by his friend James Guthrie, whom he had encouraged, by his letters, in stedfastness to the end. The sentence which the Parliament passed, when told that he was dying, did him no dishonour. When they had voted that he should not die in the College, Lord Burleigh rose and said, "Ye cannot vote him out of heaven."

His death was lamented throughout the land; and to this day few names are so well known and honoured. So great was the reverence which some of the godly had for this man of God, that they requested to be buried where his body was laid. This was Thomas Halyburton's dying request. An old man in the parish of Crailing (in which Nisbet, his birthplace, is situated) remembers the veneration entertained for him by the great-grandfather of the present Marquis of Lothian. This good Marquis used to lift his hat, as often as he passed the spot where stood the cottage in which Samuel Rutherford was born. He was twice married. His widow survived him fourteen years.

RUINS OF ST. ANDREWS CATHEDRAL.

If ever there was any portrait of him, it is not now known. The portraits sometimes given of him are all imaginary. We are most familiar with the likeness of his soul. There is one expressive line in the epitaph on his tombstone, in the churchyard at the boundary wall opposite the door of St Regulus' Tower—

"What tongue, what pen, or skill of men,

Can famous Rutherford commend!

His learning justly raised his fame,

True godliness adorn'd his name.

He did converse with things above,

Acquainted with Immanuel's love."

A monument to his memory was erected in 1842, by subscription, on the Boreland Hill, in the parish of Anwoth. It is sixty feet in height, and thus, seen all around, it seems to remind the inhabitants of that region how God once visited His people there.

RUTHERFORD'S MONUMENT ON BORELAND HILL.

His LETTERS have long been famous among the godly. The present edition of them has several things to recommend it. 1. The Letters are chronologically arranged. 2. They have biographical notices prefixed to a large number of them. Most of these are from the pen of the Rev. James Anderson. The present editor has added, here and there, topographical notes that seemed to have some interest, most of them gleaned on the spot. The explanatory notes in the edition by the Rev. C. Thomson, 1836, have often been consulted with much advantage. 3. There are contents prefixed to each Letter, describing generally what are the main subjects of each. 4. There are some new letters inserted in this collection; and there is a facsimile of an unpublished letter directed to the Provost of Edinburgh, at the time when there was an attempt made to call Rutherford to that city. The letter, which is preserved in the Records of the Edinburgh Town Council, entreats them to drop the matter. It is written in a very small hand, as was usual with him; and the seal on it has the armorial bearing of the Rutherford family.

If it be asked how it came about that these letters should have been at first printed in an order entirely unchronological, the explanation is simple: The first edition appeared in 1664, and in it there were only two hundred and eighty-four of his letters gathered and published; but many being edified thereby, an edition soon appeared with sixty-eight more letters appended. All these seem to have been printed very much in the order in which they came to hand, and the additional sixty-eight, more especially, disturbed all arrangement. The collector was Mr. M'Ward, who, as a student, being much beloved by Rutherford, went to the Westminster Assembly with him as his amanuensis or secretary. He was afterwards successor to Andrew Gray in Glasgow, and finally minister in Rotterdam. He gave them to the public with an enthusiastic recommendation, under the title, "Joshua Redivivus; published for the use of all the people of God, but more particularly for those who are now, or afterwards may be, put to suffering for Christ and His cause; by a well-wisher to the work and people of God. John 16:2; 2 Thessal. 1:6." The edition was in duodecimo, and was printed at Rotterdam. Not only were the Letters first published in Holland, but also, in 1674, there appeared a Dutch translation of them at Flushing.

It will be noticed, in reading the Letters as they stand chronologically, that at times the pen of the ready writer ran on with amazing rapidity. He has written many in one day when his heart was overflowing. It was easy to write when the Lord was pouring on him the unction that teacheth all things. He would have written still more, but he had heard that people looked up to him and overpraised his Letters. During his confinement at Aberdeen, he wrote about two hundred and twenty of these letters.

There are a few distasteful expressions in these epistolary effusions, the sparks of a fancy that sought to appropriate everything to spiritual purposes; but as to extravagance in the thoughts conveyed, there is none. An old Memoir of Richard Cameron, the martyr, mentions at the close that it had become a fashion among "profane preachers and expectants" to say of these Letters, "They are fit only for old wives." Dr. Love, on the other hand, protests, "The haughty contempt of that book which is in the heart of many will be ground for condemnation when the Lord cometh to make inquisition after such things" (Letter xiv.). The extravagance in sentiment alleged against them by some is just that of Paul, when he spoke of knowing "the height and depth, length and breadth," of the love of Christ; or that of Solomon, when the Holy Ghost inspired him to write "The Song of Songs." Rather would we say of these Letters, what Livingstone in a letter says of John Welsh's dying words, "O for a sweet fill of this fanatic humour!" In modern days, Richard Cecil has said of Rutherford, "He is one of my classics; he is a real original;" and, in older times, Richard Baxter, some of whose theological leanings might have prejudiced him, if anything could, said of his Letters, "Hold off the Bible, such a book the world never saw." They were long ago translated into Dutch, and of late years they have been translated into German. Both in these, and in his other writings, we see sufficient proof that had he cultivated literature as a pursuit, he might have stood high in the admiration of men.

His correspondents were chiefly persons residing either in Galloway, where Anwoth was, or in Ayrshire; for these two counties at that time were rich in godly men of some standing.

His pen suggests often, by a few strokes, very much that is profound and impressive. There is something not easily forgotten in the words used to express the Church's indestructibleness when he says, "The bush has been burning these five thousand years, and no man yet saw the ashes of that fire" (Letter cccxvii.). How much truth is conveyed in that saying, "Losses for Christ are but goods given out in bank in Christ's hand." There is an ingenious use of Scripture that often delights the reader; as when he speaks of "The corn on the house-tops that never got the husbandman's prayer," or of "Him that counteth the basons and knives of His house (Ezra 1:9, 10), and bringeth them back safe to His second temple" (Letter cccxxiii.).

It is a curious fact that only in Letter cccxxv., does he speak of the Holy Spirit, though elsewhere (see "Life of Grace") very full are his statements of the Spirit's work. The truth is, a man full of the Holy Ghost is full of Christ and testifies to Him.

These letters will ever be precious to—

1. All who are sensible of their own, and the Church's decay and corruptions.—The wound and the cure are therein so fully opened out: self is exposed, specially spiritual self. He will tell you, "There is as much need to watch over grace, as to watch over sin." He will show you God in Christ, to fill up the place usurped by self. The subtleties of sin, idols, snares, temptations, self-deceptions, are dragged into view from time to time. And what is better still, the cords of Christ are twined round the roots of these bitter plants, that they may be plucked up.

Nor is it otherwise in regard to corruption in public, and in the Church. We do not mean merely the open corruption of error, but also the secret "grey hairs" of decay. Hear him cry, "There is universal deadness on all that fear God. O where are the sometime quickening breathings and influences from heaven that have refreshed His hidden ones!" And then he laments, in the name of the saints, "We are half satisfied with our witheredness; nor have we as much of his strain who doth eight times breathe out that suit (Psalm 119), Quicken me!" "We live far from the well, and complain but dryly of our dryness."

2. All who delight in the Surety's imputed righteousness.—If thoroughly aware of the body of sin in ourselves we cannot but feel that we need a person in our stead—the person of the God-man in the room of our guilty person. "To us a Son is given;" not salvation only, but a Saviour. "He gave Himself for us."

These letters are ever leading us to the Surety and His righteousness. The eye never gets time to rest long on anything apart from Him and His righteousness. We are shown the deluge-waters undried up, in order to lead us into the ark again: "I had fainted, had not want and penury chased me to the storehouse of all."

3. All who rejoice in the Gospel of free grace.—Lord Kenmure having said to him, "Sin causeth me to be jealous of His love to such a man as I have been," he replied, "Be jealous of yourself, my Lord, but not of Jesus Christ." In his "Trial and Triumph of Faith" he remarks, "As holy walking is a duty coming from us, it is no ground of true peace. Believers often seek in themselves what they should seek in Christ." It is to the like effect he says in one of his letters, "Your heart is not the compass that Christ saileth by,"—turning away his friend from looking inward, to look upon the heart of Jesus. And this is his meaning, when he thus lays the whole burden of salvation on the Lord, and leaves nothing for us but acceptance, "Take ease to thyself, and let Him bear all." Then, pointing us to the risen Saviour as our pledge of complete redemption, "Faith may dance, because Christ singeth;"2 "Faith apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it." On his death-bed he said to his friends, "I disclaim all that ever God made me will or do, and I look upon it as defiled and imperfect." And so in his Letters he will admit of no addition, or intermixture of other things, "The Gospel is like a small hair that hath no breadth, and will not cleave in two."4 He exhorts to Assurance as being the way to be humbled very low before God: "Complaining is but a humble backbiting and traducing of Christ's new work in the soul." "Make meikle of assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed." He warns us, in his "Trial and Triumph of Faith," "not to be too desirous of keen awakenings to chase us to Christ. Let Christ tutor me as he thinketh good. He has seven eyes: I have but one, and that too dim." In a similar strain he writes:—"The law shall never be my doomster, by Christ's grace; I shall find a sure enough doom in the Gospel to humble and cast me down. There cannot be a more humble soul than a believer. It is no pride in a drowning man to catch hold of a rock." How much truth there is here! Naaman never was humble in any degree, until he felt himself completely healed of his scaly leprosy; but truly he was humbled and humble then. And what one word is there that suggests so many humbling thoughts as that word "grace"?

4. All who seek to grow in holiness.—The Holy Ghost delights to show us the glorious Godhead, in the face of Jesus. And this is a very frequent theme in these Letters. "Take Christ for sanctification, as well as justification," is often his theme. And in him we see a man who seems to have fought for holiness as unceasingly and as eagerly as other men seek for pardon and peace. In him "Holiness to the Lord" seems written on every affection of the heart, and on every fresh-springing thought.

Fellowship with the living God is a distinguishing feature in the holiness given by the Holy Ghost; we get "access by one Spirit to the Father through Him." Rutherford could sometimes say, "I have been so near Him that I have said, 'I take instruments that this is the Lord.' " And he could from experience declare, "I dare avouch, the saints know not the length and largeness of the sweet Earnest, and of the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this side of the water, if we should take more pains." "I am every way in your case, as hard-hearted and dead as any man, but yet I speak to Christ through my sleep."3 All this is from the pen of a man who was a metaphysician, a controversialist, a leader in the church, and learned in ancient and scholastic lore. Why are there not such gracious, as well as great men now?

5. All afflicted persons.—Here he had the very "tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to him that was weary." And with what tender sympathy does he speak, leading the mourner so gently to the heart of Jesus! He knew the heart of a stranger, for he had been a stranger. "Let no man after me slander Christ for His cross." Yes, says he, His most loved are often His most tried: "The lintel-stone and pillars of His New Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God's hammer and tools than the common side-wall stones."5 Even as to reproach and calumny, he declares, "I love Christ's worst reproaches."

It was to Hugh M'Kail, uncle of the youthful martyr, that he penned the words, "Some have written me that I am possibly too joyful of the cross; but my joy overleapeth the cross—it is bounded and terminated on Christ." And there it was he found a well of comfort never dry.

6. All who love the Person of Christ.—We have too often been satisfied with speculative truth and abstract doctrine. On the one hand, the orthodox have too often rested in the statements of our Catechisms and Confessions; and, on the other, the "Election-doubters" (as Bunyan would have called them) have pressed their favourite dogma, that Christ died for all men, as if mere assent to a proposition could save the soul. Rutherford places the truth before us in a more accurate, and also more savoury way, full of life and warmth. The Person of Him who gave Himself for His church is held up in all its attractiveness. With him, it is ever the Person as much as the work done; or rather, never the one apart from the other. Like Paul, he would fain know Him, as well as the power of His resurrection.

Once, when Lord Kenmure asked him, "What will Christ be like when He cometh?" his reply was, "All lovely." And this is everywhere the favourite theme with him. At times he tells of His love. "His love surroundeth and surchargeth me." "If His love was not in heaven, I should be unwilling to go thither."2 Often he checks his pen to tell of Christ Himself, "Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ;"—then correcting his language, "Welcome, fair, lovely, royal King, with Thine own cross." "O if I could doat as much upon Himself as I do upon His love." "I fear I make more of His love than of Himself." How startling yet how true, is this remark, "I see that in communion with Christ we may make more gods than one,"6—meaning that we may be tempted to make the enjoyment itself our god. It was his habitual aim to pass through privileges, joys, even fellowship, to God Himself: "I have casten this work upon Christ, to get me Himself." "I would be farther in upon Christ than at His joys; in, where love and mercy lodgeth, beside His heart."8 "He who sitteth on the throne is His lone a sufficient heaven." "Sure I am He is the far best half of heaven."10

In a word, such was his soul's view of the living Person, that he writes, "Holiness is not Christ, nor the blossoms and flowers of the tree of life, nor the tree itself." He had found out the true fountain-head, and would direct all Zion's travellers thither. And let a man try this; let the Holy Spirit lead a man to this Person;—and surely his experience will be, "None ever came up dry from David's well."

7. All who love that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God our Saviour.—The more we love the Person of Christ, the more ought we to love His appearing; and the more we cherish both feelings, the holier shall we become. Rutherford abounds in aspirations for that day; he is one who "looks for and hastens unto the coming of the day of God!" While in exile at Aberdeen in 1637, he writes, "O when will we meet! O how long is it to the dawning of the marriage day! O sweet Jesus, take wide steps! O my Lord, come over mountains at one stride! O my Beloved, flee as a roe or young hart upon the mountains of separation." Now and then he utters the expression of an intense desire for the restoration of Israel to their Lord, and the fulness of the Gentiles; but far oftener his desires go forth to his Lord Himself. "O fairest among the sons of men, why stayest Thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage day!" To Lady Kenmure his words are, "The Lord hath told you what you should be doing till He come. 'Wait and hasten,' saith Peter, 'for the coming of the Lord.' Sigh and long for the dawning of that morning, and the breaking of that day, of the coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky." Those saints who feel most keenly the world's enmity, and the Church's imperfection, are those who will most fervently love their Lord's appearing. It was thus with Daniel on the banks of Ulai, and with John in Patmos; and Samuel Rutherford's most intense aspirations for that day are breathed out in Aberdeen.

His description of himself on one occasion is, "A man often borne down and hungry, and waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb." He is now gone to the "mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense;" and there he no doubt still wonders at the unopened, unsearchable treasures of Christ. But O for his insatiable desires Christward! O for ten such men in Scotland to stand in the gap!—men who all day long find nothing but Christ to rest in, whose very sleep is a pursuing after Christ in dreams, and who intensely desire to "awake with His likeness."

LIST OF HIS WORKS

1. Exercitationes Apologeticœ pro Divina Gratia. Amstelodami, 12mo, 1636. Franekeræ, 1651.
2. A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Paul's Presbytery in Scotland. London, 4to, 1642.
3. A Sermon before the House of Commons, on Daniel vi. 26. London, 4to, 1644.
4. A Sermon before the House of Lords, on Luke vii. 22; Mark iv. 38; Matt. viii. 26. London, 4to, 1645.
5. "Lex Rex:" The Law and the Prince. London, 4to, 1644. In Fullarton's Scottish Nation, 1862, mention is made of another work which is in reality the same as this; on Civil Polity. London, 4to, 1657. It is not, however, a separate work, but merely one of the editions of the well-known Lex Rex—the edition of 1657, which has the following title:—Lex Rex; a Treatise of Civil Polity; being a Resolution of Forty-three Questions concerning Prerogative, Right, and Privilege, in reference to the Supreme Prince and People. The change in the title was a device of the printer, in order to elude the Government, who sought to suppress the book.
6. The Due Right of Presbyteries. London, 4to, 1644.
7. The Trial and Triumph of Faith. London, 4to, 1645.
8. The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication. London, 4to, 1646. Appended to this is A Dispute touching Scandal and Christian Liberty.
9. Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself. London, 4to, 1647.
10. A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist. London, 1648. To which is appended, A Modest Survey of the Secrets of Antinomianism.
11. A Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience. London, 4to, 1649.
12. The Last and Heavenly Speeches of John Gordon, Viscount Kenmure. Edinburgh, 4to, 1649.
13. Disputatio Scholastica de Divina Providentia. Edinburgh, 4to, 1651.
14. The Covenant of Life Opened. Edinburgh, 4to, 1655.
15. A Survey of Mr. Hooker's Church Discipline; or, A Survey of the Survey of that Summe of Discipline penned by Mr. Thomas Hooker. London, 4to, 1658.
16. Influences of the Life of Grace. The last work published in his lifetime. London, 4to, 1659. The original title page adds:—"A Practical Treatise concerning the way, manner, and means of having and improving spiritual dispositions and quickening influences from Christ, the Resurrection and the Life."
17. Joshua Redivivus; or, Mr. Rutherford's Letters. First Edition, 12mo, 1664. No printer's name and no place mentioned.
18. Examen Arminianismi. Ultrajecti (Utrecht), 12mo, 1668.
19. A Testimony left by Mr. S. Rutherford to the Work of Reformation in Great Britain and Ireland before his death. Date uncertain.
20. Twelve Communion Sermons. Glasgow, 1876. This collection includes Christ's Napkin; and Song ii. 14–17, Christ and the Dove's Heavenly Salutation. These have internal evidence in their favour, viz. the language and general strain of thought. Add to these The Lamb's Marriage, Rev. xix. 7; and another on Song ii. 1–8 appended to a second edition, 1877, with the title, "Fourteen Communion Sermons," 1877.
21. The Cruel Watchmen. The Door of Salvation Opened. Edinburgh, 1735. Song v. 7, 8, 9, 10. These two are doubtful; at all events, very imperfect, as usually printed. The old edition of The Cruel Watchmen is good.
22. There is a Treatise on Prayer; The Power and Prevalency of Truth and Prayer evidenced, in a Practical Discourse upon Matt. ix. 27–31. Printed in the year 1713. It is a small duodecimo of 111 pp., and has this note appended: "The rest of this Discourse cannot be found, it being above fifty years since the author died."
An old Catalogue of the most Vendible Books, in 1658, gives as one of his works, A Rationale on the Book of Common Prayer, 8vo. But this is a mistake; Antony Sparrow wrote the book entitled, The Rationale, or Practical Exposition of the Book of Common Prayer.
The Diaries of Brodie of Brodie (Spalding Club—Preface p. xix.), refer to "Shorthand Notes of two Sermons by S. Rutherford." Brodie used to correspond with him, for we find, August 6, 1655: "Mr. Rutherford exhorted me in his letter that my right hand might not know what my left hand did; and he says that he knows not but that the Lord may divorce the mother, but be a sanctuary to the little ones." We find further that S. R. wrote urging Brodie "to present Mr. Thomas Ross to Ila."
23. Quaint Sermons (eighteen in number), by S. R., never before published, with a prefatory note by Rev. And. A. Bonar. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1885.

I.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, on the return home of her daughter

[In the early editions the date stands "1624," by a mistake for "1627;" for Rutherford was not settled in Anwoth in 1624.

For a full notice of Marion M'Naught, see what is prefixed to Letter VI.]

(CHILDREN TO BE DEDICATED TO GOD.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER,—My love in Christ remembered. I have sent to you your daughter Grizel with Robert Gordon, who came to fetch her. I am in good hopes that the seed of God is in her, as in one born of God; and God's seed will come to God's harvest. I have her promise she shall be Christ's. For I have told her she may promise much in His worthy name; for He becomes caution to His Father for all such as resolve and promise to serve Him. I will remember her to God. I trust you will acquaint her with good company, and be diligent to know with whom she loveth to haunt. Remember Zion, and our necessities. I bless your daughter from our Lord, and pray the Lord to give you joy and comfort of her. Remember my love to your husband, to William and Samuel your sons. The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Yours at all power in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, June 6, 1627.

II.—To a Christian Gentlewoman on the death of her daughter

(CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH, AND PROPERTY IN US—REASONS FOR RESIGNATION.)

MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered to you. I was indeed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness after your daughter's death. Yet I do persuade myself, ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, "In all your afflictions He is afflicted" (Isa. 63:9). O blessed Second who suffereth with you! and glad may your soul be even to walk in the fiery furnace with one like unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage! up your heart! When ye do tire, He will bear both you and your burden (Ps. 55:22). Yet a little while and ye shall see the salvation of God. Remember of what age your daughter was, and that just so long was your lease of her. If she was eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old, I know not; but sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your lease run out, ye can no more justly quarrel your great Superior for taking His own at His just term day, than a poor farmer can complain that his master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is expired. Good mistress, if ye would not be content that Christ would hold from you the heavenly inheritance which is made yours by His death, shall not that same Christ think hardly of you if ye refuse to give Him your daughter willingly, who is a part of His inheritance and conquest? I pray the Lord to give you all your own, and to grace you with patience to give God His also. He is an ill debtor who payeth that which he hath borrowed with a grudge. Indeed, that long loan of such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ (as I believe), deserveth more thanks at your Creditor's hands, than that ye should gloom and murmur when He craveth but His own. I believe you would judge them to be but thankless neighbours who would pay you a sum of money after this manner. But what? Do you think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? Think her not absent who is in such a friend's house. Is she lost to you who is found to Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although you should never see her again, your care for her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not with a dear Friend? and gone higher, upon a certain hope that ye shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when (be ye sure) she shall neither be hectic nor consumed in body? You would be sorry either to be, or to be esteemed, an atheist; and yet, not I, but the Apostle, thinketh those to be hopeless atheists who mourn excessively for the dead (Thess. 4:13). But this is not a challenge on my part. I do speak this only fearing your weakness; for your daughter was a part of yourself; and, therefore, nature in you, being as it were cut and halved, will indeed be grieved. But ye have to rejoice, that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven. Follow her, but envy her not; for indeed it is self-love in us that maketh us mourn for them that die in the Lord. Why? Because for them we cannot mourn, since they are never happy till they be dead; therefore we mourn for our own private respect. Take heed, then, that in showing your affection in mourning for your daughter, ye be not, out of self-affection, mourning for yourself. Consider what the Lord is doing in it. Your daughter is plucked out of the fire, and she resteth from her labours; and your Lord, in that, is trying you, and casting you in the fire. Go through all fires to your rest; and now remember that the eye of God is upon the bush burning and not consumed; and He is gladly content that such a weak woman as you should send Satan away, frustrate of his design. Now honour God, and shame the strong roaring lion, when ye seem weakest. Should such an one as ye faint in the day of adversity? Call to mind the days of old. The Lord yet liveth. Trust in Him, although He should slay you. Faith is exceeding charitable, and believeth no evil of God. Now is the Lord laying, in the one scale of the balance, your making conscience of submission to His gracious will, and in the other, your affection and love to your daughter. Which of the two will ye then choose to satisfy? Be wise, then; and as I trust ye love Christ better than a sinful woman, pass by your daughter, and kiss the Lord's rod. Men do lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end they may grow up high and tall. The Lord hath this way lopped your branch in taking from you many children, to the end you should grow upward, like one of the Lord's cedars, setting your heart above, where Christ is, at the right hand of the Father. What is next, but that your Lord cut down the stock after He hath cut the branches? Prepare yourself; you are nearer your daughter this day than you were yesterday. While ye prodigally spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting after her. Run your race with patience. Let God have His own; and ask of Him, instead of your daughter which He hath taken from you, the daughter of faith, which is patience; and in patience possess your soul. Lift up your head: ye do not know how near your redemption doth draw, Thus recommending you to the Lord, who is able to establish you, I rest, your loving and affectionate friend in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, April 23, 1628.

KENMURE HOUSE.

III.—To the VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE, on occasion of illness and spiritual depression

[LADY JANE CAMPBELI, Viscountess of Kenmure, was the third daughter of Archibald Campbell, seventh Earl of Argyle, and sister to the Marquis of Argyle who was beheaded in 1661. She was a woman distinguished, in her day, for the depth of her piety, and her warm attachment to the Presbyterian interest in Scotland. Nor was she less distinguished for generosity and munificence, than for piety. Her bounty was in a particular manner extended to those whom suffering for conscience, sake had reduced to poverty or exile. In the year 1628 she was married to Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar, afterwards Viscount Kenmure and Lord Gordon of Lochinvar, which is not far from Carsphairn. This union did not last many years. In 1634 she became a widow, his Lordship having died at Kenmure Castle, on the 12th of September that year, in the 35th year of his age. But her sorrow on this occasion was alleviated by the Christian resignation and faith which he was enabled to exercise under his last illness. To this noble man she had two daughters, who died in infancy, one about the beginning of the year 1629, and the other in 1634, as may be gathered from allusions to these bereavements, contained in two consolatory letters written to her by Rutherford in these years. She had also, by the same marriage, a son, John, second Viscount of Kenmure, who, however, died under age and unmarried, in August 1649. This event forms the subject of a letter written to her by Rutherford the 1st of October that year. She married a second husband, on the 21st of September 1640, the Hon. Sir Henry Montgomery of Giffen, second son of Alexander, fifth Earl of Eglinton; but this marriage was without issue. Sir Henry's religious views were congenial to her own; and he is described as an "active and faithful friend of the Lord's kirk." She was soon left a widow a second time, in which state she lived till a very venerable age, having survived the Restoration a number of years, as appears from the fact that Livingstone, at the time of his death (which took place at Rotterdam in 1672), speaks of her as the oldest acquaintance he then had alive in Scotland. She was a regular correspondent of Rutherford, the last of whose letters to her is dated July the 24th, 1661, after the execution of her brother above mentioned. Nor after Mr. Rutherford's death was she unmindful of his widow. "Madam," says Mr. M'Ward, in a letter to her, "Mrs. Rutherford gives me often an account of the singular testimony which she met with of your Ladyship's affection to her and her daughter."

Kenmure Castle is well seen from the road that leads along the banks of the Ken. The loch, the river, the old baronial house, combine to attract notice. It is built on an insulated knoll, well wooded all around. It is four miles from Dalry, and the approach is through an avenue of lime-trees. The old garden has a hedge of very lofty beech trees, and a curious dial with a Latin inscription, dated "1623. Joannes Bonar fecit"—the name of the person who (it is said) brought it from the Continent.

(ACQUIESCENCE IN GOD'S PURPOSE—FAITH IN EXERCISE—ENCOURAGEMENT IN VIEW OF SICKNESS AND DEATH—PUBLIC AFFAIRS.)

MADAM,—All dutiful obedience in the Lord remembered. I have heard of your Ladyship's infirmity and sickness with grief; yet I trust ye have learned to say, "It is the Lord, let Him do whatsoever seemeth good in His eyes." It is now many years since the apostate angels made a question, whether their will or the will of their Creator should be done; and since that time, froward mankind hath always in that same suit of law compeared to plead with them against God, in daily repining against His will. But the Lord being both party and judge, hath obtained a decreet, and saith, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure (Isa. 46:10). It is then best for us, in the obedience of faith, and in an holy submission, to give that to God which the law of His almighty and just power will have of us. Therefore, Madam, your Lord willeth you, in all states of life, to say, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven:" and herein shall ye have comfort, that He, who seeth perfectly through all your evils, and knoweth the frame and constitution of your nature, and what is most healthful for your soul, holdeth every cup of affliction to your head, with His own gracious hand. Never believe that your tender-hearted Saviour, who knoweth the strength of your stomach, will mix that cup with one drachm-weight of poison. Drink then with the patience of the saints, and the God of patience bless your physic.

I have heard your Ladyship complain of deadness, and want of the bestirring power of the life of God. But courage! He who walked in the garden, and made a noise that made Adam hear His voice, will also at some times walk in your soul, and make you hear a more sweet word. Yet, ye will not always hear the noise and the din of His feet, when He walketh. Ye are, at such a time, like Jacob mourning at the supposed death of Joseph, when Joseph was living. The new creature, the image of the second Adam, is living in you; and yet ye are mourning at the supposed death of the life of Christ in you. Ephraim is bemoaning and mourning (Jer. 31:18), when he thinketh God is far off and heareth not; and yet God is like the bridegroom (Song 2:9), standing only behind a thin wall and laying to His ear; for He saith Himself, "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself." I have good confidence, Madam, that Christ Jesus, whom your soul through forests and mountains is seeking, is within you. And yet I speak not this to lay a pillow under your head, or to dissuade you from a holy fear of the loss of your Christ, or of provoking and "stirring up the Beloved before He please," by sin. I know, in spiritual confidence, the devil will come in, as in all other good works, and cry "Half mine;" and so endeavour to bring you under a fearful sleep, till He whom your soul loveth be departed from the door, and have left off knocking. And, therefore, here the Spirit of God must hold your soul's feet in the golden mid-line, betwixt confident resting in the arms of Christ, and presumptuous and drowsy sleeping in the bed of fleshly security. Therefore, worthy lady, so count little of yourself, because of your own wretchedness and sinful drowsiness, that ye count not also little of God, in the course of His unchangeable mercy. For there be many Christians most like unto young sailors, who think the shore and the whole land doth move, when the ship and they themselves are moved; just so, not a few do imagine that God moveth and saileth and changeth places, because their giddy souls are under sail, and subject to alteration, to ebbing and flowing. But "the foundation of the Lord abideth sure." God knoweth that ye are His own. Wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray; and then ye have all the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ within you.

Ye have now, Madam, a sickness before you; and also after that a death. Gather then now food for the journey. God give you eyes to see through sickness and death, and to see something beyond death. I doubt not but that, if hell were betwixt you and Christ, as a river which ye behoved to cross ere you could come at Him, but ye would willingly put in your foot, and make through to be at Him, upon hope that He would come in Himself, in the deepest of the river, and lend you His hand. Now, I believe your hell is dried up, and ye have only these two shallow brooks, sickness and death, to pass through; and ye have also a promise that Christ shall do more than meet you, even that He shall come Himself, and go with you foot for foot, yea and bear you in His arms. O then! O then! for the joy that is set before you; for the love of the Man (who is also "God over all, blessed for ever"), that is standing upon the shore to welcome you, run your race with patience. The Lord go with you. Your Lord will not have you, nor any of His servants, to exchange for the worse. Death in itself includeth both the death of the soul and the death of the body; but to God's children the bounds and the limits of death are abridged and drawn into a more narrow compass. So that when ye die, a piece of death shall only seize upon you, or the least part of you shall die, and that is the dissolution of the body; for in Christ ye are delivered from the second death; and, therefore, as one born of God, commit not sin (although ye cannot live and not sin), and that serpent shall but eat your earthly part. As for your soul, it is above the law of death. But it is fearful and dangerous to be a debtor and servant to sin; for the count of sin ye will not be able to make good before God, except Christ both count and pay for you.

I trust also, Madam, that ye will be careful to present to the Lord the present estate of this decaying kirk. For what shall be concluded in Parliament anent her, the Lord knoweth. Sure I am, the decree of a most fearful parliament in heaven is at the very point of coming forth, because of the sins of the land. For "we have cast away the law of the Lord, and despised the words of the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 5:24). "Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter" (Isa. 59:14). Lo! the prophet, as if he had seen us and our kirk, resembleth Justice to be handled as an enemy holden out at the ports of our city [so is she banished!], and Truth to a person sickly and diseased, fallen down in a deadly swooning fit in the streets, before he can come to an house. "The priests have caused many to stumble at the law, and have corrupted the covenant of Levi" (Mal. 2:3). "But what will they do in the end?" Therefore give the Lord no rest for Zion. Stir up your husband, your brother, and all with whom ye are in favour and credit, to stand upon the Lord's side against Baal. I have good hope that your husband loveth the peace and prosperity of Zion. The peace of God be upon him, for his intended courses anent the establishment of a powerful ministry in this land. Thus, not willing to weary your Ladyship further, I commend you now, and always, to the grace and mercy of that God who is able to keep you, that ye fall not. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Your Ladyship's servant at all dutiful obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, July 27, 1628.

IV.—To the Elect and Noble Lady, my LADY KENMURE, on occasion of the death of her infant daughter

(TRIBULATION THE PORTION OF GOD'S PEOPLE, AND INTENDED TO WEAN THEM FROM THE WORLD.)

MADAM,—Saluting your Ladyship with grace and mercy from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,—I was sorry, at my departure, leaving your Ladyship in grief, and would still be grieved at it, if I were not assured that ye have One with you in the furnace, whose visage is like unto the Son of God. I am glad that ye have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings of God, and that ye get scarce liberty to swallow down your spittle, being casten from furnace to furnace, knowing if ye were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of Him, He would not spend so much physic upon you. All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conform to His image and copy in suffering (Rom. 8:29). And some do more vively resemble the copy than others. Think, Madam, that it is a part of your glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders pointed out to John, "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Behold your Forerunner going out of the world all in a lake of blood, and it is not ill to die as He did. Fulfil with joy the remnant of the grounds and "remainders of the afflictions of Christ" in your body (Col. 1:24). Ye have lost a child: nay she is not lost to you who is found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight doth not die and evanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. Ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of eternity; and ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing up in heaven. Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end we may fly and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an adulterous lover. Now it is God's special blessing to Judah, that He will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers. "Therefore, behold I will hedge up her way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them" (Hos. 2:6, 7). O thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth a double stone wall betwixt her and the fire of hell! The world, and the things of the world, Madam, is the lover ye naturally affect beside your own husband Christ. The hedge of thorns and the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of worldly comfort, fear of God's anger for old unrepented-of sins. What lose ye, if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker? God be blessed, the Lord will not let you find your paths. Return to your first husband. Do not weary, neither think that death walketh towards you with a slow pace. Ye must be riper ere ye be shaken. Your days are no longer than Job's, that were "swifter than a post, and passed away as the ships of desire, and as the eagle that hasteth for the prey" (9:25, 26, margin). There is less sand in your glass now than there was yesternight. This span-length of ever-posting time will soon be ended. But the greater is the mercy of God, the more years ye get to advise, upon what terms, and upon what conditions, ye cast your soul in the huge gulf of never-ending eternity. The Lord hath told you what ye should be doing till He come. "Wait and hasten," saith Peter, "for the Coming of our Lord." All is night that is here, in respect of ignorance and daily ensuing troubles, one always making way to another, as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth; therefore sigh and long for the dawning of that morning, and the breaking of that day of the Coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Persuade yourself the King is coming; read His letter sent before Him, "Behold, I come quickly" (Rev. 3:11). Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky, and think that ye have not a morrow. As the wise father said, who, being invited against to-morrow to dine with his friend, answered, "Those many days I have had no morrow at all." I am loth to weary you. Show yourself a Christian, by suffering without murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand and seven hundred were slain (Numb. 16:49). In patience possess your soul. They lose nothing who gain Christ. Thus remembering my brother's and my wife's humble service to your Ladyship, I commend you to the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus, assuring you that your day is coming, and that God's mercy is abiding you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in the Lord Jesus at all dutiful obedience,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Jan. 15, 1629.

V.—To my LADY KENMURE, upon her removal with her husband from the parish of Anwoth

(CHANGES AND LOSS OF FRIENDS—THIS WORLD NO ABIDING PLACE.)

MADAM,—Saluting you in Jesus Christ,—to my grief I must bid you (it may be, for ever) farewell, in paper, having small assurance ever to see your face again till the last general assembly, where the whole church universal shall meet; yet promising, by His grace, to present your Ladyship and your burdens to Him who is able to save you, and give you an inheritance with the saints, after a more special manner than ever I have done before.

Ye are going to a country where the Sun of righteousness, in the Gospel, shineth not so clearly as in this kingdom; but if ye would know where He whom your soul loveth doth rest, and where He feedeth at the noontide of the day, wherever ye be, get you forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed yourself beside the shepherds' tents (Song 1:7, 8), that is, ask for some of the watchmen of the Lord's city, who will tell you truly, and will not lie, where ye shall find Him whom your soul loveth. I trust ye are so betrothed in marriage to the true Christ, that ye will not give your love to any false Christ. Ye know not how soon your marriage-day will come; nay, is not eternity hard upon you? It were time, then, that ye had your wedding garment in readiness. Be not sleeping at your Lord's Coming. I pray God you may be upon your feet standing when He knocketh. Be not discouraged to go from this country to another part of the Lord's earth: "The earth is His, and the fulness thereof." This is the Lord's lower house; while we are lodged here, we have no assurance to lie ever in one chamber, but must be content to remove from one corner of our Lord's nether house to another, resting in hope that, when we come up to the Lord's upper city, "Jerusalem that is above," we shall remove no more, because then we shall be at home. And go wheresoever ye will, if your Lord go with you, ye are at home; and your lodging is ever taken before night, so long as He who is Israel's dwelling-house is your home (Psa. 90:1). Believe me, Madam, my mind is that ye are well lodged, and that in your house there are fair ease-rooms and pleasant lights, if ye can in faith lean down your head upon the breast of Jesus Christ: and till this be, ye shall never get a sound sleep. Jesus, Jesus, be your shadow and your covering. It is a sweet soul-sleep to lie in the arms of Christ; for His breath is very sweet.

Pray for poor friendless Zion. Alas! no man will speak for her now, although at home in her own country she hath good friends, her husband Christ, and His Father her Father-in-law. Beseech your husband to be a friend to Zion, and pray for her.

I have received many and divers dashes and heavy strokes since the Lord called me to the ministry; but indeed I esteem your departure from us amongst the weightiest. But I perceive God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolize, that He may have His own room. I see exceeding small fruit of my ministry, and would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown and rejoicing in the day of Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain, yet my labour is with my God (Isa. 49:4). I wish and pray that the Lord would harden my face against all, and make me to learn to go with my face against a storm. Again I commend you, body and spirit, to Him who hath loved us, and washed us from our sin in His own blood. Grace, grace, grace for ever be with you. Pray, pray continually.

Your Ladyship's at all dutiful obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Sept. 14, 1629.

VI.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, on occasion of the illness of his wife

[MARION M'NAUGHT was daughter to the Laird of Kilquhanatie, in Kirkpatrick Durham (see Letter XXV.), the representative of an ancient family, now extinct, and connected also with the house of Kenmure, through her mother, Margaret Gordon, sister to Lord Kenmure. She became the wife of William Fullerton, Provost of Kirkcudbright, and was a woman extensively known and held in honour by the most eminent Christians and ministers of her day, on account of her rare godliness and public spirit. We find in "The Last and Heavenly Speeches of Viscount Kenmure," that by the special desire of that nobleman (who was her relative), she was in continual attendance on him as he lay on his deathbed. Her name is sometimes spelt "M'Knaight," or "M'Knaichte," the modern "Macknight." She had three children—one daughter, Grizzel, and two sons, Samuel and William,—who are often affectionately remembered in Rutherford's letters to her. The following epitaph was inscribed on her tomb, in the churchyard of Kirkcudbright:—

KIRKCUDBRIGHT.

"Marion M'Naught, sister to John M'Naught of Kilquhanatie, an ancient and honourable baron, and spouse to William Fullerton, Provost of Kirkcudbright, died April 1643, age 58.

Sexum animis, pietate genus, genorosa, locumque

Virtute exsuperans, conditur hoc tumulo."

The tombstone was lost sight of, but in 1863 was discovered again in removing the earth for a grave close by. It was only in 1860 that her house (in which the meeting between Blair and Rutherford took place) was pulled down. It stood at the foot of the High Street, which was then the principal street of the town.

A relative of this lady's husband, Fullerton of Carlton (see Letter CLVII.), wrote on her the following acrostic:—

M More happy than imaginèd can be,

A And blessed, are such as with heart sincere

R Resolve to cleave to Christ, to live and die

I In Him, with Him, and for Him to appear.

O O what transcendent glory grows from grace!

N None but—no, not—the soul refinèd shall

M' Make to appear; that life, that light, that peace,

K Known only to the pure possessors all.

N Now, THOU, by grace, art into glory gone,

A And gained the garland of eternal bliss,

I In seeing Him who, on that glorious throne,

C Created, uncreated, glory is.

H Heaven's quire did sing at thy conversion sweet,

T Time posts thy final comforts to complete.

(Append, to "Minute-Book of Committee of Covenanters.")

(INWARD CONFLICT ARISING FROM OUTWARD TRIAL.)

LOVING AND DEAR SISTER,—If ever you would pleasure me, entreat the Lord for me, now when I am so comfortless, and so full of heaviness, that I am not able to stand under the burthen any longer. The Almighty hath doubled His stripes upon me, for my wife is so sore tormented night and day, that I have wondered why the Lord tarrieth so long. My life is bitter unto me, and I fear the Lord be my contrair party. It is (as I now know by experience) hard to keep sight of God in a storm, especially when He hides Himself, for the trial of His children. If He would be pleased to remove His hand, I have a purpose to seek Him more than I have done. Happy are they that can win away with their soul. I am afraid of His judgments. I bless my God that there is a death, and a heaven. I would weary to begin again to be a Christian, so bitter is it to drink of the cup that Christ drank of, if I knew not that there is no poison in it. God give us not of it till we vomit again, for we have sick souls when God's physic works not. Pray that God would not lead my wife into temptation. Woe is my heart, that I have done so little against the kingdom of Satan in my calling; for he would fain attempt to make me blaspheme God in His face. I believe, I believe, in the strength of Him who hath put me in His work, he shall fail in that which he seeks. I have comfort in this, that my Captain, Christ, hath said, I must fight and overcome the world, and with a weak, spoiled, weaponless devil, "the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me" (John 16:33, and 14:30). Desire Mr. Robert to remember me, if he love me. Grace, grace be with you, and all yours.

Remember Zion. There is a letter procured from the King by Mr. John Maxwell to urge conformity, to give the communion at Christmas in Edinburgh. Hold fast that which you have, that no man take the crown from you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Nov. 17, 1629.

VII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT—COMMUNION WITH CHRIST—FAITH IN THE PROMISES.)

MADAM,—I have longed exceedingly to hear of your life and health, and growth in the grace of God. I lacked the opportunity of a bearer, in respect I did not understand of the hasty departure of the last, by whom I might have saluted your Ladyship, and therefore I could not write before this time. I entreat you, Madam, let me have two lines from you concerning your present condition. I know ye are in grief and heaviness; and if it were not so, ye might be afraid, because then your way should not be so like the way that (our Lord saith) leadeth to the New Jerusalem. Sure I am, if ye knew what were before you, or if ye saw but some glances of it, ye would with gladness swim through the present floods of sorrow, spreading forth your arms out of desire to be at land. If God have given you the Earnest of the Spirit, as part of payment of God's principal sum, ye have to rejoice; for our Lord will not lose His earnest, neither will He go back or repent Him of the bargain. If ye find at some time a longing to see God, joy in the assurance of that sight, howbeit that feast be but like the Passover, that cometh about only once a year. Peace of conscience, liberty of prayer, the doors of God's treasure cast up to the soul, and a clear sight of Himself looking out, and saying, with a smiling countenance, "Welcome to Me, afflicted soul;" this is the earnest that He giveth sometimes, and which maketh glad the heart, and is an evidence that the bargain will hold. But to the end ye may get this earnest, it were good to come oft into terms of speech with God, both in prayer and hearing of the word. For this is the house of wine, where ye meet with your Well-Beloved. Here it is where He kisseth you with the kisses of His mouth, and where ye feel the smell of His garments; and they have indeed a most fragrant and glorious smell. Ye must, I say, wait upon Him, and be often communing with Him, whose lips are as lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, and by the moving thereof He will assuage your grief; for the Christ that saveth you is a speaking Christ; the church knoweth Him by His voice (Song 2:8), and can discern His tongue amongst a thousand. I say this to the end ye should not love those dumb masks of antichristian ceremonies, that the church where ye are for a time hath cast over the Christ whom your soul loveth. This is to set before you a dumb Christ. But when our Lord cometh, He speaketh to the heart in the simplicity of the Gospel.

I have neither tongue nor pen to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ. When ye have sold all that ye have, and bought the field wherein this pearl is, ye will think it no bad market; for if ye be in Him, all His is yours, and ye are in Him; therefore, "because He liveth, ye shall live also" (John 14:19). And what is that else, but as if the Son had said, "I will not have heaven except My redeemed ones be with Me: they and I cannot live asunder. Abide in Me, and I in you." O sweet communion, when Christ and we are through-other, and are no longer two! "Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, to behold My glory that Thou hast given Me" (John 17:24). Amen, dear Jesus, let it be according to that word. I wonder that ever your heart should be cast down, if ye believe this truth. I and they are not worthy of Jesus Christ, who will not suffer forty years' trouble for Him, since they have such glorious promises. But we fools believe those promises as the man that read Plato's writings concerning the immortality of the soul: so long as the book was in his hand he believed all was true, and that the soul could not die; but so soon as he laid by the book, he began to imagine that the soul is but a smoke or airy vapour, that perisheth with the expiring of the breath. So we at starts do assent to the sweet and precious promises; but, laying aside God's book, we begin to call all in question. It is faith indeed to believe without a pledge, and to hold the heart constant at this work; and when we doubt, to run to the Law and to the Testimony, and stay there. Madam, hold you here: here is your Father's testament,—read it; in it He hath left to you remission of sins and life everlasting. If all that ye have here be crosses and troubles, down-castings, frequent desertions, and departure of the Lord, who is suiting you in marriage, courage! He who is wooer and suitor should not be an household man with you till ye and He come up to His Father's house together. He purposeth to do you good at your latter end (Deut. 8:16), and to give you rest from the days of adversity (Ps. 94:13). "It is good to bear the yoke of God in your youth" (Lam. 3:27). "Turn in to your stronghold as a prisoner of hope" (Zech. 9:12). "For the vision is for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry" (Hab. 2:3). Hear Himself saying, "Come, My people" (rejoice, He calleth on you!), "enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself, as it were for a little moment, till the indignation be past" (Isa. 26:20). Believe, then, believe and be saved; think not hard if ye get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but Himself. God forbid that ye should rejoice in anything but in the cross of Christ (Gal. 6:14).

Our church, Madam, is decaying,—she is like Ephraim's cake (Hos. 7:9); "and grey hairs are here and there upon her, and she knoweth it not." She is old and grey-haired, near the grave, and no man taketh it to heart. Her wine is sour and is corrupted. Now if Phinehas's wife did live she might travail in birth and die, to see the ark of God taken, and the glory depart from our Israel. The power and life of religion is away. "Woe be to us! for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out" (Jer. 6:4). Madam, Zion is the ship wherein ye are carried to Canaan; if she suffer shipwreck, ye will be cast overboard upon death and life, to swim to land upon broken boards. It were time for us, by prayer, to put upon our master-pilot, Jesus, and to cry, "Master, save us; we perish." Grace, grace be with you. We would think it a blessing to our kirk to see you here; but our sins withhold good things from us. The great Messenger of the Covenant preserve you in body and spirit.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Feb. 1, 1630.

VIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, on occasion of his wife's illness

(WRESTLINGS WITH GOD.)

MISTRESS,—My love in Jesus Christ remembered. I am in good health; honour to my Lord; but my wife's disease increaseth daily, to her great torment and pain night and day. She has not been in God's house since our communion, neither out of her bed. I have hired a man to Edinburgh to Doctor Jeally and to John Hamilton. I can hardly believe her disease is ordinary, for her life is bitter to her; she sleeps none, but cries as a woman travailing in birth. What will be the event, He that hath the keys of the grave knoweth. I have been many times, since I saw you, that I have besought the Lord to loose her out of body, and to take her to her rest. I believe the Lord's tide of afflictions will ebb again; but at present I am exercised with the wrestlings of God, being afraid of nothing more than this, that God has let loose the tempter upon my house. God rebuke him and his instruments. Because Satan is not cast out but by fasting and prayer, I entreat you remember our estate to our Lord, and entreat all good Christians whom ye know, but especially your pastor,2 to do the same. It becomes us still to knock, and to lie at the Lord's door, until we die knocking. If He will not open, it is more than He has said in His word. But He is faithful. I look not to win away to my home without wounds and blood. Welcome, welcome cross of Christ, if Christ be with it. I have not a calm spirit in the work of my calling here, being daily chastised; yet God hath not put out my candle, as He does to the wicked. Grace, grace be with you and all yours.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

IX.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, recommending a friend to her love

(PRAYERS ASKED.)

MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. At the desire of this bearer, whom I love, I thought to request you if ye can help his wife with your advice, for she is in a most dangerous and deadly-like condition. For I have thought she was changed in her carriage and life, this sometime bypast, and had hope that God would have brought her home; and now, by appearance, she will depart this life, and leave a number of children behind her. If ye can be entreated to help her, it is a work of mercy. My own wife is still in exceeding great torment night and day. Pray for us, for my life was never so wearisome to me. God hath filled me with gall and wormwood; but I believe (which holds up my head above the water), "It is good for a man," saith the Spirit of God, "that he bear the yoke in his youth" (Lam. 3:27).

I do remember you. I pray you be humble and believe; and I entreat you in Jesus Christ, pray for John Stuart and his wife, and desire your husband to do the same. Remember me heartily to Jean Brown. Desire her to pray for me and my wife: I do remember her. Forget not Zion. Grace, grace upon them, and peace, that pray for Zion. She is the ship we sail in to Canaan. If she be broken on a rock, we will be cast overboard, to swim to land betwixt death and life. The grace of Jesus be with your husband and children.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

X.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(SUBMISSION, PERSEVERANCE, AND ZEAL RECOMMENDED.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER IN CHRIST,—I could not get an answer written to your letter till now, in respect of my wife's disease; and she is yet mightily pained. I hope that all shall end in God's mercy. I know that an afflicted life looks very like the way that leads to the kingdom; for the Apostle hath drawn the line and the King's market-way, "through much tribulation, to the kingdom" (Acts 14:22; 1 Thess. 3:4). The Lord grant us the whole armour of God.

Ye write to me concerning your people's disposition, how that their hearts are inclined toward the man ye know, and whom ye desire most earnestly yourself. He would most gladly have the Lord's call for transplantation; for he knows that all God's plants, set by His own hand, thrive well; and if the work be of God, He can make a stepping-stone of the devil himself for setting forward the work. For yourself, I would advise you to ask of God a submissive heart. Your reward shall be with the Lord, although the people be not gathered (as the prophet speaks); and suppose the word do not prosper, God shall account you "a repairer of the breaches." And take Christ caution, ye shall not lose your reward. Hold your grip fast. If ye knew the mind of the glorified in heaven, they think heaven come to their hand at an easy market, when they have got it for threescore or fourscore years wrestling with God. When ye are come thither, ye shall think, "All I did, in respect of my rich reward, now enjoyed of free grace, was too little." Now then, for the love of the Prince of your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-runners, Forward, forward; faint not. Take as many to heaven with you as ye are able to draw. The more ye draw with you, ye shall be the welcomer yourself. Be no niggard or sparing churl of the grace of God; and employ all your endeavours for establishing an honest ministry in your town, now when ye have so few to speak a good word for you. I have many a grieved heart daily in my calling. I would be undone, if I had not access to the King's chamber of presence, to show Him all the business. The devil rages, and is mad to see the water drawn from his own mill; but would to God we could be the Lord's instruments to build the Son of God's house.

Pray for me. If the Lord furnish not new timber from Lebanon to build the house, the work will cease. I look to Him, who hath begun well with me. I have His handwrite, He will not change. Your daughter is well, and longs for a Bible. The Lord establish you in peace. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours at all power in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XI.—To my LADY KENMURE

(GOD'S INEXPLICABLE DEALINGS WITH HIS PEOPLE WELL ORDERED—WANT OF ORDINANCES—CONFORMITY TO CHRIST—TROUBLES OF THE CHURCH—DEATH OF MR. RUTHERFORD'S WIFE.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you. I received your Ladyship's letter, in the which I perceive your case in this world smelleth of a fellowship and communion with the Son of God in His sufferings. Ye cannot, ye must not, have a more pleasant or more easy condition here, than He had, who "through afflictions was made perfect" (Heb. 2:10). We may indeed think, Cannot God bring us to heaven with ease and prosperity? Who doubteth but He can? But His infinite wisdom thinketh and decreeth the contrary; and we cannot see a reason of it, yet He hath a most just reason. We never with our eyes saw our own soul; yet we have a soul. We see many rivers, but we know not their first spring and original fountain; yet they have a beginning. Madam, when ye are come to the other side of the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God's wisdom, ye shall then be forced to say, "If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory." It is your part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on; for I protest, in the presence of that all-discerning eye, who knoweth what I write and what I think, that I would not want the sweet experience of the consolations of God for all the bitterness of affliction. Nay, whether God come to His children with a rod or a crown, if He come Himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome, Jesus, what way soever Thou come, if we can get a sight of Thee! And sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw by the curtains, and say, "Courage, I am Thy salvation," than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God.

Worthy and dear lady, in the strength of Christ, fight and overcome. Ye are now yourself alone, but ye may have, for the seeking, three always in your company, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I trust they are near you. Ye are now deprived of the comfort of a lively ministry; so was Israel in their captivity; yet hear God's promise to them: "Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God, although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come" (Ezek. 11:16). Behold a sanctuary! for a sanctuary, God Himself in the place and room of the temple of Jerusalem! I trust in God, that carrying this temple about with you, ye shall see Jehovah's beauty in His house.

We are in great fears of a great and fearful trial to come upon the kirk of God; for these, who would build their houses and nests upon the ashes of mourning Jerusalem, have drawn our King upon hard and dangerous conclusions against such as are termed Puritans, for the rooting of them out. Our prelates (the Lord take the keys of His house from these bastard porters!) assure us that, for such as will not conform, there is nothing but imprisonment and deprivation. The spouse of Jesus will ever be in the fire; but I trust in my God she shall not consume, because of the good-will of Him who dwelleth in the Bush; for He dwelleth in it with good-will. All sorts of crying sins without controlment abound in our land. The glory of the Lord is departing from Israel, and the Lord is looking back over His shoulder, to see if any one will say, "Lord, tarry," and no man requesteth Him to stay. Corrupt and false doctrine is openly preached by the idol-shepherds of the land. For myself, I have daily griefs, through the disobedience unto, and contempt of, the word of God. I was summoned before the High Commission by a profligate person in this parish, convicted of incest. In the business, Mr. Alexander Colvill2 (for respect to your Ladyship) was my great friend, and wrote a most kind letter to me. The Lord give him mercy in that day. Upon the day of my compearance, the sea and winds refused to give passage to the Bishop of St. Andrews. I entreat your Ladyship, thank Mr. Alexander Colvill with two lines of a letter.

My wife now, after long disease and torment, for the space of a year and a month, is departed this life. The Lord hath done it; blessed be His name. I have been diseased of a fever tertian for the space of thirteen weeks, and am yet in the sickness, so that I preach but once on the Sabbath with great difficulty. I am not able either to visit or examine the congregation. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Your Ladyship's at all obedience,

S. R.

ANWOTH, June 26, 1630.

XII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(GOD MIXETH THE CUP—THE WICKED HAVE THEIR REWARD—FAITHFULNESS—FORBEARANCE—TRIALS.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER,—My love in the Lord Jesus remembered. I understand that you are still under the Lord's visitation, in your former business with your enemies, which is God's dealing. For, till He take His children out of the furnace that knoweth how long they should be tried, there is no deliverance; but after God's highest and fullest tide, that the sea of trouble is gone over the souls of His children, then comes the gracious long-hoped-for ebbing and drying up of the waters. Dear sister, do not faint; the wicked may hold the bitter cup to your head, but God mixeth it, and there is no poison in it. They strike, but God moves the rod; Shimei curseth, but it is because the Lord bids Him. I tell you, and I have it from Him before whom I stand for God's people, that there is a decreet given out, in the great court of the highest heavens, that your present troubles shall be dispersed as the morning cloud, and God shall bring forth your righteousness, as the light of the noontide of the day. Let me intreat you, in Christ's name, to keep a good conscience in your proceedings in that matter, and beware of yourself: yourself is a more dangerous enemy than I, or any without you. Innocence and an upright cause is a good advocate before God, and shall plead for you, and win your cause. And count much of your Master's approbation and His smiling. He is now as the king that is gone to a far country. God seems to be from home (if I may say so), yet He sees the ill servants, who say, "Our Master deferreth His coming," and so strike their fellow-servants. But patience, my beloved; Christ the King is coming home; the evening is at hand, and He will ask an account of His servants. Make a fair, clear count to Him. So carry yourself as at night you may say, Master, I have wronged none; behold, you have your own with advantage. O! your soul then will esteem much of one of God's kisses and embracements, in the testimony of a good conscience. The wicked, howbeit they be casting many evil thoughts, bitter words, and sinful deeds behind their back, yet they are, in so doing, clerks to their own process, and doing nothing all their life but gathering dittayes against themselves; for God is angry at the wicked every day. And I hope your present process shall be sighted one day by Him, who knoweth your just cause; and the bloody tongues, crafty foxes, double-ingrained hypocrites, shall appear as they are before His majesty, when He shall take the mask off their faces. And O, thrice happy shall your soul be then, when God finds you covered with nothing but the white robe of the saint's innocence, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

You have been of late in the King's wine-cellar, where you were welcomed by the Lord of the inn, upon condition that you walk in love. Put on love, and brotherly kindness, and long-suffering; wait as long upon the favour and turned hearts of your enemies as your Christ waited upon you, and as dear Jesus stood at your soul's door, with dewy and rainy locks, the long cold night. Be angry, but sin not. I persuade myself, that holy unction within you, which teacheth you all things, is also saying, "Overcome evil with good." If that had not spoken in your soul, at the tears of your aged pastor, you would not have agreed, and forgiven his foolish son, who wronged you; but my Master bade me tell you, God's blessing shall be upon you for it; and from Him I say, Grace, grace, grace, and everlasting peace be upon you. It is my prayer for you, that your carriage may grace and adorn the Gospel of that Lord who hath graced you. I heard your husband also was sick; but I beseech you in the bowels of Jesus, welcome every rod of God, for I find not in the whole book of God a greater note of the child of God, than to fall down and kiss the feet of an angry God. And when He seems to put you away from Him, and loose your hands that grip Him, to look up in faith, and say, "I shall not, I will not, be put away from Thee. Howbeit Thy Majesty draw to free Thyself of me, yet, Lord, give me leave to hold, and cleave unto Thyself." I will pray, that your husband may return in peace. Your decreet comes from heaven; look up thither, for many (says Solomon) seek the face of the ruler, but every man's judgment cometh from the Lord. And be glad that it is so, for Christ is the clerk of your process, and will see that all go right; and I persuade myself He is saying, "Yonder servants of mine are wronged; for My blood, Father, give them justice." Think you not, dear sister, but our High Priest, our Jesus, the Master of requests, presents our bills of complaint to the great Lord Justice? Yea I believe it, since He is our Advocate, and Daniel calls Him the Spokesman, whose hand presents all to the Father.

For other business, I say nothing, till the Lord give me to see your face. I am credibly informed, that multitudes of England, and especially worthy preachers, and silenced preachers of London, are gone to New England; and I know one learned holy preacher, who hath written against the Arminians, who is gone thither. Our Blessed Lord Jesus, who cannot get leave to sleep with His spouse in this land, is going to seek an inn where He will be better entertained. And what marvel? Wearied Jesus, after He had travelled from Geneva, by the ministry of worthy Mr. Knox, and was laid in His bed, and reformation begun, and the curtains drawn, had not gotten His dear eyes well together, when irreverent bishops came in, and with the din and noise of ceremonies, holy days, and other Romish corruptions, they awake our Beloved. Others came to His bedside, and drew the curtains, and put hands on His servants, banished, deprived, and confined them; and for the pulpit they got a stool and a cold fire in the Blackness;2 and the nobility drew the covering off Him, and have made Him a poor naked Christ, spoiling His servants of the tithes and kirk rents. And now there is such a noise of crying sins in the land, as the want of the knowledge of God, of mercy, and truth; such swearing, whoring, lying, and blood touching blood; that Christ is putting on His clothes, and making Him, like an ill-handled stranger, to go to other lands. Pray Him, sister, to lie down again with His beloved.

Remember my dearest love to John Gordon, to whom I will write when I am strong, and to John Brown, Grissel, Samuel, and William; grace be upon them. As you love Christ, keep Christ's favour, and put not upon Him when He sleeps, to awake Him before He please. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Your brother in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, July 21, 1630.

XIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, when exposed to reproach for her principles

(JESUS A PATTERN OF PATIENCE UNDER SUFFERING.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—I have been thinking, since my departure from you, of the pride and malice of your adversaries; and ye may not (since ye have had the Book of Psalms so often) take hardly with this; for David's enemies snuffed at him, and through the pride of their heart said, "The Lord will not require it" (Ps. 10:13). I beseech you, therefore, in the bowels of Jesus, set before your eyes the patience of your forerunner Jesus, who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him who judgeth righteously (1 Pet. 2:23). And since your Lord and Redeemer with patience received many a black stroke on His glorious back, and many a buffet of the unbelieving world, and says of Himself, "I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting" (Isa. 4:6); follow Him, and think it not hard that you receive a blow with your Lord, Take part with Jesus of His sufferings, and glory in the marks of Christ. If this storm were over, you must prepare yourself for a new wound; for, five thousand years ago, our Lord proclaimed deadly war betwixt the Seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent. And marvel not that one town cannot keep the children of God and the children of the devil, for one belly could not keep Jacob and Esau (Gen. 25:22); one house could not keep peaceably together Isaac, the son of the promise, and Ishmael, the son of the handmaid (Gen. 21:10). Be you upon Christ's side of it, and care not what flesh can do. Hold yourself fast by your Saviour, howbeit you be buffeted, and those that follow Him. Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be. "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed" (2 Cor. 4:8, 9). If you can possess your soul in patience, their day is coming. Worthy and dear sister, know to carry yourself in trouble; and when you are hated and reproached, the Lord shows it to you—"All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten Thee, neither have we dealt falsely in Thy covenant" (Ps. 44:17). "Unless Thy law had been my delight, I had perished in mine affliction" (Ps. 119:92). Keep God's covenant in your trials. Hold you by His blessed word, and sin not. Flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying, fretting. Forgive an hundred pence to your fellow-servant, because your Lord hath forgiven you ten thousand talents. For I assure you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no advantage against you, except you sin and offend your Lord in your sufferings. But the way to overcome is by patience, forgiving and praying for your enemies, in doing whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and your Lord shall open a door to you in your troubles. Wait upon Him, as the night watch waiteth for the morning. He will not tarry. Go up to your watch-tower, and come not down; but by prayer, and faith, and hope, wait on. When the sea is full, it will ebb again; and so soon as the wicked are come to the top of their pride, and are waxed high and mighty, then is their change approaching. They that believe make not haste.

Remember Zion, forget her not, for her enemies are many; for the nations are gathered together against her. "But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they His counsel: for He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion" (Micah 4:12, 13). Behold, God hath gathered His enemies together, as sheaves to the threshing. Let us stay and rest upon these promises. Now again, I trust in our Lord you shall by faith sustain yourself, and comfort yourself in your Lord, and be strong in His power; for you are in the beaten and common way to heaven when you are under our Lord's crosses. You have reason to rejoice in it, more than in a crown of gold; and rejoice, and be glad to bear the reproaches of Christ. I rest, recommending you and yours for ever to the grace and mercy of God.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Feb. 11, 1631.

XIV.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, in the prospect of a Communion season

(ABUNDANCE IN JESUS—THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS—ENEMIES OF GOD.)

WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,—You are not unacquainted with the day of our Communion. I entreat, therefore, the aid of your prayers for that great work, which is one of our feast days, wherein our Well-beloved Jesus rejoiceth, and is merry with His friends.

Good cause have we to wonder at His love, since the day of His death was such a sorrowful day to Him, even the day when His mother, the kirk, crowned Him with thorns, and He had many against Him, and compeared His lone in the fields against them all; yet He delights with us to remember that day. Let us love Him, and be glad and rejoice in His salvation. I am confident that you shall see the Son of God that day, and I dare in His name invite you to His banquet. Many a time you have been well entertained in His house; and He changes not upon His friends, nor chides them for too great kindness. Yet I speak not this to make you leave off to pray for me, who have nothing of myself, but in so far as daily I receive from Him, who is made of His Father a running-over fountain, at which I and others may come with thirsty souls, and fill our vessels. Long hath this well been standing open to us. Lord Jesus, lock it not up again upon us. I am sorry for our desolate kirk; yet I dare not but trust, so long as there be any of God's lost money here He shall not blow out the candle. The Lord make fair candlesticks in His house, and remove the blind lights.

I have been this time bypast thinking much of the incoming of the kirk of the Jews. Pray for them. When they were in their Lord's house, at their Father's elbow, they were longing for the incoming of their little sister, the kirk of the Gentiles. They said to their Lord, "We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?" (Cant. 8:8). Let us give them a meeting. What shall we do for our elder sister, the Jews? Lord Jesus, give them breasts. That were a glad day to see us and them both sit down to one table, and Christ at the head of the table. Then would our Lord come shortly with his fair guard to hold His great court.

Dear sister, be patient, for the Lord's sake, under the wrongs that you suffer of the wicked. Your Lord shall make you see your desire on your enemies. Some of them shall be cut off; "they shall shake off their unripe grapes as the vine, and cast off their flower as the olive" (Job. 15:33): God shall make them like unripe sour grapes, shaken off the tree with the blast of God's wrath; and therefore pity them, and pray for them. Others of them must remain to exercise you. God hath said of them, Let the tares grow up until harvest (Matt. 13:30). It proves you to be your Lord's wheat. Be patient; Christ went to heaven with many a wrong. His visage and countenance was all marred more than the sons of men. You may not be above your Master; many a black stroke received innocent Jesus, and He received no mends, but referred them all to the great court-day, when all things shall be righted. I desire to hear from you within a day or two, if Mr. Robert remain in his purpose to come and help us. God shall give you joy of your children. I pray for them by their names. I bless you from our Lord, your husband and children. Grace, grace, and mercy be multiplied upon you.

Yours in the Lord for ever,

S. R.

ANWOTH, May 7, 1631.

XV.—For MARION M'NAUGHT on occasion of the threatened introduction of the Episcopalian Service-Book

(TROUBLES OF THE CHURCH—PRIVATE WRONGS.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—My love in Christ remembered. I have received a letter from Edinburgh, certainly informing me that the English service, and the organs, and King James' Psalms, are to be imposed upon our kirk; and that the bishops are dealing for a General Assembly. A. R. hath confirmed the news also, and says he spoke with Sir William Alexander, who is to come down with his prince's warrant for that effect. I am desired in the received letter to acquaint the best-affected about me with that storm: therefore I entreat you, and charge you in the Lord's name, pray; but do not communicate this to any till I see you. My heart is broken at the remembrance of it, and it was my fear, and answereth to my last letter except one, that I wrote unto you. Dearly beloved, be not casten down, but let us, as our Lord's doves, take us to our wings (for other armour we have none), and flee into the hole of the rock. It is true A. R. says, the worthiest men in England are banished, and silenced, about the number of sixteen or seventeen choice Gospel preachers, and the persecution is already begun. Howbeit I do not write this unto you with a dry face, yet I am confident in the Lord's strength, Christ and His side shall overcome; and you shall be assured; the kirk were not a kirk, if it were not so. As our dear Husband, in wooing His kirk, received many a black stroke, so His bride, in wooing Him, gets many blows, and in this wooing there are strokes upon both sides. Let it be so. The devil will not make the marriage go back, neither can he tear the contract; the end shall be mercy. Yet notwithstanding of all this, we have no warrant of God to leave off all lawful means. I have been writing unto you the counsels and draughts of men against the kirk; but they know not, as Micah says, the counsel of Jehovah. The great men of the world may make ready the fiery furnace for Zion; but trow ye that they can cause the fire to burn? No. He that made the fire, I trust, shall not say amen to their decreets. I trust in my Lord, that God hath not subscribed their bill, and their conclusions have not yet passed our great King's seal. Therefore, if ye think good, address yourself first to the Lord, and then to A. R., anent the business that you know.

I am most unkindly handled by the presbytery; and (as if I had been a stranger, and not a member of that seat, to sit in judgment with them) I was summoned by their order as a witness against B. A. But they have got no advantage in that matter. Other particulars you shall hear, God willing, at meeting.

Anent the matter betwixt you and I. E., I remember it to God. I entreat you in the Lord, be submissive to His will; for the higher that their pride mounts up, they are the nearer to a fall. The Lord will more and more discover that man. Let your husband, in all matters of judgment, take Christ's part, for the defence of the poor and needy, and the oppressed, for the maintenance of equity and justice in the town. And take you no fear. He shall take your part, and then you are strong enough. What? Howbeit you receive indignities for your Lord's sake, let it be so. When He shall put His holy hand up to your face in heaven, and dry your face, and wipe the tears from your eyes, judge if ye will not have cause then to rejoice. Anent other particulars, if you would speak with me, appoint any of the first three days of the next week in Carletoun, when Carletoun is at home, and acquaint me with your desires. And remember me to God, and my dearest affection to your husband; and for Zion's sake hold not your peace. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, and your husband and children.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH, June 2, 1631.

XVI.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, on occasion of a proposal to remove him from Anwoth

(BABYLON'S DESTRUCTION AND CHRIST'S COMING—THE YOUNG INVITED.)

WORTHY AND DEAR MISTRESS,—My dearest love in Christ remembered. As to the business which I know you would so fain have taken effect, my earnest desire is, that you stand still. Haste not, and you shall see the salvation of God. The great Master Gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a wonderful providence, with His own hand (I dare, if it were for edification, swear it), planted me here, where, by His grace, in this part of His vineyard, I grow.—I dare not say but Satan and the world (one of his pages whom he sends on his errands) have said otherwise. And here I will abide till the great Master of the Vineyard think fit to transplant me. But when He sees meet to loose me at the root, and to plant me where I may be more useful, both as to fruit and shadow, and when He who planted pulleth up that He may transplant, who dare put to their hand and hinder? If they do, God shall break their arm at the shoulder blade, and do His turn. When our Lord is going west, the devil and world go east; and do you not know that it hath been ever this way betwixt God and the world—God drawing, and they holding, God "yea," and the world "nay"? But they fall on their back and are frustrate, and our Lord holdeth His grip.

Wherefore doth the word say, that our Christ, the Goodman of this house, His dear kirk, hath feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace (Rev. 1:15)? For no other cause but because where our Lord setteth down His brazen feet, He will forward; and whithersoever He looketh, He will follow His look; and His feet burn all under them, like as fire doth stubble and thorns. I think He hath now given the world a proof of His exceeding great power, when He is doing such great things, wherein Zion is concerned, by the sword of the Swedish king, as of a Gideon. As you love the glory of God, pray instantly (yea engage all your praying acquaintance, and take their faithful promise to do the like) for this king, and every one that Zion's King armeth, to execute the written vengeance on Babylon. Our Lord hath begun to loose some of Babylon's corner stones. Pray to Him to hold on, for that city must fall, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth must make a banquet of Babylon; for He hath invited them to eat the flesh of that whore, and to drink her blood. And the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto her, and shameful spewing shall be upon her glory. He whose word must stand hath said, "Take this cup at the hand of the Lord, and drink and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more" (Jer. 25:27). Our Jesus is setting up Himself, as His Father's ensign (Isa. 11:10), as God's fair white colours, that His soldiers may all flock about Him. Long, long may these colours stand. It is long since He displayed a banner against Babylon in the fight of men and angels. Let us rejoice and triumph in our God. The victory is certain; for when Christ and Babel wrestle, then angels and saints may prepare themselves to sing, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen." Howbeit that Prince of renown, precious Jesus, be now weeping and bleeding in His members, yet Christ will laugh again; and it is time enough for us to laugh, when our Lord Christ laugheth,—and that will be shortly. For when we hear of wars and rumours of wars, the Judge's feet are then before the door, and He must be in heaven giving order to the angels to make themselves ready, and prepare their hooks and sickles for that great harvest. Christ will be upon us in haste; watch but a little, and ere long the skies will rive, and that fair lovely person, Jesus, shall come in the clouds, freighted and loaded with glory. And then all these knaves and foxes that destroyed the vines shall call to the hills, and cry to the mountains to cover them, and hide them from the face of Him who sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

Remember me to your husband, and desire him from me to help Christ, and to take His part, and in judgment sit ever beside Him, and receive a blow patiently for His sake; for He is worthy to be suffered for, not only to blows, but also to blood. He shall find that innocency and uprightness in judgment shall hold its feet and make him happy, when jouking will not do it. I speak this because a person said to me, "I pray God the country be not in worse case now when the provost and bailies are agreed, than formerly,"—to whom I replied, "I trust the provost is agreed with the man's person, but not with his faults." I pray for you, with my whole soul and desire, that your children may walk in the truth, and that the Lord may shine upon them, and make their faces to shine, when the faces of others shall blush. I dare promise them, in His name, whose truth I preach, if they will but try God's service, that they shall find Him the sweetest Master that ever they served. And desire them from me but to try for a while the service of this blessed Master, and then, if His service be not sweet, if it afford not what is pleasant to the soul's taste, change Him upon trial, and seek a better. Christ is an unknown Christ to the young ones; and therefore they seek Him not, because they know Him not. Bid them come and see, and seek a kiss of His mouth; and then they will find His mouth is so sweet, that they will be everlastingly chained unto Him by their own consent. If I have any credit with your children, I entreat them in Christ's name to try what truth and reality is in what I say, and leave not His service till they have found me a liar. I give you, your husband, and them, to His keeping to whom I have, and dare venture myself and soul, even to our dear Friend Jesus Christ, in whom I am,

Yours,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XVII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, when in distress as to prospects of the Church

(ARMINIANISM—CALL TO PRAYER—NO HELP BUT IN CHRIST.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—My dearest love in Christ remembered to you. Know that I am in great heaviness for the pitiful case of our Lord's kirk. I hear the cause why Dr. Burton is committed to prison is his writing and preaching against the Arminians. I therefore entreat the aid of your prayers for myself, and the Lord's captives of hope, and for Zion. The Lord hath let and daily lets me see clearly, how deep furrows Arminianism and the followers of it draw upon the back of God's Israel (but our Lord cut the cords of the wicked!). "Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me" (Isa. 49:14). "Zion weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are upon her cheeks; amongst all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies" (Lam. 1:2). "Our silver is become dross, our wine mixed with water" (Isa. 1:22). "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!" (Lam. 4:1, 2). It is time now for the Lord's secret ones, who favour the dust of Zion, to cry, "How long, Lord?" and to go up to their watch-tower, and to stay there, and not to come down until the vision speak; for it shall speak (Hab. 2:3). In the mean time, the just shall live by faith. Let us wait on and not weary. I have not a thread to hang upon and rest, but this one, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; Thy walls are continually before Me (Isa. 49:15, 16). For all outward helps do fail; it is time therefore for us to hang ourselves, as our Lord's vessels, upon the nail that is fastened in a sure place. We would make stakes of our own fastening, but they will break. Our Lord will have Zion on His own nail. Edom is busy within us, and Babel without us, against the handful of Jacob's seed. It were best that we were upon Christ's side of it, for His enemies will get the stalks to keep, as the proverb is. Our greatest difficulty will be to win upon the rock now, when the wind and waves of persecution are so lofty and proud. Let sweet Jesus take us by the hand. Neither must we think that it will be otherwise; for it is told to the souls under the altar, "That their fellow-servants must be killed as they were" (Rev. 6:11). Surely, it cannot be long to the day. Nay, hear Him say, "Behold, I come, My dear bride; think not long. I shall be at you at once. I hear you, and am coming." Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus, come quickly; for the prisoners of hope are looking out at the prison windows, to see if they can behold the King's ambassador coming with the King's warrant and the keys. I write not to you by guess now, because I have a warrant to say unto you, the garments of Christ's spouse must be once again dyed in blood, as long ago her husband's were. But our Father sees His bleeding Son. What I write unto you, show it to I. G. Grace, grace, grace and mercy be with you, your husband, and children.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XVIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, in the prospect of a Communion season

(PRAYER SOLICITED—THE CHURCH'S PROSPECTS.)

MISTRESS,—My love in Christ as remembered. Our Communion is on Sabbath come eight days. I will entreat you to recommend it to God, and to pray for me in that work. I have more sins upon me now than the last time. Therefore I will beseech you in Christ, seek this petition to me from God, that the Lord would give me grace to vow and perform new obedience. I have cause to suit this of you; and show it to Thomas Carson, Fergus and Jean Brown, for I have been and am exceedingly cast down, and am fighting against a malicious devil, of whom I can win little ground. I would think a spoil plucked from him, and his trusty servant sin, a lawful and just conquest. And it were no sin to take from him, in the name of the Goodman of our house, our King Jesus. I invite you to the banquet. He saith, ye shall be dearly welcome to Him. And I desire to believe (howbeit not without great fear) He shall be as hearty in His own house as He has been before. For me, it is but small reckoning; but I would fain have our Father and Lord to break the great fair loaf, Christ, and to distribute His slain Son amongst the bairns of His house, and that if any were a step-bairn, in respect of comfort and sense, it were rather myself than His poor bairns. Therefore bid our Well-beloved come to His garden and feed among the lilies.

And as concerning Zion, I hope our Lord, who sent His angel (Zech. 2:1, 2) with a measuring line in his hand to measure the length and breadth of Jerusalem, in token He would not want a foot length or inch of His own free heritage, shall take order with those who have taken away many acres of His own land from Him. And God will build Jerusalem in the old sted and place where it was before. In this hope rejoice and be glad. Christ's garment was not dipped in blood for nothing, but for His Bride, whom He bought with strokes. I will desire you to remember my old suits to God, God's glory and the increase of light, that I dry not up. For your town, hope and believe that the Lord will gather in His loose sheaves among you to His barn, and send one with a well-toothed, sharp hook, and strong gardies, to reap His harvest. And the Lord Jesus be Husbandman, and oversee the growing. Remember my love to your husband and to Samuel. Grace upon you and your children. Lord, make them corner-stones in Jerusalem, and give them grace in their youth to take band with the fair Chief Corner-stone, who was hewed out of the mountain without hands, and got many a knock with His Father's forehammer, and endured them all, and the stone did neither cleave nor break. Upon that stone make your soul to lie. King Jesus be with your spirit.

Your friend in his well-beloved Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XIX.—To my LADY KENMURE

(ENCOURAGEMENT TO ABOUND IN FAITH FROM THE PROSPECT OF GLORY—CHRIST'S UNCHANGEABLENESS.)

MADAM,—Having saluted you in the Lord Jesus, I thought it my duty, having the occasion of this bearer, to write again unto your ladyship, though I have no new purpose but what I wrote of before. Yet ye cannot be too often awakened to go forward towards your city, since your way is long, and (for anything ye know) your day is short. And your Lord requireth of you, as ye advance in years and steal forward insensibly towards eternity, that your faith may grow and ripen for the Lord's harvest. For the great Husbandman giveth a season to His fruits that they may come to maturity, and having gotten their fill of the tree, they may then be shaken and gathered in for use; whereas the wicked rot upon the tree, and their branch shall not be green. "He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive" (Job 15:33). It is God's mercy to you, Madam, that He giveth you your fill, even to loathing, of this bitter world, that ye may willingly leave it, and, like a full and satisfied banqueter, long for the drawing of the table. And at last, having trampled under your feet all the rotten pleasures that are under sun and moon, and having rejoiced as though ye rejoiced not, and having bought as though ye possessed not (1 Cor. 7:30), ye may, like an old crazy ship, arrive at our Lord's harbour, and be made welcome, as one of those who have ever had one foot loose from the earth, longing for that place where your soul shall feast and banquet for ever and ever upon a glorious sight of the incomprehensible Trinity, and where ye shall see the fair face of the man Christ, even the beautiful face that was once for your cause more marred than any of the visages of the sons of men (Isa. 52:14), and was all covered with spitting and blood. Be content to wade through the waters betwixt you and glory with Him, holding His hand fast, for He knoweth all the fords. Howbeit ye may be ducked, but ye cannot drown, being in His company; and ye may all the way to glory see the way bedewed with His blood who is the Forerunner. Be not afraid, therefore, when ye come even to the black and swelling river of death, to put in your foot and wade after Him. The current, how strong soever, cannot carry you down the water to hell: the Son of God, His death and resurrection, are stepping-stones and a stay to you; set down your feet by faith upon these stones, and go through as on dry land. If ye knew what He is preparing for you, ye would be too glad. He will not (it may be) give you a full draught till you come up to the well-head and drink, yea, drink abundantly, of the pure river of the water of life, that proceedeth out from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1). Madam, tire not, weary not; I dare find you the Son of God caution, when ye are got up thither, and have cast your eyes to view the golden city, and the fair and never-withering Tree of Life, that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, ye shall then say, "Four-and-twenty hours' abode in this place is worth threescore and ten years' sorrow upon earth." If ye can but say, that ye long earnestly to be carried up thither (and I hope you cannot for shame deny Him the honour of having wrought that desire in your soul), then hath your Lord given you an earnest. And, Madam, do ye believe that our Lord will lose His earnest, and rue of the bargain, and change His mind, as if He were a man that can lie, or the son of man that can repent? Nay, He is unchangeable, and the same this year that He was the former year. And His Son Jesus, who upon earth ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and spake and conferred with whores and harlots, and put up His holy hand and touched the leper's filthy skin, and came evermore nigh sinners, even now in glory, is yet that same Lord. His honour, and His great court in heaven, hath not made Him forget His poor friends on earth. In Him honours change not manners, and He doth yet desire your company. Take Him for the old Christ, and claim still kindness to Him, and say, "O it is so; He is not changed, but I am changed." Nay, it is a part of His unchangeable love, and an article of the new covenant, to keep you that ye cannot dispone Him, nor sell Him. He hath not played fast and loose with us in the covenant of grace, so that we may run from Him at our pleasure. His love hath made the bargain surer than so; for Jesus, as the cautioner, is bound for us (Heb. 7:22). And it cannot stand with His honour to die in the borrows (as we use to say), and lose thee, whom He must render again to the Father when He shall give up the kingdom to Him. Consent and say "Amen" to the promises, and ye have sealed that God is true, and Christ is yours. This is an easy market. Ye but look on with faith; for Christ suffered all, and paid all.

Madam, fearing I be tedious to your Ladyship, I must stop here, desiring always to hear that your Ladyship is well, and that ye have still your face up the mountain. Pray for us, Madam, and for Zion, whereof ye are a part. We expect a trial. God's wheat in this land must go through Satan's sieve, but their faith shall not fail. I am still wrestling in our Lord's work, and have been tried and tempted with brethren who look awry to the Gospel. Now He that is able to keep you unto that day preserve your soul, body, and spirit, and present you before His face with His own Bride, spotless and blameless.

Your Ladyship's, to be commanded always in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Nov. 26, 1631.

XX.—To my LADY KENMURE

(ASSURANCE OF CHRIST'S LOVE UNDER TRIALS—FULNESS OF CHRIST—HOPE OF GLORY.)

MADAM,—I am grieved exceedingly that your Ladyship should think, or have cause to think, that such as love you in God, in this country, are forgetful of you. For myself, Madam, I owe to your Ladyship all evidences of my high respect (in the sight of my Lord, whose truth I preach, I am bold to say it) for His rich grace in you.

My Communion, put off till the end of a longsome and rainy harvest, and the presbyterial exercise (as the bearer can inform your Ladyship), hindered me to see you. And for my people's sake (finding them like hot iron, that cooleth being out of the fire, and that is pliable to no work), I do not stir abroad; neither have I left them at all, since your Ladyship was in this country, save at one time only, about two years ago. Yet I dare not say but it is a fault, howbeit no defect in my affection; and I trust to make it up again, so soon as possibly I am able to wait upon you.

Madam, I have no new purpose to write unto you, but of that which I think (nay, which our Lord thinketh) needful, that one thing, Mary's good part, which ye have chosen (Luke 10:42). Madam, all that God hath, both. Himself and the creatures, He is dealing and parting amongst the sons of Adam. There are none so poor as that they can say in His face, "He hath given them nothing." But there is no small odds betwixt the gifts given to lawful bairns and to bastards; and the more greedy ye are in suiting, the more willing He is to give, delighting to be called open-handed. I hope your Ladyship laboureth to get assurance of the surest patrimony, even God Himself. Ye will find in Christianity, that God aimeth, in all His dealings with His children, to bring them to a high contempt of, and deadly feud with the world, and to set an high price upon Christ, and to think Him One who cannot be bought for gold, and well worthy the fighting for. And for no other cause, Madam, doth the Lord withdraw from you the childish toys and the earthly delights that He giveth unto others, but that He may have you wholly to Himself. Think therefore of the Lord, as of one who cometh to woo you in marriage, when ye are in the furnace. He seeketh His answer of you in affliction, to see if ye will say, Even so I take Him. Madam, give Him this answer pleasantly, and in your mind do not secretly grudge nor murmur. When He is striking you in love, beware to strike again: that is dangerous; for those who strike again shall get the last blow.

If I hit not upon the right string, it is because I am not acquainted with your Ladyship's present condition; but I believe your Ladyship goeth on foot, laughing, and putting on a good countenance before the world, and yet ye carry heaviness about with you. Ye do well, Madam, not to make them witnesses of your grief, who cannot be curers of it. But be exceedingly charitable of your dear Lord. As there be some friends worldly of whom ye will not entertain an ill thought, far more ought ye to believe good evermore of your dear friend, that lovely fair person, Jesus Christ. The thorn is one of the most cursed, and angry, and crabbed weeds that the earth yieldeth, and yet out of it springeth the rose, one of the sweetest-smelled flowers, and most delightful to the eye, that the earth hath. Your Lord shall make joy and gladness out of your afflictions; for all His roses have a fragrant smell Wait for the time when His own holy hand shall hold them to your nose; and if ye would have present comfort under the cross, be much in prayer, for at that time your faith kisseth Christ and He kisseth the soul. And oh! if the breath of His holy mouth be sweet, I dare be caution, out of some small experience, that ye shall not be beguiled; for the world (yea, not a few number of God's children) know not well what that is which they call a Godhead. But, Madam, come near to the Godhead, and look down to the bottom of the well; there is much in Him, and sweet were that death to drown in such a well. Your grief taketh liberty to work upon your mind, when ye are not busied in the meditation of the ever-delighting and all-blessed Godhead. If ye would lay the price ye give out (which is but some few years' pain and trouble) beside the commodities ye are to receive, ye would see they are not worthy to be laid in the balance together: but it is nature that maketh you look what ye give out, and weakness of faith that hindereth you to see what ye shall take in. Amend your hope, and frist your faithful Lord awhile. He maketh Himself your debtor in the new covenant. He is honest; take His word: "Affliction shall not spring up the second time" (Nahum 1:9). "He that overcometh shall inherit all things" (Rev. 21:7). Of all things, then, which ye want in this life, Madam, I am able to say nothing, if that be not believed which ye have in Rev. 3:5, 21: "The overcomer shall be clothed in white raiment. To the overcomer I will give to sit with Me in My throne, as I overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne." Consider, Madam, if ye are not high up now, and far ben in the palace of our Lord, when ye are upon a throne in white raiment, at lovely Christ's elbow. O thrice fools are we, who, like new-born princes weeping in the cradle, know not that there is a kingdom before them! Then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self-love, and world-worship, and infidelity, that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house (Rev. 3:12). Madam, what think ye to take binding with the fair corner-stone Jesus? The Lord give you wisdom to believe and hope your day is coming. I hope to be witness of your joy, as I have been a hearer and beholder of your grief. Think ye much to follow the heir of the crown, who had experience of sorrows, and was acquainted with grief? (Isa. 53:3). It were pride to aim to be above the King's Son: it is more than we deserve, that we are equals in glory, in a manner. Now commending you to the dearest grace and mercy of God, I rest

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Jan. 4, 1632.

XXI.—To my LADY KENMURE

(SELF-DENIAL—HOPE OF CHRIST'S COMING—LOVING GOD FOR HIMSELF.)

MADAM,—Understanding (a little after the writing of my last letter) of the going of this bearer, I would not omit the opportunity of remembering your Ladyship, still harping upon that string, which in our whole lifetime is never too often touched upon (nor is our lesson well enough learned), that there is a necessity of advancing in the way to the kingdom of God, of the contempt of the world, of denying ourself and bearing of our Lord's cross, which is no less needful for us than daily food. And among many marks that we are on this journey, and under sail toward heaven, this is one, when the love of God so filleth our hearts, that we forget to love, and care not much for the having, or wanting of, other things; as one extreme heat burneth out another. By this, Madam, ye know, ye have betrothed your soul in marriage to Christ, when ye do make but small reckoning of all other suitors or wooers; and when ye can (having little in hand, but much in hope) live as a young heir, during the time of his non-age and minority, being content to be as hardly handled and under as precise a reckoning as servants, because his hope is upon the inheritance. For this cause God's bairns take well with spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves that they have in heaven a better and an enduring substance (Heb. 10:34). That day that the earth and the works therein shall be burned with fire (2 Pet. 3:10), your hidden hope and your life shall appear. And therefore, since ye have not now many years to your endless eternity, and know not how soon the sky above your head will rive, and the Son of man will be seen in the clouds of heaven, what better and wiser course can ye take, than to think that your one foot is here, and your other foot in the life to come, and to leave off loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants that shall be made up when your Lord and ye shall meet, and when ye shall give in your bill, that day, of all your wants here? If your losses be not made up, ye have place to challenge the Almighty; but it shall not be so. Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and your joy shall none take from you (1 Pet. 1:8; John 16:22). It is enough, that the Lord hath promised you great things, only let the time of bestowing them be in His own carving. It is not for us to set an hour-glass to the Creator of time. Since He and we differ only in the term of payment; since He hath promised payment, and we believe it, it is no great matter. We will put that in His own will, as the frank buyer, who cometh near to what the seller seeketh, useth at last to refer the difference to his own will, and so cutteth off the course of mutual prigging. Madam, do not prigg with your frank-hearted and gracious Lord about the time of the fulfilling of your joys. It will be; God hath said it; bide His harvest, wait upon His whitsunday. His day is better than your day; He putteth not the hook in the corn till it be ripe and full-eared. The great Angel of the covenant bear you company, till the trumpet shall sound, and the voice of the Archangel awaken the dead. Ye shall find it your only happiness, under whatever thing disturbeth and crosseth the peace of your mind, in this life, to love nothing for itself, but only God for Himself. It is the crooked love of some harlots, that they love bracelets, ear-rings, and rings better than the lover that sendeth them. God will not so be loved; for that were to behave as harlots, and not as the chaste spouse, to abate from our love when these things are pulled away. Our love to Him should begin on earth, as it shall be in heaven; for the bride taketh not, by a thousand degrees, so much delight in her wedding garment as she doth in her bridegroom; so we, in the life to come, howbeit clothed with glory as with a robe, shall not be so much affected with the glory that goeth about us, as with the bridegroom's joyful face and presence. Madam, if ye can win to this here, the field is won; and your mind, for anything ye want, or for anything your Lord can take from you, shall soon be calmed and quieted. Get Himself as a pawn, and keep Him, till your dear Lord come, and loose the pawn, and rue upon you, and give you all again that He took from you, even a thousand talents for one penny. It is not ill to lend God willingly, who otherwise both will and may take from you against your will. It is good to play the usurer with Him, and take in, instead of ten of the hundred, an hundred of ten, often an hundred of one.

Madam, fearing to be tedious to you, I break off here, commending you (as I trust to do while I live), your person, ways, burdens, and all that concerneth you, to that Almighty who is able to bear you and your burdens. I still remember you to Him, who will cause you one day to laugh. I expect that, whatever ye can do, by word or deed, for the Lord's friendless Zion, ye will do it. She is your mother; forget her not; for the Lord intendeth to melt and try this land, and it is high time we were all upon our feet, and falling about to try what claim we have to Christ. It is like the bridegroom will be taken from us, and then we shall mourn. Dear Jesus, remove not, else take us with Thee. Grace, grace be with you for ever.

Your Ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Jan. 14, 1632.

XXII.—To JOHN KENNEDY (Letter LXXV.)

(DELIVERANCE FROM SHIPWRECK—RECOVERY FROM THREATENED DEATH—USE OF TRIALS—REMEMBRANCE OF FRIENDS.)

MY LOVING AND MOST AFFECTIONATE BROTHER IN CHRIST,—I salute you with grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I promised to write to you, and although late enough, yet I now make it good. I heard with grief of your great danger of perishing by the sea, and of your merciful deliverance with joy. Sure I am, brother, that Satan will leave no stone unrolled, as the proverb is, to roll you off your Rock, or at least to shake and unsettle you: for at that same time the mouths of wicked men were opened in hard speeches against you, by land, and the prince of the power of the air was angry with you by sea. See then how much ye are obliged to that malicious murderer, who would beat you with two rods at one time; but, blessed be God, his arm is short; if the sea and wind would have obeyed him, ye had never come to land. Thank your God, who saith, "I have the keys of hell and of death" (Rev. 1:18); "I kill, and I make alive" (Deut. 32:39); "The Lord bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up" (1 Sam. 2:6). If Satan were jailor, and had the keys of death and of the grave, they should be stored with more prisoners. Ye were knocking at these black gates, and ye found the doors shut; and we do all welcome you back again.

I trust that ye know that it is not for nothing that ye are sent to us again. The Lord knew that ye had forgotten something that was necessary for your journey; that your armour was not as yet thick enough against the stroke of death. Now, in the strength of Jesus despatch your business; that debt is not forgiven, but fristed: death hath not bidden you farewell, but hath only left you for a short season. End your journey ere the night come upon you. Have all in readiness against the time that ye must sail through that black and impetuous Jordan; and Jesus, Jesus, who knoweth both those depths and the rocks, and all the coasts, be your pilot. The last tide will not wait you for one moment. If ye forget anything, when your sea is full, and your foot in that ship, there is no returning again to fetch it. What ye do amiss in your life to-day, ye may amend it to-morrow; for as many suns as God maketh to arise upon you, ye have as many new lives; but ye can die but once, and if ye mar or spill that business, ye cannot come back to mend that piece of work again. No man sinneth twice in dying ill; as we die but once, so we die but ill or well once. You see how the number of your months is written in God's book; and as one of the Lord's hirelings, ye must work till the shadow of the evening come upon you, and ye shall run out your glass even to the last pickle of sand. Fulfil your course with joy, for we take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience. And, although the sky clear after this storm, yet clouds will engender another.

Ye contracted with Christ, I hope, when first ye began to follow Him, that ye would bear His cross. Fulfil your part of the contract with patience, and break not to Jesus Christ. Be honest, brother, in your bargaining with Him; for who knoweth better how to bring up children than our God? For (to lay aside His knowledge, of the which there is no finding out) He hath been practised in bringing up His heirs these five thousand years; and His bairns are all well brought up, and many of them are honest men now at home, up in their own house in heaven, and are entered heirs to their Father's inheritance. Now, the form of His bringing up was by chastisements, scourging, correcting, nurturing; and see if He maketh exception of any of His bairns: no, His eldest Son and His Heir, Jesus, is not excepted (Rev. 3:19; Heb. 12:7, 8, and 2:10). Suffer we must; ere we were born, God decreed it; and it is easier to complain of His decree than to change it. It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again: fears and doubtings shake us; and yet without fears and doubtings we would soon sleep, and lose our grips of Christ. Tribulation and temptations will almost loosen us to the root; and yet, without tribulations and temptations, we can now no more grow than herbs or corn without rain. Sin, and Satan, and the world will say, and cry in our ear, that we have a hard reckoning to make in judgment; and yet none of these three, except they lie, dare say in our face that our sin can change the tenor of the new covenant. Forward, then, dear brother, and lose not your grips. Hold fast the truth: for the world, sell not one dram-weight of God's truth, especially now, when most men measure truth by time, like young seamen setting their compass by a cloud; for now time is father and mother to truth, in the thoughts and practices of our evil time. The God of truth establish us; for, alas! now there are none to comfort the prisoners of hope, and the mourners in Zion. We can do little, except pray and mourn for Joseph in the stocks. And let their tongue cleave to the roof of their mouth who forget Jerusalem now in her day; and the Lord remember Edom, and render to him as he hath done to us.

Now, brother, I shall not weary you; but I entreat you to remember my dearest love to Mr. David Dickson, with whom I have small acquaintance; yet I bless the Lord, I know that he both prayeth and doeth for our dying kirk. Remember my dearest love to John Stuart, whom I love in Christ; and show him from me that I do always remember him, and hope for a meeting. The Lord Jesus establish him more and more, though he be already a strong man in Christ. Remember my heartiest affection in Christ to William Rodger, whom I also remember to God. I wish that the first news I hear of him and you, and all that love our common Saviour in those bounds, may be, that they are so knit and linked, and kindly fastened in love with the Son of God, that ye may say, "Now if ye would ever so fain escape out of Christ's hands, yet love hath so bound us, that we cannot get our hands free again; He hath so ravished our hearts, that there is no loosening of His grips; the chains of His soul-ravishing love are so strong, that neither the grave nor death will break them." I hope, brother, yea I doubt not of it, that ye lay me, and my first entry to the Lord's vineyard, and my flock, before Him who hath put me into His work. As the Lord knoweth, since first I saw you, I have been mindful of you. Marion M'Naught doth remember most heartily her love to you, and to John Stuart. Blessed be the Lord! that in God's mercy I found in this country such a woman, to whom Jesus is dearer than her own heart, when there be so many that cast Christ over their shoulder. Good brother, call to mind the memory of your worthy father, now asleep in Christ; and, as his custom was, pray continually, and wrestle, for the life of a dying, breathless kirk. And desire John Stuart not to forget poor Zion; she hath few friends, and few to speak one good word for her.

Now I commend you, your whole soul, and body, and spirit, to Jesus Christ and His keeping, hoping that ye will live and die, stand and fall, with the cause of our Master, Jesus. The Lord Jesus Himself be with your spirit.

Your loving brother in our Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Feb. 2, 1632.

XXIII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(EXHORTING TO REMEMBER HER ESPOUSAL TO CHRIST—TRIBULATION A PREPARATION FOR THE KINGDOM—GLORY IN THE END.)

MADAM,—Your Ladyship will not (I know) weary nor offend, though I trouble you with many letters. The memory of what obligations I am under to your Ladyship, is the cause of it.

I am possibly impertinent in what I write, because of my ignorance of your present estate; but for all that is said, I have learned of Mr. W. D., that ye have not changed upon, nor wearied of your sweet Master, Christ, and His service; neither were it your part to change upon Him who "resteth in His love." Ye are among honourable company, and such as affect grandeur and court. But, Madam, thinking upon your estate, I think I see an improvident wooer coming too late to seek a bride, because she is contracted already, and promised away to another; and so the wooer's busking and bravery (who cometh to you as "who but he?") are in vain. The outward pomp of this busy wooer, a beguiling world, is now coming in to suit2 your soul too late, when ye have promised away your soul to Christ many years ago. And I know, Madam, what answer ye may now justly make to the late suitor; even this: "Ye are too long of coming; my soul, the bride, is away already, and the contract with Christ subscribed, and I cannot choose, but I must be honest and faithful to Him." Honourable lady, keep your first love, and hold the first match with that soul-delighting, lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet Jesus, fairer than all the children of men, "the Rose of Sharon," and the fairest and sweetest smelled rose in all His Father's garden. There is none like Him; I would not exchange one smile of His lovely face with kingdoms. Madam, let others take their silly, feckless heaven in this life. Envy them not; but let your soul, like a tarrowing and mislearned child, take the dorts (as we use to speak), or cast at all things and disdain them, except one only: either Christ or nothing. Your well-beloved, Jesus, will be content that ye be here devoutly proud, and ill to please, as one that contemneth all husbands but Himself. Either the King's Son, or no husband at all; this is humble, and worthy ambition. What have ye to do to dally with a whorish and foolish world? Your jealous Husband will not be content that ye look by Him to another: He will be jealous indeed, and offended, if ye kiss another but Himself. What weights do burden you, Madam, I know not; but think it great mercy that your Lord from your youth hath been hedging in your outstraying affections, that they may not go a-whoring from Himself. If ye were His bastard, He would not nurture you so. If ye were for the slaughter, ye would be fattened. But be content; ye are His wheat, growing in our Lord's field (Matt. 13:25, 38); and if wheat, ye must go under our Lord's threshing-instrument, in His barn-floor, and through His sieve (Amos 9:9), and through His mill to be bruised (as the Prince of your salvation, Jesus, was) (Isa. 53:10), that ye may be found good bread in your Lord's house. Lord Jesus, bless the spiritual husbandry, and separate you from the chaff, that dow not bide the wind. I am persuaded your glass is spending itself by little and little; and if ye knew who is before you, ye would rejoice in your tribulations. Think ye it a small honour to stand before the throne of God and the Lamb? and to be clothed in white, and to be called to the marriage supper of the Lamb? and to be led to the fountain of living waters, and to come to the Well-head, even God Himself, and get your fill of the clear, cold, sweet, refreshing water of life, the King's own well? and to put up your own sinful hand to the tree of life and take down and eat the sweetest apple in all God's heavenly paradise, Jesus Christ, your life and your Lord? Up your heart! shout for joy! Your King is coming to fetch you to His Father's house.

Madam, I am in exceeding great heaviness, God thinking it best for my own soul thus to exercise me, thereby, it may be, to fit me to be His mouth to others. I see and hear, at home and abroad, nothing but matter of grief and discouragement, which indeed maketh my life bitter. And I hope in God never to get my will in this world. And I expect ere long a fiery trial upon the Church; for as many men almost in England and Scotland, as many false friends to Christ, and as many pulling and drawing to pull the crown off His holy head! and for fear that our Beloved stay amongst us (as if His room were more desirable than Himself), men are bidding Him go seek His lodging. Madam, if ye have a part in silly, friendless Zion (as I know ye have), speak a word on her behalf to God and man. If ye can do nothing else, speak for Jesus, and ye shall thereby be a witness against this declining age. Now, from my very soul, laying and leaving you on the Lord, and desiring a part in your prayers (as, my Lord knoweth, I remember you), I deliver over your body, spirit, and all your necessities, to the hands of our Lord, and remain for ever

Your Ladyship's, in your sweet Lord Jesus and mine,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Feb. 13, 1632.

XXIV.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(CHRIST AND HIS GARDEN—PROVISION OF ORDINANCES IN THE CHURCH—OUR CHILDREN.)

BELOVED MISTRESS,—My dearest love in Christ remembered to you. Know that Mr. Abraham showed me there is to be a meeting of the bishops at Edinburgh shortly. The causes are known to themselves. It is our part to hold up our hands for Zion. Howbeit, it is reported, they came sad from court. It is our Lord's wisdom, that His kirk should ever hang by a thread; and yet the thread breaketh not, being hanged upon Him who is the sure Nail in David's house (Isa. 22:23), upon whom all the vessels, great and small, do hang; and the Nail (God be thanked) neither crooketh nor can be broken. Jesus, that Flower of Jesse set without hands, getteth many a blast, and yet withers not, because He is His Father's noble Rose, casting a sweet smell through heaven and earth, and must grow; and in the same garden grow the saints, God's fair and beautiful lilies, under wind and rain, and all sun-burned, and yet life remaineth at the root. Keep within His garden, and you shall grow with them, till the Great Husbandman, our dear Master Gardener, come and transplant you from the lower part of His vineyard up to the higher, to the very heart of His garden, above the wrongs of the rain, sun, or wind. And then, wait upon the times of the blowing of the sweet south and north wind of His gracious Spirit, that may make you cast a sweet smell in your Beloved's nostrils; and bid your Beloved come down to His garden, and eat of His pleasant fruits (Cant. 4:16). And He will come. You will get no more but this until you come up to the Well-head, where you shall put up your hand and take down the apples of the tree of life, and eat under the shadow of that tree. These apples are sweeter up beside the tree than they are down here in this piece of a clay prison-house. I have no joy but in the thoughts of these times. Doubt not of your Lord's part and the spouse's part; she shall be in good case. That word shall stand, "I shall be as the dew to Israel: he shall grow up as the lily, and cast out his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon" (Hosea 14:5, 6). Christ shall set up His colours, and His ensign for the nations, and shall gather together the outcasts of Israel (Isa. 11:12). "Then the Lord said to me, Son of man, these dead bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy unto them, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel" (Ezek. 37:11, 12). These promises are not wind, but the breast of our beloved Christ, which we must suck and draw comfort out of. Ye have cause to pity those poor creatures that stand out against Christ, and the building of His house. Silly men! they have but a feckless and silly heaven, nothing but meat and cloth, and laugh a day or two in the world, and then in a moment go down to the grave; and they shall not be able to hinder Christ's building. He that is Master of work will lead stones to the wall over their belly.

And for that present tumult that the children of this world raise anent the planting of your town with a pastor, believe and stay upon God, as you still shame us all in believing. Go forward in the strength of the Lord; and I say from my Lord, before whom I stand, have your eyes upon none but the Lord of armies, and the Lord shall either let you see what you long to see, or then else fulfil your joy more abundantly another way. You and yours, and the children of God whom you care for in this town, shall have as much of the Son of God's supper cut and laid upon your trenchers, be who he will that carveth, as shall feed you to eternal life. And be not cast down for all that is done: your reward is laid up with God. I hope to see you laugh and leap for joy. Will the temple be built without din and tumult? No; God's stones in His house in Germany are laid with blood; and the Son of God no sooner begins to chop and hew stones with His hammer, but as soon the sword is drawn. If the work were of men, the world would set their shoulders to yours; but, in Christ's work, two or three must fight against a Presbytery (though His own court) and a city. This proveth that it is Christ's errand, and therefore that it shall thrive. Let them lay iron chains cross over the door,—stay, and believe, and wait, whill the Lion of the tribe of Judah come. And He that comes from heaven clothed with the rainbow, and hath the little book in His hand, when He taketh a grip of their chains, He will lay the door on the broadside, and come in, and go up to the pulpit, and take the man with Him whom He hath chosen for His work. Therefore, let me hear from you, whether you be in heaviness, or rejoicing under hope, that I may take part of your grief, and bear it with you, and get part of your joy, which is to me also as my own joy.

And as to what are your fears anent the health or life of your dear children, lay it upon Christ's shoulders: let Him bear all. Loose your grips of them all; and when your dear Lord pulleth, let them go with faith and joy. It is a tried faith to kiss a Lord that is taking from you. Let them be careful, during the short time that they are here, to run and get a grip of the prize. Christ is standing in the end of their way, holding up the garland of endless glory to their eyes, and is crying, "Run fast, and come and receive." Happy are they (if their breath serve them) to run and not to weary, whill their Lord, with His own dear hand, puts the crown upon their head. It is not long days, but good days, that make life glorious and happy; and our dear Lord is gracious to us, who shorteneth and hath made the way to glory shorter than it was; so that the crown that Noah did fight for five hundred years, children may now obtain it in fifteen years. And heaven is in some sort better for us now than it was to Noah, for the man Christ is there now, who was not come in the flesh in Noah's days. You shall show this to your children, whom my soul in Christ blesseth, and entreat them by the mercies of God, and the bowels of Jesus Christ, to covenant with Jesus Christ to be His, and to make up the bond of friendship betwixt their souls and their Christ, that they may have acquaintance in heaven, and a friend at God's right hand. Such a friend at court is much worth.

Now I take my leave of you, praying my Christ and your Christ to fulfil your joy; and more graces and blessings from our sweet Lord Jesus to your soul, your husband's and children, than ever I wrote of the letters of A, B, C, to you. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in my sweet Master, Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, March 9, 1632.

XXV.—To a Gentlewoman at Kirkcudbright, excusing himself from visiting

MISTRESS,—I beseech you to have me excused if the daily employments of my calling shall hinder me to see you according as I would wish; for I dare not go abroad, since many of my people are sick, and the time of our Communion draweth near. But frequent the company of your worthy and honest-hearted pastor, Mr. Robert (Glendinning), to whom the Lord hath given the tongue of the learned, to minister a word in season to the weary. Remember me to him and to your husband. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit. Your affectionate friend,

S. R.

XXVI.—For MARION M'NAUGHT, after her dangerous illness

(USE OF SICKNESS—REPROACHES—CHRIST OUR ETERNAL FEAST—FASTING.)

DEARLY BELOVED MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. You are not ignorant what our Lord in His love-visitation hath been doing with your soul, even letting you see a little sight of that dark trance you must go through ere you come to glory. Your life hath been near the grave, and you were at the door, and you found the door shut and fast: your dear Christ thinking it not time to open these gates to you till you have fought some longer in His camp. And therefore He willeth you to put on your armour again, and to take no truce with the devil or this present world. You are little obliged to any of the two; but I rejoice in this, that when any of the two comes to suit your soul in marriage, you have an answer in readiness to tell them,—"You are too long a-coming; I have many a year since promised my soul to another, even to my dearest Lord Jesus, to whom I must be true." And therefore you are come back to us again to help us to pray for Christ's fair bride, a marrow dear to Him.

Be not cast down in heart to hear that the world barketh at Christ's strangers, both in Ireland and in this land; they do it because their Lord hath chosen them out of this world. And this is one of our Lord's reproaches, to be hated and ill-entreated by men. The silly stranger, in an uncouth country, must take with a smoky inn and coarse cheer, a hard bed, and a barking, ill-tongued host. It is not long to the day, and he will to his journey upon the morrow, and leave them all. Indeed, our fair morning is at hand, the day-star is near the rising, and we are not many miles from home. What matters ill entertainment in the smoky inns of this miserable life? We are not to stay here, and we will be dearly welcome to Him whom we go to. And I hope, when I shall see you clothed in white raiment, washed in the blood of the Lamb, and shall see you even at the elbow of your dearest Lord and Redeemer, and a crown upon your head, and following our Lamb and lovely Lord whithersoever He goeth,—you will think nothing of all these days; and you shall then rejoice, and no man shall take your joy from you. It is certain there is not much sand to run in your Lord's sand-glass, and that day is at hand; and till then your Lord in this life is giving you some little feasts.

It is true, you see Him not now as you shall see Him then. Your well-beloved standeth now behind the wall looking out at the window (Cant. 2:9), and you see but a little of His face. Then, you shall see all His face and all the Saviour,—a long, and high, and broad Lord Jesus, the loveliest person among the children of men. O joy of joys, that our souls know there is such a great supper preparing for us even! Howbeit we be but half-hungered of Christ here, and many a time dine behind noon, yet the supper of the Lamb will come in time, and will be set before us before we famish and lose our stomachs. You have cause to hold up your heart in remembrance and hope of that fair, long summer day; for in this night of your life, wherein you are in the body absent from the Lord, Christ's fair moonlight in His word and sacraments, in prayer, feeling, and holy conference, hath shined upon you, to let you see the way to the city. I confess our diet here is but sparing; we get but tastings of our Lord's comforts; but the cause of that is not because our Steward, Jesus, is a niggard, and narrow-hearted, but because our stomachs are weak, and we are narrow-hearted. But the great feast is coming, and the chambers of them made fair and wide to take in the great Lord Jesus. Come in, then, Lord Jesus, to hungry souls gaping for thee! In this journey take the Bridegroom as you may have Him, and be greedy of His smallest crumbs; but, dear Mistress, buy none of Christ's delicates-spiritual with sin, or fasting against your weak body. Remember you are in the body, and it is the lodging-house; and you may not, without offending the Lord, suffer the old walls of that house to fall down through want of necessary food. Your body is the dwelling-house of the Spirit; and therefore, for the love you carry to the sweet Guest, give a due regard to His house of clay. When He looseth the wall, why not? Welcome Lord Jesus! But it is a fearful sin in us, by hurting the body by fasting, to loose one stone or the least piece of timber in it, for the house is not our own. The Bridegroom is with you yet; so fast as that also you may feast and rejoice in Him. I think upon your magistrates; but He that is clothed in linen, and hath the writer's inkhorn by His side, hath written up their names in heaven already. Pray and be content with His will; God hath a council-house in heaven, and the end will be mercy unto you. For the planting of your town with a godly minister, have your eye upon the Lord of the harvest. I dare promise you, God in this life shall fill your soul with the fatness of His house, for your care to see Christ's bairns fed. And your posterity shall know it, to whom I pray for mercy, and that they may get a name amongst the living in Jerusalem; and if God portion them with His bairns, their rent is fair, and I hope it shall be so. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours ever in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Sept. 19, 1632.

XXVII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(LOVE TO CHRIST AND SUBMISSION TO HIS CROSS—BELIEVERS KEPT—THE HEAVENLY PARADISE.)

MADAM,—Having saluted you with grace and mercy from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, I long both to see your Ladyship, and to hear how it goeth with you.

I do remember you, and present you and your necessities to Him who is able to keep you, and present you blameless before His face with joy; and my prayer to our Lord is, that ye may be sick of love for Him, who died of love for you,—I mean your Saviour Jesus. And O sweet were that sickness to be soul-sick for Him! And a living death it were, to die in the fire of the love of that soul-lover, Jesus! And, Madam, if ye love Him, ye will keep His commandments; and this is not one of the least, to lay your neck cheerfully and willingly under the yoke of Jesus Christ. For I trust your Ladyship did first contract and bargain with the Son of God to follow Him upon these terms, that by His grace ye should endure hardship, and suffer affliction, as the soldier of Christ. They are not worthy of Jesus who will not take a blow for their Master's sake. As for our glorious Peace-maker, when He came to make up the friendship betwixt God and us, God bruised Him, and struck Him; the sinful world also did beat Him, and crucify Him, yet He took buffets of both parties, and (honour to our Lord Jesus!) He would not leave the field for all that, till He had made peace betwixt the parties. I persuade myself your sufferings are but like your Saviour's (yea, incomparably less and lighter), which are called but a "bruising of His heel" (Gen. 3:15); a wound far from the heart. Your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), and therefore ye cannot be robbed of it. Our Lord handleth us, as fathers do their young children; they lay up jewels in a place, above the reach of the short arm of bairns, else bairns would put up their hands and take them down, and lose them soon. So hath our Lord done with our spiritual life. Jesus Christ is the high coffer in the which our Lord hath hid our life; we children are not able to reach up our arm so high as to take down that life and lose it; it is in our Christ's hand. O long, long may Jesus be Lord Keeper of our life! and happy are they that can, with the Apostle (2 Tim. 1:12), lay their soul in pawn in the hand of Jesus, for He is able to keep that which is committed in pawn to Him against that day. Then, Madam, so long as this life is not hurt, all other troubles are but touches in the heel. I trust ye will soon be cured. Ye know, Madam, kings have some servants in their court that receive not present wages in their hand, but live upon their hopes: the King of kings also hath servants in His court that for the present get little or nothing but the heavy cross of Christ, troubles without and terrors within; but they live upon hope; and when it cometh to the parting of the inheritance, they remain in the house as heirs. It is better to be so than to get present payment, and a portion in this life, an inheritance in this world (God forgive me, that I should honour it with the name of an inheritance, it is rather a farm-room!), and then in the end to be casten out of God's house, with this word, "Ye have received your consolation, ye will get no more." Alas! what get they? The rich glutton's heaven (Luke 16:25). O but our Lord maketh it a silly heaven! "He fared well," saith our Lord, "and delicately every day." O no more? a silly heaven! Truly no more, except that he was clothed in purple, and that is all. I persuade myself, Madam, ye have joy when ye think that your Lord hath dealt more graciously with your soul. Ye have gotten little in this life, it is true indeed: ye have then the more to crave, yea, ye have all to crave; for, except some tastings of the first fruits, and some kisses of His mouth whom your soul loveth, ye get no more. But I cannot tell you what is to come. Yet I may speak as our Lord doth of it. The foundation of the city is pure gold, clear as crystal; the twelve ports are set with precious stones; if orchards and rivers commend a soil upon earth, there is a paradise there, wherein groweth the tree of life that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, which is seven score and four harvests in the year; and there is there a pure river of water of life, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb; and the city hath no need of the light of the sun or moon, or of a candle, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb is the light thereof. Madam, believe and hope for this, till ye see and enjoy. Jesus is saying in the Gospel, Come and see; and He is come down in the chariot of truth, wherein He rideth through the world, to conquer's men's souls (Ps. 45:4), and is now in the world saying, "Who will go with Me? will ye go? My Father will make you welcome, and give you house-room; for in My Father's house are many dwelling-places." Madam, consent to go with Him. Thus I rest, commending you to God's dearest mercy.

Yours in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XXVIII.—To my LADY KENMURE, after the death of a child

(THE STATE OF THE CHURCH, CAUSE FOR GOD'S DISPLEASURE—HIS CARE OF HIS CHURCH—THE JEWS—AFFLICTED SAINTS.)

MADAM,—I am afraid now (as many others are) that, at the sitting down of our Parliament, our Lord Jesus and His spouse shall be roughly handled. And it must be so, since false and declining Scotland, whom our Lord took off the dunghill and out of hell, and made a fair bride to Himself, hath broken her faith to her sweet Husband, and hath put on the forehead of a whore. And therefore He saith He will remove. Would God we could stir up ourselves to lay hold upon Him, who, being highly provoked with the handling He hath met with, is ready to depart! Alas! we do not importune Him by prayer and supplication to abide amongst us! If we could but weep upon Him, and in the holy pertinacity of faith wrestle with Him, and say, "We will not let Thee go," it may be that then, He, who is easy to be intreated, would yet, notwithstanding of our high provocations, condescend to stay and feed among the lilies, till that fair and desirable day break, and the shadows flee away. Ah! what cause of mourning is there, when our gold is become dim, and the visage of our Nazarites, sometime whiter than snow, is now become blacker than a coal, and Levi's house, once comparable to fine gold, is now changed, and become like vessels in whom He hath no pleasure! Madam, think upon this, that when our Lord, who hath His handkerchief to wipe the face of the mourners in Zion, shall come to wipe away all tears from their eyes, He may wipe yours also, in the passing, amongst others. I am confident, Madam, that our Lord will yet build a new house to Himself, of our rejected and scattered stones, for our Bridegroom cannot want a wife. Can He live a widower? Nay, He will embrace both us, the little young sister, and the elder sister, the Church of the Jews; and there will yet be a day of it. And therefore we have cause to rejoice, yea, to sing and shout for joy. The Church hath been, since the world began, ever hanging by a small thread, and all the hands of hell and of the wicked have been drawing at the thread. But, God be thanked, they only break their arms by pulling, but the thread is not broken; for the sweet fingers of Christ our Lord have spun and twisted it. Lord, hold the thread whole!

Madam, stir up your husband to lay hold upon the covenant, and to do good. What hath he to do with the world? It is not his inheritance. Desire him to make home-over, and put to his hand to lay one stone or two upon the wall of God's house before he go hence. I have heard also, Madam, that your child is removed; but to have or want is best, as He pleaseth. Whether she be with you, or in God's keeping, think it all one; nay, think it the better of the two by far that she is with Him. I trust in our Lord that there is something laid up and kept for you; for our kind Lord, who hath wounded you, will not be so cruel as not to allay the pain of your green wound; and, therefore, claim Christ still as your own, and own Him as your One thing. So resting, I recommend your Ladyship, your soul and spirit, in pawn to Him who keepeth His Father's pawns, and will make an account of them faithfully, even to that fairest amongst the sons of men, our sweet Lord Jesus, the fairest, the sweetest, the most delicious Rose of all His Father's great field. The smell of that Rose perfume your soul!

Your Ladyship's, in his sweetest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, April 1, 1633.

XXIX.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(CHRIST WITH HIS PEOPLE IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION—PRAYER.)

DEAR SISTER,—I longed much to have conferred with you at this time. I am grieved at anything in your house that grieveth you; and shall, by my Lord's grace, suit my Lord to help you to bear your burden, and to come in behind you, and give you and your burdens a put up the mountain. Know you not that Christ wooeth His wife in the furnace? "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isa. 48:10). He casteth His love on you when you are in the furnace of affliction. You might indeed be casten down if He brought you in and left you there; but when He leadeth you through the waters, think ye not that He has a sweet, soft hand? You know His love-grip already; you shall be delivered, wait on. Jesus will make a road, and come and fetch home the captive. You shall not die in prison; but your strokes are such as were your Husband's, who was wounded in the house of His friends. Strokes are not newings to Him, and neither are they to you. But your winter night is near spent; it is near-hand the dawning. I will see you leap for joy. The kirk shall be delivered. This wilderness shall bud and grow up like a rose. Christ got a charter of Scotland from His Father; and who will bereave Him of His heritage, or put our Redeemer out of His mailing, until His tack be run out? I must have you praying for me: I am black shamed for evermore now with Christ's goodness; and in private, on the 17th and 18th of August, I got a full answer of my Lord to be a graced minister, and a chosen arrow hidden in His own quiver. But know this, assurance is not keeped but by watching and prayer; and, therefore, dear mistress, help me. I have gotten now (honour to my Lord!) the gate to open the slote, and shut the bar of His door; and I think it easy to get anything from the King by prayer, and to use holy violence with Him. Christ was in Carsphairne kirk, and opened the people's hearts wonderfully. Jesus is looking up that water; and minting to dwell amongst them. I would we could give Him His welcome home to the moors. Now peace and grace be upon you and all yours.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Aug. 20, 1633.

XXX.—To my LADY KENMURE

(RANK AND PROSPERITY HINDER PROGRESS—WATCHFULNESS—CASE OF RELATIVES.)

MADAM,—I determined, and was desirous also, to have seen your ladyship, but because of a pain in my arm I could not. I know ye will not impute it to any unsuitable forgetfulness of your Ladyship, from whom, at my first entry to my calling in this country (and since also), I received such comfort in my affliction as I trust in God never to forget, and shall labour by His grace to recompense in the only way possible to me; and that is, my presenting your soul, person, house, and all your necessities, in prayer to Him, whose I hope you are, and who is able to keep you till that Day of Appearance, and to present you before His face with joy.

I am confident your Ladyship is going forward in the begun journey to your Lord and Father's home and kingdom. Howbeit ye want not temptations within and without. And who among the saints hath ever taken that castle without stroke of sword? the Chief of the house, our Elder Brother, our Lord Jesus, not being excepted, who won His own house and home, due to Him by birth, with much blood and many blows. Your Ladyship hath the more need to look to yourself, because our Lord hath placed you higher than the rest, and your way to heaven lieth through a more wild and waste wilderness than the way of many of your fellow-travellers,—not only through the midst of this wood of thorns, the cumbersome world, but also through these dangerous paths, the vain-glory of it; the consideration whereof hath often moved me to pity your soul, and the soul of your worthy and noble husband. And it is more to you to win heaven, being ships of greater burden, and in the main sea, than for little vessels, that are not so much in the mercy and reverence of the storms, because they may come quietly to their port by launching alongst the coast. For the which cause ye do much, if in the midst of such a tumult of business, and crowd of temptations, ye shall give Christ Jesus His own court and His own due place in your soul. I know and am persuaded, that that lovely One, Jesus, is dearer to you than many kingdoms; and that ye esteem Him your Well-beloved, and the Standard-bearer among ten thousand (Cant. 5:10). And it becometh Him full well to take the place and the board-head in your soul before all the world. I knew and saw Him with you in the furnace of affliction; for there he wooed you to Himself, and chose you to be His; and now He craveth no other hire of you but your love, and that He get no cause to be jealous of you. And, therefore, dear and worthy lady, be like to the fresh river, that keepeth its own fresh taste in the salt sea. This world is not worthy of your soul. Give it not a good-day when Christ cometh in competition with it. Be like one of another country. Home! and stay not; for the sun is fallen low, and nigh the tops of the mountains, and the shadows are stretched out in great length. Linger not by the way. The world and sin would train you on, and make you turn aside. Leave not the way for them; and the Lord Jesus be at the voyage!

Madam, many eyes are upon you, and many would be glad your Ladyship should spill a Christian, and mar a good professor. Lord Jesus, mar their godless desires, and keep the conscience whole without a crack! If there be a hole in it, so that it take in water at a leak, it will with difficulty mend again. It is a dainty, delicate creature, and a rare piece of the workmanship of your Maker; and therefore deal gently with it, and keep it entire, that amidst this world's glory your Ladyship may learn to entertain Christ. And whatsoever creature your Ladyship findeth not to smell of Him, may it have no better relish to you than the white of an egg.

Madam, it is a part of the truth of your profession to drop words in the ears of your noble husband continually of eternity, judgment, death, hell, heaven, the honourable profession, the sins of his father's house. He must reckon with God for his father's debt: forgetting of accounts payeth no debt. Nay, the interest of a forgotten bond runneth up with God to interest upon interest. I knoweth he looketh homeward, and loveth the truth; but I pity him with my soul because of his many temptations. Satan layeth upon men a burden of cares above a load, and maketh a pack-horse of men's souls when they are wholly set upon this world. We owe the devil no such service. It were wisdom to throw off that load into a mire, and cast all our cares over upon God.

Madam, think ye have no child. Subscribe a bond to your Lord that she shall be His if He take her; and thanks, and praise, and glory to His holy name shall be the interest for a year's loan of her. Look for crosses, and while it is fair weather mend the sails of the ship.

Now hoping your Ladyship will pardon my tediousness, I recommend your soul and person to the grace and mercy of our sweet Lord Jesus, in whom I am,

Your Ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Nov. 15, 1633.

XXXI.—To my LADY KENMURE

(A UNION FOR PRAYER RECOMMENDED)

MADAM,—Having received a letter from some of the worthiest of the ministry in this kingdom, the contents whereof I am desired to communicate to such professors in these parts as I know love the beauty of Zion, and are afflicted to see the Lord's vineyard trodden under foot by the wild boars out of the wood, who lay it waste, I could not but also desire your Ladyship's help to join with the rest, desiring you to impart it to my Lord your husband, and if ye think it needful, I shall write to his Lordship, as Mr. G. G. shall advertise me.

Know, therefore, that the best affected of the ministry have thought it convenient and necessary, at such a time as this, that all who love the truth should join their prayers together, and cry to God with humiliation and fasting. The times, which are agreed upon, are the two first Sabbaths of February next, and the six days intervening betwixt these Sabbaths, as they may conveniently be had, and the first Sabbath of every quarter. And the causes, as they are written to me, are these:

1. Besides the distresses of the Reformed churches abroad, the many reigning sins of uncleanness, ungodliness, and unrighteousness in this land, the present judgments on the land, and many more hanging over us, whereof few are sensible, or yet know the right and true cause of them.

2. The lamentable and pitiful estate of a glorious church (in so short a time, against so many bonds), in doctrine, sacrament, and discipline, so sore persecuted, in the persons of faithful pastors and professors, and the door of God's house kept so straight by bastard porters, insomuch that worthy instruments, able for the work, are held at the door, the rulers having turned over religion into policy, and the multitude ready to receive any religion that shall be enjoined by authority.

3. In our humiliation, besides that we are under a necessity of deprecating God's wrath, and vowing to God sincerely new obedience, the weakness, coldness, silence, and lukewarmness of some of the best of the ministry, and the deadness of professors, who have suffered the truth both secretly to be stolen away, and openly to be plucked from us, would be confessed.

4. Atheism, idolatry, profanity, and vanity, should be confessed; our king's heart recommended to God; and God intreated, that He would stir up the nobles and the people to turn from their evil ways.

Thus, Madam, hoping that your Ladyship will join with others, that such a work be not slighted, at such a necessary time, when our kirk is at the overturning, I will promise to myself your help, as the Lord in secrecy and prudence shall enable you, that your Ladyship may rejoice with the Lord's people, when deliverance shall come; for true and sincere humiliation come always speed with God. And when authority, king, court, and churchmen oppose the truth, what other armour have we but prayer and faith? whereby, if we wrestle with Him, there is ground to hope that those who would remove the burdensome stone (Zech. 12:3) out of its place, shall but hurt their back, and the stone shall not be moved, at least not removed.

Grace, grace be with you, from Him who hath called you to the inheritance of the saints in light.

Your Ladyship's at all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus.

S. R.

ANWOTH, Jan. 23, 1634.

XXXII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH—SATAN.)

MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. I am in care and fear for this work of our Lord's, now near approaching, because of the danger of the time; and I dare not for my soul be silent, to see my Lord's house burning, and not cry "Fire, fire!" Therefore, seek from our Lord wisdom spiritual, and not black policy, to speak with liberty our Lord's truth.—I am cast down, and would fain have access and presence to The King that day, even howbeit I should break up iron doors. I believe you will not forget me; and you will desire Jean Brown, Thomas Carson, and Marion Carson, to help me. Pray for well-cooked meat and a heartsome Saviour, with joy crying, "Welcome in My Father's name."

I am confident Zion shall be well; the Bush shall burn and not consume, for the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush. But the Lord is making on a fire in Jerusalem, and purposeth to blow the bellows, and to melt the tin and brass, and bring out a fair beautiful bride out of the furnace, that will be married over again upon the new Husband, and sing as in the days of her youth, when the contract of marriage is written over again. But I fear the bride be hidden for a time from the dragon that pursueth the woman with child. But what, howbeit we go and lurk in the wilderness for a time? for the Lord will take His kirk to the wilderness and speak to her heart.

Nothing casteth me down, but only I fear the Lord will cast down the shepherd's tents, and feed his own in a secret place. But let us, however matters frame, cast over the affairs of the bride upon the Bridegroom; the government is upon His shoulders, and He dow bear us all well enough. That fallen star, the prince of the bottomless pit, knoweth it is near the time when he shall be tormented; and now in his evening he has gathered his armies, to win one battle or two, in the edge of the evening, at the sun going down. And when our Lord has been watering His vineyards in France, and Germany, and Bohemia, how can we think ourselves Christ's sister, if we be not like Him, and our other great sisters? I cannot but think, seeing the ends of the earth are given to Christ (Psa. 2:8), and Scotland is the end of the earth, and so we are in Christ's charter-tailzie, but our Lord will keep His possession. We fall by promise and law to Christ. He won us with the sweat of His brow, if I may say so; His Father promised Him His liferent of Scotland. Glory, glory to our King! long may He wear His crown. O Lord, let us never see another King! O let Him come down like rain upon the new-mown grass!

I had you in remembrance on Saturday in the morning last, in a great measure, and was brought, thrice on end, in remembrance of you in my prayer to God. Grace, grace be your portion.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, March 2, 1634.

XXXIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(IN PROSPECT OF A COMMUNION SEASON.)

MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. Please you understand, to my grief, our Communion is delayed till Sabbath come eight days; the laird and lady hath earnestly desired me to delay it, because the laird is sick, and he fears he be not able to travel, because he has lately taken physic. The Lord bless that work. Commend it to God as you love me, for I love not Satan's thorns cast in the Lord's way. The Lord rebuke him. I trust in God's mercy, Satan has gotten but a delay, but no free discharge that his kingdom shall not be hurt. Commend the laird to your God. I pray you advertise your people, that they be not disappointed in coming here. Show such of them as you love in Christ, from me, that Jesus Christ will be welcome, when He comes, in that He has sharpened their desires for eight days space. Your daughter is well, I hope, every way. Forget not God's kirk; they are but bastards, and not sons and daughters, that mourn not for Zion. Lord hear us! No further. Jesus Christ be with your spirit. I shall remember you and your new house. Lord Jesus go from the one house to the other.

Yours at all power in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XXXIV.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH—CHRIST'S CARE FOR THE CHILDREN OF BELIEVERS.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—My old and dearest love in Christ remembered. Know that I have been visiting my Lady Kenmure. Her child is with the Lord. I entreat you, visit her, and desire the good-wife of Barcapple to visit her, and Knockbrecks (Mr. Gordon), if you see him in the town. My Lord her husband is absent, and I think she will be heavy. You know what Mr. W. Dalgleish and I desired you to deal for, at my Lord Kirkcud-bright's hand. Send me word if you obtained anything at my Lord's hands, anent the giving up of our names to the High Commission; for I hear it is not for nothing that the Bishop hath taken that course. Our Lord knows best what is good for an old kirk that has fallen from her first love, and hath forgotten her Husband days without number. A trial is like to come on; but I am sure our Husbandman Christ shall lose chaff, but no corn at all. Yet there is a dry wind coming, but neither to fan nor to purge. Happy are they who are not blown away with the chaff, for we will but suffer temptation for ten days; but those who are faithful to the death shall receive the crown of life. I hear daily what hath been spoken of myself, most unjustly and falsely; and no marvel, the dragon, with the swing of his tail, hath made the third part of the stars to fall from heaven, and the fallen stars would have many to fall with them. If ever Satan was busy, now, when he knoweth his time is short, he is busy. "Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." I know, ere it be long, the Lord shall come and redd all pleas betwixt us and our enemies. Now welcome, Lord Jesus, go fast.

Send me word about Grizel, your daughter, whom I remember in Christ; and desire her to cast herself in His arms who was born of a woman, and, being the Ancient of days, was made a young weeping child. It was not for nothing that our brother Jesus was an infant. It was that He might pity infants of believers, who were to come out of the womb into the world. I believe our Lord Jesus shall be waiting on, with mercy, mercy, mercy, to the end of that battle, and bring her through with life and peace, and a sign of God's favour. I will expect advertisement from you, and especially if you fear her. Mistress, you remember that I said to you anent your love to me and my brother, begun in Christ; you know we are here but strangers, and you have not yet found us a dry well, as others have been. Be not overcome of any suspicion. I trust in God that the Lord, who knit us together, shall keep us together. It is time now that the lambs of Jesus should all run together, when the wolf is barking at them; yet I know, ere God's bairns want a cross, their love among themselves shall be a cross; but our Lord giveth love for another end. I know you will, with love, cover infirmities; and our Lord give you wisdom in all things. I think love hath broad shoulders, and will bear many things, and yet neither faint nor sweat, nor fall under the burden.

Commend me to your husband and dear Grizel. I think on her. Lord Jesus be in the furnace with her, and then she will but smoke and not burn. Desire Mr. Robert to excuse my not seeing of him at his house. I have my own reasons therefor.2 Grace, mercy, and peace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, April 25, 1634.

XXXV.—To my LADY KENMURE, on the death of a child

(GOD MEASURES OUR DAYS—BEREAVEMENTS RIPEN US FOR THE HARVEST.)

MADAM,—All submissive and dutiful obedience in our Lord Jesus remembered. I trust I need not much entreat your Ladyship to look to Him who hath stricken you at this time; but my duty, in the memory of that comfort I found in your Ladyship's kindness, when I was no less heavy (in a case not unlike that), speaketh to me to say something now. And I wish I could ease your Ladyship, at least with words. I am persuaded your Physician will not slay you, but purge you, seeing He calleth Himself the Chirurgeon, who maketh the wound and bindeth it up again; for to lance a wound is not to kill, but to cure the patient (Deut. 32:39). I believe faith will teach you to kiss a striking Lord; and so acknowledge the sovereignty of God (in the death of a child) to be above the power of us mortal men, who may pluck up a flower in the bud and not be blamed for it. If our dear Lord pluck up one of His roses, and pull down sour and green fruit before harvest, who can challenge Him? For He sendeth us to His world, as men to a market, wherein some stay many hours, and eat and drink, and buy and sell, and pass through the fair, till they be weary; and such are those who live long, and get a heavy fill of this life. And others again come slipping in to the morning market, and do neither sit nor stand, nor buy nor sell, but look about them a little, and pass presently home again; and these are infants and young ones, who end their short market in the morning, and get but a short view of the Fair. Our Lord, who hath numbered man's months, and set him bounds that he cannot pass (Job 14:5), hath written the length of our market, and it is easier to complain of the decree than to change it.

I verily believe, when I write this, your Lord hath taught your Ladyship to lay your hand on your mouth. But I shall be far from desiring your Ladyship, or any others, to cast by a cross, like an old useless bill that is only for the fire; but rather would wish each cross were looked in the face seven times, and were read over and over again. It is the messenger of the Lord, and speaks something; and the man of understanding will hear the rod, and Him that hath appointed it. Try what is the taste of the Lord's cup, and drink with God's blessing, that ye may grow thereby. I trust in God, whatever speech it utter to your soul, this is one word in it,—"Behold, blessed is the man whom God correcteth" (Job 5:17); and that it saith to you, "Ye are from home while here; ye are not of this world, as your Redeemer, Christ, was not of this world." There is something keeping for you, which is worth the having. All that is here is condemned to die, to pass away like a snowball before a summer sun; and since death took first possession of something of yours, it hath been and daily is creeping nearer and nearer to yourself, howbeit with no noise of feet. Your Husbandman and Lord hath lopped off some branches already; the tree itself is to be transplanted to the high garden. In a good time be it. Our Lord ripen your Ladyship. All these crosses (and indeed, when I remember them, they are heavy and many,—peace, peace be the end of them!) are to make you white and ripe for the Lord's harvest-hook. I have seen the Lord weaning you from the breasts of this world. It was never His mind it should be your patrimony; and God be thanked for that. Ye look the liker one of the heirs. Let the movables go; why not? They are not yours. Fasten your grips upon the heritage; and our Lord Jesus make the charters sure, and give your Ladyship to grow as a palm-tree on God's mount Zion; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast. This is all I can do, to recommend your case to your Lord, who hath you written upon the palms of His hand. If I were able to do more, your Ladyship may believe me that gladly I would. I trust shortly to see your Ladyship. Now He who hath called you confirm and stablish your heart in grace, unto the Day of the Liberty of the Sons of God.

Your Ladyship's at all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, April 29, 1634.

XXXVI.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(CHOICE OF COMMISSIONER FOR PARLIAMENT.)

WELL-BELOVED MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. I hear this day your town is to choose a commissioner for the Parliament; and I was written to from Edinburgh, to see that good men should be chosen in your bounds. And I have heard this day that Robert Glendoning or John Ewart look to be chosen. I beseech you see this be not. The Lord's cause craveth other witnesses to speak for Him than such men; and, therefore, let it not be said that Kirkcudbright, which is spoken of in this kingdom for their religion, hath sent a man to be their mouth that will speak against Christ. Such a time as this will not fall out once in half an age. I would intreat your husband to take it upon him. It is an honourable and necessary service for Christ; and shew him that I wrote unto you for that effect. I fear William Glendoning hath not skill and authority. I am in great heaviness. Pray for me, for we must take our life in our hand in this ill time. Let us stir up ourselves, to lay our Lord's bride and her wrongs before our Husband and Lord. Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, May 20.

XXXVII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(ON THE DEATH OF LORD KENMURE—DESIGNS OF AND DUTIES OF AFFLICTION.)

MY VERY NOBLE AND WORTHY LADY,—So oft as I call to mind the comforts that I myself, a poor friendless stranger, received from your Ladyship here in a strange part of the country, when my Lord took from me the delight of mine eyes (Ezek. 24:16), as the Word speaketh (which wound is not yet fully healed and cured), I trust your Lord shall remember that, and give you comfort now at such a time as this, wherein your dearest Lord hath made you a widow, that ye may be a free woman for Christ, who is now suiting for marriage-love of you. And therefore, since you lie alone in your bed, let Christ be as a bundle of myrrh, to sleep and lie all the night betwixt your breasts (Cant. 1:13), and then your bed is better filled than before. And seeing, amongst all crosses spoken of in our Lord's Word, this giveth you a particular right to make God your Husband (which was not so yours while your husband was alive), read God's mercy out of this visitation; albeit I must out of some experience say, the mourning for the husband of your youth be, by God's own mouth, the heaviest worldly sorrow (Joel 1:8). And though this be the weightiest burden that ever lay upon your back; yet ye know (when the fields are emptied and your husband now asleep in the Lord), if ye shall wait upon Him who hideth His face for a while, that it lieth upon God's honour and truth to fill the field, and to be a Husband to the widow. See and consider then what ye have lost, and how little it is. Therefore, Madam, let me intreat you, in the bowels of Christ Jesus, and by the comforts of His Spirit, and your appearance before Him, let God, and men, and angels now see what is in you. The Lord hath pierced the vessel; it will be known whether there be in it wine or water. Let your faith and patience be seen, that it may be known your only beloved first and last hath been Christ. And, therefore, now ware your whole love upon Him; He alone is a suitable object for your love and all the affections of your soul. God hath dried up one channel of your love by the removal of your husband. Let now that speat run upon Christ. Your Lord and lover hath graciously taken out your husband's name and your name out of the summonses that are raised at the instance of the terrible sin-revenging Judge of the world against the house of the Kenmures. And I dare say that God's hammering of you from your youth is only to make you a fair carved stone in the high upper temple of the New Jerusalem. Your Lord never thought this world's vain painted glory a gift worthy of you; and therefore would not bestow it on you, because He is to propine you with a better portion. Let the movables go; the inheritance is yours. Ye are a child of the house, and joy is laid up for you; it is long in coming, but not the worse for that. I am now expecting to see, and that with joy and comfort, that which I hoped of you since I knew you fully, even that ye have laid such strength upon the Holy One of Israel, that ye defy troubles, and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged, but cannot be taken. What have ye to do here? This world never looked like a friend upon you. Ye owe it little love. It looked ever sour-like upon you. Howbeit ye should woo it, it will not match with you; and therefore never seek warm fire under cold ice. This is not a field where your happiness groweth; it is up above, where there are a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands (Rev. 7:9). What ye could never get here ye shall find there. And withal consider how in all these trials (and truly they have been many) your Lord hath been loosing you at the root from perishing things, and hunting after you to grip your soul. Madam, for the Son of God's sake, let Him not miss His grip, but stay and abide in the love of God, as Jude saith (Jude 21).

Now, Madam, I hope your Ladyship will take these lines in good part; and wherein I have fallen short and failed to your Ladyship, in not evidencing what I was obliged to your more-than-undeserved love and respect, I request for a full pardon for it. Again, my dear and noble lady, let me beseech you to lift up your head, for the day of your redemption draweth near. And remember, that star that shined in Galloway is now shining in another world. Now I pray that God may answer, in His own style, to your soul, and that He may be to you the God of all consolations. Thus I remain,

Your Ladyship's at all dutiful obedience in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Sept. 14, 1634.

XXXVIII.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(CHRIST'S CARE OF HIS CHURCH, AND HIS JUDGMENTS ON HER ENEMIES.)

MISTRESS,—My dearest love in Christ remembered. I entreat you charge your soul to return to rest, and to glorify your dearest Lord in believing; and know that for the good-will of Him that dwelleth in the bush, the burning kirk shall not be consumed to ashes; but "Blessing shall come on the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separate from his brethren" (Deut. 33:16). And are not the saints separate from their brethren, and sold and hated? "For the archers have sorely grieved Joseph, and shot at him and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob" (Gen. 49:23, 24). From Him is the Shepherd and the Stone of Israel. The Stone of Israel shall not be broken in pieces; it is hammered upon by the children of this world, and we shall live and not die. Our Lord hath done all this, to see if we will believe, and not give over; and I am persuaded you must of necessity stick by your work. The eye of Christ hath been upon all this business; and He taketh good heed to who is for Him, and who is against Him. Let us do our part, as we would be approved of Christ. The Son of God is near to His enemies. If they were not deaf, they may hear the dinn of His feet; and He will come with a start upon His weeping bairns, and take them on His knee, and lay their head in His bosom, and dry their watery eyes. And this day is fast coming. "Yet a little time, and the vision will speak, it will not tarry" (Hab. 2:3). These questions betwixt us and our adversaries will all be decided in yonder day, when the Son of God shall come, and redd all pleas; and it will be seen whether we or they have been for Christ, and who have been pleading for Baal. It is not known what we are now; but when our life shall appear in glory, then we shall see who laughs fastest that day. Therefore, we must possess our souls in patience, and go into our chamber and rest, whill the indignation be past. We shall not weep long when our Lord shall take us up, in the day that He gathereth His jewels. "They that feared the Lord spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, for them that feared the Lord, and thought upon His name" (Mal. 3:16). I shall never be of another faith, but that our Lord is heating a furnace for the enemies of His kirk in Scotland. It is true the spouse of Christ hath played the harlot, and hath left her first Husband, and the enemies think they offend not, for we have sinned against the Lord; but they shall get the devil to their thanks. The rod shall be cast into the fire, that we may sing as in the days of our youth. My dear friend, therefore, lay down your head upon Christ's breast. Weep not; the Lion of the tribe of Judah will arise. The sun is gone down upon the prophets, and our gold is become dim, and the Lord feedeth His people with waters of gall and wormwood; yet Christ standeth but behind the wall, His bowels are moved for Scotland. He waiteth, as Isaiah saith, that He may show mercy. If we could go home, and take our brethren with us, weeping with our face towards Zion, asking the way thitherward, He would bring back our captivity. We may not think that God has no care of His honour, while men tread it under their feet; He will clothe Himself with vengeance, as with a cloak, and appear against our enemies for our deliverance. Ye were never yet beguiled, and God will not now begin with you. Wrestle still with the angel of the covenant, and you shall get the blessing. Fight! He delighteth to be overcome by wrestling.

Commend me to Grizel. Desire her to learn to know the adversaries of the Lord, and to take them as her adversaries, and to learn to know the right gate into the Son of God. O but acquaintance with the Son of God, to say, "My Well-beloved is mine, and I am His," is a sweet and glorious course of life, that none know but those who are sealed and marked in the forehead with Christ's mark, and the new name, that Christ writeth upon His own. Grace, grace, and mercy be with you.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Sept. 25, 1634.

XXXIX.—To my LADY KENMURE

(PREPARATION FOR DEATH AND ETERNITY.)

MADAM,—All dutiful obedience in our Lord remembered. I know ye are now near one of those straits in which ye have been before. But because your outward comforts are fewer, I pray Him whose ye are to supply what ye want another way. For howbeit we cannot win to the bottom of His wise providence, who ruleth all; yet it is certain this is not only good which the Almighty hath done, but it is best. He hath reckoned all your steps to heaven; and if your Ladyship were through this water, there are the fewer behind; and if this were the last, I hope your Ladyship hath learned by on-waiting to make your acquaintance with death, which being to the Lord, the woman's seed, Jesus, only a bloody heel and not a broken head (Gen. 3:15), cannot be ill to His friends, who get far less of death than Himself. Therefore, Madam, seeing ye know not but the journey is ended, and ye are come to the water-side, in God's wisdom look all your papers and your counts, and whether ye be ready to receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, in whom there is little haughtiness and much humility. I would be far from discouraging your Ladyship; but there is an absolute necessity that, near eternity, we look ere we leap, seeing no man winneth back again to mend his leap. I am confident your Ladyship thinketh often upon it, and that your old Guide shall go before you and take your hand. His love to you will not grow sour, nor wear out of date, as the love of men, which groweth old and grey-haired often before themselves. Ye have so much the more reason to love a better life than this, because this world hath been to you a cold fire, with little heat to the body, and as little light, and much smoke to hurt the eyes. But, Madam, your Lord would have you thinking it but dry breasts, full of wind and empty of food. In this late visitation that hath befallen your Ladyship, ye have seen God's love and care, in such a measure that I thought our Lord brake the sharp point off the cross, and made us and your Ladyship see Christ take possession and infeftment upon earth, of him who is now reigning and triumphing with the hundred forty and four thousand who stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion. I know the sweetest of it is bitter to you; but your Lord will not give you painted crosses. He pareth not all the bitterness from the cross, neither taketh He the sharp edge quite from it; then it should be of your waling and not of His, which should have as little reason in it as it should have profit for us. Only, Madam, God commandeth you now to believe and cast anchor in the dark night, and climb up the mountain. He who hath called you, establish you and confirm you to the end.

I had a purpose to have visited your Ladyship; but when I thought better upon it, the truth is, I cannot see what my company would profit you; and this hath broken off my purpose, and no other thing. I know many honourable friends and worthy professors will see your Ladyship, and that the Son of God is with you, to whose love and mercy, from my soul, I recommend your Ladyship, and remain,

Your Ladyship's at all dutiful obedience, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Nov. 29, 1634.

XL.—To my LADY KENMURE

(WHEN MR. RUTHERFORD HAD THE PROSPECT OF BEING REMOVED FROM ANWOTH.)

MADAM,—My humble obedience in the Lord remembered. Know it hath pleased the Lord to let me see, by all appearance, that my labours in God's house here are at an end; and I must now learn to suffer, in the which I am a dull scholar. By a strange providence, some of my papers, anent the corruptions of this time, are come to the King's hand. I know, by the wise and well-affected I shall be censured as not wise nor circumspect enough; but it is ordinary, that that should be a part of the cross of those who suffer for Him. Yet I love and pardon the instrument; I would commit my life to him, howbeit by him this hath befallen me. But I look higher than to him. I make no question of your Ladyship's love and care to do what ye can for my help, and am persuaded that, in my adversities, your Ladyship will wish me well. I seek no other thing but that my Lord may be honoured by me in giving a testimony. I was willing to do Him more service; but seeing He will have no more of my labours, and this land will thrust me out, I pray for grace to learn to be acquaint with misery, if I may give so rough a name to such a mark of those who shall be crowned with Christ. And howbeit I will possibly prove a faint-hearted, unwise man in that, yet I dare say I intend otherwise; and I desire not to go on the lee-side or sunny side of religion, or to put truth betwixt me and a storm: my Saviour did not so for me, who in His suffering took the windy side of the hill. No farther; but the Son of God be with you.

Your Ladyship's in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Dec. 5, 1634.

XLI.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(THE CHURCH'S TRIALS—COMFORT UNDER TEMPTATIONS—DELIVERANCE—A MESSAGE TO THE YOUNG.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—My love in Christ remembered. I hear of good news anent our kirk; but I fear that our King will not be resisted, and therefore let us not be secure and careless. I do wonder if this kirk come not through our Lord's fan, since there is so much chaff in it; howbeit I persuade myself, the Son of God's wheat will not be blown away. Let us be putting on God's armour, and be strong in the Lord. If the devil and Zion's enemies strike a hole in that armour, let our Lord see to that;—let us put it on, and stand. We have Jesus on our side; and they are not worthy such a Captain, who would not take a blow at His back. We are in sight of His colours; His banner over us is love; look up to that white banner, and stand, I persuade you, in the Lord of victory.

My brother writeth to me of your heaviness, and of temptations that press you sore. I am content it be so: you bear about with you the mark of the Lord Jesus. So it was with the Lord's apostle, when he was to come with the Gospel to Macedonia (2 Cor. 7:5): his flesh had no rest; he was troubled on every side, and knew not what side to turn him unto; without were fightings, and within were fears. In the great work of our redemption, your lovely, beautiful, and glorious Friend and Well-beloved Jesus, was brought to tears and strong cries; so as His face was wet with tears and blood, arising from a holy fear and the weight of the curse. Take a drink of the Son of God's cup, and love it the better that He drank of it before you. There is no poison in it. I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what their Lord is preparing for them.

Is your mind troubled anent that business that we have now in hand in Edinburgh. I trust in my Lord, the Lord shall in the end give to you your heart's desire; even howbeit the business frame not, the Lord shall feed your soul, and all the hungry souls in that town. Therefore I request you in the Lord, pray for a submissive will, and pray as your Lord Jesus bids you, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." And let it be that your faith be brangled with temptations, believe ye that there is a tree in our Lord's garden that is not often shaken with wind from all the four airts? Surely there is none. Rebuke your soul, as the Lord's prophet doth: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? why art thou disquieted within me?" (Psalm 42:11). That was the word of a man who was at the very over-going of the brae and mountain; but God held a grip of him. Swim through your temptations and troubles to be at that lovely, amiable person, Jesus, to whom your soul is dear. In your temptations run to the promises: they be our Lord's branches hanging over the water, that our Lord's silly, half-drowned children may take a grip of them; if you let that grip go, you will fall to the ground. Are you troubled with the case of God's kirk? Our Lord will evermore have her betwixt the sinking and the swimming. He will have her going through a thousand deaths, and through hell, as a cripple woman, halting, and wanting the power of her one side (Micah 4:6, 7), that God may be her staff. That broken ship will come to land, because Jesus is the pilot. Faint not; you shall see the salvation of God,—else say, that God never spake His word by my mouth; and I had rather never have been born, ere it were so with me. But my Lord hath sealed me. I dare not deny I have also been in heaviness since I came from you, fearing for my unthankfulness that I be deserted. But the Lord will be kind to me, whether I will or not. I repose that much in His rich grace, that He will be loath to change upon me. As you love me, pray for me in this particular.

After advising with Carletoun, I have written to Mr. David Dickson anent Mr. Hugh M'Kail, and desired him to write his mind to Carletoun, and Carletoun to Edinburgh, that they may particularly remember Mr. Hugh to the Lord; and I happened upon a convenient trusty bearer by God's wonderful providence.

No further. I recommend you to the Lord's grace, and your husband and children. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, 1634.

P.S.—MISTRESS,—I had not time to give my advice to your daughter Grizel; you shall carry my words therefore to her. Show her now, that in respect of her tender age, she is in a manner as clean paper, ready to receive either good or ill; and that it were a sweet and glorious thing for her to give herself up to Christ, that He may write upon her His Father's name, and His own new name. And desire her to acquaint herself with the Book of God; the promises that our Lord writes upon His own, and performeth in them and for them, are contained there. I persuade you, when I think that she is in the company of such parents, and hath occasion to learn Christ, I think Christ is wooing her soul; and I pray God she may not refuse such a husband. And therefore I charge her, and beseech her by the mercies of God, by the wounds and blood of Him who died for her, by the word of truth, which she heareth, and can read, by the coming of the Son of God to judge the world, that she would fulfil your joy, and learn Christ, and walk in Christ. She shall think this the truth of God many years after this; and I will promise to myself, in respect of the beginnings that I have seen, that she shall give herself to Him that gave Himself for her. Let her begin at prayer; for if she remember her Creator in the days of her youth, He will claim kindness to her in her old age. It shall be a part of my prayers, that this may be effectual in her, by Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly, to whose grace again I recommend you, and her, and all yours.

XLII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY—SPECIAL PORTIONS OF THE WORD FOR THE AFFLICTED—CALL TO KIRKCUDBRIGHT.)

MADAM,—The cause of my not writing to your Ladyship was not my forgetfulness of you, but the want of the opportunity of a convenient bearer; for I am under more than a simple obligation to be kind (on paper, at least) to your Ladyship. I bless our Lord, through Christ, who hath brought you home again to your own country from that place, where ye have seen with your eyes that which our Lord's truth taught you before, to wit, that worldly glory is nothing but a vapour, a shadow, the foam of the water, or something less and lighter, even nothing; and that our Lord hath not without cause said in His Word, "The countenance," or fashion, "of this world passeth away" (1 Cor. 7:31)—in which place our Lord compareth it to an image in a looking-glass, for it is the looking-glass of Adam's sons. Some come to the glass, and see in it the picture of honour,—and but a picture indeed, for true honour is to be great in the sight of God; and others see in it the shadow of riches,—and but a shadow indeed, for durable riches stand as one of the maids of Wisdom upon her left hand (Prov. 3:16); and a third sort see in it the face of painted pleasures, and the beholders will not believe but the image they see in this glass is a living man, till the Lord come and break the glass in pieces and remove the face, and then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say, "And behold it was a dream." I know your Ladyship thinketh yourself little in the common of this world, for the favourable aspect of any of these three painted faces; and blessed be our Lord that it is so. The better for you, Madam; they are not worthy to be wooers, to suit in marriage your soul, that look to no higher match than to be married upon painted clay. Know, therefore, Madam, the place whither our Lord Jesus cometh to woo a bride, it is even in the furnace: for if ye be one of Zion's daughters (which I ever put beyond all question, since I first had occasion to see in your Ladyship such pregnant evidences of the grace of God), the Lord, who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. 31:9), is purifying you in the furnace. And therefore be content to live in it, and every day to be adding and sewing-to a pasment to your wedding garment, that ye may be at last decored and trimmed as a bride for Christ, a bride of His own busking, beautified in the hidden man of the heart. "Forgetting your father's house, so shall the King greatly desire your beauty" (Psalm 45:11). If your Ladyship be not changed (as I hope ye are not), I believe ye esteem yourself to be of those whom God hath tried these many years, and refined as silver. But, Madam, I will show your Ladyship a privilege that others want, and ye have, in this case. Such as are in prosperity, and are fatted with earthly joys, and increased with children and friends, though the Word of God is indeed written to such for their instruction, yet to you, who are in trouble (spare me, Madam, to say this), from whom the Lord hath taken many children, and whom He hath exercised otherwise, there are some chapters, some particular promises in the Word of God, made in a most special manner, which should never have been yours, so as they now are, if you had your portion in this life, as others. And, therefore, all the comforts, promises, and mercies God offereth to the afflicted, they are as so many love-letters written to you. Take them to you, Madam, and claim your right, and be not robbed. It is no small comfort, that God hath written some scriptures to you, which He hath not written to others. Ye seem rather in this to be envied than pitied; and ye are indeed in this, like people of another world, and those that are above the ordinary rank of mankind, whom our King and Lord, our Bridegroom Jesus, in His love-letter to His well-beloved spouse, hath named beside all the rest. He hath written comforts and His hearty commendations in the 54th of Isaiah, 4, 5; Psalm 147:2, 3, to you. Read these and the like, and think your God is like a friend that sendeth a letter to a whole house and family, but speaketh in His letter to some by name, that are dearest to Him in the house. Ye are, then, Madam, of the dearest friends of the Bridegroom. If it were lawful, I would envy you, that God honoured you so above many of His dear children. Therefore, Madam, your part is, in this case (seeing God taketh nothing from you but that which He is to supply with His own presence), to desire your Lord to know His own room, and take it even upon Him to come in, in the room of dead children. "Jehovah, know Thy own place, and take it to Thee," is all ye have to say.

Madam, I persuade myself that this world is to you an uncoinn; and that ye are like a traveller, who hath his bundle upon his back, and his staff in his hand, and his feet upon the door-threshold. Go forward, honourable and elect lady, in the strength of your Lord (let the world bide at home and keep the house), with your face toward Him, who longeth more for a sight of you than ye can do for Him. Ere it be long, He will see us. I hope to see you laugh as cheerfully after noon, as ye have mourned before noon. The hand of the Lord, the hand of the Lord be with you in your journey. What have ye to do here? This is not your mountain of rest. Arise, then, and set your foot up the mountain; go up out of the wilderness, leaning upon the shoulder of your Beloved (Song 8:5). If ye knew the welcome that abideth you when ye come home, ye would hasten your pace; for ye shall see your Lord put up His own holy hand to your face, and wipe all tears from your eyes; and I trow, then ye shall have some joy of heart.

Madam, paper willeth me to end before affection. Remember the estate of Zion; pray that Jerusalem may be as Zechariah prophesied, "a burdensome stone for all" (Zech. 12:3), that whosoever boweth down to roll the stone out of the way, may hurt and break the joints of their back, and strain their arms, and disjoint their shoulder-blades. And pray Jehovah that the stone may lie still in its own place, and keep band with the cornerstone. I hope it shall be so; He is a skilled Master-builder who laid it.

I would, Madam, under great heaviness be refreshed with two lines from your Ladyship, which I refer to your own wisdom. Madam, I would seem undutiful not to show you, that great solicitation is made by the town of Kirkcudbright for to have the use of my poor labours amongst them. If the Lord shall call, and His people cry, who am I to resist? But without His seen calling, and till the flock whom I now oversee be planted with one to whom I dare intrust Christ's spouse, gold nor silver nor favour of men, I hope, shall not loose me. I leave your Ladyship, praying more earnestly for grace and mercy to be with you, and multiplied upon you, here and hereafter, than my pen can express. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Your Ladyship's at all obedience in the Lord.

KIRKCUDBRIGHT.

XLIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(WHEN MR. RUTHERFORD WAS IN DIFFICULTY AS TO ACCEPTING A CALL TO KIRKCUDBRIGHT, AND CRAMOND.)

MUCH HONOURED AND DEAR MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. I am grieved at the heart to write anything to you to breed heaviness to you; and what I have written, I wrote with much heaviness. But I entreat you in Christ's name, when my soul is under wrestlings, and seeking direction from our Lord (to whom His vineyard belongeth) whither I shall go, give me liberty to advise, and try all airts and paths, to see whether He goeth before me and leadeth me. For if I were assured of God's call to your town, let my arm fall from my shoulder-blade and lose power, and my right eye be dried up (which is the judgment of the idol shepherd) (Zech. 11:17), if I would not swim through the water without a boat ere I sat His bidding. But if ye knew my doubtings and fears in that, ye would suffer with me. Whether they be temptations or impediments cast in by my God, I know not. But you have now cause to thank God; for seeing the Bishop hath given you such a promise, he will give you an honest man more willingly than he will permit me to come to you. And, as I ever entreated you, put the business out of your hand in the Lord's reverence; and try of Him, if ye have warrant of Him to seek no man in the world but one only, when there are choice of good men to be had. Howbeit they be too scarce, yet they are. And what God saith to me in the business, I resolve by His grace to do; for I know not what He will do with me. But God shall fill you with joy ere this business be ended; for I persuade myself our Lord Jesus hath stirred you up already to do good in the business, and ye shall not lose your reward.

I have heard your husband and Samuel have been sick. The man who is called the Branch and God's fellow, who standeth before His Father, will be your stay and help (Zech. 13:7). I would I were able to comfort your soul. But have patience, and stand still; he that believeth maketh not haste. This matter of Cramond, cast in at this time, is either a temptation, having fallen out at this time; or then it will clear all my doubts, and let you see the Lord's will. But I never knew my own part in the business till now. I thought I was more willing to have embraced the charge in your town, than I am, or am able to win to. I know ye pray that God would resolve me what to do; and will interpret me, as love biddeth you, which "thinketh not ill, and believeth all things, and hopeth all things." Would ye have more than the Son of God? and ye have Him already. And ye shall be fed by the carver of the meat, be he who he will; and those who are hungry look more to the meat than to the carver.

I cannot see you the next week. If my lady come home, I must visit her. The week thereafter will be a Presbytery at Girthon. God will dispose of the meeting. Grace upon you, and your seed, and husband. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XLIV.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(TROUBLES THREATENING THE CHURCH.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—My love in Jesus Christ remembered. Your daughter is well, thanks be to God. I trust in Him ye shall have joy of her; the Lord bless her. I am now presently going about catechising. The bearer is in haste. Forget not poor Zion; and the Lord remember you, for we shall be shortly winnowed. Jesus, pray for us, that our faith fail not! I would wish to see you a Sabbath with us, and we shall stir up one another, God willing, to seek the Lord; for it may be He hide Himself from us ere it be long. Keep that which you have: ye will get more in heaven. The Lord send us to the shore out of all the storms, with our silly souls sound and whole with us; for if liberty of conscience come, as is rumoured, the best of us will be put to our wits to seek how to be freed. But we shall be like those who have their chamber to go in unto, spoken of in Isaiah (Isa. 26:20). Read the place yourself, and keep you within your house while the storm be passed. If you can learn a ditty against C., try, and cause try, that ye may see the Lord's righteous judgment upon the devil's instruments. We are not much obliged to his kindness. I wish all such wicked doers were cut off.

These in haste. I bless you in God's name, and all yours. Your daughter desires a Bible and a gown. I hope she shall use the Bible well, which if she do, the gown is the better bestowed. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours for ever in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XLV.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(IN THE PROSPECT OF THE COMMUNION, AND OF TRIALS TO THE CHURCH.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER IN CHRIST,—You shall understand I have received a letter from Edinburgh, that it is suspected that there will be a General Assembly, or then some meeting of the bishops; and that at this synod there will be some commissioners chosen by the Bishop; which news have so taken up my mind that I am not so settled for studies as I have been before, and therefore was never in such fear for the work. But because it is written to me as a secret, I dare not reveal it to any but to yourself, whom I know. And therefore, I entreat you not for any comfort of mine, who am but one man, but for the glory and honour of Jesus Christ, the Master of the banquet, be more earnest with God; and, in general, show others of your Christian acquaintance my fears for myself. I can be content of shame in that work, if my Lord and Master be honoured; and therefore petition our Lord especially to see to His own glory, and to give bread to His hungry bairns, howbeit I go hungry away from the feast. Request Mr. Robert from me, if he come not, to remember us to our Lord.

I have neither time, nor a free disposed mind, to write to you anent your own case. Send me word if all your children and your husband be well. Seeing they are not yours, but your dear Lord's, esteem them but as borrowed, and lay them down at God's feet. Your Christ to you is better than they all. You will pardon my unaccustomed short letter; and remember me and that honourable feast to our Lord Jesus. He was with us before. I hope He will not change upon us; but I fear I have changed upon Him. But, Lord, let old kindness stand. Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XLVI.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(TOSSINGS OF SPIRIT—HER CHILDREN AND HUSBAND.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER,—My tender affection in Christ remembered. I left you in as great heaviness as I was in since I came to this country; but I know you doubt not but that (as the truth is in Christ) my soul is knit to your soul, and to the soul of all yours; and I would, if I could, send you the largest part of my heart inclosed in this letter. But by fervent calling upon my Lord, I have attained some victory over my heart, which runneth often not knowing whither, and over my beguiling hopes, which I know now better than I did. I trust in my Lord to hold aloof from the enticings of a seducing heart, by which I am daily cosened; and I mind not (by His grace who hath called me according to His eternal purpose) to come so far within the grips of my foolish mind, gripping about any folly coming its way as the woodbine or ivy goeth about the tree.

I adore and kiss the providence of my Lord, who knoweth well what is most expedient for me, and for you and your children; and I think of you as of myself, that the Lord, who in His deep wisdom turneth about all the wheels and turning of such changes, shall also dispose of that for the best to you and yours. In the presence of my Lord, I am not able, howbeit I would, to conceive amiss of you in that matter. Grace, grace for ever be upon you and your seed, and it shall be your portion, in despite of all the powers of darkness. Do not make more question of this. But the Lord saw a nail in my heart loose, and He hath now fastened it. Honour be to His Majesty.

I hear your son is entered to the school. If I had known of the day, I would have begged from our Lord that He would have put the book in his hand with His own hand. I trust in my Lord it is so; and I conceive a hope to see him a star, to give light in some room of our Lord's house; and purpose, by the Lord's grace, as I am able (if our Lord call you to rest before me), when you are at your home, to do to the uttermost of my power to help him every way in grace and learning, and his brothers, and all your children. And I hope you would expect that of me.

Further, you shall know that Mr. W. D. is come home, who saith it is a miracle that your husband, in this process before the Council, escaped both discredit and damage. Let it not be forgotten he was, in our apprehension, to our grief, cast down and humbled in the Lord's work, in that matter betwixt him and the bailie: now the Lord hath honoured him, and made him famous for virtue, honesty, and integrity, two several times, before the nobles of this kingdom. Your Lord liveth. We will go to His throne of grace again; His arm is not shortened.

The King is certainly expected. Ill is feared; we have cause for our sins to fear that the Bridegroom shall be taken from us. By our sins we have rent His fair garments, and we have stirred up and awakened our Beloved. Pray Him to tarry, or then to take us with Him. It were good that we should knock and rap at our Lord's door. We may not tire to knock oftener than twice or thrice. He knoweth the knock of His friends.

I am still what I was ever to your dear children, tendering their soul's happiness, and praying that grace, grace, grace, mercy, and peace from God, even God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus, may be their portion; and that now, while they are green and young, their hearts may take band with Jesus, the Cornerstone: and win once in, in our Lord and Saviour's house, and then they will not get leave to flit. Pray for me, and especially for humility and thankfulness. I have always remembrance of you, and your husband, and dear children. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours evermore in my dear Lord Jesus and yours,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XLVII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(SUBMISSION TO GOD'S ARRANGEMENTS.)

WORTHY AND BELOVED MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. I have sent you a letter from Mr. David Dick concerning the placing of Mr. Hugh M'Kail with themselves; therefore I write to you now only to entreat you in Christ not to be discouraged thereat. Be submissive to the will of your dear Lord, who knoweth best what is good for your soul and your town both; for God can come over greater mountains than these, we believe; for He worketh His greatest works contrary to carnal reason and means. "My ways are not," saith our Lord, "as your ways; neither are my thoughts as your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8). I am no whit put from my belief for all that. Believe, pray, and use means. We shall cause Mr. John Kerr, who conveyed myself to Lochinvar, to use means to seek a man, if Mr. Hugh fail us. Our Lord has a little bride among you, and I trust He will send one to woo her to our sweet Lord Jesus. He will not want His wife for the suiting, and He has means in abundance in His hand to open all the slots and bars that Satan draws over the door. He cometh to His bride leaping over the mountains, and skipping over the hills. His way to His spouse is full of stones, mountains, and waters, yet He putteth in His foot and wadeth through. He will not want her; and therefore refresh me with two words concerning your confidence and courage in our Lord, both about that, and about His own Zion; for He wooeth His wife in the Burning Bush; and for "the good-will of Him that dwelleth in the Bush," the bush is not consumed. It is better to weep with Jerusalem in the forenoon, than to weep with Babel after noon, in the end of the day. Our day of laughter and rejoicing is coming. Yet a little while, and ye shall see the salvation of God. I long to see you, and to hear how your children are, especially Samuel. Grace be their heritage and portion from the Lord, and the Lord be their lot, and then their inheritance shall please them well. Remember my love to your husband. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in his sweetest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

XLVIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(TROUBLES FROM FALSE BRETHREN—OCCURRENCES—CHRIST'S COMING—INTERCESSION.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—I know you have heard of the success of our business in Edinburgh. I do every Presbytery day see the faces of my brethren smiling upon me, but their tongues convey reproaches and lies of me a hundred miles off, and have made me odious to the Bishop of St. Andrews, who said to Mr. W. Dalgleish that ministers in Galloway were his informers. Whereupon no letter of favour could be procured from him for effectuating of our business; only I am brought in the mouths of men, who otherwise knew me not, and have power (if God shall permit) to harm me. Yet I entreat you, in the bowels of Christ Jesus, be not cast down. I fear your sorrow exceed because of this; and I am not so careful for myself in the matter as for you. Take courage;—your dearest Lord will light your candle, which the wicked would fain blow out; and, as sure as our Lord liveth, your soul shall find joy and comfort in this business. Howbeit you see all the hounds in hell let loose to mar it, their iron chains to our dear and mighty Lord are but straws, which He can easily break. Let not this temptation stick in your throat; swallow it, and let it go down; our Lord give you a drink of the consolations of His Spirit, that it may digest. You never knew one in God's book who put to their hand to the Lord's work for His kirk, but the world and Satan did bark against them, and bite also where they had power. You will not lay one stone on Zion's walls but they will labour to cast it down again.

For myself, the Lord letteth me see now greater evidence of a calling to Kirkcudbright than ever He did before; and therefore pray, and possess your soul in patience. Those that were doers in the business have good hopes that it will yet go forward and prosper. As for the death of the King of Sweden (which is thought to be too true), we can do nothing else but reverence our Lord, who doth not ordinarily hold Zion on her rock by the sword, and arm of flesh and blood, but by His own mighty and outstretched arm. Her King that reigneth in Zion yet liveth, and they are plucking Him round about to pull Him off His throne; but His Father hath crowned him, and who dare say, "It is ill done"? The Lord's bride will be up and down, above the water swimming and under the water sinking, until her lovely and mighty Redeemer and Husband set His head through the skies, and come with His fair court to red all their pleas, and give them the hoped-for inheritance: and then we shall lay down our swords and triumph, and fight no more. But do not think, for all this, that our Lord and Chief Shepherd will want one weak sheep, or the silliest dying lamb, that He hath redeemed. He will tell His flock, and gather them all together, and make a faithful account of them to the Father who gave them to Him. Let us learn to turn our eyes off men, that our whorish hearts doat not on them, and woo our old Husband, and make Him our darling. For, "thus saith the Lord to the enemies of Zion, Drink ye, and be drunk, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword that I send amongst you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say to them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Ye shall certainly drink" (Jer. 25:27, 28). You see our Lord brewing a cup of poison for His enemies, which they must drink, and because of this have sore bowels and sick stomachs, yea, burst. But when Zion's captivity is at an end, "the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten" (Jer. 50:4, 5). This is spoken to us, and for us, who with woe hearts ask, "What is the way to Zion?" It is our part who know how to go to our Lord's door, and to knock by prayer, and how to lift Christ's slot, and shut the bar of His chamber door, to complain and tell Him how the Lord handleth us, and how our King's business goeth, that He may get up and lend them a blow, who are tigging and playing with Christ and His spouse. You have also, dear Mistress, house troubles, in sickness of your husband and bairns, and in spoiling of your house by thieves; take these rods in patience from your Lord. He must still move you from vessel to vessel, and grind you as our Lord's wheat, to be bread in His house. But when all these strokes are over your head, what will ye say to see your well-beloved Christ's white and ruddy face, even His face who is worthy to bear the colours among ten thousand? (Cant. 5:10). Hope and believe to the end. Grace for ever be multiplied upon you, your husband, and children.

Your own in his dearest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, Dec. 1634.

XLIX.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(SPOILING OF GOODS—CALL TO KIRKCUDBRIGHT—THE LORD REIGNETH.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER,—My love in Christ remembered. God hath brought me home from a place where I have been exercised with great heaviness, and I have found at home new matter of great heaviness, yet dare not but in all things give thanks.

In my business in Edinburgh, I have not sinned nor wronged my party,—by his own confession, and by the confession of his friends, I have given of my goods for peace and the saving of my Lord's truth from reproaches, which is dearer to me than all I have. My mother is weak, and I think shall leave me alone; but I am not alone, because Christ's Father is with me.

For your business anent your town I see great evidence; but Satan and his instruments are against it, and few set their shoulders to Christ's shoulder to help Him. But He will do all His lone; and I dare not but exhort you to believe, and persuade you, that the hungry in your city shall be fed; and as for the rest that want a stomach, the parings of God's loaf will suffice them; and, therefore, believe it shall be well. I may not leave my mother to come and confer with you of all particulars. I have given such directions to our dear friend as I can; but the event is in our dear Lord's hands.

God's Zion abroad flourisheth, and His arm is not shortened with us, if we could believe. There is scarcity and a famine of the word of God in Edinburgh. Your sister Jane laboureth mightily in our business; but hath not as yet gotten an answer from I. P. Mr. A. C. will work what he can. My Lady saith she can do little, and that it suiteth not her nor her husband well to speak in such an affair. I told her my mind plainly.

I long to know of your estate. Remember me heartily to your dear husband. Grace be the portion of your bairns. I know you are mindful of the green wound of our sister kirk in Ireland. Bid our Lord lay a plaister to it (He hath good skill to do so), and set others to work. Grace, grace upon your soul, and body, and all yours.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

[The following brief note, addressed to Marion M'Naught, may be read as a sort of postscript to the foregoing, though generally printed as a separate Letter.]

DEAR MISTRESS,—I have not time this day to write to you; but God, knowing my present state and necessities of my calling, will, I hope, spare my mother's life for a time, for the which I have cause to thank the Lord. I entreat you, be not cast down for that which I wrote before to you anent the planting of a minister in your town. Believe, and you shall see the salvation of God. I write this, because when you suffer, my heart suffereth with you. I do believe your soul shall have joy in your labours and holy desires for that work. Grace upon you, and your husband, and children.

Yours ever in Christ,

ANWOTH.

L.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(CHRIST COMING AS CAPTAIN OF SALVATION—HIS CHURCH'S CONFLICT AND COVENANT—THE JEWS—LAST DAYS APOSTASY.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER,—I know your heart is cast down for the desolation like to come upon this kirk and the appearance that an hireling shall be thrust in upon Christ's flock in that town; but send a heavy heart up to Christ, it shall be welcome. Those who are with the beast and the dragon, must make war with the Lamb; "but the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they who are with Him are called and chosen, and faithful" (Rev. 17:14). Our ten days shall have an end; all the former things shall be forgotten when we shall be up before the throne. Christ hath been ever thus in the world; He hath always the defender's part, and hath been still in the camp, fighting the Church's battles. The enemies of the Son of God will be fed with their own flesh, and shall drink their own blood; and therefore, their part of it shall at last be found hard enough: so that we may look forward and pity them. Until the number of the elect be fulfilled, Christ's garments must be rolled in blood. He cometh from Edom, from the slaughter of His enemies, "clothed with dyed garments, glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength." Who is this (saith he) that appears in this glorious posture? Our great He! that He who is mighty to save, whose glory shineth while He sprinkleth the blood of His adversaries, and staineth all His raiment. The glory of His righteous revenges shineth forth in these stains (Isa. 63:1). But seeing our world is not here-away, we poor children, far from home, must steal through many waters, weeping as we go, and withal believing that we do the Lord's faithfulness no wrong, seeing He hath said, "I, even I, am He that comforteth you: who art thou, that shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man that shall be made as grass?" (Isa. 51:12). "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shall not be burnt; neither shall the flames kindle upon thee" (Isa. 43:2).

There is a cloud gathering and a storm coming. This land shall be turned upside down; and if ever the Lord spake to me (think on it), Christ's bride will be glad of a hole to hide her head in, and the dragon may so prevail as to chase the woman and her man-child over sea. But there shall be a gleaning, two or three berries left in the top of the olive-tree, of whom God shall say, "Destroy them not, for there is a blessing in them." Thereafter there shall be a fair sun-blink on Christ's old spouse, and a clear sky, and she shall sing as in the days of her youth. The Antichrist and the great red dragon will lop Christ's branches, and bring His vine to a low stump, under the feet of those who carry the mark of the beast; but the Plant of Renown, the Man whose name is the Branch, will bud forth again and blossom as the rose, and there shall be fair white flourishes again, with most pleasant fruits, upon that tree of life. A fair season may He have! Grace, grace be upon that blessed and beautiful tree! under whose shadow we shall sit, and His fruit shall be sweet to our taste. But Christ shall woo His handful in the fire, and choose His own in the furnace of affliction. But be it so; He dow not, He will not slay His children. Love will not let Him make a full end. The covenant will cause Him hold His hand. Fear not, then, saith the First and the Last, He who was dead and is alive. We see not Christ sharpening and furbishing His sword for His enemies; and therefore our faithless hearts say, as Zion did, "The Lord hath forsaken me." But God reproveth her, and saith, "Well, well, Zion, is that well said? Think again on it, you are in the wrong to Me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb? Yea, she may; yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have engraven thee upon the palms of My hands" (Isa. 49:15, 16). You break your heart and grow heavy, and forget that Christ hath your name engraven on the palms of His hand in great letters. In the name of the Son of God, believe that buried Scotland, dead and buried with her dear Bridegroom, shall rise the third day again, and there shall be a new growth after the old timber is cut down.

I recommend you, and your burdens and heavy heart, to the supporting of His grace and good-will who dwelt in the Bush, to Him who was separated from His brethren. Try your husband afar off, to see if he can be induced to think upon going to America.

O to see the sight, next to Christ's Coming in the clouds, the most joyful! our elder brethren the Jews and Christ fall upon one another's necks and kiss each other! They have been long asunder; they will be kind to one another when they meet. O day! O longed-for and lovely day-dawn! O sweet Jesus, let me see that sight which will be as life from the dead, Thee and Thy ancient people in mutual embraces.

Desire your daughter to close with Christ upon terms of suffering for Him; for the cross is an old mealing and plot of ground that lyeth to Christ's house. Our dear Chief had aye that rent lying to His inheritance. But tell her the day is near the dawning, the sky is riving; our Beloved will be on us, ere ever we be aware. The Antichrist, and death and hell, and Christ's enemies and ours, will be bound and cast into the bottomless pit. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, April 22, 1635.

LI.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(PUBLIC TEMPTATIONS—THE SECURITY OF EVERY SAINT—OCCURRENCES IN THE COUNTRY-SIDE.)

LOVING AND DEAR SISTER,—For Zion's sake hold not your peace, neither be discouraged, for the on-going of this persecution. Jehovah is in this burning Bush. The floods may swell and roar, but our ark shall swim above the waters; it cannot sink, because a Saviour is in it. Because our Beloved was not let in by His spouse when He stood at the door, with His wet and frozen head, therefore He will have us to seek Him awhile; and while we are seeking, the watchmen who go about the walls have stricken the poor woman, and have taken away her veil from her. But yet a little while and our Lord will come again. Scotland's sky will clear again; her moment must go over. I dare in faith say and write (I am not dreaming), Christ is but seeking (what He will have and make) a clean glistering bride out of the fire. God send Him His errand, but He cannot want what He seeks. In the meantime, one way or other, He shall find, or make a nest for His mourning dove. What is this we are doing, breaking the neck of our faith? We are not come as yet to the month of the Red Sea; and howbeit we were, for His honour's sake, He must dry it up. It is our part to die gripping and holding fast His faithful promise. If the Beast should get leave to ride through the land, to seal such as are his, he will not get one lamb with him, for these are secured and sealed as the servants of God. In God's name, let Christ take His barn-floor, and all that is in it, to a hill, and winnow it. Let Him sift His corn, and sweep His house, and seek His lost gold. The Lord shall cog the rumbling wheels, or turn them; for the remainder of wrath doth He restrain. He can loose the belt of kings; to God, their belt, wherewith they are girt, is knit with a single draw-knot.

As for a pastor to your town, your conscience can bear you witness you have done your part. Let the Master of the vineyard now see to His garden, seeing you have gone on, till He hath said, "Stand still." The will of the Lord be done. But a trial is not, to give up with God and believe no more. I thank my God in Christ, I find the force of my temptation abated, and its edge blunted, since I spoke to you last. I know not if the tempter be hovering, until he find the dam gather again, and me more secure; but it hath been my burden, and I am yet more confident the Lord will succour and deliver.

I intend, God willing, that our Communion shall be celebrated the first Sabbath after Pasch. Our Lord, that great Master of the feast, send us one hearty and heartsome supper, for I look it shall be the last. But we expect, when the shadows shall flee away, and our Lord shall come to His garden, that He shall feed us in green pastures without fear. The dogs shall not then be hounded out amongst the sheep. I earnestly desire your prayers for assistance at our work, and put others with you to do the same. Remember me to your husband, and desire your daughter to be kind to Christ, and seek to win near Him; He will give her a welcome unto His house of wine, and bring her into the King's chamber. O how will the sight of His face, and the smell of His garments, allure and ravish the heart! Now, the love of the lovely Son of God be with you.

Yours in his sweet Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, 1635.

LII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(IN THE PROSPECT OF HER HUSBAND BEING COMPELLED TO RECEIVE THE COMMAND OF THE PRELATES—SAINTS ARE YET TO JUDGE.)

WELL-BELOVED MISTRESS,—I charge you in the name of the Son of God, to rest upon your Rock, that is higher than yourself. Be not afraid of a man, who is a worm, nor of the son of man, who shall die. God be your fear. Encourage your husband. I would counsel you to write to Edinburgh to some advised lawyers, to understand what your husband, as the head magistrate, may do in opposing any intruded minister, and in his carriage toward the new prelate, if he command him to imprison or lay hands upon any, and, in a word, how far he may in his office disobey a prelate, without danger of law. For if the Bishop come to your town, and find not obedience to his heart, it is like he will command the Provost to assist him against God and the truth. Ye will have more courage under the persecution. Fear not; take Christ caution,2 who said, "There shall not one hair of your head perish" (Luke 21:18). Christ will not be in your common to have you giving out anything for Him, and not give you all incomes with advantage. It is His honour His servants should not be herried and undone in His service. You were never honoured till now. And if your husband be the first magistrate who shall suffer for Christ's name in this persecution, he may rejoice that Christ hath put the first garland on his head and upon yours. Truth will yet keep the crown of the causey in Scotland. Christ and truth are strong enough. They judge us now; we shall one day judge them, and sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes. Believe, believe; for they dare not pray; they dare not look Christ in the face. They have been false to Christ, and He will not sit with the wrong. Ye know it is not our cause; for if we would quit our Lord, we might sleep for the present in a sound skin, and keep our place, means, and honour, and be dear to them also; but let us once put all we have over in Christ's hand. Fear not for my papers; I shall despatch them, but ye will be examined for them. The Spirit of Jesus give you inward peace. Desire your husband from me to prove honest to Christ; he shall not be a loser at Christ's hand.

Yours ever in his sweet Lord Jesus,

ANWOTH, July 8, 1635.

S. R.

LIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(ENCOURAGEMENT UNDER TRIAL BY PROSPECT OF BRIGHTER DAYS.)

MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. Having appointed a meeting with Mr. David Dickson, and knowing that B. will not keep the Presbytery, I cannot see you now. Commend my journey to God. My soul blesseth you for your last letter. Be not discouraged; Christ will not want the Isles-men. "The Isles shall wait for His law." We are His inheritance, and He will sell no part of His inheritance. For the sins of this land, and our breach of the covenant, contempt of the Gospel, and our defection from the truth, He hath set up a burning furnace in our Mount Zion; but I say it, and will bide by it, the grass shall yet grow green on our Mount Zion. There shall be dew all the night upon the lilies, amongst which Christ feedeth, until the day break, and the shadows flee away. And the moth shall eat up the enemies of Christ. Let them make a fire of their own, and walk in the light thereof, it shall not let them see to go to their bed; but they shall lie down in sorrow (Isa. 50:11). Therefore, rejoice and believe. This in haste. Grace, grace be with you and yours.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

LIV.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(PUBLIC WRONGS—WORDS OF COMFORT.)

LOVING AND DEAR SISTER,—I fear that you be moved and cast down, because of the late wrong that your husband received in your Town Council. But I pray you comfort yourself in the Lord; for a just cause bides under the water only as long as wicked men hold their hand above it; their arm will weary, and then the just cause shall swim above, and the light that is sown for the righteous shall spring and grow up. If ye were not strangers here, the dogs of the world would not bark at you. You may see all windings and turnings that are in your way to heaven out of God's Word; for He will not lead you to the kingdom at the nearest, but you must go through "honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, and yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:8, 10). The world is one of the enemies that we have to fight with, but a vanquished and overcome enemy, and like a beaten and forlorn soldier; for our Jesus hath taken the armour from it. Let me then speak to you in His words: "Be of good courage," saith the Captain of our salvation, "for I have overcome the world." You shall neither be free of the scourge of the tongue, nor of disgraces (even if it were buffetings and spittings upon the face, as was our Saviour's case), if you follow Jesus Christ. I beseech you in the bowels of our Lord Jesus, keep a good conscience, as I trust you do. You live not upon men's opinion; gold may be gold, and have the king's stamp upon it, when it is trampled upon by men. Happy are you, if, when the world trampleth upon you in your credit and good name, yet you are the Lord's gold, stamped with the King of heaven's image, and sealed by the Spirit unto the day of your redemption. Pray for the spirit of love; for "love beareth all things; it believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things" (1 Cor. 13:7).

And I pray you and your husband, yea, I charge you before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, pray for these your adversaries, and read this to your husband from me, and let both of you put on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies. And, sister, remember how many thousands of talents of sins your Master hath forgiven you. Forgive ye therefore your fellow-servants one talent. Follow God's command in this, and "seek not after your own heart, and after your own eyes," in this matter, as the Spirit speaks (Numb. 15:39). Ask never the counsel of your own heart here; the world will blow up your heart now, and cause it swell, except the grace of God cause it fall. Jesus, even Jesus, the Eternal Wisdom of the Father, give you wisdom. I trust God shall be glorified in you. And a door shall be opened unto you, as to the Lord's "prisoners of hope," as Zechariah speaks. It is a benefit to you, that the wicked are God's fan to purge you. And I hope they shall blow away no corn, or spiritual graces, but only your chaff. I pray you, in your pursuit, have so recourse to the law of men, that you wander not from the law of God. Be not cast down: if you saw Him who is standing on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you on land, you would not only wade through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be at Him. And I trust in God you see Him sometimes. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit, and all yours.

Your brother in the Lord,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

LV.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(WHEN HE HAD BEEN THREATENED WITH PERSECUTION FOR PREACHING THE GOSPEL—THE SAINTS SHALL YET WIN THE DAY.)

WORTHY AND WELL-BELOVED MISTRESS,—My love in Christ remembered. I know ye have heard of the purpose of my adversaries, to try what they can do against me at this Synod for the work of God in your town when I was at your Communion. They intend to call me in question at the Synod for treasonable doctrine. Therefore help me with your prayers, and desire your acquaintance to help me also. Your ears heard how Christ was there. If He suffer His servant to get a broken head in His own kingly service, and not either help or revenge the wrong, I never saw the like of it. There is not a night drunkard, time-serving, idle, idol shepherd to be spoken against: I am the only man; and because it is so, and I know God will not help them lest they be proud, I am confident their process shall fall asunder. Only be ye earnest with God for hearing, for an open ear, and reading of the bill, that He may in heaven hear both parties, and judge accordingly. And doubt not, fear not; they shall not, who now ride highest, put Christ out of His kingly possession in Scotland. The pride of man and his rage shall turn to the praise of our Lord. It is an old feud, that the rulers of the earth, the dragon and his angels, have carried to the Lamb and His followers; but the followers of the Lamb shall overcome by the Word of God. And believe this, and wait on a little, till they have got their womb full of clay and gravel, and they shall know (howbeit stolen waters be sweet) Esau's portion is not worth his hunting. Commend me to your husband, and send me word how Grizel is. The Son of God lead her through the water. The Lord Jesus bewith your spirit.

Yours in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH.

LVI.—To my LADY KENMURE

(REASONS FOR RESIGNATION—SECURITY OF SAINTS—THE END OF TIME.)

MADAM,—I received your Ladyship's letter from J. G. I thank our Lord ye are as well at least as one may be who is not come home. It is a mercy in this stormy sea to get a second wind; for none of the saints get a first, but they must take the winds as the Lord of the seas causeth them to blow, and the inn as the Lord and Master of the inns hath ordered it. If contentment were here, heaven were not heaven. Whoever seek the world to be their bed, shall at best find it short and ill-made, and a stone under their side to hold them waking, rather than a soft pillow to sleep upon. Ye ought to bless your Lord that it is not worse. We live in a sea where many have suffered shipwreck, and have need that Christ sit at the helm of the ship. It is a mercy to win to heaven, though with much hard toil and heavy labour, and to take it by violence ill and well as it may be. Better go swimming and wet through our waters than drown by the way; especially now when truth suffereth, and great men bid Christ sit lower and contract Himself in less bounds, as if He took too much room.

I expect our new prelate shall try my sitting. I hang by a thread, but it is (if I may speak so) of Christ's spinning. There is no quarrel more honest or honourable than to suffer for truth. But the worst is, that this kirk is like to sink, and all her lovers and friends stand afar off; none mourn with her, and none mourn for her. But the Lord Jesus will not be put out of His conquest so soon in Scotland. It will be seen that the kirk and truth will rise again within three days, and Christ again shall ride upon His white horse; howbeit His horse seem now to stumble, yet he cannot fall. The fulness of Christ's harvest in the end of the earth is not yet come in. I speak not this because I would have it so, but upon better grounds than my naked liking. But enough of this sad subject.

I long to be fully assured of your Ladyship's welfare, and that your soul prospereth, especially now in your solitary life, when your comforts outward are few, and when Christ hath you for the very uptaking. I know His love to you is still running over, and His love hath not so bad a memory as to forget you and your dear child, who hath two fathers in heaven, the one the Ancient of Days. I trust in His mercy He hath something laid up for him above, however it may go with him here. I know it is long since your Ladyship saw that this world had turned your stepmother and did forsake you. Madam, you have reason to take in good part a lean dinner and spare diet in this life, seeing your large supper of the Lamb's preparing will recompense all. Let it go, which was never yours but only in sight, not in property. The time of your loan will wear shorter and shorter, and time is measured to you by ounce weights; and then I know your hope shall be a full ear of corn and not blasted with wind. It may be your joy that your anchor is up within the veil, and that the ground it is cast upon is not false but firm. God hath done His part: I hope ye will not deny to fish and fetch home all your love to Himself; and it is but too narrow and short for Him if it were more. If ye were before pouring all your love (if it had been many gallons more) in upon your Lord, if drops fell by in the in-pouring, He forgiveth you. He hath done now all that can be done to win beyond it all, and hath left little to woo your love from Himself, except one only child. What is His purpose herein He knoweth best, who hath taken your soul in tutoring. Your faith may be boldly charitable of Christ, that however matters go, the worst shall be a tired traveller, and a joyful and sweet welcome home. The back of your winter night is broken. Look to the east, the day sky is breaking. Think not that Christ loseth time, or lingereth unsuitably. O fair, fair, and sweet morning! We are but as sea passengers. If we look right, we are upon our country coast: our Redeemer is fast coming, to take this old worm-eaten world, like an old moth-eaten garment, in His two hands, and to roll it up and lay it by Him. These are the last days, and an oath is given, by God Himself, that time shall be no more (Rev. 10:6); and when time itself is old and grey-haired, it were good we were away. Thus, Madam, ye see I am, as my custom is, tedious in my lines. Your Ladyship will pardon it. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Your Ladyship's at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Jan. 18, 1636.

LVII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(IN THE PROSPECT OF REMOVAL TO ABERDEEN.)

HONOURED AND DEAREST IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am well, and my soul prospereth. I find Christ with me. I burden no man; I want nothing; no face looketh on me but it laugheth on me. Sweet, sweet is the Lord's cross. I overcome my heaviness. My Bridegroom's love-blinks fatten my weary soul. I soon go to my King's palace at Aberdeen. Tongue, and pen, and wit, cannot express my joy.

Remember my love to Jean Gordon, to my sister, Jean Brown, to Grizel, to your husband. Thus in haste. Grace be with you.

Yours in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, April 5, 1636.

P.S.—My charge is to you to believe, rejoice, sing, and triumph. Christ has said to me, Mercy, mercy, grace and peace for Marion M'Naught.

LVIII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(ON OCCASION OF EFFORTS TO INTRODUCE EPISCOPACY.)

RIGHT HONOURABLE,—I cannot find a time for writing some things I intended on Job, I have been so taken up with the broils that we are encumbered with in our calling. For our prelate will have us either to swallow our light over, and digest it contrary to our stomachs (howbeit we should vomit our conscience and all, in this troublesome conformity), or then he will try if deprivation can convert us to the ceremonial faith.

I write to your Ladyship, Madam, not as distrusting your affection or willingness to help me, as your Ladyship is able by yourself or others, but to advertise you that I hang by a small thread. For our learned prelate, because we cannot see with his eyes so far in a mill-stone as his light doeth, will not follow his Master, meek Jesus, who waited upon the wearied and short-breathed in the way to heaven. Where all see not alike, and some are weaker, He carrieth the lambs in His bosom, and leadeth gently those that are with young. But we must either see all the evil of ceremonies to be but as indifferent straws, or suffer no less than to be casten out of the Lord's inheritance! Madam, if I had time I would write more at length, but your Ladyship will pardon me till a fitter occasion. Grace be with you and your child, and bear you company to your best home.

Your Ladyship's in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, June 8, 1636.

LIX.—To EARLSTON, Elder

[ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlston was descended from the house of Gordon of Lochinvar, and the residence of his family at first was Gordon of Airds (about a mile from the New Galloway Railway Station, on a wooded height, in the parish of Kells). His great-grandfather, Alexander Gordon of Airds, having married Margaret, eldest daughter of John Sinclair of Earlston, the issue of that union came to possess the lands of Earlston. (Nisbet's "Heraldry.") It is a tradition that old Gordon of Airds imbibed Wickliffite views, when he was on a sort of embassy to the English Borderers, and that he propagated the truth by bringing home an English Wickliffite to be tutor to his eldest son. Having obtained a New Testament in the vulgar tongue, he read it at meetings which were held in the woods of Airds, in a secluded spot, at the junction of the Ken and the Dee, where the loch begins. The truth circulated rapidly through the whole province of Galloway.

There are some interesting traditions about old Gordon of Airds. He was compelled, when a youth, to sign the sentence that doomed Patrick Hamilton to death, 1528; and this very circumstance led him to inquire more fully into the truth. He lived to the age of one hundred and one, dying in 1586. A traveller, coming to crave the hospitality of Airds one evening, was courteously received by a youth, who, however, referred him to his father. His father in turn referred him to an older man, the grandfather of the boy; and then this grey-haired grand-sire said, "Sir, you must ask my father,"—the patriarch who sat in the arm-chair and conducted worship that evening. (Agnew's "Sheriffs of Galloway.")

Earlston, or Erliston, or Earleston, is not far from Carsphairn. As you come from Dalry, in Glenkens, you see the roof of the ancient residence appearing from among the trees that grow up the sloping ridge at the foot of which it stands. In front of the grim old tower there is a fine lawn, a remnant of better days, and a linn not far off. There is another Earlston, in the parish of Borgue, a quite modern mansion, built by a descendant of this ancient family, and called after the name of the original property.

The grace of God, which had early chosen this family, continued to favour it for many generations. Alexander Gordon, Rutherford's friend, was worthy of his ancestors. Livingstone, in his "Characteristics," speaks of him as "a man of great spirit, but much subdued by inward exercise. For wisdom, courage, and righteousness, he might have been a magistrate in any part of the earth." He warmly espoused the side of the Presbyterians. In the end of July 1635, he was summoned by the Bishop of Glasgow to appear before the High Commission, for preventing the intrusion of an unpopular nominee of the bishop into a vacant parish. But Lord Lorn, afterwards the martyred Marquis of Argyle, having appeared with him before that court, and affirmed that Earlston had done this by his direction as patron of the parish, the matter was deferred to a future day. This letter of Rutherford probably refers to the vexatious proceedings instituted against him in regard to this matter. He was afterwards summoned by Sydserff, Bishop of Galloway, fined five hundred merks, and banished to Montrose. The Privy Council, however, afterwards dispensed with his banishment upon the payment of his fine. Earlston was a member of the Assembly which met at Glasgow, in 1638, as commissioner from the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright. His name appears among the members of Parliament in 1641, as member for the shire of Galloway. He was married to Elizabeth, daughter of John Gordon of Muirfad, by whom he had several children. His eldest son, William, who succeeded him, is retoured heir of his father on the 23rd of January 1655. In the avenue leading to Earlston, there is a very large old oak, still shown as that in the thick foliage of which this William Gordon hid, and so escaped his pursuers, in the days of the persecution. But in 1679, on his way to join the rising at Bothwell, he was shot by a troop of dragoons, and lies buried in Glassford Churchyard, where is a monument to his memory.]

(NO SUFFERING FOR CHRIST UNREWARDED—LOSS OF CHILDREN—CHRIST IN PROVIDENCE.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—I have heard of the mind and malice of your adversaries against you. It is like they will extend the law they have, in length and breadth, answerable to their heat of mind. But it is a great part of your glory that the cause is not yours, but your Lord's whom you serve. And I doubt not but Christ will count it His honour to back His weak servant; and it were a shame for Him (with reverence to His holy name) that He should suffer Himself to be in the common of such a poor man as ye are, and that ye should give out for Him and not get in again. Write up your depursments for your Master Christ, and keep the account of what ye give out, whether name, credit, goods, or life, and suspend your reckoning till nigh the evening; and remember that a poor weak servant of Christ wrote it to you, that ye shall have Christ, a King, caution for your incomes and all your losses. Reckon not from the forenoon. Take the Word of God for your warrant; and for Christ's act of cautionary, howbeit body, life, and goods go for Christ your Lord, and though ye should lose the head for Him, yet "there shall not one hair of your head perish; in patience, therefore, possess your soul." And because ye are the first man in Galloway called out and questioned for the name of Jesus, His eye hath been upon you, as upon one whom He designed to be among His witnesses. Christ hath said, "Alexander Gordon shall lead the ring in witnessing a good confession," and therefore He hath put the garland of suffering for Himself first upon your head. Think yourself so much the more obliged to Him, and fear not; for He layeth His right hand on your head. He who was dead and is alive will plead your cause, and will look attentively upon the process from the beginning to the end, and the Spirit of glory shall rest upon you. "Fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life" (Rev. 2:10). This lovely One, Jesus, who also became the Son of man, that He might take strokes for you, write the cross-sweetening and soul-supporting sense of these words in your heart!

These rumbling wheels of Scotland's ten days' tribulation are under His look who hath seven eyes. Take a house on your head, and slip yourself by faith in under Christ's wings till the storm be over. And remember, when they have drunken us down, Jerusalem will be a cup of trembling and of poison. They shall be fain to vomit out the saints; for Judah "shall be a hearth of fire in a sheaf, and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left." Woe to Zion's enemies! they have the worst of it; for we have writ for the victory. Sir, ye were never honourable till now. This is your glory, that Christ hath put you in the roll with Himself and with the rest of the witnesses who are come out of great tribulation, and have washen their garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Be not cast down for what the servants of Antichrist cast in your teeth, that ye are a head to and favourer of the Puritans, and leader to that sect. If your conscience say, "Alas! here is much din and little done" (as the proverb is), because ye have not done so much service to Christ that way as ye might and should, take courage from that same temptation. For your Lord Christ looketh upon that very challenge as an hungering desire in you to have done more than ye did; and that filleth up the blank, and He will accept of what ye have done in that kind. If great men be kind to you, I pray you overlook them; if they smile on you, Christ but borroweth their face to smile through them upon His afflicted servant. Know the well-head; and for all that, learn the way to the well itself. Thank God that Christ came to your house in your absence and took with Him some of your children. He presumed that much on your love, that ye would not offend; and howbeit He should take the rest, He cannot come upon your wrong side. I question not, if they were children of gold, but ye think them well bestowed upon Him.

Expound well these two rods on you, one in your house at home, another on your own person abroad. Love thinketh no evil. If ye were not Christ's wheat, appointed to be bread in His house, He would not grind you. But keep the middle line, neither despise nor faint (Heb. 12:5). Ye see your Father is homely with you. Strokes of a father evidence kindness and care; take them so. I hope your Lord hath manifested Himself to you, and suggested these, or more choice thoughts about His dealing with you. We are using our weak moyen and credit for you up at our own court, as we dow. We pray the King to hear us, and the Son of Man to go side for side with you, and hand in hand in the fiery oven, and to quicken and encourage your unbelieving heart when ye droop and despond. Sir, to the honour of Christ be it said, my faith goeth with my pen now. I am presently believing Christ shall bring you out. Truth in Scotland shall keep the crown of the causeway yet. The saints shall see religion go naked at noon-day, free from shame and fear of men. We shall divide Shechem, and ride upon the high places of Jacob. Remember my obliged respects and love to Lady Kenmure and her sweet child.

Yours ever in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, July 6, 1636.

LX.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(WHEN HE WAS UNDER TRIAL BY THE HIGH COMMISSION.)

MY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED IN CHRIST,—I am yet under trial, and have appeared before Christ's forbidden lords, for a testimony against them. The Chancellor and the rest tempted me with questions, nothing belonging to my summons, which I wholly declined, notwithstanding of his threats. My newly printed book against Arminians3 was one challenge; not lording the prelates was another. The most part of the bishops, when I came in, looked more astonished than I, and heard me with silence. Some spoke for me; but my Lord ruled it so as I am filled with joy in my sufferings, and I find Christ's cross sweet. What they intend against the next day I know not. Be not secure, but pray. Our Bishop of Galloway said, If the Commission should not give him his will of me (with an oath he said), he would write to the King. The Chancellor summoned me in judgment to appear that day eight days. My Lord has brought me a friend from the Highlands of Argyle, my Lord of Lorn, who hath done as much as was within the compass of his power. God gave me favour in his eyes. Mr. Robert Glendinning is silenced, till he accepts a colleague. We hope to deal yet for him. Christ is worthy to be entrusted. Your husband will get an easy and good way of his business. Ye and I both shall see the salvation of God upon Joseph separate from his brethren. Grace be with you.

S. R.

EDINBURGH, 1636.

LXI.—To the truly Noble and Elect Lady, my LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE, on the evening of his banishment to Aberdeen

(HIS ONLY REGRETS—THE CROSS UNSPEAKABLY SWEET—RETROSPECT OF HIS MINISTRY.)

NOBLE AND ELECT LADY,—That honour that I have prayed for these sixteen years, with submission to my Lord's will, my kind Lord hath now bestowed upon me, even to suffer for my royal and princely King Jesus, and for His kingly crown, and the freedom of His kingdom that His Father hath given Him. The forbidden lords have sentenced me with deprivation, and confinement within the town of Aberdeen. I am charged in the King's name to enter against the 20th day of August next, and there to remain during the King's pleasure, as they have given it out. Howbeit Christ's green cross, newly laid upon me, be somewhat heavy, while I call to mind the many fair days sweet and comfortable to my soul and to the souls of many others, and how young ones in Christ are plucked from the breast, and the inheritance of God laid waste; yet that sweet smelled and perfumed cross of Christ is accompanied with sweet refreshments, with the kisses of a King, with the joy of the Holy Ghost, with faith that the Lord hears the sighing of a prisoner, with undoubted hope (as sure as my Lord liveth) after this night to see daylight, and Christ's sky to clear up again upon me, and His poor kirk; and that in a strange land, among strange faces, He will give favour in the eyes of men to His poor oppressed servant, who dow not but love that lovely One, that princely One, Jesus, the Comforter of his soul. All would be well, if I were free of old challenges for guiltiness, and for neglect in my calling, and for speaking too little for my Well-beloved's crown, honour, and kingdom. O for a day in the assembly of the saints to advocate for King Jesus! If my Lord also go on now to quarrels I die, I cannot endure it. But I look for peace from Him, because He knoweth I dow bear men's feud, but I dow not bear His feud. This is my only exercise, that I fear I have done little good in my ministry; but I dare not but say, I loved the bairns of the wedding-chamber, and prayed for and desired the thriving of the marriage, and coming of His kingdom.

I apprehend no less than a judgment upon Galloway, and that the Lord shall visit this whole nation for the quarrel of the Covenant. But what can be laid upon me, or any the like of me, is too light for Christ. Christ dow bear more, and would bear death and burning quick, in His quick servants, even for this honourable cause that I now suffer for. Yet for all my complaints (and He knoweth that I dare not now dissemble), He was never sweeter and kinder than He is now. One kiss now is sweeter than ten long since; sweet, sweet is His cross; light, light and easy is His yoke. O what a sweet step were it up to my Father's house through ten deaths, for the truth and cause of that unknown, and so not half well loved, Plant of Renown, the Man called the Branch, the Chief among ten thousands, the fairest among the sons of men! O what unseen joys, how many hidden heart-burnings of love, are in the "remnants of the sufferings of Christ!" (Col. 1:24.) My dear worthy Lady, I give it to your Ladyship, under my own hand, my heart writing as well as my hand,—welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet and glorious cross of Christ; welcome, sweet Jesus, with Thy light cross. Thou hast now gained and gotten all my love from me; keep what Thou hast gotten! Only woe, woe is me, for my bereft flock, for the lambs of Jesus, that I fear shall be fed with dry breasts. But I spare now. Madam, I dare not promise to see your Ladyship, because of the little time I have allotted me; and I purpose to obey the King, who hath power of my body; and rebellion to kings is unbeseeming Christ's ministers. Be pleased to acquaint my Lady Mar with my case. I will look that your Ladyship and that good lady will be mindful to God of the Lord's prisoner, not for my cause, but for the Gospel's sake. Madam, bind me more, if more can be, to your Ladyship, and write thanks to your brother, my Lord of Lorn, for what he hath done for me, a poor unknown stranger to his Lordship. I shall pray for him and his house, while I live. It is his honour to open his mouth in the streets, for his wronged and oppressed Master Christ Jesus. Now, Madam, commending your Ladyship and the sweet child to the tender mercies of mine own Lord Jesus, and His good-will who dwelt in the Bush,

I am yours in his own sweetest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, July 28, 1636.

LXII.—To the LADY CULROSS, on occasion of his banishment to Aberdeen

[ELIZABETH MELVILLE, wife of James Colvill, the eldest son of Alexander, Commendator of Culross, was the daughter of Sir James Melville of Halhill, in Fife. Her father was ambassador from Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, and a privy councillor to King James VI. He was also a man of piety, who (says Livingstone), "professed he had got assurance from the Lord, that himself, wife, and all his children, should meet in heaven." Lady Culross held a high place among the eminent Christians of her day. Livingstone says: "She was famous for her piety, and for her dream concerning her spiritual condition, which she put in verse, which was published by others. Of all that ever I saw, she was most unwearied in religious exercises; and the more she enjoyed access to God therein she hungered the more." She was present at the famous Communion at Shotts in June 1636, when the sermon preached by Livingstone, on the Monday after, was the means, it is believed, of the conversion of not less than five hundred individuals. The night before had been spent in prayer by a great number of Christians in a large room of the inn where she slept; and the minister who should have preached on Monday having fallen sick, it was at her suggestion that the other ministers assisting on that occasion, to whom Livingstone was a stranger, laid upon him the work of addressing the people. There is a poem written by her, entitled "Ane Godlie Dream;" and there is still preserved a sonnet of her composition, which she sent to Mr. John Welsh when he was imprisoned in Blackness, 1605:—

"My dear brother, with courage bear the cross,

Joy shall be joined with all thy sorrow here.

High is thy hope, disdain this earthly dross,

Once shall you see the wished day appear.

"Now it is dark, thy sky cannot be clear;

After the clouds it shall be calm anon;

Wait on His will whose blood hath bought thee dear:

Extol His name, though outward joys be gone.

"Look to the Lord, thou art not left alone,

Since He is thine, what pleasure canst thou take!

He is at hand, and hears thy every groan:

End out thy fight, and suffer for His sake.

"A sight most bright thy soul shall shortly see,

When store of glore thy rich reward shall be."

—Wodrow MSS. Adv. Lib. Edin. vol. xxix.]

(CHALLENGES OF CONSCIENCE—THE CROSS NO BURDEN.)

MADAM,—Your letter came in due time to me, now a prisoner of Christ, and in bonds for the Gospel. I am sentenced with deprivation and confinement within the town of Aberdeen. But O my guiltiness, the follies of my youth, the neglects in my calling, and especially in not speaking more for the kingdom, crown, and sceptre of my royal and princely King Jesus, do so stare me in the face, that I apprehend anger in that which is a crown of rejoicing to the dear saints of God. This, before my compearance, which was three several days, did trouble me, and burdeneth me more now; howbeit Christ, and in Him God reconciled, met me with open arms, and trysted me precisely at the entry of the door of the Chancellor's hall, and assisted me so to answer, as that the advantage is not theirs but Christ's. Alas! that is no cause of wondering that I am thus borne down with challenges; for the world hath mistaken me, and no man knoweth what guiltiness is in me so well as these two, who keep my eyes now waking and my heart heavy, I mean (1) my heart and conscience, and (2) my Lord, who is greater than my heart.

Shew your brother that I desire him, while he is on the watch-tower, to plead with his mother, and to plead with this land, and spare not to cry for my sweet Lord Jesus His fair crown, that the interdicted and forbidden lords are plucking off His royal head. If I were free of challenges, and a High Commission within my soul, I would not give a straw to go to my Father's house through ten deaths, for the truth and cause of my lovely, lovely One, Jesus. But I walk in heaviness now. If ye love me, and Christ in me, my dear Lady, pray, pray for this only, that bygones betwixt my Lord and me may be bygones, and that He would pass from the summons of His High Commission, and seek nothing from me, but what He will do for me and work in me. If your ladyship knew me as I do myself, ye would say, "Poor soul, no marvel." It is not my apprehension that createth this cross to me; it is too real, and hath sad and certain grounds. But I will not believe that God will take this advantage of me, when my back is at the wall. He who forbiddeth to add affliction to affliction, will He do it Himself? Why should He pursue a dry leaf and stubble? Desire Him to spare me now. Also the memory of the fair feast-days, that Christ and I had in His banqueting-house of wine, and of the scattered flock once committed to me, and now taken off my hand by Himself, because I was not so faithful in the end as I was in the two first years of my entry, when sleep departed from my eyes, because my soul was taken up with a care for Christ's lambs,—even these add sorrow to my sorrow. Now my Lord hath only given me this to say, and I write it under mine own hand (be ye the Lord's servant's witness), welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ; welcome, fair, fair, lovely, royal King with Thine own cross. Let us all three go to heaven together. Neither care I much to go from the south of Scotland to the north, and to be Christ's prisoner amongst unco faces, in a place of this kingdom, which I have little reason to be in love with. I know Christ shall make Aberdeen my garden of delights. I am fully persuaded that Scotland shall eat Ezekiel's book, that is written within and without, "lamentation, and mourning, and woe" (Ezek. 2:10). But the saints shall get a drink of the well that goeth through the streets of the New Jerusalem, to put it down. Thus hoping that ye will think upon the poor prisoner of Christ, I pray, grace, grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, July 30, 1636.

LXIII.—To MR. ROBERT CUNNINGHAM, Minister of the Gospel at Holywood, in Ireland

[MR. ROBERT CUNNINGHAM was for some time employed as chaplain to the Earl of Buccleuch's regiment in Holland. On the return of the troops to Scotland, he removed to the north of Ireland, where he was admitted minister of Holywood in 1615. "He was the one man to my discerning," says Livingstone, "of all that ever I saw, who resembled most the meekness of Jesus Christ in his whole carriage, and was so far reverenced by all, even the most wicked, that he was oft troubled with that Scripture, 'Woe to you when all men speak well of you.' " He continued to labour in his charge, and in the surrounding district, with great success, until the Presbyterian ministers began to be molested for their nonconformity. Owing to the singular gentleness of Cunningham's disposition, he was for some time less subjected to trouble than his brethren; but at length, on the 12th of August 1636, he and four other ministers (among whom was Mr. Hamilton mentioned in the close of this letter) were formally deposed for refusing to subscribe certain canons, one of which was kneeling at the Lord's Supper. Not long after, he, with some of his deposed brethren, came over to Scotland; but he did not long survive his arrival. He died at Irvine, on the 29th of March 1637, scarcely eight months after this letter was written. A little before he expired, his wife sitting on the front of his bed with her hand clasped in his, after committing to God his flock at Holywood, his friends and his children, he added, "And last of all, I recommend to Thee this gentlewoman, who is no more my wife." His affectionate wife bursting into tears, he sought by comfortable words to allay her grief; but in the act of so doing, fell asleep in Jesus.]

(CONSOLATION TO A BROTHER IN TRIBULATION—HIS OWN DEPRIVATION OF MINISTRY—CHRIST WORTH SUFFERING FOR.)

WELL-BELOVED AND REVEREND BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Upon acquaintance in Christ, I thought good to take the opportunity of writing to you. Seeing it hath seemed good to the Lord of the harvest to take the hooks out of our hands for a time, and to lay upon us a more honourable service, even to suffer for His name, it were good to comfort one another in writing. I have had a desire to see you in the face; yet now being the prisoner of Christ, it is taken away. I am greatly comforted to hear of your soldier's stately spirit, for your princely and royal Captain Jesus our Lord, and for the grace of God in the rest of our dear brethren with you.

You have heard of my trouble, I suppose. It hath pleased our sweet Lord Jesus to let loose the malice of these interdicted lords in His house to deprive me of my ministry at Anwoth, and to confine me, eight score miles from thence, to Aberdeen; and also (which was not done to any before) to inhibit me to speak at all in Jesus' name, within this kingdom, under the pain of rebellion. The cause that ripened their hatred was my book against the Arminians, whereof they accused me, on those three days I appeared before them. But, let our crowned King in Zion reign! By His grace the loss is theirs, the advantage is Christ's and truth's. Albeit this honest cross gained some ground on me, and my heaviness and my inward challenges of conscience for a time were sharp, yet now, for the encouragement of you all, I dare say it, and write it under my hand, "Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ." I verily think the chains of my Lord Jesus are all overlaid with pure gold, and that His cross is perfumed, and that it smelleth of Christ, and that the victory shall be by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of His truth, and that Christ, lying on His back, in His weak servants, and oppressed truth, shall ride over His enemies' bellies, and shall "strike through kings in the day of His wrath" (Psa. 110:4). It is time we laugh when He laugheth; and seeing He is now pleased to sit with wrongs for a time, it becometh us to be silent until the Lord hath let the enemies enjoy their hungry, lean, and feckless paradise. Blessed are they who are content to take strokes with weeping Christ. Faith will trust the Lord, and is not hasty, nor headstrong; neither is faith so timorous as to flatter a temptation, or to bud and bribe the cross. It is little up or little down that the Lamb and His followers can get no law-surety, nor truce with crosses; it must be so, till we be up in our Father's house. My heart is woe indeed for my mother Church, that hath played the harlot with many lovers. Her Husband hath a mind to sell her for her horrible transgressions; and heavy will the hand of the Lord be upon this backsliding nation. The ways of our Zion mourn; her gold has become dim, her white Nazarites are black like a coal. How shall not the children weep, when the Husband and the mother cannot agree! Yet I believe Scotland's sky shall clear again; that Christ shall build again the old waste places of Jacob; that our dead and dry bones shall become one army of living men, and that our Well-beloved may yet feed among the lilies, until the day break and the shadows flee away (Song 4:5, 6). My dear brother, let us help one another with our prayers. Our King shall mow down His enemies, and shall come from Bozrah with His garments all dyed in blood. And for our consolation shall He appear, and call His wife Hephzibah, and His land Beulah (Isa. 62:4); for He will rejoice over us and marry us, and Scotland shall say, "What have I to do any more with idols?" Only let us be faithful to Him that can ride through hell and death upon a windlestrae, and His horse never stumble; and let Him make of me a bridge over a water, so that His high and holy name may be glorified in me. Strokes with the sweet Mediator's hand are very sweet. He was always sweet to my soul; but since I suffered for Him, His breath hath a sweeter smell than before. Oh that every hair of my head, and every member and every bone in my body, were a man to witness a fair confession for Him! I would think all too little for Him. When I look over beyond the line, and beyond death, to the laughing side of the world, I triumph, and ride upon the high places of Jacob; howbeit otherwise I am a faint, dead-hearted, cowardly man, oft borne down, and hungry in waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Nevertheless, I think it the Lord's wise love that feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with wants and desertions.

I know not, my dear brother, if our worthy brethren be gone to sea or not. They are on my heart and in my prayers. If they be yet with you, salute my dear friend, John Stuart, my well-beloved brethren in the Lord, Mr. Blair, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Livingston, and Mr M'Clelland, and acquaint them with my troubles, and entreat them to pray for the poor afflicted prisoner of Christ. They are dear to my soul. I seek your prayers and theirs for my flock: their remembrance breaketh my heart. I desire to love that people, and others my dear acquaintance in Christ, with love in God, and as God loveth them. I know that He who sent me to the west and south, sends me also to the north. I will charge my soul to believe and to wait for Him, and will follow His providence, and not go before it, nor stay behind it. Now, my dear brother, taking farewell in paper, I commend you all to the word of His grace, and to the work of His Spirit, to Him who holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, that you may be kept spotless till the day of Jesus our Lord.

I am your brother in affliction in our sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

From IRVINE, being on my journey to Christ's

Palace in Aberdeen, August 4, 1636.

LXIV.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlston

(HIS FEELINGS UPON LEAVING ANWOTH.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—I find small hopes of Q.'s business. I intend, after the council-day, to go on to Aberdeen. The Lord is with me: I care not what man can do. I burden no man, and I want nothing. No king is better provided than I am. Sweet, sweet, and easy is the cross of my Lord. All men I look in the face (of whatsoever denomination, nobles and poor, acquaintance and strangers) are friendly to me. My Well-beloved is some kinder and more warmly than ordinary, and cometh and visiteth my soul. My chains are overgilded with gold. Only the remembrance of my fair days with Christ in Anwoth, and of my dear flock (whose case is my heart's sorrow), is vinegar to my sugared wine. Yet both sweet and sour feed my soul. No pen, no words, no ingine can express to you the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus. Thus, in haste, making for my palace at Aberdeen, I bless you, your wife, your eldest son, and other children. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, Sept. 5, 1636.

LXV.—To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbreck, on his way to Aberdeen

[ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex, in the parish of Borgue, which adjoins Anwoth, is, by Livingstone in his "Characteristics," described as "a single-hearted and painful Christian, much employed at parliaments and public meetings after the year 1638." He was a member of the famous Assembly which met at Glasgow in 1638, as commissioner from the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright. The precise date of his death is uncertain; but we find, in 1657, John Gordon in Garloch, five miles from Dalry, is retoured "heir of Robert Gordon of Knockbreck, his granduncle, in the lands of Knockbreck." (Inq. Retor. Abbrev. Kirkcudbright, No. 274.) This John Gordon, and Robert, his brother, were executed together at Edinburgh on the 7th of December 1666, for having been engaged in the rising at Pentland. (See Letter CCXVII. They inherited, and suffered for, the principles of Robert Gordon of Knockbreck, their granduncle, to whom this letter was written.

Knockbrex stands near the sea-shore, amid thick woods, looking down on the opening of Wigtown Bay. But a modern mansion has taken the place of Gordon's residence.]

(HOW UPHELD ON THE WAY.)

MY DEAREST BROTHER,—I see Christ thinketh shame (if I may speak so) to be in such a poor man's common as mine. I burden no man; I want nothing; no face hath gloomed upon me since I left you. God's sun and fair weather conveyeth me to my time-paradise in Aberdeen. Christ hath so handsomely fitted for my shoulders this rough tree of the cross, as that it hurteth me no ways. My treasure is up in Christ's coffers; my comforts are greater than ye can believe; my pen shall lie for penury of words to write of them. God knoweth I am filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost. Only my memory of you, my dearest in the Lord, my flock and others, keepeth me under, and from being exalted above measure. Christ's sweet sauce hath this sour mixed with it; but O such a sweet and pleasant taste! I find small hopes of Q.'s matter. Thus in haste. Remember me to your wife, and to William Gordon. Grace be with you,

Yours in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, Sept. 5, 1636.

LXVI.—To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbreck, after arriving at Aberdeen

(CHALLENGES OF CONSCIENCE—EASE IN ZION.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am, by God's mercy, come now to Aberdeen, the place of my confinement, and settled in an honest man's house. I find the town's-men cold, general, and dry in their kindness; yet I find a lodging in the heart of many strangers. My challenges are revived again, and I find old sores bleeding of new; dangerous and painful is an under-cotted conscience; yet I have an eye to the blood that is physic for such sores. But, verily, I see Christianity is conceived to be more easy and lighter than it is; so that I sometimes think I never knew anything but the letters of that name; for our nature contenteth itself with little in godliness. Our "Lord, Lord," seemeth to us ten "Lord-Lords." Little holiness in our balance is much, because it is our own holiness; and we love to lay small burdens upon our soft natures, and to make a fair court-way to heaven. And I know it were necessary to take more pains than we do, and not to make heaven a city more easily taken than God hath made it. I persuade myself that many runners shall come short, and get a disappointment. Oh! how easy is it to deceive ourselves, and to sleep, and wish that heaven may fall down in our laps! Yet for all my Lord's glooms, I find Him sweet, gracious, loving, kind; and I want both pen and words to set forth the fairness, beauty, and sweetness of Christ's love, and the honour of this cross of Christ, which is glorious to me, though the world thinketh shame thereof. I verily think that the cross of Christ would blush and think shame of these thin-skinned worldings, who are so married to their credit that they are ashamed of the sufferings of Christ. O the honour to be scourged and stoned with Christ, and to go through a furious-faced death to life eternal! But men would have law-borrows against Christ's cross.

Now, my dear brother, forget not the prisoner of Christ, for I see very few here who kindly fear God. Grace be with you. Let my love in Christ and hearty affection be remembered to your kind wife, to your brother John, and to all friends. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 20, 1636.

LXVII.—For WILLIAM FULLARTON, Provost of Kirkcudbright

[WILLIAM FULLARTON, as has been formerly noticed, was the husband of Marion M'Naught. His religious principles were the same with those of his excellent wife, and he was a man of virtue, integrity, and piety. He proved himself the patron of the oppressed in the case of Mr. Robert Glendinning, the aged minister of Kirkcudbright; to which case there is evident allusion in this letter. Mr. Glendinning having refused to conform to Prelacy, and to receive, as his assistant and successor, a man whom Bishop Sydserff intruded upon him and the people of Kirkcudbright, the bishop suspended him from his office, and sentenced him to be imprisoned. Provost Fullarton, and the other magistrates of the burgh (one of whom was Mr. William Glendinning, son of the minister), indignant at such tyrannical proceedings, refused to incarcerate their own pastor, then nearly eighty years of age, and were determined, with the great body of the inhabitants of the town, to attend upon his ministry. Sydserff, too proud and violent to allow his authority to be thus despised, caused Bailie Glendinning to be imprisoned in Kirkcudbright, and the other magistrates to be confined within the town of Wigtown, while he sentenced the aged minister to remain within the bounds of his parish, and forbade him to exercise any part of his ministerial functions. But he found it impossible, by all the means he could employ, to reduce these refractory magistrates to obedience. The firmness which Fullarton manifested on this occasion is warmly commended by Rutherford.]

(ENCOURAGEMENT TO SUFFER FOR CHRIST.)

MUCH HONOURED AND VERY DEAR FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am in good case, blessed be the Lord, remaining here in this unco town a prisoner for Christ and His truth. And I am not ashamed of His cross. My soul is comforted with the consolations of His sweet presence, for whom I suffer.

I earnestly entreat you to give your honour and authority to Christ, and for Christ; and be not dismayed for flesh and blood, while you are for the Lord, and for His truth and cause. And howbeit we see truth put to the worse for the time, yet Christ will be a friend to truth, and will do for those who dare hazard all that they have for Him and for His glory. Sir, our fair day is coming, and the court will change, and wicked men will weep after noon, and sorer than the sons of God, who weep in the morning. Let us believe and hope for God's salvation.

Sir, I hope I need not write to you for your kindness and love to my brother, who is now to be distressed for the truth of God as well as I am. I think myself obliged to pray for you, and your worthy and kind bed-fellow and children, for your love to him and me also. I hope your pains for us in Christ shall not be lost. Thus recommending you to the tender mercy and loving-kindness of God, I rest,

Your very loving and affectionate brother,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 21, 1636.

LXVIII.—To JOHN FLEMING, Bailiffe (Bailie) of Leith

[Of Mr. Fleming nothing can be ascertained, unless it is he who is mentioned by Livingston as being a merchant in Edinburgh, a man of note among the godly.]

(THE SWEETNESS AND FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST'S LOVE.)

MY VERY WORTHY FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter. I bless the Lord through Jesus Christ, I find His word good, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isa. 48:10). "I will be with him in trouble" (Ps. 91:15). I never expected other at Christ's hand but much good and comfort; and I am not disappointed. I find my Lord's cross overgilded and oiled with comforts. My Lord hath now shown me the white side of His cross. I would not exchange my weeping in prison with the Fourteen Prelates' laughter, amidst their hungry and lean joys. This world knoweth not the sweetness of Christ's love; it is a mystery to them.

At my first coming here, I found great heaviness, especially because it had pleased the prelates to add this gentle cruelty to my former sufferings (for it is gentle to them), to inhibit the ministers of the town to give me the liberty of a pulpit. I said, What aileth Christ at my service? But I was a fool; He hath chid Himself friends with me. If ye and others of God's children shall praise His great name, who maketh worthless men witnesses for Him, my silence and sufferings shall preach more than my tongue could do. If His glory be seen in me, I am satisfied; for I want for no kindness from Christ. And, sir, I dare not smother His liberality. I write it to you, that ye may praise, and desire your brother and others to join with me in this work.

This land shall be made desolate. Our iniquities are full; the Lord saith, we shall drink, and spue, and fall. Remember my love to your good kind wife. Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Nov. 13, 1636.

LXIX.—To the Noble and Christian Lady the VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(HIS ENJOYMENT OF CHRIST IN ABERDEEN—A SIGHT OF CHRIST EXCEEDS ALL REPORTS—SOME ASHAMED OF HIM AND HIS.)

MY VERY HONOURABLE AND DEAR LADY,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I cannot forget your Ladyship, and that sweet child. I desire to hear what the Lord is doing to you and him. To write to me were charity. I cannot but write to my friends, that Christ hath trysted me in Aberdeen; and my adversaries have sent me here to be feasted with love banquets with my royal, high, high, and princely King Jesus. Madam, why should I smother Christ's honesty? I dare not conceal His goodness to my soul; He looked fremed and unco-like upon me when I came first here; but I believe Himself better than His looks. I shall not again quarrel Christ for a gloom, now He hath taken the mask off His face, and saith, "Kiss thy fill;" and what can I have more when I get great heaven in my little arms? Oh, how sweet are the sufferings of Christ for Christ! God forgive them that raise an ill report upon the sweet cross of Christ. It is but our weak and dim eyes, and our looking only to the black side that makes us mistake. Those who can take that crabbed tree handsomely upon their back, and fasten it on cannily, shall find it such a burden as wings unto a bird, or sails to a ship. Madam, rue not of your having chosen the better part. Upon my salvation, this is Christ's truth I now suffer for. If I found but cold comfort in my sufferings, I would not beguile others; I would have told you plainly. But the truth is, Christ's crown, His sceptre, and the freedom of His kingdom, is that which is now called in question; because we will not allow that Christ should pay tribute and be a vassal to the shields of the earth, therefore the sons of our mother are angry at us. But it becometh not Christ to hold any man's stirrup. It were a sweet and honourable death to die for the honour of that royal and princely King Jesus. His love is a mystery to the world. I would not have believed that there was so much in Christ as there is. "Come and see" maketh Christ to be known in His excellency and glory. I wish all this nation knew how sweet His breath is. It is little to see Christ in a book, as men do the world in a card. They talk of Christ by the book and the tongue, and no more; but to come nigh Christ, and hause Him, and embrace Him, is another thing, Madam, I write to your honour, for your encouragement in that honourable profession Christ hath honoured you with. Ye have gotten the sunny side of the brae, and the best of Christ's good things. He hath not given you the bastard's portion; and howbeit ye get strokes and sour looks from your Lord, yet believe His love more than your own feeling, for this world can take nothing from you that is truly yours, and death can do you no wrong. Your rock doth not ebb and flow, but your sea. That which Christ hath said, He will bide by it. He will be your tutor. You shall not get you charters of heaven to play you with. It is good that ye have lost your credit with Christ, and that Lord Free-will shall not be your tutor. Christ will lippen the taking you to heaven, neither to yourself, nor any deputy, but only to Himself. Blessed be your tutor. When your Head shall appear, your Bridegroom and Lord, your day shall then dawn, and it shall never have an afternoon, nor an evening shadow. Let your child be Christ's; let him stay beside you as thy Lord's pledge that you shall willingly render again, if God will.

Madam, I find folks here kind to me; but in the night, and under their breath. My Master's cause may not come to the crown of the causeway. Others are kind according to their fashion. Many think me a strange man, and my cause not good; but I care not much for man's thoughts or approbation. I think no shame of the cross. The preachers of the town pretend great love, but the prelates have added to the rest this gentle cruelty (for so they think of it), to discharge me of the pulpits of this town. The people murmur and cry out against it; and to speak truly (howbeit Christ is most indulgent to me otherwise), my silence on the Lord's day keeps me from being exalted above measure, and from startling in the heat of my Lord's love. Some people affect me, for the which cause, I hear the preachers here purpose to have my confinement changed to another place; so cold is northern love; but Christ and I will bear it. I have wrestled long with this sad silence. I said, what aileth Christ at my service? and my soul hath been at a pleading with Christ, and at yea and nay. But I will yield to Him, providing my suffering may preach more than my tongue did; for I give not Christ an inch but for twice as good again. In a word, I am a fool, and He is God. I will hold my peace hereafter.

Let me hear from your Ladyship, and your dear child. Pray for the prisoner of Christ, who is mindful of your Ladyship. Remember my obliged obedience to my good Lady Marr. Grace, grace be with you. I write and pray blessings to your sweet child.

Yours in all dutiful obedience in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Nov. 22, 1636.

LXX.—To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, my LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(EXERCISE UNDER RESTRAINT FROM PREACHING—THE DEVIL—CHRIST'S LOVING KINDNESS—PROGRESS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your Ladyship's letter. It refreshed me in my heaviness. The blessing and prayer of a prisoner of Christ come upon you. Since my coming hither, Galloway sent me not a line, except what my brother, Earlston, and his son, did write. I cannot get my papers transported; but, Madam, I want not kindness of one who hath the gate of it. Christ (if He had never done more for me since I was born) hath engaged my heart, and gained my blessing in this house of my pilgrimage. It pleaseth my Well-beloved to dine with a poor prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a fragrant smell. Nothing grieveth me, but that I eat my feasts my lone, and that I cannot edify His saints. O that this nation knew what is betwixt Him and me; none would scar at the cross of Christ! My silence eats me up, but He hath told me He thanketh me no less, than if I were preaching daily. He sees how gladly I would be at it; and therefore my wages are going to the fore, up in heaven, as if I were still preaching Christ. Captains pay duly bedfast soldiers, howbeit they do nor march, nor carry armour. "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength" (Isa. 49:5). My garland, "the banished minister" (the term of Aberdeen), ashameth me not. I have seen the white side of Christ's cross; how lovely hath He been to His oppressed servant! "The Lord executeth judgment for the oppressed, He giveth food to the hungry: the Lord looseth the prisoner; the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord preserveth the stranger" (Ps. 146:7, 9). If it were come to exchanging of crosses, I would not exchange my cross with any. I am well pleased with Christ, and He with me; I hope none shall hear us. It is true for all this, I get my meat with many strokes, and am seven times a-day up and down, and am often anxious and cast down for the case of my oppressed brother; yet I hope the Lord will be surety for His servant. But now upon some weak, very weak experience, I am come to love a rumbling and raging devil best. Seeing we must have a devil to hold the saints waking, I wish a cumbersome devil, rather than a secure and sleeping one.2 At my first coming hither, I took the dorts at Christ, and took up a stomach against Him; I said, He had cast me over the dike of the vineyard, like a dry tree. But it was His mercy, I see, that the fire did not burn the dry tree; and now, as if my Lord Jesus had done that fault, and not I (who belied my Lord), He hath made the first mends, and He spake not one word against me, but hath come again and quickened my soul with His presence. Nay, now I think the very annuity and casualties of the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord, and these comforts that accompany it, better than the world's set-rent. O how many rich off-fallings are in my King's house! I am persuaded, and dare pawn my salvation on it, that it is Christ's truth I now suffer for. I know His comforts are no dreams; He would not put His seal on blank paper, nor deceive His afflicted ones that trust in Him.

Your Ladyship wrote to me that ye are yet an ill scholar. Madam, ye must go in at heaven's gates, and your book in your hand, still learning. You have had your own large share of troubles, and a double portion; but it saith your Father counteth you not a bastard; full-begotten bairns are nurtured (Heb. 12:8). I long to hear of the child. I write the blessings of Christ's prisoner and the mercies of God to him. Let him be Christ's and yours betwixt you, but let Christ be whole playmaker. Let Him be the leader; and you the borrower, not an owner.

Madam, it is not long since I did write to your Ladyship that Christ is keeping mercy for you; and I bide by it still, and now I write it under my hand. Love Him dearly. Win in to see Him; there is in Him that which you never saw. He is aye nigh; He is a tree of life, green and blossoming, both summer and winter. There is a nick in Christianity, to the which whosoever cometh, they see and feel more than others can do. I invite you of new to come to Him. "Come and see," will speak better things of Him than I can do. "Come nearer" will say much. God never thought this world a portion worthy of you. He would not even you to a gift of dirt and clay; nay, He will not give you Esau's portion, but reserves the inheritance of Jacob for you. Are ye not well married now? Have you not a good husband now?

My heart cannot express what sad nights I have had for the virgin daughter of my people. Woe is me, for my time is coming. "Behold, the day, behold, the day is come; the morning hath gone forth, the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded, violence is risen up in a rod of wickedness, the sun is gone down upon our prophets." A dry wind upon Scotland, but neither to fan nor to cleanse; but out of all question, when the Lord hath cut down the forest, the aftergrowth of Lebanon shall flourish; they shall plant vines in our mountains, and a cloud shall yet fill the temple. Now the blessing of our dearest Lord Jesus, and the blessing of him that is "separate from his brethren," come upon you.

Yours, at Aberdeen, the prisoner of Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

LXXI.—To MR. HUGH M'KAIL

[MR. HUGH M'KAIL was at this time minister of Irvine. Previous to his settlement in that parish, Rutherford was very desirous of seeing him settled assistant and successor to Mr. Robert Glendinning, the aged minister of Kirkcudbright; the people too had an eye to him, but were disappointed, having been anticipated by the parish of which he was now pastor. He and Mr. William Cockburn were appointed by the General Assembly of 1644 to visit the north of Ireland for three months, with the view of promoting the interests of the Presbyterian Church in that country. He was ultimately translated to Edinburgh. In the unhappy controversy between the Resolutioners and Protesters, M'Kail took the side of the former; but was among the more moderate of the party. Baillie often refers to him in his letters. He died in the beginning of the year 1660, and was buried in the Grey-friars' churchyard, Edinburgh. (Lamont's "Diary," p. 121.) He was the brother of Mr. Matthew M'Kail of Bothwell, who was the father of the youthful Hugh M'Kail, and young Hugh, who nobly suffered in 1666, was educated in Edinburgh, under the superintendence of this uncle.]

(CHRIST TO BE TRUSTED AMID TRIAL.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I thank you for your letter. I cannot but show you, that as I never expected anything from Christ, but much good and kindness, so He hath made me to find it in the house of my pilgrimage. And believe me, brother, I give it to you under mine own hand-writ, that whoso looketh to the white side of Christ's cross, and can take it up handsomely with faith and courage, shall find it such a burden as sails are to a ship, or wings to a bird. I find that my Lord hath overgilded that black tree, and hath perfumed it, and oiled it with joy and consolation. Like a fool, once I would chide and plead with Christ, and slander Him to others, of unkindness. But I trust in God, not to call His glooms unkind again; for He hath taken from me my sackcloth; and I verily cannot tell you what a poor Joseph and prisoner (with whom my mother's children were angry) doth now think of kind Christ. I will chide no more, providing He will quit me all by-gones; for I am poor. I am taught in this ill weather to go on the lee-side of Christ, and to put Him in between me and the storm; and (I thank God) I walk on the sunny side of the brae. I write it that ye may speak in my behalf the praises of my Lord to others, that my bonds may preach. O if all Scotland knew the feasts, and love-blinks, and visits that the prelates have sent unto me! I will verily give my Lord Jesus a free discharge of all that I, like a fool, laid to His charge, and beg Him pardon, to the mends. God grant that in my temptations I come not on His wrong side again, and never again fall a raving against my Physician in my fever.

Brother, plead with your mother while ye have time. A pulpit would be a high feast to me; but I dare not say one word against Him who hath done it. I am not out of the house as yet. My sweet Master saith, I shall have house-room at His own elbow; albeit their synagogue will need force to cast me out. A letter were a work of charity to me. Grace be with you. Pray for me.

Your brother and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Nov. 22, 1636.

LXXII.—To WILLIAM GORDON of Roberton

[WILLIAM GORDON of Roberton, in the parish of Borgue in Galloway, close to Knockbrex, was the father of William Gordon of Roberton, who joined with the Covenanters in the rising at Pentland in 1666, and was killed, "to the great loss of the country where he lived," says Wodrow, "and his own family, his aged father having no more sons." Mary, a daughter of this venerable old man, to whom this letter is addressed, suffered much for nonconformity at the hands of Claverhouse and his friends. She was married to John Gordon of Largmore (which is in Kells, near Kenmure Castle), who, in the battle at Pentland, was severely wounded, and, returning to his own house, died in the course of a few days. The old man did not long survive the death of his son and son-in-law; for, on the 8th of September 1668, Mary Gordon is retoured heir of William Gordon of Roberton, her father. In Kells churchyard, near the gate, there is a short epitaph: "Here lyes the corpse of Roger Gordon of Largmore, who dyed March 2, 1662, aged 72 years; and of John Gordon of Largmore his grandchild, who dyed January 6, 1667, of his wounds got at Pentland in defence of the Covenanted Reformation."]

(HOW TRIALS ARE MISIMPROVED—THE INFINITE VALUE OF CHRIST—DESPISED WARNINGS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. So often as I think on our case, in our soldier's night-watch, and of our fighting life in the fields, while we are here, I am forced to say, prisoners in a dungeon, condemned by a judge to want the light of the sun, and moon, and candle, till their dying day, are no more, nay, not so much, to be pitied as we are. For they are weary of their life, they hate their prison; but we fall to, in our prison, where we see little, to drink ourselves drunk with the night-pleasures of our weak dreams; and we long for no better life than this. But at the blast of the last trumpet, and the shout of the archangel, when God shall take down the shepherd's tent of this fading world, we shall not have so much as a drink of water, of all the dreams that we now build on. Alas! that the sharp and bitter blasts on face and sides, which meet us in this life, have not learned us mortification, and made us dead to this world! We buy our own sorrow, and we pay dear for it, when we spend out our love, our joy, our desires, our confidence, upon an handful of snow and ice, that time will melt away to nothing, and go thirsty out of the drunken inn when all is done. Alas! that we inquire not for the clear fountain, but are so foolish as to drink foul, muddy, and rotten waters, even till our bed-time. And then in the Resurrection, when we shall be awakened, our yesternight's sour drink and swinish dregs shall rift up upon us; and sick, sick, shall many a soul be then.

I know no wholesome fountain but one. I know not a thing worth the buying but heaven; and my own mind is, if comparison were made betwixt Christ and heaven, I would sell heaven with my blessing, and buy Christ. O if I could raise the market for Christ, and heighten the market a pound for a penny, and cry up Christ in men's estimation ten thousand talents more than men think of Him! But they are cheapening Him, and crying Him down, and valuing Him at their unworthy halfpenny; or else exchanging and bartering Christ with the miserable old fallen house of this vain world. Or then they lend Him out upon interest, and play the usurers with Christ: because they profess Him, and give out before men that Christ is their treasure and stock; and in the mean time, praise of men, and a name, and ease, and the summer sun of the Gospel, is the usury they would be at. So, when the trial cometh, they quit the stock for the interest, and lose all. Happy are they who can keep Christ by Himself alone, and keep Him clean and whole till God come and count with them. I know that in your hard and heavy trials long since, ye thought well and highly of Christ; but, truly, no cross should be old to us. We should not forget them because years are come betwixt us and them, and cast them byhand as we do old clothes. We may make a cross old in time, new in use, and as fruitful as in the beginning of it. God is where and what He was seven years ago, whatever change may be in us. I speak not this as if I thought ye had forgotten what God did, to have your love long since, but that ye may awake yourself in this sleepy age, and remember fruitfully of Christ's first wooing and suiting of your love, both with fire and water, and try if He got His answer, or if ye be yet to give Him it. For I find in myself, that water runneth not faster through a sieve than our warnings slip from us; I have lost and casten byhand many summons the Lord sent to me; and therefore the Lord hath given me double charges, that I trust in God shall not rive me. I bless His great name, who is no niggard in holding-in crosses upon me, but spendeth largely His rods, that He may save me from this perishing world. How plentiful God is in means of this kind is esteemed by many one of God's unkind mercies; but Christ's cross is neither a cruel nor unkind mercy, but the love-token of a father. I am sure, a lover chasing us for our weal, and to have our love, should not be run away from, or fled from. God send me no worse mercy than the sanctified cross of Christ portendeth, and I am sure I should be happy and blessed.

Pray for me, that I may find house-room in the Lord's house to speak in His name. Remember my dearest love in Christ to your wife. Grace, grace be unto you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1636.

LXXIII.—To EARLSTON, Elder

"And they overcame the dragon by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death."—REV. 12:11.

(CHRIST'S LIBERALITY—HIS OWN MISAPPREHENSIONS OF CHRIST.)

MUCH-HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to see you in paper, and to be refreshed by you. I cannot but desire you, and charge you to help me to praise Him who feedeth a poor prisoner with the fatness of His house. O how weighty is His love! O but there is much telling in Christ's kindness! The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, hath paid me my hundredfold, well told, and one to the hundred. I complained of Him, but He is owing me nothing now. Sir, I charge you to help me to praise His goodness, and to proclaim to others my Bridegroom's kindness, whose love is better than wine. I took up an action against Christ, and brought a plea against His love, and libelled unkindness against Christ my Lord, and I said, "This is my death; He hath forgotten me." But my meek Lord held His peace, and beheld me, and would not contend for the last word of flyting. And now He hath chided Himself friends with me. And now I see He must be God, and I must be flesh. I pass from my summons; I acknowledge He might have given me my fill of it, and never troubled Himself. But now He hath taken away the mask; I have been comforted; He could not smother His love any longer to a prisoner and a stranger. God grant that I may never buy a plea against Christ again, but may keep good quarters with Him. I want here no kindness, no love-tokens; but O wise is His love! for, notwithstanding of this hot summer-blink, I am kept low with the grief of my silence. For His word is in me as a fire in my bowels; and I see the Lord's vineyard laid waste, and the heathen entered into the sanctuary: and my belly is pained, and my soul in heaviness, because the Lord's people are gone into captivity, and because of the fury of the Lord, and that wind (but neither to fan nor purge) which is coming upon apostate Scotland. Also I am kept awake with the late wrong done to my brother; but I trust you will counsel and comfort him. Yet, in this mist, I see and believe the Lord will heal this halting kirk, "and will lay her stones with fair colours, and her foundations with sapphires, and will make her windows of agates, and her gates carbuncles" (Isa. 54:11, 12). "And for brass He will bring gold." He hath created the smith that formed the sword: no weapon in war shall prosper against us. Let us be glad and rejoice in the Lord, for His salvation is near to come. Remember me to your wife and your son John. And I entreat you to write to me. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Dec. 30, 1636.

LXXIV.—To the LADY CULROSS

"These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."—REV. 7:14.

(HIS OWN MISCONCEPTION OF CHRIST'S WAYS—CHRIST'S KINDNESS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you. I greatly long to be refreshed with your letter. I am now (all honour and glory to the King eternal, immortal, and invisible!) in better terms with Christ than I was. I, like a fool, summoned my Husband and Lord, and libelled unkindness against Him; but now I pass from that foolish pursuit; I give over the plea. He is God, and I am man. I was loosing a fast stone, and digging at the ground-stone, the love of my Lord, to shake and unsettle it. But, God be thanked, it is fast; all is sure. In my prison He hath shown me daylight; He dought not hide His love any longer. Christ was disguised and masked, and I apprehended it was not He; but He hath said, "It is I, be not afraid;" and now His love is better than wine. O that all the virgins had part of the Bridegroom's love whereupon He maketh me to feed. Help me to praise. I charge you, Madam, help me to pay praises; and tell others, the daughters of Jerusalem, how kind Christ is to a poor prisoner. He hath paid me my hundred-fold; it is well told me, and one to the hundred. I am nothing behind with Christ. Let not fools, because of their lazy and soft flesh, raise a slander and an ill report upon the cross of Christ. It is sweeter than fair.

I see grace groweth best in winter. This poor persecuted kirk, this lily amongst the thorns, shall blossom, and laugh upon the gardener; the husbandman's blessing shall light upon it. O if I could be free of jealousies of Christ, after this, and believe, and keep good quarters with my dearest Husband! for He hath been kind to the stranger. And yet in all this fair hot summer weather, I am kept from saying, "It is good to be here," with my silence, and with grief to see my mother wounded and her veil taken from her, and the fair temple casten down. My belly is pained, my soul is heavy for the captivity of the daughter of my people, and because of the fury of the Lord, and His fierce indignation against apostate Scotland. I pray you, Madam, let me have that which is my prayer here, that my sufferings may preach to the four quarters of this land; and, therefore, tell others how open-handed Christ had been to the prisoner and the oppressed stranger. Why should I conceal it? I know no other way how to glorify Christ, but to make an open proclamation of His love, and of His soft and sweet kisses to me in the furnace, and of His fidelity to such as suffer for Him. Give it me under your hand, that ye will help me to pray and praise; but rather to praise and rejoice in the salvation of God. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his dearest and only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Dec. 30, 1636.

LXXV.—To JOHN KENNEDY, Bailiffe (i.e. Bailie) of Ayr

[JOHN KENNEDY was the son of Hugh Kennedy, Provost of Ayr. Hugh was an eminent Christian, and did much to promote the cause of religion in the place where he lived. John Welsh, minister of Ayr, bore this high testimony to him in a letter written to him in France: "Happy is that city, yea, happy is that nation that has a Hugh Kennedy in it. I have myself certainly found the answer of his prayers from the Lord in my behalf." On his death-bed, he was filled "with inexpressible joy in the Holy Ghost, beyond what it was possible to comprehend." (Wodrow, in his life of Boyd of Trochrig.) John, his son, possessed much of the spirit and character of his father. "He was," says Fleming ("Fulfilling of the Scriptures"), "as choice a Christian as was at that time." The same writer records a remarkable escape from imminent peril at sea which Kennedy experienced; which may be the deliverance to which Rutherford refers in a subsequent letter. It happened thus: John Stewart, Provost of Ayr, another of Rutherford's correspondents, who had gone to France, having loaded a ship at Rochelle with various commodities for Scotland, proceeded to England by the nearest way, and thence to Ayr. After waiting a considerable time for the arrival of his vessel, he was told that it was captured by the Turks. This information, however, proved to be incorrect, for it at length arrived in the roads; upon hearing of which, Kennedy, au intimate friend of Stewart, was so overjoyed, that he went out to it in a small boat. But a storm suddenly arising, he was driven past the vessel, and the general belief of the onlookers from the shore was that he and his boat were swallowed up; indeed, the storm increased to such a degree of violence as to threaten even the shipwreck of the vessel. Deeply affected at the apprehended loss of his friend, Stewart shut himself up in entire seclusion for three days; but at the very time he had gone to visit Kennedy's wife under her supposed bereavement, Kennedy, who had been driven to another part of the coast, but had reached the land in safety, made his appearance, to the great joy of all. Kennedy was a member of the Scottish Parliament in the years 1644–5–6, for the burgh of Ayr, and is styled in the roll, "John Kennedy, Provost of Ayr." Ho was also a member of the General Assemblies of 1642–3–4–6 and 7, and his name appears among the ruling elders in the commission for the public affairs of the kirk in all these years. His brother Hugh (also an elder of the Church) was frequently a member of the General Assembly, and, as we learn from "Baillie's Letters," had an active share in the proceedings of the Covenanters during the reign of Charles I. There are lineal descendants of this family in Ayr at this day; one of them, like his ancestor, was lately Provost of the town.]

(LONGING AFTER CLEARER VIEWS OF CHRIST—HIS LONG-SUFFERING—TRYING CIRCUMSTANCES.)

WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to see you in this northern world on paper; I know it is not forgetfulness that ye write not. I am every way in good case, both in soul and body; all honour and glory be to my Lord. I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the unknown Son of God. Either I know not what Christianity is, or we have stinted a measure of so many ounce weights, and no more, upon holiness; and there we are at a stand, drawing our breath all our life. A moderation in God's way is now much in request. I profess that I have never taken pains to find out Him whom my soul loveth; there is a gate yet of finding out Christ that I have never lighted upon. Oh, if I could find it out! Alas, how soon are we pleased with our own shadow in a glass! It were good to be beginning in sad earnest to find out God, and to seek the right tread of Christ. Time, custom, and a good opinion of ourselves, our good meaning, and our lazy desires, our fair shows, and the world's glistering lustres, and these broad passments and buskings of religion, that bear bulk in the kirk, is that wherewith most satisfy themselves. But a bed watered with tears, a throat dry with praying, eyes as a fountain of tears for the sins of the land, are rare to be found among us. Oh if we could know the power of godliness!

This is one part of my case; and another is, that I, like a fool, once summoned Christ for unkindness, and complained of His fickleness and inconstancy, because He would have no more of my service nor preaching, and had casten me out of the inheritance of the Lord. And now I confess that this was but a bought plea, and I was a fool. Yet He hath borne with me. I gave Him a fair advantage against me, but love and mercy would not let Him take it; and the truth is, now He hath chided Himself friends with me, and hath taken away the mask, and hath renewed His wonted favour in such a manner that He hath paid me my hundred-fold in this life, and one to the hundred. This prison is my banqueting-house; I am handled as softly and delicately as a dawted child. I am nothing behind (I see) with Christ; He can, in a month, make up a year's losses. And I write this to you, that I may entreat, nay, adjure and charge you, by the love of our Well-beloved, to help me to praise; and to tell all your Christian acquaintance to help me, for I am as deeply drowned in His debt as any dyvour can be. And yet in this fair sun-blink I have something to keep me from startling, or being exalted above measure; His word is as fire shut up in my bowels, and I am weary with forbearing. The ministers in this town are saying that they will have my prison changed into less bounds, because they see God with me. My mother hath borne me a man of contention, one that striveth with the whole earth. The late wrongs and oppressions done to my brother keep my sails low; yet I defy crosses to embark me in such a plea against Christ as I was troubled with of late. I hope to over-hope and over-believe my troubles. I have cause now to trust Christ's promise more than His gloom.

Remember my hearty affection to your wife. My soul is grieved for the success of our brethren's journey to New England; but God hath somewhat to reveal that we see not. Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner.

Yours, in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 1, 1637.

LXXVI.—To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex

(BENEFIT OF AFFLICTION.)

MY DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you.—I am almost wearying, yea, wondering, that ye write not to me: though I know it is not forgetfulness.

As for myself, I am every way well, all glory to God. I was before at a plea with Christ (but it was bought by me, and unlawful), because His whole providence was not yea and nay to my yea and nay, and because I believed Christ's outward look better than His faithful promise. Yet He hath in patience waited on, whill I be come to myself, and hath not taken advantage of my weak apprehensions of His goodness. Great and holy is His name! He looketh to what I desire to be, and not to what I am. One thing I have learned. If I had been in Christ, by way of adhesion only, as many branches are, I should have been burnt to ashes, and this world would have seen a suffering minister of Christ (of something once in show) turned into unsavoury salt. But my Lord Jesus had a good eye that the tempter should not play foul play, and blow out Christ's candle. He took no thought of my stomach, and fretting and grudging humour, but of His own grace. When He burnt the house, He saved His own goods. And I believe that the devil and the persecuting world shall reap no fruit of me, but burnt ashes: for He will see to His own gold, and save that from being consumed with the fire.

Oh, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goeth through His mill, and His oven, to be made bread for His own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy. I now see that godliness is more than the outside, and this world's passments and their buskings. Who knoweth the truth of grace without a trial? Oh, how little getteth Christ of us, but that which He winneth (to speak so) with much toil and pains! And how soon would faith freeze without a cross! How many dumb crosses have been laid upon my back, that had never a tongue to speak the sweetness of Christ, as this hath! When Christ blesseth His own crosses with a tongue, they breathe out Christ's love, wisdom, kindness, and care of us. Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know that He is no idle Husbandman, He purposeth a crop. O that this white, withered lea-ground were made fertile to bear a crop for Him, by whom it is so painfully dressed; and that this fallow-ground were broken up! Why was I (a fool!) grieved that He put His garland and His rose upon my head—the glory and honour of His faithful witnesses? I desire now to make no more pleas with Christ. Verily He hath not put me to a loss by what I suffer; He oweth me nothing; for in my bonds how sweet and comfortable have the thoughts of Him been to me, wherein I find a sufficient recompense of reward!

How blind are my adversaries, who sent me to a banqueting-house, to a house of wine, to the lovely feasts of my lovely Lord Jesus, and not to a prison, or place of exile! Why should I smother my Husband's honesty, or sin against His love, or be a niggard in giving out to others what I get for nothing? Brother, eat with me, and give thanks. I charge you before God, that ye speak to others, and invite them to help me to praise! Oh, my debt of praise, how weighty it is, and how far run up! O that others would lend me to pay, and learn me to praise! Oh, I am a drowned dyvour! Lord Jesus, take my thoughts for payments. Yet I am in this hot summer-blink with the tear in my eye; for (by reason of my silence) sorrow, sorrow hath filled me; my harp is hanged upon the willow-trees, because I am in a strange land. I am still kept in exercise with envious brethren; my mother hath borne me a man of contention.

Write to me your mind anent Y. C.: I cannot forget him; I know not what God hath to do with him:—and your mind anent my parishioners' behaviour, and how they are served in preaching; or if there be a minister as yet thrust in upon them, which I desire greatly to know, and which I much fear.

Dear brother, ye are in my heart, to live and to die with you. Visit me with a letter. Pray for me. Remember my love to your wife. Grace, grace be with you; and God, who heareth prayer, visit you, and let it be unto you according to the prayers of

Your own brother, and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan 1, 1637.

LXXVII.—To my LADY BOYD

[LADY BOYD, whose maiden name was Christian Hamilton, was the eldest daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington. She was first married to Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres, who died in 1616. She married for her second husband, Robert, sixth Lord Boyd, who died in August 1628. Lady Boyd was distinguished for piety, and a zealous Presbyterian. Livingstone gives her a place among "some of the professors in the Church of Scotland of his acquaintance, who were eminent for grace and gifts;" eulogizes her as "a rare pattern of Christianity, grave, diligent, and prudent;" and adds, "She used every night to write what had been the case of her soul all the day, and what she had observed of the Lord's dealing." He speaks of residing for some time, during the course of his ministry, in the house of Kilmarnock, with "the worthy Lady Boyd." Some of her letters are given by Wodrow in his life of Boyd of Trochrig (pp. 166, 272.) She used to reside much at Badenheath, in the parish of Chryston, near Glasgow, andt here John Livingston visited her.]

(ABERDEEN—EXPERIENCE OF HIMSELF SAD—PRESSING FORWARDS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. The Lord hath brought me to Aberdeen, where I see God in few. This town hath been advised upon of purpose for me; it consisteth either of Papists, or men of Gallio's naughty faith. It is counted wisdom, in the most, not to countenance a confined minister; but I find Christ neither strange nor unkind; for I have found many faces smile upon me since I came hither. I am heavy and sad, considering what is betwixt the Lord and my soul, which none seeth but He. I find men have mistaken me; it would be no art (as I now see) to spin small, and make hypocrisy a goodly web, and to go through the market as a saint among men, and yet steal quietly to hell, without observation: so easy is it to deceive men. I have disputed whether or no I ever knew anything of Christianity, save the letters of that name. Men see but as men, and they call ten twenty, and twenty an hundred; but O! to be approved of God in the heart and in sincerity is not an ordinary mercy. My neglects while I had a pulpit, and other things whereof I am ashamed to speak, meet me now, so as God maketh an honest cross my daily sorrow. And, for fear of scandal and stumbling, I must bide this day of the law's pleading: I know not if this court kept within my soul be fenced in Christ's name. If certainty of salvation were to be bought, God knoweth, if I had ten earths, I would not prig with God. Like a fool, I believed, under suffering for Christ, that I myself should keep the key of Christ's treasures, and take out comforts when I listed, and eat and be fat: but I see now a sufferer for Christ will be made to know himself, and will be holden at the door as well as another poor sinner, and will be fain to eat with the bairns, and to take the by-board, and glad to do so. My blessing on the cross of Christ that hath made me see this! Oh! if we could take pains for the kingdom of heaven! But we sit down upon some ordinary marks of God's children, thinking we have as much as will separate us from a reprobate; and thereupon we take the play and cry, "Holiday!" and thus the devil casteth water on our fire, and blunteth our zeal and care. But I see heaven is not at the door; and I see, howbeit my challenges be many, I suffer for Christ, and dare hazard my salvation upon it; for sometimes my Lord cometh with a fair hour, and O! but His love be sweet, delightful, and comfortable. Half a kiss is sweet; but our doting love will not be content with a right to Christ, unless we get possession; like the man who will not be content with rights to bought land, except he get also the ridges and acres laid upon his back to carry home with him! However it be, Christ is wise; and we are fools, to be browden and fond of a pawn in the loof of our hand. Living on trust by faith may well content us. Madam, I know your Ladyship knoweth this, and that made me bold to write of it, that others might reap somewhat by my bonds for the truth; for I should desire, and I aim at this, to have my Lord well spoken of and honoured, howbeit He should make nothing of me but a bridge over a water. Thus, recommending your Ladyship, your son, and children to His grace, who hath honoured you with a name and room among the living in Jerusalem, and wishing grace to be with your Ladyship, I rest,

Your Ladyship's in his sweetest Lord Jesus,

ABERDEEN.

S. R.

LXXVIII.—To my LORD BOYD

[ROBERT, seventh LORD BOYD, was the only son of Robert, sixth Lord Boyd, by Lady Christian Hamilton, mentioned in the preceding letter. His father (who was cousin of the famous Robert Boyd of Trochrig, two miles from Girvan, and under whom he studied at Saumur) died in August 1628, at the early age of 33. Young Robert was served heir to his father the 9th of May 1629. His earthly course was, however, brief; for he died of a fever on the 17th of November 1640, aged about 24. He was married to Lady Anne Fleming, second daughter of John, second Earl of Wigtown. Lord Boyd warmly espoused the side of the Covenanters; and though not a member of the General Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638, he attended its meetings and took a deep interest in its proceedings.]

(ENCOURAGEMENT TO EXERTION FOR CHRIST'S CAUSE.)

MY VERY HONOURABLE AND GOOD LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Lordship. Out of the worthy report that I hear of your Lordship's zeal for this borne-down and oppressed Gospel, I am bold to write to your Lordship, beseeching you by the mercies of God, by the honour of our royal and princely King Jesus, by the sorrows, tears, and desolation of your afflicted mother-Church, and by the peace of your conscience, and your joy in the day of Christ, that your Lordship would go on, in the strength of your Lord, and in the power of His might, to bestir yourself, for the vindicating of the fallen honour of your Lord Jesus. Oh, blessed hands for evermore, that shall help to put the crown upon the head of Christ again in Scotland! I dare promise, in the name of our Lord, that this will fasten and fix the pillars and the stakes of your honourable house upon earth, if you lend and lay in pledge in Christ's hand, upon spiritual hazard, life, estate, house, honour, credit, moyen, friends, the favour of men (suppose kings with three crowns), so being that ye may bear witness, and acquit yourself as a man of valour and courage to the Prince of your salvation, for the purging of His temple, and sweeping out the lordly Diotrepheses, time-courting Demases, corrupt Hymenæuses and Philetuses, and other such oxen, that with their dung defile the temple of the Lord. Is not Christ now crying, "Who will help Me? who will come out with Me, to take part with Me, and share in the honour of My victory over these Mine enemies, who have said, We will not have this man to rule over us?"

My very honourable and dear Lord, join, join (as ye do) with Christ. He is more worth to you and your posterity than this world's May-flowers, and withering riches and honour, that shall go away as smoke, and evanish in a night vision, and shall, in one half-hour after the blast of the archangel's trumpet, lie in white ashes. Let me beseech your Lordship to draw by the lap of time's curtain, and to look in through the window to great and endless eternity, and consider if a worldly price (suppose this little round clay globe of this ashy and dirty earth, the dying idol of the fools of this world, were all your own) can be given for one smile of Christ's God-like and soul-ravishing countenance. In that day when so many joints and knees of thousand thousands wailing shall stand before Christ, trembling, shouting, and making their prayers to hills and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb, oh, how many would sell lordships and kingdoms that day, and buy Christ! But, oh, the market shall be closed and ended ere then! Your Lordship hath now a blessed venture of winning court with the Prince of the kings of the earth. He Himself weeping; truth borne down and fallen in the streets, and an oppressed Gospel; Christ's bride with watery eyes and spoiled of her veil, her hair hanging about her eyes, forced to go in ragged apparel; the banished, alienated, and imprisoned prophets of God, who have not the favour of liberty to prophesy in sackcloth, all these, I say, call for your help. Fear not worms of clay; the moth shall eat them as a garment. Let the Lord be your fear; He is with you, and shall fight for you; and ye shall make the heart of this your mother-Church to sing for joy. The Lamb and His armies are with you, and the kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's. I am persuaded that there is not another gospel, nor another saving truth, than that which ye now contend for. I dare hazard my heaven and salvation upon it, that this is the only saving way to glory.

Grace, grace, be with your Lordship.

Your Lordship's at all respectful obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXIX.—To MARGARET BALLANTINE

[This name is not found among the people of the parish of Anwoth. Like John Laurie, Letter CLXXV., she may have been some one at a distance.]

(VALUE OF THE SOUL AND URGENCY OF SALVATION.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—It is more than time that I should have written to you; but it is yet good time, if I could help your soul to mend your pace, and to go more swiftly to your heavenly country. For truly ye have need to make all haste, because the inch of your day that remaineth will quickly slip away; for whether we sleep or wake, our glass runneth. The tide bideth no man. Beware of a beguile in the matter of your salvation Woe, woe for evermore, to them that lose that prize. For what is behind, when the soul is once lost, but that sinners warm their bits of clay houses at a fire of their own kindling, for a day or two (which doth rather suffocate with its smoke than warm them); and at length they lie down in sorrow, and are clothed with everlasting shame! I would seek no further measure of faith to begin withal than to believe really and stedfastly the doctrine of God's justice, His all-devouring wrath, and everlasting burning, where sinners are burnt, soul and body, in a river and great lake of fire and brimstone. Then they would wish no more goods than the thousandth part of a cold fountain-well to cool their tongues. They would then buy death with enduring of pain and torment for as many years as God hath created drops of rain since the creation. But there is no market of buying or selling life or death there. O, alas! the greatest part of this world run to the place of that torment rejoicing and dancing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. My counsel to you is, that ye start in time to be after Christ; for if ye go quickly, Christ is not far before you; ye shall overtake Him. O Lord God, what is so needful as this, "Salvation, salvation!" Fy upon this condemned and foolish world, that would give so little for salvation! Oh, if there were a free market for salvation proclaimed in that day when the trumpet of God shall awake the dead, how many buyers would be then! God send me no more happiness than that salvation which the blind world, to their eternal woe, letteth slip through their fingers. Therefore, look if ye can give out your money (as Isaiah speaketh) (55:2) for bread, and lay Christ and His blood in wadset for heaven. It is a dry and hungry bairn's part of goods that Esaus are hunting for here. I see thousands following the chase, and in the pursuit of such things, while in the meantime they lose the blessing; and, when all is done, they have caught nothing to roast for supper, but lie down hungry. And, besides, they go to bed, when they die, without a candle; for God saith to them, "This ye shall have at My hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow" (Isa. 1:11). And truly this is as ill-made a bed to lie upon as one could wish; for he cannot sleep soundly, nor rest sweetly, who hath sorrow for his pillow. Rouse, rouse up, therefore, your soul, and speer how Christ and your soul met together. I am sure that they never got Christ, who were not once sick at the yolk of the heart for Him. Too, too many whole souls think that they have met with Christ, who had never a wearied night for the want of Him: but, alas! what richer are men, that they dreamed the last night they had much gold, and, when they awoke in the morning, they found it was but a dream? What are all the sinners in the world, in that day when heaven and earth shall go up in a flame of fire, but a number of beguiled dreamers? Every one shall say of his hunting and his conquest, "Behold, it was a dream!" Every man in that day will tell his dream. I beseech you, in the Lord Jesus, beware, beware of unsound work in the matter of your salvation: ye may not, ye cannot, ye dow not want Christ. Then after this day, convene all your lovers before your soul, and give them their leave; and strike hands with Christ, that thereafter there may be no happiness to you but Christ, no hunting for anything but Christ, no bed at night, when death cometh, but Christ. Christ, Christ, who but Christ! I know this much of Christ, that He is not ill to be found, nor lordly of His love. Woe had been my part of it for evermore, if Christ had made a dainty of Himself to me. But, God be thanked, I gave nothing for Christ. And now I protest before men and angels that Christ cannot be exchanged, that Christ cannot be sold, that Christ cannot be weighed. Where would angels, or all the world, find a balance to weigh Him in? All lovers blush when ye stand beside Christ! Woe upon all love but the love of Christ! Hunger, hunger for evermore be upon all heaven but Christ! Shame, shame for evermore be upon all glory but Christ's glory. I cry death, death upon all lives but the life of Christ. Oh, what is it that holdeth us asunder? O that once we could have a fair meeting!

Thus recommending Christ to you and you to Him, for evermore, I rest. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXX.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(HIS COMFORT UNDER TRIBULATION, AND THE PRISON A PALACE.)

MY DEARLY BELOVED SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I complain that Galloway is not kind to me in paper. I have received no letters these sixteen weeks but two. I am well. My prison is a palace to me, and Christ's banqueting-house. My Lord Jesus is as kind as they call Him. O that all Scotland knew my case, and had part of my feast! I charge you in the name of God, I charge you to believe. Fear not the sons of men; the worms shall eat them. To pray and believe now, when Christ seems to give you a nay-say, is more than it was before. Die believing; die, and Christ's promise in your hand. I desire, I request, I charge your husband and that town, to stand for the truth of the Gospel. Contend with Christ's enemies; and I pray you show all professors whom you know my case. Help me to praise. The ministers here envy me; they will have my prison changed. My mother hath borne me a man of contention, and one that striveth with the whole earth. Remember my love to your husband. Grace be with you.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 3, 1637.

LXXXI.—To MR. JOHN MEINE (Jun)

[MR. JOHN MEINE was the son of John Meine, merchant in Edinburgh, "a solid and stedfast professor of the truth of God." His mother was Barbara Hamilton, a notice of whom see Letter CCCXIII. He was now, it would appear from an allusion in the close of this letter, a student of theology, with a view to the holy ministry. Halyburton on his deathbed spake of this letter as one in which was to be found "More practical religion than in a large volume."]

(EXPERIENCE—PATIENT WAITING—SANCTIFICATION.)

WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have been too long in answering your letter, but other business took me up. I am here waiting, if the fair wind will turn upon Christ's sails in Scotland, and if deliverance be breaking out to this overclouded and benighted kirk. O that we could contend, by prayers and supplications, with our Lord for that effect! I know that He hath not given out His last doom against this land. I have little of Christ, in this prison, but groanings, and longings, and desires. All my stock of Christ is some hunger for Him, and yet I cannot say but I am rich in that. My faith, and hope, and holy practice of new obedience, are scarce worth the speaking of. But blessed be my Lord, who taketh me, light, and clipped, and naughty, and feckless as I am. I see that Christ will not prig with me, nor stand upon stepping-stones; but cometh in at the broadside without ceremonies, or making it nice, to make a poor, ransomed one His own. O that I could feed upon His breathing, and kissing, and embracing, and upon the hopes of my meeting and His! when love-letters shall not go betwixt us, but He will be messenger Himself! But there is required patience on our part, till the summer-fruit in heaven be ripe for us. It is in the bud; but there be many things to do before our harvest come. And we take ill with it, and can hardly endure to set our paper-face to one of Christ's storms, and to go to heaven with wet feet, and pain, and sorrow. We love to carry a heaven to heaven with us, and would have two summers in one year, and no less than two heavens. But this will not do for us: one (and such a one!) may suffice us well enough. The man, Christ, got but one only, and shall we have two?

Remember my love in Christ to your father; and help me with your prayers. If ye would be a deep divine, I recommend to you sanctification. Fear Him, and He will reveal His covenant to you. Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 5, 1637.

CARDONESS CASTLE.

LXXXII.—To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, Elder

[JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, in the parish of Anwoth, was descended from Gordon of Lochinvar; but little is known concerning him. His name appears the first of 188 signatures attached to an unsuccessful petition of the elders and parishioners of Anwoth, presented to the Commission of the General Assembly 1638, for Rutherford being continued minister of that parish, when counter applications were made by the city of Edinburgh and the University of St. Andrews for the transference of his services. From Rutherford's letters to him, we learn that he was at this time far advanced in life. He was naturally a man of strong passions, by which it would appear he had, in the previous part of his life, been led astray.

The old castle of Cardoness stands on a tongue of land, at the mouth of the river Fleet, about a mile from Gatehouse. It is built on a rocky height, overhanging the public road, and looking toward the bay. You see an old square-built tower, or fortalice, raising its grey head from among the tall trees that now surround it. Tradition tells of an old proprietor, that he was in league with Græme, the Border outlaw; and how, in consequence of his daring and God-defying deeds, the chief and his whole family perished in the Black Loch, a small loch in the parish of Anwoth, at Woodend, 26 ft. deep. Though not a descendant, John Gordon seems to have been a man of like strong passions with that old chieftain, till subdued by grace.]

(WIN CHRIST AT ALL HAZARDS—CHRISTS BEAUTY—A WORD TO CHILDREN.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have longed to hear from you, and to know the estate of your soul, and the estate of that people with you.

I beseech you, Sir, by the salvation of your precious soul, and the mercies of God, to make good and sure work of your salvation, and try upon what ground-stone ye have builded. Worthy and dear Sir, if ye be upon sinking sand, a storm of death, and a blast, will lose Christ and you, and wash you close off the rock. Oh, for the Lord's sake, look narrowly to the work!

Read over your life, with the light of God's day-light and sun; for salvation is not casten down at every man's door. It is good to look to your compass, and all ye have need of, ere you take shipping; for no wind can blow you back again. Remember, when the race is ended, and the play either won or lost, and ye are in the utmost circle and border of time, and shall put your foot within the march of eternity, and all your good things of this short night-dream shall seem to you like the ashes of a bleeze of thorns or straw, and your poor soul shall be crying, "Lodging, lodging, for God's sake!" then shall your soul be more glad at one of your Lord's lovely and homely smiles, than if ye had the charters of three worlds for all eternity. Let pleasures and gain, will and desires of this world, be put over into God's hands, as arrested and fenced goods that ye cannot intromit with. Now, when ye are drinking the grounds of your cup, and ye are upon the utmost end of the last link of time, and old age, like death's long shadow, is casting a covering upon your days, it is no time to court this vain life, and to set love and heart upon it. It is near after-supper; seek rest and ease for your soul in God through Christ.

Believe me, that I find it to be hard wrestling to play fair with Christ, and to keep good quarters with Him, and to love Him in integrity and life, and to keep a constant course of sound and solid daily communion with Christ. Temptations are daily breaking the thread of that course, and it is not easy to cast a knot again; and many knots make evil work. Oh, how fair have many ships been plying before the wind, that, in an hour's space, have been lying in the sea-bottom! How many professors cast a golden lustre, as if they were pure gold, and yet are, under that skin and cover, but base and reprobate metal! And how many keep breath in their race many miles, and yet come short of the prize and the garland! Dear sir, my soul would mourn in secret for you, if I knew your case with God to be but false work. Love to have you anchored upon Christ maketh me fear your tottering and slips. False under-water, not seen in the ground of an enlightened conscience, is dangerous; so is often falling, and sinning against light. Know this, that those who never had sick nights or days in conscience for sin, cannot have but such a peace with God as will undercoat and break the flesh again, and end in a sad war at death. Oh, how fearfully are thousands beguiled with false hide, grown over old sins, as if the soul were cured and healed!

Dear Sir, I always saw nature mighty, lofty, heady, and strong in you; and that it was more for you to be mortified and dead to the world, than for another common man. Ye will take a low ebb, and a deep cut, and a long lance, to go to the bottom of your wounds in saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for Christ. Be humbled; walk softly. Down, down, for God's sake, my dear and worthy brother, with your topsail. Stoop, stoop! it is a low entry to go in at heaven's gate. There is infinite justice in the party ye have to do with; it is His nature not to acquit the guilty and the sinnner. The law of God will not want one farthing of the sinner. God forgetteth not both the cautioner and the sinner; and every man must pay, either in his own person (oh, Lord save you from that payment!), or in his cautioner, Christ. It is violence to corrupt nature for a man to be holy, to lie down under Christ's feet, to quit will, pleasure, worldly love, earthly hope, and an itching of heart after this farded and over-gilded world, and to be content that Christ trample upon all. Come in, come in to Christ, and see what ye want, and find it in Him. He is the short cut (as we used to say), and the nearest way to an outgate of all your burdens. I dare avouch that ye shall be dearly welcome to Him; my soul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should have in Him. I dare say that angels' pens, angels' tongues, nay, as many worlds of angels as there are drops of water in all the seas, and fountains, and rivers of the earth, cannot paint Him out to you. I think His sweetness, since I was a prisoner, hath swelled upon me to the greatness of two heavens. Oh for a soul as wide as the utmost circle of the highest heaven that containeth all, to contain His love! And yet I could hold little of it. O world's wonder! Oh, if my soul might but lie within the smell of His love, suppose I could get no more but the smell of it! Oh, but it is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love! Oh, what a sight to be up in heaven, in that fair orchard of the new paradise; and to see, and smell, and touch, and kiss that fair field-flower, that ever-green Tree of life! His bare shadow were enough for me; a sight of Him would be the earnest of heaven to me. Fy, fy upon us! that we have love lying rusting beside us, or, which is worse, wasting upon some loathsome objects, and that Christ should lie His lone. Wo, wo is me! that sin hath made so many madmen, seeking the fool's paradise, fire under ice, and some good and desirable things, without and apart from Christ. Christ, Christ, nothing but Christ, can cool our love's burning languor. O thirsty love! wilt thou set Christ, the well of life, to thy head, and drink thy fill? Drink, and spare not; drink love, and be drunken with Christ! Nay, alas! the distance betwixt us and Christ is a death. Oh, if we were clasped in other's arms! We should never twin again, except heaven twinned and sundered us; and that cannot be.

I desire your children to seek this Lord. Desire them from me, to be requested, for Christ's sake, to be blessed and happy, and to come and take Christ, and all things with Him. Let them beware of glassy and slippery youth, of foolish young notions, of worldly lusts, of deceivable gain, of wicked company, of cursing, lying, blaspheming, and foolish talking. Let them be filled with the Spirit; acquaint themselves with daily praying; and with the storehouse of wisdom and comfort, the good word of God. Help the souls of the poor people. O that my Lord would bring me again among them, that I might tell unco and great tales of Christ to them! Receive not a stranger to preach any other doctrine to them.

Pray for me, His prisoner of hope. I pray for you without ceasing. I write my blessing, earnest prayers, the love of God, and the sweet presence of Christ to you, and yours, and them. Grace, grace, grace be with you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXIII.—To the EARL OF LOTHIAN

[WILLIAM, third EARL of LOTHIAN, to whom this letter is addressed, was the eldest son of Robert, first Earl of Ancrum; and he acquired the title of Earl of Lothian by his marriage with Anne Ker, Countess of Lothian, by whom he succeeded to the estate and titles of Lothian in 1624. In 1638 he manifested great zeal for the Covenant. He was a member of the General Assembly which met at Glasgow that year, as elder for the Presbytery of Dalkeith. Hostilities having again commenced in 1640, his Lordship was in the Scottish army that invaded England, and defeated the Royalists at Newburn. In 1643 he was sent from Scotland by the Privy Council, with the approbation of Charles I. In 1644 he commanded, with the Marquis of Argyle, the forces sent against the Marquis of Montrose, whom he obliged to retreat, and then delivered up his commission to the Committee of Estates, who passed an act in approbation of his services. He was president of the Committee despatched by the Parliament to the King in December 1646, with their final propositions. He protested against the raising of an army in 1648 to rescue the King from the hands of the English, without receiving from His Majesty assurance that he would secure the religious liberties of his Scottish subjects,—an attempt which was called the "Engagement." But while resisting the arbitrary measures of his prince, he was of sincere and ardent loyalty. No sooner was it known that the Parliament of England intended to proceed against Charles I. before the High Court of Justice, than he and other commissioners were sent, in name of the kingdom of Scotland, to remonstrate against their proceedings in regard to the sacred person of the king. He took a solemn protest against their proceedings, for which he was put under arrest, sent with a guard to Gravesend, and thence to Scotland. On his return he received the thanks of Parliament for his conduct on this occasion; and, along with the Earl of Cassillis, was despatched to Breda in 1650 to invite King Charles to Scotland. His Lordship died in the year 1675. By Anne, Countess of Lothian, he had five sons and nine daughters.]

(ADVICE AS TO PUBLIC CONDUCT—EVERYTHING TO BE ENDURED FOR CHRIST.)

RIGHT HONOURABLE, AND MY VERY WORTHY AND NOBLE LORD,—Out of the honourable and good report that I hear of your Lordship's good-will and kindness, in taking to heart the honourable cause of Christ, and His afflicted Church and wronged truth in this land, I make bold to speak a word on paper, to your Lordship, at this distance, which I trust your Lordship will take in good part. It is to your Lordship's honour and credit, to put to your hand, as ye do (all honour to God!), to the falling and tottering tabernacle of Christ, in this your mother-Church, and to own Christ's wrongs as your own wrongs. O blessed hand, which shall wipe and dry the watery eyes of our weeping Lord Jesus, now going mourning in sackcloth in His members, in His spouse in His truth, and in the prerogative royal of His kingly power! He needeth not service and help from men; but it pleaseth His wisdom to make the wants and losses, the sores and wounds of His spouse, a field and an office-house for the zeal of His servants to exercise themselves in. Therefore, my noble and dear Lord, go on, go on in the strength of the Lord against all opposition, to side with wronged Christ. The defending, and warding of strokes off Christ's bride, the King's daughter, is like a piece of the rest of the way to heaven, knotty, rough, stormy, and full of thorns. Many would follow Christ, but with a reservation that, by open proclamation, Christ would cry down crosses, and cry up fair weather, and a summer sky and sun, till we were all fairly landed at heaven. I know that your Lordship hath not so learned Christ; but that ye intend to fetch heaven, suppose that your father were standing in your way, and to take it with the wind on your face; for so both storm and wind were on the fair face of your lovely Forerunner, Christ, all His way. It is possible that the success answer not your desire in this worthy cause. What then? duties are ours, but events are the Lord's; and I hope, if your Lordship, and others with you, will go on to dive to the lowest ground and bottom of the knavery and perfidious treachery to Christ of the accursed and wretched prelates, the Antichrist's first-born, and the first-fruit of his foul womb, and shall deal with our Sovereign (law going before you) for the reasonable and impartial hearing of Christ's bill of complaints, and set yourselves singly to seek the Lord and His face, that your righteousness shall break through the clouds which prejudice hath drawn over it, and that ye shall, in the strength of the Lord, bring our banished and departing Lord Jesus home again to His sanctuary. Neither must your Lordship advise with flesh and blood in this; but wink, and in the dark, reach your hand to Christ, and follow Him. Let not men's fainting discourage you; neither be afraid of men's canny wisdom, who, in this storm, take the nearest shore, and go to the lee and calm side of the Gospel, and hide Christ (if ever they had Him) in their cabinets, as if they were ashamed of Him, or as if Christ were stolen wares, and would blush before the sun.

My very dear and noble Lord, ye have rejoiced the hearts of many, that ye have made choice of Christ and His Gospel, whereas such great temptations do stand in your way. But I love your profession the better that it endureth winds. If we knew ourselves well, to want temptations is the greatest temptation of all. Neither is father, nor mother, nor court, nor honour, in this over-lustred world with all its paintry and farding, anything else, when they are laid in the balance with Christ, but feathers, shadows, night-dreams, and straws. Oh, if this world knew the excellency, sweetness, and beauty of that high and lofty One, the Fairest among the sons of men, verily they would see, that if their love were bigger than ten heavens, all in circles beyond each other, it were all too little for Christ our Lord! I hope that your choice will not repent you, when life shall come to that twilight betwixt time and eternity, and ye shall see the utmost border of time, and shall draw the curtain, and look into eternity, and shall one day see God take the heavens in His hands, and fold them together, like an old holely garment, and set on fire this clay part of the creation of God, and consume away into smoke and ashes the idol-hope of poor fools, who think that there is not a better country than this low country of dying clay. Children cannot make comparison aright betwixt this life and that which is to come; and, therefore, the babes of this world, who see no better, mould, in their own brain, a heaven of their own coining, because they see no farther than the nearest side of time.

I dare lay in pawn my hope of heaven, that this reproached way is the only way of peace. I find it is the way that the Lord hath sealed with His comforts now, in my bonds for Christ; and I verily esteem and find chains and fetters for that lovely One, Christ, to be watered over with sweet consolations, and the love-smiles of that lovely Bridegroom, for whose coming we wait. And when He cometh, then shall the blacks and whites of all men come before the sun; then shall the Lord put a final decision upon the pleas that Zion hath with her adversaries. And as fast as time passeth away (which neither sitteth, nor standeth, nor sleepeth), as fast is our hand-breadth of this short winter-night flying away, and the sky of our long-lasting day drawing near its breaking.

Except your Lordship be pleased to plead for me against the tyranny of prelates, I shall be forgotten in this prison; for they did shape my doom according to their new, lawless canons, which is, that a deprived minister shall be utterly silenced, and not preach at all; which is a cruelty, contrary to their own former practices.

Now, the only wise God, the very God of, peace, confirm, strengthen, and establish your Lordship upon the stone laid in Zion, and be with you for ever.

Your Lordship's at all respectful obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXIV.—To JEAN BROWN

[JEAN BROWN was the mother of the well-known Mr. John Brown, minister of Wamphray in Annandale, who, after the restoration of Charles II., was ejected from his charge and banished from the King's dominions for his opposition to Prelacy. She was a woman of intelligence and piety.]

(THE JOYS OF THIS LIFE EMBITTERED BY SIN—HEAVEN AN OBJECT OF DESIRE—TRIAL A BLESSED THING.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I earnestly desire your on-going toward your country. I know that ye see your day melteth away by little and little, and that in a short time ye shall be put beyond time's bounds; for life is a post that standeth not still, and our joys here are born weeping, rather than laughing, and they die weeping. Sin, sin, this body of sin and corruption embittereth and poisoneth all our enjoyments. O that I were where I shall sin no more! O to be freed of these chains and iron fetters, which we carry about with us! Lord, loose the sad prisoners! Who of the children of God have not cause to say, that they have their fill of this vain life? and, like a full and sick stomach, to wish at mid-supper that the supper were ended, and the table drawn, that the sick man might win to bed, and enjoy rest? We have cause to tire at mid-supper of the best messes that this world can dress up for us; and to cry to God, that He would remove the table and put the sin-sick souls to rest with Himself. O for a long play-day with Christ, and our long-lasting vacance of rest! Glad may their souls be that are safe over the frith, Christ having paid the fraught. Happy are they who have passed their hard and wearisome time of apprenticeship, and are now freemen and citizens in that joyful, high city, the New Jerusalem.

Alas! that we should be glad of and rejoice in our fetters, and our prison-house, and this dear inn, a life of sin, where we are absent from our Lord, and so far from our home. O that we could get bonds and law-suretyship of our love, that it fasten not itself on these clay-dreams, these clay-shadows, and worldly vanities! We might be oftener seeing what they are doing in heaven, and our hearts more frequently upon our sweet treasure above. We smell of the smoke of this lower house of the earth, because our hearts and our thoughts are here. If we could haunt up with God, we should smell of heaven and of our country above; and we should look like our country, and like strangers, or people not born or brought up hereaway. Our crosses would not bite upon us if we were heavenly-minded. I know of no obligation which the saints have to this world, seeing we fare but upon the smoke of it; and, if there be any smoke in the house, it bloweth upon our eyes. All our part of the table is scarce worth a drink of water; and when we are stricken, we dare not weep, but steal our grief away betwixt our Lord and us, and content ourselves with stolen sorrow behind backs. God be thanked that we have many things that so stroke us against the hair that we may pray, "God keep our better home, God bless our Father's house; and not this smoke, that bloweth us to seek our best lodging." I am sure that this is the best fruit of the cross, when we, from the hard fare of the dear inn, cry the more that God would send a fair wind, to land us, hungered and oppressed strangers, at the door of our Father's house, which now is made, in Christ, our kindly heritage. Oh! then, let us pull up the stakes and stoups of our tent, and take our tent on our back, and go with our flitting to our best home; for here we have no continuing city.

I am waiting in hope here, to see what my Lord will do with me. Let Him make of me what He pleaseth; providing He make glory to Himself out of me, I care not. I hope, yea, I am now sure, that I am for Christ, and all that I can or may make is for Him. I am His everlasting dyvour, and still shall be; for, alas, I have nothing for Him, and He getteth but little service of me! Pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased to give me houseroom, that I may serve Him in the calling which He hath called me unto. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXV.—To JOHN KENNEDY, Bailie of Ayr

(THE REASONABLENESS OF BELIEVING UNDER ALL AFFLICTION—OBLIGATIONS TO FREE GRACE.)

WORTHY AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—I am yet waiting what our Lord will do for His afflicted Church, and for my re-entry to my Lord's house. O that I could hear the forfeiture of Christ (now casten out of His inheritance) recalled and taken off by open proclamation; and that Christ were restored to be a freeholder and a landed heritor in Scotland; and that the courts fenced in the name of the bastard prelates (their godfather, the Pope's, bailiffs and sheriffs) were cried down! Oh, how sweet a sight were it to see all the tribes of the Lord in this land fetching home again our banished King, Christ, to His own palace, His sanctuary, and His throne! I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith will out-watch all this winter-night, and not nod nor slumber till my Lord's summer-day dawn upon me. It is much if faith and hope, in the sad nights of our heavy trial, escape with a whole skin, and without crack or crook. I confess that unbelief hath not reason to be either father or mother to it, for unbelief is always an irrational thing; but how can it be, but that such weak eyes as ours must cast water in a great smoke, or that a weak head should not turn giddy when the water runneth deep and strong? But God be thanked that Christ in His children can endure a stress and a storm, howbeit soft nature would fall down in pieces. O that I had that confidence as to rest on this, though He should grind me into small powder, and bray me into dust, and scatter the dust to the four winds of heaven, that my Lord would gather up the powder, and make me up a new vessel again, to bear Christ's name to the world! I am sure that love, bottomed and seated upon the faith of His love to me, would desire and endure this, and would even claim and threep kindness upon Christ's strokes, and kiss His love-glooms, and both spell and read salvation upon the wounds made by Christ's sweet hands. O that I had but a promise made from the mouth of Christ, of His love to me! and then, howbeit my faith were as tender as paper, I think longing, and dwining, and greening of sick desires would cause it to bide out the siege till the Lord came to fill the soul with His love. And I know also, that in that case faith would bide green and sappy at the root, even at mid-winter, and stand out against all storms. However it be, I know that Christ winneth heaven in despite of hell.

But I owe as many praises and thanks to free grace as would lie betwixt me and the utmost border of the highest heaven, suppose ten thousand heavens were all laid above other. But oh! I have nothing that can hire or bud grace; for if grace would take hire, it were no more grace. But all our stability, and the strength of our salvation, is anchored and fastened upon free grace; and I am sure that Christ hath by His death and blood casten the knot so fast, that the fingers of the devils and hell-fulls of sins cannot loose it. And that bond of Christ (that never yet was, nor ever shall, nor can be registrated) standeth surer than heaven, or the days of heaven, as that sweet pillar of the covenant whereon we all hang. Christ, with all His little ones under His two wings and in the compass or circle of His arms, is so sure, that, cast Him and them into the ground of the sea, He shall come up again and not lose one. An odd one cannot, nor shall, be lost in the telling.

This was always God's aim, since Christ came into the play betwixt Him and us, to make men dependent creatures; and, in the work of our salvation, to put created strength, and arms and legs of clay, quite out of place, and out of office and court. And now God hath substituted in our room, and accepted His Son, the Mediator, for us and all that we can make. If this had not been, I would have skinked over and foregone my part of paradise and salvation, for a breakfast of dead, moth-eaten earth; but now I would not give it, nor let it go for more than I can tell. And truly they are silly fools, and ignorant of Christ's worth, and so full ill-trained and tutored, who tell Christ and heaven over the board for two feathers or two straws of the devil's painted pleasures, only lustred on the outer side. This is our happiness now, that our reckonings at night, when eternity shall come upon us, cannot be told. We shall be so far gainers, and so far from being super-expended (as the poor fools of this world are, who give out their money, and get in but black hunger), that angels cannot lay our counts, nor sum our advantage and incomes. Who knoweth how far it is to the bottom of our Christ's fulness, and to the ground of our heaven? Who ever weighed Christ in a pair of balances? Who hath seen the foldings and plies, and the heights and depths of that glory which is in Him, and kept for us? O for such a heaven as to stand afar off, and see, and love, and long for Him, whill time's thread be cut, and this great work of creation dissolved, at the coming of our Lord!

Now to His grace I recommend you. I beseech you also to pray for a re-entry to me into the Lord's house, if it be His good will.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 6, 1637.

LXXXVI.—To my LORD CRAIGHALL

[SIR JOHN HOPE, LORD CRAIGHALL, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hope (Lord Advocate of Scotland in the time of James VI. and Charles I.) His property, Craighall, is in the parish of Inveresk, near Edinburgh. Sir Thomas was the most eminent lawyer of his day, and was first brought into notice by the ability with which he defended the cause of John Forbes, John Welsh, and the other ministers who were tried for high treason at Linlithgow, on account of their holding a General Assembly at Aberdeen in 1605. Craighall is in the parish of Ceres, in Fife, a fine old castellated ruin. John, second baronet, was admitted a Lord of Session 27th July 1632, and became President of the Court, and in 1645 was appointed one of the Privy Council. His name appears on the roll of members of the General Assemblies 1645–1649, and of the commissions which these Assemblies appointed. In Lamont's "Diary" we read (1659), "The Laird of Craighall, in Fyfe, depairted out of this lyfe on Sabbath at nyght, and was interred at Ceres."

(EPISCOPALIAN CEREMONIES—HOW TO ABIDE IN THE TRUTH—DESIRE FOR LIBERTY TO PREACH CHRIST.)

MY LORD,—I received Mr. L.'s letter with your Lordship's and his learned thoughts in the matter of I ceremonies. I owe respect to the man's learning, for that I hear him to be opposed to Arminian heresies. But, with reverence of that worthy man, I wonder to hear such popish-like expressions as he hath in his letter, as, "Your Lordship may spare doubtings, when the King and Church have agreed in the settling of such orders; and the Church's direction in things indifferent and circumstantial (as if indifferent and circumstantial were all one!) should be the rule of every private Christian." I only viewed the papers two hours' space, the bearer hastening me to write. I find the worthy man not so seen in this controversy as some turbulent men of our country, whom he calleth "refusers of conformity;" and let me say it, I am more confirmed in nonconformity, when I see such a great wit play the agent so slenderly. But I will lay the blame on the weakness of the cause, not on the meanness of Mr. L.'s learning. I have been, and still am confident, that Britain cannot answer one argument, a scandalo: and I longed much to hear Mr. L. speak to the cause; and I would say, if some ordinary divine had answered as Mr. L. doth, that he understood not the nature of a scandal; but I dare not vilify that worthy man so. I am now upon the heat of some other employment. I shall (but God willing) answer this, to the satisfying of any not prejudiced.

I will not say that every one is acquainted with the reason in my letter, from God's presence and bright shining face in suffering for this cause. Aristotle never knew the medium of the conclusion: and Christ saith few know it (Rev. 2:17). I am sure that conscience standing in awe of the Almighty, and fearing to make a little hole in the bottom for fear of underwater, is a strong medium to hold off an erroneous conclusion in the least wing, or lith, of sweet, sweet truth, that concerneth the royal prerogative of our kingly and highest Lord Jesus. And my witness is in heaven, that I saw neither pleasure, nor profit, nor honour, to hook me, or catch me, in entering into prison for Christ, but the wind on my face for the present. And if I had loved to sleep in a whole skin, with the ease and present delight that I saw on this side of sun and moon, I should have lived at ease, and in good hopes to fare as well as others. The Lord knoweth that I preferred preaching of Christ, and still do, to anything, next to Christ Himself. And their new canons took my one, my only joy, from me, which was to me as the poor man's one ewe, that had no more! And, alas! there is little lodging in their hearts for pity or mercy, to pluck out a poor man's one eye for a thing indifferent; i.e. for knots of straw, and things (as they mean) off the way to heaven. I desire not that my name take journey, and go a pilgrim to Cambridge, for fear I come into the ears of authority. I am sufficiently burnt already.

In the mean time, be pleased to try if the Bishop of St. Andrews, and Glasgow (Galloway's ordinary),3 will be pleased to abate from the heat of their wrath, and let me go to my charge. Few know the heart of a prisoner; yet I hope that the Lord will hew His own glory out of as knotty timber as I am. Keep Christ, my dear and worthy Lord. Pretended paper-arguments from angering the mother-Church (that can reel, and nod, and stagger), are not of such weight as peace with the Father, and Husband. Let the wife gloom, I care not, if the Husband laugh.

Remember my service to my Lord your father, and mother, and lady. Grace be with you.

Yours at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 24, 1637.

LXXXVII.—To ELIZABETH KENNEDY

[ELIZABETH KENNEDY was the sister of Hugh Kennedy, Provost of Ayr, and a woman as eminent for piety and prayer as her brother. Wodrow records of her that, being much afflicted with the stone, she was advised to submit to a surgical operation. Several meetings for prayer took place among the godly at Ayr in reference to her case. When the surgeon came to perform the operation, one of these meetings was going on in the house, and they continued so long in prayer as nearly to exhaust his patience; but before they had concluded, the stone dissolved, and without surgical aid she obtained immediate relief. (Wodrow's "Analecta," vol. ii.)]

(DANGER OF FORMALITY—CHRIST WHOLLY TO BE LOVED—OTHER OBJECTS OF LOVE.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have long had a purpose of writing unto you, but I have been hindered. I heartily desire that ye would mind your country, and consider to what airt your soul setteth its face; for all come not home at night who suppose that they have set their face heavenward. It is a woful thing to die, and miss heaven, and to lose house-room with Christ at night: it is an evil journey where travellers are benighted in the fields. I persuade myself that thousands shall be deceived and ashamed of their hope. Because they cast their anchor in sinking sands, they must lose it. Till now I knew not the pain, labour, nor difficulty that there is to win at home: nor did I understand so well, before this, what that meaneth, "The righteous shall scarcely be saved." Oh, how many a poor professor's candle is blown out, and never lighted again! I see that ordinary profession, and to be ranked amongst the children of God, and to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry professors to heaven. But certainly a name is but a name, and will never bide a blast of God's storm. I counsel you not to give your soul or Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep, till ye have gotten something that will bide the fire, and stand out the storm. I am sure, that if my one foot were in heaven, and if then He should say, "Fend thyself, I will hold my grips of thee no longer," I should go no farther, but presently fall down in as many pieces of dead nature.

They are happy for evermore who are over head and ears in the love of Christ, and know no sickness but love-sickness for Christ, and feel no pain but the pain of an absent and hidden Well-beloved. We run our souls out of breath and tire them, in coursing and galloping after our night-dreams (such are the rovings of our miscarrying hearts), to get some created good thing in this life, and on this side of death. We would fain stay and spin out a heaven to ourselves, on this side of the water; but sorrow, want, changes, crosses, and sin, are both woof and warp in that ill-spun web. Oh, how sweet and dear are those thoughts that are still upon the things which are above! and how happy are they who are longing to have little sand in their glass, and to have time's thread cut, and can cry to Christ, "Lord Jesus, have over; come and fetch the dreary passenger!" I wish that our thoughts were more frequently than they are upon our country. Oh, but heaven casteth a sweet smell afar off to those who have spiritual smelling! God hath made many fair flowers; but the fairest of them all is heaven, and the Flower of all flowers is Christ. Oh! why do we not fly up to that lovely One? Alas that there is such a scarcity of love, and of lovers, to Christ amongst us all! Fie, fie, upon us, who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honours, and fair persons, and do not pine and melt away with love to Christ! Oh! would to God I had more love for His sake! O for as much as would lie betwixt me and heaven, for His sake! O for as much as would go round about the earth, and over the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ! But, alas! I have nothing for Him, yet He hath much for me. It is no gain to Christ that He getteth my little, feckless span-length and hand-breadth of love.

If men would have something to do with their hearts and their thoughts, that are always rolling up and down (like men with oars in a boat), after sinful vanities, they might find great and sweet employment to their thoughts upon Christ. If those frothy, fluctuating, and restless hearts of ours would come all about Christ, and look into His love, to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy, to the unsearchable riches of His grace, to inquire after and search into the beauty of God in Christ, they would be swallowed up in the depth and height, length and breadth of His goodness. Oh, if men would draw the curtains, and look into the inner side of the ark, and behold how the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in Him bodily! Oh! who would not say, "Let me die, let me die ten times, to see a sight of Him?" Ten thousand deaths were no great price to give for Him. I am sure that sick, fainting love would heighten the market, and raise the price to the double for Him. But, alas! if men and angels were rouped, and sold at the dearest price, they would not all buy a night's love, or a four-and-twenty-hours' sight of Christ! Oh, how happy are they who get Christ for nothing! God send me no more, for my part of paradise, but Christ: and surely I were rich enough, and as well heavened as the best of them, if Christ were my heaven.

I can write no better thing to you, than to desire you, if ever ye laid Christ in a count, to take Him up and count over again: and weigh Him again and again: and after this have no other to court your love, and to woo your soul's delight, but Christ. He will be found worthy of all your love, howbeit it should swell upon you from the earth to the uppermost circle of the heaven of heavens. To our Lord Jesus and His love I commend you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXVIII.—To JANET KENNEDY

[This seems to be the wife of Mr. John Fergushill; see Letter CXII.]

(CHRIST TO BE KEPT AT EVERY SACRIFICE—HIS INCOMPARABLE LOVELINESS.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Ye are not a little obliged to His rich grace, who hath separated you for Himself, and for the promised inheritance with the saints in light, from this condemned and guilty world. Hold fast Christ, contend for Him; it is a lawful plea to go to holding and drawing for Christ; and it is not possible to keep Christ peaceably, having once gotten Him, except the devil were dead. It must be your resolution to set your face against Satan's northern tempests and storms, for salvation. Nature would have heaven to come to us while sleeping in our beds. We would all buy Christ, so being we might make price ourselves. But Christ is worth more blood and lives than either ye or I have to give Him. When we shall come home, and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome-home to heaven. Oh, what then shall be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses! Oh, how weighty, and of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles be! Oh, when once He shall thrust a wearied traveller's head betwixt His blessed breasts, the poor soul will think one kiss of Christ hath fully paid home forty or fifty years' wet feet, and all its sore hearts, and light (2 Cor. 4:17) sufferings it had in following after Christ! Oh, thrice-blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with dreams, shadows, feckless things, night-vanities, and night-fancies of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us who sit still, fettered with the love and liking of the loan of a piece of dead clay! Oh, poor fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair weather, and smooth promises, and rotten, worm-eaten hopes! May not the devil laugh to see us give out our souls, and get in but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin? O for a sight of eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage-supper! Half a draught, or a drop of the wine of consolation, that is up at our banqueting-house, out of Christ's own hand, would make our stomachs loathe the brown bread and the sour drink of a miserable life. Oh, how far are we bereaved of wit, to chafe, and hunt, and run, till our souls be out of breath, after a condemned happiness of our own making! And do we not sit far in our own light to make it a matter of bairn's play, to skink and drink over paradise, and the heaven that Christ did sweat for, even for a blast of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast? O that we were out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and crucified to us! And, when we should be close out of love and conceit of any masked and farded lover whatsoever, then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the inmost yolk of our heart. Then Christ should be our night-song and morning-song; then the very noise and din of our Well-beloved's feet, when He cometh, and His first knock or rap at the door, should be as news of two heavens to us. O that our eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sun-burnt flower, even this plastered, fair-outsided world: and then we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! Oh, let some of us die to smell the fragrance of Him; and let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for evermore, providing I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ! I know that it is sometimes at this, "Lord, what wilt Thou have for Christ?" But, O Lord, canst Thou be budded, and propined with any gift for Christ? O Lord, can Christ be sold? or rather, may not a poor needy sinner have Him for nothing? If I can get no more, oh, let me be pained to all eternity, with longing for Him! The joy of hungering for Christ should be my heaven for evermore. Alas, that I cannot draw souls and Christ together! But I desire the coming of His kingdom, and that Christ, as I assuredly hope He will, would come upon withered Scotland, as rain upon the new-mown grass. Oh, let the King come! Oh, let His kingdom come! Oh, let their eyes rot in their eyeholes (Zech. 14:12), who will not receive Him home again to reign and rule in Scotland. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXIX.—To my Well-beloved and Reverend Brother, MR. ROBERT BLAIR

[MR. ROBERT BLAIR was born at Irvine in 1593. After completing his education at the College of Glasgow, he there held for several years the office of regent, during which time he was licensed as a probationer for the holy ministry. Having a strong desire to go to France, he was encouraged to this by M. Basnage, a French Protestant minister who visited Scotland in 1622. But Providence ordered his lot otherwise. He was induced to accept of the charge of Bangor, in Ireland, and was admitted in the year 1623. Here he laboured with great diligence and success; and there being in the same part of the country several other devout ministers, by mutual co-operation, they were instrumental in producing in the north of Ireland a change upon an ignorant and irreligious people, much resembling the effects of the preaching of the Gospel in the apostolic age. But this good work was not allowed to go on unopposed. In the autumn of 1631 he was suspended from his ministry by the Bishop of Down; in May 1632 he was deposed; and in November 1634 solemnly excommunicated; and all this simply for nonconformity. In these circumstances, he and some other ministers similarly situated, together with a considerable number of people, formed the purpose of going to New England, and actually embarked in 1636; but the tempestuous state of the weather forced them to return. He then came over to Scotland, and in 1638 became minister of Ayr, from which by a sentence of the General Assembly he was soon translated to St. Andrews, where he and Rutherford lived in the warmest friendship until the rise of the controversy between the Resolutioners and Protesters, which in some degree disturbed their mutual good understanding. Rutherford was a strong Protester: Blair regretted the extremes, as he conceived, to which both parties went; and, with Mr. James Durham of Glasgow, endeavoured to restore harmony between them, but without success. In 1661 he was summoned before the Privy Council for a sermon he had preached, in which he bore testimony to the covenanted Reformation, as well as against the defections of the times. He was sentenced to be confined to his own house, but afterwards permitted to retire to Musselburgh. He next removed to Kirkcaldy, and from thence to Meikle Couston, in the parish of Aberdour, where he died on the 27th of April 1666. (See Life of Robert Blair, issued by the Wodrow Society, 1848.)]

(GOD'S ARRANGEMENTS SOMETIMES MYSTERIOUS.)

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be unto you.

It is no great wonder, my dear brother, that ye be in heaviness for a season, and that God's will (in crossing your design and desires to dwell amongst a people whose God is the Lord) should move you. I deny not but ye have cause to inquire what His providence speaketh in this to you; but God's directing and commanding Will can by no good logic be concluded from events of providence. The Lord sent Paul on many errands for the spreading of His Gospel, where he found lions in his way. A promise was made to His people of the Holy Land, and yet many nations were in the way, fighting against, and ready to kill them that had the promise, or to keep them from possessing that good land which the Lord their God had given them. I know that ye have most to do with submission of spirit; but I persuade myself that ye have learned, in every condition wherein ye are cast, therein to be content, and to say, "Good is the will of the Lord, let it be done." I believe that the Lord tacketh His ship often to fetch the wind, and that He purposeth to bring mercy out of your sufferings and silence, which (I know from mine own experience) is grievous to you. Seeing that He knoweth our willing mind to serve Him, our wages and stipend is running to the fore with our God, even as some sick soldiers get pay, when they are bedfast and not able to go to the field with others. "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength" (Isa. 49:5). And we are to believe it shall be thus ere all the play be played. "The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon" (and the great whore's lovers), "shall the inhabitants of Zion say; and my blood be upon Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say." And, "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: they that burden themselves with it shall be broken in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." When they have eaten and swallowed us up, they shall be sick and vomit us out living men again; the devil's stomach cannot digest the Church of God. Suffering is the other half of our ministry, howbeit the hardest; for we would be content that our King Jesus should make an open proclamation, and cry down crosses, and cry up joy, gladness, ease, honour, and peace. But it must not be so; through many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God. Not only by them, but through them, must we go; and wiles will not take us past the cross. It is folly to think to steal to heaven with a whole skin.

For myself, I am here a prisoner confined in Aberdeen, threatened to be removed to Caithness, because I desire to edify in this town; and am openly preached against in the pulpits in my hearing, and tempted with disputations by the doctors, especially by D. B. Yet I am not ashamed of the Lord Jesus, His garland, and His crown. I would not exchange my weeping with the painted laughter of the fourteen prelates. At my first coming here I took the dorts at Christ, and would, forsooth, summon Him for unkindness. I sought a plea of my Lord, and was tossed with challenges whether He loved me or not; and disputed over again all that He had done to me, because His word was a fire shut up in my bowels, and I was weary with forbearing, because I said I was cast out of the Lord's inheritance. But now I see that I was a fool. My Lord miskent all, and did bear with my foolish jealousies; and miskent that ever I wronged His love. And now He has come again with mercy under His wings. I pass from my (oh witless!) summons: He is God, I see, and I am man. Now it hath pleased Him to renew His love to my soul, and to dawt His poor prisoner. Therefore, dear brother, help me to praise and show the Lord's people with you what He hath done to my soul, that they may pray and praise. And I charge you in the name of Christ, not to omit it. For this cause I write to you, that my sufferings may glorify my royal King, and edify His Church in Ireland. He knoweth how one of Christ's love coals hath burnt my soul with a desire to have my bonds to preach His glory, whose cross I now bear. God forgive you if you do it not; but I hope the Lord will move your heart, to proclaim in my behalf the sweetness, excellency, and glory of my royal King. It is but our soft flesh that hath raised a slander on the Cross of Christ: I see now the white side of it; my Lord's chains are all over-gilded. Oh, if Scotland and Ireland had part of my feast! And yet I get not my meat but with many strokes. There are none here to whom I can speak; I dwell in Kedar's tents. Refresh me with a letter from you. Few know what is betwixt Christ and me.

Dear brother, upon my salvation, this is His truth that we suffer for. Christ would not seal a blank charter to souls. Courage, courage! joy, joy for evermore! Oh, joy unspeakable and glorious! O for help to set my crowned King on high! O for love to Him who is altogether lovely,—that love which many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown!

I remember you, and bear your name on my breast to Christ I beseech you, forget not His afflicted prisoner. Grace, mercy, and peace be with you. Salute in the Lord, from me, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Livingstone, Mr. Ridge, Mr. Colwart,2 &c.

Your brother, and fellow-prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 7, 1637.

XC.—To his Reverend and Dear Brother, MR. JOHN LIVINGSTONE

[JOHN LIVINGSTONE (the son of Alexander Livingstone, minister first at Monyabroch or Kilsyth, and afterwards at Lanark) was born at Monyabroch on the 21st of January 1603. At the College of Glasgow, he enjoyed the advantage of having as his regent for two years the famous Robert Blair; for whom he continued ever after to retain the highest veneration. He was first settled minister at Killinchie, in Ireland, towards the close of the year 1630, but had not laboured above twelve months in that charge when he was suspended by the Bishop of Down, for nonconformity. To enjoy religious liberty, he set out with Mr. Blair and others in their intended, emigration to America; but, with the rest, was forced by the adverse state of the weather to return. Shortly after, he received calls from two parishes, Stranraer and Stewarton, but preferred the call from the former, and his induction took place on the 5th of July 1638. Here he continued in the assiduous discharge of his pastoral functions until 1648, when, by the sentence of the General Assembly, he was translated to the parish of Ancrum, in the Presbytery of Jedburgh. Upon the death of Charles I., he was sent to the Hague, and afterwards to Breda, as one of the commissioners from the Church of Scotland to treat with his son Charles II., whose character he had the penetration to discover. In the controversy between the Resolutioners and Protesters, Livingstone took the side of the latter, but was dissatisfied with the violence manifested by his party. After the restoration of Charles II., being summoned to appear before the Privy Council in 1662, he appeared; but, declining to engage to observe the anniversary of the death of Charles I., and to take the oath of allegiance in the precise way in which it was dictated to him, he was sentenced to quit his native land within two months. Having repaired to Rotterdam, he preached occasionally to the Scottish congregation there, and devoted the remainder of his life to the cultivation of Biblical literature. He died in that city on the 9th of August 1672, in the seventieth year of his age.

It was this same Livingstone that was so blessed in awakenings. By a sermon which he preached in 1630 at the Kirk-of-Shotts, on the Monday after the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, five hundred souls, it is believed, were converted. On a similar occasion, at Holywood, in the north of Ireland, in one day, he was the instrument of awakening double that number to inquiry after salvation. (See Brief Historical Relation of the Life of John Livingston in "Select Biographies," vol. i., Wodrow Society, 1845.)]

(RESIGNATION—ENJOYMENT—STATE OF THE CHURCH.)

MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear from you, and to be refreshed with the comforts of The Bride of our Lord Jesus in Ireland. I suffer with you in grief, for the dash that your desires to be at New England have received of late; but if our Lord, who hath skill to bring up His children, had not seen it your best, it would not have befallen you. Hold your peace, and stay yourselves upon the Holy One of Israel. Hearken to what He hath said in crossing of your desires; He will speak peace to His people.

I am here removed from my flock, and silenced, and confined in Aberdeen, for the testimony of Jesus. And I have been confined in spirit also with desertions and challenges. I gave in a bill of quarrels, and complaints of unkindness against Christ, who seemed to have cast me over the dyke of the vineyard as a dry tree, and separated me from the Lord's inheritance; but high, high and loud praises be to our royal crowned King in Zion, that He hath not burnt the dry branch. I shall yet live, and see His glory.

Your mother-Church, for her whoredom, is like to be cast off. The bairns may break their hearts to see such chiding betwixt the husband and the wife. Our clergy is upon a reconciliation with the Lutherans; and the Doctors are writing books, and drawing up a common confession, at the Council's command. Our Service Book is proclaimed with sound of trumpet. The night is fallen down upon the prophets! Scotland's day of visitation is come. It is time for the bride to weep, while Christ is a-saying that He will choose another wife. But our sky will clear again; the dry branch of cut-down Lebanon will bud again and be glorious, and they shall yet plant vines upon our mountains.

Now, my dear brother, I write to you for this end, that ye may help me to praise; and seek help of others with you, that God may be glorified in my bonds. My Lord Jesus hath taken the withered, dry stranger, and His prisoner broken in heart, into His house of wine. Oh, oh, if ye, and all Scotland, and all our brethren with you, knew how I am feasted! Christ's honey-combs drop comforts. He dineth with His prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a smell. The devil cannot get it denied that we suffer for the apple of Christ's eye, His royal prerogatives, as King and Lawgiver. Let us not fear or faint. He will have His Gospel once again rouped in Scotland, and have the matter going to voices, to see who will say, "Let Christ be crowned King in Scotland." It is true that Antichrist stirreth his tail; but I love a rumbling and raging devil in the kirk (since the Church militant cannot or may not want a devil to trouble her), rather than a subtle or sleeping devil. Christ never yet got a bride without stroke of sword. It is now nigh the Bridegroom's entering into His chamber; let us awake and go in with Him.

I bear your name to Christ's door; I pray you, dear brother, forget me not. Let me hear from you by a letter; and I charge you, smother not Christ's bounty towards me. I write what I have found of Him in the house of my pilgrimage. Remember my love to all our brethren and sisters there.

The Keeper of the vineyard watch for His besieged city, and for you.

Your brother, and fellow-sufferer,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 7, 1637.

XCI—To MR. EPHRAIM MELVIN

[EPHRAIM MELVIN, or MELVILLE, was first ordained minister of Queensferry, and afterwards translated to Linlithgow, where he died. His ministry was signally blessed of God for bringing many to the saving knowledge of the truth, among whom were some who afterwards became eminent ministers of the Gospel in their day. One of these was the famous Mr. James Durham of Glasgow. Happening, with his pious wife, a daughter of the laird of Duntervie, to pay a visit to her mother, also a religious woman, in Queensferry, when the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to be observed in that place, his mother-in-law, upon the Saturday, desired him to go with her to hear sermon. Being then a stranger to true religion, he was disinclined to go, and said, with a tone of indifference, "that he had not come there to hear sermon;" but upon being pressed, to gratify his pious relative, he went. The discourse which he heard, though plain and ordinary, was delivered with an affection and earnestness that arrested the attention of Durham, and so impressed him, that on coming home he said to his mother-in-law, "Your minister preached very seriously, and I shall not need to be pressed to go to hear to-morrow." Accordingly he went, and Mr. Melvin, choosing for his text these words, "To you which believe, He is precious," 1 Peter 2:7, opened up the preciousness of Christ with such unction and seriousness, that it proved, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the means of his conversion. In that sermon he closed with Christ, and then took his seat at the Lord's Table, though to that day he had been an absolute stranger to believing. He was accustomed afterwards to call Mr. Melvin his father, when he spoke of him or to him. On another occasion, Mr. Melvin, by a sermon which he preached at Stewarton, when a probationer and chaplain to the excellent Lady Boyd, was the instrument of converting Mr. John Stirling in the fourteenth or sixteenth year of his age—one who proved a useful minister in his day, "Some say also," remarks Wodrow, "that he was a spiritual father to Mr. John Dury of Dalmeny, a man much esteemed of in his time, as having a taking and soaring gift of preaching, much like Mr. William Guthrie's gift." When Rutherford heard of Melvin's death, he is represented to have said, "And is Ephraim dead? He was an interpreter among a thousand." (Wodrow's "Anal.," vol. iii.)]

(THE IDOLATRY OF KNEELING AT THE COMMUNION.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I received your letter, and am contented, with all my heart, that our acquaintance in our Lord continue.

I am wrestling as I dow, up the mount with Christ's cross: my Second is kind and able to help.

As for your questions, because of my manifold distractions, and letters to multitudes, I have not time to answer them. What shall be said in common for that shall be imparted to you; for I am upon these questions. Therefore spare me a little, for the Service Book would take a great time. But I think; "Sicut deosculatio religiosa imaginis, aut etiam elementorum, est in se idololatria externa, etsi intentio deosculandi, tota, quanta in actu est, feratur in Deum πρωτοτυπὸν; ita, geniculatio coram pane, quando, nempe, ex instituto, totus homo externus et internus versari debeat circa elementaria signa, est adoratio relativa, et adoratio ipsius panis. Ratio: Intentio adorandi objectum materiale, non est de essentiâ externæ adorationis, ut patet in deosculatione religiosâ. Sic geniculatio coram imagine Babylonicâ est externa adoratio imaginis, etsi tres pueri mente intendissent adorare Jehovam. Sic, qui ex metu solo, aut spe pretii, aut inanis gloriæ, geniculatur coram aureo vitulo Jeroboami (quod ab ipso rege, qui nullâ religione inductus, sed libidine dominandi tantum, vitulum erexit, factitatum esse, textus satis luculenter clamat), adorat vitulum externâ adoratione. Esto quod putaret vitulum esse meram creaturam, et honore nullo dignum: quia geniculatio, sive nos nolumus, sive volumus, ex instituto Dei et naturæ, in actu religioso, est symbolum religiosæ adorationis. Ergo, sicut panis significat corpus Christi, etsi absit actus omnis nostræ intentionis; sic religiosa geniculatio, sublatâ omni intentione humanâ, est externa adoratio panis, coram quo adoramus, ut coram signo vicario et repræsentativo Dei. [As the religious homage done to an image, or even to elements, is in itself an external act of idolatry, in so far as the act is concerned, although the intention of such homage may be directed to God the Great First Cause,—so the act of kneeling to a piece of bread, seeing that, according to the ordinance, the whole man, internal and external, ought to be engaged in the elementary signs, is a relative act of worship and an adoration of the bread itself. The reason is: an intention to worship a material object is not of the essence of external adoration, as appears in a religious act of homage. Thus, the bending of the knee before the Babylonish image is an external act of worship, even though the three youths had no intention to worship any but the true God; and in like manner, those who, from fear or the hope of reward or vain-glory, bend the knee to Jeroboam's golden calf (which the text clearly enough proclaims to have been done by the king himself, from no religious motive but the mere desire to rule), do pay adoration to the calf by the external act, although, no doubt, they may suppose the calf a mere created object and unworthy of honour,—because the act of homage, whether we mean it or not, is, from the ordinance of God and nature, a symbol of worship. Therefore, as the bread denotes the body of Christ (even though that idea be not present to the mind), so in like manner, kneeling, when used as a religious service, is the external adoration of that bread, in presence of which we bow as before the delegated representative of God, be our intention what it may.]

Thus recommending you to God's tender mercy, I desire that you would remember me to God. Sanctification will settle you most in the truth.

Grace be with you, Brother in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

XCII.—To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex

(VISITS OF CHRIST—THE THINGS WHICH AFFLICTION TEACHES.)

MY VERY WORTHY AND DEAR FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Though all Galloway should have forgotten me, I would have expected a letter from you ere now; but I will not expound it to be forgetfulness of me.

Now, my dear brother, I cannot show you how matters go betwixt Christ and me. I find my Lord going and coming seven times a day. His visits are short; but they are both frequent and sweet. I dare not for my life think of a challenge of my Lord. I hear ill tales, and hard reports of Christ, from The Tempter and my flesh; but love believeth no evil. I may swear that they are liars, and that apprehensions make lies of Christ's honest and unalterable love to me. I dare not say that I am a dry tree, or that I have no room at all in the vineyard; but yet I often think that the sparrows are blessed, who may resort to the house of God in Anwoth, from which I am banished.

Temptations, that I supposed to be stricken dead and laid upon their back, rise again and revive upon me; yea, I see that while I live, temptations will not die. The devil seemeth to brag and boast as much as if he had more court with Christ than I have; and as if he had charmed and blasted my ministry, that I shall do no more good in public. But his wind shaketh no corn. I will not believe that Christ would have made such a mint to have me to Himself, and have taken so much pains upon me as He hath done, and then slip so easily from possession, and lose the glory of what He hath done. Nay, since I came to Aberdeen, I have been taken up to see the new land, the fair palace of the Lamb; and will Christ let me see heaven, to break my heart, and never give it to me? I shall not think my Lord Jesus giveth a dumb earnest, or putteth His seals to blank paper, or intendeth to put me off with fair and false promises. I see that now which I never saw well before. (1.) I see faith's necessity in a fair day is never known aright; but now I miss nothing so much as faith. Hunger in me runneth to fair and sweet promises; but when I come, I am like a hungry man that wanteth teeth, or a weak stomach having a sharp appetite that is filled with the very sight of meat, or like one stupefied with cold under the water, that would fain come to land, but cannot grip anything casten to him. I can let Christ grip me, but I cannot grip Him. I love to be kissed, and to sit on Christ's knee; but I cannot set my feet to the ground, for afflictions bring the cramp upon my faith. All that I dow do is to hold out a lame faith to Christ, like a beggar holding out a stump, instead of an arm or leg, and cry, "Lord Jesus, work a miracle!" Oh, what would I give to have hands and arms to grip strongly, and fold heartsomely about Christ's neck, and to have my claim made good with real possession! I think that my love to Christ hath feet in abundance, and runneth swiftly to be at Him, but it wanteth hands and fingers to apprehend Him. I think that I would give Christ every morning my blessing, to have as much faith as I have love and hunger; at least, I miss faith more than love or hunger.

(2.) I see that mortification, and to be crucified to the world, is not so highly accounted of by us as it should be. Oh, how heavenly a thing it is to be dead, and dumb, and deaf to this world's sweet music! I confess it hath pleased His Majesty to make me laugh at the children, who are wooing this world for their match. I see men lying about the world, as nobles about a king's court; and I wonder what they are all doing there. As I am at this present, I would scorn to court such a feckless and petty princess, or buy this world's kindness with a bow of my knee. I scarce now either hear or see what it is that this world offereth me; I know that it is little which it can take from me, and as little that it can give me. I recommend mortification to you above anything; for, alas! we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire our own spirits for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me see within this short time is worth a world of worlds.

(3.) I thought courage, in the time of trouble for Christ's sake, a thing that I might take up at my foot. I thought that the very remembrance of the honesty of the cause would be enough. But I was a fool in so thinking. I have much ado now to win to one smile. But I see that joy groweth up in heaven, and it is above our short arm. Christ will be steward and dispenser Himself, and none else but He; therefore, now, I count much of one dramweight of spiritual joy. One smile of Christ's face is now to me as a kingdom; and yet He is no niggard to me of comforts. Truly I have no cause to say that I am pinched with penury, or that the consolations of Christ are dried up: for He hath poured down rivers upon a dry wilderness the like of me, to my admiration; and in my very swoonings, He holdeth up my head, and stayeth me with flagons of wine, and comforteth me with apples. My house and bed are strewed with kisses of love. Praise, praise with me. Oh, if ye and I betwixt us could lift up Christ upon His throne, howbeit all Scotland should cast Him down to the ground!

My brother's case toucheth me near. I hope that ye will be kind to him, and give him your best counsel.

Remember my love to your brother, to your wife, and G. M. Desire him to be faithful, and to repent of his hypocrisy; and say that I wrote it to you. I wish him salvation. Write to me your mind anent C. E. and C. Y., and their wives, and I. G., or any others in my parish. I fear that I am forgotten amongst them; but I cannot forget them.

The prisoner's prayers and blessings come upon you. Grace, grace be with you.

Your brother, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 9, 1637.

XCIII.—To the Honourable and truly Noble Lady, the VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(GOD'S DEALINGS WITH SCOTLAND—THE EYE TO BE DIRECTED HEAVENWARD.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.—I long to hear from you.

I am here waiting, if a good wind, long looked for, will at length blow into Christ's sails, in this land. But I wonder if Jesus be not content to suffer more yet in His members and cause, and in the beauty of His house, rather than He should not be avenged upon this land. I hear that many worthy men, who see more in the Lord's dealings than I can take up with my dim sight, are of a contrary mind, and do believe that the Lord is coming home again to His house in Scotland. I hope He is on His journey that way; yet I look not but that He will feed this land with their own blood, before He establish His throne amongst us.

I know that your honour is not looking after things here-away. Ye have no great cause to think that your stock and principal is under the roof of these visible heavens; and I hope that ye would think yourself a beguiled and cozened soul if it were so. I should be sorry to counsel your Ladyship to make a covenant with time, and this life; but rather desire you to hold in fair generals, and afar off from this ill-founded heaven that is on this side of the water. It speaketh somewhat when our Lord bloweth the bloom off our daft hopes in this life, and loppeth the branches off our worldly joys, well nigh the root, on purpose that they should not thrive. Lord, spill my fool's heaven in this life, that I may be saved for ever. A forfeiture of the saint's part of the yolk and marrow of short-laughing worldly happiness, is not such a real evil as our blinded eyes conceive.

I am thinking long now for some deliverance more than before. But I know I am in an error. It is possible I am not come to that measure of trial which the Lord is seeking in His work. If my friends in Galloway would effectually do for my deliverance, I should exceedingly rejoice; but I know not but the Lord hath a way whereof He will be the only reaper of praises.

Let me know with the bearer how the child is. The Lord be his father and tutor, and your only comforter. There is nothing here, where I am, but profanity and atheism. Grace, grace, be with your Ladyship.

Your Ladyship's, at all obliged obedience, in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 13, 1637.

XCIV.—To the Noble and Christian Lady, the VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(THE TIMES—CHRIST'S SWEETNESS IN TROUBLE—LONGING AFTER HIM.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I would not omit the occasion to write to your Ladyship with the bearer. I am glad that the child is well. God's favour, even in the eyes of men, be seen upon him!

I hope that your Ladyship is thinking upon these sad and woful days wherein we now live, when our Lord, in His righteous judgment, is sending the kirk the gate she is going to Rome's brothel-house to seek a lover of her own, seeing that she hath given up with Christ her Husband. Oh, what sweet comfort, what rich salvation, is laid up for those who had rather wash and roll their garments in their own blood, than break out from Christ by apostacy! Keep yourself in the love of Christ, and stand far aback from the pollutions of the world. Side not with these times; and hold off from coming nigh the signs of a conspiracy with those that are now come out against Christ, that ye may be one kept for Christ only. I know that your Ladyship thinketh upon this, and how you may be humbled for yourself and this backsliding land; for I avouch, that wrath from the Lord is gone out against Scotland. I think aye the longer the better of my royal and worthy Master. He is become a new Well-beloved to me now, in renewed consolations, by the presence of the Spirit of grace and glory. Christ's garments smell of the powder of the merchant, when He cometh out of His ivory chambers. Oh, His perfumed face, His fair face, His lovely and kindly kisses, have made me, a poor prisoner, see that there is more to be had of Christ in this life than I believed! We think all is but a little earnest, a four-hours, a small tasting, that we have, or that is to be had, in this life (which is true compared with the inheritance); but yet I know it is more: it is the kingdom of God within us. Wo, wo is me, that I have not ten loves for that one Lord Jesus; and that love faileth, and drieth up in loving Him; and that I find no way to spend my love desires, and the yolk of my heart upon that fairest and dearest One. I am far behind with my narrow heart. Oh, how ebb a soul have I to take in Christ's love! for let worlds be multiplied, according to angels' understanding, in millions, while they weary themselves, these worlds would not contain the thousandth part of His love. Oh, if I could yoke in amongst the thick of angels, and seraphims, and now glorified saints, and could raise a new love-song of Christ, before all the world! I am pained with wondering at new-opened treasures in Christ. If every finger, member, bone, and joint, were a torch burning in the hottest fire in hell, I would that they could all send out love praises, high songs of praise for evermore, to that Plant of Renown, to that royal and high Prince, Jesus my Lord. But alas! His love swelleth in me, and findeth no vent. Alas! what can a dumb prisoner do or say for Him! O for an ingine to write a book of Christ and His love! Nay, I am left of Him bound and chained with His love. I cannot find a loosed soul to lift up His praises, and give them out to others. But oh! my day-light hath thick clouds; I cannot shine in His praises. I am often like a ship plying about to seek the wind; I sail at great leisure, and cannot be blown upon that loveliest Lord. Oh, if I could turn my sails to Christ's right airth, and that I had my heart's wishes of His love! But I but mar His praises: nay, I know no comparison of what Christ is, and what His worth is. All the angels, and all the glorified, praise Him not so much as in halves. Who can advance Him, or utter all His praises? I want nothing; unknown faces favour me; enemies must speak good of the truth; my Master's cause purchaseth commendations.

The hopes of my enlargement, from appearances, are cold. My faith hath no bed to sleep upon but omnipotency. The good-will of the Lord, and His sweetest presence, be with you and that child. Grace and peace be yours.

Your Ladyship's, in all duty in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

XCV.—To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, the VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(CHRIST'S CROSS SWEET—HIS COMING TO BE DESIRED—JEALOUS OF ANY RIVAL.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship. I would not omit to write a line with this Christian bearer; one in your Ladyship's own case, driven near to Christ, in and by her affliction. I wish that my friends in Galloway forget me not. However it be, Christ is so good, I will have no other tutor, suppose I could have wale and choice of ten thousand beside. I think now five hundred heavy hearts for Him too little. I wish that Christ, now weeping, suffering, and contemned of men, were more dear and desirable to many souls than He is. I am sure that if the saints wanted Christ's cross, so profitable, and so sweet, they might, for the gain and glory of it, wish it were lawful either to buy or borrow His cross. But it is a mercy that the saints have it laid to their hand for nothing; for I know no sweeter way to heaven than through free grace and hard trials together; and one of these cannot well want another.

O that time would post faster, and hasten our looked-for communion with that fairest, fairest among the sons of men! O that the day would favour us and come, and put Christ and us into each other's arms! I am sure that a few years will do our turn, and the soldier's hour-glass will soon run out. Madam, look to your lamp, and look for your Lord's Coming, and let your heart dwell aloof from that sweet child. Christ's jealousy will not admit of two equal loves in your Ladyship's heart. He must have one, and that the greatest; a little one to a creature may and must suffice a soul married to Him. "Thy Maker is thine Husband" (Isa. 54:5). I would wish you well, and my obligations these many years byegone speak no less to me; but more I can neither wish, nor pray, nor desire for your Ladyship, than Christ singled and waled out from all created good things, or Christ howbeit wet in His own blood, and wearing a crown of thorns. I am sure that the saints, at their best, are but strangers to the weight and worth of the incomparable sweetness of Christ. He is so new, so fresh in excellency every day of new, to those that search more and more in Him, as if heaven could furnish us as many new Christs (if I may so speak) as there are days betwixt Him and us; and yet He one and the same. Oh, we love an unknown lover when we love Christ!

Let me hear how the child is every way. The prayers of a prisoner of Christ be upon him. Grace for evermore, even whill glory perfect it, be with your Ladyship.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

XCVI.—To the Noble and Christian Lady, the VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(CHRIST ALL WORTHY—ANWOTH.)

MADAM,—Notwithstanding the great haste of the bearer, I would bless your Ladyship on paper, desiring, that since Christ hath ever envied that the world should have your love by Him, that ye give yourself out for Christ, and that ye may be for no other. I know none worthy of you but Christ.

Madam, I am either suffering for Christ, and this is the sure and good way; or, I have done with heaven, and shall never see God's face, which, I bless Him, cannot be.

I write my blessing to that sweet child, that ye have borrowed from God. He is no heritage to you, but a loan; love him as folks do borrowed things. My heart is heavy for you.

They say that the kirk of Christ hath neither son nor heir, and therefore that her enemies shall possess her. But I know that she is not that ill-friended; her Husband is her heir, and she His heritage.

If my Lord would be pleased, I should desire that some be dealt with, for my return to Anwoth. But if that never be, I thank God Anwoth is not heaven; preaching is not Christ. I hope to wait on.

Let me hear how your child is, and your Ladyship's mind and hopes of him; for it would ease my heart to know that he is well.

I am in good terms with Christ; but oh, my guiltiness! Yet He bringeth not pleas betwixt Him and me to the streets, and before the sun.

Grace, grace for ever more be with your Ladyship.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

XCVII.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlston

(CHRIST ENDEARED BY BITTER EXPERIENCES—SEARCHINGS OF HEART—FEAR FOR THE CHURCH.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter, which refreshed me. Except from your son, and my brother, I have seen few letters from my acquaintance in that country; which maketh me heavy. But I have the company of a Lord who can teach us all to be kind, and hath the right gate of it. Though, for the present, I have seven ups and downs every day, yet I am abundantly comforted and feasted with my King and Well-beloved daily. It pleaseth Him to come and dine with a sad prisoner, and a solitary stranger. His spikenard casteth a smell. Yet my sweet hath some sour mixed with it, wherein I must acquiesce; for there is no reason that His comforts be too cheap, seeing they are delicates. Why should He not make them so to His own? But I verily think now, that Christ hath led me up to a nick in Christianity that I was never at before; I think all before was but childhood and bairn's play. Since I departed from you, I have been scalded, whill the smoke of hell's fire went in at my throat, and I would have bought peace with a thousand years' torment in hell; and I have been up also, after these deep down-castings and sorrows, before the Lamb's white throne, in my Father's inner court, the Great King's dining-hall. And Christ did cast a covering of love on me. He hath casten a coal into my soul, and it is smoking among the straw and keeping the hearth warm. I look back to what I was before, and I laugh to see the sand-houses I built when I was a child.

At first the remembrance of the many fair feast-days with my Lord Jesus in public, which are now changed into silent Sabbaths, raised a great tempest, and (if I may speak so) made the devil ado in my soul. The devil came in, and would prompt me to make a plea with Christ, and to lay the blame on Him as a hard master. But now these mists are blown away, and I am not only silenced as to all quarrelling, but fully satisfied. Now, I wonder that any man living can laugh upon the world, or give it a hearty good-day. The Lord Jesus hath handled me so, that, as I am now disposed, I think never to be in this world's commons again for a night's lodging. Christ beareth me good company. He hath eased me, when I saw it not, lifting the cross off my shoulders, so that I think it to be but a feather, because underneath are everlasting arms. God forbid it come to bartering or nifferings of crosses; for I think my cross so sweet, that I know not where I would get the like of it. Christ's honey-combs drop so abundantly, that they sweeten my gall. Nothing breaketh my heart, but that I cannot get the daughters of Jerusalem to tell them of my Bridegroom's glory. I charge you in the name of Christ, that ye tell all that ye come to of it; and yet it is above telling and understanding. Oh, if all the kingdom were as I am, except my bonds! They know not the love-kisses that my only Lord Jesus wasteth on a dawted prisoner. On my salvation, this is the only way to the New City. I know that Christ hath no dumb seals. Would He put His privy-seal upon blank paper? He hath sealed my sufferings with His comforts. I write this to confirm you. I write now what I have seen as well as heard. Now and then my silence burneth up my spirit; but Christ hath said, "Thy stipend is running up with interest in heaven, as if thou wert preaching;" and this from a King's mouth rejoiceth my heart. At other times I am sad, dwelling in Kedar's tents.

There are none (that I yet know of) but two persons in this town that I dare give my word for. And the Lord hath removed my brethren and my acquaintance far from me; and it may be, that I shall be forgotten in the place where the Lord made me the instrument to do some good. But I see that this is vanity in me; let Him make of me what He pleaseth, if He make salvation out of it to me. I am tempted and troubled, that all the fourteen prelates should have been armed of God against me only, while the rest of my brethren are still preaching. But I dare not say one word but this, "It is good, Lord Jesus, because Thou hast done it."

Wo is me for the virgin-daughter! wo is me for the desolation of the virgin-daughter of Scotland! Oh, if my eyes were a fountain of tears, to weep day and night for that poor widow-kirk, that poor miserable harlot! Alas, that my Father hath put to the door on my poor harlot-mother! O for that cloud of black wrath, and fury of the indignation of the Lord, that is hanging over the land!

Sir, write to me, I beseech you. I pray you also be kind to my afflicted brother. Remember my love to your wife; and the prayer and blessing of the prisoner of Christ be on you. Frequent your meetings for prayer and communion with God: they would be sweet meetings to me.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 16, 1637.

XCVIII.—To The Worthy and much Honoured MR. ALEXANDER COLVILLE of Blair

[ALEXANDER COLVILLE of Blair (which is in the parish of Carnock, Fifeshire) early commended himself to the gratitude of Rutherford by befriending him under prelatic persecutions. When Rutherford in 1630 was summoned before the High Commission Court, this gentleman, being one of the judges, exerted himself in his behalf; and his influence, together with the absence of the Archbishop of St Andrews, occasioned the desertion of the diet, and put a stop to the proceedings against the obnoxious minister. (See Letter XI.) As we learn from this letter, he also showed much kindness to Rutherford's brother on his trial before the High Commission in November 1636, for his nonconformity and zealous support of Mr Glendinning, the injured minister of Kirkcudbright. Colville was an elder of the Church, and his name appears on the roll of the members of the General Assemblies 1645, 1646, 1648, and 1649, and of the Commissions appointed by these Assemblies. We find him after this, in co-operation with another individual, delating Mr. Robert Bruce, minister of Ballagray, of which they were parishioners, on the ground that they were not edified by his doctrine.]

(INCREASING EXPERIENCE OF CHRIST'S LOVE—GOD WITH HIS SAINTS.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. The bearer hereof, Mr. R. F., is most kind to me; I desire you to thank him. But none is so kind as my only royal King and Master, whose cross is my garland. The King dineth with His prisoner, and His spikenard casteth a smell. He hath led me up to such a pitch and nick of joyful communion with Himself, as I never knew before. When I look back to by-gones, I judge myself to have been a child at A, B, C with Christ. Worthy Sir, pardon me, I dare not conceal it from you; it is as a fire in my bowels. (In His presence who seeth me I speak it!) I am pained, pained with the love of Christ; He hath made me sick, and wounded me. Hunger for Christ outrunneth faith; I miss faith more than love. Oh, if the three kingdoms would come and see! Oh, if they knew His kindness to my soul! It hath pleased Him to bring me to this, that I will not strike sails to this world, nor flatter it, nor adore this clay idol that fools worship. As I am now disposed, I think that I shall neither borrow nor lend with it; and yet I get my meat from Christ with nurture; for seven times a-day I am lifted up, and casten down. My dumb Sabbaths burden my heart, and make it bleed. I want not fearful challenges, and jealousies sometimes of Christ's love, that He hath casten me over the dyke of the vineyard as a dry tree. But this is my infirmity. By His grace I take myself in these ravings. It is kindly that faith and love both be sick, and fevers are kindly to most joyful communion with Christ.

Ye are blessed who avouch Christ openly before The Prince of this kingdom, whose eyes are upon you. It is your glory to lift Him up on His throne, to carry His train, and bear up the hem of His robe royal. He hath an hiding-place for Mr Alexander Colville against the storm: go on, and fear not what man can do. The saints seem to have the worst of it (for apprehension can make a lie of Christ and His love); but it is not so. Providence is not rolled upon unequal and crooked wheels; all things work together for the good of those who love God, and are called according to His purpose. Ere it be long, we shall see the white side of God's providence.

My brother's case hath moved me not a little. He wrote to me your care and kindness. Sir, the prisoner's blessings and prayers, I trust, shall not go past you. He that is able to keep you, and to present you before the presence of His face with joy, establish your heart in the love of Christ.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 19, 1637.

XCIX.—To EARLSTON, Younger

[WILLIAM GORDON, to whom this letter is addressed, was the eldest son of Alexander Gordon of Earlston, formerly noticed (Letter LIX.). He exhibited in youth much of the piety and public spirit of his father. His well-known attachment to the cause of Presbytery rendered him early obnoxious to Charles II. and the Malignant party. When that monarch came to Scotland in 1651, and held a Parliament, he was fined for his compliance with the English; and on his refusing to pay the fine, soldiers were sent out to extract it by compulsion from his tenants, who were almost ruined by the driving away of their cattle and the robbing of their houses. He was again fined by Middleton, in 1662, and summoned before the Privy Council. On the 1st of March 1664, sentence of banishment from the kingdom was pronounced upon him for keeping conventicles, and for refusing to engage to refrain from such meetings in all time coming. Whither he went is not known; but the Council, on being petitioned, granted him licence to return until the 15th of March ensuing, at the same time requiring him to "depart and remain forth of the kingdom the said day, in case the said Lords give order therefor" ("Decr. Secr. Council," Register House, Edin.). After this he remained at home, but his end was near, for, setting out to join the forces of the Covenanters at Bothwell, in the beginning of the year 1679, after the defeat (either on the day of it, or the day after), he was met by a party of English dragoons, who, upon his refusing to surrender, killed him on the spot. "Thus fell," says Howie, in the "Scots Worthies," "a renowned Gordon, a gentleman of good parts and endowments; a man devoted unto religion and godliness, and a prime supporter of the Presbyterian interest in that part of the country where he lived." He was married to Mary, daughter of Sir John Hope, second baronet of Craighall, and President of the Court of Session, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Archibald Murray of Blackbarony. His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him.]

BOTHWELL BRIDGE.

(CHRIST'S WAYS MISUNDERSTOOD—HIS INCREASING KINDNESS—SPIRITUAL DELICACY—HARD TO BE DEAD TO THE WORLD.)

HONOURED AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter, which refreshed my soul.

I thank God that the court is closed; I think shame of my part of it. I pass now from my unjust summons of unkindness libelled against Christ my Lord. He is not such a Lord and Master as I took Him to be; verily He is God, and I am dust and ashes. It took Christ's glooms to be as good as Scripture speaking wrath; but I have seen the other side of Christ, and the white side of His cross now. I behoved to come to Aberdeen to learn a new mystery in Christ, that His promise is better to be believed than His looks, and that the devil can cause Christ's glooms to speak a lie to a weak man. Nay, verily, I was a child before; all by-gones are but bairn's play. I would I could begin to be a Christian in sad earnest. I need not blame Christ if I be not one, for He hath showed me heaven and hell in Aberdeen. But the truth is, for all my sorrow, Christ is nothing in my debt, for comforts have refreshed my soul. I have heard and seen Him in His sweetness, so as I am almost saying, it is not He that I was wont to meet with. He smileth more cheerfully, His kisses are more sweet and soul-refreshing than the kisses of the Christ I saw before were, though He be the same. Or rather, the King hath led me up to a measure of joy and communion with my Bridegroom that I never attained to before, so that often I think that I will neither borrow nor lend with this world. I will not strike sail to crosses, nor flatter them to be quit of them, as I have done. Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! so that I may get my heartful of my Lord Jesus. I have been so near Him, that I have said, "I take instruments that this is the Lord. Leave a token behind Thee, that I may never forget this." Now, what can Christ do more to dawt one of His poor prisoners? Therefore, Sir, I charge you in the name of my Lord Jesus, praise with me, and show unto others what He hath done unto my soul. This is the fruit of my sufferings, that I desire Christ's name may be spread abroad in this kingdom, in my behalf. I hope in God not to slander Him again. Yet in this, I get not my feasts without some mixture of gall; neither am I free of old jealousies, for He hath removed my lovers and friends far from me; He hath made my congregation desolate, and taken away my crown. And my dumb Sabbaths are like a stone tied to a bird's foot, that wanteth not wings,—they seem to hinder me to fly, were it not that I dare not say one word, but, "Well done, Lord Jesus."

We can, in our prosperity, sport ourselves, and be too bold with Christ; yea, be that insolent, as to chide with Him; but under the water we dare not speak. I wonder now of my sometime boldness, to chide and quarrel Christ, to nickname providence when it stroked me against the hair; for now, swimming in the waters, I think my will is fallen to the ground of the water: I have lost it. I think that I would fain let Christ alone, and give Him leave to do with me what He pleaseth, if He would smile upon me. Verily, we know not what an evil it is to spill and indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will. I was once that I would not eat except I had waled meat; now I dare not complain of the crumbs and parings under His table. I was once that I would make the house ado, if I saw not the world carved and set in order to my liking; now I am silent when I see God hath set servants on horseback, and is fattening and feeding the children of perdition. I pray God, that I may never find my will again. Oh, if Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet, and liberate me from that lawless lord!

Now, Sir, in your youth gather fast; your sun will mount to the meridian quickly, and thereafter decline. Be greedy of grace. Study above anything, my dear brother, to mortify your lusts. Oh, but pride of youth, vanity, lusts, idolizing of the world, and charming pleasures, take long time to root them out! As far as ye are advanced in the way to heaven, as near as ye are to Christ, as much progress as ye have made in the way of mortification, ye will find that ye are far behind, and have most of your work before you. I never took it to be so hard to be dead to my lusts and to this world. When the day of visitation cometh, and your old idols come weeping about you, ye will have much ado not to break your heart. It is best to give up in time with them, so as ye could at a call quit your part of this world for a drink of water, or a thing of nothing. Verily I have seen the best of this world, a moth-eaten, threadbare coat: I purpose to lay it aside, being now old and full of holes. O for my house above, not made with hands!

Pray for Christ's prisoner; and write to me. Remember my love to your mother. Desire her, from me, to make ready for removing; the Lord's tide will not bide her; and to seek an heavenly mind, that her heart may be often there. Grace be with you.

Yours, and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 20, 1637.

C.—To the LADY CARDONESS

(THE ONE THING NEEDFUL—CONSCIENTIOUS ACTING IN THE WORLD—ADVICE UNDER DEJECTING TRIALS.)

MY DEARLY BELOVED, AND LONGED-FOR IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear how your soul prospereth, and how the kingdom of Christ thriveth in you. I exhort you and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, faint not, weary not. There is a great necessity of heaven; ye must needs have it. All other things, as houses, lands, children, husband, friends, country, credit, health, wealth, honour, may be wanted; but heaven is your one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be taken from you. See that ye buy the field where the pearl is. Sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy; for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory; many are lying dead by the way, that were slain with security.

I have now been led by my Lord Jesus to such a nick in Christianity, as I think little of former things. Oh, what I want! I want so many things, that I am almost asking if I have anything at all. Every man thinketh he is rich enough in grace, till he take out his purse, and tell his money, and then he findeth his pack but poor and light in the day of a heavy trial. I found that I had not to bear my expenses, and I should have fainted, if want and penury had not chased me to the storehouse of all.

I beseech you to make conscience of your ways. Deal kindly, and with conscience, with your tenants. To fill a breach or a hole, make not a greater breach in the conscience. I wish plenty of love to your soul. Let the world be the portion of bastards; make it not yours. After the last trumpet is blown, the world and all its glory will be like an old house that is burnt to ashes, and like an old fallen castle, without a roof. Fy, fy upon us, fools! who think ourselves debtors to the world! My Lord hath brought me to this, that I would not give a drink of cold water for this world's kindness. I wonder that men long after, love, or care for these feathers. It is almost an unco world to me. To think that men are so mad as to block with dead earth! To give out conscience, and get in clay again, is a strange bargain!

I have written my mind at length to your husband. Write to me again his case. I cannot forget him in my prayers; I am looking up (Ps. 5:3). Christ hath some claim to him. My counsel is, that ye bear with him when passion overtaketh him: "A soft answer putteth away wrath." Answer him in what he speaketh, and apply yourself in the fear of God to him; and then ye will remove a pound weight of your heavy cross, that way, and so it shall become light.

When Christ hideth Himself, wait on, and make din till He return; it is not time then to be carelessly patient. I love to be grieved when He hideth His smiles. Yet believe His love in a patient onwaiting and believing in the dark. Ye must learn to swim and hold up your head above the water, even when the sense of His presence is not with you to hold up your chin. I trust in God that He will bring your ship safe to land. I counsel you to study sanctification, and to be dead to this world. Urge kindness on Knockbrex. Labour to benefit by his company; the man is acquainted with Christ.

I beg the help of your prayers, for I forget not you. Counsel your husband to fulfil my joy, and to seek the Lord's face. Show him, from me, that my joy and desire is to hear that he is in the Lord. God casteth him often in my mind, I cannot forget him. I hope Christ and he have something to do together. Bless John from me. I write blessings to him, and to your husband, and to the rest of your children. Let it not be said, "I am not in your house," through neglect of the Sabbath exercise.

Your lawful and loving pastor in his only, only Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 20, 1637.

CI.—To JONET MACCULLOCH

[No doubt this lady was one of the Maccullochs of Ardwell, a residence near Anwoth, next to Cardoness. The Letter, CLXXXIV., to Mr. Thomas Macculloch of Nether Ardwell, relates apparently to another of the same house. The house is very pleasantly situated near the mouth of the Fleet. The old mansion-house of Ardwell, or Ardwall, bore the name of "Nether Ardwell;" it occupied a spot about a hundred yards distant from the present mansion, lying towards the shore, a little below where the bay receives the waters of the Fleet. "Higher Ardwell" was towards the north: a farm near Bushy Bield (Rutherford's old manse, which was originally a mansion house) still bears that name. The family of the Maccullochs, who were intimate with Rutherford, still retain the property. They are an ancient family; for William Macculloch got a feu charter of the lands of Nether Ardwell from his cousin, or uncle, Macculloch of Cardoness and Myreton, in 1587. It is the wife of this William Macculloch, in all probability, of whom the following lines speak, on the tomb at the south side of the raised pile in the old churchyard:—

Dumb, senseless statue of a painted stone,

What means this boast? Thy captive is but clay.

Thou gainest nothing but some lifeless bones;

Her choicest part, her soul, triumphs for aye.

Then, gazing friends, do not her death deplore;

You lose, while she doth gain for evermore.

"Margrat Maklellan, goodwife of Ardwell, departed this life 1620. Ætatis suæ 31."

We may add, the grand-daughter of this lady, to whom the lines on the monument refer, was mother of the martyr, John Bell of Whyteside.]

(CHRIST'S SUFFICIENCY—STEDFASTNESS IN THE TRUTH.)

DEAR SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear how your soul prospereth.

I am as well as a prisoner of Christ can be, feasted and made fat with the comforts of God. Christ's kisses are made sweeter to my soul than ever they were. I would not change my Master with all the kings of clay upon the earth. Oh! my Well-beloved is altogether lovely and loving. I care not what flesh can do.

I persuade my soul that I delivered the truth of Christ to you. Slip not from it, for any bosts or fear of men. If ye go against the truth of Christ that I now suffer for, I shall bear witness against you in the day of Christ.

Sister, fasten your grip fast on Christ. Follow not the guises of this sinful world. Let not this clay portion of earth take up your soul: it is the portion of bastards, and ye are a child of God; and, therefore, seek your Father's heritage. Send up your heart to see the dwelling house and fair rooms in the New City. Fy, fy upon those who cry, "Up with the world and down with conscience and heaven!" We have bairn's wits, and therefore we cannot prize Christ aright. Counsel your husband, and mother, to make them ready for eternity. That day is drawing nigh.

Pray for me, the prisoner of Christ. I cannot forget you.

Your lawful pastor and brother,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 20, 1637.

CII.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Knockgray

[Knockgray is a farm-like house, enclosed by trees, at the foot of the hills of Carsphairn. It is on your right hand, coming from Earlston to Carsphairn, after passing the little hill of Dundeuch. "Alexander Gordon of Knockgray," says Livingstone, who personally knew him, "was a rare Christian in his time. His chief, the Laird of Lochinvar, put him out of his land mostly for his religion; yet, being thereafter restored by that man's son, Lord Viscount of Kenmure, he told me the Lord had blessed him, so as he had ten thousand sheep" ("Select Biograph." vol. i.). From what Rutherford says in a subsequent letter addressed to him,—"Christ's ways were known to you long before I (who am but a child) knew anything of Him,"—it may be concluded that he was much older than Rutherford. The venerable old man was apprehended in his own house by one Captain Stuart; by whom also he seems to have been carried to Edinburgh, and there incarcerated. Alexander, his son (the grandson of Rutherford's correspondent), had also his own share of persecution under the intolerant reign of Charles II. He suffered much by garrisons put into his house, by the loss of household articles which they carried away, and by the forfeiture of his property. (Wodrow, MSS. vol. xxxvii.)]

(GROUNDS OF PRAISE—AFFLICTION TEMPTS TO MISREPRESENT CHRIST—IDOLS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I expected letters from you ere now.

As for myself, I am here in good case, well feasted with a great King. At my coming here, I was that bold as to take up a jealousy of Christ's love. I said I was cast over the dyke of the Lord's vineyard, as a dry tree; but I see that if I had been a withered branch, the fire would have burned me long ere now. Blessed be His high name, who hath kept sap in the dry tree. And now, as if Christ hath done the wrong, He hath made the mends, and hath miskent my ravings; for a man under the water cannot well command his wit, far less his faith and love. Because it was a fever, my Lord Jesus forgave me that amongst the rest. He knoweth that in our afflictions we can find a spot in the fairest face that ever was, even in Christ's face. I would not have believed that a gloom should have made me to misken my old Master; but we must be whiles sick. Sickness is but kindly to both faith and love. But oh, how exceedingly is a poor dawted prisoner obliged to sweet Jesus! My tears are sweeter to me than the laughter of the fourteen prelates is to them. The worst of Christ, even His chaff, is better than the world's corn.

Dear Brother, I beseech you, I charge you in the name and authority of the Son of God, to help me to praise His Highness; and I charge you also to tell all your acquaintance, that my Master may get many thanks. Oh, if my hairs, all my members, and all my bones, were well-tuned tongues, to sing the high praises of my great and glorious King! Help me to lift Christ up upon His throne, and to lift Him up above the thrones of the clay-kings, the dying sceptre-bearers of this world. The prisoner's blessing, the blessing of him that is separate from his brethren, be upon them all who will lend me a lift in this work. Show this to that people with you to whom I sometimes preached.

Brother, my Lord hath brought me to this, that I will not flatter the world for a drink of water. I am no debtor to clay; Christ hath made me dead to that. I now wonder that ever I was such a child, long since, as to beg at such beggars! Fy upon us, who woo such a black-skinned harlot, when we may get such a fair, fair match in heaven! O that I could give up this clay-idol, this masked, painted, over-gilded dirt, that Adam's sons adore! We make an idol of our will. As many lusts in us, as many gods; we are all godmakers. We are like to lose Christ, the true God, in the throng of those new and false gods. Scotland hath cast her crown off her head; the virgin-daughter hath lost her garland. Wo, wo to our harlot mother. Our day is coming; a time when women shall wish they had been childless, and fathers shall bless miscarrying wombs and dry breasts; many houses great and fair shall be desolate. This kirk shall sit on the ground all the night, and the tears shall run down her cheeks. The sun hath gone down upon her prophets. Blessed are the prisoners of hope, who can run into their stronghold, and hide themselves for a little, till the indignation be overpast.

Commend me to your wife, your daughters, your son-in-law, and to A. T. Write to me the case of your kirk. Grace be with you.

I am much moved for my brother. I entreat for your kindness and counsel to him.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 23, 1637.

CIII.—To the LADY CARDONESS, Elder

(CHRIST AND HIS CAUSE RECOMMENDED—HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS—CAUTION AGAINST COMPLIANCES—ANXIETY ABOUT HIS PARISH.)

WORTHY AND WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear from you on paper, that I may know how your soul prospereth. My desire and longing is to hear that ye walk in the truth, and that ye are content to follow the despised but most lovely Son of God.

I cannot but recommend Him unto you, as your Husband, your Well-beloved, your Portion, your Comfort, and your Joy. I speak this of that lovely One, because I praise and commend the ford (as we used to speak) as I find it. He hath watered with His sweet comforts an oppressed prisoner. He was always kind to my soul; but never so kind as now, in my greatest extremities. I dine and sup with Christ. He visiteth my soul with the visitations of love, in the night-watches.

I persuade my soul that this is the way to heaven, and His own truth I now suffer for. I exhort you in the name of Christ to continue in the truth which I delivered unto you. Make Christ sure to your soul; for your day draweth nigh to an end. Many slide back now, who seemed to be Christ's friends, and prove dishonest to Him; but be ye faithful to the death, and ye shall have the crown of life. This span-length of your days (whereof the spirit of God speaketh, Ps. 39:5) shall, within a short time, come to a finger-breadth, and at length to nothing. Oh, how sweet and comfortable will the feast of a good conscience be to you, when your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, and the breath turn cold, and your poor soul come sighing to the windows of the house of clay of your dying body, and shall long to be out, and to have the jailor to open the door, that the prisoner may be set at liberty! Ye draw nigh the water-side: look your accounts; ask for your Guide to take you to the other side. Let not the world be your portion; what have ye to do with dead clay? Ye are not a bastard, but a lawfully begotten child; therefore set your heart on the inheritance. Go up beforehand, and see your lodging. Look through all your Father's rooms in heaven: in your Father's house are many dwelling-places. Men take a sight of lands ere they buy them. I know that Christ hath made the bargain already; but be kind to the house ye are going to, and see it often. Set your heart on things that are above, where Christ is at the right hand of God.

Stir up your husband to mind his own country at home. Counsel him to deal mercifully with the poor people of God under him. They are Christ's, and not his; therefore, desire him to show them merciful dealing and kindness, and to be good to their souls. I desire you to write to me. It may be that my parish forget me; but my witness is in heaven that I dow not, I do not, forget them. They are my sighs in the night, and my tears in the day. I think myself like a husband plucked from the wife of his youth. O Lord, be my Judge: what joy would it be to my soul to hear that my ministry hath left the Son of God among them, and that they are walking in Christ! Remember my love to your son and daughter. Desire them from me to seek the Lord in their youth, and to give Him the morning of their days. Acquaint them with the word of God and prayer.

Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner of Christ; in my heart I forget you not.

Your lawful and loving pastor, in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 6, 1637.

CIV.—To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, my LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(PAINSTAKING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST—UNUSUAL ENJOYMENT OF HIS LOVE—NOT EASY TO BE A CHRISTIAN—FRIENDS MUST NOT MISLEAD.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am refreshed with your letter. The right hand of Him to whom belong the issues from death hath been gracious to that sweet child. I dow not, I do not, forget him and your Ladyship in my prayers.

Madam, for your own case. I love careful, and withal, doing complaints of want of practice; because I observe many who think it holiness enough to complain, and set themselves at nothing: as if to say "I am sick" could cure them. They think complaints a good charm for guiltiness. I hope that ye are wrestling and struggling on, in this dead age, wherein folks have lost tongue, and legs, and arms for Christ. I urge upon you, Madam, a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn by in Christ, that we never saw, and new foldings of love in Him. I despair that ever I shall win to the far end of that love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore, dig deep; and sweat, and labour, and take pains for Him; and set by as much time in the day for Him as you can. He will be won with labour.

I, His exiled prisoner, sought Him, and He hath rued upon me, and hath made a moan for me, as He doth for His own, and I know not what to do with Christ. His love surroundeth and surchargeth me. I am burdened with it; but oh, how sweet and lovely is that burden! I dow not keep it within me. I am so in love with His love, that if His love were not in heaven, I should be unwilling to go thither. Oh, what weighing, and what telling is in Christ's love! I fear nothing now so much as the losing2 of Christ's cross, and of the love—showers that accompany it. I wonder what He meaneth, to put such a slave at the board-head, at His own elbow. O that I should lay my black mouth to such a fair, fair, fair face as Christ's! But I dare not refuse to be loved. The cause is not in me, why He hath looked upon me, and loved me for He got neither bud nor hire of me. It cost me nothing, it is good-cheap love. Oh, the many pound-weights of His love under which I am sweetly pressed!

Now, Madam, I persuade you, that the greatest part but play with Christianity; they put it by-hand easily. I thought it had been an easy thing to be a Christian, and that to seek God had been at the next door; but O the windings, the turnings, the ups and the downs that He hath led me through! And I see yet much way to the ford. He speaketh with my reins in the night-season; and in the morning, when I awake, I find His love-arrows, that He shot at me, sticking in my heart. Who will help me to praise? Who will come to lift up with me, and set on high, His great love? And yet I find that a fire-flaught of challenges will come in at midsummer, and question me. But it is only to keep a sinner in order.

As for friends, I will not think the world to be the world if that well go not dry. I trust, in God, to use the world as a canny or cunning master doth a knave servant (at least God give me grace to do so!): he giveth him no handling nor credit, only he intrusteth him with common errands, wherein he cannot play the knave. I pray God that I may not give this world the credit of my joys, and comforts, and confidence. That were to put Christ out of His office. Nay, I counsel you, Madam, from a little experience, let Christ keep the great seal, and intrust Him so as to hing your vessels, great and small, and pin your burdens, upon the Nail fastened in David's house (Isa. 22:23). Let me not be well, if ever they get the tutoring of my comforts. Away, away with irresponsal tutors that would play me a slip, and then Christ would laugh at me, and say, "Well-wared! try again ere you trust." Now woe is me, for my whorish mother, the Kirk of Scotland! Oh, who will bewail her!

Now the presence of the great Angel of the Covenant be with you and that sweet child.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CV.—To a Gentlewoman, upon the death of her husband

(RESIGNATION UNDER BEREAVEMENT—HIS OWN ENJOYMENT OF CHRIST'S LOVE.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I cannot but rejoice, and withal be grieved, at your case. It hath pleased the Lord to remove your husband (my friend, and this kirk's faithful professor) soon to his rest; but shall we be sorry that our loss is his gain, seeing his Lord would want his company no longer? Think not much of short summons; for, seeing he walked with his Lord in his life, and desired that Christ should be magnified in him at his death, ye ought to be silent and satisfied. When Christ cometh for His own, He runneth fast: mercy, mercy to the saints goeth not at leisure. Love, love in our Redeemer is not slow; and withal He is homely with you, who cometh at His own hand to your house, and intromitteth, as a friend, with anything that is yours. I think He would fain borrow and lend with you. Now he shall meet with the solacious company, the fair flock, and blessed bairn-teme of the first-born, banqueting at the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is a mercy that the poor wandering sheep get a dyke-side in this stormy day, and a leaking ship a safe harbour, and a sea-sick passenger a sound and soft bed ashore. Wrath, wrath, wrath from the Lord is coming upon this land that he hath left behind him. Know, therefore, that the wounds of your Lord Jesus are the wounds of a lover, and that He will have compassion upon a sad-hearted servant; and that Christ hath said, He will have the husband's room in your heart. He loved you in your first husband's time, and He is but wooing you still. Give Him heart and chair, house and all. He will not be made companion with any other. Love is full of jealousies: He will have all your love; and who should get it but He? I know that ye allow it upon Him. There are comforts both sweet and satisfying laid up for you: wait on. Frist Christ; He is an honest debtor.

Now for mine own case. I think some poor body would be glad of a dawted prisoner's leavings. I have no scarcity of Christ's love: He hath wasted more comforts upon His poor banished servant than would have refreshed many souls. My burden was once so heavy, that one ounce weight would have casten the balance, and broken my back; but Christ said, "Hold, hold!" to my sorrow, and hath wiped a bluthered face, which was foul with weeping. I may joyfully go my Lord's errands, with wages in my hands. Deferred hopes need not make me dead-sweir (as we used to say): my cross is both my cross and my reward. O that men would sound His high praise! I love Christ's worst reproaches, His glooms, His cross, better than all the world's plastered glory. My heart is not longing to be back again from Christ's country; it is a sweet soil I am come to. I, if any in the world, have good cause to speak much good of Him. Oh, hell were a good-cheap price to buy Him at! Oh, if all the three kingdoms were witnesses to my pained, pained soul, overcome with Christ's love!

I thank you most kindly, my dear sister, for your love to, and tender care of, my brother. I shall think myself obliged to you if ye continue his friend. He is more to me than a brother now, being engaged to suffer for so honourable a Master and cause.

Pray for Christ's prisoner; and grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CVI.—To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, my LADY KENMURE

(WEAK ASSURANCE—GRACE DIFFERENT FROM LEARNING—SELF-ACCUSATIONS.)

MADAM,—Upon the offered opportunity of this worthy bearer, I could not omit to answer the heads of your letter.

1stly, I think not much to set down on paper some good things anent Christ (that sealed and holy thing), and to feed my soul with raw wishes to be one with Christ; for a wish is but broken and half love. But verily to obey this, "Come and see," is a harder matter! Oh, I have smoke rather than fire, and guessings rather than real assurances of Him. I have little or nothing to say, that I am as one who hath found favour in His eyes; but there is some pining and mismannered hunger, that maketh me miscall and nickname Christ as a changed Lord. But alas! it is ill-flitten. I cannot believe without a pledge. I cannot take God's word without a caution, as if Christ had lost and sold His credit, and were not in my books responsal, and law-biding. But this is my way; for His way is, "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1:13).

2ndly, Ye write, "that I am filled with knowledge, and stand not in need of these warnings." But certainly my light is dim when it cometh to handy-grips. And how many have full coffers, and yet empty bellies! Light, and the saving use of light, are far different. Oh, what need then have I to have the ashes blown away from my dying-out fire! I may be a bookman, and (yet) be an idiot and stark fool in Christ's way! Learning will not beguile Christ. The Bible beguiled the Pharisees, and so may I be misled. Therefore, as night-watchers hold one another waking by speaking to one another, so have we need to hold one another on foot: sleep stealeth away the light of watching, even the light that reproveth sleeping. I doubt not but more would fetch heaven, if they believed not heaven to be at the next door. The world's negative holiness—"no adulterer, no murderer, no thief, no cozener"—maketh men believe they are already glorified saints. But the sixth chapter to the Hebrews may affright us all, when we hear that men may take (a taste) of the gifts and common graces of the Holy Spirit, and a taste of the powers of the life to come, to hell with them. Here is reprobate silver, which yet seemeth to have the King's image and superscription upon it!

3rdly, I find you complaining of yourself. And it becometh a sinner so to do. I am not against you in that. Sense of death is a sib friend, and of kin and blood to life; the more sense, the more life; the more sense of sin, the less sin. I would love my pain, and soreness, and my wounds, howbeit these should bereave me of my night's sleep, better than my wounds without pain. Oh, how sweet a thing it is to give Christ His handful of broken arms and legs, and disjointed bones!

4thly, Be not afraid for little grace. Christ soweth His living seed, and He will not lose His seed. If He have the guiding of my flock and state, it shall not miscarry. Our spilled works, losses, deadness, coldness, wretchedness, are the ground upon which the Good Husbandman laboureth.

5thly, Ye write, "that His compassions fail not, notwithstanding that your service to Christ miscarrieth." To which I answer:

God forbid that there were buying and selling, and blocking for as good again, betwixt Christ and us; for then free grace might go to play, and a Saviour sing dumb, and Christ go to sleep. But we go to heaven with light shoulders; and all the bairn-teme, and the vessels great and small that we have, are fastened upon the sure Nail (Isa. 22:23, 24). The only danger is, that we give grace more to do than God giveth it; that is, by turning His grace into wantonness.

6thly, Ye write, that "few see your guiltiness, and that ye cannot be free with many, as with me." I answer: Blessed be God, that Christ and we are not heard before men's courts. It is at home, betwixt Him and us, that pleas are taken away.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CVII.—To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, my LADY BOYD

(CONSCIOUSNESS OF DEFECTS NO ARGUMENT OF CHRIST BEING UNKNOWN—HIS EXPERIENCE IN EXILE.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I cannot but thank your Ladyship for your letter, that hath refreshed my soul. I think myself many ways obliged to your Ladyship for your love to my afflicted brother, now embarked with me in that same cause. His Lord hath been pleased to put him on truth's side. I hope that your Ladyship will befriend him with your counsel and countenance in that country, where he is a stranger. And your Ladyship needeth not fear but your kindness to His own will be put up into Christ's accounts.

Now, Madam, for your Ladyship's case. I rejoice exceedingly that the Father of lights hath made you see that there is a nick in Christianity, which ye contend to be at; and that is, to quit the right eye, and the right hand, and to keep the Son of God. I hope your desire is to make Him your garland, and that your eye looketh up the mount, which certainly is nothing but the new creature. Fear not, Christ will not cast water upon your smoking coal; and then who else dare do it if He say nay? Be sorry at corruption, and be not secure. That companion lay with you in your mother's womb, and was as early friends with you as the breath of life. And Christ will not have it otherwise; for He delighteth to take up fallen bairns, and to mend broken brows. Binding up of wounds is His office (Isa. 61:1).

First, I am glad that Christ will get employment of His calling in you. Many a whole soul is in heaven which was sickerer than ye are. He is content that ye lay broken arms and legs on His knee, that He may spelk them. Secondly, hiding of His face is wise love. His love is not fond, doting, and reasonless, to give your head no other pillow whill ye be in at heaven's gates, but to lie between His breasts, and lean upon His bosom. Nay, His bairns must often have the frosty cold side of the hill, and set down both their bare feet among thorns. His love hath eyes, and, in the meantime, is looking on. Our pride must have winter weather to rot it. But I know that Christ and ye will not be heard; ye will whisper it over betwixt yourselves, and agree again. For the anchor-tow abideth fast within the vail; the end of it is in Christ's ten fingers: who dare pull, if He hold? "I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying, Fear not, I will help thee. Fear not, Jacob" (Isa. 41:13, 14). The sea-sick passenger shall come to land; Christ will be the first to meet you on the shore. I hope that your ladyship will keep the King's highway. Go on (in the strength of the Lord), in haste, as if ye had not leisure to speak to the innkeepers by the way. He is over beyond time, on the other side of the water, who thinketh long for you.

For my unfaithful self, Madam, I must say a word. At my first coming hither, the devil made many a black lie of my Lord Jesus, and said the court was changed, and He was angry, and would give an evil servant his leave at mid-term. But He gave me grace not to take my leave. I resolved to bide summons, and sit, howbeit it was suggested and said, "What should be done with a withered tree, but over the dyke with it?" But now, now (I dare not, I dow not keep it up!), who is feasted as His poor exiled prisoner. I think shame of the board-head and the first mess, and the royal King's dining-hall, and that my black hand should come upon such a Ruler's table. But I cannot mend it; Christ must have His will: only He paineth my soul so sometimes with His love, that I have been nigh to pass modesty, and to cry out. He hath left a smoking, burning coal in my heart, and gone to the door Himself, and left me and it together. Yet it is not desertion; I know not what it is, but I was never so sick for Him as now. I durst not challenge my Lord, if I got no more for heaven; it is a dawting cross. I know He hath other things to do than to play with me, and to trindle an apple with me, and that this feast will end. O for instruments in God's name, that this is He! and that I may make use of it, when, it may be, a near friend within me will say, and when it will be said by a challenging devil, "Where is thy God?" Since I know that it will not last, I desire but to keep broken meat. But let no man after me slander Christ for His cross.

The great Lord of the Covenant, who brought from the dead the great Shepherd of His sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant establish you, and keep you and yours to His appearance.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CVIII.—To the LADY KASKEBERRY

[This lady was wife to James Schoneir of Kaskeberrie, or Kaskeberrian, in Fife. His name occurs as elder to the General Assembly in 1647, and he was ruling elder in the Presbytery of Kirkcaldy. (Lamont's "Diary," 1650.) His lady died in 1655, and was buried in Kinglassie church.]

(GRATITUDE FOR KINDNESS—CHRIST'S PRESENCE FELT.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear how your Ladyship is. I know not how to requite your Ladyship's kindness; but your love to the saints, Madam, is laid up in heaven. I know it is for your well-beloved Christ's sake that ye make His friends so dear to you, and concern yourself so much in them.

I am, in this house of pilgrimage, every way in good case: Christ is most kind and loving to my soul. It pleaseth Him to feast, with His unseen consolations, a stranger and an exiled prisoner; and I would not exchange my Lord Jesus with all the comfort out of heaven. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

This is His truth which I now suffer for; for He hath sealed it with His blessed presence. I know that Christ shall yet win the day, and gain the battle in Scotland. Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CIX.—To the LADY EARLSTON

[This was probably Lady Earlston, senior, as may be inferred from Rutherford's reminding her that her "afternoon sun will soon go down." Her maiden name was Elizabeth Gordon, she being the daughter of John Gordon of Muirfad, near Creeton, in the north extremity of Kirkmabreck, next parish to Anwoth (the same who was afterwards designed of Penningham), the second son of Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar, and brother to Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar, father of first Lord Kenmure. (Nisbet's "Heraldry," vol. i.) Muirfad is now a little croft,—a plain, one-storeyed house, with a clump of willows and oaks round it, near Palnure Station.]

(FOLLOWING CHRIST NOT EASY—CHILDREN NOT TO BE OVER-LOVED—JOY IN THE LORD.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I exhort you to go on in your journey; your day is short, and your afternoon sun will soon go down. Make an end of your accounts with your Lord; for death and judgment are tides that bide no man. Salvation is supposed to be at the door, and Christianity is thought an easy task; but I find it hard, and the way strait and narrow, were it not that my Guide is content to wait on me, and to care for a tired traveller. Hurt not your conscience with any known sin. Let your children be as so many flowers borrowed from God: if the flower die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them, and keep good neighbourhood, to borrow and lend with Him. Set your heart upon heaven, and trouble not your spirit with this clay-idol of the world, which is but vanity, and hath but the lustre of the rainbow in the air, which cometh and goeth with a flying March-shower. Clay is the idol of bastards, not the inheritance of the children.

My Lord hath been pleased to make many unknown faces laugh upon me, and hath made me well content of a borrowed fireside, and a borrowed bed. I am feasted with the joys of the Holy Ghost, and my royal King beareth my charges honourably. I love the smell of Christ's sweet breath better than the world's gold. I would I had help to praise Him.

The great Messenger of the Covenant, the Son of God, establish you on your Rock, and keep you to the day of His coming.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

IRVINE.

CX.—To his Reverend and Dear Brother, MR. DAVID DICKSON

[DAVID DICKSON (sometimes shortened into DICK), born in 1583, was the only son of Mr. John Dickson, a pious and wealthy merchant in Glasgow. After finishing his studies at the University of Glasgow, he was admitted Professor of Philosophy in that University, which office he held for eight years. In 1618 he was ordained minister of Irvine, where he laboured with much acceptance and success. In 1622, refusing to practise the ceremonies then imposed upon the Church by the Perth Articles, he was summoned by James Law, Archbishop of Glasgow, to appear before the High Commission Court. He appeared, but declined the authority of the Court in ecclesiastical matters. The result was, that he was deprived of his charge at Irvine, and banished to Turriff, in Aberdeenshire. There, however, he was employed every Sabbath by the incumbent of the parish. Yielding to the solicitations of the Earl of Eglinton and the town of Irvine, the Bishop granted him liberty to return to his old charge about the end of July 1623. He resumed his pastoral duties with increased ardour; and in addition to his Sabbath labours, preached every Monday (the market-day of Irvine), for the benefit of the rural population. Great numbers, particularly from the neighbouring parish of Stewarton, attending these meetings, the result was the famous Stewarton Revival, which lasted from 1623 to 1630. After the renewal of the National Covenant, in 1638, Dickson, who was then distinguished as a leader, in conjunction with Alexander Henderson and Andrew Cant, was sent on a mission to Aberdeen, to explain the Covenant to the inhabitants who were hostile to it, when the celebrated controversy between the three commissioners and the doctors of Aberdeen, on the subject, took place. In 1642 he was appointed Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, in which office he was associated with the celebrated Robert Baillie. He was afterwards translated to the same office in the University of Edinburgh. In the differences between the Resolutioners and Protesters, he took the side of the former; but, on seeing how matters went upon the restoration of Charles II., is reported to have said to one who visited him on his deathbed, that the Protesters were the truest prophets. He died in December 1662. Dickson was a man of more than ordinary talents, of extensive theological acquirements, of a very intrepid spirit, and a popular preacher. He was the author of various works, which have been highly esteemed.]

(GOD'S DEALINGS—THE BITTER SWEETENED—NOTES ON SCRIPTURE.)

REVEREND AND DEAREST BROTHER,—What joy have I out of heaven's gates, but that my Lord Jesus be glorified in my bonds? Blessed be ye of the Lord who contribute anything to my obliged and indebted praises. Dear brother, help me, a poor dyvour, to pay the interest; for I cannot come nigh to render the principal. It is not jest nor sport which maketh me to speak and write as I do: I never before came to that nick or pitch of communion with Christ that I have now attained to. For my confirmation, I have been these two Sabbaths or three in private, taking instruments in the name of God, that my Lord Jesus and I have kissed each other in Aberdeen, the house of my pilgrimage. I seek not an apple to play me with (He knoweth, whom I serve in the spirit!), but a seal. I but beg earnest, and am content to suspend and frist glory whill supper-time. I know that this world will not last with me; for my moonlight is noonday light, and my four hours above my feasts when I was a preacher; at which time, also, I was embraced very often in His arms. But who can blame Christ to take me on behind Him (if I may say so), on His white horse, or in His chariot, paved with love, through a water? Will not a father take his little dawted Davie in his arms, and carry him over a ditch or a mire? My short legs could not step over this lair, or sinking mire; and, therefore, my Lord Jesus will bear me through. If a change come, and a dark day (so being that He will keep my faith without flaw or crack), I dare not blame Him, howbeit I get no more whill I come to heaven. But ye know that the physic behoved to have sugar: my faith was fallen aswoon, and Christ but held up a swooning man's head. Indeed, I pray not for a dawted bairn's diet: He knoweth that I would have Christ, sour or sweet,—any way, so being it be Christ indeed. I stand not now upon pared apples, or sugared dishes, but I cannot blame Him to give, and I must gape and make a wide mouth. Since Christ will not pantry up joys, He must be welcome who will not bide away. I seek no other fruit than that He may be glorified. He knoweth that I would take hard fare to have His name set on high.

I bless you for your counsel. I hope to live by faith, and swim without a mass or bundle of joyful sense under my chin; at least to venture, albeit I should be ducked.

Now for my case: I think that the council should be essayed, and the event referred to God;—duties are ours, and events are God's.

I shall go through yours upon the Covenant at leisure, and write to you my mind thereanent; and anent the Arminian contract betwixt the Father and the Son. I beseech you, set to, to go through Scripture. Yours on the Hebrews is in great request with all who would be acquainted with Christ's Testament. I purpose, God willing, to set about Hosea, and to try if I can get it to the press here.

It refresheth me much that ye are so kind to my brother. I hope your counsel will do him good. I recommend him to you, since I am so far from him. I am glad that the dying servant of God, famous and faithful Mr. Cunningham, sealed your ministry before he fell asleep.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CXI.—To JEAN BROWN

(CHRIST'S UNTOLD PRECIOUSNESS—A WORD TO HER BOY.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter, which I esteem an evidence of your Christian affection to me, and of your love to my honourable Lord and Master. My desire is, that your communion with Christ may grow, and that your reckonings may be put by-hand with your Lord ere you come to the water-side.

Oh, who knoweth how sweet Christ's kisses are! Who hath been more kindly embraced and kissed than I, His banished prisoner? If the comparison could stand, I would not exchange Christ with heaven itself. He hath left a dart and arrow of love in my soul, and it paineth me till He come and take it out. I find pain of those wounds, because I would have possession. I know now that this worm-eaten apple, the plastered, rotten world, which the silly children of this world are beating, and buffeting, and pulling each other's ears for, is a portion for bastards, good enough; and that it is all they have to look for. I am not offended that my adversaries stay at home at their own fireside, with more yearly rent than I. Should I be angry that the Goodman of this house of the world casteth a dog a bone to hurt his teeth? He hath taught me to be content with a borrowed fireside, and an unco bed; and I think I have lost nothing, the income is so great. Oh, what telling is in Christ! Oh, how weighty is my fair garland, my crown, my fair supping-hall in glory, where I shall be above the blows and buffetings of prelates! Let this be your desire, and let your thoughts dwell much upon that blessedness that abideth you in the other world. The fair side of the world will be turned to you quickly, when ye shall see the crown. I hope that ye are near your lodging. Oh, but I would think myself blessed, for my part, to win to the house before the shower come on; for God hath a quiver full of arrows to shoot at and shower down upon Scotland.

Ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. I desire Patrick to give Christ his young love, even the flower of it; and to put it by all others. It were good to start soon to the way; he should thereby have a great advantage in the evil day. Grace be with you.

Yours only in his Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CXII.—To MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL

[MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL'S mother was Janet Kennedy, sister or near relative to Hugh Kennedy of Ayr. He was at this time minister of Ochiltree, a parish in the centre of Ayrshire, in the district of Kyle. When Mr. Robert Blair was translated from Ayr to St. Andrews by the General Assembly, 1639, Fergushill was, by the same Assembly, appointed his successor. He died in 1644. He is mentioned by Livingstone, as one of the "many of the godly and able ministers" in Scotland. He was a member of the famous Glasgow Assembly, 1638. Lady Gaitgirth's mansion was near Ochiltree; see Letter CLXXXVII.]

(THE ROD UPON GOD'S CHILDREN—PAIN FROM A SENSE OF CHRIST'S LOVE—HIS PRESENCE A SUPPORT UNDER TRIALS—CONTENTEDNESS WITH HIM ALONE.)

REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,—I was refreshed with your letter. I am sorry for that lingering and longsome visitation that is upon your wife; but I know that ye take it as the mark of a lawfully begotten child, and not of a bastard, to be under your Father's rod. Till ye be in heaven, it will be but foul weather; one shower up and another down. The lintel-stone and pillars of the New Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God's hammer and tool than the common side-wall stones. And if twenty crosses be written for you in God's book, they will come to nineteen, and then at last to one, and after that to nothing, but your head shall lie betwixt Christ's breasts for evermore and His own soft hand shall dry your face, and wipe away your tears. As for public sufferings for His truth, your Master also will see to these. Let us put Him into His own office, to comfort and deliver. The gloom of Christ's cross is worse than itself.

I cannot keep up what He hath done to my soul. My dear brother, will I not get help of you to praise, and to lift Christ up on high? He hath pained me with His love, and hath left a love-arrow in my heart, that hath made a wound, and swelled me up with desires, so that I am to be pitied for want of real possession. Love would have the company of the party loved; and my greatest pain is the want of Him, not of His joys and comforts, but of a near union and communion.

This is His truth, I am fully persuaded, which I now suffer for; for Christ hath taken upon Him to be witness to it by His sweet comforts to my soul; and shall I think Him a false witness? or that He would subscribe blank paper? I thank His high and dreadful name for what He hath given. I hope to keep His seal and His pawn till He come and loose it Himself. I defy hell to put me off it. But He is Christ, and He hath met with His prisoner; and I took instruments in His own hand, that it was He, and none other for Him. When the devil fenceth a bastard-court in my Lord's ground, and giveth me forged summons, it will be my shame to misbelieve, after such a fair broad seal. And yet Satan and my apprehension sometimes make a lie of Christ, as if He hated me. But I dare believe no evil of Christ. If He would cool my love-fever for Himself with real presence and possession, I would be rich; but I dare not be mislearned and seek more in that kind, howbeit it be no shame to beg at Christ's door. I pity my adversaries. I grudge not that my Lord keepeth them at their own fireside, and hath given me a borrowed fireside: let the Goodman of the house cast the dog a bone, why should I take offence? I rejoice that the broken bark shall come to land, and that Christ will, on the shore, welcome the sea-sick passenger. We have need of a great stock against this day of trial that is coming. There is neither chaff nor corn in Scotland, but it shall once pass through God's sieve. Praise, praise, and pray for me; for I cannot forget you. I know that ye will be friendly to my afflicted brother, who is now embarked in the same cause with me. Let him have your counsel and comforts.

Remember my love in Christ to your wife; her health is coming, and her salvation sleepeth not. Ye have the prayers and blessing of a prisoner of Christ. Sow fast, deal bread plentifully. The pantry-door will be locked on the bairns, in appearance, ere long. Grace, grace, be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CXIII.—To his Reverend and Dear Brother, MR. ROBERT DOUGLAS

[ROBERT DOUGLAS, one of the ablest and most respected ministers of the Church of Scotland in his day, was the illegitimate son of Mr. Douglas, who was the son of Sir G. Douglas, Governor of Lochleven Castle. (Wodrow's "Analecta," iv. 226.) Having finished his preparations for the ministry, he was ordained to be chaplain for the forces that served under the celebrated Gustavus of Sweden. It is said that, in one of Gustavus' engagements, surveying the battle from an eminence, and observing something wrong in the left wing of the army which threatened to prove disastrous, he either personally or by a messenger acquainted the commanding officer with the circumstance, and that this information led to victory. When he left the army, the Swedish monarch parted with him reluctantly, saying, "There is a man who, for wisdom and prudence, might be a counsellor to any king in Europe. He might be a moderator to any assembly in the world; and he might be a general to conduct any army, for his skill in military affairs." (Ibid. iv. 221.) During this period, he committed to memory the greater part of the Bible, having almost no other book to read. Returning to his own country, he was admitted colleague to Mr. James Simson, minister of Kirkcaldy, in 1630. Thence he was translated to Edinburgh in 1641. For a time he was deceived by the duplicity of James Sharp, but at last he detected his real character; and when the traitor (shortly before he went up to London to be consecrated Archbishop) happened to meet with him, and addressed him as "Brother," Mr. Douglas, disgusted at his hypocrisy, exclaimed, "Brother! no more brother. James, if my conscience had been of the make of yours, I could have been Bishop of St. Andrews sooner than you." In 1669 he was admitted indulged minister at Pencaitland, where he died at an advanced age in 1674, and was buried in Edinburgh. (Wodrow's "History" and "Analecta.")]

(GREATNESS OF CHRIST'S LOVE REVEALED TO THOSE WHO SUFFER FOR HIM.)

MY VERY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to see you on paper. I cannot but write you, that this which I now suffer for is Christ's truth; because He hath been pleased to seal my sufferings with joy unspeakable and glorious. I know that He will not put His seal upon blank paper; Christ hath not dumb seals, neither will He be a witness to a lie. I beseech you, my dear brother, to help me to praise, and to lift Christ up on His throne above the shields of the earth. I am astonished and confounded at the greatness of His kindness to such a sinner. I know that Christ and I shall never be even; I shall die in His debt. He hath left an arrow in my heart that paineth me for want of real possession; and hell cannot quench this coal of God's kindling. I wish no man to slander Christ or His cross for my cause; for I have much cause to speak much good of Him. He hath brought me to a nick and degree of communion with Himself that I knew not before. The din and gloom of our Lord's cross is more fearful and hard than the cross itself. He taketh the bairns in His arms when they come to a deep water; at least, when they lose ground, and are put to swim, then His hand is under their chin.

Let me be helped by your prayers; and remember my love to your kind wife. Grace be with you.

Your brother, and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 7, 1637.

CXIV.—To the much Honoured WILLIAM RIGG, of Athernie, in Fife, near Leven

[WILLIAM RIGG of Athernie, in the capacity of one of the bailies of Edinburgh, "gave great evidence" (says Livingstone) "that he had the spirit of a magistrate beyond many, being a terror to all evil-doers." He took an active part against all attempts to introduce Prelacy, and contributed liberally to the printing of such books as "crossed the course of Conformity." In March 1624, a committee of the Privy Council, by the authority of the King, deprived Rigg of his office, fined him in fifty thousand pounds Scots, and ordered him to be warded in Blackness Castle till the sum was paid, and afterwards to be confined in Orkney, This sentence, however, was afterwards mitigated. He was distinguished above most for devoting a large portion of his income to religious purposes. Such was his liberality, that one said, "To my certain knowledge, he spends yearly more on pious uses than all my estate is worth; and mine will be towards 8 or 9000 merks (about £350) in the year." He was a man of much prayer, and generally commenced with deep and bitter complaints and confession of sin, but ended with unspeakable assurance, and joy and thanksgiving. His death took place on the 2nd of January 1644, and is thus recorded by Sir Thomas Hope, in his "Diary" (p. 201): "This day, my worthy cousin, William Rigg of Athernie, departed, at his house of Athernie, having taken bed on Sunday of before, and died on the third day. The Lord prepare me; for this, next to my dearest son, is a heavy stroke." The old house of Athernie stood a little inland from the present mansion; only a gable of the old house remains. It overlooked a pretty glen through which runs a burn that falls into the sea near the churchyard of Scoonie.]

(SUSTAINING POWER OF CHRIST'S LOVE—SATAN'S OPPOSITION—YEARNINGS FOR CHRIST HIMSELF—FEARS FOR THE CHURCH.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your long-looked-for and short letter. I would that ye had spoken more to me, who stand in need. I find Christ, as ye write, aye the longer the better; and therefore cannot but rejoice in His salvation, who hath made my chains my wings, and hath made me a king over my crosses, and over my adversaries. Glory, glory, glory to His high, high and holy name! Not one ounce, not one grain-weight more is laid on me than He hath enabled me to bear; and I am not so much wearied to suffer as Zion's haters are to persecute. Oh, if I could find a way, in any measure, to strive to be even with Christ's love! But that I must give over. Oh, who would help a dyvour to pay praises to the King of saints, who triumpheth in His weak servants!

I see that if Christ but ride upon a worm or feather, His horse will neither stumble nor fall. The worm Jacob is made by Him a new, sharp threshing instrument, having teeth, to thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and to make the hills as chaff, and to fan them so as the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them (Isa. 41:14–16). Christ's enemies are but breaking their own heads in pieces, upon the Rock laid in Zion; and the stone is not removed out of its place. Faith hath cause to take courage from our very afflictions; the devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints. I know that he but heweth and polisheth stones, all this time, for the new Jerusalem.

But in all this, three things have much moved me, since it hath pleased my Lord to turn my moon-light into day-light. First, He hath yoked me to work, to wrestle with Christ's love; of longing wherewith I am sick, pained, fainting, and like to die because I cannot get Himself; which I think a strange sort of desertion. For I have not Himself, whom if I had, my love-sickness would cool, and my fever go away; at least, I should know the heat of the fire of complacency, which would cool the scorching heat of the fire of desire. (And yet I have no penury of His love!) And so I dwine, I die, and He seemeth not to rue on me. I take instruments in His hand, that I would have Him, but I cannot get Him; and my best cheer is black hunger. I bless Him for that feast.

Secondly, Old challenges now and then revive, and cast all down. I go halting and sighing, fearing there be an unseen process yet coming out, and that heavier than I can answer. I cannot read distinctly my surety's act of cautionary for me in particular, and my discharge; and sense, rather than faith, assureth me of what I have; so unable am I to go but by a hold. I could, with reverence of my Lord, forgive Christ, if He would give me as much faith as I have hunger for Him. I hope the pardon is now obtained, but the peace is not so sure to me as I would wish. Yet, one thing I know, there is not a way to heaven but the way which He hath graced me to profess and suffer for.

Thirdly, Wo, wo is me for the virgin-daughter of Scotland, and for the fearful desolation and wrath appointed for this land! And yet all are sleeping, eating and drinking, laughing and sporting, as if all were well. Oh, our dim gold! our dumb, blind pastors! The sun is gone down upon them, and our nobles bid Christ fend for Himself, if He be Christ. It were good that we should learn in time the way to our stronghold.

Sir, howbeit not acquainted, remember my love to your wife. I pray God to establish you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 9, 1637.

CXV.—To MR. ALEXANDER HENDERSON

[ALEXANDER HENDERSON, the well-known hero of the Second Reformation, was born in the year 1583, and received his education at the University of St. Andrews. After having taught for several years a class of philosophy and rhetoric in that University, he obtained a presentation to the parish of Leuchars, in 1612. Being at that time unimpressed with spiritual truth, he was a defender of the principles and measures of the prelatic party in the Church. His settlement was on these accounts so unpopular, that on the day of his ordination the church-doors were secured by the people, and the members of Presbytery, together with the presentee, were obliged to break in by the window. But his soul was soon after visited by the Holy Spirit, and underwent an entire change. He became leader in effecting that revolution in the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland which commenced about the year 1637, He was Moderator of the famous Assembly which met at Glasgow in 1638, and by that Assembly was translated to Edinburgh. In the civil war, Henderson was appointed by the Covenanters to act as one of their commissioners in treating with his Majesty Charles I. In 1642 he was delegated by the Commission of the General Assembly to sit as one of their commissioners in the Westminster Assembly of Divines, which kept him in London for several years. He died on the 12th of August 1646, in the 63rd year of his age, shortly after his reurn from England. Baillie, in his speech to the General Assembly in the following year, pronounced him, "the fairest ornament after Mr. John Knox, of incomparable memory, that ever the Church of Scotland did enjoy."]

(SADNESS BECAUSE CHRIST'S HEADSHIP NOT SET FORTH—HIS CAUSE ATTENDED WITH CROSSES—THE BELIEVER SEEN OF ALL.)

MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I received your letters. They are as apples of gold to me; for with my sweet feasts (and they are above the deserving of such a sinner, high and out of measure), I have sadness to ballast me, and weight me a little. It is but His boundless wisdom which hath taken the tutoring of His witless child; and He knoweth that to be drunken with comforts is not safest for our stomachs. However it be, the din and noise and glooms of Christ's cross are weightier than itself. I protest to you (my witness is in heaven), that I could wish many pound weights added to my cross, to know that by my sufferings Christ were set forward in His kingly office in this land. Oh, what is my skin to His glory; or my losses, or my sad heart, to the apple of the eye of our Lord and His beloved Spouse, His precious truth, His royal privileges, the glory of manifested justice in giving of His foes a dash, the testimony of His faithful servants who do glorify Him, when He rideth upon poor, weak worms, and triumpheth in them! I desire you to pray, that I may come out of this furnace with honesty, and that I may leave Christ's truth no worse than I found it; and that this most honourable cause may neither be stained nor weakened.

As for your cause, my reverend and dearest brother, ye are the talk of the north and south; and looked to, so as if ye were all crystal glass. Your motes and dust would soon be proclaimed and trumpets blown at your slips. But I know that ye have laid help upon One that is mighty. Intrust not your comforts to men's airy and frothy applause, neither lay your down-castings on the tongues of salt mockers and reproachers of godliness. "As deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known" (2 Cor. 6:8, 9). God hath called you to Christ's side, and the wind is now in Christ's face in this land; and seeing ye are with Him, ye cannot expect the lee-side, or the sunny side of the brae. But I know that ye have resolved to take Christ upon any terms whatsoever. I hope that ye do not rue, though your cause be hated, and prejudices are taken up against it. The shields of the world think our Master cumbersome wares, and that He maketh too great din, and that His cords and yokes make blains, and deep scores in their neck. Therefore they kick. They say, "This man shall not reign over us."

Let us pray one for another. He who hath made you a chosen arrow in His quiver, hide you in the hollow of His hand!

I am yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 9, 1637.

LOUDON CASTLE.

CXVI.—To the Right Honourable my LORD LOUDON

[JOHN CAMPBELL, first Earl of Loudon, and the son of Sir James Campbell of Lawers, was a man of distinguished talents, and of a very decided character. In the history of his country he makes no small figure as a strenuous opponent of the attempts made by Charles I. to impose Prelacy and arbitrary power on Scotland. He was a member of the General Assembly which met at Glasgow in 1638, in the business of which he took an active part. When the King, dissatisfied with the proceedings of this Assembly, put himself at the head of an army to reduce his Scottish subjects to submission, Loudon had a leading hand in the measures then adopted for preserving the religion and liberties of Scotland, as secured by the ecclesiastical and civil laws of the kingdom. In the skirmish at Newburn, where the King's forces were defeated by the Scottish army, he commanded a brigade of horse. In 1641, when peace was restored between the King and his Scottish subjects, Loudon was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland, a situation which he held till after the execution of Charles I., and the calling home of Charles II. by the Scots in 1650. Malignants being again brought into places of power and trust, he demitted his office. He continued, however, strongly to adhere to the cause of Charles, in consequence of which he was excepted from Cromwell's act of indemnity, and his estates forfeited. But all that he had suffered for the royal cause did not recommend him to the favour of the unprincipled government of Charles II. His name is in the list of Middleton's fines (imposed upon the gentlemen of Ayrshire in 1662) for £12,000. He felt convinced that, should his life be spared, he would fall an early victim to the vengeance of his enemies, and often exhorted his pious lady to beseech the Lord that he might not live to the next session of Parliament, else he would share the same fate with the Marquis of Argyle. His wish was granted; for he died at Edinburgh, March 15, 1662. Rutherford's "Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication," printed at London in 1646, is dedicated to this nobleman, who was then Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews. His son James, second Earl of Loudon, was subjected to no small persecution under the dominancy of Prelacy; and, seeking refuge in Holland, took up his residence at Leyden, where he died on the 29th of October 1684.]

(BLESSEDNESS OF ACTING FOR CHRIST—HIS LOVE TO HIS PRISONER.)

MY VERY NOBLE AND HONOURABLE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I make bold to write to your Lordship, that you may know the honourable cause which ye are graced to profess is Christ's own truth. Ye are many ways blessed of God, who have taken upon you to come out to the streets with Christ on your forehead, when so many are ashamed of Him, and hide Him (as it were) under their cloak, as if He were a stolen Christ. If this faithless generation, and especially the nobles of this kingdom, thought not Christ dear wares, and religion expensive, hazardous, and dangerous, they would not slip from His cause as they do, and stand looking on with their hands folded behind their back when louns are running with the spoil of Zion on their back, and the boards of the Son of God's tabernacle. Law and justice are to be had by any, especially for money and moyen; but Christ can get no law, good-cheap or dear. It were the glory and honour of you, who are the nobles of this land, to plead for your wronged Bridegroom and His oppressed spouse, as far as zeal and standing law will go with you. Your ordinary logic from the event, "that it will do no good to the cause, and, therefore, silence is best till the Lord put to His own hand," is not (with reverence to your Lordship's learning) worth a straw. Events are God's. Let us do, and not plead against God's office. Let Him sit at His own helm, who moderateth all events. It is not a good course to complain that we cannot get a providence of gold, when our laziness, cold zeal, temporizing, and faithless fearfulness spilleth good providence.

Your Lordship will pardon me: I am not of that mind, that tumults or arms is the way to put Christ on His throne; or that Christ will be served and truth vindicated, only with the arm of flesh and blood. Nay, Christ doth His turn with less din, than with garments rolled in blood. But I would that the zeal of God were in the nobles to do their part for Christ; and I must be pardoned to write to your Lordship thus.

I dow not, I dare not, but speak to others what God hath done to the soul of His poor, afflicted exile-prisoner. His comfort is more than I ever knew before. He hath sealed the honourable cause which I now suffer for, and I shall not believe that Christ will put His amen and ring upon an imagination. He hath made all His promises good to me, and hath filled up all the blanks with His own hand. I would not exchange my bonds with the plastered joy of this whole world. It hath pleased Him to make a sinner the like of me an ordinary banqueter in His house-of-wine, with that royal, princely One, Christ Jesus. Oh, what weighing, oh, what telling is in His love! How sweet must He be, when that black and burdensome tree, His own cross, is so perfumed with joy and gladness! O for help to lift Him up by praises on His royal throne! I seek no more than that His name may be spread abroad in me, that meikle good may be spoken of Christ on my behalf; and this being done, my losses, place, stipend, credit, ease, and liberty, shall all be made up to my full contentment and joy of heart.

I shall be confident that your Lordship will go on in the strength of the Lord, and keep Christ, and avouch Him, that He may read your name publicly before men and angels. I shall entreat your Lordship to exhort and encourage that nobleman, your chief, to do the same. But I am wo3 that many of you find a new wisdom, which deserveth not such a name. It were better that men would see that their wisdom be holy, and their holiness wise.

I must be bold to desire your Lordship to add to your former favours to me (for the which your Lordship hath a prisoner's blessing and prayers) this, that ye would be pleased to befriend my brother, now suffering for the same cause; for as he is to dwell nigh your Lordship's bounds, your Lordship's word and countenance may help him.

Thus recommending your Lordship to the saving grace and tender mercy of Christ Jesus our Lord, I rest, your Lordship's obliged servant in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 9, 1637

CXVII.—To MR. WILLIAM DALGLEISH, Minister of the Gospel

[Mr. WILLIAM DALGLEISH was minister of the conjunct parishes of Anwoth, Kirkdale, and Kirkmabreck. He preached at Anwoth only every alternate week; but so abundantly blessed were his labours to the people, that when he surrendered (quoad sacra) the charge of Anwoth to Rutherford, upon its being formed into a distinct parochial charge, not only many of the humbler class of the parishioners, but the proprietors too, had embraced the doctrines of the Gospel. Dalgleish strictly adhered to Presbyterian principles, and on that account was subjected to trouble.

In 1635 he was deprived of his charge as minister of the united parishes of Kirkdale and Kirkmabreck. In 1637, when Episcopacy began to be the losing cause, he returned to his flock. His name appears on the roll of the members of the famous Assembly which met at Glasgow in 1638; and in 1639 he was translated to Cramond, as successor to Mr. William Colville, afterwards Principal of the University of Edinburgh; to whom he appears to have been related, as the name of his wife was Elizabeth Colville. He was the intimate friend of the well-known Alexander Henderson, who by his latter will ordained his executor "to deliver to my dear acquaintance Mr. John Duncan, at Culross, and Mr. William Dalgleish, minister at Cramond, all my manuscripts and papers which are in my study, and that belong to me any where else; and after they have received them, to destroy or preserve and keep them, as they shall judge convenient for their own private or the public good." In 1662 Dalgleish was ejected for nonconformity, and died before the Revolution.

Kirkmabreck was a pendicle of the Abbey of Dundrennan, which is seven miles from Kirkcudbright. The farms and cottages that bear this name are about two miles from the shore, a little way up on the high ground, but the church and churchyard lie in a hollow, between the Larg and the Cairnharrow hills. Part of the old ivy-covered walls, and the gable of the church, still remain. One modern tomb in the churchyard is marked by a granite pillar, 20 feet high. It is the grave of Dr. Thomas Brown. The inscription on the west side reads thus:—"Thomas, M.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, who died 2nd August 1820, aged 43 years. Janet, who died 5th August 1824, aged 51."

The Statistical Account speaks of Old Mortality having renovated some of the grave-stones, but all traces of his work have disappeared. In that old church Samuel Rutherford preached his sermons on Zech. 13:7, 9, at a Communion in 1630. In 1634 he preached on Luke 14:16, at the preparation before the Communion; and on another occasion, on Isaiah 49:1–4.

The parish extends along the shore, to the village of Creetown in one direction, and in the other, to the old castle and farm of Carsluth. The old tower and ruined walls of this castle, built of granite from the neighbouring quarries, stand embosomed in trees, on a spot commanding a fine view of the bay. Barholm Castle also is in this parish, and was the spot where John Knox was secreted previous to his escape to the Continent. His signature was long shown on the wall of one of the rooms. The old towers, overgrown with ivy, peep out from the thick woods on the right of the road from Kirkdale to Creetown. The modern mansion stands on a wooded eminence, on the other side of Creetown. Not more than a mile from this old castle, is the ruined church of Kirkdale, on the edge of a wood, and considerably above the house. It resembles the churches of Kirkmabreck and Anwoth in shape, having been long and narrow. The inscriptions on the old tombstones are so worn as to be illegible. The churchyard has been enclosed, and at the gate the eye is sure to rest on a small tablet in the side wall, with these words:—

"But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days" (Dan. 12:13.)]

(CHRIST'S KINDNESS—DEPENDENCE ON PROVIDENCE—CONTROVERSIES.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am well. My Lord Jesus is kinder to me than ever He was. It pleaseth Him to dine and sup with His afflicted prisoner. A King feasteth me, and His spikenard casteth a sweet smell. Put Christ's love to the trial, and put upon it our burdens, and then it will appear love indeed. We employ not His love, and therefore we know it not. I verily count the sufferings of my Lord more than this world's lustred and over-gilded glory. I dare not say but my Lord Jesus hath fully recompensed my sadness with His joys, my losses with His own presence. I find it a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with Himself.

Brother, this is His own truth I now suffer for. He hath sealed my sufferings with His own comforts, and I know that He will not put His seal upon blank paper. His seals are not dumb nor delusive, to confirm imaginations and lies. Go on, my dear brother, in the strength of the Lord, not fearing man who is a worm, nor the son of man that shall die. Providence hath a thousand keys, to open a thousand sundry doors for the deliverance of His own, when it is even come to a conclamatum est. Let us be faithful, and care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for Him, and lay Christ's part on Himself, and leave it there. Duties are ours, events are the Lord's. When our faith goeth to meddle with events, and to hold a court (if I may so speak) upon God's providence, and beginneth to say, "How wilt Thou do this and that?" we lose ground. We have nothing to do there. It is our part to let the Almighty exercise His own office, and steer His own helm. There is nothing left to us, but to see how we may be approved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls in well-doing upon Him who is God Omnipotent: and when that we thus essay miscarrieth, it will be neither our sin nor cross.

Brother, remember the Lord's word to Peter; "Simon, lovest thou me?—Feed my sheep." No greater testimony of our love to Christ can be, than to feed carefully and faithfully His lambs.

I am in no better neighbourhood with the ministers here than before: they cannot endure that any speak of me, or to me. Thus I am, in the mean time, silent, which is my greatest grief. Dr. Barron hath often disputed with me, especially about Arminian controversies, and for the ceremonies. Three yokings laid him by; and I have not been troubled with him since. Now he hath appointed a dispute before witnesses; I trust that Christ and truth will do for themselves.

I hope, brother, that ye will help my people; and write to me what ye hear the Bishop is to do with them. Grace be with you.

Your brother in bonds,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXVIII.—To MR. HUGH MACKAIL, Minister of the Gospel at Irvine

(CHRIST'S BOUNTIFUL DEALINGS—JOY IN CHRIST THROUGH THE CROSS.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I bless you for your letter. He is come down as rain upon the mown grass; He hath revived my withered root; and He is the dew of herbs. I am most secure in this prison: salvation is for walls in it; and what think ye of these walls? He maketh the dry plant to bud as the lily, and to blossom as Lebanon:—the great Husbandman's blessing cometh down upon the plants of righteousness. Who may say this, my dear brother, if I, His poor exiled stranger and prisoner, may not say it? Howbeit all the world should be silent, I cannot hold my peace. Oh, how many black accounts have Christ and I rounded over together in the house of my pilgrimage! and how fat a portion He hath given to a hungry soul! I had rather have Christ's four-hours, than have dinner and supper both in one from any other. His dealing, and the way of His judgments, are past finding out. No preaching, no book, no learning, could give me that which it behoved me to come and get in this town. But what of all this, if I were not misted, and confounded, and astonished how to be thankful, and how to get Him praised for evermore! And, what is more, He hath been pleased to pain me with His love, and my pain groweth through want of real possession.

Some have written to me, that I am possibly too joyful of the cross; but my joy overleapeth the cross, it is bounded and terminated upon Christ. I know that the sun will overcloud and eclipse, and that I shall again be put to walk in the shadow: but Christ must be welcome to come and go, as He thinketh meet. Yet He would be more welcome to me, I trow, to come than to go. And I hope He pitieth and pardoneth me, in casting apples to me at such a fainting time as this. Holy and blessed is His name! It was not my flattering of Christ that drew a kiss from His mouth. But He would send me as a spy into this wilderness of suffering, to see the land and try the ford; and I cannot make a lie of Christ's cross. I can report nothing but good both of Him and it, lest others should faint. I hope, when a change cometh, to cast anchor at midnight upon the Rock which He hath taught me to know in this daylight; whither I may run, when I must say my lesson without book, and believe in the dark. I am sure it is sin to tarrow at Christ's good meat, and not to eat when He saith, "Eat, O well-beloved, and drink abundantly." If He bear me on His back, or carry me in His arms over this water, I hope for grace to set down my feet on dry ground, when the way is better. But this is slippery ground: my Lord thought good I should go by a hold, and lean on my Well-beloved's shoulder. It is good to be ever taking from Him. I desire that He may get the fruit of praises, for dawting and thus dandling me on His knee: and I may give my bond of thankfulness, so being I have Christ's back-bond again for my relief, that I shall be strengthened by His powerful grace to pay my vows to Him. But, truly, I find that we have the advantage of the brae upon our enemies: we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us; and they know not wherein our strength lieth.

Pray for me. Grace be with you.

Your brother in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXIX.—To MR. DAVID DICKSON

(JOYFUL EXPERIENCE—CUP OVERFLOWING IN EXILE.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—I find that great men, especially old friends, scaur to speak for me. But my kingly and royal Master biddeth me to try His moyen to the uttermost, and I shall find a friend at hand. I still depend upon Him; His court is still as before; the prisoner is welcome to Him. The black, crabbed tree of my Lord's cross hath made Christ and my soul very entire. He is my song in the night. I am often laid in the dust with challenges, and apprehensions of His auger; and then, if a mountain of iron were laid upon me, I cannot be heavier; and with much wrestling I win into the King's house of wine. And yet, for the most part, my life is joy; and such joy through His comforts, as I have been afraid lest I should shame myself and cry out, for I can scarce bear what I get. Christ giveth me a measure heaped up, pressed down, and running over; and, believe it, His love paineth more than prison and banishment. I cannot get the way of Christ's love. Had I known what He was keeping for me, I should never have been so faint-hearted. In my heaviest times, when all is lost, the memory of His love maketh me think Christ's glooms are but for the fashion. I seek no more than a vent to my wine;2 I am smothered and ready to burst for want of vent. Think not much of persecution. It is before you; but it is not as men conceive of it. My sugared cross forceth me to say this to you, ye shall have waled meat. The sick bairn is ofttime the spilled bairn; he shall command all the house. I hope that ye help a tired prisoner to praise and pray. Had I but the annual of annual to give to my Lord Jesus, it would ease my pain. But, alas! I have nothing to pay, He will get nothing of poor me; but I am wo that I have not room enough in my heart for such a stranger. I am not cast down to go farther north. I have good cause to work for my Master, for I am well paid beforehand; I am not behind, howbeit I should not get one smile more till my feet be up within the King's dining-hall.

I have gone through yours upon the Covenant; it hath edified my soul, and refreshed a hungry man. I judge it sharp, sweet, quick, and profound. Take me at my word, I fear that it get no lodging in Scotland.

The brethren of Ireland write not to me; chide with them for that. I am sure that I may give you and them a commission (and I will abide by it), that you tell my Beloved that I am sick of love. I hope in God to leave some of my rust and superfluities in Aberdeen. I cannot get a house in this town wherein to leave drink-silver in my Master's name, save one only. There is no sale for Christ in the north; He is like to lie long on my hand, ere any accept Him. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXX.—To MR. MATTHEW MOWAT

[MATTHEW MOWAT, son to the Laird of Busbie (Letter CXXXIII.), was minister of Kilmarnock. He was one of the seven leading ministers in the west whom the Parliament, after the restoration of Charles II., brought before them with the view of extorting their acquiescence in the establishment of Prelacy; which, if effected, it was apprehended would have an influence in leading others to comply. They were all put in prison, and refusing (though several times brought before the Parliament), to take the oath of allegiance without explanation, inasmuch as it involved the oath of supremacy, they were more severely treated. Livingstone describes Mowat as "one of a meek, sweet disposition, straight and zealous for the truth." Rutherford, who highly valued him, says in one of his letters, "I cannot speak to a man so sick of love to Christ as Mr. Matthew Mowat;" and in another, "I am greatly in love with Mr. Matthew Mowat, for I see him really stampt with the image of God." The time of his death is unknown. Some additional notices of him are to be found in Wodrow's "Analecta," vol. iii.]

(PLENITUDE OF CHRIST'S LOVE—NEED TO USE GRACE ARIGHT—CHRIST THE RANSOMER—DESIRE TO PROCLAIM HIS GOSPEL—SHORTCOMINGS AND SUFFERINGS.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I am a very far mistaken man. If others knew how poor my stock was, they would not think upon the like of me, but with compassion. For I am as one kept under a strict tutor; I would have more than my tutor alloweth me. But it is good that a bairn's wit is not the rule which regulateth my Lord Jesus. Let Him give what He will, it shall aye be above merit, and my ability to gain therewith. I would not wish a better stock, whill heaven be my stock, than to live upon credit at Christ's hands, daily borrowing. Surely, running-over love (that vast, huge, boundless love of Christ that there is telling in for man and angels!) is the only thing I most fain would be in hands with. He knoweth that I have little but the love of that love; and that I shall be happy, suppose I never get another heaven but only an eternal, lasting feast of that love. But suppose my wishes were poor, He is not poor: Christ, all the seasons of the year, is dropping sweetness. If I had vessels, I might fill them; but my old, riven, and running-out dish, even when I am at the Well, can bring little away. Nothing but glory will make tight and fast our leaking and rifty vessels. Alas! I have skailed more of Christ's grace, love, faith, humility, and godly sorrow, than I have brought with me. How little of the sea can a child carry in his hand! As little dow I take away of my great Sea, my boundless and running-over Christ Jesus.

I have not lighted upon the right gate of putting Christ to the bank, and making myself rich with Him. My misguiding and childish trafficking with that matchless Pearl, that heaven's Jewel, the Jewel of the Father's delights, hath put me to a great loss. O that He would take a loan of me, and my stock, and put His name in all my bonds, and serve Himself heir to the poor, mean portion which I have, and be accountable for the talent Himself! Gladly would I put Christ into my room to guide all; and let me be but a servant to run errands, and act by His direction. Let me be His interdicted heir. Lord Jesus, work upon my minority, and let Him win a pupil's blessing! Oh, how would I rejoice to have this work of my salvation legally fastened upon Christ! A back-bond of my Lord Jesus that it should be forthcoming to the orphan, would be my happiness. Dependency on Christ were my surest way; if Christ were my foundation, I were sure enough. I thought the guiding of grace had been no art; I thought it would come of will; but I would spill my own heaven yet, if I had not burdened Christ with all. I but lend my bare name to the sweet covenant; Christ, behind and before, and on either side, maketh all sure. God will not take an Arminian cautioner. Freewill is a weather-cock, turning at a serpent's tongue, a tutor that cowped our Father Adam, unto us; and brought down the house, and sold the land, and sent the father, and mother, and all the bairns through the earth to beg their bread. Nature in the Gospel hath but a cracked credit. Oh, well to my poor soul for evermore, that my Lord called grace to the council, and put Christ Jesus, with free merits and the blood of God, foremost in the chase to draw sinners after a Ransomer! Oh, what a sweet block was it by way of buying and selling, to give and tell down a ransom for grace and glory to dyvours! Oh, would to my Lord that I could cause paper and ink to speak the worth and excellency, the high and loud praises of a Brother-ransomer! The Ransomer needeth not my report, but, oh, if He would take it, and make use of it! I should be happy if I had an errand to this world, but for some few years, to spread proclamations, and outcries, and love-letters of the highness, the highness for evermore, the glory, the glory for evermore, of the Ransomer, whose clothes were wet and dyed in blood! albeit, after I had done that, my soul and body should go back to their mother Nothing that their Creator brought them once out from, as from their beginning. But why should I pine away, and pain myself with wishes? and not believe, rather, that Christ will hire such an outcast as I am, a masterless body, put out of the house by the sons of my mother, and give me employment and a calling, one way or other, to set out Christ and His wares to country buyers, and propose Christ unto, and press Him upon some poor souls, that fainer than their life would receive Him?

You complain heavily of "your shortcoming in practice, and venturing on suffering for Christ." You have many marrows. For the first, I would put you off a sense of wretchedness. Hold on! Christ never yet slew a sighing, groaning child: more of that would make you won goods, and a meet prey for Christ. Alas! I have too little of it, for venturing on suffering. I had not so much free gear when I came to Christ's camp as to buy a sword. I wonder that Christ should not laugh at such a soldier. I am no better yet; but faith liveth and spendeth upon our Captain's charges, who is able to pay for all. We need not pity Him, He is rich enough.

Ye desire me also "Not to mistake Christ under a mask." I bless you, and thank God for it. But alas! masked or barefaced, kissing or glooming, I mistake Him: yea, I mistake Him the farthest when the mask is off; for then I play me with His sweetness. I am like a child that hath a gilded book, that playeth with the ribbons and the gilding, and the picture on the first page, but readeth not the contents of it. Certainly, if my desires to my Well-beloved were fulfilled, I could provoke devils, and crosses, and the world, and temptations to the field; but oh! my poor weakness maketh me lie behind the bush and hide me.

Remember my service and my blessing to my Lord. I am mindful of him as I am able. Desire him from a prisoner, to come and visit my good Master, and feel but the smell of His love. It setteth him well, howbeit he be young, to make Christ his garland. I could not wish him in a better case, than in a fever of love-sickness for Christ.

Remember my bonds. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXXI.—To WILLIAM HALLIDAY

[The name "Halliday" occurs on the tombstones of the old churchyard of Anwoth. No doubt this correspondent was one of his flock at Anwoth. One of the name lies buried in the old churchyard, with the following inscription on her tombstone:—

"Margat (i.e. Margaret) Halliday, spouse of John Bell in Archland, who departed this life anno 1631, Jan. 27, ætat. suæ 76. O death, I will be thy death! Now is Christ risen from the dead, and is the first froot (i.e. fruits) of them that …" (broken off.)

Archland is the same place as Henton, in the parish of Anwoth, a notice of which is given at Letter CCXIX., addressed to this John Bell.]

(DILIGENCE IN SECURING SALVATION.)

LOVING FRIEND,—I received your letter.—I wish that ye take pains for salvation. Mistaken grace, and somewhat like conversion which is not conversion, is the saddest and most doleful thing in the world. Make sure of salvation, and lay the foundation sure, for many are beguiled. Put a low price upon the world's clay; but a high price upon Christ. Temptations will come, but if they be not made welcome by you, ye have the best of it. Be jealous over yourself and your own heart, and keep touches with God. Let Him not have a faint and feeble soldier of you. Fear not to back Christ, for He will conquer and overcome. Let no man scaur at Christ, for I have no quarrels at His cross; He and His cross are two good guests, and worth the lodging. Men would fain have Christ good-cheap; but the market will not come down. Acquaint yourself with prayer. Make Christ your Captain and your armour. Make conscience of sinning when no eye seeth you. Grace be with you.

Yours, in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXXII.—To a Gentlewoman, after the death of her Husband

(VANITY OF EARTHLY POSSESSIONS—CHRIST A SUFFICIENT PORTION—DESIGN OF AFFLICTION.)

DEAR AND LOVING SISTER,—I know that ye are minding your sweet country, and not taking your inn, the place of your banishment, for your home. This life is not worthy to be the thatch, or outer wall, of the paradise of your Lord Jesus, that He did sweat for to you, and that He keepeth for you. Short, and silly, and sand-blind were our hope, if it could not look over the water to our best heritage, and if it stayed only at home about the doors of our clay house.

I marvel not, my dear sister, that ye complain that ye come short of your old wrestlings which ye had for a blessing; and that now you find it not so. Bairns are but hired to learn their lesson when they first go to school. And it is enough that those who run a race see the gold only, at the starting-place; and possibly they see little more of it, or nothing at all till they win to the rinks-end, and get the gold in the loof of their hand. Our Lord maketh delicates and dainties of His sweet presents and love-visits to His own: but Christ's love, under a veil, is love. If ye get Christ, howbeit not the sweet and pleasant way ye would have Him, it is enough; for the Well-beloved cometh not our way; He must wale His own gate Himself. For worldly things, seeing there are meadows and fair flowers in your way to heaven, a smell in the bygoing is sufficient. He that would reckon and tell all the stones in his way, in a journey of three or four hundred miles, and write up in his count-book all the herbs and the flowers growing in his way, might come short of his journey. You cannot stay, in your inch of time, to lose your day (seeing that you are in haste, and the night and your afternoon will not bide you), in setting your heart on this vain world. It were your wisdom to read your account-book, and to have in readiness your business, against the time you come to death's water-side. I know that your lodging is taken; your forerunner, Christ, hath not forgotten that; and therefore you must set yourself to your "one thing," which you cannot well want.

In that our Lord took your husband to Himself, I know it was that He might make room for Himself. He cutteth off your love to the creature, that ye might learn that God only is the right owner of your love. Sorrow, loss, sadness, death, are the worst of things that are, except sin. But Christ knoweth well what to make of them, and can put His own in the cross's common, so that we shall be obliged to affliction, and thank God who taught us to make our acquaintance with such a rough companion, who can hale us to Christ. You must learn to make your evils your great good; and to spin comforts, peace, joy, communion with Christ, out of your troubles, which are Christ's wooers, sent to speak for you to Himself. It is easy to get good words, and a comfortable message from our Lord, even from such rough serjeants as divers temptations. Thanks to God for crosses! When we count and reckon our losses in seeking God, we find that godliness is great gain. Great partners of a shipful of gold are glad to see the ship come to the harbour;—surely we, and our Lord Jesus together, have a shipful of gold coming home, and our gold is in that ship. Some are so in love, or, rather, in lust, with this life, that they sell their part of the ship for a little thing. I would counsel you to buy hope, but sell it not, and give not away your crosses for nothing. The inside of Christ's cross is white and joyful, and the far-end of the black cross is a fair and glorious heaven of ease. And seeing Christ hath fastened heaven to the far-end of the cross, and He will not loose the knot Himself, and none else can (for when Christ casteth a knot, all the world cannot loose it), let us then count it exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations.

Thus recommending you to the tender mercy and grace of our Lord, I rest, your loving brother,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXXIII.—To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, Younger

[JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, younger, like his father, previously noticed (Letter LXXXII.), was naturally a man of strong passions. Judging from this letter, he appears not only to have been neglectful of religion, but to have freely indulged in the follies and vices of youth. Rutherford warns him of his sin and danger with much freedom and affectionate earnestness; and these warnings, it is to be hoped, were not in vain. He was in the Covenanters' army, in England, in 1644, as appears from a letter of his preserved among the Wodrow MSS. It is dated "Sunderland, 28th March 1644," and is addressed to Mr. Thomas Wylie. It is written in a religious strain. After referring to the success of the army, and to the account of this drawn up by Mr. Robert Douglas, it contains in the close the following passage:—"I entreat you be kind to my wife, and deal with her neither to take my absence, nor the form of coming from her, in evil part; for, in God's presence, public duties and nothing else removed me, or marred the form of my removal. Be earnest with her that she seek a nearer acquaintance with Christ: and fail not to pray for her and her family, and me." (Wodrow MSS., vol. xxix.)]

(REASONS FOR BEING EARNEST ABOUT THE SOUL, AND FOR RESIGNATION.)

HONOURED AND DEAR BROTHER,—I wrote of late to you: multitudes of letters burden me now. I am refreshed with your letter.

I exhort you in the bowels of Christ, set to work for your soul. And let these bear weight with you, and ponder them seriously: 1st, Weeping and gnashing of teeth in utter darkness, or heaven's joy. 2ndly, Think what ye would give for an hour, when ye shall lie like dead, cold, blackened clay. 3rdly, There is sand in your glass yet, and your sun is not gone down. 4thly, Consider what joy and peace are in Christ's service. 5thly, Think what advantage it will be to have angels, the world, life and death, crosses, yea, and devils, all for you, as the King's serjeants and servants, to do your business. 6thly, To have mercy on your seed, and a blessing on your house. 7thly, To have true honour, and a name on earth that casteth a sweet smell. 8thly, How ye will rejoice when Christ layeth down your head under His chin, and betwixt His breasts, and drieth your face, and welcometh you to glory and happiness. 9thly, Imagine what pain and torture is a guilty conscience; what slavery to carry the devil's dishonest loads. 10thly, Sin's joys are but night-dreams, thoughts, vapours, imaginations, and shadows. 11thly, What dignity it is to be a son of God. 12thly, Dominion and mastery over temptations, over the world and sin. 13thly, That your enemies should be the tail, and you the head.

For your bairns, now at rest (I speak to you and your wife, and cause her read this). 1st, I am a witness for Barbara's glory in heaven. 2ndly, For the rest, I write it under my hand, there are days coming on Scotland when barren wombs, and dry breasts, and childless parents shall be pronounced blessed. They are, then, in the lee of the harbour ere the storm come on. 3rdly, They are not lost to you that are laid up in Christ's treasury in heaven. 4thly, At the Resurrection, ye shall meet with them; thither they are sent before, but not sent away. 5thly, Your Lord loveth you, who is homely to take and give, borrow and lend. 6thly, Let not bairns be your idols; for God will be jealous, and take away the idol, because He is greedy of your love wholly.

I bless you, your wife, and children. Grace for evermore be with you.

Your loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXXIV.—To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, Elder

(CALL TO EARNESTNESS ABOUT SALVATION—INTRUSION OF MINISTERS.)

HONOURABLE, AND DEAREST IN THE LORD,—Your letter hath refreshed my soul. My joy is fulfilled if Christ and ye be fast together. Ye are my joy and my crown. Ye know that I have recommended His love to you. I defy the world, Satan, and sin. His love hath neither brim nor bottom in it. My dearest in Christ, I write my soul's desire to you. Heaven is not at the next door. I find Christianity to be a hard task; set to in your evening. We would all keep both Christ and our right eye, our right hand and foot; but it will not do with us. I beseech you, by the mercies of God, and your compearance before Christ, look Christ's account-book and your own together, and collate them. Give the remnant of your time to your soul. This great idol-god, the world, will be lying in white ashes on the day of your compearance; and why should night-dreams, and day-shadows, and water-froth, and May-flowers run away with your heart? When we win to the water-side, and black death's river-brink, and put our foot into the boat, we shall laugh at our folly. Sir, I recommend unto you the thoughts of death, and how ye would wish your soul to be when ye shall lie cold, blue, ill-smelling clay.

For any hireling to be intruded, I, being the King's prisoner, cannot say much; but, as God's minister, I desire you to read Acts 1:15, 16, to the end, and Acts 6:2–5, and ye shall find that God's people should have a voice in choosing church-rulers and teachers. I shall be sorry if, willingly, ye shall give way to his unlawful intrusion upon my labours. The only wise God direct you.

God's grace be with you.

Your loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXXV.—To the LADY FORRET

[LADY FORRET was, we suppose, a "saint in Cæsar's household;" for Lord Forret (originally Mr. David Balfour) was one of Lauderdale's friends, appointed to watch the outed ministers in Fife. See "Blair's Life," by Row.]

(SICKNESS A KINDNESS—CHRIST'S GLOOMS BETTER THAN THE WORLD'S JOYS.)

WORTHY MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear from you. I hear Christ hath been that kind as to visit you with sickness, and to bring you to the door of the grave: but ye found the door shut (blessed be His glorious name!) whill ye be riper for eternity. He will have more service of you; and, therefore, He seeketh of you that henceforth ye be honest to your new husband, the Son of God. We have all idol-love, and are whorishly inclined to love other things beside our Lord; and, therefore, our Lord hunteth for our love more ways than one or two. O that Christ had His own of us! I know He will not want you, and that is a sweet wilfulness in His love: and ye have as good cause, on the other part, to be headstrong and peremptory in your love to Christ, and not to part, nor divide your love betwixt Him and the world. If it were more, it is little enough, yea, too little for Christ.

I am now, every way, in good terms with Christ. He hath set a banished prisoner as a seal on His heart, and as a bracelet on His arm. That crabbed and black tree of the cross laugheth upon me now; the alarming noise of the cross is worse than itself. 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. This world is not worth a drink of cold water. Oh, but Christ's love casteth a great heat! Hell, and all the salt sea, and the rivers of the earth, cannot quench it.

I remember you to God; ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. Grace, grace, be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 9, 1637.

CXXVI.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(ADHERENCE TO DUTY AMIDST OPPOSITION—POWER OF CHRIST'S LOVE.)

LOVING AND DEAR SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your letter hath refreshed my soul. You shall not have my advice to make haste to go out of that town; for if you remove out of Kirkcudbright, they will easily undo all. You are at God's work, and in His way there. Be strong in the Lord; the devil is weaker than you are, because stronger is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Your care of and love showed towards me, now a prisoner of Christ, is laid up for you in heaven, and you shall know that it is come up in remembrance before God.

Pray, pray for my desolate flock; and give them your counsel, when ye meet with any of them. It shall be my grief to hear that a wolf enter in upon my labours; but if the Lord permit it, I am silent. My sky shall clear, for Christ layeth my head in His bosom, and admitteth me to lean there. I never knew before what His love was in such a measure. If He leave me, He leaveth me in pain, and sick of love; and yet my sickness is my life and health. I have a fire within me; I defy all the devils in hell, and all the prelates in Scotland, to cast water on it.

I rejoice at your courage and faith. Pray still, as if I were on my journey to come and be your pastor. What iron gates or bars are able to stand it out against Christ? for when He bloweth, they open to Him.

I remember your husband. Grace, grace, be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 11, 1637.

CXXVII.—To JOHN CARSEN

[John Carsen was the son of Andrew Carsen, merchant and burgess of Kirkcudbright. He was retoured heir of his father 13th May 1635.—"Inquir. Gener." No. 2121. There are still several of the name in Kirkcudbright, and it is found often in the churchyard. There is "Bailie John Carsen" in the "Minute-book of Comm. of Covenanters," along with Bailie Ewart; and is called "Carsen of Senwick."]

(NOTHING WORTH THE FINDING, BUT CHRIST.)

MY WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR FRIEND,—Every one seeketh not God, and far fewer find Him; because they seek amiss. He is to be sought for above all things, if men would find what they seek. Let feathers and shadows alone to children, and go seek your Well-beloved. Your only errand to the world, is to woo Christ; therefore, put other lovers from about the house, and let Christ have all your love, without minching or dividing it. It is little enough, if there were more of it. The serving of the world and sin hath but a base reward and smoke instead of pleasures, and but a night-dream for true ease to the soul. Go where you will, your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom. Come in to Him, and lie down, and rest you on the slain Son of God, and inquire for Him. I sought Him; and now, a fig for all the worm-eaten pleasures, and moth-eaten glory out of heaven, since I have found Him, and in Him all I can want or wish! He hath made me a king over the world. Princes cannot overcome me. Christ hath given me the marriage kiss, and He hath my marriage-love: we have made up a full bargain, that shall not go back on either side. Oh, if ye, and all in that country, knew what sweet terms of mercy are betwixt Him and me! Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 11, 1637.

CXXVIII.—To the EARL OF CASSILLIS

[JOHN KENNEDY, sixth EARL OF CASSILLIS, was the son of Gilbert Kennedy, master of Cassillis, which is six miles from Ayr. He was served heir to his uncle, John, fifth Earl of Cassillis, in 1616. His Lordship was a person of considerable talents, of great virtue, and a zealous Covenanter. Having studied under Dr. Cameron, Principal of the College of Glasgow, a great defender of absolute government, he could not yield to some clauses in the first draught of the Covenant, which seemed to vindicate the use of defensive arms against the King; but he agreed to the Covenant as it now stands. He sat in the Glasgow Assembly, 1638, as elder from the Presbytery of Ayr; and was one of the three ruling elders sent to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in 1643. He was one of the commissioners who, in March 1650, went from Scotland to Breda, to treat with Charles II. He attended at the crowning of Charles at Scone, January 1, 1651. So strongly attached was he to the royal family, that when on one occasion Cromwell summoned him to a meeting, instead of attending it, he, along with some ministers and his chaplain, kept a day of fasting and prayer in his family. On the other hand, such was his hostility to the measures of the court, in establishing Prelacy and in ejecting the Presbyterian ministers from their charges, that he seldom paid stipend to any of the curates intruded into their places till compelled by a charge of horning. Wodrow designates him "the great and worthy Earl of Cassillis." "I have this account," says he, "of the Earl of Cassillis, that he was singularly pious, and a man of a very high spirit, who carried with a great state and majesty. His carriage in his family was most exemplary and religious. He was very much in secret duty, and had his hours wherein none had access to him. Upon the Sabbath his carriage was singular. He usually wrote the sermon, and at night caused his chaplain to examine all his servants and his children, even after they were pretty big, upon the sermon; and every one behoved to give their notes; and after all, many times he took out his own papers and read to them. When at Edinburgh, Lauderdale sent a servant to him upon a Sabbath night, telling him he was coming to wait on him. Presently he called Mr. Violant, his chaplain, and ordered him to go out and meet Lauderdale, and tell him that if he designed a Sabbath day's visit he was very welcome, but he would discourse upon no other thing with him but what was suitable to the day. Lauderdale came up, and discoursed with him,—as he could very well do,—only upon points of divinity" (Wodrow's "Analecta"). His Lordship died at his own house in the West in 1668.

The mansion is near Dalrymple. It is on the banks of the Doon, and embosomed in wood, with the hill called The Dounans facing the house. It is a confused pile of building. A long avenue of fine old trees leads up to it.]

(HONOUR OF TESTIFYING FOR CHRIST.)

MY VERY NOBLE AND HONOURABLE LORD,—I make bold (out of the honourable and Christian report I hear of your Lordship, having no other thing to say but that which concerneth the honourable cause which the Lord hath enabled your Lordship to profess) to write this, that it is your Lordship's crown, your glory, and your honour, to set your shoulder under the Lord's glory, now falling to the ground, and to back Christ now, when so many think it wisdom to let Him fend for Himself. The shields of the earth ever did, and do still believe that Christ is a cumbersome neighbour, and that it is a pain to hold up His yeas and nays. They fear that He take their chariots, and their crowns, and their honour from them; but my Lord standeth in need of none of them all. But it is your glory to own Christ and His buried truth; for, let men say what they please, the plea with Zion's enemies in this day of Jacob's trouble is, if Christ should be King, and no mouth speak laws but His? It concerneth the apple of Christ's eye, and His royal privileges, what is now debated; and Christ's kingly honour is come to yea and nay. But let me be pardoned, my dear and noble Lord, when I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the comfort of the Spirit, by the wounds of our dear Saviour, by your compearance before the Judge of quick and dead, to stand for Christ, and to back Him. Oh, if the nobles had done their part, and been zealous for the Lord! it had not been as it is now. But men think it wisdom to stand beside Christ till His head be broken, and sing dumb. There is a time coming when Christ will have a thick court, and He will be the glory of Scotland; and He will make a diadem, a garland, a seal upon His heart, and a ring upon His finger, of those who have avouched Him before this faithless generation. Howbeit, ere that come, wrath from the Lord is ordained for this land.

My Lord, I have cause to write this to your Lordship; for I dare not conceal His kindness to the soul of an afflicted, exiled prisoner. Who hath more cause to boast in the Lord than such a sinner as I, who am feasted with the consolations of Christ, and have no pain in my sufferings, but the pain of soul-sickness of love for Christ, and sorrow that I cannot help to sound aloud the praises of Him who hath heard the sighing of the prisoner, and is content to lay the head of His oppressed servant in His bosom, under His chin, and let Him feel the smell of His garments? It behoved me to write this, that your Lordship might know that Christ is as good as He is called; and to testify to your Lordship, that the cause, which your Lordship now professeth before the faithless world, is Christ's, and that your Lordship shall have no shame of it.

Grace be with you.

Your Lordship's obliged servant,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXIX.—To MR. ROBERT GORDON, Bailie of Ayr

[ROBERT GORDON was a merchant in Ayr. In Paterson's "History of the County of Ayr," he and his partner merchants are mentioned as having, in 1644, supplied the Scots army in Ireland, at a certain price, with a large quantity of meal and beans. He was cousin to John, Viscount of Kenmure, whose "Last and Heavenly Speeches and Glorious Departure" were published by Rutherford, and to which there is a reference in the beginning of this letter. It was to him that Kenmure said, "Robert, I know you have light and understanding; and though you have no need to be instructed by me, yet have you need to be incited" (p. 94). Gordon was frequently a member of the Town Council of Ayr; in 1631 as Dean of Guild, and in 1632 as Bailie. In 1638 and 1647 he held the office of Provost. He was a man of piety, and a zealous supporter of the Presbyterian cause. In an old parchment copy of the National Covenant 1638 (in the possession of Hugh Cowan, Esquire, Ayr), Gordon's signature appears, as well as the signatures of the other members of the Town Council, some of whom were Rutherford's correspondents, as John Kennedy, John Osborne, and John Stewart. The above copy of the National Covenant is signed by Rothes, Montrose, and other men of rank, being one of the copies sent at that time by the Covenanters from Edinburgh to the various burghs throughout the country to be subscribed.]

(CHRIST ABOVE ALL.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear from you on paper. Remember your chief's speeches on his death-bed. I pray you, sir, sell all, and buy the Pearl. Time will cut you from this world's glory; look what will do you good, when your glass shall be run out. And let Christ's love bear most court in your soul, and that court will bear down the love of other things. Christ seeketh your help in your place; give Him your hand. Who hath more cause to encourage others to own Christ than I have? for He hath made me sick of love, and left me in pain to wrestle with His love. And love is like to fall aswoon through His absence. I mean not that He deserteth me, or that I am ebb of comforts; but this is an unco pain.—O that I had a heart and a love to render to Him back again! Oh, if principalities and powers, thrones and dominions, and all the world would help me to praise! Praise Him in my behalf.

Remember my love to your wife. I thank you most kindly for your love to my brother. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXX.—To JOHN KENNEDY, Bailie of Ayr

(CHRIST'S LOVE—THE THREE WONDERS—DESIRES FOR HIS SECOND COMING.)

GRACE, mercy, and peace be to you. Your not writing to me cannot bind me up from remembering you now and then, that at least ye may be a witness, and a third man, to behold on paper what is betwixt Christ and me. I was in his eyes like a young orphan, wanting known parents, casten out in the open fields; either Christ behoved to take me up, and to bring me home to His house and fireside, else I had died in the fields. And now I am homely with Christ's love, so that I think the house mine own, and the Master of the house mine also. Christ inquired not, when He began to love me, whether I was fair, or black, or sun-burnt; love taketh what it may have. He loved me before this time, I know; but now I have the flower of His love; His love is come to a fair bloom, like a young rose opened up out of the green leaves; and it casteth a strong and fragrant smell. I want nothing but ways of expressing Christ's love. A full vessel would have a vent. Oh, if I could smoke out, and cast out coals, to make a fire in many breasts of this land! Oh! it is a pity that there were not many imprisoned for Christ, were it for no other purpose than to write books and love-songs of the love of Christ. This love would keep all created tongues of men and angels in exercise, and busy night and day, to speak of it. Alas! I can speak nothing of it, but wonder at three things in His love:—First, freedom. O that lumps of sin should get such love for nothing! Secondly, the sweetness of His love. I give over either to speak or write of it; but those that feel it, may better bear witness what it is. But it is so sweet, that, next to Christ Himself, nothing can match it. Nay, I think that a soul could live eternally blessed only on Christ's love, and feed upon no other thing. Yea, when Christ in love giveth a blow, it doeth a soul good; and it is a kind of comfort and joy to it to get a cuff with the lovely, sweet, and soft hand of Jesus. And, thirdly, what power and strength are in His love! I am persuaded it can climb a steep hill, with hell upon its back; and swim through water and not drown; and sing in the fire, and find no pain; and triumph in losses, prisons, sorrows, exile, disgrace, and laugh and rejoice in death. O for a year's lease of the sense of His love without a cloud, to try what Christ is! O for the coming of the Bridegroom! Oh, when shall I see the Bridegroom and the Bride meet in the clouds, and kiss each other! Oh, when will we get our day, and our heart's fill of that love! Oh, if it were lawful to complain of the famine of that love, and want of the immediate vision of God! O time, time! how dost thou torment the souls of those that would be swallowed up of Christ's love, because thou movest so slowly! Oh, if He would pity a poor prisoner, and blow love upon me, and give a prisoner a taste or draught of that sweetness, which is glory as it were begun, to be a confirmation that Christ and I shall have our fill of each other for ever! Come hither, O love of Christ, that I may once kiss thee before I die! What would I not give to have time, that lieth betwixt Christ and me, taken out of the way, that we might once meet! I cannot think but that, at the first sight I shall see of that most lovely and fairest face, love will come out of His two eyes, and fill me with astonishment. I would but desire to stand at the outer side of the gates of the New Jerusalem, and look through a hole of the door, and see Christ's face. A borrowed vision in this life would be my borrowed and begun heaven, whill the long, long-looked-for day dawn. It is not for nothing that it is said, "Christ in you the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). I will be content of no pawn of heaven but Christ Himself; for Christ, possessed by faith here, is young heaven, and glory in the bud. If I had that pawn, I would bide horning and hell both, ere I gave it again. All that we have here is scarce the picture of glory. Should not we young bairns long and look for the expiring of our minority? It were good to be daily begging propines and love-gifts, and the Bridegroom's favours; and, if we can do no more, to seek crumbs, and hungry dinners of Christ's love, to keep the taste of heaven in our mouth whill supper-time. I know it is far after noon, and nigh the marriage-supper of the Lamb; the table is covered already. O Well-beloved, run, run fast! O fair day, when wilt thou dawn! O shadows, flee away! I think hope and love, woven through other, make our absence from Christ spiritual torment. It is a pain to wait on; but hope that maketh not ashamed swalloweth up that pain. It is not unkindness that keepeth Christ and us so long asunder. What can I say to Christ's love? I think more than I can say. To consider, that when my Lord Jesus may take the air (if I may so speak), and go abroad, yet He will be confined and keep the prison with me! But, in all this sweet communion with Him, what am I to be thanked for? I am but a sufferer. Whether I will or not, He will be kind to me; as if He had defied my guiltiness to make Him unkind, He so beareth His love in on me. Here I die with wondering, that justice hindereth not love; for there are none in hell, nor out of hell, more unworthy of Christ's love. Shame may confound and scaur me once to hold up my black mouth to receive one of Christ's undeserved kisses. If my innerside were turned out, and all men saw my vileness, they would say to me, "It is a shame for thee to stand still whill Christ kiss thee and embrace thee." It would seem to become me rather to run away from His love, as ashamed at my own unworthiness; nay, I may think shame to take heaven, who have so highly provoked my Lord Jesus. But seeing Christ's love will shame me, I am content to be shamed. My desire is, that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at His love. I would I could weigh it, but I have no balance for it. When I have worn my tongue to the stump, in praising of Christ, I have done nothing to Him. I must let Him alone, for my withered arms will not go about His high, wide, long, and broad love. What remaineth, then, but that my debt to the love of Christ lie unpaid for all eternity? All that are in heaven are black-shamed with His love as well as I. We must all be dyvours together; and the blessing of that houseful, or heavenful, of dyvours shall rest for ever upon Him. Oh, if this land and nation would come and stand beside His inconceivable and glorious perfections, and look in, and love, and adore! Would to God I could bring in many lovers to Christ's house! But this nation hath forsaken the Fountain of living waters. Lord, cast not water on Scotland's coal. Wo, wo will be to this land, because of the day of the Lord's fierce anger that is so fast coming.

Grace be with you.

Your affectionate brother, in our Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CXXXI.—To JEAN BROWN

(HIS WISDOM IN OUR TRIALS—REJOICE IN TRIBULATION.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am glad that ye go on at Christ's back, in this dark and cloudy time. It were good to sell other things for Him; for when all these days are over, we shall find it our advantage that we have taken part with Christ. I confidently believe that His enemies shall be His footstool, and that He will make green flowers dead, withered hay, when the honour and glory shall fall off them, like the bloom or flower of a green herb shaken with the wind. It were not wisdom for us to think that Christ and the Gospel would come and sit down at our fireside; nay, but we must go out of our own warm houses, and seek Christ and His Gospel. It is not the sunny side of Christ that we must look to, and we must not forsake Him for want of that; but must set our face against what may befall us in following on, till He and we be through the briers and bushes, on the dry ground. Our soft nature would be borne through the troubles of this miserable life in Christ's arms; and it is His wisdom, who knoweth our mould, that His bairns go wet-shod and cold-footed to heaven. Oh, how sweet a thing were it for us to learn to make our burdens light, by framing our hearts to the burden, and making our Lord's will a law!

I find Christ and His cross not so ill to please, nor yet such troublesome guests, as men call them; nay, I think patience should make the water which Christ giveth us good wine, and His dross good metal. And we have cause to wait on; for, ere it be long, our Master will be at us, and bring this whole world out, before the sun and daylight, in their blacks and whites. Happy are they who are found watching. Our sand-glass is not so long as we need to weary; time will eat away and root out our woes and sorrow. Our heaven is in the bud, and growing up to an harvest. Why then should we not follow on, seeing our span-length of time will come to an inch? Therefore I commend Christ to you, as your last-living, and longest-living Husband, and the staff of your old age. Let Him now have the rest of your days. And think not much of a storm upon the ship that Christ saileth in: there shall no passenger fall overboard, but the crazed ship and the sea-sick passenger shall come to land safe.

I am in as sweet communion with Christ as a poor sinner can be; and am only pained that HE hath much beauty and fairness, and I little love; HE great power and mercy, and I little faith; HE much light, and I bleared eyes. O that I saw Him in the sweetness of His love, and in His marriage-clothes, and were over head and ears in love with that princely one, Christ Jesus my Lord! Alas, my riven dish, and the running-out vessel, can hold little of Christ Jesus!

I have joy in this, that I would not refuse death before I put Christ's lawful heritage in men's trysting; and what know I, if they would have pleased both Christ and me? Alas, that this land hath put Christ to open rouping, and to an "Any man bids more?" Blessed are they who would hold the crown on His head, and buy Christ's honour with their own losses.

I rejoice to hear that your son John is coming to visit Christ, and taste of His love. I hope that he will not lose his pains, nor rue of that choice. I had always (as I said often to you) a great love to dear Mr. John Brown, because I thought I saw Christ in him more than in his brethren. Fain would I write to him, to stand by my sweet Master; and I wish ye would let him read my letter, and the joy I shall have if he will appear for, and side with, my Lord Jesus. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXXII.—To JEAN MACMILLAN

[There were Macmillans at Dalshangan, near Carsphairn, noted as Covenanters. But the name is a common one, and this correspondent was probably an Anwoth parishioner.]

(STRIVE TO ENTER IN.)

LOVING SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I cannot come to you to give you my counsel; and howbeit I would come, I cannot stay with you. But I beseech you to keep Christ, for I did what I could to put you within grips of Him. I told you Christ's testament and latter-will plainly, and I kept nothing back that my Lord gave me; and I gave Christ to you with good will. I pray you to make Him your own, and go not from that truth which I taught you, in one hair-breadth. That truth will save you if you follow it. Salvation is not an easy thing, and soon gotten. I often told you that few are saved, and many damned: I pray you to make your poor soul sure of salvation, and the seeking of heaven your daily task. If ye never had a sick night and a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ. Look to the right marks of having closed with Christ. If ye love Him better than the world, and would quit all the world for Him, then that saith the work is sound. Oh, if ye saw the beauty of Jesus, and smelled the fragrance of His love, you would run through fire and water to be at Him? God send you Him.

Pray for me, for I cannot forget you. Grace be with you.

Your loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXXXIII.—To the LADY BUSBIE

[LADY BUSBIE is probably the mother-in-law of R. Blair, Rutherford's intimate friend. R. Blair married Catherine, daughter of Hugh Montgomery, Laird of Busbie, in Ayrshire, in 1635. In Welsh's "Life" mention is made of "Mouat of Bushby," eight miles from Ayr. He was father of Matthew Mouat of Kilmarnock.]

(COMPLETE SURRENDER TO CHRIST—NO IDOLS—TRIALS DISCOVER SINS—A FREE SALVATION—THE MARRIAGE SUPPER.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am glad to hear that Christ and ye are one, and that ye have made Him your "one thing," whereas many are painfully toiled in seeking many things, and their many things are nothing. It is only best that ye set yourself apart, as a thing laid up and out of the gate, for Christ alone; for ye are good for no other thing than Christ; and He hath been going about you these many years, by afflictions, to engage you to Himself. It were a pity and a loss to say Him nay. Verily I could wish that I could swim through hell, and all the ill weather in the world, and Christ in my arms. But it is my evil and folly, that except Christ come unsent for, I dow not go to seek Him: when He and I fall a-reckoning, we are both behind, He in payment, and I in counting; and so marches lie still unredd, and accounts uncleared betwixt us. O that He would take His own blood for counts and miscounts, that I might be a free man, and none had any claim to me but only, only Jesus. I will think it no bondage to be rouped, comprised, and possessed by Christ as His bondman.

Think well of the visitation of your Lord; for I find one thing, which I saw not well before, that when the saints are under trials, and well humbled, little sins raise great cries and war-shouts in the conscience; and in prosperity, conscience is a pope, to give dispensations, and let out and in, and give latitude and elbow-room to our heart. Oh, how little care we for pardon at Christ's hand, when we make dispensations! And all is but bairns' play, till a cross without beget a heavier cross within, and then we play no longer with our idols. It is good still to be severe against ourselves; for we but transform God's mercy into an idol, and an idol that hath a dispensation to give, for the turning of the grace of God into wantonness. Happy are they who take up God, wrath, justice, and sin, as they are in themselves, for we have miscarrying light, that parteth with the child, when we have good resolutions only. But, God be thanked, that salvation is not rolled upon our wheels.

Oh, but Christ hath a saving eye! salvation is in His eyelids! When He first looked on me, I was saved; it cost Him but a look to make hell quit of me! Oh, but merits, free merits, and the dear blood of God, were the best gate that ever we could have gotten out of hell! Oh, what a sweet, oh, what a safe and sure way is it, to come out of hell leaning on a Saviour! That Christ and a sinner should be one, and have heaven betwixt them, and be halvers of salvation, is the wonder of salvation. What more humble could love be? And what an excellent smell doth Christ cast on His lower garden, where there grow but wild flowers, if we speak by way of comparison. But there is nothing but perfect garden flowers in heaven, and the best plenishing that is there is Christ. We are all obliged to love heaven for Christ's sake. He graceth heaven, and all His Father's house, with His presence. He is a Rose that beautifieth all the upper garden of God; a leaf of that Rose of God for smell is worth a world. O that He would blow His smell upon a withered and dead soul! Let us, then, go on to meet with Him, and to be filled with the sweetness of His love. Nothing will hold Him from us. He hath decreed to put time, sin, hell, devils, men, and death out of the way, and to rid the rough way betwixt us and Him, that we may enjoy one another. It is strange and wonderful, that He would think long in heaven without us; and that He would have the company of sinners to solace and delight Himself withal in heaven. And now the supper is abiding us. Christ, the Bridegroom, with desire is waiting on, till the bride, the Lamb's wife, be busked for the marriage, and the great hall be redd for the meeting of that joyful couple. Oh, fools! what do we here? and why sit we still? Why sleep we in the prison? Were it not best to make us wings, to flee up to our blessed Match, our Marrow, and our fellow Friend.

I think, Mistress, that ye are looking thereaway, and that this is your second or third thought. Make forward; your Guide waiteth on you.

I cannot but bless you for your care and kindness to the saints. God give you to find mercy, in that day of our Lord Jesus; to whose saving grace I recommend you.

Yours, in our Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXXXIV.—To JOHN EWART, Bailie of Kirkcudbright

[JOHN EWART'S name often occurs in the "Minute Book of Comm. of Covenanters," as residing in Kirkcudbright. He is understood to be the father of the John Ewart who was sentenced to banishment, 1663, for refusing to take part in quelling a tumult raised at the intrusion of a curate in room of the ejected minister of Kirkcudbright. (Wodrow's "Hist.") A descendant of his at Stranraer has a small silver cup, which has been handed down from his ancestors.]

(THE CROSS NO BURDEN—NEED OF SURE FOUNDATION.)

MY VERY WORTHY AND DEAR FRIEND,—I cannot but most kindly thank you for the expressions of your love. Your love and respect to me is a great comfort to me.

I bless His high and glorious name, that the terrors of great men have not affrighted me from openly avouching the Son of God. Nay, His cross is the sweetest burden that ever I bare; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails are to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbour. I have not much cause to fall in love with the world; but rather to wish that He who sitteth upon the floods would bring my broken ship to land, and keep my conscience safe in these dangerous times; for wrath from the Lord is coming on this sinful land.

It were good that we prisoners of hope know of our stronghold to run to, before the storm come on; therefore, Sir, I beseech you by the mercies of God, and comforts of His spirit, by the blood of your Saviour, and by your compearance before the sin-revenging Judge of the world, keep your garments clean, and stand for the truth of Christ, which ye profess. When the time shall come that your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, your breath grow cold, and this house of clay shall totter, and your one foot shall be over the march, in eternity, it will be your comfort and joy that ye gave your name to Christ. The greatest part of the world think heaven at the next door, and that Christianity is an easy task; but they will be beguiled. Worthy Sir, I beseech you, make sure work of salvation. I have found my experience, that all I could do hath had much ado in the day of my trial; and, therefore, lay up a sure foundation for the time to come.

I cannot requite you for your undeserved favours to me and my now afflicted brother. But I trust to remember you to God. Remember me heartily to your kind wife.

Yours, in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXXV.—To WILLIAM FULLERTON, Provost of Kirkcudbright

(FEAR NOT THEM WHO KILL THE BODY—UNEXPECTED FAVOUR.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am much obliged to your love in God.

I beseech you, Sir, let nothing be so dear to you as Christ's truth, for salvation is worth all the world, and, therefore, be not afraid of men that shall die. The Lord will do for you in your suffering for Him, and will bless your house and seed; and ye have God's promise, that ye shall have His presence in fire, water, and in seven tribulations. Your day shall wear to an end, and your sun go down. In death it will be your joy that ye have ventured all ye have for Christ; and there is not a promise of heaven made but to such as are willing to suffer for it. It is a castle taken by force. This earth is but the clay portion of bastards; and, therefore, no wonder that the world smile on its own; but better things are laid up for His lawfully-begotten bairns, whom the world hateth.

I have experience to speak this; for I would not exchange my prison and sad nights with the court, honour, and ease of my adversaries. My Lord is pleased to make many unknown faces to laugh upon me, and to provide a lodging for me; and He Himself visiteth my soul with feasts of spiritual comforts. Oh, how sweet a Master is Christ! Blessed are they who lay down all for Him.

I thank you kindly for your love to my distressed brother. Ye have the blessing and prayers of the prisoner of Christ to you, your wife and your children.

Remember my love and blessing to William and Samuel. I desire them in their youth to seek the Lord, and to fear His great name; to pray twice a-day, at least, to God, and to read God's word; to keep themselves from cursing, lying, and filthy talking.

Now the only wise God, and the presence of the Son of God, be with you all.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXXVI.—To ROBERT GLENDINNING, Minister of Kirkcudbright

(PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD—CHRIST HIS JOY.)

MY DEAR FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I thank you most kindly for your care of me, and your love and respective kindness to my brother in his distress. I pray the Lord that ye may find mercy in the day of Christ; and I entreat you, Sir, to consider the times which ye live in, and that your soul is more worth to you than the whole world, which, in the day of the blowing of the Last Trumpet, shall lie in white ashes, as an old castle burned to nothing. And remember that judgment and eternity is before you. My dear and worthy friend, let me entreat you in Christ's name, and by the salvation of your soul, and by your compearance before the dreadful and sin-revenging Judge of the world, to make your accounts ready. Redd them ere ye come to the water-side; for your afternoon will wear short, and your sun fall low and go down; and ye know that this long time your Lord hath waited on you. Oh, how comfortable a thing it will be to you, when time shall be no more, and your soul shall depart out of the house of clay to vast and endless eternity, to have your soul dressed up, and prepared for your Bridegroom! No loss is comparable to the loss of the soul; there is no hope of regaining that loss. Oh, how joyful would my soul be to hear that ye would start to the gate, and contend for the crown, and leave all vanities and make Christ your garland! Let your soul put away your old lovers, and let Christ have your whole love.

I have some experience to write of this to you. My witness is in heaven, that I would not exchange my chains and bonds for Christ, and my sighs, for ten worlds' glory. I judge this clay-idol, which Adam's sons are rouping, and selling their souls for, not worth a drink of cold water. Oh, if your soul were in my soul's stead, how sick would ye be of love for that fairest One, that Fairest among the sons of men! May-flowers, and morning vapour, and summer mist, posteth not so fast away as these worm-eaten pleasures which we follow. We build castles in the air, and night-dreams are our daily idols that we doat on. Salvation, salvation is our only necessary thing. Sir, call home your thoughts to this work, to inquire for your Well-beloved. This earth is the portion of bastards: seek the Son's inheritance, and let Christ's truth be dear to you.

I pawn my salvation on it, that this is the honour of Christ's kingdom which I now suffer for (and this world, I hope, shall not come between me and my garland); and that this is the way to life. When ye and I shall lie lumps of pale clay upon the ground, our pleasures, that we now naturally love, shall be less than nothing in that day. Dear brother, fulfil my joy, and betake you to Christ without further delay. Ye will be fain at length to seek Him, or do infinitely worse. Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXXVII.—To WILLIAM GLENDINNING

[WILLIAM GLENDINNING was the son of Mr. Robert Glendinning, minister of Kirkcudbright. A short time before this letter was written, he was ordered to be imprisoned in Kirkcudbright by Bishop Sydserff, for refusing to incarcerate his father, whom that intolerant prelate had suspended from his office, and had ordered to be imprisoned, because he would neither conform to Episcopacy, nor admit as his assistant a creature of the Bishop. He was a member of the General Assembly of Glasgow 1638, being returned by the burgh of Kirkcudbright, of which he was then Provost. During the subsequent years, he was frequently a member of the General Assembly; and his name appears as a member of Parliament for the burgh of Kirkcudbright, and sent by the Committee of Estates, in 1644, 1645, and 1646.]

(PERSEVERANCE AGAINST OPPOSITION.)

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I thank you most kindly for your care and love to me, and in particular to my brother, in his distress in Edinburgh. Go on through your waters without wearying; your Guide knoweth the way; follow Him, and cast your cares and temptations upon Him. And let not worms, the sons of men, affright you; they shall die, and the moth shall eat them. Keep your garland; there is no less at the stake, in this game betwixt us and the world, than our conscience and salvation. We have need to take heed to the game, and not to yield to them. Let them take other things from us; but here, in matters of conscience, we must hold and draw with kings, and set ourselves in terms of opposition with the shields of the earth. Oh, the sweet communion, for evermore, that hath been between Christ and His prisoner! He wearieth not to be kind. He is the fairest sight I see in Aberdeen, or in any part that ever my feet were in.

Remember my hearty kindness to your wife. I desire her to believe, and lay her cares on God, and make fast work of salvation. Grace be with you.

Yours in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXXVIII.—To MR. HUGH HENDERSON

[HUGH HENDERSON was first minister of Dalry, a parish in the district of Cunningham, Ayrshire; and afterwards of Dumfries. We meet with his name as minister of Dalry in 1643, when he was nominated as one of the eight ministers whom the General Assembly appointed to visit Ireland by pairs, each pair for three months successively, to instruct, comfort, and encourage the Presbyterians in that country, who had been deprived of their ministers through the tyranny of the prelates. In 1645 he was appointed by the General Assembly chaplain to Colonel Stuart's regiment; and in 1648 translated to Dumfries. Shortly after the restoration of Charles II., he, and all the ministers of the Presbytery of Dumfries, were, by the order of the King's Commissioner, carried prisoners to Edinburgh, for refusing to observe the 29th day of May as a religious anniversary, in commemoration of the King's birth and restoration. But he and the rest (with the exception of two) at last yielded so far as to engage simply to preach on that day, knowing it would be the day of their ordinary weekly sermon; a promise hardly compatible with straightforwardness, being something like a disingenuous attempt to make it appear that they were complying with the statute of Parliament, when they were merely discharging a professional duty. Henderson exhibited more consistency and stedfastness the subsequent year, when he preferred being expelled from his charge to conforming to Prelacy. He was ejected in the close of the year 1662, by the Earl of Middleton. After this, Henderson frequently preached in his own house in Galloway.]

(TRIALS SELECTED BY GOD—PATIENCE—LOOKING FOR THE JUDGE.)

MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I hear that you bear the marks of Christ's dying about with you, and that your brethren have cast you out for your Master's sake. Let us wait on till the evening, and till our reckoning in black and white come before our Master. Brother, since we must have a devil to trouble us, I love a raging devil best. Our Lord knoweth what sort of devil we have need of: it is best that Satan be in his own skin, and look like himself. Christ weeping looketh like Himself also, with whom Scribes and Pharisees were at yea and nay, and sharp contradiction.

Ye have heard of the patience of Job. When he lay in the ashes, God was with him, clawing and curing his scabs, and letting out his boils, comforting his soul; and He took him up at last. That God is not dead yet; He will stoop and take up fallen bairns. Many broken legs since Adam's days hath He spelked, and many weary hearts hath He refreshed. Bless Him for comfort. Why? None cometh dry from David's well. Let us go among the rest, and cast down our toom buckets into Christ's ocean, and suck consolations out of Him. We are not so sore stricken, but we may fill Christ's hall with weeping. We have not gotten our answer from Him yet. Let us lay up our broken pleas to a full sea, and keep them till the day of Christ's Coming, We and this world will not be even till then: they would take our garment from us; but let us hold and them draw.

Brother, it is a strange world if we laugh not. I never saw the like of it, if there be not "paiks the man," for this contempt done to the Son of God. We must do as those who keep the bloody napkin to the Bailie, and let him see blood; we must keep our wrongs to our Judge, and let Him see our bluddered and foul faces. Prisoners of hope must run to Christ, with the gutters that tears have made on their cheeks.

Brother, for myself, I am Christ's dawted one for the present; and I live upon no deaf nuts, as we use to speak. He hath opened fountains to me in the wilderness. Go, look to my Lord Jesus: His love to me is such, that I defy the world to find either brim or bottom to it. Grace be with you.

Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXXXIX.—To my LORD BALMERINOCH

[JOHN ELPHINSTON, second LORD BALMERINOCH, was the only son by the first marriage of the Honourable Sir James Elphinston, first Lord Balmerinoch. He distinguished himself in 1633 for his opposition to the measures of the Court in favour of Prelacy, and particularly for opposing in Parliament the Act concerning the King's prerogative in imposing Apparel on Churchmen, and also the Act ratifying the Acts previously made for settling the estate of Bishops. Soon after he was libelled and condemned to death as guilty of treason. However, after a long and severe imprisonment, he obtained fom his Majesty a free though reluctant pardon. True to his former principles, he still continued to oppose the measures then pursued by Government, and particularly the attempts to introduce the Service Book into Scotland. He was a member of the Glasgow Assembly 1638, being returned as elder for the Presbytery of Edinburgh. "His Lordship," says Wood, "was, without exception, the best friend the Covenanters had, as he not only assisted that party with his advice on all occasions, but also supplied them with large sums of money, by which he irreparably injured the very ample fortune he inherited from his father. He lived in habits of strict friendship with the chief leaders of the Presbyterians, and was particularly intimate with Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston. He had so strong a sense of justice, that, having reason to suspect his father had made too advantageous a purchase of the lands of Balumby, in the county of Forfar, he, of his own accord, gave 10,000 merks to the heir of that estate, by way of compensation" (Wood's "Cramond"). He died suddenly in 1649, at the very time when commissioners (of whom he was one) were sent to treat with Charles II. in Holland. (Lamont's "Diary," p. 1.)]

(HIS HAPPY OBLIGATIONS TO CHRIST—EMPTINESS OF THE WORLD.)

MY VERY NOBLE AND TRULY HONOURABLE LORD,—I make bold to write news to your Lordship from my prison, though your Lordship have experience more than I can have. At my first entry here, I was not a little casten down with challenges, for old, unrepented-of sins; and Satan and my own apprehensions made a lie of Christ, that He hath casten a dry, withered tree over the dyke of the vineyard. But it was my folly (blessed be His great name), the fire cannot burn the dry tree. He is pleased now to feast the exiled prisoner with His lovely presence; for it suiteth Christ well to be kind, and He dineth and suppeth with such a sinner as I am. I am in Christ's tutoring here. He hath made me content with a borrowed fireside, and it casteth as much heat as mine own. I want nothing but real possession of Christ; and He hath given me a pawn of that also, which I hope to keep till He come Himself to loose the pawn. I cannot get help to praise His high name. He hath made me king over my losses, imprisonment, banishment; and only my dumb Sabbaths stick in my throat. But I forgive Christ's wisdom in that. I dare not say one word; He hath done it, and I will lay my hand upon my mouth. If any other hand had done it to me, I could not have borne it.

Now, my Lord, I must tell your Lordship that I would not give a drink of cold water for this clay idol, this plastered world. I testify, and give it under my own hand, that Christ is most worthy to be suffered for. Our lazy flesh, which would have Christ to cry down crosses by open proclamation, hath but raised a slander upon the cross of Christ. My Lord, I hope that ye will not forget what He hath done for your soul. I think that ye are in Christ's count-book, as His obliged debtor.

Grace, grace be with your spirit.

Your Lordship's obliged servant,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXL.—To my LADY MAR, Younger

[LADY MAR, younger, whose maiden name was Christian Hay, was the wife of John Erskine, eighth Earl of Mar. She became a widow in 1654, his Lordship having died in that year. Her son, John, became ninth Earl of Mar, and her daughter, Elizabeth, was married to Archibald, Lord Napier. Lady Mar, senior, was Lady Mary Stewart, daughter of Esme, Duke of Lennox, second wife of John, Lord Erskine, seventh Earl of Mar. She died in the house of Sir Thomas Hope, in the Cowgate, Edinburgh, and was buried at Alloa, 11th May 1644. (Sir Thomas Hope's "Diary," p. 205.) It was for her that, in 1625, the book of devotion, called "The Countess of Mar's Sanctuary, or Arcadia," was drawn up—a little work of which only two copies were known to be in existence, till reprinted in 1862, at Edinburgh.]

(NO EXCHANGE FOR CHRIST.)

MY VERY NOBLE AND DEAR LADY,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your Ladyship's letter, which hath comforted my soul. God give you to find mercy in the day of Christ.

I am in as good terms and court with Christ as an exiled, oppressed prisoner of Christ can be. I am still welcome to His house; He knoweth my knock, and letteth in a poor friend. Under this black, rough tree of the cross of Christ, He hath ravished me with His love, and taken my heart to heaven with Him. Well and long may He brook it. I would not niffer Christ with all the joys that man or angel can devise beside Him. Who hath such cause to speak honourably of Christ as I have? Christ is King of all crosses, and He hath made His saints little kings under Him; and He can ride and triumph upon weaker bodies than I am (if any can be weaker), and His horse will neither fall nor stumble.

Madam, your Ladyship hath much ado with Christ, for your soul, husband, children, and house. Let Him find much employment for His calling with you; for He is such a friend as delighteth to be burdened with suits and employments; and the more ye lay on Him, and the more homely ye be with Him, the more welcome. O the depth of Christ's love! It hath neither brim nor bottom. Oh, if this blind world saw His beauty! When I count with Him for His mercies to me, I must stand still and wonder, and go away as a poor dyvour, who hath nothing to pay. Free forgiveness is payment. I would that I could get Him set on high; for His love hath made me sick, and I die except I get real possession.

Grace, grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXLI.—To JAMES MACADAM

[John Livingstone ("Histor. Relation"), along with Marion M'Naught and other such, mentions John Macadam and Christian Macadam of Waterhead, near Carsphairn, as eminent Christians. The person to whom this letter is addressed may have been one of that family. The famous road engineer in our day, Macadam, born at Waterhead, was descended from this ancient family.

It seems that the Christian Macadam mentioned above was afterwards Lady Cardoness; and because of her connection with this correspondent of Rutherford's, we may give the inscription on her tomb. The tomb is part of the enclosed pile close to the old Anwoth church. The inscription is on the north side of the pile:—

"Christian M'Adam, Lady Cardynes. Departed 16th June of 1628. Ætatis suæ, 33.

"Ye gazers on the trophy of a tomb,

Send out one groan for want of her whose life,

Twice born on earth, now is in earth's womb.

Lived long a virgin, now a spotless wife.

Church keeps her godly life, the tomb her corpse,

And earth her precious name. Who then does lose?

Her husband? No, since heaven her soul doth gain."]

(THE KINGDOM TAKEN BY FORCE.)

MY VERY DEAR AND WORTHY FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear of your growing in grace, and of your advancing in your journey to heaven. It will be the joy of my heart to hear that ye hold your face up the brae, and wade through temptations without fearing what man can do. Christ shall, when He ariseth, mow down His enemies, and lay bulks (as they use to speak) on the green, and fill the pits with dead bodies (Ps. 110:6; "the places"). They shall lie like handfuls of withered hay, when He ariseth to the prey. Salvation, salvation is the only necessary thing. This clay idol, the world, is not to be sought; it is a morsel not for you, but for hunger-bitten bastards. Contend for salvation. Your Master, Christ, won heaven with strokes: it is a besieged castle; it must be taken with violence. Oh, this world thinketh heaven but at the next door, and that godliness may sleep in a bed of down till it come to heaven! But that will not do it.

For myself, I am as well as Christ's prisoner can be; for by Him I am master and king of all my crosses. I am above the prison, and the lash of men's tongues; Christ triumpheth in me. I have been casten down, and heavy with fears, and haunted with challenges. I was swimming in the depths, but Christ had His hand under my chin all the time, and took good heed that I should not lose breath; and now I have gotten my feet again, and there are love-feasts of joy, and spring-tides of consolation betwixt Christ and me. We agree well; I have court with Him; I am still welcome to His house. Oh, my short arms cannot fathom His love! I beseech you, I charge you, to help me to praise. Ye have a prisoner's prayers, therefore forget me not.

I desire Sibylla to remember me dearly to all in that parish who know Christ, as if I had named them.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXLII.—To my very dear brother, WILLIAM LIVINGSTONE

[Probably one of his Anwoth parishioners. There are Livingstones in that neighbourhood to this day.]

(COUNSEL TO A YOUTH.)

MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—I rejoice to hear that Christ hath run away with your young love, and that ye are so early in the morning matched with such a Lord; for a young man is often a dressed lodging for the devil to dwell in. Be humble and thankful for grace; and weigh it not so much by weight, as if it be true. Christ will not cast water on your smoking coal; He never yet put out a dim candle that was lighted at the Sun of Righteousness. I recommend to you prayer and watching over the sins of your youth; for I know that missive letters go between the devil and young blood. Satan hath a friend at court in the heart of youth; and there pride, luxury, lust, revenge, forgetfulness of God, are hired as his agents. Happy is your soul if Christ man the house, and take the keys Himself, and command all, as it suiteth Him full well to rule all wherever He is. Keep Christ, and entertain Him well. Cherish His grace; blow upon your own coal; and let Him tutor you.

Now for myself: know that I am fully agreed with my Lord. Christ hath put the Father and me into each other's arms. Many a sweet bargain He made before, and He hath made this among the rest. I reign as king over my crosses. I will not flatter a temptation, nor give the devil a good word: I defy hell's iron gates. God hath passed over my quarrelling of Him at my entry here, and now He feedeth and feasteth with me.

Praise, praise with me; and let us exalt His name together.

Your brother in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXLIII.—To WILLIAM GORDON of Whitepark

[This may be a son of George Gordon, who is recorded as heir to the estate of "Whytpark," March 20, 1628. It was not, in the parish of Anwoth, but close to Castle Douglas.]

(NOTHING LOST BY TRIALS—LONGING FOR CHRIST HIMSELF BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I long to hear from you. I am here the Lord's prisoner and patient, handled as softly by my Physician as if I were a sick man under a cure. I was at hard terms with my Lord, and pleaded with Him, but I had the worst side. It is a wonder that He should have suffered the like of me to have nicknamed the Son of His love, Christ, and to call Him a changed Lord, who hath forsaken me. But misbelief hath never a good word to speak of Christ. The dross of my cross gathered a scum of fears in the fire—doubtings, impatience, unbelief, challenging of Providence as sleeping, and as not regarding my sorrow; but my goldsmith, Christ, was pleased to take off the scum, and burn it in the fire. And, blessed be my Refiner, He hath made the metal better, and furnished new supply of grace, to cause me hold out weight; and I hope that He hath not lost one grain-weight by burning His servant. Now His love in my heart casteth a mighty heat; He knoweth that the desire I have to be at Himself paineth me. I have sick nights and frequent fits of love-fevers for my Well-beloved. Nothing paineth me now but want of His presence. I think it long till day. I challenge time as too slow in its pace, that holdeth my only fair one, my love, my Well-beloved from me. Oh, if we were together once! I am like an old crazed ship that hath endured many storms, and that would fain be in the lee of the shore, and feareth new storms; I would be that nigh heaven, that the shadow of it might break the force of the storm, and the crazed ship might win to land. My Lord's sun casteth a heat of love and beam of light on my soul. My blessing thrice every day upon the sweet cross of Christ! I am not ashamed of my garland, "the banished minister," which is the term of Aberdeen. Love, love defieth reproaches. The love of Christ hath a corslet of proof on it, and arrows will not draw blood of it. We are more than conquerors through the blood of Him that loved us (Rom. 8:37). The devil and the world cannot wound the love of Christ. I am further from yielding to the course of defection than when I came hither. Sufferings blunt not the fiery edge of love. Cast love into the floods of hell, it will swim above. It careth not for the world's busked and plastered offers. It hath pleased my Lord so to line my heart with the love of my Lord Jesus, that, as if the field were already won, and I on the other side of time, I laugh at the world's golden pleasures, and at this dirty idol which the sons of Adam worship. This worm-eaten god is that which my soul hath fallen out of love with.

Sir, ye were once my hearer: I desire now to hear from you and your wife. I salute her and your children with blessings. I am glad that ye are still handfasted with Christ. Go on in your journey, and take the city by violence. Keep your garments clean. Be clean virgins to your husband the Lamb. The world shall follow you to heaven's gates: and ye would not wish it to go in with you. Keep fast Christ's love. Pray for me, as I do for you.

The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXLIV.—To MR GEORGE GILLESPIE

[GRORGE GILLESPIE was the son of Mr. John Gillespie, some time minister of the Gospel at Kirkcaldy. He was licensed to preach the Gospel some time prior to 1638: and in April, that year, was ordained minister of Wemyss. In 1642, by the General Assembly he was translated to one of the churches in Edinburgh, where he continued till his death. Gillespie possessed talents of the highest order; and so much were these appreciated that, young as he was, he was one of the four ministers sent as commissioners from the Church of Scotland to the Westminster Assembly in 1643. There he attracted general notice, by the cogency of argument, and the rare learning which he showed in pleading the cause of Presbytery and opposing Erastianism. At one of the meetings of that Assembly, when the learned Selden had delivered a long and an elaborate discourse in favour of Erastianism, to which none seemed prepared to reply, Gillespie, who was still a young man, was observed to be writing. A venerable friend went to his chair, and asked if he had taken notes, but found that he had written nothing except these words, frequently repeated, "Give light, Lord." His friend urged him to answer. Gillespie at last rose, and in an extempore speech refuted Selden with a power of reasoning and an amount of learning which excited the admiration of all present. Selden himself is said to have observed, after hearing this reply, "That young man, by a single speech, has swept away the labour and the learning of ten years of my life!" Gillespie died in December 1648, in the 36th year of his age. During his last illness he enjoyed little comfort, but was strong in the faith of adherence to the divine promises—a subject on which he insisted much in his sermons. When asked if he had any comfort, he said, "No; but though the Lord allow me no comfort, yet I will believe that my Beloved is mine, and that I am His." To two ministers, who asked what advice he had to give them, he answered: "I have little experience of the ministry, having been in it only nine years; but I can say that I have got more assistance in the work of preaching from prayer than study; and much more help from the assistance of the Spirit than from books." And yet he was known to have been an indefatigable student. He is the author of various works, which are chiefly controversial, such as "The English Popish Ceremonies," and "Aaron's Rod Blossoming."]

(SUSPICIONS OF CHRIST'S LOVE REMOVED THREE DESIRES.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I received your letter. As for my case, brother, I bless His glorious name, that my losses are my gain, my prison a palace, and my sadness joyfulness. At my first entry, my apprehensions so wrought upon my cross, that I became jealous of the love of Christ, as being by Him thrust out of the vineyard, and I was under great challenges, as ordinarily melted gold casteth forth a drossy scum, and Satan and our corruption form the first words that the heavy cross speaketh, and say, "God is angry, He loveth you not." But our apprehensions are not canonical; they indite lies of God and Christ's love. But since my spirit was settled, and the clay has fallen to the bottom of the well, I see better what Christ was doing. And now my Lord is returned with salvation under His wings. Now I want little of half a heaven, and I find Christ every day so sweet, comfortable, lovely, and kind, that three things only trouble me: 1st, I see not how to be thankful, or how to get help to praise that Royal King, who raiseth up those that are bowed down. 2nd, His love paineth me, and woundeth my soul, so that I am in a fever for want of real presence. 3rd, An excessive desire to take instruments in God's name, that this is Christ and His truth, which I now suffer for; yea, the apple of the eye of Christ's honour, even the sovereignty and royal privileges of our King and Lawgiver, Christ. And, therefore, let no man scaur at Christ's cross, or raise an ill report upon Him or it; for He beareth the sufferer and it both.

I am here troubled with the disputes of the great doctors (especially with Dr. B.) in Ceremonial and Arminian controversies, for all are corrupt here; but, I thank God, with no detriment to the truth, or discredit to my profession. So, then, I see that Christ can triumph in a weaker man nor I; and who can be more weak? But His grace is sufficient for me.

Brother, remember our old covenant, and pray for me, and write to me your case. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXLV.—To JEAN GORDON

(GOD THE SATISFYING PORTION—ADHERENCE TO CHRIST.)

MY VERY DEAR AND LOVING SISTER,—Grace mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear from you. I exhort you to set up the brae to the King's city, that must be taken by violence. Your afternoon's sun is wearing low. Time will eat up your frail life, like a worm gnawing at the root of a May-flower. Lend Christ your heart. Set Him as a seal there. Take Him in within, and let the world and children stand at the door. They are not yours; make you and them for your proper owner, Christ. It is good that He is your Husband and their Father. What missing can there be of a dying man, when God filleth His chair? Give hours of the day to prayer. Fash Christ (if I may speak so), and importune Him; be often at His gate; give His door no rest. I can tell you that He will be found. Oh, what sweet fellowship is betwixt Him and me! I am imprisoned, but He is not imprisoned. He hath shamed me with His kindness. He hath come to my prison, and run away with my heart and all my love. Well may He brook it! I wish that my love get never an owner but Christ. Fy, fy upon old lovers, that held us so long asunder! We shall not part now. He and I shall be heard, before He win out of my grips. I resolve to wrestle with Christ, ere I quit Him. But my love to Him hath casten my soul into a fever, and there is no cooling of my fever, till I get real possession of Christ. O strong, strong love of Jesus, thou hast wounded my heart with thine arrows! Oh pain! Oh pain of love for Christ! Who will help me to praise?

Let me have your prayers. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 13, 1637.

CXLVI.—To MR JAMES BRUCE, Minister of the Gospel

[MR. JAMES BRUCE was minister of Kingsbarns, in the Presbytery of St Andrews; admitted in 1630. Prelacy and the English ceremonies had then, for a considerable time, been imposed upon the Church of Scotland. But Bruce, like many other of her ministers, being in principle decidedly favourable to Presbytery, refused to conform. He was, however, permitted to continue in his charge, the Bishops at that time removing very few, because the introduced ceremonies were so unpopular, that it was judged dangerous and impolitic to enforce a rigid and universal compliance with them. Bruce made an early public appearance against the attempts of the Court to impose the Anglo-Popish liturgy, or Service Book, in 1637. He was a member of the Glasgow Assembly, 1638. He died at Kingsbarns, May 26, 1662, when the storm of persecution was about to break upon the Church of Scotland, being thus taken away from the evil to come.]

(MISJUDGING OF CHRIST'S WAYS.)

REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Upon the nearest acquaintance (that we are Father's children), I thought good to write to you. My case, in my bonds for the honour of my royal Prince and King, Jesus, is as good as becometh the witness of such a sovereign King. At my first coming hither, I was in great heaviness, wrestling with challenges; being burdened in heart (as I am yet), for my silent Sabbaths, and for a bereaved people, young ones new-born, plucked from the breast, and the children's table drawn. I thought I was a dry tree cast over the dyke of the vineyard. But my secret conceptions of Christ's love, at His sweet and long-desired return to my soul, were found to be a lie of Christ's love, forged by the tempter and my own heart. And I am persuaded it was so. Now there is greater peace and security within than before; the court is raised and dismissed, for it was not fenced in God's name. I was far mistaken who should have summoned Christ for unkindness; misted faith, and my fever, conceived amiss of Him. Now, now, He is pleased to feast a poor prisoner, and to refresh me with joy unspeakable and glorious! so as the Holy Spirit is witness that my sufferings are for Christ's truth; and God forbid that I should deny the testimony of the Holy Spirit and make Him a false witness. Now, I testify under my hand, out of some small experience, that Christ's cause, even with the cross, is better than the king's crown; and that His reproaches are sweet, His cross perfumed, the walls of my prison fair and large, my losses gain.

I desire you, my dear brother, to help me to praise, and to remember me in your prayer to God. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in our Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CXLVII.—To JOHN GORDON, at Rusco, in the Parish of Anwoth, Galloway

[It is said that "Rusco" means "a boggy place," referring to the original state of the place. The old tower or castle still stands on a gentle slope, three miles from Gatehouse and two from Anwoth, but uninhabited. The wooded height of Castramont was part of the domain. It was at this old mansion (Rusco) that Robert Campbell, laird of Kinzeancleugh, the friend of John Knox, died of fever, in 1574, when on a visit to Gordon of Lochinvar, "expressing his confidence of victory, and his desire to depart and be with Christ."]

(PRESSING INTO HEAVEN—A CHRISTIAN NO EASY ATTAINMENT—SINS TO BE AVOIDED.)

MY WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,—Misspend not your short sand-glass, which runneth very fast; seek your Lord in time. Let me obtain of you a letter under your hand, for a promise to God, by His grace, to take a new course of walking with God. Heaven is not at the next door; I find it hard to be a Christian. There is no little thrusting and thringing to thrust in at heaven's gates; it is a castle taken by force;—"Many shall strive to enter in, and shall not be able."

I beseech and obtest you in the Lord, to make conscience of rash and passionate oaths, of raging and sudden avenging anger, of night drinking, of needless companionry, of Sabbath-breaking, of hurting any under you by word or deed, of hating your very enemies. "Except ye receive the kingdom of God as a little child," and be as meek and sober-minded as a babe, "ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God." That is a word which should touch you near, and make you stoop and cast yourself down, and make your great spirit fall. I know that this will not be easily done, but I recommend it to you, as you tender your part of the kingdom of heaven.

Brother, I may, from new experience, speak of Christ to you. Oh, if ye saw in Him what I see! A river of God's unseen joys has flowed from bank to brae over my soul since I parted with you. I wish that I wanted part, so being ye might have; that your soul might be sick of love for Christ, or rather satiated with Him. This clay-idol, the world, would seem to you then not worth a fig; time will eat you out of possession of it. When the eye-strings break, and the breath groweth cold, and the imprisoned soul looketh out of the windows of the clay-house, ready to leap out into eternity, what would you then give for a lamp full of oil? Oh seek it now.

I desire you to correct and curb banning, swearing, lying, drinking, Sabbath-breaking, and idle spending of the Lord's day in absence from the kirk, as far as your authority reacheth in that parish.

I hear that a man is to be thrust into that place, to the which I have God's right. I know that ye should have a voice by God's word in that (Acts 1:15, 16, to the end; 6:3–5). Ye would be loath that any prelate should put you out of your possession earthly; and this is your right. What I write to you, I write to your wife. Grace be with you.

Your loving Pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CXLVIII.—To the LADY HALLHILL

[LADY HALLHILL, whose maiden name was Learmonth, was the wife of Sir James Melville of Hallhill, in Fife, the son of Sir James Melville of Hallhill, a privy councillor to King James VI., and an accomplished statesman and courtier in his day, who died in 1617. (Douglas' "Peerage," vol. ii.) Consequently, this lady was sister-in-law to Lady Culross, formerly noticed. Livingstone, who was personally acquainted with her, describes her as "eminent for grace and gifts;" and whose "memory was very precious and refreshing" to him.]

(CHRIST'S CROSSES BETTER THAN EGYPT'S TREASURES.)

DEAR AND CHRISTIAN LADY,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I longed much to write to your Ladyship; but now, the Lord offering a fit occasion, I would not omit to do it.

I cannot but acquaint your Ladyship with the kind dealing of Christ to my soul, in this house of my pilgrimage, that your Ladyship may know that He is as good as He is called. For at my first entry into this trial (being casten down and troubled with challenges and jealousies of His love, whose name and testimony I now bear in my bonds), I feared nothing more than that I was casten over the dyke of the vineyard, as a dry tree. But, blessed be His great name, the dry tree was in the fire, and was not burnt; His dew came down and quickened the root of a withered plant. And now He is come again with joy, and hath been pleased to feast His exiled and afflicted prisoner with the joy of His consolations. Now I weep, but am not sad; I am chastened, but I die not; I have loss, but I want nothing; this water cannot drown me, this fire cannot burn me, because of the good-will of Him that dwelt in The Bush. The worst things of Christ, His reproaches, His cross, are better than Egypt's treasures. He hath opened His door, and taken into His house-of-wine a poor sinner, and hath left me so sick of love for my Lord Jesus, that if heaven were at my disposing, I would give it for Christ, and would not be content to go to heaven, except I were persuaded that Christ were there. I would not give, nor exchange, my bonds for the prelates' velvets; nor my prison for their coaches; nor my sighs for all the world's laughter. This clay-idol, the world, hath no great court in my soul. Christ hath come and run away to heaven with my heart and my love, so that neither heart nor love is mine: I pray God, that Christ may keep both without reversion. In my estimation, as I am now disposed, if my part of this world's clay were rouped and sold, I would think it dear of a drink of water. I see Christ's love is so kingly, that it will not abide a marrow; it must have a throne all alone in the soul. And I see that apples beguile bairns, howbeit they be worm-eaten. The moth-eaten pleasures of this present world make bairns believe ten is a hundred, and yet all that are here are but shadows. If they would draw by the curtain that is hung betwixt them and Christ, they should see themselves fools who have so long miskenned the Son of God. I seek no more, next to heaven, than that He may be glorified in a prisoner of Christ; and that in my behalf many would praise His high and glorious name who heareth the sighing of the prisoner.

Remember my service to the laird, your husband; and to your son, my acquaintance. I wish that Christ had his young love, and that in the morning he would start to the gate, to seek that which the world knoweth not, and, therefore, doth not seek it.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CXLIX.—To the much honoured JOHN OSBURN, Provost of Ayr

[OF JOHN OSBURN, merchant in Ayr, and at this time chief magistrate of that burgh, little is now known. He died about the close of the year 1653, or beginning of the following year, as appears from his son David being retoured his heir on 17th January 1654. He appears on the list of the gentlemen in Ayrshire whom Middleton fined in 1662.]

(ADHERENCE TO CHRIST—HIS APPROBATION WORTH ALL WORLDS.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Upon our small acquaintance, and the good report I hear of you, I could not but write to you. I have nothing to say, but that Christ, in that honourable place He hath put you in, hath intrusted you with a dear pledge, which is His own glory; and hath armed you with His sword to keep the pledge, and make a good account of it to God. Be not afraid of men. Your Master can mow down His enemies, and make withered hay of fair flowers. Your time will not be long; after your afternoon will come your evening, and after evening, night. Serve Christ. Back Him; let His cause be your cause; give not an hair-breadth of truth away; for it is not yours, but God's. Then, since ye are going, take Christ's testificate with you out of this life—"Well done, good and faithful servant!" His "well done" is worth a shipful of "good-days" and earthly honours. I have cause to say this, because I find Him truth itself. In my sad days, Christ laugheth cheerfully, and saith, "All will be well!" Would to God that all this kingdom, and all that know God, knew what is betwixt Christ and me in this prison—what kisses, embracements, and love communion! I take His cross in my arms with joy; I bless it, I rejoice in it. Suffering for Christ is my garland. I would not exchange Christ for ten thousand worlds! nay, if the comparison could stand, I would not exchange Christ with heaven.

Sir, pray for me, and the prayers and blessing of a prisoner of Christ meet you in all your straits. Grace be with you.

Yours, in Christ Jesus, his Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CL.—To his loving Friend, JOHN HENDERSON. [See Letter CCVII.]

(CONTINUING IN CHRIST—PEPAREDNESS FOR DEATH.)

LOVING FRIEND,—Continue in the love of Christ, and the doctrine which I taught you faithfully and painfully, according to my measure. I am free of your blood. Fear the dreadful name of God. Keep in mind the examinations which I taught you, and love the truth of God. Death, as fast as time fleeth, chaseth you out of this life; it is possible that ye may make your reckoning with your Judge before I see you. Let salvation be your care, night and day, and set aside hours and times of the day for prayer. I rejoice to hear that there is prayer in your house. See that your servants keep the Lord's day. This dirt and god of clay (I mean the vain world) is not worth the seeking.

An hireling pastor is to be thrust in upon you, in the room to which I have Christ's warrant and right. Stand to your liberties, for the word of God alloweth you a vote in choosing your pastor.

What I write to you, I write to your wife. Commend me heartily to her. The grace of God be with you.

Your loving Friend and Pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CLI.—To JOHN MEINE, Senior

[JOHN MEINE, merchant in Edinburgh, was a man of enlightened piety, and a decided Presbyterian. His zeal and stedfastness in maintaining Presbyterian principles exposed him to the resentment of the court and prelates. Having, with other citizens of Edinburgh, encouraged Nonconforming ministers, by accompanying them to the court when they were dragged before the High Commission, he was, without citation or trial, banished to Wigtown by the Privy Council, according to the orders of the king. But the execution of the sentence was suspended. In regard to the Perth Articles, he would make no compromise. In 1624, when the Town Council, Session, and citizens of Edinburgh, convened, according to an ancient custom observed among them from the time of the Reformation, to remove such grounds of difference as might have arisen, before uniting in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, Meine strongly pleaded that the ordinance should be solemnised without kneeling, a ceremony with which (he said) he could not comply. On account of his zeal in this matter, he was summoned before the Privy Council. The result was, that in June that year, he was sentenced to be banished to the north and confined within the town of Elgin. About the beginning of January next year, he obtained liberty for a few days to visit his family, but on the understanding that he should afterwards return to his place of confinement. However, the death of James VI. on the 27th of March that year, put an end to his trouble for a time. Livingstone, describing him in his Memorable Characteristics, says, "He used, summer and winter, to rise about three in the morning, and always sing some psalm as he put on his clothes. He spent till six o'clock alone in religious exercises, and at six worshipped God with his family, and then went to his shop." Meine was married to Barbara Hamilton, sister to the first wife of the famous Robert Blair.]

(ENJOYMENT OF GOD'S LOVE—NEED OF HELP—BURDENS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I wonder that ye sent me not an answer to my last letter, for I stand in need of it. I am in some piece of court, with our great King, whose love would cause a dead man to speak, and live. Whether my court will continue or not, I cannot well say; but I have His ear frequently, and (to His glory only I speak it) no penury of the love-kisses of the Son of God. He thinketh good to cast apples to me in my prison to play withal, lest I should think long and faint. I must give over all attempts to fathom the depth of His love. All I can do is, but to stand beside His great love, and look and wonder. My debts of thankfulness affright me; I fear that my creditor get a dyvour-bill and ragged account.

I would be much the better of help. Oh for help! and that ye would take notice of my case. Your not writing to me maketh me think ye suppose that I am not to be bemoaned, because He sendeth comfort. But I have pain in my unthankfulness, and pain in the feeling of His love, whill I am sick again for real presence and real possession of Christ. Yet there is no gowked (if I may so speak), nor fond love in Christ. He casteth me down sometimes for old faults; and I know that He knoweth well that sweet comforts are swelling, and therefore sorrow must take a vent to the wind.

My dumb Sabbaths are undercoating wounds. The condition of this oppressed kirk, and my brother's case (I thank you and your wife for your kindness to him), hold my sore smarting, and keep my wounds bleeding. But the groundwork standeth sure. Pray for me. Grace be with you. Remember me to your wife.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CLII.—To MR THOMAS GARVEN

[This correspondent was one of the ministers of Edinburgh. Letters CLXV. and CCXLVII. also are addressed to him. Brodie, in his "Diary," June 1662, speaks of hearing him preach.]

(A PRISONER'S JOYS—LOVE OF CHRIST—THE GOOD PART—HEAVEN IN SIGHT.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I bless you for your letter; it was a shower to the new-mown grass. The Lord hath given you the tongue of the learned. Be fruitful and humble.

It is possible that ye may come to my case, or the like; but the water is neither so deep, nor the stream so strong, as it is called. I think my fire is not so hot; my water is dry land, my loss rich loss. Oh, if the walls of my prison be high, wide, and large, and the place sweet! No man knoweth it, no man, I say, knoweth it, my dear brother, so well as He and I; no man can put it down in black and white as my Lord hath sealed it in my heart. My poor stock hath grown since I came to Aberdeen; and if any had known the wrong I did, in being jealous of such an honest lover as Christ, who withheld not His love from me, they would think the more of it. But I see, He must be above me in mercy. I will never strive with Him; to think to recompense Him is folly. If I had as many angels' tongues, as there have fallen drops of rain since the creation, or as there are leaves of trees in all the forests of the earth, or stars in the heaven, to praise, yet my Lord Jesus would ever be behind with me.2 We will never get our accounts fitted. A pardon must close the reckoning; for His comforts to me in this honourable cause have almost put me beyond the bounds of modesty; howbeit I will not let every one know what is betwixt us. Love, love (I mean Christ's love), is the hottest coal that ever I felt. Oh, but the smoke of it be hot! Cast all the salt sea on it, it will flame; hell cannot quench it; many many waters will not quench love. Christ is turned over to His poor prisoner in a mass and globe of love. I wonder that He should waste so much love upon such a waster as I am; but He is no waster, but abundant in mercy. He hath no niggard's alms, when He is pleased to give. Oh that I could invite all the nation to love Him! Free grace is an unknown thing. This world hath heard but a bare name of Christ, and no more. There are infinite plies in His love that the saints will never win to unfold; I would it were better known, and that Christ got more of His own due than He doth.

Brother, ye have chosen the good part, who have taken part with Christ. Ye will see Him win the field, and shall get part of the spoil when He divideth it. They are but fools who laugh at us; for they see but the backside of the moon, yet our moonlight is better than their twelve-hours' sun. We have gotten the New Heavens, and, as a pledge of that, the Bridegroom's love-ring. The children of the wedding-chamber have cause to skip and leap for joy; for the marriage-supper is drawing nigh, and we find the four-hours sweet and comfortable. O time, be not slow! O sun, move speedily, and hasten our banquet! O Bridegroom, be like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains! O Well-beloved, run fast, that we may once meet!

Brother, I restrain myself for want of time. Pray for me; I hope to remember you. The good-will of Him who dwelt in the bush, the tender mercies of God in Christ, enrich you. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CLIII.—To BETHAIA AIRD

[The name Aird is not uncommon in the history of the Church. Mr. Wm. Aird was a noted minister in Edinburgh in Livingstone's days. Wodrow's "History" mentions Aird of Muirkirk, and also John Aird of Milton. In the memoir of Walter Pringle of Greenknow, we find James Aird was his intimate friend. But whether this correspondent was related to any of them, we know not. She may have been simply an Anwoth parishioner.]

(UNBELIEF UNDER TRIAL—CHRIST'S SYMPATHY AND LOVE.)

WORTHY SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I know that ye desire news from my prison, and I shall show you news. At my first entry hither, Christ and I agreed not well upon it. The devil made a plea in the house, and I laid the blame upon Christ; for my heart was fraughted with challenges, and I feared that I was an outcast, and that I was but a withered tree in the vineyard, and but held the sun off the good plants with my idle shadow, and that, therefore, my Master had given the evil servant the fields, to send him. Old guiltiness (as witness) said, "All is true." My apprehensions were with child of faithless fears, and unbelief put a seal and amen to all. I thought myself in a hard case. Some said I had cause to rejoice that Christ had honoured me to be a witness for Him; and I said in my heart, "These are words of men, who see but mine outside, and cannot tell if I be a false witness or not."

If Christ had in this matter been as wilful and short as I was, my faith had gone over the brae, and broken its neck. But we were well met,—a hasty fool, and a wise, patient, and meek Saviour. He took no law-advantage of my folly, but waited on till my ill-blood was fallen, and my drumbled and troubled well began to clear. He was never a whit angry at the fever-ravings of a poor tempted sinner; but He mercifully forgave, and came (as it well becometh Him), with grace and new comfort, to a sinner who deserved the contrary, And now He is content to kiss my black mouth, to put His hand into mine, and to feed me with as many consolations as would feed ten hungry souls. Yet I dare not say that He is a waster of comforts, for no less would have borne me up; one grain-weight less would have casten the balance.

Now, who is like to that royal King, crowned in Zion! Where shall I get a seat for real Majesty to set Him on? If I could set Him as far above the heaven as thousand thousands of heights devised by men and angels, I should think Him but too low. I pray you, for God's sake, my dear sister, to help me to praise. His love hath neither brim nor bottom; His love is like Himself, it passeth all natural understanding. I go to fathom it with my arms; but it is as if a child would take the globe of sea and land in his two short arms. Blessed and holy is His name! This must be His truth which I now suffer for; for He would not laugh upon a lie, nor be witness with His comforts to a night-dream.

I entreat for your prayers; and the prayer and blessing of a prisoner of Christ be upon you. Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CLIV.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Knockgray, near Carsphairn

(PROSPECTIVE TRIALS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—I have not leisure to write to you. Christ's ways were known to you long before I, who am but a child, knew anything of Him. What wrong and violence the prelates may, by God's permission, do unto you, for your trial, I know not; but this I know, that your ten days' tribulation will end. Contend to the last breath for Christ. Banishment out of these kingdoms is determined against me, as I hear; this land dow not bear me. I pray you, to recommend my case and bonds to my brethren and sisters with you. I intrust more of my spiritual comfort to you and them that way, my dear brother, than to many in this kingdom besides. I hope that ye will not be wanting to Christ's prisoner.

Fear nothing; for I assure you that Alexander Gordon of Knockgray shall win away and get his soul for a prey. And what can he then want that is worth the having? Your friends are cold (as ye write); and so are those in whom I trusted much. Our Husband doth well in breaking our idols in pieces. Dry wells send us to the fountain. "My life is not dear to me, so being I may fulfil my course with joy." I fear that ye must remove; your new hireling will not bear your discountenancing of him, for the prelate is afraid that Christ get you; and that he hath no will to.

Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLV.—To GRIZZEL FULLERTON

[GRIZZEL FULLERTON was the daughter of William Fullerton, Provost of Kirkcudbright, and Marion M'Naught. See Letter VI.]

(THE ONE THING NEEDFUL—CHRIST'S LOVE.)

DEAR SISTER,—I exhort you in the Lord, to seek your one thing, Mary's good part, that shall not be taken from you. Set your heart and soul on the children's inheritance. This clay-idol, the world, is but for bastards, and ye are His lawfully-begotten child. Learn the way (as your dear mother hath done before you) to knock at Christ's door. Many an alms of mercy hath Christ given to her, and hath abundance behind to give to you. Ye are the seed of the faithful, and born within the covenant; claim your right. I would not exchange Christ Jesus for ten worlds of glory. I know now (blessed be my Teacher!) how to shute the lock, and unbolt my Well-beloved's door; and He maketh a poor stranger welcome when He cometh to His house. I am swelled up and satisfied with the love of Christ, that is better than wine. It is a fire in my soul; let hell and the world cast water on it, they will not mend themselves. I have now gotten the right gate of Christ. I recommend Him to you above all things. Come and find the smell of His breath; see if His kisses be not sweet. He desireth no better than to be much made of; be homely with Him, and ye shall be the more welcome; ye know not how fain Christ would have all your love. Think not this is imagination and bairns' play, which we make din for. I would not suffer for it, if it were so. I dare pawn my heaven for it, that it is the way to glory. Think much of truth, and abhor these ways devised by men in God's worship.

The grace of Christ be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CLVI.—To PATRICK CARSEN

[This was, perhaps, the son of John Carsen, formerly noticed. See Letter CXXVII.]

(EARLY DEVOTEDNESS TO CHRIST.)

DEAR AND LOVING FRIEND,—I cannot but, upon the opportunity of a bearer, exhort you to resign the love of your youth to Christ; and in this day, while your sun is high and your youth serveth you, to seek the Lord and His face. For there is nothing out of heaven so necessary for you as Christ. And ye cannot be ignorant but your day will end, and the night of death shall call you from the pleasures of this life: and a doom given out in death standeth for ever—as long as God liveth! Youth, ordinarily, is a post and ready servant for Satan, to run errands; for it is a nest for lust, cursing, drunkenness, blaspheming of God, lying, pride, and vanity. Oh, that there were such an heart in you as to fear the Lord, and to dedicate your soul and body to His service! When the time cometh that your eye-strings shall break, and your face wax pale, and legs and arms tremble, and your breath shall grow cold, and your poor soul look out at your prison house of clay, to be set at liberty; then a good conscience, and your Lord's favour, shall be worth all the world's glory. Seek it as your garland and crown.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CLVII.—To CARLETON

[Livingstone, in his Characteristics, mentions two persons of this name: "Fullerton of Carleton, in Galloway, a grave and cheerful Christian;" and "Cathcart of Carleton, in Carrick, an old, experienced Christian," in much repute among the religious of his day, for his skill in solving cases of conscience, and dealing with persons under spiritual affliction. But it seems clear that Rutherford's correspondent was John Fullerton of Carleton, in the parish of Borgue. For, in Letter XV. he is spoken of as in Galloway. In the "Minutes of Comm. of Covenanters," we find the following estates put side by side, all of them a few miles from Anwoth, viz. "Roberton and Carleton, Caillie and Rusco, Carsluth and Cassincarrie." His lady's name appears prefixed to Letter CCLVI.

This, too, was the Carleton that wrote the Acrostic on Marion M'Naught (see note on Letter V.). He was the author of a poem—"The Turtle Dove, under the absence and presence of her only Choice. 1664,"—dedicated by the author to Lady Jane Campbell, Viscountess Kenmure, with whom he was connected. He also wrote "A Manifesto of the Kingdom of Scotland in favour of the League and Covenant," in verse. (See "Minutes of Comm. of Covenanters.")]

(INCREASING SENSE OF CHRIST'S LOVE—RESIGNATION—DEADNESS TO EARTH—TEMPTATIONS—INFIRMITIES.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—I will not impute your not writing to me to forgetfulness. However, I have One above who forgetteth me not—nay, He groweth in His kindness. It hath pleased His holy Majesty to take me from the pulpit, and teach me many things, in my exile and prison, that were mysteries to me before.

I see His bottomless and boundless love and kindness, and my jealousies and ravings, which, at my first entry into this furnace, were so foolish and bold, as to say to Christ, who is truth itself, in His face, "Thou liest." I had well nigh lost my grips. I wondered if it was Christ or not; for the mist and smoke of my perturbed heart made me mistake my Master, Jesus. My faith was dim, and hope frozen and cold; and my love, which caused jealousies, had some warmness, and heat, and smoke, but no flame at all. Yet I was looking for some good of Christ's old claim to me, though I had forfeited all my rights. But the tempter was too much upon my counsels, and was still blowing the coal. Alas! I knew not well before how good skill my Intercessor and Advocate, Christ, hath of pleading, and of pardoning me such follies. Now He is returned to my soul with healing under His wings; and I am nothing behind with Christ2 now; for He hath overpaid me, by His presence, the pain I was put to by on-waiting, and any little loss that I sustained by my witnessing against the wrongs done to Him. I trow it was a pain to my Lord to hide Himself any longer. In a manner, He was challenging His own unkindness, and repented Him of His glooms. And now, what want I on earth that Christ can give to a poor prisoner? Oh, how sweet and lovely is He now! Alas! that I can get none to help me to lift up my Lord Jesus upon His throne, above all the earth.

2ndly, I am now brought to some measure of submission, and I resolve to wait till I see what my Lord Jesus will do with me. I dare not now nickname, or speak one word against, the all-seeing and over-watching providence of my Lord. I see that providence runneth not on broken wheels. But I, like a fool, carved a providence for my own ease, to die in my nest, and to sleep still till my grey hairs, and to lie on the sunny side of the mountain, in my ministry at Anwoth. But now I have nothing to say against a borrowed fireside, and another man's house, nor Kedar's tents, where I live, being removed far from my acquaintance, my lovers, and my friends. I see that God hath the world on His wheels, and casteth it as a potter doth a vessel on the wheel. I dare not say that there is any inordinate or irregular motion in providence. The Lord hath done it. I will not go to law with Christ, for I would gain nothing of that.

3rdly, I have learned some greater mortification; and not to mourn after, or seek to suck, the world's dry breasts. Nay, my Lord hath filled me with such dainties, that I am like to a full banqueter, who is not for common cheer. What have I to do to fall down upon my knees, and worship mankind's great idol, the world? I have a better God than any claygod: nay, at present, as I am now disposed, I care not much to give this world a discharge of my life-rent of it, for bread and water. I know that it is not my home, nor my Father's house; it is but His foot-stool, the outer close of His house, His out-fields and muir-ground. Let bastards take it. I hope never to think myself in its common, for honour or riches. Nay, now I say to laughter, "Thou art madness."

4thly, I find it to be most true, that the greatest temptation out of hell is to live without temptations. If my waters should stand, they would rot. Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp winter storm in its face. Grace withereth without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons.

5thly, I never knew how weak I was, till now when He hideth Himself, and when I have Him to seek, seven times a day. I am a dry and withered branch, and a piece of dead carcass, dry bones, and not able to step over a straw. The thoughts of my old sins are as the summons of death to me, and my late brother's case hath stricken me to the heart. When my wounds are closing, a little ruffle causeth them to bleed afresh; so thin-skinned is my soul, that I think it is like a tender man's skin that may touch nothing. Ye see how short I would shoot of the prize, if His grace were not sufficient for me.

Wo is me for the day of Scotland! Wo, wo is me for my harlot-mother; for the decree is gone forth! Women of this land shall call the childless and miscarrying wombs blessed. The anger of the Lord is gone forth, and shall not return, till He perform the purpose of His heart against Scotland. Yet He shall make Scotland a new, sharp instrument, having teeth to thresh the mountains, and fan the hills as chaff.

The prisoner's blessing be upon you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637.

CLVIII.—To the LADY BUSBIE [See Letter CXXXIII.]

(CHRIST ALLWORTHY AND BEST AT OUR LOWEST—SINFULNESS OF THE LAND—PRAYERS.)

MISTRESS,—I know that ye are thinking sometimes what Christ is doing in Zion, and that the haters of Zion may get the bottom of our cup, and the burning coals of our furnace that we have been tried in, those many years bygone. Oh, that this nation would be awakened to cry mightily unto God, for the setting up of a new tabernacle to Christ in Scotland. Oh, if this kingdom knew how worthy Christ were of His room! His worth was ever above man's estimation of Him.

And for myself I am pained at the heart, that I cannot find myself disposed to leave myself and go wholly into Christ. Alas! that there should be one bit of me out of Him, and that we leave too much liberty and latitude for ourselves, and our own ease, and credit, and pleasures, and so little room for all-love-worthy Christ. Oh, what pains and charges it costeth Christ ere He get us! and when all is done, we are not worth the having. It is a wonder that He should seek the like of us. But love overlooketh blackness and fecklessness; for if it had not been so, Christ would never have made so fair and blessed a bargain with us as the covenant of grace is. I find that in all our sufferings Christ is but redding marches, that every one of us may say, "Mine, and thine;" and that men may know by their crosses, how weak a bottom nature is to stand upon in trial; that the end which our Lord intendeth, in all our sufferings, is to bring grace into court and request amongst us. I should succumb and come short of heaven, if I had no more than my own strength to support me; and if Christ should say to me, "Either do or die," it were easy to determine what should become of me. The choice were easy, for I behoved to die if Christ should pass by with straitened bowels; and who then would take us up in our straits? I know we may say that Christ is kindest in His love, when we are at our weakest; and that if Christ had not been to the fore, in our sad days, the waters had gone over our soul. His mercy hath a set period, and appointed place, how far and no farther the sea of affliction shall flow, and where the waves thereof shall be stayed. He prescribeth how much pain and sorrow, both for weight and measure, we must have. Ye have, then, good cause to recall your love from all lovers, and give it to Christ. He who is afflicted in all your afflictions, looketh not on you in your sad hours with an insensible heart or dry eyes.

All the Lord's saints may see that it is lost love which is bestowed upon this perishing world. Death and judgment will make men lament that ever their miscarrying hearts carried them to lay and lavish out their love upon false appearances and night-dreams. Alas! that Christ should fare the worse, because of His own goodness in making peace and the Gospel to ride together; and that we have never yet weighed the worth of Christ in His ordinances, and that we are like to be deprived of the well, ere we have tasted the sweetness of the water. It may be that with watery eyes, and a wet face, and wearied feet, we seek Christ, and shall not find Him. Oh, that this land were humbled in time, and by prayers, cries, and humiliation, would bring Christ in at the church-door again, now when His back is turned towards us, and He is gone to the threshold, and His one foot, as it were, is out of the door! I am sure that His departure is our deserving; we have bought it with our iniquities; for even the Lord's own children are fallen asleep, and, alas! professors are made all of shows and fashions, and are not at pains to recover themselves again. Every one hath his set measure of faith and holiness, and contenteth himself with but a stinted measure of godliness, as if that were enough to bring him to heaven. We forget that as our gifts and light grow, so God's gain and the interest of His talents, should grow also; and that we cannot pay God with the old use and wont (as we use to speak) which we gave Him seven years ago; for this were to mock the Lord, and to make price with Him as we list. Oh, what difficulty is there in our Christian journey, and how often come we short of many thousand things that are Christ's due! and we consider not how far our dear Lord is behind with us.

Mistress, I cannot render you thanks, as I would, for your kindness to my brother, an oppressed stranger; but I remember you unto the Lord as I am able. I entreat you to think upon me, His prisoner, and pray that the Lord would be pleased to give me room to speak to His people in His name.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLIX.—To JOHN FLEMING, Bailie of Leith [Letter LXVIII.]

(DIRECTIONS FOR CHRISTIAN CONDUCT.)

WORTHY AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I received your letter. I wish that I could satisfy your desire in drawing up, and framing for you, a Christian directory. But the learned have done it before me, more judiciously than I can; especially Mr. Rogers, Greenham2, and Perkins. Notwithstanding, I shall show you what I would have been at myself; howbeit I came always short of my purpose.

1. That hours of the day, less or more time, for the word and prayer, be given to God; not sparing the twelfth hour, or mid-day, howbeit it should then be the shorter time.

2. In the midst of worldly employments, there should be some thoughts of sin, death, judgment, and eternity, with at least a word or two of ejaculatory prayer to God.

3. To beware of wandering of heart in private prayers.

4. Not to grudge, howbeit ye come from prayer without sense of joy. Down-casting, sense of guiltiness, and hunger, are often best for us.

5. That the Lord's-day, from morning to night, be spent always either in private or public worship.

6. That words be observed, wandering and idle thoughts be avoided, sudden anger and desire of revenge, even of such as persecute the truth, be guarded against; for we often mix our zeal with our wild-fire.

7. That known, discovered, and revealed sins, that are against the conscience, be eschewed, as most dangerous preparatives to hardness of heart.

8. That in dealing with men, faith and truth in covenants and trafficking be regarded, that we deal with all men in sincerity; that conscience be made of idle and lying words; and that our carriage be such, as that they who see it may speak honourably of our sweet Master and profession.

9. I have been much challenged—1. For not referring all to God as the last end; that I do not eat, drink, sleep, journey, speak, and think for God. 2. That I have not benefited by good company; and that I left not some word of conviction, even upon natural and wicked men, as by reproving swearing in them; or because of being a silent witness to their loose carriage; and because I intended not in all companies to do good. 3. That the woes and calamities of the kirk, and of particular professors, have not moved me. 4. That at the reading of the life of David, Paul, and the like, when it humbled me, I (coming so far short of their holiness) laboured not to imitate them, afar off at least, according to the measure of God's grace. 5. That unrepented sins of youth were not looked to, and lamented for. 6. That sudden stirrings of pride, lust, revenge, love of honours, were not resisted and mourned for. 7. That my charity was cold. 8. That the experiences I had of God's hearing me, in this and the other particular, being gathered, yet in a new trouble I had always (once at least) my faith to seek, as if I were to begin at A, B, C again. 9. That I have not more boldly contradicted the enemies speaking against the truth, either in public church meetings, or at tables, or ordinary conference. 10. That in great troubles I have received false reports of Christ's love, and misbelieved Him in His chastening; whereas the event hath said, "All was in mercy." 11. Nothing more moveth me, and weighteth my soul, than that I could never from my heart, in my prosperity, so wrestle in prayer with God, nor be so dead to the world, so hungry and sick of love for Christ, so heavenly-minded, as when ten stone-weight of a heavy cross was upon me. 12. That the cross extorted vows of new obedience, which ease hath blown away, as chaff before the wind. 13. That practice was so short and narrow, and light so long and broad. 14. That death hath not been often meditated upon. 15. That I have not been careful of gaining others to Christ. 16. That my grace and gifts bring forth little or no thankfulness.

There are some things, also, whereby I have been helped, as—1. I have been benefited by riding alone a long journey, in giving that time to prayer. 2. By abstinence, and giving days to God. 3. By praying for others; for by making an errand to God for them, I have gotten something for myself. 4. I have been really confirmed, in many particulars, that God heareth prayers; and, therefore, I used to pray for anything, of how little importance soever. 5. He enabled me to make no question, that this mocked way, which is nicknamed, is the only way to heaven.

Sir, these and many more occurrences in your life, should be looked into; and, 1. Thoughts of Atheism should be watched over, as, "If there be a God in heaven?" which will trouble and assault the best at some times. 2. Growth in grace should be cared for above all things; and falling from our first love mourned for. 3. Conscience made of praying for the enemies, who are blinded.

Sir, I thank you most kindly for the care of my brother, and of me also. I hope it is laid up for you, and remembered in heaven.

I am still ashamed with Christ's kindness to such a sinner as I am. He hath left a fire in my heart, that hell cannot cast water on, to quench or extinguish it. Help me to praise, and pray for me, for ye have a prisoner's blessing and prayers.

Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you. Yours in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, March 15, 1637.

CLX.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlston

(HUNGERING AFTER CHRIST HIMSELF RATHER THAN HIS LOVE.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—I long to hear from you. I have received few letters since I came hither; I am in need of a word. A dry plant should have some watering.

My case betwixt Christ my Lord, and me, standeth between love and jealousy, faith and suspicion of His love; it is a marvel He keepeth house with me. I make many pleas with Christ, but He maketh as many agreements with me. I think His unchangeable love hath said, "I defy thee to break Me and change Me." If Christ had such changeable and new thoughts of my salvation as I have of it, I think I should then be at a sad loss. He humoureth not a fool like me in my unbelief, but rebuketh me, and fathereth kindness upon me. Christ is more like the poor friend and needy prisoner begging love, than I am. I cannot, for shame, get Christ said "nay" of my whole love, for He will not want His errand for the seeking. God be thanked that my Bridegroom tireth not of wooing. Honour to Him! He is a wilful suitor of my soul. But as love is His, pain is mine, that I have nothing to give Him. His account-book is full of my debts of mercy, kindness, and free love towards me. Oh that I might read with watery eyes! Oh that He would give me the interest of interest to pay back! Or rather, my soul's desire is, that He would comprise my person, soul and body, love, joy, confidence, fear, sorrow, and desire, and drive the poind, and let me be rouped, and sold to Christ, and taken home to my creditor's house and fireside.

The Lord knoweth that, if I could, I would sell myself without reversion to Christ. O sweet Lord Jesus, make a market, and overbid all my buyers! I dare swear that there is a mystery in Christ which I never saw; a mystery of love. Oh, if He would lay by the lap of the covering that is over it, and let my greening soul see it! I would break the door, and be in upon Him, to get a wombful of love; for I am an hungered and famished soul. Oh, sir, if you, or any other, would tell Him how sick my soul is, dying for want of a hearty draught of Christ's love! Oh, if I could dote (if I may make use of that word in this case) as much upon Himself as I do upon His love! It is a pity that Christ Himself should not rather be my heart's choice, than Christ's manifested love. It would satisfy me, in some measure, if I had any bud to give for His love. Shall I offer Him my praises? Alas! He is more than praises. I give it over to get Him exalted according to His worth, which is above what can be known.

Yet all this time I am tempting Him, to see if there be both love and anger in Him against me. I am plucked from His flock (dear to me!), and from feeding His lambs; I go, therefore, in sackcloth, as one who hath lost the wife of his youth. Grief and sorrow are suspicious, and spew out against Him the smoke of jealousies; and I say often, "Show me wherefore Thou contendest with me. Tell me, O Lord: read the process against me." But I know that I cannot answer His allegations; I shall lose the cause when it cometh to open pleading. Oh, if I could force my heart to believe dreams to be dreams! Yet when Christ giveth my fears the lie, and saith to me, "Thou art a liar," then I am glad. I resolve to hope to be quiet, and to lie on the brink on my side, till the water fall and the ford be ridable. And, howbeit there be pain upon me, in longing for deliverance that I may speak of Him in the great congregation, yet I think there is joy in that pain and on-waiting; and I even rejoice that He putteth me off for a time, and shifteth me. Oh, if I could wait on for all eternity, howbeit I should never get my soul's desire, so being He were glorified! I would wish my pain and my ministry could live long to serve Him; for I know that I am a clay vessel, and made for His use. Oh, if my very broken sherds could serve to glorify Him! I desire Christ's grace to be willingly content, that my hell (excepting His hatred and displeasure, which I put out of all play, for submission to this is not called for) were a preaching of His glory to men and angels for ever and ever! When all is done, what can I add to Him? or what can such a clay-shadow as I do? I know that He needeth not me. I have cause to be grieved, and to melt away in tears, if I had grace to do it (Lord, grant it to me!), to see my Well-beloved's fair face spitted upon by dogs, to see loons pulling the crown off my royal King's head; to see my harlot-mother and my sweet Father agree so ill, that they are going to skail and give up house. My Lord's palace is now a nest of unclean birds. Oh, if harlot, harlot Scotland would rue upon her provoked Lord, and pity her good Husband, who is broken with her whorish heart! But these things are hid from her eyes.

I have heard of late of your new trial by the Bishop of Galloway. Fear not clay, worms' meat. Let truth and Christ get no wrong in your hand. It is your gain if Christ be glorified; and your glory to be Christ's witness. I persuade you, that your sufferings are Christ's advantage and victory; for He is pleased to reckon them so. Let me hear from you. Christ is but winning a clean kirk out of the fire; He will win this play. He will not be in your common for any charges ye are at in His service. He is not poor, to sit in your debt; He will repay an hundred-fold more, it may be, even in this life.

The prayers and blessings of Christ's prisoner be with you.

Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXI.—To JOHN STUART, Provost of Ayr

[JOHN STUART, Provost of Ayr, is described by Livingstone as "a godly and zealous Christian of a long standing," and from his earliest years. Inheriting, after the death of his father, considerable property, he largely applied it to benevolent purposes. Such was his disinterested love to those who were the friends of Christ and His truth, that he called a number of them whose straitened condition he knew, to meet with him in Edinburgh; and after some time spent in prayer, told them he had brought a little money to lend to each of them, which they were not to offer to pay back till he required it, at the same time requiring them to promise not to make this known during his life. Not long after (the plague raging with severity in Ayr, and trade becoming, in consequence, much depressed) he himself fell into pecuniary difficulties, which made him at that time remove from the country. Borrowing a little money, he went over to France, and coming to Rochelle, loaded a ship with salt and other commodities, which he purchased at a very cheap rate. He then returned the nearest way to England, and thence to Ayr, in expectation of the ship's return. After waiting long, he was informed that it was taken by the Turks, which, considering the loss which others in that case would sustain, much afflicted him. But it at last arrived in the Road. It was on this occasion that his friend John Kennedy, going out to the vessel in a small boat, was driven away by a storm. (See notice of Kennedy, Letter LXXV.) Stuart having sold the commodities which he brought from France, not only was enabled by the profits to pay all his debts, but cleared twenty thousand merks. (Fleming's "Fulfilling of the Scriptures.") He joined with Mr. Blair, Mr. Livingstone, and others, in their plan of emigrating to New England, though they were forced to give it up. This good man was much afflicted on his death-bed, so that one day he said, "I testify, that except when I slept, or was in business, I was not these ten years without thoughts of God, so long as I would be in going from my own house to the cross; and yet I doubt myself, and am in great agony, yea, at the brink of despair." But a day or two before he died, all his doubts were dispelled; and to Mr. Ferguson, the pious minister of Ayr, he said, referring to his struggle with temptations at that time, "I have been fighting and working out my salvation with fear and trembling, and now I bless God it is perfected, sealed, confirmed, and all fears are gone."]

(COMMERCIAL MISFORTUNES—SERVICE-BOOK—BLESSEDNESS OF TRIAL.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I long to hear from you, being now removed from my flock, and the prisoner of Christ at Aberdeen. I would not have you to think it strange that your journey to New England hath gotten such a dash. It indeed hath made my heart heavy; yet I know it is no dumb providence, but a speaking one, whereby our Lord speaketh His mind to you, though for the present ye do not well understand what He saith. However it be, He who sitteth upon the floods hath shown you His marvellous kindness in the great depths. I know that your loss is great, and your hope is gone far against you; but I entreat you, sir, expound aright our Lord's laying all hindrances in the way. I persuade myself that your heart aimeth at the footsteps of the flock, to feed beside the shepherds' tents, and to dwell beside Him whom your soul loveth; and that it is your desire to remain in the wilderness, where the Woman is kept from the Dragon. (Rev. 12:14.) And this being your desire, remember that a poor prisoner of Christ said it to you, that that miscarried journey is with child to you of mercy and consolation; and shall bring forth a fair birth on which the Lord will attend. Wait on; "He that believeth maketh not haste" (Isa. 28:16).

I hope that ye have been asking what the Lord meaneth, and what further may be His will, in reference to your return. My dear brother, let God make of you what He will, He will end all with consolation, and will make glory out of your sufferings; and would you wish better work? This water was in your way to heaven, and written in your Lord's book; ye behoved to cross it, and, therefore, kiss His wise and unerring providence. Let not the censures of men, who see but the outside of things, and scarce well that, abate your courage and rejoicing in the Lord. Howbeit your faith seeth but the black side of providence; yet it hath a better side, and God will let you see it. Learn to believe Christ better than His strokes, Himself and His promises better than His glooms. Dashes and disappointments are not canonical Scripture; fighting for the promised land seemed to cry to God's promise, "Thou liest." If our Lord ride upon a straw, His horse shall neither stumble nor fall. "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8:28); ergo, shipwreck, losses, etc., work together for the good of them that love God. Hence I infer, that losses, disappointments, ill-tongues, loss of friends, houses, or country, are God's workmen, set on work to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you. Let not the Lord's dealing seem harsh, rough, or unfatherly, because it is unpleasant. When the Lord's blessed will bloweth across your desires, it is best, in humility, to strike sail to Him, and to be willing to be led any way our Lord pleaseth. It is a point of denial of yourself, to be as if ye had not a will, but had made a free disposition of it to God, and had sold it over to Him; and to make use of His will for your own is both true holiness, and your ease and peace. Ye know not what the Lord is working out of this, but ye shall know it hereafter.

And what I write to you, I write to your wife. I compassionate her case, but entreat her not to fear nor faint. This journey is a part of her wilderness to heaven and the promised land, and there are fewer miles behind. It is nearer the dawning of the day to her than when she went out of Scotland. I should be glad to hear that ye and she have comfort and courage in the Lord.

Now, as concerning our kirk; our Service-Book is ordained, by open proclamation and sound of trumpet, to be read in all the kirks of the kingdom. Our prelates are to meet this month about our Canons,2 and for a reconciliation betwixt us and the Lutherans. The Professors of Aberdeen University are charged to draw up the Articles of an uniform Confession; but reconciliation with Popery is intended. This is the day of Jacob's visitation; the ways of Zion mourn, our gold is become dim, the sun is gone down upon our prophets. A dry wind, but neither to fan nor to cleanse, is coming upon this land; and all our ill is coming from the multiplied transgressions of this land, and from the friends and lovers of Babel among us. "The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon thee, Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say."

Now for myself: I was three days before the High Commission, and accused of treason preached against our King. (A minister being witness, went well nigh to swear it.) God hath saved me from their malice. 1stly, They have deprived me of my ministry; 2ndly, Silenced me, that I exercise no part of the ministerial function within this kingdom, under the pain of rebellion; 3rdly, Confined my person within the town of Aberdeen, where I find the ministers working for my confinement in Caithness or Orkney, far from them, because some people here (willing to be edified) resort to me. At my first entry, I had heavy challenges within me, and a court fenced (but I hope not in Christ's name), wherein it was asserted that my Lord would have no more of my services, and was tired of me; and, like a fool, I summoned Christ also for unkindness. My soul fainted, and I refused comfort, and said, "What ailed Christ at me? for I desired to be faithful in His house." Thus, in my rovings and mistakings, my Lord Jesus bestowed mercy on me, who am less than the least of all saints. I lay upon the dust, and bought a plea from Satan against Christ, and He was content to sell it. But at length Christ did show Himself friends with me, and in mercy pardoned and passed my part of it, and only complained that a court should be holden in His bounds without His allowance. Now I pass from my compearance; and, as if Christ had done the fault, He hath made the mends, and returned to my soul; so that now His poor prisoner feedeth on the feasts of love. My adversaries know not what a courtier I am now with my Royal King, for whose crown I now suffer. It is but our soft and lazy flesh that hath raised an ill report of the cross of Christ. O sweet, sweet is His yoke! Christ's chains are of pure gold; sufferings for Him are perfumed. I would not give my weeping for the laughing of all the fourteen prelates; I would not exchange my sadness with the world's joy. O lovely, lovely Jesus, how sweet must Thy kisses be, when Thy cross smelleth so sweetly! Oh, if all the three kingdoms had part of my love-feast, and of the comfort of a dawted prisoner!

Dear Brother, I charge you to praise for me, and to seek help of our acquaintance there to help me to praise. Why should I smother Christ's honesty to me? My heart is taken up with this, that my silence and sufferings may preach. I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, to help me to praise. Remember my love to your wife, to Mr. Blair, and Mr. Livingstone, and Mr. Cunningham. Let me hear from you for I am anxious what to do. If I saw a call for New England, I would follow it. Grace be with you.

Yours in our Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXII.—To JOHN STUART, Provost of Ayr

(THE BURDEN OF A SILENCED MINISTER—SPIRITUAL SHORTCOMINGS.)

MUCH HONOURED AND DEAREST IN CHRIST,—Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be upon you.

I expected the comfort of a letter to a prisoner from you, ere now. I am here, Sir, putting off a part of my inch of time; and when I awake first in the morning (which is always with great heaviness and sadness), this question is brought to my mind, "Am I serving God or not?" Not that I doubt of the truth of this honourable cause wherein I am engaged; I dare venture into eternity, and before my Judge, that I now suffer for the truth—because that I cannot endure that my Master, who is a freeborn King, should pay tribute to any of the shields or potsherds of the earth. Oh that I could hold the crown upon my princely King's head with my sinful arm, howbeit it should be struck from me in that service, from the shoulder-blade. But my closed mouth, my dumb Sabbaths, the memory of my communion with Christ, in many fair, fair days in Anwoth, whereas now my Master getteth no service of my tongue as then, hath almost broken my faith in two halves. Yet in my deepest apprehensions of His anger, I see through a cloud that I am wrong; and He, in love to my soul, hath taken up the controversy betwixt faith and apprehensions, and a decreet is passed on Christ's side of it, and I subscribe the decreet. The Lord is equal in His ways, but my guiltiness often overmastereth my believing. I have not been well known: for except as to open outbreakings, I want nothing of what Judas and Cain had; only He hath been pleased to prevent me in mercy, and to cast me into a fever of love for Himself, and His absence maketh my fever most painful. And beside, He hath visited my soul and watered it with His comforts. But yet I have not what I would. The want of real and felt possession is my only death. I know that Christ pitieth me in this.

The great men, my friends that did for me, are dried up like winter-brooks of water. All say, "No dealing for that man; his best will be to be gone out of the kingdom." So I see they tire of me. But, believe me, I am most gladly content that Christ breaketh all my idols in pieces. It hath put a new edge upon my blunted love to Christ; I see that He is jealous of my love, and will have all to Himself. In a word, these six things are my burden: 1. I am not in the vineyard as others are; it may be, because Christ thinketh me a withered tree, not worth its room. But God forbid! 2. Woe, woe, woe is coming upon my harlot-mother, this apostate kirk! The time is coming when we shall wish for doves' wings to flee and hide us. Oh, for the desolation of this land! 3. I see my dear Master Christ going His lone (as it were), mourning in sackcloth. His fainting friends fear that King Jesus shall lose the field. But He must carry the day. 4. My guiltiness and the sins of youth are come up against me, and they would come into the plea in my sufferings, as deserving causes in God's justice; but I pray God, for Christ's sake, that he may never give them that room. 5. Woe is me, that I cannot get my royal, dreadful, mighty, and glorious Prince of the kings of the earth set on high. Sir, ye may help me and pity me in this; and bow your knee, and bless His name, and desire others to do it, that He hath been pleased, in my sufferings, to make Atheists, Papists, and enemies about me say, "It is like that God is with this prisoner." Let hell and the powers of hell (I care not) be let loose against me to do their worst, so being that Christ, and my Father, and His Father, be magnified in my sufferings. 6. Christ's love hath pained me: for howbeit His presence hath shamed me, and drowned me in debt, yet He often goeth away when my love to Him is burning. He seemeth to look like a proud wooer, who will not look upon a poor match that is dying of love. I will not say He is lordly. But I know He is wise in hiding Himself from a child and a fool, who maketh an idol and a god of one of Christ's kisses, which is idolatry. I fear that I adore His comforts more than Himself, and that I love the apples of life better than the tree of life.

Sir, write to me. Commend me to your wife. Mercy be her portion. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXIII.—To JOHN STUART, Provost of Ayr

(VIEW OF TRIALS PAST—HARD THOUGHTS OF CHRIST—CROSSES—HOPE.)

WORTHY AND DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I was refreshed and comforted with your letter. What I wrote to you, for your comfort, I do not remember; but I believe that love will prophesy homeward, as it would have it. I wish that I could help you to praise His great and holy name who keepeth the feet of His saints, and hath numbered all your goings. I know that our dearest Lord will pardon and pass by our honest errors and mistakes, when we mind His honour; yet I know that none of you have seen the other half, and the hidden side, of your wonderful return home to us again. I am confident ye shall yet say, that God's mercy blew your sails back to Ireland again.

Worthy and dear Sir, I cannot but give you an account of my present estate, that ye may go an errand for me to my high and royal Master, of whom I boast all the day. I am as proud of His love (nay, I bless myself, and boast more of my present lot) as any poor man can be of an earthly king's court, or of a kingdom. First, I am very often turning both the sides of my cross, especially my dumb and silent Sabbaths; not because I desire to find a crook or defect in my Lord's love, but because my love is sick with fancies and fear. Whether or not the Lord hath a process leading against my guiltiness, that I have not yet well seen, I know not. My desire is to ride fair, and not to spark dirt (if, with reverence to Him, I may be permitted to make use of such a word) in the face of my only, only Well-beloved; but fear of guiltiness is a talebearer betwixt me and Christ, and is still whispering ill tales of my Lord, to weaken my faith. I had rather that a cloud went over my comforts by these messages, than that my faith should be hurt; for, if my Lord get no wrong by me, verily I desire grace not to care what become of me. I desire to give no faith nor credit to my sorrow, that can make a lie of my best friend Christ. Woe, woe be to them all who speak ill of Christ! Hence these thoughts awake with me in the morning, and go to bed with me. Oh, what service can a dumb body do in Christ's house! Oh, I think the word of God is imprisoned also! Oh, I am a dry tree! Alas, I can neither plant nor water! Oh, if my Lord would make but dung of me, to fatten and make fertile His own corn-ridges in Mount Zion! Oh, if I might but speak to three or four herdboys of my worthy Master, I would be satisfied to be the meanest and most obscure of all the pastors in this land, and to live in any place, in any of Christ's basest outhouses! But He saith, "Sirrah, I will not send you; I have no errands for you thereaway." My desire to serve Him is sick of jealousy, lest He be unwilling to employ me. Secondly, This is seconded by another. Oh! all that I have done in Anwoth, the fair work that my Master began there, is like a bird dying in the shell; and what will I then have to show of all my labour, in the day of my compearance before Him, when the Master of the vineyard calleth the labourers, and giveth them their hire? Thirdly, But truly, when Christ's sweet wind is in the right airth, I repent, and I pray Christ to take law-burrows of my quarrelous unbelieving sadness and sorrow. Lord, rebuke them that put ill betwixt a poor servant like me and his good Master. Then I say, whether the black cross will or not, I must climb on hands and feet up to my Lord. I am now ruing from my heart that I pleasured the law (my old dead husband) so far as to apprehend wrath in my sweet Lord Jesus. I had far rather take a hire to plead for the grace of God, for I think myself Christ's sworn debtor; and the truth is (to speak of my Lord what I cannot deny), I am over head and ears, drowned in many obligations to His love and mercy.

He handleth me some time so, that I am ashamed almost to seek more for a four-hours, but to live content (till the marriage-supper of the Lamb) with that which He giveth. But I know not how greedy and how ill to please love is. For either my Lord Jesus hath taught me ill manners, not to be content with a seat, except my head lie in His bosom, and except I be fed with the fatness of His house; or else I am grown impatiently dainty, and ill to please, as if Christ were obliged, under this cross, to do no other thing but bear me in His arms, and as if I had claim by merit for my suffering for Him. But I wish He would give me grace to learn to go on my own feet, and to learn to do without His comforts, and to give thanks and believe, when the sun is not in my firmament, and when my Well-beloved is from home, and gone another errand. Oh, what sweet peace have I, when I find that Christ holdeth and I draw; when I climb up and He shuteth me down; when I grips Him and embrace Him, and He seemeth to loose the grips and flee away from me! I think there is even a sweet joy of faith, and contentedness, and peace, in His very tempting unkindness, because my faith saith, "Christ is not in sad earnest with me, but trying if I can be kind to His mask and cloud that covereth Him, as well as to His fair face." I bless His great name that I love His vail which goeth over His face, whill God send better; for faith can kiss God's tempting reproaches when He nicknameth a sinner, "A dog, not worthy to eat bread with the bairns" (Mark 7:27, 28). I think it an honour that Christ miscalleth me, and reproacheth me. I will take that well of Him, howbeit I would not bear it well if another should be that homely; but because I am His own (God be thanked), He may use me as He pleaseth. I must say, the saints have a sweet life between them and Christ. There is much sweet solace of love between Him and them, when He feedeth among the lilies, and cometh into His garden, and maketh a feast of honeycombs, and drinketh His wine and His milk, and crieth, "Eat, O friends: drink, yea, drink abundantly, O well-beloved." One hour of this labour is worth a shipful of the world's drunken and muddy joy; nay, even the gate to heaven is the sunny side of the brae, and the very garden of the world. For the men of this world have their own unchristened and profane crosses; and woe be to them and their cursed crosses both; for their ills are salted with God's vengeance, and our ills seasoned with our Father's blessing. So that they are no fools who choose Christ, and sell all things for Him. It is no bairns' market, nor a blind block; we know well what we get, and what we give.

Now, for any resolution to go to any other kingdom, I dare not speak one word. My hopes of enlargement are cold, my hopes of re-entry to my Master's ill-dressed vineyard again are far colder. I have no seat for my faith to sit on, but bare omnipotency, and God's holy arm and good-will. Here I desire to stay, and ride at anchor, and winter, whill God send fair weather again, and be pleased to take home to His house my harlot-mother. Oh, if her husband would be that kind, as to go and fetch her out of the brothel-house, and chase her lovers to the hills! But there will be sad days ere it come to that. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you.

Yours, in our Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXIV.—To NINIAN MURE [see Letter CXCI.], one of the family of Cassincarrie

[We do not know more of Ninian Mure than that he was a parishioner of Anwoth. The name "Mure" is found on several tombs in the old churchyard, of which the oldest and most interesting is the following, on the east side of the enclosed pile:—

"Walking with God in purity of life,

In Christ I died, and endit all my strife.

For in my saul Christ here did dwell by grace;

Now dwells my saul in glory of His face.

Therefore my body shall not here remain,

But to full glory surely rise again."

"Marion Mure, goodwife of Cullindock,

Departed this life, anno 1612."]

(A YOUTH ADMONISHED.)

LOVING FRIEND,—I received your letter. I entreat you now, in the morning of your life, to seek the Lord and His face. Beware of the follies of dangerous youth, a perilous time for your soul. Love not the world. Keep faith and truth with all men in your covenants and bargains. Walk with God, for He seeth you. Do nothing but that which ye may and would do if your eye-strings were breaking, and your breath growing cold. Ye heard the truth of God from me, my dear heart, follow it, and forsake it not. Prize Christ and salvation above all the world. To live after the guise and course of the rest of the world will not bring you to heaven; without faith in Christ, and repentance, ye cannot see God. Take pains for salvation; press forward toward the mark for the prize of the high calling. If ye watch not against evils night and day, which beset you, ye will come behind. Beware of lying, swearing, uncleanness, and the rest of the works of the flesh; because "for these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience." How sweet soever they may seem for the present, yet the end of these courses is the eternal wrath of God, and utter darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Grace be with you.

Your loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXV.—To MR. THOMAS GARVEN

[THOMAS GARVEN, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. "R. Blair's Life," by Row, tells of his being banished from the town by the King in 1662, for his adherence to Presbytery.]

(PERSONAL INSUFFICIENCY—GRACE FROM CHRIST ALONE—LONGINGS AFTER HIM.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am sorry that what joy and sorrow drew from my imprisoned pen in my love-fits hath made you and many of God's children believe that there is something in a broken reed the like of me. Except that Christ's grace hath bought such a sold body, I know not what else any may think of me, or expect from me. My stock is less (my Lord knoweth that I speak truth) than many believe. My empty sounds have promised too much. I should be glad to lie under Christ's feet, and kep and receive the off-fallings, or the old pieces of any grace, that fall from His sweet fingers to forlorn sinners. I lie often, unco-like, looking at the King's windows. Surely I am unworthy of a seat in the King's hall-floor; I but often look afar off, both feared and fremmed-like, to that fairest face, fearing He bid me look away from Him. My guiltiness riseth up upon me, and I have no answer for it. I offered my tongue to Christ, and my pains in His house: and what know I what it meaneth, when Christ will not receive my poor propine? When love will not take, we expone that it will neither take nor give, borrow nor lend. Yet Christ hath another sea-compass which He saileth by, than my short and raw thoughts. I leave His part of it to Himself. I dare not expound His dealing as sorrow and misbelief often dictate to me. I look often with bleared and blind eyes to my Lord's cross; and when I look to the wrong side of His cross, I know that I miss a step and slide. Surely, I see that I have not legs of my own for carrying me to heaven: I must go in at heaven's gates, borrowing strength from Christ.

I am often thinking, "Oh, if He would but give me leave to love Him, and if Christ would but open up His wares, and the infinite plies, and windings, and corners of His soul-delighting love, and let me see it, backside and foreside; and give me leave but to stand beside it, like a hungry man beside meat, to get my fill of wondering, as a preface to my fill of enjoying!" But, verily, I think that my foul eyes would defile His fair love to look to it. Either my hunger is over humble (if that may be said), or else I consider not what honour it is to get leave to love Christ. Oh, that He would pity a prisoner, and let out a flood upon the dry ground! It is nothing to Him to fill the like of me; one of His looks would do me meikle world's good, and Him no ill. I know that I am not at a point yet with Christ's love: I am not yet fitted for so much as I would have of it. My hope sitteth neighbour with meikle black hunger: and certainly I dow not but think that there is more of that love ordained for me than I yet comprehend, and that I know not the weight of the pension which the King will give me. I shall be glad if my hungry bill get leave to lie beside Christ, waiting on an answer. Now I should be full and rejoice, if I got a poor man's alms of that sweetest love; but I confidently believe that there is a bed made for Christ and me, and that we shall take our fill of love in it. And I often think, when my joy is run out, and at the lowest ebb, that I would seek no more than my rights passed the King's great seal, and that these eyes of mine could see Christ's hand at the pen.

If your Lord call you to suffering, be not dismayed; there shall be a new allowance of the King for you when you come to it. One of the softest pillows Christ hath is laid under His witnesses' head, though often they must set down their bare feet among thorns. He hath brought my poor soul to desire and wish, "Oh that my ashes, and the powder I shall be dissolved into, had well-tuned tongues to praise Him!"

Thus in haste, desiring your prayers and praises, I recommend you to my sweet, sweet Master, my honourable Lord, of whom I hold all. Grace be with you.

Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXVI.—To CARDONESS, the Elder

(A GOOD CONSCIENCE—CHRIST KIND TO SUFFERERS—RESPONSIBILITY—YOUTH.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I wonder that ye write not to me; for the Holy Ghost beareth me witness, that I cannot, I dare not, I dow not, forget you, nor the souls of those with you, who are redeemed by the blood of the great Shepherd. Ye are in my heart in the night-watches; ye are my joy and crown in the day of Christ. O Lord, bear me witness, if my soul thirsteth for anything out of heaven, more than for your salvation. Let God lay me in an even-balance, and try me in this.

Love heaven; let your heart be on it. Up, up, and visit the new Land and view the fair City, and the white Throne, and the Lamb, the bride's Husband in His Bridegroom's clothes, sitting on it. It were time that your soul cast itself, and all your burdens, upon Christ. I beseech you by the wounds of your Redeemer, and by your compearance before Him, and by the salvation of your soul, lose no more time; run fast, for it is late. God hath sworn by Himself, who made the world and time, that time shall be no more (Rev. 10:6). Ye are now upon the very border of the other life. Your Lord cannot be blamed for not giving you warning. I have taught the truth of Christ to you, and delivered unto you the whole counsel of God; and I have stood before the Lord for you, and I will yet still stand. Awake, awake to do righteously. Think not to be eased of the burdens and debts that are on your house by oppressing any, or being rigorous to those that are under you. Remember how I endeavoured to walk before you in this matter, as an example. "Behold, here am I, witness against me, before the Lord and His Anointed: whose ox or whose ass have I taken? Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed?" (1 Sam. 12:3). Who knoweth how my soul feedeth upon a good conscience, when I remember how I spent this body in feeding the lambs of Christ?

At my first entry hither, I grant, I took a stomach against my Lord, because He had casten me over the dyke of the vineyard, as a dry tree, and would have no more of my service. My dumb Sabbaths broke my heart, and I would not be comforted. But now He whom my soul loveth is come again, and it pleaseth Him to feast me with the kisses of His love. A King dineth with me, and His spikenard casteth a sweet smell. The Lord is my witness above, that I write my heart to you. I never knew, by my nine years' preaching, so much of Christ's love, as He has taught me in Aberdeen, by six months' imprisonment. I charge you in Christ's name to help me to praise; and show that people and country the loving-kindness of the Lord to my soul, that so my sufferings may someway preach to them when I am silent. He hath made me to know now better than before, what it is to be crucified to the world. I would not now give a drink of cold water for all the world's kindness. I owe no service to it: I am not the flesh's debtor. My Lord Jesus hath dawted His prisoner, and hath thoughts of love concerning me. I would not exchange my sighs with the laughing of adversaries. Sir, I write this to inform you, that ye may know that it is the truth of Christ I now suffer for, and that He hath sealed my suffering with the comforts of His Spirit on my soul; and I know that He putteth not His seal upon blank paper.

Now, sir, I have no comfort earthly, but to know that I have espoused, and shall present a bride to Christ in that congregation. The Lord hath given you much, and therefore He will require much of you again. Number your talents, and see what you have to render back. Ye cannot be enough persuaded of the shortness of your time. I charge you to write to me, and in the fear of God to be plain with me, whether or not ye have made your salvation sure. I am confident, and hope the best; but I know that your reckonings with your Judge are many and deep. Sir, be not beguiled, neglect not your one thing (Phil. 3:13), your one necessary thing (Luke 10:42), the good part that shall not be taken from you. Look beyond time: things here are but moonshine. They have but children's wit who are delighted with shadows, and deluded with feathers flying in the air.

Desire your children, in the morning of their life, to begin and seek the Lord, and to remember their Creator in the days of their youth (Eccles. 12:1), to cleanse their way, by taking heed thereto, according to God's word (Ps. 119:9). Youth is a glassy age. Satan finds a swept chamber, for the most part, in youthhood, and a garnished lodging for himself and his train. Let the Lord have the flower of their age; the best sacrifice is due to Him. Instruct them in this, that they have a soul, and that this life is nothing in comparison of eternity. They will have much need of God's conduct in this world, to guide them by those rocks upon which most men split; but far more need when it cometh to the hour of death, and their compearance before Christ. Oh that there were such an heart in them, to fear the name of the great and dreadful God, who hath laid up great things for those that love and fear Him! I pray that God may be their portion. Show others of my parishioners, that I write to them my best wishes, and the blessings of their lawful pastor. Say to them from me, that I beseech them, by the bowels of Christ, to keep in mind the doctrine of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which I taught them; that so they may lay hold on eternal life, striving together for the faith of the Gospel, and making sure salvation to themselves. Walk in love, and do righteousness; seek peace; love one another. Wait for the coming of our Master and Judge. Receive no doctrine contrary to that which I delivered to you. If ye fall away, and forget it, and that Catechism which I taught you, and so forsake your own mercy, the Lord be Judge betwixt you and me. I take heaven and earth to witness, that such shall eternally perish. But if they serve the Lord, great will their reward be when they and I shall stand before our Judge. Set forward up the mountain, to meet with God; climb up, for your Saviour calleth on you. It may be that God will call you to your rest, when I am far from you; but ye have my love, and the desires of my heart for your soul's welfare. He that is holy, keep you from falling, and establish you, till His own glorious appearance.

Your affectionate and lawful pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXVII.—To my LADY BOYD [Letter CVII.]

(LESSONS LEARNED IN THE SCHOOL OF ADVERSITY.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied upon you.

I have reasoned with your son at large; I rejoice to see him set his face in the right airth, now when the nobles love the sunny side of the Gospel best, and are afraid that Christ want soldiers, and shall not be able to do for Himself.

Madam, our debts of obligation to Christ are not small; the freedom of grace and of salvation is the wonder of men and angels. But mercy in our Lord scorneth hire. Ye are bound to lift Christ on high, who hath given you eyes to discern the devil now coming out in his whites, and the idolatry and apostasy of the time, well washen with fair pretences; but the skin is black and the water foul. It were art, I confess, to wash a black devil, and make him white.

I am in strange ups and downs, and seven times a day I lose ground. I am put often to swimming; and again my feet are set on the Rock that is higher than myself. He hath now let me see four things which I never saw before: 1st, That the Supper shall be great cheer, that is up in the great hall with the Royal King of glory, when the four-hours, the standing drink, in this dreary wilderness, is so sweet. When He bloweth a kiss afar off to His poor heart-broken mourners in Zion, and sendeth me but His hearty commendations till we meet, I am confounded with wonder to think what it shall be, when the Fairest among the sons of men shall lay a King's sweet soft cheek to the sinful cheeks of poor sinners. O time, time, go swiftly, and hasten that day! Sweet Lord Jesus, post! come, flying like a young hart or a roe upon the mountains of separation. I think that we should tell the hours carefully, and look often how low the sun is. For love hath no "Ho!" it is pained, pained in itself, till it come into grips with the party beloved.

2ndly. I find Christ's absence to be love's sickness and love's death. The wind that bloweth out of the airth where my Lord Jesus reigneth is sweet-smelled, soft, joyful, and heartsome to a soul burnt with absence. It is a painful battle for a soul sick of love to fight with absence and delays. Christ's "Not yet" is a stounding of all the joints and liths of the soul. A nod of His head, when He is under a mask, would be half a pawn. To say, "Fool, what aileth thee? He is coming," would be life to a dead man. I am often in my dumb Sabbaths seeking a new plea with my Lord Jesus (God forgive me!), and I care not if there be not two or three ounce-weight of black wrath in my cup.

3rdly. For the third thing, I have seen my abominable vileness; if I were well known, there would none in this kingdom ask how I do. Many take my ten to be a hundred, but I am a deeper hypocrite, and shallower professor, than every one believeth. God knoweth I feign not. But I think my reckonings on the one page written in great letters, and His mercy to such a forlorn and wretched dyvour on the other, to be more than a miracle. If I could get my finger-ends upon a full assurance, I trow that I would grip fast; but my cup wanteth not gall. And, upon my part, despair might be almost excused, if every one in this land saw my inner side. But I know that I am one of them who have made great sale, and a free market, to free grace. If I could be saved, as I would fain believe, sure I am that I have given Christ's blood, His free grace, and the bowels of His mercy, a large field to work upon; and Christ hath manifested His art, I dare not say to the uttermost (for He can, if He would, forgive all the devils and damned reprobates, in respect of the wideness of His mercy), but I say to an admirable degree.

4thly. I am stricken with fear of unthankfulness. This apostate kirk hath played the harlot with many lovers. They are spitting in the face of my lovely King, and mocking Him, and I dow not mend it; and they are running away from Christ in troops, and I dow not mourn and be grieved for it. I think Christ lieth like an old forcasten castle, forsaken of the inhabitants; all men run away now from Him. Truth, innocent truth, goeth mourning and wringing her hands in sackcloth and ashes. Woe, woe, woe is me, for the virgin daughter of Scotland! Woe, woe to the inhabitants of this land! for they are gone back with a perpetual backsliding.

These things take me so up, that a borrowed bed, another man's fireside, the wind upon my face (I being driven from my lovers and dear acquaintance, and my poor flock), find no room in my sorrow. I have no spare or odd sorrow for these; only I think the sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the kirk of Anwoth, blessed birds. Nothing hath given my faith a harder back-set till it crack again, than my closed mouth. But let me be miserable myself alone; God keep my dear brethren from it. But still I keep breath; and when my royal, and never, never-enough-praised King returneth to His sinful prisoner, I ride upon the high places of Jacob. I divide Shechem (Ps. 60:6), I triumph in His strength. If this kingdom would glorify the Lord in my behalf! I desire to be weighed in God's even balance in this point, if I think not my wages paid to the full. I shall crave no more hire of Christ.

Madam, pity me in this, and help me to praise Him; for whatever I be, the chief of sinners, a devil, and a most guilty devil, yet it is the apple of Christ's eye, His honour and glory, as the Head of the Church, that I suffer for now, and that I will go to eternity with.

I am greatly in love with Mr. M. M.; I see him stamped with the image of God. I hope well of your son, my Lord Boyd.

Your Ladyship and your children have a prisoner's prayers. Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, May 1, 1637.

CLXVIII.—To his reverend and dear Brother, MR. DAVID DICKSON

(CHRIST'S INFINITE FULNESS.)

MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I fear that ye have never known me well. If ye saw my inner side, it is possible that ye would pity me, but you would hardly give me either love or respect: men mistake me the whole length of the heavens. My sins prevail over me, and the terrors of their guiltiness. I am put often to ask, if Christ and I did ever shake hands together in earnest. I mean not that my feast-days are quite gone, but I am made of extremes. I pray God that ye never have the woful and dreary experience of a closed mouth; for then ye shall judge the sparrows, that may sing on the church of Irvine, blessed birds. But my soul hath been refreshed and watered, when I hear of your courage and zeal for your never-enough-praised, praised Master, in that ye put the men of God, chased out of Ireland, to work.3 Oh, if I could confirm you! I dare say, in God's presence, "That this shall never hasten your suffering, but will be David Dickson's feast and speaking joy (viz.), that while he had time and leisure, he put many to work, to lift up Jesus, his sweet Master, high in the skies." O man of God, go on, go on; be valiant for that Plant of renown, for that Chief among ten thousands, for that Prince of the kings of the earth. It is but little that I know of God; yet this I dare write, that Christ will be glorified in David Dickson, howbeit Scotland be not gathered.

I am pained, pained, that I have not more to give my sweet Bridegroom. His comforts to me are not dealt with a niggard's hand; but I would fain learn not to idolise comfort, sense, joy, and sweet, felt presence. All these are but creatures, and nothing but the kingly robe, the gold ring, and the bracelets of the Bridegroom; the Bridegroom Himself is better than all the ornaments that are about Him. Now, I would not so much have these as God Himself, and to be swallowed up of love to Christ. I see that in delighting in a communion with Christ, we may make more gods than one. But, however, all was but bairns play between Christ and me till now. If one would have sworn unto me, I would not have believed what may be found in Christ. I hope that ye pity my pain that much, in my prison, as to help me yourself, and to cause others help me, a dyvour, a sinful wretched dyvour, to pay some of my debts of praise to my great King. Let my God be judge and witness, if my soul would not have sweet ease and comfort, to have many hearts confirmed in Christ, and enlarged with His love, and many tongues set on work to set on high my royal and princely Well-beloved. Oh that my sufferings could pay tribute to such a king! I have given over wondering at His love; for Christ hath manifested a piece of art upon me, that I never revealed to any living. He hath gotten fair and rich employment, and sweet sale, and a goodly market for His honourable calling of showing mercy, on me the chief of sinners. Every one knoweth not so well as I do, my wofully-often broken covenants. My sins against light, working in the very act of sinning, have been met with admirable mercy: but, alas! He will get nothing back again but wretched unthankfulness. I am sure, that if Christ pity anything in me next to my sin, it is pain of love for an armful and soulful of Himself, in faith, love, and begun fruition. My sorrow is, that I cannot get Christ lifted off the dust in Scotland, and set on high, above all the skies, and heaven of heavens.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, May 1, 1637.

CLXIX.—To the LAIRD OF CARLETON

(GOD'S WORKING INCOMPREHENSIBLE—LONGING AFTER ANY DROP OF CHRIST'S FULNESS.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter, and am heartily glad that our Lord hath begun to work for the apparent delivery of this poor oppressed kirk. Oh that salvation would come for Zion!

I am for the present hanging by hope, waiting what my Lord will do with me, and if it will please my sweet Master to send me amongst you again, and keep out a hireling from my poor people and flock. It were my heaven till I come home, even to spend this life in gathering in some to Christ. I have still great heaviness for my silence, and my forced standing idle in the market, when this land hath such a plentiful, thick harvest. But I know that His judgments, who hath done it, pass finding out. I have no knowledge to take up the Lord in all His strange ways, and passages of deep and unsearchable providences. For the Lord is before me, and I am so bemisted that I cannot follow Him; He is behind me, and following at the heels, and I am not aware of Him; He is above me, but His glory so dazzleth my twilight of short knowledge, that I cannot look up to Him. He is upon my right hand, and I see Him not; He is upon my left hand, and within me, and goeth and cometh, and His going and coming are a dream to me; He is round about me, and compasseth all my goings, and still I have Him to seek. He is every way higher, and deeper, and broader than the shallow and ebb handbreadth of my short and dim light can take up; and, therefore, I would that my heart could be silent, and sit down in the learnedly-ignorant wondering at the Lord, whom men and angels cannot comprehend. I know that the noon-day light of the highest angels, who see Him face to face, seeth not the borders of His infiniteness. They apprehend God near hand; but they cannot comprehend Him. And, therefore, it is my happiness to look afar off, and to come near to the Lord's back parts, and to light my dark candle at His brightness, and to have leave to sit and content myself with a traveller's light, without the clear vision of an enjoyer. I would seek no more till I were in my country, than a little watering and sprinkling of a withered soul, with some half out-breakings and half out-lookings of the beams, and small ravishing smiles of the fairest face of a revealed and believed-on Godhead. A little of God would make my soul bankfull. Oh that I had but Christ's odd off-fallings; that He would let but the meanest of His love-rays and love-beams fall from Him, so as I might gather and carry them with me! I would not be ill to please with Christ, and vailed visions of Christ; neither would I be dainty in seeing and enjoying of Him: a kiss of Christ blown over His shoulder, the parings and crumbs of glory that fall under His table in heaven, a shower like a thin May-mist of His love, would make me green, and sappy, and joyful, till the summer-sun of an eternal glory break up (Song 2:17). Oh that I had anything of Christ! Oh that I had a sip, or half a drop, out of the hollow of Christ's hand, of the sweetness and excellency of that lovely One! Oh that my Lord Jesus would rue upon me, and give me but the meanest alms of felt and believed salvation! Oh, how little were it for that infinite sea, that infinite fountain of love and joy, to fill as many thousand thousand little vessels (the like of me) as there are minutes of hours since the creation of God! I find it true that a poor soul, finding half a smell of the Godhead of Christ, hath desires (paining and wounding the poor hearts so with longings to be up at Him) that make it sometimes think, "Were it not better never to have felt anything of Christ, than thus to lie dying twenty deaths, under these felt wounds, for the want of Him?" Oh, where is He? O Fairest, where dwellest Thou? O never-enough admired Godhead, how can clay win up to Thee? how can creatures of yesterday be able to enjoy Thee? Oh, what pain is it, that time and sin should be so many thousand miles betwixt a loved and longed-for Lord and a dwining and lovesick soul, who would rather than all the world have lodging with Christ! Oh, let this bit of love of ours, this inch and half-span length of heavenly longing, meet with Thy infinite love! Oh, if the little I have were swallowed up with the infiniteness of that excellency which is in Christ! Oh that we little ones were in at the greatest Lord Jesus! Our wants should soon be swallowed up with His fulness.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, May 10, 1637.

CLXX.—To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex

(LONGING FOR CHRIST'S GLORY—FELT GUILTINESS—LONGING FOR CHRIST'S LOVE—SANCTIFICATION.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter from Edinburgh.

I would not wish to see another heaven, whill I get mine own heaven, but a new moon like the light of the sun, and a new sun like the light of seven days shining upon my poor self, and the Church of Jews and Gentiles, and upon my withered and sunburnt mother, the Church of Scotland, and upon her sister Churches, England and Ireland; and to have this done, to the setting on high of our great King! It mattereth not, howbeit I were separate from Christ, and had a sense of ten thousand years' pain in hell, if this were. O blessed nobility! O glorious, renowned gentry! Oh, blessed were the tribes in this land to wipe my Lord Jesus' weeping face, and to take the sackcloth off Christ's loins, and to put His kingly robes upon Him! Oh, if the Almighty would take no less wager of me than my heaven to have it done! But my fears are still for wrath once upon Scotland. But I know that her day will clear up, and that glory shall be upon the top of the mountains, and joy at the voice2 of the married wife, once again. Oh that our Lord would make us to contend, and plead, and wrestle by prayers and tears, for our Husband's restoring of His forfeited heritage in Scotland.

Dear brother, I am for the present in no small battle, betwixt felt guiltiness, and pining longings and high fevers for my Well-beloved's love! Alas! I think that Christ's love playeth the niggard to me, and I know it is not for scarcity of love. There is enough in Him, but my hunger prophesieth of in-holding and sparingness in Christ; for I have but little of Him, and little of His sweetness. It is a dear summer with me; yet there is such joy in the eagerness and working of hunger for Christ, that I am often at this, that if I had no other heaven than a continual hunger for Christ, such a heaven of ever-working hunger were still a heaven to me. I am sure that Christ's love cannot be cruel; it must be a ruing, a pitying, a melting-hearted love; but suspension of that love I think half a hell, and the want of it more than a whole hell. When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salvation is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth. I am sure I may defy any man to show me a greater wonder. But, seeing I have no wares, no hire, no money for Christ, He must either take me with want, misery, corruption, or then want me. Oh, if He would be pleased to be compassionate and pitiful-hearted to my pining fevers of longing for Him; or then give me a real pawn to keep, out of His own hand, till God send a meeting betwixt Him and me! But I find neither as yet. Howbeit He who is absent be not cruel nor unkind, yet His absence is cruel and unkind. His love is like itself; His love is His love; but the covering and the cloud, the vail and the mask of His love, is more wise than kind, if I durst speak my apprehensions. I lead no process now against the suspension and delay of God's love; I would with all my heart frist till a day ten heavens, and the sweet manifestations of His love. Certainly I think that I could give Christ much on His word; but my whole pleading is about intimated and borne-in assurance of His love. Oh, if He would persuade me of my heart's desire of His love at all, He should have the term-day of payment at His own cowing.2 But I know that raving unbelief speaketh its pleasure, while it looketh upon guiltiness and this body of corruption. Oh how loathsome and burdensome is it to carry about a dead corpse, this old carrion of corruption! Oh how steadable a thing is a Saviour, to make a sinner rid of his chains and fetters!

I have now made a new question, whether Christ be more to be loved, for giving Sanctification or for free Justification. And I hold that He is more and most to be loved for sanctification. It is in some respect greater love in Him to sanctify, than to justify; for He maketh us most like Himself in His own essential portraiture and image, in sanctifying us. Justification doth but make us happy, which is to be like angels only. Neither is it such a misery to lie a condemned man, and under unforgiven guiltiness, as to serve sin, and work the works of the devil; and, therefore, I think sanctification cannot be bought: it is above price. God be thanked for ever, that Christ was a told-down price for sanctification. Let a sinner, if possible, lie in hell for ever, if He make him truly holy; and let him lie there burning in love to God, rejoicing in the Holy Ghost, hanging upon Christ by faith and hope,—that is heaven in the heart and bottom of hell!

Alas! I find a very thin harvest here, and few to be saved.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his lovely and longed-for Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXXI.—To the LAIRD OF MONCRIEFF

[SIR JOHN MONCRIEFF, of that ilk, was the eldest son of William Moncrieff of that ilk, by his wife Anne, daughter of Robert Murray of Abercarnie, who was his second wife. He was a zealous Covenanter, and a ruling elder in the parish of Carnbee, in which he resided. His name appears in the list of the General Assembly's Commission for the public affairs of the Church, in the years 1646 and 1648; and he was an active member of the Presbytery of St. Andrews. He died about the close of the year 1650. Lady Leyes, to whom reference is made in this letter, was his third sister Jean, married to Hay of Leyes, in Aberdeenshire (Douglas' "Baronage of Scotland," p. 46).]

(CONCERT IN PRAYER—STEDFASTNESS TO CHRIST—GRIEF MISREPRESENTS CHRIST'S GLORY.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Although not acquainted, yet at the desire of your worthy sister, the Lady Leys, and upon the report of your kindness to Christ and His oppressed truth, I am bold to write to you, earnestly desiring you to join with us (so many as in these bounds profess Christ), to wrestle with God, one day of the week, especially the Wednesday, for mercy to this fallen and decayed kirk, and to such as suffer for Christ's name; and for your own necessities, and the necessities of others who are by covenant engaged in that business. For we have no other armour in these evil times but prayer, now when wrath from the Lord is gone out against this backsliding land. For ye know we can have no true public fasts, neither are the true causes of our humiliation ever laid before the people.

Now, very worthy Sir, I am glad in the Lord, that the Lord reserveth any of your place, or of note, in this time of common apostasy, to come forth in public to bear Christ's name before men, when the great men think Christ a cumbersome neighbour, and that religion carrieth hazards, trials, and persecutions with it. I persuade myself that it is your glory and your garland, and shall be your joy in the day of Christ, and the standing of your house and seed, to inherit the earth, that you truly and sincerely profess Christ. Neither is our King, whom the Father hath crowned in Mount Zion, so weak, that He cannot do for Himself and His own cause. I verily believe that they are blessed who can hold the crown upon His head, and carry up the train of His robe royal, and that He shall be victorious, and triumph in this land. It is our part to back our royal King, howbeit there was not six in all the land to follow Him. It is our wisdom now to take up, and discern, the devil and the antichrist coming out in their whites, and the apostasy and idolatry of this land washen with foul waters. I confess that it is art to wash the devil till his skin be white.

For myself, Sir, I have bought a plea against Christ, since I came hither, in judging my princely Master angry at me, because I was cast out of the vineyard as a withered tree, my dumb Sabbaths working me much sorrow. But I see now that sorrow hath not eyes to read love written upon the cross of Christ; and, therefore, I pass from my rash plea. Woe, woe is me, that I should have received a slander of Christ's love to my soul! And for all this, my Lord Jesus hath forgiven all, as not willing to be heard with such a fool; and is content to be, as it were, confined with me, and to bear me company, and to feast a poor oppressed prisoner. And now I write it under my hand, worthy Sir, that I think well and honourably of this cross of Christ. I wonder that He will take any glory from the like of me. I find when He but sendeth His hearty commendations to me, and but bloweth a kiss afar off, I am confounded with wondering what the supper of the Lamb will be, up in our Father's dining-palace of glory, since the four-hours in this dismal wilderness, and (when in prisons and in our sad days), a kiss of Christ, are so comfortable. Oh, how sweet and glorious shall our case be, when that Fairest among the sons of men will lay His fair face to our now sinful faces, and wipe away all tears from our eyes! O time, time, run swiftly and hasten this day! O sweet Lord Jesus, come flying like a roe or a young hart! Alas! that we, blind fools, are fallen in love with moonshine and shadows. How sweet is the wind that bloweth out of the airth where Christ is! Every day we may see some new thing in Christ; His love hath neither brim nor bottom. Oh, if I had help to praise Him! He knoweth that if my sufferings glorify His name, and encourage others to stand fast for the honour of our supreme Lawgiver, Christ, my wages then are paid to the full. Sir, help me to love that never-enough-praised Lord. I find now, that the faith of the saints, under suffering for Christ, is fair before the wind, and with full sails carried upon Christ. And I hope to lose nothing in this furnace but dross; for Christ can triumph in a weaker man than I am, if there be any such. And when all is done, His love paineth me, and leaveth me under such debt to Christ, as I can neither pay principal nor interest. Oh, if He would comprise myself, and if I were sold to Him as a bondman, and that He would take me home to His house and fireside; for I have nothing to render to Him! Then, after me, let no man think hard of Christ's sweet cross; for I would not exchange my sighs with the painted laughter of all my adversaries. I desire grace and patience to wait on, and to lie upon the brink, till the water fill and flow. I know that He is fast coming.

Sir, ye will excuse my boldness: and, till it please God that I see you, ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ; to whom I recommend you, and in whom I rest.

Yours, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, May 14, 1637.

CLXXII.—To JOHN CLARK (supposed to be one of his Parishioners at Anwoth)

(MARKS OF DIFFERENCE BETWIXT CHRISTIANS AND REPROBATES.)

LOVING BROTHER,—Hold fast Christ without wavering, and contend for the faith, because Christ is not easily gotten nor kept. The lazy professor hath put heaven as it were at the very next door, and thinketh to fly up to heaven in his bed, and in a night-dream; but, truly, that is not so easy a thing as most men believe. Christ Himself did sweat ere He wan this city, howbeit He was the freeborn heir. It is Christianity, my Heart, to be sincere, unfeigned honest, and upright-hearted before God, and to live and serve God, suppose there was not one man nor woman in all the world dwelling beside you, to eye you. Any little grace that ye have, see that it be sound and true.

Ye may put a difference betwixt you and reprobates, if ye have these marks:—1. If ye prize Christ and His truth so as ye will sell all and buy Him; and suffer for it. 2. If the love of Christ keepeth you back from sinning, more than the law, or fear of hell. 3. If ye be humble, and deny your own will, wit, credit, ease, honour, the world, and the vanity and glory of it. 4. Your profession must not be barren, and void of good works. 5. Ye must in all things aim at God's honour; ye must eat, drink, sleep, buy, sell, sit, stand, speak, pray, read, and hear the word, with a heart-purpose that God may be honoured. 6. Ye must show yourself an enemy to sin, and reprove the works of darkness, such as drunkenness, swearing, and lying, albeit the company should hate you for so doing. 7. Keep in mind the truth of God, that ye heard me teach, and have nothing to do with the corruptions and new guises entered into the house of God. 8. Make conscience of your calling, in covenants, in buying and selling. 9. Acquaint yourself with daily praying; commit all your ways and actions to God, by prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving; and count not much of being mocked; for Christ Jesus was mocked before you.

Persuade yourself, that this is the way of peace and comfort which I now suffer for. I dare go to death and into eternity with it, though men may possibly see another way. Remember me in your prayers, and the state of this oppressed church. Grace be with you.

Your soul's well-wisher,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CLXXIII.—To CARDONESS, the Younger [Letter CXXIII.]

(WARNING AND ADVICE AS TO THINGS OF SALVATION.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—I long to hear whether or not your soul be hand-fasted with Christ. Lose your time no longer: flee the follies of youth: gird up the loins of your mind, and make you ready for meeting the Lord. I have often summoned you, and now I summon you again, to compear before your Judge, to make a reckoning of your life. While ye have time, look upon your papers, and consider your ways. Oh that there were such an heart in you, as to think what an ill conscience will be to you, when ye are upon the border of eternity, and your one foot out of time! Oh then, ten thousand thousand floods of tears cannot extinguish these flames, or purchase to you one hour's release from that pain! Oh, how sweet a day have ye had! But this is a fair-day that runneth fast away. See how ye have spent it, and consider the necessity of salvation! and tell me, in the fear of God, if ye have made it sure. I am persuaded that ye have a conscience that will be speaking somewhat to you. Why will ye die, and destroy yourself? I charge you in Christ's name, to rouse up your conscience, and begin to indent and contract with Christ in time, while salvation is in your offer. This is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation. Play the merchant; for ye cannot expect another market-day when this is done. Therefore, let me again beseech you to "consider, in this your day, the things that belong to your peace, before they be hid from your eyes." Dear brother, fulfil my joy, and begin to seek the Lord while He may be found. Forsake the follies of deceiving and vain youth: lay hold upon eternal life. Whoring, night-drinking, and the misspending of the Sabbath, and neglecting of prayer in your house, and refusing of an offered salvation, will burn up your soul with the terrors of the Almighty, when your awakened conscience shall flee in your face. Be kind and loving to your wife: make conscience of cherishing her, and not being rigidly austere. Sir, I have not a tongue to express the glory that is laid up for you in your Father's house, if ye reform your doings, and frame your heart to return to the Lord. Ye know that this world is but a shadow, a short-living creature, under the law of time. Within less than fifty years, when ye look back to it, ye shall laugh at the evanishing vanities thereof, as feathers flying in the air, and as the houses of sand within the sea-mark, which the children of men are building. Give up with courting of this vain world: seek not the bastard's moveables, but the son's heritage in heaven. Take a trial of Christ. Look unto Him, and His love will so change you, that ye shall be taken with Him, and never choose to go from Him. I have experience of His sweetness, in this house of my pilgrimage here. My Witness, who is above, knoweth that I would not exchange my sighs and tears with the laughing of the Fourteen Prelates. There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ. "Come and see," will speak best to your soul. I would fain hope good of you. Be not discouraged at broken and spilled resolutions; but to it, and to it again! Woo about Christ, till ye get your soul espoused as a chaste virgin to Him. Use the means of profiting with your conscience; pray in your family, and read the word. Remember how our Lord's day was spent when I was among you. It will be a great challenge to you before God, if ye forget the good that was done within the walls of your house on the Lord's day; and if ye turn aside after the fashions of this world, and if ye go not in time to the kirk, to wait on the public worship of God, and if ye tarry not at it, till all the exercises of religion be ended. Give God some of your time both morning and evening, and afternoon; and in so doing, rejoice the heart of a poor oppressed prisoner. Rue upon your own soul, and from your heart fear the Lord.

Now He that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of His sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish your heart with His grace, and present you before His presence with joy.

Your affectionate and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXXIV.—To my LORD CRAIGHALL [Letter LXXXVI.]

(IDOLATRY CONDEMNED.)

MY LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am not only content, but I exceedingly rejoice, that I find any of the rulers of this land, and especially your Lordship, so to affect Christ and His truth, as that ye dare, for His name, come to yea and nay with monarchs in their face. I hope that He who hath enabled you for that, will give more, if ye show yourself courageous, and (as His word speaketh), "a man in the streets," for the Lord (Jer. 5:1). But I pray your Lordship, give me leave to be plain with you, as one who loveth both your honour and your soul. I verily believe that there was never idolatry at Rome, never idolatry condemned in God's word by the prophets, if religious kneeling before a consecrated creature, standing in room of Christ crucified, in that very act, and that for reverence of the elements (as our Act cleareth), be not idolatry. Neither will your intention help, which is not of the essence of worship; for then, Aaron saying, "To-morrow shall be a feast for Jehovah," that is, for the golden calf, should not have been guilty of idolatry: for he intended only to decline the lash of the people's fury, not to honour the calf. Your intention to honour Christ is nothing, seeing that religious kneeling, by God's institution, doth necessarily import religious and divine adoration, suppose that our intention were both dead and sleeping; otherwise, kneeling before the image of God and directing prayer to God were lawful, if our intention go right. My Lord, I cannot in these bounds dispute; but if Cambridge and Oxford, and the learning of Britain, will answer this argument, and the argument from active scandal, which your Lordship seemeth to stand upon, I will turn a formalist, and call myself an arrant fool (by doing what I have done) in my suffering for this truth. I do much reverence Mr. L.'s learning; but, my Lord, I will answer what he writeth in that, to pervert you from the truth; else repute me, beside an hypocrite, an ass also. I hope ye shall see something upon that subject (if the Lord permit), that no sophistry in Britain shall answer. Courtiers' arguments, for the most part, are drawn from their own skin, and are not worth a straw for your conscience. A Marquis' or a King's word, when ye stand before Christ's tribunal, shall be lighter than the wind. The Lord knoweth that I love your true honour, and the standing of your house; but I would not that your honour or house were established upon sand, and hay, and stubble.

But let me, my very dear and worthy Lord, most humbly beseech you, by the mercies of God, by the consolations of His Spirit, by the dear blood and wounds of your lovely Redeemer, by the salvation of your soul, by your compearance before the awful face of a sin-revenging and dreadful Judge, not to set in comparison together your soul's peace, Christ's love, and His kingly honour now called in question, with your place, honour, house, or ease, that an inch of time will make out of the way. I verily believe that Christ is now begging a testimony of you, and is saying, "And will ye also leave Me?" It is possible that the wind shall not blow so fair for you all your life, for coming out and appearing before others to back and countenance Christ, the fairest among the sons of men, the Prince of the kings of the earth. "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings: for the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool" (Isa. 51:7, 8). When the Lord will begin, He will make an end, and mow down His adversaries; and they shall lie before Him like withered hay, and their bloom be shaken off them. Consider how many thousands in this kingdom ye shall cause to fall and stumble, if ye go with them; and that ye shall be out of the prayers of many who do now stand before the Lord for you and your house. And further; when the time of your accounts cometh, and your one foot shall be within the border of eternity, and the eyestrings shall break, and the face wax pale, and the poor soul shall look out at the windows of the house of clay, longing to be out, and ye shall find yourself arraigned before the Judge of quick and dead, to answer for your putting to your hand, with the rest confederated against Christ, to the overturning of His ark, and the loosing of the pins of Christ's tabernacle in this land, and shall certainly see yourself mired in a course of apostasy—then, then, a king's favour and your worm-eaten honour shall be miserable comforters to you! The Lord hath enlightened you with the knowledge of His will; and as the Lord liveth, they lead you and others to a communion with great Babel, the mother of fornications. God said of old, and continueth to say the same to you, "Come out of her, My people, lest ye be partakers of her plagues." Will ye, then, go with them, and set your lip to the whore's golden cup, and drink of the wine of the wrath of God Almighty with them? Oh, poor hungry honour! Oh, cursed pleasure! and, oh, damnable ease, bought with the loss of God! How many will pray for you! what a sweet presence shall ye find of Christ under your sufferings, if ye will lay down your honours and place at the feet of Christ. What a fair recompense of reward! I avouch before the Lord that I am now showing you a way how the house of Craighall may stand on sure pillars. If ye will set it on rotten pillars, ye cruelly wrong your posterity. Ye have the word of a King for an hundred-fold more in this life (if it be good for you), and for life everlasting also. Make not Christ a liar, in distrusting His promise. Kings of clay cannot back you when you stand before Him. A straw for them and their hungry heaven, that standeth on this side of time! A fig for the day's-smile of a worm! Consider who have gone before you to eternity, and would have given a world for a new occasion of avouching that truth. It is true they call it not substantial, and we are made a scorn to those that are at ease, for suffering these things for it. But it is not time to judge of our losses by the morning; stay till the evening, and we will count with the best of them.

I have found by experience, since the time of my imprisonment (my witness is above), that Christ is sealing this honourable cause with another and a nearer fellowship than ever I knew before; and let God weigh me in an even balance in this, if I would exchange the cross of Christ or His truth, with the fourteen prelacies, or what else a King can give. My dear Lord, venture to take the wind on your face for Christ. I believe that if He should come from heaven in His own person, and seek the charters of Craighall from you, and a demission of your place, and ye saw His face, ye would fall down at His feet and say, "Lord Jesus, it is too little for Thee." If any man think it not a truth to die for, I am against him. I dare go to eternity with it, that this day the honour of our Lawgiver and King, in the government of His own free kingdom (who should pay tribute to no dying king), is the true "state of the question." My Lord, be ye upon Christ's side of it, and take the word of a poor prisoner (nay, the Lord Jesus be surety for it), that ye have incomparably made the wisest choice. For my own part, I have so been in this prison, that I would be half-ashamed to seek more till I be up at the Well-head. Few know in this world the sweetness of Christ's breath, the excellency of His love, which hath neither brim nor bottom. The world hath raised a slander upon the cross of Christ, because they love to go to heaven by dry land, and love not sea-storms. But I write it under my hand (and would say more, if possibly a reader would not deem it hypocrisy), that my obligation to Christ for the smell of His garments, for His love-kisses these thirty weeks, standeth so great, that I should (and I desire also to choose to) suspend my salvation, to have many tongues loosed in my behalf to praise Him. And, suppose in person I never entered within the gates of the New Jerusalem, yet so being Christ may be set on high, and I had the liberty to cast my love and praises for ever over the wall to Christ, I would be silent and content. But oh, He is more than my narrow praises! O time, time, flee swiftly, that our communion with Jesus may be perfected!

I wish that your Lordship would urge Mr. L. to give his mind in the ceremonies; and be pleased to let me see it as quickly as can be, and it shall be answered.

To His rich grace I recommend your Lordship, and shall remain,

Yours, at all respectful obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 8, 1637.

CLXXV.—To JOHN LAURIE (probably some one at a distance, like Lady Robertland in Stewarton)

(CHRIST'S LOVE—A RIGHT ESTIMATE OF HIM—HIS GRACE.)

DEAR BROTHER,—I am sorry that ye, or so many in this kingdom, should expect so much of me, an empty reed. Verily I am a noughty and poor body; but if the tinkling of the iron chains of my Lord Jesus on legs and arms could sound the high praises of my royal King, whose prisoner I am, oh, how would my joy run over! If my Lord would bring edification to one soul by my bonds, I am satisfied. But I know not what I can do to such a princely and beautiful Well-beloved; He is far behind with me.2 Little thanks to me, to say to others that His wind bloweth on me, who am but withered and dry bones; but, since ye desire me to write to you, either help me to set Christ on high, for His running-over love, in that the heat of His sweet breath hath melted a frozen heart; else I think that ye do nothing for a prisoner.

I am fully confirmed, that it is the honour of our Lawgiver which I suffer for now. I am not ashamed to give our letters of recommendation of Christ's love to as many as will extol the Lord Jesus and His Cross. If I had not sailed this sea-way to heaven, but had taken the land-way, as many do, I should not have known Christ's sweetness in such a measure. But the truth is, let no man thank me, for I caused not Christ's wind to blow upon me. His love came upon a withered creature, whether I would or not; and yet by coming it procured from me a welcome. A heart of iron, and iron doors, will not hold Christ out. I give Him leave to break iron locks and come in, and that is all. And now I know not whether pain of love for want of possession, or sorrow that I dow not thank Him, paineth me the most; but both work upon me. For the first: oh that He would come and satisfy the longing soul, and fill the hungry soul with these good things! I know indeed that my guiltiness may be a bar in His way; but He is God, and ready to forgive. And for the other: woe, woe is me, that I cannot find a heart to give back again my unworthy little love for His great sea-full of love to me! Oh that He would learn me this piece of gratitude! Oh that I could have leave to look in through the hole of the door, to see His face and sing His praises! or could break up one of His chamber-windows, to look in upon His delighting beauty, till my Lord send more! Any little communion with Him, one of His love-looks, should be my begun heaven. I know that He is not lordly, neither is the Bridegroom's love proud, though I be black, and unlovely, and unworthy of Him. I would seek but leave, and withal grace, to spend my love upon Him. I counsel you to think highly of Christ, and of free, free grace, more than ye did before; for I know that Christ is not known amongst us. I think that I see more of Christ than ever I saw; and yet I see but little of what may be seen. Oh that He would draw by the curtains, and that the King would come out of His gallery and His palace, that I might see Him! Christ's love is young glory and young heaven; it would soften hell's pain to be filled with it. What would I refuse to suffer, if I could get but a draught of love at my heart's desire! Oh, what price can be given for Him. Angels cannot weigh Him. Oh, His weight, His worth, His sweetness, His overpassing beauty! If men and angels would come and look to that great and princely One, their ebbness could never take up His depth, their narrowness could never comprehend His breadth, height, and length. If ten thousand thousand worlds of angels were created, they might all tire themselves in wondering at His beauty, and begin again to wonder of new. Oh that I could win nigh Him, to kiss His feet, to hear His voice, to feel the smell of His ointments! But oh, alas! I have little, little of Him. Yet I long for more.

Remember my bonds, and help me with your prayers; for I would not niffer or exchange my sad hours with the joy of my velvet adversaries. Grace be with you.

Yours in His sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 10, 1637.

CLXXVI.—To CARLETON

(A CHRISTIAN'S CONFESSION OF UNWORTHINESS—DESIRE FOR CHRIST'S HONOUR—PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES.)

WORTHY AND MUCH HONOURED,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter from my brother, to which I now answer particularly.

I confess two things of myself: 1st, Woe, woe is me, that men should think there is anything in me! He is my witness, before whom I am as crystal, that the secret house-devils that bear me too often company, and that this sink of corruption which I find within, make me go with low sails. And if others saw what I see, they would look by me, but not to me.

2ndly, I know that this shower of His free grace behoved to be on me, otherwise I should have withered. I know, also, that I have need of a buffeting tempter, that grace may be put to exercise, and I kept low.

Worthy and dear brother in the Lord Jesus, I write that from my heart which ye now read. 1st, I avouch that Christ, and sweating and sighing under His cross, is sweeter to me by far, than all the kingdoms in the world could possibly be. 2ndly, If you, and my dearest acquaintance in Christ, reap any fruit by my suffering, let me be weighed in God's even balance, if my joy be not fulfilled. What am I, to carry the marks of such a great King! But, howbeit I am a sink and sinful mass, a wretched captive of sin, my Lord Jesus can hew heaven out of worse timber than I am; if worse can be. 3rdly, I now rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious, that I never purposed to bring Christ, or the least hoof or hair-breadth of truth, under trysting. I desired to have and keep Christ all alone; and that He should never rub clothes with that black-skinned harlot of Rome. I am now fully paid home, so that nothing aileth me for the present, but love-sickness for a real possession of my fairest Well-beloved. I would give Him my bond under my faith and hand, to frist heaven an hundred years longer, so being He would lay His holy face to my sometimes wet cheeks. Oh, who would not pity me, to know how fain I would have the King shaking the tree of life upon me, or letting me into the well of life with my old dish, that I might be drunken with the fountain here in the house of my pilgrimage! I cannot, nay, I would not, be quit of Christ's love. He hath left the mark behind where He gripped. He goeth away and leaveth me and His burning love to wrestle together, and I can scarce win my meat of His love, because of His absence. My Lord giveth me but hungry half-kisses, which serve to feed pain and increase hunger, but do not satisfy my desires; His dieting of my soul for this race maketh me lean. I have gotten the wale and choice of Christ's crosses, even the tithe and the flower of the gold of all crosses, to bear witness to the truth; and herein find I liberty, joy, access, life, comfort, love, faith, submission, patience, and resolution to take delight in on-waiting. And withal, in my race, He hath come near me, and let me see the gold and crown. What, then, want I but fruition and real enjoyment, which is reserved to my country? Let no man think he shall lose at Christ's hands in suffering for Him. 4thly, As for these present trials, they are most dangerous; for people are stolen off their feet with well-washen and white-skinned pretences of indifferency. But it is the power of the great antichrist working in this land. Woe, woe, woe be to apostate Scotland! There is wrath, and a cup of the red wine of the wrath of God Almighty in the Lord's hand, that they shall drink and spue, and fall and not rise again. The star called "Wormwood and gall" is fallen into the fountains and rivers, and hath made them bitter. The sword of the Lord is furbished against the idol-shepherds of the land. Women shall bless the barren womb and miscarrying breast; all hearts shall be faint, and all knees shall tremble. An end is coming; the leopard and the lion shall watch over our cities; houses great and fair shall be desolate without an inhabitant. The Lord hath said, "Pray not for this people, for I have taken My peace from them." Yet the Lord's third part shall come through the fire, as refined gold for the treasure of the Lord, and the outcasts of Scotland shall be gathered together again, and the wilderness shall blossom as the flower, and bud, and grow as the rose of Sharon; and great shall be the glory of the Lord upon Scotland. 5thly, I am here assaulted with the learned and pregnant wits of this kingdom. But, all honour be to my Lord, truth but laughs at bemisted and blind scribes, and disputers of this world; and God's wisdom confoundeth them, and Christ triumpheth in His own strong truth, that speaketh for itself. 6thly, I doubt not but my Lord is preparing me for heavier trials. I am most ready at the good pleasure of my Lord, in the strength of His grace, for anything He will be pleased to call me to; neither shall the black-faced messenger, Death, be holden at the door, when it shall knock. If my Lord will take honour of the like of me, how glad and joyful will my soul be! Let Christ come out with me to a hotter battle than this, and I will fear no flesh. I know that my Master shall win the day, and that He hath taken the ordering of my sufferings into His own hand. 7thly, As for my deliverance that miscarrieth; I am here, by my Lord's grace, to lay my hand on my mouth, to be silent, and wait on. My Lord Jesus is on His journey for my deliverance; I will not grudge that He runneth not so fast as I would have Him. On-waiting till the swelling rivers fall, and till my Lord arise as a mighty man after strong wine, will be my best. I have not yet resisted to blood. 8thly, Oh, how often am I laid in the dust, and urged by the tempter (who can ride his own errands upon our lying apprehensions) to sin against the unchangeable love of my Lord! When I think upon the sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the kirk of Anwoth, and of my dumb Sabbaths, my sorrowful, bleared eyes look asquint upon Christ, and present Him as angry. But in this trial (all honour to our princely and royal King!) faith saileth fair before the wind, with topsail up, and carrieth the passenger through. I lay inhibitions upon my thoughts, that they receive no slanders of my only, only Beloved. Let Him even say out of His own mouth, "There is no hope;" yet I will die in that sweet beguile, "It is not so, I shall see the salvation of God." Let me be deceived really, and never win to dry land; it is my joy to believe under the water, and to die with faith in my hand, gripping Christ. Let my conceptions of Christ's love go to the grave with me, and to hell with me; I may not, I dare not quit them. I hope to keep Christ's pawn: if He never come to loose it, let Him see to His own promise. I know that presumption, howbeit it be made of stoutness, will not thus be wilful in heavy trials.

Now my dearest in Christ, the great Messenger of the Covenant, the only wise and all-sufficient Jehovah, establish you to the end. I hear that the Lord hath been at your house, and hath called home your wife to her rest. I know, Sir, that ye see the Lord loosing the pins of your tabernacle, and wooing your love from this plastered and over-gilded world, and calling upon you to be making yourself ready to go to your Father's country, which shall be a sweet fruit of that visitation. Ye know, "to send the Comforter," was the King's word when He ascended on high. Ye have claim to, and interest in, that promise.

Remember my love in Christ to your father. Show him that it is late and black night with him. His long lying at the water-side is that he may look his papers ere he take shipping, and be at a point for his last answer before his Judge and Lord.

All love, all mercy, all grace and peace, all multiplied saving consolations, all joy and faith in Christ, all stability and confirming strength of grace, and the good-will of Him that dwelt in The Bush, be with you.

Your unworthy brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 15, 1637.

CLXXVII.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(CHRIST SUFFERING IN HIS CHURCH—HIS COMING—OUT-POURINGS OF LOVE FROM HIM.)

WORTHY AND DEAREST IN THE LORD,—I ever loved (since I knew you) that little vineyard of the Lord's planting in Galloway; but now much more, since I have heard that He who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem, hath been pleased to set up a furnace amongst you with the first in this kingdom. He who maketh old things new, seeing Scotland an old, drossy, and rusted kirk, is beginning to make a new, clean bride of her, and to bring a young, chaste wife to Himself out of the fire. This fire shall be quenched, so soon as Christ has brought a clean spouse through the fire! Therefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, fear not a worm. "Fear not, worm Jacob" (Isa. 41:15). Christ is in that plea, and shall win the plea. Charge an unbelieving heart, under the pain of treason against our great and royal King Jesus, to dependence by faith, and quiet on-waiting on our Lord. Get you into your chambers, and shut the doors about you. In, in with speed to your stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. Ye doves, fly into Christ's windows till the indignation be over, and the storm be past. Glorify the Lord in your sufferings, and take His banner of love, and spread it over you. Others will follow you, if they see you strong in the Lord. Their courage will take life from your Christian carriage. Look up and see who is coming! Lift up your head, He is coming to save, in garments dyed in blood, and travelling in the greatness of His strength. I laugh, I smile, I leap for joy, to see Christ coming to save you so quickly. Oh, such wide steps Christ taketh! Three or four hills are but a step to Him; He skippeth over the mountains. Christ hath set a battle betwixt His poor weak saints and His enemies. He waleth the weapons for both parties, and saith to the enemies, "Take you a sword of steel, law, authority, parliaments, and kings upon your side; that is your armour." And He saith to His saints, "I give you a feckless tree-sword in your hand, and that is suffering, receiving of strokes, spoiling of your goods; and with your tree-sword ye shall get and gain the victory." Was not Christ dragged through the ditches of deep distresses and great straits? And yet Christ, who is your Head, hath won through with His life, howbeit not with a whole skin. Ye are Christ's members, and He is drawing His members through the thorny hedge up to heaven after Him. Christ one day will not have so much as a pained toe. But there are great pieces and portions of Christ's mystical body not yet within the gates of the great high city, the New Jerusalem; and the dragon will strike at Christ, so long as there is one bit or member of Christ's body out of heaven. I tell you, Christ will make new work out of old, forcasten Scotland, and gather the old broken boards of His tabernacle, and pin them and nail them together. Our bills and supplications are up in heaven; Christ hath coffers full of them. There is mercy on the other side of this His cross; a good answer to all our bills is agreed upon.

I must tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, King Jesus hath done to my soul. Sometimes He sendeth me out a standing drink, and whispereth a word through the wall; and I am well content of kindness at the second hand: His bode2 is ever welcome to me, be what it will. But at other times He will be messenger Himself, and I get the cup of salvation out of His own hand (He drinking to me), and we cannot rest till we be in other's arms. And oh, how sweet is a fresh kiss from His holy mouth! His breathing that goeth before a kiss upon my poor soul is sweet, and hath no fault but that it is too short. I am careless, and stand not much on this, howbeit loins, and back, and shoulders, and head should rive in pieces in stepping up to my Father's house. I know that my Lord can make long, and broad, and high, and deep glory to His name, out of this bit feckless body; for Christ looketh not what stuff He maketh glory out of.

My dearly beloved, ye have often refreshed me. But this is put up in my Master's account; ye have Him debtor for me. But if ye will do anything for me (as I know ye will) now in my extremity, tell all my dear friends that a prisoner is fettered and chained in Christ's love (Lord, never loose the fetters!); and ye and they together take my heartiest commendations to my Lord Jesus, and thank Him for a poor friend.

I desire your husband to read this letter. I send him a prisoner's blessing. I will be obliged to him, if he will be willing to suffer for my dear Master. Suffering is the professor's golden garment; there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it. Ye have been witnesses of much joy betwixt Christ and me at communion feasts, the remembrance whereof (howbeit I be feasted in secret) holeth my heart; for I am put from the board-head and the King's first mess to His by-board. And His broken meat is sweet unto me; I thank my Lord for borrowed crumbs, no less than when I feasted at the communion table at Anwoth and Kirkcudbright. Pray that I may get one day of Christ in public, such as I have had long since, before my eyes be closed. Oh that my Master would take up house again, and lend me the keys of His wine-cellar again, and God send me borrowed drink till then!

Remember my love to Christ's kinsmen with you. I pray for Christ's Father's blessing to them all. Grace be with you; a prisoner's blessing be with you. I write it and abide by it, God will be glorious in Marion M'Naught, when this stormy blast shall be over. O woman beloved of God, believe, rejoice, be strong in the Lord! Grace is thy portion.

Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 15, 1637.

CLXXVIII.—To LADY CULROSS [Letter LXXIV.]

(CHRIST'S MANAGEMENT OF TRIALS—WHAT FAITH CAN DO—CHRIST NOT EXPERIENCE—PRAYERS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I dare not say that I wonder that ye have never written to me in my bonds, because I am not ignorant of the cause; yet I could not but write to you.

I know not whether joy or heaviness in my soul carrieth it away. Sorrow, without any mixture of sweetness, hath not often love-thoughts of Christ; but I see that the devil can insinuate himself, and ride his errands upon the thoughts of a poor distressed prisoner. I am woe that I am making Christ my unfriend, by seeking pleas against Him, because I am the first in the kingdom put to utter silence, and because I cannot preach my Lord's righteousness in the great congregation. I am, notwithstanding, the less solicitous how it go, if there be not wrath in my cup. But I know that I but claw my wounds when my Physician hath forbidden me. I would believe in the dark upon luck's head, and take my hazard of Christ's good-will, and rest on this, that in my fever my Physician is at my bedside, and that He sympathizeth with me when I sigh. My borrowed house, and another man's bed and fireside, and other losses, have no room in my sorrow; a greater heat to eat out a less fire, is a good remedy for some burning. I believe that when Christ draweth blood, He hath skill to cut the right vein; and that He hath taken the whole ordering and disposing of my sufferings. Let Him tutor me, and tutor my crosses, as He thinketh good. There is no danger nor hazard in following such a guide, howbeit He should lead me through hell, if I could put faith foremost, and fill the field with a quiet on-waiting, and believing to see the salvation of God. I know that Christ is not obliged to let me see both the sides of my cross, and turn it over and over that I may see all. My faith is richer to live upon credit, and Christ's borrowed money, than to have much on hand. Alas! I have forgotten that faith in times past hath stopped a leak in my crazed bark, and half filled my sails with a fair wind. I see it a work of God that experiences are all lost, when summons of improbation, to prove our charters of Christ to be counterfeits, are raised against poor souls in their heavy trials.

But let me be a sinner, and worse than the chief of sinners, yea, a guilty devil, I am sure that my Well-beloved is God. And when I say that Christ is God, and that my Christ is God, I have said all things, I can say no more. I would that I could build as much on this, "My Christ is God," as it would bear. I might lay all the world upon it. I am sure, that Christ untried, and untaken-up in the power of His love, kindness, mercies, goodness, wisdom, long-suffering, and greatness, is the rock that dim-sighted travellers dash their foot against, and so stumble fearfully. But my wounds are sorest, and pain me most, when I sin against His love and mercy. And if He would set me and my conscience by the ears together, and resolve not to red the plea, but let us deal it betwixt us, my spitting upon the fair face of Christ's love and mercies by my jealousies, unbelief, and doubting, would be enough to sink me. Oh, oh, I am convinced! O Lord, I stand dumb before Thee for this! Let me be mine own judge in this, and I take a dreadful doom upon me for it. For I still misbelieve, though I have seen that my Lord hath made my cross as if it were all crystal, so as I can see through it Christ's fair face and heaven; and that God hath honoured a lump of sinful flesh and blood the like of me, to be Christ's honourable lord-prisoner. I ought to esteem the walls of the thieves' hole (if I were shut up in it), or any stinking dungeon, all hung with tapestry, and most beautiful, for my Lord Jesus; and yet, I am not so shut up but that the sun shineth upon my prison, and the fair wide heaven is the covering of it. But my Lord, in His sweet visits, hath done more; for He maketh me to find that He will be a confined prisoner with me. He lieth down and riseth up with me; when I sigh, He sigheth; when I weep, He suffereth with me; and I confess that here is the blessed issue of my sufferings already begun, that my heart is filled with hunger and desire to have Him glorified in my sufferings.

Blessed be ye of the Lord, Madam, if ye would help a poor dyvour, and cause others of your acquaintance in Christ to help me to pay my debt of love, even real praises to Christ my Lord. Madam, let me charge you in the Lord, as ye shall answer to Him, to help me in this duty (which He hath tied about my neck with a chain of such singular expressions of His loving-kindness), to set on high Christ; to hold in my honesty at His hands; for I have nothing to give to Him. Oh that He would arrest and comprise my love and my heart for all! I am a dyvour, who have no more free goods in the world for Christ save that; it is both the whole heritage I have, and all my moveables besides. Lord, give the thirsty man a drink. Oh, to be over the ears in the well! Oh, to be swattering and swimming over head and ears in Christ's love! I would not have Christ's love entering into me, but I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of that love. But I see not myself here; for I fear I make more of His love than of Himself; whereas Himself is far beyond and much better than His love. Oh, if I had my sinful arms filled with that lovely one Christ! Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, who sendeth not away beggars from His house with a toom dish. He filleth the vessels of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich (if we were wise) if we could hold out our withered hands to Christ, and learn to suit and seek, ask and knock. I owe my salvation for Christ's glory, I owe it to Christ; and desire that my hell, yea, a new hell, seven times hotter than the old hell, might buy praises before men and angels to my Lord Jesus; providing always that I were free of Christ's hatred and displeasure. What am I, to be forfeited and sold in soul and body, to have my great and royal King set on high and extolled above all? Oh, if I knew how high to have Him set, and all the world far, far beneath the soles of His feet? Nay, I deserve not to be the matter of His praises, far less to be an agent in praising of Him. But He can win His own glory out of me, and out of worse than I (if any such be), if it please His holy majesty so to do. He knoweth that I am not now flattering Him.

Madam, let me have your prayers, as ye have the prayers and blessing of him that is separated from his brethren. Grace, grace be with you.

Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 15, 1637.

CLXXIX.—To his reverend and loving Brother, MR. JOHN NEVAY

[MR. JOHN NEVAY, or NEAVE, was minister of Newmills, in the parish of Loudon, and chaplain to the Earl of Loudon. In all the questions which divided the Covenanters in his day, he adhered to what may be called the strict party, being opposed to the Public Resolutions. After the restoration of Charles II., Nevay, in 1662, was obliged to subscribe an engagement to remove forth of the king's dominions before the 1st of February, and not to return under pain of death. He reached Holland, and lived for some time in Rotterdam. On the 26th of July 1670, a letter of Charles II. was laid before the assembled States of Holland, accusing Nevay and other two ministers, Mr. Robert Trail and Mr. Robert M'Ward (who was secretary to Rutherford at the Westminster Assembly, and who first edited his "Letters"), all residing within the jurisdiction of the States, of writing and publishing pasquils against his Majesty's Government. However, it would appear that he still continued at Rotterdam, and died there. Wodrow describes him as "a person of very considerable parts, and bright piety." Robert M'Ward, in 1677, thus writes: "Oh! when I remember that burning and shining light, worthy and warm Mr. Livingstone, who used to preach as within the sight of Christ, and the glory to be revealed; acute and distinct Nevay; judicious and neat Simson; fervent, serious, and zealous Trail;—when I remember, I say, that all these great luminaries are now set and removed by death from our people, and out of our pulpit, in so short a time, what matter of sorrow presents itself to my eye!" Nevay cultivated the art of poetry, and is the author of a paraphrase (called by Wodrow "a handsome paraphrase") of the Song of Solomon in Latin verse. The General Assembly entertained so high an opinion of his poetical talents, that they appointed him, in August 1647, along with three other ministers, to revise Rous' metrical version of the Psalms. The portion assigned to him for revisal was the last thirty psalms of that version. After his death, a volume of sermons, preached by him on "the Covenant of Grace," was published at Glasgow in 1748, 12mo. His son married Sarah Van Brakel, whose poetical compositions are favourably exhibited in her elegy upon a popular preacher, and who was a kind friend to the British refugees.]

(CHRIST'S LOVE SHARPENED IN SUFFERING—KNEELING AT THE COMMUNION—POSTURES AT ORDINANCES.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received yours of April 11, as I did another of March 25, and a letter for Mr. Andrew Cant.

I am not a little grieved that our mother church is running so quickly to the brothel-house, and that we are hiring lovers, and giving gifts to the Great Mother of Fornications (Rev. 17:5). Alas, that our Husband is like to quit us so shortly! It were my part (if I were able) when our Husband is departing, to stir up myself to take hold of Him, and keep Him in this land; for I know Him to be a sweet second, and a lovely companion to a poor prisoner.

I find that my extremity hath sharpened the edge of His love and kindness, so that He seemeth to divise new ways of expressing the sweetness of His love to my soul. Suffering for Christ is the very element wherein Christ's love liveth, and exerciseth itself, in casting out flames of fire, and sparks of heat, to warm such a frozen heart as I have. And if Christ weeping in sackcloth be so sweet, I cannot find any imaginable thoughts to think what He will be, when we clay-bodies (having put off mortality) shall come up to the marriage-hall and great palace, and behold the King clothed in his robes royal, sitting on His throne. I would desire no more for my heaven beneath the moon, while I am sighing in this house of clay, but daily renewed feasts of love with Christ, and liberty now and then to feed my hunger with a kiss of that fairest face, that is like the sun in his strength at noon-day. I would willingly subscribe an ample resignation to Christ of the fourteen prelacies of this land, and of all the most delightful pleasures on earth, and forfeit my part of this clay god, this earth, which Adam's foolish children worship, to have no other exercise than to lie on a love-bed with Christ, and fill this hungered and famished soul with kissing, embracing, and real enjoying of the Son of God; and I think that then I might write to my friends, that I had found the Golden World, and look out and laugh at the poor bodies who are slaying one another for feathers. For verily, brother, since I came to this prison, I have conceived a new and extraordinary opinion of Christ which I had not before. For, I perceive, we frist all our joys to Christ till He and we be in our own house above, as married parties, thinking that there is nothing of it here to be sought or found, but only hope and fair promises; and that Christ will give us nothing here but tears, sadness, and crosses; and that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers of that high garden of paradise above, till we come there. Nay, but I find that it is possible to find young glory, and a young green paradise of joy, even here. I know that Christ's kisses will cast a more strong and refreshful smell of incomparable glory and joy in heaven than they do here; because a drink of the well of life, up at the well's head, is more sweet and fresh by far than that which we get in our borrowed, old, running-out vessels, and our wooden dishes here. Yet I am now persuaded it is our folly to frist all till the term-day, seeing abundance of earnest will not diminish anything of our principal sum. We dream of hunger in Christ's house while we are here, although He alloweth feasts to all the bairns within God's household. It were good, then, to store ourselves with more borrowed kisses of Christ, and with more borrowed visits, till we enter heirs to our new inheritance, and our Tutor put us in possession of our own when we are past minority. Oh that all the young heirs would seek more, and a greater, and a nearer communion with my Lord Tutor, the prime heir of all, Christ! I wish that, for my part, I could send you, and that gentleman who wrote his commendations to me, into the King's innermost cellar and house of wine, to be filled with love. A drink of this love is worth the having indeed. We carry ourselves but too nicely with Christ our Lord; and our Lord loveth not niceness, and dryness, and unconess in friends. Since need-force that we must be in Christ's common, then let us be in His common; for it will be no otherwise.

Now, for my present case in my imprisonment: deliverance (for any appearance that I see) looketh cold-like. My hope, if it looked to or leaned upon men, would wither soon at the root, like a May flower. Yet I resolve to ease myself with on-waiting on my Lord, and to let my faith swim where it loseth ground. I am under a necessity either of fainting (which I hope my Master, of whom I boast all the day, will avert), or then to lay my faith upon Omnipotency, and to wink and stick by my grip. And I hope that my ship shall ride it out, seeing Christ is willing to blow His sweet wind in my sails, and mendeth and closeth the leaks in my ship, and ruleth all. It will be strange if a believing passenger be casten overboard.

As for your master, my lord and my lady, I shall be loath to forget them. I think my prayers (such as they are) are debt due to him; and I shall be far more engaged to his Lordship, if he be fast for Christ (as I hope he will) now when so many of his coat and quality slip from Christ's back, and leave Him to fend for Himself.

I entreat you to remember my love to that worthy gentleman, A. C., who saluted me in your letter: I have heard that he is one of my Master's friends, for the which cause I am tied to him. I wish that he may more and more fall in love with Christ.

Now for your question:—As far as I rawly conceive, I think that God is praised two ways: 1st. By a concional profession of His highness before men, such as is the very hearing of the word, and receiving of either of the sacraments; in which acts by profession, we give out to men, that He is our God with whom we are in covenant, and our Lawgiver. Thus eating and drinking in the Lord's Supper, is an annunciation and profession before men, that Christ is our slain Redeemer. Here, because God speaketh to us, not we to Him, it is not a formal thanksgiving, but an annunciation or predication of Christ's death—concional, not adorative—neither hath it God for the immediate object, and therefore no kneeling can be here.

2ndly. There is another praising of God, formal, when we are either formally blessing God, or speaking His praises. And this I take to be twofold:—1. When we directly and formally direct praises and thanksgiving to God. This may well be done kneeling, in token of our recognizance of His Highness; yet not so but that it may be done standing or sitting, especially seeing joyful elevation (which should be in praising) is not formally signified by kneeling. 2. When we speak good of God, and declare His glorious nature and attributes, extolling Him before men, to excite men to conceive highly of Him. The former I hold to be worship every way immediate, else I know not any immediate worship at all; the latter hath God for the subject, not properly the object, seeing the predication is directed to men immediately, rather than to God; for here we speak of God by way of praising, rather than to God. And, for my own part, as I am for the present minded, I see not how this can be done kneeling, seeing it is prœdicatio Dei et Christi, non laudatio aut benedictio Dei. [A preaching of God and Christ, and not a praising or blessing of God.] But observe, that it is formal praising of God, and not merely concional, as I distinguished in the first member; for, in the first member, any speaking of God, or of His works of creation, providence, and redemption, is indirect and concional praising of Him, and formally preaching, or an act of teaching, not an act of predication of His praises. For there is a difference betwixt the simple relation of the virtues of a thing (which is formally teaching), and the extolling of the worth of a thing by way of commendation, to cause others to praise with us.

Thus recommending you to God's grace, I rest, yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 15, 1637.

CLXXX.—To the much Honoured JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, the Elder

(LONGINGS FOR THOSE UNDER HIS FORMER MINISTRY—DELIGHT IN CHRIST AND HIS APPEARING—PLEADING WITH HIS FLOCK)

MUCH HONOURED AND DEAREST IN MY LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. My soul longeth exceedingly to hear how matters go betwixt you and Christ; and whether or not there be any work of Christ in that parish, that will bide the trial of fire and water. Let me be weighed of my Lord in a just balance, if your souls lie not weighty upon me. Ye go to bed and ye rise with me: thoughts of your soul, my dearest in our Lord, depart not from me in my sleep. Ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, supplications, and prayers. Oh, if I could buy your soul's salvation with any suffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall stand before our Judge! Oh, my Lord, forbid that I have any hard thing to depone against you in that day! Oh that He who quickeneth the dead would give life to my sowing among you! What joy is there (next to Christ) that standeth on this side of death, which would comfort me more, than that the souls of that poor people were in safety, and beyond all hazard of being lost!

Sir, show the people this; for when I write to you, I think I write to you all, old and young. Fulfil my joy, and seek the Lord. Sure I am, that once I discovered my lovely, royal, princely Lord Jesus to you all. Woe, woe, woe shall be your part of it for evermore, if the Gospel be not the savour of life to you. As many sermons as I preached, as many sentences as I uttered, as many points of dittay shall there be, when the Lord shall plead with the world, for the evil of their doings. Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won. "The righteous shall scarcely be saved." Oh, what violence of thronging will heaven take! Alas! I see many deceiving themselves; for we will all to heaven now! Every foul dog, with his foul feet, will in at the nearest, to the new and clean Jerusalem. All say they have faith; and the greatest part in the world know not, and will not consider, that a slip in the matter of their salvation is the most pitiable slip that can be; and that no loss is comparable to this loss. Oh, then, see that there be not a loose pin in the work of your salvation; for ye will not believe how quickly the Judge will come. And for yourself, I know that death is waiting, and hovering, and lingering at God's command. That ye may be prepared, then, ye had need to stir your time, and to take eternity and death to your riper advisement. A wrong step, or a wrong stot, in going out of this life, in one property is like the sin against the Holy Ghost, and can never be forgiven, because ye cannot come back again through the last water to mourn for it. I know your accounts are many, and will take telling and laying, and reckoning betwixt you and your Lord. Fit your accounts, and order them. Lose not the last play, whatever ye do, for in that play with death your precious soul is the prize: for the Lord's sake spill not the play, and lose not such a treasure. Ye know that, out of love which I had to your soul, and out of desire which I had to make an honest account of you, I testified my displeasure and disliking of your ways very often, both in private and public. I am not now a witness of your doings, but your Judge is always your witness. I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the salvation of your soul, by your comfort when your eye-strings shall break, and the face wax pale, and the soul shall tremble to be out of the lodging of clay, and by your compearance before your awful Judge, after the sight of this letter to take a new course with your ways, and now, in the end of your day, make sure of heaven. Examine yourself if ye be in good earnest in Christ; for some are partakers of the Holy Ghost, and taste of the good word of God, and of the powers of the life to come, and yet have no part in Christ at all. Many think they believe, but never tremble: the devils are farther on than these (James 2:19). Make sure to yourself that ye are above ordinary professors. The sixth part of your span-length and hand-breadth of days is scarcely before you. Haste, haste, for the tide will not bide. Put Christ upon all your accounts and your secrets. Better it is that you give Him your accounts in this life, out of your own hand, than that, after this life, He take them from you. I never knew so well what sin was as since I came to Aberdeen, howbeit I was preaching of it to you. To feel the smoke of hell's fire in the throat for half an hour; to stand beside a river of fire and brimstone broader than the earth; and to think to be bound hand and foot, and casten into the midst of it quick, and then to have God locking the prison door, never to be opened for all eternity! Oh how it will shake a conscience that hath any life in it! I find the fruits of my pains to have Christ and that people once fairly met, now meet my soul in my sad hours. And I rejoice that I gave fair warning of all the corruptions now entering into Christ's house; and now many a sweet, sweet, soft kiss, many perfumed, well-smelled kisses, and embracements have I received of my royal Master. He and I have had much love together. I have for the present a sick dwining life, with much pain, and much love-sickness for Christ. Oh, what would I give to have a bed made to my wearied soul in His bosom! I would frist heaven for many years, to have my fill of Jesus in this life, and to have occasion to offer Christ to my people, and to woo many people to Christ. I cannot tell you what sweet pain and delightsome torments are in Christ's love; I often challenge time, that holdeth us sundry. I profess to you, I have no rest, I have no ease, whill I be over head and ears in love's ocean. If Christ's love (that fountain of delight) were laid as open to me as I would wish, oh, how I would drink, and drink abundantly! oh, how drunken would this my soul be! I half call His absence cruel; and the mask and vail on Christ's face a cruel covering, that hideth such a fair, fair face from a sick soul. I dare not challenge Himself, but His absence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart. Oh, when shall we meet? Oh, how long it is to the dawning of the marriage-day! O sweet Lord Jesus, take wide steps! O my Lord, come over mountains at one stride! O my Beloved, be like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Separation (Song 2:17). Oh, if He would fold the heavens together like an old cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her Husband! Since He looked upon me, my heart is not mine own; He hath run away to heaven with it. I know that it was not for nothing that I spake so meikle good of Christ to you in public. Oh, if the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude of mountains pens of brass, and I able to write that paper, within and without, full of the praises of my fairest, my dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, and my most marrowless and marvellous Well-beloved! Woe is me, I cannot set Him out to men and angels! Oh, there are few tongues to sing love-songs of His incomparable excellence! What can I, poor prisoner, do to exalt Him? or what course can I take to extol my lofty and lovely Lord Jesus? I am put to my wits' end, how to get His name made great. Blessed they who would help me in this! How sweet are Christ's back parts? Oh, what then is His face? Those that see His face, how dow they get their eye plucked off Him again! Look up to Him and love Him. Oh, love and live! It were life to me if you would read this letter to that people, and if they did profit by it. Oh, if I could cause them to die of love for Jesus! Charge them, by the salvation of their souls, to hang about Christ's neck, and take their fill of His love, and follow Him as I taught them. Part by no means with Christ. Hold fast what ye have received. Keep the truth once delivered. If ye or that people quit it in an hair, or in a hoof, ye break your conscience in twain; and who then can mend it, and cast a knot on it? My dearest in the Lord, stand fast in Christ; keep the faith; contend for Christ. Wrestle for Him, and take men's feud for God's favour; there is no comparison betwixt these. Oh that the Lord would fulfil my joy, and keep the young bride that is at Anwoth to Christ!

And now, whoever they be that have returned to the old vomit since my departure, I bind upon their back, in my Master's name and authority, the long-lasting, weighty vengeance and curse of God. In my Lord's name I give them a doom of black, unmixed, pure wrath, which my Master will ratify and make good, when we stand together before Him, except they timeously repent and turn to the Lord. And I write to thee, poor mourning and broken-hearted believer, be thou who thou wilt, of the free salvation, Christ's sweet balm for thy wounds, O poor, humble believer! Christ's kisses for thy watery cheeks! Christ's blood of atonement for thy guilty soul! Christ's heaven for thy poor soul, though once banished out of paradise! And my Master will make good my word ere long. Oh that people were wise! Oh that people were wise! Oh that people would speer out Christ, and never rest whill they find Him. Oh, how my soul will mourn in secret, if my nine years' pained head, and sore breast, and pained back, and grieved heart, and private and public prayers to God, will all be for nothing among that people! Did my Lord Jesus send me but to summon you before your Judge, and to leave your summons at your houses? Was I sent as a witness only to gather your dittays? Oh, may God forbid! Often did I tell you of a fan of God's word to come among you, for the contempt of it. I told you often of wrath, wrath from the Lord, to come upon Scotland; and yet I bide by my Master's word. It is quickly coming! desolation for Scotland, because of the quarrel of a broken covenant.

Now, worthy Sir, now my dear people, my joy, and my crown in the Lord, let Him be your fear. Seek the Lord, and His face: save your souls. Doves! flee to Christ's windows. Pray for me, and praise for me. The blessing of my God, the prayers and blessing of a poor prisoner, and your lawful pastor, be upon you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 16, 1637.

CLXXXI.—To EARLSTON, the Younger

(DANGERS OF YOUTH—CHRIST THE BEST PHYSICIAN—FOUR REMEDIES AGAINST DOUBTING—BREATHINGS AFTER CHRIST'S HONOUR.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing.

I must first tell you, that there is not such a glassy, icy, and slippery piece of way betwixt you and heaven, as Youth; and I have experience to say with me here, and to seal what I assert. The old ashes of the sins of my youth are new fire of sorrow to me. I have seen the devil, as it were, dead and buried, and yet rise again, and be a worse devil than ever he was; therefore, my brother, beware of a green young devil, that hath never been buried. The devil in his flowers (I mean the hot, fiery lusts and passions of youth) is much to be feared: better yoke with an old grey-haired, withered, dry devil. For in youth he findeth dry sticks, and dry coals, and a hot hearth-stone; and how soon can he with his flint cast fire, and with his bellows blow it up, and fire the house! Sanctified thoughts, thoughts made conscience of, and called in, and kept in awe, are green fuel that burn not, and are a water for Satan's coal. Yet I must tell you, that the whole saints now triumphant in heaven, and standing before the throne, are nothing but Christ's forlorn and beggarly dyvours. What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners? But their redemption is not only past the seals, but completed; and yours is on the wheels, and in doing.

All Christ's good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow, and with a crooked leg. Christ hath an advantage of you, and I pray you to let Him have it; He will find employment for His calling in you. If it were not with you as ye write, grace should find no sale nor market in you; but ye must be content to give Christ somewhat to do. I am glad that He is employed that way. Let your bleeding soul and your sores be put in the hand of this expert Physician; let young and strong corruptions and His free grace be yoked together, and let Christ and your sins deal it betwixt them. I shall be loath to put you off your fears, and your sense of deadness: I wish it were more. There be some wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should not be soon stopped. Ye must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first sick man whom He put away uncured, and worse than He found you. Nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free with sinners. "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). Take ye that. It cannot be presumption to take that as your own, when you find that your wounds stound you. Presumption is ever whole at the heart, and hath but the truant sickness, and groaneth only for the fashion. Faith hath sense of sickness, and looketh, like a friend, to the promises; and, looking to Christ therein, is glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast as ye can have to hunger. Nay, Christ, I say, is not a full man's leavings. His mercy sendeth always a letter of defiance to all your sins, if there were ten thousand more of them.

I grant you that it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man to win his meat upon hidden Christ: for then the key of His pantry-door, and of the house of wine, is a-seeking and cannot be had. But hunger must break through iron locks. I bemoan them not who can make a din, and all the fields ado, for a lost Saviour. Ye must let Him hear it (to say so) upon both sides of His head, when He hideth Himself; it is no time then to be bird-mouthed and patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a delicacy to a sinner. He is a miracle, and a world's wonder, to a seeking and a weeping sinner; but yet such a miracle as shall be seen by them who will come and see. The seeker and sigher, is at last a singer and enjoyer; nay, I have seen a dumb man get alms from Christ. He that can tell his tale, and send such a letter to heaven as he hath sent to Aberdeen, it is very like he will come speed with Christ. It bodeth God's mercy to complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling be with Christ till He say, "How is it sir, that I cannot be quit of your bills, and your misleared cries?" and then hope for Christ's blessing; and His blessing is better than ten other blessings. Think not shame because of your guiltiness; necessity must not blush to beg. It standeth you hard to want Christ; and, therefore, that which idle on-waiting cannot do, misnurtured crying and knocking will do.

And for doubtings, because you are not as you were long since with your Master: consider three things. 1st, What if Christ had such tottering thoughts of the bargain of the new covenant betwixt you and Him, as you have? 2ndly, Your heart is not the compass which Christ saileth by. He will give you leave to sing as you please, but He will not dance to your daft spring. It is not referred to you and your thoughts, what Christ will do with the charters betwixt you and Him. Your own misbelief hath torn them; but He hath the principal in heaven with Himself. Your thoughts are no parts of the new covenant; dreams change not Christ. 3rdly, Doubtings are your sins; but they are Christ's drugs, and ingredients that the Physician maketh use of for the curing of your pride. Is it not suitable for a beggar to say at meat, "God reward the winners"? for then he saith that he knoweth who beareth the charges of the house. It is also meet that ye should know, by experience, that faith is not nature's ill-gotten bastard, but your Lord's free gift, that lay in the womb of God's free grace. Praised be the Winner! I may add a 4thly, In the passing of your bill and your charters, when they went through the Mediator's great seal, and were concluded, faith's advice was not sought. Faith hath not a vote beside Christ's merits: blood, blood, dear blood, that came from your Cautioner's holy body, maketh that sure work. The use, then, which ye have of faith now (having already closed with Jesus Christ for justification) is, to take out a copy of your pardon; and so ye have peace with God upon the account of Christ. For, since faith apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it, no marvel that salvation doth not die and live, ebb or flow, with the working of faith. But because it is your Lord's honour to believe His mercy and His fidelity, it is infinite goodness in our Lord, that misbelief giveth a dash to our Lord's glory, and not to our salvation. And so, whoever want (yea, howbeit God here bear with the want of what we are obliged to give Him, even the glory of His grace by believing), yet a poor covenanted sinner wanteth not. But if guiltiness were removed, doubtings would find no friend, nor life; and yet faith is to believe the removal of guiltiness in Christ. A reason why ye get less now (as ye think) than before, as I take it, is, because, at our first conversion, our Lord putteth the meat in young bairns' mouths with His own hand; but when we grow to some further perfection, we must take heaven by violence, and take by violence from Christ what we get. And He can, and doth hold, because He will have us to draw. Remember now that ye must live upon violent plucking. Laziness is a greater fault now than long since. We love always to have the pap put in our mouth.

Now for myself; alas! I am not the man I go for in this nation; men have not just weights to weigh me in. Oh, but I am a silly, feckless body, and overgrown with weeds; corruption is rank and fat in me. Oh, if I were answerable to this holy cause, and to that honourable Prince's love for whom I now suffer! If Christ should refer the matter to me (in His presence I speak it), I might think shame to vote my own salvation. I think Christ might say, "Thinkest thou not shame to claim heaven, who doest so little for it?" I am very often so, that I know not whether I sink or swim in the water. I find myself a bag of light froth. I would bear no weight (but vanities and nothings weigh in Christ's balance) if my Lord cast not in borrowed weight and metal, even Christ's righteousness, to weigh for me. The stock I have is not mine own; I am but the merchant that trafficketh with other folks' goods. If my creditor, Christ, should take from me what He hath lent, I should not long keep the causeway; but Christ hath made it mine and His. I think it manhood to play the coward, and jouk in the lee-side of Christ; and thus I am not only saved from my enemies, but I obtain the victory. I am so empty, that I think it were an alms-deed in Christ, if He would win a poor prisoner's blessing for evermore, and fill me with His love. I complain that when Christ cometh, He cometh always to fetch fire; He is ever in haste, He may not tarry; and poor I (a beggarly dyvour) get but a standing visit and a standing kiss, and but, "How doest thou?" in the by-going. I dare not say He is lordly, because He is made a King now at the right hand of God; or is grown miskenning and dry to His poor friends: for He cannot make more of His kisses than they are worth. But I think it my happiness to love the love of Christ: and when He goeth away, the memory of His sweet presence is like a feast in a dear summer. I have comfort in this, that my soul desireth that every hour of my imprisonment were a company of heavenly tongues to praise Him on my behalf, howbeit my bonds were prolonged for many hundred years. Oh that I could be the man who could procure my Lord's glory to flow like a full sea, and blow like a mighty wind upon all the four airths of Scotland, England, and Ireland! Oh, if I could write a book of His praises! O Fairest among the sons of men, why stayest Thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage-day! for love is tormented with delays. O angels, O seraphims, who stand before Him, O blessed spirits who now see His face, set Him on high! for when ye have worn your harps in His praises, all is too little, and is nothing, to cast the smell of the praise of that fair Flower, the fragrant Rose of Sharon, through many worlds!

Sir, take my hearty commendations to Him, and tell Him that I am sick of love.

Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 16, 1637.

CLXXXII.—To his honoured and dear Brother, ALEXANDER GORDON of Knockgray

(JOY IN GOD—TRIALS WORK OUT GLORY TO CHRIST.)

DEAREST AND TRULY HONOURED BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have seen no letter from you since I came to Aberdeen. I will not interpret it to be forgetfulness. I am here in a fair prison: Christ is my sweet and honourable fellow-prisoner, and I His sad and joyful lord-prisoner, if I may speak so. I think this cross becometh me well, and is suitable to me in respect of my duty to suffer for Christ, howbeit not in regard of my deserving to be thus honoured. However it be, I see that Christ is strong, even lying in the dust, in prison, and in banishment. Losses and disgraces are the wheels of Christ's triumphant chariot. In the sufferings of His own saints, as He intendeth their good, so He intendeth His own glory, and that is the butt His arrows shoot at. And Christ shooteth not at rovers, He hitteth what He purposeth to hit; therefore He doth make His own feckless and weak nothings, and those who are the contempt of men, "a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth, to thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and to make the hills as chaff, and to fan them" (Isa. 41:15, 16). What harder stuff, or harder grain for threshing out, than high and rocky mountains? But the saints are God's threshing instruments, to beat them all into chaff. Are we not God's leem vessels? and yet when they cast us over a house we are not broken into sherds. We creep in under our Lord's wings in the great shower, and the water cannot come through those wings. It is folly then for men to say, "This is not Christ's plea, He will lose the wad-set; men are like to beguile Him:" that were indeed a strange play. Nay, I dare pledge my soul, and lay it in pawn on Christ's side of it, and be half-tiner, half-winner with my Master! Let fools laugh the fool's laughter, and scorn Christ, and bid the weeping captives in Babylon "sing us one of the songs of Zion, play a spring to cheer up your sad-hearted God!" We may sing upon luck's-head beforehand, even in our winter-storm, in the expectation of a summer sun, at the turn of the year. No created powers in hell, or out of hell, can mar the music of our Lord Jesus, nor spoil our song of joy. Let us then be glad, and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord; for faith had never yet cause to have wet cheeks, and hanging down brows, or to droop or die. What can ail faith, seeing Christ suffereth Himself (with reverence to Him be it spoken) to be commanded by it, and Christ commandeth all things? Faith may dance because Christ singeth; and we may come into the choir, and lift our hoarse and rough voices, and chirp, and sing, and shout for joy with our Lord Jesus. We see oxen go to the shambles, leaping and startling; we see God's fed oxen, prepared for the day of slaughter, go dancing and singing down to the black chambers of hell; and why should we go to heaven weeping, as if we were like to fall down through the earth for sorrow? If God were dead (if I may speak so, with reverence of Him who liveth for ever and ever), and Christ buried, and rotten among the worms, we might have cause to look like dead folks; but "the Lord liveth, and blessed be the Rock of our salvation" (Ps. 18:46). None have right to joy but we; for joy is sown for us, and an ill summer or harvest will not spill the crop. The children of this world have much robbed joy that is not well-come. It is no good sport they laugh at: they steal joy, as it were, from God; for He commandeth them to mourn and howl (James 5:1). Then let us claim our leal-come and lawfully conquessed joy.

My dear brother, I cannot but speak what I have felt; seeing my Lord Jesus hath broken a box of spikenard upon the head of His poor prisoner, and it is hard to hide a sweet smell. It is a pain to smother Christ's love; it will be out whether we will or not. If we did but speak according to the matter, a cross for Christ should have another name; yea, a cross, especially when He cometh with His arms full of joys, is the happiest hard tree that ever was laid upon my weak shoulder. Christ and His cross together are sweet company, and a blessed couple. My prison is my palace, my sorrow is with child of joy, my losses are rich losses, my pain easy pain, my heavy days are holy and happy days. I may tell a new tale of Christ to my friends. Oh, if I could make a love song of Him, and could commend Christ, and tune His praises aright! Oh, if I could set all tongues in Great Britain and Ireland to work, to help me to sing a new song of my Well-beloved! Oh, if I could be a bridge over a water for my Lord Jesus to walk upon, and keep His feet dry! Oh, if my poor bit heaven could go betwixt my Lord and blasphemy, and dishonour! (Upon condition He loved me.) Oh that my heart could say this word, and abide by it for ever! Is it not great art and incomparable wisdom in my Lord, who can bring forth such fair apples out of this crabbed tree of the cross? Nay, my Father's never-enough admired providence can make a fair face out of a black devil. Nothing can come wrong to my Lord in His sweet working. I would even fall sound asleep in Christ's arms, and my sinful head on His holy breast, while He kisseth me; were it not that often the wind turneth to the north, and whiles my sweet Lord Jesus is so that He will neither give nor take, borrow nor lend with me. I complain that He is not social; I half call Him proud and lordly of His company, and nice of His looks, which yet is not true. It would content me to give, howbeit He should not take. I should be content to want His kisses at such times, providing He would be content to come near-hand, and take my wersh, dry, and feckless kisses. But at that time He will not be entreated, but let a poor soul stand still and knock, and never let-on him that He heareth; and then the old leavings, and broken meat, and dry sighs, are greater cheer than I can tell. All I have then is, that howbeit the law and wrath have gotten a decreet against me, I can yet lippen that meikle good in Christ as to get a suspension, and to bring my cause in reasoning again before my Well-beloved. I desire but to be heard, and at last He is content to come and agree the matter with a fool, and forgive freely, because He is God. Oh, if men would glorify Him, and taste of Christ's sweetness!

Brother, ye have need to be busy with Christ for this whorish kirk; I fear lest Christ cast water upon Scotland's coal. Nay, I know that Christ and His wife will be heard: He will plead for the broken covenant. Arm you against that time.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 16, 1637.

CLXXXIII.—To MR. J—— R——

[It is highly probable that the individual to whom this letter is addressed was John Row, son of John Row, minister of Carnock, a grandson of John Row the reformer, and contemporary of Knox. In 1632 he was appointed master of the Grammar School of Perth, in which situation he continued for some years. The year after his appointment, he was in some danger of expulsion, for refusing to join in the observance of the Lord's Supper after the manner enjoined by the Perth Articles. At the time when this letter was written, he appears to have been exposed to a similar danger. In 1641 he was ordained minister of St. Nicholas Church, Aberdeen; and in 1652 was elevated to be Principal of King's College. Row was a man of learning, and was the author of the first Hebrew grammar printed in Scotland. He died in 1646.]

(CHRIST THE PURIFIER OF HIS CHURCH—SUBMISSION TO HIS WAYS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Upon the report which I hear of you, without any further acquaintance, except our straitest bonds in our Lord Jesus, I thought good to write unto you, hearing of your danger to be thrust out of the Lord's house for His name's sake. Therefore, my earnest and humble desire to God is, that ye may be strengthened in the grace of God, and, by the power of His might, to go on for Christ, not standing in awe of a worm that shall die. I hope that ye will not put your hand to the ark to give it a wrong touch, and to overturn it, as many now do, when the archers are shooting sore at Joseph, whose bow shall abide in its strength. We owe to our royal King and princely Master a testimony. Oh, how blessed are they who can ward a blow off Christ, and His borne-down truth! Men think Christ a gone man now, and that He shall never get up His head again; and they believe that His court is failed, because He suffereth men to break their spears and swords upon Him, and the enemies to plough Zion, and make long and deep their furrows on her back. But it would not be so, if the Lord had not a sowing for His ploughing. What can He do, but melt an old drossy kirk, that He may bring out a new bride out of the fire again? I think that Christ is just now repairing His house, and exchanging His old vessels with new vessels, and is going through this land, and taking up an inventory and a roll of so many of Levi's sons, and good professors, that He may make them new work for the Second Temple; and whatsoever shall be found not to be for the work, shall be casten over the wall. When the house shall be builded, He will lay by His hammers, as having no more to do with them. It is possible that He may do worse to them than lay them by; and I think the vengeance of the Lord, and the vengeance of His temple, shall be upon them.

I desire no more than to keep weight when I am past the fire; and I can now, in some weak measure, give Christ a testimonial of a lovely and loving companion under suffering for Him. I saw Him before, but afar off. His beauty, to my eyesight, groweth. A fig, a straw for a ten worlds' plastered glory, and for childish shadows, the idol of clay (this god, the world) that fools fight for! If I had a lease of Christ of my own dating (for whoever once cometh nigh-hand, and taketh a hearty look of Christ's inner side, shall never wring nor wrestle themselves out of His love-grips again), I would rest contentedly in my prison, yea, in my prison without light of sun or candle, providing Christ and I had a love-bed, not of mine, but of Christ's own making, that we might lie together among the lilies, till the day break and the shadows flee away. Who knoweth how sweet a drink of Christ's love is! Oh, but to live on Christ's love is a king's life! The worst things of Christ, even that which seemeth to be the refuse of Christ, His hard cross, His black cross, is white and fair; and the cross receiveth a beautiful lustre and a perfumed smell from Jesus. My dear brother, scaur not at it.

While ye have time to stand upon the watch-tower and speak, contend with this land. Plead with your harlot-mother, who hath been a treacherous half-marrow to her husband Jesus. For I would think liberty to preach one day the root and top of my desires; and would seek no more of the blessings that are to be had on this side of time, till I be over the water, than to spend this my crazy clay-house in His service, and saving of souls. But I hold my peace, because He hath done it. My shallow and ebb thoughts are not the compass which Christ saileth by. I leave His ways to Himself, for they are far, far above me: only I would contend with Christ for His love, and be bold to make a plea with Jesus, my Lord, for a heart-fill of His love; for there is no more left to me. What standeth beyond the far end of my sufferings, and what shall be the event, He knoweth, and I hope, to my joy, will make me know, when God will unfold His decrees concerning me. For there are windings, and tos and fros, in His ways, which blind bodies like us cannot see.

Thus much for farther acquaintance; so, recommending you, and what is before you, to the grace of God, I rest,

Your very loving brother in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 16, 1637.

CLXXXIV.—To MR. WILLIAM DALGLEISH [Letter CXVII.]

(THE FRAGRANCE OF THE MINISTRY—A REVIEW OF HIS PAST AND PRESENT SITUATION, AND OF HIS PROSPECTS.)

REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I have heard somewhat of your trials in Galloway. I bless the Lord, who hath begun first in that corner to make you a new kirk to Himself. Christ hath the less ado behind, when He hath refined you.

Let me entreat you, my dearly beloved, to be fast to Christ. My witness is above, my dearest brother, that ye have added much joy to me in my bonds, when I hear that ye grow in the grace and zeal of God for your Master. Our ministry, whether by preaching or suffering, will cast a smell through the world both of heaven and hell (2 Cor. 2:15, 16). I persuade you, my dear brother, that there is nothing out of heaven, next to Christ, dearer to me than my ministry; and the worth of it, in my estimation, is swelled, and paineth me exceedingly. Yet I am content, for the honour of my Lord, to surrender it back again to the Lord of the vineyard. Let Him do with it, and me both, what He thinketh good. I think myself too little for Him.

And, let me speak to you, how kind a fellow-prisoner is Christ to me! Believe me, this kind of cross (that would not go by my door, but would needs visit me) is still the longer the more welcome to me. It is true, my silent Sabbaths have been, and still are, as glassy ice, whereon my faith can scarce hold its feet, and I am often blown on my back, and off my feet, with a storm of doubting; yet truly, my bonds all this time cast a mighty and rank smell of high and deep love in Christ. I cannot, indeed, see through my cross to the far end; yet I believe I am in Christ's books, and in His decree (not yet unfolded to me), a man triumphing, dancing, and singing, on the other side of the Red Sea, and laughing and praising the Lamb, over beyond time, sorrow, deprivation, prelates' indignation, losses, want of friends, and death. Heaven is not a fowl flying in the air (as men use to speak of things that are uncertain); nay, it is well paid for. Christ's comprisement lieth on glory for all the mourners in Zion, and shall never be loosed. Let us be glad and rejoice, that we have blood, losses, and wounds, to show our Master and Captain at His appearance, and what we suffered for His cause.

Woe is me, my dear brother, that I say often, "I am but dry bones, which my Lord will not bring out of the grave again;" and that my faithless fears say, "Oh, I am a dry tree, that can bear no fruit; I am a useless body, who can beget no children to the Lord in His house!" Hopes of deliverance look cold and uncertain, and afar off, as if I had done with it. It is much for Christ (if I may say so) to get law-borrows of my sorrow, and of my quarrelous heart. Christ's love playeth me fair play. I am not wronged at all; but there is a tricking and false heart within me, that still playeth Christ foul play. I am a cumbersome neighbour to Christ: it is a wonder that He dwelleth beside the like of me. Yet I often get the advantage of the hill above my temptations, and then I despise temptation, even hell itself, and the stink of it, and the instruments of it, and am proud of my honourable Master. And I resolve, whether contrary winds will or not, to fetch Christ's harbour; and I think a wilful and stiff contention with my Lord Jesus for His love very lawful. It is sometimes hard to me to win my meat upon Christ's love, because my faith is sick, and my hope withereth, and my eyes wax dim; and unkind and comfort-eclipsing clouds go over the fair and bright Sun, Jesus; and then, when I and temptation tryst the matter together, we spill all through unbelief. Sweet, sweet for evermore would my life be, if I could keep faith in exercise! But I see that my fire cannot always cast light; I have even a "poor man's hard world," when He goeth away. But surely, since my entry hither, many a time hath my fair sun shined without a cloud: hot and burning hath Christ's love been to me. I have no vent to the expression of it; I must be content with stolen and smothered desires of Christ's glory. Oh, how far is His love behind the hand with me! I am just like a man who hath nothing to pay his thousands of debt: all that can be gotten of him is to seize upon his person. Except Christ would seize upon myself, and make the readiest payment that can be of my heart and love to Himself, I have no other thing to give Him. If my sufferings could do beholders good, and edify His kirk, and proclaim the incomparable worth of Christ's love to the world, oh, then would my soul be overjoyed, and my sad heart be cheered and calmed!

Dear brother, I cannot tell what is become of my labours among that people! If all that my Lord builded by me be casten down, and the bottom be fallen out of the profession of that parish, and none stand by Christ, whose love I once preached as clearly and plainly as I could (though far below its worth and excellence) to that people; if so, how can I bear it! And if another make a foul harvest, where I have made a painful and honest sowing, it will not soon digest with me. But I know that His ways pass finding out. Yet my witness, both within me and above me, knoweth. And my pained breast upon the Lord's Day at night, my desire to have had Christ awful, and amiable, and sweet to that people, is now my joy. It was my desire and aim to make Christ and them one; and, if I see my hopes die in the bud, ere they bloom a little, and come to no fruit, I die with grief. O my God, seek not an account of the violence done to me by my brethren, whose salvation I love and desire. I pray that they and I be not heard as contrary parties in the day of our compearance before our Judge, in that process, led by them against my ministry which I received from Christ. I know that a little inch, and less than the third part of this span-length and hand-breadth of time, which is posting away, will put me without the stroke, and above the reach, of either brethren or foes; and it is a short-lasting injury done to me, and to my pains in that part of my Lord's vineyard. Oh, how silly an advantage is my deprivation to men, seeing that my Lord Jesus hath many ways to recover His own losses, and is irresistible to compass His own glorious ends, that His lily may grow amongst thorns, and His little kingdom exalt Himself, even under the swords and spears of contrary powers!

But, my dear brother, go on in the strength of His rich grace, whom ye serve. Stand fast for Christ. Deliver the Gospel off your hand, and your ministry to your Master, with a clean and undefiled conscience. Loose not a pin of Christ's tabernacle. Do not so much as pick with your nail at one board or border of the ark. Have no part or dealing, upon any terms, in a hoof (Exod. 10:26), in a closed window (Dan. 6:10), or in a bowing of your knee, in casting down of the temple. But be a mourning and speaking witness against them who now ruin Zion. Our Master will be on us all now in a clap, ere ever we wit. That day will discover all our whites and our blacks, concerning this controversy of poor oppressed Zion. Let us make our part of it good, that it may be able to abide the fire, when hay and stubble shall be burned to ashes. Nothing, nothing, I say, nothing, but sound sanctification can abide the Lord's fan. I stand to my testimony that I preached often of Scotland.—"Lamentation, mourning, and woe abideth thee, O Scotland! O Scotland! the fearful quarrel of a broken covenant standeth good with thy Lord!"

Now, remember my love to all my friends, and to my parishioners, as if I named each of them particularly. I recommend you, and God's people, committed by Christ to your trust, to the rich grace of our all-sufficient Lord. Remember my bonds. Praise my Lord, who beareth me up in my sufferings. As ye find occasion, according to the wisdom given you, show our acquaintance what the Lord hath done to my soul. This I seek not, verily, to hunt my own praise, but that my sweetest and dearest Master may be magnified in my sufferings. I rest,

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 16, 1637.

CLXXXV.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(LONGING TO BE RESTORED TO HIS CHARGE.)

DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Few know the heart of a stranger and prisoner. I am in the hands of mine enemies. I would that honest and lawful means were essayed for bringing me home to my charge, now when Mr. A. R. and Mr. H. R. are restored. It concerneth you of Galloway most, to use supplications and addresses for this purpose, and try if by fair means I can be brought back again. As for liberty, without I be restored to my flock, it is little to me; for my silence is my greatest prison. However it be, I wait for the Lord; I hope not to rot in my sufferings: Lord, give me submission to wait on. My heart is sad that my days flee away, and I do no service to my Lord in His house, now when His harvest and the souls of perishing people require it. But His ways are not like my ways, neither can I find Him out. Oh that He would shine upon my darkness, and bring forth my morning light from under the thick cloud that men have spread over me! Oh that the Almighty would lay my cause in a balance and weigh me, if my soul was not taken up, when others were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a bride, in that part of the land! But that day that my mouth was most unjustly and cruelly closed, the bloom fell off my branches, and my joy did cast the flower. Howbeit, I have been casting myself under God's feet, and wrestling to believe under a hidden and covered Lord; yet my fainting cometh before I eat, and my faith hath bowed with the sore cast, and under this almost insupportable weight! Oh that it break not! I dare not say that the Lord hath put out my candle, and hath casten water upon my poor coal, and broken the stakes of my tabernacle; but I have tasted bitterness, and eaten gall and wormwood, since that day on which my Master laid bonds upon me to speak no more. I speak not this because the Lord is unco to me, but because beholders, that stand on dry land, see not my sea-storm. The witnesses of my sad cross are but strangers to my sad days and nights. Oh that Christ would let me alone, and speak love to me, and come home to me, and bring summer with Him! Oh that I might preach His beauty and glory, as once I did, before my clay-tent be removed to darkness! and that I might lift Christ off the ground! and my branches might be watered with the dew of God, and my joy in His work might grow green again, and bud, and send out a flower! But I am but a short-sighted creature, and my candle casteth not light afar off. He knoweth all that is done to me; how that when I had but one joy, and no more, and one green flower that I esteemed to be my garland, He came in one hour and dried up my flower at the root, and took away mine only eye, and my one only crown and garland. What can I say? Surely my guiltiness hath been remembered before Him, and He was seeking to take down my sails, and to land the flower of my delights, and to let it lie on the coast, like an old broken ship, that is no more for the sea. But I praise Him for this waled stroke. I welcome this furnace; God's wisdom made choice of it for me, and it must be best, because it was His choice. Oh that I may wait for Him till the morning of this benighted kirk break out! This poor, afflicted kirk had a fair morning, but her night came upon her before her noon-day, and she was like a traveller, forced to take house in the morning of his journey. And now her adversaries are the chief men in the land; her ways mourn; her gates languish; her children sigh for bread; and there is none to be instant with the Lord, that He would come again to His house, and dry the face of His weeping spouse, and comfort Zion's mourners, who are waiting for Him. I know that He will make corn to grow upon the top of His withered Mount Zion again.

Remember my bonds, and forget me not. Oh that my Lord would bring me again amongst you with abundance of the Gospel of Christ! But, oh, that I may set down my desires where my Lord biddeth me! Remember my love in the Lord to your husband; God make him faithful to Christ! and my blessing to your three children. Faint not in prayer for this kirk. Desire my people not to receive a stranger and intruder upon my ministry. Let me stand in that right and station that my Lord Jesus gave me.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXXXVI—To ROBERT STUART

[This ROBERT STUART was probably the son of Provost Stuart of Ayr, to whom several letters are addressed. Allusion is made to his early conversion.]

(CHRIST CHOOSES HIS OWN IN THE FURNACE—NEED OF A DEEP WORK—THE GOD-MAN, A WORLD'S WONDER.)

MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Ye are heartily welcome to my world of suffering, and heartily welcome to my Master's house. God give you much joy of your new Master. If I have been in the house before you, I were not faithful to give the house an ill name, or to speak evil of the Lord of the family; I rather wish God's Holy Spirit (O Lord, breathe upon me with that Spirit!), to tell you the fashions of the house (Ezek. 43:11). One thing I can say, by on-waiting ye will grow a great man with the Lord of the house. Hang on till ye get some good from Christ. Lay all your loads and your weights by faith upon Christ; take ease to yourself, and let Him bear all. He can, He dow, He will bear you, howbeit hell were upon your back. I rejoice that He is come, and hath chosen you in the furnace; it was even there where ye and He set tryst. That is an old gate of Christ's: He keepeth the good old fashion with you, that was in Hosea's days: "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart" (Hos. 2:14, margin). There was no talking to her heart, while He and she were in the fair and flourishing city, and at ease; but out in the cold, hungry, waste wilderness, He allured her, He whispered news into her ear there, and said, "Thou art Mine." What would ye think of such a bode? Ye may soon do worse than say, "Lord, hold all; Lord Jesus, a bargain be it, it shall not go back on my side."

Ye have gotten a great advantage in the way of heaven, that ye have started to the gate in the morning. Like a fool, as I was, I suffered my sun to be high in the heaven, and near afternoon, before ever I took the gate by the end. I pray you now keep the advantage ye have. My heart, be not lazy; set quickly up the brae on hands and feet, as if the last pickle of sand were running out of your glass, and death were coming to turn the glass. And be very careful to take heed to your feet, in that slippery and dangerous way of youth that ye are walking in. The devil and temptations now have the advantage of the brae of you, and are upon your wand-hand, and your working-hand. Dry timber will soon take fire. Be covetous and greedy of the grace of God, and beware that it be not a holiness which cometh only from the cross; for too many are that way disposed. "When He slew them, then they sought Him, and they returned and inquired early after God." "Nevertheless, they did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues" (Ps. 78:34, 36). It is part of our hypocrisy, to give God fair, white words, when He hath us in His grips (if I may speak so), and to flatter Him till He win to the fair fields again. Try well green godliness, and examine what it is that ye love in Christ. If ye love but Christ's sunny side, and would have only summer weather and a land-gate, not a sea-way to heaven, your profession will play you a slip, and the winter-well will go dry again in summer.

Make no sport nor bairn's play of Christ; but labour for a sound and lively sight of sin, that ye may judge yourself an undone man, a damned slave of hell and of sin, one dying in your own blood, except Christ come and rue upon you, and take you up. And therefore, make sure and fast work of conversion. Cast the earth deep; and down, down with the old work, the building of confusion, that was there before; and let Christ lay new work, and make a new creation within you. Look if Christ's rain goeth down to the root of your withered plants, and if His love wound your heart whill it bleed with sorrow for sin, and if ye can pant and fall aswoon, and be like to die for that lovely one, Jesus. I know that Christ will not be hid where He is; grace will ever speak for itself, and be fruitful in well-doing. The sanctified cross is a fruitful tree; it bringeth forth many apples.

If I should tell you by some weak experience, what I have found in Christ, ye or others could hardly believe me. I thought not the hundredth part of Christ long since, that I do now, though, alas! my thoughts are still infinitely below His worth. I have a dwining, sickly, and pained life, for a real possession of Him; and am troubled with love-brashes and love-fevers; but it is a sweet pain. I would refuse no conditions, not hell excepted (reserving always God's hatred), to buy possession of Jesus. But, alas! I am not a merchant, who have any money to give for Him: I must either come to a good-cheap market, where wares are had for nothing, else I go home empty. But I have casten this work upon Christ to get me Himself. I have His faith, and truth, and promise, as a pawn of His, all engaged that I shall obtain that which my hungry desires would be at; and I esteem that the choice of my happiness. And for Christ's cross, especially the garland and flower of all crosses, to suffer for His name, I esteem it more than I can write or speak to you. And I write it under mine own hand to you, that it is one of the steps of the ladder up to our country; and Christ (whoever be one) is still at the heavy end of this black tree, and so it is but as a feather to me. I need not run at leisure, because of a burden on my back; my back never bare the like of it; the more heavily crossed for Christ, the soul is still the lighter for the journey.

Now, would to God that all cold-blooded, faint-hearted soldiers of Christ would look again to Jesus, and to His love; and when they look, I would have them to look again and again, and fill themselves with beholding of Christ's beauty; and I dare say then that Christ would come into great court and request with many. The virgins would flock fast about the Bridegroom; they would embrace and take hold of Him, and not let Him go. But when I have spoken of Him, till my head rive, I have said just nothing. I may begin again. A Godhead, a Godhead is a world's wonder. Set ten thousand thousand new-made worlds of angels and elect men, and double them in number, ten thousand, thousand, thousand times; let their heart and tongues be ten thousand thousand times more agile and large, than the heart and tongues of the seraphim that stand with six wings before Him (Isa. 6:2), when they have said all for the glorifying and praising of the Lord Jesus, they have but spoken little or nothing; His love will abide all possible creatures praise. Oh, if I could wear this tongue to the stump, in extolling His highness! But it is my daily-growing sorrow, that I am confounded with His incomparable love, and that He doeth so great things for my soul, and hath got never yet anything of me worth the speaking of. Sir, I charge you, help me to praise Him; it is a shame to speak of what He hath done for me, and what I do to Him again. I am sure that Christ hath many drowned dyvours in heaven beside Him; and when we are convened, man and angel, at the great day, in that fair last meeting, we are all but His drowned dyvours: it is hard to say who oweth Him most. If men could do no more, I would have them to wonder: if ye cannot be filled with Christ's love, we may be filled with wondering.

Sir, I would that I could persuade you to grow sick for Christ, and to long after Him, and be pained with love for Himself. But His tongue is in heaven who can do it. To Him and His rich grace I recommend you.

I pray you, pray for me, and forget not to praise.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 17, 1637.

CLXXXVII.—To the LADY GAITGIRTH

[LADY GAITGIRTH, or ISABEL BLAIR, daughter to John Blair of that ilk, by Grizel his wife, daughter to Robert, Lord Semple, was the wife of James Chalmers of Gaitgirth. To him she had five sons and five daughters. Mr. Fergushill of Ochiltree resided in the vicinity; see Letter CXII. Her husband, to whom Rutherford expresses his obligations in the close of this letter, was a man of worth. He was made Sheriff-Principal of Ayrshire in 1632; and in 1633, he and Sir William Cunningham of Cunninghamhead represented Ayrshire in Parliament. Embracing the cause of the Covenant, he, in 1641, with Cassilis and Caprington, were sent as commissioners from the Scottish Parliament to Newcastle; and in 1649 he had a troop in Colonel Robert Montgomery's Horse (Robertson's "Ayrshire Families"). His great-grandfather, James Chalmers of Gaitgirth, who lived at the time of the Reformation, was a very zealous reformer, and is described by Knox, Calderwood, and Spottiswood, as one of the boldest and most daring men of any who took part in that important revolution.

The name is often written Gathgirth and Gadgirth. It is in the parish of Coylton, about four miles from Monkton. The modern mansion occupies the fine site of the old, on a wooded knoll that overhangs the river Ayr, at one point commanding a view of Arran and Goatfell. It is a small estate.]

(CHRIST UNCHANGEABLE, THOUGH NOT ALWAYS ENJOYED—HIS LOVE NEVER YET FULLY POURED OUT—HIMSELF HIS PEOPLES CAUTIONER.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to know how matters stand betwixt Christ and your soul. I know that ye find Him still the longer the better; time cannot change Him in His love. Ye may yourself ebb and flow, rise and fall, wax and wane; but your Lord is this day as He was yesterday. And it is your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon wheels of your own making, neither have ye to do with a Christ of your own shaping. God hath singled out a Mediator (Ps. 89:19), strong and mighty: if ye and your burdens were as heavy as ten hills or hells, He is able to bear you, and save you to the uttermost. Your often seeking to Him cannot make you a burden to Him. I know that Christ compassionateth you, and maketh a moan for you, in all your dumps, and under your downcastings; but it is good for you that He hideth Himself sometimes. It is not niceness, dryness, nor coldness of love, that causeth Christ to withdraw, and slip in under a curtain and a vail, that ye cannot see Him; but He knoweth that ye could not bear with upsails, a fair gale, a full moon, and a high spring-tide of His felt love, and always a fair summer-day and a summer-sun of a felt and possessed and embracing Lord Jesus. His kisses and His visits to His dearest ones are thin-sown. He could not let out His rivers of love upon His own, but these rivers would be in hazard of loosening a young plant at the root; and He knoweth this of you. Ye should, therefore, frist Christ's kindness, as to its sensible and full manifestations, till ye and He be above sun and moon. That is the country where ye will be enlarged for that love which ye dow not now contain.

Cast the burden of your sweet babes upon Christ, and lighten your heart, by laying your all upon Him: He will be their God. I hope to see you up the mountain yet, and glad in the salvation of God. Frame yourself for Christ, and gloom not upon His cross. I find Him so sweet, that my love, suppose I would charge it to remove from Christ, would not obey me: His love hath stronger fingers than to let go its grips of us bairns, who cannot go but by such a hold as Christ. It is good that we want legs of our own, since we may borrow from Christ; and it is our happiness that Christ is under an act of cautionary for heaven, and that Christ is booked in heaven as the principal debtor for such poor bodies as we are.

I request you to give the laird, your husband, thanks for his care of me, in that he hath appeared in public for a prisoner of Christ. I pray and write mercy, and peace, and blessings to him and his.

Grace, grace be with you for ever.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXXXVIII.—To MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL of Ochiltree

(DESPONDING VIEWS OF HIS OWN STATE—MINISTERIAL DILIGENCE—CHRIST'S WORTH—SELF-SEEKING.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy and peace be to you. My longings and desires for a sight of the new-builded tabernacle of Christ again in Scotland, that tabernacle that came down from heaven, hath now taken some life again, when I see Christ making a mint to sow vengeance among His enemies. I care not, if this land be ripe for such a great, wonderful mercy; but I know He must do it, whenever it is done, without hire. I find the grief of my silence, and my fear to be holden at the door of Christ's house, swelling upon me; and the truth is, were it not that I am dawted now and then with pieces of Christ's sweet love and comforts, I fear I should have made an ill browst of this honourable cross, that I know such a soft and silly-minded body as I am is not worthy of. For I have little in me but softness, and superlative and excessive apprehensions of fear, and sadness, and sorrow; and often God's terrors do surround me, because Christ looketh not so favourably upon me as a poor witness would have Him. And I wonder how I have past a year and a quarter's imprisonment without shaming my sweet Lord, to whom I desire to be faithful; and I think I shall die but even minting and aiming to serve and honour my Lord Jesus. Few know how toom and empty I am at home; but it is a part of marriage-love and husband-love, that my Lord Jesus goeth not to the streets with His chiding against me. It is but stolen and concealed anger that I find and feel, and His glooms to me are kept under roof, that He will not have mine enemies hear what is betwixt me and Him. And, believe me, I say the truth in Christ, that the only gall and wormwood in my cup, and that which hath filled me with fear, hath been, lest my sins, that sun and moon and the Lord's children were never witness to, should have moved my Lord to strike me with dumb Sabbaths. Lord, pardon my soft and weak jealousies, if I be here in an error.

My very dear brother, I would have looked for larger and more particular letters from you, for my comfort in this; for your words before have strengthened me. I pray you to mend this; and be thankful and painful, while ye have a piece or corner of the Lord's vineyard to dress. Oh, would to God that I could have leave to follow you, to break the clods! But I wish I could command my soul to be silent, and to wait upon the Lord. I am sure that while Christ lives, I am well enough friend-stead. I hope that He will extend His kindness and power for me; but God be thanked it is not worse with me than a cross for Christ and His truth. I know that He might have pitched upon many more choice and worthy witnesses, if He had pleased; but I seek no more (be what timber I will, suppose I were made of a piece of hell) than that my Lord, in His infinite art, hew glory to His name, and enlargement to Christ's kingdom, out of me. Oh that I could attain to this, to desire that my part of Christ might be laid in pledge for the heightening of Christ's throne in Britain! Let my Lord redeem the pledge; or, if He please, let it sink and drown unredeemed. But what can I add to Him? or what way can a smothered and borne-down prisoner set out Christ in open market, as a lovely and desirable Lord to many souls? I know that He seeth to His own glory better than my ebb thoughts can dream of; and that the wheels and paces of this poor distempered kirk are in His hands; and that things shall roll as Christ will have them:—only, Lord, tryst the matter so, as Christ may be made a householder and lord again in Scotland, and wet faces for His departure may be dried at His sweet and much-desired welcome-home! I see that, in all our trials, our Lord will not mix our wares and His grace overhead through other; but He will have each man to know his own, that the like of me may say in my sufferings, "This is Christ's grace, and this is but my coarse stuff: This is free grace, and this is but nature and reason." We know what our legs would play us, if they should carry us through all our waters. And the least thing our Lord can have of us, is to know we are grace's dyvours, and that nature is of a base house and blood, and grace is better born, and of kin and blood to Christ, and of a better house. Oh that I were free of that idol which they call myself; and that Christ were for myself; and myself a decourted cypher, and a denied and forsworn thing! But that proud thing, myself, will not play, except it ride up side for side with Christ, or rather have place before Him. O myself (another devil, as evil as the prince of devils!), if thou couldst give Christ the way, and take thine own room, which is to sit as low as nothing or corruption! Oh, but we have much need to be ransomed and redeemed by Christ from that master-tyrant, that cruel and lawless lord, ourself. Nay, when I am seeking Christ, and am out of myself, I have the third part of a squint eye upon that vain, vain thing, myself, myself, and something of mine own. But I must hold here.

I desire you to contribute your help, to see if I can be restored to my wasted and lost flock. I see not how it can be, except the lords would procure me a liberty to preach; and they have reason. 1. Because the opposers and my adversaries have practised their new canons upon me, whereof one is, that no deprived minister preach, under the pain of excommunication. 2. Because my opposing of these canons was a special thing that incensed Sydserff against me. 3. Because I was judicially accused for my book against the Arminians, and commanded by the Chancellor to acknowledge that I had done a fault in writing against Dr. Jackson, a wicked Arminian.2 Pray for a room in the house to me.

Grace, grace be (as it is) your portion.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CLXXXIX.—To JOHN STUART, Provost of Ayr [Letter CLXIII.]

(HOPE FOR SCOTLAND—SELF-SUBMISSION—CHRIST HIMSELF IS SOUGHT FOR BY FAITH—STABILITY OF SALVATION—HIS WAYS.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long for the time when I shall see the beauty of the Lord in His house; and would be as glad of it as of any sight on earth, to see the halt, the blind, and the lame, come back to Zion with supplications (Jer. 31:8, 9), "Going and weeping, and seeking the Lord; asking the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward" (Jer. 50:4, 5); and to see the Woman travailing in birth, delivered of the man-child of a blessed reformation. If this land were humbled, I would look that our skies should clear, and our day dawn again; and ye should then bless Christ, who is content to save your travel, and to give Himself to you, in pure ordinances, on this side of the sea. I know the mercy of Christ is engaged by promise to Scotland, notwithstanding He bring wrath, as I fear He will, upon this land.

I am waiting on for enlargement, and half content that my faith bow, if Christ, while He bow it, keep it unbroken; for who goeth through a fire without a mark or a scald? I see the Lord making use of this fire, to scour His vessels from their rust. Oh that my will were silent, and "as a child weaned from the breasts"! (Ps. 131). But, alas! who hath a heart that will give Christ the last word in flyting, and will hear and not speak again? Oh! contestations and quarrelous replies (as a soon-saddled spirit, "I do well to be angry, even to the death") (Jonah 4:9) smell of the stink of strong corruption. O blessed soul, that could sacrifice his will, and go to heaven, having lost his will and made resignation of it to Christ! I would seek no more than that Christ were absolute King over my will, and that my will were a sufferer in all crosses, without meeting Christ with such a word, "Why is it thus?" I wish still, that my love had but leave to stand beside beautiful Jesus, and to get the mercy of looking to Him, and burning for Him, suppose that possession of Him were suspended, and fristed till my Lord fold together the leaves and two sides of the little shepherds' tents of clay. Oh, what pain is in longing for Christ, under an overclouded and eclipsed assurance! What is harder than to burn and dwine with longing and deaths of love, and then to have blanks and uninked paper for assurance of Christ in real fruition or possession? Oh how sweet were one line, or half a letter, of a written assurance under Christ's own hand! But this is our exercise daily, that guiltiness shall overmist and darken assurance. It is a miracle to believe; but, for a sinner to believe, is two miracles. But oh, what obligations of love are we under to Christ, who beareth with our wild apprehensions, in suffering them to nickname sweet Jesus, and to put a lie upon His good name! If He had not been God, and if long-suffering in Christ were not like Christ Himself, we should long ago have broken Christ's mercies in two pieces, and put an iron bar on our salvation, that mercy should not have been able to break or overleap. But long-suffering in God is God Himself; and that is our salvation; and the stability of our heaven is in God. He knew who said, "Christ in you the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27) (for our hope, and the bottom and pillars of it, is Christ-God!), that sinners are anchor-fast, and made stable in God. So that if God do not change (which is impossible), then my hope shall not fluctuate. Oh, sweet stability of sure-bottomed salvation! Who could win heaven, if this were not so? and who could be saved, if God were not God, and if He were not such a God as He is? Oh, God be thanked that our salvation is coasted, and landed, and shored upon Christ, who is Master of winds and storms! And what sea-winds can blow the coast or the land out of its place? Bulwarks are often casten down, but coasts are not removed: but suppose that were or might be, yet God cannot reel nor remove. Oh that we go from this strong and immoveable Lord, and that we loosen ourselves (if it were in our power) from Him! Alas! our green and young love hath not taken with Christ, being unacquainted with Him. He is such a wide, and broad, and deep, and high, and surpassing sweetness, that our love is too little for Him. But oh, if our love, little as it is, could take band with His great and huge sweetness, and transcendent excellency! Oh, thrice blessed, and eternally blessed are they, who are out of themselves, and above themselves, that they may be in love united to Him!

I am often rolling up and down the thoughts of my faint and sick desires of expressing Christ's glory before His people. But I see not through the throng of impediments, and cannot find eyes to look higher; and so I put many things in Christ's way to hinder Him, that I know He would but laugh at, and with one stride set His foot over them all. I know not if my Lord will bring me to His sanctuary or not; but I know that He hath the placing of me, either within or without the house, and that nothing will be done without Him. But I am often thinking and saying within myself, that my days flee away, and I see no good, neither yet Christ's work thriving; and it is like that the grave shall prevent the answer of my desires of saving souls as I would. But, alas! I cannot make right work of His ways; I neither spell nor read my Lord's providence aright. My thoughts go away that I fear they meet not God; for it is likely that God will not come the way of my thoughts. And I cannot be taught to crucify to Him my wisdom and desires, and to make Him King over my thoughts; for I would have a princedom over my thoughts, and would boldly and blindly prescribe to God, and guide myself in a way of my own making. But I hold my peace here; let Him do His will.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweetest Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXC.—To CARSLUTH (Kirkmabreck)

[The name of the person to whom this letter is addressed, was Robert Brown of Carsluth. He was a man of considerable property in the part of the country where Rutherford's lot was cast previous to his imprisonment. He must have died about the beginning of the year 1658, as on the 27th of April, that year, Thomas Brown of Carsluth is retoured heir of Robert Brown of Carsluth, his father, in the 7 merkland of Carsluth, etc. ("Inq. Retor. Abbrev. Kirkoud."). Brown of Carsluth was an ancient family. Gilbert Brown, abbot of New Abbey, near Dumfries, who disputed with John Welsh, was of the family.

On the shore of Wigtown Bay, not far from Creetown, you see the old tower-like house, with a farm, well wooded. It is near the modern residence of Kirkdale.]

(NECESSITY OF MAKING SURE OF SALVATION—VANITY OF THE WORLD—NOTHING WORTH HAVING BUT CHRIST—FLIGHT OF TIME.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I earnestly desire you to try how matters stand between your soul and the Lord. Think it no easy matter to take heaven by violence. Salvation cometh now to the most part of men in a night-dream. There is no scarcity of faith now, such as it is; for ye shall not now light upon the man who will not say he hath faith in Christ. But, alas! dreams make no man's rights.

Worthy Sir, I beseech you in the Lord to give your soul no rest till ye have real assurance, and Christ's rights confirmed and sealed to your soul. The common faith, and country-holiness, and week-day zeal, that is among people, will never bring men to heaven. Take pains for your salvation; for in that day, when ye shall see many men's labours and conquests and idol-riches lying in ashes, when the earth and all the works thereof shall be burnt with fire, oh how dear a price would your soul give for God's favour in Christ! It is a blessed thing to see Christ with up-sun, and to read over your papers and soul-accounts with fair day-light. It will not be time to cry for a lamp when the Bridegroom is entered into His chamber, and the door shut. Fy, fy upon blinded and debased souls, who are committing whoredom with this idol-clay, and hunting a poor, wretched, hungry heaven, a hungry breakfast, a day's meat from this hungry world, with the forfeiting of God's favour, and the drinking over their heaven (over the board, as men used to speak), for the laughter and sports of this short forenoon! All that is under this vault of heaven, and betwixt us and death, and on this side of sun and moon, is but toys, night-visions, head-fancies, poor shadows, watery froth, godless vanities at their best, and black hearts, and salt and sour miseries, sugared over and confected with an hour's laughter or two, and the conceit of riches, honour, vain, vain court, and lawless pleasures. Sir, if ye look both to the laughing side and to the weeping side of this world, and if ye look not only upon the skin and colour of things, but into their inwards, and the heart of their excellency, ye shall see that one look of Christ's sweet and lovely eye, one kiss of His fairest face, is worth ten thousand worlds of such rotten stuff, as the foolish sons of men set their hearts upon. Oh, Sir, turn, turn your heart to the other side of things, and get it once free of these entanglements, to consider eternity, death, the clay bed, the grave, awsome judgment, everlasting burning quick in hell, where death would give as great a price (if there were a market, wherein death might be bought and sold) as all the world. Consider heaven and glory. But, alas! why speak I of considering those things, which have not entered into the heart of man to consider? Look into those depths (without a bottom) of loveliness, sweetness, beauty, excellency, glory, goodness, grace, and mercy, that are in Christ; and ye shall then cry down the whole world, and all the glory of it, even when it is come to the summer-bloom; and ye shall cry, "Up with Christ, up with Christ's Father, up with eternity of glory!" Sir, there is a great deal less sand in your glass than when I saw you, and your afternoon is nearer even-tide now than it was. As a flood carried back to the sea, so doth the Lord's swift post, Time, carry you and your life with wings to the grave. Ye eat and drink, but time standeth not still; ye laugh, but your day fleeth away; ye sleep, but your hours are reckoned and put by hand. Oh how soon will time shut you out of the poor, and cold, and hungry inn of this life! And then what will yesterday's short-born pleasures do to you, but be as a snow-ball melted away many years since? Or worse! for the memory of these pleasures useth to fill the soul with bitterness. Time and experience will prove this to be true; and dying men, if they could speak, would make this good. Lay no more on the creatures than they are able to carry. Lay your soul and your weights upon God. Make Him your only, only Best-beloved. Your errand to this life is to make sure an eternity of glory to your soul, and to match your soul with Christ. Your love, if it were more than all the love of angels in one, is Christ's due: other things worthy in themselves, in respect of Christ, are not worth a windlestraw, or a drink of cold water. I doubt not but in death ye shall see all things more distinctly, and that then the world shall bear no more bulk than it is worth, and that then it shall couch and be contracted into nothing; and ye shall see Christ longer, higher, broader, and deeper than ever He was. O blessed conquest, to lose all things, and to gain Christ! I know not what ye have, if ye want Christ! Alas! how poor is your gain, if the earth were all yours in free heritage, holding it of no man of clay, if Christ be not yours! Oh, seek all midses, lay all oars in the water, put forth all your power, and bend all your endeavours, to put away and part with all things, that ye may gain and enjoy Christ. Try and search His word, and strive to go a step above and beyond ordinary professors; and resolve to sweat more and run faster than they do, for salvation. Men's midway, cold, and wise courses in godliness, and their neighbour-like, cold, and wise pace to heaven, will cause many a man to want his lodging at night, and to lie in the fields. I recommend Christ and His love to your seeking; and yourself to the tender mercy and rich grace of our Lord.

Remember my love in Christ to your wife. I desire her to learn to make her soul's anchor fast upon Christ Himself. Few are saved. Let her consider what joy the smiles of God in Christ will be, and what the love-kisses of sweet, sweet Jesus, and a welcome home to the New Jerusalem from Christ's own mouth will be to her soul, when Christ will fold together the clay tent of her body, and lay it by His hand for a time, till the fair morning of the general resurrection. I avouch before God, man, and angel, that I have not seen, nor can imagine, a lover to be comparable to lovely Jesus. I would not exchange or niffer Him with ten heavens. If heaven could be without Him, what could we do there? Grace, grace be with you.

Your soul's eternal well-wisher,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCI.—To CASSINCARRIE

[The mansion of Cassincarrie is a mile from Creetown, in Kirkmabreck parish. It stands near the road, just after you pass the stone quarries that help to build Liverpool. It is so directly opposite Wigtown, that from the windows we might suppose the godly proprietor looking across, and praying for the martyrs Margaret Wilson and Margaret M'Lachlan, in 1685. This correspondent of Rutherford was probably the son of John Mure of Cassincarrie, who was the second son of John Mure of Rowallan. Had he been John Mure of Cassincarrie, elder, he would now have been on the borders of ninety years of age, as his eldest brother, William Mure of Rowallan, died in 1616, aged sixty-nine; and in that case, Rutherford would doubtless have enforced his solemn admonitions by pointed allusions to his advanced period of life. His son, therefore, is very likely the person to whom this letter is addressed (Robertson's "Ayrshire Families," vol. iii. p. 361).]

(EARNESTNESS ABOUT SALVATION—CHRIST HIMSELF TO BE SOUGHT.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have been too long in writing to you. I am confident that ye have learned to prize Christ, and His love and favour, more than ordinary professors who scarce see Christ with half an eye, because their sight is taken up with eyeing and liking the beauty of this over-gilded world, that promiseth fair to all its lovers, but in the push of a trial, when need is, can give nothing but a fair beguile.

I know that ye are not ignorant that men come not to this world, as some do to a market, to see and to be seen; or as some come to behold a May-game, and only to behold, and to go home again. Ye come hither to treat with God, and to tryst with Him in His Christ for salvation to your soul, and to seek reconciliation with an angry, wrathful God, in a covenant of peace made to you in Christ; and this is more than ordinary sport, or the play that the greatest part of the world give their heart unto. And, therefore, worthy Sir, I pray you, by the salvation of your soul, and by the mercy of God, and your compearance before Christ, do this in sad earnest, and let not salvation be your by-work or your holyday's talk only, or a work by the way. For men think that this may be done on three days' space on a feather bed, when death and they are fallen in hands together, and that with a word or two they shall make their soul-matters right. Alas! this is to sit loose and unsure in the matters of our salvation. Nay, the seeking of this world, and of the glory of it, is but an odd and by-errand that we may slip, so being we make salvation sure. Oh, when will men learn to be that heavenly-wise as to divorce from and free their soul of all idol-lovers, and make Christ the only, only One, and trim and make ready their lamps, while they have time and day! How soon will this house skail, and the inn, where the poor soul lodgeth, fall to the earth! How soon will some few years pass away! and then, when the day is ended, and this life's lease expired, what have men of world's glory but dreams and thoughts? Oh how blessed a thing is it to labour for Christ, and to make Him sure! Know and try in time your holding of Him, and the rights and charters of heaven, and upon what terms ye have Christ and the Gospel, and what Christ is worth in your estimation, and how lightly ye esteem other things, and how dearly Christ! I am sure, that if ye see Him in His beauty and glory, ye shall see Him to be all things, and that incomparable jewel of gold that ye should seek, howbeit ye should sell, wadset, and forfeit your few years' portion of this life's joys. O happy soul for evermore, who can rightly compare this life with that long-lasting life to come, and can balance the weighty glory of the one with the light golden vanity of the other! The day of the Lord is now near-hand, and all men shall come out in their blacks and whites, as they are; there shall be no borrowed lying colours in that day, when Christ shall be called Christ, and no longer nicknamed. Now men borrow Christ and His white colour, and the lustre and farding of Christianity; but how many counterfeit masks will be burned, in the day of God, in the fire that shall burn the earth and the works that are on it? And howbeit Christ have the hardest part of it now, yet in the presence of my Lord, whom I serve in the spirit, I would not niffer or exchange Christ's prison, bonds, and chains, with the gold chains and lordly rents, and smiling and happy-like heavens of the men of this world. I am far from thoughts of repenting because of my losses and bonds for Christ. I wish that all my adversaries were as I am, except my bonds. Worthy, worthy, worthy for evermore is Christ, for whom we should suffer pains like hell's pains; far more the short hell that the saints of God have in this life. Sir, I wish that your soul may be more acquainted with the sweetness of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his only Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCII.—To the LADY CARDONESS

(GRACE—THE NAME OF CHRIST TO BE EXALTED—EVERYTHING BUT GOD FAILS US.)

MISTRESS,—I beseech you in the Lord Jesus to make every day more and more of Christ; and try your growth in the grace of God, and what new ground ye win daily on corruption. For travellers are day by day either advancing farther on, and nearer home, or else they go not right about to compass their journey.

I think still the better and better of Christ. Alas! I know not where to set Him, I would so fain have Him high! I cannot set heavens above heavens till I were tired with numbering, and set Him upon the highest step and storey of the highest of them all; but I wish I could make Him great through the world, suppose my loss, and pain, and shame were set under the soles of His feet, that He might stand upon me.

I request that you faint not; because this world and ye are at yea and nay, and because this is not a home that laugheth upon you. The wise Lord, who knoweth you, will have it so, because He casteth a net for your love, to catch it and gather it in to Himself. Therefore, bear patiently the loss of children, and burdens, and other discontentments, either within or without the house: your Lord in them is seeking you, and seek ye Him. Let none be your love and choice, and the flower of your delights, but your Lord Jesus. Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion; for it will not fall to you to get two portions, and to rejoice twice, and to be happy twice, and to have an upper heaven, and an under heaven too. Christ our Lord, and His saints, were not so; and, therefore, let go your grip of this life, and of the good things of it: I hope that your heaven groweth not hereaway. Learn daily both to possess and miss Christ, in His secret bridegroom-smiles. He must go and come, because His infinite wisdom thinketh it best for you. We shall be together one day. We shall not need to borrow light from sun, moon, or candle. There shall be no complaints on either side, in heaven. There shall be none there, but He and we, the Bridegroom and the bride; devils, temptations, trials, desertions, losses, sad hearts, pain, and death, shall be all put out of play; and the devil must give up his office of tempting. Oh, blessed is the soul whose hope hath a face looking straight out to that day. It is not our part to make a treasure here; anything, under the covering of heaven, which we can build upon, is but ill ground and a sandy foundation. Every good thing, except God, wanteth a bottom, and cannot stand its lone; how then can it bear the weight of us? Let us not lay a load on a windlestraw. There shall nothing find my weight, or found my happiness, but God. I know that all created power would sink under me, if I should lean down upon it; and, therefore, it is better to rest on God, than to sink or fall; and we weak souls must have a bottom and a being-place, for we cannot stand our lone. Let us then be wise in our choice, and choose and wale our own blessedness, which is to trust in the Lord. Each one of us hath a whore and idol, besides our Husband Christ; but it is our folly to divide our narrow and little love; it will not serve two. It is best then to hold it whole and together, and to give it to Christ; for we get double interest for our love, when we lend it to, and lay it upon Christ; and we are sure, besides, that the stock cannot perish.

Now I can say no more. Remember me. I have God's right to that people; howbeit by the violence of men, stronger than I, I am banished from you, and chased away. The Lord give you mercy in the day of Christ. It may be that God will clear my sky again; howbeit there is small appearance of my deliverance. But let Him do with me what seemeth good in His own eyes. I am His clay; let my Potter frame and fashion me as He pleaseth. Grace be with you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCIII.—To SIBYLLA MACADAM [See notice, Letter CXLI.]

(CHRIST'S BEAUTY AND EXCELLENCE.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I can bear witness in my bonds, that Christ is still the longer the better; and no worse, yea, inconceivably better than He is (or can be) called. I think it half a heaven to have my fill of the smell of His sweet breath, and to sleep in the arms of Christ my Lord, with His left hand under my head and His right hand embracing me. There is no great reckoning to be made of the withering of my flower, in comparison of the foul and manifest wrongs done to Christ. Nay, let never the dew of God lie upon my branches again, let the bloom fall from my joy, and let it wither, let the Almighty blow out my candle, so being the Lord might be great among Jews and Gentiles, and His oppressed church delivered. Let Christ fare well, suppose I should eat ashes. I know that He must be sweet Himself, when His cross is so sweet. And it is the part of us all, if we marry Himself, to marry the crosses, losses, and reproaches also, that follow Him. For mercy followeth Christ's cross. His prison, for beauty, is made of marble and ivory; His chains, that are laid on His prisoners, are golden chains; and the sighs of the prisoners of hope are perfumed with comforts, the like whereof cannot be bred or found on this side of sun and moon. Follow on after His love; tire not of Christ, but come in, and see His beauty and excellency, and feed your soul upon Christ's sweetness. This world is not yours, neither would I have your heaven made of such metal as mire and clay. Ye have the choice and wale of all lovers in heaven or out of heaven, when ye have Christ, the only delight of God His Father. Climb up the mountain with joy, and faint not; for time will cut off the men who pursue Christ's followers. Our best things here have a worm in them; our joys, besides God, in the inner half are but woes and sorrows. Christ, Christ is that which our love and desires can sleep sweetly and rest safely upon.

Now the very God of peace establish you in Christ. Help a prisoner with your prayers, and entreat that our Lord would be pleased to visit me with a sight of His beauty in His house, as He has sometimes done. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCIV.—To MR. HUGH HENDERSON, Minister of Dalry, Ayrshire

(THE WAYS OF PROVIDENCE—BELIEVING PATIENCE.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Who knoweth but the wind may turn into the west again, upon Christ and His desolate bride in this land; and that Christ may get His summer by course again? For He hath had ill-weather this long time, and could not find law or justice for Himself and His truth these many years. I am sure the wheels of this crazed and broken kirk run all upon no other axle-tree, nor is there any other to roll them, and cog them, and drive them, than the wisdom and good pleasure of our Lord. And it were a just trick and glorious of never-sleeping Providence, to bring our brethren's darts, which they have shot at us, back upon their own heads. Suppose they have two strings to their bow, and can take one as another faileth them, yet there are more than three strings upon our Lord's bow; and, besides, He cannot miss the white that He shooteth at. I know that He shuffleth up and down in His hand the great body of heaven and earth; and that kirk and commonwealth are, in His hand, like a stock of cards, and that He dealeth the play to the mourners of Zion, and to those that say, "Lie down, that we may go over you," at His own sovereign pleasure: and I am sure that Zion's adversaries, in this play, shall not take up their own stakes again. Oh how sweet a thing is it to trust in Him! When Christ hath sleeped out His sleep (if I may speak so of Him who is the Watchman of Israel, that neither slumbereth nor sleepeth), and His own are tried, He will arise as a strong man after wine, and make bare His holy arm, and put on vengeance as a cloak, and deal vengeance, thick and double, amongst the haters of Zion. It may be that we may see Him sow and send down maledictions and vengeances as thick as drops of rain or hail upon His enemies; for our Lord oweth them a black day, and He useth duly to pay His debts. Neither His friends and followers, nor His foes and adversaries shall have it to say, "That He is not faithful and exact in keeping His word."

I know of no bar in God's way but Scotland's guiltiness; and He can come over that impediment, and break that bar also, and then say to guilty Scotland, as He said, "Not for your sakes" (Ezek. 36:22, 23), etc. On-waiting had ever yet a blessed issue; and to keep the word of God's patience, keepeth still the saints dry in the water, cold in the fire, and breathing and blood-hot in the grave. What are prisons of iron walls, and gates of brass, to Christ? Not so good as fail dykes, fortifications of straw, or old tottering walls. If He give the word, then chains will fall off the arms and legs of His prisoners. God be thanked, that our Lord Jesus hath the tutoring of king, and court, and nobles; and that He can dry the gutters and the mires in Zion, and lay causeways to the temple with the carcases of bastard lord-prelates and idol shepherds. The corn on the housetops got never the husbandman's prayers, and so is seen on it, for it filleth not the hand of mowers. Christ, and truth, and innocency, worketh even under the earth; and verily there is hope for the righteous. We see not what conclusions pass in heaven anent all the affairs of God's house. We need not give hire to God to take vengeance of His enemies, for justice worketh without hire. Oh that the seed of hope would grow again, and come to maturity! and that we would importune Christ, and double our knocks at His gate, and cast our cries and shouts over the wall, that He might come out, and make our Jerusalem the praise of the whole earth, and give us salvation for walls and bulwarks! If Christ bud, and grow green, and bloom, and bear seed again in Scotland, and His Father send Him two summers in one year, and bless His crop, what cause have we to rejoice in the free salvation of our Lord, and to set up our banners in the name of our God! Oh that He would hasten the confusion of the leprous strumpet, the mother and mistress of abominations in the earth, and take graven images out of the way, and come in with the Jews in troops, and agree with His old outcast and forsaken wife, and take them again to His bed of love. Grace be with you.

Yours, in our Master and Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCV.—To the LADY LARGIRIE

[She was wife of the proprietor of Castermadie, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. The place was called also Largero, or Largerie, in the parish of Twynholm, near Kirkcudbright.]

(CHRIST THE EXCLUSIVE OBJECT OF LOVE—PREPARATION FOR DEATH.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I exhort you in the Lord, to go on in your journey to heaven; and to be content with such fare by the way as Christ and His followers have had before you; for they had always the wind on their faces, and our Lord hath not changed the way to us for our ease, but will have us following our sweet Guide. Alas, how doth sin clog us in our journey, and retard us! What fools are we, to have a by-good, or any other love, or match, to our souls, beside Christ! It were best for us, like ill bairns, who are best heard at home, to seek our own home, and to sell our hopes of this little clay inn and idol of the earth, where we are neither well summered nor well wintered. Oh that our souls would so fall at odds with the love of this world, as to think of it as a traveller doth of a drink of water, which is not any part of his treasure, but goeth away with the using! for ten miles' journey maketh that drink to him as nothing. Oh that we had as soon done with this world, and could as quickly despatch the love of it! But as a child cannot hold two apples in his little hand, but the one putteth the other out of its room, so neither can we be masters and lords of two loves. Blessed were we, if we could make ourselves master of that invaluable treasure, the love of Christ; or rather suffer ourselves to be mastered and subdued to Christ's love, so as Christ were our "all things," and all other things our nothings, and the refuse of our delights. Oh let us be ready for shipping, against the time our Lord's wind and tide call for us! Death is the last thief, that will come without din or noise of feet, and take our souls away, and we shall take our leave of time, and face eternity; and our Lord will lay together the two sides of this earthly tabernacle, and fold us, and lay us by, as a man layeth by clothes at night, and put the one half of us in a house of clay, the dark grave, and the other half of us in heaven or hell. Seek to be found of your Lord in peace, and gather in your flitting, and put your soul in order; for Christ will not give a nail-breadth of time to our little sand-glass.

Pray for Zion, and for me, His prisoner, that He would be pleased to bring me amongst you again, full of Christ, and fraughted and loaden with the blessing of His Gospel.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his only Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCVI.—To EARLSTON, the Younger

(SUFFERINGS—HOPE OF FINAL DELIVERANCE—THE BELIEVER IN SAFE KEEPING—THE RECOMPENSE MARRED BY TEMPTATIONS.)

WORTHY AND DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear from you. I remain still a prisoner of hope, and do think it service to the Lord to wait on still with submission, till the Lord's morning sky break, and His summer day dawn. For I am persuaded that it is a piece of the chief errand of our life (on which God sent us for some years, down to this earth, among devils and men, the firebrands of the devil, and temptations), that we might suffer for a time here amongst our enemies; otherwise He might have made heaven to wait on us, at our coming out of the womb, and have carried us home to our country, without letting us set down our feet in this knotty and thorny life. But seeing a piece of suffering is carved to every one of us, less or more, as infinite Wisdom hath thought good, our part is to harden and habituate our soft and thin-skinned nature to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, wo hearts, as those that are looked upon by God, angels, men, and devils. Oh, what folly is it, to sit down and weep upon a decree of God, that is both deaf and dumb to our tears, and must stand still as unmoveable as God who made it! For who can come behind our Lord, to alter or better what He hath decreed and done? It were better to make windows in our prison, and to look out to God and our country, heaven, and to cry like fettered men who long for the King's free air, "Lord, let Thy kingdom come! Oh, let the Bridegroom come! And, O day, O fair day, O everlasting summer day, dawn and shine out, break out from under the black night sky, and shine!" I am persuaded that, if every day a little stone in the prison-walls were broken, and thereby assurance given to the chained prisoner, lying under twenty stone of irons upon arms and legs, that at length his chain should wear into two pieces, and a hole should be made at length as wide as he might come safely over to his long-desired liberty; he would, in patience, wait on, till time should hole the prison-wall and break his chains. The Lord's hopeful prisoners, under their trials, are in that case. Years and months will take out, now one little stone, then another, of this house of clay; and at length time shall win out the breadth of a fair door, and send out the imprisoned soul to the free air in heaven. And time shall file off, by little and little, our iron bolts which are now on legs and arms, and outdate and wear our troubles threadbare and holey, and then wear them to nothing; for what I suffered yesterday, I know, shall never come again to trouble me.

Oh that we could breathe out new hope, and new submission every day, into Christ's lap! For, certainly, a weight of glory well weighed, yea, increasing to a far more exceeding and eternal weight, shall recompense both weight and length of light, and clipped, and short-dated crosses. Our waters are but ebb, and come neither to our chin, nor to the stopping of our breath. I may see (if I would borrow eyes from Christ) dry land, and that near. Why then should we not laugh at adversity, and scorn our short-born and soon-dying temptations? I rejoice in the hope of that glory to be revealed, for it is no uncertain glory which we look for. Our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as, "I imagine so," or "It is likely;" but the cable, the strong towe of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him who is eternal verity. Our salvation is fastened with God's own hand, and with Christ's own strength, to the strong stoup of God's unchangeable nature, "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed" (Mal. 3:6). We may play, and dance, and leap upon our worthy and immoveable Rock. The ground is sure and good, and will bide hell's brangling, and devils' brangling, and the world's assaults.

Oh, if our faith could ride it out against the high and proud waves and winds, when our sea seemeth to be all on fire! Oh, how oft do I let my grips go! I am put to swimming and half sinking. I find that the devil hath the advantage of the ground in this battle; for he fighteth on known ground, in our corrupt nature. Alas! that is a friend near of kin and blood to himself, and will not fail to fall foul upon us. And hence it is, that He who saveth to the uttermost, and leadeth many sons to glory, is still righting my salvation; and twenty times a-day I ravel my heaven, and then I must come with my ill-ravelled work to Christ, to cumber Him (as it were) to right it, and to seek again the right end of the thread, and to fold up again my eternal glory with His own hand, and to give a right cast of His holy and gracious hand to my marred and spilled salvation. Certainly it is a cumbersome thing to keep a foolish child from falls, and broken brows, and weeping for this and that toy, and rash running, and sickness, and bairns' diseases; ere he win through them all, and win out of the mires, he costeth meikle black cumber and fashery to his keepers. And so is a believer a cumbersome piece of work, and an ill-ravelled hesp (as we use to say), to Christ. But God be thanked; for many spilled salvations, and many ill-ravelled hesps hath Christ mended, since first He entered Tutor to lost mankind. Oh, what could we bairns do without Him! How soon would we mar all! But the less of our weight be upon our own feeble legs, and the more that we be on Christ the strong Rock, the better for us. It is good for us that ever Christ took the cumber of us; it is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens upon Christ, and to make Him all we have, root and top, beginning and ending of our salvation. Lord, hold us here.

Now to this Tutor, and rich Lord, I recommend you. Hold fast till He come; and remember His prisoner.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his and your Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCVII.—To MR. WILLIAM DALGLEISH [Letter CXVII.]

(THOUGHTS AS TO GOD'S ARRANGEMENTS—WINNING SOULS TO BE SUPREMELY DESIRED—LONGINGS FOR CHRIST.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter. I bless our high and only wise Lord, who hath broken the snare that men had laid for you; and I hope that now He will keep you in His house, in despite of the powers of hell. Who knoweth, but the streets of our Jerusalem shall yet be filled with young men, and with old men, and boys, and women with child? and that they shall plant vines in the mountains of Samaria? I am sure that the wheels, paces, and motions of this poor church are tempered and ruled, not as men would, but according to the good pleasure and infinite wisdom of our only wise Lord.

I am here, waiting in hope that my innocency, in this honourable cause, shall melt this cloud that men have casten over me. I know that my Lord had His own quarrels against me, and that my dross stood in need of this hot furnace. But I rejoice in this, that fair truth, beautiful truth (whose glory my Lord cleareth to me more and more), beareth me company; that my weak aims to honour my Master, in bringing guests to His house, now swell upon me in comforts; that I am not afraid to want a witness in heaven; and that it was my joy to have a crown put upon Christ's head in that country. Oh, what joy would I have, to see the wind turn upon the enemies of the cross of Christ, and to see my Lord Jesus restored, with the voice of praise, to His own free throne again! and to be brought amongst you, to see the beauty of the Lord's house!

I hope that country will not be so silly as to suffer men to pluck you away from them; and that ye will use means to keep my place empty, and to bring me back again to the people to whom I have Christ's right, and His church's lawful calling.

Dear brother, let Christ be dearer and dearer to you. Let the conquest of souls be top and root, flower and bloom of your joys and desires, on this side of sun and moon. And in the day when the Lord shall pull up the four stakes of this clay tent of the earth, and the last pickle of sand shall be at the nick of falling down in your watch-glass, and the Master shall call the servants of the vineyard to give them their hire, ye will esteem the bloom of this world's glory like the colours of the rainbow, that no man can put into his purse and treasure. Your labour and pains will then smile upon you.

My Lord now hath given me experience (howbeit weak and small) that our best fare here is hunger. We are but at God's by-board in this lower house; we have cause to long for supper-time, and the high table, up in the high palace. This world deserveth nothing but the outer court of our soul. Lord, hasten the marriage-supper of the Lamb! I find it still peace to give up with this present world, as with an old decourted and cast off lover. My bread and drink in it is not so much worth, that I should not loathe the inns, and pack up my desires for Christ, whom I have sent out to the feckless creatures in it.

Grace, grace be with you.

Your affectionate brother, and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCVIII.—To the LAIRD OF CALLY

[Of JOHN LENNOX, Laird of Cally, near Girthon, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, to whom this letter is addressed, little is now known. He must have died previous to the 26th of January 1647, as at that date John Lennox of Cally is retoured heir of John Lennox of Cally, his father, "in the 20 pound land of Caliegertown, the 10 merk land of Burley, with mill and fishings of the same, within the parish of Girthon."

The modern mansion of Cally may be said, with its woods, to overhang the village of Gatehouse, which also is entirely modern, and got its name from the fact that the lodge, or gatehouse, of Cally was the first house built on that spot. The old house has disappeared, any remnant of it being quite hid by the fine old trees of the mansion. It is properly in the parish of Girthon, but borders on Anwoth. The land of "Calie-gerton," mentioned in the above extract, is evidently "Cally in Girthon." Gatehouse is one-half in Anwoth, and one-half in Girthon. The old parish church of Girthon is very like that of Anwoth, and more ivy-covered. It is in shape the same, 64 feet by 20. The martyr Lennox is buried close to the door; a slab marks the spot. It is 2½ miles from Gatehouse. The Free Church of Anwoth is in Gatehouse, the church being on the Girthon side of the stream (the Fleet), and the manse on the Anwoth side. The Fleet (which is navigable by very small vessels thus far) was formerly called Avon, "the water;" and this is the syllable that appears in both Girth-ON and An-WOTH,—the former signifying "the village (or enclosure) on the water;" and the latter, "the ford of the water;" unless "woth" be for "worth," village. The meaning of "Cally" seems to be "wood," from the Gaelic, "coille."]

(SPIRITUAL SLOTH—DANGER OF COMPROMISE—SELF, THE ROOT OF ALL SIN—SELF-RENUNCIATION.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I have that confidence that your soul mindeth Christ and salvation. I beseech you, in the Lord, to give more pains and diligence to fetch heaven than the country-sort of lazy professors, who think their own faith and their own godliness, because it is their own, best; and content themselves with a coldrife custom and course, with a resolution to summer and winter in that sort of profession which the multitude and the times favour most; and are still shaping and clipping and carving their faith, according as it may best stand with their summer sun and a whole skin; and so breathe out hot and cold in God's matters, according to the course of the times. This is their compass which they sail towards heaven by, instead of a better. Worthy and dear Sir, separate yourself from such, and bend yourself to the utmost of your strength and breath, in running fast for salvation; and, in taking Christ's kingdom, use violence. It cost Christ and all His followers sharp showers and hot sweats, ere they won to the top of the mountain; but still our soft nature would have heaven coming to our bedside when we are sleeping, and lying down with us that we might go to heaven in warm clothes. But all that came there found wet feet by the way, and sharp storms that did take the hide off their face, and found tos and fros, and ups and downs, and many enemies by the way.

It is impossible that a man can take his lusts to heaven with him; such wares as these will not be welcome there. Oh, how loath are we to forego our packalds and burdens, that hinder us to run our race with patience! It is no small work to displease and anger nature, that we may please God. Oh, if it be hard to win one foot, or half an inch, out of our own will, out of our own wit, out of our own ease and worldly lusts (and so to deny ourself, and to say, "It is not I but Christ, not I but grace, not I but God's glory, not I but God's love constraining me, not I but the Lord's word, not I but Christ's commanding power as King in me!"), oh, what pains, and what a death is it to nature, to turn me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit, over into, "My Lord, my Saviour, my King, and my God, my Lord's will, my Lord's grace!" But, alas! that idol, that whorish creature, myself, is the master-idol we all bow to. What made Eve miscarry? and what hurried her headlong upon the forbidden fruit, but that wretched thing herself? What drew that brother-murderer to kill Abel? That wild himself. What drove the old world on to corrupt their ways? Who, but themselves, and their own pleasure? What was the cause of Solomon's falling into idolatry and multiplying of strange wives? What, but himself, whom he would rather pleasure than God? What was the hook that took David and snared him first in adultery, but his self-lust? and then in murder, but his self-credit and self-honour? What led Peter on to deny his Lord? Was it not a piece of himself, and self-love to a whole skin? What made Judas sell his Master for thirty pieces of money, but a piece of self-love, idolizing of avaricious self? What made Demas to go off the way of the Gospel, to embrace this present world? Even self-love and love of gain for himself. Every man blameth the devil for his sins; but the great devil, the house-devil of every man, the house-devil that eateth and lieth in every man's bosom, is that idol that killeth all, himself. Oh, blessed are they who can deny themselves, and put Christ in the room of themselves! Oh, would to the Lord that I had not a myself, but Christ; nor a my lust, but Christ; nor a my ease, but Christ; nor a my honour, but Christ! O sweet word! "I live no more, but Christ liveth in me!" (Gal. 2:20). Oh, if every one would put away himself, his own self, his own ease, his own pleasure, his own credit, and his own twenty things, his own hundred things, which he setteth up, as idols, above Christ! Dear Sir, I know that ye will be looking back to your old self, and to your self-lust, and self-idol, which ye set up in the lusts of youth above Christ.

Worthy Sir, pardon this my freedom of love; God is my witness, that it is out of an earnest desire after your soul's eternal welfare that I use this freedom of speech. Your sun, I know, is lower, and your evening sky and sunsetting nearer, than when I saw you last: strive to end your talk before night, and to make Christ yourself, and to acquaint your love and your heart with the Lord. Stand now by Christ and His truth, when so many fail foully, and are false to Him. I hope that ye love Him and His truth: let me have power with you, to confirm you in Him. I think more of my Lord's sweet cross than of a crown of gold, and a free kingdom lying to it.

Sir, I remember you in my prayers to the Lord, according to my promise. Help me with your prayers, that our Lord would be pleased to bring me amongst you again, with the Gospel of Christ.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweetest Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CXCIX.—To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, the Younger

(DANGERS OF YOUTH—EARLY DECISION.)

DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, peace be to you.—I long exceedingly to hear of the case of your soul, which hath a large share both of my prayers and careful thoughts. Sir, remember that a precious treasure and prize is upon this short play that ye are now upon. Even the eternity of well or wo to your soul standeth upon the little point of your well or ill-employed, short, and swift-posting sand-glass. Seek the Lord while He may be found; the Lord waiteth upon you. Your soul is of no little price. Gold or silver of as much bounds as would cover the highest heaven round about, cannot buy it. To live as others do, and to be free of open sins that the world crieth shame upon, will not bring you to heaven. As much civility and country discretion as would lie between you and heaven will not lead you one foot, or one inch, above condemned nature. And therefore take pains upon seeking of salvation, and give your will, wit, humour, the green desires of youth's pleasures off your hand, to Christ. It is not possible for you to know, till experience teach you, how dangerous a time youth is. It is like green and wet timber. When Christ casteth fire on it, it taketh not fire. There is need here of more than ordinary pains, for corrupt nature hath a good back-friend of youth. And sinning against light will put out your candle, and stupify your conscience, and bring upon it more coverings and skin, and less feeling and sense of guiltiness; and when that is done, the devil is like a mad horse that hath broken his bridle, and runneth away with his rider whither he listeth. Learn to know that which the apostle knew, the deceitfulness of sin. Strive to make prayer, and reading, and holy company, and holy conference your delight; and when delight cometh in, ye shall by little and little smell the sweetness of Christ, till at length your soul be over head and ears in Christ's sweetness. Then shall ye be taken up to the top of the mountain with the Lord, to know the ravishments of spiritual love, and the glory and excellency of a seen, revealed, felt, and embraced Christ: and then ye shall not be able to loose yourself off Christ, and to bind your soul to old lovers. Then, and never till then, are all the paces, motions, walkings, and wheels of your soul in a right tune, and in a spiritual temper.

But if this world and the lusts thereof be your delight, I know not what Christ can make of you; ye cannot be metal to be a vessel of glory and mercy. As the Lord liveth, thousand thousands are beguiled with security, because God, and wrath, and judgment are not terrible to them. Stand in awe of God, and of the warnings of a checking and rebuking conscience. Make others to see Christ in you, moving, doing, speaking, and thinking. Your actions will smell of Him, if He be in you. There is an instinct in the new-born babes of Christ, like the instinct of nature that leads birds to build their nests, and bring forth their young, and love such and such places, as woods, forests, and wildernesses, better than other places. The instinct of nature maketh a man love his mother-country above all countries; the instinct of renewed nature, and supernatural grace, will lead you to such and such works, as to love your country above, to sigh to be clothed with your house not made with hands, and to call your borrowed prison here below a borrowed prison, and to look upon it servant-like and pilgrim-like. And the pilgrim's eye and look is a disdainful-like, discontented cast of his eye, his heart crying after his eye, "Fy, fy, this is not like my country."

I recommend to you the mending of a hole, and reforming of a failing, one or other, every week; and put off a sin, or a piece of it, as anger, wrath, lust, intemperance, every day, that ye may more easily master the remnant of your corruption. God hath given you a wife; love her, and let her breasts satisfy you; and, for the Lord's sake, drink no waters but out of your own cistern. Strange wells are poison. Strive to learn some new way against your corruption from the man of God, Mr. W. D. [William Dalgleish], or other servants of God. Sleep not sound, till ye find yourself in that case that ye dare look death in the face, and durst hazard your soul upon eternity. I am sure that many ells and inches of the short thread of your life are by-hand since I saw you; and that thread hath an end; and ye have no hands to cast a knot, and add one day, or a finger-breadth, to the end of it. When hearing, and seeing, and the outer walls of the clay house shall fall down, and life shall render the besieged castle of clay to death and judgment, and ye find your time worn ebb, and run out, what thoughts will you then have of idol-pleasures, that possibly are now sweet? What bud or hire would you then give for the Lord's favour? and what a price would you then give for pardon? It were not amiss to think, "What if I were to receive a doom, and to enter into a furnace of fire and brimstone? What if it come to this, that I shall have no portion but utter darkness? And what if I be brought to this, to be banished from the presence of God, and to be given over to God's serjeants, the devil and the power of the second death?" Put your soul, by supposition, in such a case, and consider what horror would take hold of you, and what ye would then esteem of pleasing yourself in the course of sin. Oh, dear Sir, for the Lord's sake awake to live righteously, and love your poor soul! And after ye have seen this my letter, say with yourself, "The Lord will seek an account of this warning which I have received."

Lodge Christ in your family. Receive no stranger hireling as your pastor. I bless your children. Grace be with you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CC.—To ROBERT GORDON, Bailie of Ayr [Letter CXXIX.]

(THE MISERY OF MERE WORLDLY HOPE—EARNESTNESS ABOUT SALVATION.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear from you. Our Lord is with His afflicted kirk, so that this Burning Bush is not consumed to ashes. I know that submissive on-waiting for the Lord will at length ripen the joy and deliverance of His own, who are truly blessed on-waiters. What is the dry and miscarrying hope of all them who are not in Christ, but confusion and wind? Oh, how pitifully and miserably are the children of this world beguiled, whose wine cometh home to them water, and their gold brass and tin! And what wonder, that hopes builded upon sand should fall and sink? It were good for us all to abandon the forlorn, and blasted, and withered hope which we have had in the creature; and let us henceforth come and drink water out of our own well, even the fountain of living waters, and build ourselves and our hope upon Christ our Rock. But, alas! that that natural love which we have to this borrowed home that we were born in, and that this clay city, the vain earth, should have the largest share of our heart! Our poor, lean, and empty dreams of confidence in something beside God are no farther travelled than up and down the noughty and feckless creatures. God may say of us, as He said, "Ye rejoice in a thing of nought" (Amos 6:13). Surely we spin our spider's web with pain, and build our rotten and tottering house upon a lie, and falsehood, and vanity.

Oh, when will we learn to have thoughts higher than the sun and moon! and learn our joy, hope, confidence, and our soul's desires to look up to our best country, and to look down to clay tents, set up for a night's lodging or two in this uncouth land! and laugh at our childish conceptions and imaginations that suck our joy out of creatures—wo, sorrow, losses, and grief! O sweetest Lord Jesus! O fairest Godhead! O Flower of men and angels! why are we such strangers to, and far-off beholders of, Thy glory? Oh, it were our happiness for evermore, that God would cast a pest, a botch, a leprosy, upon our part of this great whore, a fair and well-busked world, that clay might no longer deceive us! But oh that God may burn and blast our hope here-away, rather than that our hope should live to burn us! Alas! the wrong side of Christ (to speak so), His black side, His suffering side, His wounds, His bare coat, His wants, His wrongs, the oppressions of men done to Him, are turned towards men's eyes; and they see not the best and fairest side of Christ, nor see they His amiable face and His beauty, that men and angels wonder at.

Sir, lend your thoughts to these things, and learn to contemn this world, and to turn your eyes and heart away from beholding the masked beauty of all things under time's law and doom. See Him who is invisible, and His invisible things. Draw by the curtain, and look in with liking and longing to a kingdom undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved for you in the heaven. This is worthy of your pains, and worthy of your soul's sweating, and labouring, and seeking after, night and day. Fire will fly over the earth and all that is in it; even destruction from the Almighty. Fy, fy, upon that hope, that shall be dried up by the root! Fy upon the drunken night-bargains, and the drunken and mad covenants that sinners make with death and hell after cups, and when men's souls are mad and drunken with the love of this lawless life. They think to make a nest for their hopes, and take quarters and conditions of hell and death, that they shall have ease, long life, peace; and in the morning, when the last trumpet shall awake them, then they rue the block. It is time, and high time, for you to think upon death and your accounts, and to remember what ye are, and where ye will be before the year of our Lord 1700. I hope ye are thinking upon this. Pull at your soul, and draw it aside from the company that it is with and round, and whisper into it news of eternity, death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCI.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlston

(CHRIST'S KINGDOM TO BE EXALTED OVER ALL; AND MORE PAINS TO BE TAKEN TO WIN FARTHER UNTO HIM.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—It is like, if ye, the gentry and nobility of this nation, be "men in the streets" (as the word speaketh Jer. 5:1) for the Lord, that He will now deliver His flock, and gather and rescue His scattered sheep, from the hands of cruel and rigorous lords that have ruled over them with force. Oh that mine eyes might see the moon-light turn to the light of the sun! But I still fear that the quarrel of a broken covenant in Scotland standeth before the Lord.

However it be, I avouch it before the world, that the tabernacle of the Lord shall again be in the midst of Scotland, and the glory of the Lord shall dwell in beauty, as the light of many days in one, in this land. Oh, what could my soul desire more (next to my Lord Jesus), while I am in this flesh, but that Christ and His kingdom might be great among Jews and Gentiles; and that the isles, and amongst them overclouded and darkened Britain, might have the glory of a noon-day's sun! Oh that I had anything (I will not except my part in Christ) to wadset or lay in pledge, to redeem and buy such glory to my highest and royal Prince, my sweet Lord Jesus! My poor little heaven were well bestowed, if it could stand a pawn for ever to set on high the glory of my Lord. But I know that He needeth not wages nor hire at my hand; yea, I know, if my eternal glory could weigh down in weight its lone, all the eternal glory of the blessed angels, and of all the spirits of just and perfect men, glorified and to be glorified, oh, alas! how far am I engaged to forego it for, and give it over to Christ, so being He might thereby be set on high above ten thousand thousand millions of heavens, in the conquest of many, many nations to His kingdom! Oh that His kingdom would come! Oh that all the world would stoop before Him! O blessed hands that shall put the crown upon Christ's head in Scotland! But, alas! I can scarce get leave to ware my love on Him. I can find no ways to lay out my heart upon Christ; and my love, that I with my soul bestow on Him, is like to die upon my hand. And I think it no bairn's play to be hungered with Christ's love. To love Him and to want Him, wanteth little of hell. I am sure that He knoweth how my joy would swell upon me, from a little well to a great sea, to have as much of His love, and as wide a soul answerable to comprehend it, till I cried, "Hold, Lord! no more." But I find that He will not have me to be mine own steward, nor mine own carver. Christ keepeth the keys of Christ (to speak so), and of His own love; and He is a wiser distributor than I can take up. I know that there is more in Him than would make me run over like a coast-full sea. I were happy for evermore to get leave to stand but beside Christ and His love, and to look in; suppose I were interdicted of God to come near-hand, touch, or embrace, kiss, or set to my sinful head, and drink myself drunk with that lovely thing. God send me that which I would have! For now I verily see, more clearly than before, our folly in drinking dead waters, and in playing the whore with our soul's love upon running-out wells, and broken sherds of creatures of yesterday, which time will unlaw with the penalty of losing their being and natural ornaments. Oh, when a soul's love is itching (to speak so) for God; and when Christ, in His boundless and bottomless love, beauty, and excellency, cometh and rubbeth up and exciteth that love, what can be heaven, if this be not heaven? I am sure that this bit feckless, narrow, and short love of regenerated sinners was born for no other end, than to breathe, and live, and love, and dwell in the bosom and betwixt the breasts of Christ. Where is there a bed or a lodging for the saint's love, but Christ? Oh that He would take ourselves off our hand! for neither we nor the creatures can be either due conquest, or lawful heritage, to love. Christ, and none but Christ, is Lord and Proprietor of it. Oh, alas, how pitiful is it, that so much of our love goeth by Him! Oh, but we be wretched masters of our soul's love. I know it to be the depth of bottomless and unsearchable providence, that the saints are suffered to play the whore from God, and that their love goeth a-hunting, when God knoweth that it shall roast nothing of that at supper time (Prov. 12:27). The renewed would have it otherwise; and why is it so, seeing our Lord can keep us without nodding, tottering, or reeling, or any fall at all? Our desires, I hope, shall meet with perfection; but God will have our sins an office-house for God's grace, and hath made sin a matter of an unlaw and penalty for the Son of God's blood. And howbeit sin should be our sorrow, yet there is a sort of acquiescing and resting upon God's dispensation required of us, that there is such a thing in us as sin, whereupon mercy, forgiveness, healing, curing, in our sweet Physician, may find a field to work upon. Oh, what a deep is here, that created wit cannot take up! However matters go, it is our happiness to win new ground daily in Christ's love, and to purchase a new piece of it daily, and to add conquest to conquest, till our Lord Jesus and we be so near each other, that Satan shall not draw a straw or a thread betwixt us.

And, for myself, I have no greater joy, in my well-favoured bonds for Christ, than that I know time will put Him and me together; and that my love and longing hath room and liberty, amidst my bonds and foes (whereof there are not a few here of all ranks), to go to visit the borders and outer coasts of the country of my Lord Jesus, and see, at least afar off and darkly, the country which shall be mine inheritance, which is the due of my Lord Jesus, both through birth and conquest. I dare avouch to all that know God, that the saints know not the length and largeness of the sweet earnest, and of the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this side of the water, if we would take more pains: and that we all go to heaven with less earnest, and lighter purses of the hoped-for sum, than otherwise we might do, if we took more pains to win further in upon Christ, in this pilgrimage of our absence from Him.

Grace, grace and glory be your portion.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCII.—To the LAIRD OF CALLY

(YOUTH A PRECIOUS SEASON—CHRIST'S BEAUTY.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have been too long, I confess, in writing to you. My suit now to you, in paper, since I have no access to speak to you as formerly, is, that ye would lay the foundation sure in your youth. When ye begin to seek Christ, try, I pray you, upon what terms ye covenant to follow Him, and lay your account what it may cost you; that neither summer nor winter, nor well nor woe, may cause you change your Master, Christ. Keep fair to Him, and be honest and faithful, that He find not a crack in you. Surely ye are now in the throng of temptations. When youth is come to its fairest bloom, then the devil, and the lusts of a deceiving world, and sin, are upon horseback, and follow with upsails. If this were not so, Paul needeth not to have written to a sanctified and holy youth, Timothy (a faithful preacher of the Gospel), to flee the lusts of youth. Give Christ your virgin love; you cannot put your love and heart into a better hand. Oh! if ye knew Him, and saw His beauty, your love, your liking, your heart, your desires, would close with Him, and cleave to Him. Love, by nature, when it seeth, cannot but cast out its spirit and strength upon amiable objects, and good things, and things love-worthy; and what fairer thing than Christ? O fair sun, and fair moon, and fair stars, and fair flowers, and fair roses, and fair lilies, and fair creatures; but O ten thousand thousand times fairer Lord Jesus! Alas, I wronged Him in making the comparison this way! O black sun and moon, but O fair Lord Jesus! O black flowers, and black lilies and roses, but O fair, fair, ever fair Lord Jesus! O all fair things black and deformed, without beauty, when ye are beside that fairest Lord Jesus! O black heaven, but O fair Christ! O black angels, but surpassingly fair Lord Jesus! I would seek no more to make me happy for evermore, but a thorough and clear sight of the beauty of Jesus, my Lord. Let my eyes enjoy His fairness, and stare Him for ever in the face, and I have all that can be wished. Get Christ rather than gold or silver; seek Christ, howbeit ye should lose all things for Him.

They take their marks by the moon, and look asquint, in looking to fair Christ, who resolve for the world and their ease, and for their honour, and court, and credit, or for fear of losses and a sore skin, to turn their backs upon Christ and His truth. Alas, how many blind eyes and squint lookers look this day in Scotland upon Christ's beauty, and they see a spot in Christ's fair face! Alas, they are not worthy of Christ who look this way upon Him, and see no beauty in Him why they should desire Him! God send me my fill of His beauty, if it be possible that my soul can be full of His beauty here. But much of Christ's beauty needeth not abate the eager appetite of a soul (sick of love for Himself) to see Him in the other world, where He is seen as He is.

I am glad, with all my heart, that ye have given your greenest morning-age to this Lord Jesus. Hold on, and weary not; faint not. 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. I esteem it to be my glory, my joy, and my crown, and I bless Him for this honour, to be yoked with Christ, and married to Him in suffering, who therefore was born, and therefore came into the world, that He might bear witness to the truth. Take pains, above all things, for salvation; for without running, fighting, sweating, wrestling, heaven is not taken. Oh, happy soul, that crosseth nature's stomach, and delighteth to gain that fair garland and crown of glory! What a feckless loss is it for you to go through this wilderness, and never taste sin's sugared pleasures! What poorer is a soul to want pride, lust, love of the world, and the vanities of this vain and worthless world? Nature hath no cause to weep at the want of such toys as these. Esteem it your gain to be an heir of glory. Oh, but this is an eye-look to a fair rent! The very hope of heaven, under troubles, is like wind and sails to the soul, and like wings, when the feet come out of the snare. Oh, for what stay we here? Up, up, after our Lord Jesus! This is not our rest, nor our dwelling. What have we to do in this prison, except only to take meat and house-room in it for a time?

Grace, grace be with you.

Your soul's well-wisher, and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCIII.—To WILLIAM GORDON at Kenmure

[This may be the same correspondent as he to whom Letter LXXII. is addressed. He may have been on a visit to Kenmure.]

(TESTIMONY TO CHRIST'S WORTH—MARKS OF GRACE IN CONVICTION OF SIN AND SPIRITUAL CONFLICT.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have been long in answering your letter, which came in good time to me. It is my aim and hearty desire, that my furnace, which is of the Lord's kindling, may sparkle fire upon standers-by, to the warming of their hearts with God's love. The very dust that falleth from Christ's feet, His old ragged clothes, His knotty and black cross, are sweeter to me than kings' golden crowns, and their time-eaten pleasures. I should be a liar and false witness, if I would not give my Lord Jesus a fair testimonial with my whole soul. My word, I know, will not heighten Him: He needeth not such props under His feet to raise His glory high. But, oh that I could raise Him the height of heaven, and the breadth and length of ten heavens, in the estimation of all His young lovers! for we have all shapen Christ but too narrow and too short, and formed conceptions of His love, in our conceit, very unworthy of it. Oh that men were taken and catched with His beauty and fairness! they would give over playing with idols, in which there is not half room for the love of one soul to expatiate itself. And man's love is but heart-hungered in gnawing upon bare bones, and sucking at dry breasts. It is well wared they want who will not come to Him who hath a world of love, and goodness, and bounty for all. We seek to thaw our frozen hearts at the cold smoke of the short-timed creature, and our souls gather neither heat, nor life, nor light; for these cannot give to us what they have not in themselves. Oh that we could thrust in through these thorns, and this throng of bastard lovers, and be ravished and sick of love for Christ! We should find some footing, and some room, and sweet ease for our tottering and witless souls in our Lord. I wish it were in my power, after this day, to cry down all love but the love of Christ, and to cry down all gods but Christ, all saviours but Christ, all well-beloveds but Christ, and all soul-suitors and love-beggars but Christ.

Ye complain that ye want a mark of the sound work of grace and love in your soul. For answer, consider for your satisfaction (till God send more) 1 John 3:14. And as for your complaint of deadness and doubtings, Christ will, I hope, take your deadness and you together. They are bodies full of holes, running boils, and broken bones which need mending, that Christ the Physician taketh up: whole vessels are not for the Mediator Christ's art. Publicans, sinners, whores, harlots, are ready market-wares for Christ. The only thing that will bring sinners within a cast of Christ's drawing arm is that which ye write of, some feeling of death and sin. That bringeth forth complaints; and, therefore, out of sense complain more, and be more acquaint with all the cramps, stitches, and soul-swoonings that trouble you The more pain, and the more night-watching, and the more fevers, the better. A soul bleeding to death, till Christ were sent for, and cried for in all haste, to come and stem the blood, and close up the hole in the wound with His own hand and balm, were a very good disease, when many are dying of a whole heart. We have all too little of hell-pain and terrors that way; nay, God send me such a hell as Christ hath promised to make a heaven of. Alas! I am not come that far on the way, as to say in sad earnest, "Lord Jesus, great and sovereign Physician, here is a pained patient for Thee." But the thing that we mistake is the want of victory. We hold that to be the mark of one that hath no grace. Nay, say I, the want of fighting were a mark of no grace; but I shall not say the want of victory is such a mark. If my fire and the devil's water make crackling like thunder in the air, I am the less feared; for where there is fire, it is Christ's part, which I lay and bind upon Him, to keep in the coal, and to pray the Father that my faith fail not, if I in the meantime be wrestling, and doing, and fighting, and mourning. For prayer putteth not Paul's devil (the thorn in the flesh, and the messenger of Satan) to the door at first; but our Lord will have them to try every one, and let Paul fend for himself, by God's help, God keeping the stakes, and moderating the play. And ye do well not to doubt, if the ground-stone be sure, but to try if it be so; for there is great odds between doubting that we have grace, and trying if we have grace. The former may be sin, but the latter is good. We are but loose in trying our free-holding of Christ, and making sure work of Christ. Holy fear is a searching of the camp, that there be no enemy within our bosom to betray us, and a seeing that all be fast and sure. For I see many leaky vessels fair before the wind, and professors who take their conversion upon trust, and they go on securely, and see not the underwater, till a storm sink them. Each man had need twice a-day, and oftener, to be riped, and searched with candles.

Pray for me, that the Lord would give me house-room again, to hold a candle to this dark world.—Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCIV.—To MARGARET FULLERTON

(CHRIST, AND NOT CREATURES, WORTHY OF ALL LOVE—LOVE NOT TO BE MEASURED BY FEELING.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am glad that ever ye did cast your love on Christ; fasten more and more love every day on Him. Oh, if I had a river of love, a sea of love that would never go dry, to bestow upon Him! But, alas, the pity! Christ hath beauty for me, but I have not love for Him. Oh, what pain is it to see Christ in His beauty, and then to want a heart and love for Him! But I see that want we must, till Christ lend us, never to be paid again. Oh that He would empty these vaults and lower houses (of these poor souls) of bastard and base lovers, which we follow! And verily, I see no object in heaven or in earth that I could ware this much of love upon, that I have upon Christ Alas! that clay, and time, and shadows, run away with our love, which is ill spent upon any but upon Christ. Each fool at the day of judgment will seek back his love from the creatures, when he shall see them all in a fair fire. But they shall prove irresponsal debtors; and, therefore, it is best here, that we look ere we leap, and look ere we love.

I find now under His cross, that I would fain give Him more than I have to give Him, if giving were in my power; but I rather wish Him my heart, than give Him it. Except He take it, and put Himself in possession of it (for I hope He hath a market-right to me, since He hath ransomed me), I see not how Christ can have me. Oh that He would be pleased to be more homely with my soul's love, and to come into my soul, and take His own! But when He goeth away and hideth Himself, all is to me that I had of Christ as if it had fallen into the sea-bottom. Oh that I should be so fickle in my love, as to love Him only by the eyes and the nose! that is, to love Him only in as far as fond and foolish sense carrieth me, and no more; and when I see not, and smell not, and touch not, then I have all to seek. I cannot love perqueer, nor rejoice perqueer. But this is our weakness, till we be at home, and shall have aged men's stomachs to bear Christ's love.

Pray for me, that our Lord would bring me back to you, with a new blessing of the Gospel of Christ. I forget not you. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCV.—For the Right Honourable my LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY TO THE KINGDOM—CHRIST'S LOVE.)

MY VERY NOBLE AND DEAR LADY,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—The Lord hath brought me safely to Aberdeen: I have gotten lodging in the hearts of all I meet with. No face that hath not smiled upon me; only the indwellers of this town are dry, cold, and general. They consist of Papists, and men of Gallio's metal, firm in no religion; and it is counted no wisdom here to countenance a confined and silenced prisoner. But the shame of Christ's cross shall not be my shame. Queensberry's attempt seemeth to sleep, because the Bishop of Galloway was pleased to say to the treasurer that I had committed treason; which word blunted the treasurer's borrowed zeal. So I thank God, who will not have me to anchor my soul upon false ground, or upon flesh and blood; it is better to be fastened within the vail.

I find my old challenges reviving again, and my love often jealous of Christ's love, when I look upon my own guiltiness. And I verily think that the world hath too soft an opinion of the gate to heaven, and that many shall get a blind and sad beguile for heaven. For there is more ado than a cold and frozen "Lord, Lord." It must be a way narrower and straiter than we conceive; for "the righteous shall scarcely be saved." It were good to take a more judicious view of Christianity; for I have been doubting if ever I knew any more of Christianity than the letters of the name.

I will not lie on my Lord. I find often much joy and unspeakable comfort in His sweet presence, who sent me hither; and I trust, this house of my pilgrimage shall be my palace, my garden of delights, and that Christ will be kind to poor sold Joseph, who is separated from his brethren. I would be sometimes too hot, and too joyful, if the heart-breaks at the remembrance of sin, and fair, fair feast-days with King Jesus, did not cool me, and sour my sweet joys. Oh, how sweet is the love of Christ! and how wise is that love! But let faith frist and trust a while; it is no reason sons should offend, that the father giveth them not twice a-year hire, as he doth to hired servants. Better that God's heirs live upon hope, than upon hire.

Madam, your Ladyship knoweth what Christ hath done to have all your love; and that He alloweth not His love upon your dear child. Keep good quarters with Christ in your love. I verily think that Christ hath said, "I must needs-force have Jean Campbell for Myself;" and He hath laid many oars in the water, to fish and hunt home-over your heart to heaven. Let Him have His prey, He will think you well won, when He hath gotten you. It is good to have recourse often, and to have the door open, to our stronghold. For the sword of the Lord, the sword of the Lord is for Scotland! And yet two or three berries shall be left in the top of the olive-tree.

If a word can do my brother good in his distress, I know your Ladyship will be willing and ready to speak it, and more also. Now the only wise God, and your only, only One, He who dwelt in The Bush, be with you. I write many kisses and many blessings in Christ to your dear child: the blessings of his father's God, the blessings due to the fatherless and the widow, be yours and his.

Your Ladyship's in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

POSTSCRIPT

Madam, be pleased at a fit time to try my Lord of Lorn's mind, if his Lordship would be pleased that I dedicate another work against the Arminians, to his honourable name. For howbeit I would compare no patron to his Lordship, and though I have sufficient experience of his love, yet it is possible that his Lordship may think it not expedient at this time. But I expect your Ladyship's answer, and I hope that your Ladyship will be plain.

CCVI.—For the Right Honourable my LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(THE USE OF SUFFERINGS—FEARS UNDER THEM—DESIRE THAT CHRIST BE GLORIFIED.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.—I long to hear from you, and that dear child; and for that cause I trouble you with letters.

I am for the present thinking the sparrows and the swallows, that build their nests in Anwoth, blessed birds. The Lord hath made all my congregation desolate. Alas! I am oft at this, "Show me wherefore Thou contendest with me." O earth, earth, cover not the violence done to me. I know it is my faithless jealousy, in this my dark night, to take a friend for a foe; yet hath not my Lord made any plea with me. I chide with Him, but He giveth me fair words. Seeing my sins and the sins of my youth deserved strokes, how am I obliged to my Lord, who amongst many crosses hath given me a waled and chosen cross, to suffer for the name of my Lord Jesus! Since I must have chains, He would put golden chains on me, watered over with many consolations. Seeing I must have sorrow (for I have sinned, O Preserver of mankind!), He hath waled out for me joyful sorrow,—honest, spiritual, and glorious sorrow. My crosses come through mercy and love's fingers, from the kind heart of a Brother, Christ my Lord; and, therefore, they must be sweet and sugared. Oh, what am I! such a lump, such a rotten mass of sin, to be counted a bairn worthy to be nurtured, and stricken with the best and most honourable rod in my Father's house, the golden rod, wherewith my eldest Brother, the Lord, Heir of the inheritance, and His faithful witnesses were stricken withal.

It would be thought that I should be thankful and rejoice. But my beholders and lovers in Christ have eyes of flesh, and have made my one to be ten, and I am somebody in their books. My witness is above, that there are armies of thoughts within me saying the contrary, and laughing at their wide mistake. If my inner side were seen, my corruption would appear: I would lose and forfeit love and respect at the hands of any that love God: pity would come in the place of these. Oh, if they would yet set me lower, and my well-beloved Christ higher! I would I had grace and strength of my Lord to be joyful, and contentedly glad and cheerful, that God's glory might ride, and openly triumph before the view of men, angels, devils, earth, heaven, hell, sun, moon, and all God's creatures, upon my pain and sufferings; providing always, that I felt not the Lord's hatred and displeasure.

But I fear that His fair glory be but soiled in coming through such a foul creature as I am. If I could be the sinless matter of glorifying Christ, howbeit to my loss, pain, sufferings, and extremity of wretchedness, how would my soul rejoice! But I am far from this. He knoweth that His love hath made me a prisoner, and bound me hand and foot; but it is my pain that I cannot win loose, nor get loose hands and a loosed heart, to do service to my Lord Jesus, and to speak His love. I confess that I have neither tongue nor pen to do it. Christ's love is more than my praises, and above the thoughts of the angel Gabriel, and all the mighty hosts that stand before the throne of God. I think shame, I am sad and cast down, to think that my foul tongue, and my polluted heart, should come in to help others to sing aloud the praises of the love of Christ: all I dow do, is to wish the choir to grow throng, and to grow in the extolling of Christ. Wo, wo is me for my guiltiness seen to few! My hidden wounds, still bleeding within me, are before the eyes of no man; but if my sweet Lord Jesus were not still bathing, washing, balming, healing, and binding them up, they should rot, and break out to my shame.

I know not what will be the end of my suffering. I have seen but the one side of my cross; what will be the other side, He knoweth who hath His fire in Zion. Let Him lead me, if it were through hell. I thank my Lord, that my on-waiting and holding my peace as I do (to see what more Christ will do to me), is my joy. Oh, if my ease, joy, pleasure for evermore, were laid in wadset and in pledge, to buy praises to Christ! But I am far from this. It is easy for a poor soul, in the deep debt of Christ's love, to spit farther than he dow leap or jump, and to feed upon broad wishes that Christ may be honoured; but in performance I am stark nought. I have nothing, nothing to give Christ but poverty. Except He would comprise and arrest my soul and my love (oh, oh, if He would do that!), I have nothing for Him. He may indeed seize upon a dyvour's person, soul and body; but he hath no goods for Christ to meddle with. But how glad would my soul be, if He would forfeit my love and never give it me again!

Madam, I would be glad to hear that Christ's claim to you were still the more, and that you were still going forward, and that you were nearer Him. I do not honour Christ myself; but I wish all others to make sail to Christ's house. I would I could invite you to go into your Well-beloved's house-of-wine, and that upon my word; you would then see a new mystery of love in Christ that you never saw before.

I am somewhat encouraged in that your Ladyship is not dry and cold to Christ's prisoner, as some are. I hope it is put up in my Master's count-book. I am not much grieved that my jealous Husband break in pieces my idols, that either they dare not or will not do for me. My Master needeth not their help, but they had need to be that serviceable as to help Him. Madam, I have been that bold as to put you and that sweet child into the prayers of Mr. Andrew Cant, Mr. James Martin, the Lady Leyes, and some others in this country that truly love Christ. Be pleased to let me hear how the child is. The blessings that came "upon the head of Joseph, and on the top of the head of him who was separated from his brethren," and the "good-will of Him who dwelt in The Bush," be seen upon him and you. Madam, I can say, by some little experience, more now than before of Christ to you. I am still upon this, that if you seek, there is a pose, a hidden treasure, and a gold mine in Christ, you never yet saw. Then come and see.

Thus recommending you to God's dearest mercy, I rest, your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, at all obedience,

S. R.

My Lady Marischall is very kind to me, and her son also.

ABERDEEN, June 17, 1637.

CCVII.—TO JOHN HENDERSON, in Rusco

[He was probably tenant in the farm of Rusco, which is at the foot of the hill Castramont, a farm on the property of Gordon of Rusco.]

(PRACTICAL HINTS.)

LOVING FRIEND,—I earnestly desire your salvation. Know the Lord and seek Christ. You have a soul that cannot die: see for a lodging to your poor soul; for that house of clay will fall. Heaven or nothing! either Christ or nothing! Use prayer in your house, and set your thoughts often upon death and judgment. It is dangerous to be loose in the matter of your salvation. Few are saved; men go to heaven in ones and twos, and the whole world lieth in sin. Love your enemies, and stand by the truth which I have taught you, in all things. Fear not men, but let God be your fear. Your time will not be long: make the seeking of Christ your daily task. Ye may, when ye are in the fields, speak to God. Seek a broken heart for sin; for without that there is no meeting with Christ. I speak this to your wife, as well as to yourself. I desire your sister, in her fears and doubtings, to fasten her grips on Christ's love. I forbid her to doubt; for Christ loveth her, and hath her name written in His book. Her salvation is fast coming. Christ her Lord is not slow in coming, nor slack in His promise.

Grace be with you.

Your loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CCVIII.—To MR. ALEXANDER COLVILLE of Blair [Letter XCIX.]

(REGRETS FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO PREACH—LONGINGS FOR CHRIST.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I would desire to know how my Lord took my letter, which I sent him, and how he is. I desire nothing, but that he may be fast and honest to my royal Master and King.

I am well every way, all praise to Him in whose books I must stand for ever as His debtor! Only my silence paineth me. I had one joy out of heaven, next to Christ my Lord, and that was to preach Him to this faithless generation; and they have taken that from me. It was to me as the poor man's one eye, and they have put out that eye. I know that the violence done to me, and His poor bereft bride, is come up before the Lord; and, suppose that I see not the other side of my cross, or what my Lord will bring out of it, yet I believe that the vision shall not tarry, and that Christ is on His journey for my deliverance. He goeth not slowly, but passeth over ten mountains at one stride. In the meantime, I am pained with His love, because I want real possession. When Christ cometh, He stayeth not long; but certainly, the blowing of His breath upon a poor soul is heaven upon earth; and when the wind turneth into the north, and He goeth away, I die, till the wind change into the west, and He visit His prisoner. But He holdeth me not often at His door. I am richly repaid for suffering for Him. Oh, if all Scotland were as I am, except my bonds! Oh, what pain I have, because I cannot get Him praised by my sufferings! Oh that heaven (within and without) and the earth were paper, and all the rivers, fountains, and seas were ink, and I able to write all the paper (within and without) full of His praises, and love, and excellency, to be read by man and angel! Nay, this is little; I owe my heaven to Christ; and do desire, howbeit I should never enter in at the gates of the new Jerusalem, to send my love and my praises over the wall to Christ. Alas, that time and days lie betwixt Him and me, and adjourn our meeting! It is my part to cry, "Oh, when will the night be past, and the day dawn, that we shall see one another!"

Be pleased to remember my service to my Lord, to whom I wrote; and show him that, for his affection to me, I cannot but pray for him, and earnestly desire that Christ miss him not out of the roll of those who are His witnesses, now when His kingly honour is called in question. It is his honour to hold up Christ's royal train, and to be an instrument to hold the crown upon Christ's head. Show him, because I love his true honour and standing, that this is my earnest desire for him.

Now I bless you; and the prayers of Christ's prisoner come upon you; and His sweetest presence, whom ye serve in the Spirit, accompany you.

Yours, at all obliged obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 23, 1637.

CCIX.—To his Reverend and Dear Brother, MR. JOHN NEVAY [Letter CLXXIX.]

(CHRIST'S SURPASSING EXCELLENCY—HIS CAUSE IN SCOTLAND.)

MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have exceedingly many whom I write to, else I would be kinder in paper.

I rejoice that my sweet Master hath any to back Him. Thick, thick may my royal King's court be. Oh that His kingdom might grow! It were my joy to have His house full of guests.

Except that I have some cloudy days, for the most part I have a king's life with Christ. He is all perfumed with the powders of the merchant; He hath a king's face, and a king's smell. His chariot, wherein He carrieth His poor prisoner, is of the wood of Lebanon; it is paved with love. Is not that soft ground to walk or lie on? I think better of Christ than ever I did; my thoughts of His love grow and swell on me. I never write to any of Him so much as I have felt. Oh, if I could write a book of Christ, and of His love! Suppose I were made white ashes, and burnt for this same truth that men count but as knots of straw, it were my gain, if my ashes could proclaim the worth, excellency, and love of my Lord Jesus. There is much telling of Christ: I give over the weighing of Him; heaven would not be the beam of a balance to weigh Him in. What eyes be on me, or what wind of tongues be on me, I care not: let me stand in this stage in the fool's coat, and act a fool's part to the rest of this nation. If I can set my Well-beloved on high, and witness fair for Him, a fig for their hosanna. If I can roll myself in a lap of Christ's garment, I shall lie there, and laugh at the thoughts of dying bits of clay.

Brother, we have cause to weep for our harlot-mother; her Husband is sending her to Rome's brothel-house, which is the gate she liketh well. Yet I persuade you that there shall be a fair after-growth for Christ in Scotland, and that this church shall sing the Bridegroom's welcome home again to His own house. The worms shall eat them first, ere they cause Christ to take good-night at Scotland. I am here assaulted with the Doctors' guns; but I bless the Father of lights, that they draw not blood of truth. I find no lodging in the hearts of natural men, who are cold friends to my Master.

I pray you, remember my love to that gentleman, A. C. My heart is knit to him, because he and I have one Master. Remember my bonds, and present my service to my Lord and my Lady. I wish that Christ may be dearer to them than He is to many of their place.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 5, 1637.

CCX.—To my LADY BOYD

(HIS SOUL FAINTING FOR CHRIST'S MATCHLESS BEAUTY—PRAYER FOR A REVIVAL.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Few, I believe, know the pain and torment of Christ's fristed love: fristing with Christ's presence is a matter of torment. I know a poor soul that would lay all oars in the water for a banquet or feast of Christ's love. I cannot think but it must be uptaking and sweet, to see the white and red of Christ's fair face; for He is white and ruddy, and the chiefest among ten thousand (Cant. 5:10). I am sure that must be a well-made face of His: heaven must be in His visage; glory, glory for evermore must sit on His countenance. I dare not curse the mask and covering that are on His face; but oh, if there were a hole in it! Oh, if God would tear the mask! Fy, fy upon us! we were never ashamed till now, that we do not proclaim our pining and languishing for Him. I am sure that never tongue spake of Christ as He is. I am still of that mind, and still will be, that we wrong and undervalue that holy, holy One, in having such short and shallow thoughts of His weight and worth. Oh, if I could but have leave to stand beside and see the Father weigh Christ the Son, if it were possible! But how every one of them comprehendeth another, we, who have eyes of clay, cannot comprehend. But it is a pity for evermore, and more than shame, that such an one as Christ should sit in heaven His lone for us. To go up thither once-errand and on purpose to see, were no small glory. Oh that He would strike out windows, and fair and great lights, in this old house, this fallen-down soul, and then set the soul near-hand Christ, that the rays and beams of light and the soul-delighting glances of the fair, fair Godhead might shine in at the windows, and fill the house! A fairer, and more near, and direct, sight of Christ would make room for His love; for we are but pinched and straitened in His love. Alas, it were easy to measure and weigh all the love that we have for Christ, by inches and ounces! Alas, that we should love by measure and weight, and not rather have floods and feasts of Christ's love! Oh that Christ would break down the old narrow vessels of these narrow and ebb souls, and make fair, deep, wide, and broad souls, to hold a sea and a full tide (flowing over all its banks) of Christ's love!

Oh that the Almighty would give me my request! that I might see Christ come to His temple again, as He is minting, and, it is like, minding to do. And if the land were humbled, the judgments threatened are with this reservation (I know), "If ye will turn and repent." Oh, what a heaven should we have on earth, to see Scotland's moon like the light of the sun, and Scotland's sunlight sevenfold, like the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound! (Isa. 30:26). Alas, that we will not pull and draw Christ to His old tents again, to come and feed among the lilies, till the day break, and the shadows flee away! Oh that the nobles would go on, in the strength and courage of the Lord, to bring our lawful King Jesus home again! I am persuaded that He shall return again in glory to this land; but happy were they, who would help to convoy Him to His sanctuary, and set Him again up upon that mercy-seat, betwixt the cherubim. O sun, return to darkened Britain! O fairest among all the sons of men, O most excellent One, come home again! come home, and win the praises and blessings of the mourners in Zion, the prisoners of hope, that wait for Thee! I know that He can also triumph in suffering, and weep and reign, and die and triumph, and remain in prison and yet subdue His enemies; but how happy were I to see the coronation-day of Christ, to see His mother, who bare Him, put the crown upon His head again, and cry with shouting, till the earth should ring, "Let Jesus, our King, live and reign for evermore!"

Grace, grace be with your Ladyship.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCXI.—To a Christian Gentlewoman

(GOD'S SKILL TO BLESS BY AFFLICTION—UNKINDNESS OF MEN—NEAR THE DAY OF MEETING THE LORD.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Though not acquainted, yet at the desire of a Christian brother, I have thought good to write a line unto you, entreating you, in the Lord Jesus, under your trials to keep an ear open to Christ, who can speak for Himself, howbeit your visitations, and your own sense, should dream hard things of His love and favour. Our Lord never getteth so kind a look of us, nor our love in such a degree, nor our faith in such a measure of stedfastness, as He getteth out of the furnace of our tempting fears and sharp trials. I verily believe (and two sad proofs in me say no less), that if our Lord would grind our whorish lusts into powder, the very old ashes of our corruption would take life again, and live, and hold us under so much bondage, that may humble us, and make us sad, till we be in that country where we shall need no physic at all. Oh, what violent means doth our Lord use to gain us to Him, as if indeed we were a prize worthy His fighting for! And be sure, if leading would do the turn, He would not use pulling of the hair, and drawing: but the best of us will bide a strong pull of our Lord's right arm ere we follow Him. Yet I say not this, as if our Lord always measured afflictions by so many ounce-weights, answerable to the grain-weights of our guiltiness. I know that He doth in many (and possibly in you) seek nothing so much as faith, that can endure summer and winter in their extremity. Oh, how precious to the Lord are faith and love, that when threshed, beaten, and chased away, and bosted as it were by God Himself, doth yet look warm-like, love-like, kind-like, and life-like, home-over to Christ, and would be in at Him, ill and well as it may be.

Think it not much that your husband, or the nearest to you in the world, proveth to have the bowels and mercy of the ostrich, hard, and rigorous, and cruel; for the Lord taketh up such fallen ones as these (Ps. 27:10). I could not wish a sweeter life, or more satisfying expressions of kindness, till I be up at that Prince of kindness, than the Lord's saints find, when the Lord taketh up men's refuse, and lodgeth this world's outlaws, whom no man seeketh after. His breath is never so hot, His love casteth never such a flame, as when this world, and those who should be the helpers of our joy, cast water on our coal. It is a sweet thing to see them cast out, and God taken in; and to see them throw us away as the refuse of men, and God take us up as His jewels and His treasure. Often He maketh gold of dross, as once He made the cast-away stone, "the stone rejected by the builders," the head of the corner. The princes of this world would not have our Lord Jesus as a pinning in the wall, or to have any place in the building; but the Lord made Him the master-stone of power and place. God be thanked, that this world hath not power to cry us down so many pounds, as rulers cry down light gold, or light silver. We shall stand for as much as our master-coiner Christ, whose coin, arms, and stamp we bear, will have us. Christ hath no miscarrying balance. Thank your Lord, who chaseth your love through two kingdoms, and followeth you and it over sea, to have you for Himself, as He speaketh (Hos. 3:3). For God layeth up His saints, as the wale and the choice of all the world, for Himself; and this is like Christ and His love. Oh, what in heaven, or out of heaven, is comparable to the smell of Christ's garments! Nay, suppose that our Lord would manifest His art, and make ten thousand heavens of good and glorious things, and of new joys, devised out of the deep of infinite wisdom, He could not make the like of Christ; for Christ is God, and God cannot be made. And therefore, let us hold with Christ, howbeit we might have our wale and will of a host of lovers, as many as three heavens could contain.

Oh that He and we were together! Oh, when Christ and ye shall meet about the utmost march and borders of time, and the entry into eternity, ye shall see heaven in His face at the first look, and salvation and glory sitting in His countenance, and betwixt His eyes. Faint not; the miles to heaven are but few and short. He is making a green bed (as the word speaketh, Cant. 1:16) of love, for Himself and you. There are many heads lying in Christ's bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest; and, therefore, go on, and let hope go before you. Sin not in your trials, and the victory is yours. Pray, wrestle, and believe, and ye shall overcome and prevail with God, as Jacob did. No windlestraws, no bits of clay, no temptations, which are of no longer life than an hour, will then be able to withstand you, when once you have prevailed with God.

Help me with your prayers, that it would please the Lord to give me house-room again, to speak of His righteousness in the great congregation, if it may seem good in His sight.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 6, 1637.

CCXII.—To WILLIAM GLENDINNING [Letter CXXXVII.]

(SEARCH INTO CHRISTS LOVELINESS—WHAT HE WOULD SUFFER TO SEE IT—CHRIST'S COMING TO DELIVER.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Ye are heartily welcome to that honour that Christ hath made common to us both, which is to suffer for His name. Verily I think it my garland and crown; and if the Lord should ask of me my blood and life for this cause, I would gladly, in His strength, pay due debt to Christ's honour and glory, in that kind. Acquaint yourself with Christ's love, and ye shall not miss to find new golden mines and treasures in Christ. Nay, truly, we but stand beside Christ, we go not in to Him to take our fill of Him. But if He would do two things,—(1) Draw the curtains, and make bare His holy face; and then (2) Clear our dim and bleared eyes, to see His beauty and glory. He should find many lovers. I would seek no more happiness than a sight of Him so near-hand, as to see, hear, smell, and touch, and embrace Him. But oh, closed doors, and vails, and curtains, and thick clouds hold me in pain, while I find the sweet burning of His love, that many waters cannot quench! Oh, what sad hours have I, when I think that the love of Christ scaureth at me, and bloweth by me! If my Lord Jesus would come to bargaining for His love, I think He might make the price Himself. I should not refuse ten thousand years in hell, to have a wide soul enlarged and made wider, that I might be exceedingly, even to the running-over, filled with His love. Oh, what am I, to love such a One, or to be loved by that high and lofty One! I think the angels may blush to look upon Him; and what am I, to fyle such infinite brightness with my sinful eyes! Oh that Christ would come near, and stand still, and give me leave to look upon Him! for to look seemeth the poor man's privilege, since he may, for nothing and without hire, behold the sun. I should have a king's life, if I had no other thing to do, than for evermore to behold and eye my fair Lord Jesus: nay, suppose I were holden out at heaven's fair entry, I should be happy for evermore, to look through a hole in the door, and see my dearest and fairest Lord's face. O great King, why standest Thou aloof? Why remainest Thou beyond the mountains? O Well-beloved, why dost Thou pain a poor soul with delays? A long time out of Thy glorious presence is two deaths and two hells to me. We must meet, I must see Him, I dow not want Him. Hunger and longing for Christ hath brought on such a necessity of enjoying Christ, that, cost me what it will, I cannot but assure Christ that I will not, I dow not want Him; for I cannot master nor command Christ's love. Nay, hell (as I now think), and all the pains in it, laid on me alone, would not put me from loving. Yea, suppose that my Lord Jesus would not love me, it is above my strength or power to keep back or imprison the weak love which I have, but it must be out to Christ. I would set heaven's joy aside, and live upon Christ's love its lone. Let me have no joy but the warmness and fire of Christ's love; I seek no other, God knoweth. If this love be taken from me, the bottom is fallen out of all my happiness and joy; and, therefore, I believe that Christ will never do me that much harm, as to bereave a poor prisoner of His love. It were cruelty to take it from me; and He, who is kindness itself, cannot be cruel.

Dear brother, weary not of my sweet Master's chains; we are so much the sibber to Christ that we suffer. Lodge not a hard thought of my royal King. Rejoice in His cross. Your deliverance sleepeth not. He that will come is not slack of His promise. Wait on for God's timeous salvation; ask not when, or how long? I hope He shall lose nothing of you in the furnace, but dross. Commit your cause in meekness (forgiving your oppressors) to God, and your sentence shall come back from Him laughing. Our Bridegroom's day is posting fast on; and this world, that seemeth to go with a long and a short foot, shall be put into two ranks. Wait till your ten days (Rev. 2:10) be ended, and hope for the crown. Christ will not give you a blind in the end.

Commend me to your wife and father, and to Bailie M. A.; and send this letter to him.

The prayers of Christ's prisoner be upon you, and the Lord's presence accompany you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 6, 1637.

CCXIII.—To ROBERT LENNOX of Disdove

[Disdove, or Disdow, is a farm about two miles from Gatehouse and a mile from Girthon Manse, a single mansion among trees. Lennox's name often occurs in the "Minute-book of Comm. of Covenanters." Was he connected with Lennox of Cally?]

(MEN'S FOLLY IN UNDERVALUING CHRIST—IT IS HE THAT SATISFIETH—ADMIRATION OF HIM.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I beseech you in the Lord Jesus, make fast and sure work of life eternal. Sow not rotten seed: every man's work will speak for itself, what his seed hath been. Oh, how many see I, who sow to the flesh! Alas, what a crop will that be, when the Lord shall put in His hook to reap this world that is ripe and white for judgment!

I recommend to you holiness and sanctification, and that you keep yourself clean from this present evil world. We delight to tell our own dreams, and to flatter our own flesh with the hope which we have. It were wisdom for us to be free, plain, honest, and sharp with our own souls, and to charge them to brew better, that they may drink well, and fare well, when time is melted away like snow in a hot summer. Oh, how hard a thing is it, to get the soul to give up with all things on this side of death and doomsday! We say that we are removing and going from this world; but our heart stirreth not one foot off its seat. Alas! I see few heavenly-minded souls, that have nothing upon the earth but their body of clay going up and down this earth, because their soul and the powers of it are up in heaven, and there their hearts live, desire, enjoy, rejoice. Oh! men's souls have no wings; and, therefore, night and day they keep their nest, and are not acquainted with Christ. Sir, take you to your one thing, to Christ, that ye may be acquainted with the taste of His sweetness and excellency; and charge your love not to dote upon this world, for it will not do your business in that day, when nothing will come in good stead to you but God's favour. Build upon Christ some good, choice, and fast work; for when your soul for many years hath taken the play, and hath posted, and wandered through the creatures, ye will come home again with the wind. They are not good, at least not the soul's good. It is the infinite Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your hunger after happiness, otherwise there shall still be a want of satisfaction to your desires: and if He should cast in ten worlds into your desires, all shall fall through, and your soul will still cry, "Red hunger! black hunger!" But I am sure there is sufficient for you in Christ, if ye had seven souls and seven desires in you.

Oh, if I could make my Lord Jesus market-sweet, lovely, desirable, and fair to all the world, both to Jew and Gentile! Oh, let my part of heaven go for it, so being He would take my tongue to be His instrument, to set out Christ in His whole braveries of love, virtue, grace, sweetness, and matchless glory, to the eyes and hearts of Jews and Gentiles! But who is sufficient for these things? Oh, for the help of angels' tongues, to make Christ eye-sweet and amiable to many thousands! Oh, how little doth this world see of Him, and how far are they from the love of Him, seeing there is so much loveliness, beauty, and sweetness in Christ, that no created eye did ever yet see! I would that all men knew His glory, and that I could put many in at the Bridegroom's chamber-door, to see His beauty, and to be partakers of His high, and deep, and broad, and boundless love. Oh, let all the world come nigh and see Christ, and they shall then see more than I can say of Him! Oh, if I had a pledge or pawn to lay down for a seaful of His love! that I could come by so much of Christ, as would satisfy greening and longing for Him, or rather increase it, till I were in full possession! I know that we shall meet; and therein I rejoice.

Sir, stand fast in the truth of Christ that ye have received. Yield to no winds, but ride out, and let Christ be your anchor, and the only He, whom ye shall look to see in peace. Pray for me, His prisoner, that the Lord would send me among you to feed His people.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCXIV.—To MR. JAMES HAMILTON

[JAMES HAMILTON was educated for the ministry in Scotland, but going over to Ireland, he continued for some time to act as steward or agent for his uncle, Lord Claneboy. He commenced his labours as a preacher of the Gospel in 1624, and in the following year was settled at Ballywater, in the county of Down, in which charge, says Robert Blair, "he was painful, successful, and constant, notwithstanding he had many temptations to follow promotion, which he might easily have obtained" (Blair's "Life"). In August 1636, he and several of his brethren in the ministry were deposed by Henry Leslie, Bishop of Down, for refusing to subscribe the canons then imposed on ministers in Ireland. He was one of those who that year embarked for New England, but who were forced to return by the adverse state of the weather. After his coming over to Scotland, he became minister of Dumfries, and subsequently of Edinburgh, where he continued to labour for fifteen years. He was a member of the famous Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638. In March 1644, he and Mr. Weir, minister of Dalserf, were appointed to administer the Solemn League and Covenant in Ireland. On their return to Scotland, falling in with the noted Alaster Macdonnell, the two ministers, with several others (including Hamilton's father-in-law, Mr. Watson, a minister in Ireland), were taken prisoners, and carried to Castle Meagrie, or Mingarry, on the coast of Ardnamurchan, where they suffered incredible hardships, which brought Mr. Weir and Mr. Watson to their graves. Hamilton was liberated in May 1645, after an imprisonment of ten months. In August 1651, when the Committee of Estates and of the General Assembly, of which he was a member, were sitting at Alyth, they were apprehended by a party of horse sent out by Monk, and were shipped for the Tower of London, where Hamilton was kept two years. Continuing faithful to the principles, he was ejected from his charge in 1662, upon which he retired to Inveresk, and died on the 10th of March 1666. "He was naturally of an excellent temperament both of body and mind; always industrious and facetious in all the several provinces and scenes of his life; he was delightful to his friends and acquaintances, yea beloved of his enemies; he was bold for truth, and tenacious in everything of moment, though naturally, and in his own things, among the mildest of men; rich in learning, intelligent, judicious, he was great in esteem with the greatest and wisest" (Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland"). Blair, in his "Life" (p. 136, Wodrow Edit.), mentions another James Hamilton, minister, first at Killileagh, in Ireland, and then at Ballantrae, in Scotland. Blair's first wife was sister to the wife of this James Hamilton of Killileagh, and her name was Catherine Montgomery of Busby.]

(SUFFERING FOR CHRIST'S HEADSHIP—HOW CHRIST VISITED HIM IN PREACHING.)

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Our acquaintance is neither in bodily presence, nor on paper; but as sons of the same Father, and sufferers for the same truth.

Let no man doubt that the state of our question, we are now forced to stand to by suffering exile and imprisonment, is, If Jesus should reign over His kirk, or not? Oh, if my sinful arm could hold the crown on His head, howbeit it should be stricken off from the shoulder-blade! For your ensuing and feared trial, my very dearest in our Lord Jesus, alas! what am I, to speak comfort to a soldier of Christ, who hath done a hundred times more for that worthy and honourable cause than I can do? But I know, those of whom the world was not worthy wandered up and down in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth; and while there is one member of mystical Christ out of heaven, that member must suffer strokes, till our Lord Jesus draw in that member within the gates of the New Jerusalem, which He will not fail to do at last; for not one toe or finger of that body, but it shall be taken in within the city. What can be our part, in this pitched battle betwixt the Lamb and the Dragon, but to receive the darts in patience, that rebound off us upon our sweet Master; or rather light first upon Him, and then rebound off Him upon His servants? I think it a sweet north wind, that bloweth first upon the fair face of the Chief among ten thousand, and then lighteth upon our sinful and black faces. When once the wind bloweth off Him upon me, I think it hath a sweet smell of Christ; and so must be some more than a single cross. I know that ye have a guard about you, and your attendance and train for your safety is far beyond your pursuer's force or fraud. It is good, under feud, to be near our ward-house,2 and stronghold. We can do little to resist them who persecute us and oppose Him, but keep our blood and our wounds to the next court-day, when our complaints shall be read. If this day be not Christ's, I am sure the morrow shall be His.

As for anything I do in my bonds, when now and then a word falleth from me, alas! it is very little. I am exceedingly grieved that any should conceive anything to be in such a broken and empty reed. Let no man impute it to me, that the free and unbought wind (for I gave nothing for it) bloweth upon an empty reed. I am His over-burdened debtor. I cry, "Down with me, down, down with all the excellency of the world; and up, up with Christ!" Long, long may that fair One, that holy One, be on high! My curse be upon them that love Him not. Oh, how glad would I be, if His glory would grow out and spring up out of my bonds and sufferings! Certainly, since I became His prisoner, He hath won the yolk and heart of my soul. Christ is even become a new Christ to me, and His love greener than it was. And now I strive no more with Him: His love shall carry it away. I lay down myself under His love. I desire to sing, and to cry, and to proclaim myself, even under the water, in His common, and eternally indebted to His kindness. I will not offer to quit commons with Him (as we used to say), for that will not be. All, all for evermore to be Christ's! What further trials are before me, I know not; but I know that Christ will have a saved soul of me, over on the other side of the water, on the yonder-side of crosses, and beyond men's wrongs.

I had but one eye, and that they have put out. My one joy, next to the flower of my joys, Christ, was to preach my sweetest, sweetest Master, and the glory of His kingdom; and it seemed no cruelty to them to put out the poor man's one eye. And now I am seeking about to see if suffering will speak my fair One's praises; and I am trying if a dumb man's tongue can raise one note, or one of Zion's springs, to advance my Well-beloved's glory. Oh, if He would make some glory to Himself out of a dumb prisoner! I go with child of His word: I cannot be delivered. None here will have my Master: alas! what aileth them at Him?

I bless you for your prayers. Add to them praises: as I am able, I pay you home. I commend your diving in Christ's Testament; I would I could set out the dead man's good-will to His friends, in His sweet Testament. Speak a prisoner's hearty commendations to Christ. Fear not, your ten days (Rev. 2:10) will over. Those that are gathered against Mount Zion, their eyes shall melt away in their eye-holes, and their tongues consume away in their mouths, and Christ's withered garden shall grow green again in Scotland. My Lord Jesus hath a word hid in heaven for Scotland, not yet brought out.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 7, 1637.

CCXV.—To MISTRESS STUART

[MRS. STUART is the wife of Provost Stuart of Ayr, of whom see an account, Letter CLXI.]

(PERSONAL UNWORTHINESS—LONGING AFTER HOLINESS—WINNOWING TIME.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am sorry that ye take it so hardly that I have not written to you.

I am judged to be that which I am not. I fear that if I were put into the fire, I should melt away, and fall down in shreds of painted nature; for truly I have little stuff at home that is worth the eye of God's servants. If there be anything of Christ's in me (as I dare not deny some of His work), it is but a spunk of borrowed fire, that can scarce warm myself, and hath little heat for standers-by. I would fain have that which ye and others believe I have; but ye are only witnesses to my outer side, and to some words on paper. Oh that He would give me more than paper-grace or tongue-grace! Were it not that want paineth me, I should have a skailed house, and gone a-begging long since. But Christ hath left me with some hunger, that is more hot than wise, and is ready often to say, "If Christ longed for me as I do for Him, we should not be long in meeting; and if He loved my company as well as I do His, even while I am writing this letter to you, we should fly into each other's arms." But I know there is more will than wit in this languor and pining love for Christ; and no marvel, for Christ's love would have hot harvest long ere midsummer. But if I have any love to Him, Christ hath both love to me, and wit to guide His love. And I see that the best thing I have hath as much dross beside it as might curse me and it both; and, if it were for no more, we have need of a Saviour to pardon the very faults, and diseases, and weakness of the new man, and to take away (to say so) our godly sins, or the sins of our sanctification, and the dross and scum of spiritual love. Wo, wo is me! Oh, what need is there, then, of Christ's calling, to scour, and cleanse, and wash away an ugly old body of sin, the very image of Satan! I know nothing surer than that there is an office for Christ amongst us. I wish for no other heaven on this side of the last sea that I must cross, than this service of Christ, to make my blackness beauty, my deadness life, my guiltiness sanctification. I long much for that day, when I shall be holy. Oh, what spots are yet unwashen! Oh that I could change the skin of the leopard and the Moor, and niffer it with some of Christ's fairness! Were my blackness and Christ's beauty carded through-other (as we use to speak), His beauty and holiness would eat up my filthiness. But, oh, I have not casten old Adam's hue and colour yet. I trow that the best of us hath a smell yet of the old loathsome body of sin and guiltiness. Happy are they for evermore who can employ Christ, and set His blood and death on work, to make clean work to God of foul souls. I know that it is our sin that we would have sanctification on the sunny side of the hill, and holiness with nothing but summer, and no crosses at all. Sin hath made us as tender as if we were made of paper or glass. I am often thinking, what would I think of Christ and burning quick together! of Christ and torturing, and hot melted lead poured in at mouth and navel! Yet I have some weak experience (but very weak indeed), that suppose Christ and hell's torments were married together, and if there were no finding of Christ at all except I went to hell's furnace, that there, and in no other place, I could meet with Him, I trow, that (if I were as I have been since I was His prisoner) I would beg lodging for God's sake in hell's hottest furnace, that I might rub souls with Christ. But God be thanked, I shall find Him in a better lodging. We get Christ better-cheap than so: when He is rouped to us, we get Him but with a shower of summer troubles in this life, as sweet and soft to believers as a May-dew.

I would have you and myself helping Christ mystical to weep for His wife. And oh that we could mourn for Christ buried in Scotland, and for His two slain witnesses, killed because they prophesied! If we could so importune and solicit God, our buried Lord and His two buried witnesses should rise again. Earth, and clay, and stone, will not bear down Christ and the Gospel in Scotland. I know not if I shall see the second temple, and the glory of it; but the Lord hath deceived me if it be not to be reared up again. I would wish to give Christ His welcome home again. My blessing, my joy, my glory, and love be on the Home-comer.

I find no better use of suffering than that Christ's winnowing putteth chaff and corn in the saints to sundry places, and discovereth our dross from His gold, so as corruption and grace are so seen, that Christ saith in the furnace, "That is Mine, and this is thine. The scum and the grounds, thy stomach against the persecutors, thy impatience, thy unbelief, thy quarrelling, these are thine; and faith, on-waiting, love, joy, courage, are Mine." Oh, let me die one of Christ's on-waiters, and one of His attendants!

I know that your heart and Christ are married together; it were not good to make a divorce. Rue not of that meeting and marriage with such a Husband. Pray for me, His prisoner. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCXVI.—MR. HUGH MACKAIL of Irvine

(ADVANTAGES OF OUR WANTS AND DISTEMPERS—CHRIST UNSPEAKABLE.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter. I bless you for it.

My dry root would take more dew and summer's-rain than it getteth, were it not that Christ will have dryness and deadness in us to work upon. If there were no timber to work upon, art would die, and never be seen. I see that grace hath a field, to play upon and to course up and down, in our wants; so that I am often thanking God, not for guiltiness, but for guiltiness for Christ to whet and sharpen His grace upon. I am half content to have boils for the sake of the plasters of my Lord Jesus. Sickness hath this advantage, that it draweth our sweet Physician's hand, and His holy and soft fingers, to touch our withered and leper skins. It is a blessed fever that fetcheth Christ to the bedside. I think my Lord's "How doest thou with it, sick body?" is worth all my pained nights. Surely, I have no more for Christ than emptiness and want; take or leave, He will get me no otherwise. I must sell myself and my wants to Him; but I have no price to give for Him. If He would put a fair and real seal upon His love to me, and bestow upon me a larger share of Christ's love (which I would fainest be in hands with of anything; I except not heaven itself), I should go on sighing and singing under His cross. But the worst is, many take me for somebody, because the wind bloweth upon a withered prisoner; but the truth is, that I am both lean and thin in that, wherein many believe I abound. I would, if bartering were in my power, niffer joy with Christ's love and faith, and instead of the hot sunshine, be content to walk under a cloudy shadow with more grief and sadness, to have more faith, and a fair occasion of setting forth and commending Christ, and to make that lovely One, that fair One, that sweetest and dearest Lord Jesus, market-sweet for many ears and hearts in Scotland. And, if it were in my power, to roup Christ to the three kingdoms, and withal persuade buyers to come, and to take such sweet wares as Christ, I would think to have many sweet bargains betwixt Christ and the sons of men. I would that I could be humble and go with a low sail; I would that I had desires with wings, and running upon wheels, swift, and active, and speedy, in longing for Christ's honour. But I know that my Lord is as wise here as I dow be thirsty; and infinitely more zealous of His honour than I can be hungry for the manifestation of it to men and angels. But, oh that my Lord would take my desires off my hand, and a thousand-fold more unto them, and sow spiritual inclinations upon them, for the coming of Christ's kingdom to the sons of men, that they might be higher, and deeper, and longer, and broader! For my longest measures are too short for Christ, my depth is ebb, and the breadth of my affections to Christ narrowed and pinched. Oh for an ingine and a wit, to prescribe ways to men how Christ might be all, in all the world! Wit is here behind affection, and affection behind obligation. Oh, how little dow I give to Christ, and how much hath He given me! Oh that I could sing grace's praises, and love's praises! seeing that I was like a fool soliciting the Law, and making moyen to the Law's court for mercy, and found challenges that way. But now I deny that judge's power; for I am Grace's man. I hold not worth a drink of water, the Law, or any lord but Jesus:—and till I bethought me of this, I was slain with doubtings, and fears, and terrors. I praise the new court, and the new landlord, and the new salvation, purchased in the name of Jesus and at His instance. Let the Old Man, if he please, go make his moan to the Law, and seek acquaintance thereaway, because he is condemned in that court; I hope that the New Man (I and Christ together) will not be heard; and this is the more soft and the more easy way for me and for my cross together. Seeing that Christ singeth my welcome home, and taketh me in, and maketh short accounts and short work of reckoning betwixt me and my Judge, I must be Christ's man, and His tenant, and subject to His court. I am sure that suffering for Christ could not be borne otherwise; but I give my hand and my faith to all who would suffer for Christ, that they shall be well handled, and fare well in the same way, that I have found the cross easy and light.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 8, 1637.

CCXVII.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Garloch

[ALEXANDER GORDON was proprietor of Garloch, an estate lying in Kells, about five miles N. W. of New Galloway. It is often corrupted into "Garroch." He was brother to Robert Gordon of Knockbrex, formerly noticed. He was a warm promoter of the Presbyterian cause in his day. Livingstone describes him as a "very gracious person;" and mentions him as present at a private meeting for prayer and Christian conference, with a number of "eminent Christians." John Gordon of Knockbrex, and his brother Robert, who were publicly executed in 1666, for being concerned in the insurrection at Pentland Hills, were the grandchildren of the subject of this notice. See Letter LXV. They were tried for high treason and rebellion, and sentenced to be hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh upon the 7th of December that year, their goods confiscated, their bodies thereafter dismembered, and their heads fixed on the gate of Kirkcudbright. Other eight were at the same time condemned; and the arms of all the ten (because they had with uplifted hands renewed the Covenant at Lanark, previous to the engagement) were to be cut off and sent to that town, to be fixed on the top of the prison. This sentence was executed in all its parts. The case of all the sufferers, but particularly that of the Gordons, who, as Wodrow informs us, "were youths of shining piety, and good learning and parts," excited much sympathy. When turned off the ladder, the two brothers clasped each other in their arms, and in this affectionate embrace endured the pangs of death. "They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided."

Livingstone, in the beginning of his "Historical Relation of his Life," mentions meetings which he used to hold at Airds (where Gordon of Earlston at one time resided), and at Garloch, or, as it is printed in different editions, Gairleuch or Garleuch. Gordon of Garloch was a warm friend to the truth. Gordon, the "translator of Tacitus," was a descendant of this family.]

(FREE GRACE FINDING ITS MATERIALS IN US.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—If Christ were as I am, that time could work upon Him to alter Him, or that the morrow could bring a new day to Him, or bring a new mind to Him, as it is to me a new day, I could not keep a house or a covenant with Him. But I find Christ to be Christ, and that He is far, far, even infinite heavens' height above men; and that is all our happiness. Sinners can do nothing but make wounds, that Christ may heal them; and make debts, that He may pay them; and make falls, that He may raise them; and make deaths, that He may quicken them; and spin out and dig hells for themselves, that He may ransom them. Now, I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free grace of God, and a free ransom given for sold souls: only, alas! guiltiness maketh me ashamed to apply to Christ, and to think it pride in me to put out my unclean and withered hand to such a Saviour. But it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a shipbroken soul to run himself ashore upon Christ. Suppose once I be guilty, needforce I dow not, I cannot, go by Christ. We take in good part that pride, viz. that beggars beg from the richer; and who so poor as we? and who so rich as He who selleth fine gold (Rev. 3:18). I see, then, it is our best (let guiltiness plead what it listeth) that we have no mean under the covering of heaven, but to creep in lowly and submissively with our wants to Christ. I have also cause to give His cross a good name and report. Oh, how worthy is Christ of my feckless and light suffering! and how hath He deserved at my hands that, for His honour and glory, I should lay my back under seven hells' pains in one, if He call me to that! But, alas! my soul is like a ship run on ground through ebbness of water. I am sanded, and my love is stranded, and I find not how to bring it on float again. It is so cold and dead, that I see not how to being it to a flame. Fy, fy upon the meeting that my love hath given Christ. Wo, wo is me! I have a lover Christ, and yet I want love for Him! I have a lovely and desirable Lord, who is love-worthy, and who beggeth my love and heart, and I have nothing to give Him! Dear brother, come further in on Christ, and see a new treasure in Him. Come in, and look down, and see angels' wonder, and heaven and earth's wonder of love, sweetness, majesty, and excellency in Him.

I forget you not; pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased to send me among you again, fraughted and full of Christ.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCXVIII.—To JOHN BELL, Elder

[There is in the churchyard of Anwoth a tombstone to one of this name, who died a martyr, and who lived at Whiteside. This person may have been related to him. His name appears at a petition of the elders and parishioners of Anwoth, presented to the Commission of the General Assembly, against the removal of Rutherford from that parish, when applications were made from St. Andrews and Edinburgh respectively to obtain him. He is designated "John Bell of Hentoun" (Murray's "Life of Rutherford," p. 356). Rutherford here reminds him that "old age was come upon him." He appears, however, to have lived many years after this; for so late as January 13, 1657, Marion Bell is retoured "heir of John Bell of Hentoun, her grandsir," who was probably Rutherford's correspondent. On the same day she is retoured heir of "James Bell of Campbelltown in (Twynholm parish), her guidsir;" and of "John Bell of Campbelltown, her father." Henton is a small croft, close to the school-house at Laggan, as you go toward the sea-side from Ardwell to Kirkdale. It was once a separate property. Before old Anwoth church was pulled down (see Murray's "Life of Rutherford"), there stood a seat or pew, on which were cut the letters "J. B." and the date "1631," understood to belong to this same person. And (though his martyrdom occurred after Rutherford was gone to his rest) it may be interesting here to notice that the ancestor of the martyr, John Bell of Whiteside, in Anwoth, was connected with this family. Whiteside is half a mile N.E. from Rutherford's Witnesses on the Skyreburn Road. The ruins of the house where Bell stayed are pointed out, half a mile from the modern farm; and almost in the bed of the burn. Near the old ruin is a cave where he died. The martyr's mother, too, was the grand-daughter of "The guidwife of Ardwell" (see Letter CI.). His tomb (renewed a few years ago) is a flat stone near the west end of the old church, with the date 1685.

"This monument shall tell posterity

That blessed Bell of Whiteside here doth lie;

Who at command of bloody Lag was shot,

A murder strange which should not be forgot.

Douglas of Morton did him quarters give,

Yet cruel Lag would not let him survive.

This martyr sought some time to recommend

His soul to God, before his days did end:

The tyrant said, 'What, Devil? Ye've prayed eneuch

These long seven years on mountain and in cleugh.'

So instantly caused him, with other four,

Be shot to death upon Kirkconnel Moor.

So thus did end the lives of these dear saints

For their adhering to the Covenants."

On the wall is an old slab which contains what seems to be a general motto for the Bells' burying-ground.]

(DANGER OF TRUSTING TO A NAME—CONVERSION NO SUPERFICIAL WORK—EXHORTATION TO MAKE SURE.)

MY VERY LOVING FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have very often and long expected your letter; but if ye be well in soul and body, I am the less solicitous.

I beseech you, in the Lord Jesus, to mind your country above; and now, when old age (the twilight going before the darkness of the grave, and the falling low of your sun before your night) is come upon you, advise with Christ, ere ye put your foot into the ship, and turn your back on this life. Many are beguiled with this, that they are free of scandalous and crying abominations; but the tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is for the fire. The man that is not born again cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Common honesty will not take men to heaven. Alas! that men should think that ever they met with Christ, who had never a sick night, through the terrors of God in their souls, or a sore heart for sin! I know that the Lord hath given you light, and the knowledge of His will; but that is not all, neither will that do your turn. I wish you an awakened soul, and that ye beguile not yourself in the matter of your salvation. My dear brother, search yourself with the candle of God, and try if the life of God and Christ be in you. Salvation is not casten to every man's door. Many are carried over sea and land to a far country in a ship, while-as they sleep much of all the way; but men are not landed at heaven sleeping. The righteous are scarcely saved; and many run as fast as either you or I, who miss the prize and the crown. God send me salvation, and save me from a disappointment, and I seek no more. Men think it but a stride, or step over to heaven; but, when so few are saved (even of a number "like the sand of the sea—but a handful and a remnant," as God's word saith), what cause have we to shake ourselves, and to ask our poor soul, "Whither goest thou? where shalt thou lodge at night? where are thy charters and writs of thy heavenly inheritance?" I have known a man turn a key in a door, and lock it by. Many men leap over, as they think, and leap in. Oh, see! see that ye give not your salvation a wrong cast, and think all is well, and leave your soul loose and uncertain. Look to your building, and to your ground-stone, and what signs of Christ are in you, and set this world behind your back. It is time, now in the evening, to cease from your ordinary work, and high time to know of your lodging at night. It is your salvation that is in dependence; and that is a great and weighty business, though many make light of the matter.

Now, the Lord enable you by His grace to work it out.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCXIX.—To MR. JOHN ROW

[JOHN ROW, minister of Carnock, was probably the person to whom this letter is addressed. It could not be his son, of the same name, who afterwards became minister of St. Nicholas Church, Aberdeen, and Principal of King's College; for he was at this time master of the grammar school of Perth, and did not qualify himself for the ministry till after the overthrow of Prelacy in 1638. John Row of Carnock, the third son of John Row (minister of Perth, a distinguished Reformer and coadjutor of Knox), was born at Perth about the close of the year 1568. He was ordained minister of Carnock at the end of the year 1592, where he laboured with great assiduity and success. He opposed the Perth Articles, and the introduction of Prelacy, with uncompromising zeal. He is the author of a History of the Kirk of Scotland, which has been printed by the Wodrow Society. He died on the 26th of June 1646, aged seventy-eight.]

(CHRIST'S CROSSES BETTER THAN THE WORLD'S JOYS—CHRIST EXTOLLED)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I received yours. I bless His high and great name, that I like my sweet Master still the longer the better; a sight of His cross is more awsome than the weight of it. I think the worst things of Christ, even His reproaches and His cross (when I look on these not with bleared eyes), far rather to be chosen than the laughter and worm-eaten joys of my adversaries. Oh that they were as I am, except my bonds! My witness is above, that my ministry, next to Christ, is dearest to me of anything; but I lay it down at Christ's feet, for His glory and His honour as supreme Lawgiver, which is dearer to me.

My dear brother, if ye will receive the testimony of a poor prisoner of Christ, who dare not now dissemble for the world, I believe certainly, and expect thanks from the Prince of the kings of the earth, for my poor hazards (such as they are) for His honourable cause, whom I can never enough extol for His running-over love to my sad soul, since I came hither. Oh that I could get Him set on high and praised! I seek no more, as the top and root of my desires, than that Christ may make glory to Himself, and edification to the weaker (Phil. 1:14), out of my sufferings. I desire ye would help me both to pray and praise.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 8, 1637.

CCXX.—To my Lord CRAIGHALL

(DUTY OF BEING DISENTANGLED FROM CHRIST—DISHONOURING COMPLIANCES.)

MY LORD,—I persuade myself that, notwithstanding the greatness of this temptation, ye will not let Christ want a witness of you, to avow Him before this evil generation. And if ye advise with God's truth (the perfect testament of Christ, that forbiddeth all men's additions to His worship), and with the truly learned, and with all the sanctified in this land, and with that warner within you (which will not fail to speak against you, in God's time, if ye be not now fast and fixed for Christ), I hope then that your Lordship will acquit yourself as a man of courage for Christ, and refuse to bow your knee superstitiously and idolatrously to wood or stone, or any creature whatsoever. I persuade myself that when ye shall take good night at this world, ye shall think it God's truth I now write.

Some fear that your Lordship hath obliged yourself to his Majesty by promise to satisfy his desire. If it be so, my dear and worthy Lord, hear me for your soul's good. Think upon swimming ashore after this shipwreck, and be pleased to write your humble apology to his Majesty; it may be that God will give you favour in his eyes. However it be, far be it from you to think a promise made out of weakness, and extorted by the terror of a king, should bind you to wrong your Lord Jesus. But for myself, I give no faith to that report, but I believe that ye will prove fast to Christ. To His grace I recommend you.

Your Lordship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 8, 1637.

CCXXI.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(HER PRAYERS FOR SCOTLAND NOT FORGOTTEN.)

WORTHY AND DEAREST IN THE LORD,—I rejoice that you are a partaker of the sufferings of Christ. Faint not, keep breath, believe; howbeit men, and husband, and friends prove weak, yet your strength faileth not. It is not pride for a drowning man to grip to the rock. It is your glory to lay hold on your Rock. O woman greatly beloved! I testify and avouch it in my Lord, that the prayers ye sent to heaven these many years bygone are come up before the Lord, and shall not be forgotten. What it is that will come, I cannot tell; but I know that, as the Lord liveth, these cries shall bring down mercy. I charge you, and those people with you, to go on without fainting or fear, and still believe, and take no nay-say. If ye leave off, the field is lost; if ye continue, our enemies shall be a tottering wall, and a bowing fence. I write it (and keep this letter), utter, utter desolation shall be to your adversaries, and to the haters of the Virgin-daughter of Scotland. The bride will yet sing, as in the days of her youth. Salvation shall be her walls and bulwarks. The dry olive-tree shall bud again, and dry dead bones shall live; for the Lord will prophesy to the dry bones, and the Spirit shall come upon them, and we shall live.

I rejoice to hear of John Carson! I shall not forget him. Remember me to Grizel and Jean Brown. Your husband hath made me heavy; but be courageous in the Lord. I send blessings to Samuel and William. Show them that I will them to seek God in their youth.

Grace is yours.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 8, 1637.

CCXXII.—To my LADY CULROSS [Letter LXII.]

(CHRIST'S WAY OF SHOWING HIMSELF THE BEST—WHAT FITS FOR HIM—YEARNING AFTER HIM INSATIABLY—DOMESTIC MATTERS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am much refreshed with your letter, now at length come to me. I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in that precise way that I lay wait for Him; He hath a gate of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways! I see but little of Him. It is best not to offer to learn Him a lesson, but to give Him absolutely His own will, in coming, going, ebbing, flowing, and in the manner of His gracious working. I want nothing but a back-burden of Christ's love. I would go through hell, and the thick of the damned devils, to have a hearty feast of Christ's love; for He hath fettered me with His love, and run away, and left me a chained man.

Wo is me, that I was so loose, rash, vain, and graceless, in my unbelieving thoughts of Christ's love! But what can a soul, under a non-entry (when my rights were wadset and lost), do else, but make a false libel against Christ's love! I know that yourself, Madam, and many more, will be witness against me, if I repent not of my unbelief; for I have been seeking the Pope's wares, some hire for Grace within myself. I have not learned, as I should do, to put my stock and all my treasure into Christ's hand; but I would have a stock of mine own; and ere I was aware, I was taking hire to be the Law's advocate, to seek justification by works. I forgot that grace is the only garland that is worn in heaven upon the heads of the glorified. And now I half rejoice, that I have sickness for Christ to work upon. Since I must have wounds, well is my soul, I have a day's work for my Physician, Christ. I hope to give Christ His own calling: it setteth Him full well to cure diseases.

My ebbings are very low, and the tide is far out when my Beloved goeth away; and then I cry, "Oh, cruelty! to put out the poor man's one eye;" and this was my joy next to Christ, to preach my Well-beloved. Then I make a noise about Christ's house, looking unco-like in at His window, and casting my love and my desires over the wall, till God send better. I am often content that my bill lie in heaven till the day of my departure, providing I had assurance that mercy shall be written on the back of it. I would not care for on-waiting; but when I draw in a tired arm, and an empty hand withal, it is much to me to keep my thoughts in order. But I will not get a gate for Christ's love. When I have done all I can, I would fain yield to His stream, and row with Christ, and not against Him. But while I live, I see that Christ's kingdom in me will not be peaceable, so many thoughts in me rise up against His honour and kingly power. Surely I have not expressed all His sweet kindness to me. I spare to do it, lest I be deemed to seek myself; but His breath hath smelled of the powders of the merchant, and of the King's spikenard. I think that I conceive new thoughts of heaven, because the card and the map of heaven which He letteth me now see is so fair and so sweet. I am sure that we are niggards, and sparing bodies in seeking. I verily judge that we know not how much may be had in this life; there is yet something beyond all that we see, that seeking would light upon. Oh that my love-sickness would put me to a business, when all the world are found sleeping, to cry and knock! But the truth is, that since I came hither I have been wondering that, after my importunity to have my fill of Christ's love, I have not gotten a real sign, but have come from Him crying, "Hunger! hunger!" I think that Christ letteth me see meat in my extremity of hunger, and giveth me none of it. When I am near the apple, He draweth back His hand, and goeth away to cause me follow; and again, when I am within an arm-length of the apple, He maketh a new break to the gate, and I have Him to seek of new. He seemeth not to pity my dwining and swooning for His love. I dare sometimes put my hunger over to Him to be judged, if I would not buy Him with a thousand years in the hottest furnace in hell, so being I might enjoy Him. But my hunger is fed by want and absence. I hunger and I have not; but my comfort is to lie and wait on, and to put my poor soul and my sufferings into Christ's hand. Let Him make anything out of me, so being He be glorified in my salvation; for I know that I am made for Him. Oh that my Lord may win His own gracious end in me! I will not be at ease, while I but stand so far aback. Oh, if I were near Him and with Him, that this poor soul might be satisfied with Himself!

Your son-in-law, W. G., is now truly honoured for his Lord and Master's cause. When the Lord is fanning Zion, it is a good token that he is a true branch of the vine, that the Lord beginneth first to dress him. He is strong in his Lord, as he hath written to me, and his wife is his encourager, which should make you rejoice.

As for your son, who is your grief, your Lord waited on you and me, till we were ripe, and brought us in. It is your part to pray and wait upon Him. When he is ripe, he will be spoken for. Who can command our Lord's wind to blow? I know that it shall be your good in the latter end. That is one of your waters to heaven, ye could not go about; there are the fewer behind. I remember you and him, and yours, as I am able; but, alas! I am believed to be something, and I am nothing but an empty reed. Wants are my best riches, because I have these supplied by Christ.

Remember my dearest love to your brother. I know that he pleadeth with his harlot-mother for her apostasy. I know also that ye are kind to my worthy Lady Kenmure, a woman beloved of the Lord, who hath been very mindful of my bonds. The Lord give her, and her child, to find mercy in the day of Christ! Great men are dry and cold in doing for me; the tinkling of the chains for Christ affrighteth them: but let my Lord break all my idols, I will yet bless Him. I am obliged to my Lord Lorn: I wish him mercy.

Remember my bonds with praises; and pray for me, that my Lord may leaven the north by my bonds and sufferings.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637

CCXXIII.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Knockgray

(STATE OF THE CHURCH—BELIEVERS PURIFIED BY AFFLICTION—FOLLY OF SEEKING JOY IN A DOOMED WORLD.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—There is no question but our mother-church hath a Father, and that she shall not die without an heir: her enemies shall not make Mount Zion their heritage. We see that whithersoever Zion's enemies go, suppose they dig many miles under ground, yet our Lord findeth them out: and He hath vengeance laid up in store for them, and the poor and needy shall not always be forgotten. Our hope was drooping and withering, and man was saying, "What can God make out of the old dry bones of this buried kirk?" The prelates and their followers were a grave above us. It is like that our Lord is to open our graves, and purposeth to cause His two slain witnesses to rise on the third day. Oh, how long wait I to hear our weeping Lord Jesus sing again, and triumph and rejoice, and divide the spoil!

I find it hard work to believe when the course of providence goeth cross-wise to our faith, and when misted souls in a dark night cannot know east by west, and our sea-compass seemeth to fail us. Every man is a believer in daylight: a fair day seemeth to be made all of faith and hope. What a trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the fire! but to keep gold perfectly yellow-coloured amidst the flames, and to be turned from vessel to vessel, and yet to cause our furnace to sound, and speak, and cry the praises of the Lord, is another matter. I know that my Lord made me not for fire, howbeit He hath fitted me in some measure for the fire. I bless His high name that I wax not paler, neither have I lost the colour of gold; and that His fire hath made me somewhat thin, and that my Lord may pour me into any vessel He pleaseth. For a small wager I may justly quit my part of this world's laughter, and give up with time, and cast out with the pleasures of this world.

I know a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh or sport. Surely our Lord seeketh this of us, as to any rejoicing in present perishing things. I see above all things, that we may sit down, and fold legs and arms, and stretch ourselves upon Christ, and laugh at the feathers that children are chasing here. For I think the men of this world like children in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play and make sport with the white foam of the waves thereof, coming in to sink and drown them; so are men making fool's sports with the white pleasures of a stormy world, that will sink them. But, alas! what have we to do with their sports which they make? If Solomon said of laughter, that it was madness, what may we say of this world's laughing and sporting themselves with gold and silver, and honours, and court, and broad large conquests, but that they are poor souls, in the height and rage of a fever gone mad? Then a straw, a fig, for all created sports and rejoicing out of Christ! Nay, I think that this world, at its prime and perfection, when it is come to the top of its excellency and to the bloom, might be bought with an halfpenny; and that it would scarce weigh the worth of a drink of water. There is nothing better than to esteem it our crucified idol (that is, dead and slain), as Paul did (Gal. 6:14). Then let pleasures be crucified, and riches be crucified, and court and honour be crucified. And since the apostle saith that the world is crucified to him, we may put this world to the hanged man's doom, and to the gallows: and who will give much for a hanged man? as little should we give for a hanged and crucified world. Yet, what a sweet smell hath this dead carrion to many fools in the world! and how many wooers and suitors findeth this hanged carrion! Fools are pulling it off the gallows, and contending for it. Oh, when will we learn to be mortified men, and to have our fill of those things that have but their short summer quarter of this life! If we saw our Father's house, and that great and fair city, the New Jerusalem, which is up above sun and moon, we would cry to be over the water, and to be carried in Christ's arms out of this borrowed prison.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCXXIV.—To FULWOOD, the Younger

[WILLIAM SEMPLE of Fulwood, in the parish of Houston, near Kilmalcolm, in Renfrewshire, was probably connected with Semple of Beltrees, in the parish of Lochwinnoch.]

(VANITY OF THE WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF DEATH AND CHRIST—THE PRESENT TRUTH—CHRIST'S COMING.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Upon the report of this worthy bearer concerning you, I thought good to speak a word to you. It is enough for acquaintance that we are one in Christ.

My earnest desire to you is, that ye would, in the fear of God, compare your inch and hand-breadth of time with vast eternity, and your thoughts of this now fair, blooming, and green world, with the thoughts which ye will have of it when corruption and worms will make their house in your eye-holes, and eat your flesh, and make that body dry bones. If ye so do, I know then that your light of this world's vanity shall be more clear than now it is; and I am persuaded ye will then think that men's labours for this clay idol are to be laughed at. Therefore, come near, and take a view of that transparent beauty that is in Christ, which would busy the love of ten thousand millions of worlds and angels, and hold them all at work. Surely I am grieved, that men will not spend their whole love upon that royal and princely Well-beloved, that high and lofty One; for it is cursed love that runneth another way than upon Him. As for myself, if I had ten loves and ten souls, oh, how glad would I be, if He would break in upon me and take possession of them all! Wo, wo is me, that He and I are so far asunder! I hope we shall be in one country and one house together. Truly pain of love-sickness for Jesus maketh me to think it long, long, long to the dawning of that day. Oh that He would cut short years and months and hours, and overleap time, that we might meet!

And for this truth, Sir, that ye profess, I avow before the world of men and angels, that it is the way, and the only way to our country; the rest are by-ways; and, that what I suffer for is the apple of Christ's eye, even His honour as Lawgiver and King of His church. I think death too little ere I forsook it. Do not, Sir, I beseech you in the Lord, make Christ's court thinner by drawing back from Him (it is too thin already); for I dare pledge my heaven upon it, that He will win His plea, and that the fools who plea against Him shall lose the wager, which is their part of salvation, except they take better heed to their ways. Sir, free grace, that we give no hire for, is a jewel that our Lord giveth to few. Stand fast in the hope that you are called unto. Our Master will rend the clouds, and will be upon us quickly, and clear our cause, and bring us all out in our blacks and whites. Clean, clean garments, in the Bridegroom's eye, are of great worth. Step over this hand-breadth of world's glory into our Lord's new world of grace, and ye will laugh at the feathers that children are chasing in the air. I verily judge, that this inn, which men are building their nest in, is not worth a drink of cold water. It is a rainy and smoky house: best we come out of it, lest we be choked with the smoke thereof. Oh that my adversaries knew how sweet my sighs for Christ are, and what it is for a sinner to lay his head between Christ's breasts, and to be over head and ears in Christ's love! Alas, I cannot cause paper to speak the height, and breadth, and depth of it! I have not a balance to weigh the worth of my Lord Jesus. Heaven, ten heavens, would not be the beam of a balance to weigh Him in. I must give over praising Him. Angels see but little of Him. Oh, if that fair one would take the mask off His fair face, that I might see Him! A kiss of Him through His mask is half a heaven. O day, dawn! O time, run fast! O Bridegroom, post, post fast, that we may meet! O heavens, cleave in two, that that bright face and head may set itself through the clouds! Oh that the corn were ripe, and this world prepared for His hook! Sir, be pleased to remember a prisoner's bonds. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 10, 1637.

CCXXV.—To his Parishioners

(PROTESTATION OF CARE FOR THEIR SOULS AND GLORY OF GOD—DELIGHT IN HIS MINISTRY, AND IN HIS LORD—EFFORTS FOR THEIR SOULS—WARNING AGAINST ERRORS OF THE DAY—AWFUL WORDS TO THE BACKSULIDER—INTENSE ADMIRATION OF CHRIST—A LOUD CALL TO ALL.)

DEARLY BELOVED AND LONGED-FOR IN THE LORD, my crown and my joy in the day of Christ,—Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I long exceedingly to know if the oft-spoken-of match betwixt you and Christ holdeth, and if ye follow on to know the Lord. My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts are of you: while ye sleep I am afraid of your souls, that they be off the rock. Next to my Lord Jesus and this fallen kirk, ye have the greatest share of my sorrow, and also of my joy; ye are the matter of the tears, care, fear, and daily prayers of an oppressed prisoner of Christ. As I am in bonds for my high and lofty One, my royal and princely Master, my Lord Jesus; so I am in bonds for you. For I should have slept in my warm nest, and kept the fat world in my arms, and the cords of my tabernacle should have been fastened more strongly; I might have sung an evangel of ease to my soul and you for a time, with my brethren, the sons of my mother, that were angry at me, and have thrust me out of the vineyard; if I would have been broken, and drawn on to mire you, the Lord's flock, and to cause you to eat pastures trodden upon with men's feet, and to drink foul and muddy waters. But truly the Almighty was a terror to me, and His fear made me afraid. O my Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me, but not so dear by many degrees as Christ my Lord! God knoweth the sad and heavy Sabbaths I have had, since I laid down at my Master's feet my two shepherd's staves. I have been often saying, as it is written, "My enemies chased me sore like a bird, without cause: they have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me" (Lam. 3:52, 53). For, next to Christ, I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights, to preach Christ my Lord; and they have violently plucked that away from me. It was to me like the poor man's one eye; and they have put out that eye, and quenched my light in the inheritance of the Lord. But my eye is toward the Lord: I know that I shall see the salvation of God, and that my hope shall not always be forgotten. And my sorrow shall want nothing to complete it, and to make me say, "What availeth it me to live?" if ye follow the voice of a stranger, of one that cometh into the sheep-fold not by Christ the door, but climbeth up another way. If the man build his hay and stubble upon the golden foundation, Christ Jesus (already laid among you), and ye follow him, I assure you, the man's work shall burn and never bide God's fire: and ye and he both shall be in danger of everlasting burning except ye repent. Oh, if any pain, any sorrow, any loss that I can suffer for Christ, and for you, were laid in pledge to buy Christ's love to you! and that I could lay my dearest joys, next to Christ my Lord, in the gap betwixt you and eternal destruction! O if I had paper as broad as heaven and earth, and ink as the sea and all the rivers and fountains of the earth, and were able to write the love, the worth, the excellency, the sweetness, and due praises of our dearest and fairest Well-beloved! and then if ye could read and understand it! What could I want, if my ministry among you should make a marriage between the little bride in those bounds and the Bridegroom? Oh, how rich a prisoner were I, if I could obtain of my Lord (before whom I stand for you) the salvation of you all! Oh, what a prey had I gotten, to have you catched in Christ's net! Oh, then I had cast out my Lord's lines and His net with a rich gain! Oh then, well-wared pained breast, and sore back, and crazed body, in speaking early and late to you! My witness is above; your heaven would be two heavens to me, and the salvation of you all as two salvations to me. I would subscribe a suspension, and a fristing of my heaven for many hundred years (according to God's good pleasure), if ye were sure in the upper lodging, in our Father's house, before me. I take to witness heaven and earth against you, I take instruments in the hands of that sun and daylight that beheld us, and in the hands of the timber and walls of that kirk, if I drew not up a fair contract of marriage betwixt you and Christ, if I went not with offers betwixt the Bridegroom and you, and your conscience did bear you witness, your mouths confessed, that there were many fair trysts and meetings drawn on betwixt Christ and you at communion feasts, and other occasions? There were bracelets, jewels, rings, and love-letters, sent to you by the Bridegroom. It was told you what a fair dowry ye should have, and what a house your Husband and ye should dwell in, and what was the Bridegroom's excellency, sweetness, might, power, the eternity and glory of His kingdom, the exceeding deepness of His love, who sought His black wife through pain, fires, shame, death, and the grave, and swimmed the salt sea for her, undergoing the curse of the law, and then was made a curse for you; and ye then consented, and said, "Even so I take Him." I counsel you to beware of the new and strange leaven of men's inventions, beside and against the word of God, contrary to the oath of this kirk, now coming among you. I instructed you of the superstition and idolatry in kneeling in the instant of receiving the Lord's Supper, and of crossing in baptism, and of the observing of men's days, without any warrant of Christ our perfect Lawgiver. Countenance not the surplice, the attire of the mass-priest, the garment of Baal's priests. The abominable bowing to altars of tree (wood) is coming upon you. Hate, and keep yourselves from idols. Forbear in any case to hear the reading of the new fatherless Service-Book,2 full of gross heresies, popish and superstitious errors, without any warrant of Christ, tending to the overthrow of preaching. You owe no obedience to the bastard canons; they are unlawful, blasphemous, and superstitious. All the ceremonies that lie in Antichrist's foul womb, the wares of that great mother of fornications, the kirk of Rome, are to be refused. Ye see whither they lead you. Continue still in the doctrine which ye have received. Ye heard of me the whole counsel of God. Sew no clouts upon Christ's robe. Take Christ, in His rags and losses, and as persecuted by men, and be content to sigh and pant up the mountain, with Christ's cross on your back. Let me be reputed a false prophet (and your conscience once said the contrary), if your Lord Jesus will not stand by you and maintain you, and maintain your cause against your enemies.

I have heard, and my soul is grieved for it, that since my departure from you, many among you are turned back from the good old way, to the dog's vomit again. Let me speak to these men. It was not without God's special direction, that the first sentence that ever my month uttered to you was that, "And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind" (John 9:39). Is it possible that my first meeting and yours may be when we shall both stand before the dreadful Judge of the world; and in the name and authority of the Son of God, my great King and Master, I write, by these presents, summonses to those men. I arrest their souls and bodies to the day of our compearance. Their eternal damnation standeth subscribed, and sealed in heaven, by the hand-writing of the great Judge of quick and dead; and I am ready to stand up, as a preaching witness against such to their face, on that day, and to say "Amen" to their condemnation, except they repent. The vengeance of the Gospel is heavier than the vengeance of the Law; the Mediator's malediction and vengeance is twice vengeance; and that vengeance is the due portion of such men. And there I leave them as bond men, aye and whill they repent and amend.

Ye were witnesses how the Lord's day was spent while I was among you. O sacrilegious robber of God's day, what wilt thou answer the Almighty when He seeketh so many Sabbaths back again from thee? What will the curser, swearer, and blasphemer do, when his tongue shall be roasted in that broad and burning lake of fire and brimstone? And what will the drunkard do, when tongue, lungs, and liver, bones, and all, shall boil and shall fry in a torturing fire? He shall be far from his barrels of strong drink then; and there is not a cold well of water for him in hell. What shall be the case of the wretch, the covetous man, the oppressor, the deceiver, the earth-worm, who can never get his wombful of clay (Ps. 17:14), when, in the day of Christ, gold and silver must lie burnt in ashes, and he must compear and answer his Judge, and quit his clayey and noughty heaven? Wo, wo, for evermore, be to the time-turning atheist, who hath one god and one religion for summer, and another god and another religion for winter, and the day of fanning, when Christ fanneth all that is in His barn-floor: who hath a conscience for every fair and market, and the soul of him runneth upon these oiled wheels, time, custom, the world, and command of men. Oh, if the careless atheist, and sleeping man, who edgeth by all with, "God forgive our pastors if they lead us wrong, we must do as they command," and layeth down his head upon time's bosom, and giveth his conscience to a deputy, and sleepeth so, whill the smoke of hell-fire fly up in his throat, and cause him to start out of his doleful bed! Oh, if such a man would awake! Many woes are for the over-gilded and gold-plastered hypocrite. A heavy doom is for the liar and white-tongued flatterer; and the flying book of God's fearful vengeance, twenty cubits long, and ten cubits broad, that goeth out from the face of God, shall enter into the house, and in upon the soul of him that stealeth, and sweareth falsely by God's name (Zech. 5:2, 3). I denounce eternal burning, hotter than Sodom's flames, upon the men that boil in filthy lusts of fornication, adultery, incest, and the like wickedness. No room, no, not a foot-breadth, for such vile dogs within the clean Jerusalem. Many of you put off all with this, "God forgive us, we know no better." I renew my old answer: the Judge is coming in flaming fire, with all His mighty angels, to render vengeance to all those that know not God, and believe not (2 Thess. 1:8). I have often told you that security will slay you. All men say they have faith: as many men and women now, as many saints in heaven. And all believe (say ye); so that every foul dog is clean enough, and good enough, for the clean and new Jerusalem above. Every man hath conversion and the new birth; but it is not leal come. They had never a sick night for sin; conversion came to them in a night-dream. In a word, hell will be empty at the day of judgment, and heaven pang full! Alas! it is neither easy nor ordinary to believe and to be saved. Many must stand, in the end, at heaven's gates (Luke 13:25). When they go to take out their faith, they take out a fair nothing, or (as ye use to speak) a blaflum. Oh, lamentable disappointment! I pray you, I charge you in the name of Christ, make fast work of Christ and salvation.

I know there are some believers among you, and I write to you, O poor broken-hearted believers: all the comforts of Christ in the Old and New Testaments are yours. Oh, what a Father and Husband ye have! Oh, if I had pen and ink, and ingine to write of Him! Let heaven and earth be consolidated into massy and pure gold, it will not weigh the thousandth part of Christ's love to a soul, even to me a poor prisoner. Oh, that is a massy and marvellous love! Men and angels! unite your force and strength in one, ye shall not heave nor poise it off the ground. Ten thousand worlds, as many worlds as angels can number, and then as a new world of angels can multiply, would not all be the balk of a balance to weigh Christ's excellency, sweetness, and love. Put ten earths into one, and let a rose grow greater than ten whole earths, or whole worlds, oh, what beauty would be in it, and what a smell would it cast! But a blast of the breath of that fairest Rose in all God's paradise, even of Christ Jesus our Lord, one look of that fairest face, would be infinitely in beauty, and smell, above all imaginable and created glory. I wonder that men dow bide off Christ. I would esteem myself blessed, if I could make an open proclamation, and gather all the world, that are living upon the earth, Jew and Gentile, and all that shall be born till the blowing of the last trumpet, to flock round about Christ, and to stand looking, wondering, admiring, and adoring His beauty and sweetness. For His fire is hotter than any other fire, His love sweeter than common love, His beauty surpasseth all other beauty. When I am heavy and sad, one of His love-looks would do me meikle worlds' good. Oh, if ye would fall in love with Him, how blessed were I! how glad would my soul be to help you to love Him! But amongst us all, we could not love Him enough. He is the Son of the Father's love, and God's delight; the Father's love lieth all upon Him. Oh, if all mankind would fetch all their love and lay it upon Him! Invite Him, and take Him home to your houses, in the exercise of prayer morning and evening, as I often desired you; especially now, let Him not want lodging in your houses, nor lie in the fields, when He is shut out of pulpits and kirks. If ye will be content to take heaven by violence and the wind on your face for Christ and His cross, I am here one who hath some trial of Christ's cross, and I can say, that Christ was ever kind to me, but He over-cometh Himself (if I may speak so) in kindness while I suffer for Him. I give you my word for it, Christ's cross is not so evil as they call it; it is sweet, light, and comfortable. I would not want the visitations of love, and the very breathings of Christ's mouth when He kisseth, and my Lord's delightsome smiles and love-embracements under my sufferings for Him, for a mountain of gold, or for all the honours, court, and grandeur of velvet kirkmen. Christ hath the yoke and heart of my love. "I am my Beloved's, and my Well-beloved is mine."

Oh that ye were all hand-fasted to Christ! O my dearly-beloved in the Lord, I would I could change my voice, and had a tongue tuned by the hands of my Lord, and had the art of speaking of Christ, that I might point out to you the worth, and highness, and greatness, and excellency of that fairest and renowned Bridegroom! I beseech you by the mercies of the Lord, by the sighs, tears, and heart's-blood of our Lord Jesus, by the salvation of your poor and precious souls, set up the mountain, that ye and I may meet before the Lamb's throne amongst the congregation of the first-born. Lord grant that that may be the trysting-place! that ye and I may put up our hands together, and pluck and eat the apples off the tree of life, and that we may feast together, and drink together of that pure river of the water of life, that cometh out from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Oh, how little is your hand-breadth and span-length of days here! Your inch of time is less than when ye and I parted. Eternity, eternity is coming, posting on with wings; then shall every man's blacks and whites be brought to light. Oh, how low will your thoughts be of this fair-skinned but heart-rotten apple, the vain, vain, feckless world, when the worms shall make them houses in your eye-holes, and shall eat off the flesh from the balls of your cheeks, and shall make that body a number of dry bones! Think not that the common gate of serving God, as neighbours and others do, will bring you to heaven. Few, few are saved. The devil's court is thick and many; he hath the greatest number of mankind for his vassals. I know this world is a forest of thorns in your way to heaven; but you must go through it. Acquaint yourselves with the Lord: hold fast Christ; hear His voice only. Bless His name; sanctify and keep holy His day; keep the new commandment, "Love one another;" let the Holy Spirit dwell in your bodies; and be clean and holy. Love not the world: lie not, love and follow truth: learn to know God. Keep in mind what I taught you; for God will seek an account of it, when I am far from you. Abstain from all evil, and all appearance of evil: follow good carefully, and seek peace and follow after it: honour your king, and pray for him. Remember me to God in your prayers; I dow not forget you. I told you often while I was with you, and now I write it again, heavy, sad, and sore is that stroke of the Lord's wrath that is coming upon Scotland. Wo, wo, wo to this harlot-land! for they shall take the cup of God's wrath from His hands, and drink, and spue, and fall, and not rise again. In, in, in with speed to your stronghold, ye prisoners of hope, and hide you there whill the anger of the Lord pass! Follow not the pastors of this land, for the sun is gone down upon them. As the Lord liveth, they lead you from Christ, and from the good old way. Yet the Lord will keep the holy city, and make this withered kirk to bud again like a rose, and a field blessed of the Lord.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. The prayers and blessings of a prisoner of Christ, in bonds for Him, and for you, be with you all. Amen.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, July 13, 1637.

CCXXVI.—To the LADY KILCONQUHAR

[LADY KILCONQUHAR, whose maiden name was Helen Murray, being the third daughter of Sir Archibald Murray of Blackbarony, was the wife of Sir John Carstairs of Kilconquhar, in the county of Fife. Her mother, Margaret Maule, was of the family of Panmure. Their youngest daughter, Bethia, in 1656, married Thomas Rigg of Athernie. The house of Kilconquhar (called Kinneucher by the people) is near the loch and the village, with Elie not far off on one side, and Balcarras on the other. The loch with its swans, the woods, and the sea so near, make it a pleasant spot.]

(THE INTERESTS OF THE SOUL MOST URGENT—FOLLY OF THE WORLD—CHRIST ALTOGETHER LOVELY—HIS PEN FAILS TO SET FORTH CHRISTS UNSPEAKABLE BEAUTY.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am glad to hear that ye have your face homewards towards your Father's house, now when so many are for a home nearer hand. But your Lord calleth you to another life and glory than is to be found hereaway; and, therefore, I would counsel you to make sure the charters and rights which ye have to salvation. You came to this life about a necessary and weighty business, to tryste with Christ anent your precious soul, and the eternal salvation of it. This is the most necessary business ye have in this life; and your other adoes beside this are but toys, and feathers, and dreams, and fancies. This is in the greatest haste, and should be done first. Means are used in the Gospel to draw on a meeting betwixt Christ and you. If ye neglect your part of it, it is as if ye would tear the contract before Christ's eyes, and give up the match, that there may be no more communing about that business. I know that other lovers beside Christ are in suit of you, and your soul hath many wooers; but I pray you to make a chaste virgin of your soul, and let it love but one. Most worthy is Christ alone of all your soul's love, howbeit your love were higher than the heaven, and deeper than the lowest of this earth, and broader than this world. Many, alas! too many, make a common strumpet of their soul for every lover that cometh to the house. Marriage with Christ would put your love and your heart by the gate, out of the way, and out of the eye of all other unlawful suitors; and then you have a ready answer for all others, "I am already promised away to Christ; the match is concluded, my soul hath a husband already, and it cannot have two husbands." Oh, if the world did but know what a smell the ointments of Christ cast, and how ravishing His beauty (even the beauty of the fairest of the sons of men) is, and how sweet and powerful His voice is, the voice of that one Well-beloved! Certainly, where Christ cometh, He runneth away with the soul's love, so that it cannot be commanded. I would far rather look but through the hole of Christ's door, to see but the one half of His fairest and most comely face (for He looketh like heaven!), suppose I should never win in to see His excellency and glory to the full, than enjoy the flower, the bloom, and the chiefest excellency of the glory and riches of ten worlds. Lord, send me, for my part, but the meanest share of Christ that can be given to any of the indwellers of the New Jerusalem. But I know my Lord is no niggard: He can, and it becometh Him well to give more than my narrow soul can receive. If there were ten thousand thousand millions of worlds, and as many heavens full of men and angels, Christ would not be pinched to supply all our wants, and to fill us all. Christ is a well of life; but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom? This soul of ours hath love, and cannot but love some fair one. And oh, what a fair One, what an only One, what an excellent, lovely, ravishing One, is Jesus! Put the beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of paradises, like the garden of Eden in one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colours, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all loveliness, in one: oh, what a fair and excellent thing would that be! And yet it would be less to that fair and dearest Well-beloved, Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths. Oh, but Christ is heaven's wonder, and earth's wonder! What marvel that His bride saith (Cant. 5:16), "He is altogether lovely!" Oh that black souls will not come and fetch all their love to this fair One! Oh, if I could invite and persuade thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand of Adam's sons, to flock about my Lord Jesus, and to come and take their fill of love! Oh, pity for evermore, that there should be such a one as Christ Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, and so incomparable in infinite excellency and sweetness, and so few to take Him! Oh, oh, ye poor, dry, and dead souls, why will ye not come hither with your toom vessels, and your empty souls, to this huge, and fair, and deep, and sweet well of life, and fill all your toom vessels? Oh that Christ should be so large in sweetness and worth, and we so narrow, so pinched, so ebb, and so void of all happiness. And yet men will not take Him! They lose their love miserably, who will not bestow it upon this lovely One. Alas! these five thousand years, Adam's fools, his waster (Prov. 18:9) heirs, have been wasting and lavishing out their love and their affections upon black lovers, and black harlots, upon bits of dead creatures, and broken idols, upon this and that feckless creature; and have not brought their love and their heart to Jesus. Oh, pity, that Fairness hath so few lovers! Oh, wo, wo to the fools of this world, who run by Christ to other lovers! Oh, misery, misery, misery, that comeliness can scarce get three or four hearts in a town or country! Oh that there is so much spoken, and so much written, and so much thought of creature vanity; and so little spoken, so little written, and so little thought of my great, and incomprehensible, and never enough wondered at Lord Jesus! Why should I not curse this forlorn and wretched world, that suffereth my Lord Jesus to lie His lone? O damned souls! O miskenning world! O blind, O beggarly and poor souls! O bewitched fools! what aileth you at Christ, that you run so from Him? I dare not challenge providence, that there are so few buyers, and so little sale for such an excellent one as Christ. (O the depth, and, O the height of my Lord's ways, that pass finding out!) But oh, if men would once be wise, and not fall so in love with their own hell as to pass by Christ, and misken Him! But let us come near, and fill ourselves with Christ, and let His friends drink, and be drunken, and satisfy our hollow and deep desires with Jesus. Oh, come all and drink at this living well; come, drink and live for evermore; come, drink and welcome! "Welcome," saith our fairest Bridegroom. No man getteth Christ with ill will; no man cometh and is not welcome. No man cometh and rueth his voyage; all men speak well of Christ who have been at Him: men and angels who know Him will say more than I dow do, and think more of Him than they can say. Oh, if I were misted and bewildered in my Lord's love! Oh, if I were fettered and chained to it! Oh, sweet pain, to be pained for a sight of Him! Oh, living death, oh, good death, oh, lovely death, to die for love of Jesus! Oh that I should have a sore heart, and a pained soul, for the want of this and that idol! Wo, wo to the mistakings of my miscarrying heart, that gapeth and crieth for creatures, and is not pained, and cut, and tortured, and in sorrow, for the want of a soul's-fill of the love of Christ! Oh that Thou wouldst come near, my Beloved! O my fairest One why standeth Thou afar! Come hither, that I may be satiated with Thy excellent love. Oh for a union! oh for a fellowship with Jesus! Oh that I could buy with a price that lovely One, even suppose that hell's torments for a while were the price! I cannot believe but Christ will rue upon His pained lovers, and come and ease sick hearts, who sigh and swoon for want of Christ. Who dow bide Christ's love to be nice? What heaven can be there liker to hell, than to lust, and green, and dwine, and fall a swoon for Christ's love, and to want it? Is not this hell and heaven woven through-other? Is not this pain and joy, sweetness and sadness, to be in one web, the one the weft, the other the warp? Therefore, I would that Christ would let us meet and join together, the soul and Christ in each other's arms. Oh what meeting is like this, to see blackness and beauty, contemptibleness and glory, highness and baseness, even a soul and Christ, kiss each other! Nay, but when all is done, I may be wearied in speaking and writing; but, oh, how far am I from the right expression of Christ or His love? I can neither speak nor write feeling, nor tasting, nor smelling: come feel, and smell, and taste Christ and His love, and ye shall call it more than can be spoken. To write how sweet the honeycomb is, is not so lovely as to eat and suck the honeycomb. One night's rest in a bed of love with Christ will say more than heart can think, or tongue can utter. Neither need we fear crosses, nor sigh nor be sad for anything that is on this side of heaven, if we have Christ. Our crosses will never draw blood of the joy of the Holy Ghost, and peace of conscience. Our joy is laid up in such a high place, as temptations cannot climb up to take it down. This world may bost Christ, but they dare not strike; or, if they strike, they break their arm in fetching a stroke upon a rock. Oh that we could put our treasures in Christ's hand, and give him our gold to keep, and our crown. Strive, Mistress, to thring through the thorns of this life, to be at Christ. Tine not sight of Him in this cloudy and dark day. Sleep with Him in your heart in the night. Learn not at the world to serve Christ, but speer at Himself the way; the world is a false copy, and a lying guide to follow.

Remember my love to your husband. I wish all to him that I have written here. The sweet presence, the long-lasting good-will of our God, the warmly and lovely comforts of our Lord Jesus, be with you. Help me His prisoner in your prayers; for I remember you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, August 8, 1637.

CCXXVII.—To my LORD CRAIGHALL

(STANDING FOR CHRIST—DANGER FROM FEAR, OR PROMISES OF MEN—CHRIST'S REQUITALS—SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT.)

MY LORD,—I received one letter of your Lordship's from C., and another of late from A. B., wherein I find your Lordship in perplexity what to do. But let me entreat your Lordship not to cause yourself to mistake Truth and Christ, because they seem to encounter with your peace and ease. My Lord, remember that a prisoner hath written this to you, that, "as the Lord liveth, if ye put to your hand with other apostates in this land, to pull down the sometime beautiful tabernacle of Christ in this land, and join hands with them in one hair-breadth to welcome Antichrist to Scotland, there is wrath gone out from the Lord against you and your house." If the terror of a king hath overtaken you, and your Lordship looketh to sleep in your nest in peace, and to take the nearest shore, there are many ways (too, too many ways) how to shift Christ with some ill-washen and foul distinctions. But assure yourself, suppose a king should assure you that he would be your god (as shall never be) for that piece of service, your clay god shall die. And your carnal counsellors, when your conscience shall storm against you, and ye complain to them, will say, "What is this to us?" Believe not that Christ is weak, or that He is not able to save. Of two fires that you cannot pass, take the least. Some few years will bring us all out in our blacks and whites before our Judge. Eternity is nearer to you than you are aware of. To go on in a course of defection, when an enlightened conscience is stirring, and looking you in the face, and crying within you, "That you are going in an evil way," is a step to the sin against the Holy Ghost. Either many of this land are near that sin, or else I know not what it is. And if this, for which I now suffer, be not the way of peace and the King's highway to salvation, I believe there is not a way at all. There is not such breadth and elbow-room in the way to heaven as men believe.

Howbeit this day be not Christ's, the morrow shall be His. I believe assuredly that our Lord will repair the old waste places, and His ruined houses in Scotland; and that this wilderness shall yet blossom as the rose. My very worthy and dear Lord, wait upon Him who hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and look for Him. Wait patiently a little upon the Bridegroom's return again, that your soul may live, and that ye may rejoice with the Lord's inheritance. I dare pawn my soul and life for it, that if ye take this storm with borne-down Christ, your sky shall quickly clear, and your fair morning dawn. Think (as the truth is) that Christ is just now saying, "And will ye also leave Me?" Ye have a fair occasion to gratify Christ now, if ye will stay with Him, and want the night's sleep with your suffering Saviour one hour, now when Scotland hath fallen asleep, and leaveth Christ to fend for Himself. I profess myself but a weak, feeble man. When I came first to Christ's camp, I had nothing to maintain this war, or to bear me out in this encounter; and I am little better yet. But since I find furniture, armour, and strength from the consecrated Captain, the Prince of our salvation, who was perfected through suffering, I esteem suffering for Christ a king's life. I find that our wants qualify us for Christ. And, howbeit your Lordship write that ye despair to attain to such a communion and fellowship (which I would not have you to think), yet, would ye nobly and courageously venture to make over to Christ, for His honour now lying at the stake, your estate, place, and honour, He would lovingly and largely requite you, and give you a king's word for a recompense. Venture upon Christ's "Come," and I dare swear ye will say, "I bless the Lord who gave me counsel" (Ps. 16:7). My very worthy Lord, many eyes, in both the kingdoms, are upon you now, and the eye of our Lord is upon you. Acquit yourself manfully for Christ; spill not this good play. Subscribe a blank submission, and put it into Christ's hands. Win, win the blessings and prayers of your sighing and sorrowful mother-church seeking your help: win Christ's bond (who is a King of His word), for a hundredfold more even in this life.

If a weak man hath passed a promise to a king, to make slip to Christ (if we look to flesh and blood, I wonder not of it; possibly I might have done worse myself), add not further guiltiness to go on in such a scandalous and foul way. Remember that there is a wo, wo to him by whom offences come. This wo came out of Christ's mouth, and it is heavier than the wo of the law. It is the Mediator's vengeance, and that is two vengeances to those who are enlightened. Free yourself from unlawful anguish, about advising and resolving. When the truth is come to your hand, hold it fast; go not again to make a new search and inquiry for truth. It is easy to cause conscience to believe as ye will, not as ye know. It is easy for you to cast your light into prison, and detain God's truth in unrighteousness: but that prisoner will break ward, to your incomparable torture. Fear your light, and stand in awe of it: for it is from God. Think what honour it is in this life also to be enrolled to the succeeding ages amongst Christ's witnesses, standing against the re-entry of Antichrist. I know certainly that your light, looking to two ways, and to the two sides, crieth shame upon the course that they would counsel you to follow. The way that is halver and copartner with the smoke of this fat world (Ps. 37:20), and wit and ease, smelleth strong of a foul and false way.

The Prince of peace, He who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of His sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish you, and give you sound light, and counsel you to follow Christ. Remember my obliged service to my Lord your father, and mother, and your lady.

Grace be with you.

Your Lordship's, at all obliged obedience, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, August 10, 1637.

CCXXVIII.—To MR. JAMES FLEMING

[JAMES FLEMING was minister of Abbey St. Bathans, now called Yester, a parish in the Presbytery of Haddington, East Lothian. He had previously lived some time in England, and is described by Livingstone as "an ingenuous, single-hearted man." Livingstone was related to him, having been married to the eldest daughter of his brother, Bartholomew Fleming, merchant in Edinburgh, and was present with him at his "gracious death." Fleming was opposed to Prelacy, and the ceremonies which James VI. and Charles I. were so zealous in attempting to impose on the Church of Scotland. In the controversy occasioned by the Public Resolutions, he took the side of the party favourable to them. He was first married to Martha, eldest daughter of John Knox, the celebrated Scottish Reformer. He married a second wife, by whom he had the well-known Robert Fleming, the author of the "Fulfilling of the Scriptures," who was minister of Cambuslang, and afterwards of the Scottish congregation in Rotterdam, whither he retired some years after his ejection for nonconformity, on the restoration of Charles II.]

(GLORY GAINED TO CHRIST—SPIRITUAL DEADNESS—HELP TO PRAISE HIM—THE MINISTRY.)

REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter, which hath refreshed me in my bonds. I cannot but testify unto you, my dear brother, what sweetness I find in our Master's cross; but, alas, what can I either do or suffer for Him! If I my lone had as many lives as there have been drops of rain since the creation, I would think them too little for that lovely One, our Well-beloved; but my pain and my sorrow is above my sufferings, that I find not ways to set out the praises of His love to others. I am not able, by tongue, pen, or sufferings, to provoke many to fall in love with Him: but He knoweth, whom I love to serve in the Spirit, what I would do and suffer by His own strength, so being that I might make my Lord Jesus lovely and sweet to many thousands in this land. I think it amongst God's wonders, that He will take any praise or glory, or any testimony to His honourable cause, from such a forlorn sinner as I am. But when Christ worketh, He needeth not ask the question, by whom He will be glorious. I know (seeing His glory at the beginning did shine out of poor nothing, to set up such a fair house for men and angels, and so many glorious creatures, to proclaim His goodness, power, and wisdom) that, if I were burnt to ashes, out of the smoke and powder of my dissolved body He could raise glory to Himself. His glory is His end: oh that I could join with Him to make it my end! I would think that fellowship with Him sweet and glorious. But, alas! few know the guiltiness that is on my part: it is a wonder, that this good cause hath not been marred and spilled in my foul hands. But I rejoice in this, that my sweet Lord Jesus hath found something ado, even a ready market for His free grace and incomparable and matchless mercy, in my wants. Only my loathsome wretchedness and my wants have qualified me for Christ, and the riches of His glorious grace. He behoved to take me for nothing, or else to want me. Few know the unseen and private reckonings betwixt Christ and me; yet His love, His boundless love would not bide away, nor stay at home with Himself. And yet I do not make it welcome as I ought, when it is come unsent-for and without hire.

How joyful is my heart, that ye write that ye are desirous to join with me in praising; for it is a charity to help a dyvour to pay his debts. But when all have helped me, my name shall stand in His account-book under ten thousand thousands of sums unpaid. But it easeth my heart that His dear servants will but speak of my debts to such a sweet Creditor. I desire that He may lay me in His own balance and weigh me, if I would not fain have a feast of His boundless love made to my own soul, and to many others. One thing I know, that we shall not at all be able to come near His excellency with eye, heart, or tongue; for He is above all created thoughts. All nations before Him are as nothing, and less than nothing: He sitteth in the circuit of heaven, and the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him. Oh that men would praise Him!

Ye complain of your private case. Alas! I am not the man to speak to such an one as ye are. Any sweet presence which I have had in this town, is, I know, for this cause, that I might express and make it known to others. But I never find myself nearer Christ, that royal and princely One, than after a great weight and sense of deadness and gracelessness. I think that the sense of our wants, when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and can make a din, because we want Him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door to Christ. And when we think we are going backward, because we feel deadness, we are going forward; for the more sense, the more life; and no sense argueth no life. There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our sores to Him. But for myself, I am ashamed of Christ's goodness and love, since the time of my bonds; for He hath been pleased to open up new treasures of love and felt sweetness, and give visitations of love and access to Himself, in this strange land. I would think a fill of His love young and green heaven. And when He is pleased to come, and the tide is in, and the sea full, and the King and a poor prisoner together in the house-of-wine, the black tree of the cross is not so heavy as a feather. I cannot, I dow not, but give Christ an honourable and glorious testimony.

I see that the Lord can ride through His enemies' bands, and triumph in the sufferings of His own; and that this blind world seeth not that sufferings are Christ's armour, wherein He is victorious. And they who contend with Zion see not what He is doing, when they are set to work, as under-smiths and servants, to the work of refining the saints. Satan's hand also, by them, is at the melting of the Lord's vessels of mercy, and their office in God's house is to scour and cleanse vessels for the King's table. I marvel not to see them triumph, and sit at ease in Zion; for our Father must lay up His rods, and keep them carefully for His own use. Our Lord cannot want fire in His house: His furnace is in Zion, and His fire in Jerusalem. But little know the adversaries the counsel and the thoughts of the Lord.

And for your complaints of your ministry. I now think all I do too little. Plainness, freedom, watchfulness, fidelity, shall swell upon you, in exceeding large comforts, in your sufferings. The feeding of Christ's lambs in private visitations and catechising, in painful preaching, and fair, honest, and free warning of the flock, is a sufferer's garland. Oh, ten thousand times blessed are they, who are honoured of Christ to be faithful and painful in wooing a bride to Christ! My dear brother, I know that ye think more on this than I can write; and I rejoice that your purpose is, in the Lord's strength, to back your wronged Master; and to come out, and call yourself Christ's man, when so many are now denying Him, as fearing that Christ cannot do for Himself and them. I am a lost man for ever, or this, this is the way to salvation, even this way, which they call heresy, that men now do mock and scoff at. I am confirmed now that Christ will accept of His servant's sufferings as good service to Him at the day of His Appearance; and that, ere it be long, He will be upon us all, and men in their blacks and whites shall be brought out before God, angels, and men. Our Master is not far off. Oh, if we could wait on and be faithful! The good-will of Him who dwelt in The Bush, the tender favour and love, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you.

Help me with your prayers; and desire, from me, other brethren to take courage for their Master.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, August 15, 1637.

CCXXIX.—To MR. HUGH MACKAIL of Irvine

(THE LAW—THIS WORLD UNDER CHRIST'S CONTROL FOR THE BELIEVER.)

MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—Ye know that men may take their sweet fill of the sour Law, in Grace's ground, and betwixt the Mediator's breasts. And this is the sinner's safest way; for there is a bed for wearied sinners to rest them in, in the New Covenant, though no bed of Christ's making to sleep in. The Law shall never be my doomster, by Christ's grace. If I get no more good of it (I shall find a sore enough doom in the Gospel to humble, and to cast me down), it is, I grant, a good rough friend to follow a traitor to the bar, and to back him till he come to Christ. We may blame ourselves, who cause the Law to crave well-paid debt, to scare us away from Jesus, and dispute about a righteousness of our own, a world in the moon, a chimera, and a night-dream that pride is father and mother to. There cannot be a more humble soul than a believer; it is no pride for a drowning man to catch hold of a rock.

I rejoice that the wheels of this confused world are rolled, and cogged, and driven according as our Lord willeth. Out of whatever airth the wind blow, it will blow us on our Lord. No wind can blow our sails overboard; because Christ's skill, and honour of His wisdom, are empawned and laid down at the stake for the sea-passengers, that He shall put them safe off His hand on the shore, in His Father's known bounds, our native home ground.

My dear brother, scaur not at the cross of Christ. It is not seen yet what Christ will do for you, when it cometh to the worst: He will keep His grace till ye be at a strait, and then bring forth the decreed birth for your salvation (Zeph. 2:2). Ye are an arrow of His own making; let Him shoot you against a wall of brass, your point shall keep whole. I cannot, for multitude of letters and distraction of friends, prepare what I would for the times: I have not one hour of spare time, suppose the day were forty hours long.

Remember me in prayer. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 5, 1637.

CCXXX.—To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, my LADY KENMURE

(BELIEVER SAFE THOUGH TRIED—DELIGHT IN CHRIST'S TRUTH.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.—God be thanked ye are yet in possession of Christ, and that sweet child. I pray God that the former may be a sure heritage, and the latter a loan for your comfort, while ye do good to His poor, afflicted, withered Mount Zion. And who knoweth but our Lord hath comforts laid up in store for her and you! I am persuaded that Christ hath bought you past the devil, and hell, and sin, so that they have no claim to you; and that is a rich and invaluable mercy. Long since, ye were half challenging death's cold kindness, in being so slow and sweer to come to loose a tired prisoner; but ye stand in need of all the crosses, losses, changes, and sad hearts that befell you since that time. Christ knoweth that the body of sin unsubdued will take them all, and more: we know that Paul had need of the devil's service, to buffet him; and far more we. But, my dear and honourable Lady, spend your sand-glass well. I am sure that you have law to raise a suspension against all that devils, men, friends, worlds, losses, hell, or sin, can decree against you. It is good that your crosses will but convoy you to heaven's gates: in, they cannot go; the gates shall be closed upon them, when ye shall be admitted to the throne. Time standeth not still, eternity is hard at our door. Oh, what is laid up for you! therefore, harden your face against the wind. And the Lamb, your Husband, is making ready for you. The Bridegroom would fain have that day, as gladly as your Honour would wish to have it. He hath not forgotten you.

I have heard a rumour of the prelates' purpose to banish me. But let it come, if God so will: the other side of the sea is my Father's ground, as well as this side. I owe bowing to God, but no servile bowing to crosses: I have been but too soft in that. I am comforted that I am persuaded fully, that Christ is halfer with me in this well-born and honest cross; and if He claim right to the best half of my troubles (as I know He doth to the whole), I shall remit over to Christ what I shall do in this case. I know certainly, that my Lord Jesus will not mar nor spill my sufferings; He hath use for them in His house.

Oh, what it worketh on me to remember that a stranger, who cometh not in by the door, shall build hay and stubble upon the golden foundation which I laid amongst that people at Anwoth! But I know that Providence looketh not asquint, but looketh straight out, and through all men's darkness. Oh that I could wait upon the Lord! I had but one eye, one joy, one delight, even to preach Christ; and my mother's sons were angry at me, and have put out the poor man's one eye, and what have I behind? I am sure that this sour world hath lost my heart deservedly; but oh that there were a daysman to lay his hands upon us both, and determine upon my part of it. Alas, that innocent and lovely truth should be sold! My tears are little worth, but yet for this thing I weep. I weep, alas, that my fair and lovely Lord Jesus should be miskent in His own house! It reckoneth little of five hundred the like of me; yet the water goeth not over faith's breath. Yet our King liveth.

I write the prisoner's blessings: the good-will, and long-lasting kindness, with the comforts of the very God of peace, be to your Ladyship, and to your sweet child. Grace, grace be with you.

Your Honour's, at all obedience, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 5, 1637.

CCXXXI.—To the Right Honourable my LORD LINDSAY

[JOHN, TENTH LORD LINDSAY, resided at Byres, a house near Balgonie, which in old charters is mentioned along with Pitcruvie as belonging to the Lindsays. He was the son of Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay, by his wife Lady Christian Hamilton, eldest daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington. (See Letter LXXVII.) He was born about 1596, and was created Earl of Lindsay, 8th May 1633. On the 23rd of July 1644 he was constituted Lord High Treasurer of Scotland; and on the forfeiture of Ludovick, Earl of Crawford, he had the title and estate of that nobleman conferred on him by Act of Parliament, 26th July the same year, so that he was thereafter designed Earl of Crawford and Lindsay. Having entered with zeal into the "Engagement" for raising an army to attempt the rescue of the King in 1648, he was deprived of his offices by the Act of Classes, and excluded from Parliament till King Charles II. came to Scotland in 1650, when a coalition of parties took place. For the same reason, he fell under a censure of the church; but was restored in July 1650. On the Restoration, he was reinstated in his offices of High Treasurer of Scotland and Extraordinary Lord of Session. He warmly opposed the Act Rescissory, annulling all the Parliaments since 1633, as a terrible precedent, destroying the whole security of government. In 1633, scrupling to take the declaration, he resigned his situation as Lord High Treasurer for Scotland. Next year he gave up his place of Extraordinary Lord of Session, and retired to his country seat. "He was a man of great virtue, of good abilities, and of an exemplary life in all respects. He died at Tyninghame in 1676, aged about eighty" (Douglas' "Peerage"). Rutherford's treatise, entitled "A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Paul's Presbytery in Scotland, printed at London in 1642," is dedicated to this nobleman.]

(THE CHURCH'S DESOLATIONS—THE END OF THE WORLD, AND CHRIST'S COMING—HIS ATTRACTIVENESS.)

RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Lordship.—Pardon my boldness to express myself to your Lordship at this so needful a time, when your wearied and friendless mother-kirk is looking round about her, to see if any of her sons doth really bemoan her desolation. Therefore, my dear and worthy Lord, I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, pity that widow-like sister and spouse of Christ. I know that her Husband is not dead, but He seemeth to be in another country, and seeth well, and beholdeth who are His true and tender-hearted friends, who dare venture under the water to bring out to dry land sinking truth; and who of the nobles will cast up their arm to ward a blow off the crowned head of our royal Lawgiver who reigneth in Zion, who will plead and contend for Jacob in the day of his controversy.

It is now time, my worthy and noble Lord, for you who are the little nurse-fathers, under our sovereign prince, to put on courage for the Lord Jesus, and to take up a fallen orphan, speaking out of the dust, and to embrace in your arms Christ's Bride. He hath no more in Scotland that is the delight of His eyes, than that one little sister, whose breasts were once well-fashioned. She once ravished her Well-beloved with her eyes, and overcame Him with her beauty: "She looked forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners: her stature was like the palm-tree, and her breasts like clusters of grapes, and she held the King in the galleries" (Cant. 4:9; 6:10; 7:5, 7). But now the crown is fallen from her head, and her gold waxed dim, and our white Nazarites are become black as the coal. Blessed are they who will come out and help Christ against the mighty! The shields of the earth and the nobles are debtors to Christ for their honour, and should bring their glory and honour to the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:24). Alas, that great men should be so far from subjecting themselves to the sweet yoke of Christ, that they burst His bonds asunder, and think they dow not go on foot when Christ is on horseback, and that every nod of Christ, commanding as King, is a load like a mountain of iron. And, therefore, they say, "This man shall not reign over us; we must have another king than Christ in His own house." Therefore, kneel to Christ, and kiss the Son, and let Him have your Lordship's vote, as your alone Lawgiver. I am sure that when you leave the old waste inn of this perishing life, and shall reckon with your host, and depart hence, and take shipping, and make over for eternity, which is the yonder side of time (and a sand-glass of threescore short years is running out), to look over your shoulder then to that which ye have done, spoken, and suffered for Christ, His dear Bride that He ransomed with that blood which is more precious than gold, and for truth, and the freedom of Christ's kingdom, your accounts will more sweetly smile and laugh upon you than if you had two worlds of gold to leave to your posterity. O my dear Lord, consider that our Master, eternity, and judgment, and the Last Reckoning, will be upon us in the twinkling of an eye. The blast of the last trumpet, now hard at hand, will cry down all Acts of Parliament, all the determinations of pretended assemblies, against Christ our Lawgiver. There will be shortly a proclamation by One standing in the clouds, "that time shall be no more," and that courts with kings of clay shall be no more; and prisons, confinements, forfeitures of nobles, wrath of kings, hazard of lands, houses, and name, for Christ, shall be no more. This world's span-length of time is drawn now to less than half an inch, and to the point of the evening of the day of this old gray-haired world. And, therefore, be fixed and fast for Christ and His truth for a time; and fear not him whose life goeth out at his nostrils, who shall die as a man. I am persuaded Christ is responsal and law-biding, to make recompense for anything that is hazarded or given out for Him. Losses for Christ are but our goods given out in bank, in Christ's hand. Kings earthly are well-favoured little clay-gods, time's idols; but a sight of our invisible King shall decry and darken all the glory of this world. At the day of Christ, truth shall be truth, and not treason. Alas! it is pitiful that silence, when the thatch of our Lord's house hath taken fire, is now the flower and bloom of court and state wisdom; and to cast a covering over a good profession (as if it blushed at the light), is thought a canny and sure way through this life. But the safest way, I am persuaded, is to tine and win with Christ, and to hazard fairly for Him; for heaven is but a company of noble venturers for Christ. I dare hazard my soul, that Christ will grow green, and blossom like the Rose of Sharon yet in Scotland, howbeit now His leaf seemeth to wither, and His root to dry up.

Your noble ancestors have been enrolled amongst the worthies of this nation, as the sure friends of the Bridegroom, and valiant for Christ: I hope that you will follow on to come to the streets for the same Lord. The world is still at yea and nay with Christ. It shall be your glory, and the sure foundation of your house (now when houses are tumbling down, and birds building their nests, and thorns and briers are growing up, where nobles did spread a table), if you engage your estate and nobility for this noble King Jesus, with whom the created powers of the world are still in tops. All the world shall fall before Him, and (as God liveth!) every arm lifted up to take the crown off His royal head, or that refuseth to hold it on His head, shall be broken from the shoulder-blade. The eyes that behold Christ weep in sackcloth, and wallow in His blood, and will not help, even these eyes shall rot away in their eye-holes. Oh, if ye and the nobles of this land saw the beauty of that world's wonder, Jesus our King, and the glory of Him who is angels' wonder, and heaven's wonder for excellency! Oh, what would men count of clay estates, of time-eaten life, of worm-eaten and moth-eaten worldly glory, in comparison of that fairest, fairest of God's creation, the Son of the Father's delights! I have but small experience of suffering for Him; but let my Judge and Witness in heaven lay my soul in the balance of justice, if I find not a young heaven, and a little paradise of glorious comforts and soul-delighting love-kisses of Christ, here beneath the moon, in suffering for Him and His truth; and that the glory, joy, and peace, and fire of love, which I thought had been kept whill supper-time, when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon Christ, I have felt in glorious beginnings, in my bonds for this princely Lord Jesus. Oh! it is my sorrow, my daily pain, that men will not come and see. I would now be ashamed to believe that it should be possible for any soul to think that he could be a loser for Christ, suppose he should lend Christ the Lordship of Lindsay, or some such great worldly estate. Therefore, my worthy and dear Lord, set now your face against the opposites of Jesus, and let your soul take courage to come under His banner, to appear, as His soldier, for Him; and the blessings of a falling kirk, the prayers of the prisoners of hope who wait for Zion's joy, and the good-will of Him who dwelt in The Bush, and it burned not, shall be with you.

To His saving grace I recommend your Lordship and your house; and am still Christ's prisoner, and your Lordship's obliged servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus.

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 7, 1637.

CCXXXII.—To my LORD BOYD

(SEEKING CHRIST IN YOUTH—ITS TEMPTATIONS—CHRIST'S EXCELLENCE—THE CHURCH'S CAUSE CONCERNS THE NOBLES.)

MY VERY HONOURABLE AND GOOD LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am glad to hear that you, in the morning of your short day, mind Christ, and that you love the honour of His crown and kingdom. I beseech your Lordship to begin now to frame your love, and to cast it in no mould but one, that it may be for Christ only; for when your love is now in the framing and making, it will take best with Christ. If any other than Jesus get a grip of it, when it is green and young, Christ will be an unco and strange world to you. Promise the lodging of your soul first away to Christ, and stand by your first covenant, and keep to Jesus, that He may find you honest. It is easy to master an arrow, and to set it right, ere the string be drawn; but when once it is shot, and in the air, and the flight begun, then ye have no more power at all to command it. It were a blessed thing, if your love could now level only at Christ, that His fair face were the black of the mark ye shot at. For when your love is loosed, and out of your grips, and in its motion to fetch home an idol, and hath taken a whorish gadding journey, to seek an unknown and strange lover, ye shall not then have power to call home the arrow, or to be master of your love; and ye will hardly give Christ what ye scarcely have yourself.

I speak not this, as if youth itself could fetch heaven and Christ. Believe it, my Lord, it is hardly credible what a nest of dangerous temptations youth is; how inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, rash, profane, and careless of God, this piece of your life is; so that the devil findeth in that age a garnished and well-swept house for himself, and seven devils worse than himself. For then affections are on horseback, lofty and stirring; then the old man hath blood, lust, much will, and little wit, and hands, feet, wanton eyes, profane ears, as his servants, and as a king's officers at command, to come and go at his will. Then a green conscience is as supple as the twig of a young tree. It is for every way, every religion; every lewd course prevaileth with it. And, therefore, oh, what a sweet couple, what a glorious yoke, are youth and grace, Christ and a young man! This is a meeting not to be found in every town. None who have been at Christ can bring back to your Lordship a report answerable to His worth; for Christ cannot be spoken of, or commended according to His worth. "Come and see," is the most faithful messenger to speak of Him: little persuasion would prevail where this was. It is impossible, in the setting out of Christ's love, to lie and pass over truth's line. The discourses of angels, or love-books written by the congregation of seraphim (all their wits being conjoined and melted into one), would for ever be in the nether side of truth, and of plentifully declaring the thing as it is. The infiniteness, the boundlessness of that incomparable excellency that is in Jesus, is a great word. God send me, if it were but the relics and leavings, or an ounce-weight or two, of His matchless love; and suppose I never got another heaven (provided this blessed fire were evermore burning), I could not but be happy for ever. Come hither, then, and give out your money wisely for bread; come hither, and bestow your love.

I have cause to speak this, because, except you possess and enjoy Christ, ye will be a cold friend to His spouse; for it is love to the husband that causeth kindness to the wife. I dare swear it were a blessing to your house, the honour of your honour, the flower of your credit, now in your place, and as far as ye are able, to lend your hand to your weeping mother, even your oppressed and spoiled mother-kirk. If ye love her, and bestir yourself for her, and hazard the Lordship of Boyd for the recovery of her vail, which the smiting watchmen have taken from her, then surely her Husband will scorn to sleep in your common, or reverence. Bits of lordships are little to Him who hath many crowns on His head, and the kingdoms of the world in the hollow of His hand. Court, glory, honour, riches, stability of houses, favour of princes, are all on His finger-ends. Oh what glory were it to lend your honour to Christ, and to His Jerusalem! Ye are one of Zion's born sons; your honourable and Christian parents would venture you upon Christ's errands. Therefore, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, by the death and wounds of Jesus, by the hope of your glorious inheritance, and by the comfort and hope of the joyful presence ye would have at the water-side, when ye are putting your foot in the dark grave, take courage for Christ's truth, and the honour of His free kingdom. For, howbeit ye be a young flower, and green before the sun, ye know not how soon death will cause you cast your bloom, and wither root, and branch, and leaves; and, therefore, write up what ye have to do for Christ, and make a treasure of good works, and begin in time. By appearance ye have the advantage of the brae. See what ye can do for Christ, against those who are waiting whill Christ's tabernacle fall, that they may run away with the boards thereof, and build their nests on Zion's ruins. They are blind who see not louns now pulling up the stakes, and breaking the cords, and rending the curtains of Christ's sometime beautiful tent in this land. Antichrist is lifting that tent up upon his shoulders, and going away with it; and when Christ and the Gospel are out of Scotland, dream not that your houses shall thrive, and that it will go well with the nobles of the land. As the Lord liveth! the streams of your waters shall become pitch, and the dust of your land brimstone, and your land shall become burning pitch, and the owl and the raven shall dwell in your houses; and where your table stood, there shall grow briers and nettles (Isa. 34:9, 11). The Lord gave Christ and His Gospel as a pawn to Scotland. The watchmen have fallen foul, and lost their part of the pawn; and who seeth not, that God hath dried up their right eye, and their right arm, and hath broken the shepherds' staves, and that men are trading in their hearts upon such unsavoury salt, that is good for nothing else! If ye, the nobles, put away the pawn also, and refuse to plead the controversy of Zion with the professed enemies of Jesus, ye have done with it. Oh! where is the courage and zeal now of the ancient nobles of this land, who with their swords, and hazard of life, honour, and houses, brought Christ to our hands? And now the nobles cannot but be guilty of shouldering out Christ, and of murdering the souls of their posterity, if they shall hide themselves, and lurk in the lee-side of the hill, till the wind blow down the temple of God. It goeth now under the name of wisdom, for men to cast their cloak over Christ and their profession; as if Christ were stolen goods, and durst not be avouched. Though this be reputed a piece of policy, yet God esteemeth such men to be but state fools and court gowks, whatever they, or other heads-of-wit2 like to them, think of themselves; since their damnable silence is the ruin of Christ's kingdom. Oh, but it be true honour and glory to be the fast friends of the Bridegroom, and to own Christ's bleeding head, and His forsaken cause, and to contend legally, and in the wisdom of God, for our sweet Lord Jesus, and His kingly crown! But I will believe that your Lordship will take Christ's honour to heart, and be a man in the streets (as the prophet speaketh) (Jer. 5:1) for the Lord and His truth. To His rich grace and sweet presence, and the everlasting consolation of the promised Comforter, I recommend your Lordship, and am your Lordship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 7, 1637.

CCXXXIII.—To his Worthy and much Honoured Friend FULK ELLIS

[FULK ELLIS was the eldest son of Major Edmond Ellis of Carrickfergus, an English colonist. Edmond was a man of distinguished piety, and a zealous Covenanter. "Through all the difficulties and vicissitudes of those trying times," says Dr. Reid, "he was a consistent Presbyterian, and a truly eminent Christian. Several of his devout sayings on his death-bed (he died 11th June 1651) have been preserved." Fulk also followed the military profession, in which he held the rank of captain, and embarked in the same cause with his father. "He and his company (who were all from Ireland) joined the Scottish force in resisting the arms of Charles in 1640, and were at the battle of Newburn. He shared in the supplies forwarded to the different companies of the army from their parishes in Scotland. He returned to Ireland after the rebellion; and was captain and major in Sir John Clotworthy's regiment of foot, and is believed to have fallen in action near Desert-martin, in the county of Derry, in September 1643. His descendants, of the same name, still reside at Carrickfergus" (Reid's "Hist. of Presbyt. Ch.").]

(FRIENDS IN IRELAND—DIFFICULTIES IN PROVIDENCE—UNFAITHFULNESS TO LIGHT—CONSTANT NEED OF CHRIST.)

WORTHY 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 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.

CCXXXIV.—TO JAMES LINDSAY (a friend of R. Blair and other ministers)

[We have no means of ascertaining who this correspondent was.]

(DESERTIONS, THEIR USE—PRAYERS OF REPROBATES, AND HOW THE GOSPEL AFFECTS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY.)

DEAR 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 northside 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.

CCXXXV.—To my LORD CRAIGHALL

(FEAR GOD, NOT MAN—SIGN OF BACKSLIDING.)

MY 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.

CCXXXVI.—To MR. JAMES HAMILTON [Letter CCXV.]

(CHRIST'S GLORY NOT AFFECTED BY HIS PEOPLE'S WEAKNESS.)

REVEREND 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.

CCXXXVII.—To the LAIRD OF GAITGIRTH [Letter CLXXXVII.]

(TRUTH WORTH SUFFERING FOR—LIGHT SOWN, BUT EVIL IN THIS WORLD TILL CHRIST COME.)

MUCH 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.

CCXXXVIII.—To the LADY GAITGIRTH

(CHRIST AN EXAMPLE IN BEARING CROSSES—THE EXTENT TO WHICH CHILDREN SHOULD BE LOVED—WHY SAINTS DIE.)

MUCH 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. 22:14, 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.

CCXXXIX.—TO MR. MATTHEW MOWAT [Letter CXX.]

(WHAT AM I?—LONGING TO ACT FOR CHRIST—UNBELIEF—LOVE IN THE HIDING OF CHRIST'S FACE—CHRIST'S REPROACH.)

REVEREND 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, 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. 6:14), His reproach (Heb. 13:13), 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.

CCXL.—To MR. JOHN MEINE, Jun. [See Letter LXXXI.]

(CHRIST THE SAME—YOUTHFUL SINS—NO DISPENSING WITH CROSSES.)

DEAR 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.

CCXLI.—To JOHN FLEMING, Bailie of Leith

(RICHES OF CHRIST FAIL NOT—SALVATION—VANITY OF CREATED COMFORTS—LONGING FOR MORE OF CHRIST.)

MUCH 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.

CCXLII.—To the LADY ROWALLAN

[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.]

(JESUS THE BEST CHOICE, AND TO BE MADE SURE OF—THE CROSS AND JESUS INSEPARABLE—SORROWS ONLY TEMPORARY.)

MADAM,—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.

CCXLIII.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(HIS OWN PROSPECTS—HOPES—SALUTATIONS.)

MUCH 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. 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.2

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.

CCXLIV.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

"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. 12:13.

(PROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT—PRIVATE MATTERS-HER DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE.)

WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—I have been sparing to write to you because I was heavy at the proceedings of our late Parliament. Where law should have been, they would not give our Lord Jesus fair law and justice, nor the benefit of the house, to hear either the just grievances, or the humble supplications of the servants of God.5 Nothing resteth, but that we lay our grievances before our crowned King, Jesus, who reigneth in Zion. And howbeit it be true, that the Acts of the Perth Assembly for conformity are established, and the King's power to impose the surplice, and other mass-apparel, upon ministers, be confirmed, yet what men conclude is not Scripture. Kings have short arms to overturn Christ's throne; and our Lord hath been walking and standing upon His feet at this Parliament, when fifteen earls and lords, and forty-four commissioners for burghs, with some barons, have voted for our kirk,2 in face of a king who, with much awe and terror, with his own hand, wrote up the voters for or against himself. Long before this kirk, in the second Psalm, the ends of the earth (Scotland and England) were gifted of the Father to His Son, Christ; and that is an old Act of Parliament decreed by our Lord, and printed four thousand years ago. Their Acts are but yet printing. The first Act shall stand, let all the potentates of the world, who love Christ's room better than Himself, rage as they please. Though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, yet there is a river that cometh out of the sanctuary, and the streams of it refresh the city of God. That well is not yet cried down in Scotland, nor can it dry up: therefore, still believe and trust in God's salvation. If you knew the whole proceedings, it is the Lord's mercy that matters have gone at our Parliament, as they have gone. The Lord Jesus, in our King's ears, to His great provocation and grief, hath gotten many witnesses; and we saw in all the Son of God overturning their policy, and making the world know how well He loveth His poor sun-burnt bride in Scotland. The Lord liveth, and blessed be the God of our salvation.

For the matter betwixt your husband and Carleton, I trust in God it shall be removed. It hath grieved me exceedingly. I have dealt with Carleton, and shall deal. Put it off yourself upon the Lord, that it burden you not.

I have heard of your daughter's marriage: I pray the Lord Jesus to subscribe the contract, and to be at the banquet, as He was at the marriage of Cana of Galilee. Show her from me, that though it be true that God's children have prayed for her, yet the promise of God is made to her prayers and faith especially: and, therefore, I would entreat her to seek the Lord to be at the wedding. Let her give Christ the love of her virginity and espousals, and choose Him first as her Husband, and that match shall bless the other. It is a new world she entereth into, and therefore she hath need of new acquaintance with the Son of God, and of a renewing of her love to Him, whose love is better than wine. "The time is short: let the married be as though they were not married; they that weep, as though they weeped not; they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; they that buy, as though they possessed not; they that use this world, as though they used it not: for the fashion of this world passeth away" (Cor. 7:29, 30, 31). Grace, grace be her portion from the Lord. I know that you have a care on you of it, that all be right: but let Christ bear all. You need not pity Him, if I may say so; put Him to it, He is strength enough.

The Spirit of the Lord Jesus be with you.

Your friend, in his dearest friend, Christ Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CCXLV.—To my LADY BOYD

(IMPERFECTIONS—YEARNINGS AFTER CHRIST—CHRIST'S SUPREMACY NOT INCONSISTENT WITH CIVIL AUTHORITY.)

MY VERY HONOURABLE AND CHRISTIAN LADY,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter, and am well pleased that your thoughts of Christ stay with you, and that your purpose still is, by all means, to take the kingdom of heaven by violence; which is no small conquest. And it is a degree of watchfulness and thankfulness, also, to observe sleepiness and unthankfulness. We have all good cause to complain of false light, that playeth the thief and stealeth away the lantern, when it cometh to the practice of constant walking with God. Our journey is ten times a-day broken into ten pieces. Christ getteth but only broken, and halved, and tired work of us, and, alas! too often against the hair.

I have been somewhat nearer the Bridegroom; but when I draw nigh, and see my vileness, for shame I would be out of His presence again. But yet, desire of His soul-refreshing love putteth blushing me under an arrest. Oh, what am I, so loathsome a burden of sin, to stand beside such a beautiful and holy Lord, such a high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity! But since it pleaseth Christ to condescend to such an one as I, let shamefacedness be laid aside, and lose itself in His condescending love. I would heartily be content to keep a corner of the King's hall. Oh, if I were at the yonder end of my weak desires, then should I be where Christ, my Lord and lover, liveth and reigneth; there I should be everlastingly solaced with the sight of His face, and satisfied with the surpassing sweetness of His matchless love. But truly now I stand in the nether side of my desires; and with a drooping head, and panting heart, I look up to fair Jesus, standing afar off from us, whill corruption and death shall scour and refine the body of clay, and rot out the bones of the old man of sin. In the meantime we are blessed in sending word to the Beloved, that we love to love Him; and till then, there is joy in wooing, suiting, lying about His house, looking in at the windows, and sending a poor soul's groans and wishes through a hole of the door to Jesus, till God send a glad meeting. And blessed be God, that after a low ebb, and so sad a word, "Lord Jesus, it is long since I saw Thee," that even then our wings are growing, and the absence of sweet Jesus breedeth a new fleece of desires and longings for Him. I know that no man hath a velvet cross, but the cross is made of that which God will have it. But verily, howbeit it be no warrantable market to buy a cross, yet I dare not say, "Oh that I had liberty to sell Christ's cross," lest therewith, also, I should sell joy, comfort, sense of love, patience, and the kind visits of a Bridegroom. And, therefore, blessed be God we get crosses unbought and good-cheap. Sure I am, it were better to buy crosses for Christ than to sell them: howbeit neither be allowed to us.

And for Christ's joyful coming and going, which your Ladyship speaketh of, I bear with it, as love can permit. It should be enough to me, if I were wise, that Christ will have joy and sorrow halvers of the life of the saints, and that each of them should have a share of our days; as the night and the day are kindly partners and halvers of time, and take it up betwixt them. But if sorrow be the greedier halver of our days here, I know that joy's day shall dawn, and do more than recompense all our sad hours. Let my Lord Jesus (since He willeth to do so) weave my bit and span-length of time with white and black, well and wo, with the Bridegroom's coming and His sad departure, as warp and woof in one web; and let the rose be neighboured with the thorn; yet hope that maketh not ashamed hath written a letter and lines of hope to the mourners in Zion, that it shall not be long so. When we are over the water, Christ shall cry down crosses, and up heaven for evermore! and down hell, and down death, and down sin, and down sorrow! and up glory, up life, up joy for evermore! In this hope, I sleep quietly in Christ's bosom whill He come who is not slack; and would sleep so, were it not that the noise of the devil, and of sin's feet, and the cries of an unbelieving heart, awaken me. But, for the present, I have nothing whereof I can accuse Christ's cross. Oh, if I could please myself in Christ only!

I hope, Madam, that your sons will improve their power for Jesus. For there is no danger, neither is there any question or justling betwixt Christ and authority (though our enemies falsely state the question), as if Christ and authority could not abide under one roof. The question only is, betwixt Christ and men in authority. Authority is for and from Christ, and sib to Him; how then can He make a plea with it? Nay, the truth is, worms and gods of clay are risen up against Christ. If the fruit of your Ladyship's womb be helpers of Christ, ye have good ground to rejoice in God.

All that your Ladyship can expect for your good-will to me and my brother (a wronged stranger for Christ), is the prayers of a prisoner of Jesus, to whom I recommend your Ladyship, and your house and children; and in whom I am, Madam,

Your Ladyship's in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN. Sept. 8, 1637.

CCXLVI.—To MR. THOMAS GARVEN [Letter CLII.]

(HEAVEN'S HAPPINESS—JOY IN THE CROSS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I rejoice that ye cannot be quit of Christ (if I may speak so), but that He must, He will have you. Betake yourself to Christ, my dear brother. It is a great business to make quit of superfluities, and of those things which Christ cannot dwell with. I am content with my own cross, that Christ hath made mine by an eternal lot, because it is Christ's and mine together. I marvel not that winter is without heaven, for there is no winter within it: all the saints, therefore, have their own measure of winter, before their eternal summer. Oh for the long day, and the high sun, and the fair garden, and the King's Great City up above these visible heavens! What God layeth on let us suffer; for some have one cross, some seven, some ten, some half a cross. Yet all the saints have whole and full joy; and seven crosses have seven joys. Christ is cumbered with me (to speak so) and my cross; but He falleth not off from me; we are not at variance. I find the very glooms of Christ's wooing a soul sweet and lovely. I had rather have Christ's buffet and love-stroke, than another king's kiss. Speak evil of Christ who will, I hope to die with love thoughts of Him. Oh that there are so few tongues in heaven and earth to extol Him! I wish His praises go not down amongst us. Let not Christ be low and lightly esteemed in the midst of us: but let all hearts and all tongues cast in their portion, and contribute something to make Him great in Mount Zion.

Thus recommending you to His grace, and remembering my love to your wife and mother, and your kind brother, R. B., and entreating you to remember my bonds, I rest,

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 8, 1637.

CCXLVII.—To JANET KENNEDY [Letter LXXXVIII.]

(THE HEAVENLY MANSIONS—EARTH A SHADOW.)

LOVING AND DEAR SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter. I know that the favour of Christ in you (whom the virgins love to follow) cannot be blown away with winds, either from hell, or the evil-smelled air of this defiled world. Sit far aback from the walls of this pesthouse, even the pollutions of this defiling world. Keep your taste, your love, and hope in heaven; it is not good that your love and your Lord should be in two sundry countries. Up, up after your lover, that ye and He may be together. A King from heaven hath sent for you: by faith He showeth you the New Jerusalem, and taketh you alongst in the Spirit, through all the ease-rooms and dwelling-houses in heaven, and saith, "All these are thine; this palace is for thee and Christ." And if ye only had been the chosen of God, Christ would have built that one house for you and Himself: now it is for you and many others also. Take with you in your journey what you may carry with you, your conscience, faith, hope, patience, meekness, goodness, brotherly kindness; for such wares as these are of great price in the high and new country whither ye go. As for other things, which are but the world's vanity and trash, since they are but the house-sweepings, ye will do best not to carry them with you. Ye found them here; leave them here, and let them keep the house. Your sun is well turned and low; be nigh your lodging against night. We go one and one out of this great market, till the town be empty, and the two lodgings, heaven and hell, be filled. At length there will be nothing in the earth but toom walls and burnt ashes; and, therefore, it is best to make away. Antichrist and his master are busy to plenish hell, and to seduce many: and stars, great church-light, are falling from heaven, and many are misled and seduced, and make up with their faith, and sell their birthrights, by their hungry hunting for I know not what. Fasten your grips fast upon Christ. I verily esteem Him the best aught that I have. He is my second in prison. Having Him, though my cross were as heavy as ten mountains of iron, when He putteth His sweet shoulder under me and it, my cross is but a feather. I please myself in the choice of Christ; He is my wale in heaven and earth. I rejoice that He is in heaven before me. God send a joyful meeting; and, in the meantime, the traveller's charges for the way, I mean a burden of Christ's love, to sweeten the journey, and to encourage a breathless runner; for when I lose breath, climbing up the mountain, He maketh new breath.

Now the very God of peace establish you to the day of His appearance.

Yours, in his only Jord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 9, 1637.

CCXLVIII.—To MARGARET REID [Probably an Anwoth parishioner]

(BENEFITS OF THE CROSS, IF WE ARE CHRIST'S.)

MY VERY DEAR AND WORTHY SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Ye are truly blessed of the Lord, however a sour world gloom upon you, if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel. It is good that there is a heaven, and it is not a night-dream or a fancy. It is a wonder that men deny not that there is a heaven, as they deny there is a way to it but of men's making. You have learned of Christ that there is a heaven: contend for it, and contend for Christ. Bear well and submissively the hard cross of this step-mother world, that God will not have to be yours. I confess it is hard, and I would I were able to ease you of your burden; but believe me, that this world (which the Lord will not have to be yours) is but the dross, the refuse, and scum of God's creation, the portion of the Lord's hired servants; the movables, not the heritage; a hard bone casten to the dogs holden out of the New Jerusalem, whereupon they rather break their teeth than satisfy their appetite. It is your Father's blessing, and Christ's birthright, that our Lord is keeping for you. And I persuade you, that your seed, also, shall inherit the earth (if that be good for them), for that is promised to them; and God's bond is as good, and better, than if men would give every one of them a bond for a thousand thousands. Ere ye were born, crosses, in number, measure, and weight, were written for you, and your Lord will lead you through them. Make Christ sure, and the blessings of the earth shall be at Christ's back. I see many professors for the fashion follow on, but they are professors of glass; I would cause a little knock of persecution ding them in twenty pieces, and so the world would laugh at the shreds. Therefore, make fast work. See that Christ lay the ground-stone of your profession; for wind, and rain, and spaits will not wash away His building. His works have no shorter date than to stand for evermore. I should twenty times have perished in my affliction, if I had not leaned my weak back, and laid my pressing burden both, upon the stone, the Foundation-stone, the Corner-stone laid in Zion: and I desire never to rise off this stone.

Now, the very God of peace confirm and establish you unto the day of the blessed appearance of Christ Jesus. God be with you.

Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CCXLIX.—To JAMES BAUTIE

[JAMES BAUTIE, in 1637, seems to have been preparing for the ministry. He became chaplain to the regiment of the Lord of Ards, in Ireland, and was ordained minister over the Presbyterian congregation at Ballywater, in the county of Down, in 1642. He was clerk to the Presbytery in 1644. Refusing to take the oath of fidelity to the Commonwealth in 1650, he was first imprisoned, and then banished out of the kingdom. We know nothing of his after history. Another person is found occupying his charge in 1661. The name "Bautie" is now unknown. It may, however, be the same as Beatie," or "Beattie," a name very common in Dumfriesshire. But see note in the Index.]

(SPIRITUAL DIFFICULTIES SOLVED.)

LOVING BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—I received your letter, and render you thanks for the same; but I have not time to answer all the heads of it, as the bearer can inform you.

1. Ye do well to take yourself at the right stot when ye wrong Christ by doubting and misbelief. For this is to nickname Christ, and term Him a liar, which being spoken to our prince, would be hanging or beheading. But Christ hangeth not always for treason. It is good that He may registrate2 a believer's bond a hundred times, and more than seven times a day have law against us; and yet He spareth us, as a man doth the son that serveth him. No tender-hearted mother, who may have law to kill her sucking child, would put in execution that law.

2ndly, For your failings, even when ye have a set tryst with Christ, and when ye have a fair, seen advantage, by keeping your appointment with Him, and salvation cometh to the very passing of the seals, I would say two things.—1. Concluded and sealed salvation may go through and be ended, suppose you write your name to the tail of the covenant with ink that can hardly be read. Neither think I ever any man's salvation passed the seals, but there was an odd trick or slip, in less or more, upon the fool's part who is infested in heaven. In the most grave and serious work of our salvation, I think Christ had ever good cause to laugh at our silliness, and to put us on His merits, that we might bear weight. 2. It is a sweet law of the New Covenant, and a privilege of the new burgh, that citizens pay according to their means. For the New Covenant saith not, "So much obedience by ounce-weights, and no less, under the pain of damnation." Christ taketh as poor men may give. Where there is a mean portion, He is content with the less, if there be sincerity; broken sums, and little, feckless obedience will be pardoned, and hold the foot with Him. Know ye not that our kindly Lord retaineth His good old heart yet? He breaketh not a bruised reed, nor quencheth the smoking flax; if the wind but blow, He holdeth His hand about it till it rise to a flame. The law cometh on with three O-yeses, "with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the strength;" and where would poor folks, like you and me, furnish all these sums? It feareth me (nay, it is most certain), that, if the payment were to come out of our purse, when we should put our hand into our bag, we should bring out the wind, or worse. But the New Covenant seeketh not heap-mete, nor stented obedience, as the condition of it; because forgiveness hath always place. Hence I draw this conclusion: that to think matters betwixt Christ and us go back for want of heaped measure, is a piece of old Adam's pride, who would either be at legal payment, or nothing. We would still have God in our common, and buy His kindness with our merits. For beggarly pride is devil's honesty, and blusheth to be in Christ's common, and scarce giveth God a grammercy, and a lifted cap (except it be the Pharisee's unlucky, "God, I thank Thee"), or a bowed knee to Christ. It will only give a "Good-day" for a "Good-day" again; and if He dissemble His kindness, as it were in jest, and seem to misken it, it in earnest spurneth with the heels, and snuffeth in the wind, and careth not much for Christ's kindness. "If He will not be friends, let Him go," saith pride. Beware of this thief, when Christ offereth Himself.

3rdly, No marvel, then, of whisperings, Whether you be in the covenant or not? for pride maketh loose work of the covenant of grace, and will not let Christ be full bargain-maker. To speak to you particularly and shortly:—1. All the truly regenerated cannot determinately tell you the measure of their dejections; because Christ beginneth young with many, and stealeth into their heart, ere they wit of themselves, and becometh homely with them, with little din or noise. I grant that many are blinded, in rejoicing in a good-cheap conversion, that never cost them a sick night. Christ's physic wrought in a dream upon them. But for that; I would say, if other marks be found that Christ is indeed come in, never make plea with him because he will not answer, "Lord Jesus, how camest Thou in? whether in at door or window?" Make Him welcome, since He is come. "The wind bloweth where it listeth;" all the world's wit cannot perfectly render a reason why the wind should be a month in the east, six weeks possibly in the west, and the space of only an afternoon in the south or north. Ye will not find out all the nicks and steps of Christ's way with a soul, do what ye can; for sometimes He will come in stepping softly, like one walking beside a sleeping person, and slip to the door, and let none know He is there. 2. Ye object: The truly regenerate should love God for Himself; and ye fear that ye love Him more for His benefits (as incitements and motives to love Him) than for Himself. I answer: To love God for Himself, as the last end, and also for His benefits as incitements and motives to love Him, may stand well together; as a son loveth his mother, because she is his mother, howbeit she be poor: and he loveth her for an apple also. I hope ye will not say, that benefits are the only reason and bottom of your love; it seemeth there is a better foundation for it. Always, if a hole be in it, sew it up shortly. 3. Ye feel not such mourning in Christ's absence as ye would. I answer: That the regenerate mourn at all times, and all in like measure, for His absence, I deny. There are different degrees of mourning, less or more, as they have less or more love to Him, and less or more sense of His absence; but, some they must have. Sometimes they miss not the Lord, and then they cannot mourn; howbeit, it is not long so; at least, it is not always so. 4. Ye challenge yourself that some truths find more credit with you than others. Ye do well; for God is true in the least, as well as in the greatest, and He must be so to you. Ye must not call Him true in the one page of the leaf, and false in the other; for our Lord, in all His writings, never contradicted Himself yet. Although the best of the regenerate have slipped here, always labour ye to hold your feet.

4thly, Comparing the state of one truly regenerate, whose heart is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and yours, which is full of uncleanness and corruption, ye stand dumb and discouraged, and dare not sometimes call Christ heartsomely your own. I answer: 1. The best regenerate have their defilements, and, if I may speak so, their draff-poke, that will clog behind them all their days; and, wash as they will, there will be filth in their bosom. But let not this put you from the well. I answer: 2. Albeit there be some ounce-weights of carnality, and some squint look, or eye in our neck to an idol, yet love in its own measure may be found. For glory must purify and perfect our love, it never will till then be absolutely pure. Yet, if the idol reign, and have the whole of the heart, and the keys of the house, and Christ only be made an underling to run errands, all is not right; therefore, examine well. 3. There is a twofold discouragement: one of unbelief, to conclude (and make doubt of the conclusion) for a mote in your eye, and a by-look to an idol; this is ill. There is another discouragement of sorrow for sin, when ye find a by-look to an idol; this is good, and matter of thanksgiving. Therefore, examine here also.

5thly, The assurance of Jesus's love, ye say, would be the most comfortable news that ever ye heard. Answer: That may stop twenty holes, and loose many objections. That love hath telling in it, I trow. Oh that ye knew and felt it, as I have done! I wish you a share of my feast; sweet, sweet hath it been to me. If my Lord had not given me this love, I should have fallen through the causeway of Aberdeen ere now! But for you, hing on; your feast is not far off; ye shall be filled ere ye go. There is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all His bairns, and as much wine in His cellar as will quench all their thirst. Hunger on, for there is meat in hunger for Christ. Never go from Him, but fash Him (who yet is pleased with the importunity of hungry souls) with a dish-full of hungry desires till He fill you; and if He delay, yet come not ye away, albeit ye should fall aswoon at His feet.

6thly, Ye crave my mind, whether sound comfort may be found in prayer, when conviction of a known idol is present. I answer: (1st), An idol, as an idol, cannot stand with sound comforts; for that comfort that is gotten at Dagon's feet is a cheat or blaflume. Yet sound comfort, and conviction of an eye to an idol, may as well dwell together as tears and joy. But let this do you no ill; I speak it for your encouragement, that ye may make the best of our joys ye can, albeit you find them mixed with motes. (2ndly), Sole conviction (if alone, without remorse and grief) is not enough; therefore, lend it a tear if ye dow win at it.

7thly, Ye question; when ye win to more fervency sometimes with your neighbour in prayer than when you are alone, whether hypocrisy be in it or not? I answer, if this be always, no question a spice of hypocrisy is in it, which should be taken heed to. But possibly desertion may be in private, and presence in public, and then the case is clear. A fit of applause may occasion by accident a rubbing of a cold heart, and so heat and life may come; but it is not the proper cause of that heat. Hence God, of His free grace, will ride His errands upon our stinking corruption. But corruption is but a mere occasion and accident; as the playing on a pipe removed anger from the prophet, and made him fitter to prophesy (2 Kings 3:15).

8thly, Ye complain of Christ's short visits, that He will not bear you company one night; but when ye lie down warm at night, ye rise cold at morning. Answer: I cannot blame you (nor any other that knoweth that sweet Guest), to bemoan His withdrawings, and to be most desirous of His abode and company; for He would captivate and engage the affection of any creature that saw His face. Since He looked on me, and gave me a sight of His fair love, He gained my heart wholly, and got away with it. Well, well may He brook it! He shall keep it long, ere I fetch it from Him. But I shall tell you what ye should do; treat Him well, give Him the chair and the board-head, and make Him welcome to the mean portion ye have. A good supper and kind entertainment maketh guests love the inn the better. Yet sometimes Christ hath an errand elsewhere, for mere trial; and then, though ye give Him king's cheer, He will away; as is clear in desertions for mere trial and not for sin.

9thly, Ye seek the difference betwixt the motions of the Spirit in their least measure, and the natural joys of your own heart. Answer: As a man can tell if he joy and delight in his wife, as his wife; or if he delight and joy in her for satisfaction of his lust, but hating her person, and so loving her for her flesh, and not grieving when ill befalleth her: so will a man's joy in God, and his whorish natural joy, be discovered. If he be sorry for anything that may offend the Lord, it will speak the singleness of his love to Him.

10thly, Ye ask the reason why sense overcometh faith, Answer: Because sense is more natural, and near of kin to our selfish and soft nature. Ye ask, If faith, in that case, be sound? Answer: If it be chased away, it is neither sound nor unsound, because it is not faith. But it might be and was faith, before sense did blow out the act of believing.

Lastly, Ye ask what to do, when promises are borne-in upon you, and sense of impenitency for sins of youth hindereth application. I answer, if it be living sense, it may stand with application; and in this case, put to your hand, and eat your meat in God's name. If false, so that the sins of youth are not repented of, then, as faith and impenitency cannot stand together, so neither that sense and application can consist.

Brother, excuse my brevity; for time straiteneth me, that I get not my mind said in these things, but must refer that to a new occasion, if God offer it. Brother, pray for me. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCL.—To the LADY LARGIRIE [Letter CXCV.]

(PART WITH ALL FOR CHRIST—NO UNMIXED JOY HERE.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I hope ye know what conditions passed betwixt Christ and you, at your first meeting. Ye remember that He said, your summer days would have clouds, and your rose a prickly thorn beside it. Christ is unmixed in heaven, all sweetness and honey. Here we have Him with His thorny and rough cross; yet I know no tree that beareth sweeter fruit than Christ's cross, except I would raise a lying report on it. It is your part to take Christ, as He is to be had in this life. Sufferings are like a wood planted round about His house, over door and window. If we could hold fast our grips of Him, the field were won. Yet a little while, and Christ shall triumph. Give Christ His own short time to spin out these two long threads of heaven and hell to all mankind, for certainly the thread will not break; and when He hath accomplished His work in Mount Zion, and hath refined His silver, He will bring new vessels out of the furnace, and plenish His house, and take up His house again.

I counsel you to free yourself of clogging temptations, by overcoming some, and contemning others, and watching over all. Abide true and loyal to Christ, for few now are fast to Him. They give Christ blank paper for a bond of service and attendance, now when Christ hath most ado. To waste a little blood with Christ, and to put our part of this drossy world in pawn over in His hand, as willing to quit it for Him, is the safest cabinet to keep the world in. But those who would take the world and all their flitting on their back, and run away from Christ, shall fall by the way, and leave their burden behind them, and be taken captive themselves. Well were my soul to have put all I have, life and soul, over into Christ's hands. Let Him be forthcoming for all.

If any ask how I do? I answer, None can be but well that are in Christ: and if I were not so, my sufferings had melted me away in ashes and smoke. I thank my Lord, that He hath something in me that His fire cannot consume.

Remember my love to your husband; and show him from me, that I desire he may set aside all things, and make sure work of salvation, that it be not a-seeking when the sand-glass is run out, and time and eternity shall tryst together. There is no errand so weighty as this. Oh that he would take it to heart! Grace be with you.

Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

CCLI.—To the LADY DUNGUEICH

[LADY DUNGEUCH, or DUNGUEICH, was sister to Marion M'Naught, for her own name was Sarah M'Naught, and she is mentioned in the Registers as "second heir to her father, John M'Naught of Kilquhannady" [or Kilquhanatie (Letter V.)], "on 31st March 1646, in the three merk lands of Dumgeuich, in Lanarkshire." She married Samuel Lockhart, merchant burgess in Edinburgh.

Near the Bridge of Deach, two miles from Carsphairn, not far from Earlston, there is the poor ruin of an old Dundeuch castle on the roadside, mentioned in the life of John Semple. But that is not the same place, though resembling it in sound. The Gordons of Dengeuch (a branch of the Lochinvar family) were no doubt connected.]

(JESUS OR THE WORLD—SCOTLAND'S TRIALS AND HOPES.)

MISTRESS,—I long to hear from you, and how you go on with Christ. I am sure that Christ and you once met. I pray you to fasten your grips. There is holding and drawing, and much sea-way to heaven, and we are often sea-sick; but the voyage is so needful, that we must on any terms take shipping with Christ. I believe it is a good country which we are going to, and there is ill lodging in this smoky house of the world, in which we are yet living. Oh, that we should love smoke so well, and clay that holdeth our feet fast! It were our happiness to follow after Christ, and to anchor ourselves upon the Rock in the upper side of the vail. Christ and Satan are now drawing to parties. And they are blind who see not Scotland divided into two camps, and Christ coming out with His white banner of love; and He hangeth that over the heads of His soldiers. And the other captain, the Dragon, is coming out with a great black flag, and crieth, "The world, the world! ease, honour, and a whole skin, and a soft couch." And there lie they, and leave Christ to fend for Himself!

My counsel is, that ye come out and leave the multitude, and let Christ have your company. Let them take clay and this present world who love it. Christ is a more worthy and noble portion: blessed are those who get Him. It is good, ere the storm rise, to make ready all, and to be prepared to go to the camp with Christ, seeing He will not keep the house, nor sit at the fireside with couchers. A shower for Christ is little enough. Oh, I find all too little for Him! Wo, wo, wo is me, that I have no propine for my Lord Jesus. My love is so feckless, that it is a shame to offer it to Him! Oh, if it were as broad as heaven, as deep as the sea, I would gladly bestow it upon Him! I persuade you, that God is wringing grapes of red wine for Scotland; and that this land shall drink, and spue and fall. His enemies shall drink the thick of it, and the grounds of it. But Scotland's withered tree shall blossom again; and Christ shall make a second marriage with her, and take home His wife out of the furnace. But, if our eyes shall see it, He knoweth who hath created time. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLII.—To JONET MACCULLOCH [See Letter CI.]

(CARES TO BE CAST ON CHRIST—CHRIST A STEADY FRIEND.)

LOVING SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Hold on your course, for, it may be, that I shall not soon see you. Venture through the thick of all things after Christ, and lose not your Master, Christ, in the throng of this great market. Let Christ know how heavy, and how many a stone-weight you and your cares, burdens, crosses, and sins are. Let Him bear all. Make the heritage sure to yourself: get charters and writs passed and through; and put on arms for the battle, and keep you fast by Christ. And then, let the wind blow out of what airth it will, your soul shall not be blown into the sea.

I find Christ the most steadable friend and companion in the world to me now. The need and usefulness of Christ are seen best in trials. Oh, if He be not well worthy of His room! Lodge Him in house and heart; and stir up your husband to seek the Lord. I wonder that he hath never written to me: I do not forget him.

I taught you the whole counsel of God, and delivered it to you. It will be inquired for at your hands; have it in readiness against the time that the Lord ask for it. Make you ready to meet the Lord; and rest and sleep in the love of that Fairest among the sons of men. Desire Christ's beauty. Give out all your love to Him, and let none fall by. Learn in prayer to speak to Him.

Help your mothers soul; and desire her, from me, to seek the Lord and His salvation. It is not soon found: many miss it. Grace be with you.

Your loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLIII.—To his Reverend and very dear Brother, MR. GEORGE GILLESPIE

(CHRIST THE TRUE GAIN.)

MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—I received yours. I am still with the Lord. His cross hath done that which I thought impossible once. Christ keepeth tryst in the fire and water with His own, and cometh ere our breath go out, and ere our blood grow cold.

Blessed are they whose feet escape the great golden net that is now spread. It is happiness to take the crabbed, rough, and poor side of Christ's world, which is a lease of crosses and losses for Him. For Christ's incomes and casualties that follow Him are many; and it is not a little one that a good conscience may be had in following Him. This is true gain, and must be laboured for and loved.

Many give Christ for a shadow; because Christ was rather beside their conscience, in a dead and reprobate light, than in their conscience. Let us be ballasted with grace, that we be not blown over, and that we stagger not. Yet a little while, and Christ and His redeemed ones shall fill the field, and come out victorious. Christ's glory of triumphing in Scotland is yet in the bud, and in the birth; but the birth cannot prove an abortion. He shall not faint nor be discouraged, till He hath brought forth judgment unto victory. Let us still mind our Covenant; and the very God of peace be with you.

Your brother in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 9, 1637.

CCLIV.—To his Reverend and dear Brother, MR. ROBERT BLAIR

(PERSONAL UNWORTHINESS—GOD'S GRACE—PRAYER FOR OTHERS.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—The reason ye give for not writing to me affecteth me much, and giveth me a dash, when such an one as ye conceive an opinion of me, or of anything in me. The truth is, when I come home to myself, oh, what penury do I find, and how feckless is my supposed stock, and how little have I! He to whom I am as crystal, and who seeth through me, and perceiveth the least mote that is in me, knoweth that I speak what I think and am convinced of: but men cast me through a gross and wide sieve. My very dear brother, the room of the least of all saints is too great for the like of me. But lest this should seem art to fetch home reputation, I speak no more of it. It is my worth to be Christ's ransomed sinner and sick one. His relation to me is, that I am sick, and He is the Physician of whom I stand in need. Alas! how often play I fast and loose with Christ! He bindeth, I loose; He buildeth, I cast down; He trimmeth up a salvation for me, and I mar it; I cast out with Christ, and He agreeth with me again, twenty times a-day; I forfeit my kingdom and heritage, I lose what I had; but Christ is at my back, and following on, to stoop and take up what falleth from me. Were I in heaven, and had the crown on my head, if free-will were my tutor, I should lose heaven. Seeing I lose myself what wonder I should let go, and lose Jesus, my Lord? Oh, well to me for evermore, that I have cracked my credit with Christ, and cannot by law at all borrow from Him, upon my feckless and worthless bond and faith! For my faith and reputation with Christ is, that I am a creature that God will not put any trust into. I was, and am, bewildered with temptations, and wanted a guide to heaven. Oh what have I to say of that excellent, surpassing, and supereminent thing, they call, The grace of God, the way of free redemption in Christ! And when poor, poor I, dead in law, was sold, fettered, and imprisoned in justice's closet-ward, which is hell and damnation; when I, a wretched one, lighted upon noble Jesus, eternally kind Jesus, tender-hearted Jesus (nay, when He lighted upon me first, and knew me), I found that He scorned to take a price, or anything like hire, of angels, or seraphim, or any of His creatures. And, therefore, I would praise Him for this, that the whole army of the redeemed ones sit rent-free in heaven. Our holding is better than blench: we are all freeholders. And seeing that our eternal feu-duty is but thanks, oh woful me! that I have but spilled thanks, lame, and broken, and miscarried praises, to give Him. And so my silver is not good and current with Christ, were it not that free merits have stamped it, and washen it and me both! And for my silence I see somewhat better through it now. If my high and lofty One, my princely and royal Master, say, "Hold, hold thy peace, I lay bonds on thee, thou must speak none," I would fain be content, and let my fire be smothered under ashes, without light or flame! I cannot help it. I take laws from my Lord, but I give none.

As for your journey to F., ye do well to follow it. The camp is Christ's ordinary bed. A carried bed is kindly to the Beloved, down in this lower house. It may be (and who knoweth but) our Lord hath some centurions, whom ye are sent to. Seeing your angry mother denieth you lodging and house-room with her, Christ's call to unknown faces must be your second wind, seeing ye cannot have a first.2 Oh that our Lord would water again with a new visit this piece-withered and dry hill of our widow, Mount Zion.

My dear brother, I shall think it comfort, if ye speak my name to our Well-beloved. Wherever ye are, I am mindful of you. Oh that the Lord would yet make the light of the moon in Scotland as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold brighter. For myself, as yet I have received no answer whither to go. I wait on. Oh that Jesus had my love! Let matters frame as they list, I have some more to do with Christ; yet I would fain we were nearer.

Now the great Shepherd of the sheep, the very God of peace, establish and confirm you till the day of His coming.

Yours, in his lovely and sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 9, 1637.

CCLV.—To the LADY CARLETON [Letter XV.]

(SUBMISSION TO GOD'S WILL—WONDERS IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST—NO DEBT TO THE WORLD.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—My soul longeth once again to be amongst you, and to behold that beauty of the Lord, that I would see in His house; but I know not if He, in whose hands are all our ways, seeth it expedient for His glory. I owe my Lord, I know, submission of the spirit, suppose He would turn me into a stone, or pillar of salt. Oh that I were he in whom my Lord could be glorified! suppose my little heaven were forfeited, to buy glory to Him before men and angels; suppose my want of His presence, and separation from Christ, were a pillar as high as ten heavens for Christ's glory to stand upon, above all the world. What am I to Him? How little am I (though my feathers stood out as broad as the morning light) to such a high, to such a lofty, to such a never-enough-admired and glorious Lord! My trials are heavy, because of my sad Sabbaths; but I know that they are less than my high provocations. I seek no more than that Christ may be the gainer, and I the loser; that He may be raised and heightened, and I cried down, and my worth made dust before His glory. Oh that Scotland, all with one shout, would cry up Christ, and that His name were high in the land! I find the very utmost borders of Christ's high excellency and deep sweetness, heaven and earth's wonder. Oh, what is He? If I could but win in to see His inner side! Oh, I am run dry of loving, and wondering, and adoring of that greatest and most admirable One! Wo, wo is me, I have not half love for Him! Alas, what can my drop do to His great sea! What gain is it to Christ, that I have casten my little sparkle into His great fire! What can I give to Him? Oh that I had love to fill a thousand worlds, that I might empty my soul of it all upon Christ! I think I have just reason to quit my part of any hope or love that I have to this scum (and the refuse of the dross of God's workmanship), this vain earth. I owe to this stormy world (whose kindness and heart to me have been made of iron, or a piece of wild sea-island that never a creature of God lodged in) not a look: I owe it no love, no hope; and, therefore, oh, if my love were dead to it, and my soul dead to it! What am I obliged to this house of my pilgrimage? A straw for all that God hath made, to my soul's liking, except God, and that lovely One, Jesus Christ! Seeing I am not this world's debtor, I desire that I may be stripped of all confidence in anything but my Lord, that He may be for me, and I for my only, only, only Lord! that He may be the morning and evening tide, the top and the root of my joys, and the heart and flower and yolk of all my soul's delights! Oh, let me never lodge any creature in my heart and confidence! Let the house be for Him. I rejoice, that sad days cut off a piece of the lease of my short life; and that my shadow, even while I suffer, weareth long, and my evening hasteneth on. I have cause to love home with all my heart, and to take the opportunity of the day to hasten to the end of my journey, before the night come on, wherein a man cannot see to walk or work; that once, after my falls, I may at night fall in, weary and tired as I am, into Christ's bosom, and betwixt His breasts. Our prison cannot be our best country. This world looketh not like heaven and the happiness that our tired souls would be at; and, therefore, it were good to seek about for the wind, and hoist up our sails towards our New Jerusalem, for that is our Christ. Remember a prisoner to Christ. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his only Lord and Master,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLVI.—To WILLIAM RIGGE of Athernie

(THE LAW—GRACE—CHALKING OUT PROVIDENCES FOR OURSELVES—PRESCRIBING TO HIS LOVE.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—Your letter, full of complaints, bemoaning your guiltiness, hath humbled me. But give me leave to say that ye seem to be too far upon the law's side. Ye will not gain much to be the law's advocate. I thought ye had not been the law's but grace's man; nevertheless, I am sure that ye desire to take God's part against yourself. Whatever your guiltiness be, yet, when it falleth into the sea of God's mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen into the great ocean. There is nothing here to be done, but to let Christ's doom light on "the old man," and let him bear his condemnation, seeing in Christ he was condemned; for the law hath but power over your worst half. Let the blame, therefore, lie where the blame should be; and let the new man be sure to say, "I am comely as the tents of Kedar, howbeit I be black and sunburnt, by sitting neighbour beside a body of sin." I seek no more here than room for grace's defence, and Christ's white throne, whereto a sinner, condemned by the law, may appeal. But the use that I make of it is, I am sorry that I am not so tender and thin-skinned; though I am sure that Christ may find employment for His calling in me, if in any living, seeing, from my youth upward, I have been making up the blackest process that any minister in the world, or any other, can answer to. And, when I had done this, I painted a providence of my own, and wrote ease for myself, and a peaceable ministry, and the sun shining on me, till I should be in at heaven's gates; such green and raw thoughts had I of God! I thought also of a sleeping devil, that would pass by the like of me, lying in muirs and outfields; so I bigged the gowk's nest, and dreamed of dying at ease, and living in a fool's paradise. But since I came hither, I am often so as they would have much rhetoric that could persuade me, that Christ hath not written wrath on my dumb and silent Sabbaths; which is a persecution of the latest edition, being used against none in this land, that I can learn of, besides me. And often I lie under a non-entry, and would gladly sell all my joys to be confirmed free tenant of the King Jesus, and to have sealed assurances: but I see often blank papers. And my greatest desires are these two:—1. That Christ would take me in hand to cure me, and undertake for a sick man. I know that I should not die under His hand. And yet in this, while I still doubt, I believe through a cloud that sorrow (which hath no eyes) hath but put a vail on Christ's love. 2. It pleaseth Him often, since I came hither, to come with some short blinks of His sweet love. And then, because I have none to help me to praise His love, and can do Him no service in my own person (as I once thought I did in His temple), I die with wishes and desires to take up house and dwell at the well-side, and to have Him praised and set on high. But, alas! what can the like of me do, to get a good name raised upon my well-beloved Lord Jesus, suppose I could desire to be suspended for ever of my part of heaven, for His glory? I am sure, if I could get my will of Christ's love, and could once be over head and ears in the believed, apprehended, and seen love of the Son of God, it were the fulfilling of the desires of the only happiness I would be at. But the truth is, I hinder my communion with Him, because of the want of both faith and repentance, and because I will make an idol of Christ's kisses. I will neither lead nor drive, except I see Christ's love run in my channel; and when I wait and look for Him the upper way, I see His wisdom is pleased to play me a slip, and come the lower way. So that I have not the right art of guiding Christ; for there is art and wisdom required in guiding of Christ's love aright when we have gotten it. Oh, how far are His ways above mine? Oh, how little of Him do I see! And when I am as dry as a burnt heath in a drouthy summer, and when my root is withered, howbeit I think then that I would drink a sea-full of Christ's love, ere ever I would let the cup go from my head, yet I get nothing but delays, as if He would make hunger my daily food. I think myself also hungered of hunger. The rich Lord Jesus satisfy a famished man. Grace be with you.

Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 10, 1637.

CCLVII.—To the LADY CRAIGHALL [Letter LXXXVI.]

(THE COMFORTS OF CHRIST'S CROSS—DESIRES FOR CHRIST.)

HONOURABLE AND CHRISTIAN LADY,—Grace, mercy and peace be to you.—I cannot but write to your Ladyship of the sweet and glorious terms I am in with the most joyful King that ever was, under this well-thriving and prosperous cross. It is my Lord's salvation, wrought by His own right hand, that the water doth not suffocate the breath of hope, and joyful courage, in the Lord Jesus; for His own person is still in the camp with His poor soldier. I see that the cross is tied, with Christ's hand, to the end of an honest profession. We are but fools to endeavour to loose Christ's knot. When I consider the comforts of God, I durst not consent to sell or wadset my short liferent of the cross of the Lord Jesus. I know that Christ bought with His own blood a right to sanctified and blessed crosses, in so far as they blow me over the water to my long-desired home: and it were not good that Christ should be the buyer and I the seller. I know that time and death shall take sufferings fairly off my hand. I hope we shall have an honest parting at night, when this cold and frosty afternoon-tide of my evil and rough day shall be over. Well is my soul of either sweet or sour, that Christ hath any part or portion in: if He be at the one end of it, it shall be well with me. I shall die ere I libel faults against Christ's cross. It shall have my testimonial under my hand, as an honest and saving mean of Christ for mortification and faith's growth. I have a stronger assurance, since I came over the Forth, of the excellency of Jesus, than I had before. I am rather about Him than in Him, while I am absent from Him in this house of clay. But I would be in heaven, for no other cause than to essay and try what boundless joy it must be to be over head and ears in my well-beloved Christ's love. Oh that fair One hath my heart for evermore! But alas, it is over-little for Him! Oh, if it were better and more worthy for His sake! Oh, if I might meet with Him, face to face, on this side of eternity, and might have leave to plead with Him, that I am so hungered and famished here with the niggardly portion of His love that He giveth me! Oh that I might be carver and steward myself, at mine own will, of Christ's love (if I may lawfully wish this!); then would I enlarge my vessel (alas! a narrow and ebb soul), and take in a sea of His love. My hunger for it is hungry and lean, in believing that ever I shall be satisfied with that love: so fain would I have what I know I cannot hold. O Lord Jesus, delightest Thou, delightest Thou, to pine and torment poor souls with the want of Thy incomparable love? Oh, if I durst call Thy dispensation cruel! I know that Thou Thyself art mercy, without either brim or bottom; I know that Thou art a God bank-full of mercy and love; but, oh, alas! little of it cometh my way. I die to look afar off to that love, because I can get but little of it. But hope saith, "This Providence shall ere long look more favourably upon poor bodies," and on me also. Grace be with your Ladyship's spirit.

Your Ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 10, 1637.

CCLVIII.—To the Right Honourable my LORD LOUDON

(THE WISDOM OF ADHERING TO CHRIST'S CAUSE.)

RIGHT HONOURABLE,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Lordship.—I rejoice exceedingly to hear that your Lordship hath a good mind to Christ, and His now borne-down truth. My very dear Lord, go on, in the strength of the Lord, to carry your honours and worldly glory to the New Jerusalem. For this cause your Lordship received these of the Lord. This is a sure way for the establishment of your house, if ye be of those who are willing, in your place, to build Zion's old waste places in Scotland. Your Lordship wanteth not God's and man's law both, now to come to the streets for Christ: and suppose the bastard laws of man were against you, it is an honest and zealous error, if here you slip against a point or punctilio of standing policy. When your foot slippeth in such known ground, as is the royal prerogative of our high and most truly dread Sovereign (who hath many crowns on His head), and the liberties of His house, He will hold you up. Blessed shall they be who take Babel's little ones, and dash their heads against the stones. I wish your Lordship may have a share of that blessing, with other worthy nobles in our land.

It is true that it is now accounted wisdom for men to be partners in pulling up the stakes, and loosing the cords, of the tent of Christ. But I am persuaded, that that wisdom is cried down in heaven, and shall never pass for true wisdom with the Lord, whose word crieth shame upon wit against Christ and truth; and, accordingly, it shall prove shame and confusion of face in the end. Our Lord hath given your Lordship light of a better stamp, and learning also, wherein ye are not behind the disputer and the scribe. Oh what a blessed thing is it to see nobility, learning, and sanctification, all concur in one! For these ye owe yourself to Christ and His kingdom. God hath bewildered and bemisted the wit and the learning of the scribes and disputers of this time; they look asquint to the Bible. This blinding and bemisting world blindfoldeth men's light, that they are afraid to see straight out before them; nay, their very light playeth the knave, or worse, to truth. Your Lordship knoweth that, within a little while, policy against truth shall blush, and the works of men shall be burned up, even their spider's-web who spin out many hundred ells and webs of indifference in the Lord's worship; more than ever Moses, who would have a hoof material (Exod. 10:26), and Daniel, who would have a look out at a window a matter of life and death, than ever, I say, these men of God dreamed of. Alas! that men dare to shape, carve, cut, and clip our King's princely testament in length and breadth, and in all dimensions, answerable to the conception of such policy, as a head-of-wit thinketh a safe and trim way of serving God! How have men forgotten the Lord, that they dare to go against even that truth which once they preached themselves, howbeit their sermons now be as thin sown as strawberries in a wood or wilderness! Certainly the sweetest and safest course is, for this short time of the afternoon of this old and declining world, to stand for Jesus. He hath said it, and it is our part to believe it, that ere it be long, "Time shall be no more, and the heaven shall wax old, as a garment." Do we not see it already an old holie and threadbare garment. Doth not cripple and lame nature tell us, that the Lord will fold up the old garment, and lay it aside; and that the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll, and this pest-house shall be burnt with fire, and that both plenishing and walls shall melt with fervent heat? For at the Lord's coming, He will do with this earth, as men do with a leper-house; He will burn the walls with fire, and the plenishing of the house also (2 Pet. 3:10, 12). My very dear Lord, how will ye rejoice in that day, to have Christ, angels, heaven, and your own conscience to smile upon you? I am persuaded that one sick night, through the terrors of the Almighty, would make men, whose conscience hath such a wide throat that an image like a cathedral church, would go down it, have other thoughts of Christ and His worship, than now they please themselves with. The scarcity of faith in the earth saith, "We are hard upon the last nick of time:" blessed are those who keep their garments clean against the Bridegroom's coming. There shall be spotted clothes, and many defiled garments, at His last Coming; and, therefore, few found worthy to walk with Him in white.

I am persuaded, my Lord, that this poor travailing Woman, our pained church, is with child of victory, and shall bring forth a Man-child all lovely and glorious, that shall be caught up to God and to His throne, howbeit the dragon, in his followers, be attending the childbirth pain, as an Egyptian midwife, to receive the birth and strangle it. But they shall be disappointed who thirst for the destruction of Zion. "They shall be as when a hungry man dreameth that he eateth, but, behold, he awaketh, and his soul is empty; or when a thirsty man dreameth that he drinketh, but, behold, he awaketh, and is faint, and his soul is not satisfied: so shall it be," I say, "with the multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion" (Isa. 29:8). Therefore, the weak and feeble, those that are "as signs and wonders in Israel," have chosen the best side, even the side that victory is upon. And I think this is no evil policy.

Verily, for myself, I am so well pleased with Christ, and His noble and honest-borne cross, this cross that is come of Christ's house and is of kin to Himself, that I should weep if it should come to niffering and bartering of lots and condition with those that are "at ease in Zion." I hold still my choice, and bless myself in it. I see and I believe that there is salvation in this way, which is everywhere spoken against. I hope to go to eternity, and to venture on the last evil to the saints (even upon death), fully persuaded that this only, even this, is the saving way for racked consciences, and for weary and laden sinners to find ease and peace for evermore in. And, indeed, it is not for any worldly respect that I speak so of it. The weather is not so hot that I have great cause to startle in my prison, or to boast of that entertainment that my good friends, the prelates, intend for me (which is, banishment), if they shall obtain their desire, and effectuate what they design. But let it come; I rue not that I made Christ my wale and my choice; I think Him aye the longer the better.

My Lord, it shall be good service to God, to hold your noble friend and chief upon a good course for the truth of Christ. Now the very God of peace establish your Lordship in Christ Jesus unto the end.

Your Lordship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 10, 1637.

CCLIX.—To MR. DAVID DICKSON

(DANGER OF WORLDLY EASE—PERSONAL OCCURRENCES.)

REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER IN THE LORD,—I bless the Lord, who hath so wonderfully stopped the ongoing of that lawless process against you. The Lord reigneth, and has a saving eye upon you and your ministry; and, therefore, fear not what men can do. I bless the Lord, that the Irish ministers find employment, and the professors comfort of their ministry. Believe me, I durst not, as I am now disposed, hold an honest brother out of the pulpit. I trust that the Lord will guard you, and hide you in the shadow of His hand. I am not pleased with any that are against you in that.

I see this, that, in prosperity, men's conscience will not start at small sins; but if some had been where I have been since I came from you, a little more would have caused their eyes to water, and trouble their peace. Oh how ready are we to incline to the world's hand! Our arguments, being well examined, are often drawn from our skin; the whole skin, and a peaceable tabernacle, is a topic-maxim in great request in our logic.

I find a little brairding of God's seed in this town, for the which the doctors have told me their mind, that they cannot bear with it, and have examined and threatened the people that haunt my company. I fear I get not leave to winter here; and whither I go I know not; I am ready at the Lord's call. I would I could make acquaintance with Christ's cross, for I find comforts lie to, and follow upon, the cross. I suffer in my name, by them; but I take it as a part of the crucifying of the old man. Let them cut the throat of my credit, and do as they like best with it. When the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me, in the way to heaven, I know that Christ will take my name out of the mire, and wash it, and restore it to me again. I would have a mind (if the Lord would be pleased to give me it) to be a fool for Christ's sake. Sometimes, while I have Christ in my arms, I fall asleep in the sweetness of His presence, and He, in my sleep, stealeth away out of my arms; and when I awake, I miss Him.

I am much comforted with my Lady Pitsligo, a good woman, and acquainted with God's ways.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 11, 1637.

CCLX.—To ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlston

(ALL CROSSES WELL ORDERED—PROVIDENCES.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Howbeit I should have been glad to have seen you; yet, seeing that our Lord hath been pleased to break the snare of our adversaries, I heartily bless our Lord on your behalf. Our crosses for Christ are not made of iron; they are softer and of more gentle metal. It is easy for God to make a fool of the devil, the father of all fools. As for me, I but breathe out what my Lord breatheth in. The scum and froth of my letters I father upon my own unbelieving heart. I know that your Lord hath something to do with you, because Satan and malice have shot sore at you; but your bow abideth in its strength. Ye shall not, by my advice, be a halver with Christ, to divide the glory of your deliverance betwixt yourself and Him, or any other second mean whatsoever. Let Christ (as it setteth Him well) have all the glory and triumph His lone. The Lord set Himself on high in you.

1. I see that Christ can borrow a cross for some hours, and set His servants beside it, rather than under it, and win the plea too; yea, and make glory to Himself, and shame to His enemies, and comfort to His children out of it. But whether Christ buy or borrow crosses, He is King of crosses, and King of devils, and King over hell, and King over malice. When He was in the grave, He came out, and brought the keys with Him. He is Lord Jailor; nay, what say I? He is Captain of the castle, and He hath the keys of death and hell. And what are our troubles but little deaths? and He who commandeth the great castle commandeth the little also.

2. I see that a hardened face, and two skins upon our brows against the winter hail and stormy wind, is meetest for a poor traveller, in a winter journey to heaven. Oh, what art is it to learn to endure hardness, and to learn to go barefooted either through the devil's fiery coals, or his frozen waters!

3. I am persuaded that a sea-venture with Christ maketh great riches: is not the ship of our King Jesus coming home, and shall not we get part of the gold? Alas! we fools miscount our gain when we seem losers. Believe me, I have no challenges against this well-borne cross: for it is come of Christ's house, and is honourable, and is His propine. "To you it is given to suffer."—Oh, what fools are we, to undervalue His gifts, and to lightly that which is true honour! For if we could be faithful, our tackling shall not loose, or our mast break, or our sails blow into the sea. The bastard crosses, the kinless and base-born crosses of worldings for evil-doing, must be heavy and grievous; but our afflictions are light and momentary.

4. I think myself happy that I have lost credit with Christ, and that in this bargain I am Christ's sworn dyvour, to whom He will lippen nothing, no, not one pin in the work of my salvation. Let me stand in black and white in the dyvour-book, before Christ. I am happy that my salvation is concredited2 to Christ's mediation. Christ oweth no faith to me, to lippen anything to me; but oh what faith and credit I owe to Him! Let my name fall, and let Christ's name stand in honour with men and angels. Alas! I have no room to spread out my affection before God's people; and I see not how I can shout out and cry out the loveliness, the high honour, and the glory of my fairest Lord Jesus. Oh that He would let me have a bed to lie on, to be delivered of my birth, that I might paint Him out in His beauty to men, as I dow.

5. I wondered once at providence, and called white providence black and unjust, that I should be smothered in a town where no soul will take Christ off my hand. But providence hath another lustre with God than with my bleared eyes. I proclaim myself a blind body, who knoweth not black and white, in the unco course of God's providence. Suppose that Christ should set hell where heaven is, and devils up in glory beside the elect angels (which yet cannot be), I would I had a heart to acquiesce in His way, without further dispute. I see that infinite wisdom is the mother of His judgments, and that His ways pass finding out.

6. I cannot learn, but I desire to learn, to bring my thoughts, will, and lusts, in-under Christ's feet, that He may trample upon them. But, alas! I am still upon Christ's wrong side.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 12, 1637.

CCLXI.—To the LADY KILCONQUHAIR [See Letter CCXXVI.]

(THE KINGDOM TO BE TAKEN BY VIOLENCE.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter. I am heartily content, that ye love and own this oppressed and wronged cause of Christ; and that now, when so many have miscarried, ye are in any measure taken with the love of Jesus. Weary not, but come in and see if there be not more in Christ than the tongue of men and angels can express. If ye seek a gate to heaven, the way is in Him, or He is it. What ye want is treasured up in Jesus; and He saith, all His are yours. Even His kingdom, He is content to divide it betwixt Him and you: yea, His throne and His glory (Luke 22:29, 30; John 17:21; Rev. 3:21). And, therefore, take pains to climb up to that besieged house to Christ; for devils, men, and armies of temptations are lying about the house, to hold out all that are out, and it is taken with violence. It is not a smooth and easy way, neither will your weather be fair and pleasant; but whosoever hath seen the invisible God, and the fair City, makes no reckoning of losses or crosses. In ye must be, cost you what it will. Stand not for a price, and for all that ye have, to win the castle. The rights to it are won to you, and it is disponed to you in the testament of your Lord Jesus (and see what a fair legacy your dying Friend, Christ, hath left you!), and there wanteth nothing but possession. Then get up in the strength of the Lord; get over the water to possess that good land. It is better than a land of olives and wine-trees; for the Tree of Life, that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, is there before you; and a pure river of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, is there. Your time is short; therefore lose no time. Gracious and faithful is He who hath called you to His kingdom and glory. The city is yours by free conquest, and by promise; and, therefore, let no unco lord-idol put you from your own. The devil hath cheated the simple heir of his paradise, and, by enticing us to taste of the forbidden fruit, hath as it were, bought us out of our kindly heritage. But our Lord Christ Jesus hath done more than bought the devil by; for He hath redeemed the wadset, and made the poor heir free to the inheritance. If we knew the glory of our Elder Brother in heaven, we would long to be there to see Him, and to get our fill of heaven. We children think the earth a fair garden; but it is but God's outfield, and wild, cold, barren ground. All things are fading that are here. It is our happiness to make sure of Christ to ourselves.

Thus remembering my love to your husband, and wishing to him what I write to you, I commit you to God's tender mercy.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 13, 1637.

CCLXII.—To ROBERT LENNOX of Disdove [See Letter CCXIII.]

(INCREASING EXPERIENCE OF CHRIST'S LOVE—SALVATION TO BE MADE SURE.)

WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,—I forget you not in my bonds. I know that you are looking to Christ; and I beseech you to follow your look. I can say more of Christ now by experience (though He be infinitely above and beyond all that can be said of Him), than when I saw you. I am drowned over head and ears in His love. Sell, sell, sell all things for Christ. If this whole world were the balk of a balance, it would not be able to bear the weight of Christ's love; men and angels have short arms to fathom it. Set your feet upon this piece of blue and base clay of an over-gilded and fair plastered world. An hour's kissing of Christ's is worth a world of worlds.

Sir, make sure work of your salvation: build not upon sand; lay the foundation upon the rock of Zion. Strive to be dead to this world, and to your will and lusts; let Christ have a commanding power and a king's throne in you. Walk with Christ, howbeit the world should take the hide off your face: I promise you that Christ will win the field. Your pastors cause you to err. Except you see Christ's word, go not one foot with them. Countenance not the reading of that Romish service-book. Keep your garments clean, as ye would walk with the Lamb clothed in white. The wrongs which I suffer are upon record in heaven. Our great Master and Judge will be upon us all, and bring us before the sun in our blacks and whites: blessed are they who watch and keep themselves in God's love. Learn to discern the Bridegroom's tongue, and to give yourself to prayer and reading. Ye were often a hearer of me. I would put my heart's blood on the doctrine which I taught, as the only way to salvation: go not from it, my dear brother. What I write to you, I write to your wife also. Mind heaven and Christ, and keep the spunk of the love of Christ which you have gotten. Christ will blow on it if ye entertain it; and your end shall be peace. There is a fire in our Zion, but our Lord is but seeking a new bride, refined and purified, out of the furnace. I assure you, howbeit we be nicknamed Puritans, that all the powers of the world shall not prevail against us. Remember, though a sinful man write it to you, that those people shall be in Scotland as a green olive-tree, and a field blessed of the Lord; and that it shall be proclaimed, "Up, up with Christ, and down, down with all contrary powers."

Sir, pray for me (I name you to the Lord), for further evil is determined against me.

Remember my love to Christian Murray and her daughter. I desire her, in the edge of her evening, to wait a little; the King is coming, and He hath something that she never saw with Him. Heaven is no dream. "Come and see" will teach her best. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 13, 1637.

CCLXIII.—To MARION M'NAUGHT

(HOPE IN TRIAL—PRAYER AND WATCHFULNESS.)

DEAREST IN OUR LORD JESUS,—Count it your honour, that Christ hath begun at you to refine you. first "Fear not," saith the Amen, the True and Faithful Witness. I write to you, as my Master liveth, upon the word of my royal King, continue in prayer and in watching, and your glorious deliverance is coming! Christ is not far off. A fig, a straw, for all the bits of clay that are risen against us! Ye shall thresh the mountains, and fan them like chaff (Isa. 41:15, 16). If ye slack your hands at your meetings, and your watching to prayer, then it would seem that our Rock hath sold us; but be diligent, and be not discouraged. I charge you in Christ, to rejoice, give thanks, believe, be strong in the Lord. That burning bush in Galloway and Kirkcudbright shall not be burnt to ashes, for the Lord is in the bush. Be not discouraged that banishment is to be procured, by the King's warrant to the Council, against me: the earth is my Lord's. I am filled with His sweet love, and running over. I rejoice to hear that ye are on your journey. Such news as I hear, of all your faith and love, rejoice my sad heart.

Pray for me, for they seek my hurt; but I give myself to prayer. The blessing of my Lord, and the blessing of a prisoner of Christ be with you. O chosen and greatly beloved woman, faint not. Fy, fy; if ye faint now, ye lose a good cause. Double your meetings; cease not for Zion's sake, and hold not your peace till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLXIV.—To THOMAS CORBET [One of his Anwoth parishioners]

(GODLY COUNSELS—FOLLOWING CHRIST.)

DEAR FRIEND,—I forget you not. It will be my joy that ye follow after Christ till ye find Him. My conscience is a feast of joy to me, that I fought in singleness of heart, for Christ's love, to put you upon the King's highway to our Bridegroom, and our Father's house. Thrice blessed are ye, my dear brother, if ye hold the way.

I believe that ye and Christ once met; I hope ye will not sunder with Him. Follow the counsel of the man of God, Mr. William Dalgleish. If ye depart from what I taught you in a hair-breadth, for fear or favour of men, or desire of ease in this world, I take heaven and earth to witness that ill shall come upon you in the end. Build not your nest here. This world is a hard, ill-made bed; no rest is in it for your soul. Awake, awake, and make haste to seek that Pearl, Christ, that this world seeth not. Your night and your Master Christ will be upon you within a clap; your hand-breadth of time will not bide you. Take Christ, howbeit a storm follow Him. Howbeit this day be not yours and Christ's, the morrow will be yours and His. I would not exchange the joy of my bonds and imprisonment for Christ, with all the joy of this dirty and foul-skinned world. I have a love-bed with Christ, and am filled with His love.

I desire your wife to do what I write to you. Let her remember how dear Christ will be to her, when her breath turneth cold, and the eye-strings shall break. Oh, how joyful should my soul be, to know that I had brought on a marriage betwixt Christ and that people, few or many! If it be not so, I shall be wo to be a witness against them. Use prayer: love not the world: be humble, and esteem little of yourself. Love your enemies, and pray for them. Make conscience of speaking truth, when none knoweth but God. I never eat, but I pray for you all. Pray for me. Ye and I shall see one another up in our Father's house. I rejoice to hear that your eye is upon Christ. Follow on, hing on, and quit Him not. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Your affectionate brother, in our Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637

CCLXV.—To MR. GEORGE DUNBAR

[GEORGE DUNBAR was minister of Ayr. Adhering with zeal to Presbytery, he was summoned before the High Commission Court in the beginning of the year 1622. On appearing, he gave in a paper declining its authority; but the Court passed sentence of deprivation upon him, and condemned him to be confined within Dumfries. He was ejected from this charge also. When the messenger of the Court came to his house on this last occasion, either to summon him or to intimate his sentence, a young daughter of his said, "And Pharaoh's heart is still hardened!" while all that Dunbar said was to bid his wife "prepare her creels again;" for, on the former occasion, the children, being young, behoved to be carried away on horseback in creels (Livingstone's "Characteristics"). He was for a long time prisoner at Blackness; but at length, being banished by the Privy Council, he removed to Ireland. He first preached at Carrickfergus, and ultimately settled at Larne, where he discharged his ministry with diligence and success. On being deposed by the Bishop of Down, in 1634, for nonconformity, he came over to Scotland, and after the triumph of Presbytery, in 1638, became minister of the parish of Calder, in Lothian, where he died.]

(CHRIST'S LOVE IN AFFLICTION—THE SAINT'S SUPPORT AND FINAL VICTORY.)

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Because your words have strengthened many, I was silent, expecting some lines from you in my bonds; and this is the cause why I wrote not to you. But now I am forced to break off and speak. I never believed, till now, that there was so much to be found in Christ on this side of death and of heaven. Oh, the ravishments of heavenly joy that may be had here, in the small gleanings of comforts that fall from Christ! What fools are we who know not, and consider not the weight and the telling that is in the very earnest-penny, and the first-fruits of our hoped-for harvest! How sweet, how sweet is our infeftment! oh, what then must personal possession be! I find that my Lord Jesus hath not miscooked or spilled this sweet cross; He hath an eye on the fire and the melting gold, to separate the metal and the dross. Oh how much time would it take me to read my obligations to Jesus my Lord, who will neither have the faith of His own to be burnt to ashes, nor yet will have a poor believer in the fire to be half raw, like Ephraim's unturned cake! This is the wisdom of Him who hath His fire in Zion, and furnace in Jerusalem. I need not either bud or flatter temptations and crosses, nor strive to buy the devil or this malicious world by, or redeem their kindness with half a hair-breadth of truth. He who is surety for His servant for good doth powerfully overrule all that. I see my prison hath neither lock nor door: I am free in my bonds, and my chains are made of rotten straw; they shall not bide one pull of faith. I am sure that there are those in hell who would exchange their torments with our crosses, suppose they should never be delivered, and give twenty thousand years' torment to boot, to be in our bonds for ever. And, therefore, we wrong Christ who sigh, and fear, and doubt, and despond in them. Our sufferings are washen in Christ's blood, as well as our souls; for Christ's merits brought a blessing to the crosses of the sons of God. And Jesus hath a back-bond of all our temptations, that the free-warders shall come out by law and justice, in respect of the infinite and great sum that the Redeemer paid. Our troubles owe us a free passage through them. Devils, and men, and crosses, are our debtors, death and all storms are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water fraught-free, and to set the travellers on their own known ground. Therefore we shall die, and yet live. We are over the water some way already. We are married, and our tocher-good is paid. We are already more than conquerors. If the devil and the world knew how the court with our Lord shall go, I am sure they would hire death to take us off their hand. Our sufferings are only the wreck and ruin of the black kingdom; and yet a little, and the Antichrist must play himself with bones and slain bodies of the Lamb's followers; but withal we stand with the hundred forty and four thousand, who are with the Lamb, upon the top of Mount Zion. Antichrist and his followers are down in the valley ground: we have the advantage of the hill; our temptations are always beneath. Our waters are beneath our breath: "as dying, and behold we live." I never heard before of a living death, or a quick death, but ours: our death is not like the common death. Christ's skill, His handywork, and a new cast of Christ's admirable art, may be seen in our quick death. I bless the Lord, that all our troubles come through Christ's fingers, and that He casteth sugar among them, and casteth in some ounce-weights of heaven, and of the Spirit of glory that resteth on suffering believers, into our cup, in which there is no taste of hell. My dear brother, ye know all these better than I. I send water to the sea, to speak of these things to you; but it easeth me to desire you to help me to pay my tribute of praise to Jesus. Oh what praises I owe Him! I would I were in my free heritage, that I might begin to pay my debts to Jesus. I entreat for your prayers and praises. I forget not you.

Your brother and fellow-sufferer in and for Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 17, 1637.

CCLXVI.—To JOHN FLEMING, Bailie of Leith

(COMFORT ABOUNDING UNDER TRIALS.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—The Lord hath brought me safe to this strange town. Blessed be His holy name, I find His cross easy and light, and I hope that He will be with His poor sold Joseph, who is separated from his brethren. His comforts have abounded towards me, as if Christ thought shame (if I may speak so) to be in the common of such a poor man as I am, and would not have me lose anything in His errands. My enemies have, beside their intention, made me more blessed, and have put me in a sweeter possession of Christ than ever I had before; only the memory of the fair days I had with my Well-beloved, amongst the flock intrusted to me, keepeth me low, and soureth my unseen joy (1 Cor. 2:9). But it must be so, and He is wise who tutoreth me in this way. For that which my brethren have, and I want, and others of this world have, I am content; my faith will frist God my happiness. No son is offended that his father give him not hire twice a-year; for he is to abide in the house, when the inheritance is to be divided. It is better that God's children live upon hope, than upon hire.

Thus remembering my love to your worthy and kind wife, I bless you and her, and all yours, in the Lord's name.

Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 20, 1637.

CCLXVII.—To WILLIAM GLENDINNING, Bailie of Kirkcudbright

(THE PAST AND THE FUTURE—PRESENT HAPPINESS.)

WORTHY SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am well, honour be to God! as well as a rejoicing prisoner of Christ can be, hoping that one day He, for whom I now suffer, will enlarge me, and put me above the threatenings of men.

I am sometimes sad, heavy, and casten down, at the memory of the fair days I had with Christ in Anwoth, Kirkcudbright, etc. The remembrance of a feast increaseth hunger in a hungry man. But who knoweth, but our Lord will yet cover a table in the wilderness to His hungry bairns, and build the old waste places in Scotland, and bring home Zion's captives? I desire to see no more glorious fight, till I see the Lamb on His throne, than to see Mount Zion all green with grass, and the dew lying upon the tops of the grass, and the crown put upon Christ's head in Scotland again. And I believe it shall be so, and that Christ will mow down His enemies, and fill the pits with their dead bodies.

I find people here dry and unco. A man pointed at for suffering dare not to be countenanced; so that I am like to sit my lone upon the ground. But my Lord payeth me well home again; for I have neither tongue, nor pen, nor heart to express the sweetness and excellency of the love of Christ. Christ's honeycombs drop honey and floods of consolation upon my soul. My chains are gold: Christ's cross is all over-gilded and perfumed: His prison is the garden and orchard of my delights. I would go through burning quick to my lovely Christ. I sleep in His arms all the night, and my head betwixt His breasts. My Well-beloved is altogether lovely. This is all nothing to that which my soul hath felt. Let no man, for my cause, scaur at Christ's cross. If my stipend, place, country, credit, had been an earldom, a kingdom, ten kingdoms, and a whole earth, all were too little for the crown and sceptre of my royal King. Mine enemies, mine enemies have made me blessed! They have sent me to the Bridegroom's chamber. Love is His banner over me. I live a king's life; I want nothing but heaven, and possession of the crown. My earnest is great; Christ is no niggard to me. Dear Brother, be for the Lord Jesus, and His heart-broken bride.

I need not, I hope, remember my distressed brother to your care. Remember my love to your wife. Let Christ want nothing of us; His garments shall be rolled in the blood of the slain of Scotland.

Grace, grace be with you. Pray for Christ's prisoner.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 21, 1637.

CCLXVIII.—To the EARL OF CASSILLIS [Letter CXXVIII.]

(ANXIETY FOR THE PROSPERITY OF ZION—ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THE NOBLES TO SUPPORT IT—THE VANITY OF THIS WORLD, AND THE FOLLY AND MISERY OF FORSAKING CHRIST—THE ONE WAY TO HEAVEN.)

MY VERY HONOURABLE AND NOBLE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Lordship.—Pardon me to express my earnest desire to your Lordship, for Zion's sake, for whom we should not hold our peace. I know that your Lordship will take my pleading on this behalf in the better part, because the necessity of a falling and weak church is urgent. I believe that your Lordship is one of Zion's friends, and that by obligation. For when the Lord shall count and write up the people, it shall be written, "This man was born there;" therefore, because your Lordship is a born son of the house, I hope your desire is, that the beauty and glory of the Lord may dwell in the midst of the city, whereof your Lordship is a son. It must be, without all doubt, the greatest honour of your place and house, to kiss the Son of God, and for His sake to be kind to His oppressed and wronged Bride, who now, in the day of her desolation, beggeth help of you that are the shields of the earth. I am sure many kings, princes, and nobles, in the day of Christ's Second Coming, would be glad to run errands for Christ, even barefooted, through fire and water. But in that day He will have none of their service. Now, He is asking if your Lordship will help Him against the mighty of the earth, when men are setting their shoulders to Christ's fair and beautiful tent in this land, to loose its stakes and to break it down. And certainly such as are not with Christ are against Him: and blessed shall your Lordship be of the Lord, blessed shall your house and seed be, and blessed shall your honour be, if ye empawn and lay in Christ's hand the Earldom of Cassillis (and it is but a shadow in comparison of the city made without hands!), and lay it even at the stake, rather than Christ and borne-down truth want a witness of you, against the apostacy of this land. Ye hold your lands of Christ; your charters are under His seal; and He who hath many crowns on His head, dealeth, cutteth, and carveth pieces of this clay-heritage to men, at His pleasure. It is little your Lordship hath to give Him; He will not sleep long in your common, but shall surely pay home your losses for His cause. It is but our bleared eyes that look through a false glass to this idol-god of clay, and think something of it. They who are past with their last sentence to heaven or hell, and have made their reckoning, and departed out of this smoky inn, have now no other conceit of this world, but as a piece of beguiling well-lustred clay. And how fast doth time (like a flood in motion) carry your Lordship out of it! And is not eternity coming with wings? Court goeth not in heaven as it doth here. Our Lord (who hath all you, the nobles, lying in the shell of His balance) esteemeth you according as ye are the Bridegroom's friends or foes. Your honourable ancestors, with the hazard of their lives, brought Christ to our land; and it shall be cruelty to the posterity if ye lose Him to them. One of our tribes, Levi's sons, the watchmen, are fallen from the Lord, and have sold their mother, and their father also, and the Lord's truth, for their new velvet-world and their satin-church. If ye, the nobles, play Christ the slip now, when His back is at the wall (if I may so speak), then may we say that the Lord hath casten water upon Scotland's smoking coal. But we hope better things of you. It is no wisdom (however it be the state-wisdom now in request) to be silent, when they are casting lots for a better thing than Christ's coat. All this land, and every man's part of the play for Christ, and the tears of poor and friendless Zion (now going dool-like in sackcloth), are up in heaven before our Lord; and there is no question, but our King and Lord shall be master of the fields at length. And we would all be glad to divide the spoil with Christ, and to ride in triumph with Him; but oh how few will take a cold bed of straw in the camp with Him! How fain would men have a well-thatched house above their heads, all the way to heaven! And many now would go to heaven the land-way (for they love not to be sea-sick), riding up to Christ upon foot-mantles, and rattling coaches, and rubbing their velvet with the princes of the land, in the highest seats. If this be the way Christ called strait and narrow, I quit all skill of the way to salvation. Are they not now rouping Christ and the Gospel? Have they not put our Lord Jesus to the market, and he who outbiddeth his fellow shall get Him? O my dear and noble Lord, go on (howbeit the wind be in your face) to back our princely Captain. Be courageous for Him. Fear not those who have no subscribed lease of days. The worms shall eat kings. Let the Lord Jehovah be your fear, and then, as the Lord liveth, the victory is yours. It is true, many are striking up a new way to heaven; but, my soul for theirs, if they find it, and if this be not the only way, whose end is Christ's Father's house. And my weak experience, since the day I was first in bonds, hath confirmed me in the truth and assurance of this. Let doctors and learned men cry the contrary, I am persuaded that this is the way. The bottom hath fallen out of both their wit and conscience at once; their book hath beguiled them, for we have fallen upon the true Christ. I dare hazard, if I alone had ten souls, my salvation upon this Stone that many now break their bones upon. Let them take this fat world. Oh, poor and hungry is their paradise! Therefore let me entreat your Lordship, by your compearance before Christ, now while this piece of the afternoon of your day is before you (for ye know not when your sun will turn, and eternity shall benight you), let your worldly glory, honour, and might, be for our Lord Jesus. And to His rich grace, and tender mercy, and to the never-dying comforts of His gracious Spirit, I recommend your Lordship and noble house.

Your Lordship's, at all obedience,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 9, 1637.

CCLXIX.—To his Parishioners at Anwoth

(EXHORTATION TO ABIDE IN THE TRUTH, IN PROSPECT OF CHRIST'S COMING—SCRIPTURAL MODE OF OBSERVING ORDINANCES SUCH AS THE SABBATH, FAMILY PRAYER, AND THE LORD'S SUPPER—JUDGMENTS ANTICIPATED.)

DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied upon you.

I long exceedingly to hear of your on-going and advancement in your journey to the kingdom of God. My only joy, out of heaven, is to hear that the seed of God sown among you is growing and coming to a harvest. For I ceased not, while I was among you, in season and out of season (according to the measure of grace given unto me), to warn and stir up your minds: and I am free from the blood of all men, for I have communicated to you the whole counsel of God. And I now again charge and warn you, in the great and dreadful name, and in the sovereign authority of the King of kings, and Lord of lords, and I beseech you also by the mercies of God, and by the bowels of Christ, by your appearance before Christ Jesus our Lord, by all the plagues that are written in God's book, by your part of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, that ye keep the truth of God, as I delivered it to you, before many witnesses, in the sight of God and His holy angels. For now the last days are come and coming, when many forsake Christ Jesus; and He saith to you, Will ye also leave Me?

Remember that I forewarned you to forbear the dishonouring of the Lord's blessed name, in swearing, blaspheming, cursing, and the profaning of the Lord's Sabbath; willing you to give that day, from morning to night, to praying, praising, hearing of the word, conferring, and speaking not your own words but God's words, thinking and meditating on God's nature, word, and work; and that every day, at morning and at night (at least), ye should sanctify the Lord by praying in your houses, publicly in the hearing of all. That ye should in any sort forbear the receiving of the Lord's Supper but after the form that I delivered it to you, according to the example of Christ our Lord, that is, that ye should sit as banqueters, at one table with our King, and eat, and drink, and divide the elements, one to another. (The timber and stones of the church-wall shall bear witness, that my soul was refreshed with the comforts of God in that supper!) And that crossing in baptism was unlawful, and against Christ's ordinance. And that no day besides the Sabbath (which is of His own appointment) should be kept holy, and sanctified with preaching and the public worship of God, for the memory of Christ's birth, death, resurrection, and ascension; seeing such days so observed are unlawful, will-worship, and not warranted in Christ's word. And that everything, in God's worship, not warranted by Christ's Testament and word, was unlawful. Also, that Idolatry, worshipping of God before hallowed creatures, and adoring of Christ by kneeling before bread and wine, was unlawful. And that ye should be humble, sober, modest, forbearing pride, envy, malice, wrath, hatred, contention, debate, lying, slandering, stealing, and defrauding your neighbours in grass, corn, or cattle, in buying or selling, borrowing or lending, taking or giving, in bargains or covenants; that ye should work with your own hands, and be content with that which God hath given you. That ye should study to know God and His will, and keep in mind the doctrine of the Catechism, which I taught you carefully, and speak of it in your houses, and in the fields, when ye lie down at night, and when ye rise in the morning; and that ye should believe in the Son of God, and obey His commandments, and learn to make your accounts in time with your Judge, because death and judgment are before you.

And if ye have now penury and want of that word, which I delivered to you in abundance (yea to God's honour I speak it, without arrogating anything to myself, who am but a poor empty man, ye had as much of the word in nine years, while I was among you, as some others have had in many), mourn for your loss of time, and repent. My soul pitieth you, that ye should suck dry breasts, and be put to draw at dry wells. Oh that ye would esteem highly the Lamb of God, your well-beloved Christ Jesus, whose virtues and praises I preached unto you with joy, and which He did countenance and accompany with some power; and that ye would call to mind the many fair days, and glorious feasts in our Lord's house-of-wine, that ye and I have had with Christ Jesus!

But if there be any among you that take liberty to sin because I am removed from amongst you, and forget that word of truth which ye heard, and turn the grace of God into wantonness, I here, under my hand, in the name of Christ my Lord, write to such persons all the plagues of God, and the curses that ever I preached in the pulpit of Anwoth, against the children of disobedience! And, as the Lord liveth, the Lord Jesus shall make good what I write unto you. Therefore, dearly beloved, fulfil my joy. Fear the great and dreadful name of the Lord. Seek God with me. Scotland's judgment sleepeth not: awake and repent. The sword of the Lord shall go from the north to the south, from the east to the west, and through all the corners of the land, and that sword shall be drunk with your blood amongst the first; and I shall stand up as a witness against you, if you do not amend your ways and your doings, and turn to the Lord with all your heart.

I beseech you also, my beloved in the Lord, my joy, and my crown, be not offended at the sufferings of me, the prisoner of Jesus Christ. I am filled with joy and with the comforts of God. Upon my salvation, I know and am persuaded it is for God's truth, and the honour of my King and royal Prince Jesus, I now suffer. And howbeit this town be my prison, yet Christ hath made it my palace, a garden of pleasures, a field and orchard of delights. I know likewise, albeit I be in bonds, that yet the word of God is not in bonds. My spirit also is in free ward. Sweet, sweet have His comforts been to my soul: my pen, tongue, and heart have not words to express the kindness, love, and mercy of my Well-beloved to me, in this house of my pilgrimage.

I charge you to fear and love Christ, and to seek a house not made with hands, but your Father's house above. This laughing and white-skinned world beguileth you; and if ye seek it more than God, it shall play you a slip, to the endless sorrow of your heart. Alas! I could not make many of you fall in love with Christ, howbeit I endeavoured to speak much good of Him and to commend Him to you; which as it was your sin, so it is my sorrow! Yet, once again suffer me to exhort, beseech, and obtest you in the Lord, to think of His love, and to be delighted with Him, who is altogether lovely. I give ye the word of a King, that ye shall not repent it.

Ye are in my prayers night and day. I cannot forget you: I do not eat, I do not drink, but I pray for you all. I entreat you all and every one of you, to pray for me. Grace, grace be with you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 23, 1637.

CCLXX.—To the LADY BUSBIE [Letter CXXXIII.]

(HIS EXPERIENCE OF CHRIST'S LOVE—STATE OF THE LAND AND CHURCH—CHRIST NOT DULY ESTEEMED—DESIRES AFTER HIM, AND FOR A REVIVAL.)

MISTRESS,—Although not acquaint, yet because we are Father's children, I thought good to write unto you. Howbeit my first discourse and communing with you of Christ be in paper, yet I have cause, since I came hither, to have no paper thoughts of Him. For, in my sad days, He is become the flower of my joys; and I but lie here living upon His love, but cannot get so much of it as fain I would have; not because Christ's love is lordly, and looketh too high, but because I have a narrow vessel to receive His love, and I look too low. But I give, under my own hand-write, to you a testimonial of Christ and His cross, that they are a sweet couple, and that Christ hath never yet been set in His own due chair of honour amongst us all. Oh, I know not where to set Him! Oh, for a high seat to that royal princely One! Oh that my poor withered soul had once a running-over flood of that love to put sap into my dry root, and that that flood would spring out to the tongue and pen, to utter great things, to the high and due commendation of such a fair One! O holy, holy, holy One! Alas, there are too many dumb tongues in the world, and dry hearts, seeing there is employment in Christ for them all, and ten thousand worlds of men and angels more, to set on high and exalt the greatest Prince of the kings of the earth! Woe is me that bits of living clay dare come out to rush hardheads with Him; and that my unkind mother, this harlot-kirk, hath given her sweet half-marrow such a meeting. For this land hath given up with Christ, and the Lord is cutting Scotland in two halves, and sending the worst half, the harlot-sister, over to Rome's brothel-house, to get her fill of Egypt's love. I would my sufferings (nay, suppose I were burnt quick to ashes) might buy an agreement betwixt His fairest and sweetest love, and His gaddy (Jer. 2:36) lewd wife. Fain would I give Christ His welcome-home to Scotland again, if He would return. This is a black day, a day of clouds and darkness; for the roof-tree of the fair temple of my Lord Jesus is fallen, and Christ's back is towards Scotland. Oh, thrice blessed are they who would hold Christ with their tears and prayers! I know ye will help to deal with Him; for He shall return again to this land. The next day shall be Christ's, and there shall be a fair green young garden for Christ in this land, and God's summer-dew shall lie on it all the night, and we shall sing again our new marriage-song to our Bridegroom, concerning His vineyard. But who knoweth whether we shall live and see it?

I hear the Lord hath taken pains to afflict and dress you, as a fruitful vine for Himself. Grow and be green, and cast out your branches, and bring forth fruit. Fat and green and fruitful may ye be, in the true and sappy root. Grace, grace, free grace be your portion. Remember my bonds with prayers and praises.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLXXI.—To EARLSTON, Younger

(PROSPERITY UNDER THE CROSS—NEED OF SINCERITY, AND BEING FOUNDED ON CHRIST.)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am well. Christ triumpheth in me, blessed be His name. I have all things. I burden no man. I see that this earth and the fulness thereof is my Father's. Sweet, sweet is the cross of my Lord. The blessing of God upon the cross of my Lord Jesus! My enemies have contributed (beside their design) to make me blessed. This is my palace, not my prison; especially, when my Lord shineth and smileth upon His poor afflicted and sold Joseph, who is separated from his brethren. But often He hideth Himself; and there is a day of law, and a court of challenges within me; I know not if fenced in God's name. But, oh, my neglects! oh, my unseen guiltiness! I imagined that a sufferer for Christ kept the keys of Christ's treasure, and might take out his heart-full of comforts when he pleased; but I see, a sufferer and a witness shall be holden at the door, as well as another poor sinner, and be glad to eat with the bairns, and to take the by-board.

This cross hath let me see that heaven is not at the next door, and that it is a castle not soon taken. I see, also, that it is neither pain nor art to play the hypocrite. We have all learned to sell ourselves for double price; and to make the people (who call ten twenty, and twenty an hundred) esteem us half gods, or men fallen out of the clouds. But, oh, sincerity, sincerity, if I knew what sincerity meaneth!

Sir, lay the foundation thus, and ye shall not soon shrink, nor be shaken. Make tight work at the bottom, and your ship shall ride against all storms, if withal your anchor be fastened on good ground; I mean within the vail. And verily I think this is all, to gain Christ. All other things are shadows, dreams, fancies, and nothing.

Sir, remember my love to your mother. I pray for mercy and grace to her; I wish her on-going toward heaven. As I promised to write, so shew her that I want nothing in my Lord's service. Christ will not be in such a poor man's common as mine. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 22, 1637.

CCLXXII.—To JOHN GORDON [Letter CXLVII.]

(CHRIST ALL WORTHLY—THIS WORLD A CLAY PRISON—DESIRE FOR A REVIVAL OF CHRIST'S CAUSE.)

WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have been too long in writing to you, but multitude of letters taketh much time from me.

I bless His great name whom I serve in the spirit, that if it come to voting, amongst angels and men, how excellent and sweet Christ is, even in His reproaches and in His cross, I cannot but vote with the first that all that is in Him, both cross and crown, kisses and glooms, embracements, and frownings, and strokes, is sweet and glorious. God send me no more happiness in heaven, or out of heaven, than Christ! for I find this world, when I have looked upon it on both sides, within and without, and when I have seen even the laughing and lovely side of it, to be but a fool's idol, a clay prison. Lord, let it not be the nest that my hope buildeth in. I have now cause to judge my part of this earth not worth a blast of smoke, or a mouthful of brown bread. I wish that my hope may take a running-leap, and skip over time's pleasure, sin's plastering and gold-foil, this vain earth, and rest upon my Lord. Oh, how great is our night-darkness in this wilderness! To have any conceit at all of this world is, as if a man should close his handful of water, and, holding his hand in the river, to say that all the water of the flood is his; as if it were, indeed, all within the compass of his hand. Who would not laugh at the thoughts of such a crack-brain? Verily, they have but an handful of water, and are but like a child clasping his two hands about a night-shadow, who idolize any created hope, but God. I now lightly, and put the price of a dream, or fable, or black nothing, upon all things but God, and that desirable and love-worthy One, my Lord Jesus. Let all the world be nothing (for nothing was their seed and mother), and let God be all things.

My very dear brother, know that ye are as near heaven as ye are far from yourself, and far from the love of a bewitching and whorish world. For this world, in its gain and glory, is but the great and notable common whore, that all the sons of men have been in fancy and lust withal these 5000 years. The children that they have begotten with this uncouth and lustful lover are but vanity, dreams, gold imaginations, and night-thoughts. There is no good ground here, under the covering of heaven, for men and poor wearied souls to set down their foot upon. Oh, He who is called God, that One whom they term Jesus Christ, is worth the having indeed, even if I had given away all without, my eye-holes, my soul, and myself, for sweet Jesus my Lord! Oh, let the claim be cancelled that the creatures have to me,—except that claim my Lord Jesus hath to me! Oh that He would claim poor me, my silly, light, and worthless soul! Oh that He would pursue His claim to the utmost point, and not want me! for it is my pain and remediless sorrow to want Him. I see nothing in this life but sinks, and mires, and dreams, and beguiling ditches, and ill ground for us to build upon.

I am fully persuaded of Christ's victory in Scotland; but I fear that this land be not yet ripe and white (John 4:35) for mercy. Yet I dare be halver (upon my salvation) with the losses of the Church of Scotland, that her foes, after noon, shall sing dool and sorrow for evermore, and that her joy shall once again be cried up, and her sky shall clear. But vengeance and burning shall be to her adversaries, and the sinners of this land. Oh that we could be awakened to prayers and humiliation! Then should our sun shine like seven suns in the heaven! then should the temple of Christ be builded upon the mountain-tops, and the land, from coast to coast, should be filled with the glory of the Lord.

Brother, your day-task is wearing short; your hour-glass of this span-length and hand-breadth of life will quickly pass; and, therefore, take order and course with matters betwixt you and Christ, before it come to open pleading. There are no quarters to be had of Christ, in open judgment. I know, that ye see your thread wearing short, and that there are not many inches to the thread's end; and, therefore, lose not time.

Remember me, His prisoner, that it would please the Lord to bring me again amongst you with abundance of the Gospel.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLXXIII.—To WILLIAM RIGGE of Athernie

(COMFORT IN TRIALS FROM THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST'S POWER AND WORK—THAT WILL SOON BE OVER—CORRUPTION—FREE GRACE.)

WORTHY AND MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace mercy, and peace be to you.—How sad a prisoner should I be, if I knew not that my Lord Jesus had the keys of the prison Himself, and that His death and blood have bought a blessing to our crosses, as well as to ourselves! I am sure that troubles have no prevailing right over us, if they be but our Lord's Serjeants to keep us in His ward, while we are on this side of heaven. I am persuaded, also, that they shall not go over the bound-road, nor enter into heaven with us. For they find no welcome there, where "there is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither any more pain;" and, therefore, we shall leave them behind us. Oh, if I could get as good a gate of sin, even this woful and wretched body of sin, as I get of Christ's cross! Nay, indeed, I think the cross beareth both me and itself, rather than I it, in comparison of the tyranny of the lawless flesh, and wicked neighbour, that dwelleth beside Christ's new creature. But, oh! this is that which presseth me down, and paineth me. Jesus Christ in His saints sitteth neighbour with an ill second, corruption, deadness, coldness, pride, lust, worldliness, self-love, security, falsehood, and a world of more the like, which I find in me, that are daily doing violence to the new man. Oh, but we have cause to carry low sails, and to cleave fast to free grace, free, free grace! Blessed be our Lord that ever that way was found out. If my one foot were in heaven and my soul half in, if free-will and corruption were absolute lords of me, I should never win wholly in. Oh, but the sweet, new, and living way, that Christ hath struck up to our home, is a safe way! I find now, presence and access a greater dainty than before; but yet the Bridegroom looketh through the lattice, and through the hole of the door. Oh, if He and I were on fair dry land together, on the other side of the water!

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Sept. 30, 1637.

CCLXXIV.—To JAMES MURRAY

[This may be James Murray of whom Livingstone, in his "Characteristics," writes, "An Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile." He was a writer in Edinburgh; hence, perhaps, the expectation of news as to what Government was doing, in the close of the letter.]

(THE CHRISTIAN LIFE A MYSTERY TO THE WORLD—CHRIST'S KINDNESS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—I received your letter. I am in good health of body, but far better in my soul. I find my Lord no worse than His word. "I will be with him in trouble," is made good to me now. He heareth the sighing of the prisoner. Brother, I am comforted in my royal Prince and King. The world knoweth not our life; it is a mystery to them. We have the sunny side of the world, and our paradise is far above theirs; yea, our weeping is above their laughing, which is but like the crackling of thorns under a pot. And, therefore, we have good cause to fight it out, for the day of our laureation is approaching. I find my prison the sweetest place that ever I was in. My Lord Jesus is kind to me, and hath taken the mask off His face, and is content to quit me all bygones. I dare not complain of Him. And for my silence, I lay it before Christ: I hope it will be a speaking silence. He who knoweth what I would, knoweth that my soul desireth no more than that King Jesus may be great in the north of Scotland, in the south, and in the east and west, through my sufferings for the freedom of my Lord's house and kingdom. If I could keep good quarters, in time to come, with Christ, I would fear nothing. But, oh, oh, I complain of my woful outbreakings! I tremble at the remembrance of a new outcast betwixt Him and me; and I have cause, when I consider what sickness and sad days I have had for His absence who is now come! I find that Christ dow not be long unkind: our Joseph's bowels yearn within Him; He cannot smother love long; it must break out at length. Praise, praise with me, brother, and desire my acquaintance to help me. I dare not conceal His love to my soul. I wish you all a part of my feast, that my Lord Jesus may be honoured. I allow you not to hide Christ's bounty to me, when ye meet with such as know Christ.

Ye write nothing to me. What are the cruel mercies of the prelates towards me? The ministers of this town, as I hear, intend that I shall be more strictly confined, or else transported, because they find some people affect me. Grace be with you.

Yours, in the sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Nov. 21, 1637.

CCLXXV.—To MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL [Letter CXII.]

(SPIRITUAL LONGINGS UNDER CHRIST'S CROSS—HOW TO BEAR IT—CHRIST PRECIOUS, AND TO BE HAD WITHOUT MONEY—THE CHURCH.)

REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED IN OUR LORD JESUS,—I must still provoke you to write by my lines. Whereat ye need not wonder, for the cross is full of talk, and speak it must, either good or bad: neither can grief be silent.

I have no dittay nor indictment to bring against Christ's cross, seeing He hath made a friendly agreement betwixt me and it, and we are in terms of love together. If my former miscarriages, and my now silent Sabbaths, seem to me to speak wrath from the Lord, I dare say it is but Satan borrowing the use and loan of my cowardly and feeble apprehensions, which start at straws. I know that faith is not so faint and foolish as to tremble at every false alarm. Yet I gather this out of it: Blessed are they who are graced of God to guide a cross well, and, that there is some art required therein. I pray God that I may not be so ill friendstead, as that Christ my Lord should leave me to be my own tutor, and my own physician. Shall I not think that my Lord Jesus, who deserveth His own place very well, will take His own place upon Him as it becometh Him, and that He will fill His own chair? For in this is His office, to comfort us, and those that are casten down, in all their tribulations (2 Cor. 1:4). Alas! I know that I am a fool to seek a hole or defect in Christ's way with my soul. If I have not a stock to present to Christ at His appearance, yet I pray God that I may be able, with joy and faith and constancy, to shew the Captain of my salvation, in that day, a bloody head which I received in His service. Howbeit my faith hang by a small tack and thread, I hope that the tack shall not break; and, howbeit my Lord got no service of me but broken wishes, yet I trust that those will be accepted upon Christ's account. I have nothing to comfort me, but that I say, "Oh! will the Lord disappoint an hungry on-waiter?" The smell of Christ's wine and apples (which surpass the uptaking of dull sense) bloweth upon my soul, and I get no more for the meantime. I am sure, that to let a famishing body see meat and give him none of it, is a double pain. Our Lord's love is not so cruel as to let a poor man see Christ and heaven, and never give him more, for want of money to buy: nay, I rather think Christ to be such fair market wares, as buyers may have without money and without price. And thus I know that it shall not stand upon my want of money; for Christ upon His own charges must buy my wedding-garment, and redeem the inheritance which I have forfeited, and give His word for one the like of me, who am not law-biding of myself. Poor folks must either borrow or beg from the rich; and the only thing that commendeth sinners to Christ is extreme necessity and want. Christ's love is ready to make and provide a ransom, and money for a poor body who hath lost his purse. "Ho, ye that have no money, come and buy" (Isa. 55:1), that is the poor man's market.

Now, brother, I see that old crosses would have done nothing to me; and, therefore, Christ hath taken a new, fresh rod to me, that seemeth to talk with my soul and make me tremble. I have often more ado now with faith, when I lose my compass and am blown on a rock, than those who are my beholders, standing upon the shore, are aware of. A counsel to a sick man is sooner given than taken. Lord, send the wearied man a borrowed bed from Christ! I think often that it is after supper with me, and I am heavy. Oh, but I would sleep soundly with Christ's left hand under my head, and His right hand embracing me. The devil could not spill that bed. When I consider how tenderly Christ hath cared for me in this prison, I think that He hath handled me as the bairn that is pitied and bemoaned. I desire no more till I be in heaven, but such a feast and fill of Christ's love as I would have; this love would be fair and adorning passments which would beautify and set forth my black, unpleasant cross. I cannot tell, my dear brother, what a great load I would bear, if I had a hearty fill of the love of that lovely One, Christ Jesus. Oh, if ye would seek and pray for that to me! I would give Christ all His love-styles and titles of honour, if He would give me but this; nay, I would sell myself, if I could, for that love.

I have been waiting to see what friends of place and power would do for us. But when the Lord looseneth the pins of His own tabernacle, He will have Himself to be acknowledged as the only builder-up thereof; and, therefore, I would take back again my hope that I lent and laid in pawn in men's hands, and give it wholly to Christ. It is no time for me now to set up idols of my own. It were a pity to give an ounce-weight of hope to any besides Christ. I think Him well worthy of all my hope, though it were as weighty as both heaven and earth. Happy were I if I had anything that Christ would seek or accept of; but now, alas! I see not what service I can do to Him, except it be to talk a little, and babble upon a piece of paper, concerning the love of Christ. I am often as if my faith were wadset, so that I cannot command it; and then, when He hideth Himself, I run to the other extreme, in making each wing and toe of my case as big as a mountain of iron; and then misbelief can spin out an hell of heavy and desponding thoughts. Then Christ seeketh law-borrows of my unbelieving apprehensions, and chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight. But I make pleas with Christ, though it be ill my common so to do. It were my happiness, when I am in this house-of-wine and when I find a feast-day, if I could "hearken, and hear for the time to come" (Isa. 42:23). But I see that we must be off our feet in wading a deep water; and then Christ's love findeth timeous employment, at such a dead-lift as that; and, besides, after broken brows, bairns learn to walk more circumspectly. If I come to heaven any way, howbeit like a tired traveller upon my Guide's shoulder, it is good enough for those who have no legs of their own for such a journey. I never thought there had been need of so much wrestling to win to the top of that steep mountain, as now I find.

Wo is me for this broken and backsliding church! It is like an old bowing wall, leaning to the one side, and there are none of all her sons who will set a prop under her. I know that I need not bemoan Christ; for He careth for His own honour more than I can do; but who can blame me to be wo (if I had grace so to be) to see my Well-beloved's fair face spitted upon, and His own crown plucked off His head, and the ark of God taken and carried in the Philistines' cart, and the kine put to carry it, which will let it fall to the ground? The Lord put to His own helping hand! I would desire you to prepare yourself for a fight with beasts (1 Cor. 15:32): ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross.

Remember my bonds; and praise my Second, and Fellow-prisoner, Christ. Grace be with you.

Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLXXVI.—To WILLIAM GLENDINNING [Letter CXXXVII.]

(SWEETNESS OF TRIAL—SWIFTNESS OF TIME—PREVALENCE OF SIN.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Your case is unknown to me, whether ye be yet our Lord's prisoner at Wigtown, or not. However it be, I know that our Lord Jesus hath been inquiring for you; and that He hath honoured you to bear His chains, which is the golden end of His cross; and so hath waled out a chosen and honourable cross for you. I wish you much joy and comfort of it; for I have nothing to say of Christ's cross but much good. I hope that my ill word shall never meet either Christ or His sweet and easy cross. I know that He seeketh of us an outcast with this house of clay, this mother prison, this earth, that we love full well. And verily, when Christ snuffeth my candle, and causeth my light to shine upward, it is one of my greatest wonders, that dirt and clay hath so much court with a soul not made of clay; and that our soul goeth out of kind so far as to make an idol of this earth, such a deformed harlot, as that it should wrong Christ of our love. How fast, how fast doth our ship sail! and how fair a wind hath time, to blow us off these coasts and this land of dying and perishing things! Alas! our ship saileth one way, and fleeth many miles in one hour, to hasten us upon eternity, and our love and hearts are sailing close backover and swimming towards ease, lawless pleasure, vain honour, perishing riches; and to build a fool's nest I know not where, and to lay our eggs within the sea-mark, and fasten our bits of broken anchors upon the worst ground in the world, this fleeting and perishing life! And in the meanwhile, time and tide carry us upon another life, and there is daily less and less oil in our lamps, and less and less sand in our watch-glass. Oh what a wise course were it for us to look away from the false beauty of our borrowed prison, and to mind, and eye, and lust for our country! Lord, Lord, take us home!

And for myself: I think, if a poor, weak, dying sheep seek for an old dyke, and the lee-side of an hill, in a storm, I have cause to long for a covert from this storm, in heaven. I know none will take my room over my head there. But, certainly sleepy bodies would be at rest and a well-made bed, and an old crazed bark at a shore, and a wearied traveller at home, and a breathless horse at the rink's end. I see nothing in this life but sin, and the sour fruits of sin: and, oh, what a burden is sin! And what a slavery and miserable bondage is it, to be at the nod, and yeas and nays, of such a lord-master as a body of sin! Truly, when I think of it, it is a wonder that Christ maketh not fire and ashes of such a dry branch as I am. I would often lie down under Christ's feet, and bid Him trample upon me, when I consider my guiltiness. But seeing He hath sworn that sin shall not loose His unchangeable covenant, I keep house-room amongst the rest of the ill-learned bairns, and must cumber the Lord of the house with the rest, till my Lord take the fetters off legs and arms, and destroy this body of sin, and make a hole or breach in this cage of earth, that the bird may fly out, and the imprisoned soul be at liberty. In the meantime, the least intimation of Christ's love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the Bridegroom holdeth me in some joyful on-waiting, that, when Christ's summer-birds shall sing upon the branches of the Tree of life, I shall be tuned by God Himself to help them to sing the home-coming of our Well-beloved and His bride to their house together. When I think of this, I think winters and summers, and years and days, and time, do me a pleasure that they shorten this untwisted and weak thread of my life, and that they put sin and miseries by-hand, and that they shall carry me to my Bridegroom in a clap.

Dear brother, pray for me, that it would please the Lord of the vineyard to give me room to preach His righteousness again to the great congregation.

Grace, grace be with you. Remember me to your wife.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1687.

CCLXXVII.—To my LADY BOYD

(SENSE OF UNWORTHINESS—OBLIGATION TO GRACE—CHRIST'S ABSENCE—STATE OF THE LAND.)

MADAM,—I would have written to your Ladyship ere now, but people's believing there is in me that which I know there is not, hath put me out of love with writing to any. For it is easy to put religion to a market and public fair; but, alas! it is not so soon made eye-sweet for Christ.

My Lord seeth me a tired man, far behind. I have gotten much love from Christ, but I give Him little or none again. My white side cometh out on paper to men; but at home and within I find much black work, and great cause of a low sail, and of little boasting. And yet, howbeit I see challenges to be true, the manner of the tempter's pressing of them is unhonest, and, in my thoughts, knavish-like. My peace is, that Christ may find outing and sale of His wares, in the like of me; I mean for saving grace.

I wish all professors to fall in love with grace. All our songs should be of His free grace. We are but too lazy and careless in seeking of it; it is all our riches we have here, and glory in the bud. I wish that I could set out free grace. I was the law's man, and under the law, and under a curse; but grace brought me from under that hard lord, and I rejoice that I am grace's freeholder. I pay tribute to none for heaven, seeing my land and heritage holdeth of Christ, my new King. Infinite wisdom hath devised this excellent way of free-holding for sinners. It is a better way to heaven than the old way that was in Adam's days. It hath this fair advantage, that no man's emptiness and want layeth an inhibition upon Christ, or hindereth His salvation; and that is far best for me. But our new Landlord putteth the names of dyvours, and Adam's forlorn heirs, and beggars, and the crooked and blind, in the free charters. Heaven and angels may wonder that we have got such a gate of sin and hell. Such a back-entry out of hell as Christ made, and brought out the captives by, is more than my poor shallow thoughts can comprehend. I would think sufferings glory (and I am sometimes not far from it), if my Lord would give me a new alms of free grace.

I hear that the prelates are intending banishment for me; but, for more grace, and no other hire, I would make it welcome. The bits of this clay house, the earth, and the other side of the sea, are my Father's. If my sweet Lord Jesus would bud my sufferings with a new measure of grace, I were a rich man. But I have not now, of a long time, found such high spring-tides as formerly. The sea is out, the wind of His Spirit calm; and I cannot buy a wind, or, by requesting the sea, cause it to flow again; only I wait on upon the banks and shore-side, till the Lord send a full sea, that with upsails I may lift up Christ. Yet sorrow for His absence is sweet; and sighs, with "Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" have their own delights. Oh that I may gather hunger against His long-looked-for return! Well were my soul, if Christ were the element (mine own element), and that I loved and breathed in Him, and if I could not live without Him. I allow not laughter upon myself when He is away; yet He never leaveth the house, but He leaveth drink-money behind Him, and a pawn that He will return. Wo, wo to me, if He should go away and take all His flitting with Him! Even to dream of Him is sweet. To build a house of pining wishes for His return, to spin out a web of sorrow, and care, and languishing, and sighs, either dry or wet, as they may be (because He hath no leisure, if I may speak so, to make a visit, or to see a poor friend), sweeteneth and refresheth the thoughts of the heart. A misty dew will stand for rain, and do some good, and keep some greenness in the herbs, till our Lord's clouds rue upon the earth, and send down a watering of rain. Truly I think Christ's misty dew a welcome message from heaven till my Lord's rain fall.

Wo, wo is me for the Lord's vineyard in Scotland! Howbeit the Father of the house embrace a child, and feed him, and kiss him; yet it is sorrow and sadness to the children that our poor mother hath gotten her leave, and that our Father hath given up house. It is an unheartsome thing to see our Father and mother agree so ill; yet the bastards, if they be fed, care not. O Lord, cast not water on Scotland's smoking coal. It is a strange gate the saints go to heaven. Our enemies often eat and drink us, and we go to heaven through their bellies and stomachs, and they vomit the church of God undigested among their hands. And even while we are shut up in prisons by them, we advance in our journey.

Remember my service to my lord your son, who was kind to me in my bonds, and was not ashamed to own me. I would be glad that Christ got the morning service of his life, now in his young years. It would suit him well to give Christ his young and green love. Christ's stamp and seal would go far down in a young soul, if he would receive the thrust of Christ's stamp. I would desire him to make search for Christ; for nobles are now but dry friends to Christ.

The grace of God our Father, and the good-will of Him who dwelt in the bush, be with your Ladyship.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLXXVIII.—To the EARL OF CASSILLIS

(AMBITION—CHRIST'S ROYAL PREROGATIVE—PRELACY.)

RIGHT HONOURABLE AND VERY GOOD LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Lordship.—I hope that your Lordship will be pleased to pardon my boldness, if, upon report of your zealous and forward mind, which I hear our Lord hath given you in this His honourable cause, when Christ and His Gospel are so foully wronged, I speak to your Lordship on paper, entreating your Lordship to go on in the strength of the Lord, toward, and against a storm of antichristian wind, that bloweth upon the face of this your poor mother-church, Christ's lily among the thorns. It is your Lordship's glory and happiness, when ye see such a blow coming upon Christ, to cast up your arm to prevent it. Neither is it a cause that needeth to blush before the sun, or to flee the sentence or censure of impartial beholders, seeing the question, indeed (if it were rightly stated), is about the prerogative-royal of our princely and royal Lawgiver, our Lord Jesus, whose ancient march-stones and land-bounds, our bastard lords and earthly generation of tyrannizing prelates have boldly and shamefully removed. And they who have but half an eye may see, that it is the greedy desires of time-idolizing Demases, and the itching scab of ambitious and climbing Diotrepheses (who love the goat's life, to climb till they cannot find a way to set their soles on ground again), that hath made such a wide breach in our Zion's beautiful walls. And these are the men who seek no hire for the crucifying of Christ, but His coat.

Oh, how forlorn and desolate is the bride of Christ made to all passers-by! Who seeth not Christ buried in this land, His prophets hidden in caves, silenced, banished and imprisoned? truth weeping in sackcloth before the judges, Parliament, and the rulers of the land? But her bill is cast by them, and holiness hideth itself, fearing in the streets for the reproaches and persecution of men. Justice is fallen aswoon in the gate; and the long shadows of the evening are stretched out upon us. Wo, wo to us, for our day flieth away! What remaineth, but that Antichrist set down his tent in the midst of us, except that your Lordship, and others with you, read Christ's supplication, and give Him that which the most lewd and scandalous wretches in this land may have before a judge, even the poor man's due, law and justice for God's sake? Oh, therefore, my noble and dear Lord, as ye have begun, go on, in the mighty power and strength of the Lord, to cause our Lord, in His Gospel, and afflicted members, to laugh, and to cause the Christian churches (whose eyes are all now upon you) to sing for joy when Scotland's moon shall shine like the light of the sun, and the sun like the light of seven days in one. Ye can do no less than run and bear up the head of your swooning and dying mother-church, and plead for the production of her ancient charters. They hold out and put out, they hold in and bring in, at their pleasure, men in God's house. They stole the keys from Christ and His church, and came in like the thief and the robber, not by the door, Christ; and now their song is, "Authority, authority! obedience to church-governors!" When such a bastard and lawless pretended step-dame, as our Prelacy, is gone mad, it is your place, who are the nobles, to rise and bind them. At least, law should fetter such wild bulls as they are, who push all who oppose themselves to their domination. Alas! what have we lost, since prelates were made master-coiners, to change our gold into brass, and to mix the Lord's wine with water! Blessed for ever shall ye be of the Lord, if ye help Christ against the mighty, and shall deliver the flock of God, scattered upon the mountains in the dark and cloudy day, out of the hands of these idolshepherds. Fear not men who shall be moth-eaten clay, that shall be rolled up in a chest, and casten under the earth: let the Holy One of Israel be your fear, and be courageous for the Lord and His truth.

Remember, that your accounts are coming upon you, with wings, as fast as time posteth. Remember, what "peace with God" in Christ, and the presence of the Son of God (the revealed and felt sweetness of His love), will be to you, when eternity shall put time to the door, and ye shall take good-night of time, and this little shepherd's tent of clay, this inn of a borrowed earth. I hope that your Lordship is now and then sending out thoughts to view this world's naughtiness, and vanity, and the hoped-for glory of the life to come; and that ye resolve that Christ shall have yourself, and all yours, at command for Him, His honour and Gospel.

Thus trusting that your Lordship will pardon my boldness, I pray that the only wise God, the very God of peace, may preserve, strengthen, and establish you to the end.

Your Lordship's, at all command and obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLXXIX.—For MARION M'NAUGHT

(A SPRING-TIDE OF CHRISTS LOVE.)

MY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am well; honour to God. I have been before a court set up within me of terrors and challenges; but my sweet Lord Jesus hath taken the mask off His face, and said, "Kiss thy fill!" and I will not smother nor conceal the kindness of my King Jesus. He hath broken in upon the poor prisoner's soul, like the swelling of Jordan. I am bank and brim full; a great, high spring-tide of the consolations of Christ have overflowed me. I would not give my weeping for the fourteen prelates' laughter. They have sent me here to feast with my King. His spikenard casteth a sweet smell. The Bridegroom's love hath run away with my heart. O love, love, love! Oh, sweet are my royal King's chains! I care not for fire nor torture. How sweet were it to me to swim the salt sea for my new Lover, my second Husband, my first Lord! I charge you in the name of God, not to fear the wild beasts that entered into the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts. The false prophet is the tail. God shall cut the tail from Scotland. Take your comfort and droop not, despond not.

Pray for my poor flock: I would take a penance on my soul for their salvation. I fear that the entering of a hireling upon my labours there will cut off my life with sorrow. There I wrestled with the Angel and prevailed. Wood, trees, meadows, and hills are my witnesses, that I drew on a fair meeting betwixt Christ and Anwoth.

My love to your husband, to dear Carleton, to my beloved brother Knockbrex. Forget not Christ's prisoner. I long for a letter under your own hand.

Your friend and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Nov. 22, 1637.

CCLXXX.—To JOHN GORDON, at Rusco [Letter CCLXXII.]

(HEAVEN HARD TO BE WON—MANY COME SHORT IN ATTAINING—IDOL SINS TO BE RENOUNCED—LIKENESS TO CHRIST.)

DEAR BROTHER,—I earnestly desire to know the case of your soul, and to understand that ye have made sure work of heaven and salvation.

1. Remember, salvation is one of Christ's dainties He giveth but to a few.

2. That it is violent sweating and striving that taketh heaven.

3. That it cost Christ's blood to purchase that house to sinners, and to set mankind down as the King's free tenants and freeholders.

4. That many make a start toward heaven who fall on their back, and win not up to the top of the mount. It plucketh heart and legs from them, and they sit down and give it over, because the devil setteth a sweet-smelled flower to their nose (this fair busked world), wherewith they are bewitched, and so forget or refuse to go forward.

5. Remember, many go far on and reform many things, and can find tears, as Esau did; and suffer hunger for truth, as Judas did; and wish and desire the end of the righteous, as Balaam did; and profess fair, and fight for the Lord, as Saul did; and desire the saints of God to pray for them, as Pharaoh and Simon Magus did; and prophesy and speak of Christ, as Caiaphas did; and walk softly and mourn for fear of judgments, as Ahab did; and put away gross sins and idolatry, as Jehu did; and hear the word of God gladly, and reform their life in many things according to the word, as Herod did; and say to Christ, "Master, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest," as the man who offered to be Christ's servant (Matt. 8:19); and may taste of the virtues of the life to come, and be partaker of the wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit, and taste of the good word of God, as the apostates who sin against the Holy Ghost (Heb. 6). And yet all these are but like gold in clink and colour, and watered brass, and base metal. These are written that we should try ourselves, and not rest till we be a step nearer Christ than sunburnt and withering professors can come.

6. Consider, it is impossible that your idol-sins and ye can go to heaven together; and that they who will not part with these can, indeed, love Christ at the bottom but only in word and show, which will not do the business.

7. Remember, how swiftly God's post time flieth away; and that your forenoon is already spent, your afternoon will come, and then your evening, and at last night, when ye cannot see to work. Let your heart be set upon finishing of your journey, and summing and laying your accounts with your Lord. Oh how blessed shall ye be to have a joyful welcome of your Lord at night! How blessed are they who, in time, take sure course with their souls! Bless His great name for what you possess in goods and children, ease and worldly contentment, that He hath given you; and seek to be like Christ in humility and lowliness of mind. And be not great and entire with the world. Make it not your god, nor your lover that ye trust unto, for it will deceive you.

I recommend Christ and His love to you, in all things; let Him have the flower of your heart and your love. Set a low price upon all things but Christ, and cry down in your thoughts clay and dirt, that will not comfort you when ye get summons to remove, and compear before your Judge to answer for all the deeds done in the body. The Lord give you wisdom in all things. I beseech you sanctify God in your speaking, for holy and reverend is His name; and be temperate and sober. Companionry with the bad is a sin, that holdeth many out of heaven.

I will not believe that you will receive the ministry of a stranger, who will preach a new and uncouth doctrine to you. Let my salvation stand for it, if I delivered not the plain and whole counsel of God to you in His word. Read this letter to your wife, and remember my love to her, and request her to take heed to do what I write to you. I pray for you and yours. Remember me in your prayers to our Lord, that He would be pleased to send me amongst you again. Grace be with you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

CCLXXXI.—To my LORD LOUDOUN

(TRUE HONOUR IN MAINTAINING CHRIST'S CAUSE—PRELACY—LIGHT OF ETERNITY.)

RIGHT HONOURABLE AND VERY WORTHY LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Hearing of your Lordship's zeal and courage for Christ our Lord in His honourable cause, I am bold (and plead pardon for it) to speak in paper by a line or two to your Lordship, since I have not access any other way, beseeching your Lordship, by the mercies of God, and by the everlasting peace of your soul, and by the tears and prayers of our mother-church, to go on, as ye have worthily begun, in purging of the Lord's house in this land, and plucking down the sticks of Antichrist's filthy nest, this wretched Prelacy, and that black kingdom whose wicked aims have ever been, and still are, to make this fat world the only compass they would have Christ and religion to sail by, and to mount up the Man of Sin, their godfather the Pope of Rome, upon the highest stair of Christ's throne, and to make a velvet church (in regard of Parliament grandeur and worldly pomp, whereof always their stinking breath smelleth), and to put Christ and truth in sackcloth and prison, and to eat the bread of adversity and drink the water of affliction. Half an eye of any, not misted with the darkness of antichristian smoke, may see it thus in this land. And now our Lord hath begun to awaken the nobles and others to plead for borne-down Christ and His weeping Gospel.

My dear and noble Lord, the eye of Christ is upon you; the eyes of many noble, many holy, many learned and worthy ones, in our neighbouring churches about, are upon you. This poor church, your mother and Christ's spouse, is holding up her hands and heart to God for you, and doth beseech you with tears to plead for her Husband, His kingly sceptre, and for the liberties that her Lord and King hath given to her, as to a free kingdom that oweth spiritual tribute to none on earth, as being the freeborn princess and daughter to the King of kings. This is a cause that, before God, His angels, the world, before sun and moon, needeth not to blush. Oh, what glory and true honour is it to lend Christ your hand and service, and to be amongst the repairers of the breaches of Zion's walls, and to help to build the old waste places, and stretch forth the curtains, and strengthen the stakes of Christ's tent in this land! Oh, blessed are they who, when Christ is driven away, will bring Him back again, and lend Him lodging! And blessed are ye of the Lord! Your name and honour shall never rot nor wither (in heaven at least), if ye deliver the Lord's sheep, that have been scattered in the dark and cloudy day, out of the hands of strange lords and hirelings, who with rigour and cruelty have caused them to eat the pastures trodden upon with their foul feet, and to drink muddy water; and who have spun out such a world of yards of indifferences in God's worship, to make and weave a web for the Antichrist (which shall not keep any from the cold); as they mind nothing else, but that, by the bringing in of the Pope's foul tail first upon us (their wretched and beggarly ceremonies), they may thrust in after them the Antichrist's legs and thighs, and his belly, head, and shoulders; and then cry down Christ and the Gospel, and up the merchandise and wares of the great whore. Fear not, my worthy Lord, to give yourself, and all ye have, out for Christ and His Gospel. No man dare say (who did ever thus hazard for Christ), that Christ paid him not his hundred-fold in this life duly, and, in the life to come, life everlasting. This is His own truth that ye now plead for; for God and man cannot but commend you to beg justice from a just prince for oppressed Christ, and to plead that Christ, who is the King's Lord, may be heard in a free court to speak for Himself, when the standing and established laws of our nation can strongly plead for Christ's crown in the pulpits, and His chair as Lawgiver in the free government of His own house. But Christ will never be content and pleased with this land, neither shall His hot, fiery indignation be turned away, so long as the prelate (the man that lay in Antichrist's foul womb, and the Antichrist's lord-bailiff) shall sit lord-carver in the courts of the Lord Jesus. The prelate is both the egg and the nest to cleck and bring forth Popery. Plead, therefore, in Christ's behalf, for the plucking down of the nest, and the crushing of the egg; and let Christ's kingly office suffer no more unworthy indignities. Be valiant for your royal King, Jesus; contend for Him: your adversaries shall be moth-eaten worms, and die as men. Christ and His honour now lie on your shoulders, let Him not fall to the ground. Cast your eye upon Him who is quickly coming to decide all the controversies in Zion. And remember that the sand in your night-glass will run out; time with wings will flee away. Eternity is hard upon you; and what will Christ's love-smiles, and the light of His lovely and soul-delighting countenance, be to you in that day, when God shall take up in His right hand this little lodge of heaven (like as a shepherd lifteth up his little tent), and fold together the two leaves of His tent, and put the earth and all the plenishing of it into a fire, and turn this clay-idol, the god of Adam's sons, into smoke and white ashes! Oh, what hire and how many worlds would many then give to have a favourable decreet of the Judge! Oh, what moneys would they not give, to buy a mountain to be a grave above both soul and body, to hide them from the awesome looks of an angry Lord and Judge! I hope that your Lordship thinketh upon this, and that ye mind loyalty to Christ, and to the King both.

Now the very God of peace, the only wise God, establish and strengthen you upon the rock laid in Zion.

Your Lordship's at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 4, 1638.

CCLXXXII.—To the LADY ROBERTLAND

[This is probably the Lady Robertland (her own name was Fleming) mentioned in Livingstone's "Characteristics" as "one deeply exercised in mind, who often got as rare outgates." She was a great help to the poor people of Stewarton, during the time of the awakening there. One of her sayings was, "With God, the most of mosts is lighter than nothing; and without God, the least of leasts is heavier than any burden."]

(AFFLICTIONS PURIFY—THE WORLD'S VANITY—CHRIST'S WISE LOVE.)

MlSTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I shall be glad to hear that your soul prospereth, and that fruit groweth upon you, after the Lord's husbandry and pains, in His rod that hath not been a stranger to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kindness that He will take the scum off us in the fire. Who knoweth how needful winnowing is to us, and what dross we must want ere we enter into the kingdom of God? So narrow is the entry to heaven, that our knots, our bunches and lumps of pride, and self-love, and idol-love, and world-love, must be hammered off us, that we may thring in, stooping low, and creeping through that narrow and thorny entry.

And now for myself, I find it the most sweet and heavenly life to take up house and dwelling at Christ's fireside, and set down my tent upon Christ, that Foundation-stone, who is sure and faithful ground and hard under foot. Oh if I could win to it, and proclaim myself not the world's debtor, nor a lover obliged to it, and that I mind not to hire or bud this world's love any longer; but defy both the kindness and feud of God's whole creation whatsomever! especially the lower vault and clay part of God's creatures, this vain earth! For what hold I of His world? A borrowed lodging and some years' house-room, and bread and water, and fire, and bed and candle, are all a part of the pension of my King and Lord; to whom I owe thanks, and not to a creature. I thank God that God is God, and Christ is Christ, and the earth the earth, and the devil the devil, and the world the world, and that sin is sin, and that everything is what it is; because He hath taught me in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus, nor to intermix Him with creature-vanities, nor to spin or twine Christ or His sweet love in one web, or in one thread, with the world and the things thereof. Oh, if I could hold and keep Christ all alone, and mix Him with nothing! Oh, if I could cry down the price and weight of my cursed self, and cry up the price of Christ, and double, and triple, and augment, and heighten to millions the price and worth of Christ! I am (if I durst speak so, and might lawfully complain) so hungredly tutored by Christ Jesus my liberal Lord, that His nice love, which my soul would be in hands with, flieth me; and yet I am trained on to love Him, and lust, and long, and die for His love whom I cannot see. It is a wonder to pine away with love for a covered and hid lover, and to be hungered with His love, so as a poor soul cannot get his fill of hunger for Christ. It is hard to be hungered of hunger, whereof such abundance for other things is in the world. But sure, if we were tutors, and stewards, and masters, and lord-carvers of Christ's love, we should be more lean and worse fed than we are. Our meat doeth us the more good, that Christ keepeth the keys, and that the wind and the air of Christ's sweet breathing, and of the influence of His Spirit, is locked up in the hands of the good pleasure of Him who "bloweth where He listeth."

I see there is a sort of impatient patience required in the want of Christ as to His manifestations, and waiting on. They thrive who wait on His love, and the blowing of it, and the turning of His gracious wind; and they thrive who, in that on-waiting, make haste and din and much ado for their lost and hidden Lord Jesus. However it be, God feed me with Him any way. If He would come in, I shall not dispute the matter, where He get a hole, or how He opened the lock. I should be content that Christ and I met, suppose He should stand on the other side of hell's lake and cry to me, "Either put in your foot and come through, or else ye shall not have Me at all." But what fools are we in the taking up of Him and of His dealing! He hath a gate of His own beyond the thoughts of men, that no foot hath skill to follow Him. But we are still ill scholars, and will go in at heaven's gates wanting the half of our lesson; and shall still be bairns, so long as we are under time's hands, and till eternity cause a sun to arise in our souls that shall give us wit. We may see how we spill and mar our own fair heaven and our salvation, and how Christ is every day putting in one bone or other, in these fallen souls of ours, in the right place again; and that on this side of the New Jerusalem, we shall still have need of forgiving and healing grace. I find crosses Christ's carved work that He marketh out for us, and that with crosses He figureth and portrayeth us to His own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption. Lord cut, Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do anything that may perfect Thy Father's image in us, and make us meet for glory.

Pray for me (I forget not you) that our Lord would be pleased to lend me house-room to preach His righteousness, and tell what I have heard and seen of Him. Forget not Zion that is now in Christ's caums, and in His forge. God bring her out new work. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 4, 1638.

CCLXXXIII.—To his Reverent and Respected Friend, THOMAS MACCULLOCH of Nether Ardwell [See "Ardwell" in notice at Letter CI.]

[This letter is given from the "Christian Instructor" for January 1839, furnished by one who had the MS. Why Rutherford calls his correspondent "reverent," we do not know. It seems to mean "REVERED," as in the address of Letter CCLXXXIV.]

(EARNEST CALL TO DILIGENCE—CIRCUMSPECT WALKING.)

REVERENT AND MUCH RESPECTED,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I long to hear how your soul prospereth, and I expected you would have written to me. My earnest desire to you is, that you would seek the Lord and His face. I know that you are not ignorant that your daylight is going fast away, and your sun declining. I beseech you by the mercies of God, and by the wounds of your redeeming Lord, and your dreadful compearance before the awesome Judge of quick and dead, make your account clear and plain with your Judge and Lord, while ye have fair daylight, for your night is coming on. Therefore, I pray you, judge more of the worth of your soul, and know that if you are in Christ, and secure your own soul, you are blessed for ever. Few, few, yea very few, are saved. Grace is not casten down at every man's door; therefore speed yourself and others upon seeking Christ and salvation; and learn to overcome, in the bitterness of your soul, your sins in time. It is not easy to take heaven, as the word saith, "by violence." Keep your tongue from cursing and swearing; refrain from wrath and malice; forgive all men for Christ's sake, as you would have your Lord forgive you. I pray you, seeing your time is short, make speed in your journey to heaven, that you may secure a lodging to your soul against night.

Remember my love to your wife, William your son, and the rest of your children.

Grace be with you.

Yours, at all hours, in Christ.

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Jan. 5, 1638.

CCLXXXIV.—To the Honourable, Reverend, and Well-beloved Professors of Christ and His truth in sincerity, in Ireland

[At the date of this letter the Presbyterian Church of Ireland was in a very depressed condition. In 1634 Robert Blair, with some other ministers, were deposed for nonconformity; in the autumn of 1636 five more were dealt with in the same manner, for the same cause; and all of them were ultimately forced to leave the country. The Presbyterians in Ireland were thus left to a great extent destitute of the ministry of the Word, which had been so eminently blessed of God. This letter was intended to confirm them in their adherence to the cause for which their ministers and themselves were suffering.]

(THE WAY TO HEAVEN OFTTIMES THROUGH PERSECUTION—CHRIST'S WORTH—MAKING SURE OUR PROFESSION—SELF-DENIAL—NO COMPROMISE—TESTS OF SINCERITY—HIS OWN DESIRE FOR CHRIST'S GLORY.)

DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD, AND PARTAKERS OF THE HEAVENLY CALLING,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, and from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I always, but most of all now in my bonds (most sweet bonds for Christ my Lord), rejoice to hear of your faith and love, and to hear that our King, our Well-beloved, our Bridegroom, without tiring, stayeth still to woo you as His wife; and that persecutions, and mockings of sinners, have not chased away the Wooer from the house. I persuade you in the Lord, that the men of God, now scattered and driven from you, put you upon the right scent and pursuit of Christ: and, my salvation on it (if ten heavens were mine), if this way, this way that I now suffer for, this way that the world nicknameth and reproacheth, and no other way, be not the King's gate to heaven! And I shall never see God's face (and, alas, I were a beguiled wretch if it were so!) if this be not the only saving way to heaven. Oh that you would take a prisoner of Christ's word for it (nay, I know you have the greatest King's word for it), that it shall not be your wisdom to speer out another Christ, or another way of worshipping Him, than is now savingly revealed to you. Therefore, though I never saw your faces, let me be pardoned to write to you (ye honourable persons, ye faithful pastors, yet amongst the flocks, and ye sincere professors of Christ's truth, or any weak, tired strayers, who cast but half an eye after the Bridegroom), if possibly I could, by any weak experience, confirm and strengthen you in this good way, everywhere spoken against.

I can with the greatest assurance (to the honour of our highest, and greatest, and dearest Lord, let it be spoken!) assert (though I be but a child in Christ, and scarce able to walk but by a hold, and the meanest, and less than the least of saints), that we do not come nigh, by twenty degrees, to the due love and estimation of that fairest among the sons of men. For if it were possible that heaven, yea, ten heavens, were laid in the balance with Christ, I would think the smell of His breath above them all. Sure I am that He is the far best half of heaven, yea, He is all heaven, and more than all heaven; and my testimony of Him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten deaths, ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, and all exquisite torments, were all too little for Christ, if our suffering could be a hire to buy Him. Therefore, faint not in your sufferings and hazards for Him. I proclaim and cry, hell, sorrow, and shame upon all lusts, upon all by-lovers, that would take Christ's room over His head, in this little inch of love of these narrow souls of ours, that is due to sweetest Jesus. O highest, O fairest, O dearest Lord Jesus, take Thine own from all bastard lovers. Oh that we could wadset and sell all our part of time's glory, and time's good things, for a lease and tack of Christ for all eternity! Oh how are we misted and mired with the love of things that are on this side of time, and on this side of death's water! Where can we find a match to Christ, or an equal, or a better than He, among created things? Oh this world is out of all conceit, and all love, with our Well-beloved. Oh that I could sell my laughter, joy, ease, and all for Him; and be content with a straw bed, and bread by weight, and water by measure, in the camp of our weeping Christ! I know that His sackcloth and ashes are better than the fool's laughter, which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. But, alas! we do not harden our faces against the cold north storms which blow upon Christ's fair face. We love well summer-religion, and to be that which sin has made us, even as thin-skinned as if we were made of white paper; and would fain be carried to heaven in a close-covered chariot, wishing from our hearts that Christ would give us surety, and His handwrite, and His seal, or nothing but a fair summer until we be landed in at heaven's gates!

How many of us have been here deceived, and have fainted in the day of trial! Amongst you there are some of this stamp. I shall be sorry if my acquaintance A. T. hath left you: I will not believe that he dare to stay away from Christ's side. I desire that ye shew him this from me; for I loved him once in Christ, neither can I change my mind suddenly of him. But the truth is, that many of you, and too many also of your neighbour Church of Scotland, have been like a tenant that sitteth mail-free and knoweth not his holding whill his rights be questioned. And now I am persuaded, that it will be asked at every one of us, on what terms we brook Christ; for we have sitten long mail-free. We found Christ without a wet foot; and He and His Gospel came upon small charges to our doors: but now we must wet our feet to seek Him. Our evil manners, and the bad fashions of a people at ease from our youth, and like Moab not casten from vessel to vessel (Jer. 48:11), have made us (like the standing waters), to gather a foul scum, and, when we are jumbled, our dregs come up, and are seen. Many take but half a grip of Christ, and the wind bloweth them and Christ asunder. Indeed, when the mast is broken and blown into the sea, it is an art then to swim upon Christ to dry land. It is even possible that the children of God, in a hard trial, lay themselves down as hidden in the lee-side of a bush whill Christ their Master be taken, as Peter did; and lurk there, whill the storm be over-past. All of us know the way to a whole skin; and the singlest heart that is hath a by-purse that will contain the denial of Christ, and a fearful backsliding. Oh, how rare a thing it is to be loyal and honest to Christ, when He hath a controversy with the shields of the earth! I wish all of you would consider, that this trial is from Christ; it is come upon you unbought. (Indeed, when we buy a temptation with our own money, no marvel that we be not easily free of it, and that God be not at our elbow to take it off our hand.) This is Christ's ordinary house-fire, that He maketh use of to try all the vessels of His house withal. And Christ is now about to bring His treasure out before sun and moon, and to tell His money, and, in the telling, to try what weight of gold, and what weight of watered copper, is in His house. Do not now jouk, or bow, or yield to your adversaries in a hair-breadth. Christ and His truth will not divide; and His truth hath not latitude and breadth, that ye may take some of it and leave other some of it. Nay, the Gospel is like a small hair, that hath no breadth, and will not cleave in two. It is not possible to twist and compound a matter betwixt Christ and Antichrist; and, therefore, ye must either be for Christ, or ye must be against Him. It was but man's wit, and the wit of prelates and their godfather the Pope (that man without law), to put Christ and His prerogatives royal, and His truth, or the smallest nail-breadth of His latter will, in the new calender of indifferences, and to make a blank of uninked paper in Christ's testament that men may fill up; and to shuffle the truth, and matters which they call indifferent, through other, and spin both together, that Antichrist's wares may sell the better. This is but the device and forged dream of men whose consciences are made of stoutness, and who have a throat that a graven image, greater than the bounds of the kirk-door, would get free passage into. I am sure that when Christ shall bring us all out in our blacks and whites, at that day when He shall cry down time and the world, and when the glory of it shall lie in white ashes, like a May-flower cut down and which hath lost the blossom, there shall be few, yea none, that dare make any point, which toucheth the worship and honour of our King and Lawgiver, to be indifferent. Oh that this misled and blindfolded world would see that Christ doth not rise and fall, stand or lie, by men's apprehensions! What is Christ the lighter, that men do with Him, by open proclamation, as men do with clipped and light money? They are now crying down Christ some grain-weights, and some pounds or shillings; and they will have Him lie2 for a penny or a pound, for one or for a hundred, according as the wind bloweth from the east or from the west. But the Lord hath weighed Him, and balanced Him already: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him!" His worth and His weight stand still. It is our part to cry, "Up, up with Christ, and down, down with all created glory before Him." Oh that I could heighten Him, and heighten His name, and heighten His throne! I know, and am persuaded, that Christ shall again be high and great in this poor, withered, and sun-burnt Kirk of Scotland; and that the sparks of our fire shall fly over the sea, and round about, to warm you and other sister churches; and that this tabernacle of David's house, that is fallen, even the Son of David's waste places, shall be built again. And I know the prison, crosses, persecutions, and trials of the two slain witnesses, that are now dead and buried (Rev. 9:9), and of the faithful professors, have a back-door and back-entry of escape; and that death and hell, and the world, and the tortures, shall all cleave and split in twain, and give us free passage and liberty to go through toll-free: and we shall bring all God's good metal out of the furnace again, and leave behind us but our dross and our scum. We may then beforehand proclaim Christ to be victorious. He is crowned King of Mount Zion: God did put the crown upon His head (Ps. 2:6, and 21:3), and who dare take it off again? Out of question, He hath sore and grievous quarrels against His church: and therefore He is called, "He whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem" (Isa. 31:9). But when He hath performed His work on Mount Zion, all Zion's haters shall be as the hungry and thirsty man, that dreameth he is eating and drinking, and behold, when he awakeneth, he is faint, and his soul empty. And this advantage we have also, that He will not bring before sun and moon all the infirmities of His wife. It is the modesty of marriage-anger or husband-wrath, that our sweet Lord Jesus will not come with chiding to the streets, to let all the world hear what is betwixt Him and us. His sweet glooms stay under roof, and that because He is God.

Two special things ye are to mind: 1. Try and make sure your profession; that ye carry not empty lamps. Alas! security, security is the bane and the wrack of the most part of the world. Oh, how many professors go with a golden lustre, and are gold-like before men (who are but witnesses to our white skin), and yet are but bastard and base metal! Consider how fair before the wind some do ply with up-sails and white, even to the nick of "illumination," and "tasting of the heavenly gift;" and "a share and part of the Holy Ghost;" and "the tasting of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come" (Heb. 6:4, 5). And yet this is but a false nick of renovation, and, in a short time, such are quickly broken upon the rocks, and never fetch the harbour, but are sanded in the bottom of hell. Oh, make your haven sure, and try how ye come by conversion; that it be not stolen goods, in a white and well-lustred profession! A white skin over old wounds maketh an under-coating conscience. False under water, not seen, is dangerous, and that is a leak and rift in the bottom of an enlightened conscience; often falling and sinning against light. Wo, wo is me that the holy profession of Christ is made a stage garment by many, to bring home a vain fame, and Christ is made to serve men's ends! This is, as it were, to stop an oven with a king's robes.

Know, 2. Except men martyr and slay the body of sin in sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christ's martyrs and faithful witnesses. Oh, if I could be master of that house-idol, myself, my own mind, my own will, wit, credit, and ease, how blessed were I! Oh, but we have need to be redeemed from ourselves, rather than from the devil and the world! Learn to put out yourselves, and to put in Christ for yourselves. It would make a sweet bartering and niffering, and give old for new, if I could shuffle out self, and substitute Christ my Lord, in place of myself; to say, "Not I, but Christ; not my will, but Christ's; not my ease, not my lust, not my feckless credit, but Christ, Christ." But, alas! in leaving ourselves, in setting Christ before our idol, self, we have yet a glaiked back-look to our old idol. O wretched idol, myself! when shall I see thee wholly decourted, and Christ wholly put in thy room? Oh, if Christ, Christ had the full place and room of myself, that all my aims, purposes, thoughts, and desires would coast and land upon Christ, and not upon myself! And, howbeit we cannot attain to this denial of me and mine, that we can say, "I am not myself, myself is not myself, mine own is no longer mine own," yet our aiming at this in all we do shall be accepted: for alas! I think I shall die but minting and aiming to be a Christian. Is it not our comfort, that Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant, is come betwixt us and God in the business, so that green and young heirs, the like of sinners, have now a Tutor that is God! And now, God be thanked, our salvation is bottomed on Christ. Sure I am, the bottom shall never fall out of heaven and happiness to us. I would give over the bargain a thousand times, were it not that Christ's free grace hath taken our salvation in hand.

Pray, pray and contend with the Lord, for your sister-church; for it would appear that the Lord is about to speer for His scattered sheep, in the dark and cloudy day. Oh that it would please our Lord to set up again David's old wasted and fallen tabernacle in Scotland, that we might see the glory of the second temple in this land! Oh that my little heaven were wadset, to redeem the honour of my Lord Jesus among the Jews and Gentiles! Let never dew lie upon my branches, and let my poor flower wither at the root, so that Christ were enthroned, and His glory advanced in all the world, and especially in these three kingdoms. But I know that He hath no need of me; what can I add to Him? But oh that He would cause His high and pure glory to run through such a foul channel as I am! And, howbeit He hath caused the blossom to fall off my one poor joy, that was on this side of heaven, even my liberty to preach Christ to His people, yet I am dead to that now, so that He would hew and carve glory, glory for evermore, to my royal King out of my silence and sufferings. Oh that I had my fill of His love! But I know ill-manners make an unco and strange bridegroom.

I entreat you earnestly for the aid of your prayers, for I forget not you; and I salute, with my soul in Christ, the faithful pastors, and honourable and worthy professors in that land. Now the God of peace, that brought again our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work, to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweetest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 4, 1638.

CCLXXXV.—To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex

(NOT OUR CROSS, BUT CHRIST, THE OBJECT OF ATTRACTION—TOO LITTLE EXPECTED FROM HIM—SPIRITUAL DEADNESS.)

MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—I thought to have answered your two letters on this occasion, though I cannot say all that I would. Your timeous word, "not to delight in the cross, but in Him who sweeteneth it," came to me in due time. I find the consolation and off-fallings that follow the cross of Christ so sweet, that I almost forget myself. My desire and purpose is, when Christ's honeycombs drop, neither to refuse to receive and feed upon His comforts, nor yet to make joy my bastard-god, or my new-found heaven. But what shall I say? Christ very often in His sweet comforts cometh unsent for, and it were a sin to close the door upon Him. It is not unlawful to love and delight in Christ's apples, when I am not dotingly wooing, nor eagerly begging kisses; but when they come clean from the timber (like kindness itself, that cometh of its own accord), then I cannot but laugh upon Him who laugheth upon me. If joy and comforts come single and alone, without Christ Himself, I think I would send them back again the gate they came, and not make them welcome; but, when the King's train cometh, and the King in the midst of the company, oh how I am overjoyed with floods of love! I fear not that too great spaits of love wash away the growing corn, and loose my plants at the roots. Christ doeth no skaith, where He cometh; but certainly, I would wish such spiritual wisdom, as to love the Bridegroom better than His gifts, His propines, or drink-money. I would be further in upon Christ than at His joys. They but stand in the outer side of Christ; I would wish to be in, as a seal upon His heart, in where His love and mercy lodgeth, beside His heart. My Well-beloved hath ravished me; but it is done with consent of both parties, and it is allowable enough. But, my dear brother, ere I part with this subject, I must tell you (that ye may lift up my King in praises with me), Christ hath been keeping something these fourteen years for me, that I have now gotten in my heavy days that I am in for His name's sake, even an opened coffer of perfumed comforts, and fresh joys, coming new, and green, and powerful, from the fairest face of Christ my Lord. Let the sour law, let crosses, let hell be cried down; love, love hath shamed me from my old ways. Whether I have a race to run, or some work to do, I see not; but I think Christ seemeth to leave heaven (to say so), and His court, and come down to laugh, and play, and sport with a daft bairn.

I am not thus plain with many I write to. It is possible I be misconstructed, and deemed to seek a name. But my witness above knoweth that I seek to have a good name raised upon Christ. I observe it to be our folly, to seek little from Christ, because our four-hours may not be our supper, nor our propines sent by the Bridegroom our tocher-good, nor our earnest our principal sum. But I trow that few of us know how much may be had of Christ for a four-hours, and a propine, and an earnest. We are like the young heir, who knoweth not the whole bounds of his own lordship. Certainly it is more than my part to say, "O sweetest Lord Jesus, what howbeit I were split and broken into five thousand shreds or bits of clay, so being that every shred had a heart to love Thee, and every one as many tongues as there are in heaven to sing praises to Thee, before men and angels for evermore!" Therefore, if my sufferings cry goodness, and praise, and honour upon Christ, my stipend is well paid. Each one knoweth not what a life Christ's love is. Scaur not at suffering for Christ; for Christ hath a chair, and a cushion, and sweet peace for a sufferer. Christ's trencher from the first mess of the high table is for a sinful witness. Oh, then, brother, who but Christ! who but Christ! Hold your tongue off lovers, where He cometh out. O all flesh, O dust and ashes, O angels, O glorified spirits, O all the shields of the world, be silent before Him! Come hither, and behold our Bridegroom; stand still and wonder for evermore at Him! Why cease we to love and wonder, to kiss and adore Him? It is a hard matter, that days lie betwixt Him and me, and hold us asunder. Oh, how long, how long! Oh, how many miles are there to my Bridegroom's dwelling-house! It is a pain to frist Christ's love any longer. But, it may be that a drunken man lose his feet, and miss a step. Ye write to me "Hall-binks are slippery." I do not think my dawting world will still last, and that feasts will be my ordinary food. I would have humility, patience, and faith to set down both my feet, when I come to the north side of the cold and thorny hill. It is ill my common to be sweer to go an errand for Christ, and to take the wind upon my face for Him. Lord, let me never be a false witness, to deny that I saw Christ take the pen in His hand, and subscribe my writs.

My dear brother, ye complain to me that ye cannot hold sight of me. But were I a footman, I would go at leisure; but sometimes the King taketh me into His coach, and draweth me, and then I outrun myself. But, alas! I am still a forlorn transgressor. Oh how unthankful! I will not put you off your sense of darkness; but let me say this, "Who gave you proctor-fee, to speak for the law, which can speak for itself better than ye can do?" I would not have you to bring your dittay in your own bosom with you to Christ. Let the "old man" and the "new man" be summoned before Christ's white throne, and let them be confronted before Christ, and let each of them speak for themselves. I hope, howbeit the new man complain of his lying among pots, which maketh the believer look black, yet he can also say, "I am comely as the tents of Kedar." Ye shall not have my advice not to bemoan your deadness; but I find by some experience (which ye knew before I knew Christ), that it suiteth not a ransomed man, of Christ's buying, to go and plea for the sour law, our old forcasten husband; for we are not now under the law (as a covenant), but under grace. Ye are in no man's common, but Christ's. I know that He bemoaneth you more than you do yourself. I say this, because I am wearied of complaining. I thought it had been humility to imagine that Christ was angry with me, both because of my dumb Sabbaths, and my hard heart; but I feel now nothing but aching wounds. My grief, whether I will or not, swelleth upon me. But let us die in grace's hall-floor, pleading before Christ. I deny nothing that the Mediator will challenge me of; but I turn it all back upon Himself. Let Him look His own old accounts, if He be angry; for He will get no more of me. When Christ saith, "I want repentance," I meet Him with this: "True, Lord, but Thou art made a King and a Prince to give me repentance" (Acts 5:34). When Christ bindeth a challenge upon us, we must bind a promise back upon Him. Be wo, and lay yourself in the dust before God (which is suitable), but withal let Christ take the payment in His own hand, and pay Himself off the first end of His own merits; else He will come behind for anything that we can do. I am every way in your case, as hard-hearted and dead as any man; but yet I speak to Christ through my sleep. Let us then proclaim a free market for Christ, and swear ourselves bare, and cry on Him to come without money and buy us, and take us home to our Ransom-payer's fireside, and let us be Christ's free-boarders. Because we dow not pay the old, we may not refuse to take on Christ's new debt of mercy; let us do our best, Christ will still be behind with us, and many terms will run together. For my part, let me stand for evermore in His book, as a forlorn dyvour. I must desire to be thus far in His common of new, as to kiss His feet. I know not how to win to a heartsome fill and feast of Christ's love; for I dow neither buy, nor beg, nor borrow, and yet I cannot want it. I dow not want it! Oh, if I could praise Him! yea I would rest content with a heart submissive and dying of love for Him. And, howbeit I never win personally in at heaven's gates, oh, would to God I could send in my praises to my incomparable Well-beloved, or cast my love-songs of that matchless Lord Jesus over the walls, that they might light in His lap, before men and angels!

Now, grace, grace be with you. Remember my love to your wife and daughter, and brother John.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, June 11, 1638.

CCLXXXVI.—To the Parishioners of Kilmalcolm

(SPIRITUAL SLOTH—ADVICE TO BEGINNERS—A DEAD MINISTRY—LANGUOR—OBEDIENCE—WANT OF CHRIST'S FELT PRESENCE—ASSURANCE IMPORTANT—PRAYER-MEETINGS.)

WORTHY, AND WELL-BELOVED IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Your letters could not come to my hand in a greater throng of business that I am now pressed with at this time, when our kirk requireth the public help of us all. Yet I cannot but answer the heads of both your letters, with provision that ye choose, after this, a fitter time for writing. 1. I would not have you to pitch upon me, as the man able by letters to answer doubts of this kind, while there are in your bounds men of such great parts, most able for this work. I know that the best are unable; yet it pleaseth that Spirit of Jesus to blow His sweet wind through a piece of dry stick, that the empty reed may keep no glory to itself. But a minister can make no such wind as this to blow; he is scarce able to lend it a passage to blow through Him. 2. Know that the wind of this Spirit hath a time when it bloweth sharp, and pierceth so strongly, that it would blow through an iron door; and this is commonly rather under suffering for Christ than at any other time. Sick children get of Christ's pleasant things, to play them withal, because Jesus is most tender of the sufferer, for He was a sufferer Himself. Oh, if I had but the leavings and the drawing of the bye-board of a sufferer's table! But I leave this to answer yours.

I. Ye write, that God's vows are lying on you; and security, strong and sib to nature, stealing on you who are weak. I answer: 1. Till we be in heaven, the best have heavy heads, as is evident. Cant. 5:1; Ps. 30:6; Job 29:18; Matt. 26:33. Nature is a sluggard, and loveth not the labour of religion; therefore, rest should not be taken, till we know that the disease is over, and in the way of turning, and that it is like a fever past the cool. And the quietness and the calms of the faith of victory over corruption should be entertained, in place of security; so that if I sleep, I should desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 2. Know, also, that none who sleep sound can seriously complain of sleepiness. Sorrow for a slumbering soul is a token of some watchfulness of spirit. But this is soon turned into wantonness, as grace in us too often is abused; therefore, our waking must be watched over, else sleep will even grow out of watching, and there is as much need to watch over grace as to watch over sin. Full men will soon sleep, and sooner than hungry men. 3. For your weakness to keep off security, that like a thief stealeth upon you, I would say two things:—(1.) To "want complaints of weakness" is for heaven, and angels that never sinned, not for Christians in Christ's camp on earth. I think that our weakness maketh us the church of the redeemed ones, and Christ's field that the Mediator should labour in. If there were no diseases on earth, there need be no physicians on earth. If Christ had cried down weakness, He might have cried down His own calling; but weakness is our Mediator's world; sin is Christ's only, only fair and market. No man should rejoice at weakness and diseases; but I think that we may have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because, without them, Christ's fingers (as a slain Lord) would never have touched our skin. I dare not thank myself, but I dare thank God's depth of wise providence, that I have an errand in me while I live, for Christ to come and visit me, and bring with Him His drugs and His balm. Oh, how sweet is it for a sinner to put his weakness into Christ's strengthening hand, and to father a sick soul upon such a Physician, and to lay weakness before Him to weep upon Him, and to plead and pray! Weakness can speak and cry, when we have not a tongue. "And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, Live" (Ezek. 16:6). The kirk could not speak one word to Christ then: but blood and guiltiness out of measure spake, and drew out of Christ pity, and a word of life and love. (2.) As for weakness, we have it that we may employ Christ's strength because of our weakness. Weakness is to make us the strongest things; that is, when, having no strength of our own, we are carried upon Christ's shoulders, and walk as it were upon His legs. If our sinful weakness swell up to the clouds, Christ's strength will swell up to the sun, and far above the heaven of heavens.

II. Ye tell me, that there is need of counsel for strengthening of new beginners. I can say little to that, who am not well begun myself: but I know that honest beginnings are nourished by Him, even by lovely Jesus, who never yet put out a poor man's dim candle that is wrestling betwixt light and darkness. I am sure, that if new beginners would urge themselves upon Christ, and press their souls upon Him, and importune Him for a draught of His sweet love, they could not come wrong to Christ. Come once in upon the right nick and step of His lovely love, and I defy you to get free of Him again. If any beginners fall off Christ again, and miss Him, they never lighted upon Christ as Christ: it was but an idol, like Jesus, which they took for Him.

III. Whereas ye complain of a dead ministry in your bounds; ye are to remember that the Bible among you is the contract of marriage; and the manner of Christ's conveying His love to your heart is not so absolutely dependent upon even lively preaching, as that there is no conversion at all, no life of God, but that which is tied to a man's lips. The daughters of Jerusalem have done often that which the watchman could not do. Make Christ your minister. He can woo a soul at a dykeside in the field. He needeth not us, howbeit the flock be obliged to seek Him in the shepherds' tents. Hunger, of Christ's making, may thrive even under stewards who mind not the feeding of the flock. O blessed soul, that can leap over a man, and look above a pulpit up to Christ, who can preach home to the heart, howbeit we were all dead and rotten.

IV. So to complain of yourselves, as to justify God, is right; providing ye justify His Spirit in yourselves. For men seldom advocate against Satan's work and sin in themselves, but against God's work in themselves. Some of the people of God slander God's grace in their souls; as some wretches used to do, who complain and murmur of want ("I have nothing," say they; "all is gone, the ground yieldeth but weeds and windlestraws"), whenas their fat harvest, and their money in bank, maketh them liars. But for myself, alas! I think it is not my sin; I have scarce wit to sin this sin. But I advise you to speak good of Christ, for His beauty and sweetness, and speak good of Him for His grace to yourselves.

V. Light remaineth, ye say, but ye cannot attain to painfulness. See if this complaint be not booked in the New Testament; and the place is like this, "To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I know not" (Rom. 7:18). But every one hath not Paul's spirit in complaining: for often, in us, complaining is but an humble backbiting and traducing of Christ's new work in the soul. But for the matter of the complaint; I would say, that the light of glory is perfectly obeyed in loving, and praising, and rejoicing, and resting in a seen and known Lord; but that light is not hereaway in any clay body. For while we are here, light is (in the most) broader and longer than our narrow and feckless obedience. But if there be light, with a fair train and a great back (I mean, armies) of challenging thoughts, and sorrow for coming short of performance in what we know and see ought to be performed, then that sorrow for not doing is accepted of our Lord for doing. Our honest sorrow and sincere aims, together with Christ's intercession, pleading that God would welcome that which we have, and forgive what we have not, must be our life, till we be over the boundroad, and in the other country, where the law will get a perfect soul.

VI. In Christ's absence, there is, as ye write, a willingness to use means, but heaviness after the use of them, because of formal and slight performance. In Christ's absence, I confess, the work lieth behind. But if ye mean absence of comfort, and absence of sense of His sweet presence, I think that absence is Christ's trying of us, not simply our sin against Him. Therefore, howbeit our obedience be not sugared and sweetened with joy (which is the sweetmeat bairns would still be at), yet the less sense, and the more willingness in obeying, the less formality in our obedience. Howbeit, we think not so; for I believe that many think obedience formal and lifeless, except the wind be fair in the west, and sails filled with joy and sense, till souls, like a ship fair before the wind, can spread no more sail. But I am not of their mind, who think so. But if ye mean, by absence of Christ, the withdrawing of His working grace, I see not how willingness to use means can be at all, under such an absence. Therefore, be humbled for heaviness in that obedience, and thankful for willingness; for the Bridegroom is busking His spouse oftentimes, while she is half sleeping; and your Lord is working and helping more than ye see. Also, I recommend to you heaviness for formality, and for lifeless deadness in obedience. Be casten down, as much as ye will or can, for deadness; and challenge that dull and slow carcase of sin, that will neither lead nor drive, in your spiritual obedience. Oh, how sweet to lovely Jesus are bills and grievances, given in against corruption and the body of sin! I would have Christ, in such a case, fashed (if I may speak so), and deaved with our cries, as ye see the Apostle doeth, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24). Protestations against the law of sin in you are law-grounds why sin can have no law against you. Seek to have your protestation discussed and judged, and then shall ye find Christ on your side of it.

VII. Ye hold, that Christ must either have hearty service, or no service at all. If ye mean that He will not have half a heart, or have feigned service, such as the hypocrites give Him, I grant you that; Christ must have honesty or nothing. But if ye mean, He will have no service at all where the heart draweth back in any measure, I would not that were true for my part of heaven, and all that I am worth in the world. If ye mind to walk to heaven without a cramp or a crook, I fear that ye must go your lone. He knoweth our dross and defects; and sweet Jesus pitieth us, when weakness and deadness in our obedience is our cross, and not our darling.

VIII. The Liar (John 8:44), as ye write, challengeth the work as formal; yet ye bless your Cautioner for the ground-work He hath laid, and dare not say but ye have assurance in some measure. To this I say: 1. It shall be no fault to save Satan's labour, and challenge it yourselves, or at least examine and censure; but beware of Satan's ends in challenging, for he mindeth to put Christ and you at odds. 2. Welcome home faith in Jesus, who washeth still, when we have defiled our souls and made ourselves loathsome; and seek still the blood of atonement for faults little or meikle. Know the gate to the well, and lie about it. 3. Make meikle of assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed.

IX. Outbreakings, ye say, discourage you, so that ye know not if ever ye shall win again to such overjoying consolations of the Spirit in this life, as formerly ye had; and, therefore, a question may be, If, after assurance and mortification, the children of God be ordinarily fed with sense and joy? I answer: I see no inconvenience to think it is enough, in a race, to see the goal at the starting-place, howbeit the runners never get a view of it till they come to the rink's end; and that our wise Lord thinketh it fittest that we should not always be fingering and playing with Christ's apples. Our Well-beloved, I know, will sport and play with His bride, as much as He thinketh will allure her to the rink's end. Yet I judge it not unlawful to seek renewed consolations, providing, 1. The heart be submissive, and content to leave the measure and timing of them to Him. 2. Providing they be sought to excite us to praise, and strengthen our assurance, and sharpen our desires after Himself. 3. Let them be sought, not for our humours or swellings of nature, but as the earnest of heaven. And I think many do attain to greater consolations after mortification, than ever they had formerly. But I know that our Lord walketh here still by a sovereign latitude, and keepeth not the same way, as to one hair-breadth, without a miss, toward all His children. As for the Lord's people with you, I am not the man fit to speak to them. I rejoice exceedingly that Christ is engaging souls amongst you; but I know that, in conversion, all the winning is in the first buying, as we used to say. For many lay false and bastard foundations, and take up conversion at their foot, and get Christ for as good as half-nothing, and had never a sick night for sin; and this maketh loose work. I pray you to dig deep. Christ's palace-work, and His new dwelling, laid upon hell felt and feared, is most firm: and heaven, grounded and laid upon such a hell, is surest work, and will not wash away with winter storms. It were good that professors were not like young heirs, that come to their rich estate long ere they come to their wit; and so is seen on it. The tavern, and the cards, and the harlots steal their riches from them, ere ever they be aware what they are doing. I know that a Christ bought with strokes is sweetest. 4. I recommend to you conference and prayer at private meetings; for warrant whereof, see Isa. 2:3; Jer. 50:4, 5; Hos. 2:1, 2; Zech. 8:20–23; Mal. 3:16; Luke 24:13–17; John 20:19; Acts 12:12; Col. 3:16, and 4:6; Ephes. 4:29; 1 Pet. 4:10; 1 Thess. 5:14; Heb. 3:13, and 10:25. Many coals make a good fire, and that is a part of the communion of saints.

I must entreat you, and your Christian acquaintance in the parish, to remember me to God in your prayers, and my flock and ministry, and my transportation and removal from this place, which I fear at this Assembly, and be earnest with God for our mother-kirk. For want of time, I have put you all in one letter. The rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ANWOTH, Aug. 5, 1639.

CCLXXXVII.—To the VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(ON THE DEATH OF HER CHILD—CHRIST SHARES IN HIS PEOPLE'S SORROWS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I know that ye are near many comforters, and that the promised Comforter is near at hand also. Yet, because I found your Ladyship comfortable to myself in my sad days, which are not yet over my head, it is my part and more, in many respects (howbeit I can do little, God knoweth, in that kind), to speak to you in your wilderness lot.

I know, dear and noble Lady, that this loss of your dear child came upon you, one piece and part of it after another; and that ye were looking for it, and that now the Almighty hath brought on you that which ye feared; and that your Lord gave you lawful warning. And I hope that for His sake who brewed and masked this cup in heaven, ye will gladly drink, and salute and welcome the cross. I am sure, that it is not your Lord's mind to feed you with judgment and wormwood, and to give you waters of gall to drink (Ezek. 34:16; Jer. 9:15). I know that your cup is sugared with mercy; and that the withering of the bloom, the flower, even the white and red of worldly joys, is for no other end than to buy out at the ground the reversion of your heart and love.

Madam, subscribe to the Almighty's will; put your hand to the pen, and let the cross of your Lord Jesus have your submissive and resolute AMEN. If ye ask and try whose this cross is, I dare say that it is not all your own, the best half of it is Christ's. Then your cross is no born-bastard, but lawfully begotten; it sprang not out of the dust (Job 5:6). If Christ and ye be halvers of this suffering, and He say, "Half mine," what should ail you? And I am sure that I am here right upon the style of the word of God: "The fellowship of Christ's sufferings" (Phil. 3:10); "The remnant of the afflictions of Christ" (Col. 1:24); "The reproach of Christ" (Heb. 2:6). It were but to shift the comforts of God, to say, "Christ had never such a cross as mine: He had never a dead child, and so this is not His cross; neither can He, in that meaning, be the owner of this cross." But I hope that Christ, when he married you, married you and all the crosses and wo hearts that follow you. And the word maketh no exception. "In all their afflictions He was afflicted" (Isa. 63:9). Then Christ bore the first stroke of this cross; it rebounded off Him upon you, and ye get it at the second hand, and ye and He are halvers in it. And I shall believe, for my part, that He mindeth to distil heaven out of this loss, and all others the like; for wisdom devised it, and love laid it on, and Christ owneth it as His own, and putteth your shoulder beneath only a piece of it. Take it with joy, as no bastard cross, but as a visitation of God, well-born; and spend the rest of your appointed time, till your change come, in the work of believing. And let faith, that never yet made a lie to you, speak for God's part of it, "He will not, He doth not, make you a sea or a whale-fish, that He keepeth you in ward" (Job 7:12). It may be, that ye think not many of the children of God in such a hard case as yourself; but what would ye think of some, who would exchange afflictions? and give you to the boot? But I know that yours must be your own alone, and Christ's together.

I confess it seemed strange to me, that your Lord should have done that which seemed to ding out the bottom of your worldly comforts; but we see not the ground of the Almighty's sovereignty. "He goeth by on our right hand, and on our left hand, and we see Him not." We see but pieces of the broken links of the chains of His providence; and He coggeth the wheels of His own providence, that we see not. Oh, let the Former work His own clay into what frame He pleaseth! "Shall any teach the Almighty knowledge?" If He pursue the dry stubble, who dare say, "What doest Thou?" Do not wonder to see the Judge of the world weave, into one web, your mercies and the judgments of the house of Kenmure. He can make one web of contraries.

But my weak advice (with reverence and correction), were, for you, dear and worthy Lady, to see how far mortification goeth on, and what scum the Lord's fire casteth out of you. I know that ye see your knottiness, since our Lord whiteth, and heweth, and plaineth you. And the glancing of the furnace is to let you see what scum or refuse ye must want, and what froth is in nature, that must be boiled out and taken off in the fire of your trials. I do not say that heavier afflictions prophesy heavier guiltiness; a cross is often but a false prophet in this kind. But I am sure that our Lord would have the tin and the bastard metal in you removed, lest the Lord say, "The bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed in the fire, the Founder melteth in vain" (Jer. 6:29). And I shall hope that grief will not so far smother your light, as not to practise this so necessary a duty, to concur with Him in this blessed design.

I would gladly plead for the Comforter's part of it, not against you, Madam (for I am sure ye are not his party), but against your grief, which will have its own violent incursions in your soul: and I think it be not in your power to help it. But I must say, there are comforts allowed upon you; and, therefore, want them not. When ye have gotten a running-over soul with joy now, that joy will never be missed out of the infinite ocean of delight, which is not diminished by drinking at it, or drawing out of it. It is a Christian art to comfort yourself in the Lord; to say, "I was obliged to render back again this child to the Giver: and if I have had four years' loan of him, and Christ eternity's possession of him, the Lord hath kept condition with me. If my Lord would not have him and me to tryst both in one hour at death's door-threshold together, it is His wisdom so to do; I am satisfied. My tryst is suspended, not broken off, nor given up." Madam, I would that I could divide sorrow with you, for your ease. But I am but a beholder: it is easy to me to speak; the God of comfort speak to you, and allure you with His feasts of love.

My removal from my flock is so heavy to me, that it maketh my life a burden to me; I had never such a longing for death. The Lord help and hold up sad clay. I fear that ye sin in drawing Mr. William Dalgleish from this country, where the labourers are few, and the harvest great.

Madam, desire my Lord Argyle to see for provision to a pastor for his poor people. Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

KIRKCUDBRIGHT, Oct. 1, 1639.

CCLXXXVIII.—To the persecuted Church in Ireland

(CHRIST'S LEGACY OF TROUBLE—GOD'S DEALINGS WITH SCOTLAND IN GIVING PROSPERITY—CHRIST TAKES HALF OF ALL SUFFERINGS—STEDFASTNESS FOR HIS CROWN—HIS LOVE SHOULD LEAD TO HOLINESS.)

MUCH HONOURED, REVEREND, AND DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you all.—I know that there are many in this nation more able than I to speak to the sufferers for, and witnesses of, Jesus Christ; yet pardon me to speak a little to you, who are called in question for the Gospel once committed to you.

I hope that ye are not ignorant that, as peace was left to you in Christ's testament, so the other half of the testament was a legacy of Christ's sufferings. "These things have I spoken, that in Me ye might have peace; in the world ye shall have trouble" (John 16:33). Because, then, ye are made assignees and heirs to a liferent of Christ's cross, think that fiery trial no strange thing; for the Lord Jesus shall be no loser by purging the dross and tin out of His church in Ireland. His wine-press is but squeezing out the dregs, the scum, the froth, and refuse of that church. I had once the proof of the sweet smell, and the honest and honourable peace, of that slandered thing, the cross of our Lord Jesus. But though, alas! these golden days that then I had be now in a great part gone, yet I dare say, that the issue and outgate of your sufferings shall be the advantage, the golden reign and dominion of the Gospel, and the high glory of the never-enough-praised Prince of the kings of the earth; and the changing of the brass of the Lord's temple among you into gold, and the iron into silver, and the wood into brass. Your officers shall yet be peace, and your exactors righteousness (Isa. 60:17, 18). Your old, fallen walls shall get a new name, and the gates of your Jerusalem shall get a new style. They shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. I know that Deputy, prelates, Papists, temporizing lords, and proud mockers of our Lord, crucifiers of Christ for His coat, and all your enemies, have neither fingers nor instruments of war to pick out one stone out of your wall; for each stone of your wall is "Salvation." I dare give you my royal and princely Master's word for it, that Ireland shall be a fair bride to Jesus, and Christ will build on her a palace of silver (Cant. 8:9). Therefore, weep not as if there were no hope; fear not, put on strength, put on your beautiful garments (Isa. 52:1). Your foundation shall be sapphires, your windows and gates precious stones (Isa. 54:11, 12). Look over the water, and behold and see who is on the dry land waiting for your landing. Your deliverance is concluded, subscribed, and sealed in heaven. Your goods, that are taken from you for Christ and His truth's sake, are but arrested and laid in pawn, and not taken away. There is much laid up for you in His storehouse, whose the earth and the fulness thereof is. Your garments are spun, and your flocks are feeding in the fields, your bread is laid up for you, your drink is brewn, your gold and silver is at the bank, and the interest goeth on and groweth: and yet I hear that your taskmasters do rob and spoil you, and fine you. Your prisons, my brethren, have two keys. The Deputy, prelates, and officers keep but the iron keys of the prison wherein they put you; but He that hath created the smith, hath other keys in heaven; therefore ye shall not die in the prison. Other men's ploughs are labouring for your bread; your enemies are gathering in your rents. He that is kissing His bride on this side of the sea, in Scotland, is beating her beyond the sea in Ireland, and feeding her with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction; and yet He is the same Lord to both.

Alas! I fear that Scotland be undone and slain with this great mercy of reformation, because there is not here that life of religion, answerable to the huge greatness of the work that dazzleth our eyes. For the Lord is rejoicing over us in this land, as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride: and the Lord hath changed the name of Scotland. They call us now no more "Forsaken," nor "Desolate;" but our land is called "Hephzibah" and "Beulah" (Isa. 62:4). For the Lord delighteth in us, and this land is married to Himself. There is now an highway made through our Zion, and it is called the "Way of holiness;" the unclean shall not pass over it; the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err in it. The wilderness doth rejoice and blossom as the rose; "The ransomed of the Lord are returned back unto Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads" (Isa. 35:10); the Canaanite is put out of our Lord's house: there is not a beast left to do hurt (at least, professedly) in all the holy mountain of the Lord. Our Lord is fallen to wrestle with His enemies, and hath brought us out of Egypt; we have "the strength of an unicorn (Num. 23:22). The Lord hath eaten up the sons of Babel; He hath broken their bones, and hath pierced them through with His arrows. We take them captives whose captives we were, and we rule over our oppressors (Isa. 14:2). It is not brick, nor clay, nor Babel's cursed timber and stones, that is in our second temple; but our princely King Jesus is building His house all palace-work and carved stones. It is the habitation of the Lord.

We do welcome Ireland and England to our Well-beloved. We invite you, O daughters of Jerusalem, to come down to our Lord's garden, and seek our Well-beloved with us; for His love will suffice both you and us. We do send you love-letters over the sea, to request you to come and to marry our King, and to take part of our bed. And we trust our Lord is fetching a blow upon the Beast, and the scarlet-coloured Whore, to the end that He may bring in His ancient widow-wife, our dear sister, the church of the Jews. Oh, what a heavenly heaven were it to see them come in by this mean, and suck the breasts of their little sister, and renew their old love with their first Husband, Christ our Lord! They are booked in God's word, as a bride contracted unto Jesus! Oh for a sight, in this flesh of mine, of the prophesied marriage between Christ and them! The kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, must bring presents to our Lord Jesus (Ps. 72:10). And Britain is one of the chiefest isles; why then but we may believe that our kings of this island shall come in, and bring their glory to the New Jerusalem, wherein Christ shall dwell in the latter days? It is our part to pray, "That the kingdoms of the earth may become Christ's."

Now I exhort you, in the Lord Jesus, not to be dismayed nor afraid for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, the fierce anger of the Deputy with civil power, and of the bastard prelates with the power of the Beast; for they shall be cut off. They may well eat you and drink you, but they shall be forced to vomit you out again alive. If two things were firmly believed, sufferings would have no weight. If the fellowship of Christ's sufferings were well known, who would not gladly take part with Jesus? For Christ and we are halvers and joint-owners of one and the same cross: and, therefore, he that knew well what sufferings were, as he esteemed all things but loss for Christ, and did judge them but dung, so did he also judge of them, "that he might know the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil. 3:10). Oh, how sweet a sight is it, to see a cross betwixt Christ and us, to hear our Redeemer say, at every sigh, and every blow, and every loss of a believer, "Half mine!" So they are called "The sufferings of Christ," and "the reproach of Christ" (Col. 1:24; Heb. 11:26). As, when two are partners and owners of a ship, the half of the gain and half of the loss belong to each of the two; so Christ in our sufferings is half-gainer and half-loser with us. Yea, the heaviest end of the black tree of the cross lieth on your Lord: it falleth first upon Him, and it but reboundeth off Him upon you: "The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon Me" (Ps. 69:9). Your sufferings are your treasure, and are greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (Heb. 11:26). And if your cross come through Christ's fingers ere it come to you, it receiveth a fair lustre from Him; it getteth a taste and relish of the King's spikenard, and of heaven's perfume. And the half of the gain, when Christ's shipful of gold cometh home, shall be yours. It is an augmenting of your treasure to be rich in suffering, "to be in labours abundant, in stripes above measure (2 Cor. 11:23); and to have the sufferings of Christ abounding in you (2 Cor. 1:5) is a part of heaven's stock. Your goods are not lost which they have plucked from you, for your Lord hath them in keeping; they are but arrested and seized upon. He shall loose the arrest. Ye shall be fed with the heritage of Jacob, your father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it (Isa. 58:14).

Till I shall be on the hall-floor of the highest palace, and get a draught of glory out of Christ's hand, above and beyond time and beyond death, I shall never (it is like) see fairer days than I saw under that blessed tree of my Lord's cross. His kisses then were king's kisses. Those kisses were sweet and soul-reviving; one of them, at that time, was worth two and a half (if I may speak so) of Christ's week-day kisses. Oh, sweet, sweet for evermore, to see a rose of heaven growing in as ill ground as hell! and to see Christ's love, His embracements, His dinners and suppers of joy, peace, faith, goodness, long-suffering, and patience, growing and springing like the flowers of God's garden, out of such stony and cursed ground as the hatred of the prelates, and the malice of their High Commission, and the Antichrist's bloody hand and heart! Is not here art and wisdom? Is not here heaven indented in hell (if I may say so), like a jewel set with skill in a ring with the enamel of Christ's cross? The ruby and riches of glory, that grow up out of the cross, are beyond telling. Now, the blackest and hottest wrath, and most fiery and all-devouring indignation of the Judge of men and angels, shall come upon them who deny our sweet Lord Jesus, and put their hand to that oath of wickedness now pressed. The Lord's coal at their heart shall burn them up both root and branch. The estates of great men that have done so, if they do not repent, shall consume away, and the ravens shall dwell in their houses, and their glory shall be shame. Oh, for the Lord's sake! keep fast by Christ, and fear not man that shall die and wither as the grass. The Deputy's bloom shall fall, and the prelates shall cast their flower, and the east wind of the Lord, of "the Lord strong and mighty," shall blast and break them; therefore, fear them not. They are but idols, that can neither do evil nor good. Walk not in the way of those people that slander the footsteps of our royal and princely anointed King Jesus, now riding upon His white horse in Scotland. Let Jehovah be your fear. That decree of Zion's deliverance, passed and sealed up before the throne, is now ripe and shall bring forth a child, even the ruin and fall of the prelates' black kingdom, and the Antichrist's throne, in these kingdoms. The Lord hath begun, and He shall make an end. Who did ever hear the like of this? Before Scotland travailed, she brought forth; and before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child (Isa. 66:7, 8).

And when all is done, suppose there were no sweetness in our Lord's cross, yet it is sweet for His sake, for that lovely One, Jesus Christ, whose crown and royal supremacy is the question this day in Great Britain, betwixt us and our adversaries. And who would not think Him worthy of the suffering for? What is burning quick, what is drinking of our own heart's blood, and what is a draught of melted lead, for His glory? Less than a draught of cold water to a thirsty man, if the right price and due value were put on that worthy, worthy Prince, Jesus! Oh, who can weigh Him! Ten thousand thousand heavens would not be one scale, or the half of the scale, of the balance to lay Him in. O black angels, in comparison of Him! O dim, and dark, and lightless sun, in regard of that fair Sun of righteousness! O feckless and worthless heaven of heavens, when they stand beside my worthy, and lofty, and high, and excellent Well-beloved! O weak and infirm clay-kings! O soft and feeble mountains of brass, and weak created strength, in regard of our mighty and strong Lord of armies! O foolish wisdom of men and angels, when it is laid in the balance beside that spotless, substantial Wisdom of the Father! If heaven and earth, and ten thousand heavens even (round about these heavens that now are), were all in one garden of paradise, decked with all the fairest roses, flowers, and trees that can come forth from the art of the Almighty Himself; yet set but our one Flower that groweth out of the root of Jesse beside that orchard of pleasure, one look of Him, one view, one taste, one smell of His sweet Godhead would infinitely exceed and go beyond the smell, colour, beauty, and loveliness of that paradise. Oh to be with child of His love! and to be suffocated (if that could be) with the smell of His sweetness were a sweet fill and a lovely pain. O worthy, worthy, worthy loveliness! Oh, less of the creatures, and more of Thee! Oh, open the passage of the well of love and glory on us, dry pits and withered trees! Oh, that Jewel and Flower of heaven! If our Beloved were not mistaken by us, and unknown to us, He would have no scarcity of wooers and suitors. He would make heaven and earth both see that they cannot quench His love, for His love is a sea. Oh to be a thousand fathoms deep in this sea of love! He, He Himself is more excellent than heaven; for heaven, as it cometh into the souls and spirits of the glorified, is but a creature; and He is something (and a great something) more than a creature. Oh, what a life were it to sit beside this Well of love, and drink and sing, and sing and drink! and then to have desires and soul-faculties stretched and extended out, many thousand fathoms in length and breadth, to take in seas and rivers of love!

I earnestly desire to recommend this love to you, that this love may cause you to keep His commandments, and to keep clean fingers, and make clean feet, that ye may walk as the redeemed of the Lord. Wo, wo be to them who put on His name, and shame this love of Christ, with a loose and profane life! Their feet, tongue, and hands, and eyes, give a shameless lie to the holy Gospel, which they profess. I beseech you in the Lord, to keep Christ and walk with Him: let not His fairness be spotted and stained by godless living. Oh, who can find in their heart to sin against love? and such a love as the glorified in heaven shall delight to dive into, and drink of for ever? For they are evermore drinking in love, and the cup is still at their head; and yet without loathing, for they still drink, and still desire to drink for ever and ever. Is not this a long-lasting supper?

Now, if any of our country people, professing Christ Jesus, have brought themselves under the stroke and wrath of the Almighty, by yielding to Antichrist in an hair-breadth, but especially by swearing and subscribing that blasphemous oath (which is the Church of Ireland's black hour of temptation), I would entreat them, by the mercies of God at their last summons, to repent, and openly confess before the world to the glory of the Lord their denial of Christ. Or otherwise, if either man of woman will stand and abide by that oath, then, in the name and authority of the Lord Jesus, I let them see that they forfeit their part of heaven! And let them look for no less than a back-burden of the pure, unmixed wrath of God, and the plague of apostates and deniers of our Lord Jesus.

Let not me, a stranger to you, who never saw your face in the flesh, be thought bold in writing to you: for the hope I have of a glorious church in that land, and the love of Christ, constraineth me. I know that the worthy servants of Christ, who once laboured among you, cease not to write to you also; and I shall desire to be excused that I do join with them.

Pray for your sister-church in Scotland; and let me entreat you for the aid of your prayers for myself, and flock, and ministry, and my fear of a transportation from this place of the Lord's vineyard. Now the very God of peace sanctify you throughout. Grace be with you all.

Your brother and companion, in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,

ANWOTH, 1639.

S. R.

CCLXXXIX.—To his Reverend and much honoured Brother, DR. ALEXANDER LEIGHTON, Christ's Prisoner in bonds at London

[DR. ALEXANDER LEIGHTON was descended of an ancient family in Forfarshire, whose chief seat was Ulys-haven, or Usen, near Montrose. Besides studying for the Christian ministry, he qualified himself as a physician, and, during the reign of James I., and the commencement of that of Charles I., practised medicine in London, as well as exercised his ministry there; but whether he had any fixed charge we are not informed. In his zeal for Presbyterian principles, and against the innovations of Laud, he published a work entitled "An Appeal to the Parliament; or, Zion's Plea against the Prelacy." For this work he was arrested in 1629, and thrown into an abominable cell in Newgate. After lying there sixteen weeks in great misery, he was served with an information of the crimes of which he was accused, and charged to appear before the Star Chamber. He was then unable to attend, being under severe distress that had brought skin and hair almost wholly off his body; but the Star Chamber condemned the afflicted and aged divine to be degraded as a minister, to have one of his ears cut off, and one side of his nose slit, to be branded on the face with a red-hot iron, to stand in the pillory, to be whipped at a post, to pay a fine of £1000, and to suffer imprisonment till the fine was paid. When this inhuman sentence was pronounced, Laud took off his hat, and holding up his hands, gave thanks to God, who had given the church victory over her enemies! The sentence was executed without mercy; and Leighton lay in prison until the meeting of the Long Parliament, that is, upwards of ten years. When liberated, he could hardly walk, see, or hear. He died in 1649. He was the father of the celebrated Robert Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow. When this letter was written to him by Rutherford, he had languished many years in prison.]

(PUBLIC BLESSINGS ALLEVIATE PRIVATE SUFFERINGS—TRIALS LIGHT WHEN VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN—CHRIST WORTHY OF SUFFERING FOR.)

REVEREND AND MUCH HONOURED PRISONER OF HOPE,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—It was not my part (whom our Lord hath enlarged) to forget you His prisoner.

When I consider how long your night hath been, I think Christ hath a mind to put you in free grace's debt so much the deeper, as your sufferings have been of so long continuance. But what if Christ mind you no joy but public joy, with enlarged and triumphing Zion. I think, Sir, that ye would love best to share and divide your song of joy with Zion, and to have mystical Christ in Britain halfer and copartner with your enlargement. I am sure that your joy, bordering and neighbouring with the joy of Christ's bride, would be so much the sweeter that it were public. I thought if Christ had halved my mercies, and delivered His bride and not me, that His praises should have been double to what they are; but now two rich mercies conjoined in one have stolen from our Lord more than half-praises. Oh that mercy should so beguile us, and steal away our counts and acknowledgment!

Worthy Sir, I hope that I need not exhort you to go on in hoping for the salvation of God. There hath not been so much taken from your time of ease and created joys, as eternity shall add to your heaven. Ye know when one day in heaven hath paid you (yea, and overpaid your blood, bonds, sorrow, and sufferings), that it would trouble angels' understanding to lay the count of that surplus of glory which eternity can and will give you. Oh but your sand-glass of sufferings and losses cometh to little, when it shall be counted and compared with the glory that abideth you on the other side of the water! Ye have no leisure to rejoice and sing here, while time goeth about you, and where your psalms will be short; therefore, ye will think eternity, and the long day of heaven that shall be measured with no other sun, nor horologe, than the long life of the Ancient of Days, to measure your praises, little enough for you. If your span-length of time be cloudy, ye cannot but think that your Lord can no more take your blood and your bands without the income and recompense of free grace, than He would take the sufferings of Paul and His other dear servants, that were well paid home beyond all counting (Rom. 8:18). If the wisdom of Christ hath made you Antichrist's eyesore and his envy, ye are to thank God that such a piece of clay, as ye are, is made the field of glory to work upon. It was the Potter's aim that the clay should praise Him, and I hope it satisfieth you that your clay is for His glory. Oh, who can suffer enough for such a Lord! and who can lay out in bank, enough of pain, shame, losses, and tortures to receive in again the free interest of eternal glory! (2 Cor. 4:17). Oh, how advantageous a bargaining is it with such a rich Lord! If your hand and pen had been at leisure to gain glory on paper, it had been but paper glory: but the bearing of a public cross so long, for the now controverted privileges of the crown and sceptre of free King Jesus, the Prince of the kings of the earth, is glory booked in heaven. Worthy and dear brother, if ye go to weigh Jesus, His sweetness, excellency, glory, and beauty, and lay foregainst Him your ounces or drachms of suffering for Him, ye shall be straitened two ways. 1. It will be a pain to make the comparison, the disproportion being by no understanding imaginable: nay, if heaven's arithmetic and angels' were set to work, they should never number the degrees of difference. 2. It would straiten you to find a scale for the balance to lay that high and lofty One (that over-transcending Prince of excellency) in. If your mind could fancy as many created heavens as time hath had minutes, trees have had leaves, and clouds have had raindrops, since the first stone of the creation was laid, they should not make half a scale in which to bear and weigh boundless excellency. And, therefore, the King whose marks ye are bearing, and whose dying ye carry about with you in your body, is, out of all cry and consideration, beyond and above all our thoughts.

For myself, I am content to feed upon wondering, sometimes, at the beholding but of the borders and skirts of the incomparable glory which is in that exalted Prince. And I think ye could wish for more ears to give than ye have, since ye hope these ears ye now have given Him shall be passages to take in the music of His glorious voice. I would fain both believe and pray for a new bride of Jews and Gentiles to our Lord Jesus, after the land of graven images shall be laid waste; and that our Lord Jesus is on horseback, hunting and pursuing the Beast; and that England and Ireland shall be well-sweeped chambers for Christ and His righteousness to dwell in; for He hath opened our graves in Scotland, and the two dead and buried witnesses are risen again, and are prophesying. Oh that princes would glory and boast themselves in carrying the train of Christ's robe royal in their arms! Let me die within half an hour after I have seen the temple of the Son of God enlarged, and the cords of Jerusalem's tent lengthened, to take in a more numerous company for a bride to the Son of God! Oh, if the corner or foundation-stone of that house, that new house, were laid above my grave!

Oh! who can add to Him who is that great All! If He would create suns and moons, new heavens, thousand and thousand degrees more perfect than these that now are; and again, make a new creation ten thousand thousand degrees in perfection beyond that new creation; and again, still for eternity multiply new heavens, they should never be a perfect resemblance of that infinite excellency, order, weight, measure, beauty, and sweetness that is in Him. Oh, how little of Him do we see! Oh, how shallow are our thoughts of Him! Oh, if I had pain for Him, and shame and losses for Him, and more clay and spirits for Him! and that I could go upon earth without love, desire, hope, because Christ hath taken away my love, desire, and hope to heaven with Him!

I know, worthy Sir, your sufferings for Him are your glory; and, therefore, weary not. His salvation is near at hand, and shall not tarry.

Pray for me. His grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Nov. 22, 1639.

CCXC.—To a Person unknown, anent Private Worship in time and place of public

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I do not know a private worship, set and intended, compatible with a public worship set and intended. Ejaculations are fruits of public worship and breathings of the spirit in public speaking, but they are aliquid cultus publici, non cultus publicus (something akin to public worship, but not public worship). 2. I know not a member in the kirk who should have a worship in specie (in kind) different from the worship of the whole kirk; and so I do not see (saving better judgment) a lawfulness of private set praying, when there is another set worship of praising, reading, etc. 3. I doubt if there should be any set worship in the kirk to which all the hearers should not say Amen, even the rude and unbelievers (1 Cor. 14:23–25). But to a private prayer, when the worship is public, who can say Amen? 4. I think the people may all fall to their private prayers and private reading, in time the minister preacheth, if he fall to praying when they are praising or hearing the word read. 5. I dare not say they have a Pharisee's mind who pray in public after a private manner, and join not with the public service of the kirk. But in natura operis (in regard to the nature of the work), I think them more pharisaical than the other case is Brownish. 6. Brownism's life is in separation; but the private supplicator, when the kirk is praising and hearing the word read, in my weak judgment, is in the act of separation; that I should not say,2 they are ignorant of Brownism, who object this to such as will not kneel in pulpit. 7. Neither Scripture nor Act of our Assemblies doth allow this human custom. I think they dare not be answerable to a General Assembly who dare call on them to censure for a human and unorderly custom against the word of God so directly. 8. If such as go not to private pulpit prayer neglect private prayer before they come in public, they deserve censure. Whatever hath been my practice before I examined this custom, I purpose now no more to confound worships. And thus recommending you to the grace of God, I rest,

January 16, 1640.

S. R.

CCXCI.—To MR. HENRY STUART, his Wife, and two Daughters, all Prisoners of Christ at Dublin

[HENRY STUART was a gentleman of considerable property in Ireland. He himself, his wife, and family, consisting of two daughters and a domestic servant named James Gray, having refused to swear the "Black Oath," were carried to Dublin by a serjeant-at-arms, and placed in close and rigorous confinement. On the 10th of August 1639, all of them were brought to trial in the Star Chamber. Stuart, being permitted to speak in his own defence, declared before the court, that he had no objection whatever to take the former part of the oath, "promising civil allegiance, but that he could not take the latter part, which he conceived bound the swearer to yield unlimited ecclesiastical obedience to the King." Wentworth, who presided at the trial, in reply, admitted that this interpretation of the oath was quite correct, and concluded by pronouncing the sentence of the court. Stuart was fined £5000, and his wife a similar sum; his daughters, £2000 each; and Gray, although only a servant, £2000; a sum of £16,000 in all; and they were to be detained at Dublin in prison till these exorbitant fines were paid. They were at length liberated by the Irish Parliament, which set itself in 1641 to remedy the evils of Strafford's Government, after they had suffered an imprisonment of a year and three months. But Stuart's property having been confiscated by Strafford, the family were reduced to great poverty. He retired to Scotland, of which he was a native, and applied, in the month of September 1641, to the Parliament sitting at Edinburgh, to recommend to the English Parliament to take measures for enabling him to recover his property. The Scottish Parliament did so, but the result of their application is unknown (Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland," vol. i.).]

(FAITH'S PREPARATION FOR TRIAL—THE WORLD'S RAGE AGAINST CHRIST—THE IMMENSITY OF HIS GLORIOUS BEAUTY—FOLLY OF PERSECUTION—VICTORY SURE.)

"Fear none of these things, which ye shall suffer," etc.—Rev. 2:10.

TRULY HONOURED, AND DEARLY BELOVED.—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus.

Think it not strange, beloved in our Lord Jesus, that Satan can command keys of prisons, and bolts, and chains. This is a piece of the devil's princedom that he hath over the world. Interpret and understand our Lord well in this. Be not jealous of His love, though He make devils and men His under-servants to scour the rust off your faith, and purge you from your dross. And let me charge you, O prisoners of hope, to open your window, and to look out by faith, and behold heaven's post (that speedy and swift salvation of God), that is coming to you. It is a broad river that faith will not look over: it is a mighty and a broad sea, that they of a lively hope cannot behold the furthest bank and other shore thereof. Look over the water; your anchor is fixed within the vail; the one end of the cable is about the prisoner of Christ, and the other is entered within the vail, whither the Forerunner is entered for you (Heb. 6:19, 20). It can go straight through the flames of the fire of the wrath of men, devils, losses, tortures, death, and not a thread of it be singed or burnt: Men and devils have no teeth to bite it in two. Hold fast till He come. Your cross is of the colour of heaven and Christ, and passmented over with the faith and comforts of the Lord's faithful covenant with Scotland: and that dye and colour will abide foul weather, and neither be stained nor cast the colour. Yet, it reflects a scad like the cross of Christ, whose holy hands, many a day lifted up to God, praying for sinners, were fettered and bound, as if those blessed hands had stolen, and shed innocent blood. When your lovely, lovely Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no wonder that your process be lawless and turned upside down; for He was taken, fettered, buffeted, whipped, spitted upon, before He was convicted of any fault, or sentenced. Oh, such a pair of sufferers and witnesses, as high and royal Jesus and a poor piece of guilty clay marrowed together under one yoke! Oh, how lovely is the cross with such a second!

I believe that your prison is enacted in God's court not to keep you till your hope breathe out its life and last. Your cross is under law to restore you again safe to your brethren and sisters in Christ. Take heaven's and Christ's back-bond for a fair back-door out of your suffering. The Saviour is on His journey with salvation and deliverance for Mount Zion; and the sword of the Lord is drunk with blood, and made fat with fatness. His sword is bathed in heaven against Babylon, for it is "the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompense for the controversy of Zion:" and persuade yourselves the streams of the river of Babylon shall be pitch, and the dust of the land brimstone and burning pitch (Isa. 34:8, 9). And if your deliverance be joined with the deliverance of Zion, it shall be two salvations to you.

It were good to be armed beforehand for death or bodily tortures for Christ; and to think what a crown of honour it is, that God hath given you pieces of living clay to be tortured witnesses for saving truth; and that ye are so happy, as to have some pints of blood to give out for the crown of that royal Lord, who hath caused you to avouch Himself before men. If ye can lend fines of three thousand pounds sterling for Christ, let heaven's register and Christ's count-book keep in reckoning your depursements for Him. It shall be engraven and printed in great letters upon heaven's throne, what you are willing to give for Him. Christ's papers of that kind cannot be lost, or fall by.

Do not wonder to see clay boist the great Potter, and to see blinded men threaten the Gospel with death and burial, and to raze out truth's name. But where will they make a grave for the Gospel, and the Lord's bride? Earth and hell shall be but little bounds for their burial. Lay all the clay and rubbish of this inch of the whole earth above our Lord's Spouse, yet it will not cover her nor hold her down; she shall live and not die; she shall behold the salvation of God. Let your faith frist God a little, and not be afraid for a smoking firebrand. There is more smoke in Babylon's furnace than there is fire. Till doomsday shall come, they shall never see the kirk of Scotland and our Covenant burnt to ashes; or, if it should be thrown into the fire, yet it cannot be so burnt or buried as not to have a resurrection. Angry clay's wind shall shake none of Christ's corn: He will gather in all His wheat into His barn. Only let your fellowship with Christ be renewed.

Ye are sibber to Christ now, when you are imprisoned for Him, than before; for now the strokes laid on you do come in remembrance before our Lord, and He can own His own wounds. A drink of Christ's love, which is better than wine, is the drink-silver which suffering for His majesty leaveth behind it. It is not your sins which they persecute in you, but God's grace, and loyalty to King Jesus. They see no treason in you to your prince the King of Britain, albeit they say so; but it is heaven in you that earth is fighting against. And Christ is owning His own cause. Grace is a party that fire will not burn, nor water drown. When they have eaten and drunken you, their stomach shall be sick, and they shall spue you out alive. Oh, what glory is it to be suffering abjects (Ps. 35:15) for the Lord's glory and royalty! Nay, though His servants had a body to burn for ever for this Gospel, so being that the high glory of triumphing and exalted Jesus did rise out of these flames, and out of that burning body, oh what a sweet fire! oh what soul-refreshing torment would that be! What if the pickles of dust and ashes of the burnt and dissolved body were musicians to sing His praises, and the highness of that never-enough-exalted Prince of ages? Oh, what love is it in Him that He will have such musicians as we are, to tune that psalm of His everlasting praises in heaven! Oh, what shining and burning flames of love are these, that Christ will divide His share of life, of heaven and glory, with you! (Luke 22:29; John 17:24; Rev. 3:21). A part of His throne, one draught of His wine (His wine of glory and life that cometh from under the throne of God and of the Lamb), and one apple of the tree of life, will do more than make up all the expenses and charges of clay, lent out for heaven. Oh! oh! but we have short, and narrow, and creeping thoughts of Jesus, and do but shape Christ in our conceptions according to some created portraiture! O angels, lend in your help to make love-books and songs of our fair, and white, and ruddy Standard-bearer amongst ten thousand! O heavens! O heaven of heavens! O glorified tenants, and triumphing householders with the Lamb, put in new psalms and love-sonnets of the excellency of our Bridegroom, and help us to set Him on high! O indwellers of earth and heaven, sea and air, and O all ye created beings within the bosom of the utmost circle of this great world, oh come help to set on high the praises of our Lord! O fairness of creatures, blush before His uncreated beauty! O created strength, be amazed to stand before your strong Lord of hosts! O created love, think shame of thyself before this unparalleled love of heaven! O angel-wisdom, hide thyself before our Lord, whose understanding passeth finding out! O sun in thy shining beauty, for shame put on a web of darkness, and cover thyself before thy brightest Master and Maker! Oh, who can add glory, by doing or suffering, to the never-enough admired and praised Lover! Oh we can but bring our drop to this sea, and our candle, dim and dark as it is, to this clear and lightsome Sun of heaven and earth! Oh but we have cause to drink ten deaths in one cup dry, to swim through ten seas, to be at that land of praises, where we shall see that wonder of wonders, and enjoy this Jewel of heaven's jewels! O death, do thy utmost against us! O torments, O malice of men and devils, waste your strength on the witnessess of our Lord's Testament! O devils, bring hell to help you in tormenting the followers of the Lamb! We will defy you to make us too soon happy, and to waft us too soon over the water to the land where the noble Plant, the Plant of Renown, groweth. O cruel time, that tormenteth us, and suspendeth our deareat enjoyments that we wait for, when we shall be bathed and steeped, soul and body, down in the depths of this Love of Loves! O time, I say, run fast! O motions, mend your pace? O well-beloved, be like a young roe on the mountains of separation! Post, post, and hasten our desired and hungered-for meeting. Love is sick to hear tell of to-morrow.

And what, then, can come wrong to you, O honourable witnesses of His kingly truth? Men have no more of you to work upon than some inches and span-lengths of sick, coughing, and phlegmatic clay. Your spirits are above their Benches, Courts, or High Commissions. Your souls, your love to Christ, your faith, cannot be summoned nor sentenced, nor accused nor condemned, by pope, deputy, prelate, ruler, or tyrant. Your faith is a free lord, and cannot be a captive. All the malice of hell and earth can but hurt the scabbard of a believer; and death, at the worst, can get but a clay pawn in keeping till your Lord make2 the King's keys, and open your graves. Therefore, upon luck's head (as we use to say) take your fill of His love, and let a post-way or causeway be laid betwixt your prison and heaven, and go up and visit your treasure. Enjoy your Beloved, and dwell upon His love, till eternity come in time's room, and possess you of your eternal happiness. Keep your love to Christ, lay up your faith in heaven's keeping, and follow the Chief of the house of the martyrs that witnessed a fair confession before Pontius Pilate. Your cause and His is all one. The opposers of His cause are like drunken judges and transported, who, in their cups, would make acts and laws in their drunken courts that the sun should not rise and shine on the earth, and send their officers and pursuivants to charge the sun and moon to give no more light to the world; and would enact in their court-books, that the sea, after once ebbing, should never flow again. But would not the sun, moon, and sea break these acts, and keep their Creator's directions? The devil (the great fool, and father of these under-fools) is older and more malicious than wise, that setteth the spirits in earth on work to contend and clash with heaven's wisdom, and to give mandates and law-summons to our Sun, to our great Star of heaven, Jesus, not to shine in the beauty of His Gospel to the chosen and bought ones. O thou fair and fairest Sun of righteousness, arise and shine in Thy strength, whether earth or hell will or not. O victorious, O royal, O stout, princely Soul-conqueror, ride prosperously upon truth; stretch out Thy sceptre as far as the sun shineth, and the moon waxeth and waneth. Put on Thy glittering crown, O Thou Maker of kings, and make but one stride, or one step of the whole earth, and travel in the greatness of Thy strength (Isa. 62:1, 2). And let Thy apparel be red, and all dyed with the blood of Thy enemies. Thou art fallen righteous Heir by line to the kingdoms of the world.

Laugh ye at the giddy-headed clay pots, and stout, brain-sick worms, that dare say in good earnest, "This man shall not reign over us!" as though they were casting the dice for Christ's crown, which of them should have it. I know that ye believe the coming of Christ's kingdom; and that there is a hole out of your prison, through which ye see daylight. Let not faith be dazzled with temptations from a dying Deputy, and from a sick Prelate. Believe under a cloud, and wait for Him when there is no moonlight nor starlight. Let faith live and breathe, and lay hold on the sure salvation of God, when clouds and darkness are about you, and appearance of rotting in the prison before you. Take heed of unbelieving hearts, which can father lies upon Christ. Beware of "Doth His promise fail for evermore?" (Ps. 77:8). For it was a man, and not God, that said it, who dreamed that a promise of God could fail, fall aswoon, or die. We can make God sick, or His promises weak, when we are pleased to seek a plea with Christ. O sweet, O stout word of faith, "Though He may slay me, yet will I trust in Him!" (Job 13:15). O sweet epitaph, written upon the grave-stone of a dying believer, namely, "I died hoping, and my dust and ashes believe in life!" Faith's eyes, that can see through a millstone, can see through a gloom of God, and under it read God's thoughts of love and peace. Hold fast Christ in the dark; surely ye shall see the salvation of God. Your adversaries are ripe and dry for the fire. Yet a little while, and they shall go up in a flame; the breath of the Lord, like a river of brimstone, shall kindle about them (Isa. 30:33).

What I write to one, I write to you all that are sound-hearted in that kingdom, whom, in the bowels of Christ, I would exhort not to touch that oath. Albeit the adversaries put a fair meaning on it, yet the swearer must swear according to the professed intent and godless practice of the oath-makers, which is known to the world. Otherwise I might swear that the Creed is false, according to this private meaning and sense put upon it. Oh, let them not be beguiled to wash perjury and the denial of Christ and the Gospel with ink water, some foul and rotten distinctions. Wash, and wash again and again, the devil and the lie, it will be long ere their skin be white.

I profess it should beseem men of great parts rather than me to write to you. But I love your cause, and desire to be excused; and must entreat for the help of your prayers, in this my weighty charge here for the university and pulpit, and that ye would intreat your acquaintance also to help me. Grace be with you all. Amen.

Your brother and companion, in the patience and kingdom of Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1640.

CCXCII.—To MRS. PONT, Prisoner at Dublin

[MRS. PONT, whose maiden name was Isabel Stewart, was the wife of Mr. Pont, minister of a parish in the diocese of Raphoe. Pont declined to use the prescribed ceremonies of the church, and condemned the increasing severities towards nonconformists, together with the unscriptural jurisdiction of the prelates. It appears that he had also held meetings for worship and public preaching, contrary to the canons; and that his wife had in some way signalized herself by her opposition to Prelacy, and her frequenting these more private assemblies. John Leslie, Bishop of Raphoe, reporting the matter to Wentworth, was recommended to deprive Pont of his benefice, and "to proceed against his wife in such way as her fault deserves, and the laws will bear." Pont himself escaped to Scotland, but his wife was imprisoned in the castle of Dublin. She lay in prison nearly three years, not being liberated till 1641 by the Irish Parliament. In May 1641 she presented a petition to the Irish House of Commons against the Bishop of Raphoe, for committing her to prison, and charging her with high treason, solely on his own authority. The House resolved that the Bishop, by his illegal conduct, had involved himself in the penalties of the statute of præmunire; but no further proceedings appear to have been taken against him. "In these proceedings," says Dr. Reid, "Mrs. Pont is styled, 'Mrs. Isabel Pont alias Stewart, widow;' whence it appears that her husband must have died soon after he had fled to Scotland" (Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland," vol. i.). This lady afterwards came over to Scotland, and died on the 9th of November 1704. Wodrow visited her repeatedly under her last illness. He calls her "this extraordinary person." On visiting her the night preceding her death, she said to him, "I never had so few temptations as now. I am only waiting God's time of departure." Again calling upon her next morning, he says, "I think her last breath went out just when I resigned her to God, as far as I could notice, about seven in the morning" ("Analecta," vol. i. p. 55).]

(SUPPORT UNDER TRIALS—THE MASTER'S REWARD.)

WORTHY AND DEAR MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—The cause which ye suffer for, and your willingness to suffer, is ground enough of acquaintance for me to write to you; although I do confess myself unable to speak for the encouragement of a prisoner of Christ.

I know that ye have advantage beyond us who are not under sufferings; for your sighing (Ps. 102:20) is a written bill for the ears of your Head, the Lord Jesus; and your breathing (Lam. 3:56), and your looking up (Ps. 5:3, and 69:3). And, therefore, your meaning, half-spoken, half-unspoken, will seek no jailor's leave, but will go to heaven without leave of prelate or deputy, and be heartily welcome; so that ye may sigh and groan out your mind to Him who hath all the keys of the king's three kingdoms and dominions. I dare believe that your hope shall not die. Your trouble is a part of Zion's burning; and ye know who guideth Zion's furnace, and who loveth the ashes of His burnt bride, because His servants love them (Ps. 102:14). I believe that your ashes, if ye were burnt for this cause, shall praise Him: for the wrath of men and their malice shall make a psalm to praise the Lord (Ps. 76:10). And, therefore, stand still, and behold and see what the Lord is to do for this island. His work is perfect (Deut. 32:4). The nations have not seen the last end of His work; His end is more fair and more glorious than the beginning.

Ye have more honour than ye can be able to guide well, in that your bonds are made heavy for such an honourable cause. The seals of a controlled Gospel, and the seals by bonds, and blood, and sufferings, are not committed to every ordinary professor. Some that would back Christ honestly in summertime, would but spill the beauty of the Gospel if they were put to suffering. And, therefore, let us believe that Wisdom dispenseth to every one here, as He thinketh good, who beareth them up that bear the cross. And since our Lord hath put you to that part which was the flower of His own sufferings, we all expect that, as ye have in the strength of our Captain begun, so ye will go on without fainting. Providence maketh use of men and devils for the refining of all the vessels of God's house, small and great, and for doing of two great works at once in you, both for smoothing a stone to make it take band with Christ in Jerusalem's wall, and for witnessing to the glory of this reproached and borne-down Gospel, which cannot die though hell were made a grave about it. It shall be timeous joy for you, to divide joy betwixt you and Christ's laughing bride in these three kingdoms. And what if your mourning continue till mystical Christ (in Ireland and in Great Britain) and ye laugh both together? Your laughing and joy were the more blessed, that one sun should shine upon Christ, the Gospel, and you, laughing altogether in these three kingdoms. Your time is measured, and your days and hours of suffering from eternity were, by infinite Wisdom, considered. If heaven recompense not to your own mind inches of sorrow, then I must say that infinite Mercy cannot get you pleased; but if the first kiss of the white and ruddy cheek of the Standard-bearer and Chief among ten thousand thousand (Cant. 5:10), shall overpay your prison at Dublin, in Ireland, then ye shall have no counts unanswered to give in to Christ. If your faith cannot see a nearer term-day, yet let me charge your hope to give Christ a new day, till eternity and time meet in one point. A paid sum, if ever paid, is paid if no day be broken to the hungry creditor. Take heaven's bond and subscribed obligation for the sum (John 14:3). If hope can trust Christ, I know that He can, and will pay. But when all is done and suffered by you, ten hundred deaths for lovely, lovely Jesus is but eternity's halfpenny; figures and cyphers cannot lay the proportion. Oh, but the surplus of Christ's glory is broad and large! Christ's items of eternal glory are hard and cumbersome to tell; and if ye borrow, by faith and hope, ten days or ten hundred years from that eternity of glory that abideth you, ye are paid and more, in your own hand. Therefore, O prisoner of hope, wait on; posting, hasting salvation sleepeth not. Antichrist is bleeding, and in the way to death; and he biteth the sorest, when he bleedeth the fastest. Keep your intelligence betwixt you and heaven, and your court with Christ. He hath in heaven the keys of your prison, and can set you at liberty when He pleaseth. His rich grace support you. I pray you to help me with your prayers. Grace be with you.

Your brother, in the patience and kingdom of Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1640.

CCXCIII—To MR. JAMES WILSON

[There was a cotemporary of that name, the minister of Inch, in the Presbytery of Stranraer. There was also a James Wilson who was a friend of Blair, and minister of Dysart in 1653. (See Row's "Life of Blair.") This letter indicates that the correspondent was a man of thought and education.]

(ADVICES TO A DOUBTING SOUL—MISTAKES ABOUT HIS INTEREST IN GOD'S LOVE—TEMPTATION—PERPLEXITY ABOUT PRAYER—WANT OF FEELING.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you.—I bless our rich and only wise Lord, who careth so for His new creation that He is going over it again, and trying every piece in you, and blowing away the motes of His new work in you. Alas! I am not so fit a physician as your disease requireth. Sweet, sweet, lovely Jesus be your physician, where His under-chirur-geons cannot do anything for putting in order the wheels, paces, and goings of a marred soul. I have little time; but yet the Lord hath made me so to concern myself in your condition, that I dow not, I dare not, be altogether silent.

First: ye doubt, from 2 Cor. 13:5, whether ye be in Christ or not? and so, whether you are a reprobate or not? I answer three things to the doubt.—1. Ye owe charity to all men, but most of all to lovely and loving Jesus, and some also to yourself; especially to your renewed self, because your new self is not yours, but another Lord's, even the work of His own Spirit. Therefore, to slander His work is to wrong Himself. Love thinketh no evil: if ye love grace, think not ill of grace in yourself. And ye think ill of grace in yourself when ye make it but a bastard and a work of nature; for a holy fear that ye be not Christ's, and withal a care and a desire to be His, and not your own, is not, nay cannot be, bastard nature. The great Advocate pleadeth hard for you; be upon the Advocate's side, O poor feared client of Christ! Stay, and side with such a Lover, who pleadeth for no other man's goods than His own; for He (if I may say so) scorneth to be enriched with unjust conquest. And yet He pleadeth for you, whereof your letter (though too, too full of jealousy) is a proof. For, if ye were not His, your thoughts (which, I hope, are but the suggestions of His Spirit, that only bringeth the matter into debate to make it sure to you) would not be such, nor so serious as these, "Am I His?" or "Whose am I?" 2. Dare ye forswear your Owner, and say in cold blood, "I am not His"? What nature or corruption saith at starts in you, I regard not. Your thoughts of yourself, when sin and guiltiness round you in the ear, and when you have a sight of your deservings, are Apocrypha, and not Scripture, I hope. Hear what the Lord saith of you: "He will speak peace." If your Master say, "I quit you," I shall then bid you eat ashes for bread, and drink waters of gall and wormwood. But, however Christ out of His own mouth should seem to say, "I come not for thee," as He did, Matt. 15:24; yet let me say, that the words of the tempting Jesus are not to be stretched as Scripture, beyond His intention, seeing His intention in speaking them is to strengthen, not to deceive. And, therefore, here faith may contradict what Christ seemeth at first to say, and so may ye. I charge you by the mercies of God, be not that cruel to grace and the new birth as to cast water on your own coal by misbelief. If ye must die (as I know ye shall not), it were a folly to slay yourself. 3. I hope that ye love the new birth and a claim to Christ, howbeit ye do not make it good; and if ye were in hell, and saw the heavenly face of lovely, ten thousand times lovely Jesus, that hath God's hue, and God's fair, fair and comely red and white, wherewith it is beautified beyond comparison and imagination, ye could not forbear to say, "Oh, if I could but blow a kiss from my sinful mouth from hell up to heaven, upon His cheeks that are a bed of spices as sweet flowers!" (Cant. 5:13). I hope ye dare say, "O fairest sight of heaven! O boundless mass of crucified and slain love for me, give me leave to wish to love Thee! O Flower and Bloom of heaven and earth's love! O angels' Wonder! O Thou, the Father's eternal, sealed Love! and O Thou, God's old Delight! give me leave to stand beside Thy love, and look in and wonder; and give me leave to wish to love Thee, if I can do no more." 4. We being born in atheism, and bairns of the house that we are come of, it is no new thing, my dear brother, for us to be under jealousies and mistakes about the love of God. What think ye of this, that the man, Christ, was tempted to believe there were but two persons in the blessed Godhead, and that the Son of God, the substantial and coeternal Son, was not the lawful Son of God? Did not Satan say, "If Thou be the Son of God?"

Secondly: Ye say, that ye know not what to do. Your Head said once the same word, or not far from it. "Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say?" (John 12:27). And faith answered Christ's "What shall I say?" with these words: "O tempted Saviour, askest Thou, 'What shall I say?' Say, 'Pray, Father, save Me from this hour.' " What course can ye take but pray and frist Christ His own comforts? He is no dyvour; take His word. "Oh," say ye, "I cannot pray?" Answer—Honest sighing is faith breathing and whispering Him in the ear. The life is not out of faith where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes, and breathing toward God. Hide not Thine ear at my breathing (Lam. 3:56). "But what shall I do in spiritual exercises?" ye say. Answer—1. If ye knew particularly what to do, it were not a spiritual exercise. 2. In my weak judgment, ye should first say, "I would glorify God in believing David's salvation, and the Bride's marriage with the Lamb, and love the church's slain Husband, although I cannot for the present believe mine own salvation." 3. Say, "I will not pass from my claim: suppose Christ should pass from His claim to me, it shall not go back upon my side. Howbeit my love to Him be not worth a drink of water, yet Christ shall have it, such as it is." 4. Say, "I shall rather spill twenty prayers, than not pray at all. Let my broken words go up to heaven: when they come up into the Great Angel's golden censer, that compassionate Advocate will put together my broken prayers, and perfume them." Words are but the accidents of prayer.

"Oh," say ye, "I am slain with hardness of heart, and troubled with confused and melancholious thoughts." Answer—My dear brother, what would ye conclude thence? That ye know not well who aughteth you? I grant: "Oh, my heart is hard! oh, my thoughts of faithless sorrow! Ergo, I know not who aughteth me," were good logic in heaven amongst angels and the glorified; but down in Christ's hospital, where sick and distempered souls are under cure, it is not worth a straw. Give Christ time to end His work in your heart. Hold on, in feeling and bewailing your hardness; for that is softness to feel hardness. 2. I change you to make psalms of Christ's praises for His begun work of grace. Make Christ your music and your song; for complaining and feeling of want doth often swallow up your praises. What think ye of those who go to hell never troubled with such thoughts? If your exercises be the way to hell, God help me! I have a cold coal to blow at, and a blank paper for heaven. I give you Christ caution, and my heaven surety, for your salvation. Lend Christ your melancholy, for Satan hath no right to make a chamber in your melancholy. Borrow joy and comfort from the Comforter. Bid the Spirit do His office in you; and remember that faith is one thing, and the feeling and notice of faith another. God forbid that feeling were proprium quarto modo to all the saints; and that this were good reasoning, "No feeling, no grace." I am sure ye were not always, these twenty years by-past, actually knowing that ye live! yet all this time ye are living. So it is with the life of faith.

But, alas! dear brother, it is easy for me to speak words and syllables of peace; but Isaiah telleth you, "I create peace" (Isa. 57:19). There is but one Creator, ye know. Oh that ye may get a letter of peace sent you from heaven!

Pray for me, and for grace to be faithful, and for gifts to be able, with tongue and pen, to glorify God. I forget you not.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Jan. 8, 1640.

CCXCIV.—To my LADY BOYD

(SINS OF THE LAND—DWELLING IN CHRIST—FAITH AWAKE SEES ALL WELL.)

MADAM,—I received your Ladyship's letter; but because I was still going through the country for the affairs of the church, I had no time to answer it.

I had never more cause to fear than I have now, when my Lord hath restored me to my second created heaven on earth, and hath turned my apprehended fears into joys, and great deliverance to His church, whereof I have my share and part. Alas! that weeping prayers, answered and sent back from heaven with joy, should not have laughing praises! Oh that this land would repent, and lay burdens of praises upon the top of the fair Mount Zion! Madam, except this land be humbled, a Reformation is rather my wonder than belief, at this time. But surely it must be a wonder, and what is done already is a wonder. Our Lord must restore beauty to His churches without hire; for we are sold without money, and now our buyers repent them of the bargain, and would gladly give again better-cheap than they bought us. They devoured Jacob, and eat up His people as bread; now Jacob is growing a living child in their womb, and they would fain be delivered of the child, and render the birth. Our Lord shall be midwife. Oh that this land be not like Ephraim, "An unwise son, that stayeth too long in the place of the breaking forth of children!" Your Ladyship is blessed with children who are honoured to build up Christ's waste places again. I believe that your Ladyship will think them well bestowed on that work, and that Zion's beauty is your joy. This is a mark and evidence from heaven, which helpeth weak ones to hold their grip, when other marks fail them.

I hope that your Ladyship is at a good understanding with Christ, and that, as becometh a Christian, ye take Him up aright; for many mistake and misshape Christ in His comings and goings. Your wants and falls proclaim that ye have nothing of your own but what ye borrow; nay, yourself is not your own, but Christ hath given Himself to you. Put Christ to the bank, and heaven shall be your interest and income. Love Him, for ye cannot over-love Him. Take up your house in Christ. Let Him dwell in you, and abide in Him; and then ye may look out of Christ, and laugh at the clay-heavens that the sons of men are seeking after on this side of the water. Christ mindeth to make your losses grace's great advantage. Christ will lose nothing of you; nay, not even your sins, for He hath a use for them, as well as for your service; howbeit ye are to loathe yourself for these. I hope that ye fetch all the heaven ye have here in this life from that which is up above, and that your anchor is casten as high and deep as Christ. (Oh, but it is far and many a mile to the bottom!) If I had known long since, as I do now (though still, alas! I am ignorant), what was in Christ, I would not have been so late in starting to the gate to seek Him. Oh what can I do or say to Him who hath made the North render me back again! A grave is no sure prison to Him for the keeping of dry bones. Wo is me, that my foolish sorrow and unbelief, being on horseback, did ride so proudly and witlessly over my Lord's providence! But when my faith was asleep, Christ was awake; and now, when I am awake, I say He did all things well. O infinite wisdom! O incomparable loving-kindness! Alas, that the heart I have is so little and worthless for such a Lord as Christ is! Oh what odds find the saints in hard trials, when they feel sap at their roots, betwixt them and sun-burned, withered professors! Crosses and storms cause them to cast their blooms and leaves. Poor world-lings, what will ye do when the span-length of your forenoon's laughter is ended, and when the weeping side of providence is turned to you?

I put all the favours which ye have bestowed on my brother upon Christ's score; in whose books are many such counts, and who will requite them. I wish you to be builded more and more upon the stone laid in Zion, and then ye shall be the more fit to have a hand in rebuilding our Lord's fallen tabernacle in this land; in which ye shall find great peace when ye come to grips with death, the king of terrors.

The God of peace be with your Ladyship, and keep you blameless till the day of our Lord Jesus.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in his sweet Lord and Master,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCXCV.—To his very dear Friend, JOHN FENWICK

[MR. JOHN FENWICK was an Englishman, who suffered considerably for non-conformity. He is mentioned in Row's "Life of R. Blair," where it is said that "John Fenwick was one of the best of the Commissioners sent by Cromwell to visit the Universities." He was a Puritan and Nonconformist.]

(CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN—FREENESS OF GOD'S LOVE—FAITH TO BE EXERCISED UNDER FROWNS—GRACE FOR TRIALS—CHRIST YET TO BE EXALTED ON THE EARTH.)

MUCH 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 thristy 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 29:6) 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 12:3, 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. 42:3), 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. 3:10). 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 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.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—I received yours, and cannot but be ashamed that mistaken love hath brought me into court 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. 8:8); 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."]

(FAITHS MISGIVINGS—SPIRITUAL DARKNESS NOT GRACE—CHRIST'S LOVE INIMITABLE.)

MADAM,—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. 24:23; Job 25:5). 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. 16:2), 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. Rutherfurd 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.)

REVEREND 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 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, 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.)

MADAM,—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, 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 18:15); 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. 3:11). 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. 149:9), and that they shall bear stones on their shoulders for building that fair city that is called "The Lord is there" (Ezek. 48:35). 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, 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.—To AGNES 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.)

DEAR 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. 1:18). 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. 12:6, 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.)

REVEREND 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.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.—I am heartily sorry that ladyship is deprived of such a husband, and the Lord's kirk of so active and faithful a friend. 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. 62:2, 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.

CCCIII.—For the Right Honourable, my LADY BOYD

(SIN OF THE LAND—READ PRAYERS—BROWNISM.)

MADAM,—I doubt not but the debt of many more than ordinary favours to this land layeth guiltiness upon this nation. The Lord hath put us in His books as a favoured people in the sight of the nations, but we pay not to Him the rent of the vineyard. And we might have had a gospel at an easier rate than this Gospel; but it would have had but as much life as ink and paper have. We stand obliged to Him who hath in a manner forced His love on us, and would but love us against our will.

Anent read prayers. Madam, I could never see precept, promise, or practice for them, in God's word. Our church never allowed them, but men took them up at their own choice. The word of God maketh reading (1 Tim. 4:3) and praying (1 Thess. 5:17) two different worships. In reading, God speaketh to us (2 Kings 22:10, 11); in praying, we speak to God (Ps. 22:2, 28:1). I had never faith to think well of them. In my weak judgment, it were good if they were out of the service of God. I cannot think them a fruit or effect of the Spirit of adoption, seeing the user cannot say of such prayers, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer," which the servants of God ought to say of their prayers (Ps. 19:14). For such prayers are meditations set down in paper and ink, and cannot be his heart-meditations who useth them. The saints never used them, and God never commanded them; and a promise to hear any prayers, except the pouring out of the soul to God, we can never read.

As for separation from worship for some errors of a church, the independency of single congregations, a church of visible saints, and other tenets of Brownists, they are contrary to God's word. I have a treatise at the press at London against these conceits, as things which want God's word to warrant them. The Lord lay it not to their charge, who depart from the covenant of God with this land to follow such lying vanities.

I did see lately your daughter, the Lady Ardross. The Lord hath given her a child and deliverance.

Now, recommending your Ladyship to the rich grace of Christ, I rest yours at all respectful observance in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCIV.—To JAMES MURRAY'S WIFE [See Letter CCLXXIV.]

(HEAVEN A REALITY—STEDFASTNESS TO BE GROUNDED ON CHRIST.)

MY VERY DEAR AND WORTHY SISTER,—You are truly blessed in the Lord, however a sour world gloom and frown on you, if ye continue in the faith settled and grounded, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel. It is good that there is a heaven, and it is not a night-dream and a fancy. It is a wonder that men deny not that there is a heaven, as they deny there is any way to it but of men's making. You have learned of Christ that there is a heaven; contend for it and for Christ. Bear well and submissively the hard thrust of this stepmother world, which God will not have to be yours. I confess it is hard, and, would to God, I were able to lighten you of your burden; but believe me, this world, which the Lord will not have to be yours, is but the dross, refuse, and scum of God's creation, the portion of the Lord's poor hired servants, the moveables, not the heritage, a hard bone cast to the dogs holden out of the New Jerusalem, whereupon they rather break their teeth than satisfy their appetite. It is your father's blessing and Christ's birthright that our Lord is keeping for you; and persuade yourself also that (if it be good for them and you) your seed also shall inherit the earth; for that is promised to them, and God's bond is as good as if He would give every one of them a bond for thousand thousands.

Ere ye were born, crosses in number, measure and weight; were written for you; and your Lord will lead you through them. Make Christ sure, and the world and the blessings of the earth shall be at Christ's back and beck. I see many professors for the fashion, professors of glass; I would make a little knock of persecution ding them in twenty pieces, and the world would laugh at the shreds. Therefore, make fast work; see that Christ be the ground-stone of your profession. The sore wind and rain will not wash away His building; His work hath no less date than to stand for evermore. I should twenty times have perished in my affliction, if I had not laid my weak back and pressing burden, both, upon the Stone, the Corner-stone laid in Zion. I am not twice fain (as the proverb is), but once and for ever, of this Stone. Now the God of peace establish you to the day of the appearance of Jesus Christ. Yours,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCV.—For the Right Honourable Lady, my LADY KENMURE

(SINS OF THE TIMES—PRACTICAL ATHEISM.)

MADAM,—I am a little moved at your infirmity of body and health; I hope it is to you a real warning. "And if in this life only we had hope, we should be of all men the most miserable." Sure the huge generations of the seekers of the face of Jacob's God must be in a life above the things that are now much taking with us; such as, to see the sun, to enjoy this life in health, and some good worldly accommodations too. And if we be making that2 sure, it is our wisdom. The times would make any that love the Lord sick and faint, to consider how iniquity aboundeth, and how dull we are in observing sins in ourselves, and how quick-sighted to find them out in others, and what bondage we are in. And yet very often, when we complain of times, we are secretly slandering the Lord's work and wise government of the world, and raising a hard report of Him. "He is good, and doeth good," and all His ways are equal.

Madam, I have been holding out to some others (oh, if I could to myself!) some more of this, to read and study God well, and make the serious thoughts of a Godhead, and a Godhead in Christ, the work, and the only work, all the day. Oh, we are little with God! and do all without God! We sleep and wake without Him; we eat, we speak, we journey, we go about worldly business and our calling without God! and, considering what deadness is upon the hearts of many, it were good that some did not pray without God, and preach and praise, and read and confer of God without God! It is universally complained of, that there is a strange deadness upon the land, and on the hearts of His people. Oh, if we could help it! But He that watereth every moment His garden of red wine must help it. I believe that He will burn the briers and the thorns that come against Him.

I desire to remember your Ladyship to God; but little can I do that way. His everlasting goodness will be with you.

Yours, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, July 24.

CCCVI.—To MR. THOMAS WYLIE, Minister of Borgue

MR. THOMAS WYLIE was minister of Borgue, a parish in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in which are to be seen, close to the sea-shore, the remains of what is supposed to have been one of the old Culdee churches, Kirk Andrews. He was afterwards translated to Mauchline, a parish in Ayrshire; but he remained there only a short time, having soon after his translation to it accepted a call to Kirkcudbright. But he was not allowed long to prosecute his useful labours in that place. Shortly after the restoration of Charles II., his fidelity to his Presbyterian principles rendering him obnoxious to the Government, he was, by a particular act of Privy Council, ejected from his charge, and banished to the north of Tay, with his family. In 1670 he went over to Ireland (where some of his relatives appear to have resided), and officiated in a congregation at Coleraine for nearly three years, when he returned to Scotland, and was settled minister of Fenwick, in the Presbytery of Irvine, under the second Indulgence. He died on July 20, 1676.]

(SUFFICIENCY OF DIVINE GRACE—CALL TO ENGLAND TO ASSIST AT WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY—FELT UNWORTHINESS.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I neither can nor dow write to you anent the business, in respect it is my case more as yours, and ye write to me that which I should write to you. If grace pay not our debts and bond-surety for us, I see not how I shall make a reckoning for one soul, far less for multitudes; only it is God's will that we put grace to the utmost, and engage Christ for His own work. If He refuse charges to His own factors, the lost bankruptcy will redound to Him. But He must not be a loser, nor can His glory suffer. But I must entreat you for the help of your prayers, as you will do for me anything out of heaven, and possible to you. I am now called for to England; the government of the Lord's house in England and Ireland is to be handled. My heart beareth me witness, and the Lord who is greater knoweth, my faith was never prouder than to be a common rough country barrowman in Anwoth; and that I could not look at the honour of being a mason to lay the foundation for many generations, and to build the waste places of Zion in another kingdom, or to have a hand or finger in that carved work in the cedar and almug trees in that new temple. I desire but to lend a shut,2 and cry, "Grace, grace upon the building." I hope ye will help my weakness in this; and seek help to me from others as if I had named them, and intercede for the favour of my Father's seas, winds, and tides, and for the victory of strong and prevailing truth.

Grace be with you.

Yours in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 20th Oct. 1643.

CCCVII.—To a Young Man in Anwoth

[This letter is from the "Christian Instructor" of January 1839, furnished by one who was in possession of the MS. It was written at St. Andrews, but both date and address are lost. It is supposed to have been addressed to one of his former parishioners, a young man in Anwoth, of some influence.]

(NECESSITY OF GODLINESS IN ITS POWER.)

WORTHY SIR,—I am heartily glad that you have any mind of me, or my ministry while I was with you. I wish you the fruit of it. I trust that you strive for the power of godliness, that has been so preached in the land; for salvation cometh not to every man's door, and the way to heaven is a straiter and narrower passage than each man thinketh. And you are now in the most glassy part of your life, when it is easy to follow, and when the lusts of youth are rank and strong. And happy are you that can pass through these dangers with a good conscience. So my real advice is, that you acquaint yourself with prayer, and with searching the Scriptures of God, that He may show you that good way that bringeth rest to the soul. The ordinary faith and the country godliness will not save you. There must be more nor the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees ere ever a man enter the kingdom of God. And I shall desire that you will take to heart the worth and price of an immortal soul, and the necessity of dying, and the fearful account of judgment at the back of death, that you may be saved.

As for my ministry among you again, I can easier desire it than see through it. The Lord of the harvest take care for you, and send you a pastor according to God's heart; and that's as rare as ever, for all our reformation.

Remember my heart's love and respect to your mother and sister. Grace be with you.

Your sometime pastor and still friend in God,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCVIII.—For the Right Honourable, my Lady VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE

(WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY—RELIGIOUS SECTS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am glad to hear that your Ladyship is in any tolerable health; and shall pray that the Lord may be your Strength and Rock. Sure I am, that He took you out of the womb; and you have been casten on Him from the breasts. I am confident that He will not leave you till He crown the work begun in you.

There is nothing here but divisions in the Church and Assembly; for beside Brownists and Independents2 (who, of all that differ from us, come nearest to walkers with God), there are many other sects here, of Anabaptists, Libertines who are for all opinions in religion, fleshly and abominable Antinomians,2 and Seekers, who are for no church-ordinances, but expect apostles to come and reform churches; and a world of others, all against the government of presbyteries.4 Luther observed, when he studied to reform, that two-and-thirty sundry sects arose; of all which I have named a part, except those called Seekers, who were not then arisen. He said, God should crush them, and that they should rise again: both which we see accomplished. In the Assembly, we have well near ended the government, and are upon the power of Synods, and I hope near at an end with them; and so I trust to be delivered from this prison shortly. The King hath dissolved the treaty of peace at Uxbridge, and adhereth to his sweet prelates, and would abate nothing but a little of the rigour of their courts, and a suspending of laws against the ceremonies, not a taking away of them. The not prospering of our armies there in Scotland is ascribed here to the sins of the land, and particularly to the divisions and backslidings of many from the cause, and the not executing of justice against bloody malignants.

My wife here, under the physicians, remembereth her service to your Ladyship. So recommending you to the rich grace of Christ, I rest, your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, March 4, 1644.

CCCIX.—For the Right Honourable, my LADY BOYD

(PROCEEDINGS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I received your letter on May 19th.

We are here debating, with much contention of disputes, for the just measures of the Lord's temple. It pleaseth God, that sometimes enemies hinder the building of the Lord's house; but now friends, even gracious men (so I conceive of them), do not a little hinder the work. Thomas Goodwin, Jeremiah Burroughs,2 and some others, four or five, who are for the Independent way, stand in our way, and are mighty opposites to presbyterial government. We have carried through some propositions for the Scripture right of presbytery, especially in the church of Jerusalem (Acts 2, 4, 5, 6 and 15), and the church of Ephesus, and are going on upon other grounds of truth; and by the way have proven, that ordination of pastors belongeth not to a single congregation, but to a college of presbyters, whose it is to lay hands upon Timothy and others (1 Tim. 4:14, 5:17; Acts 13:1, 2, 3, 6:5, 6). We are to prove that one single congregation hath not power to excommunicate, which is opposed not only by Independent men, but by many others. The truth is, we have at times grieved spirits with the work; and for my part, I often despair of the reformation of this land, which saw never anything but the high places of their fathers, and the remnants of Babylon's pollutions; and except that, "not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord," I should think God hath not yet thought it time for England's deliverance. For the truth is, the best of them almost have said, "A half reformation is very fair at the first;" which is no other thing than, "It is not time yet to build the house of the Lord." And for that cause, many houses, great and fair in the land, are laid desolate.

Multitudes of Anabaptists, Antinomians, Familists, Separatists,2 are here. The best of the people are of the Independent way. As for myself, I know no more if there be a sound Christian (setting aside some, yea, not a few learned, some zealous and faithful ministers whom I have met with) at London (though I doubt not but there are many), than if I were in Spain; which maketh me bless God that the communion of saints, how desirable soever, yet is not the thing, even that great thing, Christ and the remission of sins. If Jesus were unco, as His members are here, I should be in a sad and heavy condition.

The House of Peers are rotten men, and hate our Commissioners and our cause both. The life that is is in the House of Commons, and many of them also have their religion to choose. The sorrows of a travailing woman are come on the land. Our army is lying about York, and have blocked up them of Newcastle, and six thousand Papists and Malignants, with Mr. Thomas Sydserf, and some Scottish prelates; and if God deliver them into their hands (considering how strong the Parliament's armies are, how many victories God hath given them since they entered into covenant with Him, and how weak the King is), it may be thought the land is near a deliverance. But I rather desire it than believe it.

We offered this day to the Assembly a part of a directory for worship, to shoulder out the service-book. It is taken into consideration by the Assembly.

Your son Lindsay is well: I receive letters from him almost every week.

Yours at all obedience in God,

S. R.

LONDON, May 25, 1644.

CCCX.—To MISTRESS TAYLOR, on her son's death [Her son was a parishioner of Mr. Blair]

(SUGGESTIONS FOR COMFORT UNDER SORROW.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Though I have no relation worldly or acquaintance with you, yet (upon the testimony and importunity of your elder son now at London, where I am, but chiefly because I esteem Jesus Christ in you to be in place of all relations) I make bold, in Christ, to speak my poor thoughts to you concerning your son lately fallen asleep in the Lord, who was sometime under the ministry of the worthy servant of Christ, my fellow-labourer, Mr. Blair, by whose ministry I hope he reaped no small advantage. I know that grace rooteth not out the affections of a mother, but putteth them on His wheel who maketh all things new, that they may be refined: therefore, sorrow for 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 ye are not your own, but bought with a price;" and your sorrow is not your own. Nor hath He redeemed you by halves; and therefore, ye are not to make Christ's cross no cross. He commandeth 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, ye are to love that cross, because it was once at Christ's shoulders before you: so that by His own practice He hath over-gilded and covered your cross with the Mediator's lustre. The cup ye drink was at the lip of sweet Jesus, and He drank of it; and so it hath a smell of His breath, and I conceive that ye love it not the worse that it is thus sugared. Therefore, drink, and believe the resurrection of your son's body. If one coal of hell could fall off the exalted head, Jesus (Jesus the Prince of the kings of the earth!), and burn me to ashes, knowing I were a partner with Christ, and a fellow-sharer with Him (though the unworthiest of men), I think that I should die a lovely death in that fire with Him. The worst things of Christ, even His cross, have much of heaven from Himself; and so hath your Christian sorrow, being of kin to Christ in that kind. If your sorrow were a bastard (and, not of Christ's house because of the relation ye have to Him, in conformity to His death and sufferings), I should the more compassionate your condition; but the kind and compassionate Jesus, at every sigh you give for the loss of your now glorified child (so I believe, as is meet), with a man's heart crieth, "Half mine."

I was not a witness to his death, being called out of the kingdom; but, if you will credit those whom I do credit (and I dare not lie), he died comfortably. It is true, he died before he did so much service to Christ on earth, as I hope and heartily desire that your son Mr. Hugh (very dear to me in Jesus Christ) will do. But that were a real matter of sorrow if this were not to counterbalance it, that he hath changed service-houses, but hath not changed services or Master. "And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him" (Rev. 22:3). 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 ye are not to think it a bad bargain for your beloved son, where he hath gold for copper and brass, eternity for time.

I believe that Christ hath taught you (for I give credit to such a witness of you as your son Mr. Hugh) 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. I was in your condition; I had but two children, and both are dead since I came hither. The supreme and absolute Former of all things giveth not an account of any of His matters. The good Husbandman may pluck His roses, and gather in His lilies at mid-summer, and, for aught I dare say, in the beginning of the first summer month; and He may transplant young trees out of the lower ground to the higher, where they may have more of the sun, and a more free air, at any season of the year. What is that to you or me? The goods are His own. The Creator of time and winds did a merciful injury (if I dare borrow the word) to nature, in landing the passenger so early. They love the sea too well who complain of a fair wind, and a desirable tide, and a speedy coming ashore, especially a coming ashore in that land where all the inhabitants have everlasting joy upon their heads. He cannot be too early in heaven. His twelve hours were not short hours. And withal if ye consider this; had ye been at his bed-side, and should have seen Christ coming to him, ye would not, ye could not, have adjourned Christ's free love, who would want him no longer.

And dying in another land, where his mother could not close his eyes, is not much. Who closed Moses' eyes? And who put on his winding-sheet? For aught I know, neither father, nor mother, nor friend, but God only. And there is as expeditious, fair, and easy a way betwixt Scotland and heaven, as if he had died in the very bed he was born in. The whole earth is his Father's; any corner of his Father's house is good enough to die in.

It may be that the living child (I speak not of Mr. Hugh) is more grief to you than the dead. Ye are to wait on, if at any time God will give him repentance. Christ waited as long possibly on you and me, certainly longer on me; and if He should deny repentance to him, I could say something to that. But I hope better things of him.

It seemeth that Christ will have this world your stepdame. I love not your condition the worse. It may be a proof that ye are not a child of this lower house, but a stranger. Christ seeth it not good only, but your only good, to be led thus to heaven. And think this a favour, that He hath bestowed on you free, free grace, that is, mercy without hire: ye paid nothing for it. And who can put a price upon anything of royal and princely Jesus Christ? And God hath given to you to suffer for Him the spoiling of your goods. Esteem it as an act of free grace also. Ye are no loser, having Himself; and I persuade myself, that if ye could prize Christ, nothing could be bitter to you.

Grace, grace be with you.

Your brother and well-wisher,

S. R.

LONDON, 1645.

CCCXI.—To BARBARA HAMILTON

[BARBARA HAMILTON was the wife of Mr. John Mein, merchant, Edinburgh, noticed before (see Letter CLI.), and sister to the first wife of the famous Mr. Robert Blair. She was a woman of eminent piety, and also distinguished for her public spirit. When Mr. Blair, and other Presbyterian ministers, who had been deposed by the bishops in Ireland for nonconformity, had come over to Scotland in 1637, she, finding that they were threatened with still harsher treatment from the Scottish prelates, suggested a petition to the Privy Council, for liberty to these ministers to preach the Gospel publicly, engaging that she and some other like-minded women would put it into the hands of the Treasurer as he went into the Council. Blair drew it up; upon which she convened a considerable number of the religious matrons of Edinburgh, and ranged them in a line from the Council-house door to the street. The oldest matron was appointed to present the petition to the Treasurer. The Treasurer, suspecting that it was something which would be disagreeable to the Council, put the aged petitioner aside, and went quickly from her towards the Council-house door. Observing this, Barbara Hamilton immediately stepped forward, and, taking the paper out of the old feeble woman's hand, came up to the Treasurer, and "did with her strong arm and big hand fast grip his gardie" (i.e. arm), saying, "Stand, my Lord! in Christ's name, I charge you, till I speak to you." His Lordship, looking back, replies, "Good woman, what would you say to me?" "There is," said she, "a humble supplication of Mr. Blair's. All that he petitions for, is that he may have liberty to preach the Gospel. I charge you to befriend the matter, as you would expect God to befriend you in your distress, and at your death!" He replied, "I shall do my endeavour, and what I can in it." The result was, that Blair's supplication was granted by the Council. The following letter, which Rutherford addresses to this lady, was written on the occasion of the death of her son-in-law, probably Mr. William Hume, minister, who was married to her daughter Barbara Mein. (See Letter CCCXII.)]

(ON DEATH OF HER SON-IN-LAW—GOD'S PURPOSES.)

WORTHY FRIEND,—Grace be to you. I do unwillingly write unto you of that which God hath done concerning your son-in-law; only, I believe ye look not below Christ, and the highest and most supreme act of Providence, which moveth all wheels. And certainly, what came down enacted and concluded in the great book before the throne, and signed and subscribed with the hand which never did wrong, should be kissed and adored by us.

We see God's decrees when they bring forth their fruits, all actions, good and ill, sweet and sour, in their time; but we see not presently the after-birth of God's decree, namely, His blessed end, and the good that He bringeth out of the womb of His holy and spotless counsel. We see His working, and we sorrow; the end of His counsel and working lieth hidden, and underneath the ground, and therefore we cannot believe. Even amongst men, we see hewn stones, timber, and an hundred scattered parcels and pieces of an house, all under-tools, hammers, and axes, and saws; yet the house, the beauty and use of so many lodgings and ease-rooms, we neither see nor understand for the present; these are but in the mind and head of the builder, as yet. We see red earth, unbroken clods, furrows, and stones; but we see not summer, lilies, roses, the beauty of a garden.

If ye give the Lord time to work (as often he that believeth maketh haste, but not speed), His end is under ground, and ye shall see it was your good, that your son hath changed dwelling-places, but not his Master. Christ thought good to have no more of his service here; yet, "His servants shall serve Him" (Rev. 22:3). He needeth not us nor our service, either on earth or in heaven. But ye are to look to Him who giveth the hireling both his leave and his wages, for his naked aim and purpose to serve Christ, as well as for his labours. It is put up in Christ's account, that such a labourer did sweat forty years in Christ's vineyard; howbeit he got not leave to labour so long, because He who accepteth of the will for the deed counteth so. None can teach the Lord to lay an account.

He numbereth the drops of rain, and knoweth the stars by their names; it would take us much studying to give a name to every star in the firmament, great or small.

See Lev. 10:3, "And Aaron held his peace." Ye know his two sons were slain, whilst they offered strange fire to the Lord. Command your thoughts to be silent. If the soldiers of Newcastle had done this, ye might have stomached; but the weapon was in another hand. Hear the rod what it preacheth, and see the name of God (Micah 6:9), and know that there is somewhat of God and heaven in the rod. The majesty of the unsearchable and bottomless ways and judgments of God is not seen in the rod; and the seeing of them requireth the eyes of the man of wisdom. If the sufferings of some other with you in that loss could ease you, ye want them not. But He can do no wrong. He cannot halt; His goings are equal who hath done it. I know our Lord aimeth at more mortification; let Him not come in vain to your house, and lose the pains of a merciful visit. God, the Founder, never melteth in vain; howbeit to us He seemeth often to lose both fire and metal. But I know ye are more in this work than I can be. There is no cause to faint or be weary.

Grace be with you; and the rich consolations of Jesus Christ sweeten your cross, and support you under it. I rest,

Yours, in his Lord and Master,

S. R.

LONDON, Oct. 15, 1645.

CCCXII.—To MISTRESS HUME, on her Husband's Death

[This lady, it is highly probable, was Barbara Mein, the daughter of Barbara Hamilton, noticed above, and the wife of Mr. William Hume, minister, who had gone to England with the Covenanters' army, and who died at Newcastle, probably from wounds inflicted by the army. In the Index of the unprinted Acts of the General Assembly of 1645, there is an Act entitled, "Recommendation of Barbara Mein's Petition to the Parliament;" and in the Index of the unprinted Acts of the General Assembly of 1646, there is an Act entitled, "Act in favours of Barbara Mein, relict of umwhile Mr. William Hume, minister." The object of this letter is to comfort Mrs. Hume under that painful bereavement.]

(GOD'S VOICE IN THE ROD.)

LOVING SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—If ye have anything better than the husband of your youth, ye are Jesus Christ's debtor for it. Pay not then your debts with grudging. Sorrow may diminish from the sweet fruit of righteousness; but quietness, silence, submission, and faith, put a crown upon your sad losses. Ye know whose voice the voice of a crying rod is (Micah 6:9). The name and majesty of the Lord is written on the rod; read and be instructed. Let Christ have the room of the husband. He hath now no need of you, or of your love; for he enjoyeth as much of the love of Christ as his heart can be capable of. I confess that it is a dear-bought experience, to teach you to undervalue the creature; yet it is not too dear if Christ think it so. I know that the disputing of your thoughts against his going thither, the way and manner of his death, the instruments, the place, the time, will not ease your spirits; except ye rise higher than second causes, and be silent because the Lord hath done it. If we measure the goings of the Almighty, and His ways (the bottom whereof we see not), we quite mistake God. Oh, how little a portion of God do we see! He is far above our ebb and narrow thoughts. He ruled the world in wisdom, ere we, creatures of yesterday, were born; and will rule it when we shall be lodging beside the worm and corruption. Only learn heavenly wisdom, self-denial, and mortification, by this sad loss. I know that it is not for nothing (except ye deny God to be wise in all He doeth) that ye have lost one on earth. There hath been too little of your love and heart in heaven, and therefore the jealousy of Christ hath done this. It is a mercy that He contendeth with you and all your lovers. I should desire no greater favour for myself than that Christ laid a necessity, and took on such bonds upon Himself: "Such a one I must have, and such a soul I cannot live in heaven without" (John 10:16). And, believe it; it is incomprehensible love that Christ saith, "If I enjoy the glory of My Father and the crown of heaven, far above men and angels, I must use all means, though ever so violent, to have the company of such a one for ever and ever." If, with the eyes of wisdom, as a child of wisdom, ye justify your mother, the Wisdom of God (whose child ye are), ye will kiss and embrace this loss, and see much of Christ in it. Believe and submit; and refer the income of the consolations of Jesus, and the event of the trial, to your heavenly Father, who numbereth all your hairs. And put Christ into His own room in your love; it may be He hath either been out of His own place, or in a place of love inferior to His worth. Repair Christ in all His wrongs done to Him, and love Him for a Husband; and He that is a Husband to the widow will be that to you which He hath taken from you.

Grace be with you.

Your sympathizing brother,

S. R.

LONDON, Oct. 15, 1645.

CCCXIII.—To the VISCOUNTESS KENMURE

(CHRIST'S DESIGNS IN SICKNESS AND SORROW.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.—Though Christ lose no time, yet, when sinful men drive His chariot, the wheels of His chariot move slowly. The woman, Zion, as soon as she travailed, brought forth her children; yea, "before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child" (Isa. 66:7): yet the deliverance of the people was with the woman's going with child seventy years. That is more than nine months. There be many oppositions in carrying on the work; but I hope that the Lord will build His own Zion, and evidence to us that it is done, "not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord."

Madam, I have heard of your infirmities of body, and sickness. I know the issue shall be mercy to you, and that God's purpose, which lieth hidden under ground to you, is to commend the sweetness of His love and care to you from your youth. And if all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs, heaviness, and inconstancy of the creature, be expounded (as sure I am they are) the rods of the jealousy of an Husband in heaven, contending with all your lovers on earth, though there were millions of them, for your love, to fetch more of your love home to heaven, to make it single, unmixed, and chaste, to the Fairest in heaven and earth, to Jesus the Prince of ages, ye will forgive (to borrow that word) every rod of God, and "not let the sun go down on your wrath" against any messenger of your afflicting and correcting Father. Since your Ladyship cannot but see that the mark at which Christ hath aimed these twenty-four years and above, is, to have the company and fellowship of such a sinful creature in heaven with Him for all eternity; and, because He will not (such is the power of His love) enjoy His Father's glory, and that crown due to Him by eternal generation, without you, by name (John 17:24, 10:16, 14:3), therefore, Madam, believe no evil of Christ: listen to no hard reports that His rods make of Him to you. He hath loved you, and washed you from your sins; and what would ye have more? Is that too little, except He adjourn all crosses, till ye be where ye shall be out of all capacity to sigh or be crossed? I hope that ye can desire no more, no greater, nor more excellent suit, than Christ and the fellowship of the Lamb for evermore. And if that desire be answered in heaven (as I am sure it is, and ye cannot deny but it is made sure to you), the want of these poor accidents, of a living husband, of many children, of an healthful body, of a life of ease in the world, without one knot in the rush, are nobly made up, and may be comfortably borne.

Grace, grace be with your Ladyship.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, Oct. 16, 1645.

CCCXIV.—To BARBARA HAMILTON, on her Son-in-law slain in battle [Letter CCCXII.]

(GOD DOES ALL THINGS WELL, AND WITH DESIGN.)

LOVING SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have heard with grief that Newcastle hath taken one more in a bloody account than before, even your son-in-law and my friend. But I hope you have learned that much of Christ as not to look to wheels rolled round about on earth. Earthen vessels are not to dispute with their Former. Pieces of shining clay may, by reasoning and contending with the potter, mar the work of Him "who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem;" as bullocks sweating and wrestling in the furrow make their yoke more heavy. In quietness and rest ye shall be saved. If men do anything contrary to your heart, we may ask both, "Who did it?" and "What is done?" and "Why?" When God hath done any such thing, we are to inquire, "Who hath done it?" and to know that this cometh from the Lord, who is "wonderful in counsel;" but we are not to ask, "What?" or "Why?" If it be from the Lord (as certainly there is no evil in the city without Him (Amos 3:6), it is enough; the fairest face of His spotless way is but coming, and ye are to believe His works as well as His word. Violent death is a sharer with Christ in His death, which was violent. It maketh not much what way we go to heaven: the happy home is all, where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten. He is gone home to a Friend's house, and made welcome, and the race is ended: time is recompensed with eternity, and copper with gold. God's order is in wisdom; the husband goeth home before the wife. And the throng of the market shall be over ere it be long, and another generation be where we now are, and at length an empty house, and not one of mankind shall be upon the earth, within the sixth part of an hour after the earth and works that are therein shall be burnt up with fire. I fear more that Christ is about to remove, when He carrieth home so much of His plenishing beforehand.

We cannot teach the Almighty knowledge. When He was directing the bullet against His servant to fetch out the soul, no wise man could cry to God, "Wrong, wrong, Lord, for he is Thine own!" There is no mist over His eyes who is "wonderful in counsel." If Zion be builded with your son-in-law's blood, the Lord (deep in counsel) can glue together the stones of Zion with blood, and with that blood which is precious in His eyes. Christ hath fewer labourers in His vineyard than He had, but more witnesses for His cause and the Lord's covenant with the three nations. What is Christ's gain is not your loss. Let not that, which is His holy and wise will, be your unbelieving sorrow.

Though I really judge that I had interest in His dead servant, yet, because he now liveth to Christ, I quit the hopes which I had of his successful labouring in the ministry. I know he now praiseth the grace that he was to preach; and if there were a better thing on his head now in heaven than a crown, or anything more excellent than heaven, he would cast it down before His feet who sitteth on the throne. Give glory, therefore, to Christ, as he now doeth, and say, "Thy will be done."

The grace and consolation of Christ be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, Nov. 15, 1645.

CCCXV.—To a Christian Friend, upon the death of his Wife

(GOD THE FIRST CAUSE—THE END OF AFFLICTION.)

WORTHY FRIEND,—I desire to suffer with you, in the loss of a loving and good wife, now gone before (according to the method and order of Him of whose understanding there is no searching out) whither ye are to follow. He that made yesterday to go before this day, and the former generation, in birth and life, to have been before this present generation, and hath made some flowers to grow and die and wither in the month of May, and others in June, cannot be challenged in the order He hath made of things without souls; and some order He must keep also here, that one might bury another. Therefore I hope ye shall be dumb and silent, because the Lord hath done it.

What creatures or under-causes do, in sinful mistakes, is ordered in wisdom by your Father, at whose feet your own soul and your heaven lieth; and so the days of your wife. If the place she hath left were any other than a prison of sin, and the home she is gone to any other than where her Head and Saviour is King of the land, your grief had been more rational. But I trust your faith of the resurrection of the dead in Christ to glory and immortality, will lead you to suspend your longing for her, till the morning and dawning of that day when the archangel shall descend with a shout, to gather all the prisoners out of the grave, up to Himself. To believe this is best for you; and to be silent, because He hath done it, is your wisdom.

It is much to come out of the Lord's school of trial wiser, and more experienced in the ways of God; and it is our happiness, when Christ openeth a vein, that He taketh nothing but ill blood from His sick ones. Christ hath skill to do; and (if our corruption mar not) the art of mercy in correcting. We cannot of ourselves take away the tin, the lead, and the scum that remaineth in us; and if Christ be not Master-of-work, and if the furnace go its lone (He not standing nigh the melting of His own vessel), the labour were lost, and the Founder should melt in vain. God knoweth some of us have lost much fire, sweating, and pains, to our Lord Jesus; and the vessel is almost marred, the furnace and rod of God spilled, "the daylight burnt, and the reprobate metal not taken away," so as some are to answer to the Majesty of God for the abuse of many good crosses, and rich afflictions lost without the quiet fruit of righteousness. It is a sad thing when the rod is cursed, that never fruit shall grow on it. And except Christ's dew fall down, and His summer-sun shine, and His grace follow afflictions to cause them to bring forth fruit to God, they are so fruitless to us, that our evil ground (rank and fat enough for briers) casteth up a crop of noisome weeds. "The rod" (as the prophet saith) "blossometh, pride buddeth forth, violence riseth up into a rod of wickedness" (Ezek. 7:10, 11). And all this hath been my case under many rods since I saw you.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, 1645.

CCCXVI.—To a Christian Brother, on the death of his Daughter

(CONSOLATION IN HER HAVING GONE BEFORE—CHRIST THE BEST HUSBAND.)

REVEREND AND BELOVED IN THE LORD,—It may be that I have been too long silent, but I hope that ye will not impute it to forgetfulness of you.

As I have heard of the death of your daughter with heaviness of mind on your behalf, so am I much comforted that she hath evidenced to yourself and other witnesses the hope of the resurrection of the dead. As sown corn is not lost (for there is more hope of that which is sown than of that which is eaten) (1 Cor. 15:42, 43), so also is it in the resurrection of the dead: the body "is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory." I hope that ye wait for the crop and harvest; "for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him" (1 Thess. 4:14). Then they are not lost who are gathered into that congregation of the first-born, and the general assembly of the saints. Though we cannot outrun nor overtake them that are gone before, yet we shall quickly follow them; and the difference is, that she hath the advantage of some months or years of the crown before you and her mother. As we do not take it ill if our children outrun us in the life of grace, why then are we sad if they outstrip us in the attainment of the life of glory? It would seem that there is more reason to grieve that children live behind us, than that they are glorified and die before us. All the difference is in some poor hungry accidents of time, less or more, sooner or later. So the godly child, though young, died an hundred years old; and ye could not now have bestowed her better, though the choice was Christ's, not yours.

And I am sure, Sir, ye cannot now say that she is married against the will of her parents. She might more readily, if alive, fall into the hands of a worse husband; but can ye think that she could have fallen into the hands of a better? And if Christ marry with your house, it is your honour, not any cause of grief, that Jesus should portion any of yours, ere she enjoy your portion. Is it not great love? The patrimony is more than any other could give; as good a husband is impossible; to say a better is blasphemy. The King and Prince of ages can keep them better than ye can do. While she was alive, ye could entrust her to Christ, and recommend her to His keeping; now, by an after-faith, ye have resigned her unto Him in whose bosom do sleep all that are dead in the Lord. Ye would have lent her to glorify the Lord upon earth, and He hath borrowed her (with promise to restore her again) (1 Cor. 15:53; 1 Thess. 4:15, 16) to be an organ of the immediate glorifying of Himself in heaven. Sinless glorifying of God is better than sinful glorifying of Him. And sure your prayers concerning her are fulfilled. I shall desire, if the Lord shall be pleased the same way to dispose of her mother, that ye have the same mind. Christ cannot multiply injuries upon you. If the fountain be the love of God (as I hope it is), ye are enriched with losses.

Ye knew all I can say better, before I was in Christ, than I can express it. Grace be with you.

Yours, in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, Jan. 6, 1646.

CCCXVII.—To a Christian Gentlewoman

(VIEWS OF DEATH AND HEAVEN—ASPIRATIONS.)

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—If death, which is before you and us all, were any other thing than a friendly dissolution, and a change, not a destruction of life, it would seem a hard voyage to go through such a sad and dark trance, so thorny a valley, as is the wages of sin. But I am confident the way ye know, though your foot never trod in that black shadow. The loss of life is gain to you. If Christ Jesus be the period, the end, and lodging-home, at the end of your journey, there is no fear; ye go to a friend. And since ye have had communion with Him in this life, and He hath a pawn or pledge of yours, even the largest share of your love and heart, ye may look death in the face with joy.

If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you cannot be kept the prisoner of the second death. But though He be the same Christ in the other life that ye found Him to be here, yet He is so far in His excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradiations, and beams of majesty, above what He appeared here, when He is seen as He is, that ye shall misken Him, and He shall appear a new Christ. And His kisses, breathings, embracements, the perfume, the ointment of His name poured out on you, shall appear to have more of God, and a stronger smell of heaven, of eternity, of a Godhead, of majesty and glory, there than here; as water at the fountain, apples in the orchard and beside the tree, have more of their native sweetness, taste, and beauty, than when transported to us some hundred miles.

I mean not that Christ can lose any of His sweetness in the carrying, or that He, in His Godhead and loveliness of presence, can be changed to the worse, betwixt the little spot of the earth that ye are in, and the right hand of the Father far above all heavens. But the change will be in you, when ye shall have new senses, and the soul shall be a more deep and more capacious vessel, to take in more of Christ; and when means (the chariot, the Gospel, that He is now carried in, and ordinances that convey Him) shall be removed. Sure ye cannot now be said to see Him face to face; or to drink of the wine of the highest fountain, or to take in seas and tides of fresh love immediately, without vessels, midses, or messengers, at the Fountain itself, as ye will do a few days hence, when ye shall be so near as to be with Christ (Luke 23:43; John 17:24; Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 4:17).

Ye would, no doubt, bestow a day's journey, yea, many days' journey on earth, to go up to heaven, and fetch down anything of Christ; how much more may ye be willing to make a journey to go in person to heaven (it is not lost time, but gained eternity) to enjoy the full Godhead! And then, in such a manner as He is there! not in His week-day's apparel, as He is here with us, in a drop or the tenth part of a night's dewing of grace and sweetness; but He is there in His marriage-robe of glory, richer, more costly, more precious, in one hem or button of that garment of Fountain majesty than a million of worlds. Oh, the well is deep! Ye shall then think that preachers, and sinful ambassadors on earth, did but spill and mar His praises, when they spoke of Him and preached His beauty.

Alas! we but make Christ black and less lovely, in making such insignificant, and dry, and cold, and low expressions of His highest and transcendent super-excellency to the daughters of Jerusalem. Sure I have often, for my own part, sinned in this thing. No doubt angels do not fulfil their task, according to their obligation, in that Christ keeps their feet from falling with the lost devils; though I know they are not behind in going to the utmost of created power. But there is sin in our praising, and sin in the quantity, besides other sins. But I must leave this; it is too deep for me. Go and see, and we desire to go with you; but we are not masters of our own diet. If, in that last journey, ye tread on a serpent in the way, and thereby wound your heel, as Jesus Christ did before you, the print of the wound shall not be known at the resurrection of the just. Death is but an awesome step, over time and sin, to sweet Jesus Christ, who knew and felt the worst of death, for death's teeth hurt Him. We know death hath no teeth now, no jaws, for they are broken. It is a free prison; citizens pay nothing for the grave. The jailor who had the power of death is destroyed: praise and glory be to the First-begotten of the dead.

The worst possible that may be is, that ye leave behind you children, husband, and the church of God in miseries. But ye cannot get them to heaven with you for the present. Ye shall not miss them, and Christ cannot miscount one of the poorest of His lambs. No lad, no girl, no poor one shall be a-missing, ere ye see them again, in the day that the Son shall render up the kingdom to His Father.

The evening and the shadow of every poor hireling is coming. The sun of Christ's church in this life is declining low. Not a soul of the militant company will be here within a few generations; our Husband will send for them all. It is a rich mercy that we are not married to time longer than the course be finished.

Ye may rejoice that ye go not to heaven till ye know that Jesus is there before you; that when ye come thither, at your first entry ye may feel the smell of His ointments, His myrrh, aloes, and cassia. And this first salutation of His will make you find it is no uncomfortable thing to die. Go and enjoy your gain; live on Christ's love while ye are here, and all the way.

As for the church which ye leave behind you, the government is upon Christ's shoulders, and He will plead for the blood of His saints. The Bush hath been burning above five thousand years, and we never yet saw the ashes of this fire. Yet a little while, and the vision shall not tarry: it will speak, and not lie. I am more afraid of my duty, than of the Head Christ's government. He cannot fail to bring judgment to victory. Oh that we could wait for our hidden life! Oh that Christ would remove the covering, draw aside the curtain of time, and rend the heavens, and come down! Oh that shadows and night were gone, that the day would break, and that He who feedeth among the lilies would cry to His heavenly trumpeters, "Make ready, let us go down and fold together the four corners of the world, and marry the bride!" His grace be with you.

Now, if I have found favour with you, and if ye judge me faithful, my last suit to you is that ye would leave me a legacy; and that is, that my name may be, at the very last, in your prayers: as I desire also, it may be in the prayers of those of your Christian acquaintance with whom ye have been intimate.

Your brother, in his own Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, Jan. 9, 1646.

CCCXVIII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(CHRIST NEVER IN OUR DEBT—RICHES OF CHRIST—EXCELLENCE OF THE HEAVENLY STATE.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—It is the least of the princely and royal bounty of Jesus Christ to pay a king's debts, and not to have His servants at a loss. His gold is better than yours, and His hundred-fold is the income and rent of heaven, and far above your revenues. Ye are not the first who have casten up your accounts that way. Better have Christ your factor than any other; for He tradeth to the advantage of His poor servants. But if the hundred-fold in this life be so well told (as Christ cannot pay you with miscounting or deferred hope), oh, what must the rent of that land be which rendereth (every day and hour of the years of long eternity) the whole rent of a year, yea, of more than thousand thousands of ages, even the weighty income of a rich kingdom, not every summer once, but every moment!

That sum of glory will take you and all the angels telling. To be a tenant to such a Landlord, where every berry and grape of the large field beareth no worse fruit than glory, fulness of joy, and pleasures that endure for evermore! I leave it to yourself to think what a summer, what a soil, what a garden must be there; and what must be the commodities of that highest land, where the sun and the moon are under the feet of the inhabitants! Surely the land cannot be bought with gold, blood, banishment, loss of father and mother, husband, wife, children. We but dwell here because we can do no better. It is need, not virtue, to be sojourners in a prison; to weep and sigh, and, alas! to sin sixty or seventy years in a land of tears. The fruits that grow here are all seasoned and salted with sin.

Oh how sweet is it that the company of the first-born should be divided into two great bodies of an army, and some in their country, and some in the way to their country! If it were no more than once to see the face of the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays and beams of matchless glory, and incomparable fountain-love, it were a well-spent journey to creep hands and feet through seven deaths and seven hells, to enjoy Him up at the well-head. Only let us not weary: the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than when we first believed. Strangers are not wise to quarrel with their host, and complain of their lodging. It is a foul way, but a fair home. Oh that I had but such grapes and clusters out of the land as I have sometimes seen and tasted in the place whereof your Ladyship maketh mention! But the hope of it in the end is a heartsome convoy in the way. If I see little more of the gold till the race be ended, I dare not quarrel. It is the Lord! I hope His chariot will go through these three kingdoms, after our sufferings shall be accomplished.

Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, Jan. 26, 1646.

CCCXIX.—To MR. J. G.

(PROSPECTS FOR SCOTLAND—HIS OWN DARKNESS—ABILITY OF CHRIST.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I shall with my soul desire the peace of these kingdoms, and I do believe it will at last come, as a river and as the mighty waves of the sea; but oh that we were ripe and in readiness to receive it! The preserving of two or three, or four or five berries, in the utmost boughs of the olive-tree, after the vintage, is like to be a great matter ere all be done; yet I know that a cluster in both kingdoms shall be saved, for a blessing is in it. But it is not, I fear, so near to the dawning of the day of salvation but the clouds must send down more showers of blood to water the vineyard of the Lord, and to cause it to blossom. Scotland's scum is not yet removed; nor is England's dross and tin taken away; nor the filth of our blood "purged by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning." But I am too much on this sad subject.

As for myself, I do esteem nothing out of heaven, and next to a communion with Jesus Christ, more than to be in the hearts and prayers of the saints. I know that He feedeth there among the lilies, till the day break; but I am at low ebb, as to any sensible communion with Christ; yea, as low as any soul can be, and do scarce know where I am; and do now make it a question, if any can go to Him, who dwelleth in light inaccessible, through nothing but darkness. Sure, all that come to heaven have a stock in Christ; but I know not where mine is. It cannot be enough for me to believe the salvation of others, and to know Christ to be the Honeycomb, the Rose of Sharon, the Paradise and Eden of the saints, and First-born written in heaven, and not to see afar the borders of that good land.

But what shall I say? Either this is the Lord, making grace a new creation, where there is pure nothing and sinful nothing to work upon, or I am gone. I should count my soul engaged to yourself, and others there with you, if ye would but carry to Christ for me a letter of cyphers and nonsense (for I know not how to make language of my condition), only showing that I have need of His love; for I know many fair and washen ones stand now in white before the throne, who were once as black as I am. If Christ pass His word to wash a sinner, it is less to Him than a word to make fair angels of black devils! Only let the art of free grace be engaged. I have not a cautioner to give surety, nor doth a Mediator, such as He is in all perfection, need a mediator. But what I need, He knoweth; only, it is His depth of wisdom to let some pass millions of miles over score in debt, that they may stand between the winning and the losing, in need of more than ordinary free grace.

Christ hath been multiplying grace by mercy above these five thousand years; and the later born heirs have so much greater guiltiness, that Christ hath passed more experiments and multiplied essays of heart-love on others, by misbelieving (after it is past all question, many hundreds of ages), that Christ is the undeniable and now uncontroverted treasurer of multiplied redemptions. So now He is saying, "The more of the disease there is, the more of the physician's art of grace and tenderness there must be." Only, I know that no sinner can put infinite grace to it, so as the Mediator shall have difficulty, or much ado, to save this or that man. Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.

I pray you (remembering my love to your wife, and friends there), let me find that I have solicitors there amongst your acquaintance; and forget not Scotland.

Your brother in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, Jan. 30, 1646.

CCCXX.—To my LADY KENMURE

(TRIALS CANNOT INJURE SAINTS—BLESSEDNESS IN SEEING CHRIST.)

MADAM,—It is too like that the Lord's controversy with these two nations is but yet beginning, and that we are ripened and white for the Lord's sickle.

For the particular condition your Ladyship is in, another might speak (if they would say all) of more sad things. It there was not a fountain of free grace to water dry ground, and an uncreated wind to breathe on withered and dry bones, we were gone. The wheels of Christ's chariot (to pluck us out of the womb of many deaths) are winged like eagles. All I have is, to desire to believe that Christ will show all good-will to save; and as for your Ladyship, I know that our Lord Jesus carrieth on no design against you, but seeketh to save and redeem you. He lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to take you up. His way of redeeming is ravishing and taking. There are more miracles of glorified sinners in heaven than can be on earth. Nothing of you, Madam, nay, not even your leaf, can wither.

Verily, it is a king's life to follow the Lamb. But when ye see Him in His own country at home, ye will think ye never saw Him before: "He shall be admired of all them that believe" (2 Thess. 1:10). Ye may judge how far all your now sad days, and tossings, changes, losses, wants, conflicts, shall then be below you. Ye look to the cross: now it is above your head, and seemeth to threaten death, as having a dominion; but it shall then be so far below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above it, that ye shall have no leisure to lend one thought to old-dated crosses, in youth, in age, in this country or in that, from this instrument or from another, except it be to the heightening of your consolation, being now got above and beyond all these.

Old age, and "waxing old as a garment," is written on the fairest face of the creation (Ps. 102:26). Death, from Adam to the Second Adam's appearance, playeth the king and reigneth over all. The prime Heir died; His children, whom the Lord hath given, follow Him. And we may speak freely of the life which is here; were it heaven, there were not much gain in godliness. But there is a rest for the people of God. Christman possesseth it now one thousand six hundred years before many of His members; but it weareth not out.

Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, Feb. 16, 1646.

CCCXXI.—To the LADY ARDROSS, in Fife [There is an Ardross near Ferintosh in Ross-shire]

[LADY ARDROSS, whose maiden name was Helen Lindsay, was the daughter of Lady Christian Hamilton, eldest daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington, by her first husband Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres. She was married to Sir William Scott of Ardross, son of Sir W. Scott of Elie. Her daughter, Euphemia, Countess of Dundonald, some thirty years after this, attended the field conventicles, and entertained the field preachers at her house. (Douglas' "Peerage," vol. i. p. 386.) This letter was written to her on the occasion of the death of her mother, who was then Lady Boyd, having married for her second husband, Robert, sixth Lord Boyd. (See notice of Lady Boyd, Letter LXXVII.)]

(ON HER MOTHER'S DEATH—HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN, AND BLESSEDNESS OF DYING IN THE LORD.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—It hath seemed good, as I hear, to Him that hath appointed the bounds for the number of our months, to gather in a sheaf of ripe corn, in the death of your Christian mother, into His garner. It is the more evident that winter is near, when apples, without the violence of wind, fall of their own accord off the tree. She is now above the winter, with a little change of place, not of a Saviour; only she enjoyeth Him now without messages, and in His own immediate presence, from whom she heard by letters and messengers before.

I grant that death is to her a very new thing; but heaven was prepared of old. And Christ (as enjoyed in His highest throne, and as loaded with glory, and incomparably exalted above men and angels, having such a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and musicians above, compassing the throne with a song) is to her a new thing, but so new as the first summer-rose, or the first fruits of that heavenly field; or as a new paradise to a traveller, broken and worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a long and dirty way.

Ye may easily judge, Madam, what a large recompense is made to all her service, her walking with God, and her sorrows, with the first cast of the soul's eye upon the shining and admirably beautiful face of the Lamb, that is in the midst of that fair and white army which is there, and with the first draught and taste of the fountain of life, fresh and new at the well-head; to say nothing of the enjoying of that face without date, for more than this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no more to go thither, than to suffer death to do her this piece of service: for by Him who was dead, and is alive, she was delivered from the second death. What, then, is the first death to the second? Not a scratch of the skin of a finger to the endless second death. And now she sitteth for eternity mail-free, in a very considerable land, which hath more than four summers in the year. Oh, what spring-time is there! Even the smelling of the odours of that great and eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for ever and ever! What a singing life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field; but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion to the high Prince of that new-found land. And, verily, the land is the sweeter that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it. And He is the glory of the land: all which, I hope, doth not so much mitigate and allay your grief for her part (though truly this should seem sufficient), as the unerring expectation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope you have of the fruition of that same King and kingdom to your own soul. Certainly the hope of it, when things look so dark-like on both kingdoms, must be an exceedingly great quickening to languishing spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery, to have both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at night! But He hath taken up your lodging for you.

I can say no more now; but I pray that the very God of peace may establish your heart to the end. I rest, Madam,

Your Ladyship's, at all respective obedience in the Lord,

S. R.

LONDON, Feb. 24, 1646.

CCCXXII.—To M. O.

[Perhaps, as Letter CXLIX., some one of Provost Osburn's family in Ireland.]

(GLOOMY PROSPECTS FOR THE BACKSLIDING CHURCH—THE MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF BELIEVERS CAUSE OF GREAT GRIEF—THE DAY OF CHRIST.)

SIR,—I can write nothing for the present concerning these times (whatever others may think), but that which speaketh wrath and judgment to these kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that land, received the Gospel in truth (as I am confident ye and they did), there is here a great departure from that faith, and our sufferings are not yet at an end. However, I dare testify and die for it, that once Christ was revealed in the power of His excellency and glory to the saints there, and in Scotland, of which I was a witness. I pray God that none deceive you, or take the crown from you. Hell, or the gates of hell, cannot ravel, mar, nor undo what Christ hath once done amongst you. It may be that I am incapable of new light, and cannot receive that spirit whereof some vainly boast; but that "which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled" (John 1:1), even "the word of life," hath been declared to you. Thousands of thousands, walking in that light and that good old way, have gone to heaven, and are now before the throne. Truth is but one, and hath no numbers. Christ and Antichrist are both now in the camp, and are come to open blows. Christ's poor ship saileth in the sea of blood; the passengers are so sea-sick of a high fever, that they miscall one another. Christ, I hope, will bring the broken bark to land. I had rather swim for life and death on an old plank, or a broken board, to land with Christ, than enjoy the rotten peace we have hitherto had. It is like that the Lord will take a severe course with us, to cause the children of the family to agree together. I conceive that Christ hath a great design of free grace to these lands; but His wheels must move over mountains and rocks. He never yet wooed a bride on earth, but in blood, in fire, and in the wilderness. A cross of our own choosing, honeyed and sugared with consolations, we cannot have. I think not much of a cross when all the children of the house weep with me and for me; and to suffer when we enjoy the communion of the saints is not much; but it is hard when saints rejoice in the suffering of saints, and redeemed ones hurt (yea, even go nigh to hate) redeemed ones.

I confess I imagined there had no more been such an affliction on earth, or in the world, as that one elect angel should fight against another; but, for contempt of the communion of saints, we have need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of before. The saints are not Christ: there is no misjudging in Him; there is much in us; and a doubt it is, if we shall have fully one heart till we shall enjoy one heaven. Our star-light hideth us from ourselves, and hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all. But He will not be hidden from us. I shall wish that all the sons of our Father in that land were of one mind, and that they be not shaken nor moved from the truth once received. Christ was in that Gospel, and Christ is the same now that He was in The Prelates' time. That Gospel cannot sink; it will make you free, and bear you out. Christ, the subject of it, is the chosen of God; and cometh from Bozrah, with garments dyed in blood. Ireland and Scotland both must be His field, in which He shall feed and gather lilies. Suppose (which yet is impossible) that some had an eternity of Christ in Ireland, and a sweet summer of the Gospel, and a feast of fat things for evermore in Ireland, and that one should never come to heaven, it should be a desirable life! The King's spikenard, Christ's perfume, His apples of love, His ointments, even down in this lower house of clay, are a choice heaven. Oh! what then is the King in His own land, where there is such a throne, so many King's palaces, ten thousand thousands of crowns of glory that want heads yet to fill them? Oh, so much leisure as shall be there to sing! Oh, such a tree as groweth there in the midst of that Paradise, where the inhabitants sing eternally under its branches! To look in at a window, and see the branches burdened with the apples of life, to be the last man that shall come in thither, were too much for me.

I pray you to remember me to the Christians there; and remember our private covenant. Grace be with you.

Your friend in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, April 17, 1646.

CCCXXIII.—To EARLSTON, Elder

(CHRIST'S WAY OF AFFLICTING THE BEST—OBLIGATION TO FREE GRACE—ENDURING THE CROSS.)

SIR,—I know that ye have learned long ago, ere I knew anything of Christ, that if we had the cross at our own election, we would either have law-surety for freedom from it, or then we would have it honeyed and sugared with comforts, so as the sweet should overmaster the gall and wormwood. Christ knoweth how to breed the sons of His house, and ye will give Him leave to take His own way of dispensation with you; and, though it be rough, forgive Him. He defieth you to have as much patience to Him as He hath borne to you. I am sure that there cannot be a dram-weight of gall less in your cup; and ye would not desire He should both afflict you and hurt your soul. When His people cannot have a providence of silk and roses, they must be content with such an one as He carveth for them. Ye would not go to heaven but with company; and ye may perceive that the way of those who went before you was through blood, sufferings, and many afflictions. Nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door-threshold of Paradise bleeding to death. I do not think but ye have learned to stoop (though ye, as others, be naturally stiff), and that ye have found that the apples and sweet fruits, which grow on that crabbed tree of the cross, are as sweet as it is sour to bear it; especially considering that Christ hath borne the whole complete cross, and that His saints bear but bits and chips; as the Apostle saith, "the remnants," or "leavings," of the cross (Col. 1:24).

I judge you ten thousand times happy, that ever ye were grace's debtor; for certainly Christ hath engaged you over head and ears to free grace. And take the debt with you to eternity, Immanuel's highest land, where ye find before you a houseful of Christ's everlasting debtors; the less shame to you. Yea, and this lower kingdom of grace is but Christ's hospital, and guesthouse of sick folks, whom the brave and noble Physician, Christ, hath cured, upon a venture of life and death. And, if ye be near the water-side (as I know ye are), all that I can say is this, Sir, that I feel by the smell of that land which is before you, that it is a goodly country, and it is well paid for to your hand. And He is before you who will heartily welcome you. Oh, to suck those breasts of full consolation above, and to drink Christ's new wine up in His Father's house, is some greater matter than is believed; since it was brewed from eternity for the Head of the house, and so many thousand crowned kings. Rubs in the way, where the lodging is so good, are not much.

He that brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish you to the end.

Your friend and servant in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, May 15, 1646.

CCCXXIV.—To his Reverend and worthy Brother, MR. GEORGE GILLESPIE

(PROSPECT OF DEATH—CHRIST THE TRUE SUPPORT IN DEATH.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I cannot speak to you. The way ye know; the passage is free and not stopped; the print of the footsteps of the Forerunner is clear and manifest; many have gone before you. Ye will not sleep long in the dust, before The Daybreak. It is a far shorter piece of the hinder-end of the night to you than to Abraham and Moses. Beside all the time of their bodies resting under corruption, it is as long yet to their day as to your morning-light of awaking to glory, though their spirits, having the advantage of yours, have had now the fore-start of the shore before you.

I dare say nothing against His dispensation. I hope to follow quickly. The heirs that are not there before you are posting with haste after you, and none shall take your lodging over your head. Be not heavy. The life of faith is now called for; doing was never reckoned in your accounts, though Christ in and by you hath done more than by twenty, yea, an hundred grey-haired and godly pastors. Believing now is your last. Look to that word, "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). Ye know the I that liveth, and the I that liveth not; it is not single Ye that live. Christ by law liveth in the broken debtor; it is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living of Christ in you. If ye look to yourself as divided from Christ, ye must be more than heavy. All your wants, dear brother, be upon Him: ye are His debtors; grace must sum and subscribe your accounts as paid. Stand not upon items, and small or little sanctification. Ye know that inherent holiness must stand by, when imputed is all. I fear the clay house is a-taking down and undermining: but it is nigh the dawning. Look to the east, the dawning of the glory is near. Your Guide is good company, and knoweth all the miles, and the ups and downs in the way. The nearer the morning, the darker. Some travellers see the city twenty miles off, and at a distance; and yet within the eighth part of a mile they cannot see it. It is all keeping that ye would now have, till ye need it; and if sense and fruition come both at once, it is not your loss. Let Christ tutor you as He thinketh good; ye cannot be marred, nor miscarry, in His hand. Want is an excellent qualification; and "no money, no price," to you (who, I know, dare not glory in your own righteousness) is fitness warrantable enough to cast yourself upon Him who justifieth the ungodly. Some see the gold once, and never again till the race's end. It is coming all in a sum together, when ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it than now. "Ye are not come to the mount that burneth with fire, or unto blackness, darkness, and tempest; but ye are come to Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling," etc.

Ye must leave the wife to a more choice Husband, and the children to a better Father.

If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work and Covenant, against both Malignants and Sectaries (which I suppose may be needful), let it be under your hand, and subscribed before faithful witnesses.

Your loving and afflicted brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Sept. 27, 1648.

CCCXXV.—TO SIR JAMES STEWART, Lord Provost of Edinburgh

[SIR JAMES STEWART of Kirkfield and Cultness, to whom this letter is addressed, was a man of high Christian excellence. "Sir James Stewart," said the celebrated George Gillespie, "has more sterling religion in ready cash than any man ever I knew; he is always agreeably composed and recollected, in a permanent devout frame of spirit, and such as I should wish to have in my last moments" ("Coltness Collections," p. 15). He was a zealous Covenanter, and suffered considerably for his principles during the persecution of Charles II. He died March 31, 1681, at his own house at Edinburgh, in the seventy-third year of his age, in the full assurance of faith. Rutherford wrote this letter on occasion of his own election to be Professor of Divinity in the College of Edinburgh.]

Richt honorablee

THE mater of my transportation is so poor a contraversie, I truely not beeing desyrous to be the subject of any dine in the Generall Assemblie of the Kirk of Scotland whoe have greater bussines to doe, and haveing suffered once the paine of transportation, moist humbly intreat your w. [worships] that favour as to cast yor thoughts vpon some fitter man; for as it is vnbeseemeing me to lie or dissemblee, so I must friely show you it will but mak me the subject of suffereing and passive obedience, and I trust your w. [worships] intend not that hurt to me, and I am persuaded it is not yor mind, it shall be my prayer to God, to send that worthie societie an hable and pious man. Grace be with you.

Yours at all humblee observance in the Lord

SAMUEL RUTHERFURD

S Andrews the Last of Junii 1649

for the richt honorable my varie good lord, Sr James Steuart proveist of Edinbrugh and remanent magistrats Counsellers of the Citie.

CCCXXVI.—To MISTRESS GILLESPIE, Widow of George Gillespie

(ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD—GOD AFFLICTS IN ORDER TO SAVE US FROM THE WORLD.)

DEAR SISTER,—I have heard how the Lord hath visited you, in removing the child Archibald. I hope ye see that the setting down of the weight of your confidence and affection upon any created thing, whether husband or child, is a deceiving thing; and that the creature is not able to bear the weight, but sinketh down to very nothing under your confidence. And, therefore, ye are Christ's debtor for all providences of this kind, even in that He buildeth an hedge of thorns in your way: for so ye see that His gracious intention is, to save you (if I may say so) whether ye will or not.

It is a rich mercy that the Lord Christ will be Master of your will and of your delights, and that His way is so fair, for landing of husband and children before-hand in the country whitherto ye are journeying. No matter how little ye be engaged to the world, since ye have such experience of cross-dealing in it. Had ye been a child of the house, the world would have dealt more warmly with its own. There is less of you out of heaven, in that the child is there and the husband is there; but much more that your Head, Kinsman, and Redeemer doth fetch home such as are in danger to be lost. And from this time forward, fetch not your comforts from such broken cisterns and dry wells. If the Lord pull at the rest, ye must not be the creature that will hold when He draweth.

Truly, to me your case is more comfortable than if the fireside were well plenished with ten children. The Lord saw that ye were able, by His grace, to bear the loss of husband and child; and that ye are that weak and tender as not to be able to stand under the mercy of a gracious husband, living and flourishing in esteem with authority, and in reputation for godliness and learning. For He knoweth the weight of these mercies would crush you and break you. And as there is no searching out of His understanding, so He hath skill to know what providence will make Christ dearest to you; and let not your heart say, "It is an ill-waled dispensation." Sure Christ, who hath seven eyes, had before Him the good of a living husband and children for Margaret Murray, and the good of a removed husband and children translated to glory. Now that He hath opened His decree to you, say, "Christ hath made for me a wise and gracious choice, and I have not one word to say to the contrary." Let not your heart charge anything, nor unbelief libel injuries upon Christ because He will not let you alone, nor give you leave to play the adulteress with such as have not that right to your love that Christ hath. I should wish that, at the reading of this, ye may fall down and make a surrender of those that are gone, and of those that are yet alive, to Him. And for you, let Him have all; and wait for Himself, for He will come, and will not tarry. Live by faith, and the peace of God guard your heart. He cannot die whose ye are.

My wife suffereth with you, and remembereth her love to you.

Your brother in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Aug. 14, 1649.

CCCXXVII.—To the EARL OF BALCARRAS

[ALEXANDER LINDSAY, second Lord Balcarras, and first Earl of Balcarras, to whom this letter is addressed, was a man of superior talents, and espoused the cause of the Covenant. He commanded a troop of horse in the Covenanters' army at the battle of Alford, 2nd July 1645, when General Baillie was defeated by Montrose. He was one of the Commissioners despatched by the Parliament of Scotland, 19th December 1646, to King Charles I., with their last proposals, which his Majesty rejected; upon which the Scottish army surrendered him to the English Parliament, and retired from England. When, in 1648, troops were raised with the design of rescuing the King from the English Parliament, and restoring him to liberty and power, without requiring from him any concessions to his subjects, which was called "The Engagement," Balcarras took an active part in this enterprise, for which Rutherford, by the way, tenders to him a reproof. On the arrival of Charles II. in Scotland, 1650, he repaired to his Majesty, by whom he was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Balcarras. He was High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland which met at St. Andrews, 16th July 1651. In 1652 he settled with his family at St. Andrews, keeping up a correspondence with his exiled sovereign; and in 1653 again took arms, and joined in an ineffectual attempt to uphold the Royal cause against Cromwell. His estate, after this, being sequestrated, he withdrew to the Continent. His Lordship did not live to see the Restoration of Charles, having died of consumption in the prime of life, at Breda, on the 30th of August 1659. His mortal remains were brought over to Scotland, and interred at Balcarras. (Douglas' "Peerage of Scotland.") This letter is given from the original, among the Balcarras Papers, vol. ix., No. 135, Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Balcarras House is three miles from Largo. A tower on the crag above it marks it out from a distance. The old mansion has been nearly superseded, but you see carved on the walls the old motto, "Astra, castra, lumen, Numen." In old books it is written "Balcarrs."]

(REGARDING SOME MISUNDERSTANDING.)

MY VERY HONOURABLE LORD,—I am sorry that your Lordship should be offended at any sinistrous misinformation concerning your supposed discountenancing of ministers. For the general I can say nothing, being utterly ignorant thereof. I hope your Lordship will make the best use of it may be. For myself, I owe no thanks to any that have named me as the object of any discountenancing; for, truly, I value not any of these when, as the conscience of my innocence showeth me (and, for aught known to me, truly) that I offended no nobleman in the kingdom, far less my Lord Balcarras, whose public deservings have been such as I esteem him to have been most instrumental in this work of God. I hope, my Lord, you will pardon me to make a little exception in the matter of the late sinful engagement. And therefore, my Lord, I entreat you to forget that business; for since your Lordship said of me, in your letter to Mr. David Forret, more than I deserve, I shall be satisfied with it as an expiation, more than any discountenancing of me can amount unto by millions of degrees. And therefore entreat your Lordship to accept of this for anything that any could say to your Lordship of that business. If I had thought so much of myself as the discountenancing of me had been a sinful neglect (whereas I know there is little ground for the contrary), I should have spoken to your Lordship myself. So trusting your Lordship will rest satisfied, I am, your Lordship's, at power in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Dec. 24, 1649.

CCCXXVIII.—To the worthy and much honoured COLONEL GILBERT KER

[COLONEL GILBERT KER was a leading man among the Covenanters. He was one of the officers of the west country army, and adhered with great zeal to the Western Remonstrance, sent by that army to the Committee of Estates, which, among other things, condemned the treaty with the King, accused many of the Committee of Estates of covetousness and oppression, and opposed the invasion of England, or forcing a king upon that kingdom. In the year 1655 he was named Justice of Peace for Roxburghshire, but declined to accept; stating as his reasons, that he considered the employment sinful, not allowed by the word of God, contrary to the Solemn League and Covenant, and an encroachment on the liberty of Christ's church.

At the restoration of Charles II., when those concerned in the Western Remonstrance were particularly marked out for the vengenance of the Government, he left the country, but was allowed by the Privy Council to return in the beginning of the year 1671. He must have died previous to October 5, 1677; for at that date Mr. James Row, merchant in Edinburgh, his son-in-law, presents a petition to the Privy Council, praying that he might obtain the remission of a fine of five hundred merks, imposed on the deceased Colonel Gilbert Ker upon account of a conventicle, and for the payment of which the petitioner had become cautioner. This fine was remitted. ("Register of Acts of Privy Council.")]

(SINGLENESS OF AIM—JUDGMENT IN REGARD TO ADVERSARIES.)

MUCH HONOURED AND TRULY WORTHY,—I hope I shall not need to show you that ye are in greater hazard from yourself, and your own spirit (which should be watched over, that your actings for God may be clean, spiritual, purely for God, for the Prince of the kings of the earth), than ye can be in danger from your enemies. Oh how hard is it to get the intentions so cut off from and raised above the creature, as to be without mixture of creature and carnal interest, and to have the soul, in heavenly actings, only, only eyeing Himself, and acting from love to God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ! Ye will find yourself, your delights, your solid glory (far above the air and breathings of mouths, and the thin, short, poor applauses of men), before you in God. All the creatures, all the swords, all the hosts in Britain, and in this poor globe of the habitable world, are but under Him single cyphers making no number; the product being nothing but painted men, and painted swords in a brod, without influence from Him. And oh what of God is in Gideon's sword, when it is "The sword of the Lord!"

I wish a sword from heaven to you, and orders from heaven to you to go out; and as much peremptoriness of a heavenly will as to say, and abide by it, "I will not, I shall not go out, unless Thou goest with me." I desire not to be rash in judging; but I am a stranger to the mind of Christ, if our adversaries, who have unjustly invaded us, be not now in the camp of those that make war with the Lamb. But the Lamb shall overcome them at length; for He is the Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they who are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful. And though ye and I see but the dark side of God's dispensations this day towards Britain, yet the fair, beautiful, and desirable close of it must be the confederacy of the nations of the world with Britain's Lord of armies. And let me die in the comforts of the faith of this, that a throne shall be set up for Christ in this island of Britain (which is, and shall be, a garden more fruitful of trees of righteousness, and which payeth and shall pay more thousands to the Lord of the vineyard than is paid in thrice the bounds of Great Britain upon earth), and there can be neither Papist, Prelate, Malignant, nor Sectary, who dare draw a sword against Him that sitteth upon the throne.

Sir, I shall wish a clean army, so far as may be, that the shout of a King who hath many crowns may be among you; and that ye may fight in faith, and prevail with God first. Think it your glory to have a sword to act, and suffer, and die (if it please Him), so being ye may add anything to the declarative glory of Christ, the Plant of Renown, Immanuel, God with us. Happy and thrice blessed are they by whose actings, or blood, or pain, or loss, the diadems and rubies of His highest and most glorious crown (whose ye are) shall glister and shine in this quarter of the habitable world. Though He need not Gilbert Ker, nor his sword, yet this honour have ye with His redeemed soldiers, to call Christ High Lord-General, of whom ye hope for pay and all arrears well told. Go on, worthy Sir, in the courage of faith, following the Lamb. Make not haste unbelievingly; but in hope and silence keep the watch-tower, and look out. He will come in His own time; His salvation shall not tarry. He will place salvation in Britain's Zion for Israel's glory.

His good-will who dwelt in The Bush and it burned not, be yours, and with you.

I am yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Aug. 10, 1650.

CCCXXIX.—To the worthy and much honoured COLONEL GILBERT KER

(COURAGE IN DAYS OF REBUKE—GOD'S ARRANGEMENTS ALL WISE.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—What I wrote to you before, I spake not upon any private warrant. I am where I was. Cromwell and his army (I shall not say but there may be, and are, several sober and godly among them, who have either joined through misinformation, or have gone alongst with the rest in the simplicity of their hearts, not knowing anything) fight in an unjust cause, against the Lord's secret ones. And now to the trampling of the worship of God, and persecuting the people of God in England and Ireland, he hath brought upon his score the blood of the people of God in Scotland. I entreat you, dear Sir, as ye desire to be serviceable to Jesus Christ, whose free grace prevented you when ye were His enemy, go on without fainting, equally eschewing all mixtures with Sectaries and Malignants.2 Neither of the two shall ever be instrumental to save the Lord's people, or build His house. And without prophesying, or speaking further than He, whose I am and whom I desire to serve, in the Gospel of His Son, shall warrant, I desire to hope and to believe there is a glory and a majesty of the Prince of the kings of the earth, that shall shine and appear in Great Britain, which shall darken all the glory of men, confound Sectaries and Malignants, and rejoice the spirits of the followers of the Lamb, and dazzle the eyes of the beholders.

Sir, I suppose that God is to gather Malignants and Sectaries, ere all be done, as sheaves in a barn-floor; and to bid the daughters of Zion arise, and thresh. I hope that ye will mix with none of them. I am abundantly satisfied, that our army, through the sinful miscarriage of men, hath fallen; and dare say it is a better and a more comfortable dispensation, than if the Lord had given us the victory and the necks of the reproachers of the way of God; because He hath done it. For, 1. More blood, blasphemies, cruelty, treachery, must be upon the accounts of the men whose land the Lord forbade us to invade. 2. Victory is such a burdening and weighty mercy, that we have not strength to bear it as yet. 3. That was not the army, nor Gideon's three hundred, by whom He is to save us; we must have one of our Lord's carving. 4. Our enemies on both sides are not enough hardened, nor we enough mortified to multitude, valour, and creatures.

Grace, grace be with you.

Your friend and servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Sept. 5, 1650.

CCCXXX.—To MR. WILLIAM GUTHRIE,

when the army was at Stirling, after the defeat at Dunbar, and the godly in the West were falsely branded with intended compliance with the usurpers, about the time when those debates and that difference concerning the Public Resolutions arose.

[WILLIAM GUTHRIE was born at Pitforthy, in the shire of Angus, in the year 1620. He was the eldest son of the Laird of Pitforthy, a cadet of the old family of Guthrie, and by his mother's side was descended from the ancient house of Easter-Ogle. He attended the literary and philosophical classes at the University of St. Andrews, and studied theology under Rutherford. On the 7th of November 1644, he was ordained minister of Fenwick. There he continued successfully to discharge his ministry till the 24th of July 1664, when, for nonconformity, he was suspended from and discharged to exercise his ministry, and his church declared vacant, by order of Bishop Burnet. He died at Brechin on the 10th of October 1665.

It may be mentioned here that William Guthrie of Fenwick was cousin to the famous James Guthrie, and was brought to Christ by Samuel Rutherford's ministry at St. Andrews, being one of his first fruits there. ("Life" by Wodrow.) It was he who wrote "The Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ," so well known.]

(DEPRESSION UNDER DARK TRIALS—DANGER OF COMPLIANCE.)

REVEREND BROTHER,—I did not dream of such shortness of breath, and fainting in the way toward our country. I thought that I had no more to do than die in my nest, and bow down my sinful head, and let Him put on the crown, and so end. I have suffered much; but this is the thickest darkness, and the straitest step of the way I have yet trodden. I see more suffering yet behind, and, I fear, from the keepers of the vine. Let me obtain of you, that you would press upon the Lord's people that they would stand far off from these merchants of souls who have come in amongst you. If the way revealed in the word be that way, we then know that these soul-cowpers and traffickers show not the way of salvation. Alas, alas! poor I am utterly lost, my share of heaven is gone, and my hope is poor; I am perished, and I am cut off from the Lord, if hitherto out of the way! But I dare not judge kind Christ; for, if it may be but permitted (with reverence to His greatness and highness be it spoken), I will, before witnesses, produce His own hand that He said, "This is the way, walk thou in it." And He cannot except against His own seal. I profess that I am almost broken and a little sleepy, and would fain put off this body. But this is my infirmity, who would be under the shadow and covert of that Good Land, once to be without the reach and blast of that terrible One. But I am a fool: there is none that can overbid, or take my lodging over my head, since Christ hath taken it for me.

Dear brother, help me, and get me the help of their prayers who are with you in whom is my delight. You are much suspected of intended compliance; I mean, not of you only, but of all the people of God with you. It is but a poor thing the fulfilling of my joy; but let me obtest all the serious seekers of His face, His secret sealed ones, by the strongest consolations of the Spirit, by the gentleness of Jesus Christ, that Plant of Renown, by your last accounts and appearing before God, when the White Throne shall be set up, be not deceived with their fair words. Though my spirit be astonished at the cunning distinctions which are found out in the matters of the Covenant, that help may be had against these men; yet my heart trembleth to entertain the least thought of joining with those deceivers.

Grace, grace be with you. Amen.

Your own brother, in our common Lord and Saviour,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCXXXI.—To the worthy and much honoured COLONEL GILBERT KER

(COURAGE IN THE LORD'S CAUSE—DUTY IN REGARD TO PROVIDENCE TO BE OBSERVED—SAFETY IN THIS.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—It is considerable that the Lord may, and often doth call to a work and yet hide Himself, and try the faith of His own. If I conceive aright, the Lord hath called you to act against that enemy; and the withdrawers of their sword (in my weak apprehension) add their zeal unto, and take upon them the guilt of that unjust invasion of this land made by Cromwell's army, and of the blood of the Lord's people in this kingdom; since the sword, put into the hand of His children, is to execute wrath and vengeance upon evil-doers. The Lord's time of appearing for His broken land is reserved to the breathings of the Spirit of the Lord, such as came upon Gideon and Samson; and that is an act of princely and royal sovereignty in God. Ye are, Sir, to lay hold on opportunities of Providence, and to wait for Him.

As for your particular treating by yourselves with the invaders of our land, I have no mind to it, and do look upon their way as a carrying on of the mystery of iniquity; for Babylon is a seat of many names. Sir, let this controversy stand undecided till the Second Appearance of Jesus Christ, and our appeal lie before the throne undiscussed till that day, I hope to lie down in the grave in the faith of the justness of our cause. I speak nothing of the maintaining the greatness of men, not subordinate to the Prince of the kings of the earth. I judge that the blood of the witnesses of Jesus is found upon the skirts of this society, as well as in Babylon's skirts. I believe that the way of the Lord is Colonel Gilbert Ker's strength and glory; and I should be content to want my part of him (which is, I confess, precious and dear in Christ), so that he be spent in the service of Him who will anon make inquisition for the blood of the truly godly; which these men have shed, after fair warning that they were the godly of Scotland.

Worthy Sir, believe; faint not. Set your shoulder under the glory of Jesus that is misprised in Scotland, and give a testimony for Him. He hath many names in Scotland, who shall walk with Him in white. This despised Covenant shall ruin Malignants, Sectaries, and Atheists. Yet a little while, and behold He cometh, and walketh in the greatness of His strength, and His garments dyed with blood. Oh, for the sad and terrible day of the Lord upon England, their ships of Tarshish, their fenced cities, etc., because of a broken covenant!

A conference with the enemy, not to hinder acting (Oh that the Lord would thereby, or by some other way, remove the cloud that is over you!), if authority should concur, were to be desired; but it can hardly be expected. However, in the way of duty, and in the silence of faith, go on. If ye perish, ye are the first of the creation with whom the Lord hath taken that dispensation. I should humbly desire you, Sir, to look to that: "Dying, and, behold, we live; killed all the day long, and yet more than conquerors." There shall be the heat and warmness of life in your graves and buried bones. But look not for the Lord's coming the higher way only, for He may come the lower way. Oh, how little of God do we see, and how mysterious is He! Christ known is amongst the greatest secrets of God. Keep yourself in the love of God; and, in order to that, as far in obedience and subjection to the King (whose salvation and true happiness my soul desireth), and to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, and to the fundamental laws of this kingdom, as your Lord requireth. Sir, ye are in the hearts and prayers of the Lord's people in this kingdom, and in the other two. The Lord hath said, "There is blessing in the cluster of grapes; destroy it not."

Grace, grace be upon the head of him that is separated from his brethren; and the good-will of Him that dwelt in The Bush be with you.

Your servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

PERTH, Nov. 23, 1650.

CCCXXXII.—To the much honoured and truly worthy COLONEL GILBERT KER

(CHRIST'S CAUSE DESERVES SERVICE AND SUFFERING FROM US.)

"For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it."—HAB. 2:3, 4.

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—Your chains now shine as much for Christ (the cause being His) as your sword was made famous in acting for that cause; and blessed are such as can willingly tender to Christ both action and blood, doing and suffering. Resisting unto blood is little for that precious and never-enough exalted Redeemer, who, when ye were a-buying, gave blood somewhat dearer than ye gave for Him, even the blood of God (Acts 20:28). I know a man, who, upon the receipt of a letter that ye were killed and the people of God destroyed, wished that he might be quickly under the wall of the higher palace from under the dint of the storm, and who longed to have the weather-beaten and crazy bark safely landed in that harbour of eternal quietness.

What further service Christ hath for you, I know not; it is enough that in your captivity ye offer your service to Christ. But if I see anything, it looketh like a merciful defeat. I see the nobles and the state falling off from Christ, and the night coming upon the prophets; which we should pray to prevent, because it is a rare thing to see a fallen star ever win up again to the firmament to shine. And what if this be the thick darkness going before the break of day? Sure, Sir, the sun shall rise upon Scotland; but if I shall see it, or how near is it to that day, I leave that to Him, even unto Jehovah, who "createth upon every dwelling-place in Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and a smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night." But, Sir, "the wilderness shall rejoice and blossom as a rose:" and happy he who hath a bone, or an arm, to put the crown upon the head of our highest King, whose chariot is paved with love. Were there ten thousand millions of heavens created above these highest heavens, and again as many above them, and as many above them till angels were wearied with counting, it were but too low a seat to fix the princely throne of that Lord Jesus (whose ye are) above them all. Created heavens are too low a seat of majesty for Him. Since, then, there is none equal to your Master and Prince who hath chosen out for you (amongst many sufferings for sin) that only cross which cometh nearest in likeness to His own cross, watered with consolation, take courage, and comfort yourself in Him who hath chosen you to glory hereafter and to conformity with Him here. We fools would have a cross of our own choosing, and would have our gall and wormwood sugared, our fire cold, and our death and grave warmed with heat of life; but He who hath brought many children to glory, and lost none, is our best Tutor. I wish that, when I am sick, He may be keeper and comforter. I judge it a blessed Fall that we are forfeited heirs, broken and out of credit, and that Christ is become a Tutor in the place of free-will, and that we are no more our own. I am broken and wasted with the wrath that is on the land, and have been much tempted with a design to have a pass from Christ; which, if I had, I would not stay to be a witness of our defection for any man's intreaty. But I know it is my softness and weakness, who would ever be ashore when a fit of sea-sickness cometh on; though I know I shall come soon enough to that desirable country, and shall not be displaced: none shall take my lodging.

Sir, many eyes are upon you, and the godly are exceedingly refreshed that ye listen not to the ways of many about you, who with fair words make merchandise of souls. Sir, if the way you are in be not the way of Christ, then wo to me, for I am eternally lost. But truly, the Lord Christ's dealings with Colonel Gilbert Ker hath proven to me, that the New Testament and the covenant of grace is a piece that a solemn meeting and assembly of all created angels (join all their wits together) could not have devised. Since, Sir, ye paid nothing for the change that Christ made, and ye will take that debt of free grace to heaven with you (for what was Christ Jesus indebted to you, more than to all your kindred and name!), therefore, since ye are made His own, follow no other way. What is my salvation, though I should lay it in pawn (it is but a poor pledge), that this, this only is the way! But Christ is surety Himself that it is the way. The Forerunner went before you, and He is safely landed: and there is a fair company before you of such as "have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their garments, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," to whom these promises are now performed: "He that overcometh shall eat of the tree of life, that is in the midst of the paradise of God;" and, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain"—"He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them; they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters."

I may, Sir, possibly keep you from better work. The God of peace, that brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect.

Yours, in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Jan. 7, 1651.

CCCXXXIII.—To the much honoured and truly worthy COLONEL GILBERT KER, when taken prisoner

(COMFORTING THOUGHTS TO THE AFFLICTED—DARKNESS OF THE TIMES—FELLOWSHIP IN CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS—SATISFACTION WITH HIS PROVIDENCES.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—I have heard of your continued captivity in England, as well as in this afflicted land. But, go where ye will, ye cannot go from under your Shadow, which is broader than many kingdoms. Ye change lodging and countries; but the same Lord is before you, if ye were carried away captive to the other side of the sun, or as far as the rising of the morning star. It is spoken to your mother (who hath yet received no bill of divorce), which was written to Judah, "Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies" (Micah 4:10). England shall be accountable for you, to render you back: "I will say to the north, 'Give up;' and to the south, 'Keep not back' " (Isa. 43:6). It is a sermon that flesh and blood laugheth at: "Prophesy upon these dry bones, and say unto them, 'O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!' " It is a preaching to the cold grave: "Thus saith the Lord unto the bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live' " (Ezek. 37:4, 5, 6). "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it" (Rev. 20:13). Berwick must render back the Scottish captives, and Colonel Gilbert Ker with them. "For thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans whose cry is in the ships" (Isa. 43:14). "If any of thine be driven out to the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee" (Deut. 30:4). "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save My people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness" (Zech. 8:7, 8). Sir, ye are both booked by the Lord who writeth up the people (Ps. 87:5, 6), and counted to the Lord as one of the house and stock (Ps. 22:30). Fear not, faint not; all your hairs are numbered.

It is the desire of the people of God, that, as your bonds hitherto have been exemplary to the strengthening of the feeble and to the stopping of the mouth of the adversary, without any declining to the right or left hand; so your sufferings in the place ye now go to, may be (as we are confident in the Lord of you, and in humility boast of His grace in you) savoury, convincing, and like unto this honourable cause, that will prevail in Britain, contrary to all the machinations and counsels of devils and men. And though there were no other ink in the pen I now write with but some dewing of my last cooling blood, this I purpose (His grace, whose I am, enabling me) to stand to. Sir, we desire to adore no instruments; yet we conceive the shining and rays of grace from the Fountain, Jesus Christ, the fulness of the Godhead, bestowed on sinful men, hold forth the good thoughts of Christ to this poor land, whose multiplied graves, and whose souls under the altar, slain by Sectaries and Malignants, cry aloud to heaven.

I see nothing, Sir, if the Lord be not near (though I dare not say how soon) to awake for the year of Zion's controversy. "For my sword shall be bathed in heaven" (Isa. 34:5). Behold, it shall come down upon England, and on the residue of His enemies in Scotland. Wo is me for England! That land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness; that pleasant land shall be a wilderness, and the dust of their land pitch; a judgment upon their walled towns, their pleasant fields, their strong ships, etc., if they do not repent.

Ye have not, I conceive, seen such searching and trying times as now these are. And yet the question will be drawn to a more narrow state, and multitudes will yet leave the cause; for we took all into the covenant that offered to build with us. But Christ must have but a small remnant (few nobles, if any; few ministers; few professors), though our way standeth unchanged. "By honour and dishonour, by good report and evil report: as deceivers and yet true; as unknown, yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed" (2 Cor. 6:8, 9). Neither is this your condition alone, but the experienced lot of all the saints that have gone before you. It is one and the same cross of Christ; but there be sundry faces and diverse circumstances in the same remnant (Col. 1:24), the sufferings of Christ and yours. Sir, to be delivered to soldiers, and in captivity, looketh like His suffering of whom Isaiah saith, "He was taken from prison, and from judgment" (Isa. 53:8): yea, and taken bound (John 18:12). When the cause is the truth of God, the lustre and face of suffering is so much the more lovely that it hath the hue and colour of Christ's sufferings, who endured contradiction of sinners and despised the shame. Oh it is a great word, "Christ shamed, and Christ abased!" But thus was the Head, and so are the members, dealt with in the world; and truly anything of Christ, even the worst of Him (to speak so), His reproach and shame, are lovely. Though superstitious love to the material cross He suffered upon be foolery, and doting upon the holy grave be cursed idolatry; yet is there a communion with Him in His sufferings most desirable. "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings" (1 Pet. 4:13): in which sense, the cup that His lip touched hath the sweeter taste, even though death were in it; the grave, because He did lie in it, is so much the softer and the more refreshful a bed of rest; and that part of the sky and clouds that the Beloved shall break through, and come to judgment, is as lovely a piece of the created heaven as any is, if we may love the ground He goeth on the better. But all this is to be understood in a spiritual manner. The Lord calleth you, Sir, upon whom the Spirit of God and His glory resteth, to put your soul's AMEN to this dispensation; and requireth of us, that our desires follow the now-declared decree of God concerning the desolation of our sinful land, so many ways guilty of a despised Gospel, and a broken Covenant; and that with all submission. Certainly, no man hath failed more in this thing, than he who writeth to you. For I have brought my health into great hazard, and tormented my spirit with excessive grief, for our present provocations, and the rendings of our kirk; and I see it is a challenging of, and a bold pleading against, Him upon whose shoulder the government is (Isa. 22:22). The Father hath put a glorious trust upon Christ: "And I will fasten Him as a nail in a sure place, and He shall be for a glorious throne to His Father's house; and they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons" (Isa. 22:23, 24). Our unbelieving apprehensions do so quarrel at the prosperity of enemies in an evil cause, that we wrestle with defeats, spoiling, captivity of the godly, killing of His people, the wasting of our land, starving and famishing of the kingdom, which is worse than the sword. But this is a sinful contradicting of the Lord's revealed decree. His wisdom saith, "Spoiling and desolation is best for Scotland;" and we say, "Not," and so accuse Christ of misgovernment, and of not being true to the trust put upon Him. But since He doth not drag the government at His heels, but hath it upon His shoulder, and since the Nail fastened in a sure place cannot be broken, nor can the smallest vessel fail to find sweet security in dependence upon Him, since all the weight of heaven and earth, of redeemed saints and confirmed angels, is upon His shoulder, I am a fool, and brutish to imagine that I can add anything to Christ's special care of and tenderness to His people. He who keepeth the basins and knives of His house, and bringeth the vessels again to the second temple (Ezra. 1:8–10), must have a more tender care of His redeemed ones than of a spoon, or of Peter's old shoes (Acts 12:8), which yet must not be lost in His captivity. Oh for grace to suffer Christ to tutor His own minors and young heirs! But we cannot endure to be under the actings of His government; we love too much to be our own. Oh, how sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly in Christ! to be out of the creature's owning, and made complete in Christ! to live by faith in Christ, and to be, once for all, clothed with the uncreated majesty and glory of the Son of God, wherein He maketh all His friends and followers sharers! to dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and live in that sweetest air where no wind bloweth but the breathings of the Holy Ghost, no seas nor floods flow but the pure water of life, that proceedeth from under the throne and from the Lamb! no planting but the Tree of Life that yieldeth twelve manner of fruits every month! What do we here but sin and suffer? Oh, when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee away, and the morning of that long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn? The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." Oh, when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say, "Come!"

Worthy Sir, I mind you to the Hearer of prayer. Oh help me in that kind.

The Spirit of Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, May 14, 1651.

CCCXXXIV.—To the worthy and much honoured COLONEL GILBERT KER

(COMFORT UNDER THE CLOUD HANGING OVER SCOTLAND—DISSUASION FROM LEAVING SCOTLAND.)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—I know not why the people of God should not take notice of the bonds of any who have blood in readiness to be let out for His cause; and I judge it was not of you that ye died not in the undecided controversy which the Lord of the whole earth hath with the men whom He hath sent against us.

Dear and much honoured in the Lord, let me entreat you to be far from the thoughts of leaving this land. I see it, and find it, that the Lord hath covered the whole land with a cloud in His anger. But though I have been tempted to the like, I had rather be in Scotland beside angry Jesus Christ, knowing that He mindeth no evil to us, than in Eden or any garden in the earth; if we can remain united with the Lord's remnant in the land. He layeth up wrath for all sorts of adversaries in Britain. Though I should never see the glory of His glittering sword in Britain, I would be solaced in the innocent thought (far from revenge) that the saints shall dip their feet in the blood of the slain of the Lord. And truly, Sir, I suppose that ye cannot but come to these thoughts and weak desires before the Hearer of prayer, for as little as ye think of and value yourself. For me, if I could mind you in your bonds, I purpose not to stand to the account you give, or thoughts ye have of yourself; though I know ye are not a whit, more or less, before Him who weigheth His own according to the weight of imputed righteousness, for my apprehensions. Christ cannot mistake you, men may; and the calculation and esteem of free grace maketh you to be what you are. I hope to see you an everlastingly obliged debtor to Him whom ye shall praise but never pay. And truly ye have no riches but that debt: and I know that ye love to be engaged to Jesus Christ, the most excellent of creditors. Much joy and sweetness may ye have, in standing written in His book. I desire to do it myself, and I would have you also highly to esteem the design of Christ, who hath raised the riches of the glory of so much grace above the circle of the heaven of heavens, out of very nothings; and contrived His thoughts of love, so that lumps of glorified clay should stand before Him, for all ages, the burdened and loaden debtors of free, eternally free grace. Sir, ye cannot cast the count of the rents of your so great inheritance of glory.

Grace be with you.

Your servant, in his own Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, May 18, 1651.

CCCXXXV.—To my LADY KENMURE

(DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IS MAN'S AND CHRIST'S, AND BETWEEN CHRIST HIMSELF AND HIS BLESSINGS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—We are fallen in winnowing and trying times. I am glad that your breath serveth you to run to the end, in the same condition and way wherein ye have walked these twenty years past. It is either the way of peace, or we are yet in our sins, and have missed the way. The Lord, it is true, hath stained the pride of all our glory; and now, last of all, the sun hath gone down upon many of the prophets. But stumble not; men are but men, and God appeareth more and more to be God, and Christ is still Christ.

Madam, a stronger than I am had almost stumbled me and cast me down. But oh what mercy is it to discern between what is Christ's and what is man's, and what way the hue, colour, and lustre of gifts of grace dazzle and deceive our weak eyes! Oh to be dead to all things that are below Christ, were it even a created heaven and created grace! Holiness is not Christ; nor are the blossoms and flowers of the Tree of Life the tree itself. Men and creatures may wind themselves between us and Christ; and, therefore, the Lord hath done much to take out of the way all betwixt Him and us. There are not in our way now, kings, nor armies, nor nobles, nor judicatories, nor strongholds, nor watchmen, nor godly professors. The fairest things, and most eminent in Britain, are stained, and have lost their lustre; only, only Christ keepeth His greenness and beauty, and remaineth what He was. Oh, if He were more and more excellent to our apprehensions than ever He was (whose excellency is above all apprehensions), and still more and more sweet to our taste! I care for nothing, if so be that I were nearer to Him. And yet He fleeth not from me: I flee from Him, but He pursueth.

I hear that your Ladyship hath the same esteem of the despised cause and covenant of our Lord that ye had before. Madam, hold you there. I dare and would gladly breathe out my spirit in that way, with a nearer communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son, and would seek no more but that I might die believing. And also I would hope, that the earth should not cover the blood of the godly, slain in Scotland, but that the Lord will make inquisition for their blood when the sufferings of the saints in these lands shall be fulfilled.

The good-will of Him that dwelt in The Bush be with you.

Your Ladyship's, at all observance, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

GLASGOW, Sept. 28, 1651.

CCCXXXVI.—To LADY RALSTON

[LADY RALSTON, whose maiden name was Ursula Mure, was daughter to William Mure of Glanderston, a respectable family in the county of Renfrew, and wife of William Ralston of that ilk. Mr. Alexander Dunlop, minister of Paisley, was married to one of her sisters, and Mr. John Carstairs to another. Lady Ralston was a woman of distinguished piety. Mr. Dunlop, who "was most impartial in his judgment of persons of worth," spoke in the highest terms of her Christian character. One day, commending her to Mrs. Hastie, wife of Mr. Alexander Hastie, minister of Glasgow, he spoke so much to her commendation that Mr. Hastie said to him, "I wonder to hear you speak so much to the praise of that lady; I think you speak more of her than of your own wife." He answered, "Sanders, I love truly to be just to everybody. I think my wife is truly a good woman, and all the rest of the sisters are good women; but I must say, Lady Ralston is a person more than ordinary. I know very few come her length; yea, Sanders, I truly think shame to even myself to be a Christian beside her, when I look to her carriage. She is a very odd [singular] woman" (Wodrow's "Analecta"). Mr. John Carstairs also bears testimony to her Christian excellence, and to the kindness she had shown to him and his family, particularly after his ejection from his church in Glasgow, in 1662, for conscience' sake.]

(DUTY OF PREFERRING TO LIVE RATHER THAN DIE—WANT OF UNION IN THE JUDGMENTS OF THE GODLY.)

RIGHT WORTHY ESTEEMED IN YOUR EXCELLENT LORD JESUS,—With much desire l have longed to hear how you were, since I heard of your being so near the harbour, as seemed; and now, to my great satisfaction, I am informed of your recovery. As for yourself, I grant, to have entered in at the ports of the mansions of glory had been best by far; but, yet to stay a little longer here is much more comfortable to yours. Therefore, Mistress, dearly respected in the Lord, you are even heartily welcome, though to share yet further with Zion in her manifold tribulations. Yea, I believe yourself thinks it no disadvantage, but rather one great addition of honour, to come back and bear His reproach yet more, in a world of opposition to Him. For (to speak so) it is an advantage that is not to be had in heaven itself; for, although the inhabitants of that land agree in one to sing the song of the Lamb's praise and commendation, so it is here-away, and here only, where we have occasion to endure shame and contradiction for His worthy sake. Considering, therefore, the honour of the cross with the glory of the life to come, the saints are hereby rendered completely happy and honourable. It's much selfishness (as I judge it when I get seen best into the mystery of our Lord's cross) to make post haste to be in the land of rest, when a storm of persecution is rising for Christ; for the sluggard and peevish spirit loves rest upon any terms, though never so dishonourable. It is in effect, then, far more honourable to seek conformity to Christ in His cross, than to precipitate in desiring to be like Him in glory, and despise and fly away from His sufferings. We use to say they are very evil-worthy of the sweet who will not endure the sour. I think Christ's pilgrim weeds (He being a Man of sorrows and griefs) are more honourable than ever it became the like of us to wear; especially considering our poor base descent, whom He will have honoured with conformity to Himself. Woe's me that I, and many the like of me within the land, look so frowardly on Christ's cross, as though it were not His love-allowance to all His followers! It's plainly our gross ignorance that is the cause thereof. Faith, I grant, would suffer affliction for Him with good-will, rather than the least iniquity should be committed; but sense loves no bands. For faith, keeping the sway, puts oft-times the carnal man in bondage, and that occasions strife betwixt the flesh and the spirit. The spirit smells no freedom or deliverance but that which comes from above; the flesh would aye have deliverance, without examination of the terms, or wherefrom it comes. As it is the mark of Christ's sheep, that they will hear His voice, and will not acknowledge a stranger, so it is the mark of faith, that it will only receive orders from heaven. When He declares His mind for bands, it submits to bands, not replying objections to the contrary; and again, when He says, "Show yourselves, ye prisoners of hope," it discovers time and way, and obeys to come forth, but not till then. But the flesh maketh ever haste, and the first and nearest ease is aye its best choice. The Lord keep His dear people from wanting of any exercise that is measured out by Him to them, now when He hides His face, lest we be turned aside to strange gods! And when He shows Himself again (as He will assuredly do), we ken our change.2 It is far safer to dwell a little in faith's prison than in sense's fairest liberty. I see nothing so comfortable an evidence of God's staying into, and healing of, this broken and poor land, than that faithful testimony of His precious servants (and strengthened only by Him) against the late and sore defection. Yet, if the Lord had not left us a remnant, we had been as Sodom and like to Gomorrah. And exalted be our God, only wise and free in His love, that ever any testimony was given! for the hour of temptation was very dark to all once. But to some He showed much light, and helped them with a little help. Others, also, able and dear to Him, He hath letten, as yet, remain under the cloud. But the mystery of His wisdom is so high in this, that I profess it may render all flesh humble in the dust, and to glory henceforth in nothing but in His upholding strength and free love. Always, when His due time comes, He will make His servants see that which they do not now see. But, alas! in the meantime, there is no harder matter of our trouble to be looked to than the grievous differences of judgments and affections among the Lord's servants; which I know is much pondered by you. And I trust that all our worthy dear friends will labour to the utmost, according to Christ's command, to have the breach made up again, that Satan get not advantage therethrough; for I think nothing makes more for his ends than the defacing of union amongst the Lord's dear ones. I think it should be amongst our many requests to Him "in whom all the building useth to be fitly framed together in love;" yea, the obtaining of this request were a great advantage to the poor kirk. And if the Lord take pleasure in us, there is yet hope in Israel concerning this thing; but if not, it is like to prove a probable token, amongst some others, of Christ's taking down His tabernacle in this land: which, if He do, we will have sad days. But the consideration of His pitiful compassion holds forth ground to believe otherwise; upon which ground it is like that He will give us a door of hope, though He do not give full deliverance yet. For our hope is not perished yet from the Lord, because men and carnal reason say so; for none of these are bands or rules to the Almighty! Yea, Zion's lowest ebb shall be the first step to her rise. I have no other reason to give but "the zeal of the Lord of hosts [will] perform it" (Isa. 9:7); and in confidence of it, I remain,

Yours in all trouble,

S. R.

October 1651.

Tender my respects to your dear husband, who is indeed precious in the account of the honest here, for his faithfulness in the hour of temptation.

CCCXXXVII.—To a Minister of Glasgow

[Wodrow annexes to this letter the following note:—"To one of the ministers of Glasgow, who probably was deposed by the Resolutionists, or at least a sufferer for the protestation,—Mr. M'Ward perhaps, or Mr. Patrick Gillespie." The letter bears internal evidence of having been written to a minister of Glasgow who had been censured by the General Assembly which met at Dundee in 1651, for his opposition to the public resolutions. By that Assembly three ministers, Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, Mr. Patrick Gillespie of Glasgow, and Mr. James Simpson of Airth, were deposed, and one, Mr. James Nasmith of Hamilton, suspended, on the ground of their having protested against the lawfulness of that Assembly. ("Life of Robert Blair," p. 278.) There seems, then, little doubt that Mr. Patrick Gillespie is the person to whom this letter was addressed. It could not have been Mr. Robert M'Ward, for he was licensed only in 1655, and did not become a minister of Glasgow till 1656, when he succeeded Mr. Andrew Gray in the Outer High Kirk; nor, though he enlisted himself on the side of the Protesters, does he appear to have suffered on that account. Mr. Patrick Gillespie was the son of Mr. John Gillespie (second minister of the collegiate charge of Kirkcaldy), and brother of the celebrated George Gillespie. He was born at Kirkcaldy in 1617, and was for some time minister of that parish, previous to his translation to Glasgow. After the death of Charles 1. he favoured the Commonwealth, and was appointed by Cromwell Principal of the University of Glasgow, into which office he was installed after encountering much opposition. At the Restoration he was ejected from the Principalship, in which he was succeeded by the celebrated Robert Baillie. He was also imprisoned successively in the Castles of Edinburgh and Stirling; and upon the sitting of the Parliament in 1661, was impeached of high treason, on the alleged ground of his having compiled "The Western Remonstrance," approved the pamphlet entitled "The Causes of God's Wrath," and kept correspondence with Cromwell. But, having made concessions, he was shortly after liberated, and confined to Ormiston and six miles around it. "His works speak for him," says Wodrow, "and evidence him a person of great learning, solidity, and piety, particularly his excellent treatises upon 'The Covenants of Grace and Redemption.' "]

(ENCOURAGING WORDS TO A SUFFERING BROTHER—WHY MEN SHRINK FROM CHRIST'S TESTIMONY.)

SIR,—I long to see you, since you gave a public testimony for your Master, and are become a sufferer for Him. Until I shall be able to see you, I thought it duty to write to you that I remember you as I am able. Your zeal and faithfulness for our Master and your mother church have made your name honourable and precious among many here; yea, have exceedingly refreshed the bowels of the saints. Upon my word, Sir, I say the truth, you have their hearts and their approbation to what you have done; and that you are approven of God, I doubt not: the seal whereof, I hope, shall be in your heart, to feast your conscience with peace, and to cause your face shine in innocency. What you have done with your fellow-witnesses, companions in tribulation, shall turn to you for a testimony. Sir, when this General Assembly are gathered together to their fathers, and you wearing your crown up at the throne, and following the Lamb, your name shall be precious and have a savour of life amongst the saints. You shall have your mother's blessing, I mean the Church of Scotland, when you are dead and rotten. Though now you seem to be a man of strife and contention, yet you are no otherways for strife and contention than your Master before you, who came not to send peace, but rather division and contention (Luke 12:51) with the malignant party. Union in judgment, with men not tender of our Lord's interest, is a conjunction and union I hope you shall never think desirable. Sectarian separation, I am confident, you never loved; though men, who are become transgressors in destroying what they have formerly been building, give it forth so. Woe's me, Sir, that amongst so many hundred ministers in the Church of Scotland, so few are like to be found willing to give or approve of your and others' faithful testimony. I think that, besides the evil of blindness that is in the mind of some, and the idolizing of man's interest by others, an uncrucified world and over-loved stipends shall hinder many from coming your length. We are debtors to you, and to our Lord Jesus Christ, that hath given to you to care for "Zion, whom no man seeks after" (Jer. 30:17); not caring for your own things, but the things of God. Fair fall you that have quit all things to follow Him. To you, and to others that will continue with Christ, in this hour of tribulation, is appointed a kingdom. Sir, you had more credit and worldly greatness to lose than many honest ministers; and thanks be to God that you have so learned Christ [as] to be made a man for Christ of no reputation, for Him. Your despised Master, who made Himself while He was amongst us a man of no reputation, is now exalted in glory. There is none now to gibe Him by bowing the knee, none now to spit in His face, none now to bring Him under mocking of the purple robe, none to put on His head a crown of thorns. And as you now partake of His sufferings, so shall you hereafter of His glory. You shall sit honourably on thrones; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you shall receive the crown. I am convinced that it is for conscience toward God that you suffer. The bottom of your testimony and suffering is not so narrow as some think, who study more to decline the cross than to be tender for every truth. School-heads talk of fundamentals and non-fundamentals; and, say they, "The present controversy is not about fundamentals: ministers may keep their places, peace, and stipends, and make less din." But are non-fundamentals nothing? I would choose rather not be brought up at school, than to grow so subtile and wily by school distinctions, [as] to decline the cross. Sir, you divide not from others for nothing; you contend not for nothing; you suffer not for nothing. They that will be unfaithful in little will be unfaithful in much. Mistake me not, as if I thought the ground of your testimony a little thing and a trifle. I think you, and all that be faithful to God, are bound to follow it to bonds and to blood. That Christ ought to be a King in Scotland, and the people ought to employ the liberty that Christ hath bought to them with His blood, is among fundamentals with me; and whether the way man gives and allows to men that have fought against the truth be not naturally, and by interpretation, against this, judge. Sir, your Master did put you in His vineyard. You have a testimony from many of a faithful and diligent labourer. I hear that you are now violently thrust out. I think the Spirit of Christ would teach men sobriety and forbearance. I wish (and know you will join with me) that men's violent dealing with you provoke not the Lord, to make this the last General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Always, I acknowledge you one of the stars which the Lord hath in His hand, one of the angels of the Church of Scotland, a faithful minister of the Gospel at Glasgow. You have given a testimony for your Master; you shall get a meeting when He comes in the clouds. And though there should not be a General Assembly henceforth in the Church of Scotland, judicially to acknowledge you His minister, yet, in the General Assembly of angels and men, that your Master in the latter day shall call in the clouds, you shall get a testimony of a minister of the Gospel; and from the Shepherd and the Lord, the righteous Judge, you shall receive the crown. I think there is a necessity laid on you to preach the Gospel, and to call people to the covenant of grace, wherever you can safely do it. I know there are many that will yet receive you as an angel of God, and yet will be followers of you and of Christ, "receiving the word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Ghost." The Lord give you in all things to "approve yourself as the minister of God, in much patience and affliction, in necessities, distresses, in stripes, in imprisonment, in labour, and watching, and fasting,—by honour and dishonour, in good report and ill report" (2 Cor. 6:4–6). For, now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord. And the God of all peace, who hath called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, and settle you. Remember me to those that are your companions in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, and to your wife, that will be a faithful helper to you in this time of your affliction.

Because I am not able to see you yet, and fearing that when I come to Glasgow I shall not find you there, I thought good to write.

CCCXXXVIII.—For the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, the LADY KENMURE

(A WORD TO CHEER IN TIMES OF DARKNESS.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—The Lord is gracious who keepeth your Ladyship in the furnace, when many put out their hand to iniquity one way or other. We are now shouldering and casting down one another in the dark, and the godly are hidden from the godly. We make our own chains heavier by joining with the Lord's enemies; hence new sufferings to all that dare not say "a confederacy to those to whom this people say a confederacy, nor fear their fear. (Isa. 8:12.) As that is my exercise now, who am not very far from being my lone (though I know in whom I have believed, at least I should know) in this place; so I am afraid that the godly there comply with those declared enemies of God. It will be our strength to walk between enemies and malignants on either side. This is the day of Jacob's trouble; yet these dry bones can, and must live. I know not if I shall see it, but I hope to take this quietness and silence of faith, in the midst of the noises of the alarm for war, to the grave with me, that the Lord will build upon the church of Britain and Ireland a palace of silver, inclosed with boards of cedar.

Dear Madam, faint not; the night is almost gone; "for the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, and not tarry." Madam, weary not; none can outbid your lodging in heaven; there is more given for it, by Him who hath bespoken it for Jean Campbell, and taken it for her, than any can offer. The ransom of blood standeth.

My wife remembereth her respects to your Ladyship. The child is well. Mrs. Gillespie is well, we hear, but is not here.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his own Lord Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Jan. 28, 1653.

CCCXXXIX.—For GRIZZEL FULLERTON [Letter V.]

(EXHORTATION TO FOLLOW CHRIST FULLY WHEN OTHERS ARE COLD.)

MISTRESS,—Remembering well what relation I had to your dear mother (now blessed and perfected with glory), and being confident that yourself looketh that way (which, except I be eternally lost, is the way of peace and of life), I should be ungrateful to forget those, whom, by the covenant of the Lord, I cannot but remember to God.

I shall speak nothing to you of the present sad differences; but if I have, or ever had, any nearness to God, that other way (which I trust I shall never follow) is the way of man. And for the present powers,3 I suffer from them, and look for more. God hath a controversy with them; and, my soul, enter not into their secrets! Only, I would beseech, request, and obtest you in the Lord, and by your appearance before Christ, to follow the way of the Lord and the steps trod by the gracious in that place, which the Lord followed with life and power. My heart is filled with sorrow, considering what communion with God some of that country had, and how much they were in edifying and helping one another, in His way; and how little of that there is now in that country. Your mother kept in life, in that place, and quickened many about her to the seeking of God. My desire to you is, that you should succeed her in that way, and be letting a word fall to your brethren and others, that may encourage them to look toward the way of God. You will have need of it ere it be long. See how you may have a gracious minister, and no neutral there, to succeed and follow the servant of God now asleep in the Lord. There is a great and wide difference between a name of godliness and the power of godliness. That is hottest when there are fewest witnesses. The deadness upon many, and the defection of the land, is great. Blessed are they who seek the Lord and His face.

I shall entreat you to remember me to your husband, and all friends. I desire to forget none who are in Christ.

Your brother in the Lord,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, March 14, 1653.

CCCXL.—To MR. THOMAS WYLIE

(REGARDING A LETTER OF EXPLANATION.)

RIGHT REVEREND,—I look on it as a significant expression of your respect to me, and above all deserving in me, that you take notice of any appearance of clouds, or alienation of mind among brethren; and am glad of your testimony of my brother. I had no interest but brotherly advice, and hearty desire of the real prospering of the work of the Gospel. Nor was it either necessary or expedient, that your w[isdoms] should be troubled and put to any presbyterial testimony, upon the ground of a private missive letter, written by misinformation. I give credit to your testimony, and judge much ought to be laid upon it, and shall think myself obliged to your w[isdoms], and look on it as a testimony of your affectionate zeal to the work of God. The Lord of the harvest thrust out labourers to His vineyard, and bless His work in your hands! Excuse me, dear and reverend, for my troubling you with any private misunderstanding. I am not a little refreshed to hear of your care and zeal for the house of God.

The Lord be with your spirit.

Your unworthy brother and fellow-labourer in the Gospel,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, March 23, 1653.

CCCXLI.—To my LADY KENMURE

(PRESENT NEED HELPED BY PAST EXPERIENCE.)

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I know that ye think of an outgoing, and that your quartering in time, and your abode in this life, is short; "for we flee away as a shadow." The declining of the sun, and the lengthening of the shadow, say that our journey is short and near the end. I speak it, because I have warnings of my removal. Madam, I know not any against whom the Lord is not: for He is against "the proud and lofty; the day of the Lord is upon all the cedars, upon all the high mountains, upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures" (Isa. 2:12–16). I know not anything comparable to a nearness and spiritual communion with the Father and the Son Christ. There is much deadness and witheredness upon many spirits sometime near to God; and I wish the Lord have not more to say and to do against the land.

Ye have, Madam, in your accounts, mercies, deliverances, rods, warnings, plenty of means, consolations (when "refuge failed, when ye looked on the right hand, and behold no man would know you, nor care for your soul," when young and weak), manifestations of God, the outgoings of the Lord for you, experiences, answers from the Lord; by all which, ye may be comforted now, and confirmed in the certain hope, that grace, free grace, in a fixed and established Surety, shall perfect that good work in you. Happy they who see not and yet believe.

Grace, grace, eternally in our Lord Jesus be with you.

Yours, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, May 27, 1653.

CCCXLII.—For the Right Honourable and truly worthy COLONEL GILBERT KER

(DEADNESS—HOPES OF REFRESHMENT—DISTANCE FROM GOD—NEARNESS DELIGHTED IN.)

MUCH HONOURED IN THE LORD,—How it is with you may appear by your letters to some with us; but it is the complaint of not a few of such as were in Christ before me, that most of us inhabit and dwell in a parched land. The people of the Lord are like a land not rained upon. Though some dare not deny that this is the garden of the Beloved, and the vineyard that the Lord doth keep and water every moment, yet, oh! where are the sometime quickening breathings and influences from heaven that have refreshed His hidden ones?

The causes of His withdrawings are unknown to us. One thing cannot be denied, but that ways of high sovereignty and dominion of grace are far out of the sight of angels and men; yea, and so above the fixed way of free promises (such as, "This do, and He shall breathe and blow upon His garden"), as He hath put forth a declaration to His hidden ones in Scotland, that smarting, wrestlings, prayings, complaining, gracious missing, cannot earn the visits from on high, nor fetch down showers upon the desert. It may be, when we are saying in our graves, "Our bones are dry, and our hope gone," that temporal and spiritual deliverance may come both together; and that He will cause us feel, both the one way and the other, the good of His reign who shortly cometh to the throne. "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth." "In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." "He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper." "He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight" (Ps. 72:6–16). And though we cannot pray home a sweet season that way, yet Christ must bring summer with Him when He cometh. "There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon."

I know not if I apply prophecies as I would, rather than as they are. When the one Shepherd is set over them, even He who shall stand (oh how much do we lie!) and feed in the strength of the Lord, the isles (and this the, greatest of them), which wait for His law, are to look for that; "And I will make them, and the places round about My hill, a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season: there shall be showers of blessing" (Ezek. 34:26). How desirable must every drop of such a shower be! And, "I will be as the dew to Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon" (Hosea 14:5, 6). And, "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" (Isa. 55:13). "I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the oil-tree" (Isa. 41:19). "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring." And it shall be no lost labour or fruitless husbandry; "They shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water-courses" (Isa. 44:3, 4). But when this shall be in Scotland (and it must be) is better to believe than prophesy; and quietly to hope and sit still (for that is yet our strength), than to quarrel with Him, that the wheels of this chariot move leisurely.

Yet this can hardly say anything to us who do so much please ourselves in our deadness, and are almost gone from godly thirst and missing too, being half-satisfied with our witheredness. No doubt we have marred His influences, and have not seconded nor smiled upon His actings upon us. Nor have we been much of his strain who doth eight times breathe out that suit, "Quicken me, quicken me" (Ps. 119). So much are we desirous to be acted upon by the Lord as blocks and stones; and so prodigal are we of His motions, as if they were no better to be husbanded. But it is good that it is not in our power to blast and undo His breathings; His wind bloweth where He listeth. Could we but lean, and cast a quiet spirit under the dewings and showerings of Him that every moment watereth His vineyard, how happy and blessed were we! We neither open nor discern His knocking, nor do we feel His hand put in through the keyhole, nor can we give any spiritual account of the walkings and motions of Christ, when He standeth behind the wall, when He cometh skipping over the mountains, when He cometh to His garden and feasteth, when He feedeth among the lilies, when His spikenard casteth a smell, when He knocketh and withdraweth, and is nowhere to be found. Oh, how little a portion of God do we see! How little study we God! How rarely read we God, or are versed in the lively apprehensions of that great unknown All in All, the glorious Godhead, and the Godhead revealed in Christ! We dwell far from the well, and complain but dryly of our dryness and dulness. We are rather dry than thirsty.

Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility; but for me, I neither know what He is, nor His Son's name, nor where He dwelleth. I hear a report of Christ great enough, and that is all. Oh! what is nearness to Him? What is that, to be "in God," to "dwell in God"? What a house must that be! (1 John 4:13). How far are some from their house and home? how ill acquaint with the rooms, mansions, safety, and sweetness of holy security to be found in God! Oh, what estrangement! what wandering! what frequent conversing with self and the creature! Is not here "the bed shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it? and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it?" (Isa. 28:20). When shall we attain to a living in only, only God! and be estranged from all the poor created nothings, the painted shadow-beings of yesterday, which, an hour and less before creation, were dark waste negatives and empty nothings, and should so have been for eternity, had the Lord suffered them to lie there for ever!

It is He, the great "He, who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the judges of the earth as vanity" (Isa. 40:22, 23). And He, the only He, and there is no He beside Him (Isa. 43:10, 11, 13–25). Men or angels, they are not any of them a he to Him! But a living, breathing, dying nothing is man at his best, a sick clay-vanity; and the angel, to Him, but a more excellent, living and understanding nothing. Yet we live at a distance from Him; and we die and wither when we are out of God. Oh, if we knew how nothing we are without Him!

Sir, we desire to mind your bonds; and are cheered and refreshed that we hear of any of His manifestations, and His outgoings, which are prepared as the morning to you. We hope that we need not desire you not to faint, and are confident that the anointing that abideth in you teacheth you so much. Wait upon the speaking vision: "Behold, He cometh! behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him!" (Isa. 40:10).

The only wise God strengthen you with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.

Yours, at all observance, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, July 1653.

CCCXLIII.—For the truly honourable COLONEL GILBERT KER

(THE STATE OF THE LAND.)

MUCH HONOURED,—I bless the Lord for His good hand, who declares that His sovereign presence is alike in England and all places, and sways hearts as pleases Him. The book of holy providence is good marginal notes on His revealed will, in His word, and speaks much to us, could we read and understand what He writes, both in the one and the other. You see He is not wanting to you; houses and lands are His. The Lord led Abraham from his own country to a land he knew not. It would appear He hath not opened His mind to you for leaving of this land, though I be much afraid of a sick state, a sleeping ministry, a covenant-breaking land, a number of dead professors; all these are grey hairs here and there on Ephraim. Sure our ruin is sure if God let us alone; we shall rot in our lies. But what am I to determine of conclusions of mercy revealed to none, and thoughts of peace in the heart of the Lord towards an undeserving land? I should be glad to see you, and shall desire He may lead you in the matter of your residence whom ye desire to be your Guide and Counsellor. For me, I am, as to my body, most weak and under daily summons; but I sit still and read not the summons: as to my spirit, much out of court, because out of communion with the Lord, and far from what sometime hath been; deadness, security, unbelief, and distance from God in the use of means, prevail more than ever. I shall desire your help for getting a third Professor. I am in this college between wind and weather. Dr. Colville is for Mr. James Sharp;2 I am for Mr. William Rait, but know not the event. My wife remembers her respects to you. Grace be with you.

Yours, at all obedience, in God,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, April 2, 1654.

Remember my love in Christ to Mr. Livingstone.

CCCXLIV.—For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam

[MR. JOHN SCOT, minister of Oxnam, zealously adhered to the Protesters; and Rutherford's letters to him have chiefly a reference to the proceedings of that party. After the restoration of Charles II., Scot was imprisoned for some time, but suffered less than others of his brethren. On being set at liberty, he was allowed to return to his parish, and to resume the exercise of his ministry. We find him continuing there down to 1664, when he was brought before the short-lived High Commission Court, erected in the beginning of that year, for having assisted at Communions which were reckoned contrary to law. How he was dealt with by that Court is not now known. In 1669 he became indulged minister of Oxnam. He must have died previous to 1684, as in that year the name of "Elizabeth Rae, relict of Mr. John Scot, late minister of Oxnam," occurs among a list of names in the parish of Kelso, delated by the curate of that parish to the Committee of Privy Council which met at Jedburgh, with the view of proceeding against those guilty of "church disorders," that is, against those who deserted their own parish church, and attended conventicles. ("Warrants of Privy Council.")]

(EXCUSE FOR ABSENCE FROM DUTY.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—No man oweth more to the church of God with you, than poor and wretched I. But when weakness of body, and the Lord by it, did forbid me to undertake a lesser journey to Edinburgh, I am forbidden far more to journey thither. And believe it, nothing besides this doth hinder. I am unable to overtake what the Lord hath laid upon me here; and, therefore, I desire to submit to sovereignty, and must be silent. If my prayers and best desires to the Lord could contribute anything for promoting of His work, my soul's desire is that the wilderness, and that place to which I owe my first breathing, in which I fear Christ was scarce named, as touching any reality or power of godliness, may blossom as a rose.

So desiring, and praying that His name may be great among you, and entreating that you may believe that the names of the Lord's adversaries shall be written in the earth, and that "whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem, to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain," and that the Lord "will create glory upon every assembly in Mount Zion," I rest, your own brother in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, June 15, 1655.

CCCXLV.—To my LADY KENMURE

(THOUGHTS FOR A TIME OF SICKNESS, ABOUT THE LIFE TO COME.)

MADAM,—I have been so long silent, that I am almost ashamed now to speak. I hear of your weakly condition of body, which speaketh some warning to you to look for a longer life, where ye shall have more leisure to praise than time can give you here. It shall be loss to many; but sure yourself, Madam, shall be only free of any loss. And truly, considering what days we are now falling into, if sailing were not serving of the Lord (which I can hardly attain to), a calm harbour were very good when storms are so high. The Forerunner, who hath landed first, must help to bring the sea-beaten vessel safe to the port, and the sick passengers who are following the Forerunner safe ashore. Much deadness prevaileth over some; but there is much life in Him who is the Resurrection and the Life to quicken. Oh, what of our hid life is without us, and how little and poor a stock is in the hand of some! The only wise God supply what is wanting. The more ye want, and the more your joy hath run on, the more is owing to you by the promise of grace. Bygones of waterings from heaven, which your Ladyship wanted in Kenmure, Rusco, the West, Glasgow, Edinburgh, England, etc., shall all come in a great sum together. The marriage supper of the Lamb must not be marred with too large four-hours' refreshment. Know, Madam, that He, who hath tutored you from the breasts, knoweth how to time His own day-shinings and love-visits.

Grace, that runneth on, be with you.

Yours, in the Lord, at all observance,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCXLVI.—To SIMEON ASHE

[MR. ASHE was a Puritan minister in London during the time of the civil wars. He died in 1662.]

(VIEWS OF THE PRESBYTERIANS AS TO ALLEGIANCE TO THE PROTECTOR.)

REVEREND WORTHY SIR,—I would recommend to you the bearer, Mr. James Simpson, a faithful preacher of the Gospel. Be pleased to hear him. I trust he shall give you a true and faithful relation of our affairs. You may be pleased to believe me, that men who have borrowed your ear to blacken the godly in the land, and who have now both deserted us and the Covenant, and joined feet with the Malignant party, and now have owned the present powers, and brought the intrants to the ministry to give under their hand a subscription, an engagement (the writ calls it, a resolution to live peaceably and unoffensively under the present Government), so that no holy man can get any maintenance in the land but such as will sinfully comply (and such as cannot, what an entry they have to that holy calling to embrace it!), these men seek more their own things, than the things of Jesus Christ. And being backed by the whole multitude of the promiscuous generality, throughout the land, who are for their way, as of old the prelatic conformists did, they do persecute the godly, and in pulpits and presbyteries declaim against us as implacable and separatists. You may, Sir, by this, and what the bearer will make known to you, perceive what wrong the compliance of these men hath done to the cause of God. But I spare, and do beg the favour of your other care. The grace of God be with you.

I am your loving brother in Christ,

S. R.

1656.

CCCXLVII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(UNKINDNESS OF THE CREATURE—GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN PERMITTING HIS CHILDREN TO BE INJURED BY MEN.)

MADAM,—I confess that I have cause to be grieved at my long silence or laziness in writing. I am also afflicted to hear, that such who were debtors to your Ladyship for better dealing have served you with such prevarication. Ye know that crookedness is neither strong, nor long enduring; and ye know likewise, that these things spring not out of the dust. It is sweet to look upon the lawless and sinful stirrings of the creature as ordered by a most holy hand in heaven. Oh, if some could make peace with God! It would be our wisdom, and afford us much sweet peace, if oppressors were looked on as passive instruments, like the saw or axe in the carpenter's hand. They are bidden (if such a distinction may be admitted), but not commanded, of God (as Shimei was, 2 Sam. 16:10), to do what they do.

Madam, these many years the Lord hath been teaching you to read and study well the book of holy, holy, and spotless sovereignty, in suffering from some nigh-hand, and some far off. Whoever be the instruments, the replying of clay to the Potter, the Former of all, is unbeseeming the nothing-creature. I hope that He will clear you: but, when Zion's public evils lie not nigh some of us, and leave no impression upon our hearts, it is no wonder that we be exercised with domestic troubles. But I know that ye are taught of God to prefer Jerusalem to your chiefest joy. Madam, there is no cause of fainting: wait upon the not-tarrying vision, for it will speak.

The only wise God be with you, and God, even your own God, bless you.

Yours, at all observance, in God,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, June 1657.

CCCXLVIII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(GOD'S DEALINGS WITH THE LAND.)

MADAM,—I should not forget you; but my deadness under a threatening stroke, both of a falling church (a broken covenant, a despised remnant) and a craziness of body, that I cannot get a piece sickly clay carried about from one house or town to another, lieth most heavy on me. The Lord hath removed Scotland's crown, for we owned not His crown. We fretted at His catholic government of the world, and fretted that He would not be ruled and led by us, in breaking our adversaries: and He maketh us to suffer and pine away in our iniquities, under the broken government of His house. It is like, that it would be our snare to be tried with the honour of a peaceable Reformation: we might mar the carved work of His house, worse than those against whom we cry out. It is like, that He hath bidden us lie on our left side three hundred and ninety days; and yet so astonishing is our stupidity, that we moan not our sore side. Our gold is become dim, the visage of our Nazarites is become black, the sun is gone down on our seers; the crown is fallen from our heads; we roar like bears. Lord save us from that, "He that made them will not have mercy on them" (Isa. 27:11). The heart of the scribe meditateth terror. Oh, Madam, if the Lord would help us to more self-judging, and to make sure an interest in Christ! Ah, we forget eternity, and it approaches quickly. Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience, in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Nov. 20, 1657.

CCCXLIX.—For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam

[John Livingstone, in his letter to his parishioners at Ancrum, says: "Oxnam is not far off from you, and I hope Mr. Scot doth and will declare for the sworn Reformation, and testify against present defection."]

(PROTESTERS TOLERATION.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I saw from C. K. a testimony of your Presbytery against toleration, in which ye have been instrumental. The Lord give strength to do more. I think it both rare and necessary, and would account it a great mercy, if there were an addition of a postscript from divers ministers and elders, out of all the shires of Scotland. It is really the mind of all the godly and tender in this land. It is believed by some, that the Protesting party hath quite given over the cause. I hope it is not so; but the Lord shall be yet victorious in His most despised ones. Our darkness is great and thick, and there is much deadness; yet the Lord will be our light.

Thus recommending you to His grace whose ye are, I am, your own brother, in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, April 2, 1658.

CCCL.—For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam

(GLOOMY TIMES—MEANS OF PROMOTING GODLINESS.)

DEAR BROTHER,—Faint not; but be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. I look on it as a rich mercy that the Lord is with you, strengthening you to quicken fainters, to warm and warn any that are cold or dead, or who deaden others. Believe that it will be your peace in the end. The times are sad; yet I persuade myself that the vision will not tarry, but will speak. The Lord will loose our captive bonds. Oh, blessed he, though alone, who is found fast and constant for the desirable interest of Christ.

My humble advice would be, that you see to the placing of the deacon and the ruling elder, or to anything that may weaken the Discipline. Our Second Book of Discipline should be heeded: Sessions purged. Oh! catechising and personal visiting, and speaking to them sigillatim (one by one) concerning their interest in Christ and a state of conversion, is little in practice. The practice of family fasts is scarce known to be an ordinance of God. It were good that ye should confer with godly brethren in private, concerning the promoting of godliness, concerning Christian conference, and praying together, worshipping of God in families, and solitary fasts.

To His grace who can direct, quicken, and strengthen you, I commend you, and am your loving brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCLI.—To MR. JAMES DURHAM, Minister of the Gospel at Glasgow, some few days before his Death

[MR. JAMES DURHAM was ordained minister of Blackfriars Church, Glasgow, in November 1647. In September 1651 he was translated to the Inner High Church, Glasgow. He was a man at once distinguished for ardent piety and great talents. Robert Baillie counted him "one of the most gracious, wise, and able preachers in this isle." "He is the minister of my family," the same writer says, "and almost the only minister in this place [Glasgow] of whom my soul gets good, and whom I respect in some things above all men I know." Durham was cut off in the prime of life. He died at Glasgow on the 25th of June 1658,—ten days after this letter was written to him,—in the thirty-sixth year of his age, much regetted by all. (See Letter XCI.) He wrote on the "Book of Revelation," "Christ Crucified," and some other excellent pieces.]

(MAN'S WAYS NOT GOD'S WAYS.)

SIR,—I would ere now have written to you, had I not known that your health, weaker and weaker, could scarce permit you to hear or read. I need not speak much. The Way ye know, and have preached to others the skill of the Guide, and the glory of the home beyond death. And when He saith, "Come and see," it will be your gain to obey, and go out and meet the Bridegroom. What accession is made to the higher house of His kingdom should not be our loss, though it be real loss to the church of God. But we count one way, and the Lord counteth another way. He is infallible, and the only wise God, and needeth none of us. Had He needed the staying in the body of Moses and the prophets, He could have taken another way. Who dare bid you cast your thoughts back on wife or children, when He hath said, "Leave them to Me, and come up hither"? Or who can perauade you to die or live, as if that were arbitrary to us, and not His alone who hath determined the number of your months? If so it seem good to Him, follow your Forerunner and Guide. It is an unknown land to you, who were never there before; but the land is good, and the company before the throne desirable, and He who sitteth on the throne is His lone a sufficient heaven.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, June 15, 1658.

CCCLII.—For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam

(ADHERENCE TO THE TESTIMONY AGAINST TOLERATION.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Your letter that came unto me, of August 2nd, to be at Edinburgh upon August 2nd, was unknown to me by the subscription. But since it was written for so honourable and warrantable a truth of Christ, as a testimony against Toleration, if my health would have permitted, and my daily menacing gravel, I should have come to Edinburgh. What either counsel, countenance, or clearing, ye could have had from the like of me, I cannot say; nor dare I speak much, but with a reserve of the help of His grace. I desire to desire, and purpose by strength from above, to own that cause, and to join with you and some in this church, besides your Presbytery, who will own that cause. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. This cloud will over,2 could we live by faith, and wait on a speaking, and a seemingly delaying vision. (Heb. 2:3.) The Lord will not tarry.

Grace be with you. Many are with you, but there is One who is above millions.

Your own brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, August 8, 1658.

CCCLIII.—To my LADY KENMURE

(TRIALS—DEADNESS OF SPIRIT—DANGER OF FALSE SECURITY.)

MADAM,—I am ashamed of my long silence to your Ladyship. Your tossings and wanderings are known to Him upon whom ye have been cast from the breasts, and who hath been your God of old. The temporal loss of creatures, dear to you there, may be the more easily endured, that the gain of One "who only hath immortality" groweth.

There is an universal complaint of deadness of spirit on all that know God. He that writeth to you, Madam, is as deep in this as any, and is afraid of a strong and hot battle, before time be at a close. But no matter, if the Lord crown all with the victorious triumphing of faith. God teacheth us by terrible things in righteousness. We see many things, but we observe nothing. Our drink is sour. Grey hairs are here and there on us. We change many lords and rulers; but the same bondage of soul and body remaineth. We live little by faith, but much by sense, according to the times, and by human policy. The watchmen sleep, and the people perish for lack of knowledge. How can we be enlightened when we turn our back on the sun? and must we not be withered when we leave the fountain? It should be my only desire to be a minister, gifted with the white stone, and the new name written on it. I judge it were fit (now when tall professors and when many stars fall from heaven, and God poureth the isle of Great Britain from vessel to vessel, and yet we sit, and are settled on our lees) to consider (as sometimes I do, but ah! rarely), how irrecoverable a wo it is to be under a beguile in the matter of eternity. And what if I, who can have a subscribed testimonial of many who shall stand at the right hand of the Judge, shall miss Christ's approving testimony, and be set upon the left hand among the goats? (Matt. 7:22, 25:8–12 and 33; Luke 13:25–27). There is such a beguile; and it befalleth many; and what if it befall me, who have but too much art to cozen my own soul and others, with the flourish of ministerial, or country, holiness!

Dear lady, I am afraid of prevailing security. We watch little (I have relation mainly to myself), we wrestle little. I am like one travelling in the night, who seeth a spirit, and sweateth for fear, and careth not to tell it to his fellow, for fear of increasing his own fear. However, I am sure, when the Master is nigh His coming, it were safe to write over a double, and a new copy, of our accounts of the sins of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, and old age. What if Christ have another written representation of me than I have of myself? Sure He is right; and if it contradict my mistaken and sinfully erroneous account of myself, ah! where am I then? But, Madam, I discourage none. I know that Christ hath made a new marriage-contract of love, and sealed it with His blood, and the trembling believer shall not be confounded.

Grace be with you.

Yours, at all obedience, in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, May 26, 1658.

CCCLIV.—To my LADY KENMURE

(PREVAILING DECLENSION, DECAY, AND INDIFFERENCE TO GOD'S DEALINGS—THINGS FUTURE.)

MADAM,—I should be glad that the Lord would be pleased to lengthen out more time to you, that ye might, before your eyes be shut, see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord, in reviving a now swooning and crushed land and church. Though I was lately knocking at death's gate, yet could I not get in, but was sent back for a time. It is well if I could yet do any service to Him; but, ah! what deadness lieth upon the spirit! And deadness breedeth distance from God. Madam, these many years the Lord hath let you see a clear difference betwixt those who serve God and love His name, and those who serve Him not. And I judge that ye look upon the way of Christ as the only best way, and that ye would not exchange Christ for the world's god, or their mammon, and that ye can give Christ a testimony of "Chief among ten thousand." True it is that many of us have fallen from our first love; but Christ hath renewed His first love of our espousals to Himself, and multiplied the seekers of God all the country over, even where Christ was scarce named, east and west, south and north, above the number that our fathers ever knew.2 But, ah! Madam, what shall be done or said of many fallen stars, and many near to God complying wofully, and sailing to the nearest shore? Yea, and we are consumed in the furnace, but not melted; burned, but not purged. Our dross is not removed, but our scum remaineth in us; and in the furnace we fret, we faint, and (which is more strange) we slumber. The fire burneth round about us, and we lay it not to heart. Grey hairs are upon us, and we know it not.

It were now a desirable life to send away our love to heaven. And well it becometh us to wait for our appointed change, yet so as we should be meditating thus: "Is there a new world above the sun and moon? And is there such a blessed company harping and singing hallelujahs to the Lamb up above? Why, then, are we taken with a vain life of sighing and sinning? Oh, where is our wisdom, that we sit still, laughing, eating, sleeping prisoners, and do not pack up all our best things for the journey, desiring always to be clothed with our house from above, not made with hands!" Ah! we savour not the things that are above, nor do we smell of glory ere we come thither; but we transact and agree with time, for a new lease of clay mansions. Behold, He cometh! We sleep, and turn all the work of duties into dispute of events for deliverance. But the greatest haste, to be humbled for a broken and buried covenant, is first and last forgotten; and all our grief is, the Lord lingereth, enemies triumph, godly ones suffer, atheists blaspheme. Ah! we pray not; but wonder that Christ cometh not the higher way, by might, by power, by garments rolled in blood. What if He come the lower way? Sure we sin, in putting the book in His hand, as if we could teach the Almighty knowledge. We make haste; we believe not. Let the only wise God alone; He steereth well. He draweth straight lines, though we think and say they are crooked. It is right that some should die and their breasts full of milk; and yet we are angry that God dealeth so with them. Oh, if I could adore Him in His hidden ways, when there is darkness under His feet and darkness in His pavilion, and clouds are about His throne! Madam, hoping, believing, patient praying, is our life. He loseth no time.

The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, at all obliged observance in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Sept. 12, 1659.

CCCLV.—To the PRESBYTERY OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT, anent Union, with a desire to have Mr. William Rait Professor at St. Andrews

(UNION—HUMILIATION—CHOICE OF A PROFESSOR.)

REVEREND,—The desire of your W[isdoms] for union to me, who am below such a public mercy, and of so high concernment to the Church of Scotland, ought to be most acceptable. The name of peace is savoury, both good and pleasant. I so close with your godly and religious aim therein, as judging the Lord hath from heaven suggested to you, and inspired your spirits with, a fervent thirst and intention to promote the Gospel, that though I should judge myself (as in truth I am) lower than to suit from either Presbytery or Synod any favour, yet I shall, in all humility, beseech your W[isdoms] to prosecute with the power which Christ hath given you the work of union; and so much the more that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle. I offer to your W[isdoms'] serious consideration, the evident necessity of union with God, and of a serious and sound humiliation, and lying in the dust before the Lord for a broken covenant, declining from our former love, owning of such as we sometime judged to be malignant enemies and opposers of the work of reformation and of the sworn covenant of God, despising of the offered salvation of the Gospel, and coldness and indifferency in purging the house of God, and other causes of the sad judgments which we now are under. And my last and humble suit to your W[isdoms] is, that ye would be pleased to take in with this union the planting of the New College2 with a third master. It is a matter that concerns the whole Church of Scotland and seminary of the ministry thereof, and cannot be done but by a General Assembly. If, therefore, you have, dear brethren, judged me faithful of the Lord, and regard the work of the Lord, and the promoting of the kingdom of Christ (as I nothing doubt but it is the desire of your souls), give commission to the brethren sent to treat for union, at the meeting in Edinburgh or elsewhere, to join their authority and power, such as now may be had, to call, invite, and obtest some godly and able man, to embrace the charge of Professor in the College of Divinity in St. Andrews. And because Mr. William Rait, minister at Brechin, is a man for learning, godliness, prudence, and eminent authority in the Church of Scotland, sought for to the ministry by the town of Edinburgh, and also by Aberdeen, to preach the Gospel and to profess in the College, and hath the approbation of the present masters of the New College, the godly ministers of the Synod of Fife, of the Presbytery of St. Andrews, ministers of the city of St. Andrews, it is my soul's desire, and the heart-cry of students in the College, and of the godly in the city, that Mr. William Rait may be the man; and that your commissioners may be moved to deal with the commissioners of the Synod of Fife and Angus for that effect; so shall you be instrumental to repair our breaches, and build His house. So praying that your labours may not be in vain in the Lord, I rest (the Lord Jesus be with your spirit!) your unworthy brother and fellow-labourer in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, the 23rd October 1659.

CCCLVI.—To MR. JOHN MURRAY, Minister at Methven

[MR. JOHN MURRAY was one of the Protesters (see Baillie's "Letters"); and was committed prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh for meeting with a few of his brethren to draw up a congratulatory address to Charles II. upon his restoration, expressing their loyalty, and reminding him of the obligation of the Covenant. He was summoned to appear before the Parliament on the charge of high treason, but at length was liberated. About 1672 he was apprehended and imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for alleged house-conventicles. When set at liberty, he was confined to the parish of Queensferry, and ordained to wait upon ordinances and abstain from keeping conventicles, and to attend the parish church. (Wodrow's "History," vol. ii.)]

(A SYNOD PROPOSAL FOR UNION—BRETHREN UNDER CENSURE.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I would gladly know the issue of your Synod. We did profess we could not be concluded by the Synod of Fife's [overtures] of union, but upon condition of the taking off the censures of our brethren, which we think injuriously are inflicted. Much is promised to us for the remedying of these censures. I shall believe when I see their performances. I hope you will see that the brethren get no wrong, or the house of God in their persons; and send me a line of the conclusion of the Synod in that business. The paper of union is very general, and comes to no particulars: it only tells the good of union, and contains some obtestations to us that insinuate the unsavouriness of irregular courses; yet we thought it not safe to yield to any union of that kind, so long as our brethren are under the censures.3 I much doubt of their honest meaning, and that barriers in the way of entrant ministers and elders be revived. And I see no engagement, so much as verbal, for purging; but the contrary practice is here. Mr. Robert Anderson is as much opposed as if he were the most corrupt sectary or Jesuit.

My wife remembers her to you. Remember me to your own bed-fellow. Grace be with you.

Your own brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Jan. 25, 1660.

EDINBURGH CASTLE.

CCCLVII.—To his Reverend and dear Brethren, MR. GUTHRIE, MR. TRAILL, and the rest of their brethren imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh

[The circumstances of the case to which this letter refers are these:—On the 23rd of August 1660, the following ministers, Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, Mr. John Stirling and Mr. Robert Traill of Edinburgh, Mr. Alexander Moncrieff of Scoonie, Mr. John Semple of Carsfairn, Mr. Thomas Ramsay of Mordington, Mr. John Scot of Oxnam, Mr. Gilbert Hall of Kirkliston, Mr. John Murray of Methven, Mr. George Nairn of Burntisland, with two gentlemen, ruling elders, met in a private house in Edinburgh, to draw up an humble address to Charles II., congratulating his return, and expressing their entire and unfeigned loyalty, but at the same time reminding him of the obligation of the Covenant which he and the nation had sworn. Whilst thus employed, their papers were secured, by the order of the Committee of Estates; and they themselves were arrested, and committed close prisoners to the Castle of Edinburgh.]

(ON SUFFERING FOR CHRIST—GOD'S PRESENCE EVER WITH HIS PEOPLE—FIRMNESS AND CONSTANCY.)

REVEREND, NOW VERY DEAR, AND MUCH HONOURED PRISONERS FOR CHRIST,—I am, as to the point of light, at the utmost of persuasion in that kind that it is the cause of Christ which ye now suffer for, and not men's interest. If it be for men, let us leave it; but if we plead for God, our own personal safety and man's deliverance will not be peace.

There is a salvation called "the salvation of God," which is cleanly, pure, spiritual, unmixed, near to the holy word of God. It is that which we would seek, even the favour of God that He beareth to His people; not simple gladness, but the gladness and goodness of the Lord's chosen. And sure, though I be the weakest of His witnesses, and unworthy to be among the meanest of them, and am afraid that the Cause be hurt (but it cannot be lost) by my unbelieving faintness, I would not desire a deliverance separated from the deliverance of the Lord's cause and people. It is enough to me to sing when Zion singeth, and to triumph when Christ triumpheth. I should judge it an unhappy joy to rejoice when Zion sigheth. "Not one hoof" will be your peace. (Exod. 10:26.)

If Christ doth own me, let me be in the grave in a bloody winding-sheet, and go from the scaffold in four quarters, to grave or no grave. I am His debtor, to seal with sufferings this precious truth; but, oh! when it cometh to the push, I dare say nothing, considering my weakness, wickedness, and faintness. But fear not ye. Ye are not, ye shall not be, alone: the Father is with you. It was not an unseasonable, but a seasonable and a necessary duty ye were about. Fear Him who is Sovereign. Christ is captain of the castle and Lord of the keys. The cooling well-spring, and refreshment from the promises, are more than the frownings of the furnace. I see snares and temptations in capitulating, composing, ceding, minching with distinctions of circumstances, formalities, compliments, and extenuations, in the cause of Christ. "A long spoon: the broth is hell-hot." Hold a distance from carnal compositions, and much nearness to the fountain, to the favour and refreshing light from the Father of lights speaking in His oracles. This is sound health and salvation. Angels, men, Zion's elders, eye us; but what of all these? Christ is by us, and looketh on us, and writeth up all. Let us pray more, and look less to men.

Remember me to Mr. Scott, and to all the rest. Blessings be upon the head of such as are separated from their brethren. Joseph is a fruitful bough by a well.

Grace be with you.

Your loving brother and companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1660.

CCCLVIII.—TO SEVERAL BRETHREN.

Reasons for petitioning his Majesty after his return, and for owning such as were censured while about so necessary a duty

REVEREND AND DEAR BRETHREN,—It is a matter of difficulty to me to write at this distance, not having heard your debates. It seemeth that the Lord calleth us to give information to the King's Majesty of affairs. The Lord's admirable providence, in bringing him to his throne, and laying aside others who were sworn enemies to the cause and covenant of God, so that now the Government is in a right line, is to be adored. And I judge (without prescribing) that some should be sent to his Majesty to congratulate that providence; and that reason of our being so slow in rendering should be rendered.

1. We should write, not in the name of the Kirk of Scotland, but in the name of a most considerable number of godly ministers, elders, and professors, who both pray for the King, are obedient to his laws, and are under the oath of God for the sworn Reformation.

2. It is better now, than after sentences and trouble, to have recourse to him who is by place parens patriæ.

3. We should supplicate in all humility for protection and countenance; far more for lawful liberty to fear the bond of the oath of the dreadful and most high Lord; avouching to his Majesty, that the Lord, His holy name being interposed, will own that Covenant, and bless his Majesty with a happy and successful reign, in the owning thereof, and kissing of the Son of God. And when the Lord shall be pleased to grant that to us which concerneth religion, the beauty of His house, the propagating of the Gospel, the government of the Lord's kingdom, without Popery, Prelacy, unwritten traditions and ceremonies, let his Majesty try our loyalty with what commands he will be pleased to lay on us, and see if we be found rebellious.

4. We should disclaim such as have sinfully complied with the late usurpers; produce our written testimonies against them; our not accepting of offices and places of trust from them; our testimonies against their usurpation, covenant-breaking, toleration of all religions, corrupt sectarian ways, for which the Lord hath broken them.

5. We are represented to his Majesty as such as would not consent that the Remonstrance of the western forces should be condemned by the Commission of the General Assembly; whereas, 1. We did humbly desire that the judicature should not condemn nor censure that Remonstrance, till the gentlemen were heard, and their reasons discussed. 2. Whatever demur was as to the banding or combining part of it, we were and are obliged to believe that they had no sectarian design therein, nor levelling intention. 3. They are gentlemen most loyal, and never were enemies to his Majesty's royal power; but only desired that security might be had for religion and the people of God, and persons disaffected to religion and the sworn Covenant abandoned; otherwise they were, and still are, willing to hazard lives and estates for the just greatness and safety of his Majesty in the maintenance of the true religion, Covenant, and cause of God. The only difficulty will be, where to have fit men to send. But as it will be both sin and shame for us to desert our undeservedly now censured brethren, so it will be our sin and reproach sinfully to comply with such things and courses as we testified against, and confessed to God.

I can say no more at present but that I am your loving brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1660.

CCCLIX.—To a BROTHER MINISTER

Judgment of a draught or minute of a Petition, to have been presented to the Committee of Estates, by those Ministers who were then prisoners in the Castle of Edinburgh for that other well-known Petition to his Majesty, about which they were when seized upon and made prisoners.

["But that no man may mistake or judge amiss of persons so fixed in the cause and faithful in their generations, know that this draught was not sent to Mr. Rutherford as a paper concluded and condescended upon among these brethren, whose love to truth made them in all things so tender that they were ever fond to abstain from all appearance of evil. It was more like the suggestion of some other men (wherein was laid before them what kind of address would most probably please, waiving the just measures of what was simply duty in their circumstances), than anything flowing from themselves, as the product of a mature deliberation. And, secondly, know (which confirmeth what was said), that whatever it was, or whoever gave the rise to it, yet it was never made use of, nor presented to the Committee of Estates, by any of these faithful men, whose praise, for their fidelity, fixedness, real and untainted integrity, is in the churches of Christ" (Note by Mr. Robert M'Ward, the original editor of Rutherford's "Letters").]

DEAR BROTHER,—I am, as ye know, straitened as another suffering man, but dare not petition this Committee:—

1. Because it draweth us to capitulate with such as have the advantage of the mount, the Lord so disposing for the present: and, to bring the matters of Christ to yea and no (ye being prisoners and they the powers) is a hazard.

2. A speaking to them in write, and passing in silence the sworn Covenant and the cause of God (which is the very present controversy), is contrary to the practice of Christ and the Apostles, who, being accused or not accused, avouched Christ to be the Son of God and the Messias, and that the dead must rise again, even when the adversary misstated the question. Yea, silence on the cause of God, which adversaries persecute, seemeth a tacit deserting of the cause, when the state of the question is known to beholders: and I know that the brethren intend not to leave the cause.

3. I know of no offence that you have given (I will not say what offence may be taken), either as to the matter or manner of your petition. For, if what you have done be a necessary duty laid aside by others, a duty can never give an offence to Christ, and so none to men; but Christians will look upon a pious, harmless, and innocent petition to the Prince, in the matters of the Lord's honour and the good of His church (though proffered by one or two, when they are silent whose it is to speak and act), as a seasonable duty.

4. The draught of that petition, which you sent me, speaketh not one word of the Covenant of God for the adhering to which you now suffer, and which is the object of men's hatred, and the destruction whereof is the great work of the times. Your silence in this nick of time appeareth to be a non-confession of Christ before men; and you want nothing to beget an uncleanly deliverance but the profession of silence.

5. There is a promise and real purpose, as the petition saith, to live peaceably under the King's authority. But, 1. Ye do not answer candidly and ingenuously the mind of the rulers, who, to your knowledge, mean a far other thing by authority than ye do. For ye mean, his just authority, his authority in the Lord, and his just greatness, in the maintenance of true religion, as in the Covenant, Confession of Faith, and Catechisms, is expressed from the Word of God: they mean his supreme authority, and absolute prerogative above laws, as their acts make clear, and as their practice is. For they refused, to such as were unwilling to subscribe their bond, to add "authority in the Lord," or, "just and lawful authority," or "authority as it is expressed in the Covenant." But this draught of a petition, under your own hand, yieldeth the sense and meaning to them which they crave. 2. That authority for which they contend is exclusive of the sworn Covenant; so that, except ye had said, "We shall be subject to the King's authority in the Lord, or according to the sworn Covenant," ye say nothing to the point in hand; and that, sure, is not your meaning. 3. Whoever promised so much peaceable living under his Majesty's authority, leaving out the exposition of the fifth commandment, as your petition doth, may upon the very same ground subscribe the bond refused by the godly; and so you pass from the Covenant, and make all those by-past actings of this Kirk and State, these years by-past, to be horrid rebellion! And how deep that guiltiness draweth, consider.

6. A condemning of the Remonstrance, simply and without any limitation and distinction, is a condemning of many precious ones in the land, and a passing from the causes of God's wrath, which is the chief matter of the Remonstrance.

7. That nothing is before your eyes but the exoneration of your conscience, is indeed believed by the godly who know you; but a passing in silence of the honest materials in your former petition to his Majesty seemeth to be a deserting thereof, since, in all your petition, ye do not once say ye cannot but adhere to that pious petition, as your necessary duty. And, that ye intend in the petition the happiness of his Majesty, is also believed.

Dear brother, show to our brethren, that the Lord Christ, in your persons, hath a stated question betwixt Him and the powers on earth. The only wise God lead you now, when He hath brought you forth in public, so to act as if ye did see Jesus Christ by you, and beholding you. It is easy for such as are on the shore to throw a counsel to those that are tossed in the sea; but, only by living by faith, and by fetching strength and comfort from Christ, can you be victorious, and have right to the precious promises "of the tree of life," "of the hidden manna," of the gifted "morning star," and the like, made to those who overcome: to whose strength and grace, brethren who desire with me to remember you do recommend you. I am, dear brother,

Yours, in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1660.

CCCLX.—For the Right Honourable my LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE [On the imprisonment of the Marquis of Argyle]

(GOD'S JUDGMENTS CALLING TO FLEE TO HIM—THE RESULT OF TIMID COMPLIANCE.)

MADAM,—It is not my part to be unmindful of you. Be not afflicted for your brother, the Marquis of Argyle. As to the main, in my weak apprehension, the seed of God being in him, and love to the people of God and His cause, it will be well. The making of particular reckoning with the Lord, and of peace with God, and owning of His cause when too many disown it, will make his peace with the King the surer.2 The Lord is beginning to reckon with such as did forsake His cause and covenant; and until we return to Him, our peace shall not be like a river and as the waves of the sea. However, the opening of the bosom to take in all the Malignants can produce no better fruits. The Lord calleth us to flee into our chambers, and shut the doors, till the indignation be over. (Isa. 26:20.) The lily among the thorns is so served. He hideth Himself, and our mountain is removed, and we are troubled. But the Lord reigneth; let the earth tremble, and let the earth rejoice. The Lord, without blood, broke the yoke of usurping oppressors, and laid them aside: the same Lord can settle throne and kingdom on the pillars of heaven. But, oh, the controversy the Lord hath with Edom, and those who covenanted with us, and then sold us; and with those of whom the Holy Ghost speaketh, "Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee; they have not discovered thine iniquity to turn away thy captivity, but have seen for thee false burdens, and causes of banishment" (Lam. 2:14). The time of Jacob's suffering is but short, and the vision will speak. Could we be from under deadness, and watch unto wrestling and prayer with the Lord, and live more by faith, we should be more than conquerors. Wait upon the Lord; faint not.

The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, at all respective observance in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, July 24, 1660.

CCCLXI.—For MISTRESS CRAIG, upon the Death of her hopeful Son, who was drowned while washing himself in a river in France

(NINE REASONS FOR RESIGNATION.)

MISTRESS,—You have so learned Christ as now (in the furnace) what dross, what shining of faith may appear, must come forth. I heard of the removal of your son, Mr. Thomas. Though I be dull enough in discerning, yet I was witness to some spiritual savouriness of the new birth and hope of the resurrection, which I saw in the hopeful youth, when he was, as was feared, a-dying in this city. And, since it was written and advisedly appointed, in the spotless and holy decree of the Lord, where, and before what witnesses, and in what manner, whether by a fever, the mother being at the bed, or by some other way in a far country (dear patriarchs died in Egypt, precious to the Lord, and have wanted burials) (Ps. 79:3), your safest way will be, to be silent, and command the heart to utter no repining and fretting thoughts of the holy dispensation of God.

1. The man is beyond the hazard of dispute; the precious youth is perfected and glorified.

2. Had the youth lain, year and day, pained beside a witnessing mother, it had been pain and grief lengthened out to you in many portions, and every parcel would have been a little death. Now His holy Majesty hath, in one lump and mass, brought to your ears the news, and hath not divided the grief into many portions.

3. It was not yesterday's thought, nor the other year's statute, but a counsel of the Lord of old; and "who can teach the Almighty knowledge?"

4. There is no way of quieting the mind, and of silencing the heart of a mother, but godly submission. The readiest way for peace and consolation to clay vessels is, that it is a stroke of the Potter and Former of all things. And since the holy Lord hath loosed the grip, when it was fastened sure on your part, I know that your light, and I hope that your heart, also, will yield. It is not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the omnipotent Lord. Let the pull go with Him, for He is strong; and say, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

5. His holy method and order is to be adored. Sometimes the husband before the wife, and sometimes the son before the mother. So hath the only wise God ordered; and when he is sent before, and not lost, in all things give thanks.

6. Meditate not too much on the sad circumstances, "the mother was not witness to the last sigh; possibly, cannot get leave to wind the son, nor to weep over his grave;" and, "he was in a strange land!" There is a like nearness to heaven out of all the countries of the earth.

7. This did not spring out of the dust. Feed and grow fat by this medicine and fare of the only wise Lord. It is the art and the skill of faith to read what the Lord writeth upon the cross, and to spell and construct right His sense. Often we miscall words and sentences of the cross, and either put nonsense on His rods, or burden His Majesty with slanders and mistakes, when He mindeth for us thoughts of peace and love, even to do us good in the latter end.

8. It is but a private stroke on a family, and little to the public arrows shot against grieved Joseph, and the afflicted, but ah! dead, senseless, and guilty people of God. This is the day of Jacob's trouble!

9. There is a bad way of wilful swallowing of a temptation, and not digesting it, or laying it out of memory without any victoriousness of faith. The Lord, who forbiddeth fainting, forbiddeth also despising. But it is easier to counsel than to suffer: the only wise Lord furnish patience.

It were not amiss to call home the other youth. I am not a little afflicted for my Lady Kenmure's condition. I desire you, when ye see her, to remember my humble respects to her. My wife heartily remembereth her to you; and is wounded much in mind with your present condition, and suffereth with you.

Grace be with you.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Aug. 4, 1660.

CCCLXII.—For my Reverend and dear Brother, Christ's Soldier in bonds, MR. JAMES GUTHRIE, Minister of the Gospel at Stirling

(STEDFAST THOUGH PERSECUTED—BLESSEDNESS OF MARTYRDOM.)

DEAR BROTHER,—We are very often comforted with the word of promise; though we stumble not a little at the work of holy providence, some earthly men flourishing as a green herb, and the people of God counted as sheep for the slaughter, and killed all the day long. And yet both word of promise, and work of providence, are from Him whose ways are equal, straight, holy, and spotless.

As for me, when I think of God's dispensations, He might justly have brought to the market-cross, and to the light, my unseen and secret abominations; which would have been no small reproach to the holy name and precious truths of Christ. But in mercy He hath covered these, and shapen and carved out more honourable causes of suffering, of which we are unworthy.

And now, dear brother, much dependeth upon the way and manner of suffering, especially that His precious truths be owned with all heavenly boldness, and a reason of our hope given in meekness and fear; and the royal crown, and absolute supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of the kings of the earth, avouched as becometh. For certain it is that Christ will reign, the Father's King in Mount Zion, and His sworn covenant will not be buried. It is not denied that our practical breach of covenant first, and then, our legal breach thereof by enacting the same mischief and framing it into a law, may heavily provoke our sweetest Lord. Yet there are a few names in the land that have not defiled their garments, and a holy seed on whom the Lord will have mercy, like the four or five olive-berries on the top of the shaken olive-tree (Isa. 17:6): and their eye shall be toward the Lord their Maker. Think it not strange that men devise against you; whether it be to exile, the earth is the Lord's; or perpetual imprisonment, the Lord is your light and liberty; or a violent and public death, for the kingdom of heaven consisteth in a fair company of glorified martyrs and witnesses; of whom Jesus Christ is the chief witness, who for that cause was born, and came into the world. Happy are ye if you give testimony to the world of your preferring Jesus Christ to all powers. And the Lord will make the innocency and Christian loyalty of His defamed and despised witnesses in this land to shine to after-generations, and will take The Man-Child up to God and to His throne, and prepare a hiding-place in the wilderness for the mother, and cause the earth to help the Woman. Be not terrified; fret not. Forgive your enemies; bless, and curse not; for, though both you and I should be silent, sad and heavy is the judgment and indignation of the Lord, that is abiding the unfaithful watchmen of the Church of Scotland. The souls under the altar are crying for justice, and there is an answer returned already. The Lord's salvation will not tarry.

Cast the burden of wife and children on the Lord Christ; He careth for you and them. Your blood is precious in His sight. The everlasting consolations of the Lord bear you up and give you hope; for your salvation (if not deliverance) is concluded.

Your own brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, Feb. 15, 1661.

CCCLXIII.—To MR. ROBERT CAMPBELL

[MR. ROBERT CAMPBELL was minister of a parish in the Presbytery of Dunkeld. He was a Protester, and after the restoration of Charles II. Was ejected for nonconformity to Prelacy.]

(STEDFASTNESS TO PROTEST AGAINST PRELACY AND POPERY.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Ye know that this is a time in which all men almost seek their own things, and not the things of Jesus Christ. Ye are your lone, as a beacon on the top of a mountain; but faint not: Christ is a numerous multitude Himself, yea, millions. Though all the nations were convened against Him round about, yet doubt not but He will, at last, arise for the cry of the poor and needy.

For me, I am now near to eternity; and, for ten thousand worlds I dare not venture to pass from the protestation against the corruptions of the time, nor go alongst with the shameless apostasy of the many silent and dumb watchmen of Scotland. But I think it my last duty to enter a protestation in heaven, before the righteous Judge, against the practical and legal breach of Covenant, and all oaths imposed on the consciences of the Lord's people, and all popish, superstitious, and idolatrous mandates of men. Know that the overthrow of the sworn Reformation, the introducing of Popery and the mystery of iniquity, is now set on foot in the three kingdoms; and whosoever would keep their garments clean are under that command, "Touch not, taste not, handle not."

The Lord calleth you, dear brother, to be still "stedfast, unmoveable, and abounding in the work of the Lord." Our royal kingly Master is upon His journey, and will come, and will not tarry; and blessed is the servant who shall be found watching when He cometh. Fear not men, for the Lord is your light and salvation. It is true, it is somewhat sad and comfortless that ye are your lone; but so it was with our precious Master: nor are ye your lone, for the Father is with you. It is possible that I shall not be an eyewitness to it in the flesh, but I believe He cometh quickly who will remove our darkness, and shine gloriously in the Isle of Britain, as a crowned King, either in a formally sworn covenant, or in His own glorious way; which I leave to the determination of His infinite wisdom and goodness. And this is the hope and confidence of a dying man, who is longing and fainting for the salvation of God.

Beware of the ensnaring bonds and obligations, by any hand-writ or otherwise, to give unlimited obedience to any authority, but only in the Lord. For all innocent self-defence (which is according to the Covenant, the Word of God, and the laudable example of the reformed churches) is now intended to be utterly subverted and condemned: and what is taken from Christ, as the flower of His prerogative-royal, is now put upon the head of a mortal power; which must be that great idol of indignation that provoketh the eyes of His glory. Dear brother, let us mind the rich promises that are made to those that overcome, knowing that those that endure to the end shall be saved.

Thus recommending you to the rich grace of God, I remain,

Your affectionate brother in Christ,

S. R.

CCCLXIV.—To [Brethren in] ABERDEEN

(SINFUL CONFORMITY AND SCHISMATIC DESIGNS REPROVED.)

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD,—Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

There were some who rendered thanks, with knees bowed to Him "of whom is named the whole family in heaven and earth," when they heard of "your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus;" and rejoiced not a little, that where Christ was scarce named, in savouriness and power of the Gospel, even in Aberdeen, there Christ hath a few names precious to Him, who shall walk with Him in white. We looked on it (He knoweth whom we desire to serve in our spirit in the Gospel of His Son) as a part of the fulfilling of that, "The wilderness and solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose" (Isa. 35:1). But now it is more grievous to us than a thousand deaths, when we hear that you are shaken, and so soon removed from that which you once acknowledged to be the way of God. Dearly beloved, the sheep follow Christ, who calleth them by name: a stranger they will not follow, but they flee from him, for they know not the voice of a stranger. Ye know the way, by which ye were sealed to the day of redemption; and ye received the Spirit, by the hearing of faith. Part not with that way, except ye see there be no rest for your souls therein. Neither listen to them that say, "Many were converted under episcopal as well as under presbyterial government, and yet the godly gave testimony against bishops;" for the instruments of conversion loathed Episcopacy, with the ceremonies thereof, and never sealed it with their sufferings. We shall desire instances of any engaged by oaths, and sufferings of the faithful messengers of God, and the manifestations of the Lord's presence, in the way ye now forsake, who yet turned from it, and went one step toward sinful separation (and did it in that way ye now aim at), and did yet flourish and grow in grace. But we can bring proofs of many who left it, and went further on to abominable ways of error. And you have it not in your power where you shall lodge at night, having once left the way of God. And many, we know, lost peace and communion with God, and fell into a condition of withering, and not being able to find their lovers, were forced to return to their first Husband. We shall entreat you, consider what a stumbling it is to malignant opposers of the way and cause of God (who with their ears heard you, and with their eyes saw you, so strenuously take part with the godly in their sufferings, and profess yourselves for religion, truth, doctrine, government of the house of God, His Covenant and cause), if now you build again what you once destroyed, and destroy what you builded. And shall you not make yourselves, by so doing, transgressors? How shall it wound the hearts of the godly, stain the profession, darken the glory of the Gospel, shake the faith of many, weaken the hands of all, if you (and you first of all in this kingdom) shall stretch out the hand to raze the walls of our Jerusalem, by reason of which the Lord made her "terrible as an army with banners!" For when kings came, and saw the palaces and bulwarks thereof, they marvelled and were troubled, and hasted away; fear took hold upon them there, and pain as of a woman in travail. And we shall be grieved, if you should be heirs to the guiltiness of breaking down the same hedge of the vineyard, for the which the sad indignation of God pursueth this day the Royal Family, many Nobles, houses great and fair, and all the Prelatical party in these three kingdoms. And when your dear brethren are weak and fainting, shall we believe that you will leave us, and be divided from this so blessed a conjunction? The Lord Jesus Christ, we trust, shall walk in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and be with us, if you will be gone from us. Beloved in the Lord, we cannot but be persuaded better things of you; and we shall not conceal from you that we are ignorant what to answer when we are reproved, on your behalf, in regard that your change to another gospel-way (which the Lord avert!) is so much the more scandalous, that the sudden alteration (unknown to us before) now overtaketh you when men come amongst you against whom the furrows of the fields of Scotland do complain. Forget not, dear brethren, that Christ hath now the fan in His hand, and this is also the day of the Lord, that shall burn as an oven; and that Christ now sitteth as a refiner of silver, purifying the sons of Levi, and purging them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness; and those that keep the word of His (not their own) patience shall be delivered from the hour of temptation, that shall come on all the earth to try them.

If ye exclude all non-converts from the visible city of God (in which, daily, multitudes in Scotland, in all the four quarters of the land, above whatever our fathers saw, throng into Christ), shall they not be left to the lions and wild beasts of the forest, even to Jesuits, seminary-priests, and other seducers? For the magistrate hath no power to compel them to hear the Gospel, nor have ye any church-power over them, as ye teach; and they bring not love to the Gospel and to Christ out of the womb with them; and so they must be left to embrace what religion is most suitable to corrupt nature. Nor can it be a way approven by the Lord in Scripture, to excommunicate from the visible church (which is the office-house of the free grace of Christ, and His draw-net) all the multitudes of non-converts, baptized, and visibly within the covenant of grace, which are in Great Britain, and all the reformed churches; and so to shut the gates of the Lord's gracious calling upon all these (because they are not, in your judgment, chosen to salvation), when once you are within yourselves. For how can the Lord call Egypt His people, and Assyria the work of His hands, and all the Gentiles (who for numbers are as the flocks of Kedar, and the abundance of the sea) the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, if you number infants (as many do), and all such as your charity cannot judge converts (as others do) among heathens and pagans, who have not a visible claim and interest in Christ? The candlestick is not yours, nor the house; but Christ fixeth and removeth the one, and buildeth or casteth down the other, according to His sovereignty. We in humility judge ourselves, though the chief of sinners, the sons of Zion and of the seed of Christ; if ye remove from us, and carry from hence the candlestick, let our Father be judge, and show us why the Lord hath bidden you come out from among us. We look upon this visible church, though black and spotted, as the hospital and guest-house of sick, halt, maimed, and withered, over which Christ is Lord, Physician, and Master: and we would wait upon those that are not yet in Christ, as our Lord waited upon us and you both. We, therefore, your brethren, children of one Father, cannot but with tears and exceeding sorrow of heart earnestly entreat, beseech, and obtest you, by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, by His sufferings and precious ransom which He paid for us both, by the consolations of His Spirit, by your appearance before the dreadful tribunal of our Lord Jesus, yea, and charge you before God and the same Lord Jesus, "who shall judge the quick and the dead, at His appearing, and His kingdom;" break not the spirits and hearts of those to whom ye are dear as their own soul. Forsake not the assemblies of the people of God; let us not divide.

Not a few of the people of God in this shire of Fife (in whose name I now write) dare say, if ye depart, that ye will leave Christ behind you with us, and the golden candlesticks; and shut yourselves, we much fear, out of the hearts and prayers of thousands dear to Jesus Christ in Scotland. Therefore, before ye fix judgment and practice on any untrodden path, let a day of humiliation be agreed upon by us all, and our Father's mind and will inquired, through our one common Saviour. And let us see one another's faces at best conveniency, and plead the interest of Christ, and be comforted; and not be stumbled at your ways.

So expecting your answer, we shall pray that the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, may make you perfect in every work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ. And I shall remain,

Your affectionate brother in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCLXV.—To MR. JOHN MURRAY, Minister at Methven [See Letter CCCLVI.]

(PROPOSAL OF A SEASON OF PRAYER.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—If I rightly apprehend our condition, we are in a way of declining. We were, within these few years, more in the conscionable use of means, and the Lord did shine upon us in some measure; and now we are fallen from that which we were. It is judged fit by some (and many of our solidest professors) that if we cannot have them in congregations, yet families and private persons may have days of humiliation, at least the last Wednesday of every month or thereabout, according to the best conveniency of Providence. And if this were gone about in your country, and in Stirlingshire, Fife, in Merse, Teviotdale, the West, in Nithsdale and Galloway, and other places, it would prove our strength and help; for we are few and very low. Our adversaries are not idle; and there is a faintness and heartless discouragement on the spirits of many. These are to entreat that you would combine with Mr. Robert Campbell, Mr. John Cruickshanks,3 and other of our brethren in your bounds, to stir up one another that we may wrestle with the Lord for the remnant. I am confident the Lord will yet be inquired of us for this. Though the same particular day be not observed, yet, where many are on work, some salvation from the Lord's arm is to be expected. I am decaying most sensibly, and I should look on it as a mercy if the Lord would send a wakening among His own. And blessed shall he be who shall blow the trumpet to cause other sleeping ones awake, and shall help to build the wastes, and the fallen tabernacle of David. I shall earnestly desire you do bestir yourself herein. I shall write to J——, and to others here, and do the best I can to give you a convenient account; for nothing is left to us but that.

So remembering me to your wife, and expecting your help, I rest,

Your own brother,

S. R.

[ST. ANDREWS.]

Mr. Robert Anderson is most eagerly desired for by the parishioners of Leuchars, and as strenuously opposed by our brethren here.

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