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.

  [285] To keep up my character with 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
     Rons' 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.[286]

  [286] Mr. Andrew Cant was at this time minister of Pitsligo, in
  Buchan, Aberdeenshire. He had been previously minister of Alford. In
  1639 he was removed from Pitsligo to Newbottle, and in 1640 to the New
  Town of Aberdeen, where he became Professor of Theology in Marischal
  College. In this situation he continued till the year after the
  restoration of Charles II. Rutherford's "Lex Rex" having then, by the
  orders of the State, been publicly burnt, and the author himself
  summoned before Parliament to answer an accusation of high treason,
  Cant, indignant at such ungenerous treatment of a great and good man,
  condemned it in one of his sermons. For this he was accused of treason
  before the magistrates. Whereupon he demitted his charge, and came to
  dwell with his son at Liberton. In 1663 he was formally deposed by the
  Bishop and Synod of Aberdeen, and died not long after, aged
  seventy-nine. He is the author of a treatise on "The Titles of our
  Blessed Saviour."

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. xvii. 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,[287] and a lovely companion to a poor prisoner.

  [287] Helper.

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 needforce 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,[288] 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.

  [288] John Campbell, first Earl of Loudon, and his lady, Margaret
  Campbell, Baroness of Loudon, daughter of George Campbell, master of
  Loudon.

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_[289] 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.

  [289] An act in which we address men, not God.

_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
_prædicatio 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,[290] I rest, yours, in his sweet
Lord Jesus,

  S. R.

  ABERDEEN, _June 15, 1637_.

  [290] In some editions it is "sweet grace;" but not so in the
  earliest.

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[291] 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 ii. 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 ii. 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!

  [291] Insist on being admitted to.

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[292] 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.

  [292] Perhaps this should be _wind_, not "_word_;" alluding to Jer.
  iv. 12.

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 vi. 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"?[293] 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.

  [293] Those who got this meat for us.

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,[294] 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. xli. 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. xviii. 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 v. 1). Then let us
claim our leal-come and lawfully conquessed joy.

  [294] In Luther's style, he playfully speaks of himself as if raised
  to nobility among prisoners.

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[295] 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!

  [295] "Feast" is in most editions.

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,[296] 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.

  [296] In old editions, "totch;" and explained to be a sudden push,
  such a push, too, as sets the object in motion. The allusion is to 2
  Sam. vi. 6.

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. ii. 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[297] 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.

  [297] "To lie on" is for a thing to be a matter of duty or obligation,
  or of legal security. Christ has laid His comprisement on glory; He
  hath taken care that the mourners in Zion be secured in possession of
  glory.

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![298] 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!

  [298] Far from receiving what I owe to it.

Dear brother, I cannot tell what is become of my labours among that
people! If all that my Lord builded by me be casted 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. x. 26), in a closed window (Dan. vi.
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. xliii. 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,[299] 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. ii. 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."

  [299] Should we not read "_doth_?"

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. lxxviii. 34, 36). It is part of our
hypocrisy, to give God fair, white words,[300] 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.

  [300] Plausible speeches.

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,[301] 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.

  [301] I am not obliged to run slowly.

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. vi. 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[302] 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.

  [302] Drowned over head and ears in His debt.

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 PEOPLE'S 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. lxxxix. 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;[303] 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.

  [303] The river Ayr flows close to Gaitgirth; so that, in time of
  flood, Lady Gaitgirth would often see an exemplification of what is
  alluded to,--the water loosening the tree's roots.

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[304] 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.

  [304] Only just attempting.

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.[305] 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.[306] 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.

  [305] Thomas Sydserff, now Bishop of Galloway, was the chief
  instrument in procuring Rutherford's banishment to Aberdeen. He was
  minister of the College Church, Edinburgh; and afterwards successively
  Bishop of Brechin, Galloway, and Orkney. He early imbibed Arminian
  principles, and promoted the measures of Archbishop Laud, and was
  supposed to lean to Popery, it being generally believed that he wore
  under his coat a crucifix of gold. All this rendered him so unpopular,
  that, on appearing in the streets of Edinburgh in 1637, when great
  excitement existed on account of the Service-Book, he was attacked by
  the matrons of the city. He had equal reason to "cry to the gentlemen
  for help" under similar attacks in other places. At the Restoration of
  Charles II. he was the only surviving bishop in Scotland. He was then
  nominated to the see of Orkney, but survived his promotion little more
  than a year.

  [306] Dr. Thomas Jackson, Dean of Peterborough, first held Calvinistic
  sentiments, but afterwards became an Arminian,--a change which
  recommended him to the favour and patronage of Archbishop Laud. He was
  a man of talent, and the author of various theological works, of which
  his "Commentary on the Apostles' Creed" is the most important.
  Rutherford's book against the Arminians, here referred to, in which he
  treated Jackson with little ceremony, and which was one cause of his
  banishment by the High Commission Court, is entitled, "Exercitationes
  Apologeticæ pro Divinâ Gratiâ." It was published at Amsterdam in the
  beginning of the year 1636, and gained the author no small reputation
  abroad. Baillie, in giving an account of Rutherford's trial before the
  High Commission Court, says: "They were animate also against him for
  taxing Cameron in his book; and most, for his indiscreet railing at
  Jackson" ("Letters and Journals").

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. xxxi. 8, 9),
"Going and weeping, and seeking the Lord; asking the way to Zion, with
their faces thitherward" (Jer. l. 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. cxxxi.). 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 iv. 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 over-clouded 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[307] 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. i. 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!

  [307] _For_; _i.e._ instead of.

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[308] 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.

  [308] Come before.

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. Kirkcud."). 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.[309] 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).]

  [309] The exact historical truth of these two martyrdoms is attested
  beyond denial by the full record, entered only a few years after the
  event, in the Minutes of the Kirk-Session of Penningham, with which
  the martyrs were connected.

(_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 holy-day'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[310] 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.

  [310] To be attended to at a leisure moment.

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 friend 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. xxxvi. 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[311] 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.

  [311] Is left there unreaped; Ps. cxxix. 8.

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. iii. 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[312] I have sent out to the feckless creatures in it.

  [312] Pack up for Christ the desires which I used to send out to the
  worthless things of earth.

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[313] _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. ii. 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.

  [313] Untamed, unruly.

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, and 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