Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 3
To the Honourable, Reverend, and Welbeloved Professors of Christ, & his Truth in sincerity in Ireland. (3)
DEarly beloved in our Lord, & partakers of the heavenly calling, Grace, mercy & peace be to you, from God our father, & from our Lord Jesus Christ: I alwayes but most of all now in my bonds (most sweet bonds for Christ my Lord) rejoyce, to hear of your faith, and love, & to hear that our King, our welbeloved, our bridegroom, without tireing, stayeth still to wooe you, as his wife; and that persecutions, & mockings of sinners have not chased away the wooer from the house, I perswade you in the Lord, the men of God now Scattered, & driven from you; put you upon the right sent and pursuit of Christ, & my salvation on it (if ten heavens were mine) if this way, this way that I now suffer for, this way that the world nicknameth, and reproacheth, & no other way, be not the Kings gate to heaven; & I shall never see Gods face (and alace I were a beguiled wretch if it were so) if this be not the only saving way to heaven. Oh that you would take a prisoner of Christs word for it, nay I know you have the greatest Kings word for it, that it shall not be your wisdom to spier out another Christ, another way of worshiping him, then is now savingly revealed to you. Therfore though I never saw your faces let me be pardoned to write to you ye honourable persons, ye faithfull Pastors yet amongst the flocks, and ye sincere professors of Christs truth, or any weak tired strayers who cast but halfe an eye after the bridegroom; if possibly I could by any weak experience, confirme and strengthen you, in this good way every where spoken against. I can with greatest assurance (to the honour of our highest, & greatest & dearest Lord let it be spoken) assert, (though I be but a child in Christ, and scarce able to walk, but by a hold, & the meanest and lesse then the least of Saints) that we doe not come nigh, by twentie degrees, to the due love & estimation of that fairest among the sons of men; for if it were possible that heaven yea ten heavens, were laid in the ballance with Christ, I would think the smell of his breath, above them all: sure I am he is the far best halfe of heaven, yea he is all heaven, and more then all heaven; & my testimonie of him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten deaths, ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, and all exquisit torments; were all too little for Christ, if our suffering could be a hire to buy him: and therefore faint not in your sufferings, & hasards for him, I proclaim & cry hell, sorrow, and shame upon all lusts, upon all by-lovers, that would take Christs room over his head in this little inch of love, of these narrow souls of ours that is due to sweetest Jesus. O highest, O fairest, O dearest Lord Jesus, take thine ovvn from all bastard lovers! O that vve could wodset, & sell all our part of times glory and times good things, for a lease, & tack of Christ for all eternitie! O how are we misted, and mired with the love of things that are in this side of time and in this side of deaths water! where can we finde a match to Christ, or an equal or a better then he among created things? Oh this world is out of all conceit, & all love with our welbeloved. O that I could sell my laughter, joy, ease, and all for him; and be content of a straw-bed, and btead by weight, & water by measure, in the camp of our weeping Christ! I knovv his sackcloth and ashes, are better, then the fools laughter which is like the crackling of thornes under a pot. But alace we doe not harden our faces against the cold north stormes, which blow upon Christs fair face, we love well summer religion, & to be that which Sin hath made us, even as thin skinned, as if we were made of white paper, & would fain be carried to heaven in a cl…sse covered chariot, wishing from our hearts, that Christ vvould give us suretie, & his hand vvrite, & his seal, for nothing but a fair summer, untill we be landed, in at heavens gates; hovv many of us have been here deceived, & fainted, in the day of tryall; amongst you there are some of this Stamp, I shall be sorrie if my acquantance A. T. hath left you, I vvill not beleeve he dare stay from Christs side, I desire that ye shevv him this from me, for I loved him once in Christ, neither can I change my mind, suddenly of him. But the truth is that many both of you, & too many also of your neighbour church of Scotland, have been like a rennent that sitteth mealfree, & knovveth not his holding while his rights be questioned, and now I am persvvaded, it vvil be asked at every one of us, on what terms vve brooke Christ, for we have sitten long meal-free, vve found Christ vvithout a vvett foot, and He, and his gospel, came upon small charges to our Doors, but now we must wet our feet to seeke him: our evil manners; and the bad fashions of a people at ease from our youth, and like Moab not casten from vessell, to vessel, Jer. 48: 11. hes made us like standing waters, to gather a foul scumme, & when we are jumbled, our dregs come up, & are seen, many take but halfe a grip of Christ, & the wind bloweth them & Christ asunder; indeed when the mast is broken, & blown in the sea, it is ane art then to swim upon Christ, to drie land: 't is even possible that the children of God in a hard triall, lay them selves down, as hidden in the lea-side of a bush, vvhile Christ their master be taken; as Peter did; & lurke there; while the storme be overpast: all of us knovv the vvay to a vvhole skin, & the singlest heart that is, hath a by-purse; that vvill contian the deniall of Christ, & a fear…ull backslding. O hovv rare a thing is it, to be loyall, & honest to Christ, vvhen he hath a controversie vvth the sheelds of the earth, I vvish all of you, would consider, that this triall is from Christ, it is come upon you unbought (indeed when we buy a tentation with our own money, no marvel that we be not easily free of it, and that God be not at our elbow to take it off our hand) this is Christs ordinarie house-fire that he maks use of, to try all the vessells of his house Withall, & Christ now is about to bring his treasure out before sun & moon, & to tell his money, & in the telling, to try what vveight of gold, & vvhat vveight of vvatered copper is in his house: Doe not novv jouke, or bovv, or yeeld to your adversaries in a hairbreadth; Christ and his truth vvill not divide, & his truth hath not latitude & breadth, that ye may take some of it, & leave other some of it, nay the gospel is like a small hair, that hath no breadth & vvil not cleave in tvvo, it is not possible to tryste & compound a matter betvvixt Christ & Antichrist, & therefore ye must either be for Christ, or ye must be against him; It vvas but mans vvit, & the vvit of Prelats, & their god father the Pope (that man without law) to put Christ, & his prerogatives royall, & his truth or the smallest nail-breadth of his latter vvil, in the nevv kalendar of Indifferencies, & to make a blank, of un-inked paper in Christs Testament, that men may fill up, & so shufle the truth, & maters they call indifferent thorovv other, & spin both together that the Antichrists vvares may sell the better, this is but the device & forged dream of men, vvhose consciences are made of stoutnesse, & have a throat that a graven image, greater then the bounds of the Kirk door, vvould give free passage unto; I am sure vvhen Christ shall bring us all out in our black's, & vvhit's, at that day when he shall cry down time, and the world, & when the glory of it shall lie in white ashes, like a may flower cut down & having lost the blosome, there shall be few yea non that dare make any point that toucheth the worship & honour of our king & lawgiver, to be indifferent; O that this mislead & blindfolded world, would see, that Christ doeth not rise & fall, stand or lie, by mens apprehensions; what is Christ the lighter, that men doe with him by open proclamation, as men doe with clipped & light money; they are now crying down Christ some grain weights, & some pounds or shillings, & they will have him lie for a penny or a pound, for one, or for ane hundreth, according as the wind bloweth from the east, or from the west; but the Lord hes weighed him, & ballanced him already, This is my welbeloved Son in whom I am well pleased …ear ye him, his worth, & his weight standeth still; It is our part to cry up, up with Christ, & down, down with all created glory before him. O that I could highten him, & highten his name, & highten his throne! I know, & am perswaded, that Christ shall again be high, & great in this poor withered, & sunburnt Kirk of Scotland, & that the sparks of our fire, shall flee over sea, & round about, to warme you, & other sister-churches, & that this tabernacle of Davids house that is fa…len, even the Son of David his waste places shall be built again, & I know the prison, crosses, persecutions, & trials of the two slain witnesses, that are novv dead, & buried Rev. 11. & of the faithfull professors have a back-door & back entrie of escape, & that death & hell, and the vvorld & tortures, shall all cleave, & split in tvvain, & give us free passage & libertie to goe through them toll-free, & vve shall bring all Gods good metall out of the furnace again, and leave behinde us but our drosse, & our scumme: we may then before hand proclaim Christ to be victorious, He is crowned King in mount Sion, God did put the crown upon his head, Psal. 2. And who dare take it off again? out of question he hath sore & grievous quarrells against his church, and therefore, He is called, Is. 39. 10. He whose fire is in Sion & whose furnace is in Ierusalem. But when he hath performed his work on mount Sion, all Sions haters shall be as the hungry, and thirstie man, that dreams he is eating and drinking, and behold when he awaketh he is faint, and his soul empty: and this advantage we have also, that he will not bring before sun, & moon, all the infirmities of his wife; it is the modesty of marriage-anger, or husband-wrath, that our sweet Lord Jesus will not come with chiding to the streets, to let all the world hear what is betwixt him, & us; his sweet gloomes stay under roofe, and that because he is God. Two speciall things ye are to minde. 1. Try & make sure your profession; that ye cary not empty lamps: alace security, security is the bane, & the wrack of the most part of the world! Oh how many professors goe with a golden lustre, & gold-like before men, (who are but witnesses to our white skin) & yet are but bastard & base metall: consider how fair before the wind some doe ply, with up sailes, and white, even to the nick of illumination, Heb. 6: 5, And tasting, of the heavenly gift, & a share and part of the holy Ghost, & the tasting of the good word of God, & the powers of the world to come: & yet this is but a false nick of renovation, and in a short time, such are quickly broken upon the rocks, and never fetch the harbour, but are sanded in the bottome of hell. O make your heaven sure, and try how ye come by conversion; that it be not stolen goods, in a white & wel-lustred profession! a white skin over old wounds maketh an under-cotting conscience: false under-water not seen, is dangerous, & that is a lek, and rift in the bottome of an enlightened conscience, often falling, & sinning against light. Woe, woe is me, that the holy profession of Christ, is made a stage garment by many, to bring home a vain fame; & Christ is made to serve mens ends: this is as it were to stop an oven with a Kings robes. Know. 2. except men martyre & slay the body of sin, in sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christs martyrs, and faithfull witnesses. Oh if I could be master of that house-idol my self, my own, mine, my own will, wit, credit, & ease! how blessed were I? O but we have need to be redeemed from our selves, rather then from the Devil, & the vvorld! learn to put out your selves, & to put in Christ for your selves: I should make a sweet b…rtering, & niffering, & give old for new, if I could shuffle out self, & substitute Christ my Lord in place of my felf to say, not I, but Christ, not my will, but Christs; not my ease, not my lust, not my feckl…ss Credit, but Christ, Christ. But alace in leaving our selves, in s…t…ng Christ before our Idol, self, we have yet a glaik…d back-look to our old Idol. O wretched Idol, my self, when shall I see thee wholly decourted, & Christ wholly put in thy room? Oh if Christ, Christ, had the full place & room of my self, that all my aimes, purposes, thoughts, & desires, would coast and land upon Christ, & not upon my self! & y…t howbeit we can not attain to this denial of me, & mine, that we can say I am not my self, my self is not my self, mine own is no longer mine own; yet our aiming at this in all we doe, shall be accepted: for alace I think I shall di…, but minting & aiming to be a Christan: Is it not our comfort that Christ the mediator of the new covenant is come betwixt us, & o…od in the bussinesse, so that green & young heirs, the like … sinners, have now a Tutour that is God, & now God be thanked, our salvation is bottomed on Christ: sure I am the he bottome shall never fall out of heaven & happinesse to us: I would give over the bargain, a thousand times, were it not, that Christ his free grace, hath taken our salvation in hand. Pray, pray, & contend with the Lord, for your sister-Church; for it would appear the Lord is about to spier for his scattered sheep, in the dark and cloudy day. O that it would please our Lord to set up again Davids old wasted, and fallen tabernacle, in Scotland; that we might see the glory of the second temple in this land! O that my little heaven were wodset, to redeem the honour of my Lord Jesus, among Jews, & Gentils! let never dew lie upon my branches, and let my poor flower wither at the root, so being Christ were enthroned, and his glory advanced in all the world, & especially in these three Kingdomes: but I know he hath no need of me, what can I adde to him? but oh that he would cause his high & pure glory run through such a foul channel as I am! & howbeit he hath caused the blossome fall off my one poor joy, that was on this side of heaven, even my liberty to preach Christ to his people, yet I am dead to that now, so being he would hew and carve glory, glory for evermore, to my royall King, out of my silence, & sufferings. Oh that I had my fill of his love, but I know ill manners make an uncouth & strange bridegroom. I intreat you earnestly for the aide of your prayers, for I forget not you, & I salute with my soul in Christ, the faithfull Pastors, and honourable & worthy Professors in that Land. Now the God of peace that brought again our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great shephered of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect, in every good work, to doe his will; working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, Grace, Grace be with you.
Aberden, Feb. 4. 1638. Yours in his sweeetest Lord Iesus, S. R.