Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 181
To Mr. JAMES HAMILTON. (181)
Reverend & dearly beloved in our Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Our acquaintance is neither in bodily presence, nor in paper, but as sons of the same father & sufferers for the same truth. Let no man doubt but the state of our question we are now forced to stand to by suffering exile & imprisonment, is, If Iesus should reign over his Kirk or not? Oh if my sinfull arm could hold the crown on his head, howbeit it should be striken off from the shoulder-blade. For your ensuing & feared trial, my very dearest in our Lord Iesus, Alas what am I to speak, to comfort a souldier of Christ, who hath done an hundred times more for that worthy & honourable cause then I can doe? But I know these whom the world was not worthy of, wandered up & down in deserts & in mountains & in dens & caves of the earth, & that while there is one member of mystical Christ out of heaven, that member must suffer strokes till our Lord Jesus draw in that member within the gates of the new Ierusalem, which he will not fail to doe at last; for not one toe or finger of that body but it shall be take in within the city. What can be our part in this pitched battel betwixt the Lamb & the Dragon? But to receive the darts in patience, that rebound off us on upon our sweet Master, or rather light first upon him & then rebound off him upon his servants. I think it a sweet North-wind that bloweth first upon the fair face of the chief among ten thousand & then lighteth upon our sinfull & black faces: When once the wind bloweth off him upon me, I think it hath a sweet smell of Christ, & so must besome more then a single cross. I know ye have a guard about you, & your attendance & train for your safety, is far beyond your pursuers force or fraud: It is good under feud to be near our war-house & strong hold: We can doe but little to resist them who persecut us & oppose him, but keep our blood & our wounds to the next Court-day, when our complaints will be read: If this day be not Christ's, I am sure the morrow shall be his. As for any thing I doe in my bonds when now & then a word falleth from me, alas it is very little! I am exceedingly grieved that any should conceive any thing to be in such a broken, & emptie reed, let no man impute it to me that the free & unbought wind [for I gave nothing for it] bloweth upon an empty reed: I am his overburdened debter. I cry down with me, down, down with all the excellency of the world, & up, up with Christ: Long, long may that fair One, that holy One be on high: My curse be upon them that love him not. O how glad would I be if his glory would grow out & spring up out of my bonds & sufferings! Certainly since I became his prisoner, he hath won the yolk & heart of my soul: Christ is even become a new Christ to me & his love greener then it was, & now I strive no more with him, his love shall carry it away: I lay down my self under his love, I desire to sing & to cry & to proclaim my self even under the water, in his common, & eternally indebted to his kindness: I will not offer to quite commons with him [as we use to say] for that will not be: All, all for evermore be Christ's. What further trials are before me I know not, but I know Christ will have a saved soul of me, over on the other side of the water, in the yonder side of crosses & beyond mens wrongs. I had but one eye & that they have put out: My one joy, next to the flower of my joyes, Christ, was to preach my sweetest, sweetest Master and the glory of his Kingdom, and it seemed no cruelty to them to put out the poor man's one eye. And now I am seeking about to see if suffering will speak my fair One's praises, & I am trying if a dumb man's tongue can raise one note or one of Zion's springs to advance my Welbeloved's glory: Oh if he would make some glory to himself out of a dumb prisoner! I goe with childe of his word, I cannot be delivered, none here will have my Master, Alas! What aileth them at him? I bless you for your prayers, adde to them praises: As I am able I pay you home. I commend your diving in Christ's Testament, I would I could set out the dead man's goodwill to his friends in his sweet Testament: Speak a prisoner's hearty commendations to Christ: fear not, your ten dayes will over. These that are gathered against mount Zion, their eyes shall melt away in their eye-holes and their tongues consume away in their mouthes, & Christ's withered garden shall grow green again in Scotland: My Lord Jesus hath a word hid in heaven for Scotland, not yet brought out. Grace be with you.
Aberd. July. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.