Letters in Two Parts, Part 2 · LETTER 2
To the Parishoners of KILMACOLME. (2)
Worthy & welbeloved in Christ Iesus our Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Your letters could not come to my hand in a greater throng of business then I am now pressed with at this time, when our Kirk requireth the publike help of us all; yet I cannot but answer the heads of both your letters, with provision that ye chuse after this, a fitter time for writing. 1. I would not have you pitch upon me as the man able by lettters to answer doubts of this kinde, while there are in your bounds, men of such great parts, most able for this work: I know the best are unable, yet it pleaseth that Spirit of Jesus to blow his sweet wind through a pi…ce dry stick, that the empty reed may keep no glory to it self; but a Minister can make no such wind as this to blow, he is scarce able to lend it a passage to blow through him. 2. Know that the wind of this Spirit hath a time when it bloweth sharp & pierceth so strongly that it would blow through an iron door, & this is commonly rather under suffering for Christ then at any other time: Sick children get of Christ's pleasant things to play them withall, because Jesus is most tender of the sufferer, for he was a sufferer himself. O if I had but the leavings & the drawing of the byboard of a sufferer's table! But I leave this to answer yours.
First, ye write that God's vows are lying on you, & security strong & …b to nature, stealing on you who are weak. I answer, 1. Till we be in heaven the best have heavy heads, as is evident Cant. 5. 1. Psal. 30. 6. Iob. 29. 18. Matth. 26. 33. Nature is a sluggard & loveth not the labour of religion: Therefore rest should not be taken till we know the disease be over & in the way of turning, & that it is like a fever past the cool: And the quietness & the calms of the faith of victory over corruption, would be entertained in place of security, so that if I sleep, I would desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 2. Know also, none that sleep sound can seriously complain of sleepiness, sorrow for a slumbering soul, is a token of some watchfulness of spirit: But this is soon turned into wantonness, [as grace in us too often is abused] therefore our waking must be watched over, else sleep will even grow out of watching, & there is as much need to watch over grace, as to watch over sin: full men will soon sleep & sooner then hungry men. 3. For your weakness to keep off security, that like a thief stealeth upon you, I would say two things. 1. To want complaints of weakness, is for heaven & Angels that never sinned, not for Christians in Christ's camp on earth: I think our weakness maketh us the Church of the redeemed ones & Christ's field that the Mediator should labour in: If there were no diseases on earth, there needed no Physicians on earth: If Christ had cried down weakness, he might have cried down his own calling; but weakness is our Mediator's world, Sin is Christ's onelyonly, onelyonly fa e & market; no man should rejoyce at weakness & diseases, but I think we may have a sort of gladness at boils & sores, because without them, Christ's fingers as a slain Lord should never have touched our skin. I dare not thank my self, but I dare thank God's depth of wise Providence, that I have an errand in me, while I live, for Christ to come & visit me & bring with him his drugs & his balm. O how sweet is it, for a sinner to put his weakness in Christ's strengthning hand & to father a sick soul upon such a Physician & to lay weakness before him, to weep upon him & to plead & pray! weakness can speak & cry when we have not a tongue. Ezek 16. 6. And when I passed by thee & saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. The Kirk could not speak one word to Christ then, but blood & guiltiness out of measure, spake, & drew out of Christ pity & a word of life and love. 2. For weakness, we have it, that we may employ Christ's strength because of our weakness: Weakness is to make us the strongest things, that is, when having no strength of our own, we are carried upon Christ's shoulders & walk [as it were] upon his legs: If our sinfull weakness swell up to the clouds, Christ's strength will swell up to the sun and far above the heaven of heavens. 2. Ye tell me that there is need of counsel for strengthning of new beginners, I can say little to that, who am not well begun my self; but I know, honest beginnings are nouri hed by him, even by lovely Jesus, who never yet put out a poor man's dim candle, who is wrestling betwixt light & darkness. I am sure if new beginners would urge themselves upon Christ, & press their souls upon him & importune him for a draught of his sweet love, they could not come wrong to Christ: Come once in upon the right nick & step of his lovely love, & I defie you to get free of him again: If any beginners fall off Christ again & miss him, they never lighted upon Christ as Christ; it was but an idol, like Jesus, they took for him. 3. Whereas ye complain of a dead Ministery in your bounds, ve are to remember that the Bible among you, is the contract of Marriage, & the manner of Christ's conveying his love to your heart, is not so absolutly dependent upon, even lively preaching, as that there is no conversion at all, no life of God, but that, that is tied to a m…n's lips: The daughters of Ierusalem have done often that, which the watchmen could not doe: Make Christ your Minister, he can wooe a soul at a dikefide in the field, he needeth not us, howbeit the flock be obliged to seek him in the shepherds tents: Hunger of Christ's making may thrive, even under stewards who minde not the feeding of the flock, O blessed soul, that can leap over a man and look above a pulpit up to Christ, who can preach home to the heart, howbeit we were all dead & rotten! 4. So to complain of your self as to justifie God is right, and providing ye justifie his Spirit in your self; for men seldom advocate against Satan's work & sin in themselves, but against Gods work in themselves: some of the people of God slander God's grace in their souls as some wretches use to doe, who complain & murmure of want, I have nothing [say they] all is gone, the ground yeeldeth but weeds & windlestraws; when as their fa… harvest, & their money on bank maketh them liars. But for my self, alas! I think it is not my sin, I have scarce wit to sin this fin: But I advise you to speak good of Christ, for his beauty & sweetness, & speak good of him for his grace to your selves. 5. Light remaineth, ye say, but ye cannot attain to painfulness: See if this complaint be not booked in the new Testament, & the place Rom. 7 18. Is like this, To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I know not. But every one hath not Paul's spirit in complaining: For osten in us, complaining is but an humble back biting & traducing of Christ's new work in the soul. But for the matter of the complaint I would say: The light of glory is perfectly obeyed in loving and praising and rejoycing & resting in a seen & known Lord; but that light is not hereaway in any clay body, for while we are here, light i… in the most part broader & longer then our narrow & feckless obedience: But if there be light with a fair train & a great back, I mean, armies of challenging thoughts & sorrow for coming short of performance in what we know & see ought to be performed, then that sorrow for not doing is accepted of our Lord for doing: Our honest sorrow & sincere aimes, together with Christ's intercession pleading that God would welcome that which we have & forgive what we have not, must be our life, till we be over the bound-road & in the other countrey, where the law will get a perfect soul. 6. In Christ's absence there is [as ye write] a willingness to use means, but heaviness after the use of them, because of formal & slight performance. In Christ's absence I confess the work lieth behinde, but if ye mean absence of comfort & absence of sense of his sweet presence, I think that absence is Christ's trying of us, not simply our sin against him: Therefore howbeit our Obedience then, be not sugared and sweetned with joy [which is the sweet meat bairns would still be at] yet the less sense & the more willingness in obeying, the less formality in our obedience, howbeit we …in… not so; for I beleeve many think obedience formal & lif les, except the wind be fair in the West, and sails filled with joy and sense, till souls like a ship fair before the wind can spread no more sail; but I am not of their minde who think so. But if ye mean by absence of Christ, the withdrawing of his working grace, I see not how willingness to use means can be at all under such an absence: Therefore be humbled for heaviness in that obedience, & thankfull for willingness: for the Bridegroom is busking his Spouse often times while she is half sleeping, & your Lord is working & helping more then ye see. Also I recommend to you Heaviness for formality & lifeless deadness in obedience: Be casten down as much as ye will or can, for deadness, and challenge that slow & dull carcase of sin that will neither lead nor drive in your spirituall obedience. O how sweet to lovely Jesus are bills and grievances given in against corruption & the body of fin! I would have Christ, in such a case, fashed [if I may speak so] & deaved with our cries, as ye see the Apostle doeth, Rom. 7, 24. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! Protestations against the law of sin in you, are law-grounds why sin can have no law against you: Seek to have your Protestation discussed & judged, & then shall ye finde Christ on your side of it. 7. Ye hold that Christ must either have hearty service or no service at all: If ye mean he will not half a heart or have fained service, such as the hypocrites give him, I grant you that: Christ must have honesty or nothing: But if ye mean, he will have no service at all where the heart draweth aback in any measure, I would not that were true, for my part of heaven and all that I am worth in the world: If ye minde to walk to heaven without a cramp or a crook, I fear ye must goe your alone: He knoweth our dross & defects, & sweet Jesus pitieth us when weakness & deadness in our obedience is our cross & not our darling. 8. The liar [as ye write] challengeth the work as formal, yet ye bless your cautioner for the ground-work he hath laid & dare not say but ye have assurance in some measure. To this I say. 1. It shall be no fault to saye Satan's labour, & challenge it your self, or at least examine & censure; but beware of Satan's ends in challenging, for he mindeth to put Christ & you at oddes. 2. Welcome home faith in Jesus, who washeth still when we have defiled our souls and made our selves loathsom, & seek still the blood of atonement to faults little or meekle: Know the gate to the well & lie about it. 3. Make meekle of assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed. 9. Out-breakings [ye say] discourage you, so that ye know not if ever ye shall win again to such overjoying consolations of the Spirit in this life, as formerly ye had, & therefore a question may be, If after assurance & mortification, the children of God be ordinarly fed with sense & joy? I answer, I see no inconvenience to think, it's enough in a race, to see the gold at the starting place; howbeit the runners never get a view of it till they come to the rink's end, & that our wise Lord thinketh it fittest we should not alwayes be singering & playing with Christ's apples. Our Welbeloved, I know, will sport & play with his Bride, as much as he thinketh will allure her to the rink's end: Yet I judge it not unlawfull to seek renewed consolations, providing first, the heart be submissive & content, to leave the measure & t… ing of them to him. 2. providing they be sought to excite us to praise, & strengthen our assurance, and sharpen our desires after himself. 3. Let them be sought not for our humors or swelling of nature; but as the earnest of heaven: & I think many doe attain to greater consolations after mortification then ever they had formerly: But I know, our Lord walketh here, still by a soveraign latitude, & keepeth not the same way as to one hair-breadth without a miss, towards all his children. As for the Lord's people with you, I am not the man fit to speak to them. I rejoyce exceedingly that Christ is engaging souls amongst you: But I know in conversion all the winning is in the first buying [as we use to say] for many lay false & bastard foundations, & take up conversion at their foot, & get Christ for as good as half nothing, and had never a sick night for sin, & this maketh loosework: I pray you dig deep, Christ's Palace-work, & his n…w dwelling laid upon hell felt & feared, is most firm: And heaven grounded & laid upon such a hell, is surest work & will not wash away with winter-storms. It were good that Professours were not like young heirs that come to their rich estate long ere they come to their wit, and so is seen on it: the taverne & the cards and the harlots, steal their ridges from them ere ever they be aware what they are doing. I know, a Christ bought with strokes is sweetest. 2. I recommend to you conference & Prayer at Private Meetings, for warrand whereof see Isa. 2, 3. Ier. 50, 4, 5. Hos. 2, 1 2. Ezech. 8, 20, 21, 22, 23. Mal. 3, 16. Luk. 24, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Ioh. 20, 19. Act. 12. 12. Col. 3, 16. & 4. 6. Eph. 4, 29. 1 Pet. 4, 10. 1 Thess. 5, 14. Heb. 3, 13, & 10, 25. Many coals make a good fire, & this is a part of the communion of saints. I must intreat you & your Christian acquaintances in the Parish to remember me to God in your prayers, & my flock & ministry, & my transportation & removal from this place, which I fear at this assembly: And be earnest with God for our mother Kirk. For want of time I have put you all in one letter: The rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Anwoth August. 5. 1639. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.