Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 1
To Mr ROBERT CUNYNGAME, Minister of the Gospel at Holywood in Ireland. (Epist. 1.)
WElbeloved and reverend Brother, grace mercy and peace be to you; upon acquaintance in Christ, I thought good to take the opportunity of writing to you; seeing it hath seemed good to the Lord of the harvest, to take the hooks out of our hands for a time, and to lay upon us a more honourable service, even to suffer for his name. It were good to comfort one another in writing: I have had a Desire to see you in the face, yet now being the prisoner of Christ it is taken away: I am greatly comforted to hear of your souldiers stately spirit, for your princely and royall Captain Jesus our Lord, and for the grace of god in the rest of our dear brethren with you; you have heard of my trouble I suppose, It hath pleased our sweet Lord Jesus, to let loose the malice of these interdicted Lords in his house to deprive me of my Ministery at Anwoth and to confine me, eight score miles from thence to Aberden; and also (which vvas not done to any before) to inhibit me to speak at all in Jesus his name, within this Kingdome, under the paine of rebellion: The cause that ripened their hatred was my book against the Arminians, whereof they accused me, these three Dayes I appeared before them; But let our crowned king in Zion raigne, by his grace the losse is theirs, the advantage is Christs and truths; albeit this honest crosse gained some ground on me; by my heavniesse, and inward Challenges of conscience for a time were sharpe, yet now for the incouragment of you all, I dare say it, and write it under my hand, welcome, welcome, sweet, svveet, Crosse, of Christ: I verely think the Chaines of my Lord Jesus are all overlaid with pure gold, & that his crosse is perfumed, and that it smelleth of Christ, & that the Victorie, shall be by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of his truth, and that Christ laying on his backe, in his weake servants, and oppressed truth, shall ride over his enemies bellies, and shall stricke through Kings in the day of his wrath: It is time we laughe when he laugheth, and seeing he is now pleased to sit with wrongs for a time, it becometh us to be silent, untill the Lord hath let the enemies enjoy their hungerie, leane, and fecklesse paradise: Blessed are they who are content to take stroks with weeping Christ, faith will trust the Lord, and is not hastie, nor head strong; neither is faith so timorous as to flatter a tentation, or to bud and bribe the crosse, It is little up or little dovvn that the lamb and his followers can get no lavv-suitie, nor truce with crosses; it must be so, till we be up in our fathers house; my heart is woe indeed for my mother Church, that hath plaid the harlot with many lovers, her husband hath a mind to sell her for her horrible transgressions, & heavy will the hand of the Lord be upon this backsliding nation. The wayes of our Zion mourne, her gold is become dim, her white Nazarites are blck like a coale, how shall not the Children weep, when the husband and the mother can not agree; yet I beleeve Scotlands skie shall clear again, & that Christ shall build againe, the old wast places of Jacob, and that our dead and dry bones, shall become ane army of living men, & that, our beloved may yet feed among the lillies, untill the day breake and the shaddows flee away. My deare brother let us helpe one another with our prayers, Our king shall mowedown his enemies, and shall come from Bozra, with his garments all died in blood, and for our onsolation shall he appear, and call his wife Hephzibah, and his land Beulah; for he will rejoyce over us & marie us, & Scotland shall say what have I to doe any more with Idols? Only let us be faithfull to him that can ride through hell, and death, upon a windlestrae, and his horse never stumble, and let him make of me a bridge over a water so that his high and holy name may be glorified in me: stroks with the sweet mediators hand, are very sweet, he was always sweet to my soul, but since I suffered for him, his breath hath a sweeter smell then before, Oh that every hair of my head, and every member, and every bone in my bodie, were a man to witness a fair confession for him, I would think all too little for him, when I look over beyond the line, and beyond death to the laughing side of the world, I trimmph, and ride upon the high places of Jacob, howbeit otherways I am a faint dead-hearted cowardly man; oft borne down, & hungry in waiting for the mariage-supper of the lamb; neverthelesse I think it the Lords wise love that feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with wants, and desertions: I know not my deare brother if our worthy brethren, be gone to sea, or not, they are on my heart and in my prayers, if they be yet with you, salute my deare friend John Stuart, my weilbeloved brethren in the Lord, Mr Blair, Mr Hamilton, Mr Livingston, and Mr Mak-Cleland, and acquaint them with my troubles, and intreat them to pray for the poor afflicted prisoner of Christ, They are deare to my soul: I seek your prayers and theirs for my flock, their remembrance breaks my heart: I desire to love that people, and others my deare acquantance in Christ with love in God, and as God loveth them; I know that he who sent me to the west, and south, sends me also to the north: I will Charge my soul to beleeve and to wait for him, and will follow his providence and not goe before it, nor stay behind it. Now my deare brother taking farewell in paper, I commend you all to the word of his grace, and to the work of his spirit, to him who holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, that you may be keept spotlesse till the day of Jesus our Lord. I am.
From Irwing being on my Iourney to Christs palace in Aberden August 4. 1636. Your Brother in affliction in our sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.