Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 130 – LETTER 131
To EARLESTOWN Younger [130]
Worthy & dearly beloved in the Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you: I remain still a prisoner of hope, & doe think it service to the Lord to wait on still with submission, till the Lord's morning-skie break & his summer day dawn: for I am perswaded it is a piece of the chief errand of our life, that God sent us for some years down to this earth among devils & men, the fire-brands of the devil, & 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 countrey, 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 habituat our soft and thin skinned nature to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, woe hearts, as these that are looked upon by God, Angels, men & devils. O what folly is it to sit down & weep upon a decree of God, that is both dumb & deaf at our tears, & must stand still as unmovable as God who made it, for who can come behinde our Lord to alter or better what he hath decreed & done? It were better to make windows in our prison & to look out to God & our countrey Heaven, & to cry like fettered men who long for the King's free air, Lord, let t…y Kingdom come: O 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 skie and shine! I am perswaded, if every day, a little stone in the prison walls were broken, & thereby assurance given to the chained prisoner lying under twenty stone of irons upon arms & legs, that at length his chain should wear in two pieces, & a hole should be made at length as wide as he might come safely out to his long desired liberty; he would in patience wait on till time should hole the prison wall & break his chains: The Lord's hopefull prisoners under their trials are in that case: Years & moneths will take out now one little stone, then another, of this house of clay, & 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 fil… off by little and little our iron bolts, which are now on legs and arms, & out-date and wear our troubles threed-bare and hollie, and then wear them to nothing: For what I suffered yesterday I know shall never come again to trouble me. O that we could breath out new hope and new submission every day in Christ's lap! For certainly a weight of glory well weighed [yea encreasing to a far more exceeding and eternall weight] shall recompence both weight and length of light and clipped and short-dated crosses: Our waters are but ebbe and come neither to our chin nor to …he 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 rejoyce in the hope of that glory to be revealed, for it is no uncertain glory we look for; our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted threed as, I imagine so, or it is likely; but the cable, the strong tow of our fastened anchor, is the oath and the promise of him who is eternall 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. Mal 3. 6. I am the Lord, I change not, and therefore ye sons of Iacob are not consumed: 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 winds and waves, when our sea seemeth all to be on fire! O how oft doe I let my grips goe! I am put to swimming and half sinking: I finde the devil hath the advantage of the ground in this battel, for he fighteth in known ground in our corrupt nature: Alas that is a friend neer 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, & then I must come with my ill raveled work to Christ to cumber him [as it were] to right it & to seek again the right end of the threed, & to fold up again my eternall glory with his own hand, & to give a right cast of his holy & gracious hand to my marred & spilt salvation: Certainly it is a cumbersom thing to keep a foolish childe from falls & broken brows, & weeping for this & that toy, & rash running & sickness & bairns diseases; ere he win through them all, and win out of the mires, he costeth meekle black cumber and fashrie to his keepers: And so is a beleever a cumbersom piece of work and an ill raveled hesp [as we use to say] to Christ: But God be thanked, for many spilt salvations and many ill raveled hesps hath Christ mended since first he entered tutour to lost mankinde. O what could we bairns doe 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 …ere. Now to this tutour and rich Lord I recommend you: Hold fast till he come and remember his prisoner. Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his and your Lord Iesus, S. R.
To Mr WILLIAM DALGLEISH. [131]
Reverend & dear Brother.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter. I bless our high and onelyonly wise Lord who hath broken the s…are that men had laid for you, & I hope that now he shall keep you in his house in despite of the powers of hell. Who knoweth but the streets of our Ierusalem shall yet be filled with young men & with old men & boyes & women with childe & that they shall plant vines in the mountains of Samaria. I am sure, the wheels, paces & motions of this poor Church, are tempered & ruled not as men would, but according to the good pleasure & infinite wisdom of our onelyonly 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 my Lord had his own quarrels against me & that my dross stood in need of this hot furnace; but I rejoyce in this, that fair truth, beautifull truth, [whose glory my Lord cleareth to me more & more] bearth me company, & that my weak aimes to honour my Master in bringing guests to his house, now swell upon me in comforts, & that I am not affraid to want a witness in heaven, that it was my joy to have a crown put upon Christ's head in that countrey. O what joy would I have to see the wind turn upon the enemies of the cross of Christ, & to see my Lord Jesus restored with the voice of praise to his own f…ee throne again, & to be brought amongst you to see the beauty of the Lord's house! I hope that countrey will not be so silly, as to suffer men to pluck you away from them, & that ye will use means to keep my place empty & to bring me back again to the people to whom I have Christs right and his Church's lawfull calling. Dear Brother, let Christ be dearer & dearer to you, let the conquest of souls be top and root, flower and bloom of your joyes and desires in 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, & the last pickle of sand shall be at the nick of falling down in your watch-glass, & the master shall call the servants of the vincyard to give them their hire; ye will esteem the bloom of this world's glory like the colours of the rain-bow, that no man can put in his purse & treasure: Your labours & pains shall then smile upon you. My Lord now hath given me experience [howbeit weak & 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 & the high table, up in the high palace: This world deserveth nothing but the utter court of our soul. Lord hasten the marriage-supper of the Lamb. I finde it still peace to give up with this present world as with an old decourted & cast-off lover: My bread & drink in it, is not so much worth, that I should not loath the Innes, & pack up my desires for Christ, that I have sent out to the feckless creatures in it. Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Your affectionat Brother & Crhist's prisoner. S. R.