Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 146
To JOHN STUART. Provest of Ayr, (146.)
Worthy Sir.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long for the time when I shall see the beauty of the Lord in his house, & would be as glad of it, as of any sight on earth, to see the halt, the blinde & the lame, come back to Zion with supplications, Ier. 31, 8, 9. going & weeping & seeking the Lord, asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward Ier. 50. 5, 6. & to see the woman travelling in birth, delivered of the man childe, of a blessed Reformation. If this land were humbled, I would look that our skie should clear & our day dawn again, & ye should then bless Christ who is content to save your travel, & to give himself to you in pure ordinances on this side of the sea. I know, the mercy of Christ is engaged by promise to Scotland, notwithstanding he bring wrath, as I fear he shall, upon this land. I am waiting on for enlargement, & half content that my faith bow, if Christ while he bow it, keep it unbroken; for who goeth through a fire without a mark or a scald. I see the Lord making use of this fire to scour his vessels from their rust. Oh that my will were silent & as a childe weaned from the breasts! Psal. 130. But alas, who hath a heart that will give Christ the last word in flyting, & will hear & not speak again? Oh contestations & quarrelous replies [as a soon sadled spirit, I doe well to be angry, even to the death, Ion. 4: 9.] Smell of the stink of strong corruption! O blessed soul that could sacrifice his will & goe to heaven having lost his will & made resignation of it to Christ! I would seek no more but that Christ were absolute King over my will, & that my will were a sufferer in all crosses, without meeting Christ with such a word, why is it thus? I wish still that my love had but leave to stand beside beautifull Jesus, & to get the mercy of looking to him & burning for him, suppose possession of him were suspended & fristed, till my Lord fold together the leaves & two sides of the little shepherds tents of clay. Oh what pain is in longing for Christ under an overclouded and eclipsed assurance! What is harder then to burn and dwine with longings and deaths of love, & then to have blanks & uninked paper for assurance of Christ in real fruition or possession? O how sweet were one line or half a letter of a written assurance under Christ's own hand! But this is our exercise daily, that guiltiness shall overmist and darken assurance: It is a miracle to beleeve, but for a sinner to beleeve is two miracles. But O what obligations of love are we under to Christ, who beareth with our wilde apprehensions, in suffering them to nick-name sweet Jesus & to put a lye upon his good name! If he had not been God; and if long-suffering in Christ were not like Christ himself, we should long agoe have broken Christ's mercies in two pieces, & put an iron bar upon our own salvation, that mercy should not have been able to break or overleap; but long-suffering in God, is God himself, & that is ou… salvation, & the stability of our heaven is in God: He knew (who said Christ in you the hope of glory. Col. 1. 27. For our hope & the bottom & pillars of it is Christ-God] sinners are anchor-fast & made stable in God: So that if God doe not change (which is impossible] then my hope shall not fluctuat. O sweet, stability of su…e-bottomed salvation! Who could win heaven if this were not? & who could be saved if God were not God, & if he were not such a God as he is? O God be thanked that our Salvation is coasted & landed & shored upon Christ, who is master of winds & storms! & what sea-winds can blow the coast or the land out of it's place? Bulwarks are often casten down, but coasts are not removed; but suppose that were, or might be, yet God cannot reel nor remove. Oh that we goe from this strong & unmoveable Lord, & that we loose our selves (if it were in our power) from him! Alas, our green & young love hath not taken with Christ, as being unacquainted with him: He is such a wide & broad & deep & high & surpassing sweetness, that our love is too little for him: But O if our love, little as it is, could take ba…d with his great & huge sweetness and transcendent excellency! O thrice blessed & eternally blessed are they, who are out of themselves & above themselves, that they may be in love united to him! I am often rolling up & down the thoughts of my faint & sick desires of expressing Christ's glory before his people; but I see not through the throng of impediments, & cannot finde eyes to look higher, and so I put many things in Christ's way to hinder him, that I know he would but laugh at, & with one stride set his foot over them all. I know not if my Lord will bring me to his sanctuary or not; but I know he hath the placing of me either within or without the house, & that nothing will be done without him: But I am often thinking & saying within my self, that my dayes flee away, and I see no good, neither yet Christ's work thriving; and it is like the grave shall prevent the answer of my desires of saving souls as I would: But alas I cannot make right work of his wayes, I neither spell nor read my Lord's providence aright: My thoughts goe a way, that I fear they meet not God; for it is like God will not come the way of my thoughts: & I cannot be taught to crucifie to him my wisdom & desires, & to make him King over my thoughts; for I would have a Princedom over my thoughts & would boldly & blindly prescribe to God, & guide my self in a way of my own making: But I hold my peace here, let him doe his will. Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweetest Lord and Master, S. R.