Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 166
To Mr JOHN FERGUSHILL. [166]
Reverend & welbeloved in our Lord Iesus.
I Must still provoke you to write by my lines, whereat ye need not wonder; for the cross is full of talke, & speak it must, either good or bad: Neither can grief be silent. I have no dittay nor inditement to bring against Christ's cross, seeing he hath made a friendly agreement betwixt me & it, & we are in terms of love together: If my former miscarriages, & my nowsilent sabbaths seem to me to speak wrath from the Lord, I dare say, it is but Satan borrowing the use & loan of my cowardly & feeble apprehensions, which start at straws: I know faith is not so saint & foolish, as to tremble at every false alarm; Yet I gather this out of it, Blessed are they who are grac'd of God … guide a cross well, & that there is some art required herein. I pray God I may not be so ill friend-stead, as that Christ my Lord should leave me to be my own Tutour & my own Physician. Shall I not think but my Lord Jesus who deserveth his own place very well, will take his own place upon him, as it becometh him, & that he will fill his own chair? For in this is his office, to comfort us, & thes that are casten down in all their tribulations. 2 Cor. 1. 4. Alas I know I am a fool to seek an hole or defect in Christ's way with my soul. If I have not a stock to pre sent to Christ at his appearance, yet I pray God I may be able with joy, faith & constancy, to shew the Captain of my savation in that day, a bloody head that I received in his service: howbeit my faith hang by a small tack & threed, I hope the tack shall not break: & howbeit my Lord get no service of me but broken wishes; yet I trust these shall be accepted upon Christ's account. I have nothing to comfort me, but that I say, Oh will the Lod disappoint an hungry on-waiter? The smell of Christ's wine & apples which surposse the uptaking of dull sense, bloweth upon my soul, & I get no more for the mean time: I am sure to let a famishing body see meat & give him none of it, is a double pain: Our Lord's love it not so cruell as to let a poor man see Christ & heaven & never give him more, for want of money to buy; nay, I rather think Christ such fair market-wares, as buyers may have …it out money & without price: And thus I know it shall not stand upon my want of money; for Christ upon his own charges must buy my wedding garment, & redeem the inheritance which I have forfeited, & give his word for one the like of me, who am not law-biding of my self: Poor folks must either borrow or beg from the rich, & the onelyonly thing that commendeth sinners to Christ is extream necessity & want: Christ's love is ready to make & provide a ransome & money for a poor body who hath lost his his purse. Ho, ye that have no money come & buy Isa: 55. 1. That is the poor man's market. Now Brother I see old crosses would have done nothing at me, & therefore Christ hath takē a new fresh rod to me, that seemeth to talk with my soul, & make me tremble. I have often more adoe now with faith when I lose my compasse, & am blowen on a rock, then these who are my beholders standing upon the shore are aware of: a counsel to a sick man is sooner given then taken: Lord send the wearied man a borrowed bed from Christ: I think often it is after supper with me, & I am heavie: O but I would sleep soundly with Christ's left hand under my head & his right hand embracing me: the devil could not spill that bed. When I consider how tenderly Christ hath cared for me in this prison, I think he hath handled me as the bairn that it pitied & bemoaned: I desire no more till I be in heaven; but such a feast & fill of Christ's love as I would have: This love would be fair & adorning passements, which would beautifie & set forth my black unpleasant cross: I cannot tell, my Dear Brother, what a great lead I would bear if I had a hearty fill of the love of that lovely one, Christ Iesus: Oh if ye would seek & pray for that to me! I would give Christ all his love stiles and titles of honour if he would give me but this; nay, I would sell my self (if I could) for that love. I have been waiting to see what friends of place & power would doe for us; But when the Lord looseth the pins of his own Tabernacle, he will have himself to be acknowledged as the onelyonly builder up thereof, & therefore I would take back again my hope that I lent and laid in pawne in mens hands & give it wholly to Christ: it is no time for me now to set up idols of my own, it were a pity to give an ounce weight of hope to any besides Christ: I think him well worthy or all my hope, though it were as weighty as both heaven & earth: Happy were I, if I had any thing that Christ would seek or accept of: But now alas I see not what service I can doe to him, except it to be talk a little & bable upon a piece of paper, concerning the love of Christ. I am often as if my faith were wedset so that I cannot command it, and then when he hideth himself, I run to the other extream, in making each wing and toe of my case as big as a mountain of iron: And then misbelief can spin out an hell of heavy & desponding thoughts; then Christ seeketh law-borrows of my unbeleeving apprehensions, & chargeth me to beleeve his day-light at midnight: But I make pleas with Christ, though it be ill my common so to doe: It were my happiness when I am in his house of wine & when I finde a feast-day, if I could hearken & hear for the time to come, Isa: 42. 3. But I see we must be off our feet in wading a deep water; & then Christ's love findeth time…us employment at such a dead lift as that: And besides, after broken brows, bairns learn to walk more circumspectly: If I come to heaven any way, howbeit like a tired traveller upon my guide's shoulder, it's good enough for these who have no legs of their own for such a journey: I never thought there had been need of so much wrestling to win to the top of that ste…p mountain as now I finde. Woe's me for this broken & backsliding Church, it is like an old bowing wall, leaning to the one side, & there is none of all her sons who will set a prop under her: I know I need not bemoan Christ; for he careth for his own honour more then I can doe; but who can blame me to be woe [… … had grace so to doe] to see my welbeloved', fair face spitt…d upon, & his crown plucked off hi… head, & the ark of God taken & carryed in the Philistins ca…t, and the …ine put to carry it who will let it fall to the ground? The Lord put to his own helping hand. I would desire you to prepare your self for a fight with beast, ye will not get leave to steel quietly to heaven in Christ's company without a conflict & a cross. Remember my bonds, & praise my second, & fellow prisoner, Christ. Grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in Christ Iesus his Lord. S. R.