Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 182
To MISTRESS STUART. [182]
MISTRESS.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am sorry that ye take it so hardly that I have not written to you. I am judged to be that which I am not: I fear if I were put in the fire, I should melt away & fall down in sheards of painted nature: For truly I have little stuff at home, that is worth the eye of God's servants: If there be any thing of Christ's in me (as I dare not deny some of his work) it is but a spunk of borrowed fire that can scarce warm my self & hath little heat for standers by: I would sain have that which ye and others beleeve I have, but ye are onelyonly witnesses to my utter side and to some words in paper. Oh that he would give me more then papergrace or tongue-grace! Were it not that want paineth me, I should have skailed house & gone a begging long since, but Christ hath left me with some hunger that is more hot then wise, & is ready often to say, If Christ longed for me as I doe for him, we should not be long in meeting, and if he loved my company aswell as I doe his, even while I am writing this letter to you, we should flee in other's arms: But I know there is more will then wit in this languor & pining love for Christ, & no marvel; for Christ's love would have hot harvest long ere mid-summer: But if I have any love to him, Christ hath both love to me & wit to guide his love: & I see, the best thing I have, hath as much dross beside it, as might curse me & it both; & if it were for no more, we have need of a Saviour to pardon the very faults and diseases & weakness of the new man, & to take away [to say so] our godly sins, or the sins of our sanctification & the dross & scum of spiritual love: woe, woe is me! O what need is there then of Christ's calling to scour & cleanse & wash away an ugly old body of sin, the very image of Satan! I know nothing surer then that there is an office for Christ among us: I wish for no other heaven in this side of the last sea, that I must cross, then this service of Christ, to make my blackness beauty, my deadness life, my guiltiness sanctification: I long much for that day when I will be holy: O what spots are yet unwashen! O that I could change the skin of the leopard and the Moor, and niffer it with some of Christ's fairness! Were my blackness & Christ's beauty carded through other [as we use to speak] his beauty & holiness would eat up my filthiness: But Oh I have not casten old Adam's hew & colour yet! I trow the best of us hath a smell yet of the old loathsom body of sin & guiltiness: Happy are they for evermore who can employ Christ & set his blood & death on work, to make clean work to God, of foul souls: I know, it is our sin, that we would have sanctification on the sunny side of the the hill, & holiness with nothing but summer, & no crosses at all: Sin hath made us as tender as if were made of paper or glass. I am often thinking what I would think of Christ & burning quick together, of Christ & torturing & hot melted lead poured in at mouth & navel: yet I have some weak experience [but very weak indeed] that suppose Christ & hell's torments were married together & if there were no finding of Christ at all, except I went to hell's furnace, that there & in no other place I could meet with him, I trow, if I were as I have been since I was his prisoner, I would beglodging for God's sake in hell, hottest furnace, that I might rub souls with Christ: But God be thanked I shall finde him in a better lodging: We get Christ better cheap then so, when he is rouped to us, we get him but with a shower of summertroubles in this life, as sweet & as soft to beleevers as a May-dew. I would have you & my self helping Christ mystical to weep for his wife, & O thatf we could mourn for Christ buried in Scotland, & for his two slain witnesses killed, because they prophesied! If we could so importune & solicit God, our buried Lord & his two buried witnesses should rise again: Earth & clay and stone will nto bear down Christ & the Gospel in Scotland. I know not if I will see the second temple & the glory of it; but the Lord hath deceived me if it be not to be reared up again: I would wish to give Christ his welcome-home again: My blessing, my joy, my glory & love be on the home-comer. I finde no better use of suffering then that Christ's winnowing putteth chaff & corn in the saints to sundry places, and discovereth our dross from his gold, so, as corruption and grace are so seen, that Christ saith in the furnace, that is mine & this is yours: The scum & the grounds, thy stomack against the persecuters, thy impatience, thy unbelief, thy quarreling, these are thine: And faith, on-waiting, love, joy, courage, are mine. Oh let me die one of Christ's on-waiters & one of his attendants: I know your heart & Christ are married together, it were not good to make a divorce: Rue not of that meeting & marriage with such a husband: Pray for me his prisoner. Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.