Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 183 – LETTER 185
To Mr HUGH Mc KAILL. (183)
Reverend & dear Brother.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter, I bless you for it: My dry root would take more dew & summer-rain then it getteth, were it not Christ will have driness & deadness in us to work upon: If there were no timber to work upon, art would die & never be seen: I see, grace hath a field to play upon & to course up & down in our wants, so that I am often thanking God, not for guiltiness, but for guiltiness for Christ to whet & sharpen his grace upon: I am half content to have boils for my Lord Jesus's plaisters: sickness hath this advantage that it draweth our sweet Physician's hand & his holy & soft fingers to touch our withered & leper skins: it is a blessed fever that fetcheth Christ to the bed-side: I think my Lord's How doest thou with it, sick body? Is worth all my pained nights: Surely I have no more for Christ but emptiness & want; take or leave, he will get me no other wise. I must sell my self & my wants to him, but I have no price to give for him: If he would put a fair & a real seal upon his love to me, & bestow upon me a larger share of Christ's love [which I would fainest be in hands with of any thing, I except not heaven it self] I should goe on sighing & singing under his cross: But the worst is, many take me for some-body, because the wind bloweth upon a withered prisoner: But the truth is, I am both lean and thin in that wherein many beleeve I abound. I would [if bartering were in my power] niffer joy with Christ's love & faith, & in stead of the & hot sunshine, becontent to walk under a cloudy shadow with more grief & sadness, to have more faith & a fair occasion of setting forth & commending Christ, & to make that lovely One, that fair One, that sweetest and dearest Lord Jesus, market-sweet for many ears & hearts in Scotland: and if it were in my power to roup Christ to the three Kingdoms & withall to perswade buyers to come, and to take such sweet wares as Christ, I would thin… to have many sweet bargains betwixt Christ & the sons of men. I would I could be humble & goe with a low sail, I would I had desires with wings & running upon wheels, swift & active & speedy in longing for Christ's honour: But I know my Lord is as wise here, as I dow be thirsty, & infinitely more zealous of his honour then I can be hungered for the manifestation of it to men & angels: But Oh that my Lord would take my desires off my hand, & adde a thousand-fold more unto them, and sowe spiritual inclinations upon them, for the coming of Christ's Kingdom to the sons of men, that they might be higher and deeper & longer & broader! For my longest measures are too short for Christ, my depth is ebbe, & the breadth of my affections to Christ narrow & pinched. Oh for an ingine & a wit to prescribe wayes to men how Christ might be all, in all the world! Wit is here behinde affection, & affection behinde obligation. Oh how little dow I give to Christ: and how much hath he given me! Oh that I could sing grace's praises, & love's praises! Seeing I was like a fool, solisting the Law & making moyen to the Law's court for mercy, & found challenges that way; but now I deny that Judge's power; for I am Grace's man; I hold not worth a drink of water of the Law or of any Lord but Jesus: And till I bethought me of this, I was slain with doubtings and fears & terrours. I praise the new court, & the new Land-lord, & the new Salvation purchased in Jesus his name & at his instance: Let the old man, if he please, goe make his moan to the Law & seek acquaintance thereaway, because he is condemned in that Court: I hope, the new man & I, & Christ together shall not be heard: and this is the more soft and the more easie way for me & for my cross together: Seeing Christ singeth my welcome-home, and taketh me in & maketh short counts & short work of reckoning betwixt me & my Judge, I must be Christ's man & his Tennant & subject to his Court: I am sure, suffering for Christ could not be born otherwise: But I give my hand & my faith to all who would suffer for Christ, they shall be well handled & fare well in the same way, that I have found the cross easie & light. Grace be with you.
Aberd. July. 8. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.
To ALEXANDER GORDON. Of Garlock. (184)
Dear Brother.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: If Christ were as I am, that time could work upon him to alter him, or that the morrow could be a new day to him, or bring a new minde upon him, as it is to me a new day, I could not keep a house or a covenant with him: But I finde Christ to be Christ, & that he is far, far, even infinite heavens height above man: And that is all our happiness. Sinners can doe nothing but make wounds that Christ may heal them, and make debts that he may pay them, and make falls that he may raise them, & make deaths that he may quicken them, & spin out & dig hells to themselves that he may ransom them: Now I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free Grace of God & a free ransom given for sold souls: OnelyOnly, alas guiltiuess maketh me ashamed to apply Christ, & to think it pride in me to put out my unclean & withered hand to such a Saviour! but it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a ship-broken soul, to run himself a shore upon Christ: Suppose once I be guilty, need force I cannot, I dow not goe by Christ: We take in good part that pride, that beggers beg from the richer: & who is so poor as we, & who is so rich as he who selleth fine gold, Rev. 3: 18. I see then, it is our best [let guiltiness plead what it listeth] that we have no mean under the covering of heaven but to creep in lowly & submissively with our wants to Christ: I have also cause to give his cross as good name & report. O how worthy is Christ of my feckless & light suffering, & how hath he deserved it at my hands, that for his honour & glory I should lay my back under seven hells pain in one, if he call me to that! but alas my soul is like a ship run on ground through ebbeness of water: I am sanded, and and my love is sanded: I finde not how to bring it on float again, it is so cold and dead that I see not how to bring it to a flame: Fy, fy upon the meeting that my love hath given Christ: woe, woe is me, I have a lover Christ, & yet I want love for him: I have a lovely & desirable Lord who is loveworthy, & who beggeth my love & heart & I have nothing to give him. Dear Brother, come further in on Christ & see a new treasure in him: come in & look down & see Angels wonder, & heaven & earth's wonder of love, sweetness, majesty & excellency in him. I forget you not, pray for me that our Lord would be pleased to send me among you again, fraughted & full of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.
To JOHN BELL Elder. (185)
My very loving friend
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have very often & long expected your letter, but if ye be well in soul & body I am the less solicitous: I beseech you in the Lord Jesus to minde your country above, & now when old age, the twilight going before the darkness of the grave, & the falling low of your sun before your night, is now come upon you, advise with Christ ere ye put your foot in the ship & turn your back on this life: Many are beguiled with this, that they are tree of scandalous & crying abominations; but the tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is for the fire: the man that is not born again cannot enter into the kingdom of God: common honesty will not take men to heaven: Alas that men should think they ever met with Christ, who had never a sick night through the terrours of God in their soul or a sore heart for sin: I know the Lord hath given you light & the knowledge of his will, but that is not all, neither will that doe your turn: I wish you an awakned soul, & that ye beguile not your self in the matter of your salvation. My dear Brother, search your self with the candle of God, & try if the life of God & Christ be in you: Salvation is not casten to every man's door: Many are carried over see & land to a far countrey in a ship, whileas they sleep much of all the way: but men are not landed at heaven sleeping: The righteous are scarcily saved, and many run as fast as either ye or I, who miss the prize and the crown: God send me salvation, and save me from a disappointment, and I seek no more: Men think it but a stryde or a step over to heaven, but when so few are saved, even of a mumber like the sand of the sea, but a handfull & a remnant (as God's word saith) what cause have we to shake our selves out of our selves & to ask our poor soul, whether goest thou? where shalt thou lodge at night? Where are thy charters and writes of thy heavenly inheritance? I have known a man turn a key in a door & lock it by: Many men leap over [as they think] & leap in. O see! see that ye give not your salvation a wrong cast, & think all is well & leave your soul loose & uncertain: look to your building, & to your groundstone, & what signes of Christ are in you, & set this world behinde your back: It is time now in the evening, to cease from your ordinary work, & high time to know of your lodging at night: It is your Salvation that is in dependence, & that is a great & weighty business, though many make light of the matter. Now, the Lord enable you by his grace to work it out.
Aberd. 1637. Your lawfull and loving Pastor, S. R.