Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 206
To ALEXANDER GORDON. Of Knockgray. (206.)
Dear Brother.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you. There is no question but our mother-church hath a father & that she shall not die withont an heir, that her enemies▪ hall not make mount Zion the… heritage. We see, whethersoever Zion's enemies goe, suppose they dig many miles under the ground, yet our Lord findeth them out, and he hath vengeances laid up in …or… for them, & the poor & needy shall not alwayes be forgotten. Our hope was drouping & withering, & man was saying, what can God make out of the old dry bones of this buried Kirk? The Prelats & their followers were a grave above us: it is like our Lord is to open our graves & purposeth to cause his two slain witnesses rise the third day, O how long wait I to hear our weeping Lord Jesus sing again & triumph & rejoyce & divide the spoil! I finde it hard work to beleeve when the course of providence goeth cross-wayes to our faith, & when misted souls in a dark night cannot know East by West, & our sea Compass seemeth to fail us: Every man is a beleever in day-light: A fair day seemeth to be made all of faith & hope: What a trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the fire? But to keep gold perfect …ellow-coloured amidst the flames & to be turned from vessel to vessels, & yet to cause out furnace sound & speak & cry the praises of the Lord, is another matter. I know my Lord made me not for fire, howb…it he hath fitted me in some measure for the fire. I bless his high name that I wax not pale, neither have I lost the colour of gold and that his fire hath made me somewhat thin & that my Lord may pour me in any vessel he pleaseth: For a small wager I may justly quite my part of this world's laughter, & give up with time, & cast out with the pleasures of this world. I know a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh & sport: surely our Lord seeketh this of us, as to any rejoycing in present perishing things. I see above all things, & that we may sit down & fold legs & arms & stretch our selves upon Christ & laugh at the feathers that children are chasing here: For I think the men of this world like children in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play & make sport with the white foam of the waves thereof, coming in to sink & drown them; so are men making fool's sports with the white pleasures of a stormy world that will sink …em. But alas, what have we to doe with their sports that they make! If Solomon said of Laughter that it was madness, what may we say of this world's laughing & sporting themselves with gold & silver & honours & court & broad large conquests, but that they are poor souls in the height and rage of a fever gone mad? Then a straw, a fig for all created sports and rejoycing out of Christ: Nay I think that this world at it's prime & perfection, when it is is come to the top of it's excellency and to the bloom, might be bought with an half penny, & that it would scarce weigh the worth of a drink of water: There is nothing better then to esteem it our crucified idol, that is dead & slain, as Paul did; …al. 6, 14. Then let pleasures be crucified, & riches be crucified, & court & honour be crucified, & since the Apostle faith, the world is crucified to him, we may put this world to the hanged man's doom and to the gallowes, & who will give much for a hanged man? & as little should we give for a hanged & crucified world: Yet what a sweet smell hath this dead carrion to many fools in the world, and how many wooers and suiters findeth this hanged carrion? Fools are pulling it off the gallowes and contending for it. O when shall we learn to be mortified men, & to have our fill of these things that have but their short summer-quarter of this life! If we saw our father's house and that great and fair citie, the new Ierusalem which is up above sun & moon, we would cry to be over the water & to be carried in Christ's arms out of this borrowed prison. Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.