Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 28
To his Honoured & Dear Brother, ALEXAND: GORDON of KNOCKGRAY. (28)
Dearest & truly honoured Brother,
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have seen no letter from you since I came to Aberdeen; I will no tinterpret it to be forgetfulness. I am here in a fair prison, Christ is my sweet & honourable fellow-prisoner, & I his sad & joyful Lordprisoner, [if I may speak so.] I think this cross becometh me well, & is suitable to me in respect of my duty to suffer for Christ; howbeit not in regard of my deserving, to be thus honoured. However it be, I see Christ is strong, even lying in the dust, in prison, and in banishment. Losses & disgraces are the wheels of Christs triumphing chariot. In the sufferings of his own saints, as he intendeth their good, so he intendeth his own glory, & that is the butte his arrowes shoot at, & Christ shooteth not at the tovers, he hitteth what he purposeth to hit: Therefore he doeth make his own feckless & weak nothing's, & these who are the contempt of men, a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, to thresh the mountains, & beat them small, & to make the hills as chaff, & to fan them. Isa. 51: 15, 16. What harder stuff, or harder grain for threshing out, then high and rockie mountains? But the Saints are Gods threshing instruments to beat them all in chaff: are we not Gods leem vessels, & yet when they cast us over an house, we are not broken in sheards: we creep in under our Lords wings in the great shower, & the water cannot goe thorow these wings. It is folly then for men to say, this is not Christs plea, he will lose the wed-fee, men are like to beguile him: that were indeed a strange play. Nay I dare pledge my soul, & lay it in pawne on Christs side of it, & be half-tiner half-winner with my Master: Let fools laugh the foolslaughter, & scorn Christ, & bid the weeping captives in Babylon, sing us one of the songs of Zion, play a spring to chear up your sad-hearted God: We may sing upon lucks head before hand, even in our winter-storme, in the expectation of a summer-sun at the turn of the yeer: no created powers in hell or out of hell, can mar our L. Jesus his musick, nor spill our song of joy: let us then be glad & rejoyce in the salvation of our Lord; for faith had never yet cause to have wet cheeks, & hingingdown browes, or to droup or die: what can aile faith, seeing Christ suffereth himself, (with reverence to him be it spoken) to be commanded by it; & Christ commandeth all things: faith may dance, because Christ sings, & we may come in the Quite & lift our hoarse & rough voices, & chirp, & sing, & shout for joy with our Lord Jesus. We see oxen goe to the shambles leaping & startling; We see Gods fed oxen prepared for the day of slaughter, goe dancing & singing down to the black chambers of hell; & why should we goe to heaven weeping, as if we were like to fall down thorow the earth for sorrow. If God were dead (if I may speak so, with reverence of him ho liveth for ever & ever) & Christ buried, & rotten among the worms, we might have cause to look like dead folks; but, the Lord liveth & blessed be the rock of our salvation, Psal. 18: 46. None have right to joy but we, for joy is sown for us, & an ill summer or harvest will not spill the crop. The children of this world have much robbed joy that is not well come: It is no good sport they laugh at: They steall joy, as it were, from God; for he commandeth them to mourn & howle: Then let us claim our …eel-come & lawfully conquished joy. My dear Brother, I cannot but speak what I have felt, seeing my Lord Jesus hath broken a box of spikenard upon the head of his poor prisoner, & it is hard to hide a sweet smell; it is pain to smother Christs love, it will be out; whether we will or not. If we did but speak according to the matter; a cross for Christ should have another name; yea a cross, especially when he cometh with his arms full of joyes, is the happiest hard tree that ever was laid upon my weak shoulders. Christ & his cross together are sweet company & a blessed couple. My prison is my palace my sorrow is with childe of joy, my losses are rich losses, my pain easie pain, my heavie dayes are holy & happy dayes. I may tell a new tale of Christ to my friend. Oh if I could make a love-song of him, & could commend Christ & tune his praises aright! O if I could set all tongues in great Britain & Ireland, to work, to help me to sing a new song of my welbeloved! O if I could be a bridge over a water for my Lord Jesus to walk upon & keep his feet dry! O if my poor bit heaven could goe betwixt my Lord & blasphemy & dishonour! (upon condition he loved me] O that my heart could say this word & bide by it for ever. Is it not great art & incomparable wisdom in my Lord, who can bring forth such fair apples, out of this crabbed tree of the cross! nay my fathers never enough admired providence, can make a fair feast out of a black Devil: nothing can come wrong to my Lord in his sweet working. I would even fall sound a sleep in Christs arms, & my sinful head on his holy breast, while he kisseth me; were is not that often the wind turneth to the north, & whiles my sweet Lord Jesus, is, that he will neither give nor take, borrow nor lend with me: I complain he is not social, I half call him proud & lordly of his company, & nice of his lookes; which yet is not true. It would content me to give, howbeit he should not take; I should be content to want his kisses at such times, providing he would be content to come near hand & take my wersh, dry & feckless kisses: But at that time he will not be entreated, but lets a poor soul stand still & knock, & never let it on him that he heareth; & then the old leavings & broken meat, & dry sighs, are greater chear then I can tell: all I have then, is, that howbeit the law & wrath have gotten a decret against me, I yet lippen that meekle good in Christ as to get a suspension, & to bring my cause in reasoning again before my welbeloved: I desire but to be heard. And at last he is content to come, & agree the matter with a fool, & forgive freely, because he is God. Oh if men would glorify him & taste of Christs sweetness. Brother, ye have need to be busie with Christ, for this whorish-Kirk: I fear Christ cast water upon Scotlands coal; nay I know Christ & his wife will be heard, he will plead for the broken covenant. Arme you against that time. Grace be with you.
Aberd. June. 16, 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.