Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 34
To CARLETOUN. (34)
Worthy & much honoured.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter from my Brother, to the which I now answer particularly. I confess two things of my self. 1. Woe, woe is me, that men should think there is any thing in me: He is my witness before whom I am as crystall, that the secret hous…-devils that bear me too oft company, & that this sink of corruption which I finde within, maketh me goe with low sailes: & if other… saw what I see, they would look by me, but not to me. 2. I know this shower of his free grace behooved to be on me, otherwayes I would have withered. I know also, I have need of a buffeting tempter that grace may be put to exercise & I kept low. Worthy & dear Brother in our Lord Jesus, I write that from my heart which ye now read. 1. I avouch that Christ, & sweating, & sighing under his cross, is sweeter to me by far, then all the Kingdoms in the world could possibly be. 2. If you & my dearest acquaintance in Christ, reap any fruit by my sufferring; let me be weighed in God's even ballance, if my joy be not fulfilled: What am I to carry the marks of such a great King? But howbeit I am a sink & sinfull mass, a wretched captive of sin, my Lord Jesus can hew heaven out of worse timber then I am (if worse can be.) 3. I now rejoyce with joy unspeakable & glorious, that I never purposed posed to bring Christ no… the least hoof or hair-breadth of truth under …: I desired to have & keep Christ all alone, & that he should never rub clothes with that black-skin'd harlot of Rome. I am now fully payed home, so that nothing aileth me for the present, but love-sickness for a …all possession of my faire …t welbeloved. I would give him my bond under my faith & hand, to frist heaven an hundred yeers longer, so being he would lay his holy face to my sometimes wet cheeks. Oh, who would not pity me, to know how fain I would have the King shaking the tree of life upon me, or letting me in to the well of life with my old dish, that I might be drunken with the fountain, here, in the house of my pilgrimage! I cannot, nay I would not, be quite of Christs love: H… hath left the marke behinde him where he gripped: He goeth away & leaveth me & his burning love to wrestle together, & I can scarce win my meat of his love because of absence: My Lord giveth me but hungry half-kisses, which serve to feed pain & increase hunger, but doe not satisfie my desires: His dieting of my soul for this race maketh me lean. I have gotten the waile & choice of Christ's crosses, even the …ithe & the flower of the gold of all crosses, to bear witness to the truth, & herein finde I liberty, joy, access, life, comfort, love, …aith, submission, patience, & resolution to take delight in on-waiting: & with all in my race he hath come near me & let me see the gold & crown: What then want I but fruition & reall enjoyment, which is reserved to my countrey? Let no man think he shall lose at Christs hands in suffering for him. 4. For these present trials they are most dangerous: for people shall be stolen off their feet with well washen, & whiteskin'd pretences of indifferency; but it is the power of the great Antichrist working in this land. Woe, woe, woe be to Apostat Scotland: there is wrath, & a cup of the red wine of the wrath of God Almighty in the Lords hand, that they …hall drink and spue and fall and not rise again. The star called Wormwood & Gall is fallen in the fountaines, and rivers, & hath made them bitter: the sword of the Lord is …ourbished against the Idol-shepherds of the l…nd; women shall bless the barren womb & miscarrying breasts; all hearts shall be faint, and all knees shall tremble, an end is coming, the leopard and the lion shall watch over our cities, houses great & fair shall be desolate without an inhabitant: the Lord hath said, Pray not for this people, for I have taken my p…ace from them; yet the Lord's third part shall come through the fire, as refined gold for the treasure of the Lord, & the out-casts of Scotland shall be gathered together again, & the wilderness shall blossome as the flower, & bud, & grow as the rose o… Sharon, & great shall be the glory of the Lord upon Scotland. 5. … am here as…aulted with the learned & pregnant wits of this Kingdom; but all honour be to my Lord, truth but laugheth at be…isted & blinded Scribes, & disputers of this world, & Gods wisdom confoundeth them, & Christ triumpheth in his own strong truth, that speaketh for it self. 6. I doubt not but my Lord is preparing me for heavier trial…: I am most ready at the good pleasure of my Lord, in the strength of his grace, for any thing he shall be pleased to call me to: neither shall the last blackfaced messenger, Death, be holden at the door, when it shall knock. If my Lord will take honour of the like of me, how glad & joy…ull shall my soul be: Let Christ come out with me to an hotter battell then this, & I shall fear no flesh: I know that my master will win the day, & that he hath taken the ordering of my sufferings in his own hand. 7. As for my deliverance, that miscarrieth: I am here, by my Lords grace, to lay my hand on my mouth, to be silent & wait on: my Lord Jesus is on his Journey for my deliverance; I will not grudge that he runneth not so fast as I would have him: On-waiting till the swelling rivers fall, & till my Lord arise as a mighty man after strong wine, shall be my best: I have not yet resisted to blood. 8. O how often am I laid in the dust, and urged by the tempter (who can ride his own errands upon our lying apprehensions,) to sin against the unchangeable love of my Lord. When I think upon the sparrowes, & swallowes that build their nests in the Kirk of Anwoth, and of my dumb sabbaths, my sorrowfull bl…ired eyes, look asquint upon Christ, and present him as angry. But in this triall, all honour to our princely and …oyall …ing, faith …aileth …ir before the wi…d, with top …aile up, and carrieth the poor pass…nger through. I …ay inhibitions upon my thoughts, that they receive no slanders of my onelyonly, onelyonly Beloved: let him even …ay out of his own mouth. There is no hope, yet I will die in that sweet beguile, … is not so: I… all see the Salvation of God. Let me be deceived really, and never win to dry land, it is my joy to beleeve under the water, & to die with faith in my hand gripping Christ: let my conceptions of Christs love, goe to the grave with me & to hell with me, I may not, I dare not quite them. I hope to keep Christs pawne: if he never come to loose it, let him see to his own promise. I know, Presumption, howbeit it be made of stoutness, will not thus be wilfull in heavie trials. Now, my dearest in Christ, the great messenger of the Covenant, the onelyonly wise & alsufficient Iehovah establish you to the end. I hear the Lord hath been at your house & hath called home your … to her rest. I know, Sir, ye see the Lord loosing the p…s of your tabernacle, & wooing your love from this plaistered & over-guilded world; & calling upon you, to be making your self ready to goe to your fathers countrey, which shall be a sweet fruit of that visitation. Ye know, to send the Comforter was a King, word when he ascended on high: ye have claim to, & interest in that promise. Remember my love in Christ to your father: shew him, it is late & black might with him; his long lying at the water-side, is, that he may look his papers e… he take shipping, & be at a point for his last answer before his judge & Lord. All love, all mercy, all grace, & peace, all multiplied saving consolations, all joy & faith in Christ, all stability & confirming strength of grace, & the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush be with you.
Aberd. 15. June. 1637. Your unworthy brother is his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.