Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 35 – LETTER 37
To MARION MC KNAUGHT. (35)
Worthy & dearest in the Lord.
I Ever loved, (since I knew you,) that little vineyard of the Lord's planting in Galloway; But now much more since I have heard that he who hath his fire in Zion & his furnace in Ierusalem, hath been pleased to set up a furnace amongst you, with the first in this Kingdom: He who maketh old things new, seeing Scotland an old drossie & rusted Kirk, is beginning to make a new clean bride of her & to bring a young chast wife to him self out of the fire. This fire shall be quenched, so soon as Christ hath brought a clean spouse thorow the fire: Therefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, fear not a worm: fear no… worm Iacob, Christ i… i… that plea & shall win the plea: Charge an unbeleeving heart, under the pain of treason against our great & royall King Jesus, to dependence by faith, & quiet on-waiting on our Lord: Get you in to your chambers & shut the doors about you: In, in with speed to your strong hold ye prisoners of hope, ye doves flee in to Christ's windowes, till the indignation be over & the storme be past: Glorifie the Lord in your sufferings, & take his banner of love & spread over you; others will follow you if they see you strong in the Lord, their courage shall take life from your Christian carriage: look up & see who is coming, lift up your head, he is coming to save, in garments died in blood, & travelling in the greatness of his strength. I laugh, I smile, I leap for joy, to see Christ coming to save you so quickly: O such wide steps as Christ taketh! Three or four hills are but a step to him; he skippeth over the mountains: Christ hath set a battell betwixt his poor weak saints & his enemies; he waileth the weapons for both parties, & saith to the enemies, Take you a sword of steel, Law, Authority, Parliaments, & Kings upon your side, that is your armour: & he saith to his saints, I give you a feckless treesword in your hand, & that is suffering, receiving of strokes, spoiling of your goods, & with your tree-sword ye shall get & gain the Victory. Was not Christ dragged through the ditches of deep dist…esses, & great straits? & yet Christ who is your head hath win through with his life, howbeit not with a whole skin. Ye are Christs members, … is drawing his members thorow the thorny hedge up to heaven after him; Chris… one day will not have so much as a pained toe; but there are great … & portions of Christ's mystical body, not yet within the gates of the great high city, the new Jerusalem & the dragon will strike at Christ so long as there is one … member of Christ's body out of heaven. I tell you, Christ … make new work out of old fore-cast…n Scotland, & gather … old broken boards of his tabernacle, & pin them, & nail them tog…ther: our bills, & supplications are up in heaven Christ … …offers full of them: there is mercy on the other … of this hi…, a good answer to all our bills is agreed …: I must tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, King Jesus …ath done to my soul, sometimes he sendeth me out a standing drink, & whispereth a word thorow the wall; & I am well content of kindness…t the second hand, his bode is ever welcome to …e be what it will: but at other times he will be messenger himself, & I get the cup of salvation out of his own hand, (… to me) & we cannot rest till we be in others armes: and O how swèet is a fresh kiss from his holy mouth, his …athing that goeth before a kiss upon my poor soul, is sweet, & … fault… but that it is too short: I am careless, & stand not much on this; howbeit …oines, & back, & shoulders, & head …ive in pieces in steping up to my fathers house. I know my Lord can make long, & broad, & high, & deep glory to his name, out of this bit feckless body; for Christ looketh not what stuffe … …eth glory ou… of. My dearly beloved ye have often fr…hed …, but that is put up in my Master's accounts, …e have him debter for me, but if, ye will doe any thing for me (… …ow ye will) now in my extremity, tell all my dear friends, that a prisoner is fettered, & chained in Christ's love, Lord never lo… the fetters; & ye & they together take … hartiest comm…tions to my Lord Jesus, & thank him for a poor friend: I desire your husband to read this letter, I send him a prisoners blessing, I will be obliged to him if he will be willing to suffer for my dear Master, suffering is the professors golden garment, there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it. ye have been witnesses of much joy betwixt Christ & me at communionfeasts, the remembrance whereof [howbeit I be feasted in secret] holleth my heart, for I am put from the board-head & the kings first mess to his by-board, & his broken meat is sweet unto me: I thank my Lord for borrowed crumbs, no less then when I was feasted at the communion-table in Anwoth & Kirk…udbright: pray that I may get one day of Christ in publike, as I have had long since, before my eyes be closed. Oh that my Master would take up house again, & lend me the keys of his wine-cellar again, & God send me borrowed drink till then. Remember my love to Chist's kinsmen with you. I pray for Christ's father's blessing to them all: Grace be with you: a prisoners blessing be with you: I write it, and I bide by it, God shall be glorious in Marion Mc Knaught when this stormy blast shall be over. O woman beloved of God, beleeve, rejoyce, be strong in the Lord, Grace is thy portion.
Aberd. 15. June. 1637. Your brother in his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.
To JOHN GORDON At Risco in Galloway. (36)
My worthy & dear Brother.
MIspend not your short sand-glass which runneth very fast: seek your Lord in time: let me obtain of you a letter under your hand for a promise to God, by his grace to take a new course of walking with God: heaven is not at the next door: I finde it hard to be a Christian; there is no little thrusting & thronging to thrust in at heavens gates, it is a castle taken by force, many shall strive to enter in & shall not be able. I beseech & obtest you in the Lord make conscience of rash & passionat oathes, of raging & sudden revenging anger, of night-drinking, of needless companionry, of Sabbath-breaking, of hurting any under you by word or deed, of hating your very enemies. Except ye receive the Kingdom of God as a little childe & be as meek & sober-minded as a babe, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God: That is a word which should touch you near, and make you stoop & cast your self down and make your great spirit fall. I know this will not be easily done, but I recommend it to you, as you tender your part of the Kingdom of heaven. Brother, I may from new experience speak of Christ to you: Oh if ye saw in him what I see: a river of God's unseen joyes hath flowed from bank to brae over my soul since I parted with you: I wish I wanted part, so being ye might have, that your soul might be sick of love for Christ, or rather satiat with him: this clay-idol the world, would seem to you then not worth a fig; time will eat you out of possession of it, when the eye strings break & the breath groweth cold & the imprisoned soul looketh out at the windowes of the clay house, ready to leap out into eternity, what would ye then give for a lamp full of oyl? Oh seek it now. I desire you, to correct & curb banning, swearing, lying, drinking, sabbath-breaking & idle spending of the Lords day, in absence from the Kirk, as far as your Authority reacheth in that Parish. I hear a man is to be thrust in to that place to the which I have God's right: I know ye should have a voice by God's word in that: Act. 1, 15, 16. to the end, and Act. 6, 3, 5. Ye would be loath that any Prelat should put you out of your possession earthly, & this is your right. What I write to you, I write to your wife. Grace be with you.
Aberd. March. 14, 1637. Your loving Pastor. S. R.
To the Lady HALHILL. (37.)
DEar & Christian Lady, Grace, mercy & peace be to you: I longed much to write to your La: But now the Lord offering a fit occasion, I would not omit to doe it: I cannot but acquaint your Lae: with the Kind dealing of Christ to my soul in this house of my pilgrimage, that your La: May know Christ is as good as he is called: For at my first entry into this triall (being easten down & troubled with challenges & jealousies of his love whose name & testimony I now bear in my bonds,) I feared nothing more, then that I was casten over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree, but blessed be his great name, the dry tree was in the fire & was not burnt, his dew came down & quickned the root of a withered plant, & now he is come again with joy, & hath been pleased to feast his exiled & afflicted prisoner with the joy of his consolations: now I weep, but am not sad; I am chastned, but I die not; I have losse, but I want nothing: this water cannot drown me, this fire cannot burn me, because of the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush. The worst things of Christ, his reproaches, his crosse, is better then Egypt's treasures. He hath opened his door & taken into his house of wine, a poor sinner, & hath le…t me so sick of love for my Lord Jesus, that if heaven were at my disposing, I would give it for Christ, & would not be content to goe to heaven except I were perswaded Christ were there: I would not give nor exchange my bonds for the I'relats velvets, nor my prison for their coaches, nor my sighs for all the world's laughter: this clay idol, the world, hath no great court in my soul, Christ hath come & run away to heaven with my heart & my love, so that neither heart nor love is mine: I pray God, Christ may keep both without reversion. In my estimation, as I am now disposed, if my part of this world's clay were rooped & sold, I would think it dear of a drink of water. I see Christ's love is so Kingly, that it will not abide a marrow, it must have a throne, all alone in the soul, & I see apples beguile bairns howbeit they be worm-eaten: the moth-eaten pleasures of this present world make bairns beleeve ten is a hundred & yet all that are here are but shaddowes; if they would draw by the curtain that is hanged betwixt them & Christ, they should think themselves fools who have so long miskenned the Son of God. I seek no more next to heaven, but that he may be glorified in a prisoner of Christ, & that in my behalf many would praise his high & glorious name, who heareth the sighing of the prisoner. Remember my service to the Laird your husband & to your son my aquaintance: I wish Christ had his young love, & that in the morning he would start to the gate to seek that which this world knoweth not & therefore doeth not seek it: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.