Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 53 – LETTER 55
To JOHN STUART. Provest of Ayr. [53]
Worthy and dearly beloved in our Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I was refreshed & comforted with your letter: what I wrote to you for your comfort, I doe not remember, but I beleeve love will prophesie home-ward as it would have it. I wish I could help you to praise his great and holy name, who keepeth the feet of his saints, & hath numbred all your goings. I know our dearest Lord will pardon & passe by our honest errours & mistakes when we minde his honour; yet I know none of you have seen the other half & the hidden side of your wonderfull return home to us again. I am confident ye shall yet say that God's mercy blew your sailes back to Ireland again. Worthy & dear Sir, I cannot but give you an account of my present state, that ye may goe an errand for me, to my high & royall master, of whom I boast all the day. I am as proud of his love, [nay, I blesse my self & boast more of my present lot] as any poor man can be of an earthly Kings court, or of a Kingdom. First I am very often turning both the sides of my cross, especially my dumb & silent Sabbaths, not because I desire to finde a crook or defect in my Lord's love, but because love is sick with phansies, & fears, whether or not the Lord hath a processe leading against my guiltiness, that I have not yet well seen: I know not, my desire is to ride fair, & not to spark dirt [if with reverence of him I may be permitted to make use of such a word] in the face of my onelyonly, onelyonly welbeloved; but fear of guiltness, i… a tale-bearer betwixt me & Christ, & is still whispering ill tales of my Lord, to weaken my faith: I had rather a cloud went over my comforts by these messages, then that my faith should be hurt, for if my Lord get no wrong by me, verily I desire grace not to care what become of me. I desire to give no faith, nor credit to my sorrow, that can make a lye of my best friend Christ. Woe, woe be to them all who speak ill of Christ. Hence these thoughts awake with me in the morning & goe to bed with me. Oh what service can a dumb body doe in Christ's house! Oh I think the word of God is imprisoned also! Oh I am a dry tree! Alas I can neither plant, nor water! Oh if my Lord would make but dung of me, to fatten, and make fertile his own corn-ridges in mount Sion! Oh if I might but speak to three or four herd-boyes of my worthy master, I would be satisfied to be the meanest and most obscure of all the Pastors in this land, & to live in any place, in any of Christ's basest out-hous…s; but he saith, Sirra, I …ill not send you, I have no errands for you there away: My desire to serve him is sick of jealousie lest he be unwilling to employ me. Secondly, this is seconded with another, Oh all that I have done in Anwoth, the fair work that my Master began there, is like a bird dying in the shell! & what will I then have to show of all my labour in the day of my compearance before him, when the Master of the vineyard calleth the labourers, & giveth them their hire. Thirdly, but truly when Christ's sweet wind is in the right airth, I repent, & I pray Christ to take law-borrows of my quarrelous, & unbeleeving sadness & sorrow [Lord rebuke them that put ill betwixt a poor servant like me, & his good master] then I say whether the black cross will or not, I must climb, hands & feet up to my Lord. I am now ruing from my heart, that I pleasure the law [my old dead husband] so far as to apprehend wrath in my sweet Lord Jesus, I had far rather take an hire to plead for the grace of God, for I think my self Christ's sworn debter, & the truth is to speak of my Lord what I cannot deny, I am over head & ears drowned in many obligations to his love & mercy, he handleth me sometimes so, that I am ashamed almost to seek more for a four-hours, but to live content till the marriage-supper of the Lamb with that which he giveth; but I know not how greedy & how ill to please love is, for either my Lord Jesus hath taught me ill manners, not to be content of a seat except my head lie in his bosom, & except I be fed with the fattest of his house, or else I am grown impatiently dainty & ill to please, as if Christ were obliged under this cross to doe no other thing but bear me in his armes, & as if I had claim by merit for my suffering for him: But I wish he would give me grace to learn to goe on my own feet, & to learn to want his comforts, & to give thanks & beleeve, when the snn is not in my firmament, & when my welbeloved is from home & gone another errand. O what sweet peace have I, when I finde Christ holdeth & I draw, when I climb up & he shutteth me down, when I grip him & embrace him, & he seemeth to loose the grips & flee away from me: I think there even is a sweet joy of faith & contentedness & peace in his very tempting unkindness, because my faith saith, Christ is not in sad earnest with me, but trying if I can be kinde to his mask & cloud that covereth him, aswell as to his fair face: I bless his great name that I love his vail that goeth over his face while God send better: for faith can kiss Gods tempting reproaches, when he nicknameth a sinner, a dog, not worthy to eat bread with the bairns, I think it an honour that Christ miscalleth me & reproacheth me: I will take that well of him, howbeit I would not bear it well if another would be that homely; but because I am his own [God be thanked] he may use me as he pleaseth: I must say, the saints have a sweet life betwixt them & Christ, there is much sweet solace of love betwixt him & them, when he feedeth among the lilies & cometh in to his garden & maketh a feast of honey combs, & drinketh his wine & his milk, & cryeth, Eat O friends, drink, be ye drunken O welbeloved. One hour of this labour, is worth a shipfull of world's drunken & muddy joy: nay even the gate of heaven is the sunny side the of brae & the very garden of the world; for the men of this world have their own unchristned & profane crosses & woe be to them & their cursed crosses both; for their ills are salted with Gods vengeance, & our ills seasoned with our fathers blessing: So they are no fools who choose Christ & sell all things for him; it is no bairns market nor a blinde block, we know well what we get & what we give. Now for any resolution to goe to any other Kingdō, I dare not speak one word: my hopes of enlargement are cold, my hopes of re-entry to my Master's ill dressed, vine-yard again are far colder: I have no seat for my faith to sit on but bare omnipotency, & Gods holy arm & good will, here I desire to stay & ride at anchor & winter while God send fair weather again, & be pleased to take home to his house my harlot-mother: Oh if her husband would be that kind as to goe & fetch her out of the brothel-house & chase her lovers to the hills, but there will be sad dayes ere it come to that. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in our Lord Iesus. S. R.
To the Lady Busbie. (54)
MISTRESS.
ALthough not acquaint, yet because we are father's children I thought good to write unto you: howbeit my first discourse & communing with you of Christ, be in paper; yet I have cause since I came hither to have no paper-thoughts of him; for in my sad dayes he is become the flower of my joyes, & I but lie here, living upon his love; but cannot get so much of it as fain I would have, not because Christ's love is Lordly & looketh too high; but because I have a narrow vessel to receive his love & I look too low: But I give under my own hand-write to you a testimonial of Christ & his cross, that they are a sweet couple, & that Christ hath never yet been set in his own due chair of honour amongst us all. Oh, I know not where to set him! O for a high seat to that royal princely one! O that my poor withered soul had once a running-over flood of that love, to put sap in my dry root, & that, that flood would spring out to the tongue and pen, to utter great things to the high & due commendation of such a fair one! O holy, holy, holy one! Alas there are too many dumb tongues in the world, and dry hearts, seeing there is employment in Christ for them all, and ten thousand worlds of men & Angels moe, to set on high & exalt the greatest Prince of the Kings of the earth. Woe's me that bits of living clay dare come out to rush hard heads with him, & that my unkind mother, this harlot-Kirk, hath given her sweet half-marrow such a meeting; for this land hath given up with Christ, & the Lord is cutting Scotland in two halves, and sending the worst half, the harlotsister, over to Rome's brothell-house, to get her fill of Egypt's love. I would my sufferings [nay, suppose I were burnt quick to ashes] might buy an agreement betwixt his fairest & sweetest love, & his gaddy lewd wife: Fain would I give Christ his welcome-home to Scotland again, if he would return. This is a black day, a day of clouds & darkness, for the roof-tree of my Lord Jesus his fair temple is fillen, and Christs back is towards Scotland. O thrice blessed are they who would hold Christ with their tears & prayers! I know ye will help to deal with him, for he shall return again to this land; the next day shall be Christ's, & there shall be a fair green young garden for Christ in this land, & God's summerdew shall lie on it all the night, & we shall sing again our new marriage-song to our Bridegroom, concerning his vineyard; but who knoweth whether we shall live & see it? I hear the Lord hath taken pains to afflict and dress you as a fruitfull vine for himself, grow & be green, & cast out your branches & bring forth fruit: fat and green & fruitfull may ye be in the true and sappy root. Grace, grace, free grace be your portion. Remember my bonds with prayers & praises.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet L. Iesus, S. R.
To NINIAN MURE. (55.)
Loving friend.
I Received your letter: I intreat you now in the morning of your life, seek the Lord & his face: Beware of the follies of dangerous youth, a perilous time for your soul: Love not the world, keep faith & truth with all men in your covenants & bargains: Walk with God, for he seeth you: Doe nothing but that which ye may & would doe if your eye-strings were breaking, & your breath growing cold. Ye heard the truth of God from me, my dear heart; follow it & forsake it not: prize Christ & salvation above all the world: To live after the guise & course of the rest of the world, will not bring you to heaven: Without faith in Christ & repentance, ye cannot see God: take pains for salvation: press forward toward the mark of the prize of the high calling: If ye watch not against evils, night & day which beset you, ye will come behinde: Beware of lying, swearing, uncleanness & the rest of the works of the flesh; because for these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience; how sweet soever they may seem for the present, yet the end of these courses is the eternall wrath of God & utter darkness, where there is weeping & gnashing of teeth. Grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Your Loving Pastor. S. R.