Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 75 – LETTER 78
To the right honourable, my Lord LOWDOUN. (75.)
Right honourable.
GRace mercy & peace be to your Lo: I rejoyce exceedingly that I hear your Lo: hath a good minde to Christ & his now-born-down truth. My very dear Lord, goe on in the strength of the Lord to carry your honour & worldly glory to the new Ierusalem: For this cause your Lo: received these of the Lord: this is a sure way for the establishment of your house if ye be of these who are willing in your place to build Zion's old waste places in Scotland. Your Lo: wanteth not God's & man's law both, now to come to the streets for Christ: & suppose the bastard laws of man were against you, it is an honest & zealous errour, if here ye slip against a point or punctilio of standing policy: when your foot slippeth in such known ground as is the royal prerogative of our high & most truly dread …overaign [who hath many crowns on his head] & the liberties of his house, he will hold you up. Blessed shall they be who take Babel's little ones & dash their heads against stones: I wish your Lo: have a share of that blessing with other worthy Nobles in our land. It is true, it is now accounted wisdom for men to be partners in pullin up the stakes & loo…ng the cords of the tent of Christ: but I am peswaded, that that wisdom is cried down in heaven, & shall never passe for true wisdom it… the Lord, whose word crieth shame upon wit against Christ & truth: & accordingly it shall prove shame & confusion of face in the end. Our Lord hath given your Lo: … of a better stamp, & learning also wherein yeare not behinde th disputer and the s…be. O what a bless…d thing i… it to see No…ility, Learning & Sanctification, all co curre in one! For these ye ow your sel to Christ & his …ingdom: God hath be-wildered & b…-misted the wit & the learning of the scribes & disputer of this time; they look asquint to the Bible: This blinding & be-…ing world blindfoldeth mens light, that they are affraid to se straight out b…fore them, nay their very light playeth the knave, or wo…s, to truth. Your Lo: knoweth, within a little while, Policy against trut… will blu…h, & the works of men shall burn, even their spider-w…b, who spin out many hundred ells & webs of indifferencie in the Lord's worship, moe then ever …oses, who would have an…oof m…t rial; & Daniel, who would have a look out at a wi…dow a matter of life & death, then ever [I say] these men of God dreamed of. Alas, that men dare shape, carve, cut & clippe our King's princ…ly Testament in length and breadth and in all dimensions answerable to the conceptions of such policy as a h ad-of-wit thinketh a safe and trim way of serving God. How have men forgotten the Lord, that they dàre goe against even that truth which once they preached themselves, howbeit their sermons now be as thin sown as strav-berri…s in a wood or wilderness. Certainly the s…eetest & safest course is, for this short time of the afternoon of this ol… & declining world, to stand for Jesus: he hath said it & it is our part to beleeve it, that ere is be long Time shall be no more, and the heaven shall wax old as a garment: … Doe we not see it already an old hollie & threed-bare garment? doeth not or ple & la…e ature t…l us, that the Lord will fold up the old garment, … and lay it aside, & that the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll & this pesthouse shall be burnt with fire, & that both plenishing & walls shall melt with fervent heat? for at the Lord's coming he will doe with this earth as men doe with a leper house, he wil burn the walls with fire & the plenishing of the house also, 2 Pet. 3, 10, 11, 12. My very Daer Lord, how shall ye rejoyce in that day to have Christ, Angels, heaven, & your own conscience to smile upon you. I am perswaded one sick night through the terrors of the Almighty, would make men [whose conscience hath such a wide throat as an image like a Chathedral Church would goe down it] have other thoughts of Christ and his worship then now they please themselves with. The scarcity of faith in the earth saith, We are hard upon the last nick of time: Blessed are these who keep their garments clean against the bridegroom's coming: There shall be spotted clothes & many defiled garments at his last coming; & therefore few found worthy to walk with him in white. I am perswaded, my Lord, this poor travelling woman, our pained Church, is with childe of victory & shall bring forth a man-childe that shall be caught up to God & his throne, howbeit the Dragon [in his followers] be attending the childe-birth-pain, as an Egyptian midwife, to receive the birth & strangle it: Isa. 29: 8. But they shall be disappointed who thirst for the destruction of Zion, they shall be as when a hungry man dreameth that he eateth but behold he awaketh & his soul is empty, or when a thirsty man dreameth, that he drinketh but behold he awaketh & is faint & his soul is not satisfied: so shall it be, I say, with the multitude of all the nations that fight against mount Zion. Therefore the weak, & feeble, these that are as signes & wonders in Israel, have chosen the best side, even the side that victory is upon; & I think, this is no evil policy. Verily for my self, I am so well pleased with Christ & his noble & honest-born cross, this cross that is come of Christ's house, & is of kin to himself, that I should weep if it should come to niffering & bar…ring of lots & condition with these that are at ease in Zion: I hold still my choice & blesse my self in it. I see, & I beleeve there is salvation in this way that is every where spoken against: I hope to goe to eternity & to venture upon the last evil to the saints, even upon death, fully perswaded that this onelyonly, even this, is, the saving way for rackel consciences & for weary & laden sinners to finde ease & peace for evermore into: & indeed it is not for any worldly respect that I speak so of it: the weather is not so hot that I have great cause to startle in my prison, or to boast of that …ntertainment that my good friends the Prelats, intend for me, which is banishment, if they shall obtain their desire & effectu at what they design; but let it come, I rue not that I made Christ my waile & my choice; I think him ay the longer the better. My Lord, It shall be good service to God to hold your noble friend & Chief upon a good course for the truth of Christ. Now the very God of peace establish your Lo: in Christ Jesu… unto the end.
Aberd. Sept, 10. 1637. Your Lo: in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.
To the Laird of GAITGIRTH. (76)
Much honoured Sir.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I can doe no more but thank you in paper, & remember you to him whom I serve, for your kindness & care of a prisoner. I ble…s the Lord, the cause I suffer for needeth not to blu…h before Kings: Christs white, honest & fair truth needeth neither wax pale for fear, nor blush for shame. I bless the Lord who hath graced you to own Christ now, when so many are affraid to profess him, & hide him for fear they suffer loss by avouching him. Alas that so many in these dayes are carried with the times: As if their conscience rolled upon oyled wheels so doe they goe any way the wind bloweth them, & because Christ is not market-sweet, men put him away from them. Worthy & much honoured Sir, goe on to own Christ & his oppressed truth: The end of sufferings for the Gospel is rest and gladness: light & joy is sown for the mourners in Zion and the harvest [which is of God's making for time & manner] is neer: Crosses have right & claim to Christ in hs members, till legs & arms & whole mystical-Christ be in heaven: There will be rain & hail & storm…n the saints clouds, ever till God cleanse with fire the works of creation, & till he burn the botch-house of heaven & earth that mens sin hath subjected unto vanity. They are blessed who suffer & sin not, for suffering is the badge that Christ hath put upon his followers. Take what way we can to heaven, the way is hedged up with crosses, there is no way, but to break through them; wit & wiles, shifts & laws will not finde out a way about the cross of Christ but we must through, one thing by experience my Lord hath taught me, that the waters betwixt this & heaven may all be ridden if …e be well hors'd, I mean if we be in Christ, & not one shall drown by the way but such as love their own destruction. Oh if we could wait on for a time & beleeve in the dark the salvation of God! At least we are to beleeve good of Christ till he give us the slip [which is impossible] & to take his word for caution that he shall fill up all the blanks in his promises & give us what we want: but to the unbeleever Christ's Testament is white, blank, unwritten paper, worthy and dear Sir, set your face to heaven & make you to stoop at all the low entries in the way: that ye may receive the Kingdom as a childe: without this, he that knew the way said, there is no entry in. O but Christ be willing to lead a poor sinner! O what love my poor soul hath found in him in the house of my pilgrimage! Suppose love in heaven and earth were lost, I dare swear it may be found in Christ. Now the very God of peace establish you till the day of the glorious appearance of Christ.
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.
To the Lady GAITGIRTH. (77)
Much honoured & Christian Lady.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear how it goeth with you & your children: I exhort you not to lose breath nor to faint in your journey: The way is not so long to your home as it was, it will wear to one step or an inch at length, & ye shall come ere long to be within your armlength of the glorious crown. Your Lord Jesus did sweat & pant ere he got up that mount, he was at father save me with it, it was he who, Psal. 22: 14. said. I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joynt [Christ wa… as if they had broken him upon the wheel] my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels v. 15. My strength is dried up like a po…sheard: I am sure ye love the way the better that his holy feet trod it before you: Crosses have a smell of crossed & pained Christ. I beleeve your Lord will not leave you to die your alone in the way. I know ye have sad hours when the comforter is hid under a vail & when ye inquire for him, & finde but a toom nest: This I grant is but a cold good-day when the seeker misseth him whom the soul loveth; but even his unkindness is kind, his absence lovely, his mask a sweet fight, till God send Christ himself in his own sweet presence: make his sweet comforts your own, & be not strange & shame fast with Christ: homely dealing is best for him, it is his liking. When your winter storms are over, the summer of your Lord shall come: Your sadness is with childe of joy, he will doe you good in the latter end. Take no heavier lift of your children then your Lord alloweth, give them room beside your heart, but not in the yolk of your heart, where Christ should be; for then they are your idols, not your bairns: if your Lord take any of them home to his house before the storm come on, take it well, the owner of the orchard may take down two or thr… …pples off his own trees before midsummer & ere they get the harvest sun, & it would not be seemly that his servant, the gardiner, should chide him for it: Let our Lord pluck his own fruit at any season he pleaseth; they are not lost to you, they are laid up so well as that they are coffered in heaven where our Lord's best jewely lie: They are all free goods that are there, death can have no law to arrest any thing that is within the walls of the new Ierusalem. All the saints, because of sin, are like old rusty horologies that must be taken down, & the wheels scoured & mended, & set up again in better case then before: Sin hath rusted both soul & body: our dear Lord by death taketh us down to scour the wheels of both, & to purge us perfectly from the root and remainder of sin, & we shall be set up in better case then before. Then pluck up your heart, heaven is yours, & that is a word few can say. Now the great Shepherd of the sheep & the very God of peace confirm & establish you to the day of the appearance of Christ our Lord.
Aberd. 7 Sept. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.
To his revend & very dear brother Mr GEORGE GILLESPIE. [78]
My very Dear Brother.
I Received yours: I am still with the Lord, his cross hath done that which I thought impossible once: Christ keepeth tryst in the fire & water with his own, & cometh ere our breath goe out & ere our blood grow cold. Blessed are they whose feet escape the great golden net that is now spread: it is our happiness to take the crabbed, rough & poor side of Christ's world, which is a lease of crosses & losses for him; for Christ's in comes & casualities that follow him are many: & it is not a little one, that a good conscience may be had in following him this is true gain & most to be laboured for & loved. Many give Christ for a shadow, because Christ was rather beside their con…cience in a dead & reprobate light, then in their conscience. Let us be ballasted with grace, that we be not blowen over & that we staggar not. Yet a little while & Christ & his redeemed ones shall fill the field & come out victorious: Christ's glory of triumphing in Scotland is yet in the bud & in the birth, but the birth cannot prove an abortive: He shall not faint nor be discouraged till he have brought forth judgement unto victory. Let us still minde our Covenant: & the very God of peace be with you.
Aberd. 9. Sept. 1637. Your Brother in Christ. S. R.