Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 79 – LETTER 81
To Mr MATHEW MOWAT. (79)
Reverend & Dear Brother.
I Am refreshed with your letters: I would take all well at my Lord's hands that he hath done, If I knew I could doe my Lord any service in my suffering: suppose my Lord would make a stop-hole of me to fill a hole in the wall of his house, or a pinning in Zion's new work: For any place of trust in my Lord's house, as steward or chamberlain, or the like: surely I think my self [my very dear brother, I speak not by any proud figure or trope] unworthy of it; nay I am not worthy to stand behinde the door: if my head & feet & body were half out, half in, in Christ's house, so I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my grieuing & love-sick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at work & speaking in our Lord Jesus his name, I think my self but an out-cast or out-law chased from the City to lie on the hills & live amongst the rocks & out-fields. O that I might but stand in Christ's out-house, or hold a candle in any low vault of his house! But I know this is but the vapours that arise out of a quarrellous & unbeleeving heart, to darken the wisdom of God. And your fault is just mine, that I cannot beleeve my Lord's bare & naked word: I must either have an apple to play me with & shake hands with Christ, & have seal, caution, & witness to his word, or else I count my self loose; how beit I have the word & faith of a King. Oh, I am made of unbelief & cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground! Alas, Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying-waters, as a dyvour & a cousener! We can make such a Christ as temptations [casting us in a night-dream] doeth feign & devise [& tempeations represent Christ ever unlike himself] & we in our folly listen to the tempter. If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would my soul be: But I my self [which is my greatest evil] often mistake the cross of Christ: For I know if we had wit & knew well that ease slayeth us fools, we would desire a market where we might barter or niffer our lazie ease with a profitable cross; howbeit there be an out-cast natural betwixt our desires & tribulation: But some give a dear price & gold for physick which they love not & buy sickness, howbeit they wish rather to have been whole then to be sick. But surely. Brother, ye shall not have my advice [howbeit alas I cannot follow it my self] to contend with the honest & faithfull Lord of the house; for goe he or come he, he is ay gracious in his departure: There are grace & mercy & loving kindness upon Christ's back-parts: & When he goeth away, the proportion of his face, the image of that fair sun that staveth in eyes, senses & heart after he is gone, leaveth a mass of love behinde it in the heart. The sound of his knock at the door of his beloved after he is gone & past, leaveth … share of joy & sorrow both: So we have something to feed upon till he return, & he is more loved in his departure, & after he is gone then before, as the day in the declining of the sun & toward's the evening is often most desired. And as for Christ's cross I never received evil of it, but what was of mine own making: when I miscooked Christ's physick, no marvel that it hurt me: For since it was on Christ's back it hath alwayes a sweet smell & these 1600 Years it keepeth the smell of Christ; nay it is elder then that too, for it is a long time since Abel first hansel'd the cross & had it laid upon his shoulders & down from him all alongst to this very day all the saints have known what it is. I am glad that Christ hath such a relation to this cross, & that it is called the cross of our Lord Iesus, Gal. 6: v. 14. His reproaches, Heb. 13: 13. As if Christ would claim it as his proper goods, & so it cometh in the reckoning among Christ's own property: If it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is not the author nor owner of sin, would not own it. I wonder at the enemies of Christ [in whom malice hath run away with wit, & will is up & wit down] that they would essay to lift up the stone laid in Zion: surely it is not laid in such sinking ground as that they can raise it or remove it; for when we are in their belly & they have swallowed us down, they will be sick & spue us out again. I know Zion & her Husband cannot both sleep at once: I beleeve our Lord once again shall water with his dew the withered hill of mount Zion in Scotland & come down & make a new marriage again, as he did long since. Remember our Covenant: Your excuse for your advice to me is needless: Alas, many sit beside light as sick folks beside meat & cannot make use of it. Grace be with you.
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your brother in Christ, S. R.
To Mr JOHN MEINE. (80)
Dear Brother.
I Received your letter: I cannot but testifie under mine own hand, that Christ is still the longer the better, & that this time is the time of loves. When I have said all I can, others may begin & say, I have said nothing of him. I never knew Christ to ebbe or flow, wax or wane: his winds turn not when he seemeth to change, it is but we who turn our wrong side to him. I never had a plea with him in my hardest conflicts but of mine own making. Oh that I could live in peace & good neighbourhood with such a second, & let him alone! My unbelief made many black lies, but my recantation to Christ is not worth the hearing. Surely he hath born with strange gâdes in me: He knoweth my heart hath not naturall wit to keep quarters with such a Saviour. Ye doe well to fear your own backsliding: I had stood sure, if I had in my youth borrowed Christ to be my bottom: But he that beareth his own weight to heaven, shall not fail to slip & sink. Ye had no need to be bare-footed among the thorns of this apostat generation, lest a stob strike up in your foot & cause you to halt all your dayes: And think not, Christ will doe with you in the matter of suffering as the Pope doeth in the matter of sin: Ye shall not finde that Christ will sell a Dispensation or give a Dyvour's Protection against crosses: Crosses are proclaimed as common Accidents to all the saints, & in them standeth a part of our communion with Christ: But there lieth a sweet casuality to the cross; even Christ's presence & his comforts when they are sanctified. Remember my love to your father & mother. Grace be with you.
Aberd. 7. Sept. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.
To JOHN FLEEMING. Bailiffe of Leith. (81)
Much honoured in the Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am still in good termes with Christ, however my Lord's wind blow, I have the advantage of the calm & sunny side of Christ. Devils, & hell, & Devil's servants, are all blowen blinde in pursuing the Lord's little Bride: They shall be as a night-dream who fight against mount Zion. Worthy Sir, I hope ye take to heart the worth of your calling: This great fair & meeting of people will skaile, & the port is open for us: As fast as time weareth out, we flee away: Eternity is at our elbow. O how blessed are they who in time make Christ sure for themselves; Salvation is a great errand; I finde it hard to fetch heaven. Oh that we could take pains on our lamps for the Bridegroom's coming! the other side of this world will be turned up incontinent, & up shall down, & these that are weeping in sack-cloth shall triumph on white horses, with him whose name is The word of God. These dying idols, the fair: creatures that we whorishly love better then our Creator, will pass away like snow water. The Godhead, the Godhead, a communion with God in Christ, to be halvers with Christ of the purchased house & inheritance in heaven, should be your scope & aime. For my self, when I lay my counts, O what telling, O what weighing is in Christ! O how soft are his kisses! O love, love surpassing in Jesus! I have no fault to that love, but that it seemeth to deal niggardly with me: I have little of it. O that I had Christ's seen & read band, subscribed by himself, for my fill of it! What garland have I, or what crown, if I looked right on things, but Jesus? Oh there is no room in us on this side of the water for that love! This narrow bit earth & these ebbe & narrow souls can hold little of it because we are full of rifts. I would glory, glory would enlarge us [as it will] & make us tight, & close up our seams & rifts, that we might be able to comprehend it, which yet is incomprehensible. Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.