Letters in Two Parts, Part 2 · LETTER 53 – LETTER 56
To M. O. (53)
Sir.
I can write nothing for the present concerning these times [what ever others may think] but that which speaketh wrath & judgement to these Kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that Land received the Gospel in truth [as I am confident, ye and they did] there is here a great departure from that faith, and our sufferings are not yet at an end. However, I dare testifie and die for it, that once Christ was revealed in the power of his excelency and glory to the saints there, and in Scotland, of which … was a witness. I pray God, none dceeive you or take the crown from you: Hell or the gates of Hell cannot ravel, mar, or undoe what Christ hath once done amongst you. It may be that I am uncapable of new light, & cannot receive that Spirit [whereof some vainly boast) but that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, & our hands have handled, even the word of life, 1 Ioh. 1: 2, 3. hath been declared to you: Thousands of thousands walking in that light & that good old way, have gone to heaven & are now before the throne: Truth is but one, & hath no numbers. Christ & Antichrist are both now in the camp, & are come to open blowes: Christ's poor ship saileth in a sea of blood, the passengers are so sea-sick of a high fever, that they miscall one another, Christ [I hope] shall bring the broken bark to land: I had rather swim for life & death on an old plank, or a brokē board, to land with Christ, then enjoy the rotten peace we have hitherto had. It is like, the Lord will take a severe course with us, to cause the children of the family agree together. I conceive that Christ hath a great designe of free grace to these Lands; but his wheels must move over mountains & rocks: He never yet wooed a Bride on earth, but in blood, in fire, & in the wilderness. A cross of our own chusing, honeyed & sugared with consolations, we cannot have: I think not much of a cross when all the children of the house weep with me & for me, & to suffer when we enjoy the communion of Saints, is not much; but it is hard when Saints rejoyce in the suffering of Saints & redeemed ones hurt, yea, even goe nigh to hate redeemed ones. I confess, I imagined there had no more been such an affliction on earth, or in the world, then that one elect Angel should fight against another: but for contempt of the communion of Saints, we have need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of before: the saints are not Christ, there is no misjudging in him, there is much in us, & a doubt it is, if we shall have fully one heart till we enjoy one heaven: our starlight hideth us from our selves, & hideth us one from another, & Christ from us all; but he will not be hidden from us. I shall wish that all the sons of our father in that Land be of one minde, & that they be not shaken nor moved from the Truth once received: Christ was in that Gospel, & Christ is the same now that he was in the Prelates time: That Gospel cannot sink, it will make you free & bear you out. Christ, the subject of it, is the chosen of God, & cometh from Bozrah, with garments dyed in blood. Ireland & Scotland both must be his field in which he shall feed & gather lilies: suppose [which yet is impossible] that some had an eternity of Christ in Ireland, & a sweet summer of the Gospel, & a feast of fat things for evermore in Ireland, & one should never come to heaven, it should be a desirable life; the King's spikenard, Christ's perfume, his apples of love, his oyntments, even down in this lower house of clay, are a choice heaven: O what then is the King in his own land! where there is such a throne, so many Kings palaces, ten thousand thousands of crowns of glory that want heads yet to fill them: O so much leisure as shall be there to sing! O such a tree as groweth there in the midst of that paradise, where the inhabitants sing eternally under it's branches! To look in at a window & see the branches burdened with the apples of life, to be the last man that shall come in thither, were too much for me. I pray you remember me to the Christians there & remember our private Covenant. Grace be with you.
London April 17. 1646. Your friend in the Lord Iesus, S. R.
To EARLESTOWN Elder. (54)
Sir.
I Know ye have learned long agoe, ere I knew any thing of Christ, that if we had the Cross at our own election, we would either have law-surety for freedom from it, or then we would have it honeyed & sugared with comforts, so, as the sweet should over-master the gall & wormwood. Christ knoweth how to breed the sons of his house, & ye will give him leave to take his own way of dispensation with you, & though it be rough, forgive him: he defieth you to have as much patience to him, as he hath born to you. I am sure, there cannot a dram-weight of gall be less in your cup, & ye would not desire, he sould both afflict you & hurt your soul. When his people cannot have a Providence of silk & roses, they must be content with such an one as he carveth out for them: ye would not goe to heaven but with company, & ye may perceive that the way of these who went before you, was through blood, sufferings, & many afflictions: Nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the doorthreshold of Paradise, bleeding to death. I doe not think but ye have learned to stoop, though ye (as others) be naturally stiff, & that ye have found that the apples & sweet fruits which grow on that crabbed tree of the Cross are as sweet as it is so …re to bear it; especially considering that Christ hath born the whole compleat Cross, & his Saints bear but bits & chipes, as the Apostle saith The remnants or leavings of the Cross. I Judge you ten thousand times happy that ever ye was Grace's debter, for certainly Christ hath ingaged you over head & ears to free Grace, & take the debt with you to Eternity, Immanuel's. highest land, where ye finde before you a house-full of Christ's everlasting debters; the less shame to you. Yea, & this lower Kingdom of Grace is but Christ's Hospital & Guest-house of sick folks, whom the brave & noble Physician Christ hath cured upon a venture of life & death. And if ye be near the waterside [as I know ye are] all that I can say is this, Sir, that I feel by the smell of that land which is before you, that it's a goodly Countrey, & it is well payed-for to your hand, & he is before you who will heartily welcome you. O to suck these breasts of full consolation above, & to drink Christ's new wine up in his father's house, is some greater matter then is beleeved! since it was brewed from eternity for the head of the house, & so many thousand crowned Kings: Rubs in the way where the lodging is so good are not much. He that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal Covenant, establish you to the end.
London May 15. 1646. Your friend and servant in Christ Iesus, S. R.
To his reverend & worthy Brother Mr G. GILLESPIE. (55)
Reverend & dear Brother.
I Cannot speak to you: the way ye know the passage is free & not stopped, the print of the footsteps of the fore-runner is clear & manifest, many have gone before you: Ye will not sleep long in the dust before the day break: it is a far shorter piece of the hinder-end of the night to you, then to Abraham & Moses, beside all the time of their bodies resting under curruption, it is as long yet to their day as to your morning light of awaking to glory; though their spirits having the advantage of yours, have had now the fore-start of the shore before you. I dare say nothing against his dispensation: I hope to follow quickly: The heirs that are not there before you, are posting with haste after you, & none shall take your lodging over your head. Be not heavy, the life of faith is now called for: doing was never reckoned in your accounts, (though Christ in & by you hath done more, then by twenty, yea an hundred gray-haired & godly Pastors) beleeving now is your last: Look to that word: Gal. 2: v. 20. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: Ye know the I that liveth, & the I that liveth not: It is not single Ye that liveth, Christ by law liveth in the broken debter: It is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living of Christ in you: If ye look to your self as divided from Christ, ye must be more then heavy: All your wants [dear Brother] be upon him, ye are his debter, Grace must summe & subscribe your accounts as paid: stand not upon Items, & small or little Sanctification: ye know, inherent Holiness must stand by, when imputed is all. I fear the clay-house is a-taking down & undermining; but it is nigh the dawning, look to the East, the dawning of glory is near: your Guide is good company & knoweth all the miles & the up's & down's in the way; the nearer the morning, the darker. Some traveller seeth the city 20 miles off & at a distance; & yet within the eight part of a mile, he cannot see it. It is all keeping, that ye would now have, till ye need it: & if sense & fruition come both at once, it is not your loss: let Christ tutour you as he thinks good; ye cannot be marred nor miscarry in his hand. Want is an excellent qualification, & no money, no price, to you [who, I know, dare not glory in your own righteousness] is ritness warrantable enough to cast your self upon him who justifieth the ungodly. Some see the gold once, & never again till the race's end: it is coming all in a summe together, when ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it then now. Ye are not come to the mount that burneth with fire, nor unto blackness, darkness & tempest; but ye are come to mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Ierusalem, & to an innumerable company of Angels, to the general Assembly & Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, & to God the Iudge of all, & the Spirits of just men made perfect, & to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant, & to the blood of sprinkling, &c. Ye must leave the wife to a more choice husband, & the children to a better father. If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work & Covenant, against both Malignants & Sectaries [which I suppose may be needfull] let it be under your hand & subscribed before faithfull witnesses.
St Andrews. Sept. 27. 1648. Your loving & afflicted Brother, S. R.
To Mistress GILLESPIE. (56)
Dear Sister.
I have heard how the Lord hath visited you in removing the childe Archibald. I hope ye see the setting down of the weight of your confidence & affection upon any created thing, whether husband or childe, is a deceiving thing, & that the Creature is not able to bear your weight, but sinketh down to very nothing under your confidence: and therefore ye are Christ's debter for all providences of this kinde, even in that he buildeth an hedge of thorns in your way, for so ye see, his gracious intention is to save you [If I may say so] whether ye will or not. It is a rich mercy that the Lord Christ will be Master of your will and of all your delights, and that his way is so fair for the landing of husband & children before-hand in the countrey wherherto ye are journeying. No matter, how little ye be ingaged to the world, since ye have such experience of crossdealing in it: had ye been a childe of the house, the world would have dealt more warmly with it's own: there is less of you out of heaven that the childe is there and the husband is there, but much more that your Head and Kinsman & Redeemer doeth fetch home such as are in danger to be lost: & from this time forward, fetch not your comforts from such broken cisterns & dry wells: if the Lord pull at the rest, ye must not be the creature that shall hold when he draweth. Truly to me your case is more comfortable, then if the fire-side were well plenished with ten children: the Lord saw ye was able by his grace to bear the loss of husband and childe, & that ye are that weak and tender as not to be able to stand under the mercy of a gracious husband living, & flourishing in esteem with Authority, and in reputation for Godliness and Learning: for he knoweth the weight of these mercies would crush you and break you: and a there is no searching out of his understanding, so he hath skill to know what providence will make Christ dearest to you: and let not your heart say, it is an ill wa…led dispensation: sure Christ who hath seven eyes, had before him, the good of a living husband and children for Margaret Murray, & the good of a removed husband and children translated to glo…y; now he hath opened his decree to you: say, Christ hath made for me a wise and gracious choice, and I have not one word to say on the contrary. Let not your heart charge any thing, or Unbeleef libell injuries upon Christ; because he will not let you alone, nor give you leave to play the idolatress with such as have not that right to your love that Christ hath. I should wish, at the reading of this that ye may fall down and make a surrender of these that are gone and these that are yet alive, to him: and for you, let him have all, and wait for himself, for he will come & will not tarry: live by faith, and the peace of God guard your heart: he cannot die whose ye are. My wife suffers with you & remembreth her love to you.
St Andrews. August. 14. 1649 Your brother in Christ, S. R.