Letters in Two Parts, Part 2 · LETTER 6
To JOHN KENNEDY. (6.)
My loving & most affectionat brother in Christ.
I Salute you with grace, mercy & peace from God our father, & from our Lord Iesus Christ. I promised to write to you, & although late enough, yet now I make it good. I heard with grief, of your great danger of perishing by the sea, but of your mercifull deliverance with joy. Sure I am, Brother, Satan will leave no stone unrolled [as the proverb is] to roll you off your rock, or at least to shake & unsettle you: For at that same time, the mouths of wicked men were opened in hard speeches against you by land, & the Prince of the power of the air was angry with you by sea: See then how much ye are obliged to that malitions murderer, who would beat you with two rods at one time, but blessed be God, his arm is short: If the sea & winds would have obeyed him, ye had never come to land: Thank your God who saith: Rev. 1, 18. I have the keys of hell and of death. Deut, 32, 39. I kill and I make alive. 1, Sam. 2, 6. The Lord bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. If Satan were Iayl…ur and had the keys of Death & or the Grave, they should be stored with moe prisoners. Ye were knocking at these black gates and ye found the doors shut, and we doe all welcome you back again: I trust ye know it is not for nothing, that ye are sent to us again: The Lord knew ye had forgotten something that was necessary for your journey, that your armour was not as yet thick enough against the stroke of death: Now in the strength of Jesus, dispatch your business: that debt is not forgiven, but fristed: Death hath not bidden you fare-well, but hath onelyonly left you for a short season: End your journey ere the night come upon you, have all in readiness against the time that ye must sail through that black & impetuous Iordan, & Jesus, Jesus who knoweth both these depths & the rocks & all the coasts, be your Pilot: That last tide will not wait for you one moment: if ye forget any thing, when your sea is full & your foot in that ship, there is no returning again to fetch it: What ye doe amiss in your life to day, ye may amend it to morrow: for as many suns as God maketh to arise upon you, ye have as many new lives: but ye can die but once, & if ye mar or spill that business, ye cannot come back to mend that piece of work again: No man sinneth twice in dying ill: As we die but once, so we die but ill or well once. Ye see now the number of your moneths is written in God's book, & as one of the Lord's hirelings, ye must work till the shadow of the evening come upon you, & ye shall run out your glass even to the last pickle of sand: fulfill your course with joy, for we take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience. And although the skie clear after this storm, yet clouds will engender another: Ye contracted with Christ, I hope, when first ye began to follow him, that ye would bear his cross; fulfill your part of the Contract with patience & break not to Jesus Christ: Be honest, Brother, in your bargaining with him, for who knoweth better how to bring up children then our God? For [to lay aside his knowledge, of the which there is no searching out] he hath been practised in bringing up his heirs these 5000 years, & his bairns are all well brought up, & many of them are honest men now at home up in their own house in heaven, & are entred heirs to their father's inheritance: Now the form of his bringing up was by chastisements, scourging, correcting, nurturing: See if he maketh exception of any of his bairns, Rev. 3. 19. Heb. 12. 7, 8. No: His eldest Son & his heir, Iesus, is not excepted. Heb. 2. 10. Suffer we must, ere we were born God dcreed it, & it is easier to complain of his decree then to change it. It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down, & yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again; fears & doubtings shake us, & yet without fears & doubtings we would soon sleep and loose our grips of Christ; tribulation & tentations will almost loose us at the root, & yet without tribulations & temptations we can now no more grow, then herbs or corn without rain. Sin & Satan & the World will say & cry in our ear that we have a hard reckoning to make in Judgement, & yet none of these three, except they lye, dare say in our face that our sin can change the Tenour of the new Covenant. Forward then, dear Brother, & lose not your grip, hold fast the Truth, for the world sell not one dram weight of God's truth, especially now whē most mē measure Truth by time, like young sea-men setting their Compass by a cloud: For now Time is father & mother to Truth in the thoughts & practices of our evil Time. The God of Truth establish us; for Alas! Now there are none to comfort the prisoners of hope & the mourners in Zion: We can doe little except pray & mourn for Iosep… in the stocks: And let their tongue cleave to the roof of their mouth, who forget Ierusalem now in her day: And the Lord remember Edom & render to him as he hath done to us. Now, Brother, I will not weary you, but I intreat you remember my dearest love to Mr David Dickson; with whom I have small acquaintance, yet I bless the Lord, I know he both prayeth & doeth for our dying Kirk. Remember my dearest love to Iohn Stuart, whom I love in Christ, & show him from me, I doe alwayes remember him, & hope for a meeting: The Lord Jesus establish him more & more, though he be already a strong man in Christ. Remember my heartiest affection in Christ to …illiam Rodger, whom I also remember to …od: I wish the first newes I hear of him & you & all that love our common Saviour in these bounds, may be, that ye are so knit & linked & kindly fastened in love with the Son of God, that ye may say, now if we would never so fain escape out of Christ's hands, yet love hath so bound us, that we cannot get our …ands f…ce again, he hath so ravished our hearts, that there is no loosing of his grips, the chains of his soul-ravishing love are so s…rong, that the Crave nor Death will not b…k them. I hope, Brother, yea I doubt not of it, but ye lay me & my first entry to the Lord's vineyard, & my flock before him who hath put me in his work, as the Lord knoweth since first I saw you, I have been mindfull of you. Marion Mcknaught doeth remember most heartily her love to you & to Iohn Stuart: Blessed be the Lord, that in God's mercy I found in this countrey such a woman, to whom Jesus is dearer then her own heart, when there be so many that cast Christ over their shoulder. Good Brother, call to minde the memory of your worthy father now asleep in Christ, & as his custom was, pray continually, & wrestle for the life of a dying breathless Kirk: And desire Iohn Stuart not to forget poor Zion, she hath …ew friends & few to speak one good word for her. Now I commend you, your whole soul & body & spirit to Jesus Christ & his keeping, hoping ye will die & live, stand & fall, with the cause of our Master, Jesus: The Lord Jesus himself be with your spirit.
Anwoth. Feb. 2. 1637. Your loving Brother in our Lord Iesus, S. R.