Letters in Two Parts, Part 2 · LETTER 69 – LETTER 71
To my Lady KENMURE. [69]
MADAM.
I should be glad that the Lord would be pleased to lengthen our more time to you, that ye might yet before your eyes be shut, see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord, in reviving a now-swooning and crushed Land & Church. Though I was lately knocking at deaths gate, yet could I not get in, but was sent back for a time. It is well, if I could yet doe any service to him; but ah what deadness lieth upon the spirit! & deadness breedeth distance from God. Madam, These many years the Lord hath let you see a clear difference betwixt these who serve God, … love his name, & these who serve him not: & I judge ye look upon the way of Christ as the onelyonly best way, & that ye would not exchange Christ for the world's God, or their Mammon, & that ye can give Christ a testimony of chief among ten thousand: True it is, that many of us have fallen from our first love; but Christ hath renewed his first love of our …pousals to himself, & multiplied the seekers of God all the countrey over, even where Christ was scarce named, East & West & South & North, above the number that our fathers ever knew. But ah! Madam, what shall be done or said of many fallen stars, and many near to God, complying wofully and failing to the nearest shore? Yea, & we are consumed in the furnace but not melted, burnt but not purged, our dross is not removed, but our scum remains in us: & in the furnace we fret, we faint & [which is more strange] we slumber: The fire burneth round about us, & we lay it not to heart: Gray hairs are upon us & we know it not. It were now a desireable life to send away our love to heaven, & well becometh it us to wait on for the appointed change, yet so as we should be meditating thus, Is there a new world above the Sun & moon, & is there such a blessed company harping & singing Hallelujahs to the lamb up above? Why then are we taken with a vain life of sighing & sinning? O where is our wisdom that we sit still laughing, eating, sleeping prisoners, & doe not pack up all our best things for the journey, desiring alwayes to be clothed with our house from above, not made with hands! Ah, we savour not the things that are above, nor doe we smell of glory ere we come thither, but we transact & agree with Time for a new lease of clay-mansions: Behold he cometh we sleep, & turn all the work of duties into a dispute of events for deliverance; but the greatest haste, to be humbled for a broken & a buried Covenant, is first & last forgotten: And all our grief is, the Lord lingers, enemies triumph, Godly ones suffer, Atheists blaspheme. Ah, we pray not! but wonder that Christ cometh not the higher way by might, by power, by garments rolled in blood! What if he come the lower way? sure, we sin in putting the book in his hand, as if we could teach the Almighty knowledge: we make haste, we beleeve not: Let the onelyonly wise God alone, he stirs well, he drawes straight lines, though we think & say they are crooked: It is right that some should die & their breasts full of milk, & yet we are angry that God dealeth so with them. O if I could adore him in his hidden wayes, when there is darkness under his feet & darkness his pavilion & clouds about his throne! Madam, hoping, beleeving, patient praying is our life: he lo…s no time. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
St Andrews 12: Sept. 16…5. Yours at all oblidged observance in Christ. S. ….
To his reverend & dear Brethren. MR GUTHRIE, MR TRAIL, And the rest of their Brethren imprisoned in the Castell of Edinburgh. (70.)
Reverend, Very Dear, & now much honoured Prisoners for Christ.
I Am, as to the point of light, at the out-most of perswassion in that kinde, that this is the cause of Christ ye now suffer for, & not mens interest: If it be for men, let us leave it; but if we plead for God, our own personal sa… and man's deliverance will not be peace. There is a s…lv… tion called the salvation of God, which is cleanly, pure, spiritual, unmixed, near to the holy Word of God; it is that which we would seek, even the favour of God that he beares to his people, not simple gladness, but the gladness & goodness of the Lord's chosen: And sure [though I be the weakest of his witnesses & unworthy to be among the meanest of them, & … afraid the Cause be hurt [but it cannot be lost] by my unbeleeving faintness] I should not desire a deliverance separated from the deliverance of the Lord's Cause & People: It is enough to me to sing when Zion sings, & to triumph when Christ triumpheth. I should judge it an unhappy joy, to rejoyce when Zion sigheth. Not one hoof will be your peace. If Christ doeth owne me, let me be in the grave in a bloody windingsheet, & goe from the scaffold in four quarters to a grave, or no grave, I am his debter to seal with sufferings this precious truth; but Oh when it comes to the push, I dare say nothing, considering my weakness, wickedness & faintness! But fear not ye, ye are not, ye shall not be alone, the Father is with you: It was not an unseasonable, but a seasonable & necessary duty, ye were about: Fear him who is Soveraign, Christ is Captain of the Castle, & Lord of the keyes. The cooling wellspring & refreshment from the promises, is more then the …ownings of the furnace. I see snares & temptations in capitulating, composing, ceding, minching with distinctions of circumstances, formalities, complements & extenuations in the Cause of Christ: A long spoon, the broth is hell's hot: Hold a distance from carnal compositions, & much nearness to the fountain, to the favour & refreshing light from the Father of lights, speaking in his oracles; this is sound health & salvation. Angels, men, Zion's Elders eye us; but what of all these, Christ is by us & looks on us & writes up all: Let us pray more & look less to men. Remember me to Mr Scot & all the rest. Blessings be upon the head of such as are separated from their Brethren: Ioseph is a fruitfull bough by a well. Grace be with you.
S. Andrewes, 1660. Your loving Brother & companion in the Kingdom & patience of Iesus Christ, S. R.
To Mr ROBERT CAMPBELL. (71.)
Reverend & dear Brother.
YE know this is a time in which all men almost seek their own things & not the things of Jesus Christ: yeare your alone, as a beacon on the top of a mountain; but saint not, Christ is a numerous multitude himself, yea millions: though all the nations were conveened against him round about, yet doubt not but he will at last arise for the cry of the poor & needy. For me, I am now near to eternity, & for ten thousand worlds I dare not adventure to pass from the Protestation against the corruptions of the time, nor go alongst with the shameless apostacy of the many silent & dumb watchmen of Scotland: but I think it my la …my to enter a Protestation in heaven before the righteous Judge, against the practical & legal breach of Covenant, and all Oaths imposed on the consciences of the Lord's people, & all Popish, superstitious and idolattous mandats of men: Know that the overthrow of the … Reformation, the introducing of Popery & the Mystery of Iniquity, is now set on foot in the three Kingdoms, & whosoever would keep their garments clean are under that command, Touch not, … not, handle not. The Lord calls you, Dear Brother, to be still stedfast, unmoveable, a…d aboundant in the work of the Lord. Our royal Kingly Master is upon his journey, & will come & will not …rry, & bl…ssed is the servant who shall be found watching, when he cometh: fear not men, for the Lord is your light & salvation. It is true, it's somewhat sad & comfortless that ye are your alone, but so it was with our precious Master: nor are ye your alone, for the father is with you. It is possible I shall not be an eye-witness to it to the flesh, but I beleeve he comes quickly, who will remove our darkness, & will shine gloriously in the Isle of Britain, as a crowned King, either in a formally sworn Covenant, or in his own glorious way, which I leave to the determination of his infinite wisdom and goodness: & this is the hope & confidence of a dying man who is longing & fainting for the salvation of God. Beware of the ensuaring bonds and obligations by any hand-writ or other waves, to give unlimited obedience to any authority, but onelyonly in the Lord: for all innocent self-defence, [which is according to the Covenant, the Word of God & the laudable example of the Reformed Churches] is now intended to be utterly subverted and condemned: and what is taken from Christ, as the slower of his Prerogative Royall, is now put upon the head of a mortal power, which must be that great, idol of … that provok… the eyes of his glory. Dear Brother, let us … ▪ the rich promises that are made to these that overcome, knowing that these that endure to the end shall be saved. Thus recommending you to the rich grace of God, I remain.
St. Andrews. 1661. Your affectionat Brother in Christ.
FINIS.
End of the text · Samuel Rutherford, Letters in Two Parts (1664)