Chapter XI: Letter CXVII (3)

I know no wholesome fountain but one. I know not a thing worth the buying but heaven; and my own mind is, if comparison were made betwixt Christ and heaven, I would sell heaven with my blessing, and buy Christ. O if I could raise the market for Christ, and heighten the market a pound for a penny, and cry up Christ in men's estimation ten thousand talents more than men think of Him! But they are cheapening Him,[168] and crying Him down, and valuing Him at their unworthy halfpenny; or else exchanging and bartering Christ with the miserable old fallen house of this vain world. Or then they lend Him out upon interest, and play the usurers with Christ: because they profess Him, and give out before men that Christ is their treasure and stock; and in the mean time, praise of men, and a name, and ease, and the summer sun of the Gospel, is the usury they would be at. So, when the trial cometh, they quit the stock for the interest, and lose all. Happy are they who can keep Christ by Himself alone, and keep Him clean and whole till God come and count with them. I know that in your hard and heavy trials long since, ye thought well and highly of Christ; but, truly, no cross should be old to us. We should not forget them because years are come betwixt us and them, and cast them byhand as we do old clothes. We may make a cross old in time, new in use, and as fruitful as in the beginning of it. God is where and what He was seven years ago, whatever change may be in us. I speak not this as if I thought ye had forgotten what God did, to have your love long since, but that ye may awake yourself in this sleepy age, and remember fruitfully of Christ's first wooing and suiting of your love, both with fire and water, and try if He got His answer, or if ye be yet to give Him it. For I find in myself, that water runneth not faster through a sieve than our warnings slip from us; I have lost and casten byhand many summons the Lord sent to me; and therefore the Lord hath given me double charges, that I trust in God shall not rive me. I bless His great name, who is no niggard in holding-in crosses upon me, but spendeth largely His rods, that He may save me from this perishing world. How plentiful God is in means of this kind is esteemed by many one of God's unkind mercies; but Christ's cross is neither a cruel nor unkind mercy, but the love-token of a father. I am sure, a lover chasing us for our weal, and to have our love, should not be run away from, or fled from. God send me no worse mercy than the sanctified cross of Christ portendeth, and I am sure I should be happy and blessed.

[168] Bringing down the price, perhaps alluding to Zech. xi. 31.

Pray for me, that I may find house-room in the Lord's house to speak in His name. Remember my dearest love in Christ to your wife. Grace, grace be unto you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1636.

LXXIII.--_To_ EARLSTON, _Elder_.

"And they overcame the dragon by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto
the death."--REV. xii. 11.

(_CHRIST'S LIBERALITY--HIS OWN MISAPPREHENSIONS OF CHRIST._)

MUCH-HONOURED SIR,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to see you in paper, and to be refreshed by you. I cannot but desire you, and charge you to help me to praise Him who feedeth a poor prisoner with the fatness of His house. O how weighty is His love! O but there is much telling in Christ's kindness! The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, hath paid me my hundred-fold, well told, and one to the hundred. I complained of Him, but He is owing me nothing now. Sir, I charge you to help me to praise His goodness, and to proclaim to others my Bridegroom's kindness, whose love is better than wine. I took up an action against Christ, and brought a plea against His love, and libelled unkindness against Christ my Lord, and I said, "This is my death; He hath forgotten me." But my meek Lord held His peace, and beheld me, and would not contend for the last word of flyting. And now He hath chided Himself friends with me. And now I see He must be God, and I must be flesh. I pass from my summons; I acknowledge He might have given me my fill of it, and never troubled Himself. But now He hath taken away the mask; I have been comforted; He could not smother His love any longer to a prisoner and a stranger. God grant that I may never buy a plea against Christ again, but may keep good quarters with Him. I want here no kindness,[169] no love-tokens; but O wise is His love! for, notwithstanding of this hot summer-blink, I am kept low with the grief of my silence. For His word is in me as a fire in my bowels; and I see the Lord's vineyard laid waste, and the heathen entered into the sanctuary: and my belly is pained, and my soul in heaviness, because the Lord's people are gone into captivity, and because of the fury of the Lord, and that wind (but neither to fan nor purge) which is coming upon apostate Scotland. Also I am kept awake with the late wrong done to my brother; but I trust you will counsel and comfort him. Yet, in this mist, I see and believe the Lord will heal this halting kirk, "and will lay her stones with fair colours, and her foundations with sapphires, and will make her windows of agates, and her gates carbuncles" (Isa. liv. 11, 12). "And for brass He will bring gold." He hath created the smith that formed the sword: no weapon in war shall prosper against us. Let us be glad and rejoice in the Lord, for His salvation is near to come. Remember me to your wife and your son John. And I entreat you to write to me. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Dec. 30, 1636_.

[169] I have no want of.

LXXIV.--_To the_ LADY CULROSS.

"These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."--REV.
vii. 14.

(_HIS OWN MISCONCEPTION OF CHRIST'S WAYS--CHRIST'S KINDNESS._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you. I greatly long to be refreshed with your letter. I am now (all honour and glory to the King eternal, immortal, and invisible!) in better terms with Christ than I was. I, like a fool, summoned my Husband and Lord, and libelled unkindness against Him; but now I pass from that foolish pursuit; I give over the plea. He is God, and I am man. I was loosing a fast stone, and digging at the ground-stone, the love of my Lord, to shake and unsettle it. But, God be thanked, it is fast; all is sure. In my prison He hath shown me daylight; He dought not hide His love any longer. Christ was disguised and masked, and I apprehended it was not He; but He hath said, "It is I, be not afraid;" and now His love is better than wine. O that all the virgins had part of the Bridegroom's love whereupon He maketh me to feed. Help me to praise. I charge you, Madam, help me to pay praises; and tell others, the daughters of Jerusalem, how kind Christ is to a poor prisoner. He hath paid me my hundred-fold; it is well told me, and one to the hundred. I am nothing behind with Christ. Let not fools, because of their lazy and soft flesh, raise a slander and an ill report upon the cross of Christ. It is sweeter than fair.

I see grace groweth best in winter. This poor persecuted kirk, this lily amongst the thorns, shall blossom, and laugh upon the gardener; the husbandman's blessing shall light upon it. O if I could be free of jealousies of Christ, after this, and believe, and keep good quarters with my dearest Husband! for He hath been kind to the stranger. And yet in all this fair hot summer weather, I am kept from saying, "It is good to be here,"[170] with my silence, and with grief to see my mother wounded and her veil taken from her, and the fair temple casten down. My belly is pained, my soul is heavy for the captivity of the daughter of my people, and because of the fury of the Lord, and His fierce indignation against apostate Scotland. I pray you, Madam, let me have that which is my prayer here, that my sufferings may preach to the four quarters of this land; and, therefore, tell others how open-handed Christ had been to the prisoner and the oppressed stranger. Why should I conceal it? I know no other way how to glorify Christ, but to make an open proclamation of His love, and of His soft and sweet kisses to me in the furnace, and of His fidelity to such as suffer for Him. Give it me under your hand, that ye will help me to pray and praise; but rather to praise and rejoice in the salvation of God. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his dearest and only, only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Dec. 30, 1636_.

[170] My being silenced as to preaching, and my grief, keep me from
saying.

LXXV.--_To JOHN KENNEDY, Bailiffe (i.e. Bailie) of Ayr._

[JOHN KENNEDY was the son of Hugh Kennedy, Provost of Ayr. Hugh
was an eminent Christian, and did much to promote the cause of
religion in the place where he lived. John Welsh, minister of
Ayr, bore this high testimony to him in a letter written to him
in France: "Happy is that city, yea, happy is that nation that
has a Hugh Kennedy in it. I have myself certainly found the
answer of his prayers from the Lord in my behalf." On his
death-bed, he was filled "with inexpressible joy in the Holy
Ghost, beyond what it was possible to comprehend." (Wodrow, in
his life of Boyd of Trochrig.) John, his son, possessed much of
the spirit and character of his father. "He was," says Fleming
("Fulfilling of the Scriptures"), "as choice a Christian as was
at that time." The same writer records a remarkable escape from
imminent peril at sea which Kennedy experienced; which may be the
deliverance to which Rutherford refers in a subsequent letter. It
happened thus: John Stewart, Provost of Ayr, another of
Rutherford's correspondents, who had gone to France, having
loaded a ship at Rochelle with various commodities for Scotland,
proceeded to England by the nearest way, and thence to Ayr. After
waiting a considerable time for the arrival of his vessel, he was
told that it was captured by the Turks. This information,
however, proved to be incorrect, for it at length arrived in the
roads; upon hearing of which, Kennedy, an intimate friend of
Stewart, was so overjoyed, that he went out to it in a small
boat. But a storm suddenly arising, he was driven past the
vessel, and the general belief of the onlookers from the shore
was that he and his boat were swallowed up; indeed, the storm
increased to such a degree of violence as to threaten even the
shipwreck of the vessel. Deeply affected at the apprehended loss
of his friend, Stewart shut himself up in entire seclusion for
three days; but at the very time he had gone to visit Kennedy's
wife under her supposed bereavement, Kennedy, who had been driven
to another part of the coast, but had reached the land in safety,
made his appearance, to the great joy of all. Kennedy was a
member of the Scottish Parliament in the years 1644-5-6, for the
burgh of Ayr, and is styled in the roll, "John Kennedy, Provost
of Ayr." He was also a member of the General Assemblies of
1642-3-4-6 and 7, and his name appears among the ruling elders in
the commission for the public affairs of the kirk in all these
years. His brother Hugh (also an elder of the Church) was
frequently a member of the General Assembly, and, as we learn
from "Baillie's Letters," had an active share in the proceedings
of the Covenanters during the reign of Charles I. There are
lineal descendants of this family in Ayr at this day; one of
them, like his ancestor, was lately Provost of the town.]

(_LONGING AFTER CLEARER VIEWS OF CHRIST--HIS LONG-SUFFERING--TRYING CIRCUMSTANCES._)

WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to see you in this northern world on paper; I know it is not forgetfulness that ye write not. I am every way in good ease, both in soul and body; all honour and glory be to my Lord. I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the unknown Son of God. Either I know not what Christianity is, or we have stinted a measure of so many ounce weights, and no more, upon holiness; and there we are at a stand, drawing our breath all our life. A moderation in God's way is now much in request. I profess that I have never taken pains to find out Him whom my soul loveth; there is a gate yet of finding out Christ that I have never lighted upon. Oh, if I could find it out! Alas, how soon are we pleased with our own shadow in a glass! It were good to be beginning in sad earnest to find out God, and to seek the right tread of Christ. Time, custom, and a good opinion of ourselves, our good meaning, and our lazy desires, our fair shows, and the world's glistering lustres, and these broad passments and buskings of religion, that bear bulk in the kirk, is that wherewith most satisfy themselves. But a bed watered with tears, a throat dry with praying, eyes as a fountain of tears for the sins of the land, are rare to be found among us. Oh if we could know the power of godliness!

This is one part of my case; and another is, that I, like a fool, once summoned Christ for unkindness, and complained of His fickleness and inconstancy, because He would have no more of my service nor preaching, and had casten me out of the inheritance of the Lord. And now I confess that this was but a bought plea, and I was a fool. Yet He hath borne with me. I gave Him a fair advantage against me, but love and mercy would not let Him take it; and the truth is, now He hath chided Himself friends with me, and hath taken away the mask, and hath renewed His wonted favour in such a manner that He hath paid me my hundred-fold in this life, and one to the hundred. This prison is my banqueting-house; I am handled as softly and delicately as a dawted child. I am nothing behind (I see) with Christ; He can, in a month, make up a year's losses. And I write this to you, that I may entreat, nay, adjure and charge you, by the love of our Well-beloved, to help me to praise; and to tell all your Christian acquaintance to help me, for I am as deeply drowned in His debt as any dyvour can be. And yet in this fair sun-blink I have something to keep me from startling, or being exalted above measure; His word is as fire shut up in my bowels, and I am weary with forbearing. The ministers in this town are saying that they will have my prison changed into less bounds, because they see God with me. My mother hath borne me a man of contention, one that striveth with the whole earth. The late wrongs and oppressions done to my brother keep my sails low; yet I defy crosses to embark me in such a plea against Christ as I was troubled with of late. I hope to over-hope and over-believe my troubles. I have cause now to trust Christ's promise more than His gloom.

Remember my hearty affection to your wife. My soul is grieved for the success of our brethren's journey to New England; but God hath somewhat to reveal that we see not. Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner.

Yours, in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Jan. 1, 1637_.

LXXVI.--_To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex._

(_BENEFIT OF AFFLICTION._)

MY DEAR BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you.--I am almost wearying, yea, wondering, that ye write not to me: though I know it is not forgetfulness.

As for myself, I am every way well, all glory to God. I was before at a plea with Christ (but it was bought by me, and unlawful), because His whole providence was not yea and nay to my yea and nay, and because I believed Christ's outward look better than His faithful promise. Yet He hath in patience waited on, whill I be come to myself, and hath not taken advantage of my weak apprehensions of His goodness. Great and holy is His name! He looketh to what I desire to be, and not to what I am. One thing I have learned. If I had been in Christ, by way of adhesion only, as many branches are, I should have been burnt to ashes, and this world would have seen a suffering minister of Christ (of something once in show) turned into unsavoury salt. But my Lord Jesus had a good eye that the tempter should not play foul play, and blow out Christ's candle. He took no thought of my stomach, and fretting and grudging humour, but of His own grace. When He burnt the house, He saved His own goods. And I believe that the devil and the persecuting world shall reap no fruit of me, but burnt ashes: for He will see to His own gold, and save that from being consumed with the fire.

Oh, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goeth through His mill, and His oven, to be made bread for His own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy. I now see that godliness is more than the outside, and this world's passments and their buskings. Who knoweth the truth of grace without a trial? Oh, how little getteth Christ of us, but that which He winneth (to speak so) with much toil and pains! And how soon would faith freeze without a cross! How many dumb crosses have been laid upon my back, that had never a tongue to speak the sweetness of Christ, as this hath! When Christ blesseth His own crosses with a tongue, they breathe out Christ's love, wisdom, kindness, and care of us. Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know that He is no idle Husbandman, He purposeth a crop. O that this white, withered lea-ground were made fertile to bear a crop for Him, by whom it is so painfully dressed; and that this fallow-ground were broken up! Why was I (a fool!) grieved that He put His garland and His rose upon my head--the glory and honour of His faithful witnesses? I desire now to make no more pleas with Christ. Verily He hath not put me to a loss by what I suffer; He oweth me nothing; for in my bonds how sweet and comfortable have the thoughts of Him been to me, wherein I find a sufficient recompense of reward!

How blind are my adversaries, who sent me to a banqueting-house, to a house of wine, to the lovely feasts of my lovely Lord Jesus, and not to a prison, or place of exile! Why should I smother my Husband's honesty, or sin against His love, or be a niggard in giving out to others what I get for nothing? Brother, eat with me, and give thanks. I charge you before God, that ye speak to others, and invite them to help me to praise! Oh, my debt of praise, how weighty it is, and how far run up! O that others would lend me to pay, and learn me to praise! Oh, I am a drowned dyvour! Lord Jesus, take my thoughts for payments. Yet I am in this hot summer-blink with the tear in my eye; for (by reason of my silence) sorrow, sorrow hath filled me; my harp is hanged upon the willow-trees, because I am in a strange land. I am still kept in exercise with envious brethren; my mother hath borne me a man of contention.

Write to me your mind anent Y. C.: I cannot forget him; I know not what God hath to do with him:--and your mind anent my parishioners' behaviour, and how they are served in preaching; or if there be a minister as yet thrust in upon them, which I desire greatly to know, and which I much fear.

Dear brother, ye are in my heart, to live and to die with you. Visit me with a letter. Pray for me. Remember my love to your wife. Grace, grace be with you; and God, who heareth prayer, visit you, and let it be unto you according to the prayers of

Your own brother, and Christ's prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Jan. 1, 1637_.

LXXVII.--_To my_ LADY BOYD.

[LADY BOYD, whose maiden name was Christian Hamilton, was the
eldest daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington. She was
first married to Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres, who died in
1616. She married for her second husband, Robert, sixth Lord
Boyd, who died in August 1628. Lady Boyd was distinguished for
piety, and a zealous Presbyterian. Livingstone gives her a place
among "some of the professors in the Church of Scotland of his
acquaintance, who were eminent for grace and gifts;" eulogizes
her as "a rare pattern of Christianity, grave, diligent, and
prudent;" and adds, "She used every night to write what had been
the case of her soul all the day, and what she had observed of
the Lord's dealing." He speaks of residing for some time, during
the course of his ministry, in the house of Kilmarnock, with "the
worthy Lady Boyd." Some of her letters are given by Wodrow in his
life of Boyd of Trochrig (pp. 166, 272.) She used to reside much
at Badenheath, in the parish of Chryston, near Glasgow, and there
John Livingston visited her.]

(_ABERDEEN--EXPERIENCE OF HIMSELF SAD--PRESSING FORWARDS._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. The Lord hath brought me to Aberdeen, where I see God in few. This town hath been advised upon of purpose for me; it consisteth either of Papists, or men of Gallio's naughty faith. It is counted wisdom, in the most, not to countenance a confined minister; but I find Christ neither strange nor unkind; for I have found many faces smile upon me since I came hither. I am heavy and sad, considering what is betwixt the Lord and my soul, which none seeth but He. I find men have mistaken me; it would be no art (as I now see) to spin small,[171] and make hypocrisy a goodly web, and to go through the market as a saint among men, and yet steal quietly to hell, without observation: so easy is it to deceive men. I have disputed whether or no I ever knew anything of Christianity, save the letters of that name. Men see but as men, and they call ten twenty, and twenty an hundred; but O! to be approved of God in the heart and in sincerity is not an ordinary mercy. My neglects while I had a pulpit, and other things whereof I am ashamed to speak, meet me now, so as God maketh an honest cross my daily sorrow. And, for fear of scandal and stumbling, I must bide this day of the law's pleading: I know not if this court kept within my soul be fenced in Christ's name. If certainty of salvation were to be bought, God knoweth, if I had ten earths, I would not prig with God. Like a fool, I believed, under suffering for Christ, that I myself should keep the key of Christ's treasures, and take out comforts when I listed, and eat and be fat: but I see now a sufferer for Christ will be made to know himself, and will be holden at the door as well as another poor sinner, and will be fain to eat with the bairns, and to take the by-board, and glad to do so. My blessing on the cross of Christ that hath made me see this! Oh! if we could take pains for the kingdom of heaven! But we sit down upon some ordinary marks of God's children, thinking we have as much as will separate us from a reprobate; and thereupon we take the play and cry, "Holiday!" and thus the devil casteth water on our fire, and blunteth our zeal and care. But I see heaven is not at the door; and I see, howbeit my challenges be many, I suffer for Christ, and dare hazard my salvation upon it; for sometimes my Lord cometh with a fair hour, and O! but His love be sweet, delightful, and comfortable. Half a kiss is sweet; but our doting love will not be content with a right to Christ, unless we get possession; like the man who will not be content with rights to bought land, except he get also the ridges and acres laid upon his back to carry home with him! However it be, Christ is wise; and we are fools, to be browden and fond of a pawn in the loof of our hand. Living on trust by faith may well content us. Madam, I know your Ladyship knoweth this, and that made me bold to write of it, that others might reap somewhat by my bonds for the truth; for I should desire, and I aim at this, to have my Lord well spoken of and honoured, howbeit He should make nothing of me but a bridge over a water. Thus, recommending your Ladyship, your son, and children to His grace, who hath honoured you with a name and room among the living in Jerusalem, and wishing grace to be with your Ladyship, I rest,

Your Ladyship's in his sweetest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN.

[171] Spin fine.

LXXVIII.--_To my_ LORD BOYD.

[ROBERT, seventh LORD BOYD, was the only son of Robert, sixth
Lord Boyd, by Lady Christian Hamilton, mentioned in the preceding
letter. His father (who was cousin of the famous Robert Boyd of
Trochrig, two miles from Girvan, and under whom he studied at
Saumur) died in August 1628, at the early age of 33. Young Robert
was served heir to his father the 9th of May 1629. His earthly
course was, however, brief; for he died of a fever on the 17th of
November 1640, aged about 24. He was married to Lady Anne
Fleming, second daughter of John, second Earl of Wigtown. Lord
Boyd warmly espoused the side of the Covenanters; and though not
a member of the General Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638, he
attended its meetings and took a deep interest in its
proceedings.]

(_ENCOURAGEMENT TO EXERTION FOR CHRIST'S CAUSE._)

MY VERY HONOURABLE AND GOOD LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Lordship. Out of the worthy report that I hear of your Lordship's zeal for this borne-down and oppressed Gospel, I am bold to write to your Lordship, beseeching you by the mercies of God, by the honour of our royal and princely King Jesus, by the sorrows, tears, and desolation of your afflicted mother-Church, and by the peace of your conscience, and your joy in the day of Christ, that your Lordship would go on, in the strength of your Lord, and in the power of His might, to bestir yourself, for the vindicating of the fallen honour of your Lord Jesus. Oh, blessed hands for evermore, that shall help to put the crown upon the head of Christ again in Scotland! I dare promise, in the name of our Lord, that this will fasten and fix the pillars and the stakes of your honourable house upon earth, if you lend and lay in pledge in Christ's hand, upon spiritual hazard, life, estate, house, honour, credit, moyen, friends, the favour of men (suppose kings with three crowns), so being that ye may bear witness, and acquit yourself as a man of valour and courage to the Prince of your salvation, for the purging of His temple, and sweeping out the lordly Diotrepheses, time-courting Demases, corrupt Hymenæuses and Philetuses, and other such oxen, that with their dung defile the temple of the Lord. Is not Christ now crying, "Who will help Me? who will come out with Me, to take part with Me, and share in the honour of My victory over these Mine enemies, who have said, We will not have this man to rule over us?"

My very honourable and dear Lord, join, join (as ye do) with Christ. He is more worth to you and your posterity than this world's May-flowers, and withering riches and honour, that shall go away as smoke, and evanish in a night vision, and shall, in one half-hour after the blast of the archangel's trumpet, lie in white ashes. Let me beseech your Lordship to draw by the lap of time's curtain, and to look in through the window to great and endless eternity, and consider if a worldly price (suppose this little round clay globe of this ashy and dirty earth, the dying idol of the fools of this world, were all your own) can be given for one smile of Christ's God-like and soul-ravishing countenance. In that day when so many joints and knees of thousand thousands wailing shall stand before Christ, trembling, shouting, and making their prayers to hills and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb, oh, how many would sell lordships and kingdoms that day, and buy Christ! But, oh, the market shall be closed and ended ere then! Your Lordship hath now a blessed venture of winning court with the Prince of the kings of the earth. He Himself weeping; truth borne down and fallen in the streets, and an oppressed Gospel; Christ's bride with watery eyes and spoiled of her veil, her hair hanging about her eyes, forced to go in ragged apparel; the banished, alienated, and imprisoned prophets of God, who have not the favour of liberty to prophesy in sackcloth, all these, I say, call for your help. Fear not worms of clay; the moth shall eat them as a garment. Let the Lord be your fear; He is with you, and shall fight for you; and ye shall make the heart of this your mother-Church to sing for joy. The Lamb and His armies are with you, and the kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's. I am persuaded that there is not another gospel, nor another saving truth, than that which ye now contend for. I dare hazard my heaven and salvation upon it, that this is the only saving way to glory.

Grace, grace, be with your Lordship.

Your Lordship's at all respectful obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXIX.--_To_ MARGARET BALLANTINE.

[This name is not found among the people of the parish of Anwoth.
Like John Laurie, Letter CLXXV., she may have been some one at a
distance.]

(_VALUE OF THE SOUL AND URGENCY OF SALVATION._)

MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.--It is more than time that I should have written to you; but it is yet good time, if I could help your soul to mend your pace, and to go more swiftly to your heavenly country. For truly ye have need to make all haste, because the inch of your day that remaineth will quickly slip away; for whether we sleep or wake, our glass runneth. The tide bideth no man. Beware of a beguile in the matter of your salvation. Woe, woe for evermore, to them that lose that prize. For what is behind, when the soul is once lost, but that sinners warm their bits of clay houses at a fire of their own kindling, for a day or two (which doth rather suffocate with its smoke than warm them); and at length they lie down in sorrow, and are clothed with everlasting shame! I would seek no further measure of faith to begin withal than to believe really and stedfastly the doctrine of God's justice, His all-devouring wrath, and everlasting burning, where sinners are burnt, soul and body, in a river and great lake of fire and brimstone. Then they would wish no more goods than the thousandth part of a cold fountain-well to cool their tongues. They would then buy death with enduring of pain and torment for as many years as God hath created drops of rain since the creation. But there is no market of buying or selling life or death there. O, alas! the greatest part of this world run to the place of that torment rejoicing and dancing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. My counsel to you is, that ye start in time to be after Christ; for if ye go quickly, Christ is not far before you; ye shall overtake Him. O Lord God, what is so needful as this, "Salvation, salvation!" Fy upon this condemned and foolish world, that would give so little for salvation! Oh, if there were a free market for salvation proclaimed in that day when the trumpet of God shall awake the dead, how many buyers would be then! God send me no more happiness than that salvation which the blind world, to their eternal woe, letteth slip through their fingers. Therefore, look if ye can give out your money (as Isaiah speaketh) (lv. 2) for bread, and lay Christ and His blood in wadset for heaven. It is a dry and hungry bairn's part of goods that Esaus are hunting for here. I see thousands following the chase, and in the pursuit of such things, while in the meantime they lose the blessing; and, when all is done, they have caught nothing to roast for supper, but lie down hungry. And, besides, they go to bed, when they die, without a candle; for God saith to them, "This ye shall have at My hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow" (Isa. l. 11). And truly this is as ill-made a bed to lie upon as one could wish; for he cannot sleep soundly, nor rest sweetly, who hath sorrow for his pillow. Rouse, rouse up, therefore, your soul, and speer[172] how Christ and your soul met together. I am sure that they never got Christ, who were not once sick at the yolk of the heart for Him. Too, too many whole souls think that they have met with Christ, who had never a wearied night for the want of Him: but, alas! what richer are men, that they dreamed the last night they had much gold, and, when they awoke in the morning, they found it was but a dream? What are all the sinners in the world, in that day when heaven and earth shall go up in a flame of fire, but a number of beguiled dreamers? Every one shall say of his hunting and his conquest, "Behold, it was a dream!" Every man in that day will tell his dream. I beseech you, in the Lord Jesus, beware, beware of unsound work in the matter of your salvation: ye may not, ye cannot, ye dow not want Christ. Then after this day, convene all your lovers before your soul, and give them their leave; and strike hands with Christ, that thereafter there may be no happiness to you but Christ, no hunting for anything but Christ, no bed at night, when death cometh, but Christ. Christ, Christ, who but Christ! I know this much of Christ, that He is not ill to be found, nor lordly of His love. Woe had been my part of it for evermore, if Christ had made a dainty of Himself to me. But, God be thanked, I gave nothing for Christ. And now I protest before men and angels that Christ cannot be exchanged, that Christ cannot be sold, that Christ cannot be weighed. Where would angels, or all the world, find a balance to weigh Him in? All lovers blush when ye stand beside Christ! Woe upon all love but the love of Christ! Hunger, hunger for evermore be upon all heaven but Christ! Shame, shame for evermore be upon all glory but Christ's glory. I cry death, death upon all lives but the life of Christ. Oh, what is it that holdeth us asunder? O that once we could have a fair meeting!

Thus recommending Christ to you and you to Him, for evermore, I rest. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

[172] Ask.

LXXX.--_For_ MARION M'NAUGHT.

(_HIS COMFORT UNDER TRIBULATION, AND THE PRISON A PALACE._)

MY DEARLY BELOVED SISTER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I complain that Galloway is not kind to me in paper. I have received no letters these sixteen weeks but two. I am well. My prison is a palace to me, and Christ's banqueting-house. My Lord Jesus is as kind as they call Him. O that all Scotland knew my case, and had part of my feast! I charge you in the name of God, I charge you to believe. Fear not the sons of men; the worms shall eat them. To pray and believe now, when Christ seems to give you a nay-say, is more than it was before. Die believing; die, and Christ's promise in your hand. I desire, I request, I charge your husband and that town,[173] to stand for the truth of the Gospel. Contend with Christ's enemies; and I pray you show all professors whom you know my case. Help me to praise. The ministers here envy me; they will have my prison changed. My mother hath borne me a man of contention, and one that striveth with the whole earth. Remember my love to your husband. Grace be with you.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Jan. 3, 1637_.

[173] Kirkcudbright.

LXXXI.--_To_ MR. JOHN MEINE (_Jun_.).

[MR. JOHN MEINE was the son of John Meine, merchant in Edinburgh,
"a solid and stedfast professor of the truth of God." His mother
was Barbara Hamilton, a notice of whom see Letter CCCXIII. He was
now, it would appear from an allusion in the close of this
letter, a student of theology, with a view to the holy ministry.
Halyburton on his deathbed spake of this letter as one in which
was to be found "More practical religion than in a large
volume."]

(_EXPERIENCE--PATIENT WAITING--SANCTIFICATION._)

WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have been too long in answering your letter, but other business took me up. I am here waiting, if the fair wind will turn upon Christ's sails in Scotland, and if deliverance be breaking out to this over-clouded and benighted kirk. O that we could contend, by prayers and supplications, with our Lord for that effect! I know that He hath not given out His last doom against this land. I have little of Christ, in this prison, but groanings, and longings, and desires. All my stock of Christ is some hunger for Him, and yet I cannot say but I am rich in that. My faith, and hope, and holy practice of new obedience, are scarce worth the speaking of. But blessed be my Lord, who taketh me, light, and clipped, and naughty, and feckless as I am. I see that Christ will not prig with me, nor stand upon stepping-stones; but cometh in at the broadside without ceremonies, or making it nice, to make a poor, ransomed one His own. O that I could feed upon His breathing, and kissing, and embracing, and upon the hopes of my meeting and His! when love-letters shall not go betwixt us, but He will be messenger Himself! But there is required patience on our part, till the summer-fruit in heaven be ripe for us. It is in the bud; but there be many things to do before our harvest come. And we take ill with it, and can hardly endure to set our paper-face to one of Christ's storms and to go to heaven with wet feet, and pain, and sorrow. We love to carry a heaven to heaven with us, and would have two summers in one year, and no less than two heavens. But this will not do for us: one (and such a one!) may suffice us well enough. The man, Christ, got but one only, and shall we have two?

Remember my love in Christ to your father; and help me with your prayers. If ye would be a deep divine, I recommend to you sanctification. Fear Him, and He will reveal His covenant to you. Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Jan. 5, 1637_.

LXXXII.--_To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, Elder._

[JOHN GORDON of Cardoness, in the parish of Anwoth, was descended
from Gordon of Lochinvar; but little is known concerning him. His
name appears the first of 188 signatures attached to an
unsuccessful petition of the elders and parishioners of Anwoth,
presented to the Commission of the General Assembly 1638, for
Rutherford being continued minister of that parish, when counter
applications were made by the city of Edinburgh and the
University of St. Andrews for the transference of his services.
From Rutherford's letters to him, we learn that he was at this
time far advanced in life. He was naturally a man of strong
passions, by which it would appear he had, in the previous part
of his life, been led astray.

The old castle of _Cardoness_ stands on a tongue of land, at the
mouth of the river Fleet, about a mile from Gatehouse. It is
built on a rocky height, overhanging the public road, and looking
toward the bay. You see an old square-built tower, or fortalice,
raising its grey head from among the tall trees that now surround
it. Tradition tells of an old proprietor, that he was in league
with Græme, the Border outlaw; and how, in consequence of his
daring and God-defying deeds, the chief and his whole family
perished in the _Black Loch_, a small loch in the parish of
Anwoth, at Woodend, 26 ft. deep. Though not a descendant, John
Gordon seems to have been a man of like strong passions with that
old chieftain, till subdued by grace.]

(_WIN CHRIST AT ALL HAZARDS--CHRIST'S BEAUTY--A WORD TO CHILDREN._)

MUCH HONOURED SIR,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I have longed to hear from you, and to know the estate of your soul, and the estate of that people with you.

I beseech you, Sir, by the salvation of your precious soul, and the mercies of God, to make good and sure work of your salvation, and try upon what ground-stone ye have builded. Worthy and dear Sir, if ye be upon sinking sand, a storm of death, and a blast, will lose Christ and you, and wash you close off the rock. Oh, for the Lord's sake, look narrowly to the work!

Read over your life, with the light of God's day-light and sun; for salvation is not casten down at every man's door. It is good to look to your compass, and all ye have need of, ere you take shipping; for no wind can blow you back again. Remember, when the race is ended, and the play either won or lost, and ye are in the utmost circle and border of time, and shall put your foot within the march of eternity, and all your good things of this short night-dream shall seem to you like the ashes of a bleeze of thorns or straw, and your poor soul shall be crying, "Lodging, lodging, for God's sake!" then shall your soul be more glad at one of your Lord's lovely and homely smiles, than if ye had the charters of three worlds for all eternity. Let pleasures and gain, will and desires of this world, be put over into God's hands, as arrested and fenced goods that ye cannot intromit with. Now, when ye are drinking the grounds of your cup, and ye are upon the utmost end of the last link of time, and old age, like death's long shadow, is casting a covering upon your days, it is no time to court this vain life, and to set love and heart upon it. It is near after-supper; seek rest and ease for your soul in God through Christ.

Believe me, that I find it to be hard wrestling to play fair with Christ, and to keep good quarters with Him, and to love Him in integrity and life, and to keep a constant course of sound and solid daily communion with Christ. Temptations are daily breaking the thread of that course, and it is not easy to cast a knot again; and many knots make evil work. Oh, how fair have many ships been plying before the wind, that, in an hour's space, have been lying in the sea-bottom! How many professors cast a golden lustre, as if they were pure gold, and yet are, under that skin and cover, but base and reprobate metal! And how many keep breath in their race many miles, and yet come short of the prize and the garland! Dear sir, my soul would mourn in secret for you, if I knew your case with God to be but false work. Love to have you anchored upon Christ maketh me fear your tottering and slips. False under-water, not seen in the ground of an enlightened conscience, is dangerous; so is often falling, and sinning against light. Know this, that those who never had sick nights or days in conscience for sin, cannot have but such a peace with God as will undercoat and break the flesh again, and end in a sad war at death. Oh, how fearfully are thousands beguiled with false hide, grown over old sins, as if the soul were cured and healed!

Dear Sir, I always saw nature mighty, lofty, heady, and strong in you; and that it was more for you to be mortified and dead to the world, than for another common man. Ye will take a low ebb, and a deep cut, and a long lance, to go to the bottom of your wounds in saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for Christ. Be humbled; walk softly. Down, down, for God's sake, my dear and worthy brother, with your topsail. Stoop, stoop! it is a low entry to go in at heaven's gate. There is infinite justice in the party ye have to do with; it is His nature not to acquit the guilty and the sinner. The law of God will not want one farthing of the sinner. God forgetteth not both the cautioner and the sinner; and every man must pay, either in his own person (oh, Lord save you from that payment!), or in his cautioner, Christ. It is violence to corrupt nature for a man to be holy, to lie down under Christ's feet, to quit will, pleasure, worldly love, earthly hope, and an itching of heart after this farded and over-gilded world, and to be content that Christ trample upon all. Come in, come in to Christ, and see what ye want, and find it in Him. He is the short cut (as we used to say), and the nearest way to an outgate of all your burdens. I dare avouch that ye shall be dearly welcome to Him; my soul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should have in Him. I dare say that angels' pens, angels' tongues, nay, as many worlds of angels as there are drops of water in all the seas, and fountains, and rivers of the earth, cannot paint Him out to you. I think His sweetness, since I was a prisoner, hath swelled upon me to the greatness of two heavens. Oh for a soul as wide as the utmost circle of the highest heaven that containeth all, to contain His love! And yet I could hold little of it. O world's wonder! Oh, if my soul might but lie within the smell of His love, suppose I could get no more but the smell of it! Oh, but it is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love! Oh, what a sight to be up in heaven, in that fair orchard of the new paradise; and to see, and smell, and touch, and kiss that fair field-flower, that ever-green Tree of life! His bare shadow were enough for me; a sight of Him would be the earnest of heaven to me. Fy, fy upon us! that we have love lying rusting beside us, or, which is worse, wasting upon some loathsome objects, and that Christ should lie His lone. Wo, wo is me! that sin hath made so many madmen, seeking the fool's paradise, fire under ice, and some good and desirable things, without and apart from Christ. Christ, Christ, nothing but Christ, can cool our love's burning languor. O thirsty love! wilt thou set Christ, the well of life, to thy head, and drink thy fill? Drink, and spare not; drink love, and be drunken with Christ! Nay, alas! the distance betwixt us and Christ is a death. Oh, if we were clasped in other's arms! We should never twin again, except heaven twinned and sundered us; and that cannot be.

I desire your children to seek this Lord. Desire them from me, to be requested, for Christ's sake, to be blessed and happy, and to come and take Christ, and all things with Him. Let them beware of glassy and slippery youth, of foolish young notions, of worldly lusts, of deceivable gain, of wicked company, of cursing, lying, blaspheming, and foolish talking. Let them be filled with the Spirit; acquaint themselves with daily praying; and with the storehouse of wisdom and comfort, the good word of God. Help the souls of the poor people. O that my Lord would bring me again among them, that I might tell unco and great tales of Christ to them! Receive not a stranger to preach any other doctrine to them.

Pray for me, His prisoner of hope. I pray for you without ceasing. I write my blessing, earnest prayers, the love of God, and the sweet presence of Christ to you, and yours, and them. Grace, grace, grace be with you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXIII.--_To the_ EARL OF LOTHIAN.