Chapter XII: Letter CXVII (4)

[WILLIAM, third EARL OF LOTHIAN, to whom this letter is
addressed, was the eldest son of Robert, first Earl of Ancrum;
and he acquired the title of Earl of Lothian by his marriage with
Anne Ker, Countess of Lothian, by whom he succeeded to the estate
and titles of Lothian in 1624. In 1638 he manifested great zeal
for the Covenant. He was a member of the General Assembly which
met at Glasgow that year, as elder for the Presbytery of
Dalkeith. Hostilities having again commenced in 1640, his
Lordship was in the Scottish army that invaded England, and
defeated the Royalists at Newburn. In 1643 he was sent from
Scotland by the Privy Council, with the approbation of Charles I.
In 1644 he commanded, with the Marquis of Argyle, the forces sent
against the Marquis of Montrose, whom he obliged to retreat, and
then delivered up his commission to the Committee of Estates, who
passed an act in approbation of his services. He was president of
the Committee despatched by the Parliament to the King in
December 1646, with their final propositions. He protested
against the raising of an army in 1648 to rescue the King from
the hands of the English, without receiving from His Majesty
assurance that he would secure the religious liberties of his
Scottish subjects,--an attempt which was called the "Engagement."
But while resisting the arbitrary measures of his prince, he was
of sincere and ardent loyalty. No sooner was it known that the
Parliament of England intended to proceed against Charles I.
before the High Court of Justice, than he and other commissioners
were sent, in name of the kingdom of Scotland, to remonstrate
against their proceedings in regard to the sacred person of the
king. He took a solemn protest against their proceedings, for
which he was put under arrest, sent with a guard to Gravesend,
and thence to Scotland. On his return he received the thanks of
Parliament for his conduct on this occasion; and, along with the
Earl of Cassillis, was despatched to Breda in 1650 to invite King
Charles to Scotland. His Lordship died in the year 1675. By Anne,
Countess of Lothian, he had five sons and nine daughters.]

(_ADVICE AS TO PUBLIC CONDUCT--EVERYTHING TO BE ENDURED FOR CHRIST._)

RIGHT HONOURABLE, AND MY VERY WORTHY AND NOBLE LORD,--Out of the honourable and good report that I hear of your Lordship's good-will and kindness, in taking to heart the honourable cause of Christ, and His afflicted Church and wronged truth in this land, I make bold to speak a word on paper, to your Lordship, at this distance, which I trust your Lordship will take in good part. It is to your Lordship's honour and credit, to put to your hand, as ye do (all honour to God!), to the falling and tottering tabernacle of Christ, in this your mother-Church, and to own Christ's wrongs as your own wrongs. O blessed hand, which shall wipe and dry the watery eyes of our weeping Lord Jesus, now going mourning in sackcloth in His members, in His spouse in His truth, and in the prerogative royal of His kingly power! He needeth not service and help from men; but it pleaseth His wisdom to make the wants and losses, the sores and wounds of His spouse, a field and an office-house for the zeal of His servants to exercise themselves in. Therefore, my noble and dear Lord, go on, go on in the strength of the Lord against all opposition, to side with wronged Christ. The defending, and warding of strokes off Christ's bride, the King's daughter, is like a piece of the rest of the way to heaven, knotty, rough, stormy, and full of thorns. Many would follow Christ, but with a reservation that, by open proclamation, Christ would cry down crosses, and cry up fair weather, and a summer sky and sun, till we were all fairly landed at heaven. I know that your Lordship hath not so learned Christ; but that ye intend to fetch heaven, suppose that your father were standing in your way, and to take it with the wind on your face; for so both storm and wind were on the fair face of your lovely Forerunner, Christ, all His way. It is possible that the success answer not your desire in this worthy cause. What then? duties are ours, but events are the Lord's; and I hope, if your Lordship, and others with you, will go on to dive to the lowest ground and bottom of the knavery and perfidious treachery to Christ of the accursed and wretched prelates, the Antichrist's first-born, and the first-fruit of his foul womb, and shall deal with our Sovereign (law going before you) for the reasonable and impartial hearing of Christ's bill of complaints, and set yourselves singly to seek the Lord and His face, that your righteousness shall break through the clouds which prejudice hath drawn over it, and that ye shall, in the strength of the Lord, bring our banished and departing Lord Jesus home again to His sanctuary. Neither must your Lordship advise with flesh and blood in this; but wink, and in the dark, reach your hand to Christ, and follow Him. Let not men's fainting discourage you; neither be afraid of men's canny wisdom, who, in this storm, take the nearest shore, and go to the lee and calm side of the Gospel, and hide Christ (if ever they had Him) in their cabinets, as if they were ashamed of Him, or as if Christ were stolen wares, and would blush before the sun.

My very dear and noble Lord, ye have rejoiced the hearts of many, that ye have made choice of Christ and His Gospel, whereas such great temptations do stand in your way. But I love your profession the better that it endureth winds. If we knew ourselves well, to want temptations is the greatest temptation of all. Neither is father, nor mother, nor court, nor honour, in this over-lustred world with all its paintry and farding, anything else, when they are laid in the balance with Christ, but feathers, shadows, night-dreams, and straws. Oh, if this world knew the excellency, sweetness, and beauty of that high and lofty One, the Fairest among the sons of men, verily they would see, that if their love were bigger than ten heavens, all in circles beyond each other, it were all too little for Christ our Lord! I hope that your choice will not repent you, when life shall come to that twilight betwixt time and eternity, and ye shall see the utmost border of time, and shall draw the curtain, and look into eternity, and shall one day see God take the heavens in His hands, and fold them together, like an old holely garment, and set on fire this clay part of the creation of God, and consume away into smoke and ashes the idol-hope of poor fools, who think that there is not a better country than this low country of dying clay. Children cannot make comparison aright betwixt this life and that which is to come; and, therefore, the babes of this world, who see no better, mould, in their own brain, a heaven of their own coining, because they see no farther than the nearest side of time.

I dare lay in pawn my hope of heaven, that this reproached way is the only way of peace. I find it is the way that the Lord hath sealed with His comforts now, in my bonds for Christ; and I verily esteem and find chains and fetters for that lovely One, Christ, to be watered over with sweet consolations, and the love-smiles of that lovely Bridegroom, for whose coming we wait. And when He cometh, then shall the blacks and whites of all men come before the sun; then shall the Lord put a final decision upon the pleas that Zion hath with her adversaries. And as fast as time passeth away (which neither sitteth, nor standeth, nor sleepeth), as fast is our hand-breadth of this short winter-night flying away, and the sky of our long-lasting day drawing near its breaking.

Except your Lordship be pleased to plead for me against the tyranny of prelates, I shall be forgotten in this prison; for they did shape my doom according to their new, lawless canons, which is, that a deprived minister shall be utterly silenced, and not preach at all; which is a cruelty, contrary to their own former practices.

Now, the only wise God, the very God of peace, confirm, strengthen, and establish your Lordship upon the stone laid in Zion, and be with you for ever.

Your Lordship's at all respectful obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXIV.--_To_ JEAN BROWN.

[JEAN BROWN was the mother of the well-known Mr. John Brown,
minister of Wamphray in Annandale, who, after the restoration of
Charles II., was ejected from his charge and banished from the
King's dominions for his opposition to Prelacy. She was a woman
of intelligence and piety.]

(_THE JOYS OF THIS LIFE EMBITTERED BY SIN--HEAVEN AN OBJECT OF DESIRE--TRIAL A BLESSED THING._)

MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I earnestly desire your on-going toward your country. I know that ye see your day melteth away by little and little, and that in a short time ye shall be put beyond time's bounds; for life is a post that standeth not still, and our joys here are born weeping, rather than laughing, and they die weeping. Sin, sin, this body of sin and corruption embittereth and poisoneth all our enjoyments. O that I were where I shall sin no more! O to be freed of these chains and iron fetters, which we carry about with us! Lord, loose the sad prisoners! Who of the children of God have not cause to say, that they have their fill of this vain life? and, like a full and sick stomach, to wish at mid-supper that the supper were ended, and the table drawn, that the sick man might win to bed, and enjoy rest? We have cause to tire at mid-supper of the best messes that this world can dress up for us; and to cry to God, that He would remove the table and put the sin-sick souls to rest with Himself. O for a long play-day with Christ, and our long-lasting vacance of rest! Glad may their souls be that are safe over the frith, Christ having paid the fraught. Happy are they who have passed their hard and wearisome time of apprenticeship, and are now freemen and citizens in that joyful, high city, the New Jerusalem.

Alas! that we should be glad of and rejoice in our fetters, and our prison-house, and this dear inn, a life of sin, where we are absent from our Lord, and so far from our home. O that we could get bonds and law-suretyship of our love, that it fasten not itself on these clay-dreams, these clay-shadows, and worldly vanities! We might be oftener seeing what they are doing in heaven, and our hearts more frequently upon our sweet treasure above. We smell of the smoke of this lower house of the earth, because our hearts and our thoughts are here. If we could haunt up with God, we should smell of heaven and of our country above; and we should look like our country, and like strangers, or people not born or brought up hereaway. Our crosses would not bite[174] upon us if we were heavenly-minded. I know of no obligation which the saints have to this world, seeing we fare but upon the smoke of it; and, if there be any smoke in the house, it bloweth upon our eyes. All our part of the table is scarce worth a drink of water; and when we are stricken, we dare not weep, but steal our grief away betwixt our Lord and us, and content ourselves with stolen sorrow behind backs. God be thanked that we have many things that so stroke us against the hair that we may pray, "God keep our better home, God bless our Father's house; and not this smoke, that bloweth us to seek our best lodging." I am sure that this is the best fruit of the cross, when we, from the hard fare of the dear inn, cry the more that God would send a fair wind, to land us, hungered and oppressed strangers, at the door of our Father's house, which now is made, in Christ, our kindly heritage. Oh! then, let us pull up the stakes and stoups of our tent, and take our tent on our back, and go with our flitting to our best home; for here we have no continuing city.

[174] Leave the mark of their teeth.

I am waiting in hope here, to see what my Lord will do with me. Let Him make of me what He pleaseth; providing He make glory to Himself out of me, I care not. I hope, yea, I am now sure, that I am for Christ, and all that I can or may make is for Him. I am His everlasting dyvour, and still shall be; for, alas, I have nothing for Him, and He getteth but little service of me! Pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased to give me houseroom, that I may serve Him in the calling which He hath called me unto. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXV.--_To JOHN KENNEDY, Bailie of Ayr_.

(_THE REASONABLENESS OF BELIEVING UNDER ALL AFFLICTION--OBLIGATIONS TO FREE GRACE._)

WORTHY AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.--I am yet waiting what our Lord will do for His afflicted Church, and for my re-entry to my Lord's house. O that I could hear the forfeiture of Christ (now casten out of His inheritance) recalled and taken off by open proclamation; and that Christ were restored to be a freeholder and a landed heritor in Scotland; and that the courts fenced in the name of the bastard prelates (their godfather, the Pope's, bailiffs and sheriffs) were cried down! Oh, how sweet a sight were it to see all the tribes of the Lord in this land fetching home again our banished King, Christ, to His own palace, His sanctuary, and His throne! I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith will out-watch all this winter-night, and not nod nor slumber till my Lord's summer-day dawn upon me. It is much if faith and hope, in the sad nights of our heavy trial, escape with a whole skin, and without crack or crook. I confess that unbelief hath not reason to be either father or mother to it,[175] for unbelief is always an irrational thing; but how can it be, but that such weak eyes as ours must cast water in a great smoke, or that a weak head should not turn giddy when the water runneth deep and strong? But God be thanked that Christ in His children can endure a stress and a storm, howbeit soft nature would fall down in pieces. O that I had that confidence as to rest on this, though He should grind me into small powder, and bray me into dust, and scatter the dust to the four winds of heaven, that my Lord would gather up the powder, and make me up a new vessel again, to bear Christ's name to the world! I am sure that love, bottomed and seated upon the faith of His love to me, would desire and endure this, and would even claim and threep kindness upon Christ's strokes, and kiss His love-glooms, and both spell and read salvation upon the wounds made by Christ's sweet hands. O that I had but a promise made from the mouth of Christ, of His love to me! and then, howbeit my faith were as tender as paper, I think longing, and dwining, and greening of sick desires would cause it to bide out the siege till the Lord came to fill the soul with His love. And I know also, that in that case faith would bide green and sappy at the root, even at mid-winter, and stand out against all storms. However it be, I know that Christ winneth heaven in despite of hell.

[175] Unbelief has not its origin in _reason_.

But I owe as many praises and thanks to free grace as would lie betwixt me and the utmost border of the highest heaven, suppose ten thousand heavens were all laid above other. But oh! I have nothing that can hire or bud grace; for if grace would take hire, it were no more grace. But all our stability, and the strength of our salvation, is anchored and fastened upon free grace; and I am sure that Christ hath by His death and blood casten the knot so fast, that the fingers of the devils and hell-fulls of sins cannot loose it. And that bond of Christ (that never yet was, nor ever shall, nor can be registrated) standeth surer than heaven, or the days of heaven, as that sweet pillar of the covenant whereon we all hang. Christ, with all His little ones under His two wings and in the compass or circle of His arms, is so sure, that, cast Him and them into the ground of the sea, He shall come up again and not lose one. An odd one cannot, nor shall, be lost in the telling.

This was always God's aim, since Christ came into the play betwixt Him and us, to make men dependent creatures; and, in the work of our salvation, to put created strength, and arms and legs of clay, quite out of place, and out of office and court. And now God hath substituted in our room, and accepted His Son, the Mediator, for us and all that we can make. If this had not been, I would have skinked over and foregone my part of paradise and salvation, for a breakfast of dead, moth-eaten earth; but now I would not give it, nor let it go for more than I can tell. And truly they are silly fools, and ignorant of Christ's worth, and so full ill-trained and tutored, who tell Christ and heaven over the board for two feathers or two straws of the devil's painted pleasures, only lustred on the outer side. This is our happiness now, that our reckonings at night, when eternity shall come upon us, cannot be told. We shall be so far gainers, and so far from being super-expended (as the poor fools of this world are, who give out their money, and get in but black hunger), that angels cannot lay our counts, nor sum our advantage and incomes. Who knoweth how far it is to the bottom of our Christ's fulness, and to the ground of our heaven? Who ever weighed Christ in a pair of balances? Who hath seen the foldings and plies, and the heights and depths of that glory which is in Him, and kept for us? O for such a heaven as to stand afar off, and see, and love, and long for Him, whill time's thread be cut, and this great work of creation dissolved, at the coming of our Lord!

Now to His grace I recommend you. I beseech you also to pray for a re-entry to me into the Lord's house, if it be His good will.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Jan. 6, 1637_.

LXXXVI.--_To my_ LORD CRAIGHALL.

[SIR JOHN HOPE, LORD CRAIGHALL, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas
Hope (Lord Advocate of Scotland in the time of James VI. and
Charles I.) His property, Craighall, is in the parish of
Inveresk, near Edinburgh. Sir Thomas was the most eminent lawyer
of his day, and was first brought into notice by the ability with
which he defended the cause of John Forbes, John Welsh, and the
other ministers who were tried for high treason at Linlithgow, on
account of their holding a General Assembly at Aberdeen in 1605.
Craighall is in the parish of Ceres, in Fife,[176] a fine old
castellated ruin. John, second baronet, was admitted a Lord of
Session 27th July 1632, and became President of the Court, and in
1645 was appointed one of the Privy Council. His name appears on
the roll of members of the General Assemblies 1645-1649, and of
the commissions which these Assemblies appointed. In Lamont's
"Diary" we read (1659), "The Laird of Craighall, in Fyfe,
depairted out of this lyfe on Sabbath at nyght, and was interred
at Ceres."]

[176] There is a village of _Craighall_ near Inveresk, in the
barony of Pinkie, which got its name from this family, just as
there is an _Earlston_ in Borgue parish, called from the old
Earlston.

(_EPISCOPALIAN CEREMONIES--HOW TO ABIDE IN THE TRUTH--DESIRE FOR LIBERTY TO PREACH CHRIST._)

MY LORD,--I received Mr. L.'s[177] letter with your Lordship's and his learned thoughts in the matter of ceremonies. I owe respect to the man's learning, for that I hear him to be opposed to Arminian heresies. But, with reverence of that worthy man, I wonder to hear such popish-like expressions as he hath in his letter, as, "Your Lordship may spare doubtings, when the King and Church have agreed in the settling of such orders; and the Church's direction in things indifferent and circumstantial (as if indifferent and circumstantial were all one!) should be the rule of every private Christian." I only viewed the papers two hours' space, the bearer hastening me to write. I find the worthy man not so seen in this controversy as some turbulent men of our country, whom he calleth "refusers of conformity;" and let me say it, I am more confirmed in nonconformity, when I see such a great wit play the agent so slenderly. But I will lay the blame on the weakness of the cause, not on the meanness of Mr. L.'s learning. I have been, and still am confident, that Britain[178] cannot answer one argument, _a scandalo_: and I longed much to hear Mr. L. speak to the cause; and I would say, if some ordinary divine had answered as Mr. L. doth, that he understood not the nature of a scandal; but I dare not vilify that worthy man so. I am now upon the heat of some other employment. I shall (but God willing) answer this, to the satisfying of any not prejudiced.

[177] Who is here meant cannot now be well ascertained. It may have
been Mr. Loudian, of whom Baillie says, "He was an excellent
philosophe, sound and orthodox, opposite to Canterbury's way, albeit
too conform. I counselled oft Glasgow to have him for their Divinity
Lecturer" ("Letters and Journals," i. 77).

[178] All the divines in Britain.

I will not say that every one is acquainted with the reason in my letter, from God's presence and bright shining face in suffering for this cause. Aristotle never knew the medium of the conclusion: and Christ saith few know it (Rev. ii. 17). I am sure that conscience standing in awe of the Almighty, and fearing to make a little hole in the bottom for fear of under-water, is a strong medium to hold off an erroneous conclusion in the least wing, or lith, of sweet, sweet truth, that concerneth the royal prerogative of our kingly and highest Lord Jesus. And my witness is in heaven, that I saw neither pleasure, nor profit, nor honour, to hook me, or catch me, in entering into prison for Christ, but the wind on my face for the present. And if I had loved to sleep in a whole skin, with the ease and present delight that I saw on this side of sun and moon, I should have lived at ease, and in good hopes to fare as well as others. The Lord knoweth that I preferred preaching of Christ, and still do, to anything, next to Christ Himself. And their new canons took my one, my only joy, from me, which was to me as the poor man's one ewe, that had no more! And, alas! there is little lodging in their hearts for pity or mercy, to pluck out a poor man's one eye for a thing indifferent; _i.e._ for knots of straw, and things (as they mean) off the way to heaven. I desire not that my name take journey, and go a pilgrim to Cambridge, for fear I come into the ears of authority. I am sufficiently burnt already.

In the mean time, be pleased to try if the Bishop of St. Andrews,[179] and Glasgow (Galloway's ordinary),[180] will be pleased to abate from the heat of their wrath, and let me go to my charge. Few know the heart of a prisoner; yet I hope that the Lord will hew His own glory out of as knotty timber as I am. Keep Christ, my dear and worthy Lord. Pretended paper-arguments from[181] angering the mother-Church (that can reel, and nod, and stagger), are not of such weight as peace with the Father, and Husband. Let the wife gloom, I care not, if the Husband laugh.

Remember my service to my Lord your father, and mother, and lady. Grace be with you.

Yours at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Jan. 24, 1637_.

[179] John Spottiswoode.

[180] James Law, Bishop of Glasgow, was the deputy of Sydserff, the
Bishop of Galloway.

[181] Arguments drawn from the risk of provoking.

LXXXVII.--_To_ ELIZABETH KENNEDY.

[ELIZABETH KENNEDY was the sister of Hugh Kennedy, Provost of Ayr, and a woman as eminent for piety and prayer as her brother. Wodrow records of her that, being much afflicted with the stone, she was advised to submit to a surgical operation. Several meetings for prayer took place among the godly at Ayr in reference to her case. When the surgeon came to perform the operation, one of these meetings was going on in the house, and they continued so long in prayer as nearly to exhaust his patience; but before they had concluded, the stone dissolved, and without surgical aid she obtained immediate relief. (_Wodrow's_ "Analecta," vol. ii.)]

(_DANGER OF FORMALITY--CHRIST WHOLLY TO BE LOVED--OTHER OBJECTS OF LOVE._)

MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I have long had a purpose of writing unto you, but I have been hindered. I heartily desire that ye would mind your country, and consider to what airt your soul setteth its face; for all come not home at night who suppose that they have set their face heavenward. It is a woful thing to die, and miss heaven, and to lose house-room with Christ at night: it is an evil journey where travellers are benighted in the fields. I persuade myself that thousands shall be deceived and ashamed of their hope. Because they cast their anchor in sinking sands, they must lose it. Till now I knew not the pain, labour, nor difficulty that there is to win at home: nor did I understand so well, before this, what that meaneth, "The righteous shall scarcely be saved." Oh, how many a poor professor's candle is blown out, and never lighted again! I see that ordinary profession, and to be ranked amongst the children of God, and to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry professors to heaven. But certainly a name is but a name, and will never bide a blast of God's storm. I counsel you not to give your soul or Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep, till ye have gotten something that will bide the fire, and stand out the storm. I am sure, that if my one foot were in heaven, and if then He should say, "Fend thyself, I will hold my grips of thee no longer," I should go no farther, but presently fall down in as many pieces of dead nature.

They are happy for evermore who are over head and ears in the love of Christ, and know no sickness but love-sickness for Christ, and feel no pain but the pain of an absent and hidden Well-beloved. We run our souls out of breath and tire them, in coursing and galloping after our night-dreams (such are the rovings of our miscarrying hearts), to get some created good thing in this life, and on this side of death. We would fain stay and spin out a heaven to ourselves, on this side of the water; but sorrow, want, changes, crosses, and sin, are both woof and warp in that ill-spun web. Oh, how sweet and dear are those thoughts that are still upon the things which are above! and how happy are they who are longing to have little sand in their glass, and to have time's thread cut, and can cry to Christ, "Lord Jesus, have over; come and fetch the dreary[182] passenger!" I wish that our thoughts were more frequently than they are upon our country. Oh, but heaven casteth a sweet smell afar off to those who have spiritual smelling! God hath made many fair flowers; but the fairest of them all is heaven, and the Flower of all flowers is Christ. Oh! why do we not fly up to that lovely One? Alas that there is such a scarcity of love, and of lovers, to Christ amongst us all! Fie, fie, upon us, who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honours, and fair persons, and do not pine and melt away with love to Christ! Oh! would to God I had more love for His sake! O for as much as would lie betwixt me and heaven, for His sake! O for as much as would go round about the earth, and over the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ! But, alas! I have nothing for Him, yet He hath much for me. It is no gain to Christ that He getteth my little, feckless span-length and hand-breadth of love.

[182] Sorrowful.

If men would have something to do with their hearts and their thoughts, that are always rolling up and down (like men with oars in a boat), after sinful vanities, they might find great and sweet employment to their thoughts upon Christ. If those frothy, fluctuating, and restless hearts of ours would come all about Christ, and look into His love, to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy, to the unsearchable riches of His grace, to inquire after and search into the beauty of God in Christ, they would be swallowed up in the depth and height, length and breadth of His goodness. Oh, if men would draw the curtains, and look into the inner side of the ark, and behold how the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in Him bodily! Oh! who would not say, "Let me die, let me die ten times, to see a sight of Him?" Ten thousand deaths were no great price to give for Him. I am sure that sick, fainting love would heighten the market, and raise the price to the double for Him. But, alas! if men and angels were rouped, and sold at the dearest price, they would not all buy a night's love, or a four-and-twenty-hours' sight of Christ! Oh, how happy are they who get Christ for nothing! God send me no more, for my part of paradise, but Christ: and surely I were rich enough, and as well heavened as the best of them, if Christ were my heaven.

I can write no better thing to you, than to desire you, if ever ye laid Christ in a count, to take Him up and count over again: and weigh Him again and again: and after this have no other to court your love, and to woo your soul's delight, but Christ. He will be found worthy of all your love, howbeit it should swell upon you from the earth to the uppermost circle of the heaven of heavens. To our Lord Jesus and His love I commend you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

LXXXVIII.--_To_ JANET KENNEDY.

[This seems to be the wife of Mr. John Fergushill; see Letter
CXII.]

(_CHRIST TO BE KEPT AT EVERY SACRIFICE--HIS INCOMPARABLE LOVELINESS._)

MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Ye are not a little obliged to His rich grace, who hath separated you for Himself, and for the promised inheritance with the saints in light, from this condemned and guilty world. Hold fast Christ, contend for Him; it is a lawful plea to go to holding and drawing for Christ; and it is not possible to keep Christ peaceably, having once gotten Him, except the devil were dead. It must be your resolution to set your face against Satan's northern tempests and storms, for salvation. Nature would have heaven to come to us while sleeping in our beds. We would all buy Christ, so being we might make price ourselves. But Christ is worth more blood and lives than either ye or I have to give Him. When we shall come home, and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome-home to heaven. Oh, what then shall be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses! Oh, how weighty, and of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles be! Oh, when once He shall thrust a wearied traveller's head betwixt His blessed breasts, the poor soul will think one kiss of Christ hath fully paid home forty or fifty years' wet feet, and all its sore hearts, and light (2 Cor. iv. 17) sufferings it had in following after Christ! Oh, thrice-blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with dreams, shadows, feckless things, night-vanities, and night-fancies of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us who sit still, fettered with the love and liking of the loan of a piece of dead clay! Oh, poor fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair weather, and smooth promises, and rotten, worm-eaten hopes! May not the devil laugh to see us give out our souls, and get in but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin? O for a sight of eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage-supper! Half a draught, or a drop of the wine of consolation, that is up at our banqueting-house, out of Christ's own hand, would make our stomachs loathe the brown bread and the sour drink of a miserable life. Oh, how far are we bereaved of wit, to chafe, and hunt, and run, till our souls be out of breath, after a condemned happiness of our own making! And do we not sit far in our own light to make it a matter of bairn's play, to skink and drink over[183] paradise, and the heaven that Christ did sweat for, even for a blast of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast? O that we were out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and crucified to us! And, when we should be close out of love and conceit of any masked and farded lover whatsoever, then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the inmost yolk of our heart. Then Christ should be our night-song and morning-song; then the very noise and din of our Well-beloved's feet, when He cometh, and His first knock or rap at the door, should be as news of two heavens to us. O that our eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sun-burnt flower, even this plastered, fair-outsided world: and then we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! Oh, let some of us die to smell the fragrance of Him; and let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for evermore, providing I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ! I know that it is sometimes at this, "Lord, what wilt Thou have for Christ?" But, O Lord, canst Thou be budded, and propined with any gift for Christ? O Lord, can Christ be sold? or rather, may not a poor needy sinner have Him for nothing? If I can get no more, oh, let me be pained to all eternity, with longing for Him! The joy of hungering for Christ should be my heaven for evermore. Alas, that I cannot draw souls and Christ together! But I desire the coming of His kingdom, and that Christ, as I assuredly hope He will, would come upon withered Scotland, as rain upon the new-mown grass. Oh, let the King come! Oh, let His kingdom come! Oh, let their eyes rot in their eyeholes (Zech. xiv. 12), who will not receive Him home again to reign and rule in Scotland. Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, 1637.

[183] Drink the health of the buyer over the concluded bargain.

LXXXIX.--_To my Well-beloved and Reverend Brother_, MR. ROBERT BLAIR.

[MR. ROBERT BLAIR was born at Irvine in 1593. After completing
his education at the College of Glasgow, he there held for
several years the office of regent, during which time he was
licensed as a probationer for the holy ministry. Having a strong
desire to go to France, he was encouraged to this by M. Basnage,
a French Protestant minister who visited Scotland in 1622. But
Providence ordered his lot otherwise. He was induced to accept of
the charge of Bangor, in Ireland, and was admitted in the year
1623. Here he laboured with great diligence and success; and
there being in the same part of the country several other devout
ministers, by mutual co-operation, they were instrumental in
producing in the north of Ireland a change upon an ignorant and
irreligious people, much resembling the effects of the preaching
of the Gospel in the apostolic age. But this good work was not
allowed to go on unopposed. In the autumn of 1631 he was
suspended from his ministry by the Bishop of Down; in May 1632 he
was deposed; and in November 1634 solemnly excommunicated; and
all this simply for nonconformity. In these circumstances, he and
some other ministers similarly situated, together with a
considerable number of people, formed the purpose of going to New
England, and actually embarked in 1636; but the tempestuous state
of the weather forced them to return. He then came over to
Scotland, and in 1638 became minister of Ayr, from which by a
sentence of the General Assembly he was soon translated to St.
Andrews, where he and Rutherford lived in the warmest friendship
until the rise of the controversy between the Resolutioners and
Protesters, which in some degree disturbed their mutual good
understanding. Rutherford was a strong Protester: Blair regretted
the extremes, as he conceived, to which both parties went; and,
with Mr. James Durham of Glasgow, endeavoured to restore harmony
between them, but without success. In 1661 he was summoned before
the Privy Council for a sermon he had preached, in which he bore
testimony to the covenanted Reformation, as well as against the
defections of the times. He was sentenced to be confined to his
own house, but afterwards permitted to retire to Musselburgh. He
next removed to Kirkcaldy, and from thence to Meikle Couston, in
the parish of Aberdour, where he died on the 27th of April 1666.
(See Life of Robert Blair, issued by the Wodrow Society, 1848.)]

(_GOD'S ARRANGEMENTS SOMETIMES MYSTERIOUS._)

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be unto you.

It is no great wonder, my dear brother, that ye be in heaviness for a season, and that God's will (in crossing your design and desires to dwell amongst a people whose God is the Lord) should move you. I deny not but ye have cause to inquire what His providence speaketh in this to you; but God's directing and commanding Will can by no good logic be concluded from events of providence. The Lord sent Paul on many errands for the spreading of His Gospel, where he found lions in his way. A promise was made to His people of the Holy Land, and yet many nations were in the way, fighting against, and ready to kill them that had the promise, or to keep them from possessing that good land which the Lord their God had given them. I know that ye have most to do with submission of spirit; but I persuade myself that ye have learned, in every condition wherein ye are cast, therein to be content, and to say, "Good is the will of the Lord, let it be done." I believe that the Lord tacketh His ship often to fetch the wind, and that He purposeth to bring mercy out of your sufferings and silence, which (I know from mine own experience) is grievous to you. Seeing that He knoweth our willing mind to serve Him, our wages and stipend is running to the fore with our God, even as some sick soldiers get pay, when they are bedfast and not able to go to the field with others. "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength" (Isa. xlix. 5). And we are to believe it shall be thus ere all the play be played. "The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon" (and the great whore's lovers), "shall the inhabitants of Zion say; and my blood be upon Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say."[184] And, "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: they that burden themselves with it shall be broken in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it."[185] When they have eaten and swallowed us up, they shall be sick and vomit us out living men again; the devil's stomach cannot digest the Church of God. Suffering is the other half of our ministry, howbeit the hardest; for we would be content that our King Jesus should make an open proclamation, and cry down crosses, and cry up joy, gladness, ease, honour, and peace. But it must not be so; through many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God. Not only by them, but through them, must we go; and wiles will not take us past the cross. It is folly to think to steal to heaven with a whole skin.

[184] Jer. li. 35.

[185] Zech. xii. 2, 3.

For myself, I am here a prisoner confined in Aberdeen, threatened to be removed to Caithness, because I desire to edify in this town; and am openly preached against in the pulpits in my hearing, and tempted with disputations by the doctors, especially by D. B.[186] Yet I am not ashamed of the Lord Jesus, His garland, and His crown. I would not exchange my weeping with the painted laughter of the fourteen prelates. At my first coming here I took the dorts at Christ, and would, forsooth, summon Him for unkindness. I sought a plea of my Lord, and was tossed with challenges whether He loved me or not; and disputed over again all that He had done to me, because His word was a fire shut up in my bowels, and I was weary with forbearing, because I said I was cast out of the Lord's inheritance. But now I see that I was a fool. My Lord miskent all, and did bear with my foolish jealousies; and miskent that ever I wronged His love. And now He has come again with mercy under His wings. I pass from my (oh witless!) summons: He is God, I see, and I am man. Now it hath pleased Him to renew His love to my soul, and to dawt His poor prisoner. Therefore, dear brother, help me to praise and show the Lord's people with you what He hath done to my soul, that they may pray and praise. And I charge you in the name of Christ, not to omit it. For this cause I write to you, that my sufferings may glorify my royal King, and edify His Church in Ireland. He knoweth how one of Christ's love coals hath burnt my soul with a desire to have my bonds to preach His glory, whose cross I now bear. God forgive you if you do it not; but I hope the Lord will move your heart, to proclaim in my behalf the sweetness, excellency, and glory of my royal King. It is but our soft flesh that hath raised a slander on the Cross of Christ: I see now the white side of it; my Lord's chains are all over-gilded. Oh, if Scotland and Ireland had part of my feast! And yet I get not my meat but with many strokes. There are none here to whom I can speak; I dwell in Kedar's tents. Refresh me with a letter from you. Few know what is betwixt Christ and me.

[186] Dr Robert Baron, Professor of Divinity in the Marischal College
of Aberdeen, one of the learned doctors of that city, whose dispute,
in 1638, with Alexander Henderson, David Dickson, and Andrew Cant, on
the subject of the Covenant, excited at the time so much attention.

Dear brother, upon my salvation, this is His truth that we suffer for. Christ would not seal a blank charter to souls. Courage, courage! joy, joy for evermore! Oh, joy unspeakable and glorious! O for help to set my crowned King on high! O for love to Him who is altogether lovely,--that love which many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown!

I remember you, and bear your name on my breast to Christ. I beseech you, forget not His afflicted prisoner. Grace, mercy, and peace be with you. Salute in the Lord, from me, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Livingstone, Mr. Ridge,[187] Mr. Colwart,[188] &c.

Your brother, and fellow-prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, _Feb. 7, 1637_.

[187] Mr. John Ridge was an English minister, whom opposition to
ceremonial impositions on conscience led to leave his native country
for Ireland. He was admitted to the vicarage of Antrim on the 7th of
July 1619, in which he laboured with success for many years; but being
deposed by Henry Leslie, the Bishop of Down, for nonconformity, he
came over to Irvine, where he died.

[188] Mr. Henry Colwart was also a native of England; and, like Mr.
Ridge, left the land of his birth, and went to Ireland. He was
admitted to the pastoral charge of Oldstone in 1630; but, being
deposed by Bishop Leslie for refusing to submit to the innovations of
Prelacy, he came over to Scotland, and was admitted minister of
Paisley, where he died.

XC.--_To his Reverend and Dear Brother_, MR. JOHN LIVINGSTONE.

[JOHN LIVINGSTONE (the son of Alexander Livingstone, minister
first at Monyabroch or Kilsyth, and afterwards at Lanark) was
born at Monyabroch on the 21st of January 1603. At the College of
Glasgow, he enjoyed the advantage of having as his regent for two
years the famous Robert Blair, for whom he continued ever after
to retain the highest veneration. He was first settled minister
at Killinchie, in Ireland, towards the close of the year 1630,
but had not laboured above twelve months in that charge when he
was suspended by the Bishop of Down, for nonconformity. To enjoy
religious liberty, he set out with Mr. Blair and others in their
intended emigration to America; but, with the rest, was forced by
the adverse state of the weather to return. Shortly after, he
received calls from two parishes, Stranraer and Stewarton, but
preferred the call from the former, and his induction took place
on the 5th of July 1638. Here he continued in the assiduous
discharge of his pastoral functions until 1648, when, by the
sentence of the General Assembly, he was translated to the parish
of Ancrum, in the Presbytery of Jedburgh. Upon the death of
Charles I., he was sent to the Hague, and afterwards to Breda, as
one of the commissioners from the Church of Scotland to treat
with his son Charles II., whose character he had the penetration
to discover. In the controversy between the Resolutioners and
Protesters, Livingstone took the side of the latter, but was
dissatisfied with the violence manifested by his party. After the
restoration of Charles II., being summoned to appear before the
Privy Council in 1662, he appeared; but, declining to engage to
observe the anniversary of the death of Charles I., and to take
the oath of allegiance in the precise way in which it was
dictated to him, he was sentenced to quit his native land within
two months. Having repaired to Rotterdam, he preached
occasionally to the Scottish congregation there, and devoted the
remainder of his life to the cultivation of Biblical literature.
He died in that city on the 9th of August 1672, in the seventieth
year of his age.

It was this same Livingstone that was so blessed in awakenings.
By a sermon which he preached in 1630 at the Kirk-of-Shotts, on
the Monday after the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, five
hundred souls, it is believed, were converted. On a similar
occasion, at Holywood, in the north of Ireland, in one day, he
was the instrument of awakening double that number to inquiry
after salvation. (See Brief Historical Relation of the Life of
John Livingston in "Select Biographies," vol. i., Wodrow Society,
1845.)]

(_RESIGNATION--ENJOYMENT--STATE OF THE CHURCH_.)

MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear from you, and to be refreshed with the comforts of The Bride of our Lord Jesus in Ireland. I suffer with you in grief, for the dash that your desires to be at New England have received of late; but if our Lord, who hath skill to bring up His children, had not seen it your best, it would not have befallen you. Hold your peace, and stay yourselves upon the Holy One of Israel. Hearken to what He hath said in crossing of your desires; He will speak peace to His people.

I am here removed from my flock, and silenced, and confined in Aberdeen, for the testimony of Jesus. And I have been confined in spirit also with desertions and challenges. I gave in a bill of quarrels, and complaints of unkindness against Christ, who seemed to have cast me over the dyke of the vineyard as a dry tree, and separated me from the Lord's inheritance; but high, high and loud praises be to our royal crowned King in Zion, that He hath not burnt the dry branch. I shall yet live, and see His glory.

Your mother-Church, for her whoredom, is like to be cast off. The bairns may break their hearts to see such chiding betwixt the husband and the wife. Our clergy is upon a reconciliation with the Lutherans; and the Doctors are writing books, and drawing up a common confession, at the Council's command. Our Service Book is proclaimed with sound of trumpet. The night is fallen down upon the prophets! Scotland's day of visitation is come. It is time for the bride to weep, while Christ is a-saying that He will choose another wife. But our sky will clear again; the dry branch of cut-down Lebanon will bud again and be glorious, and they shall yet plant vines upon our mountains.

Now, my dear brother, I write to you for this end, that ye may help me to praise; and seek help of others with you, that God may be glorified in my bonds. My Lord Jesus hath taken the withered, dry stranger, and His prisoner broken in heart, into His house of wine. Oh, oh, if ye, and all Scotland, and all our brethren with you, knew how I am feasted! Christ's honey-combs drop comforts. He dineth with His prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a smell. The devil cannot get it denied that we suffer for the apple of Christ's eye, His royal prerogatives, as King and Lawgiver. Let us not fear or faint. He will have His Gospel once again rouped in Scotland, and have the matter going to voices, to see who will say, "Let Christ be crowned King in Scotland." It is true that Antichrist stirreth his tail; but I love a rumbling and raging devil in the kirk (since the Church militant cannot or may not want a devil to trouble her), rather than a subtle or sleeping devil. Christ never yet got a bride without stroke of sword. It is now nigh the Bridegroom's entering into His chamber; let us awake and go in with Him.