Chapter XXXVII: Letter CCCXII: ) (1)

(_ON DEATH OF HER SON-IN-LAW--GOD'S PURPOSES._)

WORTHY FRIEND,--Grace be to you. I do unwillingly write unto you of that which God hath done concerning your son-in-law; only, I believe ye look not below Christ, and the highest and most supreme act of Providence, which moveth all wheels. And certainly, what came down enacted and concluded in the great book before the throne, and signed and subscribed with the hand which never did wrong, should be kissed and adored by us.

We see God's decrees when they bring forth their fruits, all actions, good and ill, sweet and sour, in their time; but we see not presently the after-birth of God's decree, namely, His blessed end, and the good that He bringeth out of the womb of His holy and spotless counsel. We see His working, and we sorrow; the end of His counsel and working lieth hidden, and underneath the ground, and therefore we cannot believe. Even amongst men, we see hewn stones, timber, and an hundred scattered parcels and pieces of an house, all under-tools, hammers, and axes, and saws; yet the house, the beauty and use[453] of so many lodgings and ease-rooms, we neither see nor understand for the present; these are but in the mind and head of the builder, as yet. We see red earth, unbroken clods, furrows, and stones; but we see not summer, lilies, roses, the beauty of a garden.

[453] "_Ease_" in older editions.

If ye give the Lord time to work (as often[454] he that believeth maketh haste, but not speed), His end is under ground, and ye shall see it was your good, that your son hath changed dwelling-places, but not his Master. Christ thought good to have no more of his service here; yet, "His servants shall serve Him" (Rev. xxii. 3). He needeth not us nor our service, either on earth or in heaven. But ye are to look to Him who giveth the hireling both his leave and his wages, for his naked aim and purpose to serve Christ, as well as for his labours. It is put up in Christ's account, that such a labourer did sweat forty years in Christ's vineyard; howbeit he got not leave to labour so long, because He who accepteth of the will for the deed counteth so. None can teach the Lord to lay an account.

[454] _Q.d._, You need this advice, as too often even believers make
haste.

He numbereth the drops of rain, and knoweth the stars by their names; it would take us much studying to give a name to every star in the firmament, great or small.

See Lev. x. 3, "And Aaron held his peace." Ye know his two sons were slain, whilst they offered strange fire to the Lord. Command your thoughts to be silent. If the soldiers of Newcastle had done this, ye might have stomached; but the weapon was in another hand. Hear the rod what it preacheth, and see the name of God (Micah vi. 9), and know that there is somewhat of God and heaven in the rod. The majesty of the unsearchable and bottomless ways and judgments of God is not seen in the rod; and the seeing of them requireth the eyes of the man of wisdom. If the sufferings of some other with you in that loss could ease you, ye want them not. But He can do no wrong. He cannot halt; His goings are equal who hath done it. I know our Lord aimeth at more mortification; let Him not come in vain to your house, and lose the pains of a merciful visit. God, the Founder, never melteth in vain; howbeit to us He seemeth often to lose both fire and metal. But I know ye are more in this work than I can be. There is no cause to faint or be weary.

Grace be with you; and the rich consolations of Jesus Christ sweeten your cross, and support you under it. I rest,

Yours, in his Lord and Master,

S. R.

LONDON, _Oct. 15, 1645_.

CCCXII.--_To MISTRESS HUME, on her Husband's Death._

[This lady, it is highly probable, was Barbara Mein, the daughter
of Barbara Hamilton, noticed above, and the wife of Mr. William
Hume, minister, who had gone to England with the Covenanters'
army, and who died at Newcastle, probably from wounds inflicted
by the army. In the Index of the unprinted Acts of the General
Assembly of 1645, there is an Act entitled, "Recommendation of
Barbara Mein's Petition to the Parliament;" and in the Index of
the unprinted Acts of the General Assembly of 1646, there is an
Act entitled, "Act in favours of Barbara Mein, relict of umwhile
Mr. William Hume, minister." The object of this letter is to
comfort Mrs. Hume under that painful bereavement.]

(_GOD'S VOICE IN THE ROD._)

LOVING SISTER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--If ye have anything better than the husband of your youth, ye are Jesus Christ's debtor for it. Pay not then your debts with grudging. Sorrow may diminish from the sweet fruit of righteousness; but quietness, silence, submission, and faith, put a crown upon your sad losses. Ye know whose voice the voice of a crying rod is (Micah vi. 9). The name and majesty of the Lord is written on the rod; read and be instructed. Let Christ have the room of the husband. He hath now no need of you, or of your love; for he enjoyeth as much of the love of Christ as his heart can be capable of. I confess that it is a dear-bought experience, to teach you to undervalue the creature; yet it is not too dear if Christ think it so. I know that the disputing of your thoughts against his going thither, the way and manner of his death, the instruments, the place, the time, will not ease your spirits; except ye rise higher than second causes, and be silent because the Lord hath done it. If we measure the goings of the Almighty, and His ways (the bottom whereof we see not), we quite mistake God. Oh, how little a portion of God do we see! He is far above our ebb and narrow thoughts. He ruled the world in wisdom, ere we, creatures of yesterday, were born; and will rule it when we shall be lodging beside the worm and corruption. Only learn heavenly wisdom, self-denial, and mortification, by this sad loss. I know that it is not for nothing (except ye deny God to be wise in all He doeth) that ye have lost one on earth. There hath been too little of your love and heart in heaven, and therefore the jealousy of Christ hath done this. It is a mercy that He contendeth with you and all your lovers. I should desire no greater favour for myself than that Christ laid a necessity, and took on such bonds upon Himself: "Such a one I must have, and such a soul I cannot live in heaven without" (John x. 16). And, believe it; it is incomprehensible love that Christ saith, "If I enjoy the glory of My Father and the crown of heaven, far above men and angels, I must use all means, though ever so violent, to have the company of such a one for ever and ever." If, with the eyes of wisdom, as a child of wisdom, ye justify your mother, the Wisdom of God (whose child ye are), ye will kiss and embrace this loss, and see much of Christ in it. Believe and submit; and refer the income of the consolations of Jesus, and the event of the trial, to your heavenly Father, who numbereth all your hairs. And put Christ into His own room in your love; it may be He hath either been out of His own place, or in a place of love inferior to His worth. Repair Christ in all His wrongs done to Him, and love Him for a Husband; and He that is a Husband to the widow will be that to you which He hath taken from you.

Grace be with you.

Your sympathizing brother,

S. R.

LONDON, _Oct. 15, 1645_.

CCCXIII.--_To the_ VISCOUNTESS KENMURE.

(_CHRIST'S DESIGNS IN SICKNESS AND SORROW._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.--Though Christ lose no time, yet, when sinful men drive His chariot, the wheels of His chariot move slowly. The woman, Zion, as soon as she travailed, brought forth her children; yea, "before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child" (Isa. lxvi. 7): yet the deliverance of the people was with the woman's going with child seventy years. That is more than nine months. There be many oppositions in carrying on the work; but I hope that the Lord will build His own Zion, and evidence to us that it is done, "not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord."

Madam, I have heard of your infirmities of body, and sickness. I know the issue shall be mercy to you, and that God's purpose, which lieth hidden under ground to you, is to commend the sweetness of His love and care to you from your youth. And if all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs, heaviness, and inconstancy of the creature, be expounded (as sure I am they are) the rods of the jealousy of an Husband in heaven, contending with all your lovers on earth, though there were millions of them, for your love, to fetch more of your love home to heaven, to make it single, unmixed, and chaste, to the Fairest in heaven and earth, to Jesus the Prince of ages, ye will forgive (to borrow that word) every rod of God, and "not let the sun go down on your wrath" against any messenger of your afflicting and correcting Father. Since your Ladyship cannot but see that the mark at which Christ hath aimed these twenty-four years and above, is, to have the company and fellowship of such a sinful creature in heaven with Him for all eternity; and, because He will not (such is the power of His love) enjoy His Father's glory, and that crown due to Him by eternal generation, without you, by name (John xvii. 24, x. 16, xiv. 3), therefore, Madam, believe no evil of Christ: listen to no hard reports that His rods make of Him to you. He hath loved you, and washed you from your sins; and what would ye have more? Is that too little, except He adjourn all crosses, till ye be where ye shall be out of all capacity to sigh or be crossed? I hope that ye can desire no more, no greater, nor more excellent suit, than Christ and the fellowship of the Lamb for evermore. And if that desire be answered in heaven (as I am sure it is, and ye cannot deny but it is made sure to you), the want of these poor accidents, of a living husband, of many children, of an healthful body, of a life of ease in the world, without one knot in the rush, are nobly made up, and may be comfortably borne.

Grace, grace be with your Ladyship.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, _Oct. 16, 1645_.

CCCXIV.--_To BARBARA HAMILTON, on her Son-in-law slain in battle._ [Letter CCCXII.]

(_GOD DOES ALL THINGS WELL, AND WITH DESIGN._)

LOVING SISTER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I have heard with grief that Newcastle hath taken one more in a bloody account than before, even your son-in-law and my friend. But I hope you have learned that much of Christ as not to look to wheels rolled round about on earth. Earthen vessels are not to dispute with their Former. Pieces of shining clay may, by reasoning and contending with the potter, mar the work of Him "who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem;" as bullocks sweating and wrestling in the furrow make their yoke more heavy. In quietness and rest ye shall be saved. If men do anything contrary to your heart, we may ask both, "Who did it?" and "What is done?" and "Why?" When God hath done any such thing, we are to inquire, "Who hath done it?" and to know that this cometh from the Lord, who is "wonderful in counsel;" but we are not to ask, "What?" or "Why?" If it be from the Lord as certainly there is no evil in the city without Him (Amos iii. 6), it is enough; the fairest face of His spotless way is but coming, and ye are to believe His works as well as His word. Violent death is a sharer with Christ in His death, which was violent. It maketh not much what way we go to heaven: the happy home is all, where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten. He is gone home to a Friend's house, and made welcome, and the race is ended: time is recompensed with eternity, and copper with gold. God's order is in wisdom; the husband goeth home before the wife. And the throng of the market shall be over ere it be long, and another generation be where we now are, and at length an empty house, and not one of mankind shall be upon the earth, within the sixth part of an hour after the earth and works that are therein shall be burnt up with fire. I fear more that Christ is about to remove, when He carrieth home so much of His plenishing beforehand.

We cannot teach the Almighty knowledge. When He was directing the bullet against His servant to fetch out the soul, no wise man could cry to God, "Wrong, wrong, Lord, for he is Thine own!" There is no mist over His eyes who is "wonderful in counsel." If Zion be builded with your son-in-law's blood, the Lord (deep in counsel) can glue together the stones of Zion with blood, and with that blood which is precious in His eyes. Christ hath fewer labourers in His vineyard than He had, but more witnesses for His cause and the Lord's covenant with the three nations. What is Christ's gain is not your loss. Let not that, which is His holy and wise will, be your unbelieving sorrow.

Though I really judge that I had interest in His dead servant, yet, because he now liveth to Christ, I quit the hopes which I had of his successful labouring in the ministry. I know he now praiseth the grace that he was to preach; and if there were a better thing on his head now in heaven than a crown, or anything more excellent than heaven, he would cast it down before His feet who sitteth on the throne. Give glory, therefore, to Christ, as he now doeth, and say, "Thy will be done."

The grace and consolation of Christ be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Nov. 15, 1645_.

CCCXV.-_-To a Christian Friend, upon the death of his Wife._

(_GOD THE FIRST CAUSE--THE END OF AFFLICTION._)

WORTHY FRIEND,--I desire to suffer with you, in the loss of a loving and good wife, now gone before (according to the method and order of Him of whose understanding there is no searching out) whither ye are to follow. He that made yesterday to go before this day, and the former generation, in birth and life, to have been before this present generation, and hath made some flowers to grow and die and wither in the month of May, and others in June, cannot be challenged in the order He hath made of things without souls; and some order He must keep also here, that one might bury another. Therefore I hope ye shall be dumb and silent, because the Lord hath done it.

What creatures or under-causes do, in sinful mistakes, is ordered in wisdom by your Father, at whose feet your own soul and your heaven lieth; and so the days of your wife. If the place she hath left were any other than a prison of sin, and the home she is gone to any other than where her Head and Saviour is King of the land, your grief had been more rational. But I trust your faith of the resurrection of the dead in Christ to glory and immortality, will lead you to suspend your longing for her, till the morning and dawning of that day when the archangel shall descend with a shout, to gather all the prisoners out of the grave, up to Himself. To believe this is best for you; and to be silent, because He hath done it, is your wisdom.

It is much to come out of the Lord's school of trial wiser, and more experienced in the ways of God; and it is our happiness, when Christ openeth a vein, that He taketh nothing but ill blood from His sick ones. Christ hath skill to do; and (if our corruption mar not) the art of mercy in correcting. We cannot of ourselves take away the tin, the lead, and the scum that remaineth in us; and if Christ be not Master-of-work, and if the furnace go its lone (He not standing nigh the melting of His own vessel), the labour were lost, and the Founder should melt in vain. God knoweth some of us have lost much fire, sweating, and pains, to our Lord Jesus; and the vessel is almost marred, the furnace and rod of God spilled, "the daylight[455] burnt, and the reprobate metal not taken away," so as some are to answer to the Majesty of God for the abuse of many good crosses, and rich afflictions lost without the quiet fruit of righteousness. It is a sad thing when the rod is cursed, that never fruit shall grow on it. And except Christ's dew fall down, and His summer-sun shine, and His grace follow afflictions to cause them to bring forth fruit to God, they are so fruitless to us, that our evil ground (rank and fat enough for briers) casteth up a crop of noisome weeds. "The rod" (as the prophet saith) "blossometh, pride buddeth forth, violence riseth up into a rod of wickedness" (Ezek. vii. 10, 11). And all this hath been my case under many rods since I saw you.

[455] The allusion is to Jer. vi. 29, and in that passage "daylight"
is a variation from our common version. Could Rutherford have been
reading Jeremiah in the Septuagint Greek version? There the word is
φυσητὴρ, "blowpipe," or "_bellows_;" but we might suppose
that his eye mistook the word for φωστὴρ, "lightgiver,"
"_window-light_." The Scotch phrase, "to burn daylight," means to
waste time and opportunity.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, 1645.

CCCXVI.--_To a Christian Brother, on the death of his Daughter._

(_CONSOLATION IN HER HAVING GONE BEFORE--CHRIST THE BEST HUSBAND._)

REVEREND AND BELOVED IN THE LORD,--It may be that I have been too long silent, but I hope that ye will not impute it to forgetfulness of you.

As I have heard of the death of your daughter with heaviness of mind on your behalf, so am I much comforted that she hath evidenced to yourself and other witnesses the hope of the resurrection of the dead. As sown corn is not lost (for there is more hope of that which is sown than of that which is eaten) (1 Cor. xv. 42, 43), so also is it in the resurrection of the dead: the body "is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory." I hope that ye wait for the crop and harvest; "for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him" (1 Thess. iv. 14). Then they are not lost who are gathered into that congregation of the first-born, and the general assembly of the saints. Though we cannot outrun nor overtake them that are gone before, yet we shall quickly follow them; and the difference is, that she hath the advantage of some months or years of the crown before you and her mother. As we do not take it ill if our children outrun us in the life of grace, why then are we sad if they outstrip us in the attainment of the life of glory? It would seem that there is more reason to grieve that children live behind us, than that they are glorified and die before us. All the difference is in some poor hungry accidents of time, less or more, sooner or later. So the godly child, though young, died an hundred years old; and ye could not now have bestowed her better, though the choice was Christ's, not yours.

And I am sure, Sir, ye cannot now say that she is married against the will of her parents. She might more readily, if alive, fall into the hands of a worse husband; but can ye think that she could have fallen into the hands of a better? And if Christ marry with your house, it is your honour, not any cause of grief, that Jesus should portion any of yours, ere she enjoy your portion. Is it not great love? The patrimony is more than any other could give; as good a husband is impossible; to say a better is blasphemy. The King and Prince of ages can keep them better than ye can do. While she was alive, ye could entrust her to Christ, and recommend her to His keeping; now, by an after-faith, ye have resigned her unto Him in whose bosom do sleep all that are dead in the Lord. Ye would have lent her to glorify the Lord upon earth, and He hath borrowed her (with promise to restore her again) (1 Cor. xv. 53; 1 Thess. iv. 15, 16) to be an organ of the immediate glorifying of Himself in heaven. Sinless glorifying of God is better than sinful glorifying of Him. And sure your prayers concerning her are fulfilled. I shall desire, if the Lord shall be pleased the same way to dispose of her mother, that ye have the same mind. Christ cannot multiply injuries upon you. If the fountain be the love of God (as I hope it is), ye are enriched with losses.

Ye knew all I can say better, before I was in Christ, than I can express it. Grace be with you.

Yours, in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 6, 1646_.

CCCXVII.--_To a Christian Gentlewoman._

(_VIEWS OF DEATH AND HEAVEN--ASPIRATIONS._)

MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--If death, which is before you and us all, were any other thing than a friendly dissolution, and a change, not a destruction of life, it would seem a hard voyage to go through such a sad and dark trance,[456] so thorny a valley, as is the wages of sin. But I am confident the way ye know, though your foot never trod in that black shadow. The loss of life is gain to you. If Christ Jesus be the period, the end, and lodging-home, at the end of your journey, there is no fear; ye go to a friend. And since ye have had communion with Him in this life, and He hath a pawn or pledge of yours, even the largest share of your love and heart, ye may look death in the face with joy.

[456] Passage.

If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you cannot be kept the prisoner of the second death. But though He be the same Christ in the other life that ye found Him to be here, yet He is so far in His excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradiations, and beams of majesty, above what He appeared here, when He is seen as He is, that ye shall misken Him, and He shall appear a new Christ. And His kisses, breathings, embracements, the perfume, the ointment of His name poured out on you, shall appear to have more of God, and a stronger smell of heaven, of eternity, of a Godhead, of majesty and glory, there than here; as water at the fountain, apples in the orchard and beside the tree, have more of their native sweetness, taste, and beauty, than when transported to us some hundred miles.

I mean not that Christ can lose any of His sweetness in the carrying, or that He, in His Godhead and loveliness of presence, can be changed to the worse, betwixt the little spot of the earth that ye are in, and the right hand of the Father far above all heavens. But the change will be in you, when ye shall have new senses, and the soul shall be a more deep and more capacious vessel, to take in more of Christ; and when means (the chariot, the Gospel, that He is now carried in, and ordinances that convey Him) shall be removed. Sure ye cannot now be said to see Him face to face; or to drink of the wine of the highest fountain, or to take in seas and tides of fresh love immediately, without vessels, midses, or messengers, at the Fountain itself, as ye will do a few days hence, when ye shall be so near as to be with Christ (Luke xxiii. 43; John xvii. 24; Phil. i. 23; 1 Thess. iv. 17).

Ye would, no doubt, bestow a day's journey, yea, many days' journey on earth, to go up to heaven, and fetch down anything of Christ; how much more may ye be willing to make a journey to go in person to heaven (it is not lost time, but gained eternity) to enjoy the full Godhead! And then, in such a manner as He is there! not in His week-day's apparel, as He is here with us, in a drop or the tenth part of a night's dewing of grace and sweetness; but He is there in His marriage-robe of glory, richer, more costly, more precious, in one hem or button of that garment of Fountain majesty than a million of worlds. Oh, the well is deep! Ye shall then think that preachers, and sinful ambassadors on earth, did but spill and mar His praises, when they spoke of Him and preached His beauty.

Alas! we but make Christ black and less lovely, in making such insignificant, and dry, and cold, and low expressions of His highest and transcendent super-excellency to the daughters of Jerusalem. Sure I have often, for my own part, sinned in this thing. No doubt angels do not fulfil their task, according to their obligation, in that Christ keeps their feet from falling with the lost devils; though I know they are not behind in going to the utmost of created power. But there is sin in our praising, and sin in the quantity, besides other sins. But I must leave this; it is too deep for me. Go and see, and we desire to go with you; but we are not masters of our own diet.[457] If, in that last journey, ye tread on a serpent in the way, and thereby wound your heel, as Jesus Christ did before you, the print of the wound shall not be known at the resurrection of the just. Death is but an awesome step, over time and sin, to sweet Jesus Christ, who knew and felt the worst of death, for death's teeth hurt Him. We know death hath no teeth now, no jaws, for they are broken. It is a free prison; citizens pay nothing for the grave. The jailor who had the power of death is destroyed: praise and glory be to the First-begotten of the dead.

[457] _Diet_, used for fixed time.

The worst possible that may be is, that ye leave behind you children, husband, and the church of God in miseries. But ye cannot get them to heaven with you for the present. Ye shall not miss them, and Christ cannot miscount one of the poorest of His lambs. No lad, no girl, no poor one shall be a-missing, ere[458] ye see them again, in the day that the Son shall render up the kingdom to His Father.

[458] None shall be longer missed than just till the time when ye
shall see them again.

The evening and the shadow of every poor hireling is coming. The sun of Christ's church in this life is declining low. Not a soul of the militant company will be here within a few generations; our Husband will send for them all. It is a rich mercy that we are not married to time longer than the course be finished.

Ye may rejoice that ye go not to heaven till ye know that Jesus is there before you; that when ye come thither, at your first entry ye may feel the smell of His ointments, His myrrh, aloes, and cassia. And this first salutation of His will make you find it is no uncomfortable thing to die. Go and enjoy your gain; live on Christ's love while ye are here, and all the way.

As for the church which ye leave behind you, the government is upon Christ's shoulders, and He will plead for the blood of His saints. The Bush hath been burning above five thousand years, and we never yet saw the ashes of this fire. Yet a little while, and the vision shall not tarry: it will speak, and not lie. I am more afraid of my duty, than of the Head Christ's government. He cannot fail to bring judgment to victory. Oh that we could wait for our hidden life! Oh that Christ would remove the covering, draw aside the curtain of time, and rend the heavens, and come down! Oh that shadows and night were gone, that the day would break, and that He who feedeth among the lilies would cry to His heavenly trumpeters, "Make ready, let us go down and fold together the four corners of the world, and marry the bride!" His grace be with you.

Now, if I have found favour with you, and if ye judge me faithful, my last suit to you is that ye would leave me a legacy; and that is, that my name may be, at the very last, in your prayers: as I desire also, it may be in the prayers of those of your Christian acquaintance with whom ye have been intimate.

Your brother, in his own Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 9, 1646_.

CCCXVIII.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_CHRIST NEVER IN OUR DEBT--RICHES OF CHRIST--EXCELLENCE OF THE HEAVENLY STATE._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--It is the least of the princely and royal bounty of Jesus Christ to pay a king's debts, and not to have His servants at a loss. His gold is better than yours, and His hundred-fold is the income and rent of heaven, and far above your revenues. Ye are not the first who have casten up your accounts that way. Better have Christ your factor than any other; for He tradeth to the advantage of His poor servants. But if the hundred-fold in this life be so well told (as Christ cannot pay you with miscounting or deferred hope), oh, what must the rent of that land be which rendereth (every day and hour of the years of long eternity) the whole rent of a year, yea, of more than thousand thousands of ages, even the weighty income of a rich kingdom, not every summer once, but every moment!

That sum of glory will take you and all the angels telling.[459] To be a tenant to such a Landlord, where every berry and grape of the large field beareth no worse fruit than glory, fulness of joy, and pleasures that endure for evermore! I leave it to yourself to think what a summer, what a soil, what a garden must be there; and what must be the commodities of that highest land, where the sun and the moon are under the feet of the inhabitants! Surely the land cannot be bought with gold, blood, banishment, loss of father and mother, husband, wife, children. We but dwell here because we can do no better. It is need, not virtue, to be sojourners in a prison; to weep and sigh, and, alas! to sin sixty or seventy years in a land of tears. The fruits that grow here are all seasoned and salted with sin.

[459] Will require all your power, and that of angels too, to unfold.

Oh how sweet is it that the company of the first-born should be divided into two great bodies of an army, and some in their country, and some in the way to their country! If it were no more than once to see the face of the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays and beams of matchless glory, and incomparable fountain-love, it were a well-spent journey to creep hands and feet through seven deaths and seven hells, to enjoy Him up at the well-head. Only let us not weary: the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than when we first believed. Strangers are not wise to quarrel with their host, and complain of their lodging. It is a foul way, but a fair home. Oh that I had but such grapes and clusters out of the land as I have sometimes seen and tasted in the place whereof your Ladyship maketh mention! But the hope of it in the end is a heartsome convoy in the way. If I see little more of the gold[460] till the race be ended, I dare not quarrel. It is the Lord! I hope His chariot will go through these three kingdoms, after our sufferings shall be accomplished.

[460] In a sermon preached at Kircudbright, in 1634, on Heb. xii. 1-3,
he says, "This condemns those who will not run one foot in the race
except the gold be in their hand."

Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 26, 1646_.

CCCXIX.--_To_ Mr. J. G.[461]

[461] Perhaps Mr. James Guthrie, minister of Stirling; afterwards
beheaded in 1661, at the Cross of Edinburgh, and his head fixed on the
Nether Bow.

(_PROSPECTS FOR SCOTLAND--HIS OWN DARKNESS--ABILITY OF CHRIST._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--I shall with my soul desire the peace of these kingdoms, and I do believe it will at last come, as a river and as the mighty waves of the sea; but oh that we were ripe and in readiness to receive it! The preserving of two or three, or four or five berries, in the utmost boughs of the olive-tree, after the vintage, is like to be a great matter ere all be done; yet I know that a cluster in both kingdoms shall be saved, for a blessing is in it. But it is not, I fear, so near to the dawning of the day of salvation but the clouds must send down more showers of blood to water the vineyard of the Lord, and to cause it to blossom. Scotland's scum is not yet removed; nor is England's dross and tin taken away; nor the filth of our blood "purged by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning." But I am too much on this sad subject.

As for myself, I do esteem nothing out of heaven, and next to a communion with Jesus Christ, more than to be in the hearts and prayers of the saints. I know that He feedeth there among the lilies, till the day break; but I am at low ebb, as to any sensible communion with Christ; yea, as low as any soul can be, and do scarce know where I am; and do now make it a question, if any can go to Him, who dwelleth in light inaccessible, through nothing but darkness. Sure, all that come to heaven have a stock in Christ; but I know not where mine is. It cannot be enough for me to believe the salvation of others, and to know Christ to be the Honeycomb, the Rose of Sharon, the Paradise and Eden of the saints, and First-born written in heaven, and not to see afar the borders of that good land.

But what shall I say? Either this is the Lord, making grace a new creation, where there is pure nothing and sinful nothing to work upon, or I am gone. I should count my soul engaged to yourself, and others there with you, if ye would but carry to Christ for me a letter of cyphers and nonsense (for I know not how to make language of my condition), only showing that I have need of His love; for I know many fair and washen ones stand now in white before the throne, who were once as black as I am. If Christ pass His word to wash a sinner, it is less to Him than a word to make fair angels of black devils! Only let the art of free grace be engaged. I have not a cautioner to give surety, nor doth a Mediator, such as He is in all perfection, need a mediator. But what I need, He knoweth; only, it is His depth of wisdom to let some pass millions of miles over score in debt, that they may stand between the winning and the losing, in need of more than ordinary free grace.

Christ hath been multiplying grace by mercy above these five thousand years; and the later born heirs have so much greater guiltiness, that Christ hath passed more experiments and multiplied essays of heart-love on others, by misbelieving (after it is past all question, many hundreds of ages), that Christ is the undeniable and now uncontroverted treasurer of multiplied redemptions. So now He is saying, "The more of the disease there is, the more of the physician's art of grace and tenderness there must be." Only, I know that no sinner can put infinite grace to it,[462] so as the Mediator shall have difficulty, or much ado, to save this or that man. Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.

[462] "_To put one to it_," is a phrase equivalent to, "Cause him to
be at a loss how to act."

I pray you (remembering my love to your wife, and friends there), let me find that I have solicitors there amongst your acquaintance; and forget not Scotland.

Your brother in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 30, 1646_.

CCCXX.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_TRIALS CANNOT INJURE SAINTS--BLESSEDNESS IN SEEING CHRIST._)

MADAM,--It is too like that the Lord's controversy with these two nations is but yet beginning, and that we are ripened and white for the Lord's sickle.

For the particular condition your Ladyship is in, another might speak (if they would say all) of more sad things. If there was not a fountain of free grace to water dry ground, and an uncreated wind to breathe on withered and dry bones, we were gone. The wheels of Christ's chariot (to pluck us out of the womb of many deaths) are winged like eagles. All I have is, to desire to believe that Christ will show all good-will to save; and as for your Ladyship, I know that our Lord Jesus carrieth on no design against you, but seeketh to save and redeem you. He lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to take you up. His way of redeeming is ravishing and taking. There are more miracles of glorified sinners in heaven than can be on earth. Nothing of you, Madam, nay, not even your leaf, can wither.

Verily, it is a king's life to follow the Lamb. But when ye see Him in His own country at home, ye will think ye never saw Him before: "He shall be admired of all them that believe" (2 Thess. i. 10). Ye may judge how far all your now sad days, and tossings, changes, losses, wants, conflicts, shall then be below you. Ye look to the cross: now it is above your head, and seemeth to threaten death, as having a dominion; but it shall then be so far below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above it, that ye shall have no leisure to lend one thought to old-dated crosses, in youth, in age, in this country or in that, from this instrument or from another, except it be to the heightening of your consolation, being now got above and beyond all these.

Old age, and "waxing old as a garment," is written on the fairest face of the creation (Ps. cii. 26). Death, from Adam to the Second Adam's appearance, playeth the king and reigneth over all. The prime Heir died; His children, whom the Lord hath given, follow Him. And we may speak freely of the life which is here; were it heaven, there were not much gain in godliness. But there is a rest for the people of God. Christ-man possesseth it now one thousand six hundred years before many of His members; but it weareth not out.

Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Feb. 16, 1646_.

CCCXXI.--_To the LADY ARDROSS, in Fife._ [_There is an Ardross near Ferintosh in Ross-shire._]

[LADY ARDROSS, whose maiden name was Helen Lindsay, was the
daughter of Lady Christian Hamilton, eldest daughter of Thomas,
first Earl of Haddington, by her first husband Robert, ninth Lord
Lindsay of Byres. She was married to Sir William Scott of
Ardross, son of Sir W. Scott of Elie. Her daughter, Euphemia,
Countess of Dundonald, some thirty years after this, attended the
field conventicles, and entertained the field preachers at her
house. (Douglas' "Peerage," vol. i. p. 386.) This letter was
written to her on the occasion of the death of her mother, who
was then Lady Boyd, having married for her second husband,
Robert, sixth Lord Boyd. (See notice of Lady Boyd, Letter
LXXVII.)]

(_ON HER MOTHER'S DEATH--HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN, AND BLESSEDNESS OF DYING IN THE LORD._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--It hath seemed good, as I hear, to Him that hath appointed the bounds for the number of our months, to gather in a sheaf of ripe corn, in the death of your Christian mother, into His garner. It is the more evident that winter is near, when apples, without the violence of wind, fall of their own accord off the tree. She is now above the winter, with a little change of place, not of a Saviour; only she enjoyeth Him now without messages, and in His own immediate presence, from whom she heard by letters and messengers before.

I grant that death is to her a very new thing; but heaven was prepared of old. And Christ (as enjoyed in His highest throne, and as loaded with glory, and incomparably exalted above men and angels, having such a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and musicians above, compassing the throne with a song) is to her a new thing, but so new as the first summer-rose, or the first fruits of that heavenly field; or as a new paradise to a traveller, broken and worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a long and dirty way.

Ye may easily judge, Madam, what a large recompense is made to all her service, her walking with God, and her sorrows, with the first cast of the soul's eye upon the shining and admirably beautiful face of the Lamb, that is in the midst of that fair and white army which is there, and with the first draught and taste of the fountain of life, fresh and new at the well-head; to say nothing of the enjoying of that face without date, for more than this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no more to go thither, than to suffer death to do her this piece of service: for by Him who was dead, and is alive, she was delivered from the second death. What, then, is the first death to the second? Not a scratch of the skin of a finger to the endless second death. And now she sitteth for eternity mail-free, in a very considerable land, which hath more than four summers in the year. Oh, what spring-time is there! Even the smelling of the odours of that great and eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for ever and ever! What a singing life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field; but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion to the high Prince of that new-found land. And, verily, the land is the sweeter that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it. And He is the glory of the land: all which, I hope, doth not so much mitigate and allay your grief for her part (though truly this should seem sufficient), as the unerring expectation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope you have of the fruition of that same King and kingdom to your own soul. Certainly the hope of it, when things look so dark-like on both kingdoms, must be an exceedingly great quickening to languishing spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery, to have both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at night! But He hath taken up your lodging for you.

I can say no more now; but I pray that the very God of peace may establish your heart to the end. I rest, Madam,

Your Ladyship's, at all respective obedience in the Lord,

S. R.

LONDON, _Feb. 24, 1646_.

CCCXXII.--_To_ M. O.

[Perhaps, as Letter CXLIX., some one of Provost Osburn's family
in Ireland.]

(_GLOOMY PROSPECTS FOR THE BACKSLIDING CHURCH--THE MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF BELIEVERS CAUSE OF GREAT GRIEF--THE DAY OF CHRIST._)

SIR,--I can write nothing for the present concerning these times (whatever others may think), but that which speaketh wrath and judgment to these kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that land, received the Gospel in truth (as I am confident ye and they did), there is here a great departure from that faith, and our sufferings are not yet at an end. However, I dare testify and die for it, that once Christ was revealed in the power of His excellency and glory to the saints there, and in Scotland, of which I was a witness. I pray God that none deceive you, or take the crown from you. Hell, or the gates of hell, cannot ravel, mar, nor undo what Christ hath once done amongst you. It may be that I am incapable of new light, and cannot receive that spirit whereof some vainly boast; but that "which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled" (1 John i. 1), even "the word of life," hath been declared to you. Thousands of thousands, walking in that light and that good old way, have gone to heaven, and are now before the throne. Truth is but one, and hath no numbers. Christ and Antichrist are both now in the camp, and are come to open blows. Christ's poor ship saileth in the sea of blood; the passengers are so sea-sick of a high fever, that they miscall one another. Christ, I hope, will bring the broken bark to land. I had rather swim for life and death on an old plank, or a broken board, to land with Christ, than enjoy the rotten peace we have hitherto had. It is like that the Lord will take a severe course with us, to cause the children of the family to agree together. I conceive that Christ hath a great design of free grace to these lands; but His wheels must move over mountains and rocks. He never yet wooed a bride on earth, but in blood, in fire, and in the wilderness. A cross of our own choosing, honeyed and sugared with consolations, we cannot have. I think not much of a cross when all the children of the house weep with me and for me; and to suffer when we enjoy the communion of the saints is not much; but it is hard when saints rejoice in the suffering of saints, and redeemed ones hurt (yea, even go nigh to hate) redeemed ones.

I confess I imagined there had no more been such an affliction on earth, or in the world, as that one elect angel should fight against another; but, for contempt of the communion of saints, we have need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of before. The saints are not Christ: there is no misjudging in Him; there is much in us; and a doubt it is, if we shall have fully one heart till we shall enjoy one heaven. Our star-light hideth us from ourselves, and hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all. But He will not be hidden from us. I shall wish that all the sons of our Father in that land were of one mind, and that they be not shaken nor moved from the truth once received. Christ was in that Gospel, and Christ is the same now that He was in The Prelates' time. That Gospel cannot sink; it will make you free, and bear you out. Christ, the subject of it, is the chosen of God; and cometh from Bozrah, with garments dyed in blood. Ireland and Scotland both must be His field, in which He shall feed and gather lilies. Suppose (which yet is impossible) that some had an eternity of Christ in Ireland, and a sweet summer of the Gospel, and a feast of fat things for evermore in Ireland, and that one should never come to heaven, it should be a desirable life! The King's spikenard, Christ's perfume, His apples of love, His ointments, even down in this lower house of clay, are a choice heaven. Oh! what then is the King in His own land, where there is such a throne, so many King's palaces, ten thousand thousands of crowns of glory that want heads yet to fill them? Oh, so much leisure as shall be there to sing! Oh, such a tree as groweth there in the midst of that Paradise, where the inhabitants sing eternally under its branches! To look in at a window, and see the branches burdened with the apples of life, to be the last man that shall come in thither, were too much for me.

I pray you to remember me to the Christians there; and remember our private covenant. Grace be with you.

Your friend in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _April 17, 1646_.

CCCXXIII.--_To EARLSTON, Elder._

(_CHRIST'S WAY OF AFFLICTING THE BEST--OBLIGATION TO FREE GRACE--ENDURING THE CROSS._)

SIR,--I know that ye have learned long ago, ere I knew anything of Christ, that if we had the cross at our own election, we would either have law-surety for freedom from it, or then we would have it honeyed and sugared with comforts, so as the sweet should overmaster the gall and wormwood. Christ knoweth how to breed the sons of His house, and ye will give Him leave to take His own way of dispensation with you; and, though it be rough, forgive Him. He defieth you to have as much patience to Him as He hath borne to you. I am sure that there cannot be a dram-weight of gall less in your cup; and ye would not desire He should both afflict you and hurt your soul. When His people cannot have a providence of silk and roses, they must be content with such an one as He carveth for them. Ye would not go to heaven but with company; and ye may perceive that the way of those who went before you was through blood, sufferings, and many afflictions. Nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door-threshold of Paradise bleeding to death. I do not think but ye have learned to stoop (though ye, as others, be naturally stiff), and that ye have found that the apples and sweet fruits, which grow on that crabbed tree of the cross, are as sweet as it is sour to bear it; especially considering that Christ hath borne the whole complete cross, and that His saints bear but bits and chips; as the Apostle saith, "the remnants," or "leavings," of the cross (Col. i. 24).