(_DELIVERANCE FROM SHIPWRECK--RECOVERY FROM THREATENED DEATH--USE OF
TRIALS--REMEMBRANCE OF FRIENDS._)
MY LOVING AND MOST AFFECTIONATE IN CHRIST,--I salute you with grace,
mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I promised to write to you, and although late enough, yet I now make
it good. I heard with grief of your great danger of perishing by the
sea, and of your merciful deliverance with joy. Sure I am, brother,
that Satan will leave no stone unrolled, as the proverb is, to roll
you off your Rock, or at least to shake and unsettle you: for at that
same time the mouths of wicked men were opened in hard speeches
against you, by land, and the prince of the power of the air was angry
with you by sea. See then how much ye are obliged to that malicious
murderer, who would beat you with two rods at one time; but, blessed
be God, his arm is short; if the sea and wind would have obeyed him,
ye had never come to land. Thank your God, who saith, "I have the keys
of hell and of death" (Rev. i. 18); "I kill, and I make alive" (Deut.
xxxii. 39); "The Lord bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up" (1
Sam. ii. 6). If Satan were jailor, and had the keys of death and of
the grave, they should be stored with more prisoners. Ye were knocking
at these black gates, and ye found the doors shut; and we do all
welcome you back again.
I trust that ye know that it is not for nothing that ye are sent to us
again. The Lord knew that ye had forgotten something that was
necessary for your journey; that your armour was not as yet thick
enough against the stroke of death. Now, in the strength of Jesus
despatch your business; that debt is not forgiven, but fristed: death
hath not bidden you farewell, but hath only left you for a short
season. End your journey ere the night come upon you. Have all in
readiness against the time that ye must sail through that black and
impetuous Jordan; and Jesus, Jesus, who knoweth both those depths and
the rocks, and all the coasts, be your pilot. The last tide will not
wait you for one moment. If ye forget anything, when your sea is full,
and your foot in that ship, there is no returning again to fetch it.
What ye do amiss in your life to-day, ye may amend it to-morrow; for
as many suns as God maketh to arise upon you, ye have as many new
lives; but ye can die but once, and if ye mar or spill that business,
ye cannot come back to mend that piece of work again. No man sinneth
twice in dying ill; as we die but once, so we die but ill or well
once. You see how the number of your months is written in God's book;
and as one of the Lord's hirelings, ye must work till the shadow of
the evening come upon you, and ye shall run out your glass even to the
last pickle of sand. Fulfil your course with joy, for we take nothing
to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience. And, although the
sky clear after this storm, yet clouds will engender another.
Ye contracted with Christ, I hope, when first ye began to follow Him,
that ye would bear His cross. Fulfil your part of the contract with
patience, and break not to Jesus Christ. Be honest, brother, in your
bargaining with Him; for who knoweth better how to bring up children
than our God? For (to lay aside His knowledge, of the which there is
no finding out) He hath been practised in bringing up His heirs these
five thousand years; and His bairns are all well brought up, and many
of them are honest men now at home, up in their own house in heaven,
and are entered heirs to their Father's inheritance. Now, the form of
His bringing up was by chastisements, scourging, correcting,
nurturing; and see if He maketh exception of any of His bairns: no,
His eldest Son and His Heir, Jesus, is not excepted (Rev. iii. 19;
Heb. xii. 7, 8, and ii. 10). Suffer we must; ere we were born, God
decreed it; and it is easier to complain of His decree than to change
it. It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without
terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again: fears and
doubtings shake us; and yet without fears and doubtings we would soon
sleep, and lose our grips of Christ. Tribulation and temptations will
almost loosen us to the root; and yet, without tribulations and
temptations, we can now no more grow than herbs or corn without rain.
Sin, and Satan, and the world will say, and cry in our ear, that we
have a hard reckoning to make in judgment; and yet none of these
three, except they lie, dare say in our face that our sin can change
the tenor of the new covenant. Forward, then, dear brother, and lose
not your grips. Hold fast the truth: for the world, sell not one
dram-weight of God's truth, especially now, when most men measure
truth by time, like young seamen setting their compass by a cloud; for
now time is father and mother to truth, in the thoughts and practices
of our evil time. The God of truth establish us; for, alas! now there
are none to comfort the prisoners of hope, and the mourners in Zion.
We can do little, except pray and mourn for Joseph in the stocks. And
let their tongue cleave to the roof of their mouth who forget
Jerusalem now in her day; and the Lord remember Edom, and render to
him as he hath done to us.
Now, brother, I shall not weary you; but I entreat you to remember my
dearest love to Mr. David Dickson, with whom I have small
acquaintance; yet I bless the Lord, I know that he both prayeth and
doeth for our dying kirk. Remember my dearest love to John Stuart,
whom I love in Christ; and show him from me that I do always remember
him, and hope for a meeting. The Lord Jesus establish him more and
more, though he be already a strong man in Christ. Remember my
heartiest affection in Christ to William Rodger,[114] whom I also
remember to God. I wish that the first news I hear of him and you, and
all that love our common Saviour in those bounds, may be, that they
are so knit and linked, and kindly fastened in love with the Son of
God, that ye may say, "Now if ye would ever so fain escape out of
Christ's hands, yet love hath so bound us, that we cannot get our
hands free again; He hath so ravished our hearts, that there is no
loosening of His grips; the chains of His soul-ravishing love are so
strong, that neither the grave nor death will break them." I hope,
brother, yea I doubt not of it, that ye lay me, and my first entry to
the Lord's vineyard, and my flock, before Him who hath put me into His
work. As the Lord knoweth, since first I saw you, I have been mindful
of you. Marion M'Naught doth remember most heartily her love to you,
and to John Stuart.[115] Blessed be the Lord! that in God's mercy I
found in this country such a woman, to whom Jesus is dearer than her
own heart, when there be so many that cast Christ over their shoulder.
Good brother, call to mind the memory of your worthy father, now
asleep in Christ; and, as his custom was, pray continually, and
wrestle, for the life of a dying, breathless kirk. And desire John
Stuart not to forget poor Zion; she hath few friends, and few to speak
one good word for her.
[114] Livingstone in his "Memor. Characteristics" mentions this godly
man, a merchant in Ayr.
[115] See Letter CLXI.
Now I commend you, your whole soul, and body, and spirit, to Jesus
Christ and His keeping, hoping that ye will live and die, stand and
fall, with the cause of our Master, Jesus. The Lord Jesus Himself be
with your spirit.
Your loving brother in our Lord Jesus,