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