[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,