CLXII.--_To_ JOHN STUART, _Provost of Ayr_.
(_THE BURDEN OF A SILENCED MINISTER--SPIRITUAL SHORTCOMINGS._)
MUCH HONOURED AND DEAREST IN CHRIST,--Grace, mercy, and peace from God
our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be upon you.
I expected the comfort of a letter to a prisoner from you, ere now. I
am here, Sir, putting off a part of my inch of time; and when I awake
first in the morning (which is always with great heaviness and
sadness), this question is brought to my mind, "Am I serving God or
not?" Not that I doubt of the truth of this honourable cause wherein I
am engaged; I dare venture into eternity, and before my Judge, that I
now suffer for the truth--because that I cannot endure that my Master,
who is a freeborn King, should pay tribute to any of the shields or
potsherds of the earth. Oh that I could hold the crown upon my
princely King's head with my sinful arm, howbeit it should be struck
from me in that service, from the shoulder-blade. But my closed mouth,
my dumb Sabbaths, the memory of my communion with Christ, in many
fair, fair days in Anwoth, whereas now my Master getteth no service of
my tongue as then, hath almost broken my faith in two halves. Yet in
my deepest apprehensions of His anger, I see through a cloud that I am
wrong; and He, in love to my soul, hath taken up the controversy
betwixt faith and apprehensions, and a decreet is passed on Christ's
side of it, and I subscribe the decreet. The Lord is equal in His
ways, but my guiltiness often overmastereth my believing. I have not
been well known: for except as to open outbreakings, I want nothing of
what Judas and Cain had; only He hath been pleased to prevent me in
mercy, and to cast me into a fever of love for Himself, and His
absence maketh my fever most painful. And beside, He hath visited my
soul and watered it with His comforts. But yet I have not what I
would. The want of real and felt possession is my only death. I know
that Christ pitieth me in this.
The great men, my friends that did[251] for me, are dried up like
winter-brooks of water. All say, "No dealing for that man; his best
will be to be gone out of the kingdom." So I see they tire of me. But,
believe me, I am most gladly content that Christ breaketh all my
idols in pieces. It hath put a new edge upon my blunted love to
Christ; I see that He is jealous of my love, and will have all to
Himself. In a word, these six things are my burden: 1. I am not in the
vineyard as others are; it may be, because Christ thinketh me a
withered tree, not worth its room. But God forbid! 2. Woe, woe, woe is
coming upon my harlot-mother, this apostate kirk! The time is coming
when we shall wish for doves' wings to flee and hide us. Oh, for the
desolation of this land! 3. I see my dear Master Christ going His lone
(as it were), mourning in sackcloth. His fainting friends fear that
King Jesus shall lose the field. But He must carry the day. 4. My
guiltiness and the sins of youth are come up against me, and they
would come into the plea in my sufferings, as deserving causes in
God's justice; but I pray God, for Christ's sake, that he may never
give them that room. 5. Woe is me, that I cannot get my royal,
dreadful, mighty, and glorious Prince of the kings of the earth set on
high. Sir, ye may help me and pity me in this; and bow your knee, and
bless His name, and desire others to do it, that He hath been pleased,
in my sufferings, to make Atheists, Papists, and enemies about me say,
"It is like that God is with this prisoner." Let hell and the powers
of hell (I care not) be let loose against me to do their worst, so
being that Christ, and my Father, and His Father, be magnified in my
sufferings. 6. Christ's love hath pained me: for howbeit His presence
hath shamed me, and drowned me in debt, yet He often goeth away when
my love to Him is burning. He seemeth to look like a proud wooer, who
will not look upon a poor match that is dying of love. I will not say
He is lordly. But I know He is wise in hiding Himself from a child and
a fool, who maketh an idol and a god of one of Christ's kisses, which
is idolatry. I fear that I adore His comforts more than Himself, and
that I love the apples of life better than the tree of life.
[251] Acted for me; as Ps. cix. 21.
Sir, write to me. Commend me to your wife. Mercy be her portion. Grace
be with you.
Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus,