(_VIEW OF TRIALS PAST--HARD THOUGHTS OF CHRIST--CROSSES--HOPE._)
WORTHY AND DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you.--I was refreshed and comforted with your letter. What I wrote to
you, for your comfort, I do not remember; but I believe that love will
prophesy homeward,[252] as it would have it. I wish that I could help
you to praise His great and holy name who keepeth the feet of His
saints, and hath numbered all your goings. I know that our dearest
Lord will pardon and pass by our honest errors and mistakes, when we
mind His honour; yet I know that none of you have seen the other half,
and the hidden side, of your wonderful return home to us again. I am
confident ye shall yet say, that God's mercy blew your sails back to
Ireland again.
[252] The ministers, after their return to this country, were settled
in various parishes; Messrs. Blair at Ayr, Livingstone at Stranraer,
M'Clelland at Kirkcudbright, and Hamilton at Dumfries. They were
zealous promoters of all the measures by which the triumph of the
Presbyterian Church in Scotland was ultimately secured; and all of
them were members of the celebrated Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638.
Speaking of their return, Row of Ceres says: "Neither the prelates and
conformists, nor they themselves, knew that within a year the Lord
would not only root out the prelates in Scotland, and, after that, out
of England and Ireland, but make some of them, especially Messrs.
Blair, Livingstone, and M'Clelland, to be very instrumental in the
work of reformation" ("Life of Robert Blair," Wodrow Society).
Worthy and dear Sir, I cannot but give you an account of my present
estate, that ye may go an errand for me to my high and royal Master,
of whom I boast all the day. I am as proud of His love (nay, I bless
myself, and boast more of my present lot) as any poor man can be of an
earthly king's court, or of a kingdom. _First_, I am very often
turning both the sides of my cross, especially my dumb and silent
Sabbaths; not because I desire to find a crook or defect in my Lord's
love, but because my love is sick with fancies and fear. Whether or
not the Lord hath a process leading against my guiltiness, that I have
not yet well seen, I know not. My desire is to ride fair, and not to
spark dirt (if, with reverence to Him, I may be permitted to make use
of such a word) in the face of my only, only Well-beloved; but fear of
guiltiness is a talebearer betwixt me and Christ, and is still
whispering ill tales of my Lord, to weaken my faith. I had rather that
a cloud went over my comforts by these messages, than that my faith
should be hurt; for, if my Lord get no wrong by me, verily I desire
grace not to care what become of me. I desire to give no faith nor
credit to my sorrow, that can make a lie of my best friend Christ.
Woe, woe be to them all who speak ill of Christ! Hence these thoughts
awake with me in the morning, and go to bed with me. Oh, what service
can a dumb body do in Christ's house! Oh, I think the word of God is
imprisoned also! Oh, I am a dry tree! Alas, I can neither plant nor
water! Oh, if my Lord would make but dung of me, to fatten and make
fertile His own corn-ridges in Mount Zion! Oh, if I might but speak to
three or four herdboys[253] of my worthy Master, I would be satisfied
to be the meanest and most obscure of all the pastors in this land,
and to live in any place, in any of Christ's basest outhouses! But He
saith, "Sirrah, I will not send you; I have no errands for you
thereaway." My desire to serve Him is sick of jealousy, lest He be
unwilling to employ me. _Secondly_, This is seconded by another. Oh!
all that I have done in Anwoth, the fair work that my Master began
there, is like a bird dying in the shell; and what will I then have to
show of all my labour, in the day of my compearance before Him, when
the Master of the vineyard calleth the labourers, and giveth them
their hire? _Thirdly_, But truly, when Christ's sweet wind is in the
right airth, I repent, and I pray Christ to take law-burrows of my
quarrelous unbelieving sadness and sorrow. Lord, rebuke them that put
ill betwixt a poor servant like me and his good Master. Then I say,
whether the black cross will or not, I must climb on hands and feet up
to my Lord. I am now ruing from my heart that I pleasured the law (my
old dead husband) so far as to apprehend wrath in my sweet Lord Jesus.
I had far rather take a hire to plead for the grace of God, for I
think myself Christ's sworn debtor; and the truth is (to speak of my
Lord what I cannot deny), I am over head and ears, drowned in many
obligations to His love and mercy.
[253] Boys, like David, keeping the sheep or cattle.
He handleth me some time so, that I am ashamed almost to seek more for
a four-hours, but to live content (till the marriage-supper of the
Lamb) with that which He giveth. But I know not how greedy and how ill
to please love is. For either my Lord Jesus hath taught me ill
manners, not to be content with a seat, except my head lie in His
bosom, and except I be fed with the fatness of His house; or else I am
grown impatiently dainty, and ill to please, as if Christ were
obliged, under this cross, to do no other thing but bear me in His
arms, and as if I had claim by merit for my suffering for Him. But I
wish He would give me grace to learn to go on my own feet, and to
learn to do without His comforts, and to give thanks and believe, when
the sun is not in my firmament, and when my Well-beloved is from home,
and gone another errand. Oh, what sweet peace have I, when I find that
Christ holdeth and I draw; when I climb up and He shuteth me down;
when I grips Him and embrace Him, and He seemeth to loose the grips
and flee away from me! I think there is even a sweet joy of faith, and
contentedness, and peace, in His very tempting unkindness, because my
faith saith, "Christ is not in sad earnest with me, but trying if I
can be kind to His mask and cloud that covereth Him, as well as to His
fair face." I bless His great name that I love His vail which goeth
over His face, whill God send better; for faith can kiss God's
tempting reproaches when He nicknameth a sinner, "A dog, not worthy to
eat bread with the bairns" (Mark vii. 27, 28). I think it an honour
that Christ miscalleth me, and reproacheth me. I will take that well
of Him, howbeit I would not bear it well if another should be that
homely; but because I am His own (God be thanked), He may use me as He
pleaseth. I must say, the saints have a sweet life between them and
Christ. There is much sweet solace of love between Him and them, when
He feedeth among the lilies, and cometh into His garden, and maketh a
feast of honeycombs, and drinketh His wine and His milk, and crieth,
"Eat, O friends: drink, yea, drink abundantly, O well-beloved." One
hour of this labour is worth a shipful of the world's drunken and
muddy joy; nay, even the gate[254] to heaven is the sunny side of the
brae, and the very garden of the world. For the men of this world have
their own unchristened and profane crosses; and woe be to them and
their cursed crosses both; for their ills are salted with God's
vengeance, and our ills seasoned with our Father's blessing. So that
they are no fools who choose Christ, and sell all things for Him. It
is no bairns' market, nor a blind block; we know well what we get, and
what we give.
[254] Before we come to heaven, the very way (gate) to heaven is
pleasant.
Now, for any resolution to go to any other kingdom, I dare not speak
one word.[255] My hopes of enlargement are cold, my hopes of re-entry
to my Master's ill-dressed vineyard again are far colder. I have no
seat for my faith to sit on, but bare omnipotency, and God's holy arm
and good-will. Here I desire to stay, and ride at anchor, and winter,
whill God send fair weather again, and be pleased to take home to His
house my harlot-mother. Oh, if her husband would be that kind, as to
go and fetch her out of the brothel-house, and chase her lovers to the
hills! But there will be sad days ere it come to that. Remember my
bonds. Grace be with you.
Yours, in our Lord Jesus,