ABERDEEN, _June 16, 1637_.
CLXXXI.--_To_ EARLSTON, _the Younger_.
(_DANGERS OF YOUTH--CHRIST THE BEST PHYSICIAN--FOUR REMEDIES AGAINST
DOUBTING--BREATHINGS AFTER CHRIST'S HONOUR._)
MUCH HONOURED AND WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing.
I must first tell you, that there is not such a glassy, icy, and
slippery piece of way betwixt you and heaven, as Youth; and I have
experience to say with me here, and to seal what I assert. The old
ashes of the sins of my youth are new fire of sorrow to me. I have
seen the devil, as it were, dead and buried, and yet rise again, and
be a worse devil than ever he was; therefore, my brother, beware of a
green young devil, that hath never been buried. The devil in his
flowers (I mean the hot, fiery lusts and passions of youth) is much to
be feared: better yoke with an old grey-haired, withered, dry devil.
For in youth he findeth dry sticks, and dry coals, and a hot
hearth-stone; and how soon can he with his flint cast fire, and with
his bellows blow it up, and fire the house! Sanctified thoughts,
thoughts made conscience of, and called in, and kept in awe, are green
fuel that burn not, and are a water for Satan's coal. Yet I must tell
you, that the whole saints now triumphant in heaven, and standing
before the throne, are nothing but Christ's forlorn and beggarly
dyvours. What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners? But their
redemption is not only past the seals, but completed; and yours is on
the wheels, and in doing.
All Christ's good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow, and with a
crooked leg. Christ hath an advantage of you, and I pray you to let
Him have it; He will find employment for His calling in you. If it
were not with you as ye write, grace should find no sale nor market in
you; but ye must be content to give Christ somewhat to do. I am glad
that He is employed that way. Let your bleeding soul and your sores be
put in the hand of this expert Physician; let young and strong
corruptions and His free grace be yoked together, and let Christ and
your sins deal it betwixt them. I shall be loath to put you off your
fears, and your sense of deadness: I wish it were more. There be some
wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should not be soon stopped.
Ye must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye
be the first sick man whom He put away uncured, and worse than He
found you. Nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free
with sinners. "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out"
(John vi. 37). Take ye that. It cannot be presumption to take that as
your own, when you find that your wounds stound you. Presumption is
ever whole at the heart, and hath but the truant sickness, and
groaneth only for the fashion. Faith hath sense of sickness, and
looketh, like a friend, to the promises; and, looking to Christ
therein, is glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast as ye
can have to hunger. Nay, Christ, I say, is not a full man's leavings.
His mercy sendeth always a letter of defiance to all your sins, if
there were ten thousand more of them.
I grant you that it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man to win his
meat upon hidden Christ: for then the key of His pantry-door, and of
the house of wine, is a-seeking and cannot be had. But hunger must
break through iron locks. I bemoan them not who can make a din, and
all the fields ado, for a lost Saviour. Ye must let Him hear it (to
say so) upon both sides of His head, when He hideth Himself; it is no
time then to be bird-mouthed and patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a
delicacy to a sinner. He is a miracle, and a world's wonder, to a
seeking and a weeping sinner; but yet such a miracle as shall be seen
by them who will come and see. The seeker and sigher, is at last a
singer and enjoyer; nay, I have seen a dumb man get alms from Christ.
He that can tell his tale, and send such a letter to heaven as he hath
sent to Aberdeen, it is very like he will come speed with Christ. It
bodeth God's mercy to complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling be with
Christ till He say, "How is it, sir, that I cannot be quit of your
bills, and your misleared cries?" and then hope for Christ's blessing;
and His blessing is better than ten other blessings. Think not shame
because of your guiltiness; necessity must not blush to beg. It
standeth you hard to want Christ; and, therefore, that which idle
on-waiting cannot do, misnurtured crying and knocking will do.
And for doubtings, because you are not as you were long since with
your Master: consider three things. _1st_, What if Christ had such
tottering thoughts of the bargain of the new covenant betwixt you and
Him, as you have? _2ndly_, Your heart is not the compass which Christ
saileth by. He will give you leave to sing as you please, but He will
not dance to your daft spring. It is not referred to you and your
thoughts, what Christ will do with the charters betwixt you and Him.
Your own misbelief hath torn them; but He hath the principal in heaven
with Himself. Your thoughts are no parts of the new covenant; dreams
change not Christ. _3rdly_, Doubtings are your sins; but they are
Christ's drugs, and ingredients that the Physician maketh use of for
the curing of your pride. Is it not suitable for a beggar to say at
meat, "God reward the winners"?[293] for then he saith that he knoweth
who beareth the charges of the house. It is also meet that ye should
know, by experience, that faith is not nature's ill-gotten bastard,
but your Lord's free gift, that lay in the womb of God's free grace.
Praised be the Winner! I may add a _4thly_, In the passing of your
bill and your charters, when they went through the Mediator's great
seal, and were concluded, faith's advice was not sought. Faith hath
not a vote beside Christ's merits: blood, blood, dear blood, that came
from your Cautioner's holy body, maketh that sure work. The use, then,
which ye have of faith now (having already closed with Jesus Christ
for justification) is, to take out a copy of your pardon; and so ye
have peace with God upon the account of Christ. For, since faith
apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it, no marvel that
salvation doth not die and live, ebb or flow, with the working of
faith. But because it is your Lord's honour to believe His mercy and
His fidelity, it is infinite goodness in our Lord, that misbelief
giveth a dash to our Lord's glory, and not to our salvation. And so,
whoever want (yea, howbeit God here bear with the want of what we are
obliged to give Him, even the glory of His grace by believing), yet a
poor covenanted sinner wanteth not. But if guiltiness were removed,
doubtings would find no friend, nor life; and yet faith is to believe
the removal of guiltiness in Christ. A reason why ye get less now (as
ye think) than before, as I take it, is, because, at our first
conversion, our Lord putteth the meat in young bairns' mouths with His
own hand; but when we grow to some further perfection, we must take
heaven by violence, and take by violence from Christ what we get. And
He can, and doth hold, because He will have us to draw. Remember now
that ye must live upon violent plucking. Laziness is a greater fault
now than long since. We love always to have the pap put in our mouth.
[293] Those who got this meat for us.
Now for myself; alas! I am not the man I go for in this nation; men
have not just weights to weigh me in. Oh, but I am a silly, feckless
body, and overgrown with weeds; corruption is rank and fat in me. Oh,
if I were answerable to this holy cause, and to that honourable
Prince's love for whom I now suffer! If Christ should refer the matter
to me (in His presence I speak it), I might think shame to vote my own
salvation. I think Christ might say, "Thinkest thou not shame to claim
heaven, who doest so little for it?" I am very often so, that I know
not whether I sink or swim in the water. I find myself a bag of light
froth. I would bear no weight (but vanities and nothings weigh in
Christ's balance) if my Lord cast not in borrowed weight and metal,
even Christ's righteousness, to weigh for me. The stock I have is not
mine own; I am but the merchant that trafficketh with other folks'
goods. If my creditor, Christ, should take from me what He hath lent,
I should not long keep the causeway; but Christ hath made it mine and
His. I think it manhood to play the coward, and jouk in the lee-side
of Christ; and thus I am not only saved from my enemies, but I obtain
the victory. I am so empty, that I think it were an alms-deed in
Christ, if He would win a poor prisoner's blessing for evermore, and
fill me with His love. I complain that when Christ cometh, He cometh
always to fetch fire; He is ever in haste, He may not tarry; and poor
I (a beggarly dyvour) get but a standing visit and a standing kiss,
and but, "How doest thou?" in the by-going. I dare not say He is
lordly, because He is made a King now at the right hand of God; or is
grown miskenning and dry to His poor friends: for He cannot make more
of His kisses than they are worth. But I think it my happiness to love
the love of Christ: and when He goeth away, the memory of His sweet
presence is like a feast in a dear summer. I have comfort in this,
that my soul desireth that every hour of my imprisonment were a
company of heavenly tongues to praise Him on my behalf, howbeit my
bonds were prolonged for many hundred years. Oh that I could be the
man who could procure my Lord's glory to flow like a full sea, and
blow like a mighty wind upon all the four airths of Scotland, England,
and Ireland! Oh, if I could write a book of His praises! O Fairest
among the sons of men, why stayest Thou so long away? O heavens, move
fast! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage-day! for love is
tormented with delays. O angels, O seraphims, who stand before Him, O
blessed spirits who now see His face, set Him on high! for when ye
have worn your harps in His praises, all is too little, and is
nothing, to cast the smell of the praise of that fair Flower, the
fragrant Rose of Sharon, through many worlds!
Sir, take my hearty commendations to Him, and tell Him that I am sick
of love.
Grace be with you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,