[308] Come before.
CXC.--_To_ CARSLUTH (_Kirkmabreck_).
[The name of the person to whom this letter is addressed, was
Robert Brown of Carsluth. He was a man of considerable property
in the part of the country where Rutherford's lot was cast
previous to his imprisonment. He must have died about the
beginning of the year 1658, as on the 27th of April, that year,
Thomas Brown of Carsluth is retoured heir of Robert Brown of
Carsluth, his father, in the 7 merkland of Carsluth, etc. ("Inq.
Retor. Abbrev. Kirkcud."). Brown of Carsluth was an ancient
family. Gilbert Brown, abbot of New Abbey, near Dumfries, who
disputed with John Welsh, was of the family.
On the shore of Wigtown Bay, not far from Creetown, you see the
old tower-like house, with a farm, well wooded. It is near the
modern residence of Kirkdale.]
(_NECESSITY OF MAKING SURE OF SALVATION--VANITY OF THE WORLD--NOTHING
WORTH HAVING BUT CHRIST--FLIGHT OF TIME._)
MUCH HONOURED SIR,--I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I
earnestly desire you to try how matters stand between your soul and
the Lord. Think it no easy matter to take heaven by violence.
Salvation cometh now to the most part of men in a night-dream. There
is no scarcity of faith now, such as it is; for ye shall not now light
upon the man who will not say he hath faith in Christ. But, alas!
dreams make no man's rights.
Worthy Sir, I beseech you in the Lord to give your soul no rest till
ye have real assurance, and Christ's rights confirmed and sealed to
your soul. The common faith, and country-holiness, and week-day zeal,
that is among people, will never bring men to heaven. Take pains for
your salvation; for in that day, when ye shall see many men's labours
and conquests and idol-riches lying in ashes, when the earth and all
the works thereof shall be burnt with fire, oh how dear a price would
your soul give for God's favour in Christ! It is a blessed thing to
see Christ with up-sun, and to read over your papers and soul-accounts
with fair day-light. It will not be time to cry for a lamp when the
Bridegroom is entered into His chamber, and the door shut. Fy, fy upon
blinded and debased souls, who are committing whoredom with this
idol-clay, and hunting a poor, wretched, hungry heaven, a hungry
breakfast, a day's meat from this hungry world, with the forfeiting of
God's favour, and the _drinking over_ their heaven (_over the board_,
as men used to speak), for the laughter and sports of this short
forenoon! All that is under this vault of heaven, and betwixt us and
death, and on this side of sun and moon, is but toys, night-visions,
head-fancies, poor shadows, watery froth, godless vanities at their
best, and black hearts, and salt and sour miseries, sugared over and
confected with an hour's laughter or two, and the conceit of riches,
honour, vain, vain court, and lawless pleasures. Sir, if ye look both
to the laughing side and to the weeping side of this world, and if ye
look not only upon the skin and colour of things, but into their
inwards, and the heart of their excellency, ye shall see that one look
of Christ's sweet and lovely eye, one kiss of His fairest face, is
worth ten thousand worlds of such rotten stuff, as the foolish sons of
men set their hearts upon. Oh, Sir, turn, turn your heart to the
other side of things, and get it once free of these entanglements, to
consider eternity, death, the clay bed, the grave, awsome judgment,
everlasting burning quick in hell, where death would give as great a
price (if there were a market, wherein death might be bought and sold)
as all the world. Consider heaven and glory. But, alas! why speak I of
considering those things, which have not entered into the heart of man
to consider? Look into those depths (without a bottom) of loveliness,
sweetness, beauty, excellency, glory, goodness, grace, and mercy, that
are in Christ; and ye shall then cry down the whole world, and all the
glory of it, even when it is come to the summer-bloom; and ye shall
cry, "Up with Christ, up with Christ's Father, up with eternity of
glory!" Sir, there is a great deal less sand in your glass than when I
saw you, and your afternoon is nearer even-tide now than it was. As a
flood carried back to the sea, so doth the Lord's swift post, Time,
carry you and your life with wings to the grave. Ye eat and drink, but
time standeth not still; ye laugh, but your day fleeth away; ye sleep,
but your hours are reckoned and put by hand. Oh how soon will time
shut you out of the poor, and cold, and hungry inn of this life! And
then what will yesterday's short-born pleasures do to you, but be as a
snow-ball melted away many years since? Or worse! for the memory of
these pleasures useth to fill the soul with bitterness. Time and
experience will prove this to be true; and dying men, if they could
speak, would make this good. Lay no more on the creatures than they
are able to carry. Lay your soul and your weights upon God. Make Him
your only, only Best-beloved. Your errand to this life is to make sure
an eternity of glory to your soul, and to match your soul with Christ.
Your love, if it were more than all the love of angels in one, is
Christ's due: other things worthy in themselves, in respect of Christ,
are not worth a windlestraw, or a drink of cold water. I doubt not but
in death ye shall see all things more distinctly, and that then the
world shall bear no more bulk than it is worth, and that then it shall
couch and be contracted into nothing; and ye shall see Christ longer,
higher, broader, and deeper than ever He was. O blessed conquest, to
lose all things, and to gain Christ! I know not what ye have, if ye
want Christ! Alas! how poor is your gain, if the earth were all yours
in free heritage, holding it of no man of clay, if Christ be not
yours! Oh, seek all midses, lay all oars in the water, put forth all
your power, and bend all your endeavours, to put away and part with
all things, that ye may gain and enjoy Christ. Try and search His
word, and strive to go a step above and beyond ordinary professors;
and resolve to sweat more and run faster than they do, for salvation.
Men's midway, cold, and wise courses in godliness, and their
neighbour-like, cold, and wise pace to heaven, will cause many a man
to want his lodging at night, and to lie in the fields. I recommend
Christ and His love to your seeking; and yourself to the tender mercy
and rich grace of our Lord.
Remember my love in Christ to your wife. I desire her to learn to make
her soul's anchor fast upon Christ Himself. Few are saved. Let her
consider what joy the smiles of God in Christ will be, and what the
love-kisses of sweet, sweet Jesus, and a welcome home to the New
Jerusalem from Christ's own mouth will be to her soul, when Christ
will fold together the clay tent of her body, and lay it by His hand
for a time, till the fair morning of the general resurrection. I
avouch before God, man, and angel, that I have not seen, nor can
imagine, a lover to be comparable to lovely Jesus. I would not
exchange or niffer Him with ten heavens. If heaven could be without
Him, what could we do there? Grace, grace be with you.
Your soul's eternal well-wisher,