CXCI.--_To_ CASSINCARRIE.
[The mansion of Cassincarrie is a mile from Creetown, in
Kirkmabreck parish. It stands near the road, just after you pass
the stone quarries that help to build Liverpool. It is so
directly opposite Wigtown, that from the windows we might suppose
the godly proprietor looking across, and praying for the martyrs
Margaret Wilson and Margaret M'Lachlan, in 1685.[309] This
correspondent of Rutherford was probably the son of John Mure of
Cassincarrie, who was the second son of John Mure of Rowallan.
Had he been John Mure of Cassincarrie, elder, he would now have
been on the borders of ninety years of age, as his eldest
brother, William Mure of Rowallan, died in 1616, aged sixty-nine;
and in that case, Rutherford would doubtless have enforced his
solemn admonitions by pointed allusions to his advanced period of
life. His son, therefore, is very likely the person to whom this
letter is addressed (Robertson's "Ayrshire Families," vol. iii.
p. 361).]
[309] The exact historical truth of these two martyrdoms is attested
beyond denial by the full record, entered only a few years after the
event, in the Minutes of the Kirk-Session of Penningham, with which
the martyrs were connected.
(_EARNESTNESS ABOUT SALVATION--CHRIST HIMSELF TO BE SOUGHT._)
MUCH HONOURED SIR,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have been too
long in writing to you. I am confident that ye have learned to prize
Christ, and His love and favour, more than ordinary professors who
scarce see Christ with half an eye, because their sight is taken up
with eyeing and liking the beauty of this over-gilded world, that
promiseth fair to all its lovers, but in the push of a trial, when
need is, can give nothing but a fair beguile.
I know that ye are not ignorant that men come not to this world, as
some do to a market, to see and to be seen; or as some come to behold
a May-game, and only to behold, and to go home again. Ye come hither
to treat with God, and to tryst with Him in His Christ for salvation
to your soul, and to seek reconciliation with an angry, wrathful God,
in a covenant of peace made to you in Christ; and this is more than
ordinary sport, or the play that the greatest part of the world give
their heart unto. And, therefore, worthy Sir, I pray you, by the
salvation of your soul, and by the mercy of God, and your compearance
before Christ, do this in sad earnest, and let not salvation be your
by-work or your holy-day's talk only, or a work by the way. For men
think that this may be done on three days' space on a feather bed,
when death and they are fallen in hands together, and that with a word
or two they shall make their soul-matters right. Alas! this is to sit
loose and unsure in the matters of our salvation. Nay, the seeking of
this world, and of the glory of it, is but an odd[310] and by-errand
that we may slip, so being we make salvation sure. Oh, when will men
learn to be that heavenly-wise as to divorce from and free their soul
of all idol-lovers, and make Christ the only, only One, and trim and
make ready their lamps, while they have time and day! How soon will
this house skail, and the inn, where the poor soul lodgeth, fall to
the earth! How soon will some few years pass away! and then, when the
day is ended, and this life's lease expired, what have men of world's
glory but dreams and thoughts? Oh how blessed a thing is it to labour
for Christ, and to make Him sure! Know and try in time your holding of
Him, and the rights and charters of heaven, and upon what terms ye
have Christ and the Gospel, and what Christ is worth in your
estimation, and how lightly ye esteem other things, and how dearly
Christ! I am sure, that if ye see Him in His beauty and glory, ye
shall see Him to be all things, and that incomparable jewel of gold
that ye should seek, howbeit ye should sell, wadset, and forfeit your
few years' portion of this life's joys. O happy soul for evermore, who
can rightly compare this life with that long-lasting life to come, and
can balance the weighty glory of the one with the light golden vanity
of the other! The day of the Lord is now near-hand, and all men shall
come out in their blacks and whites, as they are; there shall be no
borrowed lying colours in that day, when Christ shall be called
Christ, and no longer nicknamed. Now men borrow Christ and His white
colour, and the lustre and farding of Christianity; but how many
counterfeit masks will be burned, in the day of God, in the fire that
shall burn the earth and the works that are on it? And howbeit Christ
have the hardest part of it now, yet in the presence of my Lord, whom
I serve in the spirit, I would not niffer or exchange Christ's prison,
bonds, and chains, with the gold chains and lordly rents, and smiling
and happy-like heavens of the men of this world. I am far from
thoughts of repenting because of my losses and bonds for Christ. I
wish that all my adversaries were as I am, except my bonds. Worthy,
worthy, worthy for evermore is Christ, for whom we should suffer pains
like hell's pains; far more the short hell that the saints of God have
in this life. Sir, I wish that your soul may be more acquainted with
the sweetness of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours in his only Lord and Master,