ABERDEEN, _Sept. 7, 1637_.
[345] Dunces.
[346] Wiseacres.
CCXXXIII.--_To his Worthy and much Honoured Friend_ FULK ELLIS.
[FULK ELLIS was the eldest son of Major Edmond Ellis of
Carrickfergus, an English colonist. Edmond was a man of
distinguished piety, and a zealous Covenanter. "Through all the
difficulties and vicissitudes of those trying times," says Dr.
Reid, "he was a consistent Presbyterian, and a truly eminent
Christian. Several of his devout sayings on his death-bed (he
died 11th June 1651) have been preserved." Fulk also followed the
military profession, in which he held the rank of captain, and
embarked in the same cause with his father. "He and his company
(who were all from Ireland) joined the Scottish force in
resisting the arms of Charles in 1640, and were at the battle of
Newburn. He shared in the supplies forwarded to the different
companies of the army from their parishes in Scotland. He
returned to Ireland after the rebellion; and was captain and
major in Sir John Clotworthy's regiment of foot, and is believed
to have fallen in action near Desert-martin, in the county of
Derry, in September 1643. His descendants, of the same name,
still reside at Carrickfergus" (Reid's "Hist. of Presbyt. Ch.").]
(_FRIENDS IN IRELAND--DIFFICULTIES IN PROVIDENCE--UNFAITHFULNESS TO
LIGHT--CONSTANT NEED OF CHRIST._)
WORTHY AND MUCH HONOURED IN OUR LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you.
1. I am glad of our more than paper acquaintance. Seeing we have one
Father, it reckoneth the less, though we never see one another's face.
I profess myself most unworthy to follow the camp of such a worthy and
renowned Captain as Christ. Oh, alas! I have cause to be grieved, that
men expect anything of such a wretched man as I am. It is a wonder to
me, if Christ can make anything of my naughty, short, and narrow love
to Him; surely it is not worth the uptaking.
2. As for our lovely and beloved church in Ireland, my heart bleedeth
for her desolation; but I believe that our Lord is only lopping the
vine-trees, but not intending to cut them down, or root them out. It
is true (seeing we are _heart-atheists_ by nature, and cannot take
providence aright, because we halt and crook ever since we fell), we
dream of a halting providence; as if God's yard, whereby He measureth
joy and sorrow to the sons of men, were crooked and unjust, because
servants ride on horseback, and princes go on foot. But our Lord
dealeth good and evil, and some one portion or other to both, by
ounce-weights, and measureth them in a just and even balance. It is
but folly to measure the Gospel by summer or winter weather: the
summer-sun of the saints shineth not on them in this life. How should
we have complained, if the Lord had turned the same providence that we
now stomach at upside down, and had ordered matters thus, that first
the saints should have enjoyed heaven, glory, and ease, and then
Methuselah's days of sorrow and daily miseries? We would think a short
heaven no heaven. Certainly His ways pass finding out.
3. Ye complain of the evil of _heart-atheism_: but it is to a greater
atheist than any man can be, that ye write of that. Oh, light findeth
not that reverence and fear which a plant of God's setting should find
in our soul! How do we by nature, as others, detain and hold captive
the truth of God in unrighteousness, and so make God's light a bound
prisoner? And even when the prisoner breaketh the jail, and cometh out
in belief of a Godhead, and in some practice of holy obedience, how
often do we, of new, lay hands on the prisoner, and put our light
again in fetters? Certainly there cometh great mist and clouds from
the lower part of our souls, our earthly affections, to the higher
part, which is our conscience, either natural or renewed: as smoke in
a lower house breaketh up, and defileth the house above. If we had
more practice of obedience, we should have more sound light. I think,
lay aside all other guiltiness, that this one, the violence done to
God's candle in our soul, were a sufficient dittay against us. There
is no helping of this but by striving to stand in awe of God's light.
Left light tells tales of us we desire little to hear; but since it is
not without God that light sitteth neighbour to will (a lawless lord),
no marvel that such a neighbour should leaven our judgment, and darken
our light. I see there is a necessity that we protest against the
doings of the Old Man, and raise up a party against our worst half, to
accuse, condemn, sentence, and with sorrow bemoan, the dominion of
sin's kingdom; and withal make law, in the New Covenant, against our
guiltiness. For Christ once condemned sin in the flesh, and we are to
condemn it over again. And if there had not been such a thing as the
grace of Jesus, I should have long since given up with heaven, and
with the expectation to see God. But grace, grace, free grace, the
merits of Christ for nothing, white and fair, and large Saviour-mercy
(which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy, or Law-mercy,
yea, a thousand degrees above angel-mercy), have been, and must be,
the rock that we drowned souls must swim to. New washing, renewed
application of purchased redemption, by that sacred blood that sealeth
the free Covenant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor
sinner. Till we be in heaven, our issue of blood shall not be quite
dried up; and, therefore, we must resolve to apply peace to our souls
from the new and living way; and Jesus, who cleanseth and cureth the
leprous soul, lovely Jesus, must be our song on this side of heaven's
gates. And even when we have won the castle, then must we eternally
sing, "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved us, and washed us in
His own blood."
I would counsel all the ransomed ones to learn this song, and to drink
and be drunk with the love of Jesus. O fairest, O highest, O loveliest
One, open the well! Oh, water the burnt and withered travellers with
this love of Thine! I think it is possible on earth to build a young
New Jerusalem, a little new heaven, of this surpassing love. God
either send me more of this love, or take me quickly over the water,
where I may be filled with His love. My softness cannot take with
want. I profess I bear not hunger of Christ's love fair. I know not if
I play foul play with Christ, but I would have a link of that chain of
His providence mended, in pining and delaying the hungry on-waiters.
For myself, I could wish that Christ would let out upon me more of
that love. Yet to say Christ is a niggard to me, I dare not; and if I
say I have abundance of His love, I should lie. I am half
straitened[347] to complain, and cry, "Lord Jesus, hold Thy hand no
longer."
[347] Constrained; perhaps Luke xii. 50 was in his thoughts.
Worthy Sir, let me have your prayers, in my bonds. Grace be with you,
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
ABERDEEN, _Sept. 7, 1637_.
CCXXXIV.--_To_ JAMES LINDSAY (_a friend of R. Blair and other
ministers_).
[We have no means of ascertaining who this correspondent was.]
(_DESERTIONS, THEIR USE--PRAYERS OF REPROBATES, AND HOW THE GOSPEL
AFFECTS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY._)
DEAR BROTHER,--The constant and daily observing of God's going alongst
with you, in His coming, going, ebbing, flowing, embracing and
kissing, glooming and striking, giveth me (a witless and lazy observer
of the Lord's way and working) a heavy stroke. Could I keep sight of
Him, and know when I want, and carry as became me in that condition, I
would bless my case.
But 1. For desertions. I think them like lying lea of lean and weak
land for some years, whill it gather sap for a better crop. It is
possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight. Oh, if I
could but creep one foot, or half a foot, nearer in to Jesus, in such
a dismal night as that when He is away, I should think it an happy
absence!
2. If I knew that the Beloved were only gone away for trial, and
further humiliation, and not smoked out of the house with new
provocations, I would forgive desertions and hold my peace at His
absence. But Christ's bought absence (that I bought with my sin), is
two running boils at once, one upon each side; and what side then can
I lie on?
3. I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and
moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's
absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it,
and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and
furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise
its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.
4. It is mercy's wonder, and grace's wonder, that Christ will lend a
piece of the lodging, and a back-chamber beside Himself, to our lusts;
and that He and such swine should keep house together in our soul.
For, suppose they couch and contract themselves into little room when
Christ cometh in, and seem to lie as dead under His feet, yet they
often break out again; and a foot of the Old Man, or a leg or arm
nailed to Christ's cross, looseth the nail, or breaketh out again! And
yet Christ, beside this unruly and misnurtured neighbour, can still be
making heaven in the saints, one way or other. May I not say, "Lord
Jesus, what doest Thou here?" Yet here He must be. But I will not lose
my feet to go on into this depth and wonder; for free mercy and
infinite merits took a lodging to Christ and us beside such a
loathsome guest as sin.
5. Sanctification and mortification of our lusts are the hardest part
of Christianity. It is in a manner, as natural to us to leap when we
see the New Jerusalem, as to laugh when we are tickled: joy is not
under command, or at our nod, when Christ kisseth. But oh, how many of
us would have Christ divided into two halves, that we might take the
half of Him only! We take His office, Jesus, and Salvation: but "Lord"
is a cumbersome word, and to obey and work out our own salvation, and
to perfect holiness, is the cumbersome and stormy north-side of
Christ, and that which we eschew and shift.
6. For your question, the access that reprobates have to Christ (which
is none at all, for to the Father in Christ neither can they, nor will
they come, because Christ died not for them; and yet, by law, God and
justice overtaketh them), I say, first, there are with you more worthy
and learned than I am, Messrs. Dickson, Blair, and Hamilton, who can
more fully satisfy you. But I shall speak in brief what I think of it
in these assertions. _First_, All God's justice toward man and angels
floweth from an act of absolute sovereign free-will of God, who is our
Former and Potter, and we are but clay; for if He had forbidden to eat
of the rest of the trees of the garden of Eden, and commanded Adam to
eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that command no doubt
had been as just as this,--"Eat of all the trees, but not at all of
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." The reason is, because His
will is before His justice, by order of nature; and what is His will
is His justice. And He willeth not things without Himself because they
are just; God cannot, God needeth not hunt sanctity, holiness, or
righteousness from things without Himself, and so not from the actions
of men or angels; because His will is essentially holy and just, and
the prime rule of holiness and justice, as the fire is naturally
light, and inclineth upward, and the earth heavy, and inclineth
downward. The _second_ assertion, then, that God saith to reprobates,
"Believe in Christ (who hath not died for your salvation), and ye
shall be saved," is just and right; because His eternal and
essentially just will hath so enacted and decreed. Suppose natural
reason speak against this, this is the deep and special mystery of the
Gospel. God hath obliged, hard and fast, all the reprobates of the
visible church to believe this promise, "He that believeth shall be
saved:" and yet, in God's decree and secret intention, there is no
salvation at all decreed and intended to reprobates. And yet the
obligation of God, being from His sovereign free-will, is most just,
as is said in the first assertion. _Third_ assertion: The righteous
Lord hath right over the reprobates and all reasonable creatures that
violate His commandments. This is easy. _Fourth_ assertion: The faith
that God seeketh of reprobates, is, that they rely upon Christ, as
despairing of their own righteousness, leaning wholly, and withal
humbly, as weary and laden, upon Christ, as on the resting-stone laid
in Zion. But He seeketh not that, without being weary of their sin,
they rely upon Christ, as mankind's Saviour; for to rely on Christ,
and not to be weary of sin, is presumption, not faith. Faith is ever
neighbour to a contrite spirit; and it is impossible that faith can be
where there is not a cast-down and contrite heart, in some measure,
for sin. Now it is certain, that God commandeth no man to presume.
_Fifth_ assertion: Then reprobates are not absolutely obliged to
believe that Christ died for them in particular. For, in truth,
neither reprobates nor others are obliged to believe a lie; only, they
are obliged to believe that Christ died for them, if they be first
weary, burdened, sin-sick, and condemned in their own consciences, and
stricken dead and killed with the Law's sentence, and have indeed
embraced Him as offered; which is a second and subsequent act of
faith, following after a coming to Him and a closing with Him. _Sixth_
assertion: Reprobates are not formally guilty of contempt of God, and
misbelief, because they apply not Christ and the promises of the
Gospel to themselves in particular; for so they should be guilty
because they believe not a lie, which God never obliged them to
believe. _Seventh_ assertion: Justice hath a right to punish
reprobates, because out of pride of heart, confiding in their own
righteousness, they rely not upon Christ as a Saviour of all them that
come to Him. This God may justly oblige them unto, because in Adam
they had perfect ability to do; and men are guilty because they love
their own inability, and rest upon themselves, and refuse to deny
their own righteousness, and to take them to Christ, in whom there is
righteousness for wearied sinners. _Eighth_ assertion: It is one thing
to rely, lean, and rest upon Christ, in humility and weariness of
spirit, and denying our own righteousness, believing Him to be the
only righteousness of wearied sinners; and it is another thing to
believe that Christ died for me, John, Thomas, Anna, upon an intention
and decree to save us by name. For, 1st, The first goeth first, the
latter is always after in due order; 2ndly, The first is faith, the
second is a fruit of faith; and, 3rdly, The first obligeth reprobates
and all men in the visible kirk, the latter obligeth only the weary
and laden, and so only the elect and effectually called of God.
_Ninth_ assertion: It is a vain order; "I know not if Christ died for
me, John, Thomas, Anna, by name; and, therefore, I dare not rely on
Him." The reason is, because it is not faith to believe God's
intention and decree of election at the first, ere ye be wearied. Look
first to your intention and soul. If ye find sin a burden, and can and
do rest, under that burden, upon Christ; if this be once, now come and
believe _in particular_, or rather _apply by sense_ (for, in my
judgment, it is a _fruit_ of belief, not _belief_), and feeling the
goodwill, intention, and gracious purpose of God anent your salvation.
Hence, because there is malice in reprobates, and contempt of Christ,
guilty they are, and justice hath law against them, and (which is the
mystery) they cannot come up to Christ, because He died not for them.
But their sin is, that they love their inability to come to Christ;
and he who loveth his chains, deserveth chains. And thus in short.
Remember my bonds.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,