(_THE LAW--GRACE--CHALKING OUT PROVIDENCES FOR OURSELVES--PRESCRIBING
TO HIS LOVE._)
MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,--Your letter, full of complaints,
bemoaning your guiltiness, hath humbled me. But give me leave to say
that ye seem to be too far upon the law's side. Ye will not gain much
to be the law's advocate. I thought ye had not been the law's but
grace's man; nevertheless, I am sure that ye desire to take God's part
against yourself. Whatever your guiltiness be, yet, when it falleth
into the sea of God's mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen
into the great ocean. There is nothing here to be done, but to let
Christ's doom light on "the old man," and let him bear his
condemnation, seeing in Christ he was condemned; for the law hath but
power over your worst half. Let the blame, therefore, lie where the
blame should be; and let the new man be sure to say, "I am comely as
the tents of Kedar, howbeit I be black and sunburnt, by sitting
neighbour beside a body of sin." I seek no more here than room for
grace's defence, and Christ's white throne, whereto a sinner,
condemned by the law, may appeal. But the use that I make of it is, I
am sorry that I am not so tender and thin-skinned;[368] though I am
sure that Christ may find employment for His calling in me, if in any
living, seeing, from my youth upward, I have been making up the
blackest process that any minister in the world, or any other, can
answer to. And, when I had done this, I painted a providence of my
own, and wrote ease for myself, and a peaceable ministry, and the sun
shining on me, till I should be in at heaven's gates; such green and
raw thoughts had I of God! I thought also of a sleeping devil, that
would pass by the like of me, lying in muirs and outfields; so I
bigged the gowk's nest and dreamed of dying at ease, and living in a
fool's paradise. But since I came hither, I am often so as they would
have much rhetoric that could persuade me, that Christ hath not
written wrath on my dumb and silent Sabbaths; which is a persecution
of the latest edition, being used against none in this land, that I
can learn of, besides me. And often I lie under a non-entry, and would
gladly sell all my joys to be confirmed free tenant of the King Jesus,
and to have sealed assurances: but I see often blank papers. And my
greatest desires are these two:--1. That Christ would take me in hand
to cure me, and undertake for a sick man. I know that I should not die
under His hand. And yet in this, while I still doubt, I believe
through a cloud that sorrow (which hath no eyes) hath but put a vail
on Christ's love. 2. It pleaseth Him often, since I came hither, to
come with some short blinks of His sweet love. And then, because I
have none to help me to praise His love, and can do Him no service in
my own person (as I once thought I did in His temple), I die with
wishes and desires to take up house and dwell at the well-side, and to
have Him praised and set on high. But, alas! what can the like of me
do, to get a good name raised upon my well-beloved Lord Jesus, suppose
I could desire to be suspended for ever of my part of heaven, for His
glory? I am sure, if I could get my will of Christ's love, and could
once be over head and ears in the believed, apprehended, and seen love
of the Son of God, it were the fulfilling of the desires of the only
happiness I would be at. But the truth is, I hinder my communion with
Him, because of the want of both faith and repentance, and because I
will make an idol of Christ's kisses. I will neither lead nor
drive,[369] except I see Christ's love run in my channel; and when I
wait and look for Him the upper way, I see His wisdom is pleased to
play me a slip, and come the lower way. So that I have not the right
art of guiding Christ; for there is art and wisdom required in guiding
of Christ's love aright when we have gotten it. Oh, how far are His
ways above mine? Oh, how little of Him do I see! And when I am as dry
as a burnt heath in a drouthy summer, and when my root is withered,
howbeit I think then that I would drink a sea-full of Christ's love,
ere ever I would let the cup go from my head, yet I get nothing but
delays, as if He would make hunger my daily food. I think myself also
hungered of hunger. The rich Lord Jesus satisfy a famished man. Grace
be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,