CCLXV.--_To_ MR. GEORGE DUNBAR.
[GEORGE DUNBAR was minister of Ayr. Adhering with zeal to
Presbytery, he was summoned before the High Commission Court in
the beginning of the year 1622. On appearing, he gave in a paper
declining its authority; but the Court passed sentence of
deprivation upon him, and condemned him to be confined within
Dumfries. He was ejected from this charge also. When the
messenger of the Court came to his house on this last occasion,
either to summon him or to intimate his sentence, a young
daughter of his said, "And Pharaoh's heart is still hardened!"
while all that Dunbar said was to bid his wife "prepare her
creels again;" for, on the former occasion, the children, being
young, behoved to be carried away on horseback in creels
(Livingstone's "Characteristics"). He was for a long time
prisoner at Blackness; but at length, being banished by the Privy
Council, he removed to Ireland. He first preached at
Carrickfergus, and ultimately settled at Larne, where he
discharged his ministry with diligence and success. On being
deposed by the Bishop of Down, in 1634, for nonconformity, he
came over to Scotland, and after the triumph of Presbytery, in
1638, became minister of the parish of Calder, in Lothian, where
he died.]
(_CHRIST'S LOVE IN AFFLICTION--THE SAINT'S SUPPORT AND FINAL
VICTORY._)
REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you.--Because your words have strengthened many, I was silent,
expecting some lines from you in my bonds; and this is the cause why I
wrote not to you. But now I am forced to break off and speak. I never
believed, till now, that there was so much to be found in Christ on
this side of death and of heaven. Oh, the ravishments of heavenly joy
that may be had here, in the small gleanings of comforts that fall
from Christ! What fools are we who know not, and consider not the
weight and the telling that is in the very earnest-penny, and the
first-fruits of our hoped-for harvest! How sweet, how sweet is our
infeftment! oh, what then must personal possession be! I find that my
Lord Jesus hath not miscooked or spilled this sweet cross; He hath an
eye on the fire and the melting gold, to separate the metal and the
dross. Oh how much time would it take me to read my obligations to
Jesus my Lord, who will neither have the faith of His own to be burnt
to ashes, nor yet will have a poor believer in the fire to be half
raw, like Ephraim's unturned cake! This is the wisdom of Him who hath
His fire in Zion, and furnace in Jerusalem. I need not either bud or
flatter temptations and crosses, nor strive to buy the devil or this
malicious world by, or redeem their kindness with half a hair-breadth
of truth. He who is surety for His servant for good doth powerfully
overrule all that. I see my prison hath neither lock nor door: I am
free in my bonds, and my chains are made of rotten straw; they shall
not bide one pull of faith. I am sure that there are those in hell who
would exchange their torments with our crosses, suppose they should
never be delivered, and give twenty thousand years' torment to boot,
to be in our bonds for ever. And, therefore, we wrong Christ who sigh,
and fear, and doubt, and despond in them. Our sufferings are washen in
Christ's blood, as well as our souls; for Christ's merits brought a
blessing to the crosses of the sons of God. And Jesus hath a back-bond
of all our temptations, that the free-warders shall come out by law
and justice, in respect of the infinite and great sum that the
Redeemer paid. Our troubles owe us a free passage through them.
Devils, and men, and crosses, are our debtors, death and all storms
are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water
fraught-free, and to set the travellers on their own known ground.
Therefore we shall die, and yet live. We are over the water some way
already. We are married, and our tocher-good is paid. We are already
more than conquerors. If the devil and the world knew how the court
with our Lord shall go, I am sure they would hire death to take us off
their hand. Our sufferings are only the wreck and ruin of the black
kingdom; and yet a little, and the Antichrist must play himself with
bones and slain bodies of the Lamb's followers; but withal we stand
with the hundred forty and four thousand, who are with the Lamb, upon
the top of Mount Zion. Antichrist and his followers are down in the
valley ground: we have the advantage of the hill; our temptations are
always beneath. Our waters are beneath our breath:[378] "as dying, and
behold we live." I never heard before of a living death, or a quick
death, but ours: our death is not like the common death. Christ's
skill, His handywork, and a new cast of Christ's admirable art, may be
seen in our quick death. I bless the Lord, that all our troubles come
through Christ's fingers, and that He casteth sugar among them, and
casteth in some ounce-weights of heaven, and of the Spirit of glory
that resteth on suffering believers, into our cup, in which there is
no taste of hell. My dear brother, ye know all these better than I. I
send water to the sea, to speak of these things to you; but it easeth
me to desire you to help me to pay my tribute of praise to Jesus. Oh
what praises I owe Him! I would I were in my free heritage, that I
might begin to pay my debts to Jesus. I entreat for your prayers and
praises. I forget not you.
Your brother and fellow-sufferer in and for Christ,