ABERDEEN, _Jan. 4, 1638_.
CCLXXXII.--_To the_ LADY ROBERTLAND.
[This is probably the _Lady Robertland_ (her own name was
_Fleming_) mentioned in Livingstone's "Characteristics" as "one
deeply exercised in mind, who often got as rare outgates." She
was a great help to the poor people of _Stewarton_, during the
time of the awakening there. One of her sayings was, "With God,
the most of mosts is lighter than nothing; and without God, the
least of leasts is heavier than any burden."]
(_AFFLICTIONS PURIFY--THE WORLD'S VANITY--CHRIST'S WISE LOVE._)
MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I shall be glad to hear
that your soul prospereth, and that fruit groweth upon you, after the
Lord's husbandry and pains, in His rod that hath not been a stranger
to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kindness that He will take
the scum off us in the fire. Who knoweth how needful winnowing is to
us, and what dross we must want ere we enter into the kingdom of God?
So narrow is the entry to heaven, that our knots, our bunches and
lumps of pride, and self-love, and idol-love, and world-love, must be
hammered off us, that we may thring in, stooping low, and creeping
through that narrow and thorny entry.
And now for myself, I find it the most sweet and heavenly life to take
up house and dwelling at Christ's fireside, and set down my tent upon
Christ, that Foundation-stone, who is sure and faithful ground and
hard under foot. Oh if I could win to it, and proclaim myself not the
world's debtor, nor a lover obliged to it, and that I mind not to hire
or bud this world's love any longer; but defy both the kindness and
feud of God's whole creation whatsomever! especially the lower vault
and clay part of God's creatures, this vain earth! For what hold I of
His world? A borrowed lodging and some years' house-room, and bread
and water, and fire, and bed and candle, are all a part of the pension
of my King and Lord; to whom I owe thanks, and not to a creature. I
thank God that God is God, and Christ is Christ, and the earth the
earth, and the devil the devil, and the world the world, and that sin
is sin, and that everything is what it is; because He hath taught me
in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus, nor to intermix Him
with creature-vanities, nor to spin or twine Christ or His sweet love
in one web, or in one thread, with the world and the things thereof.
Oh, if I could hold and keep Christ all alone, and mix Him with
nothing! Oh, if I could cry down the price and weight of my cursed
self, and cry up the price of Christ, and double, and triple, and
augment, and heighten to millions the price and worth of Christ! I am
(if I durst speak so, and might lawfully complain) so hungredly
tutored by Christ Jesus my liberal Lord, that His nice love, which my
soul would be in hands with, flieth me; and yet I am trained on to
love Him, and lust, and long, and die for His love whom I cannot see.
It is a wonder to pine away with love for a covered and hid lover, and
to be hungered with His love, so as a poor soul cannot get his fill of
hunger for Christ. It is hard to be hungered of hunger,[393] whereof
such abundance for other things is in the world. But sure, if we were
tutors, and stewards, and masters, and lord-carvers of Christ's love,
we should be more lean and worse fed than we are. Our meat doeth us
the more good, that Christ keepeth the keys, and that the wind and the
air of Christ's sweet breathing, and of the influence of His Spirit,
is locked up in the hands of the good pleasure of Him who "bloweth
where He listeth."
[393] Not to get even enough of hunger for Christ.
I see there is a sort of impatient patience required in the want of
Christ as to His manifestations, and waiting on. They thrive who wait
on His love, and the blowing of it, and the turning of His gracious
wind; and they thrive who, in that on-waiting, make haste and din and
much ado for their lost and hidden Lord Jesus. However it be, God feed
me with Him any way. If He would come in, I shall not dispute the
matter, where He get a hole, or how He opened the lock. I should be
content that Christ and I met, suppose He should stand on the other
side of hell's lake and cry to me, "Either put in your foot and come
through, or else ye shall not have Me at all." But what fools are we
in the taking up of Him and of His dealing! He hath a gate of His own
beyond the thoughts of men, that no foot hath skill to follow Him. But
we are still ill scholars, and will go in at heaven's gates wanting
the half of our lesson; and shall still be bairns, so long as we are
under time's hands, and till eternity cause a sun to arise in our
souls that shall give us wit. We may see how we spill and mar our own
fair heaven and our salvation, and how Christ is every day putting in
one bone or other, in these fallen souls of ours, in the right place
again; and that on this side of the New Jerusalem, we shall still have
need of forgiving and healing grace. I find crosses Christ's carved
work that He marketh out for us, and that with crosses He figureth and
portrayeth us to His own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and
corruption. Lord cut, Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do anything that
may perfect Thy Father's image in us, and make us meet for glory.
Pray for me (I forget not you) that our Lord would be pleased to lend
me house-room to preach His righteousness, and tell what I have heard
and seen of Him. Forget not Zion that is now in Christ's caums, and in
His forge. God bring her out new work. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,