CCLXXXIX.--_To his Reverend and much honoured Brother, DR. ALEXANDER
LEIGHTON, Christ's Prisoner in bonds at London._
[DR. ALEXANDER LEIGHTON was descended of an ancient family in
Forfarshire, whose chief seat was Ulys-haven, or Usen, near
Montrose. Besides studying for the Christian ministry, he
qualified himself as a physician, and, during the reign of James
I., and the commencement of that of Charles I., practised
medicine in London, as well as exercised his ministry there; but
whether he had any fixed charge we are not informed. In his zeal
for Presbyterian principles, and against the innovations of Laud,
he published a work entitled "An Appeal to the Parliament; or,
Zion's Plea against the Prelacy." For this work he was arrested
in 1629, and thrown into an abominable cell in Newgate. After
lying there sixteen weeks in great misery, he was served with an
information of the crimes of which he was accused, and charged to
appear before the Star Chamber. He was then unable to attend,
being under severe distress that had brought skin and hair almost
wholly off his body; but the Star Chamber condemned the afflicted
and aged divine to be degraded as a minister, to have one of his
ears cut off, and one side of his nose slit, to be branded on the
face with a red-hot iron, to stand in the pillory, to be whipped
at a post, to pay a fine of £1000, and to suffer imprisonment
till the fine was paid. When this inhuman sentence was
pronounced, Laud took off his hat, and holding up his hands, gave
thanks to God, who had given the church victory over her enemies!
The sentence was executed without mercy; and Leighton lay in
prison until the meeting of the Long Parliament, that is, upwards
of ten years. When liberated, he could hardly walk, see, or hear.
He died in 1649. He was the father of the celebrated Robert
Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow. When this letter was written to
him by Rutherford, he had languished many years in prison.]
(_PUBLIC BLESSINGS ALLEVIATE PRIVATE SUFFERINGS--TRIALS LIGHT WHEN
VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN--CHRIST WORTHY OF SUFFERING FOR._)
REVEREND AND MUCH HONOURED PRISONER OF HOPE,--Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you.-- It was not my part (whom our Lord hath enlarged) to
forget you His prisoner.
When I consider how long your night hath been, I think Christ hath a
mind to put you in free grace's debt so much the deeper, as your
sufferings have been of so long continuance. But what if Christ mind
you no joy but public joy, with enlarged and triumphing Zion. I
think, Sir, that ye would love best to share and divide your song of
joy with Zion, and to have mystical Christ in Britain halfer and
copartner with your enlargement. I am sure that your joy, bordering
and neighbouring with the joy of Christ's bride, would be so much the
sweeter that it were public. I thought if Christ had halved my
mercies, and delivered His bride and not me, that His praises should
have been double to what they are; but now two rich mercies conjoined
in one have stolen from our Lord more than half-praises. Oh that mercy
should so beguile us, and steal away our counts and acknowledgment!
Worthy Sir, I hope that I need not exhort you to go on in hoping for
the salvation of God. There hath not been so much taken from your time
of ease and created joys, as eternity shall add to your heaven. Ye
know when one day in heaven hath paid you (yea, and overpaid your
blood, bonds, sorrow, and sufferings), that it would trouble angels'
understanding to lay the count of that surplus of glory which eternity
can and will give you. Oh but your sand-glass of sufferings and losses
cometh to little, when it shall be counted and compared with the glory
that abideth you on the other side of the water! Ye have no leisure to
rejoice and sing here, while time goeth about you, and where your
psalms will be short; therefore, ye will think eternity, and the long
day of heaven that shall be measured with no other sun, nor horologe,
than the long life of the Ancient of Days, to measure your praises,
little enough for you. If your span-length of time be cloudy, ye
cannot but think that your Lord can no more take your blood and your
bands without the income and recompense of free grace, than He would
take the sufferings of Paul and His other dear servants, that were
well paid home beyond all counting (Rom. viii. 18). If the wisdom of
Christ hath made you Antichrist's eyesore and his envy, ye are to
thank God that such a piece of clay, as ye are, is made the field of
glory to work upon. It was the Potter's aim that the clay should
praise Him, and I hope it satisfieth you that your clay is for His
glory. Oh, who can suffer enough for such a Lord! and who can lay out
in bank, enough of pain, shame, losses, and tortures to receive in
again the free interest of eternal glory! (2 Cor. iv. 17). Oh, how
advantageous a bargaining is it with such a rich Lord! If your hand
and pen had been at leisure to gain glory on paper, it had been but
paper glory: but the bearing of a public cross so long, for the now
controverted privileges of the crown and sceptre of free King Jesus,
the Prince of the kings of the earth, is glory booked in heaven.
Worthy and dear brother, if ye go to weigh Jesus, His sweetness,
excellency, glory, and beauty, and lay foregainst Him your ounces or
drachms of suffering for Him, ye shall be straitened two ways. 1. It
will be a pain to make the comparison, the disproportion being by no
understanding imaginable: nay, if heaven's arithmetic and angels' were
set to work, they should never number the degrees of difference. 2. It
would straiten you to find a scale for the balance to lay that high
and lofty One (that over-transcending Prince of excellency) in. If
your mind could fancy as many created heavens as time hath had
minutes, trees have had leaves, and clouds have had raindrops, since
the first stone of the creation was laid, they should not make half a
scale in which to bear and weigh boundless excellency. And, therefore,
the King whose marks ye are bearing, and whose dying ye carry about
with you in your body, is, out of all cry and consideration, beyond
and above all our thoughts.
For myself, I am content to feed upon wondering, sometimes, at the
beholding but of the borders and skirts of the incomparable glory
which is in that exalted Prince. And I think ye could wish for more
ears to give than ye have, since ye hope these ears ye now have given
Him shall be passages to take in the music of His glorious voice. I
would fain both believe and pray for a new bride of Jews and Gentiles
to our Lord Jesus, after the land of graven images shall be laid
waste; and that our Lord Jesus is on horseback, hunting and pursuing
the Beast; and that England and Ireland shall be well-sweeped chambers
for Christ and His righteousness to dwell in; for He hath opened our
graves in Scotland, and the two dead and buried witnesses are risen
again, and are prophesying. Oh that princes would glory and boast
themselves in carrying the train of Christ's robe royal in their arms!
Let me die within half an hour after I have seen the temple of the Son
of God enlarged, and the cords of Jerusalem's tent lengthened, to take
in a more numerous company for a bride to the Son of God! Oh, if the
corner or foundation-stone of that house, that new house, were laid
above my grave!
Oh! who can add to Him who is that great All! If He would create suns
and moons, new heavens, thousand and thousand degrees more perfect
than these that now are; and again, make a new creation ten thousand
thousand degrees in perfection beyond that new creation; and again,
still for eternity multiply new heavens, they should never be a
perfect resemblance of that infinite excellency, order, weight,
measure, beauty, and sweetness that is in Him. Oh, how little of Him
do we see! Oh, how shallow are our thoughts of Him! Oh, if I had pain
for Him, and shame and losses for Him, and more clay and spirits for
Him! and that I could go upon earth without love, desire, hope,
because Christ hath taken away my love, desire, and hope to heaven
with Him!
I know, worthy Sir, your sufferings for Him are your glory; and,
therefore, weary not. His salvation is near at hand, and shall not
tarry.
Pray for me. His grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,