CCXCIII.--_To_ MR. JAMES WILSON.
[There was a cotemporary of that name, the minister of Inch, in
the Presbytery of Stranraer. There was also a _James Wilson_ who
was a friend of Blair, and minister of Dysart in 1653. (See Row's
"Life of Blair.") This letter indicates that the correspondent
was a man of thought and education.]
(_ADVICES TO A DOUBTING SOUL--MISTAKES ABOUT HIS INTEREST IN GOD'S
LOVE--TEMPTATION--PERPLEXITY ABOUT PRAYER--WANT OF FEELING._)
DEAR BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you.--I
bless our rich and only wise Lord, who careth so for His new creation
that He is going over it again, and trying every piece in you, and
blowing away the motes of His new work in you. Alas! I am not so fit a
physician as your disease requireth. Sweet, sweet, lovely Jesus be
your physician, where His under-chirurgeons cannot do anything for
putting in order the wheels, paces, and goings of a marred[420] soul.
I have little time; but yet the Lord hath made me so to concern myself
in your condition, that I dow not, I dare not, be altogether silent.
[420] A soul that has been put out of order. The edition of 1675, and
some others, has "married soul."
First: ye doubt, from 2 Cor. xiii. 5, whether ye be in Christ or not?
and so, whether you are a reprobate or not? I answer three things to
the doubt.--1. Ye owe charity to all men, but most of all to lovely
and loving Jesus, and some also to your self; especially to your
renewed self, because your new self is not yours, but another Lord's,
even the work of His own Spirit. Therefore, to slander His work is to
wrong Himself. Love thinketh no evil: if ye love grace, think not ill
of grace in yourself. And ye think ill of grace in yourself when ye
make it but a bastard and a work of nature; for a holy fear that ye
be not Christ's, and withal a care and a desire to be His, and not
your own, is not, nay cannot be, bastard nature. The great Advocate
pleadeth hard for you; be upon the Advocate's side, O poor feared
client of Christ! Stay, and side with such a Lover, who pleadeth for
no other man's goods than His own; for He (if I may say so) scorneth
to be enriched with unjust conquest. And yet He pleadeth for you,
whereof your letter (though too, too full of jealousy) is a proof.
For, if ye were not His, your thoughts (which, I hope, are but the
suggestions of His Spirit, that only bringeth the matter into debate
to make it sure to you) would not be such, nor so serious as these,
"Am I His?" or "Whose am I?" 2. Dare ye forswear your Owner, and say
in cold blood, "I am not His"? What nature or corruption saith at
starts in you, I regard not. Your thoughts of yourself, when sin and
guiltiness round you in the ear, and when you have a sight of your
deservings, are Apocrypha, and not Scripture, I hope. Hear what the
Lord saith of you: "He will speak peace." If your Master say, "I quit
you," I shall then bid you eat ashes for bread, and drink waters of
gall and wormwood. But, however Christ out of His own mouth should
seem to say, "I come not for thee," as He did, Matt. xv. 24; yet let
me say that the words of the tempting Jesus[421] are not to be
stretched as Scripture, beyond His intention, seeing His intention in
speaking them is to strengthen, not to deceive. And, therefore, here
faith may contradict what Christ seemeth at first to say, and so may
ye. I charge you by the mercies of God, be not that cruel to grace and
the new birth as to cast water on your own coal by misbelief. If ye
must die (as I know ye shall not), it were a folly to slay yourself.
3. I hope that ye love the new birth and a claim to Christ, howbeit ye
do not make it good; and if ye were in hell, and saw the heavenly face
of lovely, ten thousand times lovely Jesus, that hath God's hue, and
God's fair, fair and comely red and white, wherewith it is beautified
beyond comparison and imagination, ye could not forbear to say, "Oh,
if I could but blow a kiss from my sinful mouth from hell up to
heaven, upon His cheeks that are a bed of spices as sweet flowers!"
(Cant. v. 13). I hope ye dare say, "O fairest sight of heaven! O
boundless mass of crucified and slain love for me, give me leave to
wish to love Thee! O Flower and Bloom of heaven and earth's love! O
angels' Wonder! O Thou, the Father's eternal, sealed Love! and O
Thou, God's old Delight! give me leave to stand beside Thy love, and
look in and wonder; and give me leave to wish to love Thee, if I can
do no more." 4. We being born in atheism, and bairns of the house that
we are come of, it is no new thing, my dear brother, for us to be
under jealousies and mistakes about the love of God. What think ye of
this, that the man, Christ, was tempted to believe there were but two
persons in the blessed Godhead, and that the Son of God, the
substantial and coeternal Son, was not the lawful Son of God? Did not
Satan say, "If Thou be the Son of God?"
[421] Jesus, when He puts us to trial (Gen. xxii.).
Secondly: Ye say, that ye know not what to do. Your Head said once the
same word, or not far from it. "Now is My soul troubled, and what
shall I say?" (John xii. 27). And faith answered Christ's "What shall
I say?" with these words: "O tempted Saviour, askest Thou, 'What shall
I say?' Say, 'Pray, Father, save Me from this hour.'" What course can
ye take but pray and frist Christ His own comforts? He is no dyvour;
take His word. "Oh," say ye, "I cannot pray?" Answer--Honest sighing
is faith breathing and whispering Him in the ear. The life is not out
of faith where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes, and
breathing toward God. Hide not Thine ear at my breathing (Lam. iii.
56). "But what shall I do in spiritual exercises?" ye say. Answer--1.
If ye knew particularly what to do, it were not a spiritual exercise.
2. In my weak judgment, ye should first say, "I would glorify God in
believing David's salvation, and the Bride's marriage with the Lamb,
and love the church's slain Husband, although I cannot for the present
believe mine own salvation." 3. Say, "I will not pass from my claim:
suppose Christ should pass from His claim to me, it shall not go back
upon my side. Howbeit my love to Him be not worth a drink of water,
yet Christ shall have it, such as it is." 4. Say, "I shall rather
spill twenty prayers, than not pray at all. Let my broken words go up
to heaven: when they come up into the Great Angel's golden censer,
that compassionate Advocate will put together my broken prayers, and
perfume them." Words are but the accidents[422] of prayer.
[422] The incidental accompaniments.
"Oh," say ye, "I am slain with hardness of heart, and troubled with
confused and melancholious thoughts." Answer--My dear brother, what
would ye conclude thence? That ye know not well who aughteth you? I
grant: "Oh, my heart is hard! oh, my thoughts of faithless sorrow!
_Ergo_, I know not who aughteth me," were good logic in heaven
amongst angels and the glorified; but down in Christ's hospital, where
sick and distempered souls are under cure, it is not worth a straw.
Give Christ time to end His work in your heart. Hold on, in feeling
and bewailing your hardness; for that is softness to feel hardness. 2.
I charge you to make psalms of Christ's praises for His begun work of
grace. Make Christ your music and your song; for complaining and
feeling of want doth often swallow up your praises. What think ye of
those who go to hell never troubled with such thoughts? If your
exercises be the way to hell, God help me! I have a cold coal to blow
at, and a blank paper for heaven. I give you Christ caution, and my
heaven surety, for your salvation. Lend Christ your melancholy, for
Satan hath no right to make a chamber in your melancholy. Borrow joy
and comfort from the Comforter. Bid the Spirit do His office in you;
and remember that faith is one thing, and the feeling and notice of
faith another. God forbid that _feeling_ were _proprium quarto
modo_[423] to all the saints; and that this were good reasoning, "No
feeling, no grace." I am sure ye were not always, these twenty years
by-past, actually knowing that ye live! yet all this time ye are
living. So it is with the life of faith.
[423] This is a term of logic, and refers to the fourth kind of
categorical proposition, in which some particular point is proved in
the negative.
But, alas! dear brother, it is easy for me to speak words and
syllables of peace; but Isaiah telleth you, "I create peace" (Isa.
lvii. 19). There is but one Creator, ye know. Oh that ye may get a
letter of peace sent you from heaven!
Pray for me, and for grace to be faithful, and for gifts to be able,
with tongue and pen, to glorify God. I forget you not.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,