[491] From a copy among the Wodrow MSS. vol. xlv. 8vo, No. 14. "I had
it," says Wodrow, "from the Laird of Ralston. It's a double, only
written on the same sheet with the former to Lady Ralston, perhaps
about the same time."
[Wodrow annexes to this letter the following note:--"To one of
the ministers of Glasgow, who probably was deposed by the
Resolutionists, or at least a sufferer for the protestation,--Mr.
M'Ward perhaps, or Mr. Patrick Gillespie." The letter bears
internal evidence of having been written to a minister of Glasgow
who had been censured by the General Assembly which met at Dundee
in 1651, for his opposition to the public resolutions. By that
Assembly three ministers, Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, Mr.
Patrick Gillespie of Glasgow, and Mr. James Simpson of Airth,
were deposed, and one, Mr. James Nasmith of Hamilton, suspended,
on the ground of their having protested against the lawfulness of
that Assembly. ("Life of Robert Blair," p. 278.) There seems,
then, little doubt that _Mr. Patrick Gillespie_ is the person to
whom this letter was addressed. It could not have been Mr. Robert
M'Ward, for he was licensed only in 1655, and did not become a
minister of Glasgow till 1656, when he succeeded Mr. Andrew Gray
in the Outer High Kirk; nor, though he enlisted himself on the
side of the Protesters, does he appear to have suffered on that
account. Mr. Patrick Gillespie was the son of Mr. John Gillespie
(second minister of the collegiate charge of Kirkcaldy), and
brother of the celebrated George Gillespie. He was born at
Kirkcaldy in 1617, and was for some time minister of that parish,
previous to his translation to Glasgow. After the death of
Charles I. he favoured the Commonwealth, and was appointed by
Cromwell Principal of the University of Glasgow, into which
office he was installed after encountering much opposition. At
the Restoration he was ejected from the Principalship, in which
he was succeeded by the celebrated Robert Baillie. He was also
imprisoned successively in the Castles of Edinburgh and Stirling;
and upon the sitting of the Parliament in 1661, was impeached of
high treason, on the alleged ground of his having compiled "The
Western Remonstrance," approved the pamphlet entitled "The Causes
of God's Wrath," and kept correspondence with Cromwell. But,
having made concessions, he was shortly after liberated, and
confined to Ormiston and six miles around it. "His works speak
for him," says Wodrow, "and evidence him a person of great
learning, solidity, and piety, particularly his excellent
treatises upon 'The Covenants of Grace and Redemption.'"]
(_ENCOURAGING WORDS TO A SUFFERING BROTHER--WHY MEN SHRINK FROM
CHRIST'S TESTIMONY._)
SIR,--I long to see you, since you gave a public testimony for your
Master, and are become a sufferer for Him. Until I shall be able to
see you, I thought it duty to write to you that I remember you as I am
able. Your zeal and faithfulness for our Master and your mother church
have made your name honourable and precious among many here; yea, have
exceedingly refreshed the bowels of the saints. Upon my word, Sir, I
say the truth, you have their hearts and their approbation to what you
have done; and that you are approven of God, I doubt not: the seal
whereof, I hope, shall be in your heart, to feast your conscience with
peace, and to cause your face shine in innocency. What you have done
with your fellow-witnesses, companions in tribulation, shall turn to
you for a testimony. Sir, when this General Assembly are gathered
together to their fathers, and you wearing your crown up at the
throne, and following the Lamb, your name shall be precious and have a
savour of life amongst the saints. You shall have your mother's
blessing, I mean the Church of Scotland, when you are dead and rotten.
Though now you seem to be a man of strife and contention, yet you are
no otherways for strife and contention than your Master before you,
who came not to send peace, but rather division and contention (Luke
xii. 51) with the malignant party. Union in judgment, with men not
tender of our Lord's interest, is a conjunction and union I hope you
shall never think desirable. Sectarian separation, I am confident, you
never loved; though men, who are become transgressors in destroying
what they have formerly been building, give it forth so. Woe's me,
Sir, that amongst so many hundred ministers in the Church of Scotland,
so few are like to be found willing to give or approve of your and
others' faithful testimony. I think that, besides the evil of
blindness that is in the mind of some, and the idolizing of man's
interest by others, an uncrucified world and over-loved stipends shall
hinder many from coming your length. We are debtors to you, and to our
Lord Jesus Christ, that hath given to you to care for "Zion, whom no
man seeks after" (Jer. xxx. 17); not caring for your own things, but
the things of God. Fair fall you that have quit all things to follow
Him. To you, and to others that will continue with Christ, in this
hour of tribulation, is appointed a kingdom. Sir, you had more credit
and worldly greatness to lose than many honest ministers; and thanks
be to God that you have so learned Christ [as] to be made a man for
Christ of no reputation, for Him. Your despised Master, who made
Himself while He was amongst us a man of no reputation, is now exalted
in glory. There is none now to gibe Him by bowing the knee, none now
to spit in His face, none now to bring Him under mocking of the purple
robe, none to put on His head a crown of thorns. And as you now
partake of His sufferings, so shall you hereafter of His glory. You
shall sit honourably on thrones; and when the Chief Shepherd appears,
you shall receive the crown. I am convinced that it is for conscience
toward God that you suffer. The bottom of your testimony and suffering
is not so narrow as some think, who study more to decline the cross
than to be tender for every truth. School-heads talk of fundamentals
and non-fundamentals; and, say they, "The present controversy is not
about fundamentals: ministers may keep their places, peace, and
stipends, and make less din." But are non-fundamentals nothing? I
would choose rather not be brought up at school, than to grow so
subtile and wily by school distinctions, [as] to decline the cross.
Sir, you divide not from others for nothing; you contend not for
nothing; you suffer not for nothing. They that will be unfaithful in
little will be unfaithful in much. Mistake me not, as if I thought the
ground of your testimony a little thing and a trifle. I think you, and
all that be faithful to God, are bound to follow it to bonds and to
blood. That Christ ought to be a King in Scotland, and the people
ought to employ[492] the liberty that Christ hath bought to them with
His blood, is among fundamentals with me; and whether the way man
gives and allows to men that have fought against the truth be not
naturally, and by interpretation, against this, judge. Sir, your
Master did put you in His vineyard. You have a testimony from many of
a faithful and diligent labourer. I hear that you are now violently
thrust out. I think the Spirit of Christ would teach men sobriety and
forbearance. I wish (and know you will join with me) that men's
violent dealing with you provoke not the Lord, to make this the last
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Always, I acknowledge you
one of the stars which the Lord hath in His hand, one of the angels of
the Church of Scotland, a faithful minister of the Gospel at Glasgow.
You have given a testimony for your Master; you shall get a meeting
when He comes in the clouds. And though there should not be a General
Assembly henceforth in the Church of Scotland, judicially to
acknowledge you His minister, yet, in the General Assembly of angels
and men, that your Master in the latter day shall call in the clouds,
you shall get a testimony of a minister of the Gospel; and from the
Shepherd and the Lord, the righteous Judge, you shall receive the
crown. I think there is a necessity laid on you to preach the Gospel,
and to call people to the covenant of grace, wherever you can safely
do it. I know there are many that will yet receive you as an angel of
God, and yet will be followers of you and of Christ, "receiving the
word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Ghost." The Lord give
you in all things to "approve yourself as the minister of God, in much
patience and affliction, in necessities, distresses, in stripes, in
imprisonment, in labour, and watching, and fasting,--by honour and
dishonour, in good report and ill report" (2 Cor. vi. 4-6). For, now
we live if ye stand fast in the Lord. And the God of all peace, who
hath called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you
have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, and
settle you. Remember me to those that are your companions in
tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, and to
your wife, that will be a faithful helper to you in this time of your
affliction.
[492] Enjoy?
Because I am not able to see you yet, and fearing that when I come to
Glasgow I shall not find you there, I thought good to write.
CCCXXXVIII.--_For the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, the_ LADY
KENMURE.
(_A WORD TO CHEER IN TIMES OF DARKNESS._)
MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--The Lord is gracious who
keepeth your Ladyship in the furnace, when many put out their hand to
iniquity one way or other. We are now shouldering and casting down one
another in the dark, and the godly are hidden from the godly. We make
our own chains heavier by joining with the Lord's enemies; hence new
sufferings to all that dare not say "a confederacy to those to whom
this people say a confederacy, nor fear their fear." (Isa. 8, 12.) As
that is my exercise now, who am not very far from being my lone
(though I know in whom I have believed, at least I should know) in
this place; so I am afraid that the godly there comply with those
declared enemies of God. It will be our strength to walk between
enemies and malignants on either side. This is the day of Jacob's
trouble; yet these dry bones can, and must live. I know not if I shall
see it, but I hope to take this quietness and silence of faith, in the
midst of the noises of the alarm for war, to the grave with me, that
the Lord will build upon the church of Britain and Ireland a palace of
silver, inclosed with boards of cedar.
Dear Madam, faint not; the night is almost gone; "for the vision is
yet for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak, and not lie:
though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, and not
tarry." Madam, weary not; none can outbid your lodging in heaven;
there is more given for it, by Him who hath bespoken it for Jean
Campbell, and taken it for her, than any can offer. The ransom of
blood standeth.
My wife remembereth her respects to your Ladyship. The child is well.
Mrs. Gillespie is well, we hear, but is not here.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his own Lord Jesus Christ,