EDINBURGH, _May 27, 1653_.
CCCXLII.--_For the Right Honourable and truly worthy_ COLONEL GILBERT
KER.
(_DEADNESS--HOPES OF REFRESHMENT--DISTANCE FROM GOD--NEARNESS
DELIGHTED IN._)
MUCH HONOURED IN THE LORD,--How it is with you may appear by your
letters to some with us; but it is the complaint of not a few of such
as were in Christ before me, that most of us inhabit and dwell in a
parched land. The people of the Lord are like a land not rained upon.
Though some dare not deny that this is the garden of the Beloved, and
the vineyard that the Lord doth keep and water every moment, yet, oh!
where are the sometime quickening breathings and influences from
heaven that have refreshed His hidden ones?
The causes of His withdrawings are unknown to us. One thing cannot be
denied, but that ways of high sovereignty and dominion of grace are
far out of the sight of angels and men; yea, and so above the fixed
way of free promises (such as, "This do, and He shall breathe and blow
upon His garden"), as He hath put forth a declaration to His hidden
ones in Scotland, that smarting, wrestlings, prayings, complaining,
gracious missing, cannot earn the visits from on high, nor fetch down
showers upon the desert. It may be, when we are saying in our graves,
"Our bones are dry, and our hope gone," that temporal and spiritual
deliverance may come both together; and that He will cause us feel,
both the one way and the other, the good of His reign who shortly
cometh to the throne. "He shall come down like rain upon the mown
grass, as showers that water the earth." "In His days shall the
righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon
endureth." "He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also,
and him that hath no helper." "He shall redeem their soul from deceit
and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight" (Ps.
lxxii. 6-16). And though we cannot pray home a sweet season that way,
yet Christ must bring summer with Him when He cometh. "There shall be
an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the
fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon."
I know not if I apply prophecies as I would, rather than as they are.
When the one Shepherd is set over them, even He who shall stand (oh
how much do we _lie!_) and feed in the strength of the Lord, the isles
(and this the greatest of them), which wait for His law, are to look
for that; "And I will make them, and the places round about My hill, a
blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season:
there shall be showers of blessing" (Ezek. xxxiv. 26). How desirable
must every drop of such a shower be! And, "I will be as the dew to
Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as
Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the
olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon" (Hosea xiv. 5, 6). And, "Instead
of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier
shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" (Isa. lv. 13). "I
will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the
oil-tree" (Isa. xli. 19). "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty,
and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed,
and My blessing upon thine offspring." And it shall be no lost labour
or fruitless husbandry; "They shall spring up as among the grass, as
willows by the water-courses" (Isa. xliv. 3, 4). But _when_ this shall
be in Scotland (and it must be) is better to believe than prophesy;
and quietly to hope and sit still (for that is yet our strength), than
to quarrel with Him, that the wheels of this chariot move leisurely.
Yet this can hardly say anything to us who do so much please ourselves
in our deadness, and are almost gone from godly thirst and missing
too, being half-satisfied with our witheredness. No doubt we have
marred His influences, and have not seconded nor smiled upon His
actings upon us. Nor have we been much of his strain who doth eight
times breathe out that suit, "Quicken me, quicken me" (Ps. cxix.). So
much are we desirous to be acted upon by the Lord as blocks and
stones; and so prodigal are we of His motions, as if they were no
better to be husbanded. But it is good that it is not in our power to
blast and undo His breathings; His wind bloweth where He listeth.
Could we but lean, and cast a quiet spirit under the dewings and
showerings of Him that every moment watereth His vineyard, how happy
and blessed were we! We neither open nor discern His knocking, nor do
we feel His hand put in through the keyhole, nor can we give any
spiritual account of the walkings and motions of Christ, _when_ He
standeth behind the wall, _when_ He cometh skipping over the
mountains, _when_ He cometh to His garden and feasteth, _when_ He
feedeth among the lilies, _when_ His spikenard casteth a smell, _when_
He knocketh and withdraweth, and is nowhere to be found. Oh, how
little a portion of God we see! How little study we God! How rarely
read we God, or are versed in the lively apprehensions of that great
unknown All in All, the glorious Godhead, and the Godhead revealed in
Christ! We dwell far from the well, and complain but dryly of our
dryness and dulness. We are rather dry than thirsty.
Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility; but for me, I
neither know what He is, nor His Son's name, nor where He dwelleth. I
hear a report of Christ great enough, and that is all. Oh! what is
nearness to Him? What is that, to be "in God," to "dwell in God"? What
a house must that be! (1 John iv. 13). How far are some from their
house and home? how ill acquaint with the rooms, mansions, safety, and
sweetness of holy security to be found in God! Oh, what estrangement!
what wandering! what frequent conversing with self and the creature!
Is not here "the bed shorter than that a man can stretch himself on
it? and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it?"
(Isa. xxviii. 20). When shall we attain to a living in only, only God!
and be estranged from all the poor created nothings, the painted
shadow-beings of yesterday, which, an hour and less before creation,
were dark waste negatives and empty nothings, and should so have been
for eternity, had the Lord suffered them to lie there for ever!
It is He, the great "He, who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and
the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the
heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in,
that bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the judges of the
earth as vanity" (Isa. xl. 22, 23). And He, the only He, and there is
no He beside Him (Isa. xliii. 10, 11, 13-25). Men or angels, they are
not any of them a _he_ to Him! But a living, breathing, dying nothing
is _man_ at his best, a sick clay-vanity; and the _angel_, to Him, but
a more excellent, living and understanding nothing. Yet we live at a
distance from Him; and we die and wither when we are out of God. Oh,
if we knew how nothing we are without Him!
Sir, we desire to mind your bonds; and are cheered and refreshed that
we hear of any of His manifestations, and His outgoings, which are
prepared as the morning to you. We hope that we need not desire you
not to faint, and are confident that the anointing that abideth in you
teacheth you so much. Wait upon the speaking vision: "Behold, He
cometh! behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him!"
(Isa. xl. 10).
The only wise God strengthen you with all might, according to His
glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.
Yours, at all observance, in the Lord Jesus,