Aberdeen, 1637.
[CLXIII.—To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr.]
(VIEW OF TRIALS PAST—HARD THOUGHTS OF CHRIST—CROSSES—HOPE.)
W ORTHY AND DEARLY BELOVED IN OUR LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I was refreshed and comforted with your letter. What I wrote to you, for your comfort, I do not remember; but I believe that love will prophesy homeward,[252] as it would have it. I wish that I could help you to praise His great and holy name who keepeth the feet of His saints, and hath numbered all your goings. I know that our dearest Lord will pardon and pass by our honest errors and mistakes, when we mind His honour; yet I know that none of you have seen the other half, and the hidden side, of your wonderful return home to us again. I am confident ye shall yet say, that God's mercy blew your sails back to Ireland again.
Worthy and dear Sir, I cannot but give you an account of my present estate, that ye may go an errand for me to my high and royal Master, of whom I boast all the day. I am as proud of His love (nay, I bless myself, and boast more of my present lot) as any poor man can be of an earthly king's court, or of a kingdom. First, I am very often turning both the sides of my cross, especially my dumb and silent Sabbaths; not because I desire to find a crook or defect in my Lord's love, but because my love is sick with fancies and fear. Whether or not the Lord hath a process leading against my guiltiness, that I have not yet well seen, I know not. My desire is to ride fair, and not to spark dirt (if, with reverence to Him, I may be permitted to make use of such a word) in the face of my only, only Well-beloved; but fear of guiltiness is a talebearer betwixt me and Christ, and is still whispering ill tales of my Lord, to weaken my faith. I had rather that a cloud went over my comforts by these messages, than that my faith should be hurt; for, if my Lord get no wrong by me, verily I desire grace not to care what become of me. I desire to give no faith nor credit to my sorrow, that can make a lie of my best friend Christ. Woe, woe be to them all who speak ill of Christ! Hence these thoughts awake with me in the morning, and go to bed with me. Oh, what service can a dumb body do in Christ's house! Oh, I think the word of God is imprisoned also! Oh, I am a dry tree! Alas, I can neither plant nor water! Oh, if my Lord would make but dung of me, to fatten and make fertile His own corn-ridges in Mount Zion! Oh, if I might but speak to three or four herdboys[253] of my worthy Master, I would be satisfied to be the meanest and most obscure of all the pastors in this land, and to live in any place, in any of Christ's basest outhouses! But He saith, "Sirrah, I will not send you; I have no errands for you thereaway." My desire to serve Him is sick of jealousy, lest He be unwilling to employ me. Secondly, This is seconded by another. Oh! all that I have done in Anwoth, the fair work that my Master began there, is like a bird dying in the shell; and what will I then have to show of all my labour, in the day of my compearance before Him, when the Master of the vineyard calleth the labourers, and giveth them their hire? Thirdly, But truly, when Christ's sweet wind is in the right airth, I repent, and I pray Christ to take law-burrows of my quarrelous unbelieving sadness and sorrow. Lord, rebuke them that put ill betwixt a poor servant like me and his good Master. Then I say, whether the black cross will or not, I must climb on hands and feet up to my Lord. I am now ruing from my heart that I pleasured the law (my old dead husband) so far as to apprehend wrath in my sweet Lord Jesus. I had far rather take a hire to plead for the grace of God, for I think myself Christ's sworn debtor; and the truth is (to speak of my Lord what I cannot deny), I am over head and ears, drowned in many obligations to His love and mercy.
He handleth me some time so, that I am ashamed almost to seek more for a four-hours, but to live content (till the marriage-supper of the Lamb) with that which He giveth. But I know not how greedy and how ill to please love is. For either my Lord Jesus hath taught me ill manners, not to be content with a seat, except my head lie in His bosom, and except I be fed with the fatness of His house; or else I am grown impatiently dainty, and ill to please, as if Christ were obliged, under this cross, to do no other thing but bear me in His arms, and as if I had claim by merit for my suffering for Him. But I wish He would give me grace to learn to go on my own feet, and to learn to do without His comforts, and to give thanks and believe, when the sun is not in my firmament, and when my Well-beloved is from home, and gone another errand. Oh, what sweet peace have I, when I find that Christ holdeth and I draw; when I climb up and He shuteth me down; when I grips Him and embrace Him, and He seemeth to loose the grips and flee away from me! I think there is even a sweet joy of faith, and contentedness, and peace, in His very tempting unkindness, because my faith saith, "Christ is not in sad earnest with me, but trying if I can be kind to His mask and cloud that covereth Him, as well as to His fair face." I bless His great name that I love His vail which goeth over His face, whill God send better; for faith can kiss God's tempting reproaches when He nicknameth a sinner, "A dog, not worthy to eat bread with the bairns" (Mark vii. 27, 28). I think it an honour that Christ miscalleth me, and reproacheth me. I will take that well of Him, howbeit I would not bear it well if another should be that homely; but because I am His own (God be thanked), He may use me as He pleaseth. I must say, the saints have a sweet life between them and Christ. There is much sweet solace of love between Him and them, when He feedeth among the lilies, and cometh into His garden, and maketh a feast of honeycombs, and drinketh His wine and His milk, and crieth, "Eat, O friends: drink, yea, drink abundantly, O well-beloved." One hour of this labour is worth a shipful of the world's drunken and muddy joy; nay, even the gate[254] to heaven is the sunny side of the brae, and the very garden of the world. For the men of this world have their own unchristened and profane crosses; and woe be to them and their cursed crosses both; for their ills are salted with God's vengeance, and our ills seasoned with our Father's blessing. So that they are no fools who choose Christ, and sell all things for Him. It is no bairns' market, nor a blind block; we know well what we get, and what we give.
Now, for any resolution to go to any other kingdom, I dare not speak one word.[255] My hopes of enlargement are cold, my hopes of re-entry to my Master's ill-dressed vineyard again are far colder. I have no seat for my faith to sit on, but bare omnipotency, and God's holy arm and good-will. Here I desire to stay, and ride at anchor, and winter, whill God send fair weather again, and be pleased to take home to His house my harlot-mother. Oh, if her husband would be that kind, as to go and fetch her out of the brothel-house, and chase her lovers to the hills! But there will be sad days ere it come to that. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you.