S. R.
Aberdeen, May 10, 1637.
[CLXX.—To Robert Gordon of Knockbrex.]
(LONGING FOR CHRIST'S GLORY—FELT GUILTINESS—LONGING FOR CHRIST'S LOVE—SANCTIFICATION.)
D EAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter from Edinburgh.
I would not wish to see another heaven, whill I get mine own heaven, but a new moon like the light of the sun, and a new sun like the light of seven days shining upon my poor self, and the Church of Jews and Gentiles, and upon my withered and sunburnt mother, the Church of Scotland, and upon her sister Churches, England and Ireland; and to have this done, to the setting on high of our great King! It mattereth[267] not, howbeit I were separate from Christ, and had a sense of ten thousand years' pain in hell, if this were. O blessed nobility! O glorious, renowned gentry! Oh, blessed were the tribes in this land to wipe my Lord Jesus' weeping face, and to take the sackcloth off Christ's loins, and to put His kingly robes upon Him! Oh, if the Almighty would take no less wager of me than my heaven to have it done! But my fears are still for wrath once upon Scotland. But I know that her day will clear up, and that glory shall be upon the top of the mountains, and joy at the voice[268] of the married wife, once again. Oh that our Lord would make us to contend, and plead, and wrestle by prayers and tears, for our Husband's restoring of His forfeited heritage in Scotland.
Dear brother, I am for the present in no small battle, betwixt felt guiltiness, and pining longings and high fevers for my Well-beloved's love! Alas! I think that Christ's love playeth the niggard to me, and I know it is not for scarcity of love. There is enough in Him, but my hunger prophesieth of in-holding and sparingness in Christ; for I have but little of Him, and little of His sweetness. It is a dear summer with me; yet there is such joy in the eagerness and working of hunger for Christ, that I am often at this, that if I had no other heaven than a continual hunger for Christ, such a heaven of ever-working hunger were still a heaven to me. I am sure that Christ's love cannot be cruel; it must be a ruing, a pitying, a melting-hearted love; but suspension of that love I think half a hell, and the want of it more than a whole hell. When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salvation is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth. I am sure I may defy any man to show me a greater wonder. But, seeing I have no wares, no hire, no money for Christ, He must either take me with want, misery, corruption, or then want me. Oh, if He would be pleased to be compassionate and pitiful-hearted to my pining fevers of longing for Him; or then give me a real pawn to keep, out of His own hand, till God send a meeting betwixt Him and me! But I find neither as yet. Howbeit He who is absent be not cruel nor unkind, yet His absence is cruel and unkind. His love is like itself; His love is His love; but the covering and the cloud, the vail and the mask of His love, is more wise than kind, if I durst speak my apprehensions. I lead no process now against the suspension and delay of God's love; I would with all my heart frist till a day ten heavens, and the sweet manifestations of His love. Certainly I think that I could give Christ much on His word; but my whole pleading is about intimated and borne-in assurance of His love. Oh, if He would persuade me of[269] my heart's desire of His love at all, He should have the term-day of payment at His own cowing.[270] But I know that raving unbelief speaketh its pleasure, while it looketh upon guiltiness and this body of corruption. Oh how loathsome and burdensome is it to carry about a dead corpse, this old carrion of corruption! Oh how steadable a thing is a Saviour, to make a sinner rid of his chains and fetters!
I have now made a new question, whether Christ be more to be loved, for giving Sanctification or for free Justification. And I hold that He is more and most to be loved for sanctification. It is in some respect greater love in Him to sanctify, than to justify; for He maketh us most like Himself in His own essential portraiture and image, in sanctifying us. Justification doth but make us happy, which is to be like angels only. Neither is it such a misery to lie a condemned man, and under unforgiven guiltiness, as to serve sin, and work the works of the devil; and, therefore, I think sanctification cannot be bought: it is above price. God be thanked for ever, that Christ was a told-down price for sanctification. Let a sinner, if possible, lie in hell for ever, if He make him truly holy; and let him lie there burning in love to God, rejoicing in the Holy Ghost, hanging upon Christ by faith and hope,—that is heaven in the heart and bottom of hell!