M ADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I dare not say that I wonder that ye have never written to me in my bonds, because I am not ignorant of the cause; yet I could not but write to you.
I know not whether joy or heaviness in my soul carrieth it away. Sorrow, without any mixture of sweetness, hath not often love-thoughts of Christ; but I see that the devil can insinuate himself, and ride his errands upon the thoughts of a poor distressed prisoner. I am woe[284] that I am making Christ my unfriend, by seeking pleas against Him, because I am the first in the kingdom put to utter silence, and because I cannot preach my Lord's righteousness in the great congregation. I am, notwithstanding, the less solicitous how it go, if there be not wrath in my cup. But I know that I but claw my wounds when my Physician hath forbidden me. I would believe in the dark upon luck's head, and take my hazard of Christ's good-will, and rest on this, that in my fever my Physician is at my bedside, and that He sympathizeth with me when I sigh. My borrowed house, and another man's bed and fireside, and other losses, have no room in my sorrow; a greater heat to eat out a less fire, is a good remedy for some burning. I believe that when Christ draweth blood, He hath skill to cut the right vein; and that He hath taken the whole ordering and disposing of my sufferings. Let Him tutor me, and tutor my crosses, as He thinketh good. There is no danger nor hazard in following such a guide, howbeit He should lead me through hell, if I could put faith foremost, and fill the field with a quiet on-waiting, and believing to see the salvation of God. I know that Christ is not obliged to let me see both the sides of my cross, and turn it over and over that I may see all. My faith is richer to live upon credit, and Christ's borrowed money, than to have much on hand. Alas! I have forgotten that faith in times past hath stopped a leak in my crazed bark, and half filled my sails with a fair wind. I see it a work of God that experiences are all lost, when summons of improbation, to prove our charters of Christ to be counterfeits, are raised against poor souls in their heavy trials.
But let me be a sinner, and worse than the chief of sinners, yea, a guilty devil, I am sure that my Well-beloved is God. And when I say that Christ is God, and that my Christ is God, I have said all things, I can say no more. I would that I could build as much on this, "My Christ is God," as it would bear. I might lay all the world upon it. I am sure, that Christ untried, and untaken-up in the power of His love, kindness, mercies, goodness, wisdom, long-suffering, and greatness, is the rock that dim-sighted travellers dash their foot against, and so stumble fearfully. But my wounds are sorest, and pain me most, when I sin against His love and mercy. And if He would set me and my conscience by the ears together, and resolve not to red the plea, but let us deal it betwixt us, my spitting upon the fair face of Christ's love and mercies by my jealousies, unbelief, and doubting, would be enough to sink me. Oh, oh, I am convinced! O Lord, I stand dumb before Thee for this! Let me be mine own judge in this, and I take a dreadful doom upon me for it. For I still misbelieve, though I have seen that my Lord hath made my cross as if it were all crystal, so as I can see through it Christ's fair face and heaven; and that God hath honoured a lump of sinful flesh and blood the like of me, to be Christ's honourable lord-prisoner. I ought to esteem the walls of the thieves' hole (if I were shut up in it), or any stinking dungeon, all hung with tapestry, and most beautiful, for my Lord Jesus; and yet, I am not so shut up but that the sun shineth upon my prison, and the fair wide heaven is the covering of it. But my Lord, in His sweet visits, hath done more; for He maketh me to find that He will be a confined prisoner with me. He lieth down and riseth up with me; when I sigh, He sigheth; when I weep, He suffereth with me; and I confess that here is the blessed issue of my sufferings already begun, that my heart is filled with hunger and desire to have Him glorified in my sufferings.
Blessed be ye of the Lord, Madam, if ye would help a poor dyvour, and cause others of your acquaintance in Christ to help me to pay my debt of love, even real praises to Christ my Lord. Madam, let me charge you in the Lord, as ye shall answer to Him, to help me in this duty (which He hath tied about my neck with a chain of such singular expressions of His loving-kindness), to set on high Christ; to hold in my honesty at His hands[285]; for I have nothing to give to Him. Oh that He would arrest and comprise my love and my heart for all! I am a dyvour, who have no more free goods in the world for Christ save that; it is both the whole heritage I have, and all my moveables besides. Lord, give the thirsty man a drink. Oh, to be over the ears in the well! Oh, to be swattering and swimming over head and ears in Christ's love! I would not have Christ's love entering into me, but I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of that love. But I see not myself here; for I fear I make more of His love than of Himself; whereas Himself is far beyond and much better than His love. Oh, if I had my sinful arms filled with that lovely one Christ! Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, who sendeth not away beggars from His house with a toom dish. He filleth the vessels of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich (if we were wise) if we could hold out our withered hands to Christ, and learn to suit and seek, ask and knock. I owe my salvation for Christ's glory, I owe it to Christ; and desire that my hell, yea, a new hell, seven times hotter than the old hell, might buy praises before men and angels to my Lord Jesus; providing always that I were free of Christ's hatred and displeasure. What am I, to be forfeited and sold in soul and body, to have my great and royal King set on high and extolled above all? Oh, if I knew how high to have Him set, and all the world far, far beneath the soles of His feet? Nay, I deserve not to be the matter of His praises, far less to be an agent in praising of Him. But He can win His own glory out of me, and out of worse than I (if any such be), if it please His holy majesty so to do. He knoweth that I am not now flattering Him.
Madam, let me have your prayers, as ye have the prayers and blessing of him that is separated from his brethren. Grace, grace be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1637.