Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,
S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
[CCXI.—To a Christian Gentlewoman.]
(GOD'S SKILL TO BLESS BY AFFLICTION—UNKINDNESS OF MEN—NEAR THE DAY OF MEETING THE LORD.)
M ISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Though not acquainted, yet at the desire of a Christian brother, I have thought good to write a line unto you, entreating you, in the Lord Jesus, under your trials to keep an ear open to Christ, who can speak for Himself, howbeit your visitations,[326] and your own sense, should dream hard things of His love and favour. Our Lord never getteth so kind a look of us, nor our love in such a degree, nor our faith in such a measure of stedfastness, as He getteth out of the furnace of our tempting fears and sharp trials. I verily believe (and two sad proofs in me say no less), that if our Lord would grind our whorish lusts into powder, the very old ashes of our corruption would take life again, and live, and hold us under so much bondage, that may humble us, and make us sad, till we be in that country where we shall need no physic at all. Oh, what violent means doth our Lord use to gain us to Him, as if indeed we were a prize worthy His fighting for! And be sure, if leading would do the turn, He would not use pulling of the hair, and drawing: but the best of us will bide a strong pull of our Lord's right arm ere we follow Him. Yet I say not this, as if our Lord always measured afflictions by so many ounce-weights, answerable to the grain-weights of our guiltiness. I know that He doth in many (and possibly in you) seek nothing so much as faith, that can endure summer and winter in their extremity. Oh, how precious to the Lord are faith and love, that when threshed, beaten, and chased away, and bosted as it were by God Himself, doth yet look warm-like, love-like, kind-like, and life-like, home-over to Christ, and would be in at Him, ill and well as it may be.
Think it not much that your husband, or the nearest to you in the world, proveth to have the bowels and mercy of the ostrich, hard, and rigorous, and cruel; for the Lord taketh up such fallen ones as these (Ps. xxvii. 10). I could not wish a sweeter life, or more satisfying expressions of kindness, till I be up at that Prince of kindness, than the Lord's saints find, when the Lord taketh up men's refuse, and lodgeth this world's outlaws, whom no man seeketh after. His breath is never so hot, His love casteth never such a flame, as when this world, and those who should be the helpers of our joy, cast water on our coal. It is a sweet thing to see them cast out, and God taken in; and to see them throw us away as the refuse of men, and God take us up as His jewels and His treasure. Often He maketh gold of dross, as once He made the cast-away stone, "the stone rejected by the builders," the head of the corner. The princes of this world would not have our Lord Jesus as a pinning in the wall, or to have any place in the building; but the Lord made Him the master-stone of power and place. God be thanked, that this world hath not power to cry us down so many pounds, as rulers cry down light gold, or light silver. We shall stand for as much as our master-coiner Christ, whose coin, arms, and stamp we bear, will have us. Christ hath no miscarrying balance. Thank your Lord, who chaseth your love through two kingdoms, and followeth you and it over sea, to have you for Himself, as He speaketh (Hos. iii. 3). For God layeth up His saints, as the wale and the choice of all the world, for Himself; and this is like Christ and His love. Oh, what in heaven, or out of heaven, is comparable to the smell of Christ's garments! Nay, suppose that our Lord would manifest His art, and make ten thousand heavens of good and glorious things, and of new joys, devised out of the deep of infinite wisdom, He could not make the like of Christ; for Christ is God, and God cannot be made. And therefore, let us hold with Christ, howbeit we might have our wale and will of a host of lovers, as many as three heavens could contain.
Oh that He and we were together! Oh, when Christ and ye shall meet about the utmost march and borders of time, and the entry into eternity, ye shall see heaven in His face at the first look, and salvation and glory sitting in His countenance, and betwixt His eyes. Faint not; the miles to heaven are but few and short. He is making a green bed (as the word speaketh, Cant. i. 16) of love, for Himself and you. There are many heads lying in Christ's bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest; and, therefore, go on, and let hope go before you. Sin not in your trials, and the victory is yours. Pray, wrestle, and believe, and ye shall overcome and prevail with God, as Jacob did. No windlestraws, no bits of clay, no temptations, which are of no longer life than an hour, will then be able to withstand you, when once you have prevailed with God.