[CCXXIII.—To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.]
(STATE OF THE CHURCH—BELIEVERS PURIFIED BY AFFLICTION—FOLLY OF SEEKING JOY IN A DOOMED WORLD.)
D EAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—There is no question but our mother-church hath a Father, and that she shall not die without an heir: her enemies shall not make Mount Zion their heritage. We see that whithersoever Zion's enemies go, suppose they dig many miles under ground, yet our Lord findeth them out: and He hath vengeance laid up in store for them, and the poor and needy shall not always be forgotten. Our hope was drooping and withering, and man was saying, "What can God make out of the old dry bones of this buried kirk?" The prelates and their followers were a grave above us. It is like that our Lord is to open our graves, and purposeth to cause His two slain witnesses to rise on the third day. Oh, how long wait I to hear our weeping Lord Jesus sing again, and triumph and rejoice, and divide the spoil!
I find it hard work to believe when the course of providence goeth cross-wise to our faith, and when misted souls in a dark night cannot know east by west, and our sea-compass seemeth to fail us. Every man is a believer in daylight: a fair day seemeth to be made all of faith and hope. What a trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the fire! but to keep gold perfectly yellow-coloured amidst the flames, and to be turned from vessel to vessel, and yet to cause our furnace to sound, and speak, and cry the praises of the Lord, is another matter. I know that my Lord made me not for fire, howbeit He hath fitted me in some measure for the fire. I bless His high name that I wax not paler, neither have I lost the colour of gold; and that His fire hath made me somewhat thin, and that my Lord may pour me into any vessel He pleaseth. For a small wager I may justly quit my part of this world's laughter, and give up with time, and cast out with the pleasures of this world.
I know a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh or sport. Surely our Lord seeketh this of us, as to any rejoicing in present perishing things. I see above all things, that we may sit down, and fold legs and arms, and stretch ourselves upon Christ, and laugh at the feathers that children are chasing here. For I think the men of this world like children in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play and make sport with the white foam of the waves thereof, coming in to sink and drown them; so are men making fool's sports with the white pleasures of a stormy world, that will sink them. But, alas! what have we to do with their sports which they make? If Solomon said of laughter, that it was madness, what may we say of this world's laughing and sporting themselves with gold and silver, and honours, and court, and broad large conquests, but that they are poor souls, in the height and rage of a fever gone mad? Then a straw, a fig, for all created sports and rejoicing out of Christ! Nay, I think that this world, at its prime and perfection, when it is come to the top of its excellency and to the bloom, might be bought with an halfpenny; and that it would scarce weigh the worth of a drink of water. There is nothing better than to esteem it our crucified idol (that is, dead and slain), as Paul did (Gal. vi. 14). Then let pleasures be crucified, and riches be crucified, and court and honour be crucified. And since the apostle saith that the world is crucified to him, we may put this world to the hanged man's doom, and to the gallows: and who will give much for a hanged man? as little should we give for a hanged and crucified world. Yet, what a sweet smell hath this dead carrion to many fools in the world! and how many wooers and suitors findeth this hanged carrion! Fools are pulling it off the gallows, and contending for it. Oh, when will we learn to be mortified men, and to have our fill of those things that have but their short summer quarter of this life! If we saw our Father's house, and that great and fair city, the New Jerusalem, which is up above sun and moon, we would cry to be over the water, and to be carried in Christ's arms out of this borrowed prison.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.