And for your complaints of your ministry. I now think all I do too little. Plainness, freedom, watchfulness, fidelity, shall swell upon you, in exceeding large comforts, in your sufferings. The feeding of Christ's lambs in private visitations and catechising, in painful preaching, and fair, honest, and free warning of the flock, is a sufferer's garland. Oh, ten thousand times blessed are they, who are honoured of Christ to be faithful and painful in wooing a bride to Christ! My dear brother, I know that ye think more on this than I can write; and I rejoice that your purpose is, in the Lord's strength, to back your wronged Master; and to come out, and call yourself Christ's man, when so many are now denying Him, as fearing that Christ cannot do for Himself and them. I am a lost man for ever, or this, this is the way to salvation, even this way, which they call heresy, that men now do mock and scoff at. I am confirmed now that Christ will accept of His servant's sufferings as good service to Him at the day of His Appearance; and that, ere it be long, He will be upon us all, and men in their blacks and whites shall be brought out before God, angels, and men. Our Master is not far off. Oh, if we could wait on and be faithful! The good-will of Him who dwelt in The Bush, the tender favour and love, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you.
Help me with your prayers; and desire, from me, other brethren to take courage for their Master.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, August 15, 1637.
[CCXXIX.—To Mr. Hugh Mackail of Irvine.]
(THE LAW—THIS WORLD UNDER CHRIST'S CONTROL FOR THE BELIEVER.)
M Y VERY DEAR BROTHER,—Ye know that men may take their sweet fill of the sour Law, in Grace's ground, and betwixt the Mediator's breasts. And this is the sinner's safest way; for there is a bed for wearied sinners to rest them in, in the New Covenant, though no bed of Christ's making to sleep in. The Law shall never be my doomster, by Christ's grace. If I get no more good of it (I shall find a sore enough doom in the Gospel to humble, and to cast me down), it is, I grant, a good rough friend to follow a traitor to the bar, and to back him till he come to Christ. We may blame ourselves, who cause the Law to crave well-paid debt, to scare us away from Jesus, and dispute about a righteousness of our own, a world in the moon, a chimera, and a night-dream that pride is father and mother to. There cannot be a more humble soul than a believer; it is no pride for a drowning man to catch hold of a rock.