Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
[CCXXXIX.—To Mr. Matthew Mowat. [Letter CXX.]
(WHAT AM I?—LONGING TO ACT FOR CHRIST—UNBELIEF—LOVE IN THE HIDING OF CHRIST'S FACE—CHRIST'S REPROACH.)
R EVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I am refreshed with your letters. I would take all well at my Lord's hands that He hath done, if I knew that I could do my Lord any service in my suffering; suppose my Lord would make a stop-hole of me, to fill a hole in the wall of His house, or a pinning in Zion's new work. For any place of trust in my Lord's house, as steward, or chamberlain, or the like, surely I think myself (my very dear brother, I speak not by any proud figure or trope) unworthy of it; nay, I am not worthy to stand behind the door. If my head, and feet, and body were half out, half in, in Christ's house, so that I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my greening and love-sick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at work, and speaking in the name of our Lord Jesus, I think myself but an outcast, or outlaw, chased from the city to lie on the hills, and live amongst the rocks and out-fields. Oh that I might but stand in Christ's out-house, or hold a candle in any low vault of His house! But I know this is but the vapours that arise out of a quarrelous and unbelieving heart to darken the wisdom of God; and your fault is just mine, that I cannot believe my Lord's bare and naked word. I must either have an apple to play me with, and shake hands with Christ, and have seal, caution, and witness to His word, or else I count myself loose; howbeit, I have the word and faith of a King! Oh, I am made of unbelief, and cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground! Alas! Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying waters,[348] as a dyvour and a cozener! We can make such a Christ as temptations, casting us into a night-dream, do feign and devise; and temptations represent Christ ever unlike Himself, and we, in our folly, listen to the tempter.
If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would my soul be! But I myself, which is the greatest evil, often mistake the cross of Christ. For I know, if we had wisdom, and knew well that ease slayeth us fools, we would desire a market where we might barter or niffer our lazy ease with a profitable cross; howbeit there be an outcast natural betwixt our desires and tribulation. But some give a dear price, and gold, for physic which they love not, and buy sickness, howbeit they wish rather to have been whole than to be sick. But surely, brother, ye shall have my advice (howbeit, alas! I cannot follow it myself), not to contend with the honest and faithful Lord of the house; for, go He or come He, He is aye gracious in His departure. There are grace, and mercy, and loving-kindness upon Christ's back parts; and when He goeth away, the proportion of His face, the image of that fair Sun that stayeth in eyes, senses, and heart, after He is gone, leaveth a mass of love behind it in the heart. The sound of His knock at the door of His Beloved, after He is gone and passed, leaveth a share of joy and sorrow both. So we have something to feed upon till He return: and He is more loved in His departure, and after He is gone, than before, as the day in the declining of the sun, and towards the evening, is often most desired.
And as for Christ's cross, I never received evil of it, but what was of mine own making: when I miscooked Christ's physic, no marvel that it hurt me. For since it was on Christ's back, it hath always a sweet smell, and these 1600 years it keepeth the smell of Christ. Nay, it is older than that too; for it is a long time since Abel first handselled the cross, and had it laid upon his shoulder; and down from him, all alongst to this very day, all the saints have known what it is. I am glad that Christ Jesus hath such a relation to this cross, and that it is called "the cross of our Lord Jesus" (Gal. vi. 14), His reproach (Heb. xiii. 13), as if Christ would claim it as His proper goods, and so it cometh into the reckoning among Christ's own property. If it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is not the author nor owner of sin, would not own it.