[CCLVI.—To William Rigge of Athernie.]
(THE LAW—GRACE—CHALKING OUT PROVIDENCES FOR OURSELVES—PRESCRIBING TO HIS LOVE.)
M UCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,—Your letter, full of complaints, bemoaning your guiltiness, hath humbled me. But give me leave to say that ye seem to be too far upon the law's side. Ye will not gain much to be the law's advocate. I thought ye had not been the law's but grace's man; nevertheless, I am sure that ye desire to take God's part against yourself. Whatever your guiltiness be, yet, when it falleth into the sea of God's mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen into the great ocean. There is nothing here to be done, but to let Christ's doom light on "the old man," and let him bear his condemnation, seeing in Christ he was condemned; for the law hath but power over your worst half. Let the blame, therefore, lie where the blame should be; and let the new man be sure to say, "I am comely as the tents of Kedar, howbeit I be black and sunburnt, by sitting neighbour beside a body of sin." I seek no more here than room for grace's defence, and Christ's white throne, whereto a sinner, condemned by the law, may appeal. But the use that I make of it is, I am sorry that I am not so tender and thin-skinned;[368] though I am sure that Christ may find employment for His calling in me, if in any living, seeing, from my youth upward, I have been making up the blackest process that any minister in the world, or any other, can answer to. And, when I had done this, I painted a providence of my own, and wrote ease for myself, and a peaceable ministry, and the sun shining on me, till I should be in at heaven's gates; such green and raw thoughts had I of God! I thought also of a sleeping devil, that would pass by the like of me, lying in muirs and outfields; so I bigged the gowk's nest and dreamed of dying at ease, and living in a fool's paradise. But since I came hither, I am often so as they would have much rhetoric that could persuade me, that Christ hath not written wrath on my dumb and silent Sabbaths; which is a persecution of the latest edition, being used against none in this land, that I can learn of, besides me. And often I lie under a non-entry, and would gladly sell all my joys to be confirmed free tenant of the King Jesus, and to have sealed assurances: but I see often blank papers. And my greatest desires are these two:—1. That Christ would take me in hand to cure me, and undertake for a sick man. I know that I should not die under His hand. And yet in this, while I still doubt, I believe through a cloud that sorrow (which hath no eyes) hath but put a vail on Christ's love. 2. It pleaseth Him often, since I came hither, to come with some short blinks of His sweet love. And then, because I have none to help me to praise His love, and can do Him no service in my own person (as I once thought I did in His temple), I die with wishes and desires to take up house and dwell at the well-side, and to have Him praised and set on high. But, alas! what can the like of me do, to get a good name raised upon my well-beloved Lord Jesus, suppose I could desire to be suspended for ever of my part of heaven, for His glory? I am sure, if I could get my will of Christ's love, and could once be over head and ears in the believed, apprehended, and seen love of the Son of God, it were the fulfilling of the desires of the only happiness I would be at. But the truth is, I hinder my communion with Him, because of the want of both faith and repentance, and because I will make an idol of Christ's kisses. I will neither lead nor drive,[369] except I see Christ's love run in my channel; and when I wait and look for Him the upper way, I see His wisdom is pleased to play me a slip, and come the lower way. So that I have not the right art of guiding Christ; for there is art and wisdom required in guiding of Christ's love aright when we have gotten it. Oh, how far are His ways above mine? Oh, how little of Him do I see! And when I am as dry as a burnt heath in a drouthy summer, and when my root is withered, howbeit I think then that I would drink a sea-full of Christ's love, ere ever I would let the cup go from my head, yet I get nothing but delays, as if He would make hunger my daily food. I think myself also hungered of hunger. The rich Lord Jesus satisfy a famished man. Grace be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 10, 1637.