M ISTRESS,—My love in Christ as remembered. Our Communion is on Sabbath come[111] eight days. I will entreat you to recommend it to God, and to pray for me in that work. I have more sins upon me now than the last time. Therefore I will beseech you in Christ, seek this petition to me from God, that the Lord would give me grace to vow and perform new obedience. I have cause to suit this of you; and show it to Thomas Carson, Fergus and Jean Brown, for I have been and am exceedingly cast down, and am fighting against a malicious devil, of whom I can win little ground. I would think a spoil plucked from him, and his trusty servant sin, a lawful and just conquest. And it were no sin to take from him, in the name of the Goodman of our house, our King Jesus. I invite you to the banquet. He saith, ye shall be dearly welcome to Him. And I desire to believe (howbeit not without great fear) He shall be as hearty in His own house as He has been before. For me, it is but small reckoning; but I would fain have our Father and Lord to break the great fair loaf, Christ, and to distribute His slain Son amongst the bairns of His house, and that if any were a step-bairn, in respect of comfort and sense, it were rather myself than His poor bairns. Therefore bid our Well-beloved come to His garden and feed among the lilies.
And as concerning Zion, I hope our Lord, who sent His angel (Zech. ii. 1, 2) with a measuring line in his hand to measure the length and breadth of Jerusalem, in token He would not want a foot length or inch of His own free heritage, shall take order with those who have taken away many acres of His own land from Him. And God will build Jerusalem in the old sted and place where it was before. In this hope rejoice and be glad. Christ's garment was not dipped in blood for nothing, but for His Bride, whom He bought with strokes. I will desire you to remember my old suits to God, God's glory and the increase of light, that I dry not up. For your town, hope and believe that the Lord will gather in His loose sheaves among you to His barn, and send one with a well-toothed, sharp hook, and strong gardies, to reap His harvest. And the Lord Jesus be Husbandman, and oversee the growing. Remember my love to your husband and to Samuel. Grace upon you and your children. Lord, make them corner-stones in Jerusalem, and give them grace in their youth to take band with the fair Chief Corner-stone, who was hewed out of the mountain without hands, and got many a knock with His Father's forehammer, and endured them all, and the stone did neither cleave nor break. Upon that stone make your soul to lie. King Jesus be with your spirit.
Your friend in his well-beloved Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Anwoth.
[XIX.—To my Lady Kenmure.]
(ENCOURAGEMENT TO ABOUND IN FAITH FROM THE PROSPECT OF GLORY—CHRIST'S UNCHANGEABLENESS.)
M ADAM,—Having saluted you in the Lord Jesus, I thought it my duty, having the occasion of this bearer, to write again unto your ladyship, though I have no new purpose but what I wrote of before. Yet ye cannot be too often awakened to go forward towards your city, since your way is long, and (for anything ye know) your day is short. And your Lord requireth of you, as ye advance in years and steal forward insensibly towards eternity, that your faith may grow and ripen for the Lord's harvest. For the great Husbandman giveth a season to His fruits that they may come to maturity, and having gotten their fill of the tree they may then be shaken and gathered in for use; whereas the wicked rot upon the tree, and their branch shall not be green. "He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive" (Job xv. 33). It is God's mercy to you, Madam, that He giveth you your fill, even to loathing, of this bitter world, that ye may willingly leave it, and, like a full and satisfied banqueter,[112] long for the drawing of the table. And at last, having trampled under your feet all the rotten pleasures that are under sun and moon, and having rejoiced as though ye rejoiced not, and having bought as though ye possessed not (1 Cor. vii. 30), ye may, like an old crazy ship, arrive at our Lord's harbour, and be made welcome, as one of those who have ever had one foot loose from the earth, longing for that place where your soul shall feast and banquet for ever and ever upon a glorious sight of the incomprehensible Trinity, and where ye shall see the fair face of the man Christ, even the beautiful face that was once for your cause more marred than any of the visages of the sons of men (Isa. lii. 14), and was all covered with spitting and blood. Be content to wade through the waters betwixt you and glory with Him, holding His hand fast, for He knoweth all the fords. Howbeit ye may be ducked, but ye cannot drown, being in His company; and ye may all the way to glory see the way bedewed with His blood who is the Forerunner. Be not afraid, therefore, when ye come even to the black and swelling river of death, to put in your foot and wade after Him. The current, how strong soever, cannot carry you down the water to hell: the Son of God, His death and resurrection, are stepping-stones and a stay to you; set down your feet by faith upon these stones, and go through as on dry land. If ye knew what He is preparing for you, ye would be too glad. He will not (it may be) give you a full draught till you come up to the well-head and drink, yea, drink abundantly, of the pure river of the water of life, that proceedeth out from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. xxii. 1). Madam, tire not, weary not; I dare find you the Son of God caution, when ye are got up thither, and have cast your eyes to view the golden city, and the fair and never-withering Tree of Life, that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, ye shall then say, "Four-and-twenty hours' abode in this place is worth threescore and ten years' sorrow upon earth." If ye can but say, that ye long earnestly to be carried up thither (and I hope you cannot for shame deny Him the honour of having wrought that desire in your soul), then hath your Lord given you an earnest. And, Madam, do ye believe that our Lord will lose His earnest, and rue of the bargain, and change His mind, as if He were a man that can lie, or the son of man that can repent? Nay, He is unchangeable, and the same this year that He was the former year. And His Son Jesus, who upon earth ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and spake and conferred with whores and harlots, and put up His holy hand and touched the leper's filthy skin, and came evermore nigh sinners, even now in glory, is yet that same Lord. His honour, and His great court in heaven, hath not made Him forget His poor friends on earth. In Him honours change not manners, and He doth yet desire your company. Take Him for the old Christ, and claim still kindness to Him, and say, "O it is so; He is not changed, but I am changed." Nay, it is a part of His unchangeable love, and an article of the new covenant, to keep you that ye cannot dispone Him, nor sell Him. He hath not played fast and loose with us in the covenant of grace, so that we may run from Him at our pleasure. His love hath made the bargain surer than so; for Jesus, as the cautioner, is bound for us (Heb. vii. 22). And it cannot stand with His honour to die in the borrows (as we use to say), and lose thee, whom He must render again to the Father when He shall give up the kingdom to Him. Consent and say "Amen" to the promises, and ye have sealed that God is true, and Christ is yours. This is an easy market. Ye but look on with faith; for Christ suffered all, and paid all.