T RULY HONOURED, AND DEARLY BELOVED,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus.
Think it not strange, beloved in our Lord Jesus, that Satan can command keys of prisons, and bolts, and chains. This is a piece of the devil's princedom that he hath over the world. Interpret and understand our Lord well in this. Be not jealous of His love, though He make devils and men His under-servants to scour the rust off your faith, and purge you from your dross. And let me charge you, O prisoners of hope, to open your window, and to look out by faith, and behold heaven's post (that speedy and swift salvation of God), that is coming to you. It is a broad river that faith will not look over: it is a mighty and a broad sea, that they of a lively hope cannot behold the furthest bank and other shore thereof. Look over the water; your anchor is fixed within the vail; the one end of the cable is about the prisoner of Christ, and the other is entered within the vail, whither the Forerunner is entered for you (Heb. vi. 19, 20). It can go straight through the flames of the fire of the wrath of men, devils, losses, tortures, death, and not a thread of it be singed or burnt: Men and devils have no teeth to bite it in two. Hold fast till He come. Your cross is of the colour of heaven and Christ, and passmented over with the faith and comforts of the Lord's faithful covenant with Scotland: and that dye and colour will abide foul weather, and neither be stained nor cast the colour. Yet, it reflects a scad like the cross of Christ, whose holy hands, many a day lifted up to God, praying for sinners, were fettered and bound, as if those blessed hands had stolen, and shed innocent blood. When your lovely, lovely Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no wonder that your process be lawless and turned upside down; for He was taken, fettered, buffeted, whipped, spitted upon, before He was convicted of any fault, or sentenced. Oh, such a pair of sufferers and witnesses, as high and royal Jesus and a poor piece of guilty clay marrowed together under one yoke! Oh, how lovely is the cross with such a second!
I believe that your prison is enacted in God's court not to keep you till your hope breathe out its life and last. Your cross is under law to restore you again safe to your brethren and sisters in Christ. Take heaven's and Christ's back-bond for a fair back-door out of your suffering. The Saviour is on His journey with salvation and deliverance for Mount Zion; and the sword of the Lord is drunk with blood, and made fat with fatness. His sword is bathed in heaven against Babylon, for it is "the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompense for the controversy of Zion:" and persuade yourselves the streams of the river of Babylon shall be pitch, and the dust of the land brimstone and burning pitch (Isa. xxxiv. 8, 9). And if your deliverance be joined with the deliverance of Zion, it shall be two salvations to you.
It were good to be armed beforehand for death or bodily tortures for Christ; and to think what a crown of honour it is, that God hath given you pieces of living clay to be tortured witnesses for saving truth; and that ye are so happy, as to have some pints of blood to give out for the crown of that royal Lord, who hath caused you to avouch Himself before men. If ye can lend fines of three thousand pounds sterling for Christ, let heaven's register and Christ's count-book keep in reckoning your depursements for Him. It shall be engraven and printed in great letters upon heaven's throne, what you are willing to give for Him. Christ's papers of that kind cannot be lost, or fall by.
Do not wonder to see clay boist the great Potter, and to see blinded men threaten the Gospel with death and burial, and to raze out truth's name. But where will they make a grave for the Gospel, and the Lord's bride? Earth and hell shall be but little bounds for their burial. Lay all the clay and rubbish of this inch of the whole earth above our Lord's Spouse, yet it will not cover her nor hold her down; she shall live and not die; she shall behold the salvation of God. Let your faith frist God a little, and not be afraid for a smoking firebrand. There is more smoke in Babylon's furnace than there is fire. Till doomsday shall come, they shall never see the kirk of Scotland and our Covenant burnt to ashes; or, if it should be thrown into the fire, yet it cannot be so burnt or buried as not to have a resurrection. Angry clay's wind shall shake none of Christ's corn: He will gather in all His wheat into His barn. Only let your fellowship with Christ be renewed.
Ye are sibber to Christ now, when you are imprisoned for Him, than before; for now the strokes laid on you do come in remembrance before our Lord, and He can own His own wounds. A drink of Christ's love, which is better than wine, is the drink-silver which suffering for His majesty leaveth behind it. It is not your sins which they persecute in you, but God's grace, and loyalty to King Jesus. They see no treason in you to your prince the King of Britain, albeit they say so; but it is heaven in you that earth is fighting against. And Christ is owning His own cause. Grace is a party that fire will not burn, nor water drown. When they have eaten and drunken you, their stomach shall be sick, and they shall spue you out alive. Oh, what glory is it to be suffering abjects (Ps. xxxv. 15) for the Lord's glory and royalty! Nay, though His servants had a body to burn for ever for this Gospel, so being that the high glory of triumphing and exalted Jesus did rise out of these flames, and out of that burning body, oh what a sweet fire! oh what soul-refreshing torment would that be! What if the pickles of dust and ashes of the burnt and dissolved body were musicians to sing His praises, and the highness of that never-enough-exalted Prince of ages? Oh, what love is it in Him that He will have such musicians as we are, to tune that psalm of His everlasting praises in heaven! Oh, what shining and burning flames of love are these, that Christ will divide His share of life, of heaven and glory, with you! (Luke xxii. 29; John xvii. 24; Rev. iii. 21). A part of His throne, one draught of His wine (His wine of glory and life that cometh from under the throne of God and of the Lamb), and one apple of the tree of life, will do more than make up all the expenses and charges of clay, lent out for heaven. Oh! oh! but we have short, and narrow, and creeping thoughts of Jesus, and do but shape Christ in our conceptions according to some created portraiture! O angels, lend in your help to make love-books and songs of our fair, and white, and ruddy Standard-bearer amongst ten thousand! O heavens! O heaven of heavens! O glorified tenants, and triumphing house-holders with the Lamb, put in new psalms and love-sonnets of the excellency of our Bridegroom, and help us to set Him on high! O indwellers of earth and heaven, sea and air, and O all ye created beings within the bosom of the utmost circle of this great world, oh come help to set on high the praises of our Lord! O fairness of creatures, blush before His uncreated beauty! O created strength, be amazed to stand before your strong Lord of hosts! O created love, think shame of thyself before this unparalleled love of heaven! O angel-wisdom, hide thyself before our Lord, whose understanding passeth finding out! O sun in thy shining beauty, for shame put on a web of darkness, and cover thyself before thy brightest Master and Maker! Oh, who can add glory, by doing or suffering, to the never-enough admired and praised Lover! Oh we can but bring our drop to this sea, and our candle, dim and dark as it is, to this clear and lightsome Sun of heaven and earth! Oh but we have cause to drink ten deaths in one cup dry, to swim through ten seas, to be at that land of praises, where we shall see that wonder of wonders, and enjoy this Jewel of heaven's jewels! O death, do thy utmost against us! O torments, O malice of men and devils, waste your strength on the witnesses of our Lord's Testament! O devils, bring hell to help you in tormenting the followers of the Lamb! We will defy you to make us too soon happy, and to waft us too soon over the water to the land where the noble Plant, the Plant of Renown, groweth. O cruel time, that tormenteth us, and suspendeth our dearest enjoyments that we wait for, when we shall be bathed and steeped, soul and body, down in the depths of this Love of Loves! O time, I say, run fast! O motions, mend your pace? O well-beloved, be like a young roe on the mountains of separation! Post, post, and hasten our desired and hungered-for meeting. Love is sick to hear tell of to-morrow.
And what, then, can come wrong to you, O honourable witnesses of His kingly truth? Men have no more of you to work upon than some inches and span-lengths of sick, coughing, and phlegmatic clay. Your spirits are above their Benches, Courts, or High Commissions. Your souls, your love to Christ, your faith, cannot be summoned nor sentenced, nor accused nor condemned, by pope, deputy, prelate, ruler, or tyrant. Your faith is a free lord, and cannot be a captive. All the malice of hell and earth can but hurt the scabbard of a believer; and death, at the worst, can get but a clay pawn[416] in keeping till your Lord make[417] the King's keys, and open your graves. Therefore, upon luck's head (as we use to say) take your fill of His love, and let a post-way or causeway be laid betwixt your prison and heaven, and go up and visit your treasure. Enjoy your Beloved, and dwell upon His love, till eternity come in time's room, and possess you of your eternal happiness. Keep your love to Christ, lay up your faith in heaven's keeping, and follow the Chief of the house of the martyrs that witnessed a fair confession before Pontius Pilate. Your cause and His is all one. The opposers of His cause are like drunken judges and transported, who, in their cups, would make acts and laws in their drunken courts that the sun should not rise and shine on the earth, and send their officers and pursuivants to charge the sun and moon to give no more light to the world; and would enact in their court-books, that the sea, after once ebbing, should never flow again. But would not the sun, moon, and sea break these acts, and keep their Creator's directions? The devil (the great fool, and father of these under-fools) is older and more malicious than wise, that setteth the spirits in earth on work to contend and clash with heaven's wisdom, and to give mandates and law-summons to our Sun, to our great Star of heaven, Jesus, not to shine in the beauty of His Gospel to the chosen and bought ones. O thou fair and fairest Sun of righteousness, arise and shine in Thy strength, whether earth or hell will or not. O victorious, O royal, O stout, princely Soul-conqueror, ride prosperously upon truth; stretch out Thy sceptre as far as the sun shineth, and the moon waxeth and waneth. Put on Thy glittering crown, O Thou Maker of kings, and make but one stride, or one step of the whole earth, and travel in the greatness of Thy strength (Isa. lxii. 1, 2). And let Thy apparel be red, and all dyed with the blood of Thy enemies. Thou art fallen righteous Heir by line to the kingdoms of the world.
Laugh ye at the giddy-headed clay pots, and stout, brain-sick worms, that dare say in good earnest, "This man shall not reign over us!" as though they were casting the dice for Christ's crown, which of them should have it. I know that ye believe the coming of Christ's kingdom; and that there is a hole out of your prison, through which ye see daylight. Let not faith be dazzled with temptations from a dying Deputy,[418] and from a sick Prelate. Believe under a cloud, and wait for Him when there is no moonlight nor starlight. Let faith live and breathe, and lay hold on the sure salvation of God, when clouds and darkness are about you, and appearance of rotting in the prison before you. Take heed of unbelieving hearts, which can father lies upon Christ. Beware of "Doth His promise fail for evermore?" (Ps. lxxvii. 8). For it was a man, and not God, that said it, who dreamed that a promise of God could fail, fall aswoon, or die. We can make God sick, or His promises weak, when we are pleased to seek a plea with Christ. O sweet, O stout word of faith, "Though He may slay me, yet will I trust in Him!" (Job xiii. 15). O sweet epitaph, written upon the grave-stone of a dying believer, namely, "I died hoping, and my dust and ashes believe in life!" Faith's eyes, that can see through a mill-stone, can see through a gloom of God, and under it read God's thoughts of love and peace. Hold fast Christ in the dark; surely ye shall see the salvation of God. Your adversaries are ripe and dry for the fire. Yet a little while, and they shall go up in a flame; the breath of the Lord, like a river of brimstone, shall kindle about them (Isa. xxx. 33).
What I write to one, I write to you all that are sound-hearted in that kingdom, whom, in the bowels of Christ, I would exhort not to touch that oath. Albeit the adversaries put a fair meaning on it, yet the swearer must swear according to the professed intent and godless practice of the oath-makers, which is known to the world. Otherwise I might swear that the Creed is false, according to this private meaning and sense put upon it. Oh, let them not be beguiled to wash perjury and the denial of Christ and the Gospel with ink water, some foul and rotten distinctions. Wash, and wash again and again, the devil and the lie, it will be long ere their skin be white.