St. Andrews.
[CCXCV.—To his very dear Friend, John Fenwick.]
[Mr. John Fenwick was an Englishman, who suffered considerably for nonconformity. He is mentioned in Row's "Life of R. Blair," where it is said that "John Fenwick was one of the best of the Commissioners sent by Cromwell to visit the Universities." He was a Puritan and Nonconformist.]
(CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN—FREENESS OF GOD'S LOVE—FAITH TO BE EXERCISED UNDER FROWNS—GRACE FOR TRIALS—CHRIST YET TO BE EXALTED ON THE EARTH.)
M UCH HONOURED AND DEAR FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—The necessary impediments of my calling have hitherto kept me from making a return to your letter, the heads whereof I shall now briefly answer.
I approve of your going to the Fountain, when your own cistern is dry. A difference there must be betwixt Christ's well and your borrowed water; and why but ye have need of emptiness and drying up, as well as ye have need of the well? Want and a hole there must be in our vessel, to leave room to Christ's art. His well hath its own need of thirsty drinkers, to commend infinite love which, from eternity, did brew such a cellar of living waters for us.
Ye commend His free love; and it is well done. Oh, if I could help you! and if I could be master-convener to gather an earth-full and an heaven-full of tongues, dipped and steeped in my Lord's well of love, or His wine of love, even tongues drunken with His love, to raise a song of praises to Him, betwixt the east and west end, and furthest points of the broad heavens! If I were in your case (as, alas! my dry and dead heart is not now in that garden), I would borrow leave to come and stand upon the banks and coasts of that sea of love, and be a feasted soul to see love's fair tide, free love's high and lofty waves, each of them higher than ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost clay. Oh, welcome, welcome, great sea! Oh, if I had as much love, for wideness and breadth, as twenty outmost shells and spheres of the heaven of heavens, that I might receive in a little flood of His free love! Come, come, dear friend, and be pained that the King's wine-cellar of free love, and His banqueting-house (oh so wide, so stately! oh so God-like, so glory-like!) should be so abundant, so overflowing, and your shallow vessel so little to take in some part of that love. But since it cannot come into you for want of room, enter yourself into this sea of love, and breathe under these waters, and die of love; and live as one dead and drowned of this love.
But why do ye complain of waters going over your soul, and that the smoke of the terrors of a wrathful Lord do almost suffocate you, and bring you to death's brink? I know that the fault is in your eyes, not in Him. It is not the rock that fleeth and moveth, but the green sailor. If your sense and apprehension be made judge of His love, there is a graven image made presently, even a changed god, and a foe-god, who was once ("When ye washed your steps with butter, and the rock poured you out rivers of oil," Job xxix. 6) a Friend-God. Either now or never, let God work. Ye had never, since ye were a man, such a fair field for faith; for a painted hell, and an apprehension of wrath in your Father, is faith's opportunity to try what strength is in it. Now, give God as large a measure of charity as ye have of sorrow. Now, see faith to be faith indeed, if ye can make your grave betwixt Christ's feet, and say, "Though He should slay me, I will trust in Him. His believed love shall be my winding-sheet, and all my grave-clothes; I shall roll and sew in my soul, my slain soul, in that web, His sweet and free love; and let Him write upon my grave, 'Here lieth a believing dead man, breathing out and making a hole in death's broadside, and the breath of faith cometh forth through the hole.'" See now if ye can overcome and prevail with God, and wrestle God's tempting to death, quite out of breath, as that renowned wrestler did: "And by his strength he had power with God; yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed" (Hosea xii. 3, 4). He is a strong man indeed who overmatcheth heaven's Strength, and the Holy One of Israel, the strong Lord: which is done by a secret supply of divine strength within, wherewith the weakest, being strengthened, overcome and conquer. It shall be great victory, to blow out the flame of that furnace ye are now in, with the breath of faith. And when hell, men, malice, cruelty, falsehood, devils, the seeming glooms of a sweet Lord, meet you in the teeth, if ye then, as a captive of hope, as one fettered in hope's prison, run to your stronghold, even from God glooming to God glooming, and believe the salvation of the Lord in the dark, which is your only victory, your enemies (that are but pieces of malicious clay) shall die as men, and be confounded. But, that your troubles are many at once, and arrows come in from all airths, from country, friends, wife, children, foes, estate, and right down from God who is the hope and stay of your soul, I confess is more, and very heavy to be borne. Yet all these are not more than grace; all these bits of coals casten into your sea of mercy cannot dry it up. Your troubles are many and great; yet not an ounce-weight beyond the measure of infinite wisdom, I hope, nor beyond the measure of grace that He is to bestow. For our Lord never yet brake the back of His child, nor spilled His own work. Nature's plastering and counterfeit work He doth often break in shreds, and putteth out a candle not lighted at the Sun of righteousness; but He must cherish His own reeds (Isa. xlii. 3), and handle them softly (never a reed getteth a thrust with the Mediator's hand!), to lay together the two ends of the reed. Oh, what bands and ligaments hath our Chirurgeon of broken spirits, to bind up all His lame and bruised ones with! Cast your disjointed spirit into His lap; and lay your burden upon One who is so willing to take your cares and your fears off you, and to exchange and niffer your crosses, and to give you new for old, and gold for iron; even to give you garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness.