Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility; but for me, I neither know what He is, nor His Son's name, nor where He dwelleth. I hear a report of Christ great enough, and that is all. Oh! what is nearness to Him? What is that, to be "in God," to "dwell in God"? What a house must that be! (1 John iv. 13). How far are some from their house and home? how ill acquaint with the rooms, mansions, safety, and sweetness of holy security to be found in God! Oh, what estrangement! what wandering! what frequent conversing with self and the creature! Is not here "the bed shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it? and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it?" (Isa. xxviii. 20). When shall we attain to a living in only, only God! and be estranged from all the poor created nothings, the painted shadow-beings of yesterday, which, an hour and less before creation, were dark waste negatives and empty nothings, and should so have been for eternity, had the Lord suffered them to lie there for ever!
It is He, the great "He, who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the judges of the earth as vanity" (Isa. xl. 22, 23). And He, the only He, and there is no He beside Him (Isa. xliii. 10, 11, 13-25). Men or angels, they are not any of them a he to Him! But a living, breathing, dying nothing is man at his best, a sick clay-vanity; and the angel, to Him, but a more excellent, living and understanding nothing. Yet we live at a distance from Him; and we die and wither when we are out of God. Oh, if we knew how nothing we are without Him!
Sir, we desire to mind your bonds; and are cheered and refreshed that we hear of any of His manifestations, and His outgoings, which are prepared as the morning to you. We hope that we need not desire you not to faint, and are confident that the anointing that abideth in you teacheth you so much. Wait upon the speaking vision: "Behold, He cometh! behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him!" (Isa. xl. 10).
The only wise God strengthen you with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.
Yours, at all observance, in the Lord Jesus,
S. R.
St Andrews, July 1653.