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WELL-BELOVED SISTER,---I know you have heard of the success of our business in Edinburgh. I do every Presbytery day see the faces of my brethren smiling upon me, but their tongues convey reproaches and lies of me a hundred miles off, and have made me odious to the Bishop of St. Andrews, who said to Mr. W. Dalgleish that ministers in Galloway were his informers. Whereuponno letter of favour could be procured from him for effecuating of our business; only I am brought in the mouths of men, who otherwise knew me not, and have power (if God shall permit) to harm me. Yet I entreat you, in the bowels of Christ Jesus, be not cast down. I fear your sorrow exceed because of this; and I am not so careful for myself in the matter as for you. Take courage;-- your dearest Lord will light your candle, which the wicked would fain blow out; and, as sure as our Lord liveth, your soul shall find joy and comfort in this buisness. Howbeit you see all the hounds in hell let loose to mar it, their ironchains to our dear and mighty Lord are but straws, which He can easily break. Let not this temptation stick in your throat; swallow it, and let it go down; our Lord give you a drink of the consolations of His Spirit, that it may digest. You never knew ones in God's book who put to their hand to the Lord's work for his kirk, but the world and Satan did bark against them, and bite also where they had power. You will not lay one stone on Zion's walls but they will labour to cast it down again.
For myself, the Lord letteth me see now greater evidence of a calling to Kirkcudbright than He ever did before; and therefore pray, and possess your soul in patience. Those that were doers in the business have good hopes that it will yet go forward and prosper. As for the death of the King of Sweden (which is thought to be too true), we can do nothing else but reverence our Lord who doth not ordinarily hold Zion on her rock by the sword, and arm of flesh and blood, but by His own mighty and outstretched arm. Her King that reigneth in Zion yet liveth, and they are plucking Him round about to pull Him off His throne; but His Father hath crowned Him, and who dare say "It is ill done"? The Lord's bride will be up and down, above the water swimming and under the water sinking, until her lovely and Mighty Redeemer and Husband set His head through the skies and come with His fair court to red all their pleas, and give them the hoped-for inheritance; and then we shall lay down our swords and triumph and fight no more. But do not think, for all this, that our Lord and Chief Shepherd will want one weak sheep or the silliest dying lamb, that He hath redeemed. He will tell His flock and gather them all together, and make a faithful account of them to the Father who gave them to Him. Let us learn to turn our eyes off men, that our whorish hearts dote not on them, and woo our old Husband and make Him our darling. For, "thus saith the Lord to the enemies of Zion, Drink ye, and be drunk, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword that I send amongst you. And it shall be be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say to them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Ye shall certainly drink" (Jer. xxv. 27,28). You see our Lord brewing a cup of poison for His enemies which they must drink, and because of this have sore bowels, and sick stomachs, yea, burst. But when zion's captivity is at an end, "the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go and seek the Lord their God. they sahll ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward, saying Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant, that shall not be forgotten" (Jer. i.45). This is spoken to us, and for us, who with woe hearts ask, "what is the way to Zion?" It is our part who know how to go to our Lord's door, and to knock by prayer, and how to lift up Christ's slot and shut the bar of His chamber door, to complain and tell Him, how the Lord handleth us, and how our King's business goeth, that He may get up and lend them a blow who are tigging and playing with Christ and His spouse. You have also Mistress, house troubles, in sickness of your husband and bairns, and in spoiling of your house by thieves; take these rods in patience from your Lord. He must still move you from vessel to vessel, and grind you as our Lord's wheat, to be bread in His house. But when all these strokes are over your head, what will ye say to your well-beloved Christ's white and ruddy face, even His face who is worthy to bear the colours among ten thousand? (Cant. v. 10). Hope and believe to the end. Grace for ever multiplied upon you, your husband and your children.
Your own in his dearest Lord Jesus
S.R.
Edinburgh Dec. 1634
WORTHY AND BELOVED MISTRESS,---My love in Christ remembered. I have sent you a letter from Mr. David Dick* concerning the placing of Mr. Hugh M'Kail with themselves; therefore I write to you now only to entreat you in Christ not to be discouraged thereat. Be submissive to the will of your dear Lord, who knoweth best what is good for your soul and your town both; for God can come over greater mountains than these we believe; for He worketh His greatest works contrary to carnal reason and means. "My ways are not," saith our Lord, "as your ways; neither are my thoughts as your thoughts" (Isa. lv. 8). I am no whit put from my belief for all that. Believe, pray, and use means. We shall cause Mr. John Kerr, who conveyed myself to Lochinvar,* to use means to seek a man, if Mr. Hugh fail us. Our Lord has a little bride among you, and I trust He will send one to woo her to our sweet Lord Jesus. He will not want His wife for the suiting, and He has means in abundance in His hand to open all the slots and bars that Satan draws over the door. He cometh to His bride leaping over the mountains, and skipping over the hills. His way to His spouse is full of stones, mountains, and waters, yet He putteth in His foot and wadeth through. He will not want her; and therefore refresh me with two words concerning your confidence and courage in our Lord, both about that, and about His own Zion; for He wooeth His wife in the Burning Bush; and for "the good-will of Him that dwelleth in the Bush," the bush is not consumed. It is better to weep with Jerusalem in the forenoon, than to weep with Babel after noon, in the end of the day. Our day of laughter and rejocing is coming. Yet a little while, and ye shall see the salvation of God. I long to see you, and to hear how your children are, especially Samuel. Grace be their heritage and portion from the Lord, and the Lord be their lot, and then their inheritance shall please them well. Remember my love to your husband. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours in his sweetest Lord Jesus,
S.R.
ANWOTH
*David Dickson
*About four miles east from Earlston. It has a small loch, where are ruins of an old castle.
Let me speak to you, how kind a fellow-prisoner is Christ to me! Believe me, this kind of cross (that would not go by my door, but would needs visit me) is still the longer the more welcome to me. It is true, my silent, Sabbaths have been, and still are, as glassy ice whereon my faith can scarce hold its feet, and I am often blown on my back and off my feet with a storm of doubting. Yet truly, my bonds all this time cast a mighty and rank smell of high and deep love in Christ. I cannot, indeed, see through my cross to the far-end; yet I believe I am in Christ's books, and in his decree (not yet unfolded to me), a man triumphing, dancing and singing on the other side of the Red Sea, and laughing and praising the Lamb, over beyond time, sorrow, deprivation, prelates indignation, losses, want of friends, and death. Heaven is not a fowl flying in the air (as men used to speak of things that are uncertain); nay, it is well paid for. Christ's comprisement lieth on glory for all the mourners in Zion, and shall never be loosed. Let us be glad and rejoice that we have blood, losses and wounds to show our Master and Captain at his appearance, and what we suffered for his cause.
For at my first entry into this trial (being cast down and troubled
with challenges and jealousies of His love, whose name and testimony
I now bear in my bonds), I feared nothing more than that I was casten
over the dyke of the vineyard, as a dry tree. But, blessed be His
dear name, the dry tree was in the fire, and was not burnt; His dew
came down and quickened the root of a withered plant. And now He is
come again with joy, and has been pleased to feast His exiled and
afflicted prisoner with the joy of His consolations. Now I weep, but
am not sad; I am chastened, but I die not; I have loss, but I want
nothing; this water cannot drown me, this fire cannot burn me,
because of the good-will of Him that dwelt in the Bush. The worst
things of Christ, His reproaches, His cross, are better than Egypt's
treasures. I would not give, nor exchange, my bonds for the prelates'
velvets; nor my prison for their coaches; nor my sighs for all the
world's laughter. This clay-idol, the world, has no great court in my
soul. Christ has come and run away to heaven with my heart and my
love, so that neither love is mine:- Samuel Rutherford, Letter
XXVII. To LADY HALHILL,ABERDEEN, March 14, 1637
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