It—Christ Precious, And To Be Had Without Money—
CCLXXV.—To MR. JOHN FERGUSHILL. [Letter CXII.] (SPIRITUAL LONGINGS UNDER CHRIST'S CROSS—HOW TO BEAR
IT—CHRIST PRECIOUS, AND TO BE HAD WITHOUT MONEY—
THE CHURCH.)
REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED IN OUR LORD JESUS,—I must still provoke you to write by my lines. Whereat ye need not wonder, for the cross is full of talk, and speak it must, either good or bad: neither can grief be silent.
I have no dittay nor indictment to bring against Christ's cross, seeing He hath made a friendly agreement betwixt me and it, and we are in terms of love together. If my former miscarriages, and my now silent Sabbaths, seem to me to speak wrath from the Lord, I dare say it is but Satan borrowing the use and loan of my cowardly and feeble apprehensions, which start at straws. I know that faith is not so faint and foolish as to tremble at every false alarm. Yet I gather this out of it: Blessed are they who are graced of God to guide a cross well, and, that there is some art required therein. I pray God that I may not be so ill friendstead, as that Christ my Lord should leave me to be my own tutor, and my own physician. Shall I not think that my Lord Jesus, who deser-veth His own place very well, will take His own place upon Him as it becometh Him, and that He will fill His own chair? For in this is His office, to comfort us, and those that are casten down, in all their tribulations (2 Cor. i. 4). Alas! I know that I am a fool to seek a hole or defect in Christ's way with my soul. If I have not a stock to present to Christ at His appearance, yet I pray God that I may be able, with joy and faith and constancy, to shew the Captain of my salvation, in that day, a bloody head1 which I received in His service. Howbeit my faith hang by a small tack and thread, I hope that the tack shall not break; and, howbeit my Lord got no service of me but broken wishes, yet I trust that those will be accepted upon Christ's account. I have nothing to comfort me, but that I say, "Oh! will the Lord disappoint an hungry on-waiter?" The smell of Christ's wine and apples (which surpass the uptaking of dull sense) bloweth upon my soul, and I get no more for the meantime. I am sure, that to let a famishing body see meat and give him none of it, is a double pain. Our Lord's love is not so cruel as to let a poor man see Christ and heaven, and never give him more, for want of money to buy: nay, I rather think Christ to be such fair market wares, as buyers may have without money and without price. And thus I know that it shall not stand upon my want of money; for Christ upon His own charges must buy my wedding-garment, and redeem the inheritance which I have forfeited, and give His word for one the like of me, who am not law-biding of myself. Poor folks must either borrow or beg from the rich; and the only thing that commendeth sinners to Christ is extreme necessity and want. Christ's love is ready to make and provide a ransom, and money for a poor body who hath lost his purse. Ho, ye that have no money, come and buy" (Isa. lv. 1), that is the poor man's market.
Now, brother, I see that old crosses would have done nothing to me; and, therefore, Christ hath taken a new, fresh rod to me, that seemeth to talk with my soul2 and make me tremble. I have often more ado now with faith, when I lose my compass and am blown on a rock, than those who are my beholders, standing upon the shore, are aware of. A counsel to a sick man is sooner given than taken. Lord, send the wearied man a borrowed bed from Christ! I think often that it is after supper with me, and I am heavy. Oh, but I would sleep soundly with Christ's left hand under my head, and His right hand embracing me. The devil could not spill that bed. When I consider how tenderly Christ hath cared for me in this prison, I think that He hath handled me as the bairn that is pitied and bemoaned. I desire no more till I be in heaven, but such a feast and fill of Christ s love as I would have; this love would be fair and adorning passments which would beautify and set forth my black, unpleasant cross. I cannot tell, my dear brother, what a great load I would bear, if I had a hearty fill of the love of that lovely One, Christ Jesus. Oh, if ye would seek and pray for that to me! I would give Christ all His love-styles and titles of honour, if He would give me but this; nay, I would sell myself, if I could, for that love.
I have been waiting to see what friends of place and power would do for us. But when the Lord looseneth the pins of His own tabernacle, He will have Himself to be acknowledged as the only builder-up thereof; and, therefore, I would take back again my hope that I lent and laid in pawn in men s hands, and give it wholly to Christ. It is no time for me now to set up idols of my own. It were a pity to give an ounce-weight of hope to any besides Christ. I think Him well worthy of all my hope, though it were as weighty as both heaven and earth. Happy were I if I had anything that Christ would seek or accept of; but now, alas! I see not what service I can do to Him, except it be to talk a little, and babble upon a piece of paper, concerning the love of Christ. I am often as if my faith were wadset, so that I cannot command it; and then, when He hideth Himself, I run to the other extreme, in making each wing and toe of my case as big as a mountain of iron; and then misbelief can spin out an hell of heavy and desponding thoughts. Then Christ seeketh law-borrows of my unbelieving apprehensions, and chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight. But I make pleas with Christ, though it be ill my common3 so to do. It were my happiness, when I am in this house-of-wine and when I find a feast-day, if I could "hearken, and hear for the time to come" (Isa. xlii. 23). But I see that we must be off our feet in wading a deep water; and then Christ s love findeth timeous employment, at such a dead-lift as that; and, besides, after broken brows, bairns learn to walk more circumspectly. If I come to heaven any way, howbeit like a tired traveller upon my Guide s shoulder, it is good enough for those who have no legs of their own for such a journey. I never thought there had been need of so much wresthng to win to the top of that steep mountain, as now I find.
Wo is me for this broken and backsliding church! It is like an old bowing wall, leaning to the one side, and there are none of all her sons who will set a prop under her. I know that I need not bemoan Christ; for He careth for His own honour more than I can do; but who can blame me to be wo (if I had grace so to be) to see my Well-beloved's fair face spitted upon, and His own crown plucked off His head, and the ark of God taken and carried in the Philistines' cart, and the kine put to carry it, which will let it fall to the ground? The Lord put to His own helping hand! I would desire you to prepare yourself for a fight with beasts (1 Cor. xv. 32): ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross.
Remember my bonds; and praise my Second, and Fellow-prisoner, Christ. Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord,
ABERDEEN, 1637. S. R.
CCLXXVI.—To WILLIAM GLENDINNING. [Letter CXXXVII.]
(SWEETNESS OF TRIAL—SWIFTNESS OF TIME—PREVALENCE
OF SIN.)
DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—Your case is unknown to me, whether ye be yet our Lord's prisoner at Wigtown, or not. However it be, I know that our Lord Jesus hath been inquiring for you; and that He hath honoured you to bear His chains, which is the golden end of His cross; and so hath waled out a chosen and honourable cross for you. I wish you much joy and comfort of it; for I have nothing to say of Christ's cross but much good. I hope that my ill word shall never meet either Christ or His sweet and easy cross. I know that He seeketh of us an outcast with this house of clay, this mother prison, this earth, that we love full well. And verily, when Christ snuffeth my candle, and causeth my light to shine upward, it is one of my greatest wonders, that dirt and clay hath so much court with a soul not made of clay; and that our soul goeth out of kind so far as to make an idol of this earth, such a deformed harlot, as that it should wrong Christ of our love. How fast, how fast doth our ship sail! and how fair a wind hath time, to blow us off these coasts and this land of dying and perishing things! Alas! our ship saileth one way, and fleeth many miles in one hour, to hasten us upon eternity, and our love and hearts are sailing close backover and swimming towards ease, lawless pleasure, vain honour, perishing riches; and to build a fool s nest I know not where, and to lay our eggs within the sea-mark, and fasten our bits of broken anchors upon the worst ground in the world, this fleeting and perishing life! And in the meanwhile, time and tide carry us upon another life, and there is daily less and less oil in our lamps, and less and less sand in our watch-glass. Oh what a wise course were it for us to look away from the false beauty of our borrowed prison, and to mind, and eye, and lust for our country! Lord, Lord, take us home!
And for myself: I think, if a poor, weak, dying sheep seek for an old dyke, and the lee-side of an hill, in a storm, I have cause to long for a covert from this storm, in heaven. I know none will take my room over my head there. But, certainly sleepy bodies would be at rest and a well-made bed, and an old crazed bark at a shore, and a wearied traveller at home, and a breathless horse at the rink s end. I see nothing in this life but sin, and the sour fruits of sin: and, oh, what a burden is sin! And what a slavery and miserable bondage is it, to be at the nod, and yeas and nays, of such a lord-master as a body of sin! Truly, when I think of it, it is a wonder that Christ maketh not fire and ashes of such a dry branch as I am. I would often lie down under Christ's feet, and bid Him trample upon me, when I consider my guiltiness. But seeing He hath sworn that sin shall not loose His unchangeable covenant, I keep house-room amongst the rest of the ill-learned bairns, and must cumber the Lord of the house with the rest, till my Lord take the fetters off legs and arms, and destroy this body of sin, and make a hole or breach in this cage of earth, that the bird may fly out, and the imprisoned soul be at liberty. In the meantime, the least intimation of Christ's love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the Bridegroom holdeth me in some joyful on-waiting, that, when Christ's summer-birds shall sing upon the branches of the Tree of Life, I shall be tuned by God Himself to help them to sing the home-coming of our Well-beloved and His bride to their house together. When I think of this, I think winters and summers, and years and days, and time, do me a pleasure that they shorten this untwisted and weak thread of my life, and that they put sin and miseries by-hand, and that they shall carry me to my Bridegroom in a clap.
Dear brother, pray for me, that it would please the Lord of the vineyard to give me room to preach His righteousness again to the great congregation.
Grace, grace be with you. Remember me to your wife. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
ABERDEEN, 1637. S. R.