Letter cccxxv.
CCCXXIV.—To his Reverend and worthy Brother, MR. GEORGE GILLESPIE.1
(PROSPECT OF DEATH—CHRIST THE TRUE SUPPORT IN DEATH.)
REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—I cannot speak to you. The way ye know; the passage is free and not stopped; the print of the footsteps of the Forerunner is clear and manifest; many have gone before you. Ye will not sleep long in the dust, before The Daybreak. It is a far shorter piece of the hinder-end of the night to you than to Abraham and Moses. Beside all the time of their bodies resting under corruption, it is as long yet to their day as to your morning-light of awaking to glory, though their spirits, having the advantage of yours, have had now the fore-start of the shore before you.
I dare say nothing against His dispensation. I hope to follow quickly. The heirs that are not there before you are posting with haste after you, and none shall take your lodging over your head. Be not heavy. The life of faith is now called for; doing was never reckoned in your accounts, though Christ in and by you hath done more than by twenty, yea, an hundred grey-haired and godly pastors. Believing now is your last.2 Look to that word, "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20). Ye know the I that liveth, and the I that liveth not; it is not single Ye that live. Christ by law liveth in the broken debtor; it is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living of Christ in you. If ye look to yourself as divided from Christ, ye must be more than heavy. All your wants, dear brother, be upon Him: ye are His debtors; grace must sum and subscribe your accounts as paid. Stand not upon items, and small or little sanctification. Ye know that inherent holiness must stand by, when imputed is all. I fear the clay house is a-taking down and undermining: but it is nigh the dawning. Look to the east, the dawning of the glory is near. Your Guide is good company, and knoweth all the miles, and the ups and downs in the way. The nearer the morning, the darker. Some travellers see the city twenty miles off, and at a distance; and yet within the eighth part of a mile they cannot see it. It is all keeping that ye would now have, till ye need it; and if sense and fruition come both at once, it is not your loss. Let Christ tutor you as He thinketh good; ye cannot be marred, nor miscarry, in His hand. Want is an excellent qualification; and no money, no price," to you (who, I know, dare not glory in your own righteousness) is fitness warrantable enough to cast yourself upon Him who justifieth the ungodly. Some see the gold3 once, and never again till the race's end. It is coming all in a sum together, when ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it than now. Ye are not come to the mount that burneth with fire, or unto blackness, darkness, and tempest; but ye are come to Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling," etc.
Ye must leave the wife to a more choice Husband, and the children to a better Father.
If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work and Covenant, against both Malignants and Sectaries (which I suppose may be needful), let it be under your hand, and subscribed before faithful witnesses.4 Your loving and afflicted brother,
St. ANDREWS, SEPT. 27, 1648. S. R.
CCCXXV.—To SiR James StewaRt, Lord Provost of Edinburgh.1
[SIR JAMES STEWART of Kirkfield and Cultness, to whom this letter is addressed, was a man of high Christian excellence. "Sir James Stewart," said the celebrated George Gillespie, "has more sterling religion in ready cash than any man ever I knew; he is always agreeably composed and recollected, in a permanent devout frame of spirit, and such as I should wish to have in my last moments" ("Coltness Collections," p. 15). He was a zealous Covenanter, and suffered considerably for his principles during the persecution of Charles II. He died March 31, 1681, at his own house at Edinburgh, in the seventy-third year of his age, in the full assurance of faith. Rutherford wrote this letter on occasion of his own election to be Professor of Divinity in the College of Edinburgh.] Richt honorablee
ThE mater of my transportation is so poor a contraversie, I truely not beeing desyrous to be the subject of any dine2 in the Generall Assemblie of the Kirk of Scotland whoe have greater bussines to doe, and haveing suffered once the paine of transportation, moist humbly intreat your w.[worships] that favour as to cast yor thoughts vpon some fitter man; for as it is vnbeseemeing me to lie or dissemblee, so I must friely show you it will but mak me the subject of suffereing and passive obedience, and I trust your w.[worships] intend not that hurt to me, and I am persuaded it is not yor mind, it shall be my prayer to God, to send that worthie societie an hable3 and pious man. Grace be with you.
S AndREws ThE LAST of Junii 1649
Yours at all humblee observance in the Lord
SAMUEL RuthERfuRd for the richt honorable my varie good lord, Sr James Steuartproveist of Edinbrugh and remanent magistrats Counsellers of the Citie.