Part 18
Expound well these two rods on you, one in your house at home, another on your own person abroad. Love thinketh no evil. If ye were not Christ's wheat, appointed to be bread in His house, He would not grind you. But keep the middle line, neither despise nor faint (Heb. xii. 5). Ye see your Father is homely with you. Strokes of a father evidence kindness and care; take them so. I hope your Lord hath manifested Himself to you, and suggested these, or more choice thoughts about His dealing with you. We are using our weak moyen and credit for you up at our own court, as we dow. We pray the King to hear us, and the Son of Man to go side for side with you, and hand in hand in the fiery oven, and to quicken and encourage your unbelieving heart when ye droop and despond. Sir, to the honour of Christ be it said, my faith goeth with my pen now. I am presently believing Christ shall bring you out. Truth in Scotland shall keep the crown of the causeway yet. The saints shall see religion go naked at noon-day, free from shame and fear of men. We shall divide Shechem, and ride upon the high places of Jacob. Remember my obliged respects and love to Lady Kenmure and her sweet child.
Yours ever in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
ANWOTH, _July 6, 1636_.
LX.--_To_ MARION M'NAUGHT.
(_WHEN HE WAS UNDER TRIAL BY THE HIGH COMMISSION._)
MY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED IN CHRIST,--I am yet under trial, and have appeared before Christ's forbidden lords,[152] for a testimony against them. The Chancellor and the rest tempted me with questions, nothing belonging to my summons, which I wholly declined, notwithstanding of his threats. My newly printed book against Arminians[153] was one challenge; not lording the prelates[154] was another. The most part of the bishops, when I came in, looked more astonished than I, and heard me with silence. Some spoke for me; but my Lord ruled it so as I am filled with joy in my sufferings, and I find Christ's cross sweet. What they intend against the next day I know not. Be not secure, but pray. Our Bishop of Galloway said, If the Commission should not give him his will of me (with an oath he said), he would write to the King. The Chancellor summoned me in judgment to appear that day eight days. My Lord has brought me a friend from the Highlands of Argyle, my Lord of Lorn,[155] who hath done as much as was within the compass of his power. God gave me favour in his eyes. Mr. Robert Glendinning is silenced, till he accepts a colleague. We hope to deal yet for him. Christ is worthy to be entrusted. Your husband will get an easy and good way of his business. Ye and I both shall see the salvation of God upon Joseph separate from his brethren. Grace be with you.
S. R.
EDINBURGH, 1636.
[152] The prelates; alluding to 1 Pet. v. 3.
[153] _Exercitat. Apol. pro Divinâ Gratiâ_, published this year (1636) at Amsterdam.
[154] Calling them "Lords."
[155] Brother to Lady Kenmure, and afterwards the celebrated Marquis of Argyle. See Letter LXI. also.
LXI.--_To the truly Noble and Elect Lady, my LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE, on the evening of his banishment to Aberdeen._
(_HIS ONLY REGRETS--THE CROSS UNSPEAKABLY SWEET--RETROSPECT OF HIS MINISTRY._)
NOBLE AND ELECT LADY,--That honour that I have prayed for these sixteen years, with submission to my Lord's will, my kind Lord hath now bestowed upon me, even to suffer for my royal and princely King Jesus, and for His kingly crown, and the freedom of His kingdom that His Father hath given Him. The forbidden lords have sentenced me with deprivation, and confinement within the town of Aberdeen. I am charged in the King's name to enter against the 20th day of August next, and there to remain during the King's pleasure, as they have given it out. Howbeit Christ's green cross, newly laid upon me, be somewhat heavy, while I call to mind the many fair days sweet and comfortable to my soul and to the souls of many others, and how young ones in Christ are plucked from the breast, and the inheritance of God laid waste; yet that sweet smelled and perfumed cross of Christ is accompanied with sweet refreshments, with the kisses of a King, with the joy of the Holy Ghost, with faith that the Lord hears the sighing of a prisoner, with undoubted hope (as sure as my Lord liveth) after this night to see daylight, and Christ's sky to clear up again upon me, and His poor kirk; and that in a strange land, among strange faces, He will give favour in the eyes of men to His poor oppressed servant, who dow not but love that lovely One, that princely One, Jesus, the Comforter of his soul. All would be well, if I were free of old challenges for guiltiness, and for neglect in my calling, and for speaking too little for my Well-beloved's crown, honour, and kingdom. O for a day in the assembly of the saints to advocate for King Jesus! If my Lord also go on now to quarrels I die, I cannot endure it. But I look for peace from Him, because He knoweth I dow bear men's feud, but I dow not bear His feud. This is my only exercise, that I fear I have done little good in my ministry; but I dare not but say, I loved the bairns of the wedding-chamber, and prayed for and desired the thriving of the marriage, and coming of His kingdom.
I apprehend no less than a judgment upon Galloway, and that the Lord shall visit this whole nation for the quarrel of the Covenant. But what can be laid upon me, or any the like of me, is too light for Christ. Christ dow bear more, and would bear death and burning quick, in His quick servants, even for this honourable cause that I now suffer for. Yet for all my complaints (and He knoweth that I dare not now dissemble), He was never sweeter and kinder than He is now. One kiss now is sweeter than ten long since; sweet, sweet is His cross; light, light and easy is His yoke. O what a sweet step were it up to my Father's house through ten deaths, for the truth and cause of that unknown, and so not half well loved, Plant of Renown, the Man called the Branch, the Chief among ten thousands, the fairest among the sons of men! O what unseen joys, how many hidden heart-burnings of love, are in the "remnants of the sufferings of Christ!" (Col. i. 24.) My dear worthy Lady, I give it to your Ladyship, under my own hand, my heart writing as well as my hand,--welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet and glorious cross of Christ; welcome, sweet Jesus, with Thy light cross. Thou hast now gained and gotten all my love from me; keep what Thou hast gotten! Only woe, woe is me, for my bereft flock, for the lambs of Jesus, that I fear shall be fed with dry breasts. But I spare now. Madam, I dare not promise to see your Ladyship, because of the little time I have allotted me; and I purpose to obey the King, who hath power of my body; and rebellion to kings is unbeseeming Christ's ministers. Be pleased to acquaint my Lady Mar[156] with my case. I will look that your Ladyship and that good lady will be mindful to God of the Lord's prisoner, not for my cause, but for the Gospel's sake. Madam, bind me more, if more can be, to your Ladyship, and write thanks to your brother, my Lord of Lorn, for what he hath done for me, a poor unknown stranger to his Lordship. I shall pray for him and his house, while I live. It is his honour to open his mouth in the streets, for his wronged and oppressed Master Christ Jesus. Now, Madam, commending your Ladyship and the sweet child to the tender mercies of mine own Lord Jesus, and His good-will who dwelt in the Bush,
I am yours in his own sweetest Lord Jesus,
S. R.
EDINBURGH, _July 28, 1636_.
[156] See Letter CXL.
LXII.--_To the LADY CULROSS, on occasion of his banishment to Aberdeen._
[ELIZABETH MELVILLE, wife of James Colvill, the eldest son of Alexander, Commendator of Culross, was the daughter of Sir James Melville of Halhill, in Fife. Her father was ambassador from Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, and a privy councillor to King James VI. He was also a man of piety, who (says Livingstone), "professed he had got assurance from the Lord, that himself, wife, and all his children, should meet in heaven." Lady Culross held a high place among the eminent Christians of her day. Livingstone says: "She was famous for her piety, and for her dream concerning her spiritual condition, which she put in verse, which was published by others. Of all that ever I saw, she was most unwearied in religious exercises; and the more she enjoyed access to God therein she hungered the more." She was present at the famous Communion at Shotts in June 1636, when the sermon preached by Livingstone, on the Monday after, was the means, it is believed, of the conversion of not less than five hundred individuals. The night before had been spent in prayer by a great number of Christians in a large room of the inn where she slept; and the minister who should have preached on Monday having fallen sick, it was at her suggestion that the other ministers assisting on that occasion, to whom Livingstone was a stranger, laid upon him the work of addressing the people. There is a poem written by her, entitled "Ane Godlie Dream;" and there is still preserved a sonnet of her composition, which she sent to Mr. John Welsh when he was imprisoned in Blackness, 1605:--
"My dear brother, with courage bear the cross, Joy shall be joined with all thy sorrow here. High is thy hope, disdain this earthly dross, Once shall you see the wished day appear.
"Now it is dark, thy sky cannot be clear; After the clouds it shall be calm anon; Wait on His will whose blood hath bought thee dear: Extol His name, though outward joys be gone.
"Look to the Lord, thou art not left alone, Since He is thine, what pleasure canst thou take! He is at hand, and hears thy every groan: End out thy fight, and suffer for His sake.
"A sight most bright thy soul shall shortly see, When store of glore thy rich reward shall be."
--_Wodrow_ MSS. Adv. Lib. Edin. vol. xxix.]
(_CHALLENGES OF CONSCIENCE--THE CROSS NO BURDEN._)
MADAM,--Your letter came in due time to me, now a prisoner of Christ, and in bonds for the Gospel. I am sentenced with deprivation and confinement within the town of Aberdeen. But O my guiltiness, the follies of my youth, the neglects in my calling, and especially in not speaking more for the kingdom, crown, and sceptre of my royal and princely King Jesus, do so stare me in the face, that I apprehend anger in that which is a crown of rejoicing to the dear saints of God. This, before my compearance, which was three several days, did trouble me, and burdeneth me more now; howbeit Christ, and in Him God reconciled, met me with open arms, and trysted me precisely at the entry of the door of the Chancellor's hall, and assisted me so to answer, as that the advantage is not theirs but Christ's. Alas! that is no cause of wondering that I am thus borne down with challenges; for the world hath mistaken me, and no man knoweth what guiltiness is in me so well as these two, who keep my eyes now waking and my heart heavy, I mean (1) my heart and conscience, and (2) my Lord, who is greater than my heart.
Shew your brother that I desire him, while he is on the watch-tower, to plead with his mother, and to plead with this land, and spare not to cry for my sweet Lord Jesus His fair crown, that the interdicted and forbidden lords are plucking off His royal head. If I were free of challenges, and a High Commission within my soul, I would not give a straw to go to my Father's house through ten deaths, for the truth and cause of my lovely, lovely One, Jesus. But I walk in heaviness now. If ye love me, and Christ in me, my dear Lady, pray, pray for this only, that bygones betwixt my Lord and me may be bygones, and that He would pass from the summons of His High Commission, and seek nothing from me, but what He will do for me and work in me. If your ladyship knew me as I do myself, ye would say, "Poor soul, no marvel." It is not my apprehension that createth this cross to me; it is too real, and hath sad and certain grounds. But I will not believe that God will take this advantage of me, when my back is at the wall. He who forbiddeth to add affliction to affliction, will He do it Himself? Why should He pursue a dry leaf and stubble? Desire Him to spare me now. Also the memory of the fair feast-days, that Christ and I had in His banqueting-house of wine, and of the scattered flock once committed to me, and now taken off my hand by Himself, because I was not so faithful in the end as I was in the two first years of my entry, when sleep departed from my eyes, because my soul was taken up with a care for Christ's lambs,--even these add sorrow to my sorrow. Now my Lord hath only given me this to say, and I write it under mine own hand (be ye the Lord's servant's witness), welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ; welcome, fair, fair, lovely, royal King with Thine own cross. Let us all three go to heaven together. Neither care I much to go from the south of Scotland to the north, and to be Christ's prisoner amongst unco faces, in a place of this kingdom, which I have little reason to be in love with. I know Christ shall make Aberdeen my garden of delights. I am fully persuaded that Scotland shall eat Ezekiel's book, that is written within and without, "lamentation, and mourning, and woe" (Ezek. ii. 10). But the saints shall get a drink of the well that goeth through the streets of the New Jerusalem, to put it down. Thus hoping that ye will think upon the poor prisoner of Christ, I pray, grace, grace be with you.
Your Ladyship's in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
EDINBURGH, _July 30, 1636_.
LXIII.--_To MR. ROBERT CUNNINGHAM, Minister of the Gospel at Holywood, in Ireland._
[MR. ROBERT CUNNINGHAM was for some time employed as chaplain to the Earl of Buccleuch's regiment in Holland. On the return of the troops to Scotland, he removed to the north of Ireland, where he was admitted minister of Holywood in 1615. "He was the one man to my discerning," says Livingstone, "of all that ever I saw, who resembled most the meekness of Jesus Christ in his whole carriage, and was so far reverenced by all, even the most wicked, that he was oft troubled with that Scripture, 'Woe to you when all men speak well of you.'" He continued to labour in his charge, and in the surrounding district, with great success, until the Presbyterian ministers began to be molested for their nonconformity. Owing to the singular gentleness of Cunningham's disposition, he was for some time less subjected to trouble than his brethren; but at length, on the 12th of August 1636, he and four other ministers (among whom was Mr. Hamilton mentioned in the close of this letter) were formally deposed for refusing to subscribe certain canons, one of which was kneeling at the Lord's Supper. Not long after, he, with some of his deposed brethren, came over to Scotland; but he did not long survive his arrival. He died at Irvine, on the 29th of March 1637, scarcely eight months after this letter was written. A little before he expired, his wife sitting on the front of his bed with her hand clasped in his, after committing to God his flock at Holywood, his friends and his children, he added, "And last of all, I recommend to Thee this gentlewoman, who is no more my wife." His affectionate wife bursting into tears, he sought by comfortable words to allay her grief; but in the act of so doing, fell asleep in Jesus.]
(_CONSOLATION TO A BROTHER IN TRIBULATION--HIS OWN DEPRIVATION OF MINISTRY--CHRIST WORTH SUFFERING FOR._)
WELL-BELOVED AND REVEREND BROTHER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Upon acquaintance in Christ, I thought good to take the opportunity of writing to you. Seeing it hath seemed good to the Lord of the harvest to take the hooks out of our hands for a time, and to lay upon us a more honourable service, even to suffer for His name, it were good to comfort one another in writing. I have had a desire to see you in the face; yet now being the prisoner of Christ, it is taken away. I am greatly comforted to hear of your soldier's stately[157] spirit, for your princely and royal Captain Jesus our Lord, and for the grace of God in the rest of our dear brethren with you.
[157] See Glossary.
You have heard of my trouble, I suppose. It hath pleased our sweet Lord Jesus to let loose the malice of these interdicted lords in His house to deprive me of my ministry at Anwoth, and to confine me, eight score miles from thence, to Aberdeen; and also (which was not done to any before) to inhibit me to speak at all in Jesus' name, within this kingdom, under the pain of rebellion. The cause that ripened their hatred was my book against the Arminians, whereof they accused me, on those three days I appeared before them. But, let our crowned King in Zion reign! By His grace the loss is theirs, the advantage is Christ's and truth's. Albeit this honest cross gained some ground on me, and my heaviness and my inward challenges of conscience for a time were sharp, yet now, for the encouragement of you all, I dare say it, and write it under my hand, "Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ." I verily think the chains of my Lord Jesus are all overlaid with pure gold, and that His cross is perfumed, and that it smelleth of Christ, and that the victory shall be by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of His truth, and that Christ, lying on His back, in His weak servants, and oppressed truth, shall ride over His enemies' bellies, and shall "strike through kings in the day of His wrath" (Psa. cx. 4). It is time we laugh when He laugheth; and seeing He is now pleased to sit[158] with wrongs for a time, it becometh us to be silent until the Lord hath let the enemies enjoy their hungry, lean, and feckless paradise. Blessed are they who are content to take strokes with weeping Christ. Faith will trust the Lord, and is not hasty, nor headstrong; neither is faith so timorous as to flatter a temptation, or to bud and bribe the cross. It is little up or little down[159] that the Lamb and His followers can get no law-surety, nor truce with crosses; it must be so, till we be up in our Father's house. My heart is woe indeed for my mother Church, that hath played the harlot with many lovers. Her Husband hath a mind to sell her for her horrible transgressions; and heavy will the hand of the Lord be upon this backsliding nation. The ways of our Zion mourn; her gold has become dim, her white Nazarites are black like a coal. How shall not the children weep, when the Husband and the mother cannot agree! Yet I believe Scotland's sky shall clear again; that Christ shall build again the old waste places of Jacob; that our dead and dry bones shall become one army of living men, and that our Well-beloved may yet feed among the lilies, until the day break and the shadows flee away (Song iv. 5, 6). My dear brother, let us help one another with our prayers. Our King shall mow down His enemies, and shall come from Bozrah with His garments all dyed in blood. And for our consolation shall He appear, and call His wife Hephzibah, and His land Beulah (Isa. lxii. 4); for He will rejoice over us and marry us, and Scotland shall say, "What have I to do any more with idols?" Only let us be faithful to Him that can ride through hell and death upon a windlestrae, and His horse never stumble; and let Him make of me a bridge over a water, so that His high and holy name may be glorified in me. Strokes with the sweet Mediator's hand are very sweet. He was always sweet to my soul; but since I suffered for Him, His breath hath a sweeter smell than before. Oh that every hair of my head, and every member and every bone in my body, were a man to witness a fair confession for Him! I would think all too little for Him. When I look over beyond the line, and beyond death, to the laughing side of the world, I triumph, and ride upon the high places of Jacob; howbeit otherwise I am a faint, dead-hearted, cowardly man, oft borne down, and hungry in waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Nevertheless, I think it the Lord's wise love that feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with wants and desertions.
[158] Endure.
[159] Of little moment.
I know not, my dear brother, if our worthy brethren be gone to sea or not. They are on my heart and in my prayers. If they be yet with you, salute my dear friend, John Stuart, my well-beloved brethren in the Lord, Mr. Blair, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. M'Clelland,[160] and acquaint them with my troubles, and entreat them to pray for the poor afflicted prisoner of Christ. They are dear to my soul. I seek your prayers and theirs for my flock: their remembrance breaketh my heart. I desire to love that people, and others my dear acquaintance in Christ, with love in God, and as God loveth them. I know that He who sent me to the west and south, sends me also to the north. I will charge my soul to believe and to wait for Him, and will follow His providence, and not go before it, nor stay behind it. Now, my dear brother, taking farewell in paper, I commend you all to the word of His grace, and to the work of His Spirit, to Him who holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, that you may be kept spotless till the day of Jesus our Lord.
I am your brother in affliction in our sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
From IRVINE, being on my journey to Christ's Palace in Aberdeen, _August 4, 1636_.