To James Bautie — Letter 50

Loving brother.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you. I received your letter and render you thanks for it; but I have not time to answer all the heads of it, as the bearer can inform you. First, you do well to take yourself to task when you wrong Christ by doubting and unbelief, for this is to slander Christ and call him a liar — which, if spoken to our prince, would be hanging or beheading; but Christ does not always hang for treason. It is good that he may register a believer's debt a hundred times, and have grounds against us more than seventy times a day, and yet he spares us as a man does his son that serves him. No tender-hearted mother who might have grounds to slay her sucking child would execute that law. For your failings: you have a set appointment with Christ, and when you have a fair opportunity by keeping your appointment with him, and salvation comes to the very passing of the seals, I would say two things. First, concluded and sealed salvation may go through and be ended, even if you write your name to the tail of the covenant with ink that can hardly be read. Neither do I think any man's salvation ever passed the seals without some odd slip or fault on the part of the sinner who is invested in heaven. In the most solemn work of our salvation, I think Christ had ever good cause to overlook our foolishness and to put on us his merits, that we might bear weight. Second, it is a sweet law of the new covenant and a privilege of the new city that the citizens pay according to their means, for the new covenant does not say so much obedience by ounce-weights under pain of damnation. Christ takes as poor men may give; where there is a small portion, he is content with less, if there be sincerity. Broken sums and little feeble obedience will be pardoned and hold the foot with him. Know you not that our kind Lord retains his good old heart yet? He does not break a bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax; but if the wind blows, he holds his hands about it until it rises to a flame. The law comes on with all the heart, all the soul, and all the strength; and where would poor people like you and me furnish all these sums? I fear — indeed I am most certain — that if the payment were to come out of our purse, when we put our hand in our bag, we would bring out the wind or worse. But the new covenant does not seek heaped measure or precisely-weighed obedience as its condition, because forgiveness always has place. Hence I draw this conclusion: to think matters between Christ and us go back for want of heaped measure is a piece of old Adam's pride, who would either be at legal payment or nothing. We would still have God in our debt and buy his kindness with our merits; for beggarly pride is devil-honest and blushes to be in Christ's debt. It will only give a good-day for a good-day again; and if he disguises his kindness as if in jest and seems not to know it, pride in earnest spurns with the heels and cares not much for Christ's kindness. 'If he will not be friends, let him go,' says pride. Beware of this thief when Christ offers himself. No marvel then of whisperings, whether you are in the covenant or not? For pride makes loose work of the covenant of grace and will not let Christ be the full bargain-maker. To speak to you particularly and shortly: All the truly regenerate cannot tell you precisely the measure of their dejections, because Christ begins young with many and steals into their heart before they know of themselves, and becomes familiar with them with little noise. I grant many are blinded in rejoicing in a cheap conversion that never cost them a sick night; Christ's medicine worked in a dream upon them. But for that, I would say: if other marks be found that Christ is indeed come in, never make a quarrel with him because he will not answer, 'Lord Jesus, how did you come in — by door or window?' Make him welcome since he has come. The wind blows where it lists; all the world's wit cannot perfectly explain why the wind should blow a month in the east, six weeks possibly in the west, and only an afternoon in the south or north. You will not find all the steps of Christ's way with a soul, do what you can; for sometimes he will come in stepping softly, like one walking beside a sleeping person, and slip to the door and let none know he was there. You object that the truly regenerate should love God for himself, and you fear that you love him more for his benefits — as incentives and motives to love him — than for himself. I answer: to love God for himself as the last end, and also for his benefits as incentives and motives to love him, may well stand together. As a son loves his mother because she is his mother, though she be poor, and also loves her for an apple — I hope you will not say that benefits are the only reason and foundation of your love. It seems there is a better foundation for it; at any rate, if a hole is in it, sew it up shortly. You feel not such mourning in Christ's absence as you would. I answer: that the regenerate mourn at all times and all in alike measure for his absence, I deny. There are different degrees of mourning, more or less, as they have more or less love to him and more or less sense of his absence. But some mourning they must have. Sometimes they miss not the Lord, and then they cannot mourn, though it is not long so. You challenge yourself that some truths find more credit with you than others. You do well, for God is true in the least as well as in the greatest, and he must be so to you. You must not call him true in one page of the leaf and false in the other, for our Lord in all his writings never contradicted himself yet, though the best of the regenerate have slipped here. Always labor to hold your feet. Comparing the estate of one truly regenerate — whose heart is a temple to the Holy Spirit — and yours, which is full of uncleanness and corruption, you stand dumb and discouraged and dare not sometimes call Christ heartily your own. I answer: the best regenerate have their defilements and — if I may speak so — their burden that will lag behind them all their days; and wash as they will, there will be filth in their bosom. But let this not put you from the well. Second, though there be some ounce-weights of carnality and some squinting eye toward an idol, yet love in its own measure may be sound; for glory must purify and perfect our love — it will never be until then absolutely pure. Yet if the idol reigns and has the yoke of the heart and the keys of the house, and Christ is made only an underling to run errands, all is not right; therefore examine well. There is a twofold discouragement: one of unbelief, to conclude and make doubting the conclusion for a mote in your eye and a by-look to an idol — this is ill. There is another discouragement of sorrow for sin, when you find a by-look to an idol — this is good and a matter of thanksgiving; therefore examine here also. The assurance of Jesus's love, you say, would be the most comfortable news you ever heard. That assurance may stop twenty holes and loose many objections; that love has much to tell, I know. O that you knew and felt it as I have done! I wish you a share of my feast; sweet, sweet it has been to me. If my Lord had not given me his love, I would have fallen through the pavings of Aberdeen before now. But for you — hold on, your feast is not far off; you shall be filled before you go. There is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all his children, and as much wine in his cellar as will quench all their thirst. Hunger on, for there is meat in hunger for Christ. Go never from him, but press him — who yet is pleased with the importunity of hungry souls — with a dishful of hungry desires until he fills it; and if he delays, yet come not you away, though you should fall in a swoon at his feet. You ask my mind, whether sound comfort may be found in prayer when conviction of a known idol is present. I answer: an idol as an idol cannot stand with sound comfort, for that comfort gotten at Dagon's altar is a cheat. Yet sound comfort and conviction of an eye to an idol may as well dwell together as tears and joy; but let this do you no ill — I speak it for your encouragement, that you may make the best out of your joys you can, though you find them mixed with flaws. Sole conviction, if alone without remorse and grief, is not enough; therefore lend it a tear if you can. You question, when you attain to more fervor sometimes with your neighbor in prayer than when alone, whether hypocrisy is in it or not. I answer: if this is always so, no question there is a spice of hypocrisy in it, which should be taken heed to. But possibly desertion may be in private and presence in public, and then the case is clear. A fit of applause may by accident rub a cold heart and so heat and life may come, but it is not the proper cause of that heat. Hence God of his free grace will run his errands upon our corrupt nature by occasion; as the playing on a pipe removed anger from the prophet and made him fitter to prophesy (2 Kings 3:15). You complain of Christ's short visits, that he will not bear you company one night; when you lie down warm at night you rise cold in the morning. I cannot blame you — nor any other who knows that sweet guest — to bemoan his withdrawings and to be most desirous of his abode and company. For he would captivate and engage the affection of any creature that saw his face; since he looked on me and gave me a sight of his fair love, he gained my heart wholly and got away with it. Well may he keep it; he shall keep it long before I fetch it from him. But I shall tell you what to do: treat him well, give him the seat of honor and the head of the table, and make him welcome to the modest portion you have. A good supper and kind entertainment makes the guest love the inn the better. Yet sometimes Christ has an errand elsewhere for mere trial, and then though you give him a king's fare he will be away — as is clear in desertion for mere trial and not for sin. You seek the difference between the motions of the Spirit in their least measure and the natural joys of your own heart. As a man can tell if he joys and delights in his wife as his wife, or if he delights in her only for satisfaction of his desire while hating her person — so a man's joy in God and his natural joy will be discovered. If he sorrows for anything that may offend that Lord, it will speak the sincerity of his love to him. You ask the reason why sense overcomes faith. Because sense is more natural and nearer of kin to our own selfish and soft nature. You ask, if faith in that case be sound. If it is chased away, it is neither sound nor unsound, because it is not faith; but it might be and was faith before sense blew out the act of believing. Lastly, you ask what to do when promises are born in upon you, and sense of impenitence for sins of youth hinders application. I answer: if it be living sense, it may stand with application, and in this case put your hand to it and eat your meat in God's name. If false — so that the sins of youth are not repented of — then as faith and impenitence cannot stand together, so neither can that sense and application consist. Brother, excuse my brevity, for time straitens me so that I do not get my mind said in these things, but must refer that to a new occasion if God offers it. Brother, pray for me. Grace be with you.

Aberdeen, 1637. Yours in his dearest Lord Jesus, S. R.