To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr — Letter 52

Much honored and dearest in Christ.

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you. I expected the comfort of a letter to a prisoner from you before now. I am here, sir, passing off a part of my short span of time, and when I awake first in the morning — which is always with great heaviness and sadness — this question is brought to my mind: am I serving God or not? Not that I doubt the truth of this honorable cause in which I am engaged — I dare venture into eternity and before my judge that I now suffer for the truth, because I cannot endure that my Master who is a free-born King should pay tribute to any of the shields or pot-shards of the earth. Oh that I could hold the crown upon my princely King's head with my sinful arm, though it should be struck from me in that service from the shoulder! But my closed mouth, my silent Sabbaths, the memory of my communion with Christ in many fair and fair days in Anwoth — whereas now my Master gets no service of my tongue as then — has almost broken my faith in two halves. Yet in my deepest apprehensions of his anger, I see through a cloud that I am wrong, and he in love to my soul has taken up the controversy between faith and apprehension, and a decree is passed on Christ's side of it, and I subscribe the decree. The Lord is just in his ways, but my guiltiness often overpowers my believing. I have not been well known, for except as to open sins I lack nothing that Judas and Cain had; only he has been pleased to forestall me in mercy and to cast me into a fever of love for himself. And his absence makes my fever most painful. Besides, he has visited my soul and watered it with his comforts, but yet I have not what I would; the want of real and felt possession is my only death. I know Christ pities me in this. The great men who were my friends and who acted on my behalf are dried up like winter streams; all say, 'There is no dealing for that man — his best course will be to go out of the kingdom.' So I see they tire of me, but believe me, I am most gladly content that Christ breaks all my idols in pieces; it has put a new edge upon my blunted love for Christ. I see he is jealous of my love and will have all to himself. In a word, these six things are my burden. First: I am not in the vineyard as others are; it may be because Christ thinks me a withered tree not worthy of its place — but God forbid. Second: woe, woe, woe is coming upon this apostate church, my harlot-mother; the time is coming when we shall wish for dove's wings to flee and hide ourselves. Oh, for the desolation of this land. Third: I see my dear Master Christ going his way alone, as it were, mourning in sackcloth. His fainting friends fear that King Jesus shall lose the field, but he must carry the day. Fourth: my guiltiness and the sins of my youth have come up against me, and they would intrude themselves into the plea of my sufferings as deserving causes in God's justice. But I pray God, for Christ's sake, he never give them that room. Fifth: woe is me that I cannot get my royal, dreadful, mighty, and glorious Prince of the kings of the earth set on high. Sir, you may help me and pity me in this — bow your knee and bless his name, and desire others to do it, and give thanks that he has been pleased in my sufferings to make atheists, papists, and enemies about me say, 'It seems God is with this prisoner.' Let hell and the powers of hell — I care not — be let loose against me to do their worst, so being Christ and my Father and his Father be magnified in my sufferings. Sixth: Christ's love has pained me, for though his presence has shamed me and drowned me in debt, yet he often goes away when my love for him is burning. He seems to look like a proud wooer who will not look upon a poor match who is dying of love. I will not say he is aloof, but I know he is wise in hiding himself from a child and a fool who makes an idol and a god of one of Christ's kisses — which is idolatry. I fear I adore his comforts more than himself, and that I love the apples of life better than the tree of life. Sir, write to me. Commend me to your wife; mercy be her portion. Grace be with you.

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