To William Rigge of Athernie — Letter 60

Much honored and worthy sir.

Your letter full of complaints, bemoaning your guiltiness, has humbled me; but give me leave to say, you seem to be too far on the law's side. You will not gain much by being the law's advocate; I thought you were not the law's man but grace's man. Nevertheless, I am sure you desire to take God's part against yourself. Whatever your guiltiness be, yet when it falls into the sea of God's mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen into the great ocean. There is nothing here to be done but let Christ's sentence light upon the old man, and let him bear his condemnation, seeing in Christ he was condemned; for the law has power only over your worst half. Let the blame therefore lie where the blame should be, and let the new man be sure to say, 'I am beautiful as the tents of Kedar,' though I be black and sunburned by sitting next to a body of sin. I seek no more here but room for grace's defense and Christ's white throne, to which a sinner condemned by the law may appeal. But the use I make of it is this: I am sorry that I am not so tender and thin-skinned. Though I am sure Christ can find employment for his calling in me, if in any living — seeing from my youth upward I have been building up the blackest case that any minister in the world or any other person can answer to. And when I had done this, I painted a providence of my own and wrote ease for myself, and a peaceful ministry, and the sun shining on me, until I should be in at heaven's gates. Such green and raw thoughts had I of God. I thought also of a sleeping devil that would pass by the likes of me, lying in moors and outfields. So I built the fool's nest and dreamed of dying at ease and living in a fool's paradise. But since I came here I am often so situated that it would take much persuasion to convince me that Christ has not written wrath upon my dumb and silent Sabbaths — which is a persecution of the latest edition, being used against none in this land, that I can learn, besides me. And often I lie under a sense of exclusion, and would gladly sell all my joys to be confirmed as King Jesus's free tenant and to have sealed assurances; but I see often blank papers. My greatest desires are these two. First: that Christ would take me in hand to cure me, and undertake for a sick man. I know I should not die under his hand, and yet in this, while I still doubt, I believe through a cloud that sorrow — which has no eyes — has but put a veil on Christ's love. Second: it pleases him often since I came here to come with some brief gleams of his sweet love. And then, because I have none to help me to praise his love, and can do him no service in my own person as I thought I once did in his temple, I die with wishes and desires to take up residence beside the well and to have him praised and set on high. But alas, what can the likes of me do to get a good name raised upon my beloved Lord Jesus, even if I could desire to be suspended forever of my part of heaven for his glory? I am sure if I could get my will of Christ's love, and could be once over head and ears in the believed, grasped, and seen love of the Son of God, it were the fulfillment of the desires of the only happiness I would be at. But the truth is, I hinder my communion with him, because of lack of both faith and repentance, and because I will make an idol of Christ's kisses. I will neither lead nor be led except I see Christ's love running in my channel; and when I wait and look for him the upper way, I see his wisdom is pleased to take me by surprise and come the lower way. So I have not the right art of guiding Christ — for there is art and wisdom required in guiding Christ's love aright when we have gotten it. Oh, how far are his ways above mine! Oh, how little of him do I see! And when I am as dry as a burnt moor in a parched summer, and when my root is withered, though I then think I would drink a sea-full of Christ before ever I let the cup go from my head, yet I get nothing but delays, as if he would make hunger my daily food. I think myself famished even of hunger. The rich Lord Jesus, satisfy a famished man. Grace be with you.

Aberdeen, September 10, 1637. Your own in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.