To His Worthy and Much Honoured Friend Fulk Elies — Letter 61

Worthy and much honored in our Lord,

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am glad of our more-than-paper acquaintance; seeing we have one Father, it matters little though we never saw each other's faces. I profess myself most unworthy to follow the camp of such a worthy and renowned captain as Christ. Oh alas, I have cause to be grieved that men expect anything of such a wretched man as I am. It is a wonder to me if Christ can make anything of my faulty, short, and narrow love for him; surely it is not worth the picking up. Second: as for our lovely and beloved church in Ireland, my heart bleeds for her desolation; but I believe our Lord is only pruning the vines, not intending to cut them down or root them out. It is true, seeing we are heart-atheists by nature and cannot take providence rightly — because we have walked crookedly ever since we fell — we dream of a lopsided providence, as if God's yard by which he measures joy and sorrow to the sons of men were crooked and unjust, because servants are on horseback and princes go on foot. But our Lord deals out good and evil, and some one portion or other to both, by ounce-weights, and measures them in a just and even balance. It is but folly to measure the gospel by summer or winter weather. The summer sun of the saints does not shine upon them in this life. How should we have complained if the Lord had turned the same providence that we now object to upside down, and had ordered matters so that first the saints should have enjoyed heaven, glory, and ease, and then Methuselah's days of sorrow and daily miseries! We should think a short heaven no heaven. Certainly his ways pass finding out. Third: you complain of the evil of heart-atheism, but it is to a greater atheist than any man can be that you write of that. Oh, light does not find that reverence and fear that a plant of God's setting should find in our soul! How do we by nature, as others, hold captive the truth of God in unrighteousness, and so make God's light a bound prisoner. And even when the prisoner breaks the prison and comes out in belief of a Godhead, and in some practice of holy obedience — how often do we, afresh, lay hands on the prisoner and put our light in fetters again. Certainly there comes great mist and clouds from the lower part of our soul, our earthly affections, to the higher part, which is our conscience — whether natural or renewed — as smoke in a lower room rises up and defiles the house above. If we had more practice of obedience, we should have more sound light. I think, setting aside all other guiltiness, this one — the violence done to God's candle in our soul — would be a sufficient charge against us. For there is no helping of this but by striving to stand in awe of God's light, lest light tell tales of us we are little eager to hear. But since it is not without reason that light sits next to will — a lawless lord — no wonder that such a neighbor should leaven our judgment and darken our light. I see there is a necessity that we protest against the doings of the old man, and raise up a party against our worst half to accuse, condemn, sentence, and with sorrow bemoan the dominion of sin's kingdom. And withal, make law in the new covenant against our guiltiness; for Christ once condemned sin in the flesh, and we are to condemn it over again. And if there had not been such a thing as the grace of Jesus, I should long since have given up on heaven and on the expectation of seeing God. But grace, grace, free grace — the merits of Christ for nothing; white and fair and large Savior-mercy, which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy or law-mercy, yes a thousand degrees above angel-mercy — has been and must be the rock that we drowning souls must swim to. New washing, renewed application of purchased redemption by that sacred blood that seals the free covenant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor sinner. Until we are in heaven, our issue of blood will not be fully dried up, and therefore we must resolve to apply peace to our soul from the new and living way. And Jesus who cleanses and cures the leprous soul — lovely Jesus — must be our song on this side of heaven's gates. And even when we have won the castle, then must we eternally sing: 'Worthy, worthy is the Lamb who has saved us and washed us in his own blood.' I would counsel all the ransomed ones to learn this song, and to drink and be drunk with the love of Jesus. O fairest, O highest, O loveliest one, open the well! O, water the burned and withered travelers with this love of yours! I think it is possible on earth to build a young new Jerusalem, a little new heaven, out of this surpassing love. God either send me more of this love or take me quickly over the water, where I may be filled with his love. My weakness cannot bear want; I confess I do not bear hunger for Christ's love well. I know not if I play foul play with Christ, but I would have a link of that chain of his providence changed in starving and delaying the hungry on-waiters. For myself, I could wish that Christ would let out upon me more of that love. Yet to say Christ is a miser to me, I dare not; and if I say I have abundance of his love, I should lie. I am halfway constrained to complain and cry: 'Lord Jesus, hold your hand no longer!' Worthy sir, let me have your prayers in my bonds. Grace be with you.

Aberdeen, September 7, 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.