To Mr. Mathew Mowat — Letter 79

Reverend and dear brother.

I am refreshed with your letters. I would take all well at my Lord's hands that he has done, if I knew I could do my Lord any service in my suffering — if my Lord would make a stop-hole of me to fill a hole in the wall of his house, or a pin in Zion's new work. For any place of trust in my Lord's house, as steward or chamberlain or the like: surely I think myself — my very dear brother, I speak not by any proud figure or trope — unworthy of it. Indeed I am not worthy to stand behind the door. If my head and feet and body were half out, half in Christ's house, so I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my grieving and love-sick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at work and speaking in our Lord Jesus's name, I think myself but an outcast or outlaw chased from the city to lie on the hills and live among the rocks and outfields. O that I might but stand in Christ's outhouse, or hold a candle in any low vault of his house! But I know this is but the vapors that arise out of a quarrelsome and unbelieving heart, to darken the wisdom of God. And your fault is just mine — that I cannot believe my Lord's bare and naked word. I must either have an apple to play with and shake hands with Christ, and have seal, caution and witness to his word, or else I count myself unbound — though I have the word and faith of a King. O, I am made of unbelief and cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground! Alas, Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying waters, as a defaulter and a deceiver! We can make such a Christ as temptations, casting us in a night-dream, feign and devise — and temptations represent Christ ever unlike himself — and we in our folly listen to the tempter. If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would my soul be. But I myself — which is my greatest evil — often mistake the cross of Christ. I know if we had wisdom and knew well that ease slays us fools, we would desire a market where we might barter our lazy ease for a profitable cross, though there is a natural aversion between our desires and tribulation. But some give a dear price and gold for medicine which they love not and buy sickness, though they wish rather to have been well than to be sick. But surely, brother, you shall not have my advice — though, alas, I cannot follow it myself — to contend with the honest and faithful Lord of the house. For go he or come he, he is always gracious in his departure. There are grace and mercy and loving-kindness upon Christ's back-parts. When he goes away, the proportion of his face, the image of that fair sun that stays in eyes, senses and heart after he is gone, leaves a mass of love behind it in the heart. The sound of his knock at the door of his beloved after he is gone and past leaves a share of joy and sorrow both. So we have something to feed upon until he returns, and he is more loved in his departure and after he is gone than before — as the day in the declining of the sun and toward the evening is often most desired. As for Christ's cross, I never received evil from it but what was of my own making. When I miscook Christ's medicine, no marvel that it hurt me. For since it was on Christ's back it has always had a sweet smell, and these 1600 years it keeps the smell of Christ. Indeed it is older than that, for it is a long time since Abel first took up the cross and had it laid upon his shoulders, and down from him all along to this very day all the saints have known what it is. I am glad that Christ has such a relation to this cross, and that it is called the cross of our Lord Jesus (Galatians 6:14) — his reproaches (Hebrews 13:13) — as if Christ would claim it as his proper goods, and so it comes in the reckoning among Christ's own property. If it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ — who is not the author nor owner of sin — would not own it. I marvel at the enemies of Christ, in whom malice has run away with wisdom, that they would attempt to lift up the stone laid in Zion. Surely it is not laid in such sinking ground that they can raise it or remove it. When we are in their belly and they have swallowed us down, they will be sick and vomit us out again. I know Zion and her husband cannot both sleep at once. I believe our Lord once again shall water with his dew the withered hill of mount Zion in Scotland and come down and make a new marriage again, as he did long since. Remember our covenant. Your excuse for your advice to me is needless. Alas, many sit beside light as sick folks beside food and cannot make use of it. Grace be with you.

Aberdeen, September 7, 1637. Your brother in Christ, S. R.