lxvi. 7): yet the deliverance of the people was with the woman's going

with child seventy years. That is more than nine months. There be many oppositions in carrying on the work; but I hope that the Lord will build His own Zion, and evidence to us that it is done, "not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord."

Madam, I have heard of your infirmities of body, and sickness. I know the issue shall be mercy to you, and that God's purpose, which lieth hidden under ground to you, is to commend the sweetness of His love and care to you from your youth. And if all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs, heaviness, and inconstancy of the creature, be expounded (as sure I am they are) the rods of the jealousy of an Husband in heaven, contending with all your lovers on earth, though there were millions of them, for your love, to fetch more of your love home to heaven, to make it single, unmixed, and chaste, to the Fairest in heaven and earth, to Jesus the Prince of ages, ye will forgive (to borrow that word) every rod of God, and "not let the sun go down on your wrath" against any messenger of your afflicting and correcting Father. Since your Ladyship cannot but see that the mark at which Christ hath aimed these twenty-four years and above, is, to have the company and fellowship of such a sinful creature in heaven with Him for all eternity; and, because He will not (such is the power of His love) enjoy His Father's glory, and that crown due to Him by eternal generation, without you, by name (John xvii. 24, x. 16, xiv. 3), therefore, Madam, believe no evil of Christ: listen to no hard reports that His rods make of Him to you. He hath loved you, and washed you from your sins; and what would ye have more? Is that too little, except He adjourn all crosses, till ye be where ye shall be out of all capacity to sigh or be crossed? I hope that ye can desire no more, no greater, nor more excellent suit, than Christ and the fellowship of the Lamb for evermore. And if that desire be answered in heaven (as I am sure it is, and ye cannot deny but it is made sure to you), the want of these poor accidents, of a living husband, of many children, of an healthful body, of a life of ease in the world, without one knot in the rush, are nobly made up, and may be comfortably borne.

Grace, grace be with your Ladyship.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, _Oct. 16, 1645_.

CCCXIV.--_To BARBARA HAMILTON, on her Son-in-law slain in battle._ [Letter CCCXII.]

(_GOD DOES ALL THINGS WELL, AND WITH DESIGN._)

LOVING SISTER,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I have heard with grief that Newcastle hath taken one more in a bloody account than before, even your son-in-law and my friend. But I hope you have learned that much of Christ as not to look to wheels rolled round about on earth. Earthen vessels are not to dispute with their Former. Pieces of shining clay may, by reasoning and contending with the potter, mar the work of Him "who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem;" as bullocks sweating and wrestling in the furrow make their yoke more heavy. In quietness and rest ye shall be saved. If men do anything contrary to your heart, we may ask both, "Who did it?" and "What is done?" and "Why?" When God hath done any such thing, we are to inquire, "Who hath done it?" and to know that this cometh from the Lord, who is "wonderful in counsel;" but we are not to ask, "What?" or "Why?" If it be from the Lord as certainly there is no evil in the city without Him (Amos iii. 6), it is enough; the fairest face of His spotless way is but coming, and ye are to believe His works as well as His word. Violent death is a sharer with Christ in His death, which was violent. It maketh not much what way we go to heaven: the happy home is all, where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten. He is gone home to a Friend's house, and made welcome, and the race is ended: time is recompensed with eternity, and copper with gold. God's order is in wisdom; the husband goeth home before the wife. And the throng of the market shall be over ere it be long, and another generation be where we now are, and at length an empty house, and not one of mankind shall be upon the earth, within the sixth part of an hour after the earth and works that are therein shall be burnt up with fire. I fear more that Christ is about to remove, when He carrieth home so much of His plenishing beforehand.

We cannot teach the Almighty knowledge. When He was directing the bullet against His servant to fetch out the soul, no wise man could cry to God, "Wrong, wrong, Lord, for he is Thine own!" There is no mist over His eyes who is "wonderful in counsel." If Zion be builded with your son-in-law's blood, the Lord (deep in counsel) can glue together the stones of Zion with blood, and with that blood which is precious in His eyes. Christ hath fewer labourers in His vineyard than He had, but more witnesses for His cause and the Lord's covenant with the three nations. What is Christ's gain is not your loss. Let not that, which is His holy and wise will, be your unbelieving sorrow.

Though I really judge that I had interest in His dead servant, yet, because he now liveth to Christ, I quit the hopes which I had of his successful labouring in the ministry. I know he now praiseth the grace that he was to preach; and if there were a better thing on his head now in heaven than a crown, or anything more excellent than heaven, he would cast it down before His feet who sitteth on the throne. Give glory, therefore, to Christ, as he now doeth, and say, "Thy will be done."

The grace and consolation of Christ be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Nov. 15, 1645_.

CCCXV.-_-To a Christian Friend, upon the death of his Wife._

(_GOD THE FIRST CAUSE--THE END OF AFFLICTION._)

WORTHY FRIEND,--I desire to suffer with you, in the loss of a loving and good wife, now gone before (according to the method and order of Him of whose understanding there is no searching out) whither ye are to follow. He that made yesterday to go before this day, and the former generation, in birth and life, to have been before this present generation, and hath made some flowers to grow and die and wither in the month of May, and others in June, cannot be challenged in the order He hath made of things without souls; and some order He must keep also here, that one might bury another. Therefore I hope ye shall be dumb and silent, because the Lord hath done it.

What creatures or under-causes do, in sinful mistakes, is ordered in wisdom by your Father, at whose feet your own soul and your heaven lieth; and so the days of your wife. If the place she hath left were any other than a prison of sin, and the home she is gone to any other than where her Head and Saviour is King of the land, your grief had been more rational. But I trust your faith of the resurrection of the dead in Christ to glory and immortality, will lead you to suspend your longing for her, till the morning and dawning of that day when the archangel shall descend with a shout, to gather all the prisoners out of the grave, up to Himself. To believe this is best for you; and to be silent, because He hath done it, is your wisdom.

It is much to come out of the Lord's school of trial wiser, and more experienced in the ways of God; and it is our happiness, when Christ openeth a vein, that He taketh nothing but ill blood from His sick ones. Christ hath skill to do; and (if our corruption mar not) the art of mercy in correcting. We cannot of ourselves take away the tin, the lead, and the scum that remaineth in us; and if Christ be not Master-of-work, and if the furnace go its lone (He not standing nigh the melting of His own vessel), the labour were lost, and the Founder should melt in vain. God knoweth some of us have lost much fire, sweating, and pains, to our Lord Jesus; and the vessel is almost marred, the furnace and rod of God spilled, "the daylight[455] burnt, and the reprobate metal not taken away," so as some are to answer to the Majesty of God for the abuse of many good crosses, and rich afflictions lost without the quiet fruit of righteousness. It is a sad thing when the rod is cursed, that never fruit shall grow on it. And except Christ's dew fall down, and His summer-sun shine, and His grace follow afflictions to cause them to bring forth fruit to God, they are so fruitless to us, that our evil ground (rank and fat enough for briers) casteth up a crop of noisome weeds. "The rod" (as the prophet saith) "blossometh, pride buddeth forth, violence riseth up into a rod of wickedness" (Ezek. vii. 10, 11). And all this hath been my case under many rods since I saw you.

[455] The allusion is to Jer. vi. 29, and in that passage "daylight" is a variation from our common version. Could Rutherford have been reading Jeremiah in the Septuagint Greek version? There the word is φυσητὴρ, "blowpipe," or "_bellows_;" but we might suppose that his eye mistook the word for φωστὴρ, "lightgiver," "_window-light_." The Scotch phrase, "to burn daylight," means to waste time and opportunity.

Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, 1645.

CCCXVI.--_To a Christian Brother, on the death of his Daughter._

(_CONSOLATION IN HER HAVING GONE BEFORE--CHRIST THE BEST HUSBAND._)

REVEREND AND BELOVED IN THE LORD,--It may be that I have been too long silent, but I hope that ye will not impute it to forgetfulness of you.

As I have heard of the death of your daughter with heaviness of mind on your behalf, so am I much comforted that she hath evidenced to yourself and other witnesses the hope of the resurrection of the dead. As sown corn is not lost (for there is more hope of that which is sown than of that which is eaten) (1 Cor. xv. 42, 43), so also is it in the resurrection of the dead: the body "is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory." I hope that ye wait for the crop and harvest; "for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him" (1 Thess. iv. 14). Then they are not lost who are gathered into that congregation of the first-born, and the general assembly of the saints. Though we cannot outrun nor overtake them that are gone before, yet we shall quickly follow them; and the difference is, that she hath the advantage of some months or years of the crown before you and her mother. As we do not take it ill if our children outrun us in the life of grace, why then are we sad if they outstrip us in the attainment of the life of glory? It would seem that there is more reason to grieve that children live behind us, than that they are glorified and die before us. All the difference is in some poor hungry accidents of time, less or more, sooner or later. So the godly child, though young, died an hundred years old; and ye could not now have bestowed her better, though the choice was Christ's, not yours.

And I am sure, Sir, ye cannot now say that she is married against the will of her parents. She might more readily, if alive, fall into the hands of a worse husband; but can ye think that she could have fallen into the hands of a better? And if Christ marry with your house, it is your honour, not any cause of grief, that Jesus should portion any of yours, ere she enjoy your portion. Is it not great love? The patrimony is more than any other could give; as good a husband is impossible; to say a better is blasphemy. The King and Prince of ages can keep them better than ye can do. While she was alive, ye could entrust her to Christ, and recommend her to His keeping; now, by an after-faith, ye have resigned her unto Him in whose bosom do sleep all that are dead in the Lord. Ye would have lent her to glorify the Lord upon earth, and He hath borrowed her (with promise to restore her again) (1 Cor. xv. 53; 1 Thess. iv. 15, 16) to be an organ of the immediate glorifying of Himself in heaven. Sinless glorifying of God is better than sinful glorifying of Him. And sure your prayers concerning her are fulfilled. I shall desire, if the Lord shall be pleased the same way to dispose of her mother, that ye have the same mind. Christ cannot multiply injuries upon you. If the fountain be the love of God (as I hope it is), ye are enriched with losses.

Ye knew all I can say better, before I was in Christ, than I can express it. Grace be with you.

Yours, in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 6, 1646_.

CCCXVII.--_To a Christian Gentlewoman._

(_VIEWS OF DEATH AND HEAVEN--ASPIRATIONS._)

MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--If death, which is before you and us all, were any other thing than a friendly dissolution, and a change, not a destruction of life, it would seem a hard voyage to go through such a sad and dark trance,[456] so thorny a valley, as is the wages of sin. But I am confident the way ye know, though your foot never trod in that black shadow. The loss of life is gain to you. If Christ Jesus be the period, the end, and lodging-home, at the end of your journey, there is no fear; ye go to a friend. And since ye have had communion with Him in this life, and He hath a pawn or pledge of yours, even the largest share of your love and heart, ye may look death in the face with joy.

[456] Passage.

If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you cannot be kept the prisoner of the second death. But though He be the same Christ in the other life that ye found Him to be here, yet He is so far in His excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradiations, and beams of majesty, above what He appeared here, when He is seen as He is, that ye shall misken Him, and He shall appear a new Christ. And His kisses, breathings, embracements, the perfume, the ointment of His name poured out on you, shall appear to have more of God, and a stronger smell of heaven, of eternity, of a Godhead, of majesty and glory, there than here; as water at the fountain, apples in the orchard and beside the tree, have more of their native sweetness, taste, and beauty, than when transported to us some hundred miles.

I mean not that Christ can lose any of His sweetness in the carrying, or that He, in His Godhead and loveliness of presence, can be changed to the worse, betwixt the little spot of the earth that ye are in, and the right hand of the Father far above all heavens. But the change will be in you, when ye shall have new senses, and the soul shall be a more deep and more capacious vessel, to take in more of Christ; and when means (the chariot, the Gospel, that He is now carried in, and ordinances that convey Him) shall be removed. Sure ye cannot now be said to see Him face to face; or to drink of the wine of the highest fountain, or to take in seas and tides of fresh love immediately, without vessels, midses, or messengers, at the Fountain itself, as ye will do a few days hence, when ye shall be so near as to be with Christ (Luke xxiii. 43; John xvii. 24; Phil. i. 23; 1 Thess. iv. 17).

Ye would, no doubt, bestow a day's journey, yea, many days' journey on earth, to go up to heaven, and fetch down anything of Christ; how much more may ye be willing to make a journey to go in person to heaven (it is not lost time, but gained eternity) to enjoy the full Godhead! And then, in such a manner as He is there! not in His week-day's apparel, as He is here with us, in a drop or the tenth part of a night's dewing of grace and sweetness; but He is there in His marriage-robe of glory, richer, more costly, more precious, in one hem or button of that garment of Fountain majesty than a million of worlds. Oh, the well is deep! Ye shall then think that preachers, and sinful ambassadors on earth, did but spill and mar His praises, when they spoke of Him and preached His beauty.

Alas! we but make Christ black and less lovely, in making such insignificant, and dry, and cold, and low expressions of His highest and transcendent super-excellency to the daughters of Jerusalem. Sure I have often, for my own part, sinned in this thing. No doubt angels do not fulfil their task, according to their obligation, in that Christ keeps their feet from falling with the lost devils; though I know they are not behind in going to the utmost of created power. But there is sin in our praising, and sin in the quantity, besides other sins. But I must leave this; it is too deep for me. Go and see, and we desire to go with you; but we are not masters of our own diet.[457] If, in that last journey, ye tread on a serpent in the way, and thereby wound your heel, as Jesus Christ did before you, the print of the wound shall not be known at the resurrection of the just. Death is but an awesome step, over time and sin, to sweet Jesus Christ, who knew and felt the worst of death, for death's teeth hurt Him. We know death hath no teeth now, no jaws, for they are broken. It is a free prison; citizens pay nothing for the grave. The jailor who had the power of death is destroyed: praise and glory be to the First-begotten of the dead.

[457] _Diet_, used for fixed time.

The worst possible that may be is, that ye leave behind you children, husband, and the church of God in miseries. But ye cannot get them to heaven with you for the present. Ye shall not miss them, and Christ cannot miscount one of the poorest of His lambs. No lad, no girl, no poor one shall be a-missing, ere[458] ye see them again, in the day that the Son shall render up the kingdom to His Father.

[458] None shall be longer missed than just till the time when ye shall see them again.

The evening and the shadow of every poor hireling is coming. The sun of Christ's church in this life is declining low. Not a soul of the militant company will be here within a few generations; our Husband will send for them all. It is a rich mercy that we are not married to time longer than the course be finished.

Ye may rejoice that ye go not to heaven till ye know that Jesus is there before you; that when ye come thither, at your first entry ye may feel the smell of His ointments, His myrrh, aloes, and cassia. And this first salutation of His will make you find it is no uncomfortable thing to die. Go and enjoy your gain; live on Christ's love while ye are here, and all the way.

As for the church which ye leave behind you, the government is upon Christ's shoulders, and He will plead for the blood of His saints. The Bush hath been burning above five thousand years, and we never yet saw the ashes of this fire. Yet a little while, and the vision shall not tarry: it will speak, and not lie. I am more afraid of my duty, than of the Head Christ's government. He cannot fail to bring judgment to victory. Oh that we could wait for our hidden life! Oh that Christ would remove the covering, draw aside the curtain of time, and rend the heavens, and come down! Oh that shadows and night were gone, that the day would break, and that He who feedeth among the lilies would cry to His heavenly trumpeters, "Make ready, let us go down and fold together the four corners of the world, and marry the bride!" His grace be with you.

Now, if I have found favour with you, and if ye judge me faithful, my last suit to you is that ye would leave me a legacy; and that is, that my name may be, at the very last, in your prayers: as I desire also, it may be in the prayers of those of your Christian acquaintance with whom ye have been intimate.

Your brother, in his own Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 9, 1646_.

CCCXVIII.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_CHRIST NEVER IN OUR DEBT--RICHES OF CHRIST--EXCELLENCE OF THE HEAVENLY STATE._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--It is the least of the princely and royal bounty of Jesus Christ to pay a king's debts, and not to have His servants at a loss. His gold is better than yours, and His hundred-fold is the income and rent of heaven, and far above your revenues. Ye are not the first who have casten up your accounts that way. Better have Christ your factor than any other; for He tradeth to the advantage of His poor servants. But if the hundred-fold in this life be so well told (as Christ cannot pay you with miscounting or deferred hope), oh, what must the rent of that land be which rendereth (every day and hour of the years of long eternity) the whole rent of a year, yea, of more than thousand thousands of ages, even the weighty income of a rich kingdom, not every summer once, but every moment!

That sum of glory will take you and all the angels telling.[459] To be a tenant to such a Landlord, where every berry and grape of the large field beareth no worse fruit than glory, fulness of joy, and pleasures that endure for evermore! I leave it to yourself to think what a summer, what a soil, what a garden must be there; and what must be the commodities of that highest land, where the sun and the moon are under the feet of the inhabitants! Surely the land cannot be bought with gold, blood, banishment, loss of father and mother, husband, wife, children. We but dwell here because we can do no better. It is need, not virtue, to be sojourners in a prison; to weep and sigh, and, alas! to sin sixty or seventy years in a land of tears. The fruits that grow here are all seasoned and salted with sin.

[459] Will require all your power, and that of angels too, to unfold.

Oh how sweet is it that the company of the first-born should be divided into two great bodies of an army, and some in their country, and some in the way to their country! If it were no more than once to see the face of the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays and beams of matchless glory, and incomparable fountain-love, it were a well-spent journey to creep hands and feet through seven deaths and seven hells, to enjoy Him up at the well-head. Only let us not weary: the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than when we first believed. Strangers are not wise to quarrel with their host, and complain of their lodging. It is a foul way, but a fair home. Oh that I had but such grapes and clusters out of the land as I have sometimes seen and tasted in the place whereof your Ladyship maketh mention! But the hope of it in the end is a heartsome convoy in the way. If I see little more of the gold[460] till the race be ended, I dare not quarrel. It is the Lord! I hope His chariot will go through these three kingdoms, after our sufferings shall be accomplished.

[460] In a sermon preached at Kircudbright, in 1634, on Heb. xii. 1-3, he says, "This condemns those who will not run one foot in the race except the gold be in their hand."

Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 26, 1646_.

CCCXIX.--_To_ Mr. J. G.[461]

[461] Perhaps Mr. James Guthrie, minister of Stirling; afterwards beheaded in 1661, at the Cross of Edinburgh, and his head fixed on the Nether Bow.

(_PROSPECTS FOR SCOTLAND--HIS OWN DARKNESS--ABILITY OF CHRIST._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--I shall with my soul desire the peace of these kingdoms, and I do believe it will at last come, as a river and as the mighty waves of the sea; but oh that we were ripe and in readiness to receive it! The preserving of two or three, or four or five berries, in the utmost boughs of the olive-tree, after the vintage, is like to be a great matter ere all be done; yet I know that a cluster in both kingdoms shall be saved, for a blessing is in it. But it is not, I fear, so near to the dawning of the day of salvation but the clouds must send down more showers of blood to water the vineyard of the Lord, and to cause it to blossom. Scotland's scum is not yet removed; nor is England's dross and tin taken away; nor the filth of our blood "purged by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning." But I am too much on this sad subject.

As for myself, I do esteem nothing out of heaven, and next to a communion with Jesus Christ, more than to be in the hearts and prayers of the saints. I know that He feedeth there among the lilies, till the day break; but I am at low ebb, as to any sensible communion with Christ; yea, as low as any soul can be, and do scarce know where I am; and do now make it a question, if any can go to Him, who dwelleth in light inaccessible, through nothing but darkness. Sure, all that come to heaven have a stock in Christ; but I know not where mine is. It cannot be enough for me to believe the salvation of others, and to know Christ to be the Honeycomb, the Rose of Sharon, the Paradise and Eden of the saints, and First-born written in heaven, and not to see afar the borders of that good land.

But what shall I say? Either this is the Lord, making grace a new creation, where there is pure nothing and sinful nothing to work upon, or I am gone. I should count my soul engaged to yourself, and others there with you, if ye would but carry to Christ for me a letter of cyphers and nonsense (for I know not how to make language of my condition), only showing that I have need of His love; for I know many fair and washen ones stand now in white before the throne, who were once as black as I am. If Christ pass His word to wash a sinner, it is less to Him than a word to make fair angels of black devils! Only let the art of free grace be engaged. I have not a cautioner to give surety, nor doth a Mediator, such as He is in all perfection, need a mediator. But what I need, He knoweth; only, it is His depth of wisdom to let some pass millions of miles over score in debt, that they may stand between the winning and the losing, in need of more than ordinary free grace.

Christ hath been multiplying grace by mercy above these five thousand years; and the later born heirs have so much greater guiltiness, that Christ hath passed more experiments and multiplied essays of heart-love on others, by misbelieving (after it is past all question, many hundreds of ages), that Christ is the undeniable and now uncontroverted treasurer of multiplied redemptions. So now He is saying, "The more of the disease there is, the more of the physician's art of grace and tenderness there must be." Only, I know that no sinner can put infinite grace to it,[462] so as the Mediator shall have difficulty, or much ado, to save this or that man. Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.

[462] "_To put one to it_," is a phrase equivalent to, "Cause him to be at a loss how to act."

I pray you (remembering my love to your wife, and friends there), let me find that I have solicitors there amongst your acquaintance; and forget not Scotland.

Your brother in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

LONDON, _Jan. 30, 1646_.

CCCXX.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_TRIALS CANNOT INJURE SAINTS--BLESSEDNESS IN SEEING CHRIST._)

MADAM,--It is too like that the Lord's controversy with these two nations is but yet beginning, and that we are ripened and white for the Lord's sickle.

For the particular condition your Ladyship is in, another might speak (if they would say all) of more sad things. If there was not a fountain of free grace to water dry ground, and an uncreated wind to breathe on withered and dry bones, we were gone. The wheels of Christ's chariot (to pluck us out of the womb of many deaths) are winged like eagles. All I have is, to desire to believe that Christ will show all good-will to save; and as for your Ladyship, I know that our Lord Jesus carrieth on no design against you, but seeketh to save and redeem you. He lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to take you up. His way of redeeming is ravishing and taking. There are more miracles of glorified sinners in heaven than can be on earth. Nothing of you, Madam, nay, not even your leaf, can wither.

Verily, it is a king's life to follow the Lamb. But when ye see Him in His own country at home, ye will think ye never saw Him before: "He shall be admired of all them that believe" (2 Thess. i. 10). Ye may judge how far all your now sad days, and tossings, changes, losses, wants, conflicts, shall then be below you. Ye look to the cross: now it is above your head, and seemeth to threaten death, as having a dominion; but it shall then be so far below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above it, that ye shall have no leisure to lend one thought to old-dated crosses, in youth, in age, in this country or in that, from this instrument or from another, except it be to the heightening of your consolation, being now got above and beyond all these.

Old age, and "waxing old as a garment," is written on the fairest face of the creation (Ps. cii. 26). Death, from Adam to the Second Adam's appearance, playeth the king and reigneth over all. The prime Heir died; His children, whom the Lord hath given, follow Him. And we may speak freely of the life which is here; were it heaven, there were not much gain in godliness. But there is a rest for the people of God. Christ-man possesseth it now one thousand six hundred years before many of His members; but it weareth not out.

Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _Feb. 16, 1646_.

CCCXXI.--_To the LADY ARDROSS, in Fife._ [_There is an Ardross near Ferintosh in Ross-shire._]

[LADY ARDROSS, whose maiden name was Helen Lindsay, was the daughter of Lady Christian Hamilton, eldest daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington, by her first husband Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres. She was married to Sir William Scott of Ardross, son of Sir W. Scott of Elie. Her daughter, Euphemia, Countess of Dundonald, some thirty years after this, attended the field conventicles, and entertained the field preachers at her house. (Douglas' "Peerage," vol. i. p. 386.) This letter was written to her on the occasion of the death of her mother, who was then Lady Boyd, having married for her second husband, Robert, sixth Lord Boyd. (See notice of Lady Boyd, Letter LXXVII.)]

(_ON HER MOTHER'S DEATH--HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN, AND BLESSEDNESS OF DYING IN THE LORD._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--It hath seemed good, as I hear, to Him that hath appointed the bounds for the number of our months, to gather in a sheaf of ripe corn, in the death of your Christian mother, into His garner. It is the more evident that winter is near, when apples, without the violence of wind, fall of their own accord off the tree. She is now above the winter, with a little change of place, not of a Saviour; only she enjoyeth Him now without messages, and in His own immediate presence, from whom she heard by letters and messengers before.

I grant that death is to her a very new thing; but heaven was prepared of old. And Christ (as enjoyed in His highest throne, and as loaded with glory, and incomparably exalted above men and angels, having such a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and musicians above, compassing the throne with a song) is to her a new thing, but so new as the first summer-rose, or the first fruits of that heavenly field; or as a new paradise to a traveller, broken and worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a long and dirty way.

Ye may easily judge, Madam, what a large recompense is made to all her service, her walking with God, and her sorrows, with the first cast of the soul's eye upon the shining and admirably beautiful face of the Lamb, that is in the midst of that fair and white army which is there, and with the first draught and taste of the fountain of life, fresh and new at the well-head; to say nothing of the enjoying of that face without date, for more than this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no more to go thither, than to suffer death to do her this piece of service: for by Him who was dead, and is alive, she was delivered from the second death. What, then, is the first death to the second? Not a scratch of the skin of a finger to the endless second death. And now she sitteth for eternity mail-free, in a very considerable land, which hath more than four summers in the year. Oh, what spring-time is there! Even the smelling of the odours of that great and eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for ever and ever! What a singing life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field; but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion to the high Prince of that new-found land. And, verily, the land is the sweeter that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it. And He is the glory of the land: all which, I hope, doth not so much mitigate and allay your grief for her part (though truly this should seem sufficient), as the unerring expectation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope you have of the fruition of that same King and kingdom to your own soul. Certainly the hope of it, when things look so dark-like on both kingdoms, must be an exceedingly great quickening to languishing spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery, to have both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at night! But He hath taken up your lodging for you.

I can say no more now; but I pray that the very God of peace may establish your heart to the end. I rest, Madam,

Your Ladyship's, at all respective obedience in the Lord,

S. R.

LONDON, _Feb. 24, 1646_.

CCCXXII.--_To_ M. O.

[Perhaps, as Letter CXLIX., some one of Provost Osburn's family in Ireland.]

(_GLOOMY PROSPECTS FOR THE BACKSLIDING CHURCH--THE MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF BELIEVERS CAUSE OF GREAT GRIEF--THE DAY OF CHRIST._)

SIR,--I can write nothing for the present concerning these times (whatever others may think), but that which speaketh wrath and judgment to these kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that land, received the Gospel in truth (as I am confident ye and they did), there is here a great departure from that faith, and our sufferings are not yet at an end. However, I dare testify and die for it, that once Christ was revealed in the power of His excellency and glory to the saints there, and in Scotland, of which I was a witness. I pray God that none deceive you, or take the crown from you. Hell, or the gates of hell, cannot ravel, mar, nor undo what Christ hath once done amongst you. It may be that I am incapable of new light, and cannot receive that spirit whereof some vainly boast; but that "which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled" (1 John i. 1), even "the word of life," hath been declared to you. Thousands of thousands, walking in that light and that good old way, have gone to heaven, and are now before the throne. Truth is but one, and hath no numbers. Christ and Antichrist are both now in the camp, and are come to open blows. Christ's poor ship saileth in the sea of blood; the passengers are so sea-sick of a high fever, that they miscall one another. Christ, I hope, will bring the broken bark to land. I had rather swim for life and death on an old plank, or a broken board, to land with Christ, than enjoy the rotten peace we have hitherto had. It is like that the Lord will take a severe course with us, to cause the children of the family to agree together. I conceive that Christ hath a great design of free grace to these lands; but His wheels must move over mountains and rocks. He never yet wooed a bride on earth, but in blood, in fire, and in the wilderness. A cross of our own choosing, honeyed and sugared with consolations, we cannot have. I think not much of a cross when all the children of the house weep with me and for me; and to suffer when we enjoy the communion of the saints is not much; but it is hard when saints rejoice in the suffering of saints, and redeemed ones hurt (yea, even go nigh to hate) redeemed ones.

I confess I imagined there had no more been such an affliction on earth, or in the world, as that one elect angel should fight against another; but, for contempt of the communion of saints, we have need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of before. The saints are not Christ: there is no misjudging in Him; there is much in us; and a doubt it is, if we shall have fully one heart till we shall enjoy one heaven. Our star-light hideth us from ourselves, and hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all. But He will not be hidden from us. I shall wish that all the sons of our Father in that land were of one mind, and that they be not shaken nor moved from the truth once received. Christ was in that Gospel, and Christ is the same now that He was in The Prelates' time. That Gospel cannot sink; it will make you free, and bear you out. Christ, the subject of it, is the chosen of God; and cometh from Bozrah, with garments dyed in blood. Ireland and Scotland both must be His field, in which He shall feed and gather lilies. Suppose (which yet is impossible) that some had an eternity of Christ in Ireland, and a sweet summer of the Gospel, and a feast of fat things for evermore in Ireland, and that one should never come to heaven, it should be a desirable life! The King's spikenard, Christ's perfume, His apples of love, His ointments, even down in this lower house of clay, are a choice heaven. Oh! what then is the King in His own land, where there is such a throne, so many King's palaces, ten thousand thousands of crowns of glory that want heads yet to fill them? Oh, so much leisure as shall be there to sing! Oh, such a tree as groweth there in the midst of that Paradise, where the inhabitants sing eternally under its branches! To look in at a window, and see the branches burdened with the apples of life, to be the last man that shall come in thither, were too much for me.

I pray you to remember me to the Christians there; and remember our private covenant. Grace be with you.

Your friend in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _April 17, 1646_.

CCCXXIII.--_To EARLSTON, Elder._

(_CHRIST'S WAY OF AFFLICTING THE BEST--OBLIGATION TO FREE GRACE--ENDURING THE CROSS._)

SIR,--I know that ye have learned long ago, ere I knew anything of Christ, that if we had the cross at our own election, we would either have law-surety for freedom from it, or then we would have it honeyed and sugared with comforts, so as the sweet should overmaster the gall and wormwood. Christ knoweth how to breed the sons of His house, and ye will give Him leave to take His own way of dispensation with you; and, though it be rough, forgive Him. He defieth you to have as much patience to Him as He hath borne to you. I am sure that there cannot be a dram-weight of gall less in your cup; and ye would not desire He should both afflict you and hurt your soul. When His people cannot have a providence of silk and roses, they must be content with such an one as He carveth for them. Ye would not go to heaven but with company; and ye may perceive that the way of those who went before you was through blood, sufferings, and many afflictions. Nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door-threshold of Paradise bleeding to death. I do not think but ye have learned to stoop (though ye, as others, be naturally stiff), and that ye have found that the apples and sweet fruits, which grow on that crabbed tree of the cross, are as sweet as it is sour to bear it; especially considering that Christ hath borne the whole complete cross, and that His saints bear but bits and chips; as the Apostle saith, "the remnants," or "leavings," of the cross (Col. i. 24).

I judge you ten thousand times happy, that ever ye were grace's debtor; for certainly Christ hath engaged you over head and ears to free grace. And take the debt with you to eternity, Immanuel's highest land, where ye find before you a houseful of Christ's everlasting debtors; the less shame to you. Yea, and this lower kingdom of grace is but Christ's hospital, and guest-house of sick folks, whom the brave and noble Physician, Christ, hath cured, upon a venture of life and death. And, if ye be near the water-side (as I know ye are), all that I can say is this, Sir, that I feel by the smell of that land which is before you, that it is a goodly country, and it is well paid for to your hand. And He is before you who will heartily welcome you. Oh, to suck those breasts of full consolation above, and to drink Christ's new wine up in His Father's house, is some greater matter than is believed; since it was brewed from eternity for the Head of the house, and so many thousand crowned kings. Rubs in the way, where the lodging is so good, are not much.

He that brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish you to the end.

Your friend and servant in Christ Jesus,

S. R.

LONDON, _May 15, 1646_.

CCCXXIV.--_To his Reverend and worthy Brother_, MR. GEORGE GILLESPIE.[463]

[463] Gillespie was lying on his deathbed when this letter was written to him by Rutherford, who had heard of the dangerous illness of his friend. He died on the 17th of December following.

(_PROSPECT OF DEATH--CHRIST THE TRUE SUPPORT IN DEATH._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--I cannot speak to you. The way ye know; the passage is free and not stopped; the print of the footsteps of the Forerunner is clear and manifest; many have gone before you. Ye will not sleep long in the dust, before The Daybreak. It is a far shorter piece of the hinder-end of the night to you than to Abraham and Moses. Beside all the time of their bodies resting under corruption, it is as long yet to their day as to your morning-light of awaking to glory, though their spirits, having the advantage of yours, have had now the fore-start of the shore before you.

I dare say nothing against His dispensation. I hope to follow quickly. The heirs that are not there before you are posting with haste after you, and none shall take your lodging over your head. Be not heavy. The life of faith is now called for; _doing_ was never reckoned in your accounts, though Christ in and by you hath done more than by twenty, yea, an hundred grey-haired and godly pastors. Believing now is your last.[464] Look to that word, "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20). Ye know the I that liveth, and the _I_ that liveth not; it is not single _Ye_ that live. Christ by law liveth in the broken debtor; it is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living of Christ in you. If ye look to yourself as divided from Christ, ye must be more than heavy. All your wants, dear brother, be upon Him: ye are His debtors; grace must sum and subscribe your accounts as paid. Stand not upon items, and small or little sanctification. Ye know that _inherent_ holiness must stand by, when _imputed_ is all. I fear the clay house is a-taking down and undermining: but it is nigh the dawning. Look to the east, the dawning of the glory is near. Your Guide is good company, and knoweth all the miles, and the ups and downs in the way. The nearer the morning, the darker. Some travellers see the city twenty miles off, and at a distance; and yet within the eighth part of a mile they cannot see it. It is all keeping that ye would now have, till ye need it; and if sense and fruition come both at once, it is not your loss. Let Christ tutor you as He thinketh good; ye cannot be marred, nor miscarry, in His hand. Want is an excellent qualification; and "no money, no price," to you (who, I know, dare not glory in your own righteousness) is fitness warrantable enough to cast yourself upon Him who justifieth the ungodly. Some see the gold[465] once, and never again till the race's end. It is coming all in a sum together, when ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it than now. "Ye are not come to the mount that burneth with fire, or unto blackness, darkness, and tempest; but ye are come to Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling," etc.

[464] Your believing now is your last believing; closing the whole course.

[465] See Letter CCCXVIII.

Ye must leave the wife to a more choice Husband, and the children to a better Father.

If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work and Covenant, against both Malignants and Sectaries (which I suppose may be needful), let it be under your hand, and subscribed before faithful witnesses.[466]

[466] In this matter Gillespie complied with Rutherford's advice, having left behind him a testimony against both Malignants and Sectaries, subscribed by his own hand, on the 15th of December, only two days before he died.

Your loving and afflicted brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Sept. 27, 1648_.

CCCXXV.--_To SIR JAMES STEWART, Lord Provost of Edinburgh_.[467]

[467] As an accurate facsimile of this letter from the original, among the papers of the Town Council of Edinburgh, is inserted here, it has been thought proper, in this instance, to retain Rutherford's orthography.

[SIR JAMES STEWART of Kirkfield and Cultness, to whom this letter is addressed, was a man of high Christian excellence. "Sir James Stewart," said the celebrated George Gillespie, "has more sterling religion in ready cash than any man ever I knew; he is always agreeably composed and recollected, in a permanent devout frame of spirit, and such as I should wish to have in my last moments" ("Coltness Collections," p. 15). He was a zealous Covenanter, and suffered considerably for his principles during the persecution of Charles II. He died March 31, 1681, at his own house at Edinburgh, in the seventy-third year of his age, in the full assurance of faith. Rutherford wrote this letter on occasion of his own election to be Professor of Divinity in the College of Edinburgh.]

Richt honorablee

THE mater of my transportation is so poor a contraversie, I truely not beeing desyrous to be the subject of any dine[468] in the Generall Assemblie of the Kirk of Scotland whoe have greater bussines to doe, and haveing suffered once the paine of transportation, moist humbly intreat your w. [worships] that favour as to cast yo^r thoughts vpon some fitter man; for as it is vnbeseemeing me to lie or dissemblee, so I must friely show you it will but mak me the subject of suffereing and passive obedience, and I trust your w. [worships] intend not that hurt to me, and I am persuaded it is not yo^r mind, it shall be my prayer to God, to send that worthie societie an hable[469] and pious man. Grace be with you.

[468] _Din_, noise. The superfluous "_e_," at the end of several of these words, may possibly have been a dash in the writing. "Dine," for "din"; "whoe," for "who"; "humblee," for "humble." Compare "_honorable_," on the address of the letter with the same word in the commencement. (A kind friend, reading this letter carefully over, maintains that "_dine_," or "_din_," is not the word in the autograph, but that it is "_drane_," which would mean that he did not wish _to be a drain_ on the time of the Assembly, who had greater business to attend to than this personal affair of his. But, so far as we are aware, that phrase, "_to be a drain_," never occurs elsewhere in Rutherford's writings. What if the writer, in the agitation of the moment, allowed his pen to write "drane," though he meant it to be "dine"?)

[469] From French, "habile," in which we see the etymology of "_able_."

Yours at all humblee observance in the Lord SAMUEL RUTHERFURD

for the richt honorable my varie good lord, Sr James Steuart proveist of Edinbrugh and remanent magistrats Counsellers of the Citie.

S Andrews the Last of Junii 1649

CCCXXVI.--_To MISTRESS GILLESPIE, Widow of George Gillespie._

(_ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD--GOD AFFLICTS IN ORDER TO SAVE US FROM THE WORLD._)

DEAR SISTER,--I have heard how the Lord hath visited you, in removing the child Archibald. I hope ye see that the setting down of the weight of your confidence and affection upon any created thing, whether husband or child, is a deceiving thing; and that the creature is not able to bear the weight, but sinketh down to very nothing under your confidence. And, therefore, ye are Christ's debtor for all providences of this kind, even in that He buildeth an hedge of thorns in your way: for so ye see that His gracious intention is, to save you (if I may say so) whether ye will or not.

It is a rich mercy that the Lord Christ will be Master of your will and of your delights, and that His way is so fair, for landing of husband and children before-hand in the country whitherto ye are journeying. No matter how little ye be engaged to the world, since ye have such experience of cross-dealing in it. Had ye been a child of the house, the world would have dealt more warmly with its own. There is less of you out of heaven, in that the child is there and the husband is there; but much more that your Head, Kinsman, and Redeemer doth fetch home such as are in danger to be lost. And from this time forward, fetch not your comforts from such broken cisterns and dry wells. If the Lord pull at the rest, ye must not be the creature that will hold when He draweth.

Truly, to me your case is more comfortable than if the fireside were well plenished with ten children. The Lord saw that ye were able, by His grace, to bear the loss of husband and child; and that ye are that weak and tender as not to be able to stand under the mercy of a gracious husband, living and flourishing in esteem with authority, and in reputation for godliness and learning. For He knoweth the weight of these mercies would crush you and break you. And as there is no searching out of His understanding, so He hath skill to know what providence will make Christ dearest to you; and let not your heart say, "It is an ill-waled dispensation." Sure Christ, who hath seven eyes, had before Him the good of a living husband and children for Margaret Murray, and the good of a removed husband and children translated to glory. Now that He hath opened His decree to you, say, "Christ hath made for me a wise and gracious choice, and I have not one word to say to the contrary." Let not your heart charge anything, nor unbelief libel injuries upon Christ because He will not let you alone, nor give you leave to play the adulteress with such as have not that right to your love that Christ hath. I should wish that, at the reading of this, ye may fall down and make a surrender of those that are gone, and of those that are yet alive, to Him. And for you, let Him have all; and wait for Himself, for He will come, and will not tarry. Live by faith, and the peace of God guard your heart. He cannot die whose ye are.

My wife suffereth with you,[470] and remembereth her love to you.

Your brother in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Aug. 14, 1649_.

[470] Rutherford was married a second time on 24th March 1649, about five months previous to the date of this Letter, to Jean M'Math.

CCCXXVII.--_To the_ EARL OF BALCARRAS.

[ALEXANDER LINDSAY, second Lord Balcarras, and first Earl of Balcarras, to whom this letter is addressed, was a man of superior talents, and espoused the cause of the Covenant. He commanded a troop of horse in the Covenanters' army at the battle of Alford, 2nd July 1645, when General Baillie was defeated by Montrose. He was one of the Commissioners despatched by the Parliament of Scotland, 19th December 1646, to King Charles I., with their last proposals, which his Majesty rejected; upon which the Scottish army surrendered him to the English Parliament, and retired from England. When, in 1648, troops were raised with the design of rescuing the King from the English Parliament, and restoring him to liberty and power, without requiring from him any concessions to his subjects, which was called "The Engagement," Balcarras took an active part in this enterprise, for which Rutherford, by the way, tenders to him a reproof. On the arrival of Charles II. in Scotland, 1650, he repaired to his Majesty, by whom he was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Balcarras. He was High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland which met at St. Andrews, 16th July 1651. In 1652 he settled with his family at St. Andrews, keeping up a correspondence with his exiled sovereign; and in 1653 again took arms, and joined in an ineffectual attempt to uphold the Royal cause against Cromwell. His estate, after this, being sequestrated, he withdrew to the Continent. His Lordship did not live to see the Restoration of Charles, having died of consumption in the prime of life, at Breda, on the 30th of August 1659. His mortal remains were brought over to Scotland, and interred at Balcarras. (Douglas' "Peerage of Scotland.") This letter is given from the original, among the Balcarras Papers, vol. ix., No. 135, Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. _Balcarras House_ is three miles from Largo. A tower on the crag above it marks it out from a distance. The old mansion has been nearly superseded, but you see carved on the walls the old motto, "Astra, castra, lumen, Numen." In old books it is written "_Balcarrs_."]

(_REGARDING SOME MISUNDERSTANDING._)

MY VERY HONOURABLE LORD,--I am sorry that your Lordship should be offended at any sinistrous misinformation concerning your supposed discountenancing of ministers. For the general I can say nothing, being utterly ignorant thereof. I hope your Lordship will make the best use of it may be. For myself, I owe no thanks to any that have named me as the object of any discountenancing; for, truly, I value not any of these when, as the conscience of my innocence showeth me (and, for aught known to me, truly) that I offended no nobleman in the kingdom, far less my Lord Balcarras, whose public deservings have been such as I esteem him to have been most instrumental in this work of God. I hope, my Lord, you will pardon me to make a little exception in the matter of the late sinful engagement. And therefore, my Lord, I entreat you to forget that business; for since your Lordship said of me, in your letter to Mr. David Forret,[471] more than I deserve, I shall be satisfied with it as an expiation, more than any discountenancing of me can amount unto by millions of degrees. And therefore entreat your Lordship to accept of this for anything that any could say to your Lordship of that business. If I had thought so much of myself as the discountenancing of me had been a sinful neglect (whereas I know there is little ground for the contrary), I should have spoken to your Lordship myself. So trusting your Lordship will rest satisfied, I am, your Lordship's, at power in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Dec. 24, 1649_.

[471] Mr. David Forret, or Forrest, was minister of Kilconquhar. He had formerly been minister of Deninno, where he appears in 1639. He was translated thence to Forgan in 1640; and to Kilconquhar, May 27, 1646. He refused to conform to Prelacy in 1662, but was not ejected, and died February 26, 1672.

CCCXXVIII.--_To the worthy and much honoured_ COLONEL GILBERT KER.

[COLONEL GILBERT KER was a leading man among the Covenanters. He was one of the officers of the west country army, and adhered with great zeal to the Western Remonstrance, sent by that army to the Committee of Estates, which, among other things, condemned the treaty with the King, accused many of the Committee of Estates of covetousness and oppression, and opposed the invasion of England, or forcing a king upon that kingdom. In the year 1655 he was named Justice of Peace for Roxburghshire, but declined to accept; stating as his reasons, that he considered the employment sinful, not allowed by the word of God, contrary to the Solemn League and Covenant, and an encroachment on the liberty of Christ's church.

At the restoration of Charles II., when those concerned in the Western Remonstrance were particularly marked out for the vengenance of the Government, he left the country, but was allowed by the Privy Council to return in the beginning of the year 1671. He must have died previous to October 5, 1677; for at that date Mr. James Row, merchant in Edinburgh, his son-in-law, presents a petition to the Privy Council, praying that he might obtain the remission of a fine of five hundred merks, imposed on the deceased Colonel Gilbert Ker upon account of a conventicle, and for the payment of which the petitioner had become cautioner. This fine was remitted. ("Register of Acts of Privy Council.")]

(_SINGLENESS OF AIM--JUDGMENT IN REGARD TO ADVERSARIES._)

MUCH HONOURED AND TRULY WORTHY,--I hope I shall not need to show you that ye are in greater hazard from yourself, and your own spirit (which should be watched over, that your actings for God may be clean, spiritual, purely for God, for the Prince of the kings of the earth), than ye can be in danger from your enemies. Oh how hard is it to get the intentions so cut off from and raised above the creature, as to be without mixture of creature and carnal interest, and to have the soul, in heavenly actings, only, only eyeing Himself, and acting from love to God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ! Ye will find yourself, your delights, your solid glory (far above the air and breathings of mouths, and the thin, short, poor applauses of men), before you in God. All the creatures, all the swords, all the hosts in Britain, and in this poor globe of the habitable world, are but under Him single cyphers making no number; the product being nothing but painted men, and painted swords in a brod, without influence from Him. And oh what of God is in Gideon's sword, when it is "The sword of the Lord!"

I wish a sword from heaven to you, and orders from heaven to you to go out; and as much peremptoriness of a heavenly will as to say, and abide by it, "I will not, I shall not go out, unless Thou goest with me." I desire not to be rash in judging; but I am a stranger to the mind of Christ, if our adversaries, who have unjustly invaded us, be not now in the camp of those that make war with the Lamb. But the Lamb shall overcome them at length; for He is the Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they who are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful. And though ye and I see but the dark side of God's dispensations this day towards Britain, yet the fair, beautiful, and desirable close of it must be the confederacy of the nations of the world with Britain's Lord of armies. And let me die in the comforts of the faith of this, that a throne shall be set up for Christ in this island of Britain (which is, and shall be, a garden more fruitful of trees of righteousness, and which payeth and shall pay more thousands to the Lord of the vineyard than is paid in thrice the bounds of Great Britain upon earth), and there can be neither Papist, Prelate, Malignant, nor Sectary, who dare draw a sword against Him that sitteth upon the throne.

Sir, I shall wish a clean[472] army, so far as may be, that the shout of a King who hath many crowns may be among you; and that ye may fight in faith, and prevail with God first. Think it your glory to have a sword to act, and suffer, and die (if it please Him), so being ye may add anything to the declarative glory of Christ, the Plant of Renown, Immanuel, God with us. Happy and thrice blessed are they by whose actings, or blood, or pain, or loss, the diadems and rubies of His highest and most glorious crown (whose ye are) shall glister and shine in this quarter of the habitable world. Though He need not Gilbert Ker, nor his sword, yet this honour have ye with His redeemed soldiers, to call Christ High Lord-General, of whom ye hope for pay and all arrears well told. Go on, worthy Sir, in the courage of faith, following the Lamb. Make not haste unbelievingly; but in hope and silence keep the watch-tower, and look out. He will come in His own time; His salvation shall not tarry. He will place salvation in Britain's Zion for Israel's glory.

[472] Free from malignants. See note, Letter CCCXXX.

His good-will who dwelt in The Bush and it burned not, be yours, and with you.

I am yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Aug. 10, 1650_.

CCCXXIX.--_To the worthy and much honoured_ COLONEL GILBERT KER.

(_COURAGE IN DAYS OF REBUKE--GOD'S ARRANGEMENTS ALL WISE._)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,--What I wrote to you before, I spake not upon any private warrant. I am where I was. Cromwell and his army (I shall not say but there may be, and are, several sober and godly among them, who have either joined through misinformation, or have gone alongst with the rest in the simplicity of their hearts, not knowing anything) fight in an unjust cause, against the Lord's secret ones. And now to the trampling of the worship of God, and persecuting the people of God in England and Ireland, he hath brought upon his score the blood of the people of God in Scotland. I entreat you, dear Sir, as ye desire to be serviceable to Jesus Christ, whose free grace prevented you when ye were His enemy, go on without fainting, equally eschewing all mixtures with Sectaries[473] and Malignants.[474] Neither of the two shall ever be instrumental to save the Lord's people, or build His house. And without prophesying, or speaking further than He, whose I am and whom I desire to serve, in the Gospel of His Son, shall warrant, I desire to hope and to believe there is a glory and a majesty of the Prince of the kings of the earth, that shall shine and appear in Great Britain, which shall darken all the glory of men, confound Sectaries and Malignants, and rejoice the spirits of the followers of the Lamb, and dazzle the eyes of the beholders.

[473] The Independents.

[474] The Cavaliers.

Sir, I suppose that God is to gather Malignants and Sectaries, ere all be done, as sheaves in a barn-floor; and to bid the daughters of Zion arise, and thresh. I hope that ye will mix with none of them. I am abundantly satisfied, that our army, through the sinful miscarriage of men, hath fallen; and dare say it is a better and a more comfortable dispensation, than if the Lord had given us the victory and the necks of the reproachers of the way of God; because He hath done it. For, 1. More blood, blasphemies, cruelty, treachery, must be upon the accounts of the men whose land the Lord forbade us to invade. 2. Victory is such a burdening and weighty mercy, that we have not strength to bear it as yet. 3. That was not the army, nor Gideon's three hundred, by whom He is to save us; we must have one of our Lord's carving. 4. Our enemies on both sides are not enough hardened, nor we enough mortified to multitude, valour, and creatures.

Grace, grace be with you.

Your friend and servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Sept. 5, 1650_.

CCCXXX.--_To MR. WILLIAM GUTHRIE, when the army was at Stirling, after the defeat at Dunbar,[475] and the godly in the West were falsely branded with intended compliance with the usurpers, about the time when those debates and that difference concerning the Public Resolutions arose._[476]

[475] The battle was fought between Cromwell and the Scots, and the latter were completely defeated, with great loss. It was fought on the 3rd September 1650.

[476] After the battle of Dunbar, it was proposed that the restraints by which such as had, by various Acts of Parliament, been excluded from places of power and trust in the army and state, on account of their Malignancy, or opposition to the Covenant and liberties of the nation, should be removed. This was at first refused; but after the defeat at Hamilton, the Commission agreed to certain resolutions, for admitting into places of power and trust in the Army and State such as had been excluded by the Acts of Parliament referred to. These were called "Public Resolutions," and they became a source of much dissension in the church. At last they were formally approved of by the General Assembly held in July 1651, at St. Andrews, and adjourned to Dundee. At the last sederunt at St. Andrews, Rutherford, who was strongly opposed to the Resolutions, gave in a protestation against the lawfulness of that Assembly. It was subscribed by twenty-one besides himself. Hence those opposed to the Public Resolutions were called "Protesters," and those friendly to them, "Resolutioners."

[WILLIAM GUTHRIE was born at Pitforthy, in the shire of Angus, in the year 1620. He was the eldest son of the Laird of Pitforthy, a cadet of the old family of Guthrie, and by his mother's side was descended from the ancient house of Easter-Ogle. He attended the literary and philosophical classes at the University of St. Andrews, and studied theology under Rutherford. On the 7th of November 1644, he was ordained minister of Fenwick. There he continued successfully to discharge his ministry till the 24th of July 1664, when, for nonconformity, he was suspended from and discharged to exercise his ministry, and his church declared vacant, by order of Bishop Burnet. He died at Brechin on the 10th of October 1665.

It may be mentioned here that William Guthrie of Fenwick was cousin to the famous James Guthrie, and was brought to Christ by Samuel Rutherford's ministry at St. Andrews, being one of his first fruits there. ("Life" by Wodrow.) It was he who wrote "The Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ," so well known.]

(_DEPRESSION UNDER DARK TRIALS--DANGER OF COMPLIANCE._)

REVEREND BROTHER,--I did not dream of such shortness of breath, and fainting in the way toward our country. I thought that I had no more to do than die in my nest, and bow down my sinful head, and let Him put on the crown, and so end. I have suffered much; but this is the thickest darkness, and the straitest step of the way I have yet trodden. I see more suffering yet behind, and, I fear, from the keepers of the vine. Let me obtain of you, that you would press upon the Lord's people that they would stand far off from these merchants of souls who have come in amongst you. If the way revealed in the word be that way, we then know that these soul-cowpers and traffickers show not the way of salvation. Alas, alas! poor I am utterly lost, my share of heaven is gone, and my hope is poor; I am perished, and I am cut off from the Lord, if hitherto out of the way! But I dare not judge kind Christ; for, if it may be but permitted (with reverence to His greatness and highness be it spoken), I will, before witnesses, produce His own hand that He said, "This is the way, walk thou in it." And He cannot except against His own seal. I profess that I am almost broken and a little sleepy, and would fain put off this body. But this is my infirmity, who would be under the shadow and covert of that Good Land, once[477] to be without the reach and blast of that terrible One. But I am a fool: there is none that can overbid, or take my lodging over my head, since Christ hath taken it for me.

[477] Once for all; completely.

Dear brother, help me, and get me the help of their prayers who are with you in whom is my delight. You are much suspected of intended compliance; I mean, not of you only, but of all the people of God with you. It is but a poor thing the fulfilling of my joy; but let me obtest all the serious seekers of His face, His secret sealed ones, by the strongest consolations of the Spirit, by the gentleness of Jesus Christ, that Plant of Renown, by your last accounts and appearing before God, when the White Throne shall be set up, be not deceived with their fair words. Though my spirit be astonished at the cunning distinctions which are found out in the matters of the Covenant, that help may be had against these men; yet my heart trembleth to entertain the least thought of joining with those deceivers.

Grace, grace be with you. Amen.

Your own brother, in our common Lord and Saviour,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCXXXI.--_To the worthy and much honoured_ COLONEL GILBERT KER.

(_COURAGE IN THE LORD'S CAUSE--DUTY IN REGARD TO PROVIDENCE TO BE OBSERVED--SAFETY IN THIS._)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,--It is considerable that the Lord may, and often doth call to a work and yet hide Himself, and try the faith of His own. If I conceive aright, the Lord hath called you to act against that enemy; and the withdrawers of their sword (in my weak apprehension) add their zeal unto, and take upon them the guilt of that unjust invasion of this land made by Cromwell's army, and of the blood of the Lord's people in this kingdom; since the sword, put into the hand of His children, is to execute wrath and vengeance upon evil-doers. The Lord's time of appearing for His broken land is reserved to the breathings of the Spirit of the Lord, such as came upon Gideon and Samson; and that is an act of princely and royal sovereignty in God. Ye are, Sir, to lay hold on opportunities of Providence, and to wait for Him.

As for your particular treating by yourselves with the invaders of our land, I have no mind to it, and do look upon their way as a carrying on of the mystery of iniquity; for Babylon is a seat of many names. Sir, let[478] this controversy stand undecided till the Second Appearance of Jesus Christ, and our appeal lie before the throne undiscussed till that day, I hope to lie down in the grave in the faith of the justness of our cause. I speak nothing of the maintaining the greatness of men, not subordinate to the Prince of the kings of the earth. I judge that the blood of the witnesses of Jesus is found upon the skirts of this society, as well as in Babylon's skirts. I believe that the way of the Lord is Colonel Gilbert Ker's strength and glory; and I should be content to want my part of him (which is, I confess, precious and dear in Christ), so that he be spent in the service of Him who will anon make inquisition for the blood of the truly godly; which these men have shed, after fair warning that they were the godly of Scotland.

[478] Supposing that this controversy remains undecided.

Worthy Sir, believe; faint not. Set your shoulder under the glory of Jesus that is misprised in Scotland, and give a testimony for Him. He hath many names in Scotland, who shall walk with Him in white. This despised Covenant shall ruin Malignants, Sectaries, and Atheists. Yet a little while, and behold He cometh, and walketh[479] in the greatness of His strength, and His garments dyed with blood. Oh, for the sad and terrible day of the Lord upon England, their ships of Tarshish, their fenced cities, etc., because of a broken covenant!

[479] The Hebrew of Isa. lxiii. 1 is alluded to (צֹעֶה): "_marching on_ in the greatness of His strength." Rutherford, in the latter part of his life, studied Isaiah very closely. See Sketch of his Life.

A conference with the enemy, not to hinder acting (Oh that the Lord would thereby, or by some other way, remove the cloud that is over you!), if authority should concur, were to be desired; but it can hardly be expected. However, in the way of duty, and in the silence of faith, go on. If ye perish, ye are the first of the creation with whom the Lord hath taken that dispensation. I should humbly desire you, Sir, to look to that: "Dying, and, behold, we live; killed all the day long, and yet more than conquerors." There shall be the heat and warmness of life in your graves and buried bones. But look not for the Lord's coming the higher way only, for He may come the lower way. Oh, how little of God do we see, and how mysterious is He! Christ known is amongst the greatest secrets of God. Keep yourself in the love of God; and, in order to that, as far in obedience and subjection to the King (whose salvation and true happiness my soul desireth), and to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, and to the fundamental laws of this kingdom, as your Lord requireth. Sir, ye are in the hearts and prayers of the Lord's people in this kingdom, and in the other two.[480] The Lord hath said, "There is blessing in the cluster of grapes; destroy it not."

[480] England and Ireland.

Grace, grace be upon the head of him that is separated from his brethren; and the good-will of Him that dwelt in The Bush be with you.

Your servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

PERTH, _Nov. 23, 1650_.

CCCXXXII.--_To the much honoured and truly worthy_ COLONEL GILBERT KER.

(_CHRISTS CAUSE DESERVES SERVICE AND SUFFERING FROM US._)

"For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it."--HAB. ii. 3, 4.

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,--Your chains now shine as much for Christ (the cause being His) as your sword was made famous in acting for that cause; and blessed are such as can willingly tender to Christ both action and blood, doing and suffering. Resisting unto blood is little for that precious and never-enough exalted Redeemer, who, when ye were a-buying, gave blood somewhat dearer than ye gave for Him, even the blood of God (Acts xx. 28). I know a man, who, upon the receipt of a letter that ye were killed and the people of God destroyed, wished that he might be quickly under the wall of the higher palace from under the dint[481] of the storm, and who longed to have the weather-beaten and crazy bark safely landed in that harbour of eternal quietness.

[481] The blow, Zachary Boyd ("Last Battle") speaks of "the dint of God's judgment-stroke."

What further service Christ hath for you, I know not; it is enough that in your captivity[482] ye offer your service to Christ. But if I see anything, it looketh like a merciful defeat. I see the nobles and the state falling off from Christ, and the night coming upon the prophets; which we should pray to prevent, because it is a rare thing to see a fallen star ever win up again to the firmament to shine. And what if this be the thick darkness going before the break of day? Sure, Sir, the sun shall rise upon Scotland; but if I shall see it, or how near is it to that day, I leave that to Him, even unto Jehovah, who "createth upon every dwelling-place in Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and a smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night." But, Sir, "the wilderness shall rejoice and blossom as a rose:" and happy he who hath a bone, or an arm, to put the crown upon the head of our highest King, whose chariot is paved with love. Were there ten thousand millions of heavens created above these highest heavens, and again as many above them, and as many above them till angels were wearied with counting, it were but too low a seat to fix the princely throne of that Lord Jesus (whose ye are) above them all. Created heavens are too low a seat of majesty for Him. Since, then, there is none equal to your Master and Prince who hath chosen out for you (amongst many sufferings for sin) that only cross which cometh nearest in likeness to His own cross, watered with consolation, take courage, and comfort yourself in Him who hath chosen you to glory hereafter and to conformity with Him here. We fools would have a cross of our own choosing, and would have our gall and wormwood sugared, our fire cold, and our death and grave warmed with heat of life; but He who hath brought many children to glory, and lost none, is our best Tutor. I wish that, when I am sick, He may be keeper and comforter. I judge it a blessed Fall that we are forfeited heirs, broken and out of credit, and that Christ is become a Tutor in the place of free-will, and that we are no more our own. I am broken and wasted with the wrath that is on the land, and have been much tempted with a design to have a pass from Christ; which, if I had, I would not stay to be a witness of our defection for any man's intreaty. But I know it is my softness and weakness, who would ever be ashore when a fit of sea-sickness cometh on; though I know I shall come soon enough to that desirable country, and shall not be displaced: none shall take my lodging.

[482] On the 1st of December 1650, being Sabbath, the west country forces of the Covenanters were scattered at Hamilton by a party of English, under the conduct of Lambert. Several of them were killed, and Colonel Ker was wounded and taken. (Lamont's "Diary," p. 24.)

Sir, many eyes are upon you, and the godly are exceedingly refreshed that ye listen not to the ways of many about you, who with fair words make merchandise of souls. Sir, if the way you are in be not the way of Christ, then wo to me, for I am eternally lost. But truly, the Lord Christ's dealings with Colonel Gilbert Ker hath proven to me, that the New Testament and the covenant of grace is a piece that a solemn meeting and assembly of all created angels (join all their wits together) could not have devised. Since, Sir, ye paid nothing for the change that Christ made, and ye will take that debt of free grace to heaven with you (for what was Christ Jesus indebted to you, more than to all your kindred and name!), therefore, since ye are made His own, follow no other way. What is my salvation, though I should lay it in pawn (it is but a poor pledge), that this, this only is the way! But Christ is surety Himself that it is the way. The Forerunner went before you, and He is safely landed: and there is a fair company before you of such as "have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their garments, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," to whom these promises are now performed: "He that overcometh shall eat of the tree of life, that is in the midst of the paradise of God;" and, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain"--"He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them; they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters."

I may, Sir, possibly keep you from better work. The God of peace, that brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect.

Yours, in Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Jan. 7, 1651_.

CCCXXXIII.--_To the much honoured and truly worthy COLONEL GILBERT KER, when taken prisoner._

(_COMFORTING THOUGHTS TO THE AFFLICTED--DARKNESS OF THE TIMES--FELLOWSHIP IN CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS--SATISFACTION WITH HIS PROVIDENCES._)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,--I have heard of your continued captivity in England, as well as in this afflicted land. But, go where ye will, ye cannot go from under your Shadow, which is broader than many kingdoms. Ye change lodging and countries; but the same Lord is before you, if ye were carried away captive to the other side of the sun, or as far as the rising of the morning star. It is spoken to your mother (who hath yet received no bill of divorce), which was written to Judah, "Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies" (Micah iv. 10). England shall be accountable for you, to render you back: "I will say to the north, 'Give up;' and to the south, 'Keep not back'" (Isa. xliii. 6). It is a sermon that flesh and blood laugheth at: "Prophesy upon these dry bones, and say unto them, 'O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!'" It is a preaching to the cold grave: "Thus saith the Lord unto the bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live'" (Ezek. xxxvii. 4, 5, 6). "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it" (Rev. xx. 13). Berwick must render back the Scottish captives, and Colonel Gilbert Ker with them. "For thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans whose cry is in the ships" (Isa. xliii. 14). "If any of thine be driven out to the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee" (Deut. xxx. 4). "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save My people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness" (Zech. viii. 7, 8). Sir, ye are both booked by the Lord who writeth up the people (Ps. lxxxvii. 5, 6), and counted to the Lord as one of the house and stock (Ps. xxii. 30). Fear not, faint not; all your hairs are numbered.

It is the desire of the people of God, that, as your bonds hitherto have been exemplary to the strengthening of the feeble and to the stopping of the mouth of the adversary, without any declining to the right or left hand; so your sufferings in the place ye now go to, may be (as we are confident in the Lord of you, and in humility boast of His grace in you) savoury, convincing, and like unto this honourable cause, that will prevail in Britain, contrary to all the machinations and counsels of devils and men. And though there were no other ink in the pen I now write with but some dewing of my last cooling blood, this I purpose (His grace, whose I am, enabling me) to stand to. Sir, we desire to adore no instruments; yet we conceive the shining and rays of grace from the Fountain, Jesus Christ, the fulness of the Godhead, bestowed on sinful men, hold forth the good thoughts of Christ to this poor land, whose multiplied graves, and whose souls under the altar, slain by Sectaries and Malignants, cry aloud to heaven.

I see nothing, Sir, if the Lord be not near (though I dare not say how soon) to awake for the year of Zion's controversy. "For my sword shall be bathed in heaven" (Isa. xxxiv. 5). Behold, it shall come down upon England, and on the residue of His enemies in Scotland. Wo is me for England! That land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness; that pleasant land shall be a wilderness, and the dust of their land pitch; a judgment upon their walled towns, their pleasant fields, their strong ships, etc., if they do not repent.

Ye have not, I conceive, seen such searching and trying times as now these are. And yet the question will be drawn to a more narrow state, and multitudes will yet leave the cause; for we took all into the covenant that offered to build with us. But Christ must have but a small remnant (few nobles, if any; few ministers; few professors), though our way standeth unchanged. "By honour and dishonour, by good report and evil report: as deceivers and yet true; as unknown, yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed" (2 Cor. vi. 8, 9). Neither is this your condition alone, but the experienced lot of all the saints that have gone before you. It is one and the same cross of Christ; but there be sundry faces and diverse circumstances in the same remnant (Col. i. 24), the sufferings of Christ and yours. Sir, to be delivered to soldiers, and in captivity, looketh like His suffering of whom Isaiah saith, "He was taken from prison, and from judgment" (Isa. liii. 8): yea, and taken bound (John xviii. 12). When the cause is the truth of God, the lustre and face of suffering is so much the more lovely that it hath the hue and colour of Christ's sufferings, who endured contradiction of sinners and despised the shame. Oh it is a great word, "Christ shamed, and Christ abased!" But thus was the Head, and so are the members, dealt with in the world; and truly anything of Christ, even the worst of Him (to speak so), His reproach and shame, are lovely. Though superstitious love to the material cross He suffered upon be foolery, and doting upon the holy grave[483] be cursed idolatry; yet is there a communion with Him in His sufferings most desirable. "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings" (1 Pet. iv. 13): in which sense, the cup that His lip touched hath the sweeter taste, even though death were in it; the grave, because He did lie in it, is so much the softer and the more refreshful a bed of rest; and that part of the sky and clouds that the Beloved shall break through, and come to judgment, is as lovely a piece of the created heaven as any is, if we may love the ground He goeth on the better. But all this is to be understood in a spiritual manner. The Lord calleth you, Sir, upon whom the Spirit of God and His glory resteth, to put your soul's AMEN to this dispensation; and requireth of us, that our desires follow the now-declared decree of God concerning the desolation of our sinful land, so many ways guilty of a despised Gospel, and a broken Covenant; and that with all submission. Certainly, no man hath failed more in this thing, than he who writeth to you. For I have brought my health into great hazard, and tormented my spirit with excessive grief, for our present provocations, and the rendings of our kirk; and I see it is a challenging of, and a bold pleading against, Him upon whose shoulder the government is (Isa. xxii. 22). The Father hath put a glorious trust upon Christ: "And I will fasten Him as a nail in a sure place, and He shall be for a glorious throne to His Father's house; and they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons" (Isa. xxii. 23, 24). Our unbelieving apprehensions do so quarrel at the prosperity of enemies in an evil cause, that we wrestle with defeats, spoiling, captivity of the godly, killing of His people, the wasting of our land, starving and famishing of the kingdom, which is worse than the sword. But this is a sinful contradicting of the Lord's revealed decree. His wisdom saith, "Spoiling and desolation is best for Scotland;" and we say, "Not," and so accuse Christ of misgovernment, and of not being true to the trust put upon Him. But since He doth not drag the government at His heels, but hath it upon His shoulder, and since the Nail fastened in a sure place cannot be broken,[484] nor can the smallest vessel fail to find sweet security in dependence upon Him, since all the weight of heaven and earth, of redeemed saints and confirmed angels, is upon His shoulder, I am a fool, and brutish to imagine that I can add anything to Christ's special care of and tenderness to His people. He who keepeth the basins and knives of His house, and bringeth the vessels again to the second temple (Ezra i. 8-10), must have a more tender care of His redeemed ones than of a spoon, or of Peter's old shoes (Acts xii. 8), which yet must not be lost in His captivity. Oh for grace to suffer Christ to tutor His own minors and young heirs! But we cannot endure to be under the actings of His government; we love too much to be our own. Oh, how sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly in Christ! to be out of the creature's owning, and made complete in Christ! to live by faith in Christ, and to be, once for all, clothed with the uncreated majesty and glory of the Son of God, wherein He maketh all His friends and followers sharers! to dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and live in that sweetest air where no wind bloweth but the breathings of the Holy Ghost, no seas nor floods flow but the pure water of life, that proceedeth from under the throne and from the Lamb! no planting but the Tree of Life that yieldeth twelve manner of fruits every month! What do we here but sin and suffer? Oh, when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee away, and the morning of that long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn? The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." Oh, when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say, "Come!"

[483] The Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

[484] Isa. xxii. 25 is alluded to, where the Hebrew word means either "broken," or cut down. See note, p. 655.

Worthy Sir, I mind you to the Hearer of prayer. Oh help me in that kind.

The Spirit of Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, in his only Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _May 14, 1651_.

CCCXXXIV.--_To the worthy and much honoured_ COLONEL GILBERT KER.

(_COMFORT UNDER THE CLOUD HANGING OVER SCOTLAND--DISSUASION FROM LEAVING SCOTLAND._)

MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,--I know not why the people of God should not take notice of the bonds of any who have blood in readiness to be let out for His cause; and I judge it was not of you that ye died not in the undecided controversy which the Lord of the whole earth hath with the men whom He hath sent against us.

Dear and much honoured in the Lord, let me entreat you to be far from the thoughts of leaving this land. I see it, and find it, that the Lord hath covered the whole land with a cloud in His anger. But though I have been tempted to the like, I had rather be in Scotland beside angry Jesus Christ, knowing that He mindeth no evil to us, than in Eden or any garden in the earth; if we can remain united with the Lord's remnant in the land.[485] He layeth up wrath for all sorts of adversaries in Britain. Though I should never see the glory of His glittering sword in Britain, I would be solaced in the innocent thought (far from revenge) that the saints shall dip their feet in the blood of the slain of the Lord. And truly, Sir, I suppose that ye cannot but come to these thoughts and weak desires before the Hearer of prayer, for as little as ye think of and value yourself. For me, if I could mind you in your bonds, I purpose not to stand to the account you give, or thoughts ye have of yourself; though I know ye are not a whit, more or less, before Him who weigheth His own according to the weight of imputed righteousness, for my apprehensions. Christ cannot mistake you, men may; and the calculation and esteem of free grace maketh you to be what you are. I hope to see you an everlastingly obliged debtor to Him whom ye shall praise but never pay. And truly ye have no riches but that debt: and I know that ye love to be engaged to Jesus Christ, the most excellent of creditors. Much joy and sweetness may ye have, in standing written in His book. I desire to do it myself, and I would have you also highly to esteem the design of Christ, who hath raised the riches of the glory of so much grace above the circle of the heaven of heavens, out of very nothings; and contrived His thoughts of love, so that lumps of glorified clay should stand before Him, for all ages, the burdened and loaden debtors of free, eternally free grace. Sir, ye cannot cast the count of the rents of your so great inheritance of glory.

[485] Rutherford here refers to a call which he had received (on the death of De Maets, or Dematius) to fill the Chair of Divinity in the University of Utrecht, to which he was elected without being consulted. He, however, declined to accept the invitation. The call was conveyed to him first verbally, by his brother James, then an officer in a regiment lying at Grave in Brabant; and next formally in writing.

Grace be with you.

Your servant, in his own Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, _May 18, 1651_.

CCCXXXV.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IS MAN'S AND CHRIST'S, AND BETWEEN CHRIST HIMSELF AND HIS BLESSINGS._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--We are fallen in winnowing and trying times. I am glad that your breath serveth you to run to the end, in the same condition and way wherein ye have walked these twenty years past. It is either the way of peace, or we are yet in our sins, and have missed the way. The Lord, it is true, hath stained the pride of all our glory; and now, last of all, the sun hath gone down upon many of the prophets. But stumble not; men are but men, and God appeareth more and more to be God, and Christ is still Christ.

Madam, a stronger than I am had almost stumbled me and cast me down. But oh what mercy is it to discern between what is Christ's and what is man's, and what way the hue, colour, and lustre of gifts of grace dazzle and deceive our weak eyes! Oh to be dead to all things that are below Christ, were it even a created heaven and created grace! Holiness is not Christ; nor are the blossoms and flowers of the Tree of Life the tree itself. Men and creatures may wind themselves between us and Christ; and, therefore, the Lord hath done much to take out of the way all betwixt Him and us. There are not in our way now, kings, nor armies, nor nobles, nor judicatories, nor strongholds, nor watchmen, nor godly professors. The fairest things, and most eminent in Britain, are stained, and have lost their lustre; only, only Christ keepeth His greenness and beauty, and remaineth what He was. Oh, if He were more and more excellent to our apprehensions than ever He was (whose excellency is above all apprehensions), and still more and more sweet to our taste! I care for nothing, if so be that I were nearer to Him. And yet He fleeth not from me: I flee from Him, but He pursueth.

I hear that your Ladyship hath the same esteem of the despised cause and covenant of our Lord that ye had before. Madam, hold you there. I dare and would gladly breathe out my spirit in that way, with a nearer communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son, and would seek no more but that I might die believing. And also I would hope, that the earth should not cover the blood of the godly, slain in Scotland, but that the Lord will make inquisition for their blood when the sufferings of the saints in these lands shall be fulfilled.

The good-will of Him that dwelt in The Bush be with you.

Your Ladyship's, at all observance, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

GLASGOW, _Sept. 28, 1651_.

CCCXXXVI.--_To_ LADY RALSTON.[486]

[486] Wodrow MSS. vol. xlv. 8vo, No. 13. "This letter," says Wodrow, "is taken from a copy; but is certainly Mr. Rutherford's to Lady Ralston of that ilk, which I have from her grandchild, and, as far as I can see, is not printed."

[LADY RALSTON, whose maiden name was Ursula Mure, was daughter to William Mure of Glanderston, a respectable family in the county of Renfrew, and wife of William Ralston of that ilk. Mr. Alexander Dunlop, minister of Paisley, was married to one of her sisters, and Mr. John Carstairs to another. Lady Ralston was a woman of distinguished piety. Mr. Dunlop, who "was most impartial in his judgment of persons of worth," spoke in the highest terms of her Christian character. One day, commending her to Mrs. Hastie, wife of Mr. Alexander Hastie, minister of Glasgow, he spoke so much to her commendation that Mr. Hastie said to him, "I wonder to hear you speak so much to the praise of that lady; I think you speak more of her than of your own wife." He answered, "Sanders, I love truly to be just to everybody. I think my wife is truly a good woman, and all the rest of the sisters are good women; but I must say, Lady Ralston is a person more than ordinary. I know very few come her length; yea, Sanders, I truly think shame to even myself to be a Christian beside her, when I look to her carriage. She is a very odd [singular] woman" (Wodrow's "Analecta"). Mr. John Carstairs also bears testimony to her Christian excellence, and to the kindness she had shown to him and his family, particularly after his ejection from his church in Glasgow, in 1662, for conscience' sake.]

(_DUTY OF PREFERRING TO LIVE RATHER THAN DIE--WANT OF UNION IN THE JUDGMENTS OF THE GODLY._)

RIGHT WORTHY ESTEEMED IN YOUR EXCELLENT LORD JESUS,--With much desire I have longed to hear how you were, since I heard of your being so near the harbour, as seemed; and now, to my great satisfaction, I am informed of your recovery. As for yourself, I grant, to have entered in at the ports of the mansions of glory had been best by far; but, yet to stay a little longer here is much more comfortable to yours. Therefore, Mistress, dearly respected in the Lord, you are even heartily welcome, though to share yet further with Zion in her manifold tribulations. Yea, I believe yourself thinks it no disadvantage, but rather one great addition of honour, to come back and bear His reproach yet more, in a world of opposition to Him. For (to speak so) it is an advantage that is not to be had in heaven itself; for, although the inhabitants of that land agree in one to sing the song of the Lamb's praise and commendation, so it is here-away, and here only, where we have occasion to endure shame and contradiction for His worthy sake. Considering, therefore, the honour of the cross with the glory of the life to come, the saints are hereby rendered completely happy and honourable. It's much selfishness (as I judge it when I get seen best into the mystery of our Lord's cross) to make post haste to be in the land of rest, when a storm of persecution is rising for Christ; for the sluggard and peevish spirit loves rest upon any terms, though never so dishonourable. It is in effect, then, far more honourable to seek conformity to Christ in His cross, than to[487] precipitate in desiring to be like Him in glory, and despise and fly away from His sufferings. We use to say they are very evil-worthy of the sweet who will not endure the sour. I think Christ's pilgrim weeds (He being a Man of sorrows and griefs) are more honourable than ever it became the like of us to wear; especially considering our poor base descent, whom He will have honoured with conformity to Himself. Woe's me that I, and many the like of me within the land, look so frowardly on Christ's cross, as though it were not His love-allowance to all His followers! It's plainly our gross ignorance that is the cause thereof. Faith, I grant, would suffer affliction for Him with good-will, rather than the least iniquity should be committed; but sense loves no bands. For faith, keeping the sway, puts oft-times the carnal man in bondage, and that occasions strife betwixt the flesh and the spirit. The spirit smells no freedom or deliverance but that which comes from above; the flesh would aye have deliverance, without examination of the terms, or wherefrom it comes. As it is the mark of Christ's sheep, that they will hear His voice, and will not acknowledge a stranger, so it is the mark of faith, that it will only receive orders from heaven. When He declares His mind for bands, it submits to bands, not replying objections to the contrary; and again, when He says, "Show yourselves, ye prisoners of hope," it discovers time and way, and obeys to come forth, but not till then. But the flesh maketh ever haste, and the first and nearest ease is aye its best choice. The Lord keep His dear people from wanting of any exercise that is measured out by Him to them, now when He hides His face, lest we be turned aside to strange gods! And when He shows Himself again (as He will assuredly do), we ken our change.[488] It is far safer to dwell a little in faith's prison than in sense's fairest liberty. I see nothing so comfortable an evidence of God's staying into, and healing of, this broken and poor land, than that faithful testimony of His precious servants (and strengthened only by Him) against the late and sore defection.[489] Yet, if the Lord had not left us a remnant, we had been as Sodom and like to Gomorrah. And exalted be our God, only wise and free in His love, that ever any testimony was given! for the hour of temptation was very dark to all once. But to some He showed much light, and helped them with a little help. Others, also, able and dear to Him, He hath letten, as yet, remain under the cloud. But the mystery of His wisdom is so high in this, that I profess it may render all flesh humble in the dust, and to glory henceforth in nothing but in His upholding strength and free love. Always,[490] when His due time comes, He will make His servants see that which they do not now see. But, alas! in the meantime, there is no harder matter of our trouble to be looked to than the grievous differences of judgments and affections among the Lord's servants; which I know is much pondered by you. And I trust that all our worthy dear friends will labour to the utmost, according to Christ's command, to have the breach made up again, that Satan get not advantage therethrough; for I think nothing makes more for his ends than the defacing of union amongst the Lord's dear ones. I think it should be amongst our many requests to Him "in whom all the building useth to be fitly framed together in love;" yea, the obtaining of this request were a great advantage to the poor kirk. And if the Lord take pleasure in us, there is yet hope in Israel concerning this thing; but if not, it is like to prove a probable token, amongst some others, of Christ's taking down His tabernacle in this land: which, if He do, we will have sad days. But the consideration of His pitiful compassion holds forth ground to believe otherwise; upon which ground it is like that He will give us a door of hope, though He do not give full deliverance yet. For our hope is not perished yet from the Lord, because men and carnal reason say so; for none of these are bands or rules to the Almighty! Yea, Zion's lowest ebb shall be the first step to her rise. I have no other reason to give but "the zeal of the Lord of hosts [will] perform it" (Isa. ix. 7); and in confidence of it, I remain,

[487] Too?

[488] Come to know how much we are changed.

[489] Rutherford alludes to the opposition made by the Protesters to the Public Resolutions.

[490] Nevertheless.

Yours in all trouble,

S. R.

_October 1651_.

Tender my respects to your dear husband, who is indeed precious in the account of the honest here, for his faithfulness in the hour of temptation.

CCCXXXVII.--_To a Minister of Glasgow_.[491]

[491] From a copy among the Wodrow MSS. vol. xlv. 8vo, No. 14. "I had it," says Wodrow, "from the Laird of Ralston. It's a double, only written on the same sheet with the former to Lady Ralston, perhaps about the same time."

[Wodrow annexes to this letter the following note:--"To one of the ministers of Glasgow, who probably was deposed by the Resolutionists, or at least a sufferer for the protestation,--Mr. M'Ward perhaps, or Mr. Patrick Gillespie." The letter bears internal evidence of having been written to a minister of Glasgow who had been censured by the General Assembly which met at Dundee in 1651, for his opposition to the public resolutions. By that Assembly three ministers, Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, Mr. Patrick Gillespie of Glasgow, and Mr. James Simpson of Airth, were deposed, and one, Mr. James Nasmith of Hamilton, suspended, on the ground of their having protested against the lawfulness of that Assembly. ("Life of Robert Blair," p. 278.) There seems, then, little doubt that _Mr. Patrick Gillespie_ is the person to whom this letter was addressed. It could not have been Mr. Robert M'Ward, for he was licensed only in 1655, and did not become a minister of Glasgow till 1656, when he succeeded Mr. Andrew Gray in the Outer High Kirk; nor, though he enlisted himself on the side of the Protesters, does he appear to have suffered on that account. Mr. Patrick Gillespie was the son of Mr. John Gillespie (second minister of the collegiate charge of Kirkcaldy), and brother of the celebrated George Gillespie. He was born at Kirkcaldy in 1617, and was for some time minister of that parish, previous to his translation to Glasgow. After the death of Charles I. he favoured the Commonwealth, and was appointed by Cromwell Principal of the University of Glasgow, into which office he was installed after encountering much opposition. At the Restoration he was ejected from the Principalship, in which he was succeeded by the celebrated Robert Baillie. He was also imprisoned successively in the Castles of Edinburgh and Stirling; and upon the sitting of the Parliament in 1661, was impeached of high treason, on the alleged ground of his having compiled "The Western Remonstrance," approved the pamphlet entitled "The Causes of God's Wrath," and kept correspondence with Cromwell. But, having made concessions, he was shortly after liberated, and confined to Ormiston and six miles around it. "His works speak for him," says Wodrow, "and evidence him a person of great learning, solidity, and piety, particularly his excellent treatises upon 'The Covenants of Grace and Redemption.'"]

(_ENCOURAGING WORDS TO A SUFFERING BROTHER--WHY MEN SHRINK FROM CHRIST'S TESTIMONY._)

SIR,--I long to see you, since you gave a public testimony for your Master, and are become a sufferer for Him. Until I shall be able to see you, I thought it duty to write to you that I remember you as I am able. Your zeal and faithfulness for our Master and your mother church have made your name honourable and precious among many here; yea, have exceedingly refreshed the bowels of the saints. Upon my word, Sir, I say the truth, you have their hearts and their approbation to what you have done; and that you are approven of God, I doubt not: the seal whereof, I hope, shall be in your heart, to feast your conscience with peace, and to cause your face shine in innocency. What you have done with your fellow-witnesses, companions in tribulation, shall turn to you for a testimony. Sir, when this General Assembly are gathered together to their fathers, and you wearing your crown up at the throne, and following the Lamb, your name shall be precious and have a savour of life amongst the saints. You shall have your mother's blessing, I mean the Church of Scotland, when you are dead and rotten. Though now you seem to be a man of strife and contention, yet you are no otherways for strife and contention than your Master before you, who came not to send peace, but rather division and contention (Luke xii. 51) with the malignant party. Union in judgment, with men not tender of our Lord's interest, is a conjunction and union I hope you shall never think desirable. Sectarian separation, I am confident, you never loved; though men, who are become transgressors in destroying what they have formerly been building, give it forth so. Woe's me, Sir, that amongst so many hundred ministers in the Church of Scotland, so few are like to be found willing to give or approve of your and others' faithful testimony. I think that, besides the evil of blindness that is in the mind of some, and the idolizing of man's interest by others, an uncrucified world and over-loved stipends shall hinder many from coming your length. We are debtors to you, and to our Lord Jesus Christ, that hath given to you to care for "Zion, whom no man seeks after" (Jer. xxx. 17); not caring for your own things, but the things of God. Fair fall you that have quit all things to follow Him. To you, and to others that will continue with Christ, in this hour of tribulation, is appointed a kingdom. Sir, you had more credit and worldly greatness to lose than many honest ministers; and thanks be to God that you have so learned Christ [as] to be made a man for Christ of no reputation, for Him. Your despised Master, who made Himself while He was amongst us a man of no reputation, is now exalted in glory. There is none now to gibe Him by bowing the knee, none now to spit in His face, none now to bring Him under mocking of the purple robe, none to put on His head a crown of thorns. And as you now partake of His sufferings, so shall you hereafter of His glory. You shall sit honourably on thrones; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you shall receive the crown. I am convinced that it is for conscience toward God that you suffer. The bottom of your testimony and suffering is not so narrow as some think, who study more to decline the cross than to be tender for every truth. School-heads talk of fundamentals and non-fundamentals; and, say they, "The present controversy is not about fundamentals: ministers may keep their places, peace, and stipends, and make less din." But are non-fundamentals nothing? I would choose rather not be brought up at school, than to grow so subtile and wily by school distinctions, [as] to decline the cross. Sir, you divide not from others for nothing; you contend not for nothing; you suffer not for nothing. They that will be unfaithful in little will be unfaithful in much. Mistake me not, as if I thought the ground of your testimony a little thing and a trifle. I think you, and all that be faithful to God, are bound to follow it to bonds and to blood. That Christ ought to be a King in Scotland, and the people ought to employ[492] the liberty that Christ hath bought to them with His blood, is among fundamentals with me; and whether the way man gives and allows to men that have fought against the truth be not naturally, and by interpretation, against this, judge. Sir, your Master did put you in His vineyard. You have a testimony from many of a faithful and diligent labourer. I hear that you are now violently thrust out. I think the Spirit of Christ would teach men sobriety and forbearance. I wish (and know you will join with me) that men's violent dealing with you provoke not the Lord, to make this the last General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Always, I acknowledge you one of the stars which the Lord hath in His hand, one of the angels of the Church of Scotland, a faithful minister of the Gospel at Glasgow. You have given a testimony for your Master; you shall get a meeting when He comes in the clouds. And though there should not be a General Assembly henceforth in the Church of Scotland, judicially to acknowledge you His minister, yet, in the General Assembly of angels and men, that your Master in the latter day shall call in the clouds, you shall get a testimony of a minister of the Gospel; and from the Shepherd and the Lord, the righteous Judge, you shall receive the crown. I think there is a necessity laid on you to preach the Gospel, and to call people to the covenant of grace, wherever you can safely do it. I know there are many that will yet receive you as an angel of God, and yet will be followers of you and of Christ, "receiving the word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Ghost." The Lord give you in all things to "approve yourself as the minister of God, in much patience and affliction, in necessities, distresses, in stripes, in imprisonment, in labour, and watching, and fasting,--by honour and dishonour, in good report and ill report" (2 Cor. vi. 4-6). For, now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord. And the God of all peace, who hath called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, and settle you. Remember me to those that are your companions in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, and to your wife, that will be a faithful helper to you in this time of your affliction.

[492] Enjoy?

Because I am not able to see you yet, and fearing that when I come to Glasgow I shall not find you there, I thought good to write.

CCCXXXVIII.--_For the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, the_ LADY KENMURE.

(_A WORD TO CHEER IN TIMES OF DARKNESS._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--The Lord is gracious who keepeth your Ladyship in the furnace, when many put out their hand to iniquity one way or other. We are now shouldering and casting down one another in the dark, and the godly are hidden from the godly. We make our own chains heavier by joining with the Lord's enemies; hence new sufferings to all that dare not say "a confederacy to those to whom this people say a confederacy, nor fear their fear." (Isa. 8, 12.) As that is my exercise now, who am not very far from being my lone (though I know in whom I have believed, at least I should know) in this place; so I am afraid that the godly there comply with those declared enemies of God. It will be our strength to walk between enemies and malignants on either side. This is the day of Jacob's trouble; yet these dry bones can, and must live. I know not if I shall see it, but I hope to take this quietness and silence of faith, in the midst of the noises of the alarm for war, to the grave with me, that the Lord will build upon the church of Britain and Ireland a palace of silver, inclosed with boards of cedar.

Dear Madam, faint not; the night is almost gone; "for the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, and not tarry." Madam, weary not; none can outbid your lodging in heaven; there is more given for it, by Him who hath bespoken it for Jean Campbell, and taken it for her, than any can offer. The ransom of blood standeth.

My wife remembereth her respects to your Ladyship. The child is well. Mrs. Gillespie is well, we hear, but is not here.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours, in his own Lord Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Jan. 28, 1653_.

CCCXXXIX.--_For_ GRIZZEL FULLERTON. [Letter V.]

(_EXHORTATION TO FOLLOW CHRIST FULLY WHEN OTHERS ARE COLD._)

MISTRESS,--Remembering well what relation I had to your dear mother (now blessed and perfected with glory),[493] and being confident that yourself looketh that way (which, except I be eternally lost, is the way of peace and of life), I should be ungrateful to forget those, whom, by the covenant of the Lord, I cannot but remember to God.

[493] Marion M'Naught, her mother, died 1643.

I shall speak nothing to you of the present sad differences;[494] but if I have, or ever had, any nearness to God, that other way (which I trust I shall never follow) is the way of man. And for the present powers,[495] I suffer from them, and look for more. God hath a controversy with them; and, my soul, enter not into their secrets! Only, I would beseech, request, and obtest you in the Lord, and by your appearance before Christ, to follow the way of the Lord and the steps trod by the gracious in that place, which the Lord followed with life and power. My heart is filled with sorrow, considering what communion with God some of that country had, and how much they were in edifying and helping one another, in His way; and how little of that there is now in that country. Your mother kept in life, in that place, and quickened many about her to the seeking of God. My desire to you is, that you should succeed her in that way, and be letting a word fall to your brethren and others, that may encourage them to look toward the way of God. You will have need of it ere it be long. See how you may have a gracious minister, and no neutral there, to succeed and follow the servant of God now asleep in the Lord.[496] There is a great and wide difference between a name of godliness and the power of godliness. That is hottest when there are fewest witnesses. The deadness upon many, and the defection of the land, is great. Blessed are they who seek the Lord and His face.

[494] The differences on account of the Public Resolutions. Letter CCCXXIX., note.

[495] The Government of Cromwell.

[496] Refers probably to J. M'Lellan, who had come from Ireland, and been admitted minister in Kirkcudbright in 1638, where he continued to live and labour till his death in 1650. He was a man early acquainted with God and His ways, a most upright and zealous Protestant, and one who knew not what it was to be afraid in the cause of God. Livingstone says that he was thought by many to have had somewhat of the spirit of prophecy; he foretold many sad events that would come on England. A little before his death he composed the following epitaph on himself:--

"Come, stingless death, have o'er; lo! here's my pass, In blood character'd, by His hand who was, And is, and shall be. Jordan, cut thy stream, Make channels dry; I bear my Father's name Stamped on my brow. I'm ravished with my crown; I shine so bright, down with all glory, down, That world can give. I see the peerless Port (Rev. xxi. 21), The Golden Street, the blessed soul's Resort, The Tree of Life. Floods gushing from the Throne, Call me to joys. Begone, short woes begone; I lived to die, but now I die to live; I do enjoy more than I did believe. The Promise me into Possession sends Faith in fruition, hope in having ends."

--Livingstone's "Characteristics," and Nicholson's "Galloway," vol. ii.

I shall entreat you to remember me to your husband, and all friends. I desire to forget none who are in Christ.

Your brother in the Lord,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, _March 14, 1653_.

CCCXL.--_To_ MR. THOMAS WYLIE.[497]

[497] From the original, among the Wodrow MSS. vol. xxix. 4to, No. 66. This letter is addressed on the back, "For his Reverend and dear Brother, Mr. Thomas Wylie, Minister of the Gospel at Kirkcudbright, and Moderator of the Presbytery there."

(_REGARDING A LETTER OF EXPLANATION._)

RIGHT REVEREND,--I look on it as a significant expression of your respect to me, and above all deserving in me, that you take notice of any appearance of clouds, or alienation of mind among brethren; and am glad of your testimony of my brother. I had no interest but brotherly advice, and hearty desire of the real prospering of the work of the Gospel. Nor was it either necessary or expedient, that your w[isdoms] should be troubled and put to any presbyterial testimony, upon the ground of a private missive letter, written by misinformation. I give credit to your testimony, and judge much ought to be laid upon it, and shall think myself obliged to your w[isdoms], and look on it as a testimony of your affectionate zeal to the work of God. The Lord of the harvest thrust out labourers to His vineyard, and bless His work in your hands! Excuse me, dear and reverend, for my troubling you with any private misunderstanding. I am not a little refreshed to hear of your care and zeal for the house of God.

The Lord be with your spirit.

Your unworthy brother and fellow-labourer in the Gospel,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _March 23, 1653_.

CCCXLI.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_PRESENT NEED HELPED BY PAST EXPERIENCE._)

MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I know that ye think of an outgoing, and that your quartering in time, and your abode in this life, is short; "for we flee away as a shadow." The declining of the sun, and the lengthening of the shadow, say that our journey is short and near the end. I speak it, because I have warnings of my removal. Madam, I know not any against whom the Lord is not: for He is against "the proud and lofty; the day of the Lord is upon all the cedars, upon all the high mountains, upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures" (Isa. ii. 12-16). I know not anything comparable to a nearness and spiritual communion with the Father and the Son Christ. There is much deadness and witheredness upon many spirits sometime near to God; and I wish the Lord have not more to say and to do against the land.

Ye have, Madam, in your accounts, mercies, deliverances, rods, warnings, plenty of means, consolations (when "refuge failed, when ye looked on the right hand, and behold no man would know you, nor care for your soul," when young and weak), manifestations of God, the outgoings of the Lord for you, experiences, answers from the Lord; by all which, ye may be comforted now, and confirmed in the certain hope, that grace, free grace, in a fixed and established Surety, shall perfect that good work in you. Happy they who see not and yet believe.

Grace, grace, eternally in our Lord Jesus be with you.

Yours, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

EDINBURGH, _May 27, 1653_.

CCCXLII.--_For the Right Honourable and truly worthy_ COLONEL GILBERT KER.

(_DEADNESS--HOPES OF REFRESHMENT--DISTANCE FROM GOD--NEARNESS DELIGHTED IN._)

MUCH HONOURED IN THE LORD,--How it is with you may appear by your letters to some with us; but it is the complaint of not a few of such as were in Christ before me, that most of us inhabit and dwell in a parched land. The people of the Lord are like a land not rained upon. Though some dare not deny that this is the garden of the Beloved, and the vineyard that the Lord doth keep and water every moment, yet, oh! where are the sometime quickening breathings and influences from heaven that have refreshed His hidden ones?

The causes of His withdrawings are unknown to us. One thing cannot be denied, but that ways of high sovereignty and dominion of grace are far out of the sight of angels and men; yea, and so above the fixed way of free promises (such as, "This do, and He shall breathe and blow upon His garden"), as He hath put forth a declaration to His hidden ones in Scotland, that smarting, wrestlings, prayings, complaining, gracious missing, cannot earn the visits from on high, nor fetch down showers upon the desert. It may be, when we are saying in our graves, "Our bones are dry, and our hope gone," that temporal and spiritual deliverance may come both together; and that He will cause us feel, both the one way and the other, the good of His reign who shortly cometh to the throne. "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth." "In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." "He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper." "He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight" (Ps. lxxii. 6-16). And though we cannot pray home a sweet season that way, yet Christ must bring summer with Him when He cometh. "There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon."

I know not if I apply prophecies as I would, rather than as they are. When the one Shepherd is set over them, even He who shall stand (oh how much do we _lie!_) and feed in the strength of the Lord, the isles (and this the greatest of them), which wait for His law, are to look for that; "And I will make them, and the places round about My hill, a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season: there shall be showers of blessing" (Ezek. xxxiv. 26). How desirable must every drop of such a shower be! And, "I will be as the dew to Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon" (Hosea xiv. 5, 6). And, "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" (Isa. lv. 13). "I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the oil-tree" (Isa. xli. 19). "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring." And it shall be no lost labour or fruitless husbandry; "They shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water-courses" (Isa. xliv. 3, 4). But _when_ this shall be in Scotland (and it must be) is better to believe than prophesy; and quietly to hope and sit still (for that is yet our strength), than to quarrel with Him, that the wheels of this chariot move leisurely.

Yet this can hardly say anything to us who do so much please ourselves in our deadness, and are almost gone from godly thirst and missing too, being half-satisfied with our witheredness. No doubt we have marred His influences, and have not seconded nor smiled upon His actings upon us. Nor have we been much of his strain who doth eight times breathe out that suit, "Quicken me, quicken me" (Ps. cxix.). So much are we desirous to be acted upon by the Lord as blocks and stones; and so prodigal are we of His motions, as if they were no better to be husbanded. But it is good that it is not in our power to blast and undo His breathings; His wind bloweth where He listeth. Could we but lean, and cast a quiet spirit under the dewings and showerings of Him that every moment watereth His vineyard, how happy and blessed were we! We neither open nor discern His knocking, nor do we feel His hand put in through the keyhole, nor can we give any spiritual account of the walkings and motions of Christ, _when_ He standeth behind the wall, _when_ He cometh skipping over the mountains, _when_ He cometh to His garden and feasteth, _when_ He feedeth among the lilies, _when_ His spikenard casteth a smell, _when_ He knocketh and withdraweth, and is nowhere to be found. Oh, how little a portion of God we see! How little study we God! How rarely read we God, or are versed in the lively apprehensions of that great unknown All in All, the glorious Godhead, and the Godhead revealed in Christ! We dwell far from the well, and complain but dryly of our dryness and dulness. We are rather dry than thirsty.

Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility; but for me, I neither know what He is, nor His Son's name, nor where He dwelleth. I hear a report of Christ great enough, and that is all. Oh! what is nearness to Him? What is that, to be "in God," to "dwell in God"? What a house must that be! (1 John iv. 13). How far are some from their house and home? how ill acquaint with the rooms, mansions, safety, and sweetness of holy security to be found in God! Oh, what estrangement! what wandering! what frequent conversing with self and the creature! Is not here "the bed shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it? and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it?" (Isa. xxviii. 20). When shall we attain to a living in only, only God! and be estranged from all the poor created nothings, the painted shadow-beings of yesterday, which, an hour and less before creation, were dark waste negatives and empty nothings, and should so have been for eternity, had the Lord suffered them to lie there for ever!

It is He, the great "He, who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the judges of the earth as vanity" (Isa. xl. 22, 23). And He, the only He, and there is no He beside Him (Isa. xliii. 10, 11, 13-25). Men or angels, they are not any of them a _he_ to Him! But a living, breathing, dying nothing is _man_ at his best, a sick clay-vanity; and the _angel_, to Him, but a more excellent, living and understanding nothing. Yet we live at a distance from Him; and we die and wither when we are out of God. Oh, if we knew how nothing we are without Him!

Sir, we desire to mind your bonds; and are cheered and refreshed that we hear of any of His manifestations, and His outgoings, which are prepared as the morning to you. We hope that we need not desire you not to faint, and are confident that the anointing that abideth in you teacheth you so much. Wait upon the speaking vision: "Behold, He cometh! behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him!" (Isa. xl. 10).

The only wise God strengthen you with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.

Yours, at all observance, in the Lord Jesus,

S. R.

ST ANDREWS, _July 1653_.

CCCXLIII.--_For the truly honourable_ COLONEL GILBERT KER.[498]

[498] From a copy among the Wodrow MSS. vol. lix. folio, No. 5. There is probably an error as to the date of this letter. From an allusion in it to a vacancy in one of the professorships of St. Mary's or the New College of St. Andrews, explained in the following note, it appears to have been written in or subsequent to the year 1657.

(_THE STATE OF THE LAND._)

MUCH HONOURED,--I bless the Lord for His good hand, who declares that His sovereign presence is alike in England and all places, and sways hearts as pleases Him. The book of holy providence is good marginal notes on His revealed will, in His word, and speaks much to us, could we read and understand what He writes, both in the one and the other. You see He is not wanting to you; houses and lands are His. The Lord led Abraham from his own country to a land he knew not. It would appear He hath not opened His mind to you for leaving of this land, though I be much afraid of a sick state, a sleeping ministry, a covenant-breaking land, a number of dead professors; all these are grey hairs here and there on Ephraim. Sure our ruin is sure if God let us alone; we shall rot in our lies. But what am I to determine of conclusions of mercy revealed to none, and thoughts of peace in the heart of the Lord towards an undeserving land? I should be glad to see you, and shall desire He may lead you in the matter of your residence whom ye desire to be your Guide and Counsellor. For me, I am, as to my body, most weak and under daily summons; but I sit still and read not the summons: as to my spirit, much out of court, because out of communion with the Lord, and far from what sometime hath been; deadness, security, unbelief, and distance from God in the use of means, prevail more than ever.[499] I shall desire your help for getting a third Professor. I am in this college between wind and weather. Dr. Colville[500] is for Mr. James Sharp;[501] I am for Mr. William Rait, but know not the event.[502] My wife remembers her respects to you. Grace be with you.

[499] Rutherford was now Principal of St. Mary's or the New College of St. Andrews, a situation to which he was elevated about the close of the year 1647; and a vacancy having occurred in the Professorship of Ecclesiastical History, by the translation of Mr. James Wood to be Principal of St. Salvator's or the Old College of St. Andrews, in 1657, Rutherford was very desirous of seeing that situation filled by a suitable person.

[500] Dr. Alexander Colville, who had been Professor of Divinity in the Protestant University of Sedan, was inducted one of the masters in the New College of St. Andrews in 1642. He conformed to Prelacy in 1662; became Principal of that College upon Rutherford's death; and died in 1666.

[501] Afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews.

[502] Rutherford was strenuous in his exertions to secure the appointment of Mr. Rait, but without success. His colleague, Dr. Colville, succeeded in obtaining the appointment of Sharp to the vacant office, into which he was inducted on the 22nd of February 1661, about a month before Rutherford's death. Mr. Rait afterwards became minister of Dundee.

Yours, at all obedience, in God,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _April 2, 1654_.

Remember my love in Christ to Mr. Livingstone.

CCCXLIV.--_For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam._.

[MR. JOHN SCOT, minister of Oxnam, zealously adhered to the Protesters; and Rutherford's letters to him have chiefly a reference to the proceedings of that party. After the restoration of Charles II., Scot was imprisoned for some time, but suffered less than others of his brethren. On being set at liberty, he was allowed to return to his parish, and to resume the exercise of his ministry. We find him continuing there down to 1664, when he was brought before the short-lived High Commission Court, erected in the beginning of that year, for having assisted at Communions which were reckoned contrary to law. How he was dealt with by that Court is not now known. In 1669 he became indulged minister of Oxnam. He must have died previous to 1684, as in that year the name of "Elizabeth Rae, relict of Mr. John Scot, late minister of Oxnam," occurs among a list of names in the parish of Kelso, delated by the curate of that parish to the Committee of Privy Council which met at Jedburgh, with the view of proceeding against those guilty of "church disorders," that is, against those who deserted their own parish church, and attended conventicles. ("Warrants of Privy Council.")]

(_EXCUSE FOR ABSENCE FROM DUTY._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--No man oweth more to the church of God with you, than poor and wretched I. But when weakness of body, and the Lord by it, did forbid me to undertake a lesser journey to Edinburgh, I am forbidden far more to journey thither. And believe it, nothing besides this doth hinder. I am unable to overtake what the Lord hath laid upon me here; and, therefore, I desire to submit to sovereignty, and must be silent. If my prayers and best desires to the Lord could contribute anything for promoting of His work, my soul's desire is that the wilderness, and that place to which I owe my first breathing,[503] in which I fear Christ was scarce named, as touching any reality or power of godliness, may blossom as a rose.

[503] This seems to refer to Nisbet, formerly a separate parish, but now annexed to Crailing, in the Presbytery of Jedburgh, and shire of Roxburgh. It is within two miles of the parish of Oxnam; and some thirty years ago a house there used to be pointed out, by an old villager, as that in which, according to tradition, Rutherford was born.

So desiring, and praying that His name may be great among you, and entreating that you may believe that the names of the Lord's adversaries shall be written in the earth, and that "whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem, to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain," and that the Lord "will create glory upon every assembly in Mount Zion," I rest, your own brother in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _June 15, 1655_.

CCCXLV.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_THOUGHTS FOR A TIME OF SICKNESS, ABOUT THE LIFE TO COME._)

MADAM,--I have been so long silent, that I am almost ashamed now to speak. I hear of your weakly condition of body, which speaketh some warning to you to look for a longer life, where ye shall have more leisure to praise than time can give you here. It shall be loss to many; but sure yourself, Madam, shall be only[504] free of any loss. And truly, considering what days we are now falling into, if sailing were not serving of the Lord (which I can hardly attain to), a calm harbour were very good when storms are so high. The Forerunner, who hath landed first, must help to bring the sea-beaten vessel safe to the port, and the sick passengers who are following the Forerunner safe ashore. Much deadness prevaileth over some; but there is much life in Him who is the Resurrection and the Life to quicken. Oh, what of our hid life is without us, and how little and poor a stock is in the hand of some! The only wise God supply what is wanting. The more ye want, and the more your joy hath run on, the more is owing to you by the promise of grace. Bygones of waterings from heaven, which your Ladyship wanted in Kenmure, Rusco, the West, Glasgow, Edinburgh, England, etc., shall all come in a great sum together. The marriage supper of the Lamb must not be marred with too large four-hours' refreshment. Know, Madam, that He, who hath tutored you from the breasts, knoweth how to time His own day-shinings and love-visits.

[504] It shall do nothing but free you from evil.

Grace, that runneth on, be with you.

Yours, in the Lord, at all observance,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCXLVI.--_To_ SIMEON ASHE.

[MR. ASHE was a Puritan minister in London during the time of the civil wars. He died in 1662.]

(_VIEWS OF THE PRESBYTERIANS AS TO ALLEGIANCE TO THE PROTECTOR._)

REVEREND WORTHY SIR,--I would recommend to you the bearer, Mr. James Simpson,[505] a faithful preacher of the Gospel. Be pleased to hear him. I trust he shall give you a true and faithful relation of our affairs. You may be pleased to believe me, that men who have borrowed your ear to blacken the godly in the land, and who have now both deserted us and the Covenant, and joined feet with the Malignant party, and now have owned the present powers, and brought the intrants to the ministry to give under their hand a subscription, an engagement (the writ calls it, a resolution to live peaceably and unoffensively under the present Government), so that no holy man can get any maintenance in the land but such as will sinfully comply (and such as cannot, what an entry they have to that holy calling to embrace it!), these men seek more their own things, than the things of Jesus Christ. And being backed by the whole multitude of the promiscuous generality, throughout the land, who are for their way, as of old the prelatic conformists did, they do persecute the godly, and in pulpits and presbyteries declaim against us as implacable and separatists. You may, Sir, by this, and what the bearer will make known to you, perceive what wrong the compliance of these men hath done to the cause of God. But I spare, and do beg the favour of your other care. The grace of God be with you.

[505] Mr. James Simpson was minister of Airth. He subscribed the protestation which Rutherford gave in against the lawfulness of the Assembly held at St. Andrews in July 1651; for which he was deposed from the ministry by the adjourned meeting at Dundee. After the Restoration he was accused in Parliament, by the King's advocate, of seditious practices, and banished by Parliament, without being heard. He removed to Holland, where he died. Simpson at this time had been sent up to London by the Protesters, to represent their cause to Cromwell and the ministers of the city, in opposition to the notorious James Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews, who had been sent up by the Resolutioners.

I am your loving brother in Christ,

S. R.

1656.

CCCXLVII.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_UNKINDNESS OF THE CREATURE--GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN PERMITTING HIS CHILDREN TO BE INJURED BY MEN._)

MADAM,--I confess that I have cause to be grieved at my long silence or laziness in writing. I am also afflicted to hear, that such who were debtors to your Ladyship for better dealing have served you with such prevarication. Ye know that crookedness is neither strong, nor long enduring; and ye know likewise, that these things spring not out of the dust. It is sweet to look upon the lawless and sinful stirrings of the creature as ordered by a most holy hand in heaven. Oh, if some could make peace with God! It would be our wisdom, and afford us much sweet peace, if oppressors were looked on as passive instruments, like the saw or axe in the carpenter's hand. They are bidden (if such a distinction may be admitted), but not commanded, of God (as Shimei was, 2 Sam. xvi. 10), to do what they do.

Madam, these many years the Lord hath been teaching you to read and study well the book of holy, holy, and spotless sovereignty, in suffering from some nigh-hand, and some far off. Whoever be the instruments, the replying of clay to the Potter, the Former of all, is unbeseeming the nothing-creature. I hope that He will clear you: but, when Zion's public evils lie not nigh some of us, and leave no impression upon our hearts, it is no wonder that we be exercised with domestic troubles. But I know that ye are taught of God to prefer Jerusalem to your chiefest joy. Madam, there is no cause of fainting: wait upon the not-tarrying vision, for it will speak.

The only wise God be with you, and God, even your own God, bless you.

Yours, at all observance, in God,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _June 1657_.

CCCXLVIII.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_GOD'S DEALINGS WITH THE LAND._)

MADAM,--I should not forget you; but my deadness under a threatening stroke, both of a falling church (a broken covenant, a despised remnant) and a craziness of body, that I cannot get a piece sickly clay carried about from one house or town to another, lieth most heavy on me. The Lord hath removed Scotland's crown, for we owned not His crown. We fretted at His catholic government of the world, and fretted that He would not be ruled and led by us, in breaking our adversaries: and He maketh us to suffer and pine away in our iniquities, under the broken government of His house. It is like, that it would be our snare to be tried with the honour of a peaceable Reformation: we might mar the carved work of His house, worse than those against whom we cry out. It is like, that He hath bidden us lie on our left side three hundred and ninety days; and yet so astonishing is our stupidity, that we moan not our sore side. Our gold is become dim, the visage of our Nazarites is become black, the sun is gone down on our seers; the crown is fallen from our heads; we roar like bears. Lord save us from that, "He that made them will not have mercy on them" (Isa. xxvii. 11). The heart of the scribe meditateth terror. Oh, Madam, if the Lord would help us to more self-judging, and to make sure an interest in Christ! Ah, we forget eternity, and it approaches quickly. Grace be with you.

Your Ladyship's, at all obedience, in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Nov. 20, 1657_.

CCCXLIX.--_For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam._

[John Livingstone, in his letter to his parishioners at Ancrum, says: "Oxnam is not far off from you, and I hope Mr. Scot doth and will declare for the sworn Reformation, and testify against present defection."]

(_PROTESTERS' TOLERATION._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--I saw from C. K. a testimony of your Presbytery against toleration, in which ye have been instrumental. The Lord give strength to do more. I think it both rare and necessary, and would account it a great mercy, if there were an addition of a postscript from divers ministers and elders, out of all the shires of Scotland. It is really the mind of all the godly and tender in this land. It is believed by some, that the Protesting party hath quite given over the cause. I hope it is not so; but the Lord shall be yet victorious in His most despised ones. Our darkness is great and thick, and there is much deadness; yet the Lord will be our light.

Thus recommending you to His grace whose ye are, I am, your own brother, in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _April 2, 1658_.

CCCL.--_For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam._

(_GLOOMY TIMES--MEANS OF PROMOTING GODLINESS._)

DEAR BROTHER,--Faint not; but be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. I look on it as a rich mercy that the Lord is with you, strengthening you to quicken fainters, to warm and warn any that are cold or dead, or who deaden others. Believe that it will be your peace in the end. The times are sad; yet I persuade myself that the vision will not tarry, but will speak. The Lord will loose our captive bonds. Oh, blessed he, though alone, who is found fast and constant for the desirable interest of Christ.

My humble advice would be, that you see to the placing[506] of the deacon and the ruling elder, or to anything that may weaken the Discipline. Our Second Book of Discipline should be heeded: Sessions purged. Oh! catechising and personal visiting, and speaking to them _sigillatim_ (one by one) concerning their interest in Christ and a state of conversion, is little in practice. The practice of family fasts is scarce known to be an ordinance of God. It were good that ye should confer with godly brethren in private, concerning the promoting of godliness, concerning Christian conference, and praying together, worshipping of God in families, and solitary fasts.

[506] This seems to mean, the place assigned to the respective offices of elder and deacon.

To His grace who can direct, quicken, and strengthen you, I commend you, and am your loving brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCLI.--_To MR. JAMES DURHAM, Minister of the Gospel at Glasgow, some few days before his Death._

[MR. JAMES DURHAM was ordained minister of Blackfriars Church, Glasgow, in November 1647. In September 1651 he was translated to the Inner High Church, Glasgow. He was a man at once distinguished for ardent piety and great talents. Robert Baillie counted him "one of the most gracious, wise, and able preachers in this isle." "He is the minister of my family," the same writer says, "and almost the only minister in this place [Glasgow] of whom my soul gets good, and whom I respect in some things above all men I know." Durham was cut off in the prime of life. He died at Glasgow on the 25th of June 1658,--ten days after this letter was written to him,--in the thirty-sixth year of his age, much regretted by all. (See Letter XCI.) He wrote on the "Book of Revelation," "Christ Crucified," and some other excellent pieces.]

(_MAN'S WAYS NOT GOD'S WAYS._)

SIR,--I would ere now have written to you, had I not known that your health, weaker and weaker, could scarce permit you to hear or read. I need not speak much. The Way ye know, and have preached to others the skill of the Guide, and the glory of the home beyond death. And when He saith, "Come and see," it will be your gain to obey, and go out and meet the Bridegroom. What accession is made to the higher house of His kingdom should not be our loss, though it be real loss to the church of God. But we count one way, and the Lord counteth another way. He is infallible, and the only wise God, and needeth none of us. Had He needed the staying in the body of Moses and the prophets, He could have taken another way. Who dare bid you cast your thoughts back on wife or children, when He hath said, "Leave them to Me, and come up hither"? Or who can persuade you to die or live, as if that were arbitrary to us, and not His alone who hath determined the number of your months? If so it seem good to Him, follow your Forerunner and Guide. It is an unknown land to you, who were never there before; but the land is good, and the company before the throne desirable, and He who sitteth on the throne is His lone a sufficient heaven.

Grace, grace be with you.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _June 15, 1658_.

CCCLII.--_For MR. JOHN SCOT, at Oxnam._

(_ADHERENCE TO THE TESTIMONY AGAINST TOLERATION._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--Your letter that came unto me, of August 2nd, to be at Edinburgh upon August 2nd, was unknown to me by the subscription. But since it was written for so honourable and warrantable a truth of Christ, as a testimony against Toleration, if my health would have permitted, and my daily menacing gravel, I should have come to Edinburgh. What either counsel, countenance, or clearing, ye could have had from the like of me, I cannot say; nor dare I speak much, but with a reserve of the help of His grace. I desire to desire,[507] and purpose by strength from above, to own that cause, and to join with you and some in this church, besides your Presbytery, who will own that cause. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. This cloud will over,[508] could we live by faith, and wait on a speaking, and a seemingly delaying vision. (Heb. ii. 3.) The Lord will not tarry.

[507] Perhaps, "I desire to pray for."

[508] Pass over.

Grace be with you. Many are with you, but there is One who is above millions.

Your own brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _August 8, 1658_.

CCCLIII.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_TRIALS--DEADNESS OF SPIRIT--DANGER OF FALSE SECURITY._)

MADAM,--I am ashamed of my long silence to your Ladyship. Your tossings and wanderings are known to Him upon whom ye have been cast from the breasts, and who hath been your God of old. The temporal loss of creatures, dear to you there, may be the more easily endured, that the gain of One "who only hath immortality" groweth.

There is an universal complaint of deadness of spirit on all that know God. He that writeth to you, Madam, is as deep in this as any, and is afraid of a strong and hot battle, before time be at a close. But no matter, if the Lord crown all with the victorious triumphing of faith. God teacheth us by terrible things in righteousness. We see many things, but we observe nothing. Our drink is sour. Grey hairs are here and there on us. We change many lords and rulers; but the same bondage of soul and body remaineth. We live little by faith, but much by sense, according to the times, and by human policy. The watchmen sleep, and the people perish for lack of knowledge. How can we be enlightened when we turn our back on the sun? and must we not be withered when we leave the fountain? It should be my only desire to be a minister, gifted with the white stone, and the new name written on it. I judge it were fit (now when tall professors and when many stars fall from heaven, and God poureth the isle of Great Britain from vessel to vessel, and yet we sit, and are settled on our lees) to consider (as sometimes I do, but ah! rarely), how irrecoverable a wo it is to be under a beguile in the matter of eternity. And what if I, who can have a subscribed testimonial of many who shall stand at the right hand of the Judge, shall miss Christ's approving testimony, and be set upon the left hand among the goats? (Matt. vii. 22, xxv. 8-12 and 33; Luke xiii. 25-27). There is such a beguile; and it befalleth many; and what if it befall me, who have but too much art to cozen my own soul and others, with the flourish of ministerial, or country, holiness!

Dear lady, I am afraid of prevailing security. We watch little (I have relation mainly to myself), we wrestle little. I am like one travelling in the night, who seeth a spirit, and sweateth for fear, and careth not to tell it to his fellow, for fear of increasing his own fear. However, I am sure, when the Master is nigh His coming, it were safe to write over a double, and a new copy, of our accounts of the sins of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, and old age. What if Christ have another written representation of me than I have of myself? Sure He is right; and if it contradict my mistaken and sinfully erroneous account of I myself, ah! where am I then? But, Madam, I discourage none. I know that Christ hath made a new marriage-contract of love, and sealed it with His blood, and the trembling believer shall not be confounded.

Grace be with you.

Yours, at all obedience, in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _May 26, 1658_.

CCCLIV.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.

(_PREVAILING DECLENSION, DECAY, AND INDIFFERENCE TO GOD'S DEALINGS--THINGS FUTURE._)

MADAM,--I should be glad that the Lord would be pleased to lengthen out more time to you, that ye might, before your eyes be shut, see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord, in reviving a now swooning and crushed land and church. Though I was lately knocking at death's gate, yet could I not get in, but was sent back for a time.[509] It is well if I could yet do any service to Him; but, ah! what deadness lieth upon the spirit! And deadness breedeth distance from God. Madam, these many years the Lord hath let you see a clear difference betwixt those who serve God and love His name, and those who serve Him not. And I judge that ye look upon the way of Christ as the only best way, and that ye would not exchange Christ for the world's god, or their mammon, and that ye can give Christ a testimony of "Chief among ten thousand." True it is that many of us have fallen from our first love; but Christ hath renewed His first love of our espousals to Himself, and multiplied the seekers of God all the country over, even where Christ was scarce named, east and west, south and north, above the number that our fathers ever knew.[510] But, ah! Madam, what shall be done or said of many fallen stars, and many near to God complying wofully, and sailing to the nearest shore? Yea, and we are consumed in the furnace, but not melted; burned, but not purged. Our dross is not removed, but our scum remaineth in us; and in the furnace we fret, we faint, and (which is more strange) we slumber. The fire burneth round about us, and we lay it not to heart. Grey hairs are upon us, and we know it not.

[509] Reading the Letters _chronologically_, we are now within two years of his death, but Lady Kenmure survived many years.

[510] How interesting is this notice of Revival, prefacing and preparing the church for the days of sore trial that soon burst over Scotland!

It were now a desirable life to send away our love to heaven. And well it becometh us to wait for our appointed change, yet so as we should be meditating thus: "Is there a new world above the sun and moon? And is there such a blessed company harping and singing hallelujahs to the Lamb up above? Why, then, are we taken with a vain life of sighing and sinning? Oh, where is our wisdom, that we sit still, laughing, eating, sleeping prisoners, and do not pack up all our best things for the journey, desiring always to be clothed with our house from above, not made with hands!" Ah! we savour not the things that are above, nor do we smell of glory ere we come thither; but we transact and agree with time, for a new lease of clay mansions. Behold, He cometh! We sleep, and turn all the work of duties into dispute of events for deliverance. But the greatest haste, to be humbled for a broken and buried covenant, is first and last forgotten; and all our grief is, the Lord lingereth, enemies triumph, godly ones suffer, atheists blaspheme. Ah! we pray not; but wonder that Christ cometh not the higher way, by might, by power, by garments rolled in blood. What if He come the lower way? Sure we sin, in putting the book in His hand, as if we could teach the Almighty knowledge. We make haste; we believe not. Let the only wise God alone; He steereth well. He draweth straight lines, though we think and say they are crooked. It is right that some should die and their breasts full of milk; and yet we are angry that God dealeth so with them. Oh, if I could adore Him in His hidden ways, when there is darkness under His feet and darkness in His pavilion, and clouds are about His throne! Madam, hoping, believing, patient praying, is our life. He loseth no time.

The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, at all obliged observance in Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Sept. 12, 1659_.

CCCLV.--_To the PRESBYTERY OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT, anent Union, with a desire to have Mr. William Rait Professor at St. Andrews._[511]

[511] From the original among the Wodrow MSS. vol. xxix. 4to, No. 88. The letter is addressed on the back, "For the very Reverend and honoured of the Lord, the Moderator and Remanent Brethren of the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright." That Presbytery particularly distinguished itself by its earnest endeavours to restore harmony between the Resolutioners and Protesters; to which they were stirred up chiefly by Mr. Thomas Wylie. But their laudable efforts, though partially successful in allaying animosity, failed to heal the breach. On this subject, Mr. George Hutchison, in a letter to Mr. Thomas Wylie, dated March 12, 1660, says: "That little essay towards union hath been followed with the blessing of much less animosity than was wont to be before, in actings and walkings one with another; though, as yet, it is to be regretted that little can be got done for healing particular ruptures of parishes and presbyteries, even upon seeming equal overtures; and, it fears me, some elsewhere are more stiff than needful in such an exigent. But I apprehend that either our trials or God's appearing, among others, may press the necessity of union more upon us" (Wodrow's MSS. vol. xxix.).

(_UNION--HUMILIATION--CHOICE OF A PROFESSOR._)

REVEREND,--The desire of your W[isdoms] for union to me, who am below such a public mercy, and of so high concernment to the Church of Scotland, ought to be most acceptable. The name of peace is savoury, both good and pleasant. I so close with your godly and religious aim therein, as judging the Lord hath from heaven suggested to you, and inspired your spirits with, a fervent thirst and intention to promote the Gospel, that though I should judge myself (as in truth I am) lower than to suit[512] from either Presbytery or Synod any favour, yet I shall, in all humility, beseech your W[isdoms] to prosecute with the power which Christ hath given you the work of union; and so much the more that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle. I offer to your W[isdoms'] serious consideration, the evident necessity of union with God, and of a serious and sound humiliation, and lying in the dust before the Lord for a broken covenant, declining from our former love, owning of such as we sometime judged to be malignant enemies and opposers of the work of reformation and of the sworn covenant of God, despising of the offered salvation of the Gospel, and coldness and indifferency in purging the house of God, and other causes of the sad judgments which we now are under. And my last and humble suit to your W[isdoms] is, that ye would be pleased to take in with this union the planting of the New College[513] with a third master. It is a matter that concerns the whole Church of Scotland and seminary of the ministry thereof, and cannot be done but by a General Assembly. If, therefore, you have, dear brethren, judged me faithful of the Lord, and regard the work of the Lord, and the promoting of the kingdom of Christ (as I nothing doubt but it is the desire of your souls), give commission to the brethren sent to treat for union, at the meeting in Edinburgh or elsewhere, to join their authority and power, such as now may be had, to call, invite, and obtest some godly and able man, to embrace the charge of Professor in the College of Divinity in St. Andrews. And because Mr. William Rait, minister at Brechin, is a man for learning, godliness, prudence, and eminent authority in the Church of Scotland, sought for to the ministry by the town of Edinburgh, and also by Aberdeen, to preach the Gospel and to profess in the College, and hath the approbation of the present masters of the New College, the godly ministers of the Synod of Fife, of the Presbytery of St. Andrews, ministers of the city of St. Andrews, it is my soul's desire, and the heart-cry of students in the College, and of the godly in the city, that Mr. William Rait may be the man; and that your commissioners may be moved to deal with the commissioners of the Synod of Fife and Angus for that effect; so shall you be instrumental to repair our breaches, and build His house. So praying that your labours may not be in vain in the Lord, I rest (the Lord Jesus be with your spirit!) your unworthy brother and fellow-labourer in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _the 23rd October 1659_.

[512] Solicit.

[513] At St. Andrews.

CCCLVI.--_To MR. JOHN MURRAY, Minister at Methven._[514]

[514] From the original among the Wodrow MSS. vol. xxvii. fol. No. 42.

[MR. JOHN MURRAY was one of the Protesters (see Baillie's "Letters"); and was committed prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh for meeting with a few of his brethren to draw up a congratulatory address to Charles II. upon his restoration, expressing their loyalty, and reminding him of the obligation of the Covenant. He was summoned to appear before the Parliament on the charge of high treason, but at length was liberated. About 1672 he was apprehended and imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for alleged house-conventicles. When set at liberty, he was confined to the parish of Queensferry, and ordained to wait upon ordinances and abstain from keeping conventicles, and to attend the parish church. (Wodrow's "History," vol. ii.)]

(_A SYNOD PROPOSAL FOR UNION--BRETHREN UNDER CENSURE._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--I would gladly know the issue of your Synod. We did profess we could not be concluded[515] by the Synod of Fife's [overtures] of union, but upon condition of the taking off the censures of our brethren, which we think injuriously are inflicted. Much is promised to us for the remedying of these censures. I shall believe when I see their performances. I hope you will see that the brethren get no wrong, or the house of God in their persons; and send me a line of the conclusion of the Synod in that business. The paper of union is very general, and comes to no particulars: it only tells the good of union, and contains some obtestations to us that insinuate the unsavouriness of irregular courses; yet we thought it not safe to yield to any union of that kind, so long as our brethren are under the censures.[516] I much doubt of their honest meaning, and that barriers in the way of entrant ministers and elders be revived. And I see no engagement, so much as verbal, for purging; but the contrary practice is here. Mr. Robert Anderson[517] is as much opposed as if he were the most corrupt sectary or Jesuit.

[515] Determined finally.

[516] Murray, and the other Protesters in the Synod of Perth, acted upon a similar principle. As an instance of this, we may adduce the following extracts from a paper entitled, "The desires of the brethren of the Protesting judgment in the Synod of Perth under-subscribing, unto the Moderator and remanent members of the Synod." They desire, "1st, That the Synod will declare and enact, that none of the Acts made by the two controverted Assemblies at St. Andrews, Dundee, and at Edinburgh, in the years 1651 and 1652, appointing censure upon such as will not acknowledge the constitution of these Assemblies, and will not submit unto the Acts thereof, shall hereafter be of force within the bounds of this Synod.... 3. That the Synod will declare and enact, that notwithstanding of the supposed censures inflicted upon Mr. James Guthrie, minister at Stirling, and Mr. James Simpson, minister at Airth, by the pretended Assembly at St. Andrews and Dundee, and of the approbation or intimation thereof by the Synod, that the said Mr. James Guthrie and Mr. James Simpson are lawful standing ministers of the Gospel in the respective charges of Stirling and Airth, and capable to sit and vote in the Synod and in their own Presbytery, and of every other ministerial privilege and employment" (Wodrow's MSS. vol. xxvii.).

[517] A minister who is mentioned again in Letter CCCLXV.

My wife remembers her to you. Remember me to your own bed-fellow. Grace be with you.

Your own brother,

S. R.

_St. Andrews_, _Jan. 25, 1660_.

CCCLVII.--_To his Reverend and dear Brethren, MR. GUTHRIE, MR. TRAILL, and the rest of their brethren imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh._

[The circumstances of the case to which this letter refers are these:--On the 23rd of August 1660, the following ministers, Mr. James Guthrie of Stirling, Mr. John Stirling and Mr. Robert Traill of Edinburgh, Mr. Alexander Moncrieff of Scoonie, Mr. John Semple of Carsfairn, Mr. Thomas Ramsay of Mordington, Mr. John Scot of Oxnam, Mr. Gilbert Hall of Kirkliston, Mr. John Murray of Methven, Mr. George Nairn of Burntisland, with two gentlemen, ruling elders, met in a private house in Edinburgh, to draw up an humble address to Charles II., congratulating his return, and expressing their entire and unfeigned loyalty, but at the same time reminding him of the obligation of the Covenant which he and the nation had sworn. Whilst thus employed, their papers were secured, by the order of the Committee of Estates; and they themselves were arrested, and committed close prisoners to the Castle of Edinburgh.]

(_ON SUFFERING FOR CHRIST--GOD'S PRESENCE EVER WITH HIS PEOPLE--FIRMNESS AND CONSTANCY._)

REVEREND, NOW VERY DEAR, AND MUCH HONOURED PRISONERS FOR CHRIST,--I am, as to the point of light, at the utmost of persuasion in that kind that it is the cause of Christ which ye now suffer for, and not men's interest. If it be for men, let us leave it; but if we plead for God, our own personal safety and man's deliverance will not be peace.

There is a salvation called "the salvation of God," which is cleanly, pure, spiritual, unmixed, near to the holy word of God. It is that which we would seek, even the favour of God that He beareth to His people; not simple gladness, but the gladness and goodness of the Lord's chosen. And sure, though I be the weakest of His witnesses, and unworthy to be among the meanest of them, and am afraid that the Cause be hurt (but it cannot be lost) by my unbelieving faintness, I would not desire a deliverance separated from the deliverance of the Lord's cause and people. It is enough to me to sing when Zion singeth, and to triumph when Christ triumpheth. I should judge it an unhappy joy to rejoice when Zion sigheth. "Not one hoof" will be your peace. (Exod. x. 26.)

If Christ doth own me, let me be in the grave in a bloody winding-sheet, and go from the scaffold in four quarters, to grave or no grave. I am His debtor, to seal with sufferings this precious truth; but, oh! when it cometh to the push, I dare say nothing, considering my weakness, wickedness, and faintness. But fear not ye. Ye are not, ye shall not be, alone: the Father is with you. It was not an unseasonable, but a seasonable and a necessary duty ye were about. Fear Him who is Sovereign. Christ is captain of the castle and Lord of the keys. The cooling well-spring, and refreshment from the promises, are more than the frownings of the furnace. I see snares and temptations in capitulating, composing, ceding, minching with distinctions of circumstances, formalities, compliments, and extenuations, in the cause of Christ. "A long spoon: the broth is hell-hot."[518] Hold a distance from carnal compositions, and much nearness to the fountain, to the favour and refreshing light from the Father of lights speaking in His oracles. This is sound health and salvation. Angels, men, Zion's elders, eye us; but what of all these? Christ is by us, and looketh on us, and writeth up all. Let us pray more, and look less to men.

[518] A proverb: "They need a long spoon who sup with the devil."

Remember me to Mr. Scott, and to all the rest. Blessings be upon the head of such as are separated from their brethren. Joseph is a fruitful bough by a well.

Grace be with you.

Your loving brother and companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1660.

CCCLVIII.--_To_ SEVERAL BRETHREN. _Reasons for petitioning his Majesty after his return, and for owning such as were censured[519] while about so necessary a duty._

[519] That is, the ministers mentioned in the note prefixed to the preceding letter, who were arrested and imprisoned by the Committee of Estates.

REVEREND AND DEAR BRETHREN,--It is a matter of difficulty to me to write at this distance, not having heard your debates. It seemeth that the Lord calleth us to give information to the King's Majesty of affairs. The Lord's admirable providence, in bringing him to his throne, and laying aside others who were sworn enemies to the cause and covenant of God, so that now the Government is in a right line, is to be adored. And I judge (without prescribing) that some should be sent to his Majesty to congratulate that providence; and that reason of our being so slow in rendering should be rendered.

1. We should write, not in the name of the Kirk of Scotland, but in the name of a most considerable number of godly ministers, elders, and professors, who both pray for the King, are obedient to his laws, and are under the oath of God for the sworn Reformation.

2. It is better now, than after sentences and trouble, to have recourse to him who is by place _parens patriæ_.

3. We should supplicate in all humility for protection and countenance; far more for lawful liberty to fear the bond of the oath of the dreadful and most high Lord; avouching to his Majesty, that the Lord, His holy name being interposed, will own that Covenant, and bless his Majesty with a happy and successful reign, in the owning thereof, and kissing of the Son of God. And when the Lord shall be pleased to grant that to us which concerneth religion, the beauty of His house, the propagating of the Gospel, the government of the Lord's kingdom, without Popery, Prelacy, unwritten traditions and ceremonies, let his Majesty try our loyalty with what commands he will be pleased to lay on us, and see if we be found rebellious.

4. We should disclaim such as have sinfully complied with the late usurpers; produce our written testimonies against them; our not accepting of offices and places of trust from them; our testimonies against their usurpation, covenant-breaking, toleration of all religions, corrupt sectarian ways, for which the Lord hath broken them.

5. We are represented to his Majesty as such as would not consent that the Remonstrance of the western forces[520] should be condemned by the Commission of the General Assembly; whereas, 1. We did humbly desire that the judicature should not condemn nor censure that Remonstrance, till the gentlemen were heard, and their reasons discussed. 2. Whatever demur was as to the banding or combining part of it, we were and are obliged to believe that they had no sectarian design therein, nor levelling intention. 3. They are gentlemen most loyal, and never were enemies to his Majesty's royal power; but only desired that security might be had for religion and the people of God, and persons disaffected to religion and the sworn Covenant abandoned; otherwise they were, and still are, willing to hazard lives and estates for the just greatness and safety of his Majesty in the maintenance of the true religion, Covenant, and cause of God. The only difficulty will be, where to have fit men to send. But as it will be both sin and shame for us to desert our undeservedly now censured brethren, so it will be our sin and reproach sinfully to comply with such things and courses as we testified against, and confessed to God.

[520] See notice of Colonel Gilbert Ker, p. 649.

I can say no more at present but that I am your loving brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1660.

CCCLIX.--_To a_ BROTHER MINISTER.

Judgment of a draught or minute of a Petition, to have been presented to the Committee of Estates, by those Ministers who were then prisoners in the Castle of Edinburgh for that other well-known Petition to his Majesty, about which they were when seized upon and made prisoners.[521]

[521] See note prefixed to Letter CCCLVII., p. 692.

["But that no man may mistake or judge amiss of persons so fixed in the cause and faithful in their generations, know that this draught was not sent to Mr. Rutherford as a paper concluded and condescended upon among these brethren, whose love to truth made them in all things so tender that they were ever fond to abstain from all appearance of evil. It was more like the suggestion of some other men (wherein was laid before them what kind of address would most probably please, waiving the just measures of what was simply duty in their circumstances), than anything flowing from themselves, as the product of a mature deliberation. And, secondly, know (which confirmeth what was said), that whatever it was, or whoever gave the rise to it, yet it was never made use of, nor presented to the Committee of Estates, by any of these faithful men, whose praise, for their fidelity, fixedness, real and untainted integrity, is in the churches of Christ" (Note by Mr. Robert M'Ward, the original editor of Rutherford's "Letters").]

DEAR BROTHER,--I am, as ye know, straitened as another suffering man, but dare not petition this Committee:--

1. Because it draweth us to capitulate with such as have the advantage of the mount, the Lord so disposing for the present: and, to bring the matters of Christ to yea and no (ye being prisoners and they the powers) is a hazard.

2. A speaking to them in write, and passing in silence the sworn Covenant and the cause of God (which is the very present controversy), is contrary to the practice of Christ and the Apostles, who, being accused or not accused, avouched Christ to be the Son of God and the Messias, and that the dead must rise again, even when the adversary misstated the question. Yea, silence on the cause of God, which adversaries persecute, seemeth a tacit deserting of the cause, when the state of the question is known to beholders: and I know that the brethren intend not to leave the cause.

3. I know of no offence that you have given (I will not say what offence may be taken), either as to the matter or manner of your petition. For, if what you have done be a necessary duty laid aside by others, a duty can never give an offence to Christ, and so none to men; but Christians will look upon a pious, harmless, and innocent petition to the Prince, in the matters of the Lord's honour and the good of His church (though proffered by one or two, when they are silent whose it is to speak and act), as a seasonable duty.

4. The draught of that petition, which you sent me, speaketh not one word of the Covenant of God for the adhering to which you now suffer, and which is the object of men's hatred, and the destruction whereof is the great work of the times. Your silence in this nick of time appeareth to be a non-confession of Christ before men; and you want nothing to beget an uncleanly deliverance but the profession of silence.

5. There is a promise and real purpose, as the petition saith, to live peaceably under the King's authority. But, 1. Ye do not answer candidly and ingenuously the mind of the rulers, who, to your knowledge, mean a far other thing by authority than ye do. For _ye_ mean, _his just authority_, his authority in the Lord, and his just greatness, in the maintenance of true religion, as in the Covenant, Confession of Faith, and Catechisms, is expressed from the Word of God: _they_ mean his _supreme authority_, and absolute prerogative above laws, as their acts make clear, and as their practice is. For they refused, to such as were unwilling to subscribe their bond, to add "authority in the Lord," or, "just and lawful authority," or "authority as it is expressed in the Covenant." But this draught of a petition, under your own hand, yieldeth the sense and meaning to them which they crave. 2. That authority for which they contend is exclusive of the sworn Covenant; so that, except ye had said, "We shall be subject to the King's authority in the Lord, or according to the sworn Covenant," ye say nothing to the point in hand; and that, sure, is not your meaning. 3. Whoever promised so much peaceable living under his Majesty's authority, leaving out the exposition of the fifth commandment, as your petition doth, may upon the very same ground subscribe the bond refused by the godly; and so you pass from the Covenant, and make all those by-past actings of this Kirk and State, these years by-past, to be horrid rebellion! And how deep that guiltiness draweth, consider.

6. A condemning of the Remonstrance, simply and without any limitation and distinction, is a condemning of many precious ones in the land, and a passing from the causes of God's wrath, which is the chief matter of the Remonstrance.

7. That nothing is before your eyes but the exoneration of your conscience, is indeed believed by the godly who know you; but a passing in silence of the honest materials in your former petition to his Majesty seemeth to be a deserting thereof, since, in all your petition, ye do not once say ye cannot but adhere to that pious petition, as your necessary duty. And, that ye intend in the petition the happiness of his Majesty, is also believed.

Dear brother, show to our brethren, that the Lord Christ, in your persons, hath a stated question betwixt Him and the powers on earth. The only wise God lead you now, when He hath brought you forth in public, so to act as if ye did see Jesus Christ by you, and beholding you. It is easy for such as are on the shore to throw a counsel to those that are tossed in the sea; but, only by living by faith, and by fetching strength and comfort from Christ, can you be victorious, and have right to the precious promises "of the tree of life," "of the hidden manna," of the gifted "morning star," and the like, made to those who overcome: to whose strength and grace, brethren who desire with me to remember you do recommend you. I am, dear brother,

Yours, in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, 1660.

CCCLX.--_For the Right Honourable my_ LADY VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.

[_On the imprisonment of the Marquis of Argyle._]

(_GOD'S JUDGMENTS CALLING TO FLEE TO HIM--THE RESULT OF TIMID COMPLIANCE._)

MADAM,--It is not my part to be unmindful of you. Be not afflicted for your brother, the Marquis of Argyle.[522] As to the main, in my weak apprehension, the seed of God being in him, and love to the people of God and His cause, it will be well. The making of particular reckoning with the Lord, and of peace with God, and owning of His cause when too many disown it, will make his peace with the King the surer.[523] The Lord is beginning to reckon with such as did forsake His cause and covenant; and until we return to Him, our peace shall not be like a river and as the waves of the sea. However, the opening of the bosom to take in all the Malignants can produce no better fruits. The Lord calleth us to flee into our chambers, and shut the doors, till the indignation be over. (Isa. xxvi. 20.) The lily among the thorns is so served. He hideth Himself, and our mountain is removed, and we are troubled. But the Lord reigneth; let the earth tremble, and let the earth rejoice. The Lord, without blood, broke the yoke of usurping oppressors, and laid them aside: the same Lord can settle throne and kingdom on the pillars of heaven. But, oh, the controversy the Lord hath with Edom, and those who covenanted with us, and then sold us; and with those of whom the Holy Ghost speaketh, "Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee; they have not discovered thine iniquity to turn away thy captivity, but have seen for thee false burdens, and causes of banishment" (Lam. ii. 14). The time of Jacob's suffering is but short, and the vision will speak. Could we be from under deadness, and watch unto wrestling and prayer with the Lord, and live more by faith, we should be more than conquerors. Wait upon the Lord; faint not.

[522] A fortnight before this was written, viz. on 8th July 1660, the King had committed the Marquis to the Tower, on an unfounded charge of treason. Rutherford did not live to see the issue.

[523] "His heavenly King, whom he has faithfully owned, as well as in private conscientiously served, will on that account all the more stand by him, in the question of his earthly King being reconciled to him." The hopes of his friends, however, were not realized; for next year (on 27th May 1661) he was beheaded at Edinburgh.

The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

Yours, at all respective observance in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _July 24, 1660_.

CCCLXI.--_For MISTRESS CRAIG, upon the Death of her hopeful Son, who was drowned while washing himself in a river in France._

(_NINE REASONS FOR RESIGNATION._)

MISTRESS,--You have so learned Christ as now (in the furnace) what dross, what shining of faith may appear, must come forth. I heard of the removal of your son, Mr. Thomas. Though I be dull enough in discerning, yet I was witness to some spiritual savouriness of the new birth and hope of the resurrection, which I saw in the hopeful youth, when he was, as was feared, a-dying in this city. And, since it was written and advisedly appointed, in the spotless and holy decree of the Lord, where, and before what witnesses, and in what manner, whether by a fever, the mother being at the bed, or by some other way in a far country (dear patriarchs died in Egypt, precious to the Lord, and have wanted burials) (Ps. lxxix. 3), your safest way will be, to be silent, and command the heart to utter no repining and fretting thoughts of the holy dispensation of God.

1. The man is beyond the hazard of dispute; the precious youth is perfected and glorified.

2. Had the youth lain, year and day, pained beside a witnessing mother, it had been pain and grief lengthened out to you in many portions, and every parcel would have been a little death. Now His holy Majesty hath, in one lump and mass, brought to your ears the news, and hath not divided the grief into many portions.

3. It was not yesterday's thought, nor the other year's statute, but a counsel of the Lord of old; and "who can teach the Almighty knowledge?"

4. There is no way of quieting the mind, and of silencing the heart of a mother, but godly submission. The readiest way for peace and consolation to clay vessels is, that it is a stroke of the Potter and Former of all things. And since the holy Lord hath loosed the grip, when it was fastened sure on your part, I know that your light, and I hope that your heart, also, will yield. It is not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the omnipotent Lord. Let the pull go with Him, for He is strong; and say, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

5. His holy method and order is to be adored. Sometimes the husband before the wife, and sometimes the son before the mother. So hath the only wise God ordered; and when he is sent before, and not lost, in all things give thanks.

6. Meditate not too much on the sad circumstances, "the mother was not witness to the last sigh; possibly, cannot get leave to wind the son, nor to weep over his grave;" and, "he was in a strange land!" There is a like nearness to heaven out of all the countries of the earth.

7. This did not spring out of the dust. Feed and grow fat by this medicine and fare of the only wise Lord. It is the art and the skill of faith to read what the Lord writeth upon the cross, and to spell and construct right His sense. Often we miscall words and sentences of the cross, and either put nonsense on His rods, or burden His Majesty with slanders and mistakes, when He mindeth for us thoughts of peace and love, even to do us good in the latter end.

8. It is but a private stroke on a family, and little to the public arrows shot against grieved Joseph, and the afflicted, but ah! dead, senseless, and guilty people of God. This is the day of Jacob's trouble!

9. There is a bad way of wilful swallowing of a temptation, and not digesting it, or laying it out of memory without any victoriousness of faith. The Lord, who forbiddeth fainting, forbiddeth also despising.[524] But it is easier to counsel than to suffer: the only wise Lord furnish patience.

[524] Proverbs iii. 2.

It were not amiss to call home the other youth. I am not a little afflicted for my Lady Kenmure's condition. I desire you, when ye see her, to remember my humble respects to her. My wife heartily remembereth her to you; and is wounded much in mind with your present condition, and suffereth with you.

Grace be with you.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Aug. 4, 1660_.

CCCLXII.--_For my Reverend and dear Brother, Christ's Soldier in bonds, MR. JAMES GUTHRIE, Minister of the Gospel at Stirling_.

(_STEDFAST THOUGH PERSECUTED--BLESSEDNESS OF MARTYRDOM._)

DEAR BROTHER,--We are very often comforted with the word of promise; though we stumble not a little at the work of holy providence, some earthly men flourishing as a green herb, and the people of God counted as sheep for the slaughter, and killed all the day long. And yet both word of promise, and work of providence, are from Him whose ways are equal, straight, holy, and spotless.

As for me, when I think of God's dispensations, He might justly have brought to the market-cross, and to the light, my unseen and secret abominations; which would have been no small reproach to the holy name and precious truths of Christ. But in mercy He hath covered these, and shapen and carved out more honourable causes of suffering, of which we are unworthy.

And now, dear brother, much dependeth upon the way and manner of suffering, especially that His precious truths be owned with all heavenly boldness, and a reason of our hope given in meekness and fear; and the royal crown, and absolute supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of the kings of the earth, avouched as becometh. For certain it is that Christ will reign, the Father's King in Mount Zion, and His sworn covenant will not be buried. It is not denied that our practical breach of covenant first, and then, our legal breach thereof by enacting the same mischief and framing it into a law, may heavily provoke our sweetest Lord. Yet there are a few names in the land that have not defiled their garments, and a holy seed on whom the Lord will have mercy, like the four or five olive-berries on the top of the shaken olive-tree (Isa. xvii. 6): and their eye shall be toward the Lord their Maker. Think it not strange that men devise against you; whether it be to exile, the earth is the Lord's; or perpetual imprisonment, the Lord is your light and liberty; or a violent and public death,[525] for the kingdom of heaven consisteth in a fair company of glorified martyrs and witnesses; of whom Jesus Christ is the chief witness, who for that cause was born, and came into the world. Happy are ye if you give testimony to the world of your preferring Jesus Christ to all powers. And the Lord will make the innocency and Christian loyalty of His defamed and despised witnesses in this land to shine to after-generations, and will take The Man-Child up to God and to His throne, and prepare a hiding-place in the wilderness for the mother, and cause the earth to help the Woman. Be not terrified; fret not. Forgive your enemies; bless, and curse not; for, though both you and I should be silent, sad and heavy is the judgment and indignation of the Lord, that is abiding the unfaithful watchmen of the Church of Scotland. The souls under the altar are crying for justice, and there is an answer returned already. The Lord's salvation will not tarry.

[525] Such, as is well known, was the fate of Mr. James Guthrie, a few months after this was written. He was hanged at the cross of Edinburgh on the 1st of June 1661, and his head thereafter cut off and fixed on the Nether Bow.

Cast the burden of wife and children on the Lord Christ; He careth for you and them. Your blood is precious in His sight. The everlasting consolations of the Lord bear you up and give you hope; for your salvation (if not deliverance) is concluded.

Your own brother,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS, _Feb. 15, 1661_.

CCCLXIII.--_To_ MR. ROBERT CAMPBELL.

[MR. ROBERT CAMPBELL was minister of a parish in the Presbytery of Dunkeld. He was a Protester, and after the restoration of Charles II. was ejected for nonconformity to Prelacy.]

(_STEDFASTNESS TO PROTEST AGAINST PRELACY AND POPERY._)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--Ye know that this is a time in which all men almost seek their own things, and not the things of Jesus Christ. Ye are your lone, as a beacon on the top of a mountain; but faint not: Christ is a numerous multitude Himself, yea, millions. Though all the nations were convened against Him round about, yet doubt not but He will, at last, arise for the cry of the poor and needy.

For me, I am now near to eternity;[526] and, for ten thousand worlds I dare not venture to pass from the protestation against the corruptions of the time, nor go alongst with the shameless apostasy of the many silent and dumb watchmen of Scotland. But I think it my last duty to enter a protestation in heaven, before the righteous Judge, against the practical and legal breach of Covenant, and all oaths imposed on the consciences of the Lord's people, and all popish, superstitious, and idolatrous mandates of men. Know that the overthrow of the sworn Reformation, the introducing of Popery and the mystery of iniquity, is now set on foot in the three kingdoms; and whosoever would keep their garments clean are under that command, "Touch not, taste not, handle not."

[526] Rutherford died on the 20th of March 1661, shortly after this letter was written.

The Lord calleth you, dear brother, to be still "stedfast, unmoveable, and abounding in the work of the Lord." Our royal kingly Master is upon His journey, and will come, and will not tarry; and blessed is the servant who shall be found watching when He cometh. Fear not men, for the Lord is your light and salvation. It is true, it is somewhat sad and comfortless that ye are your lone; but so it was with our precious Master: nor are ye your lone, for the Father is with you. It is possible that I shall not be an eyewitness to it in the flesh, but I believe He cometh quickly who will remove our darkness, and shine gloriously in the Isle of Britain, as a crowned King, either in a formally sworn covenant, or in His own glorious way; which I leave to the determination of His infinite wisdom and goodness. And this is the hope and confidence of a dying man, who is longing and fainting for the salvation of God.

Beware of the ensnaring bonds and obligations, by any hand-writ or otherwise, to give unlimited obedience to any authority, but only in the Lord. For all innocent self-defence (which is according to the Covenant, the Word of God, and the laudable example of the reformed churches) is now intended to be utterly subverted and condemned: and what is taken from Christ, as the flower of His prerogative-royal, is now put upon the head of a mortal power; which must be that great idol of indignation that provoketh the eyes of His glory. Dear brother, let us mind the rich promises that are made to those that overcome, knowing that those that endure to the end shall be saved.

Thus recommending you to the rich grace of God, I remain,

Your affectionate brother in Christ,

S. R.

CCCLXIV.--_To_ [Brethren in] ABERDEEN.

(_SINFUL CONFORMITY AND SCHISMATIC DESIGNS REPROVED._)

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD,--Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

There were some who rendered thanks, with knees bowed to Him "of whom is named the whole family in heaven and earth," when they heard of "your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus;" and rejoiced not a little, that where Christ was scarce named, in savouriness and power of the Gospel, even in Aberdeen, there Christ hath a few names precious to Him, who shall walk with Him in white. We looked on it (He knoweth whom we desire to serve in our spirit in the Gospel of His Son) as a part of the fulfilling of that, "The wilderness and solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose" (Isa. xxxv. 1). But now it is more grievous to us than a thousand deaths, when we hear that you are shaken, and so soon removed from that which you once acknowledged to be the way of God. Dearly beloved, the sheep follow Christ, who calleth them by name: a stranger they will not follow, but they flee from him, for they know not the voice of a stranger. Ye know the way, by which ye were sealed to the day of redemption; and ye received the Spirit, by the hearing of faith. Part not with that way, except ye see there be no rest for your souls therein. Neither listen to them that say, "Many were converted under episcopal as well as under presbyterial government, and yet the godly gave testimony against bishops;" for the instruments of conversion loathed Episcopacy, with the ceremonies thereof, and never sealed it with their sufferings. We shall desire instances of any engaged by oaths, and sufferings of the faithful messengers of God, and the manifestations of the Lord's presence, in the way ye now forsake, who yet turned from it, and went one step toward sinful separation (and did it in that way ye now aim at), and did yet flourish and grow in grace. But we can bring proofs of many who left it, and went further on to abominable ways of error. And you have it not in your power where you shall lodge at night, having once left the way of God. And many, we know, lost peace and communion with God, and fell into a condition of withering, and not being able to find their lovers, were forced to return to their first Husband. We shall entreat you, consider what a stumbling it is to malignant opposers of the way and cause of God (who with their ears heard you, and with their eyes saw you, so strenuously take part with the godly in their sufferings, and profess yourselves for religion truth, doctrine, government of the house of God, His Covenant and cause), if now you build again what you once destroyed, and destroy what you builded. And shall you not make yourselves, by so doing, transgressors? How shall it wound the hearts of the godly, stain the profession, darken the glory of the Gospel, shake the faith of many, weaken the hands of all, if you (and you first of all in this kingdom) shall stretch out the hand to raze the walls of our Jerusalem, by reason of which the Lord made her "terrible as an army with banners!" For when kings came, and saw the palaces and bulwarks thereof, they marvelled and were troubled, and hasted away; fear took hold upon them there, and pain as of a woman in travail. And we shall be grieved, if you should be heirs to the guiltiness of breaking down the same hedge of the vineyard, for the which the sad indignation of God pursueth this day the Royal Family, many Nobles, houses great and fair, and all the Prelatical party in these three kingdoms. And when your dear brethren are weak and fainting, shall we believe that you will leave us, and be divided from this so blessed a conjunction? The Lord Jesus Christ, we trust, shall walk in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and be with us, if you will be gone from us. Beloved in the Lord, we cannot but be persuaded better things of you; and we shall not conceal from you that we are ignorant what to answer when we are reproved, on your behalf, in regard that your change to another gospel-way (which the Lord avert!) is so much the more scandalous, that the sudden alteration (unknown to us before) now overtaketh you when men come amongst you against whom the furrows of the fields of Scotland do complain. Forget not, dear brethren, that Christ hath now the fan in His hand, and this is also the day of the Lord, that shall burn as an oven; and that Christ now sitteth as a refiner of silver, purifying the sons of Levi, and purging them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness; and those that keep the word of His (not their own) patience shall be delivered from the hour of temptation, that shall come on all the earth to try them.

If ye exclude all non-converts from the visible city of God (in which, daily, multitudes in Scotland, in all the four quarters of the land, above whatever our fathers saw, throng into Christ), shall they not be left to the lions and wild beasts of the forest, even to Jesuits, seminary-priests, and other seducers? For the magistrate hath no power to compel them to hear the Gospel, nor have ye any church-power over them, as ye teach; and they bring not love to the Gospel and to Christ out of the womb with them; and so they must be left to embrace what religion is most suitable to corrupt nature. Nor can it be a way approven by the Lord in Scripture, to excommunicate from the visible church (which is the office-house of the free grace of Christ, and His draw-net) all the multitudes of non-converts, baptized, and visibly within the covenant of grace, which are in Great Britain, and all the reformed churches; and so to shut the gates of the Lord's gracious calling upon all these (because they are not, in your judgment, chosen to salvation), when once you are within yourselves.[527] For how can the Lord call Egypt His people, and Assyria the work of His hands, and all the Gentiles (who for numbers are as the flocks of Kedar, and the abundance of the sea) the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, if you number infants (as many do), and all such as your charity cannot judge converts (as others do) among heathens and pagans, who have not a visible claim and interest in Christ? The candlestick is not yours, nor the house; but Christ fixeth and removeth the one, and buildeth or casteth down the other, according to His sovereignty. We in humility judge ourselves, though the chief of sinners, the sons of Zion and of the seed of Christ; if ye remove from us, and carry from hence the candlestick, let our Father be judge, and show us why the Lord hath bidden you come out from among us. We look upon this visible church, though black and spotted, as the hospital and guest-house of sick, halt, maimed, and withered, over which Christ is Lord, Physician, and Master: and we would wait upon those that are not yet in Christ, as our Lord waited upon us and you both. We, therefore, your brethren, children of one Father, cannot but with tears and exceeding sorrow of heart earnestly entreat, beseech, and obtest you, by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, by His sufferings and precious ransom which He paid for us both, by the consolations of His Spirit, by your appearance before the dreadful tribunal of our Lord Jesus, yea, and charge you before God and the same Lord Jesus, "who shall judge the quick and the dead, at His appearing, and His kingdom;" break not the spirits and hearts of those to whom ye are dear as their own soul. Forsake not the assemblies of the people of God; let us not divide.

[527] When you yourselves have got safe within.

Not a few of the people of God in this shire of Fife (in whose name I now write) dare say, if ye depart, that ye will leave Christ behind you with us, and the golden candlesticks; and shut yourselves, we much fear, out of the hearts and prayers of thousands dear to Jesus Christ in Scotland. Therefore, before ye fix judgment and practice on any untrodden path, let a day of humiliation be agreed upon by us all, and our Father's mind and will inquired, through our one common Saviour. And let us see one another's faces at best conveniency, and plead the interest of Christ, and be comforted; and not be stumbled at your ways.

So expecting your answer, we shall pray that the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, may make you perfect in every work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ. And I shall remain,

Your affectionate brother in the Lord,

S. R.

ST. ANDREWS.

CCCLXV.--_To MR. JOHN MURRAY, Minister at Methven._[528] [See Letter CCCLVI.]

[528] From the original among the Wodrow MSS. vol. xxvii. fol. No. 18.

(_PROPOSAL OF A SEASON OF PRAYER_.)

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,--If I rightly apprehend our condition, we are in a way of declining. We were, within these few years, more in the conscionable use of means, and the Lord did shine upon us in some measure; and now we are fallen from that which we were. It is judged fit by some (and many of our solidest professors) that if we cannot have them in congregations, yet families and private persons may have days of humiliation, at least the last Wednesday of every month or thereabout, according to the best conveniency of Providence. And if this were gone about in your country, and in Stirlingshire, Fife, in Merse, Teviotdale, the West, in Nithsdale and Galloway, and other places, it would prove our strength and help; for we are few and very low. Our adversaries are not idle; and there is a faintness and heartless discouragement on the spirits of many. These are to entreat that you would combine with Mr. Robert Campbell,[529] Mr. John Cruickshanks,[530] and other of our brethren in your bounds, to stir up one another that we may wrestle with the Lord for the remnant. I am confident the Lord will yet be inquired of us for this. Though the same particular day be not observed, yet, where many are on work, some salvation from the Lord's arm is to be expected. I am decaying most sensibly, and I should look on it as a mercy if the Lord would send a wakening among His own. And blessed shall he be who shall blow the trumpet to cause other sleeping ones awake, and shall help to build the wastes, and the fallen tabernacle of David. I shall earnestly desire you do bestir yourself herein.[531] I shall write to J----, and to others here, and do the best I can to give you a convenient account; for nothing is left to us but that.

[529] The minister to whom Letter CCCLXIII. is addressed.

[530] Mr. John Crookshanks (as Wodrow spells the name), minister of Redgorton, in the Presbytery of Perth. He afterwards followed those who fought at Pentland Hills, in 1665, and was killed in the battle.

[531] Is not this the very spirit of 2 Pet. i. 13, 14, "Yea, I think it meet to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle"?

So remembering me to your wife, and expecting your help, I rest,

Your own brother,

S. R.

[ST. ANDREWS.]

S. R.

Mr. Robert Anderson is most eagerly desired for by the parishioners of Leuchars, and as strenuously opposed by our brethren here.

INDEX

OF

THE CHIEF PLACES AND INDIVIDUALS REFERRED TO IN THE LETTERS.

(_The Figures refer to the Letters._)

Aberdeen, Letter to People of, 364; referred to, 77, 243, 364.

Abraham referred to, 324.

Abraham, Mr., 24.

Aird, Bethia, 153.

Airds, 59, 217.

Alexander, Sir William, 15.

America, 75.

Anabaptists, 308.

Anderson, Mr. R., 356, 365.

Anwoth, 92, 96, 157, 162, 163, 167, 177, 180, 184, 198, 206, 225, 230, 267, 269, 279, 306, 307.

---- Topography of, 198, and Life.

Antinomians, 308.

Ardross, Lady (H. Lindsay), 321.

Ardwell, 101, 283.

Argyle, Death of, 360.

Ashe, Mr. Simeon, 345.

Assembly, Westminster, 307, 310.

Athernie (in Largo).--_See_ Rigg, 114.

Ayr.--_See_ Kennedy, John.

M. A., 212, 243.

Baillie, Robert, 163, 307.

Balcarras, Earl of, 327.

Ballantyne, Margaret, 79.

Balmerinoch, Lord, 139.

Barcapple, 34.

Barholm, 117 (notice).

Barron, Dr. Robert, 89, 117, 144.

Bautie, James, 249.

Bell, John, 218.

Berwick, 333.

Blackness Castle, 12.

Blair, Isabel.--_See_ Lady Gaitgirth.

---- Mr. Robert, 89, 254.

Bohemia, 62.

Bothwell Bridge, 206.

Boyd, Lady, 77, 107, 167, 210, 245, 277, 294, 299, 303, 309, 321.

---- Lord, 78, 232.

Boyne, 307.

Brethren, to several, 358.

Brisbane, Sarah.--_See_ Rowallan.

Brother, to a Christian, 317.

---- to a minister, 358.

Brown, Fergus, 18.

---- Jean, 18, 32, 84, 111, 131.

---- Patrick, 111.

---- of Wamphray, 131, 243.

Brownists, 303.

Bruce, Mr. James, 146.

Bryce, 231.

Burroughs, Jeremiah, 309.

Burton, D., 17.

---- Henry, 17.

Busbie, the Lady, 133, 120, 270.

Byres, 231.

A. B., 227.

B., 53. R. B., 246.

Caithness, 89.

Cally, Laird of (John Lennox), 198, 202.

Cambridge, 174.

Campbell, John.--_See_ Earl of Loudon.

---- Lady Jane.--_See_ Kenmure.

---- Mr. Robert, 363, 365.

Canons, Book of, 161.

Cant, Mr. Andrew, 179, 206.

Cardoness, the elder (_see_ John Gordon), 82, 166, 180.

---- the Lady (Gordon), 100, 103, 192 199.

---- the younger, 123, 173.

Carleton, Fullerton of, letters to, 157, 169, 176 (referred to, 1, 15, 40, 243, 279).

---- Lady, 254.

Carsen, John, 127, 243.

---- Marion, 32.

---- Patrick, 156.

Carsluth, notice of, 190.

Carsphairn, 28, 102, 357.

Carstairs, John, 336.

Caskeberrie.--_See_ Kaskiberry.

Cassillis, Earl of (John Kennedy), 128, 268, 278.

Cassincarrie (Mure), 191.

Cathcart.--_See_ Carleton.

Christian Brother, 316.

---- Friend, 291, 315.

---- Gentlewoman, 211, 317.

Clark, John, 172.

Colville, Mr. Alexander, 11, 98, 208, 343.

Colwart, Mr. Henry, 90.

Commentaries, proposed, 53, 110.

Corbet, Thomas, 264.

Covenant, 358, 359.

Craig, Mrs., 361.

Craighall, Lord, 86, 99, 174, 220, 227, 236, 257.

Cramond, 43, and 117 (notice).

Crawford, Earl of (_see_ Lindsay), 309.

Cromwell, 329, 331, 339, 346.

Cruickshanks, Mr. John, 365.

Culross, Lady, 62, 74, 178, 222.

Cunningham, Mr. R., 63, 110.

A. C., 189, 209.

Y. C., 76.

C., 44.

Dalgleish, William, 117, 184, 197, 287.

Dalry.--_See_ Earlston.

Dematius, note, 334.

Dickson, Mr. David, 110, 119, 168, 259, 298; his son, John, 298.

Disdow, 213, 262.

Douglas, Robert, 113.

Dunbar, Battle of, 329.

Dunbar, Mr. George, 265.

Dundrennan, 117 (note).

Dungueich, the Lady, 251.

Durham, Mr. James, 91, 352.

Dury, Mr. John, 91 (notice).

Earlston, elder, 59, 64, 73, 97, 160, 201, 260, 323.

---- the Lady (Eliz. Gordon), 109.

---- younger, 99, 181, 196, 271.

Edinburgh Town Council, 325, 344, 345.

Ellis, Fulk, 234.

Episcopacy, 364, etc.

Erskine, Margaret.--_See_ Lady Marischall.

Ewart, John, 36, 134.

Expecters, 308.

C. E., 92.

Familists, 310.

Fenwick, John, 295.

Fergushill, Mr. John, 112, 187, 188, 275.

Fife, 364.

Fingask, Lady (Moncrieff), 297.

Fleming, Mr. James, 228.

---- John, 68, 159, 241, 266.

Forret, Mr. David, 327.

---- Lady, 125.

Forth, the, 257.

France, 32, 254.

Friend, a Christian, 291, 316.

Fullarton, Margaret, 204.

Fullerton, Grizzel, 5, 155, 339.

---- Mr. W., Provost of Kirkcudbright, 1, 52, 67, 135, 221.

Fullwood, the younger, 224.

F., 17, 254.

R. F., 98.

G. J., 17, 92, 320. (John Gordon?)

Gaitgirth, Lady (Isabel Blair), 187, 239.

---- Laird of, 237.

Galloway, 37.

Galloway, Bishop of (_see_ Sydserff), 161.

Garloch, 65 (notice), 217.

Garven, Mr. Thomas, 152, 165, 246.

Gentlewoman, to a Christian, 2, 211, 318.

---- on husband's death, 105, 122.

---- Letter to one at Kirkcudbright, 25.

George, David, of Delft, 309.

Gillespie, Mr. George, 144, 253, 324.

---- Mrs., 326.

---- Patrick, 337.

Girthon, 198 (notice), 43.

Glasgow, Bishop of, 86, 110.

---- to a minister of, 337.

Glendinning, Mr. Robert, 36, 136.

---- William, 137, 267, 276.

Glendoning, Robert, 36.

---- W., 36.

Goodwin, Thomas, 309.

Gordon, Alex., of Earlston, 59, 73.

---- of Garlock, 65 (notice).

---- Jean, 145.

---- John, at Rusco, 272, 280.

---- John, elder, of Cardoness.--_See_ C.

---- John, younger, of Cardoness.--_See_ Cardoness.

---- of Knockgray, 102.--_See_ K.

---- Mary, of Largmore, 72.

---- Robert, Bailie of Ayr, 129, 200.

---- Robert, of Knockbreck.--_See_ Knockbreck.

---- William, at Kenmure, 203.

---- William, of Roberton, 72.

---- William, younger, of Earlston.--_See_ Earlston.

---- William, of Whitepark, 143.

Greenham, Richard, 159.

Gustavus Adolphus, 16, 48.

Guthrie, Rev. Mr. James, of Stirling, 319, 357, 362.

---- Mr. William of Fenwick, 330.

J. G., 92, 319. (James Guthrie?)

W. G., 222.

Hall, Mr. Gilbert, 357.

Hallhill, the Lady (Learmonth), 148.

Halliday, William, 121.

Hamilton, Barbara, 311, 315.

---- Euphan, 6.

---- Mr. James, 89, 137, 214.

---- John, 8.[532]

Henderson, Mr. Alexander, 115.

---- Mr. Hugh, 138, 194.

---- Mr. John, in Rusco, 150, 207.

Henton, 218.

High Commission, 68, note.

Hog, Mr. Thomas, 245.

Hope, Sir John.--_See_ Craighall.

Hume, Mrs., 314.

---- Mr. William, 312.

Hutchison, George, 344.

Independents, 308, 329.

Ireland, 25, 119, 168, 233, 284, 288.

Jackson, Dr. Thomas, 188.

Jedburgh, 345.

Job, Commentary upon, 58.

Johnston, Sir Archibald, of Warriston, 307.

Kaskeberry, the Lady (Schoneir), 108.

Kells.--_See_ Garlock, and 72.

Kenmure, Viscountess, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 19, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28, 30, 31, 35, 37, 39, 40, 42, 56, 58, 61, 69, 70, 93, 94, 95, 96, 104, 106, 205, 206, 230, 286, 287, 302, 305, 318, 320, 335, 338, 341, 360.

Kennedy, Elizabeth, 77.

---- Janet, 88, 247.

---- John.--_See_ Earl of Cassillis.

---- John, Bailie of Ayr, 22, 75, 130.

Ker, Col. Gilbert, 328, 329, 331, 332, 333, 334, 342, 343.

---- John, 47.

Kerr, Robert, 71.

Kilconquhar, Lady, 226, 261.

Kilmalcolm, Parishioners, 286.

Kirkcudbright, 6, 8, 25, 34, 36, 42, 43, 46, 49, 52, 67, 80, 134, 135, 136, 137, 177, 267, 339, 340, 355.

Kirkdale, 117.

Kirkmabreck, 109, 117.

Knockbreck, Gordon of, 65, 66, 76, 92, 170, 285; referred to, 279.

Knockgray, Gordon of, 102, 154, 182, 223; referred to, 243.

Knox, John, 12.

C. K., 349.

Largirie, Lady, 195, 250.

Largmore, 72.

Laurie, John, 175.

Law, James, 86, 110.

Leighton, Dr. Alexander, 289.

---- Mr. Robert, 86.

Lennox, John.--_See_ Cally.

---- Robert, 213, 262.

Leys, Lady, 207.

Lindsay, James, 234.

---- Lord, 231.

Livingston, Mr. John, 90, 343.

---- Mr. William, 142.

Lochinvar, 47, 109.

Lorn, Lord, 59, 60, 61, 204; referred to, 222.

Lothian, Earl of, 83.

Loudian, Mr., 86, 174.

Loudon, Lord (John Campbell), 116, 258, 281.

Maitland, Lord John, 307.

Malignants, 329, 330, 331, 333, 346, 356, 362.

Mar, Lady, 61, 69, 140.

Marischall, Lady (Margaret Erskine), 207.

Martin, Mr. James, 206.

Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, 6.

M'Adam, James, 141.

---- Sibylla (his sister), 193, 141.

M'Cleland, Mr., 63, 339.

M'Culloch, Jonet, 101, 252.

---- Thomas, 283.

M'Kail, Mr. Hugh, of Irvine, 71, 118, 216, 229.

M'Math, Agnes, 300.

---- Jean, 326.

M'Millan, Jean, 132.

M'Naught, Grizzel, 1, 32, 88.

---- Jane, 49.

---- Marion, 1, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 24, 26, 29, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38, 41 (postscript), 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 (with postscript), 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 60, 80, 126, 177, 185, 221, 243, 244, 263, 279.

M'Ward, Mr., 179, 337.

Mein, Barbara, 314.

---- Mr. John, senior, 151.

---- Mr. John, junior, 81, 240.

---- Mrs., 312.

Melville, Eliz.--_See_ Lady Culross.

---- of Hallhill, 224.

Melvin, Mr. Ephraim, 91.

Minister in Glasgow, 337.

---- to a Brother, 359.

M. O., 324.

Moncrieff, Mr. Alex., of Scoonie, 357.

---- Lady Ann, of Fingask, 295.

---- Laird of, 171.

Montgomery, Sir Henry, 303.

More, Dr., 311.

Mowat, Mr. Matthew, 120, 167, 239, 301.

Muirfad, 59, 109 (notice).

Mure.--_See_ Lady Ralston.

----.--_See_ Rowallan, 242.

---- Ninian, 164.

Murray, Christian, 262.

---- James, 274.

---- James, wife of, 304.

Murray, John, 356, 365.

---- Margaret, 326.

---- Margaret (Mrs. Gillespie), 326.

G. M., 92.

M. M., 167.

Nairn, Mr. George, 357.

Nevay, Mr. John, 179, 209.

Newcastle, 311.

New England, 12, 75, 151, 153, 161.

Newmills, 179.

Nicholas, Henry, 310.

Nisbet, 344; and, Life, p. 2.

Ochiltree, 112 (notice).

Ormiston, 337.

Osburne, Provost of Ayr, 149.

Oxford, 174.

Oxnam.--_See_ Scott.

N. O., 322.

Parishioners of Anwoth, 225.

Perkins, Dr. William, 159.

Person unknown, anent public worship, 290.

Persons unknown, 308.

Perth Assembly, 244.

Pitsligo, Lady (Marischall), 206, 243, 259.

Pont, Mrs., 292.

Porterfield of Duchal, 286.

Prelacy, 363, 364, etc.

Protesters, 334, 339, 344, 349, 356.

Psalms, King James', 15.

Puritans, 11, 59, 202, 262.

J. P., 49.

Q., 64, 65, 116.

Queensberry, 205.

Rait, Mr., 343, 355.

Ralston, Lady (Mure), 336.

Ramsay, Mr. Thomas, 357.

Reid, Margaret, 248.

Remonstrance, Western, 328, 351, 356, 359.

Resolutioners, 330, 331, 336, 339.

Ridge, Mr. John, 90.

Rigg, William, of Athernie, 114, 256, 273; and notice, 226.

Robertland, Lady, 282.

Roberton, Gordon of, 72.

Robinson, Mr. John, 309.

Rodger, Mr. William, 88.

Rogers, Dr. Daniel, 159.

Ross, Bishop of, 6.

Row, Rev. John, of Perth, 183.

---- John, of Carnock, 219.

R. J. Rowallan, the Lady, 242.

Rusco, 5 (note), 147, 207, 345.

A. R., 185, 15.

H. R., 185, 15.

Rutherford's Brother George, 34, 73, 75,67, 98, 105, 107, 110, 112, 116, 136, 137, 151, 157, 158, 159, 205, 245, 267, 294, 340.

---- Brother James, 334 (note).

---- Children, 310.

---- Mother, 49.

---- Wife, 8, 11.

Schoneir, James (_see_ Lady Kaskeberry), 108.

Scott, Rev. John, of Oxnam, 349, 350, 352, 357.

Sectaries, 329, 331, 333.

Seekers, 308.

Semple, Mr. John, of Carsphairn, 357.

Senwick, 127.

Separatists, 309.

Service Book, 151, 161, 224, 262.

Sharp, Mr. James, 48, 343.

Sibbald, Dr. James. Life, xviii.

Simpson, Mr. James, 346.

Spain, 309.

Spottiswoode, Archbishop, 11, 86.

St. Andrews, 343, etc.

---- Bishop of, 48, 86.

Stewart, Mr. Henry (Dublin), 291.

---- Sir James, Provost of Edinburgh, 325.

Stirling, Mr. John, 91, 92, 357.

---- Peter, 296.

Strafford, Earl of (Wentworth), 288.

Stuart, John, of Ayr, 161, 162, 163, 189.

---- Mrs., 215.

---- Robert, 186.

Sydserff, 52, 67, 86, 160.

Taylor, Mrs., 310.

Trail, R., 179, 357.

A. T., 102, 284.

Utrecht, 334 (note).

Uxbridge Treaty, 308.

Vivet, Christopher, 309.

Watson, Mr., 214.

Weir, Mr., 214.

Welsh, John, 12.

Westminster Assembly, 306, 308, 309.

Whitepark, Gordon of, 143.

Whiteside, Bell of, 218.

Wigtown, 65, 67, 117, 191, 276.

Wilson, Mr. James, 293.

Wylie, Mr. Thomas, 306, 340, 355.

C. Y., 92.

INDEX OF SPECIAL SUBJECTS.

(_The Reference is to the Number of the Letter._)

Adversity, lessons of, 167.

Affliction, 28, 29, 35, 37, 42, 76, 92, 94, 102, 112, 122, 167, 171, 186, 211, 223, 248, 265, 273, 282, 289, 298, 302, 312, 313, 315, 317, 323.

Assurance, 106, 134, 190, 196, 286.

---- exhortation as to, 78, 91, 130.

Atheism in the heart, 233, 234, 305.

Backsliding, 225, 227, 234, 286.

Believers, 56, 85, 201, 229, 291.

Bereavements, 35, 37, 105.--_See_ Afflictions.

Bible, 10.

Blessings and Christ, difference between, 335.

Cares, 252.--_See_ Trials.

Catechism, 166, 260.

Catechising, 228.

Children of the godly, 1, 24, 34, 46, 82, 109, 111, 287.

Children of the godly, loss of, 28, 59, 238, 287, 300, 326.

Christ, in Himself, 7, 13, 19, 20, 69, 72, 82, 88, 94, 101, 105, 111, 112, 127, 140, 168, 169, 175, 186, 192, 202, 203, 209, 210, 211, 216, 226, 231, 285, 288, 291, 335.

---- Coming again, 16, 21, 26, 48, 50, 95, 130, 138, 170, 224, 231, 269, 291, 322.

---- interceding, 48.

---- in His liberality, 73, 74.

---- in His love, 20, 68, 70, 87, 112, 113, 120, 130, 143, 166, 170, 171, 187, 195, 212, 233, 254, 256, 257, 269, 270, 285, 295, 297.

---- in His sympathy, 2, 153, 177, 287, 288.

---- in His sufferings, 13, 176.

---- in our sufferings for Him, 59, 67, 95, 113, 116, 117, 148, 218, 290, 333.

---- in His ways, 71, 73, 74, 89, 99, 125, 131, 146, 189, 194, 222, 256, 326, 333, 351.

---- our conformity to Him, 11.

Christ's cause, 78, 115, 245, 332.

Christian walk, direction for, 159, 264, 269.

Church, 26, 38, 41, 45, 50, 97, 276.

---- visible, members of, 364.

Communion with Christ, 7, etc.

---- seasons, 14, 18, 20, 26, 33, 44, 45, 91, 313.

Complaints, 305.

Conflict, 6, 46, 280.

Conscience, 30, 39, 62, 66, 166.

Consolations, 54, 63, 66, 80, 266, 310, 334.

Conversion, 218.

Convictions, 218, 225.

Counsels.--_See_ Christian Walk.

Courage, 329, 331.

Crosses, 61, 62, 95, 116, 118, 119, 134, 143, 146, 148, 219, 240, 242, 246, 248, 257.

Darkness, days of, 338, 342.

Deadness, 319, 342, 344, 345, 353, 354.

Death, 3, 39, 150, 195, 238, 311, 324, 357.

Death of a Husband, 105, 222, 302, 312; Son-in-Law, 314; Wife, 315; Daughter, 2, 316; Mother, 321; Child, 4, 28, 35, 310; Son, 298, 310, 360; Friend, 299, 300.

Dejections, 249.

Desertions, 6, 100, 228, 234.

Devil, 3, 32, 70, 90, 114, 115, 138, 243.

Difficulties, 205, 248, 250.

Diligence, 77, 121, 123, 141, 147, 173, 186, 198, 261, 280, 283, 289.

Doubtings, 106, 181, 203, 293.

Duty, 126.

Earnest of the Spirit, 7.

Earnestness about the soul, 123, 124, 132, 191, 200, 201, 261.

Evidences.--_See_ Marks.

Experience, 341, etc.

Faith, 7, 19, 95, 178, 182, 229, 291, 294.

Fear of man, 235, etc.

Feeling, 293, 295.

Formality, 87, 198, 218.

Free-will, 69, 120, 254, 273, etc.

Friends, 5, 30, 104.

Glory, 19, 20.

God, 342.--_See_ Christ.

Grace, 85, 106, 192, 217, 219, 233, 254, 273, 277, 323, 324.

Headship of Christ, 115, 215, 245, 278, 281, 337, 359, 363.

Heaven (_see_ Christ), 24, 246, 247, 304.

Holiness, 104, 215.

Humility, 82, 230, 285, 342.

Idolatry (in kneeling at communion), 91, 174, 179.

Idols, 102, 133, 191, 280.

Jews, restoration of, 14, 28, 50, 194, 235, 289, 295, 296.

Justification, 170.

Law, 230.

Life rather than dying, 336.

Long-suffering, 12, etc.

Lord's Supper, 269.

Marks of salvation, 172, 203, 235, 284, 293.

Martyrdom, prospect of, 362.

Ministry, his own, and others, 61, 180, 184, 188, 214, 225, 228, 286.

Non-fundamental truths, 337.

Offences, 229.

Old man, 256.

Ordinances, 11, 24.

Patience, 13, 21, 138, 196, 336.

Persecution, 291, etc.

Praise, 102, 304.

Prayer, 17, 29, 249, 263, 269, 293, 319.

---- meeting, 263, 269, 286.

---- union for, 31, 171, 365.

Prosperity, 30.

Proverbs iii., 11.

Providence, 11, 12, 89, 110, 194, 197, 234, 256, 260, 329, 331, 333.

Reproach, 26, 238.

Reprobates, 234.

Resignation, 2, 3, 90; nine reasons for, 361.

Revival, 354.

Saints, 52.

Salvation, 79, 82, 121, 135.--_See_ Diligence.

---- nature of, 133.

Sanctification, 81, 170, 213, 215.

Satan, 32.--_See_ Devil.

Self, 12, 188, 189, 198, 284, 324.

Self-deception, 353.

Self-denial, 21, 284.

Sickness, 3, 6, 26, 125, 313, 337, 345.

Silence, 162, 163, 185, 197, 208, 294.

Sin, 84, 276.

---- against the Holy Ghost, 227.

---- uses of, 197, 294.

Sinners, awful words to, 225, 328, etc.

Sloth, 198, 200, 260, 286.

Soul's value, 79, 82.

Sovereignty of God, 35, 298, 342, 347.

Sparrows at Anwoth, 167, 168, 206.

Submission, 10, 27, 47, 157, 183, 186, 255, 298, 300, 301.

Suffering, design of, and blessings under, 113, 160, 161, 206, 265.--_See_ Trials, Afflictions.

---- words to a brother under, 329, 337, etc.

Temptation, 41, 92, 157, 196, 293.

---- public, 51.

Toleration, 349, 352.

Trials, 3, 4, 12, 22, 23, 52, 61, 63, 71, 72, 74, 75, 80, 84, 131, 133, 138, 143, 160, 161, 166, 182, 206, 211, 230, 246, 257, 265, 266, 273, 276, 289, 291, 292, 320.

Unbelief, 85, 153, 222, 239.

Union among believers, 322, 336, 337, 355.

Visible Church, 364.

Warnings, 72, 173, 225, 227.

Watchfulness, 30, 263, 353.

World, 5, 42, 99, 100, 122, 139, 190, 192, 200, 223, 224, 229, 251, 255, 268, 272, 282.

Youth, 16, 24, 41, 111, 142, 156, 164, 166, 173, 181, 186, 199, 202, 203, 232, 240, 287, 307.

Zeal, 10, 233.

GLOSSARY.

[THE REFERENCES TO SPECIAL WORDS MAY SERVE THE PURPOSE OF A VERBAL INDEX.]

(_The Figures refer to the Letters._)

_Abjects_; persons in the lowest grade of society. 291.

_Accidents_; incidental accompaniments, not essential. 293.

_Account-book_; journal of translations. 122, 124.

_Acquaint_; personally known.

_Ado_; Adjective, in the sense of _a-stir_. 97, 99, 181. Noun; occupation,[533] trouble, concerns. 97, 99, 181, 184, 226, 250.

_Affect_; to love, have affection to. 4, 67, 174, 274, etc.--So in Gal. iv. 17, etc.

_After-supper_; latest part of the day, between supper and bed-time. 82.

_Agent_; advocate. 86.

_Airt_, or _airth_; quarter of the heavens, direction. 41, 167, 229, etc.

_All_; "to all power," to the utmost of my power.

_Allow_; to give an allowance. 105, 242, 287.

_Alone_; for only. 231, etc.

_Alongst_; along, side by side with. 363.

_Always_; although, notwithstanding. (Fr., _toute-fois_.) 249, 336, 337.

_Anchor-tow_; the cable. 107.

_And_, or _an_; the conjunction "_if_." (Gr., ἐαν.)

_Anent_; concerning, over-against. 110, 234, etc.

_Annual_; yearly rent, quit-rent. 119.

_Annuity_; quit-rent. 70.

_As_; than. 306. --It is the German "_als_," and is still a common word in the south of Scotland.

_A-swoon_; in a swoon, or faint. 110, 186, 249.

_Athort_; athwart, across. 243.

_Aught_; to own. The Noun; possession, property. 247, 293. So used by Gavin Douglas.

_Awsome_; fitted to overawe. 190, 219, 281, 317.

_Back._ The Verb intr. means: "to be unfortunate." 62. The Verb trans.: "to help on." 128, 149, 200, 229, etc. In a sermon on Zech. xi. 9, "The Godhead _backed_ him, and convoyed him to the bar of God's justice."

_Back-bond_; a bond given after a former bond, declaring the person who gave the first bond free. 118, 265, 291.

_Back-burden_; laid on a person's back. 288.

_Back-entry_; back-door. 277.

_Back-friend_; friend to back you or help. 199. So in a sermon on Rev. xix.

_Back-over_; backward, quite in the other direction. 276.

_Back-set_; a thrust back. 167.

_Bailie_; magistrate. 138, etc.

_Bairns_; children. 18, 20, 106, 293, etc.

_Bairnteme_; family of children by one mother. 105, 106. Peden speaks of the Church "with her bonny bairn-teme." In Norse, "toma" signifies to bring forth.

_Balk_; beam for suspending scales. 225, 261.

_Band_; a bond, engagement. 18.--"_To take band with_" is to unite, _q.d._, bind together. 46, 189, 292, 358. "_Keep band_," the same. 42.

_Bankful_; full like a river up to the top of its bank. 169, 257.

_Bann_; to curse in the form of a minced oath. 147.

_Beguile_, Noun; deception, trick, disappointment. 176, 205, 353.

_Behind with one_; coming short of his due. 152, 157.

_Being-place_; may be a misprint for "_bigging_," _i.e._ building. 192.

_Bemist_; involved in mist, like _benight_. 118, 169, 176. --See also "_misted_." 59, 223.

_Ben_; (_q.d._ being in), in the inner chamber, within. 20.

_Beside_; apart from, contrary to. 266, 271.

_Better cheap._--See _Cheap_.

_Bidding_; command. "_To sit a b._," to fail in prompt obedience. 43.

_Bide_; stand, wait for, endure. 23, etc. --"_Law-biding_," ready to meet the law, instead of fleeing. 106, 107, 222, 302. Knox's Work, vi. 593, etc.

_Bide out_; hold out. 85.

_Big_, Verb; to build.

_Binding._ The phrase, "to take binding," is the same as to "take band." 20, 43.

_Binks_; benches. 285.

_Bird-mouthed_; mealy-mouthed. 181. In this phrase _bird_ is the _young_, or _chicken_; hence, the sense of softness.

_Bite upon_; leave the mark of their teeth. 84.

_Black-shame_; utter shame; so very dark. 130. So in 272 he writes, "black nothing."

_Blae_; pale, unsatisfactory hue. 262. As in the phrase, "to look blue."

_Blaflume_, or _blayflume_, or _bleflume_; a mere sham, air-bubble; from _blaw_, or blow. 225, 249. Same as "blellum," one good for nothing.

_Bleeze_; a sudden flaming up. 82.

_Blench_; a piece of white money; a mere peppercorn or nominal rent. 254. (Fr., "_blanc_.")

_Blenk_, or _blink_; a gleam, slight glance. 50, 57, etc.

_Blind_; a cheat, disappointment. 212.

_Block_; a bargain. The Verb; to bargain, plan, scheme. 20, 100, 106, 163, 200.

_Bloom_; blossom. 90, 93, 184, 185, 193.

_Bludder_, or _bluther_; to bleer, disfigure the face with weeping, or the like. 105, 138.

_Board_; table. "Boardhead," head of the dinner-table. 30, 104, 107, 177, 249. _Over the board_, 190. The seller, when he handed the goods to the buyer, "over the board," drank good luck to him. And so this came to be a phrase for _formally giving up_ or renouncing.

_Bode_; to offer with view to a bargain. 177, 186. It is allied in sense to "_bait_." Sibbs uses "_bawd_" (on 2 Cor. i. 3).

_Boist_, or _bost_, and sometimes written _boasts_; to threaten with a blow. 101, 211, 226, 291. It is connected with "boisterous."

_Borne in_; forcibly brought into the mind. 249.

_Borrow and lend_; to have dealings with. 98, 109.

_Borrows_; security in law, an Anglo-Saxon word. "_To die in borrows_," to fail in security.--See _Burrows_.

_Botch-house_; house spoilt and disfigured. 237.

_Bouk_; from "_bulk_;" the corpse of man or beast. 141.

_Bound-road_; boundary-line. 273, 286.

_Brae_; declivity, slope of a hill. 69 141, etc. Above ordinary bounds.--"From bank to brae." 147, etc.

_Braird_; the sprouting up blade of young wheat, or the like. 259.

_Brangle_; to shake into disorder, shake to and fro. 41, 196.

_Brash_; a passing fit of sickness. 186.

_Broadside_; openly, frankly. 81. --_Lay on the broadside_; lay flat. 24.

_Brod_; same as _board_. 328, etc.

_Brook_, or _bruke_; enjoy, possess. 140, 115, 249.

_Browden_; eagerly desirous of, foolishly attached to. 77.

_Browst_; a brewing, or what one brews for himself. 188. An ill-managed matter is "an ill-browst."

_Bud_; to bribe, try to win over by a gift. 63, 88, 277.

_Bulks._--See _Bouk_.

_Burrows_, or _borrows_; (Anglo-Saxon) a pledge or security. _Law-burrows_; security given not to injure the person or property of one. 61, 163, 184, 222.

_Bushy-biel_ (see _Life_). In Scotch, _bield_ is a _shelter_. The name of Rutherford's house is said by some to have been "_Bush o' Biel'_," the bush of shelter. In old Scott. Prov., we find, "Every man bows to the _bush_ he gets _bield_ frae." Yet it is more probable that the name is corrupted from _Bosco Beoll_, or _Boscobel_, "the fair wood," like the celebrated spot in Shropshire where Charles I. hid in the oak.

_Busk_; adorn, deck. 22, 42, 133, 143.

_But_; only, only this and no more. 102, 188.

_Buy a plea_; get up a charge, when properly there is no room for it. 74, 75, 161, 171, 284.

"_Buy up_;" to bribe; or so to buy up as to set another aside. 261, 265.

_By_, or _bye_; aside from, past, as in Acts xx. 16, "sail by." 23, 105, 148, 160, 175. Also: Without, 96; beside, 359.--"Lock-by," mislock, 218.

_By-board_; side-table where the children sat. 77, 111, 197.

_By-errand_; message done at leisure time, as being of little importance. 191, 199.

_By-going_; passing by. 122.

_By-gone_; passed away. 71, etc.

_By-gones_; things forgotten. 62, 72.

_By-good_, or _bye-good_; an object in addition to some other good. 195.

_By-hand_; aside. 72, 276.

_By-look_, side-look. 249.

_By-past_; time that has elapsed, or recently, as a thing done. 190.

_By-purse_; a side purse, away from the other. 284.

_By-work_; work done at leisure time only. 191.

_Canny_; prudent, cautious and skilful. Adv., _cannily_. 69.

_Card_; chart or map. 69, 232.

_Cast_; participle, _casten_: throw or fling. 324. --_Cast the balance_; turn the scale. 153. --"_To cast at_;" be sulky, quarrel with. 4, 23. --"_To cast up_;" to upbraid. --"_To cast out with_;" quarrel. 224, 254. --"_Cast a knot_;" tie so as not to slip. 122.

_Cast_, a Noun; lot, fate. "_Common cast_;" a providence occurs often in Brown of Wamphray. 185, 265.

_Casualty_; emoluments beyond the stated yearly dues paid to the superior. 240, 253.

_Cauldrife_; susceptible of cold; lukewarm. 198.

_Caums_; a mould. 282. --_Moulds_ being often made of pipe-clay, it became customary to call pipe-clay "caum-stone." Baillie in his "Letters" spells it "caulms." In Gaelic, _cuma_ means a _pattern_, or shape.

_Causey_ (Fr., _chausée_); the public street. "To keep the crown of the causey" is to make bold appearance in the public street in open day. 52, 59, 69, 181. The streets in those days were raised in the middle, and had gullies on either side. The French had the phrase, "Tenir le haut du pavé." See "Notes and Queries," March 29, 1873.

_Caution_; security, surety. 2, 19, etc. --Adj., _Cautionary_. 187. And as Noun, suretyship. 114.

_Challenge_; charge, upbraiding, accusation. 2, 10, etc.

_Cheap_ is connected with "chapman;" from the old English "_chap_," a bargain. The phrase "Better cheap." 216, 293. --And so "_Good cheap_," properly "_a good bargain_."

_Chirurgeon_; surgeon. 293, 295. Greek and Latin word.

_Clap_; something done unexpectedly. "_In a clap_;" like thunder suddenly heard. 264.

_Clay_; earth, earthenware. 291, etc. --"Clay-banks," 300. So "Clay-heavens," 294; "_clay-pawns_," 300, bodies of dust.

_Cleck_; to hatch a brood, swarm. 281.

_Clipped_; coin not of full weight. 81.

_Clog_; to adhere; form an encumbrance. 249. --Used in old English.

_Close_, a Noun; the lane or porch leading into the house. 157.

_Close_, Adv.; "_close off_," completely. 50, 82 (like the phrase close-shaven), 88.

_Closet-ward_; guard-room. 254.

_Coast_; to sail near land, sail from one port to another. 301.

_Coastful_; full to the utmost shore. 201.

_Cog_; to fix the teeth of a wheel, and so stop its motion; put on a drag. 51, 194, 229.

_Coldlike_; like a fire going out; hope abating. 179.

_Coldrife_, 198. --See _Cauldrife_. "How coldrife and indifferent are ye!" (Sermon on Isa. xlix. 1-4). Chilly, heartless.

_Common_; alluding to persons sharing at a _common_ table in College. As this was a privilege enjoyed by special favour, "_To be in one's common_" is to be indebted to, under obligation to. 42, 52, 157, 252, etc. --"_To quit commons_" (214); to be freed from obligation by requiting the person. In 275 and 285, "_It is ill my common_" seems to mean, It ill becomes me, having no right.

_Communion_; the dispensing of the Lord's Supper. 14, 20, 25, etc.

_Companionry_; companionship. 147, 280. --The termination "ry" marks plurality in old English.

_Compear_; appear judicially, at the bar. 3, etc.

_Compearance_; the act of appearing in court in obedience to a citation.

_Compose_; compromise. 357. --_Composition_, in same sense.

_Comprize_; to arrest by a writ; attach by a legal process. 130, 160, 171. Seize for debt. 184, 206, etc.

_Concional._ 179.--See _note_.

_Concredit_; entrust. 260. Used often by Dickson on Job.

_Conquest_; written also _conquess_; acquisition, made not by inheritance but by purchase and exertion. 2, 54, 79, 182, 190, 191. --"The young heir knows not how hard the conquest was to his poor father" (Sermon at Anwoth on Zech. xi. 9).

_Conscionable_; according to conscience, reasonable, just. 365.

_Considerable_; worthy of consideration or regard. 321, 331.

_Construct_; for construe. 361, etc.

_Contestation_; strife. 189.

_Contrair_; adversary, contrary to. 6.

_Convoy_; to accompany a friend on the way. 210, 230, 231.

_Couchers_; cowards; or rather lazy fellows. Fr., _coucher_, to lie down. 251.

_Count_; to lay the count. 289. To settle, balance.

_Country_, in opposition to city; common, in contrast to fine. 153, 353.

_Coup_; to upset, overturn. 120.

_Court._ "_No great court_;" no influence. 78, 141, 148, 151, 158, 183, etc. --"_To be in court_," in favour. See "Sermons."

_Cow_; to cut out, eat up, carve (Fr., _couper_). 170, 178.

_Cripple_; halting. 258.

_Crook_; to walk crookedly, lamely; halt. 233, 299.

_Cry down_; depreciate, cause to lose good name. 280. --As a Noun. 289. --"_Cry_," proclamation, 289.

_Cuff_; a blow with the hand. 130.

_Cumber_; trouble. 196.--Adj., "cumbersome." 292.

_Daft_; foolish, crazy. 93, 285.--"A daft young heir" (Sermon on Zech. xi. 9).

_Dainty_; that has in it something fine, 301.

_Dawted_; made a favourite, petted. 89, 98, 166. --"_Dawted Davie_;" a petted child. 110. --"Better be God's sons than the world's dawties" (Sermon on Isa. xlix. 1).

_Daylight_; note in 315.

_Dead_; in the expression, "_Dead-sweer_," thoroughly lazy; as incapable of moving as one dead. 105.

_Deaf nuts_; no kernel in them. 138.

_Dear_; where provision is sold at a high price. 84.

_Deave_, from _deaf_; to make deaf; distract. 286.

_Decore_; to adorn. 42.--(Lat., _decorus_.)

_Decourt_; to discard, send out of court. 188, 197, 284.

_Decreet_; a judicial sentence. 3, 12, 132, etc.

_Depone_; state as a witness. 180.

_Depursement_; same as disbursement. 59. --_Q.d._, taking out of the purse, or _bourse_ (291).

_Dew_; a Verb; to moisten. 333.

_Din_; noise. 38, 59, 100, 155, 249, 282, 325.

_Ding_; knock in with violence. 248.

_Dint_; the stroke, or force. 332. --Zachary Boyd speaks of "The dint of God's judgments."

_Dispone_; make over. 19, 261.

_Disrespective_; disrespectful. 300. --See _Respective_.

_Ditty_, or _Dittay_; indictment, ground of accusation. 12, 44, 180, 233.

_Do._ "_To do for_;" to act for; make effort for; accomplish a thing. 93, 116, 135, 162, 206, 228, 244.--See Ps. cix. 21.

_Dool-like_; in mourning guise. 268. --_Dool_; grief; "Dolor." 272.

_Doomster_; pronouncer of sentence. 229.

_Dorts_; the sulks, offence taken. 23, 70, 89.

_Double_; a duplicate. 353.

_Dow_; to be able; can. 23, 260, etc. --_Dought_ is the past tense. Hogg's "Queen's Wake" uses the perf.: "She turned away and _dought_ luck nae mair." So