by Samuel Rutherford
To the Lady Kilconquhar
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. — I am glad to hear that ye have your face homewards towards your Father’s house, now when so many are for a home nearer hand. But your Lord calleth you to another life and glory than is to be found hereaway; and, therefore, I would counsel you to make sure the charters and rights which ye have to salvation. You came to this life about a necessary and weighty business, to tryste with Christ anent your precious soul, and the eternal salvation of it. This is the most necessary business ye have in this life; and your other adoes beside this are but toys, and feathers, and dreams, and fancies. This is in the greatest haste, and should be done first. Means are used in the Gospel to draw on a meeting betwixt Christ and you. If ye neglect your part in it, it is as if ye would tear the contract before Christ’s eyes, and give up the match, that there may be no more communing about that business. I know that other lovers beside Christ are in suit of you, and your soul hath many wooers; but I pray you to make a chaste virgin of your soul, and let it love but one. Most worthy is Christ alone of all your soul’s love, howbeit your love were higher than the heaven, and deeper than the lowest of this earth, and broader than this world. Many, alas! too many, make a common strumpet of their soul for every lover that cometh to the house. Marriage with Christ would put your love and your heart by the gate, out of the way, and out of the eye of all other unlawful suitors; and then you have a ready answer for all others, “I am already promised away to Christ; the match is concluded, my soul hath a husband already, and it cannot have two husbands.” Oh, if the world did but know what a smell the ointments of Christ cast, and how ravishing His beauty (even the beauty of the fairest of the sons of men) is, and how sweet and powerful His voice is, the voice of that one Well-beloved! Certainly, where Christ cometh, He runneth away with the soul’s love, so that it cannot be commanded. I would far rather look but through the hole of Christ’s door, to see but the one half of His fairest and most comely face (for He looketh like heaven!), suppose I should never win in to see His excellency and glory to the full, than enjoy the flower, the bloom, and the chiefest excellency of the glory and riches of ten worlds. Lord, send me, for my part, but the meanest share of Christ that can be given to any of the indwellers of the New Jerusalem. But I know my Lord is no niggard: He can, and it becometh Him well to give more than my narrow soul can receive. If there
were ten thousand thousand millions of worlds, and as many heavens full of men and angels, Christ would not be pinched to supply all our wants, and to fill us all. Christ is a well of life; but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom? This soul of ours hath love, and cannot but love some fair one. And oh, what a fair One, what an only One, what an excellent, lovely, ravishing One, is Jesus! Put the beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of paradises, like the garden of Eden in one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colours, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all loveliness, in one: oh, what a fair and excellent thing would that be! And yet it would be less to that fair and dearest Well-beloved, Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths. Oh, but Christ is heaven’s wonder, and earth’s wonder! What marvel that His bride saith (Cant. v. 16), “He is altogether lovely!” Oh that black souls will not come and fetch all their love to this fair One! Oh, if I could invite and persuade thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand of Adam’s sons, to flock about my Lord Jesus, and to come and take their fill of love! Oh, pity for evermore, that there should be such a one as Christ Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, and so incomparable in infinite excellency and sweetness, and so few to take Him! Oh, oh, ye poor, dry, and dead souls, why will ye not come hither with your toom vessels, and your empty souls, to this huge, and fair, and deep, and sweet well of life, and fill all your toom vessels? Oh that Christ should be so large in sweetness and worth, and we so narrow, so pinched, so ebb, and so void of all happiness. And yet men will not take him! They lose their love miserably, who will not bestow it upon this lovely One. Alas! these five thousand years, Adam’s fools, his waster (Prov. 18: 9) heirs, have been wasting and lavishing out their love and their affections upon black lovers, and black harlots, upon bits of dead creatures, and broken idols, upon this and that feckless creature; and have not brought their love and their heart to Jesus. Oh, pity, that Fairness hath so few lovers! Oh, wo, wo to the fools of this world, who run by Christ to other lovers! Oh, misery, misery, misery, that comeliness can scarce get three or four hearts in a town or country! Oh that there is so much spoken, and so much written, and so much thought of creature vanity; and so little spoken, so little written, and so little thought of my great, and incomprehensible, and never enough wondered at Lord Jesus! Why should I not curse this forlorn and wretched world, that suffereth my Lord Jesus to lie His lone? O damned souls! O miskenning world! O blind, O beggarly and poor souls! O bewitched fools! what aileth you at Christ, that you run so from Him? I dare not challenge providence, that there are so few buyers, and so little
sale for such an excellent one as Christ. (O the depth, and, O the height of my Lord’s ways, that pass finding out!) But oh, if men would once be wise, and not fall so in love with their own hell as to pass by Christ, and misken Him! But let us come near, and fill ourselves with Christ, and let His friends drink, and be drunken, and satisfy our hollow and deep desires with Jesus. Oh, come all and drink at this living well; come, drink and live for evermore; come, drink and welcome! “Welcome,” saith our fairest Bridegroom. No man getteth Christ with ill will; no man cometh and is not welcome. No man cometh and rueth his voyage; all men speak well of Christ who have been at Him: men and angels who know Him will say more than I dow do, and think more of Him than they can say. Oh, if I were misted and bewildered in my Lord’s love! Oh, if I were fettered and chained to it! Oh, sweet pain, to be pained for a sight of Him! Oh, living death, oh, good death, oh, lovely death, to die for love of Jesus! Oh that I should have a sore heart, and a pained soul, for the want of this and that idol! Wo, wo to the mistakings of my miscarrying heart, that gapeth and crieth for creatures, and is not pained, and cut, and tortured, and in sorrow, for the want of a soul’s-fill of the love of Christ! Oh that Thou wouldst come near, my Beloved! O my fairest One why standeth Thou afar! Come hither, that I may be satiated with Thy excellent love. Oh for a union! oh for a fellowship with Jesus! Oh that I could buy with a price that lovely One, even suppose that hell’s torments for a while were the price! I cannot believe but Christ will rue upon His pained lovers, and come and ease sick hearts, who sigh and swoon for want of Christ. Who dow bide Christ’s love to be nice? What heaven can be there liker to hell, than to lust, and green, and dwine, and fall a swoon for Christ’s love, and to want it? Is not this hell and heaven woven through-other? Is not this pain and joy, sweetness and sadness, to be in one web, the one the weft, the other the warp? Therefore, I would that Christ would let us meet and join together, the soul and Christ in each other’s arms. Oh what meeting is like this, to see blackness and beauty, contemptibleness and glory, highness and baseness, even a soul and Christ, kiss each other! Nay, but when all is done, I may be wearied in speaking and writing; but, oh, how far am I from the right expression of Christ or His love? I can neither speak nor write feeling, nor tasting, nor smelling: come feel, and smell, and taste Christ and His love, and ye shall call it more than can be spoken. To write how sweet the honeycomb is, is not so lovely as to eat and suck the honeycomb. One night’s rest in a bed of love with Christ will say more than heart can think, or tongue can utter. Neither need we fear crosses, nor sigh nor be sad for anything that is on this side of heaven,
if we have Christ. Our crosses will never draw blood of the joy of the Holy Ghost, and peace of conscience. Our joy is laid up in such a high place, as temptations cannot climb up to take it down. This world may boast Christ, but they dare not strike; or, if they strike, they break their arm in fetching a stroke upon a rock. Oh that we could put our treasures in Christ’s hand, and give him our gold to keep, and our crown. Strive, Mistress, to thring through the thorns of this life, to be at Christ. Tine not sight of Him in this cloudy and dark day. Sleep with Him in your heart in the night. Learn not at the world to serve Christ, but speer at Himself the way; the world is a false copy, and a lying guide to follow.
Remember my love to your husband. I wish all to him that I have written here. The sweet presence, the long-lasting good-will of our God, the warmly and lovely comforts of our Lord Jesus, be with you. Help me His prisoner in your prayers; for I remember you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
Aberdeen, August 8, 1637.
S. R.
Murdo Cameron, Kishorn
Murdo Cameron, Kishorn, was well known in the West Highlands as a man of eminent standing among the Lord’s people. He was very retired in his natural disposition. This accounts for the obscurity in which his memory has been shrouded hitherto in the public place given to other worthy men of God in the “Free Presbyterian Magazine”. This year some fragments concerning him came to our hand, so we decided to put them on record in order that nothing should be lost to posterity through our negligence.
The writer met Murdo Cameron in his own house in Kishorn, in December of 1890. After a few general remarks in the house, he came to convoy the writer a part of the way. The subject, galling to the hearts of all the lovers of God’s truth in the Free Church of Scotland at that time, was her flagrant departure from holding the infallibility and inerrancy of the whole Bible, and the boldness with which men in office in the Church tore the Confession of her faith in pieces, despite their own vows to God and men that they would assert, maintain, and defend it, and that they would follow no divisive course from it. It became evident to the writer that Murdo was exceedingly pained at heart on account of the scandalous conduct of these men, and the great dishonour done to the Lord by a Church which tolerated such infidelity and daring irreverence
to God’s truth within her pale.
In the year 1893, Murdo Cameron was among the first to join the party who separated from the Free Church of the Declaratory Act in order to continue the existence of the Free Church of 1843 in her strict adherence to the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith. He was present at the first Communion services held by the Free Presbyterian Church at Inverness. A godly woman, Mrs Mackenzie, Douglas Row, in that town, asked him — “What is your opinion concerning this stand that has been made in vindication of God’s truth?” He answered that he believed the witness raised in vindication of God’s truth would not die out in Scotland till the glory of the latter days would come. When Mrs Mackenzie told the above to the writer, she quoted a text of truth which he mentioned as the ground he had for what he said; but the writer regrets that he cannot remember the passage. He told her also that great trials would meet this small Church, and that these trials would begin in Inverness. This part of what he said has so far become a fact. The other part of it, if men will be faithful to God’s truth, will also be accomplished. The which may the Lord grant.
The following covenants, written and signed by him, were sent us:— “Kishorn, June 4, 1869, I am here this day, O Lord, to go about a great work, which I am not capable of. Therefore, I desire Thy assistance. That which I have to do is to enter into an engagement with Thee, and I desire, Lord, that Thou wouldest consent to the bargain. Say not to me, What hast thou to do to take my covenant into thy mouth; but though Thou shouldest say the same to me, Thou art righteous. Yet I will plead upon Thine own Word: “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give your rest.” O Lord, I am this day to subscribe with my hand that I am the Lord’s, as I promised in Gairloch on the Communion Sabbath, June 4, 1869, in the wood of Shieldaig there, where I did beseech the Lord not to approach me in anger at His table that day. I gave up myself to be wholly at His disposal soul and body and all my cares for time and eternity; but all is to be done in the strength of Thine own grace. I deny all strength of mine own to do anything that is good; daily experience has taught me the truthfulness of this.” When the Rev Duncan Matheson was fencing the Lord’s Table, he said — “Come and fulfil your vow, you vowed this morning in Gairloch, to the Lord at His table.” This does not mean that I did not know the Lord to be gracious before this time, and in witness hereof I do subscribe with my hand the 27th day of June 1869 — Murdo Cameron.
“Another year, going to Gairloch, I left Alikin early in the mornin—
on the Communion Thursday, and held worship in the hills, and entered anew into covenant with the Lord to be His by the assistance of His grace, and prayed that He would consent to this covenant engagement. The Rev Mr Matheson began the Communion Services that day by reading Isaiah, 44th chapter, and preached from the first five verses, and spoke specially on making a covenant with the Lord. He said — “And you who did this today in the hills coming here, I call you to the Lord’s Table on the coming Sabbath, and keep it in possession till the day of your death.”
At another time, at the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper at Dingwall, I promised that, if the Lord would reveal Himself to my soul at that sacrament there, I would be His by the assistance of His own grace, whatever He would call me to suffer for His name and cause. The Lord did reveal Himself to me there, to the praise of His grace be it recorded. To this I subscribe with my hand, the 21st day of April 1877. — Murdo Cameron, Kishorn.”
The following statement found among the papers sent me was made by Murdo Cameron’s daughter:— “1st April 1882 — I do this day give myself up to the Lord with all my heart, by the help of his grace, soul and body for time and eternity. I take Christ to be my portion for ever to be for Him and Him alone. If I live, may I live to the Lord, and if I die, may I die in the Lord — (Signed) Barbara Cameron.”
May the Lord grant that these secret engagements between the Lord and living souls, longing souls, breathing after His fellowship, and an assurance of their interest in Him which are now brought to light, be blessed to others struggling on their way to Mount Zion above.
Murdo Cameron departed this life in June 1897. So far as the writer could ascertain, he was over 80 years when he passed away to his everlasting rest. “I said thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” — N.C.