TO THE PARISHIONERS OF KILMACOLM.
Worthy and well beloved in Christ Jesus, our Lord, grace, mercy and peace be to you,—Your letters could not come to my hand in a greater throng of business that I am now pressed with at this time, when our Kirk requireth the public help of us all. Yet I cannot but answer the heads of both your letters with provision that ye choose, after this, a fitter time for writing. (a) I would not have you to pitch upon me, as the man able by letters to answer doubts of this kind,
* The whole of the letter is not given here.—Editor.
while there are in your bounds men of such great parts, most able for this work. I know that the best are unable; yet it pleaseth that Spirit of Jesus to blow His sweet wind through a piece of dry stick, that the empty reed may keep no glory to itself. But a minister can make no such wind as this to blow; he is scarce able to lend it a passage to blow through Him. (b) Know that the wind of this Spirit hath a time when it bloweth sharp and pierceth so strongly that it would blow through an iron door; and this is commonly rather under suffering for Christ than at any other time. Sick children get of Christ’s pleasant things, to play them withal, because Jesus is most tender of the sufferer, for He was a sufferer himself. Oh, if I had but the leavings and the drawing of the bye-board of a sufferer’s table! But I leave this to answer yours.
I. Ye write that God’s vows are lying on you, and security, strong and sit in nature, stealing on you who are weak. I answer: (a) Till we be in heaven, the best have heavy loads as is evident (Cant. v. 1; Ps. xxx. 6; Job xxix. 18; Matt. xxvi. 33). Nature is a sluggard and loveth not the labour of religion; therefore rest should not be taken till we know that the disease is over and in the way of turning, and that it is like a fever past the cool. And the quietness and the calms of the faith of victory over corruption should be entertained, in place of security; so that if I sleep I should desire to sleep faith’s sleep in Christ’s bosom. (b) Know, also, that none who sleep sound can seriously complain of sleepiness. Sorrow for a slumbering is a token of watchfulness of spirit, but this is soon turned into wantonness as grace in us too often is abused; therefore, our waking must be watched over else sleep will even grow out of watching, and there is as much need to watch over grace as to watch over sin. Full men will soon sleep, and sooner than hungry men. (c) For your weakness to keep off security, that like a thief stealeth upon you, I would say two things: (1) To “want complaints of weakness” is for heaven and angels that never sinned, not for Christians in Christ’s camp on earth. I think that our weakness maketh us the Church of the redeemed ones, and Christ’s field that the Mediator should labour in. If there were no diseases on earth, there need be no physicians on earth. If Christ had cried down weakness He might have cried down His own calling; but weakness is our Mediator’s world; sin is Christ’s only, only fair and market. No man should rejoice at weakness and diseases, but I think that we may have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because without them Christ’s fingers (as a slain Lord) would never have touched our skin. I dare not thank myself, but I dare thank God’s depth of wise providence that I have an errand in me while I live, for Christ to come and visit me and bring with Him His drugs and His balm. Oh, how sweet it is for a sinner to put his weakness into Christ’s strengthening hand, and to gather a sick soul upon such a
Physician, and to lay weakness before Him to weep upon Him, and to plead and pray! Weakness can speak and cry when we have not a tongue. “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live” (Ezek. xvi. 6). The Kirk could not speak one word to Christ then; but blood and guiltiness out of measure spake, and drew out of Christ pity and a word of life and love. (2) As for weakness, we have it that we may employ Christ’s strength because of our weakness. Weakness is to make us the strongest things: that is, when, having no strength of our own, we are carried upon Christ’s shoulders and walk as it were upon His legs. If our sinful weakness swell up to the clouds, Christ’s strength will swell up to the sun, and far above the heaven of heavens.
II. Ye tell me that there is need of counsel for strengthening of new beginners. I can say little to that, who am not well begun myself; but I know that honest beginnings are nourished by Him, even by lovely Jesus, who never yet put out a poor man’s dim candle that is wrestling betwixt light and darkness. I am sure that if new beginners would urge themselves upon Christ, and press their souls upon Him, and importune Him for a draught of His sweet love, they could not come wrong to Christ. Come once in upon the right nick and step of His lovely love and I defy you to get free of Him again. If any beginners fall off Christ again, and miss Him, they never lighted upon Christ as Christ: it was but an idol, like Jesus, which they took for Him.
III. Whereas ye complain of a dead ministry in your bounds, ye are to remember that the Bible among you is the contract of marriage, and the manner of Christ’s conveying His love to your heart is not so absolutely dependent upon even lively preaching, as that there is no conversion at all, no life of God, but that which is tied to a man’s lips. The daughters of Jerusalem have done often that which the watchman could not do. Make Christ your minister. He can woo a soul at a dykeside in the field. He needeth not us, howbeit the flock be obliged to seek Him in the shepherds’ tents. Hunger of Christ’s making may thrive even under stewards who mind not the feeding of the flock. O blessed soul, that can leap over a man and look above a pulpit up to Christ, who can preach home to the heart, howbeit we were all dead and rotten.
IV. So to complain of yourselves, as to justify God, is right, providing ye justify His Spirit in yourselves. For men seldom advocate against Satan’s work and sin in themselves but against God’s work in themselves. Some of the people of God slander God’s grace in their souls; as some wretches used to do, who complain and murmur of want (“I have nothing,” say they; “all is gone, the ground yieldeth but weeds and windlestraws”), whereas their fat harvest, and their
money in bank, maketh them liars. But for myself, alas! I think it is not my sin; I have scarce wit to sin this sin. But I advise you to speak good of Christ, for His beauty and sweetness, and speak good of Him for His grace to yourselves.
V. Light remaineth, ye say, but ye cannot attain to painfulness. See if this complaint be not booked in the New Testament; and the place is like this, “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I know not” (Rom. vii. 18). But every one hath not Paul’s spirit in complaining; for often, in us, complaining is but an humble backbiting and traducing of Christ’s new work in the soul. But for the matter of the complaint, I would say that the light of glory is perfectly obeyed in loving and praising and rejoicing, and resting in a seen and known Lord; but that light is not hereaway in any clay body. For while we are here light is (in the most) broader and longer than our narrow and feeble obedience. But if there be light, with a fair train and a great back (I mean, armies) of challenging thoughts, and sorrow for coming short of performance in what we know and see ought to be performed, then that sorrow for not doing is accepted of our Lord for doing. Our honest sorrow and sincere aims, together with Christ’s intercession, pleading that God would welcome that which we have and forgive what we have not, must be our life, till we be over the bound-road, and in the other country, where the law will get a perfect soul.
VI. In Christ’s absence there is, as ye write, a willingness to use means, but heaviness after the use of them, because of formal and slight performance. In Christ’s absence, I confess, the work lieth behind. But if ye mean absence of comfort, and absence of sense of His sweet presence, I think that absence is Christ’s trying of us, not simply our sin against Him. Therefore, howbeit our obedience be not sugared and sweetened with joy (which is the sweetmeat bairns would still be at), yet the less sense, and the more willingness in obeying, the less formality in our obedience. Howbeit we think not so; for I believe that many think obedience formal and lifeless except the wind be fair in the west and sails filled with joy and sense, till souls, like a ship fair before the wind, can spread no more sail. But I am not of their mind, who think so. But if ye mean by absence of Christ, the withdrawing of His working grace, I see not how willingness to use means can be at all under such an absence. Therefore, be humbled for heaviness in that obedience, and thankful for willingness; for the Bridegroom is busking His spouse oftentimes, while she is half sleeping; and your Lord is working and helping more than ye see. Also, I recommend to you heaviness for formality, and for lifeless deadness in obedience. Be casten down, as much as ye will or can, for deadness; and challenge that dull and slow carcase of sin, that will neither lead nor drive, in your spiritual obedience. Oh, how sweet to lovely Jesus are bills and grievances.—S. Rutherford.