Fire and Ice: Comfort in Mourning
Letter 37 to Lady Kenmure (on the death of her husband),
My Very Noble And Worthy Lady,
I often call to mind the comforts that I, a poor friendless stranger, received from your ladyship here in a strange part of the country,** when my Lord took from me the delight of mine eyes (Ezek. 24:16).** Although my wound is not yet fully healed and cured,** I trust that your Lord, remembering what He did for me, will give you comfort now that He has made you a widow. This has happened in order that you may be a free woman for Christ, who is now seeking the love of your true heart. Therefore, when you lie alone in your bed, let Christ be as a bundle of myrrh, to sleep and lie all the night between your breasts (Cant. 1:13).**
Christian Character Proven in Suffering
Consider, that of all the crosses spoken of in our Lord's Word, this one gives you a special right to make God your Husband **(which was not so yours while your husband was alive). Therefore try to read God's mercy out of this visitation;** however I must say from the depths of my own suffering that the mourning for the husband of your youth is, as God' says Himself, the heaviest worldly sorrow (Joel 1:8).** But though this be the heaviest burden that ever lay upon your back, yet you know that if we will wait upon Him who hides His face for a while, it lies upon God's honour and truth to be a Husband to the widow.** See and consider then what you have lost, in proportion to eternity.**Madam, let me implore you, in the bowels of Christ Jesus, and by the comforts of His Spirit, and because you know that in the future you will appear before him: let God, and men, and angels now see what is in you. The Lord has pierced the vessel; it will be known whether there be in it wine or water. Let your faith and patience be seen, that it may be known your only beloved first and last has been Christ.**
The Suitable Object of Your Love
Therefore, now cast your whole love upon Jesus Christ; He alone is a suitable object for your love and all the affections of your soul. God has dried up one channel of your love by the removal of your husband. Let now that river run upon Christ. I dare say that God's hammering of you from your youth is only to make you a fair carved stone in the high upper temple of the New Jerusalem. Your Lord never thought this world's worthless, imitation glory a gift worthy of you; and therefore would not bestow it on you, because he is offering you a better portion. Let the small change go; the great inheritance is yours. You are a child of the house, and joy is laid up for you; it is long in coming, but none the worse for that. I am now expecting to see, and that with joy and comfort, that which I hoped of you: that you have laid such strength upon the Holy One of Israel, that you defy troubles, and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged, but cannot be taken.**
Fire and Ice
After all, why do you think this world is so important? This world has never treated you like a friend. You owe it little love. Why you should you go courting after it? The world will never be a faithful partner to you.** Never seek warm fire under cold ice. This is not a field where your happiness grows; it is up above, where there are a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands (Rev. 7:9).** What you could never get here you shall find there. Consider how in all these trials (and truly they have been many) your Lord has been loosening you at the root from perishing things, and hunting after you to grip your soul. Madam, for the Son of God's sake, do not weaken His grip on you, but stay and abide in the love of God, as Jude says (Jude 21).**
Lift Up Your Head - Farewell
Now, Madam, I hope your Ladyship will not be offended by anything I have said. If I have failed your Ladyship, it is because I did not live up to your generous love and respect, and I beg a full pardon for it. Again, my dear and noble lady, let me beseech you to lift up your head, for the day of your redemption draws near.** Remember, that star that shined in Galloway** is now shining in another world. Now I pray that God may answer, in His own way, to your soul, and that He may be to you the God of all consolations.**
Thus I remain,
Your Ladyship's at all dutiful obedience in the Lord,
Samuel Rutherford
Anwoth, Sept. 14, 1634.
Heavenly Mindedness
Letter 103 to the Lady Cardoness
Greetings - Walk in the Truth
Worthy and well-beloved in the Lord,
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to read a letter from you, so that I may know how your soul prospers. My desire and longing is to hear that you walk in the truth, and that you are content to follow the despised but most lovely Son of God.
Visitations of Love
I cannot but recommend Him to you, as your Husband, your Well-beloved, your Portion, your Comfort, and your Joy. I say this of the Lovely One, because considering what He has done for me, I can say nothing else. He has watered with His sweet comforts an oppressed prisoner.** He was always kind to my soul; but never so kind as now, in my greatest extremities.** I dine and sup with Christ. He visits my soul with the visitations of love, even in the middle of the night.
The Value of a Clear Conscience
I am completely convinced that what I am now suffering for is nothing less than Christ's own truth, and Christ's own way to heaven.** I exhort you in the name of Christ to continue in the truth which I delivered to you. Make Christ sure to your soul; for your day draws near to the end. Many slide back now, who seemed to be Christ's friends, and prove themselves dishonest to Him.** Be faithful to the death, and you shall have the crown of life. This span-length of your days (of which the Spirit of God speaks, Psalm 39:5)** will, within a short time, come to a finger breadth, and at length to nothing. Oh, how sweet and comfortable will the feast of a good conscience be to you, when your eyes will be clouded, your face become pale, and your breath turn cold. Then your poor soul will come sighing to the windows of the house of clay of your dying body, and will long to be let out, and to have the jailer to open the door that the prisoner may be set free!** You draw close to the shore: look to your accounts; ask your Guide to take you to the other side.**
Think of Who You Are in Heaven
Don't let the world be your portion, who are you to be satisfied with dead clay? You are not an illegitimate child, but a rightful heir of the King.** Therefore set your heart on your inheritance. Go up beforehand, and see your lodging. Look through all your Father's rooms in heaven, because in your Father's house are many dwelling places.** Men take a sight of lands before they buy them.** I know that Christ has made the bargain already, but think kindly of the house you are going to, and see it often. Set your heart on things that are above, where Christ is at the right hand of God.
Stir up your husband to mind his own country at home. Counsel him to deal mercifully with the poor people of God under him. They are Christ's, and not his; therefore desire him to show them merciful dealing and kindness, and to be good to their souls. I desire you to write to me. It may be that my parish forget me; but my witness is in heaven that I dare not, I do not forget them. They are my sighs in the night and my tears in the day. I think myself like a husband plucked from the wife of his youth.** O Lord, be my judge: what joy would it be to my soul to hear that my ministry has left the Son of God among them, and that they are walking in Christ!
Family Concerns - Farewell
Remember my love to your son and daughter. Desire them from me to seek the Lord in their youth, and to give Him the morning of their days. Acquaint them with the word of God and prayer.
Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner of Christ. In my heart I forget you not.
Your lawful** and loving pastor, in his only Lord Jesus.
S.R.
Aberdeen, March 6, 1637.
Christ's Prisoner
Letter 104 To Lady Kenmure
Greetings - Thanksgiving for Recovery
Madam, grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your letter refreshed me. The right hand of Him who has authority over life and death have been gracious to that sweet child.** I dare not, I do not, forget him and your ladyship in my prayers.
How to Respond to Failure
Madam, in regard to yourself. I am encouraged when people complain about their failures, so long as they are trying to do something about them. This is because I see many people who think that holiness is satisfied, if they merely complain, and then do nothing. It is as if saying "I am sick" could cure an invalid. These people seem to think that complaining about failure was a magic charm to eradicate guilt!** I am glad that you are wrestling and struggling on**in this dead age, when many have lost tongue, arms, and legs for Christ.**
Labour for Communion with Christ
I urge you, Madam, a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be opened in Christ that we have never seen before, and new layers of love in Him. I despair that I will ever make it to the far end of that love, there are so many layers in it. Therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labour.** Take pains for Him, and set aside as much time as you can in each day for Him. Christ will be won with labour.**
Christ's Love for a Prisoner
I, His exiled prisoner, sought Him, and He has taken pity on me, and made a moan for me, as he does for His own. I do not know what to do with Christ. His love surrounds me and overwhelms me. I am burdened by it; but oh, how sweet and lovely is that burden! I dare not keep it inside me. I am so in love with His love, that if His love were not in heaven, I would not be willing to go there. Oh, what pondering, what telling there is in Christ's love!**
Love at No Cost
I fear nothing now so much as losing Christ's cross,** and the showers of love that accompany it. I wonder how it could be that such a slave could be exalted to a place of honour, at His own elbow. O that I should ever kiss such a fair, fair, fair face as Christ's!** But I dare not refuse to be loved. There is nothing within me, that is the cause for Him to look upon me and love me. God never gained anything from me. His love cost me nothing. Oh, the many pounds**of His love under which I am sweetly pressed!
Stage Christianity
Now, Madam, let me tell you that most people only have a stage Christianity. They consider it to be a mask easily put on or taken off. I myself thought it would be an easy thing to be a Christian, and that seeking God would only be like a jaunt next door. But O the windings, the turnings, the ups and downs that He has led me through! And even so, it still seems as if it will be a long way to the shore.**
Arrows of Love
He speaks in my inmost being during the night. When I awake, I find His love arrows, that He shot at me, sticking in my heart.** ** Who will help me to praise? Who will come to lift up with me, and set on high, His great love? And yet I find that a flood of challenges will come in at midsummer, and question me.** But it is only to keep a sinner in order.
How to Consider the World
As for friends, I would not think the world to properly be the world if friends did not leave me. Using God's wisdom, I hope to use the world as an intelligent employer uses an untrustworthy employee. He does not trust him with money or anything important that he might steal. I pray to God that I will not trust this world with my joys, comforts, or confidence. If I did, it would put Christ out of His proper place in my heart.** Indeed, Madam, from my few experiences I counsel you to give Christ the authority over all the business of your life. Fasten all your burdens on the Peg fastened in David's house (Isa. 22:23).** Woe to me, if ever the world should teach me anything about consolation. Away, away, with any such false teachers. Christ then would laugh at me and say, "Now you're warned. Be careful who you trust."
A Wail for Scotland
Woe is me, for my mother the prostitute, the Kirk of Scotland! Oh, who will wail for her!**
Farewell - Family Concerns
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
Samuel Rutherford
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637
His Wisdom in Our Trials
Greetings - Disdain Temporary Glory
Mistress,Grace, Mercy, and peace be to you. I am glad that you follow closely after Christ in this dark and cloudy time. It is a good thing to sell the things of this world in order to buy Him,** for when all these days are over we will find that it was a good investment to have a part in Christ. I confidently believe that His enemies will be His footstool,** ** and what are now growing flowers will be dead, withered grass.** The honour and the glory will fall off many things that for a time appear beautiful.
Leave Worldly Comforts Behind
It would be foolish to think that Christ and the Gospel would come and sit down at our fireside.** No, we must leave our comfortable warm houses and seek after Christ and His Gospel. It is not the sunny side of Christ** that we must expect, and we must not forsake him if we lack it. Let us set our faces against whatever we find in life, until He and we are though the briers and prickly bushes and on dry ground. Our soft nature would prefer to be carried through the troubles of this life in Christ's arms.** But it is His wisdom, who knows what we're made of, that His bairns** go with wet and cold feet to heaven. Oh, how sweet a thing it would be for us, if we would learn how to make our burdens light, by preparing our hearts for the burden, which requires us to make our Lord's will the law of our hearts.Christ's Light Will Shine
I find Christ and His cross** not unpleasant or troublesome guests, as men would call them. No, I think patience makes the water Christ gives us good wine, and His dross silver and gold. We have a good reason for continuing to wait: before long our Master will be back for us and shine His light into the whole world, making visible the blacks and whites.** Happy are those who will be found ready. Our hour-glass doesn't have long enough to run for us to become weary. In fact, time itself will dissolve our cares and sorrow. Our heaven is in the bud and growing up until the harvest.** Why shouldn't we persevere, seeing that our whole life time is a few grains of sand? Therefore I commend Christ to you, as your last-living and longest-living Husband, the staff of your old age.** Let Him now have the rest of your days. Don't worry about the storm when you're sailing in Christ's ship: no passenger will ever fall overboard. Even the most sea-sick passenger is sure to come to land safely.His Great Love - Our Little Faith
I myself am in as sweet communion with Christ as a poor sinner can be. I am only pained that He has much beauty and loveliness, and I little love. He has great power and mercy, and I little faith. He has much light, and I poor eyesight. O that I would see Him in the sweetness of His love, and in His marriage-clothes,** and were over head and ears in love with that princely one, Christ Jesus my Lord! Alas, my broken dish, my leaky bottle, can hold so little of Christ Jesus!Christ on the Auction Block
I have joy in this, that I would gladly die before I put Christ's property at the disposal of men who choose to follow their own wills.** Alas, this land has put Christ up for bid in a public auction. Blessed are they who would hold the crown on His head and buy Christ's honour with their own losses.Family Advice - Farewell
I rejoice to hear that your son John is coming to visit Christ and taste of His love. I hope that he will not become careless** or regret his choice. I have always (as I often told you in person) a great love to Mr. John Brown because I thought I saw more of Christ in him than in his brothers. I wish I could write to him, to encourage him to stand by my sweet Master. Please have him read this letter, and tell him of the joy I will have if he will stand for my Lord Jesus.Grace be with you, yours, in his sweet Jesus,
Samuel Rutherford
Aberdeen, Scotland March 13, 1637
The Heavenly Mansions--The Earth a Shadow
Letter 247 to Janet Kennedy,
Greetings - Our Heavenly Dwelling
Loving and Dear Sister, Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter. I know that the favour of Christ which is in you (whom the virgins** love to follow) cannot be blown away with winds, either from hell, or the foul-smelling air of this defiled world. Sit far aback from the walls of this house of disease, even the pollutions of this defiled world. Keep your taste,** your love, and hope in heaven; it is not good that your love and your Lord should be in two different countries. Up, up after your lover,** that you and He may be together. A King from heaven has sent for you: by faith he is showing you the New Jerusalem, and is taking you along in the Spirit, and showing you all the rooms for rest and dwelling in heaven.** He says, "All these are yours, this palace is for you and Christ." Indeed, if you alone were the only person chosen by God for salvation, Christ would have built that one house for you and Himself: now it is for you and many others also.
Our Journey to Heaven
Take with you on your journey** what you may carry with you. You can take your conscience, faith, hope, patience, meekness, goodness, and brotherly kindness, for these products are valuable in the high and new country you are travelling to. But the other things, which are the world's vanity and trash, since they are the house-sweepings, you would do best not to carry them with you. You found them here, so leave them here in the house. Your sun is well-turned and low; be sure you are close to the lodging-place before night comes. We go one at a time** out of this great market, until the whole town will be empty, and the two lodging-places will be filled, heaven and Hell. At length there will be nothing in the earth except empty walls and burnt ashes;** therefore it is better to leave.
The Struggle with the Powers of this World
Antichrist and his master** are working hard to fill up Hell and to seduce many. Many stars, great lights in the church are falling from heaven, causing many to be misled and seduced. They leave their faith, and sell their birthright by their hungry rooting for I know not what.** Hold onto Christ hard! Truly I esteem Christ is the best property I have. He is my companion in prison.** Having Him, even though my cross might be as heavy as ten mountains of iron, when He puts His sweet shoulder under me and it, my cross** is but a feather. I please myself in the choice of Christ; He is all my desire in heaven and earth. I rejoice that He is in heaven before me.**
Our Assurance in Christ
God send a joyful meeting** In the meantime God is sending the price of our tickets, by which I mean the taste of Christ's love, to sweeten the journey and to encourage a breathless runner. When I lose my breath, climbing up the mountain, He makes new breath.
Farewell
Now the very God of peace establish you to the day of His appearing,
Yours, in the only Lord Jesus,
Samuel Rutherford.
from Aberdeen, Sept. 9, 1637
Letter 87
To Elizabeth Kennedy
Danger of Formality—Christ Wholly to be Loved—Other Objects of Love
Mistress,—Grace, mercy, and peace he to you.—I have meant to write to you for a long time, but I have been hindered. I heartily desire that you would think about your country**, and consider to what quarter your soul sets its face; for not all come home at night who suppose that they have set their face heavenward. It is a woeful thing to die and miss heaven, and to give up lodging with Christ at night: it is an miserable journey where travellers are forced to sleep in the fields. I persuade myself that thousands will be deceived and ashamed of their hope. Because they cast their anchor in sinking sands, they must lose it. Till now I knew not the pain, labour, nor difficulty that there is to win at home: nor did I understand so well, before this, what this means, "The righteous shall scarcely be saved."** Oh, how many a poor professor's** candle is blown out, and never lighted again! I see that a mere profession, and to be ranked amongst the children of God, and to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry professors to heaven. But certainly a name is nothing but a name, and will never last through a blast of God's storm. I counsel you not to give your soul or Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep, till you have gotten something that will endure the fire, and stand the storm. I am sure, that if I had one foot were in heaven, and then He should say, "Take care of yourself, I will keep my grip on you no longer," I would go no farther, but presently fall down in broken pieces of dead nature.
They are happy forevermore who are over head and ears in the love of Christ, and know no sickness but love-sickness for Christ, and feel no pain but the pain of an absent and hidden Well-beloved.** We run our souls out of breath and tire them, in chasing and galloping after our night-dreams (such are the rovings of our miscarrying hearts), to get some created good thing in this life, and on this side of death. We would rather stay and spin out a heaven to ourselves, on this side of the water**; but sorrow, poverty, changes, crosses, and sin, are both woof and warp in that ill-spun web. Oh, how sweet and dear are those thoughts that are still upon the things which are above! And how happy are they who are longing to have little sand in their hour-glass, and to have time's thread cut, and can cry to Christ, "Lord Jesus, have over; come and fetch the sorrowful passenger!" I wish that our thoughts were more frequently than they are upon our country. Oh, but heaven gives a sweet smell afar off to those who have spiritual smelling! God has made many fair flowers; but the fairest of them all is heaven, and the Flower of all flowers is Christ. Oh! why do we not fly up to that lovely One? Alas that there is such a scarcity of love, and of lovers, to Christ amongst us all! Fie, fie, upon us, who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honours, and fair persons, and do not pine and melt away with love to Christ! Oh! would to God I had more love for His sake! O for as much as would lie betwixt me and heaven, for His sake! O for as much as would go round about the earth, and over the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ! But, alas! I have nothing for Him, yet He has much for me. It is no gain to Christ that He gets my little, inconstant span-length and hand-breadth of love.
If men would have something to do with their hearts and their thoughts, that are always rolling up and down (like men with oars in a boat), after sinful vanities, they might find great and sweet employment to their thoughts upon Christ. If those frothy, fluctuating, and restless hearts of ours would come all about Christ, and look into His love, to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy, to the unsearchable riches of His grace**, to inquire after and search into the beauty of God in Christ, they would be swallowed up in the depth and height, length and breadth ** of His goodness. Oh, if men would draw back the curtains, and look into the inner side of the ark, and behold how the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily!** Oh! who would not say, "Let me die, let me die ten times, to see a sight of Him?" Ten thousand deaths were no great price to give for Him. I am sure that sick, fainting love would heighten the market, and raise the price to the double for Him. But, alas! if men and angels were auctioned off, and sold at the dearest price, they would not all buy a night's love, or a four-and-twenty-hours' sight of Christ! Oh, how happy are they who get Christ for nothing!** God send me no more for my part of paradise, but Christ: and surely I will be rich enough, and have as much heaven as the best of them, if Christ will be my heaven.
I can write no better thing to you than to desire you, if ever you need to count up the worth of Christ**, than to take Him up and count over again: and weigh Him again and again: and after this have no other to court your love, and to woo your soul's delight, but Christ. He will be found worthy of all your love, howbeit it should swell upon you from the earth to the uppermost circle of the heaven of heavens. To our Lord Jesus and His love I commend you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
Letter 88
To Janet Kennedy
Christ to be Kept at Every Sacrifice—The Worth of Christ
Mistress,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. You are not a little obliged to His rich grace, who has separated you for Himself**, and for the promised inheritance with the saints in light **, from this condemned and guilty world.
Hold fast to Christ, contend for Him; it is a lawful plea to go to holding and drawing for Christ; and it is not possible to keep Christ peaceably, having once gotten Him, except the devil were dead.** It must be your resolution to set your face against Satan's northern tempests and storms, for salvation. Nature would have heaven to come to us while sleeping in our beds.** We would all buy Christ, as if we could any of us pay the price ourselves. But Christ is worth more blood and lives than either you or I have to give Him. When we shall come home, and enter into the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, then we shall look back to pains and sufferings and then we will see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory. Our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome-home to heaven.** Oh, what then shall be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses! Oh, how weighty, and of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles be! Oh, when once He shall thrust a wearied traveller's head between His blessed breasts **, the poor soul will think one kiss of Christ has fully paid him back for forty or fifty years' wet feet, and all its sore hearts, and light (2 Cor. 4:17)** sufferings it had in following after Christ!
Oh, thrice blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with dreams, shadows, feckless things, night-vanities, and night-fancies of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us who sit still, fettered with the love and fondness of the loan of a piece of dead clay! Oh, poor fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair weather, and smooth promises, and rotten, worm-eaten hopes! May not the devil laugh to see us give out our souls, and get in but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin? O for a sight of eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage supper! Half a swallow, even a drop of the wine of consolation, that is up at our banqueting-house, out of Christ's own hand, would make our stomachs loathe the brown bread and the sour drink of a miserable life. Oh, how witless we are, to grow restless, and chase, and run, till our souls be out of breath, after a condemned happiness of our own making! And do we not think far too much of ourselves when we make it a matter of child's play, and drink a toast over paradise? We trifle with the heaven that Christ did sweat for, in return for a blast of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast. O that we were out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and crucified to us! **
If we would fall out of love with all of our masked and painted lovers, then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the inmost chamber of our heart. Then Christ would be our night-song and morning-song; then the very whisper of our Well-beloved's feet, when He comes, and His first knock or rap at the door, would be as news of two heavens to us. O that our eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sunburnt flower, even this plastered, fair (on the outside) world: and as a result we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! Oh, let some of us die to smell the fragrance of Him; and let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for ever, provided I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ! I know that sometimes I murmur, "Lord, what will you have for Christ?" But, O Lord, can you be trifled with and propined**) with any gift for Christ? O Lord, can Christ be sold?** Or rather, may not a poor needy sinner have Him for nothing?** If I can get no more, oh, let me be pained to all eternity, with longing for Him! The joy of hungering for Christ should be my heaven for evermore. Alas, that I cannot draw souls and Christ together! But I desire the coming of His kingdom, and that Christ, as I assuredly hope He will, would come upon withered Scotland, as rain upon the new-mown grass. Oh, let the King come! Oh, let His kingdom come! Oh, let their eyes rot in their sockets (Zech. 14:12)**, who will not receive Him home again to reign and rule in Scotland.** Grace, grace be with you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
Letter 99
To William Gordon
Christ's Ways Misunderstood — His Increasing Kindness — Spiritual Delicacy — Hard to be Dead to the World
Honoured and Dear Brother,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received your letter, which refreshed my soul.
I thank God that the court is closed **; I think shame of my part of it. I pass now from my unjust summons of unkindness libelled against Christ my Lord.** He is not such a Lord and Master as I took Him to be; verily He is God, and I am dust and ashes. I took Christ's obscurity to be as good as Scripture speaking wrath; but I have seen the other side of Christ, and the white side of His cross now. It was necessary to come to Aberdeen to learn a new mystery in Christ, that His promise is better to be believed than His looks **, and that the devil can cause Christ's obscurity to speak a lie to a weak man.
Nay, verily, I was a child before; all that happened before was but child's play. I would that I could begin to be a Christian in sad earnest**. I need not blame Christ if I be not one, for He has showed me heaven and hell in Aberdeen. But the truth is, for all my sorrow, Christ is nothing in my debt, for comforts have refreshed my soul. I have heard and seen Him in His sweetness, so as I am almost saying, it is not He that I was wont to meet with. He smiles more cheerfully, His kisses are more sweet and soul-refreshing than the kisses of the Christ I saw before were, though He be the same. Or rather, the King has led me up to a measure of joy and communion with my Bridegroom that I never attained to before, so that often I think that I will neither borrow nor lend with this world.** I will not strike sail to crosses, nor flatter them to be quit of them, as I have done. Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! so that I may get my heart full of my Lord Jesus. I have been so near Him, that I have said, "I truly know that this is the Lord. Leave a token behind, that I may never forget this." Now, what can Christ do more to caress one of His poor prisoners?
Therefore, Sir, I charge you in the name of my Lord Jesus, praise with me, and show to others what He has done in my soul. This is the fruit of my sufferings, that I desire Christ's name may be spread abroad in this kingdom, in my behalf. I hope in God not to slander Him again. Yet in this, I get not my feasts without some mixture of gall; neither am I free of old jealousies, for He has removed my lovers and friends far from me; He has made my congregation desolate, and taken away my crown. And my dumb Sabbaths ** are like a stone tied to a bird's foot, that lacks not wings,—they seem to hinder me to fly, were it not that I dare not say one word, but, "Well done, Lord Jesus."
We can, in our prosperity, joke with ourselves, and be too disrespectful with Christ; yea, be that insolent, as to chide with Him; but under the water we dare not speak. I wonder now of my sometime boldness, to chide and quarrel with Christ, to nickname providence when it stroked me against the hair; for now, swimming in the waters, I think my will is fallen to the bottom of the pool: I have lost it. I think that I would prefer to let Christ alone, and give Him leave to do with me what He pleases, if He would smile upon me. Verily, we know not what an evil it is to run and indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will. Once that I would not eat except I had my dainty delicacies; now I dare not complain of the crumbs and parings under His table. I was once that I would stir up the entire house, if I saw not the world carved and set in order to my liking; now I am silent when I see God has set servants on horseback, and is fattening and feeding the children of perdition.** I pray God, that I may never find my will again. Oh, if Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet, and liberate me from that lawless lord!**
Now, Sir, in your youth you must grow rapidly; your sun will mount to the meridian quickly, and thereafter decline. Be greedy of grace. Study above anything, my dear brother, to mortify your lusts. Oh, but pride of youth, vanity, lusts, idolizing of the world, and charming pleasures, it takes a long time to root them out! As far as you are advanced in the way to heaven, as near as you are to Christ, as much progress as you have made in the way of mortification, you will find that you are far behind, and have most of your work before you.** I never took it to be so hard to be dead to my lusts and to this world. When the day of visitation comes, and your old idols come weeping about you, you will have much ado not to break your heart. It is best to give them up early, so that you could in an instant leave your part of this world for a drink of water, or a thing of nothing. Verily I have seen the best of this world, a moth-eaten, threadbare coat: I purpose to lay it aside, being now old and full of holes. O for my house above, not made with hands!**
Pray for Christ's prisoner; and write to me. Remember my love to your mother. Desire her, from me, to make ready for removing**; the Lord's tide will not bide her; and to seek an heavenly mind, that her heart may be often there. Grace be with you.
Yours, and Christ's prisoner,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637.
Letter 100
To the Lady Cardoness.
The One Thing Needful—Conscientious Acting in the World—Advice under Dejecting Trials
My Dearly Beloved, and Longed-For in the Lord,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.— I long to hear how your soul prospers, and how the kingdom of Christ thrives in you. I exhort you and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, faint not, weary not. There is a great necessity of heaven; you must have it. All other things, as houses, lands, children, husband, friends, country, credit, health, wealth, honour, may be let go; but heaven is your one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be taken from you. See that you buy the field where the pearl is. Sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy; for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory; many are lying dead by the way, that were slain with security.
I have now been led by my Lord Jesus to such an extremity in Christianity, as I think little of former things. Oh, what I lack! I lack so many things, that I am almost asking if I have anything at all. Every man thinks he is rich enough in grace, till he takes out his purse, and counts his money, and then he finds his pack but empty and light in the day of a heavy trial. I found that I did not have enough to bear my expenses, and I should have fainted, if poverty and penury had not chased me to the storehouse of all.
I beseech you to make conscience of your ways. Deal kindly, and with conscience, with your tenants.** To fill a breach or a hole, make not a greater breach in the conscience. I wish plenty of love to your soul. Let the world be the portion of bastards; make it not yours. After the last trumpet is blown, the world and all its glory will be like an old house that is burnt to ashes, and like an old fallen castle, without a roof. Fy, fy upon us, fools! who think ourselves debtors to the world! My Lord has brought me to this, that I would not give a drink of cold water for this world's kindness. I wonder that men long after, love, or care for these feathers. It is almost an insane world to me. To think that men are so mad as to transact with dead earth! To give out conscience, and get in clay again, is a strange bargain!
I have written my mind at length to your husband. Write to me again about his case. I cannot forget him in my prayers; I am looking up (Ps. 5:3)**. Christ has some claim to him. My counsel is, that you bear with him when passion overtakes him: "A soft answer putteth away wrath."** Answer him in what he speaks, and apply yourself in the fear of God to him; and then you will remove a pound weight of your heavy cross, that way, and so it shall become light.
When Christ hides Himself, wait on Him, and busy yourself till He returns; it is not a time to be careless. It is a good thing to be grieved when He hides His smiles. Yet believe His love in a patient waiting and believing in the dark. You must learn to swim and hold up your head above the water, even when the awareness of His presence is not with you to hold up your chin. I trust in God that He will bring your ship safe to land. I counsel you to study sanctification, and to be dead to this world. Urge kindness on Knockbrex**. Labour to benefit by his company; the man is acquainted with Christ.
I beg the help of your prayers, for I forget not you. Counsel your husband to fulfil my joy, and to seek the Lord's face. Show him, from me, that my joy and desire is to hear that he is in the Lord. God casts him often in my mind, I cannot forget him. I hope Christ and he have something to do together. Bless John from me. I write blessings to him, and to your husband, and to the rest of your children. Let it not be said, "I am not in your house," through neglect of the Sabbath exercise.
Your lawful and loving paster in his only, only Lord,
S.R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637
Letter 229
To Mr. Hugh Mackail of Irvine.
The Law — This World Under Christ's Control for the Believer
My Very Dear Brother,—You know that men may happily withstand all the charges of the doleful Law if they stand upon Grace's ground, and betwixt the Mediator's breasts**. And this is the sinner's safest way; for there is a bed for wearied sinners to rest in**, in the New Covenant, though no bed of Christ's making to sleep in.** The Law shall never be my judge, by Christ's grace. If I get no more good out of it (I shall find a severe enough judgement in the Gospel to humble, and to cast me down), it is, I grant, a good harsh friend to follow a traitor to the bar**, and to chafe him till he come to Christ **. We may blame ourselves, who cause the Law to demand such an costly debt, to scare us away from Jesus, and to dispute about a righteousness of our own.**) Such is a world in the moon, a chimera, and a night-dream that has pride as its father and mother. There cannot be a more humble soul than a believer; it requires no pride for a drowning man to catch hold of a rock.
I rejoice that the wheels of this confused world roll, , mesh and are driven according to our Lord's will. Out of whatever quarter the wind blows, it will blow us onto our Lord. No wind can blow our sails overboard; because Christ's skill, and honour of His wisdom, are given as our security and laid down at the stake for the sea-passengers, that He shall put them safe off His hand on the shore, in His Father's own land, our native home ground.
My dear brother, do not be afraid at the cross of Christ. It is not seen yet what Christ will do for you, when it comes to the worst: He will withhold His grace till you be in a strait, and then bring forth the decreed birth for your salvation (Zeph. 9:9).** You are an arrow of His own making **; let Him shoot you against a wall of brass, your point shall keep whole. I cannot, for multitude of letters and distraction of friends, prepare what I would for the times: I have not one hour of spare time, even if the day were forty hours long.
Remember me in prayer. Grace be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S.R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 5, 1637.
Letter 230
To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, my Lady Kenmure
Believers Safe though Tried — Delight in Christ's Truth
Madam,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship—
God be thanked you are yet in possession of Christ,
and that sweet child. I pray God that the first may be a sure heritage, and the second a loan for your comfort, while you do good to His poor, afflicted, withered Mount Zion. And who knows but our Lord has comforts laid up in store for her and you! I am persuaded that Christ has bought you away from the devil, and hell, and sin, so that they have no claim to you; and that is a rich and invaluable mercy. Long since, you were half challenging death's cold kindness, in being so slow and reluctant to come to loose a tired prisoner; but you stand in need of all the crosses, losses, changes, and sad hearts that befell you since that time.** Christ knows that the body of sin unsubdued will take them all, and more: we know that Paul had need of the devil's service, to buffet him**; and far more we. But, my dear and honourable Lady, spend your sand-glass** well. I am sure that you have law to raise a suspension against all that devils, men, friends, worlds, losses, hell, or sin, can decree against you. It is good that your crosses will but convey you to heaven's gates: in, they cannot go; the gates shall be closed upon them, when you shall be admitted to the throne. Time does not stand still, eternity is hard at our door. Oh, what is laid up for you! Therefore, harden your face against the wind. And the Lamb, your Husband, is making ready for you. The Bridegroom is eagerly preparing for that day**, as gladly as you would wish to have it yourself. He has not forgotten you.
I have heard a rumour of the prelates' purpose to banish me. But let it come, if God so wills: the other side of the sea is my Father's ground, as well as this side**. I owe bowing to God, but no servile bowing to crosses: I have been but too soft in that. I am comforted that I am persuaded fully, that Christ is my partner with me in this well-born and honest cross**; and if He claim right to the best half of my troubles (as I know He does to the whole), I shall remit over to Christ what I shall do in this case**. I know certainly, that my Lord Jesus will not misuse nor waste my sufferings; He has use for them in His house.
Oh, what it works on me to remember that a stranger, who comes not in by the door, will build hay and stubble upon the golden foundation which I laid amongst that people at Anwoth!** But I know that Providence does not squint, but looks straight through all men's darkness. Oh that I could wait upon the Lord! I had but one eye, one joy, one delight, even to preach Christ; and my mother's sons were angry at me, and have put out the poor man's one eye, and what have I behind?** I am sure that this sour world has deservedly lost my heart; but oh that there were a daysman** to lay his hands upon us both, and determine upon my part of it. Alas, that innocent and lovely truth should be sold!** My tears are little worth, but yet for this thing I weep. I weep, alas, that my fair and lovely Lord Jesus should be misrepresented in His own house! It matters little what five hundred of me feel; yet, at the same time, faith is not drowned in me. Our King still lives.
I write the prisoner's blessings: the good-will, and long-lasting kindness, with the comforts of the very God of peace, be to your Ladyship, and to your sweet child. Grace, grace be with you. Your Honour's, at all obedience, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S.R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 5, 1637
Letter 233
To Fulk Ellis
Friends in Ireland — Difficulties in Providence — Faithfulness to Light — Constant Need of Christ
Worthy and Much Honoured in our Lord,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you,
1. I am glad of our more than paper acquaintance. Seeing we have one Father, it is less significant if we should never see one another's face. I profess myself most unworthy to follow the camp of such a worthy and renowned Captain as Christ. Oh, alas! I have cause to be grieved, that men expect anything of such a wretched man as I am.** It is a wonder to me, if Christ can make anything of my good-for-nothing, short, and narrow love to Him; surely it is not worth the effort to try to understand it.
2. As for our lovely and beloved church in Ireland, my heart bleeds for her desolation; but I believe that our Lord is only lopping the vine-trees, not intending to cut them down, or root them out.** It is true (seeing we are heart-atheists by nature, and cannot take providence aright, because we falter and deal crookedly ever since we fell), we dream of a faltering providence; as if God's yard, whereby He measures joy and sorrow to the sons of men, were crooked and unjust, because servants ride on horseback, and princes go on foot.** But our Lord deals out good and evil, and some one portion or other to both, by ounce-weights, and measures them in a just and even balance. It is but folly to measure the Gospel by summer or winter weather: the summer-sun of the saints shines not on them in this life. How would we have complained, if the Lord had turned the same providence that we now complain about upside down? What if He had ordered matters thus, that first the saints should have enjoyed heaven, glory, and ease, and then Methuselah's days of sorrow and daily miseries? We would think a short heaven no heaven. Certainly His ways pass finding out.
3. You complain of the evil of heart-atheism: but it is to a greater atheist than any man can be, that you write of that. Oh, light finds not that reverence and fear which a plant of God's setting should find in our soul! How do we by nature, as others, detain and hold captive the truth of God in unrighteousness, and so make God's light a bound prisoner?**And even when the prisoner breaks the jail **, and comes out in belief of a Godhead, and in some practice of holy obedience, how often do we, so often, lay hands on the prisoner, and put our light again in fetters? Certainly great mists and clouds come from the lower part of our souls, our earthly affections, to the higher part, which is our conscience, either natural or renewed: as smoke in a lower house breaks up, and pollutes the house above.
If we had more practice of obedience, we should have more sound light. I think, laying aside all other guiltiness, that this one, the violence done to God's candle in our soul, were a sufficient indictment against us. There is no helping of this but by striving to stand in awe of God's light. Past light tells tales of us we desire little to hear; but since our conversion that light sits next door to our will (a lawless lord), it is no marvel that such a neighbour should leaven our judgment, and darken our light. I see there is a necessity that we protest against the doings of the Old Man, and raise up a party against our worst half, to accuse, condemn, sentence, and with sorrow bemoan, the dominion of sin's kingdom; and withal make law, in the New Covenant, against our guiltiness. For Christ once condemned sin in the flesh,** and we are to condemn it over again. And if there had not been such a thing as the grace of Jesus, I should have long since given up with heaven, and with the expectation to see God. But grace, grace, free grace, the merits of Christ for nothing, white and fair, and large Saviour-mercy (which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy, or Law-mercy, yea, a thousand degrees above angel-mercy), have been, and must be, the rock that we drowned souls must swim to. New washing, renewed application of purchased redemption, by that sacred blood that seals the free Covenant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor sinner. Till we be in heaven, our issue of blood shall not be quite dried up**; and, therefore, we must resolve to apply peace to our souls from the new and living way;** and Jesus, who cleanses and cures the leprous soul. Lovely Jesus, must be our song on this side of heaven's gates. And even when we have arrived within the castle, then must we eternally sing, "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who has saved us, and washed us in His own blood."**
I would counsel all the ransomed ones to learn this song, and to drink and be drunk with the love of Jesus. O fairest, O highest, O loveliest One, open the well! Oh, water the burnt and withered travellers with this love of Yours! I think it is possible on earth to build a young New Jerusalem, a little new heaven, of this surpassing love. God either send me more of this love, or take me quickly over the water**, where I may be filled with His love. My softness cannot bear this poverty. I profess I bear not hunger of Christ's love well. I know not if I deal unfairly with Christ, but I would have a link of that chain of His providence mended, in my anguish at his delay in satisfying my hunger. For myself, I could wish that Christ would let out upon me more of that love. Yet to say Christ is stingy to me, I dare not; and if I say I have abundance of His love, I should lie. I am constrained to complain**, and cry, "Lord Jesus, hold Thy hand no longer."
Worthy Sir, let me have your prayers, in my bonds. Grace be with you,
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S.R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637
Letter 234
To James Lindsay
Desertions, their Use — The Reprobate and How the Gospel affects their Responsibility
Dear Brother,—The constant and daily observing of God's going along side with you, in His coming, going, ebbing, flowing, embracing and kissing, darkening and striking, gives me (a witless and useless observer of the Lord's way and working) a heavy stroke. Could I keep sight of Him, and know when I am lacking, and carry myself as becomes me in that condition, I would bless my case.
But 1. For desertions. I think they are like a lean and weak land lying fallow for some years, until it gathers sap for a better crop. It is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight. Oh, if I could but creep one foot, or half a foot, nearer in to Jesus, in such a dark night as that when He is away, I should think it an happy absence!
2. If I knew that the Beloved were only gone away for trial and further humiliation**, and not smoked out of the house with new provocations, I would forgive desertions and hold my peace at His absence. But Christ's bought absence (that I bought with my sin), is two running boils at once, one upon each side; and what side then can I lie on?
3. I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and that it has some nourishing virtue in it, and gives sap to humility, and puts an edge on hunger, and furnishes a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping what it does not see.
4. It is mercy's wonder, and grace's wonder, that Christ will lend a piece of the lodging, and a back-chamber beside Himself, to our lusts; and that He and such swine should keep house together in our soul.** For, suppose they curl up and make themselves small when Christ comes in, and seem to lie as dead under His feet, yet they often break out again; and a foot of the Old Man, or a leg or arm nailed to Christ's cross, loosens the nail, and breaks out again! And yet Christ, beside this unruly and misfit neighbour, can still be making heaven in the saints, one way or other. May I not say, "Lord Jesus, what are You doing here?" Yet here He must be. But I will not lose my feet to go on into this depth and wonder; for free mercy and infinite merits took a lodging to Christ and us beside such a loathsome guest as sin.
5. Sanctification and mortification of our lusts are the hardest part of Christianity. It is in a manner, as natural to us to leap when we see the New Jerusalem, as to laugh when we are tickled: joy is not under command, or at our nod, when Christ kisses. But oh, how many of us would have Christ divided into two halves, that we might take the half of Him only! We take the Saviour, Jesus, and Salvation: but "Lord" is a cumbersome word, and to obey and work out our own salvation **, and to perfect holiness, is the cumbersome and stormy north side of Christ, and that which we shun and avoid.
6. For your question, the access that reprobates have to Christ (which is none at all, for to the Father in Christ neither can they, nor will they come, because Christ died not for them; and yet, by law, God and justice overtakes them), I say, first, there are with you more worthy and learned than I am, Messrs. Dickson, Blair, and Hamilton, who can more fully satisfy you.
But I shall speak in brief what I think of it in these assertions. First, All God's justice toward man and angels flows from an act of absolute sovereign free-will of God, who is our Creator and Potter, and we are but clay**; for if He had forbidden to eat of the rest of the trees of the garden of Eden, and commanded Adam to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that command no doubt had been as just as this,—"Eat of all the trees, but not at all of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." The reason is, because His will is before His justice, by order of nature; and what is His will is His justice. And He does not will things outside of Himself because they are just. God can not, God need not seek after sanctity, holiness, or righteousness from things outside of Himself, and so not from the actions of men or angels. This is because His will is essentially holy and just, and the prime rule of holiness and justice, just as fire is naturally light, and flows upward, and the earth is heavy, and falls downward. The second assertion, then, that God says to reprobates, "Believe in Christ (who has not died for your salvation), and you shall be saved," is just and right; because His eternal and essentially just will has so enacted and decreed. Suppose natural reason speak against this, this is the deep and special mystery of the Gospel. God has commanded, hard and fast, all the reprobates of the visible church to believe this promise, "He that believes shall be saved:"** and yet, in God's decree and secret intention, there is no salvation at all decreed and intended to reprobates. And yet the command of God, being derived from His sovereign free-will, is most just, as is said in the first assertion. Third assertion: The righteous Lord has right over the reprobates and all reasonable creatures that violate His commandments. This is easy. Fourth assertion: The faith that God requires of reprobates, is, that they rely upon Christ, as despairing of their own righteousness, leaning wholly, and withal humbly, as weary and laden, upon Christ, as on the resting-stone laid in Zion **. But He seeks not that, without being weary of their sin, they rely upon Christ, as mankind's Saviour; for to rely on Christ, and not to be weary of sin, is presumption, not faith. Faith is ever neighbour to a contrite spirit; and it is impossible that faith can be where there is not a cast-down and contrite heart, in some measure, for sin. Now it is certain, that God commands no man to presume. Fifth assertion: Then reprobates are not absolutely obliged to believe that Christ died for them in particular. For, in truth, neither reprobates nor others are obliged to believe a lie; only, they are obliged to believe that Christ died for them, if they be first weary**, burdened, sin-sick, and condemned in their own consciences, and stricken dead and killed with the Law's sentence, and have indeed embraced Him as offered; which is a second and subsequent act of faith, following after a coming to Him and a closing with Him. Sixth assertion: Reprobates are not formally guilty of contempt of God, and misbelief, because they apply not Christ and the promises of the Gospel to themselves in particular; for so they should be guilty because they believe not a lie, which God never obliged them to believe. Seventh assertion: Justice has a right to punish reprobates, because out of pride of heart, confiding in their own righteousness, they rely not upon Christ as a Saviour of all them that come to Him. This God may justly oblige them unto, because in Adam they had perfect ability to do; and men are guilty because they love their own inability, and rest upon themselves, and refuse to deny their own righteousness, and to take them to Christ, in whom there is righteousness for wearied sinners. Eighth assertion: It is one thing to rely, lean, and rest upon Christ, in humility and weariness of spirit, and denying our own righteousness, believing Him to be the only righteousness of wearied sinners; and it is another thing to believe that Christ died for me, John, Thomas, Anna, upon an intention and decree to save us by name. For, 1st, The first goes first, the latter is always after in due order; 2ndly, The first is faith, the second is a fruit of faith; and, 3rdly, The first obliges reprobates and all men in the visible church, the latter obliges only the weary and laden, and so only the elect and effectually called of God. Ninth assertion: It is a useless order; "I know not if Christ died for me, John, Thomas, Anna, by name; and, therefore, I dare not rely on Him." The reason is, because it is not faith to believe God's intention and decree of election at the first, before you are wearied of sin. Look first to your intention and soul. If you find sin a burden, and can and do rest, under that burden, upon Christ; if this be once, now come and believe in particular, or rather apply according to your experience (for, in my judgment, it is afruit of belief, not belief), and feeling the goodwill, intention, and gracious purpose of God concerning your salvation. Hence, because there is malice in reprobates, and contempt of Christ, guilty they are, and justice has law against them, and (which is the mystery) they cannot come up to Christ, because He died not for them. But their sin is, that they love their inability to come to Christ; and he who loves his chains, deserves his chains. And thus in short. Remember my bonds.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S.R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7. 1637.
https://www.puritansermons.com/
Ezekiel 24:16King James Version (KJV)
16 Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down.
Song of Solomon 1:13King James Version (KJV)
13 A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.
Isaiah 54:4-5King James Version (KJV)
4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.
5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
Joel 1:8King James Version (KJV)
8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
2 Corinthians 6:8-10King James Version (KJV)
8 By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;
9 As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;
10 As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
Revelation 7:9King James Version (KJV)
9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
Jude 21King James Version (KJV)
21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Luke 21:28King James Version (KJV)
28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4King James Version (KJV)
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
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