Rutherford Revised (187)

187. To the Lady Gaitgirth  From Aberdeen 1637

(Lady Gaitgirth, Isabel Blair, was the wife of James Chalmers by whom she had ten children. Chalmers was Sherriff Principal of Ayrshire in 1632. In 1633 he was MP for Ayrshire. He was a Covenanter and in 1649 commanded a group of cavalry. His great grandfather had been zealous in the Reformation. Their home was above the river Ayr near Ochiltree with views of Arran)

Mistress, - Grace, mercy and peace be to you. I long to know how matters stand between Christ and you soul. I know you still find Him the longer the better; time cannot change him in His love. You may yourself ebb and flow, rise and fall, wax and wane; but your Lord is this day as he was yesterday. And it is your comfort that your salvation does not roll on wheels of your own making, neither do you have to do with a Christ of your own devising. God has singled out a Mediator (Ps 89:19), strong and mighty: if you and your loads were as heavy as ten hills or hells, He is able to carry you, and save you to the uttermost. Your often seeking to go to Him cannot make you a burden to Him. I know that Christ is compassionate to you, and moans for you in all your depression and down casting; but it is good for you that He sometimes hides Himself. It is not being hard to please, dry or cold in love that makes Christ withdraw and slip in under a curtain and a veil that you cannot see Him; but he knows you could not stand sails up, a fair gale, a full moon and a high spring tide of His love, and always a fair summer day and a summer sun of a felt and embracing Lord Jesus. His kisses and His visits to His dearest ones are sown thin. He could not let out His rivers of love on His own, for those rivers would be in danger of loosening a young plant at the root, and He knows this about you. You should therefore, postpone Christ's kindness, concerning its full manifestations until you and he are above the sun and moon. That is the country where you will be enlarged for that love which you are not now able to contain. 
   Put the care of your sweet babies on Christ, and lighten your hear by laying your everything on Him: He will be their God. I yet hope to see you up the mountain, glad in the salvation of God. Prepare yourself for Christ and do not frown on His cross. I find Him so sweet, that if I told my love to leave Christ, it would not obey me: His love has stronger fingers than to release its hold of us children, who cannot go on except held by Christ. It s good that we lack legs of our own, since we may borrow from Christ; and it our happiness that Christ is a surety for heave, and Christ is registered in heaven as the principal debtor for such poor bodies as us.
   I ask you to give the lord, your husband, thanks for caring for me, because he has appeared in public on behalf of a prisoner of Christ. I pray and write mercy and peace and blessings to him and his.
   Grace, grace be with you for ever.
      Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,  S.R.