Rutherford Revised (195)

195. To Lady Largirie              From Aberdeen 1637

( The wife of the proprietor of Castermadie in the parish of Twynholm near Kirkcudbright)

Mistress, - Grace ,mercy and peace be to you. I encourage you in the Lord, to go on in your journey to heaven; and to be content with whatever provisions on the road which Christ and His followers have left for you; for they always had the wind in their faces, and the Lord has not changed the way for us to make it easier, but still wants us to follow our sweet guide. Alas, how sin does hamper us in our journey, and hold us up! What fools we are to have something else good, or any other love, or partner for our souls, apart from Christ! It would be best for us, like bad children, to be heard only at home, and to seek our own home, and to sell our hopes of this little clay inn and idol, the earth, where we do not have a good summer nor winter. Oh that are souls so struggle with love of this world, as to think of it as a traveller does of a drink of water which is not part of his treasure, but goes with use! For ten miles' journey makes the drink as nothing to him. Oh that we were quickly done with this world and quickly be rid of the love of it! But like a child cannot hold two apples in his little hand, but the one displaces the other, so neither can we be masters and lords of two loves. We would be blessed if we could make ourselves master of that invaluable treasure, the love of Christ; or rather let ourselves be mastered and subdued by Chist's love, so as Christ was our 'all things' and all other things as nothing and the trash of our delights. Oh let us be ready to travel at the time of our Lord's wind and tide call for us! Death is the last theft that will come without the sound of noise of footsteps, and take our souls away, and we will leave time and face eternity; and outward will put together the two sides of this earthly tent, and fold us, and lay us aside, as a man puts aside clothes at night, and put the one half of us in a house of clay, the dark grave, and the other half of us in heaven or hell. Seek to be found in peace by your Lord, and prepare for your leaving, and put your soul in order; for Christ will not add a nail width of time to our little hourglass.
   Pray for Zion and for me His prisoner, that He would be pleased to bring me among you again, full of Christ and weighted and loaded with the blessing of His Gospel.
   Grace, grace be with you.
      Yours, in his only Lord and Master,  S.R.