Rutherford Revised (200)

200. To Robert Gordon, Ballie of Ayr    From Aberdeen 1637

(See letter 129)

Worthy sir, - Grace mercy and peace be to you. I long to hear from you. Our Lord is with His troubled church so that this Burning Bush is not burned to ashes. I know that submissive waiting for the Lord will eventually ripen the joy and deliverance of His own, who are truly blessed in waiting. What is the dry and badly founded hope of those who are not in Christ, except confusion and wind? Oh, how pitifully and miserably are the children of this world led astray, whose wine comes to them as water, and their gold, brass and tin! It is no wonder that what is built on sand should fall and sink. It would be good for all of us to abandon the dead, blasted and withered hope which we have had in people; and from now on let us come and drink water from our own well, even the fountain of living waters, and build ourselves and our hope on Christ our Rock. But alas that that natural love which we have for this borrowed home in which we were born, and that this clay city, the vain earth, should have the major part of our heart! Our poor, lean and empty dreams of confidence in something besides God, that go no further than up and down the creatures that have nothing. God may say of us as He has said, 'Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought'(Am 6:13). Surely we painfully spin our spider's web, and build our rotten and falling house on a lie and falsehood and vanity.
   Oh, when will be learn to have thoughts higher than the sun and moon! And learn to look up to our best country for for our joy, hope confidence and soul's desires, and to look down to clay tents, set up for a night or two's rest in this wild land! And laugh at our childish thoughts and imaginations that suck our joy out of creatures - woe, sorrow, losses and grief! O sweetest Lord Jesus! O fairest Godhead! O Flower of men and angels! Why are we such strangers to, and lookers on from afar, of Your glory? Oh, it would be our happiness for evermore, if God would but a pest, a disfigurement, a leprosy on our part of the great prostitute, a fair , decorated world, that clay may no longer deceive us! But oh that God would blast and burn away our hope here, rather than our hope live to burn us! Alas, the wrong side of Christ(so to speak), His black side, His suffering  side, his wounds, His bare coat, His wants, His wrongs, the oppressions of men done to Him, are turned towards men's sight; and they do not see the best and fairest side of Christ, nor do they see His kind face and His beauty, at which man and angels wonder.
   Sir, give your thoughts to these things, and learn to condemn the world, and to turn your heart and eyes away from looking at the masked beauty of all things under the law of time and judgement. See Him who is invisible and His invisible things. Open the curtain and look with liking and longing to an undefiled kingdom that does not fade away, kept for you in the heaven. This is worthy of your efforts, and worthy of you r souls sweetening and working, and seeing for, night and day. Fire, destruction from the Almighty, will fly over the earth and all that is in it. Fy, fy on that hope which will dry up from the root! Fy on the drunken bargains at night, and the drunken and mad agreements that sinners make with death and hell after drinking, and when men's souls are mad and drunk with the love of this lawless life.They think they will make a nest for their hopes, and take room and agreement with hell and death, and they will have leisure, long life, peace; and in the morning when the last trumpet will wake them, then they regret the bargain. It is time and high time for you to think of death and your accounts, and to remember what you are, and where you will be before the year of ur old 1700. I hope you are thinking about this. Remove your soul and draw it away from the company it is with and around, and whisper into it news of eternity, death, judgement, heaven and hell. Grace, grace be with you.
   Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,  S.R.