Rutherford Revised (248)

248. To Margaret Reid    From Aberdeen

(Probably an Anwoth parishioner)

My very dear and worthy sister, - Grace mercy and peace be to you. You are truly blessed by the Lord, though a sour world frown has come on you, if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and not be moved away from the hope of the Gospel. It is good that there is a heaven, and it is not a dream or a fancy. It is amazing that men do not deny there is a heaven, as they deny there is a way to it except by men’s making. You have learned from Christ that there is a heaven: fight for it, and fight for Christ, Bear well and submissively the hard cross of this stepmother world, that God will not let be yours. I confess it hard, and I wish I could help you with your burden, but believe me, that this world (which the Lord will not let you have) is only the dross, the refuse, the scum of God’s creation. the share of the Lord’s hired servants; the movables, not the inheritance; a hard bone thrown to the dogs kept out of the New Jerusalem, on which they prefer to break their teeth rather than satisfy their appetite, It is your Father’s blessing and Christ’s birthright, that our Lord is keeping for you. And I also persuade you that your children will inherit the earth. (If that is good for them), for that is promised to them; Before you were born, crosses, in number, measure and weight, were written for you, and your Lord will lead you through them. Make Christ sure and the blessings of the earth will follow Him. I see many professors following on after a fashion, but they are professors of glass. I would make a little knock of persecution smash them in twenty pieces, and so the world would laugh at the fragments Therefore, make sure work. See that Christ lays the foundation stone of your profession; for wind and rain and floods will not wash away I building, His works have no short date but will last for evermore. I would have perished twenty times in my affliction, if I had not leaned my weak back, and laid my pressing burden, both, in the stone, the Foundations tone, the Cornerstone laid in Zion: and I never wan] to rise from this stone.

   Now the very God of peace, confirm and establish you until the day of the appearance of the blessed Christ, Jesus. God be with you.

   Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus,   S.R.

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