Thursday, May 02, 2019

Rutherford Revised (125)

125. To the Lady Forret     From Aberdeen 9 Mar 1637

Worthy Mistress, - Grace, mercy and peace be to you. I long to hear from you. I hear that Christ has been so kind as to visit you with sickness, and to bring you to the door of the grave: but you found the door shut (blessed be his glorious name!) until you are riper for eternity. He wants more service from you; and therefore, He wants you in future to be honest with your new husband, the Son of God.We all love idols, and are unfaithfully inclined to love other things beside our Lord; and therefore, our Lord looks for our love in more ways than one or two. O that Christ had what is His from us! I know He will not lack your love and His love is sweetly deliberate: and you have reason to be headstrong and sudden in your love fr Christ and not to split nor divide your love between Him and the world. If it was more it would be little enough. yes, too little for Christ.
   My relationship with Christ is now good. He has made an exiled prisoner like a seal on His heart and as a bracelet on his arm. That twisted and black tree, the cross, laughs at me now: the alarming thought of the cross is worse than the cross itself. I love Christ's frowns more than the world's worm eaten joys. Oh, if all the country was like me except for this imprisonment! My loss is gain; my sadness joyful; my imprisonment freedom; my tears comfortable. This world is not worth a drink of cold water. Oh, but Christ's love sheds a great heat! Hell and all the salt sea and all the earth's rivers cannot quench it,
   I remember you to God; you have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.
   Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,     S.R.

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