Rutherford Revised (138)

138. Mr Hugh Henderson             From Aberdeen 13 Mar 1637

( Minister of Dalry. In 1643 he was one of the ministers sent by the General Assembly to visit Ireland to support Presbyterians who had been deprived of ministers by the bishops. In 1648 he was minister in Dumfries but he and all the ministers of that presbytery were taken to Edinburgh charged with refusing to preach in commemoration of Charles II's restoration. He was ejected from his pastorate in 1662 for refusing to conform to episcopacy.)

My reverend and dear brother, - I hear you carry the mark's of Christ's dying, and your brothers have thrown you out for your Master's sake. Let us wait until the evening, until our reckoning in black and white comes before our Master. Brother, since we must have a devil to trouble us, I love a raging devil best. Out Lord knows what kind of a devil we need: it is best that Satan be in his own skin and look like himself. Christ weeping looks like Himself too, to whom Scribes and Pharisees were saying yes and no, full of sharp contradictions.
   You have heard of the patience of Job. When he lay in the ashes, God was with him, touching and curing his scabs, and lancing his boils, comforting his soul; and He took him up in the end. That God is not yet dead; He will bend down and take up his fallen children. He has splinted many broken legs since Adam's time, and He has refreshed many weary hearts. Why? No-one comes away thirsty from David's well. Let us go with the others, and lower down our empty buckets into Christ's ocean, and suck comforts from Him. We are not so badly troubled that we cannot fill Chrit's hall with weeping. We have not yet received our answer from Him. Let us store our broken requests until the day Christ comes. We will not until then be even with this world: they would take our clothes from us; but let us hold though they pull.
   Brother, it is a strange world if we cannot laugh. I never saw anything like the contempt shown to the Son of God, saying, 'the man has been soundly beaten'. We must be like those who show a blood stained cloth to the Magistrate and let him see blood;we must take our wrongs to our Judge, and let Him see our bloody wounded faces. Prisoners of hope must run to Christ with the marks the tears have made in their cheeks.
   Brother, as to myself, I am for the present Christ's favoured one; and I do not live on empty nut shells as we used to say. He has opened for me fountains in the desert. Go and look to my Lord Jesus: His love to me is such that I defy the world to find either top nor bottom to it. Grace be with you.
   Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus,  S.R.