Letters of Samuel Rutherford: (Third Edition)Rutherford, Samuel
Religion
Letters of Samuel Rutherford: (Third Edition)
Rutherford, Samuel
Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-1661 -- Correspondence
WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER,--My love in Christ remembered. I have
sent to you your daughter Grizel with Robert Gordon, who came to fetch
her. I am in good hopes that the seed of God is in her, as in one born
of God; and God's seed will come to God's harvest. I have her promise
she shall be Christ's. For I have told her she may promise much in His
worthy name; for He becomes caution to His Father for all such as
resolve and promise to serve Him. I will remember her to God. I trust
you will acquaint her with good company, and be diligent to know with
whom she loveth to haunt. Remember Zion, and our necessities. I bless
your daughter from our Lord, and pray the Lord to give you joy and
comfort of her. Remember my love to your husband, to William and
Samuel your sons. The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Yours at all power in the Lord Jesus,
S. R.
ANWOTH, _June 6, 1627_.
II.--_To a Christian Gentlewoman on the death of her daughter._
(_CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH, AND PROPERTY IN US--REASONS FOR
RESIGNATION._)
MISTRESS,--My love in Christ remembered to you. I was indeed sorrowful
at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness
after your daughter's death. Yet I do persuade myself, ye know that
the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth
upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, "In all your afflictions
He is afflicted" (Isa lxiii. 9). O blessed Second who suffereth with
you! and glad may your soul be even to walk in the fiery furnace with
one like unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage! up
your heart! When ye do tire, He will bear both you and your burden
(Ps. lv. 22). Yet a little while and ye shall see the salvation of
God. Remember of what age your daughter was, and that just so long was
your lease of her. If she was eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old,
I know not; but sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your lease
run out, ye can no more justly quarrel your great Superior for taking
His own at His just term day, than a poor farmer can complain that his
master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is
expired. Good mistress, if ye would not be content that Christ would
hold from you the heavenly inheritance which is made yours by His
death, shall not that same Christ think hardly of you if ye refuse to
give Him your daughter willingly, who is a part of His inheritance and
conquest? I pray the Lord to give you all your own, and to grace you
with patience to give God His also. He is an ill debtor who payeth
that which he hath borrowed with a grudge. Indeed, that long loan of
such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ (as I
believe), deserveth more thanks at your Creditor's hands, than that ye
should gloom and murmur when He craveth but His own. I believe you
would judge them to be but thankless neighbours who would pay you a
sum of money after this manner. But what? Do you think her lost, when
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