Letters of Samuel Rutherford: (Third Edition)Rutherford, Samuel
Religion
Letters of Samuel Rutherford: (Third Edition)
Rutherford, Samuel
Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-1661 -- Correspondence
infidelity, that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's
house (Rev. iii. 12). Madam, what think ye to take binding with the
fair corner-stone Jesus? The Lord give you wisdom to believe and hope
your day is coming. I hope to be witness of your joy, as I have been a
hearer and beholder of your grief. Think ye much to follow the heir of
the crown, who had experience of sorrows, and was acquainted with
grief? (Isa. liii. 3). It were pride to aim to be above the King's
Son: it is more than we deserve, that we are _equals_ in glory, in a
manner. Now commending you to the dearest grace and mercy of God, I
rest
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,
S. R.
ANWOTH, _Jan. 4, 1632_.
XXI.--_To my_ LADY KENMURE.
(_SELF-DENIAL--HOPE OF CHRIST'S COMING--LOVING GOD FOR HIMSELF._)
MADAM,--Understanding (a little after the writing of my last letter)
of the going of this bearer, I would not omit the opportunity of
remembering your Ladyship, still harping upon that string, which in
our whole lifetime is never too often touched upon (nor is our lesson
well enough learned), that there is a necessity of advancing in the
way to the kingdom of God, of the contempt of the world, of denying
ourself and bearing of our Lord's cross, which is no less needful for
us than daily food. And among many marks that we are on this journey,
and under sail toward heaven, this is one, when the love of God so
filleth our hearts, that we forget to love, and care not much for the
having, or wanting of, other things; as one extreme heat burneth out
another. By this, Madam, ye know, ye have betrothed your soul in
marriage to Christ, when ye do make but small reckoning of all other
suitors or wooers; and when ye can (having little in hand, but much in
hope) live as a young heir, during the time of his non-age and
minority, being content to be as hardly handled and under as precise a
reckoning as servants, because his hope is upon the inheritance. For
this cause God's bairns take well with spoiling of their goods,
knowing in themselves that they have in heaven a better and an
enduring substance (Heb. x. 34). That day that the earth and the works
therein shall be burned with fire (2 Pet. iii. 10), your hidden hope
and your life shall appear. And therefore, since ye have not now many
years to your endless eternity, and know not how soon the sky above
your head will rive, and the Son of man will be seen in the clouds of
heaven, what better and wiser course can ye take, than to think that
your one foot is here, and your other foot in the life to come, and to
leave off loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants that shall be
made up when your Lord and ye shall meet, and when ye shall give in
your bill, that day, of all your wants here? If your losses be not
made up, ye have place to challenge the Almighty; but it shall not be
so. Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and
your joy shall none take from you (1 Pet. i. 8; John xvi. 22). It is
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