Joshua Redivivus, or Mr. Rutherford's Letters

I Received your La; letter from I. G. I thank our Lord, ye are as well, at least as one may be, who is not come home: it is a mercy in this stormy sea to get a second wind, for none of the saints get a first, but they must take the winds as the Lord of the seas causeth them to blow, & the Inn as the Lord & Master of the Inns hath ordered it: if contentment were here, heaven were not heaven: Who ever seek the world to be their bed, shall at best find it short & ill made, & a stone under their side to hold them waking rather then a soft pillow to sleep upon: Ye ought to bless your Lord that it is not worse: we live in a sea where many have suffered ship wrack, and have need that Christ sit at the helm of the ship: it is a mercy to win to heaven, though with much hard toil & heavy labour, & to take it by violence ill & well as it may be: better go swimming & wet through our waters, then drown by the way; especially now when Truth suffereth, & great men bid Christ sit lower & contract himself in less bounds, as if he took too much room. I expect our new Prelate shall try my sitting: I hang by a thread, but it is (if I may speak so] of Christ's spinning, there is no quarrel more honest or honourable, then to suffer for truth: but the worst is, that this Kirk is like to ⟨p. 472⟩sink, & all her lovers & friends stand afar off, none mourn with her & none mourn for her. But the Lord Jesus will not be put out of his conquest so soon in Scotland; it will be seen, the Kirk & Truth will rise again within three days, & Christ again shall ride upon his white horse, howbeit his horse seem now to stumble, yet he cannot fall: the fullness of Christ's harvest in the end of the earth is not yet come in. I speak not this because I would have it so, but upon better grounds then my naked liking: but enough of this sad subject. I long to be fully assured of your La: welfare & that your soul prospereth, especially now in your solitary life, when your comforts outward are few, & when Christ hath you for the very uptaking. I know, his love to you is still running over, & his love hath not so bad a memory as to forget you, & your dear child, who hath two fathers in heaven, the one the Ancient of days: I trust in his mercy, he hath something laid up for him above, however it may go with him here, I know it is long since your La: saw this world turned your step-mother & did forsake you.