A57970:1329
Joshua Redivivus, or Mr. Rutherford's Letters
Joshua redivivus, or, Mr. Rutherford's letters divided into two parts, the first, containing these which were written from Aberdeen, where he was confined by a sentence of the high commission ... partly on account of his non-conformance : the second, containing some which were written from Anwoth ... / now published for the use of all the people of God ... by a well-wisher to the work & people of God.Joshua redivivus, or, Mr. Rutherfoord's letters divided into two parts, the first, containing these which were written from Aberdeen, where he was confined by a sentence of the high commission ... partly on account of his non-conformance : the second, containing some which were written from Anwoth ... / now published for the use of all the people of God ... by a wellwisher to the work & people of God.
Rotterdam? : s.n., 1664
Part 2 › Letter 33: To his very dear friend JOHN FENNICK. (33)
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Much honoured & dear friend.
Grace, mercy & peace be to you: The necessary impediments of my calling have hitherto kept me from making a return to your letter, the heads whereof I shall now briefly answer. As. 1. I approve your going to the fountain, when your own Cistern is dry: A difference there must be betwixt Christ's well & your borrowed water, & why but ye have need of emptiness & drying up, aswell as ye have need of the well? want & a hole there must be in our vessel, to leave room to Christ's art; his well hath it's own need of thirsty drinkers, to commend infinite love, which from eternity did brew such a cellar of living waters for us. Ye commend his free love; & it's well done: Oh if I could help you, & if I could be master-convener to gather an earth-full & an heaven-full of tongues dipped and steeped in my Lord's well of love or his wine of love, even tongues drunken with his love, to raise a song of praises to him, betwixt the East & West-end & furthest points of the broad heavens! If I were in your case [as alas! my dry & dead heart is not now in that garden] I would borrow leave to come & stand ⟨p. 505⟩upon the banks & coasts of that sea of love, & be a feasted soul to see Love's fair tide, free Love's high and lofty waves, each of them higher then ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost clay: O welcome, welcome, great sea! O if I had as much love for wideness and breadth, as twenty outmost shells and spheres of the heaven of heavens, that I might receive in a little flood of his free love! Come, come, dear Friend, & be pained that the King's wine-cellar of free love & his banqueting house [O so wide, so stately! O so God-like, so glory-like!] should be so abundant, so overflowing, & your shallow vessel so little to take in some part of that love: but since it cannot come in you for want of room, enter your self in this sea of love, & breath under these waters, & die of love, & live as one dead & drowned of this Love. But why do ye complain of waters going over your soul, & that the smoke of the terrors of a wrathful Lord, doeth almost suffocate you & bring you to death's brink? I know the fault is in your eyes, not in him; its not the rock that fleeth & moveth, but the green sailor: