A57970:1506
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
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.
To my Lady KENMURE. [69]
MADAM.
I should be glad that the Lord would be pleased to lengthen our more time to you, that ye might yet before your eyes be shut, see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord, in reviving a now-swooning and crushed Land & Church. Though I was lately knocking at deaths gate, yet could I not get in, but was sent back for a time. It is well, if I could yet do any service to him; but ah what deadness lieth upon the spirit! & deadness breedeth distance from God. Madam, These many years the Lord hath let you see a clear difference betwixt these who serve God, […] love his name, & these who serve him not: & I judge ye look upon the way of Christ as the only best way, & that ye would not exchange Christ for the world's God, or their Mammon, ⟨p. 572⟩& that ye can give Christ a testimony of chief among ten thousand: True it is, that many of us have fallen from our first love; but Christ hath renewed his first love of our espousals to himself, & multiplied the seekers of God all the country over, even where Christ was scarce named, East & West & South & North, above the number that our fathers ever knew. But ah! Madam, what shall be done or said of many fallen stars, and many near to God, complying woefully and failing to the nearest shore? Yea, & we are consumed in the furnace but not melted, burnt but not purged, our dross is not removed, but our scum remains in us: & in the furnace we fret, we faint & [which is more strange] we slumber: The fire burneth round about us, & we lay it not to heart: Grey hairs are upon us & we know it not. It were now a desirable life to send away our love to heaven, & well becometh it us to wait on for the appointed change, yet so as we should be meditating thus, Is there a new world above the Sun & moon, & is there such a blessed company harping & singing Hallelujahs to the lamb up above? Why then are we taken with a vain life of sighing & sinning? O where is our wisdom that we sit still laughing, eating, sleeping prisoners, & do not pack up all our best things for the journey, desiring always to be clothed with our house from above, not made with hands! Ah, we savour not the things that are above, nor do we smell of glory ere we come thither, but we transact & agree with Time for a new lease of clay-mansions: Behold he cometh we sleep, & turn all the work of duties into a dispute of events for deliverance;