Joshua Redivivus, or Mr. Rutherford's Letters

My Dear Brother.

Grace, mercy & peace be multiplied upon you: I am almost wearying, yea wondering that ye write not to me; though I know it is not forgetfulness. As for my self, I am every way well, all glory to God: I was before at a plea with Christ, but it was bought by me & unlawful; because his whose providence was not yea & nay to my yea & nay, & because I believed Christ's outward look better then his faithful promise: Yet he hath in patience waited on, while I be come to my self, & hath not taken advantage of my weak apprehensions of his goodness: Great & holy is his name: He looketh to what I desire to be, & not to what I am. One thing I have learned, If I had been in Christ by way of adhesion only, as many branches are, I should have been burnt to ashes, & this ⟨p. 177⟩world should have seen a suffering minister of Christ turned (of something once in show] into unsavoury salt. But my Lord Jesus had a good eye that the tempter should not play foul play, & blow out Christ's candle; he took no thought of my stomach, & fretting & grudging humour, but of his own grace: when he burnt the house he saved his own goods: And I believe, the devil & the persecuting world shall reap no fruit of me, but burnt ashes: for he will see to his own gold, & save that from being consumed with the fire. O what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! Who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goeth through his mill & his oven, to be made bread for his own table: Grace tried is better then grace, & it is more then grace, it is glory in it's infancy. I now see, godliness is more then the out-side & this world's passements & their buskings: Who knoweth the truth of grace without a trial? O how little getteth Christ of us, but that which he winneth, [to speak so] with much toil & pains! And how soon would faith frieze without a cross! How many dumb crosses have been laid upon my back, that had never a tongue to speak the sweetness of Christ, as this hath? when Christ blesseth his own crosses with a tongue, they breath out Christ's love, wisdom, kindness & care of us. Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know he is no idle husbandman, he purposeth a crop.