A57970:742
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 ROBERT GORDON. Bailiff of Ayr. (135)
To ROBERT GORDON. Bailiffe of Ayr. (135)
Worthy Sir.
Grace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you. Our Lord is with his afflicted Kirk, so that this burning bush is not consumed to ashes. I know submissive on-waiting for the Lord shall at length ripen the joy & deliverance of his own, who are truly blessed on-waiters: What is the dry & miscarrying hope of all them who are not in Christ, but confusion & wind? O how pitifully and miserably are the children of this world beguiled, whose wine cometh home to them water, & their gold brass & tin! And what wonder that hopes builded upon sand, ⟨p. 264⟩should fall & sink? It were good for us all to abandon the forlorn & blasted & withered hope we have had in the creature, & let us henceforth come & drink water out of our own well, even the fountain of living waters, & build our selves & our hope upon Christ our rock: But alas that natural love that we have to this borrowed home that we were born in, and that this clay-city, the vain earth, should have the largest share of of our heart! Our poor lean and empty dreams of confidence in some-thing beside God are no further travelled then up & down the naughty & feckless creatures. God may say of us, as he said, Amos 6: 13. Ye rejoice in a thing of noug•t. Surely we spin our spider's web with pain, and build our rotten and tottering house upon a lye and falsehood and vanity. O when will we learn to have thoughts higher then the sun and moon, and learn our joy, hope, confidence and our soul's desires to look up to our best country, and to look down to clay tents set up for a night's lodging or two, in this unknown land, & laugh at our childish conceptions & imaginations that suck our joy out of creatures, woe, sorrow, losses & grief. O sweetest Lord Jesus! O fairest Godhead! O flower of man & angels, why are we such strangers to, & far-off beholders of thy glory? O it were our happiness for evermore, that God would cast a pest, a botch, a leprosy upon our part of this great whore, a fair and well busked World, that clay might no longer deceive us! but O that God may burn and blast our Hope hereaway, rather then our Hope should live to burn us!