088. LXXXIX.—To my Well-beloved and Reverend Brother, MR. ROBERT BLAIR

LXXXIX.—To my Well-beloved and Reverend Brother, MR. ROBERT BLAIR

[MR. ROBERT BLAIR was born at Irvine in 1593. After completing his education at the College of Glasgow, he there held for several years the office of regent, during which time he was licensed as a probationer for the holy ministry. Having a strong desire to go to France, he was encouraged to this by M. Basnage, a French Protestant minister who visited Scotland in 1622. But Providence ordered his lot otherwise. He was induced to accept of the charge of Bangor, in Ireland, and was admitted in the year 1623. Here he laboured with great diligence and success; and there being in the same part of the country several other devout ministers, by mutual co-operation, they were instrumental in producing in the north of Ireland a change upon an ignorant and irreligious people, much resembling the effects of the preaching of the Gospel in the apostolic age. But this good work was not allowed to go on unopposed. In the autumn of 1631 he was suspended from his ministry by the Bishop of Down; in May 1632 he was deposed; and in November 1634 solemnly excommunicated; and all this simply for nonconformity. In these circumstances, he and some other ministers similarly situated, together with a considerable number of people, formed the purpose of going to New England, and actually embarked in 1636; but the tempestuous state of the weather forced them to return. He then came over to Scotland, and in 1638 became minister of Ayr, from which by a sentence of the General Assembly he was soon translated to St. Andrews, where he and Rutherford lived in the warmest friendship until the rise of the controversy between the Resolutioners and Protesters, which in some degree disturbed their mutual good understanding. Rutherford was a strong Protester: Blair regretted the extremes, as he conceived, to which both parties went; and, with Mr. James Durham of Glasgow, endeavoured to restore harmony between them, but without success. In 1661 he was summoned before the Privy Council for a sermon he had preached, in which he bore testimony to the covenanted Reformation, as well as against the defections of the times. He was sentenced to be confined to his own house, but afterwards permitted to retire to Musselburgh. He next removed to Kirkcaldy, and from thence to Meikle Couston, in the parish of Aberdour, where he died on the 27th of April 1666. (See Life of Robert Blair, issued by the Wodrow Society, 1848.)] (GOD’S ARRANGEMENTS SOMETIMES MYSTERIOUS.)

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be unto you.

It is no great wonder, my dear brother, that ye be in heaviness for a season, and that God’s will (in crossing your design and desires to dwell amongst a people whose God is the Lord) should move you. I deny not but ye have cause to inquire what His providence speaketh in this to you; but God’s directing and commanding Will can by no good logic be concluded from events of providence. The Lord sent Paul on many errands for the spreading of His Gospel, where he found lions in his way. A promise was made to His people of the Holy Land, and yet many nations were in the way, fighting against, and ready to kill them that had the promise, or to keep them from possessing that good land which the Lord their God had given them. I know that ye have most to do with submission of spirit; but I persuade myself that ye have learned, in every condition wherein ye are cast, therein to be content, and to say, "Good is the will of the Lord, let it be done." I believe that the Lord tacketh His ship often to fetch the wind, and that He purposeth to bring mercy out of your sufferings and silence, which (I know from mine own experience) is grievous to you. Seeing that He knoweth our willing mind to serve Him, our wages and stipend is running to the fore with our God, even as some sick soldiers get pay, when they are bedfast and not able to go to the field with others. "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength" (Isaiah 49:5). And we are to believe it shall be thus ere all the play be played. "The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon" (and the great whore’s lovers), "shall the inhabitants of Zion say; and my blood be upon Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say." And, "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: they that burden themselves with it shall be broken in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." When they have eaten and swallowed us up, they shall be sick and vomit us out living men again; the devil’s stomach cannot digest the Church of God. Suffering is the other half of our ministry, howbeit the hardest; for we would be content that our King Jesus should make an open proclamation, and cry down crosses, and cry up joy, gladness, ease, honour, and peace. But it must not be so; through many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God. Not only by them, but through them, must we go; and wiles will not take us past the cross. It is folly to think to steal to heaven with a whole skin. For myself, I am here a prisoner confined in Aberdeen, threatened to be removed to Caithness, because I desire to edify in this town; and am openly preached against in the pulpits in my hearing, and tempted with disputations by the doctors, especially by D. B. Yet I am not ashamed of the Lord Jesus, His garland, and His crown. I would not exchange my weeping with the painted laughter of the fourteen prelates. At my first coming here I took the dorts at Christ, and would, forsooth, summon Him for unkindness. I sought a plea of my Lord, and was tossed with challenges whether He loved me or not; and disputed over again all that He had done to me, because His word was a fire shut up in my bowels, and I was weary with forbearing, because I said I was cast out of the Lord’s inheritance. But now I see that I was a fool. My Lord miskent all, and did bear with my foolish jealousies; and miskent that ever I wronged His love. And now He has come again with mercy under His wings. I pass from my (oh witless!) summons: He is God, I see, and I am man. Now it hath pleased Him to renew His love to my soul, and to dawt His poor prisoner. Therefore, dear brother, help me to praise and show the Lord’s people with you what He hath done to my soul, that they may pray and praise. And I charge you in the name of Christ, not to omit it. For this cause I write to you, that my sufferings may glorify my royal King, and edify His Church in Ireland. He knoweth how one of Christ’s love coals hath burnt my soul with a desire to have my bonds to preach His glory, whose cross I now bear. God forgive you if you do it not; but I hope the Lord will move your heart, to proclaim in my behalf the sweetness, excellency, and glory of my royal King. It is but our soft flesh that hath raised a slander on the Cross of Christ: I see now the white side of it; my Lord’s chains are all over-gilded. Oh, if Scotland and Ireland had part of my feast! And yet I get not my meat but with many strokes. There are none here to whom I can speak; I dwell in Kedar’s tents. Refresh me with a letter from you. Few know what is betwixt Christ and me.

Dear brother, upon my salvation, this is His truth that we suffer for. Christ would not seal a blank charter to souls. Courage, courage! joy, joy for evermore! Oh, joy unspeakable and glorious! O for help to set my crowned King on high! O for love to Him who is altogether lovely,—that love which many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown!

I remember you, and bear your name on my breast to Christ I beseech you, forget not His afflicted prisoner. Grace, mercy, and peace be with you. Salute in the Lord, from me, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Livingstone, Mr. Ridge, Mr. Colwart,2 &c. Your brother, and fellow-prisoner,

S. R.

ABERDEEN, Feb. 7, 1637.