Vol 16 - TO THE VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.

MR. RUTHERFOORD'S LETTERS.
TO THE VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE
MADAM,
I HAVE heard of your Ladyship's sickness, with grief; yet I trust ye have learned to say, " It is the LORD, let him do what seems good in his eyes.", It is now many years since the apostate Angels made a question, whether their will or the will of their Creator should be done; and, since that time, froward mankind has always in that suit compeered to plead with them against GOD, in re-pining against his will. But the LORD, being both party and judge, has obtained a decree, and says, (Isaiah 46:10,) " My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." It is then best for us, in the obedience of faith, and in a holy submission, to give that to GOD,’which the law of his almighty and just power will have of us. Therefore, Madam, your Lord, willeth you, in all states of life, to say, " Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." And herein shall ye have comfort, that He, who seeth perfectly through all your evils, and knows the frame and constitution of your nature, and what is most healthful for your soul, holdeth every cup of affliction to your head with his own gracious hand. Never believe that your tender-hearted SAVIOR will mix that cup with one dram of poison, Drink then with the patience of the saints; and the patience of GOD bless your physic! I hive! e d your Ladyship complain of deadness, and want of the power of the life of GOD; but courage! He who walked in the garden, and made a noise that made ADAM hear his voice, will also at some times walk in your soul, and make you hear a more sweet word. Yet ye will not always hear the noise of his feet when he walks: Ye are at such a time like JACOB mourning at the supposed death of JOSEPH, when JOSEPH was living. The image of the Second ADAM is living in you; and yet ye are mourning at the supposed death of the life of CHRIST in you. En It Al H is bemoaning and mourning, (Jeremiah 20:1-18 :xi.) when he thinketh GOD is far off; and heareth not; and yet GOD is like the Bridegroom, (Son_2:1-17 :) standing only behind a thin wall, and laying to his ear; for he says himself, (ver. 18,) " I have surely heard EPHRAIM bemoaning himself." I have good confidence, Madam, that CHRIST JESUS, whom your soul through forests and mountains is seeking, is within you: and yet I speak not this to lay a pillow under your head, or to dissuade you from a holy fear of the loss of CHRIST, or of provoking and stirring up the Beloved, before he please, by sin. I know, in spiritual confidence, the Devil will come in, as in all other good works, and so endeavor to bring you under a fearful sleep, till He whom your soul loves be departed from the door, and have left off knocking; and therefore, here the SPIRIT of GOD must hold your soul's feet in the golden mid-line between confident resting in the arms of CHRIST, and drowsy sleeping in the bed of fleshly security. There-fore, so count little of yourself; that ye count not also little of GOD in the course of his mercy. For there be many Christians, like young sailors, who think the shore and the whole land does move, when the ship and they themselves are moved: just so, not a few imagine that Goes moveth, and faileth, and changed: places, because their giddy souls are under sail, and subject to alteration; but " the foundation of the LORD abideth sure." God knows that ye are his own: wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray; and then ye have the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of CHRIST within you. Ye have now sickness before you; and after that, death; gather then food for the journey. GOD give you eyes to see through sickness and death, and to see something beyond death! I doubt not but if hell were between you and CHRIST, as a river which ye must cross before ye could come at him, but ye would willingly put in your foot, and make through to be at him, upon hope that he would come in himself; in the deepest of the river, and lend you his hand. Now I believe your hell is dried up, and ye have only these two shallow brooks, sickness and death, to pass through; and ye have also a promise that CHRIST shall do more than meet you, even that he shall come him-self and go with you foot for foot, yea, and bear you in his arms. O then! for the joy that is set before you, for the love of the Man (who is also a GOD over all, blessed for ever ") that is standing upon the shore to welcome you, run your race with patience. The Lon]) go with. you! Your LORD will not have you, nor any of his servants, to exchange for the worse. Death in itself includeth both the death of the soul, and the death of the body; but to GOD's children the bounds of death are abridged, and drawn into a more narrow compass: so that, when ye die, a piece of death shall only seize upon you, and that is the dissolution of the/body; for in CHRIST ye are delivered from the second death; and therefore, that serpent, sin, shall but eat your earthly part. As for your soul, it is above the law of death. Not willing to weary your Lady-ship further, I commend you, now and always, to the grace and mercy of that GOD, who is able to keep you, that ye fall not. The LORD JESUS be with your spirit!
Your Ladyship's servant
Anwoth,
At all dutiful obedience in CHRIST,
July 27, 1628. S. R.