Samuel Rutherford imparting some pastoral balm of Gilead (Letters, pp. 588-589):
Ye doubt, from 2 Cor. 13:5, whether ye be in Christ or not? and so, whether you are a reprobate or not? I answer three things to the doubt.—1. Ye owe charity to all men, but most of all to lovely and loving Jesus, and some also to yourself; especially to your renewed self, because your new self is not yours, but another Lord’s, even the work of His own Spirit. Therefore, to slander His work is to wrong Himself. Love thinketh no evil: if ye love grace, think not ill of grace in yourself. And ye think ill of grace in yourself when ye make it but a bastard and a work of nature; for a holy fear that ye be not Christ’s, and withal a care and a desire to be His, and not your own, is not, nay cannot be, bastard nature. The great Advocate pleadeth hard for you; be upon the Advocate’s side, O poor feared client of Christ! Stay, and side with such a Lover, who pleadeth for no other man’s goods than His own; for He (if I may say so) scorneth to be enriched with unjust conquest. And yet He pleadeth for you, whereof your letter (though too, too full of jealousy) is a proof. For, if ye were not His, your thoughts (which, I hope, are but the suggestions of His Spirit, that only bringeth the matter into debate to make it sure to you) would not be such, nor so serious as these, “Am I His?” or “Whose am I?”
