must be taken with violence Your afternoon's sun is wearing low Time will eat up your frail life like a worm gnawing at the root of a May-flower Lend Christ your heart Set him as a seal there Take him in within let the world and children stand at the door they are not yours make you and them for your proper owner Christ It is good He is your husband and their father What missing can there be of a dying man when God filleth his chair Give hours of the day to prayer Fash Christ If I may speak so and importune him be often at his gate give his door no rest I can tell you he will be found O what sweet fellowship is betwixt him and me I am imprisoned but he is not imprisoned He hath shamed me with his kindness He hath come to my pâ—ison run away with my heart all my love Well may he brooke it I wish my love get never an owner but Christ Fy fy upon old lovers that held us so long asunder We shall not parr now He I shall be heard before he win out of my grips I resolve to wrestle with Christ ere I quite him But my love to him hath casten my soul in a fever there is no cooling of my fever till I get râ—all possession of Christ O strong strong love of Jesus thou hast wounded my heart with thine arrows O pain O pain of love ioâ— Christ Who will help me to praise Let me have your prayers Grace be with you Aberd. March 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To GRISSAL FULLERTON 176 Dear Sister I Exhorr you in the Lord to seek your one thing Marie's good part that shall not be taken from you Set your heart soul on the Childrens inheritance This clay-idol the world is but for Bastards ye are his lawfull begotten childe Learn the way as your dear mother hath hath gone before you to knock at Christ's door Many an almes of mercy hath Christ given to Her hath abundance behinde to give to you Ye are the seed of the faithfull born within the Covenant claim your right I would not exchange Christ Jesus for ten worlds of glory I know now blessed be my teacher how to shut the lock unbolt my welbeloved's door he maketh a poor stanger welcome when he cometh to his house I am swelled up satisfied with the love of Christ that is better then wine It is a fire in my soul let hell the world cast water on it they will not mend themselves I have now gotten the right gate of Christ I recommend him to you above all things Come finde the smell of his breath See if his kisses be not sweet He desireth no better then to be much made of Be homely with him ye shall be the more welcome Ye know not how fain Christ would have all your love Think not this is imaginations bairns-play we make din for I would not suffer for it if it were so I dare pawnd my heaven for it that it is the way to glory Think much of truth abhorre these wayes devised by men in God's worship The Grace of Christ be with you Aberd. March 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To PATRICK CARSEN 177 Dear loving friend I Cannot but upon the opportunity of a bearer exhort you to reâ—gnâ— the love of your youth to Christ in this day while your sun is high and your youth serveth you to seek the Lord and his face for there is nothing out of heaven so necessary for you as Christ And ye cannot be ignorant but your day will end the night of death will call you from the pleasures of this life a doom given out in death standeth for ever as long as God liveth Youth ordinarily is a Post ready servant for Satan to run errands for it is a nest for lust cursing drunkenness blaspheming of God lying pride vanitie O that there were such an heart in you as to fear the Lord to dedicate your soul body to his service When the time cometh that your eye-strings shall break your face wax pale and legs arms tremâ—le your breath grow cold your poor soul look out at youâ— prison-housâ— of clay to be set at liberty then a good conscience your Lord's favour shall be worth all the world's glory Seek it as your garland crown Grace be with you Aberd. March 14. 1636. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN CARSEN 178 My welbeloved dear friend EVery one â—eeketh not God far fewer finde him because they seek amiss He is to be sought for above all things if men would finde what they seek Let feathers shadows alone to children goe seek your welbeloved Your onely errand to the world is to wooe Christ therefore put other lovers from about his house let Christ have all your love without miniching or dividing it It is little enough if there were more of it The serving of the world sin hath but a base reward smoke in stead of pleatures but a night-dream for true case to the soul Goe where ye will your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom Come in to him lie down rest you on the slain Son of God enquire for him I sought him now a fig for all the worm-eaten pleasures moth-eaten glory out of heaven since I have found him in him all I can want or â—ish He hath made me a King over the world Princes cannot overcome me Christ hath given me the marriage-kiss he hath my maâ—â—ing love We have made up a full bargain that shall not goe back on either side O if ye and all in that countrey knew what sweet terms of mercy are betwixt him me Grace be with you Aberd. March 11. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lady BOYD. 179 MADAM I Would have written to your La ere now but peoples beleeving there is in me that which I know there is not hath put me out of love with writing to any for it is easie to put religion to a market publick fair but alas it is not so soon made eye-sweet for Christ My Lord seeth me a tired man far behinde I have gotten much love from Christ but I give him little or none again My whiteside cometh out in paper to men but at home within I finde much black work great cause of a low sail of little boasting yet Howbeit I see challenges to be true the manner of the Tempter's pressing of them is unhonest in my own thoughts knavish-like My peace is that Christ may finde sale â—uting of his wares in the like of me I mean for saving grace I wish all professors to fall in love with Grace All ouâ— songs should be of his free-Grace We are
hand of God Stir up your husband to minde his own countrey at home Counsel him to deal mercifully with the poor people of God under him They are Christ's not his therefore desire him to shew them mercifull dealing kindness to be good to their souls I desire you to write to me It may be that my Parish forget me but my witness is in heaven I dow not I doe not forget them They' are my sighes in the night my tears in the day I think my self like an husband plucked from the wife of his youth O Lord be my Judge what joy it would be to my soul to hear that my ministery hath left the Son of God among them that they are walking in Christ Remember my love to your Son and Daughtre Desire them from me to seek the Lord in their youth and to give him the morning of their dayes Acquaint them with the word of God prayer Grace be with you Pray for the prisoner of Christ In my heart I forget you not Aberd. March 6. 1637. Your lawfull loving Pastor in his onely Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr. JAMES HAMILTON 181 Reverend dearly beloved in our Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you Our acquaintance is neither in bodily presence nor in paper but as sons of the same father sufferers for the same truth Let no man doubt but the state of our question we are now forced to stand to by suffering exile imprisonment is If Iesus should reign over his Kirk or not Oh if my sinfull arm could hold the crown on his head howbeit it should be striken off from the shoulder-blade For your ensuing feared trial my very dearest in our Lord Iesus Alas what am I to speak to comfort a souldier of Christ who hath done an hundred times more for that worthy honourable cause then I can doe But I know these whom the world was not worthy of wandered up down in deserts in mountains in dens caves of the earth that while there is one member of mystical Christ out of heaven that member must suffer strokes till our Lord Jesus draw in that member within the gates of the new Ierusalem which he will not fail to doe at last for not one toe or finger of that body but it shall be take in within the city What can be our part in this pitched battel betwixt the Lamb the Dragon But to receive the darts in patience that rebound off us on upon our sweet Master or rather light first upon him then rebound off him upon his servants I think it a sweet North-wind that bloweth first upon the fair face of the chief among ten thousand then lighteth upon our sinfull black faces When once the wind bloweth off him upon me I think it hath a sweet smell of Christ so must besome more then a single cross I know ye have a guard about you your attendance train for your safety is far beyond your pursuers force or fraud It is good under feud to be near our war-house strong hold We can doe but little to resist them who persecut us oppose him but keep our blood our wounds to the next Court-day when our complaints will be read If this day be not Christ's I am sure the morrow shall be his As for any thing I doe in my bonds when now then a word falleth from me alas it is very little I am exceedingly grieved that any should conceive any thing to be in such a broken emptie reed let no man impute it to me that the free unbought wind for I gave nothing for it bloweth upon an empty reed I am his overburdened debter I cry down with me down down with all the excellency of the world up up with Christ Long long may that fair One that holy One be on high My curse be upon them that love him not O how glad would I be if his glory would grow out spring up out of my bonds sufferings Certainly since I became his prisoner he hath won the yolk heart of my soul Christ is even become a new Christ to me his love greener then it was now I strive no more with him his love shall carry it away I lay down my self under his love I desire to sing to cry to proclaim my self even under the water in his common eternally indebted to his kindness I will not offer to quite commons with him as we use to say for that will not be All all for evermore be Christ's What further trials are before me I know not but I know Christ will have a saved soul of me over on the other side of the water in the yonder side of crosses beyond mens wrongs I had but one eye that they have put out My one joy next to the flower of my joyes Christ was to preach my sweetest sweetest Master and the glory of his Kingdom and it seemed no cruelty to them to put out the poor man's one eye And now I am seeking about to see if suffering will speak my fair One's praises I am trying if a dumb man's tongue can raise one note or one of Zion's springs to advance my Welbeloved's glory Oh if he would make some glory to himself out of a dumb prisoner I goe with childe of his word I cannot be delivered none here will have my Master Alas What aileth them at him I bless you for your prayers adde to them praises As I am able I pay you home I commend your diving in Christ's Testament I would I could set out the dead man's goodwill to his friends in his sweet Testament Speak a prisoner 's hearty commendations to Christ fear not your ten dayes will over These that are gathered against mount Zion their eyes shall melt away in their eye-holes and their tongues consume away in their mouthes Christ's withered garden shall grow green again in Scotland My Lord Jesus hath a word hid in heaven for Scotland not yet brought out Grace be with you Aberd. July 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To MISTRESS STUART 182 MISTRESS GRace mercy peace be to you I am sorry that ye take it so hardly that I have not written to you I am judged to be that which I am not I fear if I were put in the fire I should melt away fall down in sheards of painted nature For truly I have little stuff at home that is worth the eye of God's servants If there be any thing of Christ's in me as I dare not deny some of his work it is but a spunk of borrowed fire that can scarce warm my self hath little heat for standers by I would sain have that which ye and others beleeve I have but ye are onely witnesses to my utter side and to some words in paper Oh that he would give me
to be carried in Christ's arms out of this borrowed prison Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the â—aird of CARLETOUN 207 Worthy Six GRace mercy and peace be to you I received your letter am heartily glad that our Lord hath begun to work for the apparent delivery of this poor oppressed Kirk O that salvation would come for Zion I am for the present hanging by hope waiting what my Lord will doe with me if it will please my sweet Master to send me amongst you again keep out a hireling from my poor people flock It were my heaven till I come home even to spend this liâ—e in gathering in some to Christ. I have still great heaviness for my silence my forced standing idle in the market when this land hath such a plentifull thick harvest but I know his judgements who hath done it pass fiâ—…ding out I have no nowledge to take up the Lord in all his strange wayes 〈◊〉 pâ—ssages of deep unsearchable providences for the Lord is bâ—fore me I am so be-misted that I cannot follow him He is behinde me and following at the heels and I am not aware of him he is above me but his glory so 〈◊〉 my twilight of short knowledge that I cannot look up to him He is upon my right hand and I see him no He is upon my left hand and within me and goeth and comâ—th his going coming are a drâ—aâ—… to me He is round about me compâ—…th â—l my goingâ— aâ—d still I have him to eek He is every way higher dâ—eper broadâ—r then the shallow ebbe hand-breadth of my shoâ—t dâ—… light can take up therefore I would my heart could be silent sit down in the learnedly-ignorant wondering at that Lord whom m n Angâ—ls caâ—not comprehend I know the noon-day-light of the highest Angels who see him face to face seeth not the borders of his infiniteness They apprehend God near hand but they cannot comprehend him And therefore it is my happiness to look afar off and to come near to the Lord's back parts to light my dark candle at his brightness to have leave to sit content my self with a traveller's light without the clear vision of an enjoyer I would seek no more till I were in my countrey but a little watering sprinkling of a withered soul with some half out breakin gs half-outlookings of the beam and small raviâ—hing smiles of the fairest face of a revealed beleeved on Godhead A little of God would make my soul bank-full O that I had but Christ's odde off fallings that he would let but the meanest of his love-rayes love-beams fall from him so as I might gather carry them with me I would not be ill to please with Christ and vailed visions of Christ neither would I be dainty in seeing and enjoying of him A kiss of Christ blowen over his shoulder the parings and crumbs of glory that fall under his table in heaven a shower like a thin May-mist of his love would make me green and sappy joyfull till the summer-sun of an eternall glory break up O that I had any thing of Christ O that I had a sip or half a drop out of the hollow of Christ's hand of the sweetness excellency of that lovely One O that my Lord Jesus would â—ue upon me give me but the meanest almes of felt beleeved salvation O how little were it for that infinite sea that infinite fountain of love joy to fill as many thousand thousand little vessels the like of me as there are minutes of hours since the creation of God! I finde it true that a poor soul finding half a smell of the Godhead of Christ hath desires paining wounding the poor heart so with longings to be up at him that make it sometimes think were it not better never to have felt any thing of Christ then thus to lie dying twenty deaths under these felt wounds for the want of him O where is he O fairest Where dwellest thou O never enough admired Godhead how can clay win up to thee How can creatures of yesterday be able to enjoy thee O what pain is it that time sin should be as so many thousand miles betwixt a loved longed-for Lord a dwining love-sick soul who would rather then all the world have lodging with Christ O let this bit love of ours this inch half span-length of heavenly longging meet with thy infinite love O if the little I have were swallowed up with the infiniteness of that excellency which is in Christ O that we little ones were in at the greatest Lord Jesus our wants should soon be swallowed up with his fulness Grace grace be with you Aberd. May. 1. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To ROBERT GORDON Of Knockbrex 208 Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you I received your letter from Edinburgh I would not wish to see another heaven whâ—â—e I get mine own heaven but a new moon like the light of the sun a new sun like the light of seven days shining upon my poor self the Church of Iews Gentiles upon my withered sun-burnt mother the Church of Scotland upon her sister Churches England Ireland to have this done to to the setting on high our great King it maketh not howbeit I were separate from Christ had a sense of ten thousand years pain in hell if this were O blessed Nobility O glorious renouned Gentry O blessed were the tribes in this land to wipe my Lord Jesus's weeping face to take the sackcloth off Christ's loins to put his kingly robes upon him O if the Almighty would take no less wager of me then my heaven to have it done But my fears are still for wrath once upon Scotland But I know her day shall clear up glory shall be upon the top of the mountains and joy at the noise of the married wife once again O that our Lord would make us to contend plead wrestle by prayers tears for our husband's restoring of his forfeited heritage in Scotland Dear Brother I am for the present in no small battel betwixt felt guiltiness and pining longings high fevers for my welbeloved's love Alas I think Christ's love playeth the niggard to me I know it is not for scarcity of love there is enough in him but my hunger prophesieth of in-holding and sparingness in Christ for I have but little of him and little of his sweetness It is a dear summer with me yet there is such joy in the eagerness working of hunger for Christ that I am often at this that if I had no other heaven but a continuall hunger for Christ such a heaven of ever-working hunger were still a heaven to me I am sure Christ's love cannot be cruel
not but goeth with even equal legs yet are they not the greatest sinners upon whom tower of Siloam fell was not time's lease expired the sand of heaven's sand-glass set by our Lord run out Is not he an unjust debter who payeth due debt with chiding I beleeve Christian Lady your faith leaveth that much charity to our Lord's judgements as to beleeve how beit ye be in blood sib to that cross that yet ye are exempted freed from the gall wrath that is in it I dare not deny but Iob. 18 15. the King of terrors dwelleth in the wicked man's tabernacle brimstone shall be scattered on his habitation yet Madam it is safe for you to live upon the faith of his love whose arrows are over-watered pointed with love mercy to his own who knoweth how to take you yours out of the roll book of the dead Our Lord hath not the eyes of flesh in distributing wrath to the thousand generation without exception Seeing ye are not under the Law but under Grace married to another husband Wrath is not the Court that ye are liable to As I would not wish neither doe I beleeve your La doeth despise so neither faint read spell aright all the words syllabes in the visitation miscall neither letter nor syllabe in it Come along with the Lord see lay no more weight upon the Law then your Christ hath laid upon it If the Law 's bill get an answer from Christ the curses of it can doe no more And I hope ye have resolved that if he should grind you to powder your dust powder shall beleeve his salvation And who can tell what thoughts of love peace our Lord hath to your children I trust he shall make them famous in excuting the written judgements upon the enemies of the Lord this honour have all his saints Psal. 149 9. that they shall bear stones on their shoulders for building that city that is called Ezek. 46 35. The Lord is there happy shall they be who have a hand in the sacking of Babel come out in the year of vengeance for the controversy of Zion against the land of graven images Therefore Madam let the Lord make out of your father's house any work even of judgement that he pleaseth What iâ— wrath to others is mercy to you your house It is Faith's work to claim and challenge loving kindness out of all the roughest strokes of God Doe that for the Lord which ye will doe for time time will calme your heart at that which God hath done let our Lord have it now What love ye did bear to friends now dead seeing they stand now in no need of it let it fall as just legacy to Christ. O how sweet to put out many strange lovers to put in Christ It is much for our half-slain affections to part with that which we beleeve we have right unto but the servant's will should be our will he is the best servant who retaineth least of his own will most of his Master's That much wisdom must be ascribed to our Lord that he knoweth how to lead his own in-through and out-through the little time-hells and the pieces of time-during wraths in this life yet keep safe his love without any blurre upon the old great seal of free Election And seeing his mountains of brass the mighty strong decrees of free grace in Christ stand sure the Covenant standeth fast for ever as the dayes of heaven let him strike nurture his striking must be a very act of saving seeing strokes upon his secret ones come from the soft heavenly hand of the Mediatour his rods are steeped watered in that flood river of love that cometh from the God-man's heart of our soul-loving soul-redeeming JESUS I hope ye are content to frist the Cautioner of mankinde his own conquest heaven till he pay it you bring you to a state of glory where he shall never crook a finger upon nor lift a hand to you again And be content withall greedily covetous of Grace the interest pledge of Glory If I did not beleeve your crop to be on the ground your part of that heaven of the saints heaven white ruddy fair fair beautifull Jesus were come to the bloom the flower near your hook I would not write this but seeing time ' threed is short ye are upon the entry of heaven's harvest Christ the field of heaven's glory is white ripe-like the losses that I write of to your La are but summer-showers that will onely wet your garments for an hour or two and the Sun of the new Ierusalem shall quickly dry the wet coat especially seeing rains of Affliction cannot stain the image of God or cause Grace cast the colour And since ye will not alter upon him who will not change upon you I durst in weakness think my self no spiritual Seer if I should not prophesie that day-light is neer when such a morning-darkness is upon you that this trial of your Christian minde towards him whom ye dare not leave howbeit he should slay you shall close with a doubled mercy It is time for faith to hold fast as much of Christ as ever ye had to make the grip stronger to cleave closer to him seeing Christ loveth to be beleeved in trusted to The glory of laying strength upon one that is mighty to save is more then we can think That piece of service of beleeving in a smiting Redeemer is a precious part of obedience O what glory to him to lay over the burden of our heaven upon him that purchased for us an eternal Kingdom O blessed soul who can adore kiss his lovely free Grace The rich grace of Christ be with your spirit St. Andrews Octob. 15. 1640. Yours at all obedience in Christ Iesus S. R. To AGNES MCMATH 38 Dear Sister IF our Lord hath taken away your childe your lease of him is expired seeing Christ would want him no longer it is your part to hold your peace worship adore the soveraignty liberty that the potter hath over the clay pieces of clay-nothings that he gave life unto And what is man to call summond the Almighty to his lower Court down here For he giveth account of none of his doings And if ye will take a loan of a childe give him back again to our Lord laughing as his borrowed goods should return to him beleeve he is not gone away but sent before that the change of the countrey should make you think he is not lost to you who is found to Christ that he is now before you that the dead in Christ shall be raised again A going down star is not annihilat but shall appeare again If he have casten his bloom flower the bloom is fallen
Hic Amor Christi decor hic coelestis et aulae Gloria depicta est horrida ira Dei. Ardua materies sublimibus apta cothurnis Hic tenui facilifusa legenda stylo est Lividus at voces si carpat Zoilus ullas Non Divina sapit Cor sine mente gerit Praesulibus celerem attulerant haec Scripta ruinam Impressa extremum praestituuntque diem READER Thou may possibly finde in some very few places one letter for an other as an n for an n c. or a transposition of two letters of a for a it may be also that the Chap. or verse be miscited but the words being insert will easily lead the to correct that mistake There was so much pains taken in overseeing the press to prevent misprinting that thou wilt scarce meet with any thing that will mar the sense yet these few though they be not very materiall I have set down to fill up this Page In the Epistle to the Reader P. 3. l. 14. for Minister r. Ministers p. 10. l. 26. a afraid r. afraid p. 16. l. 9. but dele but. p. 17 l. antipen to to r. to p. 25. l. 19. miserably r. miserable p. 32. l. 28. Arestotle r Aristotle In the Book P. 30. l. penult Isa. 45. r. 54 p. 60. l. 19. Act. 2. r. 1. p. 65. l. antip Isai. 51. r. 41. p. 116. l. penult is r. in p. 151 l. 1. Luk. 21. r. 22. p. 204. l. 8. for r. sort p. 282. l. ult bed r. bode p. 385. l. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 398. l. 19 eek r. seek p. 441. l. 28. you earnest r you an earnest p. 449. l. 33. Isa. 53. 9. r. ver 3. p. â—64 l. 28. Deut. 32. 30. r. v. 39. ibid. Job 〈◊〉 r. 5. p. 465. l. 32. harden r. Garden p. 483. l. 2. Col. 2. r. 〈◊〉 p. 491. l. 33. blinced r. blinded ibid. l. 35. grace r. grave p. 492. l. 18. your r. you p. 496. l. 1. yet this r. this ibid. l. 22. witten r. written ibid. l. 24 Lam. 3. 51. r. 56 p. 500. l. 34. I am 3. 36. r. 56. p. 516. l. 29. Ezek. 46. r. 48. p. 527. l. 4. Levit. 13. r. 10. p. 555. l. 26. dele To Mr ROBERT CUNYNGAME Minister of the Gospel at Holywood in Ireland Epist. 1. WElbeloved and reverend Brother grace mercy and peace be to you upon acquaintance in Christ I thought good to take the opportunity of writing to you seeing it hath seemed good to the Lord of the harvest to take the hooks out of our hands for a time and to lay upon us a more honourable service even to suffer for his name It were good to comfort one another in writing I have had a Desire to see you in the face yet now being the prisoner of Christ it is taken away I am greatly comforted to hear of your souldiers stately spirit for your princely and royall Captain Jesus our Lord and for the grace of god in the rest of our dear brethren with you you have heard of my trouble I suppose It hath pleased our sweet Lord Jesus to let loose the malice of these interdicted Lords in his house to deprive me of my Ministery at Anwoth and to confine me eight score miles from thence to Aberden and also which vvas not done to any before to inhibit me to speak at all in Jesus his name within this Kingdome under the paine of rebellion The cause that ripened their hatred was my book against the Arminians whereof they accused me these three Dayes I appeared before them But let our crowned king in Zion raigne by his grace the losse is theirs the advantage is Christs and truths albeit this honest crosse gained some ground on me by my heavniesse and inward Challenges of conscience for a time were sharpe yet now for the incouragment of you all I dare say it and write it under my hand welcome welcome sweet svveet Crosse of Christ I verely think the Chaines of my Lord Jesus are all overlaid with pure gold that his crosse is perfumed and that it smelleth of Christ that the Victorie shall be by the blood of the lamb and by the word of his truth and that Christ laying on his backe in his weake servants and oppressed truth shall ride over his enemies bellies and shall stricke through Kings in the day of his wrath It is time we laughe when he laugheth and seeing he is now pleased to sit with wrongs for a time it becometh us to be silent untill the Lord hath let the enemies enjoy their hungerie leane and fecklesse paradise Blessed are they who are content to take stroks with weeping Christ faith will trust the Lord and is not hastie nor head strong neither is faith so timorous as to flatter a tentation or to bud and bribe the crosse It is little up or little dovvn that the lamb and his followers can get no lavv-suitie nor truce with crosses it must be so till we be up in our fathers house my heart is woe indeed for my mother Church that hath plaid the harlot with many lovers her husband hath a mind to sell her for her horrible transgressions heavy will the hand of the Lord be upon this backsliding nation The wayes of our Zion mourne her gold is become dim her white Nazarites are blck like a coale how shall not the Children weep when the husband and the mother can not agree yet I beleeve Scotlands skie shall clear again that Christ shall build againe the old wast places of Jacob and that our dead and dry bones shall become ane army of living men that our beloved may yet feed among the lillies untill the day breake and the shaddows flee away My deare brother let us helpe one another with our prayers Our king shall mowedown his enemies and shall come from Bozra with his garments all died in blood and for our onsolation shall he appear and call his wife Hephzibah and his land Beulah for he will rejoyce over us marie us Scotland shall say what have I to doe any more with Idols Only let us be faithfull to him that can ride through hell and death upon a windlestrae and his horse never stumble and let him make of me a bridge over a water so that his high and holy name may be glorified in me stroks with the sweet mediators hand are very sweet he was always sweet to my soul but since I suffered for him his breath hath a sweeter smell then before Oh that every hair of my head and every member and every bone in my bodie were a man to witness a fair confession for him I would think all too little for him when I look over beyond the line and beyond death to the laughing side of the world I trimmph and ride upon the high places of Jacob howbeit otherways I am a faint dead-hearted cowardly man oft borne
greater then ten whole earths or ten worlds O what beauty would be in it and what a smell would it cast but a blast of the breath of that fairest rose in all Gods Paradise even of Christ Jesus our Lord one look of that fairest face would be infinitly in beauty and smell above all imaginable and created glory I wonder that men dow bide off Christ I would esteem my self blessed if I could make an open proclamation and gather all the world that are living upon the earth Jew and Gentile and all that shall be borne to the blowing of the last trumpet to flock round about Christ and to stand looking wondering admiring and adoring his beauty and sweetnesse for his fire is hotter then any other fire his love sweeter then common love his beauty surpasseth all other beauty When I am heavie and sad one of his love-looks would do me meekel worlds good o if ye would fall in love with him Hovv blessed were I how glad would my soul be to help you to love him but amongst us all we could not love him enough he is the Son of the Fathers love and Gods delight the Fathers love lieth all upon him o if all mankind would fetch all their love and lay it upon him invit him and take him home to your houses in the exercise of prayer morning and evening as I often desired you especially now let him not want lodgeing in your houses nor lie in the feilds when he is shut out of pulpits and Kirks If ye will be content to take heaven by violence the wind on your face for Christ and his crosse I am here one who hath some tryall of Christs crosse I can say that Christ was ever kind to me but he overcometh himself if I may speak so in kindness vvhile I suffer for him I give you my word for it Christs crosse is not so evil as they call it it is sweet light and comfortable I would not want the visitations of love and the very breathings of Christs mouth when he kisseth and my Lords delightsome smiles and love-embracements under my sufferings for him for a mountain of fine gold nor for all the honours court and grandour of velvet-kirk-men Christ hath the yolke and heart of my love I am my beloveds and my welbeloved is mine O that ye were all handfasted to Christ o my Dearly beloved in the Lord I would I could change my voice and had a tongue tuned with the hand of my Lord and had the art of speaking of Christ that I might paint out unto you the worth and highnesse and greatnesse and excellencie of that fairest and renowned bridegroom I beseech you by the mercies of the Lord by the sighes tears heart blood of our Lord Jesus by the salvation of your poor and precious souls set up the mountain that ye and I may meet before the Lambs throne amongst the congregation of the first borne Lord grant that that may be the trysting place that ye and I may put up our hands together and pluck and eat the apples oâ— the tree of life and we may feast together and drink together of that pure river of the water of life that cometh out from under the throne of God and from the Lamb O how little is your hand-breadth and span length of dayes here your inch of time is Lesse then when ye and I parted eternitie eternitie is comeing posting on with wings then shall every mans black 's and whit's be brought to light O how low will your thoughts be of this fair-skined but heart roten apple the vain vain fecklesse world when the wormes shall make their houses in your eye holes and shall eat aâ—â— the flesh from the ball of your cheeks and shall make that body a number of drie bones think not the common gate of serving God as neighbour and others doe will bring yow to heaven few few are saved the Devils court is thick and many he haththe greatest number of mankind for his vassels I know this world is a great forrest of thornes in your way to heaven but ye most through it acquaint your selves with the Lord hold fast Christ hear his voice only blesse his name sanctifie and keep his day keep the new commandment love one another let the Holy Spirit dwell in your bodies and be clean and holy love not the worldly not love and follow truth learn to know God keep in mind what I taught you for God will seek ane account of it when I am far from you abstain from all evil and all appearance of evil follow good carefully and seek peace and follow after it honour your King and pray for him remember me to God in your prayers I dow not forget you I told you often while I was with you and now I write it again heavie sad and sore is that strok of the Lords wrath that is comeing upon Scotland woe woe woe to this Harlotland for they shall take the cup of Gods wrath from his hand and drink and spue and fall and net rise again In In In with speed to your strong hold ye prisoners of hope hide you there while the anger of the Lord passe Follow not the Pastors of this Land for the sun is gone down upon them as the Lord liveth they lead you from Christ and from the good old way yet the Lord will keep the holy Citie and make this withered Kirk to bud again like a rose and a field blessed of the Lord. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all The prayers and blessing of a prisoner of Christs in bonds for him and for you be with you all AMEN Aberden July 14. 1637. Your Lawfull and loving Pastor S. R. To the Honourable Reverend and Welbeloved Professors of Christ his Truth in sincerity in Ireland 3 DEarly beloved in our Lord partakers of the heavenly calling Grace mercy peace be to you from God our father from our Lord Jesus Christ I alwayes but most of all now in my bonds most sweet bonds for Christ my Lord rejoyce to hear of your faith and love to hear that our King our welbeloved our bridegroom without tireing stayeth still to wooe you as his wife and that persecutions mockings of sinners have not chased away the wooer from the house I perswade you in the Lord the men of God now Scattered driven from you put you upon the right sent and pursuit of Christ my salvation on it if ten heavens were mine if this way this way that I now suffer for this way that the world nicknameth and reproacheth no other way be not the Kings gate to heaven I shall never see Gods face and alace I were a beguiled wretch if it were so if this be not the only saving way to heaven Oh that you would take a prisoner of Christs word for it nay I know you have the greatest Kings word for it
the free salvation Christs sweet balme for thy wounds O poor humble beleever Christs kisses for thy watery checks Christs blood of atonement for thy guilty soul Christs heaven for thy poor soul though once banished out of paradise my master shall make good my word ere long O that people were wise O that people were wise O that people would spier out Christ never est while they finde him O how shall my soul mourn in secret if my nine yeers pained head sore breast and pained back and grieved heart and privat publike prayers to God shall all be for nothing among that people Did my Lord Jesus send me but to summond you before your judge to leave your summonds at your houses was I sent as a witness onnly to gather your dittay's O my God forbid often did I tell you of a fan of Gods word to come among you for the contempt of it I told you often of wrath wrath from the Lord to come upon Scotland and yet I bide by my Masters word it is quickly coming desolation for Scotland because of the quarrell of a broken covenant Now worthy Sir now my dear people my joy and my crown in the Lord let him be your fear seek the Lord and his face save your souls doves flee to Christs windows pray for me praise for me The blessing of my God the prayers and blessing of a poor prisoner and your lawfull pastor be upon you Abrd. Iune 16. 1367. Your Lawfull Loving Pastor S. R. To the right honourable Christian Lady my Lady BOYD. 15 MADAM GRace mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ I cannot but thank your La for your Letter that hath refreshed my soul. I think my self many wayes obliged to your La for your love to my afflicted brother now embarked with me in that same cause his Lord hath been pleased to put him upon truths side I hope your La will befriend him with your counsell and countenance in that countrey where he is a stranger your La needeeth not fear but your kindness to his own shall be put up in Christs accounts Now Madam for your La case I rejoyce exceedingly that the Father of lights hath made you see that there is a niâ—â— in Christianity which ye contend to be at that is to quit the right eye the right hand to keep the Son of God I hope your desire is to make him your garland your eye looketh up the mount which certainly is nothing but the new creature fear not Christ will not cast water upon your smoaking coal then who else dare doe it if he say nay Be sorry at corruption not secure that companion lay with you in your mothers womb was as early friends with you as the breath of life Christ will not have it otherwise for he delighteth to take up fallen bairns to mend broken browâ— binding up of wounds is his office Isai. 61. First I am glad Christ will get employment of his calling in you many a whole soul is in heaven which was sicker then ye are He is content ye lay broken arms legs on his knee that he may spelk them 2. Hiding of his face is wise love his love is not fond doting reasonless to give your head no other pillow while ye be in at heavens gates but to lie betwixt his brests lean upon his bosome Nay hisbairns must often have the frosty cold side of the hill set down both their bare feet among thorns His love hath eyes in the mean time is looking on Our pride must have winter weather to rot it But I know Christ ye shall not be heard ye will whisper it over betwixt your selves agree again for the Anchor-tow abideth fast within the vaile the end of it is in Chrssts ten fingers who dare pull if he hold I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand saying fear not I will help thee Isa. 41 13. fear not Iacob The sea-sick passenger shall come to Land Christ will be the first that will meet you on the shore I hope your La will keep the Kings high-way goe on in the strength of the Lord in haste as if ye had not leisure to speak to the Inne-keepers by the way he is over beyond time in the other side of the water who thinketh long for you For my unfaithfull self Madam I must say a word At my first coming hither the devil made many black lies of my Lord Jesus said the court was changed and he was angry would give an evil servant his leave at mid-terme but he gave me grace not to take my leave I resolved to bide summonds and sit howbeit it was suggested said what should be done with a withered tree but over the dâ—ke with it But now now I dare not I dow not keep it up who is feasted as his poor exiled prisoner I think shame of the board-head the first messe the royall Kings dining-hall and that my black hand should come on such a rulers table but I cannot mend it Christ must have his will onely he paineth my soul so sometimes with his love that I have been nigh to passe modesty to cry out he hath lest a smoaking burning coal in my heart gone to the door himself and left me it together yet it is not desertion I know not what it is but I was never so sick for him as now I durst not challenge my Lord if I got no more for heaven it is a dâting crosse I know he hath other thing to doe then to play with me trâ—â—le an apple with me that this feast will end O for instruments in Gods name that this is he and that I may make use of it when it will be a neer friend within me when it will be said by a challengingdevil were is my God Since I know it will not laste I desire but to keep broken meat but let no man after me slander Christ for his crosse The Great Lord of the Covenant who brought from the dead the great shepherd of his sheep by the blood of the eternall covenant establish you and keep you yours to his appearance Aberd. March 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr ALEXANDER HENDERSON 16 My reverend dear Brother I Received your Letters They are as apples of gold to me for wich my sweet feasts they are above the deserving of such a sinner high out of measure I have sadness to ballast me weight me a little It is but his boundless wisdom who hath taken the tutouring of his witlesse childe and he knoweth to be drunken with comforts is not safest for our stomackes However it be the din and noise and glooms of Christs crosse are weightier then it self I protest to you my witnesse is in heaven I
dow I take away of my great sea my boundlesse Runing-over-Christ-Jesus I have not lighted upon the right gate of puting Christ to the banke making my self rich with him my misguiding and childish trafficking with that matchlesse pearl That heaven's jewell the jewell of the fathers delights hath put me to a great losse O that he would take a loan of me my stock and put his name in all my bonds and serve himself Heir to the poor mean portion I have be countable for the talent himself gladly would I put Christ in my room to guide all and let me be but a servant to run errands doe by his direction let me be his interdicted heir Lord Jesus work upon my minority let him win a pupil's blessing Oh how would I rejoyce to have this work of my salvation legally fastned upon Christ a back-bond of my Lord Jesus that it should be forthcoming to the Orphan should be my happinesse dependency on Christ were my surest way if Christ were my bottome I were sure enough I thought guiding of grace had been no art I thought it would come of will but I would spill my own heaven yet if I had not burdened Christ with All I but lend my bare name to the sweet covenant Christ behinde before on either side maketh all sure God will not take an Arminian-cautioner Freewill a weather-cock turning at a serpents tongue a Tutor that couped our father Adam unto us brought down the house sold the Land sent the father mother all the bairns through the earth to beg their bread nature in the Gospel hath cracked credit O well to my poor soul for evermore that my Lord called grace to the councel put Christ Jesus with free merits the blood of God foremost in the chase to draw sinners after a ransomer O what a sweet block was it by way of buying selling to give and tell down a ransome for grace glory to Dyvours O would to my Lord I could cause paper and ink speak the worth and excellencie the high loud praises of a Brother-ransomer O the Ransomer needs not my report but oh if he would take it make use of it I should be happy if I had an errand to this world but for some few yeers to spread proclamations out-crys love-letters of the highnes the highnes for evermore the glory the glory for evermore of the Ransomer whose cloaths were wet died in blood howbeit that after I had done that my soul body should goe back to the mother nothing that their Creator brought them once out from as from their beginning But why should I pine away and pain my self with wishes not beleeve rather that Christ will hire such an out-cast as I am a masterlesse-body put out of the house by the sons of my mother give me employment and a calling one way or other to out Christ and his wares to countrey buyers propose Christ unto presse him upon some poor souls that fainer then their life would receive him You complain heavily of your short coming in practice and venturing on suffering for Christ you have many marrowes For the first I would not put you off sense of wretcheduesse hold on Christ never yet slew a sighhing groaning childe more of that would make you won goods and a meet prey for Christ Alace I have too little of it For venturing on suffering I had not somuch free gier when I came to Christs camp as to buy a sword a wonder that Christ should not laugh at such a souldier I am no better yet but faith liveth spendeth upon our Captains charges who is able to pay for all we need not pitie him he is rich enough Ye desire me also not to mistake Christ under a mask I blesse you thank God for it but alace masked or bare-faced kissing or glooming I mistake him yea I mistake him furthest when the mask is off for then I play me with his sweetness I am like a childe that hath a golden book that playeth more with the ribbens and the guilding the picture in the first page then readeth the contents of it Certainly if my desires to my welbeloved were fulfilled I could provoke divels and crosses the world tentations to the fields but oh my poor weakness makes me lie behinde the bush and hide me Remember my service and my blessing to my Lord I am mindfull of him as I am able desire him from a prisoner to come visite my good master feel but the smell of his love it sets him well howbeit he be young to make Christ his garland I could not wish him in a better case then in a fever of love-sickness for Christ Remember my bonds the Lord Iesus be with your spirit Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To WILLIAM HALLIDAY 23 Loving friend I Received your letter I wish ye take pains for salvation mistaken grace somewhat like conversion which is not conversion is the sadest and most dolefull thing in the world make sure of salvation and Lay the foundation sure for many are beguiled Put a low price upon world's clay put a high price upon Christ temptations will come but if they be not made welcome by you ye have the best of it be jealous over your self your own heart and keep touches with God let him not have a faint and feeble souldier of you fear not to back Christ for he will conquer and overcome let no man skar at Christ for I have no quarrels at his crosse He and his crosse are two good guests and worth the lodging men would fain have Christ good cheap but the mercat will not come down acquaint your self with prayer make Christ your captain and your armour make conscience of sinning when no eye seeth you grace be with you Aberd. Yours in Ch Iesus S. R. To a Gentle Woman after the Death of her Husband 24 DEar loving sister I know ye are minding your sweet countrey not taking your Innes the place of your banishmet for your home this life is not worthy to be the thatch or outer wall of your Lord Jesus his paradise that he did sweat for to you that he keepeth for you Short silly sand-blinde were our hope if it could not look over the water to our best heritage and if it stayed only at home about the doors of our clay-house I marvel not my dear sister that ye complain that ye come short of your old wrestlings you had for a blessing and that now you finde it not so bairns are but hired to learn their lesson when they first goe to school and it is enough that these who run a race see the gold onely at the starting place and possibly they see little more of it or nothing at all till they win to the rink's-end and get the gold
in the loof of their hand Cur Lord maketh delicates and dainties of his sweet presence and love-visits to his own but Christs love under a vaile is love if ye get Christ howbeit not the sweet and pleasant way you would have him it is enough for the wel-beloved cometh not our way he must waile his own gate himself For worldly things seeing they are medows and fair flowers in your way to heaven a smell in the by-going is sufficient he that would reckon and tell all the stones in his way in a journey of three or four hundred miles and write up in his count book all the herbs and flowers growing in his way might come short of his journey you cannot stay in your inch of time to lose your day seeing you are in haste and the night and your after-noon will not bide you in setting your heart on this vain world it were your wisdom to read your count book to have in readinâ—sâ— your bussinesse against the time you come to deaths water-side I know your lodging is taken your forerunner Christ hath not forgotten that therefore you must set your self to your one thing which ye cannot well want In that our Lord took your husband to himself I know it was that he might make room for himself he cuteth off your love to the creature that ye might learn that God onely is the right owner of your love sorrow losse sadnesse death or the worst things that are except sin but Christ knoweth well what to make of them can put his own in the crosses common that we shall be obliged to affliction thank God who learned us to make our acquaintance with such a rough companion who can hale us to Christ you must learn to make evils your great good and to spin out comforts peace joy communion with Christ out of your troubls that are Christs wooers sent to speak for you to himself It is easie to get good words and a comfortable message from our Lord even from such rough serjeants as diverse temptations Thanks to God for crosses when we count and reckon our losses in seeking God we finde godliness is great gain Great partners of a shipfull of gold are glad to see the ship come to the harbour surely we and our Lord Jesus together have a shipfull of gold coming home and our gold is in that ship Some are so in love or rather in lust with this life that they sell their part of the ship for a little thing I would counsel you to buy hope but sell it not and give not away your crosses for nothing the inside of Christs crosse is white and joyfull and the far end of the black crosse is a fair and glorious heaven of ease and seeing Christ hath fastned heaven to the far end of the crosse he will not loose the knot him self none else can for when Christ casteth a knot all the world cannot loose it let us then count it exceeding joy when we fall into diverse temptations Thus recommending you to the tender mercy grace of our Lord I rest Aberd. Your Loving Brother S. R. To JOHN GORDON Of Card nes Younger 25 Honoured Dear Brother I Wrote of late to you multitudes of letters burden me now I am refreshed with your letter I exhort you in the bowels of Christ set to work for your soul let these bear weight with you and ponder them seriously 1. Weeping gnasâ—ing of teeth in utter-darkness or heaven's joy 2. Think what ye would give for an hour when ye shall lie like dead cold blackned clay 3. there is sand in your glass yet your sun is not gone down 4. Consider what joy peace is in Christs service 5. Think what advantage it will be to have Angels the world life death crosses yea and devils all for you as the Kings serjeants and servants to doe your bussinesse 6. To have mercy on your seed a blessing on your house 7. To have true honour a name on earth that casts a sweet smell 8. How ye will rejoyce when Christ layeth down your head under his chinne betwixt his brests dryeth your face welcometh you to glory happyness 9. Imagine what pain torture is a guilty conscience What slavery to carry the Devils unhonest loads 10. Sins joyes are but night-dreames thoughts vapours imaginations and shadowes 11. What dignity it is to be a son of God 12. Dominion and mastery over tentations over the world and sin 13. That your enemies should be the taile and you the head For your bairns now at their rest I speak to you and your wife and cause her read this 1. I am a witness of Barbara's glory in heaven 2. For the rest I write it under my hand there are dayes coming on Scotland when barren wombs dry breasts and childless parents shall be pronounced blessed they are then in the lee of the harbour ere the storm come on 3. They are not lost to you that are laid up in Christs treasury in heaven 4. At the Resurrection ye shall meet with them there they are sent beâ—ore but not sent away 5. Your Lord loveth you who is homely to take and give borrow and lend 6. Let not bairns be your Idols for God will be jealouse and take away the Idol because he is greedy of your love wholly I bless you your wife and children Grace for evermore be with you Aberd. Your Loving Pastor S. R. To JOHN GORDON Of Cardoness elder 26 HOnourable dearest in the Lord. Your Letter hath refreshed my soul. My joy is fulfilled if Christ and ye be fast together ye are my joy my crown ye know I have recommended his love to you I defie the world Satan sin His love hath neither brim nor bottome in it My dearest in Christ I write my souls desire to you heaven is not at the next door I finde Christianity an hard task set to it in your evening we would all keep both Christ our right eye our right hand foot but it will not be with us I beseech you by the mercies of God and your compearance before Christ look Christs count book and your own together and collation them give the remnant of your time to your soul this great Idol-god the world will be lying in white ashes in the day of your compearance why should night-dreames and day-shaddowes water-froth May-flowers run away with your heart when we win to the water-side and black deaths river brinke and put our foot in the boat we shall laugh at our folly Sir I recommend you unto the thoughts of death and how ye would wish your soul to be when ye shall lie cold blew ill-smelling clay For any hireling to be intruded I being the Kings prisoner can not say much but as Gods minister I desire you to read Act. 2 15 16. to the end Act. 6. 2 3 4 5.
ye shall finde God's people should have a voice in chusing Church-rulers teachers I shall be sorry if willingly ye shall give way to his unlawful intrusion upon my labours The onely wise God direct you God's grace be with you Aberd. Your loving Pastor S. R. To EARLESTOUN YOUNGER 27 Much honoured welbeloved in the Lord. GRace mercy and peace be to you Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing I must first tell you there is not such a glassie Icie slippery piece of way betwixt you and heaven as Youth I have experience to say with me here and seal what I assert the old ashes of the sins of my youth are new fire of sorrow to me I have seen the Devil as it were dead buried yet rise again be a worse Devil then ever he was Therefore my brother beware of a green young Devil that hath never been buried the Devil in his flowers I mean the hot fiery lusts passions of youth is much to be feared better yoke with an old gray-haired withered dry Devil For in youth he findeth dry sticks dry coals and an hot hearth-stone and how soon can he with his flint cast fire and with his bellows blow it up and fire the house sanctified thoughts thoughts made conscience of and called in and kept in aw are green fewel that burn not are a water for Satans coal Yet I must tell you the whole saints now triumphant in heaven and standing before the throne are nothing but Christs forlorn and beggerly Dyvours What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners But their redemption is not onely past the seals but compleated and yours is on the wheels and in doing All Christs good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow and with a crooked leg Christ hath an advantage of you and I pray you let him have 't he shall finde employment for his calling in you if it were not with you as you write grace should finde no sale nor mercat in you but ye must be content to give Christ somewhat adoe I am glad that he is employed that way let your bleeding soul and your sores be put in the hand of this expert physician let young and strong corruptions and his free grace be yoked together and let Christ your sins deal it betwixt them I will be loath to put you off your fears and your sense of deadness I wish it were more there be some wounds of that nature that their bleeding should not be soon stoped ye must take a house beside the Physician it shall be a miracle if ye be the first sick man he put away uncured worse then he found you nay nay Christ is honest and in that flyting free with sinners Ioh. 6. 37. And him that cometh to me I will in no case cast out Take ye that It cannot be presumption to take that as your own when ye find your wounds stound you presumption is ever whole at the heart and hath but the truant-sickness and groaneth onely for the fashion faith hath sense of sickness and looketh like a friend to the promise and looking to Christ therein is glad to see a known face Christ is as full a feast as ye can have to hunger nay Christ I say is not a full mans leavings his mercy sends alwayes a letter of defiance to all your sins if there were ten thousand moe of them I grant you it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man to win his meat upon hidden Christ for then the key of his pantrie door and of the house of wine is a seeking cannot be had but hunger must break thorow ironlocks I be moan them not who can make a din all the fields adoe for a Lost Saviour ye must let him hear it to say so upon both the sides of his head when he hideth himself it is no time then to be bird-mouth'd and patient Christ is rare indeed and a delicate to a sinner he is a miracle and a world's wonder to a seeking and a weeping sinner but yet such a miracle as will be seen by them who will come and see the seeker and sigher is at last a singer and enjoyer nay I have seen a dumb man get an almes from Christ. He that can tell his tale and send such a letter to heaven as he hath sent to Aberden it is very like he will come speed with Christ. It bodeth Gods mercy to complain heartily for sin Let wrestling be with Christ till he say How is it Sir that I cannot be quite of your bills your mislâ—arned crys And then hope for Christs blessing and his blessing is better then other ten blessings Think not shame because of your guiltiness necessity must not blush to beg it standeth you hard to want Christ and therefore that which idle on-waiting cannot doe misâ—urâ—ured crying and knocking will doe And for doubtings because ye are not as ye were long since with your master consider three things 1. What if Christ had such tottering thoughts of the bargain of the new covenant betwixt you him as you have 2. Your heart is not the compass Christ saileth by He will give you leave to sing as ye please But he will not dance to your daft spring It is not referred to you and your thoughts what Christ will doe with the charters betwixt you and him your own misbeleef hath torn them but he hath the principal in heaven with himself your thoughts are no parts of the New covenant dreams change not Christ. 3. Doubtings are your sins but they are Christs dâ—ugges ingâ—â—dients that the Phisician maketh use of for the cuâ—ing of your pride Is it not suitable for a begger to say at meat God reâ—ard the winners for then he sayeth he knoweth who beareth the charges of the house It is also meet ye should know by experience that faith is not natur's il gotten bastard but your Lords free gift that lay in the womb of Gods free grace praised be the winner I may adde a 4. In the passing of your bill your charters when they went through the Mediators great seal and were concluded faith's advice was not sought saith hath not a vote beside Christs merits blood blood dear blood that came from your cautioners holy body maketh that sure work The use then which ye have of faith now having already closed with Jesus Christ for justification is to take out a copy of your pardon so ye have peace with God upon the account of Christ for since faith apprehendeth pardon but never payeth a penny for it no marvel that Salvation doeth not die and live ebbe or flow with the working of faith but because it is your Lords honour to beleeve his mercy and his fidelity it is infinit goodness in our Lord that misbeleef giveth a dash to our Lords glory and not to our Salvation and so who ever want yea howbeit God here bear
to hear from you I hear Christ hath been that Kind as to visit you with sickness to bring you to the door of the grave but ye found the door shut blessed be his glorious name while ye be riper for eternity He will have more service of you therefore he seeketh of you that hence forth ye be honest to your new husband the Son of God We have all Idol-love are wh 〈…〉 y inclined to love other things beside our Lord and therefore our Lord hunteth for our love moe wayes then one or two Oh that Christ had his own of us I know he will not want you that is a sweet wilfulness in his Love ye have as good cause oâ— the other part to be head strong peremptory in your love to Christ not to part or divide your love betwixt Him the world if it were more it is little enough yea too little for Christ. I am now every way in good terms with Christ he hath set a banished prisoner as a seal on his heart and as a bracelet on his arme that crabbed and black tree of the cross laugheth upon me now the alarming noise of the cross is worse then it self I love Christs glooms better then the world 's worm-eaten joyes Oh if all the Kingdom were as I am except these bonds my losse is gain my sadness joyfull my bonds liberty my tears comfortable This world is not worth a drink of cold water O but Christ's love casteth a great heat 〈◊〉 hell all the salt sea and the rivers of the earth cannot quench it I remember you to God ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ Grace grace be with you Aberd. March 9. 1637. Yours â—n his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Lady Caskiberry 31 MADAM GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear how your La is I know not how to requite your La kindness but your love to the Saints Madam is Laid up in heaven I know it is for your welbeloved Christs sake that ye make his friends so dear to you concerne your self somuch in them I am in this house of my pilgrimage every way in good case Christ is most kind and loving to my soul it pleaseth him to feast with his unseen consolations a stranger and an exiled prisoner and I would not exchange my Lord Jesus with all the comfort out of heaven his yoke is easie and his burden light This is his truth I now suffer for for he hath sealed it â—ith his blessed presence I know Christ shall yet win the day and gaine the battell in Scotland Grace be with you Aberd. March 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr. JAMES BRUCE Minister of the Gospel 32 Reverend welbeloved Brother GRace mercy and peace be to you Upon the nearest acquaintance that we are fathers children I thought good to write to you My case in my bonds for the honour of my royall Prince and King Jesus iâ— as good as becometh the witness of such a Soveraign King At my first coming hither I was in great heaviness wrestling vvith challenges being burdened in heart as I am yet for my silent Sabbaths and for a bereft people young ones new-borne plucked from the breasts the Childrens table drawn I thought I was a drie tree cast over the dike of the vine-yard but my secret conceptions of Christs love at his sweet long-desired return to my soul were found to be a lye of Christs love forged by the tempter and my own heart and I am perswaded that it was so Now there is greater peace and security within then before the court is raised and dismissed for it was not fenced in God's name I was far mistaken who should have summoned Christ for unkindness misted faith my sever conceived amiss of him novv novv he is pleased to feast a poor prisoner and to refresh me vvith joy unspeakable and glorious so as the holy Spirit is witness that my sufferings are for Christs truth and God forbid I should deny the testimony of the holy Spirit and make him a false witness Now I testify under my hand out of some small experience that Châ—ists cause even with the cross is better then the Kings crown that his reproaches are sweet his cross perfumed the walls of my prison fair large my losses gain I desire you my dear Brother help me to praise and remember me in your prayers to God Grace grace be with you Aberd. March 14. 1637. Yours in our Lord Iesus S. R. To the Lady Earlstoun 33 MISTRESS GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear how your soul prospereth I exhort you to go on in your journey your day is short your afternoon-sun will soon goe down make an end of your accounts with your Lord for Death and Judgement are tides that bide no man salvation is supposed to be at the door and Christianity is thought an easie task but I finde it hard and the way strait and narrow were it not but my guide is content to wait on me and to care for a tired traveller Hurt not your conscience with any known sin let your children be as so many flowers borrowed from God if the flowers die or wither thank God for a summers-loan of them keep good neighbourhood to borrow lend with him Set your heart upon heaven and trouble not your spirit with this clay-Idol of the world which is but vanity and hath but the lustre of the Rain-bow in the air which cometh and goeth with a flying March-shower Clay is the Idol of bastards not the inheritance of the children My Lord hath been pleased to make many unknown faces laugh upon me and hath made me well content of a borrowed fire-side and a borrowed bed I am feasted with the joyes of the holy Ghost my royal King beareth my charges honourably I love the smell of Christ's sweet breath better then the worlds gold I would I had help to praise him The great Messenger of the Covenant the Son of God establish you on your rock keep you to the day of his coming Aberd. March 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To CARLETOUN 34 Worthy much honoured GRace mercy peace be to you I received your letter from my Brother to the which I now answer particularly I confess two things of my self 1. Woe woe is me that men should think there is any thing in me He is my witness before whom I am as crystall that the secret housâ—-devils that bear me too oft company that this sink of corruption which I finde within maketh me goe with low sailes if otherâ— saw what I see they would look by me but not to me 2. I know this shower of his free grace behooved to be on me otherwayes I would have withered I know also I have need of a buffeting tempter that grace may be
ascended on high ye have claim to interest in that promise Remember my love in Christ to your father shew him it is late black might with him his long lying at the water-side is that he may look his papers eâ—â— he take shipping be at a point for his last answer before his judge Lord. All love all mercy all grace peace all multiplied saving consolations all joy faith in Christ all stability confirming strength of grace the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush be with you Aberd. 15. June 1637. Your unworthy brother is his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To MARION M C KNAUGHT 35 Worthy dearest in the Lord. I Ever loved since I knew you that little vineyard of the Lord 's planting in Galloway But now much more since I have heard that he who hath his fire in Zion his furnace in Ierusalem hath been pleased to set up a furnace amongst you with the first in this Kingdom He who maketh old things new seeing Scotland an old drossie rusted Kirk is beginning to make a new clean bride of her to bring a young chast wife to him self out of the fire This fire shall be quenched so soon as Christ hath brought a clean spouse thorow the fire Therefore my dearly beloved in the Lord fear not a worm fear noâ— worm Iacob Christ iâ— iâ— that plea shall win the plea Charge an unbeleeving heart under the pain of treason against our great royall King Jesus to dependence by faith quiet on-waiting on our Lord Get you in to your chambers shut the doors about you In in with speed to your strong hold ye prisoners of hope ye doves flee in to Christ's windowes till the indignation be over the storme be past Glorifie the Lord in your sufferings take his banner of love spread over you others will follow you if they see you strong in the Lord their courage shall take life from your Christian carriage look up see who is coming lift up your head he is coming to save in garments died in blood travelling in the greatness of his strength I laugh I smile I leap for joy to see Christ coming to save you so quickly O such wide steps as Christ taketh Three or four hills are but a step to him he skippeth over the mountains Christ hath set a battell betwixt his poor weak saints his enemies he waileth the weapons for both parties saith to the enemies Take you a sword of steel Law Authority Parliaments Kings upon your side that is your armour he saith to his saints I give you a feckless tree-sword in your hand that is suffering receiving of strokes spoiling of your goods with your tree-sword ye shall get gain the Victory Was not Christ dragged through the ditches of deep distâ—esses great straits yet Christ who is your head hath win through with his life howbeit not with a whole skin Ye are Christs members 〈◊〉 is drawing his members thorow the thorny hedge up to heaven after him Chrisâ— one day will not have so much as a pained toe but there are great 〈◊〉 portions of Christ's mystical body not yet within the gates of the great high city the new Jerusalem the dragon will strike at Christ so long as there is one 〈◊〉 member of Christ's body out of heaven I tell you Christ 〈◊〉 make new work out of old fore-castâ—n Scotland gather 〈◊〉 old broken boards of his tabernacle pin them nail them togâ—ther our bills supplications are up in heaven Christ 〈◊〉 â—offers full of them there is mercy on the other 〈◊〉 of this hiâ—… a good answer to all our bills is agreed 〈◊〉 I must tell you what lovely Jesus fair Jesus King Jesus â—ath done to my soul sometimes he sendeth me out a standing drink whispereth a word thorow the wall I am well content of kindnessâ—t the second hand his bode is ever welcome to â—â—e be what it will but at other times he will be messenger himself I get the cup of salvation out of his own hand 〈◊〉 to me we cannot rest till we be in others armes and O how swèet is a fresh kiss from his holy mouth his â—…athing that goeth before a kiss upon my poor soul is sweet 〈◊〉 faultâ— but that it is too short I am careless stand not much on this howbeit â—oines back shoulders head â—ive in pieces in steping up to my fathers house I know my Lord can make long broad high deep glory to his name out of this bit feckless body for Christ looketh not what stuffe 〈◊〉 â—…eth glory ouâ— of My dearly beloved ye have often frâ—hed 〈◊〉 but that is put up in my Master's accounts â—e have him debter for me but if ye will doe any thing for me 〈◊〉 â—â—ow ye will now in my extremity tell all my dear friends that a prisoner is fettered chained in Christ's love Lord never loâ—… the fetters ye they together take 〈◊〉 hartiest commâ—…tions to my Lord Jesus thank him for a poor friend I desire your husband to read this letter I send him a prisoners blessing I will be obliged to him if he will be willing to suffer for my dear Master suffering is the professors golden garment there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it ye have been witnesses of much joy betwixt Christ me at communion-feasts the remembrance whereof howbeit I be feasted in secret holleth my heart for I am put from the board-head the kings first mess to his by-board his broken meat is sweet unto me I thank my Lord for borrowed crumbs no less then when I was feasted at the communion-table in Anwoth Kirkâ—udbright pray that I may get one day of Christ in publike as I have had long since before my eyes be closed Oh that my Master would take up house again lend me the keys of his wine-cellar again God send me borrowed drink till then Remember my love to Chist's kinsmen with you I pray for Christ's father's blessing to them all Grace be with you a prisoners blessing be with you I write it and I bide by it God shall be glorious in Marion M c Knaught when this stormy blast shall be over O woman beloved of God beleeve rejoyce be strong in the Lord Grace is thy portion Aberd. 15. June 1637. Your brother in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN GORDON At Risco in Galloway 36 My worthy dear Brother MIspend not your short sand-glass which runneth very fast seek your Lord in time let me obtain of you a letter under your hand for a promise to God by his grace to take a new course of walking with God heaven is not at the next door I finde it hard to be a Christian there is no little thrusting thronging to thrust in at
heavens gates it is a castle taken by force many shall strive to enter in shall not be able I beseech obtest you in the Lord make conscience of rash passionat oathes of raging sudden revenging anger of night-drinking of needless companionry of Sabbath-breaking of hurting any under you by word or deed of hating your very enemies Except ye receive the Kingdom of God as a little childe be as meek sober-minded as a babe ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That is a word which should touch you near and make you stoop cast your self down and make your great spirit fall I know this will not be easily done but I recommend it to you as you tender your part of the Kingdom of heaven Brother I may from new experience speak of Christ to you Oh if ye saw in him what I see a river of God's unseen joyes hath flowed from bank to brae over my soul since I parted with you I wish I wanted part so being ye might have that your soul might be sick of love for Christ or rather satiat with him this clay-idol the world would seem to you then not worth a fig time will eat you out of possession of it when the eye strings break the breath groweth cold the imprisoned soul looketh out at the windowes of the clay house ready to leap out into eternity what would ye then give for a lamp full of oyl Oh seek it now I desire you to correct curb banning swearing lying drinking sabbath-breaking idle spending of the Lords day in absence from the Kirk as far as your Authority reacheth in that Parish I hear a man is to be thrust in to that place to the which I have God's right I know ye should have a voice by God's word in that Act. 1 15 16. to the end and Act. 6 3 5. Ye would be loath that any Prelat should put you out of your possession earthly this is your right What I write to you I write to your wife Grace be with you Aberd. March 14 1637. Your loving Pastor S. R. To the Lady HALHILL 37. DEar Christian Lady Grace mercy peace be to you I longed much to write to your La But now the Lord offering a fit occasion I would not omit to doe it I cannot but acquaint your Lae with the Kind dealing of Christ to my soul in this house of my pilgrimage that your La May know Christ is as good as he is called For at my first entry into this triall being easten down troubled with challenges jealousies of his love whose name testimony I now bear in my bonds I feared nothing more then that I was casten over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree but blessed be his great name the dry tree was in the fire was not burnt his dew came down quickned the root of a withered plant now he is come again with joy hath been pleased to feast his exiled afflicted prisoner with the joy of his consolations now I weep but am not sad I am chastned but I die not I have losse but I want nothing this water cannot drown me this fire cannot burn me because of the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush The worst things of Christ his reproaches his crosse is better then Egypt's treasures He hath opened his door taken into his house of wine a poor sinner hath leâ—t me so sick of love for my Lord Jesus that if heaven were at my disposing I would give it for Christ would not be content to goe to heaven except I were perswaded Christ were there I would not give nor exchange my bonds for the I'relats velvets nor my prison for their coaches nor my sighs for all the world's laughter this clay idol the world hath no great court in my soul Christ hath come run away to heaven with my heart my love so that neither heart nor love is mine I pray God Christ may keep both without reversion In my estimation as I am now disposed if my part of this world's clay were rooped sold I would think it dear of a drink of water I see Christ's love is so Kingly that it will not abide a marrow it must have a throne all alone in the soul I see apples beguile bairns howbeit they be worm-eaten the moth-eaten pleasures of this present world make bairns beleeve ten is a hundred yet all that are here are but shaddowes if they would draw by the curtain that is hanged betwixt them Christ they should think themselves fools who have so long miskenned the Son of God I seek no more next to heaven but that he may be glorified in a prisoner of Christ that in my behalf many would praise his high glorious name who heareth the sighing of the prisoner Remember my service to the Laird your husband to your son my aquaintance I wish Christ had his young love that in the morning he would start to the gate to seek that which this world knoweth not therefore doeth not seek it The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you Aberd. March 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the right honourable my Lord LINDSAY 38 Right honourable my very good Lord. GRace mercy peace be to your Lo Pardon my boldness to express my self to your Lo At this so needful a time when your wearied friendless mother-kirk is looking round about her to see if any of her sons doeth really bemoan her desolation Therefore my dear worthy Lord I beseech you in the bowels of Christ pity that widow-like sister spouse of Christ. I know her husband iâ— not dead but he seemeth to be in another countrey seeth well beholdeth who are his true tender hearted friends who dare venture under the water to bring out to dry land sinking truth who of the Nobles will cast up their arm to warde a blow off the crowned head of our Royal law-giver who reigneth in Zion who will plead contend for â—acob in the day of his controversie It iâ— now time my worthy noble Lord for you who are the little nurse-fathers under our Soveraign Prince to put on courage for the Lord Jesus to take up a fallen orphan speaking out of the dust to embrace in your arms Christ's Bride he hath no more in Scotland that is the delight of his eyes but that one little sister whose breasts were once well fashioned She once ravished her welbeloved with her eyes and overcame him with her beauty She looked forth as the morning fair as the moon clear as the sun terrible as an army with banners Her stature was like the palm-tree and her breasts like clusters of grapes she held the King in his galleries Cant. 4 9. 6 10. 7 5 7. But now the crown is fallen
from her head and her gold waxed dim our white Nazarites are become black as the coal Blessed are they who will come out and help Christ against the mighty The shields of the earth the Nobles are debters to Christ for their honour should bring their glory and honour to the new Ierusalem Rev. 21 24. Alas that great men should be so far from subjecting themselves to the sweet yoke of Christ that they burst his bonds asunder and think they dow not goe on foot when Christ is on horseback and that every nod of Christ commanding as a King is a load like a mountain of iron and therefore they say This man shall not reign over us we must have another King then Christ in his own house Therefore kneel to Christ and kiss the Son and let him have your Lo vote as your alone Law-giver I am sure when you leave this old waste Jâ—nes of this perishing life and shall reckon with your hoste depart hence and take shipping make over for eternity which is the yonder side oâ— time a sand-glass of threescore short yeers is running out To look over your shoulder then to that which ye have done spoken suffered for Christ his dear bride that he ransomed with that blood which is more precious then gold for truth the freedom of Christ's Kingdom your accounts shall more sweetly smile laugh upon you then if you had two world's of gold to leave to your posterity O my dear Lord consider that our Master eternity judgement the last reckoning will be upon us in the twinckling of an eye The blast of the last trumpet now hard at hand will cry down all Acts of Parliaments all the determinations of pretended Assemblies against Christ our Law-giver There will be shortly a proclamation by one standing in the clouds that time shall be no more and that court with Kings of clay shall be no more prisons confinements forfeiturs of Nobles wrath of Kings hazard of lands houses name for Christ shall be no more This world's span-length of time is drawn now to less then half an inch and to the point of the evening of the day of this old and gray-haired world And therefore be fixed fast for Christ his truth for a time fear not him whose life goeth out at his nostrils who shall die as a man I am perswaded Christ is responsall and law-biding to make recompence for any thing that is hazardeâ— or given out for him losses for Christ are but our goods given out in bank in Christs hand Kings earthly are well-favoured little clay gods and tim's-idol but a sight of our invisible King shall decry and darken all the glory of this world At the day of Christ truth shall be truth and not treason Alas it is pitiful that silence when the thatch of our Lord's house hath taken fire is now the flower and the bloom of court and state-wisdom And to cast a covering over a good profession as if it blushed at light is thought a canny and sure way through this life But the safest way I am perswaded is to tine win with Christ to hazard fairly for him for heaven is but a company of Noble venturers for Christ. I dare hazard my soul Christ shall grow green and blossom as the rose of Sharon yet in Scotland howbeit now his leaf seemeth to wither and his root to dry up Your noble Ancestors have been inrolled amongst the worthies of this nation as the sure friends of the bridegroom and valiant for Christ I hope ye will follow on to come to the streets for the same Lord the world is still at yea nay with Christ it shall be your glory the sure foundation of your house now when houses are tumbling down birds building their nests thorns briers are growing up where Nobles did spread a table if you engage your estate nobility for this noble King Jesus with whom the created Powers of the world are still in tops all the world shall fall before him as God liveth every arm lifted up to take the crown off his royal head or that refuseth to hold it upon his head shall be broken from the shoulder-blad the eyes that behold Christ weep in sackcloth wallow in his blood will not help even these eyes shall rot away in their eye-holes O if ye the Nobles of this land saw the beauty of that worlds wonder Jesus our King the glory of him who is Angels wonder heavens wonder for excellency Oh what would men count of clay-estates of time-eaten life of worm-eaten moth-eaten worldly glory in comparison of that fairest fairest of Gods creation the son of the father's delights I have but small experience of suffering for him but let my Judge witness in heaven lay my soul in the ballance of justice if I finde not a young heaven a little Paradise of glorious comforts soul-delighting love-kisses of Christ here beneath the moon in suffering for him his truth that glory joy peace fire of love I thought had been kept while supper time when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon Christ I have felt it in glorious beginnings in my bonds for this princely Lord Jesus Oh it is my sorrow my daily pain that men will not come see I would now be ashamed to beleeve that it should be possible for any soul to think that he could be a loser for Christ suppose he should lend Christ the Lordship of Lindsay or some such great worldly estate Therefore my worthy Dear Lord set your face against the opposits of Jesus let your soul take courage to come under his banner to appeare as his souldier for him the blessings of a falling Kirk the prayers of the prisoners of hope who wait for Sions joy the good will of him that dwelt in the bush it burned not shall be with you To his saving Grace I recommend your Lo your House am still Christs prisoner Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your Lo obliged servant in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lord Boyd 39 My very honourable good Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you I am glad to hear that ye in the morning of your short day minde Christ that ye love the honour of his crown Kingdom I beseech your Lo begin now to frame your love to cast it in no mould but one that it may be for Christ onely For when your love is now in the framing making it will take best with Christ if any other then Jesus get a grip of it when it is green young Christ will be an uncouth strange world to you Promise the lodging of your soul first away to Christ stand by your first covenant keep to Jesus that he may finde you honest It is easie to master an arrow
Christ breaketh all my idols in pieces it hath put a new edge upon my blunted love to Christ I see he is Jealouse of my love will have all to himself In a word these six things are my burden 1. I am not in the vineyard as others are it may be because Christ thinketh me a withered tree not worthy it's room but God forbid 2. Woe woe woe is coming upon my harlot-mother this Apostat-kirk the time is coming when we shall wish for doves wings to flee and hide us Oh for the desolation of this land 3. I see my dear master Christ going his alone as it were mourning in sackeloth his fainting friends fear that King Jesus shall lose the field but he must carry the day 4. My guiltiness and the sins of my youth are come up against me and they would come in the plea in my sufferings as deserving causes in God's justice but I pray God for Christ's sake he never give them that room woe 's me that I cannot get my Royall dreadfull mighty glorious Prince of the Kings of the earth set on high Sir ye may help me pity me in this and bow your knee blesse his name desire others to doe it that he hath been pleased in my sufferings to make Atheists Papists enemies about me say It is like God is with this prisoner Let hell the powers of hell I care not be let loose against me to doe their worst so being Christ my Father his Father be magnified in my sufferings 6. Christ's love hath pained me for howbeit his presence hath shamed me and drowned me in debt yet he often goeth away when my love to him is burning he seemeth to look like a proud wooer who will not look upon a poor match who is dying of love I will not say he is lordly but I know he is wise in hiding himself from a childe a fool who maketh an idol a God of one of Christ's kisses which is Idolatry I fear I adore his comforts more then himself and that I love the apples of life better then the tree of life Sir write to me Commend me to your wife mercy be her portion Grace be with you Aberd. 1637 Yours in his dearest Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN STUART Provest of Ayr. 53 Worthy and dearly beloved in our Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you I was refreshed comforted with your letter what I wrote to you for your comfort I doe not remember but I beleeve love will prophesie home-ward as it would have it I wish I could help you to praise his great and holy name who keepeth the feet of his saints hath numbred all your goings I know our dearest Lord will pardon passe by our honest errours mistakes when we minde his honour yet I know none of you have seen the other half the hidden side of your wonderfull return home to us again I am confident ye shall yet say that God's mercy blew your sailes back to Ireland again Worthy dear Sir I cannot but give you an account of my present state that ye may goe an errand for me to my high royall master of whom I boast all the day I am as proud of his love nay I blesse my self boast more of my present lot as any poor man can be of an earthly Kings court or of a Kingdom First I am very often turning both the sides of my cross especially my dumb silent Sabbaths not because I desire to finde a crook or defect in my Lord's love but because love is sick with phansies fears whether or not the Lord hath a processe leading against my guiltiness that I have not yet well seen I know not my desire is to ride fair not to spark dirt if with reverence of him I may be permitted to make use of such a word in the face of my onely onely welbeloved but fear of guiltness iâ— a tale-bearer betwixt me Christ is still whispering ill tales of my Lord to weaken my faith I had rather a cloud went over my comforts by these messages then that my faith should be hurt for if my Lord get no wrong by me verily I desire grace not to care what become of me I desire to give no faith nor credit to my sorrow that can make a lye of my best friend Christ. Woe woe be to them all who speak ill of Christ. Hence these thoughts awake with me in the morning goe to bed with me Oh what service can a dumb body doe in Christ's house Oh I think the word of God is imprisoned also Oh I am a dry tree Alas I can neither plant nor water Oh if my Lord would make but dung of me to fatten and make fertile his own corn-ridges in mount Sion Oh if I might but speak to three or four herd-boyes of my worthy master I would be satisfied to be the meanest and most obscure of all the Pastors in this land to live in any place in any of Christ's basest out-housâ—s but he saith Sirra I â—ill not send you I have no errands for you there away My desire to serve him is sick of jealousie lest he be unwilling to employ me Secondly this is seconded with another Oh all that I have done in Anwoth the fair work that my Master began there is like a bird dying in the shell what will I then have to show of all my labour in the day of my compearance before him when the Master of the vineyard calleth the labourers giveth them their hire Thirdly but truly when Christ's sweet wind is in the right airth I repent I pray Christ to take law-borrows of my quarrelous unbeleeving sadness sorrow Lord rebuke them that put ill betwixt a poor servant like me his good master then I say whether the black cross will or not I must climb hands feet up to my Lord. I am now ruing from my heart that I pleasure the law my old dead husband so far as to apprehend wrath in my sweet Lord Jesus I had far rather take an hire to plead for the grace of God for I think my self Christ's sworn debter the truth is to speak of my Lord what I cannot deny I am over head ears drowned in many obligations to his love mercy he handleth me sometimes so that I am ashamed almost to seek more for a four-hours but to live content till the marriage-supper of the Lamb with that which he giveth but I know not how greedy how ill to please love is for either my Lord Jesus hath taught me ill manners not to be content of a seat except my head lie in his bosom except I be fed with the fattest of his house or else I am grown impatiently dainty ill to please as if Christ were obliged under this cross to doe no other thing but bear me in his armes
Christ And if I were not so my sufferings had melted me away in ashes and smoke I thank my Lord that he hath something in me that this fire cannot consume Remember my love to your husband show him from me I desire that he may set aside all things make sure work of salvation that it be not a seeking when the sand-glass is run out time eternity shall tryst together There is no errand so wieghty as this O that he would take it to heart Grace be with you Aberd. Yours in Christ Iesus his Lord. S. R. To the Lady DUNGUEIGH 65 MISTRESS I Long to hear from you how ye goe on with Christ I am sure that Christ ye once met I pray you fasten your grips there is holding drawing much sea-way to heaven we are often sea-sick but the voyage is so needfull that we must on any termes take shipping with Christ. I beleeve it is a good countrey we are going to there is ill lodging in this smoaky house of the world in which we are yet living Oh that we should love smoke so well clay that holdeth our feet fast It were our happiness to follow on after Christ to anchor our selves upon the rock in the upper side of the vail Christ Satan are now drawing to parties they are blinde who see not Scotland divided in two camps Christ coming out with his white banner of love he hangeth that over the heads of his souldiers And the other Captain the Dragon is coming out with a great black flag crieth the world the world case honour a whole skin and a soft couch there lie they leave Christ to fend for himself My counsel is that ye come out leave the multitude let Christ have your company Let them take clay this present world who love it Christ is a more worthy noble portion Blessed are these who get him It is good ere the storm rise to make ready all to be prepared to goe to the camp with Christ seeing he will not keep the house nor sit at the fire-side with couchers A showr for Christ is little enough Oh I finde all too little for him Woe woe woe 's me that I have no propine for my Lord Jesus My love is so feckless that it is a shame too offer it to him Oh if it were as broad as heaven as deep as the sea I would gladly bestow it upon him I persâ—ade you God is wringing grapes of red wine for Scotland this land shall drink spue fall His enemies shall drink the thick of it the grounds of it But Scotland's withered tree shall blossom again Christ shall make a second marriage with her take home his wife out of the furnace but if our eyes shall see it he knoweth who hath created time Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JONET MCCULLOCH 66 Loving Sister GRace mercy peace be to you Hold on your course for it may be I will not soon see you venture through the thick of all things after Christ tine not your Master Christ in the throng of this great market Let Christ know how heavy how many a stone weight you your cares burdens crosses sins are let him bear all Make the heritage sure to your self get charters writs passâ—d through put on arms for the battel keep you fast by Christ then let the wind blow out of what airth it will your soul will not blow in the sea I finde Christ the most steadable friend and companion in the world to me now the need usefulness of Christ i seen best in trials Oh if hebe not well worthy of his room Lodge him in house heart stir up your husband to seek the Lord I wonder he hath never written to me I doe not forget him I taught you the whole counsel of God delivered it to you it will be inquired for at your hands have it in readiness against the time that the Lord ask for it make you to meet the Lord rest sleep in the love of that fairest among the sons of men Desire Christ's beauty give out all your love to him let none fall by Learn in prayer to speak to him help your mother's soul desire her from me to seek the Lord his salvation it 's not soon found many miss it Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Your Loving Pastor S. R. To my Lord CRAIGHALL 67 My Lord. I cannot expound your Lo contrary tides and these tentations wherewith ye are assaulted to be any other thing but Christ trying you saying unto you will ye also leave me I am sure Christ hath a great advantage against you if ye play foul play to him in that the holy Spirit hath done his part in evidencing to your conscience that this is the way of Christ wherein ye shall have peace the other as sure as God liveth the Antichrist's way Therefore as ye fear God fear your light stand in aw of a convincing conscience it is far better for your Lo to keep your conscience to hazard in such a honourable cause your place then wilfully against your light to come under guiltiness Kings cannot heal broken consciences when death judgement shall comprize your soul your counsellers others cannot become caution to Justice for you Ere it be long our Lord will put a finall determination to Acts of Parliament mens laws will clear you before men Angels of mens unjust sentences Ye received honour place Authority riches reputation from your Lord to set forward advance the liberties freedom of Christ's Kingdom Men whose consciences are made of stoutness think little of such matters which notwithstanding incroach directly upon Christ's prerogative royal So would men think it a light matter for VZZah to put out his hand to hold the Lord 's falling ark but it cost him his life And who doubteth but a carnal friend will advise you to shut your window pray beneath your breath Ye make too great a dâ—â— with your prayers so would a head-of-wit speak if ye were in Daniel's place But mens overguilded reasons will not help you when your conscience is like to rive with a double charge Alas alas when will this world learn to submit their wisdom to the wisdom of God I am sure your Lo hath found the truth goe not then to search it over again for it is ordinary for men to make doubts when they have a minde to desert the truth Kings are not their own men their wayes are in God's hand I rejoyce am glad that ye resolve to walk with Christ howbeit his court be thin Grace be with your Lo Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your Lo in his sweet Master and Lord Iesus S. R. To WILLIAM
hath my heart for evermore but alas it is over little for him O if it were better more worthy for his sake O if I might meet with him face to face in this side of eternity might have leave to plead with him that I am so hungred famished here with the niggardly portion of his love that he giveth me O that I might be carver steward my selâ— at mine own will of Christ's love if I may lawfully wish this then would I enlarge my vessel alas a narrow ebbe soul take in a sea of i love My hunger for it is hungry lean in beleeving that ever I shall be satisfied with that love so fain would I have what I know I cannot hold O Lord Jesus delightest thou delightest thou to pine torment poor souls with the want of thy incomparable loved O if I durst call thy dispensation cruell I know thou thy self aâ—t mercy without either brim or bottom I know thoâ— art a God bankfull of mercy love but Oh alas little of it cometh my way I die to look a far off to that love because I can get but little of it But hope saith this providence shall ere long look more favourably upon poor bodies me also Grace be with your La Spirit Aberd. Sept. 10. 1637. Yours La in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr JAMES HAMILTON 71 Reverend dear Brother PEace be to you from God our father and from our Lord Jesus I am laid low when I remember what I am and that my out-side casteth such a lustre when I finde so little within It is a wonder that Christ's glory is not defiled in running through such an unclean impure channel But I see Christ will be Christ in the dreg and refuse of men his art his shining wisdom his beauty speaketh loudest in blackness weakness deadness yea in nothing I see nothing no money no worth no good no life no deserving is the ground that omnipotency delighteth to draw glory out of O how sweet is the inner side of the walls of Christ's house and a room beside himself my distance from him maketh me sad O that we were in others arms O that the middle things betwixt us were removed I finde it a difficult matter to keep all stots with Christ when he laugheth I scarce beleeve it I would so fain have it true But I am like a low man looking up to a high mountain whom weariness and fainting overcometh I would climb up but I finde that I doe not advance in my journey as I would wish Yet I trust he shall take me home against night I marvel not that Antichrist in his slaves is so busie but our crowned King seeth and beholdeth and will arise for Zion's safety I am exceedingly distracted with letters and company that vilite me what I can doe or time will permit I shall not omit Excuse my brevity for I am straitned Remember the Lord's prisoner I desire to be mindfull of you Grace grace be with you Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr GEORGE DUMBAR 72 Reverend Dearly beloved in the Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you Because your words have strengthened many I was silent expecting some lines from you in my bonds this is the cause why I wrote not to you but now I am forced to break off and speak I never beleeved till now that there was so much to be found in Christ in this side of death and of heaven O the ravishments of heavenly joy that may be had here in the small gleanings of comforts that fall from Christ what fools are we who know not and consider not the weight and the telling that is in the very earnest-penny the first fruits of our hoped for harvest How sweet how sweet is our infeftment O what then must personal possession be I finde that my Lord Jesus hath not miscooked or spilt this sweet cross he hath an eye on the fire and the melting gold to separate the mettall and the dross O how much time would it take me to read my obligations to Jesus my Lord who will neither have the faith of his own to be burnt to ashes nor yet will have a poor beleever in the fire to be half raw like Ephraim's unturned cakeâ— this is the wisdom of him who hath his fiâ—elâ— Zion and his furâ—ace in Jerusaâ—em I need not either bud or flatter temptations crâ—sses nor strive to buy the Devil or this malicious world by or râ—deem their kindness with half a han-breadth of truth He who is surâ—ty for his servant for good doeth power fully over-rule all that I sâ—e my prison hath neither lock nor door I am free in my bonds and my chains are made of rotten straw they shall not bide one pull of faith I am sure they are in hell who would exchange their torments with our crosses suppose they should nevâ—r be delivered give twenty thousand years torment to boot to be in our bonds for ever therefore we wrong Christ who siâ—…h fear doubt despond in them Our suffâ—â—ings are washen in Christ's blood as well as our souls for Christ's merits bought a blessing to the crosses of the sons of God and Jesus hath a back-bond of all our temptations that the free warders shall come out by law and justice in respect of the infinite and great summe that the Redeemer paid Our troubles ow us a free passage through them devils and men and crosses are our debters and death and all storms are our debters to blow our poor tossed bark over the water fraught-frâ—e to set the travellers in their own known ground Therefore we shall die yet live we are over the water some way already we are married our tocher-good is payed we are already more then conquerours If the devil and the world knew how the court with our Lord shall goe I am sure they would hire death to take us off their hand our sufferings are the onely wâ—ack ruine of the black Kingdom and yet a little the Antichrist must play himself with the bones slain bodies of the Lamb's followers but withall we stand with the hundred fourty four thousand who are with the Lamb upon the top of â—ount Sion Antichrist his followers are down in the valley ground we have the advantage of the hill our temptation are alwayes beneath our waters are beneath our breath as dying and behold we live I never heard before of a living death or a quick death but ours our death iâ— not like the common death Christ's skill his handy work a new cast of Christ's admirable art may be seen in our quick death I bless the Lord that all our troubles come through Christ's singers that he casteth sugar among them and casteth in some ounce weights of heaven and of the spirit of glory that resteth on suffering beleevers in
our cup in which there is no taste of hell My dear Brother ye know all these better then I I send water to the sea to speak of these things to you But it easeth me to desire you to help me to pay tribute of praise to Jesus O what praises I ow him I would I were in my free heritage that I might begin to pay my debts to Jesus I entreat for your prayers praises I forget not you Aberd. Sept. 17. 1637 Your brother and fellow sufferer in and for Christ. S. R. To Mr DAVID DICKSON 73 Reverend and welbeloved brother in the Lord. I Bless the Lord who hath so wonderfully stopped the on-going of that lawless process against you The Lord reigneth hath a saving eye upon you your ministery therefore fear not what men can doe I bless the Lord that the Irish ministers finde employment the professors comfort of their ministery Beleeve me I durst not as I am now disposed hold an honest brother out of the pulpit I trust the Lord shall guard you hide you in the shadow of his hand I am not pleased with any that are against you in that I see this in prosperity mens conscience will not start at small sins But if some had been where I have been since I came from you a little more would have caused their eye water troubled their peace O how ready are we to incline to the world's-hand Our arguments being well examined are often drawn from our skin the whole skin a peaceable tabernacle is a topick maxime in great request in our Logick I finde a little breirding of God's seed in this town for the which the Doctors have told me their minde that they cannot bear with it and have examined and threatned the people that haunt my company I fear I get not leave to winter here and whether I goe I know not I am ready at the Lord's call I would I could make acquaintance with Christ's cross for I finde comforts lie to follow upon the cross I suffer in my name by them I take it as a part of the crucifying of the old man Let them cut the throat of my credit doe as they like best with it when the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me in the way to heaven I know Christ will take my name out of the mire wash it restore it to me again I would have a minde if the Lord would be pleased to give me it to be a fool for Christ's sake Sometimes while I have Christ in my arms I fall asleep with the sweetness of his presence he in my sleep stealeth away out of my arms when I awake I misâ— him I am much comforted with my Lady Piâ—sligo a good woman acquainted with God's wayes Grace be with you Aberd. Sept. 11. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord. Iesus S. R. To the right honourable my Lord LOWDOUN 75. Right honourable GRace mercy peace be to your Lo I rejoyce exceedingly that I hear your Lo hath a good minde to Christ his now-born-down truth My very dear Lord goe on in the strength of the Lord to carry your honour worldly glory to the new Ierusalem For this cause your Lo received these of the Lord this is a sure way for the establishment of your house if ye be of these who are willing in your place to build Zion's old waste places in Scotland Your Lo wanteth not God's man's law both now to come to the streets for Christ suppose the bastard laws of man were against you it is an honest zealous errour if here ye slip against a point or punctilio of standing policy when your foot slippeth in such known ground as is the royal prerogative of our high most truly dread â—overaign who hath many crowns on his head the liberties of his house he will hold you up Blessed shall they be who take Babel's little ones dash their heads against stones I wish your Lo have a share of that blessing with other worthy Nobles in our land It is true it is now accounted wisdom for men to be partners in pullin up the stakes looâ—ng the cords of the tent of Christ but I am peswaded that that wisdom is cried down in heaven shall never passe for true wisdom itâ— the Lord whose word crieth shame upon wit against Christ truth accordingly it shall prove shame confusion of face in the end Our Lord hath given your Lo 〈◊〉 of a better stamp learning also wherein yeare not behinde th disputer and the sâ—â—be O what a blessâ—d thing iâ— it to see Noâ—ility Learning Sanctification all co curre in one For these ye ow your sel to Christ his â—ingdom God hath be-wildered bâ—-misted the wit the learning of the scribes disputer of this time they look asquint to the Bible This blinding be-â—…ing world blindfoldeth mens light that they are affraid to se straight out bâ—fore them nay their very light playeth the knave or woâ—s to truth Your Lo knoweth within a little while Policy against trutâ— will bluâ—h the works of men shall burn even their spider-wâ—b who spin out many hundred ells webs of indifferencie in the Lord's worship moe then ever â—oses who would have anâ—oof mâ—â—t rial Daniel who would have a look out at a wiâ—dow a matter of life death then ever I say these men of God dreamed of Alas that men dare shape carve cut clippe our King 's princâ—ly Testament in length and breadth and in all dimensions answerable to the conceptions of such policy as a h ad-of-wit thinketh a safe and trim way of serving God How have men forgotten the Lord that they dà re goe against even that truth which once they preached themselves howbeit their sermons now be as thin sown as strav-berriâ—s in a wood or wilderness Certainly the sâ—eetest safest course is for this short time of the afternoon of this olâ— declining world to stand for Jesus he hath said it it is our part to beleeve it that ere is be long Time shall be no more and the heaven shall wax old as a garment 〈◊〉 Doe we not see it already an old hollie threed-bare garment doeth not or ple laâ—e ature tâ—â—l us that the Lord will fold up the old garment 〈◊〉 and lay it aside that the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll this pest-house shall be burnt with fire that both plenishing walls shall melt with fervent heat for at the Lord 's coming he will doe with this earth as men doe with a leper house he wil burn the walls with fire the plenishing of the house also 2 Pet. 3 10 11 12. My very Daer Lord how shall ye rejoyce in that day to have Christ Angels heaven your own conscience to smile upon you I am perswaded one
die your alone in the way I know ye have sad hours when the comforter is hid under a vail when ye inquire for him finde but a toom nest This I grant is but a cold good-day when the seeker misseth him whom the soul loveth but even his unkindness is kind his absence lovely his mask a sweet fight till God send Christ himself in his own sweet presence make his sweet comforts your own be not strange shame fast with Christ homely dealing is best for him it is his liking When your winter storms are over the summer of your Lord shall come Your sadness is with childe of joy he will doe you good in the latter end Take no heavier lift of your children then your Lord alloweth give them room beside your heart but not in the yolk of your heart where Christ should be for then they are your idols not your bairns if your Lord take any of them home to his house before the storm come on take it well the owner of the orchard may take down two or thrâ—…â—pples off his own trees before midsummer ere they get the harvest sun it would not be seemly that his servant the gardiner should chide him for it Let our Lord pluck his own fruit at any season he pleaseth they are not lost to you they are laid up so well as that they are coffered in heaven where our Lord 's best jewely lie They are all free goods that are there death can have no law to arrest any thing that is within the walls of the new Ierusalem All the saints because of sin are like old rusty horologies that must be taken down the wheels scoured mended set up again in better case then before Sin hath rusted both soul body our dear Lord by death taketh us down to scour the wheels of both to purge us perfectly from the root and remainder of sin we shall be set up in better case then before Then pluck up your heart heaven is yours that is a word few can say Now the great Shepherd of the sheep the very God of peace confirm establish you to the day of the appearance of Christ our Lord. Aberd. 7 Sept. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To his revend very dear brother Mr GEORGE GILLESPIE 78 My very Dear Brother I Received yours I am still with the Lord his cross hath done that which I thought impossible once Christ keepeth tryst in the fire water with his own cometh ere our breath goe out ere our blood grow cold Blessed are they whose feet escape the great golden net that is now spread it is our happiness to take the crabbed rough poor side of Christ's world which is a lease of crosses losses for him for Christ's in comes casualities that follow him are many it is not a little one that a good conscience may be had in following him this is true gain most to be laboured for loved Many give Christ for a shadow because Christ was rather beside their conâ—cience in a dead reprobate light then in their conscience Let us be ballasted with grace that we be not blowen over that we staggar not Yet a little while Christ his redeemed ones shall fill the field come out victorious Christ's glory of triumphing in Scotland is yet in the bud in the birth but the birth cannot prove an abortive He shall not faint nor be discouraged till he have brought forth judgement unto victory Let us still minde our Covenant the very God of peace be with you Aberd. 9. Sept. 1637. Your Brother in Christ. S. R. To Mr MATHEW MOWAT 79 Reverend Dear Brother I Am refreshed with your letters I would take all well at my Lord's hands that he hath done If I knew I could doe my Lord any service in my suffering suppose my Lord would make a stop-hole of me to fill a hole in the wall of his house or a pinning in Zion's new work For any place of trust in my Lord's house as steward or chamberlain or the like surely I think my self my very dear brother I speak not by any proud figure or trope unworthy of it nay I am not worthy to stand behinde the door if my head feet body were half out half in in Christ's house so I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house it would still my grieuing love-sick desires When I hear that the men of God are at work speaking in our Lord Jesus his name I think my self but an out-cast or out-law chased from the City to lie on the hills live amongst the rocks out-fields O that I might but stand in Christ's out-house or hold a candle in any low vault of his house But I know this is but the vapours that arise out of a quarrellous unbeleeving heart to darken the wisdom of God And your fault is just mine that I cannot beleeve my Lord's bare naked word I must either have an apple to play me with shake hands with Christ have seal caution witness to his word or else I count my self loose how beit I have the word faith of a King Oh I am made of unbelief cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground Alas Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying-waters as a dyvour a cousener We can make such a Christ as temptations casting us in a night-dream doeth feign devise tempeations represent Christ ever unlike himself we in our folly listen to the tempter If I could minister one saving word to any how glad would my soul be But I my self which is my greatest evil often mistake the cross of Christ For I know if we had wit knew well that ease slayeth us fools we would desire a market where we might barter or niffer our lazie ease with a profitable cross howbeit there be an out-cast natural betwixt our desires tribulation But some give a dear price gold for physick which they love not buy sickness howbeit they wish rather to have been whole then to be sick But surely Brother ye shall not have my advice howbeit alas I cannot follow it my self to contend with the honest faithfull Lord of the house for goe he or come he he is ay gracious in his departure There are grace mercy loving kindness upon Christ's back-parts When he goeth away the proportion of his face the image of that fair sun that staveth in eyes senses heart after he is gone leaveth a mass of love behinde it in the heart The sound of his knock at the door of his beloved after he is gone past leaveth 〈◊〉 share of joy sorrow both So we have something to feed upon till he return he is more loved in his departure after he is gone then
before as the day in the declining of the sun toward 's the evening is often most desired And as for Christ's cross I never received evil of it but what was of mine own making when I miscooked Christ's physick no marvel that it hurt me For since it was on Christ's back it hath alwayes a sweet smell these 1600 Years it keepeth the smell of Christ nay it is elder then that too for it is a long time since Abel first hansel'd the cross had it laid upon his shoulders down from him all alongst to this very day all the saints have known what it is I am glad that Christ hath such a relation to this cross that it is called the cross of our Lord Iesus Gal. 6 v. 14. His reproaches Heb. 13 13. As if Christ would claim it as his proper goods so it cometh in the reckoning among Christ's own property If it were simple evil as sin is Christ who is not the author nor owner of sin would not own it I wonder at the enemies of Christ in whom malice hath run away with wit will is up wit down that they would essay to lift up the stone laid in Zion surely it is not laid in such sinking ground as that they can raise it or remove it for when we are in their belly they have swallowed us down they will be sick spue us out again I know Zion her Husband cannot both sleep at once I beleeve our Lord once again shall water with his dew the withered hill of mount Zion in Scotland come down make a new marriage again as he did long since Remember our Covenant Your excuse for your advice to me is needless Alas many sit beside light as sick folks beside meat cannot make use of it Grace be with you Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your brother in Christ S. R. To Mr JOHN MEINE 80 Dear Brother I Received your letter I cannot but testifie under mine own hand that Christ is still the longer the better that this time is the time of loves When I have said all I can others may begin say I have said nothing of him I never knew Christ to ebbe or flow wax or wane his winds turn not when he seemeth to change it is but we who turn our wrong side to him I never had a plea with him in my hardest conflicts but of mine own making Oh that I could live in peace good neighbourhood with such a second let him alone My unbelief made many black lies but my recantation to Christ is not worth the hearing Surely he hath born with strange gâdes in me He knoweth my heart hath not naturall wit to keep quarters with such a Saviour Ye doe well to fear your own backsliding I had stood sure if I had in my youth borrowed Christ to be my bottom But he that beareth his own weight to heaven shall not fail to slip sink Ye had no need to be bare-footed among the thorns of this apostat generation lest a stob strike up in your foot cause you to halt all your dayes And think not Christ will doe with you in the matter of suffering as the Pope doeth in the matter of sin Ye shall not finde that Christ will sell a Dispensation or give a Dyvour's Protection against crosses Crosses are proclaimed as common Accidents to all the saints in them standeth a part of our communion with Christ But there lieth a sweet casuality to the cross even Christ's presence his comforts when they are sanctified Remember my love to your father mother Grace be with you Aberd. 7. Sept. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN FLEEMING Bailiffe of Leith 81 Much honoured in the Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you I am still in good termes with Christ however my Lord's wind blow I have the advantage of the calm sunny side of Christ. Devils hell Devil's servants are all blowen blinde in pursuing the Lord 's little Bride They shall be as a night-dream who fight against mount Zion Worthy Sir I hope ye take to heart the worth of your calling This great fair meeting of people will skaile the port is open for us As fast as time weareth out we flee away Eternity is at our elbow O how blessed are they who in time make Christ sure for themselves Salvation is a great errand I finde it hard to fetch heaven Oh that we could take pains on our lamps for the Bridegroom 's coming the other side of this world will be turned up incontinent up shall down these that are weeping in sack-cloth shall triumph on white horses with him whose name is The word of God These dying idols the fair creatures that we whorishly love better then our Creator will pass away like snow water The Godhead the Godhead a communion with God in Christ to be halvers with Christ of the purchased house inheritance in heaven should be your scope aime For my self when I lay my counts O what telling O what weighing is in Christ O how soft are his kisses O love love surpassing in Jesus I have no fault to that love but that it seemeth to deal niggardly with me I have little of it O that I had Christ's seen read band subscribed by himself for my fill of it What garland have I or what crown if I looked right on things but Jesus Oh there is no room in us on this side of the water for that love This narrow bit earth these ebbe narrow souls can hold little of it because we are full of rifts I would glory glory would enlarge us as it will make us tight close up our seams rifts that we might be able to comprehend it which yet is incomprehensible Remember my love to your wife Grace be with you Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To ALEXANDER GORDON Of Earlestoun 82. Much honoured Sir HOwbeit I would have been glad to have seen you yet seeing our Lord hath been pleased to break the snare of your adversaries I heartily bless our Lord on your behalf Our crosses for Christ are not made of iron they are softer and of more gentle mettall It is easy for God to make a fool of the Devil the father of all fools As for me I but breath out what my Lord breatheth in The scum froth of my letters I father upon my own unbeleeving heart I know your Lord hath something to doe with you because Satan malice have shot sore at you but your bowe abideth in it's strength Ye shall not by my advice be a halver with Christ to divide the glory of your deliverance betwixt your self him or any other second mean whatsoever Let Christ as it setteth him well have all the glory triumph his alone The Lord set himself on high in you I
chaff Isa. 41. If ye slack your hands at your meetings your watching to prayer then it would seem our rock hath sold us but be dililigent be not discouraged I charge you in Christ rejoyce give thanks beleeve be strong in the Lord That burning bush in Galloway Kirkâ—…dbright shall not be burnt to ashes for the Lord is in the bush Be not discouraged that banishment is to be procured by the King's warrand to the Councel against me the earth is my Lord's I am filled with his sweet love running over I rejoyce to hear ye are in your journey such newes as I hear of all your faith love rejoyce my sad heart Pray for me for they seek my hurt but I give my self to prayer The blessing of my Lord a prisoner of Christ's blessing be with you O chosen greatly beloved woman faint not Fy fy if ye faint now Ye lose a good cause double your meetings cease not for Zion's sake hold not your peace till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth Aberd. 1637. Yours in Christ Iesus his Lord. S. R. To THOMAS CORBET 85 Dear friend I Forget you not It shall be my joy that ye follovv after Christ till ye finde him My conscience is a feast of joy to me that I sought in singleness of heart for Christ's love to put you upon the King's high-vvay to our Bridegroom our father's house Thrice blessed are ye my dear Brother if ye hold the way I beleeve ye and Christ once met I hope ye will not sunder with him Follovv the counsel of the man of God Mr William Dalglâ—ish If ye depart from what I taught you in a hair-breadth for fâ—ar or favour of men or desire of ease in this world I take heaven earth to witness that ill shall come upon you in end Build not your nest here This world is an hard ill made bed no rest in it for your soul awake awake make haste to seek that pearl Christ that this world seeth not Your night and your Master Christ will be upon you within a clap your hand-breadth of time will not bide you Take Christ hovvbeit a storm follow him howbeit this day be not yours Christ's the morrow will be yours his I would not exchange the joy of my bonds imprisonment for Christ with all the joy of this dirty soul-skinned world I have a love-bed with Christ am filled with his love I desire your vvife to doe what I write to you Let her remember how dear Christ would be to her when her breath turneth cold the eye-strings shall break O how joyfull should my soul be to know that I had brought on a marriage betvvixt Christ that people fevv or many if it be not so I vvill be woe to be a vvitness against them Use prayer love not the world be humble and esteem little of your self love your enemies pray for them make conscience of speaking truth when none knoweth but God I never eat but I pray for you all Pray for me Ye I shall see one another up in our father's house I rejoyce to hear that your eye is upon Christ. Follow on hing on quite him not The Lord Jesus be with your spirit Aberd. 1637. Your affectionat Brother in our Lord Iesus S. R. To ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlestoun 86. Much honoured Sir GRace mercy peace be to you I received your letter which refreshed me Except from your son my brother I have seen few lâ—tters from my acquaintance in that countrey which maketh me heavie But I have the company of a Lord who can teach us all to be kind hath the right gate of it though for the present I have seven up's down's every day yet I am abundantly comforted feasted with my King welbeloved dâ—ily It pleaseth him to come dine with a sad prisoner a solitary stranger His spikenard casteth a smell yet my sweet hath some sowre mixed with it wherein I must acquiesce for there is no reason that his comforts be too cheap seeing they are delicates why should he not make them so to his own But I verily think now Christ hath led me up to a nick in Christianity that I was never at before I think all before vvas but child-hood bairns-play Since I departed from you I have been scalded vvhile the smoak of hell's fire vvent in at my throat I vvould have bought peace vvith a thousand years torment in hell I have been up also after these deep dovvn-castings sorrovvs before the Lamb 's vvhite throne in my father's inner court the great King'â— dining-hall Christ did cast a coveâ—ing of love over me he hath casten in a coal in my soul it is sâ—oking â—mong the stravv keeping the hearth warme I look back to what I vvas before I laugh to see the sand-houses I built vvhen I vvas a childâ— At first the remembrance of many fair feast-dayes vvith my Lord Jesus in publike wich are now changed into silent sabbaths raised a great tempest if I may speak so made the Devil a doe in my soul the devil came in would prompt me to make a plea with Christ to lay the blame on him as a hard master But now these mists are blowen away I am not onely silenced as to all quarrelling but fully satisfied Now I wonder that any man living can laugh upon the world or give it a hearty good-day The Lord Jesus hath handled me so that as I am now disposed I think never to be in this world 's common again for a night's lodging Christ beareth me good company he hath eased me when I saw it not lifting the cross off my shoulders so that I think it to be but a feather because underneath are everlasting arms God forbid it came to bartering or niffering of crosses for I think my cross so sweet that I know not where I would get the like of it Christ's honey-combs drop so abundantly that they sweeten my gall Nothing breaketh my heart but that I cannot get the daughters of Ierusalem to tell them of my bride-groom's glory I charge you in the name of Christ that ye tell all ye come to of it yet it is above telling understanding Oh if all the kingdom were as I am except my bonds they know not the love-kisses that my onely Lord Jesus wasteth on a dâted prisoner On my salvation this is the onely way to the new city I know Christ hath no dumb seals would he put his privy seal upon blank paper he hath sealed my sufferings with comforts I write this to confirm you I write now what I have seen as well as heard Now then my silence burneth up my spirit But Christ hath said thy stipend is running up with interest in heaven as if thou wert preaching And this from a King's mouth rejoyceth my heart At other
Grace be with you Aberd. March 13. 1637. Your Brother in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Lady ROBERTLAND 105. MISTRESS GRace mercy peace be to you I shall be glad to hear that your soul prospereth that fruit groweth upon you after the Lord's husbandry pains in his rod that hath not been a stranger to you from your youth It is the Lord's kindness that he will take the scum off us in the fire Who knoweth how needfull winnowing is to us what dross we must want ere we enter into the Kingdom of God So narrow is the entry to heaven that our knots our bunches lumps of pride and self-love idol-love world-love must be hammered off us that we may throng in stooping low creeping thorow that narrow thorny entry And now for my self I finde it the most sweet heavenly life to take up house dwelling at Christ's fire-side set down my tent upon Christ that foundation-stone who is sure faithfull ground hard under foot Oh if I could win to it proclaim my self not the world's debter nor a lover obliged to it that I minde not to hire or bud this world's love any longer but defie the kindness feud of God's whole creation whatsomever especially the lower vault clay part of God's creatures this vain earth For what hold I of his world A borrowed lodging some years house-room bread water fire bed candle c. are all a part of the pension of my King Lord to whom I ow thanks not to a creature I thank God that God is God Christ is Christ the earth the earth the Devil the devil and the world the world that sin is sin and that every thing is what it is Because he hath taught me in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus nor to intermix him with creature-vanities nor to spin or twine Christ or his sweet love in one web or in one threed with the world and the things thereof Oh if I could hold and keep Christ all alone and mix him with nothing O if I could cry down the price and weight of my cursed self and cry up the price of Christ and double triple and augment and heighten to millions the price worth of Christ I am if I durst speak so might lawfully complain so hungredly tutoured by Christ Jesus my liberall Lord that his nice love which my soul would be in hands with flyeth me yet I am trained on to love him lust long die for his love whom I cannot see it is a wonder to pine away with love for a covered hid lover to be hungred with his love so as a poor soul cannot get his fill of hunger for Christ It is hard to be hungered of hunger whereof such abundance for other things is in the world But sure if we were tutours and stewards and Masters and Lordcarvers of Christ's love we should be more lean worse fed then we are Our meat doeth us the more good that Christ keepeth the keys that the wind the air of Christ's sweet breathing of the influence of his spirit is locked up in the hands of the good pleasure of him who bloweth where he listeth I see there is a sort of impatient patience required in the want of Christ as to his manifestations waiting on They thrive who wait on his love the blowing of it the turning of his gracious wind they thrive who in that on-waiting make haste and din and much adoe for their lost and hidden Lord Jesus However it be God feed me with him any way If he would come in I shall not dispute the matter where he got a hole or how he opened the lock I should be content that Christ and I met suppose he should stand on the other side of hell's lake and cry to me Either put in your foot come through else ye shall not have me at all But what fools are we in the taking up of him and of his dealing He hath a gate of his own beyond the thoughts of men that no foot hath skill to follow him But we are still ill Scholars and will goe in at heavens gates wanting the half of our lesson and shall still be bairns so long as we are under time's hands and till eternity cause a sun to arise in our souls that shall give us wit We may see how we spill and maâ— our own fair heaven and our salvation and how Christ is every day putting in one bone or other in these fallen souls of ours in the right place again and that in this side of the new Ierusalem we shall still have need of forgiving and healing grace I finde crosses Christ's carved work that he marketh out for us and that with crosses he figureth pourtraieth us to his own image cutting away pieces of our ill corruption Lord cut Lord carve Lord wound Lord doe any thing that may perfect thy Father's image in us make us meet for glory Pray for me I forget not you that our Lord would be pleased to lend me house-room to preach his righteousness tell what I have heard seen of him Forget not Zion that is now in Christ's calmes in his forge God bring her out new work Grace grace be with you Aberd. Jan. 4. 1638. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Earle of Cassills 106 Right honourable my very good Lord. GRace mercy peace be to your Lo I hope your Lo Will be pleased to pardon my boldness if upon report of your zealous forward minde that I hear our Lord hath given you in this his honourable cause when Christ his Gospel are so foully wronged I speak to your Lo in paper entreating your Lo to goe on in the strength of the Lord toward and against a storm of Antichristian wind that bloweth upon the face of this your poor mother-Church Christ's lilie amongst the thorns It is your Lo Glory happiness when ye see such a blow coming upon Christ to cast up your arm to prevent it Neither is it a cause that needeth to blush before the sun or to flee the sentence or censure of impartial beholders seeing the Question indeed if it were rightly stated is about the Prerogative royal of our princely royal law-giver our Lord Jesus whose ancient march-stones land-bounds our bastard Lord's the earthly generation of tyrannizing Prelats have boldly shamefully removed they who have but-half an eye may see that it is the greedy desires of Demas's and the itching scab of ambitous and climbing Diotrephes's who love the goat's life to climb till they cannot finde a way to set their soles on ground again that hath made such a wide breach in our Zion's beautifull walls and these are the men who seek no hire for the crucifying of
once cometh nigh hand taketh a hearty look of Christ's inner side shall never wring nor wrestle themselves out of his love-grips again I would rest contented in my prison yea in a prison without light of sun or candle providing Christ I had a love-bed not of mine but of Christ his own making that we might lie together among the lilies till the day break the shadows flee away Who knoweth how sweet a drink of Christ's love is O but to live on Christ's love is a King's life The worst things of Christ even that which seemeth to be the refuse of Christ his hard cross his black cross is white fair the cross receiveth a beautifull lustre a perfumed smell from Jesus Mydear Brother scar not at it While ye have time to stand upon the watch tower to speak contend with this land plead with your harlot-mother who hath been a treacherous half-marrow to her husband Iesus For I would think liberty to preach one day the root top of my desires would seek no more of the blessings that are to be had on this side of time till I be over the water but to spend this my crazed clay-house in his service saving of souls But I hold my peace because he hath done it my shallow ebbe thoughts are not the compass Christ saileth by I leave his wayes to himself for they are far far above me Onely I would contend with Christ for his love and be bold to make a plea with Jesus my Lord for a heart-fill of his love for there is no more left to me What standeth beyond the far end of my sufferings and what shall be the event he knoweth and I hope to my joy shall make me know when God shall unfold his decrees concerning me for there are windings and too 's and fro's in his wayes which blinde bodies like us cannot see This much for further acquaintance So recommending you what is before you to the grace of God I rest Aberd. June 16. 1637. Your very loving Brother in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr WILLIAM DALGLEISH 125 Reverend welbeloved Brother GRace mercy peace be unto you I have heard somewhat of your trials in Galloway I bless the Lord who hath begun first in that corner to make you a new Kirk to himself Christ hath the less adoe behinde when he hath refined you Let me entreat you my dearly beloved to be fast to Christ My witness is above My dearest Brother that ye have added much joy to me in my bonds when I hear that ye grow in the grace and zeal of God for your Master Our ministery whether by preaching or suffering will cast a smell through the world both of heaven hell 2 Cor. 2 15 16. I perswade you my dear Brother there is nothing out of heaven next to Christ dearer to me then my ministery the worth of it in my estimation is swelled paineth me exceedingly yet I am content for the honour of my Lord to surrender it back again to the Lord of the vineyard let him doe with me it both what he thinketh good I think my self too little for him let me speak to you how kinde a fellow prisoner is Christ to me Beleeve me this kinde of cross that would not goe by my door but would needs visite me is still the longer the more welcome to me It 's true my silent sabbaths have been are still as glassy yee whereon my faith can scarce hold it's feet I am often blowen on my back and off my feet with a storm of doubting yet truly my bonds all this time cast a mighty and ranck smell of high and deep love in Christ I cannot indeed see through my cross to the far end Yet I beleeve I am in Christ's books in his decree not yet unfolded to me a man triumphing dancing singing over on the other side of the red sea laughing praising the lamb over beyond time sorrow deprivation prelat's indignation losses want of friends death Heaven is not a foul flying in the air as men use to speak of things that are uncertain nay it is well paid for Christ's comprizement lieth on Glory for all the mourners in Zion shall never be loosed Let us be glad rejoyce that we have blood losses wounds to show our Master Captain at his appearance and what we suffered for his cause Woe is me my dear Brother that I say often I am but dry bones which my Lord will not bring out of the grave again that my faithless fears say Oh I am a dry tree that can bear no fruit I am an useless body who â—an beget no children to the Lord in his house Hopes of deliverance look cold uncertain afar off as if I had done with it it is much for Christ if I may say so to get Lawborrows of my sorrow of my quarrelous heart Christ's love playeth me fair play I am not wronged at all but there is a tricking and false heart within me that still playeth Christ foul play I am a cumbersom neighbour to Christ It is a wonder that he dwelleth beside the like of me yet I often get the advantage of the hill above my temptations then I despise the temptation even hell it self the stink of it the instruments of it and am proud of my honourable Master And I resolve whether contrary winds will or not to fetch Christ's harbour I think a willfull stiff contention with my Lord Jesus for his love very lawfull it 's sometimes hard to me to win my meat upon Christ's love because my faith is sick my hope withereth my eyes wax dim unkinde comfort-eclipsing clouds goe over the fair bright light Sâ—n-Jesus And then when I my temptation tryste the matter together we spill all through unbelief Sweet sweet for evermore would my life be if I could keep faith in exercise But I see my fire cannot alwayes cast light I have even a poor man's hard world when he goeth away But surely since my entry hither many a time hath my fair sun shined without a cloud Hot burning hath Christ's love been to me I have no vent to the expression of it I must be content with stoln smothered desires of Christ's glory O how far is his love behinde the hand with me I am just like a man who hath nothing to pay his thousands of debt All that can be gotten of him is to seâ—â—e upon his person Except Christ would seâ—â—e upon my self make the readiest payment that can be of my heart love to himself I have no other thing to give him If my sufferings could doe beholders good edifie his Kirk proclaim the incomparable worth of Christ's love to the world O then how would my soul be overjoyed my sad heart cheered and calmed Dear
wisdom made choice of it for me it must be best because it was his choice O that I may wait for him till the morning of this benighted Kirk break out This poor afflicted Kirk had a fair morning but her night came upon her before her noon-day she was like a traveller forced to take house in the morning of his journey now her adversaries are the chief men in the land her wayes mourn her gates languish her children sigh for bread and there is none to be instant with the Lord that he would come again to his house dry the face of his weeping spouse comfort Zion's mourners who are waiting for him I know he shall make corn to grow upon the top of his withered mount Zion again Remember my bonds forget me not Oh that my Lord would bring me again amongst you with abundance of the Gospel of Christ But O that I may set down my desires where my Lord biddeth me Remember my love in the Lord to your husband God make him faithfull to Christ my blessing to your three children Faint not in prayer for this Kirk Desire my people not to receive a stranger intruder upon my ministery let me stand in that right station that my Lord Jesus gave me Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord and Master S. R. To JOHN GORDON At Risco 127 Dear Brother I Earnestly desire to know the case of your soul to understand that ye have made sure work of heaven salvation 1. Remember Salvation is one of Christ's dainties he giveth but to a few 2. That it is violent sweating striving that taketh heaven 3. That it cost Christ blood to purchase that house to sinners to set mankinde down the King 's free tenants free-holders 4. That many make a start toward heaven who fall on their back win not up to the top of the mount it plucketh heart legs from them they sit down give it over because the devil setteth a sweet smelled flower to their nose this fair busked World wherewith they are bewitched so forget or refuse to goe forward 5. Remember many goe far on reform many things can finde tears as Esau did suffer hunger for the truth as Iudas did wish desire the end of the righteous as Balaam did profess fair fight for the Lord as Saul did desire the saints of God to pray for them as Pharaoh Simon Magus did prophesie speak of Christ as Caiaphas did walk softly mourn for fear of judgement as Ahab did put away gross sins idolatry as Iehu did hear the word of God gladly reform their life in many things according to the word as Herod did say Master to Christ I will follow thee whither soever thou goest as the man who offered to be Christ's servant Math. 8. may taste of the vertues of the life to come be partaker of the wonderfull gifts of the holy spirit taste of the good word of God as the Apostates who sin against the Holy Ghost Heb 6. yet all these are but like gold in clink colour watered brass base mettall These are written that we should try our selves not rest till we be a step nearer Christ then sun-burnt withering professors can come 6. Consider it is impossible that your Idol-sins ye can goe to heaven together that they who will not part with these can indeed love Christ at the bottom but onely in word shew which will not doe the business 7. Remember how swiftly God's post time flieth away that your forenoon is already spent your afternoon will come then your evening at last night When ye cannot see to work let your heart be set upon finishing of your journey summing laying your accounts with your Lord. O how blessed shall ye be to have a joyfull welcome of your Lord at night How blessed are they who in time take sure course with their soul Bless his great name for what ye possess in goods children ease worldly contentment that he hath given you seek to be like Christ in humility lowliness of minde be not great intire with the world make it not your God nor your lover that ye trust into for it will deceive you I recommend Christ his love to you in all things let him have the flower of your heart your love set a low price upon all things but Christ cry down in your thoughts clay dirt that will not comfort you when ye get summonds to remove compear before your Judge to answer for all the deeds done in the body The Lord give you wisdom in all things I beseech you sanctifie God in your speaking for holy and reverend is his name be temperate sober companionry as it is called is a sin that holdeth men out of heaven I will not beleeve that ye will receive the ministry of a stranger who will preach a new uncouth doctrine to you Let my salvation stand for it if I delivered not the plain whole counsel of God to you in his word Read this letter to your wife remember my love to her request her to take heed to doe what I write to you I pray for you yours Remember me in your prayers to our Lord that he would be pleased to send me amongst you again Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Your lawfull loving Pastor S. R. To Mr HUGH HENDERSON 128 Reverend and dear Brother WHo knoweth but the wind may turn in to the West again upon Christ his desolate bride in this land And that Christ may get his summer by course again for he hath had ill weather this long time could not finde law or justice for himself his truth these many years I am sure the wheels of this crazed broken Kirk run all upon no other axel-tree nor is there any other to roll them cogge them drive them but the wisdom good pleasure of our Lord And it were a just trick glorious of never-sleeping providence to bring our brethrens darts they have shot at us back upon their own heads Suppose they have two strings in their bow can take one as another saileth them yet there are moe then three strings upon our Lord's bowe and besides he cannot miss the white that he shooteth at I know he shuffleth up down in his hand the great body of heaven earth that Kirk Commonwealth are in his hand like a stock of Cards that he dealeth â—he play to the mourners in Zion and these that say lye down that we may goe over you at his own soveraign pleasure And I am sure Zion's adversaries in this play shall not take up their own stakes again O how sweet a thing it is
to trust in him When Christ hath sleeped out his sleep if I may speak so of him who is the watch-man of Israel that neither slumbereth nor sleepeth and his own are tried he will arise as a strong man after wine and make bare his holy arm and put on vengeance as a cloak and deal vengeance thick double amongst the haters of Zion It may be we see him sow and send down maledictions vengeances as thick as drops of rain or hail upon his enemies For our Lord oweth them a black day he useth duely to pay his debts neither his friends followers nor his foes adversaries shall have it to say that he is not faithfull exact in keeping his word I know no bar in God's way but Scotland's guiltiness he can come over that impediment break that bar also then say to guilty Scotland as he said Ezek. 36. Not for your sakes c. On-waiting had ever yet a blessed issue to keep the word of God's patience keepeth still the saints dry in the water cold in the fire breathing blood-hot in the grave What are prisons of iron walls gates of brass to Christ Not so good as feal dikes fortifications of straw or old tottering walls If he give the word then the chains will fall off the arms legs of his prisoners God be thanked that our Lord Jesus hath the tutouring of King and Court and Nobles and that he can dry the gutters and the mires in Sion and lay causeys to the Temple with the carcases of bastard Lord-Prelats idol-shepherds The corn on the house-tops got never the husband-man's prayers so is seen on it for it filleth not the hand of mowers Christ truth innocency worketh even under the earth verily there is hope for the righteous We see not what conclusions pass in heaven anent all the affaris of God's house we need not give hire to God to take vengeance of his enemies for Justice worketh without hire O that the seed of hope would grow again and come to maturity And that we could importune Christ double our knocks at his gate cast our cries shouts over the wall that he might come out make our Ierusalem the praise of the whole earth give us Salvation for walls bulwarks If Christ bud grow green and bloom bear seed again in Scotland his father send him two summers again in one year bless his crop O what cause have we to rejoyce in the free salvation of our Lord to set up our banners in the name of our God! O that he would hasten the confusion of the leprous strumpet the mother mistress of abominations in the earth take graven images out of the way come in with the Iews in troops agree with his old out cast forsaken wife take them in again to his bed of love Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in our Master and Lord S. R. To the Lady LARGIRIE 129. MISTRESS GRace mercy peace be to you I exhort you in the Lord to goe on in your journey to heaven to be content of such fare by the way as Christ his followers have had before you for they had alwayes the wind on their faces our Lord hath not changed the way to us for our ease but will have us following our sweet guide Alas how doeth sin dog us in our journey retard us What fools are we to have a by-god or an other lover or match to our souls beside Christ It were best for us like ill bairns who are best heard at home to seek our own home to sell our hopes of this little clay Innes idol of the earth where we are neither well summered nor well wintered Oh that our souls would fall so at oddes with the love of this world as to think of it as a traveller doeth of a drink of water which is not any part of his treasure but goeth away with the using for ten miles journey maketh that drink to him as nothing O that we had as soon done with this world and could as quickly dispatch the love of it But as a childe cannot hold two apples in his little hand but the one putteth the other out of it's room so neither can we be masters and Lords of two loves Blessed were we if we could make our selves masters of that invaluable treasure the love of Christ or rather suffer our selves to be mastered and subdued to Christ's love so as Christ were our all things all other things our nothings the refuse of our delights O let us be ready for shipping against the time our Lord's wind tide call for us Death is the last thief that shall come without din or noise of feet take our souls away we shall take our leave at Time fâ—ce Eternity our Lord shall lay together the two sides of this earthly Tabernacle fold us lay us by as a man layeth by his clothes at night put the one half of us in a house of clay the dark grave the other half of us in heaven or hell Seek to be found of your Lord in peace gather in your flitting put your soul in order for Christ will not give a nail-breadth of Time to our little sand-glass Pray for Zion for me his prisoner that he would be pleased to bring me amongst you again full of Christ fraughted laden with the blessings of his Gospel Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his onely Lord and Master S. R. To EARLESTOWN Younger 130 Worthy dearly beloved in the Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear from you I remain still a prisoner of hope doe think it service to the Lord to wait on still with submission till the Lord's morning-skie break his summer day dawn for I am perswaded it is a piece of the chief errand of our life that God sent us for some years down to this earth among devils men the fire-brands of the devil temptations that we might suffer for a time here amongst our enemies otherwise he might have made heaven to wait on us at our coming out of the womb and have carried us home to our countrey without letting us set down our feet in this knotty and thorny life but seeing a piece of suffering is carved to every one of us less or more as infinite wisdom hath thought good our part is to harden and habituat our soft and thin skinned nature to endure fire and water devils lions men losses woe hearts as these that are looked upon by God Angels men devils O what folly is it to sit down weep upon a decree of God that is both dumb deaf at our tears must stand still as unmovable as God who made it for who can come behinde our Lord to
posting sand-glass Seek the Lord while he may be found the Lord waiteth upon you Your soul is of no little price gold or silver of as much bounds as would cover the highest heavens round about cannot buy it To live as others doe to be free of open sins that the world crieth shame upon it will not bring you to heaven as much civility countrey-discretion as would lye between you heaven will not lead you one foot or one inch above condemned nature therefore take pains upon seeking of salvation give your will wit humour the green desires of youth's pleasures off your hand to Christ It is not possible for you to know till experience teach you how dangerous a time Youth is It is like green wet timber when Christ casteth fire on it it taketh not fire There is need here of more then ordinary pains for corrupt nature hath a good back-friend of Youth sinning against light will put out your candle stupifie your conscience bring upon it moe coverings skins less feeling sense of guiltiness when that is done the Devil is like a mad horse that hath broken the bridle runneth away with his rider whither he listeth Learn to know that which the Apostle knew the deceitfulness of sin strive to make prayer reading holy company holy conference your delight when delight cometh in ye shall by little little smell the sweetness of Christ till at length your soul be over head ears in Christ's sweetness then shall ye be taken up to the top of the mountain with the Lord to know thâ— ravishments of spiritual love the glory excellency of a sâ—en revealed felt embraced Christ then ye shall not be able to loose your self off Christ to binde your soul to old lovers then never till then are all the paces motions walkings wheels of your soul in a right tune in a spiritual temper But if this world the lusts thereof be your delight I know not what Christ can make of you ye cannot be mettall to be a vessel of glory mercy as the Lord liveth thousand thousands are beguiled with security because God wrath judgement is not terrible to them stand in aw of God of the warnings of a checking rebuking conscience make others to see Christ in you moving doing speaking thinking your actions will smell of him if he be in you there is an instinct in the new born babes of Christ like the instinct of nature that leades birds to build their nests bring up their young love such such places as woods forests wildernesses better then other places The instinct of nature maketh a man love his mother-countrey above all countreys The instinct of renewed nature supernatural grace will lead you to such such works as to love your countrey above to sigh to be clothed with your house not made with hands to call your borrowed prison here below a borrowed prison to look upon it servant-like pilgrim-like And the pilgrim's eye look is a disdainfull like discontented cast of his eye his heart crying after his eye Fy fy tâ— is is not like my countrey I recommend to you the mending of a hole reforming of a failing one or other every week put off a sin or a piece of it as of anger wrath lust intemperance every day that ye may more easily master the remnant of your corruption God hath given you a wife love her let her breasts satisfie you for the Lord's sake drink no waters but out of your own cistern strange wells are poison Strive to learn some new way against your corruption from the man of God M. W. D. or other servants of God sleep not sound till ye finde your self in that case that ye dare look death in the face durst hazard your soul upon eternity I am sure many ells inches of the short threed of your life are by hand since I saw you and that threed hath an end and ye have no hands to cast a knot adde one day or a finger-breadth to the end of it When hearing and seeing and the utter walls of the clay-house shall fall down life shall render the besieged castle of clay to death judgement ye finde your time worn ebbe run out what thoughts will ye then have of idol-pleasures that possibly are now sweet what bud or hire would ye then give for the Lord's favour what a price would ye then give for pardon It were not amiss to think what if I were to receive a doom to enter into a surnace of fire brimstone What if it come to this that I shall have no portion but utter darkness And what if 〈◊〉 be brought to this to be banished from the presence of God to be given over to God's serjeants the Devil the power of the second Death Put your soul by supposition in such a case â—…sider what horrour would take hold of you what then ye would esteem of pleasing your self in the course of sin O dear Sir for the Lord's sake awake to live righteously love your poor soul after ye have seen this my letter say with yourself the Lord will seck an account of this warning I have received Lodge Christ in your family Receive no stranger hireling as your Pastor I bless your children Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Your lawful and loving Pastor S. R. To my Lord BOYD. 134 My very honourable good Lord. GRace mercy peace be to your Lo Out of the worthy report that I hear of your Lo zeal for this born down oppressed Gospel I am bold to write to your Lo beseeching you by the mercies of God by the honour of our royal and princely King Jesus by the sorrows tears desolation of your afflicted mother-church by the peace of your conscience your joy in the day of Christ that your Lo would goe on in the strength of your Lord and in the power of his might to bestir your self for the vindicating of the fallen honour of your Lord Jesus O blessed hands for evermore that shall help to put the crown upon the head of Christ again in Scotland I dare promise in the name of our Lord that this shall fasten fix the pillars the stakes of your own honourable house upon earth if ye lend lay in pledge in Christ's hand upon spiritual hazard life estate house honour credit moyen friends the favour of men suppose King 's with three crownâ— sobeing ye may bear witness acquit your self as a man of valour and courage to the Prince of your salvation for the purging of his temple sâ—…eeping out the Lordly Diotrephes's time-courting Demas's corrupt Hymeneus's Philetus's other such oxen that with their dung defile the Temple of the
man who can speak to such an one as ye are Any sweet presence I have had in this town is I know for this cause that I might express make it known to others but I never finde my self nearer Christ and with that royal and Princely One then after a great weight and sense of deadness gracelesness I think the sense of our wants when withall we have a restlesness and a sort of spirituall impatience under them and â—an make a din because we want him whom our soul loveth is that which maketh an open door to Christ when we think we are going backward because we feel deadness we are going forward For the more sense the more life no sense argueth no life There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ then to bring our wounds our sores to him But for my self I am ashamed of Christ's goodness love since the time of my bonds for he hath been pleased to open up new treasures of love felt sweetness give visitations of love access to himself in this strange land I would think a fill of his love young green heaven when he is pleased to come the tide is in the sea full the King a poor prisoner together in the house of wine the black tree of the cross is not so heavie as a feather I cannot I dow not but give Christ an honourable and glorious testimony I see the Lord can ride through his enemies bands triumph in the sufferings of his own that this blinde world seeth not that Suffering is Christ's armour wherein he is victorious they that contend with Zion see not what he is doing when they are set to work as under-smiths servants to the work of refining of the saints Satan's hand also by them is at the melting of our Lord's vessels of mercy and their office in God's house is to scour cleanse vessels for the King's table I marvel not to see them triumph sit at ease in Zion our father must lay up his rods and keep them carefully for his own use our Lord cannot want fire in his house his furnace is in Zion his fire in Ierusalem but little know the adversaries the counsel the thoughts of the Lord. And for your complaints of your ministry I now think all I did too little Plainness freedom watchfulness fidelity shall swell upon you in exceeding large comforts in your sufferings The feeding of Christ's lambs in private visitations catechising in painfull preaching fair honest free warning of the flock is a sufferer's garland O ten thousand times blessed are they who are honoured of Christ to be faithfull and painfull in wooing a Bride to Christ My dear Brother I know ye think more on this then I can write I rejoyce that your purpose is in the Lord's strength to back your wronged Master to come out call your self Christ's man when so many are now denying him as fearing that Christ cannot doe for himself them I am a lost man for ever or this this is the way to Salvation even this way that they call Heresie that men now doe mock scoff at I am confirmed now that Christ will accept of his servants sufferings as good service to him at the day of his appearance that ere it be long he will be upon us all men in all their black 's white 's shall be brought out before God Angels and men Our Master is not far off Oh if we could wait on be faithfull The good will of him who dwelt in the bush the tender favour love the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you Help me with your pravers desire from me other brethren to take courage for their Master Aberd. Aug. 15. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr JOHN MEINE 139 Worthy dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you I have been too long in answering your letter but other business took me up I am here waiting if the fair wind will turn upon Christ's sails â—o Scotland if deliverance be breaking out to this overclouded benighted Kirk Oh that we could contend by prayers supplications with our Lord for that effect I know he hath not given out his last doom against this land I have little of Christ in this prison but groanings longings desires All my stock of Christ is some hunger for him And yet I cannot say but I am rich in that my faith hope holy practice of new obedience are scarce worth the speaking of But blessed be my Lord who taketh me light clipped naughty feckless as I am I see Christ will not prig with me nor stand upon stepping stones but cometh in at the broad side without ceremonies or making it nice to make a poor ransomed one his own O that I could feed upon his breathing kissing and embracing upon the hopes of my meeting and his when love-letters shall not goe betwixt us but he shall be messenger himselfthen But there is required patience on our part till the summer-â—â—uit in heaven be ripe for us it is in the bud but there be many things to doe before our harvest come And we take ill with it can hardly endure to set our paper-face to one of Christ's storms and to goe to heaven with wet feet pain sorrow We love to carry heaven to heaven with us would have two summers in one year and no less then two heavens but this will not be for us one such an one may suffice us well enough The man Christ got but one onely and shall we have two Remember my love in Christ to your Father help me with your prayers If ye would be a deep Divine I recommend to you Sanctification Fear him he shall reveal his Covenant to you Grace be with you Aberd. Jan. 5. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To CARDONNESS Elder 140 Much honoured Sir GRace mercy peace be to you I have longed to hear from you to know the estate of your soul the estate of that people with you I beseech you Sir by the salvation of your precious soul and the mercies of God make good sure work of your salvation try upon what ground-stone ye have builded Worthy dear Sir if ye be upon sinking sand a storm of death a blast will loose Christ you and wash you close off the rock O for the Lord's sake look narrowly to the work read over your life with the light of God's day-light and sun for Salvation is not casten down at every man's door It is good to look to your compass all ye have need of ere ye take shipping for no wind can blow you back again Remember when the race is ended the play either won or lost ye are in the utmost circle
border of time shall put your foot within the march of eternity all your good things of this short night-dream shall seem to you like the ashes of a bleaze of thorns or straw your poor soul shall be crying Lodging lodging for God's sake Then shall your soul be more glad at one of your Lord 's lovely homely smiles then if ye had the charters of three worlds for all eternity Let pleasures gain will desires of this world be put over in God's hands as arrested and fenced goods that ye cannot intromet with Now when ye are drinking the ground of your cup ye are upon the utmost ends of the last link of time old age like death's long shadow is casting a covering upon your days it is no time to court this vain life to set love heart upon it It is near after supper seek rest ease for your soul in God through Christ Beleeve me I finde it hard wrestling to play fair with Christ to keep good quarters with him keep love to him in integrity life to keep a constant course of sound solid daily communion with Christ temptatations are daily breaking the threed of that course it is not easie to cast a knot again many knots make evil work O how fair have many ships been plying before the wind that in an hour's space have been lying in the sea bottom How many professours cast a golden lustre as if they were pure gold yet are under that skin cover but base reprobate mettall And how many keep breath in their race many miles yet come short of the prize the garland Dear Sir my soul would mourn in secret for you if I knew your case with God to be but false work Love to have you anchored upon Christ maketh me fear your tottering slips False under-water not seen in the ground of an enlightned conscience is dangerous so is often failing sinning against light Know this that these who never had sick nights nor days in conscience for sin cannot have but such a peace with God as will undercot break the flesh again and end in a sad war at death O how fearfully are thousands beguiled with false hide growen over old sins as if the soul were cured and healed Dear Sir I saw ever nature mighty lofty heady strong in you it was more for you to be mortified dead to the world then another common man Ye will take a low ebbe a deep cut a long lancâ— to goe to the bottom of your wounds in saving humiliation to make you a won prey for Christ Be humbled walk softly down down for God's sake my dear worthy Brother with your topsail Stoop Stoop it is a low entry to goe in at heaven's gates There is infinite Justice in the party ye have to doe with it is his nature not to acquit the guilty the sinner The Law of God will not want one farthing of the sinner God forgetteth not both the Cautioner the sinner every man must pay either in his own person O Lord save you from that payment or in his cautioner Christ. It is violence to corrupt nature for a man to be holy to lie down under Christ's feet to quite will pleasure wordly love earthly hope an itching of heart after this fairded overguilded world to be content that Christ trample upon all Come in come in to Christ and see what ye want finde it in him He is the short cut as we use to say and the nearest way to an outgate of all your burdens I dare avouch ye shall be dearly welcome to him my soul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should have in him I daresay Angels pens Angels tongues nay as many worlds of Angels as there are drops of water in all the seas fountains and rivers of the earth cannot paint him out to you I think his sweetness since I was a prisoner hath swelled upon me to the greatness of two heavens O for a soul as wide as the outmost circle of the highest heaven that containeth all to contain his love And yet I could hold little of it O world's wonder O if my soul might but lie within the smell of his love suppose I could get no more but the smell of it O but it is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love O what a sight to be up in heaven in that fair orchard of the new Paradise to see and smell and touch and kiss that fair field-flower that ever green tree of life His bare shadow were enough for me a sight of him would be the earnest of heaven to me Fy sy upon us that we have love lying rusting beside us or which is worse wasted away upon loathsom objects Christ should lie his alone Woe woe is me that Sin hath made so many mad men seeking the fool's Paradise fire under ice some good and desireable thing without and apart from Christ Christ Christ nothing but Christ can cool our love's burning languor O thirsty love wilt thou set Christ the well of life to thy head drink thy fill drink and spare not drink love be drunken with Christ Nay alas the distance betwixt us and Christ is a death O if we were clasped in other's arms We should never twin again except heaven twinned and sundered us that cannot be I desire your children to seek this Lord Desire them from me to be requested for Christ's sake to be blessed happy and come take Christ all things with him Let them beware of glassy slippery youth of foolish young motions of worldly lusts of deceivable gain of wicked company of cursing lying blaspheming and foolish talking Let them be filled with the Spirit acquaint themselves with daily praying with the store-house of wisdom and comfort the good word of God Help the souls of the poor people O that my Lord would bring me again among them that I might tell uncouth great tales of Christ to them Receive not a stranger to preach any other doctrine to them Pray for me his prisoner of hope I pray for you without ceasing I write my blessing earnest prayers the love of God the sweet presence of Christ to you and yours and them Grace grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Your lawful and loving Pastor S. R. To the Earle of LOTHIAN 141 Right honourable my very worthy and Noble Lord. OUt of the honourable good report that I hear of your Lo goodwill kindness in taking to heart the honourable cause of Christ his afflicted Church wronged truth in this land I make bold to speak a word in paper to your Lo at this distance which I trust your Lo will take in good part It is your Lo honour credit to put to
your hand as ye doe all honour to God to the faâ—ling tottering tabernacle of Christ in this your mother-Church to own Christ's wrongs as your own wrongs O blessed hand which shall wipe and dry the watery eyes of our weâ—ping Lord Jesus now going mourning in sackcloth in his members in his spouse in his truth in the prerogative royal of his Kingly power He needeth not service and help from men but it pleaseth his wisdom to make the wants losses sores and wounds of his spouse a â—ield an office-house for the zeal of his servants to exercise themselves in Therefore my noble dear Lord goe on goe on in the strength of the Lord against all opposition to side with wronged Christ The defending warding of strokes off Christ his Bride the King's daughter is like a piece of the rest of the way to heaven knotty rough stormy full of thorns Many would follow Christ but with a reservation that by open proclamation Christ would cry down crosses cry up fair weather a summer-skie sun till we were all fairly landed at heaven I know your Lo hath not so learned Christ but that ye intend to fetch heaven suppose your father were standing in your way to take it with the wind on your face for so both storm wind was on the fair face of your lovely fore-runner Christ all his way It is possible the success answer not your desire in this worthy cause what then Duties are ours but events are the Lord's I hope if your Lo others with you shall goe on to dive to the lowest ground bottom of the knavery perfidious treachery to Christ of the cursed wretched Prelats the Anti-Christ's first-born the first fruit of his foul womb shall deal with our Soveraign Law going before you for the reasonable impartial hearing of Christ's bill of complaints set your selves singley to seek the Lord his face your righteousness shall break through the clouds that prejudice hath drawn over it ye shall in the strength of the Lord bring our banished departing Lord Jesus home again to his Sanctuary Neither must your Lo advise with flesh blood in this but wink in the dark reach your hand to Christ follow him Let not mens fainting discourage you neither be afraid of mens canny wisdom who in this storm take the nearest shore goe to the lee calm side of the Gospel hide Christ if ever they had him in their cabinets as if they were ashamed of him or as if Christ were stoln wares would blush before the sun My very dear noble Lord ye have rejoyced the hearts of many that ye have made choice of Christ his Gospel whereas such great temptations doe stand in your way But I love your profession the better that it endureth winds If we knew our selves well to want temptations is the greatest temptation of all Neither is father nor mother nor court nor honour in this overlustred world with all it 's paintry fairding any thing else when they are laid in the ballance with Christ but feathers shadows night-dreams straws O if this world knew the excellency sweetness beauty of that high lofty one that fairest among the sons of men verily they should see if their love were bigger then ten heavens all in circles without other that it were all too little for Christ our Lord. I hope your choice shall not repent you when life shall come to that twilight betwixt Time Eternity and ye shall see the utmost border of Time shall draw the curtain look in to Eternity shall one day see God take the heavens in his hands fold them together like an old holly garment set on fire this clay-part of the creation of God consume away in smoke ashes the idol-hopes of poor fools who think there is not a better countrey then this low countrey of dying clay Children can not make comparison aright betwixt this life and that to come therefore the babes of this world who see no better mould in their own brain a heaven of their own coyning because they see no further then the nearest side of Time I dare lay in pawne my hope of heaven that this reproached way is the onely way of peace I finde it is the way that the Lord hath sealed with his comforts now in my bonds for Christ I verily esteem finde chains fetters for that lovely one Christ to be watered over with sweet consolations the love-smiles of that lovely Bridegroom for whose coming we wait when he cometh then shall the black 's white 's of all men come before the sun then shall the Lord put a finall decision upon the pleas that Zion hath with her adversaries And as fast as Time posteth away which neither sitteth nor standeth nor sleepeth as fast is our hand-breadth of this short winter-night flying away the skie of our long lasting day drawing near it's breaking Except your Lo be plâ—ased to plead for me against the tyranny of Prelats I shall be forgotten in this prison for they did shape my doom according to their new lawless Canons which is that a deprived minister shall be utterly silenced not preach at all which is a cruelty contrary to their own former practices Now the onely wise God the very God of peace confirm strengthen establish your Lo upon the stone laid in Zion be with you for ever Aberd. 1637. Your Lo at all respective obedience in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JEAN BROWN 142 MISTRESS GRace mercy and peace be to you I long to hear how your soul prospereth I earnestly desire your on-going toward your countrâ—y I know ye see your day melteth away by little little that in short time ye will be put beyond Time's bounds for life is a post that standeth not still our joyes here are born weeping rather then laughing they die weeping Sin Sin this body of sin and corruption imbittereth poisoneth all our enjoyments O that I were where I shall sin no more O to be freed of these chains iron fetters that we carry about with us Lord loose the sad prisoners Who of the children of God have not cause to say that they have their fill of this vain life like a full and sick stomack to wish at mid-supper that the supper were ended the table drawen that the sick man might win to bed and enjoy rest We have cause to tire at mid-supper of the best messes that this world can dress up for us and to cry to God that he would remove the table put the sin-sick souls to rest with himself O for a long play-day with Christ and our long lasting vacance of rest Glad may their souls be that are safe over the fiâ—th Christ having payed the fraught Happy are
doe when ever it is done without hire I finde the grief of my silence my fâ—ar to be holden at the door of Christ's house swelling upon me the truth is were it not that I am dâted now then with pieces of Christ's sweet love comforts I fear I should have made an ill browst of this honourable cross that I know such a soft sillyminded body as I am is not worthy of For I have little in me but softness superlative excessive apprehensions of fear sadness sorrow often God's terrors doe surround me because Christ looketh not so favourably upon me as a poor witness would have him And I wonder how I have past a year a quarter's imprisonment without shaming my sweet Lord to whom I desire to be faithfull I think I shall die but even minting aiming to serve honour my Lord Jesus Few know how toom empty I am at home but it is a part of Marriage-love husband love that my Lord Jesus goeth not to the streets with his chiding against me It is but stoln concealed anger that I finde feel his glooms to me are kept under roof that he will not have mine enemies hearing what is betwixt me Christ And beleeve me I say the truth in Christ the onely gall and wormwood in my cup that which hath filled me with fear hath been lest my sins that sun moon the Lord's children were never witness to should have moved my Lord to strike me with dumb sabbaths Lord pardon my soft weak jealousies if I be here in an error My very dear Brother I would have looked for more large more particular letters from you for my comfort in this for your words before have strengthned me I pray you mend this be thankfull painâ—ull while ye have a piece or corner of the Lord's vineyard to dress O would to God I could have leave to follow you to break the clods but I wish I could command my soul silence wait upon the Lord. I am sure while Christ lives I am well enough friend-stead I hope he will extend his Kindness power for me but God be thanked it is not worse with me then a cross for Christ his truth I know he might have pitched upon many more choise worthy witnesses if he had pleased â—ut I seek no more be what timber I will suppose I were made of a piece of hell then that my Lord in his infinite art hew glory to his name enlargement to Christ's Kingdom out of me Câ— that I could attain to this to desire that my part of Christ might be laid in pledge for the heightning of Christ's throne in Britain Let my Lord redeem the pledge or if he please let it sink drown unredeemed But what can I adde to him Or what way can a smothered and born-down prisoner set out Christ in open market as a lovely desireable Lord to many souls I know he sieth to his own glory better then my ebbe thoughts can dream of that the vvheels paces of this poor distempered Kirk are in his hands that things shall roll as Christ will have them Onely Lord tryst the matter so as Christ may be made a housholder Lord again in Scotland and wet faces for his departure may be dried at his sweet much desired welcome-home I see in all our trials our Lord will not mix our wares his grace over head through other but he will have each man to know his own that the like of me maâ— say in my sufferings This is Christ's grace this is but my course stuff this is free grace this is but nature and reason We know what our legs would play us if they should carry us through all our waters and the least thing our Lord can have of us is to know we are grace's debters or grace's dyvours that nature is of a base house blood grace is better born ofâ— in blood to Christ of a better house Oh that I were free of that Idol that they call my self that Christ were for myself my self a decourted cipher a denied forsworn thing But that proud thing my self will not play except it ride up side for side with Christ or rather have place before him O my self another devil as evil as the prince of devils if thou could give Christ the way take thine own room which is to sit as low as nothing or corruption O but we have much need to be ransomed redeemed by Christ from that master-tyrant that cruel lawless Lord our self Nay when I am seeking Christ out of my self I have the third part of a squint eye upon that vain vain thing my self my self something of mine own But I must hold here I desire you to contribute your help to see if I can be restored to my wasted lost flock I see not how it can be except the Lords would procure me a liberty to preach they have reason 1. Because the opposers my adversaries have practised their new Canons upon me whereof one is That no deprived Minister preach under the pain of excommunication 2. Because my opposing of these Canons was a special thing that incensed Sidserf against me 3. Because I was indicially accused for my book against the Arminians commanded by the Chancellour to acknowledge I had done a fault in writing against Dr Iackson a wicked Arminian Pray for a room in the house to me Grace grace be as it is your portion Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN STUART Provest of Ayr 146. Worthy Sir GRace mercy peace be to you I long for the time when I shall see the beauty of the Lord in his house would be as glad of it as of any sight on earth to see the halt the blinde the lame come back to Zion with supplications Ier. 31 8 9. going weeping seeking the Lord asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward Ier. 50. 5 6. to see the woman travelling in birth delivered of the man childe of a blessed Reformation If this land were humbled I would look that our skie should clear our day dawn again ye should then bless Christ who is content to save your travel to give himself to you in pure ordinances on this side of the sea I know the mercy of Christ is engaged by promise to Scotland notwithstanding he bring wrath as I fear he shall upon this land I am waiting on for enlargement half content that my faith bow if Christ while he bow it keep it unbroken for who goeth through a fire without a mark or a scald I see the Lord making use of this fire to scour his vessels from their rust Oh that my will were silent as a childe weaned from the breasts Psal.
the first I shall stand up as witness against you if ye doe not amend your wayes and your doings and turn to the Lord with all your heart I beseech you also my beloved in the Lord my joy my Crown offend not at the sufferings of me the prisoner of Jesus Christ I am filled with joy and with the comforts of God Upon my salvation I know am perswaded it is for God's Truth and the Honour of my King Royall Prince Jesus I now suffer and howbeit this town be my prison yet Christ hath made it my palace a garden of pleasures a field orchard of delights I know likewise albeit I be in bonds that yet the word of God is not in bonds my spirit also is in free ward Sweet svveet have his comforts been to my soul my pen tongue and heart have not vvords to express the kindness love mercy of my vvelbeloved to me in this house of my pilgrimage I charge you to fear love Christ to seek a house not made vvith hands but your father's house above This laughing and white skinned world beguileth you if ye seek it more then God it shall play you a slip to the endless sorrow of your heart Alas I could not make many of you fall in love with Christ howbeit I endeavoured to speak much good of him to commend him to you which as it was your sin so it is my sorrow yet once again suffer me to exhort beseech obtest you in the Lord to think of his love to be delighted with him who is altogether lovely I give you the word of a King ye shall not repent it ye are in my prayers night day I cannot forget you I doe not eat I doe not drink but I pray for you all I entreat you all every one of you to pray for me Grace grace be with you Aberd. Sept. 23. 1636. Your lawfull loving Pastor S. R. To the Lady CARDONNESS 150 MISTRESS I Beseech you in the Lord Jesus make every day more more of Christ try your growth in the grace of God what new ground ye win daily on corruption for travellers are day by day either advancing further on nearer home or else they goe not right about to compass their journey I think still the better better of Christ Alas I know not where to set him I would so fain have him high I cannot set heavens above heavens till I were tired with numbering set him upon the highest step story of the highest of them all But I wish I could make him great through the world suppose my loss pain shame were set under the soles of his feet that he might stand upon me I request you faint not because this world ye are at yea nay because this is not a home that laugheth upon you The wise Lord who knoweth you will have it so because he casteth a net for your love to catch it gather it in to himself therefore bear patiently the loss of children and burdens and other discontentments either within or without the house Your Lord in them is seeking you and seek ye him Let none be your love choice the flower of your delights but your Lord Jesus Set not your heart upon the world since God hath not made it your portion for it will not fall you to get two portions and to laugh twice and to be happy twice and to have an upper-heaven and an under-heaven too Christ our Lord his saints were not so therefore let goe your grip of this life of the good things of it I hope your heaven groweth not hereaway Learn daily both to possess miss Christ in his secret bridegroom-smiles He must goe come because his infinite wisdom thinketh it best for you we will be together one day We shall not need to borrow light from sun moon or candle There shall be no complaints on eiher side in heaven There shall be none there but He we the bridegroom the bride Devils temptations trials desertions losses sad hearts pain death shall all be put out of play the Devil must give up his office of Tempting O blessed is the soul whose hope hath a face looking straight out to that day It is not our part to make a treasure here Any thing under the covering of heaven we can build upon is but ill ground a sandy foundation Every good thing except God wanteth a bottom cannot stand it's alone how then can it bear the weight of us Let us not lay a load upon a windlestraw there shall nothing finde my weight or found my happiness but God I know all created power should sink under me if I should lean down upon it therfore it is better to rest on God then sink or fall we weak souls must have a bottom being-place for we cannot stand our alone let us then be wise in our choice chuse waile our own blessedness which is to trust in the Lord Each one of us hath a whore idol besides our husbend Christ But it is our folly to divide our narrow little love It will not serve two best then hold it whole together give it to Christ for then we get double interest for our love when we lend it to lay it out upon Christ we are sure besides that the stock cannot perish Now I can say no more remember me I have God's right to that people howbeit by the violence of men stronger then I I am banished from you chased away The Lord give you mercy in the day of Christ It may be God clear my sky again howbeit there is small appearance of my deliverance But let him doe with me what seemeth good in his own eyes I am his clay let my porter frame fashion me as he pleaseth Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Your lawfull loving Pastor S. R. To SIBILLA Mc ADAM 151 MISTRESS GRace mercy peace be to you I can bear witness in my bonds that Christ is still the longer the better no worse yea inconceivably better then he is or can be called I think it half an heaven to have my fill of the smâ—ll of his sweet breath to sleep in the arms of Christ my Lord with his left hand under my head his right hand embracing me There is no great reckoning to be made of the withering of my flower in comparison of the foul manifest wrongs done to Christ Nay let never the dew of God lie upon my branches again let the bloom fall from my joy and let it wither let the Almighty blow out my candle sobeing the Lord might be great among Jews Gentiles and his oppressed church delivered Let Christ fare well suppose I should eat ashes I know he must be sweet himself when his cross is so sweet And it is
in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To WILLIAM GLENDINING 155. Dear Brother YE are heartily welcome to that honour that Christ hath made common to us both which is to suffer for his name Verily I think it my garland crown if the Lord should ask of me my blood life for this cause I would gladly in his strength pay due debt to Christ's honour glory in that kinde Acquaint your self with Christ's love ye shall not miss to finde new goldeÌ„ mines treasures in Christ Nay truly we but stand beside Christ we goe not in to him to take our fill of him But if he should doe two things 1. Draw the curtains make bare his holy face then 2. Clear our dim bleared eyes to see his beauty glory he should finde many lovers I would seek no more happiness but a sight of him so near hand as to see hear smell touch embrace him But oh closed doors vails curtains thick clouds hold me in pain while I finde the sweet burning of his love that many waters cannot quench O what sad hours have I when I think that love of Christ scarreth at me bloweth by me If my Lord Jesus would come to bargaining for his love I think he should make price himself I should not refuse ten thousand years in hell to have a wide soul enlarged made wider that I might be exceedingly even to the running over filled with his love O what am I to love such an one or to be loved by that high lofty One I think the Angels may blush to look upon him what am I to file such infinite brightness with my sinfull eyes O that Christ would come near stand still give me leave to look upon him For to look seemeth the poor man's priviledge since he may for nothing without hire behold the sun I should have a King's life if I had no other thing to doe but for evermore to behold eye my fair Lord Jesus Nay suppose I were holden out at heaven's fair entry I should be happy for evermore to look through an hole in the door see my dearest fairest Lord's face O great King why standest thou aloof Why remainest thou beyond the mountains O welbeloved why doest thou pain a poor soul with delayes a long time out of thy glorious presence is two deaths two hells to me We must meet I must see him I dow not want him hunger longing for Christ hath brought on such a necessity of enjoying Christ that cost me what it will I cannot but assure Christ I will not I dow not want him For I cannot master or command Christ's love nay hell as I now think all the pains in it laid on me alone would not put me from loving Yea suppose my Lord Jesus would not love me it is above my strength or power to keep back or imprison the weak love I have but it must be out to Christ I would set heaven's joy aside live upon Christ's love it 's alone Let me have no joy but the warmness fire of God's love I seek no other God knoweth if this love be taken from me the bottom is fallen out of all my happiness joy therefore I beleeve Christ will never doe me that as to bereave a poor prisoner of his love it were cruelty to take it from me he who is kindness it self cannot be cruel Dear Brother weary not of my sweet Master's chains we are so much the sibber to Christ that we suffer Lodge not a hard thought of my royal King rejoyce in his cross Your deliverance sleepeth not he that will come is not slack of his promise Wait on for God's timeous salvation ask not when or How long I hope he shall lose nothing of you in the furnace but dross Commit your cause in meekness forgiving your oppressours to God and your sentence shall come back from him laughing Our Bridegroom's day is posting fast on this world that seemeth to goe with a long and a short foot shall be put in two ranks Wait till your ten dayes be ended and hope for the crown Christ will not give you a blinde in the end Commend me to your wife and father to Bailiffe M. A. And send this letter to him The prayers of Christ's prisoner be upon you the Lord's presence accompany you Aberd. July 6. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To ROBERT LENNO X. of Disdove 156. Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you I beseech you in the Lord Jesus make fast and sure work of life eternall Sow not rotten seed every man's work will speak for it self what his seed hath been O how many see I who sow to the flesh Alas what a crop will that be when the Lord shall put in his hook to reap this world that is ripe white for judgement I recommend to you holiness sanctification that ye keep your self clean from this present evil world We delight to tell our own dreams to flatter our own flesh with the hope we have It were wisdom for us to be free plain honest sharp with our own souls and to charge them to brew better thâ—t they may drink well and fare well when time is melted away like snow in a hot summer O how hard a thing is it to get the soul to give up with all things on this side of death and doomsday We say we are removing and going from this world but our heart stirreth not one foot off it's seat Alas I see few heavenly minded souls that have nothing upon the earth but their body of clay going up and down this earth because their soul the powers of it are up in heaven there their hearts live desire enjoy rejoyce Oh mens souls have no wings and therefore night and day they keep their nest and are not acquaint with Christ Sir take you to your one thing to Christ that ye may be acquainted with the taste of his sweetness excellency charge your love not to dote upon this world for it will not doe your business in that day when nothing will come in good stead to you but God's favour Build upon Christ some good choice fast work for when your soul for many years hath taken the play hath posted wandered through the creatures ye will come home again with the wind They are not good at least not the souls good it is the infinite Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your hunger after happiness otherwise there shall still be a want of satisfaction to your desires And if he would cast in ten worlds in your desires all shall fall thorow your soul shall still cry red hunger black hunger But I am sure there is sufficient for you in Christ if ye had seven souls seven desires in you Oh if I could make my
Lord Jesus market-sweet lovely desireable fair to all the world both to Jew and Gentil O let my part of heaven goe for it sobeing he would take my tongue to be his instrument to set out Christ in his whole braveries of love vertue grace sweetness matchless glory to the eyes hearts of Jews Gentiles But who is sufficient for these things O for the help of Angels tongues to make Christ eye-sweet and amiable to many thousands O how little doeth this world see of him how far are they from the love of him seeing there is so much loveliness beauty and sweetness in Christ that no created eye did ever yet see I would that all men knew his glory and that I could put many in at the bridegroom's chamber door to see his beauty to be partakers of his high and deep and broad and boundless love O let all the world come nigh and see Christ and they shall then see more then I can say of him O if I had had a pledge or pawne to lay down for a sea-full of his love that I could come by somuch of Christ as would satisfie griening and longing for him or rather increase it till I were in full possession I know we shall meet therein I rejoyce Sir stand fast in the truth of Christ that ye have received Yeeld not to winds but ride out let Christ be your anchor the onely He whom ye shall look to see in peace Pray for me his prisoner that the Lord would send me among you to feed his people Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN FLEMING Bailiffe of Leith 157 Worthy Sir GRace mercy and peace be to you The Lord hath brought me safe to this strange town Blessed be his holy name I finde his cross easie and light and I hope he shall be with his poor sold Joseph who is separated from his brethren His comforts have abounded towards me as if Christ thought shame if I may speak so to be in the common of such a poor man as I am and would not have me lose any thing in his errands My enemies have beside their intention made me more blessed and have put me in a sweeter possession of Christ then ever I had before Onely the memory of the fair dayes I had with my welbeloved amongst the flock intrusted to me keepeth me low and sowreth my unseen joy But it must be so and he is wise who tutoureth me this way For that which my brethren have and I want and others of this world have I am content my faith will frist God my happiness No Son offendeth that his father giveth him not hire twice a year for he is to abide in the house when the inheritance is to be divided It is better God's children live upon hope then upon hire Thus remembring my love to your worthy and kinde wife I bless you and her and all yours in the Lord's name Aberd. Sept 20. 1637. Yours in his onâ—ly onely Lord Iesus S. R. To WILLIAM GLENDINING Bailiffe of Kirkcudbright 158 Worthy Sir GRace mercy peace be to you I am well honour be to God aswell as a râ—joycing prisoner of Christ can be hoping that one day He for whom I now suffer shall enlarge me put me above the threatnings of men I am sometimes sad heavy casten down at the memory of the fair dayes I had with Christ in Anwoth Kirk cudbright cet The remembrance of a feast encreaseth hunger in a hungry man but who knoweth but our Lord will yet cover a table in the wilderness to his hungry bairns build the old waste places in Scotland bring home Zion's captives I desire to see no more glorious sight till I see the Lamb on his throne then to see Mount Zion all green with grass the dew lying upon the tops of the grass the crown put upon Christ's head in Scotland again And I beleeve it shall be so that Christ shall mowe down his enemies fill the pits with their dead bodies I finde people here dry uncouth A man pointed at for suffering dare not be countenanced so that I am like to sit mine alone upon the ground But my Lord payeth me well home again for I have neither tongue nor pen nor heart to express the sweetness excellency of the love of Christ Christ's honey-combs drop hony sloods of consolation upon my soul My chains are gold Christ's cross iâ— all overguilded and perfumed His prison is the garden and orchard of my delights I would goe through burning quick to my lovely Christ I sleep in his arms all the night my head betwixt his breasts My welbeloved is altogether lovely This is all nothing to that which my soul hath felt Let no man for my cause scar at Christ's cross If my stipend place countrey credit had been an Earledom a Kingdom ten Kingdoms and a whole earth all were too little for the crown and scepter of my royall King Mine enemies mine enemies have made me blessed They ave sent me to the bridegroom's chamber Love is his banner over me I live a Kings life I want nothing but heaven and the possession of the crown my earnest is great Christ is no niggard to me Dear Brother be for the Lord Jesus and his heart-broken bride I need not I hope remember my distressed brother to your care Remember my love to your wife Let Christ want nothing of us His garments shall be rolled in the blood of the slain of Scotland Grace grace be with you pray for Christ's prisoner Aberd. Sept. 21. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To ROBERT GORDON Of Knockbrex 159 Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you I am by God's mercy come now to Aberden the place of my confinement setled in an honest man's house I finde the town's-men cold generall dry in their kindness yet I finde a lodging in the heart of many strangers My challenges are revived again I finde old sores bleeding of new so dangerous painfull is an undercotted conscience yet I have an eye to the blood that is physick for such sores But verily I see Christianity is conceived to be more easie lighter then it is so that I sometimes think I never knew any thing but the letters of that name for our nature contenteth it self with little in godliness Our Lord Lord seemeth to us ten Lord Lords little holiness in our ballance is much because it is our own holâ—ness we love to lay small burdens upon our soft natures to make a fair courtway to heaven And I know it were necessary to take more pains then we doe not to make heaven a city more easily taken then God hath made it I perswade my self many runners shall come short get a disappointment Oh how easie is it to deceive our selves
is not with you to hold up your chin I trust in God he shall bring your ship safe to land I counsel you to study sanctification to be dead to this world urge kindness on Knockbrex labour to benefite by his company the man is acquaint with Christ. I beg the help of your prayers for I forget not you counsel your husband to fulfill my joy to seek the Lord's face shew him from me that my joy desire is to hear he is in the Lord God casteth him often in my minde I cannot forget him I hope Christ he have something to doe together Bless Iohn from me I write blessings to him to your husband the rest of your children Let it not be said I am not in your house through neglect of the Sabbath-exercise Aberd. Febr. 20. 1637. Your lawfull loving Pasior in his onely onely Lord S. R. To JONET McCULLOCH 170 Dear Sister GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear how your soul prospereth I am as well as a prisoner of Christ can be feasted made fat with the comforts of God Christ's kisses are made sweeter to my soul then ever they were I would not change my Master with all the Kings of clay upon the earth O my welbeloved is altogether lovely loving I care not what flesh can doe I perswade my soul I delivered the truth of Christ to you slip not from it for no boasts or fear of men If ye goe against the truth of Christ that I now suffer for I shall bear witness against you in the day of Christ. Sister fasten your grips fast on Christ follow not the guises of this sinfull world Let not this clay-portion of earth take up your soul it is the portion of bastards ye are a childe of God therefore seek your father's heritage send up your heart to see the dwelling house fair rooms in the new City Fy sy upon these who cry up with the World down with Conscience Heaven We have bairns wits therefore we cannot prize Christ aright Counsel your husband mother to make them for eternity that day is drawing nigh Pray for me the prisoner of Christ I cannot forget you Aberd. Febr. 20. 1637. Your lawfull Pasior Brother S. R. To my Lord CRAIGHALL 171 My Lord. I Received Mr Ls letter with your Lo his learned thoughts in the matter of Ceremonies I ow respect to the man's learning for that I hear him opposite to Arminian Heresies but with reverence of that worthy man I wonder to hear such popish-like expression as he hath in his letter as Your Lo may spare doubtings when the King Church have agreed in the settling of such orders the Church's direction in things indifferent circumstantial as if Indifferent Circumstantial were all one should be the rule of every private Christian. I onely viewed the papers in two hour space the bearer hasting me to write I finde the worthy man not so seen in this controversie as some turbulent men of our countrey as he calleth refusers of conformity And let me say it I am more confirmed in non-conformity when I see such a great 〈◊〉 it play the agēt so slenderly but I will lay the blame on the weakness of the cause not on the meanness of Mr Ls. learning I have ever been stil I am confident that Britain cannot answer one argument a scandalo I longed much to hear Mr L. speak to the cause I would say if some ordinary Divine had answered as Mr L. doeth that he understood not the nature of a Scandal but I dare not vilifie that worthyman so I am now upon the heat of some other employment I shall but God willing answer this to the satisfying of any not prejudged I will not say that every one is acquaint with the reason in my letter from God's presence bright shining face in suffering for this cause Aristotle never knew the medium of the clusion Christ saith few know it See Rev. 2. 17. I am sure a conscience standinginaw of the Almighty fearing to make a little hole in the bottom for fear of under-water is a strong medium to hold off an erroneous conclusion in the least wing or lith of sweet sweet Truth that concerneth the royal Prerogative of our Kingly highest Lord Jesus And my witness is in heaven I saw neither pleasure nor profit nor honour to hook me or catch me in entring in prison for Christ but the wind on my face for the present if I had loved to sleep in a whole skin with the ease present delight that I saw on this side of sun moon I should have lived at ease in good hopes to fare as well as others The Lord knoweth I preferred preaching of Christ still doe to any thing next to Christ himself their new Canons took my one my one joy from me which was to me as the poor man's one eye that had no moe alas there is little lodging in their heart for pity or mercy to pluck out a poor man's one eye for a thing indifferent id est for knots of straws things as they mean off the way to heaven I desire not that my name take journey goe a pilgrim to Cambridge for fear I come in the ears of Authority I am sufficiently burnt already In the mean time be pleased to try if the Bishop of St Andrewes Glasgow Galloway's Ordinary will be pleased to abate from the heat of their wrath and let me goe to my charge Few know the heart of a prisoner yet I hope the Lord shall hew his own glory out of as knotty timber as I am Keep Christ my dear worthy Lord pretended paper-arguments from angering the mother-Church that can reel nod stagger are not of such weight as peace with the father husband let the wife gloom I care not if the husband laugh Remember my service to my Lord your father Mother your Lady Grace be with you Aberd. Jan. 24. 1637. Yours at all obodience in Christ S R. To his Reverend dear Brother Mr ROBERT BLAIR 172 Reverend dear Brother THe reason ye gave for your not writing to me affecteth me much giveth me a dash when such an one as ye conceive an opinion of me or any thing in me The truth is when I come home to my self O what penury doe I finde and how feckless is my supposed stock how little have I He to whom I am as crystal who seeth through me perceiveth the least mote that is in me knoweth that I speak what I think am convinced of But men cast me through a gross wide sieve my very dear Brother the room of the least of all saints is too great for the like of me But lest this should seem art to fetch home reputation I speak no more of it It is my worth
to be Christ's ransomed sinner sick one His relation to me is that I am sick He is the physician of whom I stand in need Alas how often play I fast loose with Christ He bindeth I loose he buildeth I cast down he tâ—immeth up a salvation for me I mar it I cast out with Christ he agreeth with me again twenty times a day I forfeit my Kingdom heritage I lose what I had but Christ is at my back and following on to stoop take up that falleth from me Were I in heaven had the crown on my head if Freewill were my tutour I should lose heaven seeing I lose my self what wonder I should let goe lose Jesus my Lord O well to me for evermore that I have cracked my credit with Christ cannot by law at all borrow from him upon my feckless worthless bond faith for my faith reputation with Christ is that I am a creature that God will not put any trust into I was am bewildered with temptations wanted a guide to heaven O what have I to say of that excellent surpassing supereminent thing they call The Grace of God the way of free redemption in Christ And when poor poor I dead in law was sold fettered imprisoned in Justice's closest ward which is hell damnation when I a wretched one lighted upon noble Iesus eternally kinde Iesus tender hearted Iesus nay when he lighted upon me first knew me I found that he scorned to take a price or any thing like hire of Angels or Seraphims or any of his creatures and therefore I would praise him for this that the whole armie of the redeemed ones sit rent-free in heaven Our holding is better then Blench We are all Free-holders seeing our eternall feuduty is but thanks Oh woefull me that I have but spilt thanks broken lame miscarried praises to give him so my silver is not good current with Christ were it not that free merites have stamped it washen it me both And for my silence I see somewhat better through it now If my high lofty one my princely Royall Master say Hold hold thy peace I lay bonds on thee thou speak none I would fain be content let my fire be smothered under ashes without light or flame I cannot help it I take laws from my Lord but I give none As for your journey to F. ye doe well to follow it The camp in Christ's ordinary bed A carried bed is kindly to the Beloved down in this lower house It may be who knoweth but our Lord hath some Centurions ye are sent to Seeing your angry mother denieth you lodging house-room with her Christ's call to unknown faces must be your second wind seeing ye cannot have a first O that our Lord would water again with a new visite this piece withered dry hill of our widow-mount Zion my Dear Brother I will think it comfort if ye speak my name to our welbeloved wherever ye are I am mindefull of you O that the Lord would yet make the light of the moon in Scotland like the light of the sun and the light of the sun seven fold brighter For my self as yet I have received no answer whither to goe I wait on O that Jesus had my love Let matters frame as they list I have some more to doe with Christ yet I would fain we were nearer Now the great shepherd of the sheep the very God of peace establish confirm you till the day of his coming Aberd. Sept. 9 1637. Yours in his lovely sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Lady CARLETON 173 MISTRESS GRace mercy and peace be to you My soul longeth once again to be amongst you to behold that beauty of the Lord that I would see in his house But I know not if he in whose hands are all our waves seeth it expedient for his glory I ow my Lord I know submission of spirit suppose he should turn me into a stone or pillar oâ— salt Oh that I were He in whom my Lord could be glorified suppose my little heaven were forfeited to buy glory to him before men and Angels suppose my want of his presence and separation from Christ were a pillar as high as ten heavens for Christ's glory to stand upon above all the world What am I to him How little am I though my feathers stood out as broad as the morning lighâ— to such a high to such a lofty to such a never-enough admired glorious Lord My trials are heavy bâ—cause of my sad sabbaths but I know they are less then my high provocations I seek no more but that Christ may be the gainer and I the loser that he may be raised and hightned and I cryed down and my worth made dust before his glory Oh that Scotland all with one shout would cry up Christ and that his name were high in this land I finde the very utmost borders of Christ's high excellency and deep sweâ—tness heaven and earth's wonder O what is he if I could win in to see his inner side Oh I am run dâ—y of loving and wondering and adoring of that greatest most admirable one Woe woe is me I have not half-love for him Alas what can my drop doe to his great sea What gain is it to Christ that I have casten my little sparkle in his great fire What can I give to him Oh that I had love to fill a thousand worlds that I might emptie my soul of it all upon Christ I think I have now just reason to quite my part of any hope or love that I have to this scum and the refuse of the dross of God's work-manâ—hip this vain earth I ow to this stormy world whose kindness 〈◊〉 heart to me hath been made of iron or of a piece of a wilde sea-Island that never a creature of God yet lodged in not a look I ow it no love no hope therefore Oh if my love were dead to it my soul dead to it What am I obliged to this house of my pilgrimage A straw for all that God hath made to my soul's liking except God that lovely one Iesus Christ Seeing I am not this world's debter I desire I may be striped of all confidence in any thing but my Lord that he may be for me I for my onely onely onely Lord that he may be the morning evening-tide the top the root of my joyes the heart flower yolk of all my soul's delights O let me never lodge any creature in my heart confidence Let the house be for him I rejoyce that sad dayes cut off a piece of the lease of my short life that my shadow even while I suffer weareth long my evening hasteneth on I have cause to love home with all my heart to take the opportunity of the day to hasten to the
low sail I would I had desires with wings running upon wheels swift active speedy in longing for Christ's honour But I know my Lord is as wise here as I dow be thirsty infinitely more zealous of his honour then I can be hungered for the manifestation of it to men angels But Oh that my Lord would take my desires off my hand adde a thousand-fold more unto them and sowe spiritual inclinations upon them for the coming of Christ's Kingdom to the sons of men that they might be higher and deeper longer broader For my longest measures are too short for Christ my depth is ebbe the breadth of my affections to Christ narrow pinched Oh for an ingine a wit to prescribe wayes to men how Christ might be all in all the world Wit is here behinde affection affection behinde obligation Oh how little dow I give to Christ and how much hath he given me Oh that I could sing grace's praises love's praises Seeing I was like a fool solisting the Law making moyen to the Law 's court for mercy found challenges that way but now I deny that Judge's power for I am Grace's man I hold not worth a drink of water of the Law or of any Lord but Jesus And till I bethought me of this I was slain with doubtings and fears terrours I praise the new court the new Land-lord the new Salvation purchased in Jesus his name at his instance Let the old man if he please goe make his moan to the Law seek acquaintance thereaway because he is condemned in that Court I hope the new man I Christ together shall not be heard and this is the more soft and the more easie way for me for my cross together Seeing Christ singeth my welcome-home and taketh me in maketh short counts short work of reckoning betwixt me my Judge I must be Christ's man his Tennant subject to his Court I am sure suffering for Christ could not be born otherwise But I give my hand my faith to all who would suffer for Christ they shall be well handled fare well in the same way that I have found the cross easie light Grace be with you Aberd. July 8. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To ALEXANDER GORDON Of Garlock 184 Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you If Christ were as I am that time could work upon him to alter him or that the morrow could be a new day to him or bring a new minde upon him as it is to me a new day I could not keep a house or a covenant with him But I finde Christ to be Christ that he is far far even infinite heavens height above man And that is all our happiness Sinners can doe nothing but make wounds that Christ may heal them and make debts that he may pay them and make falls that he may raise them make deaths that he may quicken them spin out dig hells to themselves that he may ransom them Now I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free Grace of God a free ransom given for sold souls Onely alas guiltiuess maketh me ashamed to apply Christ to think it pride in me to put out my unclean withered hand to such a Saviour but it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock nor for a ship-broken soul to run himself a shore upon Christ Suppose once I be guilty need force I cannot I dow not goe by Christ We take in good part that pride that beggers beg from the richer who is so poor as we who is so rich as he who selleth fine gold Rev. 3 18. I see then it is our best let guiltiness plead what it listeth that we have no mean under the covering of heaven but to creep in lowly submissively with our wants to Christ I have also cause to give his cross as good name report O how worthy is Christ of my feckless light suffering how hath he deserved it at my hands that for his honour glory I should lay my back under seven hells pain in one if he call me to that but alas my soul is like a ship run on ground through ebbeness of water I am sanded and and my love is sanded I finde not how to bring it on float again it is so cold and dead that I see not how to bring it to a flame Fy fy upon the meeting that my love hath given Christ woe woe is me I have a lover Christ yet I want love for him I have a lovely desirable Lord who is love-worthy who beggeth my love heart I have nothing to give him Dear Brother come further in on Christ see a new treasure in him come in look down see Angels wonder heaven earth's wonder of love sweetness majesty excellency in him I forget you not pray for me that our Lord would be pleased to send me among you again fraughted full of Christ. Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN BELL Elder 185 My very loving friend GRace mercy peace be to you I have very often long expected your letter but if ye be well in soul body I am the less solicitous I beseech you in the Lord Jesus to minde your country above now when old age the twilight going before the darkness of the grave the falling low of your sun before your night is now come upon you advise with Christ ere ye put your foot in the ship turn your back on this life Many are beguiled with this that they are tree of scandalous crying abominations but the tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is for the fire the man that is not born again cannot enter into the kingdom of God common honesty will not take men to heaven Alas that men should think they ever met with Christ who had never a sick night through the terrours of God in their soul or a sore heart for sin I know the Lord hath given you light the knowledge of his will but that is not all neither will that doe your turn I wish you an awakned soul that ye beguile not your self in the matter of your salvation My dear Brother search your self with the candle of God try if the life of God Christ be in you Salvation is not casten to every man's door Many are carried over see land to a far countrey in a ship whileas they sleep much of all the way but men are not landed at heaven sleeping The righteous are scarcily saved and many run as fast as either ye or I who miss the prize and the crown God send me salvation and save me from a disappointment
giving and count not much of being mocked for Christ Jesus was mocked before you Perswade your self that this is the way of peace and comfort I now suffer for I dare goe to death in to eternity with it though men may possibly seek another way Remember me in your prayers the state of this oppressed Church Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Your soul's Well-wisher S. R. To CARDONNESS Elder 191 Much honoured Sir I long to hear how your soul prospereth I wonder that ye write not to me for the holy Ghost beareth me witness I cannot I dare not I dow not forget you nor the souls o these with you who are redeemed by the blood of the greaf Shepherd Ye are in my heart in the night watches ye are my◠joy crown in the day of Christ O Lord bear witness if my soul thirsteth for any thing out of heaven more then for your salvation Let God lay me in an even ballance try me in this Love heaven let your heart be on it Up up visit the new land view the fair city the white throne the Lamb the bride 's husband in his bridegroom's clothes sitting on it It were time your soul should cast it self all your burdens upon Christ. I beseech you by the wounds of your Redeemer by your compearance before him by the salvation of your soul lose no more time run fast for it is late God hath sworn by himself who made the world and time that time shall be no more Rev. 10 Ye are now upon the very border of the other life your Lord cannot be blamed for not giving you warning I have taught the truth of Christ to you delivered unto you the whole counsel of God I have stood before the Lord for you I shall yet still stand awake awake to doe righteously Think not to be eased of the burthens debts that are on your house by oppressing any or being rigorous to these that are under you remember how I endeavoured to walk before you in this matter as an example behold here am I witness against me before the Lord his Anointed whose ox or whoseass have I taken Whom have I defrauded Whom have I oppressed Who knoweth how my soul feedeth upon a good conscience when I remember how I spent this body in feeding the lambs of Christ At my first entry hither I grant I took a stomack against my Lord because he had casten me over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree would have no more of my service My dumb sabbaths broke my heart and I would not be comforted but now he whom my soul love this come again and it pleaseth him to feast me with the kisses of his love A King dineth with me and his spikenard casteth a sweet smell The Lord my witness is above that I write my heart to you I never knew by my nine years preaching so much of Christ's love as he hath taught me in Aberden by six moneths imprisonment I charge you in Christ's name help me to praise shew that people countrey the loving kindness of the Lord to my soul that so my sufferings may someway preach to them when I am silent He hath made me know now better then before what it is to be crucified to the world I would not now give a drink of cold water for all the world's kindness I ow no service to it I am not the flesh's debter My Lord Jesus hath dâted his prisoner hath thoughts of love concerning me I would not exchange my sighs with the laughing of my adversaries Sir I write this to inform you that ye may know it is the truth of Christ I now suffer for he hath sealed nay sufferings with the comforts of his spirit on my soul I know he putteth not his seal upon blank paper Now Sir I have no comfort earthly but to know that I have espoused and shall present a bride to Christ in that congregation The Lord hath given you much and therefore he will require much of you again Number your talents see what ye have to render back again ye cannot be enough perswaded of the shortness of your time I charge you to write to me in the fear of God be plain with me whether or no ye have made your salvation sure I am confident hope the best but I know your reckonings with your Judge are many and deep Sir be not beguiled neglect not your one thing Philip. 3 13 your one necessary thing Luke 10 42 the good part that shall not be taken from you Look beyond time things here are but moon-shine they have but Childrens wit who are delighted with shadows deluded withfeathers flying in the air Desire your children in the morning of their life to begin seek the Lord to remember their Creator in the dayes of their youth Eccles. 12 1. to cleanse their way by taking heed thereto according to God's word Ps. 119 9. youth is a glassy age Satan findes a swept chamber for the most part in youth-hood a garnished lodging for himself his train Let the Lord have the flower of their age The best sacrifice is due to him Instruct them in this that they have a soul that this life is nothing in comparison of eternity They will have much need of God's conduct in this world to guide them by these rocks upon which most men split but far more need when it cometh to the hour of death their compearance before Christ. O that there were such a heart in them to fear the name of the great dreadfull God who hath laid up great things for these that love fear him I pray that God may be their portion Show others of my parishoners that I write to them my best wishes and the blessings of their lawfull Pastor Say to them from me that I beseech them by the bowels of Christ to keep in minde the Doctrine of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ which I taught them that so they may lay hold on eternal life striving together for the faith of the Gospel making sure salvation to themselves Walk in love doe righteousness seek peace love one another wait for the coming of our Master Judge Receive no doctrine contrary to that which I delivered to you If ye fall away forget it that Catechisme which I taught you so forsake your own mercy the Lord be judge betwixt you me I take heaven earth to witness that such shall eternally perish but if they serve the Lord great will their reward be when they I shall stand before our Judge Set forward up the mountain to meet with God climb up for your Saviour calleth on you It may be God call you to your rest when I am far from you but ye have my love the desires of my heart for your souls wel-fare
He that is holy keep you from falling establish you till his own glorious appearance Aberd. 1637. Your affectionat lawfull Pastor S. R. To CARDONNESS Younger 192. Much honoured Sir I Long to hear whether or not your soul be hand-fasted with Christ Lose your time no longer Flee the follies of youth Gird up the loins of your minde make you ready for meeting the Lord. I have often summoned you now I summond you again to compear before your Judge to make a reckoning of your life while ye have Time look upon your papers consider your wayes O that there were such an heart in you as to think what an ill conscience will be to you when yeare upon the border of eternity your one foot out of time O then ten thousand thousand floods of tears cannot extinguish these flames or purchase to you one hour's release from that pain O how sweet a day have ye had But this is a fair day that runneth fast away see how ye have spent it consider the necessity of salvation tell me in the fear of God if ye have made it sure I am perswaded ye have a conscience that will be speaking somewhat to you Why will ye die destroy yourself I charge you in Christ's name to rouze up your conscience begin to indent contract with Christ in time while salvation is in your offer This is the accepted time this is the day of salvation play the marchant for ye cannot expect another market-day when this is done therefore let me again beseech you to consider in this your day the things that belong to your peace before they be hid from your eyes Dear Brother fulfill my joy begin to seek the Lord while he may be found Forsake the follies of deceiving vain youth Lay hold upon eternall life Whoring night-drinking mispending of the sabbath neglecting of prayer in your house refusing of an offered salvation will burn up your soul with the terrours of the Almighty when your awakened conscience shall flee in your face Be kinde loving to your wife make conscience of cherishing her and not being rigidly austere Sir I have not a tongue to express the glory that is laid up for you in your father's house if ye reform your doings and frame your heart to return to the Lord. Ye know this world is but a shadow a short-living creature under the law of time within less then fifty yeers when ye look back to it ye shall laugh at the evanishing vanities thereof as feathers flying in the air and at the houses of sand within the sea-mark which the children of men are building Give up with courting of this vain world Seek not the bastard's moveables but the Son's heritage in heaven Take a trial of Christ look unto him his love shall so change you that ye shall be taken with him never chuse to goe from him I have experience of his sweetness in this house of my pilgrimage here My witness who is above knoweth I would not exchange my sighs tears with the laughing of the fourteen Prelats There is nothing will make you a Christian indeed but a taste of the sweetness of Christ come and see will speak best to your soul I would fain hope good of you be not discouraged at broken spilt resolutions but to it to it again Wooe about Christ till ye get your soul espoused as a chaste virgin to him Use the means of profiting with your conscience Pray in your family read the word Remember how our Lord's day was spent when I was among you It will be a great challenge to you before God if ye forget the good that was done within the walls of your house on the Lord's dayes if ye turn aside after the fashions of this world if ye goe not in time to the kirk to wait on the publike worship of God if ye tarry not at it till all the exercises of religion be ended Give God some of your time both morning evening afternoon in so doing rejoyce the heart of a poor oppressed prisoner Rue upon your own soul from your heart fear the Lord. Now he that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of his sheep by the blood of the eternall Covenant establish your heart with his grace present you before his presence with joy Aberd. 1637. Your affectionat loving Pastor S. R. To CARLETOWN 193 Much honoured Sir I Will not impute your not writing to me to forgetfulness how ever I have one above who forgetteth me not nay he groweth in his kindess It hath pleased his holy Majesty to take me from the pulpit teach me many things in my exile prison that were mysteries to me before As 1. I see his bottomless boundless love kindness my jealousies ravings which at my first entry into this furnace were so foolish bold as to say to Christ who is truth it self in his face thou liest I had well nigh lost my grips I wondered if it was Christ or not for the mist smoke of my perturbed heart made me mistake my Master Jesus My faith was dim hope frozen cold my love which caused jealousies it had some warmness heat smoke but no flame at all yet I was looking for some good of Christ's old claim to me I thought I had forfeited all my rights but the tempter was too much upon my counsels was still blowing the coal Alas I knew not well before how good skill my Intercessor and advocate Christ hath of pleading and pardoning me such follies Now he is returned to my soul with healing under his wings and I am nothing behinde with Christ now for he hath overpaid me by his presence the pain I was put to by on-waiting and any little loss I sustained by my witnessing against the wrongs done to him I trow it was a pain to my Lord to hide himself any longer In a manner he was challenging his unkindness repented him of his glooms now what want I on earth that Christ can give to a poor prisoner O how sweet and lovely is he now Alas that I can get none to help me to lift up my Lord Jesus upon his throne above all the earth 2. I am now brought to some measure of submission and I resolve to wait till I see what my Lord Jesus will doe with me I dare not now nick name or speak one word against the all-seeing over-watching providence of my Lord I see providence runneth not on broken wheels but I like a fool carved a providence for mine own ease to die in my nest to sleep still till my gray hairs and to lie on the sunny side of the mountain in my ministery at Anwoth But now I have nothing to say against a borrowed fire-side another man's house nor Kedars tents where I
live being removed far from my acquaintance my lovers my friends I see God hath the world on his wheels casteth it as a potter doeth a vessel on the wheel I dare not say that there is any inordinat or irregular motion in Providence The Lord hath done it I will not goe to law with Christ for I would again nothing of that 3. I have learned some greater mortification not to mourn after or seek to suck the world's dry breasts Nay my Lord hath filled me with such dainties that I am like to a full banquettor who is not for common chear What have I to doe to fall down upon my knees worship mankind's great idol The World I have a better God then any clay-God Nay at present as I am now disposed I care not much to give this world a discharge of my life-rent of it for bread water I know it is not my home nor my father's house it is but his footstool the outer cloâ—ster of his house his out-field moor-ground Let bastards take it I hope never to think my self in it's common for honour or riches nay now I say to laughter Thou art madness 4. I finde it most true that the greatest tempâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to live without temptations if my waters should stand they would rot Faith is the better of the free air of the sharp winter-storm in it's face Grace withereth without adversity The Devil is but God's Master-fencer to teach us to handle our weapons 5. I never knew how weak I was till now when he hideth himself when I have him to seek seven times a day I am a dry withered branch a piece of a dead carcase dry bones not able to step over a straw The thoughts of my old sins are as the summonds of death to me And of late my Brother's case hath striken me to the heart when my wounds are closing a little rifle causeth them to bleed afresh So thin-skin'd is my soul that I think it is like a tender man's skin that may touch nothing ye see how short I would shoot of the prize if his grace were not sufficient for me Woe 's me for the day of Scotland Woe woe is me for my harlot-mother for the decree is gone forth women of this land shall call the childless miscarrying wombs blessed The anger of the Lord is gone forth shall not return till he perform the purpose of his heart against Scotland Yet he shall make Scotland a new sharp instrument having teeth to thresh the mountains fan the hills as chaff The prisoners blessing be upon you Aberd. March 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Lady BUSBIE 194 MTSTRESS I Know ye are thinking sometimes what Christ is doing in Zion that the haters of Zion may get the bottom of our cup the burning coals of our furnace that we have been tryed in these many yeers by gone O that this Nation would be awakened to cry mightily unto God for the setting up of a new â—abernacle to Christ in Scotland O if this Kiâ—gdom kneâ— how worthy Christ were of his room His worth waâ— eveâ— above man's â—stimation of him And for my self I aâ— pained at the heart that I cannot finde my self disposed to leavâ— myself goe wholly in to Christ Alas that there should bâ— oâ—e bit oâ— me out of him and that we leave too much liberty and latitude for our selves and our own ease and credit pleasures so little room for All-love-worthy Christ O what pains charges it costeth Christ ere he get us when all is done we are not worth the having It is a â—ondâ—r that he should seek the like of us but love overlooketh blacknes and â—ecklesness for if it had not been so Christ would never have made so fair blessed a bargain with us as the covenant of Grace is I finde that in all our sufferings Christ is but â—iddiâ—g marches that every one of us may say Mine Tâ—ine and that men may know by their crosses how weak a bottom nature is to stand under a trial that then which our Lord intendeth in all our sufferings is to bring Graâ—e in â—â—uit aâ—d râ—quâ—st amongst us I would succumb and â—â—me shoâ—t of hea en if I had no more but my own strength to sâ—pport me and if Christ should say to me Eitâ—â—r doe or die it were easie to determine what should become of me the châ—ice were easie for I bâ—hooved to die if Christ should passe by witâ— straiâ—ned bowel and who then would take us up in our strâ—its I know we may say that Christ is kindest in his love when we are at our weakest and that if Christ had not been to the fore in our sad dayes the waters had gone over our soul His mercy haâ—h a â—et period and appointed place how far no further the sâ—a of affliction shall flow and where the waves thereof shall be stâ—yed he prescribeth how much pain and sorrow both for weight and measure we must have Ye have then good cause to râ—call your love from all lovers and give it to Christ He who is afflicted in all your afflictions looketh not oâ— you iâ— your sad hours with an insensible heart or dry eyes All the Lords saints may see that it is lost love whâ—ch is bestowed upon this perishing world death judgement will make men lament that ever their miscarrying heart â—arryed them to lay lavish out their love upon false appearances right-dreams Alas that Christ should fare the worse because o◠〈◊〉 own goodness in making peace the gospel to ride together that wâ— have never yet weighed the worth of Christ in his ordinances that now we are like to be deprived of the well ere we have tasted the sweetness of the water it may be with waterâ— eyes 〈◊〉 a wâ—t face and weaâ—iâ—d feet we seek Christ shall not findâ— him â—h that this land were humbled in time and by prayers â—â—ye humiliation would bring Christ in at the churchdoor again now when his back is turned toward us and he is gone to the threshold his one foot as it werâ— is out of the â—oor I am sure his departure is our deserving we have bought it with our iniquities for even the Lord 's own children are fallen asleep And alas professours are made all of shews fashions and are not at pains to recover themselves again Every one hath his set measure of faith holiness and coâ—teâ—teth himself with a stinted measure of godliness as if that were â—â—ough to bring them to heaven We forget that as our gifts and light grow so God's gain and the interest of his talents should grow also and that we cannot pay God with the old use and wont as we use to speak which we gave him seven yeers agoe for this were to mock the Lord and to make price with him as
Dear Brother I Fear ye have never known me well If ye saw my inner-side it is possible ye would pitie me but ye would hardly give me either love or respect Men mistake me the whole length of the heavens My sins prevaile over me the terrors of their guiltiness I am put often to ask if Christ I did ever shake hands together in earnest I mean not that my feast-dayes are quite gone but I am made of extremities I pray God ye never have the woefull driery experience of a closed mouth for then ye shall judge the sparrows that may sing in the Church of Irwin blessed birds But my soul hath been refreshed watered when I hear of your courage zeal for your never-enough-praised praised Master in that ye put the men of God chased out of Ireland to work O if I could confirm you I dare say in God's presence That this shall never hasten your suffering but shall be David Dickson's feast and speaking joy that while he had time and leisure he put many to work to lift up Iesus his sweet Master high in the skies O man of God goe on goe on be valiant for that plant of renown for that chief among ten thousands for that Prince of the Kings of the earth It is but little that I know of God yet this I dare write Christ shall be glorified in David Dickson howbeit Scotland be not gathered I am pained pained that I have not more to give my sweet bridegroom His comforts to me are not dealt with a niggard's hand but I would fain learn not to idolize comfort sense joy and sweet felt-presence All these are but creatures and nothing but the kingly robe the Gold-ring and the Bracelets of the Bridegroom The Bridegroom himself is better then all the ornaments that are about him Now I would not so much have these as God him sâ—lâ— to be swallowed up of love to Christ I see in delighting in a communion with Christ we may make moe Gods then oneâ— but however all was but baiâ—ns-play between Christ me till now If one would have sworn unto me I would not have beleeved what may be found in Christ I hope ye pitie my pain that much in my prison as to help me your self to cause others help me a Dyvour a sinfull wretched Dy your to pay some of my debts of praise to my great King Let my God be judge witness if my soul would not have sweet ease comfort to have many hearts confirmed in Christ enlarged with his love many tongues set on work to set on high my Royal princely welbeloved O that my sufferings could pay tribute to such a King I have given over wondering at his love for Christ hath manifested a piece of art upon me that I never revealed to any living He hath gotten fair and rich employment sweet sale a goodly market for his honourable calling of showing mercy on me the chief of sinners Every one knoweth not so well as I doe my woefully oftenbroken covenants My sins against light working in the very act of sinning hath been met with admirable mercy But Alas He will get nothing back again but wretched unthankfulness I am sure if Christ pitie any thing in me next to my sin it is pain of love for an armfull soul-full of himself in faith love begun fruition My sorrow is that I cannot get Christ lifted off the dust in Scotland set on high above all the skies heaven of heavens Aberd. May. 1. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To His Reverend dear Brother Mr JOHN LIVINGSTONE 198 My Reverend dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear from you to be refreshed with the comforts of the bride of our Lord Jesus in Ireland I suffer with you in grief for the dash that your desires to be at N. E have received of late But if our Lord who hath skill to bring up his children had not seen it your best it should not have befallen you Hold your peace stay your selves upon the holy one of Israel hearken what he saith in crossing of your desires he will speak peace to his people I am here removed from my flock silenced confined in Aberden for the testimony of Jesus And I have been confined in spirit also with desertions challenges I gave in a bill of quarrels complaints of unkindness against Christ who seemed to cast me over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree separated me from the Lord's inheritance But high high loud praises be to our royal crowned King in Zion that he hath not burnt the dry branch I shall yet live see his glory Your Mother-church for her whoredom is like to be cast off The bairns may break their heart to see such chiding betwixt the husband the wife Our Clergie is upon a Reconciliation with the Lutherians the Doctors are writing books drawing up a Common Confession at the Councel's command Our Service-book is proclaimed with sound of trumpet The night is fallen down upon the P'rophets Scotland's day of visitation is come It is time for the bride to weep while Christ is a saying He will chuse another wife But our skie will clear again The dry branch of cut-down Lebanon will bud again be glorious they shall yet plant vines upon our mountains Now My dear Brother I write to you for this end that ye may help me to praise and seek help of others with you that God may be glorified in my bonds My Lord Jesus hath taken the withered dry stranger his broken-in-heart prisoner in to his house of wine O! O If ye all Scotland all our brethren with you knew how I am feasted Christ's honâ—combs drop comforts He dineth with his prisoner the King's spikenard casteth a smell The Devil cannot get it denied but we suffer for the apple of Christ's eye his royal prerogatives as King Law-giver Let us not fear or faint He will have his Gospel once again rouped in Scotland have the matter going to voices to see who will say let Christ be crowned King in Scotland It is true Antichrist stirreth his tail but I love a rumbling raging Devil in the kirk â—ncâ— the Church militant cannot or may not want a Devil to trouble her rather then a subtile or sleeping Devil Christ never yet goâ— a bride without stroke of sword It is now nigh the bridegroom's entring in to his chamber let us awake goe in with him I bear your name to Christ's door I pray you Dear Brother forget me not Let me hear from you by Letter I charge you smother not Christ's bounty towards me I write what I have found of him in the house of my pilgrimage Remember my love to all our brethren sisters there The keeper of the vineyard watch for
none of it When I am near the apple he draweth back his hand goeth away to cause me follow And again when I am within an arm-length to the apple he maketh a now break to the gate I have him to seek of new He seemeth not to pity my dwining my swooning for his love I dare sometimes put my hunger over to him to be judged if I would not buy him with a thousand years in the hottest furnace in hell sobeing I might enjoy him But my hunger is fed with want absence I hunger I have not but my comfort is to lie wait on to put my poor soul my sufferings in Christ's hand Let him make any thing out of me sobeing he be glorified in my salvation for I know I am made for him O that my Lord may win his own gracious end in me I will not be at ease while I but stand so far aback O if I were near him with him that this poor soul might be satisfied with himself Your son in law W. G. is now truly honoured for his Lord and Master's cause when the Lord is fanning Zion it is a good token that he is a true branch of the vine that the Lord beginneth first to dress him He is strong in his â—â—râ— as he hath written to me and his wife is his encourager which should make you rejoyce For your son who is your grief your Lord waited on you and me till we were â—ipe and brought us in It is your part to pray wait upon him When he iâ— ripe he will bâ— spoken for who can command our Lord's wind to blow I know it shall be your good in the latter end That is one of your waters to heaven ye could not goe about it there are the fewer behinde I remember you him yours as I am able But alas I am beleeved to be something I am nothing but an emptie reed Wants are my best riches because I have these suppâ—…ed by Christ Remember my dearest love to your brother I know he pleadeth with his harlot-mother for her Apostasie I know also ye are kinde to my worthy Lady Kenmure a woman beloved of the Lord who hath been very mindfull of my bonds The Lord give her to finde mercy her childe in the day of Christ. Great men are dry and cold in doing for me the tinckling of chains for Christ affrighteth them but let my Lord break all my idols I will yet bless him I am obliged to my Lord Lorâ— I wish him mercy Remember my bonds with praises and pray for me that my Lord my leaven the North by my bands sufferings Grace be with you Aberd. July 9. 1637 Yours â—his s swe Lord Iesus S. R. To ALEXANDER GORDON Of Knockgray 206. Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you There is no question but our mother-church hath a father that she shall not die withont an heir that her enemies hall not make mount Zion theâ— heritage We see whethersoever Zion's enemies goe suppose they dig many miles under the ground yet our Lord findeth them out and he hath vengeances laid up in â—orâ— for them the poor needy shall not alwayes be forgotten Our hope was drouping withering man was saying what can God make out of the old dry bones of this buried Kirk The Prelats their followers were a grave above us it is like our Lord is to open our graves purposeth to cause his two slain witnesses rise the third day O how long wait I to hear our weeping Lord Jesus sing again triumph rejoyce divide the spoil I finde it hard work to beleeve when the course of providence goeth cross-wayes to our faith when misted souls in a dark night cannot know East by West our sea Compass seemeth to fail us Every man is a beleever in day-light A fair day seemeth to be made all of faith hope What a trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the fire But to keep gold perfect â—ellow-coloured amidst the flames to be turned from vessel to vessels yet to cause out furnace sound speak cry the praises of the Lord is another matter I know my Lord made me not for fire howbâ—it he hath fitted me in some measure for the fire I bless his high name that I wax not pale neither have I lost the colour of gold and that his fire hath made me somewhat thin that my Lord may pour me in any vessel he pleaseth For a small wager I may justly quite my part of this world's laughter give up with time cast out with the pleasures of this world I know a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh sport surely our Lord seeketh this of us as to any rejoycing in present perishing things I see above all things that we may sit down fold legs arms stretch our selves upon Christ laugh at the feathers that children are chasing here For I think the men of this world like children in a dangerous storm in the sea that play make sport with the white foam of the waves thereof coming in to sink drown them so are men making fool's sports with the white pleasures of a stormy world that will sink â—em But alas what have we to doe with their sports that they make If Solomon said of Laughter that it was madness what may we say of this world 's laughing sporting themselves with gold silver honours court broad large conquests but that they are poor souls in the height and rage of a fever gone mad Then a straw a fig for all created sports and rejoycing out of Christ Nay I think that this world at it's prime perfection when it is is come to the top of it's excellency and to the bloom might be bought with an half penny that it would scarce weigh the worth of a drink of water There is nothing better then to esteem it our crucified idol that is dead slain as Paul did â—al 6 14. Then let pleasures be crucified riches be crucified court honour be crucified since the Apostle faith the world is crucified to him we may put this world to the hanged man's doom and to the gallowes who will give much for a hanged man as little should we give for a hanged crucified world Yet what a sweet smell hath this dead carrion to many fools in the world and how many wooers and suiters findeth this hanged carrion Fools are pulling it off the gallowes and contending for it O when shall we learn to be mortified men to have our fill of these things that have but their short summer-quarter of this life If we saw our father's house and that great and fair citie the new Ierusalem which is up above sun moon we would cry to be over the water
of many noble many holy many learned worthy ones in our neighbour Churches about are upon you This poor Church your mother Christ's spouse is holding up her hands heart to God for you and doeth beseech you with tears to plead for her husband his Kingly Scepter for the liberties that her Lord King hath given to her as to a free Kingdom that oweth spiritual tribute to none on earth as being the free-born Princess daughter to the King of Kings This is a Cause that before God his Angels the World before Sun Moon needeth not to blush O what glory true honour is it to lend Christ your hand service to be amongst the repairers of the breaches of Sion's walls to help to â—uild the old waste places and stretch forth the curtains strengthen the stakes of Christ's tent in this land O blessed are they who when Christ is driven away will bring him back again lend him lodging And blessed are ye of the Lord your name honour shall never rot or wither in heaven at least if ye deliver the Lord's sheep that have been scattered in the dark cloudy day out of the hands of strange Lords hirelings who with rigour cruelty have caused them to eat the pastures troden upon with their foul feet to drink muddy water who have spun out such a world of yards of â—ndifferencies in God's Worship to make weave a web for the Antichrist that shall not keep any from the cold as they minde nothing else but that by the bringing in of the Pope's foul tail first upon us their wretched and beggerly Ceremonies they may thrust in after them the Antichrist's legs thighs his belly head shoulders then cry down Christ the Gospel up the merchandise wares of the great whore Fear not my worthy Lord to give your self all ye have out for Christ his Gospel No man dare say who ever did thus hazard for Christ that Christ payed him not his hundred fold in this life duely in the life to come life everlasting This is his own truth ye now plead for for God and man cannot but commend you to beg justice from a just Prince for oppressed Christ to plead that Christ who is the King's Lord may be heard in a free court to speak for himself when the standing established laws of our nation can strongly plead for Christ's crown in the pulpits his chair as Law-giver in the free Government of his own house But Christ shall never be content pleased with this land neither shall his hot fiery indignation be turned away so long as the Prelate the man that lâ—y in Antichrist's foul womb the Antichrist's Lord Bailiffe shall sit Lord-carver in the Lord Jesus his courts The Prelate is both the egge the nest to cleck bring forth Popery Plead therefore in Christ's behalf for the plucking down of the nest crushing of the egge let Christ's Kingly Office suffer no more unworthy indignities Be valiant for your royal King Jesus contend for him your adversaries shall be moth-eaten worms and shall die as men Christ and his honour now lieth upon your shoulders let him not fall to the ground Cast your eye upon him who is quickly coming to decide all the controversies in Zion remember the sand in your night-glass will run out Time with wings will flye away Eternity is hard upon you what will Christ's love-smiles the light of his lovely soul delighting countenance be to you in that day when God shall take up in his right hand this little lodge of heaven like as a shepherd lifteth up his little tent sold together the two leaves of his tent put the earth all the plenishing of it into a fire turn this clay-Idol the god of Adam's sons in to smoke white ashes O what hire how many worlds would many then give to have a favourable decreet of the Judge Or what moneyes would they not give to buy a mountain to be a grave above both soul body to hide them from the awsom looks of an angry Lord Judge I hope your Lo thinketh upon this that ye minde loyalty to Christ to the King both Now the very God of peace the onely wise God establish strengthen you upon the rock laid in Zion Aberd. Jan. 4. 1638. Your Lo at all obedience in Christ S. R. To a Christian Gentlewoman 2â—5 MISTRESS GRace mercy peace be to you Though not acquainted yet at the desire of a Christian brother I thought good to write a line unto you intreating you in the Lord Jesus under your trials to keep an ear open to Christ who can speak for himself howbeit your visitations and your own sense should dream hard things of his love and favour Our Lord never getteth so kinde a look of us nor our love in such a degree nor our faith in such a measure of stedfastness as he getteth out of the furnace of our tempting fears sharp trials I verily beleeve too sad proofs in me say no less that if our Lord would grind our whorish lust in powder the very old ashes of our corruption should take life again and live and hold us under so much bondage that may humble us make us sad till we be in that countrey where we shall need no Physick at all O what violent means doth our Lord use to gain us to him as if indeed we were a prize worthy his fighting for And be sure if leading would doe the turn he would not use pulling of hair and drawing But the best of us will bide a strong pull of our Lord 's right arm ere we follow him Yet I say not this as if our Lord alwayes measured afflictions by so many ounce weights answerable to the grain weights of our guiltiness I know he doeth in many and possibly in you seek nothing so much as faith that can endure summer and winter in their extremity O how precious to the Lord is faith and love that when threshed beaten and chased away and boasted as it were by God himself doeth yet look warm-like love-like kindlike and life-like home-over to Christ would be in at him ill well as it may be Think not much that your husband or the dearest to you in the world proveth to have the bowels mercy of the Ostrich hard rigourous cruel For Psal. 27. 10. The Lord taketh up such fallen ones as these I could not wish a more sweet life nor more satisfying expressions of kindness till I be up at that Prince of kindness then the Lord's saints finde when the Lord taketh up mens refuse lodgeth this world's out-lawes whom no man seeketh after His breath is never so hot his love casteth never such a flame as when this world and these who should be the helpers of our
then now food for the journey God give you eyes to see through sickness death to see something beyond death I doubt not but if hell were betwixt you Christ as a river which ye behooved to cross ere ye could come at him but ye would willingly put in your foot make through to be at him upon hope that he would come in himself in the deepest of the river lend you his hand Now I beleeve your hell is dried up ye have onely these two shallow brooks Sickness Death to pass through ye have also a promise that Christ shall doe more then meet you even that he shall come himself goe with you foot for foot yea bear you in his arms O then O then for the joy that is set before you For the love of the man who is also God over all blessed for ever that is standing upon the shore to welcome you run your race with patience The Lord goe with you Your Lord will not have you nor any of his servants to exchange for the worse Death in it self includeth both the death of the soul the death of the body but to God's children the bounds the limits of death are abridged drawn into a more narrow compass So that when ye die a piece of death shall onely seise upon you or the least part of you shall die that is the dissolution of the body for in Christ ye are delivered from the second death therefore as one born of God commit not sin although ye cannot live not sin that serpent shall but eat your earthly part As for your soul it is above the law of Death But it is fearfull dangerous to be a debter and servant to sin for the count of sin ye will not be able to make good before God except Christ both count pay for you I trust also Madam that ye will be carefull to present to the Lord the present estate of this decaying Kirk For what shall be concluded in Parliament anent her the Lord knoweth sure I am the decree of a most fearfull Parliament in heaven is at the very point of coming forth because of the sins of the land For We have cast away the law of the Lord and despised the words of the holy one of Israel Isa. 5 24. Iudgement is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off truth is fallen in the streâ—ts and equity cannot enter Lo the prophet as if he had seen us our Kirk resembleth justice to be handled as an enemy holden out at the ports of our city so is she banished Truth to a person sickly diseased fallen down in a deadly swooning sit in the streets before he can come to an house Isa. 59. 14. The Priests have caused many to stumble at the Law have corrupted the Covenant of Levi Mal. 2. 8. But what will they doe in the end Ier. 5 31. Therefore give the Lord no rest for Zion Stir up your husband your brother all with whom ye are in favour and credit to stand upon the Lord's side against Baal I have good hope your husband loveth the peace prosperity of Zion The peace of God be upon him for his intended courses anent the establishment of a powerfull Ministery in this land Thus not willing to weary your La further I recommend you now alwayes to the grace mercy of that God who is able to keep you that ye fall not The Lord Jesus be with your spirit Anwoth July 27. 1628. Your La servant at all dutifull obedience in Christ S. R. To the Parishoners of KILMACOLME 2 Worthy welbeloved in Christ Iesus our Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you Your letters could not come to my hand in a greater throng of business then I am now pressed with at this time when our Kirk requireth the publike help of us all yet I cannot but answer the heads of both your letters with provision that ye chuse after this a fitter time for writing 1. I would not have you pitch upon me as the man able by lettters to answer doubts of this kinde while there are in your bounds men of such great parts most able for this work I know the best are unable yet it pleaseth that Spirit of Jesus to blow his sweet wind through a piâ—ce dry stick that the empty reed may keep no glory to it self but a Minister can make no such wind as this to blow he is scarce able to lend it a passage to blow through him 2. Know that the wind of this Spirit hath a time when it bloweth sharp pierceth so strongly that it would blow through an iron door this is commonly rather under suffering for Christ then at any other time Sick children get of Christ's pleasant things to play them withall because Jesus is most tender of the sufferer for he was a sufferer himself O if I had but the leavings the drawing of the by-board of a sufferer's table But I leave this to answer yours First ye write that God's vows are lying on you security strong â—â—b to nature stealing on you who are weak I answer 1. Till we be in heaven the best have heavy heads as is evident Cant. 5. 1. Psal. 30. 6. Iob. 29. 18. Matth. 26. 33. Nature is a sluggard loveth not the labour of religion Therefore rest should not be taken till we know the disease be over in the way of turning that it is like a fever past the cool And the quietness the calms of the faith of victory over corruption would be entertained in place of security so that if I sleep I would desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's bosom 2. Know also none that sleep sound can seriously complain of sleepiness sorrow for a slumbering soul is a token of some watchfulness of spirit But this is soon turned into wantonness as grace in us too often is abused therefore our waking must be watched over else sleep will even grow out of watching there is as much need to watch over grace as to watch over sin full men will soon sleep sooner then hungry men 3. For your weakness to keep off security that like a thief stealeth upon you I would say two things 1. To want complaints of weakness is for heaven Angels that never sinned not for Christians in Christ's camp on earth I think our weakness maketh us the Church of the redeemed ones Christ's field that the Mediator should labour in If there were no diseases on earth there needed no Physicians on earth If Christ had cried down weakness he might have cried down his own calling but weakness is our Mediator's world Sin is Christ's onely onely fa e market no man should rejoyce at weakness diseases but I think we may have a sort of gladness at boils sores because without them Christ's fingers as a slain Lord
friend although ye should never see her again your care for her would be but small Oh now is she not with a dear friend gone higher upon a certain hope that ye shall in the Resurrection see her again when be ye sure she shall neither be hectick nor consumed in body Ye would be sorry either to be or to be esteeemed an Atheist yet not I but the Apostle 1 Thess. 4â— 13. thinketh these to be hopeless Atheists who mourn excessively for the dead but this is not a challenge on my part I doe speak this onely fearing your weakness for your daughter was a part of yourself therefore nature in you being as it were cut halved will indeed be grieved but ye have to rejoyce that when a part of you is on earth a great part of you is glorified in heaven Follow her but envy her not for indeed it is self-love in us that maketh us mourn for them that die in the Lord Why because for them we cannot mourn since they are never happy till they be dead therefore we mourn for our own private respect take heed then that in shewing your affection in mourning for your daughter ye be not out of self-affection mourning for your self Consider what the Lord is doing in it your daughter is plucked out of the fire she resteth from her labours your Lord in that is trying you casting you in the fire Goe through all fires to your rest now remember that the eye of God is upon you beholding your patience faith he delighteth to see you in the burning bush not consumed he is gladly content that such a weak woman as ye should send Satan away frustrate of his design Now honour God shame the strong roaring lion when ye seem weakest Should such a one as ye faint in the day of adversity Call to minde the dayes of old the Lord yet liveth trust in him although he should stay you faith iâ— exceeding charitable beleeveth no evil of God Now is the Lord laying in the one scale of the ballance your making conscience of submission to his gracious will in the other your affection love to your daughter which of the two will ye then chuse to satisfie Be wise then as I trust ye love Christ better then a sinfull woman pass by your daughter kiss the Lord's rod. Men doe lop the branches off their trees round about to the end they may grow up high tall The Lord hath this way lopped your branch in taking from you many children to the end ye should grow upward like one of the Lord's cedars setting your heart above where Christ is at the right hand of the father what is next but that your Lord cut down the stock after he hath cutted the branches Prepare your self ye are nearer your daughter this day then ye were yesterday while ye prodigally spend time in mourning for her ye are speedily posting after her Run your race with patieÌ„ce let God have his own ask of him in stead of your daughter which he hath taken from you the daughter of faith which is Patience in patience possess your soul. Lift up your head ye doe not know how near your redemption doeth draw Thus recommending you to the Lord who is able to establish you â—â—â—st Anwoth April 23. 1628. Your loving affects not fâ—… in the Lord Iesus S. R. To the elect noble Lady my Lady Kenmure 4 MADAM SAluting your La with grace mercy from God our father from om Lord Jesus Christ I was sorry at my departure leaving your La in grief would still be gâ—…d at it if I were not assured that ye have one with you in the â—urnace 〈◊〉 visage is like unto the Son of God I am glad that ye have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings of God that ye getscarce liberty to swallow down your spittle being casten from furnace to furnace knowing if ye were not dear to God and if your health did not require so much of him he would not spend so much Physick upon you All the brethren sisters of Christ must be conform to his image copy in suffering Rom 8 And some doe more vively resemble the copy then others Think Madam that it is a part of your glory to be enrolled among these whom one of the Elders Rev. 7 14. pointeth out to Iohn thâ—se are they which came out of great tribulation have washed their robes made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Behold your forerunner going out of the world all in a lake of blood it is not ill to die as he did Fulfill with joy the remnant of the grounds remainders of the afflictions of Christ in your body Ye have lost a childe Nay She is not lost to you who is found to Christ she is not sent away but onely sent before like unto a star which going out of our sight doeth not die evanish but shineth in another hemisphere ye see her not yet she doeth shine in another countrey If her glass was but a short hour what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of eternity ye have to rejoyce that ye have now some plenishing up in heaven Build your nest upon no tree here for ye see God hath sold the forrest to death and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down to the end we may flee mount up build upon the rock dwell in the holes of the rock What ye love besides Jesus your husband is an adulterous lover Now it is God's special blessing to Iudah that he will not let her finde her paths in following her strange lovers Hos. 2 6. Therefore behold I will hedge up her way with thorns make a wall that she shall not finde her paths v. 7. And she shall follow after her lovers but she shall not overtakè them O thrice happy Iudah when God buildeth a double stone-wall betwixt her the fire of hell The World the things of the World Madam is the lover ye naturally affect beside your own husband Christ The hedge of thorns the wall which God buildeth in your way to hinder you from this lover is the thorny hedge of daily grief loss of children weakness of body iniquity of the time uncertainty of estate lack of worldly comfort fear of God's anger for old unrepented of sins What lose ye if God twist â—let the hedge daily thicker God be blessed the Lord will not let you finde your paths Return to your first husband Doe not weary neither think that Death walketh towards you with a slow pace ye must be riper ere ye be shaken your daves are no longer then Iob's that were swifter then a post passed away as the ships of desire as the Eagle that hasteth for the prey Iob. 9 25 26. There is less sand in
your glass now then there was yesternight this span-length of ever-posting time will soon be ended But the greater is the mercy of God the moe years ye get to advise upon what terms upon what conditions ye cast your soul in the huge gulf of never-ending Eternity The Lord hath told you what ye should be doing till he come wait hasten saith Peter for the coming of our Lord All is night that is here in respect of ignorance daily ensuing troubles one alwayes making way to another as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth therefore sigh long for the dawning of that morning the breaking of that day of the coming of the SoÌ„ of man when the shadows shall flee away Perswade your self the King is coming read his letter sent before him Rev. 3. 11. Behold I come quickly Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern skie think that ye have not a morrow As the wise father said who being invited against to morrow to dine with his friends answered These many dayes I have had no morrow at all I am loath to weary you Shew your self a Christian by suffering without murmuring for which sin fourteen thousand seven hundred were slain Numb 16. 49. In patience possess your soul they lose nothing who gain Christ. Thus remembring my brother's my wife's humble service to your La I commend you to the mercy grace of our Lord Jesus assuring you that your day is coming that God's mercy is abiding you The Lord Jesus be with your spirit Anwoth Jan. 15. 1629. Yours in the Lord Iesus at all dutifull obedience S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 5. MADAM SAluting you in Jesus Christ to my grief I must bid you 〈◊〉 may be for ever farewell in paper having small assurance 〈◊〉 to see your face again till the last general Assembly where the whole church universal shall meet Yet promising by his grace to present your La your burdens to him who is able to save you give you an inheritance with the saints after a more special manner then ever I have done before Ye are going to a countrey where the Sun of righteousness in the Gospel shineth not so clearly as in this Kingdom but if ye would know where he whom your soul loveth doeth rest where he feedeth at the noon-tide of the day where ever ye be get you forth by the footsteps of the stock feed your self beside the shepherds tents Cant. 1 7. that is ask for some of the watchmen of the Lord's city who will tell you truly will not lye where ye shall finde him whom your soul loveth I trust ye are so betrothed in marriage to the true Christ that ye will not give your love to any false Christ Ye know not how soon your marriage-day will come nay is not Eternity hard upon you It were time then that ye had your wedding garment in readiness be not sleeping at your Lord's coming I pray God ye may be upon your feet standing when he knocketh Be not discouraged to goe from this countrey to another part of the Lord's earth the earth is his the fulness thereof Psal. 24 1. This is the Lord's lower house while we are lodged here we have no assurance to lie ever in one chamber but must be content to remove from one corner of our Lord's nether-house to another resting in hope that when we come up to the Lord 's upper city Ierusalem that is above we shall remove no more because then we shall be at home And goe wheresoever ye will if your Lord goe with you ye are at home your lodging is ever taken before night so long as he who is Israel's dwelling house is your home Psal. 90 1. Beleeve me Madam my minde is that ye are well lodged that in your house there are fair ease-rooms pleasant lights if ye can in faith lean down your head upon the breast of Jesus Christ till this be ye shall never get a sound sleep Jesus Jesus be your shadow your covering It is a sweet soul-sleep to lie in the arms of Christ for his breath is very sweet Pray for poor friendless Zion Alas No man will speak for her now although at home in her own countrey she hath good friends her husband Christ his father her father in law Beseech your husband to be a friend to Zion pray for her I have received many divers dashes heavy strokes since the Lord called me to the Ministery but indeed I esteem your departure from us amongst the weightiest but I perceive God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolize that he may have his own room I see exceeding small fruit of my Ministery would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown rejoycing in the day of Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain yet my labour is with my God Isa. 49 9. I wish pray that the Lord would harden my face against all make me to learn to goe with my face against a storm Again I commend you body spirit to him who hath loved us washed us from our sins in his own blood Grace grace grace for ever be with you Pray pray continually Anwoth Sept 14. 1629. Your La at all dutifull obedience in Christ S. R. To JOHN KENNEDY 6. My loving most affectionat brother in Christ. I Salute you with grace mercy peace from God our father from our Lord Iesus Christ. I promised to write to you although late enough yet now I make it good I heard with grief of your great danger of perishing by the sea but of your mercifull deliverance with joy Sure I am Brother Satan will leave no stone unrolled as the proverb is to roll you off your rock or at least to shake unsettle you For at that same time the mouths of wicked men were opened in hard speeches against you by land the Prince of the power of the air was angry with you by sea See then how much ye are obliged to that malitions murderer who would beat you with two rods at one time but blessed be God his arm is short If the sea winds would have obeyed him ye had never come to land Thank your God who saith Rev. 1 18. I have the keys of hell and of death Deut 32 39. I kill and I make alive 1 Sam. 2 6. The Lord bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up If Satan were Iaylâ—ur and had the keys of Death or the Grave they should be stored with moe prisoners Ye were knocking at these black gates and ye found the doors shut and we doe all welcome you back again I trust ye know it is not for nothing that ye are sent to us again The Lord knew ye had forgotten something that was necessary for your journey that your armour was not as yet thick enough
against the stroke of death Now in the strength of Jesus dispatch your business that debt is not forgiven but fristed Death hath not bidden you fare-well but hath onely left you for a short season End your journey ere the night come upon you have all in readiness against the time that ye must sail through that black impetuous Iordan Jesus Jesus who knoweth both these depths the rocks all the coasts be your Pilot That last tide will not wait for you one moment if ye forget any thing when your sea is full your foot in that ship there is no returning again to fetch it What ye doe amiss in your life to day ye may amend it to morrow for as many suns as God maketh to arise upon you ye have as many new lives but ye can die but once if ye mar or spill that business ye cannot come back to mend that piece of work again No man sinneth twice in dying ill As we die but once so we die but ill or well once Ye see now the number of your moneths is written in God's book as one of the Lord's hirelings ye must work till the shadow of the evening come upon you ye shall run out your glass even to the last pickle of sand fulfill your course with joy for we take nothing to the grave with us but a good or evil conscience And although the skie clear after this storm yet clouds will engender another Ye contracted with Christ I hope when first ye began to follow him that ye would bear his cross fulfill your part of the Contract with patience break not to Jesus Christ Be honest Brother in your bargaining with him for who knoweth better how to bring up children then our God For to lay aside his knowledge of the which there is no searching out he hath been practised in bringing up his heirs these 5000 years his bairns are all well brought up many of them are honest men now at home up in their own house in heaven are entred heirs to their father's inheritance Now the form of his bringing up was by chastisements scourging correcting nurturing See if he maketh exception of any of his bairns Rev. 3. 19. Heb. 12. 7 8. No His eldest Son his heir Iesus is not excepted Heb. 2. 10. Suffer we must ere we were born God dcreed it it is easier to complain of his decree then to change it It is true terrors of conscience cast us down yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again fears doubtings shake us yet without fears doubtings we would soon sleep and loose our grips of Christ tribulation tentations will almost loose us at the root yet without tribulations temptations we can now no more grow then herbs or corn without rain Sin Satan the World will say cry in our ear that we have a hard reckoning to make in Judgement yet none of these three except they lye dare say in our face that our sin can change the Tenour of the new Covenant Forward then dear Brother lose not your grip hold fast the Truth for the world sell not one dram weight of God's truth especially now wheÌ„ most meÌ„ measure Truth by time like young sea-men setting their Compass by a cloud For now Time is father mother to Truth in the thoughts practices of our evil Time The God of Truth establish us for Alas Now there are none to comfort the prisoners of hope the mourners in Zion We can doe little except pray mourn for Iosepâ— in the stocks And let their tongue cleave to the roof of their mouth who forget Ierusalem now in her day And the Lord remember Edom render to him as he hath done to us Now Brother I will not weary you but I intreat you remember my dearest love to Mr David Dickson with whom I have small acquaintance yet I bless the Lord I know he both prayeth doeth for our dying Kirk Remember my dearest love to Iohn Stuart whom I love in Christ show him from me I doe alwayes remember him hope for a meeting The Lord Jesus establish him more more though he be already a strong man in Christ. Remember my heartiest affection in Christ to â—illiam Rodger whom I also remember to â—od I wish the first newes I hear of him you all that love our common Saviour in these bounds may be that ye are so knit linked kindly fastened in love with the Son of God that ye may say now if we would never so fain escape out of Christ's hands yet love hath so bound us that we cannot get our â—ands fâ—ce again he hath so ravished our hearts that there is no loosing of his grips the chains of his soul-ravishing love are so sâ—rong that the Crave nor Death will not bâ—â—â—k them I hope Brother yea I doubt not of it but ye lay me my first entry to the Lord's vineyard my flock before him who hath put me in his work as the Lord knoweth since first I saw you I have been mindfull of you Marion Mcknaught doeth remember most heartily her love to you to Iohn Stuart Blessed be the Lord that in God's mercy I found in this countrey such a woman to whom Jesus is dearer then her own heart when there be so many that cast Christ over their shoulder Good Brother call to minde the memory of your worthy father now asleep in Christ as his custom was pray continually wrestle for the life of a dying breathless Kirk And desire Iohn Stuart not to forget poor Zion she hath â—ew friends few to speak one good word for her Now I commend you your whole soul body spirit to Jesus Christ his keeping hoping ye will die live stand fall with the cause of our Master Jesus The Lord Jesus himself be with your spirit Anwoth Feb. 2. 1637. Your loving Brother in our Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 7 MADAM I Have longed exceedingly to hear of your life health growth in the grace of God I lacked the opportunity of a bearer in respect I did not understand of the hasty departure of the last by whom I might have saluted your La therefore I could not write before this time I intreat you Madam let me have two lines from you concerning your present condition I know ye are in grief heaviness if it were not so ye might be afraid because then your way should not be so like the way that our Lord saith leadeth to the new Ierusalem Sure I am if ye knew what were before you or if ye saw but some glances of it ye would with gladness swim through the present floods of sorrow spreading forth your arms out of desire to be at land If God have given you the earnest of the Spirit as
take from you against your will It is good to play the â—surer with him take in in stead of ten of the hundred an hundred often an hundred of one Madam fearing to be tedious to you I break off here commending you as I trust to doe while I live your person wayes burdens all that concerneth you to that Almighty who is able to bear you your burdens I still remember you to him who will cause you one day to laugh I expect that what ever ye can doe by word or deed for the Lord 's friendless Zion ye will doe it She is your mother forget her not for the Lord intendeth to melt try this land it is high time we were all upon our feet falling about to try what claim we have to Christ It is like the the Bridegroom will be taken from us then we shall mourn Dear Iesus remove not else take us with thee Grace grace be with you for ever Anwoth 14. Jan. 1632. Your La at all dutifull obedience S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 12 MADAM YOur La will not I know weary nor offend though I trouble you with many letters the memory of what obligations I am under to your La is the cause of it I am possibly impertinent in what I write because of my ignorance of your present estate But for all that is said I have learned of M W. D. that ye have not changed upon nor wearied of your sweet Master Christ his service neither were it your part to change upon him who resteth in his love Ye are among honourable company such as affect grandour court But Madam thinking upon your estate I think I see an improvident wooer coming too late to seek a Bride because she is contracted already promised away to another so the wooer's busking bravery who cometh to you as who but he is in vain the outward pomp of this busie wooer a beguiling world is now coming in to sute your soul too late when ye have promised away your soul to Christ many years agoe And I know Madam what answer ye may now justly make to the late suter even this Ye are to long of coming my soul the Bride is away already the contract with Christ subscribed I cannot cause but I must be honest faithfull to him Honourable-Lady keep your first love hold the first match with that soul-delighting lovely Bridegroom our sweet sweet Jesus fairer then all the children of men the Rose of Sharon the fairest sweetest smelled Rose in all his father's garden there is none like him I would not exchange one smile of his lovely face with Kingdoms Madam let others take their silly feckless heaven in this life envy them not but let your soul like a tarrowing misiearned childe take the dorts as we use to speak or cast at all things disdain them except one onely either Christ or nothing your welbeloved Jesus will be content that ye be here devotely proud ill to please as one that contemneth all husbands but himself Either the King's son or no husband at all this is humble worthy ambition What have ye to doe to dally with a whorish foolish world Your jealous husband will not be content that ye look by him to another he will be jealous indeed offend if ye kiss another but himself What weights doe burden you Madam I know not but think it great mercy that your Lord from your youth hath been hedging in your out-straying affections that they may not goe a whoring from himself If ye were his bastard he would not nurture you so If ye were for the slaughter ye would be fatned But be content ye are his wheat growing in our Lord's field Matth. 13 v. 25 38. And if wheat ye must goe under our Lord's threshing instrument in his barn-â—oor through his sieve Amos 9 v. 9. And through his mill to be bruised as the Prince of your salvation Iesus was Isa. 53 9. that ye may be found good bread in your Lord's house Lord Jesus bless the spiritual husbandry separate you from the chaff that dow not bide the wind I am perswaded your glass is spending it self by little little if ye knew who is before you ye would rejoyce in your tribulations Think ye it a small honour to stand before the throne of God and the Lamb to be clothed in white to be called to the Marriage-supper of the Lamb to be led to the fountain of living waters to come to the well-head even God himself get your fill of the clear cold sweet refreshing water of life the King 's own well to put up your now sinfull hand to the tree of life take down eat the sweetest apple in all God's heavenly Paradise Jesus Christ your life your Lord Up your heart shout for joy your King is coming to fetch you to his father's house Madam I am in exceeding great heaviness God thinking it best for my own soul thus to exercise me thereby it may be to fit me to be his mouth to others I see hear at home abroad nothing but matter of grief discouragement which indeed maketh my life bitter And I hope in God never to get my will in this world I expect ere long a fiery trial upon the Church for as many men almost in England Scotland as many false friends to Christ as many pulling and drawing to pull the crown off his holy head for fear that our Beloved stay amongst us as if his room were more desirable then himself men are bidding him goe seek his lodging Madam if ye have a part in silly friendless Zion as I know ye have speak a word on her behalf to God man If ye can doe nothing else speak for Jesus ye shall thereby be a witness against this declining age Now from my very soul laying leaving you on the Lord desiring a part in your prayers as my Lord knoweth I remember you I deliver over your body spirit all your necessities to the hands of our Lord remains for ever Answeth Febr. 13. 1632. Your La. in your sweet Lord Iesus mine S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 14 MADAM THe cause of my not writing to your La is not my forgetfulness of you but the want of the opportunity of a convenient bearer for I am under more then a simple obligation to be kinde in paper at least to your La I bless our Lord through Christ who hath brought you home again to your countrey from that place where ye have seen with your eyes that which our Lord's truth taught you before to wit that worldly glory is nothing but a vapour a shadow the foam of the water or something less lighter even nothing that our Lord hath not without cause said in his word 1 Cor. 7. 31. The
countenance or fashion of this world passeth away In which place our Lord compareth it to an Image in a looking-glass for it is the looking-glass of Adam's sons Some come to the glass see in it the picture of Honour and but a picture indeed for true Honour is to be great in the sight of God others see in it the shadow of Riches but a shadow indeed for durable Riches stand as one of the maids of Wisdom upon her left hand Prov. 3. 16. a third sort see in it the face of painted Pleasures the beholders will not beleeve but the Image they see in this glass is a living man till the Lord come break the glass in pieces remove the face then like Pharaoh awakened they say And behold it was a dream I know your La thinketh your self little in the common of this world for the favourable aspect of any of these three painted faces blessed be our Lord that it is so the better for you Madam they are not worthy to be wooers to sute in marriage your soul that looks to an higher match then to be married upon painted clay know therefore Madam the place whither our Lord Jesus cometh to wooe a Bride it is even in the furnace for if ye be one of Zion's daughters which I ever put beyond all question since I first had occasion to see in your La such pregnant evidences of the grace of God the Lord who hath his fire in Zion his furnace in Ierusalem Isa. 31 9. is purifying you in the furnace And therefore be content to live in it and every day to be adding sowing-to a pasment to your wedding garment that ye may be at last decored trimmed as a Bride for Christ a Bride of his own busking beautified in the hidden man of the heart forgetting your Father's house so shall the King greatly desire your beauty Psal. 45 11. If your La be not changed as I hope ye are not I beleeve ye esteem your self to be of these whom God hath tried these many years refined as silver But Madam I will shew your La a priviledge that others want ye have in this case Such as are in prosperity are fatted with earthly joyes encreased with children friends though the Word of God is indeed written to such for their instruction yet to you who are in trouble spare me Madam to say this from whom the Lord hath taken many children whom he hath exercised otherwise there are some chapters some particular promises in the Word of God made in a most special manner which should never have been yours so as they now are if ye had your portion in this life as others therefore all the comforts promises mercies God offereth to the afflicted they are as many love-letters written to you take them to you Madam claim your right be not robbed It is no small comfort that God hath written some Scriptures to you which he hath not written to others ye seem rather in this to be envied then pitied ye are indeed in this like people of another world these that are above the ordinary rank of mankinde whom our King Lord our Bridegroom Iesus in his love-letter to his welbeloved Spouse hath named beside all the rest hath written comforts and his hearry commendations in the 56 of I saiah vers 4 5. Bsal. 147 2 3 to you Read these the like think your God is like a friend that sendeth a letter to a whole house family but speaketh in his letter to some by name that are dearest to him in the house Ye are then Madam of the dearest friends of the Bridegroom If it were lawfull I would envie you that God honoured you so above many of his dear children Therefore Madam your partis in this case seeing God taketh nothing from you but that which he is to supply with his own presence to desire your Lord to know his own room take it even upon him to come in in the room of dead children Iehovah know thy own place take it to thee is all ye have to say Madam I perswade my self that this world is to you an uncouth Innes that ye are like a traveller who hath his bundel upon his back his staff in his hand his feet upon the door-threshold Goe forward honourable elect Lady in the strength of your Lord let the world bide at home keep the house with your face toward him who longeth more for a sight of you then ye can doe for him ere it be long he will see us I hope to see you laugh as cheerfully after-noon as ye have mourned before-noon The hand of the Lord the hand of the Lord be with you in your journey What have ye to doe here This is not your mountain of rest arise then and set your foot up the mountain goe up out of the wilderness leaning upon the shoulder of your Beloved Caent 8 v. 5 If ye knew the welcome that abideth you when ye come home ye would hasten your pace for ye shall see your Lord put up his own holy hand to your face wipe all tears from your eyes I trow then ye shall have some joy of heart Madam paper willeth me to end before affection Remember the estate of Zaon pray that Ierusalem may be as Zechariah prophesied Ch. 12 3. A burdensom stone for all that whosoever boweth down to roll the stone out of the way may hurt break the joynts of their back strain their arms disjoynt their shoulder-blades pray Iehovah that the stone may lie still in it's own place keep bond with the corner-stone I hope it shall be so he is a skilled Master-builder who laid it I would Madam under great heaviness be refreshed with two lines from your La pen which I refer to your own wisdom Madam I would seen undutifull not to shew you that great solistation is made by the town of Kircudbright for to have the use of my poor labours amongst them If the Lord shall call his people cry who am I to resist but without his seen calling till the flock whom I now oversee be planted with one to whom I dare intrust Christ's Spouse gold nor silver nor favour of men I hope shall not loose me I leave your La praying more earnestly for grace mercy to be with you multiplied upon you here hereafter then my pen can express The Lord Jesus be with your spirit Kirkcudbright Your La at all obedience in the Lord S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 15. MADAM HAving saluted you with grace mercy from God our father from our Lord Jesus Christ I long both to see your La to hear how it goeth with you I doe remember you present you your necessities to him who is able to keep you present you blameless before
his face with joy my prayer to our Lord is that ye may be sick of love for him who died of love for you I mean your Saviour Jesus And O sweet were that sickness to be soul-sick for him And a living death it were to die in the fire of the love of that soul-lover Iesus And Madam if ye love him ye will keep his commandements this is not one of the least to lay your neck cheerfully willingly under the yoke of Jesus Christ For I trust your La did first contract and bargain with the Son of God to follow him upon these terms that by his grace ye should endure hardship suffer affliction as the souldier of Christ They are not worthy of Jesus who will not take a blow for their Master's sake For our glorious peace-maker when he came to make up the friendship betwixt God us God bruised him strooke him the sinfull world also did beat him and crucifie him yet he took buffets of both the parties and honour to our Lord Jesus he would not leave the field for all that till he had made peace betwixt the parties I perswade â—y self your sufferings are but like your Saviour's yea incomparably less lighter which are called but a bruising of his â—eel Gen. 3. 15 a wound far from the heart Your life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3. 3. And therefore ye cannot be robbed of it Our Lord handleth us as fathers doe their young children they lay up jewels in a place above the reach of the short arm of bairns else â—aiâ—ns would put up their hands take them down lose them soon So hath our Lord done with our spiritual life Jesus Christ is the high coffer in the which our Lord hath hid our life we children are not able to reach up our arm so high as to take down that life lose it it is in our Christ's hand O long long may Jesus be Lord-keeper of our life happy are they that can with the Apostle 2 Tim. 1. lay their soul in pawne in the hand of Jesus for he is able to keep that which is committed in pawne to him against that day Then Madam so long as this life is not hurt all ether troubles are but touches in the heel I trust ye will soon be cured Ye know Madam Kings have some servants in their court that receive not present wages in their hand but live upon their hopes The King of Kings also hath servants in his court that for the present get little or nothing but the heavie cross of Christ troubles without terrours within but they live upon hope when it cometh to the parting of the inheritance they remain in the house as heirs It is better to be so then to get present payment a portion in this life an inheritance in this world God forgive me that I should honour it with the name of an inheritance it is rather a farme-room then in the end to be casten out of God's house with this word Ye have received your consolation ye will get no more Alas What get they The rich glutton's heaven Oh but our Lord Luk. 16. maketh it a sillie heaven He fared well saith our Lord delicately every day Oh no more A sillie heaven Truly no more except that he was clothed in purple that is all I perswade my self Madam ye have joy when ye think that your Lord hath dealt more graciously with your soul. Ye have gotten little in this life It is true indeed Ye have then the more to crave yea ye have all to crave For except some tastings of the first fruits some kisses of his mouth whom your soul loveth ye get no more But I cannot tell you what is to come yet I may speak as our Lord doeth of it The foundation of the city is pure gold clear as crystall the twelve ports are set with precious stones If orchards rivers commend a soil upon earth there is a Paradise there wherein groweth the tree of life that beareth twelve manner of fruits every moneth which is seven score four harvests in the year there is there a pure river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God of the Lamb the city hath no need of the light of the sun or moon or of a candle for the Lord God Almighty the Lamb is the light thereof Madam beleeve and hope for this till ye see enjoy Jesus is saying in the Gospel Come see he is come down in the chariot of Truth wherein he rideth through the world to conquer mens souls Psal. 45. 4. is now in the word saying Who will goe with me will ye goe my Father will make you welcome give you house-room for in my Father's house are many dwelling places Madam consent to goe with him Thus I rest commending you to God's dearest mercy Anwoth Yours in the Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 16. MADAM I Am afraid now as many others are that at the sitting down of our Parliament our Lord Jesus his Spouse shall be roughly handled And it must be so since false deelining Scotland whom our Lord took off the dunghill out of hell made a fair Bride to himself hath broken her faith to her sweet husband hath put on the forehead of a whore therefore he saith he will remove would God we could stir up our selves to lay hold upon him who being highly provoked with the handling he hath met with is ready to depart Alas we doe not importune him by prayer supplication to abide amongst usâ— If we could but weâ—p upon â—â—m in the holy pertinacy of faith wrestle witâ—… say We will not let thee goe it may be that then he who is easy to be intreated would yet notwithstanding of our high provocations condescend to stay feed among the lilies till that fair desirable day break and the shadows flâ—e away Ah! What cause of mourning is there When our gold is become dim the visage of our Nazarites sometimes whiter then snow is now become blacker then a coal Levi's house once comparable to fine gold is now changed become like vessels in whom he hath no pleasure Madam think upon this that when our Lord who hath his handkerchief to wipe the face of the mourners in Zion shall come to wipe away all tears froÌ„ their eyes he may wipe yours also in the passing amongst others I am confident Madam that our Lord will yet build a new house to himself of our rejected and scattered stones for our bridegroom cannot want a wife Can he live a widow Nay he will embrace both Us the little young sister the elder sister The church of the Iews there will yet be a day of it therefore we have cause to rejoyce yea to sing shout for joy The Church hath been â—nce
your hands His love to you will not grow sowre nor wear out of date as the love of men which groweth old gray haired often before themselves Ye have so much the more reason to love a better life then this because this world hath been to you a cold fire with little heat to the body as little light much smoke to hurt the eyes But Madam your Lord would have you thinking it but day breasts full of wind empty of food In this late visitation that hath befallen your Laâ—e â—e have seen God's love care in such a measure that I thought our Lord brake the sharp point off the cross made us and your La see Christ take possession and infestment upon earth of him who is now reigning triumphing with the hundred forty four thousand who stand with the Lamb on mount Zion I know the sweetest of it is bitter to you but your Lord will not give you painted crosses He paireth not all the bitterness from the cross neither taketh he the sharp â—dge quite from it then it should be of your wailing not of his which should have as little reason in it as it should have profit for us Onely Madam God commandeth you now to beleeve cast anchor in the dark night climb up the mountain He who hath called you establish you confirm you to the end I had a purpose to have visited your La but when I thought better upon it the truth is I cannot see what my company could profit you this hath broken off my purpose no other thing yknow many honourable friends worthy professours will see I our La that the Son of God is with you to whose love mercy from my soul I recommend your La remain Anwoth Nov. 29. 1634. Your La at all dutifull obedience in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 22 MADAM MY humble obedience in the Lord remembered Know it hath pleased the Lord to let me see by all appearance my labours in God's house here are at an end I 〈◊〉 now learn to suffer in the which I am a dull Scholar By a strange Providence some of my papers anent the corruptions of this time are come to our King's hand I know by the wise well affected I shall be censured as not wise nor circumspect enough but it is ordinary that that should be a part of the cross of these who suffer for him Yet I love pardon the instrument I would commit my life to him howbeit by him this hath befallen me but I look higher then to him I make no question of your La love car to doe what ye can for my help am perswaded that in my adversities our La will with me well I seek no other thing but that my Lord may be honoured by me in giving a â—…ony I was wiâ—ling to doe him more service but seeing he will have no more of my labours this land will thrust me out I pray for grace to learn to be acquaint with misery iâ—â— may give so rough a name to such a mark of these who shall be crowned with Christ And howbeit I will possibly prove a faint-hearted unwise man in that yet I dare say I intend otherwise And I desire not to goe on the lee-side or sunny-side of Religion to put Truth betwixt me a storm my Saviour did not so for me who in his suffering took the windy side of the hill No further but the Son of God be with you Anwoth Dec. 5. 1634. Your La in the Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 23. MADAM I Received your La letter from I. G. I thank our Lord ye are as well at least as one may be who is not come home it is a mercy in this stormy sea to get a second wind for none of the saints get a first but they must take the winds as the Lord of the seas causeth them to blow the Inne as the Lord Master of the Innes hath ordered it if contentment were here heaven were not heaven Who ever seek the world to be their bed shall at best finde it short ill made a stone under their side to hold them waking rather then a soft pillow to sleep upon Ye ought to bless your Lord that it is not worse we live in a sea where many have suffered ship wrack and have need that Christ sit at the helm of the ship it is a mercy to win to heaven though with much hard toil heavy labour to take it by violence ill well as it may be better goe swimming wet through our waters then drown by the way especially now when Truth suffereth great men bid Christ sit lower contract himself in less bounds as if he took too much room I expect our new Prelate shall try my sitting I hang by a threed but it is if I may speak so of Christ's spinning there is no quarrel more honest or honourable then to suffer for truth but the worst is that this Kirk is like to sink all her lovers friends stand afar off none mourn with her none mourn for her But the Lord Jesus will not be put out of his conquest so soon in Scotland it will be seen the Kirk Truth will rise again within three dayes Christ again shall ride upon his white horse howbeit his horse seem now to stumble yet he cannot fall the fulness of Christ's harvest in the end of the earth is not yet come in I speak not this because I would have it so but upon better grounds then my naked liking but enough of this sad subject I long to be fully assured of your La welfare that your soul prospereth especially now in your solitary life when your comforts outward are few when Christ hath you for the very uptaking I know his love to you is still running over his love hath not so bad a memory as to forget you your dear childe who hath two fathers in heaven the one the Ancient of dayes I trust in his mercy he hath something laid up for him above however it may goe with him here I know it is long since your La saw this world turned your step-mother did forsake you Madam ye have reason to take in good part a lean dinner spare diet in this life seeing your large supper of the Lamb 's preparing will recompense all let it goe which was never yours but onely in sight not in property the time of your loan will wear shorter shorter time is measured to you by ounce-weights then I know your hope shall be a full ear of corn not blasted with wind it may be your joy that your anchor is up within the vail that the ground it is cast upon is not false but firm God hath done his part I hope ye will not deny to fish
comforter's part of it not against you Madam for I am sure ye are not his party but against your grief which will have it 's own violent incursions in your soul I think it be not in your power to help it But I must say there are comforts allowed upon you therefore want them not When ye have gotten a running-over soul with joy now that joy will never be missed out of the infinite Ocean of delight which iâ— not diminished by drinking at it or drawing out of it It is a Christian art to Comfort your self in the Lord to say I was obliged to render back again this childe to the giver if I have had four years loan of him Christ eternitie's possession of him the Lord hath keeped condition with me If my Lord would not have him me to tryst both in one hour at death's door threshold together it is his wisdom so to doe I am satisfied my tryst is suspended not broken off nor given up Madam I would I could divide sorrow with you for your ease But I am but a beholder it is easie to me to speak The God of comfort speak to you allure you with his feasts of love My removal from my flock is so heavy to me that it maketh my life a burden to me I had never such a longing for death The Lord help hold up sad clay I fear ye sin in drawing Mr William Dalgleish from this countrey where the labourrers are few and the harvest great Madam desire my Lord Argyle to see for provision to a Pastor for this poor people Grace be with you Kircudbright Octob. 1. 1639. Your La at all obedience in Christ S. R. To the persecuted Church in Ireland 27 Much honoured reverend dearly beloved in our Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you all I know there are many in this Nation more able then I to speak to the sufferers for witnesses of Jesus Christ yet pardon me to speak a little to you who are called in question for the Gospel once committed to you I hope ye are not ignorant that if peace was left to you in Christ's Testament so the other half of the Testament was a legacy of Christ's sufferings Ioh. 16 35. These things I have spoken that in me ye might have peace in the world ye shall have trouble Because then ye are made assignayes heâ—â—s to a life-rent of Christ's Cross think that fiery trial no strangething For the Lord Jesus shall be no loser by purging the dross tin out of his Church in Ireland his wine press is out squising out the dreg the scum the froath refuse of that Church I had once the proof of the sweet smell the honest honourable peace of that slandered thing the Cross of our Lord Jesus But though Alas that these golden dayes that then I had be now in a great part gone yet I dare say that the issue outgate of your sufferings shall be the advantage the golden reign dominion of the Gospel the high glory of the never-enough-praised Prince of the Kings of the earth the changing of the brass of the Lord's temple among you into gold the iron into silver the wood into brass your officers shall yet be peace your exactors righteousness Isa. 60 v. 17 18. Your old fallen walls shall get a new name the gates of your Ierusalem shall get a new stile they shall call your walls Salvation your gates Praise I know that Deputy Prelats Papists temporizing Lords proud mockers of our Lord crucifiers of Christ for his coat all your enemies have neither fingers nor instruments of war to pick out one stone out of your wall for each stone of your wall is Salvation I dare give you my royal Princely Master's word for it that Ireland shall be a fair Bride to Jesus Christ shall build on her a palace of silver Cant. 8 9. Therefore weep not as if there were no hope fear not put on strength put on your beautifull garments Isa. 52 1. Your foundation shall be saphires Isa. 54 11 12. Your windows gates precious stones Look over the water behold see who is on the dry land waiting for your landing Your deliverance is concluded subscribed sealed in heaven Your goods that are taken from you for Christ his truth's sake are but arrested laid in pawne not taken away There is much laid up for you in his store-house whose the earth the fulness thereof is your garments are spun your flocks are feeding in the fields your bread is laid up for you your drink is browen your gold silver is at the bank the interest goeth on groweth yet I hear that your task-masters doe robe spoil you fine you your prisons my brethren have two keyes the Deputy Prelats Officers keep but the iron keyes of the prison wherein they put you but he that hath created the smith hath other keyes in heaven therefore ye shall not die in the prison other mens ploughs are labouring for your bread your enemies are gathering in your rents He that is kissing his Bride on this side of the sea in Scotland is beating her beyond the sea in Ireland and feeding her with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction and yet he is the same Lord to both Alas I fear that Scotland be undone and slain with this great mercy of Reformation because there is not here that life of Religion answerable to the huge greatness of the work that dazleth our eyes For the Lord is rejoycing over us in this land as the Bridegroom rejoyceth over the Bride the Lord hath changed the name of Scotland they call us now no more Forsaken nor Desolate but our land is called Heph Zibah Beislah Isa. 62 4 for the Lord delighteth in us this land is married to himself there is now an high way made through our Zion it is called the way of holiness the unclean shall not pass over it the wayfaring men though fools shall not erre in it the wilderness doth rejoyce blossom as the rose the ransomed of the Lord are returned back unto Zion with songs everlasting joy up on their heads Isa. 35. The Canaanite is put out of our Lord's house there is not a beast left to doe hurt at least professedly in all the holy mountain of the Lord our Lord is fallen to wrestle with his enemies hath brought us out of Egypt we have the strength of an Unicorn Numb 23 22. The Lord hath eaten up the sons of Babel he hath broken their bones hath pierced them through with his arrows we take them captives whose captives we were we rule over our oppressors Isa 14 2. It is not brick nor clay nor Babel's cursed timber stones that is in our second temple but our Princely King â—esus is
to restore you again safe to your brethren sisters in Christ take heaven and Christ's back-bond for a fair back-door out of your suffering The Saviour is on his journey with salvation and deliverance for mount Zion the sword of the Lord is drunk with blood and made fat with fatness his sword is bathed in heaven against Babylon for it is the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompences for the comtroversie of Zion And perswade your selves the streams of the rivers of Babylon shall be pitch and the dust of the land brimstone and burning pitch Isa. 34 8. And if your deliverance be conjoyned with the deliverance of Zion it shall be two salvations to you It were good to be armed before hand for death or bodily tortures for Christ and to think what a crown of honour it is that God hath given you pieces of living clay to be tortured witnesses for saving truth and that ye are so happy as to have some pints of blood to give out for the crown of that royal Lord who hath caused you to avouch himself before men If ye can lend fines of three thousand pound sterling for Christ let heaven's register and Christ's count-book keep in reckoning your depursments for him It shall be engraven printed in great letters upon heaven's throne what you are willing to give for him Christ's papers of that kinde cannot be lost or fall by Doe not wonder to see clay boast the great potter to see blinced men to threaten the Gospel with death burial to raze out Truth 's name but where will they make a grace for the Gospel the Lord's bride Earth hell shall be but little bounds for their burial lay all the clay rubbish of this inch of the whole earth above our Lord's spouse yet it will not cover her nor hold her down she shall live not die she shall behold the salvation of God Let your faith frist God a little be not afraid for a smoking fire-brand there is more smoke in Babylon's furnace then there is fire till dooms-day shall come they shall never see the Kirk of Scotland our Covenant burnt to ashes or if it should be thrown in tho fire yet it cannot be so burnt or buried as not to have a resurrection angry clay 's wind shall shake none of Christ's corn he will gather in all his wheat into his barn onely let your fellowship with Christ be renewed ye are sibber to Christ now when you are imprisoned for him then before for now the stroakes laid on you doe come in remembrance before our Lord he can owne his own wounds a drink of Christ's love which is better then wine is the drink-silver which Suffering for his majesty leaves behinde it it is not your sins which they persecute in you but God's grace loyalty to King Jesus they see no treason in you to your Prince the King of Britain albeit they say so but it is heaven in your that earth is fighting against Christ is owning his own cause grace is a party that fire will not burn not water drown when they have eaten drunken you their stomack shall be sick they shall spue you out alive O what glory is it to be suffering abjects for the Lord's glory royalty Nay though his servants had a body to burn for ever for this Gospel so being that triumphing exalted Jesus his high glory did rise out of these flames out of that burning body Oh what a sweet fire O what soul-refreshing torment should that be What if the pickles of dust ashes of the burnt dissolved body were musicians to sing his praises the highness of that never-enough-exalted Prince of ages O what love is it in him that he will have such musicians as we are to tune that Psalm of his everlasting praises in heaven Oh what shining burning flames of love are these that Christ will divide his share of life of heaven glory with you Luk. 22. 29. Ioh. 17 24. Rev. 3 21. A part of his throne one draught of his wine his wine of glory life that comes from under the throne of God of the Lamb one apple of the tree of life will doe more then make up all the expences charges of clay lent out for heaven Oh! Oh but we have short narrow creeping thoughts of Jesus doe but shape Christ in our conceptions according to some created portraiture O Angels lend in your help to make love-books songs of our fair white ruddy standard-bearer amongst ten thousand O heavens O heaven of heavens O glorified tennants triumphing house-holders with the Lamb put in new Psalms love-sonnets of the excellency of our bridegroom help us to set him on high O indwellers of earth heaven sea air O all ye created beings within the bosom of the outmost circle of this great world O come help to set on high the praises of our Lord O fairness of creatures blush before his uncreated beauty O created strength be amazed to stand before your strong Lord of hosts O created love think shame of thy self before this unparalleled love of heaven O angel-wisdom hide thy self before our Lord whose understanding passeth finding out O sun in thy shining beauty for shame put on a web of darkness cover thy self before thy brightest master maker O who can adde glory by doing or suffering to this never-enough-admired and praised lover Oh we can but bring our drop to this sea and our candle dim and dark as it is to this clear and lightsom sun of heaven and earth Oh but we have cause to drink ten deaths in one cup dry to swim through ten seas to be at that land of praises where we shall see that wonder of wonders enjoy this jewel of heavens jewels O death doe thy outmost against us O torments O malice of men devils waste thy-strength on the witnesses of our Lord's testament O devils bring hell to help you in tormenting the followers of the Lamb we will defie you to make us too soon happy to waft us too soon over the water to the land where the noble plant the plant of venown groweth O cruel Time that torments us suspends our dearest enjoyments that we wait for when we shall be bathed steeped soul body down in the depths of this love of loves O Time I say run fast O motions mend your pace O Welbeloved be like a young Roe upon the mountains of Separations Post post hasten our desired hungered-for meeting love is sick to hear tell of to morrow And what then can come wrong to you O honourable witnesses of his Kingly truth Men have no more of you to work upon but some few inches and span-lengths of fick coughing and flegmatick clay your spirits are above their benches courts or High
bonds blood sufferings are not committed to every ordinary professour Some that would back Christ honestly in summer-time would but spill the beauty of the Gospel if they were put to suffering And therefore let us beleeve that wisdom dispenseth to every one here as he thinks good who bears them up that bear the cross since our Lord hath put you to that part which was the flower of his own sufferings we all expect that as ye have in the strength of our Captain begun so ye will goe on without fainting Providence maketh use of men devils for the refining of all the vessels of God's house small great for doing of two works at once in you both for smothing of a stone to make it take bond with Christ in Ierusalem's wall for witnessing to the glory of this reproached born down Gospel which cannot die though hell were made a grave about it It shall be timous joy for you to divide joy betwixt you Christ's laughing Bride 〈◊〉 these three Kingdoms what if your mourning continue till mystical Christ in Ireland in Britain ye laugh both together your laughing joy were the more blessed that one sun should shine upon Christ the Gospel you laughing altogether in these three Kingdoms Your time is measured your dayes hours of suffering from eternity were by infinite wisdom considered If heaven recompense not to your own minde inches of sorrow then I must say that infinite mercy cannot get you pleased but if the first kiss of the white and ruddy cheek of the standard bearer and chief among ten thousand Cant. 5 10 shall over-pay your prison at Dublin in Ireland then ye shall have no counts unanswered to give in to Christ if your faith cannot see a nearer term-day yet let me charge your hope to give Christ a new day till eternity time meet in one point a payed summe if ever payed is payed if no day be broken to the hungry creditour take heaven's bond subscribed obligation for the summe Iohn 14. 3. If Hope can trust Christ I know he can will pay but when all is done suffered by you ten hundred deaths for lovely lovely Jesus is but eternitie's half penny figures ciphers cannot lay the proportion O but the super-plus of Christ's glory is broad large Christ's Item's of eternal glory are hard cumbersom to tell ifye borrow by faith hope ten dayes or ten hundred years from that eternity of glory that abides you ye are payed more in your own hand Therefore O prisoner of hope wait on posting hasting salvation sleeps not Antichrist is bleeding in the way to death he bites forest when he bleeds fastest Keep your intelligence betwixt you heaven your court with Christ he hath in heaven the keyes of your prison can set you at liberty when he pleaseth His rich grace support you I pray you help me with your prayers Grace be with you St Andrews 1640. Your brother in the patience Kingdom of Iesus Christ S. R. To Mr JAMES WILSON 31 Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be multiplied upon you I bless our rich onely wise Lord who careth so for his new creation that he is going over it again trying every piece in you blowing away the motes of his new work in you Alas I am not so fit a Physician as your disease requireth sweet sweet lovely Jesus be your Physician where his under-Chirurgians cannot doe any thing for putting in order the wheels paces goings of a marred soul. I have little time but yet the Lord hath made me so concern my self in your condition that I dow not I dare not be altogether silent First ye doubt from 2 Cor. 13 5. whether ye be in Christ or not so whether ye be a reprobate or not I answer three things to the doubt 1. Ye ow charity to all men but most of all to lovely loving Jesus some also to your self especiall 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 your self and ye think ill of Grace in your self when ye make it but a bastard and a work of nature for a holy fear that ye be not Christ's and withall a care and a desire to be his 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 side with such a lover who pleadeth for no other man's goods but his own for he if I may say so scorneth to be enriched with an unjust conquest and yet he pleadeth for you whereof your letter though too too full of jealousie is a proof for if ye were not his your thoughts which I hope are but the suggestion of his Spirit that onely bringeth the matter in debate to make it sure to you would not be such nor so serious as these am I his or whose am I 2. Dare ye forswear your owner and say in cold blood I am not his what nature or corruption saith at starts in you I regard not your thoughts of your self when sin and guiltiness round you in the ear and when ye have a sight of your deservings are Apocrypha and not Scripture I hope Hear what the Lord saith of you he will speak peace if your Master say I quite you I shall then bid you eat ashes for bread and drink waters of gall and wormwood But howbeit Christ out of his own mouth should seem to say I came not for thee as he did Matth. 15 24. yet let me say The words of tempting Jesus are not to be stretched as Scripture beyond his intention seeing his intention in speaking them is to strengthen not to deceive therefore here Faith may contradict what Christ seemeth at first to say and so may ye I charge you by the mercies of God be not that cruel to Grace and the new birth as to cast water on your own coal by misbelief If ye must die as I know ye shall not it were a folly to slay your self 3. I hope ye love the new birth a claim to Christ howbeit ye dow not make it good if ye were in hell saw the heavenly face of lovely ten thousand times lovely Iesus that hath God's hew and God's fair fair and comely red and white wherewith it is beautified beyond comparison and imagination ye could not forbear to say Oh! if I could but blow a kiss from my sinfull mouth from hell up to heayen upon his cheeks that are as a bed of spices as sweet flowers Cant. 5 13. I hope ye dare say O fairest sight of heaven O boundless mass of crucified slain love for me give
hath an use for them aswell as for your service howbeit ye are to loath your self for these I hope ye fetch all the heaven ye have here in this life from that which is up above and that your anchor is casten as high and deep as Christ O but it 's far many a mile to his bottom If I had known long since as I doe now though still alas I am ignorant what was in Christ I would not have been so late in starting to the gate to seek him O what can I doe or say to him who hath made the North render me back again A grave is no sure prison to him for the keeping of dry bones Woe 's me that my foolish sorrow and unbelief being on horse-back did ride so produly witlesly over my Lord's Providence but when my Faith was asleep Christ was awake now when I am awake I say he did all things well O infinite wisdom O incomparable loving kindness Alas that the heart I have is so little worthless for such a Lord as Christ is O what oddes finde the saints in hard trials when they feel sap at their roots betwixt them and sun-burnt withered professors crosses and storms cause them to cast their blooms and leaves poor worldlings what will ye doe when the span-length of your forenoon's laughter is ended and when the weeping side of Providence is turned to you I put up all the favours ye have bestowed on my Brother upon Christ's score in whose book are many such counts who will requite them I wish you to be builded more and more upon the stone laid in Zion then ye shall be the more fit to have a hand in rebuilding our Lord 's fallen tabernacle in this land in which ye shall finde great peace when ye come to grips with Death the King of terrouis The God of peace be with your La and keep you blameless till the day of our Lord Jesus St Andrews Your La at all obedience in his sweet Lord Master S. R. To his very dear friend JOHN FENNICK 33 Much honoured dear friend GRace mercy peace be to you The necessary impediments of my calling have hitherto kept me from making a return to your letter the heads whereof I shall now briefly answer As. 1. I approve your going to the fountain when your own Cisterne is dry A difference there must be betwixt Christ's well your borrowed water why but ye have need of emptiness drving up aswell as ve have need of the well want a hole there must be in our vessel to leave room to Christ's art his well hath it's own need of thirsty drinkers to commend infinite love which from eternity did brew such a cellar of living waters for us Ye commend his free love it 's well done Oh if I could help you if I could be master-conveener to gather an earth-full an heaven-full of tongues dipped and steeped in my Lord 's well of love or his wine of love even tongues drunken with his love to raise a song of praises to him betwixt the East West-end furthest points of the broad heavens If I were in your case as alas my dry dead heart is not now in that garden I would borrow leave to come stand upon the banks coasts of that sea of love be a feasted soul to see Love's fair tide free Love's high and lofty waves each of them higher then ten earths flowing in upon pieces of lost clay O welcome welcome great sea O if I had as much love for wideness and breadth as twenty outmost shells and spheres of the heaven of heavens that I might receive in a little flood of his free love Come come dear Friend be pained that the King's wine-cellar of free love his banquetting house O so wide so stately O so God-like so glory-like should be so abundant so overflowing your shallow vessel so little to take in some part of that love but since it cannot come in you for want of room enter your self in this sea of love breath under these waters die of love live as one dead drowned of this Love But why doe ye complain of waters going over your soul that the smoke of the terrors of a wrathfull Lord doeth almost suffocate you bring you to death's brink I know the fault is in your eyes not in him it s not the rock that fleeth moveth but the green sailer if your sense apprehension be made judge of his love there is a graven image made presently even a changed God a foe-God who was once when ye washed your steps with butter the rock poured you out rivers of oyl Iob. 29. 6. a friend-God either now or never let God work ye had never since ye was a man such a fair field for faith for a painted hell an apprehension of wrath in your father is faith's opportunity to try what strength is in it now give God as large a measure of charity as ye have of sorrow now see faith to be faith indeed if ye can make your grave betwixt Christ's feet say Though he should flay me I will trust in him his beleeved love shall be my winding-sheet all my grave-cloaths I shall roll sowe in my soul my slain soul in that web his sweet free love let him write upon my grave Here lieth a beleeving dead man breathing out and making an hole in death's broad side the breath of faith cometh forth through the hole See now if ye can overcome prevail with God wrestle God's tempting to death quit out of breath as that renowned wrestler did Hos 12. 3. And by his strength he had power with God v. 4. Yea he had power over the Angel prevailed He is a strong man indeed who overmatcheth heaven's strength and the holy One of Israel the strong Lord which is done by a secret supply of divine strength within wherewith the weakest being strengthned overcome and conquer It shall be great victory to blow out the flame of that furnace yeare now in with the breath of faith when hell men malice cruelty falshood Devils the seeming glooms of a sweet Lord meet you in the teeth if ye then as a captive of Hope as one fettered in Hope's prison run to your strong hold even from God glooming to God glooming beleeve the salvation of the Lord in the dark which is your onely victory your enemies are but pieces of malitious clay they shall die as men be confounded But that your troubles are many at once arrows come in from all airths from countrey friends wife children foes estate right down from God who is the hope stay of your soul I confess is more very heavy to be born yet all these are not more then Grace all these bits of coals casten in your sea of
mercy cannot dry it up your troubles are many great yet not an ounce-weight beyond the measure of infinite wisdom I hope not beyond the measure of grace that he is to bestow for our Lord never yet brake the back of his childe nor spilt his own work nature's plastering counterfit work he doeth often break in sheards putteth out a candle not lighted at the Sun of righteousness but he must cherish his own reeds handle them softly never a reed getteth a thrust with the Mediator's hand to lay together the two ends of the reed O what bonds ligaments hath our Chirurgion of broken spirits to binde up all his lame bruised ones with cast your disjoynted spirit in his lap lay your burden upon one who is so willing to take your cares your fears off you to exchange niffer your crosses to give you new for old gold for iron even to give you garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness It 's true in a great part what ye write of this Kirk that the letter of Religion onely is reformed scarce that I doe not beleeve out Lord will build his Zion in this land upon this skin of Reformation so long as our scum remaineth our heart-idols are keeped this work must be at a stand and therefore our Lord must yet sift this land and search us with candles and I know he shall give and not sell us his Kingdom his Grace and our remaining guiltiness must be compared the one must be seen in the glory of it and the other in the sinfulness of it But I desire to beleeve and would gladly hope to see that the glancing and shining luster of glory coming from the diamonds and stones set in the crown of our Lord Jesus shall cast rayes and beams many thousand miles about I hope Christ is upon a great Marriage and that his wooing and suting of his excellent Bride doeth take it's beginning from us the ends of the earth O what joy and what glory would I judge it if my heaven should be suspended till I might have leave to run on foot to be a witness of that Marriage-glory see Christ put on the glory of his last married Bride and his last Marriage-love on earth when he shall enlarge his love-bed and set it upon the top of the mountains and take in the elder Sister the Iewes and the fulness of the Gentiles It were heaven's honour glory upon earth to be his lackey to run at his horse-foot and hold up the train of his Marriage-roberoyal in the day of our high aâ—d royal Solomon's espousals But O what glory to have a seat or â—eâ— in King Iesus his chariot that is bottomed with gold paved and lined over and floored within with Love fâ— the daughters of Ierusalem Cant. 3. 10. To lie upon such a King's love were a bed next to the flower of heaven's glory I am sorry to hear you speak in your Letter of a God anâ—ry at you and of the sense of his indignation which onely ariseth from suffering for Jesus all that is now come upon you Indeed apprehended wrath flameth out of such ashes as apprehended sin but not from suffering for Christ But suppose ye were in hell for by-gones and for old debt I hope ye ow Christ a great summe of charity to beleeve the sweetness of his love I know what it is to sin in that kinde it is to sin our if it were possible the unchangeableness of a Godhead out of Christ to sin away a lovely unchangeable God Put more honest apprehensions upon Christ put on his own mask upon his face and not your vail made of unbelief which speaketh as if he borrowed love to you from you and your demerits sinfull deservings Oh no! Christ is man but he is not like man he hath man's love in heaven but it is lustered with God's love it is very God's love ye have to doe with When your wheels goe about he standeth still Let God be God and be ye a man and have ye the deserving of man the sin of one who hath suffered your Welbeloved to slip away nay hath refused him entrance when he was knocking till his head and locks were frozen Yet what is that to him his book keepeth your name and is not printed and reprinted and changed and corrected And why but he should goe to his place hide himself Howbeit his Departure be his own good work yet the belief of it in that manner is your sin But wait on till he return with Salvation and cause you rejoyce in the latter end It is not much to complain but rather beleeve then complain and sit in the dust and close your mouth till he make your sown light grow again for your afflictions are not eternal Time will end them so shall ye at length see the Lord's salvation his love sleepeth not but is still in working for you his Salvation will not tarry nor linger Suffering for him is the noblest cross that is out of heaven Your Lord had the waile choice of ten thousand other crosses beside this to exercise you withall but his wisdom his love wailed and choosed out this for you beside them all take it as a choice one make use of it so as ye look to this world as your step-mother in your borrowed prison For it is a love-look to heaven and the other side of the water that God seeketh this is the fruit the flower bloom growing out of your cross that ye be a dead man to time to clay to gold to countrey to friends wife children all pieces of created nothings for in them there is not a seat nor bottom for your soul's love O what room is for your Love if it were as broad as the sea up in heaven and in God! and what would not Christ give for your love God gave so much for your soul blessed are ye if ye have a love for him can call in your soul's love from all idols and can make a God of God a God of Christ draw a line betwixt your heart and him If your deliverance come not Christ's presence and his beleeved love must stand as caution and surety for your deliverance till your Lord send it in his blessed time for Christ hath many Salvations if we could see them and I would think it better born comfort and joy that cometh from the faith of deliverance and the faith of his love then that which cometh from deliverance it self It is not much matter if ye finde ease to your afflicted soul what be the means either of your own wishing or of God's choosing the latter I am sure is best and the comfort strongest and sweetest let the Lord absolutely have the ordering of your evils troubles and put them off you by recommending your cross and your furnace to him
is incomprehensible love that Christ saith If I enjoy the glory of my father the crown of heaven far above men Angels I must use all means though never so violent to have the company of such an One for ever ever If with the eyes of wisdom as a childe of wisdom ye justifie your mother The wisdom of God whose childe ye are ye shall kiss embrace this loss see much of Christ in it Beleeve submit referre the income of the consolations of Jesus the event of the trial to your heavenly father who numbereth all your hairs And put Christ in his own room in your Love It may be he hath either been out of his own place or in a place of love inferiour to his worth Repair Christ in all his wrongs done to him love him for a husband he is a husband to the widdow shall be that to you which he hath taken from you Grace be with you London Octob. 15. 1645. Your sympath Zing Brother S. R. To BARBARA HAMILTON 44 Loving Sister GRace mercy peace be to you I have heard with grief that Newcastle hath taken one more in a bloody account then before even your Son in Law my friend But I hope ye have learned that much of Christ as not to look to wheels rolled round about on earth Earthen vessels are not to dispute with their Former peices of sinning-clay may by reasoning contending with the Potter mar the work of him who hath his fire in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem as bullocks sweating wrestling in the furrow make their yoke more heavie In quietness rest ye shall be saved If men doe any thing contrary to our heart we may ask both who did it And what is done And why When God hath done any such thing we are to enquire who hath done it And to know that this cometh from the Lord who is wonderfull in counsel but we are not to ask what or why If it be from the Lord as certainly their is no evil in the city without him Amos. 3. 6. it is enough the fairest face of his spotless way is but coming ye are to beleeve his works aswell as his word Violent death is a sharer with Christ in his death which was violent it maketh not much what way we goe to heaven the happie home is all where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten He is gone home to a friend's house and made welcome and the race is ended Time is recompensed with eternity and copper with gold God's order is in wisdom the husband goes home before the wife and the throng of the marker shall be over ere it be long and another generation where we now are and at length an emptie house and not one of mankinde shall be upon the earth within the sixth part of an hour after the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up with fire I fear more that Christ is about to remove when he carrieth home so much of his plenishing before hand we cannot teach the Almighty knowledge when he was directing the bullet against his servant to fetch out the soul no wise man could cry to God Wrong wrong Lord for he is thine own There is no mist over his eyes who is wonderfull in counsel If Zion be builded with your son in law's blood the Lord deep in counsel can glew together the stones of Zion with blood and with that blood which is precious in his eyes Christ hath fewer labourers in his vineyard then he had but some moe witnesses for his cause and the Lord's Covenant with the three Nations What is Christ's gain is not your loss Let not that which is his holy and wise will be your unbeleeving sorrow Though I really judge I had interest in his dead servant yet because he now liveth to Christ I quite the hops I had of his succesfull labouring in the ministery I know he now praiseth the grace that he was to preach And if there were a better thing on his head now in heaven then a crown or any thing more excellent then heaven he would cast it down before his feet who sitteth on the throne Give glory therefore to Christ as he now doeth and say Thy will be done The grace and consolation of Christ be with you London Nov 15. 1645. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the vicountesse of KENMURE 45 MADAM GRace mercy peace be to your La though Christ lose no time yet when sinfull men drive his chariot the wheels of 〈◊〉 chariot move slowly The woman Zion as soon as she travelled brought forth her children yea Isa. 66 7. before she travelled she brought fâ—rth before her pain came she was delivered of a man-childe Yet the deliverance of the people was with the woman's going with childe seventy years that is more then nine moneths There be many oppositions in carrying on the work but I hope the Lord will build his own Zion evidence to us that it is done not by might not by power but by the Spirit of the Lord. Madam I have heard of your infirmities of body sickness I know the issue shall be mercy to you that God's purpose which lieth hidden underground to you is to commend the sweetness of his love care to you from your youth And if all the sad losses trials sicknesses infirmities griefs heaviness inconstancie of the creature be expounded as sure I am they are the rods of the jealousie of an husband in heaven contending with all your lovers on earth though there were millions of them for your love to fetch more of your love home to heaven to make it single unmixt chast to the fairest in heaven earth to Jesus the Prince of ages ye will forgive to borrow that word every rod of God not let the Sun goe down on your wrath against any messinger of your afflicting correcting Father Since your La cannot but see that the mark at which Christ hath aimed at these twenty four years and above is to have the company fellowship of such a sinfull creature in heaven with him for all eternity and because he will not such is the power of his love enjoy his father's glory and that crown due to him by eternall generation without you by name Ioh. 17 24. Ioh. 10 16. Ioh. 14 3. Therefore Madam beleeve no evil of Christ Listen to no hard reports that his rods make of him to you He hath loved you washed you from your sins what would ye have more Is that too little except he adjourne all crosses till ye be where ye shall be out of all capacity to sigh or to be crossed I hope ye can desire no more no greater nor more excellent sute then Christ the fellowship of the Lamb for evermore And if that desire be answered in heaven as I am sure it is ye cannot
to glory though their spirits having the advantage of yours have had now the fore-start of the shore before you I dare say nothing against his dispensation I hope to follow quickly The heirs that are not there before you are posting with haste after you none shall take your lodging over your head Be not heavy the life of faith is now called for doing was never reckoned in your accounts though Christ in by you hath done more then by twenty yea an hundred gray-haired godly Pastors beleeving now is your last Look to that word Gal. 2 v. 20. Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Ye know the I that liveth the I that liveth not It is not single Ye that liveth Christ by law liveth in the broken debter It is not a life by doing or holy walking but the living of Christ in you If ye look to your self as divided from Christ ye must be more then heavy All your wants dear Brother be upon him ye are his debter Grace must summe subscribe your accounts as paid stand not upon Items small or little Sanctification ye know inherent Holiness must stand by when imputed is all I fear the clay-house is a-taking down undermining but it is nigh the dawning look to the East the dawning of glory is near your Guide is good company knoweth all the miles the up's down's in the way the nearer the morning the darker Some traveller seeth the city 20 miles off at a distance yet within the eight part of a mile he cannot see it It is all keeping that ye would now have till ye need it if sense fruition come both at once it is not your loss let Christ tutour you as he thinks good ye cannot be marred nor miscarry in his hand Want is an excellent qualification no money no price to you who I know dare not glory in your own righteousness is ritness warrantable enough to cast your self upon him who justifieth the ungodly Some see the gold once never again till the race's end it is coming all in a summe together when ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it then now Ye are not come to the mount that burneth with fire nor unto blackness darkness tempest but ye are come to mount Zion unto the city of the living God the heavenly Ierusalem to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly Church of the first-born which are written in heaven to God the Iudge of all the Spirits of just men made perfect to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant to the blood of sprinkling c. Ye must leave the wife to a more choice husband the children to a better father If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work Covenant against both Malignants Sectaries which I suppose may be needfull let it be under your hand subscribed before faithfull witnesses St Andrews Sept. 27. 1648. Your loving afflicted Brother S. R. To Mistress GILLESPIE 56 Dear Sister I have heard how the Lord hath visited you in removing the childe Archibald I hope ye see the setting down of the weight of your confidence affection upon any created thing whether husband or childe is a deceiving thing that the Creature is not able to bear your weight but sinketh down to very nothing under your confidence and therefore ye are Christ's debter for all providences of this kinde even in that he buildeth an hedge of thorns in your way for so ye see his gracious intention is to save you If I may say so whether ye will or not It is a rich mercy that the Lord Christ will be Master of your will and of all your delights and that his way is so fair for the landing of husband children before-hand in the countrey wherherto ye are journeying No matter how little ye be ingaged to the world since ye have such experience of cross-dealing in it had ye been a childe of the house the world would have dealt more warmly with it's own there is less of you out of heaven that the childe is there and the husband is there but much more that your Head and Kinsman Redeemer doeth fetch home such as are in danger to be lost from this time forward fetch not your comforts from such broken cisterns dry wells if the Lord pull at the rest ye must not be the creature that shall hold when he draweth Truly to me your case is more comfortable then if the fire-side were well plenished with ten children the Lord saw ye was able by his grace to bear the loss of husband and childe that ye are that weak and tender as not to be able to stand under the mercy of a gracious husband living flourishing in esteem with Authority and in reputation for Godliness and Learning for he knoweth the weight of these mercies would crush you and break you and a there is no searching out of his understanding so he hath skill to know what providence will make Christ dearest to you and let not your heart say it is an ill waâ—led dispensation sure Christ who hath seven eyes had before him the good of a living husband and children for Margaret Murray the good of a removed husband and children translated to gloâ—y now he hath opened his decree to you say Christ hath made for me a wise and gracious choice and I have not one word to say on the contrary Let not your heart charge any thing or Unbeleef libell injuries upon Christ because he will not let you alone nor give you leave to play the idolatress with such as have not that right to your love that Christ hath I should wish at the reading of this that ye may fall down and make a surrender of these that are gone and these that are yet alive to him and for you let him have all and wait for himself for he will come will not tarry live by faith and the peace of God guard your heart he cannot die whose ye are My wife suffers with you remembreth her love to you St Andrews August 14. 1649 Your brother in Christ S. R. To the worthy much honoured Collonel G. KER 57 Much honoured truely worthy I hope I shall not need to shew you that ye are in greater hazard from yourself and your own spirit which would be watched over that your actings for God may be clean spirituall purely for God for the Prince of the Kings of the earth then ye can be in danger from your enemies O how hard is it to get the intentions so cut off from and raised above the creature as to be without mixture of creature and carnall-interests to have the soul in heavenly actings onely onely eveing himself and acting from love to God revealed to us in Jesus Christ Ye will finde your self your delights your solid
may be as we are confident in the Lord of you and in humility boast of his grace in you savoury convincing and like unto this honourable cause that will prevail in Britain contrary to all the Machinations and counsels of Devils men though there were no other ink in the pen I now write with but some dewing of my last cooling blood this I purpose his grace whose I am enabling me to Stand too Sir we desire to adore no instruments yet we conceive the shining rayes of grace from the fountain Iesus Christ the fulness of the Godhead bestowed on sinfulmen hold forth the good thoughts of Christ to this poor land whose multipied graves and whose souls under the Altar slain by Sestaries Malignants cry aloud to heaven I see nothing Sir if the Lord be not near though I dare not say how soon to awak for the year of Zion's controversie Isai. 34 5. for my sword shall be bathed in heaven behold it shall come down upon England and the residue of his enemies in Scotland Woe is me for England that land shall be soaked with blood and their dust made fat with fatness That pleasant land shall be wildernesse the dust of their land pitch A judgement upon their walled towns ' thâ—… pleasant feilds their strong ships c if they doe not repent Ye have not I conceive seen such searching trying times as now these are yet the question will be drawn to a more narrow state multitudes will yet leave the cause for we took all in to the Covenant that offered to build with us but Christ must have but a small remnant few Nobles if any few Ministers few Professors though our way standeth unchanged 2 Cor. 6 8. by honour di honour by good report evil report as deceâ—…ers yet true as unknown and yet well known as dying and behold we live as chastned and yet not killed Neither is this your condition alone but the experienced lot of all the saints that have gone before you It is one the same cross of Christ but there be sundry faces diverse circumstances in the same remnant the sufferings of Christ yours Sir to be delivered to Souldiers in captivity looketh like his sufferings of whom Isaiah saith Chap. 53 8. he was taken from prison from judgement yea taken bound Ioh. 18 12. when the cause is the truth of God the lustre and face of suffering is somuch the more lovely that it hath the hew colour of Christ's sufferings who endured contradiction of sinners and despised the shame O it is a great word Christ shamed and Christ abased but thus was the Head so are the members dealt with in the world and truely any thing of Christ even the worst of him to speake so his reproach and shame are lovely Though superstitious love to the materiall crosse he suffered upon be foolery doting upon the holy grave be cursed idolatry yet is there a communion with him in his sufferings most desirable 1 Pet. 4 15. but rejoyce in as much as ye are Partakers of Christ's sufferings in which sense the cup that his lip touched hath thâ— sweeter taste even though death were in it The grave because He did lie in it is so much the softer the more refreshfull a bed of rest And that part of the sky clouds that the Beloved shall break through come to judgement it is as lovely a piece of the created heaven as any is if we may love the ground he goeth on the better But all this is to be understood in a spirituall manner The Lord calleth you Sir upon whom the Spirit of God his glory resteth to put your soul 's Amen to this dispensation requireth of us that our desires follow the now-declared decree of God concerning the desolation of our sinfull land so many wayes guilty of a despised Gospel and a broken Covenant and that with all submission Certainly no man hath failed more in this thing then he who writeth to you for I have brought my health in great hazard and tormented my spirit with excessive grief so our present provocations the rentings of our Kirk and I see it is a challenging of a bold pleading against him upon whose â—…er the government is Isa. 22 2â— The Father hath â—ut a glorious 〈◊〉 〈…〉 Christ v. 23. I will fasten him as a naâ—… a sure place and he shall be for a glorious throne to his Father's house v. 24. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his Father's house the offspring and the issue all vessels of small quantity from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of slagons Our unbeleeving apprehensions doe so quarrel at the prosperity of enemies in an evil cause that we wrestle with defeatâ— spoiling captivity of the Godly killing of his people the wasting of our land starving and famishing of the Kingdom which is worse then the sword but this is a sinfull coutradicting of the Lord 's revealed decree His wisdom saith Spoiling desolation is best for Scotland we say Not so accuse Christ of misgovernment of not being true to the trust put upon him But since he doeth not drag the government at his heels but hath it upon his shoulder since the 〈◊〉 fastned in a sure place cannot be broken nor can the smallest vessel fail to finde sweet security in dependence upon him since all the weight of heaven earth of redeemed saints confirmed Angels is upon his shoulder I am a fool brutish to imagine that I can adde any thing to Christ's speciall care of tenderness to his people He who keepeth the basons knives of his house bringâ—th the vessels back again to the second temple Ezra 1 8 9 10. must have a more tender care of his redeemed ones then of a spoon or of Peter's old shoes which yet must not be lost in his captivity Act. 12 8. O for grace to suffer Christ to tutour his own Minors young Heirs But we cannot endure to be under the actings of his government We love too much to be our own O how sweet to be wholly Christ's wholly in Christ To be out of the creatures owning made compleat in Christ to live by faith in Christ to be once for all cloâ—… with the 〈◊〉 Majesty glory of the Son of God wherein he makes all his friends and followers sharers To dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land and live in that sweetest air where no wind bloweth but the breathings of the Holy Ghost No seas or sloods flow but the pure water of life that proceedeth from under the throne and from the Lamb No planting but the tree of life that yeeldeth twelve manner of fruits every moneth What doe we here but fin and suffer O when shall the night be gene the shadows 〈◊〉 away and the morning of that long
round about us we lay it not to heart Gray hairs are upon us we know it not It were now a desireable life to send away our love to heaven well becometh it us to wait on for the appointed change yet so as we should be meditating thus Is there a new world above the Sun moon is there such a blessed company harping singing Hallelujahs to the lamb up above Why then are we taken with a vain life of sighing sinning O where is our wisdom that we sit still laughing eating sleeping prisoners doe not pack up all our best things for the journey desiring alwayes to be clothed with our house from above not made with hands Ah we savour not the things that are above nor doe we smell of glory ere we come thither but we transact agree with Time for a new lease of clay-mansions Behold he cometh we sleep turn all the work of duties into a dispute of events for deliverance but the greatest haste to be humbled for a broken a buried Covenant is first last forgotten And all our grief is the Lord lingers enemies triumph Godly ones suffer Atheists blaspheme Ah we pray not but wonder that Christ cometh not the higher way by might by power by garments rolled in blood What if he come the lower way sure we sin in putting the book in his hand as if we could teach the Almighty knowledge we make haste we beleeve not Let the onely wise God alone he stirs well he drawes straight lines though we think say they are crooked It is right that some should die their breasts full of milk yet we are angry that God dealeth so with them O if I could adore him in his hidden wayes when there is darkness under his feet darkness his pavilion clouds about his throne Madam hoping beleeving patient praying is our life he loâ—â—s no time The Lord Jesus be with your spirit St Andrews 12 Sept. 16â—5 Yours at all oblidged observance in Christ. S. 〈◊〉 To his reverend dear Brethren M R GUTHRIE M R TRAIL And the rest of their Brethren imprisoned in the Castell of Edinburgh 70. Reverend Very Dear now much honoured Prisoners for Christ. I Am as to the point of light at the out-most of perswassion in that kinde that this is the cause of Christ ye now suffer for not mens interest If it be for men let us leave it but if we plead for God our own personal saâ—… and man's deliverance will not be peace There is a sâ—lvâ—tion called the salvation of God which is cleanly pure spiritual unmixed near to the holy Word of God it is that which we would seek even the favour of God that he beares to his people not simple gladness but the gladness goodness of the Lord 's chosen And sure though I be the weakest of his witnesses unworthy to be among the meanest of them 〈◊〉 afraid the Cause be hurt but it cannot be lost by my unbeleeving faintness I should not desire a deliverance separated from the deliverance of the Lord's Cause People It is enough to me to sing when Zion sings to triumph when Christ triumpheth I should judge it an unhappy joy to rejoyce when Zion sigheth Not one hoof will be your peace If Christ doeth owne me let me be in the grave in a bloody winding-sheet goe from the scaffold in four quarters to a grave or no grave I am his debter to seal with sufferings this precious truth but Oh when it comes to the push I dare say nothing considering my weakness wickedness faintness But fear not ye ye are not ye shall not be alone the Father is with you It was not an unseasonable but a seasonable necessary duty ye were about Fear him who is Soveraign Christ is Captain of the Castle Lord of the keyes The cooling well-spring refreshment from the promises is more then the â—â—ownings of the furnace I see snares temptations in capitulating composing ceding minching with distinctions of circumstances formalities complements extenuations in the Cause of Christ A long spoon the broth is hell's hot Hold a distance from carnal compositions much nearness to the fountain to the favour refreshing light from the Father of lights speaking in his oracles this is sound health salvation Angels men Zion's Elders eye us but what of all these Christ is by us looks on us writes up all Let us pray more look less to men Remember me to Mr Scot all the rest Blessings be upon the head of such as are separated from their Brethren Ioseph is a fruitfull bough by a well Grace be with you S. Andrewes 1660. Your loving Brother companion in the Kingdom patience of Iesus Christ S. R. To Mr ROBERT CAMPBELL 71. Reverend dear Brother YE know this is a time in which all men almost seek their own things not the things of Jesus Christ yeare your alone as a beacon on the top of a mountain but saint not Christ is a numerous multitude himself yea millions though all the nations were conveened against him round about yet doubt not but he will at last arise for the cry of the poor needy For me I am now near to eternity for ten thousand worlds I dare not adventure to pass from the Protestation against the corruptions of the time nor go alongst with the shameless apostacy of the many silent dumb watchmen of Scotland but I think it my la â—â—my to enter a Protestation in heaven before the righteous Judge against the practical legal breach of Covenant and all Oaths imposed on the consciences of the Lord's people all Popish superstitious and idolattous mandats of men Know that the overthrow of the 〈◊〉 Reformation the introducing of Popery the Mystery of Iniquity is now set on foot in the three Kingdoms whosoever would keep their garments clean are under that command Touch not 〈◊〉 not handle not The Lord calls you Dear Brother to be still stedfast unmoveable aâ—d aboundant in the work of the Lord. Our royal Kingly Master is upon his journey will come will not â—â—rry blâ—ssed is the servant who shall be found watching when he cometh fear not men for the Lord is your light salvation It is true it 's somewhat sad comfortless that ye are your alone but so it was with our precious Master nor are ye your alone for the father is with you It is possible I shall not be an eye-witness to it to the flesh but I beleeve he comes quickly who will remove our darkness will shine gloriously in the Isle of Britain as a crowned King either in a formally sworn Covenant or in his own glorious way which I leave to the determination of his infinite wisdom and goodness this is the hope confidence of a dying man who is longing fainting for the salvation of God Beware of the ensuaring bonds and obligations by any hand-writ or other waves to give unlimited obedience to any authority but onely in the Lord for all innocent self-defence which is according to the Covenant the Word of God the laudable example of the Reformed Churches is now intended to be utterly subverted and condemned and what is taken from Christ as the slower of his Prerogative Royall is now put upon the head of a mortal power which must be that great idol of 〈◊〉 that provokâ—… the eyes of his glory Dear Brother let us 〈◊〉 the rich promises that are made to these that overcome knowing that these that endure to the end shall be saved Thus recommending you to the rich grace of God I remain St. Andrews 1661. Your affectionat Brother in Christ. FINIS
professours in these parts as I know love the beauty of Zion are afflicted to see the Lord's vineyard froden under foot by the wilde boars out of the wood who lay it waste I could not but also desire your La help to joyn with the rest desiring you to impart it to my Lord your husband if ye think it needfull I shall write to his Lo as Mr G. G. shall advertise me Know therefore that the best affected of the Ministery have thought it convenient necessary at such a time as this that all who love the truth should joyn their prayers together cry to God with humiliation fasting The times which are agreed upon are the two first sabbaths of February next the six dayes interveening betwixt these sabbaths as they may conveniently be had the first sabbath of every Quarter And the Causes as they are written to me are these 1. Besides the distresses of the Reformed Churches abroad the many reigning sins of uncleanness ungodliness unrighteousness in this land the present judgements on the land many moe hanging over us whereof few are sensible or yet know the right true cause of them 2. The lamentable pitifull estate of a glorious Church in so short a time against so many bonds in Doctrine Sacraments Discipline so sore persecuted in the persons of faithfull Pastors and professors and the door of God's house kept so strait by Bastard-Porters in so much that worthy instruments able for the work are held at the door the Rulers having turned over Religion into Policy the Multitude ready to receive any Religion that shall be enjoyned by Authority 3. In our Humiliation besides that we are under a necessity of deprecating God's wrath vowing to God sincerely new obedience the weakness coldness silence luke warmness of some of the best of the Ministery the deadness of Professors who have suffered the truth both secretly to be stoln away openly to be plucked from us would be confessed 4. Atheism Idolatry profanity vanity would be confessed Our King's heart recommended to God God intreated that he would stir up the Nobles the People to turn from their evil waves Thus Madam hoping that your La will joyn with others that such a work be not slighted at such a necessary time when our Kirk is at the overturning I will promise to my self your help as the Lord in secrecy prudence shall enable you that your La may rejoyce with the Lord's people when deliverance shall come for true sincere humiliation came alwayes speed with God And when Authority King Court Church-men oppose the truth what other armour have we but prayer faith Whereby if we wrestle with him there is ground to hope that these who would remove the burdensom stone out of it's place shall but hurt their back the stone shall not be moved at least not removed Zech 12 3. Grace grace be with you from him who hath called you to the inheritance of the saints in light Anwoth Jan. 23. 1634. Your La at all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 19 MADAM ALl submissive dutifull obedience in our Lord Jesus remembered I trust I need not much intreat your La to look to him who hath stricken you at this time but my duty in the memory of that comfort I found in your La kindness when I was no less heavy in a case not unlike that speaketh to me to say something now I wish I could ease your La at least with words I am perswaded your Physician will not slay you but purge you seeing he calleth himself the Chirurgian who maketh the wound bindeth it up again for to launce a wound is not to kill but cure the patient Deut. 32. 30. 1 Sam. 2 6. Iob 6 v. 18. Hos. 6. 1. I beleeve Faith will teach you to kiss a striking Lord so acknowledge the soveraignty of God in the death of a childe to be above the power of us mortal men who may pluck up a flower in the bud not be blamed for it If our dear Lord pluck up one of his Roses and pull down sowre green fruit before harvest who can challenge him For he sendeth us to his world as men to a market wherein some stay many hours eat drink buy sell pass through the fair till they be weary such are these who live long get a hearty fill of this life And others again come slipping in to the morning-market doe neither sit nor stand nor buy nor sell but look about them a little pass presently home again and these are infants young ones who end their short market in the morning get but a short view of the fair Our Lord who hath numbered man's moneths set him bounds that he cannot pass Iob. 14 5. hath written the length of our market it is easier to complain of the decree then to change it I verily beleeve when I write this your Lord hath taught your La to lay your hand on your mouth But I shall be far from desiring your La or any others to cast by a cross like an old useless bill that is onely for the fire but rather would wish each cross were looked in the face seven times were read over over again It is the Messenger of the Lord speakes something the man of understanding will hear the rod him that hath appointed it Try what is the taste of the Lord's cup drink with God's blessing that ye may grow thereby I trust in God whatever other speach it utter to your soul this is one word in it Iob. 5. 17. Behold blessed is the man whom God correcteth And that it saith to you Ye are from home while here ye are not of this world as your Redeemer Christ was not of this world There is something keeping for you which is worth the having All that is here is condemned to die to pass away like a snow-ball before a summer-sun since Death took first possession of something of yours it hath been daily is creeping nearer nearer to your self howbeit with no noise of feet Your husbandman Lord hath lopped off some branches already the tree it self is to be transplanted to the high harden in a good time be it our Lord ripen your La all these crosses indeed when I remember them they are heavy many peace peace be the end of them are to make you white ripe for the Lord's harvest-hook I have seen the Lord weaning you from the breasts of this world it was never his minde it should be your patrimony God be thanked for that ye look the liker one of the heirs let the moveables goe why not They are not yours fasten your grips upon the heritage our Lord Jesus make the charters sure give
your La to grow as a palm-tree on God's mount Zion howbeit shaken with winds yet the root is fast This is all I can doe to recommend your case to your Lord who hath you written upon the palms of his hand if I were able to doe more your La may beleeve me that gladly I would I trust shortly to see your La Now he who hath called you confirm stablish your heart in grace unto the day of the liberty of the sons of God Ardwell April 29. 1634. Your La at all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 20 My very Noble worthy Lady SO oft as I call to minde the comforts that I my self a poor friendless stranger received from your La here in a strange part of the countrey when my Lord took from me the delight of mine eyes as the word speaketh Ezek. 24. 16. which wound is not yet fully healed cured I trust your Lord shall remember that give you comfort now at such a time as this wherein your dearest Lord hath made you a widow that ye may be a free Woman for Christ who is now suteing for marriage-love of you therefore since you lie alone in your bed let Christ be as a bundle of myrrhe to sleep lie all the night betwixt your breasts Cant. 1 13. then your bed is better filled then before And seeing amongst all crosses spoken of in our Lord's word this giveth you a particular right to make God your husband which was not so yours while your husband was alive read God's mercy out of this visitation And albeit I must out of some experience say the mourning for the husband of your youth be by God's own mouth the heaviest wordly sorrow Ioel 1. 8. though this be the weightiest burden that ever lay upon your back Yet ye know when the fields are eâ—ptied your husband now asleep in the Lord if ye shall wait upon him who hideth his face for a while that it lieth upon God's honour truth to ful the field to be a husband to the widow See consider then what ye have lost how little it is Therefore Madam let me intreat you in the bowels of Christ Jesus by the comforts of his Spirit your appearance before him let God men Angels now see what is in you The Lord hath pâ—irced the vessel it will be known whether there be in it wine or water let your faith patience be seen that it may be known your onely beloved first and last hath been Christ And therefore now were your whole love upon him he alone is a sutable object for your love and all the affections of your soul God hath dried up one channel of your love by the removal of your husband let now that speat run upon Christ. Your Lord lover hath graciously taken out your husband's name your name out of the summonds that are raised at the instance of the terrible sin-revenging Judge of the world against the house of the Kenmure And I dare say that God's hammering of you from your youth is onely to make you a fair carved stone in the high upper temple of the new Ierusalem Your Lord never thought this world 's vain painted glory a gift worthy of you therefore would not bestow it on you because he is to propine you with a better portion Let the moveables goe the inheritance is yours Ye are a childe of the house joy is laid up for you it is long in coming but not the worse for that I am now expecting to see that with joy comfort that which I hoped of you since I knew you fully even that ye have laid such strength upon the Holy One of Israel that yed â—sie troubles that your soul is a castle that may be beâ—â—â—ged but cannot be taken What have ye to doe here This would never looked like a friend upon you ye ow it little love it looked ever sowre-like upon you Howbeit ye should wooe it it will not match with you therefore never seek warm fire under cold ice This is not a field where your happiness groweth it is up above where Rev. 7. 9. there are a great multitude which no man can number of all nations Kindreds people tongues standing before the throne before the Lamb clothed with wâ—â—te robes palms in their hands What ye could never get here ye shall finde there And withall consider how in all these trials truly they have been many your Lord hath been loosing you at the root from perishing things hunting after you to grip your soul Madam for the Son of God's sake let him not miss his grip but stay abide in the love of God as Iude saith ver 21 Now Madam I hope your La will take these lines in good part wherein I have fallen short failed to your La in not evidencing what I was obliged to your more then undeserved love respect I request for a full pardon for it Again my dear noble Lady let me beseech you to list up your head for the day of your redemption draweth near And remember that star that shined in Galloway is now shining in another world Now I pray that God may answer his own stile to your soul that he may be to you the God of all consolations Thus I remain Anwoth Sept. 14. 1634. Your La at all dutifull obedience in the Lord S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 21 MADAM ALl dutifull obedience in our Lord remembered I know ye are now near one of these strairs in which ye have been before But because your outward comforts are fewer I pray him whose ye are to supply what ye want an other way for howbeit we cannot win to the bottom of his wise Providence who ruleth all yet it is certain this is not onely good which the Almighty hath done but it is best he hath reckoned all your steps to heaven if your La were through this water there are the fewer behinde if this were the last I hope your La hath learned by on-waiting to make your acquaintance with Death which being to the Lord the woman's seed Iesus onely a bloody heel not a broken head Gen. 3 15. cannot be ill to his friends who get fâ—r less of Death then himself Therefore Madam seeing ye know not but the journey is ended ye are come to the water-side in God's wisdom look all your papers your counts whether ye be ready to receive the Kingdom of heaven as a little childe in whom there is little haughtiness much humility I would be far from discouraging your La but there is an absolute necessity that near eternity we look ere we leap seeing no man winneth back again to mend his leap I am confident your La thinketh often upon it that your old guide shall goe before you take