Saviour by your compearance before the Judge of quick dead to stand for Christ and to back him Oh if the Nobles had done their part been zealous for the Lord it had not been as it is now but men think it wisdom to stand beside Christ till his head be broken sing dumb there is a time coming when Christ will have a thick court he will be the glory of Scotland he shall make a diadem a garland a seal upon his heart a ring on his finger of these who have avouched him before this faithlesse generation Howbeit ere that come wrath from the Lord is ordained for this land My Lord I have cause to write this to your Lo for I dare not conceal his kindness to the soul of an afflicted exiled prisoner Who hath more cause to boast in the Lord then such a sinner as I Who am feasted with the consolations of Christ have no pain in my sufferings but the pain of soul-sickness of love for Christ sorrow that I cannot get help to sound aloud the high praises of him who hath heard the fighing of the prisoner is content to lay the head of his oppressed servant in his bosome under his chinne let him feel the smell of his garments This I behooved to write that your Lo might know Christ is as good as he is called to testifie to your Lo the cause your Lo now professeth before this faithless world is Christ's your Lo shall have no shame of it Grace be with you Aberd. March 13. 1637. Your Lo obliged Servant S. R. To the much honoured JOHN OSBURN Provest of Ayr. 43 Much honoured Sir GRrace mercy peace be to you Upon our small acquaintance the good report I hear of you I could not but write to you I have nothing to say but Christ in that honourable place lie hath put you in hath intrusted you with a dear pledge which is his own glory hath armed you with his sword to keep the pledge make a good account of it to God Be not affraid of me Your master can mowe down his enemies make with red hay of fair flowers your time will not be long after your after 〈…〉 will come your evening after evening night serve Christ back him lethis cause be your cause give not an hair breadth of 〈◊〉 away for it is not yours but God's then since ye are going take Christ's tâ—â—tiâ—cat with you out of this life Well done good faithfull servant His well done is worth a shipfull of Good-dayes earthly honours I have cause to say this because I finde him truth it self In my sad dayes Christ laugheth cheerfully saith All will be well Would to God all this Kingdom ye all that know God knew what is betwixt me Christ in this prison what kisses embracements love-communings I take his cross in my armes with joy I blesse it I rejoyce in it suffering for Christ is my garland I would not exchange Christ for ten thousand worlds nay if the comparison could stand I would not exchange Christ with heaven Sir pray for me the prayers blessing of a prisoner of Christ meet you in all your straits Grace be with you Aberd. March 14. 1637. Yours in Christ Iesus his Lord. S. R. To ROBERT GORDON Bailiffe of Ayr. 44 Worthy Sir GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear from you in paper Remember your Chief's speeches on his death-bed I pray your Sir sell all buy the pearle time will cut you from this world's glory Look what will doe you good when your glasse shall be run out let Christ's love bear most court in your soul that court will bear down the love of other things Christ seeketh your help in your place give him your hand Who hath more cause to encourage others to own Christ then I have for he hath made me sick of love leâ—t me in pain to wrestle with his love love is like to fall a swoon through his absence I mean not that he deserteth me or that I am ebbe of comforts but this is an uncouth pain Oh that I had a heart a love to render to him back again O if principalities powers thrones dominions all the world would help me to praise Praise him in my behalf Remember my love to your wife I thank you most kindly for your love to my brother Grace be with you Aberd. March 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN KENNEDY Bailiffe of Ayr. 45 GRace mercy and peace be unto you Your nor writing to me cannot binde me up from remembring you now then that at least ye may be a witness a third man to behold in paper what is betwixt Christ me I was in his eyes like a young Orphan wanting known parents casten out in the open fields either Christ behooved to take me up to bring me home to his house and fire-side else I had dyed in the fields now I am homly with Christ's love so that I think the house mine own the master of the house mine also Christ enquired not when he began to love me whether I was fair or black sun-burnt love taketh what it may have He loved me before this time I know but now I have the flower of his love his love is come to a fair bloom like a young rose opened up out of the green leaves it casteth a strong fragrant smell I want nothing but wayes of expressing Christ's love A full vessel would have a vent O if I could smoke out cast out coales to make a fire in many brests of this land Oh it is a pity that there were not many imprisoned for Christ for no other purpose but to write books love-songs of the love of Christ. This love would keep all created tongues of men Angels in exercise busie night day to speak of it Alas I can speak nothing of it but wonder at three things in his love First Freedome O that lumps of sin should get such love for nothing Secondly The Sweetness of his love I give over either to speak or write of it but these that feel it may better bear witness What it is but it is so sweet that next to Christ himself nothing can match it nay I think a soul could live eternally blessed onely on Christ's love feed upon no other thing yea when Christ in love giveth a blow it doeth a soul good it is a kinde of comfort joy to it to get a cuff with the lovely sweet soft hand of Jesus And Thirdly what power strength is in his love I am perswaded it can climb aâ—stâ—ep hill hell upon it's back swim through the water not droâ—n sing in the fire finde no pain triumph in losles prisons sorrows exile disgrace laugh
see Christ can borrow a cross for some hours set his servants beside it rather then under it win the plea too yea make glory to himself shame to his enemies comfort to his children out of it But whether Christ buy or borrow crosses he is King of crosses King of Devils King over hell King over malice When he was in the grave he came out brought the keys with him he is Lord-Jaylor nay what say I he is Captain of the castle he hath the keys of deaths hell what are our troubles but little deaths he who commandeth the great castle commandeth the little also 2. I see a hardned face two skins upon our browes against the winter hail stormy wind is meetest for a poor traveller in a winter journey to heaven O what art is it to learn to endure hardness to learn to goe bare footed either through the devil's fiery coals or his frozen waters 3. I am perswaded a sea-venture with Christ maketh great riches Is not our King Jesus his ship coming home shall not we get part of the gold Alas we fools miscount our gain when we seem losers Beleeve me I have no challenges against this well-born cross for it is come of Christ's house is honourable his propine To you it is given to suffer O what fools are we to undervalue his gifts to lightlie that which is true honour For if we could be faithfull our tackling shall not loose nor our mast break nor our sails blow into the sea The bastard crosses the kinless base-born crosses of worldlings for evil doing must be heavie grievous but our afflictions are light momentany 4. I think my self happy that I have lost credit with Christ that in this bargain I am Christ's sworn dyvour to whom he will lippen nothing no not one pin in the work of my salvation Let me stand in black and white in the Dyvourbook be ore Christ I am happy that my salvation is concredited to Christ's mediation Christ oweth no faith to me to lippen any thing to me but O what faith credit I ow to him Let my name fall let Christ's name stand in honour with man angel Alas I have no room to spread out my affection before God's people I see not how I can shout out cry out the loveliness the high honour the glory of my fairest Lord Jesus Oh that he would let me have a bed to lie in to be delivered of my birth that I might paint him out in his beauty to men as I dow 5. I wondered once at providence called white providence black unjust that I should be smothered in a town where no soul will take Christ off my hand But providence hath another lustre with God then with my bliered eyes I proclaim my self a blinde body who know not black white in the uncouth course of God's providence Suppose Christ would set hell where heaven is devils up in glory beside the elect Angels which yet cannot be I would I had a heart to acquiesce in his way without further dispute I see infinite wisdom is the mother of his judgements his wayes pass finding out 6. I cannot learn but I desire to learn to bring my thoughts will lusts in under Christ's feet that he may trample upon them But alas I am still upon Christ's wrong side Grace be with you Aberd. Sept. 12. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To ROBERT LENNOX Of Disdove 83 Worthy dear Brother I Forget you not in my bonds I know ye are looking to Christ I beseech you follow your look I can say more of Christ now by experience though he be infinitly above beyond all that can be said of him then when I saw you I am drowned over head ears in his love Sell sell sell all things for Christ. If this whole world were the balk of a ballance it should not be able to bear the weight of Christ's love man angels have short arms to fathom it Set your feet upon this piece blew base clay of an over-guilded fair plaistered world an hours kissing of Christ is worth a world of worlds Sir make sure work or your salvation build not upon sand lay the foundation upon the rock in Zion strive to be dead to this world to your will lusts Let Christ have a commanding power a King throne in you Walk with Christ howbeit the wind should take the hide off your face I promise you Christ will win the field Your pastors cause you to erre except you see Christ's word goe not one foot with them Countenance not the reading of that Romish Service-book Keep your garments clean as ye would walk with the Lamb clothed in white The wrongs I suffer are upon record in heaven our great Master Judge will be upon us all bring us before the sun in our black 's white 's Blessed are they who watch keep themselves in God's love Learn to discern the Bridegroom's tongue to give your self to prayer reading Ye was often a hearer of me I would put my heart blood upon the doctrine I taught as the onely way to salvation goe not from it my dear Brother What I write to your self I write to your wife also Minde heaven Christ keep the spunk of the love of Christ you have gotten Christ shall blow on it if ye entertain it your end shall be peace There is a fire in our Zion but our Lord is but seeking a new Bride refined purified out of the furnace I assure you howbeit we be nick-named Puritans all the powers of the world shall not prevail against us Remember though a sinfull man write it to you these people shall yet be in Scotland as a green olive-tree a field blessed of the Lord it shall be proclaimed up up with Christ down down with all contrary powers Sir pray for me I name you to the Lord for further evil is determined against me Remember my love to Christian Murray her daughter I desire her in the edge of her evening to wait a little the King is coming he hath something that she never saw with him heaven is no dream Come see will teach her best Grace grace be with you Aberd. Sept. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To MARION McKNAUGHT 84 Dearest in our Lord Iesus COunt it your honour that Christ hath begun at you to fine you first Fear not saith the Amen the true faithfull witness I write to you as my Master liveth upon the word of my royal King continue in prayer in watching your glorious deliverance is coming Christ is not far off a fig a straw for all the bits of clay that are risen against us Ye shall thresh the mountains fan then like
alter or better what he hath decreed done It were better to make windows in our prison to look out to God our countrey Heaven to cry like fettered men who long for the King 's free air Lord let tâ—y Kingdom come O let the Bridegroom come And O day O fair day O everlasting summer day dawn and shine out break out from under the black night skie and shine I am perswaded if every day a little stone in the prison walls were broken thereby assurance given to the chained prisoner lying under twenty stone of irons upon arms legs that at length his chain should wear in two pieces a hole should be made at length as wide as he might come safely out to his long desired liberty he would in patience wait on till time should hole the prison wall break his chains The Lord 's hopefull prisoners under their trials are in that case Years moneths will take out now one little stone then another of this house of clay at length time shall win out the breadth of a fair door and send out the imprisoned soul to the free air in heaven and time shall filâ— off by little and little our iron bolts which are now on legs and arms out-date and wear our troubles threed-bare and hollie and then wear them to nothing For what I suffered yesterday I know shall never come again to trouble me O that we could breath out new hope and new submission every day in Christ's lap For certainly a weight of glory well weighed yea encreasing to a far more exceeding and eternall weight shall recompence both weight and length of light and clipped and short-dated crosses Our waters are but ebbe and come neither to our chin nor to â—he stopping of our breath I may see if I would borrow eyes from Christ dry land and that near Why then should we not laugh at adversity and scorn our short-born and soon-dying temptations I rejoyce in the hope of that glory to be revealed for it is no uncertain glory we look for our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted threed as I imagine so or it is likely but the cable the strong tow of our fastened anchor is the oath and the promise of him who is eternall verity our Salvation is fastened with God's own hand and with Christ's own strength to the strong stoup of God's unchangeable nature Mal 3. 6. I am the Lord I change not and therefore ye sons of Iacob are not consumed We may play and dance and leap upon our worthy and immoveable rock the ground is sure and good and will bide hell's brangling and devils brangling and the world's assaults Oh if our faith could ride it out against the high and proud winds and waves when our sea seemeth all to be on fire O how oft doe I let my grips goe I am put to swimming and half sinking I finde the devil hath the advantage of the ground in this battel for he fighteth in known ground in our corrupt nature Alas that is a friend neer of kin and blood to himself and will not fail to fall foul upon us And hence it is that he who saveth to the uttermost and leadeth many sons to glory is still righting my salvation and twenty times a day I ravel my heaven then I must come with my ill raveled work to Christ to cumber him as it were to right it to seek again the right end of the threed to fold up again my eternall glory with his own hand to give a right cast of his holy gracious hand to my marred spilt salvation Certainly it is a cumbersom thing to keep a foolish childe from falls broken brows weeping for this that toy rash running sickness bairns diseases ere he win through them all and win out of the mires he costeth meekle black cumber and fashrie to his keepers And so is a beleever a cumbersom piece of work and an ill raveled hesp as we use to say to Christ But God be thanked for many spilt salvations and many ill raveled hesps hath Christ mended since first he entered tutour to lost mankinde O what could we bairns doe without him how soon would we mar all But the less of our weight be upon our own feeble legs and the more that we be on Christ the strong Rock the better for us It is good for us that ever Christ took the cumber of us it is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens upon Christ and to make him all we have root and top beginning and ending of our salvation Lord hold us â—ere Now to this tutour and rich Lord I recommend you Hold fast till he come and remember his prisoner Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his and your Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr WILLIAM DALGLEISH 131 Reverend dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you I received your letter I bless our high and onely wise Lord who hath broken the sâ—are that men had laid for you I hope that now he shall keep you in his house in despite of the powers of hell Who knoweth but the streets of our Ierusalem shall yet be filled with young men with old men boyes women with childe that they shall plant vines in the mountains of Samaria I am sure the wheels paces motions of this poor Church are tempered ruled not as men would but according to the good pleasure infinite wisdom of our onely wise Lord. I am here waiting in hope that my innocency in this honourable cause shall melt this cloud that men have casten over me I know my Lord had his own quarrels against me that my dross stood in need of this hot furnace but I rejoyce in this that fair truth beautifull truth whose glory my Lord cleareth to me more more bearth me company that my weak aimes to honour my Master in bringing guests to his house now swell upon me in comforts that I am not affraid to want a witness in heaven that it was my joy to have a crown put upon Christ's head in that countrey O what joy would I have to see the wind turn upon the enemies of the cross of Christ to see my Lord Jesus restored with the voice of praise to his own fâ—ee throne again to be brought amongst you to see the beauty of the Lord's house I hope that countrey will not be so silly as to suffer men to pluck you away from them that ye will use means to keep my place empty to bring me back again to the people to whom I have Christs right and his Church's lawfull calling Dear Brother let Christ be dearer dearer to you let the conquest of souls be top and root flower and bloom of your joyes and desires in this side of sun and moon and in the day when the Lord shall
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
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
joy cast water on our coal It is a sweet thing to see them cast out God take in to see them throw us away as the refuse of men God take us up as his jewels his treasure Often he maketh gold of dross as once he made the cast-away stone the stone rejected by the builders the head of the corner The Princes of this world would not have our Lord Jesus a pinning in the wall or to have any place in the building but the Lord made him the Master-stone of power place God be thanked that this world hath not power to cry us down so many pounds as rulers cry down light gold or light silver We shall stand for as much as our master-coiner Christ whose coin arms stamp we bear will have us Christ hath no miscarrying ballance Thank your Lord who chaseth your love through two Kingdoms followeth you it over sea to have you for himself as he speaketh Hos. 3. For God layeth up his saints as the waile the choice of all the world for himself this is like Christ his love O what in heaven or out of heaven is comparable to the smell of Christ's garments Nay suppose our Lord would manifest his art make ten thousand heavens of good glorious things of new joyes devised out of the deep of infinite wisdom he could not make the like of Christ for Christ is God God cannot be made therefore let us hold us with Christ howbeit we might have our waile will of an host of lovers as many as three heavens could contain O that he we were together O when Christ ye shall meet about the outmost march borders of time the entry into eternity ye shall see heaven in his face at the first look salvation glory sitting in his countenance betwixt his eyes Faint not the miles to heaven are but few short he is making a green bed as the word speaketh Cant. 1. of love for himself you There are many heads lying in Christ's bosom but there is room for yours among the rest And therefore goe on let hope goe before you Sin not in your trials the victory is yours pray wrestle beleeve ye shall overcome prevail with God as Iacob did No windle-straws no bits of clay no temptations which are of no longer life then an hour will then be able to withstand you when once ye have prevailed with God Help me with your prayers that it would please the Lord to give me house-room again to speak of his righteonsness in the great congregation if it may seem good in his sight Grace grace be with you Aberd. Jan. 6. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. THE SECOND PART Containing Some letters of the same Author from Anwoth before his confinement at Aberdeen And others from St Andrevvs London c. after his enlargement To the Vicountess of Kenmure 1. MADAM ALL dutifull obedience in the Lord remembred I have heard of your La Infirmity and sickness with grief yet I trust ye have learned to say It is the Lord let him doe whatsoever seemeth good in his eyes It is now many years since the Apostate Angels made a question whether their will or the will of their Creator should be done since that time frâ—ward mankinde hath alwayes in that same sute of Law compeared to plead with them against God in a dayly repining against his will but the Lord being both party Judge hath obtained a decreet saith Isa. 46. 10. My counsel shall stand I will doe all my pleasure It is then best for us in the obedience of faith in an holy submission to give that to God which the Law of â—is almighty just power will have of us Therefore Madam your Lord willeth you in all states of life to say Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven herein shall ye have comfort that he who seeth perfectly through all your evils knoweth the frame constitution of your nature what is most healthfull for your soul holdeth every cup of affliction to your head with his own gracious hand Never beleeve that your tender-hearted Saviour who knoweth the strength of your stomack will mix that cup with one dram weight of poison Drink then with the patience of the saints the God of patience bless your Physick I have heard your La complain of deadness want of the bestirring power of the life of God but courage he who walked in the garden made a noise that made Adam hear his voice will also at sometimes walk in your soul make you hear a more sweet word Yet ye will not alwayes hear the noâ—se the din of his feet when he walketh Ye are at such a time like Iacob mourning at the supposed death of Ioseph when Joseph was living The new creature the image of the second Adam is living in you yet ye are mourning at the supposed death of the life of Christ in you Ephraim is bemoaning mourning Ier. 31. 18. When he thinketh God is far off heareth not yet God is like the Bridegroom Cant. 2. standing onely behinde a thin wall laying to his ear for he saith himself ver 18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself I have good confidence Madam that Christ Jesus whom your soul through forrests mountains is seeking is within you And yet I speak not this to lay a pillow under your head or to disswade you from an holy fear of the losse of your Christ or of provoking stirring up the beloved before he please by sin I know in spiritual confidence the Devil will come in as in all other good works cry half mine so endeavour to bring you under a fearfull sleep till he whom your soul loveth be departed from the door have left off knocking therefore here the Spirit of God must hold your souls feet in the golden mid-line betwixt confident resting in the arms of Christ presumptuous and drousie sleeping in the bed of fleshly security Therefore worthy Lady so count little of your self because of your own wretchedness and sinfull drousiness that ye count not also little of God in the course of his unchangeable mercy For there be many Christians most like unto young sailers who think the shore the whole land doeth move when the ship they themselves are moved just so not a few doe imagine that God moveth saileth changeth places because their giddy souls are under sail subject to alteration to ebbing flowing but the foundation of the Lord abideth sure God knoweth that ye are his own Wrestle fight goe forward watch fear beleeve pray then ye have all the infallible symptomes of one of the elect of Christ within you Ye have now Madam a sickness before you also after that a death gather