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
sick night through the terrors of the Almighty would make men whose conscience hath such a wide throat as an image like a Chathedral Church would goe down it have other thoughts of Christ and his worship then now they please themselves with The scarcity of faith in the earth saith We are hard upon the last nick of time Blessed are these who keep their garments clean against the bridegroom's coming There shall be spotted clothes many defiled garments at his last coming therefore few found worthy to walk with him in white I am perswaded my Lord this poor travelling woman our pained Church is with childe of victory shall bring forth a man-childe that shall be caught up to God his throne howbeit the Dragon in his followers be attending the childe-birth-pain as an Egyptian midwife to receive the birth strangle it Isa. 29 8. But they shall be disappointed who thirst for the destruction of Zion they shall be as when a hungry man dreameth that he eateth but behold he awaketh his soul is empty or when a thirsty man dreameth that he drinketh but behold he awaketh is faint his soul is not satisfied so shall it be I say with the multitude of all the nations that fight against mount Zion Therefore the weak feeble these that are as signes wonders in Israel have chosen the best side even the side that victory is upon I think this is no evil policy Verily for my self I am so well pleased with Christ his noble honest-born cross this cross that is come of Christ's house is of kin to himself that I should weep if it should come to niffering barâ—â—ring of lots condition with these that are at ease in Zion I hold still my choice blesse my self in it I see I beleeve there is salvation in this way that is every where spoken against I hope to goe to eternity to venture upon the last evil to the saints even upon death fully perswaded that this onely even this is the saving way for rackel consciences for weary laden sinners to finde ease peace for evermore into indeed it is not for any worldly respect that I speak so of it the weather is not so hot that I have great cause to startle in my prison or to boast of that â—ntertainment that my good friends the Prelats intend for me which is banishment if they shall obtain their desire effectu at what they design but let it come I rue not that I made Christ my waile my choice I think him ay the longer the better My Lord It shall be good service to God to hold your noble friend Chief upon a good course for the truth of Christ. Now the very God of peace establish your Lo in Christ Jesuâ— unto the end Aberd. Sept 10. 1637. Your Lo in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Laird of GAITGIRTH 76 Much honoured Sir GRace mercy peace be to you I can doe no more but thank you in paper remember you to him whom I serve for your kindness care of a prisoner I bleâ—s the Lord the cause I suffer for needeth not to bluâ—h before Kings Christs white honest fair truth needeth neither wax pale for fear nor blush for shame I bless the Lord who hath graced you to own Christ now when so many are affraid to profess him hide him for fear they suffer loss by avouching him Alas that so many in these dayes are carried with the times As if their conscience rolled upon oyled wheels so doe they goe any way the wind bloweth them because Christ is not market-sweet men put him away from them Worthy much honoured Sir goe on to own Christ his oppressed truth The end of sufferings for the Gospel is rest and gladness light joy is sown for the mourners in Zion and the harvest which is of God's making for time manner is neer Crosses have right claim to Christ in hs members till legs arms whole mystical-Christ be in heaven There will be rain hail stormâ—â—n the saints clouds ever till God cleanse with fire the works of creation till he burn the botch-house of heaven earth that mens sin hath subjected unto vanity They are blessed who suffer sin not for suffering is the badge that Christ hath put upon his followers Take what way we can to heaven the way is hedged up with crosses there is no way but to break through them wit wiles shifts laws will not finde out a way about the cross of Christ but we must through one thing by experience my Lord hath taught me that the waters betwixt this heaven may all be ridden if â—e be well hors'd I mean if we be in Christ not one shall drown by the way but such as love their own destruction Oh if we could wait on for a time beleeve in the dark the salvation of God! At least we are to beleeve good of Christ till he give us the slip which is impossible to take his word for caution that he shall fill up all the blanks in his promises give us what we want but to the unbeleever Christ's Testament is white blank unwritten paper worthy and dear Sir set your face to heaven make you to stoop at all the low entries in the way that ye may receive the Kingdom as a childe without this he that knew the way said there is no entry in O but Christ be willing to lead a poor sinner O what love my poor soul hath found in him in the house of my pilgrimage Suppose love in heaven and earth were lost I dare swear it may be found in Christ. Now the very God of peace establish you till the day of the glorious appearance of Christ. Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Lady GAITGIRTH 77 Much honoured Christian Lady GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear how it goeth with you your children I exhort you not to lose breath nor to faint in your journey The way is not so long to your home as it was it will wear to one step or an inch at length ye shall come ere long to be within your arm-length of the glorious crown Your Lord Jesus did sweat pant ere he got up that mount he was at father save me with it it was he who Psal. 22 14. said I am poured out like water all my bones are out of joynt Christ waâ— as if they had broken him upon the wheel my heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels v. 15. My strength is dried up like a poâ—sheard I am sure ye love the way the better that his holy feet trod it before you Crosses have a smell of crossed pained Christ. I beleeve your Lord will not leave you to
them and our Nobles bid Christ send for himself if he be Christ It were good we should learn in time the way to our strong hold Sir howbeit not acquainted remember my love to your wife I pray God establish you Aberd. March 9 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN EWART Bailiffe of Kirkcudbright 94 My very worthy dear Friend I Cannot but most kindly thank you for the expressions of your love your love respect to me is a great comfort to me I blesse his high glorious name that the terrors of great men have not affrighted me from open avouching of the Son of God nay his cross is the sweetest burden that ever I bare It is such a burden as wings are to a bird or sailes to a ship to carry me forward to my harbour I have not much cause to fall in love with the world but rather to wish that he who sitteth upon the floods would bring my broken ship to Land keep my conscience safe in these dangerous times for wrath from the Lord is coming on this sinfull Land It were good that we prisoners of hope knew of our strong hold to run to before the storm come on Therefore Sir I beseech you by the mercies of God and comforts of his Spirit by the blood of your Saviour by your compearance before the sin-revenging Judge of the world keep your garments clean stand for the truth of Christ which ye professe When the time shall come that your eye strings shall break your face wax pale your breath grow cold this house of clay shall totter your one foot shall be over the march in eternity it shall be your comfort joy that ye gave your name to Christ. The greatest part of the world think heaven at the next door that Christianity is an easie task but they will be beguiled Worthy Sir I beseech you make sure work of salvation I have found by experience that all I could doe hath had much adoe in the day of my trial therefore lay up a sure foundation for the time to come I cannot requite you for your your undeserved favours to me my nowafflicted brother but I trust to remember you to God remember me heartily to your kinde wife Aberd. March 13. 1637. Yours in his onely Lord Iesus S. R. To VVILLIAM FULLERTON Provest of Kirkcudbright 95 Much honoured Sir GRace mercy and peace be to you I am obleiged to your love in God I beseech you Sir let nothing be so dear to you as Christ's truth for salvation is worth all the world therefore be not afraid of men that shall die the Lord shall doe for you in your suffering for him shall blesse your house seed ye have God's promise that ye shall have his presence in fire water in seven tribulations Your day will wear to an end your sun goe down in death it will be your joy that ye have ventured all ye have for Christ there is not a promise of heaven made but to such as are willing to suffer for it it is a Castle taken by force This earth is but the clay-portion of bastards therefore no wonder the world smile on it's own but better things are laid up for hiâ— lawfully begotten bairnes whoÌ„ the world hateth I have experience to speak this for I would not exchange my prison sad nights with the court honour ease of my adversaries My Lord is pleased to make many unknown faces to laugh upon me to provide a lodging for me he himself visiteth my soul with feasts of spiritual comforts O how sweet a Master is Christ Blessed are these who lay down all for him I thank you kindly for your love to my distressed brother Ye have the blessing prayers of the prisoner of Christ to you your Wife Children Remember my love blessing to William Samuel I desire them in their youth to seek the Lord fear his great name to pray twice a day at least to God to read God's word to keep themselves from cursing lying filthie talking Now the onely wise God the presence of the Son of God be with you all Aberd. March 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the worthy much honoured Mr ALEXANDER COLVILL Of Blair 96 Much honoured Sir GRace mercy peace be to you The bearer hereof M. R. F. is most kinde to me I desire you to thank him But none is so kinde as my onely royal King Master whose cross is my garland The King dineth with his prisoner his spikenard casteth a smell He hath led me up to such a pitch nick of joyfull communion with himself as I never knew before When I look back to by-gones I judge my self to have been a childe at A B C. with Christ. Worthy Sir pardon me I dare not conceal it from you it is as a fire iâ— my bowels In hiâ— presâ—nce who seeth me I spâ—ak it I am pained pained with the love of Christ he hath made me sick wounded me Hunger for Christ out-runneth faith I miss faith more then love O if the three Kingdoms would come see O if they knew his kindness to my soul It hath pleased him to bring me to this that I will not strike sails to this world nor flatter it nor adore this clay idol that fools worship As I am now disposed I think I will neither borrow nor lend with it yet I get my meat from Christ with nurture for seven times a day I am lifted up casten down My dumb Sabbaths burthen my heart make it bleed I want not fearful challenges jealousies sometimes of Christ's love that he hath casten me over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree But this is my infirmity By his grace I take my self in these ravings It is kindly that faith love both be sick fevers are kindly to most joyful communion with Christ. Ye are blessed who avouch Christ openly before the Princes of this Kingdom whose eyes are upon you It is your glory to lift him up on his throne to carry his trâ—in bear up the hem of his robe royal He hath an hiding place for M. A. C. against the storm goe on fear not what man can doe The saints seem to have â—he worst of it for apprehensions can make a lye of Christ of his love but it is not so Providence is not rolled upon unequal crooked wheels All things work togâ—ther for the good of these who love God are called according to his purpose Ere it be long we shall see the white side of God's Providence My Brother's case hath moved me not a little He wrote to me your care kindness Sir the prisoner's blessings prayers I trust shall not goe by you He that is able to keep you to present you before
the gate contend for the crown leave all vanities make Christ your garland Let your soul put away your old lovers let Christ have your whole love I have some experience to write of this to you My witnesse is in heaven I would not exchange my chains bonds for Christ my sighs â—or ten worlds glory I judge this clay-idol that Adam's sons are rouping selling their souls for not worth a drink of cold water O if your soul were in my soul's stead how sick would ye be of love for that fairest one that fairest among the sons of men Mayflowers morning vapours summer mist posteth not so fast away as these worm-eaten pleasures that we follow We build castles in the air night dreams are our day idols that we dote on Salvation Salvation is our onely one necessarie thing Sir call home your thoughts to this work to inquire for your welbeloved This earth is the portion of bastards seek the sons inheritance let Christ's truth be dear to you I pawnd my salvation on it that this is the honour of Christ's Kingdom I now suffer for this world I hope shall not come between me my garland that this is the way to life When ye I shall lie lumps of pale clay upon the cold ground our pleasures that we now naturally love shall be lesse then nothing in that day dear Brother fulfill my joy betake you to Christ without further delay ye will be fain at length to seek to him or doe infinitly worse Remember my love to your wife grace be with you Aberd. March 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To WILLIAM GLENDINING 99 Welbeloved dear Brother GRace mercy and peace be to you I thank you most kindly for your care love to me in particular to my brother in hiâ— distresse in Edinburgh Goe on thorow your waters without wearying your guide knoweth the way follow him cast your caâ—es tentation upon him let not wormes the sons of men affright you they shall die the moth shall eat them keep your garland there is no lesse at the stake in this game betwixt us the world then our conscience salvation we have need to take heed to the game not to yield to them Let them take other things from us but here in matters of conscience we must hold draw with Kings set our selves in termes of opposition with the shields of the earth O the sweet communion for evermore that hath been between Christ his poor prisoner He wearieth not to be kinde He is the fairest sight I see in Aberd or any part that ever my feet were in Remember my hearty kindness to your wife I desire her to beleeve lay her cares on God make fast work of salvation Grace be with you Aberd. March 13. 1637. Yours in his onely Lord Iesus S. R. To JEAN BROWN 100 Welbeloved and dear Sister GRace mercy peace be to you I received your letter which I esteem an evidence of your Christian affection to me of your love to my honourable Lord Master My desire is that your communion with Christ may grow that your reckonings may be put by hand with your Lord ere ye come to the water side O who knoweth how sweet Christs ' kisses are who hath been more kindly embraced kissed then I his banished prisoner If the comparison could stand I would not exchange Christ with heaven it self He hath left a dart arrow of love in my soul it paineth me till he come take it out I finde pain of these wounds because I would have possession I know now this worm-eaten apple the plaistered rotten world that the silly Children of this world are beating buffetting pulling others ears for is a portion for bastards good enough that is all they have to look for I offend not that my adversaries stay at home at their own fire-side with more yearly rent then I should I be angry that the good-man of this house of the world casteth a dog a bone to hurt his teeth he hath taught me to be content with a borrowed fire-side an uncouth bed I think I have lost nothing the in come is so great O what telling is in Christ O how weighty is my fair garland my crown my fair supping-hall in glory where I shall be above the blowes and buffettings of Prelats Let this be your desire let your thoughts dwell much upon that blessednesse that abideth you in the other world The fair side of the world will be turned to you quickly when ye shall see the crown I hope ye are neer your lodging O but I would think my self blessed for my part to win the house before the shower come on For God hath a quiver full of arrowes to shoot at shower down upon Scotland Ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. I desire Patrick to give Christ his young love even the flower of it and put it by all others it were good to start soon to the way He should thereby have a great advantage in the evil day Grace be with you Aberd. March 7. 1637. Yours in his onely Lord Iesus S. R. To Mr JOHN FERGUSHILL 101 Reverend and welbeloved in the Lord. I Was refreshed with your letter I am sorry for that lingering and long some visitation that is upon your wife but I know ye take it as a mark of a lawfully begotten childe not of a bastard to be under your father's rod till ye be in heaven it will be but foul weather one shower up another down The lintel-stones pillars of the new Jerusalem suffer moe knocks of God's hammer tool then the common side-wall stones if twenty crosses be written for you in God's book they will come to ninteen then at last to one after that nothing but your head betwixt Christ's breasts for evermore his own soft hand to dry your face wipe away your teares As for publike sufferings for his truth your Master also will see to these Let us put him in his own office to comfort deliver the gloom of Christ's crosse is worse then it self I cannot keep up what he hath done to my soul My dear Brother will I not get help of you to praise to lift Christ up on high He hath pained me with his love hath left a love arrow in my heart that hath made a wound swelled me up with desires so that I am to be pitied for want of reall possession love would have the company of the party loved my greatest pain is the want of him not of his joyes comforts but of a neer union communion This is his truth I am fully perswaded I now suffer for For Christ hath taken upon him to be witnesse to it by his sweet comforts to my soul
Christ but his coat Oh how forlorn desolate is the Bride of Christ made to all passers by Who seeth not Christ buried in this land his prophets hidden in caves silenced banished imprisoned Truth weeping in sackcloth before the Judges Parliament the Rulers of the land But her bill is cast by them Holiness hideth it self fearing the streets for the reporoaches persecution of men Justice is fallen a swoon in the gate the long shadows of the evening are stretched out upon us Woe woe to us for our day flyeth away what remaineth but that the Antichrist set down his tent in the midst of us except your Lo others with you read Christ's supplication give him that which the most lewd and scandalous wretches in this land may have before a judge even the poor man's due law and justice for God's sake O therefore my noble dear Lord as ye have begun goe on in the mighty power and strength of the Lord to cause our Lord in his Gospel and afflicted members laugh to cause the Christian Churches whose eyes are all now upon you to sing for joy when Scotland's moon shall shine like the light of the sun the sun like the light of seven dayes in one ye can doe noless then run bear up the head of your dying swooning mother-Church plead for the production of her ancient charters They hold out and put out they hold in and bring in at their pleasure men in God's house they stole the keys from Christ and his Church and came in like the thief the robber not by the door Christ now their song is Authority Authority obedience to Church-Governours When such a bastard lawless pretended step-dame as our prelacy is gone mad it is your place who are the Nobles to rise binde them at least law should fetter such wilde bulls as they are who push all who oppose themselves to their domination Alas What have we lost since Prelats were made Master coiners to change our gold in brass and to mix the Lord's wine with their water Blessed for ever shall ye be of the Lord if ye help Christ against the mighty and shall deliver the flock of God scattered upon the mountains in the dark cloudy day out of the hands of these idol-shepherds Fear not men that shall be moth-eaten-clay that shall be rolled up in a chest casten under the earth Let the holy one of Israel be your fear be couragious for the Lord and his truth Remember your accounts coming upon you with wings as fast as time posteth away Remember what peace with God in Christ the presence of the Son of God in the revealed felt sweetness of his love will be to you when eternity shall put time to the door ye shall take good-night at Time this little shepherd's tent of clay this Innes of a borrowed earth I hope your Lo is now then sending out thoughts to view this world's naughtiness vanity the hoped-for glory of the life to come that ye resolve that Christ shall have your self all yours at command for him his honour Gospel Thus trusting your Lo Will pardon my boldness I pray that the onely wise God the very God of peace may preserve strengthen establish you to the end Aberd. 1637. Your Lo at all command obedience in Chrst. S. R. To the Lady ROVVALAND 107 MADAM THough not acquainted I am bold in Christ to speak to vour La in paper I rejoyce in our Lord Jesus on your behalf that it hath pleased him whose love to you is as old as himself to manifest the savour of his love in Christ Jesus to your soul in the revelation of his will minde to you now when so many are shut up in unbelief O the sweet change ye have made in leaving the black kingdom of this world sin coming over to our bridegroom 's new kingdom to know to be taken with the love of the beautifull Son of God I beseech you Madam in the Lord make now sure work see that the old house be casten down razed from the foundation and that the new building of your soul be of Christ's own laying for then wind and storm shall neither loose it nor shake it asunder Many now take Christ by guess Be sure that it be he and onely he whom ye have met with His sweet smell his lovely voyce his fair face his sweet working in the soul will not lye they will soon tell if it be Christ indeed I think your love to the saints speaketh that it is he therefore I say be sure that ye take Christ himself take him with his father's blessing his father alloweth him well upon you your lines are well fallen it could not have been better nor so well with you if they had not fallen in these places In heaven or out of heaven there is nothing better nothing so sweet excellent as the thing ye have lighted on therefore hold you with Christ Joy much joy may ye have of him But take his cross with himself cheerfully Christ and his cross are not separable in this life howbeit Christ his cross part at heaven's door for there is no house-room for crosses in heaven one tear one sigh one sad heart one fear one losse or thought of trouble cannot finde lodging there they are but the markes of our Lord Jesus down in this wide innes stormy countrey on this side of death Sorrow the saints are not married together of suppose it were so heaven shall make a divorce I finde his sweet presence eateth out the bitterness of sorrow suffering I think it a sweet thing that Christ saith of my cross Halfmine that he divideth these sufferings with me taketh the largest share to himself nay that I my whole cross are wholly Christ's O what a portion is Christ O that the saints would dig deeper in the treasures of his wisdom excellency Thus recommending your La to the goodwill tender mercies of our Lord I rest Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637 Yours La in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To ROBERT GORDON Of Knockbrex 108 My very worthy dear Friend GRace mercy peace be unto you Though all Galloway should have forgotten me I would have expected a letter from you ere now But I will not expound it to be forgetfulness of me Now My dear Brother I cannot shew you how matters goe betwixt Christ and me I finde my Lord going and coming seven times a day His visits are short but they are both frequent sweet I dare not for my life think of a challenge of my Lord I hear ill tales hard reports of Christ from the Tempter and my flesh but love beleeveth no evil I may swear that they are lyars and that apprehensions make lyes of Christ's honest and unalterable love to me
can be known yet all this time I am teÌ„pting him to see if there be both love anger in him against me I am plucked from his flock dear to me from feeding his lambs I goe therefore in sackcloth as one who hath lost the wife of his youth Grief sorrow are suspicious spue out against him the smoke of jealousies I say often Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me Tell me Lord read the process against me but I know I cannot answer his alleagance I will lose the cause when it cometh to open pleading Oh if I could force my heart to beleeve dreams to be dreams Yet when Christ giveth my fears the lye saith to me thou art a lyar then I am glad I resolve to hope to be quiet to lie on the brink upon my side till the water fall the foord be ridable howbeit there be pain upon me in longing for deliverance that I may speak of him in the great congregation yet I think there is joy in that pain on waiting I even rejoyce that he putteth me off for a time shifteth me Oh if I could waite on for all eternity howbeit I should never get my soul's desire sobeing he were glorified I would wish my pain my ministery could live long to serve him for I know I am a clay vessel made for his use O if my very broken sheards could serve to glorifie him I desire Christ's grace to be willingly content that my hell excepting his hatred displeasure which I put out of all play for submission to this is not called for were a preaching of his glory to men and Angels for ever ever When all is done what can I adde to him or what can such a clay-shadow as I doe I know he needeth not me I have cause to be grieved and to melt away in tears if I had grace to doe it Lord grant it to me to see my welbeloved's fair face spitted upon by dogs to see lowns pulling the crown off my royall King's head to see my harlot-mother my sweet father agree so ill that they are going to skail and give up house My Lord's palace is now a nest of unclean birds Oh if harlot harlot Scotland would rue upon her provoked Lord pity her good husband who is broken with her whorish heart But these things are hid from her eyes I have heard of late of your new trial by the Bishop of Galloway Fear not clay worm's meat Let Truth Christ get no wrong in your hand it is your gain if Christ be glorified your glory to be Christ's witness I perswade you your sufferings are Christ's advantage victory for he is pleased to reckon them so Let me hear from you Christ is but winning a clean Kirk out of the fire He will win this play He will not be in your common for any charges ye are at in his service He is not poor to sit in your debt He will repay an hundred fold more it may be even in this life The prayers blessing of Christ's prisoner be with you Aberd. 1637. Your Brother in his sweet Lord. Iesus S. R. To his Reverend loving Brother Mr JOHN NEVAY 123 Reverend Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be unto you I received yours oâ—â— Aprile 11. As I did another of March 25. and a letter for Mr Andrew Cant. I am not a little grieved that our mother-church is running so quickly to the brothel-house that we are hiring lovers giving gift to the great mother of fornications Alas that our husband is like to quite us so shortly It were my part if I were able when our husband is departing to stir up myself to take hold of him keep him in this land for I know him to be a sweet second a lovely companion to a poor prisoner I finde my extremity hath sharpned the edge of his love Kindness so as he seemeth to devise new wayes of expressing the sweetness of his love to my soul Suffering for Christ is the very element wherein Christ's love liveth exerciseth it self in casting out flames of fire sparks of heat to warm such a frozen heart as I have And if Christ weeping in sackeloth be so sweet I cannot finde any imaginable thoughts to think what he will be when we clay-bodies having put off mortality shall come up to the marriage-hall great Palace behold the King clothed in his robes royall sitting on his throne I would desire no more for my heaven beneath the moon while I am sighing in this house of clay but daily renewed feasts of love with Christ liberty now then to feed my hunger with a kiss of that fairest face that is like the sun in his strength at noon-day I would willingly subscribe an ample resignation to Christ of the fourteen Prelacies of this land of all the most delightfull pleasures on earth forfeit my part of this clay-God this earth which Adam's foolish children worship to have no other exercise but to lie in a love-bed with Christ fill this hungred famished soul with kissing embracing reall enjoying of the Son of God And I think then I might write to my friends That I had found the golden world look out laugh at the poor bodies who are slaying one another for feathers For verily Brother since I came to his prison I have conceived a new extraordinary opinion of Christ which I had not before for I perceive we frist all our joyes to Christ till he we be in our own house above as married parties thinking that there is nothing of it here to be sought or found but onely hope fair promises that Christ will give us nothing here but tears sadness crosses that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers of that high garden of Paradise above till we come there Nay but I finde it is possible to finde young glory a young green Paradise of joy even here I know Christ's kisses will cast a more strong refreshfull smell of incomparable glory joy in heaven then they doe here Because a drink of the well of life up at the welâ—'s head is more sweet fresh by far then that which we get in our borrowed old running-out vessels our wooden dishes here yet I am now perswaded it is our folly to fâ—â—st all till the term day seeing abundance of earnest will not diminish any thing of our principal summe We dream of hunger in Christ's house while we are here although he alloweth feasts upon all the bairns within God's houshold It were good then to store our selves with moe borrowed kisses of Christ with moe borrowed visites till we enter Heirs to our new inheritance our Tutour put us in possession of our own when we are past minority Oh that all the young heirs would seek more a greater
end of my journey before the night come on wherein a man cannot see to walk or work that once after my falls I may at night fall in weary and tired as I am in Christ's bosom betwixt his breasts Our prison cannot be our best countrey This world looketh not like heaven the happiness that our tired souls woul be at therefore it were good to seek about for the wind hoise up our sailes towards our new Jerusalem for that is our best Remember a prisoner to Christ. Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his onely Lord Master S. R. To my Lord CRAIGHALL 174 My Lord. I Received one letter of your Lo from C another of late from A. B. wherein I finde your Lo in perplexity what to doe But let me entreat your Lo not to cause your self mistake Truth Christ because they seem to encounter with your peace ease My Lord remember that a prisoner â—ath written it to you As the Lord liveth if ye put to your hand with other Apostates in this land to pull down the sometime beautifull tabâ—rnacle of Christ in this land joyn hands with thâ—m in one hair-breadth to welcome Antichrist to Scotland there is wratâ— gone out from the Lord against you your house If the terror of a King hath overtaken you your Lo looketh to sleep in your nest in peace to take the nearest shore there are many wayes too too many wayes how to shift Christ with some ill-washen and foul distinctions but assure your self suppose a King should assure you he would be your God as he shall never be for that piece of service your clay-god shall die and your carnall counsellers when your conscience shall storm against you ye complain to them they will say What is that to us Beleeve not that Christ is weak or that he is not able to save Of two fires that ye cannot pass take the least Some few years will bring us all out in our black 's and white 's before our Judge Eternity is nearer to you then ye are aware of To goe on in a course of defection when an enlightned conscience is stirring looking you in the face crying within you That ye are going in an evil way is a step to the sin against the holy Ghost Either many of this land are near that sin or else I know not what it is And if this for which I now suffer be not the way of peace the King's high-way to salvation I beleeve there is not a way at all There is not such breadth and elbow-room in the way to heaven as men beleeve Howbeit this day be not Christ's the morrow shall be his I beleeve assuredly our Lord shall repair the old â—aâ—e places and his ruined house in Scotland this wilderness shall yet blossom as the rose My very worthy dear Lord Wait upon him who hideth his face from the house of Jacob look for him wait patiently a little upon the bridegroom's return again that your soul may live and ye may rejoyce with the Lord's inheritance I dare pawnd my life and soul for it if ye take this storm with borâ—-down Christ your skie shall quickly clear youâ— fair morning dawn Think as the truth is that Christ is just now saying And will ye also leave me Ye have a fair occasion to gratifie Christ now if ye will stay with him want the night's sleep with your suffering Saviour one hour now when Scotland hath fallen asleep and leaveth Christ to fend for himself I profess my self but a weak feeble man when I came first to Christ's camp I had nothing to maintain this war or to bear me out in this encounter and I am little better yet but since I finde furniture armour and strength from the consecrated Captain the Prince of our salvation who was perfected though suffering I esteem suffering for Christ a King's life I finde that our wants qualifie us for Christ howbeit your Lo write ye despair to attain to such a communion fellowship which I would not have you to think yet would ye nobly and courageously venture to make over to Christ for his honour now lying at the stake your estate place and honour He would lovingly and largely requite you and give you a King's word for a recompense Venture upon Christ's come and I dare swear ye shall say as it is Psal 16 7. I bless the Lord who gave me counsel My very worthy Lord many eyes in both the kingdoms are upon you now and the eye of our Lord is upon you acquite your self manfully for Christ Spill not this good play Subscribe a blank submission and put it in Christ's hands Win win the blessings and prayers of your sighing and sorrowfull mother-church seeking your help Win Christ's bond who is a King of his word for a hundred fold more even in this life If a weak man hath past a promise to a King to make a slip to Christ if we look to flesh blood I wonder not of it possibly I might have done worse my self but adde not further guiltiness to goe on in such a scandalous and foul way Remember that there is a wee â—oe to him by whom offences come This woe came out of Christ's mâ—utâ— and it is heavier then the woe of the Law It is the Mediatoâ—'s vengeance that is two vengeances to these who are enlightned Free your self from unlawfull anguish about advising and resolving When the truth is come to your hand hold it fast goe not again to make a new search and enquiry for truth It is easie to cause conscience beleeve as ye will not as ye know It is easie for you to cast your light into prison and detain God's truth in unrighteousnâ—ss But that prisoner will break ward to your incomparable torture Fear your light and stand in aw of it for it is from God Think what honour it is in this life also to â—e â—nrolled to the succeeding ages amongst Christ's witnesses standing against the re-entry of Antichrist I know certainly your light looking to two wayes and to the two sides cryeth shame upon the course that they would counsel you to follow The way that is halfer and compartner with the smoke of this fat world with ease smelleth strong of a foul false way The Prince of peace he who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of his sheep by the blood of the eternall covenant establish you and give you sound light counsel you to follow Christ. Remember my obliged service to my Lord your Father Mother your Lady Grace be with you Aberd. Agust 10. 1637 Your Lo at all obliged obedience in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JEAN GORDON 175 My very dear loving Sister GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear from you I exhort you to set up the brac to the King's city that
it must be a rueing a pitifull a melting-hearted love But suspension of that love I think it half a hell the want of it more then a whole hell When I look to my guiltiness I see my salvation one of our Saviour's greatest miracles either in heaven or earth I am sure I may defie any mâ—n to shew me a greater wonder but seeing I have no wares no hire no money for Christ he must either take me with want misery corruption or then want me O if he would be pleased to be compassionat and pitifull hearted to my pining fevers of longing for him oâ— then give me a reall pawne to keep out of his own hand till God send a meeting betwixt him me But I finde neither as yet howbeit he who is absent be not cruel nor unkinde yet his absence is cruel and unkinde His love is like it self his love is his love but the coveâ—ing the cloud the vail the mask of his love is more wise then kinde if I durst speak my apprehensions I lead no process now against the suspension delay of God's love I would with all my heart frist till a day ten heavens and the sweet manifestations of his love Certainly I think I could give Christ much on his word But my whole pleading is about intimated born-in assurance of his love O if he would perswade me of my heart's desire of his love at all he should have the term-day of payment at his own carving But I know raving unbeleef speaketh it's pleasure while it looketh upon guiltinesse and this body of corruption O how loathsom burdensom is it to carry about a dead corps this old carrion of corruption O how steadable a thing is a Saviour to make a sinner rid of his chains fetters I have now made a new question Whether Christ be more to be loved for giving Sanctification or for free Justification And I hold he is more most to be loved for Sâ—nâ—tification it is in some respect greater love in him to sanctifie then to justifie for he maketh us most like himself in his own essential pourtraiture image in sanctifying us Justification doth but make us happy which is to be like the Angels onely Neither is it such a misery to lie a condemned man under unforgiven guiltiness as to serve sin work the works of the Devil therefore I think Sanctification cannot be bought it 's above all price God be thanked for ever that Christ was a told down price for Sanctification Let a sinner if possible lie in hell for ever if he make him truly holy let him lie there burning in love to God rejoycing in the Holy Ghost hanging upon Christ by faith hope that is heaven in the heart and bottom of hell Alas I finde a very thin harvest here few to be saved Grace grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his lovely longed-for Lord â—â—sus S. R. To my Lord CRAIGHALL 209 My Lord. I Perswade my self notwithstanding of the greatness of this temptation ye will not let Christ want a witness of you to avow him before this evil generation And if ye advise with God's truth the perfect testament of Christ that forbiddeth all mens additions to his worship with the truly learned withall the sanctified in this land with that warner within you that will not fail to speak against you in God's time if ye be not now fast fixed for Christ I hope then your Lo will acquit your self as a man of courage for Christ refuse to bow your knee superstitiously idolatrously to wood or stone or any creature whatsoever I perswade my self when ye shall take good-night at this world ye shall think it God's truth I now write Some fear your Lo have obliged your self to his Maj by promise to satisfie his desire If it be so my dear worthy Lord hear me for your soul 's good Think upon swimming a shore after this ship wrack be pleased to write your humble Apologie to his Majestie it may be God give you favour in his eyes However it be far be it from you to think a promise made out of weakness extorted by the terrour of a King should binde you to wrong your Lord Jesus But for my self I give no faith to that report but I beleeve ye shall prove fast 〈◊〉 Christ To his grace I recommend you Aberd. July 8. 1637. Your Lo at all obedience in Christ. S. R. To my Lord CRAIGHALL 210. My Lord. GRace mercy peace be to you I am not onely content but I exceedingly rejoyce that I finde any of the Rulers of this Land especially your Lo so to affect Christ and his truth as ye dare for his name come to yea nay with Monarchs in their face I hope he who hath enabled you for that will give more if ye shew your self couragious as his word speaketh a man in the streets for the Lord But I pray your Lo give me leave to be plain with you as one who loveth both your honour your soul. I verily beleeve there was never Idolatry at Rome never Idolatry condemned in God's word by the Prophets if religious kneeling before a consecrate creature standing in room of Christ crucified in that very act that for reverence of the Elements as our Act cleareth be not Idolatry Neither will your intention help which is not of the essence of Worship for then Aaron saying To morrow shall be afeast for Iehovah that is for the golden Calf should not have been guilty of Idolatry for he intended onely to decline the lash of the people's fury not to honour the Calf Your intention to honour Christ is nothing seeing religious kneeling by God's institution doeth necessarily import religious divine adoration suppose our intention were both dead sleeping Otherwise kneeling before the Image of God directing prayer to God were lawfull if our intention goe right My Lord I cannot in this bounds dispute but if Cambridge Oxford the learning of Britain will answer this argument the argument from active scandal which your Lo seemeth to stand upon I will turn a formalist call my self an arrant fool by doing what I have done in my suffering for this truth I doe much reverence Mr Ls. learning but my Lo I will answer what he writes in that to pervert you from the truth else repute me beside an hypocrite an ass also I hope ye shall see something upon that subject if the Lord permit that no sophistry in Britain shall answer Courtiers arguments for the most part are drawn from their own skin are not worth a straw for your conscience A Marquess or a King's word when ye stand before Christ's tribunal shall be lighter then wind The Lord knoweth I love your true honour the standing of your house but I would not your honour or house were established upon sand
shall be restored unto you seven fold which would carry alongst with it the accomplishment of that other great Gospel promise his enemies will I clothe with shame but upon himself shall his crown flourish Faxit Deus â—esâ—â—ness should be the constant Echo of our hearts Reader there is one thing more I have to acquaint thee with so I have done that is to tell thee that I have made bold for this once to send these Epistles abroad into the world without the Prelat's Imprimatur If he please to take this for an Apology that the Author sought not his permission to write them which emboldned me to transmit them to thy hands without his approbation he may for I am not in an humor to give him any other account of this action I know it 's very probable that the fat of these may be the fire for our late fulious Prelats that Draco volans which being got upon the wing spouts down fire upon the Church wherby the Tabernacles of God are burnt up through the land For the appearance of this fiery meteor did alwayes portend somwhat fatall to the Church to follow upon it are a little more hot then their predecessors It 's true these went so high in their persecution drave so hard that it was thought scarce possible for any to out-doe them in persecuting for they run them selves out of breath never drew bridle till they fell in the ditch we thought they had died their without succession but Alas The Church finds this day that 〈◊〉 respect of their successors they were mere novices had scarce served their Aprentiship in the blake Art And this puts me to think whether the people of God should not rather submit to be chastised even with this scourge of scorpions then to wish that he would throw the â—od in the fire lest if they were gone we not fit for a delivery as indeed we are not it should fall out with us according to the story of the old wife of Syracuse who was afraid of Dyon sius his death lest the devil should succeed him but if any should say to me what if be allready come For if the Holy Ghost call these men such Rev. 2 10. Who did But cast in prison did but cast some in prison may he not be said to be allready come down now having great wrath when deposition imprisonment banishment yea any thing less then declared worthy to die is thought a savour If any should urge me with this I say I confess he would pose me into an absolut silence or force an acknowledgment from me If the Prelats themselves who are of age be in case to make a reply let them answer it For the truth is they are so hot upon their work that if it be a heresy to think so of them they who plead the necessity of their office for preventing of schisme heresy are like to turne the better part of the world hereticks but to my purpose I say their is some reason to fear that this be thought very sit fewel to make a fire in Cajapcas his hall However though it should be so yet this is not the first time that some of the worthy Author's works have got such entertainment truely their is so much zeal to the interests of Christ so much love to God the salvation of men burning in these lines that that spirit whose element is fire will endeavour to blow the bellowes seek this as a sacrifice at their hands whose once professed sincerity personat zeal for God his interests is now broken out in such high Acts of rebellion against him hatred against his servants whereby the proverb is become plain Scottish or Inglish or both if ye will Omnis Apostata secta suae Osor But if the Prelats would take a poor Presbyter's advice they wouâ— even let it alone lest the smoak of that fire wherein they burne this kindle a flame of just indignation against them in the hearts of all the lovers of God as men who have a very perfect hatred against piety but if they care not to be so looked upon I have no more to say be it so It 's like nothing that I can say will hinder them from puttingh this peece in his hands to whom as I heare they have committed the revising of learned worthy Mr. Wood's Testimony c. who it seems is made choice of by them as Secretary in Chief for fevising all such peeces to â—iâ— Ioannes Dunmuraeus cum Fratriâ—â—â—â— Collegis suis And therefore I must leave them to their own liberty which I onely doe because I cannot help it I am afraid besids lest if I should work too hard in carrying water to cool them I over-heat my self leave them at last nothing cooler then I found them But as for thee Christian Reader it will be a sufficent imprimatur to tell thee that these are MR. RUTHERFOORD'S LETTERS Wherein he gives thee an account of many a good day joyfull hour he had in his Master's company while his fellow-servants did beat thrust him out of the vineyard he invits thee to take a share of his feast truely I wish that both of us would goe try taste since neither of us are like to have very good entertainment any where else I have but one word more to say for I know it 's long since thou expected I should have made an end it 's onely to crave the pardon that I have not done it sooner when I wrote the first nes I thought to have made the end the beginning so contiguous that I should neither have put thee to this trouble nor my self to the necessity of an Apology in order to that I did really forbear what as I told thee at first I intended am carryed this length besids my designe but if the length of what is here offend thee thou art in case without doing me any wrong to give thy self the same satisfaction as if I had said nothing by passing it as so much waste paper turning over to the Epistles themselves If thy soul be profited by these as I hope it shall I have my designe all I seek of the be side is that thou wouldest wish his soul's welfare who was at this little pains in order to thine who desires to be reockened by thee amongst the meanest most unworthy of The favourers of the dust of Zion And thy Wellâ—â—â—kers AD LECTOREM IN EPISTOLAS QVOD Chebar Patmos divinis Vatibus olim Hoc fuerant Sancto claustra Abredaea Viro Profuit ut quondam tibi plus Ecclesia carcer Libera quam patuli copia facta fort Hic tibi sic scriptis carcer plus profuit ist is Pulpita quam raucâ quae sonuere tuba Pharmaca in hoc prostant contritis corde libello Hic crucis Elâ—sâ—s est via sâ—rata râ—sis
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
that it shall not be your wisdom to spier out another Christ another way of worshiping him then is now savingly revealed to you Therfore though I never saw your faces let me be pardoned to write to you ye honourable persons ye faithfull Pastors yet amongst the flocks and ye sincere professors of Christs truth or any weak tired strayers who cast but halfe an eye after the bridegroom if possibly I could by any weak experience confirme and strengthen you in this good way every where spoken against I can with greatest assurance to the honour of our highest greatest dearest Lord let it be spoken assert though I be but a child in Christ and scarce able to walk but by a hold the meanest and lesse then the least of Saints that we doe not come nigh by twentie degrees to the due love estimation of that fairest among the sons of men for if it were possible that heaven yea ten heavens were laid in the ballance with Christ I would think the smell of his breath above them all sure I am he is the far best halfe of heaven yea he is all heaven and more then all heaven my testimonie of him is that ten lives of black sorrow ten deaths ten hells of pain ten furnaces of brimstone and all exquisit torments were all too little for Christ if our suffering could be a hire to buy him and therefore faint not in your sufferings hasards for him I proclaim cry hell sorrow and shame upon all lusts upon all by-lovers that would take Christs room over his head in this little inch of love of these narrow souls of ours that is due to sweetest Jesus O highest O fairest O dearest Lord Jesus take thine ovvn from all bastard lovers O that vve could wodset sell all our part of times glory and times good things for a lease tack of Christ for all eternitie O how are we misted and mired with the love of things that are in this side of time and in this side of deaths water where can we finde a match to Christ or an equal or a better then he among created things Oh this world is out of all conceit all love with our welbeloved O that I could sell my laughter joy ease and all for him and be content of a straw-bed and btead by weight water by measure in the camp of our weeping Christ I knovv his sackcloth and ashes are better then the fools laughter which is like the crackling of thornes under a pot But alace we doe not harden our faces against the cold north stormes which blow upon Christs fair face we love well summer religion to be that which Sin hath made us even as thin skinned as if we were made of white paper would fain be carried to heaven in a clâ—sse covered chariot wishing from our hearts that Christ vvould give us suretie his hand vvrite his seal for nothing but a fair summer untill we be landed in at heavens gates hovv many of us have been here deceived fainted in the day of tryall amongst you there are some of this Stamp I shall be sorrie if my acquantance A. T. hath left you I vvill not beleeve he dare stay from Christs side I desire that ye shevv him this from me for I loved him once in Christ neither can I change my mind suddenly of him But the truth is that many both of you too many also of your neighbour church of Scotland have been like a rennent that sitteth mealfree knovveth not his holding while his rights be questioned and now I am persvvaded it vvil be asked at every one of us on what terms vve brooke Christ for we have sitten long meal-free vve found Christ vvithout a vvett foot and He and his gospel came upon small charges to our Doors but now we must wet our feet to seeke him our evil manners and the bad fashions of a people at ease from our youth and like Moab not casten from vessell to vessel Jer. 48 11. hes made us like standing waters to gather a foul scumme when we are jumbled our dregs come up are seen many take but halfe a grip of Christ the wind bloweth them Christ asunder indeed when the mast is broken blown in the sea it is ane art then to swim upon Christ to drie land 't is even possible that the children of God in a hard triall lay them selves down as hidden in the lea-side of a bush vvhile Christ their master be taken as Peter did lurke there while the storme be overpast all of us knovv the vvay to a vvhole skin the singlest heart that is hath a by-purse that vvill contian the deniall of Christ a fearâ—ull backslding O hovv rare a thing is it to be loyall honest to Christ vvhen he hath a controversie vvth the sheelds of the earth I vvish all of you would consider that this triall is from Christ it is come upon you unbought indeed when we buy a tentation with our own money no marvel that we be not easily free of it and that God be not at our elbow to take it off our hand this is Christs ordinarie house-fire that he maks use of to try all the vessells of his house Withall Christ now is about to bring his treasure out before sun moon to tell his money in the telling to try what vveight of gold vvhat vveight of vvatered copper is in his house Doe not novv jouke or bovv or yeeld to your adversaries in a hairbreadth Christ and his truth vvill not divide his truth hath not latitude breadth that ye may take some of it leave other some of it nay the gospel is like a small hair that hath no breadth vvil not cleave in tvvo it is not possible to tryste compound a matter betvvixt Christ Antichrist therefore ye must either be for Christ or ye must be against him It vvas but mans vvit the vvit of Prelats their god father the Pope that man without law to put Christ his prerogatives royall his truth or the smallest nail-breadth of his latter vvil in the nevv kalendar of Indifferencies to make a blank of un-inked paper in Christs Testament that men may fill up so shufle the truth maters they call indifferent thorovv other spin both together that the Antichrists vvares may sell the better this is but the device forged dream of men vvhose consciences are made of stoutnesse have a throat that a graven image greater then the bounds of the Kirk door vvould give free passage unto I am sure vvhen Christ shall bring us all out in our black 's vvhit's at that day when he shall cry down time and the world when the glory of it shall lie in white ashes like a may flower cut down having lost the blosome there shall be
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
rejoyce in death Oh for a yeer's lease of the sense of his love without a cloud to try what Christ is Oh for the coming of the bridegroom Oh when will I see the bridegroom the bride meet in the clouds kisse each other Oh when will we get our day our hearts full of that love Oh is it were lawfull to complain of the fâ—mine want of that love of the immediat vision of God! O time time how doest thou torment the souls of these that would be swallowed up of Christ's love because thou movest so slowly Oh if he would pity a poor prisoner blow love upon me give a prisoner a taste or draught of that surpassing sweetness which is glory as it were begun to be a confirmation that Christ I shall have our fill of other for ever Come hither O love of Christ that I may once kisse thee before I die what would I not give to have time that lieth betwixt Christ me taken out of the way that we might once meet I cannot think but â—t the first sight I shall see of that most lovely fairest face love shall come out of his two eyes fill me with astonishment I would but desire to stand at the utter side of the gates of the new Jerusalem look thorow a hole of the door see Christ's face a borrowed vision in this life would be my borrowed begun heaven while the long long-looked for day dawn It is not for nothing that it is said Colos. 1. 27. Christ in you the hope of glory I will be content of no pawne of heaven but Christ himself for Christ possessed by faith here is young heaven glory in the bud If I had that pawne I would bide horning hell both ere I gave it again All we have here is scarce the picture of glory Should not we young bairns long look for the expiring of our minority It were good to be daily begging propines love-gifts the bridegroom's favours if we can doe no more seek Crumbs hungry dinners of Christ's love to keep the taste of heaven in our mouth while supper time I know it is far afternoon and nigh the marriage-supper of the Lamb the table is covered already O welbeloved run run fast O fair day when wil't thou dawn O shaddows flee away I think hope love woven thorow other make our absence from Christ spirituall torment It is a pain to wait on but hope that maketh not a hamed swalloweth up that pain It is not unkindness that keepeth Christ us so long asunder What can I say to Christ's love I think more then I can say To consider that when my Lord Jesus may take the air if I may so speak goe abroad yet he will be confined keep the prison with me but in all this sweet communion with him what am I to be thanked for I am but a sufferer whether I will or not he will be kind to me as if he had defied my guiltiness to make him unkind so he beareth in his love on me Here I die with wondering that justice hindereth not love for there are none in hell nor out of hell more unworthy of Christ's love Shame may confound and scar me once to hold up my black mouth to receive one of Christ's undeserved kisses If my inner-side were turned out all men saw my vileness they would say to me It is a shame for thee to stand still while Christ kiss thee embrace thee It would seem to become me rather to run away from hi love as ashamed at my own unworthiness Nay I may think shame to take heaven who have so higly provoked my Lord Jesus But seeing Christ's love will shame me I am content to be shamed My desire is that my Lord would give me broader deeper thoughts to feed my self with wondering at his love I would I could weigh it but I have no ballance for it When I have worn my tongue to the stump in praising of Christ I have done nothing to him I must let him alone for my withered armes will not goe about his high wide long and broad love What remaineth then but that my debt to the love of Christ lie unpaid for all eternity All that are in heaven are black sham'd with his love as well as I we must all be Dyvours together the blessing of that house-full or heaven-full of Dyvours shall rest for ever upon him Off this Land Nation would come stand beside his inconceivable glorious perfections look in love wonder adore would to God I could bring in many lovers to Christ's house But this Nation hath forsaken the fountain of living waters Lord cast not water on Scotland's coal Woe woe will be to this Land because of the day of the Lord 's fierce anger that is so fast coming Grace be with you Aberd. Your affectionat Brother in our Lord Iesus S. R. To JOHN KENNEDY Bailiffe of Ayr. 46 Worthy Dear Brother GRace mercy peace be to you I long to see you in this Northerne world in paper I know it is not forgetfulness that ye write not I am every way in good case both in soul body all honour glory be to my Lord I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the unknown Son of God Either I know not what Christianity is or we have stinted a measure of so many ounce weights no more upon holiness there we are at a stay drawing our breath all our life a moderation in God's way now is much in request I profess I have never taken pains to finde out him whom my soul loveth there is a gate yet of finding out Christ that I have never lighted upon Oh if I could finde it out Alas how soon are we pleased with our own shaddow in a glass It were good to be beginning in sad earnest to finde out God to seek the right tread of Christ time custome a good opinion of our selves our good meaning our lazie desires our fair showes the world's glistering lustres these broad passements buskings of religion that bear bulk in the Kirk is that wherewith most satisfie themselves but a watered bed with tears a dry throat with praying eyes a fountain of tears for the sins of the land is rare to be found among us Oh if we could know the power of godliness This is one part of my case an other is that I like a fool once summoned Christ for unkindness complained of his sickelness unconstaney because he would have no more of my service nor preaching had casten me out of the inheritance of the Lord And I confess now this was but a bought plea I was a fool yet he hath born with me I gave him a fair advantage against me but love mercy would not let him take it
but too lazie and careless in seeking of it It is all our riches we have here glory in the bud I wish I could set out â—ree Grace I was the Law 's man under the Law under a curse but Grace brought me from under that hard Lord I rejoyce that I am Grace's Free-holder I pay tribute to none for heaven seeing my land heritage holdeth of Christ my new King Infinite wisdom hath devised this excellent way of Free-holding for sinners It is a better way to heaven then the old way that was in Adam's dayes It hath this fair advantage that no man's emptiness want layeth an inhibition upon Christ or hindereth his salvation that is far best for me but our new Land-Lord putteth the names of Dyvours Adam's forlorn Heirs beggers crooked blinde in the free charters Heaven Angels may wonder that we have gotten such a gate of sin hell Such a back-entry out of hell as Christ made brought out the captives by is more then my poor shallow thoughts can comprehend I would think sufferings glory I am sometimes not far from it if my Lord would give me a new almes of free grace I hear that the Prelats are intending banishment for me but for more grace no other hire I would make it welcome The bits of this clay-house the earth the other side of the sea are my father's If my sweet Lord Jesus would bud my sufferings with a new measure of grace I were a rich man But I have not now of a long time found such high spring-tides as formerly The sea is out the wind of his Spirit calm I cannot buy a wind or by requesting the sea cause it to flow again onely I wait on upon the banks shore-side till the Lord send a full sea that with up-sailes I may lift up Christ Yet sorrow for his absence is sweet sighes with Saw ye him whom my soul loveth have their own delights Oh that I might gather hunger against his long-looked for return Well were my soul if Christ were the element mine own element that I loved breathed in him if I could not live without him I allow not laughter upon my self when He is away yet He never leaveth the house but the leaveth drink-money behinde him a pawne that he will return Woe woe to me if he should goe away take all his flitting with him Even to dream of him is sweet To build a house of pining wishes for his return to spin out a web of sorrow care languishing sighes either dry or wet as they may be because he hath no leisure if I may spâ—aâ— so to make a visite or to see a poor friend sweetneth refreâ—heth the thoughts of the heart A mistie dew will stand for rain doe some good keep some greenness in the herbs till our Lord's clouds â—ue upon the earth send down a watering of rain Truly I think Christ's mistie dew a welcome message from heaven till my Lorâ—'s rain fall Woe woe is me for the Lord's vineyard in Scotland Howbeit the Father of the house embrace a childe feed him kiss him yet it is sorrow and sadness to the children that our poor mother hath gotten her leave that our Father hath given up house It is an unheartsom thing to see our Father mother agree so ill yet the Bastards if they be fed care not O Lord cait not water on Scotland's smoking coal It is a strange gate the saints goe to heaven our enemies often eat drink us we goe to heaven through their bellies stomacks they vomit the church of God undigested among their hands even while we are shut up in prisons by them we advance in our jâ—urney Remember my service to my Lord your kinde Son who was kinde to me in my bonds was not ashamed to own me I would be glad that Christ got the morning-service of his life now in his young years It would sute him well to give Christ his young green love Christ's stamp and seal would goe far down in a young soul If he would receive the thrust of Christ's stamp I would desire him to make search for Christ for Nobles now are but dry friends to Christ. The Grace of God our Father the goodwill of him who dwelt in the bush be with your La. Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To the Lady CARDONNESS ELDER 180. Worthy welbeloved in the Lord GRace mercy peace be to you I long to hear from you in paper that I may know how your soul prospereth My desire longing in to hear that ye walk in the truth that ye are content to follow the despised but most lovely Son of God I cannot but recommend him unto you as your husband your welbeloved your portion your comfort your joy I speak this of that lovely one because I praise commend the foord as we use to speak as I finde it He hath watered with his sweet comforts an oppressed prisoner He was alwayes kinde to my soul but never so kinde as now in my greatest extremittes I dine sup with Christ He visiteth my soul with the visitations of love in the night-watches I perswade my soul that this is the way to heaven his own Truth I now suffer for I exhort you in the name of Christ to continue in the truth which I delivered to you Make Christ sure to your soul for your day draweth nigh to an end Many slide back now who seemed to be Christ's friends prove dishonest to him But be ye faithfull to the death ye shall have the crown of life This span-length of your dayes whereof the Spirit of God speaketh Psal. 39. will within a short time come to a finger-breadth at length to nothing O how sweet comfortable shall the feast of a good conscience be to you when your eye-strings shall break your face wax pale the breath turn cold your poor soul come sighing to the windows of the house of clay of your dying body shall long to be out to have the jaylor to open the door that the prisoner may be set at liberty Ye draw nigh the water-side look your accounts Ask for your guide to take you to the other side Let not the world be your portion What have ye to doe with dead clay Ye are not a bastard but a lawfull begotten childe therefore set your heart on the inheritance Goe up before hand and see your lodging Look through all your father's rooms in heaven in your father's house are many dwelling-places Men take a sight of lands ere they buy them I know Christ hath made the bargain already But be kinde to the house ye are going to see it often Set your heart on things that are above where Christ is at the right
hay stubble But let me my very dear worthy Lord most humbly beseech you by the mercies of God by the consolations of his Spirit by the dear blood wounds of your lovely Redeemer by the salvation of your soul by your compearance before the awfull face of a sin-revenging dreadfull Judge not to set in comparison together your soul's peace Christ's love his Kingly honour now called in question with your place honour house or ease that an inch of time will make out of the way I verily beleeve Christ is now begging a testimony of you is saying And will ye also leave me It is possible the wind shall not blow so fair for you all your life for coming out appearing before others to back countenance Christ the fairest among the sons of men the Prince of the Kings of the earth Isa. 51. 7. Fear ye not the reproach of men neither be afraid of their revilings v. 8. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment the worm shall eat them like wool When the Lord shall begin he shall make an end mow down his adversaries and they shall lie before him like withered hay their bloom shaken off them Consider how many thousands in this Kingdom veshall cause to fall stumble if ye goe with them that ye shall be out of the prayers of many who doe stand before the Lord for you your house further when the time of your accounts cometh your one foot shall be within the border of eternity the eye-strings shall break the face wax pale the soul shall look out at the windows of the house of clay longing to be out ye shall finde your self arraigned before the Judge of quick dead to answer for the putting to your hand with the rest confederate against Christ to the overturning of his Ark the loosing of the pins of Christ's tabernacle in this land shall certainly sâ—e your self mired in a course of Apostasie then then a King's favour your worm-eaten honour shall be miserable comforters to you The Lord hath enlightened you with the knowledge of his will as the Lord liveth they lead you and others to a communion with great Babel the mother of fornications God said of old continueth to say the same to you Come out of her my people lest ye be partakers of her plagues will ye then goe with them set your lip to the whore 's golden cup drink of the wine of the wrath of God Almighty with them O poor hungry honour O cursed pleasures And O damnable ease bought with the loss of God! How many shall pray for you What a sweet presence shall â—…efinde of Christ under your sufferings if ye shall lay down your honour place at the feet of Christ What a fair recompence of reward I avouch before the Lord that I am now shewing you a way how the house of Craighall may stand on sure pillars If ye will set it on rotten pillars ye cruelly wrong your posterity Ye have the word of a King for an hundred fold more in this life if it be good for you for life everlasting also Make not Christ a liar in distrusting his promise Kings of clay cannot back you when ye stand before him a straw for them their hungry heaven that standeth on this side of time a fig for the dayes-smile of a woâ—m Consider who have gone before you to eternity would have given a world for a new occasion of a vouching that truth It 's true they call it not substantial and we are made a scorn to these that are at ease for suffering these things for it but it is not time to judge of our losses by the morning stay till the evening we shall count with the best of them I have found by experience since the time of my imprisonment my witness is above Christ fealing this honourable cause with another a nearer fellowship then ever I knew before and let God weigh me in an even ballance in this if I would exchange the cross of Christ or his truth with the fourteen Prelacies or what else a King can give My dear Lord venture to take the wind on your face for Christ I beleeve if he should come from heaven in his own person seek the charters of Craighall from you a dimission of your place ye saw his face ye would fall down at his feet and say Lord Iesus it is too little for â—…ee If any man think it not a truth to die for I am against him I dare goe to eternity with it that this day the honour of our royal Law-giver King in the Government of his own free Kingdom who should pay tribute to no dying King is the true state of the question My Lord be ye upon Christ's side of it take the word of a poor prisoner nay the Lord Jesus be surety for it ye have incomparably made the wisest choice for my own part I have been in this prison that I would be half a hamed to seek more till I be up at the well-head Few know in this world the sweetness of Christ's breath the excellency of his love which hath neither brim nor bottom the world hath raised a slander upon the cross of Christ because they love to goe to heaven by dry land love not sea-storms But I write it under my hand would say more if possibly a reader would not deem it hypocrisie My obligation to Christ for the smell of his garments for his love-kisses these thirty weeks standeth so great that I should I desire also to chuse to suspend my salvation to have many tongues loosed in my behalf to praise him suppose in person I never entered within the gates of the new â—erusalem yet sobeing Christ may be set on high I had the liberty to cast my love praises for ever over the wall to Christ I would be silent content But O he is more then my narrow praises O time time flee swiftly that our communion with Jesus may be perfected I wish your Lo would urge Mr L. to give his minde in the Ceremonies be pleased to let me sâ—e it as quickly as can be it shall be answered To his rich grace I recommend your Lo shall remain Aberd. Juny 8. 1637. Yours at all respective obedience in Christ S. R. To the Lady CULROSS 211 MADAM YOur letter came in due time to me now a prisoner of Christ in bonds for the Gospel I am sentenced with deprivation confinement within the town of Aberdeen but Oh my guiltiness the follies of my youth the neglects in my calling especially in not speaking more for the Kingdom crown scepter of my royal princely King Iesus doe so stare me in the face that I apprehend anger in that which is a crown of rejoycing to
part of payment of God's principal summe ye have to rejoyce for our Lord will not lose his earnest neither will he goe back or repent him of the bargain If ye finde at some time a longing to see God joy in the assurance of that sight howbeit that feast be but like the Passover that cometh about onely once a year peace of conscience liberty of prayer the doors of God's treasure casten up to the soul a clear sight of himself looking out saying with a smiling countenance Welcome in to me afflicted soul this is the earnest that he giveth sometimes which maketh glad the heart is an evidence that the bargain will hold But to the end ye may get this earnest it were good to come oft in terms of speech with God both in prayer hearing of the word For this is the house of wine where ye meet with your Welbeloved here it is where he kisseth you with the kisses of his mouth and where ye feel the smell of his garments and they have indeed a most fragrant glorious smell Ye must I say wait upon him be often communing with him whose lips are as lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrhe by the moving thereof he will asswage your grief for the Christ that saveth you is a speaking Christ the Church knoweth him Cant. 2. By his voice she can discern his tongue amongst a thousand I say this to the end ye should not love thâ—se dumb masks of Antichristian Ceremonies that the Church where ye are for a time hath casten over the Christ whom your soul loveth This is to set before you a dumb Christ â—ut when our Lord cometh â—e speaketh to the heart in the simplicity of the Gospel I have neither tongue nor pen to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ When ye have sold all that ye have bought the field wherein this pearl is ye will think it no bad market for if ye be in him all his is yours ye are in him therefore because he liveth ye shall live also Ioh. 14. 19. And what is that else But as if the Son had said I will not have heaven except my redeemed ones be with me they I cannot live asunder Abide in me I in you Ioh. 15. 5. O sweet communion when Christ we are through other are no longer two Father I will that these whom thou hast given me be with me where I am to behold my glory that thou hast given me Ioh. 17. 24. Amen dear Jesus let it be according to that word I wonder that ever your heart should be casten down if ye beleeve this truth they are not worthy of Jesus Christ who will not suffer forty years troubles for him since they have such glorious promises But we fools beleeve these promises as the man that read Plato's writings concerning the immortality of the soul so long as the book was in his hand he beleeved all was true that the Soul could not die but so soon as he laid by the book presently he began to imagine that the Soul is but a smoke or airy vapour that perisheth with the expiring of the breath So we at starts doe assent to the sweet precious promises but laying aside God's book we begin to call all in question It is faith indeed to beleeve without a pledge to hold the heart constant at this work when we doubt to run to the Law to the Testimony stay there Madam hold you here here is your father's Testament read it in it he hath left to you Remission of sins life everlasting If all that ye have here be crosses troubles down-castings frequent desertions departure of the Lord who is suiting you in marriage courage he who is wooer and suiter should not be an houshold-man with you till ye and He come up to his father's house together He purposeth to doe you good at your latter end Deut. 8 16. to give you rest from the dayes of adversity Psal. 94 13. It is good to bear the yoke of God in your youth Lam. 3 27. Turn in to your strong hold as a prisoner of hope Zech. 9 12. For the vision is for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak not lye though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come it will not tarry Hab 2 3. Hear himself saying Isa 26 20. Come my people rejoyce he calleth on you enter thou into thy chambers shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment till the indignation be past Beleeve then beleeve be saved think not hard â—f â—e get not your will nor your delights in this life God will have you to rejoyce in nothing but himself God forbid that ye should rejoyce in any thing but in the cross of Christ Gal 4. 16. Our Church Madam is decaying she is like Ephraim's cake gray hairs are here there upon her she knoweth it not Hos. 7 9. She is old gray haired near the grave no man taketh it to heart her wine is sowre is corrupted Now if Phinehas wife did live she might travel in birth die to see the Ark of God taken the glory departing from our Israel The power and life of religion is away Woe be to us for the day goeth away for the shadows of the evening are stretched out Ier 6 4. Madam Zion is the ship wherein ye are carried to Canaan if she suffer shâ—p-wrack ye will be casten over-board upon death life to swim to land upon broken boards It were time for us by prayer to put upon our Master-pilot Iesus to cry Master save us we perish Grace grace â—e with you We would think it a blessing to our Kirk to see you here but our sins withold good things from us The great Messenger of the covenant preserve you in body spirit Anwoth Feb. 1. 1630. Yours in the Lord S. R. To my Lady KENMURE 8 MADAM GRace mercy peace be multiplied upon you I received your La letter in the which I perceive your case in this world smelleth of a fellowship communion with the Son of God in his sufferings Ye cannot ye must not have a more pleasant or more easie condition here then he had who through afflictions was made perfect Heb. 2 10 We may indeed think Cannot God bring us to heaven with ease prosperity Who doubteth but he can But his infinite wisdom thinketh decreeth the contrary and we cannot see a reason of it yet he hath a most just reason We never with our eyes saw our own soul yet we have a soul we see many rivers but we know not their first spring original fountain yet they have a beginning Madam when ye are come to the other side of the water have set down your foot on the shore of glorious Eternity look
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
the truth is now he hath childed himself friends with me hath taken away the mask hath renewed his wounted favour in such a manner that he hath paid me my hundred-fold in this life one to the hundred This prison is my banqueting house I am handled as softly delicatly as a dâted childe I am nothing behinde I see with Christ he can in a moneth make up a yeers losses I write this to you that I may entreat nay adjure charge you by the love of our welbeloved to help me to praise to tell all your Christian acquaintance to help me for I am as deeply drowned in his debt as any Dyvour can be yet in this fair sun-blenke I have something to keep me from startling or being exalted above measure His word is a fire shut up in my bowels I am weary with forbearing the ministers in this town are saying they shall have my prison changed into less bounds because they see God with me my mother hath born me a man of contention one that striveth with the whole earth The late wrongs oppressions done to my brother keep my sails low yet I defie crosses to embarke me in such a plea against Christ as I was troubled with of late I hope to overhope overbeleeve my troubles I have cause now to trust Christ's promise more then his gloom Remember my hearty affection to your wife My soul is grieved for the success of our brethrens journey to New-England but God hath somewhat to reveal that we see not Grace be with you Pray for the prisoner Aberd. Jan. 1. 1637. Yours in his onely L. Iesus S. R. To MARGARET BALANTINE 47 MISTRESS GRace mercy peace be unto you It is more then time that I should have written to you but it is yet good time if I could help your soul to mend your pace to goe more swiftly to your heavenly countrey for truly ye have need to make all haste because the inch of your day that remaineth will quickly slip away for whether we sleep or wake our glass runneth the tide bideth no man Beware of a beguile in the matter of your salvation woe woe for evermore to them that lose that prize for what is behinde when the soul is once lost but that sinners warme their bits of clay-houses at a fire of their own kindling for a day or two which doeth rather suffocat with it's smoke then warme them at length they lie down in sorrow are clothed with everlasting shame I would seek no further measure of faith to begin withall then to beleeve really stedfastly the doctrine of God's Justice his all-devouring wrath everlasting burning where sinners are burnt soul body in a river great lake of fire brimstone Then they would wish no more goods but the thousand part of a cold fountain well to coole their tongue they would then buy death with enduring of pain torment for as many yeers as God hath created drops of rain since the creation but there is no market in buying or selling life or death there Oh alas the greatest part of this world run to the place of that torment rejoycing dancing eating drinking sleeping my counsel to you is that ye start in time to be after Christ for if ye goe quickly Christ is not far before you Ye shall overtake him O Lord God what is so needfull as this salvation salvation Fie upon this condemned foolish world that will give so little for salvation Oh if there were a free market of salvation proclaimed in that day when the trumpet of God shall awake the dead how many buyers would be then God send me no more happiness but that salvation which the blinde world to their eternall woe letteth slip through their fingers Therefore look if ye can give out your money as Isa speaketh 55 2. for bread lay Christ his blood in wodset for heaven It is a dry hungry bairn's-part of goods that Esau's are hunting for here I see thousands following the chase and in the pursuit of such things while in the mean time they lose the blessing when all is done they have caught nothing to rost for supper but lie down hungry besides they goe to their bed when they die without a candle for God saith to them Isa 50 21. This shall ye have at my haâ—d ye shall lie down in sorrow And truly this is as ill made a bed to lie upon as one could wish for he cannot sleep soundly nor rest sweetly who hath sorrow for his pillow Rouze rouze up therefore your soul spier how Christ and your soul met together I am sure they never got Christ who were not once sick at the yolk of the heart for him too too many whole souls think they have met with Christ who had never a wearied night for the want of him But alas what richer are men that they dreamed the last night they had much gold when they awoke in the morning they found it was but a dream what are all the sinners in the world in that day when heaven earth shall goe up in a flame of fire but a number of beguiled dreamers every one shall say of his hunting his conquest Behold it was a dream every man in that day will tell his dream I beseeeh you in the Lord Jesus beware beware of unsound work in the matter of your salvation ye may not ye cannot ye dow not want Christ then after this day conveen all your lovers before your soul give them their leave strike hands with Christ that there after there may be no happiness to you but Christ no hunting for any thing but Christ no bed at night when death cometh but Christ Christ Christ who but Christ. I know this much of Christ. He is not ill to befound not Lordly of his love woe had been my part of it for evermore if Christ had made a dainty of himself to me but God be thanked I gave nothing for Christ now I protest before men Angels Christ cannot be exchanged Christ cannot be sold Christ cannot be weighed Where would Angels or all the world finde a ballance to weigh him in All lovers blush when ye stand beside Christ woe upon all love but the love of Christ. Hunger hunger for evermore be upon all heavens but Christ. Shame shame for evermore be upon all glory but Christ's glory I cry death death upon all life 's but the life of Christ. O what is it that holdeth us asunder O that once we could have a fair meeting Thus recommending Christ to you and you to him for evermore I rest Grace be with you Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus S. R. To JONET KENNEDY 48 Loving Dear Sister GRace mercy and peace be unto you I received your letter I know the savour of Christ in you that the virgins love