CLXXVIII.—ToLady Culross. [Letter LXXIV.]

WORTHY AND DEAREST IN THE LORD,—I ever loved (since I knew you) that little vineyard of the Lord's planting in Galloway; but now much more, since I have heard that He who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem, hath been pleased to set up a furnace amongst you with the first in this kingdom. He who maketh old things new, seeing Scotland an old, drossy, and rusted kirk, is beginning to make a new, clean bride of her, and to bring a young, chaste wife to Himself out of the fire. This fire shall be quenched, so soon as Christ has brought a clean spouse through the fire! Therefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, fear not a worm. "Fear not, worm Jacob" (Isa. xli. 15). Christ is in that plea, and shall win the plea. Charge an unbelieving heart, under the pain of treason against our great and royal King Jesus, to dependence by faith, and quiet on-waiting on our Lord. Get you into your chambers, and shut the doors about you. In, in with speed to your stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. Ye doves, fly into Christ's windows till the indignation be over, and the storm be past. Glorify the Lord in your sufferings, and take His banner of love, and spread it over you. Others will follow you, if they see you strong in the Lord. Their courage will take life from your Christian carriage. Look up and see who is coming! Lift up your head, He is coming to save, in garments dyed in blood, and travelling in the greatness of His strength. I laugh, I smile, I leap for joy, to see Christ coming to save you so quickly. Oh, such wide steps Christ taketh! Three or four hills are but a step to Him; He skippeth over the mountains. Christ hath set a battle betwixt His poor weak saints and His enemies. He waleth the weapons for both parties, and saith to the enemies, "Take you a sword[281]of steel, law, authority, parliaments, and kings upon your side; that is your armour." AndHe saith to His saints, "I give you a feckless tree-sword in your hand, and that is suffering, receiving of strokes, spoiling of your goods; and with your tree-sword ye shall get and gain the victory." Was not Christ dragged through the ditches of deep distresses and great straits? And yet Christ, who is your Head, hath won through with His life, howbeit not with a whole skin. Ye are Christ's members, and He is drawing His members through the thorny hedge up to heaven after Him. Christ one day will not have so much as a pained toe. But there are great pieces and portions of Christ's mystical body not yet within the gates of the great high city, the New Jerusalem; and the dragon will strike at Christ, so long as there is one bit or member of Christ's body out of heaven. I tell you, Christ will make new work out of old, forcasten Scotland, and gather the old broken boards of His tabernacle, and pin them and nail them together. Our bills and supplications are up in heaven; Christ hath coffers full of them. There is mercy on the other side of this His cross; a good answer to all our bills is agreed upon.

I must tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, King Jesus hath done to my soul. Sometimes He sendeth me out a standing drink,[282]and whispereth a word through the wall; and I am well content of kindness at the second hand: His bode[283]is ever welcome to me, be what it will. But at other times He will be messenger Himself, and I get the cup of salvation out of His own hand (He drinking to me), and we cannot rest till we be in other's arms. And oh, how sweet is a fresh kiss from His holy mouth! His breathing that goeth before a kiss upon my poor soul is sweet, and hath no fault but that it is too short. I am careless, and stand not much on this, howbeit loins, and back, and shoulders, and head should rive in pieces in stepping up to my Father's house. I know that my Lord can make long, and broad, and high, and deep glory to His name, out of this bit feckless body; for Christ looketh not what stuff He maketh glory out of.

My dearly beloved, ye have often refreshed me. But this is put up in my Master's account; ye have Him debtor for me. But if ye will do anything for me (as I know ye will) now in my extremity, tell all my dear friends that a prisoner is fettered and chained in Christ's love (Lord, never loose the fetters!); and ye and they together take my heartiest commendations to my Lord Jesus, and thank Him for a poor friend.

I desire your husband to read this letter. I send him a prisoner's blessing. I will be obliged to him, if he will be willing to suffer for my dear Master. Suffering is the professor's golden garment; there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it. Ye have been witnesses of much joy betwixt Christ and me at communion feasts, the remembrance whereof (howbeit I be feasted in secret) holeth my heart; for I am put from the board-head and the King's first mess to His by-board. And His broken meat is sweet unto me; I thank my Lord for borrowed crumbs, no less than when I feasted at the communion table at Anwoth and Kirkcudbright. Pray that I may get one day of Christ in public, such as I have had long since, before my eyes be closed. Oh that my Master would take up house again, and lend me the keys of His wine-cellar again, and God send me borrowed drink till then!

Remember my love to Christ's kinsmen with you. I pray for Christ's Father's blessing to them all. Grace be with you; a prisoner's blessing be with you. I write it and abide by it, God will be glorious in Marion M'Naught, when this stormy blast shall be over. O woman beloved of God, believe, rejoice, be strong in the Lord! Grace is thy portion.

Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen,June 15, 1637.

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I dare not say that I wonder that ye have never written to me in my bonds, because I am not ignorant of the cause; yet I could not but write to you.

I know not whether joy or heaviness in my soul carrieth it away. Sorrow, without any mixture of sweetness, hath not often love-thoughts of Christ; but I see that the devil can insinuate himself, and ride his errands upon the thoughts of a poor distressed prisoner. I am woe[284]that I am making Christ my unfriend, by seeking pleas against Him, because I am the first in the kingdom put to utter silence, and because I cannot preach my Lord's righteousness in the great congregation. I am, notwithstanding,the less solicitous how it go, if there be not wrath in my cup. But I know that I but claw my wounds when my Physician hath forbidden me. I would believe in the dark upon luck's head, and take my hazard of Christ's good-will, and rest on this, that in my fever my Physician is at my bedside, and that He sympathizeth with me when I sigh. My borrowed house, and another man's bed and fireside, and other losses, have no room in my sorrow; a greater heat to eat out a less fire, is a good remedy for some burning. I believe that when Christ draweth blood, He hath skill to cut the right vein; and that He hath taken the whole ordering and disposing of my sufferings. Let Him tutor me, and tutor my crosses, as He thinketh good. There is no danger nor hazard in following such a guide, howbeit He should lead me through hell, if I could put faith foremost, and fill the field with a quiet on-waiting, and believing to see the salvation of God. I know that Christ is not obliged to let me see both the sides of my cross, and turn it over and over that I may see all. My faith is richer to live upon credit, and Christ's borrowed money, than to have much on hand. Alas! I have forgotten that faith in times past hath stopped a leak in my crazed bark, and half filled my sails with a fair wind. I see it a work of God that experiences are all lost, when summons of improbation, to prove our charters of Christ to be counterfeits, are raised against poor souls in their heavy trials.

But let me be a sinner, and worse than the chief of sinners, yea, a guilty devil, I am sure that my Well-beloved is God. And when I say that Christ is God, and that my Christ is God, I have said all things, I can say no more. I would that I could build as much on this, "My Christ is God," as it would bear. I might lay all the world upon it. I am sure, that Christ untried, and untaken-up in the power of His love, kindness, mercies, goodness, wisdom, long-suffering, and greatness, is the rock that dim-sighted travellers dash their foot against, and so stumble fearfully. But my wounds are sorest, and pain me most, when I sin against His love and mercy. And if He would set me and my conscience by the ears together, and resolve not to red the plea, but let us deal it betwixt us, my spitting upon the fair face of Christ's love and mercies by my jealousies, unbelief, and doubting, would be enough to sink me. Oh, oh, I am convinced! O Lord, I stand dumb before Thee for this! Let me be mine own judge in this, and I take a dreadful doom upon me for it. For I still misbelieve, though I have seen that my Lord hath mademy cross as if it were all crystal, so as I can see through it Christ's fair face and heaven; and that God hath honoured a lump of sinful flesh and blood the like of me, to be Christ's honourable lord-prisoner. I ought to esteem the walls of the thieves' hole (if I were shut up in it), or any stinking dungeon, all hung with tapestry, and most beautiful, for my Lord Jesus; and yet, I am not so shut up but that the sun shineth upon my prison, and the fair wide heaven is the covering of it. But my Lord, in His sweet visits, hath done more; for He maketh me to find that He will be a confined prisoner with me. He lieth down and riseth up with me; when I sigh, He sigheth; when I weep, He suffereth with me; and I confess that here is the blessed issue of my sufferings already begun, that my heart is filled with hunger and desire to have Him glorified in my sufferings.

Blessed be ye of the Lord, Madam, if ye would help a poor dyvour, and cause others of your acquaintance in Christ to help me to pay my debt of love, even real praises to Christ my Lord. Madam, let me charge you in the Lord, as ye shall answer to Him, to help me in this duty (which He hath tied about my neck with a chain of such singular expressions of His loving-kindness), to set on high Christ; to hold in my honesty at His hands[285]; for I have nothing to give to Him. Oh that He would arrest and comprise my love and my heart for all! I am a dyvour, who have no more free goods in the world for Christ save that; it is both the whole heritage I have, and all my moveables besides. Lord, give the thirsty man a drink. Oh, to be over the ears in the well! Oh, to be swattering and swimming over head and ears in Christ's love! I would not have Christ's love entering into me, but I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of that love. But I see not myself here; for I fear I make more of His love than of Himself; whereas Himself is far beyond and much better than His love. Oh, if I had my sinful arms filled with that lovely one Christ! Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, who sendeth not away beggars from His house with a toom dish. He filleth the vessels of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich (if we were wise) if we could hold out our withered hands to Christ, and learn to suit and seek, ask and knock. I owe my salvation for Christ's glory, I owe it to Christ; and desire that my hell, yea, a new hell, seven times hotter than the old hell, might buy praises before men and angels to myLord Jesus; providing always that I were free of Christ's hatred and displeasure. What am I, to be forfeited and sold in soul and body, to have my great and royal King set on high and extolled above all? Oh, if I knew how high to have Him set, and all the world far, far beneath the soles of His feet? Nay, I deserve not to be the matter of His praises, far less to be an agent in praising of Him. But He can win His own glory out of me, and out of worse than I (if any such be), if it please His holy majesty so to do. He knoweth that I am not now flattering Him.

Madam, let me have your prayers, as ye have the prayers and blessing of him that is separated from his brethren. Grace, grace be with you.

Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen,June 15, 1637.

[Mr. John Nevay, orNeave, was minister of Newmills, in the parish of Loudon, and chaplain to the Earl of Loudon. In all the questions which divided the Covenanters in his day, he adhered to what may be called the strict party, being opposed to the Public Resolutions. After the restoration of Charles II., Nevay, in 1662, was obliged to subscribe an engagement to remove forth of the king's dominions before the 1st of February, and not to return under pain of death. He reached Holland, and lived for some time in Rotterdam. On the 26th of July 1670, a letter of Charles II. was laid before the assembled States of Holland, accusing Nevay and other two ministers, Mr. Robert Trail and Mr. Robert M'Ward (who was secretary to Rutherford at the Westminster Assembly, and who first edited his "Letters"), all residing within the jurisdiction of the States, of writing and publishingpasquilsagainst his Majesty's Government. However, it would appear that he still continued at Rotterdam, and died there. Wodrow describes him as "a person of very considerable parts, and bright piety." Robert M'Ward, in 1677, thus writes: "Oh! when I remember that burning and shining light, worthy and warm Mr. Livingstone, who used to preach as within the sight of Christ, and the glory to be revealed;acute and distinct Nevay; judicious and neat Simson; fervent, serious, and zealous Trail;—when I remember, I say, that all these great luminaries are now set and removed by death from our people, and out of our pulpit, in so short a time, what matter of sorrow presents itself to my eye!" Nevay cultivated the art of poetry, and is the author of a paraphrase (called by Wodrow "a handsome paraphrase") of the Song of Solomon in Latin verse. The General Assembly entertained so high an opinion of his poetical talents, that they appointed him, in August 1647, along with three other ministers, to revise Rons' metrical version of the Psalms. The portion assigned to him for revisal was the last thirty psalms of that version. After his death, a volume of sermons, preached by him on "the Covenant of Grace," was published at Glasgow in 1748, 12mo. His son married Sarah Van Brakel, whose poetical compositions are favourably exhibited in her elegy upon a popular preacher, and who was a kind friend to the British refugees.]

REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I received yours of April 11, as I did another of March 25, and a letter for Mr. Andrew Cant.[286]

I am not a little grieved that our mother church is running so quickly to the brothel-house, and that we are hiring lovers, and giving gifts to the Great Mother of Fornications (Rev. xvii. 5). Alas, that our Husband is like to quit 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, and keep Him in this land; for I know Him to be a sweet second,[287]and a lovely companion to a poor prisoner.

I find that my extremity hath sharpened the edge of His love and kindness, so that He seemeth to divise new ways of expressing the sweetness of His love to my soul. Suffering for Christ is the very element wherein Christ's love liveth, and exerciseth itself, in casting out flames of fire, and sparks of heat, to warm such a frozen heart as I have. And if Christ weeping in sackcloth be so sweet, I cannot find any imaginable thoughts to think what He will be, when we clay-bodies (having put off mortality) shall come up to the marriage-hall and great palace, and behold the King clothed in his robes royal, 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, and liberty now and 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, and of all the most delightful pleasures on earth, and forfeit my part of this clay god, this earth, which Adam's foolish children worship,to have no other exercise than to lie on a love-bed with Christ, and fill this hungered and famished soul with kissing, embracing, and real enjoying of the Son of God; and I think that then I might write to my friends, that I had found the Golden World, and look out and laugh at the poor bodies who are slaying one another for feathers. For verily, brother, since I came to this prison, I have conceived a new and extraordinary opinion of Christ which I had not before. For, I perceive, we frist all our joys to Christ till He and we be in our own house above, as married parties, thinking that there is nothing of it here to be sought or found, but only hope and fair promises; and that Christ will give us nothing here but tears, sadness, and crosses; and that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers of that high garden of paradise above, till we come there. Nay, but I find that it is possible to find young glory, and a young green paradise of joy, even here. I know that Christ's kisses will cast a more strong and refreshful smell of incomparable glory and joy in heaven than they do here; because a drink of the well of life, up at the well's head, is more sweet and fresh by far than that which we get in our borrowed, old, running-out vessels, and our wooden dishes here. Yet I am now persuaded it is our folly to frist all till the term-day, seeing abundance of earnest will not diminish anything of our principal sum. We dream of hunger in Christ's house while we are here, although He alloweth feasts to all the bairns within God's household. It were good, then, to store ourselves with more borrowed kisses of Christ, and with more borrowed visits, till we enter heirs to our new inheritance, and our Tutor put us in possession of our own when we are past minority. Oh that all the young heirs would seek more, and a greater, and a nearer communion with my Lord Tutor, the prime heir of all, Christ! I wish that, for my part, I could send you, and that gentleman who wrote his commendations to me, into the King's innermost cellar and house of wine, to be filled with love. A drink of this love is worth the having indeed. We carry ourselves but too nicely with Christ our Lord; and our Lord loveth not niceness, and dryness, and unconess in friends. Since needforce that we must be in Christ's common, then let us be in His common; for it will be no otherwise.

Now, for my present case in my imprisonment: deliverance (for any appearance that I see) looketh cold-like. My hope, if it looked to or leaned upon men, would wither soon at the root, like a May flower. Yet I resolve to ease myself with on-waitingon my Lord, and to let my faith swim where it loseth ground. I am under a necessity either of fainting (which I hope my Master, of whom I boast all the day, will avert), or then to lay my faith upon Omnipotency, and to wink and stick by my grip. And I hope that my ship shall ride it out, seeing Christ is willing to blow His sweet wind in my sails, and mendeth and closeth the leaks in my ship, and ruleth all. It will be strange if a believing passenger be casten overboard.

As for your master, my lord and my lady,[288]I shall be loath to forget them. I think my prayers (such as they are) are debt due to him; and I shall be far more engaged to his Lordship, if he be fast for Christ (as I hope he will) now when so many of his coat and quality slip from Christ's back, and leave Him to fend for Himself.

I entreat you to remember my love to that worthy gentleman, A. C., who saluted me in your letter: I have heard that he is one of my Master's friends, for the which cause I am tied to him. I wish that he may more and more fall in love with Christ.

Now for your question:—As far as I rawly conceive, I think that God is praised two ways:1st. By aconcional[289]profession of His highness before men, such as is the very hearing of the word, and receiving of either of the sacraments; in which acts by profession, we give out to men, that He is our God with whom we are in covenant, and our Lawgiver. Thus eating and drinking in the Lord's Supper, is an annunciation and profession before men, that Christ is our slain Redeemer. Here, because God speaketh to us, not we to Him, it is not a formal thanksgiving, but an annunciation or predication of Christ's death—concional, notadorative—neither hath it God for the immediate object, and therefore no kneeling can be here.

2ndly.There is another praising of God,formal, when we are either formally blessing God, or speaking His praises. And this I take to be twofold:—1. When we directly and formally direct praises and thanksgiving to God. This may well be done kneeling, in token of our recognizance of His Highness; yet not so but that it may be done standing or sitting, especially seeing joyful elevation (which should be in praising) is not formally signified by kneeling. 2. When we speak good of God, anddeclare His glorious nature and attributes, extolling Him before men, to excite men to conceive highly of Him. The former I hold to be worship every way immediate, else I know not any immediate worship at all; the latter hath God for the subject, not properly the object, seeing the predication is directed to men immediately, rather than to God; for here we speakofGod by way of praising, rather thantoGod. And, for my own part, as I am for the present minded, I see not how this can be done kneeling, seeing it isprædicatio Dei et Christi, non laudatio aut benedictio Dei. [A preaching of God and Christ, and not a praising or blessing of God.] But observe, that it is formal praising of God, and not merely concional, as I distinguished in the first member; for, in the first member, any speaking of God, or of His works of creation, providence, and redemption, is indirect and concional praising of Him, and formally preaching, or an act of teaching, not an act of predication of His praises. For there is a difference betwixt the simple relation of the virtues of a thing (which is formally teaching), and the extolling of the worth of a thing by way of commendation, to cause others to praise with us.

Thus recommending you to God's grace,[290]I rest, yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen,June 15, 1637.

MUCH HONOURED AND DEAREST IN MY LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. My soul longeth exceedingly to hear how matters go betwixt you and Christ; and whether or not there be any work of Christ in that parish, that will bide the trial of fire and water. Let me be weighed of my Lord in a just balance, if your souls lie not weighty upon me. Ye go to bed and ye rise with me: thoughts of your soul, my dearest in our Lord, depart not from me in my sleep. Ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, supplications, and prayers. Oh, if I could buy your soul's salvation with any suffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall stand before our Judge! Oh, my Lord, forbid that I have any hard thing todepone against you in that day! Oh that He who quickeneth the dead would give life to my sowing among you! What joy is there (next to Christ) that standeth on this side of death, which would comfort me more, than that the souls of that poor people were in safety, and beyond all hazard of being lost!

Sir, show the people this; for when I write to you, I think I write to you all, old and young. Fulfil my joy, and seek the Lord. Sure I am, that once I discovered my lovely, royal, princely Lord Jesus to you all. Woe, woe, woe shall be your part of it for evermore, if the Gospel be not the savour of life to you. As many sermons as I preached, as many sentences as I uttered, as many points of dittay shall there be, when the Lord shall plead with the world, for the evil of their doings. Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won. "The righteous shall scarcely be saved." Oh, what violence of thronging will heaven take! Alas! I see many deceiving themselves; for we will[291]all to heaven now! Every foul dog, with his foul feet, will in at the nearest, to the new and clean Jerusalem. All say they have faith; and the greatest part in the world know not, and will not consider, that a slip in the matter of their salvation is the most pitiable slip that can be; and that no loss is comparable to this loss. Oh, then, see that there be not a loose pin in the work of your salvation; for ye will not believe how quickly the Judge will come. And for yourself, I know that death is waiting, and hovering, and lingering at God's command. That ye may be prepared, then, ye had need to stir your time, and to take eternity and death to your riper advisement. A wrong step, or a wrong stot, in going out of this life, in one property is like the sin against the Holy Ghost, and can never be forgiven, because ye cannot come back again through the last water to mourn for it. I know your accounts are many, and will take telling and laying, and reckoning betwixt you and your Lord. Fit your accounts, and order them. Lose not the last play, whatever ye do, for in that play with death your precious soul is the prize: for the Lord's sake spill not the play, and lose not such a treasure. Ye know that, out of love which I had to your soul, and out of desire which I had to make an honest account of you, I testified my displeasure and disliking of your ways very often, both in private and public. I am not now a witness of your doings, but your Judge is always your witness. I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the salvation of your soul, by your comfort whenyour eye-strings shall break, and the face wax pale, and the soul shall tremble to be out of the lodging of clay, and by your compearance before your awful Judge, after the sight of this letter to take a new course with your ways, and now, in the end of your day, make sure of heaven. Examine yourself if ye be in good earnest in Christ; for some are partakers of the Holy Ghost, and taste of the good word of God, and of the powers of the life to come, and yet have no part in Christ at all. Many think they believe, but never tremble: the devils are farther on than these (James ii. 19). Make sure to yourself that ye are above ordinary professors. The sixth part of your span-length and hand-breadth of days is scarcely before you. Haste, haste, for the tide will not bide. Put Christ upon all your accounts and your secrets. Better it is that you give Him your accounts in this life, out of your own hand, than that, after this life, He take them from you. I never knew so well what sin was as since I came to Aberdeen, howbeit I was preaching of it to you. To feel the smoke of hell's fire in the throat for half an hour; to stand beside a river of fire and brimstone broader than the earth; and to think to be bound hand and foot, and casten into the midst of it quick, and then to have God locking the prison door, never to be opened for all eternity! Oh how it will shake a conscience that hath any life in it! I find the fruits of my pains to have Christ and that people once fairly met, now meet my soul in my sad hours. And I rejoice that I gave fair warning of all the corruptions now entering into Christ's house; and now many a sweet, sweet, soft kiss, many perfumed, well-smelled kisses, and embracements have I received of my royal Master. He and I have had much love together. I have for the present a sick dwining life, with much pain, and much love-sickness for Christ. Oh, what would I give to have a bed made to my wearied soul in His bosom! I would frist heaven for many years, to have my fill of Jesus in this life, and to have occasion to offer Christ to my people, and to woo many people to Christ. I cannot tell you what sweet pain and delightsome torments are in Christ's love; I often challenge time, that holdeth us sundry. I profess to you, I have no rest, I have no ease, whill I be over head and ears in love's ocean. If Christ's love (that fountain of delight) were laid as open to me as I would wish, oh, how I would drink, and drink abundantly! oh, how drunken would this my soul be! I half call His absence cruel; and the mask and vail on Christ's face a cruel covering, that hideth such a fair,fair face from a sick soul. I dare not challenge Himself, but His absence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart. Oh, when shall we meet? Oh, how long it is to the dawning of the marriage-day! O sweet Lord Jesus, take wide steps! O my Lord, come over mountains at one stride! O my Beloved, be like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Separation (Song ii. 17). Oh, if He would fold the heavens together like an old cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her Husband! Since He looked upon me, my heart is not mine own; He hath run away to heaven with it. I know that it was not for nothing that I spake so meikle good of Christ to you in public. Oh, if the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude of mountains pens of brass, and I able to write that paper, within and without, full of the praises of my fairest, my dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, and my most marrowless and marvellous Well-beloved! Woe is me, I cannot set Him out to men and angels! Oh, there are few tongues to sing love-songs of His incomparable excellence! What can I, poor prisoner, do to exalt Him? or what course can I take to extol my lofty and lovely Lord Jesus? I am put to my wits' end, how to get His name made great. Blessed they who would help me in this! How sweet are Christ's back parts? Oh, what then is His face? Those that see His face, how dow they get their eye plucked off Him again! Look up to Him and love Him. Oh, love and live! It were life to me if you would read this letter to that people, and if they did profit by it. Oh, if I could cause them to die of love for Jesus! Charge them, by the salvation of their souls, to hang about Christ's neck, and take their fill of His love, and follow Him as I taught them. Part by no means with Christ. Hold fast what ye have received. Keep the truth once delivered. If ye or that people quit it in an hair, or in a hoof, ye break your conscience in twain; and who then can mend it, and cast a knot on it? My dearest in the Lord, stand fast in Christ; keep the faith; contend for Christ. Wrestle for Him, and take men's feud for God's favour; there is no comparison betwixt these. Oh that the Lord would fulfil my joy, and keep the young bride that is at Anwoth to Christ!

And now, whoever they be that have returned to the old vomit since my departure, I bind upon their back, in my Master's name and authority, the long-lasting, weighty vengeance and curse of God. In my Lord's name I give them a doom of black,unmixed, pure wrath, which my Master will ratify and make good, when we stand together before Him, except they timeously repent and turn to the Lord. And I write to thee, poor mourning and broken-hearted believer, be thou who thou wilt, of the free salvation, Christ's sweet balm for thy wounds, O poor, humble believer! Christ's kisses for thy watery cheeks! Christ's blood of atonement for thy guilty soul! Christ's heaven for thy poor soul, though once banished out of paradise! And my Master will make good my word ere long. Oh that people were wise! Oh that people were wise! Oh that people would speer out Christ, and never rest whill they find Him. Oh, how my soul will mourn in secret, if my nine years' pained head, and sore breast, and pained back, and grieved heart, and private and public prayers to God, will all be for nothing among that people! Did my Lord Jesus send me but to summon you before your Judge, and to leave your summons at your houses? Was I sent as a witness only to gather your dittays? Oh, may God forbid! Often did I tell you of a fan of God's word[292]to come among you, for the contempt of it. I told you often of wrath, wrath from the Lord, to come upon Scotland; and yet I bide by my Master's word. It is quickly coming! desolation for Scotland, because of the quarrel of a broken covenant.

Now, worthy Sir, now my dear people, my joy, and my crown in the Lord, let Him be your fear. Seek the Lord, and His face: save your souls. Doves! flee to Christ's windows. Pray for me, and praise for me. The blessing of my God, the prayers and blessing of a poor prisoner, and your lawful pastor, be upon you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

Aberdeen,June 16, 1637.

MUCH HONOURED AND WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing.

I must first tell you, that there is not such a glassy, icy, and slippery piece of way betwixt you and heaven, as Youth;and I have experience to say with me here, and to seal what I assert. The old ashes of the sins of my youth are new fire of sorrow to me. I have seen the devil, as it were, dead and buried, and yet rise again, and be a worse devil than ever he was; therefore, my brother, beware of a green young devil, that hath never been buried. The devil in his flowers (I mean the hot, fiery lusts and passions of youth) is much to be feared: better yoke with an old grey-haired, withered, dry devil. For in youth he findeth dry sticks, and dry coals, and a hot hearth-stone; and how soon can he with his flint cast fire, and with his bellows blow it up, and fire the house! Sanctified thoughts, thoughts made conscience of, and called in, and kept in awe, are green fuel that burn not, and are a water for Satan's coal. Yet I must tell you, that the whole saints now triumphant in heaven, and standing before the throne, are nothing but Christ's forlorn and beggarly dyvours. What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners? But their redemption is not only past the seals, but completed; and yours is on the wheels, and in doing.

All Christ's good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow, and with a crooked leg. Christ hath an advantage of you, and I pray you to let Him have it; He will find employment for His calling in you. If it were not with you as ye write, grace should find no sale nor market in you; but ye must be content to give Christ somewhat to do. I am glad that He is employed that way. Let your bleeding soul and your sores be put in the hand of this expert Physician; let young and strong corruptions and His free grace be yoked together, and let Christ and your sins deal it betwixt them. I shall be loath to put you off your fears, and your sense of deadness: I wish it were more. There be some wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should not be soon stopped. Ye must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first sick man whom He put away uncured, and worse than He found you. Nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free with sinners. "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out" (John vi. 37). Take ye that. It cannot be presumption to take that as your own, when you find that your wounds stound you. Presumption is ever whole at the heart, and hath but the truant sickness, and groaneth only for the fashion. Faith hath sense of sickness, and looketh, like a friend, to the promises; and, looking to Christ therein, is glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast as ye can have to hunger. Nay, Christ, I say, is not a full man'sleavings. His mercy sendeth always a letter of defiance to all your sins, if there were ten thousand more of them.

I grant you that it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man to win his meat upon hidden Christ: for then the key of His pantry-door, and of the house of wine, is a-seeking and cannot be had. But hunger must break through iron locks. I bemoan them not who can make a din, and all the fields ado, for a lost Saviour. Ye must let Him hear it (to say so) upon both sides of His head, when He hideth Himself; it is no time then to be bird-mouthed and patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a delicacy to a sinner. He is a miracle, and a world's wonder, to a seeking and a weeping sinner; but yet such a miracle as shall be seen by them who will come and see. The seeker and sigher, is at last a singer and enjoyer; nay, I have seen a dumb man get alms from Christ. He that can tell his tale, and send such a letter to heaven as he hath sent to Aberdeen, it is very like he will come speed with Christ. It bodeth God's mercy to complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling be with Christ till He say, "How is it, sir, that I cannot be quit of your bills, and your misleared cries?" and then hope for Christ's blessing; and His blessing is better than ten other blessings. Think not shame because of your guiltiness; necessity must not blush to beg. It standeth you hard to want Christ; and, therefore, that which idle on-waiting cannot do, misnurtured crying and knocking will do.

And for doubtings, because you are not as you were long since with your Master: consider three things.1st, What if Christ had such tottering thoughts of the bargain of the new covenant betwixt you and Him, as you have?2ndly, Your heart is not the compass which Christ saileth by. He will give you leave to sing as you please, but He will not dance to your daft spring. It is not referred to you and your thoughts, what Christ will do with the charters betwixt you and Him. Your own misbelief hath torn them; but He hath the principal in heaven with Himself. Your thoughts are no parts of the new covenant; dreams change not Christ.3rdly, Doubtings are your sins; but they are Christ's drugs, and ingredients that the Physician maketh use of for the curing of your pride. Is it not suitable for a beggar to say at meat, "God reward the winners"?[293]for then he saith that he knoweth who beareth the charges of the house. It is also meet that ye should know, by experience, that faith is not nature's ill-gotten bastard, but your Lord's free gift,that lay in the womb of God's free grace. Praised be the Winner! I may add a4thly, In the passing of your bill and your charters, when they went through the Mediator's great seal, and were concluded, faith's advice was not sought. Faith hath not a vote beside Christ's merits: blood, blood, dear blood, that came from your Cautioner's holy body, maketh that sure work. The use, then, which ye have of faith now (having already closed with Jesus Christ for justification) is, to take out a copy of your pardon; and so ye have peace with God upon the account of Christ. For, since faith apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it, no marvel that salvation doth not die and live, ebb or flow, with the working of faith. But because it is your Lord's honour to believe His mercy and His fidelity, it is infinite goodness in our Lord, that misbelief giveth a dash to our Lord's glory, and not to our salvation. And so, whoever want (yea, howbeit God here bear with the want of what we are obliged to give Him, even the glory of His grace by believing), yet a poor covenanted sinner wanteth not. But if guiltiness were removed, doubtings would find no friend, nor life; and yet faith is to believe the removal of guiltiness in Christ. A reason why ye get less now (as ye think) than before, as I take it, is, because, at our first conversion, our Lord putteth the meat in young bairns' mouths with His own hand; but when we grow to some further perfection, we must take heaven by violence, and take by violence from Christ what we get. And He can, and doth hold, because He will have us to draw. Remember now that ye must live upon violent plucking. Laziness is a greater fault now than long since. We love always to have the pap put in our mouth.

Now for myself; alas! I am not the man I go for in this nation; men have not just weights to weigh me in. Oh, but I am a silly, feckless body, and overgrown with weeds; corruption is rank and fat in me. Oh, if I were answerable to this holy cause, and to that honourable Prince's love for whom I now suffer! If Christ should refer the matter to me (in His presence I speak it), I might think shame to vote my own salvation. I think Christ might say, "Thinkest thou not shame to claim heaven, who doest so little for it?" I am very often so, that I know not whether I sink or swim in the water. I find myself a bag of light froth. I would bear no weight (but vanities and nothings weigh in Christ's balance) if my Lord cast not in borrowed weight and metal, even Christ's righteousness, to weigh for me. The stock I have is not mine own; I am but themerchant that trafficketh with other folks' goods. If my creditor, Christ, should take from me what He hath lent, I should not long keep the causeway; but Christ hath made it mine and His. I think it manhood to play the coward, and jouk in the lee-side of Christ; and thus I am not only saved from my enemies, but I obtain the victory. I am so empty, that I think it were an alms-deed in Christ, if He would win a poor prisoner's blessing for evermore, and fill me with His love. I complain that when Christ cometh, He cometh always to fetch fire; He is ever in haste, He may not tarry; and poor I (a beggarly dyvour) get but a standing visit and a standing kiss, and but, "How doest thou?" in the by-going. I dare not say He is lordly, because He is made a King now at the right hand of God; or is grown miskenning and dry to His poor friends: for He cannot make more of His kisses than they are worth. But I think it my happiness to love the love of Christ: and when He goeth away, the memory of His sweet presence is like a feast in a dear summer. I have comfort in this, that my soul desireth that every hour of my imprisonment were a company of heavenly tongues to praise Him on my behalf, howbeit my bonds were prolonged for many hundred years. Oh that I could be the man who could procure my Lord's glory to flow like a full sea, and blow like a mighty wind upon all the four airths of Scotland, England, and Ireland! Oh, if I could write a book of His praises! O Fairest among the sons of men, why stayest Thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage-day! for love is tormented with delays. O angels, O seraphims, who stand before Him, O blessed spirits who now see His face, set Him on high! for when ye have worn your harps in His praises, all is too little, and is nothing, to cast the smell of the praise of that fair Flower, the fragrant Rose of Sharon, through many worlds!

Sir, take my hearty commendations to Him, and tell Him that I am sick of love.

Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen,June 16, 1637.

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