LXXVIII.—To myLord Boyd.

MADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. The Lord hath brought me to Aberdeen, where I see God in few. This town hath been advised upon of purpose for me; it consisteth either of Papists, or men of Gallio's naughty faith. It is counted wisdom, in the most, not to countenance a confined minister; but I find Christ neither strange nor unkind; for I have found many faces smile upon me since I came hither. I am heavy and sad, considering what is betwixt the Lord and my soul, which none seeth but He. I find men have mistaken me; it would be no art (as I now see) to spin small,[171]and make hypocrisy a goodly web, and to go through the market as a saint among men, and yet steal quietly to hell, without observation: so easy is it to deceive men. I have disputed whether or no I ever knew anything of Christianity, save the letters of that name. Men see but as men, and they call ten twenty, and twenty an hundred; but O! to be approved of God in the heart and in sincerity is not an ordinary mercy. My neglects while I had a pulpit, and other things whereof I am ashamed to speak, meet me now, so as God maketh an honest cross my daily sorrow. And, for fear of scandal and stumbling, I must bide this day of the law's pleading: I know not if this court kept within my soul be fenced in Christ's name. If certainty of salvation were to be bought, God knoweth, if I had ten earths, I would not prig with God. Like a fool, I believed, under suffering for Christ, that I myselfshould keep the key of Christ's treasures, and take out comforts when I listed, and eat and be fat: but I see now a sufferer for Christ will be made to know himself, and will be holden at the door as well as another poor sinner, and will be fain to eat with the bairns, and to take the by-board, and glad to do so. My blessing on the cross of Christ that hath made me see this! Oh! if we could take pains for the kingdom of heaven! But we sit down upon some ordinary marks of God's children, thinking we have as much as will separate us from a reprobate; and thereupon we take the play and cry, "Holiday!" and thus the devil casteth water on our fire, and blunteth our zeal and care. But I see heaven is not at the door; and I see, howbeit my challenges be many, I suffer for Christ, and dare hazard my salvation upon it; for sometimes my Lord cometh with a fair hour, and O! but His love be sweet, delightful, and comfortable. Half a kiss is sweet; but our doting love will not be content with a right to Christ, unless we get possession; like the man who will not be content with rights to bought land, except he get also the ridges and acres laid upon his back to carry home with him! However it be, Christ is wise; and we are fools, to be browden and fond of a pawn in the loof of our hand. Living on trust by faith may well content us. Madam, I know your Ladyship knoweth this, and that made me bold to write of it, that others might reap somewhat by my bonds for the truth; for I should desire, and I aim at this, to have my Lord well spoken of and honoured, howbeit He should make nothing of me but a bridge over a water. Thus, recommending your Ladyship, your son, and children to His grace, who hath honoured you with a name and room among the living in Jerusalem, and wishing grace to be with your Ladyship, I rest,

Your Ladyship's in his sweetest Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen.

[Robert, seventhLord Boyd, was the only son of Robert, sixth Lord Boyd, by Lady Christian Hamilton, mentioned in the preceding letter. His father (who was cousin of the famous Robert Boyd of Trochrig, two miles from Girvan, and under whom he studied at Saumur) died in August 1628, at the early age of 33. Young Robert was served heir to his father the 9th of May 1629. His earthly course was, however, brief; for he died of a fever on the 17th of November 1640, aged about 24. He was married to Lady Anne Fleming, second daughter of John, second Earl of Wigtown. Lord Boyd warmly espoused the side of the Covenanters; and though not a member of the General Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638, he attended its meetings and took a deep interest in its proceedings.]

MY VERY HONOURABLE AND GOOD LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Lordship. Out of the worthy report that I hear of your Lordship's zeal for this borne-down and oppressed Gospel, I am bold to write to your Lordship, beseeching you by the mercies of God, by the honour of our royal and princely King Jesus, by the sorrows, tears, and desolation of your afflicted mother-Church, and by the peace of your conscience, and your joy in the day of Christ, that your Lordship would go on, in the strength of your Lord, and in the power of His might, to bestir yourself, for the vindicating of the fallen honour of your Lord Jesus. Oh, blessed hands for evermore, that shall help to put the crown upon the head of Christ again in Scotland! I dare promise, in the name of our Lord, that this will fasten and fix the pillars and the stakes of your honourable house upon earth, if you lend and lay in pledge in Christ's hand, upon spiritual hazard, life, estate, house, honour, credit, moyen, friends, the favour of men (suppose kings with three crowns), so being that ye may bear witness, and acquit yourself as a man of valour and courage to the Prince of your salvation, for the purging of His temple, and sweeping out the lordly Diotrepheses, time-courting Demases, corrupt Hymenæuses and Philetuses, and other such oxen, that with their dung defile the temple of the Lord. Is not Christ now crying, "Who will help Me? who will come out with Me, to take part with Me, and share in the honour of My victory over these Mine enemies, who have said, We will not have this man to rule over us?"

My very honourable and dear Lord, join, join (as ye do) with Christ. He is more worth to you and your posterity than this world's May-flowers, and withering riches and honour, that shall go away as smoke, and evanish in a night vision, and shall, in one half-hour after the blast of the archangel's trumpet, lie in white ashes. Let me beseech your Lordship to draw by the lap of time's curtain, and to look in through the window to great and endless eternity, and consider if a worldly price (suppose this little round clay globe of this ashy and dirty earth, the dying idol of the fools of this world, were all your own) can be given for one smile of Christ's God-like and soul-ravishing countenance. In that day when so many joints and knees of thousand thousandswailing shall stand before Christ, trembling, shouting, and making their prayers to hills and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb, oh, how many would sell lordships and kingdoms that day, and buy Christ! But, oh, the market shall be closed and ended ere then! Your Lordship hath now a blessed venture of winning court with the Prince of the kings of the earth. He Himself weeping; truth borne down and fallen in the streets, and an oppressed Gospel; Christ's bride with watery eyes and spoiled of her veil, her hair hanging about her eyes, forced to go in ragged apparel; the banished, alienated, and imprisoned prophets of God, who have not the favour of liberty to prophesy in sackcloth, all these, I say, call for your help. Fear not worms of clay; the moth shall eat them as a garment. Let the Lord be your fear; He is with you, and shall fight for you; and ye shall make the heart of this your mother-Church to sing for joy. The Lamb and His armies are with you, and the kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's. I am persuaded that there is not another gospel, nor another saving truth, than that which ye now contend for. I dare hazard my heaven and salvation upon it, that this is the only saving way to glory.

Grace, grace, be with your Lordship.Your Lordship's at all respectful obedience in Christ,

S. R.

Aberdeen, 1637.

[This name is not found among the people of the parish of Anwoth. Like John Laurie, Letter CLXXV., she may have been some one at a distance.]

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—It is more than time that I should have written to you; but it is yet good time, if I could help your soul to mend your pace, and to go more swiftly to your heavenly country. 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 behind, when the soul is once lost, but that sinners warm their bits of clay houses at a fire of their ownkindling, for a day or two (which doth rather suffocate with its smoke than warm them); and at length they lie down in sorrow, and are clothed with everlasting shame! I would seek no further measure of faith to begin withal than to believe really and stedfastly the doctrine of God's justice, His all-devouring wrath, and everlasting burning, where sinners are burnt, soul and body, in a river and great lake of fire and brimstone. Then they would wish no more goods than the thousandth part of a cold fountain-well to cool their tongues. They would then buy death with enduring of pain and torment for as many years as God hath created drops of rain since the creation. But there is no market of buying or selling life or death there. O, alas! the greatest part of this world run to the place of that torment rejoicing and dancing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. My counsel to you is, that ye start in time to be after Christ; for if ye go quickly, Christ is not far before you; ye shall overtake Him. O Lord God, what is so needful as this, "Salvation, salvation!" Fy upon this condemned and foolish world, that would give so little for salvation! Oh, if there were a free market for 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 than that salvation which the blind world, to their eternal woe, letteth slip through their fingers. Therefore, look if ye can give out your money (as Isaiah speaketh) (lv. 2) for bread, and lay Christ and His blood in wadset for heaven. It is a dry and hungry bairn's part of goods that Esaus are hunting for here. I see thousands following the chase, and in the pursuit of such things, while in the meantime they lose the blessing; and, when all is done, they have caught nothing to roast for supper, but lie down hungry. And, besides, they go to bed, when they die, without a candle; for God saith to them, "This ye shall have at My hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow" (Isa. l. 11). 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. Rouse, rouse up, therefore, your soul, and speer[172]how Christ and your soul met together. I am sure that they never got Christ, who were not once sick at the yolk of the heart for Him. Too, too many whole souls think that 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 muchgold, and, 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 and earth shall go up in a flame of fire, but a number of beguiled dreamers? Every one shall say of his hunting and his conquest, "Behold, it was a dream!" Every man in that day will tell his dream. I beseech 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, convene all your lovers before your soul, and give them their leave; and strike hands with Christ, that thereafter there may be no happiness to you but Christ, no hunting for anything but Christ, no bed at night, when death cometh, but Christ. Christ, Christ, who but Christ! I know this much of Christ, that He is not ill to be found, nor 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. And now I protest before men and angels that Christ cannot be exchanged, that Christ cannot be sold, that Christ cannot be weighed. Where would angels, or all the world, find a balance 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 heaven but Christ! Shame, shame for evermore be upon all glory but Christ's glory. I cry death, death upon all lives but the life of Christ. Oh, 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.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen, 1637.

MY DEARLY BELOVED SISTER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I complain that Galloway is not kind to me in paper. I have received no letters these sixteen weeks but two. I am well. My prison is a palace to me, and Christ's banqueting-house. My Lord Jesus is as kind as they call Him. O that all Scotland knew my case, and had part of my feast! I chargeyou in the name of God, I charge you to believe. Fear not the sons of men; the worms shall eat them. To pray and believe now, when Christ seems to give you a nay-say, is more than it was before. Die believing; die, and Christ's promise in your hand. I desire, I request, I charge your husband and that town,[173]to stand for the truth of the Gospel. Contend with Christ's enemies; and I pray you show all professors whom you know my case. Help me to praise. The ministers here envy me; they will have my prison changed. My mother hath borne me a man of contention, and one that striveth with the whole earth. Remember my love to your husband. Grace be with you.

Yours in the Lord,

S. R.

Aberdeen,Jan. 3, 1637.

[Mr. John Meinewas the son of John Meine, merchant in Edinburgh, "a solid and stedfast professor of the truth of God." His mother was Barbara Hamilton, a notice of whom see Letter CCCXIII. He was now, it would appear from an allusion in the close of this letter, a student of theology, with a view to the holy ministry. Halyburton on his deathbed spake of this letter as one in which was to be found "More practical religion than in a large volume."]

WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have been too long in answering your letter, but other business took me up. I am here waiting, if the fair wind will turn upon Christ's sails in Scotland, and if deliverance be breaking out to this over-clouded and benighted kirk. O that we could contend, by prayers and supplications, with our Lord for that effect! I know that He hath not given out His last doom against this land. I have little of Christ, in this prison, but groanings, and longings, and desires. All my stock of Christ is some hunger for Him, and yet I cannot say but I am rich in that. My faith, and hope, and holy practice of new obedience, are scarce worth the speaking of. But blessed be my Lord, who taketh me, light, and clipped, and naughty, and feckless as I am. I see that Christ will not prig with me, nor stand upon stepping-stones; but cometh in at the broadside without ceremonies, or making it nice, to make a poor, ransomed one His own. O that I could feed upon His breathing, and kissing, and embracing, and uponthe hopes of my meeting and His! when love-letters shall not go betwixt us, but He will be messenger Himself! But there is required patience on our part, till the summer-fruit in heaven be ripe for us. It is in the bud; but there be many things to do before our harvest come. And we take ill with it, and can hardly endure to set our paper-face to one of Christ's storms and to go to heaven with wet feet, and pain, and sorrow. We love to carry a heaven to heaven with us, and would have two summers in one year, and no less than two heavens. But this will not do for us: one (and such a one!) may suffice us well enough. The man, Christ, got but one only, and shall we have two?

Remember my love in Christ to your father; and help me with your prayers. If ye would be a deep divine, I recommend to you sanctification. Fear Him, and He will reveal His covenant to you. Grace be with you.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen,Jan. 5, 1637.

CARDONESS CASTLE.CARDONESS CASTLE.

[John Gordonof Cardoness, in the parish of Anwoth, was descended from Gordon of Lochinvar; but little is known concerning him. His name appears the first of 188 signatures attached to an unsuccessful petition of the elders andparishioners of Anwoth, presented to the Commission of the General Assembly 1638, for Rutherford being continued minister of that parish, when counter applications were made by the city of Edinburgh and the University of St. Andrews for the transference of his services. From Rutherford's letters to him, we learn that he was at this time far advanced in life. He was naturally a man of strong passions, by which it would appear he had, in the previous part of his life, been led astray.The old castle ofCardonessstands on a tongue of land, at the mouth of the river Fleet, about a mile from Gatehouse. It is built on a rocky height, overhanging the public road, and looking toward the bay. You see an old square-built tower, or fortalice, raising its grey head from among the tall trees that now surround it. Tradition tells of an old proprietor, that he was in league with Græme, the Border outlaw; and how, in consequence of his daring and God-defying deeds, the chief and his whole family perished in theBlack Loch, a small loch in the parish of Anwoth, at Woodend, 26 ft. deep. Though not a descendant, John Gordon seems to have been a man of like strong passions with that old chieftain, till subdued by grace.]

The old castle ofCardonessstands on a tongue of land, at the mouth of the river Fleet, about a mile from Gatehouse. It is built on a rocky height, overhanging the public road, and looking toward the bay. You see an old square-built tower, or fortalice, raising its grey head from among the tall trees that now surround it. Tradition tells of an old proprietor, that he was in league with Græme, the Border outlaw; and how, in consequence of his daring and God-defying deeds, the chief and his whole family perished in theBlack Loch, a small loch in the parish of Anwoth, at Woodend, 26 ft. deep. Though not a descendant, John Gordon seems to have been a man of like strong passions with that old chieftain, till subdued by grace.]

MUCH HONOURED SIR,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I have longed to hear from you, and to know the estate of your soul, and the estate of that people with you.

I beseech you, Sir, by the salvation of your precious soul, and the mercies of God, to make good and sure work of your salvation, and try upon what ground-stone ye have builded. Worthy and dear Sir, if ye be upon sinking sand, a storm of death, and a blast, will lose Christ and you, and wash you close off the rock. Oh, for the Lord's sake, look narrowly to the work!

Read over your life, with the light of God's day-light and sun; for salvation is not casten down at every man's door. It is good to look to your compass, and all ye have need of, ere you take shipping; for no wind can blow you back again. Remember, when the race is ended, and the play either won or lost, and ye are in the utmost circle and border of time, and shall put your foot within the march of eternity, and all your good things of this short night-dream shall seem to you like the ashes of a bleeze of thorns or straw, and your poor soul shall be crying, "Lodging, lodging, for God's sake!" then shall your soul be more glad at one of your Lord's lovely and homely smiles, than if ye had the charters of three worlds for all eternity. Let pleasures and gain, will and desires of this world, be put over into God's hands, as arrested and fenced goods that ye cannot intromit with. Now, when ye are drinking the grounds of your cup, and ye are upon the utmost end of the last link of time, and old age, like death's long shadow, is casting a covering upon your days, itis no time to court this vain life, and to set love and heart upon it. It is near after-supper; seek rest and ease for your soul in God through Christ.

Believe me, that I find it to be hard wrestling to play fair with Christ, and to keep good quarters with Him, and to love Him in integrity and life, and to keep a constant course of sound and solid daily communion with Christ. Temptations are daily breaking the thread of that course, and it is not easy to cast a knot again; and many knots make evil work. Oh, how fair have many ships been plying before the wind, that, in an hour's space, have been lying in the sea-bottom! How many professors cast a golden lustre, as if they were pure gold, and yet are, under that skin and cover, but base and reprobate metal! And how many keep breath in their race many miles, and yet come short of the prize and the garland! Dear sir, my soul would mourn in secret for you, if I knew your case with God to be but false work. Love to have you anchored upon Christ maketh me fear your tottering and slips. False under-water, not seen in the ground of an enlightened conscience, is dangerous; so is often falling, and sinning against light. Know this, that those who never had sick nights or days in conscience for sin, cannot have but such a peace with God as will undercoat and break the flesh again, and end in a sad war at death. Oh, how fearfully are thousands beguiled with false hide, grown over old sins, as if the soul were cured and healed!

Dear Sir, I always saw nature mighty, lofty, heady, and strong in you; and that it was more for you to be mortified and dead to the world, than for another common man. Ye will take a low ebb, and a deep cut, and a long lance, to go to the bottom of your wounds in saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for Christ. Be humbled; walk softly. Down, down, for God's sake, my dear and worthy brother, with your topsail. Stoop, stoop! it is a low entry to go in at heaven's gate. There is infinite justice in the party ye have to do with; it is His nature not to acquit the guilty and the sinner. The law of God will not want one farthing of the sinner. God forgetteth not both the cautioner and the sinner; and every man must pay, either in his own person (oh, Lord save you from that payment!), or in his cautioner, Christ. It is violence to corrupt nature for a man to be holy, to lie down under Christ's feet, to quit will, pleasure, worldly love, earthly hope, and an itching of heart after this farded and over-gilded world, and to be content that Christtrample upon all. Come in, come in to Christ, and see what ye want, and find it in Him. He is the short cut (as we used to say), and the nearest way to an outgate of all your burdens. I dare avouch that ye shall be dearly welcome to Him; my soul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should have in Him. I dare say that angels' pens, angels' tongues, nay, as many worlds of angels as there are drops of water in all the seas, and fountains, and rivers of the earth, cannot paint Him out to you. I think His sweetness, since I was a prisoner, hath swelled upon me to the greatness of two heavens. Oh for a soul as wide as the utmost circle of the highest heaven that containeth all, to contain His love! And yet I could hold little of it. O world's wonder! Oh, if my soul might but lie within the smell of His love, suppose I could get no more but the smell of it! Oh, but it is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love! Oh, what a sight to be up in heaven, in that fair orchard of the new paradise; and to see, and smell, and touch, and kiss that fair field-flower, that ever-green Tree of life! His bare shadow were enough for me; a sight of Him would be the earnest of heaven to me. Fy, fy upon us! that we have love lying rusting beside us, or, which is worse, wasting upon some loathsome objects, and that Christ should lie His lone. Wo, wo is me! that sin hath made so many madmen, seeking the fool's paradise, fire under ice, and some good and desirable things, without and apart from Christ. Christ, Christ, nothing but Christ, can cool our love's burning languor. O thirsty love! wilt thou set Christ, the well of life, to thy head, and drink thy fill? Drink, and spare not; drink love, and be drunken with Christ! Nay, alas! the distance betwixt us and Christ is a death. Oh, if we were clasped in other's arms! We should never twin again, except heaven twinned and sundered us; and that cannot be.

I desire your children to seek this Lord. Desire them from me, to be requested, for Christ's sake, to be blessed and happy, and to come and take Christ, and all things with Him. Let them beware of glassy and slippery youth, of foolish young notions, of worldly lusts, of deceivable gain, of wicked company, of cursing, lying, blaspheming, and foolish talking. Let them be filled with the Spirit; acquaint themselves with daily praying; and with the storehouse of wisdom and comfort, the good word of God. Help the souls of the poor people. O that my Lord would bring me again among them, that I might tell unco andgreat tales of Christ to them! Receive not a stranger to preach any other doctrine to them.

Pray for me, His prisoner of hope. I pray for you without ceasing. I write my blessing, earnest prayers, the love of God, and the sweet presence of Christ to you, and yours, and them. Grace, grace, grace be with you.

Your lawful and loving pastor,

S. R.

Aberdeen, 1637.

[William, thirdEarl of Lothian, to whom this letter is addressed, was the eldest son of Robert, first Earl of Ancrum; and he acquired the title of Earl of Lothian by his marriage with Anne Ker, Countess of Lothian, by whom he succeeded to the estate and titles of Lothian in 1624. In 1638 he manifested great zeal for the Covenant. He was a member of the General Assembly which met at Glasgow that year, as elder for the Presbytery of Dalkeith. Hostilities having again commenced in 1640, his Lordship was in the Scottish army that invaded England, and defeated the Royalists at Newburn. In 1643 he was sent from Scotland by the Privy Council, with the approbation of Charles I. In 1644 he commanded, with the Marquis of Argyle, the forces sent against the Marquis of Montrose, whom he obliged to retreat, and then delivered up his commission to the Committee of Estates, who passed an act in approbation of his services. He was president of the Committee despatched by the Parliament to the King in December 1646, with their final propositions. He protested against the raising of an army in 1648 to rescue the King from the hands of the English, without receiving from His Majesty assurance that he would secure the religious liberties of his Scottish subjects,—an attempt which was called the "Engagement." But while resisting the arbitrary measures of his prince, he was of sincere and ardent loyalty. No sooner was it known that the Parliament of England intended to proceed against Charles I. before the High Court of Justice, than he and other commissioners were sent, in name of the kingdom of Scotland, to remonstrate against their proceedings in regard to the sacred person of the king. He took a solemn protest against their proceedings, for which he was put under arrest, sent with a guard to Gravesend, and thence to Scotland. On his return he received the thanks of Parliament for his conduct on this occasion; and, along with the Earl of Cassillis, was despatched to Breda in 1650 to invite King Charles to Scotland. His Lordship died in the year 1675. By Anne, Countess of Lothian, he had five sons and nine daughters.]

RIGHT HONOURABLE, AND MY VERY WORTHY AND NOBLE LORD,—Out of the honourable and good report that I hear of your Lordship's good-will and kindness, in taking to heart the honourable cause of Christ, and His afflicted Church and wronged truth in this land, I make bold to speak a word on paper, to your Lordship, at this distance, which I trust your Lordship will take in good part. It is to your Lordship's honour and credit, to put to your hand, as ye do (all honour to God!), to the falling and totteringtabernacle of Christ, in this your mother-Church, and to own Christ's wrongs as your own wrongs. O blessed hand, which shall wipe and dry the watery eyes of our weeping Lord Jesus, now going mourning in sackcloth in His members, in His spouse in His truth, and in the prerogative royal of His kingly power! He needeth not service and help from men; but it pleaseth His wisdom to make the wants and losses, the sores and wounds of His spouse, a field and an office-house for the zeal of His servants to exercise themselves in. Therefore, my noble and dear Lord, go on, go on in the strength of the Lord against all opposition, to side with wronged Christ. The defending, and warding of strokes off Christ's bride, the King's daughter, is like a piece of the rest of the way to heaven, knotty, rough, stormy, and full of thorns. Many would follow Christ, but with a reservation that, by open proclamation, Christ would cry down crosses, and cry up fair weather, and a summer sky and sun, till we were all fairly landed at heaven. I know that your Lordship hath not so learned Christ; but that ye intend to fetch heaven, suppose that your father were standing in your way, and to take it with the wind on your face; for so both storm and wind were on the fair face of your lovely Forerunner, Christ, all His way. It is possible that the success answer not your desire in this worthy cause. What then? duties are ours, but events are the Lord's; and I hope, if your Lordship, and others with you, will go on to dive to the lowest ground and bottom of the knavery and perfidious treachery to Christ of the accursed and wretched prelates, the Antichrist's first-born, and the first-fruit of his foul womb, and shall deal with our Sovereign (law going before you) for the reasonable and impartial hearing of Christ's bill of complaints, and set yourselves singly to seek the Lord and His face, that your righteousness shall break through the clouds which prejudice hath drawn over it, and that ye shall, in the strength of the Lord, bring our banished and departing Lord Jesus home again to His sanctuary. Neither must your Lordship advise with flesh and blood in this; but wink, and in the dark, reach your hand to Christ, and follow Him. Let not men's fainting discourage you; neither be afraid of men's canny wisdom, who, in this storm, take the nearest shore, and go to the lee and calm side of the Gospel, and hide Christ (if ever they had Him) in their cabinets, as if they were ashamed of Him, or as if Christ were stolen wares, and would blush before the sun.

My very dear and noble Lord, ye have rejoiced the hearts ofmany, that ye have made choice of Christ and His Gospel, whereas such great temptations do stand in your way. But I love your profession the better that it endureth winds. If we knew ourselves well, to want temptations is the greatest temptation of all. Neither is father, nor mother, nor court, nor honour, in this over-lustred world with all its paintry and farding, anything else, when they are laid in the balance with Christ, but feathers, shadows, night-dreams, and straws. Oh, if this world knew the excellency, sweetness, and beauty of that high and lofty One, the Fairest among the sons of men, verily they would see, that if their love were bigger than ten heavens, all in circles beyond each other, it were all too little for Christ our Lord! I hope that your choice will not repent you, when life shall come to that twilight betwixt time and eternity, and ye shall see the utmost border of time, and shall draw the curtain, and look into eternity, and shall one day see God take the heavens in His hands, and fold them together, like an old holely garment, and set on fire this clay part of the creation of God, and consume away into smoke and ashes the idol-hope of poor fools, who think that there is not a better country than this low country of dying clay. Children cannot make comparison aright betwixt this life and that which is to come; and, therefore, the babes of this world, who see no better, mould, in their own brain, a heaven of their own coining, because they see no farther than the nearest side of time.

I dare lay in pawn my hope of heaven, that this reproached way is the only way of peace. I find it is the way that the Lord hath sealed with His comforts now, in my bonds for Christ; and I verily esteem and find chains and fetters for that lovely One, Christ, to be watered over with sweet consolations, and the love-smiles of that lovely Bridegroom, for whose coming we wait. And when He cometh, then shall the blacks and whites of all men come before the sun; then shall the Lord put a final decision upon the pleas that Zion hath with her adversaries. And as fast as time passeth away (which neither sitteth, nor standeth, nor sleepeth), as fast is our hand-breadth of this short winter-night flying away, and the sky of our long-lasting day drawing near its breaking.

Except your Lordship be pleased to plead for me against the tyranny of prelates, I shall be forgotten in this prison; for they did shape my doom according to their new, lawless canons, which is, that a deprived minister shall be utterly silenced, and notpreach at all; which is a cruelty, contrary to their own former practices.

Now, the only wise God, the very God of peace, confirm, strengthen, and establish your Lordship upon the stone laid in Zion, and be with you for ever.

Your Lordship's at all respectful obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen, 1637.

[Jean Brownwas the mother of the well-known Mr. John Brown, minister of Wamphray in Annandale, who, after the restoration of Charles II., was ejected from his charge and banished from the King's dominions for his opposition to Prelacy. She was a woman of intelligence and piety.]

MISTRESS,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I earnestly desire your on-going toward your country. I know that ye see your day melteth away by little and little, and that in a short time ye shall be put beyond time's bounds; for life is a post that standeth not still, and our joys here are born weeping, rather than laughing, and they die weeping. Sin, sin, this body of sin and corruption embittereth and poisoneth all our enjoyments. O that I were where I shall sin no more! O to be freed of these chains and iron fetters, which we carry about with us! Lord, loose the sad prisoners! Who of the children of God have not cause to say, that they have their fill of this vain life? and, like a full and sick stomach, to wish at mid-supper that the supper were ended, and the table drawn, that the sick man might win to bed, and enjoy rest? We have cause to tire at mid-supper of the best messes that this world can dress up for us; and to cry to God, that He would remove the table and put the sin-sick souls to rest with Himself. O for a long play-day with Christ, and our long-lasting vacance of rest! Glad may their souls be that are safe over the frith, Christ having paid the fraught. Happy are they who have passed their hard and wearisome time of apprenticeship, and are now freemen and citizens in that joyful, high city, the New Jerusalem.

Alas! that we should be glad of and rejoice in our fetters, and our prison-house, and this dear inn, a life of sin, where weare absent from our Lord, and so far from our home. O that we could get bonds and law-suretyship of our love, that it fasten not itself on these clay-dreams, these clay-shadows, and worldly vanities! We might be oftener seeing what they are doing in heaven, and our hearts more frequently upon our sweet treasure above. We smell of the smoke of this lower house of the earth, because our hearts and our thoughts are here. If we could haunt up with God, we should smell of heaven and of our country above; and we should look like our country, and like strangers, or people not born or brought up hereaway. Our crosses would not bite[174]upon us if we were heavenly-minded. I know of no obligation which the saints have to this world, seeing we fare but upon the smoke of it; and, if there be any smoke in the house, it bloweth upon our eyes. All our part of the table is scarce worth a drink of water; and when we are stricken, we dare not weep, but steal our grief away betwixt our Lord and us, and content ourselves with stolen sorrow behind backs. God be thanked that we have many things that so stroke us against the hair that we may pray, "God keep our better home, God bless our Father's house; and not this smoke, that bloweth us to seek our best lodging." I am sure that this is the best fruit of the cross, when we, from the hard fare of the dear inn, cry the more that God would send a fair wind, to land us, hungered and oppressed strangers, at the door of our Father's house, which now is made, in Christ, our kindly heritage. Oh! then, let us pull up the stakes and stoups of our tent, and take our tent on our back, and go with our flitting to our best home; for here we have no continuing city.

I am waiting in hope here, to see what my Lord will do with me. Let Him make of me what He pleaseth; providing He make glory to Himself out of me, I care not. I hope, yea, I am now sure, that I am for Christ, and all that I can or may make is for Him. I am His everlasting dyvour, and still shall be; for, alas, I have nothing for Him, and He getteth but little service of me! Pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased to give me houseroom, that I may serve Him in the calling which He hath called me unto. Grace be with you.

Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen, 1637.

WORTHY AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER,—Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you.—I am yet waiting what our Lord will do for His afflicted Church, and for my re-entry to my Lord's house. O that I could hear the forfeiture of Christ (now casten out of His inheritance) recalled and taken off by open proclamation; and that Christ were restored to be a freeholder and a landed heritor in Scotland; and that the courts fenced in the name of the bastard prelates (their godfather, the Pope's, bailiffs and sheriffs) were cried down! Oh, how sweet a sight were it to see all the tribes of the Lord in this land fetching home again our banished King, Christ, to His own palace, His sanctuary, and His throne! I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith will out-watch all this winter-night, and not nod nor slumber till my Lord's summer-day dawn upon me. It is much if faith and hope, in the sad nights of our heavy trial, escape with a whole skin, and without crack or crook. I confess that unbelief hath not reason to be either father or mother to it,[175]for unbelief is always an irrational thing; but how can it be, but that such weak eyes as ours must cast water in a great smoke, or that a weak head should not turn giddy when the water runneth deep and strong? But God be thanked that Christ in His children can endure a stress and a storm, howbeit soft nature would fall down in pieces. O that I had that confidence as to rest on this, though He should grind me into small powder, and bray me into dust, and scatter the dust to the four winds of heaven, that my Lord would gather up the powder, and make me up a new vessel again, to bear Christ's name to the world! I am sure that love, bottomed and seated upon the faith of His love to me, would desire and endure this, and would even claim and threep kindness upon Christ's strokes, and kiss His love-glooms, and both spell and read salvation upon the wounds made by Christ's sweet hands. O that I had but a promise made from the mouth of Christ, of His love to me! and then, howbeit my faith were as tender as paper, I think longing, and dwining, and greening of sick desires would cause it to bide out the siege till the Lord came to fill the soul with His love. And I know also, that in that case faith would bidegreen and sappy at the root, even at mid-winter, and stand out against all storms. However it be, I know that Christ winneth heaven in despite of hell.

But I owe as many praises and thanks to free grace as would lie betwixt me and the utmost border of the highest heaven, suppose ten thousand heavens were all laid above other. But oh! I have nothing that can hire or bud grace; for if grace would take hire, it were no more grace. But all our stability, and the strength of our salvation, is anchored and fastened upon free grace; and I am sure that Christ hath by His death and blood casten the knot so fast, that the fingers of the devils and hell-fulls of sins cannot loose it. And that bond of Christ (that never yet was, nor ever shall, nor can be registrated) standeth surer than heaven, or the days of heaven, as that sweet pillar of the covenant whereon we all hang. Christ, with all His little ones under His two wings and in the compass or circle of His arms, is so sure, that, cast Him and them into the ground of the sea, He shall come up again and not lose one. An odd one cannot, nor shall, be lost in the telling.

This was always God's aim, since Christ came into the play betwixt Him and us, to make men dependent creatures; and, in the work of our salvation, to put created strength, and arms and legs of clay, quite out of place, and out of office and court. And now God hath substituted in our room, and accepted His Son, the Mediator, for us and all that we can make. If this had not been, I would have skinked over and foregone my part of paradise and salvation, for a breakfast of dead, moth-eaten earth; but now I would not give it, nor let it go for more than I can tell. And truly they are silly fools, and ignorant of Christ's worth, and so full ill-trained and tutored, who tell Christ and heaven over the board for two feathers or two straws of the devil's painted pleasures, only lustred on the outer side. This is our happiness now, that our reckonings at night, when eternity shall come upon us, cannot be told. We shall be so far gainers, and so far from being super-expended (as the poor fools of this world are, who give out their money, and get in but black hunger), that angels cannot lay our counts, nor sum our advantage and incomes. Who knoweth how far it is to the bottom of our Christ's fulness, and to the ground of our heaven? Who ever weighed Christ in a pair of balances? Who hath seen the foldings and plies, and the heights and depths of that glory which is in Him, and kept for us? O for such a heaven as to stand afar off, and see, andlove, and long for Him, whill time's thread be cut, and this great work of creation dissolved, at the coming of our Lord!

Now to His grace I recommend you. I beseech you also to pray for a re-entry to me into the Lord's house, if it be His good will.

Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,

S. R.

Aberdeen,Jan. 6, 1637.

[Sir John Hope, Lord Craighall, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hope (Lord Advocate of Scotland in the time of James VI. and Charles I.) His property, Craighall, is in the parish of Inveresk, near Edinburgh. Sir Thomas was the most eminent lawyer of his day, and was first brought into notice by the ability with which he defended the cause of John Forbes, John Welsh, and the other ministers who were tried for high treason at Linlithgow, on account of their holding a General Assembly at Aberdeen in 1605. Craighall is in the parish of Ceres, in Fife,[176]a fine old castellated ruin. John, second baronet, was admitted a Lord of Session 27th July 1632, and became President of the Court, and in 1645 was appointed one of the Privy Council. His name appears on the roll of members of the General Assemblies 1645-1649, and of the commissions which these Assemblies appointed. In Lamont's "Diary" we read (1659), "The Laird of Craighall, in Fyfe, depairted out of this lyfe on Sabbath at nyght, and was interred at Ceres."]

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