things of this fhört night-dream shall feem to you like afhes blaze of thorns or fraw, and your poor foul shall be crying, , lodging, for God's fake; then shall your foul be more glad at one of your Lord's lovely and homely fmiles, than if ye had the charters of three worlds for all eternity. Let pleasures and gain, will and defires of this world, be put over in 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 ends of the laft link of time, and old age, like death's long shadow, is casting a covering upon your days; it is no time to court this vain life, and to fet love and heart upon it: it is near after fupper; feek reft and ease for your foul, in God through Christ. Believe me, I find it hard wrestling, to play fair with Chrift, and to keep good quarters with him, and keep love to him in integrity and life, and to keep a conftant courfe of found and folid daily communion with Chrift: temptations are daily breaking the threed of that courfe, and it is not eafy to caft a knot again, and many knots make evil work. O how fair have many fhips been playing before the wind, that, in an hour's fpace, have been lying in the fea-bottom! How many profeffors cast a golden luftre, as if they were pure gold, and yet are, under that fkin and cover, but bafe 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 foul would mourn in fecret ⚫ for you, if I knew your cafe with God to be but falfe work: love to have you anchored upon Christ, maketh me fear your tottering and flips falfe under-water not feen, in the ground of an enlightened confcience, is dangerous; fo is often failing and finning against light: know this, that thefe who never had fick nights or days in confcience for fin, cannot have but fuch a peace with God, as will undercot, and break the flesh again, and end in a fad war at death. O how fearfully are thousands beguiled with falfe hide grown over old fins, as if the foul were cured and healed! Dear Sir, I faw ever nature mighty, lofty, heady and ftrong in you; and it was more for you to be mortified and dead to the world, than 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 faving humiliation, to make you a won prey for Chrift. Be humbled, walk foftly; down, down, for God's fake, my dear and worthy brother, with your top fail: stoop, stoop; it is a low entry to go in at heaven's gates: there is infinite juftice in the party ye have to do with; it is his nature not to acquit the guilty and the finner: the law of God will not want one farthing of the finner: God forgetteth not both the cautioner and the finner; and every man must pay, either in his own perfon, (O Lord, fave you from that payment!) or in his cautioner, Chrift. 207 Christ. It is violence to corrupt nature, for a man to be holy, to ly down under Christ's feet, to quit will, pleasure, wordly love earthly hope, and an itching of heart after this fairded and overguilded world, and to be content that Chrift trample upon all. Come in, come in to Chrift, and fee what ye want, and find it in him he is the fhort cut (as we use to fay) and the nearest way to an outgate of all your burdens. I dare avouch, ye shall be dearly welcome to him; my foul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should have in him. I dare fay, angels pens, angels tongues, nay as many worlds of angels, as there are drops of water in all the feas, and fountains, and rivers of the earth, cannot paint him out to you: I think, his sweetness, fince I was a prisoner, hath fwelled upon me to the greatness of two heavens: O for a foul 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! O if my foul might but ly within the smell of his love, fuppofe I could get no more but the fmell of it! O but it is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Chrift's love! O what a fight to be up in heaven, in that fair orchard of the new paradife; and to fee, and smell, and touch, and kifs that fair field flower, that ever-green tree of life! His bare fhadow were enough for me; a fight of him would be the earneft of heaven to me. Fy, fy upon us that we have love lying rufting befide us, or which is worfe, wafted upon lothfome objects, and Chrift fhould ly his alone. Wo, wo is me, that fin hath made fo many mad-men, feeking the fool's paradife, fire under ice, and fome good and defirable thing, without and apart from Chrift. Chrift, Chrift, nothing but Chrift can cool our love's burning languor: O thirsty love! wilt thou fet Chrift, the well of life, to thy head, and drink thy fill; drink and fpare not, drink love, and be drunken with Chrift? Nay, alas, the distance betwixt us and Chrift is death: O if we were clafped in other's arms! We fhould never twin again, except heaven twin'd and funder'd us; and that cannot be. I defire your children to feek this Lord: defire them from me to be requefted, for Chrift's fake, to be bleffed and happy, and come and take Chrift, and all things with him: let them beware of glaffy and flippery youth, of foolish young motions, of wordly lufts, of deceivable gain, of wicked company, of curfing, lying, blafpheming, and foolith talking: let them be filled with the Spirit, acquaint themselves with daily praying, and with the ftore houfe of wisdom and comfort, the good word of God. Help the fouls of the poor people: O that my Lord would bring me again among them, that I might tell uncouth and great tales of Christ to them! Receive not a ftranger to preach any other doctrine to them. Pray for me, his prifoner of hope. I pray for for you without ceafing: I write my blessing, earnest prayers, the love of God and the fweet prefence of Chrift to you, and yours, and them, Grace, grace, grace be with you. Aberd. 1637. Your lawful and loving Paftor, S. R. 140. To the Earl of LOTHIAN. Right honourable and my very worthy and noble lord, Ut of the honourable and good report that I hear of your Lordship's good-will and kindness, in taking to heart the hor nourable caufe of Chrift, and his afflicted church and wronged truth, in this land; I make bold to speak a word in paper to your Lordship at this distance, which I truft your Lordship will take in good part. It is your Lordship's honour and credit, to put to your hand (as ye do, all honour to God!) to the falling and tottering tabernacle of Chrift, in this your mother-church, and to own Chrift's wrongs, as your own wrongs. O blessed hand, which fhall wipe and dry the watery eyes of our weeping Lord Jefus, now going mourning in fackcloth in his members, in his spouse, in his truth, and in the prerogative-royal of his kingly power! he needeth not fervice and help from men; but it pleaseth his wifdom to make the wants and loffes, fores and wounds of his spouse, a field and an office-house for the zeal of his fervants to exercise themselves in ⚫ therefore, my noble and dear Lord, go on, go on in the ftrength of the Lord, against all oppofition, to fide with wronged Chrift. The defending and warding of strokes off Christ, his bride, the King's daughter, is like a piece of the rest of the way to heaven, knotty, rough, stormy, and full of thorns; many would follow Christ, but with a refervation, that by open proclamation Chrift would cry down croffes, and cry up fair weather, and a fummerky and fun, till we were all fairly landed at heaven. I know your Lordship hath not fo learned Chrift, but that ye intend to fetch hea ven, fuppofe your father were standing in your way; and to take it with the wind on your face; for fo both storm and wind was on the fair face of your lovely Fore-runner, Chrift, all his way. It is poffible, the fuccefs anfwer not your defire, in this worthy caufe: what then? Duties are ours, but events are the Lord's and I hope, if your Lordship and others with you fhall go on to dive to the lowest ground and bottom of the knavery and perfidious treachery to Chrift, of the curfed and wretched prelates, the Antichrift's firft-born, and the firft-fruit of his foul womb, and fhall deal with our Sovereign (law going before you) for the reasonable and impartial hearing of Chrift's bill of complaints, and set yourselves fingly to feek the Lord and his face, your righteousness shall break through the clouds, that prejudice hath drawn over it; and ye ye fhall, in the Atrength of the Lord, bring our banished and departing Lord Jefus home again to his fanctuary. Neither must your Lordship advise with flesh and blood in this; but wink, and in the dark reach your hand to Chrift, and follow him. Let not mens fainting difcourage you, neither be afraid of mens canny wisdom, who in this storm take the nearest shore, and go to the lee and calmfide of the gospel, and hide Chrift (if ever they had him) in their cabinets, as if they were afhamed of him, or as if Christ were stolen wares, and would blush before the fun. My very dear and noble Lord, ye have rejoiced the hearts of many, that ye have made choice of Chrift and his gofpel, whereas fuch great temptations do stand in your way: but I love your profeffion 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 overluftred world, with all its paintry and fairding, any thing elfe, when they are laid in the balance with Chrift, but feathers, fhadows, night dreams and 'ftraws. O if this world knew the excellency, fweetnefs and beauty of that high and lofty One, that fairest among the fons of men! Verily they fhould fee, if their love were bigger than ten heavens, all in circles without other, that it were all too little for Christ our Lord. I hope, your choice fhall not repent you, when life shall come to that twilight betwixt time and eternity, and ye shall fee the utmost border of time, and fhall draw the curtain, and look into eternity, and shall one day fee God take the heavens in his hands, and fold them together, like an old holey garment, and fet on fire this clay part of the creation of God, and confume away in smoke and afhes the idol-hope of poor fools, who think there is not a better country, than this low country of dying-clay. Children cannot make comparison aright betwixt this life and that to come; and there. fore the babes of this world, who fee no better, mould in their own brain a heaven of their own coining, because they see no further than the neareft fide 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 fealed with his comforts, now in my bonds for Chrift; and I verily esteem and find chains and fetters for that lovely One, Christ, to be watered over with sweet confolations, and the love fmiles 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 fun, then shall the Lord put a final decision upon the pleas that Zion hath with her adversaries : and as faft as time posteth away (which neither fitteth, nor standeth, nor fleepeth) as faft is our hand breadth of this fhort winter, night flying away, and the fky of our long-lafting day drawing near its breaking. Except your Lordship be pleased to plead for me, a gainst the tyranny of prelates, I fhall be forgotten in this prifon; Dd for for they did fhape my doom according to their new lawless canons, which is, that a deprived minister shall be utterly filenced, and not preach at all; which is a cruelty, contrary to their own former practices. Now, the only wife God, the very God of peace, confirm, ftrengthen and establish your lordship, upon the Stone laid in Zion, and be with you for ever. Aberd. 1637. Miftrefs, Your Lordship's at all refpective obedience 141. To JEAN BROWN. Race, mercy and peace be to you. I long to hear how your foul profpereth. I earneftly defire your on going toward your country: I know, ye fee your day melteth away by little and little, and that in fhort time ye will be put beyond time's bounds; for life is a poft that ftandeth not ftill, and our joys here are born weeping, rather than laughing, and they die weeping. Sin, fin, this body of fin and corruption imbittereth and poisoneth all our enjoyments. O that I were where I fhall fin no more! O to be freed of thefe chains and iron fetters, that we carry about with us! Lord, loose the fad prifoners. Who of the children of God have not caufe to fay, that they have their fill of this vain life, and like a full and fick ftomach, to wifh at mid-fupper, that the fupper were ended, and the table drawn, that the fick man might win to bed and enjoy reft? We have cause to tire of a mid-fupper of the beft meffes that this world can dress up for us; and to cry to God, that he would remove the table, and put the fin-fick fouls to reft with himself. O for a long play-day with Chrift, and our long lafting vacance of reft! Glad may their fouls be, that are fafe over firth, Chrift having payed the fraught: happy are they, who have paft their hard and wearifome time of apprenticeship, and are now freemen and citizens in that joyful high city, the new Jerufalem. Alas! that we fhould be glad of, and rejoice in our fetters, and our prifon houfe, and this dear inns, a life of fin, where we are abfent from our Lord, and fo far from our home. O that we could get bonds and law-furetiship of our love, that it faften not itself on thefe clay-dreams, thefe clay-shadows and worldly vanities! We might be oftener feeing what they are doing in heaven, and our heart more frequently upon our fweet treasure above. We fmell of the fmoke of this lower houfe of the earth, becaufe our hearts and our thoughts are here: if we could haunt up with God, we fhould smell of heaven, and of our country above, and we should look like our country, and like ftrangers or people not born or brought up hereaway: our croffes would not bite upon us, if we were heav caly |