time will eat up your frail life, like a worm gnawing at the root of a May-flower: lend Christ your heart, fet him as a feal there; take him in within, and let the world, and children ftand at the door; they are not yours, make you and them for your proper owner, Chrift: it is good, he is your Husband and their Father. What miffing can there be of a dying man, when God filleth his chair? Give hours of the day to prayer: fash Christ (if I may speak fo) and importune him; be often at his gate; give his door no reft; I can tell you, he will be found. O what fweet fellowship is be twixt him and me! I am imprifoned, but he is not imprison ed: he hath afhamed me with kindness; he hath come to my pri fon, and run away with my heart and all my love; well may he bruik it! I wish my love get never an owner but Chrift: fy, fy upon old lovers, that held us fo long afunder! we fhall not part now: he and I fhall be heard, before he win out of my grips: I refolve to wrestle with Chrift, ere I quit him. But my love to him hath caften my foul in a fever, and there is no cooling of my fever, till I get real poffeffion of Chrift: O ftrong, strong love of Jefus, thou haft wounded my heart with thine arrows! O pain! O pain of love for Christ! who will help me to him? Let me have your prayers. Grace be with you. I Aberdeen, March 13. 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord Jefus, S. R. 175. To GRISSEL FULLERTON. Dear fifter, you in the Lord, to feek your one thing, Mary's good part, that shall not be taken from you. Set your heart and foul on the childrens inheritance: this clay-idol, the world is but for baftards, and ye are his lawful-begotten child. Learn the way, (as your dear mother hath gone before you) to knock at Christ's door: many an alms of mercy hath Chrift given to her, and hath abundance behind to give to you. Ye are the feed of the faithful, and born within the covenant; claim your right. I would not exchange Christ Jesus for ten worlds of glory: I know now (blesfed be my Teacher !) how to fhut the lock, and unbolt my Wellbeloved's door; and he maketh a poor ftranger welcome, when he cometh to his house. I am fwelled up, and satisfied with the love of Chrift, that is better than wine; it is a fire in my foul; let hell and the world caft water on it, they will not mend themselves. I have now gotten the right gate of Chrift: I recommend him to you above all things; come and find the fmell of his breath: fce if his kiffes be not fweet; he defireth no better than to be much made of; be homely with him, and ye fhall be the more welcome: ye know not how fain Christ would have all your love. Think not this is imaginations and bairns-play, we make din for; I would not fuffer for it, if it were fo: I dare pawn my heaven for it, that it is the way to glory. Think much of truth, and abhor these ways devifed by men in God's worship. The grace of Chrift be with you. I Aberdeen, March 14. 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord Jefus, S. R. 176. To PATRICK CARSEN. Dear and loving friend, Cannot but, upon the opportunity of a bearer, exhort you to refign the love of your youth to Chrift, and, in this day, while your fun is high, and your youth ferveth you, to seek the Lord and his face; for there is nothing out of heaven fo neceffary for you as Christ: and ye cannot be ignorant, but your day will end, and the night of death will call you from the pleasures of this life, and a doom given out in death ftandeth for ever, as long as God liveth. Youth ordinarily is a post and ready fervant for Satan, to run errands; for it is a neft for luft, curfing, drunkenness, blafpheming of God, lying, pride and vanity. O that there were fuch an heart in you, as to fear the Lord, and to dedicate your foul and body to his fervice! When the time cometh that your eyeftrings fhall break, and your face wax pale, and legs and arms tremble, and your breath grow cold, and your poor foul look out at your prifon-house of clay, to be fet at liberty; then a good conscience, and your Lord's favour fhall be worth all the world's glory feek it as your garland and crown. Grace be with you. Aberd. March 14. Yours in his fweet Lord 1636. 177. To JOHN CARSEN. My well-beloved and dear friend, E Jefus, S. R. Very one feeketh not God; and far fewer find him, because they seek amifs: he is to be fought for above all things, if men would find what they seek. Let feathers and fhadows alone to children, and go feek your Well-beloved: your only errand to the world, is, to woo Chrift; therefore put other lovers from about his house, and let Chrift have all your love, without mincing or dividing it: it is little enough, if there were more of it. The ferving of the world and fin hath but a base reward and smoke, instead of pleasures; and but a night-dream, for true cafe to the foul. Go where ye will, your foul fhall not fleep found but in Chrift's bofom: come in to him, and ly down, and reft you on the flain Son of God, and inquire for him: I fought him, and now Kk a fig Epift. 178. a fig for all the worm-eaten pleasures, and moth-eaten glory out of heaven, fince I have found him, and in him all I can want or wish: he hath made me a king over the world princes cannot overcome me : Chrift hath given me the marriage-kifs, and he hath my marriage-love: we have made up a full bargain, that shall not go back on either fide; O if ye, and all in that country, knew what sweet terms of mercy are betwixt him and me! Grace be with you. Aberd. March 11. 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord Jefus, S.. R. Madam, 178. To the Lady BOYD. Would have written to your Ladyfhip ere now; but peoples believing there is in me that which I know there is not, hath put me out of love with writing to any for it is eafy to put religion to a market and public fair; but alas! it is not fo foon made eyefweet for Chrift. My Lord feeth me a tired man far behind; I have gotten much love from Chrift, but I give him little or none again. My white fide cometh out in paper to men; but at home and within, I find much black-work, and great cause of a low fail, and of little boafting: and yet howbeit I fee challenges to be true, the manner of the tempter's preffing of them is unhoneft, and, in my thoughts, knavifh-like: my peace is, that Christ may find fale and outing of his wares in the like of me, I mean, for faving grace. I wish all profeffors to fall in love with grace; all our fongs fhould be of his free grace; we are but too lazy and careless, in seeking of it; it is all our riches we have here, and glory in the bud: I wish I could fet out free grace. I was the law's man, and under the law, and under a curfe; but grace brought me from under that hard lord, and I rejoice that I am grace's free-holder. I pay tribute to none for heaven, feeing my land and heritage holdeth of Christ, my new King: infinite wisdom hath devised this excellent way of free-holding for finners; it is a better way to heaven than the old way that was in Adam's days; it hath this fair advantage, that no man's emptinefs and want layeth an inhibition upon Chrift, or hindereth his falvation, (and that is far beft for me) but our new Land-lord putteth the names of dyvours, and Adam's forlorn heirs, and beggars, and the crooked and blind, in the free charters. Heaven and angels may wonder, that we have gotten fuch a gate of fin and hell; fuch a back-entry out of hell, as Chrift made, and brought out the captives by, is more than my poor fhallow thoughts can comprehend. I would think fufferings, glory (and I am fometimes not far from it) if my Lord would give me a new alms of free grace. I hear, that the prelates are intending banish ment ment for me; but for more grace, and no other hire, I would make it welcome. The bits of this clay-house, the earth, and the other fide of the fea, are my Father's: if my fweet Lord Jefus would bud my fufferings with a new measure of grace, I were a rich man; but I have not now of a long time found fuch high spring-tides, as formerly. The fea is out, and the wind of his Spirit calm, and I cannot buy a wind, or, by requesting the sea, cause it to flow again; only, I wait on, upon the banks and fhore-fide, till the Lord send a full-fea, that with up-fails I may lift up Chrift: yet forrow for his absence is sweet; and fighs, with, faw ye him whom my foul loveth? have their own delights: oh that I might gather hunger against his long looked-for return! Well were my foul, if Chrift were the element, mine own element, and that I loved and breathed in him, and if I could not live without him. I allow not laughter upon myself, when he is away; yet he never leaveth the house, but he leaveth drink-money behind him, and a pawn that he will return: wo, wo to me, if he should go away, and take all his flitting with him : even to dream of him is fweet. To build a house of pining wishes for his return, to fpin out a web of forrow, and care, and languishing, and fighs, either dry or wet, as they may be, because he hath no leifure (if I may speak fo) to make a visit, or to fee a poor friend, fweeteneth and refresheth the thoughts of the heart. A misty dew will stand for rain, and do fome good, and keep fome greennefs in the herbs, till our Lord's clouds rue upon the earth, and fend down a watering of rain : truly, I think Christ's mifty dew a welcome meffage from heaven, till my Lord's rain fall. Wo, wo is me for the Lord's vineyard in Scotland. Howbeit the father of the house embrace a child, and feed him, and kiss him; yet it is forrow and fadness to the children, that our poor mother hath gotten her leave, and that our Father hath given up house: it is an unheartfome thing, to fee our Father and mother agree fo ill; yet the bastards, if they be fed, care not. O Lord caft not water on Scotland's fmoaking coal. It is a strange gate the faints go to heaven; our enemies often eat and drink us, and we go to heaven through their bellies and ftomachs, and they vomit the church of God, undigested among their hands; and even while we are fhut up in prifons by them, we advance in our journey. Rc. member my service to my Lord, your kind fon, who was kind to me in my bonds, and was not afhamed to own me: I would be glad that Chrift got the morning-service of his life, now in his young years; it would fuit him well, to give Chrift his young and green love: Chrift's ftamp and feal would go far down in a young foul, if he would receive the thrust of Christ's stamp: I would defire him, to make fearch for Chrift; for nobles now are but dry friends to Chrift. The peace of God our Father, and the good Kk 2 will will of him who dwelt in the bush, be with your Ladyship. Aberdeen, 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord Jefus, S. R 179. To the Lady CAR DONESS elder. Worthy and well-beloved in the Lord, GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I long to hear from you paper, that I may know how your foul profpereth. My defire and longing is, to hear that ye walk in the truth, and that ye are content to follow the defpised, but most lovely Son of God: I cannot but recommend him unto you, as your Hufband, your Well beloved, your Portion, your Comfort, and your Joy: Ispeak this of that lovely One, because I praise and commend the foord (as we ufe to fpeak) as I find it. He hath watered with his fweet comforts an oppreffed prifoner: he was always kind to my foul, but never fo kind as now, in my greatest extremities: I dine and fup with Chrift: he vifiteth my foul with the vifitations of love, in the night-watches. I perfuade my foul that this is the way to heaven, and his own truth, I now fuffer for. I exhort you in the name of Chrift, to continue in the truth, which I delivered to you: make Christ sure to your foul; for your day draweth nigh to an end. Many flide back now, who feemed to be Chrift's friends, and prove dishoneft to him: but be ye faithful to the death, and ye fhall have the crown of life. This fpan-length of your days, whereof the Spirit of God fpeaketh, Pfal. xxxix. will within a fhort time come to a finger-breadth, and at length to nothing. O how fweet and comfortable shall the feast of a good conscience be to you, when your eye-ftrings fhall break, your face wax pale, and the breath turn cold, and your poor foul come fighing to the windows of the house of clay of your dying body, and fhall long to be out, and to have the jaylor to open the door, that the prisoner may be fet at liberty: ye draw nigh the water-fide; look your accounts: ask for your Guide to take you to the other fide; let not the world be your portion; what have ye to do with dead clay? ye are not a baftard, but a lawful-begotten child; therefore set your heart on the inheritance; go up before-hand and fee your lodging: look through all your Father's rooms in heaven, in your Father's houfe are many dwelling-places: men take a fight of lands ere they buy them. I know Chrift hath made the bargain already; but be kind to the house ye are going to, and fee it often: fet your heart on things that are above, where Chrift is at the right-hand of God. Stir up your husband, to mind his own country at home; counfel him to deal mercifully with the poor people of God under him they are Christ's, and not his; therefore defire him to fhew them merciful dealing and kindness, and to be good to their fouls. I defire |