Madam, 48. To my Lady KENMURE. and Gaincely and royal bounty of Jefus Chrift, to pay a king's peace be be to you. It is the least of the debts, and not to have his fervants at a lofs. His gold is better than yours, and his hundred-fold is the income and rent of heaven and far above your revenues: ye are not the first who have casten up your accounts that way. Better have Christ your Factor than any other; for he tradeth to the advantage of his poor fervants. But if the hundred-fold in this life be fo well told, as Chrift cannot pay you with miscounting or deferred hope; O what must the rent of that land be, which rendereth every day, and every hour of the years of long eternity, the whole rent of a year, yea, of more than thousand thoufands of ages, even the weighty income of a rich kingdom, not every fummer once, but every moment! That fum of glory will take you and all the angels telling. To be a tenant to fuch a Landlord, where every berry and grape of the large field beareth no worse fruit than glory, fulness of joy, and pleasures that endure for evermore; I leave it to yourself to think what a fummer, what a foil, what a garden must be there; and what must be the commodities of that highest land, where fun and moon are under the feet of the inhabitants. Surely the land cannot be bought with gold, blood, banishment, lofs of father and mother, hufband, wife, children. We but dwell here, because we can do no better; it is need, not virtue, to be fojourners in a prifon; to weep, and figh, and, alas! to fin fixty or seventy years in a land of tears; the fruits that grow here are all feafoned and falted with fin. O how fweet is it, that the company of the Firstborn should be divided in two great bodies of an army, and fome in their country, and fome in the way to their country! If it were no more but to fee once the face of the Prince of this good land, and to be feafted for eternity with the fatnefs, fweetnefs, dainties of the rays and beams of matchlefs glory, and incomparable fountainlove, it were a well-fpent journey to creep hands and feet, through feven deaths and feven hells, to enjoy him up at the well-head. Only let us not weary, the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than when we first believed; ftrangers are not wife to quarrel with their hoft, and complain of their lodging; it is a foul way, but a fair home. O that I had but fuch grapes and clusters out of the land as I have fometime feen and tafted in the place whereof your. Ladyship maketh mention! but the hope of it in the end is an heartfome convoy in the way. If I fee little more of the gold till the race be ended, I dare not quarrel; it is the Lord: I hope his chariot shall go through these three kingdoms, after our fuffering fhall be accomplished. Grace be with you. London, Jan. 26. 1646. Your Ladyfbip's in Jefus Chrift, S. R, 49. To Mr. J. G. 1 Reverend and dear brother, Shall with my foul defire the peace of these kingdoms, and I do believe it shall at last come, as a river and as the mighty waves of the fea; but O that we were ripe and in readiness to receive it! The preferving of two or three or four or five berries, in the outmost boughs of the olive-tree, after the vintage, is like to be a great matter ere all be done; yet I know a cluster in both kingdoms fhall be saved, for a bleffing is in it: but it is not (I fear) fo near to the dawning of the day of falvation, but that clouds must fend down more showers of blood to water the vineyard of the Lord, and to cause it to bloffom. Scotland's fcum is not yet removed; nor is England's drofs and tin taken away; nor the filth of our blood purged by the fpirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning but I am too much on this fad fubject. As for myself, 1 do efteem nothing out of heaven, and next to a communion with Jefus Chrift, more than to be in the hearts and prayers of the faints; I know he feedeth there amongst the lilies, till the day break: but I am at a low ebb, as to any fenfible communion with Christ; yea, as low as any foul can be, and do fcarce know where I am; and do now make it a queftion, if any can go to him, who dwelleth in light inacceffible, through nothing but darknefs? Sure, all that come to heaven, have a' ftock in Chrift; but I know not where mine is. It cannot be enough for me to believe the salvation of thers, and to know Chrift to be the honey-comb, the rofe of Sharon, the paradife and Eden of the faints and firft-born written in heaven, and not to fee after the borders of that good land. But what fhall I fay? either this is the Lord making grace a new creation, where there is pure nothing and finful nothing to work upon, or I am gone. I fhould count my foul engaged to yourself, and others there with you, if ye would but carry to Chrift for me a letter of cyphers and nonfenfe; (for I know not how to make lanquage of my condition) only fhewing that I have need of his love: for I know many fair and wathen ones ftand now in white before the throne, who were once as black as I am. If Christ pass his word to wash a finner it is lefs to him than a word to make fair angels of black devils; only let the art of free grace be engaged. I have not a cautioner to give farety, nor doth a Mediator, fuch as he is in all perfection, need a Mediator: but what I need, he knoweth; only, it is his depth of wildom, to let fome pass millions of of miles over fcore in debt, that they may stand between the winning and the lofing, in need of more than ordinary free grace. Chrift hath been multiplying grace by mercy above these five thoufand years; and the latter-born heirs have fo much greater guiltiBefs, that Chrift hath passed more experiments and multiplied effays of heart-love on others, by misbelieving, after it is past all question, many hundred of ages, that Chrift is the undeniable and now uncontroverted Treasurer of multiplied redemptions; so now he is faying, The more of the disease there is, the more of the Physician's art, of grace and tenderness, there muft be: only I know, no finner can put infinite grace to it, fo as the Mediator fhall have difficulty, or much ado, to fave this or that man; millions of hells of finners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace. I pray you (remembering my love to your wife, and friends there) let me find that I have follicitors there amongst your acquaintance; and forget not Scotland. London, Jan. 30. 1646. Madam, Your brother in Jefus 50. To my Lady KENMURE. T is too like, the Lord's controversy with these two nations is but yet beginning, and that we are ripened and white for the Lord's fickle. For the particular condition your Ladyfhip is in, another might speak (if they would faý all) of more fad things. If there were not a fountain of free grace to water dry ground, and an uncreated wind to breathe on withered and dry bones, we were gone. The wheels of Chrift's chariot to pluck us out of the womb of many deaths, are winged like eagles. All I have, is, to defire to believe, that Chrift will fhew all good will to fave: and as for your Ladyfhip, I know that the Lord Jefus carrieth on no defign against you, but feeketh to fave and redeem you; he lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to take you up. His way of redeeming is ravishing and taking; there are more miracles of glorified finners in heaven, than can be on earth. Nothing of you, Madam, nay, not your leaf, can wither. Verily, it is a king's life to follow the Lamb; but ye when fee him in his own country at home, ye will think ye never faw him before: He fhall be admired of all them that believe, 2 Theff. i. 12. Ye may judge how far all your now fad days and toffings, changes, loffes, wants, conflicts, fhall then be below you. Ye look to the cross, now it is above your head, and feems to threaten death, as having a dominion; but it fhall then be fo far below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above it, that ye fhall have no leifure to lend one thought to old dated croffes, in youth, in age, in this country or in that, from Eee 2 this this inftrument or from another; except it be to the heightening of your confolation, being now got above and beyond all these. Old age, and waxing old as a garment, is written on the fairest face of the creation, Pfal. cii. 26, 27. Death from Adam to the fecond. Adam's appearance, playeth the king, and reigneth over all; the prime heir died, his children, which the Lord hath given, follow him. And we may speak freely of the life which is here; were it heaven, there were not much gain in godlinefs: but there is a reft for the people of God. Chrift-man poffeffeth it now one thousand fix hundred years before many of his members; but it weareth not cut. Grace be with you. London, Feb. 16. Madam, 1640. Your Ladyfbip's in Chrift 51. To the Lady ARDROSS. Race, mercy and peace be to you: it hath feemed good (as I I hear) to him who hath appointed a bounds for the number of our months, to gather in a fheaf of ripe corn (in the death of your Christian mother) into his garner: it is the more evident, that winter is near, when apples, without violence of wind, do of their own accord fall off the tree. She is now above the winter, with a little change of place, not of a Saviour; only fhe enjoyeth him now without meffages, and, in his own immediate prefence, from whom she heard by letters and meffengers before. I grant, death is to her a very new thing, but heaven was prepared of old; and Chrift enjoyed in his highest throne, and as loaded with glory, and incomparably exalted above men and angels, having fuch a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and muficians above, compaffing the throne with a fong, is to her a new thing; but fo new, as the firft fummer-rofe, or the firft-fruits of that heavenly field; or as a new paradise to a traveller, broken and worn out of breath_with the fad occurrences of a long and driery way. Ye eafily judge, Madam, what a large recompenfe is made to all her fervice, her walking with God, and her forrows, with the first caft of the foul's eye upon the fhining and admirably beautiful face of the Lamb, that is in the midft of that fair and white army that is there, and with the first draught and taste of the fountain of life, fresh and new at the well-head to fay nothing of the enjoying of that Face, without date, for more than this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no more to go thither, but to fuffer death to do ber this piece of fervice: for by him, who was dead, and is alive, she was delivered from the second death; what then is the first death ⚫ to the fecond? Not a scratch of the hide of a finger, to the endless fecond death. And now the fitteth for eternity meal-free, in a very confiderable land, which hath more than four fummers in the year. O what fpring-time is there! even the smelling of the odours of that great and eternally blooming Rofe of Sharon for ever and ever? What a finging life is there? there is not a dumb bird in all that large field, but all fing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion, to the high Prince of that new-found land; and verily the land is the fweeter, that Jefus Chrift paid fo dear a rent for it, and he is the glory of the land: all which, I hope, doth not fo much mitigate and allay your grief for her part (as truly this fhould feem fufficient) as the unerring expectation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope ye have of the fruition of that fame King and kingdom to your own foul. Cer. tainly the hope of it, when things look fo dark like on both kingdoms, must be an exceeding great quickening to languishing spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery, to have both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at night! but he hath taken up your lodging for you. I can fay no more now; but I pray, that the very God of peace may establish your heart to the end. I rest, London, Feb. 24. 1646. Sir, Madam, Your Ladyfbip's at all refpective obedience in the Lord, S. R. 52. To M. O. I Can write nothing for the prefent concerning these times (whatever others may think) but that which speaketh wrath and judg ment to these kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that land, received the gospel in the truth, (as I am confident ye and they did) there is here a great departure from that faith, and our sufferings are not yet at an end: however, I dare teftify and die for it, that once Christ was revealed in the power of his excellency and glory to the faints there, and in Scotland, of which I was a witnefs: I pray God none deceive you, or take the crown from you. Hell or the gates of hell cannot ravel, mar or undo what Chrift hath once done amongst you: it may be, that I am incapable of new light, and cannot receive that spirit whereof some vainly boast; but that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have feen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, even the word of life, John i. 2, 3. hath been declared to you. Thousands of thousands, walking in that light and that good old way, have gone to heaven, and are now before the throne; truth is but one, and hath no numbers. Chrift and Anti-. chrift are both now in the camp, and are come to open blows Chrift's poor fhip faileth in the fea of blood, the paffengers are fo fea-fick of a high fever, that they mifcall one another; Christ (I hope) |