me; I flee from him, but he purfueth. I hear your Ladyship hath the fame esteem of the despised cause and covenant of our Lord, ye had before Madam, hold you there; I dare and would gladly breathe out my spirit in that way, with a nearer communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son, and would seek no more, but that I might die believing: and alfo I would hope, that the earth fhall not cover the blood of the godly flain in Scotland; but that the Lord will make inquifition for their blood, when the fufferings of the faints in thefe lands fhall be fulfilled. The goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush be with you. Glasgow, Sept, 28, 1651. Madam, Your Ladyfhip's at all obfervance in the Lord Jefus, S. R 63. To my Lady KENMURE. Grace, mercy and peace be to you: I know ye think of an out going, and that your quartering in time, and your abode in this life, is fhort; for we flee away as a fhadow: the declining of the fun, and the lengthening of the fhadow, faith our journey is fhort and near the end; I fpeak it, because I have warnings of my removal. Madam, I know not any against whom the Lord is not; for he is against the proud and lofty; the day of the Lord is upon all the cedars, upon all the high mountains, upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures. I know not any thing comparable to a nearness and fpiritual communion with the Father and the Son Chrift: there is much deadness and witheredness upon many fpirits, fometimes near to God; and I wish the Lord have not more to fay to and do against the land. Ye have, Madam, in your accounts mercies, deliverances, rods, warnings, plenty of means, confolations, when refuge failed, when ye looked on the right-hand, and behold no man would know you, nor care for your foul, when young and weak, manifestations of God, the out-goings of the Lord for you, experiences, answers from the Lord; by all which, ye may be comforted now, and confirmed in the certain hope, that grace, free grace, in a fixed and established furety, fhall perfect that good work in you: happy they, who fee not, and yet believe! Grace, grace eternally in our Lord Jefus be with you. Edin. May 27. Tours in the Lord 1645. Jefus, S. R. 1 I Madam, 64. To my Lady KENMURE. Have been so long filent, that I am almoft afhamed now to fpeak. I hear of your weakly condition of body, which speaketh fome warning to you, to look for a longer life, where ye shall have more leisure to praise than time can give you here: it shall be lofs to many; but fure, yourself, Madam, fhall be only free of any lofs. And truly, confidering what days we are now fallen into, if failing were not serving of the Lord, (which I can hardly attain) a calm harbour were very good, when forms are fo high: the Fore-runner, who hath landed first, must help to bring the fea-beaten vessel fafe to the port, and the fick paffengers, who are following the Fore-runner, fafe afhore. Much deadnefs prevaileth over fome; but there is much life in him, who is the refurrection and the life, to quicken. O what of our hid life is without us, and how little and poor a stock is in the hand of fome! The only wife God fupply what is wanting; the more ye want, and the more your joy hath run on, the more is owing to you by the promise of grace: bygones of waterings from heaven, which your Ladyship wanted in Kenmure, Rufco, the Weft, Glasgow, Edinburgh, England, &c. fhall all come in a great fum together; the marriage-fupper of the Lamb must not be marred with too large a four hours refreshment, Know, Madam, he who hath tutored you from the breasts, knoweth how to time his own day fhinings and love-vifits. Grace that runs on, be with you. I St. Andrews. Madam, Yours in the Lord, at all obfer 65. To my Lady KENMURE. vance, S. R. Confefs I have caufe to be grieved at my long filence, or lazi. nefs in writing: I am also afflicted to hear, that such, who were debtors to your Ladyship for better dealing, have served you with fuch prevarication: ye know crookednefs is neither strong nor long enduring; and ye know likewife, that these things (pring not out of the dust: it is sweet to look upon the lawless and finful ftirrings of the creatures, as ordered by a moft holy Hand in hea ven. O if fome could make peace with God! It would be our wisdom, and afford us much sweet peace, if oppreffors were looked upon as paffive inftruments, like the faw or ax in the carpenter's hand; they are bidden (if fuch a distinction may be admitted) but not commanded of God (as Shimei was, 2 Sam. xvi. 10.) to do what they do. Madam, thefe many years the Lord hath been teaching teaching you to read and study well the book of holy, holy and fpotlefs Sovereignty, in fuffering from fome nigh hand and fome far off. Whoever be the inftruments, the replying of clay to the Potter, the Former of all, is unbefeeming the nothing creature: I hope he fhall clear you: but when Zion's public evils ly not nigh fome of us, and leave no impreffion upon our hearts, it is no wonder that we be exercised with domeftic troubles; but I know, ye are taught of God to prefer Jerufalem to your chiefest joy. Madam, there is no caufe of fainting; wait upon the not tarrying vifion, for it will speak. The only wife God be with you, and God even your own God bless you. I St. Andrews, June Madam, 1657. Yours in all obfervance in 66. To my Lady KENMURE. God, S. R. Should not forget you; but my deadnefs under a threatening ftroke, both of a falling church, a broken covenant, a defpifed remnant, and craziness of body (that I cannot get a piece fickly clay carried about from one houfe or town to another) lies most heavy on me the Lord hath removed Scotland's crown, for we owned not his crown; we fretted at his catholic government of the world, and fretted that he would not be ruled and led by us, in breaking our adversaries; and he makes us fuffer and pine away in our iniquities, under the broken government of his houfe. It is like it would be our fnare, to be tried with the honour of a peaceable reformation; we might mar the carved work of his house, worfe than those against whom we cry out. It is like he hath bidden us ly on our left-fide three hundred and ninety days; and yet so aftodishing is our stupidity, that we moan not our fore-fide: our gold is become dim, the visage of our Nazarites is become black, the fun is gone down on our feers, the crown is fallen from our head, we roar like bears. Lord fave us from that, He that made them will not have mercy on them. The heart of the scribe meditates terror. Oh, Madam, if the Lord would help to more felf-judging, and to make fure an intereft in Chrift! Ah, we forget eternity, and it approacheth quickly. Grace be with you. I St. Andrews, Nov. 20. 1657. Madam, Your Ladyfhip's at all obedience in the 67. To my Lady KENMURE. Lord, S. R. Am afhamed of my long filence to your Ladyfhip. Your tof fings and wanderings are known to him, upon whom ye have been Epist. 67. been caft from the breafts, and who hath been your God of old. The temporal lofs of creatures, dear to you there, may be the more eafily endured, that the gain of One, who only hath immortality, groweth. There is an univerfal complaint of deadness of spirit on all that know God: he that writes to you, Madam, is as deep in this as any, and is afraid of a strong and hot battle, before time be at a clofe; but no matter if the Lord crown all with the victorious triumphing of faith. God teacheth us by terrible things in righteoufnefs. We fee many things, but we obferve nothing. Our drink is four, gray hairs are here and there on us, and we change many Lords and Rulers; but the fame bondage of foul and body remains. We live little by faith, but much by fenfe, according to the times, and by human policy. The watchmen fleep, and the people perish for lack of knowledge. How can we be enlightened, when we turn our back on the Sun? And must we not be withered when we leave the Fountain? It should be my only defire to be a minister, gifted with the white stone, and the new name written on it. I judge it were fit (now when tall profeffors, and when many ftars fall from heaven, and God poureth the isle of Great Britain from veffel to veffel, and yet we fit and are settled on our lees) to confider (as fometimes I do: but, ah! rarely) how irrecoverable a wo it is, to be under a beguile in the matter of eternity: and what if I, who can have a fubfcribed teftimony of many, who fhall stand at the right-hand of the Judge, fhall mifs Chrift's approving testimony, and be fet upon the left-hand among the goats? there is fuch a beguile, Mat. vii. 22. Mat. xxv. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Luke xiii. 25, 26. And it befals many, and what if it befal me, who have but too much art to cozen my own foul and ́others, with the flourish of minifterial or country holiness. Dear Lady, I am afraid of prevailing fecurity; we watch little, (I have mainly relation to myself) we wrestle little: I am like one travelling in the night, who fees a spirit, and fweats for fear, and dare not tell it to his fellow, for fear of encreafing his own fear; however, I am fure, when the Master is nigh his coming, it were safe to write over a double and a new copy of our accounts, of the fins of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, and old age. What if Chrift have another written reprefentation of me, than I have of myself? fure his is right; and if it contradict my mistaking and finfully erro neous account of myself, ah! where am I then? But, Madam, difcourage none; I know Chrift hath made a new marriage-contract of love, and fealed it with his blood, and the trembling be liever fhall not be confounded. Grace be with you. St. Andrews, May 26. 1659. I Yours at all obedience in I Madam, 68. To my Lady KENMURE. Should be glad that the Lord would be pleafed to lengthen out more time to you, that ye might, before your eyes be shut, fee more of the work of the right-hand of the Lord, in reviving a now fwooning and crushed land and church. Though I was lately knocking at death's gate, yet could I not get in, but was fent back for a time. It is well, if I could yet do any fervice to him; but ah, what deadnefs lieth upon the fpirit! and deadness breedeth distance from God. Madam, thefe many years the Lord hath let you fee a clear difference betwixt those who serve God, and love his name, and those who serve him not; and I judge ye look upon the way of Chrift as the only beft way, and that ye would not exchange Chrift for the world's god, or their Mammon, and that ye can give Christ a testimony of Chief among ten thousand: true it is, that many of us have fallen from our first love; but Chrift hath renewed his first love of our efpoufals to himself, and multiplied the feekers of God, all the country over, even where Chrift was scarce named, eaft and weft, fouth and north, above the number that our fathers ever knew. But ah! Madam, what shall be done or faid of many fallen stars, and many near to God complying wofully, and failing to the neareft fhore? Yea, and we are confumed in the furnace, but not melted; burnt, but not purged; our drofs is not removed, but our fcum remains in us; and in the furnace we fret, we faint, and (which is more strange) we flumber : the fire burneth round about us, and we lay it not to heart; gray-hairs are upon us, and we know it not. It were now a defireable life to fend away our love to heaven; and well becometh it us to wait on for the appointed change, yet fo as we fhould be meditating thus: is there a new world above the fun and moon? and is there fuch a bleffed company harping and finging Hallelujahs to the Lamb up above? Why then are we taken with a vain life of fighing and finning? Oh, where is our wifdom, that we fit ftill laughing, eating, fleeping prifoners, and do not pack up all our beft things for the journey, defiring always to be clothed with our houfe from above, not made with hands! Ah, we favour not the things that are above, nor do we smell of glory ere we come thither; but we tranfact and agree with time, for a new leafe of clay manfions: behoid he cometh, we fleep, and turn all the work of duties into difpute of events for deliverance; but the greatest hafte to be humbled for a broken and a buried covenant, is first and laft forgotten and all our grief is, the Lord lingers, enemies triumph, godly ones fuffer, atheifts blafpheme. Ah we pray not, but wonder that Chrift cometh not the higher way, by might, by power, by garments rolled in blood; what if he come the lower Hhh way? |