Epift. 56 upon me, and I have no answer for it. I offered my tongue to Chrift, and my pains in his houfe; and what know I what it meaneth, when Christ will not receive my poor propine? When love will not take, we expone, it will neither take nor give, borrow nor lend. Yet Christ hath another fea-compass he faileth by, than my short and raw thoughts: I leave his part of it to himself. I dare not expound his dealing, as forrow and misbelief often dictateth to me: I look often with my bleared and blind eyes to my Lord's crofs; and when I look to the wrong fide of his crofs, I know I miss a step and a flide: furely I fee I have not legs of my own for carrying me to heaven; I must go in at heaven's gates, borrowing ftrength from Chrift. I am often thinking, O if he would but give me leave to love him, and if Christ would but open up his wares, and the infinite plyes and windings and corners of his foul-delighting love, and let me fee it, like an hungry man befide meat, to get my fill of wondering, as a preface to my fill of enjoying! But verily, I think my foul eyes would defile his fair love to look to it: either my hunger is over humble, (if that may be faid) or elfe I confider not what honour it is to get leave to love Christ. O that he would pity a prifoner, and let out a flood upon the dry ground! It is nothing to him to fill the like of me; one of his looks would do me meikle world's good, and him no ill. I know I am not at a point yet with Christ's love, I am not yet fitted for so much as I would have of it; my hope fitteth neighbour with meikle black hunger and certainly I do not but think, there is more of that love ordained for me than I yet comprehend; and I know not the weight of the pension the king will give me; I fhall be glad, if my hungry bill get leave to ly befide Chrift, waiting on an answer. Now I would be full and rejoice if I got a poor man's alms of that sweetest love: but I confidently believe there is a bed made for Chrift and me, and that we fhall take our fill of love in it; and I often think when my joy is run out, and at the lowest ebb, that I would feek no more, but my rights past the King's great feal, and that these eyes of mine could fee Chrift's hand at the pen. If your Lord call you to fuffering be not difmayed; there fhall be a new allowance of the king for you when ye come to it: one of the fofteft pillows Christ hath is laid under his witneffes head, tho' often they must fet down their bare feet among thorns. He hath brought my poor foul to defire and with, O that my afhes, and the powder I shall be diffolved into, had well tuned tongues to praise him. Thus in hafte, defiring your prayers and praises, I recommend you to my fweet, fweet mafter, my honourable Lord, of whom I hold all. Grace be with you. Aberdeen, 1637. Your own in his fweet Lord Mistress, 57. To JANE BROWN. Race, mercy and peace at Chrift's back, in this dark and cloudy time; it were good to fell other things for him; for when all thefe days are over, we fhall find it our advantage, that we have taken part with Christ. I confidently believe, his enemies fhall be his footstool, and that he fhall make green flowers dead withered hay, when the honour and glory fhall fall off them, like the bloom or flower of a green herb fhaken with the wind. It were not wisdom for us to think that Chrift and the gospel will come and fit down at our fire-fide; nay, but we must go out of our warm houses, and feek Christ and his gospel it is not the funny fide of Chrift that we must look to, and we must not forsake him for want of that; but must set our face against what may befall us, in following on, till he and we be through the briars and bushes on the dry ground. Our foft nature would be born through the troubles of this miferable life, in Chrift's arms; and it is his wifdom who knoweth our mould, that his bairns go wet-fhod and cold-footed to heaven. O how fweet a thing were it for us to learn to make our burdens light, by framing our hearts to the burden, and making our Lord's will a law! I find Chrift and his cross not fo ill to please, nor yet fuch troublesome guests as men call them; nay, I think patience should make Christ's water good wine, and this drofs good metal: and we have caufe to wait on; for, ere it be long, our Master will be at us, and bring this whole world out before the fun and daylight in their blacks and whites. Happy are they who are found watching: our fand-glafs is not fo long as we need to weary; time will eat away and root out our woes and forrow; our heaven is in the bud, and growing up to an harvest; why then should we not follow on, feeing our fpan-length of time will come to an inch? Therefore I commend Chrift to you as your living, and longeft living husband, and the staff of your old age; let him have now the rest of your days: and think not much of a ftorm upon the ship that Chrift faileth in; there fhall no paffenger fall over-board, but the crazed ship and the fea-fick paffengers fhall come to land fafe. I am in as fweet communion with Christ as a poor finner can be; and am only pained that he hath much beauty and fairness, and I little love; he great power and mercy, and I little faith; he much light, and I bleared eyes. Oh that I faw him in the fweetnefs of his love, and in his marriage cloaths, and were over head and ears in love with that princely one, Christ Jefus my Lord! Alas, my riven dish, and running out veffel can hold little of Chrift Jefus. I have joy in this, that I would not refufe death, before I put Chrift's lawful heritage in men's tryft laft Epift. $8. ing; and what know I, if they would have pleased both Chrift and me? Alas, that this land hath put Chrift to open rouping, and to an, any man more bids! Blessed are they who would hold the crown on his head, and buy Chrift's honour with their own loffes. I rejoice to hear your fon John is coming to vifit Chrift, and taste of his love: I hope he fhall not lose his pains, or rue of that choice. I had always (as I faid often to you) a great love to dear Mr. John Brown, because I thought I faw Chrift in him more than in his brethren: fain would I write to him, to ftand by my fweet Mafter; and I wish ye would let him read my letter, and the joy. I have, if he will appear for, and fide with my Lord Jefus. Grace be with you, Aberdeen, March 13. 1637. Your's in his fweet Lord Jefus, S. R. 58. To JANE MACMILLAN. Loving fifter, GRace, mercy and peace be to you. I cannot come to you, to ftay with you: but I befeech you to keep Chrift, for I did what I could to put you within grips of him; I told you Chrift's teftament and latter will plainly, and I kept nothing back that my Lord gave me; and I gave Chrift to you with good will: I pray you make him your own, and go not from that truth I taught you, in one hair-breadth; that truth fhall fave you if ye follow it. Salvation is not an eafy thing and foon gotten; I often told you few are faved and many damned; I pray you make your poor foul fure of falvation, and make the feeking of heaven your daily task. If ye never had a fick night and a pained foul for fin, ye have not yet lighted upon Chrift; look to the right marks of having closed with Chrift; if ye love him better than the world, and would quit all the world for him, then that faith the work is found. if ye faw the beauty of Jefus, and felt the fmell of his love, you would run through fire and water to be at him! God fend you him. Pray for me, for I cannot forget you, Grace be with you, Aberdeen, 1637Your loving paftor, S. R. Mistress, 59. To the Lady BUS BIE. Race, mercy and peace be to you. I am glad to hear that Chrift and ye are one, and that ye have made him your one thing; where many are painful, toiled in feeking many things, and their many things are nothing. It is only beft, ye fet yourfelf apart, as a thing laid up and out of the gait, for Chrift alone; for ye are good for no other thing but Chrift; and he's been going about about you these many years, by afflictions, to engage you to himfelf; it were a pity and a lofs to fay him nay. Verily I could with that I could fwim through hell, and all the ill weather in the world, and Chrift in my arms; but it is my evil and folly, that except Chrift come unfent for, I do not go to feek him; when he and I fall in reckoning, we are both behind, he in payment, and I in counting; and fo marches ly ftill unrid, and counts uncleared betwixt us. O that he would take his own blood for counts and miscounts, that I might be a free man, and none had any claim to me but only, only Jefus. I will think it no bondage to be rouped, comprised and poffeffed by Chrift, as his bondman. Think well of the vifitations of your Lord: for I find one thing, I faw not well before, that when the faints are under trials, and well humbled, little fins raise great cries and war shouts in the confcience; and in profperity, confcience is a Pope, to give difpenfations, and let out and in, and give latitude and elbowroom to our heart. O how little care we for pardon at Christ's hand, when we make dispensations! and all is but bairns play, till a crofs without beget an heavier crofs within, and then we play no longer with our idols. It is good still to be fevere against ourfelves; for we but transform God's mercy into an idol, and an idol that hath a difpenfation to give, for turning of the grace of God into wantonness. Happy are they who take up God, wrath, justice, and fin, as they are in themselves; for we have mifcarrying light, that parted with child, when we have good refolutions: but, God be thanked, that falvation is not rolled upon our wheels. O but Chrift hath a faving eye! Salvation is in his eye-lids; when he first looked on me, I was faved; it coft him but a look, to make hell quit of me: O merits, free merits, and the dear blood of God, was the best gait that ever we could have gotten of hell! O what a fweet, O what a safe and fure way is it, to come out of hell, leaning on a Saviour! That Chrift and a finner fhould be one, and have heaven betwixt them, and be halvers of falvation, is the wonder of falvation. What more humble could love be? and what an excellent smell doth Christ cast on his lower garden, where there grow but wild flowers, if we fpeak by way of comparifon; but there is nothing but perfect garden flowers in heaven, and the beft plenishing that is there is Chrift. We are all obliged to love heaven for Christ's fake; he graceth heaven, and all his Father's houfe with his prefence: he is a Rofe that beautifieth all the upper garden of God; a leaf of that Rofe of God for fmell is worth a world: O that he would blow his fmell upon a withered and dead foul! let us then go on to meet with him, and to be filled with the sweetness of his love. Nothing will hold him from us; he hath decreed to put time, fin, hell, devils, men and death out of the way, and to rid the rough way betwixt us and him, N 2 that that we may enjoy one another. It is ftrange and wonderful, that he would think long in heaven without us, and that he would have the company of finners to folace and delight himself withal in heaven; and now the fupper is abiding us; Chrift the Bridegroom with defire is waiting on, till the bride, the Lamb's wife, be bufked for the marriage, and the great hall be rid for the meeting of that joyful couple. O fools, what do we here? and why fit we ftill? why fleep we in the prifon? were it not best to make us wings, to flee up to our bleffed match, our marrow, and our fellow friends? I think, Mistress, ye are looking thereaway, and this is your fecond or third thought; make forward, your guide waiteth on you, I cannot but blefs you for your care and kindness to the faints. God give you to find mercy in that day of our Lord Jefus, to whofe faving grace I recommend you, Aberd. 1637. Yours in our Lord Jefus, S. R. 60. To WILLIAM RIGG of Athernie. 1 Much honoured and worthy Sir, Y Our letter, full of complaints, bemoaning your guiltiness, hath humbled me; but give me leave to fay, Ye feem to be too far upon the law's fide, ye will not gain much to be the law's advocate; I thought ye had not been the law's, but grace's man; nevertheless, I am fure ye defire to take God's part against yourfelf; whatever your guiltiness be, yet when it falleth into the fea of God's mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen in the great ocean. There is nothing here to be done, but let Christ's doom light on the old man, and let him bear his condemnation, seeing in Chrift he was condemned; for the law hath but power over your worst half: let the blame therefore ly where the blame should be; and let the new man be sure to say, 'I am comely as the tents of Kedar, howbeit I be black and fun burnt, by fitting neighbour beside a body of fin. I feek no more here but room for grace's defence, and Chrift's white throne, whereto a finner, condemned by the law, may appeal: but the ufe that I make of it is, I am forry that I am not fo tender and thin-skinned, though I am fure Christ may find enployment for his calling in me, if in any living, feeing from my youth upward I have been making up the blackest process that any minister in the world, or any other, can anfwer to; and when I had done this, I painted a providence of my own, and wrote ease for myself, and a peaceable ministry, and the fun shining on me, till I fhould be in at heaven's gates; fuch green and raw thoughts had I of God! I thought alfo of a fleeping devil that would pafs by the like of me, lying in muirs and out fields; fo I begged the gouk's neft, and dreamed of dying at ease, and living in a fool's paradife: but fince I came hi ther, |