TO ROBERT GORDON,
OF KNOCKBREX.
DEAR BROTHER,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you!
I received your letter from Edinburgh. I would not wish to see another heaven,
until I get mine own heaven; but a new moon like the light of the sun, and
a new sun like the light of seven days, shining upon my poor self, and the
Church of Jews and Gentiles, and upon my withered and sunburnt mother the Church of Scotland, and upon her sister
churches England and Ireland; and to have this done, to the exaltation of
our great King: It matters not, although 1: were separate from CHRIST, and
had a sense of ten thousand years' pain in hell, if this were. Dear brother,
I am for the present in no small battle between felt guiltiness, and pining
longings for my Wellbeloved. Alas! I think CHRIST'S
love playeth the niggard to me; and I know it is not a scarcity
of love, there is enough in him: but my hunger prophesieth
sparingness in CHRIST; for I have but little of
him, and little of his sweetness; yet there is such joy in hunger for CHRIST,
that if I had no other heaven but a continual thirst for CHRIST, this were
still a heaven to me. I am sure CHRIST'S love cannot be cruel; it must be
a pitiful, a melting hearted love: but suspension of that love, I think, is
half a hell, and the want of it is a whole hell. When I look to my guiltiness,
I see my salvation one of my Savior's greatest miracles either in heaven or
earth; I am sure, I may defy any man to show me a greater wonder: but seeing
I have no hire, no money for CHRIST, he must either take me with want, misery,
and corruption, or want me. I have now made a new question, whether CHRIST
be more to be loved for giving sanctification, or for free
justification? And I hold he is more to be loved for sanctification. It is
in some respect greater love in him to sanctify than to justify; for he maketh us most like himself, in his own essential portraiture
and image, in sanctifying us: justification does but make us happy, which
is to be like the angels only. Neither is it such a misery, to he a condemned
man, as to serve sin, and work the works of the Devil; and therefore, I think,
sanctification cannot be bought, it is above price. GOD be thanked for ever,
that CHRIST was a price for sanctification. Let a sinner (if it were possible)
he in hell for ever if he make him truly holy, and let him he there burning
in love to GOD, rejoicing in the HOLY GHOST, and hanging upon CHRIST by faith
and hope, that is heaven in the heart and bottom of hell. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his lovely and longedfor LORD JESUS,
Aberdeen, 1637.
S. R.
TO CARLETOUN.
Worthy and much honored,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I received your letter from
my brother, to which I now answer particularly. I confess two things of myself:—1.
Woe, woe is me, that men should think there is any thing in me: He is my witness,
before whom I am as crystal, that the secret house devils, that bear me too
often company, and that this sink of corruption which I find within, make
me go with low sails; and, if others saw what I see, they would look by me,
but not to me.—2. I know that this shower of his free grace behooved to be
on me, otherwise I would have withered. I know also, that I have need of a
buffeting Tempter, that grace may be put to exercise, and I kept low. Worthy
and dear brother in our LORD JESUS, I write that from my heart which ye now
read.1. I vouch, that CHRIST. And sweating and sighing under his cross, are
sweeter to me by far, than all the kingdoms of the world.—2. If you and my
dearest acquaintance in CHRIST reap any fruit by my suffering, let me be weighed
in GOD's even balance, if my joy be not fulfilled:
What am I, to carry the marks of such a great King? But although I am a sinful
mass, my LORD JESUS can hew heaven out of worse timber than I am, if worse
can be.—5. I now rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious, that I have desired
to have and keep CHRIST all alone, and that he should never rub clothes with
the harlot of Rome. I am now fully paid; so that nothing aileth
me for the present, but anxious desires for a real possession of my Well beloved.
I have gotten the choicest of CHRIST'S crosses,—to bear witness to the truth;
and herein find I liberty, joy, life, comfort, love,
faith, submission, patience, and resolution to take delight in waiting: and
withal, in my race, he has come near to me, and let me see the crown. What
then want I but real enjoyment, which is reserved
to my country? Let no man think that he shall lose at CHRIST'S hands in suffering
for him.—4. As to these present trials, they are most dangerous. For people
shall be stolen off their feet with plausible pretences of indifferency;
but it is the power of the great Antichrist working in this land. Woe, woe,
woe be to apostate Scotland;
there is wrath, and a cup of the red wine of the wrath of GOD almighty in
the LORD's hand, that they shall drink, and fall, and not rise
again. The star, called " Wormwood and Gall,"
is fallen into the fountains and rivers, and has made them bitter. The sword
of the LORD is furbished against the idol shepherds of the land; all hearts
shall be faint, and all knees shall tremble. An end is coming; the leopard
and the lion shall watch over our cities; houses great and fair shall be desolate,
without an inhabitant.—5. I am assaulted by the learned and pregnant wits
of this kingdom; but, all honor be to my LORD, truth
but laughs at disputers of this world; GOD's wisdom
confoundeth them; and CHRIST triumpheth in his own strong truth, that speaketh for itself.6. Let my conceptions of CHRIST'S love
go to the grave with me, and to hell with me, I may not, I dare not quit them.
I hope to keep CHRIST'S pawn: if he never come to
loose it, let him see to his own promise. I know that presumption, although
it be made of stoutness, will not thus be wilful
in heavy trials. Now, my dearest in CHRIST, the great Messenger of the Covenant,
the only wise and all sufficient JEHOVAH, establish you to the end! I hear
the LORD has been at your house, and has called home your wife to her rest.
I know, Sir, ye see the LORD loosing the pins of your tabernacle, and wooing
your love from this overgilded world, and calling
upon you to be making yourself ready to go to your Father's country. Ye know,
to " send the Comforter" was a King's word
when he ascended on high: ye have claim to, and interest in, that promise.
All love, all mercy, all grace and peace, all multiplied saving consolations,
all joy and faith in CHRIST, all stability and confirming strength of grace,
and the goodwill of Him that dwelt in the bush, be with you!
Your unworthy brother in the LORD JESUS,
Aberdeen,
S. R.
June 15, 1639.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Worthy and dearest in the LORD,
I EVER loved (since I knew you) that little vineyard of the LORD's
planting in Galloway; but now much more, since I have heard that He, who "
has his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem," has been pleased
to set up a furnace amongst you, with the first in this kingdom. This fire
shall be quenched, so soon as CHRIST has brought you pure through the fire.
Therefore, my dearly beloved in the LORD, fear not. Charge an unbelieving
heart, under the pain of treason against our great and royal King JESUS, to
dependence by faith on our LORD. Get you into your chambers, and shut the
doors about you; in, in with speed to your strong hold, ye prisoners of hope;
ye doves, flee in to CHRIST'S; windows, till the indignation be over, and
the storm be past. Glorify the LORD in your sufferings, and take his banner
of love and spread over you. Others will follow you, if they see you strong
in the LORD; their courage shall take life from your Christian carriage. Look
up and see who is coming; lift up your head; he is coming to save, "
in garments dyed in blood, and traveling in the greatness of his strength."
I laugh, I smile, I leap for joy, to see CHRIST coming to save you so quickly.
O what wide steps CHRIST taketh! Three or four hills
are but a step to him; " he skippeth over the
mountains." CHRIST has set a battle between his poor weak saints and
his enemies. He says to the enemies, Take you a sword of steel, law, authority,
parliaments, and kings upon your side; that is your armour.
And he says to his. saints, I give you a sword in your hand, and that is suffering,
receiving of strokes, spoiling of your goods; and with your sword ye shall
get and gain the victory. Ye are CHRIST'S members, and he is drawing his members
through the thorny hedge up to heaven after him. I am careless, and stand
not much on this, although loins, back, shoulders, and head, split in pieces,
in stepping up to my Father's house. 1 know that my LORD can make long, and
broad, and high, and deep glory to his name, out of this poor body; for CHRIST
looketh not what stuff he maketh
glory out of. My dearly beloved, ye have often refreshed me, but that is put
up in my Master's accounts; ye have him debtor for me. But if ye will do any
thing for me (as I know ye will) now in my extremity, tell all my dear friends,
that a prisoner is fettered and chained in CHRIST's
love; (LORD, never loose the fetters;) and ye and they together, take my heartiest
commendations to my LORD JESUS, and thank him for a poor friend. I desire
your husband to read this letter; I send him a prisoner's blessing. I will
be obliged to him, if he will be willing to suffer for my dear Master; suffering
is the professor's golden garment; there shall be no losses on CHRIST'S side
of it. Grace be with you; a prisoner's blessing be with you I write it, and
abide by it, GOD shall be glorious in MARION MACKNAUGHT, when this stormy
blast shall be over. O woman, beloved of GOD, believe, rejoice, be strong
in the LORD; grace is thy portion!
Aberdeen,
Yours in his LORD JESUS,
June 15, 1637.
S. R.
TO THE LADY CULROSS,
MADAM,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I am the first in the kingdom
put to utter silence. I cannot preach my LORD's
righteousness in the great congregation. I am, notwithstanding, the less solicitous
how it go, if there be not wrath in my cup. But I rest on this, that in my
fever my Physician is at my bedside, and that he sympathizeth
with me when I sigh. Another man's bed and fireside, and other losses, have
no room in my sorrow: a greater heat, to eat out a less fire, is a good remedy
for some burning. I believe, when CHRIST draweth
blood, he has skill to cut the right vein; and that he has taken the whole
ordering and disposing of my sufferings. Let Him tutor me, and tutor my crosses,
as he thinketh good: there is no danger nor hazard in following
such a guide, although he should lead me through hell, if I could put faith
foremost, believing to see the salvation of GOD. I know, CHRIST is not obliged
to let me see both the sides of my cross, or to turn it over and over, that
I may see all: my faith is richer to live upon credit, CHRIST'S borrowed money,
than to have much in my hand. Let me be a sinner, and worse than the chief
of sinners, yea, a guilty Devil; yet I am sure my Well beloved is GOD: and
when I say, " CHRIST is GOD," and "
My CHRIST is Golly" I have said all things; I can say no more. I would
I could build as much upon this, " My CHRIST is GOD," as it would
bear. I might lay all the world upon it. But my wounds are sorest, and pain
me most, when I sin against his love and his mercy: and if he would set me
and my conscience together, and let us settle it between us, my spitting upon
the fair face of CHRIST'S love and mercies, by my jealousies, unbelief, and
doubting, would be enough to sink me. O LORD, I stand dumb before thee for
this; I still misbelieve, though I have seen that my LORD has made my cross
as it were all crystal, so that I can see through it CHRIST and heaven, and
that on has honored a lump of sinful flesh and blood, to be CHRIST's
honorable LORD prisoner. I ought to esteem the walls of a filthy dungeon
most beautiful, for my LORD JESUS; and yet I am not so shut up, but that the
sun shineth upon my prison, and the fair wide heaven is the covering
of it. But my LORD has done more; for he makes me find, that he will be a
prisoner with me: he lieth down, and riseth up with me; when I sigh, he sigheth;
when I weep, he suffereth with me. And I confess
here is the blessed issue of my’suffering already
begun, in that my heart io filled with hunger and
desire to have him glorified in my sufferings. I have no more free goods in
the world for CHRIST, save that: it is both the whole heritage I have, and
all my moveables, besides; " LORD, give the thirsty man to drink."
I would not have CIRIST's love entering in me, but
I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of it. Blessed be my rich LORD
JESUS, who sends not away beggars from his house! He filleth
the vessel of such as will come and seek: we might beg ourselves rich, (if
we were wise,) if we could but hold out withered hands to
CHRIST, and learn to seek, ask, and knock. Madam, let me have your prayers,
as ye have the prayers and blessing of him that is separated from his brethren.
Grace, grace be with you!
Your own in his LORD JESUS,
S. R.
Aberdeen,
Jane 15, 1631.
TO JOHN GORDON, OF CARDONESS, ELDER.
Much honored and dearest in the LORD,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! My soul longed', exceedingly
to hear how matters go between you and CHRIST; and whether or not there be
any work of CHRIST in that parish, that will abide the trial of fire and water.
Let me be weighed of my LORD in a just balance, if your souls he not weighty
upon me. You go to bed and you rise with me; thoughts of your soul depart
not from me in my sleep; ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, and prayers.
O that I could buy your soul's salvation with any suffering whatsoever, and
that ye and I might meet with joy before our Judge! O may my Lon') forbid
that I should have any thing against you in that day! O that He who quickeneth
the dead would give life to my sowing among you! What joy, on this side of
death, would comfort me more, than that the souls of that poor people were
in safety? Sure I am, that once I discovered my lovely LORD JESUS to you
all: woe shall be your part for evermore, if the Gospel be not the savor of
life unto life to you. Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won. "
The righteous scarcely are saved." O what violence of thronging will
heaven take! Alas, I see many deceiving themselves; for we will all profess
to go to heaven. Now, every foul dog, with his foul feet, will in to the new
and clean Jerusalem. All say they have faith; and the greatest part in the
world know not, and will not consider, that a slip in the matter of their
salvation, is the most pitiful slip that can be, and that no loss is comparable
to this loss. Ye will not believe how quickly the Judge will' come. And for
yourself, I know that death is waiting, and hovering, and lingering at GOD’s
command, that ye may be prepared. Then ye had need to stir your time; a wrong
step in going out of life is like the sin against the HOLY GHOST, and can
never be forgiven, because ye cannot come back again, through the last water,
to mourn for it. Lose not the last play, whatever ye do; for, in that play
with death, your precious soul is the prize: for the Loiad's
sake lose not such a treasure. Ye know, out of love to your soul, and out
of desire to make an honest account for you, I testified my disliking of your
ways very often, both in private and public. I am not now a witness of your
doings, but your Judge is always your witness. I beseech you by the mercies
of GOD, by the salvation of your soul, by your comforts when your eye strings
shall break, and the face wax pale; and the soul tremble to be out of the
lodging of clay, and by your appearance before your awful Judge, after the
sight of this letter take a new course; and now, in the end of your day, make
sure of heaven. Examine yourself, if ye be in good earnest in CHRIST. Many
think they believe, but never trembler the devils. are
further on than these. Make sure to yourself that ye are above ordinary professors;
the sixth part of your spanlength of days is scarcely
before you: haste, haste; for the tide will not abide. I never knew so well
what sin was; as since I came to, Aberdeen, although I was preaching of it
to you. To feel the smoke of hell's fire in the throat for half an hour, to
stand beside a river of fire ands brimstone broader than the earth, and to'
think of being. bound hand and foot, and cast into
the midst of it quick, and then to have God locking the prison door, never
to be' opened for all eternity O how will it shake a conscience' that has
any life in it! I find that the fruits of my pains, to have CHRIST and that
people united, now meet my soul in my sad hours; and I rejoice that T gave
fair warning of all the corruptions now entering into CHRIST'S house. I profess
to you, I have no’ rest, I have no ease, until I" be over head and ears
in love's ocean. If CHRIST'S love (that fountain of delight) were laid as
open to me as I could wish, O' how would I drink, and a drink abundantly!"
I half call his absence cruel, and the veil on CtintsT's
face a cruel covering, that hideth such a fain face
from a sick soul. I dare not challenge himself; but
his absence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart, O when shall we meet?
O how long is it to the dawning of the marriageday?
O LORD JESUS, take wide steps; O My LORD, come over mountains at one stride!
" O my beloved, flee like a roe, or young hart upon the
mountains." Since he looked upon me, my heart is not mine own: he has
gone away to heaven with it. I know it was not for nothing, that I spoke so
much good of CHRIST to you in public. O that the heaven,
and the heaven of heavens, were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude
of mountains pens of brass, and I were able to write that paper, within and
without, full of the praises of my Well beloved! Woe is me,
I cannot worthily set him out to men and angels. O, there are few tongues
to sing his incomparable excellency!
What can I, a poor prisoner, do to exalt him? Or what course can I take to
extol my Lout) JESUS? I am put to my wits' end, how to get his name made great.
Blessed be they who would help me in this! Those that see his face, how can
they get their eyes plucked from him again? Look up to him, and love him O
love and live! It were life to me, if ye would read
this letter to that people, and if they did profit by it. O that I could cause
them to die of love for JESUS! I charge them, by the salvation of their souls,
to cleave toCHRIST, and follow him, as I taught
them. Part by no means with CHRIST; hold fast what ye have received. Keep
the truth once delivered: if ye or that people quit it an
hair, ye break your conscience in twain; and who then can mend it, and cast
a knot on it? My dearest in the LORD, stand fast in CHRIST; keep the faith;
contend for CHRIST; wrestle for him; and take men's feuds for GOD's
favor;—there is no comparison between these.
O that my LORD would fulfill my joy, and keep the young bride
to CHRIST that is at Anwoth! And as to those, whoever they be, that have returned
to the old vomit since my departure, I bind upon their back, in my Master's
name and authority, the long lasting, weighty vengeance and curse of GOD:
in my Lo R u's name, I give them a doom of black,
unmixed, pure wrath, which my Master shall ratify and make good, when we stand
together before him, except they repent, and turn to the LORD. And I write
to thee, poor mourning and brokenhearted believer, be who you wilt, of the
free salvation CHRIST'S sweet balm for thy wounds, O: poor humble believer;
CHRIST'S blood of atonement for thy guilty soul; CHRIST'S heaven for thy poor
soul, though once banished out of Paradise: And my Master shall make good
my word before long. O that people were wise! O that people would never rest
until they find him! O how shall my soul mourn in secret, if my nine years'
pained head, and sore breast, and pained back, and grieved heart, and private
and public prayers to GOD, shall all be for nothing among that people! Did
my LORD JESUS send me but to summon you before your Judge, and to leave your
summons at your houses? O my GOD, forbid! Often did I tell you of a fan of
GOD's word to come among you, for the contempt of it. I told
you often of wrath, wrath from the LORD, to come upon Scotland';
it is quickly coming. Now, my dear people, my joy and my crown in the LORD,
" let Him be your fear;" seek the LORD and his face,
and save your souls. Doves, flee to CHRIST'S windows!
Pray for me, and praise for me. The blessing of my GOD, and the prayers and
blessing of a poor prisoner, be upon you!
Aberdeen,
Your lawful and loving Pastor,
June 16, 1637.
S. R.
TO MR. WILLIAM DALGLIESH,
Minister of the Gospel.
Reverend and dear Brother,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I am well; my Lord JESUS
is kinder to me than ever he was; it pleases him to dine and sup with his
afflicted prisoner; a King feasteth me, and his spikenard casteth
a sweet smell. Put CHRIST'S love to the trial, and then it will appear love
indeed: we employ not his love, and therefore we know it not. I count more
of the sufferings of my LORD, than of this world's gilded glory. I find it
a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with CHRIST'S joys, my afflictions
for that sweet peace which I have with himself. Brother,
this is his own truth for which I now suffer. He has sealed my sufferings
with his own comforts, and I know he will not put his seal upon blank paper;
his seals are not dumb, nor delusive, to.confirm
imaginations and lies. Go on, my dear Brother, in the strength of the Lows,
not fearing man that is a worm, or the son of man that will die. Providence
has a thousand keys, to open a thousand different doors, for the deliverance
of his own, when it is even come to.a "
Conclamatuna est." Let us be faithful,
and care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for him; and lay CHRIST's part on himself, and leave it. there.
Duties are ours, events are the Lord's. When our faith go to meddle with events,
and to hold a Court (if I may so speak) upon GOD's
Providence, and beginneth to say, "now wilt
you do this and that? "-we lose ground. We have
nothing to do there; it is our part to let the Almighty exercise his own office,
and steer his own helm; there is nothing left for us, but to see how we may
be approved of him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls (in well
doing) upon him, who is GOD OMNIPOTENT: And when what we thus essay. miscarrieth,
it shall neither. be our sin nor cross. Brother,
remember the LORD'S word to PETER, "SIMON, loves you me? Feed my sheep:"
No greater testimony of our love to CHRIST can be, than to feed painfully
and faithfully his lambs. Grace be with you!
Aberdeen.
Your brother in bonds,
S.R.
TO EARLESTOUN, YOUNGER.
Much honored and well beloved in the LORD,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! There is not such a glassy,
icy, and slippery piece of way, between you and heaven, as youth. I have experience
to say with me here, and seal what I assert; the old ashes of the sins of
my youth are now fire of sorrow to me. I have seen the Devil, as it were,
dead and buried, and yet rise again, and be a worse devil than ever he was.
Therefore, my Brother, beware of a green young devil, that has never been
buried: the devil in his youth is much to be feared. Better yoke with an old
grey haired, withered, dry devil: for in youth he finds thy sticks, and dry
coals, and a hot hearthstone; and how soon can he with his flint cast fire,
and with his bellows blow it up, and fire the house? Sanctified thoughts,
thoughts made conscience of, and kept in awe, are green fuel that burn not,
and are a water for SATAN'S coal. Yet, I must tell you, that all the saints,
now triumphant in heaven, are nothing but a company of redeemed sinners. But
their redemption is not only past the seals, but completed; and yours is on
the wheels, and in doing. Let your bleeding soul, and your sores, be put into
the hands of CHRIST: let young and strong corruptions, and his free grace,
be yoked together; and let CHRIST and your sins deal it between them. I would
be does to remove your fears, and your sense of deadness; (I wish it were
more;) there are some wounds of such a nature, that their bleeding should
not be soon stopped. Ye must take a house beside the Physician; it shall be
a miracle, if you be the first sick man he puts away uncured. , nay, CHRIST
IS honest and free with sinners; (John 6:37;) " And him that cometh to me,
I will in no wise cast out." Take ye that; it cannot be presumption to
take that as your own, when ye find your wounds. Presumption is ever whole
at the heart, and groaneth only for the sake of
fashion.; faith has sense of sickness. CHRIST is as full a
feast as ye can have. His mercy sends always a letter of defiance to all your
sins, if there were ten thousand more of them. I grant you, it is a hard matter
for a poor hungry man to find CHRIST, when the key of his banqueting house
is sought, and cannot be had: but hunger must break through iron locks. I
bemoan them not, who can cry out for a SAVIOR: ye must let him hear it (to
say so) upon both sides of his head, when he hideth
himself; it is not time then, to be careless and patient. CHRIST is rare,
indeed, and delicate to a sinner; he is a miracle, to a seeking and weeping
sinner; but yet such a miracle as will be seen by them who will "
come and see." The seeker and sigher
is at last a singer and enjoyer; nay, I have seen a dumb man
get an alms from CHRIST. It bodeth the approach
of GOD’s mercy, when we complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling
be continued with CHRIST, till he say, " How
is it that I cannot be quit of your cries? " And then hope for CHRIST'S
blessing his blessing is better than ten other blessings. Think
not shame because of' your guiltiness. Necessity must not blush to
beg: it standeth you hard to want CHRIST; and that
which idle waiting cannot do, crying and knocking will do. Now, for myself;
alas, I am not the man I go for in this nation: men have not just weights
to weigh me in. O, I am a silly body, and overgrown with weeds! Corruption
is too Tank in me. O that I were answerable to this holy cause, and to that
honorable Prince's love, for whom I now suffer! If
CHRIST would refer the matter to me, (in his presence I speak it) I might
think it shame to vote my awn salvation. I think, CHRIST might say, "
Thinkest you not shame to claim heaven, who dost
so little for it?" I am very often so, that I know not whether I sink
or swim in the water; I find myself a bag of light froth; I could bear no
weight. if my LORD did not cast in borrowed weight,
even CHRIST'S righteousness, to weigh for me. The stock I have is not mine
own; I am but the merchant that trafficks with other
people's goods. If my creditor, CHRIST, would take from me what he hath lent,
I could not long keep the causeway; but CHRIST has made it mine and his. I
complain, that when CHRIST cometh, he cometh always to fetch fire; he is ever
in haste, he may not tarry: but I think it my happiness to love the love of
CHRIST; and, when he go away, the memory of his sweet presence is like a feast
in a dear summer. O that I could write a book of his praises! O fairest among
the sons of men, why stayest you so long away? O
heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, and hasten
the marriage day! For love is tormented with delays. O Angels,
O Seraphim, who stand. before him, O blessed
Spirits who now see his face, set him on high; for when ye have worn your
harps with his praises, all is too little, and is nothing, to cast the smell
of the praise of that fair flower, that fragrant rose of Sharon, through many
worlds! Grace be with you!
Aberdeen,
Yours in JESUS,
June 16, 1637•
TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF KNOCKGRAY.
Dearest and truly honored Brother,
GRACE, mercy, and, peace, be to you! I have seen no. letter front. you
since I came to Aberdeen; 1 will not interpret it to be forgetfulness. 1:
am here in a, fair prison; CHRIST is my sweet and honorable fellow prisoner,
and I his sad and. joyful LORD prisoner, if 1: may speak so. I think this
cross becometh me well, and is suitable to me, in
respect of my duty. to suffer for CHRIST, although
not in regard of my deserving to be thus honored. However. it be, I see CHRIST is strong,
even lying in the dust, in prison, and in banishment. Losses and disgraces
are the wheels of his triumphing chariot. In the sufferings of his saints,
as he intends their good, so he intends his own glory; and CHRIST shooteth not at random, he hitteth
what he purposeth to hit: therefore he does make
his own weak nothings, who are the contempt of men, " a new sharp threshing
instrument, having teeth, to thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and
to make the hills as chaff, and to fan them! "
(Isa. )li. 15,
16.) What harder stuff, or harder grain for
threshing out, than high and rocky mountains? But the saints are GOD’s threshing instruments to beat them all into chaff. Let
fools laugh the fools' laughter, and SCORN CHRIST, and bid the weeping captives
in Babylon " sing one of the songs of Zion; " no created powers
in hell, or out of hell, can mar our LORD JESUS's music, nor spoil our song of joy. Let us then be glad
and rejoice in the salvation of our LORD; for faith had never yet cause to
have wet cheeks, or to droop and die. What can ail faith, seeing CHRIST suffereth himself (with reverence to Him be it spoken) to
be commanded by it, and CHRIST commandeth all things?
Faith may dance, because CHRIST sings; and we may come in the choir, and lift
our hoarse and rough voices, and sing, and shout for joy with our LORD JESUS.
If God were dead, (if I may speak so, with reverence of Him who liveth for ever and ever,) and CHRIST buried, and laid among
the worms, we might have cause to look like dead folks. But, " the LORD liveth, and blessed
be the rock of our salvation." (Psal. 18:46.) None have right to joy but we; for joy
is sown for us, and an ill summer or harvest will not spoil the crop. I cannot
but speak what I have felt; my LORD JESUS has broken a box of spikenard upon
the head of his poor prisoner, and it is a pain to smother CHRIST'S love;
it will be out, whether we will or not. If we did but speak according to the
matter, a cross for CHRIST should have another name; yea, a cross, especially
when he cometh with his arms full of joys, is the happiest hard tree that
ever was laid upon my weak shoulder. CHRIST and his cross together are sweet
company, and a blessed couple. My prison is my palace; my sorrow is pregnant
with joy; my losses are rich losses; my pain is easy pain; my heavy days are
holy and happy days. I may tell a new tale of CHRIST to my
friends. O that I could make a song of him, and could commend CHRIST, and tune his
praises aright! Is it not great art in my LORD, that he can bring forth such
fair apples out of this crabbed tree of the cross? Grace be with you!
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
Yours in his LORD JESUS,
S.R.
TO ELIZABETH KENNEDY.
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you!. I have long had a purpose
of writing to you. I heartily desire that ye would mind your country; for
all come not home at night, who suppose they have set their face heavenward.
It is a woeful thing, to die and miss of heaven! I persuade myself; that thousands
shall be deceived and ashamed of their hope; because they cast their anchor
in the sinking sands, Till now, I knew not the pain, labor, or difficulty
that. there is to win home; nor did I understand
so well, before this, " The righteous"' shall " scarcely be
saved." Oh how many a poor• professor's candle is blown out, and never
lighted again! I see that to be ranked amongst the children of GOD, and to
have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry professors to,
heaven: but certainly, a name is but a name, and will never abide the blast
of GOD’s storm. I counsel you, not to give your
soul or CHRIST rest, nor your eyes sleep, till ye have gotten something, that
will abide the fire, and stand out the storm. I am sure, that even if my one
foot were in heaven, and he should then say, " Fend thyself, I will.
hold thee no longer, 'I should go no further,' but presently fall down in
as many pieces of dead nature. They are happy for evermore, who are swallowed
up in the love of CHRIST, and know no sickness but that of desire after CHRIST.
We run our souls out of breath, and tire them, in coursing and gallopping
after our own dreams, to get some created good thing on this side of death.
We would fain stay, and spin out a heaven to ourselves, on this side of the
water; but sorrow, want, changes, crosses, and sin, are both woof and warp
in. that ill spun web. O how sweet and dear are those thoughts, that are still
upon " the things which are above! And how happy are they, who are longing
to have time's thread cut, and can cry to CHRIST, "LORD JESUS, come over,
come and fetch the dried passenger! " I wish our thoughts were more frequently
than they are upon our country. Heaven casteth a
sweet odor afar off, to those that have spiritual senses! GOD has made many
fair flowers; but the fairest of them all is heaven; and the flower of all
flowers is CHRIST. O why do we not flee up to that lovely one? Alas! that
there is such scarcity of love, and lovers of CHRIST, among us all! Fie, fie,
upon us, who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair
pleasures, fair honors, and fair persons; and do not pine and melt away with
love to CHRIST. O, would to GOD that I had more love for his sake! O for as
much love as would he between me and heaven! O for as much love as would go
round about the earth, and over the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, and
ten thousand worlds, that I might fix it all upon CHRIST! But, alas! I have
nothing for Him; yet he has much for me: it is no gain to CHRIST, that he
getteth my little spanlength and handbreadth of love. If men would have something
to do with their hearts and their thoughts, which are always rolling up and
down after sinful vanities, they may find great and sweet employment for their
thoughts in CHRIST. If these frothy. and restless hearts of ours would come
all about CHRIST, and look into his love, his bottomless love, into the depth
of his mercy, into the unsearchable riches of his grace, so as to search into
the beauty of GOD in CHRIST; they would be swallowed up in the depth and height,
the length and breadth, of his goodness. O if. men would draw the curtains,
and look into the inner side of the ark, and behold how the "fullness
of the Godhead dwells
in him bodily," who would not say, " Let me die, let me die ten
times, to get a sight of him!" Ten thousand deaths were no great price
to give for him. I am sure that ardent love would heighten the market, and
raise the price to the double for him. But, alas, if men and angels were sold
at the dearest, they would not all buy a. sight of CHRIST. O how happy are
they, who get CHRIST for nothing! GOD send me no more for my part of paradise,
but CHRIST; and surely I were rich enough, and as well heavened as the best of them, if CHRIST were my heaven. I
can write no better thing to you, than to desire you to weigh him again and
again; and, after this, have no other to gain your love, but CHRIST: he will
be found worthy of all your love; although it should swell from the earth
to the uppermost circle of the heaven of heavens. To our LORD JESUS and his
love I commend you.
Aberdeen, 1637.
Yours in Jesus,
S.R.
TO JONET KENNEDY.
Loving and dear Sister,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you!. I received your letter.
Keep your taste, your love, and your hope in heaven; it is not good that your
love and your LORD should be in two sundry countries. Up, up after Him; that
ye and he may be together. A King from heaven has sent for you; by faith he
showed you the New Jerusalem, and taketh you along
in the SIIRIT, through all the dwelling houses in heaven, and says, "
All these are thine: this palace is for thee and CHRIST." If ye only
had been the chosen of GOD, CHRIST would have built that house for you and
himself: now, it is for you and many others also. Take with you in your journey,
what ye may carry with you, your conscience, faith, hope, patience, meekness,
goodness, brotherly kindness for such wares as these are of great price in
the country whither ye go. As for other things, the world's vanity and trash,
since they are but the house sweepings, ye shall do best not to carry them
with you; ye found them here,—leave them here, and let them keep the house.
Your sun is low; be nigh your lodging against night. We go, one by one, out
of this great market, till the town be empty, and the two lodgings, heaven
and hell, be filled. Antichrist and' his master are
busy to replenish hell, and to seduce many: and stars, great churchlights, are falling from heaven; and many are misled
and seduced, and sell their birthright, by hunting for I know not what. Fasten
upon CHRIST. Though. my cross were as heavy as ten mountains, when he putteth his shoulder under me and it, it is but a feather.
I please myself in the choice of CHRIST; I rejoice that he is in heaven before
me; GOD send a joyful meeting, and in the mean time the traveler's charges
for the way, I mean a burden of CHRIST'S love, to sweeten the journey, and
to encourage a breathless runner; for when I lose breath in climbing up the
mountain, he maketh new breath. Now, the very GOD
of peace establish you to the day of his appearance!
Aberdeen,
Yours in his only LORD JESUS,
Sept. 9, 1637.
S.R.
TO MR. WILLIAM DALGLIES.
Reverend and well beloved Brother,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you! I have heard somewhat of
your trials in Galloway. Let me entreat you to be steadfast to CHRIST. My
witness is above, that you have added much joy to me in my bonds, when I hear
that you grow in the grace of GOD, and zeal' for your Master. Our ministry,
whether by preaching or suffering, will cast an odor through the world both
of heaven and hell. (2 Cron 2:15, 16.) There is nothing out of heaven, next to CHRIST,
dearer to me than my ministry; and the worth of it, iri
my estimation, is swelled, and paineth me exceedingly:
yet I am content, for the honor of my LORD, to surrender it back again to
the LORD of the vineyard; let him do, both with me and it, what he thinketh good. I think myself too little for him. And let
me speak to you, how kind a fellow prisoner is CHRIST to me! Believe me, this
kind of cross, (which would not go by my door, but would needs visit me,)
the longer it lasts is still the more welcome to me. It is true, my silent
sabbaths have been and are still glassy ice, whereon my faith
can scarcely hold its feet, and I am often blown if my feet with a storm of
doubting; yet truly my bonds all this time emit a mighty fragrance of high
and deep love in CHRIST. I cannot indeed see through my cross to the far end;
yet I am praising the LAMB, in sorrow, deprivation, losses, want of friends,
and death. Let us be glad that we have blood, losses, and wounds, to show
to our Master and Captain at his appearance. Woe is me, my dear brother, that
I say often, u I am but dry bones, which my LORD veil. not
bring out of the grave again; and that my faithless. fears
say, C O I am a dry tree, that can bear no fruit;, I am a useless body, who
can beget no children to the LORD in his house." Yet I often get the
advantage of the hill above my temptations; and then I despise temptations,
and even hell itself, and am proud of my honorable Master; I resolve, whether
contrary winds will or not, to fetch CHRIST'S harbor; and I think a resolute
and earnest contention with my LORD JESUS for his love very lawful. Since
my entry hither, many a time has my fair sun shone without a cloud: hot and
burning has CHRIST'S love been to me; I have no vent for the expression of
it. Except CHRIST would seize upon myself, and make the readiest payment that
can be of my heart and love to himself, I have no other thing to give him.
If my sufferings could do beholders good, and proclaim
the incomparable worth of CHRIST'S love to the world, then would my soul be
overjoyed, and my sad heart cheered and calmed! Dear brother, I cannot tell
what is become of my labors among that people. If all that my LORD built by
me be cast down, and none stand by CHRIST, whose love I once preached as clearly
and plainly as I could to that people; (though far below its worth and excellency;)
if so, how can I bear it? And if another make a foul harvest, where I have
made a painful and honest sowing, it will not soon digest with me; but I know
his ways are past finding out. Yet my witness both within me and above me
knows, and my pained breast upon the LORD's day
at night, that my desire to have made CII KIST awful, and amiable, and sweet
to that people, is now my joy; and it was my desire and aim to make CHRIST
and them one. O my GOD., seek not an account of the
violence done to me by my brethren, whose salvation I love and desire! I pray, that they and I be not heard as contrary parties, in
the day of our compearance before our Judge. O how
silly an advantage is my deprivation to men, seeing that my LORD JESUS has
many ways, to recover his own losses, so that his lily may grow among thorns,
and his little kingdom exalt itself, even under the sword and spears of contrary
powers! My dear brother, go on in the strength of his rich grace: stand fast
for CHRIST; deliver the Gospel with a clean and undefiled conscience. Nothing,
nothing (I say, nothing) but sound sanctification can abide the LORD's
fan. I recommend you, and GOD’s people committed by CHRIST to your trust, to the rich
grace of our all sufficient LORD. Remember my bonds: praise my LORD, who beareth me up in my sufferings. As you find occasion (according
to the wisdom given you) show our acquaintance what the LORD has done to my
soul. This I seek not, verily, to hunt my own praise, but that my Master may
be magnified in my sufferings.
Aberdeen,
Your Brother in JESUS,
June 17, 1637. S.R.
TO THE LADY LARGIRIE.
MADAM,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I exhort you in the LORD,
to go on in your journey to heaven, and to be content with such fare by the
way as CtIRIST and his followers have had before
you: for they had always the wind on their faces; and our LORD has not changed
the way to us for our ease, but will have us follow our guide. Alas, how does
sin clog us in our journey! What fools.are we, to have any other love beside CHRIST? It were
best for us to seek our own home, and to sell our hopes of this little idol
of the earth, where we are neither well summered nor well wintered. O that
our souls would think of it, as a traveler does of a drink of water, which
is not any part of his treasure, but go away with the using; for ten miles'
journey maketh that drink to him as nothing! O that we had as soon
done with this world, and could as quickly despatch
the love of it! But as a child cannot hold two apples in his little hand,
but the one puttetil the other out of its room;
so neither can we be masters of two loves. Blessed were we, if we could make
ourselves masters of that invaluable treasure, the love of Caaisr;
or rather suffer, ourselves to be mastered to CHRIST'S love, so that CHRIST
were our all things, and all other things our nothings. O let us be ready
for shipping, against the time when our LORD'S wind and tide call for us!
Death is the last thief that shall come without din or noise of feet, and
take our souls away, and we shall take our leave of time, and face eternity:
and our LORD) shall lay together the two sides of this earthly tabernacle,
and fold us, and lay us by, as a man layeth by clothes
at,night; and put the one half of us in a house of clay, the
dark grave, and the other half of us in heaven or hell. Seek to be found of
your LORD in peace, and put your soul in order; for CHRIST will not give a
nailbreadth of time to our little sandglass. Pray for Zion;
and for me his prisoner, that he would he pleased to bring me amongst you
again, full of CHRIST, loaden with the blessing
of his gospel. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his only LORD and Master,
S. R.
TO EARLSTOUN, YOUNGER.
Worthy and dearly beloved in the LORD,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you!'
I long to hear from you: I remain still a prisoner of hope, and think it service
to the LORD, to wait on still with submission, till the LORD's
morning sky break, and his summer day dawn. GOD sent us down to this earth,
among devils and men, the firebrands of the Devil, and temptations, that we
might suffer for a time; otherwise he might have made heaven wait on us at
our coming out of the womb, and have carried us home to our country, without
letting us set down our feet in this thorny life. But seeing that a piece
of suffering is carved for every one of us, less or more, as infinite wisdom
has thought good, our part is to harden and habituate our soft and thin skinned
nature to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, and sad hearts,
like persons whose behavior is inspected by GOD, angels, men, and devils.
O what folly is it, to sit down and weep upon. a decree of GOD, that is as
unmoveable as GOD who made it! For who can come
behind our LORD, to alter or better what he has decreed and done? It were
better to make windows in our prison, and to look out to GOD, and to our country
heaven, and to cry, like fettered men who long for the King's free air, "LORD,
let thy kingdom come! O let the Bridegroom come! O fair day, O everlasting
summer day, dawn and shine out, break out from under the black sky I"
If every day a little stone in the prison walls were broken, and thereby assurance
given to the chained prisoner, lying, under twenty stone of irons upon arms
and legs, that at length his chain should wear into two pieces, and a hole
should be made, so wide that he might come safely out to his longdesired
liberty; he would in patience wait on. The LORD's
prisoners are in that case: years and months will take out now one little
stone, then another, of this house of clay, and at length time shall win out
the breadth of a fair door, and send out the imprisoned soul to the free air
in heaven. O that we could breathe out new hope, and new submission, every
day! For certainly a weight of glory (yea, a far more exceeding and eternal
weight) shall recompense, both in weight and length, our light and shortdated crosses. Our waters are but ebb, and come neither
to our chin, nor to the stopping of our breath. I may see (if I would borrow
eyes from CHRIST) dry land, and that near: why then should we not laugh at
adversity? I rejoice in the hope of that glory to be revealed, fgr it is no uncertain glory we look for: our hope is not
hung upon an untwisted thread; but our anchor of salvation is fastened with
GOD's own hand, and with CHRIST'S own strength. O that our
faith could ride it out against the high and proud winds and waves, when our
sea seems all to be on fire! O how oft do I let my grasp go! I am put to swimming
and halfsinking. I find the Devil has the advantage
of the ground in our corrupt nature: alas! that is a friend near of kin to
himself, and will not fail to fall foul upon us. But the less of our weight
is upon our feeble legs, and the more on CHRIST the strong rock, the better
for us. It is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens upon CHRIST, and
to make him the root and top, the beginning and ending, of our salvation:
LORD, hold us here! Now to this Tutor, and rich LORD, I recommend you: hold
fast till he come. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his and your Lo RD JESUS, Aberdeen, 1637.
Aberdeen, 1637.
S. R.
TO JOHN GORDON, OF CARDONESS, YOUNGER.
Dearly beloved in our Lord,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I long exceedingly to hear
the case of your soul, which has a large share both of my prayers and careful
thoughts. Remember that a precious treasure and prize depends upon this short
play that ye are now upon; eternity standeth upon
the little point of your well or ill employed, short, and swiftposting
sandglass. Seek the LORD while he may be found; the LORD) waiteth
upon you. Your soul is of no little price; gold or silver, of as much bounds
as would cover the highest heavens round about, cannot buy it. To live as
others do, and to be free from open sins, will not bring you to heaven: as
much civility and discretion as would he between you and heaven will not lead
you one inch above nature; and therefore take pains for salvation, and give
your will, wit, humor, desires, and pleasures to CHRIST. It is not possible
for you to know, till experience teach you, how dangerous a time youth is:
it is like green and wet timber; when CHRIST casteth
fire upon it, it taketh not fire. There is need
here of more than ordinary pains; for corrupt nature has a good friend in
youth. Sinning against light will put out your candle, and stupify
your conscience; and, when that is done, the Devil is like a mad horse, that
has broken the bridle, and runneth away with his
rider whither he listeth. Learn to know that which
the Apostle knew,—the deceitfulness of sin. Strive to make prayer, and reading,
and holy company, and holy conference, your delight: when delight cometh
in, ye shall smell the sweetness of CHRIST, till at length your soul be swallowed
up in CHRIST'S sweetness: then shall ye be taken up to the top of the mountain
with the LORD, to know the ravishments of spiritual love, and the glory and
excellency of a seen, revealed, felt, and embraced CHRIST;
and then ye need never to loose yourself from CHRIST, and bind your soul to
old lovers: then, and never till then, are all the paces, motions, and wheels
of your soul in a right tune. But if this world, and the lusts thereof, be
your delight, ye cannot be a vessel of glory. As the LORD liveth,
thousands, thousands are beguiled with security, because GOD, and wrath, and
judgment, are not terrible to them. Stand in awe of GOD, and of the warnings
of conscience. Make others to see CHRIST in you, moving, doing, speaking,
and thinking; your actions will smell of him, if he be in you. There is an
instinct in the newborn babes of CHRIST, like the instinct of nature that
leads birds to build their nests, and bring up their young, and love such
and such places, as woods, forests, and wildernesses, better than other places.
The instinct of nature maketh a man love his mother
country above. all countries: the instinct of renewed nature will lead you
to such and such works, as to love your country above, and. sigh to be clothed
with your house not made with hands. Sleep' hot soundly, till you find yourself
in that case, that ye dare look death in the face, and hazard your soul upon
eternity. I am sure, many ells of the short thread of your life are by hand,
since I saw you; and that thread has an end, and ye have no hands to add one
day, or a fingerbreadth, to the end of it. When hearing, and seeing, and the
outward walls of the clayhouse, shall fall down, and life shall surrender the besieged
castle of clay to death and judgment, and ye find your time run out, what
thoughts will ye then have of idol pleasures? What would ye then give for
the LORD's favor? And what a price would ye then
give for his pardon? O dear Sir, for the LORD'S sake, awake to live righteously,
and love your poor soul, and, after ye have seen this my letter, say with
yourself, a The LORD will seek an account of this warning' I have received."
Lodge CHRIST in your family. I bless your children. Grace be with you!
Your lawful and loving Pastor,
S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
TO MY LORD BOYD.
My very honorable and good LORD;
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to your Lordship! Join, join (as
ye do) with CHRIST; he is worth more to you and your posterity, than this
world's Mayflowers, its withering riches and honor, that shall go away as
smoke, and shall in one half hour, after the blast of the Archangel's trumpet,
he in white ashes. Let me beseech your Lordship to draw aside the lap of time's
curtain, and look in through that window to great and endless eternity, and
consider, if a worldly price (supposing that this little round clay globe,
the dying idol of the fools of this world, were all your own) can be given,
for one smile of CHRIST'S countenance, in that day, when so many joints and
knees of thousand thousands shall stand before CHRIST, trembling, and making
their prayers to hills and mountains to " fall upon them, and hide them
from the face of the LAMB." O how many would sell Lordships and kingdoms
on that day, to buy CHRIST! But, oh! the market shall, be closed and ended
ere then. Your Lordship has now a blessed venture of winning " the Prince
of the Kings of the earth." Fear not worms of clay, the moth shall eat
them as a garment; let the LORD be your fear; he is with you, and shall fight
for you. Thus shall ye cause " the blessing of those who are ready to
perish to come upon you." The LAMB and his armies are with you, and the
kingdoms of the earth are the LORD's. I am persuaded,
there is not another Gospel than that which ye now contend for. I dare hazard
my heaven and salvation upon it, that this is the only saving way to glory.
Grace, grace be with your Lordship!
Your Lordship's, at all obedience in CHRIST,
Aberdeen, 1637.
S. R.
TO.ROBERT GORDON, BAILLIE OF AIR.
WORTHY SIR,
'GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I long to hear from you.
I know that submissive waiting for the LORD shall at length ripen the joy
and deliverance of his own. What is the dry and miscarrying hope of all them
who are not in CHRIST, but confusion and wind? O how miserably are
the children of this world beguiled, whose wine cometh home to them water,
and their gold brass! And what wonder is it, that hopes built upon sand should
fall? It were good for us all to abandon the forlorn and blasted hope which
we have had in the creature; and let us henceforth come and " drink water
out of our own well," even " the fountain of living waters,"
and build ourselves and our hope upon/ CHRIST our Rock. Alas, that natural
love to this borrowed home, in which we were born, should have the largest
share of our heart! Our poor, lean, and empty dreams of confidence in something
besides GOD, travel no further than up and down the creatures.; Go]) may say
of us, (Amos 6:13,) " Ye rejoice in a thing of nought."
Surely we spin our spider's web with pain; and build our rotten tottering
house upon a lie; and falsehood, and vanity. O when shall. we learn to have
thoughts higher than the sun and moon; and teach our joy, hope, confidence,
and our soul's desires, to look up to our best country, and to look down on
the clay tents, set up for a night's lodging or two in this uncouth land,
and laugh at our childish conceptions and imaginations, that would suck joy
out of creatures! It were our happiness for evermore, if GOD would cast a
pest, a leprosy, upon our part of this fair world, so that clay might no longer
deceive us! O that GOD, may burn and blast our hope here, rather than our
hope should live to burn us! Alas, the wrong side of Christ, his suffering
side, his wounds, his wants, his wrongs, the oppressions of men done to him,
are turned towards men's eyes; and they see not the best and fairest side
of CHRIST, his amiable face and his beauty, which men and angels wonder at.
Sir, lend your thoughts to these things, and learn to contemn this world.
See him who is invisible; draw aside the curtain; and look in to a kingdom
" undefiled, that fades not away, reserved for you in heaven:" this
is worthy of your pains, and worthy of your soul's sweating, and laboring,
and seeking after, by night and by day. Fire will fly over the earth, and
all that is in it, even destruction from the ALMIGHTY. Fie, fie upon that
hope, that shall be dried up by the root! Fie upon the drunken nightbargains,
and the drunken and mad covenants, that sinners make
with death and hell! When men's souls are mad and drunken with the love of
this life, they think to make a nest for their hopes, and take quarters of
hell and death, that they shall have ease, long life, and peace; and in the
morning, when the last trumpet shall awake them, then they rue the day. It
is time, high time for you, to think upon death and your accounts, and to
remember where ye’ will be before the year of our LORD) 17OO. I hope ye are
thinking upon this. Pull at your soul, and draw it aside from the company
that it is with, and whisper into it news of eternity, death, judgment, heaven,
and hell. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his LORD JESUS,
S.R.
TO CARDONESS, ELDER.
MUCH HONORED SIR,
I LONG to hear how your soul prospereth.
I wonder that ye write not to me; for the HOLY GHOST beareth
me witness, that I cannot, I dare not forget you, nor the souls of those with
you, who are redeemed by the blood of the great Shepherd. Ye are in my heart
in the nightwatches; ye are my joy and crown in the day of CHRIST.
O LORD, bear witness, if my soul thirsteth for any
thing out of heaven, more than your salvation: let Go]) lay me in an even
balance, and try me in this. Love heaven; let your heart be on it. Up, up,
and visit the new land, and view the fair city, and the white throne, and
the LAMB sitting on it. It were time that your soul should cast itself and
your burdens upon CHRIST. I beseech you, by the wounds of your REDEEMER, and
by your compearance before him, and by the salvation of your soul,
lose no more time; run fast, for it is late. God has sworn by himself, who
made the world and time, "that time shall be no more." (Rev. 10:)
Ye are now upon the very border of the other life. Your LORD cannot be blamed
for not giving you warning: I have taught the truth of CHRIST to you, and
delivered unto you the whole counsel of Go]); and I have stood before the
LORD for you, and I shall yet still stand. Awake, awake to do righteously.
Think not to be eased of the debts that are on your house, /by oppressing
any, or being rigorous to those that are under you remember how I endeavored
to walk before you in this matter, as an example. " Behold here am I,
witness against me, before the LORD and his Anointed, whose ox or whose ass
have I taken? Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed?" Who knows
how my soul feedeth upon a good conscience, when I remember how I spent
this body in feeding the lambs of CHRIST! At my first entry hither, I took
it ill of my LORD, because he had cast me over the dike of the vineyard as
a dry tree, and would have no. more of my service; my dumb Sabbaths broke
my heart, and I would not be comforted: but now " he whom my soul loves"
is come again, and it pleases him to feast me with his love; a King dineth
with me, " and his spikenard casteth a sweet
smell." The Lon") above is my witness, that I write my heart to
you; I never knew, by my nine years' preaching, so much of CHRIST'S love,
as he has taught me in Aberdeen, by six months' imprisonment. I charge you,
in CHRIST'S name, help me to praise, and show that people the loving kindness
of the LORD to my soul; that so my sufferings may in some way preach to them,
when I am silent. He has made me know now, better than before, what it is
to be crucified to the world: I would not now give a drink of cold water for
all the world's kindness; I owe no service to it.
I would not exchange my sighs with the laughing of adversaries. The LORD Math
given you much, and therefore he will require much of you again. Number your
talents, and see what ye have to render back; ye cannot be enough persuaded
of the shortness of your time. I charge you to write to me, and in the fear
of GOD be plain with me, whether or not ye have made your salvation sure:
I am confident, and hope the best; but I know, your reckonings with your Judge
are many and deep. Sir, be not beguiled, neglect not your "
one thing," your " one necessary thing," " the
good part that shall not be taken from you." Look beyond time; things
here are but moonshine; they have but children's wit, who are delighted with shadows, and deluded with feathers flying
in the air. Desire your children, in the morning of their life, to begin and
seek the LORD; to "remember their Creator in the days of their youth;"
(Eccles. 12:1;) and to "cleanse their way, by
taking heed thereto according to Gem's word." (Psa. cxix.
9.) Youth is a glassy age; SATAN finds a swept chamber (for the most part)
in youth, and a garnished lodging for himself and his train. Let the LORD
have the flower of their age; the best sacrifice is due to him. Instruct them
in this, that they have a soul, and that this life is nothing in comparison
of eternity: they will have much need of GOD's conduct
in this world, to guide them amongst those rocks upon which most men split;
but far more need, when it cometh to the hour of death, and their compearance
before CHRIST. O that there were such a heart in them, to fear the name of
the great and dreadful GOD, who has laid up great things for those that love
and fear him! I pray that GOD may be their portion. Show others of my parishioners,
that I wrote to them my best wishes, and the blessings of their lawful Pastor;
say to them from me, that I beseech them, by the bowels of CHRIST, to keep
in mind the doctrine of
OUT LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, which I taught them that so they may lay
hold on eternal life, striving together for the faith of the Gospel, and making
sure salvation to themselves. Walk in love, and
do righteousness; seek peace, love one another, and wait for the coming of
our Master and Judge. Receive no doctrine contrary to that which I delivered
to you; if ye fall away, and forget it, and so forsake your own mercy, the
LORD be judge between you and me. I take heaven and earth to witness, that
such shall eternally perish; but, if they serve the LORD, great will be their
reward when they and I stand before our Judge. Set forward up the mountain,
to meet with Go]) climb up, for your Savior calls on you. It may be, that
GOD will call you to your rest when I am far from you; but ye have my love,
and the desires of my heart' for your soul's welfare. He that is holy, keep
you from falling, and establish. you till his own glorious appearance!
Your affectionate and lawful Pastor,
S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
ROBERT STEWART.
MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! Ye are heartily welcome to
my Master's house; GOD give you much joy of your new Master. If I have been
in the house before you, I were not faithful to give the house an ill name,
or to speak evil of the Lord of the family. I rather wish GOD’s
HOLY SPIRIT (O LORD, breathe upon me with that SPIRIT!) to tell you the fashions
of the house. One thing I can say, by waiting ye will grow a great man with
the Lord of the house. Hang on, till ye get some good from CHRIST; lay all
your loads by faith upon CHRIST; ease yourself, and let him bear all: He can,
he will bear you, although hell were upon your back. I rejoice that he is
come, and has chosen you in the furnace. Ye have gotten a great advantage
in the way to heaven, that ye have started in the morning: like a fool as
I was, I suffered my sun to be high in the heaven, before ever I took the
way. I pray ye now, keep the advantage ye have. Be not lazy; and be careful
to take heed to your feet, in that slippery and dangerous way of youth. The
Devil and temptations now have the advantage of you; dry timber will soon
take lire. Be covetous and greedy of the. grace of GOD, and beware that it
be not that kind of holiness that cometh only from the cross; for too many
are disposed like those described in Psa. lxxviii. 3436, " When he slew them, then they sought him, and they returned
and inquired early after GOD. Nevertheless they did flatter him with their
mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues." It is hypocrisy, to
give God fair words, when he has us in his gripe, (if I may so speak,) and
to flatter him till we win the fair fields again. Try well green Godliness,
and examine what it is ye love in CHRIST. If ye love but CHRIST'S sunshine,
and would have only summer weather to heaven, your profession will play you
a slip, and the winterwell will grow dry again in
summer. Make no sport of CHRIST; but labor for a sound and lively sight of
sin, that ye may judge yourself an undone man, a damned slave of hell and
sin, one dying in your blood, except CHRIST come and take you up: and therefore
make sure and fast work of conversion; cast the earth deep; down, down with
the old. work, the building of confusion, that was there before; and
let CHRIST lay new work, and make a new creation within you. Look if CHRIST'S
rain go down to the root of your withered plants; and if his love wound your
heart, while it bleeds with sorrow for sin; and if it can pant, and be like
to die, for that lovely one, JESUS. I know, CHRIST will not be hid where he
is; grace will ever speak for itself, and be fruitful in welldoing.
The sanctified cross is a fruitful tree, it bringeth
forth many apples. If I should tell you, by some weak experience, what I have
found in CHRIST, ye or others could hardly believe me. I thought not the hundredth
part of CHRIST long since, that I do now; though, alas! my thoughts are still
infinitely below his worth. I would refuse no conditions, not hell excepted,
(reserving always GOD’s hatred,) to buy possession
of JESUS: but, alas! I am not a merchant, who have any money to give for him;
I must either come to a cheap market, where wares are had for nothing, or
else I go borne empty. But I have cast this work upon CHRIST, to get me himself;
I have his faith, and truth, and promise, (as a pawn' of his,) all engaged
that I shall obtain that which my hungry desires would be at; and I esteem
that the choice of my happiness. And as for CHRIST'S cross, especially the
flower of all crosses, " to suffer for his name," I esteem it more
than I can speak; and I write it under mine own hand to you,—it is one of
the steps of the ladder up to our country, and CHRIST is still at the heavy
end of this black tree, and so/it is but as a feather to inc. I need not run
at leisure, because of the burden on my back; my back never bare the like
of it: the more heavily crossed for CHRIST the soul is, it is still the lighter
for the journey. Now,’ would to GOD. that all cold blooded, fainthearted soldiers
of CHRIST would look again to JESUS, and to his love; and when they look,
I would have them to look again and again, and fill themselves with beholding
CHRIST'S beauty; and I dare say then, that CHRIST would come into great request
with many; they would take hold of him, and not let him go. But, when I have
spoken of him till my head ached, I have. said just nothing; and I may begin
again. A GODhead, a GODhead
is a world's wonder! Set ten thousand newmade worlds
of angels and men, and double them in number’ten
thousand thousand thousand
times; let their hearts and tongues be ten thousand thousand
times more agile and large than the heart and tongues of the Seraphim, that
stand with six wings before him; (Isa. 6:2;)—when
they have said all they can for the glorifying and praising of the LORD JESUS,
they have but spoken little or nothing: his love will surpass the praise of
all possible creatures.
O that I could wear this tongue to the stump, in extolling his
highness! But it is my sorrow, that I am confounded with his incomparable
love; he does so great things for my soul, and he got never yet any thing
of me worth the speaking of. It is a shame to speak of what he has done for
me, and what I do to him again. To Him and his rich grace I recommend you!
Pray_ for me, and forget not to praise.
Yours in his LORD JESUS,
S. R.
TO THE LAIRD OF CALLY.
WORTHY SIR,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! My suit to you is, that ye
would lay the foundation sure in your youth. When ye begin to seek CHRIST,
try, I pray you, upon what terms ye covenant to follow him, and lay your accounts
what it may cost you; that neither summer nor winter may cause you to change
your Master. Keep fair to him; and be honest and faithful, that he find not
a breach in you. Surely, ye are now in the throng of temptation! When youth
is come to its fairest bloom, then the Devil, and the lusts of a deceiving
world, and sin, are upon horseback, and follow with upsails.
If this were not, PAUL needed not to. have written
to a holy youth, TIMOTHY, (a faithful Preacher of the Gospel,) " Flee
youthful lusts." Give CHRIST your virginlove;
you cannot put your love and heart in a better hand. O if ye knew him, and
saw his beauty, your love, your heart, your desires, would close with him,
and cleave to him. I would seek nothing more to make me happy for evermore,
than a clear sight of the beauty of JESUS My LORD: let my eyes enjoy his fairness,
and look him for ever in the face, and I have all that can be wished. Get
CHRIST rather than gold or silver; seek CHRIST, although. ye should lose all
things for him. GOD send me a full view of his beauty, if it be possible that
my view of it can be full here: but much enjoyment of the love of CHRIST,
in this world, needeth not to abate the desire of
the soul to see him in the other world, where he is seen as he is. I am glad,
with all my heart, that ye have given your morning age to this LORD: hold
on, and weary not; faint not; resolve upon suffering for CHRIST; fear not
ten days' tribulation, for CHRIST'S cross is sweetened with comforts, and
has a taste of CHRIST himself. I esteem it my glory, my joy, and my crown;
and I bless him for this honor, to be yoked with CHRIST, and married in suffering
with him, who therefore was born, and therefore came into. the world, that
he might hear witness to the truth. Take pains, above all things, for salvation;
for, without running, fighting, sweating, wrestling, heaven is not taken.
O happy soul, that crosseth nature, and delighteth to gain that crown of glory! The very hope of heaven
is like wind and sails to the soul, and like wings, when the feet come out
of the snare. O! for what stay we here? Up, up, after our LORD JESUS! This
is not our rest what have we to do in this prison, except only to take meat
and houseroom in it for a time? Grace, Grace be with you!
Your soul's well wisher, and CHRIST'S prisoner,
Aberdeen, 1637. S. It.
TO WILLIAM GORDON, AT KENMURE.
DEAR BROTHER,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! It is my hearty desire, that
my furnace, which is of the LORD'S kindling, may sparkle fire upon standers
by, to the warming of their hearts with GOD'S love. The very dust that falleth
from CHRIST's feet, and black cross, is sweeter
to me than Kings' crowns. I should be a false witness, if I should not give
my LORD JESUS a fair testimonial with my whole soul. My word, I know, will
not heighten him; he needeth not such props under
his feet, to raise his glory high: but O that I could raise him to the height
of heaven, and the breadth and length of ten heavens, in the estimation of
all his younger lovers! For we have all shaper CHRIST as too narrow and too
short; and formed conceptions of his love, very unworthy of it. O that men
were taken with his beauty and fairness! They would then give over playing
with idols, in which there is not halfroom for one
soul to expatiate; and man's love is but made hungry in gnawing bare bones,
and sucking at dry breasts. They will not come to him, who has a world of
love and goodness and bounty for all. We seek to thaw our frozen hearts at
the cold smoke of the shorttimed creature, and our souls gather neither heat, nor
life, nor light; for these cannot give to us what they have not in themselves.
O that we could burst through this throng of false lovers, and fix our love
on CHRIST! We should find some footing, and sweet ease for our tottering souls,
in our LORD. I wish it were in my power, to cry down all love but the love
of CHRIST, all GODs but CHRIST, all saviors but
CHRIST. As for your complaint of deadness and doubtings,
CHRIST, I hope, will take your deadness and you together. They are bodies
full of boils, and broken bones that need mending, which CHRIST the Physician
taketh up: whole vessels are not for CHRIST'S art: publicans,
sinners, harlots, are ready objects of CHRIST'S mercy. The only thing that
will bring sinners within a cast of CHRIST'S drawing arm, is that which ye
write of, some feeling of death and sin; the more pain, and the more nightwatching, and the more fever, the better; a soul bleeding
to death, till CHRIST were cried for in all haste, to come to stem the blood,
and close up the wound, with his own hand, were a very good disease, when
many are dying of a whole heart. We have all too little of hellpain, and terrors in that way: nay, GOD send me such a
hell, as CHRIST has promised to make a heaven ent of! The thing that we mistake is the want of victory;
we hold that to be the mark of one that has no grace nay, I say, the want
of fighting were a mark of no grace; but I shall not say, the want of [full
and complete] victory is such a mark. If my fire and the Devil's water make
crackling like thunder in the air, I am less afraid; for, where there is fire,
it is CHRIST'S part to keep in the coal, and to pray the Father that my faith
fail not, if I in the mean time be wrestling, and doing, and fighting, and
mourning. And ye do well, not to doubt if the ground stone be sure, but try
if it be so; for there is a great difference between doubting that we have
grace, and trying if we have grace: the former may be sin, but the latter
is good. Holy fear is a searching in the camp, that there be no enemy within
our bosom to betray us, and a seeing that all be fast and sure: for I see
many leaking vessels fair before the wind, and professors who take their conversion
upoxi trust, and they go on securely, and see not the underwater,
till a storm sink them. Each man had need, twice a day, and oftener, to be
searched with candles. Pray for me, that the LORD would give me houseroom
again, to hold a candle to this dark world. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his Lord and Master,
S. R.
TO ROBERT LENOX, OF DISDOVE.
DEAR BROTHER,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I beseech you in the LORD
JESUS, make sure work of life eternal. Sow not rotten seed; every man's work
will speak for itself, what his seed has been. O how many see I, who sow to
the flesh! Alas, what a crop will that be, when the LORD shall put in his
hook to reap this world, which is ripe and white for judgment! I recommend
to you sanctification, and that you keep yourself clean from this present
evil world. We delight to tell our own dreams, and to flatter our flesh with
the hope we have. It were wisdom for us to be free, plain, honest, and sharp
with our own souls; and to charge them to brew better, that they may drink
well, and fare well, when time is melted away like snow in summer. O how hard
a thing is it, to get the soul to give up all things on this side death and
doomsday! We say, we are going from this world, but our heart stirreth
not a foot, off its seat. Alas! I see few heavenly minded souls, that have
nothing upon the earth but their body of clay going up and down, because their
soul and the powers of it are up in heaven, and there their hearts live, desire,
enjoy, rejoice. Oh! men's souls have no wings; and therefore night and day
they keep their nest, and are not acquainted with CHRIST. Sir, take you to
your one thing, to CHRIST, that you may be acquainted with his sweetness and
excellency; and charge your love not to dote upon
this world, for it will not do your business in that day, when nothing will
come in but GOD’s favor. Build upon CHRIST, for
when your soul for many years has wandered through the creatures, ye will
come home again with the wind. They are not good,—at least not the soul's
good: it is the infinite Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your hunger
after happiness; otherwise there shall still be a want of satisfaction to
your desires. And, if he would cast in ten worlds, all shall fall through,
and your soul shall still cry hunger, black hunger: but, I am sure, there
is sufficient for you in CHRIST. O that I could make my Lord JESUS lovely,
desirable, and fair to all the world! O let my part of heaven go for it, so
he would take my tongue to be his instrument, to set out CHRIST in his whole
love, grace, sweetness, and glory, to the eyes and hearts of Jews and Gentiles!
But " who is sufficient for these things? " O for the help of Angels'
tongues, to make CHRIST amiable to many thousands! O how little does this.
world see of him, and how far are they from the love of him, seeing there
is so much loveliness, beauty, and sweetness in CHRIST, which no created
eye did ever yet see! I would that all men knew his glory, and that I could
introduce many to his presence, to see his beauty, and to be partakers of
his high, deep, and broad, and boundless love. O let all the world come near,
and see CHRIST; and they shall then see more than I can say of him! O that
I had a pledge to lay down for a seafull of his
love; and that I could obtain so much of CHRIST, as would satisfy my longing
for him, or rather increase it, till it were in full possession! I know we
shall meet; and therein I rejoice. Sir, stand fast in the truth of CHRIST,
which ye have received. Yield not to winds, but ride out; and let CHRIST be
your anchor. Pray for me his prisoner, and that the LORD would send me among
you to feed his people. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his LORD JESUS,
S. R.
TO JOHN GORDON.
WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I have been too long in writing
to you; but multitude of letters taketh much time
from me. I bless his great name, whom I serve with my spirit, if it came to
voting amongst angels and men, how excellent and sweet CHRIST is, even in
his reproaches and in his "cross, I cannot but vote, that all that is
in him, both cross and crown, enjoyments and glooms, smiles and frowns, are
sweet and glorious. GOD send me no more happiness in’heaven,
or out of heaven, but CHRIST! For I find this world, when I have looked upon
it on both sides, within and without, and when I have seen even the laughing
side of it, to be but a fool's idol, a clay prison. LORD, let it not be the
nest that my hope buildeth in! I have now cause
to judge my part of this earth not worth a blast of smoke, or a mouthful of
brown bread. I wish my hope may take a running leap, and skip over time's
pleasures, and this vain earth, and rest upon my LORD. O how great is our
night darkness in this wilderness! To have any conceit at all of this world,
is as if a man should enclose his handful of water, and, holding his hand
in the river, say that all the water of the flood was his; as if it were indeed
all within the compass of his hand. Who would not laugh at the thoughts of
such an idiot? Verily they have but a handful of water, and are but like
a child clasping his two hands about a shadow, who idolize any created hope.
I now put the price of a dream, or fable, upon all things, but Got', and that
desirable one, my Lord JESUS. Let all the world be nothing, (for nothing was
their seed and mother,) and let Gan be all things.—My very dear Brother, know that ye are
as near heaven, as ye are fur from yourself, and far from the love of a bewitching
world: for this world, in its gain and glory, is but the great and notable
common harlot, with whom all the sons of men have been enamored for these
five thousand years. The children they have begotten are but vanity, dreams,
imaginations, and night thoughts: for there is no good ground here, under
the covering of heaven, for the poor wearied souls of men to set down their'
foot upon. 9h! He who is called Got', that One whom they term JESUS CHRIST,
is indeed worth the having; even if I had given away all without my eyeholes,
my soul, and myself, for JESUS my LORD! O let the claim be cancelled, that
the creatures have to me! O that he would claim poor me,—my silly, light,
and worthless soul! O that he would pursue his claim to the utmost, and not
be without me; for it is my pain to be without him! I see nothing in this
life, but mires, and dreams, and beguiling ditches, and ill ground for us
to build upon. I am fully persuaded of CHRIST'S victory in Scotland; but I
fear lest this land be not ripe and white for mercy. O that we could be awakened
to prayers and humiliation! Then should the sun shine like seven suns in the
heaven; then should the temple of CHRIST be built upon the mountaintops; and,
the land from coast to coast should be filled with the glory of the LORD.
Brother, your hourglass will quickly pass; and therefore take order with matters
between you and CHRIST, before it come to open pleading:
there are no quarters to be had of CHRIST, in open judgment. I know, ye see
your. thread wearing short; and therefore lose not time. Remember me, his
prisoner, that it would please the LORD to bring me again amongst you with
abundance of the Gospel. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in JESUS,
S. R.
TO THE VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.
MADAM,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to your Ladyship! I long to hear
from you, and that dear' child; and, for that cause I trouble you with letters.
I think the sparrows and the swallows, that build their nests in Anwoth,
blessed birds. The LORD has made all my congregation desolate. Alas, I am
oft at this, u Show me wherefore you contendest
with me." O earth, earth, cover not the violence done to me! I know it
is my faithless jealousy, in this' my dark night, to take a friend for a foe.
I chide with him, but he giveth me fair words. Seeing
that my sins, and especially the sins of my youth, deserved strokes, how I
am obliged to my Lord, who/ amongst many crosses, has given me a chosen cross;
to suffer for the name of my Lou]) JESUS! Since I must have chains, he would
put golden chains on me, watered with many consolations. My crosses come,
through the fingers of mercy and love, from the kind heart of a brother, CHRIST
My LORD; and therefore they must be sweet. O what am I, such a lump, such
a rotten mass of sin, to be counted worthy to be stricken with the best and
most honorable rod in my Father's house,—the golden rod, wherewith my eldest
Brother, the LORD, heir of the inheritance, and his faithful witnesses, were
stricken! I should be thankful and rejoice; but my beholders and lovers, in
CHRIST have eyes of flesh, and have made my one to be ten; and I am, somebody
in their books: there are armies of thoughts within me, saying the contrary,
and laughing at their wide mistake. If my inner side were seen, I should lose
and forfeit love and respect; and pity would come in the place of these. O
that they would yet set me lower, and my Well beloved, CHRIST, higher! I would
have had grace to be glad and cheerful, that GOD's
glory might ride and openly triumph, before the view of men, angels, devils,
earth, heaven, hell, sun, moon, and all Gob's creatures, upon my pain and
sufferings; providing always I felt not the LORD's
displeasure. But I fear lest his fair glory should be soiled in coming through
such a foul creature as I am., If I could be the sinless matter of glorifying
CHRIST, although to my loss, pain, sufferings, and extremity of wretchedness,
how would my soul rejoice! But I am far, far from this. He knows, his love
has made me a prisoner, and bound me hand and foot; but it is my pain that
I cannot get loose hands, and a loosed heart, to do service to my LORD) JESUS,
and to speak his love. I confess, I have neither tongue nor pen to do it.
CHRIST'S love is more than my praises, and above the thoughts of the angel
GABRIEL, and all the mighty hosts that stand before the throne of Got. I think
shame, that my foul tongue, and polluted heart, should come in to help others
to sing the praises of CHRIST: all I now do, is to wish the choir to become
crowded, and to grow in the extolling of CHRIST. Woe, woe is me, for my guiltiness,
seen to few; my hidden wounds, still bleeding within me, are before the eyes
of no man; but if my LORD JESUS were not still hasing,
washing, balming, healing, and binding them up, they would break out
to my shame. I know not what will be the end of my suffering; I have but seen
the one side of my cross; what will be the other side, He knows, who has his
fire in Zion. Let Him lead me, if it were through hell. I thank my Lon)),
my waiting to see what more CHRIST will do to me, is my joy. O that my ease,
joy, and pleasure for evermore, were laid in pledge
to buy praises to CHRIST! But I am far from this. It is easy for a poor soul,
in the deep debt of CHRIST'S love, to feed upon broad wishes that CHRIST may
be honored; but in performance I am stark nought.
I have nothing, nothing, to give to CHRIST, but poverty. I would be glad to
hear that CHRIST'S claim to you were still the more, and that you were still
going forward, and that you were nearer to Him. I do not honor CHRIST myself,
but I wish all others did. I am somewhat encouraged that your Ladyship is
not dry and cold to CHRIST'S prisoner, as some are: I hope it is put up in
my Master's accountbook. I am not much grieved, that my jealous husband
should break in pieces my idols, so that either they dare not, or will not,
do for me. My Master needeth not their help, but
they need to help him. Thus, recommending you to God's dearest mercy, I rest,
Aberdeen,
Your own, in JESUS, at all obedience,
July 17, 1637.
S. R.
TO HIS PARISHIONERS.
DEARLY beloved, and longedfor in the
LORD, my crown and my joy in the day of CHRIST: grace be
to you, and. peace, from God our Father, and our LoRn
JESUS CHRIST! I long exceedingly to know, if you follow
on to know the LORD. My day thoughts and my night thoughts are of you;
while ye sleep, I am afraid of your souls, lest they be off the rock. Next
to my LORD JESUS, and this fallen Kirk, ye have the greatest share of my sorrow,
and also of my' joy; ye are the matter of the tears, care, fears, and daily
prayers, of an oppressed prisoner of CHRIST. As I am in bonds. for my high
and lofty One, my royal and princely Master, so I am in bonds for you for
I should have slept in my warm nest, and kept the fat world in my arms, and
the cords of my tabernacle would have been fastened more strongly, if I had
been drawn on to cause you to eat pastures trodden on with men's feet, and
to drink foul and muddy waters. But truly the Almighty was a terror to me,
and his fear made me afraid. O my LORD, judge if my ministry be not dear to
me, but not so dear by many degrees as CHRIST JESUS, My LORD! GOD knows the
heavy and sad sabbaths I have had. Since I laid down at my Master's feet
my two shepherd's staves, I have often been saying, as it is written, (Lam.
3:52, 53,) " My enemies chased me sore like a bird without cause; they
have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me:" for,
next to CHRIST, I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights, to
preach CHRIST My LORD; and they have violently plucked that away from me.
It was to me like the poor man's one eye, and they have put out that eye,
and quenched my light in the inheritance of the LORD; but my eye is towards
the LORD. I know I shall see the salvation of Go)), and that my hope shall
not always be forgotten. And my sorrow shall want nothing to complete it,
and to make me say,’ What availeth it me to live?'if ye follow the voice of a stranger, of one that cometh
into the sheepfold, not by CHRIST the door, but climbeth
up another way. If the man build his hay and stubble
upon the golden foundation, CHRIST JESUS, already laid among you, and ye follow
him, I assure you that the man's work shall burn, and ye and he both shall
be in danger of everlasting burning. O that any pain, any sorrow, any loss,
which I can suffer for CHRIST, and for you, were laid in pledge to buy CHRIST'S
love to you, and that I could lay my dearest joys, next to CHRIST My LORD,
in the gap between you and eternal destruction! O that I had paper as broad
as heaven and earth, and ink as the sea, and all the rivers and fountains
of the earth, and were able to write the love, the worth, the excellency,
the sweetness, and the due praises of our dearest and fairest Wellbeloved; and then that ye could read and understand it!
What could I want, if my. ministry among you should make a marriage between
the Bride, in those bounds, and the heavenly Bridegroom?
O how rich a prisoner were II if I could obtain of my LORD (before
whom I stand for you) the salvation of you all! O what a prey had I gotten,
to have you caught in CHRIST'S net! My witness is above, your heaven would
be two heavens to me; and the salvation of you all, as two salvations to me!
I would subscribe a suspension of my heaven, for many hundred years, (according
to GOD's good pleasure,) if ye were sure in the upper lodging,
in our Father's house, before me. I counsel you, beware of the new and strange
heaven of men's salvations, beside and against the word of Goo;
ye see whither they lead you. Continue still in the doctrine which ye have
received. Ye heard of me the whole counsel of GOD; take CHRIST in his rags
and losses, and as persecuted by men; and be content to sigh, and pant up
the mountain, with CH’Ws cross on your back; —let
me be reputed a false prophet, if your LoRD JESUS
shall not stand by you, and maintain you, and maintain your cause against
your enemies. I have heard, (and my soul is grieved for it,) that, since my
departure from you, many among you are turned back, from the good old way,
to the dog's vomit again. Let me speak to. these men. It was not without GOD’s
special direction, that the’first sentence that
ever my mouth uttered to you, was that recorded by JOHN; (chap. 9:39;)
" And JESUS said, For judgment came I into the world,
that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made blind."
It is possible that my first meeting and yours may be, when we shall both
stand before the dreadful Judge of the world: and in the name and authority
of the SON of GOD, my great Wing and Master, I write, by these presents, summons
to these men; I arrest their souls and bodies to the day of our appearance;
their eternal damnation stands subscribed and sealed in heaven, by the handwriting
of the great Judge of quick and dead; and I am ready to stand up, as a preaching
witness against such to their face, in that day, and to say Amen to their
condemnation,—except they repent. The. vengeance of the Gospel Is heavier
than the vengeance of the Law; the Mediator's malediction and vengeance are
double vengeance; and that vengeance is the due portion of such men; and there
I leave them, as bound men, until they repent and amend. You were witnesses,
how the LORD's day was spent, while I was among you. O sacrilegious robber
of GOD's day, what wilt you answer the ALMIGHTY,
when he seeketh so many sabbaths
back again from thee? What will the curser, swearer,
and blasphemer do, when his tongue shall be roasted in that broad and burning
lake of fire and brimstone? And what will the drunkard do, when tongue, lights,
liver, bones, and all, shall boil and fry in a torturing fire? For he shall
be far from his barrels of strong drink then; and there is not a cold well
of water for him in hell! What shall be the case of the wretch, the covetous
man, the oppressor, the deceiver, the earthworm, who can never get his fill
of clay, when, in the day of CHRIST, gold and silver must he burned in ashes,
and he must appear and answer his Judge, and quit his clayey and naughty heaven?
Woe, woe for evermore, be to the timeturning Atheist,
that has one GOD and one religion for summer, and another GOD and another
religion for winter; who has a conscience for every fair and market; and whose
soul runneth upon those oiled wheels, time, custom, the world,
and the command of men. O that the careless and sleeping man, who lays down
his head upon time's bosom, and giveth his conscience
to a deputy, and sleepeth so, until the smoke of
hellfire shall fly up in his throat, and cause him to start out of his doleful
bed;O that such a man would awake! Many woes are for the overgilded and goldplastered hypocrite;
a heavy doom is for the liar and white tongued flatterer; and the flying hook
of GOD's fearful vengeance, twenty cubits long,
and ten cubits broad, that go out from the face of Got., shall enter into
the house, and upon the soul, of him that stealeth,
and sweareth falsely by GOD's
name. I denounce eternal burning, hotter than Sodom's flames, upon the men
that boil in the filthy lusts of fornication, adultery, incest, and the like
wickedness; there is no room, no, not a foot broad, for such vile dogs, within
the holy Jerusalem! Many of you put off all with this excuse, " GOD forgive
us; we know no better! " I renew my old answer, (2 Thess. 1:7, 8:) The Judge is coming " in flaming fire,
with all his mighty angels, to render vengeance to all those that know not
GOD." I have often told you, security shall slay you. All men say they
have faith; all believe; every foul dog is clean enough, and good enough,
for the new Jerusalem above! Every man has conversion, and the new birth;
but they had never a sick night for sin; conversion came to them in a nightdream. In a word, hell will be empty at the day of judgment,
and heaven full. Alas! it is neither easy, nor ordinary, to believe and to
be saved. Many must stand in the end at heaven's gates; whets they go to take
out their faith, they take out a fair nothing. O lamentable disappointment!
I pray you,(I charge you, in the name of CHRIST, make fast work of CHRIST
and salvation. I know there are some believers among you; and I write to you,
O poor brokenhearted believers: all the comforts of CHRIST in the New and
Old Testament are yours.
O what a father and husband you have! O that I had pen and ink
to write of him! If heaven and earth were consolidated in massy and pure
gold, it would not weigh the thousandth part of CHRIST's
love to a soul, even to me a poor prisoner. O it is a massy and marvelous
love! Men and angels, unite your force and strength in one; yet shall ye
