TO JOHN FLEMYIMING, BAILLIE OF LEITH.

 

Much honored in the LORD,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I am still on good terms with CHRIST. However my LORD's wind blow, I have the advantage of a calm and sunny side of CHRIST. Devils, and hell, and devils' servants, are all blown blind, in pursuing the LORD's chosen. " They shall be as a nightdream, who fight against Mount Zion." Worthy: Sir, I hope ye take to heart the worth of your calling. The port is open for us: as fast as time weareth out, we flee away: eternity is at our elbow. O how blest are they, who in time make CHRIST sure for themselves! Salvation is a great errand; I find it hard to fetch heaven. O that we could take pains with our lamps, for the Bridegroom's coming! The other side of this world will be turned up incontinent; and up shall become down; and these that are weeping in sack does shall triumph on white horses, with him whose name is " THE WORD OF GOD." These dying idols, the fair creatures which we love better than our Creator, will pass away like snowwater. The GODhead, the GODhead,a communion with God in CHRIST, —to be halvers with CHRIST of. the purchased inheritance in heaven,—should be your, scope and aim. For myself, when 1 lay my accounts, O what weighing is in CHRIST! O love, surpassing love in JESUS! I have no fault to find with that love, but that it seems to deal niggardly with me; I have little of it. O that I had CHRIST'S hand, subscribed by himself, for my fill: of it! What garland have I, or what crown, if I looked right on things, but a JESUS. O there is no roomin us, on. this side of the water, for, that love! This narrow earth, and these narrow souls, can hold little of it. Glory would enlarge us, that we might he able to comprehend it, which yet is incomprehensible. Grace be with you!

 

Aberdeen, 

 

Yours in his LORD JESUS,

 

Sept. 7, 1637. 

 

S. R.

 

MADAM,

 

 I REJOICE in our LORD JESUS on your behalf, that it hath pleased him to manifest the savor of his love in CHRIST JESUS to your soul, in the revelation of his will. And mind to you, now, when so many are shut up in unbelief. O the sweet change you have made, in leaving the black kingdom of this world and sin, and coming over to our SAVIOR'S new kingdom, so as to know, and to be captivated by, the love of the SON of GOD. I beseech you, Madam, in the LORD, make now sure work; and see that the old house based from the foundation, and that the new building of your soul be of CHRIST'S own laying; for then wind and storm shall neither loose it, nor shake it asunder. Many now take CHRIST by guess: be sure that it be he; and only he, whom ye have met with. His lovely voice,’his fair countenance, his sweet working in the soul, will not lie; they will soon tell if it be CHRIST indeed: therefore be sure that ye take' CHRIST himself, and take him with his FATHER's blessing. Your lines are well fallen; it could not have been better, nor so well with you, if they had not fallen in these places; in heaven, or out of heaven, there is nothing better, nothing so excellent as CHRIST. Much joy may ye have of Him! But take his cross with himself cheerfully: CHRIST and his cross are not separable in this life, although CHRIST and his cross part at heaven's door; for there is no room for crosses in heaven. One tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, or thought of trouble, cannot find lodging there; they are but the marks of our LORD JESUS down in this stormy country, and on, this side of death. Sorrow and the saints are not married together; or, suppose it be so, heaven shall make a divorce. I find that his sweet presence eats out the bitterness of sorrow and suffering. I think it a sweet thing, that CHRIST says of my cross, " Halfmine; " and that he divideth these sufferings with me, and taketh the largest share to himself; nay, that I and my whole cross are wholly CHRIST'S. O what a portion is CHRIST! O that the saints would dig deeper in the treasures of his wisdom and excellency!

 

 Thus, recommending your Ladyship to the goodwill and tender mercies of our LORD, I rest

 

Aberdeen, 

 

Your Ladyship's,

 

S.R.

 

TO MARGARET BALLANTINE.

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you! It is more than time that I should have written to you; but it is yet good time, if I could help your soul to mend your pace, and to go more swiftly to your heavenly country. For truly ye have need to make all haste, because the inch of your day that remaineth will quickly slip away; for whether we sleep or wake, our glass runneth; the tide waiteth for no man. Beware of a deception in the matter of your salvation! Woe, woe, for evermore, to them that lose that prize! For what is behind, when the soul is once lost, but that sinners warm, their clayhouses at a fire of their own kindling, for a day or two, which does rather suffocate with its smoke, than warm them, and at length'. he down in sorrow, and are clothed with everlasting shame I would seek no further measure of faith, to begin with, than to believe steadfastly the doctrine of GOD's justice, his all devouring wrath and everlasting burning, where sinners are burned soul and body, in, a lake of fire and brimstone, There they would wish no other goods, but the thousandth part of a fountain to cool their tongue. They, would there buy death by. enduring pain and torment for as many years as GOD hath, created drops of rain since the creation: but there is no market" there for buying or selling life or death. Alas, the greatest part of this world: run to the place of torment rejoicing and dancing, eating,: drinking, and sleeping. My counsel to you is, that ye start in time after CHRIST; for, if ye go quickly, CHRIST is not far before you: ye shall overtake him. O LORD GOD, what is so needful as, this Salvation,—Salvation Fie upon this foolish world, that would give so little for Salvation! O if there were a free market of Salvation proclaimed in that day when the trumpet of GOD shall awake the dead, how many buyers would there be then! GOD send me no more happiness, but that Salvation which the blind world (to their eternal woe) letteth slip through their fingers! GOD says to them, (Isa 1:11,) " This shall ye have at my hand, ye shall he down in sorrow." And truly this is as ill made a bed to he upon, as one could wish: for he cannot sleep soundly, nor rest quietly, who has sorrow for his pillow. Rouse, rouse up therefore your soul; and ask how CHRIST and your soul met together. I am sure they never got CHRIST, who were not once sick at the heart for him. Too, too many whole souls think they have met with CHRIST, who had never a wearied night for the want of him. But, alas, what richer are men, because they dreamed the last night that they had much gold, and, when they awoke in the morning, they found it was but a dream What are all the sinners in the world, in that day when heaven and earth shall go up in a flame of fire, but a number of beguiled dreamers Every one shall say of his hunting and his conquest, a Behold, it was a dream." Every man in that day will tell his dream. I beseech you in the LORD JESUS, beware, beware of unsound work in the matter of your salvation: ye may not, ye cannot, be safe without CHRIST. This day strike hands with CHRIST, that there may be no happiness to you but CHRIST, no hunting for any thing but CHRIST, no bed at night (when death cometh) but CHRIST. I know this much of CHRIST, He is not ill to be found, nor lordly of his love. Woe had been my portion for even more, if CHRIST had made a dainty of himself to me: but, GOD be thanked, I gave nothing for CHRIST; and now, I protest before men and angels, CHRIST cannot be exchanged, CHRIST cannot be sold, CHRIST cannot be weighed. Where would angels, or all the world, find a balance to weigh him in All lovers, blush when ye stand beside CHRIST! Woe upon all love, but the love of CHRIST; shame, for evermore, be upon all other glory! I cry, Death upon all lives, but the life of CHRIST! O what is it that holdeth us asunder! O that once we could have a fair meeting! Thus, recommending CHRIST to you, and you to Him for evermore, I rest. Grace be with you!

 

Yours in JESUS,

 

Aberdeen, 1637.

 

TO JOHN KENNEDY, BAILLIE OF AYR.

 

WORTHY SIR,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you! Your not writing to me cannot bind me up from remembering you, that at least ye may be a witness, to behold in paper what is between CHRIST and me. I was like a young orphan, cast out in the open fields; and either CHRIST behoved to take me up, and bring me home to his house, or I had died in the fields. And now I think the house mine own, and the Master of the house mine also. CHRIST inquired not, when he began to love me, whether I was fair, or black, or sunburnt Love taketh what it may have. He loved me before this time, I know: his love is come to a fair bloom, like a young rose opened out of the green leaves, and it casteth a strong and flagrant smell. I want nothing but ways of expressing CHRIST's love: a full vessel would have a vent. O that I could cast out coals, to make a fire in many breasts! Oh! it is, a pity that there were not many imprisoned for, CHRIST, for no other purpose but to write songs of the love of CHRIST. This love would keep all created tongues in exercise, and busy night and day, to speak of it. Alas! I can speak nothing of it; but I wonder at three things in his love.—First, Its freedom. O that lumps of sin should get such love for nothing!—Secondly, The sweetness of his love. Those that feel it may bear witness what it is: it is so sweet, that, next to CHRIST himself, nothing can match it. A soul could live eternally blessed only on CHRIST'S love, and feed, upon no other thing.—And, Thirdly, What power and strength are in his love! I am persuaded it can climb a steep hill, with hell upon its, back; and swim; through: water, and not drown; and sing in the fire, and feel no pain; and triumph in losses, prisons, sorrows, exile, or disgrace, and lapel and rejoice in death. O for a year's lease, of the sense of his love without a cloud! O for the coming; of the, Bridegroom. When shall I see the Bride groom and the Bride meet in the clouds! O when shall we get our hearts'fill of that love! O that it were lawful to complain of the famine and want of that immediate vision of GOD! O time, time, how dost you torment the souls of those that would be swallowed up of CHRIST'S love, because you move so slowly! O that he would pity a poor prisoner, and give me a taste, or draught, of that surpassing sweetness, (which is glory begun,) to be a confirmation, that CHRIST and I shall enjoy each other for ever! Come hither, O love of CHRIST, that I may once possess thee before I die! What would I not give, to have time, which lieth between CHRIST and me, taken out of the way, that we might once meet I cannot think but that, at the first sight I shall see of that most lovely face, love shall come out of his eyes, and fill me with astonishment. I would but desire to stand at the outer side of the gates of the New Jerusalem, and look through a hole of the door, and see CHRIST'S face. It is not for nothing that it is said, (Col. 1:27,) " CHRIST in you the hope of glory." CHRIST, possessed by faith here, is young heaven, and glory in the bud. If I had that pledge, I would endure hell, rather than give it again. Should not we, young children, long and look for the expiring of our minority It were good to be daily begging the SAVIOR'S favors, and, if we can do no more, seek crumbs of CHRIST'S love, to keep up our taste of heaven, until suppertime. I know, it is far after noon, and nigh the marriage supper of the LAMB; the table is covered, already. O Well beloved, run,’ run fast! O fair day, when wilt you dawn! O shadows, flee away! It is a pain to wait; but hope that maketh not ashamed swalloweth up that pain. It is not unkindness that keepeth CHRIST and us so long asunder. What can I say to CHRIST's love I think more than I can say. To consider, that when my LORD JESUS might take the air (if I may so speak) and go abroad, yet he will keep the prison with me! But, in all this sweet communion with him, what am I to be thanked for Whether I will or not, he will be kind to me, as if he had defied my guiltiness to make him unkind. Here I die with wondering, that justice hinders not love; for there are none in hell, nor out of. hell, more unworthy of CHRIST'S love. It would seem to become me rather to run away from his love, as ashamed at my own unworthiness. Nay, I may think shame to:take heaven, who have so highly provoked my LORD JESUS: but seeing CHRIST'S love will shame me, I am content to be ashamed: My desire is, that my LORD would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at his love. I wish I could weigh it, but I have no balance for it. When I have worn my tongue to the stump in praising CHRIST, I have done nothing to him; I must let him alone, for my withered arms will not go about his high, wide, long, and broad love. What remaineth then, but that my debt to the love of CHRIST he unpaid to all eternity O if this land and nation. would come and stand before his inconceivable and glorious perfections, and look, and love, and wonder, and adore! Would to Go]) that I could bring in many lovers to. CHRIST'S house! But this nation has " forcaken the fountain; of living waters." LORD, cast not water on Scotland's coal! Woe, woe, will be to this. land, because of the day of the LORD's fierce anger, that is so fast coming!’ Grace be with you!

 

'Your affectionate brother in our LORD JESUS, 

 

TO THE LADY BOYD.

 

My very honorable and Christian Lady,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I received your. letter,: and am well pleased that your thoughts: of CHRIST stay with you, and that your purpose still is, by all means, to take the kingdom of heaven by violence; and it is a degree of watchfulness, and thankfulness: also, to observe sleepiness and unthankfulness. We have all good cause to complain of false light, that, playeth the thief, and stealeth away the lantern; when it cometh to constant walking with GOD, our journey is ten times aday broken. CHRIST getteth only broken work of us; and, alas! too often against the hair. I have been somewhat nearer the LORD; but when I draw nigh, and see my vileness, for shame I would be out of his presence again; but yet desire of his soul refreshing love putteth me under an arrest. O what am I, so slothful a burden of sin, to stand beside such a holy LORD, such a high and lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity! But, since it pleases CHRIST to condescend to such a one as me, let shamefacedness be laid aside, and lose itself in his condescending love. O that I were at yonder end of my weak designs! Then should I be where CHRIST My LORD lives and reigns; there I should be everlastingly solaced with the sight of his face, and satisfied with the surpassing sweetness of his love. But truly now I stand in the nether side of my desires; and, with a drooping head, and panting heart, I look up to JESUS, standing afar off from us, until corruption and death shall scour and refine the body of clay. In the mean time, we are blessed in sending word to the Beloved, that we love him; and till then there is joy in seeking him, in lying about his house, looking in at the windows, and sending a poor soul's groans and wishes through a hole of the door to JESUS, till GOD send a glad meeting. And blessed be GOD, that after a low ebb, and so sad a word, "LORD JESUS, it is long since I saw thee;" that, even then, our wings are growing, and the absence of JESUS breedeth new desires and longings for him. I know that no man has a velvet cross; but the cross is made of that which GOD will have it. Let my LORD JESUS weave my spanlength of time with white and black; and let the rose be neighbored with the thorn; yet hope, that maketh not ashamed, has written a letter of hope to the mourners in Zion, that it shall not be long so. When we are over the water, CHRIST shall cry down crosses, and up heaven for evermore. In this hope, I sleep quietly in CHRIST'S bosom, till He come, who is not slack;.; and would sleep so, were it not that the noise of the Devil's and sin's feet, and the cries of an unbelieving heart, awaken me; but for the present I have nothing whereof I can accuse CHRIST'S cross. O that I could please myself in CHRIST only! If the fruit of your Ladyship's womb be helpers of CHRIST, ye have good ground to rejoice in GOD. All your Ladyship can expect for your goodwill to me and my brother, is the prayers of a prisoner. of JESUS, to whom I recommend your Ladyship and children, and in whom I am,

 

Aberdeen, 

 

Madam, your Ladyship's in CHRIST,

 

Sept. 8, 1637. S. R.

 

TO JONET KENNEDY.

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, bye unto you! Ye are not a little obliged, to the rich grace of Him, who has separated you for, himself, and for the promised inheritance with the saints in light, from this condemned world. Hold fast CHRIST, contend for him; it is not possible to keep CHRIST peaceably, having once gotten him, except the Devil were dead. It must be your resolution, to set your face against Satan's storms. Nature would have heaven come to us sleeping. in our beds. We would all buy CHRIST, if we might make the price ourselves; but CHRIST is worth more blood and lives than either you or I have to give him. When we shall come home, when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings, then we shall see life and sorrow to be less than one step from a prison to glory, and that our little inch of suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome to heaven. O thrice blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with the dreams and shadows of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us, who sit still, fettered with the love of the Lord of a piece of dead clay! O poor fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair weather and smooth promises! May not the Devil laugh, to see us give out our souls, and get in but the corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin O for a sight of eternity's glory, and a little taste of the LAMB'S marriage supper! A drop of the wine of consolations, that is in our banqueting house, out of CHRIST'S own hand, would make us loathe the sour drink of a miserable life. O how far are we bereft of with to run, till our souls be out of breath, after a happiness of our own making! O that we were out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and crucified to us! And when we should be out of love of any masked lover whatsoever, then CHRIST would be our night song and our morningsong; then the very noise of our Well beloved's feet when he cometh, and his first knock at the door, would be as the news of two heavens to us. O that our eyes, and our soul's smelling, should go after a blasted and sunburnt flower, even this fairplastered, outside world; and have neither eye nor smell for the flower of JESSE, for the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever GOD planted! O let some of us die to feel the fragrance of him; and let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for evermore, providing 1: may anchor my tottering soul upon CHRIST! I know that it is sometimes at this, a LORD, what wilt you have for CHRIST" But, O LORD, can CHRIST be sold Or, rather, May not a poor prisoner have him for nothing If I can get no more, O let me he pained to all eternity with longing for him! The joy of hungering for CHRIST should be my heaven for evermore. Alas.! that I cannot draw souls and CHRIST together! But I desire the coming of his kingdom, and that CHRIST would come upon withered Scotland, as gain upon the new mown grass. O let the King come! Grace, grace be with you!

 

Yours in his worthy LORD JESUS,

 

Aberdeen, 1637. 

 

TO MARGARET REBID.

 

My very dear and worthy Sister,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! Ye are truly blessed of the LORD, however a sour world gloom upon you, if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel. It is good that there is a heaven, and that it is not a night dream, or a fancy. It is a wonder that men deny not that there is a heaven; as they deny that there is a way to it, but of men's making. You have learned of CHRIST, that there is a heaven; contend for it, and contend for CHRIST; bear well the hard cross of this stepmother world, that GOD, will not have to be yours. I confess, it is hard, and. I would, I were able to ease /you of your burden.; but, believe me, this world is but the, dress, the refuse, and the sign of God's creation; a hard bone cast to the dogs, whereon they. rather break their teeth, than satisfy their appetite: It is your Father's blessing, and CHRIST'S birthright; in that; Our, LORD is, keeping for__ you; and your seed also shall inherit the earth, (if that e good for them,) for that is: promised to, them; and GOD's bond is as good, and better, than if men would give every one of them a bond for thousands. Crosses in number, measure, and weight, have been written for you; and your LORD will lead you. through them. Make CHRIST sure, and the blessings of, the earth shall be at CHRIST'S back. I see ’many professors, but they are professors of glass; a little knock of persecution breaks them in pieces: therefore make. fast, work;' see that CHRIST lay the groundstone of your profession; for wind and rain will not wash away his building. His works stand for evermore. I should twenty times have perished in my affliction, if I had not leaned my weak back, and laid my pressing burden, upon the Foundationstone, the, Cornerstone laid in Zion; and I desire never to rise from this stone. Now, the very GOD of peace confirm and establish you unto the day of the blessed appearance of CHRIST JESUS. GOD be with you! Yours in his LORD JESUS,

 

S. R.

 

TO JOHN STEWART, PROVOST OF AYR, Now in Ireland.

 

MUCH HONORED SIR,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you! I long to hear from you; being now removed from my flock, and the prisoner of CHRIST at Aberdeen. I would not have you think it strange, that your journey to New England has gotten such a dash. It indeed has made my heart heavy; yet I know it is no dumb Providence, but a speaking one, whereby our LORD speaketh his mind to you, though for the present ye do not well understand what he says. However it be, He who sitteth upon the floods has shown you his’ marvelous kindness in the great deeps. I know your loss is great, and your hope is gone far against you; but I entreat you,’Sir, expound aright our LORD's laying hindrances in the way. I persuade myself that your heart aimeth at the footsteps of the flock, and to dwell beside him whom your soul loves; and that it is your desire to remain in the wilderness, where the woman is kept from the dragon. And this being your desire, remember that a poor prisoner of CHRIST said, " That miscarried journey is pregnant with mercy and. consolation, and shall bring " forth a fair birth." Wait on: "le that believeth. maketh not. haste." (Isa. 28:16.) I hope ye have been asking what the Lord meaneth, and what further may be his will. My dear Brother, let GOD make of you what he. will. He will end all with consolation, and shall make glory out of your sufferings; and would you' wish better work This water was in your way to heaven; ye behoved to cross it; and therefore embrace his wise and unerring Providence. Let not the censures of men, who see but the outside of things, (and scarcely that well,) abate your rejoicing in the LORD. although your faith sees but the black side of Providence, yet it has a better side; and GOD shall let you see it. If our Lon') ride upon a straw, his horse shall neither stumble nor fall: " For we know that all things work together for good to them that love GOD:" Therefore, shipwreck, losses, &c., work together for the good of them that Jove GOD. Hence I infer, that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, and loss. of friends, houses, or country, are, GOD’s workmen, still at work, to work out good to you out of every thing that befalleth you. Let not the Loup's dealing seem harsh, rough, or unfatherly, because it is unpleasant: When, the LORD’s blessed will bloweth crow to your desires, it is best in humility to strike sail to him, and to be' willing to be led in any way our LORD pleases. It is a point of denial` of yourself, to be as if your had 'not a will, but: had sold it over to him; and to makth use of, his, will far your own, is both true holiness, and: your; ease and peace " Ye know not what the Lord is, working out of this; but ye shall know it hereafter. Now, for myself, I was three days before the HighCommission, and accused of. preaching treason against our Kings A Minister, being witness, went well nigh to swear it And, they have (1.) deprived me of. my ministry; (2.) silenced me, requiring that I exercise no part of the ministerial 'function within. this kingdom) under the pain of rebellion,; (3) confined my' person within, the town of Aberdeen,'where I find the Ministers working for: my containment in Caithness or Orkney, far from them, because some people here resort to me. My adversaries know not what a courtier I am now with my Royal King. It is but our soft and lazy flesh that has raised an ill report/ of the cross of CHRIST. Sweet is his yoke; CHRIST’s chains are of pure gold sufferings for him ate perfumed: I would not give my weeping for the laughing of all the fourteen Prelates; I would not exchange my sadness with the world's joy. Yours in our Lord JESUS,

 

Aberdeen, 1637. 

 

S. R

 

TO JOHN STEWART, PROVOST OF AYR.

 

Much honored, and dearest in CHRIST;

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, from GOD our FATHER, and from our LORD JESUS CHRIST, be upon you! My closed mouth, my dumb sabbaths, and the memory of my communion with CHRIST, in many fair, faire days in Anwoth, (whereas now my Master getteth no service of my tongue,) have almost broken my faith in two halves; yet, in my deepest apprehensions of his anger, I see through a cloud that I am wrong. The LORD) is equal in all his ways; but my guiltiness often overmastereth my believing. I have not been well known; for, except as to open outbreakings, I want nothing of what JUDAS and CAIN had;—only He has been pleased to prevent me in mercy, and to cast me into a fever of love for himself; and' besides he has visited my soul, and watered it with his comforts. But yet I have not that real and felt possession which I would have; I know CHRIST pitieth me in this. The great men, my friends, are dried up, like winterbrooks of water: all say, " No dealing for that man; his best way will be, to be gone out of the kingdom:" So I see they tire of me. But, believe me, I am most gladly content that CHRIST breaketh all my idols in pieces; it has put a new edge upon my blunted love to CHRIST; I see he is jealous of my love, and will have all to himself. In a word, the following things' are my burthen.—l. I am not in the vineyard as others are: it may be, because CHRIST thinketh me a withered tree; but Got, forbid!— 2. Woe, woe, woe is coming upon my harlot mother, this apostate Kirk. The time is coming, when we shall wish for doves' wings, to any and hide us. Oh for the desolation of this land!

 

 3. I see my Master, CHRIST, going alone, as it were mourning in sackcloth. His fainting friends fear that JESUS shall lose the field but he must carry the day.

 

 4. My guiltiness and the sins of my youth are come up against me, and they would come in as deserving causes of GOD’s justice; but I pray GOD, for CHRIST'S sake, that he will never give them that room. 5. Woe is me, that I cannot get the glorious Prince of the Kings of the earth set on high! Sir, ye may help me and pity me in this, and bow your knee, and bless his name, and desire others to do it, that he has been pleased in my sufferings to make atheists, papists, and enemies about me, say, GOD is with this prisoner." Let hell, and the powers of hell, (I care not,) be let loose against me to do their worst, so that CHRIST, and my FATHER and his FATHER, may be magnified in my sufferings.—", write to. me; and commend me to your wife. Mercy be her portion! Grace be with you!

 

Yours in his LORD JESUS,

 

S.R.

 

TO THE LADY BUSBIE.

 

MADAM,

 

 GRACES mercy, and peace, be to you! I am glad to hear that CHRIST and ye are one; and that ye have made him your one thing, where many are painfully toiled in seeking many things, and their many things are nothing. It is best that ye should set yourself apart, as a thing laid up for CHRIST alone. He has been going about you these many years, by afflictions, to engage you to himself; it were a pity and a loss to say him nay. Verily I could wish that I could swim through hell, and all the ill weather in the world, with CHRIST in my arms; but it is my evil and folly, that, except CHRIST come unsent for, I dare not go to seek him. Think well of the visitations of your LORD: for I find one thing, which I saw not well before, that when we are under trials, little sins raise great cries in the conscience; whereas in prosperity, conscience is a Pope, to give dispensations, and let out and in, and give latitude and elbowroom to our heart. O how little care we for pardon at CHRIST'S hand, when we make dispensations! And all is but children's play, till a cross without beget a heavier cross within, and then we play no longer with our idols. It is good still, to be severe against ourselves; for else we but transform GOD's mercy into an idol, and an idol that has a dispensation to give for turning the grace of GOD into wantonness. O CHRIST has a saving eye! Salvation is in. his eyelids. When he first looked on me, I was saved; it cost him but a look to make hell quit of me. O, free merits, and the precious blood of God! What a safe and sure way is it, to come out of hell leaning on the SAVIOR! That CHRIST and a sinner should be one, and have heaven between them, is the wonder of salvation. What an excellent fragrance does CHRIST cast on his lower garden, where there grow but wild flowers, if we speak by way of comparison! But there is nothing but perfect gardenflowers in heaven. We are all obliged to love heaven for CHRIST'S sake. He graced' heaven and all his Father's house with his presence. He is the rose that beautifieth all the upper garden of GOD; a leaf of that rose of GOD, for fragrance, is worth a world. O that he would blow his fragrance upon a withered and dead soul! Let us then go on to meet him, and to be filled with the sweetness of his love. Nothing will hold him from us; he has decreed to put time, sin, hell, devils, men, and death out of the way, and to rid the rough way between us and him, that we may enjoy one another. It is wonderful, that he would have the company of sinners to delight himself with in heaven. And now the supper is waiting for us. CHRIST the Bridegroom is waiting with desire, till the Bride, the LAMB'S wife, be ready for the marriage. O fools, what do we here And why sit we still Why sleep we in the prison Were it not best to make us wings, to fly up to our blessed LORD, and our fellow friends GOD give you to find mercy in that day of our LORD JESUS, to whose saving grace I recommend you.

 

Yours in our LORD JESUS,

 

Aberdeen, 1639. 

 

S. R. 

 

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD.LOUDOUN.

 

RIGHT HONORABLE

 

 GRACE, mercy, And peace " be to your Lordship! I rejoice exceedingly, that I hear your Lordship has a good mind to CHRIST, and his truth. My very dear Lord, go one in the strength of the Lord, to carry your honor and worldly glory to the New Jerusalem. For this cause your Lordship received these Of the LORD, and this is a sure way for the establishment of your house, if ye be one of those who are' willing in your place to build Zion's waste places. Yolk, Lordship wants `not Gob's aid man's' law both but’ suppose the bastard laws of man were against you, it is an honest error, if here ye slip against a point of standing', policy. O what a blessed thing is it, to see nobility, learning, and sanctification, all conquer in one!' For these ye owe yourself to CHRIST and his' kingdom. GOD has bewildered the wit and the learning of the scribes and disputers, this time; they look asquint to the Bibles this world blindfoldeth men's light, that they are afraid to see straight before them. Your Lordship knows, that within a little while, policy against truth will blush, and the works of men will burn. How had they forgotten the LORD, that they dare go against even. that truth which once they preached themselves, although their sermons now be as thin sown as strawberries in a wood Certainly the safest course is, for the short time of this world, to stand for JESUS. He has said it, and it is our part to believe it, that, ere it be long, " time shall be no more," and " the heavens shall wax old as a garment." Do we not see it already an old, threadbare garment Does not cripple and lame nature tell us, that the Lord will fold up the old garment, and lay it aside; and that the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll, and this pesthouse shall be burnt with fire, and shall melt with fervent heat For, at the Lord's coming, he will do with this earth, as men do with a leperhouse; he will burn the walls with fire, and the furniture of the house also. (2 Peter 3:1O, 12.) My very dear Lord, how shall ye rejoice in that day, to have CHRIST, angels, heaven, and your own conscience, smiling upon you I am persuaded that one sick night, through the terrors of the Almighty, would make men (whose conscience has such a wide throat) have other thoughts of CHRIST and his worship than those with which now they please themselves. The scarcity of faith in the earth says that we are hard upon the last nick of time: blessed are those who keep, their garments clean against the Bridegroom's coming. There shall be spotted clothes, and many defiled garments, at his last coming'; and therefore few found worthy to walk with him in white. The weak and feeble, these that are as signs and wonders in Israel, have chosen the best side. Verily, for myself, I am so well pleased with CHRIST and his cross, that I should weep if it should come to bartering of condition with those that are at ease in Zion. I hold still to my choice, and bless myself in it. I see, and I believe, that there is salvation in this way that is every where spoken against. I hope to face eternity, and to venture even upon death, fully persuaded, that this only, even this, is the saving way for racked consciences, and for weary and laden sinners, to find ease and peace for evermore. Now the very GOD of peace establish your Lordship in CHRIST JESUS unto the end!

 

Aberdeen, 

 

Your Lordship's in JESUS,

 

Sept. 1O, 1637.

 

TO ALEXANDER GORDON, OF EARLSTOUN.

 

MUCH HONORED SIR,

 

 SEEING our LORD has been pleased to break the snare of your adversaries, I heartily bless our LORD on your behalf. Our crosses for CHRIST are not made of iron; they are of more gentle metal. It is easy for God To make a fool of the Devil, the father of all fools. I know your Lord has something to do with you, because SATAN and malice have shot sore at you; but your bow abideth in its strength: let CHRIST have all the glory. I see that CHRIST can borrow a cross for some hours, and set his servants beside it, rather than under it, and make glory to himself, and shame to his enemies, and comfort to his children, out of it: But whether CHRIST buy or borrow crosses,: he is King of crosses, and King of devils,: and King over hell, and King over malice. When he was in the grave, he came out, and brought the keys with him. He is lordgaoler. Nay, what say I He is Captain of the castle, and he has the keys of death and hell. And what are our troubles but little deaths And He who commandeth the great castle, commandeth the little also. 2. I see that a hardened face, and two skins upon our brows, against the winterhail and stormy wind, are meetest for a poor traveler, in a winter journey to heaven. O what art is it to learn to endure hardness, and to learn to go barefooted, either through the Devil's fiery coals, or his frozen waters8. I am persuaded, that, a seaventure with CHRIST maketh great riches. Is not our King JESUS's ship coming home, and shall not we get part of the gold Alas, we fools miscount our gain, when we seem, losers. " To you it is given to suffer." O what fools are we, to undervalue his gifts! If we be faithful, our tackling shall not loose, nor our mast break, nor our sails blow into the sea., The bastard crosses, the baseborn crosses, of worldlings for evildoing, must be heavy and grievous; but our afflictions are light.—4. I am happy that my salvation is credited to CHRIST'S mediation. CHRIST oweth no faith to me; but O what faith and credit I owe to him! Let my name fall, and let CHRIST's name stand in honor with men and angels.—5. I wondered. once at Providence; and called white Providence black and unjust, that I should be smothered in a `town where no soul will. take CHRIST from my hand. But Providence has another lustre with God, than with my bleared eyes. I proclaim myself a blind body, who know not black and white in the uncouth course of GOD’s Providence. Suppose CHIRST would set hell where heaven is, and Devils up in glory, beside the elect Angels, (which yet cannot' be,) I would I had a heart to acquiesce in his way, without further dispute. I see that infinite wisdom is the Mother of his judgments, and his ways are past finding out.—6. I cannot learn, but I desire to learn, to bring my thoughts, will, and desires, under CHRIST'S feet, that he may trample upon them, but) alas! I am still upon CHRIST'S wrong side. Grace be with you

 

S.R.

 

TO MARION MACKNAUGHT

 

Dearest in LORD JESUS:

 

 Count it your honor, that CHRIST has begun at you, to fine you first: " Fear not,' says the Amen, the true and faithful Witness: As my Master liveth, continue in prayer and in watching, and your "glorious deliverance is coining;' CHRIST is not far off. A straw for all the bits of clay that are risen against us! "Ye shall thresh the Mountains, and fat them like chaff"‘ (Isa. xli.) • If ye slack your hands at your meetings, and, your watching to prayer, then it would seem our Rock hath sold us; but be diligent, and be not discouraged. I charge you in CHRIST, rejoice, give thanks, believe, be strong in the Lour, That burning bush in Galloway shall not be burned to ashes; for the Lord is in the bush. Be not discouraged, that banishment to be procured against me: the earth is, the Lord's; and I am filled with his love, and running over. I rejoice to bear that ye are in your journey: such news as I hear of all, your faith and, love, rejoices my sad heart. Pray for me, for they seek my hurt; but I give myself to prayer. The blessing of my LORD, and that of a Prisoner of CHRIST, be with you! O chosen and greatly beloved woman, faint not: Fie, fie! if ye faint now, ye lose a, good cause. Double your meetings: cease not for Zion's sake, hold not your peace, till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

 

Yours in CHRIST JESUS his LORD

 

S.R.

 

TO MR. GEORGE DUMBAR.

 

Reverend and dearly beloved in the Lord

 

 Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you! Because your words We strengthened many, I was silent, expecting Some lines from' you inn My bonds; and this IS the cause why I wrote not to you but now I am forced to speak. I never, believed till now, that there was so much to be found in CHRIST, on this side of death and of heaven. Q the ravishments of heavenly joy, that may be had here, in the small gleanings and comforts that fall from CHRIST! What fools are we, who know not, and consider not the weight that is in the very earnest penny, and the first fruits of our hoped for harvest! O what then must personal possession be! I see that my prison has neither lock nor door; I am, free in my bonds; and my chains are made of rotten straw;’ they shall' not abide one pull of faith. I, am suee; they in hell would, exchange the torments with our crosses, suppose they should never be delivered; and would give twenty thousand years’ torment to boot, to be in our bonds for ever: And therefore we wrong CHRIST, who sigh, and fear, and doubt, and despond in them. Our sufferings are washed in CHRIST'S blood, as well as our souls; for CHRIST'S merits bought a blessing on the crosses of the sons of GOD. Our troubles owe us a free passage through them: Devils and men, and

 

crosses, are our debtors; death and all storms are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water freight free, and to set the travelers in their own known ground; and our sufferings are the ruin of the black kingdom. But withal, we stand with the " hundred forty and four thousand," who are with the LAMB upon the top of Mount Zion: Antichrist and his followers are down in the valley; we have the advantage of the hill; our temptations are always beneath; our waters are beneath our breath; " as dying, and behold we live." I bless the Lour., that all our troubles come through CHRIST'S fingers, and that he casteth in some ounce weights of heaven, and of the spirit of glory, (which resteth on suffering believers) into our cup, in which there is no taste of hell. My dear Brother, ye know all these better than I; I send water to the sea, to speak of these things to you; but it easeth me to desire you to help me to pay tribute of praise to JESUS. O what praises I owe him! I would I were in my free heritage, that I might begin to pay my debts to JESUS. I entreat for your prayers and praises: I forget not you.

 

Your brother and fellow sufferer, in and for CHRIST,

 

Aberdeen, Sept. 17, 1637.

 

S. R.

 

TO THE PROFESSORS OF CHRIST IN IRELAND.

 

 DEARLY beloved in our LORD, and partakers of the heavenly calling. Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you, from GOD our FATHER, and from our LORD JESUS CHRIST! I always, but most of all now in my bonds, (most sweet bonds for CHRIST my LORD) rejoice to hear of your faith and love, and to hear that our King, our well beloved, our spiritual Bridegroom, without tiring, stayeth still to woo you as his Bride; and that persecutions and mockings of sinners have not chased away the wooer from the house. My salvation on it, (if ten heavens, were mine,) if this way that I now suffer for, this way that the world reproacheth, and no other way, be not the' King's gate to heaven; and I shall never see GOD's face, if this be not the only saving way' to heaven. O that you would take the word of a prisoner of CHRIST for it! Nay, I know you have the greatest King's word for its that it shall not be your wisdom to seek another CHRIST, Or another way of worshipping him, than is now savingly revealed to you. Therefore, though I never saw your faces; let me be pardoned fey writing to you, ye faithful pastors yet amongst the flocks, and ye sincere professors of CHRIST'S truth, or any weak and tired strayers, who cast an eye after the Savior, if possibly I may confirm and strengthen you in this good way, every where spoken against.’ Man with greatest assurance (to the. honor of our LORD let it be spoken) assert, though I be but a child in CHRIST, and the meanest, and less than the least of saints, that we do not come nigh to the due love and estimation of that fairest among the sons of men. He is all heaven, and more than all heaven i and my testimony of him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten deaths, ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, were all too little for CHRIST, if our sufferings could be a hire to buy him. Therefore faint not in your sufferings and hazards for him. I proclaim and cry, Hell, sorrow, and shame upon all lusts, upon all by lovers, that would take CHRIST'S room over his head, in this little inch of love of these narrow souls of ours! O highest, O fairest, O dearest LORD JESUS, take thine own from all rival lovers. O that we. could sell. all our part of time's glory, and time's good things, for a lease of CHRIST for all eternity! O how are we misled and polluted with the love of things that are on this side of time, and on this side of death's water! Where can we find a match to CHRIST, among created things I know that his sack does and ashes are better than the fool's laughter, which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. But, alas! we do not harden our faces against the cold north storms, which blow upon CHRIST's face; we love well summer religion, and to be that which sin has made us, even as thin skinned as if we were made. of white paper, and would fain be carried to heaven in a covered chariot, wishing from our hearts that CHRIST would give us surety for nothing. but a fair summer, until we be landed at heaven's gate. How many of us have been here deceived, and fainted in the day of trial Amongst you there are some of this stamp. And now I am persuaded, it will be asked of every one of us, on what terms we keep Cunrsv. We found, CHRIST without a wet foot; and he, and his Gospel, came upon small charges to our doors; but now we must wet our feet to seek him. O how rare a thing is it to be loyal to CHRIST, when he has a controversy with the shields of the earth! I wish all of you would consider, that this trial is from CHRIST; it is come upon you unbought; (indeed, when we buy a temptation with our own, money, no marvel if we be not easily free of it, and if GOD be not at our elbow to take it off our hand;) this is CHRIST's ordinary housefare, of which he makes use, in order to try all the vessels of his house withal; and CHRIST now is about to bring his treasure out before sun and moon, and to tell his money, and in the telling, to try what weight of gold, and what weight of copper, is in his house. Do not now bow, or yield to your adversaries an hairbreadth: CHRIST and his truth will not divide; and his truth hall Hot latitude, that ye may: take some of, and leave, other some of it. Nay, the Gospel is like a small hair, that has. no breadth, and will not delve in two. It is not possible to twist anti compound a matter between CHRIST and Antichrist; and therefore you must, either be for CHRIST, or ye must be against him. O that this. misled and blindfolded world would see, that CHRIST does not rise and fall by men's apprehensions! What is CHRIST the lighter, because men do with him, by open proclamation, as men do with clipped and light money They are now crying down CHRIST; and they will have him taken for a penny or a pound, for one or for a hundred, according as the wind bloweth from the East or from the West. But the LORD has weighed him, and balanced him already: " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him:" his worth and his weight are the same still. It is our part to cry, " Up, up with CHRIST; and down, down with all created glory before him! " O that I could heighten him, and heighten his name, and heighten his throne! I know that death and hell, and the world and tortures, shall all cleave and split in twain, and give us free passage to go through; and we shall bring all Gov's good metal out of the furnace again, and leave! Behind us nothing but our dross and our scum. We may, then, beforehand proclaim CHRIST to be victorious. He is crowned King in Mount Zion;. GOD did. put the crown upon his head, (Psal. 2:) and who dare take it off again Out of question; he has sore and grievous quarrels against his church;' and therefore he is called, (Isa. ixxi. 9,) " He whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem." But, when he has performed his work on Mount Zion, all Zion's haters shall be as the hungry and thirsty man, that' dreams he is eating and drinking, and behold, when he awaketh, he is faint, and his soul empty. And this advantage we. have also, that he will not bring before sun and moon all the infirmities of his church. Our kind Lord will not come with chiding to the streets, to let all the world hear what is between• him and us. Two special tf ings ye are to. mind:—l. Try and make sure your profession, that ye carry not empty lamps. Alas, security, security, is the bane and the wreck of the most part of the world! O how many professors go with a golden. lustre before men, and yet are bastard and base metal! 

 

 Consider how fair before the wind some do ply, and yet in a. short time such are quickly broken' upon the rocks, and never fetch the harbor, but are sanded in the bottom of hell. O make your heaven sure, and try how ye come by conversion; that it be not stolen goods, in a white well lustred profession; a white skin over old wounds. A fault under water, not seen, is dangerous; and so is a leak in the bottom of an enlightened conscience, often falling, and sinning against light. Woe, woe is me, that the holy profession of CHRIST is made a stage garment by many, to bring home a vain fame; and CHRIST is made to serve men's ends! This is, as it were, to stop an oven with a King's robes.—Know, 2, Except men martyr and slay the body of sin, in sanctified self denial, they shall never be CHRIST'S martyrs and faithful witnesses. O if I could be master of that house idol, myself, my own, mine,—my own will, wit, credit, and ease,—how blessed were I! We need to be redeemed from ourselves, rather than from the Devil and the world! Learn to put out yourselves, and to put in CHRIST for yourselves. I should make a sweet bartering, if I could substitute CHRIST in. place of myself; so as to say, " Not I, but CHRIST; not My' will but CHRIST'S; not my ease, not my credit, but CHRIST, CHRIST:" O that CHRIST had the full place of myself; that all my aims, purposes, thoughts, and desires, would land upon CHRIST, and not upon myself! Let never dew he upon my branches, and let my poor flower wither at the root, so that CHRIST were enthroned, and his glory advanced in all the world, and especially in these three kingdoms. But I know he has no need of me; what can I add to him But O that he would cause his high and pure glory to run through such a foul channel as. I am! And although he has caused the blossom to fall off my one poor joy, that was on this side of heaven, even my liberty to preach CHRIST to his people; yet I am dead to that now, so that he would hew and carve glory, glory for evermore, to my royal King, out of my sufferings. O that I had my fill of his love! I entreat you earnestly for the aid of your prayers, for I forget not you; and I salute with my soul the faithful Pastors, and honorable and worthy professors, in that land. "Now the GOD of peace, that brought again our Lord JESUS from the dead, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting Covenant, make you perfect in every good work, to do his will; working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight!" Grace, grace be with you!

 

Aberdeen, 

 

Yours in JESUS,

 

Feb. 4, 1638.

 

S. R.

 

TO HIS REVEREND AND MUCHHONORED BROTHER,

 

DR. ALEXANDER LIGHTON,

 

Prisoner at London.

 

Reverend and muchhonored Prisoner of Hope,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! It was not my part, whom our LORD has enlarged, to forget You his prisoner. When I consider how long your night has been, I think CHRIST has a mind to put you in free grad's debt so much the deeper. But what if CHRIST Intend for you no joy but public joy, with enlarged and triumphant Zion I think, Sir, ye would love best to share and divide your song of joy with Zion, and to have mystical. CHRIST in Britain copartner with your enlargement. Worthy Sir, I hope I need not exhort you to go on, hoping for the salvation of GOD. There has not been, so much taken from your time of ease, as eternity shall acid to your heaven. Ye know, when one day in heaven shath paid, yea, and overpaid your blood, bonds, sorrow, and sufferings, that it would trouble an angel's standing to count that overplus of glory, which eternity can and will give you. Your sandglass of sufferings and losses cometh to little, when compared with the glory that waiteth for you, on the other side of the water! Ye have no leisure to rejoice and sing here, while time go about you, and where your psalms must be short; therefore ye will think eternity, and the long day of heaven, that shall be measured with no other sun than the long life of the ANCIENT OF DAYS, little enough for you. If your spanlength of time be cloudy, ye cannot but think that your LORD can no more take' your blood and your bands without the income and recompense of free grace, than he would take the sufferings of PAUL, and his other dear servants, that were paid home beyond all counting. (Rom. 8:18.) It was the Potter's aim, that the clay should praise him; and I hope it satisfieth you, that your clay is for his glory. O who can suffer enough for such a LORD And who can lay out in bank enough of pain, shame, losses, or torture, to receive in again the free interest of eternal glory (2 Cor. 4:17.) O how advantageous bargaining is it with such a rich LORD! If your hand and pen had been at leisure to gain glory in paper, it had been but paper glory; but the bearing of a public cross so long for JESUS, the Prince of the Kings of the earth, is glory booked in heaven. Worthy and dear brother, if ye go to weigh JESUS, his sweetness, excellency, glory, and beauty, and set against him your ounces of suffering for him, ye shall be straitened in two ways.—l. It will be a pain to make the comparison, the disproportion being by no understanding imaginable. Nay, if angels were set to work, they should never number the degrees of difference.—2. It should straiten you to find a scale for the balance, to lay that high and lofty One, that Prince of excellency, into. If your mind could fancy as many created heavens as time has had minutes, as trees have had leaves, or as clouds have had drops, since the first stone of the creation was laid, they should not make half a scale to bear and weigh boundless excellency. And therefore the King, whose marks ye are bearing, and whose dying ye carry about with you in your body, is, out of all consideration, beyond and above all our thoughts. For myself, I am content to feed upon wondering sometimes, on beholding but the skirts of his incomparable' glory; and I think, ye could wish for more ears to give him than ye have, since ye hope these ears ye now have given him shall be passages to take in the music of his glorious voice. O! who can add to him who is all If he would create new heavens, a thousand thousand degrees more perfect than these that now are; and would then make a new creation, ten thousand you sand. degrees in perfection beyond that new creation; and again, •would still, to eternity, multiply new heavens; they should never be a perfect resemblance of that infinite excellency, order, weight,% measure, beauty, and sweetness, that are in him. O how liftl, of him do we see! O how shallow are our thoughts of him!, O that I had pain for him, and shame and losses for him, and more clay and spirits for him; and that I could go upon earth without love, desire, or hope, because Chi 1sT has taken away my love, desire, and hope to heaven with him! I know, worthy Sir; your sufferings for him are your glory; and therefore be not weary; his salvation is near at hand, and shall not tarry. Pray for me: His grace be with, you!

 

St, Andrews, 

 

Yours in his LORD JESUS,

 

Nov, 99, 1639.

 

TO THE PERSECUTED CHURCH IN IRELAND.

 

Much honored, reverend, and dearly beloved in our LORD;

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you all! I know there are many, in this nation,’ more able than I, to speak to the sufferers for JESUS CHRIST, and witnesses of him; yet pardon me if I speak a little to you, who are, called in question for the Gospel, once committed to you. I hope ye are not' ignorant, that as peace was left to you in CHRIST’s' testament, so the other half of the testament was a legacy of CHRIST'S sufferings; (John 16:33;)' " These things have I spoken, that in. me ye might have Peace. in' the world ye shall have trouble." Because then ye are made heirs of CHRIST’s cross, think that fiery trial no strange thing. For the Lord JESUS shall be no loser by purging the dross and tin out of his church in Ireland; his winepress is but squeezing out the dregs, the scum, the froth, and refuse of that church. I had once the proof of the honest and honorable peace of that slandered thing, the cross of our Lour. JESUS. But though these golden days, which I then had, be now in a great part gone; yet I dare say, that the issue of your sufferings shall be the high glory of the Prince of the Kings of the earth; and the changing of the brass of the LORD's temple among you into gold, and of the iron into silver, and of the wood into brass. " Your officers shall yet be peace, and your exactors righteousness." (Isa. 9:17.) Look over the water, and see who is on the dry land waiting for your landing. Your deliverance is concluded, subscribed, and sealed in heaven; your goods that are taken from you, for the sake of CHRIST and his truth, are but laid in pawn, and not taken away. There is much laid up for you in his storehouse, whose is the earth, and the fullness thereof. Your garments are spun, and your flocks are feeding in the fields, your bread is laid up for you, your gold and silver is at the bank, and the interest go on and groweth. If two things were firmly believed, sufferings would have no weight. If the fellowship of CHRIST'S sufferings were well known, who would not gladly take part with JESUS

 

 For CHRIST and we are join towners of one and the same cross and therefore he that knew well what sufferings were, as he "esteemed all things but loss for CHRIST," and did " judge them but dung," so did he also thus judge of them, " that he might know the fellowship of his sufferings." (Phil. 3:1O.) `O how sweet a sight is it, to see a cross between CHRIST and us; to hear our Redeemer say, at every sigh, and every blow, and every loss of a believer, " Half mine!" So they are called, " The sufferings of CHRIST," and " The reproach of CHRIST." (Ca 1:24; Re& 11:26.) As when two are partners and owners of' a ship, the half of the gain, and half of the loss belongeth to each of the two so CHRIST in our sufferings is half gainer and half loser with us, Yea, the heaviest. end of the black tree of the cross lieth on your Lord; it. falleth first upon him, and but reboundeth from him, upon. you. " The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." (Pea. lxix. 9.) Your sufferings are your treasure, and are greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. (Heb. 11:26.) And if your cross come first through CHRIST'S fingers, ere it come to you, it receiveth a lustre from him it getteth a relish of the King's spikenard, and of heaven's perfume; and the half of the gain, when CHRIST's shipfull of gold cometh home, shall be yours. It is an augmentation of your treasure to be rich in sufferings, to be " in labors abundant, in stripes above measure." (2 Cor. 11:23.) And to have " the sufferings of CHRIST abounding in you," (2 Cor. 1:5)) is a part of heaven's flock. Your goods tire not lost, which they have plucked from you; for your Lord has them in keeping,: "fie Shall be fed with the heritage of JACOB your Father; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." (Isa. lviii. 14.) Till I shall be on the half float of the highest palace, and get a draught of glory out of CHRIST'S hand, above and beyond time and beyond death, I shall never (it is likely) see father days, than `I saw under that blessed tree of my LORD'S cross. O sweet for evermore, to see a rose from heaven growing, in as ill ground as hell; and to see CHRIST's love, peace, faith, goodness, longsuffering, and patience, growing, like the flowers of GOD’s garden, out of such stony and cursed ground as the hatred of the Prelates, and Antichrist's bloody hand and heart! Is not here heaven' indented in hell, (if I may say so,) like a jewel set with skill in a ring, with the enamel of CHRIST's cross. And who would not think him worthy of our sufferings for him What is burning alive, what is drinking of our heart's blood, or what is a draught of melted lead, for his glory,' less than a draught of cold water to a thirsty man, if theright price and due value were. put on that worthy Prince, JESUS;O who can weigh him! Ten thousand thousand heavens would not be one scale of the balance to lay him in. O black angels, in comparison of him! O dim and dark sun, in regard of that fair Sun of Righteousness! O worthless heaven of heavens, when they stand beside my` worthy, and high, and excellent Well beloved! O weak and infirm Kings of clay, O soft and feeble mountains of brass, and weak created strength, in regard of our mighty and strong Lord of armies! O foolish wisdom of men and angels, when it is laid in the balance beside that spotless and substantial WISDOM OF THE FATHER! If heaven and earth,' and ten thousand heavens, even round about these heavens that now are, were all in one garden of paradise, decked with all the fairest roses, flowers, and trees, that can come forth from the art of the ALMIGHTY; yet set but our one Flower, which groweth out of the root of JESSE, beside that orchard of pleasure, —and one look of him, one view, one taste, one odor of his GODhead, would infinitely exceed the fragrance, color, beauty, and loveliness of that paradise. O for less of the creatures, and more of thee! O open the passage of the well of love and glory on us, dry pits and withered trees! O that jewel and flower of heaven! If our Beloved were not mistaken by us, and unknown to us, he would have no scarcity of lovers. He would make heaven and earth both see that they cannot quench his love; for his love is a sea. He, He, Himself, is more excellent than heaven. For heaven, as it cometh into the souls and spirits of the glorified, is but a creature; and He is more than a creature. O what a life were it, to sit beside this well of love, and drink of it, and praise, and praise and drink of it again; and then to have desires and faculties extended out, as it were, many thousand fathoms in length and breadth,’ to take in seas and rivers of love! I earnestly desire to recommend this love to you; that this love may cause you to keep his commandments, to keep clean hands, and make clean feet, that ye may walk as the redeemed of the LORD. Woe, woe be to them that put on his name,’ and shame this love of Gun is r with a loose and profane life their feet, tongue, and hands, and eyes, give a shameless he to the holy Gospel which they profess. I beseech you in the Lord, keep CHRIST,' and walk with him; let not his fairness be spotted by GODless living. O who can find it in their hearts to sin against love,—and such a love, as the glorified in heaven shall delight to live into, and drink of for ever; for they are evermore drinking in love, and the cup is still at their head, and yet without loathing; for they still drink of it, and still' desire to drink of it, for ever and ever. Let not me, a stranger to' you, who never saw your face in the flesh, be thought bold in writing to you; for the hope I have of a glorious church in that land, and the love of CHRIST, constrain me. I know that the worthy. servants of CHRIST, who once labored among you, cease’ not to write to you also. Let me entreat you for your prayers for myself, the flock, and Ministry, and on the subject of my fear of a transportation from this place of the Lotto's vineyard. Now the very God of peace sanctify you, throughout! Grace be with you all!

 

Your Brother and Companion

 

In the kingdom and patience of JESUS CHRIST, 

 

Anwoth, 1639. 

 

S. R.

 

TO MR. HENRY STEWART, HIS WIFE, AND TWO DAUGHTERS

 

ALL Prisoners of CHRIST at Dublin. 

 

Truly honored, and dearly beloved,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you from God our FATHER, and our LORD JESUS CHRIST! Think it not strange, beloved in. our LORD, JESUS, that SATAN can command keys of prisons, and bolts, and chains; this is a piece of the Devil's princedom that he has over the world. Understand our Lord well in this; be not jealous of his love, though he make devils and men his under servants to scour the rust off your faith, and purge you from your dross. And let me charge you, O prisoners of hope, to open your window, and to look out by faith; behold heaven's post, that speedy and swift salvation of GOD, that is coming to you. It is a broad river that faith will not look over it is abroad sea, of which they of a lively hope cannot behold the other shore. Look over the water; your anchor is fixed within the veil: the one end of the cable is about the prisoner of CHRIST, and the other is "entered within the veil, whither the Forerunner is entered for you." {Heb. 6:19, 2O.) It can go straight through the fire of the wrath of men, devils, losses; tortures, death, without a thread of it being singed. Men and devils have no teeth to bite it in two. Hold fast till He come. Your cross is of the color of heaven and CHRIST; and that dye can abide the foul weather, and neither be stained nor cast the color. When your lovely JESUS had no better than the thief's doom, it is no wonder that your process should be lawless; for he was taken, buffeted, whipped, and spit upon, before he was convicted of any fault. O such a pair of sufferers as JESUS, and a piece of guilty clay, under one yoke! O how lovely is the cross, with such a second! I believe that your prison is enacted, in GOD’s court, not to keep you till your hope breathe out its last; your cross is under law to restore you safe to your brethren and sisters in CHRIST. Take heaven and CHRIST'S bond for a fair door out of your suffering. It were good to be armed beforehand for death, or bodily tortures for CHRIST; and think what a crown of honor it is, that GOD has given you pieces of living clay, to be tortured witnesses for saving truth; and that ye are so happy, as to have some blood to give out for that royal Lora', who has caused you to avouch Himself before men. Do not wonder to see blinded men threaten you with death and burial,’ and to raze, out truth's name but where will they snake a grave for the Gospel and the Lord's church Earth and hell shall be but little bounds for their burial in all the clay and rubbish of the whole earth above our LORD’s church, yet' it will not cover her, nor hold her down; she shall live, and not die; she shall behold the salvation of GOD. O what glory is it, to, suffer for the Lord's glory! Tay, though his servants had a body to burn for ever for this Gospel, so that the glory of JESUS did but rise out of these flames, and out of that burning body, O what a sweet fire! What if the ashes of the burned body were musicians to sing his praises, and the highness of that Prince of Ages! O what love is it in him, that he will have such musicians as we are, to tune that psalm of his everlasting praises heaven. O what shining and burning flames of love are those, that lead Him to divide his share of life, of heaven, and glory, with you! Apart of his throne, one draught of his wine, his wine of glory and life, that comes from under the throne of God and the LAMB)) and one apple of the Tree of Life, will more than make up all the` expenses of clay lent out for heaven We have short, narrow and creeping thoughts of JESUS, and do but shape CHRIST, in our conceptions, according to', some created portraiture! O Angels, lend your help to make songs of him who is the fairest amongst thousand! O heavens, O, heaven of heavens, ’O glorified tenants and triumphant householders with the Lama, pit in new `psalms of the excellency of our Lord, and help us to set him on high! `O indwellers, of earth and heaven, sea and. air, O all ye created beings within the bosom of this great' world, come and help to set on high the praises of our LORD!’O fairness of Creatures, blush before his uncreated beauty! 'O Created, strength, be amazed before the strong LORD of Hosts O created love, think shame of thyself before this unparalleled love of heaven. O Angel of wisdom, hide thyself. before our Lord, ’whose’ understanding passes finding out! O Sun, in thy shining beauty, put on a web of darkness, and cover thyself before thy bright Master and Maker! O who can add glory, by doing or suffering, to his Great Being! We can but bring our drop to this sea, and our "candle, dim and dark as it is, to this clear Such of heaven and earth! We have cause to drink ten deaths, or to swim through ten seas,:. in order to be at that land of praises, where we shall see that wonder, and enjoy this jewel of heaven's jewels! O death, do thy utmost against us! O torments, O malice of men and devils, waste your strength. on the witnesses of our LORD'S testament! O devils, bring all hell to help you, in tormenting the followers of the LAMB! We will defy you to make us too soon happy, and to waft us too soon over the water, to the land where the noble Plant, " the Plant of Renown," groweth. O cruel time, that suspends those dearest enjoyments, in which we shall be hased, soul and body, in the depths of this love! O time, run fast! O motions, mend your pace! " O Wellbeloved, be like a young roe upon the mountains of separation!" Hasten our desired meeting! Love is sick to hear tell of " tomorrow." And what then can come wrong to you, O honorable witnesses of his. truth Men have no more of you to work upon, but some few inches of sick clay: your spirits are above their courts; your souls, your love to CHRIST, your faith, cannot be summoned, nor sentenced, nor accused, nor condemned, by Pope, deputy, ruler, or tyrant; your faith is a free lord, and cannot be a captive. All the malice of hell and earth can but hurt the scabbard of a believer; and death, at the worst, can get but a claypawn in keeping, till your Lord take the King's keys, and open your graves. Therefore let a postway be laid between your prison and heaven, and go up and visit your treasure. Enjoy your Beloved, and dwell upon his love, till eternity come in time's room, and put you into possession of your eternal happiness. Keep your love to CHRIST; lay up your faith in heaven's keeping; and follow the Prince of martyrs, who witnessed a fair confession before PONTIUS DILATE; your cause and his is all one. The opposers of his cause are like drunken judges, who in their cups would make laws that the sun should not rise and shine on the earth; and send their officers and pursuivants to charge the sun, and moon to give no more light to the world; or who would enact in their courtbooks, that the sea, after once ebbing, should never flow again: but would not the sun, and moon, and sea, break those acts, and keep their Creator's directions The Devil, the' great fool, and the father of these underfools, is more malicious than wise, that sets the spirits on earth at work, to contend with heaven's wisdom, and to give mandates and summons to our sun, our great star of heaven, JESUS, not to shine, in the beauty of his Gospel, to the chosen and bought ones. O you fair Sun of Righteousness, arise and shine in thy strength, whether earth or hell will or not! O victorious Conqueror, ride prosperously upon truth; stretch out thy sceptre as far as the sun shines, and the moon waxed' and waneth! Put on thy glittering crown, O you Maker of Kings, and make but one step of the whole earth, and travel in the greatness of thy strength, (Isa. lxiii. 1,) and let thy apparel be red, and all dyed with the blood of thy enemies! Thon art righteous heir to the kingdoms of the world.,Laugh ye at the brainsick worms, that dare say in good earnest, " This man shall not reign over us," as though they were casting the dice for CHRIST'S crown, which of them should have it. I know that ye believe the coming of CHRIST'S kingdom: believe under a cloud, and wait for him, when there is no moonlight nor starlight. Let faith live and breathe, and lay hold on the sure salvation of GOD, when clouds and darkness are about you. Take heed of unbelieving hearts, which can father lies upon CHRIST: beware, of,—" Does his promise fail for evermore". (Psa. lxxvii. 8,)for it was a man (and not Gone) that said it, who dreamed that a promise of GOD could fail. O sweet word of faith, (Job 13:1 5,) " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him!" Faith's eyes can see through a gloom of GOD, and under it read God's thoughts of love and peace. Hold fast CHRIST in the dark; surely ye shall see the salvation of Go). I profess, it should beseem men of great parts, rather than me, to write to you; but I love your cause, and must entreat the help of your prayers, in this my weighty charge here, for the University and pulpit, and that ye would entreat your acquaintance also to help _ me. Grace be with you all! Amen. 

 

Your Brother and Companion

 

In the patience and kingdom of JESUS CHRIST,

 

St. Andrew's, 164O. 

 

S. R.

 

TO JOHN FENNICK.

 

Much honored and dear Friend,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! The necessary impediments of my calling have hitherto kept me from making a return to your letter, the heads whereof I shall now briefly answer.—I approve of your going to the fountain, when your own cistern is dry. Ye commend his free love; and it is well done; O that I could help you, and that I could gather an earthfull and an heavenfull of tongues, to raise a song of praises to him, between the east and west, and the furthest points of the broad heaven! Come, come, dear friend, and be pained, that the King's free love and his banqueting house should be so abundant, so overflowing, and your shallow vessel so little to take in some part of that love. But since it cannot come into you, for want of room, enter yourself into this sea of love, and breathe under these waters, and live as one swallowed up of this love. Your troubles are many and great, yet not an ounce weight beyond the measure of infinite wisdom, nor beyond the measure of grace that he is ready to bestow; for, our LORD never yet brake the back of his child, O what bonds has our chirurgeon of broken spirits, to bind up all his lame and bruised ones with! Cast your disjointed spirit into his lap, and lay your burden upon one who is so willing to take your cares and your fears from you, and to exchange your crosses, and to give you new for old, and gold for iron, even to give you garments of praise for the spirit of' heaviness. Wait on) till he return with salvation, and cause you to rejoice in the latter end.

 

 It is not much to complain; but rather believe, than complain, and sit in the dust, and close your mouth, till he make your light to grow again. For your afflictions are not eternal; time will end them;. and so shall ye at, length see the Lord's salvation. His love sleepeth not, but is still working for you; his salvation shall not tarry nor linger; and suffering for him, is. the noblest cross that is out of heaven. Your Lord has the choice of ten' thousand other crosses to exercise you with; but his wisdom and his love chose out this for you, in preference to them all: take it as a choice one, and make use of it, so as to look to this world as your stepmother in your borrowed prison; for it is a longing look to heaven, and to the other side of the water, that GOD seeketh: and this is the fruit, the flower, and the bloom, growing out of your cress, that ye be a dead man to time, to clay, to gold, to country, to friends, to wife, to children, and all pieces, of created nothings; for in them there is not a seat nor a bottom for our love. O what room there is for your love (if it were as broad as the sea) in: heaven and in GOD! And what would not CHRIST give for your love GOD gave so much for your soul; and blessed are ye if ye have a love for him, and. can call in your soul's love from all idols, and can make a GOD of Go), a GOD of CHRIST, and draw a line between your heart and him. If your deliverance come not, CHRIST'S love must stand as surety: for your deliverance, till your Lord send it in his blessed time;, for CHRIST has many salvation, if we could see them. And I would think it better born comfort and joy that cometh from the faith of deliverance, and, the faith of his love, than that which cometh from deliverance itself. It is not much matter, if ye find ease to your afflicted soul, what be the means, either of your own wishing, or of GOD's choosing; the latter I am sure is best, and the comfort strongest and sweetest. Let the LORD absolutely have the ordering of your troubles; and put them off yourselves, by recommending your furnace to him, who has skill to melt his own metal, and knows well what to do with his furnace. Let your heart be willing that GOD’s fire have your tin, and brass, and dross. Now take CHRIST in with you under your yoke, and " let patience have her perfect work." The LORD is rising up to do you good in the latter end: see him posting and hasting towards you! Help me with your prayers for this people, this College, and my own poor soul. Grace be with you!

 

St. Andrew's, 

 

Yours in CHRIST JESUS,

 

February 13, 164O. 

 

S. R.

 

TO LADY BOYD

 

MADAM,

 

 Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you! I wish I could speak or write what might do good to your Ladyship; especially now, when ye cannot but have deep thoughts of the ways of the LORD, in taking away, with a sudden and wonderful stroke, your brethren and friends. It is true, your brethren saw not many summers; but adore the sovereignty of the great Potter, who maketh and marreth his clay vessels when and how it pleases him. The under garden is absolutely his own, and all that groweth in it: the flowers are his own: if some be but summer apples, he may pluck them down before others. O what wisdom is it to believe, and not to dispute; to subject the thoughts to his court, and not to repine at any act of his justice! He has done it; all flesh be e silent! It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your thoughts among the confused rollings of second causes; as, " O the place! O the time! O, if that had been, this had not followed! O the linking of that accident with this time and place! " Look up to the mastermotion, and the first wheel; see and read the decree of heaven and of the Creator of men, who breweth death to his children, and the manner of it. They who have eyes to see through one side of a mountain to the other, who can take up his

 

ways, see "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! "His Providence halteth not, but go even; `yet they were not the greatest sinners, upon whom the tower of Siloa:n fell. Was not time's lease expired, and the sand of heaven's sandglass, set by our LORD, run out Is hot he an unjust debtor, who payeth due debt with chiding Yet; Madam, live upon faith in the love of Him, whose arrows are pointed with love to his own, and who knows how to take you and yours out of the roll and book of the dead. Read and spell aright all the words and syllables in the visitation, and miscall neither letter nor syllable in it. What is wrath to others, is mercy to you, and your house. It is faith's work to challenge lovingkindness out of all the roughest strokes of GOD. Do that for the LORD, which ye will do for time: time will calm your heart at that which God has done; and let our LORD have it now. ’What love ye did bear to friends now dead, seeing they stand now in no need of it, let it fall as a just legacy to CHRIST. O how sweet, to put out' many strange" lover's, and to put in CHRIST! It is much for our halfslain affections to part with that to which we believe we have a right: but a servant's will should be our will; and he is the best servant, who retaineth least of his own will, and most of his master's. Strokes upon his secret ones come from the soft and lieavenly1ha.nd of the MEDIATOR, and his rods are steeped to that; river of love which cometh from the GodMAN'S heart of our’ Redeemer, JESUS. Time's thread is short; ye' are upon the entry of heaven's harvest; and CHRIST, the field of heaven's glory, is white and ripelike. The losses that I write of to your Ladyship are but summershowers, that will only wet your garments for an hour or two; and the sun of the New Jerusalem shall quickly dry the "vet coat;' especially seeing that rains or afflictions cannot stain the image of God. Daylight is near, when such t a morning darkness is upon you; and this trial of your Christian mind towards Him, whom ye dare not leave, although he should slay you, shall close with a

 

doubled mercy. It is time for faith to hold fast as much of CHRIST as ever ye had, and to cleave closer to him; seeing that CHRIST loves to be believed in, and trusted to. The glory of laying strength upon one that is mighty to save, it more than we can think. That piece of service, believing in a smiting REDEEMER, is a precious part of obedience. O what glory to him, to lay the burden of our heaven upon him, that purchased for us an eternal kingdom! Madam,

 

Your Ladyship's in CHRIST,

 

164O. 

 

S. R.

 

TO MRS. HUME.

 

LOVING SISTER,

 

 Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you! If ye have any thing better than the husband of your youth, ye are JESUS CHRIST'S debtor for it; pay not then your debts with grudging. Sorrow may diminish the sweet fruit of righteousness; but quietness, silence, submission, and faith, put a crown upon your sad losses. Ye know whose voice the voice of a crying rod is. (Micah 6:9.) The name and majesty of the LORD are written on the rod; read and be instructed. Let CHRIST have the room of the husband. Re has now no need of you, or of your love; for he enjoyeth as much of the love of CHRIST as his heart can be capable of. I confess, it is a dearbought experience, to teach you to undervalue the creature; yet it is not too dear, if CHRIST think it so. I know that your thoughts against his going thither, the way and manner of his death, the instruments, the place, and, the time, will not ease your. spirits, except ye rise higher •than second causes, and be silent because the LORD has done it. If we measure the goings of the ALMIGHTY, and his ways, the bottom whereof we see not, we quite mistake GOD. O how little a portion of GOD see we! He is far above our narrow thoughts. He ruled the world in wisdom, before we, creatures of yesterday, were born; and shall rule it, when we, shall be lodging beside the worms and corruption. Only learn heavenly wisdom, selfdenial, and mortification by this sad loss. I know that it is not for nothing, (except ye deny, GOD to be wise in all he doth,) that ye have lost one on earth. There has been, too little of your heart in heaven, and therefore the jealousy of CHRIST has done this: it is a mercy that he contends with you and all your lovers. I should desire no greater favor for myself, than that CHRIST took such bonds: upon himself as these, " Such an one I have; and such a soul I cannot litre in heaven without." (See John 10:16.) And believe it, it is in incomprehensible love that CHRIST says, "Though I enjoy the glory of my FATHER, and the crown of heaven, far above men and angels, I must use all means, though ever so violent, to have the company of such an one for ever." If with the eyes of wisdom, as a child of wisdom, ye justify your mother, the wisdom of GOD, (whose child ye are) ye shall embrace this loss, and see much of CHRIST in it. Believe and submit; and refer the event of. the trial to your heavenly FATHER, who numbereth all your hairs. And put CHRIST in his own room in your love;it may be that he has either been out of his own place, or in a place of love inferior to his worth. Make reparation' to CHRIST for all his wrongs done to him, and love him for a husband; and he, who is, a husband to the widow, shall be that to you which he has taken from you. Grace. be with you!

 

London, 

 

Your sympathizing Brother,

 

Oct. 15, 1645.

 

S.R.

 

TO BARBARA HAMILTON

 

LOVING SISTER,

 

 Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you! have heard with, grief, that, Newcastle has, taken one more in a bloody account, even your soninlaw, and my friend; but I hope ye have learned so much of CHRIST, as not to look to wheels rolled round about on earth. Earthen vessels are not to dispute with their Former; pieces of sinning day may, by reasoning and contending with the Potter, mark the work of Him who has his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem; as bullocks, wrestling in the furrow, make their yoke more heavy. In quietness and rest ye shall be saved. If men do any thing, we may ask both who did it, and what is done, and why. When GOD has done any thing, we are to inquire who has done it, and to know that this cometh from the LORD, who is wonderful in counsel; but we axe not to ask what or why. If it be from the LORD, as certainly there is no evil in the city without him, (Amos 3:6,) it is enough. The fairest face of his spotless way is but coming; and ye are to believe his works as well as his word. Violent death is a sharer with CHRIST in his death, which was violent; It mattereth not much by what way we go to. heaven'; the "happy home is all, where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten. He is gone home to a friend's house, and made welcome. The race is ended; time is recompensed with eternity. GOD’s order is in wisdom; the husband goes home before the wife. The throng of the market shall be over, before it be' long, and another' generation where we now are; and, at length, an empty house, and not one of mankind shall be upon the earth: within the’sixth part of an hour after, the earth, and the works that are therein, will be burnt up with fire. ’We cannot teach the ALMIGHTY knowledge. When he was directing the bullet against his servant, to fetch out the soul, no wise man could cry to GOD, " Wrong, wrong, LORD; for he is thine own!" There is no mist over his eyes, who is wonderful in counsel. If Zion be built with your soninlaw's blood, the LORD (deep in counsel) can glew together the stones of Zion with blood, and with that blood which is precious in his eyes. CHRIST has fewer laborers in his vineyard than he had; but some more witnesses for his. cause. ’What' is CHRIST's gain, is not, your loss; let not that, which is his holy and wise will, be your unbelieving sorrow. Though I really judge that I had interest in his dead servant, yet because he now liveth to CHRIST, I quit the hopes I had of his successful laboring in the ministry; I know that be now praiseth' the: grace which he was to preach. Give glory therefore to CHRIST, as he now Both, and say, "Thy will be done." The grace and consolation of CHRIST be with, you!

 

London 

 

Nov. 15, 1643.

 

Yours in his LORD JESUS,

 

S. R.

 

TO A CHRISTIAN GENTLEWOMAN.

 

MADAM,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! If death, which is before you and us all, were any other thing but a, friendly dissolution, it would seem a hard voyage, to go through `such a: dark trance; so thorny a valley; as is the wages of sin: but I am confident, that the way ye know, though your foot never trod in that black shadow; and the loss of life tis gain to you. If CHRISTJESUS be the lodging, at the end of your journey, there is no fear, and ye go to a friend; and since ye have had communion with him in this; life and he hath a pledge of yours, even the largest share of your heart, ye may look death in the face with joy. If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you cannot be kept the prisoner of the Second Death. But though he be the same CHRIST in the other life, as ye found him to be here, yet he is so' far, in his excellency, beauty, sweetness, and beams of majesty, above what he appeared here, when he is seen. as he is, that he shall appear a new CHRIST; and the ointment of his name, poured out on you,’ shall appear to have more of GOD, and a stronger fragrance of heaven, of eternity, of GODhead, of majesty and glory, there than here,; as water at the fountain, or apples. in the orchard, and beside the tree, have more of their native sweetness, taste, and beauty, than when transported to us some hundred miles. I mean not that CHRIST can lose any of his sweetness in the carrying; or that he in his GODhead can be changed for the worse, between the little spot of the earth ye are in, and the right hand of the FATHER, far above all heavens: but the change will be in you, when ye shall have new senses; when the soul shall be a more deep and more capacious vessel, to take in more of CHRIST; and when means, the chariot, the Gospel, in which he is now carried, and ordinances which convey him, shall be removed. Surely ye cannot now be said to see him face to face, or to drink of the wine of the highest fountain, or to take in seas of fresh love immediately without vessels, or messengers, at the fountain itself, as ye shall do a few days hence, when ye shall be so near as to be with CHRIST. Ye would (no doubt) bestow a day's journey, yea, many days' journey on earth, to go up to heaven, and fetch down anything of CHRIST; how much more may ye be willing to make a journey to go in person to heaven, (it is no lost time, but a gained eternity) to enjoy the full GODhead He is not there, as he is here with us, in a drop of grace and sweetness; but in his marriage robe of glory, richer, more costly, more precious, than a million of worlds. O the well is deep! Ye shall then think, that preachers on earth did but mar his praises, when they spoke of him. Alas! we but make CHRIST black, and less lovely, in making such dry, and cold, and low expressions of his transcendent super excellency. Go and see; and we desire to go with you. If, in that last journey, ye tread on a serpent in the way, and thereby wound your heel, as JESUS CHRIST did before you, the print of the wound shall not be known at the resurrection of, the just. Death is but a step over time and sin to CHRIST, who knew and felt the worst of death; for death's teeth hurt him. We know that death has no teeth now, no jaws, for they are broken. It is a free prison;. citizens pay nothing for the grave; the gaoler, who had the power of death, is destroyed: praise and glory be to the Firstbegotten of the dead! The worst that may be, is, that you leave behind you Children, husband, and the church of GOD in miseries; but ye cannot get them to heaven with you for the present; ye shall not miss them; and CHRIST cannot miscount one of the poorest of his lambs. Ye shall see them again in the day when the SON shall render up the kingdom to his FATHER. The evening of every poor hireling is coming; and the church of CHRIST'S sun in this life is declining low: not a soul of the militant company will be here within a few generations; our LORD will send for them all. It is a, rich mercy that we are not married to time longer than till the course be finished. Ye may rejoice, that ye got not to heaven till ye knew that JESUS is there before you so that when ye come thither, at your first entry, ye may find the smell of his myrrh, aloes, and cassia. And this first, salutation of his will make you find that it is no uncomfortable thing to die. Go and enjoy your gain; live on CHRIST'S love while ye are here, and all the way. As for the church ye leave behind you, the government is upon CHRIST'S shoulders, and he will plead for the blood of his saints. The bush has been burning above a thousand years, and we never yet saw the ashes of this fire. Yet a little while, and the vision shall not tarry; it shall speak, and not lie. I am more afraid of my duty, than of the head of CHRIST'S government. He cannot fail to bring judgment to victory. O that we could wait for our hidden life! O that CHRIST would remove the covering, draw, aside the curtain of time, and rend the heavens and come down! O that the night were gone, that the day would break, and that he would cry to his heavenly trumpeters, "Make ready; let us go down and fold together the four corners of the world!" His grace be with you! Now, if I have found favor with you, and if ye judge me faithful, my last suit to you is, that ye would leave me a legacy, and that is, that my name may be at the very last in your prayers; as I desire also that it may be in the prayers of those of your Christian acquaintance with whom ye have been intimate.

 

London, 

 

Your Brother in his own LORD JESUS,

 

1646. 

 

S. R.

 

TO THE VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.

 

MADAM,

 

 GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you! I know that ye are near many comforters, and that THE promised COMFORTER is near also; yet, because I found your Ladyship comfortable to myself in my sad days, it is my part (although I can do little, Got, knows,) to speak to you in your wildernessIot. I know, dear and noble lady, that this loss of your dear child came upon you one part after another; ye were looking for it; and now the ALMIGHTY has brought on you that which ye feared; your LORD gave you lawful warning: and I hope that, for his sake; who brewed this cup in heaven, ye will gladly drink it, and salute and welcome the cross. I am sure, it is not your LORD'S mind to feed you with judgment and wormwood. I know that your cup is sweetened `with’ mercy; and that'the withering of the bloom, the flower of worldly joys, is for no other end but to buy out the' reversion of your heart and love. Madam, subscribe to the ALMIGITY'S will put your hand to the pen;’ and let the cross of your Lord JESUS have your submissive and resolute Amen.' If ye ask and try whose this cross is, I dare say, it his not all your own; the best half of it is CHRIST'S. `’ (isa.`1xiii.9.) "'In all their afflictions he was afflicted." CHRIST bore the first stroke of this cross; and it rebounded from Him upon you. And I believe, for my part, that he intends to distil heaven out of this loss, and all others of the like kind; for wisdom devised it, and love laid it on,’ and CHRIST owneth it as his own, and putteth your shoulder only beneath a piece of it. Take it with joy as no bastard cross, but as a visitation of Go), wellborn; spend the rest of your appointed; time, till your, change come, in the work of believing and let faith, that never yet made a he to you, speak for. God's, part, of it: he will not, he does not make you " a sea or a whale, that he keepeth you in ward." ( Job 7:12.) It may, be ye think that, not many of the children, of GOD are in, such a hard case as yourself; but what would ye think, of " some,: who would exchange afflictions, and give you to the boot, But I know, yours must be your own alone, and CHRIST's together, I confess it seemed strange to me, that your LORD should have done that, which seems, to destroy all your worldly comforts: but we see not the ground of the ALMIGHTY'S Sovereignty. He goes by on our righthand, and on our lefthand, and we see him not. We see but pieces of the broken links of the chain of his Providence; and he coggeth the wheels of his own Providence, that we see not. O let the Former work his own clay in what frame he pleases! Shall any teach the ALMIGHTY " knowledge' If he pursue dry stubble, who dare say, " What dost thou", Do not wonder to see the Judge of the world weave, in one web, your mercies, and the judgments of the house of Kenmure: He can make one web of contraries. But my weak advice is that you, dear and worthy Lady, should see how far mortification goes on, and what scum the Lord’s fire casteth out of you. I know, ye, see your knottiness, since our Lord heweth and planeth you; and the glancing; of the furnace is to let you see what, froth is in nature, that must he boiled out, and taken off in the fir of your trials; I do not say, that heavier afflictions prophesy hearer guiltiness;—A, Gross is often but a false prophet in this kind. But I am sure that our Lord would have the tin and the bastardmetal in you removed; lest the lord say, " The bellows are burned, the lead is, consumed in the fire, the founder melteth in vain”; (Jer 6:29.), And I (shall hope, that grief will not, so far smother your light, as, to make; you omit to practice the necessary; duty pf concurring with, him in this blessed, design. It is, a, Christian art, to comfort yourself in the Lo u n; to say, " I was obliged to render back this thild to the' Giver; and if I have had four years' Lord of him, and CHRIST eternity's possession of him, the Lord has kept condition with me." Madam, I would I could divide sorrow with you, for your ease; but I am but a beholder: It is easy to me to speak: the GOD of Comfort speak to you, and allure you with his love! My removal from my flock is so heavy to me, that it maketh my life a burden to me; I had never such a longing for death the LORD help and hold up sad clay!

 

Your Ladyship’s at all obedience in Chain, 

 

S. R.

 

TO MRS. CRAIG, Upon the Death of her Son, who was drowned in a river.

 

MADAM

 

 You have so learned CHRIST, that now in the furnace, what is dross, and what shining faith, must come forth. I heard of the removal of your son. Since it is according to the spotless and holy will of the Lord, where, and before what witnesses, and hi what manner, whether by a fever, the mother being at the bedside, or by some other way in a far country, your safest plan will be, to be silent, and cbhimand the heart to utter no repining or fretting thoughts of the holy dispensation of Gob. Consider,— 1. The man is’ beyond the hazard of dispute; the precious youth is perfected and glorified.2. Had the youth lain pained beside a witnessing another, it had been pain and grief lengthened out to you in many portions, and every parcel would have been a little death: now his holy Majesty hath, in one lump, brought: to your ears the news, and has not divided the grief into many.–'3.’It' was hot yesterday's thought, or the tither year's Statute; but' a counsel of the Lord of old; and, Who can teach the ALMIGHTY knowledge "–4. There is no way of quieting the mind, and of silencing the heart of a mother, but Godly submission. The readiest way for peace and consolation to clay vessels, is, that it is a stroke of the Potter, and the Former of all things. I know your light; and I hope your heart also will yields It is not Safe to be at pulling and drawing with the omnipotent Lord let the pull go with him, for he is strong; and say, " Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,"5. His holy Method and order are to be adored: Sometimes the husband is taken before the wife, and sometimes the son before the other; so' path the dilly wise Go D ordered: and since he is only sent before; and not lost, " in all things. give thanks."~6.' Meditate not too much on the circumstances. The Mother was net witness to the last sight, and cannot get leave to wind the son, nor to weep over his grave; and he was in a strange land. There is a like nearness to heaved Out of all the countries of the earth.•7. It is art, and the skill of faith, to read what the Lord writes upon. the cross; often we miscall words and sentences of the cross, and either put nonsense on his rods, or burden his Majesty with slanders and mistakes; when he designs for us" thoughts of peace and love, even to do us gold hi the latter end:8. There is a bad way of sullenly swallowing’ a trial, without digesting it; Or of laying it out of memory, without any victoriousness of faith. The LORI', who forbids fainting tinder chastisement, forbids also our despising it: But it is easier to counsel’ than to suffer. The only wise’ Loin furnish patience! Grace be with you!

 

St. Andrew's 

 

Yours in the Lord,

 

May 4, 166O.

 

Grace be with you!

 

Oct.1, 1649.

 

TO MR. JAMES GUTHRIE,

 

Minister of the Gospel at Stirling.

 

 WE are very often, comforted: with the word' of Promise; though' we stumble not a little at the work of holy Providence, when we see some earthly men flourishing as a green herb, and the people of GOD counted as sheep for the slaughter, and killed all the: day long., And yet, both the word of Promise, and the works of Providence, are from Him, whose ways are equal, holy, and spotless, As for me, when I think of God’s dispensations, he might justly have brought, to the marketcross, and to the light, my secret abominations, which would have been no small reproach to the. holy name of CHRIST; but in: mercy he has covered. These and carved out more honorable, causes of suffering, of. which we Axe unworthy. And. now, dear Brother, much depends upon. the manner of suffering, especially, that his precious truths be owned with all heavenly boldness, and a reason of our hope given in meekness and, fear, and the, royal, crown of our, LORD JESUS CHRIST, the Prince of the Kings of the earth, avouched.,; There; are yet a few., names in the land, that have not defiled, their. garments; and a holy, seed, one whom the LORD will have mercy, like the four or five olive,branches upon the top of the shaken, olivetree, and whose ye. shall. lie, toward the; Lord their, Maker. Think it not strange, whatsoever men devise; against you. Whether it be exile,—the earth is the LORD'S; or perpetual imprisonment,—the LORD is your light and, liberty;, or a violent and public death,the Kingdom of heaven consists in a fair company of glorified martyrs and witnesses, of whom JESUS CHRIST is the chief witness, who for that cause was born, and came into the world. Happy are ye, if you give testimony to the world of your preferring JESUS CHRIST to all powers; and the LORD will make the innocency of his despised witnesses in this land to shine to after generations, and will take the manchild up to GOD and to his throne, and prepare a hidden place in the wilderness for the mother, and cause the earth to help the woman. Be not terrified; fret not: forgive your enemies: bless and cursenot; for though both you and I should be silent, heavy are the judgment and indignation from the LORD, which await the unfaithful watchmen of the Church of Scotland. The souls under the altar are crying for justice, and there is an answer returned already: the LORD's salvation will not tarry. Cast the burden of wife and children on the LORD CHRIST. He cares for you and them: your blood is precious in his sight. The everlasting consolations of the LORD bear you up, and give you hope: for your salvation (if not your deliverance)

 

is concluded.

 

Your own Brother,

 

S. R.

 

St. Andrew's, 

 

Feb. 15, 1661.