ther, I am often fo, as that they would have much rhetoric that would perfuade me, that Chrift hath not written wrath on my dumb and filent fabbaths; (which is a perfecution of the latest edition, being used against none in this land, that I can learn of, befides me) and often I lie under a non-entry, and would gladly fell all my joys to be confirmed King Jefus's free tenant, and to have fealed affurances; but I fee often blank papers. And my greatest desires are these two, 1. That Chrift would take me in hand to cure me, and undertake for a fick man: I know I should not die under his hand; and yet in this, while I still doubt, I believe, through a cloud, that sorrow which hath no eyes hath but put a veil on Christ's love. 2. It pleaseth him often fince I came hither, to come with fome fhort blinks of his sweet love; and then, because I have none to help me to praise his love, and can do him no fervice in my own perfon, (as I thought once I did in his temple) I die with wishes and defire to take up house, and dwell at the well-fide, and to have him praised and fet on high: but alas! what can the like of me do, to get a good name raised upon my Well-beloved Lord Jefus, fuppofe I could defire to be fufpended for ever of my part of heaven, for his glory? I am fure if I could get my will of Chrift's love, and could be once over head and ears in the believed, apprehended, and feen love of the Son of God, it were the fulfilling of the defires of the only happiness I would be at. But the truth is, I hinder my communion with him, because of want of both faith and repentance, and becaufe I will make an idol of Chrift's kiffes: I will neither lead nor drive, except I fee Chrift's love run in my channel; and when I wait and look for him the upper-way, I fee his wifdom is pleased to play me a flip, and come the lower way: fo that I have not the right art of guiding Chrift; for there is art and wisdom required in guiding of Christ's love aright when we have gotten it. O how far are his ways above mine! O how little of him do I fee! And when I am as dry as a burnt heath in a drouthy fummer, and when my root is withered, howbeit I think then, that I would drink a fea-full of Chrift, ere ever I would let the cup go from my head; yet I get nothing but delays, as if he would make hunger my daily food: I think myself alfo hungered of hunger; the rich Lord Jefus fatisfy a famished man. Grace be with you. Aberdeen, Sept. 10. Yours own in his fweet 1637. Lord Jefus, S. R.

61. To his worthy and much honoured friend FULK ELIES. Worthy and much honoured in our Lord,

GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I am glad of our more than paper-acquaintance: feeing we have one Father, it

reckoneth

:

reckoneth the less though we never faw one another's face. I profess myself moft unworthy to follow the camp of fuch a worthy and renowned Captain as Chrift. Oh alas! I have caufe to be grieved, that men expect any thing of fuch a wretched man as I am it is a wonder to me, if Chrift can make any thing of my naughty, short and narrow love to him; furely it is not worth the up-taking. 2. As for our lovely and beloved church in Ireland, my heart bleedeth for her defolation; but I believe our Lord is only lopping the vine-trees, but not intending to cut them down, or root them out. It is true, seeing we are heart-atheists by nature, and cannot take providence aright, (because we halt and crook, ever fince we fell) we dream of an halting providence as if God's yard, whereby he measureth joy and forrow to the fons of men, were crooked and unjust, because servants are on horfeback, and princes go on foot: but our Lord dealeth good and evil, and fome one portion or other to both, by ounceweights; and measureth them in a just and even ballance. It is but folly to measure the gospel by fummer or winter weather: the fummer fun of the faints fhineth not on them in this life. How fhould we have complained, if the Lord had turned the fame providence that we now ftomach at, upfide down, and had ordered matters thus, that firft the faints fhould have enjoyed heaven, glory, and ease, and then Methufalem's days of forrow and daily miferies? We would think a fhort heaven no heaven; certainly his ways paft finding out. 3. Ye complain of the evil of heartatheism; but it is to a greater atheist than any man can be, that ye write of that: Oh, light findeth not that reverence and fear as a plant of God's setting should find in our foul! How do we by nature, as others, detain and captivate the truth of God in unrighteousness, and fo make God's light a bound prifoner? and even when the prifoner breaketh the jail, and cometh out, in belief of a godhead, and in fome practice of holy obedience, how often do we, of new. lay hands on the prifoner, and put our light again in fetters? Certainly there cometh a great mist and clouds from the lower part of our foul, our earthly affections, to the higher part, which is our confcience, either natural or renewed; a fmoke in a lower house breaketh up, and defileth the house above: if we had more practice of obedience we should have more found light. I think, lay afide all other guiltinefs, this one, the violence done to God's candle in our foul, were a fufficient dittay against us; for there is no helping of this but by striving to stand in awe of God's light; left light tell tales of us, we defire little to hear: but fince it is not without God, that light fitteth neighbour to will, (a lawless lord) no marvel that fuch a neighbour fhould leaven our judgment, and darken our light. I fee there is a neceffity that we protest against the doings of the old man,

and

and raise up a party against our worst half to accufe, condemn, fentence, and with forrow bemoan the dominion of fin's kingdom; and withal, make law, in the new covenant, against our guiltinefs; for Chrift once condemned fin in the flesh, and we are to condemn it over again: and if there had not been fuch a thing as the grace of Jefus, I 'fhould have long fince given up with heaven, and with the expectation to fee God: bur grace, grace, free grace, the merits of Chrift for nothing, white and fair, and large Saviour mercy (which is another fort of thing than creatures mercy, or law mercy, yea, a thousand degrees above angel-mercy) hath been, and must be, the rock that we, drowned fouls, must fwim to, New washing, renewed application of purchased redemption, by that facred blood that fealeth the free covenant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor finner. Till we be in heaven our issue of blood will not be quite dried up; and therefore we must resolve to apply peace to our fouls from the new and living way; and Jefus, who cleanfeth and cureth the leprous foul, lovely Jefus, must be our song on this fide of heaven's gates; and even when we have won the caftle, then must we eternally fing, Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath faved us, and washed 'us in his own blood. I would counfel all the ranfomed ones to learn this fong, and to drink and be drunk with the love of Jesus. O faireft, O highest, O lovelieft one, open the well! O water the burnt and withered travellers with this love of thine! I think it is poffible on earth to build a young new Jerufalem, a little new heaven of this furpaffing love. God, either fend me more of this love, or take me quickly over the water, where I may be filled with his love: my foftnefs cannot take with want; I profefs, 'I bear not hunger of Christ's love, fair: I know not if I play foul play with Chrift, but I would have a link of that chain of his providence mended, in pining and delaying the hungry on-waiters. For myfelf, I could wish that Chrift would let out upon me more of that love; yet to fay Christ is a niggard to me, I dare not; and if I fay, I have abundance of his love, I should lie: I am half ftraitned to complain, and cry, Lord Jefus, hold thy hand no longer. Worthy Sir, let me have your prayers in my bonds. Grace be with you.

Aberd Sept. 7.

1637.

Yours in his fweet Lord

62. To JAMES LINDSAY.

Dear brother,

THE

Jefus, S. R.

HE conftant and daily obferving of God's going alongst with you, in his coming, going, ebbing, flowing, embracing and kissing, glooming and ftriking, giveth me (a witlefs and lazy

obferver

Epift. 62. obferver of the Lord's way and working) an heavy ftroke: could I keep fight of him, and know when I want, and carry as became me in that condition, I would blefs my cafe. But, 1. For defertions, I think them like lying lee of lean and weak land for fome years, while it gather fap for a better crop. It is poffible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moon-light. Oh if I could but creep one foot, or half a foot, nearer in to Jefus in fuch a difmal night as that, when he is away! I should think it an happy absence. 2. If I knew the Beloved were only gone away for trial, and for further humiliation, and not smoked out of the house with new provocations, I would forgive desertions, and hold my peace at his abfence; but Chrift's bought abfence (that I bought with my fin) is two running boils at once, one upon either fide; and what fide then can I lay on? 3. I know, as night and fhadows are good for flowers, and moon light and dews are better than a continual fun; so is Chrift's absence of fpecial use, and it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth fap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it feeth not what. 4. It is mercy's wonder and grace's wonder, that Chrift will lend a piece of the lodging, and a back-chamber beside himself, to our lufts; and that he and fuch swine should keep house together in our foul: for, fuppofe they couch and contract themselves into little room when Chrift cometh in, and feem to ly as dead under his feet, yet they often break out again and that a foot of the old man, or a leg or arm nailed to Chrift's cross, looseth the nail, or breaketh out again; and yet Chrift, befide this unruly and mif-nurtered neighbour, can still be making heaven in the faints, one way or other. May not I fay, Lord Jefus, what doft thou here? Yet here he muft be; but I will not lofe my feet to go on into this depth and wonder; for free mercy, and infinite merits, took a lodging to Chrift and us, beside such a loathsome guest as fin. 5. Sanctification, and mortification of our lufts, are the hardest part of Christianity. It is, in a manner, as natural to us to leap when we fee the New Jerufalem, as to laugh when we are tickled: joy is not under command, or at our nod, when Chrift kiffeth; but O how many of us would have Christ divided in two halves, that we might take the half of him only, and take his office, Jefus and falvation but Lord is a cumberfom e word, and to obey, and work out our own falvation, and to perfect holiness, is the cumberfome and stormy northfide of Chrift, and that we fhew and fhift. 6. For your queftion, The accefs that reprobates have to Chrift (which is none at all, for to the Father in Chrift neither can they, nor will they come, because Christ died not for them; and yet by law, God and justice overtaketh them) I fay, first,

There

There are with you thore worthy and learned than I am, Meffrs. Dickson, Blair, and Hamilton, who can more fully fatisfy you; but I fhall fpeak in brief what I think of it, in thefe affertions. Firft, All God's juftice toward man and angels floweth from an act of abfolute, fovereign free-will of God, who is our Former and Potter, and we are but clay; for if he had forbidden to eat of the rest of the trees of the garden of Eden, and commanded Adam to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that command no doubt had been as just as this, Eat of all the trees, but not at all of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The reafon is, because his will is his juftice, and he willeth not things with out himself, because they are juft: God needeth not hunt fanctity, holiness or righteoufnefs from things without himself, and fo not from the actions of men and angels; because his will is effentially holy and juft, and the prime rule of holiness and juftice: as the fire is naturally light, and inclineth upward, and the earth heavy, and inclineth downward. The fecond affertion then is, that God faith to reprobates, Believe in Chrift (who hath not died for your falvation) and ye shall be faved, is just and right; because His eternal and effentially just will hath fo enacted and decreed: fuppofe natural reason speak against this, this is the deep and fpecial mystery of the gospel. God hath obliged hard and fast, all the reprobates of the vifible church to believe this promife, He that believeth fhall be faved; and yet, in God's decree and fe'cret intention, there is no falvation at all decreed and intended to reprobates; and yet the obligation of God, being from his foveTeign free will, is moft juft, as is faid in the first affertion. Third affertion, The righteous Lord hath right over the reprobates and all reafonable creatures, that violate his commandments; this is eafy. Fourth affertion, The faith that God feeketh of reprobates, is, that they rely upon Chrift, as despairing of their own Tighteoufnefs, leaning wholly, and withal humbly, as weary and loaded, upon Chrift, as on the refting-stone laid in Zion; but he feeketh not that. without being weary of their fin, they rely. 'on Chrift, mankind's Saviour; for to rely on Chrift, and not, 'to be weary of fin, is prefumption, not faith: faith is ever neighbour to a contrite fpirit; and it is impoffible that faith can be, where there is not a caften down and contrite heart, in fome meafure, for fin now it is certain, God commandeth no man to prefume. Fifth affertion, Then reprobates are not abfolutely obliged to believe Chrift died for them in particular; for neither reprobates nor others are obliged to believe a lie: only they're oblig'd to believe Chrift, if they be firft weary, burdened, fick, and condemed in their own confciences, and ftricken dead and killed with the law's fentence, and have indeed embraced him as offered, which îs ́a fecond and fubfequent act of faith, following after a coming