joy that may be had here, in the small gleanings and comforts that fall from Chrift! What fools are we who know not, and confider not the weight and the telling that is in the very earnest penny, and the first fruits of our hoped-for harvest! How fweet, how fweet is our infeftment! O what then must personal poffeffion be! I find that my Lord Jefus hath not mifcooked or spilt this sweet crofs; he hath an eye on the fire and the melting gold, to feparate the metal and the drofs. O how much time would it take me to read my obligations to Jefus my Lord, who will neither have the faith of his own to be burnt to afhes, nor yet will have a poor believer in the fire to be half raw, like Ephraim's unturned cake! this is the wifdom of him who hath his fire in Zion, and furnace in Jerufalem. I need not either bud or flatter temptations and croffes, nor ftrive to buy the devil, or this malicious world by, or redeem their kindness with half a hair's breadth of truth: he, who is furety for his fervant for good, doth powerfully overrule all that. I fee my prifon hath neither lock nor door; 1 am free in my bonds, and my chains are made of rotten ftraw, they fhall not bide one pull of faith. I am fure they are in hell who would exchange their torments with our croffes, fuppofe they should never be delivered, and give twenty thousand years torment to boot, to begin in our bonds for ever; and therefore we wrong Chrift, who figh, and fear, and doubt, and defpond in them. Our fufferings are washen in Christ's blood, as well as our fouls; for Chrift's merits brought a bleffing to the crosses of the fons of God; and Jefus hath a back-bond of all our temptations, that the free-warders fhall come out by law and juftice, in refpect of the infinite and great fum that the Redeemer paid. Our troubles owe us a free paffage through them: devils and men, and croffes are our debtors, death and all storms are our debtors, to blow our poor toffed bark over the water fraught free, and to fet 'the travellers in their own known ground: therefore we shall die and yet live. We are over the water (fome way) already; we are married, and our tocher good is paid; we are already more than conquerors. If the devil and the world knew how the court with our Lord fhall go, I am fure they would hire death to take us off their hand; our fufferings are the only wreck and ruin of the black kingdom: and yet a little, and the Antichrist must play himself with bones and flain bodies of the Lamb's followers;, but withal we ftand 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-ground, 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 never heard before of a living death, or a quick death, but ours: death is not like the common death; Christ's skill, his handywork, our 117 work, and a new caft of Christ's admirable art, may be seen in our quick death. I blefs the Lord that all our troubles come through Chrift's fingers, and that he cafteth fugar among them, and casteth in fome ounce weights of heaven, and of the spirit of glory (that refteth on fuffering believers) in our cup, in which there is no tafte of hell. My dear brother, ye know all these better than I: Ifend water to the fea, to fpeak of thefe things to you: but it eafeth me, to defire you to help me to pay my tribute of praise to Jefus. O what praises I owe him! I would I were in my free heritage, that I might begin to pay my debts to Jefus. I intreat for your prayers and praifes: I forget not you, Aberd. Sept. 17. 1637 Your brother and fellow fufferer ⚫in and for Chrift, S. R. 73. To Mr. DAVID DICKSON. Reverend and well-beloved brother in the Lord, Blefs the Lord, who hath fo wonderfully ftopped the on-going of that lawless process against you. The Lord reigneth, and hath a faving eye upon you, and your miniftry; and therefore fear not what man can do. I blefs the Lord, that the Irish minifters find employment, and the profeffors comfort of their miniftry. Believe me I durft not, as I am now disposed, hold an hoBest brother out of the pulpit: I truft, the Lord fhall guard you, and hide you in the fhadow of his hand: I am not pleased with any that are against you in that. I fee this, in profperity men's confcience will not start at fmall fins; but if fome had been where I have been, fince I came from you, a little more would have caufed their eyes water, and trouble their peace. O how ready are we to incline to the world's hand! Our arguments, being well examined, are often drawn from our fkin; the whole fkin, and a peaceable tabernacle, is a topic maxim, in greatest request in our logic. I find a little breirding of God's feed in this town, for the which the Doctors have told me their mind, that they cannot bear with it, and have examined and threatened the people that haunt my company: I fear I get not leave to winter here; and whither I go I know not, I am ready at the Lord's call. I would I could make acquaintance with Chrift's cross, for I find comforts lie to and follow upon the cross. I fuffer in my name by them; I take it as a part of the crucifying of the old man : let them cut the throat of my credit, and do as they like best with it; when the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me, in the way to heaven, I know Christ will take my name out of the mire and wash it, and restore it to me again. I would have a mind (if the Lord would be pleafed to give me it) to be a fool for Chrift's fake. Sometimes, while I have Christ in my my arms, I fall asleep in the sweetness of his prefence, and he in my fleep stealeth away out of my arms; and when I awake. I mifs him. I am much comforted with my Lady Pitfligo, a good woman, and acquainted with God's ways. Grace be with you. Aberdeen, Sept. 11. Yours in his fweet Lord 1637. Jefus, S. R. 74. To the Right Honourable, my Lord LOWDON. Right Honourable, Race, mercy and peace be to your Lordship. I rejoice exceedingly, that I hear your Lordship hath a good mind to Chrift, and his now born down truth. My very dear Lord, go on, in the strength of the Lord, to carry your honour and wordly glory to the New Jerufalem. For this caufe your Lordship received these of the Lord; this is a fure way for the establishment of your houfe, if ye be of thefe, who are willing in your place to build Zion's old waste places in Scotland. Your Lordship wanteth not God's and man's law both, now to come to the streets for Chrift and fuppofe the baftard laws of man were against you, it is an honest and zealous error, if here ye flip against a point or punctilio of standing policy: when your foot slippeth in fuch known gronnd, as is the royal prerogative of our high and most truly dread Sovereign (who hath many crowns on his head) and the liberties of his house, he will hold you up. Blef fed fhall they be, who take Babel's little ones, and dash their heads against the ftones: I wish your Lordship have a fhare of that bleffing, with other worthy nobles in our land. It is true, it is now accounted wisdom for men to be partners in pulling up the stakes, and loofing the cords of the tent of Chrift: but I am perfuaded that that wifdom is cried down in heaven, and shall never pass for true wisdom with the Lord, whose word crieth fhame upon wit against Christ and truth: and accordingly, it fhall prove fhame and confufion of face in the end. Our Lord hath given your Lordship light of a better ftamp, and learning alfo, wherein ye are not behind the difputer and the scribe. O what a bleffed thing is it to fee nobility, learning and fanctification all concur in one! For thefe ye owe yourself to Christ and his kingdom: God hath bewildered and bemisted the wit and the learning of the fcribes and difputers of this time; they look afquint to the Bible: this blinding and bemifting world blindfoldeth mens light, that they are afraid to fee freight out before them; nay, their very light playeth the knave, or worse to truth. Your Lordship knoweth, within a little while, policy against truth will blush, and the works of men fhall burn up, even their fpiders web, who fpin out many hundred ells and webs of indif ferences ferences in the Lord's worship, more than ever Mofes who would have an hoof material, and Daniel, who would have a look out at a window, a matter of life and death, than ever (I fay) these men of God dreamed of. Alas, that men dare shape, carve, cut, and clip our King's princely teftament, in length and breadth, and in all dimefions, anfwerable to the conceptions of fuch policy as a head of wit thinketh a safe and trim way of ferving God! how have men forgotten the Lord, that they dare go against even that truth, which once they preached themfelves, howbeit their fermons now be as thin fown as ftrawberries in a wood or wildernefs? Certainly the sweetest and fifeft courfe is, for this short time of the afternoon of this old and declining world, to stand for Jefus he hath faid it, and it is our part to believe it, that ere it be long, time fhall be no more, and the heaven shall wax old as a garment: do we not fee it already an old, holey, and thread/bare garment? Doth not cripple and lame nature tell us, that the Lord will fold up the old garment and lay it aside: and that the heavens fhall be folded together as a fcroll, and this peft house shall be burnt with fire, and that both plenishing and walls hall melt with fervent heat? for, at the Lord's coming, he will do with this earth, as men do with a leper houfe; he will burn the walls with fire, and the plenishing of the houfe alfo, 2 Peter iii. 10, 12. My very dear Lord, how thall ye rejoice in that day, to have Chrift, angels, heaven, and your own confcience to fmile upon you? I am perfuaded, one fick night, through the terrors of the Almighty, would make men (whose conscience hath fuch a wide throat, as an image like a cathedral church would go down it) have other thoughts of Christ and his worship, than now they please themselves with. The scarcity of faith in the earth faith, We are hard upon the last nick of time: blessed are thole who keep their garments clean against the Bridegroom's coming. There shall be fpotted clothes, and many defiled garments, at his laft coming; and, therefore, few found worthy to walk with him in white. I am perfuaded, my Lord, this poor travailing woman, our pained church, is with child of victory and shall bring forth a man-child all lovely and glorious, that fhall be caught up to God and his throne, howbeit the dragon (in his followers) be attending the child birth pain, as the Egyptian midwife, to receive the birth and ftrangle it, Ifa. xxix. 8. But they fhall be disappointed who thirst for the deftruction of Zion; they shall be as when a hungry man dreameth that he eateth; but behold he awaketh, and his foul is empty: or when a thirsty man dreameth that he drinketh; but behold he awaketh, and is faint, and his foul is not fatisfied: fo fhall it be, I fay, with the multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion. Therefore the weak and feeble, thefe that are as figns and wonders in Ifrael, Ifrael, have chofen the best fide, even the fide that victory is upon; and I think this is no evil policy. Verily, for myself, I am fo well pleafed with Chrift, and his noble and honeft-born crofs, this cross that is come of Christ's house, and is of kin to himself, that I fhould weep; if it fhould come to niffering and bartering of lots and condition with those that are at ease in Zion; I hold still my choice, and bless myself in it. I fee, and I believe, there is falvation in this way that is every where fpoken against. I hope to go to eternity, and to venture on the laft evil to the faints, even upon death, fully perfuaded that this only, even this, is the faving way for racked confciences, and for weary and loaden finners, to find eafe and peace for ever more into. And indeed it is not for any wordly respect that I fpeak fo of it; the weather is not fo hot, that I have great caufe to ftartle in my prifon, or to boast of that entertainment that my good friends, the prelates, intend for me, whch is banishment, if they fhall obtain their defire, and effectuate what they defign; but let it come, I rue not that I made Chrift my wail and my choice: I think him ay the longer the better. My Lord, it fhall be good fervice to God, to hold your noble friend and chief upon a good course for the truth of Chrift. Now the very God of peace establish your Lordship in Chrift Jefus unto the end. Google Aberdeen, Sept. 10. 1637. Your Lordfbip's in his fweet 75. To the Laird of GAITGIRTH. Much honoured Sir, G Race, mercy and peace be to you: I can do no more but thank you in paper, and remember you to him whom I ferve, for kindness and care of a prifoner. I blefs the Lord, the cause I fuffer for needeth not to blush before kings: Chrift's white, honeft, and fair truth, needeth neither to wax pale for fear, nor blush for fhame. I blefs the Lord, who hath graced you to own Chrift now, when fo many are afraid to profess him, and hide him, for fear they fuffer lofs by avouching him. Alas! that fo many in thefe days are carried with the times! as if their conscience rolled upon oiled wheels, fo do they go any way the wind blows and because Chrift is not market-fweet, men put him away from them. Worthy and much honoured Sir, go on to own Christ and his oppreffed truth: the end of fufferings for the gofpel, is reft and gladnefs. Light and joy is fown for the mourners in Zion, and the harvest (which is of God's making for time and manner) is near; croffes have right and claim to Christ in his members, till legs and arms, and whole myftical Chrift be in heaven. There will be rain, and hail, and form, in the faints clouds, ever till God cleanfe with fire the works of creation, and : |