union and communion. This is his truth, I am fully perfuaded,
I now fuffer for: for Christ hath taken upon him to be witness to
it, by his sweet comforts to my foul: and shall I think him a falfe
witness, or that he would subscribe blank paper? I thank his high
and dreadful name for what he hath given: I hope to keep his
feal and his pawn till he come and loose it himself. I defy hell to
put me off it, but he is Chrift, and he hath inet with his prisoner,
and I took inftruments in his own hand, that it was he, and none
other for him. When the devil feemeth a baftard-court in my
Lord's ground, and giveth me forged fummons, it will be my
fhame to misbelieve, after fuch a fair broad feal: and yet Satan
and my apprehenfion fometimes make a lie of Chrift, as if he ha-
ted me;
but I dare believe no evil of Chrift: if he would cool my
love-fever for himself with real prefence and poffeffion, I would
be rich; but I dare not be mislearned, and feek more in that kind,
howbeit it be no fhame to beg at Chrift's door. I pity my adver-
faries; I grudge not that my Lord keepeth them at their own fire-
fide, and hath given me a borrowed bed, and a borrowed fire fide;
let the good-man of the house cast a dog a bone! why should I
offend! I rejoice that the broken bark fhall come to land, and that
Chrift will, on the fhore, welcome the fea-fick paffenger. We
have need of a great stock against this day of trial that is coming:
neither chaff nor corn in Scotland, but it fhall once pass through-
God's fieve. Praise, praise, and pray for me; for I cannot forget
you: I know you will be friendly to my afflicted brother, who is
now embarked in the fame caufe with me; let him have
fel and comforts. Remember my love in Chrift to your wife; her
health is coming, and her falvation fleepeth not.
prayers and bleffing of a prifoner in Chrift: fow fast, deal bread
plentifully; the pantry door will be locked on the bairns, in ap-
pearance, ere long. Grace, grace be with you,

Aberdeen, March 7.

1637.

your coun

Ye have the

Yours in his fweet Lord

Jefus, S. R.

101. To his reverend and dear brother, Mr. ROBERT

DOUGLAS.

My very reverend and dear brother,

GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I long to fee you in pa

per. I cannot but write to you, that this which I now fuffer for is Chrift's truth; because he hath been pleafed to feal my fufferings with joy unspeakable and glorious: I know he will not put his feal upon blank paper; Chrift hath not dumb feals, neither will he be witness to a lie. I befeech you, my dear bro ther, help me to praife, and to lift Chrift upon his throne, above the fhields of the earth. I am aftonished and confounded at the

greatnefs

Epift. 102. greatness of his kindness to fuch a finner. I know, Christ and I fhall never be even, I fhall die in his debt: he hath left an arrow in my heart that paineth me for want of real poffeffion; and hell cannot quench this coal of God's kindling. I with no man flander Chrift or his crofs for my caufe; for I have much cause to fpeak much good of him: he hath brought me to a pick and deof communion with himself that I knew not before. The din and gloom of our Lord's crofs is more fearful and hard than the cross itself. He taketh the bairns in his arms, when they come to a deep water; at least when they lofe ground, and are put to fwim, then his hand is under their chip. Let me be helped by your prayers, and remember my love to your kind wife. Grace be with you,

gree

Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.

Your brother and Christ's prifoner, S. R.

102. To his loving friend JOHN HENDERSON.

Loving friend,

Continue love of

Ontinue in the love of Chrift, and the doctrine which I taught you faithfully and painfully, according to my meafure. I am free of your blood. Fear the dreadful name of God. Keep in mind the examinations which I taught you, and love the truth of God. Death, as fast as time flieth, chafeth you out of this life: it is poffible, ye make your reckoning with your Judge before I fee you; let falvation be your care night and day, and fet afide hours and times of the day for prayer. I rejoice to hear that there is a prayer in your houfe: fee that your fervants keep the Lord's day. This dirt and god of clay, I mean the vain world, is not worth the feeking. An hireling-paftor is to be thrust in upon you, in the room to which I have Chrift's warrant and right a ftand to your liberties, for the word of God alloweth you a vote in chufing your paftor. What I write to you I write to your wife commend me heartily to her. The grace of God be with

you.

Aberdeen, March 14. 1637.

Your loving friend and

paftor, S. R.

103. To Mr. HUGH HENDERSON.

My reverend and dear brother,

Hear ye bear the marks of Chrift's dying about with you, and that your brethren have caft you out for your Master's fake: let us wait on till the evening, and till our reckoning in black and white come before our Master. Brother, fince we must have a devil to trouble us, I love a raging devil beft: our Lord know

eth

eth what fort of devil we have need of: it is beft Satan be in his own skin, and look like himself; Chrift weeping looking like himself also alfo, with whom Scribes and Pharifees were at yea and nay, and sharp contradiction. Ye have heard of the pati ence of Job; when he lay in the ashes God was with him, clawing and curing his fcabs, and letting out his boils, comforting his foul; and he took him up at last. That God is not dead; yet he will stop and take up fallen bairns; many broken legs fince Adam's days hath he spelked, and many weary hearts hath he refreshed, blefs him for comfort: Why? None cometh down from David's well; let us go among the rest, and cast dry or toom buckets into Chrift's ocean, and fuch confolation out of him: we are not fo fore ftricken, but we may fill Chrift's hall with weeping: we have not gotten our answer from him yet: let us lay up our broken pleas to a full fea, and keep them till the day of Chrift's coming; we and this world will not be even till then: they would take our garment from us; but let us hold, and them draw. Brother, it is a ftrange world, if we laugh not; I never faw the like of it, if there be not paiks the man, for this contempt done to the Son of God? We must do as those who keep the bloody napkin to the bailie, and let him fee blood: we must keep our wrongs to our Judge, and let him fee our bluddered and foul faces: prifoners of hope muft run to Chrift, with the gutters that tears have made on their cheeks. Brother, for myself, I am Chrift's dawted one for the prefent; and I live upon no deaf nuts, (as we use to speak) he hath opened fountains to me in the wilder nefs, Go, look to my Lord Jefus; his love to me is fuch, that I defy the world to find either brim or bottom in it. Grace be with you.

Aberdeen, March 13.

Miftrefs,

1637.

Your brother in his fweet Lord
Jefus, S. R.

104. To the Lady ROBERTLAND.

GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I fhall be glad to hear that your foul profpereth, and that fruit groweth upon you, after the Lord's husbandry and pains in his rod, that hath not been a ftranger to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kindnefs that he will take the fcum off us in the fire; who knoweth how needful winnowing is to us, and what drofs we muft want, ere we enter into the kingdom of God? So narrow is the entry to heaven, that our knots, our bunches, and lumps of pride, and felf-love, and idol-love, and world love must be hammered off us, that we may throng in, ftooping low, and creeping through that parrow and thorny entry. And now, for myself, I find it the

U

moft

Epift. 104. most sweet and heavenly life, to take up house and dwelling at Chrift's fire-fide, and fet down my tent upon Christ, that foundation-stone, who is fure and faithful ground, and hard underfoot. Oh! if I could win to it, and proclaim myself not the wold's debtor, nor a lover obliged to it; and that I mind not to hire or bud this world's love any longer; but defy the kindness and feud of God's whole creation whatfomever; efpecially the lower vault and clay-part of God's creatures, this vain earth: for what hold I of this world? a borrowed lodging, and fome years house room, and bread, and water, and fire, and bed, and candle, &c. are all a part of the penfion of my King and Lord, to whom I owe thanks, and not to a creature. I thank God, that God is God, and Chrift is Ghrift, and the earth the earth, and the devil the devil, and the world the world, and that fin is fin, and that every thing is what it is: because he hath taught me in my wildernefs not to fhuffle my Lord Jefus, nor to intermix him with creature vanities, nor to fpin or twine Christ or his fweet love in one web, or in one thread with the world and the things thereof. Oh if I could hold and keep Chrift all alone, and mix him with nothing! O if I could cry down the price and weight of my curfed felf, and cry up the price of Chrift, and double, and triple, and augment and heighten to millions the price and worth of Chrift! I am (if I durft fpeak fo, and might lawfully complain) fo hungeredly tutored by Chrift Jefus, my liberal Lord, that his nice love, which my foul would be in hands with, flieth me; and yet I am trained on to love him, and luft, and long, and die for his love, whom I cannot fee. It is a wonder, to pine away with love for a covered and hid lover, and to be hungered with his love, fo as a poor foul cannot get his fill of hunger for Chrift; it is hard to be hungered of hunger, whereof fuch abundance for other things is in the world: but fure if we were tutors, and stewards, and mafters, and lord carvers of Chrift's love, we should be more lean, and worfe fed than we are our meat doth us the more good that Chrift keepeth the keys, and that the wind and the air of Chrift's sweet breathing, and of the influence of his Spirit, is locked up in the hands of the good pleasure of him who bloweth where he lifteth. I fee there is a fort of impatient patience required in the want of Chrift, as to his manifeftations and wasting on; they thrive who wait on his love, and the blowing of it, and the turning of his gracious wind; and they thrive who in that onwaiting make hafte, and din, and much ado, for their loft and hidden Lord Jefus. However it be, God feed me with him any way, If he would come in, I fhall not difpute the matter where he got a hole, or how he opened the lock; I fhould be content, that Chrift and I met, fuppofe he should stand on the other fide of hell's lake, and cry to me, Either put in your foot and come

through

through, elfe ye fhall not have me at all. But what fools are we, in the taking up of him and of his dealing! He hath a gait of his own, beyond the thoughts of men, that no foot has skill to follow him: but we are ftill ill scholars, and will go in at heaven's gates, wanting the half of our leffon, and fhall ftill be bairns fo long as we are under time's hands, and till eternity cause a fun to arife in our fouls that shall give us wit. We may fee how we spill and mar our own fair heaven and our falvation, and how Christ is every day putting in one bone or other, in thofe fallen fouls of ours, in the right place again; and that in this side of the new Jerufalem we fhall ftill have need of forgiving and healing. I find croffes Chrift's carved work, that he marketh out for us; and that with croffes he figureth and pourtrayeth us to his own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption: Lord cut, Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do any thing that may perfect the Father's image in us, and make us meet for glory. Pray for me (I forget not you) that our Lord would be pleased to lend me houseroom, to preach his righteoufnefs, and tell what I have heard and feen of him. Forget not Zion, that is now in Christ's calms and in his forge: God bring her out new work. Grace, grace be with you,

Aberdeen, Jan. 4. 1637.

Yours in his fweet Lord

105. To the Earl of CASSILS.

Right honourable, and my very good Lord,

G

Jefus, S. R.

Race, mercy and peace be to your Lordship. I hope your

report of your zealous and forward mind, that I hear our Lord hath given you in this his honourable cause, when Chrift and his gofpel are fo foully wronged) I fpeak to your Lordship in paper, entreating your Lordship to go on in the ftrength of the Lord, toward, and against a storm of Antichriftian wind, that bloweth upon the face of this your poor mother-church, Chrift's lilly amongst the thorns. It is your Lordship's glory and happiness, when ye fee fuch a blow coming upon Chrift, to caft up your arms to prevent it: neither is it a caufe that needeth to blush before the fun, or to flee the fentence or cenfure of impartial beholders, feeing the question indeed (if it were rightly stated) is about the prerogative-royal of our princely and royal Lawgiver, our Lord Jefus, whofe ancient march-ftones and land-bounds our bastardlords, the earthly generation of tyrannizing prelates, have boldly and fhamefully removed: and they who have but half an eye, may fee, that it is the greedy defires of time-idolizing Demas's, and the itching fcab of ambitious and climbing Diotrephes (who love