honoured; I allow you not to hide Chrift's bounty to me, when ye meet with fuch as know Chrift. Ye write nothing to me, what are the cruel mercies of the prelates toward me. The minifters of this town, as I hear, intend that I shall be more ftrictly confined, or else transported, because they find fome people affect me. Grace

be with you.

Aberd. Nov. 21.

1637.

Yours in the Lord.

Jefus, S. R.

163. To JOHN FLEMING Baily of Leith.

My very worthy friend,

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you; I received your letter: I

I blefs my Lord through Jefus Chrift, I find his word good, Ila. xlviii. 10. I have chofen thee in the furnace of affliction, and Pfal. xci. 1 5. I will be with him in trouble. I never expected other at Christ's hand, but much good and comfort; and I am not disappointed : I find my Lord's crofs over-gilded and oiled with comforts. My Lord hath now shown me the white fide of his crofs: I would not exchange my weeping in prifon with the fourteen prelates laughter, amidst their hungry and lean joys. This world knoweth not the fweetness of Chrift's love, it is a mystery to them. At my firft coming here, I found great heavinefs, especially because it had pleafed the prelates to add this gentle cruelty to my former fufferIngs (for it is gentle to them) to inhibite the minifters of the town to give me the liberty of a pulpit: I faid, What aileth Christ at my fervice? but I was a fool, he hath chid himself friends with me: if ye and others of God's children fhall praise his great name, who maketh worthless men witnesses for him, my filence and fufferings shall preach more than my tongue could do: if his glory be seen in me, I am fatisfied; for I want no kindness of Chrift. And, Sir, I dare not fmother his liberality: I write it to you, that ye may praife, and defire your brother and others to join with me in this work. This land fhall be made defolate; our iniquities are full: the Lord faith, we shall drink, and fpue, and fall. Remember my love to your good kind wife. Grace be with you.

Aberd, Nov. 13. 1636.

Tours in his fweet Lord Jefus, S. R

164. To EARLSTOUN Elder.

Rev. xii. 11. And they overcame the dragon by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their teftimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

G

Much honoured Sir,

Race, mercy and peace be to you: I long to fee you in paper, and to be refreshed by you. I cannot but defire you and

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charge

charge you to help me to praife him, who feedeth a poor prifoner with the fatnefs of his house. O how weighty is his love! O but there is much telling in Chrift's kindness! The Amen, the faithful and true Witnefs hath paid me my hundred fold, well told, and one to the hundred: I complained of him, but he is owing me nothing now. Sir, I charge you to help me to praise his goodnefs, and to proclaim to others my Bridegroom's kindness, whofe love is better than wine. I took up an action against Chrift my Lord; and I faid, This is my death, he hath forgotten me: but my meek Lord held his peace, and beheld me, and would not contend for the laft word of flyting; and now he hath chided himself friends with me: and now I fee, he must be God, and I must be flesh. I pafs from my fummons, I acknowledge he might have given me my fill of it, and never troubled himself: but now he hath taken away the mask; I have been comforted: he could not fmother his love any longer to a prifoner and a ftranger. God grant that I may never buy a plea againft Chrift again, but may keep good quarters with him. I want no kindness, no love-tokens: but oh, wife is his love! for notwithstanding of this hot fummer-blink, I am kept low with the grief of my filence; for his word is in me as a fire in my bowels; and I fee the Lord's vineyard laid waste, and the heathen entered into the fanctuary; and my belly is pained, and my foul in heavinefs, because the Lord's people are gone into captivity, and because of the fury of the Lord, and that wind (but neither to fan nor to purge) that is coming upon apoftate Scotland. Alfo I am kept awake with the late wrong done to my brother; but I truft ye will counfel and comfort him. Yet in this mift, I fee, and believe, the Lord will heal this halting kirk, and will lay her ftones with fair colours, and her foundations with sapphires, and will make her windows of agates, and her gates carbuncles, Ifa. liv. And for brass he will bring gold he hath created the fmith that formed the fword, no weapon in war fhall profper against us. Let us be glad and rejoice in the Lord, for his falvation is near to come. Remember me to your wife and your fon John: and I entreat you to write to me. Grace, grace be with you. Aberd. Dec. 30. Tours in his only, only Lord 1636

II, 12.

I

Jefus, S. R.

165. To Mr. JOHN FERGUSHILL. Reverend and well-beloved in our Lord Jefus,

Muft ftill provoke you to write by my lines, whereat ye need not wonder; for the crofs is full of talk, and fpeak it muft, either good or bad: neither can grief be filent. I have no dittay nor inditement to bring against Christ's cross, seeing he hath made a friendly agreement betwixt me and it, and we are in terms of

love together. If my former mifcarriages, and my now filent fabbaths, feem to me to speak wrath from the Lord, I dare fay, it is but Satan borrowing the use and loan of my cowardly and feeble apprehenfions, which start at straws. I know faith is not so faint and foolish as to tremble at every falfe alarm: yet I gather this out of it, Blessed are they who are graced of God to guide a cross well, and that there is fome art required therein.' I pray God I may not be foill friend-stead, as that Christ my Lord should leave me to be my own tutor, and my own phyfician. Shall I not think, but my Lord Jefus, who deferveth his own place very well, will take his own place upon him, as it becometh him, and that he will fill his own chair! for in this is his office, to comfort us, and those that are caften down, in all their tribulations, 2 Cor. i. 4. Alas! I know I am a fool to feek an hole or defect in Christ's way with my foul. If I have not a stock to prefent to Chrift at his appearance, yet I pray God I may be able, with joy, faith, and constancy, to fhew the Captain of my falvation, in that day, a bloody-head, that I received in his service. Howbeit my faith hang by a small tack and threed, I hope the tack fhall not break; and howbeit my Lord get no service of me but broken wishes, yet I trust these shall be accepted upon Chrift's account. I have nothing to comfort me, but that I fay, Oh! will the Lord difappoint an hungry on-waiter? The smell of Chrift's wine and apples, which furpass the up-taking of dull sense, bloweth upon my foul, and I get no more for the mean time. I am fure, to let a famishing body fee meat, and give him none of it, is a double pain: our Lord's love is not fo cruel, as to let a poor man see Chrift and heaven, and never give him more, for want of money to buy: nay, I rather think Chrift fuch fair market wares, as buyers may have without money and without price and thus I know, it shall not stand upon my want of money; for Chrift, upon his own charges, must buy my weddinggarment, and redeem the inheritance, which I have forfeited, and give his word for one the like of me, who am not law-biding of myself: poor folks must either borrow or beg from the rich; and the only thing that commendeth finners to Chrift, is extreme neceffity and want: Chrift's love is ready to make and provide a ranfom and money for a poor body, who hath loft his purfe: Ho ye that have no money, come and buy, Ifa. lv. 1. that is the poor man's market. Now, brother, I fee old croffes would have done nothing at me, and therefore Chrift hath taken a new fresh rod to me, that feemeth to talk with my foul, and make me tremble. I have often more ado now with faith, when I lose my compass, and am blown on a rock, than those who are my beholders, ftanding upon the shore, are aware of. A counsel to a fick man is fooner given than taken. Lord fend the wearied man a borrowed bed from Chrift: I think often it is after fupper with me, and I am heavy: O but I would

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fleep

Epift. 165. fleep foundly, with Chrift's left hand under my head, and his right hand embracing me; the devil could not fpill that bed. When I confider how tenderly Chrift hath cared for me in this prifon, I think he hath handled me as the bairn that is pitied and bemoaned: I defire no more till I be in heaven, but fuch a feast and fill of Christ's love as I would have; this love would be fair and adorning paffments, which would beautify and fet forth my black unpleafant crofs. I cannot tell, my dear brother, what a great load I would bear, if I had a hearty fill of the love of that lovely One, Christ Jefus : oh if ye would feek and pray for that to me! I would give Chrift all his love-styles and titles of honour, if he would give me but this; nay, I would fell myfelf (if I could) for that love. I have been waiting to fee what friends of place and power would do for us: but when the Lord loofeth the pins of his own tabernacle, he will have himself to be acknowledged as the only builder up thereof; and therefore I would take back a gain my hope, that I lent and laid in pawn in mens hands, and give it wholly to Chrift. It is no time for me now to fet up idols of my own it were a pity to give an ounce weight of hope to any befides Chrift; I think him well worthy of all my hope, thō' it were as weighty as both heaven and earth. Happy were I, if I had any thing that Chrift would feek or accept of: but now alas, I fee not what fervice I can do to him, except it be to talk a little, and babble, upon a piece of paper, concerning the love of Christ. 'I am often as if my faith were wadfet, fo that I cannot command it; and then, when he hideth himself, I run to the other extreme, in making each wing and toe of my cafe as big as a mountain of iron and then mifbelief can fpin out an hell of heavy and defponding thoughts; then Chrift feeketh law-borrows of my unbelieving apprehenfions, and chargeth me to believe his day-light at midnight. But I make pleas with Chrift, though it be ill my common fo to do: it were my happinefs, when I am in his houfe of wine, and when I find a feast-day, if I could hearken and hear for the time to come, Ifa. xlii. 23. But I fee, we must be off our feet in wading a deep water; and then Chrift's love findeth timeous employment, at fuch a dead lift as that: and besides, after broken brows, bairns learn to walk more circumfpectly. If I come to heaven any way, howbeit, like a tired traveller, upon my Guide's fhoulder, it is good enough for those who have no legs of their own for fuch a journey. I never thought there had been need of fo much wrestling to win to the top of that steep mountain as now I find. Wo is me for this broken and back-fliding church; it is like an old bowing wall, leaning to the one fide, and there are none of all her fons who will fet a prop under her. I know, I need not bemoan Chrift; for he careth for his own honour, more than I can do: but who can blame me to be wo (if I had grace

fo

245 fo to do) to fee my Well-beloved's fir face fpitted upon, and his own crown plucked off his head, and the ark of God taken, and carried in the Philiftines cart, and the kine put to carry it, who will let it fall to the ground? The Lord put to his own helping hand. I would defire you to prepare yourself for a fight with beafts: ye will not get leave to fteal quietly to heaven, in Christ's company, without a conflict and a crofs. Remember my bonds, and praise my fecond and fellow-prifoner, Chrift. Grace be with you.

Aberd. 1637.

Yours in Chrift Jefus his Lord, S. R.

166. To WILLIAM GLENDINNING. Dear brother,

GRace, mercy and peace be to you. Your cafe is unknown to

whether ye be yet our Lord's prifoner at Wigtoun, or not: however it be, I know our Lord Jefus hath been inquiring for you; and that he hath honoured you to bear his chains, which is the golden end of his crofs; and fo hath wailed out a chofen and honourable crofs for you: I wish you much joy and comfort of it; for I have nothing to fay of Chrift's cross but much good : I hope my ill word fhall never meet either Christ, or his fweet and eafy crofs. I know he feeketh of us an out-cast with this house of clay, this mother-prison, this earth, that we love full well; and verily, when Chrift fauffeth my candle, and caufeth my light to fhine upward, it is one of my greatest wonders, that dirt and clay hath fo much court with a foul not made with clay: and that our foul goeth out of kind fo far, as to made an idol of this earth, fuch a deformed harlot, as that it should wrong Christ of our love. How fast, how faft doth our fhip fail! And how fair a wind hath time, to blow us off these coafts, and this land of dying and perifhing things! and alas, our fhip faileth one way, and fleeth many miles in one hour, to haften us upon eternity; and our love and hearts are failing close back over, and fwimming towards ease, lawless pleasure, vain honour, perishing riches, and to build a fool's-nest, I know not where, and to lay our eggs within the fea-mark, and faften our bits of broken anchors upon the worst ground in the world, this fleeting and perishing life; and in the mean while, time and tide carry us upon another life, and there is daily lefs and lefs oil in our lamps, and lefs and lefs fand in our watch-glafs. O what a wife course were it for us, to look away from the falfe beauty of our borrowed prison, and to mind, and eye, and luft for our country! Lord, Lord, take us home. And for myself, I think, if a poor, weak, dying sheep, feek for an old dike, and the lee fide of an hill, in a ftorm, I have caufe to long for a covert from this ftorm in heaven: I know none will take my room over my head there. But certainly, fleepy bodies would be at reft and a well-made bed, and

an