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the gifts and common graces of the Holy Spirit, and a taste of the powers of the life to come, to hell with them here is reprobate filver, which yet seemeth to have the King's image and fuperfcription upon it. 3d, I find you complaining of yourself, and it becometh a finner fo to do, I am not against that; fense of death is a fib friend, and of kin and blood to life; the more fense, the more life; the more fenfe of fin, the lefs fin. I would love my pain, and foreness, and my wounds, howbeit these fhould bereave me of my night's fleep, better than my wounds without pain. O how fweet a thing it is, to give Chrift his handful of broken arms, and legs, and disjointed bones! 4th, Be not afraid for little grace, Christ foweth his living feed, and he will not lofe his feed; if he have the guiding of my stock and state, it shall not miscarry. Our fpilt works, loffes, deadnefs, coldnefs, wretchednefs, are the ground which the good husbandman laboureth. 5th, Ye write that his -compaffions fail not, notwithstanding that your fervice to Chrift mifcarrieth to the which I anfwer, God forbid that there were buying and felling, and blocking for as good again, betwixt Chrift and us; for then free grace might go play it, and a Saviour fing dumb, and Christ go and fleep; but we go to heaven with light fhoulders, and all the bairn-time; and the veffels great and fmall that we have, are fastened upon the fure nail, Isa. xxii, 24. The only danger is, that we give grace more ado than God giveth it, that is, by turning his grace into wantonnefs. 6th, Ye write, few fee your guiltinefs, and ye cannot be free with many, as with me: I anfwer, bleffed be God, Christ and we are not heard before mens courts; it is at home betwixt him and us, that pleas are ta ken away. Grace be with you. Aberdeen.

Yours in his fweet Lord

Jefus, S. R.

13. To the Right Honourable and Chriftian Lady, my Lady KEN

Madam,

MURE.

Grace, mercy and peace be to your Ladyfhip: God be thank

ed, ye are yet in poffeffion of Chrift and that fweet child. I pray God the former may be fure heritage, and the latter a loan for your comfort, while ye do good to his poor afflicted, withered mount Sion; and who knoweth, but our Lord hath comforts laid

up

in ftore for her and you? I am perfuaded Christ hath bought you by the devil, and hell, and fin, that they have no claim to you; and that is a rich and unvaluable mercy. Long fince, ye were half challenging death's cold kindness, in being fo flow and fwier to come loose a tired prifoner: but ye ftand in need of all the croffes, loffes, changes, and fad hearts that befell you fince that time.

27 Christ knoweth the body of fin unfubdued will take them all and more: we know that Paul had need of the devil's fervice, to buffet him; and far more we. But, my dear and honourable Lady, fpend your fand-glass well: I am fure ye have law to raise a fu fpenfion against all that devils, men, friends, world, losses, hell or fin, can decree against you. It is good your croffes will but convey you to heaven's gates: in can they not go, the gates shall be closed on them, when ye fhall be admitted to the throne. Time ftandeth not ftill, eternity is hard at our door, O what is laid up for you! Therefore harden your face against the wind; and the Lamb your Hufband is making ready for you; the Bridegroom would fain have that day, as gladly as your honour would wish to have it; he hath not forgotten you. I have heard a rumour of the P's purpose to banish me; but let it come, if God fo will; the other fide of the fea is my Father's ground, as well as this fide: I owe bowing to God, but no fervile bowing to croffes; I have been but too foft in that: I am comforted that I am perfuaded fully, that Chrift is halver with me in this well born and honest cross: and if he claim right to the best half of my troubles (as I know he doth to the whole) I fhall remit it over to Chrift, what I fhall do in this cafe: I know certainly my Lord Jefus will not mar nor fpill my fufferings, he hath use for them in his houfe. what it worketh on me, to remember that a stranger, who cometh not in by the door, shall build hay and stubble upon the golden foundation I laid amongst that people at Anwoth! But I know providence looketh not afquaint, but looketh ftraight out, and thorow all mens darkness: O that I could wait upon the Lord! I had but one eye, one joy, one delight, even to preach Chrift; and my mother's fons were angry at me, and have put out the poor man's one eye, and what have I behind? I am fure this four world hath loft my heart deservedly, but oh that there were a days-man to lay his hand upon us both, and determine upon my part of it. Alas! that innocent and lovely truth fhould be fold! My tears are little worth, but yet this thing I weep, I weep, alas! that my fair and lovely Lord Jefus fhould be miskent in his own houfe? It reckoneth little of five hundred the like of me yet the water goeth not over faith's breadth, yet our King liveth. I write the prifoner's bleifings; the good-will, and long lafting kindnels, with the comforts of the very God of peace be to your Ladyfhip, and to you fweet child: : grace, grace be with you.

Aberdeen Sept. 7 1637.

Your Honour's at all obedience, in his
fweet Lord Jefus, S. R.

D2

14. To the much honoured JOHN GORDON of Cardones

Much

Elder.

Uch honoured and deareft in my Lord, grace, mercy and peace be to you. My foul longeth exceedingly to hear how matters go betwixt you and Chrift; and whether or not there be any work of Chrift in that parish, that will bide the trial of fire and water let me be weighed of my Lord in a juft balance, if your fouls ly not weighty upon me: you go to bed and you rife with me: thoughts of your foul (my deareft in our Lord) depart not from me in my fleep; ye have a great part of my tears, fighs, supplications, and prayers: O if I could buy your foul's falvation with any fuffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we fhall ftand before our Judge! O my Lord forbid, I have any hard thing to depone against you in that day! O that he who quickeneth the dead, would give life to my fowing among you! What joy is there (next to Chrift) that ftandeth on this fide of death, would comfort me more, than that the fouls of that poor people were in fafety, and beyond all hazard of 1 fins? Sir, fhew the people this: for when I write to you, I think I write to you all old and young : fulfil my joy, and seek the Lord : fure I am, once I difcovered my lovely royal, princely Lord Jefus to you all: : wo, wo, wo shall be your part of it for evermore, if the gospel be not the favour of life unto life to you: as many fermons as I preached, as many fentences as I uttered, as many points of dittay fhall they be, when the Lord fhall plead with the world, for the evil of their doings. Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won; The righteous will scarcely be faved: O what vio lence of thronging will heaven take! Alas! I fee many deceiving themselves; for we will all to heaven; now every foul dog with his foul feet will in at the neareft, to the new and clean Jerufalem: all fay they have faith, and the greatest part in the world know not, and will not confider, that a flip in the matter of their falvation is the most piteous flip that can be; and that no lofs is comparable to this lofs. O then fee that there be not a loose pin in the work of your falvation! for ye will not believe how quickly the Judge will come and for yourself, I know that death is waiting and hovering, and lingring at God's command, that ye may be prepared. Then ye hed need to ftir your time, and to take eternity, and death, to your riper advisement; a wrong step in going out of this life, in one property, is like the fin against the Holy Ghoft, and can never be forgiven, because ye cannot come back again thorow the last water, to mourn for it. I know your counts are many, and will take telling, and laying, and reckoning betwixt you and your Lord; fit your counts, and order them;

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lofe not the laft play whatever ye do, for in that play with death your precious foul is the prize: for the Lord's fake spill not the play, and lofe not fuch a treasure. Ye know, out of love I had to your foul, and out of defire I had to make an honeft count for you, I teftified my displeasure and difliking of your ways very of ten, both in private and public: I am not now a witness of your doings, but your Judge is always your witnefs. I befecch you by the mercies of God, by the falvation of your foul, by your comforts when your eyeftrings fhall break, and the face wax pale, and the foul fhall tremble to be out of the lodging of clay, and by your compearance before your lawful judge, after the fight of this letter, take a new course with your ways; and now in the end of your day make fure of heaven. Examine yourself if ye be in good earneft in Chrift; for fome, Heb. vi. 4. are partakers of the Holy Ghost, and taste of the good word of God, and of the powers of the life to come;' and yet have no part in Chrift at all. Many think they believe, but never tremble; the devils are further on than these. Jam. ii. 10. Make sure to yourself that ye are above ordinary profeffors; the fixth part of your fpan-length and handbreadth of your days is fcarcely before you: hafte, haste, for the tide will not bide. Put Chrift upon all your accounts, and your fecrets. Better it is that ye give him your counts, in this life, out of your own hand, than that, after this life he take them from you. I never knew fo well what fin was as fince I came to Aberdeen, howbeit I was preaching of it to you. To feel the fmoke of hell's fire in the throat for half an hour; to stand before a river of fire and brimftone broader than the earth; and to think to be bound hand and foot, and caften in the midft of it quick, and then to have God locking the prison door, never to be opened for all eternity; O how will it shake a confcience that hath any life in it? I find the fruits of my pains to have Chrift and that people once fairly met, now meet my foul in my fad hours; and I rejoice that I gave fair warning of all the corruptions now entering in Chrift's houfe; and now many a fweet, fweet, foft kifs, many perfumed, well fmelled kiffes, and embracements, have I received of my royal mafter. He and I have had much love together. I have for the prefent a fick dwining life, with much pain, and much love-fickness for Chrift: O what I would give to have a bed made to my wearied foul, in his bofom! I would frift heaven for many years, to have my fill of Jefus in this life, and to have occafion to offer Chrift to my people; and to woo many people to Christ. I cannot tell you what fweet pain, and delightfome torments are in Chrift's love? I often challenge time that holdeth us fundry. I profefs to you I have no reft, I have no ease, while I be over head and ears in love's ocean. If Chrift's love, (that fountain of delight) were laid as open to me as I would wish, O

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Epift. 14. how would I drink, and drink abundantly! O how drunken would this my foul be! I half call his abfence cruel, and the mask and vail on Christ's face a cruel covering, that hideth such a fair face from a fick foul. I dare not challenge himself, but his abfence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart. O when will we meet? O how long is it to be dawning of the marriage day? O fweet Lord Jefus, take wide fteps: O my Lord, come over mountains at one ftride! Omy Beloved, flee like a roe, or young hart, upon the mountains of feparation : O if he would fold the heavens together like an old cloke, and shovel time and days out of the way, and make ready in hafte the lamb's wife for her husband! Since he looked upon me, my heart is not mine own, he hath run away to heaven with it; I know it was not for nothing, that I fpake fo meikle good of Chrift to you in public. O if the heaven, and the heaven of heavens were paper, and sea ink, and the multitude of mountains pens of brafs, and I were able to write that paper, within and without, full of the praises of my fairest, my deareft, my lovelieft, my sweetest, my matchlefs, and my moft marrowlefs, and marvellous Well-beloved! Wo is me, I cannot fet him out to men and angels. O there are few tongues to fing love-fongs of his incomparable excellency! What can I poor prisoner do to exhalt him? or what courfe can I take to extol my lofty, and lovely Lord Jesus? I am put to my wit's end, how to get his name made great. Bleffed they who would help me in this! How fweet are Chrift's back-parts? O what then is in his face! These that fee his face, how do they get their eye plucked off him again? Look up to him and love him: O love and live. It were life to me, if ye would read this letter to that people, and if they did profit by it. O if I could cause these to die of love for Jefus! I charge them by the falvation of their fouls, to hang about Christ's neck, and take their fill of his love, and follow him, as I taught them. Part by no means with Chrift; hold fast what ye have received; keep the truth once delivered; if ye or that people quit it in an hair, or in an hoof, ye break your confcience in twain; and who then can mend it, and caft a knot on it? My dearest in the Lord, ftand fast in Chrift: keep the faith; contend for Chrift; wrestle for him, and take mens feud for God's favour; there is no comparifon betwixt these. O that my Lord would fulfil my joy, and keep the young bride to Chrift, that is at Anwoth. And now, whoever they be, that have returned to the old vomit fince my parture, I bind upon their back, in my Master's name and authority, the long-lafting, weighty vengeance and cut fe of God; in my Lord's name, I give them a black, unmixed, pure wrath, which my Mafter shall ratify and make good, when we ftand together beforet im, except they timeously repent and turn to the Lord. And I write to thee, poor mourning and broken hearted believer, be .who

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