of grace had been no art, I thought it would come of will; but I would fpill my own heaven yet, if I had not burdened Christ with all. I but lend my bare name to the fwcet covenant; Chrift behind and before, and on either fide, maketh all fure. God will not take an Arminian cautioner free will, a weather cock, turning at a ferpent's tongue, a tutor that couped our father Adam unto us, and brought down the house, and fold the land; and sent the father, and mother, and all the bairns through the earth, to beg their bread nature in the gospel hath cracked credit. O well to my poor foul for evermore, that my Lord called grace to the council, and put Chrift Jefus with free merits, and the blood of God, foremoft in the chafe, to draw finners after a ranfomer! O what a fweet block was it, by way of buying and felling, to give and telf down a ranfom for grace and glory to dyvours! O would to my Lord I could caufe paper and ink speak the worth, and excellency, the high and loud praifes of a brother-ranfomer! O the ranfomer needs not my report; but oh, if he would take it, and make ufe of it! I fhould be happy, if I had an errand to this world, but for fome few years, to fpread proclamations and out cries, and loveletters, of the highnefs (the highnefs for evermore) the glory (the glory for evermore) of the Ranfomer, whofe clothes were wet, and dyed in blood; howbeit, after I had done that, my foul and body fhould go back to the mother nothing, that their Creator brought them once out from, as from their beginning. But why should I pine away, and pain myself with wifhes, and not believe rather, that Chrift will hire fuch an out-caft as I am, a masterless body, put out of the houfe by the fons of my mother, and give me employment and a calling, one way or other, to out Chrift and his wares to country buyers, and propofe Chrift unto, and prefs him upon fome poor fouls, that fainer than their life would receive him? You complain heavily of your fhort-coming in practice, and venturing on fuffering for Chrift: you have many marrows. For the first, I would not put you off fenfe of wretchedness; hold on, Christ never yet flew a fighting, groaning child; more of that would make you won goods, and a meet prey for Chrift. Alas! I have too little of it, for venturing on fuffering; I had not fo much free gear, when I came to Chrift's camp, as to buy a fword; a wonder that Chrift should not laugh at fuch a foldier: I am no better yet; but faith liveth and spendeth upon our Captain's charges, who is able to pay for all: we need not pity him, he is rich enough. Ye defire me alfo not to miftake Chrift under a mask; I bless you, and thank God for it; but alas! mafked or bare-faced, kiffing or glooming, I mistake him: yea, I mistake him furtheft when the mark is off; for then I play me with his fweetnefs: I am like a child that hath a golden book, that playeth more with the ribbons, and the gilding, and the picture in the fift page; F read readeth, the contents of it. Certainly if my defires to my Wellbeloved were fulfilled, I could provoke devils, and croffes, and the world, and tentations to the field: but oh, my poor weakness makes me ly behind the bush and hide me. Remember my service and my bleffing to my Lord; I am mindful of him as I am able; defire him from a prilone, to come and visit my good Master, and feel but the fmell of his love: it fets him well, howbeit he be young, to make Chrift his garland; I could not wish him in a better cale, than in a fever of love-fickness for Chrift. Remember my bonds. The Lord Jefus be with your fpirit. Aberdeen. 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord 23. To WILLIAM HALIDAY. Loving friend, Jefus, S. R. Received your letter: I wish ye take pains for falvation; miftaken grace, and fomewhat like converfion, which is not converfion, is the faddest and most doleful thing in the world: make fure of falvation, and lay the foundation fure, for many are beguil ed: put a low price upon the world's clay, put a high price upon Chrift: temptations will come, but if they be not made welcome by you, ye have the best of it! be jealous over yourself, and your own heart, and keep touches with God; let him not have a faint and feeble foldier of you; fear not to back Chrift, for he will conquer and overcome: let no man fkar at Chrift, for I have no quarrels at his cross; he and his crofs are two good guests, and worth the lodging: men would fain have Chrift good cheap, but the market will not come down; acquaint yourfelf with prayer; make Chrift your Captain and your armour; make confcience of finning when no eye feeth you. Grace be with you. Aberdeen. Yours in Chrift Jefus, S. R. 24. To a gentlewoman, after the death of her husband. Dear and loving fifter, Know ye are minding your fweet country, and not taking your inns (the place of your banishment) for your home ;{this life is not worthy to be the thatch or out-wall of your Lord Jefus his paradife, that he did fweat for to you, and that he keepeth for you; and filly and fand blind were our hope, if it could not look over the water to our beft heritage, and if it staid only at home about the doors of our clay houfe. I marvel not, my dear fifter, that ye complain, that ye come fort of your old wrestlings, you had for a bleffing, and that now you find it not fo: bairns are but hired to learn their leffon when they firft go to fchool: and it is enough that that these who run a race fee the gold only at the starting place; and poffibly they fee little more of it, or nothing at all, till they win to the ring s end, and get the gold in the loof of their hand. Our Lord maketh delicates and dainties of his sweet prefence and love-vifits to his own, but Christ's love under a vail is love; if ye get Chrift, howbeit not the fweet and pleasant way you have him, it is enough; for the Well-beloved come not our way, he must wail his own gate himself. For worldly things, feeing they are meadows and fair flowers in your way to heaven, a smell in the bygoing is fufficient: he that would reckon and tell all the ftones in his way, in a journey of three or four hundred miles, and write up in his count-book all the herbs and the flowers growing in his way, might come fhort of his journey. You cannot ftay in your inch of time to lofe your day (feeing you are in hafte, and the night and your afternoon will not bide you) in setting your heart on this vain world: it were your wildom to read your count book, and to have in readiness your business against the time you come to death's water-fide. I know your lodging is taken; your fore-runner Christ hath not forgotten that, and therefore you must fet yourself to one thing, which ye cannot well want. In that our Lord took your husband to himself, I know it was that he might make room for himfelf; he cutteth off your love to the creature, that ye might learn that God only is the right owner of your love, forrow, lofs, fadness, death, or the worst things that are, except fin; but Chrift knoweth well what to make of them, and can put his own in the crofs's common, that we shall be obliged to affliction, and thank God, who learned us to make our acquaintance with fuch a rough companion, who can hale us to Chrift. You must learn to make your evils your great good, and to fpin out comforts, peace, joy, communion with Chrift, out of your troubles that are Chrift's wooers, fent to speak for you to himself. It is easier to get good words, and a comfortable meffage from our Lord, even from fuch rough ferjeants, as divers temptations. Thanks to God for crof fes. When we count and reckon our loffes in feeking God, we find godliness is great gain. Great partners of a fhip-full of gold are glad to fee the ship come to the harbour: furely we and our Lord Jefus together have a ship-full of gold coming home, and our gold is in that fhip. Some are fo in love (or rather in luft) with this life, that they fell their part of the fhip for a little thing: I would counsel you to buy hope, but fell it not, and give not away your croffes for nothing; the infide of Chrift's crofs is white and joyful, and the far end of the black cross is a fair and glorious heaven of cafe: and feeing Christ hath fastened heaven to the far end of the crofs, and he will not loose the knot himself, and none else can (for when Chrift cafteth a knot, all the world cannot lose it) let us then count it exceeding joy, when we fall into divers temptations. Thus recommending you to the tender mercy and grace of our Lord, I reft, I Aberdeen. Your loving brother, S. R. 25. To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness younger. Honoured and dear brother, Wrote of late to you: multitudes of letters burden me now. I am refreshed with your letter. I exhort you in the bowels of Christ, set to work for your foul, and let thefe bear weight with you, and ponder them feriously; ift, Weeping and gnashing of teeth in utter darkness or heaven's joy. 2d, Think what ye would for an hour, when ye shall ly like dead, cold, blackened clay. 3d, There is fand in your glafs yet, and your fun is not gone down. 4th. Confider what joy and peace is in Chrift's fervice. 5th, Think what advantage it will be to have angels, the world, life and death, croffes, yea, and devils all for you, as the King's ferjeants and fervants, to do your bufinefs. 6th, To have mercy on your feed, and a bleffing on your houfe. 7th, To have true honour, and a name on earth that cafts a sweet smell. 8th, How ye will rejoice when Christ layeth down your head under his chin, and betwixt his breasts, and drieth your face, and welcometh you to glo. ry and happiness. 9th, Imagine what pain and torture is a guilty confcience; what flavery to carry the devil's dishonest loads. 10th, Sin's Joys are but night dreams, thoughts, vapours, imaginations and fhadows. 11th, What dignity it is to be à fon of God. 12th, Dominion and mastery over tentations, over the world, and fin. 13th, That your enemies fhould be the tail, and you the head. For your bairns now at reft, I speak to you and your wife (and caufe her read this) 1ft, I am witness of Barbara's . glory in heaven. 2d, For the reft, I write it under my hand, there are days coming on Scotland, when barren wombs and dry breafts, and childless parents, fhall be pronounced bleffed: they are then in the lee of the harbour, e'er the ftorm come on. 3d, They are not loft to you, that are laid up in Chrift's treasury in heaven. 4th, At the resurrection ye fhall meet with them; there they are fent before, but not fent away, 5th, Your Lord loveth you, who is homely to take and give, borrow and lend. 6th, Let not bairns be your idols; for God will be jealous, and take away the idol, because he is greedy of your love wholly. I blefs you, your wife and children. Grace for evermore be with you. Your loving paftor, S. R. Aberdeen. 26. To JOHN GORDON of Cardoness elder. Honourable and deareft in the Lord, Our letter hath refreshed my foul. My joy is fulfilled, if Y Chrift and ye be faft together: ye are my joy and my crown; ye know I have recommended his love to you. I defy the world, Satan and fin. His love hath neither brim nor bottom in it. My dearest in Chrift, I write my foul's defire to you; heaven is not at the next door: I find Chriftianity an hard tafk: fet to it in your evening; we would all keep both Chrift and our right eye, our right hand and foot; but it will not be with us. I beseech you, by the mercies of God, and your compearance before Chrift, look Chrift's count-book and your own together, and collation them; give the remnant of your time to your foul: this great idol-god, the world, will be lying in white afhes, in the day of your compearance; and why should night-dreams, and day fhadows, and water froth, and May-flowers run away with your heart? When we win to the water fide, and black death's river-brink, and put our foot in the boat, we fhall laugh at our folly. Sir, I recommend unto you the thoughts of death, and how ye could wish your foul to be when ye shall ly cold, blue, ill-fmelling clay.. For any hireling to be intruded, I, being the king's prifoner, cannot fay much; but, as God's minifter, I defire you to read Acts i. 15, 16. to the end, and Acts vi. 2, 3, 4, 5. and ye shall find God's people fhould have a voice in chufing church rulers and teachers. I fhall be forry, if willingly ye fhall give way to his cnlawful intrusion upon my labours: the only wife God direct you. God's grace be with you, Aberdeen. Your loving paftor, S. R. 27. To EARLSTOUN younger. Much honoured and well-beloved in the Lord, G Race, mercy and peace be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing. I must first tell you, there is not fuch a glaffy, icy, and flippery piece of way betwixt you and heaven, as youth: I have experience to say with me here, and feal what I affert; the old afhes of the fins of my youth are now fire of forrow to me: I have seen the devil, as it were, dead and bu ried, and yet rife again, and be a worfe devil than ever he was. Therefore, my brother, beware of a green young devil that hath never been buried: the devil in his flowers (I mean, the hot fiery lufts and paffions of youth) is much to be feared: better yoke with an old grey haired, withered, dry devil: for in youth he findeth dry fticks, and dry coals, and an hot hearth ftone; and how foon can be with his flint caft fire, and with his bellows blow |