complain he is not focial; I half call him proud and lordly of his company, and nice of his looks; which yet is not true. It would content me to give, howbeit he should not take; I should be content to want his kiffes at fuch times, providing he would be content to come near hand, and take my werfh, dry, and feckless kiffes: but at that time he will not be entreated, but lets a poor foul stand still and knock, and never let on him that he heareth: and then the old leavings and broken meat, and dry fighs, are greater chear than I can tell: all I have then is, that howbeit the law and wrath have gotten a decreet againft me, I yet lippen that meikle good in Chrift, as to get a fufpenfion, and to bring my cause in reafoning again before my Well beloved. I defire but to be heard, and at last he is content to come and agree the matter with a fool, and forgive freely, because he is God. Oh, if men would glorify him, and taste of Chrift's sweetness! Brother, ye have need to be bufy with Chrift for this whorish kirk: I fear left Christ cast water upon Scotland's coal; nay, I know Chrift and his wife will be heard, he will plead for the broken covenant. Arm you against that time. Grace be with you, Aberdeen, June 16, 1636, Yours in his fweet Lord 29. To the Lady KILCONQUHAIR. Mistress, Race, mercy and peace be to you: I am glad to hear that you have your face homeward towards your Father's house, now when fo many are for a home nearer hand: but your Lord calleth you to another life and glory than is to be found herea way and therefore I would counsel you to make fure the char ters and rights which ye have to falvation. You came to this life about a neceffary and weighty business, to tryst with Christ anent your precious foul, the eternal falvation of it: this is the moft neceffary business ye have in this life; and your other adoes, befide this, are but toys, and feathers, and dreams, and fancies: this is in the greatest hafte, and should be done firft. Means are used in the gospel to draw on a meeting betwixt Chrift and you: if ye neglect your part of it, it is as if you would tear the contract before Chrift's eyes, and give up the match, that there fhall be no more communing of that bufinefs. I know other lovers befide Chrift are in fuit of you, and your foul wanteth not many wooers; but I pray you make a chafte virgin of your foul, and let it love but one; moft worthy is Chrift alone of all your foul's love, howbeit your love were higher than the heaven, and deeper than the lowest of this earth, and broader than this world. Many, alas! too many, make a common ftrumpet of their foul, for every lover G 2 that Epift. 29. that cometh to the houfe. Marriage with Chrift would put your love and your heart by the gate out of the way, and out of the eye of all other unlawful fuitors; and then you had a ready an-, fwer for all others, I am already promifed away to Chrift, the match is concluded, my foul hath a husband already, and it cannot have two hufbands. Oh if the world did but know what a fmell the ointments of Chrift caft, and how ravithing his beauty, even the beauty of the fairest of the fons of men, is, and how fweet and powerful his voice is, the voice of that one Well-beloved; certainly where Chrift cometh he runneth away with the foul's love, fo that they cannot command it. I would far rather look but through the hole of Chrift's door, to fee but the one half of his fairest and most comely face, (for he looketh like heaven) fuppofe I fhould never win in to fee his excellency and glory to the full; than to enjoy the flower, the bloom, and chiefest excellency of the glory and riches of ten worlds. Lord fend me, for my part, but the meanest share of Christ that can be given to any of the in-dwellers of the new Jerufalem. But I know my Lord is no niggard; he can, and it becometh him well to give more than my narrow foul can receive. If there were ten thousand thousand millions of worlds, and as many heavens full of men and angels, Chrift would not be pinched to fupply all our wants, and to fill us all. Chrift is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom? This foul of ours hath love, and cannot but love fome fair one: and O what a fair one, what an only one, what an excellent, lovely, ravishing one is Jefus ! Put the beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of paradifes like the garden of Eden in one; put all trees, all flowers, all fmells, all colours, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all lovelinefs in one: O what a fair and excellent thing would that be? And yet it fhould be less to that fair and dearest Well beloved Chrift, than one drop of rain to the whole feas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths. O but Chrift is heaven's wonder, and earth's wonder! What marvel that his bride faith, Cant. v. 16. He is altogether lovely? Oh that black fouls will not come and fetch all their love to this fair one! O if I could invite and perfuade thousands, and ten thou fand times ten thousand of Adam's fons, to flock about my Lord Jefus, and to come and take their fill of love! Oh pity for ever more, that there should be such an one as Christ Jefus, fo boundlefs, fo bottomlefs, and fo incomparable in infinite excellency and sweetness, and fo few to take him! Oh, oh, ye poor dry and dead fouls, why will ye not come hither with your toom veffels, and your empty fouls, to this huge, and fair, and deep, and fweet well of life; and fill all your toom veffels? Oh that Chrift fhould be fo large in sweetness and worth, and we fo narrow, so pinched, fo ebb, and fo void of all happiness, and yet yet men will not take him! they lose their love miferably, who will not bestow it upon this lovely One. Alas! these five thoufand years, Adam's fools, his wafter heirs, have been wafting and lavish ing out their love and their affections upon black lovers, and black harlots, upon bits of dead creatures, and broken idols, upon this and that fecklefs creature; and have not brought their love and their heart to Jefus. O pity, that fairnefs hath fo few lovers! O wo, wo to the tools of this world, who run by Christ to other lov ers! Oh misery, mifery, mifery, that comelinefs can fcarce get three or four hearts in a town or country! Oh that there is so much fpoken, and so much written, and fo much thought of creaturevanity; and fo little fpoken, fo little written, fo little thought of my great, and incomprehenfible, and never-enough-wondered at Lord Jefus! Why fhould I not curfe this forlorn, and wretched world, that fuffereth my Lord Jefus to ly his alone? O damned fouls! O mifkenning world! O blind! O beggarly, and poor fouls! O bewitched fools! what aileth you at Chrift, that you run fo from him? I dare not challenge providence, that there are fo few buyers, and fo little fale for fuch an excellent one as Christ. O the depth, and O the height of my Lord's ways, that's paft finding out! but oh if men would once be wife, and not fall fo in love with their own hell, as to pafs by Chrift, and mifken him! but let us come near, and filt ourfelves with Chrift, and let his friends drink, and be drunken, and fatisfy our hollow and deep defires with Jesus. Oh come all and drink at this living well; come drink and live for evermore, come drink and welcome; welcome, faith our fairest Bridegroom: no man getteth Chrift with ill-will, no man cometh and is not welcome, no man cometh and rueth his voyage: all men fpeak well of Chrift, who have been at him; men and angels who know him will fay more than I do, and think more of him than they can fay. O if I were mifted and bewildered in my Lord's love! O if I were fettered and chained to it! O fweet pain, to be pained for a fight of him! O living death! O good death! O lovely death, to die for love of Jefus! O that I should have a fore heart and a painted foul, for the wanting of the love of this and that idol! Wo, wo to the mistaking of my mifcarrying heart, that gapeth and crieth for creatures, and is not pained and cutted, and tortured, and in forrow for the want of a foul-fill of Chrift! Oh that thou wouldst come near, my Beloved! O my fairest One, why ftandeft thou afar! come hither, that I may be fatiated with thy excellent love: O for an union! O for a fellowship with Jefus ! O that I could buy with a price that lovely One, fuppofe hell's torments for a while were the price! I cannot believe but Christ will rue upon his pained lovers, and come and eafe fick hearts, who figh and fwoon for want of Chrift: who do bide Christ's love to be nice? What heaven can there be liker to hell, than to luft, and Epift. 30. grein and dwine, and fall afwoon for Chrift's love, and to want it? is not this hell, and heaven woven through other? is not this pain and joy, fweetnefs and fadness to be in one web, the one the weft, the other the warp? Therefore I would Chrift would let us meet and join together, the foul and Christ in others arms. what meeting is like this, to fee blackness and beauty, contemptiblenefs and glory, highness and bafenefs, even a foul and Chrift kifs one another! Nay, but when all is done, I may be wearied in fpeaking and writing; but O how far am I from the right expreffion of Chrift or his love! I can neither speak, nor write, feeling, nor tafting, nor fmelling: come feel, and fmell, and tafte Chrift and his love, and ye fhall call it more than can be spoken to write how fweet the honey-comb is, is not fo lovely as to eat and fuck the honey-comb: one night's reft in a bed of love with Chrift, will fay more than heart can think, or tongue can utter. Neither need we fear croffes, or figh, or be fad for any thing that is on this fide of heaven, if we have Chrift: our croffes will never draw blood of the joy of the Holy Ghoft, and peace of confcience; our joy is laid up in fuch a high place, as temptations cannot climb up to take it down this world may boaft Chrift, but they dare not ftrike; or if they strike, they break their arm in fetching a stroke upon a rock. O that we could put our treasure in Chrift's hand, and give him our gold to keep, and our crown. Strive, Mistress, to throng through the thorns of this life, to be at Chrift; lofe not fight of him in this cloudy and dark day; fleep with him in your heart in the night; learn not at the world to ferve Christ, but afk himself the way; the world is a falfe copy, and a lying guide to follow. Remember my love to your hufband; I with all to him I have written here. The fweet prefence, the long lafting good-will of our God, the warmly and lovely comforts of our Lord Jefus be with you. Help me his prifoner in your prayers; for I remember you. Aberdeen, Aug. 8. 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord 30. To the Lady FORRET. Worthy Miftrefs, Jefus, S. R. Race, mercy and peace be unto you. I long to hear from you; I hear Christ hath been that kind as to vifit you with fickness, and to bring you to the door of the grave: but ye found the door fhut (bleffed be his glorious name) while riper for eternity: he will have more fervice of you: and therefore he feeketh of you, that henceforth ye be honest to your new Husband, the Son of God. We have all idol love, and are whorishly inclined to love other things befide our Lord, and therefore our Lord hunteth for our our love more ways than one or two, Oh that Chrift had his own of us! I know he will not want you, and that is a sweet wilfulnefs in his love; and ye have as good caufe on the other part to be headstrong and peremptory in your love to Chrift, and not to part or divide your love betwixt him and the world: if it were more, it is little enough, yea, too little for Chrift. I am now every way in good terms with Chrift, he hath fet a banished prifoner as a feal on his heart, and as a bracelet on his arm: that crabbed and black tree of the crofs laugheth upon me now; the alarming noise of the cross is worfe than itself. I love Chrift's glooms better than the world's worm eaten joys. Oh if all the kingdom were as I am, except these bonds! My lofs is gain; my fadness, joyful; my bonds, liberty; my tears, comfortable: this world is not worth a drink of cold water. O but Chrift's love cafteth a great heat; hell, and all the falt fea, and the rivers of the earth cannot quench it. I remember you to God; ye have the prayers of a prifoner of Chrift. Grace, grace be with you. Aberdeen, March 9, Madam, 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord 31. To the Lady KASKIBERRY. Jefus, S. R. GRace, I Race, mercy and peace be to you. I long to hear how your Ladyihip is. I know not how to requite your Ladyship's kindnefs; but your love to the faints, Madam, is laid up in heaven: I know it is for your Well-beloved Chrift's fake, that ye make his friends fo dear to you, and concern yourself so much in them. I am in this house of pilgrimage, every way in good cafe; Chrift is moft kind and loving to my foul. It pleaseth him to feast with his unfeen confolations, a ftranger, and an exiled prifoner: and I would not exchange my Lord Jefus, with all the comfort out of heaven; his yoke is eafy, and his burden light. This is his truth I now fuffer for; for he hath fealed it with his blessed prefence: I know Chrift fhall yet win the day, and gain the battle in Scotland. Grace be with you. Aberdeen. March 7. 1637. Yours in his fweet Lord 32. To Mr. JAMES BRUCE, Minifter of the Gafpel. Reverend and well-beloved brother, GRace, mercy and peace be to you. Upon the nearest acquain tance, that we are Father's children, I thought good to write to you. My cafe in my bonds, for the honour of my royal Prince and King Jefus, is as good as becometh the witnefs of fuch a fove |