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Epift. 2. be forgotten. And my forrow fhall want nothing to compleat it, and to make me fay, What availeth it me to live? If ye follow the voice of a stranger, of one that cometh into the sheep fold not by Chrift the door, but climbeth up another way. If the man build his hay and ftubble upon the golden foundation, Chrift Jefus, already laid among you, and ye follow him, I affure you, the man's work fhall burn, and never bide God's fire, and ye and he both fhall be in danger of everlafting burning, except ye repent. O if any pain, any forrow, any lofs that I can fuffer for Chrift, and for you, were laid in pledge to buy Christ's love to you, and that I could lay my dearest joys next to Chrift my Lord in the gap, betwixt you and eternal deftruction! O if I had paper as

broad as heaven and earth, and ink as the fea, and all the rivers and fountains of the earth, and were able to write the love, the worth, the excellency, the fweetnefs, and due praises of our dearest and fairest Well-beloved; and then if ye could read and understand it! What could I want, if my miniftry among you fhould make a marriage between the little bride in that bounds and the Bridegroom? O how rich a prifoner were I, if I could obtain of my Lord (before whom I ftand for you) the falvation of you all! O what a prey had I gotten, to have you catched in Chrift's net! O then I had caft out my Lord's lines and his net with a rich gain! O then, well-wared pained breaft and fore back, and crazed body, in fpeaking early and late to you! My witness is above, your heaven would be two heavens to me, and the falvation of you all as two falvations to me; I would fubfcribe a fuspension, and a frifting of my heaven, for many hundred years, (according to God's good pleasure) if you were fure in the upper lodging, in our Father's houfe, before me. I take to witnefs heaven and earth against you, I take inftruments in the hands of that fun and daylight that beheld us, and in the hands of the timber and walls of that kirk, if I drew not up a fair contract of marriage betwixt you and Chrift, if I went not with offers betwixt the Bridegroom and you; and your confcience did bear you witnefs, your mouths confeffed, that there were many fair tryfts and meetings drawn on betwixt Chrift and you at communion 'feafts, and other occafions; there were bracelets, jewels, rings, and love-letters, fent to you by the Bridegroom; it was told you what a fair dowry ye fhould have, and what a houfe your husband and ye fhould dwell in, and what was the Bridegroom's excellency, fweetnefs, might, power; the eternity and glory of his kingdom, the exceeding deepnefs of his love, who fought his black wife through pain, fires, fhame, death, and the grave, and fwimmed the falt fea for her, undergoing the curfe of the law, and then was made a curse for you; and ye then confented and faid, Even fo I take him.. I counsel you, beware of the new and ftrange leaven of mens inventions, befide

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and against the word of God, contrair to the oath of this kirk, now coming among you: I inftructed you of the fuperftition and idolatry of kneeling in the inftant of receiving the Lord's fupper, and croffing in baptifm, and the obferving of mens days, without any warrant of Chrift our perfect lawgiver: countenance not the furplice, the attire of the mafs-prieft, the garment of Baal's priefts; the abominable bowing to altars of tree is coming upon you; hate, and keep yourfelves from idols: forbear in any cafe to hear the reading of the new fatherlefs fervice book, full of grofs herefies, popish and fuperftitious errors, without any warrant of Chrift, tending to the overthrow of preaching: you owe no obedience to the bastard canons; they are unlawful, blafphemous and fuperftitious: all the ceremonies that ly in the Antichrift's foul womb, the wares of that great mother of fornications, the kirk of Rome, are to be refufed; ye fee whither they lead you: continue still in the doctrine which ye have received: ye heard of me the whole counsel of God, few no clouts upon Christ's robe; take Christ in his rags and loffes, and as perfecuted by men, and be content to figh, and pant up the mountain, with Chrift's crofs on your back; let me be reputed a falfe prophet (and your confcience once faid the contrair) if your Lord Jefus fhall not ftand by you, and maintain you, and maintain your cause against your enemies. I have heard (and my foul is grieved for it) that fince my departure from you, many among you are turned back from the good old way, to the dogs vomit again; let me fpeak to these men: it was not without God's fpecial direction, that the first sentence that ever my mouth uttered to you was that of Joh. chap. ix. 39. 'And Jefus faid, For judgment came I into the world, that they which fee not might fee, and they which fee might be made blind.' It is poffible, my first meeting and yours be, when we shall both ftand before the dreadful judge of the world: and in the name and authority of the Son of God, my great King and Mafter, I write, by these presents, fummons to these men, I arreft their fouls and bodies to the day of our compearance; their eternal damnation ftands fubfcribed, and fealed in heaven, by the hand writing of the great judge of quick and dead; and I am ready to fstand up, as a preaching witness against such to their face, that day, and to fay Amen to their condemnation, except they repent. The vengeance of the gofpel is heavier nor the vengeance of the law; the Mediator's malediction and vengeance is twice vengeance, and that vengeance is the due portion of fuch men; and there I leave them as bound men, ay, and while they repent and amend. You were witnesses how the Lord's day was fpent while I was among you: O facrilegious robber of God's day, what wilt thou anfwer the Almighty, when he feeketh so many fabbaths back again from thee? What will the curfer, fwearer, and blafphemer do, when

deur of velvet kirk men; Chrift hath the yolk and heart of my love, I am my Beloved's, and my Well beloved is mine.' O that ye were all hand-fastened to Chrift! O my dearly beloved in the Lord, I would I could change my voice, and had a tongue tuned with the hand of my Lord, and had the art of speaking of Chrift, that I might paint out unto you the worth, and highnefs, and greatness, and excellency of that faireft and renowned Bridegroom! I beseech you by the mercies of the Lord, by the fighs, tears, and heart's blood of our Lord Jefus, by the falvation of your poor and precious fouls, fet up the mountain, that ye and I may meet before the Lamb's throne, amongst the congregation of the first born. Lord, grant that that may be the tryfting place, that ye and I may put up our hands together, and pluck, and eat the apples off the tree of life, and we may feaft together, and drink together of that pure river of the water of life, that cometh out from under the throne of God, and from the Lamb. O how little is your hand-breadth and fpan-length of days here! Your inch of time is less than when ye and I parted: eternity, eternity is coming, pofting on with wings; then fhall every man's blacks and whites be brought to light. O how light will your thoughts be of this fair-fkinned but heart rotten apple, the vain, vain, feckless world, when the worms fhall make their houfes in your eye-holes, and shall eat off the flesh from the ball of your cheeks, and fhall make that body a number of dry bones? Think not the common gate of ferving God, as neighbour and others do, will bring you to heaven; few, few are faved; the devil's court is thick and many; he hath the greatest number of mankind for his vaffals. I know this world is a great forest of thorns in your way to heaven; but you must through it; acquaint yourselves with the Lord, hold fast Christ, hear his voice only, bless his name, fanctify and keep his day; keep the new commandment, Love one another;' let the holy Spirit dwell in your bodies, and be clean and holy; love not the world, lie not, love and follow truth; learn to know God: keep in mind what I taught you; for God will feek an account of it, when I am far from you: abstain from all evil, and all appearance of evil; follow good carefully, and feek peace, and follow after it; honour your king, and pray for him; remember me to God in your prayers, I do not forget you. I told you often, while I was with you, and now I write it again, Heavy, fad and fore, is that stroke of the Lord's wrath that is coming upon Scotland: wo, wo, wo to this harlot land; for they fhall take the cup of God's wrath from his hand, and drink, and fpue, and fall, and not rife again. In, in, in with speed, to your ftrong hold, ye prifoners of hope, and hide you there, while the anger of the Lord pafs: follow not the paftors of this land, for the fun is gone down upon them; as the Lord liveth, they lead

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you from Chrift, and from the good old way; yet the Lord will keep the holy city, and make this withered kirk to bud again, like a rofe, and a field bleffed of the Lord. The grace of the Lord Jefus Christ be with you all. The prayers and bleffings of a prifoner of Chrift, in bonds for him, and for you, be with you all, Amen. Aberdeen, July 14, Your lawful and loving 1637. paftor,

S. R.

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3. To the Honourable, Reverend, and Well-beloved Profeffors of Chrift and his Truth in Sincerity, in IRELAND.

Early beloved in our Lord, and partakers of the heavenly calling, Grace, mercy and peace be to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord. Jefus Chrift: I always, but most of all now in my bonds, (moft fweet bonds for Chrift my Lord) rejoice to hear of your faith and love, and to hear that our King, our Well-beloved, our Bridegroom, without tiring, stayeth still to woo you, as his wife; and that perfecutions, and mockings of finners have not chafed away the wooer from the house. I perfuade you in the Lord, the men of God, now scattered and driven from you, put you upon the right fcent and purfuit of Chrift; and my falvation on it, (if ten heavens were mine) if this way, this way that I now fuffer for, this way that the world nicknameth and reproacheth, and no other way, be not the King's gate to heaven; and I fhall never fee God's face, (and, alas, I were a beguiled wretch if it were fo!) if this be not the only faving way to heaven. O that you would take a prifoner of Chrift's word for it, nay, I know you have the greateft King's word for it, that it shall not be your wisdom to fpier out another Chrift, another way of worfhipping him, than is now favingly revealed to you: Therefore, though I never faw your faces, let me be pardoned to write to you, ye honourable perfons, ye faithful paftors yet amongst the docks, and ye fincere profeffors of Chrift's truth, or any weak, tired ftrayers, who cast but half an eye after the Bridegroom, if poffibly I could, by any weak experience, confirm and strengthen you in this good way, every where (poken againft. I can with greatest affurance (to the honour of our highest, and greatest, and dearest Lord, let it be fpoken) affert (though I be but a child in Chrift, and fcarce able to walk, but by a hold, and the meaneft, and less than the leaft of faints) that we do not come nigh by twenty degrees, to the due love and eftimation of that fairest amongst the fons of men; for if it were poffible that heaven, yea, ten heavens, were laid in the ballance with Chrift, I would think the smell of his breath above them all: fure I am, he is the far best half of heaven; yea, he is all heaven, and more than all heaven: and my teftimony of him is, that ten lives of black forrow, ten

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2 deaths, ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimftone, and all exquifite torments, were all too little for Chrift, if our fuffering could be a hire to buy him; and therefore faint not in your fufferings and hazards for him. I proclaim and cry, hell, forrow, and fhame upon all lufts, upon all by-lovers, that would take Chrift's room over his head, in this little inch of love, of these narrow fouls of ours, that is due to sweetest Jefus. O highest, O fairest, O deareft Lord Jefus, take thine own from all baftard lovers. O that we could wadfet and fell all our part of time's glory, and time's good things, for a leafe and tack of Chrift for all eternity! O how are we misled and mired with the love of things that are on this fide of time, and on this fide of death's water! Where can we find a match to Chrift, or an equal, or a better than he, among created things? Oh, this world is out of all conceit, and all love with our beloved! O that I could fell my laughter, joy, eafe, and all for him! and be content of a straw bed, and bread by weight, and water by meafure, in the camp of our weeping Chrift! I know his fackcloth and ashes are better than the fool's laughter, which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. But alas! we do not harden our faces against the cold north ftorms, which blow upon Chrift's fair face; we love well fummer religion, and to be that which fin hath made us, even as thin-fkinned as if we were made of white paper, and would fain be carried to heaven in a close covered chariot, wifhing from our hearts that Chrift would give us furety, and his hand-write, and his feal for nothing but a fair fummer, until we be landed in at heaven's of us have been here deceived, and fainted in gates: many the day of trial? amongft you there are fome of this ftamp. I fhall be forry if my acquaintance A. T. hath left you; I will not believe he dare ftay from Chrift's fide. I defire that ye fhew him this from me; for I loved him once in Chrift, neither can I change my mind fuddenly of him. But the truth is, that many of you, and too many also of your neighbour church of Scotland, have been like a tenant that fitteth meal free, and knoweth not his holding while his rights be questioned: and now I am perfuaded, it will be ask. ed at every one of us, on what terms we brook Chrift for we have fitten long meal-free; we found Christ without a wet foot and he, and his gofpel, came upon fmall charges to our doors: but now we must wet our feet to feek him: our evil manners, and the bad fafhions of a people at eafe from our youth, and like Moab, not caften from veffel to veffel, Jer. 48. 11. hath made us like standing waters, to gather a foul fcum, and when we are jumbled our dregs come up, and are feen: many take but half a grip of Chrift, and the wind bloweth them and Christ asunder; indeed when the maft is broken and blown in the fea, it is an art then to fwim upon Chrift to dry land; it is even poffible that the children

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