know thou art a God bank-full Your Ladyship's in his sweet Lord Jesus, LETTER LXXI. sed crosses, in as far as they blow not call thy dispensation cruel! me over the water to my long-de- I know thou thyself art mercy, sired home and it were not good without either brim or bottom; I that Christ should be the buyer and I the seller. I know time and death shall take sufferings fairly off my hand; I hope we shall have an honest parting at night, when this cold and frosty afternoon tide of my evil and rough day shall be over; well is my soul of either sweet or sour, that Christ hath any part or portion in: if he be at the one end of it, it shall be well with me. I shall die ere I libel faults against Christ's cross; it shall have my testimonial under my hand, as an honest and saving mean of Christ for mortification and faith's growth. I have a stronger assurance, since I came over Forth, of the excellency of Jesus than I had before. I am rather about him than in him, while I am absent from him in this house of clay; but I would be in heaven for no other cause but to essay and try what boundless joy it must be to be over-head and ears in my Well-beloved Christ's love. O that fair one hath my heart for evermore! but alas, it is too little for him! O if it were better and more worthy for his sake! O if I might meet with him face to face on this side of eternity, and might have leave to plead with him, that I am so hungered, and famished here, with the niggardly portion of his love that he giveth me! O that I might be carver and steward myself, at mine own will, of Christ's love! if I may lawfully wish this, then would I enlarge my vessel (alas! a narrow and ebb soul) and take in a sea of his love. My hunger, for it is hungry and lean, in believing that ever I shall be satisfied with that love; so fain would I have what I know I cannot hold. O Lord Jesus, delightest thou, to pine and torment poor souls with the want of thy incomparable love? O if I durst To Mr. JAMES HAMILTON. Reverend and dear Brother, PEACE be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus. I am laid low, when I remember what I am, and that my outside casteth such a lustre, when I find so little within. It is a wonder that Christ's glory is not defiled, running through such an unclean and impure channel; but I see Christ will be Christ, in the dreg and refuse of men; his art, his shining wisdom, his beauty speaketh loudest in blackness, weakness, deadness, yea, in nothing. I see nothing, no money, no worth, no good, no life, no deserving, is the ground that omnipotency delighteth to draw glory out of. O how sweet is the inner-side of the walls of Christ's house, and a room beside himself! my distance from him maketh me sad. O that we were in other's arms! O that the middle things betwixt us were removed! I find it a difficult matter to keep all stots with Christ; when he laugheth I scarce believe it, I would so fain have it true. But I am like a low man looking up to a high mountain, whom weariness and fainting overcometh. I would climb up, but I find that I do not advance in my journey as I would wish; yet the fire to be half raw, like Ephraim's I trust he shall take me home against unturned cake! this is the wisdom night. I marvel not that Antichrist of him who hath his fire in Zion, and in his slaves is so busy; but our furnace in Jerusalem. I need not crowned King seeth and beholdeth, either bud or flatter temptations and and will arise for Zion's safety. I crosses, nor strive to buy the devil, am exceedingly distracted with let-or this malicious world by, or redeem ters, and company that visit me; their kindness with half a hair's what I can do, or time will permit, I breadth of truth: he, who is surety shall not omit. Excuse my brevity, for I am straitened. Remember the Lord's prisoner: I desire to be mindful of you. Grace, grace be with you. Your's in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R. Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637. LETTER LXXII. To Mr. GEORGE DUNBAR, for his servant for good, doth powerfully overrule all that. I see my prison hath neither lock nor door; I am free in my bonds, and my chains are made of rotten straw, they should not bide one pull of faith. I am sure they are in hell who would exchange their torments with our crosses, suppose they should never be delivered, and give twenty thousand years torment to boot, to be in our bonds for ever; and therefore we wrong Christ, · Reverend and dearly beloved in the Lord, who sigh, and fear, and doubt, and GRACE, mercy and peace be to you. despond in them. Our sufferings are Because your words have strength-washen in Christ's blood, as well as ened many, I was silent, expecting our souls; for Christ's merits brought some lines from you in my bonds; a blessing to the crosses of the sons and this is the cause why I wrote not to you, but now I am forced to break off and speak. I never believed, till now, that there was so much to be found in Christ, on this side of death and of heaven. O the ravishments of heavenly joy that may be had here, in the small gleanings and comforts that fall from Christ! What fools are we who know not, and consider not the weight and the telling that is in the very earnest penny, and the first fruits of our hoped for har vest! How sweet, how sweet is our infeftment! O what then must personal possession be! I find that my Lord Jesus hath not miscooked or spilt this sweet cross; he hath an eye on the fire and the melting gold, to separate the metal and the dross. O how much time would it take me to read my obligations to Jesus my Lord, who will neither have the faith of his own to be burnt to ashes, nor yet will have a poor believer in of God; and Jesus hath a back bond of all our temptations, that the freewarders shall come out by law and justice, in respect of the infinite and great sum that the Redeemer paid. Our troubles owe us a free passage through them: devils and men, and crosses are our debtors, death and all storms are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water fraught free, and to set the travellers on their own known ground: there fore we shall die, and yet live. We are over the water, someway, already: we are married, and our tocher good is paid; we are already more than conquerors. If the devil and the world knew how the court with our Lord shall go, I am sure they would hire death to take us off their hand; our sufferings are the only wreck and ruin of the black kingdom; and yet a little, and the Antichrist must play himself with bones and slain bodies of the Lamb's followers; but withal we stand with the hundred forty and [disposed, hold an honest brother out four thousand, who are with the of the pulpit; I trust, the Lord shall Lamb, upon the top of mount Zion; guard you, and hide you in the shaAntichrist and his followers are down dow of his hand; I am not pleased in the valley ground, we have the with any that are against you in that. advantage of the hill; our tempta- I see this, in prosperity men's contions are always beneath, our waters science will not start at small sins; are beneath our breath; as dying, but if some had been where I have and behold we live. I never heard been, since I came from you, a little before of a living death; or a quick more would have caused their eyes death but ours; our death is not like water, and troubled their peace. the common death; Christ's skill, his how ready are we to incline to the handy-work, and a new cast of world's hand! Our arguments, beChrist's admirable art, may be seen ing well examined, are often drawn in our quick death. I bless the from our skin, the whole skin and Lord that all our troubles come a peaceable tabernacle, is a topic through Christ's fingers, and that he maxim in great request in our logic. casteth sugar among them, and cast- I find a little breirding of God's seed eth in some ounce weights of heaven, in this town, for the which the Docand of the spirit of glory, that rest-tors have told me their mind, that eth on suffering believers, in our cup, they cannot bear with it, and have in which there is no taste of hell. examined and threatened the people My dear brother, ye know all these that haunt my company; I fear I get better than I; I send water to the not leave to winter here; and whisea, to speak of these things to you; ther I go I know not; I am ready at but it easeth me, to desire you to the Lord's call. I would I could help me to pay my tribute of praise make acquaintance with Christ's to Jesus. O what praises I owe cross, for I find comforts lye to and him! I would I were in my free follow upon the cross. I suffer in heritage, that I might begin to pay my name by them; I take it as a my debts to Jesus. I intreat for part of the crucifying of the old your prayers and praises. I forget man: let them cut the throat of my credit, and do as they like best with it: when the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me, in the way to heaven, I know Christ will take my name out of the mire and wash it, and restore it to me again. I would have a mind (if the Lord would be pleased to give me it) to be a fool Reverend and well-beloved in the Lord, for Christ's sake. Sometimes, while I BLESS the Lord, who hath so won- I have Christ in my arms, I fall aderfully stopped the on-going of that sleep in the sweetness of his presence, lawless process against you. The and he in my sleep stealeth away Lord reigneth, and hath a saving out of my arms; and when I awake, eye upon you, and your ministry; I miss him. I am much comforted and therefore fear not what men can with my Lady Pitsligo, a good wodo. I bless the Lord, that the Irish man, and acquainted with God's ministers find employment, and the ways. Grace be with you. professors comfort of their ministry. Believe me, I durst not, as I am now not you, Your brother and fellow-sufferer, Aberdeen, Sept. 17, 1637. LETTER LXXIII. To Mr. DAVID DICKSON. S. R. Your's in his sweet Lord Jesus LETTER LXXIV. is it, to see nobility, learning, and To the Honourable, my Lord LOWDON. sanctification, all concur in one! Right Honourable, For these ye owe yourself to Christ GRACE, mercy and peace be to and his kingdom: God hath be your Lordship. I rejoice exceed-wildered and bemisted the wit and ingly, that I hear your Lordship the learning of the scribes and dishath a good mind to Christ, and his puters of this time; they look asquint now borne-down truth. My very dear to the Bible: this blinding and beLord, go on, in the strength of the misting world blindfoldeth mens' Lord, to carry your honour and light, that they are afraid to see worldly glory to the new Jerusalem. straight out before them; nay, For this cause your Lordship re- their very light playeth the knave, ceived these of the Lord; this is a or worse, to truth. Your Lordship sure way for the establishment of knoweth, within a little while policy your house, if ye be of these, who against truth will blush, and the are willing in your place to build works of men shall burn up, even Zion's old waste places in Scotland. their spider's-web, who spin out Your Lordship wanteth not God's many hundred ells and webs of and man's law both, now to come indifferences in the Lord's worship, to the streets for Christ: and sup- more than ever Moses, who would pose the bastard laws of man were have an hoof material, and Daniel, against you, it is an honest and who would have a look out at a zealous error, if here ye slip against window, a matter of life and death, a point or punctilio of standing policy: when your foot slippeth in such known ground, as is the royal prerogative of our high and most truly dread Sovereign, who hath many crowns on his head, and the liberties of his house, he will hold you up. Blessed shall they be, who take Babel's litttle ones, and dash their heads against the stones: I wish your Lordship have a share of that blessing, with other worthy nobles in our land. It is true, it is now accounted wisdom for men to be partners in pulling up the stakes, and loosing the cords of the tent of Christ: but I am persuaded, that wisdom is cried down in heaven, and shall never pass for true wisdom with the Lord, whose word crieth shame upon wit against Christ and truth: and accordingly, it shall garment: do we not see it already prove shame and confusion of face in the end. Our Lord hath given your Lordship light of a better stamp, and learning also, wherein ye are not behind the disputer and the scribe. O what a blessed thing than ever, I say, these men of God dreamed of. Alas, that men dare shape, carve, cut, and clip our King's princely testament in length and breadth, and in all dimensions, answerable to the conception of such policy as a head of wit thinketh a safe and trim way of serving of God! how have men forgotten the Lord, that they dare go against even that truth, which once they preached themselves, howbeit their sermons now be as thin sown as straw-berries in a wood or wilderness? certainly the sweetest and safest course is, for this short time of the afternoon of this old and declining world, to stand for Jesus; he hath said it, and it is our part to believe it, that ere it be long, time shall be no more, and the heaven shall wax old as a an old, holey and thread-bare garment? Doth not cripple and lame nature tell us, that the Lord will fold up the old garment and lay it aside: and the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll, and this pest-house shall be burnt with fire, | chosen the best side, even the side and that both plenishing and walls that victory is upon; and I think shall melt with fervent heat? for at this is no evil policy. Verily, for the Lord's coming, he will do with myself, I am so well pleased with this earth, as men do with a leper-Christ, and his noble and honest house; he will burn the walls with born cross, this cross that is come of fire, and the plenishing of the house Christ's house, and is of kin to himalso, 2 Peter iii. 10, 12. My dear self, that I should weep, if it should lord, how shall ye rejoice in that come to niffering and bartering of day, to have Christ, angels, heaven, lots and condition with those that and your own conscience to smile are at ease in Zion; I hold still my upon you? I am persuaded, one choice, and bless myself in it. I see, sick night, through the terrors of and I believe, there is salvation in the Almighty, would make men, this way, that is every where spoken whose conscience hath such a wide against I hope to go to eternity, throat as an image like a cathedral and to venture on the last evil church would go down it, have other to the saints, even upon death, thoughts of Christ and his worship, fully persuaded that this only, even than now they please themselves this, is the saving way for rackwith. The scarcity of faith in the earth ed consciences, and for weary and saith, We are hard upon the last nick loaden sinners, to find ease and of time: blessed are those who keep peace for evermore into, and indeed their garments clean against the it is not for any worldly respect that Bridegroom's coming. There shall I speak so of it: the weather is not be spotted clothes, and many defiled so hot, that I have great cause to garments, at his last coming; and startle in my prison, or to boast of therefore, few found worthy to walk that entertainment that my good with him in white, I am persuaded, friends, the prelates, intend for me, my Lord, this poor travailing wo- which is banishment, if they shall man, our pained church, is with obtain their desire, and effectuate child of victory, and shall bring forth what they design; but let it come, a man child all lovely and glorious, I rue not that I made Christ my that shall be caught up to God and waile and my choice; I think him his throne, howbeit the dragon, in ay the longer the better. My Lord, his followers, be attending the child-it shall be good service to God, to birth pain, as an Egyptian midwife, to recieve the birth and strangle it, Isa. xxix. 8. But they shall be disappointed who thirst for the destruction of Zion; they shall be as when a hungry man dreamneth that he eateth; but behold he awaketh, and his soul is empty; or when a thirsty man dreameth that he drinketh; but behold he awaketh, and is faint, and his soul is not satisfied: so shall it be, I say, with the multitude of all the nations that GRACE, mercy and peace be to you. fight against mount Zion. There- I can do no more but thank you on fore the weak and feeble, those that paper, and rememher you to him are as signs and wonders in Israel, have whom I serve, for kindness and care hold your noble friend and chief Your Lordship's in his sweet Lord Jesus, LETTER LXXV. To the Laird of GAITGIRTH. |