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PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY
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FROM
THE LIBRARY
OF THE
REVEREND
JOHN ALEXANDER MACKAY
LITT.D., D.D., LL.D.,
L.H.D.
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LETTERS
REY. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.
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LETTERS
REV. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD,
PRINCIPAL AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AT ST. ANDREWS,
1639-1661.
Carefully Eebiseti ant( (Bttitttt
REV. THOMAS SMITH, D.D.
[itfj a Preface bg tl^e
REV. ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D. LL.D.
COMPLETE EDITION.
0ti Of mPicaS;
JAN 22 1990
A
^lOGiOPl S£^^^^
EDINBURGH & LONDON
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER
PRINTED BY
MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
FOR
OLIPHANT, ANDERSON, & FERRIER.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Pkeface by Rkv. Alex. Duff,
D.D.,LL.D. ... 1
Introduction by Rev. Thos,
Smith, D.D. ... 21
Woodrow's Account of Ruther-
ford's Life and Character . 23
Last Words of Mr. Rutherford 25
Mr. Rutherford's Testimony to
the Covenanted Work of Re-
formation . . . . 32
Part First.
Letters —
1. To Mr. Rob. Cunynghame 41
2. To his Parishioners . . 43
3. To the Professors of Christ
and His Truth in Ireland 49
4. To Viscountess of Kenmure 55
5. Do. do. . 57
6. Do. do. . 58
7. Do. do. . 61
8. Do, do. . 61
9. Do. do. . 63
10. Do. do. . 64
11. To Lady Kenmure . 65
12. Do. . . 66
13. Do. . . 68
14. To Mr. Jn. Gordon, elder 69
15. To Lady Boyd . . 73
16. To Mr. Alex. Henderson . 74
17. To Lord Lowdon . . 75
18. To Mr. Wm. Dalglish . 77
19. To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill . 78
20. To Lady Boyd. . . 79
21. To Mr. David Dickson . 81
22. To Mr. Matthew Mowat . 82
23. To Mr. William HaUiday 84
24. To a Gentlewoman . . 85
25. To Mr. J. Gordon, younger 86
Letters —
26. To Mr. J. Gordon, elder
27. To Earlstnuii, younger
28. To Mr. Alex. Gordon
29. To Lady Kilconquhair
30. To Lady Forret
31. To Lady Kaskilberry
To Mr. James Bruce
To Lady Earlstoun .
To Carletoun .
To Marion M'Naught
To Mr. John Gordon
To Lady Halhill
To Lord Lindsay
39. To Lord Boyd .
40. To Lady Boyd .
41. To Lady Culross
42. To the Earl of Cassillis
43. To Mr. John Osburn
44. To Mr. Robert Gordon
45. To Mr. John Kennedy
46. Do. do.
47. To Margaret Ballantine
48. To Jonet Kennedy .
49. To Margaret Reid .
To Mr. James Bautie
To Mr. John Stuart
Do. do.
Do. do.
To Lady Busby
To Ninian Mure
To Mr. Thomas Garven
57. To Jean Brown
58. To Jean M'MiUan .
To Lady Busby
To Mr. William Riggie
To Mr. Fulk Elies .
To Mr. James Lindsay
To the Earl of Cassillis
64. To Laily Largirie
Pack
87
88
91
94
97
98
98
99
100
103
105
106
107
110
112
114
117
118
118
119
122
123
125
126
127
131
134
135
138
139
139
141
142
143
144
146
143
151
153
VI
CONTKNTS.
L ■TTEI'I -
65. To
66. To
67. To
68. To
69. To
70. To
71. To
72. To
73. To
74. To
75. To
76. To
77. To
78. To
79. To
80. To
81. To
82. To
83. To
84. To
85. To
86. To
87. To
88. To
89. To
90. To
91. To
92. To
93. To
94. To
95. To
96. To
97. To
98. To
99. To
100. To
101. To
102. To
103. To
104. To
105. To
106. To
107. To
108. To
109. To
110. To
111. To
112. To
113. To
114. To
115. To
116. To
117. To
118. To
119. To
I.ady Dun5;iieigh
Jonet M'Culldch
Lord Craighall .
IMr. William Riggie
Lady Kilcnnqtihair
Lady Craighall .
Mr. James Hamilton
Mr. George Dunbar
Mr. David Dickson
Ijord Lowdon .
the Laird of Gaitgirth
Lady Gaitgirth
Mr. George Gillespie
Mr. Matthew Mowat
Mr. John Meine
Mr. John Fleeming
Mr. Alex. Gordon
Mr. Robert Lennox
Marion M'Naught
Mr. Thomas Corbet
Mr. Alex. Gordon
Mr. Robert Gordon
Mr. Robert Blair
Mr. John Kennedy
Elizabeth Kennedy
Jniiet Kennedy
Mr. David Dickson
Mr. William Riggie
Mr. John Ewart
Mr. Wm. FuUerton
Mr. Alex. ColviU
Earlstown
Mr. Rob. Glendining
Mr. Wm. Glendining
Jean Brown
Mr. John Fergushill .
INIr. Robert Douglass
Mr. John Henderson
Mr. Hugh Henderson
Lady Robertland
the Earl of Cassillis
Lady Rowallan
Mr. Robert Gordon
Lord Balmerino
Mr. Alex. Gordon
Lady Mar, younger
Mr. James M'Adam
Mr. Wm. Livingstone
Mr. Wm. Gordon
Mr. George Gillespie
Mr. John Meine
]\Ir. Thomas Garven
Bethaia Aird .
Mr. Alex. Gordon
Mr. John Fleemin
Paoe
154
If. 5
156
157
157
158
160
160
162
163
165
166
167
168
170
170
171
173
174
175
175
177
179
181
183
185
187
188
189
190
191
192
194
195
195
196
197
19S
199
199
201
203
204
206
207
208
209
210
210
212
212
213
214
215
216
Letters— Paoe
120. To Mr. Robert Gordon . 218
121. To Mr. Alex. Gordon . 221
122. To Mr. .lohn Nevay . 223
123. To Mr. J. R. . . . 226
124. To Mr. Wm. Dalgleish . 227
125. To Marion M'Naught . 230
126. To Mr. -John Gordon . 232
127. To Mr. Hugh Henderson 233
128. To Lady Largirie . . 235
129. To Earlstown, younger . 236
130. To j\Ir. Wm. Dalgleish . 238
131. To the Laird of Gaily . 239
132. To Mr. J. Gordon, younger 241
133. To Lord Boyd . . 243
134. To Mr. Robert Gordon . 245
135. To Mr. Alex. Gordon . 246
1 36. To Mr. John Lawrie . 249
137. To Mr. James Fleming . 250
138. To Mr. John Meine . 253
139. To Cardonness, elder . 253
140. To the Earl of Lothian . 256
141. To Jean Brown . . 258
142. To Mr. Robert Stuart . 260
143. To Lady Gaitgirth . 262
144. To Mr. John Fergushill. 263
145. To Mr. John Stuart . 266
146. ToCarsluth ... 268
147. To Cassincarrie . . 270
148. To his parishioners at Anwoth 272
149. To Lady Cardonness . 274
150. To Sibilla M'Adam . 276
151. To the Laird of Cally . 277
152. To Mr. Wm. Gordon . 278
153. To Margaret Fullerton . 280
154. To Mr. Wm. Glendinning 281
155. To Mr. Robert Lennox . 283
156. To Mr. John Fleming . 284
157. To Mr. Wm. Glendinning 285
158. To Mr. Robert Gordon . 286
159. To Earlstown, younger . 286
160. To Mr. John Gordon . 287
161. To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill , 289
162. To Mr. James Murray . 290
163. To Mr. John Fleming . 291
164. To Earlstown, elder . 291
165. To Mr. John Fergushill . 292
166. To Mr. Wm. Glendinning 295
167. To Lady Culross . . 296
168. To Lady Cardoness . 298
169. To Janet M'Culloch , 299
170. To Lord Craighall . . 299
1 7 i. To Mr. Robert Blair . 301
172. To Lady Carleton . . 302
173. To Lord Craighall . . 304
174. To Jean Gordon . . 306
CONTENTS.
Vll
Letters-
Page
Letters —
P*r;K
its. To Grissal Fullerton
307
13.
To Lady Kenmure .
391
176. To Mr. Patrick Carsen
307
14.
Do. do.
393
177. To Mr. John Carsen
308
15.
Do. do.
395
178. To Lady Boyd
308
16.
Do. do.
396
179. To Lady Cardoness, elder 310
17.
Do. do.
398
180. To Mr. James Hamilton
312
18.
Do. do.
399
181. To Mrs. Stuart
313
19.
Do. do.
401
182. To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill
315
20.
Do. do.
403
183. To Mr. Alex. Gordon
317
21.
Do. du.
404
184. To Mr. John Bell, elder
318
22.
Do. do.
404
185. To Mr. William Gordon
319
23!
Do. du.
406
186. To Lady Boyd
321
24.
To Earlestown, elder
407
187. To Mr. Thomas Garven
323
25.
To Viscountess of Kenmure 409
188. To the Laird of Moncrie
fe 323
26.
To PersecutedChurch in Ireland 411
189. To Mr. John Clark
325
27.
To Dr. Alex. Leighton
417
190. To Cardonness, elder
326
28.
To Mr. Henry Stuart
419
191. To Cardonness, younger
329
29.
To Mrs. Pont .
424
192. To Carletown
331
30.
To Mr. James Wilson
426
193. To Lady Busbie .
332
31.
To Lady Boyd
429
194. To Fulwood, younger
334
32.
To Mr. John Fenwick
431
195. To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill
335
33.
To Mr. Peter Stirling
435
196. To Mr. David Dickson
336
34.
To Lady Fingask
436
197. To Mr. John Livingstone 337
35.
To Mr. David Dickson
438
198. To Mr. Ephraim Mtlvin
339
36.
To Lady Boyd
439
199. To a Gentlewoman
339
37.
To Agnes M'Math .
442
200. To Mr. John Nevay
341
38.
To Mr. Matthew ]\lowat
443
201. To the Lady Boyd.
342
39.
To Lady Kenmure .
444
202. To Mr. Alexander Colvill 343
40.
To Mr.s. Taylor
445
203. To Mr. John Row .
344
41.
To Barbara Hamilton
447
204. To the Lady Cukoss
345
42.
To Mrs. Hume
449
205. To Mr. Alexander Gordon 347
43.
To Barbara Hamilton
450
206. To the Laird of Carletown 349
44.
To Viscountess of Kenmu
•e 451
207. To Mr. Robert Gordon
350
45.
To a Christian Friend
452
208. To the Lord Craighall
352
46.
To a Christian Brother
453
209. Do. Do.
353
47.
To a Christian Gentleuon
an 454
210. To the Lady Cukoss
356
48.
To Lady Kenmure .
457
211. To Mr. Alex. Gordon
357
49.
To Mr. J. G. .
458
212. To Mr. Robert Gordon
358
50.
To Lady Kenmure .
459
213. To the Lord Lowdon
358
51.
To Lady Ardi-oss
460
214. To a Christian Gentle wo
nan 360
52.
To M. 0.
461
53.
To Earlstown, elder.
463
Part Second.
54.
To Mr. George Gillespie
464
55.
To Mrs. Gillespie
465
1. To Viscountess of Kenmu
re 363
56.
To Colonel G. Ker .
467
2. To Parishioners of Kilmac
olm 365
57.
Do. do.
468
3. To a Christian Gentlewoa
an 371
58.
Do. do.
469
4. To Lady Kenmure .
373
59.
Do. do.
470
5. Do. do.
375
60.
Do. do.
471
6. To Mr. John Kennedy
376
61.
Do. do.
473
7. To Lady Kenmure .
379
62.
To Lady Kenmure .
477
8. Do. do.
381
63.
Do. do.
478
9. Do. do.
383
64.
Do. do.
478
10. Do. do.
385
65.
Do. do.
479
11. Do. do.
387
66.
Do. do.
480
12. Do. do.
389
67.
Do. do.
4i;0
VIU
CONTENTS.
Letters —
68.
To Lady Kenmure .
69.
To his Reverend Brethren
70.
To Mr.
Robert Campbell .
Part Third.
1.
To Marion M'Nau^ht
2.
Do.
do.
3.
Do.
do.
4.
Do.
do.
5.
Do.
do.
6.
Do.
do.
7.
Do.
do.
8.
Do.
do.
9.
Do.
do.
10.
Do.
do.
11.
Do.
do.
12.
Do.
do.
13.
Do.
do.
14.
Do.
do.
15.
Do.
do.
16.
Do.
do.
17.
Do.
do.
18.
Do.
do.
19.
Do.
do.
20.
Do.
do.
21.
Do.
do.
22.
Do.
do.
23.
Do.
do.
24.
Do.
do.
25.
Do.
do.
26.
Do.
do.
27.
Do.
do.
28.
Do.
do.
29.
Do.
do.
30.
Do.
do.
31.
Do.
do.
32.
Do.
do.
33.
Do.
do.
34.
Do.
do.
35.
Do.
do.
36.
Do.
do.
37.
Do.
do.
38.
Do.
do.
39.
Do.
do.
40.
Do.
do.
Page
481
483
484
486
486
487
490
491
492
494
494
497
499
499
501
501
503
505
505
507
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
515
516
517
518
519
519
520
521
523
523
526
527
528
528
529
530
Letters—
Page
41.
To Marion M'Naught
532
42.
Do. do.
532
43.
Do. do.
533
44.
To Grissel Fullerton
533
45.
To a Gentlewoman .
534
46.
To Mr. Wm. Fullerton .
534
47.
To Viscountess Kenmure .
535
is.
Do. do.
537
49.
To Lady Boyd
539
50.
To Mr. John Henderson .
540
51.
To Mr. Jas. Murray's Wife
540
52.
To Viscountess Kenmure .
541
53.
To Lady Boyd
542
54.
To Lady Kenmure
543
55.
Do. do.
544
56.
To Colonel G. Ker
545
57.
To Mr. John Scot
548
58.
Do. do.
548
59.
Do. do.
548
60.
Do. do.
.'549
61.
To Mr. James Durham .
549
62.
Mr. Rutherford's Judgment
on Petitioning His Maj-
esty ....
550
63.
Mr. Rutherford's Judgment
of a Minute of Petition .
551
64.
To Viscountess of Kenmure
554
65.
To Mrs. Craig .
555
66.
To Mr. Wm. Guthrie
556
67.
To Mr. Jas. Guthrie
557
68.
To Aberdeen .
Part Fourth.
558
1.
To a Minister in Glasgow
562
2.
To a Person unknown
564
3.
To Sir James Stewart
565
4.
To Earl Balcarras
565
5.
To Lady Ralston
566
6.
To Mr. Thomas Wylie .
568
7.
To Colonel Gilbert Ker .
569
8.
To the Presbytery of Kirk-
cudbright
570
9.
To Mr. John Murray
571
10.
To the same
•
571
Last Words of Samuel Rutherford,
573
PREFACE.
The story of the life of Samuel Eutlierford is so generally
known, that, in a mere Preface like the present, the briefest
reference to its leading facts must suffice.
In the year 1600, he was born in the village of Nisbet,
county of Eoxburgh. He entered, as a student, the
University of Edinburgh in 1617; took his degree of
Master of Arts in 1621 ; was elected, because of his
"eminent abilities of mind and virtuous dispositions,"
Regent or Professor of Humanity in 1623 ; and settled as
Pastor of the parish of Anwoth, Stewartry of Kirkcud-
bright, in 1627.
By his powerful, persuasive, heart-melting eloquence in
the pulpit ; by his assiduous attentions in visiting the
sick, catechising the members of his flock, and instructing
them from house to house, as well as by his zealous and
unremitting labours in the surrounding districts, he soon
came to be revered and beloved as a spiritual father, not
only by his own parish but by the whole county of
Galloway.
But this happy and fruitful pastoral relationship was
doomed to experience a violent rupture. Sydserff, Bishop
of Brechin, a man of lax Arminianism in doctrine, and of
fierce and fiery intolerance in practice, having been ap-
2 PKEFACE.
pointed to the See of Galloway, he erected a High Com-
mission Court for his own diocese. Before this unscrupu-
lous tribunal, in 1636, Rutherford was summoned and
charged with the grave offence of preaching against Ar-
minianism and the recently ordained ceremonies of public
worship. Being convicted of the charge, he was deprived
of his parochial oflfice, sternly prohibited from speaking in
public, and sentenced strictly to confine himself, before the
20th August, as a State prisoner, during the King's pleasure,
within the town of Aberdeen. The sentence, having been
duly confirmed by the Supreme Court at Edinburgh, he
had no option but to leave forthwith, amid the lamenta-
tions and bitter wailings of thousands of attached friends,
and shut himself up, as a silenced minister, with ungenial
and scowling associates in the grand fortress and bulwark
of Arminianism and Eitualism in the North. There, as
might be anticipated, he was speedily and even furiously
assailed, from the pulpit and the desk, by "the learned
doctors," or champions of heterodoxy and prelacy. But,
though peremptorily forbidden to open his lips- in public,
his saintly walk and godly edifying converse in private
gradually gained him many earnest affectionate friends,
who learned to hail his enforced presence amongst them as
they would that of an angel visitant from the upper world.
While his tongue was thus bound, and his person sub-
jected to virtual imprisonment, his pen was free and all
a-glow with the touch of a live coal from the heavenly
altar; so that tlie winged words, fraught with seraphic
ardour, which emanated therefrom, soon converted his
humble writing-table into, perhaps, the most effective and
most widely resounding pulpit then in old Christendom.
Thus signally were the sinister designs of a remorseless
despotism, civil and religious, not only defeated, but turned
PREFACE. 3
into an occasion of glorious triumph to the persecuted
cause of truth and righteousness. And so has it ever been
under the government of an all-wise, all-gracious God.
As from the Mamertine dungeons of pagan Eome proceeded
some of Paul's weightiest epistles, now transferred, as food
and regalement for hungry and thirsty souls, into almost
all languages under heaven ; as from Bunyan's " Den " in
Bedford jail proceeded the most admired of allegories,
which, for two centuries, has fed, cheered, and refreshed
myriads of God's redeemed ones in all lands ; — so, from
Eutherford's cold and icy prison-house in Aberdeen, pro-
ceeded those matchless Letters, glowing with celestial fire,
which, for generations, with undiminished, or rather ever-
augmenting power, have rekindled and fanned the flame of
a burning devotion in the breasts of multitudes, alike in
the old world and the new. Such, and so conspicuous
have always been the over-rulings of the wonder-working
providence of Him, who, in His own good time and way*
will always " destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent."
Of the truth of all this a fresh and notable illustration
was now close at hand. The vaulting ambition of the
prelatic party in Church and State had overleaped itself.
Early in 1638, the extreme and exasperating measures of
Charles and Laud had thrown all Scotland into a state of
violent commotion. Society, through all its ranks and
grades, from the lowest to the highest, seemed to be in the
birth-throes of revolutionary reaction. The tumultuary
movements, thence resulting, having eventuated in the
downfall of Prelacy and Erastianism, Eutherford quietly,
and without any molestation, returned to Anwoth. Towards
the close of the year, he was sent as a delegate to the
memorable General Assembly, which met in Glasgow, and
4 PREFACE.
consummated the ecclesiastical revolution, under the pre-
sidency of the celebrated Alexander Henderson. By the
Commission of that Assembly he was, to the overwhelming
grief and sorrow of his friends in the south, appointed, in
the following year, Professor of Divinity in the New
College, St. Andrews. There, we are told, did " God so
singularly second his indefatigable pains, both in teaching
and preaching, that the University " (which had degener-
ated into a very nursery of error in doctrine and super-
stition in worship), " forthwith became a Lebanon, out of
which were taken cedars for building the house of God
throughout the land."
In 1643, he was deputed by the General Assembly of
the Church of Scotland, as one of its commissioners, to the
famous Westminster Assembly. His attendance on the
sittings and deliberations of that convocation knew no
intermission till its labours were brought to a final close ;
and the services which he was enabled to render in the
preparation of the Confession of Faith, the Larger and
Shorter Catechisms, and other subordinate standards, were,
by the concurrent judgment of all parties, regarded as of
pre-eminent importance.
Eeturning to St. Andrews, in 1647, to resume his former
duties as Professor of Divinity in the New College, he was,
in 1649, appointed its Principal. Before this time, he had
published several works, alike controversial and practical ;
— the former distinguished by erudition and research, in-
tellectual acumen and argumentative force ; and the latter
by a profound experimental knowledge of the workings of
Divine grace in the soul, and the varied experiences of a
life of faitli in the Son of God, as the grand propitiatory
sacrifice for the sins of a guilty world. By some of these,
his fame as a learned theologian had become so widely
PREFACE. O
known that he was earnestly solicited to occupy the Chair
of Divinity and Hebrew in the University of Hardewyrk
in Holland, as also the chair of Divinity in the University
of Utrecht, But these, and other similar calls, he felt it to
be his duty, though with warmest expressions of gratitude to
the parties who sought to honour him, respectfully to de-
cline. His own church appeared to him to be entering
on a new sea of troubles ; and he magnanimously resolved,
at all hazards, to abide unflinchingly by her, in the hour
of her coming trial and sore travail.
For years the old struggle, now renewed, was unceas-
ingly and bravely maintained with false or dubious friends
within, and avowed enemies without. At length the
strangely-prolonged crisis of alternating hope and despond-
ency precipitated itself into the catastrophe which followed
the Kestoration of 1660, when the ecclesiastical fabric,
which had been reared and consolidated through more than
twenty years of weary toil, anxiety, and suffering, was
suddenly shattered into fragments. As the foremost and
most eminent of its surviving master-builders, the blow
fell swiftly and stunningly on Kutherford. His great
work, entitled "Lex Rex" in which he. anticipated and
fearlessly advocated some of the more advanced principles
of the enlightened political science of recent times, was
publicly burnt, with every mark of ignominy and scorn,
at the cross of Edinburgh. The same degrading ceremony
was repeated by the unprincipled renegade. Archbishop
Sharpe, beneath the Principal's windows in St. Andrews.
He was, at the same time, relentlessly deprived of his
offices in the college, with their accompanying emoluments,
himself confined to his own house, and summoned to appear
before the next Parliament, on a charge of high treason.
Having been long suffering from ill health when the
b PREFACE.
harsh and unfeeling summons reached him, his affecting
reply to the messenger was, "Tell them I have got a
summons already, before a superior Court and Judicatory,
and I behoove to answer my first summons ; and, ere your
day arrive, I shall be where few kings and great folks
come." And so it happened. Had he been spared to
appear before Parliament, there can be little doubt that he
was destined to die the martyr's cruel death. But, before
Parliament met, he was, as he joyously anticipated, far
beyond the grasp of all earthly tyrants. As his end ap-
proached, he seemed, at times, as if enravished with bright
visions of the King in His beauty, and the incomparable
splendours of the celestial city. " I shall shine," said he;
" I shall see Him as He is ; I shall see Him reign, and all
His fair company with Him, and I shall have my share ;
mine eyes shall see my Eedeemer, these very eyes of mine,
and none for nie." At last, on the morning of the 20 th
March 1661, in the sixty-first year of his age, he gently,
sweetly, peacefully fell asleep in Jesus, with the seraphic
utterance on his lips, "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's
land."
Coming now to the Letters, with which we have more
immediately to do, they are 362 in number, written during
various periods of Rutherford's eventful life. The earliest
is dated Anwoth, June 6, 1627, about the time of his first
settlement there; and the latest, addressed to his "Reverend
and dear Brother, Christ's soldier in bonds, Mr. James
Guthrie," one of Scotland's noblest martyrs, is dated St.
Andrews, 15th Feb. 1661, about three weeks before his
own death. The major portion of them, however, and by
far the weightiest, in number 220, were written during his
year and a-half 's imprisonment in what had proved to him
" Christ's Palace," in Aberdeen.
>
PEEFACE. 7
It is worthy of special note that not one of these Letters
was published during his own life-time. They were all of
them posthumous productions, suggested by passing events,
private or public ; ordinarily couched in easy and familiar
language, but often rising into strains of heavenly gran-
deur, and intended exclusively for the benefit of the par-
ties directly concerned. They were never, therefore,
designed by their author for publication, and were never
subjected to any revision or correction at his own hands.
This fact ought to be sufficient to account for occasional
blemishes or defects in style, and occasional repetitions in
the subject-matter ; but, on the whole, considering the
inartificial way in which most of them were composed,
and how they were usually written currente calamo, it is
quite marvellous how few these blemishes or defects really
are, and how little there is of mere tautology or verbal
repetition.
The first edition of them, published about three years
after his death, consisted of a collection compiled, somehow
or other, by Mr. M'Ward, who had been a favourite student
of his, and had acted as his private secretary at the West-
minster Assembly. He afterwards became the settled
pastor of a congregation in Eotterdam, and there, under his
supervision, the first collection of the Letters was printed.
In subsequent editions other letters were added, appar-
ently as they happened to reach the editor ; and hence, it
may be presumed, the observable want of chronological
arrangement. But the subjects treated of are so indepen-
dent in their nature, that chronological order would not
tend to throw any material light on their meaning and
general bearing.
This leads us naturally to remark that these subjects are
of an exceedingly multifarious and miscellaneous charac-
O PREFACE,
ter, — embracing almost every conceivable topic of a prac-
tical kind within the whole range of personal, domestic,
social, congregational, and ecclesiastical experience, and
calling forth reflections, counsels, admonitions, warnings,
comforts, and consolations, fraught with sagest wisdom,
discriminating judgment, unfaltering faithfulness, and
sympathetic tenderness and love, often expressed in lan-
guage of rarest beauty, epigrammatic point, and sententious
terseness.
Some of the subjects thus edifyingly dealt with are such
as the following : — The total depravity and corruption of
human nature, with lamentations over his own felt guilti-
ness and total unworthiness ; the nature and necessity of
regeneration and sanctification ; free grace, its resplendent
glory, means, workings, and final triumphant issue; the
utter emptiness and vanity of the world, with all its
pomps and shows, splendours and possessions, honours,
riches, and proffered rewards ; the security of God's believ-
ing people amid all surrounding dangers ; God's deep and
unsearchable providence in His dealings with individuals
and nations ; the sins, errors, and abounding evils of the
day, — declension, defection, decay, spiritual sloth, spiritual
deadness, unfaithfulness to light, worldly compromise, and
Christ-dishonouring compliances, backsliding and carnal
security; the Church's troubles, contendings, desolations,
trials, prospects, and hopes; Christ's sole and supreme
Headship over it; the manifest unscripturalness of the
intrusion of ministers or hirelings, and the duty of a regular
observance of public ordinances ; the peculiar perils of the
young, and the paramount importance of early decision and
dedication to Christ ; the right training of children, and
sympathy with parents on their illness and death ; visita-
tions of sickness, and the loss of beloved friends ; the uses
PREFACE. 9
and benefits of afflictions, bereavements, crosses, sufferings,
reproaches, and temptations ; patience and forbearance
under private and public wrongs ; comforts and encourage-
ments under inward spiritual conflicts, as well as the out-
ward trials and troubles of life ; the necessity of constant,
fervent prayer, watchfulness and self-denial, perseverance
and diligence in making our calling and election sure,
circumspect walking with God, constancy, firmness, and
stedfastness in the unwavering maintenance of God's truth ;
— with entrancing portraitures of the glories of the Beatific
vision, and the hosannahs that for ever fill the eternal
regions.
But enough ! Here is a list of topics, full of deepest
practical interest, selected very much at random from the
great mass. But no enumeration of topics, however
interesting, can give any possible conception of the fre-
quent point and pith, richness and raciness, originality
and novelty, skill and felicity, beauty and grandeur of his
modes of treating them. Of all this, it were easy to
supply abundance of confirmatory and illustrative exam-
ples. And were we writing an article for a Keview or
ordinary Magazine, this is exactly what we would deem it a
duty to do. But writing what is meant only for a humble
Preface to the great work itself, where all is spread out be-
fore the reader with the profusion and magnificence of a
richly replenished paradise, any attempt of the sort would
be a work of simple, absolute supererogation. Our earnest
invitation, therefore, to the reader is, — come and see, come
and handle, come and taste, come and partake for yourself
of this soul-satisfying, soul-exhilarating banquet of hea-
venly dainties. And what will add immeasurably to
your enjoyment of it is, that it is fragrant throughout
with the felt presence and power of Him, whose very
10 PREFACI-.
name of Jesus has music in it for the believer's ear
sweeter far than all the rarest melodies of earth, and
manna for the spiritual appetite more refreshing far than
the costliest products of tropical climes. It is this
predominant, all-pervading quality which gives these
Letters their 'peculiar zest and relish for awakened,
quickened souls, that have their hearts surcharged with
divine love, and their eyes full of divine glory.
The Apostle Paul, who profited in the Jews' religion,
and excelled in Eabbinical lore beyond most others, tells
us that when the Son of God was revealed in him, he
counted all his previously coveted attainments as loss and
refuse " for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus
Christ, his Lord and Saviour." In a similar spirit, one of
the most learned of the fathers, who was greatly dis-
tinguished for his knowledge of Grecian literature and
philosophy, when he came to the saving knowledge of
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, tells us that the only
value he then set on his accumulated and highly prized,
or even idolized, learning was, that he had something of
surpassing excellence in the estimation of the world,
which he could now honestly account as literally nothing
in comparison of Christ. So it was with holy Eutherford.
He was a man of extensive and varied learning, classical
and theological, of sound judgment and lively imagination.
But all his intellectual and literary acquisitions of every
kind and degree he came to regard as emptiness and chaff
when weighed in the balance with the preciousness of his /'
experimental converse and acquaintance with Christ, as ! ^
his " Shepherd, Husband, Friend ; his Prophet, Priest, \ N;^
and King ; his Lord, his Life, his Way, his End ;" his
" Chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." It is
the incessant reiteration of this leading thought in every ^
PREFACE. 11
imaginable variety of form and drapery of expression that
gives all their fascination and undefinable charm to his
Letters, and renders them so wholly unique, as epistolary
effusions, in their general style and substance. In them,
not the mere abstract doctrine of Christ, but the living
person of Christ, in all His offices and endearing relation-
ships, is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last,
the Beginning, Middle, and End of all longing and desire,
of all motive and impulse, of all duty and obligation, of
all homage and worship, of all glory and praise. He is
the supreme Central Source of spiritual light and life and
warmth to the redeemed soul, in its endlessly varying
moods and phases, as surely as the sun in the firmament
is the supreme central source of natural light and life and
warmth to the world of animal, vegetable, and mineral
forms which we inhabit. Hence the frequency and
ecstatic rapture with which he expatiates on Christ's
inexhaustible all-sufficiency ; His unchangeable and in-
finite fulness ; His ineffable beauty and excellence ; His
untold and unparalleled preciousness ; His incomparable
loveliness ; and the everlastingness, faithfulness, and
surpassing greatness of His love. Hence the intense and
burning desires, longings, thirstings, pantings, yearnings
after closer communion with Him, and rapt enjoyment of
Him — imparadised, as it were, in His embrace, as the
soul's Only and Well-Beloved. And hence the effusive
declarations as to the unspeakable sweetness even of His
cross, the heart-felt blessedness of suffering for Him, the
superabounding manifestations of His love amid the
fieriest furnaces of affliction, and the fiercest ragings of
malignant foes. What more need be said ? Throughout /
these Letters, Christ is here, Christ is there, Christ is f
everywhere. In a word, Christ, living and reigning and
1 2 PEEFACE,
indwelling, is their All in all. Take Christ out of them,
and instead of being what they are now, a perfect paradise
of richest gems, loveliest flowers, and mellowest fruits of
heavenly culture and growth, they would be found a
wilderness as sterile as that which borders on the Asphal-
tic pool. The land of promise without its overflowings of
milk and honey ; the plain of Sharon, without its roses
exhaling their sweetest fragrance; the vales of Carmel,
without their snow-white lilies arrayed in beauty and
loveliness exceeding that of Solomon in all his glory ;
Lebanon, without its cedars towering in stateliest majesty
above the clouds, and exultantly kissing the skies, — would
all of them present spectacles not approximating by a
thousandfold, in dreariness and desolation, the spectacle
which would be presented by these Letters without Christ
in all the transcendency of His countless and peerless
excellencies.
To attempt to illustrate anything of all this by furnishing
apposite specimens, were sufficiently futile, when all that
the reader has to do is to open up the volume very much
at random, and to find for himself, in almost any page,
specimens to satisfy him of the substantial truth and
accuracy of our representation. All, therefore, that we
deem it right or expedient to do, is to obviate an objection
which has sometimes been advanced against certain portions
of the work, on the score of their alleged mysticism of
style and sentiment. Everything depends on what is i
meant by mysticism ; and on distinguishing aright between ,
mysticism in its proper, technical, professional sense, and |
mysticism in the loose popular sense of figurative, sym- ■^
bolic, or allegorical. In the former sense, mysticism, — i '
amid the almost infinitely varied phases of thought and
action which it has assumed in successive ages, among |
PKEFACE. 1 3
widely divergent races, and in connection with divers re-
ligious forms and systems, — Judaism and Christianity,
Mahommedanism and speculative Paganism, Theism and
Pantheism, Platonism and Neo-Platonism, Medievalism
and Scholasticism, Quietism and Ecstacism, — and under
whatever generic designation it has been recognised by
its multitudinous votaries, whether theosophist, theopa-
thetic, theurgic, or such like, — deals exclusively with the
subjective as contradistinguished from the objective. In
other words, it looks to the primary intuitions of the
human mind, and the moral instincts of the human heart,
and to these alone, for light and guidance in arriving at
the highest and purest conceptions of God and truth, sal-
vation and final beatitude. It thus formally and syste-
matically regards the fundamental promptings and teachings
of the soul within as all-sufficient ; and consequently sub-
stitutes the inward illumination of the human spirit for
the outward illumination of the Spirit of God. Or, what
amounts to the same thing, the internal and purely intui-
tional is made wholly and universally to supersede the
external or written Word or Book of Eevelation, in what-
ever form it may have been originally conveyed, or subse-
quently recorded and transmitted from age to age, from
people to people, from country to country.
Now it cannot be too emphatically declared that by no
man would mysticism, in any sense of internal self-sufficing
light, be more summarily repudiated than by Samuel
Eutherford. The very idea of substituting any intuitions ^
or inward suggestions, visions, or self-luminous manifesta-
tions of his own consciousness, for the genuine, authentic,
and divinely accredited revelations of Jehovah's holy
oracles, he would inexorably reject with indignation and
abhorrence.
^
14 PREFACE.
It is only, therefore, in the other somewhat loose and ,
popular sense of figurative, symbolic, or allegorical, that
any portion of his language and thoughts can, with any i
truth or propriety, be styled mystical, or tinged with N
mysticism. And for such a style of thought and expres-
sion, he has the highest possible warrant in the lyric and.
prophetic sections of Holy Scripture.
The objection, however, may not be against the exuberant
use of figure, symbol, or allegory, but against the frequent
and lavish use of the somewhat peculiar figure or symbol
in which he so freely indulges, or rather revels with a
rapture and unction all his own. Now the central thought
whence emanates such a profusion of peculiar figure or
symbol, is the mystic nuptial union of the soul to God, or
rather, to God in Christ, as our adored Immanuel. But in
this he has only followed the model and example of the
inspired penmen ; whose delineations he faithfully copies
or reflects, and whose graphic imagery he admiringly
adopts, and skilfully employs in expressing his own elevated
spiritual views, heavenward aspirations, and. glowing
emotions. And it is his habitual employment of such
mystic imagery which gives its apparently unique hue and
complexion to much of what is noblest and most divine in
his practical experimental theology.
To every attentive reader of the Bible it is well known /
that in the writings, both of the Old and New Testament,
it is common to represent the Church of Christ underthe
emblem of a chaste woman, bride or spouse, and Messiah,
her king, under that of bridegroom or husband ; that the
marriage union, being the closest, most sacred, most en-
dearing and enduring among men, it has furnished a
favourite image to the ancient prophets, when they would
set forth the union of the redeemed soul to its kinsman-
}
PREFACE. 15
Redeemer, Christ; and vividly portray the multitude of i
His loving kindnesses towards her, and her dutiful returns
of overflowing gratitude and love towards Him.
The most notable and elaborate exhibition of this image
is that which is to be found in the 45th Psalm, and the
Song of Songs. With regard to the former, it has been
satisfactorily shown by Bishop Horseley and others, that,
in the unanimous judgment of all antiquity, the imme-
diate and single subject of the Psalm in the first intention
of its author, is, " the connection between Christ and His
church," represented therein by the inspired Seer, under
" the emblem of a marriage, without any reference to the
marriage of Solomon, or any other earthly monarch as its
type." With regard to the latter, it has been as generally
agreed that it had a historic foundation in the marriage
of Solomon with Pharaoh's daughter, or some Jewish prin-
cess. But, as Dr. Chalmers, in his Daily Eeadings, has
pointedly remarked, " Though Solomon is named in it, a
greater than Solomon is here." Indeed, in the concurrent
judgment of the ablest and wisest of Scripture com-
mentators, alike in ancient and modern times, we have
here, not so much an ode, lyric, idyll, pastoral, allegory, or
epithalamium of an ordinary kind, as a divinely mystic
song7 altogether sui generis, combining, for higher and
nobler ends, the leading characteristics of all these well-
known forms of poetic art. In other words, in this con-
gratulatory celebration of a royal marriage, we find adum-
brated and spread out before us, under the guidance of
inspiration, a singular variety of moods and conditions of
soul depicted, with all the fire and glow of an eastern fancy,
by means of the choicest and most apposite symbols, expres-
sive of the multiplied experiences of merely natural but
pure human affections. Above all, we fiud here stiikiugly
\
16 PREFACE.
shadowed forth, in the impassioned strains of loftiest Ori-
ental metaphor and imagery, often far too glaring and
hyperbolical for colder occidental habitudes of thought and
feeling, whether personal or social, the loving relationship,
transporting fellowship, and warmly affectionate intercourse
between Immanuel, the God-man and individual human
souls, constituting, in the aggregate, His blood-ransomed
Church, or affianced Bride, the Lamb's Wife.
It were easy to show, if necessary, by an immense
array of evidence, that this is the view of the subject which
has been taken by the most sober and orthodox Biblicists,
who were yet men of fervent heart-piety, in all ages. But
it is not necessary, and the attempt to do so would be
foreign to our present purpose. Eeference by way of
specimen to one or two names, which cannot fail to carry
weight with the reader, must therefore be held as amply
sufficient.
Of the Song, generally, the celebrated Owen, one of the
gravest and profoundest of theologians, observes : — " The
expressions are figurative, and the whole nature of the dis-
course is allegorical, but the things intended are real and
substantial ; and the metaphors used in expressing them
are suited, in a due attendance unto the analogy of faith,
to convey a spiritual understanding, and a sense of the
things themselves proposed in them. The Church of God
will not part with the unspeakable advantage and con-
solation, those supports of faith and incentives of love,
which it receives by that Divine proposal of the person of
Christ and His love, which is made therein, because some
men have no experience of them, nor understanding in
them. The faith and love of believers is not to be regulated
by the ignorance and boldness of those who have neither
the one nor the other."
h
PREFACE. 17
The still more celebrated Jonathan Edwards, in whom j
the ratiocinative faculties so marvellously predominated |
over the aesthetic, but who had yet a real heart and fancy I
for the purely devotional, thus recorded some of his reli- [
gious experiences : — " I have sometimes had a sense of the
excellent fulness of Christ, and His meetness and suitable-
ness as a Saviour; whereby He has appeared to me, far
above all, the chief of ten thousand. His blood and atone-
ment have appeared sweet, and His righteousness sweet ;
which was always accompanied with ardency of spirit;
and inward strugglings, and breathings, and groanings that
cannot be uttered, to be emptied of myself, and swallowed
up in Christ. Once as I rode out into the woods for my
health, having alighted from my horse in a retired place,
as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine con-
templation and prayer, I had a view, that for me was ex-
traordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator
between God and man, and His wonderful, great, full, pure,
and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescen-
sion. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, ap-
peared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ
appeared also ineffably excellent, with an excellency great
enough to swallow up all thought and conception — which
continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which
kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and
weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I
know not otherwise how to express, emptied and anni-
hilated, to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone ;
to love Him with a holy and pure love ; to trust in Him ; f | '^
to live upon Him ; to serve and follow Him ; and to be
perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and
heavenly purity. I have several other times had views
very much of the same nature, and which have had the
B
i
18 PREFACE.
same effects. " Now, it was when in these high and rap-
tured frames of mind, that he could thus write of the Song
of Songs : — " The whole book of Canticles used to be plea-
sant to me, and I used to be much in reading it about that
time, and found, from time to time, an increased sweetness,
that would carry me away in my contemplations. This I
know not how to express otherwise than by a calm, de-
lightful abstraction of the soul from all the concerns of the
world ; and sometimes a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and
imaginations — of being alone in the mountains, or some
solitary wilderness, sweetly conversing with Christ, and
rapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divinel
things, often would^ on a sudden, kindle up_an^ltrdour in i
my soul that IJknew^ot howjto express."
AITEhis ought to satisfy the most fastidious of readers
that, after all, there is nothing really novel or absolutely
peculiar in the soul-thrilling effusions of " Rutherford's
Letters ; " and ought to reconcile them to the glowing
imagery and entranced language of love in which they are
expressed — the whole having its Divine Fountainhead and f
Prototype mainly in the inspired Song^ Songs. So that i X
of him it could be truly said, that, at times, and more
especially amid the outer dreariness and solitude of his
necessitated exile at Aberdeen, with its deep broodings of
spirit and great searchings of heart, he seemed to " breathe
a spirit of such devotion as if he had been a seraph incar-
nate, and filled with such joyous transport, as if he had
been caught up into the third heaven, and his heart yet
throbbed with the unearthly sensation."
The truth is that, on examination, it will be found that/
the real source of objection does not lie in the alleged ex-
travagance of the rapturous utterances of Rutherford, but
in a certain ungenial state of mind and feeling, on the part
PREFACE. 1 9
of the reader, which fairly disqualifies him for properly /
appreciating them. In the case of one of a hard, dry, |j
logical, metaphysical, or mathematical temperament, even
if religiously disposed, but deficient in, or wholly destitute
of, the poetic, aesthetic, or deeply emotional element, he
will be apt to regard them with shrinking aversion, if not
positive disfavour and disrelish. In the case of another,
with a mind ill-disciplined and ill-regulated, conjoined with
a vagrant, roving, unchastened fancy, and little or no
spirituality, he will be ready grossly to construe them, as
seen through the medium of his own jaundiced mental
vision, and interpreted in the false glare of his own grovel-
ling, carnal affections. In the case of a third, belonging
to the Godless, Christless. class of the worldly, the indiffer-
ent or the scornful, he will be sure to denounce the whole
as senseless, pietistic rant, or exaggerated rhapsody.
On the other hand, in the case of persons of eminent
holiness and spiritual sensibility, who experimentally know
and live upon the Lord Jesus Christ, as their loving, per-
sonal Saviour; who lean, as it were, with calmest and
serenest joy, on His bosom; who feel themselves as if
caught up into the embrace of His outstretched arms ; and
partake of the fondest caresses of His wondrous love — the
most fervent and even luscious utterances of the Letters,
only tend to hold them fast bound, as under the spell oi
some inexplicable enchantment. Eealising in their own
souls the glorious things spoken of, they never tire of medi-
tating on writings which faithfully reveal and embody their
own discoveries of Christ's glory and grace, His willingness
and almightiness to save, with all the inexpressibly tender
memorials of their mutual interchanges of admii-ation and
love — writings, on which their own felt wants and ever-
varying conditions of alternating joy and sorrow, despond-
20 PREFACE.
ency and hope, as they pass through the fears, distresses,
and deliverances of many a fiery ordeal, shed a fulness and
richness of significance which the outside world cannot
apprehend, and with which it cannot possibly sympathise,
— writings, which not only distinctly portray, but seem
vividly to photograph, through sensible symbols and images,
their own soaring thoughts and aspirations with "colours
dipped in heaven ; " and thus supply them with spiritual
nutriment and refreshment, vastly more strengthening and
exhilarating than any to be derived from the most sump-
tuous entertainment, daintiest cordial, or most exquisite
pleasures of sense, while traversing the great and terrible
wilderness of this world, in their weary pilgrimage towards
the palaces of light in Immanuel's land.
That such may be the happy experience of every reader
of these marvellous Letters, which some of the holiest of
men have ranked next to the Bible, as the richest treasury
and storehouse of practical Divinity for hungry and thirsty
souls, is the humble but earnest prayer of the undersigned,
ALEXANDER BVYE.
Edinburgh, Is; January 187C.
INTRODUCTION.
Although my name appears on the title-page of this noble
volume as its editor, I have had nothing to do with its
production, beyond the revisal of the proof-sheets, in order
to secure the accuracy of the text, and the addition of
glossarial notes, explanatory of the distinctively Scottish
words that occur in the Letters. That such explanations
are not necessary for the generality of Scottish readers, is
apparent from the fact that I have not found it necessary,
in more than two or three instances, to seek assistance in
order to furnish them ; and what I found no dithculty in
explaining, few Scotchmen would need to have explained.
In the very few cases in which I met with a difficulty.
Dr. Jameson's Dictionary afforded the needed help.
When it was known to some of my friends that I was
engaged in preparing this edition, I received counsel from
several whose judgment I greatly respected, to adopt a
chronological arrangement of the Letters. This, on mature
consideration, I declined to attempt, chiefly for the follow-
ing reasons : —
1. I do not think that such an arrangement can possibly
be effected. Many of the Letters have no dates affixed to
them, and contain no internal evidence, in the way of
allusions to historical events, by which dates could be
assigned to them. The dates affixed to some of them are
certainly inaccurate, and this may probably be the case
with respect to others.
22 INTRODUCTION.
2. The vast majority of those who will read the Letters,
will read them not as an aid to the study of the history of
the period, but as a precious record of very peculiar Chris-
tian experience.
3. Supposing that an approximately accurate arrange-
ment could be made, and admitting that it would, to some
extent, cast light upon the history of the time, and upon
the development of the writer's character, it would entail
the vitiation of many references made to the Letters in
subsequent publications. In this respect the matter is
precisely parallel to the division of the Bible into chapters
and verses. I suppose we have all felt that that division
is not in every case very happily made ; but it is manifest
that an alteration, which would throw into confusion the
innumerable references contained in all our theological
and religious books, would be an unspeakable evil. The
evil of altering the order of these Letters would be similai
in kind, though, of course, immeasurably less in degree.
For these reasons I have thought it better to retain the
old order, although it is properly no order at all.
I have thought that the value of the edition will be
enhanced by prefixiug to the Letters three short documents,
viz. : —
I. Woodrow's brief Account of Eutherford's Life and
Character.
II. An Account of the Last Words of Eutherford.
III. Eutherford's Testimony to the Covenanted Work
of Eeformation, from 1638 to 1649, in Britain and Ireland.
And now I have only to express my very earnest desire
that this edition, which is, I ti'ust, as accurate as any,
which is as complete as the completest, and more so than
any, except one other, and which is much cheaper than any
other edition, may be read by many, and that its perusal
may be blessed of God to tho elevation of the standard of
piety, and holiness of heart and life.
TUOMAS SMITH.
I.
WOODROW'S BRIEF ACCOUNT
or
RUTHERFORD'S LIFE AND CHARACTER.
That bright and shining light of his time, Mr. Samuel
Rutherford, may justly come in among the sufferers, during
this session of Parliament (viz., in the year 1661). To be
sure, he was a martyr, both in his own resolution, and in
men's designs and determination. He is so well known to
the learned and pious world, that I need say little of him.
Such who knew him best were in a strait whether to ad-
mire him for his sublime genius in the school, and peculiar
exactness in matter of dispute and controversy ; or his
familiar condescensions in the pulpit, where he was one of
the most moving and affectionate preachers in his time, or
perhaps in any age of the Church.
But he seems to have outdone himself, as well as every
body else, in his admirable, and every way singular Letters,
which, though jested upon by profane wits, because of some
familiar expressions, yet will be owned, by all who have
any relish of piety, to contain such sublime flights of de-
votion, and to be fraughted with such massy thoughts, as
loudly speak a soul united to Jesus Christ in the closest
embraces, and must needs at once ravish and edify every
serious reader.
The Parliament were to have had an indictment laid
before them against this holy man, if his death had not
24 LIFE AND CHAKACTEK.
prevented it. After his book, entitled Lex Eex, had been
ordered to be burnt at the cross of Edinburgh, and the gate
of the new college of St. Andrews, where he was divinity
professor ; in their great humanity, they were pleased,
when every body knew Mr. Eutherford to be in a dying
condition, to cause cite him to appear before them at
Edinburgh, to answer a charge of high treason. But he
had a higher tribunal to appear before, where his judge was
his friend.
Mr. Eutherford died in March 1661, the very day be-
fore the Act Eescissory was passed in the Parliament.
This eminent saint, and faithful servant of Jesus Christ,
lamented when near his end, that he was withheld from
bearing witness to the work of Eeformation, since the year
1638, and giving his public testimony against the evil
courses of the present time ; otherwise he was full of
peace and joy in believing. I have a copy before me ol'
what could be gathered up of his dying words,^ and the
expressions this great man had during his sickness.
^ Referring to "Some of the Last Words of Mr. llutherford, Lc,"
which inmiediately follows. — L'd.
IL
SOME OF THE
LAST WORDS OF ME. RUTHERFOED,
OONTAINING
Some Advices and Exhortations to his Friends and Eela-
tions during his Sickness, before his Death,
February the last, 1661.
He uttered many savoury speeches in the time of his
sickness, and often broke out in a sacred kind of rap-
ture, extolling and commending the Lord Jesus, espe-
cially when his end drew near ; whom he often called
his blessed Master, his kingly King.
Some days before his death he said, I shall shine, I
shall see Him as He is, T shall see Him reign, and all His
fair company with Him ; and I shall have my large share,
my eyes shall see my Eedeemer, these very eyes of mine,
and no other for me ; this may seem a wide word, but it is
no fancy or delusion ; it is true, it is true, let my Lord's
name be exalted, and if He will, let my name be grinded
to pieces, that He may be all in all. If He should slay
me ten thousand times ten thousand times, I'll trust. He
often repeated Jer. xv. 16, Thy words were found and I
did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and re-
joicing of my heart. Exhorting one to be diligent in seek-
26 LAST WORDS OF KUTHERFORD.
ing of God, lie said, 'Tis no easy thing to be a Christian,
but for me, I have gotten the victory, and Christ is holding
out both His arms to embrace me. At another time, to
some friends about him, he said. At the beginning of my
sufferings, I had mine own fears, like another sinful man.
lest I should faint, and not be carried creditably through ;
and I laid this before the Lord : and as sure as He ever
spake to me in His word, as sure His Spirit witnessed
to my heart, He had accepted my suffering, He said to me,
Tear not : the outgate shall not be^ simply matter of praise.
I said to the Lord, If He should slay me five thousand
times five thousand times, T would trust in Him ; and I
spake it with much trembling, fearing I should not make
my putt good. But as really as ever He spoke to me by
His Spirit, He witnessed unto my heart, that His grace
should be sufficient.
The last Tuesday's night, before his death, being much
weighted with the state of the public, he had that expres-
sion, Terror hath taken hold on me, because of His dispen-
sation. And after falling on his own condition, he said, I
disclaim all that ever He made me will and do, and look
on it as defiled and imperfect, as coming from me ; and I
take me to Christ for sanctification, as well as justification ;
and repeating these words, He is made of God to me,
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption ; he
added, I close with it, let Him be so, He is my All in all
this.
On March the 17th, three gentlewomen coming to see
him ; after exhorting them to read the word, and be fre-
quent in prayer, and much in communion with God, he
said, My honourable Master and lovely Lord, my great and
royal King, hath not a match in heaven or in earth ; I
have my own guiltiness like another sinful man, but He
hath pardoned, loved, and washed, and given me joy un-
speakable, and full of glory. I repent not that ever I
owned His cause. These whom ye call Protesters, are the
> Qu. Shall be ?
LAST WORDS OF RUTHERFORD. 27
witnesses of Jesus Christ; I hope never to depart from
that cause, nor side with these that have burnt the Causes
of God's wrath}
They have broken their covenant, oftener than once
or twice : but I believe the Lord will build Zion, and re-
pair the waste places of Jacob. 0 ! to obtain mercy to
wrestle with God for their salvation. As for this Presby-
tery, it hath stood in opposition to me these years past ; I
have my record in heaven, I had no particular end in
view, but was seeking the honour of God, the thriving of
the gospel in this place, and the good of the new college,
that society which I have left upon the Lord ; what per-
sonal wrongs they have done me, and what grief they have
occasioned to me, I heartily forgive them ; and desire
mercy to wrestle with God, for mercy to them and all- their
salvation.
The same day, Mr. James M'Gill, Mr. John Wardhiw,
Mr. William Vilant, and Mr. Alexander Wedderburn (all
members of the same presbytery with him), coming to
visit him, he made them heartily welcome, and said, My
Lord and Master is the chief of ten thousand of thousands,
none is comparable to Him in heaven or in earth. Dear
brethren, do all for Him ; pray for Christ, preach for
Christ, feed the flock committed to your charge for Christ,
do all for Christ; beware of men-pleasing, there is too
much of it among us. Dear brethren, you know I have
had my own grievances among you of this presbytery. He,
before whom I stand, knows it was not my particular, but
the interest of Jesus Christ, and the thriving of the gospel,
I was seeking. What griefs or wrongs you have done me,
I heartily forgive, as T desire to be forgiven of Christ. The
new college hath broke my heart, and I can say nothing of
it, but I have left it upon the Lord of the house ; and it
hath been, and still is my desire, that He may dwell in
^ An anonj'mous book, of which Mr. James Guthrie is supposed to have
been the author, was Luiat at Edinburgh, aloug with Rutherford's Lix Rcr,
2 Qa. All. and ?
28 LAST WORDS OF RUTHERFOKD.
this society, and that the youths may be fed with sound
knowledge. This is a divided visit of the presbytery, and
I know so much the less what to say.
After this, he said, Dear brethren, it may seem a pre-
sumption in me, a particular man, to send a commission
to a presbytery ; and Mr. M'Gill replying, It was no pre-
sumption : he continued, Dear brethren, take a commission
from me a dying man, to them, to appear for God and His
cause, and adhere to the doctrine of the covenant, and have
a care of the flock committed to their charge. Let them
feed the flock out of love, preach for God, visit and cate-
chise for God, and do all for God. Beware of man-pleas-
ing : the chief Shepherd will appear shortly ; and tell them
from me, dear brethren, that all the personal griefs and
wrongs they have done to me, I do cordially and freely
forgive them : but for the business of the new college, I
have left that upon the Lord ; let them see to it, my soul
desires the Lord to dwell in that society, and that Himself
may feed the youths. I have been a sinful man, and have
had my failings, but my Lord hath pardoned and accepted
my labours. I adhere to the cause and covenant, and
mind never to depart from that protestation against the
controverted assemblies. I am the man I was. I am still
for keeping the government of the kirk of Scotland entire,
and would not for a thousand worlds have had the least
finger of an hand in burning of the causes of God's wrath.
0 ! for grace to wrestle with God for their salvation, who
have done it ; and Mr. Vilant having prayed, at his
desire, as they took their leave, he renewed his charge to
them, to feed the flock out of love.
The next morning, as he recovered out of fainting, in
which they who looked on expected his dissolution, he
said, I feel, I feel, I believe in joy, and rejoice ; I feed on
manna. The worthy and famous Mr. Eobert Blair, whose
praise is in the gospel, through all this Church, being with
him (I must tell the reader, our author had this man in
high esteem, and lived in near friendship and love with
LAST WOKDS OF RUTHERFORD. 29
him to the day of his death. A reverend minister lately
fallen asleep, that was often with Mr. Eutherford, told me
he used to call Mr Blair a worthy man of God) as Mr.
Eutherford took a little wine in a spoon, to refresh him-
self being very weak, Mr, Blair said to him, Ye feed on
dainties in heaven, and think nothing of our cordials on
earth ; he answered, They are all but dung, yet they are
Christ's creatures, and out of obedience to command, I take
them, adding. My eyes shall see my Eedeemer, I know He
shall stand the last day upon the earth, and I shall be
caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air, and I
shall be ever with Him, and what would you have more,
there is an end ; and stretching out his hand, over again
replied, there is an end. A little after, he said, I have
been a wretched sinful man, but I stand at the best pass
that ever a man did, Christ is mine, and I am His ; and
spake much of the white stone, and the new name. Mr.
Blair, who loved to hear Christ commended, with all his
heart, said to him again, What think ye now of Christ ? to
which he replied, I shall live and adore him : glory, glory
to my Creator, and to my Eedeemer for ever : glory shines
in Immanuel's land.
In the afternoon of that day, he said, O ! that all my
brethren, in the public, may know what a Master I have
served, and what peace I have this day : I shall sleep in
Christ, and when I awake I shall be satisfied with His
likeness. And he said, This night shall close the door,
and put my anchor within the vail, and I shall go away in
a sleep, by five of the clock in the morning ; which exactly
fell out according as he had told that night. Though he
was very weak, he had often this expression, 0 fox arms to
embrace Him ! 0 for a well-tuned harp ! And he exhorted
Dr. Colvil (a man that complied with Episcopacy after-
wards) to adhere to the government of the Kirk of Scot-
land, and to the doctrine of the covenant ; and to have a
care that youth were fed with sound knowledge ; and ex-
pressd his desire that Christ might dwell in that society,
30 LAST WORDS OF RUTHERFORD.
and that vice and profaueness might be borne down : and
the doctor, being a professor in the new college, he told
him, That he heartily forgave him all offence he had done
him.
He spake likewise to Mr. Honeyraan, who came to see
him (the man who afterward not only submitted to the
Episcopal government, but wrote in defence of it, and was
made Bishop of Orkney), and desired him to tell the pres-
bytery to appear for God and His cause and covenant,
saying, The case is not desperate, let them be in their duty.
And directing his speech to Dr. Colvil and Mr. Honey-
man, he said. Stick to it. Ye may think it an easy thing
in me, a dying man, that is now going out of the reach of
all that man can do, but He, before whom I stand, knows
I dare advise no colleague or brother to do what I would
not cordially do myself, upon all hazard : and as for the
Causes of God's ivrath^ that men have now condemned, tell
Mr. James Wood from me, that I had rather lay my head
down on a scaffold, and suffer it to be chopped off many
times, were it possible, before I had passed from them.
And to Mr. Honeyman he said. Tell Mr. James Wood from
me, I heartily forgive him all wrongs he has done me; and
desire him, from me, to declare himself the man that he is,
still for the government of the Church of Scotland.
And truly Mr. Eutherford was not deceived in him,
for the learned, pious, and worthy Mr. Wood was true and
faithful to the Presbyterian government; nothing could
bow him to comply, in the least degree, with the abjured
prelacy ; so far from that, that apostasy and treachery of
others, whom he had too much trusted, broke his upright
spirit, especially the aggravated defection and perfidy of
one whom he termed Judas, Demas, and Gehazi, concen-
tred in one, after he found what part he acted to the
Church of Scotland, under trust. For this Mr. Wood
went to the grave a man of sorrows, and left his testimony
behind him, to the work of God in this land, which has
' See note ou p. 27.
LAST WORDS OF RUTHERFORD. 31
been in print a long time ago. I owe this piece of justice
to the memory of this great man : and to show that the
only differences betwixt Mr. Eutherford and him, were
occasioned by Mr. Wood's joining with the promoters of
the public resolutions of that time, but Mr, Eutherford
ever spoke of him with regard, and as a good man whom
he loved. After, when some spoke to Mr. Eutherford of
his former painfulness and faithfulness in the work of God,
he said, I disclaim all that, the port I would be at is re-
demption and forgiveness, through His blood. Thou shalt
show me the path of life, in thy sight is fulness of joy.
There is nothing now betwixt me and the resurrection ; but
to-day thou shalt be with me in paradise : Mr. Blair say-
ing. Shall I praise the Lord for all the mercies He has
done for you, and is to do ? He answered, 0 for a well-
tuned harp ! To his child he said, I have again left you
upon the Lord ; it may be you will tell this to others, that
the lines are fallen to me in pleasant places, I have a
goodly heritage ; I bless the Lord that gave me counsel.
III.
MR. EUTHERFOED'S TESTIMONY
TO THE
COVENANTED WOEK OF EEFOEMATION,
(From 1638-1649),
IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
Though the Lord needeth not a testimony from such ?.
wretched man as I, if I, and all the world would be silent,
the very stones would cry. It is more than debt, that I
should confess Christ before men and angels. It would
satisfy me not a little, that the throne of my Lord Jesus
were exalted above the clouds, the heaven of heavens, and
on both sides of the sun : and that all possible praise and
glory were ascribed to Him ; that, by His grace, I might
put my seal, such as it is, unto that song, even the new
song of these, who with a loud voice sing, saying. Thou art
worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof : for
thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood,
out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation :
and hast made us unto our God kings and priests ; and
we shall reign on earth, Eev. v. 9, 10. And blessed were
I, could I lay to my ear of faith, and say Amen to that
psalm of the many angels round about the throne, and the
beasts and elders : whose number is ten thousand times
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands : saying, with a
loud voice. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive
Rutherford's testimony. 33
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour,
and glory, and blessing. And if I heard every creature
which is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,
and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them (as
John heard them), saying. Blessing, and honour, and glory,
and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and
_ to the Lamb for ever and ever. I mean not any visible
reign of Christ on earth, as the Millenaries fancy ; I believe
(Lord help my unbelief) the doctrine of the holy prophets,
and the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, contained in the
book of the Old and New Testament, to be the undoubted
truth of God ; and a perfect rule of faith, and the only
way of salvation. And I do acknowledge the sum of the
Christian religion, exhibited in the Confessions and Cate-
chisms of the reformed Protestant churches : and in the
National Covenant, divers times sworn by the king's
majesty, the State, and Church of Scotland ; and sealed by
the testimony and subscription of the nobles, barons, gentle-
men, citizens, ministers, and professors of all ranks. As
also, in the Solemn League and Covenant of the three
kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland. And I do
judge, and in conscience believe, that no power on earth
can absolve, and liberate the people of God from the bonds
and sacred ties of the oath of God. I am persuaded that
Asa acted warrantably in making a law that the people
should stand to the covenant ; in receiving into the cove-
nant such as were not of his kingdom, 2 Chron. xv, 9, 10.
As did also Hezekiah, in sending a proclamation through
all the tribes, from Dan to Beersheba, that they should
come and keep the passover unto the Lord at Jerusalem,
2 Chron. xxx. 6, 7, though their own princes did not go
along with them ; yea, and it is nature's law, warranted by
the word, that nations should encourage and stir up one
another to seek the true God. It is also prophesied, That
divers nations should excite one another in this way. Isa.
ii. 3, Many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us
go up unto the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the
G
34 kutherford's testimony.
God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways. Zech. viii.
21, 22, And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another,
saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord of hosts :
I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall
come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray
before the Lord. There is also a clear prophecy to be
accomplished under the New Testament, Jer. 1. 4, 5, That
Israel and Judah shall go together, and seek the Lord.
They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thither-
ward, saying. Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord
in a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgotten. It is
also foretold, that different nations shall confederate with
the Lord, and with one another. Isa. xix. 23, 24, 25, In
that day there shall be an high way out of Egypt into
Assyria; and the Assyrian shall come to Egypt, and the
Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with
the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with
Egypt, and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of
the land; whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying,
Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my
hands, and Israel mine inheritance.
The Church of Scotland had once as much of the pre-
sence of Christ, as to the power and purity of doctrine,
worship, discipline, and government, as any we read of,
since the Lord took His ancient people to be His cove-
nanted Church. The Lord stirred up our nobles to attempt
a reformation in the last age, through many difficulties,
and against much opposition from those in supreme autho-
rity: He made bare His holy arm, and carried on the
work gloriously, like Himself; His right hand gettiag
Him the victory, until the idolatry of Eome, and her cursed
mass, were dashed : a hopeful reformation was in some
measure settled, and a sound Confession of Faith was
agreed upon by the lords of the congregation. The people
of God, according to the laudable custom of other ancient
churches, the Protestants in Erance and Holland, and the
renowned princes in Germany, did carry on the work in
ruthekfokd's testimony. 35
an innocent, self-defensive war, which the Lord did abun-
dantly bless. When our land and Church were thus con-
tending for that begun reformation, these- in authority did
still oppose the work ; and there was not then wanting
men from among ourselves, men of prelatical spirits, who,
with some other time-serving courtiers, did not a little
undermine the building ; and we, doating too much upon
sound parliaments, and lawful general assemblies, fell from
our first love to self-seeking, secret banding, and little fear-
injT the oath of God.
Afterwards, our work in public was too much in seques
tration of estates, fining and imprisoning, more than in a
compassionate mournfulness of spirit toward those whom
we saw to oppose the work. In our assemblies, we were
more to set up a state opposite to a state ; more upon forms,
citations, leading of witnesses, suspensions from benefices,
than spiritually to persuade and work upon the conscience,
with the meekness and gentl^iess of Christ. The glory
and royalty of our princely Eedeemer and King was
trampled on, as any might have seen in our assemblies.
What way the army and the sword, and the countenance
of nobles and officers seemed to sway, that way were the
censures carried. It had been better, had there been more
days of humiliation and fasting in assemblies, synods,
presbyteries, congregations, families ; and far less adjourn-
ing commissions, new peremptory summons, and new-
drawn up processes. And if the meekness and gentleness
of our Master had got so much place in our hearts, that
we might have waited on gainsayers, and parties contrary
minded ; and we might have driven gently, as our Master,
Christ, who loves not to over-drive, but carries the lambs
in His bosom.
If the word of truth, in the Old and New Testaments,
be a sufficient rule, holding forth what is a Christian army,
whether ofi'ensive or defensive, whether clean or sinfully
mixed, then must we leave the question betwixt our public
brethren and us, to be determined by that rule ; but if
3'6 ruthekford's testimony.
there be no such rule in the word, then the confederacies
and associations of the people of God, with the idolatrous
apostate Israelites, with the Egyptians and Assyrians, as
that of Jehoshaphat with Ahab, and these of Israel and
Judah, with Egypt and Assyria, are not to be condemned.
But they are often reproved and condemned in Scripture.
To deny the Scripture to be a sufiicient rule in this case,
were to accuse it of being imperfect and defective ; — an
high and unjust reflection on the holy word of God. Be-
yond all question, the written word doth teach what is a
right constituted court, and what not, Ps. x. What is a
right constituted house, and what not. Josh. xxiv. 15.
What is a true church, and what is a false one ; what is a
true church, and what is a synagogue of Satan, Eev. ii.
What is a clean camp, and what is an unclean. We are
not for an army of saints, and free of all mixture of ill
affected men : but it seems an high prevarication for
churchmen to counsel and teach that the weight and trust
of the affairs of Christ, and His kingdom, sliould be laid
upon the whole party of such as have been enemies to our
cause, contrary to the word of God, and the declarations,
remonstrances, solemn warnings, and serious exhortations
of His Church, whose public protestations the Lord did
admirably bless, to the encouragement of the godly, and
the terror of all the opposers of the work.
Since we are very shortly to appear before our dreadful
Master and Sovereign, we cannot pass from our protesta-
tion, trusting we are therein accepted of Him ; though we
should lie under the imputation of dividing spirits and
unpeaceable men. We acknowledge all due obedience in
the Lord, to the king's majesty; but we disown that
ecclesiastical supremacy in and over the Church, which
some ascribe to Him : that power of commanding external
worship not appointed in the word, and laying bonds upon
the consciences of men, where Christ has made them free.
We disown antichristian prelacy, bowing at the name of
•Tesus, saints' days, canonising of the dead, and other such
i
rutherfokd's testimony. 37
corrupt inventions of men, and look upon them as the
highway to Popery. Alas ! now there is no need of a spirit
of prophecy, to declare what shall be the woeful condition
of a land that hath broken covenant, first practically, and
then legally, with the Lord our God ; and what shall be
the day of the silent and dumb watchmen of Scotland ?
Where will we leave our glory, and what if Christ depart
out of our land ? We verily judge they are most loyal to
the king's majesty, who desire the dross may be separated
from the silver, and the throne established in righteousness
f>nd judgment. We are not (our witness is in heaven)
against his majesty's title by birth to the kingdom, and
the right of the royal family : but that the controversy of
wrath against the royal family may be removed ; that the
huge guilt of the throne may be mourned for before the
Lord : and that his majesty may stand constantly, all the
days of his life, to the covenant of God, by oath, seal, and
subscription, known to the world ; that so peace, and the
blessings of heaven, may follow his government : that the
Lord may be his rock and shield, that the just may flourish
in his time, that men fearing God, hating covetousness, and
of known integrity and godliness, may be judges and
rulers under his majesty. And they are not really loyal
and faithful to the supreme magistrate, who wish not such
qualifications in him : we are not in this particular contend-
ing that a prince who is not a convert, or a sound believer,
falls from his royal dominion : the Scriptures of God war-
rant us to pray for, and obey in the Lord, princes and
supreme magistrates, that are otherwise wicked ; and to
render all due obedience to them, Eom. xiii. 2, 5 ; 2 Tim.
ii. 12, 13 ; 1 Pet. ii. 18. Our souls should be afflicted
before the Lord for the burning of the causes of God's
wrath : a sad practice, too like the burning of the roll by
Jehoiakim, Jer. xxxvi. 23. In these controversies, we
should take special heed to this, that Christ is a free, inde-
pendent Sovereign, King, and Lawgiver. The Father hath
appointed Him His own King in Mount Zion ; and He
38 RUTHERFORD'S TESTIMONY.
cannot endure that the powers of the world should en-
croach upon His royal prerogative, and prescribe laws to
Him; this presumption is not far from that of the citizens
that hated Him, Luke xix. 14, He shall not rule over us.
And from the intolerable pride of those who are for break-
ing asunder the bands of the Lord, and His anointed ; and
for casting away their cords from them, Ps. ii. 2, Espe-
cially seeing the man Christ would not take the office of
a judge upon Him, Luke xii. 14, and discharged His
disciples to exercise a civil lordship over their brethren.
True it is, the godly magistrate may command the minis-
ters of the gospel to do their duty, but not under the
penalty of ecclesiastical censures, as if it were proper to
him to call and uncall, depose and suspend from the holy
ministry. The lordly spiritual government, in and over
the Church, is given unto Christ, and none else ; He is the
sole ecclesiastic Lawgiver, It is proper to Him to smite
with the rod of His mouth ; nor is there any other shoulder,
in heaven or on earth, that is able to bear the government.
As this hath been the great controversy betwixt our Lord
Jesus and the powers of the world, from the beginning; so
it has ruined all that coped with Him. Christ has proved
a rock of offence to them ; they have been dashed in pieces
by the stone that was cut out of the mountain without
hands, Dan. ii. 34, 35. And the other powers that enter
the lists with Him, shall have the same dismal exit. Who-
soever shall fall upon this stone, shall be broken ; and on
whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder,
Matt, xxi. 44. As the blessed prophets and apostles of our
Lord contended not a little with the rulers of the earth,
that Christ should be the head Corner-stone ; that Christ
is the only Head of the Church, as sure as that He died,
was buried, and rose again. It is a most victorious and
prevailing truth ; not only preached and attested by the
ambassadors of the Lord of hosts, but contirmed by blood,
martyrdom, and suffering.
Many precious saints have thought it their honour and
kutherford's testimony. 39
dignity to suffer sharae and reproach for the name of Jesus
And it is beyond doubt that passive suffering for the name
of Christ, comes nearest to that noble sample, wherein
Christ, though a Son, learned obedience by the things
which He suffered, Heb. v. 8. Now, blessed is the soul
who loves not his life to death, Eev. xii. 11, for on such
rests the spirit of glory and of God, 1 Pet. iv. 14. We
cannot but say it is a sad time to this land at present, it is
a day of darkness, and rebuke, and blasphemy. The Lord
hath covered Himself with a cloud in His anger; we
looked for peace, but behold evil : our souls rejoiced when
his majesty did swear the covenant of God, and put thereto
his seal and subscription, and after confirmed it by His
royal promise ; so that the subjects' hearts blessed the
Lord, and rested upon the healing word of a prince. But
now, alas ! the contrary is enacted by law, the carved
work broken down, ordinances are defaced, and we are
brought into the former bondage and chaos of prelatical
confusion. The royal prerogative of Christ is pulled from
His head, and after all the days of sorrow we have seen,
we have just cause to fear we shall be made to eat that
book wherein is written, ]\Iourning, and Lamentation, and
Woe. Yet we are to believe Christ will not so depart
from the land, but a remnant shall be saved; and He shall
reign a victorious conquering King to the ends of the
earth. 0 that there were nations, kindreds, tongues, and
all the people of Christ's habitable world, encompassing
His throne with cries and tears for the Spirit of supplica-
tion, to be poured down upon the inhabitants of Judah for
that effect !
LETTERS.
PART I.
LETTER I. — To Mr. Egbert Cunynghame, Minister of the
Gospel at Holywood, in Ireland.
Well-beloved and Reverend Brother, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. Upon acquaintance in Christ, I thought good
to take the opportunity of writing to you, seeing it hath seemed
good to the Lord of the harvest to take the hooks ^ out of our
hands for a time, and to lay upon us a more honourable service,
even to suffer for His name. It were good to comfort one another
in writing : I have had a desire to see you in the face, yet now,
being the prisoner of Christ, it is taken away. I am greatly com-
forted to hear of your soldier's stately spirit for your Princely and
Royal Captain Jesus our Lord, and for the grace of God in the
rest of our dear brethren with you. You have heard of my trouble,
I suppose. It hath pleased our sweet Lord Jesus to let loose the
malice of these interdicted lords in His house to deprive me of
my ministry at Anwoth, and to confine me, eight score miles from
thence, to Aberdeen ; and also (which was not done to any before)
to inhibit me to speak at all in Jesus' name within this kingdom,
under the pain of rebellion. The cause that ripened their hatred
was my book against the Arminians, whereof they accused me
these three days I appeared before them : but let our crowned
King in Zion reign : by His grace the loss is theirs, the advan-
tage is Christ's and truth's. Albeit this honest cross gained some
ground on me by my heaviness, and inward challenges of con-
science for a time were sharp ; yet now, for the encouragement of
you all, I dare say it, and write it under my hand — Welcome,
welcome, sweet, sweet, cross of Christ : I verily think the chains
of my Lord Jesus are all overlaid with pure gold, and that His
cross is perfumed, and that it smelleth of Christ, and that the
victory shall be by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of
His truth ; and that Christ lying on His back, in His weak ser-
vants and oppressed truth, shall ride over His enemies' bellies,
and shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath. It is time
* Sickles.
42 LETTER I.
we laugh when He laugheth ; and seeing He is now pleased to
sit with wrongs for a time, it becometh us to be silent until the
Lord hatli let the enemies enjoy their hungry, lean, and feckless ^
paradise. Blessed are they who are content to take strokes with
weeping Christ, faith will trust the Lord, and is not hasty nor
headstrong ; neither is faith so timorous as to flatter a temptation,
or to bvid- and bribe the cross. It is little up or little down that
the Lamb and His followers can get, no law-surety nor truce
with crosses ; it must be so till we be up in our Father's house.
My heart is woe ^' indeed for my mother Church that hath played
the harlot with many lovers ; her Husband hath a mind to sell
her for her horrilile transgressions ; and heavy will the hand of
the Lord be upon this backsliding nation. The ways of our Zion
mourn, her gold is become dim, her white Nazarites are black like
a coal. How shall not the chddren weep when the husband and
the mother cannot agree ; yet I believe Scotland's skies shall clear
again, and that Christ shall build again the old waste places of
Jacob, and that our dead and dry bones shall become an army of
living men, and that our Well-Beloved may yet feed among the
lilies, until the day break and the shadows flee away. My dear
brother, let us help one another Avith our prayers. Our King shall
mow down His enemies, and shall come from Bozra, with his gar-
ments all dyed in blood, and for our consolation shall He appear,
and call his wife Hephzibah, and his land Beulah ; for He will re-
joice over us and marry us, and Scotland shall say, " What have
I to do any more with idols *? " Only let us be faithful to Him
' that can ride through hell and death upon a windlestrae,* and
I His horse never stumble ; and let Him make of me a bridge over
a water, so that His high and holy name may be glorified in me.
Strokes with the sweet Mediator's hand are very sweet ; He was
always sweet to my soul. But since I suffered for Him, His
breath hath a sweeter smell than before. 0 ! that every hair of
my head, and every member, and every bone in my body, were
a man to witness a fair confession for Him ; I would think all too
little for Him : when I look over beyond the line, and beyond
death, to the laughing side of the world, I triumph, and ride upon
the high places of Jacob ; howbeit, otherways I am a famt, dead-
hearted, cowardly man, oft borne down and hungry in waiting
for the marriage-supper of the Lamb. Nevertheless I think it the
Lord's wise love that feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with
wants and desertions. I know not, my dear brother, if our worthy
brethren be gone to sea, or not ; they are on my heart and in my
prayers ; if they be yet with you, salute my dear friend John
1 Worthless. 2 ChafFer for. ^ g^rl.
■* A stdlk of a particular kind of grass.
LETTER 11. 43
Stuart, my well-beloved brethren in the Lord, Mr. Blair, Mr.
Hamilton, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. MacCleland, and acquaint
them with my troubles, and entreat them to pray for the poor
afflicted prisoner of Christ : they are dear to my soul. I seek
your prayers and theirs for my flock ; their remembrance breaks
my heart : I desire to love that people, and others, my dear ac-
quaintance in Christ, with love in God, and as God loveth them.
I know that He who sent me to the west and south, sends me
also to the north. I will charge my soul to believe and to wait
for Him, and will follow His providence and not go before it, nor
stay behind it. Now, my dear brother, taking farewell in paper,
I commend you all to the Word of His grace, and to the work
of His Spirit, to Him who holdeth the seven stars in His right
hand, that you may be kept spotless till the day of Jesus our
Lord. I am,
Your brother in affliction in our sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
From Irving, being on my Journey to Christ's Palace
in Aberdeen, August 4, 1636.
LETTER n.— To His Parishioners.
Dearly-beloved, and longed for in the Lord, my crown
and my joy in the day of Christ, — grace be to you, and peace,
from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I long exceed-
ingly to know if the oft-spoken-of match l^etwixt you and Christ
holdeth ; and if you follow on to know the Lord. My day
thoughts, and my night thoughts are of you, while ye sleep, I am
afraid of your souls that they be off the rock. Next to my Lord
Jesus, and this fallen kirk, ye have the greatest share of my sor-
row, and also of my joy ; ye are the matter of the tears, care,
fear, and daily prayers of an oppressed pi'isoner of Christ : as I
am in bonds for my high and lofty One, my royal and princely
Master, my Lord Jesus, so I am in bonds for you, for I .should
have sleeped in my warm nest, and kept the fat world in my arms,
and the cords of my tabernacle should have been fastened more
strongly, I might have sung an evangel of ease to my soul and
you for a time, with my brethren, the sons of my mother, that
were angry at me, and have thrust me out of the vineyard, if I
should have been broken and drawn on to mire you the Lord's
flock ; and to cause you to eat pastures trodden upon with
men's feet, and to drink foul and muddy waters. But, truly, the
Almighty was a terror to me, and His fear made me afraid. 0,
my Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me, but not so
dear by many degrees as Christ Jesus my Lord ; God knoweth
44 LETTER II.
the heavy and sad Sabbaths I have had since I laid down at my
Master's feet my two shepherd's staves. I have been often say-
ing, as it is written, Lam. iii. 52, " My enemies chased me sore
like a bird without cause, they have cut off my life in the dun-
geon, and cast a stone upon me," for next to Christ I had but
one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights, to preach Christ
my Lord, and they have violently plucked that away from me ;
and it was to me like the poor man's one eye, and they have put
out that eye, and quenched my light in the inheritance of the
Lord ; but my eye is toward the Lord ; I know I shall see the
salvation of God, and that my hope shall not always be forgotten.
And my sorrow shall want nothing to complete it, and to make
me say, " What availeth it me to live?" if ye follow the voice of
a stranger, of one that cometh into the sheepfold, not by Christ
the door, but climbeth up another way ; if the man build his hay
and stubble upon the golden foundation, Christ Jesus, already laid
among you, and ye follow Him, I assure you the man's work shall
burn and never bide God's fire, and ye and he both shall be in
danger of everlasting burning, except ye repent. 0, if any pain,
any sorrow, any loss that I can suff"er for Christ and for you,
were laid in pledge to buy Christ's love to you, and that I could
lay my dearest joys next to Christ my Lord in the gap, betwixt
you and eternal destruction ! 0, if I had paper as broad as heaven
and earth, and ink as the sea and all the rivers and fountains of
the earth, and were able to write the love, the worth, the excel-
lency, the sweetness, 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 ministry among you should make a marriage
between the little bride in that bounds and the Bridegroom 1 0,
how rich a prisoner were I, if I could obtain of my Lord (before
whom I stand for you) the salvation of you all ! 0, what a prey
had I gotten to have you catched in Christ's net ! 0, then I had
cast out my Lord's lines and His net with a rich gain ! 0, then
well-wared ^ pained breast and sore back, and a crazed body, in
speaking early and late to you ! My witness is above, your
heaven would be two heavens to me, and the salvation of you all
as two salvations to me ; I would subscribe a suspension, and
a fristing ^ of my heaven for many hundred years (according to
God's good pleasure), if ye were sure in the upper lodging, in our
Father's house before me. I take to witness heaven and earth
against you; I take instruments in the hands of^ that sun and
day-light 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
^ Well-spent. ^ Delay.
® A Scotch law term, meauing, I call to witness.
i
LETTER II. 45
betwixt you and Christ, if I Avent not with offers betwixt the
Bridegroom and you, and your conscience did bear you witness ;
your mouths confessed that there were many fair trysts ^ and
meetings drawn on, betwixt Christ and j'ou, at communion feasts
and otlier occasions ; there were bracelets, jewels, rings, and love-
letters sent to you by the Bridegroom ; it was told you what a
fair dowry ye should have, and what a house your Husband and
ye should dwell in, and what was the Bridegroom's excellency,
sweetness, might, power. The eternity and glory of His king-
dom, the exceeding deepness of His love, who sought his black
wife through pain, fire, shame, death, and the grave; and swimmed '
the salt sea for her, undergoing the curse of the law, and then was
made a curse for you, and ye then consented and said, " Even so
, I take him." I counsel you, beware of the new and strange leaven
of men's inventions, beside and against the Word of God, contrary
to the oath of this Kirk, now coming among you. I instructed
you of the superstition and idolatry of kneeling in the instant
of receiving the Lord's Supper, and crossing in baptism, and the
observing of men's days, without any warrant of Christ, our per-
fect Lawgiver. Countenance not the surplice, the attire of the
mass-priest, the garment of Baal's priests; the abominable bowing
to altars of tree is coming upon you ; hate and keep yourselves
from idols ; forbear in any case to hear the reading of the new
fatherless service-book, full of gross heresies. Popish and super-
stitious errors, without any warrant of Christ, tending to the over-
throw of preaching. You owe no obedience to the bastard canons ;
they are unlawful, blasphemous, and superstitious ; all the cere-
monies that lie in the Antichrist's foul womb, the wares of that
great mother of fornications, the Kirk of Rome, are to be refused ;
ye see whither they lead you. Continue still in the doctrine
which ye have received ; ye heard of me the whole counsel of God.
Sew no clouts upon Christ's robe ; take Christ in His rags and
losses, and as persecuted by men, and be content to sigh, and pant
up the mountain with Christ's cross on your back; let me be re-
pute a false prophet (and your conscience once said the contrary) if
your Lord Jesus shall not stand by you, and maintain you, and
maintain your cause against your enemies. I have heard (and my
soul is grieved for it), that since my departure from you, many
among you are turned back from the good old way to the dog's
vomit again. Let me speak to these men. It was not without
God's special direction that the first sentence that ever my mouth
uttered to you was that of John ix. 39, " And Jesus said. For i
judgment came I into the world, that they which see not might J
see, and they which see might be made blind." It is possible ^
^ Assignations.
46 LETTER II.
my first meeting and yours be when \\ e aliall both stand before
the dreadful Judge of the world ; and in the name and authority
of the Son of God, my great King and Master, I Avrite by these
presents summons to these men. I arrest their souls and bodies
to the day of our compearance ; their eternal damnation stands
subscribed and sealed in heaven by the handwiiting of the great
Judge of quick and dead, and I am ready to stand up as a preach-
ing witness against such to their face that day, and to say,
"Amen" to their condemnation, except they repent. The venge-
ance of the Gospel is heavier than the vengeance of the lav/ ; the
Mediator's malediction and vengeance is twice vengeance ; and
that vengeance is the due portion of such men ; and there I leave
them, as bound men, aye, and while^ they repent and amend. You
were witnesses how the Lord's day was spent while I was among
you. 0, sacrilegious robber of God's day, what will thou answer
the Almighty when He seeketh so many Sabbaths back again
from thee 'I What will the cursor, swearer, and blasphemer do,
when his tongue shall be roasted in that broad and burning lake
of fire and brimstone 1 And what will the drunkard do, when
tongue, lights, and liver, bones, and all, shall boil and fry in a
torturing fire, for he shall be far from his barrels of strong drink
then, and there is not a cold well of water for him in hell?
What shall be the case of the wretch, the covetous man, the
oppressor, the deceiver, the earth-worm, who can never get his
wombful of clay, when in the day of Christ gold and silver must
lie burnt in ashes, and he must compear and answer his judge,
and <iuit his cla3^ey and naughty heaven 1 AVoe, woe, for evermore
lie to the tiuTe-turning atlieist, that hath one God and one religion
for summer, and another God and another religion for winter, and
the day ot tanning, when Christ fanneth all that is in His barn
fioor, who hath a conscience for every fair and market, and the
•soul of him runneth upon these oiled wheels, time, custom, the
world, and command of men. 0, if the careless atheist and sleep-
ing man, Avho edgeth by all Avith " God forgive our pastors if they
lead us wrong, we must do as they command," and lays down his
head upon time's bosom, and giveth his conscience to a deputy, and
sleepeth so while ^ the smoke of hell-fire flies up in his throat, and
cause him to start out of his doleful bed; — 0, if such a man would
aAvake. Many woes are for the over-gilded and gold-plastered
hypocrite : a heavy doom is for the liar and white-tongued flat-
terer; and the flying book of God's ireful vengeance, twenty
cubits long, and twenty cubits broad, that goeth out from the face
of God, shall enter into the house, and in upon the soul of him
that stealeth and swearcth falsely by God's name, Zechariah v.
'- Until.
LETTER II. 47
3, 4. I denounce eternal burning, hotter than Sodom's flames,
upon the men that boil in their filthy lusts of fornication, adul-
tery, incest, and the like wickedness ; no room, no, not a foot
broad, for such vile dogs within the clean Jerusalem. Many of
you put off' all with this, " God forgive us, we know no better."
I renew my old answer, 2 Thess. i., — The Judge is coming in
flaming fire, with all His mighty angels, to render vengeance to all
these that know not God and believe not. I have often told you
security shall slay you; all men say they have faith, as many
men and women now, as many saints in heaven ; and all believe
(say ye) every foul dog is clean enough, and good enough, for the
clean and New Jerusalem above. Every man hath conversion and
the new birth, but it is not leel ^ come ; they had never a sick
night for sin ; conversion came to them in a night dream ; in a
word, hell will be empty at the day of judgment and heaven
panged' fall. Alas ! it is neither easy nor ordinary to believe and
to be saved : many must stand in the end at heaven's gates; when
they go to take out their faith they take out a fair nothing (or, as
you use to speak, a " blestume ").^ 0, lamentable disappoint-
ment ! I pray you, I charge you. in the name of Christ, make fast
work of Christ and salvation. I know there are some believers
among you ^ and I write to you, 0 poor broken-hearted believers,
all the comforts of Christ in the New and Old Testament are yours.
0, what a Father and Husband you have ! 0, if I had pen and
ink and engine * to write of Him ; Let heaven and earth be con-
solidated in massy and pure gold, it will not weigh the thousandth
part of Christ's love to a soul, even to me, a poor prisoner. 0,
that is a massy and marvellous love ! Men and angels, unite your
force and strength in one ; ye shall not heave nor poise it off" the
ground. Ten thousand thousand worlds, as many worlds as angels
can number, and then as a new world of angels can multiply,
would not all be the bulk of a balance to weigh Christ's excel-
lencies, sweetness, and love. Put ten earths in one, and let a rose
grow greater than ten Avhole earths or ten Avorlds, 0, what beauty
would be in it, and what a smell would it cast ! But a blast ot
the breath of that fairest Eose in all God's paradise, even of Christ
Jesus our Lord — one look of that fairest face would be infinitely
in beauty and smell above all imaginable and created glory. I
wonder that men do bide off" Christ; I would esteem myself
blessed if I could make an open proclamation, and gather all the
world that are living upon the earth, Jew and Gentile, and all
that shall be born to the blowing of the last trumpet, to flock
round about Christ, and to stand looking, wondering, admiring
and adoring His beauty and sweetness ; for His fire is hotter than
1 Eeally. - Pressed. ^ Apparently a blank. * Ingenuity or ability.
4:8 LETTER 11.
any other fire, His love sweeter than common love, His beauty
surpasseth all other beauty. When I am heavy and sad, one of
His love-looks would do me meekle^ world's good, 0, if ye would
fall in love with Him ! how blessed were I, how glad would my
soul be to help you to love Him ; but amongst us all we could
not love Him enough ; He is the Son of the Father's love, and
God's delight, the Father's love lieth all upon Him. 0, if all
mankind would fetch all their love and lay it upon Him ! Invite
Him, and take Him home to your houses in the exercise of prayer
morning and evening, as I often desired you ; especially now let
Him not want lodging in your houses, nor lie in the fields when
He is shut out of pulpits and kirks. If ye will be content to
take heaven by violence, and the wind on your face for Christ and
His cross, I am here one who hath some trial of Christ's cross.
I can say that Christ was ever kind to me : but He overcometh
Himself (if I may speak so) in kindness while I suffer for Him, —
I give you my word for it, Christ's cross is not so evil as they call
it : it is sweet, light, and comfortable. I would not want the
visitations of love, and the very breathings of Christ's mouth when
He kisseth, and my Lord's delightsome smiles and love-embrace-
ments under my suff"erings for Him, for a mountain of fine gold,
nor for all the honours, court, and grandeur of velvet kirk-men ;
Christ hath the yolk and heart of my love, " I am my beloved's,
and my well-beloved is mine !" 0, that ye were all handfasted"
to Christ ! 0, my dearly beloved in the Lord, I Avould I could
change my voice, and had a tongue tuned with the hand of my
Lord, and had the art of speaking of Christ, that I might paint
out unto you the worth, and highness, and greatness, and excel-
lency of that fairest and renowned Bridegroom ! I beseech you
by the mercies of the Lord ; by the sighs, tears, and heart-blood
of our Lord Jesus ; by the salvation of your poor and precious
souls, set up 3 the mountain, that ye and I may meet before the
Lamb's throne, amongst the congregation of the first-born ; the
Lord grant that that may be the trysting-place, that ye and I may
put up our hands together, and pluck and eat the apples of the
Tree of Life, and we may feast 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. 0, how little is your
hand-breadth and span-length of days here ; your inch of time is
less than when ye and I parted. Eternity, eternity, is coming
posting on with wings ; then shall every man's blacks and whites
be brought to light. 0, how low will your thoughts be of this
fair-skinned but heart-rotten apple, the vain, vain, feckless* world!
when the worms shall make their houses in your eye-holes, and
1 Much. ' UuiteJ. ^ Set about climbing. * Worthless.
LETTER III. 49
shall eat off the flesh from the ball of your cheeks, and shall make
that body a number of dry bones ! Think not the common gate^
of serving God as neighbour and others do will bring you to heaven.
Few, few are saved ; the devil's court is thick and many; he hath
the greatest number of mankind for his vassals. I know this
world is a great forest of thorns in your way to heaven, but ye
must through it ; acquaint yourselves with the Lord ; hold fast
Christ, hear His voice only, bless His name, sanctify 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 seek an account of
it when I am far from you. Abstain from all evil and all appear-
ance of evil, follow good carefully, and seek 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, sad, and sore is that
stroke of the Lord's wrath that is coming upon Scotland. Woe,
woe, woe to this harlot land, for they shall take the cup of God's
wrath from his hand, and drink, and spue, and fall, and not rise
again. In, in, in with speed to your stronghold, ye prisoners of
hope, and hide you there while ^ the anger of the Lord pass. Fol-
low not the pastors of this land, for the sun is gone down upon
them; as the Lord liveth they lead you from Christ, and from the
good old Avay ; yet the Lord will keep the holy city, and make this
withered kirk to bud again like a rose and a field blessed of the
Lord. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. The
prayers and blessing of a prisoner of Christ, in bonds for Him
and for you, be with you all. Amen.
Your lawful and loving pastor,
S. E.
Aberdeen, July 14, 1637.
LETTER in.— To the Honourable, Eeverend, and Well-Beloved
Professors of Christ and His Truth in Sincerity in Ireland.
Dearly 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 Jesus Christ. I always, but most of all now
in my bonds (most sweet bonds for Christ my Lord), rejoice to
hear of your faith and love, and to hear that our King, our WeU-
Beloved, our Bridegroom, without tiring, stayeth still to woo you
as His wife ; and that persecutions and mockings of sinners have
not chased away the Wooer from the house. I persuade you in
* Way or method. ' Until.
D
50 LETTER in.
the Lord, the men of God, now scattered and driven from you,
put you upon the right scent and pursuit of Christ; and my
salvation on it (if ten heavens were mine), if this way, this way
that I now suifer for, this way that the world nick-nameth and
reproacheth, and no other way, be not the King's gate to heaven ;
and I shall never see God's face (and alas ! I were a beguiled
wretch if it were so) if this be not the only saving way to heaven.
0 ! that you would take a prisoner of Christ's word for it ; nay, I
know you have the greatest King's word for it, that it shall not
be your wisdom to spier ^ out another Christ, another way of wor-
shipping him, than is now savingly revealed to you. Therefore,
though I never saw your faces, let me be pardoned to write to you
ye honourable persons, ye faithful pastors yet amongst the flocks,
and ye sincere professors of Christ's truth; or any weak, tired
strayers who cast but half an eye after the Bridegroom, if possibly
I could by any weak experience confirm and strengthen you in this
good way everywhere spoken against. I can, with the greatest
assurance (to the honour of our highest, and greatest, and dearest
ILiord let it be spoken) assert (though I be but a child in Christ, .
and scarce able to walk, but by a hold ; and the meanest and less
than the least of saints) that we do not come nigh, by twenty
degrees, to the due love and estimation of that fairest among the
sons of men ; for if it were possible that heaven, yea, ten heavens,
were laid in the balance with Christ, I would think the smell of
His breath above them all ; sure I am He is the far best half of
heaven ; yea. He is all heaven, and more than all heaven ; and my
testimony of Him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten deaths,
ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, and all exquisite
torments, were all too little for Christ, if our suffering could be a
hire to buy Him ; and, therefore, faint not in your sufferings and
hazards for Him. I proclaim and cry hell, sorrow, and shame
upon all lusts, upon all by-lovers, that would take Christ's room
over His head in this little inch of love of these narrow souls of
ours that is due to sweetest Jesus. 0, highest ! 0, fairest ! 0,
dearest Lord Jesus ! take thine own from all bastard lovers ! 0 !
that we could wadset^ and sell all our part of time's glory, and
time's good things, for a lease and tack of Christ for all eternity !
0, how are we misted and mired with the love of things that are
on this side of time, and on this side of death's water ! Where
can we find a match to Christ, or an equal, or a better than He
among created things 1 0, this Avorld is out of all conceit, and all
love with our Well-Beloved. 0, that I could sell my laughter,
joy, ease, and all for Him; and be content of a straw-bed, and
bread by weight, and water by measure, in the camp of our weep-
* Seek. * Mortgage or pa^vn.
LETTER III. 51
ing Christ ! I know His sackcloth 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
storms, which blow upon Christ's fair face. We love well summer
religion, and to be that which sin hath made us, even as thin-
skinned as if we were made of Avhite paper, and would fain be
carried to heaven in a close-covered chariot, wishing from our
hearts that Christ would give us surety, and his handwriting, and
his seal for nothing but a fair summer, until we be landed in at
heaven's gates. How many of us have been here deceived, and
fainted in the day of trial ! Amongst you there are some of this
stamp. I shall be sorry if my acquaintance A. T. hath left you ;
I will not believe he dare stay from Christ's side ; I desire that
ye show him this from me ; for I loved him once in Christ ; neither
can I change my mind suddenly of him. But the truth is, that
many both of you and too many also of your neighbour Church of
Scotland, have been like a tenant that sitteth meal-free, and
knoweth not his holding while ^ his rights be questioned ; and
now I am persuaded it will be asked at every one of us, on what
terms we brook ^ Christ, for we have sitten long meal-free ; we
found Christ without a wet foot; and He, and His Gospel,
came upon small charges to our doors ; but now we must
wet our feet to seek Him ; our evil manners, and the bad
fashions of a people at ease from our youth, and like Moab, not
casten from vessel to vessel (Jer. xlviii. 11), has made us like stand-
ing waters, to gather a foul scum, and when we are jumbled, our
dregs come up and are seen ; many take but half a grip of Christ,
and the wind bloweth them and Christ asunder ; indeed, when the
mast is broken, and blown into the sea, it is an art then to swim
upon Christ to dry land ; it is even possible that the children of
God in a hard trial lay themselves down as hidden in the lee-side
of a bush, while ^ Christ their Master be taken, as Peter did, and
lurk there while ^ the storm be overpast : all of us know the way to
a whole skin, and the singlest heart that is hath a bye-purse that
will contain the denial of Christ, and a fearful backsliding. 0,
how rare a thing is it to be loyal and honest to Christ when He
hath a controversy with the shields of the earth ! I wish all of you
would consider that this trial is from Christ ; it is come upon you
unbought (indeed, when we buy a temptation with our own money ;
no marvel that we be not easily free of it, and that God be not at
our elbow to take it off our hand); this is Christ's ordinary house-
fire that He makes use of to try all the vessels of His house withal;
and Christ now is about to bring His treasure out before sun and
moon and to tell His money; and in the telling to try what weight
1 Till, 2 Possess or enjoy.
52 LETTER III.
of gold, and what weight of watered ^ copper is in His house. Do
not now joak,2 or bow, or yield to your adversaries in a hair-
breadth : Christ and His truth will not divide ; and His truth hath
not latitude and breadth that ye may take some of it, and leave
other some of it ; nay, the Gospel is like a small hair that hath no
breadth and will not cleave in two : it is not possible to tryst ^ and
compound a matter betwixt Christ and antichrist ; and therefore
ye must either be for Christ or ye must be against Him. It was
but man's wit, and the wit of prelates, and their god-father, the
Pope [that man without law), to put Christ and His royal preroga-
tives, and His truth, or the smallest nail-breadth of His latter will
in the new calendar of indifferences ; and to make a blank of un-
inked paper in Christ's Testament that men may fill up, and so
shuffle the truth, and matters they call indifferent, through other,*
and spin both together, that the antichrist's wares may sell the
better. This is but the device and forged dream of men, whose
consciences are made of stoutness, and have a throat that a graven
image, greater than the bounds of the kirk-door, would give free
passage unto.^ I am sure when Christ shall bring us all out in our
blacks and whites at that day when He shall cry down time and
the world, and when the glory of it shall lie in white ashes like a
May flower cut down and having lost the blossom, there shall be
few, yea, none, that dare make any point that toucheth the
worship and honour of our King and Lawgiver to be indifferent.
0, that this misled and blindfolded world would see that Christ
doth not rise and fall, stand or lie, by men's apprehensions !
What is Christ the lighter that men do with Him by open pro-
clamation, as men do with clipped and light money ? they are
now crying down Christ some grain weights, and some pounds or
shillings, and they will have Him lie for a penny or a pound, for
one or for an hundred, according as the wind bloweth from the
east or from the west, but the Lord has weighed Him, and balanced
Him already, " This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased, hear ye him." His worth and His weight standeth still ;
it is our part to cry Up, up with Christ, and Down, down with all
created glory before Him. 0, that I could heighten Him, and
heighten His name, and heighten His throne ! I know and am
persuaded that Christ shall again be high and great in this poor,
withered, and sun-burnt Kirk of Scotland ; and that the sparks
of our fire shall flee over sea, and round about to warm you and
other sister-churches ; and that this tabernacle of David's house
that is fallen, even the Son of David His waste places shall be
^ Lackered. * Bend. ^ Arrange or compromise. ■* Each other.
^ The meaning, however, is, would give free passage to a graven image, etc.,
q. d. would swallow a cameL
LETTER III. 53
biiilt again ; and I knoAV the prison, crosses, persecutions, and
trials of the two slain witnesses, that are now dead and buried
(Rev. xii)j and of the faithful professors, have a back door and
back entry of escape ; and that death and hell, and the world and
tortures, shall all cleave and split in twain, and give us free pas-
sage and liberty to go through them toll-free : and we shall bring
all God's good metal out of the furnace again, and leave behind
us but our dross and our scum ; we may then beforehand proclaim
Christ to be victorious. He is crowned King in Mount Zion;
God did put the crown upon His head (Psal. ii.), and who dare
take it off again"? Out of question. He hath sore and grievous
quarrels against His Church; and therefore He is called (Isa.
xxxix. 10), " He whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in
Jerusalem." But when He hath performed His work on Mount
Zion, all Zion's haters shall be as the hungry and thirsty man that
dreams he is eating and drinking, and behold, when he awaketh,
lie is faint and his soul empty. And this advantage we have
also, that He will not bring before sun and moon all the infirmi-
ties of His wife ; it is the modesty of marriage-anger, or husband-
wrath, that our sweet Lord Jesus will not come "wdth chiding to
the streets, to let all the world hear what is betwixt Him and us ;
His sweet glooms stay under roof, and that because He is God.
Two special things ye are to mind. 1. Try and make sure jout
profession ; that ye carry not empty lamps. Alas ! secuiity, secu-
rity, is the bane and the wreck of the most part of the world !
0, how many professions go Avith a golden lustre and gold-like
before men (who are but witnesses to our white skin), and yet are
but bastard and base metal. Consider how fair before the wind
some do ply with up-sails, and white, even to the nick^ of illumina-
tion (Heb. vi. 5), and tasting of the heavenly gift, and a share
and part of the Holy Ghost, and the tasting of the good Word of
God, and the powers of the world to come ; and yet this is but
a false nick of renovation, and in a short time such are quickly
broken upon the rocks, and never fetch the harbour, but are
sanded in the bottom of hell. 0, make your heaven sure, and
try how ye come by conversion ; that it be not stolen goods in a
white and well-lustred profession ! A white skin over old wounds
maketh an under-coating conscience ; false under-water not seen
is dangerous, and that is a leak and rift in the bottom of an en-
lightened conscience, often falling, and sinning against light. Woe,
woe is me that the holy profession of Christ is made a stage
garment by many to bring home a vain fame ; and Christ is made
to serve men's ends. This is as it were to stop an oven with a
king* robes. Know, 2dly, Except men martyr and slay the body
1 Point.
54 LETTER IV.
of sin, in sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christ's martyrs
and faithful witnesses. 0, if I could be master of that house-idol
myself, my own, mine, my own will, wit, credit, and ease, how
blessed were I ! 0, but we have need to be redeemed from our-
selves rather than from the devil and the world ; learn to put out
yourselves and to put in Christ for yourselves. I should make a
sweet bartering and niffering,i and give old for new, if I could
shuffle out self, and substitute Christ my Lord in place of myself ;
to say, not I, but Christ ; not my will, but Christ's ; not my ease,
not my lust, not my feckless ^ credit, but Christ, Christ. But alas !
in leaving ourselves, in setting Christ before our idol, self, we have
yet a glaiked ^ back-look to our old idol. O, wretched idol, my-
self ! when shall I see thee wholly decourted,* and Christ wholly
put in thy room 1 0, if Christ, Christ, had the full place and
room of myself, that all my aims, purposes, thoughts, and desires,
would coast and land upon Christ, and not upon myself! And
yet howbeit we cannot attain to this denial of me and mine that
we can say I am not myself, myself is not myself, mine own is
no longer mine own ; yet our aiming at this in all we do shall be
accepted ; for, alas, I think I shall die but minting ^ and aiming to
be a Christian ? Is it not our comfort that Christ, the mediator
of the new covenant, is come betwixt us and God in the business,
so that green and young heirs, the like of sinners, have now a
tutor ; that is God 1 and now God be thanked our salvation is
bottomed on Christ. Sure I am the bottom shall never fall out
of heaven and happiness to us. I Avould give over the bargain a
thousand times, were it not that Christ, by His free grace, hath
taken our salvation in hand. Pray, pray, and contend with the
Lord, for your sister-church ; for it would appear the Lord is about
to spier'' for His scattered sheep in the dark and cloudy day. 0,
that it would please our Lord to set up again David's old, wasted,
and fallen tabernacle in Scotland, that we might see the glory of
the second temple in this land ! 0, that my little heaven were
wadset,'^ to redeem the honour of my Lord Jesus among Jews and
Gentiles ! Let never dew lie upon my branches, and let my poor
flower wither at the root, so being Christ were enthroned, and
His glory advanced in all the Avorld, and especially in these three
kingdoms ; but I know He hath no need of me, what can I add to
Him? But oh, that He would cause His high and pure glory to
run through such a foul channel as I am ! and, howbeit He hath
caused the blossom to fall off my one poor joy that was on this
side of heaven, even my liberty to preach Christ to His people,
yet I am dead to that now, so being He would hew and carve
^ Exchange. * Worthless. ^ Wanton. * Dethroned.
' lutendinff. ^ Ask or seek. ^ Mortgage J.
LETTER IV. 56
glory, glory for evermore to my royal King, out of my silence and
sufferings. 0, that I had my fill of His love ! but I know ill man-
ners make an uncouth and strange bridegroom. I entreat you
earnestly for the aid of your prayers, for 1 forget not you, and I
salute with my soul in Christ the faithful pastors, and honourable
and worthy professors in that land. " Now, the God of peace that
brought again our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great Shepherd
of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you
perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that
which is well pleasing in His sight." Grace, grace, be with you.
Yours, in his sweetest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 4, 1638.
LETTER IV.— To the Truly Noble and Elect Lady, my Lady
Viscountess of Kenmure.
Noble and Elect Lady, — That honour that I have prayed for
these sixteen years, with submission to my Lord's will, my kind
Lord hath now bestowed upon me, even to suffer for my Royal and
Princely King Jesus and for His kingly crown, and the freedom
of His kingdom that His Father hath given Him. The forbidden
lords have sentenced me with deprivation and confinement within
the town of Aberdeen. I am charged in the king's name to enter
against the twentieth day of August next, and there to remain
during the king's pleasure, as they have given it out : howbeit
Christ's green cross newly laid upon me be somewhat heavy,
while I call to mind the many fair days, sweet and comfortable to
my soul, and to the souls of many others, and how young ones in
Christ are plucked from the breast, and the inheritance of God
laid waste ; yet that sweet-smelled and perfumed cross of Christ
is accompanied with sweet refreshments, with the kisses of a King,
with the joy of the Holy Ghost, with faith that the Lord hears the
sighing of a prisoner, with undoubted hope (as sure as my Lord
liveth) after this night to see daylight and Christ's sky to clear
up again upon me and His poor kirk ; and that in a strange land
amongst strange faces. He will give favour in the eyes of men
to His poor oppressed servant, who dow ^ not but love that lovely
One, that princely One, Jesus, the Comforter of his soul. All
would be well if I were free of old challenges for guiltiness,
and for neglect in my calling, and for speaking too little for my
Well-Beloved's crown, honour, and kingdom. 0, for a day in the
assembly of the saints to advocate for King Jesus ! If my Lord
go on now to quarrels also, I die, I cannot endure it ; but I look
for peace from Him, because He knoweth I do bear men's feud,
iCan.
56 LETTER V.
but I do not bear His feud : this is my only exercise,^ that I
fear I have done little good in my ministry : but I dare not but
say I loved the bairns of the wedding-chamber, and prayed for
and desired the thriving of the marriage, and coming of His king-
dom. I apprehend no less than a judgment upon Galloway, and
that the Lord shall visit this whole nation for the quarrel of the
covenant. But what can be laid upon me, or any the like of me,
is too light for Christ : Christ doth bear more, and would bear
death and burning quick^ in His weak servants, even for this
honourable cause that I now suffer for. Yet for all my complaints
(and He knoweth that I dare not now dissemble) He was never
sweeter and kinder than He is novr ; one kiss now is sweeter
than ten long since; sweet, sweet is His cross; light, light, and
easy is His yoke. 0, what a sweet step were it up to my Father's
house through ten deaths, for the truth and cause of that un-
known, and so not half well-loved plant of renown, the man
called " the Branch," the chief among ten thousands, the fairest
among the sons of men ! 0, what unseen joys, how many hidden
heart-burnings of love are in the remnants of the sufferings of
Christ ! My dear, worthy lady, I give it to your ladyship under
my own hand (my heart writing as well as my hand), welcome,
welcome, sweet, sweet, and glorious cross of Christ ; welcome sweet
Jesus with Thy light cross, Thou hast now gained and gotten all
my love from me; keep what Thou hast gotten. Only, woe,
woe is me, for my bereft flock, for the lambs of Jesus, that I
fear shall be fed with dry breasts, but I spare now. Madam, I
dare not promise to see your ladyship, because of the little time
I have allotted me, and I purpose to obey the king who hath
power of my body, and rebellion to kings is unbeseeming Christ's
ministers. Be pleased to acquaint my lady Marr with my case ;
I will look to 3^our ladyship ; and that good lady will be mindful
to God of the Lord's prisoner, not for my cause, but for the Gos-
pel's sake. Madam, bind me more (if more can be) to your lady-
ship ; and write thanks to your brother, my Lord of Lome, for
what he hath done for me, a poor unknov/n stranger to his lord-
ship : I shall pray for him and his house while I live. It is his
honour to open his mouth in the streets for his wronged and
oppressed Master Christ Jesus. Now, madam, commending your
ladyship and the sweet child to the tender mercies of mine own
Lord Jesus, and his goodwill who dwelt in the bush ; I rest,
Yours, in his own sweetest Lord Jesus,
S. K.
Edinburgh, July 28, 1636.
^ Trial or distress. ' Alive.
LETTER V. 57
LETTER v.— To the Noble and Christian Lady, the
Viscountess of Kenmure.
My very Honourable and Dear Lady, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I cannot forget your ladyship and that sweet
child : I desire to hear what the Lord is doing to you and him.
To write to me were charity. I cannot but write to my friends,
that Christ hath trysted^ me in i^lerdeen, and my adversaries
have sent me here to be feasted with love-banquets with my
royal, high, high, and princely King Jesus. Madam, why should
I smother Christ's honesty ; I dare not conceal His goodness to
my soul; He looked framed ^ and uncouth-like upon me when I
came first here, but I believe Himself better than His looks. I
shall not again quarrel Christ for a gloom, now He hath taken the
mask off His face and saith, " Kiss thy fill ;" and what can
I have more, while ^ I get great heaven in my little arms, 0,
how sweet are the sufferings of Christ, for Christ ! God forgive
them that raise an ill report upon the sweet cross of Christ ; it
is but our weak and dim eyes that look but to the black side
that makes us mistake : those who can take that crabbed tree
handsomely upon their back, and fasten it on cannily,^ shall find
it such a burden as wings unto a bird or sails to a ship. Madam,
rue not of your having chosen the better part : upon my salva-
tion this is Christ's truth I now suffer for. If I found but cold
comfort in my sufferings I would not beguile others, I would have
told you plainly; but the truth is, Christ's crown, His sceptre,
and the freedom of His kingdom, is that which is now called in
question. Because we will not allow that Christ pay tribute and
be a vassal to the shields of the earth, therefore the sons of our
mother are angry at us : but it becoraeth not Christ to hold any
man's stirrup. It were a SAveet and honourable death to die for
the honour of that royal and princely King Jesus. His love is
a mystery to the world. I would not have believed that there
was so much in Christ, as there is ; " Come and see," maketh
Christ to be known in His excellency and glory. I wish all this
nation knew how sweet His breath is ; it is little to see Christ in
a book, as men do the world in a card ;^ they talk of Christ
by the book and the tongue, and no more ; but to come nigh
Christ and have Him, and embrace Him is another thing. Madam,
I write to your honour for your encouragement in that honourable
profession Christ hath honoured you with. Ye have gotten the
sunny side of the brae, and the best of Christ's good things ; He
hath not given you the bastard's portion ; and howbeit ye get
strokes and sour looks from your Lord, yet believe His love more
■^ Met with. - Strange or alien. ^ Till. "* Gently. ^ Chart or map.
58 LETTER VI.
than your own feeling, for this world can take nothing from you
that is truly yours, and death can do you no wrong ; your rock
doth not ebb and flow, but your sea ; that which Christ hath said
He will bide by it ; He will be your tutor; you shall not get your
charters of heaven to play you with. It is good that ye have lost
your credit with Christ, and that lord free-will shall not be your
tutor. Christ will lippen^ the taking of you to heaven, neither to
yourself, nor any deputy, but only to Himself ; blessed be your
Tutor ! When your Head shall appear, your Bridegroom and
Lord, your day shall then dawn, and it shall never have an
afternoon nor an evening shadow. Let your child be Christ's, let
him stay beside you as the Lord's pledge that you shall willingly
render again if God will. Madam, I find fcJlks here kind to me,
but in the night, and under their breath ; my Master's cause may
not come to the crown of the causey '.^ others are kind according
to their fashion : many think me a strange man, and my cause not
good, but I care not much for man's thoughts or approbation. I
think no shame of the cross. The preachers of this town pretend
great love, but the prelates have added to the rest this gentle
cruelty (for so they think of it), to discharge me of the pulpits of
this town ; the people murmur and cry out against it ; and to
speak truly, howbeit Christ is most indulgent to me otherwise,
yet my silence on the Lord's-day keeps me from being exalted
above measure, and from startling in the heat of my Lord's love.
Some people affect me, for the which cause I hear the preachers
here purpose to have my confinement changed to another place ;
so cold is northern love ; but Christ and I will bear it. I have
wrestled long with this sad silence ; I said what aileth Christ at
my service, and my soul hath been at a pleading with Christ,
and at yea and nay ; but I will yield to Him, providing my suff"er-
ing may preach more than my tongue did ; for I gave not Christ
an inch but for twice as good again ; in a word, I am a fool and
He is God : I will hold my peace hereafter. Let me hear from
your ladyship and your dear child. Pray for a prisoner of Christ,
who is mindful of your ladyship. Eemember my obliged obedience
to my good Lady Marr. Grace, grace be with you. I write and
pray blessings to your sweet child. Yours, in all dutiful obedience
in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 22, 1636.
LETTER VL— To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady,
my Lady Viscountess of Kenmure.
Madajvi, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you ; 1 received your
ladyship's letter ; it refreshed me in my heaviness ; the blessing
^ Entrust. ^ Causeway.
LETTER VI. 59
and prayers of a prisoner of Christ come upon you. Since my
coming hither, Galloway sent me not a line, except what my
brother Earlstown and his son did write. I cannot get my papers
transported : but, madam, I want not kindness of one who hath
the gate ^ of it ; Christ (if he had never done more for me since I
was born) hath engaged my heart and gained my blessing in this
house of my pilgrimage. It pleaseth my Well-Beloved to dine
with a poor prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a fragrant
smell : nothing grieveth me but that I eat my feasts alone, and
that I cannot edify His saints. 0 that this nation knew what is
betwixt Him and me ! none would scar ^ at the cross of Christ.
My silence eats me up, but He hath told me He thanketh me no
less than if I Avere preaching daily ; He sees how gladly I would
be at it : and therefore my wages are going to the fore up in heaven,
as if I were still preaching Christ. Captains paj^ duly bedfast sol-
diers, howbeit they do not march nor carry armour, " Though
Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of my
Lord, and my Lord shall be my strength," Isaiah xlix. 5 ; my
garland, " the Banished Minister " (the term of Aberdeen), asham-
eth me not. I have seen the white side of Christ's cross, lovely
hath He been to His oppressed servant. Psalm cxlvi. 7, " The
Lord executeth judgment for the oppressed : He giveth food to the
hungry ; the Lord looseth the prisoner ; the Lord raiseth them
that are bowed down ; the Lord preserveth the stranger." If it
were come to exchanging of crosses, I would not exchange my
cross with any ; I am well pleased with Christ, and He Avith me !
I hope none shall hear us. It is true for all this I get my meat
with many strokes, and am seven times a day up and down, and
am often anxious and cast down for the case of my oppressed
brother, yet I hope the Lord will be surety for His servant. But
now upon some weak, very weak experience, I am come to love a
rumbling and raging devil best ; seeing we must have a devil to
hold the saints waking, I wish a cumbersome devil, rather than a
secure and sleeping one. At my first coming hither, I took the
dorts ^ at Christ, and took up a stomach against Him ; I said He
had cast me over the dyke of the vineyard like a dry tree ; but it
was His mercy, I see, that the fire did not burn the dry tree ; and
now, as if my Lord Jesus had done the fault, and not I (who be-
lied my Lord), He hath made the first mends, and He spake not
one word against me, but hath come again and quickened my soul
with His presence ; nay, now I think the very annuity and casual-
ties of the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord, and these comforts
^ That is, I am not without kindness from one who has the method of it, or
who knows how to be kind.
* Be afraid or offended. ' Took offence.
60 LETTER VI.
that accompany it, better than the world's set rent. 0, how
many rich ofF-falhngs are in my King's house ; I am persuaded,
and dare pawn my salvation on it, that it is Christ's truth I now
suffer for ; I know His comforts are no dreams. He would not
put His seal on blank paper, nor deceive His afflicted ones that
trust in Him. Your ladyship wrote to me that ye are yet an ill
scholar. Madam, ye must go in at heaven's gates, and your book
in your hand, still learning ; you have had your own large share
of troubles, and a double portion ; but it saith your Father count-
eth you not a bastard : full-begotten bairns are nurtured, Heb.
xii. 8. I long to hear of the child ; I write the blessings of
Christ's prisoner and the mercies of God to him ; let him be
Christ's and yours betwixt you, but let Christ be whole play-
maker ; let Him be the lender, and ye the borrower, not an
owner. Madam, it is not long since I did write to your ladyship
that Christ is keeping mercy for you, and I bide by it still, and
now I write it under my hand ; love Him dearly, win in to see
Him; there is in Him that which you never saw ; He is ever nigh,
He is a tree of life, green and blossoming both summer and
winter. There is a nick in Christianity to the which whoso-
ever cometh they see and feel more than others can do. I invite
you of new to come to Him ; " Come and see," will speak better
things of Him than I can do ; " Come nearer, come nearer," will
say much. God thought never this world a portion worthy of
you; He would not even^ you to a gift of dirt and clay; nay,
He will not give you Esau's portion, but reserves the inheritance
of Jacob for you : are ye not well married now 1 have you not a
good Husband now ^ My heart cannot express what sad nights I
have for the virgin daughter of my people : woe is me, for our
time is coming! Ezekiel vii. 10, "Behold the day, behold, it is
come; the morning hath gone forth, the rod hath blossomed,
pride hath budded, violence is risen up in a rod of wickedness.
The sun is gone down upon our prophets!" A dry wind upon
Scotland, but neither to fan nor to cleanse. But out of all ques-
tion, when the Lord hath cut down His forest, the aftergrowth
of Lebanon shall flourish, they shall plant vines in our mountains,
and a cloud shall yet fill the temple. Now the blessing of our
dearest Lord Jesus, and the blessing of him that is separated
from his brethren come upon you.
Yours, at Aberdeen, the prisoner of Cluist, S. R.
Aberdeen ,
^ Tliink of giving you.
LETTERS VII, AND VIII. 61
LETTER VII.— To the Honourable and truly noble Lady, the
Viscountess of Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your ladyship. I long
to hear from you. I am here waiting if a good wind, long looked
for, shall at length blow in Christ's sails in this land. But I
wonder if Jesus be not content to suffer more yet in His members,
and cause, and beauty of His house, rather than He should not be
avenged upon this land. I hear many worthy men (who see
more in the Lord's dealing than I can take up with my dim sight)
are of a contrary mind, and do believe the Lord is coming home
again to His house in Scotland. I hope He is on His journey
that way, yet I look not but that He shall feed this land with
their own blood before He establish His throne amongst us. I
know your honour is not looking after things hereaway ; ye have
no great cause to think that your stock and principal is under
the roof of these visible heavens : and I hope ye would think your-
self a beguiled and cozened soul if it Avere so. I would be sorry to
counsel your ladyship to make a covenant with time and this' life,
but rather desire you to hold in fair generals, and far off from this
ill-founded heaven that is on this side of the water. It speaketh
somewhat when our Lord bloweth the bloom off our daft * hopes
in this life, and loppeth the branches of our worldly joys well nigh
the root, on purpose that they should not thrive. Lord, spill "
my fool's heaven in this life, that I may be saved for ever. A
forfeiture of the saints' part of the yolk and marrow of short-
laughing worldly happiness is not such a real evil as our blinded
eyes do conceive. I am thinking long now for some deliverance
more than before : but I know I am in an error. It is possible I
am not come to that m.easure of trial that the Lord is seeking in
His work. If my friends in Galloway would effectually do for
my deliverance, I would exceedingly rejoice; but I know not
but the Lord hath a way whereof He will be the only reaper of
praises. Let me know with the bearer how the child is: the Lord
be his Father, and Tutor, and your only Comforter. There is
nothing here where I am but profanity and atheism. Grace, grace
be with your ladyship.
Your ladyship's at all obliged obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 13, 1637.
LETTER VIII.— To the Noble and Christian Lady, the
Viscountess of Kenmure,
Madam,— Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, I would not
omit the occasion to write to your ladyship with the bearer. I
^ Foolish or insane. ^ Spoil,
62 LETTER VIII.
am glad the child is well ; God's favour even in the eyes of men
be seen upon him. I hope your ladyship is thinking upon these
sad and woeful days wherein we now live, when our Lord, in
His righteous judgment, is sending the kirk the gate^ she is
going, to Kome's brothel-house to seek a lover of her own, seeing
she hath given up with Christ her husband. 0, Avhat sweet
comfort, what rich salvation, is laid up for these who had rather
wash and roll their garments in their own blood than break out
from Christ by apostasy ! Keep yourself in the love of Christ,
and stand far aback from the pollutions of the world : side not
with these times, and hold off from coming nigh the signs of a
conspiracy with these that are now come out against Christ, that
ye may be one kept for Christ only. I know your ladyship
thinketh upon this, and how ye may be humbled for yourself and
this backsliding land ; for I avouch that wrath from the Lord is
gone out against Scotland. I think aye the longer the better of
my royal and worthy Master ; He is become a new Well-Beloved
to me now, in renewed consolations, by the presence of the Spirit
of grace and glory ; Christ's garments smell of the powder of the
merchant when he cometh out of his ivory chambers. 0, His
perfumed face, His fair face, His lovely and kindly kisses, have
made me, a poor prisoner, see, there is more to be had of Christ
in this life than I believed : we think all is but a little earnest, a
four-hours,^ a small tasting we have, or is to be had, in this life
(which is true compared with the inheritance), but yet I know it
is more, it is the kingdom of God within us. Woe, woe is me,
that I have not ten loves for that one Lord Jesus ! and that love
faileth and drieth up in loving Him ; and that I find no way to
spend my love desires, and the yolk of my heart upon that fairest
and dearest one : I am far behind with my narrow heart. 0, how
ebb a soul have I to take in Christ's love ! for let worlds be multi-
plied according to angels' understanding, in millions, while ^ they
weary themselves, these worlds would not contain the thousandth
part of His love. 0, if I could yoke in amongst the thick of
angels and seraphims, and now glorified saints, and could raise a
new love-song of Christ before all the world ! I am pained witli
wondering at new opened treasures in Christ; if every finger,
member, bone, and joint were a torch burning in the hottest fire
in hell, I would they could all send out love praises, high songs of
praise for evermore, to that plant of renown, to that royal and
high Prince Jesus my Lord; but, alas, His love swelleth in me, and
findeth no vent ! alas, what can a dumb prisoner do or say for
Him ! 0 for an engine* to write a book of Christ and His love !
* Way. * A light meal taken at four o'clock. ^ TilL
* Genius or ability.
LETTER TX. 63
nay, I am left of Him bound and chained with His love ! I cannot
find a loosed soul to lift up His praises, and give them out to
others ; but oh, my daylight hath thick clouds, I cannot shine in
His praises ! I am often like a ship plying about to seek the wind ;
I sail at great leisure, and cannot be blown upon that loveliest
Lord. 0, if I could turn my sails to Christ's right airt,^ and that
I had' my heart's wishes of His love ! But, I but mar His praises ;
nay, I know no comparison of what Christ is, and what His worth
is : all the angels, and all the glorified, praise Him not so much as
in halves : who can advance Him or utter all His praises 1 I want
nothing ; unknown faces favour me ; enemies must speak good of
the truth ; my Master's cause purchaseth commendation. The
hopes of my enlargement from appearances are cold ; my faith hath
no bed to sleep upon but Omnipotency. The goodwill of the Lord
and His sweetest presence be with you and that child. Grace and
peace be yours.
Your ladyship's in all duty in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, It 37.
LETTER IX.— To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady
the Viscountess of Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your ladyship. I
would not omit to write a line with this Christian bearer, one in
your ladyship's own case, driven near to Christ in and by her
affliction. I wish that my friends in Galloway forget me not.
However it be, Christ is so good that I will have no other tutor,
suppose I could have waiP and choice of ten thousand beside : I
think now five hundred heavy hearts for Him too little. I wisli
Christ now weeping, suffering, and contemned of men, were more
dear and desirable to many souls than He is : I am sure if the
saints wanted Christ's cross, so profitable and so sweet, they might
for the gain and glory of it, wish it were lawful either to buy or
borrow His cross ; but it is a mercy that the saints have it laid to
their hand for nothing, for I know no sweeter way to heaven, than
through free-grace and hard trials together, and one of these cannot
well want another. 0, that time would post faster, and hasten our
long-looked for communion with that fairest, fairest among the
sons of men ! 0, that the day would favour us, and come and put
Christ and us in other's^ arms ! I am sure a few years will do our
turn, and the soldier's hour-glass will soon run out. Madam ! look
to your lamp, and look for your Lord's coming, and let your heart
dwell aloof from that sweet child ; Christ's jealousy will not admit
^ Direction. * Selection. ^ Each other's
64 LETTER X.
two equal loves in your ladyship's heart. He must have one, and
chat the greatest ; a little one to a creature, may and must suffice
a soul married to Him, '•' Your Maker is your Husband," Isa. liv.
I would wish you well, and my obligation these many years by-
gone speak no less to me, but more I can neither wish, nor pray,
nor desire for to your ladyship than Christ singled and wailed ^
out from all created good things, or Chi"ist, howbeit wet in His
own blood and wearing a crown of thorns. I am sure the saints
at their best are but strangers to the weight and worth of the
incomparable sweetness of Christ. He is so new, so fresh in ex-
cellency, every day of new, to these that search more and more in
Him, as if heaven could furnish as many new Christs (if I may
speak so) as there are days betwixt Him and us, and yet He is one
and the same. 0, we love an unknown lover when we love
Christ ! Let me hear how the child is every way. The prayers
of a prisoner of Christ be upon him, Grace for evermore, even
while 2 glory perfect it, be with your ladyship.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER X.— To the Noble and Christian Lady, tlie
Viscountess of Kenmure.
Madam, — Notwithstanding the great haste of the bearer I
would bless your ladyship in paper, desiring, that since Christ
hath ever envied that the world should have your love by ^ Him,
that ye give yourself out for Christ, and that ye may be for no
other. I know none worthy of you but Christ, madam. I am
either suffering for Christ, and this is either the sure and good
way, or I have done with heaven and will never see God's
face (which I bless Him cannot be). I write my blessing to
that sweet child that ye have borrowed from God, he is no
heritage to you, but a loan; love him as folks do borrowed
things : my heart is heavy for you. They say the kirk of
Christ hath neither son nor heir, and therefore her enemies
shall possess her : but I know she is not that* ill friended, her
husband is her heir, and she His heritage. If my Lord would
be pleased I would desire some were- dealt with for my return
to Anwoth, but if that never be, I thank God Anwoth is not
heaven ; preaching is not Christ, I hope to wait on. Let me
hear how the child is, and yonr ladyship's mind and hopes of
him, for it would ease my heart to know that he is well. I am
in good terms with Christ, but oh, my guiltiness ! yet He bring-
^ Separated and selected. ^ Till. ^ Beside. * So.
lettp:r XL 65
etli not pleas ^ betwixt Him and me to the streets, and before
the sun. Grace, grace, for evermore be with your hidyship.
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeei;, 1637.
LETTER XL— To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady,
my Lady VISCOUNTESS OF Kenmuee.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace to you. I am refreshed with
your letter : the right hand of Him to whom belong the issues
from death hath been gracious to that sweet child. I do not,
I do not forget him and your ladyship in my prayers. Madam,
for your own case, I love careful, and Avithal doing complaints of
want of practice, because I observe many who think it holiness
enough to complain and set themselves at nothing ; as if to say
" I am sick," would cure them : they think complaints a good
charm for guiltiness. I hope ye are wrestling and struggling on
in this dead age, wherein folks have lost tongue, and legs, and
arms for Christ. I yrge upon you, madam, a nearer communion
with Christ and a growing communion. There are curtains to be
drawn by in Christ that we never saw, and new foldings of love
in Him. I despair that ever I shall win to the far end of that
love, theie are so many plies in it ; therefore dig deep, and sweat,
and lal)our, and take pains for Him, and set by so much time in
the day for Him as you can : He will be won with labour. I. His
exiled prisoner, sought Him, and He hath rued- upon me, and
hath made a moan for me, as He doth for His own, Jer. xxxi.
20; Isa. xlv. 11 : and I know not what to do with Christ, His
love surroundeth and surchargeth me. I am burdened with it ;
but 0, how sweet and lovely is that burden ! I do not keep it
within me : I am so in love with His iove that if His love were
not in heaven I would be unwilling to go there. 0, what weigh-
ing and what telling is in Christ's love ! I fear nothing now so
much as the laughing of Christ's cross, and the love-showers that
accompany it : I wonder what He meaneth to put such a slave at
the board-head, at His own elbow. 0, that I should lay my black
mouth to such a fair, fair, fair face as Christ's ! but I dare not
refuse to be loved : the cause is not in me why He hath looked
upon me, and loved me, for He got neither bud^ nor hire of me ;
it cost me nothing, it is good cheap love. O, the many pound-
weights of His love under which I am sweetly pressed ! Now,
madam, I persuade you the greatest part but play with Chris-
^ Quarrels. " Had Pity.
■' I siqipose "bud" is derived from the verb "to bid," and signifies an offer
or promise, the "bidding' at an auction.
66 LETTER XII.
tianity ; they pnt it by hand easily. I thought it had been ati
easy thing to be a Christian, and that to seek God had been at
the next door, but oh, the windings, the turnings, the ups and
the downs that He hath led me through ! and I see yet much
way to the ford. He speaketh with my reins in the night season,
and in the morning when I awake I find His love arrows that
He shot at me, sticking in my heart. Who will help me to praise?
who will come to lift with me and set on high His great love 1 and
yet I find that a fire-flaught of challenges will come in at mid-
summer, and question me, but it is only to keep a sinner in order.
As for friends, I shall not think the world to be the world if that
well go not dry : I trust in God to use the world as a canny or
cunning master doth a knave-servant (at least God give me grace
to do so) ; he giveth him no handling or credit ; only he entrusteth
him with common errands, wherein he cannot play the knave. I
pray God I may not give this world credit of my joys, and com-
forts, and confidence : that were to put Christ out of His office :
nay, I counsel you, madam, from a little experience, let Christ
keep the great seal, and intrust Him so as to hing your vessels,
great and small, and pin your burdens upon the nail fastened in
David's house, Isa. xxii. 23. Let me not be well if ever they get
the tutoring of my comforts : away, away with irresponsaU tutors
that would play me a slip, and then Christ would laugh at me, and
say, " Well-wared,2 try again ere ye trust." Now, Avoe is me for
my whorish mother the Kirk of Scotland. 0 ! who will bewail
her. Now the presence of the great Angel of the covenant to be
with you and that sweet child.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER XH.— To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady,
my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Upon the off'ered opportunity of this worthy bearer, 1
could not omit to answer the heads of your letter. 1. I think not
much to set down in paper some good things anent Christ, that
sealed and holy thing, and to feed my soul with raw wishes to be one
with Christ, for a wish is but broken and half love ; but verily to
obey this, "Come and see," is a harder matter; but oh, I have rather
smoke than fire, and guessings rather than real assurances of Him !
I have little or nothing to say, that I am as one who hath found
favour in His eyes ; but there is some pining and mis-mannered
hunger, that maketh me miscall and nickname Christ as a changed
Lord, but, alas, it is ill slitten ! ^ I cannot believe without a pledge
^ Irresponsible. - Well-rewarded. * Sorely rent.
LETTER Xn. 67
I cannot take God's word without a caution, as it' Christ had lost
and sold His credit, and were not in my books responsal and law-
bidding j^ but this is my way, for His way is (Ephes. i. 13), " After
that ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,"
2. Ye write that I am filled with knowledge, and stand not in need
of these warnings, but certainly my light is dim when it cometh to
handy-grips ; 2 and how many have full coffers and yet empty bellies ;
light, and the saving use of light, are far different. 0, what need
have I to have the ashes blown away from my dying-out fire ! I
may be a book-man, and be an idiot and stark fool in Christ's way :
learning will not beguile Christ : the Bible beguiled the Pharisees,
and so may I be misted. Therefore, as night-watchers hold one
another waking by speaking to one another, so have we need to
hold one another on foot. Sleep stealeth away the light of watch-
ing, even the light that reproveth sleeping. I doubt not but more
should fetch heaven if they believed not heaven to be at the next
door ; the world's negative holiness — no adulterer, no murderer,
no thief, no cozener — maketh men believe they are already glorified
saints ; but the sixth chapter to the Hebrews may affright us all,
when we hear that men may take of 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 silver, which yet seemeth to
.lave the king's image and superscription upon it. 3. I find you
complaining of yourself, and it becometh a sinner so to do ; I am
not against you in that ; sense of death is a sib^ friend, and of kin
and blood to life ; the more sense, the more life ; the more sense
of sin the less sin. I would love my pain, and soreness, and my
wounds, howbeit these should bereave me of my night's sleep,
better than my wounds without pain. 0, how sweet a thing is it
to give Christ His handful of broken arms and legs, and disjointed
bones ! 4. Be not afraid for little grace. Christ soweth His living
seed, and He will not lose His seed : if He have the guiding of my
stock and state it shall not miscarry. Our spilt works, losses,
deadness, coldness, wretchedness, are the ground which the good
Husbandman laboureth. 5. Ye write that His compassions fail
not, notwithstanding that your service to Christ miscarrieth. To
the which I answer, God forbid that there were buying, and selling,
and blocking* for as good again betwixt Christ and us ; for then
free grace might go play it, and a Saviour sing du.mb, and Christ
go and sleep ; but we go to heaven with light shoulders, and all
the bairn-time, and the vessels great and small that we have, are
fastened upon the sure nail, Lsa. xxii. 24. The only danger is
that we give grace more ado than God giveth it, that is by turning
^ Qa. Law-biding. ^ Close quarter.^.
^ Close or near. * Bartering.
68 LETTER XIII.
His grace into wantonness. 6. Ye write, few see your gniltinoss,
and ye cannot be free with many, as with me. I answer. Blessed
be God, Christ and we are not heard before men's courts ; it is at
home, betwixt Him and us, that pleas are taken away. Grace be
with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen.
LETTER XIII.— To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady,
my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your ladyship. God
be thanked ye are yet in possession of Christ and that sweet child.
I pray God the former may be sure heritage, and the latter a loan
for your comfort, while ye do good to His poor, afflicted, withered
Mount Zion ; and who knoweth but our Lord hath comforts laid up
in store for her and you 1 I am persuaded Christ hath bought you
by^ the devil, and hell, and sin ; that they have no claim to you ;
and that is a rich and invaluable mercy. Long since ye were half
challenging death's cold kindness in being so slow and sweared^ to
come and loose a tired prisoner; but ye stand in need of all the
crosses, losses, changes, and sad hearts that befel you since that
time. Christ knoweth the body of sin unsubdued will take them
all, and more. We know that Paul had need of the devil's service
to buffet him, and far more we. But, my dear and honourable
lady, spend your sand-glass well. I am sure ye have law to raise
a suspension against all that devils, men, friends, worlds, losses,
hell, or sin can decree against you. It is good your crosses will but
convey you to heaven's gates. In can they not go ; the gates shall
be closed on them when ye shall be admitted to the throne. Time
standeth not still; eternity is hard at our door. 0, what is laid up
for you ! therefore harden your face against the Avind, and the
Lamb, your Husband, 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 prelates' purpose to banish me, but let it come if God so
will; the other side of the sea is my Father's ground as well as this
side. I owe bowing to God, but no servile bowing to crosses ; I
have been but too soft in that. I am comforted that I am persuaded
fuUy that Christ is half with me in this well-borne and honest
Cross, and if He claim right to the best half of my troubles (as I
know He doth to the whole) I shall remit it over to Christ what I
shall do in this case. I know certainly my Lord Jesus will not mar
nor spill my sufterings ; He hath use for them in His house. 0,
^ Past or away from, - Reluctant.
LETTER XIV. 69
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 in Anwoth ! but I know Pro-
vidence looketh not asquint but looketh straight out, and through
all men's darkness. 0, that I could wait upon the Lord ! I had
but one eye, one joy, one delight, even to preach Christ, and my
mother's sons were angry at me, and have put out the poor man's
one eye ; and what have I behind 1 I am sure this sour world hath
lost my heart deservedly, but oh, that there were a day's-man to
lay his hand upon us both, and determine upon my part of it.
Alas ! that innocent and lovely truth should be sold ; my tears are
but little worth, but yet for this thing I weep, I weep : Alas ! that
my fair and lovely Lord Jesus should be miskent^ in His own house ;
it reckoneth little of five hundred the like of me. Yet the water
goeth not over faith's breath, yet our King liveth. I write the
prisoner's blessings, the goodwill, and long lasting kindness, with
the comforts of the very God of peace be to your ladyship and
to your sweet child. Grace, grace be with you.
Your honour's, at all obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. E.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER XIV.— To tlie much Honoured John Gordon, of
Cardoness, Elder.
Much Honoured and Dearest in my Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. My soul longeth exceedingly to hear how
matters go betwixt you and Christ, and whether or not there be
any work of Christ in that parish that Avill bide the trial of fire
and water. Let me be weighed of my Lord in a just balance if
your souls lie not weighty upon me ; you go to bed and you rise
Avith me ; thoughts of your soul (my dearest in our Lord) depart
not from me in my sleep. Ye have a great part of my tears, sighs,
supplications, and prayers. 0, if I could buy your soul's salvation
with any suffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might meet with
joy up in the rainbow, when we shall stand before our Judge ! 0
my Lord forbid I have any hard thing to depone against you in
that day ! 0, that He who quickeneth the dead would give life to
my sowing among you ! What joy is there (next to Christ), that
standeth on this side of death would comfort me more than that
tlie souls of that poor people were in safety, and beyond all hazard
of losing. Sir, show 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.
Sure I am, once I discovered my lovely, royal, princely Lord Jesus
^ Misrepresented.
70 LETTER XIV.
to you all, woe, woe, woe, shall be your part of it for evermore if
the Gospel be not the savour of life unto life to you : as many
sermons as I preached, as many sentences as I uttered, as many
points of dittayi shall they be, when the Lord shall 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 saved. 0, what
violence of thronging will heaven take ! Alas ! I see many de-
ceiving themselves, for we will all to heaven ; now every foul dog,
with his foul feet, will in at the nearest to the new and clean
Jerusalem : all say they have faith, and the greatest part in the
world know not, and will not consider, that a slip in the matter
of their salvation is the most pitiful slip that can be ; and that
no loss is comijarable to this loss. 0, then, see that there be not
a loose pin in the work of your salvation ! for ye will not believe
how quickly the Judge will come ; and for yourself, I know that
death is waiting, and hovering, and lingering at God's command,
that ye may be prepared. Then you had need to stir your time
and to take eternity and death to your riper advisements : a wrong
step or a wrong stot^ in going out of this life, in one property,^ is
like the sin against the Holy Ghost, and can never be forgiven,
because ye cannot come back again through 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 count.'
and order them ; lose not to the last play, whatever ye do ; for in
that play with death, your precious soul is the prize ; for the Lord's
sake spoil not the play, and lose not such a treasure. Ye know
out of love I had to your soul, and out of desire I had to make an
honest count for you, I testified my displeasure and disliking of
your ways very often, botli in private and public. I am not now
a witness of your doings, but your Judge is always your witness.
I beseech by the mercies of God, by the salvation of your soul, by
your comforts when your eye-strings shall break, and the face wax
pale, and the soul shall tremble to be out of the lodging of clay,
and by your compearance before your awful Judge, after the siglit
of this letter, take a new course with your ways, and now in the
end of your day, make sure of heaven ; examine yourself if ye be
in good earnest in Christ, for some (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 Christ at all.
Many think they believe, but never tremble : the devils are further
on than these. Jam. ii. 19. Make sure to yourself that ye are
above ordinary professors. The sixth part of your span-length and
hand-breadth of days is scarcely before you. Haste, haste, for the
tide will not bide ! Put Christ upon all your accounts and your
' Airaismment or accusation. "^ Stagger. ' Particular.
LETTER XIV. 71
secrets. 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 so well what sin was as since I came to Aberdeen;
howbeit I was preaching of it to you. To feel the smoke of hell's
fire in the throat for half an hour, to stand beside a river of fire and
brimstone broader than the earth, and to think to be bound hand
and foot, and cast in the midst of it quick, and then to have God
locking the prison door, never to be opened for all eternity : 0,
how will it shake a conscience that hath any life in it ! I find the
fruits of my pains to have Christ and that people once fairly met,
now meeteth my soul in my sad hours, and 1 rejoice that I gave
fair warning of all the corruptions now entering in Christ's house,
and now many a sweet, sweet, soft kiss, many perfumed, well-smelled
kisses and embracements have I received of my royal Master ; He
and I have had much love together. I have for the present a
sick, dwining life, with much pain, and much love-sickness for
Christ. 0, what I would give to have a bed made to my wearied
soul in His bosom ! I would frist^ heaven for many years to
have my fill of Jesus in this life, and to have occasion to offer
Christ to my people, and to woo many people to Christ. I cannot
tell you what sweet pain and delightsome torments are in Christ's
love. I often challenge time that holdeth us sundry. I profess
to you I have no rest. I have no ease, while ^ I be over head and
ears in love's ocean. If Christ's love (that fountain of delight) were
laid as open to me as I would wish, 0, how would I drink, and drink
abundantly ! 0, how drunken would this my soul be ! I half call
His absence cruel, and the mask and vail on Christ's face a cruel
covering, that hideth such a fair, fair face from a sick soul. I dare
not challenge Himself, but His absence is a mountain of iron upon
my heavy heart. 0, when will we meet ! 0, how long is it to
the dawning of the marriage-day ! 0, sweet Lord Jesus, take wide
steps ! 0, my Lord, come over mountains at one stride ! 0, my
Beloved, flee like a roe, or young hart, upon the mountains of
separation ! 0, if He would fold the heavens together like an old
cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and make ready
in haste 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 spake so meikle^ good of
Christ to you in public. 0, if the heaven and the heaven of
heavens were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude of moun-
tains pens of brass, and I were able to write that paper, within and
without, full of the praises of my fairest, my dearest, my loveliest,
my sweetest, my matchless, and my most marrowless^ and mar-
vellous Well-Beloved ! Woe is me T cannot set Him out to men
■^ Postpone. ^ Until. ^ Muoh. * Incoinparahle.
72 LETTER XIV.
and angels ! 0, there are few tongues to sing love-songs of His
incomparable excellency ! what can I, poor prisoner, do to exalt
Him? or what course 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. Blessed they who would help me in this. How sweet are
Christ's back parts ! 0, what then is in His face ! These that see
His face, how do they get their eye plucked off Him again 1 Look
up to Him and love Him ! 0, love and live ! It were life to me if
ye would read this letter to that people, and if they did profit by it.
0, if I could cause them to die of love for Jesus ! I charge them,
by the salvation of their souls, 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 Christ ; 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 conscience in twain ; and who then can
mend it, and cast a knot on it '? My dearest in the Lord, stand fast
in Christ, keep the faith, contend for Christ, wrestle for Him and
take men's feud for God's favour ; there is no comparison betwixt
these. 0, that my Lord would fulfil my joy, and keep the young
bride to Christ that is at Anwoth ! And now whoever they be
that have returned to the old vomit since my departure, I bind
upon their back, in my Master's name and authority, the long-last-
ing weighty vengeance and curse of God ; in my Lord's name I give
them a doom of black, unmixed, pure wrath, which my Master
shall ratify and make good when we stand together before Him,
except they timeously repent and turn to the Lord. And I write
to thee, poor mourning and broken hearted believer, be who thou
,vill, of the free salvation : Christ's sweet balm for thy wounds, 0,
poor humble believer; Christ's kisses for thy watery cheeks; Christ's
blood of atonement for thy guilty soul ; Christ's heaven for thy
poor soul, though once banished out of paradise ; and my Master
shall make good my word ere long. 0, that people were Avise !
0, that people were wise ! 0, that people would spier^ out Christ
and never rest while ^ they find Him ! 0, how shall my soul mourn
in secret if my nine-years'-pained head, and sore breast, and pained
back, and grieved heart, and private and public prayers to God,
shall all be for nothing among that people ! Did my Lord Jesus
send me but to summon you before your Judge, and to leave your
summons at your houses'? was I sent as a witness only to gather
your dittays?-^ 0, my God forbid! often did I tell you of a fan
of God's Word to come among you for the contempt of it. I told
you often of wrath, wrath from the Lord, to come upon Scotland,
and yet I bide by my Master's word ; it is quickly coming ; desola-
tion for Scotland, because of the quarrel of a broken covenant. Nov/,
1 Seek. * Until. ^ Accusations.
LETTEU XV. 73
vvortliv sir ; now, my dear people, my joy, and my crown in the
Lord, let Him be your fear; seek the Lord and His face ; save your
souls ; doves, flee to Christ's window ; pray for me and praise for
me. The blessing of my God, the prayers and blessings of a poor
prisoner and your lawful pastor, be upon you.
Your lawful and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
LETTER XV.— To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady,
my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, from God our
Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot but thank
your ladyship for your letter that hath refreshed my soul. I think
myself many ways obliged to your ladyship for your love to my
afflicted brother now embarked with me in that same cause : his
Lord hath been pleased to put him upon truth's side. I hope
your ladyship will befriend him with your counsel and counten-
ance in that country, Avhere he is a stranger; and your ladyship
needeth not fear but your kindness to his own shall be put up in
Christ's accounts. Now, madam, for your ladyship's case, I re-
joice exceedingly that the Father of Lights hath made you see
that theie is a nick^ in Christianity which ye contend to be at,
and that is, to quit the right eye and the right hand, and to keep
the Son of God. I hope your desire is to make Him your gar-
land, and your eye looketh up the mount, which certainly is no-
thing but the new creature : fear not, Christ will not cast water
upon your smoking coal, and then who else dare do it if He say
"Nay"? Be sorrow- at corruption and not secure; that com-
panion lay with you in your mother's womb, and was as early
friends with you as the breath of life, and Christ will not have it
otherwise ; for He delighteth to take up fallen bairns and to mend
broken brows : binding up of wounds is His office, Isa. Ixi. First,
I am glad Christ will get employment of His calling in you. Many
a whole soul is in heaven which was sicker than ye are : He is
content ye lay broken arms and legs on His knee, that He may
spelk^ them. Secondly, hiding of His face is wise love ; His love
is not fond, doting, and reasonless, to give your head no other
pillow while ^ ye be in at heaven's gates, but to lie betwixt His
breasts, and lean upon His bosom : nay. His bairns must often
have the frosty, cold side of the hill, and set down both their bare
feet among thorns : His love hath eyes, and in the meantime is
looking on. Our pride must have winter weather to rot it. But I
^ Proiicrly a notch. The meanmg; is, that there is a high standard which
vou strive to attain. ^ Sorrowful. ^ Bandaoje. ■* Till.
74 LETTER XVI.
know Christ and ye shall not be heard : ye will whisper it over be-
twixt yourselves and agree again, for the auchor-tow abideth fast
within the vail ; the end of it is in Clirist's ten fingers ; who dare
pull if He hold 1 " I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand,
saying, Fear not, I will help thee," Isa. xli. 13. Fear not, Jacob.
The sea-sick passenger shall come to land ; Christ will be the first
that will meet you on the shore. I hope your ladyship will keep the
King's highway ; go on in the strength of the Lord in haste, as if
ye had not leisure to speak to the inn-keepers by the way : He is
over beyond time in the other side of the water who thinketh long
for you. For my unfaithful self, madam, I must say a word. At
my first coming hither, the devil made many black lies of my Lord
Jesus, and said the court was changed, and He was angry and
would give an evil servant his leave at mid-term ; but He give me
grace not to take my leave : I resolve to bide summons and sit :
howbeit it was suggested and said, What should be done with a
withered tree but over the dyke with it 1 But now, now (I dare
not, I do not keep it up), who is feasted as His poor exiled pri-
soner? I think shame of the board-head, and the first mess, and
the royal King's dining-hall ; and that my black hand should come
on such a Ruler's table. But I cannot mend it, Christ must have
His will ; only He paineth my soul so, sometimes with His love,
that I have been nigh to pass modesty, and to cry out. He hatli
left a smoking burning coal in my heart, and gone to the door
Himself, and left me and it together ! yet it is not desertion ; I
know not what it is ; but I was never so sick for Him as now.
I durst not challenge mj^ Lord if I got no more for heaven; it is
a dauting ^ cross. I know He hath other things to do than to
play with me, and trinle ^ an apple with me, and that this feast
will end. 0, for instruments in God's name, that this is He ! and
that I may make use of it, when it will be a near friend within
me, and when it will be said by a challenging devil, " Where is
my God 1 " Since I know it will not last, I desire but to keep
broken meat ; but let no man after me slander Christ for His
cross. The great Lord of the covenant who brought from the
dead the great Shepherd of His sheep by the blood of the eternal
covenant, establish you, and keep you and yours to His appear-
ance. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER XVL— To Mr. Alexander Henderson.
My Reverend and Dear Brother, — I received your letters.
They are as apples of gold to me ; for with my sweet feasts (and
1 Fondliiiff. •- KoU.
Lettek xvii. ^5
they are above the deserving of such a sinner, high and out of
measure) I have sadness to ballast me and weight me a little. It
is but His boundless wisdom, who hath taken the tutoring of His
witless child ; and He knoweth to be drunken with comforts is not
safest for our stomachs. However it be, the din, and noise and
glooms of Christ's cross are w^eightier than itself. I protest to
you (my witness is in heaven) I could wish many pounds' weight
added to my cross to know that, by my sufferings, Christ were set
forward in His kingly office in this land. 0, what is my skin to
His glory, or my losses, or my sad heart, to the apple of the eye
of our Lord, and His beloved spouse. His precious truth, His royal
privileges, the glory of manifested justice in giving of His foes a
dash, the testimony of His faithful servants, who do glorify Him
when he rideth upon poor, weak worms, and triumpheth in them !
I desire you to pray that I may come out of this furnace with
honesty, and that 1 may leave Christ's truth no worse than I
found it, and that this most honourable cause may neither be
stained nor weakened. As for your case, my reverend and dearest
brother, ye are the talking of the North and South ; and looked
to so as if you were all crystal glass ; your motes and dust should
soon be proclaimed, and trumpets bloAvn at your slips. But I
know ye have laid help upon One that is mighty. Entrust not
your comforts to men's airy and frothy applause, neither lay your
down-castings on the tongues of salt-mockers ^ and reproachers of
godliness. — " As deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well
known," God hath called you to Christ's side, and the wind is
now in Christ's face in this land ; and seeing ye are with Him, ye
cannot expect the lee-side, or the sunny side of the brae ! but I
know ye have resolved to take Christ upon any terms whatsoever.
I hope ye do not rue, though your cause be hated and that preju-
dices are taken up against it. The shields of the world think our
Master cumbersome wares ; and that He maketh too great din,
and that His cords and yokes make blains and deep scores in their
neck ; therefore they kick ; they say this man shall not reign over
us. Let us pray for one another. He who hath made you a chosen
arrow in His quiver, hide you in the hollow of His hand.
I am yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
A.berdeen, March 9, 1637.
LETTER XVII.— To the Right Honourable my Lord Lowdon.
My very Noble and Honourable Lord, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I make bold to write to your lordship that you
may know the honourable cause ye are graced to profess is Christ's
own truth. Ye are many ways blessed of God, who hath taken
^ Qu. saint-mockers.
76 LETTER XVIII.
upon you to come out to the streets with Christ on your forehead,
when so many are ashamed of Him, and hide Him (as it were)
under their cloak, as if He were a stolen Christ. If this faithless
generation (and especially the nobles of this kingdon) thought not
Christ dear wares, and religion expensive, hazardous, and danger-
ous, they would not slip from His cause as they do, and stand
looking on with their hands folded behind their back, when lowns ^
are running away with the spoil of Zion on their back and the
boards of the Son of God's tabernacle. Law and justice are to be
had to any, especially for money and moyen ;* but Christ can get
no law — good, cheap, nor dear. It were the glory and honour of
you, who are the nobles of this land, to plead for your wronged
Bridegroom and His oppressed spouse, as far as zeal and standing
law will go with you. Your ordinary logic, from the event that it
will do no good to the cause (and therefore silence is best, till the
Lord put to His own hand), is not (with reverence of our lord-
ship's learning) worth a straw. Events are God's. Let us do,
and not plead against God's office ; let Him sit at His own helm
who moderateth all events. It is not a good course to complain
that we cannot get a providence of gold, when our laziness, cold
zeal, temporising and faithless fearfulness, spilletli good provi-
dence. Your lordship will pardon me; I am not of that mind
that tumults or arms is the way to put Christ on His throne, or
that Christ will be served and truth vindicated only with the
arms of flesh and blood ; nay, Christ doth His turn with less din
than with garments rolled in blood. But I would the zeal of God
were in the nobles to do their part for Christ, and I must be par-
doned to write to your lordship this I do^ not, I dare not but
speak to others what God hath clone to the soul of His poor,
afflicted, exiled prisoner. His comfort is more than I ever knew
before ; He hath sealed the honourable cause I now suffer for, and
I shall not believe that Chist will put His " Amen " and ring upon
an imagination. He hath made all His promises good to me, and
hath filled up all the blanks with His own hand. I would not
exchange my bonds with the plastered joy of this whole world. It
hath pleased Him to make a sinner the like of me an ordinary
banqueter in His house of wine with that royal princely One,
Christ Jesus. 0, Avhat weighing ' 0, what telling is in His love !
how sweet must He be, when that black and burdensome tree.
His own cross, is so perfumed with joy and gladness ! 0, for help
to lift Him up by praises on His royal throne ! I speak no more
but that His name may be spread abroad in me, that meikle "*
good may be spoken of Christ on my behalf ; this being done, my
losses, place, stipend, credit, ease, and libert}^ shall all l>e nuide
^Knaves. 'Advocacy, ^ Can *Mucb.
LETTER XVIII. 77
up to my full contentment and joy of heart. I will be confident
your lordship will go on in the strength of the Lord, and keej)
Christ and avouch Him, that He may read your name publicly
before men and angels. I will entreat your lordship to exhort
and encourage that nobleman, your chief, to do the same. But I
am woe ^ many of you find a new wisdom, which deserveth not
such a name ; it were better that men should see that their wis-
dom be holy, and their holiness wise. I must be bold to desire
your lordship to add to your former favours to me (for the which
your lordship hath a prisoner's blessing and prayers) this, that ye
would be pleased to befriend my brother, now suffering for the
same cause, for he is to dwell nigh your lordship's bounds : your
lordship's word and countenance may help him. Thus recom-
mending your lordship to the saving grace and tender mercy of
Christ Jesus our Lord, I rest,
Your lordship's obliged servant in Christ, S. R.
Al)erdeen, March 9, 1637.
LETTEE XVin.— To Mr. William Dalglish, Minister of the
Gospel.
Reverend and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. I am well. My Lord is kinder to me than ever He was.
It pleaseth Him to dine and sup with his afflicted prisoner ; a king
feasteth me, and His spikenard casteth a sweet smell. Put Christ's
love to the trial and put upon it burdens, and then it will appear
love indeed. We employ not His love, and therefore we know it
not. I verily count more of the sufferings of my Lord than of this
world's lustred and over-gilded glory. I dare not say but my Lord
Jesus hath fully recompensed my sadness with His joys, my losses
with His own presence. I find it a sweet and rich thing to ex-
change my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions with that
sweet peace I have with Himself. Brother, this is His own truth
I now suffer for. He hath sealed my sufferings with His own com-
forts, and I know He will not put His seal upon blank paper ; His
seals are not dumb nor delusive, to confirm imaginations and lies.
Go on, my dear brother, in the strength of the Lord, not fearing
man that is a worm, or the son of man that will die. Providence
hath a thousand keys to open a thousand sundry doors for the
deliverance of His own, when it is even come to a condamatum est.
Let us be faithful and care for our own part, which is to do and
suffer for Him, and lay Christ's part on Himself, and leave it there ;
duties are ours, events are the Lord's. When our faith goeth to
meddle with events, and to hold a court (if I may so speak) upon
^ Sorrowful.
78 LETTER XIX,
God's providence, and beginneth to say, how wilt tliou do this and
that 1 we lose ground : we have nothing to do there : it is our part
to let the Almighty exercise His own office, and stir ^ His own
helm ; there is nothing left to us but to see how we may be ap-
proved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak
souls (in well-doing) upon Him who is God Omnipotent; and
when what we thus essay miscai'rieth, it shall neither be our sin
nor cross. Brother, remember the Lord's word to Peter, " Simon,
lovest thou me 1 Feed my sheep : " no greater testimony of our
love to Christ can be than to feed painfully and faithfully His
lambs. I am in no better neighbourhood with the ministers here
than before ; they cannot endure that any speak of me, or to me ;
thus I am in the meantime silent (which is my greatest grief).
Dr Barron hath often disputed with me, especially about Arminian
controversies, and for the ceremonies ; three yokings " laid him by,
and I have not been troubled with him since : now he hath ap-
pointed a dispute before witnesses ; I trust Christ and truth shall
do for themselves. I hope, brother, ye will help my people, and
write to me what ye hear the bishop is to do to them. Grace be
with you.
Your brother in bonds, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
LETTER XIX.— To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill, Minister of the
Gospel.
Reverend and Dear Brother, — I bless you for your letter.
He is come down as rain upon the mown grass ; He hath revived
my withered root, and He is as the dew of herbs. 1 am most
secure in this prison ; salvation is for walls in it, and what think
ye of these walls 1 He maketh the dry plant to bud as the lily,
and to blossom as Lebanon : the great Husbandman's blessing
cometh down upon the plants of righteousness : who may say this
(my dear brother), if I, His poor exiled stranger and prisoner, may
not say it 1 Howbeit all the world should be silent, I cannot hold
my peace. 0, how many black counts hath Christ and I rounded
over together in the house of my pilgrimage ! and how fat a por-
tion hath He given to a hungry soul ! I had rather have Christ's
four-hours ^ than have dinner and supper both in one from any
other : His dealing and the way of His judgments pass finding
out. No preaching, no book, no learning could give me that which
T behoved to come and get in this town. But what of all this, if
I were not misted,* confounded, and astonished how to be thankful
- Steer. " Encounters.
^ A slight refreshment taken between dinner and supper.
* Bewildered.
LETTER XX. 79
and how to get Him praised for evermore 1 And what is more.
He hath been pleased to pain me with His love, and my pain
groweth through want of real possession. Some have written to
me that I am possibly too joyful of the cross, but my joy over-
leapeth the cross, it is bounded and terminate upon Christ. I
know the sun vv'ill overcloud and eclipse, and I shall again be put
to walk in the shadow ; but Christ must be welcome to come and
go as He thinketh meet : yet He would be more welcome to me, I
trow, to come than go ; and I hope He pitieth and pardoneth me,
in casting apples to me at such a fainting time as this ; holy and
blessed is His name. It was not my flattering of Christ that drew
a kiss from His mouth ; but He would send me as a spy into this
wilderness of sufi"ering, to see the land and to try the ford ; and I
cannot make a lie of Clirist's cross ; I can report nothing but good
both of Him and it, lest others should faint. I hope when a change
Cometh, to cast anchor at midnight upon the rock (which He hath
taught me to know in this daylight), whither I may run when I
must say my lesson without book, and believe in the dark. I
am sure it is sin to tarrow ^ of Christ's good meat, and not to eat
when He saith, " Eat, 0 well-beloved, and drink abundantly." If
He bear me on His back or carry me in His arms over this water,
I hope for grace to set down both my feet on dry ground when
the way is better, but this is slippery ground. My Lord thought
^ood I should go by an hold, and lean on my Well-Beloved's
shoulder : it is good to be ever taking from Him. I desire He
may get the fruit of praises for dauting - and thus dandling me
upon His knee : and 1 may give my bond of thankfulness, so being
I have Christ's back-bond again for my relief, that I shall be
strengthened by His powerful grace to pay my vows to Him. But,
truly, I find we have the advantage of the brae upon our enemies :
we are more than conquerors through Him who hath loved us ;
and they know not wherein our strength lieth. Pray for me ; grace
be with you.
Your brother in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER XX.— To my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. The Lord
hath brought me to Aberdeen, where I see God in few. This
town hath been advised upon of purpose for me : it consisteth
either of Papists or men of Gallio's naughty faith ; it is counted
Avisdom in the most not to countenance a confined minister, but
1 find Christ neither strange nor unkind ; for I have found many
^ Be sparing of. ^ Fondling.
80 LETTER XX.
faces smile upon me since I came hither. I am heavy and sad,
considering what is betwixt the Lord and my soul, wliich none
seeth but He. I find men have mistaken me ; it would be no art
(as I now see) to spin small and make hypocrisy seem a goodly
Aveb, and to go through the market as a saint among men, and yet
steal quietly to hell without observation ; so easy is it to deceive
men. I have disputed whether or no I ever knew anything of
Christianity, save the letters of that name ; men see but as men,
and they call ten, twenty ; and twenty, an hundred ; but 0 ! to
be approved of God in the heart and in sincerity, is not an
ordinary mercy : my neglects while I had a pulpit, and other
things whereof I am ashamed to speak, meet me now, so as God
maketh an honest cross my daily sorrow ; and, for fear of scandal
and stumbling, I must hide this day of the law's pleading ; I
know not if this court kept within my soul be fenced in Christ's
name. If certainty of salvation were to be bought, God knoweth,
if I had ten earths I would not prig ^ with God, like a fool. I
believed, under suffering for Christ, that I myself should keep the
key of Christ's treasures, and take out comforts when I listed
and eat, and be fat ; but I see now a sufferer for Christ will be
made to know himself, and will be holden at the door, as well as
another poor sinner ; and will be fain to eat with the bairns, and
to take the by-board," and glad so : my blessing on the Cross of
Christ, that hath made me see this. 0, if we could take pains foi
the kingdom of heaven ! but we sit down upon some ordinary
marks of God's children, thinking we have as much as will separate
us from a reprobate, and thereupon we take the play, and cry
holiday : and thus the devil casteth water on our fire, and blunteth
our zeal and care ; but I see heaven is not at the next door : and
I see, howbeit my challenges be many, I suffer for Christ, and
dare hazard my salvation upon it ; for sometimes my Lord cometh
with a fair hour, and 0, but His love be sweet, delightful, and
comfortable ! Half a kiss is sweet, but our doting love will not
be content of a right to Christ unless we get possession ; like the
man who will not be content of rights to bought land, except he
get also the ridges and acres laid upon his back, to carry home
with him. However it be, Christ is wise ; and we are fools to be
browden^ and fond of a pawn in the loof"^ of our hand: living
on trust by faith may well content us. Madam, I know your
ladyship knoweth this, and that made me bold to write of it, that
others might reap somewhat by my bonds for the truth ; for I
should desire, and 1 aim at this, to have my Lord well spoken of
and honoured, howbeit He should make nothing of me, but a
bridge over a water. Thus recommending your ladyship, your
^ Chaffer. - Side-table. ^ Desirous. •* Palm.
LETTER XXL 81
son, and children to His grace, who hath honoured you with a
name and room among the living in Jerusalem, and wishing grace,
to be with your ladyship, I rest.
Your ladyship's, in his sweetest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER XXL— To Mr. David Dickson.
Reverend and Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be unto you. I find great men, especially old friends, scar ^ to
S]ieak for me ; but my kingly and royal Master biddeth me try
His moyen ^ to the uttermost, and I shall find a friend at hand ; I
still depend on Him ; His court is as before ; the prisoner is wel-
come to Him ; the black crabbed bed-tree of my Lord's cross hath
made Christ and my soul very entire;^ He is my song in the night.
I am often laid in the dust with challenges and apprehensions of
His anger, and then, if a mountain of iron were laid upon me, I
cannot be heavier ; and with much wrestling I win in to the king's
house of wine, and for the most part my life is joy, and such joy
through His comforts as I have been afraid to shame myself, and
to cry out, for I can scarce bear what I get : Christ giveth me a
measure heaped up, pressed down, and running over : and believe
it. His love paineth me more than prison and banishment. I
cannot get a gate of Christ's love : had I known what He was
keeping for me, I would never have been so faint-hearted. In
my heaviest times, when all is lost, the memory of His love maketh
me think Christ's glooms are but for the fashion ; I seek no more
but a vent to my wine : I am smothered and ready to burst for
want of a vent. Think not much of persecution : it is before you,
but it is not as men conceive of it. My sugared cross forceth me
to say this to you. Ye shall have wailed * meat, the sick bairn is
oftentimes the spilt ^ bairn ; ye shall command all the house. I
hope ye help a tired prisoner to pray and praise ; had I but the
annual of annual to give to my Lord Jesus, it should ease my
pain ; but, alas ! I have nothing to pay ; He will get nothing of
poor me ; but I am woe ^ I have not room enough in my heart for
such a stranger. I am not cast down to go further north. I have
good cause to wo"rk for my Master, for I am well paid before hand ;
I am not behind, howbeit I should not get one smile more till my
feet be up within the King's dining-hall. I have gone through
yours upon the covenant ; it hath edified my soul and refreshed
an hungry man : I judge it sharp, sweet, quick, and profound.
Take me at my word, I fear it get no lodging in Scotland. The
brethren of Ireland write not to me ; chide with them for that, I
^ A.fraid. ^ Advocacy. •* Intimate.
* Choice. ^ Spoilt. '' Sorry.
82 LETTER XXII.
am sure that I may give you and them a commisbiou (and I will
bide by it) that you tell my beloved I am sick of love. I hope in
God to leave some of my rust and superfluities in Aberdeen : I
cannot get an house in this town wherein to leave drink-silver in
my Master's name, save one only. There is no sale for Christ in
the North : He is like to lie long on my hand ere any accept Him.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen.
LETTER XXn.— To Mr. Matthew Mowat.
Reverend and Dear Brother, — I am a very far mistaken
man. If others knew how poor my stock were they would not
think upon the like of me but with compassion ; for I am as one
kept under a strict tutor, I would have more than my tutor
alloweth upon me, but it is good that a bairn's wit is not the rule
which regulateth my Lord Jesus; let Him give what He will,. it
shall aye be above merit, and my ability to gain therewith. I
would not wish a better stock (while ^ heaven be my stock) than
to live upon credit at Christ's hands, daily borrowing ; surely
running-over love, that vast, huge, boundless love of Christ (that
thei'e is telling in for man and angel) is the only thing I fain est
would be in hands with. He knoweth I have little but the love
of that love, and that I shall be happy, suppose I never get
another heaven, but only an eternal lasting feast of that love ; but
sujDpose my wishes were poor, He is not poor ; Christ, all the
seasons of the year, is dropping sweetness ; if I had vessels I might
fill them, but my old riven, holey, and running-out dish, even when
I am at the well, can bring little away. Nothing but glory will
make tight and fast our leaking and rifty vessels. Alas ! I have
scailed^ more of Christ's grace, love, faith, humility, and godly
sorrow, than I have brought with me. How little of the sea can
a child carry in his hand ; as little dow^ I take away of my great sea,
my boundless and running-over Christ Jesus. I have not lighted
upon the right gate* of putting Christ to the bank, and making
myself rich with Him ; my misguiding and childish trafficking
with that matchless Pearl, that heaven's Jewel, the Jewel of the
Father's delights, hath put me to a great loss. 0, that He would
take a loan of me and my stock ; and put His name in all my
bonds, and serve Himself heir to the poor mean portion I have,
and be countable for the talent Himself. Gladly would I put
Christ in my room to guide all, and let me be but a servant to run
errands, and do by His direction; let me be His interdicted heir.
'Till. 5 Spilt. 3 Can. •'^[ethod.
LETTER XXII. bo
Lord Jesus, work upon my minority, and let Him win a pupil's
blessing. 0, how would I rejoice to have this work of my salva-
tion legally fastened upon Christ ! A back-bond of my Lord Jesus
that it should be forthcoming to the orphan should be my happi-
ness ; dependency on Christ were my surest way : if Christ were
my bottom I were sure enough. I thought guiding of grace had
been no art, I thought it would come of will, but I would spilU
my own heaven yet if I had not burdened Christ with all ; I but
lend my bare name to the sweet covenant. Christ behind and
before, and on either side, maketh all sure ; God will not take an
Arminian cautioner free-will, a weathercock turning at a serpent's
tongue, a tutor that couped^ our father Adam unto us, and brought
down the house, and sold 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 ci'edit. 0, well to my poor soul for
evermore that my Lord called grace to the counsel, and put Christ
Jesus, with free merits, and the blood of God, foremost in the
chase, to draw sinners after a ransomer ! 0, what a sweet block ^
was it, by .way of buying and selling, to give and tell down a
ransom for grace and glory to dyvours!* 0, would to my Lord
I could cause paper and ink speak the worth and excellency, the
high and loud praises of a brother-ransomer ! 0, the Ransomer
needs not my report ! but if He would take it and make use of it !
I should be happy if I had an errand to this world but for some
f(iw years to spread proclamations, and out-cries, and love-letters,
of the highness (the highness for evermore !) the glory (the glory
for evermore !) of the Eansomer, whose clothes were wet, and
dyed in blood ; howbeit that after I had done that, my soul and
body should 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 wishes ? and not believe
rather that Christ Avill hire such an outcast as I am, a masterless
body, put out of the house by the sons of my mother, and give me
employment and a calling, one way or other, to out^ Christ and
His wares, to country buyers, and propose Christ unto, and press-
Him upon, some poor souls, that fainer than their life would
receive Himi You complain heavily of your short-coming in
practice, and venturing on suffering for Christ ; you have many
marrows.*' For the first, I would not put you off sense of wretch-
edness ; hold on, Christ never yet slew a sighing, groaning cliild ;
more of that would make you v/on goods, and a meet prey for Christ.
Alas ! I have too little of it. For venturing on suffering, I had not
so much free gear '' when I came to Christ's camp as to buy a sword .
^ Spoil. -Overtlirew. 'Bargain. * Debtor?.
^ Dispose of. ® Mates, ' PossessioDs.
84 LETTER XXIII.
r wonder that Christ should not Laugh at such a soldier; I am no
better yet, but faitli 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 desire me also not to mistake Christ under a mask ;
I bless you, and thank God for it : but, alas ! masked or barefaced,
kissing or glooming, I mistake Him : yea, I mistake Him furthest
when the mask is off, for then I play me with His sweetness ; I am
like a child that hath a golden book, that playeth more with the
ribbons, and the gilding, and the picture in the first page, than
readeth the contents of it. Certainly, if my desires to my Well-
Beloved were fulfilled, I could provoke devils, and crosses, and
the world, and temptations to the field ; but, oh ! my poor weak-
ness makes me lie behind the bush and hide me. Remember my
service and my blessing to my lord ; I am mindful of him as I am
able. Desire him from a prisoner, to come and visit my good
Master, and feel Init the smell of His love. It sets^ him well, how-
beit he be young, to make Christ his garland. I could not wish
him in a better case than in a fever of love-sickness for Christ.
Remember my bonds. The Lord Jesus be with your .spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER XXIIL— To William Halliday.
Loving Friend, — I received your letter. I wish ye take pains
for salvation : mistaken grace, and somewhat like conversion, which
is not conversion, is the saddest and most doleful thing in the
world : make sure of salvation, and lay the foundation sure, for
many are beguiled. Put a low price upon world's clay ; put a
high price upon Christ. 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 soldier of you ; fear not to back
Christ, for He will conquer and overcome ; let no man scar^ at
Christ, for I have no quarrels at His cross. He and His cross
are two good guests, and worth the lodging. Men would fain
have Christ good cheap, but the market will not come down.
Acquaint yourself with prayer, make Christ your Captain and
your armour ; make conscience of sinning when no eye seeth you.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
^ Beconrics. ^ Bo^^le.
LETTER XXIV. 85
LETTER XXIV.— To a Gentlewoman after the Death of her
Husband.
Deak AND Loving Sister, — I know ye are minding your sweet
country, and not taking your inns (the place of your banishment)
for your home ; this life is not worthy to be the thatch or outer
wail of your Lord Jesus His paradise, that He did sweat for to
you, and that He keepeth for you ; short and silly and sand-blind
were our hope if it could not look over the water to our best heri-
tage, and if it stayed only at home about the doors of our clay
house. I marvel not, my dear sister, that ye complain that ye
come short of your old wrestlings you had for a blessing, and that
now ye find it not so. Bairns are but hired to learn their lesson
when they first go to school, and it is enough that those who run a
race see the gold^ only at the starting-place, and possibly they see
little more of it, or nothing at all, till they win to the rink's^ end,
and get the gold in the loof^ of their hand. Our Lord maketh
delicates and dainties of His sweet presence and love-visits to His
own, but, Christ's love under a vail is love ; if ye get Christ, how-
beit not the sweet and pleasant way you would have Him, it is
enough, for the Well-Beloved cometh not our way ; He must wail^
His own gate^ Himself for worldly things ; seeing they are meadows
and fair flowers in your way to heaven, a smell in the by-going is
sufficient ; he that would reckon and tell all the stones in his way,
in a journey of three or four hundred miles, and write up in his
count-book all the herbs and flowers growing in his way, might
come short of his journey : you cannot stay in your inch of time to
lose your day (seeing you are in haste, and the night and your
afternoon will not bide you) in setting your heart on this vain
world : it were your wisdom to read your count-book, and to have
in readiness your business against the time you come to death's
water-side. I know your lodging is taken ; your Fore-runner,
Christ, hath not forgotten that, and therefore you must set your-
self to your 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 Himself : He cutteth off your love to the creature,
that ye might learn that God only is the light owner of your love.
Sorrow, loss, sadness, death, are tlie worst things that are, except
sin ; but Christ knoweth well what to make of them, and can put
His own in the crosses common, that we shall be obliged to afflic-
tion, and thank God, who learned*' us to make our acquaintance
with such a rough companion, Avho can hale us to Christ. You
must learn to make evils your great good, and to spin out comforts,
'- The prize. - Course. ^ Palm.
* Choose. '^Method. « Taught.
86 LETTER XXV.
peace, joy, communion with Christ, out of your troubles, that are
Christ's wooers sent to speak for you to Himself.^ It is easy to get
good words and a comfortable message from our Lord, even from
such rough sergeants as diverse temptations. Thanks to God for
crosses ! When we count and reckon our losses in seeking God,
we find godliness is great gain. Great partners of a shipful of gold
are glad to see the ship come to the harbour : surely we and our
Lord Jesus together have a shipful of gold coming home, and our
gold is in that ship. Some are so in love (or rather in lust) with
this life that they sell their part of the ship for a little thing. I
would counsel you to buy hope, but sell it not, and give not away
your crosses for nothing ; the inside of Christ's cross is white and
joyful, and the far end of the black cross is a fair and glorious
heaven of ease ; and, seeing Christ hath fastened heaven to the far
end of the cross, and He will not loose the knot Himself, and none
else can (for when Christ casteth a knot all the world cannot loose
it), let us then count it exceeding joy when we fall into diverse
temptations. Thus recommending you to the tender mercy and
grace of our Lord, I rest.
Your loving brother, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER XXV.— To John Gordon, of Cardoness, Younger.
Honoured and Dear Brother, — I wrote of late to you: multi-
tudes of letters burden me now. I am refreshed with your letter ;
I exhort you in the bowels of Christ, set to work for your soul,
and let these bear weight with you, and ponder them seriously :
1. Weeping and gnashing of teeth in utter darkness, or heaven's
joy, 2. Think what ye would give for an hour when ye shall lie
like dead cold, blackened clay. 3. There is sand in your glass yet,
and your sun is not gone down. 4. Consider what joy and peace
is in Christ's service. 5. Think what advantage it will be to have
angels, the world, life and death, crosses, yea, and devils, all for
you, as the king's sergeants and servants, to do your business.
G. To have mercy on your seed and a blessing on your house. 7.
To have true honour and a name on earth, that casts a sweet smell.
8. How ye will rejoice when Christ layeth down your head under
His chin, and betwixt His breasts, and dryeth your face, and wel-
cometh you to glory and happiness. 9. Imagine what pain and
torture is a guilty conscience ; what slavery to carry the devil's
unhonest loads. 10. Sin's joys are but night dreams, thoughts,
vapours, imaginations, and shadows. 11. AVhat dignity it is to
be G sou of God. 12. Dominion and mastery over temptations,
^ Bespeak you for Himself.
LETTEK XXVI. 87
over the world, and sin. 13. That your enemies should be the
tail, and you the head. For your bairns now at their rest ; 1 speak
to you and your wife (and cause her read this). 1. I am a witness
of Barbara's glory in heaven. 2. For the rest I write it under
my hand, there are days coming on Scotland when barren wombs
and dry breasts, and childless parents, shall be pronounced blessed !
tl:ey are then in the lee of the harbour, ere the storm come on.
3. They are not lost to you that are laid up in Christ's treasury
in heaven. 4. At the resurrection ye shall meet with them, there
they are sent before, but not sent away. 5. Your Lord lovetli
you, who is homely^ to take and give, borrow and lend. C. 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 bless you,
your wife, and children. Grace for evermore be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. E.
Aberdeen.
LETTER XXVL— To John Gordon, of Cardoness, Elder.
Honourable and Dearest in the Lord, — Your letter hath
refreshed my soul. My joy is fulfilled if Christ and ye be fast to-
gether; ye are my joy and my crown : ye know I have recom-
mended His love to you. I defy the world, Satan, and sin. Hif>
love hath neither brim nor bottom in it. My dearest iii Christ, 1
write my soul's desire to you. Heaven is not at the next door; 1
find Christianity an hard task ; set to it in your evening : we
would all both keep both Christ and our right eyes, our right
hand and foot ; but it will not be with us. I beseech you by the
mercies of God, and your compearance before Christ, look Christ's
count-book and your own together, and collation- them ; give the
remnant of your time to your soul ; this great idle-god,^ the world,
Avill be lying in white ashes, in the day of your compearance ; and
why should night dreams, and day shadows, and water froth, and
May flowers, run away with your heart 1 When we win to the
water-side, and black death's river brink, and put our foot in the
boat, we shall laugh at our folly. Sir, I recommend you unto the
thoughts of death, and how ye would wish your soul to be, when
ye shall lie cold, blue, ill-smelling clay. For any hireling to be
intruded, I, being the king's prisoner, cannot say much, but as
God's minister I desire you to read Acts ii. 15, 16, to the end, and
Acts vi, 2, 3, 4, 5 ; and ye shall find God's people should have a
voice in choosing church-rulers and teachers. I shall be sorry, if
willingly ye shall give way to his unlawful intrusion upon my
labours : the only wise God direct you, God's grace be with you.
Aberdeen. Your loving pastor, S. R.
' Familiar. - Collate. ^ Idol-''-ofl.
88 LETTER XXVII.
LETTER XXVII.— To Earlstoun, Younger.
Much Honoured and Well-Beloved in the Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness
in writing : I must first tell you there is not such a glassy, icy, and
slippery piece of way betwixt you and heaven, as youth. I have
experience to say with me here, and seal what I assert : the old ashes
of the sins of my youth are new fire of sorrow to me. I have
seen the devil, as it were, dead and buried, and yet rise again, and
be a worse 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 lusts and passions of youth) is
much to be feared : better yoke with an old gray-haired, withered,
dry devil, for in youth he findeth dry sticks, and dry coals, and
an hot hearthstone, and how soon can he with his flint cast fire,
and with his bellows blow it up, and fire the house. Sanctified
thoughts, thoughts made conscience of, and called in, and kept in
awe, are green fuel that burn not, and are a water for Satan's
coal. Yet I must tell you, the whole saints now triumphant in
heaven, and standing before the throne, are nothing but Christ's
forlorn and beggarly dyvours.^ What are they, but a pack of
redeemed sinners? But their redemption is not only past the
seals, but completed ; and yours is on the wheels, and in doing.
All Christ's good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow, and
with a crooked leg. Christ has an advantage of you, and I pray
you let Him have it, He shall find employment for His calling in
you. If it were not with you as you write, grace should find no
sale nor market in you ; but ye must be content to give Christ
somewhat ado. I am glad that He is employed that way ; let
your bleeding soul and your sores be put in tlie hand of this expert
Physician : let young and strong corruptions, and His free grace be
yoked- together, and let Christ and your sins v-Leal it betwixt them.
I will be loath to put you off" your fears, and your sense of deadness
(I wish it were more) ; there be some wounds of that nature that
their bleeding should not be soon stopped. Ye must take a house
beside the Physician : it shall be a miracle if ye must be the first
sick man He put away uncured, and worse than He found you.
Nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that, flyting free with sinners,^
" And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out," John vi.
37. Take ye that, it cannot be presumption to take that as your
own, when ye find your wounds stound you, presumption is ever
whole at the heart, and hath but the truant-sickness and groaneth
' Debtors. ' Encountered.
3 Rather, I think, "and in that flyting, free with sinners : " th.at is, guiltless
of the charge that they bring against Him,
LETTEK XXVII 89
only foi the fashion ; faith hatli sense of sickness, and looketh
like a friend to the promise; and looking to Christ therein, is
glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast, as ye can have
to hunger. Nay, Christ, I say, is not a full man's leavings ; His
mercy sends always a letter of defiance to all your sins, if there
were ten thousand more of them. I grant it is a hard matter for a
poor hungry man to win his meat upon hidden Christ, for then the
key of His pantry door, and of the house of wine is a-seeking and
cannot be had ; but hunger must break through iron locks. I be-
moan them not who can make a din and all the fields ado for a
lost Saviour ; ye must let Him hear it (to say so) upon both the
sides of His head, when He hideth Himself. It is no time then to
be bird-mouthed^ and patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a delicacy
to a sinner; he is a miracle and a world's wonder to a seeking and
a weeping sinner ; but, yet such a miracle as will be seen by them
who will come and see; the seeker and sigher is at last a singer
and enjoyer. Nay, I have seen a dumb man get an alms from
Christ. He that can tell his tale and send such a letter to heaven,
•as he hath sent to Aberdeen, it is very like he will come speed
tvith Christ. It bodeth^ God's mercy to complain heartily for
sin. Let wrestling be with Christ till He say. How is it, sir,
that I cannot be quit of your bills, and your mislearned cries l
And then hope for Christ's blessing, and His blessing is better than
other ten blessings. Think not shame because of your guiltiness ;
necessity must not blush to beg ; it standeth you hard to want
Christ, and therefore, that which idle on-waiting cannot do, mis-
nurtured^ crying and knocking will do. And for doubtings,
because ye are not as ye were long since with your Master, consider
three things. 1. What if Christ had such tottering thoughts of
the bargain of the new covenant betwixt you and Him as you
have? 2. Your heart is not the compass Christ saileth by ; He
will give you leave to sing as ye please, but He will not dance to
your daft-spring.^ It is not referred to you and your thoughts,
what Christ will do with the charters betwixt you and Him :
your own misbelief hath torn them ; but He hath the principal in
heaven with Himself. Your thoughts are no parts of the new
covenant ; dreams change not Christ. 3. Doubtings are your
sins, but they are Christ's drugs and ingredients, that the Physician
maketh use of, for the curing of your pride. Is it not suitable for
a beggar to say at meat ; God reward the winners 1 for then He
sayeth. He knoweth who beareth the charges of the house. It is
also meet ye should know by experience that faith is not nature's
ill-gotten bastard, but your Lord's free gift, that lay in the womb
^ Chirping or feeble-tongued - Indicateth.
* Unmannerly. * Joyous music.
90 LETTER XXVII.
of God's free grace, praised be the winner. I may add a 4tli. In
the passing of your bill and your charters, when they went through
the Mediator's great seal and were concluded, faith's advice was not
sought; faith had not a vote beside Christ's merits ; blood, blood,
dear blood, that came from your cautioner's holy body, maketh that
sure work. The use, then, which ye have of faith now, having
already closed with Jesus Christ for justification, is to take out a
copy of your pardon ; and so ye have peace with God upon the
account of Christ, for since faith apprehendeth pardon, but never
payeth a penny for it, no marvel that salvation doth not die and
live, ebb or flow with the working of faith ; but because it is your
Lord's honour to belieA^e His mercy and His fidelity, it is infinite
goodness in our Loi"d, that misbelief giveth a dash to our Lord's
glory and not to our salvation, and so whoever want (yea, howbeit
God here bear with the want of what we are obliged to give Him,
even the glory of His grace by believing, yet) a poor covenanted
sinner wanteth not ; but if guiltiness were removed, doubtings
would find no friend nor life ; and yet faith is to believe the
removal of guiltiness in Christ. A reason why ye get less now
(as ye think) than before (as I take it) is, because, at our first
conversion, our Lord putteth the meat in young bairns' mouths
with His own hand, but when we grow to some further perfection,
we must take heaven by violence, and take by violence fron^
Christ what we get ; and He can and doth hold, because He will
have us to draw. Remember, now ye must live upon violent
plucking. Laziness is a greater fault now than long since ; we
love always to have the pap put in our mouth. Now for myself !
A.las, I am not the man I go for in this nation. Men have not
just weights to weigh me in. 0, but I am a silly, feckless ^ bod}^
and overgrown with weeds ; corruption is rank and fat in me !
0, if I were answerable to this holy cause, and to that honourable
Prince's love, for whom I now suffer ; if Christ Avould refer the
matter to me (in His presence I speak it), I might think shame to
vote my own salvation. I think Christ might say, "Thinkest thou
not shame to claim heaven, who does so little for it?" I am very
often so, that I know not whether I sink or swim in the water ;
I find myself a bag of light froth ; I would bear no weight (but
vanity and nothings weigh in Christ's balance) if my Loi'd cast
not in borrowed weight and metal, even Christ's righteousness to
weigh for me ; the stock I have is not mine own ; I am but the
merchant that traffics with other folk's goods ; if my creditor,
Christ, would take from me Avhat He hath lent, I would not long
keep the causey," but Christ hath made it mine and His : I thinlc
it manhood to play the coward, and jouk" in the lee-side of Christ:
^ l^eeble, worthless. * Caixseway. ^ Shelter myself.
LETTER XXVIII, 91
and tlius I am not only saved from my enemies, but I obtain the
victory. I am so empty that I think it were an alms-deed in
Christ, if He would win a poor prisoner's blessing for evermore,
and fill me with His love. I complain when Christ cometh, He
Cometh always to fetch fire, He is ever in haste, He may not tarry,
and poor I, a beggarly dyvour,^ get but a standing visit, and a
standing Ids?; and, but "how doest thou?" in the by-going. I dare
not say He is lordly, because He is made a King now at the right
hand of God ; or is grown miskenning - and dry to His poor
friends ; for He cannot make more of His kisses than they are
worth, but I think it my happiness to love the love of Christ ;
and when He goeth away, the memory of His sweet presence is
like a feast in a dear summer. I have comfort in this, that my
soul desireth that every hour of my imprisonment were a com-
pany of heavenly tongues, to praise Him on my behalf, howbeit
my bonds were prolonged for many hundred years. 0, that I
could be the man who could procure my Lord's glory to flow
like a full sea, and blow like a mighty wind upon all the four
airts^ of Scotland, England, and Ireland. 0, if I could write
a book of His praises ! 0, fairest among the sons of men, why
stayest thou so long away "I O, heavens, move fast ! 0, time run,
run, and hasten the marriage day, for love is tormented with
delays. 0, angels, 0, seraphims, who stand before Him, 0, blessed
spirits who now see His face, set Him on high, for when ye have
worn your hai'ps in His praises, all is too little, and is nothing to
cast the smell of the praise of that fair flower, that fragrant rose
of Sharon, through many worlds. Sir, take my hearty commend-
ation to Him and tell Him that I am sick of love. Grace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S, R
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
LETTER XXVHL— To his Honoured and Dear Brother,
Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.
Dearest and truly honoured Brother, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you : I have seen no letter from you since I came
to Aberdeen ; I will not interpret it to be forgetfulness. I am
here in a fair prison. Christ is my sweet and honourable
fellow-prisoner, and I His sad and joyful lord-prisoner (if I may
speak so). I think this cross becometh me well,and is suitable to
me in respect of my duty to suff"er for Christ ; howbeit not in
regard of my deserving, to be thus honoured. However it be,
I see Christ is strong, even lying in the dust in prison and
in banishment. Losses and disgraces are the wheels of Christ's
^ Debtor. * Forgetful of. ^ Quarters.
92 LETTER XXVIII.
triumpbinii' cluiriot. In the sufferings of His own saints, as He
intendeth their good, so He intendeth His own glory, and that is
the butt His arrows shoot at, and Christ shooteth not at the
rovers. He hitteth what He purposeth to hit ; therefore, He
doth make His now feckless and weak nothings, and those who are
the contempt of men, a new sharp thrashing instrument, having
teeth to thrash the mountains and beat them small, and to
make the hills as chaff, and to fan them, Isa. xli. 15, 16.
iVhat harder stuff, or harder grain for thrashing out, than high
and rocky mountains 1 but the saints are God's thrashing
instruments to beat them all in chaff; are we not God's leem^
vessels 1 and yet, when they cast us over an house we are not
broken in sherds : we creep in under our Lord's wings in the
great shower, and the water cannot go through these wings. It is
folly then for men to say, this is not Christ's plea, He will lose
the wad-fee,2 men are like to beguile Him, that were, indeed, a
strange play. Nay, I dare pledge my sonl and lay it in pawn on
Christ's side of it, and be half-tiner,^ half-winner, with my
Master. Let fools laugh the fool's laughter, and scorn Christ,
and bid the weeping captives in Babylon sing us one of the
songs of Zion, play a spring to cheer up your sad-hearted God.
We may sing upon luck's head beforehand, even in our winter
storm, in the expectation of a summer sun at the turn of the year :
no created powers in hell or out of hell can mar our Lord
Jesus His music, nor spill* our song of joy; let us then be glad
and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord, for faith had never yet
cause to have wet cheeks and hanging-down brows, or to droop or
die : what can ail faith, seeing Christ suffereth Himself (with
reverence to Him be it spoken) to be commanded by it 1 and
Christ commandeth all things. Faith may dance because Christ
sings ; and we may come in the quire and lift our hoarse and
rough voices, and chirp, and sing, and shout for joy with our
Lord Jesus. We see oxen go to the shambles leaping and
startling ; we see God's fed oxen prepared for the day of
slaughter, go dancing and singing down to the black chambers
of hell ; and, why should we go to heaven weeping, as if we were
like to fall down through the earth for sorrow 1 If God were dead
(if I may speak so with reverence of Him who liveth for ever and
ever) and Christ buried, and rotten among the worms, we
might have cause to look like dead folks ; but, " The Lord
liveth, and blessed be the rock of our salvation," Psal. xviii.
46. None have right to joy but we, for joy is sown for us,
and an ill summer or harvest will not spill'* the crop. The
children of this world have much robbed joy that is not well
' Brittle. - Wager. ' Half -loser, •* Spoil or niai'.
LETTER XXVIII. 93
;ome : it is no good sport they laugh at ; they steal joy as it
were from God : for He commandeth them to mourn and
hoAvl : then let us claim our leel-come ^ and lawfully conquished -
joy. My dear brother, I cannot but speak what I have felt, seeing
my Lord Jesus hath broken a box of spikenard upon the head
of His poor prisoner, and it is hard to hide a sweet smell ; it is
a pain to smother Christ's love ; it will be out whether we will
or not. If we did but speak according to the matter, a cross
for Christ should have another name ; yea, a cross, especially
when He cometh with His arms full of joys, is the happiest
hard tree that ever was laid upon my weak shoulders. Christ
and His cross together are sweet company, and a blessed couple.
My prison is my palace, my sorrow is with child of joy, my
losses are rich losses, my pain easy pain, my heavy days are
holy and happy days. I may tell a new tale of Christ to my
friends. 0, if I could make a love song of Him, and could
commend Christ, and tune His praises aright ! 0, if I could
set all tongues in Great Britain and Ireland to work to help me
to sing a new song of my Well-Beloved ! 0, if I could be a
bridge over a water for my Lord Jesus to walk upon and keep
His feet dry ! 0, if my poor bit heaven could go betwixt my
Lord and blasphemy, and dishonour! (Upon condition He loved
me.) 0, that my heart could say this word, and bide by it for
ever ! Is it not great art, and incomparable wisdom in my
Lord, who can bring forth such fair apples out of this crabbed
tree of the cross ! Nay, my Father's never-enough-admired
providence can make a fair feast out of a black devil : nothing
can come wrong to my Lord in His sweet working. I would
even fall sound asleep in Christ's arms, and my sinful head on
His holy breast while He kisseth me ; were it not that often the
wind turneth to the north, and whiles^ my sweet Lord Jesus
is, that He will neither give nor take, borrow nor lend with me ;
I complain He is not social, 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, hoAvbeit He should not take ; I should
be content to want His kisses at such times, providing He
would be content to come near hand and take my wersh,* dry,
and feckless^ kisses; but at that time He will not be entreated,
but lets a poor soul stand still and knock, and never let it on
him® that He heareth; and then the old leavings and broken
meat and dry sighs are greater cheer than I can tell ; all I have
then is, that howbeit the law and wrath have gotten a decreet
against me, I yet lippen'^ that meikle^ good in Christ, as to get a
^ Honestly or rightly come. - Acquired. ^ Sometimes.
* Insipid. 3 Worthless. ® Indicate. '' Believe or trust. * So much.
94 LETTER XXIX.
suspension, and to bring my cause in reasoning again before my
Well-Beloved. I desire 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 G-od. 0, if men would glorify Him, and
taste of Christ's sweetness. Brother, you have need to be
busy with Christ, for this whorish kirk ; I fear Christ cast
water upon Scotland's coal ; nay, I know Christ and His wife
will be heard, He will plead for the broken covenant. Arm
you against that time. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
LETTER XXIX.— To the Lady Kilconquhair.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you : I am glad
to hear that you have your face homeward towards your Father's
house now when so many are for a home nearer hand : but your
Lord calleth you to another life and glory than is to be found
here-away ; and, therefore, I would counsel you to maks sure the
charters and rights which you have to salvation. You come to
this life about a necessary and weighty business, to tryst i with
Christ anent your precious soul, and the eternal salvation of it ;
this is the most necessary business you have in this life ; and
your other adoes, beside this, are but toys, and feathers, and
dreams, and fancies. This is the greatest haste and should be
done first. Means are used in the Gospel to draw on a meeting
betwixt Christ and you : if you neglect your part of it, it is as if
you would tear the contract before Christ's eyes, and give up the
match, that there shall be no more communing of that business.
I know other lovers beside Christ are in suit of you, and your
soul wanteth not many wooers ; but I pray you make a chaste
virgin of your soul and let it love but one. Most worthy is Christ
alone of all your soul'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 strum-
pet of their soul, for every lover that cometh to the house.
Marriage with Christ would put your love, and your heart by
the gate out of the way, and out of the eyes of all other unlawful
suiters; and then you had a ready answer for all others, "1
am already promised away to Christ, the match is concluded,
my soul hath a husband already, and it cannot have two hus-
bands." 0, if all the world did but know what a smell the oint-
ments of Christ cast, and how ravishing His beauty, even the
beauty of the fairest of the sons of men is, and how sweet and
' Engage or arrange.
LETTER XXIX. 95
[)o\verful His voice is, the \ uice of that one Well-Beloved; certainly,
where Christ conieth, He runneth away with the soul's love, so
that they cannot command it. I would far rather look but through
the hole of Christ's door to see br..t the one-half of the fairest and
most comely face (for He looketh like heaven), suppose I should
never win in to see 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, send me for my part but the
meanest share of Christ that can be given to any of the indwellers
of the new Jerusalem ; but I know my Lord is no niggard : He
can, and it becometh Him well to give more than my narrow soul
can receive. If there were ten thousand thousand millions of
worlds, and as many heavens full of men and angels, Christ would
not be pinched to supply all our wants, and to fill us all. Christ
is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom ?
This soul of ours hath love, and cannot but love some fair one ;
and 0, what a fair One, what an only One, what an excellent,
lovely, ravishing One is Jesus ! put the beauty of ten thousand
thousand worlds of paradises like the garden of Eden in one ;
put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colours, all tastes, all joys,
all sweetness, all loveliness in one ; 0, what a fair and excellent
thing would that be 1 And yet it would be less to that fair and
dearest Well-Beloved Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole
seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths. 0. but
Christ is heaven's wonder and earth's wonder ! What marvel
that His bride saith, Cant. v. 16, " He is altogether lovely'"? O,
that black souls will not come and fetch all their love to this fair
One ! 0, if I could invite and persuade thousands, and ten
thousand times ten thousand of Adam's sons, to flock about my
Lord Jesus, and to come and take their fill of love ! 0, pity for
evermore that there should be such an one as Christ Jesus, so
boundless, so bottomless, and so incomparable in infinite excellency
and sweetness, and so few to take Him. 0, 0, ye poor dry and
dead souls, why will ye not come hither with your toom^ vessels,
and your empty souls to this huge, and fair, and deep, and sweet
well of life ; and fill all your toom ^ vessels ! 0, that Christ
should be so large in sweetness and worth, and we so narrow,
pinched, so ebb, and so void of all happiness, and yet men will
not take Him ; they lose their love miserably, who will not bestow
it upon this lovely One. Alas ! these five thousand years Adam's
fools, his waster-heirs, have been wasting and lavishing out their
love and their aflfections upon black lovers and black harlots :
upon bits of dead creatures, and broken idols, upon this and that
feckless^ creature, and have not brought their love and their heart
^ Empty. ' Wortliless.
96 LETTER XXIX.
to Jesus. 0, pity that fairness hath so tew lovers ! 0, woe, woe
to the fools of this world who run by^ Christ to other lovers ! 0,
misery, misery, misery, that comeliness can scarce get three or
four hearts in a town or a country ! 0, that there is so much
spoken, and so much written, and so much thought of creature-
vanity, and so little spoken, so little written, so little thought of
my great and incomprehensible, and never-enough-wondered-at
Lord Jesus. Why should I not curse this forlorn and wretched
world, that suffer eth my Lord Jesus to lie His lone ^^ 0, damned
souls! 0, miskenning^ world! 0, blind; 0, beggarly, and poor
souls ! 0, bewitched fools ! what aileth you at Christ, that you
run so from Him 1 I dare not challenge providence that there are
so few buyers, and so little sale for such an excellent One as Christ.
0, the depth, and 0, the height of my Lord's ways, that pass finding
out. But, oh, if men would once be wise, and not fall so in love
with their own hell, as to pass by Christ, and misken * Him ! But
let us come near, and fill ourselves with Christ, and let His friends
drink, and be drunken, and satisfy our hollow and deep desires
Avith Jesus. 0, come all and drink at this living well ; come
drink, and live for evermore ; come, drink, and welcome ; wel-
come, saith our fairest Bridegroom : no man getteth Christ with ill
will : no man cometh and is not welcome, no man cometh and
rueth his voyage : all men speak well of Christ, who have been at
Him ; men and angels who know Him, will say more than I dow^
do, and think more of Him than they can say. 0, if I were misted
and bewildered in my Lord's love ! 0, if I were fettered and
chained to it ! 0, sweet pain, to be pained for a sight of Him !
0, living death ! 0, good death ! 0, lovely death, to die for love
of Jesus ! 0, that I should have a sore heart and a pained soul,
for the wanting of the love of this and that idol ! woe, woe to
the mistaking of my miscarrying heart, that gapeth and crieth
for creatures, and is not pained, and cutted, and tortured, and
in sorrow for the want of a soul-fill of Christ. 0, that Thou
wouldst come near, my Beloved ! 0, my fairest One, why standest
Thou afar ; come hither, that I may be satiate with Thy excellent
love ; 0, for an union : 0, for a fellowship with Jesus ! 0, that
I could buy with a price that lovely One, suppose hell's torments
for a while were the price ! I cannot but believe that Chi'ist will
rue " upon His pained lovers, and come and ease sick hearts, who
sigh and swoon for the want of Christ : who dow ^ bide Christ's
love to be nice 1 What heaven can there be liker to hell, than
to lust, and grein,''^ and dwine, and fall a-swoon for Christ's love,
and to want it 1 is not this hell and heaven woven through other?
' Past. 2 Alone, ^ Misjudging. * Misjudge.
» Can. 6 xake pity. ^ Long.
LETTEll XXX. 97
Is not this pain and joy, sweetness and sadness to be in one
web, the one the weft, the other the warp ! Therefore, I would
Chrint would let us meet, and join together, the soul and Christ
in others'^ arms. 0, what meeting is like this, to see blackness
and beauty, contemptibleness and glory, highness and baseness,
even a soul and Christ kiss one another ! Nay, but when all is
done, I may be wearied in speaking and writing ; but 0 how far
am I from the right expression of Christ or His love 1 I can
neither speak, nor write feeling, nor tasting, nor smelling ; come
feel, and smell, and taste Christ, and His love, and ye shall call it
more than can be spoken : to write how sweet the honey-comb is,
is not so lovely as to eat and suck the honey-comb : one night's
rest in a bed of love with Christ, will say more than heart can
think, or tongue can utter. Neither need we fear crosses, or
sigh, or be sad for anything that is on this side of heaven, if we
have Christ ; our crosses will never draw blood of the joy of the
Holy Ghost, and peace of conscience ; our joy is laid up in such
a high place as temptations cannot climb up to take it down :
this world may boast ^ Christ, but they dare not strike ; or if they
strike, they break their arm in fetching a stroke upon a rock. 0,
that we could put our treasure in Christ'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 Christ : tine not sight
of Him in this cloudy and dark day. Sleep with Him in your
heart in the night : learn not at the world to serve Christ, but
spier^ at Himself the way; the world is a false copy and a lying
guide to follow. Eemember my love to your husband : I wish
all to him I have written here. The sweet presence, the long-
lasting good-will of our God, the Avarmly and lovely comforts
of our Lord Jesus, be with you. Help me His prisoner in
your prayers ; for I remember you.
Yours, in his sweet liord Jesus, S. Iv.
Aberdeen, Aug. 8, 1637.
LETTER XXX.— To the Lady Forret.
Worthy Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you : I
long to hear from you ; I hear Christ hath been that* kind as to
visit you with sickness, and to bring you to the door of the grave,
but you found the door shut (blessed be His glorious name) while^
you be riper for eternity : He will have more service of you, and,
therefore, He seeketh 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 beside our Lord ; and.
1 Ef-cli other's. ' Threaten. ^ ^f,i.. 4 So. « Till.
G
98 LETTERS XXXI. AND XXXII.
therefore, our Lord hunteth for our love, more ways than one or
two. 0, that Christ had His own of us ; I know He will not
want you, and that is a sweet wilfulness in His love ; and ye have
as good cause on the other part, to be headstrong and peremptory
in your love to Christ, and not to part or divide your love be-
twixt Him and the world ; if it were more, it is little enough,
yea, too little for Christ. I am now every way in good terms
with Christ, He hath set a banished prisoner as a seal on Hi3
heart, and as a bracelet on His arm : that crabbed and black tree
of the cross laugheth upon me now: the alarming noise of the
cross is worse than itself. I love Christ's glooms better than the
world's worm-eaten joys. 0, if all the kingdom were as I am,
except these bonds ! My loss is gain ; my sadness, joyful ; my
bonds, liberty ; my tears, comfortable. This world is not worth
a drink of cold water. 0, but Christ's love casteth a great heat.
Hell, and all the salt sea, and the rivers of the earth cannot
quench it. I remember you to God, you have the prayers of a
prisoner of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, March 9, 1637.
LETTER XXXI— To the Lady Kaskiberry.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear
how your ladyship is. I know not how to requite your ladyship's
kindness ; but your love to the saints, madam, is laid up in heaven.
I know it is for your Well-Beloved Christ's sake, that you make
His friends so dear to you, and concern yourself so much in them.
I am in this house of my pilgrimage every way in good case ;
Christ is most kind and loving to my soul : it pleaseth Him to
feast with His unseen consolations a stranger, and an exiled
prisoner : and I would not exchange my Lord Jesus with all the
comfort out of heaven ; His yoke is easy, and His burden light.
This is His truth I now suffer for ; for He hath sealed it with His
blessed presence. I know Christ shall yet win the day, and gain
the battle in Scotland. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER XXXIL— To Mr. James Bruce, Minister of the
Gospel.
Reverend and well-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. Upon the nearest acquaintance, that we are
Father's children,^ I thought good to write to you. My case in
^ Children of the same father.
LETTER XXXIII. 99
my bonds, for the honour of my Royal Prince and King Jesus, is
as good as becometh the witness of such a Sovereign King. At
my first coming hither, I was in great heaviness, wresth'ng with
challenges, being burdened in heart (as I am yet) for my silent
Sabbaths and for a bereft people, young ones, new-born, plucked
from the breasts, and the children's table drawn. I thought I was
a dry tree cast over the dyke^ of the vineyard : but my secret
conceptions of Christ's love, at His sweet and long-desired return
to my soul, were found to be a lie of Christ's love, forged by the
tempter, and my own heart, and I am persuaded that it was so.
Now, there is greater peace and security within than before. The
court is raised and dismissed, for it was not fenced in God's name,
I was far mistaken, who should have summoned Christ for un-
kindness : misted faith and my fever conceived amiss of Him.
Now, now. He is pleased to feast a poor prisoner, and to refresh
me with joy unspeakable and glorious : so as the Holy Spirit is
witness, that my sufferings are for Christ's truth ; and God forbid
I should deny the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and make Him a
false witness. Now, I testify under my hand, out of some small
experience, that Christ's cause (even with the cross), is better than
the king's crown, and that His reproaches are sweet, His cross
perfumed, the walls of my prison fair and large, my losses gain. I
desire you, my dear brother, help me to praise, and remember me
in your prayer to God. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER XXXIII.— To the Lady Earlstoun.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear
how your soul prospereth. I exhort you to go on in your journey.
Your day is short, and your afternoon's sun will soon go down ;
make an end of your accounts with your Lord ; for death and
judgment are tides that bide no man. Salvation is supposed to
be at the door, and Christianity is thought an easy task, but I
find it hard, and the way strait and narrow, were it not that my
guide is content to wait on me, and to care for a tired traveller.
Hurt not your conscience with any known sin ; let your children
be as so many flowers, borrowed from God ; if the flowers die or
wither, thank God for a summer's loan of them, and keep good
neighbourhood to borrow and lend with Him. Set your heart
upon heaven, and trouble not your spirit with this clay-idol of the
world, which is but vanity, and hath but the lustre of the rainbow
in the air, which cometh and goeth with a flying March shower ;
1 Willi.
100 LETTER XXXIV.
clay is the idol of bastards, not the inheritance of the children.
My Lord hath been pleased to make many unknown faces laugh
upon me, and hath made me well content of a borrowed fireside,
and a borrowed bed. I am feasted with the joys of the Holy
Ghost, and my royal King beareth my charges honourably. I love
the smell of Christ's sweet breath better than the world's gold. I
would I had help to praise Him. The great messenger of the
covenant, the Son of God establish you on your rock, and keep
you to the day of His coming.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER XXXIV.— To Carletoun.
Worthy and much honoured, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. I received your letter from my brother, to which I now
answer particularly. I confess two things of myself. 1. Woe,
woe is me, that men should think there is anything in me ; He is
my witness before whom I am as crystal, that the secret house-
devils, that bear me too oft company, and that this sink of cor-
ruption which I find within, maketh me go with low sails ! and if
others saw what I see, they would look by me, but not to me.
2. I know this shower of His free grace behoved to be on me,
otherwise I would have withered. I know also, I have need of a
buffeting tempter, that grace may be put to exercise, and I kept
low. Worthy and dear brother in our Lord Jesus, I write that
from my heart which you now read. 1. I vouch that Christ, and
sweating, and sighing under His cross, is sweeter to me by far
than all the kingdoms in the world could ^possibly be. 2. If you
and my dearest acquaintance in Christ reap any fruit by my
suffering, let me be weighed in God's even balance, if my joy be
not fulfilled. What, am I to carry the marks of such a great
King 1 But, howbeit I am a sink and sinful mass, a wretched
captive of sin, my Lord Jesus can hew heaven out of worse timber
than I am (if worse can be.) 3. I now rejoice with joy unspeak-
able and glorious, that I never purpose to bring Christ, not the
least hoof or hair-breadth of truth, under trysting^: I desired to
have and keep Christ all alone, and that He should never rub
clothes with that black-skinned harlot of Rome. I am now fully
paid home, so that nothing aileth me for the present, but love
sickness for a real possession of my fairest Well-Beloved. I would
give Him my bond under my faith and hand, to frist^ heaven an
hundred years longer, so being He would lay His holy face to my
sometimes wet cheeks. 0, who would not pity me, to know how
^ Bargaining or compromise. " Postpone.
LETTER XXXIV. 101
fain I would have the King shaking the tree of life upon me ; or
letting me into the well of life with my old dish, that I might be
drunken with the fountain, here, in the house of my pilgrimage !
I cannot, nay, I would not, be quit of Christ's love. He hath left
the mark behind Him where he gripped : He goeth away, and
leaveth me and His burning love to wrestle together, and I can
scarce win my meat of His love, because of absence. My Lord
giveth me but hungry half-kisses, which serve to feed pain and in-
crease hunger ; but do not satisfy my desires : His dieting of my
soul for this race maketh me lean ; I have gotten the wale^ and
choice of Christ's crosses, even the tithe and the flower of the gold
of all crosses, to bear witness to the truth, and herein find I liberty,
joy, access, life, comfort, love, faith, submission, patience, and reso-
lution to take delight in on-waiting ; and withal in my race. He
hath come near me and let me see the gold and crown. What then
want I but fruition and real enjoyment, which is reserved to my
country? Let no man think he shall lose at Christ's hands in
suffering for Him. 4. For these present trials they are most
dangerous; for people shall be stolen off their feet with well-
washen and white-skinned pretences of indifFerency ; but it is the
power of the great Antichrist working in this land. Woe, woe,
woe, be to apostate Scotland : there is wrath, and a cup of the red
wine of the wrath of God Almighty in the Lord's hand, that they
shall drink and spue, and fall, and not rise again. The star called
wormwood and gall is fallen in the fountains and rivers, and hath
made them bitter : the sword of the Lord is furbished against the
idol shepherds of the land ; women shall bless the barren womb
and miscarrying breasts ; all hearts shall be faint, and all knees
shall tremble : an end is coming : the leopard and the lion shall
watch over our cities : houses, great and fair, shall be desolate,
without an inhabitant. The Lord hath said, " Pray not for this
people, for I have taken my peace from them ; " yet the Lord's
third part shall come through the fire as refined gold, for the
treasure of the Lord, and the outcasts of Scotland shall be gathered
together again, and the wilderness shall blossom as the flower, and
bud and grow as the rose of Sharon, and great shall be the glory
of the Lord upon Scotland. 5. I am here assaulted with the
learned and pregnant wits of this kingdom ; but all honour be to
my Lord, truth but laugheth at bemisted and blinded Scribes and
disputers of this world, and God's wisdom confoundeth them, and
Christ triumpheth in His own strong truth that speaketh for it-
self. 6. I doubt not but my Lord is preparing me for heavier
trials. I am most ready at the good pleasure of my Lord, in the
strength of His grace, for anything He shall be pleased to call me
* Selection.
102 LETTER XXXIV.
to ; neither shall the last black-faced messenger, death, be holden
at the door, when it shall knock. If my Lord Avill take honour of
the like of me, how glad and joyful shall my soul be. Let Christ
come out with me to an hotter battle than this, and I shall fear no
flesh. I know that my Master will win the day, and that He hath
taken the ordering of my suff'erings in His own hand. 7. As for
my deliverance, that miscarrieth. I am here by my Lord's grace
to lay my hand on my mouth, to be silent and wait on : my Lord
Jesus is on His journey for my deliverance ; I will not grudge
that He runneth not so fast as I would have Him : on-waiting till
the swelling rivers fall, and till my Lord arise as a mighty man
after strong wine, shall be my best : I have not yet resisted to
blood. 8. 0, how often am I laid in the dust, and urged by the
tempter (who can ride his own errands upon our lying apprehen-
sions) to sin against the unchangeable love of my Lord : when I
think upon the sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the
Kirk of Anwoth, and of my dumb Sabbaths, my sorrowful bleired^
eyes look a-squint upon Christ, and present him as angry. But, in
this trial, all honour to our princely and royal King, faith saileth
fair before the wind with top sail up, and carrieth the poor pass-
enger through. I lay inhibitions upon my thoughts that tliey re-
ceive no slanders of my only, only beloved : let Him even say out
of His own mouth, " There is no hope," yet I will die in that
sweet beguile. It is not so, I shall see the salvation of God. Let
me be deceived really, and never win to dry land ; it is my joy to
believe under the water, and to die with faith in my hand, grip-
ping Christ : let my conceptions of Christ's love go to the grave
with me and to hell with me, I may not, I dare not quit them. I
hope to keep Christ's pawn : if He never come to loose it, let Him
see to His own promise. I know, presumption, howbeit it be
made of stoutness, will not thus be wilful in heavy trials. Now,
my dearest in Christ, the great Messenger of the covenant, the
only wise and all-sufiicient Jehovah, establish you to the end.
I hear the Lord hath been at your house and hath called home
your wife to her rest. I know, sir, ye see the Lord loosing the
pins of your tabernacle, and wooing your love from this plastered
and overgilded world ; and calling upon you to be making your-
self ready to go to your Father's country, which shall be a sweet
fruit of that visitation. Ye know, to send the Comforter, was a
King's word, when He ascended on high : ye have claim to and
interest in that promise. Eemember my love in Christ to your
father, show him it is late and black night with him, his long ly-
ing at the water-side is, that he may look his papers ere he take
shipping, and be at a point for his last answer before his Judge
1 Tearful.
LETTER XXXV. 1 0 3
and Lord. All love, all mercy, all grace, and peace, all multiplied
saving consolations, all joy and faith in Christ, all stability, and
confirming strength of grace, and the good will of Him that dwelt
in the bush be with you.
Your unworthy brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1637.
LETTER XXXV.— To Marion M'Naught.
Worthy and dearest in the Lord, — I ever loved (since I knew
you) that little vineyard of the Lord's planting in Galloway ; but
now much more since I have heard that He, who hath His fire
in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusdem, hath been pleased to set
up a furnace amongst you, with the first in this kingdom: He who
maketh old things new, seeing Scotland an old drossy and rusted
Kirk, is beginning to make a new clean bride of her, and to bring
a young chaste wife to Himself out of the fire. This fire shall be
quenched, so soon as Christ hath brought a clean spouse through
the fire. Therefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, fear not a
worm: "Fear not, worm Jacob:" Christ is in that plea, and shall
win the plea. Charge an unbelieving heart, under the pain of
treason against our great and royal King Jesus, to dependence by
faith and quiet on-waiting on our Lord : get you into your cham-
bers, and shut the doors about you : in, in with speed to your
stronghold, ye prisoners of hope : ye doves, flee into Christ's
windows till the indignation be over and the storm be past ;
glorify the Lord in your sufferings, and take His banner of love,
and spread it over you. Others will follow you, if they see you
strong in the Lord ; their courage shall take life from your Chris-
tian carriage. Look up, and see who is coming : lift up your head.
He is coming to save, "In garments dyed in blood, and travelling
in the greatness of His strength ! " I laugh, I smile, I leap for
joy, to see Christ coming to save you so quickly : 0, such wide
steps as Christ taketh ! three or four hills are but a step to Him ;
He skippeth over the mountains. Christ hath set a battle be-
twixt His poor weak saints and His enemies ; He waleth^ the
weapons for both parties ; and saith to the enemies, " Take you
a sword of steel, law, authority, parliaments, and kings upon your
side, that is your armour : and He saith to His saints, I give you
a feckless tree-sword 2 in your hand, and that is sufl'ering, receiving
of strokes, spoiling of your goods, and with your tree-sword ye
shall get and gain the victory. Was not Christ dragged through
the ditches of deep distresses, and great straits 1 and yet Christ
who is your head, hath won through with His hfe ; howbeit, not
^ ChoosetL ' A f'^eble wooden aworiL
104 LETTKi; XXXV.
with a whole skin. Ye are Christ's members, and He is drawing
His members through the thorny hedge, up to lieaven after Him :
Christ, one day, will not have so much as a pained toe ; but there
are great pieces and portions of Christ's mystical body, not yet
within the gates of the great high city, the new Jerusalem, and
the dragon will strike at Christ so long as there is one bit or
member of Christ's body out of heaven. I tell you, Christ will
make new work out of old sore casten Scotland, and gather the
old broken boards of His tabernacle, and pin them, and nail them
together : our bills and supplications are up in heaven. Christ
hath coffers full of them. There is mercy on the other f;ide of this
His cross ; a good answer to all our bills is agreed upon. I must
tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, King Jesus hath done to
my soul ; sometimes He sendeth me out a standing drink, and
whispereth a word through the wall, and I am well content of
kindness at the second hand ; His bode^ is ever welcome to me,
be what it will ; but at other times He will be messenger Him-
self, and I get the cup of salvation out of His own hand (He
drinking to me), and we cannot rest till we be in other's ^ arms ;
and, 0, how sweet is a fresh kiss from His holy mouth ; His breath-
ing, that goeth before a kiss upon my poor soul, is sweet and
hath no fault, but that it is too short. I am careless and stand
not much on this ; howbeit loins, and back, and shoulders, and
head rive^ in pieces, in stepping up to my Father's house. 1
know my Lord can make long, and broad, and high, and deep,
glory to His name out of this bit feckless body; for Christ looketh
not what stuff He maketh glory out of. My dearly beloved, ye
have often refreshed me, but that is put up in my Master's ac-
counts ; ye have Him debtor for me : but if ye will do anything
for me (as I know ye will) now in my extremity, tell all my dear
friends that a prisoner is fettered, and chained in Christ's love :
Lord, never loose the fetters ; and ye and they together, take my
heartiest commendations to my Lord Jesus, and thank him for a
poor friend. I desire your husband to read this letter ; I send
him a prisoner's blessing ; I will be obliged to him if he will be
willing to suffer for my dear Master ; suffering is the professor's
golden garment: there shall be no losses on Clirist's side of it. Ye
have been Avitnesses of much joy betwixt Christ and me at com-
munion feasts, the remembrance whereof (howbeit I be feasted
in secret) holeth* my heart ; for I am put from the board-head
and the King's first mess, to His by-board, and His broken meat
is sweet unto me : I thank my Lord for borrowed crumbs, no less
than when I was feasted at the communion-table in Anwoth and
Kircudbright. Pray, that I may get one day of Christ in public,
1 OfTi r " Each other's. ^ jIqj^± -i PiercetL
LETTER XXXVI. 105
as I have had long since, before my eyes be closed. 0, that uiy
Master would take up house again, and lend me the keys of His
wine-cellar again, and God send me borrowed drink till then.
Eeraember my love to Christ's kinsmen with you. I pray for
Christ's Father's blessing to them all. Grace be with you, a
prisoner's blessing be with you. I write it, and I bide by it,
God shall be glorious in Marion M'Naught, when this stormy
blast shall be over. 0, woman, beloved of God, believe, rejoice,
be strong in the Lord. Grace is thy portion.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. IL
Aberdeen, June 15, 1G37.
LETTER XXXVI.— To John Gordon, at Risco, in Galloway.
My worthy and dear Brother, — Misspend not your short
sand-glass which runneth very fast ; seek your Lord in time ;
let me obtain of you a letter under your hand for a promise
to God, by His grace, to take a new course of walking with
God. Heaven is not at the next door. I find it hard to be a
Christian ; there is no little thrusting and thronging, to thrust
in at heaven's gates ; it is a castle taken by force ; " Many shall
strive to enter in, and shall not be able." I beseech, and
obtest you in the Lord, make conscience of rash and passion-
ate oaths, of raging and sudden revenging anger, of night-
drinking, of needless companionry, of sabbath -breaking, of
hurting any under you by word or deed, of hating your very
enemies. " Except ye receive the kingdom of God as a little
child," and be as meek and sober-minded as a babe, " ye cannot
enter into the kingdom oi God." That is a word which should
touch you near, and make you stoop, and cast yourself down, and
make your great spirit fall. I know this will not be easily done ;
but I recommend it to you, as you tender ^ your part of the king-
dom of heaven. Brother, I may from new experience speak of
Christ to you. 0, if you saw in Him what I see. A river of
God's unseen joys have flowed from bank to brae over my soul,
since I parted with you. I wish I wanted part, so being ye might
have ; that your soul might be sick of love for Christ, or rather
satiate with Him. This clay-idol, the world, would seem to you
then not worth a fig : time will eat you out of possession of it,
Avhen the eye-strings break, and the breath groweth cold, and the
imprisoned soul looketh out at the windows of the clay house,
ready to leap out into eternity, what would ye then give for a
Inmp full of oil? 0, seek it noAV. I desire you to correct and
curb banning,^ swearing, lying, drinking, sabbath-breaking, and
^ Value. " Curs)::<r.
106 LETTER XXXVII.
idle spending of the Lord's day, in absense from the Kirk, as far
as your authority reacheth in that parish. I hear a man is to
be thrust into that place, to the which I have God's right : I know
ye should have a voice by God's Word in that: Acts i. 15, 16,
to the end, and Acts vi. 3, 5. You would be loath that any
Prelate should put you out of your possession earthly, and this
is your right. What I write to you, I write to your wife. Grace
be with you. Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER XXXVIL— To the Lady Halhill.
Dear and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. I longed much to write to your ladyship ; but now the Lord
offering a fit occasion, I would not omit to do it. I cannot but
acquaint your ladyship with the kind dealing of Christ to my soul
in this house of my pilgrimage, that your ladyship may know
Christ is as good as He is called. For, at my first entry into
this trial (being casten down and troubled with challenges and
jealousies of His love, whose name and testimony I now bear in
my bonds), I feared nothing more, than that I was casten over
the dyke^ of the vineyard, as a dry tree : but blessed be His great
name, the dry tree was in the fire and was not burnt • His dew
came down and quickened the root of a withered plant ; and now
He is come again with joy, and hath been pleased to feast His
exiled and afflicted prisoner with the joy of His consolations.
Now I weep, but am not sad ; I am chastened, but I die not ; I
have loss, but I want nothing : this water cannot drown me, this
fire cannot burn me, because of the "good will of Him that
dwelt in the bush." The worst things of Christ, His reproaches,
His cross, is better than Egypt's treasures. He hath opened
His door, and taken into His house of wine, a poor sinner, and
hath left me so sick of love for my Lord Jesus, that if heaven
were at my disposing, I would give it for Christ, and would not
be content to go to heaven, except I were persuaded Christ were
there. I would not give, nor exchange my bonds for the prelates'
velvets ; nor my prison, for their coaches ; nor my sighs for all
the world's laughter : this clay-idol, the world, hath no great court
in my soul. Christ hath come, and run away to heaven with my
heart and my love, so that neither heart nor love is mine ; I pray
God, Christ may keep both without reversion. In my estimation
as I am now disposed, if my part of this world's clay were rouped
and sold, I would think it dear of a drink of water. I see Christ's
love is so kingly that it will not abide a marrow ^ ; it must have
a tluone all alone in the soul, and I see apples beguile bairns,
1 WaU. = Mate.
LETTER XXXVIII. 107
howbeit they be worm-eaten. The moth-eaten pleasures of this
present world make bairns believe ten is a hundred, and yet all
that are here are but shadows : if they would draw by ^ the cur-
tain that is hung betwixt them and Christ, they should think
themselves fools, who have so long miskenned ^ the Son of God.
I seek no more next to heaven, but that He may be glorified in a
prisoner of Christ ; and that in my behalf many would praise His
high and glorious name, who heareth the sighing of the prisoner.
Remember my service to the laird your husband, and to your
son, my acquaintance : I Avish Christ had his young love, and
that in the morning he would start to the gate to seek that
which this world knoweth not, and therefore doth not seek it.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER XXXVIIL— To the Eight Honourable xuy Lord
Lindsay.
Right honourable and my very good Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to your lordship. Pardon my boldness to express
myself to your lordship, at this so needful a time, when your
wearied and friendless mother-kirk is looking round about her,
to see if any of her sons doth really bemoan her desolation.
Therefore, my dear and worthy lord, I beseech you in the bowels
of Christ, pity that widow-like sister and spouse of Christ. I
know her husband is not dead ; but he seemeth to be in another
country, and seeth well, and beholdeth who are his true and
tender-hearted friends; who dare venture under the water to bring
out to dry land sinking truth, and Avho of the nobles will cast up
their arm to Avard a blow off the crowned head of our royal
law-giver, who reigneth in Zion, who will plead and contend
for Jacob in the day of his controversy. It is now time, my
worthy and noble lord, for you, who are the little nurse-fathers
(under our Sovereign Prince) to put on courage for the Lord
Jesus, and to take up a fallen orphan, speaking out of the
dust, and to embrace in your arms Christ's bride. He hath no
more in Scotland that is the delight of His eyes, but that one
little sister, whose breasts were once well-fashioned ; she once
ravished her Well-Beloved with her eyes, and overcame Him with
their beauty ; " She looked forth as the morning, fair as the moon,
clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners : her stature was
like the palm-tree, and her breasts like clusters of grapes, and she
held the King in his galleries," Cant. iv. 9, and vi. 10, and vii.
^ Aside. - ^Misjudged.
108 LETTER XXXVIII.
5, 7. Bat now the crown is fallen from her head, and her gold
waxed dim, and our white Nazarites are become black as the coal.
Blessed are they who will come out and help Christ against the
mighty. The shields of the earth and the nobles are debtors to
Christ for their honour, and should bring their glory and honour
to the new Jerusalem ; Rev. xxi. 24. Alas, that great men should
be so far from subjecting themselves to the sweet yoke of Christ,
that they burst His bonds asunder, and think they dow ^ not go on
foot, "when Christ is on horseback, and that every nod of Christ
commanding as a king, is a load like a mountain of iron ; and
therefore, they say, " this man shall not reign over us," we must
have another king than Christ in His own house. Therefore,
kneel to Christ and kiss the Son, and let Him have your lordship'?
vote, as your alone Law-giver. I am sure, when you leave this old
waste inns of this perishing life, and shall reckon with your host,
and depart hence and take shipping, and make over for eternity,
which is the yonder side of time, and a sand-glass of threescore
short years is running out ; to look over your shoulder then, to
that which ye have done, spoken, and suffered for Christ, His
dear bride (that He ransomed with that blood which is more pre-
cious than gold), and for truth, and the freedom of Christ's king-
dom ; your accounts shall more sweetly smile and laugh upon you,
than if you had two worlds of gold to leave to your posterity. O,
my dear lord, consider that our Master, eternity, judgment, and
the last reckoning will be upon us in the twinkling of an eye.
The blast of the last trumpet, now hard at hand, will cry down
all acts of parliament, all the determinations of pretended assem-
blies against Christ, our Law-giver. There will be shortly a pro-
clamation by one standing in the clouds, that time shall be no
more, and that coui"t with kings of clay shall be no more ; and
prisons, confinements, forfeitures of nobles, wrath of kings, hazard
of lands, houses, and name, for Christ, shall be no more. This
world's span-length of time is drawn now to less than half an
inch, and to the point of the evening of the day of this old and
grey-haired world ; and therefore, be fixed and fast for Christ
antl His truth for a time, and fear not him whoso life goeth out
at his nostrils, who shall die as a man. I am persuaded, Christ is
responsal- and law-biding, to make recompense for anything that
is hazarded or given out for Him ; losses for Christ are but our
goods given out in bank in Christ's hand. Kings earthly, are well-
favoured little clay gods, and time's idols, but a sight of our in-
visible King shall diecry and darken all the glory of this world.
At the day of Christ, truth shall be truth, and not treason. Alas !
it is pitiful that silence, when the thatch of our Lord's house hath
1 Can- ^ Responsible.
LETTER XXX VIII. 109
taken fire, is now the flower and the bloom of court and state wis-
ilom ; and to cast a covering over a good profession (as if it
blushed at light), is thought a canny ^ and sure way through this
life : but the safest way, I am persuaded, is to tine and win with
Christ, and to hazard fairly for Him ; for heaven is but a company
of noble venturers for Christ. I dare hazard my soul, Christ shall
grow green, and blossom as the Rose of Sharon yet in Scotland,
howbeit now His leaf seemeth to wither, and His root to dry up.
Your noble ancestors have been enrolled amongst the worthies of
this nation, as the sure friends of the Bridegroom, and valiant for
Christ. I hope ye will follow on, to come to the streets for the
same Lord. The world is still at yea and nay with Christ ; it shall
be your glory, and the sure foundation of your house (now when
houses are tumbling down, and birds building their nests, and
thorns and briers are growing up where nobles did spread a table),
if you engage your estate and nobility for this noble King Jesus,
with whom the created powers of the world are still in tops;- all
the world shall fall before Him, and (as God liveth) every arm
lifted up to take the crown ofl" His royal head, or that refuseth
to hold it upon His head, shall be broken from the shoulder-
blade. The eyes that behold Christ weep in sackcloth, and wallow
in His blood, and will not help, even these eyes shall rot away in
their eye-holes. 0 ! if ye, and the nobles of this land, saw the
beauty of that world's-wonder, Jesus our King, and the glory of
Him who is angels' wonder, and heaven's wonder for excellency !
0, what would men count of clay-estates, of time-eaten life, of
worm-eaten, and moth-eaten worldly glory, in comparison of that
fairest, fairest of God's creation, the Son of the Father's delights.
I have but small experience of suffering for Him ; but, let my
Judge and Witness in heaven lay my soul in the balance of justice,
if I find not a young heaven, and a little Paradise of glorious
comforts and soul-delighting love-kisses of Christ here, beneath
the moon, in suffering for Him and His truth ; and that glory,
joy, and peace and fire of love, I thought had been kept while"
supper-time, when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon Christ,
I have felt it in glorious beginnings, in my bonds for this princely
Lord Jesus. 0 ! it is my sorrow, my daily pain, that men Avill
not come and see. I would now be ashamed to believe that it
should be possible for any soul to think that he could be a loser
for Christ ; suppose he should lend Christ the lordship of Lindsay,
or some such great worldly estate. Therefore, my worthy and
dear lord, set your face against the opjDosites of Jesus, and let
your soul take courage to come under His banner, to appear as
His soldier for Him, and the blessings of a falling kirk, the prayers
^ Quiet. - Heights (of passion). ^ Till.
110 LETTER XXXIX.
of the prisoners of hope, who wait for Zion's joy, and the good-
will of Him that dwelt in the bush, and it burned not, shall be
with you. To His saving grace I recommend your lordship and
your house, and am still Christ's prisoner, and your lordship's
obliged servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, September 7, 1637.
LETTER XXXIX.— To my Lord Boyd.
My very Honourable and good Lord, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I am glad to hear that ye, in the morning of
your short day, mind Christ, and that ye love the honour of His
crown and kingdom. I beseech your lordship, begin now to frame
your love, and to cast it in no mould but one, that it may be for
Christ only ; for when your love is now in the framing and making,
it will take best with Christ ; if any other than Jesus get a grip
of it, when it is green and young, Christ will be an uncouth and
strange world to you. Promise the lodging of your soul first
away to Christ, and stand by your first covenant, and keep to
Jesus that He may find you honest. It is easy to master an
arrow, and to set it right ere the string be drawn ; but, when
once it is shot and in the air, and the flight begun, then ye have
no power at all to command it. It were a blessed thing, if your
love could now level only at Christ, that His fair face were the
black of the mark ye shot at ; for when your love is loosed and
out of your grips, and in its motion to fetch home an idol, and
hath taken a whorish gadding journey, to seek an unknown and
strange lover, ye shall not then have power to call home the
arrow or to be master of your love ; and ye shall hardly give
Christ what ye scarcely have yourself. I speak not this as if
youth itself could fetch heaven and Christ. Believe it, my lord,
it is hardly credible, what a nest of dangerous temptations youth
is, how inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, rash, profane,
and careless of God, this piece of your life is ; so that the devil
findeth in that age a garnished and swept house for himself, and
seven devils worse than himself; for then aff"ections are on horse-
back, lofty and stirring ; then the old man hath blood, lust, much
will, and little wit, and hands, feet, wanton eyes, profane ears, as
his servants, and as a king's officers at command, to come and go
at his will : then a green conscience is as supple as the twig of a
young tree, it is for every way, every religion, every lewd course
prevaileth with it ; and therefore, 0 what a sweet couple, what a
glorious yoke are youth and grace, Christ and a young man ! this
is a meeting not to be found in every town. None who have been
at Christ, can bring back to your lordship a report answerable to
His worth ; for Christ cannot be spoken of, or commended accord-
LETTER XXXIX. Ill
ing to His worth; Come and see, is the most faithful messenger to
speak of Him, little persuasion would prevail where this were. It is
impossible in the setting out of Christ's love to lie and pass over
truth's line. The discourses of angels, or love-books written by
the congregation of seraphims (all their wits being conjoined and
melted in one), would for ever be in the nether side of truth, and
plentifully declaring the thing as it is. The infiniteness, the
boundlessness of that incomparable excellency that is in Jesus, is
a great word. God send me if it were but the relics and leav-
ings, or an ounce weight or two of His matchless love ; and sup-
pose I never got another heaven (providing this blessed fire were
evermore burning) I could not but be happy for ever. Come
hither then, and give out your money wisely for bread : come
here and bestow your love. I have cause to speak this, because,
except ye enjoy and possess Christ, ye will be a cold friend to
His spouse, for it is love to the husband that causeth kindness to
the wife. I dare swear, it were a blessing to your house, the
honour of your honour, the flower of your credit, now in your
place, and as far as ye are able, to lend your hand to your weep-
ing mother, even your oppressed and spoiled mother kirk. If ye
love her, and bestir yourself for her, and hazard the lordship of
Boyd for the recovery of her vail (which the smiting watchmen
have taken from her), then surely her husband will scorn to sleep
in your common or reverence : ^ bits of lordships are little to Him
who hath many crowns on His head, and the kingdoms of the
world in the hollow of His hand. Court, honour, glory, riches,
stability of houses, favour of princes, are all on His finger ends.
0, what glory were it to lend your honour to Christ, and to His
Jerusalem. Ye are one of Zion's born sons ; your honourable and
Christian parents would venture you upon Christ's errands. There-
fore I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the death and
wounds of Jesus, by the hope of your glorious inheritance, and
by the comfort and hope of the joyful presence ye would have
at the water-side, when ye are putting your foot in the dark
grave, take courage for Christ's truth, and the honour of His
free kingdom ; for, howbeit ye be a young flower, and green before
the sun, ye know not how soon death will cause you to cast your
bloom, and wither root and branch and leaves. And therefore,
write up what ye have to do for Christ, and make a treasure
of good works, and begin in time : by appearance ye have
the advantage of the brae : see what ye can do for Christ
against these who are waiting while ^ Christ's tabernacle fall, that
they may run away with the boards thereof, and build their nest
on Zion's ruins. They are blind who see not lowns ^ now pulling
1 That is, to h^ indebted to you. "Till. '•' Villains.
112 LETTER XL.
up the Stakes and breaking the cords, and rending the curtains of
Christ's (sometimes) beautiful tent in this land. Antichrist is
lifting that tent up upon his shoulders, and going away with it,
and when Christ and the Gospel are out of Scotland, dream not
that your houses shall thrive, and that it shall go well with the
nobles of the land : as the Lord liveth, the streams of your
waters shall become pitch, and the dust of your land brimstone ;
and your land shall become burning pitch, and the owl and the
raven shall dwell in your houses, and where your table stood,
there shall grow briers and nettles; Isaiah xxxiv. 9, 11. The
Lord gave Christ and His Gospel as a pawn to Scotland, the
watchmen having fallen foul, and lost their part of the pawn ; and
who seeth not that God hath dried up their right eye, and their
right arm, and hath broken the shepherds' staves, and men are
treading in their hearts upon such unsavory salt, that is good for
nothing else. If ye the nobles put away the pawn also, and
refuse to plead the controversy of Zion with the professed
enemies of Jesus, ye have done with it. 0, where is the courage
and zeal now of the ancient nobles of this land, who, with their
swords, and hazard of life, honour, and houses, brought Christ
to our hands'? And now the nobles cannot be but guilty of
shouldering out Christ, and murdering of the souls of the poster-
ity, if they shall hide themselves, and lurk in the lee-side of the
hill, till the wind blow down the temple of God. It goeth now
under the name of wisdom, for men to cast their cloak over
Christ and their profession, as if Christ were stolen goods and
durst not be avouched ; though this be reputed a piece of policy,
yet God esteemeth such men to be but state-fools and court-gouks,^
whatever they, or other heads of wit like to them, think of them-
selves, since their damnable silence is the ruin of Christ's kingdom.
0, but it be true honour and glory, to be the fast friends of the
Bridegroom, and to own Christ's bleeding head, and His forsaken
cause ; and to contend legally, and in the wisdom of God, for our
sweet Lord Jesus, and His kingly crown. But I will believe
your lordship will take Christ's honour to heart, and be a man in
the streets (as the prophet speaketh) for the Lord and His truth.
To His rich grace and sweet presence, and the everlasting consola-
tion of the promised Comforter, I recommend your lordship. And
am your lordship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER XL.— To my Lady Boyd.
My very Honourable and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you, I received your letter, and am well pleased
■• Coiirt-jcsters.
LETTER XL. 113
that your thoughts of Christ stay with you, and that your purpose
still is, by all means, to take the kingdom of heaven by violence,
which is no small conquest ; and it is a degree of watchfulness
and thankfulness also, to observe sleepiness and unthankfulness :
we have all good cause to complain of false light, that playeth
the thief, and stealeth away the lantern, when it cometh to the
practice of constant walking with God. Our journey is ten times
a day broken in ten pieces ; Christ getteth but only broken and
halved and tired work of us, and alas too often against the hair.
I have been somewhat nearer the Bridegroom ; but when I dravv
nigh, and see my vileness, for shame I would be out of His pre-
sence again ; but yet desire of His soul-refreshing love putteth
blushing me under an arrest. 0, what am I, so loathsome a
burden of sin, to stand beside such a beautiful and holy Lord, such
an high and lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity 1 But since it
pleaseth Christ to condescend to such an one as me, let shame-
facedness be laid aside, and lose itself in His condescending love.
I would heartily be content to keep a corner of the King's hall.
0, if I were at the yonder^ end of my weak desires! then should I
be where Christ, my Lord and Lover, lives and reigns; there I
should be everlastingly solaced with the sight of His face, and satis-
fied with the surpassing sweetness of His matchless love. But,
truly, now I stand in the nether side of my desires, and with
a drooping head and panting heart, I look up to fair Jesus,
standing afar off from us, while ^ corruption and death shall scour
and refine the body of clay, and rot out the bones of the old man
of sin. In the meantime, we are blessed in sending word to the
Beloved, that we love to love Him ; and till then, there is joy in
wooing, suiting, lying about His house, looking in at the windows,
and sending a poor soul's groans and wishes through a hole of
the door to Jesus, till God send a glad meeting. And, blessed be
God, that after a low ebb, and so sad a word, " Lord Jesus, it is
long since I saw thee," that even then, our wings are growing,
and the absence of sweet Jesus breedeth a new fleece of desires
and longings for Him. I know no man hath a velvet cross ; but
the cross is made of that which God will have it. But, verily,
howbeit it be no warrantable market to buy a cross, yet I dare
not say, 0 that I had liberty to sell Christ's cross, lest there-
with also I should sell joy, comfort, sense of love, patience, and
the kind visits of a Bridegroom. And therefore, blessed be God,
we get crosses unbought and good cheap. Sure I am, it were
better to buy crosses for Christ, than to sell them; howbeit neither
be allowed to us. And for Christ's joyful coming and going,
which your ladysMp speaketh of, I bear with it, as love can per
^ Further. ■■ Till.
114 LETTER XLI.
mit. It should be enough to me, if I were wise, that Christ will
have joy and sorrow halfers^ of the life of the saints, and that
each of them should have a share of our days, as the night and
the day are kindly partners and halfers ^ of time, and take it up
betwixt them. But if sorrow be the greediest halfer of our days
here, I know joy's day shall dawn, and do more than recompense
all our sad hours. Let my Lord Jesus (since He will do so) weave
my bit and span-length of time, with white and black, weal and
woe, with the Bridegroom's coming and His sad departure, as
warp and woof in one web ; and let the rose be neighboured with
the thorn, yet hope (that maketli not ashamed) hath written a
letter and lines of hope to the " Mourners in Zion," that it shall
not be long so : when we are over the water, Christ shall cry
down crosses, and up heaven for evermore, and down hell, and
down death, and down sin, and down sorrow; and up glory, up
life, up joy for evermore. In this hope, I sleep quietly in Christ's
bosom, while^ He come, who is not slack ; and would sleep so,
were it not that the noise of the devil, and sin's feet, and the cries
of an unbelieving heart, awaken me ; but, for the present, I have
nothing whereof I can accuse Christ's cross. 0, if I could please
myself in Christ only ! I hope, madam, your sons will improve
their power for Jesus ; for there is no danger, neither is there any
question or justling betwixt Christ and authority, though our ene-
mies falsely state the question, as if Christ and authority could
not abide under one roof; the question only is, betwixt Christ and
men in authority. Authority is for and from Christ, and submit ^
to Him ; how then can he make a plea with it 1 Nay, the truth
is, worms and gods of clay are risen up against Christ. If the
fruit of your ladyship's womb be helpers of Christ, ye have good
ground to rejoice in God. All your ladyship can expect for your
goodwill to me and my brother (a wronged stranger for Christ),
is the prayers of a prisoner of Jesus, to whom I recommend your
ladyship, and house, and children, and in whom I am, madam.
Your ladyship's, in Christ, S. E-.
Aberdeen, Sept. 8, 1637.
LETTER XLI.— To the Lady Culross.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I dare not say
I wonder that ye have never written to me in my bonds, because
1 am not ignorant of the cause ; yet I could not but write to you,
I know not whether joy or heaviness in my soul carrieth it away:
sorrow, without any mixture of sweetness, hath not often love-
thoughts of Christ ; but I see the devil can insinuate himself, and
ride his errands upon the thoughts of a poor oppressed prisoner.
'■ Sharers. * TilL ^ Subjected.
LETTER XLI. 115
I am woe^ that I am making Christ my unfriend by seeking pleas
against Him, because I am the first in the kingdom put to utter
silence, and because I cannot preach my Lord's righteousness in
the great congregation. I am, notwithstanding, the less solicitous
how it go, if there be not wrath in my cup. But I know, I but
claw 2 my wounds, when my Physician hath forbidden me: I
would believe in the dark upon luck's head, and take my hazard
of Christ's good will, and rest on this, that in my fever my Physi-
cian is at my bed-side, and that He sympathizeth with me when I
sigh. My borrowed house, and another man's bed and fireside,
and other losses have no room in my sorrow : a greater heat to
eat out a less fire is a good remedy for some burning. I believe,
when Christ draweth blood. He hath skill to cut the right vein,
and that He hath taken the whole ordering and disposing of my
sufferings. Let Him tutor me and tutor my crosses as He think-
eth good : there is no danger nor hazard in following such a guide;
howbeit He should lead me through hell, if I could put faith fore-
most, and fill the field with a quiet on-waiting, and believing to
see the salvation of God : I know Christ is not obliged to let me
see both the sides of my cross, and turn it over and over that I
may see all. My faith is richer to live upon credit and Christ's
borrowed money than to have much in my hand. Alas ! I have
forgotten that faith in times past hath stopped a leak in my crazed
bark, and hath filled my sails with a fair wind. I see it a work of
God, that experiences are all lost, when summons of improbation,
to prove our charters of Christ to be counterfeit, are raised against
poor souls in their heavy trials ; but let me be a sinner, and worse
than the chief of sinners, yea, a guilty devil, I am sure my well-
beloved is God ; and when I say Christ is God, and my Christ is
God, I have said all things, I can say no more. I would I could
build as much on this, my Christ is God, as it would bear ; I
might lay all the world upon it : I am sure Christ untried and un-
taken up in the power of His love, kindness, mercies, goodness,
wisdom, long-suff'ering, and greatness, is the rock that dim-sighted
travellers dash their foot against, and so stumble fearfully. But,
my wounds are sorest and pain me most to sin against His love
and His mercy : and if He would set me and my conscience by
the ears together, and resolve not to red the plea,^ but let us deal
it betwixt us, my spitting upon the fair face of Christ's love and
mercies, by my jealousies, unbelief, and doubting, would be enough
to sink me. 0, oh ! I am convinced ; 0 Lord, I stand dumb be--
fore Thee for this : let me be mine own judge in this, and I take
a dreadful doom upon me for it ; for I still misbelieve, though I
have seen that my Lord hath made my cross as if it were all crys-
tal, so as I can see through it Christ's fair face and heaven, and
' Sol rowhil. " Scratcli. * To settle the dispute.
116 LETTEE XLl.
that God hath honoured a lump of smful flesh and blood, the like
of me, to be Christ's honourable Lord-prisoner. I ought to esteem
the walls of the thieves' hole (if I were shut up in it) or any stink-
ing dungeon, all hung with tapestry, and most beautiful for my
Lord Jesus ; and yet I am not so shut up, but that the sun shineth
upon my prison, and the fair wide heaven is the covering of it.
But my Lord in His sweet visits hath done more, for He makes
me find that He will be a confined prisoner with me ; He lieth
down and riseth up with me ; when I sigh He sigheth ; when I
weep He suff'ereth with me ; and I confess here is the blessed issue
of my sufferings already begun, that my heart is filled with hunger
and desire to have Him glorified in my sufferings. Blessed ye of
the Lord, Madam, if you would help a poor dyvour,^ and cause
others of your acquaintance in Christ help me, to pay my debt of
love, even real praises, to Christ my Lord. Madam, let me charge
you in the Lord, as ye will answer to Him, help me in this duty
(which He hath tied about my neck with a chain of such singular
expressions of His loving kindness) to set on high Christ, to hold
in my honesty at His hands, for I have nothing to give Him. 0,
that He would arrest and comprise my love and my heart for all !
I am a dyvour' who have no more free goods in the world for
Christ, save that : it is both the whole heritage I have and all my
moveables besides : Lord, give the thirsty man a drink. 0, to be
over the ears in the well ! 0, to be swatt^ring and swimming
over head and ears in Christ's love ! I would not have Christ's
love entering in me, but I would enter into it, and be swallowed
up of that love. But I see not myself here, for I fear I make more
of His love than of Himself; whereas Himself is far beyond and
much better than His love. 0, if I had my sinful arms filled with
that lovely one Christ ! blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, who send-
eth not away beggars from His house with a toom^ dish. He
filleth the vessels of such as will come and seek. We might beg
ourselves rich (if we were wise), if we could but hold out our
withered hands to Christ, and learn to suit ^ and seek, ask and
knock. I owe my salvation for Christ's glory ; I owe it to Christ,
and desire that my hell, yea, a new hell, seven times hotter than
the old hell, might buy praises before men and angels to my Lord
Jesus, providing always I were free of Christ's hatred and displea-
sure. What am I, to be forfeited and sold in soul and body, to
have my great and royal King set on high, and extolled above all 1
0, if I knew how high to have Him set, and all the world far, far
beneath the soles of His feet ! Nay, I deserve not to be the
matter of His praises, far less to be an agent in praising of Him.
But He can win His own glory out of me, and out of one worse
^ Debtor, - Empty. ' Sue.
LETTER XLII. 117
than I (if any such be) if it pleases His holy majesty so to do ; He
knoweth that I am not now flattering Him. Madam, let me have
your prayers, as ye have the prayers and blessing of him that is
separated from his brethren. Grace, grace be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1637.
LETTER XLH.— To the Earl of Cassilis.
My very Noble and Honourable Lord, — I make bold, out
of the honourable and Christian report I hear of your lordship,
having no other thing to say but that which concerneth the honour-
able cause, which the Lord hath enabled your lordship to profess,
to write this, that it is your lordship's crown, your glory, and
your honour, to set your shoulder under the Lord's glory now fall-
ing to the ground ; and to back Christ now, when so many think
it wisdom to let Him fend^ for Himself The shields of the earth
ever did, and do still believe that Christ is a cumbersome neigh-
bour, and that it is a pain to hold up His yeas and nays : they
fear He take their chariots, and their crowns, and their honour
from them ; but my Lord standeth in need of none of them all.
But it is your glory to own Christ and His buried truth, for let
men say what they please, the plea with Zion's enemies, in tliis
day of Jacob's trouble, is, if Christ should be King, and no mouth
speak laws but His 1 It concerneth the apple of Christ's eye and
His royal privileges, what now is debated : and Christ's kingly
honour is come to yea and nay. But let me be pardoned, my dear
and noble lord, to beseech you by the mercies of God, by the com-
forts of the Spirit, by the wounds of your dear Saviour, by your
compearance before the Judge of quick and dead, to stand for
Christ, and to back Him. 0, if the nobles had done their part,
and been zealous for the Lord, it had not been as it is now ; but
men think it wisdom to stand beside Christ till His head be
broken, and sing dumb. There is a time coming when Christ will
have a thick court, and He will be the glory of Scotland ; and He
shall make a diadem, a garland, a seal upon His heart, and a ring
on His finger, of these who have avouched Him before this faith-
less generation : howbeit, ere that come, wrath from the Lord is
ordained for this land. My lord, I have cause to write this to
your lordship, for I dare not conceal His kindness to the soul of
an afflicted exiled prisoner. Who hath more cause to boast in the
Lord than such a sinner as 1 1 who am feasted with the consola-
tions of Christ, and have no pain in my suff'erings, but the pain
of soul-sickness of love for Christ, and sorrow that I cannot get
1 Sliift,
118 LETTERS XLIII. AND XLIV.
help to sound aloud the high praises of Him who hath heard the
sighing of the prisoner, and is content to lay the head of His op-
pressed servant ifl His bosom, under His chin, and let him feel
the smell of His garments. This I behoved to write, that your
lordship might know Christ is as good as He is called ; and to
testify to your lordship the cause your lordship now professeth,
before this faithless world, is Christ's; and your lordship shall
have no shame of it. Grace be with you.
Your lordship's obliged servant, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER XLIIL— To the much honoured John Osburn,
Provost of Ayr.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
Upon our small acquaintance, and the good report I hear of you,
I could not but write to you. I have nothing to say, but Christ, in
that honourable place He hath put you in, hath intrusted you
with a dear pledge, which is His own glory ; and hath armed you
with His sword to keep the pledge, and make a good account of it
to God. Be not afraid of men ; your Master can mow down Hio
enemies, and make withered hay of fair flowers. Your time will
not be long ; after your afternoon will come your evening, and
after evening, night : serve Christ, back Him, let His cause be
your cause ; give not an hair-breadth of truth away; for it is not
yours but God's. Then, since ye are going, take Christ's testificate^
with you out of this life, " Well done, good and faithful servant."
His well-done is worth a shipful of good-days and earthly honours.
I have cause to say this, because I find Him truth itself In my
sad days Christ laugheth cheerfully, and saith " All will be well."
Would to God, all this kingdom, and ye, and all that know God,
knew what is betwixt me and Christ in this prison ; what kisses,
embracements, and love communings. I take His cross in my
arms with joy, I bless it, I rejoice in it. Suffering for Christ is
my garland. I would not exchange Christ for ten thousand
worlds; nay (if the comparison could stand), I would not ex-
change Christ with heaven. Sir, pray for me, and the prayers
and blessings of a prisoner of Christ meet you in all your straits.
Grace be with you. Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, March ]4, 1G37.
LETTER XLIV.— To Robert Gordon, Bailie of Ayr.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to
hear from you in paper. Remember your chief's speeches on His
^ CertiCcate.
LETTEi; XLV. 119
deathbed, i pi;iy yoii, sir, sell all, and buy the pearl ; time will
cut you from this world's glory. Look what will do you good,
when your glass shall be run out ; and let Christ's love bear most
court ^ in your soul, and that court will bear down the love of other
things. Christ seeketh your help in your place ; give Him your
hand. Who hath more cause to encourage others to own Christ
than I have? for He hath made me sick of love, and left me in
pain to wrestle with His love, and love is like to fall a-swoon
through His absence. I mean not that He deserteth me, or that
I am ebb of comforts ; but this is an uncouth pain. 0, that I
had a heart and a love to render to Him back again ! 0, if prin-
cipalities and powers, thrones and dominions, and all the world,
would help me to praise ! Praise Him in my behalf. Remember
mj love to your wife. I thank you most kindly for your love to
my brother. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his swcot- Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER XLV.— To John Kennedy, Bailie of A^r.
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Your not writing to
me cannot bind me up from remembering you now and then, that
at least ye may be a witness and a third man to behold in paper
what is betwixt Christ and me. I was in His eyes like a young
orphan wanting known parents, casten out in the open fields ;
either Christ behoved to take me up and to bring me home to
His house and fireside, else I had died in the fields. And now I
am homely ^ with Christ's love, so that I think the house mine
own, and the master of the house mine also. Christ inquired not
when He began to love me, whether I was fair, or black and sun-
burnt 1 love taketh what it may have. He loved me before this
time, I know ; but now I have the flower of His love : His love is
come to a fair bloom, like a young rose opened up out of the green
leaves, and it casteth a strong and fragrant smell. I want nothing
but ways of expressing Christ's love. A full vessel would have a
vent. 0, if I could smoke out and cast out coals to make a firt>
in many breasts of this land ! 0 ! it is a pity that there were not
many imprisoned for Christ, for no other purpose but to write
books and love-songs of the love of Christ. This love would keep
all created tongues of men and angels in exercise, and busy night
and day to speak of it. Alas ! I can speak nothing of it, but
wonder at three things in His love. First, freedom. 0, that
lumps of sin should get such love for nothing. Secondly, the
sweetness of His love ; I give over either to speak or write of it ;
' lufluence. "Familiar.
120 LETTER XLV.
but those tliat feel it may better bear witness what it is ; but it is
so sweet, that next to Christ Himself, nothing can match it. Nay,
I think a soul could live eternally blessed only on Christ's love,
and feed upon no other thing. Yea, when Christ in love giveth
a blow, it doeth a soul good, and it is a kind of comfort and joy
to it to get a cuff ^ with the lovely, sweet, and soft hand of Jesus.
And, thirdly, what power and strength is in His love? I am
persuaded it can climb a steep hill, and hell upon its back ; and
swim through the water, and not drown ; and sing in the fire, and
find no pain ; and triumph in losses, prisons, sorrows, exile, dis-
grace ; and laugh and rejoice in death. 0, for a year's lease of
the sense of His love, without a cloud, to try what Christ is ! O,
for the coming of the Bridegroom ; 0, when will I see the Bride-
groom and the bride meet in the clouds and kiss each other ! 0,
when will we get our day and our hearts full of that love ! 0, if
it were lawful to complain of the famine and want of that love of
the immediate vision of God ! 0, time, time, how dost thou tor-
ment the souls of those that would be swallowed up of Christ's
love, because thou movest so slowly ! 0, if He would pity a poor
prisoner, and blow love upon me, and give a prisoner a taste or
draught of that surpassing sweetness (which is glory as it were
begun) to be a confirmation that Christ and I shall have our fill
of other^ for ever ; come hither, 0 love of Christ, that I may once
kiss thee before I die. What would I not give to have time, that
lieth betwixt Christ and me, taken out of the way that we might
once meet 1 I cannot think but at the first sight I shall see of
that most lovely and fairest face, love shall come out of His two
eyes, and fill me with astonishment. I would but desire to stand
at the utter 3 side of the gates of the new Jerusalem, and look
through a hole of the door, and see Christ's face ; a borrowed
vision in this life would be my borrowed and begun heaven, while*
the long, long-looked-for day dawn. It is not for nothing, that it
is said, Colos. i. 27, " Christ in you the hope of glory." I will l)e
content of no pawn of heaven but Christ Himself, for Christ pos-
sessed by faith here is young heaven, and glory in the bud ! _ If I
had that pawn, I Avould bide horning^ and hell both ere I give it
again. All we have here is scarce the picture of glory. Should
not we, young bairns, long and look for the expiring of our
minority 1 It were good to be daily begging propines'^ and love-
gifts, and the Bridegroom's favours ; and if we can do no more,
seek crumbs and hungry dinners of Christ's love, to keep the taste
of heaven in our mouth, while* supper-time. I know it is far
afternoon, and nigh the marriage-supper of the Lamb : the table
1 Buffet, ^ Each other. ^ Outer.
4 Till. * A Scotch law term. * Presents,
LETTER XLV. 121
is covered already. 0, Well-beloved, run, run fast ! 0, fair day !
when wilt thou dawn ■? 0, shadows, flee away ! I think hope and
love woven through other ^ make our absence from Christ spiritual
torment. It is a pain to wait on, but hope, that maketh not
ashamed, swalloweth up that pain. It is not unkindness that
keepeth Christ and us so long asunder. What can I say to Christ's
love 1 I think more than I can say. To consider, that when my
Lord Jesus may take the air (if I may so speak) and go abroad,
yet He will be confined and keep the prison with me. But in all
this sweet communion with Him, what am I to be thanked for ?
I am but a sufi"erer ; whether I will or not, He will be kind to me,
as if He had defied my guiltiness to make Him unkind ; so He
beareth in His love on me. Here I die with wondering that
justice hindereth not love ; for there are none in hell, nor out of
hell, more unworthy of Christ's love. Shame may confound and
fear 2 me, once to hold up my black mouth, to receive one of Christ's
undeserved kisses. If my inner-side were turned out, and all men
saw my vileness, they would say to me, it is a shame for thee to
stand still, while ^ Christ kiss thee and embrace thee. It would
seem to become me, rather to run away from His love, as ashamed
at my own unworthiness. Nay, I may think shame to take heaven,
who have so highly provoked my Lord Jesus. But, seeing Christ's
love will shame me, I am content to be shamed. My desire is,
that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts to feed
myself with wondering at His love. I would I could weigh it,
but I have no balance for it. When I hav worn my tongue to
the stump, in praising of Christ, I have done nothing to Him, I
must let Him alone, for my withered arms will not go about His
high, wide, long, and broad love. What remaineth then, but that
my debt to the love of Christ lie unpaid for all eternity 1 All that
are in heaven are black-shamed with His love as well as I ; we
must all be dyvours* together, and the blessing of that houseful
or heavenful of dyvours* shall rest for ever upon Him. 0, if this
land and nation would come and stand beside His inconceivable
and glorious perfections, and look in, and love, and wonder, and
adore ! Would to God I could bring in many lovers to Christ's
house ! But this nation hath forsaken the fountain of living-
waters. Lord, cast not water on Scotland's coal. Woe, woe will
be to this land, because of the day of the Lord's fierce anger, that
is so fast coming. Grace be with you.
Your afiectionate brother, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
' Each other. « Terrify. ^ Till. * Debtors.
122 LETTEK XL VI.
LETTER XLVI.--T0 John Kennedy, Banie of Ayr.
Worthy and dear j3rother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. I long to see you in this northern world in paper ; I know
it is not forgetfulness that ye write not. I am every way in good
case, both in soul and body ; all honour and glory be to my Lord.
I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the
unknown Son of God. Either I know not what Christianity is,
or we have stinted a measure of so many ounce weights, and no
more, upon holiness ; and there we are at a stay, drawing our
breath all our life : a moderation in God's way now is much in
request. I profess, I have never taken pains to find out Him
whom my soul loveth; there is a gate^ yet of finding out Christ,
that I have never lighted upon. 0, if I could find it out ! Alas,
how soon are we pleased with our own shadow in a glass ! It
were good to be beginning in sad earnest to find out God, and to
seek the right tread of Christ. Time, custom, and a good opinion
of ourselves, our good meaning, and our lazy desires, our fair
shows, and the world's glisteiing lustres, and these broad pass-
ments^ and buskings of religion, that bear bulk in the kirk, is
that wherewith most satisfy themselves : but a watered bed with
tears, a dry throat with praying, eyes a fountain of tears for the
sins of the land, is rare to be found among us. 0, if we could
know the power of godliness ! This is one part of my case ; and
another is, that I, like a fool, once summoned Christ for unkind-
ness, and complained of His fickleness and inconstancy, because
He would have no more of my service nor preaching, and had
casten me out of the inheritance of the Lord. And I confess now,
this was but a bought plea, and I was a fool, yet He hath borne
with me. I gave Him a fair advantage against me, but love and
mercy would not let Him take it : and the truth is, now He hath
chided Himself friends ^ with me, and hath taken away the mask,
and hath renewed His wonted favour, in such a manner, that He
hath paid me " my hundred-fold in this life ; " and one to the
hundred.^ This prison is my banqueting-house; I am handled as
softly and delicately as a dauted'^ child. I am nothing behind (I
see) with Christ. He can in a month make up a year's losses :
and I write this to you, that I may entreat, nay, adjure and
charge you, by the love of our Well-beloved, to help me to praise,
and to tell all your Christian acquaintances to help me ; for T am
as deeply drowned in His debt as any dyvour^ can be : and yet,
in this fair sun-blink, I have something to keep me from startling,
or being exalted above measure. His Word is a fire shut up in
my bowels, and I am weary with forbearing. The ministers in
^ ISIothod. - Trappings. * Rebuked me till his friendship returned.
« 101 per 100. = Fondled. '= Debtor.
LETTER XLVII. 123
this town are saying, they shall have my prison changed into less
bounds, because they see God with me. My mother hath born
me a man of contention, one that striveth with the whole earth.
The late wrongs and oppressions done to my brother keep my
sails low ; yet I defy crosses to embark me in such a plea against
Christ, as I was troubled with of late. I hope to over-hope and
over-believe my troubles. I have cause now to trust Christ's
promise more than His gloom. Remember my hearty affection to
your wife. My soul is grieved for the success^ of our brethren's
journey to New England ; but, God hath somewhat to reveal, that
we see not. Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner.
Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, Jan. 1, 1G37.
LETTER XLVII— To Margaret Ballantine.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. It is more
than time that I should have written to you ; but it is yet good
time, if I could help your soul to mend your pace, and to go more
swiftly to your heavenly country ; for truly, ye have need to make
all haste, because the inch of your day that remaineth will quickly
slip away ; for whether we sleep or wake, our glass runneth, the
tide bideth no man. Beware of a beguile in the matter of your
salvation. Woe, woe for evermore to them that lose that prize ;
for what is behind when the soul is once lost, but that sinners
warm their bits of clay-houses at a fire of their own kindling, for
a day or two, which doth rather suffocate with its smoke than
warm them, and at length they lie down in sorrow, and are
clothed with everlasting shame ! I would seek no further measure
of faith to begin withal, than to believe really and steadfastly the
doctrine of God's justice, His all-devouring wrath and everlasting
burning, where sinners are burnt, soul and body, in a river and
great lake of fire and brimstone. Then they would wish no more
goods, but the thousandth part of a cold fountain-well to cool
their tongue ; they would then buy death, with enduring of pain
and torment for as many years as God hath created drops of rain
since the creation ; but there is no market in buying or selling life
or death there. 0 ! alas, the greatest part of this world run to
the place of that torment, rejoicing, and dancing, eating, drinking,
and sleeping. My counsel to you is, that ye start in time to be
after Christ ; for if ye go quickly, Christ is not far before you.
Ye shall overtake Him. 0 Lord God, what is so needful as this.
Salvation, Salvation? Fie upon this condemned and foolish
world, that will give so little for salvation ! 0, if there were a
free market of salvation proclaimed in that day when the trumpet
■^ Kesult.
124 LETTEK XLVIL
of God shall awake the dead, how many buyers would be then 1
God send me no more happiness, but that salvation, which the
blind world (to their eternal woe) letteth slip through their fingers.
Therefore look if ye can give out your money (as Isaiah speaketh,
ch. Iv. 2) for bread, and lay Christ and His blood in wadset ^ for
heaven. It is a dry and hungry bairn's part of goods that Esaus
are hunting for here. I see thousands following the chase, and in
the pursuit of such things, while in the meantime they lose the
blessing ; and when all is done, they have caught nothing to roast
for supper, but lie down hungry ; and besides they go to their
bed (when they die) without a candle, for God saith to them,
Isaiah 1. 21, " This shall ye have at my hand, ye shall lie down in
sorrow." And truly this is as ill-made a bed to lie upon as one
could wish; for he cannot sleep soundly nor rest sweetly who
hath sorrow for his pillow. Rouse, rouse up, therefore, your soul,
and spier" how Christ and your soul met together. I am sure
they never got Christ who were not once sick at the yolk of the
heart for Him ; too, too many whole souls think thej'' have met
with Christ, who had never a wearied night for the want of Him.
But, alas ! what richer are men that they dreamed the last night
they had much gold, and when they awoke in the morning they
found it was but a dream ? What are all the sinners in the world
in that day when heaven and earth shall go up in a flame of fire,
but a number of beguiled dreamers? Every one shall say of his
hunting and his conquest ; " Behold it Avas a dream ;" every man
in that day will tell his dream. I beseech you in the Lord Jesus,
beware, beware of unsound work, in the matter of your salvation :
ye may not, ye cannot, ye do not want Christ. Then after this
day convene all your lovers before your soul ; and give them their
leave, and strike hands with Christ, that thereafter there may be
no happiness to you but Christ; no hunting for anything but
Christ ; no bed at night (when death cometh) but Christ : Christ,
Christ, who but Christ 1 I know this much of Christ, He is not
ill to be found, not lordly of His love ; woe had been my part of
it for evermore, if Christ had made a dainty of Himself to me ;
but God be thanked, I gave nothing for Christ ; and now I pro-
test, before men and angels, Christ cannot be exchanged, Christ
cannot be sold, Christ cannot b^ weighed ; where would angels or
all the world find a balance to weigh Him in 1 All lovers blush
when ye stand beside Christ. Woe upon all love but the love of
Christ. Hunger, hunger for evermore, be upon all heavens, but
Christ. Shame, shame for evermore be upon all glory, but
Christ's glory. I cry, death, death upon all lives, but the life of
Christ. 0, Avhat is it that holdeth us asunder ? 0, that once we
^ Mortgage. ^ Inquire.
LETTER XLVIII. 125
could have a fair meeting ! Thus recommending Christ to you,
and you to Him for evermore, I rest. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. li.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER XLVIII.— To Jonet Kennedy.
Loving and dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto
you. I received your letter. I know the savour of Christ in you
(that the virgins love to follow) cannot be blown away with winds,
either from hell or the evil-smelled air of this polluted world. Sit
far aback from the walls of this pest-house, even the pollutions of
this defiling world. Keep your taste, your love and hope in
heaven ; it is not good your love and your Lord should be in two
sundry countries. TJ-p, up after your lover, that ye and He may
be together. A King from heaven hath sent for you ; by faith
He showeth you the new Jerusalem, and taketli you alongst in
the Spirit through all the ease-rooms and dwelling-houses in
heaven, and saith, " All these are thine, this palace is for thee and
Christ ;" and if ye only ^ had been the chosen of God, Christ would
have built that one house for you and Himself. Now, it is for
you and many also. Take Avith you in your journey what ye may
carry with you, your conscience, faith, hope, patience, meekness,
goodness, brotherly kindness ; for such wares as these are of great
price in the high and new country whither ye go. As for other
things that are but the world's vanity and trash, since they are
but the house-sweepings, ye shall do best not to carry them Avith
you ; ye found them here, leave them here, and let them keep the
house. Your sun is well turned and low : be nigh your lodging
against night. We go one and one, out of this great market, till
the town be empty, and the two lodgings heaven and hell be
filled. At length there will be nothing in the earth but toom ^
walls and burnt ashes, and therefore it is best to make away.
Antichrist and his master are busy to plenish hell, and to seduce
many ; and stars, great church-lights, are falling from heaven, and
many are misled and seduced, and make up with their faith, and
sell theii' birthright by their hungry hunting, for I know not
what. Fasten your grips fast upon Christ. I verily esteem Him
the best aught ^ that I have. He is my second in prison ; having
Him, though my cross were as heavy as ten mountains of iron,
when He putteth His sweet shoulder under me and it, my cross is
but a feather. I please mj'-self in the choice of Christ, he is my
wale,^ in heaven and earth ; I rejoice that He is in heaven before
me : God send a joyful meeting : and in the meantime the travel-
ler's charges for the way, I mean, a burden of Christ's love to
^ Alone. 2 Empty. ^ Tossescion. * Ciioseu.
126 LETTER XLIX.
sweeten the journey, and to encourage a breathless runner, for
when I lose breath climbing up the mountain, He maketh new
breath. Now, the very God of peace establish you to the day of
His appearance. Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 9, 1637.
LETTER XLIX.— To Margaret Reid.
My very dear and worthy Sister, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. Ye are truly blessed of the Lord, however a
sour world gloom upon you, if ye continue in the faith grounded
and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel.
It is good, there is a heaven, and it is not a night dream or a
fancy ; it is a wonder that men deny not that there is a heaven,
as they deny there is a way to it, but of men's making. You
have learned of Christ that there is a heaven, contend for it, and
contend for Christ ; bear well and submissively the hard cross of
this stepmother world, that God wili not have to be yours. I
confess it is hard, and I would I were able to ease you of your
burthen, but believe me this world (which the Lord will not have
to be yours) is but the dross, the refuse and scum of God's
creation, the portion of the Lord's poor hired servants : the
moveables, not the heritage ; a hard bone casten to the dogs,
holden out of the new Jerusalem, whereupon they rather break
their teeth than satisfy their appetite. It is your Father's bless-
ing and Christ's birthright that our Lord is keeping for you ; and
1 persuade you, your seed also shall inherit the earth (if that be
good for them) ; for that is promised to them, and God's bond is
as good and better than if men would give every one of them a
bond for thousand thousands. Ere ye was born, crosses in num-
ber, measure, and weight, were written for you, and your Lord will
lead you through them : make Christ sure, and the blessings of
the earth shall be at Christ's back. I see many professors for the
fashion follow on ; but they are professors of glass, I would cause
a little knock of persecution ding ^ them in twenty pieces, and so
the world should laugh at the sherds. Therefore, make fast
Avork, see that Christ lay the ground-stone of your pi^ofession ; for
wind, and rain, and speats^ will not wash away His building: His
works have no shorter date than to stand for evermore. I shoiild
twenty times have perished in my affliction, if I had not leaned
my weak back, and laid my pressing burden, both upon the stone,
the foundation-stone, the corner-stone laid in Zion ; and I desire
never to rise off this stone. Now the very God of peace confirm
and estalilish you unto the day of the blessed appearance of
Christ Jesus. God be with you.
AlierJeen. Yours, iu his dcarest Lord Jesu3, S. R.
■* Drivo. - ricods.
LETTER L. 127
LETTER L.— To James Bautie.
Loving Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. i
received your letter, and render you thanks for the same ; but I
have not time to answer all the heads of it, as the bearer can in-
form you. 1. Ye do Avell to take yourself at the right stot,^ when
ye wrong Christ by doubting and misbelief; for this is to nick-
name Christ, and term Him a liar, which being spoken to our
prince, would be hanging or heading 3^ but Christ hangeth not
always for treason. It is good that He may registrate a believer's
bond a hundred times, and more than seventy times a day have
law against us, and yet He spareth us as a man doth his son that
serveth him. No tender-hearted mother, who may have law to
kill her suckling child, would put in execution that law. 2. For
your failings, even when ye have a set tryst ^ with Christ, and when
ye have a fair seen advantage, by keeping your appointment with
Him, and salvation cometh to the very passing of the seals, I
would say two things. (L) Concluded and sealed salvation may
go through and be ended, suppose ye write your name to the tail
of the covenant with ink that can hardly be read. Neither think
I ever any man's salvation passed the seals, but there was an odd
trick or slip, in less or more, upon the fool's part, who is infeoffed
in heaven. In the most grave and serious work of our salvation,
I think Christ had ever good cause to laugh at our silliness, and
to put on us His merits that we might bear weight. (2.) It is a
sweet law of the new covenant, and a privilege of the new burgh,
that the citizens pay according to their means ; for the new coven-
ant saith not, so much obedience by ounce weights, and no less,
under the pain of damnation. Christ taketh as poor men may
give : where there is a mean portion. He is content with the less,
if there be sincerity : broken sums and little feckless* obedience
will be pardoned, and hold the foot with Him ; know ye not, that
our kindly Lord retaineth His good old heart yet 1 He breaketh
not a bruised reed, nor quencheth the smoking flax : but if the
wind blow. He holdeth His hands about it till it rise to a flame.
The law cometh on with three Oyez's,^ with all the heart, with
all the soul, and with all the whole strength : and where would
poor folks like you and me furnish all these sums ? It feareth me
(nay it is most certain), that if the payment were to come out of
our purse, when we should put our hand in our bag, we would
bring out the Avind or worse. But the new covenant seeketh not
heap-mete nor stinted obedience, as the condition of it, because
forgiveness hath always place. Hence I draw this conclusion.
To think matters betwixt Christ and us go back, for want of
' Kebound. - Belieatlins?. <* Ensa"eir.ent. "• Feeble. ^ rrocLiirations.
128 LETTER L.
heaped measure, is a piece of old Adam's ])ride, who would either
be at legal payment or nothing. We would still have God in our
common,^ and buy His kindness Avith our merits ; for beggarly
pride is devil's honesty, and blusheth to be in Christ's common,^
and scarce giveth God a grammercy^ and a lifted cap (except it be
the Pharisee's unlucky " God I thank thee "), or a bowed knee to
Christ : it will only give a good day for a good day again ; and if
he dissemble His kindness, as it were in jest, and seem to misken
it, it in earnest spurneth with the heels, and snuffeth in the wind,
and careth not much for Christ's kindness. If he will not be
friends, let Him go, saith pride ; beware of this thief, when Christ
ofFereth Himself. 3, No marvel then, of whisperings, whether you
be in the covenant or not. For pride it maketh loose work of the
covenant of grace, and will not let Christ be full bargain-maker.
To speak to you particularly and shortly. 1. All the truly re-
generated cannot determinately tell you the measure of their de-
jections ; because Christ beginneth young with many, and stealeth
into their heart, ere they wit of themselves, and becometh homely
with them, with little din or noise. I grant, many are blinded, in
rejoicing in a good cheap conversion that never cost them a sick
night ; Christ's physic wrought in a dream upon them. But for
that, I would say, if other marks be found, that Christ is indeed
come in, never make a plea with Him, because He will not answer,
Lord Jesus how earnest thou in, whether in at door or window 1
make Him welcome since He is come. " The wind bloweth where
it listeth ; " all the world's wit cannot perfectly render a reason,
why the -wind should be a month in the east, six weeks possibly in
the west, and the space only of an afternoon in the south or north.
Ye will not find out all the nicks ^ and steps of Christ's way with
a soul, do what ye can , for sometimes He will come in stepping
softly, like one walking beside a sleeping person, and slip to the
door, and let none know He was there. 2. Ye object the truly
regenerate should love God for Himself : and ye fear that ye love
Him more for His benefits (as incitements and motives to love
Him) than for Himself. I answer, to love God for Himself as the
last end, and also for His benefits, as incitements and motives to
love Him, may stand well together ; as a son loveth his mother,
because she is his mother, howbeit she be poor ; and he loveth her
for an apple also. I hope ye will not say, that benefits are the
only reason and bottom of your love ; it seemeth there is a better
foundation for it : always if a hole be in it, sew it up shortly.
3. Ye feel not such mourning in Christ's absence as ye would. I
answer, that the regenerate mourn at all times, and all in a like
measure, for His absence, I deny. There are different degrees of
^ Debt. - Salutation (Grant you mercy), ^ Points.
LETTER L. 129
raonrning, less or more, as they have less or more love to Him,
and less or more sense of His absence. But, (1.) Some they
must have. (2.) Sometimes they miss not the Lord, and then they
cannot mourn, howbeit it is not long so, at least, it is not always
so. 3. Ye challenge yourself, that some truths find more credit
with you than others. Ye do well, for God is true in the least,
as well as in the greatest, and He must be so to you ; ye must not
call Him true in the one page of the leaf, and false in the other ;
for our Lord, in all His writings, never contradicted Himself yet,
although the best of the regenerate have slipped here ; always
labour ye to hold your feet. 4. Comparing the estate of one truly
regenerate (whose heart is a temple to the Holy Ghost) and j^ours
{which is full of uncleanliness and corruption), ye stand dumb and
discouraged, and dare not, sometimes, call Christ heartsomely
your own. I answer (L) the best regenerate have their defilements,
and (if I may speak so) their draff-poke^ that will clog behind
them all their days ; and wash as they will, there will be filth in
their bosom. But let not this put you from the well. (2.) I answer,
albeit there be some ounce weights of carnality, and some squint
look, or eye in our neck to an idol ; yet love in its own measure
may be sound, for glory must purify and perfect our love, it will
never till then be absolutely pure ; yet, if the idol reign and have
the yolk of the heart, and the keys of the house, and Christ only
be made an underling to run errands, all is not right ; therefore,
examine well. (3.) There is a twofold discouragement ; one of un-
belief, to conclude, and make doubting the conclusion, for a mote
in your eye, and a by-look to an idol : this is ill. There is an-
other discouragement of sorrow for sin, when ye find a by-look to
an idol : this is good and a matter of thanksgiving ; therefore, ex-
amine here also. 5. The assurance of Jesus's love, ye say, Avould
be the most comfortable news that ever ye heard. Answer, that
may stop twenty holes, and loose many objections. That love
hath telling in it, I trow. 0 that ye knew and felt it as I have
done. I wish ye a share of my feast ; sweet, sweet hath it been
to me. If my Lord had not given me His love I would have
fallen through the causey ^ of Aberdeen ere now. But for you
lung on, your feast is not far off; ye shall be filled ere ye go, there
is as much in our Lord's pantry, as will satisfy all Plis bairns,
and as much wine in His cellar as will quench all their thirst.
Hunger on ; for there is meat in hunger for Christ : go never
from Him, but fash^ Him (who yet is pleased with the importun-
ity of hungry souls) with a dishful of hungry desires, till He fill
you ; and if He delay, yet come not ye away, albeit ye should fall
a-swoon at His feet. 6. Ye crave my mind, whether sound com-
^ Bag of pollution. - Causeway. ^ Weary.
I
1 30 LETTER L.
fort ma}' be found in pra^yer, when conviction of a known idol is
present. I answer : (1.) an idol, as an idol, cannot stand with sound
comfort; for that comfort that is gotten at Dagon's feet, is a cheat
or blea-flume,i yet sound comfort and conviction of an eye to an
idol may as well dwell together as tears and joy; but let this do
you no ill, I speak it for your encouragement, that ye may make
the best out of your joys ye can, albeit ye find them mixed with
motes. (2.) Sole conviction, if alone, without remorse and grief, is
not enough, therefore, lend it a tear if ye do win at it. 7. Ye
question when ye win to more fervency sometimes, with youi
neighbour in prayer, than when you are alone, whether hypocrisy
be in it or not 1 I answer, (1.) if this be always, no question a spice
of hypocrisy is in it, which would be taken heed to ; but possibly
desertion may be in private, and presence in public, and then the
case is clear. (2.) A fit of applause may occasion by accident a
rubbing off a cold heart, and so heat and life may come ; but it is
not the proper cause of that heat : hence God, of His free grace,
will ride His errands upon our stinking corruption; but corruption
is but a mere occasion and accident, as the playing on a pipe re-
moved anger from the prophet, and made him titter to prophesy,
2 Kings iii. 15. 8. Ye complain of Christ's short visits, that He
will not bear you company one night, but Avhen ye lie down warm
at night, ye rise cold at morning. Answer, 1 cannot blame you
(nor any other, who knoweth that sweet guest) to bemoan His
withdrawings, and to be most desirous of His abode and company;
for He would captivate and engage the affection of any creature
that saw His face : since He looked on me, and gave me a sight
of His fair love, He gained my heart wholly, and got away with
it ; Avell, well may He brook ^ it ; He shall keep it long ere I fetch
it from Him. But I shall tell you what ye shall do : treat Him
well, give Him the chair and the board-head, and make Him wel-
come to the mean portion ye have ; a good supper and kind enter-
tainment maketh the guest love the inns the better : yet some-
times Christ hath an errand elsewhere, for mere trial, and then,
though ye give Him king's-cheer. He will away; as is clear in
desertions for mere trial, and not for sin. 9. Ye seek the differ-
ence betwixt the motions of the Spirit, in their least measure, and
the natural joy of your own heart. Answer, as a man can tell, if
he joy and delight in his Avife, as his wife, or if he delight and
joy in her for satisfaction of his lust but hating her person, and
so loving her for her flesh, and not grieving when ill befalleth her:
so will a man's joy in God and his whorish natural joy be dis-
covered : if he sorrow for anything that may offend that Lord, it
will speak the singleness of his love to Him. 10. Ye ask the
* A sham or illusion. Note that "blestume." on p. 47, is a misprint for
this word. • Possess or keep.
LETTER LI. 131
reason, why sense overcometh faith. Answer, because sense is
more natural, and near of kin to our own selfish and soft nature.
Ye ask, if faith in that case be sound ? Answer, if it be chased
away it is neither sound nor unsound, because it is not faith ; but
it might be and was faith, before sense did blow out the act of be-
lieving. Lastly, ye ask what to do, when promises are borne in
upon you, and sense of impenitency for sins of youth hindereth
application. I answer, if it be living sense, it may stand with ap-
plication ; and in this case, put to your hand and eat your meat
in God's name : if false, so that the sins of youth are not repented
of, then as faith and impenitency cannot stand together, so neither
that sense and application can consist. Brother, excuse my brev
ity, for time straiteneth me, that I get not my mind said in these
things, but must refer that to a new occasion, if God ofter it.
Brother, pray for me. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesos, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER LL— To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr,
now in Ireland.
Much honoured Sir, — Gi"ace, mercy, and peace be unto you.
I long to hear from you, being now removed from my flock, and
the prisoner of Christ at Aberdeen. I would not have you to
think it strange, that your journey to New England hath gotten
such a dash : it indeed hath made my heart heavy ; yet I know it
is no dumb providence, but a speaking one, whereby our Lord
speaketh His mind to you, though, for the present, ye do not well
understand what He saith : however it be, He who sitteth upon
the floods hath shown you His marvellous kindness in the great
depths. I know your loss is great, and your hope is gone far against
you. But I entreat you, sir, expound aright our Lord's laying an
hindrance in the way. I persuade myself, your heart aimeth at
the footsteps of the flock, to feed beside the shepherd's tents, and
to dwell beside Him whom your soul loveth, and that it is your
desire to remain in the Avilderness where the woman is kept from
the dragon ; and this being your desire, remember that a poor
prisoner of Christ said it to you, that, " That miscarried journey is
with child to you of mercy and consolation, and shall bring forth
a fair birth, and the Lord shall be midwife to the birth ; wait on,
he that believeth maketh not haste," Isa. xx\dii. 16. I hope ye
have been asking what the Lord meaneth, and what further may
be His will, in reference to your return. My dear brother, let
God make of you what He will. He will end all with consolation,
and shall make glory out of your sufferings ; and would ye wish
132 LETTEE LI.
better work ? This water was in jour way to heaven, and written
in your Lord's book ; ye behoved to cross it : and, tliereibre, kiss
His wise and unerring providence. Let not the censures of men,
who see but the outside of things (and scarce well that), abate
your courage and rejoicing in the Lord ; howbeit your faith seeth
but the black side of providence, yet it bath a better side, and
God shall let you see it. Learn to believe Christ better than His
strokes ; Himself and His promises, better than His glooms.
Dashes and disappointments are not canonic scripture ; fighting
for the promised land, seemed to cry to God's promise, thou liest.
If our Lord ride upon a straw His horse shall neither stumble nor
fail, Rom. viii. 28. "For we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God," ergo, shipwreck, losses, &c., work
together for the good of them that love God : hence I infer, that
losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses, or
country, are God's workmen, set on work to work out good to
you, out of everything that befalleth you. Let not the Lord's
dealings seem harsh, rough, or unfatherly, because it is unpleasant.
When the Lord's blessed will bloweth cross your desires, it is best in
humility to strike sail to Him, and to be willing to be laid any way
our Lord pleaseth : it is a point of denial of yourself, to be as if ye
had not a will, but had made a free disposition of it to God, and
had sold it over to Him ; and to make use of His will for youi
own is both true holiness, and your ease and peace ; ye know not
Avhat the Lord is working out of this, but ye shall know it here-
after. And what I write to you, I write to your wife. I compas-
sionate her case, but entreat her not to fear or faint ; this journey
is a part of her wilderness to heaven and the promised land, and
there are fewer miles behind : it is nearer the dawning of the day
to her than when she went out of Scotland. I would be glad to
hear that ye and she have comfort and courage in the Lord. Now,
as concerning our kirk : our service-book is ordained by open pro-
clamation and sound of trumpet to be read in all the kirks of this
kingdom : our prelates are to meet this month for it and our
canons, and for a reconciliation betwixt us and the Lutherans.
The professors of Aberdeen university are charged to draw up the
articles of an uniform confession. But reconciliation with popery
is intended ; this is the day of Jacob's visitation ; the ways of
Zion mourn : our gold is become dim : the sun is gone down upon
our prophets. A dry wind, but neither to fan nor to cleanse, is
coming upon this land : and all our ill is coming from the multi-
plied transgressions of this land, and from the friends and lovers
of Babel amongst us. Jer. xxxi. 35, " The violence done to me
and my flesh be upon thee, Babylon, shall the inhabitants of Zion
say, and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jeru-
LETTEK LI, 133
ealem say," Now, for myself, I "was three days before the high-
commission, and accused of treason preached against onr king,
A minister being witness, went well nigh to swear it ; God hath
saved me from their malice, 1, They have deprived me of my
ministry. 2, Silenced me, that I exercise no part of the mini-
sterial function within this kingdom, under the pain of rebellion.
3. Confined my person within the town of Aberdeen, where I find
the ministers working for my confinement in Caithness or Orkney,
far from them ; because some people here (willing to be edified)
resort to me. At my first entry, I had heavy challenges within
me, and a court fenced (but, I hope not in Christ's name), where-
in it was asserted, that my Lord would have no more of my ser-
vice and was tired of me : and like a fool I summoned Christ also
for unkindness, my soul fainted and I refused comfort, and said,
" What ailed Christ at me, for I desired to be faithful in His
house 1 " Thus in my rovings and mistakings, my Lord Jesus be-
stowed mercy on me, who am less than the least of all saints. I
lay upon the dust and bought a plea from Satan against Christ,
and he was content to sell it ; but at length, Christ did show
Himself friends with me, and in mercy pardoned and passed my part
of it, and only complained that a court should be holden in Hia
bounds, without His own allowance. Now I pass from my com-
pearance, and as if Christ had done the fault, He hath made the
mends,! and returned to my soul ; so that now His poor prisoner
feedeth on the feasts of love. My adversaries know not what a
courtier I am now with my royal King, for whose crown I now
suff'er. It is but our soft and lazy flesh that hath raised an ill
report of the cross of Christ, 0 sweet, sweet is His yoke ! Christ's
chains are of pure gold, sufferings for Him are perfumed. I would
not give my weeping for the laughing of all the fourteen prelates.
I would not exchange my sadness with the world's joy. 0 lovely,
lovely Jesus, how sweet must Thy kisses be, when Thy cross smell-
eth so sweetly ! 0, if all the three kingdoms had part of my love
feasts, and of the comforts of a dauted^ prisoner ! Dear brother,
I charge you to praise for me, and seek help of our acquaintance
there, to help me to praise. Why should I smother Christ's
honesty to me 1 My heart is taken up with this, that my silence
and sufferings may preach ; I beseech you in the bowels of Christ
to help me to praise, Eemember my love in Christ to your wife,
to Mr. Blair, and Mr, Livingston, and Mr, Cunningham. Let me
hear from you, for I am anxious what to do ; if I saw a call for
New England, I would follow it, Grace be with you.
Yours, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
^ Amends, * Fondled.
134 LETTER LII,
LETTER LII.— To John Stuart, Provost ot Ayr.
Much honoured and dearest in Christ, — Grace, mercy, and
peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be
upon you. I expected the comfort of a letter to a prisoner from
you, ere now. I am here, sir, putting off a part of my inch of
time, and when I awake first in the morning (which is always with
great heaviness and sadness) this question is brought to my mind,
am I serving God or not 1 Not that I doubt oi the truth of this
honourable cause, wherein I am engaged (I dare venture into eter-
nity and before my judge that I now suffer for the truth : because
that I cannot endure that my Master, who is a free-born King,
should pay tribute to any of the shields or potsherds of the earth.
0, that I could hold the crown upon my Princely King's head
with my sinful arm, howbeit it should be stroke from me in that
service from the shoulder blade), but my closed mouth, my dumb
sabbaths, the memory of my communion with Christ, in many
fair, fair days in Anwoth (whereas now my Master getteth no ser-
vice of my tongue, as then) hath almost broken my faith in two
halves; yet in my deepest apprehensions of His anger, I see
through a cloud that I am wrong, and He in love to my soul hath
taken up the controversy betwixt faith and apprehensions, and a
decreet is past on Christ's side of it, and I sulDscribe the decreet.
The Lord is equal in His ways, but my guiltiness often over-
mastereth my believing : I have not been well known, for except
as to open out-breakings, I want nothing of what Judas and Cain
had ; only, He hath been pleased to prevent me in mercy, and to
cast me into a fever of love for Himself, and His absence maketh
my fever most painful ; and besides, He hath visited my soul, and
watered it with His comforts ; but yet I have not what I would,
the want of real and felt possession is my only death ; I know
Christ pitieth me in this. The great men, my friends, that did
for me, are dried up like winter brooks of water : all say, no deal-
ing for that man, his best will be to be gone out of the kingdom.
So I see they tire of me ; but believe me, I am most gladly con-
tent that Christ breaketh all my idols in pieces, it hath put a new
edge upon my blunted love to Christ. I see He is jealous of my
love, and will have all to Himself. In a word, these six things
are my burden. L I am not in the vineyard, as others are; it
may be, because Christ thinketh me a withered tree, not worthy
its room, but God forbid. 2. Woe, woe, woe is coming upon my
harloc-mother, this apostate kirk ; the time is coming, when we
shall wish for doves' wings, to flee and hide us ; 0 for the desola-
tion of this land! 3. I see my dear Master Christ going His lone^
(as it were) mourning in sackcloth ; his fainting friends fear that
' Aione.
LETTER LIII. l35
King Jesus shall lose the field, but He must carry the day. 4. My
guiltiness and the sins of my youth are ^.ome up against me, and
they would come in the plea in my sufferings, as deserving causes
in God's justice : but I pray God, for (Christ's sake, He never give
them that room. Woe is me that I cannot get my royal, dread-
ful, mighty, and glorious Prince of the kings of the earth set on
high. Sir, ye may help me and pity me in this, and bow your
knee and bless His name, and desire others to do it, that He hath
been pleased in my sufferings to make atheists, papists, and
enemies about me say, it is like God is with this prisoner. Let
hell and the powers of hell (I care not) be let loose against me to
do their worst, so being Christ, and my Father and His Father, be
magnified in my sufferings. 6. Christ's love hath pained me, for
howbeit His presence hath shamed me and drowned me in debt,
yet He often goeth away, when my love to Him is burning ; He
seemeth to look like a proud wooer, who will not look upon a poor
match, who is dying of love. I will not say He is lordly ; but I
know He is wise in hiding Himself from a child and a fool, who
maketh an idol and a god of one of Christ's kisses, which is
idolatry. I fear I adore His comforts more than Himself, and
that I love the apples of life better than the tree of life. Sir, write
to me. Commend me to your wife, mercy be her portion. Grace
be with you. Yours, in his dearest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER LHI.— To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr.
Worthy and dearly Beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. I was refreshed and comforted with your
letter. What I wrote to you for your comfort, I do not remember:
but I believe, love will prophesy homeward, as it would have it. I
wish I could help you to praise His great and holy name, Avho
keepeth the feet of His saints, and hath numbered all your goings.
I know our dearest Lord will pardon, and pass by our honest
errors and mistakes, when we mind His honour; yet I know, none
of you have seen the other half and the hidden side of your wonder-
ful return home to us again. I am confident ye shall yet say, that
God's mercy blew your sails back to Ireland again. Worthy and
dear sir, I cannot but give you an account of my present state,
that ye may go an errand for me, to my high and royal Master, of
whom I boast all the day. I am as proud of His love (nay I bles.s
myself, and boast more of my present lot) as any poor man can be
of an earthly king's court, or of a kingdom. First, I am very often
turning both the sides of my cross, especially my dumb and silent
sabbaths, not because I desire to find a crook or defect in my
136 LETTER LIII.
Lord's love, bnt because love is sick with fancies and fears whether
or not the Lord hath a process leading against my guiltiness, that
I have not yet well seen, I know not ; my desire is to ride fair,
and not to spark dirt (if with reverence of Him, I may be per-
mitted to make use of such a word) in the face of my only, only
Well-Beloved ; but fear of guiltiness is a tale-bearer betwixt me
and Christ, and is still whispering ill tales of my Lord to weaken
my faith. I had rather a cloud went over my comforts by these
messages, than that my faith should be hurt ; for if my Lord get
no wrong by me, verily, I desire grace not to care what become of
me. I desire to give no faith nor credit to my sorrow, that can
make a lie of my best friend, Christ ; woe, woe be to them all who
speak ill of Christ. Hence these thoughts awake with me in the
morning, and go to bed with me, 0 what service can a dumb
body do in Christ's house ! 0, I think the Word of God is im-
prisoned also ! 0, I am a dry tree ! Alas ! I can neither plant
nor water ! 0, if my Lord would but make dung of me, to fatten
and make fertile His own corn-ridges in Mount Zion ! 0, if I might
but speak to three or four herd-boys of my worthy Master, I would
be satisfied to be the meanest and most obscure of all the pastors
in this land, and to live in any place, in any of Christ's basest out-
houses ; but He saith, " Sirrah, I will not send you, I have no
errands for you there-away." My desire to serve Him is sick of
jealousy, lest He be unwilling to employ me. Secondly, This is
seconded with another. 0, all that I have done in Anwoth, the
fair work that my Master began there, is like a bird dying in the
shell ! and what will I then have to show of all my labour, in the
day of my compearance before Him, when the Master of the vine-
yard calleth the labourers, and giveth them their hire 1 Thirdly,
But truly, when Christ's sweet wind is in the right airt,^ I repent,
and I pray Christ to take law-borrows ^ of my quarrelous and un-
believing sadness and sorrow (Lord, rebuke them that put ill be-
twixt a poor servant like me and his good Master) : then I say,
whether the black cross will or not, I must climb, hands and feet,
up to my Lord. I am now ruing from my heart, that I pleasured
the law (my old dead husband), so far as to apprehend wrath in
my sweet Lord Jesus ; I had far rather take an hire to plead for
the grace of God ; for I think myself Christ's sworn debtor : and
the truth is, to speak of my Lord what I cannot deny, I am over
head and ears drowned in many obligations to His love and mercy.
He handleth me sometimes so, that I am ashamed almost to seek
more for a four-hours,^ but to live content, till the marriage-supper
of the Lamb, with that which He giveth ; but I know not how
greedy, and how ill to please love is ; for either my Lord Jesus
^ Direction. - A Scottish law term, meaning security. * EefreshmenV.
LETTER LIII. 137
hath taught me ill manners, not to be content of a seat, except my
head lie in His bosom, and except I be fed with the fattest of His
house ; or else I am grown impatiently dainty and ill to please, as
if Christ were obliged, under this cross, to do no other thing but
bear me in His arms, and as if I had claim by merit for my suffer-
ing for Him. But I wish He would give me grace to learn to go
on my own feet, and to learn to want His comforts, and to give
thanks and believe, when the sun is not in my firmament, and
Avhen my Well-Beloved is from home, and gone another errand.
0, what sweet peace have I, when I find Christ holdeth and I
draw ; when I climb up, and He shutteth me down ; when I grip
Him and embrace Him, and He seemeth to loose the grips and flee
away from me. I think there even is a sweet joy of faith, and
contentedness, and peace, in His very tempting unkindness, be-
cause my faith saith, " Christ is not in sad earnest with me, but
trying if I can be kind to His mask and cloud that covereth Him,
as well as to His fair face." I bless His great name, that I love
His vail, that goeth over His face, while ^ God send better. For
faith can kiss God's tempting reproaches, when He nicknameth a
sinner, " A dog, not worthy to eat bread with the bairns." I think
it an honour that Christ miscalleth me, and reproacheth me. I
will take that well of Him, howl^eit I would not bear it well, if
another would be that homely y but because 1 am His own (God
be thanked) He may use me as He pleaseth. I must say, the
saints have a sweet life betwixt them and Christ ; there is much
sweet solace of love betwixt Him and them, when He " feedeth
among the lilies," and "cometh into His garden, and maketh a
feast of honeycombs, and drinketh His wine and His milk," and
crieth, "Eat, 0 friends, drink, be ye drunken, 0 well-beloved."
One hour of this labour is worth a shipful of world's drunken and
muddy joy. Nay, even the gate of heaven is the sunny side of
the brae, and the very garden of the world ; for the men of this
world have their own unchristened and profane crosses ; and woe
be to them and their cursed crosses both, for their ills are salted
with God's vengeance, and are ill-seasoned with our Father's bless-
ing. So they are no fools who choose Christ, and sell all things
for Him; it is no bairn's market, nor a blind block ;^ we know
well what we get and what we give. Now, for any resolution to
go to any other kingdom, I dare not speak one word. My hopes
of enlargement are cold, my hopes of re-entry to my Master's ill-
dressed vineyard again are far colder. I have no seat for my faith
to sit on, but bare omnipotency, and God's holy arm and good-
will ; here I desire to stay, and ride at anchor, and winter, while ^
God send fair weather again, and be pleased to take home to His
1 Till. ^ So familiar. ^ Exchange.
138 LETTER LIV.
house my harlot-mother, 0, if her Husband would be that^ kind,
as to go and letch her out of the brothel-house, and chase her
lovers to the hills ; but there will be sad days ere it come to that.
Eemember my bonds. Grace be with you.
Yours, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LIV.— To the Lady Busby.
Mistress, — Although not acquaint, yet because we are Father's
children,- I thought good to write unto you : howbeit, my first dis-
course and communing with you of Christ be in paper ; yet I have
cause, since I came hither, to have no paper-thoughts of him ; for
in my sad days, He is become the flower of my joys, and I but lie
here, living upon his love, but cannot get so much of it as fain I
would have ; not because Christ's love is lordly, and looketh too
high ; but because I have a narrow vessel to receive His love, and
I look too low : but I give under my own hand-write to you a tes-
timonial of Christ and his cross, that they are a sweet couple, and
that Christ hath never yet been set in His own due chair of honour
amongst us all. 0, I know not where to set Him ! 0, for a high
seat to that royal Princely One ! 0, that mj poor withered soul
had once a running-over flood of that love to put sap in my dry
root, and that that flood would spring out to the tongue and pen, to
utter great things, to the high and due commendation of such a
fair one ! 0, Holy, Holy, Holy One ! Alas ! there are too many
dumb tongues in the world and dry hearts, seeing there is employ-
ment in Christ for them all, and ten thousand worlds of men and
angels more, to set on high and exalt the greatest Prince of the
kings of the earth. Woe is me, that bits of living clay dare come
out, to rush hard-heads with Him ; and that my unkind mother,
this harlot-kirk, hath given her sweet half-marrow ^ such a meeting,
for this land hath given up with Christ, and the Lord is cutting-
Scotland in two halves, and sending the worst half, the harlot-
sister, over to Rome's brothel-house to get her fill of Egypt's love.
I would my suff'erings (nay, suppose I were burnt quick to ashes)
might buy an agreement betwixt His fairest and sweetest love, and
His gaudy lewd wife. Fain Avould I give Clirist His welcome-home
to Scotland again if He would return. This is a black day, a day
of clouds and darkness, for the roof-tree of my Lord Jesus his fair
temple is fallen, and Christ's back is towards Scotland. 0, thrice
blessed are they who would hold Christ with their tears and pray-
ers ! I know ye will help to deal with Him, for He siiall return
again to this land ; the next day shall be Christ's, and there shall
^ So. * Children of one Father. ^ Partner.
LETTERS LV. AND LVI. 139
be a fair green young garden for Christ in this land, and God's
Biiminer-dew shall lie on it all the night, and we shall sing again
our new marriage-song to our Bridegroom, concerning His vineyard;
but who knoweth whether we shall live and see it ? I hear the
Lord hath taken pains to aflflict and dress you as a fruitful vine for
Himself. Grow and be green, and cast out your branches, and
bring forth fruit. Fat and green, and fruitful may ye be, in the
true and sappy root. Grace, grace, free grace be your portion.
Remember my bonds with prayers and praises.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R,
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LV.— To Ninian Mure.
Loving Friend, — I received your letter. I entreat you now
in the morning of your life, seek the Lord and His face. Beware
of the follies of dangerous youth, a perilous time for your soul.
Love not the world ; keep faith and truth with all men in your
covenants and bargains : walk with God, for He seeth you : do no-
thing but that which ye may and would do, if your eye-strings
were breaking and your breath growing cold. Ye heard the truth
of God from me ; my dear heart, follow it and forsake it not,
prize Christ and salvation above all the world. To live after the
guise and course of the rest of the world will not bring you to hea-
ven : without faith in Christ, and repentance, ye cannot see God.
Take pains for salvation ; press forward toward the mark of the prize
of the high calling. If ye watch not against evils night and day,
which beset you, ye will come behind. Beware of lying, swearing,
uncleanness, and the rest of the works of the flesh ; because for these
things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience :
how sweet soever they may seem for the present, yet the end of
these courses is the eternal Avrath of God, and utter darkness,
where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LVL— To Mr. Thohias Garven.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
unto you. I am sorry that what joy and sorrow drew from my im-
•prisoned pen, in my love-fits, hath made you, and many of God's
children believe, that there is something in a broken reed, the like
of me, except that Christ's grace hath bought such a sold body. I
know not what else any may think of me, or expect from me : my
stock is less (my Lord knoweth I speak truth) than many believe,
140 LETTER LVI.
my empty sounas have promised too much. I would be glad to lie
under Christ's feet, and keep and receive the ofF-fallings or the old
pieces of any grace, that fall from His sweet fingers to forlorn sin-
ners. I lie often uncouth like, looking in at the King's windows ;
surely I am unworthy of a seat in the King's hall-floor, I but of-
ten look afar off both feared and framed ^ like to that fairest face,
fearing He bid me look away from Him ; my guiltiness riseth up
upon me, and I have no answer for it. I offered my tongue to
Christ, and my pains in His house, and what know I Avhat it mean-
eth, when Christ will not receive my poor propine -; when love will
not take, we expone it will neither take nor give, borrow nor
lend. Yet Christ hath another sea-compass He saileth by than
my short and raw thoughts ; I leave His part of it to Himself. I
dare not expound His dealing, as sorrow and misbelief often dic-
tateth to me. I look often with bleared and blind eyes to my
Lord's cross ; and when I look to the wrong side of His cross, I
know I miss a step and slide : surely I see I have not legs of my
own for carrying me to heaven ; I must go in at heaven's gates,
borrowing strength from Christ. I am often thinking, 0, if He
would but give me leave to love Him, and if Christ would but open
up His wares, and the infinite, infinite plies,^ and windings, and
corners ot His soul delighting love, and let me see it, backside and
foreside, and give me leave but to stand beside it, like an hungry
man beside meat, to get my fill of wondering, as a preface to my fill
of enjojdng : but verily, I think my foul eyes would defile His fair
love to look to it. Either my hunger is over humble (if that may
be said), or else I consider not what honour it is to get leave to love
Christ. 0 that He would pity a prisoner, and let out a flood upon
the dry ground ! It is nothing to Him to fill the like of me ; one ot
His looks would do me meikle-world's * good, and Him no ill.
I know, I am not at a point yet with Christ's love, I am not yet
fitted for so much as I would have of it ; my hope sitteth neigh-
bour with meikle* black hunger, and certainly,! dow^ not but think,
there is more of that love ordained for me than I yet comprehend,
and I know not the weight of the pension the King will give me.
I shall be glad if my hungry bill get leave to lie beside Christ
waiting on an answer : now I would be full and rejoice, if I got a
poor man's alms of that sweetest love : but, I confidently believe,
there is a bed made for Christ and me, and that we shall take our
fill of love in it ; and I often think when my joy is run out, and at
the lowest ebb, that I would seek no more, but my rights passed the
King's great seal, and that these eyes of mine could see Christ's
hand at the pen. If your Lord call you to suffering, be not dis-
mayed ; there shall be a new allowance of the King for you, when
^ Stranfi-e or alien. » Proffer. * Folds. * Much. ^ q^-^
LETTER LVII. 141
ye come to it. One of the softest pillows Christ hath is laid under
His witnesses' head, though often they must set down their bare
feet among thorns. He hath brought my poor soul to desire and
wish. 0, that my ashes, and the powder I shall be dissolved into,
had well-tuned tongues to praise Him. Thus, in haste, desiring
your prayers and praises, I recommend you to my sweet, sweet
Master, my honourable Lord, of whom I hold all. Grace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LVIL— To Jean Brown.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am glad that
ye go on at Christ's back in this dark and cloudy time. It were
good to sell other things for Him ; for when all these days are over,
we shall find it our advantage, that we have taken' part with Christ.
I confidently believe His enemies shall be His footstool, and that
He shall make green flowers, dead, withered hay, when the honour
and glory shall fall ofi" them, like the bloom or flower of a green
herb, shaken Avith the wind. It were not wisdom for us to think
that Christ and the Gospel will come and sit down at our fireside ;
nay,but we must go out of our warm houses, and seek Christ and
His Gospel. It is not the sunny side of Christ that we must look
to, and we must not forsake Him for want of that ; but must set
our face against what may befall us, in following on, till he and we
be through the briers and bushes on the dry ground. Our soft
nature would be borne through the troubles of this miserable life
in Christ's arms. And it is His wisdom, who knoweth our mould,
that His bairns go Avet-shod and cold-footed to heaven. 0, how
sweet a thing were it for us to learn to make our burdens light by
framing our hearts to the burden, and making our Lord's will a
law ! I find Christ and His cross not so ill to please, nor yet such
troublesome guests, as men call them. Nay, I think patience
should make Christ's water good wine, and this dross good metal :
and we have cause to wait on, for ere it be long our Master will be
at us, and bring this whole world out before the sun and the day-
light in their blacks and whites. Happy are they, who are found
watching. Our sand-glass is not so long as^ we need to weary :
time will eat away, and root out our woes and sorrow : our heaven
is in the bud, and growing up to an harvest, why then should we
not follow on, seeing our span-length of time will come to an inch?
Therefore, I commend Christ to you, as your last living and longest
living Husband, and the staff of your old age : let Him have now
the rest of yonr days ; and think not much of a storm upon the
ship that Christ saileth in ; there shall no passenger fall overboard;
1 That.
142 LETTER LVIII.
but the crazed ship and the sea-sick passenger shall come to land
safe. I am in as sweet communion with Christ as a poor sinner
can be ; and am only pained that He hath much beauty and fair-
ness, and I little love ; He great power and mercy, and I little faith;
He much light, and I bleared eyes. O, that I saw him in the
sweetness of His love, and in his marriage clothes, and were over
head and ears in love with that Princely One, Christ Jesus my
Lord ! Alas, my riven dish and running-out vessel can hold little
of Chiist Jesus ! I have joy in this, that I would not refuse death
before I put^ Christ's lawful heritage in men's trysting \^ and what
know I, if they would have pleased both Christ and me ? Alas !
that this land hath put Christ to open rouping, and to an "Any
man more bids 'J" Blessed are they who would hold the crown on
His head, and buy Christ's honour with their own losses. I re-
joice to hear your son John is coming to visit Christ and taste of
His love. I hope he shall not lose his pains, or rue of that choice.
I had always (as I said often to you) a great love to dear Mr. John
Brown, because I thought I saw Christ in him more than in his
brethren ; fain would I write to him, to stand by my sweet Mas-
ter, and I wish ye would let him read my letter, and the joy I
have, if he will appear for, and side with my Lord Jesus. Grace,
grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K*
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER LVHL— To Jean M'Millan.
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I can-
not come to you to give you my counsel ; and howbeit I would
come, I cannot stay with you ; but I beseech you keep Christ, for
I did what I could to put you within grips of Him. I told you
Christ's testament and latter will plainly, and I kept nothing back
that my Lord gave me ; and I gave Christ to you with good will.
I pray you, make Him your own, and go not from that truth I
taught you in one hair-breadth ; that truth shall save you, if ye
follow it. Salvation is not an easy thing, and soon gotten ; I
often told you few are saved, and many, many damned. I pray
you, make your poor soul sure of salvation, and make the seeking
of heaven your daily task. If ye never had a sick night and a
pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ ; look to
the right marks of having closed with Christ, if ye love Him
better than the world, and would quit all the world for Him, then
that saith the work is sound. 0, if ye saw the beauty of Jesus,
and felt the smell of His love, ye would run through fire and
' Uinliei than nut. ^ ArraDqing.
LETTER LIX. 143
water to be at Him. God send you Him. Pray for me, for I
caiiiiut forget you. Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LIX.— To the Lady Busby.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, I am glad to
hear that Christ and ye are one, and that ye have made Him your
one thing. Whereas many are painfully toiled in seeking many
things, and their many things are nothing. It is only best ye
set yourself apart, as a thing laid up and out of the gate ^ for
Christ alone ; for ye are good for no other thing but Christ, and
He hath been going about you these many years by afflictions, to
engage you to Himself; it were a pity and a loss to say Him nay.
Verily, I could wish that I could swim through hell and all the
ill weather in the world, and Christ in my arms ; but it is my evil
and folly that except Christ come unsent for, I do not go to seek
Him. When He and I fall in reckoning we are both behind. He
in payment, and I in counting; and so marches lie still unrid,-
and counts uncleared betwixt us. 0, that He would take His
own blood for counts and miscounts, that I might be a free man,
and none had any claim to me, but only, only Jesus. I will think
it no bondage to be rooped,^ comprised, and possessed by Christ
as His bondman. Think well of the visitations of your Lord. Eor
I find one thing I saw not well before, that Avhen the saints are
under trials, and well humbled, little sins raise great cries and
war-shouts in the conscience ; and in prosperity, conscience is a
Pope to give dispensations, and let out and in, and give latitude
and elbow-room to our heart. 0, how little care we for pardon,
at Christ's hand, when we make dispensations ! And all is but
bairn's play, till a cross without beget an heavier cross within, and
then we play no longer with our idols. It is good still to be
severe against ourselves, for we but transform God's mercy into
an idol, and an idol that hath a dispensation to give, for turning
of the grace of God into wantonness. Happy are they Avho take
up God, wrath, justice, and sin, as they are in themselves. For
we have miscarrying light that parteth with child, when we have
good resolutions ; but God be thanked, that salvation is not rolled
upon our wheels. 0, but Christ hath a saving eye ! Salvation is
in His eyelids : when He first looked on me, I was saved ; it cost
Him but a look, to make hell quit of me. 0 merits, free merits,
and the dear blood of God, was the best gate that ever we could
have gotten [out] of hell ! O, what a sweet, 0, what a safe and
' Set aside. '^ Undefined, •* Seized.
144 LETTER LX.
sure way is it, to come out of hell leaning on a Saviour ! that
Christ and a sinner should be one, and have heaven betwixt them,
and be halvcis of salvation, is the wonder of salvation. What
more humble could love be ? and what an excellent smell doth
Christ cast on His lower garden, where there grow but wild
flowers, if we speak by way of comparison ; but there is nothing
but perfect garden-flowers in heaven, and the best plenishing ^
that is there is Christ. We -are all obliged to love heaven for
Christ's sake ; He graceth heaven and all His Father's house with
His presence. He is a rose that beautifieth all the upper garden
of God ; a leaf of that rose of God, for smell, is worth a world.
0, that He would blow His smell upon a withered and dead soul !
Let us then go on to meet with Him, and to be filled with the
sweetness of His love. Nothing will hold Him from us ; He
hath decreed to put time, sin, hell, devils, men, and death out of
the way, and to ride the rough way betwixt us and Him, that we
may enjoy one another. It is strange and wonderful, that He
would think long^ in heaven without us, and that He would have
the company of sinners to solace and delight Himself withal in
heaven : and now the supper is abiding us. Christ the Bride-
groom, with desire, is waiting on till the Bride, the Lamb's wife,
be busked* for the marriage, and the great hall be rid* for the
meeting of that joyful couple. 0 fools, what do we here? and
why sit we still ? Why sleep we in the prison ? Were it not
best to make us wings to flee up to our blessed Match, our Mar-
row, and our Fellow friend ! I think, mistress, ye are looking
there-away, and this is your second or third thought ; make for-
ward, your guide waiteth on you. I cannot but bless you, for
your care and kindness to the saints. God give you to find mercy
in that day of our Lord Jesus, to whose saving grace I recommend
you. Yours, in our Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LX.~-To William Rigge, of Athernie.
Much honoured and worthy Sir, — Your letter, full of com-
plaints, bemoaning your guiltiness, hath humbled me ; but give
me leave to say, ye seem to be too far upon the law's side, ye will
not gain much to be the law's advocate : I thought ye had not
been the law's, but grace's, man. Nevertheless, I am sure ye
desire to take God's part against yourself. Whatever your guilti-
ness be, yet when it falleth into the sea of God's mercy, it is but
like a drop of blood fallen in the great ocean. There is nothing
here to be done, but let Christ's doom light upon the old mai),
^ Turniture. * Weary. ^ AdomeJ. * Set in order.
LETTER LX. 145
and let him bear his condemnation, seeing in Christ he was con-
demned ; for the law hath but power over your worst half ; let
the blame, therefore, lie where the blame should be, and let the
new man be sure to say, " I am comely as the tents of Kedar,
howbeit I be black and sun-burnt, by sitting neighbour beside a
body of sin." I seek no more here, but room for grace's defence
and Christ's white throne, whereto a sinner condemned by the
law may appeal. But the use that I make of it is, I am sorrow ^
that I am not so tender and thin-skinned, though I am sure Christ
may find employment for His calling in me, if in any living, see-
ing from my youth upward I have been making up the blackest
process, that any minister in the world or any other can answer
to. And when I had done this, I painted a providence of my
own, and wrote ease for myself and a peaceable ministry, and the
sun shining on me, till I should be in at heaven's gates. Such
green and raw thoughts had I of God. I thought also of a sleep-
ing devil, that would pass by the like of me, lying in moors and
out-fields. So I bigged^ the gouk's^ nest, and dreamed of dying
at ease, and living in a fool's paradise ; but since I came hither, I
am often so as that they would have much rhetoric that would
persuade me that Christ hath not written wrath on my dumb and
silent sabbaths (which is a persecution of the latest edition, being
used against none in this land, that I can learn of, besides me) ;
and often I lie under a non-entry, and would gladly sell all my
joys, to be confirmed King Jesus's free-tenant, and to have sealed
assurances ; but I see often blank papers. And my greatest de-
sires are these two, 1. That Christ would take me in hand to
cure me, and undertake for a sick man, I know I should not die
under His hand. And yet in this, while I still doubt, I believe
through a cloud, that sorrow, which hath no eyes, hath but put
a vail on Christ's love. 2. It pleaseth Him often, since I came
hither, to come with some short blinks of His sweet love, and
then, because I have none to help me to praise His love, and can
do Him no service in my own person (as I thought once I did in
His temple), then I die with wishes and desires to take up house
and dwell at the well-side, and to have Him praised and set on
high. But alas ! what can the like of me do, to get a good name
raised upon my Well-Beloved Lord Jesus, suppose I could desire
to be suspended for ever of my part of heaven for His glory 1 I
am sure if I could get my will of Christ's love, [if] I could be
once over head and ears in the believed, apprehended, and seen
love of the Son of God, it were the fulfilling of the desires of the
only happiness I would be at. But the truth is, I hinder my com-
munion with Him because of want of both faith and repentance,
^ Sorry, " Built, s Cuckoo's.
K
145 LETTER LXI.
and because I will make an idol of Christ's kisses : I will neither
lead nor drive,^ except I see Christ's love run in my channel ;
and when I wait and look for Him the upper way, I see His wis-
dom is pleased to play me a slip, and come the lower way; so that
I have not the right art of guiding Christ. For there is art and
wisdom required in guiding of Christ's love aright when we have
gotten it. 0, how far are His ways above mine ! 0, how little
of Him do I see ! And when I am as dry as a burnt heath in a
droughty summer, and when my root is withered, howbeit I think
then that I would drink a sea full of Christ ere ever I would let
the cup go from my head, yet I get nothing but delays, as if He
would make hunger my daily food ; I think myself also hun-
gered of hunger ; the rich Lord Jesus satisfy a famished man.
Grace be with you.
Your own, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, Sept. 10, 1637.
LETTER LXI.— To his Worthy and much Honoured Friend,
FULK Elies.
Worthy and much honoured in our Lord,— Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. I am glad of our more than paper acquaint-
ance : seeing we have one Father, it reckoneth the less, though
we never saw one another's faces. I profess myself most un-
worthy to follow the camp of such a worthy and renowned Cap-
tain as Christ. 0, alas ! I have cause to be grieved, that men
expect anything of such a wretched man as I am. It is a wonder
to me, if Christ can make anything of my naughty, short, and
narrow love to Him ; surely it is not worth the uptaking. 2. As
for our lovely and beloved Church in Ireland, my heart bleedeth
for her desolation ; but I believe our Lord is only lopping the
vine-trees, but not intending to cut them doAvn or root them out.
It is true, seeing we are heart-atheists by nature, and cannot take
providence aright (because we halt and crook ^ ever since we fell),
we dream of a halting providence, as if God's yard, whereby He
measureth joy and sorrow to the sons of men, were crooked and
unjust, because servants are on horseback, and princes go on foot;
but our Lord dealeth good and evil, and some one portion or other
to both, by ounce weights, and measureth them in a just and even
balance. It is but folly to measure the Gospel by summer or
winter weather : the summer-sun of the saints shineth not on
them in this life. How should we have complained, if the Lord
had turned the same providence that we now stomach at, upside
down, and had ordered matters thus, that first the saints should
^ Be led nor driven. " Stoop.
LETTER LXI. 147
have enjoyed heaven, glory, and ease, and then Methusalem's days
of sorrow and daily miseries 1 we should think a short heaven no
heaven : certainly His ways pass finding out. 3. Ye complain of
the evil of heart-atheism, but it is to a greater atheist than any
man can be that ye write to of that. 0, light findeth not that
reverence and fear, as a plant of God's setting should find in our
soul ! How do we by nature, as others, detain and captivate the
truth of God in unrighteousness, and so make God's light a bound
prisoner ! And even when the prisoner break eth the jail and
cometh out in belief of a Godhead, and in some practice of holy
obedience, how often do we of new lay hands on the prisoner, and
put our light again in fetters ! Certainly, there cometh great mist
and clouds from the lower part of our soul, our earthly affections,
to the higher part, which is our conscience, either natural or re-
newed, as smoke in a lower house breaketh up, and defileth the
house above : if we had more practice of obedience, we should
have more sound light. I think, lay aside all other guiltiness,
this one, the violence done to God's candle, in our soul, were a
sufiicient dittay ^ against us ; for there is no helping of this, but
by striving to stand in awe of God's light ; lest light tell tales of
us we desire little to hear; but since it is not without God, that
light sitteth neighbour to will (a lawless lord), no marvel that such
a neighbour should leaven our judgment and darken our light.
I see there is a necessity, that we protest against the doings of the
old man, and raise up a party against our worst half, to accuse,
condemn, sentence, and with sorrow bemoan the dominion of sin's
kingdom ; and withal, make law, in the new covenant, against our
guiltiness ; for Christ once condemned sin in the flesh, and we are to
condemn it over again : and if there had not been such a thing as
the grace of Jesus, I should have long since given up with heaven,
and with the expectation to see God. But grace, grace, free grace,
the merits of Christ for nothing, white, and fair, and large.
Saviour-mercy (which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy,
or law-mercy, yea a thousand degrees above angel-mercy) hath
been and must be the rock that we, drowned souls, must swim to;
new washing, renewed application of purchased redemption, by
that sacred blood that sealeth the free covenant, is a thing of
daily and hourly use to a poor sinner : till we be in heaven, our
issue of blood will not be quite dried up ; and therefore we must
resolve to apply peace to our soul from the new and living way ;
and Jesus, who cleanseth and cureth the leprous soul, lovely Jesus,
must be our song on this side of heaven's gates, and even when
we have won the castle, then must we eternally sing. Worthy,
worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved us and washed us in His own
^ Sentence.
148 LETTER LXU.
blood. I would counsel all the ransoned ones to learn this song,
and to drink and be drunk with the love of Jesus. 0 fairest, 0
highest, 0 loveliest One, open the well ! 0 water the burnt and
withered travellers with this love of Thine ! I think it is possible
on earth to build a young New Jerusalem, a little, new heaven of
this surpassing love. God either send me more of this love, or
take me quickly over the water, where I may be filled with His
love : my softness cannot take with want ; I profess, I bear not
hunger of Christ's love fair : I know not if I play foul play with
Christ, but I would have a link of that chain of His providence
mended, in pining and delaying the hungry on-waiters. For my-
self, I could wish that Christ would let out upon me more of that
love : yet to say Christ is a niggard to me, I dare not : and if I say,
I have abundance of His love, I should lie. I am half straitened to
complain and cry. Lord Jesus, hold Thy hands no longer. "Worthy
sir, let me have your prayers in my bonds. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXIL— To James Lindsay.
Dear Brother, — The constant and daily observing of God's
going alongst with you, in His coming, going, ebbing, flowing,
embracing and kissing, glooming and striking, giveth me (a wit-
less and lazy observer of the Lord's way and working) an heavy
stroke : could I keep sight of Him, and know when I want, and
carry as became me in that condition, I would bless my case.
But, 1. For desertions, I think them like lying-lay ^ of lean and
weak land, for some years, while ^ it gather sap for a better crop :
it is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight.
0, if I could but creep one foot, or half a foot, nearer in to Jesus,
in such a dismal night as that, when He is away, I should think
it an happy absence. 2. If I knew the Beloved were only gone
away for trial, and for further humiliation, and not smoked out of
the house with new provocations, I would forgive desertions, and
hold my peace at His absence, but Christ's bought absence (that I
bought Avith my sin) is two running boils at once, one upon either
side, and what side then can I lie on 1 3. I know, as night and
shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and deAvs are better
than a continual sun ; so is Christ's absence of special use, and it
hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and
putteth an edge on hunger, and furnish eth a fair field to faith to
put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not
Avhat. 4. It is mercy's wonder, and grace's Avonder, that Christ
1 Fallow. 2 Till.
LETTER LXII, 149
will lend a piece of the lodging, and a back-chamber beside Him-
self, to our lusts ; and that He and such swine should keep house
together in our soul : for suppose they couch and contract them-
selves into little room Avlien Christ cometh in, and seem to lie as
dead under His feet, yet they often break out again. And that a
foot of the old man, or a leg or arm nailed to Christ's cross,
looseth the nail, orbreaketh out again; and yet Christ beside this
unruly and misnurtured neighbour, can still be making heaven in
the saints, one way or other ; may not I say. Lord Jesus, what
doest thou here 1 Yet here He must be, but I will but lose my
feet to go on into this depth and wonder, for free mercy and in-
finite merits took a lodging to Christ and us beside such a loath-
some guest as sin. 5. Sanctitication and mortification of our lusts
are the hardest part of Christianity. It is in a manner as natural
to us to leap, when we see the New Jerusalem, as to laugh when
we are tickled. Joy is not under command, or at our nod, when
Christ kisseth ; but 0, how many of us would have Christ divided
in two halves, that we might take the half of Him only, and take
His office, Jesus, and salvation ; but Lord is a cumbersome word,
and to obey and work out our own salvation, and to perfect holi-
ness, is the cumbersome and stormy north-side of Christ, and that
we eschew and shift. 6. For your question, the access that re-
probates have to Christ (which is none at all ; for to the Father in
Christ neither can they, nor will they come, because Christ died
not for them ; and yet by law, God and justice overtaketh them),
I say, first, there are with you more worthy and learned than I
am, Messrs. Dickson, Blair, and Hamilton, who can more fully
satisfy you ; but I shall speak in brief, what I think of it, in
these assertions, 1. All God's justice towards man and angels
floweth from an act of the absolute, sovereign free-will of God,
who is our Former and Potter, and we are but clay ; for if He
had forbidden to eat of the rest of the trees of the garden of Eden,
and commanded Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil ; that command no doubt had been as just as this. Eat of
all the trees, but not at all of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. The reason is, because His will is before His justice by
order of nature, and what is His will is His justice, and He willeth
not things without Himself, because they are just. God cannot,
God needeth not to hunt sanctity, holiness, or righteousness from
things without Himself; and so not from the actions of men or
angels, because His will is essentially holy and just, and the prime
rule of holiness and justice : as the fire is naturally light, and in-
clineth upward, and the earth heavy, and inclineth downward.
The 2d assertion then is, that God saith to reprobates, " Believe
in Christ (who hath not died for your salvation) and ye shall be
150 LETTER LXII.
saved," is just and right, because His eternal and essentially just
will hath so enacted and decreed. Suppose natural reason speak
against this, this is the deep and special mystery of the Gospel.
God hath obliged hard and fast all the reprobates in the visible
church to believe His promise, "He that believeth shall be saved,"
and yet in God's decree and secret intention, there is no salvation
at all decreed and intended to reprobates ; and yet the obligation
of God being from His sovereign free-will, is most just, as is said
in the first assertion. 3d assertion. The righteous Lord hath
right over the reprobates and all reasonable creatures that violate
His commandments : this is easy. 4th assertion. The faith that
God seeketh of reprobates is, that they rely upon Christ, as de-
spairing of their own righteousness, leaning wholly, and withal
humbly, as weary and laden, upon Christ, as on the resting-stone
laid in Zion ; but He seeketh not, that without being weary of
their sin they rely on Christ, mankind's Saviour ; for to rely on
Christ, and not to weary of sin, is presumption, not faith. Faith
is ever neighbour to a contrite spirit, and it is impossible that faith
can be where there is not a casten down and contrite heart in some
measure for sin. Now it is certain God commandeth no man to
presume. 5 th assertion. Then reprobates are not absolutely ob-
liged to believe that Christ died for them in particular ; for in
truth, neither reprobates nor others are obliged to believe a lie,
only they are obliged to believe Christ died for them, if they be
first weary, burdened, sin-sick, and condemned in their own con-
sciences, and stricken dead and killed with the law's sentence, and
have indeed embraced Him as offered, which is a second and sub-
sequent act of faith, following after a coming to Him, and closing
with Him. 6th assertion. Reprobates are not formally guilty of
contempt of God and misbelief, because they apply not Christ and
the promises of the Gospel to themselves in particular, for so they
should be guilty because they believe not a lie, which God never
obliged them to beheve. 7th assertion. Justice hath a right to
punish reprobates, because out of pride of heart, confiding in their
own righteousness, they rely not upon Christ as a Saviour of all
them that come to Him : this God may justly oblige them unto ;
because in Adam they had perfect ability to do, and men are
guilty, because they love their own inability, and rest upon them-
selves, and refuse to deny their own righteousness, and to take
them to Christ, in whom there is rigliteousness for wearied sinners.
8th assertion. It is one thing to rely, lean, and rest upon Christ, in
humility and weariness of spirit, and denying our own righteous-
ness, believing Him to be the only righteousness of wearied sin-
ners; and it is another thing to believe Christ died for me — John,
Thomas, Anna — upon an intention, and decree, to save us by
LETTER LXIII. 151
name. For, 1. The first goeth first, the latter is always after in
due order. 2. Tlie first is faith, the second is a fruit of faith.
3. The first obligeth reprobates and all men in the visible kirk ;
the latter obligeth only the weary and laden, and so only the elect
and eflfectually called of God. 9 th assertion. It is a vain order,
I know not if Christ died for me — John, Thomas, Anna — by
name; and therefore I dare not rely on Him. The reason is, be-
cause it is not faith to believe God's intention and decree of elec-
tion at the first ere ye be wearied : look first to your own inten-
tion and soul, if ye find sin a burden, and can, and do rest under
that burden upon Christ ; if this be once, now come and believe
in particular, or rather apply by sense (for in my judgment it is
a fruit of belief, not belief) and feeling the good will, intention,
and gracious purpose of God anent your salvation : hence, because
there is malice in reprobates and contempt of Christ, guilty they
are, and justice hath law against them : and Avhich is the mystery,
they cannot come tip to Christ, because He died not for them ; but
their sin is, that they love this their inability to come to Christ,
and he who loveth his chains, deserveth chains : and thus, in
short, remember my bonds.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXIIL— To the Earl of Cassillis.
My very honourable and noble Lord, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to your lordship. Pardon me to express my earnest
desire to your lordship, for Zion's sake, for whom we should not
hold our peace. I know your lordship will take my pleading on
this behalf, in the better part, because the necessity of a falling
and weak church is urgent. I believe your lordship is one of
Zion's friends, and that by obligation ; for when the Lord shall
count and write up the people, it shall be written, this man was
born there : therefore because your lordship is a born son of the
house, I hope your desire is, that the beauty and glory of the
Lord may dwell in the midst of the city, whereof your lordship is
a son. It must be without all doubt the greatest honour of your
place and house to kiss the Son of God, and for His sake to be
kind to His oppressed and wronged bride, who now, in the day of
her desolation, beggeth help of you that are the shields of the
earth. I am sure many kings, princes, and nobles, in the day of
Christ's second coming, would be glad to run errands for Christ,
even barefooted, through fire and water ; but in that day He will
have none of their service. Now, He is asking if your lordship
will help Him against the miglity of the earth ; when men are
152 LETTER LXIII.
setting their shoulders to Christ's fair and beautiful tent in this
land, to loose its stakes, and to break it down; and certainly, such
as are not with Christ are against Him ; and blessed shall your
lordship be of the Lord, blessed shall your house and seed be, and
blessed shall your honour be, if ye empawned and lay^ in Christ's
hand the earldom of Cassillis (and it is but a shadow in compari-
son of the city made "without hands), and lay ^ it even at the stake,
rather than Christ and borne-down truth want a witness of you.
against the apostasy of this land. Ye hold your lands of Christ,
your charters are under His seal, and He who hath many crowns
on His head, dealeth, cutteth, and carveth' pieces of this clay-
heritage to men at His pleasure. It is little your lordship hath to
give Him; He will not sleep long in your common, ^ but shall
surely pay home your losses for His cause. It is but our bleared
eyes that look through a false glass to this idol god of clay, and
think something of it. They who are passed with their last sen-
tence to heaven or hell, and have made their reckoning, and de-
parted out of this smoky inn, have now no other conceit of this
world, but as a piece of beguiling, well-lustred clay ; and how fast
doth time (like a flood still in motion) carry your lordship out of
it ! and is not eternity coming with wings'? Court ^ goeth not in
heaven as it doth here. Our Lord (who hath all you, the nobles,
lying in the shell of His balance) esteemeth you accordingly as ye
are the Bridegroom's friends or foes ; your honourable ancestors,
with the hazard of their lives, brought Christ to our hands, and it
shall be cruelty to the posterity if ye lose Him to them. One of
our tribes, Levi's sons, the watchmen, are fallen from the Lord,
and have sold their mother, and their father also, and the Lord's
truth for their new velvet-world, and their satin-church. If ye,
the nobles, play Christ a slip, now when His back is at the wall
(if I may so speak), then may we say, that the Lord hath casten
water upon Scotland's smoking coal : but we hope better things
of you. It is no wisdom, however it be the state-wisdom in re-
quest, to be silent, when they are casting lots for a better thing
than Christ's coat. All this land, and every man's part of the
play for Christ, and the tears of poor and friendless Zion (now
going dool-like* in sackcloth), are up in heaven before our Lord,
and there is no question but our King and Lord shall be master
of the field at length, and we Avould all be glad to divide the
spoil with Christ, and to ride in triumph with Him. But, 0 how
few will take a cold bed of straw in the camp with Him ! how lain
would men have a well-thatched house above their heads all the
way to heaven ! And many now would go to heaven the land-
way (for they love not to be sea-sick), riding up to Christ upon
' Laid. - Debt. * Favour. •• Mourniiii:.
LETTER LXIV. 153
footmantlcs, and rattling coaches, and rubbing their velvet with
the princes of the land, in the highest seats. If this be the way
Christ called strait and narrow, I quit all skill of the way to sal-
vation. Are they not now rouping Christ and the Gospel ? have
they not put our Lord. Jesus to the market, and he Avho out-
bid'deth his fellow shall get Him 1 0, my dear and noble lord,
go on (howbeit the wind be in your face) to back our princely
Captain ; be courageous for Him : fear not these who have no sub-
scribed lease of days, the worms shall eat kings : let the Lord
Jehovah be your fear; and then, as the Lord liveth, the victory is
yours. It is true, many are striking up a new way to heaven ;
but my soul for theirs, if they find it; and if this be not the only
way whose end is Christ's Father's house : and my weak experi-
ence, since the day I was first in bonds, hath confirmed me in the
truth and assurance of this : let doctors and learned men cry the
contrary, I am persuaded this is the way : the bottom hath fallen
out of both their wit and conscience at once ; their book hath be-
guiled them, for we have fallen upon the true Christ. I dare
hazard, if I alone had ten souls, my salvation upon this stone,
that many now break their bones upon. Let them take this fat
world, 0, poor and hungry is their paradise ! thereforOj let me en-
treat your lordship, by your compearance before Christ, now while
this piece of the afternoon of your day is before you (for ye know
not when your sun will turn and eternity shall benight you), let
your glory, honour, and might, worldly, be for our Lord Jesus :
and to His rich grace and tender mercy, and to the never-dying
comforts of His gracious Spirit, I recommend your lordship and
noble house. Your lordship's, at all obedience, S. K.
Aberdeen Sept. 9, 1637.
LETTER LXIV.— To the Lady Largirie.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I hope ye
know what conditions passed betwixt Christ and you at your first
meeting. Ye remember. He said, your summer days would have
clouds, and your rose a prickly thorn beside it ; Christ is unmixed
in heaven, all sweetness and honey; here we have Him with His
thorny and rough cross; yet I know no tree beareth sweeter fruit
than Christ's cross, except I would raise a lying report on it. It
is your part to take Christ, as He is to be had in this life : suffer-
ings are like a wood planted round about His house, over door
and window; if we could hold fast our gri^DS of Him, the field
were won. Yet a little while and Christ shall triumph : give
Christ His own short time to spin out these two long threads of
heaven and hell to all mankind, lor certainly the thread will not
154 LETTER LXV.
brcalv; and when He hath accompHshed His work in Mount Zion,
and hath refined His silver, He will bring new vessels out of the
furnace, and planish^ His house, and take up house again. I
counsel you to free yourself of clogging temptations, by overcoming
some, and contemning others, and watching over all. Abide true
and loyal to Christ, for few now are fast to Him ; they give Christ
blank paper for a bond of service and attendance, now when
Christ hath most ado : to waste a little blood with Christ, and to
put our part of this drossy world in pawn over in His hand, as
willing to quit it for Him, is the safest cabinet to keep the world
in. But these who would take the world and all their flitting ^ on
their back, and run away from Christ, they will fall by the way,
and leave their burden behind them, and iDe taken captive them-
selves. Well were my soul to put all I have, life and soul, over
in Christ's hands ; let Him be forthcoming for all. If any ask
how I do ? I answer, none can be but well that are in Christ :
and if I were not so, my sufferings had melted me away in ashes
and smoke. I thank my Lord that He hath something in me
that tliis fire cannot consume. Remember my love to your hus-
band, and show him from me I desire that he may set aside all
things, and make sure work of salvation, that it be not a-seeking^
when the sand-glass is run out, and time and eternity shall tryst ^
together : there is no errand so weighty as this : 0, that he would
take it to heart. Grace be with you.
Yours, in Clirist Jesus his Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER LXV.— To the Lady Dungueigh.
Mistress, — I long to hear from you, and how ye go on with
Christ. I am sure that Christ and ye once met : I pray you,
fasten your grips ; there is holding and drawing, and much sea-
way to heaven, and we are often sea-sick ; but the voyage is so
needful, that we must on any terms take shipping with Christ. I
believe it is a good country we are going to, and there is ill
lodging in this smoky house of the world, in which we are yet
living. 0, that we should love smoke so well, and clay that holdeth
our feet fast ! it were our happiness to follow on after Christ, and
to anchor ourselves upon the Rock in the upper side of the vale.
Christ and Satan are now drawing two parties, and they are blind
who see not Scotland divided in two camps, and Christ coming
out with His white banner of love, an-d He hangeth that over the
heads of His soldiers : and the other captain, the dragon, is coming
out with a great black flag, and crieth, the world, the world, ease,
^ Furnioh. * i'uiiiitiae. * To seek. * Meet.
LETTER LXVI. 155
honour, and a whole skin, and a soft couch ; and there he they,
and leave Christ to fend^ for Himself. My counsel is, that ye
come out and leave the multitude, and let Christ have your com-
pany. Let them take clay, and this j)resent world, who love it :
Christ is a more worthy and noble portion : blessed are these who
get Him. It is good, ere the storm rise, to make ready all, and
to be prepared to go to the camp with Christ, seeing He will not
keep the house, nor sit at the fireside with couchers : a shower for
Christ is little enough. 0, 1 find all too little for Him ! woe, woe,
woe is me, that I have no propiue^ for my Lord Jesus : my love
is so feckless,^ that it is a shame to off'er it to Him. 0, if it were
as broad as heaven, as deep as the sea, I would gladly bestow it
upon Him ! I persuade you, God is wringing grapes of red wine
for Scotland, and this land shall drink, and spue, and fall : His
enemies shall drink the thick of it, and the grounds of it : but
Scotland's withered tree shall blossom again, and Christ shall make
a second marriage with her, and take home His wife out of the
furnace. But if our eyes shall see it, He knoweth, who hath
created time. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXVL— To Jonet M'Culloch.
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you : hold on
your course, for it may be I will not soon see you : venture
through the thick of all things after Christ, and lose not your
Master, Christ, in the throng of this great market. Let Christ
know how heavy, and how many a stone-weight you, and your
cares, burdens, crosses, and sins are ; let Him bear all : make the
heritage sure to yourself: get charters and writs passed and
through, and put on arms for the battle, and keep you fast by
Christ, and then let the wind blow out of what airt* it will, your
soul will not blow in the sea. I find Christ the most steadable ^
friend and companion in the world to me now : the need and use-
fulness of Christ is seen best in trials. 0, if He be not well
worthy of His room ! Lodge Him in house and heart ; and stir
up your husband to seek the Lord. I wonder he hath never
written to me : I do not forget him. I taught you the whole
counsel of God, and delivered it to you ; it will be inquired for at
your hands ; have it in readiness against the time that the Lord
ask for it ; make you to meet the Lord and rest and sleep in the
love of that fairest among the sons of men. Desire Christ's beauty :
give out all your love to Him, and let none fall by. Learn in
prayer to speak to Him. Help jour motlier's soul, and desire her
* Shift. ^ Offering. =* Worthless. ■» Quarter. * Ileliable.
156 LETTER LXVII.
from me to seek the Lord and His salvation ; it is not soon
found, many miss it. Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXVII.— To my Lord Craighall.
My Lord, — I cannot expound j^our lordship's contrary tides,
and these tentations, wherewith ye are assaulted, to be any other
thing but Christ trying you, and saying unto you, " And will ye
also leave meV I am sure, Christ hath a great advantage against
you, if ye play foul play to Him, in that the Holy Spirit hath
done His part, in evidencing to your conscience that this is the
way of Christ, wherein ye shall have peace ; and the other, as
sure as God liveth, the Antichrist's way; therefore, as ye fear
God, fear your light, and stand in awe of a convincing conscience.
It is far better for your lordship to keep your conscience, and to
hazard, in such an honourable cause, your place, than wilfully,
and against your light, to come under guiltiness. Kings cannot
heal broken consciences; and when death and judgment shall
comprise^ your soul, your counsellors and others cannot become
caution to justice for you. Ere it be long, our Lord Avill put a
final determination to acts of parliament and men's laws, and will
clear you before men and angels of men's unjust sentences. Ye
received honour, and place, and authority, and riches, and reputa-
tion from your Lord, to set forward and advance the liberties and
freedom of Christ's kingdom. Men whose consciences are made
of stoutness, think little of such matters, which, notwithstanding,
encroach directly upon Christ's royal prerogative. So would men
think it a light matter for Uzzah to put out his hand to hold the
Lord's falling ark, but it cost him his life. And who doubteth
but a carnal friend will advise you to shut your Avindow, and
pray beneath your breath 1 Ye make too great a din with your
prayers ; so Avould a head-of-wit speak, if ye were in Daniel's
place; but men's overgilded reasons Avill not help you, Avhen your
conscience is like to rive- with a double charge. Alas, alas ! when
Avill this world learn to submit their Avisdom to the wisdom of
God 1 I am sure your lordship hath found the truth ; go not then
to search it over again ; for it is ordinary for men to make doubts,
Avhen they have a mind to desert the truth. Kings are not their
oAvn men, their Avays are in God's hand. I rejoice, and am glad,
that ye resolve to Avalk Avitli Christ, hoAvbeit His court be thin.
Grace be Avith your lordship.
Your lordship's, in his sweet Master and Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
^ Seize. * Split.
LETTERS LXVIII. AND LXIX. 157
LETTER LXVITL— To William Riggie, of Athernie.
Worthy and much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. How sad a prisoner would I be if I knew not that
my Lord Jesus had the keys of the prison Himself, and that His
death and blood hath bought a blessing to our crosses as well as
to ourselves. I am sure, troubles have no prevailing right over
us, if they be but our Lord's sergeants, to keep us in ward, while
we are on this side of heaven : I am persuaded also, that they shall
not go over the bound-road^ nor enter into heaven with us; for
they find no welcome there, where there is no more death, neither
sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain : and, therefore, we shall
leave them behind us. 0, if I could get as good a gate of^ sin,
even this woeful and wretched body of sin, as I get of Christ's
cross ! Nay, indeed, I think the cross beareth both me and itself,
rather than I it, in comparison of the tyranny of the lawless flesh
and wicked neighbour, that dwelleth beside Christ's new creature.
But 0, this is that which presseth me down and paineth me :
Jesus Christ in His saints, sitteth neighbour with an ill second,
corruption, deadness, coldness, pride, lust, worldliness, self-love,
security, falsehood, and a world of more the like, which I find in
me, that are daily doing violence to the new man. 0, but we have
cause to carry low sails, and to cleave fast to free grace, free, free
grace ! blessed be our Lord that ever that way was found out. If
my one foot were in heaven, and my soul half in, if free-will and
corruption were absolute lords of me, I should never win wholly
in. 0, but the sweet, new, and living way that Christ hath stroke^
up to our home, be a safe way. I find now presence and access a
greater dainty than before, but yet the Bridegroom looketh through
the lattice and through the hole of the door. 0, if He and I were
in fair dry land together on the other side of the water. Grace
be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 30, 1637.
LETTER LXIX.— To the Lady Kilconquhair.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you : I received
your letter. I am heartily content ye love and own this oppressed
and wronged cause of Christ, and that now, when so many are
miscarried, ye are in any measure taken Avith the love of Jesus :
weary not, but come in and see if there be not more in Christ
than the tongue of men and angels can express : if ye seek a gate
to heaven, the way is in Him, or. He is it. What ye want is
treasured up in Jesus, and He saith, all His are yours, even His
^ Boundary. - Manner of dealing with. •* Struck.
158 LETTEK LXX.
kingdom. He is content to divide it betwixt Him and you, yea,
His throne and His glory, Luke xxi. 29, Job xvii. 24, Rev. iii. 21 ;
and therefore take pains to climb up to that besieged house to
Christ : for devils, men, and armies of temptations are lying about
the house, to hold out all that are out, and it is taken with
violence. It is not a smooth and easy way, neither will your
weather be fair and pleasant ; but whosoever saw the invisible
God and the fair city, make no reckoning of losses or crosses. In
ye must be, cost you what it will ; stand not for a price, and for
all that ye have, to win the castle ; the rights to it are won to
you, and it is disponed to you, in your Lord Jesus's testament ;
and see what a fair legacy your dying Friend, Christ, hath left
you : and there wanteth nothing but possession. Then, get up,
in the strength of the Lord ; get over the water to possess that
good land ; it is better than a land of olives or vine-trees ; for the
tree of life, that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, is
there before you, and a pure river of life, clear as crystal, proceed-
ing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, is there. Your
time is short, therefore lose no time : gracious and faithful is He,
who hath called you to His kingdom and glory. The city is yours
by free conquest and by promise, and therefore let no uncouth
lord-idol put you from your own. The devil hath cheated the
simple heir of His paradise, and by enticing us to taste of the for-
bidden fruit, hath, as it were, bought us out of our kindly heritage; ■
but our Lord, Christ Jesus, hath done more than bought the devil
by, for He hath redeemed the wadset,^ and made the poor heir
free to the inheritance. If we knew the glory of our elder brother
in heaven, we would long to be there to see Him, and to get our
fill of heaven : we children think the earth a fair garden, but it is
but God's out-field, and wild, cold, barren ground. All things are
fading that are here. It is our happiness to make sure Christ to
ourselves. Thus, remembering my love to your husband, and
wishing to him, what I write to you, I commit you to God's
tender mercy. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 13, 1637.
LETTER LXX.— To the Lady Craighall.
Honourable and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I cannot but write to your ladyship of the
sweet and glorious terms I am in with the most joyful King that
ever was, under this well-thriving and prosperous cross. It is
my Lord's salvation, wrought by His own right hand, that the
water doth not suffocate the breath of hope and joyful courage in
* Mortgage.
LETTER LXX. 159
the Lord Jesus : for His own person is still in the camp with His
poor soldier. I see the cross is tied with Christ's hand to the end
of an honest profession : we are but fools to endeavour to loose
Christ's knot. When I consider the comforts of God, I durst not
consent to sell or wadset ^ my short life-rent of the cross of the
Lord Jesus. I know that Christ bought, with His own blood,
a right to sanctified and blessed crosses, in as far as they blow me
over the water, to my long desired home : and it were not good
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 piece 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 por-
tion 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 as-
surance, 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 ab-
sent 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.
0, that fair One hath my heart for evermore ! but alas, it is over
little for Him ! 0, if it were better and more worthy for His sake !
0, 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 ! 0, 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. 0 Lord Jesus, delightest Thou, de-
lightest Thou, to pine ^ and torment poor souls with the want of
Thy incomparable love ? 0, if I durst call Thy dispensation cruel !
I know Thou Thyself art mercy, without either brim or bottom ; I
know Thou art a God bank-ful of mercy and love, but 0, alas !
little of it cometh my way. I die to look afar off to that love, be-
cause I can get but little of it : but hope saith, this providence
shall ere long look more favourably upon poor bodies, and me also
Grace be with your Ladyship's spirit.
Your Ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E-
Aberdeen, Sept. 10, 1637.
^ Mortgage. * Starve.
160 LETTERS LXXI. AND LXXII.
LETTER LXXI. —To Mr. James Hamilton.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Peace be to j^ou from God
our Father and from our Lord Jesus. I am laid low, when I re-
member 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 in 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 omni-
potency delighteth to draw glory out of. 0, how sweet is the in-
ner side of the walls of Christ's house, and a room beside Himself!
my distance from Him maketh me sad. 0, that we were in other's ^
arms ! 0, that the middle things betwixt us were removed ! I find
it a diflScult matter to keep all stots^ with Christ : when he laugh-
eth, 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 I trust He shall
take me home against night. I marvel not that Antichrist in his
slaves is so busy, but our crowned King seeth and beholdeth, and
will arise for Zion's safety. I am exceedingly distracted with let-
ters and company that visit me. What I can do, or time will
permit, I 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.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Septemljer 7, 1637.
LETTER LXXIL— To Mr. George Dunbar.
Reverend and dearly beloved in the Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you: because your words have strengthened many,
I was silent, expecting some lines from you in my bonds, 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. 0, the
ravishments of heavenly joy that may be had here, in the small
gleanings of 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
harvest. How sweet, how sweet, is our investment ! 0, 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
^ Each other's. ^ To keep step. ■" Mismanaged or spoiled.
LETTER LXXir. 161
caiid tlie melting gold, to separate the metal anr!, 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 liave a poor believer in the fire to be
half raw, like Ephraim's unturned cake ! this is the Avisdom of
Him, who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem. I
need not either bud^ or flatter temptations, crosses : nor strive to
Ijuy the devil or this malicious world bye,^ or redeem their kindness
with half a hair-breadth of truth : He who is surety for His ser-
vant 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 shall 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, who sigh and fear, and
doubt, and despond in them. Our sufferings are washen in Christ's
blood, as well as our souls ; for Christ's merits bought a blessing
to the crosses of the sons of God ; and Jesus hath a back-bond of
all our temptations, that the free warders shall come out by law
and justice, in respect of the infinite and great sum that the Re-
deemer paid. Our troubles owe us a free passage through them :
devils, and men, and crosses, are our debtors ; and death, and all
storms, are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the
water fraught-free, and to set the tra^'ellers in their own known
ground : therefore, we shall die and yet live : we are over the
water (some way) 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 the bones and
slain bodies of the Lamb's followers ; but withal, we stand with
the hundred forty and four thousand, who are with the Lamb,
upon the top of Mount Zion : Antichrist and his followers arc
down in the valley ground, we have the advantage of the hill.
Our temptations are always beneath, our Avaters are beneath our
breath ; as dying, and behold we live. I never heard before of a
living death, or a quick death, but ours : our death is not like the
common death ; Christ's skill, His handywork, and a nev/ cast of
Christ's admirable art, may be seen in our quick death, I bless
the Lord, that all our troubles come through Christ's fingers, and
that He casteth sugar among them : and casteth in some ounce-
weights of heaven and of the spirit of g\ovy (that resteth on suffer-
^ Bribe. - To " buy bye " is to pay one to cease from what be is doing.
2 Dowry. i^
162 LETTER LXXIII.
ing believers) in our cnp, in which there is no taste of hell. Mj
dear brother, ye know all these better than I : I send water to the
sea, to speak of these things to you : but it easeth me to desire
you to help me to pay tribute of praise to Jesus. 0, what praises
I owe Him ! I would I were in my free heritage, that I might be-
gin to pay my debts to Jesus. I entreat for your prayers and
praises : I forget not you.
Your brother and fellow-sufiferer in, and for Christ, S. !R.
Aberdeen, Sept, 17, 1637.
LETTER LXXIII.— To Mr. David Dickson.
Eeverend and well-beloved Brother in the Lord,— I bless
the Lord, who hath so wonderfully stopped the ongoing of that
lawless process against you. The Lord reigneth, and hath a sav-
ing eye upon you, and your ministry ; and therefore, fear not
what men can do. I bless the Lord, that the Irish ministers find
employment, and the professors, comfort of their ministry. Be-
lieve me, I durst not, as I am now disposed, hold an honest
brother out of the pulpit. I trust the Lord shall guard you, and
hide you in the shadow of His hand : I am not pleased with any
that are against you in that. I see this in prosperity, men's con-
science will not start at small sins : but if some had been where I
have been, since I came from you, a little mote would have caused
their eye water, and troubled their peace. 0, how ready are we
to incline to the world's hand ! our arguments being well ex-
amined are often drawn from our skin : the whole skin and a
peaceable tabernacle is a topic maxim, in great request in our
logic. I find a little brairding^ of God's seed in this town, for
the which the doctors have told me their mind, that they cannot
bear with it, and have examined and threatened the people that
haunt my company. I fear I get not leave to winter here, and
whither I go, I know not; I am ready at the Lord's call. I would
I could make acquaintance with Christ's cross, for I find comforts
lie to, and follow upon the cross. I suffer in my name by them :
I take it as a part of the crucifying of the old 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 for Christ's sake. Sometimes, while I have Christ in my
arms, I fall asleep with the sweetness of His presence, and He in
my eleep stealeth away out of my aTms. and when I awake I miss
^ Sprouting.
LETTEK LXXIV. 163
Him. I am much comforted with my Lady Pitsligo, a good
womai), and. acquainted with God's ways. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R,
Aberdeen, September 11, 1637.
LETTER LXXIV.— To the Right Honourable my Lord
Loudoun.
Right Honourable, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your lord-
ship. I rejoice exceedingly that I hear your lordship hath a good
mind to Christ, and His now borne-down truth. My very dear
lord, go on, in the strength of the Lord, to carry your honour and
worldly glory to the New Jerusalem ; for this cause your lordship
received these of the Lord. This is a sure way for the establish-
ment of your house, if ye be of these, who are willing in your
place, to build Zion's old waste places in Scotland. Your lordship
vvanteth not God's and man's law both, now to come to the streets
for Christ. And suppose the bastard laws of man were against
you, it is an honest and zealous error, if here ye slip against 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 little ones and dash their heads against
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 loos-
ing the cords of the tent of Christ ; but I am persuaded, tliat 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 prove shame and con-
fusion of face in the end. Our Lord hath given your lordship
light of a better stamp, and learning also, wherein ye are not be-
hind the disputer and the scribe. 0, what a blessed thing is it,
to see nobility, learning and sanctiii cation, all concur in one ! for
these ye owe yourself to Christ and His kingdom. God hath be-
wildered and bemisted the wit and the learning of the scribes and
disputers of this time; they look asquint to the Bible. This
blinding and bemisting world blindfoldeth men's light, that they
are afraid to see straight out before them, nay their very light
playeth the knave, or worse, to truth. Your lordship knoweth,
within a little while policy against truth will blush, and the
works of men shall burn, even their spider web, who spin out
many hundred ells and webs of indifierence in the Lord's wor-
ship, more than ever Moses, who would have an hoof material,
164 LETTEii LXXIV.
and Daniel, who would have a look out al a window, a matter ol
life and death, 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, answer-
able to the conceptions of such policy as a head of wit thinketh a
safe and trim way of serving 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 strawberries 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 garment. Do we not see
it already an old holey and threadbare garment? Doth not cripple
and lame nature tell us that the Lord will fold up the old gar-
ment, and lay it aside, and that the heavens shall be folded to-
gether as a scroll, and this pest-house shall be burnt with fire, and
that both plenishing^ and walls shall melt with fervent heaf? for
at the Lord's coming He will do with this earth as men do with a
leper-house. He will l^urn the walls with fire, and the plenishing^
of the house also, 2 Pet. iii. 10, 11, 12. My very dear lord, how
shall ye rejoice in that day, to have Christ, angels, heaven, and
your own conscience to smile upon you. I am persuaded, one
sick night, through the terroi's of the Almighty, would make men
(whose conscience hath such a wide throat, as an image like a
cathedral church would go down it) have other thoughts of Christ
and His worship, than now they please themselves with. The
scarcity of faith in the earth saith, we are hard upon the last nick^
of time. Blessed are those who keep their garments clean against
the Bridegroom's coming, there shall be spotted clothes, and many
defiled garments, at His last coming; and therefore, few found
worthy to walk with Him in white. I am persuaded, my lord,
this poor travailing woman, our pained church, is with child of
victory, and shall bring forth a man-child, that shall be caught up
to God and His throne, howbeit the dragon (in his followers) be
attending the childbirth-pain, as an Egyptian midwife, to receive
the birth, and strangle it, Isa. xxix. 8 ; but they shall be dis-
appointed who thirst for the destruction of Zion, they shall be as
when a hungry man dreameth that he eateth, but behold he awak-
eth, 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 fight against Mount Zion. Therefore, the weak and
feeble, these that are as signs and wonders in Israel, have chosen
' Furniture. - Notch.
LETTEL LXXV. 165
fclie best side, even the side tliat victory is upon ; and, I think,
this is no evil policy. Verily, for myself, I am so well pleased
with Christ and His noble and honest-born cross, this cross that
is come of Christ's house, and is of kin to Himself, that I should
weep, if it should come to niffering^ and bartering of lots and con-
dition with those that are at ease in Zion : I hold still my choice,
and bless myself in it. I see and I believe, there is salvation in
this way, that is everywhere spoken against, I hope to go to
eternity, and to venture upon the last evil to the saints, even upon
death, fully persuaded that this only, even this, is the saving way
for racked consciences, and for weary and laden sinners, to find
ease and peace for evermore into. And indeed, it is not for any
worldly respect that I speak so of it. The weather is not so hot
•that I have great cause to startle in my prison, or to boast of that
entertainment that my good friends, the prelates, intend for me,
which is banishment, if they shall obtain their desire, and effectu-
ate what they design ; but let it come, I rue not that I made
Christ my wale" and my choice ; I think Him aye the longer the
better. My lord, it shall be good service to God, to hokl your
noble friend and chief upon a good course, for the truth of Christ.
Now the very God of peace establish your lordship in Christ
Jesus unto the end.
Your lordship's in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, Sept. 10, 1637.
LETTER LXXV.— To the Laird of Gaitgirtii.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you : I can
do no more but thank you in paper, and remember you to Him
whom I serve, for your kindness and care of a prisoner, I bless
the Lord, the cause I suffer for needeth not to blush before kings :
Christ's white, honest, and fair truth, needeth neither wax pale for
fear, nor blush for shame. I bless the Lord, who hath graced you
to own Christ now, when so many are afraid to profess Him, and
hide Him, for fear they suffer loss by avouching Him. Alas !
that so many in these days are carried with the times ; as if their
conscience rolled upon oiled wheels ; so do they go any way the
wind bloweth them : and because Christ is not market-sweet,^
men put Him away from them. Worthy and much honoured sir,
go on to own Christ and His oppressed truth : the end of sufferings
for the Gospel is rest and gladness : light and joy is sown for the
mourners in Zion, and the harvest (which is of God's making for
time and manner) is near : crosses have right and claim to Christ
in His members, till legs and arms, and whole mystical Christ be
* Exchancfinff. - Preference. '^ Saleable.
166 LETTKIl LXXVI.
in heaven : there will be rain, and hail, and storm in the saints'
clouds, ever till God cleanse with fire the works of creation, and
till He burn the borch-house ^ of heaven and earth, that men's
sin hath subjected unto vanity. They are blessed who suffer and
sin not, lor suffering is the badge that Christ hath put upon His
followers : take what way we can to heaven, the way is edged up
with crosses ; there is no way, but to break through them ; wit
and wiles, shifts and laws, will not find out a way about ^ the cross
of Christ, but we must through. One thing by experience, my
Lord hath taught me, that the waters betwixt this and heaven
may all be ridden, if we be well horsed, I mean, if we be in Christ,
and not one shall drown by the way, but such as love their own
destruction. 0, if we could wait on for a time, and believe in the
dark the salvation of God ! at least we are to believe good of Christ,
till He gives us the slip (which is impossible), and to take His word
for caution,^ that He shall fill up all the blanks in His promises,
and give us what we want : but to the unbeliever Christ's testa-
ment is white, blank, unwritten paper. Worthy and dear sir, set
your face to heaven, and make you to stoop at all the low entries
in the way ; that ye may receive the kingdom as a child : without
this. He that knew the way said, there is no entry in. 0, but
Christ be willing to lead a poor sinner ! 0, what love my poor
soul hath found in Him, in the house of my pilgrimage ! Suppose
love in heaven and earth were lost, I dare swear it may be found
in Christ. Now the very God of peace establish you, till the day
of the glorious appearance of Christ.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S E.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXXVI.— To the Lady Gaitgirth.
Much honoured and Christian Lady, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I long to hear how it goeth with you and your chil-
dren, I exhort you, not to lose breath, nor to faint in your journey :
the way is not so long to your home, as it was ; it will wear to one
step or an inch at length, and ye shall come ere long to be within
your arm-length of the glorious crown. Your Lord Jesus did sweat
and pant, ere He got up that mount, he was at "Father save me,"
with it : it Avas He who (Ps. xxii. 14) said, "I am poured out
like water; all my bones are out of joint (Christ was as if they
had broken Him upon the wheel) ; My heart is like wax, it is
melted in the midst of My bowels:" ver. 15, "My strength is
dried up like a potsherd." I am sure ye love the way the better
that His holy feet trode it before you. Crosses have a smell of
^ Prison-house. " Round about. ' Security.
LETTEll LXXVII. 167
crossed and pained Christ. I believe yonr Lord will not leave
you to die your lone^ in the way. I know ye have sad hours,
when the Comforter is hid under a vail, and when ye inquire for
Him, and find but a toom^ nest : this, I grant, is but a cold good-
day, when the seeker misseth Him whom the soul loveth : but
even His unkindness is kind, His absence lovely. His mask a sweet
sight, till God send Christ Himself in His own sweet presence :
make His sweet comforts your own, and be not strange and shame-
faced with Christ : homely dealing is best for Him, it is His liking.
When your winter storms are over, the summer of your Lord shall
come : your sadness is with child of joy, He will do you good in
the latter end. Take no heavier lift of your children, than your
Lord alloweth ; give them room beside your heart, but not in the
yolk of your heart, where Christ should be ; for then they are
your idols, not your bairns. If your Lord take any of them home
to His house before the storm come on, take it well, the owner of
the orchard may take down two or three apples of his own trees,
before midsummer, and ere they get the harvest sun ; and it would
not be seemly that His servant, the gardener, should chide him
for it. Let our Lord pluck His own fruit at any season He
pleaseth ; they are not lost to you, they are laid up so well, as that
they are coffered in heaven, where our Lord's best jewels lie.
They are all free goods that are there ; death can have no law to
arrest anything that is within the walls of the New Jerusalem. All
the saints, because of sin, are like old rusty horologies, that must
be taken down, and the wheels scoured and mended, and set up
again in better case than before. Sin hath rusted both soul and
body ; our dear Lord, by death, taketh us down to scour the
wheels of both, and to purge us perfectly from the root and re-
mainder of sin, and we shall be set up in better case than before.
Then pluck up your heart, heaven is yours, and that is a word
few can say. Now the Great Shepherd of the sheep, and the very
God of peace confirm and establish you, to the day of the appearance
of Christ our Lord.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXXVn.— To his Reverend and very Dear Brother,
Mr. George Gillespie.
My very dear Brother, — I received yours. I am still with
the Lord, His cross hath done that which I thought impossible
once. Christ keepeth try.st ^ in the fire and water with His own,
and cometh ere our breath go out, and ere our blood grow cold.
^ Alone. - Empty. ' Engagement.
168 LliiXEU lA'XVIII.
Blessed are they whose feet escape the great golden net that is now
spread. It is our happiness to take the crabbed, rough, and poor
side of Christ's world, which is a lease of crosses and losses, for
Him : for Christ's incomes and casualties that follow Him are many,
And it is not a little one, that a good conscience may be had in fol-
lowing him. This is true gain, and most to be lalDOured for and
loved. Many give Christ for a shadow, because Christ was rather
beside their conscience in a dead and reprobate light than in
their conscience. Let us be ballasted with grace, that we
be not blown over, and that we stagger not. Yet a little while
and Christ and His redeemed ones shall fill the field and come out
victorious. Christ's glory of triumphing in Scotland is yet in the
bud and in the birth, but the birth cannot prove an abortive.
"He shall not faint nor be discouraged, till He have brought forth
judgment unto victory." Let us still mind our covenant, and the
very God of peace be with you.
Your brother in Christ, S. S.
Aberdeen, Sej^t. 9, 1*137.
LETTER LXXVIIL— To Mr. Matthew Mowat.
Reverend and dear brother, — I am refreshed witli your let-
ters. I would take all well at my Lord's hands that He hath done,
if I knew I could do my Lord any service in my suffering. Suppose
my Lord would make a stop-hole of me, to fill a hole in the wall
af His house, or a pinning in Zion's new work ; for any place of trust
in my Lord's house, as steward, or chamberlain, or the like, surely,
I think myself (my very dear brother, I speak not by any proud
figure or trope) unworthy of it; nay, I am not worthy to stand
behind the door. If my head, and feet, and body were half out, half
in, in Christ's house, so I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house,
it would still my greening ^ and love-sick desires. When I hear
that the men of God are at work and speaking in our Lord
Jesus's name, I think myself but an outcast or outlaw, chased from
the city to lie on the hills and live amongst the rocks and out-
fields. 0, that I might but stand in Christ's out-house, or hold a
candle in any low vault of His house! But I know this is but the
vapours that arise out a quarrelous and unbelieving heart to darken
the wisdom of God. And your fault is just mine, that I cannot
believe my Lord's bare and naked word. I must either have an
apple to play me with, and shake hands with Christ, and have
seal, caution, and witness to His word, or else I count myself loose,
howbeit I have the word and faith of a king. 0, I am made of
unbelief, and cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground !
Alas, Christ, under my temptations, is presented to me as lying-
^ Yeaminsr.
LETTER LXXVIII. 169
waters, as a dyvour ^ and a cozener ! we can make such a Christ
as temptations (casting us in a night-dream) doth feign and devise
(and temptations represent Christ ever unlike Himself), and we in
our folly listen to the tempter. If I could minister one saving
word to any, how glad Avould my soul be 1 but I myself (which is
my greatest evil) often mistake the cross of Christ : for I know if
we had wit, and knew well that ease slayeth us fools, we would
desire a mai-ket where we might barter or niffer ^ our lazy ease
with a profitable cross ; howbeit there be an outcast ^ natural be-
twixt our desires and tribulation. But some give a dear price
and gold for physic which they love not, and buy sickness, how-
beit they wish rather to have been whole than to be sick. But
surely, brother, ye shall not have my advice (howbeit alas,
I cannot follow it myself) to contend with the honest and faith-
ful Lord of the house : for go He or come He, He is aye gracious
in His departure. There are grace, and mercy, and loving-kind-
ness upon Christ's back-parts : and when He goeth away the pro-
portion of His face, the image of that fair Sun, that stayeth in
eyes, senses, and heart, after He is gone, leaveth a mass of love be-
hind it in the heart. The sound of His knock at the door of His
beloved, after He is gone and past, leaveth a share of joy and sor-
row both : so we have something to feed upon till He return, and
He is more loved in His departure, and after He is gone, than be-
fore ; as the day in the declining of the sun and towards the even-
ing is often most desired. And as for Christ's cross, I never re-
ceived evil of it, but what was of mine own making. When I
miscooked Christ's physic, no marvel that it hurt me, for since it
was on Christ's back, it hath always a sweet smell, and these 1600
years it keepeth the smell of Christ ; nay, it is elder than that too,
for it is a long time since Abel first hanselled * the cross, and had
it laid upon His shoulders ; and down from Him all alongst to
this very day, all the saints have known what it is. I am glad
that Christ hath such a relation to this cross, and that it is called
the cross of our Lord Jesus, Gal. vi. 14. His reproaches, Heb. xiii.
13; as if Christ would claim it as His proper goods, and so it
cometh in the reckoning among Christ's own property. If it were
simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is not the author nor owner oi
sin, would not own it. I wonder at the enemies of Christ (in whom
malice hath run away with wit, and will is up, and wit down)
that they would essay to lift up the stone laid in Zion. Surely it
is not laid in such sinking ground, as that they can raise it or remove
it ; for when we are in their belly, and they have swallowed us
down, they will be sick and spue us out again. I know Zion and
her Husband cannot both sleep at once : I believe our Lord once
^ Debtor. " Exchange. ^ Quarrel. * Had the first use of.
170 LETTERS LXXIX. AND LXXX.
again shall water witli His dew the witliered hill of Mount Zion
in Scotland, and come down, and make a new marriage again, as
He did long since. Remember our covenant. Your excuse foi
3 our advice to me is needless. Alas, many sit beside light as sick
folks beside meat, and cannot make use of it. Grace be with you.
Your brother in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXXIX.— To Mr. John Meine.
Dear Brother, — I received your letter. I cannot but testify
under mine own hand that Christ is still the longer the better,
and that this time is the time of loves. When I have said all I
can, others may begin and say, I have said nothing of Him, I
never knew Christ to ebb or flow, wax or wane. His winds turn
not when He seemeth to change, it is but we who turn our wrong
side to Him. I never had a plea with Him in my hardest conflicts
but of mine own making. 0, that I could live in peace and good
neighbourhood with such a second, and let Him alone. My un-
belief made many black lies, but my recantation to Christ is not
worth the hearing. Surely He hath borne with strange gades^ in
me : He knoweth my heart hath not natural wit to keep quarters
with such a Saviour. Ye do well to fear your own backsliding :
I had stood sure, if I had in my youth borrowed Christ to be my
bottom : but He that beareth His own weight to heaven, shall
not fail to slip and sink. Ye had no need to be barefooted among
the thorns of this apostate generation, lest a stob^ strike up in
your foot, and cause you to halt all your days. And think not,
Christ will do with you, in the matter of suffering, as the pope
doth in the matter of sin. Ye shall not find that Christ will sell
a dispensation, or give a dyvour's ^ protection against crosses ;
crosses are proclaimed as common accidents to all the saints, and
in them standeth a part of our communion with Christ. But there
lieth a sweet casuality to the cross, even Christ's presence and His
comforts, when they are sanctified. Remember my love to your
father and mother. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXXX.— To John Fleeming, Bailie of Leith.
Much honoured in the Loed,— Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. I am still in good terms with Clirist ; however my Lord's
wind blow, I have the advantage of the calm and sunny side oi
^ Gaddings. ^ Spike, ■• Debtor'd,
LETTER LXXXI. 171
Christ. Devils, and hell, and devil's servants, are all blown
blind in pursning the Lord's little bride : they shall be as a night-
dream who fight against Mount Zion. Worthy sir, I hope ye
take to heart the worth of your calling : this great fair and meet-
ing of people will scail,^ and the port is open for us : as fast as
time weareth out, we flee away : eternity is at our elbow. 0 how
blessed are they who in time make Christ sure for themselves.
Salvation is a great errand ; I find it hard to fetch heaven. 0,
that we could take pains on our lamps for the Bridegroom's
coming. The other side of this world will be turned up incon-
tinent, and up shall down, and these that are weeping in sackcloth
shall triumph on white horses, with Him, whose name is the Word
of God. These dying idols, the fair creatures that we whorishly
love better than our Creator, will pass away like snow-water.
The God-head, the God-head, a communion with God in Christ,
to be halvers^ with Christ of the purchased house and inheritance
in heaven, should be your scope and aim. For myself, when I lay
my counts, 0, what telling, 0, what Aveighing is in Christ ! 0,
how soft are His kisses ! 0, love, love surpassing, in Jesus ! I
have no fault to that love, but that it seemeth to deal niggardly
with me : I have little of it. 0, that I had Christ's seen and read
bond, subscribed by Himself, for my fill of it ! What garland
have I, or what crown, if I looked right on things, but Jesus 1 0,
there is no room in us, on this side of the water, for that love ;
this narrow bit earth, and these ebb and narrow souls, can hold
little of it, because we are full of rifts. I would glory, glory
would enlarge us (as it will) and make us tight, and close up our
seams and rifts, that we might be able to comprehend it, which
yet is incomprehensible. Eemember my love to your Avife. Grace
be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXXXL— To Alexander Gordon of Earlestoun.
Much honoured Sir, — Howbeit I would have been glad to
have seen you; yet seeing our Lord hath been pleased to break
the snare of your adversaries, I heartily bless our Lord on your
behalf. Our crosses for Christ are not made of iron, they are
softer and of more gentle metal. It is easy for God to make a
fool of the devil, the father of all fools. As for me, I but breathe
out what my Lord breatheth in : the scum and froth of my letters,
I father upon my own unbelieving heart. I know your Lord hath
something to do with you, because Satan and malice have shot
sore at you ; but your bow abideth in its strength. Ye shall not,
^ Disperse. " Sharers.
172 LETTER LXXXI.
by my advice, be a halver^ with Christ, to divide the glory of
your deliverance, betwixt yourself and Him, or any other second
mean whatsoever : let Christ (as it setteth- Him well) have all
the glory, and triumph His lone.^ The Lord set Himself on high
in you : I see Christ can borrow a cross for some hours, and set
His servants beside it, rather than under it, and win the plea too,
yea, and make glory to Himself, and shame to His enemies, and
comfort to His children out of it. But whether Christ buy or
borrow crosses. He is King of crosses, and King of devils, and
King over hell, and King over malice. When He was in the
grave. He came out, and brought the keys with Him : He is
Lord-jailor : nay, what say 1 1 He is Captain of the castle, and
He hath the keys of death and hell ; and what are our troubles
but little deaths'? and He, who commandeth the great castle, com-
mand eth the little also. 2. I see a hardened face and two skins
upon our brows, against the winter hail and stormy wind, is
meetest for a poor traveller in a winter journey to heaven. 0,
vvhat art is it to learn to endure hardness, and to learn to go bare-
footed either through the devil's fiery coals or his frozen waters !
3. I am jDersuaded a sea-venture with Christ maketh great riches :
is not our King Jesus His ship coming home, and shall not we get
part of the gold 1 Alas, we fools miscount our gain when we seem
losers. Believe me, I have no challenges against this well-born
cross, for it is come of Christ's house, and is honourable, and His
propine,^ to you it is given to suffer. 0, what fools are we to
undervalue His gifts, and to lightly^ that which is true honour !
for if we could be faithful, our tackling shall not loose, nor our
mast break, nor our sails blow into the sea. The bastard crosses,
the kinless and base-born crosses of worldlings, for evil doing,
must be heavy and grievous ; but our afflictions are light and
momentary. 4. I think myself happy that I have lost credit with
Christ, and that in this bargain I am Christ's sworn dyvour to
whom He will lippen^ nothing ; no not one pin in the work of
my salvation. Let me stand in black and white in the dyvour-
book before Christ, I am happy that my salvation is concredited
to Christ's mediation : Christ oweth no faith to me, to lippen ®
anything to me ; but 0, what faith and credit I owe to Him !
Let my name fall, and let Christ's name stand in honour with
man and angel. Alas, I have no room to sj tread out my affection
before God's people ; and I see not how I can shout out and cry
out the loveliness, the high honour, and the glory of my fairest
Lord Jesus. 0, that He would let me have a bed to lie in, to be
delivered of my birth, that I might paint Him out in His beauty
^ Partner. - Becometh. ■* Alone.
* Gift. 5 Undervalue. " Trust
LETTER LXXXIl. 173
to men as I dow.^ 5. I wondered once at providence, and called
white providence black and unjust, that I should be smothered in
a town, Avhere no soul will take Christ off my hand : but provi-
dence hath another lustre with God than with my bleared eyes.
I proclaim myself a blind body, who know not black and white
in the uncouth course of God's providence. Suppose Christ would
set hell where heaven is, and devils up in glory beside the elect
angels (which yet cannot be), I would I had a heart to acquiesce
in His way without further dispute. I see, infinite wisdom is the
mother of His judgments, and His ways past finding out. 6. I
cannot learn ; but I desire to learn to bring my thoughts, will,
and lusts in under Christ's feet, that He may trample upon them ;
but alas, I am still upon Christ's wrong side. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 12, 1637.
LETTER LXXXIl.— To Robert Lennox ot Disdove.
Worthy and dear Brother, — I forget you not in my bonds :
I know ye are looking to Christ, and, 1 beseech you, follow your
look. I can say more of Christ now by experience (though He be
infinitely above and beyond all that can be said of Him) than
when I saw you. I am drowned over head and ears in His love.
Sell, sell, sell all things for Christ. If this whole world were the
balk 2 of a balance, it should not be able to bear the weight of
Christ's love. Man and angels have short arms to fathom it. Set
your feet upon this piece blue and base clay of an overgilded and
fair plastered world : an hour's kissing of Christ is worth a world
of worlds. Sir, make sure work of your salvation ; build not upon
sand ; lay the foundation upon the Rock in Zion. Strive to be
dead to this world, and to your will and lusts. Let Christ have
a commanding power and a king's throne in you. Walk with
Christ, howbeit the wind should take the hide off your face. I
promise you, Christ will win the field. Your pastors cause you
to err; except you see Christ's word, go not one foot with them.
Countenance not the reading of that Romish service-book. Keep
your garments clean, as ye would walk with the Lamb clothed in
white. The wrongs I suffer are upon record in heaven : our great
Master and Judge will be upon us all, and bring us before the
sun in our blacks and whites. Blessed are tliey who Avatch, and
keep themselves in God's love. Learn to discern the Bride-
groom's tongue, and to give yourself to prayer and reading. Ye
was often a hearer of me. I would pub my heart-blood upon the
doctrine I taught, as the only way to salvation : go not from it,
^ Can. - Beam.
174 LETTEK LXXXIIT.
my dear brother. What I write to yourself I write to your wife
also. Mind heaven and Christ, and keep the spunk ^ of the love
of Christ you have gotten ; Christ shall blow on it, if ye entertain
it, and your end shall be peace. There is a fire in our Zion ; but
our Lord is but seeking a new bride refined and purified out of
the furnace. I assure you, howbeit we be nick-named puri-
tans, all the powers of the world shall not prevail against us.
Eemember, though a sinful man write it to you, these people shall
yet be in Scotland as a green olive-tree, and a field blessed of the
Lord, and it shall be proclaimed, "Up, up with Christ, and down,
down with all contrary powers." Sir, pray for me (I name you
to the Lord), for further evil is determined against me. Remem-
ber my love to Christian Murray and her daughter. I desire her,
in the edge of her evening, to wait a little, the King is coming,
and He hath something, that she never saw, with Him. Heaven
is no dream. " Come and see " will teach her best. Grace, grace
be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 13, 1637.
LETTER LXXXHI.— To Marion M'Naught.
Dearest in our Lord Jesus, — Count it your honour that
Christ hath begun at you to fine ^ you first. " Fear not," saith
the " Amen, the true and faithful VVitness." I write to you, as
my Master liveth, upon the word of my Ro3^al King, continue in
prayer and in watching, and your glorious deliverance is coming.
Christ is not far oflf; a fig, a straw for all the bits of clay that are
risen against us. " Ye shall thrash the mountains, and fan them
like chaff"," Isa. xli. If ye slack your hands at your meetings, and
your watching to prayer, then it would seem our Rock hath sold
us ; but be diligent, and be not discouraged. I charge ye in Christ,
rejoice, give thanks, believe, be strong in the Lord. That burn-
ing bush in Galloway and Kirkcudbright shall not be burnt to
ashes, for the Lord is in the bush. Be not discouraged that
banishment is to be procured by the king's warrant to the Council
against me ; the earth is my Lord's ; I am filled with His sweet
love, and running over. I rejoice to hear ye are in your journey:
such news as I hear of all your faith and love, rejoice my sad
heart. Pray for me, for they seek my hurt ; but I give myself to
prayer. The blessing of my Lord, and a prisoner of Christ's bless-
ing be with you. 0 chosen and greatly beloved woman, faint
not. Fie, fie if ye faint now, ye lose a good cause : double your
meetings ! cease not for Zion's sake, and hold not your peace, tili
He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, his Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen. 1C37.
' Match or spaik. - Refine.
LETTEPtS LXXXIV AND LXXXV. 175
LETTER LXXXIV.— To Thomas Corbet.
Dear Friend, — I forget you not. It shall be my joy that ye
follow after Christ till ye find Him. My conscience is a feast of
joy to me, that I sought in singleness of heart for Clirist's love, to
put you upon the king's high-way to our Bridegroom and our
Father's house ; thrice blessed are ye, my dear brother, if ye hold
the way. I believe ye and Christ once met, I hope ye will not
sunder with^ Him. Follow the counsel of the man of God, Mr.
William Dalgleish. If ye depart from what I taught you in a
hairbreadth, for fear or favour of men, or desire of ease in this
world, I take heaven and earth to witness, that ill shall come
upon you in end. Build not your nest here ; this world is an
hard, ill-made bed ; no rest in it for your soul. Awake ! awake !
and make haste to seek that Pearl, Christ, that this world seeth
not ; your night, and your Master, Christ, will be upon you within
a clap ; your handbreadth of time will not bide you. Take Christ,
howbeit a storm follow Him ; howbeit this day be not yours and
Christ's, the morrow will be yours and His. I would not ex-
change the joy of my bonds and imprisonment for Christ with all
the joy of this dirty and foul-skinned world. I have a love-bed
with Christ, and am filled with His love. I desire your wife to
do what I write to you : let her remember how dear Christ Avould
be to her, when her breath turneth cold, and the eye-strings shall
break. 0, how joyful should my soul be, to know that I had
brought on a marriage betwixt Christ and that people, few or
many ; if it be not so, I will be woe^ to be a witness against them.
Use prayer ; love not the world ; be humble, and esteem little of
yourself; love your enemies, and pray for them ; make conscience
of speaking truth when none knoweth but God. I never eat but
I pray for you all. Pray for me. Ye and I shall see one another
up in our Father's house. I rejoice to hear that your eye is upon
Christ. Follow on, hing^ on, and quit Him not. The Lord Jesus
be with your spirit.
Your affectionate brother, in our Lord Jesus, S. H.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER LXXXV.— To Alexander Gordon of Earlestoun.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I
received your li tter, which refreshed me. Except from your son
and my brother, I have seen few letters from my acquaintance in
that country, which maketh me heavy ; but I have the company
of a Lord who can teach us all to be kind, and hath the right gate^
of it; though for the present I have seven ups and downs everj
^ Separate from. " Sorrowful. ^ H.ing. * Method.
176 LETTER LXXXV.
day, yet I am abundantly comforted and feasted witii my King
and Well-Beloved daily. It pleaseth Him to come and dine with
a sad prisoner and a solitary stranger. His spikenard casteth a
smell, yet my sweet hath some sour mixed with it, wherein I must
acquiesce ; for there is no reason that His comforts be too cheap,
seeing they are delicacies ; why should He not make them so to
His own 1 But I verily think now, Christ hath led me up to a
nick^ in Christianity, that I was never at before ; I think all before
was but childhood and bairn's play. Since I departed from you,
I have been scalded, while the smoke of hell's fire went in at my
throat, and I would have bought peace with a thousand years'
torment in hell : and I have been up also, after these deep down-
castings and sorrows, before the Lamb's white throne, in my
Father's inner court, the great King's dining-hall, and Christ did
cast a covering of love over me ; He hath casten in a coal in my
soul, and it is smoking among the straw, and keeping the hearth
warm. I look back to what I was before, and I laugh to see the
sand-houses I built when I was a child. At first, the remembrance
ol many fair feast-days with my Lord Jesus in public, which are
now changed into silent Sabbaths, raised a great tempest, and (if
I may speak so) made the devil ado in my soul : the devil came
in, and would prompt me to make a plea with Christ, and to lay
the blame on Him as a hard master. But now these mists are
blown away, and I am not only silenced, as to all quarrelling, but
iully satisfied, l^ow, I wonder that any man living can laugh
upon the world, or give it a hearty good-day. The Lord Jesus
hath handled me so, that as I am now disposed, I think never to
be in this world's common ^ again for a night's lodging : Christ
beareth me good company ; He hath eased me, when I saw it not,
lifting the cross off my shoulders, so that I think it to be but a
feather, because underneath are everlasting arms. God forbid it
came to bartering or niffering^ of crosses ; for I think my cross so
sweet, that I know not where I would get the like of it. Christ's
honeycombs drop so abundantly, that they sweeten my gall.
Nothing breaketh my heart, but that I cannot get the daughters
of Jerusalem, to tell them of my Bridegroom's glory : I charge
you, in the name of Christ, that ye tell all ye come to of it ; and
yet it is above telling and understanding. 0, if all the kingdom
were as I am, except my bonds ! they know not the love-kisses
that my only Lord Jesus wasteth on a dauted* prisoner. On my
salvation, this is the only way to the new city. I know Christ
hath no dumb seals ; would He put His privy seal upon blank
paper ? He hath sealed my sufterings with comforts. I write this
to confirm j^'ou. I write now, what I have seen, as well as heard.
1 Notch, 2 H^bt. = Exchiir.oin- ■» roudled.
LETTER LXXXVI. 177
Now and then, my silence biirneth up my spirit ; but Christ hath
said, thy stipend is running up with interest in heaven, as if thou
wert preaching : and this from a King's mouth rejoiceth my heart.
At other times, I am sad for dwelling in Kedar's tents. There
are none (that I yet know of) but two persons in this town that I
dare give my word for : and the Lord hath removed my brethren
and my acquaintance far from me : and it may be, I be forgotten
in the place, wiiere the Lord made me the instrument to do some
good : but I see this is vanity in me. Let Him make of me what
He pleaseth, if He make salvation out of it to me. I am tempted
and troubled that all the fourteen prelates should have been armed
of God against me only, while the rest of my brethren are still
preaching ; but I dare not say one word, but this, it is good, Lord
Jesus, because Thou hast done it. Woe is me for the virgin
daughter ; woe is me for the desolation of the virgin daughter of
Scotland ! 0, if my eyes were a fountain of tears to weep day
and night for that poor widow kirk, that poor miserable harlot !
alas, then my Father hath put to the door my poor harlot mother!
0, for that cloud of black wrath, and fury of the indignation of
the Lord, that is hanging over the land. Sir, write to me, I be-
seech you : I pray you also be kind to my afflicted brother. Re-
member my love to your wife : and the prayers and the blessing
of the prisoner of Christ be on you. Frequent your meetings for
prayer and communion with God, they would be sweet meetings
to me. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 16, 1637.
LETTER LXXXVL— To Robert Gordon, of Knockbrex.
My dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied
upon you. I am almost wearying, yea wondering, that ye write
not to me ; though I know it is not forgetfulness. As for myself,
I am every way well, all glory to God : I was before at a plea
with Christ, but it was bought by me and unlawful, because His
whole providence was not yea and nay to my yea and nay, and
because I believed Christ's outward look better than His faithful
promise. Yet He hath in patience waited on, while ^ I be come to
myself, and hath not taken advantage of my weak apprehensions
of His goodness. Great and holy is His name ; He looketh to what
I desire to be, and not to what I am. One thing I have learned,
if I had been in Christ by way of adhesion only, as many branches
are, 1 should have been burnt to ashes, and this world should have
seen a suffering minister of Christ turned (of sometliing once in
show) into unsavoury salt. But my Lord Jesus had a good eye
that the tempter should not play foul play, and blow out Christ's
1 Till.
1 78 LETTER LXXXVI.
candle. He took no thought of my stomach, and fretting and
grudging humour, but of His own grace ; when He burned the
house He saved His own goods. And I beUevc, the devil, and the
persecuting woild, shall reap no fruit of me but bui'ned ashes : for
He will see to His own gold, and save that from being consumed
with the fire. 0, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the
furnace of my Lord Jesus ! Who hath now let me see how good
the wheat of Christ is, that goeth through His mill and His o\'en,
to be made bread for His own table. " Grace tried " is better
than grace, and it is more than grace, it is glory in its infancy.
I now see, godliness is more than the outside, and this world's
passements^ and their bushings.- Who knoweth the truth of
grace without a trial 1 O, how little getteth Christ of us, but
that which He winneth (to speak so) Avith much toil and pains !
And how .'■ con would faith freeze without a cross ! How many
dumb crosses have been laid upon my back, that had never a
tongue to speak the sweetness of Christ as this hath ! When Christ
blesseth His own crosses with a tongue, they breathe out Christ's
love, wisdom, kindness, and care of us. Why should I start at the
plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul 1 I
know He is no idle husbandman. He purposeth a crop. 0, thai
this white, withered lay-ground ^ were made fertile to bear a crop
for Him, by whom it is so painfull}^ dressed, and that this fallow
ground were broken up ! Why was I (a fool) grieved, that He
put His garland and His rose upon my head, the glory and honour
of His faithful witnesses ? I desire now to make no more pleas
with Christ. Verily, He hath not put me to a loss by what I
suffer. He oweth me nothing ; for in my bonds, how sweet and
comfortable have the thoughts of Him been to me : wherein I find
a suflicient recompense of reward ! How blind are my adversaries,
who sent me to a banqueting-house : to a house of wine, to my
lovely Lord Jesus, His love-feasts, and not to a jjrison or place of
exile ! Why should I smother my husband's honesty, or sin
against His loA^e, or be a niggard in giving out to others what I
get for nothing? Brother, eat with me and give thanks. I charge
you before God, that ye speak to others, and invite them to help
me to praise. 0 my debt of praise, how weighty is it, and how
far run up ! 0, that others would lend me to pay, and learn* me
to praise ! 0, 1 a drowned dyvour ! Lord Jesus take my thoughts
for payment. Yet I am in this hot summer-blink with the tear in
my eye ; for, by reason of my silence, sorrow, sorrow hath filled
me. My harp is hanged upon the willow trees, because I am in a
strange land. I am still kept in exercise with envious brethren.
My mother hath born me a man of contention. Write to rae
' Trappings. " Oru.^aients. "' Fallow. •* 1 each.
LETTER LXXXVII, 179
your mind anent Y. C. I cannot forget him; I know not what
God hath to do with him. And your mind anent my parishioners'
behaviour, and how they are served in preaching; or if there be a
minister as yet thrust in upon them, which I desire greatly to
know, and which I much fear. Dear brother, ye are in my heart,
to live and to die with you. Visit me with a letter. Pray for me.
Eemember my love to your wife. Grace, grace be with you.
And God who heareth prayer visit you, and let it be unto you
according to the prayers of.
Your own brother, and Christ's prisoner, S. li.
Aberdeen, Jan. 1, 1637.
LETTER LXXXVII.— To my Well-Beloved and Eeverend
Brother, Mr. Robert Blair.
Reverend and dearly-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy, and
peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ be
to you. It is no great wonder, my dear brother, that ye be in
heaviness for a season, and that God's will, in crossing your design
and desires to dwell amongst a people whose God is the Lord,
should move you. I deny not, but ye have cause to inquire what
His providence speaketh in this to you ; but God's directing and
commanding will, can, by no good logic, be concluded from events
of providence. The Lord sent Paul many errands, for the spread-
ing of His Gospel, where he found lions in his way. A promise
was made to His people of the Holy Land, and yet many nations
in the way fighting against, and ready to kill them who had the
promise, or keep them from possessing that good land, which the
Lord their God had given them. I know ye have most to do
with submission of spirit ; but I persuade myself, ye have learned
in every condition wherein ye are cast, therein to be content, and
to say, "Good is the will of the Lord, let it be done." I believe
the Lord tacketh His ship often to fetch the wind, and that He
purposeth to bring mercy out of your sufferings and silence, which
(I know from mine own experience) is grievous to you. Seeing
He knoweth our willing mind to serve Him, our wages and stipend
is running to the fore^ with our God ; even as some sick soldiers
get their pay, when then they are bed-fast and not able to go to
the fields with others. " Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall
I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my
strength," Isa. xlix. 3 ; and Ave are to believe it shall be thus, ere
all the play be played. Jer. li. 35, " The violence done to me
and my flesh, be uiion Babylon, (and the great whore's lovers,) shall
the inhabitants of Zion say, and my blood be upon Chaldca, shall
^ In advance.
180 LETTER LXXXVII.
Jerusalem say ;" and Zech. xii. 2, " Behold I will make Jerusalem
a cup of treml)ling to all the people about, when they shall be in
the siege, both against Judah and Jerusalem ;" ver. 3, " And in
that day, I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people :
they that burden themselves with it shall be broken in pieces,
though all the people of the earth be gathered against it." When
they have eaten and swallowed us up, they shall be sick and vomit
us out living men again. The devil's stomach cannot digest the
church of God. Suffering is the other half of our ministry, how-
beit the hardest : for we would be content our King Jesus would
make an open proclamation, and cry down crosses, and cry up joy,
gladness, ease, honour, and peace. But it must not be so ; through
many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God : not only
by them, but through them must we go : and wiles will not take
us by ^ the cross : it is folly to think to steal to heaven with a
whole skin. For myself, I am here a prisoner, confined in Aber-
deen, threatened to be removed to Caithness, because I desire to
edify in this town ; and I am openly preached against in the
pulpits, in my liearing, and tempted with disputations by the
doctors, especially by D. B. Yet I am not ashamed of my Lord
Jesus, His garland and crown. I would not exchange my weeping
with the fourteen prelates' painted laughter. At my first coming
here, I took the dorts ^ at Christ, and would forsooth summon
Him for unkindness ; I sought a plea of my Lord, and was tossed
with challenges, whether He loved me or not 1 and disputed all
over again that He had done to me ; because " His word was a
fire shut up in my bowels, and I was weary with forbearing ; "
because I said I was cast out of the Lord's inheritance. But now,
I see I was a fool : my Lord miskent ^ all, and did bear with my
foolish jealouEes, and miskent ^ that ever I wronged His love, and
now He is come again with mercy under His wings. I pass from
my (0 witless) summons : He is God (I see) and I am man. Now
it hath pleased Him to renew His love to my soul, and to daut-
His poor prisoner. Therefore, my dear brother, help me to praise
and show the Lord's people with you, what He hath done to my
soul, that they may pray and praise : and I charge you, in the
name of Christ, not to omit it ; for, for this cause I write to you,
that my sufferings may glorify my royal King, and edify His
church in Ireland. He knoweth how one of Christ's love-coals
hath burnt my soul, with a desire to have my bonds to preach
His glory, whose cross I now bear. God forgive you, if ye do it
not. But I hope the Lord will move your heart, to proclaim in
my behalf the sweetness, excellency, and glory of my royal King.
It is but our soft flesh that hath raised a slander on the cross of
^ Past. - Was offended. " Overlooked. * Fondla
LETTER LXXXVIIL 181
Christ ; I see now the white side of it. j\Iy Lord's chains are all
overgilded. 0, if Scotland and Ireland had part of my feast !
And yet, I get not my meat but with many strokes. There are
none here to whom I can speak; I dwell in Kedar's tents. Refresh
me with a letter from you ; few know what is betwixt Christ and
me. Dear brother, upon my salvation, this is His truth that we
suffer for. Christ would not seal a blank charter to souls.
Courage, courage, joy, joy, for evermore ! 0 joy unspeakable and
glorious ! 0, for help to set my crowned King on high ! 0
for love to Him, who is altogether lovely ! That love which many
waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown ! I remembeB
you, and I bear your name on my breast to Christ ; I beseech you,
forget not His afflicted prisoner. Grace, mercy, and peace be with
you. Salute in the Lord from me, Mr. Cuninghame, Mr. Liviug-
Bton, Mr. Ridge, Mr. Colwart, &c.
Your brother and fellow-prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 7, 1637.
LETTER LXXXVin.— To John Kennedy, Bailie of Ayr.
Worthy and well-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be unto you. I am yet waiting what our Lord will do for His
afflicted church, and for my re-entry to my Lord's house. 0, that
I could hear the forfeiture of Christ (now casten out of His inheri-
tance) recalled and taken off by open proclamation ; and that
Christ were restored to be a freeholder and a landed heritor in
Scotland ; and that the courts, fenced in the name of the Ixastard
prelates (their godfather's, the Pope's bailiffs and sheriffs), were
cried down ! 0, how sweet a sight were it to see all the tribes of
the Lord in this land fetching home again our banished King
Christ, to His own palace. His sanctuary, and His throne ! I
shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith shall out-Avatch all this
winter night, and not nod or slumber, till my Lord's summer day
dawn upon me. It is much, if faith and hope, in the sad nights
of our heavy trial, escape with a whole skin, and without crack or
crook ; I confess, unbelief hath not reason to be either father or
mother to it (for unbelief is always an irrational thing) ; but how
can it be, but such weak eyes as ours must cast water in a great
smoke, or that a weak head should not turn giddy when the water
runneth deep and strong 1 But God be thanked, that Christ, in
His children, can endure a stress and storm, howbeit soft nature
would fall down in pieces. 0, that I had tliat^ confidence as to
rest on this, though He should grind me into small powder, and
bray me into dust, and scatter the dust to the four winds of
heaven ; that my Lord would gather up the powder, and make
1 Such.
182 LETTEE LXXXVIII.
me up a new vessel again, to bear Christ's name to the world. I
am sure that love, bottomed and seated upon the faith of" His love
to me, would desire and endure this, and would even claim and
thriep ^ kindness upon Christ's strokes, and kiss His lovely glooms;
and both spell and read salvation upon the wounds made by-
Christ's sweet hands. 0, that I had but a promise from the
mouth of Christ of His love to me ; and then, howbeit my faith
were as tender as paper, I think longing, and dwining, and green-
ing ^ of sick desires would cause it to bide out the siege, till the
Lord came to fill the soul with His love ; and I know also, in that
case faith should abide green and sappy at the root, even at mid-
winter ; and stand out against all storms. However it be, I know
Christ winneth heaven in despite of hell ; but I owe as many
praises and thanks to free grace, as would lie betwixt me and the
utmost border of the highest heaven— suppose ten thousand
heavens were all laid above other. ^ But, oh, I have nothing that
can hire or bud * grace ; for if grace would take hire, it were no
more grace ; but all our stability, and the strength of our salvation,
is anchored and fastened upon free grace. And I am sure Christ
hath by His death and blood casten the knot so fast, that the
fingers of devils, and hell full of sins, cannot loose it ; and that
bond of Christ (that never yet was, nor never shall, nor can be
registrated) standeth surer than heaven or the days of heaven, as
that sweet pillar of the covenant, whereupon we all hang. Christ
and all His little ones under His two wings, and in the compass
or circle of His arms, is so sure, that cast Him and them in the
ground of the sea, He shall come up again, and not lose one ; an
odd one cannot, nor shall not be lost in the telling. This was
always God's aim, since Christ came in the ploy,^ betwixt Him
and us, to make men dependent creatures, and in the work of our
salvation to put created strength, and arms, and legs of clay quite
out of play, and out of office and court : and now God hath sub-
stituted in our room, and accepted His Son the Mediator for us,
and all that we can make. If this had not been, I would have
skinked ^ over and foregone my part of paradise and salvation for
a breakfast of dead moth-eaten earth ; but now I would not give
it, nor let it go, for more than I can tell : and truly they are silly
fools, and ignorant of Christ's worth (and so full ill-trained and
tutored), who tell heaven and Christ over the board for two
feathers or two straws of the devil's painted pleasures, only lustred
in the utter '^ side. This is our happiness now, that our reckonings
at night, when eternity shall come upon us, cannot be told ; we
shall be so far gainers, and so far from being superexpended (as
1 Argue. " Yearning. ^ One another. ■* !Make offer for.
■ Tra.iisactioii. * Renounced. ^ Outer.
LKTTEK LXXXIX. 183
the poor fools of this world are, who give out their motiey, and
get in but black hunger), that angels cannot lay our counts, nor
sum our advantage and incomes. Who knoweth how far is it
to the bottom of our Christ, and to the ground of our heaven 1
Who ever weighed Christ in a pair of balances 1 Who hath Sf^en
the foldings and plies, and the heights and depths of that glory,
which is in Him, and kept for usi 0, for such a heaven, as to
stand afar off", and see, and love, and long for Him. while ^ time's
thread be cut, and this great work of creation dissolved, at the
coming of our Lord ! Now to His grace I recommend you. I
beseccli you also, pray for a re-entry to me into the Lord's house,
if it be His good will.
Yours, in His sweet Lord Jesus, S. II.
Aberdeen, Jan. 6, 1637.
LETTER LXXXIX.— To Elizabeth Kennedy.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I have long
had a purpose of writing to you, but I have been hindered. 1
heartily desire that ye would mind your joui'ney, and consider to
what airt ^ your soul setteth its face ; for all come not home at
night, who suppose they have set their face heaven-ward. It is
a woeful thing to die and miss heaven, and to lose house-room
with Christ at night. It is an evil journey, where travellers are
benighted in the fields. I persuade myself, that thousands shall
be deceived and ashamed of their hope ; because they cast their
anchor in sinking sands, they must lose it. Till now, I knew not
the pain, labour, nor difficulty that there is to win home ; nor
did I understand so well, before this, what that meaneth : " the
righteous shall scarcely be saved." 0, how many a poor pro-
fessor's candle is blown out, and never lighted again ! I see ordi-
nary profession, and to be ranked amongst the children of God,
and to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to
carry professors to heaven ; but certainly, a name is but a name,
and will never bide a blast of God's storm. I counsel you not to
give your soul, or Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep, till ye have
gotten something that will bide the fire and stand out the storm.
I am sure if my one foot were in heaven, and then He would say,
fend 3 thyself, I will hold my grips of thee no longer ! I should go
no further, but presently fall down in as many pieces of dead
nature. They are happy for evermore who are over head and
ears in the love of Christ, and know no sickness but love-sickness
for Christ, and feel no pain but the pain of an absent and hidden
Well-Beloved. We run our souls out of breath, and tire them in
coursing and galloping after our own night-dreams (such are thy
' Till. - C^uarter. ^Takecareof.
184 LETTER LXXXIX.
rovings of our miscarrying hearts), to get some created good thing
in this life and on this side of death. We would i\iin stay and
spin out a heaven to ourselves on this side of the water ; but
sorrow, want, changes, crosses, and sin are both woof and warp in
that ill-spun web. 0, how sweet and dear are these thoughts that
are still upon the things which are above ! and how happy are
they who are longing to have little sand in their glass, and to
have time's thread cut, and can cry to Christ, Lord Jesus have
over, come and fetch the driery -^ passenger ! I wish our thoughts
were more frequently than they are on our country. 0, but
heaven casteth a sweet smell afar off to those who have spiritual
smelling ! God hath made many fair flowers, but the fairest of
them all is heaven, and the flower of all flowers is Christ. 0, why
do we not flee up to that lovely One ? Alas, that there is such
scarcity of love, and lovers of Christ, amongst us all ! Fie, fie
upon us, who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands,
fair pleasures, fair honours, and fair persons, and do not pine and
melt away with love for Christ ! 0, would to God I had more love
for His sake ! 0, for as much love as would lie betwixt me and
heaven for His sake ! 0, for as much love as would go round about
the earth and over the heaven ; yea, the heaven of heavens, and
ten thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only
fair Christ ! But, alas ! I have nothing for Him ; yet He hath much
for me. It is no gain to Christ that he getteth my little feckless ^
span-length and hand-breadth of love. If men would have some-
thing to do with their hearts and their thoughts, that are always
rolling up and down, like men with oars in a boat, after sinful
vanities, thay may find great and sweet employment to their
thoughts upon Christ. If these frothy, fluctuating, and restless
hearts of ours would come all about Christ, and look into His love,
to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy, to the unsearchable
riches of His grace, to inquire after and search into the beauty of
God in Christ, they would be swallowed up in the depth, and
height, length, and breadth of His goodness. 0, if men would
draw the curtains and look into the inner side of the ark, and be-
hold how the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in Him bodily !
0, who would not say, " Let me die, let me die ten times, to see
a sight of Him !" Ten thousand deaths were no great price to
give for Him. I am sure, sick, fainting love would heighten the
market and raise the price to the double for Him. But, alas, if
men and angels were rouped and sold at the dearest price, they
would not all buy a night's love or a four-and-twenty hours' sight
of Christ ! 0, how happy are they who get Christ for nothing !
God send me no more for my part of paradise but Christ ; and
^ Weary. - Worthless.
LETTEK XC. 185
surely I were rich enough, and as well heavened as the best of
them, if Christ were my heaven. I can write no better thing to
you than to desire you, if ever ye laid Christ in a count, to take
Him up and count over again, and weigh Him again and again :
and after this have no other to court your love, and to woo your
soul's delight, but Christ. He will be found worthy of all your
love ; howbeit it should swell upon you, from the earth to the
uppermost circle of the heaven of heavens. To our Lord Jesus
and His love I commend you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER XC— To Jonet Kennedy.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Ye are not
a little obliged to His rich grace, who hath separated you for Him-
self, and for the promised inheritance with the saints in light,
from this condemned and guilty world. Hold fast Christ, con-
tend for Him ; it is a lawful plea to go to holding and drawing
for Christ ; and it is not possible to keep Christ peaceably, having
once gotten Him, except the devil were dead. It must be your
resolution to set your face against Satan's northern tempests and
storms for salvation. Nature would have heaven come sleeping
to us^ in our beds. We would all buy Christ, so being we might
make price ourselves ; but Christ is worth more blood and lives
than either ye or I have to give Him. When we shall come
home, and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom,
and when our heads shall find the Aveight of the eternal crown of
glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings ; then
shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from
a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time-suffering is not
worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven. 0, what
then will be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses ! 0, how
weighty and of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles
be ! O- "^hen once He shall thrust a wearied traveller's head
betwixt His blessed breasts, the poor soul shall think one kiss of
Christ hath fully paid home forty or fifty years' wet feet, and all
its sore hearts and light sufferings it had in following after Clirist!
0, thrice-blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bcAvitched
with dreams, shadows, feckless^ things, night vanities, and night
fancies of a miserable life of sin. Shame on us who sit still, fet-
tered with the love and liking of the loan of a piece of dead clay.
0, poor fools who are beguiled with painted things, and this
world's farir weather and smooth promises, and rotten worm-eaten
* To us sleeping. ^ Worthless.
186 LETTER XC.
hopes! may not the devil laugh, to see us give out our souls, and
get in but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin 1 0, for a
sight of eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's mar-
riage-supper! Half a draught or a drop of the wine of consola-
tions, that is up in our banqueting-house, out of Christ's own
hand, would make our stomachs loathe the brown bread and the
sour drink of a miserable life. 0, how far are we bereft of wit,
to chase, and hunt, and run till our souls be out of breath, after a
condemned happiness of our own making ! And do we not sit far
in our own light to make it a matter of bairn's play, to skink^ and
drink over paradise and the heaven that Christ did sweat for,
even for a blast of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast? 0,
that we were out of ourselves and dead to this world, and this
world dead and crucified to us, and then we should be close out
of love and conceit of any masked and fairded^ lover whatsoever.
Then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the
inmost yolk of our heart. Then Christ should be our night-song
and our morning-song. Then the very noise and din of our Well-
Beloved's feet, when He cometh, and His first knock or rap at the
door should be as the news of two heavens to us. 0, that our
eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sun-
burnt flower, even this plastered, fair-out-sided world ; and then
we have neither eye nor smell for the flower of Jesse, for that
"Plant of renown," for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest
rose that ever God planted ! 0, let some of us die to feel the smell
of Him, and let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold
for evermore, providing I may anchor my tottering soul upon
Christ ! I know it is sometimes at this. Lord, What wilt Thou
have for Christ? But, 0 Lord, canst Thou be bodded or pro-
pined ^ with any gift for Christ 1 0 Lord, can Christ be sold ? or
rather, may not a poor needy sinner have Him for nothing 1 If I
can get no more, 0 let me be pained to all eternity with longing
for Him. The joy of hungering for Christ should be my heaven
for evermore. Alas, that I cannot draw souls and Christ together.
But I desire the coming of His kingdom, and that Christ (as I as-
suredly hope He shall) would come upon withered Scotland, as
rain upon the new mown grass. 0 let the King come ! 0 let His
kingdom come ! 0 let their eyes rot in their eye-holes, who will
not receive Him home again to reign and rule in Scotland ! Grace,
grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. II.
Aberdeen, 1637.
' Ivenounce. '' Painted. ■* Bought or bribed.
LETTEK XCI. 187
LETTER XCI— To his Reverend and Dear Brother, Mr. David
Dickson.
Reverend and dearest Brother, — What joy have I out of
heaven's gates, but that my Lord Jesus be glorified in my bonds'?
Blessed be ye of the Lord who contribute anything to my obliged
and indebted praises. Dear brother, help me, a poor dyvour,^ to
pay the interest, for I cannot come nigh to render the principal.
It is not jest nor sport which maketh me to speak and write as I
do. I never before came to that nick or pitch of a communion
with Christ that I have now attained unto for my confirmation.
I have been these two Sabbaths or three in private, taking instru-
ments ^ in the name of God, that my Lord Jesus and I have kissed
each other in Aberdeen, the house of my pilgrimage. I seek not
an apple to play me witli. He knoweth whom I serve in the Spirit,
but a seal ; I but beg earnest, and am content to suspend and
frist^ glory while ^ supper time. I know this world will not last
with me ; for my moonlight is noon daylight, and my four-hours ''
above my feasts when I was a preacher ; at which times also, I
was embraced very often in His arms. But who can blame Christ
to take me on behind Him (if I may say so) on His white horse,
or in His chariot paved with lov^e, through a water? Will not a
father take his little dauted*^ Davie in his arms, and carry him
over a ditch or a mire % My short legs could not step over this
laire''' or sinking mire, and therefore my Lord Jesus will bear me
through. If a change come and a dark day, so being that He will
keep my faith without flaw or crack, I dare not blame Him, how-
beit I get no more while* I come to heaven. But ye know, the
physic behoved to have sugar ; my faith was fallen a-swoon, and
Christ but held up a swooning man's head. Indeed I pray not
for a dauted ^ bairn's diet. He knoweth, I would have Christ sour
or sweet, any way, so being it be Christ indeed. I stand not now
upon pared apples, or sugared dishes ; but I cannot blame Him to
give ; and I must gape and make a wide mouth. Since Christ
will not pantry-up^ joys» He must be welcome, who will not bide
aAvay. I seek no other fruit, but that He may be glorified. He
knoweth, I would take hard fare to have His name set on high.
I bless you for your counsel. I hope to live by faiili, and swim
without a mass or bundle of joyful sense under my chin ; at least
to venture, albeit I should be ducked. Now, for my case, I think
the Council should be essayed, and the event referred to God.
Duties are ours, and events are God's. I shall go through yours
upon the covenant at leisure, and write to you my mind therean-
^ Debtor. ^ Protesting (a Scotch law term). ^ Postpone. * TilL
^ A slight repast, taken at four o'clock, between dinner and supper.
® Fondled. '' Quagmire. ^ Store-up.
188 LETTER XCII.
ent, and anent the Arminiaa contriict betwixt the Father and the
Son. I beseech you set to, to go throiigii Scripture. Yours on
the Hebrews is in great request with all who would be acquainted
with Christ's testament. I purpose, God willing, to set about
Hos'ea, and to try if I can get it to the press here. It refresheth
nie much, that ye are so kind to my brother; I hope your counsel
shall do him good ; I recommend him to you, since I am so far
from him. I am glad that the dying servant of God, famous and
faitliful Mr. Cuninghame, sealed your ministry before he fell
asleep. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTEE XCII— To the mucli Honoured William Riggie of
Atheruie.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I
received your long-looked-for and short letter ; I would ye had
spoke more to me, who. stand in need. I find Christ, as ye write,
aye the longer the better, and, therefore, cannot but rejoice in His
salvation, who hath made my chains my wings, and hath made me
a king over my crosses and over my adversaries. Glory, glory,
glory to His high, high, and holy name. Not one ounce, not one
grain-weight more is laid on me than He hath enabled me to bear.
And I am not so much wearied to suffer as Zion's haters are to
persecute. 0, if I could find a way, in any measure, to strive to
be even with Christ's love; but that I must give over! 0, who
would help a dyvour^ to pay praises to the King of saints, who
triumpheth in His weak servants 1 I see, if Christ but ride upon
a worm, or a feather. His horse will neither stumble nor fall.
" The worm Jacob is made by Him a new sharp threshing instru-
ment having teeth, to thresh the mountains, and beat them small,
and to make the hills as chaff and to fan them, so as the wind
shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them."
Isa. xli. 14, 15, 16. Christ's enemies are but breaking their own
heads in pieces upon the rock laid in Zion, and the stone is not
removed out of its place. Faith hath cause to take courage from
our very afflictions ; the devil is but a whet-stone to sharpen the
faith and patience of the saints. I know He but heweth and
polisheth stones all this time for the New Jerusalem. But in all
this, three things have much moved me, since it hath pleased my
Lord to turn my moonlight into daylight. First, He hath yoked
me to work, to wrestle with Christ's love of longing, wherewith I
am sick-pained, fainting, and like to die, because I cannot get
1 Debtor.
LETTER XCIIl. 189
Himself, which I think a strange sort of desertion, for I have not
Himself (whom if I had, my love-sickness would cool, and my
fever go away ; at least, I should know the heat of the fire of
complacency, which would cool the scorching heat of the fire of
desire), and yet I have no penury of His love, and so I dwine, I
die, and He seemeth not to rue^ on me. I take instruments in
His hand^ that I would have Him; but I cannot get Him, and
my best cheer is black hunger : I bless Him for that feast.
Secondly, old challenges now and then revive and cast all down.
I go halting and sighing, fearing there be an unseen process yet
coming out, and that heavier than I can answer. I cannot read
distinctly my Surety's act of cautionery^ for me in particular, and
my discharge ; and sense, rather than faith, assureth me of what
I have ; so unable am I to go, but by a hold. I could (with rever-
ence of my Lord) forgive Christ, if He would give me as much
faith as I have hunger for Him. I hope the pardon is now ob-
tained, but the peace is not so sure to me as I would wish. Yet
one thing I know ; there is not a way to heaven but the way He
hath graced me to profess and suffer for. Thirdly, woe, woe is
me, for the virgin daughter of Scotland, and for the fearful desola-
tion and wrath appointed for this land ; and yet, all are sleeping,
eating and drinking, laughing and sporting, as if all were well.
0, our dim gold, our dumb, blind pastors ; the sun is gone down
upon them, and our nobles bid Christ fend^ for Himself, if He be
Christ. It were good we should learn in time the way to our
stronghold. Sir, howbeit not acquainted, remember my love to
your wife. I pray God establish you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 9, 1637.
LETTER XCIIL— To John Ewart, Bailie of Kirkcudbright.
My a^ery worthy and dear Friend, — I cannot but most
kindly thank you for the expressions of your love. Your love
and respect to me is Si great comfort to me. I bless His high and
glorious name, that the terrors of great men have not affrighted
me from open avouching of tlje Son of God ; nay. His cross is the
sweetest burden that ever I bare : it is such a burden as wings are
to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbour.
I have not much cause to fall in love with the world ; but rather
to wish, that He who sitteth upon the floods would bring my
broken ship to land, and keep my conscience safe in these danger-
ous times, for wrath from the Lord is coming on this sinful lanri
It were good, that we, prisoners of hope, knew of our strongholi
^ I'ake pity. ^ Protest. -^ Security. •* Provide.
190 LETTEll XCIV.
to run to, before the storm come on ; therefore, sir, I beseech you,
by the mercies of God, and comforts of His Spirit, by the blood
of your Saviour, and by your compearance before the sin-revenging
Judge of the world, keep your garments clean, and stand for the
truth of Christ, which ye profess. When the time shall come that
your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, your breath grow
cold, and this house of clay shall totter, and your one foot shall
be over the march ^ in eternity, it shall be your comfort and joy
that ye gave your name to Christ. The greatest part of the
world think heaven at the next door, and that Christianity is an
easy task ; but they will be beguiled. Worthy sir, I beseech you
make sure work of salvation ; I have found by experience, that all
I could do hath had much ado in the day of my trial ; and there-
fore lay up a sure foundation for the time to come. I cannot
requite you for your undeserved favours to me and my now
afflicted brother ; but I trust to remember you to God. Re-
member me heartily to your kind wife.
Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER XCIV.— To William Fullerton, Provost of
Kirkcudbright.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. 1
am obliged to your love in God. I beseech you, sir, let nothing
be so dear to you as Christ's truth, for salvation is worth all the
world, and therefore be not afraid of men that shall die. The
Lord shall do for you in your suffering for Him, and shall bless
your house and seed ; and ye have God's promise, that ye shall
have His presence in fire, water, and in seven tribulations. Your
day will wear to an end, and your sun go down. Li deatli, it will
be your joy that ye have ventured all je have for Christ, and
there is not a promise of heaven made but to such as are willing
to suffer for it. It is a castle taken by force. This earth is but
the clay-portion of bastards, and therefore no wonder the world
smile on its own ; but better things are laid up for His lawfully
begotten bairns,^ whom the world hatetli. I have experience to
speak this. For I would not exchange my prison and sad nights
with the court, honour, and ease of my adversaries. My Lord is
pleased to make many unknown faces to laugh upon me, and to
provide a lodging for me ; and He Himself visiteth my soul with
feasts of spiritual comforts. 0, how sweet a Master is Christ !
blessed are these who lay down all for Him. I thank you kindly
for your love to my distressed brother. Ye have the blessing and
1 Boundary. - Children.
LETTEK XCV. 191
prayers of the prisoner of Christ to 3'ou, your wife, and children,
liemember my love and blessing to William and Samuel. I desire
them in their youth to seeli the Lord and fear His great name ; to
pray twice a day (at least) to God, and to read God's word ; to
keep themselves from cursing, lying, and filthy talking. Now,
the only wise God, and the presence of the Son of God be with
you all. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER XCV.— To the Worthy and much Honoured ^Ir.
Alexander Colvill of Blair.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
The bearer hereof, M. R. F., is most kind to me ; I desire you to
thank him ; but none is so kind as my only royal King and Master,
whose cross is my garland. The King dineth with His prisoner,
and His spikenard casteth a smell. He hath led me up to such a
pitch and nick of joyful communion with Himself as I never
knew before. When I look back to bygones, I judge myself to
have been a child at A, B, C with Christ. Worthy sir, pardon
me, I dare not conceal it from you, it is as a fire in my bowels.
In His presence, Avho seeth me, I speak it, I am pained Avith the
love of Christ ; He hath made me sick and wounded me. Hunger
for Christ out-runneth faith. I miss faith more than love. 0, if
the three kingdoms would come and see ! 0, if they knew His
kindness to my soul ! It hath pleased Him to bring me to this,
that I will not strike sails to this world, nor flatter it, nor adore
trhis clay-idol, that fools worship. As I am now disposed, I think
I will neither borrow nor lend with it ; and yet I get my meat
from Christ with nurture;^ for seven times a day I am lifted up
and casten down. My dumb sabbaths burden my heart and make
it bleed. I want not fearful challenges, and jealousies sometimes
of Christ's love, that He hath casten me over the dyke^ of the
vineyard as a dry tree. But this is my infirmity. By His grace
I take^ myself in these ravings. It is kindly that faith and love
both be sick, and fevers are kindly to most joyful communion
with Christ. Ye are blessed, who avouch Christ openly before
the princes of this kingdom, whose eyes are upon you. It is your
glory to lift Him up on His throne, to carry His train, and bear
up the hem of His robe royal. He hath an hiding-place for M. A. C.
against the storm. Go on and fear not what man can do : the
saints seem to have the worst of it (for apprehensions can make a
lie of Christ and of His love), but it is not so ; providence is not
rolled upon unequal and crooked wheels : " All things work to-
» Discii)liae. 2 Wall. ^ Check
192 LETTER XCVI.
gether for the good of tliose who love God, and are called accord-
ing to His purpose." Ere it be long, we shall see the white side
of God's providence. My brother's case hath moved me not a
little. He wrote to me your care and kindness. Sir, the prisoner's
blessings and prayers I trust shall not go by^ you. " He that is
able to keep you, and to present you before the presence of His
face with joy, establish your heart in the love of Christ."
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 19, 1637.
LETTER XCVI.— To Earlestown, Younger.
Honoured and dear Brother,— Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. I received your letter, which refreshed my soul. I thank
God the court is closed ; I think shame of my part of it. I pass
now from my unjust summons of unkindness, libelled against
Christ my Lord. He is not such a Lord and Master as I took
Him to be ; verily, He is God, and I am dust and ashes. I took
Christ's glooms to be as good as scripture speaking wrath, but I
have seen the other side of Christ, and the white side of His cross
now. I behoved to come to Aberdeen, to learn a new mystery in
Christ, that His promise is better to be believed than His looks ;
and that the devil can cause Christ's glooms speak a lie to a weak
man. Nay, verily, I was a child before, all bygones are but
bairns' play. I would I could begin to be a Christian in sad
earnest. I need not blame Christ if I be not one ; for He hath
showed me heaven and hell in Aberdeen. But the truth is, for
all my sorrow Christ is nothing in my debt ; for His comforts
have refreshed my soul. I have heard and seen Him in His sweet-
ness, so as I am almost saying, it is not He that I was wont to
meet with. He laugheth more cheerfully ; His kisses are more
sweet and soul-refreshing than the kisses of the Christ I saw be-
fore were (though He be the same) ; or rather, the King hath led
me up to a measure of joy and communion with my Bridegroom
that I never attained to before ; so that often I think I will neither
borrow nor lend with this world, I Avill not strike sail to crosses,
nor flatter them, to be quit of them, as I have done. Come all
crosses ; welcome, welcome ! so I may get my heart full of my
Lord Jesus. I have been so near Him, as I have said, I take
instruments," this is the Lord, leave a token behind thee, that I
may never forget this. Now what can Christ do more to daut ^
one of His poor prisoners ? Therefore, sir, I charge you, in the
name ol my Lord Jesus, praise with me, and show to others what
He hath done unto my soul. This is the fruit of my sufFerings,
1 Past. - Protest. '' Fondle.
LETTER XCVI. 193
that I desii'e Christ's name may be spread abroad in this kingdom
in my behalf. I hope in God not to slander Him again ; yet in
all this, I get not my feasts without some mixture of gall ; neither
am I free of old jealousies, for He hath removed my lovers and
friends far from me ; He hath made my congregation desolate,
and taken away my crown ; and my dumb sabbaths are like a
stone tied to a bird's foot, that wanteth not wings, they seem to
hinder me to flee, were it not that I dare not say one word, but,
" well done, Lord Jesus." We can in our prosperity sport our-
selves, and be too bold with Christ; yea, be that^ insolent as to
chide with Him ; but under the water we dare not speak. I
wonder now of my sometimes boldness, to chide and quarrel Christ,
to nickname providence, when it stroked me against the hair ; but
now swimming in the waters, I think my will is fallen to the
ground of the water. I have lost it. I think I would fain let
Christ alone and give Him leave to do Avith me what He pleaseth,
if He would smile upon me. Verily, we know not what an evil it
is to spill ^ and indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will.
I was once I would not eat except I had waled ^ meat ; now I dare
not complain of crumbs and parings under His table. I was once
that I would make the house ado, if I saw not the world carved
and set in order to my liking ; now I am silent, when I see God
hath set servants on horseback, and is fattening and feeding the
children of perdition. I pray God, I never find my will again.
0, if Christ would subject my will to His and trample it under
His feet, and liberate me from that lawless lord ! Now, sir, in
your youth gather fast, your sun will mount to the meridian
quickly, and thereafter decline. Be greedy of grace. Study above
anything, my dear brother, to mortify your lusts. 0, but pride
of youth, vanity, lust, idolizing of the world, and charming plea-
sures take long time to root them out ! As far as ye are advanced
in the way to heaven, as near as ye are to Christ, as much progress
as ye have made in the way of mortification, ye will find that ye
are far behind, and have most of your work before you. I never
took it to be so hard to be dead to my lusts and to this world.
When the day of visitation cometh, and j^our old idols come weep-
ing about you, ye will have much ado not to break your heart ; it
is best to give up in time with them, so as ye could at a call quit
your part of this world for a drink of water or a thing of nothing.
Verily, I have seen the best of this world, a moth-eaten, thread-
bare coat : I purpose to lay it aside, being now holey and old. 0,
for my house above not made with hands ! Pray for Christ's
prisoner, and write to me. Remember my love to your mother.
Desire her from me to make for* removing; the Lord's tide will
^ So. - Spoil. " Picked or choice. ■* Prei^are for.
194 LETTER XCVII.
not bide her ; and to seek an lieavenly mind, that her heart may
be often there. Grace be with you.
Yours and Christ's prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637.
LETTER XCVIL— To Robert Glendining.
My dear Friend, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to yon. I
thank you most kindly for your care of me, and your love and
respective^ kindness to my brother in his distress. I pray the
Lord, ye may find mercy in the day of Christ, and I entreat you,
sir, to consider the times ye live in, and that your soul is of more
worth to you than the whole world, which, in the day of the blow-
ing of the last trumpet, shall lie in white ashes, as an old castle
burnt to nothing : and remember that judgment and eternity is
before you. My dear and worthy friend, let me entreat you in
Christ's name, and by the salvation of your soul, and by your
compearance before the dreadful and sin-revenging Judge of the
world, make your accounts ready : read them ere ye come to the
water side ; for your afternoon will wear short, and your sun fall
low and go down : and ye know that this long time your Lord
hath waited on you. 0, how comfortable a thing shall it be to
you, when time shall be no more, and your soul shall depart out
of the house of clay, to vast and endless eternity, to have your
soul dressed up and prepared for your Bridegroom ! No loss is
comparable to the loss of the soul, there is no hope of regaining
that loss. 0, how joyful would my soul be to hear that ye would
start to the gate, and contend for the crown, and leave all vanities,
and make Christ your garland ! let your soul put away your old
lovers, and let Christ have your whole love : I have some experi-
ence to write of this to you. My witness is in heaven. I would
not exchange my chains and bonds for Christ, and my sighs for
ten worlds' glory. I judge this clay-idol, that Adam's sons are
rouping and selling their souls for, not worth a drink of cold
water. 0, if your soul were in my soul's stead, how sick would
ye be of love for that fairest One, that fairest among the sons of
men ! May-flowers, and morning-vapours, and summer-mist,
posteth not so fast away as these worm-eaten pleasures that we follow.
We build castles in the air, and night-dreams are our day^ idols
that we dote on. Salvation, salvation is our only one necessary
thing. Sir. call home your thoughts to this work, to inquire for
your Well-Beloved : this earth is the portion of bastards ; seek the
son's inheritance, and let Christ's truth be dear to you. I pawn
my salvation on it, tliat this is the honour of Christ's kingdom I
1 Ecspectful. ' (?". Clay.
LETTEKS XCVIll, AND XCIX. 196
now suffer for (and this world I hope shall not come between me
and my garland) and that this is the way to life. When ye and
I shall lie lumps of pale clay upon the cold ground, our pleasures,
that we now naturally love, shall be less than nothing in that day.
Dear brother, fulfil my joy, and betake you to Christ without
further delay, ye will be fain at length to seek to Him, or do in-
finitely worse. Remember my love tc your wife. Grace be Avith
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER XCVIIL— To William aLENDiNiNG.
Well-beloved and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. I thank you most kindly for your care and love to
me, and, in particular, to my brother in his distress in Edinburgh.
Go on through your waters without wearying, your Guide knoweth
the Avay, follow Him, and cast your cares and tentations upon
Him : and let not worms, the sons of men, affright you ; they
shall die, and the moth shall eat tliem ; keep your garland, there
is no less at the stake, in this game betwixt us and the world, than
our conscience and salvation : we have need to take heed to the
game, and not to yield to them. Let them take other things
from us ; but here, in matters of conscience, we must hold and
draw with kings, and set ourselves in terms of opposition with the
shields of the earth. 0, the sweet communion for evermore that
hath been between Christ and His poor prisoner ! He wearieth
not to be kind. He is the fairest sight I see in Aberdeen, or any
part that ever my feet were in. Remember my hearty kindness
to your wife ; I desire her to believe, and lay her cares on God,
and make fast work of salvation. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER XCIX.— To Jean Brown.
Well beloved and dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. 1 received your letter, which I esteem an evidence of
your Christian affection to me, and of your love to my honourable
Lord and Master. My desire is, that your communion with Christ
may grow, and that your reckonings may be put by-hand ^ with
your Lord, ere ye come to the water side. 0, who knoweth how
sweet Christ's kisses are ! who hath been more kindly embraced
and kissed than I, His banished prisoner? If the comparison
could stand, I would not exchange Christ with heaven itself. He
^ ^loy be settled or accomi)lislied.
196 LETTER C.
hath left a dart and arrow of love in my soul, and it paineth me
till He come and take it out. I find pain of these wounds, be-
cause I would have possession. I know now, this worm-eaten
apple, the plastered rotten world, that the silly children of this
world are beating, and buffeting, and pulling others' ^ ears for, is a
portion for bastards good enough : and that is all they have to look
for. I offend not^ that my adversaries stay at home at their own
fireside with more yearly rent than I ; should I be angry that the
goodman of this house of the world casteth a dog a bone to hurt
his teeth ? He hath taught me to be content Avith a borrowed
fireside and an uncouth bed ; and I think I have lost nothing, the
income is so great. 0, what telling is in Christ ! 0, how Aveighty
is my fair garland, my crown, ray fair supping-hall in glory, where
I shall be above the blows and buffetings of prelates ! Let this
be your desire, and let your thoughts dwell mnch upon that bless-
edness that abideth you in the other world. The fair side of the
Avorld will be turned to you quickly, when ye shall see the crown.
I hope ye are near your lodging. 0, but I would think myself
blessed for my part to win the house before the shower come on !
For God hath a quiver full of arrows to shoot at and shower dovvn
upon Scotland. Ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. I
desire Patrick to give Christ his young love, even the flower of it,
and put it by^ all others. It were good to start soon to the way.
He should thereby have a great advantage in the evil day, Gi'ace
be with you. Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER C— To Mr. John Fergushill.
Eevekend and well-beloved in the Lord, — I was refresh-
ed with your letter. I am sorry for that lingering and longsome
visitation that is upon your wife ; but I know ye take it as a mark
of a lawfully begotten child, and not of a bastard, to be under your
Father's rod. Till ye be in heaven, it will be but foul weather,
one shower up and another down. The lintel-stones and pillars of
the New Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God's hammer and tools
than the common side-wall stones. And if twenty crosses be writ-
ten for you in God's book they will come to nineteen, and then at
last to one, and after that nothing but your head betwixt Christ's
breasts for evermore, and His own soft hand to diy your face and
wipe away your tears. As for public sufferings for His truth,
your Master also will see to these. Let us put Him in His own
office to comfort and deliver. The gloom of Christ's cross is
worse than itself. I cannot keep up what He hath done to my
^ One anothei-'s. " Am not offended. ^ Past.
LETTER CI. 197
soul. My dear brother, will I not get help of you to praise and
to lift Christ upon high ! He hath pained me with His love, and
hath left a love arrow in my heart that hath made a wound, and
swelled me up Avith desires, so that I am to be pitied for want of
real possession. Love would have the company of the party loved :
and my greatest pain is the want of Him ] not of his joys and
comforts, but of a near union and communion. This is His truth,
I am fully persuaded, I now suffer for. For Christ hath taken up-
on Him to be witness to it by His sweet comforts to my soul ;
and shall I think Him a false witness, or that He would subscribe
blank paper 1 I thank His high and dreadful name for what He
hath given ; I hope to keep His seal and His pawn till He come
and loose ^ it Himself. I defy hell to put me off it, but He is
Christ, and He hath met with His prisoner, and I took instruments
in His own hand, that it was He and no other for Him, When
the devil fenceth a bastard court in my Lord's ground and giveth
me forged summons, it will be my shame to misbelieve after such
a fair, broad seal. And yet Satan and my apprehension some-
times make a lie of Christ, as if He hated me ; but I dare believe
no evil of Christ, If He would cool my love-fever for Himself,
with real presence and possession, I would be rich ; but I dare not
be mislearned, and seek more in that kind ; howbeit it be no
shame to beg at Christ's door. I pity my adversaries ; I grudge
not that my Lord keepeth them at their own fireside, and hath
given me a borrowed bed, and a borrowed fireside. Let the good
man of the house cast a dog a bone, why should I offend ^^ I re-
joice that the broken bark shall come to land, and that Christ
will on the shore welcome the sea-sick passenger. We have need
of a great stock against this day of trial that is coming ; neither
chaff nor corn in Scotland, but it shall once pass through God's
sieve. Praise, pniise, and pray for me, for I cannot forget you, I
know ye will be friendly to my afflicted brother, who is now em-
barked in the same cause with me. Let him have your counsel
and comforts. Kemember my love in Christ to your wife, her
health is coming and her salvation sleepeth not. Ye have the
prayers and blessing of a prisoner of Christ. Sow fast, deal bread
plentifully. The pantry door will be locked on the bairns in ap-
pearance ere long. Grace, grace be Avith you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S, R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER CI.— To his Reverend and Dear Brother, Mr, Robert
Douglass.
My very reverend and dear Brother,^ Grace, mercy, and
^ Release. 2 Be oflfended.
198 LETTER CII.
peace be to yon : I long to see yon in paper. I cannot but write
to you that this which I now suffer for is Christ's truth, because
He hath been pleased to seal my sufferings with joy unspeakable
and glorious. I know He will not put His seal upon blank paper.
Christ hath not dumb seals, neither will He be witness to a lie. I
beseech you, my dear brother, help me to praise, and to lift Christ
up on His throne above the shields of the earth. I am astonished
and confounded at the greatness of His kindness to such a sinner.
I know Christ and I shall never be even, I shall die in His debt.
He hath left an arrow in my heart that paineth me for want of
real possession ; and hell cannot quench this coal of God's kindling.
I wish no man slander Christ or His cross for my cause, for I have
much cause to speak much good of Him. He hath brought me
to a nick and degree of communion with Himself that I knew not
before. The din and gloom of our Lord's cross is more fearful and
hard than the cross itself. He taketh the bairns in His arms when
they come to a deep water ; at least, when they lose ground, and
are put to swim, then His hand is under their chin. Let me be
helped by your prayers, and remember my love to your kind wife.
Grace be with you.
Vour brother and Christ's prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1637.
LETTER Cn.— To his Loving Friend, John Henderson.
Loving Friend, —Continue in the love of Christ and the doctrine
which I taught you faithfully and painfully according to my mea-
sure ; I am free of your blood. Fear the dreadful name of God.
Keep in mind the examinations which I taught you, and love the
truth of God, Death, as fast as time flieth, chaseth you out of
this life. It is possible ye make your reckoning with your Judge
l)efore I see you ; let salvation be your care night and day, and
set aside hours and times of the day for prayer. I rejoice to hear
that there is prayer in your house ; see that your servants keep
the Lord's day. This dirt and god of clay, I mean the vain world,
is not worth the seeking. An hireling pastor is to be thrust in
upon you, in the room to which I have Christ's warrant and right.
Stand to your liberties, for the word of God alloweth you a vote
in choosing your pastor. Whafi I write to you, I write to your
wife. Commend me heartily to her. The grace of God be with
you. Your loving friend and pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTERS cm. AND CIV, 199
LETTER cm.— To Mr. Hugh Hrndeuson.
My reverend and dear brother, — I hear ye 'oear the marks
of Christ's dying about with you, and that your brethren have
cast you out for your Master's sake. Let us wait on till the even-
ing, and till our reckoning in black and white come before our
Master, Brother, since we must have a devil to trouble us, I love
a raging devil best. Our Lord knoweth what soit of devil we have
need of. It is best Satan be in his own skin, and look like him-
self. Christ weeping looketh like Himself also, with whom Scribes
and Pharisees were at yea and nay, and sharp contradiction. Ye
have heard of the patience of Job when he lay in the ashes ; God
was with him, clawing and curing his scabs, and letting out his
boils, and comforting his soul, and He took him up at last. That
God is not dead yet, He will stoop and take up fallen bairns.
Many broken legs since Adam's days hath He spelked,^ and many
weary hearts hath He refreshed ; bless Him lor comfort. Why "?
None cometh dry from David's well ; let us go amongst the rest,
and cast down our toom ^ buckets into Christ's ocean, and suck
consolations out of Him, "We are not so sore stricken, but we may
fill Christ's hall with weeping. We have not gotten our answer
from Him yet. Let us lay up our broken pleas to a full sea, and
keep them till the day of Christ's coming ! We and this world
will not be even till then. They would take our garment from us,
but let us hold and them draw. Brother, it is a strange world if
we laugh not, I never saw the like of it, if there be not paiks the
man^ for this contempt done to the Son of God. We must do as
those who keep the bloody napkin to the bailie and let him see
blood. We must keep our wrongs to our Judge, and let Him see
our bluddered * and foul faces. Prisoners of hope must run to
Christ with the gutters that tears have made on their cheeks.
Brother, for myself, I am Christ's dauted^ one for the present, and
I live upon n© deaf nuts (as we use to speak). He hath opened
fountains to me in the wilderness. Go, look to my Lord Jesus,
His love to me is such that I defy the world to find either brim
or bottom in it. Grace be with you.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CIV.— To the Lady Robertland.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I shall be glad
to hear that your soul prospereth, and that fruit groweth upon
you after the Lord's husbandry and pains in His rod, that hath not
■> Spliced. " Empty. ^ Strokes for man by man. ■• Besmeared. '' Indulged.
200 LETTER CIV.
been a stranger to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kind-
ness that He will take the scum off us in the fire. AVho knowetli
how needful Avinnowing is to us, and what dross we must want ^
ere we enter into the kingdom of God 1 So narrow is the entry
to heaven, that our knots, our bunches and lumps of pride, and
self-love, and idol-love, and world-love must be hammered off us,
that we may throng in, stooping low, and creeping through that
narrow and thorny entry. And now for myself, I find it the
most sweet and heavenly life to take up house and dwelling at
Christ's fireside, and set down my tent upon Christ, that founda-
tion stone, who is sure and faithful ground and hard under foot.
0 ! if I could win to it, and proclaim myself not the world's
debtor nor a lover obliged to it ; and that I mind not to hire or
bod.2 this world's love any longer; but defy the kindness and feud
of God's whole creation whatsomever ; especially the lower vault
and clay part of God's creatures, this vain earth. For what hold
1 of His world ? a borrowed lodging and some years' house-room,
and bread and Avater, and fire and bed, and candle, &c., are all a
part of the pension of my King and Lord, to whom I owe thanks,
and not to a creature. I thank God, that God is God, and Christ
is Christ, and the earth the earth, and the devil the devil, and the
world the world, and that sin is sin, and that everything is what
it is. Because He hath taught me, in my wilderness, not to shufiie
my Lord Jesus, nor to intermix Him with creature vanities, nor
to spin or twine Christ or His sweet love in one web, or in one
thread, with the world and the things thereof. 0, if I could hold
and keep Christ all alone and mix Him with nothing! 0, if I could
cry down the price and weight of my cursed self, and cry up the
price of Christ, and double, and triple, and augment, and heighten
to millions the price and worth of Christ ! I am (if I durst speak
so, and might lawfully complain) so hungeredly tutored by Christ
Jesus, my liberal Lord, that His nice love, which my soul would
be in hands with, flietli me ; and yet I am trained on to love Him,
and lust, and long, and die for His love, whom I cannot see. It
is a wonder to pine away with love for a covered and hid lover,
and to be hungered with His love, so as a poor soul cannot get his
fill of hunger for Christ. It is hard to be hungered of hunger,
whereof such abundance for other things is in the world. But
sure if Ave were tutors, and steAvards, and masters, and lord-
carvers of Christ's love, we should be more lean and Avorse fed
than we are. Our meat doeth us the more good, that Christ
keepeth the keys, and that the Avind and the air of Christ's sweet
breathing, and of the influence of His Spirit, is locked up in the
hands of the good pleasure of Him, who bloAveth Avhere He listeth.
^ Have taken from ur. ^ Pnrchase.
LETTER CV 201
I see there is a sort of impatient patience required in the want of
Christ as to His manifestations and waiting-on. They thrive who
wait on His love, and the blowing of it, and the turning of His
gracious wind ; and they thrive who in that on-waiting make
haste, and din, and much ado, for their lost and hidden Lord
Jesus. However it be, God feed me with Him any way ! If He
would come in, 1 shall not dispute the matter where He got a hole,
or how He opened the lock. I should be content that Christ and
I met ; suppose He should stand on the other side of hell's lake,
and cry to me " either put in your foot and come through, else
ye shall not have me at all." But what fools are we in the taking
up of Him and of His dealing ! He hath a gait ^ of His own
beyond the thoughts of men, that no foot hath skill to follow
Him. But we are still ill scholars, and will go in at heaven's
gates wanting the half of our lesson, and shall still be bairns so
long as we are under time's hands, and till eternity cause a sun to
arise in our soul that shall give us wit. We may see how we spill
and mar our own fair heaven and our salvation, and how Christ is
every day putting in one bone or other in these fallen souls of
ours, in the right place again ; and that on this side of the New
Jerusalem, we shall still have need of forgiving and healing grace.
I find crosses Christ's carved work that He marketh out for us,
and that with crosses He figureth and portrayeth us to His own
image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption. Lord cut,
Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do anything that may perfect thy
Father's image in us, and make us meet for glory. Pray for me
(I forget not you) that our Lord would be pleased to lend me
house-room to preach His righteousness, and tell what I have
heard and seen of Him. Forget not Zion that is now in Christ's
calmes ^ and in His forge : God bring her out new work. Grace,
grace be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, Jan. 4, 1637.
LETTER CV.— To the Earl of Cassilis.
Eight honouPvAble and my very good Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to your lordship. I hope your lordship will be
pleased to pardon my boldness, if (upon report of your zealous and
forward mind, that I hear our Lord hath given you, in this His
honourable cause, when Christ and His gospel are so foully
wronged) I sjieak to your lordship in paper, entreating your lord-
ship to go on in the strength of the Lord, toward and against a
storm of Antichristian wind that bloweth upon the face of this,
your poor mother church, Christ's lily amongst the thorns. It is
1 Going. - Mould.
202 LETTEE CV.
your lordship's glory and happiness, when ye see such a blow
coming upon Christ, to cast up your arm to prevent it ; neither is
it a cause that needeth to blush before the sun, or to flee the sen-
tence or censure of impartial beholders, seeing the question indeed
(if it were rightly stated) is about the royal prerogative of our
princely and royal Law-giver, our Lord Jesus, whose ancient
march-stones and land-bounds our bastard -lords, the eartlily
generation of tyrannizing prelates, have boldly and shamefully
removed ; and they who have but half an eye may see that it is
the greedy desires of time-idolizing Demases, and the itching scab
of ambitious and climbing Diotrepheses (who love the goat's life
to climb till they cannot find a way to set their soles on ground
again), that hath made such a wide breach in our Zion's beautiful
walls : and these are the men who seek no hire for the crucifying
of Christ, but His coat. 0, how forlorn and desolate is the bride
of Christ made to all passers by! Who seeth not Christ buried
in this land ; His prophets hidden in caves, silenced, banished,
and imprisoned, truth weeping in sackcloth before the judges,
pai'liament, and the rulers of the land? But her bill is cast by
them, and holiness hideth itself, fearing the streets, for the re-
proaches-and persecution of men ; justice is fallen a-swoon in the
gate, and the long shadows of the evening are stretched out upon
us. Woe, woe to us, for our day flieth away. What remaineth,
but that the Antichrist set down his tent in the midst of us, ex-
cept your lordship, and others with you, read Christ's supplication,
and give him that which the most lewd and scandalous wretches
in this land may have before a judge, even the poor man's due,
law and justice, for God's sake. O, therefore, my noble and dear
lord, as ye have begun, go on in the mighty power and strength
of the Lord, to cause our Lord in His gospel and afflicted members
laugh, and to cause the Christian churches (whose eyes are all now
upon you) to sing for joy, when Scotland's moon shall shine like
the light of the sun, and the sun like the liglit ofi seven days in
one. Ye can do no less than run and bear up the head of your
dying and swooning mother-church, and plead for the production
of her ancient charters. They hold out and put out, they hold in
and bring in, at their pleasure, men in God's house ; they stole the
keys from Christ and His church, and came in like the thief and
the robber, not by the door, Christ ; and now their song is
Authority, authority. Obedience to church governors. When such
a bastard and lawless pretended step-dame as our prelacy is gone
mad, it is your place, who are the nobles, to rise and bind them ;
at least, law should fetter such wild bulls as they are, who push
all who oppose themselves to their domination. Alas ! what have
we lost, since prelates were made master-coiners, to change our
LETTER CVI. 203
gold into brass, and to mix the Lord's wine with their water !
Blessed for ever shall ye be of the Lord, if ye help Christ against
the mighty, and shall deliver the flock of God, scattered upon the
mountains in the dark and cloudy day, out of the hands of these
idol-shepherds. Fear not men, that shall be moth-eaten clay, that
shall be rolled up in a chest, and casten under the earth. Let the
holy one of Israel be your fear, and be courageous for the Lord
and His truth. Remember your accounts are coming upon you
with wings, as fast as time posteth away. Remember what peace
with God in Christ, and the presence of the Son of God, in the re-
vealed and felt sweetness of His love, will be to you, when eternity
shall put time to the door, and ye shall take good-night of time,
and this little shepherd's tent of clay, this inns of a borrowed
earth. I hope your lordship is now and then sending out thoughts
to view this world's naughtiness and vanity, and the hoped-for
glory of the life to come ; and that ye resolve, that Christ shall
have yourself and all yours at command for Him, His honour and
gospel. Thus trusting your lordship will pardon my boldness, I
pray, that the only wise God, the very God of peace, may pre-
serve, strengthen, and establish you to the end. Your lordship's,
at all command and obedience in Christ, • S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CVI.— To the Lady Rowallan.
MA"DAM, — Though not acquainted, I am bold in Christ to speak
to your ladyship in paper. I rejoice in our Lord Jesus on your
behalf, that it hath pleased Him (whose love to you is as old as
Himself) to manifest the savour of His love in Christ Jesus to
your soul, in the revelation of His will and mind to you, now
when so many are shut up in unbelief. 0, the sweet change ye
have made in leaving the black kingdom of this world and sin,
and coming over to our Bridegroom's new kingdom, to know and
to be taken with the love of -the beautiful Son of God. I beseech
you, madam, in the Lord, make now sure work, and see that the
old house be casten down and razed from the foundation, and that
the new building of your soul be of Christ's own laying ; for then,
wind and storm shall neither loose it, nor shake it asunder. Many
now take Christ by guess. Be sure that it be He, and only He,
whom ye have met with. His sweet smell. His lovely voice. His
fair face, His sweet working in the soul will not lie, they will soon
tell if it be Christ indeed (and I think your love to the saints
speaketh that it is He) ; and therefore, I say, be sure that ye take
Christ Himself, and take Him Avith His Father's blessing: His
Father alloweth Him well up^n you, your lines are well fallen, it
204 LETTER CVII.
could not liave been better, nor so well with yon, if they had not
fallen in these places. In heaven or out of heaven there i& nothing
better, nothing so sweet and excellent, as the thing ye have lighted
on, and therefore hold you with Christ : joy, much joy may ye
have of Him. But take His cross with Himself cheerfully. Christ
and His cross are not separable in this life ; howbeit, Christ and
His cross part at heaven's door, for there is no house-room for
crosses in heaven : one tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one
loss, or thought of trouble cannot find lodging there: they are but
the marks of our Lord Jesus down in this wide inns, and stormy
country, on this side of death. Sorrow and the saints are not
married together, or suppose it were so, heaven shall make a
divorce. I find His sweet presence eateth out the bitterness of
sorrow and suffering. I think it a sweet thing, that Christ saith
of my cross. Half mine, and that He divideth these sufferings with
me, and taketh the lai'gest share to Himself ; nay, that I, and my
whole cross, are wholly Christ's. 0, what a portion is Christ ! 0
that the saints would dig deeper in the treasures of His wisdom
and excellency ! Thus recommending your ladyship to the good-
will and tender mercies of our Lord, I rest,
Your ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTER CVH.— To Robert Gordon of Knockbrex.
My very worthy and dear Friend, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be unto you. Though all Galloway should have forgotten
me, I would have expected a letter from you ere now. But I Avill
not expound it to be forgetfulness of me. Now, my dear brother,
I cannot show you how matters go betwixt Christ and me. I find
my Lord going and coming seven times a day. His visits are
short, but they are both frequent and sweet. I dare not for my
life tliink of a challenge of my Lord. I hear ill tales, and hard
reports of Christ, from the tempter and my flesh, but love believ-
etla no evil. I may swear that they are liars, and that apprehen-
sions make lies of Christ's honest and unalterable love to me. I
dare not say that I am a dry tree, or that I have no room at all
in the vineyard ; but yet, I often think, that the sparrows are
blessed who may resort to the house of God in An^voth, from
which I am banished. Temptations, that I suppose to be stricken
dead and laid upon their back, rise again and revive upon me ;
yea, I see that while I live, temptations will not die. The devil
seemeth to brag and boast as much as if he had more court^ with
Christ than I have, and as if he had charmed and blasted my
' Influence.
LETTER CVII. 205
ministry, that 1 shall do no more good in public ; but his wind
shaketh no corn, I will not believe Christ Avould have made such
a mint^ to have me to Himself, and have talcen so much pains
upon me as He hath done, and then slip so easily from possession,
and lose the glory of what He had done ; nay, since I came to
Aberdeen, I have been taken up to see the new land, the ftiir
palace of the Lamb. And will Christ let rae see heaven to break
my heart, and never give it to me 1 I shall not think my Lord
Jesus givetli a dumb earnest, or putteth His seals to blank paper,
or intendeth to jDut me oft' with ftiir and false promises. I see
that now Avhich I never saw well before. 1 . I see faith's neces-
sity in a fair day is never known aright ; but now I miss nothing
so much as faith. Hunger in me runneth to fair and sweet
promises ; but when I come, I am like a hungry man that wanteth
teeth, or a weak stomach having a sharp appetite, that is filled
with the very sight of meat ; or like one stupitied with cold under
the water, that would fain come to land, but cannot grip anything
casten to him. I can let Christ grip me, but I cannot grip Him.
I love to be kissed and to sit on Christ's knee ; but I cannot set
my feet to the ground, for afflictions bring the cramp upon my
faith. All I now do is to hold out a lame faith to Christ, like a
beggar holding out a stump, instead of an arm or leg, and cry
Lord Jesus, work a miracle. 0, what would I give to have hands
and arms to grip strongly and fold heartsomely about Christ's
neck, and to have my claim made good with real possession ! I
think my love to Christ hath feet abundance and runneth swiftly
to be at Him, but it wanteth hands and fingers to apprehend Him.
I think I would give Christ every morning my blessing, to have
as much faith as I have love and hunger ; at least, I miss faith
more than love and hunger. 2. I see mortification, and to be
crucified to the world, is not so highly accounted of by us as it
should be. 0, how heavenly a thing is it to be dead, and dumb,
and deaf to this world's sweet music ! I confess it hath pleased
His Majesty to make me laugh at children who are wooing this
■world for their match. I see men lying about the world as nobles
about a king's court, and I wonder what they are a-doing there.
As I am at this present, I would scorn to court such a feckless -
and petty princess, or buy this world's kindness with a bow of
my knee. I scarce now either hear or see what it is that this
world ofiereth me ; I know it is little it can take from me, and as
little it can give me. I recommend mortification to you above
anything. For, alas, we but chase feathers flying in the air, and
tire our own spirits for the froth and overgilded clay of a dying
life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me see, within this
1 Effort. 2 Worthless.
206 LETTER CVIII.
short time, is worth a world of worlds. 3. I thought courage in
the time of trouble for Christ's sake a thing that I might take up
at my foot : I thought the very remembrance of the honesty of
the cause would be enough : but I was a fool in so thinking. I
have much ado now to win to one smile ; but I see joy groweth
up in heaven, and it is above our short arm. Christ will be
steward and dispenser Himself, and none else but He. Therefore,
now, I count much of one drachm-weight of spiritual joy; one
smile of Christ's face is now to me as a kingdom, and yet He is
no niggard to me of comforts. Truly, I have no cause to say, that
I am pinched with penury, or that the consolations of Christ are
dried up ; for He hath poured down rivers upon a dry wilderness,
the like of me, to my admiration : and in my very swoonings. He
holdeth up my head, and "stayeth me with flagons of wine," and
" comforteth me with apples." My house and bed are strawed
with kisses of love. Praise, praise with me. 0, if ye and I be-
twixt us could lift up Christ upon His throne, howbeit all Scot-
land should cast Him down to the ground ! My brother's case
toucheth me near, I hope ye will be kind to him, and give him
your best counsel. Remember my love to your brother, to your
wife, and G. M., desire Him to be faithful and repent of his
hypoci'isy; and say that I wrote it to you: I wish him salvation.
Write to me your mind anent C. E. and C. Y. and their wives,
and I. C, or any others in my parish. I fear I am forgotten
amongst them; but I cannot forget them. The prisoner's prayers
and blessing come upon you. Grace, grace be with jou.
Your brother, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 9, 1637.
LETTER CVin.— To my Lord Balmerino.
My very noble and truly honourable Lord, — I make bold
to write news to your Lordship from my prison, thougli your lord-
ship have experience more than I can have. At my first entry
here, I was not a little casten down with challenges for old unre-
pented of sins, and Satan, and my own apprehensions, made a
lie ot Christ, that he had casten a dry, withered tree over the
dyke^ of the vineyard; but it was my folly, blessed be His great
name, the fire cannot burn the dry tree. He is pleased now to
feast the exiled prisoner with His lovely presence, for it suiteth
Christ well to be kind; and He dineth and suppeth with such a
sinner as I am. I am in Christ's tutoring here. He hath made
me content with a borrowed fireside, and it casteth as much heat
as mine own. I want nothing at all but real possession of Christ.
And He hath given me a pawn of that also, which I hope to keep
' Wall.
LETTER CIX. 207
till He come Himself to loose the pawn. I cannot get help to
praise His Ingh name. He hath made me a king over my losses,
impi-isonment, banishment, and only my dumb Sabbaths stick in
my throat. But I forgive Christ's wisdom in that. I dare not
say one word. He hath done it, and I will lay my hand upon my
mouth. If any other had done it to me, I could not have borne
it. Now, my lord, I must tell your lordship, that I would not
give a drink of cold water for this clay-idol, this plastered world.
I testify, and give it under mine own hand, that Christ is most
■worthy to be suffered for. Our lazy flesh (which would have
Christ to cry down crosses by open proclamation) hath but raised
a slander upon the cross of Christ. My lord, I hope ye will not
forget what He hath done for your soul. I think ye are in
Christ's count-book as His obliged debtor. Grace, grace be with
your spirit. Your lordship's obliged servant, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CIX.— To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long
to hear how your soul prospereth. I expected letters from you
ere now. As for myself, I am here in good case, well-feasted with
a great King. At my first coming here, I was that ^ bold as to
take up a jealousy of Christ's love : I said I was cast over the
dyke of the Lord's vineyard as a dry tree ; but I see if I had been
a withered branch, the fire would have burnt me long ere now :
blessed be His high name who hath kept sap in the dry tree.
And now, as if Christ had done the wrong. He hath made the
mends,^ and hath miskent^ my ravings (for a man under the water
cannot well command his wit, far less his faith and love), because
it was a fever, my Lord Jesus forgave me that among the rest.
He knoweth in our aSlictions, we can find a spot in the fairest
face that ever was, even in Christ's face : I would not have be-
lieved that a gloom should have made me to misken'* my old Master;
but we must be whiles sick ; sickness is but kindly to both faith
and love. But, 0, how exceedingly is a poor dauted prisoner ob-
liged to sweet Jesus ! My tears are sweeter to me than the
laughter of the fourteen prelates to them. The worst of Christ,
even His chaff", is better than the world's corn. Dear brother, I
beseech you, I charge you, in the name and authority of the Son
of God, help me to praise His highness ; and I charge you, also,
to tell all your acquaintance, that my Master may get many
thanks. 0, if my hairs, all my members, and all my bones, were
well-tuned tongues to sing the high praises of my great and glo-
^ So. - Amends. ^ Overlooked. ■* ^lisjudge.
208 LETTER ex.
rious King ! Help me to lift Christ up upon His throne, and to
lift Him up above all the thrones of the clay-kings, the dying
sceptre-bearers of this world. The prisoner's blessing, the bless-
ing of him that is separated from his brethren, be upon them all,
who will lend me a lift in this work. Show this to that people
with you, to whom sometimes I preached. Brother, my Lord
hath brought me to this, that I will not flatter the world for a
drink of water : I am no debtor to clay : Christ hath made me
dead to that. I now wonder that ever I Avas such a child long
since as to beg at ^ such beggars ! Fie upon us, who woo such a
black-skinned harlot, when we may get such a fair, fair match up
in heaven. 0, that I could give up with this clay idol, this masked,
painted, overgilded dirt, that Adam's sons adore ! we make an
idol of our will • as many lusts in us, as many gods. We are all
god-makers. We are like to lose Christ, the true God, in the
throng of these new and false gods. Scotland hath cast her crown
ojf her head : the virgin-daughter hath lost her garland : woe, woe
to our harlot mother. Our day is coming, a time Avhen women
shall wish they had been childless, and fathers shall bless mis-
carrying wombs and dry breasts : many houses, great and fair,
shall be desolate. This kirk shall sit on the ground all the night,
and the tears shall run down her cheeks : the sun hath gone down
upon her prophets. Blessed are the prisoners of hope, who can
run into their stronghold, and hide themselves for a little till the
indignation be overpast. Commend me to your wife, your daugh-
ters, your son-inlaw, and to A. T. Write to me of the case of
your kirk. Grace be with you. I am much moved for my bro-
ther, I entreat for your kindness and counsel to him.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 23, 1637.
LETTER ex.— To my Lady Mar, Younger.
My very noble and dear Lady, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. I received your ladyship's letter, which hath comforted
my soul. God give you to find mercy in the day of Christ. I am
in as good terms and court ^ with Christ as an exiled oppressed
prisoner of Christ can be. 1 am still welcome to His house ; He
knoweth my knock, and letteth in a poor friend. Under this
black, rough tree of the cross of Christ, He hath ravished me with
His love, and taken my heart to heaven Avith Him ; well and long
may he bruik^ it. I would not niffer* Christ with all the joys
that man or angel can devise beside Him. Who hath such cause
to speak honourably of Christ as I have 1 Christ is King of all
MTf. " Favour. '' Possess. ■* Exchanire.
LETTER CXT. 209
crosses, and He hath made His saints Uttie kings under Him, and
He can ride and triumph upon weaker bodies than I am (if any
can be weaker), and His horse Avill neither fall nor stumble.
Madam, your ladyship hath much ado with Christ, for your soul,
husband, children, and house. Let Him find much employment
for His calling with you ; for He is such a Friend as delighteth to
be burdened with suits and employments ; and the more ye lay on
Him, and the more homely^ ye be with Him, the more welcome.
0, the depth of Christ's love ! It hath neither brim nor bottom.
0, if this blind world saw His beauty ! When I count with Him
for His mercies to me, I must stand still and wonder, and go away
as a poor dyvour," who hath nothing to pay : free forgiveness is
my payment, I would I could get Him set on high, for His love
hath made me sick, and I die except I get real possession. Grace,
grace be with you.
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXL— To Ja^aies M'Adam.
My very dear and worthy Friend, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I long to hear of your growing in grace, and of
your advancing in your journey to heaven. It will be the joy of
my heart to hear that ye hold your face up the brae, and wade
through tentations, without fearing what man can do. Christ
shall, when He ariseth, mow down His enemies, and lay bulks ^
(as they use to speak) on the green, and fill the pits with dead
bodies, Ps. ex. 6 ; they shall lie like handfuls of withered hay
when He ariseth to the prey. Salvation, salvation, is the only
necessary thing. This clay-idol, the world, is not to be sought ;
it is a morsel, not for you, but for hunger-bitten bastards. Con-
tend for salvation : your Master Christ won heaven with strokes ;
it is a besieged castle, it must be taken with violence. 0, this
world thinketh heaven but at the next door, and that godliness
may sleep in a bed of down till it come to heaven ; but that will
not do it. For myself, I am as well as Christ's prisoner can be ;
for by Him I am master and king of all my crosses : I am above
the prison and the lash of men's tongues ; Christ triumpheth in
me. I have been casten down, and heavy with tears, and hunted
with challenges. I was swimming in the depths, but Christ had
His hand under my chin all the time, and took good heed that I
should not lose breath ; and now I have gotten my feet again, and
there are love-feasts of joy, and spring-tides ol consolation, betwixt
Christ and me. We agree well. I have court ■* with Him ; I am
^ Fiiiiiiliar. ^ Debtor. ■' Hav-cocks. ^ Influence,
210 l.LTTEi;5 CXII, aND CXIII.
still welcome to His house. 0, my short arms cannot fathom His
love ! I beseech you, I charge you, help me to praise. Ye have
a prisoner's prayers, therefore forget me not. I desire Sibilla to
remember me dearly to all in that parish who know Christ, as if I
had named them, Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXn.— To my very Dear Brother, William
Livingstone.
My very dear Brother, — I rejoice to hear that Christ hath
run away with your young love, and that ye are so early in the
morning matched with such a Lord, for a young man is often a
dressed lodging for the devil to dwell in. Be humble and thank-
ful for grace, and weigh it not so much by weight, as if it be true.
Christ will not cast water on your smoking coal ; He never yet
put out a dim candle that was lighted at the Sun of Righteousness.
I recommend to you prayer, and watching over the sins of your
youth ; for I know missive letters go between the devil and young
blood ; Satan hath a friend at court in the heart of youth ; and
there, pride, luxury, lust, revenge, forgetfulness ot God, are hired
as his agents ; happy is your soul if Christ man the house, and
take the keys Himself, and command all (as it suiteth Him full
well, to rule all wherever He is). Keep Him and entertain Christ
well; cherish His grace, blow upon your own coal, and let Him
tutor you. Now, for myself, know I am fully agreed with my
Lord. Christ hath put the Father and me in others'^ arms, many
a sweet bargain He made before, and He hath made this among
the rest. I reign as king over my crosses. I will not flatter a
temptation, nor give the devil a good word : I defy hell's iron
gates. God hath passed over my quarrelling of Him at my entry
here, and now He feedeth and feasteth with me. Praise, praise
with me ; and let us exalt His name together.
Your brother in Christ, S, R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CXIIL— To William Gordon of White Park.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I long
to hear from you. I am here, the Lord's prisoner and patient,
handled as softly by my physician as if I were a sick man under
cure. I was at h;ird terms with my Lord, and pleaded with Him ;
but I had the worst side. It is a wonder He should have
suffered the like of me to have nick -named the Son of His love,
Christ, and to call Him a changed Lord, who had forsaken me ;
' Each other's.
LETTER CXTTT. 211
bnt misbelief hatli never a good, word to speak of Christ. The
dross of my cross gathered a scum of fears in the fire, doubtings,
impatience, unbehef, challenging of providence as sleeping, and
not regarding my sorrow ; but my goldsmith, Christ, was pleased
to take off the scum and burn it in the fire. And blessed be my
finer, He hath made the metal better, and furnished new supply
of grace, to cause me to hold out weight ; and I hope He hath
not lost one grain weight by burning His servant. Now, His
love in my heart casteth a mighty heat. He knoweth that the
desire I have to be at Himself paineth me. I have sick nights
and frequent fits of love fevers for my Well-Beloved. Nothing
paineth me now but want of presence. I think it long till day.
I challenge time as too slow in its pace, that holdeth my only,
only fair One, my love, my Well-Beloved from me. 0, if we were
together once ! I am like an old crazed ship that hath endured
many storms, and that would fain be in the lee of the shore, and
feareth new storms. I would be that^ nigh heaven that the
shadow of it might break the force of the storm, and the crazed
ship might win to land. My Lord's sun casteth a heat of love
and beam of light on my soul. My blessing, thrice every day,
upon the sweet cross of Christ ! I am not ashamed of my garland,
" The banished Minister " (which is the term of Aberdeen).
Love, love defileth^ reproaches. The love of Christ hath a corslet
of proof on it, and arrows will not draw blood of it. We are
more than conquerors through the blood of Him that hath loved
us, Rom. viii. The devil and the world, they cannot wound the
love of Christ. I am farther from yielding to the course of
defection than when I came hither. Sufferings blunt not the
fier}' edge of love. Cast love in the floods of hell, it will swim
above. It careth not for the world's busked^ and plastered
offers. It hath pleased my Lord so to line my heart with the
love of my Lord Jesus, that, as if the field were already won, and
I on the other side of time, I laugh at the world's golden plea-
sures, and at this dirty idol that the sons of Adam worship. This
worm-eaten god is that which my soul hath fallen out of love
with. Sir, you were once my hearer : I desire now to hear from
you and your wife, I salute her and your children with blessings.
I am glad that ye are still hand-fasted with Christ. Go on in
your journey, and take the city by violence. Keep your garments
clean. Be clean virgins to your Husband, the Lamb. The world
shall follow you to heaven's gates, and ye would not wish it to go
in with you. Keep fast Christ's love. Pray for me, as I do for
you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Maroli 13, 1637.
I So. ^ Qu. Defieth ? ^ Dressed.
212 LETTEliS CXIV, AND CXV,
LETTER CXIV.— To Mr. George Gillespie.
Reverend and dear Brother, — I received your letter. As
for my case, brother, I bless His glorious name, my losses are my
gain, my prison a palace, and my sadness joyfulness. At my first
entry, my apprehensions wrought so upon my cross, that I became
jealous of the love of Christ, as being by Him thrust out of the
vineyard, and I was under great challenges (as ordinarily melted
gold caste th first a drossy scum, and Satan and our corruption
form the first words that the heavy cross speaketh, and say, God
is angry ; He loveth you not). But our apprehensions are not
canonical. They dite^ lies of God and Christ's love ; but since
my spirit was settled, and the clay fallen to the bottom of the
well, I see better what Christ was doing. And now my Lord is
returned with salvation under His wings, now I want little of half
a heaven, and I find Christ every day so sweet, comfortable,
lovely, and kind, as three things only trouble me. 1. I see not
how to be thankful, or how to get help to praise that royal King,
who raiseth up those that are bowed down. 2. His love paineth
me, and woundeth my soul, so as I am in a fever for want of real
presence. 3. An excessive desire to take instruments- in God's
name, that this is Christ and His truth I now suffer for ; yea, the
apple of the eye of Christ's honour, even the sovereignty and royal
privileges of our King and Law-giver Christ. And, therefore, let
no man scaur ^ at Christ's cross, or raise an ill report upon Him or
it, for He beareth the sufferer and it both. I am here troubled
with the disputes of the great doctors (especially with D. B,, in
ceremonial and Arminian controversies, for all are corrupt here) ;
but I thank God with no detriment to the truth or discredit to my
profession. So then I see that Christ can triumph in a weaker
man nor* I, and who can be more weak 1 But His grace is suffi-
cient for me. Brother, remember our old covenant, and pray for
me, and write to me your case. The Lord Jesus be with your
spirit. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen^ March 10, 1637.
LETTER CXV.— To John Meine.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I
wonder ye sent me not an answer to my last letter, for I stand in
need of it. I am still in some piece of court ^ with our great King,
whose love would cause a dead man speak and live. Whether my
court^ will continue or not I cannot well say j but I have His ear
frequently, and (to His glory only I speak it) no penury of the
^ Dictate - Protest. ^ Bogle. * Thau. '' Favour.
LETTER CXVI. 213
love-kisses of the Son of God. He thinketh good to cast apples
to me in my prison to play withal, lest I should think long and
faint : I must give over all attempts to fathom the depth of His
love. All I can do is but to stand beside His great love, and look
and wonder. My debts of tlmnkfulness aifright me. I fear my
creditor get a dyvour^ bill and a ragged account: I would be much
the better of help. 0, for help ! And that ye would take notice
of my case. Your not writing to me maketh me think ye suppose
that I am not to be bemoaned, because he is comfortable ; but I
have pain in my unthankfulness, and pain in the feeling of His
love, while I am sick again for real presence and real possession of
Christ; yet there is no gouked^ (if I may speak so) nor fond love
in Christ. He casteth me down sometimes with challenges for old
faults, and I know, He knoweth well that sweet comforts are
swelling, and therefore sorrow must make a vent to the wind.
My dumb sabbaths are undercoating^ wounds. The condition of
this oppressed kirk, and my brother's case (I thank you and your
vn(e for your kindness to him), hold my sore smarting and keep
my wounds bleeding ; but the ground-work standeth sure. Pray
for me. Grace be with you. Remember me to your wife.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CXVI.— To Mr. Thomas Garven.
Reverend and dear brother, — I bless you for your letter.
It was a shower to the new-mown grass. The Lord hath given
you the tongue of the learned; be fruitful and humble. It is
possible ye come to my case or the like ; but the water is neither
so deep, nor the stream so strong, as it is called. I think my fire
is not hot, my water dry land, my loss rich loss. 0, if the walls
of my prison be high, wide, and large, and the place sweet ! no
man knoweth it ; no man, I say, knoweth it (my dear brother) so
well as He and I ; no man can put it down in black and white, as
my Lord hath sealed it in my heart. My poor stock is grown since
I came to Aberdeen. And if any had known the wrong I did in
being jealous of such an honest lover as Christ, who withheld not
His love from me, they would think the more of it ; but I see. He
must be above me in mercy. I will never strive with Him. To
think to recompense Him is folly, if I had as many angels' tongues
as there have fallen drops of rain since the creation, or as there
are leaves of trees in all the forests of the earth, or stars in the
heaven, to praise ; yet my Lord Jesus would ever be behind with
ine. We will never get our accounts fitted : a pardon must close
^ Unpaid. '^ Foolish. 3 Unhealed.
214 LETTER CXVIT.
the reckoning; for His comforts to me in this His honourable
cause, have almost put me beyond the bounds of modesty; how-
beit I will not let every one know what is betwixt us. Love, love
(I mean Christ's love) is the hottest coal that ever I felt. 0, but
the smoke of it be hot ! Cast all the salt sea on it, it will flame ;
hell cannot quench it. Many, many waters will not quench love.
Christ is turned over to His poor prisoner in a mass and globe of love.
I wonder He should waste so much love upon such a waster as I
am ; but He is no waster, but abundant in mercy. He hath no
niggard's alms, when He is pleased to give. 0, that I could in-
vite all the nation to love Him ! Free grace is an unknown thing.
This world hath heard but a bare name of Christ, and no more.
There are infinite plies ^ in His love that the ?aints Avill never win
to unfold. I would it were better known, and that Christ got
more of His own due than He doeth. Brother, ye have chosen
the good part who have taken part with Christ. Ye will see Him
win the field, and ye shall get part of the spoil when He divideth
it. They are but fools Avho laugh at us ; for they see but the
backside of the moon ; yet our moonlight is better than their
twelve-hours' sun. We have gotten the new heavens, and, as
a pledge of that, the Bridegroom's love-ring. The children of
the wedding-chamber have cause to skip and leap for joy, for the
marriage-supper is drawing nigh, and we find the four-hours ^ sweet
and comfortable. 0, time, be not slow ! 0, sun, move speedily and
hasten our banquet ! 0, Bridegroom, be like a roe, or a young
hart upon the mountains ! 0, Well-Beloved, run fast, that we may
once meet ! Brother, I contain myself for want of time. Pray for
me ; I hope to remember you. The goodwill of Him who dwelt
in the bush, the tender mercies of God in Christ, enrich you !
Grace be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CXVn.— To Bethaia Aird.
Worthy Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I
know ye desire news from my prison, and I shall show you news.
At my first entry hither, Christ and I agreed not well upon it.
The devil made a plea in the house, and I laid the blame upon
Christ ; for my heart was fraughted^ with challenges, and I feared
that I was an outcast, and that I Avas but a witliered tree in the
vineyard, and but held the sun off" the good plants with my idle
shadow, and therefore, my Master had given the evil servant the
fields to fend him.* Old guiltiness said (as witness) all is true.
J Folds.
- The "four-hours" was a slight me.'il taken at four o'jlock, between dinner
and suppfci. ^ Laden. •* Suppiat.
LETTER CXVIII. 215
JMy apprehensions were with child of faithless tears, and unbelief
put a seal and amen to all. I thought myself in a hard case.
Some said I had cause to rejoice that Christ had honoured me to
be a witness for Him ; and I said in my heart, these are words of
men who see but mine outside, and cannot tell if I be a false wit-
ness or not. If Christ had, in this matter, been as wilful and
short as I was, my faith had gone over the brae and broken its
neck ; but we were well met, — a hasty fool, and a wise, patient,
and meek Saviour. He took no law-advantage of my folly, but
waited on till my ill-blood was fallen, and my drumbled^ and
troubled well began to clear. He was never a whit angry at the
fever-ravings of a poor tempted sinner ; but He mercifully forgave,
and came (as it well becometh Him) with grace and new comfort
to a sinner who deserved the contrary. And now He is content
to kiss my black mouth, to put His hand in mine, and to feed
me with as many consolations as would feed ten hungry souls ;
yet I dare not say, He is a waster of comforts, for no less would
have borne me up ; one grain-weight less would have casten the
balance. Now, who is like to that royal King, crowned in Zion 1
Where will I get a seat for royal majesty to set Him on ? If I
could set Him as far above the heavens, as thousand thousands of
heights, devised by men and angels, I would think Him but too
low. I pray you, for God's sake, my dear sister, help me to
praise. His love hath neither brim nor bottom ; His love is like
Himself, it passeth all natural understanding. I go to fathom it
with my arms, but it is as if a child would take the globe of sea
and land in his two short arms. Blessed and holy is His name.
This must be His truth I now suffer for, for He would not laugh
upon a lie, nor be witness with His comforts to a night-dream. I
entreat for your prayers, and the prayers and blessing of a prisoner
of Christ be upon you. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CXVIIL— To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.
Dear Brother,— I have not leisure to write to you. Christ's
ways were known to you long before I {who am but a child)
knew anything of Him. What wrong and violence the prelates
i"^y> by God's permission, do unto you for your trial, I know
not ; but this I know, that your ten days' tribulation will end.
Contend to the last breath for Christ. Banishment out of these
kingdoms is determined against me, as I hear ; this land does not
bear me up. I pray you recommend my case and bonds to my
brethren and sisters with you : I intrust more of my .spiritual
> rcrturbed.
216 LETTER CXIX.
comfort to you and them that way, my dear brother, than to
many in this kingdom besides. I hope ye will not be wanting to
Chiist's prisoner. Fear nothing, for I assure you, Alexander
'Gordon ot Knockgray shall win away, and get his soul for a prey.
And what can he then want that is worth the having? Your
friends are cold (as ye write), and so are these in Avhom I trusted
much. Our Husband doeth well in breaking our idols in pieces :
dry wells send us to the fountain. My life is not dear to me, so
being^ I may fulfil my course with joy. I fear you must remove,
it your new hireling will not bear your discountenancing of him ;
for the prelate is afraid Christ get you, and that he hath no will -
of. Grace be with you.
Yours, in liis sweet Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXIX.— To John Fleeming, Bailie of Leith.
WortTHY AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LoRD, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be unto you. I received your letter. I wish I could
satisfy your desire in drawing up and framing for you a Christian
directory. But the learned have done it before me, more judici-
ously than I can ; especially Mr. Rodgers, Greenham, and Perkins ;
notwithstanding, I shall show you what I would have been at
myself (howbeit, I came always short of my purpose). 1. That
hours of the day, less or more time for the word and prayer be
given to God, not sparing the twelfth hour or mid-day, howbeit it
should then be the shorter time. 2. In the midst of worldly
employments, there would be some thoughts of sin, judgment,
death, and eternity, with a word or two of ejaculatory prayer (at
least) to God. 3. To beware of wandering of heart in private
prayers. 4, Not to grudge, howbeit ye come from prayer without
sense or joy. Down-casting, sense of guiltiness, and hunger is
often best for us. 5. That the Lord's day, from morning to night,
be spent always either in private or public worship. 6. That
words be observed, wandering and idle thoughts be avoided, sud-
den anger and desire of revenge, even of such as persecute the
truth, be guarded against, for we often mix our zeal with our
own wild fire. 7. That known, discovered, and revealed sins,
that are against the conscience, be eschewed, as most dangerous
preparatives to hardness of heart. 8. That in dealing with men,
faith and truth in covenants and trafficking be regarded, that we
deal with all men in sincerity, that conscience be made of idle and
lying words, and that our carriage be such, as that they who see
it may speak honourably of our sweet Master and profession. 9. I
have been much challenged. (1.) For not referring all to God as
* rrovided. - Desire.
LETTER CXIX. 217
the last end ; that I do not eat, drink, sleep, journey, speak, and
think for God. (2.) That I have not benefited by good company,
and that I left not some word of conviction even upon natural and
wicked men, as by reproving swearing in them, or because of being
a silent witness to their loose carriage, and because I intended not
in all companies to do good. (3.) That the woes and calamities
of the kirk and particular professors have not moved me. (4.)
That the reading of the life of David, Paul, and the like, when it
humbled me, I (coming so far short of their holiness) laboured not
to imitate them, afar oflF at least, according to the measure of
God's grace. (5.) That unrepented sins of youth were not looked
to and lamented for. (6.) That sudden stirrings of pride, lust,
revenge, love of honours, were not resisted and mourned for. (7.)
That my charity was cold. (8.) That the experiences I had of
God's hearing me in this and the other particular being gathered,
yet in a new trouble I had always (once at least) my faith to seek,
as if I were to begin at A. B. C. again. (9.) That I have not more
boldly contradicted the enemies speaking against the truth, either
in public church-meetings, or at tables, or ordinary conference.
(10.) That in great troubles, I have received false reports of
Christ's love, and misbelieved Him in His chastening, whereas the
event hath said all was in mercy. (11.) Nothing more moveth
me and weigheth my soul, than that I could never for my heart,
in my prosperity, so wrestle in prayer with God, nor be so dead
to the world, so hungry and sick of love for Christ, so heavenly
minded, as when ten stone weight of a heavy cross was upon me.
(12.) That the cross extorted vows of new obedience, which ease
hath blown away, as chaff before the wind. (13.) That practice
was so short and narrow, and light so long and broad. (14.)
That death hath not been often meditated upon. (15.) That I
have not been careful of gaining others to Christ. (16.) That my
grace and gifts bring forth little or no thankfulness. There are
some things also whereby I have been helped. As, (1.) I have
benefited by riding alone, a long journey, in giving that time to
prayer. (2.) By abstinence and giving days to God. (3.) By
praying for others ; for, by making an errand to God for them, I
have gotten something for myself. (4.) I have been really con-
firmed, in many particulars, that God heareth prayers, and there-
fore I used to pray for anything of how little importance soever.
(5.) He enabled me to make no question that this mocked way,
which is nicknamed, is the only way to heaven. Sir, these and
many more occurrences in your life would be looked into. And,
1. Thoughts of Atheism would be watched over, as if there be a
God in heaven, which will trouble and assault the best at some
times. 2. Growth in grace would be cared for above all things,
218 T,KTTF.U C"X
and /ailing from our first love naourned for. 3. Conscience made
of praying for the enemies who are blinded. Sir, I thank you
most kindly for your care of my brother and me also ; I hope it h
laid up for you and remembered in heaven. I am still ashamed
with Christ's kindness to such a sinner as I am : He hath left a
fire in my heart, that hell cannot cast water on to quench or ex-
tinguish it. Help me to praise, and pray for me ; for ye have a
prisoner's blessing and prayers. Kemember my love to your wife.
Grace be with you. Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, March 15. 1637.
LETTER CXX.— To Robert Gordon of Knockbrex.
My very dear Brother,— Grace, mercy, and peace be unto
you. I thought to have answered your two letters upon this
occasion, though I cannot say all that I would. Your timeous ^
word (not to delight in the cross, but in Him who sweeteneth it)
came to me in due time. I find the consolations and ofF-fallings
that follow the cross of Christ so sweet, that I almost forget my-
self; my desire and purpose is, when Christ's honeycombs drop,
neither to refuse to receive and feed upon His comforts, nor yet
to make joy my bastard-god, or my new-found heaven ; but what
shall I say 1 Christ very often, in His sweet comforts, cometh
unsent for, and it were a sin to close the door upon Him. It is
not unlaAvful to love and delight in Christ's apples, when I am not
doatingly wooing, nor eagerly begging kisses ; but when they
come clean from the timber (like kindness itself, that cometh oi
its own accord) then I cannot but laugh upon Him, who laugheth
upon me. If joy and comforts came single and alone, without
Christ Himself, I think I would send them back again the gate^
they came, and not make them welcome ; but when the King's
train cometh, and the King in the midst of the company, 0 how
am I overjoyed with floods of love ! I fear not that too great
speats^ of love wash away the growing corn, and loose my plants
at the roots. Christ doeth no skaith* where He cometh ; but
certainly I would wish such spiritual wisdom as to love the Bride-
groom better than His gifts, His propines,^ or drink-money. I
would be further in upon Christ than at His joys; they but stand
in the'utter*^ side of Christ. I would Avish to be in as a seal on
His heart; in where His love and mercy lodgeth, beside His
heart. My Well-Beloved hath ravished me ; but it is done with
consent of parties, and it is allowable enough. But, my dear
brother, ere I part with this subject, I must tell you (that ye
may lift up my King in praises with me), Christ hath been
' Seasonable. '^ Way. ^ Floods. '' Harm. ^ Gifts. ^ Outer.
LETTER CXX, 219
keeping something these fourteen years for me, that I have
now gotten in my heavy days, that I am in for His name's sake ;
even an opened coffer of perfumed comforts and fresh joys
coming new, and green, and powerful, from the fairest, fairest
face of Christ my Lord. Let the sour law, let crosses, let hell be
cried down. Love, love hath shamed me from my old ways.
Whether I have a race to run, or some work ado, I see not ; but
I think Christ seemeth to leave heaven (to say so) and His court,
and come down to laugh, and play, and sport with a daft^ bairn.
I am not this - plain with many I write to. It is possible _ I be
misconstructed, and deemed to seek a name ; but my Witness
above knoweth I seek to have a good name raised upon
Christ. I observe it to be our folly to seek little from Christ ;
because our four-hours may not be our supper, nor our propine
sent by the Bridegroom our tocher-good,^ nor our earnest our
principal sum. But I trow few of us know how much may be
had of Christ for a four-hours and a propine and earnest. We are
like the young heir who knoweth not the whole bounds of his own
lordship. Certainly it is more than my part to say, 0 sweetest
Lord Jesus, what howbeit I were split and broken in five thou-
sand sherds or bits of clay, so being every sherd had a heart to
love Thee, and every one as many tongues as there are stars in
heaven to sing praises to Thee, before man and angel, for ever-
more 1 Therefore, if my sufferings cry goodness, and praise, and
honour upon Christ, my stipend is Avell paid. Each one knoweth
not what a life Christ's love is. Scaur* not at suffering for Christ;
for Christ hath a chair, and a cushion, and sweet peace for a suf-
ferer. Christ's trencher from the first mess of the high-table is
for a sinful witness. 0, then, brother, who but Christ ! who but
Christ 1 Hold your tongue of lovers, where He cometh out ! 0
all flesh, 0, dust and ashes ! 0 angels, 0 glorified spirits, 0 all the
shields of the world, be silent before Him, come hither and behold
our Bridegroom, stand still and wonder for evermore at Him ! Why
cease we to love and wonder, to kiss and adore Him 1 It is a hard
matter that days lie betwixt me and Him and hold us asunder.
0, how long, how long ! 0, how many miles are there to my
Bridegroom's dwelling-house ; it is a pain to frist ^ Christ's love
any longer. But it may be, a drunken man lose His feet, and
miss a step. Ye write to me, hall-binks " are slippery. I do not
think my doating world will still last, and that leasts will be my
ordinary food. I would have humility, patience, and faith, to set
down both my feet when I come to the north-side of the cold and
thorny hill. It is ill my common "^ to be sweir ^ to go an errand
1 Foolish. 2 Thus. ^ Dowry. ^ Shrink. = Postpone.
* Seats in the waiting-halls of great men. ^ Part. * Ileluctaut.
220 LETTER CXX.
for Christ, and to talce the wind upon my face for Him. Lord,
let me never be a false witness, to deny that I saw Christ take the
pen in His hand and subscribe my writs. My dear brother, ye
complain to me ye cannot hold sight of me ; but were I a footman
I should go at leisure, but sometimes the King taketh me into His
coach, and draweth me, and then I outrun myself; but alas, I am
still a forlorn transgressor ; O how unthankful ! I will not put
you off your sense of deadness ; but let me say this, avIio gave you
proctor-fee, to speak for the law, that can speak for itself, better
than ye can do? I would not have you to bring your ditty ^ in
your own bosom with you to Christ. Let the old man and the
new man be summoned before Christ's white throne, and let them
be confronted before Christ, and let each one of them speak for
themselves. I hope, howbeit the new man complain of his lying
among the pots, which maketh the believer look black ; yet He
can say also, I am comely as the tents of Kedar. Ye shall not
have my advice not to bemoan your deadness ; but I find by some
experience (which ye knew before I knew Christ) it suiteth not a
ransomed man of Christ's buying, to go and plea for the sour law,
our old forecasten husband ; for we are now not under the law (as
a covenant) but under grace. Ye are in no man's common^ but
Christ's. I know He beraoaneth you more than ye do yourself.
I say this, because I am wearied of complaining. I thought it
had been humility to imagine that Christ was angry with me,
both because of my dumb sabbaths and my hard heart ; but I feel
now nothing but aching wounds : my grief, Avhether I will or not,
swelleth upon me. But let us die in grace's hall floor pleading
before Christ. I deny nothing that the Mediator will challenge
me of - but I turn it all back upon Himself. Let Him look His
own old counts if He be angry, for He will get no more of me.
When Christ saith, I want repentance ; I meet Him with this,
True, Lord ; but thou art made a King and Prince to give me
repentance. Acts v. 31. When Christ bindeth a challenge upon
us, we must bind a promise back upon Him. Be woe ^ and lay
yourself in the dust before God (which is suitable) ; but withal,
let Christ take payment in His own hand, and pay Himself off'
the first end of His own merits ; else He will come behind for any-
thing we can do. I am every way in your case, as hard-hearted
and dead as any man ; but yet I spealc to Christ through my sleep.
Let us then proclaim a free market for Christ, and swear ourselves
bare, and desire and cry on Him to come without money and buy
us, and take us home to our Kanaom-payer's fireside, and let us be
Christ's free-boarders : because we do not pay the old, we may
not refuse to take on Christ's new debt of mercy. Let us do our
^ Accusation. - Debt. * Woeful.
LETTER CXXI. 221
best, Christ will still be behind with us, and many terniB will run
together. For my part, let me stand for evermore in His book
for a forlorn dyvour. I must desire to be this^ far in His (.'ommon
of new, as to desire to kiss His feet. I know not how to win to
a heartsome^ fill and feast of Christ's love; for I dow^ neither buy,
nor beg, nor borrow ; and yet I cannot want it; I dow^ not want
it. 0 if I could praise Him ! yea, I would rest content with a
heart submissive and dying of love for Him ; and howbeit I won
never personally in at heaven's gates, 0, would to God, I could
send in my praises to my incomparable Well-Beloved, or cast my
love-songs of that matchless Lord Jesus over the walls, that they
may light in His lap before men and angels ! Now, grace, grace
be with you. Remember my love to your wife, and daughter, and
brother John. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R»
Aberdeen, June 11, 1Q37.
LETTER CXXL— To Alexander Gordon of Eavlstown.
Much honoured and worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be unto you : I long to hear from you. I receivecl few letters
since I came hither ; I am in need of a word. A dry plant would
have some watering. My case betwixt Christ my Lord and me
standeth between love and jealousy, faith and suspicion of His
love. It is a marvel He keepeth house with me. I make many
pleas with Christ, but He maketh as many agreements with me.
I think His unchangeable love hath said, I defy thee to break me
and change me : if Christ had such changeable and new thoughts
of my salvation as I have of it, I think I should then be at a sad
loss. He humoureth not a fool like me in my unbelief, but
rebuketh me and fathereth kindness upon me. Christ is rather
like the poor friend and needy prisoner (begging love) than I am.
I cannot for shame got Christ said nay of my whole love ; for He
will not want His errand for the seeking. God be thanked my
Bridegroom tireth not of wooing. Honour to Him, He is a wilful
suitor of my soul. But as love is His, pain is mine, that I have
nothing to give Him. His count-book is full of my debts of
mercy, kindness, and free love towards me. 0 that I might read
with watery eyes ! 0 that He would give me the interest of
interest to pay back ! Or rather my soul's desire is, that He
would comprise my person, soul and body, love, joy, confidence,
fear, sorrow, and desire, and drive the puynd,* and let me be
rouped and sold to Christ, and taken home to my Creditor's house
and His fireside. The Lord knoweth, if I could, I would sell
myself without reversion to Christ. 0 sweet Lord Jesus, make a
1 Thus. 2 Comfortable. s Can.
■* Poind (a Scotch law term) = arrestment.
222 LETTER CXXI.
market and overbid all my buyers ! I dare swear there is a
mystery in Christ which I never saw. A mystery of love. O if
He would lay by the lap of the covering that is over it, and let
my greening^ soul see it ! I would break the door, and be in
upon Him, to get a wombful of love ; for I am an hungered and
famished soul. 0, sir, if ye or any other would tell Him how sick
my soul is, dying for want of a hearty draught of Christ's love.
0 if I could doat (if I may make use of that word in this case) as
much upon Himself as I do upon His love ! it is a pity that
Christ Himself should not rather be my heart's choice than
Christ's manifested love. It would satisfy me, in some measure,
if I had any bud^ to give for His love; shall I offer Him my
praises 1 Alas, He is more than praises ! I give it over to get
Him exalted according to His worth, which is above what can be
known ; yet all this time I am tempting Him to see if there be
both love and anger in Him against me. I am plucked from His
flock (dear to me) and from feeding His lambs. I go therefore in
sackcloth as one who has lost the wife of his youth. Grief and
sorrow are suspicious, and spue out against Him the smoke of
jealousies, and I say often, " Show me wherefore thou contendest
with me 1" Tell me Lord, read the process against me : but I
know I cannot answer His alledgeance ; ^ I will lose the cause
when it cometh to open pleading. O if could force my heart to
believe dreams to be dreams ! yet when Christ giveth my fears
the lie, and saith to me, thou art a liar, then I am glad. I resolve
to hope, to be quiet, and to lie on the brink upon my side, till the
waterfall and the ford be ridable, and howbeit there be pain upon
me in longing for deliverance, that I may speak of Him in the
great congregation ; yet I think there is joy in that pain and on-
waiting, and I even rejoice that He putteth me off for a time and
shifteth me. 0 if I could wait on for all eternity, howbeit I should
never get my soul's desire, so being He were glorified ! I would
wish my pain and my ministry could live long to serve Him, for
1 know I am a clay vessel and made for His use. 0 if my very
broken sherds could serve to glorify Him ! I desire Christ's grace,
to be willingly content, that my hell (excepting His hatred and
displeasure), which I put out of all play (for submission to this is
not called for), were a preaching of His glory to men and angels
for ever and ever ! When all is done, what can I add to Him 1
or what can such a clay shadow as I do 1 I know He needeth
not me. I have cause to be grieved and to melt away in tears (if
I had grace to do it, Lord grant it to me) to see my Well-Beloved's
fair face spitted upon by dogs ; to see loons ^ pulhng the crown off
my royal King's head ; to see my harlot-mother and my sweet
^ Lonoitior - Offer. ■' Allesration or accusatiou. * liewd fellows.
l^KTTER CXXIT. 22?
Father agree so ill, that they are going to skaiP and give up
house; my Lord's palace is now a nest of unclean birds. 0, if
harlot, harlot Scotland would rue^ upon her provoked Lord, and
pity her good Husband, who is broken with her whorish heart !
But these things are hid from her eyes. I have heard of late of
your new trial by the Bishop of Galloway. Fear not clay and
worm's meat : let truth and Christ get no wrong in your hand ; it
is your gain, if Christ be glorified, and your glory to be Christ's
witness ; I persuade you your sufferings are Christ's advantage and
victory ; for He is pleased to reckon them so. Let me hear from
you. Christ is but winning a clean kirk out of the fire ; He will
win this play ; He will not be in your common for any charges ye
are at in His service ; He is not poor to sit in your debt ; He will
repay an hundred-fold more, it may be, even in this life. The
prayers and blessing of Christ's prisoner be with you.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXIL— To his Reverend and Loving Brother,
Mr. John Nevay.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
imto you. I received yours of April 1 1, as I did another of March
25, and a letter for Mr. Andrew Cant. I am not a little grieved
that our mother-church is running so quickly to the brothel-house,
and that we are hiring lovers and giving gifts to the great mother
of fornications. Alas, that our Husband is like to quit us so
shortly. It were my part (if I were able), when our Husband is de-
parting, to stir up myself to take hold of Him and keep Him in
this land ; for I know Him to be a sweet second, and a lovely
companion to a poor prisoner. I find my extremity hath sharpened
the edge of His love and kindness, so as He seemeth to devise
new ways of expressing the sweetness of His love to my soul.
Suflt'ering for Christ is the very element wherein Christ's love liveth
and exerciseth itself, in casting out flames of fire and sparks of heat
to warm such a frozen heart as I have ; and if Christ weeping in
sackcloth be so sweet, I cannot find any imaginable thoughts to
think what He will be when we, clay bodies (having put off mor-
tality), shall come up to the marriage-hall and great palace, and
behold the King clothed in His robes royal, sitting on His throne.
I would desire no more for my heaven beneath the moon, while I
am sighing in this house of clay, but daily renewed feasts of love
with Christ, and liberty now and then to feed my hunger with a
kiss of that fairest face, that is like the sun in his strength at
^ Separate. " Have compassion.
224 LETTER CXXIL
noon-day. I would willingly subscribe an ample resif^nation to
Christ of the fourteen prelacies of this land, and of all the most
delightful pleasures on earth, and forfeit my part of this clay-god,
this earth, which Adam's foolish children Avorship, to have no other
exercise but to lie in a love-bed with Christ, and fill this hungered
and famished soul with kissing, embracing, and real enjoying of
the Son of God. And I think then I might write to my friends,
that I had found the golden world, and look out and laugh at the
poor bodies who are slaying one another for feathers ; for verily,
brother, since I came to His prison, I have conceived a new and
extraordinary opinion of Christ which I had not before ; for I per-
ceive we frist^ all our joys to Christ, till He and we be in our
own house above, as married parties ; thinking that there is no-
thing of it here to be sought or found, but only hope and fair pro-
mises ; and that Christ will give us nothing here but tears, sad-
ness, crosses, and that Ave shall never feel the smell of the flowers
ot that high garden of paradise above till we come there. Nay,
but I find it is possible to find young glory and a young green
paradise of joy even here. I know Christ's kisses will cast a more
strong and refreshful smell of incomparable glory and joy in heaven
than they do here. Because a drink of the well of life, up at the
well's head, is more sweet and fresh by far, than that which we
get in our borrowed, old, running-out vessels, and our wooden
dishes here; yet I am now persuaded it is our folly to frist^ all till
the term day, seeing abundance of earnest will not diminish any-
thing of our principal sum. We dream of hunger in Christ's house
while we are here, although He allowetli feasts upon all the bairns
within God's household. It were good then to store ourselves
Avith more borroAved kisses of Christ, and with more borrowed
visits, till we enter heirs to our new inheritance, and our Tutor-
put us in possession of our OAvn, Avhen we are past minority. O,
that all the young heirs would seek more, and a greater and a
nearer communion with my Lord-tutor, the prime Heir of all,
Christ ! I Avish, for my part, I could send you, and that gentleman
who wrote his commendations to me, into the King's innermost
cellar and house of wine to be filled Avith love. A drink of this
love is worth the having indeed. We carry ourselves but too
nicely with Christ our Lord, and our Lord loveth not niceness,
and dryness, and uncouthness in friends. Since need-force' we
must be in Christ's common, then, let us be in His common ; for
it will be no other ways. Noav for my present case, in my im-
prisonment, deliverance (for any appearance I see) looketh cold-
like. My hope, if it looked to or leaned upon men, should Avither
soon at the root like a May-flower. Yet 1 resolve to ease myself
^ Postpone. - Guardian. ^ Of necessity.
LETTER CXXII. 225
with on-waiting on my Lord, and to let my faith swim where it
loseth ground. I am under a necessity either of fainting (which
I hope my Master, of whom I boast all the day, shall avert), or
then to lay my faith upon Omnipotency, and to wink and stick by
my grip. And I hope my ship shall ride it out, seeing Christ is
willing to blow His sweet wind in my sails, and mendeth and
closeth the leaks in my ship, and ruleth all. It will be strange if
a believing passenger be casten overboard. As for your master,
my lord and my lady, I will be loath to forget them. I think my
prayers (such as they are) are due debt to him, and I shall be far
more engaged to his lordship if he be fast for Christ (as I hope he
will), now when so many of his coat and quality slip from Christ's
back and leave Him to fend for^ Himself. I entreat you, remem-
ber my love to that worthy gentleman, A. C, who saluted me in
your letter. I have heard that he is one of my Master's friends,
for the which cause I am tied to him : I wish he may more and
more fall in love with Christ. Now for your question, as far as I
really conceive, I think God is praised two ways. First, by a con-
cional^ profession of his Highness before men, such as is the very
hearing of the word, and receiving of either of the sacraments, in
which acts by profession, we give out to men, that He is our God,
with whom we are in covenant, and our Lawgiver. Thus eating
and drinking in the Lord's supper is an annunciation and profes-
sion before men that Christ is our slain Eedeemer. Here, because
God speaketh to us, not we to Him, it is not a formal thanks-
giving, but an annunciation or predication of Christ's death, con-
cional, not adorative ; neither hath it God for the immediate ob-
ject, and therefore no kneeling can be here. Secondly. There is
another praising of God, formal, when we are either formally
blessing God or speaking His praises. And this I take to be two-
fold. 1. When we directly and formally direct praises and thanks-
giving to God : this may well be done kneeling, in token of our
recognisance of his Highness ; yet not so, but it may be standing
or sitting, especially seeing joyful elevation (which should be in
praising) is not formally signified by kneeling. 2. When we speak
good of God, and declare His glorious nature and attributes, ex-
tolling Him before men, to excite men to conceive highly of Him.
The former I hold to be worship every way immediate, else I know
not any immediate worship at all : the latter hath God for the
subject, not properly the object, seeing the predication is directed
to men immediately rather than to God ; for here we speak ot
God, by way of praising, rather than to God. And for my own
part, as I am for the present minded, I see not how this can be
done kneeling, seeing it is vrcedicatio Dei et Christi, non laudaUo aut
benedidio Dei. But observe that it is formal ])raising of God, and
^ Take care of. " Declarative. p
226 LETTER CXXIII.
not merely concional, as I distinguished in tlie lirot member ; for
in the first member, any speaking of God, or of His works of
creation, providence, and redemption, is indirect and concional
praising of Him, and formally preaching, or an act of teaching, not
an act of predication of His praises ; for there is a difference be-
twixt the simple relation of the virtues of a thing, which is for-
mally teaching, and the extolling of the worth of a thing by way
of commendation, to cause others to praise with us. Thus recom-
mending you to God's grace, I rest.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. Ji.
Aberdeen, June 15, 1037.
LETTER CXXni.— To Mr. J. R.
Dear Brother. — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Upon
the report I hear of you, without any further acquaintance, except
our straitest bonds in our Lord Jesus, I thought good to write
unto you, hearing of your danger to be thrust out of the Lord's
house for His name sake. Therefore, my earnest and humble de-
sire to God is, that ye may be strengthened in the grace of God,
and by the power of His might, to go on for Christ, not standing
in awe of a worm that shall die. I hoi^e ye will not put your
hand to the ark to give it a wrong touch, and to overturn it, as
many now do, when the archers are shooting sore at Joseph,
whose bow shall abide in its strength. We owe to our royal
King and princely Master a testimony. 0, how blessed are they
who can ward a blow off Christ and His borne-down truth ! men
think Christ a gone man now, and that He shall never get up His
head again. And they believe His court ^ is failed, because He
suffereth men to break their spears and swords upon Him ; and
the enemies to plough Zion, and make long and deep their furrows
on her back. But it would not be so if the Lord had not a sow-
ing for His ploughing. What can He do but melt an old drossy
kirk, that He may bring out a new bride out of the fire again 1
I think Christ is just now repairing His house, and exchanging
His old vessels Avith new vessels, and is going through this land,
and taking up an inventure- and a roll of so many of Levi's sons
and good professors, that He may make them new work for the
second temple. And whatsoever shall be found not to be for the
work, shall be casten over the wall. When the house shall be
builded, He shall lay by His hammers, as having no more to do
with them. It is possible He do worse to them than lay them
by ; and I think the vengeance of the Lord, and the vengeance of
His temple, shall be upon them. I desire no more but to keep
weight when I am past the fire. And I can now, in some weak
^ Influence. "- Inventory.
LETTER CXXIV. 227
measure, give Christ a testimonial of a lovely and loving com-
panion under suffering for Him. I saw Him before but afar off,
His beauty to my eye-sight groweth. A fig, a straw for ten
worlds' plastered glory, and for childish shadows ; the idol of clay
(this god, the world) that fools fight for. If I had a lease oi
Christ of my own dating (for whoever once cometh nigh hand,
and taketh a hearty look of Christ's inner side, shall never v/ring
nor wrestle themselves out of His love-grips again), I would rest
contented in my prison ! yea, in a prison without light of sun or
candle, providing Christ and I had a love-bed, not of mine, but ot
Christ His o^\•n making, that we might lie together among the
lilies till the day break and the shadows flee away. Who knoweth
how sweet a drink of Christ's love is 1 0, but to live on Christ's
love is a king's life ! the worst things of Christ, even that Avhich
seemeth to be the refuse of Christ, His hard cross, His black
cross, is white and fair : and the cross receiveth a beautiful lustre
and a perfumed smell from Jesus. My dear brother, scaur ^ not at
it. While ye have time to stand upon the watch tower and to
speak, contend with this land, plead with your harlot mother,
who hath been a treacherous half-marrow- to her Husband, Jesus :
for I would think liberty to preach one day the root and top of
my desires, and would seek no more of the blessings that are to
be had on this side of time till I be over the water, but to spend
this my crazed clay-house in His service and saving of souls.
But I hold my peace because He hath done it. My shallow and
ebb thoughts are not the compass Christ saileth by. I leave His
ways to Himself, for they are far, far above me. Only I would
contend with Christ for His love, and be bold to make a plea with
Jesus my Lord for a heart-hll of His love ; for there is no more
left to me. What standeth beyond the far end of my sufferings,
and what shall be the event. He knoweth; and I hope, to my joy.
shall make me know, when God shall unfold His decrees concern-
ing me ; for there are windings, and to's and fro's in His ways,
which blind bodies like us cannot see. This much for further
acquaintance. So recommending you, and what is before you, to
the grace of God, I rest.
Your very loving brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S, E.
Aberdeen, June 16, 1637.
LETTER CXXIV.— To Mr. William Dalgleish.
Eeverend and well-beloved Brother, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be unto you. I have heard somewhat of your trials in
Galloway. I bless the Lord, who hath begun first in that cornei-
^ Startle. - Coiisoit.
228 LETTER CXXIV.
to make you a new kirk to Himself. Ciirist hath the less ado
behind when He hath refined you. Let me entreat you, my
dearly beloved, to be fast to Christ. My witness is above, my
dearest brother, that ye have added much joy to me in my bonds,
when I hear that you grow in the grace and zeal of God for your
Master. Our ministry, whether by preaching or suffering, will
cast a smell through the world both of heaven and hell, 2 Cor. ii.
15, 16. I persuade you, my dear brother, there is nothing out
of heaven, next to Christ, dearer to me than my ministry; and the
worth of it, in my estimation, is swelled, and paineth me exceed-
ingly; yet I am content, for the honour of my Lord, to surrender
it back again to the Lord of the vineyard. Let Him do with me
and it both what He thinketh good : I think myself too little for
Him. And let me speak to you, how kind a fellow-prisoner is
Christ to me ! Believe me, this kind of cross (that would not go
by my door, but would needs visit me) is still the longer the more
welcome to me. It is true my silent sabbaths have been and are
still as glassy ice, whereon my faith can scarce hold its feet, as I
am often blown on my back and off" my feet with a storm of
doubting ; yet truly my bonds all this time cast a mighty and
rank smell of high and deep love in Christ. I cannot indeed see
through my cross to the far end ; yet I believe I am in Christ's
books, and in His decree (not yet unfolded to me) a man triumph-
ing, dancing, and singing over on the other side of the Red Sea,
and laughing and praising the Lamb, over bej^ond time, sorrow,
deprivation, prelates' indignation, losses, want of friends, and
death. Heaven is not a fowl flying in the air (as men use to
speak of things that are uncertain) ; nay, it is well paid for,
Christ's comprisement '^ lieth on glory, for all the mourners in
Zion, and shall never be loosed. Let us be glad and rejoice that
we have blood, losses, and wounds, to show our Master and Cap-
tain at His appearance, and what we suffered for His cause. Woe
is me, my dear brother, that I say often, I am but dry bones,
which my Lord will not bring out of the grave again, and that
my faithless fears say, " 0, I am a dry tree that can bear no fruit;
I am an useless body, who can beget no children to the Lord in
His house !" Hopes of deliverance look cold and uncertain and
afar off, as if I had done with it. It is much for Christ (if I may
say so) to get lawborrows- of my sorrow and of my quarrelous
heart. Christ's love playeth me fair play, I am not Avronged at
all : but there is a tricking and false heart within me that still
playetli Christ foul play. I am a cumbersome neighbour to
Christ ; it is a wonder that He dwelleth beside the like of me ;
yet I often get the advantage of the hill above my temptations,
^ Apprehension. ^ Security.
LETTER (JXXIV. 229
and then I despise the temptation, even hell itself, and the stink
of it, and the instruments of it, and am proud of my honourable
Master. And I resolve, whether contrary winds will or not, to
fetch Christ's harbour : and I think a wilful and stiff contention
with my Lord Jesus for His love very lawful : it is sometimes
hard to me to win my meat upon Christ's love, because my faith
is sick, and my hope withereth, and my eyes wax dim, and un-
kind and comfort-eclipsing clouds go over the fair, and bright, and
hght Sun, Jesus. And then, when I and my temjDtation tryst '•
the matter together, we spill ^ all through unbelief. Sweet, sweet
for evermore would my life be, if I could keep faith in exercise.
But I see my fire cannot always cast light. I have even a poor
man's hard world, when He goeth away. But surely, since my
entry hither, many a time hath my fair Sun shined without a
cloud. Hot and burning hath Christ's love been to me ; I have
no vent to the expression of it. I must be content with stolen
and smothered desires of Christ's glory. 0 how far is His love
behind the hand with me ! I am just like a man who hath no-
thing to pay his thousands of debt : all that can be gotten of him,
is to seize upon his person. Except Christ would seize upon my-
self, and make the readiest payment that can be of my heart and
love to Himself, I have no other thing to give Him. If my suffer-
ings could do beholders good, and edify His kirk, and proclaim
the incomparable worth of Christ's love to the world, 0 then how
would my soul be overjoyed, and my sad heart cheered and
calmed ! Dear brother, I cannot tell what is become of my labours
among that people. If all that my Lord builded by me be casten
down, and the bottom fallen out of the profession of that parish,
and none stand by Christ, whose love I once preached, as clearly
and plainly as I could (though far below its worth and excellency),
to that people ; if so, how can I bear it ? And if another make a
foul harvest where I have made a jiainfuP and honest solving, it
will not soon digest with me ; but I know His ways pass finding
out. Yet my witness, both within me and above me, knoweth,
and my pained breast upon the Lord's day at night, my desire to
have had Christ awful, and amiable, and sweet to that people, is
now my joy ; and it was my desire and aim to make Chri^^t and
them one. If I see my hopes die in the bud, ere they bloom a
little, and come to no fruit, I die with grief. 0, my God, seek
not an account of the violence done to me by my brethren, whose
salvation I love and desire. I pray that they and I be not heard
as contrary parties in the day of our compearance before our
Judge, in that process led by them against my ministry, which I
received from Christ. I know a little inch, and less than the
^ Arrangfe. - Spoil. ^ Painstaking.
230 LETTER CXXV.
third part of this span-length and hand-breadth of time which is
posting- away, will put me without the stroke and above tlie reach
of either brethren or foes. And it is a short-lasting injury done
to me and to my pains in that part of my Lord's vineyard. 0,
how silly ^ an advantage is my deprivation to men, seeing my Lord
Jesus hath many ways to recover His own losses, and is irresistible
to compass His own glorious ends, that His lily may grow amongst
thorns, and His little kingdom exalt itself, even under the swords
and spears of contrary powers ! but, my dear brother, go on in the
strength of His rich grace whom ye serve. Stand fast for Christ.
Deliver the Gospel off your hand, and your ministry to your
Master, with a clean and undefiled conscience. Loose not a pin
of Christ's tabernacle : do not so much as pick with your nail at
one board or border of the ark. Have no part or dealing, upon
any terms, in a hoof, in a closed window, or in a bowing of your
knee, in casting down of the temple; but be a mourning and
speaking witness against them who now ruin Zion. Our Master
will be on us all, in a clap, ere ever we wit. That day will discover
all our whites and our blacks concerning this controversy of poor,
oppressed Zion. Let us make our part of it good, that it may be
able to abide the fire, when hay and stubble shall be burnt to
ashes. Nothing, nothing (I say nothing) but sanctification can
abide the Lord's fan. I stand to my testimony that I preached
often of Scotland. Lamentation, mourning, and woe abideth thee,
0 Scotland. 0 Scotland, the fearful quarrel of a broken covenant
standeth good with thy Lord. Now, remember my love to all
friends, and to my parishioners, as if I named each one of them
particularly. I recommend you and God's people, committed by
Christ to your trust, to the rich grace of our all-sufficient Lord.
Remember my bonds. Praise my Lord who beareth me up in my
sufferings. As ye find occasion (according to the wisdom given
you), show our acquaintance what the Lord hath done to my soul.
This I seek not, verily, to hunt my own praise, but that my
sweetest and dearest Master may be magnified in my sufferings.
1 rest, your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, June 17, 1637.
LETTEE CXXV.— To Marion M'Naught.
Dearly beloved in our Lord Jesus Chrlst, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. Few know the heart of a stranger and
prisoner ; I am in the hands of mine enemies. I would honest
and lawful means were essayed for bringing me home to my charge,
now whea Mw A. E. and Mr. H. E. are restored. It coucernetb
1 SUght.
LETTER CXXV. 231
you of Gcilloway most to use supplications and addresses for this
purpose, and try if by fair means I can be brought back again. As
for liberty, without I be restored to my flock, it is little to me, for
my silence is my greatest prison. However it be, I wait for the
Lord, I hope not to rot in my sufferings. Lord give me submission
to wait on ; my heart is sad, that my days flee away, and I do no
service to my Lord in His house, now when His harvest and the
souls of perishing people require it ; but His ways are not like my
ways, neither can I find Him out. 0, that He would shine upon
my darkness, and bring forth my morning light, from under the
thick cloud that men have spread over me ! 0, that the Almighty
would lay my cause in a balance and weigh me, if my soul was not
taken up, when others were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed
with a bride in that part of the land ! But that day that my
mouth was most unjustly and cruelly closed, the bloom fell off my
branches, and my joy did cast the flower; howbeit, I have been
casting myself under Christ's feet, and wrestling to believe under
a hidden and covered Lord ; yet my fainting cometh before I eat,
and my faith hath bowed with the sore cast, and under this almost
insupportable weight. 0, that it break not ! I dare not say that
the Lord hath put out my candle, and hath casten water upon my
poor coal, and broken the stakes of my tabernacle ; but I have
tasted bitterness and eaten gall and wormwood since that day my
Master laid bonds upon me to speak no more. I speak not this
because the Lord is uncouth to me, but because beholders, that
stand on dry land, see not my sea-storm. The witnesses of my
cross are but strangers to my sad days and nights. 0, that Christ
would let me alone, and speak love to me, and come home to me,
and bring summer with Him ! 0, that I might preach His beauty
and glory, as once I did, before my clay-tent be removed to dark-
ness, and that I might lift Christ off" the ground, and my branches
might be watered with the dew of God, and my joy in His work
might grow green again, and bud, and send out a flower ! But I
am but a short-sighted creature, and my candle casteth not light
afar off". He knoweth all that is done to me, how that when I
had but one joy and no more, and one green flower that I esteemed
to be my garland, He came in one hour and dried up my flower
at the root, and took away mine only eye, and mine only one
crown and garland. What can I say 1 Surely my guiltiness hath
been remembered before Him, and He was seeking to take down
my sails and to land the flower of my delights, and to let it lie on
the coast like an old broken ship that is no more for the sea. But
I praise Him for this waled^ stroke, I welcome this furnace; God's
wisdom made choice of it for me, and it must be best because it
was His choice. 0, that I may wait for Him till the morning of
^ Selected.
232 LETTKP. CXXVI.
this benighted kiric break out ! This poor afflicted kirk had a fair
morning ; but her niglit came upon her before her noonday, and
she was like a traveller forced to take house in the morning of his
journey. And now her adversaries are the chief men in the land,
her ways mourn, her gates languish, her children sigh for bread,
and there is none to be instant with the Lord, that He would come
again to His house, and dry the face of His weeping spouse, and
comfort Zion's mourners, who are waiting for Him. I know, He
shall make corn to grow upon the top of His withered Mount Zion
again. Eemember my bonds, and forget me not. 0, that my
Lord would bring me again amongst you with abundance of the
Gospel of Christ ! But 0, that I may set down my desires where
my Lord biddeth me ! Eemember my love in the Lord to your
husband, God make him faithful to Christ ; and my blessing to
your three children. Faint not in prayer for this kirk. Desire
my people not to receive a stranger and intruder upon my ministry :
let me stand in that right and station that my Lord Jesus gave me.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXVL— To John Gordon at Risco.
Dear Brother, — I earnestly desire to know the case of your
Boul, and to understand that ye have made sure work of heaven
and salvation. L Remember, salvation is one of Christ's daintiea
He giveth but to a few. 2. That it is violent sweating and striv-
ing that taketh heaven. 3. That it cost Christ's blood to purchase
that house to sinners, and to set mankind down the King's free
tenants and freeholders. 4. That many make a start tOAvards
heaven who fall on their back and win not up to the top of the
mount ; it plucketh heart and legs from them, and they sit down
and give it over, because the devil setteth a sweet-snielled flower
to their nose (this fair busked^ world), wherewith they are be-
witched, and so forget or refuse to go forward. 5. Remember,
many go far on, and reform many things, and can find tears, as
Esau did ; and suffer hunger for the truth, as Judas did ; and
wish and desire the end of the righteous, as Balaam did; and pro-
fess fair, and fight for the Lord, as Saul did ; and desire the saints
of God to pray for them, as Pharaoh and Simon Magus did ; and
prophesy and speak of Christ, as Caiaphas did ; walk softly, and
mourn for fear of judgment, as Ahab did ; and put away gross
sins and idolatry, as Jehu did ; and hear the word of God gladly,
and reform their life in many things, according to the word, as
Herod did; and say, "Master (to Christ), I will follow thee,
whithersoever thou goest," as the man who offered to be Christ's
1 Adorned.
LETTKK CXXVII. 233
servant, Matt. viii. ; and may taste of the virtues of the life to
come, and be partakers of the wonderful gifts of the Holy Sj^irit,
and taste of the good word of God, as the apostates who sin
against the Holy Ghost, Heb. vi. : and yet all these are but like
gold in clink and colour, and watered brass, and base metal.
These are written that we should try ourselves, and not rest till
we be a step nearer Christ than sun-burnt and withering profes-
sors can come. 6. Consider, it is impossible that your idol-sins
and ye can go to heaven together ; and that they, who will not
part with these, can indeed love Christ at the bottom ; but only
in word and show, which will not do the business. 7. Remember
how swiftly God's post-time flieth away, and that your forenoon
is already spent, your afternoon will come, and then your evening,
and at last, night, when ye cannot see to work. Let your heart
be set upon finishing of your journey, and summing, and laying
your accounts with your Lord. 0, how blessed shall ye be to
liave a joyful welcome of your Lord at night. How blessed are
they, who, in time, take sure course with their souls ! Bless His
great name for what ye possess in goods and children, ease and
worldly contentment, that He hath given you ; and seek to be
like Christ, in humility and lowliness of mind, and be not great
and entire^ with the world; make it not your god, nor your lover,
that ye trust unto, for it will deceive you. I recommend Christ
and His love to you in all things ; let Him have the flower of your
heart and your love ; set a Ioav price upon all things but Christ,
and cry down in your thoughts clay and dirt, that will not comfort
you when ye get summons to remove, and compear before your
Judge, to answer for all the deeds done in the body. The Lord
give you wisdom in all things. I beseech you, sanctify God in
your speaking, for holy and reverend is His name; and be temper-
ate and sober; companionry^ (as it is called) is a sin that holdeth
men out of heaven. I will not believe that ye will receive the
ministry of a stranger, Avho will preach a new and uncouth
doctrine to you. Let my salvation stand for it, if I delivered not
the plain and whole counsel of God to you in His word. Eead
this letter to your wife, and remember my love to her, and request
her to take heed to do what I write to you. I pray for you and
yours. Remember me in your prayers to our Lord, that He would
be pleased to send me amongst you again. Grace be with you.
Your lawful and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXVII.— To Mr. Hugh Henderson.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Who knoweth but the wind
may turn into the west again upon Christ and His desolate bride
^ Priendly and intimate. - Good fellowship.
234 LETTER CXXVIl.
in this land ? and that Christ may get His snmiuor by course
again ; for He hath had ill weather this long time, and could not
find law or justice for Himself and His truth these many years.
I am sure the wheels of this crazed and broken kirk run all upon
no other axle-tree, nor is there any other to roll them, and cog
them, and drive them, but the wisdom and good pleasure of our
Lord. And it were a just trick, and glorious, of never-sleeping
providence, to bring our brethren's darts they have shot at us,
back upon their own heads. Suppose they have two strings to
their bow, and can take one as another faileth them, yet there are
more than three strings upon our Lord's bow ; and, besides, He
cannot miss the white that He shooteth at. I know, He shuffleth
up and down in His hand the great body of heaven and earth,
and that kirk and commonwealth are in His hand like a stock of
cards, and that He dealeth the play to the mourners in Zion, and
those that say, " Lie down, that we may go over you," at His own
sovereign pleasure : and I am sure, Zion's adversaries, in this play,
shall not take up their own stakes again. 0, how sweet a thing
it is to trust in Him ! when Christ hath slept out His sleep (if I
may speak so of Him, who is the Watchman of Israel, that neither
slumbereth nor sleepeth), and His own are tried, He will arise as
a strong man after wine, and make bare His holy arm, and put on
vengeance as a cloak, and deal vengeance thick and double a-
mongst the haters of Zion. It may be we see Him sow and send
down maledictions and vengeances, as thick as drops of rain or
hail, upon His enemies. For our Lord oweth them a black day,
and He useth duly to pay His debts : neither His friends and
followers, nor His foes and adversaries, shall have it to say that
He is not faithful and exact in keeping His word. I know no bar
in God's way but Scotland's guiltiness, and He can come over that
impediment and break that bar also, and then say to guilty Scot-
land, as He said, Ezek. xxxvi., " Not for your sakes," &c. On-
waiting had ever yet a blessed issue, and to keep the word of
God's patience, keepeth still the saints dry in the water, cold in
the fire, and breathing and blood-hot in the grave. What are
prisons of iron walls and gates of brass to Christ 1 not so good as
feal-dykes,^ fortifications of straw, or old tottering walls : if He
give the word, then the chains will fall oft the arms and legs of
His prisoners. God be thanked that our Lord Jesus hath the
tutoring of king, and court, and nobles, and that He can dry the
gutters and the mires in Zion, and lay causeys" to the temple with
the carcases of bastard lord-prelates and idol-shepherds. The corn
on the house-tops got never the husbandman's prayers, and so is
seen on it, for it filleth not the hand ol mowers. Christ and truth
1 TiU'f-walls. - Causeways.
LETTEK CXXVIII 235
and innocency worketh even under this earth; and verily there is
hope for the righteous. We see not what conclusions pass in
heaven anent^ all the affairs of God's house : we need not give
hire to God to take vengeance of His enemies ; for justice worketh
without hire. 0, that the seed of hope would grow again and
come to maturity. And that we could importune Christ, and
double our knocks at His gate, and cast our cries and shouts over
the wall, that He might come out and make our Jerusalem the
praise of the whole earth, and give us salvation for walls and bul-
warks : if Chi'ist bud, and grow green, and bloom, and bear seed
again in Scotland, and His Father send Him two summers again
in one year, and bless His crop. O, what cause have we to re-
joice in the free salvation of our Lord, and to set up our banners
in the name of our God ! 0 that He would hasten the confusion
of the leprous strumpet, the mother and mistress of abominations
in the earth, and take graven images out of the way, and come in
with the Jews in troops, and agree with His old outcast and for-
saken wife, and take them in again to His bed of love ! Grace be
with you. Yours, in our Master and Lord, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXVin.— To the Lady Largipje.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I exhort you
in the Lord to go on in your journey to heaven, and to be content
of such fare by the way as Christ and His followers have had be-
fore you ; for they had always the wind on their faces, and our
Lord hath not changed the way to us, for our ease, but will have
us following our sweet Guide. Alas, how doth sin clog us in our
journey and retard us ! what fools are we to have a by-god, or an-
other lover or match to our souls beside Christ 1 It were best for
us, like ill bairns^ (who are best heard at home), to seek our own
home, and to sell our hopes of this little clay inns and idol of the
earth, where we are neither well summered nor well wintered.
0, that our souls would fall so at odds with the love of this world
as to think of it as a traveller doeth of a drink of water, which is
not any part of his treasure, but goeth away with the using ; for
ten miles' journey maketh that drink to Him as nothing ! O, that
we had as soon done with this world, and could as quickly dis-
patch the love of it ! But as a child cannot hold two apples in
his little hand, but the one putteth the other out of its room; so
neither can we be masters and lords of two loves. Blessed were
Ave if could make ourselves masters of that invaluable treasure, the
love of Ciuist ; or rather sutler ourselves to be mastered and .sub-
^ Concerning. - Naughty childrea
236 LETTEE CXXTX.
dued to Christ's love, so as Christ were our all things, and all
other things our nothings, and the refuse of our delights. 0, let
us be ready for shipping against the time our Lord's wind and tide
call lor us ! Death is the last thief that shall come, without din
or noise of feet, and take our souls away, and we shall take our
leave of time and face eternity, and our Lord shall lay together
the two sides of this earthly talDernacle, and fold us and lay us by
as a man layeth by his clothes at night, and put the one half of
us in a house of clay, the dark grave, and the other half of us in
heaven or hell. Seek to be found of your Lord in peace, and
gather in your flitting,^ and put your soul in order, for Christ will
not give a nail-breadth of time to our little sand-glass. Pray for
Zion, and for me His prisoner, that He would be pleased to bring
me amongst you again full of Christ, and fraughted- and laden
with the blessings of His Gospel. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord and Master, S. K.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER ex XIX.— To Earlestoavn, Younger.
Worthy and dearly beloved in the Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. I long to hear from you. I remain still a
prisoner of hope, and do think it service to the Lord to wait on
still with submission, till the Lord's morning-sky break and His
summer-day dawn ; for I am persuaded it is a piece of the chief
errand of our life that God sent us, for some years, down to this
earth among devils and men, the firebrands of the devil and temp-
tations, that Ave might suffer for a time here amongst our enemies ;
otherwise He might have made heaven to wait on us, at our
coming out of the womb, and have carried us home to our country,
without letting us set down our feet in this knotty and thorny
life : but seeing a piece of suffering is carved to every one of us,
less or more, as infinite wisdom hath thought good, our part is to
harden and habituate our soft and thin-skinned nature to endure
fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, woe ^ hearts, as these
that are looked upon by God, angels, men, and devils. 0, what
folly is it to sit down and weep upon a decree of God, that is both
dumb and deaf at our tears, and must stand still as immovable as
God who made it ; for Avho can come behind our Lord to alter or
better what He hath decreed and done 1 It were better to make
Avindows in our prison, and to look out to God and our country
heaven, and to cry, like fettered men who long for the King's free
air, " Lord, let thy kingdom come : 0, let the Bridegroom come !
And, O day, 0 fair day, 0 everlasting summer-day, dawn and
' Furniture. " Freisrlited. ^ Woeful.
LETTER CXXIX. 237
shine out, break out from under the black niglit sky, and shine ! "
I am persuaded, if every day a little stone in the prison walls
were broken, and thereby assurance given to the chained prisoner
lying under twenty stone of irons upon arms and legs, that at
length his chain should wear in two pieces, and a hole should be
made at length as wide as he might come safely out to his long
desired liberty, he would in patience wait on till time should hole
the prison wall and break his chains. The Lord's hopeful prisoners,
under their trials, are in that case. Years and months will take
out now one little stone, then another of this house of clay, and at
length time shall win out the breadth of a fair door, and send out
the imprisoned soul to the free air in heaven ; and time shall file
off, by little and little, our iron bolts, which are now on legs and
arms, and out-date and wear our troubles thread-bare and holey,
and then wear them to nothing. For what I suffered yesterday,
I know shall never come again to trouble me. 0, that we could
breathe out new hope and new submission every day in Christ's
lap ! For certainly a weight of glory well weighed (yea, increasing
to a far more exceeding and eternal weight) shall recompense both
weight and length of light, and clipped and short-dated crosses.
Our waters are but ebb,^ and come neither to our chin nor to the
stopping of our breath. I may see (if I would borrow eyes from
Christ) dry land, and that near. Why, then, should we not laugh
at adversity, and scorn our short-born and soon-dying temptations.
I rejoice in the hope of that glory to be revealed, for it is no
uncertain glory we look for ; our hope is not hung upon such an
untwisted thread as "I imagine so," or "it is likely"; but the cable,
the strong tow of our fastened anchor, is the oath and the promise
of Him who is eternal verity ; our salvation is fastened with God's
own hand and with Christ's own strength to the strong stoup ^ of
God's unchangeable nature, Mai. iii. 6, " I am the Lord, I change
not, and therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." We may
play, and dance, and leap upon our worthy and immovable Eock :
the ground is sure and good, and will bide hell's brangling,^ and
devil's brangling, and the world's assaults. 0, if our faith could
I'ide it out against the high and proud winds and waves, when our
sea seemeth all to be on fire ! 0, how oft do I let my grips go !
I am put to swimming and half sinking. I find the devil hath
the advantage of the ground in this battle, for he fighteth in
known ground, in our corrupt nature. Alas ! that is a friend near
of kin and blood to himself, and will not fail to fall foul upon us.
And hence it is that He, "who saveth to the uttermost," and
" leadeth many sons to glory," is still righting my salvation, and
twenty times a day I ravel* my heaven, and then I must come with
^Shallow. -Pillar. ^Contention. ■* Tangle.
238 LETTER CXXX.
my ill-ravelled work to Christ, to cumber Him (as it were), to
right it, and to seek again the right end of the thread, and to fold
up again my eternal glory with His own hand, and to give a right
cast of His holy and gracious hand to my marred and spilt salva-
tion. Certainly, it is a cumbersome thing to keep a foolish child
from falls and iDroken brows, and weeping for this and that toy,
and rash running, and sickness, and bairns' diseases ; ere he win
through them all, and win out of the mires, he costeth meikle ^
black cumber ^ and fasherie ^ to his keepers. And so is a believei
a cumbersome piece of work and an ill-ravelled hasp (as we use to
say) to Christ. But God be thanked ; for many spilt salvations,
and many ill-ravelled hasps hath Christ mended since first He
entered tutor to lost mankind. 0, what could we, bairns, do
without Him 1 how soon would we mar all 1 But the less of our
Aveight be upon our own feeble legs, and the more that we be on
Christ, the strong Eock, the better for us. It is good for us that
ever Christ took the cumber off us : it is our heaven to lay many
weights and burdens upon Christ, and to make Him all we have,
root and top, beginning and ending of our salvation. Lord, hold
us here. Now to this Tutor and rich Lord, I recommend you.
Hold fast till He come, and remember His prisonei\ Grace, grace
be with you. Yours, in his and your Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXX.— To Mr. William Dalgleish.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. I received your letter. I bless our high and ordy wise
Lord, who hath broken the snare that men had laid for you ; and
I hope that now He shall keep you in His house in despite of the
powers of hell. Who knoweth but the streets of our Jerusalem
shall yet be filled with young men, and with old men and boys,
and women with child, and that they shall plant vines in the
mountains of Samaria 1 I am sure the wheels, paces, and motions
of this poor church are tempered and ruled not as men would, but
according to the good pleasure and infinite wisdom of our only
wise Lord. I am here waiting in hope that my innocency, in this
honourable cause, shall melt this cloud that men have casten over
me. I know my Lord had His own quarrels against me, and that
my dross stood in need of this hot furnace ; but I rejoice in this,
that fair truth, beautiful truth (whose glory my Lord cleareth to
me more and more), beareth me company, and that my weak aims
to honour my Master, in bringing guests to His house, now swell
upon me in comforts, and that I am not afraid to want a witness
^ ]Mucii. - Trouble. ^ Cai-e.
LETTER cxxxr. 239
in heaven, that it was my joy to have a crown put upon Christ's
head in that country. 0 what joy would I have to see the wind
turn upon the enemies of the cross of Christ, and to see my Lord
Jesus restored with the voice of praise to His own free throne
again, and to be brought amongst you to see the beauty of the
Lord's house ! I hope that country will not be so silly as to suffer
men to pluck you away from them, and that ye will use means to
keep my place empty, and to bring me back again to the people
to whom I have Christ's right and His church's lawful calling.
Dear brother, let Christ be dearer and dearer to you ; let the con-
quest of souls be top and root, flower and bloom of your joys and
desires, on this side of sun and moon : and in the day when the
Lord shall pull up the four stakes of this clay-tent of the earth,
and the last pickle ^ of sand shall be at the nick of falling down in
your watch-glass, and the Master shall call the servants of the
vineyard to give them their hire, ye will esteem the bloom of this
world's glory like the colours of the rainbow, that no man can
put in his purse and treasure. Your labours and pains shall then
smile upon you. My Lord now hath given me experience (how-
beit, weak and small) that our best fare here is hunger ; we are
but at God's by-board- in this lower house; we have cause to long
for supper-time and the high table up in the high jDalace : this
world deserveth nothing but the utter ^ court of our soul. Lord
hasten the marriage-supper of the Lamb. I find it still peace to
give up with this present world as with an old decourted and cast-
off lover. My bread and drink in it is not so much worth, that I
should not loathe the inns, and pack up my desires for Christ,
that I have sent out to the feckless'^ creatures in it. Grace, grace
be with you.
Your affectionate brother and Christ's prisoner, S. li.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXXL— To the Laird of Cally.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I
long to hear how your soul prospereth. I have that confidence
that your soul mindeth Christ and salvation. I beseech you in
the Lord give more pains and diligence to fetch heaven than the
country-sort of lazy professors, who think their own faith and their
own godliness, because it is their own, best, and content themselves
witli a coldrife ^ custom and course, with a resolution to summer
and winter in that sort of profession that the multitude and the
times favour most, and are still shaping, and clipi^ing, and carving
their faith according as it may best stand with their summer sun
^ Grain ^Side-table. ^ Outer. ''Worthless. " Habitually colcL
240 LETTER CXXXI.
and a whole skin ; and so breathe out both hot and cold in God's
matters according to the course of the times. This is their com-
pass they sail toward heaven by, instead of a better. Worthy and
dear sir, separate yourself from such, and bend yourself, to the ut-
most of your strength and breath, in running fast for salvation,
and in taking Christ's kingdom, use violence. It cost Christ and
all His followers sharp showers and hot sweats ere they won to
the top of the mountain. But still our soft nature would have
heaven coming to our bedside when we are sleeping, and lying
down with us, that we might go to heaven in warm clothes ; but
all that came there found wet feet by the way, and sharp storms
that did take the hide off their face, and found to's and fro's, and
up's and down's, and many enemies by the way. It is impossible
a man can take his lusts to heaven with him, such wares as these
will not be welcome there. 0, how loath are we to forego our
packalds - and burdens that hinder us to run our race with patience !
it is no small work to displease and anger nature that we may
please God. 0, if it be hard to win one foot or half an inch out
of our own will, out of our own wit, out of our own ease and world-
ly lusts, and so to deny ourselves, and to say, it is not I but Christ,
not I but grace, not I but God's glory, not I but God's love con-
straining me, not I but the Lord's word, not I but Christ's com-
manding power as King in me ! 0, what pains and what a death
is it to nature, to turn me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit
over on my Lord, my Saviour, my King, and my God, my Lord's
will, my Lord's grace ! but alas ! that idol, that whorish creature,
myself, is the master-idol Ave all bow to. What made Eve mis-
carry 1 and what harried her headlong upon the forbidden fruit,
but that wretched thing, herself] what drew that brother-murderer
to kill Abel 1 that wild himself. What drove the old world on to
corrupt their ways 1 who but themselves and their own pleasure 1
What was the cause of Solomon's falling into idolatry and multi-
plying of strange wives'? what but himself, whom he would rather
pleasure ^ than God ^ What was the hook that took David and
snared him first in adultery, but his self-lust ; and then in murder,
but his self-credit and self-honour 1 What led Peter on to deny
his Lord ? was it not a piece of himself, and self-love to a whole
skin? What made Judas sell his Master for thirty pieces of
money, but a piece of self-love, idolising of avaricious self? What
made Demas to go off the way of the Gospel to embrace this pre-
sent world 1 even self-love, and love of gain for himself. Every
man blameth the devil for his sins, but the great devil, the house-
devil of every man, the house-devil that eateth and lieth in every
man's bosom, is that idol that killeth all, himself. 0 blessed are
^ Packages. " Please.
LETTEK CXXXII. 241
they who can deny themselves and put Christ in the room of them-
selves ! 0, would to the Lord, I had not a myself, but Christ ; nor
a my lust, but Christ ; nor a my ease, but Christ ; nor a my honour,
but Christ ! 0 sweet word, Gal. ii. 20, "I live no more, but Christ
liveth in me !" 0, if every one would put away himself, his own
self, his own ease, his ow^n pleasure, his own credit, and his own
twenty things, his own hundred things, that he setteth up as idols
above Christ ! Dear sir, I know ye will be looking back to your
old self, and to your self-lust and self-idol, that ye set up in the
lusts of youth above Christ. Worthy sir, pardon this my freedom
of love : God is my witness that it is out of an earnest desire after
your soul's eternal welfare, that I use this freedom of speech.
Your sun I know is lower, and your evening-sky and sun-setting
nearer, than when 1 saw you last. Strive to end your task before
night, and to make Christ yourself, and to acquaint your love and
your heart with the Lord. Stand now by Christ and His truth,
when so many fall foully and are false to Him. I hope ye love
Him and His truth ; let me have power with you to confirm you
in Him. I think more of my Lord's sweet cross than of a crown
of gold and a free kingdom lying to it. Sir, I remember you in
my prayers to the Lord, according to my promise. Help me with
your prayers, that our Lord would be pleased to bring me amongst
you again with the Gospel of Christ, Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweetest Lord and Master, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXXIL— To John Gordon, ot Cardonness, Younger.
Dearly beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you, I long exceedingly to hear of the case of your soul, which
hath a large share both of my prayers and careful thouglits. Sir,
remember that a precious treasure and prize is upon this short
play that ye are now upon, even the eternity of welP or woe to
your soul standeth upon the little point of your ill or well-em-
ployed short and swift-posting sand-glass. " Seek the Lord, while
He may be found ; " the Lord waiteth upon you. Your soul is of
no little price. Gold or silver, of as much bounds as would cover
the highest heavens round about, cannot buy it. To live as
others do, and to be free of open sins that the world crieth shame
upon, it will not bring you to heaven ; as much civility and
country-discretion as would lie between you and heaven, will not
lead you one foot or one inch above condemned nature ; and
therefore take pains upon seeking of salvation, and give your will,
wit, humour, the green desires of youth's pleasures, off your hand
1 Well.
242 LETTER CXXXII.
to Christ. It is not possible for you to know, till experience teach
you, how dangerous a time youth is. It is like green and wet
timber ; when Christ casteth fire on it, it taketli not fire. There
is need here of more than ordinary pains ; for corrupt nature hath
a good back-friend of youth, and sinning against light will put out
your candle and stupefy your conscience, and bring upon it more
coverings and skins, and less feeling and sense of guiltiness ; and
when that is done, the devil is like a mad horse, that hath broken
the bridle, and runneth away with his rider whither he listeth.
Learn to know, that which the apostle knew, the deceitfulness of
sin ; strive to make prayer, and reading, and holy company, and
holy conference your delight ; and when delight cometh in, ye
shall by little and little smell the sweetness of Christ, till at length
your soul be over head and ears in Christ's sweetness : then shall
ye be taken up to the top of the mountain Avith the Lord, to know
the ravishments of spiritual love, and the glory and excellency of
a seen, revealed, felt, and embraced Christ : and then ye shall not
be able to loose yourself off Christ, and to bind your soul to old
lovers : then, and never till then, are all the paces, motions, walk-
ings, and wheels of your soul in a right tune and in a spiritual
temper. But if this world and the lusts thereof be your delight,
I know not what Christ can make of you ; ye cannot be metal to
be a vessel of glory and mercy As the Lord livetli, thousand
thousands are beguiled with security, because God, and wrath,
and judgment is not terrible to them. Stand in awe of God, and
of the warnings of a checking and rebuking conscience : make
others to see Christ in you moving, doing, speaking, aad thinking ;
your actions will smell of Him, if He be in you ; there is an in-
stinct in the new-born babes of Christ, like the instinct of nature, .
that leads birds to build their nests and bring up their young, and
love such and such places, as woods, forests, and wildernesses
better than other places. The instinct of nature maketh a man
love his mother-country above all countries. The instinct of re-
newed nature and supernatural grace, will lead you to such and
such works, as to love your country above, to sigh to be clothed
with your house not made with hands, and to call your borrowed
prison here below a borrowed prison, and to look upon it servant-
like and pilgrim-like. And the pilgrim's eye and look is a dis-
dainful-like discontented cast of his eye, his heart crying after his
eye, Fie, fie, this is not like my country. I recommend to you
the mending of a hole and reforming of a failing, one or other,
every week, and put off a sin or a piece of it, as of anger, wrath,
lust, intemperance, every day, that ye may more easily master the
remnant of your corruption. God hath given you a wife, love her,
and let her breasts satisfy you; and for the Lord's sake, drink no
LETTER CXXXIII. 243
waters but out of your own cistern ; strange wells are poison.
Strire to iearn some new way against your corruption from the
man of God, M. W. D., or other servants of God. Sleep not
sound till ye find yourself in that case that ye dare look death in
the face, and durst hazard your soul upon eternity. I am sure
many ells and inches of the short thread of your life are by-hand
since I saw you ; and that thread hath an end, and ye have no
hands to cast a knot and add one day or a finger-breadth to the
end of it. When hearing and seeing, and the utter^ walls of the
clay-house shall fall down, and life shall render the besieged castle
of clay to death and judgment, and ye find your time worn ebb
and run out, what thoughts will ye then have of idol pleasures
that possibly are now sweet 1 what bud^ or hire would ye then
give for the Lord's favour? and what a price would ye then give
for pardon ? It were not amiss to think, " What if I were to re-
ceive a doom, and to enter into a furnace of fire and brimstone 1
what if it come to this, that I shall have no portion but utter^
darkness ? and what if I be brought to this, to be banished from
the presence of God, and to be given over to God's sergeants, the
devil, and the power of the second death ? " Put your soul, by
supposition, in such a case, and consider what horror would take
bold of you, and what then ye would esteem of pleasing yourself
in the course of sin ! 0, dear sir, for the Lord's sake, awake to
live righteously and love your poor soul ; and after ye have seen
chis my letter, say with yourself, " The Lord will seek an account
of this warning I have received." Lodge Christ in your family.
Receive no stranger-hireling as your pastor. I bless your children.
Grace be with you.
Your lawful and loving pastor, S. R
Aberdeen. 1637.
LETTER CXXXIII.— To my Lord Boyd.
My very HO^OURABLE AND GOOD LoRD, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to your lordship. Out of the worthy report that I hear
of your lordship's zeal for this borne-down and oppressed Gospel,
I am bold to write to your lordship, beseeching you, by the
mercies of God, by the honour of our royal and princely King
Jesus, by the sorrows, tears, and desolation of your afflicted
mother-church, and by the peace of your conscience and your joy
in the day of Christ, that your lordship would go on, in tlie
strength of your Lord and in the power of His might, to bestir
yourself for the vindicating of the fallen honour of your Lord
Jesus. 0 blessed hands for evermore that shall help to put the
1 Outer. - Ofifer.
244 LETTER CXXXIII.
crown upon the head of Christ again in Scotland! 1 dare promise,
in the name of our Lord, that this shall fasten and fix the pillars
and the stakes of your own honourable house upon earth, if ye
lend, and lay in pledge in Christ's hand (upon spiritual hazard),
life, estate, house, honour, credit, moyen,i friends, the favour of
men (suppose kings with three crowns), so being ye may bear wit-
ness and acquit yourself as a man of valour and courage to the
Prince of your salvation, for the purging of His temple, and sweep-
ing out the lordly Diotrepheses, time-courting Demases, corrupt
Hymeneuses and Philetuses, and other such oxen that with their
dung defile the temple of the Lord. Is not Christ now crying,
"Who will help me? who will come out with me, to take part
with me, and share in the honour of my victory over these mine
enemies, who have said, we will not have this man to rule over
us?" My very honourable and dear lord, join, join (as ye do)
with Christ, He is more worth to you and your posterity than this
world's May-flowers, and withering riches, and honour that shall
go away as smoke and evanish in a night vision, and shall in one
half-hour, after the blast of the archangel's trumpet, lie in white
ashes. Let me beseech your lordship to draw by the lap of time's
curtain, and look in through that window to great and endless
eternity, and consider if a worldly price (suppose this little round
clay-globe of this ashy and dirty earth, the dying idol of the fools
of this world, were all your own) can be given for one smile of
Christ's God -like and soul -ravishing countenance, in that day
when so many joints and knees of thousand thousands wailing
shall stand before Christ trembling, shouting, and making their
prayers to hills and mountains to fall upon them and hide them
from the face of the Lamb. 0, how many would sell lordships
and kingdoms that day and buy Christ! But, oh! the market
shall be closed and ended ere then. Your lordship hath now a
blessed venture of winning court with the Prince of the kings of
the earth ; He Hiiuself weeping, truth borne down and fallen in
the streets, and an oppressed Gospel; Christ's bride with watery
eyes, and spoiled of her veil, her hair hanging about her eyes,
forced to go in ragged apparel; the banished, silenced, and im-
prisoned prophets of God, who have not the favour of liberty to
prophesy in sackcloth : all these, I say, call for your help. Fear
not worms of clay, the moth shall eat them as a garment ; let the
Lord be your fear. He is with you, and shall fight for you : thus
shall ye cause the blessing of those who are ready to perish come
upon you, and ye shall make the heart of this your mother-church
to sing for joy. The Lamb and His armies are with you, and the
kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's. I am persuaded there is
^ Influence.
LETTER CXXXIV. 245
not another gospel, nor another saving-truth, than that which ye
now contend for. I dare hazard my heaven and salvation upon
it, that this is the only saving way to glory. Grace, grace, be
with your lordship.
Your lordship's, at all respective obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXXXIV.— To Robert Gordon, Bailie of Ayr.
Worthy Sir,— Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to
hear from you. Our Lord is with His afflicted kirk, so that this
burning bush is not consumed to ashes. I know submissive on-
waiting for the Lord shall at length ripen the joy and deliverance
of His own, who are truly blessed on-waiters. What is the dry
and miscarrying hope of all them who are not in Christ, but con-
fusion and wind 1 0, how pitifully and miserably are the children
of this world beguiled, whose wine cometh home to them water,
and their gold, brass and tin ! And what Avonder that hopes
builded upon sand should fall and sink ? It were good for us all
to abandon the forlorn, and blasted, and withered hope we have
had in the creature, and let us henceforth come and drink watei
out of our own well, even the Fountain of living waters, and build
ourselves and our hope upon Christ our Rock. But alas ! that
natural love that we have to this borrowed home that we were
born in, and that this clay-city, the vain earth, should have the
largest share of our heart ! Our poor, lean, and empty dreams of
confidence in something beside God, are no further travelled than
up and down the naughty and feckless creatures. God may say
of us, as he said, Amos vi. 13, " Ye rejoice in a thing of nought."
Surely, we spin our spider's web with pain, and build our rotten
and tottering house upon a lie, and falsehood, and vanity. 0,
when will we learn to have thoughts higher than the sun and
moon, and learn ^ our joy, hope, confidence, and our soul's desires
to look up to our best country, and to look down to clay-tents, set
up for a night's lodging or two in this uncouth land, and laugli at
our childish conceptions and imaginations that suck our joy outof
creatures, woe, sorrow, losses, and grief. 0, sweetest Lord Jesus !
0, fairest Godhead ! 0, flower of man and angels, why are we
such strangers to and lar-off beholders of Thy glory ? 0, it were
our happiness for evermore, that God would cast a pest, a botch,
a leprosy upon our part of this great Avhore; a fair and well-busked
world, that clay might no longer deceive us! but 0 that God may
burn and blast our hope here-away, rather than our hope should
live to burn us ! Alas! the wrong side of Christ (to speak so),
His black side, His sufi'ering side. His vrounds. His bare coat, Hi=;
1 Teach.
246 LETTER CXXXV.
wants. His wrongs, the oppressions of men done to Him, are
turned towards men's eyes, and they see not the best and fairest
side of Christ, nor see they His amiable face and His beauty, that
man and angels Avonder at. Sir, lend your thoughts to these
things, and learn to contemn this world, and to turn your eyes
and heart away from beholding the masked beauty of all things
under time's law and doom. See Him who is invisible, and His
invisible things; draw by the curtain, and look in with liking and
longing to a kingdom undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved
for you in the heaven. This is worthy of your pains, and worthy
of your soul's sweating, and labouring, and seeking after, night
and day. Fire will flee^ over the earth and all that is in it, even
destruction from the Almighty. Fie, fie, upon that hope that
shall be diied up by the root ! Fie upon the drunken night-bar-
gains, and the drunken and mad covenant, that sinners make with
death and hell after cups, and when men's souls are mad and
drunken with the love of this lawless life ! They think to make
a nest for their hopes, and take quarters and conditions of hell and
death, that they shall have ease, long life, peace ; and, in the
morning, Avhen the last trumpet shall awake them, then they rue
the block.2 It is time, and high time, for you to think upon
death and your accounts, and to remember what ye are, where ye
will be before the year of our Lord 1700. I hope ye are thinking
upon this : pull upon your soul and draw it aside from the com-
pany that it is with, and round and whisper into it news of
eternity, death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Grace, grace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 16S7.
LETTER CXXXV— To Alexander Gordon of Earlestown.
Much honoured Sir,- — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
It is like 2 if ye, the gentry and nobility of this nation, be men in
the streets (as the word speaketh) for the Lord, that He will now
deliver His flock, and gather and rescue His scattered sheep from
the hands of cruel and rigorous lords, that have ruled over them
with force. 0, that mine eyes might see the moonlight turn to
the light of the sun. But I still fear the quarrel of a broken
covenant in Scotland standeth before the Lord. However it be.
I avouch it before the world, the tabernacle of the Lord shall
again be in the midst of Scotland, and the glory of the Lord shall
dwell in beauty, as the light of many days in one, in this land.
0, what could my soul desire more, next to my Lord Jesus, while
I am in this flesh, but that Christ and His kingdom might be
^ Fly. - Regret the bargain. ^ Probable.
LETTER CXXXV. 247
great amoni^st Jews and Gentiles, and that the isles (and amongst
them, overclouded and darkened Britain) might have the glory of
a noon-day's sun 1 0, that I had anything (I will not except my
part in Christ) to wadset ^ or lay in pledge to redeem and buy
such glory to my highest and royal Prince, my sweet Lord Jesus !
My poor little heaven were well bestowed, if it could stand a
pawn for ever to set on high the glory of my Lord ; but I know
He needeth not wages nor hire at my hand : yea, I know if my
eternal glory could weigh down in Aveight, its lone,' all the eternal
glory of the blessed angels, and of all the spirits of just and perfect
men glorified and to be glorified ; 0, alas ! how far am I engaged
to forego it for, and give it over to Christ ; so being He might
thereby be set on high above ten thousand thousand millions of
heavens, in the conquest of many, many nations to His kingdom !
0, that His kingdom would come! 0, that all the world would
stoop before Him ! 0, blessed hands that shall put the crown
upon Christ's head in Scotland ! But, alas ! I can scarce get
leave to ware^ my love on Him. I can find no ways to out my
heart upon Christ, and my love that I with my soul bestow on
Him, it is like to die upon my hand, and I think it no bairn's play
to be hungered with Christ's love. To love Him and to want
Him, wanteth little of hell. I am sure, He knoweth how my joy
would swell upon me, from a little well to a great sea, to have as
much of His love, and as wide a soul answerable to comprehend
it, till I cried, "Hold! Lord, no more:" but I find He will not
have me to be mine own steward, nor mine own carver. Christ
keepeth the keys of Christ (to speak so) and of His own love, and
He is a wiser distributor than I can take up ; I know there is
more in Him than would make me run over lilce a coast-full sea.
I were happy for evermore to get leave to stand but beside Christ
and His love, and to look in, suppose I were interdicted of God to
come near hand, touch or embrace, kiss or set to my sinful head,
and drink myself drunken with that lovely thing. God send me
that I would have, for I now verily see more clearly than before
our folly in drinking dead waters, and in playing the whore with
our soul's love upon running out wells and broken sherds of crea-
tures of yesterday, whom time will unlaw, with the penalty of
losing their being and natural ornaments. 0 ! when a soul's love
is itching (to speak so) for God, and when Christ in His boundless
and bottomless love, beauty, and excellency, cometh and rubbeth
up and exciteth that love, what can be heaven 'if this be not
heaven 1 I am sure this bit feckless,'* narrow, and short love ot
regenerated sinners, was born for no other end, but to breathe,
and live, and love, and dwell in the bosom and betwixt the breasts
^ Mortgage. ^ Alone. 3 Spend. * Only worthless.
248 LETTER CXXXV.
of Christ. Where is there a bed or a lodging for the saints* love
but Christ ! 0, that He would take ourselves off our hand, for
neither we, nor the creatures, can be either due conquest or lawful
heritage to love! Christ, and none but Christ, is Lord and proprietor
of it. 0, alas ! how pitiful is it that so much of our love goeth
by ^ Him ! O, but we be wretched wasters of our soul's love ! I
know it is the deep of bottomless and unsearchable providence
that the saints are suffered to play the whore from Cod, and that
their love goeth a-hunting, when, God knoweth, it shall cost
nothing of that at supper time.^ The renewed would have it
otherwise ; and why is it so, seeing our Lord can keep us without
nodding, tottering, or reeling, or any fall at all ? Our desires, I
hope, shall meet with perfection ; but God will have our sins an
office-house for God's grace, and hath made sin a matter of an
unlaw and penalty for the Son of God's blood ; and howbeit sin
should be our sorrow, yet there is a sort of acquiescing and resting
upon God's dispensation required of us, that there is such a thing
in us as sin, whereupon mercy, forgiveness, healing, curing, in our
sweet physician, may find a field to work upon. 0 what a deep
is here, that created wit cannot take up ! However matters go, it
is our happiness to win new ground daily in Christ's love, and to
purchase a new piece of it daily, and to add conquest to conquest,
till our Lord Jesus and we be so near other,^ that Satan shall not
draw a straw or a thread betwixt us. And for myself, I have no
greater joy in my well-favoured bonds for Christ, than that I
know, time shall put Him and me together, and that my love and
longing hath room and liberty, amidst my bonds and foes (where-
of there are not a few here of all ranks), to go visit the borders and
utter ^ coasts of my Lord Jesus's country, and see, at least afar off
and darkly, the country which shall be mine inheritance, which is
my Lord Jesus's due, both through birth and conquest. I dare
avouch to all that know God, that the saints know not the length
and largeness of the sweet earnest, and of the sweet green sheaves
before the harvest, that might be had on this side of the water, if
we should take more pains : and that we all go to heaven with
less earnest and lighter purses of the hoped for sum than other-
wise we might do, if we took more pains to win further in upon
Christ in this pilgrimage of our absence from Him. Grace, grace,
and glory be your portion.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, 1637.
1 Past.
^ The meaning seems to be that the soul hunts for that which will not serve
as food.
* Each other. * Outer.
LETTEK CXXXVI. 249
LETTER CXXXVI.— To John Lawrie.
Dear Brother, — I am sorry that ye, or so many in this king-
dom, should expect so much of me, an empty reed. Verily, I am
a naughty and poor body. But if the tinkling of my Lord Jesus's
iron chains on legs and arms could sound the high praises of my
royal King, whose prisoner I am, 0 how would my joy run over !
if my Lord would bring edification to one soul by my bonds, I am
satisfied ; but I know not what I can do to such a princely and
beautiful Well-Beloved. He is far behind with me. Little thanks
to me, to say to others. His wind bloweth on me, who am but
withered and dry bones. But since ye desired me to write to you,
either help me to set Christ on high for His running-over love, in
that the heat of His sweet breath hath melted a frozen heart, else
I think ye do nothing for a prisoner. I am fully confirmed that
it is the honour of our Lawgiver I suffer for now. I am not
ashamed to give out letters of recommendation of Christ's love to
as many as Avill extol the Lord Jesus and His cross. If I had not
sailed this sea-way to heaven, but had taken the land-way as many
do, I should not have known Christ's sweetness in such a measure.
But the truth is, let no man thank me ; for I caused not Christ's
wind to blow upon me. His love came upon a withered creature,
whether I would or not (and yet by coming it procured from me a
welcome.) A heart of iron and iron doors will not hold Christ
out. I give Him leave to break iron locks and come in, and that is
all. And now I knoAV not, whether pain of love for want of pos-
session, or sorrow that I do not thank Him, paineth me most : but
both work upon me. For the first, 0 that He would come and satisfy
the longing soul, and fill the hungry soul with these good things ! I
know, indeed, ray guiltiness may be a bar in His way, but He is God,
and ready to forgive. And for the other, w^oe, woe is me, that I can-
not find a heart to give back again my unworthy little love for His
great sea-full of love to me. 0, that He would learn ^ me this piece
of gratitude ! 0, that I could have leave to look in, through the
hole of the door, to see His face and sing His praises ! or could
break up one of His chamber windows to look in upon His delight-
ing beauty, till my Lord send more. Any little communion with
Him, one of His love-looks, should be my begun heaven. I know,
He is not lordly, neither is the Bridegroom's love proud, though
I be black and unlovely, and unworthy of Him. I would seek
but leave, and withal grace to spend my love upon Him. I coun-
sel ye to think highly of Christ, and of free, free grace, more than
ye did before ; fori know that Christ is not known amongst us.
I think I see more of Christ than ever I saw ; and yet I see but
' Teach.
250 LETTEE CXXXVII.
little of what may be seen. 0, that He would draw-by tlie cur-
tains, and that the King would come out of His gallery and His
palace, that I might see Him ! Christ's love is young glory and
young heaven : it would soften hell's pains to be filled with it.
What would I refuse to suffer if I could but get a draught of love
at my heart's desire ! 0, what price can be given for Him.
Angels cannot weigh Him : 0, His weight. His worth, His sweet-
ness, His over-passing beauty ! If men and angels would come,
and look to that great and princely One, their ebbness would
never take up His depth , their narrowness would never compre-
hend His breadth, height, and length. If ten thousand thousand
worlds of angels were created, they might all tire themselves in
wondering at His beauty, and begin again to wonder of new. 0,
that I could win nigh Him, to kiss His feet, to hear His voice, to
find the smell of His ointments ! But, oh, alas, I have little, little of
Him ; yet I long for more ! Remember my bonds, and help me
with your prayers, for I would not niffer ^ or exchange my sad
hours, with the joy of my velvet adversaries. Grace be with you.
Yours, in His sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, June 10, 1637.
LETTER CXXXVII.— To Mr. James Fleming.
Reverend and well-beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. I received your letter, which hath refreshed
me in my bonds. I cannot but testify unto you, my dear brother,
what sweetness I find in our Master's cross ; but alas ! what can
I either do or suffer for Him 1 If I myself alone had as many
lives as there have been drops of rain since the creation, I would
think them too little for that lovely One, our Well-Beloved ; but
my pain and my sorrow is above my sufferings, that I find not
ways how to set out the praises of His love to others. I am not
able by tongue, pen, or sufferings to provoke many to fall in love
with Him, but He knoweth, Avhom I love to serve in the Spirit,
what I would do, and suffer by His OAvn strength, so being I
might make my Lord Jesus lovely and sweet to many thousands
in this land. I think it amongst God's Avonders, that He will
take any praise or glory, or any testimony to His honourable
cause, from such a foidorn sinner as I am. But when Christ
Avorketh, He needeth not ask the question by whom He Avill be
glorious. I know, seeing His glory at the beginning did shine out
of poor nothing, to set up such a fair house for man and angels,
and so many glorious creatures, to proclaim His goodness, power,
and wisdom, if I were burnt to ashes, out of the smoke and powder
^ Barter.
LETTER CXXXVIT. 251
of my dissoived body He could raise glory to Himself. His glory
is His end ; 0, that I could join with Him to make it my end ! I
would think that fellowship with Him sweet and glorious. But,
alas, few know the guiltiness that is on my part. It is a wonder
that this good cause hath not been marred and spilt ^ in my foul
hands. But I rejoice in this, that my sweet Lord Jesus hath
found something ado, even a ready market for His free grace and
incomparable and matchless mercy in my wants. Only my loath-
some wretchedness and my wants have qualified me for Christ and
the riches ot His glorious grace. He behoved to take me for no-
thing, or else to want me. Few know the unseen and private
reckonings betwixt Christ and me ; yet His love. His boundless
love, would not bide away, nor stay at home with Himself; and
yet I do not make it welcome, as I ought, when it is come unsent
for and without hire. How joyful is my heart that ye write ye
are desirous to join with me in praising, for it is charity to help a
dyvour" to pay his debts ; but when all have helped me, my name
shall stand in His count-book under ten thousand thousands of
sums unpaid : but it easeth my heart that His dear servants will
but speak of my debts to such a sweet creditor I desire He may
lay me in His own balance and weigh me, if I would not fain
have a feast of His boundless love made to my own soul and to
many others. One thing I know, we shall not all be able to come
near His excellency with eye, heart, or tongue ; for He is above
all created thoughts ; " All nations before Him are as nothing,
and as less than nothing ; He sitteth in the circuit of heaven, and
the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him !" 0,
that men would praise Plim ! Ye complain of your private case.
Alas ! I am not the man who can speak to such an one as ye are.
Any sweet presence I have had in this town is (I know) for this
cause, that I might express and make it known to others ; but I
never find myself nearer Christ, and with that royal and princely
One, than after a great weight and sense of deadness and grace-
lessness ! I think the sense of our wants, when withal we have a
restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and
can make a din, because we want Him whom our soul loveth, is
that which maketh an open door to Christ : and when we think
we are going backward, because we feel deadness, we are going
forward : for the more sense the more life, and no sense argueth
no life. There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ than to bring
our wounds and our sores to Him. But, for myself, I am ashamed
of Christ's goodness and love since the time of my bonds ; for He
hath been pleased to open up new treasures of love and felt sweet-
ness, and give visitations of love and access to Himself in this
1 Spoiled. 2 Debtor.
252 LETTER CXXXVII,
strange land, 1 would think a fill of His love, young and green
heaven. And when He is pleased to come, and the tide is in,
and the sea full, and the King and a poor prisoner together in the
house of wane, the black tree of the cross is not so heavy as a
feather, I cannot, I dow^ not, but give Christ an honourable and
glorious testimony, I see the Lord can ride through His enemies'
bands and triumph in the sufferings of His own, and that this
blind world seeth not that suffering is Christ's armour wherein He
is victorious. And they that contend with Zion see not what He
is doing, when they are set to work as under-smiths and servants,
to the work of refining of the saints (Satan's hand also, by them,
is at the melting of our Lord's vessels of mercy) and their office
in God's house, is to scour and cleanse vessels for the King's table.
I marvel not to see them triumph and sit at ease in Zion ; our
Father must lay up His rods, and keep them carefully, for His
own use. Our Lord cannot want fire in His house ; His furnace
is in Zion, and His fire in Jerusalem, But little know the adver-
saries the counsel and the thoughts of the Lord. And lor your
complaints of your ministry, I now think all I did too little.
Plainness, freedom, watchfulness, fidelity, shall swell upon you,
in exceeding large comforts, in your sufferings. The feeding of
Christ's lambs in private visitations and catechising, in painful -
preaching, and fair honest and free warning of the flock, are a
sufferer's garland. 0, ten thousand times blessed are they who
are honoured oi Cln^ist to be faithful and painful- in wooing a
bride to Christ. My dear brother, I know ye think more on this
than I can write ; and I rejoice that your purpose is, in the Lord's
strength, to back your wronged Master, and to come out, and call
yourself Christ's man, when so many are now denying Him, as
fearing that Christ cannot do for Himself and them. I am a lost
man for ever, or this, this is the way to salvation, even this way,
that they call heresy, that men now do mock and scoff at. I am
confirmed now that Christ will accept of His servant's sufferings
as good service to Him at the day of His appearance, and that ere
it be long He will be upon us all, and men in all their blacks and
whites shall be brought out before God, angels^ and men. Our
Master is not far off. 0, if we could wait on and be faithful !
The good will of Him who dwelt in the bush, the tender favour
and love, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Help
me with your prayers, and desire from me other brethren to take
courage for their Master.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R,
Aberdeen, Aug. 15, 1637.
^ Cau. ~ Painstaking.
LETTERS CXXXVIII. AND CXXXIX. 253
LETTER CXXXVIII.— To Mr. John Meine.
Worthy and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. I have been too long in answering your letter, but other
business took me up. I am here waiting if the fair wind will turn
upon Christ's sails in Scotland, and if deliverance be breaking out
to this overclouded and benighted kirk. 0, that we could contend
by prayers and supplications with our Lord for that effect ! I
know He hath not given out His last doom against this land. I
have little of Christ in this prison, but groanings, and longings.
and desires. All my stock of Christ is some hunger for Him (and
yet I cannot say but I am rich in that), my faith, and hope, and
holy practice of new obedience are scarce Avorth the speaking of :
but blessed be my Lord, who taketh me, light, and clipped, and
naughty, and feckless as I am. I see Christ will not prig^ with
me, nor stand upon stepping-stones, but cometh in at the broad
side, without ceremonies, or making it nice, to make a poor ran-
somed one His own. O, that I could feed upon His breathing,
and kissing, and embracing, and upon the hopes of my meeting
and His, when love-letters shall not go betwixt us, but He shall
be messenger Himself then ! But there is required patience on
our part till the summer-fruit in heaven be ripe for us ; it is in
the bud, but there be many things to do before our harvest come.
And we take ill with it, and can hardly endure to set our paper
face to one of Christ's storms, and to go to heaven with wet feet,
and pain, and sorrow. We love to carry heaven to heaven with
us, and would have two summers in one year, and no less than
two heavens ; but this will not be for us : one, and such an one,
may suffice us well enough. The Man Christ got but one only,
and shall we have two 1 Remember my love in Christ to your
father, and help me with your prayers. If ye would be a deep
divine, I recommend to you, sanctifi cation. Fear Him, and He
shall reveal His covenant to you. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S» K.
Aberdesn, -Jaa. 5, 1637.
LETTER CXXXIX.— To Cardonness, Elder.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to yon. I
have longed to hear from you, and to know the estate of your
soul and the estate of that people with you. I beseech you, sir,
by the salvation of your precious soul, and the mercies of God,
make good and sure work of your salvation, and try upon what
ground-stone^ ye have builded. Worthy and dear sir, if ye be upon
^ Mince. - Foundation.
254 LETTEK CXXXIX.
sinking sand, a storm of death and a blast will loose Christ and
you, and wash you close^ off the. rock. 0, for the Lord's sake, look
narrowly to the work. Eead over your life with the light of
God's daylight and sun ; for salvation is not casten down at every
man's door. It is good to look to your compass, and all ye have
need of, ere ye take shipping; for no wind can blow you back
again. Eemember when the race is ended, and the play either
won or lost, and ye are in the utmost circle and border of time,
and shall put your foot within the march- of eternity, and all your
good things of this short night-di-eam shall seem to you like the
ashes oi a blaze of thorns or straw, and your poor soul shall be
crying, "Lodging, lodging, for God's sake :" then shall your soul
be more glad at one of your Lord's lovely and homely smiles, than,
if ye had the charter of three worlds for all eternity. Let ]ilea-
sures and gain, will and desires of this world be put over in God's
hands, as arrested and fenced goods that ye cannot intromit with.
Now when ye are drinking the ground of your cup, and ye are
upon the utmost ends of the last link of time, and old age, like
death's long shadow, is casting a covering upon your days, it is no
time to court this vain life, and to set love and heart ujjon it. It
is near after-supper; seek rest and ease for your soul in God
through Christ. Believe me, I find it hard wrestling to play fair
with Christ, and to keep good quarters with Him, and keep love
to Him in integrity and life, and to keep a constant course of
sound and solid daily communion with Christ : temptations are
daily breaking the thread of that course, and it is not easy to cast
a knot again, and many knots make evil work. 0, how fair have
many ships been plying before the wind, that in an hour's space
have been lying in the sea bottom ! how many professors cast a
golden lustre, as if they were pure gold, and yet are, under that
skin and cover, but base and reprobate metal! and how many
keep breath in their race many miles, and yet come short of the
prize and the garland ! Dear sir, my soul would mourn in secret
for you, if I knew your case with God to be but false work. Love
to have you anchored upon Christ, maketh me fear your tottering
and slips. False under-water, not seen in the ground of an en-
lightened conscience, is dangerous ; so is often failing and sinning
against light. Know this, that these who never had sick nights
nor days in conscience for sin, cannot have but such a peace with
God, as will undercot^ and break the fiesh again, and end in a
sad war at death. 0, how fearfully are thousands beguiled with
false hide-grown-over old sins, as if the soul were cured and
healed ! Dear sir, I saw ever nature mighty, lofty, heady, and
strong in you, and it was more for you to be mortified and dead
^ Clean. - Boundary. ^ Fester.
LETTEK CXXXIX. 255
to the world than another common man. Ye will take a low ebb,
and a deep cut, and a long lance,^ to go to the bottom of your
wounds in saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for Christ.
Be humbled, walk softly ; down, down for God's sake, my dear
and worthy brother, with your topsail. Stoop, stoop, it is a low
entry to go in at heaven's gates. There is infinite justice in the
party ye have to do with ; it is His nature not to acquit the guilty
and the sinner. The law of God will not want one farthing of
the sinner : God forge tteth not both the cautioner and the sinner;
and every man must pay, either in his own person (0, Lord, save
you from that payment), or in his cautioner, Christ. It is violence
to corrupt nature for a man to be holy, to lie down under Christ's
feet, to quit will, pleasure, worldly love, earthly hope, and an
itching of heart after this fairded^ and overgilded world, and to be
content that Christ trample upon all. Come in, come in to Christ,
and see what ye want, and find it in Him. He is the short cut
(as we use to say), and the nearest way to an outgate of all your
burdens. I dare avouch, ye shall be dearly welcome to Him; my
soul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should have in Him.
I dare say, angels' pens, angels' tongues, nay, as many Avorlds of
angels as there are drops of water in all the seas, and fountains,
and rivers of the earth, cannot paint Him out to you. I thinly
His sweetness, since I was a prisoner, hath swelled upon me to
the greatness of two heavens. 0, for a soul as wide as the out-
most circle of the highest heaven that containeth all, to contain
His love ! and yet I could hold little of it. 0, world's wonder !
0, if my soul might but lie within the smell of His love, sui3j)ose
I could get no more but the smell of it ! 0, but it is long to that
day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love ! 0, what a
sight to be up in heaven in that fair orchard of the new paradise,
and to see, and smell, and touch, and kiss that fair field-flower,
that ever-green tree of life ! His bare shadow were enough for
me ; a sight of Him would be the earnest of heaven to me. Fie,
fie upon us, that we have love lying rusting beside us, or, which
is worse, wasted away upon loathsome objects, and Christ should
lie his lone.^ Woe, woe is me, that sin hath made so many mad-
men, seeking the fool's paradise, fire under ice, and some good
and desirable thing without and apart from Christ. Christ,
Christ, nothing but Christ, can cool our love's burning languor.
0, thirsty love, wilt thou set Christ, the well of life, to thy head
and drink thy fill ; drink and spare not ; drink love, and be
drunken with Christ. Nay, alas ! the distance betwixt us and
Christ is death. 0, if we were clasped in others'* arms! we should
never twin ^ again, except heaven twinned and sundered us, and
' Lancet. - Bedizened. ^ Alone. * Each other's. ^ Part
256 LETTER CXL.
that cannot be. I desire your children to seek this Lord. Desire
them from me, to be requested for Christ's sake, to be blessed
and happy, and come and take Christ and all things with Him,
Let them beware of glassy and slippery youth, of foolish young
motions, of worldly lusts, of deceivable^ gain, of wicked company,
of cursing, lying, blaspheming, and foolish talking ; let them be
filled with the Spirit, acquaint themselves with daily praying, and
with the storehouse of wisdom and comfort, the good Word of
God. Help the souls of the poor people. 0, that my Lord would
bring me again among them, that I might tell uncouth ^ and great
tales of Christ to them. Receive not a stranger to preach any
other doctrine to them. Pray for me, His prisoner of hope ; I
pray for you without ceasing. I write my blessing, earnest prayers,
the love of God, and the sweet presence of Christ to you, and
yours, and them. Grace, grace, grace be with you.
Your lawful and loving pastor, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXL.— To the Earl of Lothian.
Right honourable, and my very worthy and noble Lord,
— Out of the honourable and good report that I hear of your
lordship's good will and kindness (in taking to heart the honour-
able cause of Christ and His afflicted church and wronged truth
in this land), I make bold to speak a word in paper to your lord-
ship at this distance, which I trust your lordship will take in good
part. It is your lordship's honour and credit to put to your hand
(as ye do, all honour to God) to the falling and tottering taber-
nacle of Christ in this your mother-church, and to own Christ's
wrongs as your own wrongs. 0, blessed hand, which shall wipe
and dry the watery eyes of our weeping Lord Jesus, now going
mourning in sackcloth in His members, in His spouse, in His
truth, and in the prerogative royal of His kingly power ! He
needeth not service and help from men ; but it pleaseth His wis-
dom to make the wants and losses, sores and wounds of His
spouse, a field and an office-house for the zeal of His servants to
exercise themselves in : therefore, my noble and dear lord, go on:
go on in the strength of the Lord, against all opposition, to side
with wronged Christ. The defending and warding of strokes off
Christ. His bride, the King's daughter, is like a piece of the rest
of the way to heaven, knotty, rough, stormy, and full of thorns.
Many would follow Christ, but with a reservation, that by open
proclamation Christ would cry down crosses, and cry up fair
^ Deceitful.
" In opposition, I suppose, to a gospel trimmed to men's tastes.
LETTER CXL. 257
weather, and a summer sky and sun, till we were, all fairly landed
at heaven. I know your lordship hath not so learned Christ, but
that ye intend to fetch heaven, suppose your father were standing
in your way, and to take it with the wind on your face ; for so
both storm and wind was on the fair face of your lovely fore-run-
ner, Christ, all His way. It is possible the success answer not
your desire in this worthy cause ; what then ? Duties are ours,
but events are the Lord's; and I hope if your lordship, and others
with you, shall go on to dive to the lowest ground and bottom of
the knavery and perfidious treachery to Christ of the cursed and
wretched prelates, the Antichrist's first born and the first fruit of
his foul womb, and shall deal with our sovereign (law going be-
fore you) for the reasonable and impartial hearing of Christ's bill
of complaints, and set yourselves singly to seek the Lord and His
face, your righteousness shall break through the clouds that pre-
judice hath drawn over it, and ye shall, in the strength of the
Lord, bring our banished and departing Lord Jesus home again
to His sanctuary. Neither must your lordship advise Avith hesh
and blood in this, but wink, and in the dark reach your hand to
Christ and follow Him. Let not men's fainting discourage you,
neither be afraid of men's canny' wisdom, who in this storm take
the nearest shore, and go to the lee and calm side of the Gospel,
and hide Christ (if ever they had Him) in their cabinets, as if
they were ashamed of Him, or as if Christ were stolen wares and
would blush before the sun. My very dear and noble lord, ye
have rejoiced the hearts of many, that ye have made choice of
Christ and His Gospel, whereas such great tem[)tations do stand
in your way. But I love your profession the better, that it en-
dureth winds. If we knew ourselves well, to want temptations is
the greatest temptation of all. Neither is father, nor mother, nor
court, nor hont)ur in this overlustred world, with all its paintry
and farding," anything else, when they are laid in the balance
with Christ, but feathers, shadows, night-dreams, and straws. 0,
if this world knew the excellency, sweetness, and beauty of that
high and lofty One, that iairest among the sons of men ! verily
they should see, if their love were bigger then ten heavens, all in
circles without other,^ that it were all too little for Christ our
Lord. I hope your choice shall not repent you, when life shall
come to that twilight betwixt time and eternity, and ye shall see
the utmost border of time, and shall draw the curtain and look
into eternity, and shall one day see God take the heavens in His
hands and fold them together like an old holey garment, and set
on fire this clay part of the creation of God, and consume away in
smoke and ashes the idol-hopes of poor fools, who think there is
* Prudent. ^ Decoration. ^ One another.
258 LETTER CXLI.
not a Ijetter country than this low country of dying clay. Children
cannot make comparison aright betwixt this life and that to come;
and therefore the babes of this world, who see no better, mould
in their own brain a heaven of their own coining, because they
see no further than the nearest side of time. I dare lay in pawn
my hope of heaven that this reproached way is the only way of
peace : I find it is the way that the Lord hath sealed with His
comforts now in my bonds for Christ ; and I verily esteem and
find chains and fetters for that lovely one Christ, to be watered
over with sweet consolations and the love smiles of that lovely
Bridegroom, for whose coming we wait. And when He cometh,
then shall the blacks and whites of all men come before the sun,
then shall the Lord put a final decision upon the pleas that Zion
hath with lier adversaries ; and as fast as time posteth away
(which neither sitteth nor standeth, nor sleepeth), as fast is our
hand-breadth of this short winter-night flying away, and the sky
of our long-lasting day drawing near its breaking. Except your
lordship be pleased to plead for me against the tyranny of prelates,
I shall be forgotten in this prison ; for they did shape my doom
according to their new lawless canons, Avhich is, that a deprived
minister shall be utterly silenced and not preach at all, which is a
cruelty contrary to their own former practices. Now, the only
wise God, the very God of peace, confirm, strengthen, and estab-
lish your lordship upon the stone laid in Zion, and be with you
for ever. Yours lordship's, at all respective^ obedience in his
sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXLL— To Jean Brown.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear
how your soul prospereth. I earnestly desire your on-going to-
ward your country. 1 know ye see your day melteth away by
little and little, and that in short time ye will be put behind time's
bounds ; for life is a post that standeth not still, and our joys here
are born weeping rather than laughing, and they die weeping.
Sin, sin, this body of sin and corruption, embittereth and poisoneth
all our enjoyments. 0, that I were where I shall sin no more !
0, to be freed of these chains and iron fetters that we carry about
with us! Lord, loose the sad prisoners. Who of the children of
God have not cause to say, that they have their fill of this vain
lite, and like a full and sick stomach to wish, at mid-supper, that
the supper were ended, and the table drawn, that the sick man
' ripRPectful.
LETTER CXLI. 259
might win to bed and enjoy rest? We have cause to tire at mid-
supper of the best messes that this workl can dress up for us, and
to cry to God, that He would remove the table and put the sin-
sick souls to rest with Himself. 0, for a long play-day with
Christ, and our long-lasting vacance^ of rest! Glad may their souls
be that are safe over the firth, Christ having paid the freight.
Happy are they who have passed their hard and wearisome time
of apprenticeship, and are now freemen and citizens in that joyful
liigh city, the New Jerusalem. Alas ! that we should be glad of,
and rejoice in, our fetters and our prison-house, and this dear inns,
a life of sin, where we are absent from our Lord and so far from
our home. 0, that we could get bonds and law-suretyship of our
love, that it fasten not itself on these clay-dreams, these clay-
shadows, and worldly vanities ! We might be oftener seeing what
they are doing in heaven, and our heart more frequently upon our
sweet treasure above. We smell of the smoke of this lower house
of the earth, because our heart and our thoughts are here. If we
could haunt" up with God, we should smell of heaven and of our
country above, and we should look like our country, and like
strangers or people not born or brought vip here-away. Our
crosses would not bite upon us, if we were heavenly minded. I
know no obligation the saints have to this world, seeing we fare
but upon the smoke of it ; and if there be any smoke in the house,
it bloweth upon our eyes. All our part of the table is scarce
worth a drink of water, and when we are stricken we dare not
weep, but steal our grief away betwixt our Lord and us, and con-
tent ourselves with stolen sorrow behind backs. God be thanked,
we have many things that so stroke us against the hair, as we
may pray, "God keep our better home; God bless our Father's
house, and not this smoke that bloweth us to seek our best lodg-
ing." I am sure this is the best fruit of the cross, when we, from
the hard fare of the dear inns, cry the more, that God would send
a fair wind to land us, hungered and oppressed strangers, at the
door of our Father's house, which now is made in Christ our
kindly heritage. 0 then let us pull up the stakes and stoops^ of
our tent, and take our tent on our back, and go with our flit-
ting* to our best home, for " here we have no continuing city." I
am waiting in hope here to see what my Lord will do with me.
Let Him make of me what He pleaseth ; providing He make glory
to Himself out of me, I care not. I hope, yea, I am now sure,
that I am for Christ, and all that I can or may make is for Him.
I am His everlasting debtor or dyvour, and still shall be; for alas,
I have nothing for Him, and He getteth little service of me ! Pray
tor me, that our Lord would be pleased to give me house-room,
' V.'ication. - I'l-oqnenf.. ^ Pillars. •• Furniture. .
260 LETTEK CXLll.
that I may serve Him in the calling He hath called me unto.
Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXLH.— To Egbert Stuaet.
My very dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
Ye are heartily welcome to my world of suffering, and heartily
welcome to my Master's house ; God give you much joy of your
new Master. If 1 have been in the house before you, I were not
faithful to give the house an ill name, or to speak evil of the Lord
of the family. I rather wish God's Holy Spirit (0 Lord breathe
upon me with that Spirit) to tell you the fashions of the house.
One thing I can say, by on-waiting, ye will gTow a great man Avith
the Lord of the house. Hang on till ye get some good from
Christ. Lay all your loads and your weights by faith upon Christ.
Ease yourself, and let Him bear all: He can, He does. He will
bear you, howbeit hell were upon your back. I rejoice that He is
come and hath chosen you in the furnace, it was even there Avhere
ye and He set tryst;^ that is an old gate"^ of Christ's, He keepeth
the good old fashion witli you, that was in Hosea's day, Hosea ii.
14, "Therefore, behold, I Avill allure her, and bring her to the
wilderness, and speak to her heart." There was no talking to her
heart while He and she were in the fair and flourishing city and
at ease ; but out in the cold, hungiy, Avaste Avilderness, He allur-
eth her, He whispered in news into her ear there, and said, " Thou
art mine." What would ye think of such a bodl^ Ye may soon
do worse than say, " Lord, hold all ; Lord Jesus, a bargain be it ;
it shall not go back on my side." Ye have gotten a great advan-
tage in the Avay to heaven, that ye have started to the gate in the
morning. Like a fool as I was, I suffered my sun to be high in
the heaveu, and near afternoon, before ever I took the gate by the
end. I pray you now keep the advantage ye have. My heart, be
not lazy, set as quickly up the brae on hands and feet, as if the
last pickle* of sand were running out of your glass, and death were
coming to turn the glass ; and be very careful to take heed to your
feet in that slippery and dangerous way of youth that ye are walk-
ing in. The devil and temptations now have the advantage of
the brae of you, and are upon your Avand-hand^ and your working-
hand. Dry timber will soon take fire. Be covetous and greedy
of the grace of God, and beAvare that it be not holiness that
cometh only from the cross, for too many are that way disposed.
Psalm Ixxviii. 34, '* When He slew them then they sought Him,
^ Mut each other. " Method ^ Offer. * Grain. ^ Whip-hand.
LETTEll CXLll. 261
and they returned and inquired early after God,''' ver. 35. " Never-
theless tlu*y did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto
Him with their tongues." It is a part of our hypocrisy to give
G od fair, white words, when He hath us in His grips (if I may
speak so), and to flatter Him till we win to the fair fields again.
Try well green godliness, and examine what it is ye love in Christ.
If ye love but Christ's sunny-side, and would have only summer-
weather and a land-gate, not a sea-way to heaven, your profession
will play you a slip, and the winter well will go dry again in
summer. Make no sports nor bairn's play of Christ ; but labour
for a sound and lively sight of sin, that ye may judge yourself an
undone man, a damned slave of hell and sin, one dying in your
own blood, except Christ come and rue^ upon yon, and take you
up ; aud therefore make sure and fast work of conversion. Cast
the earth deep ; and down, down with the old work, the building
of confusion, that was there before, and let Christ lay new work,
and make a new creation within you. Look if Christ's rain goeth
down to the root of your withered plants, and if His love wound
your heart while ^ it bleed with sorrow for sin, and if it can pant
and fall a-swoon, and be like to die for that lovely one, Jesus. I
know Christ will not be hid where He is, grace will ever speak
for itself, be fruitful in well-doing. The sanctified cross is a fruit-
ful tree, it bringeth forth many apples. If I should tell you, by
some weak experience, what I have found in Christ, ye or others
could hardly believe me. I thought not the hundredth part of
Christ long since that I do now ; though alas ! my thoughts are
Btill infinitely below His worth. I have a dwining, sickly, and
pained life for a real possession of Him, and am troubled with love
brashes^ and love fevers ; but it is a sweet pain. I woidd refuse
no conditions, not hell excepted (reserving always God's hatred),
to buy possession of Jesus ; but alas, I am not a merchant who
have any money to give for Him ! I must either come to a good
cheap market where wares are had for nothing, else I go home
empty : but I have casten this work upon Christ to get me Him-
self. I have His faith, and truth, and promise (as a pawn of His)
all engaged, that I shall obtain that which my hungry desires
would be at, and I esteem that the choice of my happiness. And
for Christ's cross, especially the garland and the flower of all
crosses, to suffer for His name, I esteem it more than I can write
or speak to you. And I write it under mine own hand to you, it
is one of the steps of the ladder up to our country, and Christ
(whoever be one*) is still at the heavy end of this black tree, and
1 Take pity. 2 tuL 3 Sudden gushes.
* I suppose the meaning to be, Whoever be the one cross-bearer, he is the
other.
262 LETTER CXLIII.
SO it is but as a feather to me. I need not run at leisure because
of a burden on my back, my back never bare the like of it ; the
more heavily crossed for Christ, the soul is still the lighter for the
journey. Now would to God, all cold-blooded, faint-hearted
soldiers of Christ would look again to Jesus and to His love ; and
when they look, I would have them to look again and again, and
fill themselves with beholding of Christ's beauty; and I dare say
then, that Christ should come in great court and request Avith
many. The virgins would flock fast about the Bridegroom, they
would embrace and take hold of Him and not let Him go. But
when I have spoken of Him till my head rive,^ I have said just no-
thing, I may begin again. A Godhead, a Godhead is a world's wonder.
Set ten thousand thousand new-made Avorlds of angels and elect
men, and double them in number, ten thousand, thousand, thousand
times; let their heart and tongues be ten thousand thousand times
more agile and large than the heart and tongues of the seraphims
that stand with six wings before Him, Isa. vi. 2 ; when they have
said all for the glorifying and praising of the Lord Jesus, they
have but spoken little or nothing : His love Avill bide all possible
creatures to praise. 0, if I could wear this tongue to the stump
in extolling His highness! But it is my dailj^ growing sorrow
that I am confounded with His incompai-able love, and He doth
so great things for my soul, and He got never yet anything of me
worth the speaking of Sir, I charge you, help me to praise Him.
It is a shame to speak of what He hath done for me, and what I
do to Him again. I am sure, Christ hath many drowned dyvours -
in heaven beside Him, and when we are convened, man and angel,
at the great day, in that fair, last meeting, we are all but His
drowned dyvours.^ It is hard to say who oweth Him most. If
men could do no more, I would have them to wonder. If we
cannot be filled with Christ's love, we may be filled with Avonder-
ing. Sir, I would I could persuade you to grow sick for Christ,
and to long after Him, and be pained with love for Himself ; but
His tongue is in heaven Avho can do it. To Him and His rich
grace, I recommend you. I pray you, pray for me, and forget not
to praise. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jiine 17, 1637.
LETTER CXLIII.— To the Lady Gaitgirth.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to
know how matters stand betwixt Christ and your soul. I know
ye find Him still the longer the better ; time cannot change Him
in His love. Ye may yourself ebb and flow, rise and fall, wax
^ Rend. '^ Debtors.
LETTER CXLIV. 263
and wane ; but your Lord is this day as He was yesterday ; and
it is your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon av heels of
your own making, neither have ye to do with a Christ of your own
shaping. God hath singled out a Mediator, strong and mighty ; if
ye and your burdens were as heavy as ten hills or hells, He is able
to bear you and save you to the uttermost. Your often seeking
to Him cannot make you a burden to Him. I know Christ com-
passioneth you, and maketh a moan for you in all your dumps ^
and under your down-castings ; but it is good for you that He
hideth Himself sometimes ; it is not niceness, dryness, nor cold-
ness of love, that causeth Christ to withdraw and slip in under a
curtain and a vail that ye cannot see Him ; but He knoweth, ye
could not bear with up-sails, a fair gale, a full moon, and a high
spring-tide of His felt love, and always a fair summer-day and a
summer-sun of a felt, and possessed, and embracing Lord Jesus.
His kisses and His visits to His dearest ones are thin sown. He
could not let out His rivers of love upon His own, but these rivers
would be in hazard to loose a young plant at the root ; and He
knoweth this of you. Ye should, therefore, frist^ Christ's kind-
ness, as to its sensible and full manifestations, till ye and He be
above sun and moon ; tliat is the country where ye will be en-
larged for that love, which ye dow ^ not now contain. Cast the
burden of your sweet babes upon Christ, and lighten your heart
by laying your all upon Him ; He will be their God. I hope to
see you up the mountain yet, and glad in the salvation of God.
Frame yourself for Christ, and gloom not upon His cross. I find
Him so sweet, that my love, suppose I would charge it to remove
from Christ, it would not obey me. His love hath stronger fingers
than to let go its grips of us bairns, who cannot go but by such a
hold as Christ. It is good that we want legs of our own, since we
may borroAv from Christ ; and it is our happiness that Christ is
under an act of cautionry for heaven, and that Christ is booked
in heaven as the principal debtor for such poor bodies as we are.
I request you, give the laird, your husband, thanks for his care of
me, that he hath appeared in public for a prisoner of Christ. I
pray, and Avrite mercy and peace, and blessings to him and his.
Grace, grace be with you for ever.
Y^ours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aber(]een, 1637.
LETTER CXLIV.— To Mr. John Fergustiitj,.
Reverend and dear Brother,— Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. My longings and desires for a sight of the new-builded
^ Fits of displeasure. " Defer. * Can.
264 LETTER CXLIV.
tabernacle of Christ again in Scotland, that tabernacle that came
clown from heaven, hath now taken some life again, when I see
Christ making a mint ^ to sow vengeance among His enemies. I
care not, if this land be ripe for such a great wonderful mercy ; but
I know He must do, whenever it is done, without hire. I find
the grief of my silence and my fear to be holden at the door of
Christ's house swelling upon me ; and the truth is, were it not
that I am dauted - now and then with pieces of Christ's sweet love
and comforts, I fear I should have made an ill browst ^ of this
honourable cross, that I know such a soft and silly-minded body
as I am is not worthy of. For I have little in me but softness,
and superlative and excessive apprehensions of fear, and sadness,
and sorrow, and often God's terrors do surround me, because
Christ looketh not so favourably upon me as a poor witness would
have Him. And I wonder how I have passed a year and a quar-
ter's imprisonment without shaming my sweet Lord, to whom I
desire to be faithful ; and I think I shall die but even minting *
and aiming to serve and honour my Lord Jesus. Few know how
toom^ and empty I am at home ; iDut it is a part of marriage-love
and husband-love, that my Lord Jesus goeth not to the streets
with His chiding against me. It is but stolen and concealed
anger that I find and feel, and His glooms to me are kept under
roof, that He will not have mine enemies hearing what is betwixt
me and Christ. And, believe me, I say the truth in Christ, the
only gall and wormwood in my cup, and that which hath filled
me with fear, hath been, lest my sins, that sun and moon and the
Lord's children were never witness to, should have moved my
Lord to strike me with dumb sabbaths. Lord, pardon my soft
and weak jealousies, if I be here in an error. My very dear bro-
ther, I Avould have looked for more large and more particular
letters from you for my comfort in this ; for your words before
have strengthened me. I pray you, mend this, and be thankful
and painful^ while ye have a piece or corner of the Lord's vine-
yard to dress. 0, would to God I could have leave to follow you
to break the clods ! but I wish I could command my soul silence,
and wait upon the Lord. I am sure, while Christ lives, I am well
enough friend-stead.' I hope He will extend His kindness and
power for me ; but God be thanked, it is not worse with me than
a cross for Christ and His truth. I know He might have pitched
upon many more choice and worthy witnesses if He had pleased ;
but I seek no more {be what timber I will, suppose I were made
of a piece of hell) than that my Lord, in His infinite art, hew glory
to His name, and enlargement to Christ's kingdom out of me. 0,
^ Design. ^ Indulged. ^ Brewing. * Intending. ' Empty.
" Pains-taking. " Befriended.
LETTER CXLIV. 265
that I could attain to tnis, to desire that my part of Christ might
be laid in pledge for the heightening of Christ's throne in Britain !
Let my Lord redeem the pledge, or if He please, let it sink and
drown unredeemed. But what can I add to Him? or what way
can a smothered and borne-down prisoner set out Christ in open
market as a lovely and desirable Lord to many souls 1 I know
He seeth to His own glory better than my ebb thoughts can dream
of, and that the wheels and paces of this poor distempered kirk
are in His hands, and that things shall roll as Christ will have
them. Only, Lord tryst ^ the matter so, as Christ may be made a
Householder and Lord again in Scotland, and wet faces for His
departure may be dried at His sweet and much desired welcome
home. I see in all our trials, our Lord will not mix our wares
and His grace overhead through other ; - but He will have each
man to know His own, that the like of me may say, in my suffer-
ings, this is Christ's grace, and this is but my coarse stuff; this is
free grace, and this is but nature and reason. We know what our
legs would play us, if they should carry us through all our waters ;
and the least thing our Lord can have of us is, to know we are
grace's debtors, or grace's dyvours,^ and that nature is of a base
house and blood, and grace is better born, and of kin and blood to
Christ, and of a better house. 0, that I were free of that idol
that they call myself, and that Christ were for myself, and myself
a decourted cipher and a denied and foresworn thing ! but that
proud thing, myself, will not plaj^ except it ride up side for side
with Christ, or rather have place before Him. 0, myself, another
devil, as evil as the prince of devils, if thou could give Christ the
way and take thine own room, which is to sit as low as nothing or
corruption ! 0, but we have much need to be ransomed and re-
deemed by Christ from that master-tyrant, that cruel and lawless
lord, ourself ; nay, wdien I am seeking Christ, and out of myself,
I have the thiixl j)art of a squint eye upon that vain, vain thing,
myself, myself, and something of mine own. But I must hold
here. I desire you to contrilnite your help, to see if I can be re-
stored to my wasted and lost flock. I see not how it can be, ex-
cept the lords would procure me a liberty to preach ; and they
have reason. 1. Because the opposers and my adversaries have
practised their new canons upon me, whereof one is, that no de-
prived minister preach under the pain of excommunication. 2.
Because my opposing of these canons was a special thing that in-
censed Sidserf against me. 3. Because I was judicially accused
for ray book against the Arminians, and commanded by the chan-
cellor to acknowledge I had done a fault in w^riting against Dr.
' Arrange. - Each other. •* Bankrupts,
266 LETTEK CXLV.
Jackson, a wicked Arminian. Pray for a room in the house to
me. Grace, grace be (as it is) your portion.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXLV.— To John Stuart, Provost of Ayr.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long for
the time when I shall see the beauty of the Lord in His house ;
and would be as glad of it as of any sight on earth, to see the halt,
the blind, and the lame come back to Zion with supplications, Jer.
xxxi. 8, 9. " Going and weeping and seeking the Lord, asking the
way to Zion with their faces thitherward," Jer. i. 5, 6. And to see
the woman travailing in birth, delivered of the man-child of a blessed
reformation. If this land were humbled, I would look that our skies
should clear and our day dawn again ; and ye should then bless
Christ, who is content to save your travail, and to give Himself to
you, in pure ordinances on this side of the sea. I know the mercy
of Christ is engaged by promise to Scotland, notwithstanding Ho
bring wrath, as I fear He shall, upon this land. I am waiting on
for enlargement, and half-content that my faith bow, if Christ,
while He bow it, keep it unbroken ; for who goeth through a fire
without a mark or a scald? I see the Lord making use of this fire
to scour His vessels from their rust. 0 that my will were silent,
and as " a child weaned from the breasts ! " Ps. cxxxi. But,
alas, Avho hath a heart that will give Christ the last word in flyt-
ing,^ and will hear, and not speak again 1 0, contestations and
quarrelous replies (as a soon-saddled^ spirit, "I do well to be angry,
even to the death," Jonah iv. 9), smell of the stink of strong cor-
ruption ! 0, blessed soul, that could sacrifice his will and go to
heaven, having lost his will, and made resignation of it to Christ!
I would seek no more but that Christ were absolute King over my
will, and that my will were a sufferer in all crosses, without meet-
ing Christ with such a word, why is it thus ? I wish still, that
my love had but leave to stand beside beautiful Jesus, and to get
the mercy of looking to Him, and burning for Him, suppose pos-
session of Him were suspended and fristed,^ till my Lord fold to-
gether the leaves and two sides of the little shepherds' tents of
clay. 0, what pain is in longing for Christ under an over-clouded
and eclipsed assurance ! What is harder than to burn and dwine
with longings and deaths of love, and then to have blanks and
uninked paper for assurance of Christ in real fruition or posses-
sion ] O, how sweet were one line or half a letter of a written
assurance under Christ's own hand ! but this is our exercise daily,
' Scolding. '^ Eeady for the battle. ^ Delayed.
LETTER CXI.V, 267
that guiltiness shall overmist and darlven assurance : it is a miracle
to believe, but for a sinner to believe is two miracles. But 0,
what obligations of love are we under to Christ, who beareth with
our wild apprehensions, in suffering them to nick-name sweet
Jesus, and to put a lie upon His good name ! If He had not been
God, and if long-suffering in Christ were not like Christ Himself,
we should long ago have broken Christ's mercies in two pieces, and
put an iron-bar upon our own salvation, that mercy should not
have been able to break or overleap ; but long-suffering in God is
God Himself, and that is our salvation, and the stability of our
heaven is in God. He knew who said, "Christ in you the hope
of glory," Col. i. 27, for our hope and the bottom and pillars of it
is Christ-God ; sinners are anchor-fast and made stable in God :
so that if God do not change (which is impossible), then my hope
shall not fluctuate. 0, sweet stability of sure-bottomed salvation !
who could win heaven if this were not? and who could be saved
if God were not God, and if He were not such a God as He is 1
0, God be thanked, that our salvation is coasted, and landed, and
shored upon Christ, who is master of winds and storms ! and what
sea-winds can blow the coast or the land out of its place 1 Bul-
warks are often casten down, bnt coasts are not removed ; but
suppose that were, or might be, yet God cannot reel nor remove.
O, that we go from this strong and unmovable Lord, and that we
loose ourselves (if it were in our power) from Him ! Alas, our
green and young love hath not taken with Christ, as being unac-
quainted with Him. He is such a wide, and broad, and deep, and
high, and surpassing sweetness, that our love is too little for Him.
But 0, if our love, little as it is, could take band ^ with His great
and huge sweetness and transcendent excellency ! 0, thrice
blessed, and eternally blessed, are they, who are out of themselves
and above themselves, that they may be in love united to Him.
I am often rolling up and down the thoughts of my faint and sick
desires of expressing Christ's glory before His people ; but I see
not through the throng of impediments, and cannot find eyes to
look higher, and so I put many things in Christ's way to hinder
Him, that I know He would but laugh at, and with one stride set
His foot over them all. I know not if my Lord will bring me to
His sanctuary or not ; but I know He hath the placing of me,
either within or without the house, and that nothing will be done
without Him ; but I am often thinking and saying Avithin myselr
that my days flee away, and I see no good, neither yet Christ's
work thriving ; and it is like ^ the grave shall prevent the answer
of my desires of saving souls as I would. But, alas, 1 cannot make
right work of His ways, I neither spell nor read my Lord's pro-
1 Lay hold of. 2 Probable.
268 LETTER CXLVI.
viJence aright. My thoughts go a way that I fear tliey Tncot not
God ; for it is Hke ^ God will not come the way of my thoughts,
and I cannot be taught to crucify to Him my wisdom and desires,
and to make Him King over my thoughts ; for I would have a
princedom over my thoughts, and would boldly and blindly pre-
scribe to God, and guide myself in a way of my own making.
But I hold my peace here, let Him do His will. Grace, grace be
with you.
Yours, in his sweetest Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXLVI.— To Caesluth.
Much honoured Sir, — I long to hear how your soul pros-
pereth. I earnestly desire you to try how matters stand between
your soul and the Lord : think it no easy matter to take heaven
by violence. Salvation cometh now to the most part of men in a
night-dream : there is no scarcity of faith now, such as it is ; for
ye shall not now light upon the man who will not say he hath
faith in Christ. But alas ! dreams make no man's rights. Worthy
sir, I beseech you in the Lord, give your soul no rest till ye have
real assurance and Christ's rights confirmed and sealed to your
soul. The common faith, and country-holiness, and week-days' ^
zeal, that are among people, will never bring men to heaven.
Take pains for your salvation ; for in that day, when ye shall see
many men's labours, and conquests, and idol riches lying in ashes,
when the earth and all the works thereof shall be burnt with fire,
0, how dear a price would your soul give for God's favour in Christ!
It is a blessed thing to see Christ with up-sun, and to read over
your papers and soul-accounts with fair daylight. It will not be
time to cry for a lamp when the Bridegroom is entered into His
chamber and the door shut. Fie, fie upon blinded and base souls,
who are committing whoredom with this idol clay, and hunting a
poor, wretched, hungry heaven, a hungry breakfast, a day's meat,
from this hungry world, with the forfeiting of God's favour, and
the drinking over their heaven over the board (as men use to
speak), for the laughter and sports of this short forenoon ! All
that is under this vault of heaven, and betwixt us and death, and
on this side of sun and moon, are but toys, night-visions, head-
fancies, poor sliadows, watery froth, godless vanities at their best,
and black hearts, and salt and sour miseries, sugared over and
confected with an hour's laughter or two, and the conceit of riches,
honour, vain, vain court and lawless pleasures. Sir, if ye look
both to the laughing side and the weeping side of this world, and
1 Pi-obablft. - Common.
LETTEi; CXLVI. 269
if ye look not only upon the skin and colour of things, but into
their inwards and the heart of their excellency, ye shall see that
one look of Christ's sweet and lovely eye, one kiss of His fairest
face, is worth ten thousand worlds of such rotten stuff as the
foolish sons of men set their hearts upon. 0, sir, turn, turn your
heart to the other side of things, and get it once free of these
entanglements, to consider eternity, death, the clay-bed, the grave,
awsome^ judgment, everlasting burning quick in hell, where death
would give as great a price (if there were a market where death
might be bought and sold) as all the world. Consider heaven and
glory ; but alas ! why speak I of considering these things, which
have not entered into the heart of man to consider 1 Look into
those depths (without a bottom) of loveliness, sweetness, beauty,
excellency, glory, goodness, grace, and mercy that are in Christ,
and ye shall then cry down the whole world and all the glory of
it, even when it is come to the summer-bloom : and ye shall cry,
up with Christ, up with Christ's Father, up with eternity of glory.
Sir, there is a great deal of less sand in your glass than when 1
saw you, and your afternoon is nearer eventide now than it was.
As a flood carried back to the sea, so doth the Lord's swift post,
time^ carry you and your life with wings to the grave. Ye eat
and drink, but time staadeth not still , ye laugh, but your day
(leeth away ; ye sleep, but your hours are reckoned and put by-
hand. 0, how soon will time shut you out of the poor, and cold,
and hungry inns of this life ! and then, what will yesterday's
short-born pleasures do to you, but be as a snow-ball melted away,
many years since, or worse ; for the memory of these pleasures
useth to fill the soul with bitterness. Time and experience will
prove this to be true ; and dying men, if they could speak, would
make this good. Lay no more on the creatures than they are able
to carry. Lay your soul and your weights upon God; make Him
your only, only best-beloved. Your errand to this life is to make
sure an eternity of glory to your soul, and to match your soul with
Christ : your love, if it were more than all the love of angels in
one, is Christ's due. Other things, worthy in themselves, in re-
spect of ^ Christ are not worth a windlestraw^ or a drink of cold
water. I doubt not but in death ye will see all things more dis-
tinctly, and that then the world shall bear no more bulk than it
is worth, and tliat then it shall couch and be contracted into no-
thing, and ye shall see Christ longer, higher, broader, and deeper
tlian ever He was. 0, blessed concpiest, to lose all things and
to gain Christ ! I know not what ye have if ye want Christ.
Alas, how poor is your gain if the earth were all yours in free
heritage, holding it of no man of clay, if Christ be not yours I 0,
^ Awful. - In comparison with. ' A kind of gras.s.
270 LETTER CXLVII.
seek all midses,^ lay all oars in the water, put forth all your
power, and bend all your endeavours, to put away and part with
all things, that ye may gain and enjoy Christ. Try and search
His word, and strive to go a step above and beyond ordinary pro-
fessors, and resolve to sweat more, and run faster than they do,
for salvation. Men's mid-way, cold and wise courses in godliness,
and their neighbour-like cold and wise pace to heaven, will cause
many a man want his lodging at night and lie in the fields. I
recommend Christ and His love to your seeking, and yourself to
the tender mercy and rich grace of our Lord. Remember my
love in Christ to your wife. I desire her to learn to make hei
soul's anchor fast upon Christ Himself. Few are saved. Let her
consider, what joy the smiles of God in Christ will be, and what
the love-kisses of sweet, sweet Jesas, and a welcome home to the
new Jerusalem from Christ's own mouth, will be to her soul ;
when Christ shall fold together the clay tent of her body, and lay
it by His hand for a time, till the fair morning of the general
resurrection. I avouch before God, man, and angel, that I have
not seen, nor can imagine, a lover to be comparable to lovely
Jesus. I would not exchange or niffer^ Him with ten heavens.
If heaven could be without Him, what could we do there? Grace,
grace be with you.
Your soul's eternal well-wisher, S. R
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXLVn.— To Cassincarrie.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I
have been too long in writing to you, I am confident ye have
learned to prize Christ, and His love and favour, more than ordi-
nary professors, who scarce see Christ with half an eye, because
their sight is taken up with eyeing and liking the beauty of this
over-gilded world, that promiseth fair to all its lovers, but in the
push of a trial, when need is, can give nothing but a fair beguile.
I know ye are not ignorant that men come not to this world, as
some do to a market, to see and to be seen ; or as some come to
behold a May-game, and only to behold and to go home agiiin.
Ye came hither to treat with God, and to tryst ^ with Him in His
Christ, for salvation to your soul, and to seek reconciliation with
an angry and wrathful God, in a covenant of peace made to you
in Christ, and this is more than an ordinary sport or the play,
that the greatest part of the world give their heart unto. And
therefore, worthy sir, I pray you by the salvation of your soul,
' Means, " Barter. " Negotiate,
LETTER CXLVII. 271
and by the mercy of God, and your compearance before Christ, do
this in sad earnest, and let not salvation be your by-work, or your
holiday's task only, or a work by the way : for men think, that
this may done in three days' space on a feather-bed, when death
and they are fallen in hands together, and that with a word or
two they shall make their soul-matters right. Alas, this is to sit
loose and unsure in the matters of our salvation. Nay, the seek-
ing of this world and the glory of it, is but an odd and by-errand,
that Ave may slip, so being we make salvation sure. 0, when will
men learn to be that^ heavenly-wise, as to divorce from, and free
their soul of all idle lovers, and make Christ the only, only one,
and trim and make ready their lamps, while they have time and
day ! How soon will this house skail,^ and the inns where the
poor soul lodgeth fall to the earth ! how soon will some few years
pass away, and then Avhen the day is ended, and this life's lease
expired, what have men of the world's glory, but dreams and
thoughts 1 0, how blessed a thing is it to labour for Christ, and
to make Him sure ! Know and try in time your holding of Him,
and the lights and charters of heaven, and upon what terms ye
have Christ and the Gospel, and what Christ is worth in your
estimation, and how lightly ye esteem of other things, and how
dearly of Christ ! I am sure, if ye see Him in His beauty and
glory, ye shall see Him to be all things, and that incomparable
jewel of gold, that ye should seek ; howbeit ye should sell, wad-
set,^ and forfeit your few years' portion of this life's joys. 0
happy soul for evermore, who can rightly compare this life with
that long-lasting life to come, and can balance the weighty glory
of the one with the light golden vanity of the other ! The day of
the Lord is now near at hand, and all men shall come out in their
blacks and whites as they are. There shall be no borrowed, lying
colours in that day, when Christ shall be called Christ, and no
longer nick-named : now men borrow Christ and His white colour,
and the lustre and farding'* of Christianity ; but how many
counterfeit masks will be burnt in the day of God, in the fire that
shall burn the earth and the works that are in it. And, howbeit
Christ have the hardest part of it now, yet in the presence of my
Lord, whom I serve in the Spirit, I would not niffer^ or exchange
Christ's prison, bands, and chains with the gold chains and lordly
rents and smiling and happy-like heavens of the men of this
world, I am far from thoughts of repenting because of my losses
and bonds for Christ. I wish all my adversaries were as I am,
except my bonds. Worthy, worthy, worthy for evermore is Christ,
for whom we should sufter pains like hell's pains, far more the
short hell that the saints of God have in this life. Sir, I wish
^ So. - Come to an end. ^ Mort^;ige. * Deckiu;,'. '' Barter.
272 LETTEK CXLVIII.
your soul may be more acquainted with the sweetness of" Christ.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord and Master, S. E-.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXLVIII— To his Parishioners at Anwoth.
Dearly beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy, and peace from
God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied
upon you. I long exceedingly to hear of your on-going and ad-
vancement in your journey to the kingdom of God. My only joy
out of heaven is, to hear that the seed of God sown among you is
growing and coming to an harvest ; for I ceased not, while I was
among you, in season and out of season (according to the measure
of grace given unto me), to warn and stir up your minds. And I
am free from the blood of all men ; for I have communicated to
you the whole counsel of God. And I now again charge and warn
you, in the great and dreadful name, and in the sovereign autho-
rity of the King of kings and Lord of lords : and I beseech you
also by the mercies of God, and by the bowels of Christ, by your
appearance before Christ Jesus our Lord, by all the plagues that
are written in God's book, by your part of the holy city, the new
Jerusalem, that ye keep the truth of God as I delivered it to you,
before many witnesses, in the sight of God and His holy angels ;
for now the last days are come and coming, when many forsake
Christ Jesus, and He saith to you, will ye also leave me? Re-
member that I forewarned you to forbear the dishonouring of the
Lord's blessed name in swearing, blaspheming, cursing, and the
profaning of the Lord's sabbath ; willing you to give that day
from morning to night to praying, praising, hearing of the word,
conferring, and speaking not your own words but God's words,
thinking and meditating on God's nature, word, and works. And
that every day at morning and at night (at least), ye should
sanctify the Lord by pi\aying in your houses publicly in the hear-
ing of all ; that ye should in any sort forbear the receiving of the
Lord's Supper but after the form that I delivered it to you, ac-
cording to the example of Christ our Lord ; that is, that ye should
sit as banqueters at one table with our King, and eat, and drink,
and divide the elements one to another. The timber and stones
of the church walls shall bear witness, that my soul was refreshed
with the comforts of God in that Supper ; and that crossing in
baptism was unlawful, and against Christ's ordinance ; and that
no day (besides the sabbath, which is of His own appointment)
should be kept holy and sanctified with preaching and the public
worship of God, for the memory of Christ's birth, death, resurrec-
LETTER CXLVllI. 273
tion, and ascension, seeing such days, so observed, are unlawful
will-worship, and not warranted in Christ's word ; and that every-
thing in God's worship not warranted by Christ's Testament and
Word, was unlawful. And also, that idolatry, worshipping of
God before hallowed creatures, and adoring of Christ by kneeling
before bread and wine, was unlawful. And that ye should be
humble, sober, modest; forbearing pride, envy, malice, wrath,
hatred, contention, debate, lying, slandering, stealing, and de-
frauding your neighbours in grass, corn, or cattle, in buying or
selling, borrowing or lending, taking or giving, in bargains or
covenants. And that ye should work with your own hands, and
be content with that which God hath given you. That ye should
study to know God and His will, and keep in mind the doctrine
of the catechism, which I taught you carefully, and speak of it in
your houses and in the fields, when ye lie down at night, and
when ye rise in the morning. That ye should believe in the Son
of God and obey His commandments, and learn to make your ac-
counts in time with your Judge ; because death and judgment are
before you. And if ye have now penury and want of that word,
which I delivered to you in abundance ; yea (to God's honour I
speak it, without arrogating anything to myself, who am but a
poor empty man) ye had as much of the word in nine years, while
I was among you, as some others have had in many ; mourn for
your loss of time and repent. My soul pitieth you that ye should
suck dry breasts and be put to draw at dry wells. 0, that ye
would esteem highly of the Lamb of God, your Well-Beloved
Christ Jesus, whose virtues and praises I preached unto you with
joy, and which He did countenance and accompany with some
power ; and that ye would call to mind the many fair days and
glorious feasts in our Lord's house of wine, that ye and I have had
with Christ Jesus ! But if there be any among you that take
liberty to sin, because I am removed from amongst you, and forget
that word of truth which ye heard, and turn the grace of God
into wantonness, I here, under my hand, in the name of Christ
my Lord, write to such persons all the plagues of God, and the
curses that ever I preached in the pulpit of Anwoth against the
children of disobedience : and, as the Lord liveth, the Lord Jesus
shall make good what I write unto you. Therefore, dearly be-
loved, fulfil my joy. Fear the great and dreadful name of the
Lord; seek God with me. Scotland's judgment sleepeth not.
Awake and repent. The sword of the Lord shall go from the
north to the south, from tlie east to the west, and through all the
corners of the land, and that sword shall be drunk with your
blood amongst the first ; and I shall stand up as witness against
you, if ye do not amend your ways and your doings, and turn to
S
274
LETTER OXLIX.
the Lord with all your heart. I beseech you also, my beloved in
the Lord, my joy and my crown, offend ^ not at the sufferings of
me, the prisoner of Jesus Christ ; I am filled with joy and with
the comforts of God. Upon my salvation, I know and am per-
suaded it is for God's truth and the honour of ray King and royal
Prince Jesus I now suffer. And howbeit this town be my prison,
yet Christ hath made it my palace, a garden of pleasures, a field
and orchard of delights. 1 know likewise, albeit I be in bonds,
that yet the word of God is not in bonds, my spirit also is in free-
ward. Sweet, sweet, have His comforts been to my soul ; my
pen, tongue, and heart, have not words to express the kindness,
love, and mercy of my Well-Beloved to me, in this house of my
pilgrimage. I charge you to fear and love Christ, and to seek a
house not made with hands, but your Father's house above. This
laughing and white-skinned world beguileth you, and if ye seek
it more than God, it shall play you a slip to the endless sorrow of
your heart. Alas, I could not make many of you fall in love with
Christ, howbeit I endeavoured to speak much good of Him, and
to commend Him to you (which as it was your sin, so it is my
sorrow) ; yet once again suffer me to exhort, beseech, and obtest
you in the Lord, to think of His love, and to be delighted with
Him, who is altogether lovely. I give you the word of a king,
ye shall not repent it. Ye are in my prayers night and day ; I
cannot forget you. I do not eat, I do not drink, but I ]H'ay for
you all. I entreat you all, and every one of you, to pray for me.
Grace, grace be with you.
Your lawful and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 23, 1636.
LETTER CXLIX.— To the Lady Caedonness.
Mistress, — I beseech you in the Lord Jesus make every day
more and more of Christ, and try your growth in the grace of God,
and what new ground ye win daily on corruption ; for travellers
are day by day either advancing farther on, and nearer home, or
else they go not right about to compass their journey. I think
still the better and better of Christ. Alas ! I know not where to
set Him, I would so fain have Him high ! I cannot set heavens
above heavens, till I were tired with numbering, and set Him upon
the highest step and story of the highest of them all ; but I wish
I could make Him great through the world, sup})ose my loss, and
pain, and shame were set under the soles of His feet, that He might
stand upon me. I request you faint not, because this world and
ye are at yea and nay, and JDecause this is not a home that laugh-
^ Be not offended.
LETTER CXLIX. 275
eth upon you ; the wise Lord, who knoweth you, will have it so,
because He casteth a net for your love to catch it and gather it in
to Himself; therefore, bear patiently the loss of children, and bur-
dens, and other discontentments, either within or without the
house ; your Lord in them is seeking you, and seek ye Him. Let
none be your love and choice, and the flower of your delights, but
your Lord Jesus ; set not your heart upon the world, since God
hath not made it your portion ; for it will not fall ^ you to get two
portions, and to laugh twice, and to be happy twice, and to have
an upper heaven, and an under heaven too ; Christ our Lord and
His saints were not so, and therefore let go your grip of this life
and of the good things of it. I hope your heaven groweth not
here-away. Learn daily both to possess and miss Christ in His
secret Bridegroom smiles ; He must go and come, because His in-
finite wisdom thinketh it best for you. We will be together one
day ; we shall not need to borrow light from sun, moon, or candle ;
there shall be no complaints on either side in heaven ; there shall
be none there but He and we, the Bridegroom and the bride ; devils,
temptations, trials, desertions, losses, sad heart's-pain, and death,
shall be put out of play, and the devil must give up his office of
tempting. 0 blessed is the soul whose hope hath a face looking
straight out to that day. It is not our part to make a treasure
here ; anything under the covering of heaven we can build upon
is but ill ground and a sandy foundation : every good thing, except
God, wanteth a bottom, and cannot stand its lone : - how then can
it bear the weight of us 1 Let us not lay a load upon a windle-
straw;^ there shall nothing find my weight or found my happiness
but God. I know all created power should sink under me if I
should lean down upon it, and therefore it is better to rest on God
than sink or fall ; and we weak souls must have a bottom and
being-place, for we cannot stand our lone.^ Let us then be wise in
our choice, and choose and wale * our own blessedness, which is to
trust in the Lord. Each one of us hath a whore and idol besides
our Husband Christ, but it is our folly to divide our narrow and
little love. It will not serve two ; best then hold it whole and to-
gether, and give it to Christ ! for then we get double interest for
our love when we lend it to and lay it out upon Christ ; and we
are sure besides that the stock cannot perish. Now I can say no
more — remember me. I have God's right to that people, howbeit,
by the violence of men stronger than I, I am banished from you
and chased away. The Lord give you mercy in the day of Christ.
It may be God will clear my sky again, howbeit there is small ap-
pearance of my deliverance ; but let Him do with me Avhat seem-
^ Befall you, or fall to your lot. " Alore.
^ A stalk of (Trass. * Select.
276 LETTER CL.
eth good in His own eyes : I am His clay, let my potter frame
and fashion me as He pleaseth. Grace be with you.
Your lawful and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CL.— To Sibilla M'Adajl
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I can bear
witness in my bonds that Christ is still the longer the better and
no worse ; yea, inconceivably better than He is, or can be, called :
I think it half an heaven to have my fill of the smell of His sweet
breath, and to sleep in the arms of Christ my Lord, with His left
hand under my head, and His right hand embi\acing me. There
is no great reckoning to be made of the withering of my flower, in
comparison of the foul and manifest wrongs done to Christ. Nay,
let never the dew of God lie upon my branches again, let the bloom
fall from my joy, and let it wither, let the Almighty blow out my
candle, so being the Lord might be great among Jew^ and Gentiles,
and His oppressed Church delivered. Let Christ fare well, suppose
I should eat ashes. I know He must be SAveet Himself, when His
cross is so sweet And it is the part of us all, if we marry Him-
self, to marry the crosses, losses, and reproaches also that follow
Him ; for mercy followeth Christ's cross. His prison, for beauty,
is made of marble and ivory; His chains that are laid on His
prisoners are golden chains ; and the sighs of the prisoners of hope
are perfumed with comforts, the like whereof cannot be bred or
found on this side of sun and moon. Follow on after His love,
tire not of Christ ; but come in and see His beauty and excellency,
and feed your soul upon Christ's sweetness. This world is not
yours, neither would I have your heaven made of such metal as
mire and clay. Ye have the choice and wale ^ of all lovers in
heaven or out of heaven, when ye have Christ, the only delight of
God His Father. Climb up the mountain with joy and faint not;
for time will cut off the men who pursue Christ's followers. Our
best things here have a worm in them. Our joys besides God, in
the inner half, are but woes and sorrows. Christ, Christ is that
which our love and desires can sleep sweetly and rest safely upon.
Now, the very God of peace establish you in Christ. Help a
prisoner with your prayers, and entreat that our Lord would be
pleased to visit me with a sight of His beauty in His house, as He
hath sometimes done, Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeec, 1637.
^ Selection.
LETTER CIJ. 277
LETTER CLT.— To the Laikd of Cally.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. I have
been too long, I confess, in Avriting to you. My suit now to you
in paper (since I have no access to speak to you as formerly) is,
tliat ye would lay the foundation sure in your youth. When ye
begin to seek Christ, try, I pray you, upon what terms ye covenant
to follow Him, and lay your accounts what it may cost you ; that
summer nor winter, nor weal nor woe, may not cause you change
your Master, Christ : keep fair to Him, and be honest and faithful
that He find not a crack in you. Surely, ye are now in the throng
of temptations. When youth is come to its fairest bloom, then
the devil, and the lusts of a deceiving world and sin, are upon
horseback, and follow with up-sails. If this were not, Paul needed
not to have written to a sanctified and holy youth Timothy (a
faithful preacher of the Gospel), flee the lusts of youth. Give
Christ your virgin love, ye cannot put your love and heart in a
better hand. 0, if ye knew Him and saw His beauty ! your love,
your liking, your heart, your desires would close with Him and
cleave to Him. Love, by nature, when it seeth, cannot but cast
out its spirit and strength upon amiable objects, and good things,
and things love-worthy • and what fairer thing than Christ 1 0,
fair sun, and fair moon, and fair stars, and fair flowers, and fair
roses, and fair lilies, and fair creatures ! But, 0, ten thousand
thousand times fairer Lord Jesus ! Alas, I wronged Him in
making the comparison this way ; 0, black sun and moon, but 0
fair Lord Jesus ! 0, black flowers, and black lilies, and roses, but
0, fair, fair, ever fair Lord Jesus ! 0, all fair things, black and
deformed without beauty, when ye are beside that fairest Lord
Jesus ! 0, black heaven, but 0, fair Christ ! 0, black angels,
but 0, surpassingly fair Lord Jesus ! I would seek no more to
make me happy for evermore, but a thorough and clear sight of
the beauty of Jesus my Lord. Let my eyes enjoy His fairness,
and stare Him for ever in the face, and I have all that can be
wished. Get Christ rather than gold or silver : seek Christ, how-
beit ye should lose all things for Him. They take their marks by
the moon, and look asquint, in looking to fair Christ, who resolve
for the world and their ease ; and for their honour, and court, and
credit ; or for fear of losses and a sore skin, that they will turn
their back upon Christ and His truth. Alas, how many blind
eyes and squint-lookers look this day in Scotland upon Christ's
beauty, and they see a spot in Christ's fair face ! Alas, they are
not Avorthy of Christ who look this way upon Him, and see no
beauty in Him why they should desire Him ! God send me my
fill of His beauty, if it be possible that my soul can be full of His
278 LETTER CLII.
beauty here. But much of Christ's beauty needeth not abate the
eager appetite of a soul (sick of love for Himself) to see Him in
the other world, where He is seen as He is. I am glad with all
my heart that ye have given your greenest morning-age to this
Lord Jesus. Hold on and weary not, faint not, resolve upon
suffering for Christ, but fear not ten days' tribulation, for Christ's
sour cross is sugared with comforts, and hath a taste of Christ
Himself. I esteem it my glory, my joy, and my crown, and I
bless Him for this honour, to be yoked with Christ, and married
with Him in suffering, who therefore was born, and therefore
came into the world, that He might bear witness to the truth.
Take pains above all things for salvation, for without running,
fighting, sweating, wrestling, heaven is not taken. 0 happy soul,
that crosseth nature's stomach, and delighteth to gain that fair
garland and crown of glory ! AVhat a feckless ^ loss is it for you
to go through this wilderness and never taste of sin's sugared plea-
sures ! What poorer is a soul to want pride, lust, love of the
world, and the vanities of this vain and worthless world 1 Nature
hath no cause to weep at the want of such toys as these. Esteem
it your gain to be an heir of glory ; 0, but that is an eye-look to a
fair rent ! ^ The very hope of heaven under troubles, is like wind
and sails to the soul, and like wings when the feet come out of the
snare. 0, for what stay we here 1 Up, up after our Lord Jesus,
this is not our rest, nor our dwelling. What have we to do in
this prison, except only to take meat and house-room in it for a
time 1 Grace, grace be with you.
Your soul's well-wisher and Christ's prisoner, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLII. —To William Gordon at Kenmure.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have
been long in answering your letter, which came in good time to
me. It is my aim and hearty desire that my furnace, which is of
the Lord's kindling, may sparkle fire upon standers-by, to the warm-
ing of their hearts with God's love. The very dust that falleth
from Christ's feet, His old ragged clothes. His knotty and black
cross, is sweeter to me than kings' golden crowns and their time-
eaten pleasures. I should be a liar and false witness if I should
not give my Lord Jesus a fair testimonial with my Avhole soul.
My word I know will not heighten Him, He needeth not such
props under His feet to raise His glory high. But 0 that I could
raise Him the height of heaven, and the breadth and length of ten
heavens, in the estimation of all His young lovers ! for we have all
^Worthless. "That is, a prospect of a rich revenue.
LKTTER CLII. 279
shapeii Christ but too narrow and too short, and formed concep-
tions of His love in our conceit very unworthy of it. 0, that men
were taken and caught with His beauty and fairness ! They would
give over playing with idols, in Avhich there is not half room for
the love of one soul to expatiate itself; and man's love is but heart-
hungered in gnawing upon bare bones and sucking at dry breasts.
It is well wared ^ they want who will not come to Him who hath a
world of love and goodness and bounty for all. We seek to thaw
our frozen hearts at the cold smoke of the short-timed creature,
and our souls gather neither heat, nor life, nor light ; for these can-
not give to us what they have not in themselves. 0 that we could
thrust in through these thorns and this throng of bastard-lovers,
and be ravished and sick of love for Christ ! we should find some
footing and some room and sweet ease for our tottering and witless
souls in our Lord. I wish it were in my power, after this day, to
cry down all love but the love of Christ, and to cry down all gods
but Christ, all saviours but Christ, all well-beloveds but Christ,
and all soul-suitors, all love-beggars but Christ. Ye complain that
ye want a mark of the sound work of grace and love in your soul.
For answer, consider for your satisfaction (till God send more),
1 John iii. 14. And as for your complaint of deadness and doubt
ings, Christ, 1 hope, will take your deadness and you together.
They are bodies full of holes, running boils, and broken bones that
need mending, that Christ the physician taketh up : whole vessels
are not for the Mediator Christ's art. Publicans, sinners, whores,
harlots, are ready market-wares for Christ. The only thing that
will bring sinners within a cast of Christ's drawing arm is that
which ye write of, some feeling of death and sin, that bringeth
forth complaints ; and therefore, out of sense complain more, and
be more acquaint with all the cramps, stitches, and soul-swoonings
that trouble you. The more pain, and the more night-watching,
and the more fevers the better ; a soul bleeding to death till Christ
were sent for, and cried for in all haste to come and stem the
blood, and close up the hole in the wound with His own hand and
balm, were a very good disease when many are dying of a whole
heart. We have all too little of hell-pain and terrors that way.
Nay, God send me such a hell as Christ hath promised to make a
heaven out of ! Alas, I am not come that ^ far on in the way as
to say in sad earnest. Lord Jesus, great and sovereign Physician,
here is a pained patient for Thee. But the thing that we mistake
is the want of victory, we hold that to be the mark of one that
hath no grace : nay, I say the want of fighting were a mark of no
gi'ace, but I shall not say, the want of victory is such a mark. If
my fire and the devil's water make crackling like thunder in the
^ Appointed that. ^ So.
280 LETTER CLIIl.
air, I am the less feared*; for where there is fire, it is Christ's
part, that I lay and bind upon Him, to keep in the coal, and to
pray the Father that my faith fail not, if I in the meantime be
wrestling and doing, and sighing and mourning. For prayer put-
teth not Paul's devil (the prick in the flesh and the messenger of
Satan) to the door at first ; but our Lord will have them trying
every one another, and let Paul fend ^ himself by God's help, God
keeping the stakes and moderating the play ; and ye do well not
to doubt if the ground-stone ^ be sure, but to try if it be so ; for
there is great odds between doubting that we have grace and try-
ing if we have grace : the former may be sin, but the latter is good.
We are but loose in trying our free-holding of Christ and making
sure work of Christ. Holy fear is a searching the camp that there
be "no enemy within our bosom to betray us, and a seeing that all
be fast and sure. For I see many leaking vessels fair before the
wind, and professors who take their conversation upon trust, and
they go on securely and see not to the under-water till a storm
sink them. Each man had need, twice a day, and oftener, to be
ryped "* and searched with candles. Pray for me that the Lord
would give me house-room again, to hold a candle to this dark
world. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord and Master, S. li.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLIIL— To Margaret Fullerton.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am glad that
ever ye did cast your love on Christ, fasten more and more love
every day upon Him. 0 if I had a river of love, a sea of love
that would never go dry, to bestow upon Him ! but alas the pity,
Christ hath beauty for me, but I have not love for Him ! 0 what
pain is it to see Christ in His beauty, and then to want a heart
and love for Him ! But I see, want we must, till Christ lend us,
never to be paid again. 0 that He would empty these vaults and
lower houses of these poor souls, of these bastard and base lovers
which we follow ! And, verily, I see no object in heaven or in
earth that I could ware^ this much of love upon that I have, but
upon Christ. Alas ! that clay, and time, and shadows run away
with our love, which is ill spent upon any but upon Christ : each
fool, at the day of judgment, shall seek back His love from the
creatures, when He shall see them all in a fair fire, but they shall
prove irresponsal "^ debtors. And therefore best here look ere we
leap, and look ere we love. I find now under His cross that I
^ Afraid. ' Defend. * Foundation.
■* Turned inside out. ■' Spend. '' Irresponsible, bankrupt.
LETTER CLIV. 281
would fain give Him more than I have to give Him, if giving
were in my power. But I rather wish Him my heart than give
Him it : except He take it and put Himself in possession of it
(for I hope He hath a market-right to me, since He hath ransomed
me), I see not how Christ can have me. 0 that He would be
pleased to be more homely^ Avith my soul's love, and to come in
to my soul and take His own ! But when He goeth away and
hideth Himself, all is to me that I had of Christ, as if it had fallen
in the sea-bottom. 0 that I should be so fickle in my love, as to
love Christ only by the eyes and nose ! that is, to love Him only
in as far as fond and foolish sense carrieth me, and no more. And
when I see not, and smell not, and touch not, then I have all to
seek. I cannot love parquier^ nor rejoice parquier:^ but this is
our weakness, till we be at home, and shall have aged men's
stomachs to bear Christ's love. Pray for me, that our Lord would
bring me back to you with a new blessing of the Gospel of Christ.
I forget not you. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLIV.— To William Glendinning.
Dear Brother, — Ye are heartily welcome to that honour that
Christ hath made common to us both, -which is to suffer for His
name. Verily, I think it my garland and crown, and if the Lord
should ask of me my blood and life for this cause, I would gladly
in His strength pay due debt to Christ's honour and glory in that
Idnd. Acquaint yourself with Christ's love, and ye shall not miss
to find new gold mines and treasures in Christ. Nay, truly, wo
but stand beside Christ, we go not in to Him to take our fill of
Him. But if He should do two things : 1. Draw the curtains and
make bare His holy face ; and then, 2. Clear our dim and bleared
eyes to see His beauty and glory, He should find many lovers. I
would seek no more happiness but a sight of Him so near hand,
as to see, hear, smell, and touch and embrace Him. But, oh,
closed doors, and vails, and curtains, and thick clouds hold me in
pain, Avhile I find the sweet burning of His love that many waters
cannot quench ! 0, what sad hours have I when I think that love
of Christ scaureth at^ me and bloweth by me ! If my Lord Jesus
would come to bargaining for His love, I think He should make
price Himself, I should not refuse ten thousand years in hell, to
have a wide soul enlarged and made wider, that I might be ex-
ceedingly (even to the running over) filled with His love. 0,
what am I to love such an One, or to be loved by that high and
^ Familiar. " Perfectly. ■* Is offended with.
282 LETTER CLIV.
lofty One ! I think the angels may blush to look upon Him : and
what am I to file^ such infinite brightness with my sinful eyes?
0, that Christ would come near and stand still, and give me leave
to look upon Him ! for to look seemeth the poor man's privilege,
since he may for nothing, and without hire, behold the sun. I
should have a king's life, if I had no other thing to do, but for
evermore to behold and eye my fair Lord Jesus. Nay, suppose I
were holden out at heaven's fair entry, I should be happy for ever-
more to look through a hole in the door and see my dearest and
fairest Lord's face. 0, great King, why standest thou aloof?
Why remainest thou beyond the mountains ? O, Well-Beloved,
why dost thou pain a poor soul with delays? A long time out of
thy glorious presence is two deaths and two hells to me. We
must meet, I must see Him, I dow^ not want Him: hunger and
longing for Christ hath brought on such a necessity of enjoying
Christ, that, cost me what it will, I cannot but assure Christ, I
will not, I dow^ not want Him. For I cannot master or com-
mand Christ's love. Nay, hell (as I now think) and all the pains
in it, laid on me alone, would not put me from loving. Yea, sup-
pose my Lord Jesus would not love me, it is above my strength
or power to keep back or imprison the weak love I have, but it
must be out to Christ. I would set heaven's joy aside, and live
upon Christ's love its lone.^ Let me have no joy but the warm-
ness and fire of God's love : I seek no other. God knoweth, if
this love be taken from me, the bottom is fallen out of all my
happiness and joy; and therefore I believe Christ will never do
me that^ much harm as to bereave a poor prisoner of His love; it
were cruelty to take it from me : and He who is kindness itself
cannot be cruel. Dear brother, weary not of my sweet Master's
chains, we are so much the sibber^ to Christ that we sufl:er. Lodge
not a hard thought of my royal King. Rejoice in His cross.
Your deliverance sleepeth not, He that will come is not slack of
His promise. Wait on for God's timeous salvation, ask not when,
or how long? I hope, He shall lose nothing of you in the furnace,
but dross. Commit your cause in meekness (forgiving your op-
pressors) to God, and your sentence shall come back from Him
laughing. Our Bridegroom's day is posting fast on, and this
world, that seemeth to go with a long and short foot, shall be put
in two ranks. Wait till your ten days be ended, and hope for the
crown ; Christ will not give you a blind in the end. Commend
me to your wife and father, and to bailie M. A. ; and send this
letter to him. The prayers of Christ's prisoner be upon you, and
the Lord's presence accompany you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jiily 6, 1637.
^ Defile. ^ Can. ^ Alone. * So. ^ Nearer.
LETTER CLV. 283
LETTER CLV.— To Robert Lennox of Disdove.
Dear Brother, — Grace, merc}^ and peace be to you. I be-
seech you in the Lord Jesus make fast and sure work of life
eternal. Sow not rotten seed ; every man's work will speak for
itself what his seed hath been. 0 how many see I, who sow to
the flesh : alas, what a crop will that be, when the Lord shall put
in His hook^ to reap this Avorld, that is ripe and white for judg-
ment? I recommend to you holiness and sanctification, and that
ye keep yourself clean from this present evil world. We delight
to tell our own dreams, and to flatter our own flesh with the hope
we have. It were wisdom for us to be free, plain, honest, and
sharp with our own souls, and to charge them to brew better that
they may drink well and fare well, when time is melted away like
snow in a hot summer. 0 how hard a thing is it to get the soul
to give up with all things on this side of death and doomsday.
We say we are removing and going from this world ; but our
heart stirreth not one foot off" its seat. Alas, I see few heavenly-
minded souls that have nothing upon the earth, but their body oi
clay going up and down this earth, because their soul and the
powers of it are up in heaven, and there their hearts live, desire,
enjoy, rejoice. 0! men's souls have no wings, and therefore
night and day they keep their nest, and are not acquaint Avith
Christ. Sir, take you to your one thing, to Christ, that ye may
be acquainted with the taste of His sweetness and excellency, and
charge your love not to doat upon this world ; for it Avill not do
your business in that day, when nothing will come in good stead
to you but God's favour. Build upon Christ some good, choice,
and fast work ; for when your soul for many years hath taken the
play, and hath posted and wandered through the creatures, ye
Avill come home again with the wind. They are not good, at least
not the soul's good, it is the infinite Godhead that must allay the
sharpness of your hunger after happiness ; otherwise there shall
still be a want of satisfaction to your desires. Jind if He would
cast in ten worlds in your desires, all shall fall through, and your
soul shall still cry, red hunger, black hunger. But I am sure there
is sufficient for you in Christ, if ye had seven souls and seven
desires in you. O, if I could make my Lord Jesus market-sweet,
lovely, desirable, and fair to all the world, both to Jew and
Gentile ! 0, let my part of heaven go for it, so being He would
take my tongue to be His instrument, to set out Christ in His
whole braveries of love, virtue, grace, sweetness, and matchless
glory, to the eyes and hearts of Jews and Gentiles ! But who is
sufficient for these things ? O for the help of angels' tongues to
* Sickle.
284 LETTER CLVI.
make Christ eye-sweet and amiable to many thotisands! 0, how
little doth this world see of Him, and how far are they from the
love of Him, seeing there is so much loveliness, beauty, and sweet-
ness in Christ, that no created eye did ever yet see. I would that
all men knew His glory, and that I could put many in at the
Bridegroom's chamber-door to see His beauty, and to be partakers
of His high, and deep, and broad, and boundless love. 0, let all
the world come nigh and see Christ, and they shall then see more
than I can say of Him ! 0, if I had a pledge or paAvn to lay
down for a sea-full of His love ! That I could come by so much
of Christ, as would satisfy greening^ and longing for Him, or
rather increase it, till I were in full possession ! I know we shall
meet, and therein I rejoice. Sir, stand fast in the truth of Christ,
that ye have received. Yield not to winds, but ride out, and let
Christ be your anchor, and the only He, whom ye shall look to
see in peace. Pi'ay for me His prisoner, and that the Lord would
send me among you to feed His people. Grace, grace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLVI.— To John Fleming, Bailie of Leith.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. The Lord
hath brought me safe to this strange town. Blessed be His holy
name, I find His cross easy and light, and I hope He shall be with
His poor sold Joseph, who is separated from his brethren. His
comforts have abounded towards me, as if Christ thought shame
(if I may speak so) to be in the common of such a poor man as I
am, and would not have me lose anything in His errands. My
enemies have, beside their intention, made me more blessed, and
have put me in a sweeter possession of Christ than ever I had be-
fore. Only the memory of the fair days I had with my AYell-
Beloved, amongst the flock entrusted to me, keepeth me low, and
soureth my unseen joy. But it must be so, and He is wise who
tutoreth me this way. For that which my brethren have and I
want, and others of this world have, I am content, my faith will
frist^ God my happiness. No son ofFendeth^ that his father giveth
him not hire twice a-year ; for he is to abide in the house when
the inheritance is to be divided. It is better God's children live
upon hope than upon hire. Thus remembenng my love to your
worthy and kind wife, I bless you, and her, and all yours, in the
Lord's name. Yours, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 20, 1637.
' Pining. ^ Trust ^vith. ^ Takes amiss.
LETTER CLVir. 285
LETTER CLVIL— To William Glendinning, Baillie ot
Kirkcudbriglit.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am well,
honour be to God, and as well as a rejoicing prisoner of Christ
can be, hoping that one day He, for whom I now suffer, shall en-
large me, and put me above the threatenings of men. I am some-
times sad, heavy, and casten down at the memory of the fair days
I had with Christ in Anwoth, Kirkcudbright, &c. The remem-
brance of a feast increaseth hunger in an hungry man ; but who
knoweth but our Lord will yet cover a table in the wilderness to
His hungry bairns, and build the old waste places in Scotland, and
bring home Zion's captives. I desire to see no more glorious sight,
till I see the Lamb on His throne, than to see Mount Zion all green
with grass, and the dew lying upon the tops of the grass, and the
crown put upon Christ's head in Scotland again. And I believe
it shall be so, and that Christ shall mow down His enemies, and
fill the pits with their dead bodies. I find people here dry and
uncouth. A man pointed at for suffering, dare not be counte-
nanced ; so that I am like to sit my lone ^ upon the ground. But
my Lord payeth me well home again ; for I have neither tongue,
nor pen, nor heart to express the sweetness and excellency of the
love of Christ. Christ's honeycombs drop honey and floods of
consolation upon my soul. My chains are gold. Christ's cross is
all overgilded and perfumed. His prison is the garden and orchard
of my delights. I would go through burning-quick ^ to my lovely
Christ. I sleep in His arms all the night, and my head betwixt
His breasts. My Well-Beloved is altogether lovely. This is all
nothing to that which my soul hath felt. Let no man, for my
cause, scaur ^ at Christ's cross. If my stipend, place, country,
credit, had been an earldom, a kingdom, ten kingdoms, and a whole
eaith — all were too little for the crown and sceptre of my royal
King. Mine enemies, mine enemies have made me blessed : they
have sent me to the Bridegroom's chamber. Love is His banner
over me. I live a king's life. I want nothing but heaven and the
possession of the crown. My earnest is great, Christ is no nig-
gard to me. Dear brother, be for the Lord Jesus and His heart-
broken bride. I need not (I hope) remember my distressed
brother to your care. Rememljer my love to your wife; let
Christ want nothing of us. His garments shall be rolled in the
blood of the slain of Scotland. Grace, grace be with you. Pray
for Christ's prisoner.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 21, 1637.
^ Alone. - Burnino: alive. ^ Be offended
286 LETTEllS CLVIIl. AND CLIX,
LETTER CLVIIL— To Robert Gordon of Knockbrex.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to yon. I am by
God's mercy come now to Aberdeen, the place of my confinement,
and settled in an honest man's house. I find the townsmen cold,
general, and dry in their kindness, yet I find a lodging in the
heart of many strangers. My challenges are revived again, and I
find old sores bleeding of new ; so dangerous and painful is an
undercoated^ conscience; yet I have an eye to the blood that is
physic for such sores. But, verily, I see Christianity is conceived
to be more easy and lighter than it is ; so that I sometimes think
I never knew anything but the letters of that name ; for our na-
ture contenteth itself with little in godliness. Our Lord, Lord,
seemeth to us ten Lord Lords. Little holiness in our balance is
much because it is our own holiness, and we love to lay small bur-
dens upon our soft natures, and to make a fair court-way to heaven ;
and I know it were necessary to take more pains than we do, and
not to make heaven a city more easily taken than God hath made
it. I persuade myself many runners shall come short and get a
disappointment. 0 how easy is it to deceive ourselves, and to
sleep and wish that heaven may fall down in our laps ! Yet for
all my Lord's glooms, I find Him sweet, gracious, loving, kind ;
and I want both pen and words to set forth the fairness, beauty,
and sweetness of Christ's love, and the honour of this cross of
Christ, which is glorious to me, though the world thinketh shame
thereof. I verily think that the cross of Clirist would blush and
think shame of these thin-skinned worldlings, who are so married
to their credit that they are ashained of the sufferings of Christ.
0 the honour to be scourged, stoned with Christ, and to go through
a furious-faced death to life eternal ! But men would have law-
borrows ^ against Christ's cross. Now, my dear brother, forget
not the prisoner of Christ ; for I see very few here who kindly
fear God. Grace be with you. Let my love in Christ and hearty
aff'ection be remembered to your kind wife, to your brother John,
and to all friends. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 20, 1637.
LETTER CLIX.— To Earlstown, Younger.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I
am well ; Christ triumpheth in me, blessed be His name. I have
all things ; I burden no man ; I see this earth and the fulness
thereof is my Father's. Sweet, sweet is the cross of my Lord ;
^ Festering. ^ Security.
LETTER CLX. 287
the blessing of God upon the cross of my Lord Jesus ! My ene-
mies have contributed (beside their design) to make me blessed.
This is my palace, not my prison, especially when my Lord shineth
and smileth upon His poor afflicted and sold Joseph, who is sepa-
rated from His brethren ; but often He hideth Himself, and there
is a day of law and a court of challenges within me. I know not
if fenced in God's name, but oh i my neglects ! 0, my unseen
guiltiness ! I imagined that a sufferer of Christ kept the keys of
Christ's treasure, and might take out his wombful of comforts
when he pleased ; but I see a sufferer and witness will be holden
at the door as well as another poor sinner, and be glad to eat with
the bairns, and to take the by-board. ^ This cross hath let me see
that heaven is not at the next door, and that it is a castle not soon
taken. I see also, it is neither pain nor art to play the hypocrite.
We have all learned to sell ourselves for double price, and to make
the people who call ten twenty, and twenty a hundred, esteem us
half-gods, or men fallen out of the clouds. But oh ! sincerity, sin-
cerity, if I knew what sincerity meaneth. Sir, lay the foundation
thus, and ye shall not soon shrink nor be shaken : make tight
work at the bottom, and your ships shall ride against all storms,
if withal your anchor be fastened upon good ground — I mean
within the vail ; and verily, I think this is all to gain Christ. All
other things are shadows, dreams, fancies, and nothing. Sir, re-
member my love to your mother. I pray for mercy and grace to
her. I wish her on-going toward heaven. As I promised to write,
so show her I want nothing in my Lord's service ; Christ will not
be in such a poor man's common as mine. Grace, grace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E,.
Aberdeen, Sept. 22, 1637.
LETTER CLX.— To John Gordon.
Worthy and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. I have been too long in writing to you, but multitude of
letters taketh much time from me. I bless His great name, whom
I serve in the Spirit, if it came to voting amongst angels and men,
how excellent and sweet Christ is, even in His reproaches and in
His cross, I cannot but vote with the first, that all that is iu Him,
both cross and crown, kisses and gloom, embracements and frown-
ings, and strokes are sweet and glorious. God send me no more
happiness in heaven, or out of heaven, but Christ. For I find this
world, when I have looked upon it on both sides, within and with-
out, and when I have seen even the laughing and lovely-like side
of it, to be but a fool's idol, a clay prison. Lord, let it not be the
1 Side-table.
288 LETTEK CLX.
nest that my hope buildeth in. T have now cause to judge my
part of this earth not worth a blast of smoke or a mouthful of
brown bread, I wish my hope may take a running-leap, and skip
over time's pleasures, sin's plastering and gold-foil, this vain earth,
and rest upon my Lord. 0, how great is our night-darkness in
this wilderness ! To have any conceit at all of this world is, as ^
a man would close his handful of water, and, holding his hand in
the river, say all the water of the flood is his, as if it were indeed
all within the compass of his hand. Who would not laugh at the
thoughts of such a crack-brain 1 Verily, they have but a handful
of water, and are but like a child clasping his two hands about a
night shadow, who idolize any created hope, but God. I now
lightly, 2 and put the price of a dream, or fable, or black nothing
upon all things but upon God, and that desirable and love-worthy
One my Lord Jesus. Let all the world be nothing (for nothing
was their seed and mother) and let God be all things. My very
dear brother, know ye are as near heaven as ye are far from your-
self, and far from the love of a bewitching and whorish world.
For this world in its gain and glory, is but the great and notable
common whore that all the sons of men have been in fancy and
lust withal these 5000 years. The children, that they have be-
gotten with this uncouth and lustful lover, are but vanity, dreams,
golden imaginations, and night-thoughts. For there is no good
ground here under the covering of heaven for men and poor wearieil
souls to set down their feet upon. 0 ! He who is called God, that
one whom they term Jesus Christ, is worth the having indeed,
even if I had given away all without my eye-holes, my soul, and
myself for sweet Jesus my Lord ! 0 let the claim be cancelled
that the creatures have to me, except that claim my Lord Jesus
hath to me ! 0, that He would claim poor me, my silly, light, and
worthless soul ! 0, that He would pursue His claim to the ut-
most point and not want me : for it is my pain and remediless
sorrow to want Him. I see nothing in this life but sinks, and
mires, and dreams, and beguiling ditches, and ill ground for us to
build upon. I am fully persuaded of Christ's victory in Scotland,
but I fear this land be not yet ripe and white for mercy. Yet I
dare be halfer^ (upon my salvation) with the losses of the Church
of Scotland, that her foes' afternoon shall sing dole and sorrow for
evermore, and that her joy shall once again be cried up and her
sky shall clear ; but vengeance and burning shall be to her adver-
saries and the sinners of this land. 0 that we could be awakened
to prayers and humiliation ! Then should our sun shine like seven
suns in the heaven ; then should the temple of Christ be builded
upon the mountain tops, and the land from coast to coast should
' iia if. 2 L)esi)Lse. ^ Sharer.
LETTER CLXI. 289
be filled with the glory of the Lord. Brother, your day-task is
wearing short, your hour-glass of this span-length and hand-breadth
of life will quickly pass, and therefore take order and course with
matters betwixt you and Christ before it come to open pleading.
There are no quarters to be had of Christ in open judgment. I
know ye see your thread wearing short, and that there are not
many inches to the thread's end, and therefore lose not time. Re-
member me His prisoner, that it would please the Lord to bring
me again amongst you with abundance of the Gospel. Grace,
grace be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S, E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXL— To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill.
Reverend and dear Brother,— I thank you for your letter.
I cannot but show you that as I never expected anything from
Christ but much good and kindness, so He hath made me to find
it in the house of my pilgrimage. And believe me, brother, ]
give it to you under mine own hand-writ, that whoso looketh to
the white side of Christ's cross, and can take it up handsomely
with faith and courage, shall find it such a burden as sails are to
a ship or wings to a bird. I find my Lord hath overgilded that
black tree, and hath perfumed it and oiled it with joy and conso-
lation. Like a fool, once I would chide and plead with Christ,
and slander Him to others of unkindness ; but I trust in God, not
to call His glooms unkind again, for He hath taken from me my
sackcloth, and I verily cannot tell you what a poor sold Joseph
and prisoner (with whom my mother's children were angry) doth
now think of kind Christ. I will chide no more, providing He
will quit me all by-gones ; for I am poor. I am taught in this ill
weather to go on the lee-side of Christ, and to put Hmi in between
me and the storm, and I thank God I walk on the sunny-side of
the brae. I write it that ye may speak in my behalf the praises
of my Lord to others, that my bonds may preach. 0 if all Scot-
land knew the feasts, and love-blinks, and visits that the prelates
have sent me unto ! I will verily give my Lord Jesus a free dis-
charge of all, that I, like a fool, laid to His charge, and beg Him
pardon to the mends.^ God grant that in my temptations I come
not on His wrong side again, and never again ftxll a-raving against
my Physician in my fever. Brother, plead with your mother
while ye have time. A pulpit would be a high feast to me, but I
dare not say one word against Him who hath done it ; I am not
out of the house as yet. My sweet Master saith, I shall have
house-room at His own elbow% albeit their synagogues will need-
1 To boot
290 LETTER CLXII.
force ^ cast me out. A letter were a work of charity to me.
Grace be with you. Pray for me.
Your brother and Christ's prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 22, 1637.
LETTER CLXIL— To James Murray.
Dear Brother, — I received your letter. I am in good health
of body, but far better in my soul. I find ray Lord no worse
than His word ; " I will be with him in trouble," is made good to
me now. He heareth the sighing of the prisoner. Brother, I am
comforted in my royal Prince and King. The world knoweth not
our life, it is a mystery to them. We have the sunny-side of the
world, and our paradise is far above theirs, yea our weeping above
their laughing, which is but like the crackling of thorns under a
pot ; and therefore we have good cause to fight it out, for the day
of our laureation is approaching. I find my prison the sweetest
place that ever I was in ; my Lord Jesus is kind to me, and hath
taken the mask off His face, and is content to quit me all by-
gones. I dare not complain of Him. And for my silence, I lay
it before Christ : I hope it shall be a speaking silence. He who
knoweth what I would, knoweth that my soul desireth no more,
but that King Jesus may be great in the north of Scotland, in
the south, and in the east, and west, through my sufferings for
the freedom of my Lord's house and kingdom. If I could keep
good quarters in time to come with Christ, I Avould fear nothing.
But 0 ! 0 ! I complain of my woeful outbreaking ; I tremble at
the remembrance of a new outcast- betwixt Him and me ; and I
have cause, when I consider what sick and sad days I have had
for His absence, who is now come. I find Christ dow^ not be
long unkind; our Joseph's bowels yearn within Him ; He cannot
smother love long, it must break out at length. Praise, praise
with me, brother, and desire my acquaintance to help me. I dare
not conceal His love to my soul ; I wish you all a part of my feast,
that my Lord Jesus may be honoured. I allow you not to hide
Christ's bounty to me, when ye meet with such as know Christ.
Ye write nothing to me, Avhat are the cruel mercies of the prelates
towards me. The ministers of this town, as I hear, intend that I
shall be more strictly confined, or else transported, because they
find some people afiect* me. Grace be with you.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, S, R
Aberdeen, Nov. 21, 1637.
' Of necessity. " Quarrel. ^ Can. * ^\io afTectionate to
LETTERS CLXllI. AND CLXIV. 291
LETTER CLXIII— To John Fleming, Bailie of Leitli.
My very worthy Friend, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. I received your letter. I bless my Lord through Jesus
Christ, I find His word good, Isa. xlviii. 10, "I have chosen thee
in the furnace of affliction," and, Ps. xci. 15, "I Avill be with him
in trouble." I never expected other at Christ's hand but much
good and comfort, and I am not disappointed : I find my Lord's
cross overgilded and oiled with comforts. My Lord hath now
shown me the white side of His cross. I would not exchange my
weeping in prison with the fourteen prelates' laughter amid their
hungry and lean joys. This world knoweth not the sweetness of
Christ's love ; it is a mystery to them. At my first coming here,
I found great heaviness, especially because it had pleased the pre-
lates to add this gentle cruelty to my former sufferings (for it is
gentle to them) to inhibit the ministers of the town to give me
the liberty of a pulpit : I said, what aileth Christ at my service 1
But I was a fool. He hath chided Himself friends ^ with me : if ye
and others of God's children shall praise His great name, who
maketh worthless men witnesses for Him, my silence and suffer-
ing shall preach more than my tongue could do ; if His glory be
seen in me, I am satisfied ; for I want no kindness of Christ.
And, sir, I dare not smother His liberality. I write it to you,
that ye may praise, and desire your brother and others to join
Jvith me in this work. This land shall be made desolate ; our
iniquities are full. The Lord saith, we shall drink, and spue, and
fall. Remember my love to your good kind wife. Grace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Ai.erdeen, Nov. 23, 1636.
LETTER CLXIV.— To Earlstown, Elder.
" And thej' overcame (the Dragon) by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of
their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death." — Eev.
xii. 11.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I
long to see you in paper, and to be refreshed by you. I cannot
but desire you, and charge you, to help me to praise Him who
feedeth a poor prisoner with the fatness of His house. 0 how
weighty is His love ! 0, but there is much telling^ in Christ's
kindness ! the Amen, the faithful and true Witness hath paid me
my hundred fold, well told, and one to the hundred.^ I com-
plained of Him, but He is owing me nothing now. Sir, I charge
^ That is, He hath reproved me for doubting His friendship.
- Counting or reckoning. ^ That is, 101 for each 100.
292 ■ 1.ETTER CLXV,
3^ou to help me to praise His goodness, and to proclaim to others
my Bridegroom's kindness, whose love is better than wine. I took
up an action against Christ, and bought a plea against His love, and
libelled unkindness against Christ my Lord ; and I said, tliis is
my death, He hath forgotten me. But my meek Lord held His
peace, and beheld me, and would not contend for the last word of
flyting,^ and now He hath chided Himself friends with me,^ and
now I see He must be God, and I must be flesh. I pass from my
summons ; I acknowledge He might have given me my fill of it,
and never troubled Himself But now He hath taken away the
mask, I have been comforted. He could not smother His love any
longer to a prisoner and a stranger. God grant that I may never
buy a plea against Christ again, but may keep good quarters with
Him. I want no kindness, no love-token ; but 0 wise is His
love ! for notwithstanding of this hot summer-blink, I am kept
low with the grief of my silence, for His word is in me as a fire
in my bowels ; and I see the Lord's vineyard laid waste, and the
heathen entered into the sanctuary, and my belly is pained, and
my soul in heaviness, because the Lord's people is gone into cap-
tivity, and because of the fury of the Lord, and that wind (but
neither to fan nor to purge) that is coming upon apostate Scot-
land. Also, I am kept awake with the late wrong done to my
brother, but I trust ye will counsel and comfort him. Yet in this
mist I see and believe the Lord will heal this halting kirk, and
" will lay her stones with fair colours, and her foundations with
sapphires, and Avill make her windows of agates, and her gates
carbuncles," Isa. liv. 11,12. " And for V)rass He will bring gold."
He hath created the smith that formed the sword ; no weapon in
war shall prosper against us. Let us be glad and rejoice in the
Lord, for His salvation is near to come. Remember me to your
wife and your son John; and I entreat you to write to me. Grace,
grace be with you.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. K
Aberdeen, Dec. 30, 1636,
LETTER CLXV.— To Mr. John Fergushill.
Reverend and well-beloved in our Lord Jesus,— I must
still provoke you to w^ite by my lines, whereat ye need not won-
der ; for the cross is full of talk, and speak it must, either good or
bad. Neither can grief be silent. I have no dittay ^ nor indict-
ment to bring against Christ's cross, seeing He hath made a friendly
agreement betwixt me and it, and we are in terms of love together.
If my former miscarriages, and my now silent sabbaths seem to
^ Scolding. ' See note 1 on preceding page. ' Accusation.
LETTER CLXV. 293
me to speak wrath from the Lord, I daresay it is but Satan bor-
rowing the use and loan of my cowardly and feeble apprehensions,
which start at straws. I know faith is not so faint and foolish as
to tremble at every false alarm ; yet I gather this out of it, Blessed
are they who are graced of God to guide a cross well, and that
there is some art required herein. I pray God I may not be so
ill friend-stead, as that Christ my Lord should leave me to be my
own tutor and my own physician. Shall I not think that my
Lord Jesus, who deserveth His own place very well, will take His
own place upon Him, as it becometh Him, and that He will fill
His own chair 1 For in this is His office, "to comfort us and those
that are casten down in all their tribulations," 2 Cor. i. 4. Alas,
I know I am a fool to seek a hole or defect in Christ's way with
my soul. If I have not a stock to present to Christ at His appear-
ance, yet I pray God I may be able, with joy, laith, and constancy,
I to show the Captain of my salvation, in that day, a bloody head,
{ that I received in His service ; howbeit my faith hang by a small
tack and thread, I hope the tack shall not break; and howbeit my
Lord get no service of me but broken wishes, yet I trust these
shall be accepted upon Christ's account. I have nothing to com-
fort me, but that I say, 0, will the Lord disappoint an hungry on-
waiter? The smell of Christ's wine and apples, which surpass the
up-taking of dull sense, bloweth upon my soul, and I get no more
for the meantime. I am sure to let a famisliing body^ see meat,
and give him none of it, is a double pain. Our Lord's love is not
so cruel as to let a poor man see Christ and heaven, and never
give him more for want of money to buy : nay, I rather think
Christ such fair market-wares as buyers may have "without money
and without price." And thus I know it shall not stand upon my
want of money ; for Christ upon His own charges must buy my
wedding-garment, and redeem the inheritance which I have for-
feited, and give His word for one the like of ^ me, who am not
law-biding of myself. Poor folks must either borrow or beg
from the rich, and the only thing that commendeth sinners to
Christ is extreme necessity and want. Christ's love is ready to
make and provide a ransom and money for a poor body^ who
hath lost his purse. " Ho, ye that have no money, come and
buy," Isa. Iv. I. That is the poor man's market. Now, brother,
I see old crosses would have done nothing at^ me, and therefore
Christ hath taken a new fresh rod to me, that seemeth to talk
with my soul, and make me tremble. I have often more ado now
with faith when I lose my compass, and am blown on a rock, than
those who are my beholders, standing upon the shore, are aware
of. A counsel to a sick man is sooner given than taken : Lord
^ Person. ^ lake, •^ Had no effect upon.
294 LETTEE CLXV.
send the v/earied mr.Ti a borrowed bed from Christ. I think often
it is after supper with me, and I am heavy. 0, but I would sleep
soundly with Christ's left hand under my head and His right
hand embracing me. The devil could not spill ^ that bed. When
I consider how tenderly Christ hath cared for me in this prison, I
think He hath handled me as the bairn that is pitied and be-
moaned. I desire no more till I be in heaven, but such a feast
and fill of Christ's love as I would have. This love would be fair
and adorning passements,^ which would beautify and set forth my
black unpleasant cross. I cannot tell, my dear brother, what a
great load I would bear if I had a hearty fill of the love of that
lovely One, Christ Jesus. O, if ye would seek and pray for that
to me ! I would give Christ all His love-styles and titles of honour,
if He would give me but this ; nay, I would sell myself (if I could)
for that love. I have been waiting to see what friends of place
and power would do for us ; but when the Lord looseth the pins
of His own tabernacle, He will have Himself to be acknowledged
as the only Builder up thereof, and therefore I would take back
again my hope, that I lent and laid in pawn in men's hands, and give
it wholly to Christ. It is no time for me now to set up idols of
my own ; it were a pity to give an ounce-weight of hope to any
besides Christ. I think Him well worthy of all my hope, though
it were as weighty as both heaven and earth. Happy were I, if I
had anything that Christ would seek or accept of ; but now, alas !
I see not what service I can do to Him, except it be to talk a little,
and babble upon a piece of paper concerning the love of Christ.
I am often as if my faith were wadset,^ so that I cannot command
it ; and then when He hideth Himself, I run to the other extreme,
in making each wing and toe of my case as big as a mountain of
iron. And then misbelief can spin out a hell of heavy and de-
sponding thoughts ; then Christ seeketh law-borrows * of my
unbelieving apprehensions, and chargeth me to believe His day-
light at midnight. But I make pleas with Christ, though it be ill
my common^ so to do. It were my happiness, when I am in His
house of wine, and when I find a feast-day, if I could " hearken
and hear for the time to come," Isa. xlii. 3. But I see we must
be off our feet in wading a deep water ; and then Christ's love
findeth timeous*^ employment at such a dead lift as that ; and, be-
sides, after broken brows, bairns learn to walk more circumspectly.
If I come to heaven anyway, howbeit like a tired traveller upon
my Guide's shoulder, it is good enough for those who have no legs
of their own for such a journey. I never thought there had been
need of so much wrestling to win to the top of that steep mountain
as now I find. Woe is me for this broken and back-sliding church,
' Spoil. '^ Ornaments. ^ Mortgaged. * Securities. * Part. ^ Seasonable.
LETTER CLXVI. 295
it is like an old bowing wall, leaning to the one side, and there is
none of all her sons Avho will set a prop under her. I know I need
not bemoan Christ, for He careth for His own honour more than I
can do ; but who can blame me to be woe^ (if I had grace so to do)
to see my Well-Beloved's fair face spitted upon, and His crown
plucked off His head, and the ark of God taken and carried in the
Philistines' cart, and the kine put to carry it, Avho will let it fall
to the ground'? The Lord put to His own helping hand. I
would desire you to prepare yourself for a fight with beasts ; ye
will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ's company,
without a conflict and a cross. Eemember my bonds, and praise my
second and fellow prisoner, Christ. G-race be with you.
Yours, in Christ Jesus his Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXVI. —To William Glendinning.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your
case is unknown to me, whether ye be yet our Lord's prisoner at
Wigton or not ; however it be, I know our Lord Jesus hath been
inquiring for you, and that He hath honoured you to bear His
chains, which is the golden end of His cross, and so hath waled -
out a chosen and honourable cross for you. I wish you much joy
and comfort of it, for I have nothing to say of Christ's cross but
much good. I hope my ill word shall never meet either Christ
or His sweet and easy cross. I know He seeketh of us an outcast ^
with this house of clay, this mother-prison, this earth, that we
love full well ; and verily, when Christ snuffeth my candle, and
causeth my light to shine upward, it is one of my greatest won-
ders, that dirt and clay hath so much court* with a soul not made
of cla}^ and that our soul goeth out of kind so far as to make an
idol of this earth, such a deformed harlot, as that it should wrong
Christ of our love. How fast, how fast doth our ship sail ! and
how fair a wind hath time to blow us off these coasts and this
land of dying and perishing things. And alas ! our ship saileth
one way, and fleeth many miles in one hour to hasten us upon
eternity, and our love and hearts are sailing close back over,
and swimming towards ease, lawless pleasure, vain honour, perish-
ing riches, and to build a fool's nest, I know not where, and to lay
our eggs within the sea-mark, and fasten our bits of broken
anchors upon the worst ground in the world, this fleeting and
perishing life ; and in the meanwhile, time and tide carry us upon
another life, and there is daily less and less oil in our lamp, and
less and less sand in our watch-glass. 0 what a wise course were
^ Woeful. ^ Picked. ^ Quarrel. '' Influence.
296 LETTElf CLXVII.
it for us to look aAvay from the false beauty of our borrowed
prison, and to mind, and eye, and lust for our country ! Lord,
Lord, take us home! And for myself, I think if a poor, weak,
dying sheep seek for an old dyke ^ and the lee-side of a hill in a
storm, I have cause to long for a covert from this storm in heaven,
I know none will take my room over my head there. But
certainly sleepy bodies would be at rest, and a well-made bed,
and an old crazed bark at a shore, and a wearied traveller at
home, and a breathless horse at the rink's ^ end. I see nothing in
this life but sin, and the sour fruits of sin. And 0, what a
burden is sin ! and what a slavery and miserable bondage is it to
be at the nod and yeas and nays of such a lord-master as a body
of sin ! Truly when I think of it, it is a wonder that Christ
maketli not fire and ashes of such a dry branch as I am. I would
often lie down under Christ's feet, and bid Him trample upon me,
when I consider my guiltiness. But seeing He hath sworn that
sin shall not loose His unchangeable covenant, I keep house-room
amongst the rest of the ill-learned bairns, and must cumber the
Lord of the house with the rest, till my Lord take the fetters off
legs and arms and destroy this body of sin, and make a hole or a
breach in this cage of earth, that the bird may flee out, and the
imprisoned soul be at liberty. In the meantime, the least intima-
tion of Christ's love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the
Bridegroom holdeth me in some joyful on-waiting, that when
Christ's summer birds shall sing upon the branches of the tree of
life, I shall be tuned by God Himself, to help them to sing the
home-coming of our Well-beloved and His bride to their house
together. When I think of this, I tliink winters, and summers,
and years, and days, and time do me a pleasure, that they shorten
this untwisted and weak thread of my life, and that they put sin
and miseries by hand, and that they shall carry me to my Bride-
groom within a clap. Dear brother, pray for me, that it would
please the Lord of the vineyard to give me house-room to preach
His righteousness again to the great congregation. Grace, grace
be with you. Remember me to your wife.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. Iw
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER CLXVn.-To the Lady Culro.ss.
"These tire they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their
robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." — Eev. vii. 14.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you. I
greatly long to be refreshed with your letter. I am now (all
1 Wall. - Course's.
LETTER CLXVII. 297
honour and glory to the King eternal, immortal, and invisible) in
better terms with Christ than I Avas. I, like a fool, summoned
my Husband and Lord, and libelled unkindness against Him ; but
now I pass from that foolish pursuit ; I give over the plea ; He is
God and I am man. I was loosing a fast stone, and digging at
the ground-stone^ (the love of my Lord) to shake and unsettle it ;
but God be thanked it is fast ; all is sure. In my prison. He
hath shown me daylight ; He doth not hide His love any longer,
Christ was disguised and masked, and I apprehended it was not
He ; and He hath said, " It is I, be not afraid;" and now His love
is better than wine. O that all the virgins had part of the Bride-
groom's love, whereupon He maketh me to feed ! Help me to
praise : I charge you, madam, help me to pay praises, and tell
others, the daughters of Jerusalem, how kind Christ is to a pooi
prisoner. He hath paid me my hundred-fold ; it is well told me,
and one to the hundred.^ I am nothing behind with Christ.
Let not fools, because of their lazy soft flesh, raise a slander and
an ill report upon the cross of Christ ; it is sweeter than fair. I
see grace groweth best in winter. This poor persecuted kirk, this
lily among the thorns, shall blossom and laugh upon the Gardener;
the Husbandman's blessing shall light upon it. 0, if I could be
free of jealousies of Christ after this, and believe and keep good
quarters with my dearest husband ! for He hath been kind to the
stranger. And yet in all this fair hot summer-weather, I am kept
from saying, " It is good to be here," with my silence, and with
grief to see my mother wounded and her vail taken from her, and
the fair temple casten down ; and my belly is pained, my soul is
heavy for the captivity of the daughter of my people, and because
of the fury of the Lord and His fierce indignation against apostate
Scotland. I pray you, madam, let me have that which is my
prayer here, that my suff"erings may preach to the four quarters of
this land : and, therefore, tell others how open-handed Christ hath
been to the prisoner and the oppressed stranger. Why should I
conceal it ? I know no other way how to glorify Christ, but to
make an open proclamation of His love, and of His soft and sweet
kisses to me in the furnace, and of His fidelity to such as suff'er
for Him. Give it me under your hand, that ye will help me to
pray and praise, but rather to praise and rejoice in the salvation
of God. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his dearest and only, only Lord Jesus, S, li.
Aberdeen, Dec. 30, 1636.
* FouTidation-stone. * One in addition to each hundred,
298 LETTf^R CLXVIIl.
LETTER CLXVIIl.— To the Lady Cardonness.
My dearly beloved and longed for in the Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear how your soul pros-
pereth, and how the kingdom of Christ thriveth in you. I exhort
you and beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, faint not, weary not.
There is a great necessity of heaven ; ye must needs have it. All
other things, as houses, lands, children, husband, friends, country,
credit, health, wealth, honour, may be wanted ; but heaven is your
one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be taken from
you. See that ye buy the field where the pearl is. Sell all, and
make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy, for it is a steep
ascent to eternal glory. Many are lying dead by the way, that
are slain with security. I have now been led by my Lord Jesus
to such a nick ^ in Christianity as I think little of former things.
0, what I want ! I want so many things, that I am almost asking
if I had anything at all. Every man thinketh he is rich enough
in grace till he take out his purse and tell his money, and then he
findeth his pack but poor and light in the day of a heavy trial. I
found I had not to bear my expenses, and should have fainted if
want and penury had not chased me to the store-house of all. I
beseech you, make conscience of your ways ; deal kindly and with
conscience with your tenants. To fill a breach, or a hole, make
not a greater breach in the conscience. I wish plenty of love to
your soul. Let the world be the portion of bastards, make it not
yours ; after the last trumpet is blown, the world and all its glory
will be like an old house that is burnt to ashes, and like an old
fallen castle without a roof. Fie, fie upon us fools who think our-
selves debtors to the world. My Lord hath brought me to this,
that I would not give a drink of cold water for this world's kind-
ness. I wonder that men long after, love, or care for these
feathers. It is almost an uncouth world to me to think, that men
are so mad as to block ^ with dead earth. To give out conscience
and to get in clay again is a strange bargain. I have written my
mind at length to your husband. Write to me again his case, I
cannot forget him in my prayers ; I am looking, Christ hath some
claim to him. My counsel is, that ye bear with him when passion
overtaketh him, "A soft answer putteth away wrath ;" answer him
in what he speaketh, and apply yourself in the fear of God to him,
and then he will remove a pound-weight of your heavy cross that
way, and so it shall become light. When Christ hideth Himself,
wait on and make din ^ till He return, it is not time then to be
carelessly patient ; I love it, to be grieved when He hideth His
smiles : yet believe His love in a patient on-waiting and believing
' Point. 2 Uarter. ^ Noise, crying.
LETTERS CLXIX AND CLXX. 299
in the clarlc. Ye must learn to swim and hold up your head above
the Avater, even when the sense of His presence is not with you to
hold up your chin. I trust in God, He shall bring your ship safe
to land. I counsel you, study sanctification, and to be dead to
this world ; urge kindness on Knockbrex ; labour to benefit by his
company, the man is acquaint with Christ. I beg the help of your
prayers, for I forget not you. Counsel your husband to fulfil my
joy, and to seek the Lord's face. Show him from me that my joy
and desire is to hear he is in the Lord ; God casteth him often in
my mind, I cannot forget him. I hope Christ and he have some-
thing to do to2,ether. Bless John from me. I write blessings to
him, and to your husband, and to the rest of your children. Let
it not be said I am not in your house through neglect of the sab-
bath-exercise.
Your lawful and loving pastor, in his only, only Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637.
LETTER CLXIX.— To Janet M'Culloch.
Dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to
hear how your soul prospereth. I am as well as a prisoner of
Christ can be, feasted and made fat with the comforts of God.
Christ's kisses are made sweeter to my soul than ever they were.
I would not change my Master with all the kings of clay upon the
earth. 0, my Well-Beloved is altogether lovely and loving. I
care not what flesh can do. I persuade my soul, I delivered the
truth of Christ to you ; slip not from it, for no boasts ^ or fear of
men. If ye go against the truth of Christ that I now suflfer for, I
shall bear witness against you in the day of Christ. Sister, fasten
your grips fast on Christ ; follow not the guises of this sinful world.
Let not this clay-portion of earth take up your soul ; it is the por-
tion of bastards, and ye are a child of God ; therefore, seek your
Father's heritage. Send up your heart to see the dwelling-house
and fair rooms in the new city. Fie, fie upon these who cry up
with the world and down with conscience and heaven. We have
bairns' wits, and therefore we cannot prize Christ aright. Counsel
your husband and mother to make them for eternity ; that day is
drawing nigh. Pray for me the prisoner of Christ; I cannot
forget you. Your lawful and loving pastor, S, E.
Aberdeen, Feb. 20, 1637.
LETTER CLXX.— To my Lord Craighall.
My Lord, — I received Mr. L.'s letter with your lordship's, and
his learned thoughts in the matter of Ceremonies. I owe respect
1 Threats.
300 LETTKR CLXX.
to the man's learning, for that I hear him opposite to Arminian
heresies. But (with reverence of that worthy man) I wonder to
hear such popisli-like expressions as he hatli in his letter, as :
Your lordship may spare doubtings, when the Iving and church
have agreed in the settling of such orders, and the church's direc-
tion in things indifferent and circumstantial (as if indifferent and
circumstantial were all one) should he the rule of every private
Christian. I only viewed the papers in two hours' space, the
bearer hastening me to write. I find the worthy man not so seen
in this controversy, as some turbulent men of our country (as he
calleth refusers of conformity). And let me say it, I am more
confirmed in nonconformity when I see such a great wit play the
agent so slenderly ; but I will lay the blame on the weakness of
the cause, not on the meanness of Mr. L.'s learning. I have ever
been and still am confident that Britain cannot answer one argu-
ment a scanclalo ! and I longed much to hear Mr. L. speak to the
cause; and I would say, if some ordinary divine had answered as
Mr. L. doeth, that he understood not the nature of a scandal ; but
I dare not vilify that Avorthy man so. I am now npon the heat
of some other employment, but I shall, God willing, answer this
to the satisfying of any not prejudged. I will not say that every
one is acquaint with the reason in my letter, from God's presence
and bright shining face in suffering for this cause. Aristotle
never knew the medium of the conclusion ; and Christ saith few
know it, (See Eev. ii. 17.) I am sure a conscience standing in
awe of the Almighty, and fearing to make a little hole in the
bottom for fear of under-water, is a strong medium to hold off an
erroneous conclusion in the least wing or lith^ of sweet, sweet
truth, that concerneth the royal prerogative of our Kingly and
highest Lord Jesus. And my witness is in heaven, I saw neither
pleasure, nor profit, nor honour to hook me or catch me in enter-
ing in prison for Christ, but the wind on my face for the present :
and if I had loved to sleep in a whole skin with the ease and
present delight that I saw on this side of sun and moon, I should
have lived at ease, in good hopes to fare as well as others. The
Lord knoweth, I preferred preaching of Christ, and still do, to
anything next to Christ Himself, and their new canons took my
one, my one joy from me, which was to me as the poor man's one
eye that had no more ; and alas, there is little lodging in their
heart for pity or mercy, to pluck out a poor man's one eye for a
thing indifferent, i. e., for knots of straws, and things (as they
mean) off the way to heaven. I desire not that my name take
journey and go a pilgrim to Cambridge, for fear I come in the ears
of authorit)^ : I am sufficiently burnt already. In the meantime,
1 Flake.
LETTEE CLXXI. oOl
be pleased to try if the Bishop of St. Andrews, and Glasgow,
Galloway's ordinary, will be pleased to abate from the heat of
their wrath and let me go to my charge. Few know the heart of
a prisoner, yet I hope the Lord shall hew His own glory out of as
knotty timber as I am. Keep Christ, my dear and worthy Lord:
pretended paper-arguments from angering the mother-church, that
can reel, and nod, and stagger, are not of such weight as peace
with the Father and Husband : let the wife gloom, I care not, if
the Husband laugh. Eemember my service to my lord your
father, and mother, and your lady. Grace be with you.
Yours, at all obedience in Christ. S. li,
Aberdeen, Jan. 24, 1637.
LETTER CLXXL— To his Reverend and Dear Brother, Mr.
Robert BLxiiR.
Reverend and dexIr Brother, — The reason ye gave for youi
not writing to me affecteth me much, and giveth me a dash, when
such an one as ye conceive an opinion of me, or anything in me.
The truth is, when I come home to myself, 0 what penury do I
find, and how feckless^ is my supposed stock, and how little have
I ! He to whom I am as crystal, and who seeth through me, and
perceiveth the least mote that is in me, knoweth that I speak
what I think and am convinced of. But men cast me through a
gross and wide sieve. My very dear brother, the room of the
least of all saints is too great for the like of me. But lest this
should seem art, to fetch home reputation, I speak no more of it :
it is my worth to be Christ's ransomed sinner and sick one : His
relation to me is, that I am sick, and He is the Physician of whom
I stand in need. Alas! how often play I fast and loose with
Christ ! He bindeth, I loose ; He buildeth, I cast down ; He
trimmeth up a salvation for me, and I mar it ; I cast out- with
Christ, and He agreeth with me again twenty times a day; I for-
feit my kingdom and heritage. I lose what I had ; but Christ is
at my back, and following on to stoop and take up what falleth
from me. Were I in heaven and had the crown on my head, if
free will were my tutor, I should lose heaven ; seeing I lose my-
self, what wonder I should let go and lose Jesus my Lord 1 0,
well to me for evermore that I have cracked my credit witli Christ
and cannot by law at all borrow from Him upon my fecJcless and
worthless bond and faith! for my faith and reputation with Christ
is, that I am a creature that God will not put any trust into. I
was and am bewildered with temptations, and wanted a guide to
heaven. 0, what have I to say of that excellent, surpassing, and
^ Worthless. '^ Quarrel.
302 LETTEE CLXXII.
super-eminent tiling they call " The grace of God," the way of free
redemption in Christ ! And when poor, poor I, dead in law, was
sold, fettered, and imprisoned in justice's closest ward, Avhich is
hell and damnation ; when I, a wretched one, lighted upon noble
Jesus, eternally kind Jesus, tender-hearted Jesus; nay, when He
lighted upon me first, and knew me, I found that He scorned to
take a price, or anything like hire, of angels, or seraphims, or any
of His creatures ; and therefore, I would praise Him for this, that
the Avhole army of the redeemed ones sit rent-free in heaven. Our
holding is better than blench. ^ We are all free-holders; and see-
ing our eternal feu-duty is but thanks, 0 woeful me, that I have
but spilt 2 thanks, and broken, lame, and miscarried praises to give
Him ! and so my silver is not good and current with Christ, were
it not that free merits have stamped it and washen it and me both !
And for my silence, I see somewhat better through it now, If my
high and lofty One, my princely and royal Master say, " Hold,
hold thy peace, I lay bonds on thee, thou speak none," I would
fiiin be content, and let my fire be smothered under ashes, without
light or flame. I cannot help it. I take laws from my Lord, but
I give none. As for your journey to F., ye do Avell to follow it.
The camp is Christ's ordinary bed. A carried bed is kindly to
the Beloved, down in this lower house. It may be, and who
knoweth but our Lord hath some centurions ye are sent to? See-
ing your angry mother denieth you lodging and house-room with
her, Christ's call to unknown faces must be your second wind,
seeing ye cannot have a first. 0 that our Lord would water again,
with a new visit, this piece withered, and dry hill of our widow
mount Zion ! My dear brother, I will think it comfort if ye speak
my name to our Well-Beloved wherever ye are. I am mindful of
you. 0, that the Lord would yet make the light of the moon in
Scotland like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven-
fold brighter. For myself, as yet I have received no answer
whither to go : I wait on. 0, that Jesus had my love ! Let
matters frame as they list, I have some more to do with Christ ;
yet I would fain we were nearer. Now, the great Shepherd of
the sheep, the very God of peace, establish and confirm you till
the day of His coming.
Yours, in his lovely and sweet Lord Jesus, S, K.
Aberdeen, Sept. 9, 1637.
LETTER CLXXIL— To the Lady Carleton.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. My soul longeth
once again to be amongst you, and to behold that beauty of the
^ Holding of land on condition of doing some service to its owner.
« Spoiled.
LETTER CLXXII. 303
Lord that I would see in His house. But I know not if He, in
whose hands are all our ways, seeth it expedient for His glory. I
owe my Lord (I know) submission of spirit, suppose he should
turn me into a stone or pillar of salt. 0 that I were he in whom
my Lord could be glorified ; suppose my little heaven were for-
feited to buy glory to Him before men and angels; suppose my
want of His presence, and separation from Christ, were a pillar as
high as ten heavens for Christ's glory to stand upon above all the
world ! What am I to Him 1 How little am I (though my
feathers stood out as broad as the morning light, to such a high,
to such a lofty, to such a never-enough-admired and glorious
Lord ! My trials are heavy because of my sad sabbaths ; but I
know they are less than my high provocations. I seek no more
but that Christ may be the gainer, and I the loser; that He may
be raised and heightened, and I cried down, and my worth made
dust before His glory. 0, that Scotland, all with one shout,
would cry up Christ, and that His name Avere high in this land !
I find the very utmost borders of Christ's high excellency and deep
sweetness heaven and earth's wonder. 0, what is He, if I could
win in to see His inner side ! 0 ! I am run dry of loving, and
wondering, and adoring of that greatest and most admirable One !
Woe, woe is me, I have not half love for him ! Alas, what can
my drop do to his great sea ! What gain is it to Christ that I
have casten my little sparkle in His great fire ! What can I give
to Him ■? 0, that I had love to fill a thousand worlds, that I
might empty my soul of it all upon Christ ! I think I have now
just reason to quit my part of any hope or love that I have to this
scum, and the refuse of the dross of God's workmanship, this A^ain
earth. I owe to this stormy world (whose kindness and heart to
me hath been made of iron, or of a piece of a Avild sea-island that
never a creature of God yet lodged in) not a look, I owe it no loA^e,
no hope, and therefore, 0, if my love were dead to it, and my
soul dead to it ! What am I obliged to this house of my pilgrim-
age? A straw for all that God hath made, to my soul's liking,
except God and that lovely one Jesus Christ. Seeing I am not
this world's debtor, I desire I may be stripped of all confidence in
anything but my Lord, that He may be for me, and I for my only,
only, only Lord, that He may be the morning and evening-tide,
the top and the root of my joys, and the heart and flower and
yolk of all my soul's delights. 0, let me never lodge any creature
in my heart and confidence ; let the house be for Him. I rejoice
that sad days cut off a piece of the lease of my short life ; and
that my shadow (even Avhile I suffer) weareth long, and my evening
hasteneth on. I have cause to love home Avith all my heart, and
to take the opportunity of the day to hasten to the end of my
804 LETTER CLXXIII.
journey, before the night come on, wherein a man cannot see to
walk or work ; that once after my falls, I might at night fall in,
weary and tired as I am, in Christ's bosom, and betwixt His
breasts. Our prison cannot be our best country. This world
looketh not like heaven, and the happiness that our tired souls
would be at ; and therefore it were good to seek about for the
wind, and hoist up our sails towards our New Jerusalem, for that
is our best. Eemember a prisoner to Christ. Grace, grace be
with you. Yours, in his only Lord and Master, S. K.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXXIII.— To my Lord Craigiiall.
My Lord, — I received one letter of your lordship's from C,
and another of late from A. B., wherein I find your lordship in
perplexity what to do : but let me entreat j'-our lordship not to
cause yourself mistake truth and Christ, because they seem to
encounter with your peace and ease. My lord, remember that a
prisoner hath written it to you ; as the Lord liveth, if ye put to
your hand with other apostates in this land, to pull down the
sometime beautiful tabernacle of Christ in this land, and join
hands with them in one hair-breadth to welcome Antichrist to
Scotland, there is wrath gone out from tlie Lord against you and
your house. If the terror of a king hath overtaken you, and your
lordship looketh to sleep in your nest in peace, and to take the
nearest shore, there are many ways, too, too many ways, how to
shift Christ with some ill-washen and foul distinctions ; but assure
yourself, suppose a king should assure you he would be your God
(as he shall never be, for that piece of service), your clay-god shall
die, and your carnal counsellors, when your conscience shall storm
against you, and ye complain to them, they will say. What is
that to us 1 Believe not that Christ is weak, or that He is not
able to save : of two fires that ye cannot pass, take the least.
Some few years will bring us all out in our blacks and whites
before our Judge ; eternity is nearer to you than ye are aware of.
To go on in a course of defection, when an enlightened conscience
is stirring and looking you in the face, and crying within you,
that ye are going in an evil way, is a step to the sin against the
Holy Ghost. Either many of this land are near that sin, or else I
know not what it is. And if this for which I now suffer be not
the way of peace and the King's highway to salvation, I believe
there is not a way at all : there is not such breadth and elbow-
room in the way to heaven as men believe. Howbeit this day be
not Christ's, the morrow shall be His. I believe assuredly our
Lord shall repair the old waste places and His ruined house in
LETTEE CLXXIII. 305
Scotland, and this wilderness shall yet blosson; «ts the rose. My
very worthy and dear lord, wait upon Him who hideth His face
from the house of Jacob, and look for Him ; wait patiently a
little upon the Bridegroom's return again, that your soul may
live, and ye may rejoice with the Lord's inheritance. I dare
pawn my life and soul for it, if ye take this sform with borne-
down Christ, your sky shall quickly clear, and- jour fair morning
dawn. Think (as the truth is) that Christ is just now saying,
"And will ye also leave me?" Ye have a fair occasion to gratity
Christ now, if ye Avill stay with Him, and want the night's sleep
Avith j^our suffering Saviour one hour. Now, when Scotland hath
fallen asleep, and leaveth Christ to fend^ for Himself, I profess
myself but a weak feeble man. When I cam^R first to Christ's
camp, I had nothing to maintain this war, or {;0 bear me out in
this encounter, and I am little better yet ; but since I find furni-
ture, armour, and strength from the consecrated Captain, the
Prince of our salvation, who was perfected through suff'ering, I
esteem sufi"ering for Christ a king's life. I find that our wants
qualify us for Christ ; and howbeit your lordship write ye despair
jO attain to such a communion and fellowship (which I would not
nave you to think), yet would ye nobly and courageously venture
to make over to Christ, for His honour now lying at the stake,
your estate, place, and honour. He would lovingly and largely
requite you, and give you a king's word for a recompense. Ven-
ture upon Christ's Come, and I dare swear ye shall say, as it is,
Ps. xvi. 7; "I bless the Lord who gave me counsel.'' My very
worthy lord, many eyes in both the kingdoms are upon you now,
and tlie eye of our Lord is upon you ; acquit yourself manfully
for Christ. Spill ^ not this good play. Subscribe a blank sub-
mission, and put it in Christ's hands. Win, win the blessings and
prayers of your sighing and sorrowfid mother-church seeking help.
Win Christ's bond (who is a King of His word) for a hundred-fold
more even in this life. If a weak man hath passed a promise to a
king to make a slip to ^ Christ (if we look to flesh and blood I
wonder not of it, possibly I might have done worse myself) but
add not further guiltiness to go on in such a scandalous and foul
way. Remember that there is a woe, woe to him by whom
offences come. This woe came out of Christ's mouth, and it is
heavier than the woe of the law. It is the Mediator's vengeance,
and that is two vengeances to those that are enlightened. Free
yourself from unlawful anguish about advising and resolving.
When the truth is come to your hand, hold it fast, go not again
to make a new search and inquiry for truth. It is easy to cause
conscience believe as ye will, not as ye know. It is easy for you
^ Provide. ^ Spoil. 5 gg false to.
U
306 LETTER CLXXIV.
to cast your light into prison, and detain God's truth in unright-
eousness ; but that prisoner will break ward, to your incomparable
torture. Fear your light, and stand in awe of it ; for it is from
God. Think wliat honour it is, in this life also, to be enrolled to
the succeeding ages amongst Christ's witnesses, standing against
the re-entry of Antichrist. I know certainly your light looking
to two ways, and to the two sides, crieth shame upon the course
that they would counsel you to follow. The way that is halfer^
and compartner with the smoke of this fat world and with ease,
smelleth strong of a foul and false way. The Prince of peace. He
who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of His
sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish you, and
give you sound light, and counsel you to follow Christ. Remem-
ber my obliged service to my lord your father, and mother, and
your lady. Grace be with you. Youp lordship's at all obliged
obedience, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K
Aberdeen, August 10, 1637.
LETTER CLXXIV.— To Jean Gordon.
My very dear and loving Sister,— Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. I long to hear from you. I exhort you to set up the
brae - to the King's city that must be taken with violence. Your
afternoon's sun is wearing low. Time will eat up your frail life,
like a worm gnawing at the root of a May-floAver. Lend Christ
your heart. Set Him as a seal there. Take Him in within, and
let the world and children stand at the door ; they are not yours,
make you and them for your proper owner, Christ. It is good
He is your Husband and their Father. What missing can there
be of a dying man, when (lod filleth his chair "? Give hours of
the day to prayer. Fash ^ Christ (if I may speak so) and impor-
tune Him, be often at His gate; give His door no rest; I can
tell you, He will be found. 0 what sweet fellowship is betwixt
Him and me ! I am imprisoned, but He is not imprisoned. He
hath shamed me with His kindness ; He hath come to my prison,
and run away with my heart and all my love. Well may He
brook* it : I wish my love get never an owner but Christ. Fie,
fie upon all lovers, that held us so long asunder ! we shall not
part now. He and I shall be hard before He win out of my grips :
I resolve to wrestle with Christ ere I quit Him. But my love to
Him hath casten my soul in a fever, and there is no cooling of my
fever till I get real possession of Christ. 0 strong, strong love of
Jesus, thou hast wounded my heart with thine arrows ! 0 pain !
^ Sharer. - Make for the ascent.
2 Annoy. * Possess.
LETTERS CLXXV. AND CLXXVI. 307
0 pain of love for Christ ! who will help me to praise 1 Let me
have your prayers. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.
LETTER CLXXV.— To Grissal Fullerton.
Dear Sister,— I exhort you in the Lord to seek j^our one
thing, Mary's good part, that shall not be taken from you. Set
your heart and soul on the children's inheritance. This clay-idol,
the world, is but for bastards, and ye are his lawful-begotten child.
Learn the way (as your dear mother hath gone before you) to
knock at Christ's door. Many an alms of mercy hath Christ given
to her, and hath abundance behind to give to you. Ye are the
seed of the faithful, and born within the covenant — claim your
right. I would not exchange Christ Jesus for ten Avorlds of glory.
1 know now (blessed be my Teacher) how to shoot the lock and
unbolt my Well-Beloved's door, and He maketli a poor stranger
welcome when he cometh to His house. I am swelled up, and
satisfied Avith the love of Christ, that is better than wine. It is a
fire in my soul ; let hell and the world cast water on it, they will
not mend themselves. I have now gotten the right gate^ of
Christ. I recommend Him to you above all things. Come and
find the smell of His breath. See if His kisses be not sweet.
He desireth no better than to be much made of. Be homely -
with Him, and ye shall be the more welcome. Ye know not how
fain Christ would have all your love. Think not this is imagina-
tion's and bairn's play we make din ^ for. I would not suifer for
it if it were so. I dare pawn my heaven for it, that it is the way
to glory. Think much of truth, and abhor these ways devised by
men in God's worship. The grace of Christ be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLXXVI.— To Patrick Carsen.
Dear and loving Friend, — I cannot but, upon the oppor-
tunity of a bearer, exhort you to resign the love of your youth to
Christ, and, in this day, Avhile your sun is high, and your youth
serveth you, to seek the Lord and His face ; for there is nothing
out of heaven so necessary for you as Chris b. And ye cannot be
ignorant but your day will end, and the night of death will call
you from the pleasures of this life, and a doom given out in death
standeth for ever, as long as God liveth. Youth ordinarilj^ is a
1 Way. - Familiar. "' Noise.
308 LETTERS CLXXVII. AND CLXXVIII.
post and ready servant for Satan to run errands ; for it is a nest
for lust, cursing, drunkenness, blaspheming of God, lying, pride,
and vanity. 0, that there were such an heart in you as to fear
the Lord, and to dedicate your soul and body to His service.
When the time cometh that your eye-strings shall break, and
your face wax pale, and legs and arms tremble, and your breath
grow cold, and your poor soul look out at your prison-house of
clay to be set at liberty, then a good conscience, and your Lord's
favour, shall be worth all the world's glory. Seek it as your
garland and crown. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CLXXVIL— To John Caiisen.
My well-beloved and dear Friend, — Every one seeketh not
God, and far fewer find Him, because they seek amiss. He is to
be sought for above all things, if men would find what they seek.
Let feathers and shadows alone to children, and go seek your
Well-Beloved. Your only errand to the world is, to woo Christ;
therefore, put other lovers from about His house, and let Christ
have all your love, without minching^ or dividing it. It is little
enough, if there Avere more of it. The serving of the world and
sin hath but a base reward, and smoke instead of pleasures ; and
but a night-dream, for true ease to the soul. Go where ye will,
your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom. Come in
to Him, and lie down, and rest you on the slain Son of God, and
inquire for Him. I sought Him, and now a fig for all the worm-
eaten pleasures and moth-eaten glory out of heaven, since I have
found Him, and in Him all I can want or wish. He hath made
me a king over the world. Princes cannot overcome me. Christ
hath given me the marriage-kiss, and He hath my marriage-love ;
we have made up a full bargain, that shall not go back on either
side. 0, if ye, and all in that country, knew what sweet terms of
mercy are betwixt Him and me ! Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 11, 1637.
LETTER CLXXVIH.~To my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — I would have written to your ladyship ere now, but
people's believing there is in me that which I know there is not,
hath put me out of love with writing to any ; for it is easy to put
religion to a market and public fair, but alas ! it is not so soon
•' Mincing.
LETTEli CLXXVIII. 309
made eye-sweet for Christ. My Lord seeth me a tired man far
behind. I liave gotten much love from Christ, but I give Him
little or none again. My white side cometh out in paper to men,
but at home and within, I find much black work, and great cause
of a low sail, and of little boasting ; and yet, howbeit I see chal-
lenges to be true, the manner of the tempter's pressing of them is
unhonest, and, in my own thoughts, knavish-like. My peace is,
that Christ may find sale and outing ^ of His wares, in the like of
me ; I mean, for saving grace. I wish all professors to fall in love
with grace ; all our songs should be of His free grace. We are
but too lazy and careless in seeking of it. It is all our riches we
have here, and glory in the bud. I wish I could set out free
grace. I was the law's man, and under the laAv, and under a
curse ; but grace brought me from under that hard lord, and I
rejoice that I am grace's freeholder. I pay tribute to none for
heaven, seeing my land and heritage holdeth of Christ, my new
King. Infinite wisdom hath devised this excellent way of free-
holding for sinners : it is a better way to heaven than the old
way that was in Adam's days. It hath this fair advantage, that
ao man's emptiness and want layetli an inhibition upon Christ or
hindereth His salvation (and that is far best for me) ; but oui
new Landlord putteth the names of dyvours ^ and Adam's forlorn
heirs and beggars, and crooked and blind, in the free charters ;
heaven and angels may wonder that we have gotten such a gate
of 2 sin and hell. Such a back-entry out of hell as Christ made,
and brought out the captives by, is more than my poor shallow
thoughts can comprehend. I would think sufferings glory (and I
am sometimes not far from it), if my Lord would give me a new
alms of free grace. I hear that the prelates are intending banish-
ment for me ; but for more grace, and no other hire, I would
make it welcome. The bit of this clay-house, the earth, and the
other side of the sea, are my Father's. If my sweet Lord Jesus
would bud* my sufferings with a new measure of grace, I were a
rich man. But I have not now of a long time found such high
spring-tides as formerly. The sea is out, and the wind of His
Spirit calm, and I cannot buy a wind, or by requesting the sea
cause it to flow again ; only I wait on, upon the banks and shore-
side, till the Lord send a full sea, that with up-sails I may lift up
Christ. Yet sorrow for His absence is sweet; and sighs, with
"Saw ye Him whom my soul lovethT' have their own delights.
0 that I might gather hunger against His long-looked-for return !
Well were my soul, if Christ were the element, mine own element,
and that I loved and breathed in Him, and if I could not live
without Him. I allow not laughter upon myself when He is
^ Disposal. - Debtor.?. " Ontlfct from. ^ Pay,
310 LETTER CLXXIX.
away; yet lie never leaveth the house bat He leaveth drink-
money beliind Him, and a pawn that He will return. AYoe, woe
to me, if He should go away and take all His flitting ^ with Him.
Even to dream of Him is sweet. To build a house of pining
wishes for His return, to spin out a web of sorrow, and care, and
languishing, and sighs, either dry or wet, as they may be, because
He hath no leisure (if I may speak so) to make a visit, or to see a
poor friend, sweeteneth and refresheth the thoughts of the heart.
A misty dew will stand for rain and do some good, and keep some
greenness in the herbs till our Lord's clouds rue^ upon the earth,
and send down a watering of rain. Truly, I think Christ's misty
dew a welcome message from heaven till my Lord's rain fall.
Woe, woe is me for the Lord's vineyard in Scotland. Howbeit
the father of the house embrace a child, and feed him, and kiss
him, yet it is sorrow and sadness to the children that our poor
mother hath gotten her leave, and that our father hath given up
house. It is an unheartsome ^ thing to see our father and mother
agree so ill ; yet the bastards, if they be fed, cai-e not. 0 Lord,
cast not water on Scotland's smol\ing coal. It is a strange gate *
the saints go to heaven ; our enemies often eat and drink us, and
we go to heaven through their bellies and stomachs, and they
vomit the church of God undigested among their hands, and even
while we are shut up in prisons by them, we advance on ouj
journey. Remember my service to my lord, your kind son, who
was kind to me in my bonds, and was not ashamed to own me. I
would be glad that Christ got the morning service of his life now
in his young years. It would suit him well to give Christ his
young and green love. Christ's stamp and seal would go far
down in a young soul, if he would receive the thrust of Christ's
stamp. I would desire him to make search for Christ, for nobles
now are but dry friends to Christ. The grace of God our Father,
and the good will of Him who dwelt in the bush, be with your
ladyship. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
AberdeeE, 1637.
LETTER CLXXIX.— To the Lady Cardonness, Elder.
Worthy and well-beloved in the Lord, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I long to hear from you in paper, that I may
know how your soul prospereth. My desire and longing is, to
hear that ye walk in the truth, and that ye are content to follow
the des])ised, but most lovely Son of God : I cannot but recom-
mend Him unto you, as your Husband, your Well-Beloved, your
Portion, your Comfort, and your Joy. I speak this of that lovely
^ Furniture. - Take pity. ^ Unpleasant. "* Way.
LETTER CLXXIX. 311
One, becanse 1 praise and commend the ford (as we use to speak;
as 1 find it. He hath watered with His sweet comforts an
oppressed prisoner. He was always kind to my soul , but never
so kind as now, in my greatest extremities. I dine and sup with
Christ ; He visiteth my soul with the visitations of love in the
night watches. I persuade my soul that this is the way to
heaven, and His own truth I now sufter for. I exhort you, in the
name of Christ, to continue in the truth which I delivered to you.
Make Christ sure to your soul ; for your day draweth nigh to an
end. Many slide back now, who seemed to be Christ's friends,
and prove dishonest to Him. But " Be ye faithful to the death,
and ye shall have the crown of life." This span-length of your
days, whereof the Spirit of God speaketh (Ps. xxxix.), will,
within a short time, come to a finger-breadth, and at length to
nothing. 0, how sweet and comfortable shall the feast of a good
conscience be to you, when your eye-strings shall break, your face
wax pale, and the breath turn cold, and your poor soul come
sighing to the windows of the bouse of day of your dying body,
and shall long to be out, and to have the jailor to open the door,
that the prisoner may be set at liberty. Ye draw nigh the water-
side. Look your accounts ; ask for your Guide to take you to the
other side • let not the world be your portion. What have ye to
do with dead clay 1 Ye are not a bastard, but a lawful-begotten
child : therefore, set your heart on the inheritance. Go up
beforehand and see your lodging. Look through all your Father's
rooms in heaven ; in your Father's house are many dwelling-
places. Men take a sight of lands ere they buy them. I know
Christ hath made the bargain already . but be kind to the house
ye are going to, and see it often. Set your heart on things that
are above, where Christ is at the right hand of God. Stir up
your husband to mind his own country at home. Counsel him to
deal mercifully with the poor people of God under him : they are
Christ's and not his ; therefore, desire him to show them merciful
dealing and kindness, and to be good to their souls. I desire you
to Avrite to me. It may be that my parish forget me , but my
witness is in heaven, I do not, I dow ^ not forget them. They
are my sighs in the night, and my tears in the day. I think
myself like a husband plucked from the wife of his }- '0+ 1. 0
Lord be my Judge, what joy it would be to my soul to hear that
my ministry hath left the Son of God among them, and that they
are walking in Christ ! Eemember my love to your son and
daughter. Desire them from me to seek the Lord in their youth,
and to give Him the morning of their days. Acquaint them with
the word of God and prayer. Grace be with you. Pray for the
»Oan.
312 LETTER CLXXX.
prisoner of Christ. In my heart I forget you not. Your lawful
and loving pastor, in his only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 6, 1637.
LETTER CLXXX.— To Mr. James Hamilton.
Reverend and dearly beloved in our Lord, — Grace, mercy,
and peace be to you. Our acquaintance is neither in bodily
presence nor in paper, but as sons of the same Father, and sufferers
for the same truth. Let no man doubt but the state of our ques-
tion, we are now forced to stand to, by sufiering exile and impri-
sonment, is, if Jesus should reign over His kirk or not 1 0, if
my sinful arm could hold the crown on His head, howbeit it
should be stricken off from the shoulder blade. For your ensuing
and feared trial, my very dearest in our Lord Jesus, alas ! what
am I to speak to comfort a soldier of Christ, who hath done an
hundred times more for that Avorthy and honourable cause than I
can do ] But I know, those whom the world was not worthy of,
wandered up and down in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens,
and caves of the earth ; and that while there is one member of
mystical Christ out of heaven, that member must suffer strokes.
till our Lord Jesus draw in that memb&r within the gates of the
New Jerusalem, which He Avill not fail to do at last ; for not one
toe or finger of that body but it shall be taken in within the city.
What can be our part in this pitched battle betwixt the Lamb and
the dragon, but to receive the darts in patience, that rebound of!
us on upon our sweet Master ; or rather light first upon Him, and
then rebound ofl Him upon His servants? I think it a sweet
north wind that bloweth first upon the fair face of the Chief
among ten thousand, and then lighteth upon our sinful and black
faces. When once the wind bloweth oft Him upon me, I think it
hath a sweet smell of Christ, and so must be some more than a
single cross. I know ye have a guard about you, and your attend-
ance and train for your safety is far beyond your pursuers' force or
fraud. It is good under feud to be near our war-house ^ and
stronghold. We can do but little to resist them who persecute
us and oppose Him, but keep our blood and our wounds to the
next court-da}^, when our complaints will be read. If this day be
not Christ's, I am sure the morrow shall be His. As for anything
I do in my bonds, when now and then a word falleth from me,
alas, it is very little ! I am exceedingly grieved that any should
conceive anything to be in such a broken and empty reed : let no
man impute it to me, that the free and unbought wind (for I gave
nothing for it) bloweth upon an empty reed. I am His overbur-
^ Armourv.
LETTER CLXXXI. 313
dened debtor. I cry, down with me, down, down with all the
excellency of the world, and up, up with Christ. Long, long may
that fair One, that holy One be on high. My curse be upon them
that love Him not. 0 how glad would I be if His glory would
grow out and spring up out of my bonds and sufferings ! Certainly,
since I became His prisoner, He hath won the yolk and heart of
my soul. Christ is even become a new Christ to me, and His
love greener than it was, and now I strive no moi-e with Him,
His love shall carry it away. I lay down myself under His love :
I desire to sing, and to cry, and to proclaim myself, even under
the water, in His common,^ and eternally indebted to His kind-
ness. I will not offer to quit commons - with Him (as we use to
say), for that will not be. All, all for evermore be Christ's.
What farther trials are before me, I know not; but I know Christ
will have a saved soul of me over on the other side of the water,
in the yonder ^ side of crosses, and beyond men's wrongs. I had
but one eye, and that they have put out. My one joy, next to the
flower of my joys, Christ, was to preach my sweetest, sweetest
Master and the glory of His kingdom, and it seemed no cruelty to
them to put out the poor man's one eye. And now I am seeking
about to see if suffering Avill speak my fair One's praises; and I am
trying if a dumb man's tongue can raise one note, or one of
Zion's springs,* to advance my Well-Beloved's glory 0 if He
would make some glory to Himself out of a dumb prisoner ! I go
with child of His word, I cannot be delivered. None here will
have my Master ; alas ! what aileth them at Him 1 I bless you
for your prayers, add to them praises. As I am able^ I pay you
home. I commend your diving in Christ's Testament ; I would I
could set out the dead Man's good-will to His friends in His sweet
Testament. Speak a prisoner's hearty commendations to Christ :
fear not, your ten days will over. These that are gathered against
Mount Zion, their eyes shall melt away in their eye-holes, and
their tongues consume away in their mouths, and Christ's withered
garden shall grow green again in Scotland. My Lord Jesus hath
a word hid in heaven for Scotland, not yet brought out. Grace
be with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, .July 7, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXI— To Mrs. Stuart.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am sorry
that ye take it so hardly that I have not written to you. I am
judged to be that which I am not. I fear if I were put in the fire,
I should melt away, and fall down in sherds of painted nature.
1 Debt. « Settle accounts. ^ Further. * Tunes.
oil LETTEK CLXXXI.
For truly I liave little stut! at home tliat is worth the eye of God's
servants. If there be anything of Clirist's in me (as I dare not
deny some of His work), it is but a spunk ^ of borrowed fire, that
can scarce warm myself, and hath little heat for standers-by. I
would fain have that which ye and others believe I have, but ye
are only witnesses to my outer side and to some words in paper.
0 that He would give me more than paper-grace or tongue-grace !
Were it not that want paineth me, I should have skailed ^ house
and gone a-begging long since ; but Christ hath left me with some
hunger that is more hot than wise, and is ready often to say, if
Christ longed for me as I do for Him, we should not be long in
meeting ; and if He loved my company as well as I do His, even
while I am writing this letter to you, we should flee in ^ others' *
arms. But I know there is more will than wit in this languor and
pining love for Christ ; and no marvel, for Christ's love ^ would
have hot harvest long ere midsummer But if I have any love to
Him, Christ hath both love to me and wit to guide His love : and
1 see the best thing I have hath as much dross beside it, as might
curse me and it both ; and if it were for no more, we have need of
a Saviour to pardon the very faults and diseases, and weakness of
the new man, and to take away (to say so) our godly sins, or the
sins of our sanctification, and the dross and scum of spiritual love ;
woe, woe is me ! 0 what need is there then of Christ's calling to
scour and cleanse, and wash away an ugly old body of sin, the very
image of Satan ! I know nothing surer than that there is an office
for Christ among us. I wish for no other heaven on this side of
the last sea that I must cross, than this service of Christ, to make
my blackness beauty, my deadness life, my guiltiness sanctification.
I long much for that day when I will be holy. 0, what spots are
yet unwashen ! 0, that I could change the skin of the leopard and
the moor, and niff"er^ it with some of Christ's fairness 1 were my
blackness and Christ's beauty carded through other^ (as we use to
speak), His beauty and holiness would eat up my filthin(!ss. But
O, I have not casten old Adam's hue and colour yet ! I troAv, the
best of us hath a smell yet of the old loathsome body of sin and guilti-
ness. Happy are they for evermore who can employ Christ, and set
His blood and death on work, to make clean work to God of foul souls.
I know it is our sin, that we would have sanctification on the sunny
side of the hill, and holiness with nothing but summer, and no
crosses at all. Sin hath made us as tender as if we were made of
paper or glass. I am often thinking, Avliat I would think of Christ
and burning quick together, of Christ and torturing, and hot
melted lead poured in at mouth and navel ; yet I have some weak
^ Tajjer. - Broken up. •* Fly into.
"* Each other's. •' Tliat is, love to Clirist. '^ Exchange.
LETTER CLXXXII. '^15
experience (but very weak indeed), that suppose Christ and hell's
torments were married together, and if tliere were no finding of
Christ at all, except I went to hell's furnace, that there, and in no
other place, I could meet with Him, I trow, if I were as I have
been since I was His prisoner, I would beg lodging for God's sake
in hell's hottest furnace that I might rub souls Avith Christ. But,
God be thanked, I shall find him in a better lodging. We get
Christ better-cheap ^ than so, when He is rouped to us, we get Him
but with a shower of summer-troubles in this life, as sweet and as
soft to believers as a May-dew. I would have you and myself
helping Christ mystical to weep for His wife : and 0 that we could
mourn for Christ buried in Scotland, and for His two slain witnesses
killed, because they prophesied ! If we could so importune and
solicit God, our buried Lord and His two buried witnesses should
rise again. Earth, and clay, and stone will not bear down Christ
and the Gospel in Scotland. I know not ir I will see the second
Temple and the glory of it ; but the Lord hath deceived me if it
be not to be reared up again. I would wish to give Christ His
welcome-home again. My blessing, my joy, my glory, and love
be on the home-comer.^ I find no better use of suffering, than
that Christ's Avinnowing putteth chaft and corn in the saints to
sundry places, and discovereth our dross from His gold, so as cor-
ruption and grace are so seen, that Christ saith in the furnace,
" 'That is mine, and this is yours. The scum and the grounds, thy
stomach^ against the persecutors, thy impatience, thy unbelief, thy
quarrelling, these are thine. And faith, on- waiting, love, joy,
courage, are mine." 0, let me die one of Christ's on-waiters, and
one of His attendants : I know your heart and Christ are married
together, it were not good to make a divorce. Eue not of that
meeting and marriage with such a husband. Pray for me, His
prisoner. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. U.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXH.— To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be
to you. I received your letter, I bless you for it. My dry root
would take more dew and summer-rain than it getteth, were it not
Christ will have dryness and deadness in us to work upon. If
there were no timber to work upon, art would die and never be
seen. I see, grace hath a field to play upon and to course up and
down in our wants, so that I am often thanking God, not for
guiltiness, but for guiltiness for Christ to whet and sharpen His
^ Cheaper. - Qu.. Home-coming? ^' Anger,
316 LETTEK CLXXXII.
grace upon. I am half content to have boils for my Lord Jesus's plas-
ters. JSickness hath this advantage, that it draweth our sweet
Physician's hand and His holy and soft fingei'S to touch our with-
ered and leper skins : it is a blessed fever that fetcheth Christ to
the bedside. I think my Lord's, " How dost thou with it, sick
body?" is worth all my pained nights. Surely, I have no more for
Christ, but emptiness and want ; take or leave, He will get me no
otherwise. I must sell myself, and my wants to Him, but I have
no price to give for Him. If He would put a fair and a real seal
upon His love to me, and bestow upon me a larger share of Christ's
love (which I would fainest be in liands with of anything, I except
not heaven itself), I should go on sighing and singing under His
cross. But the worst is, many take me for somebody, because the
wind bloweth upon a withered prisoner ; but the truth is, I am
both lean and thin in that wherein many believe I abound, I
would (if bartering were in my power) niffer ^ joy with Christ's
love and faith, and instead of the hot sunshine, be content to walk
under a cloudy shadow, with more grief and sadness, to have more
faith and a fair occasion of setting forth and commending Christ,
and to make that lovely One, that fair One, that sweetest and
dearest Lord Jesus, market-sweet for many ears and hearts in
Scotland : and if it were in my power to roup Christ to the three
kingdoms, and withal to persuade buyers to come, and to take
such sweet wares as Christ, I would think to have many sweet
bargains betwixt Christ and the sons of men. I would I could be
humble and go with a low sail. I would I had desires with wings
and running upon wheels, swift, and active, and speedy, in longing
for Christ's honour. But I know my Lord is as wise here, as I
do 2 be thirsty, and infinitely more zealous of His honour than I
can be hungered for the manifestation of it to men and angels.
But, 0, that my Lord would take my desires off my hand, and add
a thousand-fold more unto them, and sow spiritual inclinations
upon them, for the coming of Christ's kingdom to the sons of men,
that they might be higher and deeper, and longer and broader !
For my longest measures are too short for Christ, my depth is ebb,
and the breadth of my affections to Christ narrow and pinched.
0, for an engine ^ and a wit to prescribe ways to men how Christ
might be all in all the world ! Wit is here behind affection, and
affection behind obligation. 0, how little do ^ I give to Christ :
and how much hath He given me ! 0, that I could sing grace's
praises, and love's praises ! seeing I was like a fool, soliciting the
law, and making moyen * to the law's court for mercy, and found
challenges that way ; but now I deny that judge's power ; for I am
grace's man ; I hold not worth a drink of water of the law, or of
Exchange. ^ Can. ^ Genius. ■* Application.
LETTER CLXXXIII. 317
any lord, but Jesus. And till I bethought me of this, I was slain
with doubtings, and fears, and terrors. I praise the new court,
and the new Landlord, and the new salvation purchased in Jesus
His name, and at His instance. Let the old man, if he please, go
make his moan to the law, and seek acquaintance there-away, be-
cause he is condemned in that court. I hope, the new man, and I,
and Christ together shall not be heard : and this is the more soft and
the more easy way for me and for my cross together. Seeing Christ
singeth my welcome home, and taketh me in, and maketh short
counts and short work of reckoning betwixt me and my judge, I
must be Christ's man, and His tenant, and subject to His court.
I am sure, sufiering for Christ could not be borne otherwise. But
I give my hand and my faith to all who would suffer for Christ ;
they shall be well handled, and fare well in the same way, that I
have found the cross easy and light. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, July 8, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXin.— To Alexander Gordon of Garlock.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. If Christ
were as I am, that time could work upon Him to alter Him, or
that the morrow could be a new day to Him, or bring a new mind
upon Him, as it is to me a new day, I could not keep a house or
a covenant with Him. But I find Christ to be Christ, and that
He is far, far, even infinite heaven's height above man. And that
is all our happiness. Sinners can do nothing but make wounds
that Christ may heal them ; and make debts, that He may pay
them ; and make falls, that He may raiee them ; and make deaths,
that He may quicken them ; and spin out and dig hells to them-
selves, that He may ransom them. Now I will bless the Lord
that ever there was such a thing as the free grace of God, and a
free ransom given for sold souls : only, alas guiltiness maketh me
ashamed to apply Christ, and to think it pride in me to put out
my unclean and withered hand to such a Saviour ! But it is neither
shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a
ship-broken soul to run himself ashore upon Christ. Suppose once
I be guilty, need-force ^ I cannot, I dow - not go by ^ Christ. We
take in good pai't that pride, that beggars beg from the richer.
And who is so poor as we 1 and who is so rich as He who selleth
fine gold? Rev. iii. 18. I see then, it is our best (let guiltiness
plead what it listeth) that we have no mean under the covering of
heaven, but to creep m lowly and submissively with our wants to
Christ. I have also cause to give His cross a good name and re-
^ Of necessity. " Can. " Past.
318 LETTEE CLXXXIV,
port. 0, how worthy is Christ of my feckless ^ and light suffering,
and how hath He deserved it at my hands, that for His honour
and glory I should lay my back under seven hells' pain in one, if
He call me to that. But, alas ' my soul is like a ship run on
ground through ebbness of water : I am sanded, and my love is
sanded ; I find not how to bring it on float again ; it is so cold
and dead, that I see not how to bring it to a flame. Fie, fie upon
the meeting that my love hath given Christ ; woe, woe is me, I
have a lover Christ, and yet I want love for Him. I have a lovely
and desirable Lord, who is love-worthy, and who beggeth my love
and heart, and I have nothing to give Him. Dear brother, come
further in on Christ, and see a new treasure in Him ; come in, and
look down, and see angels' wonder, and heaven and earth's wonder
of love, sweetness, majesty, and excellency in Him. I forget you
not. Pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased to send me
among you again, fraughted - and full of (Jhrist. Grace, grace be
with you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1G37.
LETTER CLXXXIV.— To John Bell, Elder.
My very loving Friend, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you.
I have very often and long expected your letter, but if ye be well
in soul and body 1 am the less solicitous. I beseech you in the
Lord Jesus to mind your country above ; and now when old age,
the twilight going before the darkness of the grave, and the falling
low ot your sun before your night, is now come upon you, advise
with Christ, ere ye put your foot in the ship and turn your back
on this life. j\lany are beguiled with this, that they are free of
scandalous and crying abominations ; but the tree that bringeth
not forth good fruit is for the fire : the man that is not born again,
cannot enter into the kingdom of God ; common honesty will not
take men to heaven. Alas, that men should think they ever met
with Christ, who had never a sick night through the terrors of
God in their soul, or a sore heart for sm. I know the Lord hath
given you light and the knowledge of His will, but that is not all,
neither will that do your turn. I wish you an awakened soul, and
that ye beguile not yourself in the matter of your salvation. My
dear brother, search yourself with the candle of God, and try if the
life of God and Christ be in you. Salvation is not casten to every
man's door. Many are carried over sea and land to a far country
in a ship while-as they sleep much of all the way ; but men_are
not landed at heaven sleeping. The righteous are scarcely saved :
and many ruli as fast as eitlier ye or I, who miss the prize and the
^ Worthless. ^ Freighted,
LETTEli CLXXXV. 319
crown. God send me salvation, :vnd save me from a disappoint-
ment, and I seek no more. Men think it but a stride or a step
over to heaven ; but when so few are saved, even of a number
like the sand of the sea, but a handful and a remnant (as God's
word saith), what cause have we to shake ourselves out of our-
selves, and to ask our poor soul. Whither goest thou 1 where shalt
thou lodge at night 1 where are thy charters and writs of thy
heavenly inheritance ? I have known a man turn a key in a door
and lock it by.^ Many men leap over (as they think) and leap in.
0 see ! see that ye give not your salvation a wrong cast, and think
all is well, and leave your soul loose and uncertain : look to your
building, and to your ground-stone,- and what signs of Christ are
in you, and set this world behind your back. It is time now in
the evening to cease from your ordinary work, and high time to
know of your lodging at night. It is your salvation that is in
dependence, and that is a great and weighty business, though
many make light of the matter. Now, the Lord enable you by
His grace to work it out.
Your lawful and loving pastoi S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXV —To William Gordon of Roberton.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. So often
as I think on our case in our soldier's night-watch, and of our
fighting-life in the fields, while we are here, I am forced to say,
prisoners in a dungeon, condemned by a judge to want the light
of the sun, and moon, and candle, till their dying day, are no
more, nay, not so much to be pitied as we are ; for they weary of
their life, they hate their prison ; but we fall to in our prison,
where we see little, to drinlc ourselves drunk with the night-plea
sures of our weak dreams, and we long for no better life than this ;
but at the blast of the last trumpet, and the shout of the arch-
angel, when God shall take down the shepherd's tent of this
fading world, we shall not have so much as a drink of water of all
the dreams that we now build on. Alas ! that the sharp and
bitter blasts on face and sides, which meet us in this life, have
not learned ^ us mortification, and made us dead to this world !
We buy our own sorrow, and we pay dear for it, when we spend
out our love, our joy, our desires, our confidence, upon an handful
of snow and ice, that time will melt away to nothing, and go
thirsty out of the drunken inns when all is done. Alas, that we
inquire not for the clear fountain ; but are so foolish as to drink
foul, muddy, and rotten waters, even till our bed-time ; and then
^ Pa.sh. - Poundation-stone. ^ Taught.
320 LETTER CLXXXV.
in the resurrection, when we shall be awakened, our yesternight's
sour drink and swinish dregs shall rift up upon us ! and sick, sick
shall many a soul be then, I know no wholesome fountain but
one. I know not a thing worth the buying but heaven. And my
own mind is, if comparison were made betwixt Christ and heaven,
I would sell heaven with my blessing ^ and buy Christ. 0, if I
could raise the market for Christ, and heighten the market a pound
for a penny, and cry up Christ in men's estimation ten thousand
talents more than men think of Him ! But they are shaping Him,
and crying Him down, and valuing Him at their unworthy half-
penny ; or else exchanging and bartering Christ ■with the miser-
able old fallen house of this vain world, or then ^ they lend Him
out upon interest, and play the usurers with Christ ; because they
profess Him, and give out before men that Christ is their treasure
and stock, and in the meantime, praise of men, and a name, and
ease, and the summer-sun of the Gosj)el, is the usury they would
be at ; so when the trial cometh, they quit the stock for the in-
terest, and lose all. Happy are they who can keep Christ by
Himself alone, and keep Him clean and whole till God come and
count with them. I know in your hard and heavy ti'ials long
since, ye thought well and highly of Christ ; but truly no cross
should be old to us. We should not forget them because years
are come betwixt us and them, and cast them by-hand ^ as we do
old clothes. We may make a cross old in time, new in use, and
as fruitful as in the beginning of it. God is where and what He
was seven years ago, whatever change be in us : I speak not this,
as if I thought ye had forgotten what God did to have your love
long since ; but that ye may awake yourself in this sleepy age,
and remember fruitfully of Christ's first wooing and suiting* of
your love both with fire and water, and try if He got His answer;
or if ye be yet to give Him it. For I find in myself that water
runneth not faster through a sieve than our warnings slip from us ;
for I have lost and casten by-hands ^ many summonses the Lord
sent to me, and therefore the Lord hath given me double charges,
that, I trust in God, shall not rive ^ me. I bless His great name
who is no niggard in holding in crosses upon me, but spendeth
largely His rods, that He may save me from this perishing world.
How plentiful God is in means of this kind is esteemed by many
one of God's unkind mercies ; but Christ's cross is neither a cruel
nor unkind mercy, but the love-token of a Father. I am sure, a
lover chasing us for our well,'' and to have our love, should not be
run away from or fled from. God send me no worse mercy than
the sanctified cross of Christ portendeth, and I am sure I should
be happy and blest. Pray for me that I may find house-room in
^ Cheei'fuUy. " Else. ^ Aside. •* Suin}^. ^ Eend. ^ Good.
LETTER CLXXXVI, 321
the Lord's house to speak in His name. Remember my dearest
love in Christ to your wife. Grace, grace be Avith you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1636.
LETTER CLXXXVL— To my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied upon you. I have
reasoned with your son at large. I rejoice to see him set his face
in the right airt,^ now when the nobles love the sunny side of the
Gospel best, and are afraid that Christ wants soldiers, and shall
not be able to do for Himself. Madam, our debts of obligation to
Christ are not small ; the freedom of grace and salvation is the
wonder of man and angels, but mercy in our Lord scorneth hire.
Ye are bound to lift Christ on high, who hath given you eyes to
discern the devil now coming out in his whites, and the idolatry
and apostasy of the time, well washen with fair pretences ; but
the sin is black, and the water foul. It were art, I confess, to
wash a black devil and make him white. I am in strange ups and
downs, and seven times, a day I lose ground. I am put often to
swimming, and again my feet are set on the Rock that is higher
than myself. He hath now let me see four things I never saw
before. L The supper will be great cheer that is up in the great
hall with the royal King of glory, when the four-hours,a the stand-
ing-drink, in this driery^ wilderness, is so sweet. "When He
bloweth a kiss afar off to His poor heart-broken mourners in Zion,
and sendeth me but His hearty commendations till we meet, I am
confounded with wonder to think what it shall be when the fairest
among the sons of men shall lay a King's sweet soft cheek to the
sinful cheeks of poor sinners. 0 time, time, go swiftly and hasten
that day ! sweet Lord Jesus, post, come flying like a young hart or
a roe upon the mountains of separation. I think we should tell
the hours carefully, and look often how low the sun is. For love
hath no Ho,^ it is pained, pained in itself, till it come in grips witji
the party beloved. 2. I find Christ's absence love's sickness and
love's death. The wind that bloweth out of the airt ^ where my
Lord Jesus reigneth, is sweet-smelled, soft, joyful, and heartsome^
to a soul burnt with absence. It is a painful battle for a soul sick
of love to fight with absence and delays. Christ's "■ not yet," is a
stounding^ of all the joints and liths''^ of the soul; a nod of His
head, when He is under a mask, would be half a pawn ; to say,
" Fool, what aileth thee ? He is coming," would be life to a dead
^ Direction. ^ A slight meal taken at four o'clock. ^ Dreary.
* Arrest. 'Comfortable. ® Aching. Tolds.
322 LETTER CLXXXVI.
man. I am often in my dumb sabbaths seeking a new plea witli
my Lord Jesus, God forgive me, and I care not, if there be not
two or three ounce-weight of black wrath in my cup. 3. For the
third thing, I have seen my abominable vileness. If I were well
known, there would none in this kingdom ask how I do. Men
take my ten to be an hundred, but I am a deeper hypocrite and
shallower professor than every one believeth, God knoweth I feign
not. But I think my reckonings on the one page written in great
letters, and His mercy to such a forlorn and wretched dyvour ^ on
the other, more than a miracle. If I could get my finger ends
upon a full assurance, I trow, I should grip fast. But my cup
wanteth not gall, and upon my part despair might be almost ex-
cused, if every one in this land saw my inner side. But I know I
am one of them who have made great sale and a free market to
free grace. If I could be saved, as I would fain believe, sure I
am I have given Christ's blood. His free grace, and the bowels of
His mercy, a large field to work upon, and Christ hath manifested
His art (I dare not say to the uttermost : for He can, if He would,
forgive all the devils and damned reprobates in respect of the
wideness of His mercy), I say, to an admirable degree. 4. I am
stricken with fear of unthankfulness. This apostate kirk hath
played the harlot with many lovers ; they are spitting in the face
of my lovely King and mocking Him, and I dow^ not mend it;
and they are running away from Christ in troops, and I dow^ not
mourn and be grieved for it. I think Christ lieth, like an old
forecasten ^ castle, forsaken of the inhabitants : all men run away
now from Him. Truth, innocent truth, goeth mourning and
wringing her hands in sackcloth and ashes. Woe, woe, woe is
me, for the virgin daughter of Scotland. Woe, woe to the inhabi-
tants of this land, for they are gone back with a perpetual back-
sliding. These things take me so up, that a borrowed bed, an-
other man's fireside, the wind upon my face (I being driven from
my lovers, and dear acquaintance, and my poor flock), find no
room in my sorrow : I have no spare or odd sorrow for these.
Only I think the sparrows and swallows, that build their nests in
the kirk of Anwoth, blessed birds. Nothing hath given my faith
a harder back-set, till it crack again, than my closed mouth ; but
let me be miserable myself alone, God keep my dear brethren from
it. But still I keep breath, and when my royal and never, never-
enough-praised King returneth to His sinful prisoner, I ride upon
the high places of Jacob, I divide Shechem, I triumph in His
strength. If this kingdom would glorify the Lord in my behalf,
I desire to be weighed in God's even balance in this point ; if I
think not my wages paid to the full, I shall crave no more hire of
^ Debtor. * Can. ^ Abandoned.
LETTERS CLXXXVII. AND CLXXXVIII. 323
Christ. Madam, pity me in this, and help me to praise ilim. For
whatever I be the chief of sinners, a devil, and a most guilty
devil, yet it is the apple of Christ's eye, His honour and glory as
the head of the church, that I suffer for now, and that I will go
to eternity with. I am greatly in love with Mr. M. M. : I see
him stamped with the image of God. I hope well of your son, my
Lord Boyd. Your ladyship and your children have a prisoner',s
prayers. Grace, grace be with you.
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. K.
Aberdeen, May 1, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXVIL— To Mr. Thomas Garven.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, I rejoice
that ye cannot be quit of Christ (if I may speak so), but He must.
He will have you. Betake yourself to Christ, my dear brother.
It is a great business to make quit of superfluities, and ot those
things which Christ cannot dwell with. I am content with my
own cross, that Christ hath made mine by an eternal lot, because
it is Christ's and mine together. I marvel not that winter is with-
out heaven, for there is no winter within it. All the saints, there-
fore, have their own measure of winter before their eternal summer.
0 ! for the long day, and the high sun, and the fair garden, and
the King's great city up above these visible heavens ! What God
layeth on, let us suffer : for some have one cross, some seven, some
ten, some half a cross — yet all the saints have whole and full joy,
and seven crosses have seven joys Christ is cumbered with ^le
(to speak so) and my cross, but He falleth not off me, we are not
at variance. I find the very glooms of Christ's wooing a soul,
sweet and lovely. I had rather have Christ's buffet and love-stroke
than another king's kiss. Speak evil of Christ who will, I hope to
die with love-thoughts of Him. 0, that there are so few tongues
in heaven and earth to extol Him ! I wish His praises go not down
amongst us. Let not Christ be low and lightly esteemed in the
midst of us ; but let all hearts and all tongues cast in their portion,
and contribute something to make Him great in Mount Zion.
Thus recommending you to His grace, and remembering my love
to your wife and mother, and your kind brother R., and entreating
you to remember my bonds, I rest.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 8, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXVin.— To the Laird of Mo.\criefe.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
Although not acquaint, yet at the desire of your worthy sister, the
324 LETTER CLXXXVIII,
Lady Leys, and upon the reijort of your kindness to Christ and
His oppressed truth, I am bold to write to you, earnestly desiring
you to join with us (so many as in these bounds profess Christ), to
wrestle with God, one day of the week (especially the Wednesday),
for mercy to this fallen and decayed kirk, and to such as suffer for
Christ's name ; and for your own necessities, and the necessities of
others who are by covenant engaged in that business ; for we have
no other armour in these evil times but prayers, now when wrath
from the Lord is gone out against this backsliding land. For ye
know we can have no true public fasts, neither are the true causes
of our humiliation ever laid before the people. Now, very worthy
sir, I am glad in the Lord, that the Lord reserve th any of your
place, or of note, in this time of common apostasy, to come forth
in public to bear Christ's name before men, when the great men
think Christ a cumbersome neighbour, and that religion carrieth
hazards, trials, and persecutions with it. I persuade myself it is
your glory and your garland, and shall be your joy in the day of
Christ, and the standing of your house and seed to inherit the
earth, that ye truly and sincerely profess Christ. Neither is our
Kiug, whom the Father hath crowned in Mount Zion, so weak,
that He cannot do for Himself and His own cause. I verily
believe they are blessed who can hold the crown upon His head,
and carry up the train of His robe-royal, and that He shall yet be
victorious and triumph in this land. It is our part to back our
royal King, howbeit there were not six in the land to follow Him.
It is wisdom now to take up and discern the devil and the Anti-
christ coming out in their whites, and tbe apostasy and idolatry of
this land, washen with foul water : I confess it is art to wash the
devil till his skin be white. For myself, sir, I have bought a plea
against Christ since I came hither, in judging my princely Master
angry at me, because I was cast out of the vineyard as a withered
tree, my dumb sabbaths working me much sorrow. But I see now,
sorrow hath not eyes to read love written upon the cross of Christ,
and therefore I pass from my rash plea. Woe, woe is me that I
should have received a slander of Christ's love to my soul ; and
for all this, my Lord Jesus hath foi'given all, as not willing to be
heard with such a fool, and is content to be, as it were, confined
with me, and to bear me company, and to feast a poor oppressed
prisoner. And now I write it under my hand, worthy sir, that I
think well and honourably of this cross of Christ. I wonder that
He will take any glory from the like of me. I find that when He
but sendeth His hearty commendations to me, and but bloweth a
kiss afar off, I am confounded with wondering what the supper of
the Lamb will be, up in our Father's dining-palace of glory, since
LETTER CLXXXIX, 325
the four-hours^ in this dismal wilderness, and when in prisons, and
in our sad days, a kiss of Christ is so comfortable. 0, how sweet
and glorious shall our case be, when that fairest among the sons of
men shall lay His fair face to our now sinful faces, and wipe away
all tears from our eyes ! 0, time, time, run swiftly and hasten
that day ! 0, sweet Lord Jesus, come flying like a roe or a young
hart ! Alas ! that we, blind fools, are fallen in love with moon-
shine and shadows. How sweet is the wind that bloweth out of
the airt^ where Christ is ! Every day we may see some new thing
in Christ ; His love hath neither brim nor bottom. O if I had
help to praise Him ! He knoweth if my sufferings glorify His
name, and encourage others to stand fast for the honour of our
supreme Lawgiver Christ, my wages then are paid to the full.
Sir, help me to love that never-euough-praised' Lord. I find now
that the faith of the saints under suffering for Christ is fair before
the wind and with full sails carried upon Christ, and I hope to lose
nothing in this furnace but dross ; for Christ can triumph in a
weaker man than I am, it there be any such. And Avhen all is
done. His love paineth me, and leaveth me under such debt to
Christ, as I can neither pay principal nor interest. 0 if He would
comprise^ myself, and if I were sold to Him as a bondman, and
that He would take me home to His house and fireside ; for I have
nothing to render to Him ! Then, after me, let no man think hard
of Christ's sweet cross, for I would not change my sighs with the
painted laughter of all my adversaries. I desire grace in patience
to wait on, and to lie upon the brink till the Avater fill and flow :
I know He is fast coming. Sir, ye will excuse my boldness ; and
till it please God I see you, ye have the prayers of a prisoner of
Christ, to whom I recommend you, and in whom I rest.
Yours, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, May 14, 1637.
LETTER CLXXXIX.— To John Clark.
Loving Brother, — Hold fast Christ without wavering, and
contend for the faith, because Christ is not easily gotten nor kept.
The lazy professor hath put heaven (as it were) at the very next
door, and thinketh to fly up to heaven in his bed and in a night-
dream ; but truly that is not so easy a thing as most men believe.
Christ Himself did sweat ere Re won this city, howbeit He was
the free-born Heir. It is Christianicy, my heart, to be sincere,
unfeigned, honest, and upright-hearted before God ; and to live
and serve God, suppose there were not one man or woman in all
^ Kefection. ^ Quarter. ^ Arrest.
326 LETTER CXC.
the world dwelling beside you, to eye you. Any little grace that
ye have, see that it be sound and true. Ye may put a difference
betwixt you and reprobates if ye have these marks. 1. If ye
prize Christ and His truth, so as ye will sell all and buy Him, and
suffer for it. 2. If the love of Christ keepeth you back from sin-
ning, more than the law or fear of hell. 3. If ye be humble, and
deny your own will, wit, credit, ease, honour, the world and
the vanity and glory of it. 4. Your profession must not be
barren and void of good Avorks. 5. Ye must in all things aim
at God's honour ; ye must eat, drink, sleep, buy, sell, sit, stand,
speak, pray, read, and hear the word with a heart-purpose that
God may be honoured. 6. Ye must show yourself an enemy to
sin, and reprove the works of darkness, such as drunkenness,
swearing, and lying, albeit the company should hate you for doing
so. 7. Keep in mind the truth of God that ye heard me teach,
and have nothing to do with the corruptions and new guises
entered into the house of God. 8. Make conscience of your call-
ing, in covenants, in buying, and selling. 9. Acquaint yourself
with daily praying, commit all your ways and actions to God by
prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, and count not much of
being mocked ; for Christ Jesus was mocked before you. Persuade
3''ourself that this is the way of peace and comfort I now suffer
for. I dare go to death and into eternity with it, though men
may possibly seek another way. Remember me in your prayers,
and the state of this oppressed church. Grace be with you.
Your soul's well wisher, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXC— To Cardonness, Elder.
Much honoured Sir, — I long to hear how your soul pros-
pereth. I wonder that ye write not to me, for the Holy Ghost
beareth me witness, I cannot, 1 dare not, I do not forget you, nor
the souls of those with you, who are redeemed by the blood of
the great Shepherd. Ye are in my heart in the night-watches, ye
are my joy and crown in the day of Christ. 0 Lord, bear wit-
ness, if my soul thirsteth for anything out ot heaven, more than
for your salvation. Let God lay me in an even balance and try
me in this. Love heaven. Let your heart be on it. Up, up and
visit the new land, and view the fair city, and the white throne
and the Lamb, the bride's Husband, in His Bridegroom's clothes,
sitting on it. It were time your soul should cast itself and all
your burdens upon Christ. I beseech you by the wounds oi your
Redeemer, and by your compearance before Him, and by the sal-
vation of your soul, lose no more time ; run fast, for it is late ;
LETTER CXC. 327
God hath sworn by Himself, who made the world and time, that
time shall be no more (Rev. x.) Ye are now upon the very
border of the other life : your Lord cannot be blamed for not
giving you warning. I have taught the truth of Christ to you,
and delivered unto you the whole counsel of God, and I have
stood before the Lord for you, and I shall yet still stand : awake,
awake to do righteously. Think not to be eased of the burdens
and debts that are on your house by oppressing any, or being
rigorous to those that are under you. Remember how I endea-
voured to walk before you in this matter as an example : " Be-
hold here am I, witness against me, before the Lord and His
anointed, whose ox or whose ass have I taken? Whom have I
defrauded 1 Whom have I oppressed ]" Who knoweth how my
soul feedeth upon a good conscience, when I remember how I
spent this body in feeding the lambs of Christ ? At my first entry
hither, I grant, I took a stomach ^ against my Lord, because He
had casten me over the dyke ^ of the vineyard as a dry tree, and
would have no more of my service. My dumb sabbaths broke
my heart, and I would not be comforted : but now He, whom my
soul loveth, is come again, and it pleaseth Him to feast me with
the kisses of His love. A King dineth with me, and His spike-
nard casteth a sweet smell : the Lord my witness is above, that I
write my heart to you. I never knew, by my nine years' preach-
ing, so much of Christ's love, as He hath taught me in Aberdeen
by six months' imprisonment. I charge you in Christ's name,
help me to praise, and show that people and country the loving
kindness of the Lord to my soul, that so my sufferings may some-
way preach to them when I am silent. He hath made me know
now, better than before, what it is to be crucified to the world. I
would not now give a drink of cold water for all the world's kind-
ness ; I owe no service to it, I am not the flesh's debtor. My
Lord Jesus hath dauted ^ His prisoner, and hath thoughts of love
concerning me. I would not exchange my sighs with the laugh-
ing of my adversaries. Sir, I write this to inform you, that ye
may know it is the truth of Christ I now sufifer for, and He hath
sealed my suff'erings with the comforts of His Spirit on my soul ;
and 1 know He putteth not His Seal upon blank paper. Now, sir,
I have no comfort earthly but to know that I have espoused, and
shall present a bride to Christ in that congregation. The Lord
hath given you much, and therefore He will require much of you
again. Number your talents, and see what ye have to render
back again ; ye cannot be enough persuaded of the shortness of
yonr time. I charge you to write to me, and in the fear of God
be plain with me, whether or no ye have made your salvation
^ Displeasure. ' Wall. * Fondled.
328 LETTEE CXC.
sure. I am confident and hope the best; but 1 know, your
reckonings with your Judge are many and deep. Sir, be not be-
guiled, neglect not your one thing (Phil. iii. 13), your one neces-
sary thing (Luke x. 42), the good part that shall not be taken
from you. Look beyond time ; things here are but moonshine,
they have but children's wit who are delighted with shadows, and
deluded with feathers flying in the air. Desire your children, in
the morning of their life, to begin and seek the Lord, and to re-
member their Creator in the days of their youth (Eccles. xii. 1),
to cleanse their way, by taking heed thereto, according to God's
word (Ps. cxix. 9) ; youth is a glassy age. Satan finds a swept
chamber (for the most part) in youthhood, and a garnished lodg-
ing for himself and his train. Let the Lord have the flower of
their age. The best sacrifice is due to Him. Instruct them in
this, that they have a soul, and that this life is nothing in com-
parison of eternity. They will have much need of God's conduct
in this world, to guide them by^ those rocks upon which most men
split ; but far more need when it cometh to the hour of death and
their compearance before Christ. 0, that there were such a heart
in them to fear the name of the great and dreadful God, who hath
laid up great things for those that love and fear Him ! I pray
that God may be their portion. Show others of my parishioners,
that I write to them my best wishes and the blessings of their
lawful pastor. Say to them from me, that I beseech them, by the
bowels of Christ, to keep in mind the doctrine of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, which I taught them, that so they may lay
hold on eternal life, striving together for the faith of the Gospel,
and making sure salvation to themselves. Walk in love and do
righteousness : seek peace, love one another, wait for the coming
of our Master and Judge : receive no doctrine contrary to that
which I delivered to you. If ye fall awiiy, and forget it and that
catechism which I taught you, and so forsake your own mercy,
the Lord be judge betwixt you and me. I take heaven and earth
to witness, that such shall eternally perish : but if they serve the
Lord, great will their reward be when they and I shall stand be-
fore our Judge. Set forward up the mountain to meet with God:
climb up, for your Saviour calleth on you. It may be, God will
call you to your rest when I am far from you, but ye have my
love and the desires of my heart for your soul's Avelfare. He that
is holy, keep you from falling, and establish you, till His own
glorious appearance.
Your affectionate and lawful pastor, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
^Past.
LETTER CXCl. 329
LETTER CXGI.— To Cardonness, Younger.
Much honoured Sir, — I long to hear whether or not your
soul be hand-fasted^ with Christ. Lose your time no longer. Flee
the folUes of youth. Gird up the loins of your mind, and make
you ready for meeting the Lord. I have often summoned you,
and now I summon you again, to compear before your Judge, to
make a reckoning of your life : while ye have time, look upon
your papers, and consider your ways. 0 that there were such an
heart in you, as to think what an ill conscience will be to you,
when ye are upon the border of eternity, and your one foot out of
time. 0, then, ten thousand, thousand floods of tears cannot ex-
tinguish these flames, or purchase to you one hour's release from
that pain. 0 how sweet a day have ye had ! But this is a fair
day that runneth fast away, see how ye have spent it, and con-
sider the necessity of salvation : and tell me (in the fear of God)
if ye have made it sure. I am persuaded ye have a conscience
that will be speaking somewhat to you. Why will ye die and
destroy yourself? I charge you in Christ's name to rouse up your
conscience, and begin to indent and contract with Christ in time,
while salvation is in your ofier. This is the accepted time, this
is the day of salvation. Play the merchant, for ye cannot expect
another market-day when this is done; therefore, let me again be-
seech you to " consider in this your day, the things that belong
to your peace, before they be hid from your eyes." Dear brother,
fulfil my joy, and begin to seek the Lord while He may be found.
Forsake the follies of deceiving and vain youth. Lay hold upon
eternal life. Whoring, night-drinking, and mis-spending of the
sabbath, the neglecting of prayer in your house, and refusing of
an ofl"ered salvation, will burn up your soul with the terrors of the
Almighty, when your awakened conscience shall flee in your face.
Be kind and loving to your wife ; make conscience of cherishing
her, and not being rigidly austere. Sir, I have not a tongue to
express the glory that is laid up for you in your Father's house, if
ye reform your doings, and frame your heart to return to the
Lord. Ye know, this world is but a shadow, a short-living crea-
ture, under the law of time ; within less than fifty years, when ye
look back to it, ye shall laugh at the evanishing vanities thereof,
as feathers flying in the air, and as the houses of sand within the
sea-mark, which the children of men are building. Give up with
courting of this vain Avorld. Seek not the bastard's movables,
but the son's heritage in heaven. Take a trial of Christ, look
unto Him, and His love shall so change you, that ye shall be
taken with Him, and never choose to go from Him. I have ex-
Covenanted.
330 LETTER CXCII.
perience of Ilis sweetness in tins house of my pilgrimage here.
My witness, who is above, knoweth I would not exchange my
sighs and tears with the laughing of the fourteen prelates. There
is nothing will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the
sweetness of Christ ; Come and see will speak best to your soul. 1
would fain hope good of you : be not discouraged at broken and
spilt ^ resolutions ; but to it, and to it again. Woo about Christ
till you get your soul espoused as a chaste virgin to Him : use the
means of profiting with your conscience. Pray in your family,
and read the word. Remember how our Lord's day was spent
when I was among you. It will be a great challenge to you before
God, if ye forget the good that was done within the walls of your
house on the Lord's days ; and if ye turn aside after the fashions
of this world, and if ye go not in time to the kirk to wait on the
public worship of God, and if ye tarry not at it till all the exer-
cises of religion be ended. Give God some of your time, both
morning, and evening, and afternoon ; and, in so doing, rejoice
the heart of a poor oppressed prisoner. Rue ^ upon your own
soul, and from your heart fear the Lord. Now, " He that brought
again from the dead, the great Shepherd of His sheep, by the
blood of the eternal covenant, establish your heart with His grace,
and present you before His presence with joy."
Your affectionate and loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCn.— To Carletown.
Much honoured Sir, — I will not impute your not writing to
me to forgetfulness : however, I have One above who forgetteth
me not ; nay. He groweth in His kindness. It has pleased His
holy Majesty to take me from the pulpit, and teach me many
things in my exile and prison that were mysterious to me before.
As, L I see His bottomless and boundless love and kindness, and
my jealousies and ravings, which, at my first entry into this
furnace, were so foolish and bold, as to say to Christ, who is
Truth itself, in His face, Thou liest. I had well nigh lost my
grips. I wondered if it was Christ or not; for the mist and
smoke of my perturbed heart made me mistake my Master Jesus.
My faith was dim, and hope frozen and cold, and my love, which
caused jealousies, it had some warmness and heat and smoke, but
no flame at all : yet I was looking for some good of Christ's old
claim to me. I thought I had forfeited all my rights, but the
tempter was too much upon my counsels, and was stiil blowing
the coal. Alas ! I knew not well before how good skill my Inter-
1 Spoiled. » Take pity.
LETTER CXCII. 331
cesser and Advocate, Christ, hath of pleading and pardoning me
such follies. Now He is returned to my soul with healing under
His wings, and I am nothing behind with Christ now, for He hath
overpaid me by His presence the pain I was put to by on-waiting,
and any little loss I sustained by my witnessing against the
wrongs done to Him. I trow, it was a pain to my Lord to hide
Himself any longer. In a manner, He was challenging His own un-
kindness, and repented Him of His glooms : and now what want
Ion earth that Christ can give to a poor prisoner ? 0, how sweet
and lovely is He now ! Alas, that I can get none to help me to
lift up my Lord Jesus upon His throne above all the earth. 2. I
am now brought to some measure of submission, and I resolve to
wait till I see what my Lord Jesus will do with me. I dare not
now nick-name or speak one word against the all-seeing and
over-watching providence of my Lord. I see, Providence runneth
not on broken wheels ; but I, like a fool, carved a providence for
mine own ease, to die in my nest, and to sleep still till my gray
hairs, and to lie on the sunny side of the mountain, in my ministry
at Anwoth. But now I have nothing to say against a borrowed
fireside and another man's house, nor Kedar's tents, where I live,
being removed far from my acquaintance, my lovers, and my
friends. I see, God hath the world on His wheels, and casteth ^
■ it as a potter doth a vessel on the wheel. I dare not say that
there is any inordinate or irregular motion in providence; the
Lord hath done it, I will not go to law with Christ, for I would
gain nothing of that. 3. I have learned some greater mortifica-
tion, and not to mourn after or seek to suck the world's dry
breasts. Nay, my Lord hath filled me with such dainties, that I
am like to a full banqueter, who is not for common cheer. What
have I to do to fall down upon my knees and worship mankind's
great idol, the world 1 I have a better God than any clay god ;
nay, at present, as I am now disposed, I care not much to give
this world a discharge of my life-rent of it, for bread and water ;
I know it is not my home, nor my Father's house, it is but His
footstool, the outer close of His house, His out-field and moor-
ground. Let bastards take it, I hope never to think myself in its
common ^ for honour or riches ; nay, now, I say to laughter, thou
art madness. 4. I find it most true, that the greatest temptation
out of hell, is, to live without temptations ; if my waters should
stand, they Avould rot. Faith is the better of the free air, and of
the sharp Avinter storm in its face. Grace withereth without
adversity. The devil is but God's master-fencer, to teach us to
handle our weapons. I never knew how weak I was till now,
when He hideth HimseL, and when I have Him to seek seven
1 Mouldetli. ' Dul>t
332 LETTER CXCIll.
times a day. I am a dry and withered branch, and a piece of a
dead carcase, dry bones, and not able to step over a straw. The
thoughts of my old sins are as the summons of death to me. And
of late, my brother's case hath stricken me to the heart. When
my wounds are closing, a little riffle ^ causeth them to bleed afresh.
So thin-skinned is my soul, that I think it is like a tender man's
skin, that may touch nothing. Ye see how short I would shoot
of the prize, if His grace were not sufficient for me. Woe is me
for the day of Scotland ; woe, woe is me for my harlot mother,
for the decree is gone forth ; women of this land shall call the
childless and miscarrying wombs blessed. The anger of the Lord
is gone forth, and shall not return till He perform the purpose of
His heart against Scotland. Yet He shall make Scotland a new
sharp instrument having teeth, to thresh the mountains and fan
the hills as chaff. The prisoner's blessing be upon you.
Yours, in His sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, March 14, 1637.
LETTER CXOni— To the Lady Busbie.
Mistress, — I know ye are thinking sometimes what Christ is
doing in Zion, and that the haters of Zion may get the bottom of
our cup, and the burning coals of our furnace, that we have been
tried in those many years by-gone. 0, that this nation would be
awakened to cry mightily unto God, for the setting up of a new
tabernacle to Christ in Scotland. 0, if this kingdom knew how
worthy Christ were of His room ; His worth was ever above man's
estimation of Him. And for myself, I am pained at the heart
that I cannot find myself disposed to leave myself and go wholly
into Christ. Alas, that there should be one bit of me out of Him,
and that we leave too much liberty and latitude for ourselves, and
our own ease, and credit, and pleasures, and so little room for all-
love-worthy Christ ! O what pains and charges it costeth Christ
ere He get us ; and when all is done, we are not worth the having.
It is a wonder that He should seek the like of us, but love over-
looketh blackness and fecklessness : ^ for if it had not been so,
Christ would never had made so fair and blessed a bargain with
us, as the covenant of grace is. I find that in all our sufi'erings,
Christ is but ridding marches,^ that every one ot us may say, mine
and thine, and that men may know by their crosses, how weak a
bottom nature is to stand upon in a trial; that then* which our Lord
intendetli in all our sufferings, is, to bring grace in court and re-
quest amongst us. I would succumb and come short of heaven if
I had no more but my own strength to support me. And if Christ
^Disturbance. - Worthlessness. ^ Defining boundaries. ■• Q". "Theend"?
LETTER CXCIII. 333
should say to me, either do or die, it were easy to determine what
should become of me ; the choice were easy, for I behoved to die,
if Christ should pass by with straitened bowels ; and who then
would take us up in our straits 1 I know, we may say, that Christ
is kindest in His love when we are at our weakest ; and that if
Christ had not been to the fore,^ in our sad days, the waters had
gone over our soul. His mercy hath a set period and appointed
place, how far and no further the sea of affliction shall flow, and
where the waves thereof shall be stayed : He prescribeth how
much pain and sorrow, both for weight and measure, we must
have. Ye have then good cause to recal your love from all lovers
and give it to Christ. He who is afflicted in all your afflictions,
looketh not on you in your sad hours with an insensible heart or
dry eyes. All the Lord's saints may see that it is lost love which
is bestowed upon this perishing world. Death and judgment will
make men lament that ever their miscarrying hearts carried them
to lay and lavish out their love upon false appearances and night-
dreams. Alas ! that Christ should fare the worse, because of His
own goodness, in making peace and the Gospel to ride together ;
and that we have never yet weighed the worth of Christ in His
ordinances, and that now we are like to be deprived of the well,
ere we have tasted the sweetness of the water. It may be with
watery eyes, and a wet face and wearied feet, we seek Christ, and
shall not find Him. 0, that this land were humbled in time, and
by prayers, cries, and humiliation, would bring Christ in at the
church-door again, now when His back is turned toward us, and
He is gone to the threshold, and His one foot (as it were) is out
of the door. I am sure His departure is our deserving, we have
bought it with our iniquities ; for even the Lord's own children
are fallen asleep. And, alas ! professors are made all of shows and
fashions, and are not at pains to recover themselves again. Every
one hath his set measure of faith and holiness, and contenteth
himself with a stinted measure of godliness, as if that were enough
to bring them to heaven. We forget, that as our gifts and light
grow, so God's gain and the interest of His talents should grow
also, and that we cannot pay God with the old use and wont (as
Ave use to speak) which we gave Him seven years ago ; for this
were to mock the Lord, and to make price with Him as we list.
0 what difficulty is there in our Christian journey, and how often
come we short of many thousand things that are Christ's due :
and we consider not how far our dear Lord is behind with us !
Mistress, I cannot render you thanks, as I would, for your kind-
ness to my brother, an oppressed stranger ; but I remember you
unto the Lord, as I am able. I entreat you, think upon me, His
* Present.
334 LETTER CXCIV.
prisoner ; and pray, that the Lord would be pleased to give ms
room to speak to His people in His name. Grace, grace be with
you. Yours^ in his sweet Lord and Master, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCIV.— To Fulwood, Younger.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
Upon the report of this worthy bearer concerning you, I thought
good to speak a word to you : it is enough for acquaintance, that
Ave are one in Christ. My earnest desire to you is, that ye would,
in the fear of God, compare your inch and hand-lareadth of time
with vast eternity, and your thoughts of this now fair, blooming,
and green world with the thoughts ye shall have of it, when cor-
ruption and worms shall make their houses in your eye-holes, and
shall eat your flesh, and make that body dry bones : if you do so_,
I know then that your light ^ of this world's vanity shall be more
clear than now it is ; and I am persuaded, ye shall then think that
men's labours for this clay-idol are to be laughed at. Therefore
come near and take a view of that transparent beauty that is in
Christ, which would busy the love of ten thousand millions of
worlds and angels, and hold them all all work. Surely I am
grieved that men will not spend their whole love upon that royal
and princely Well-Beloved, that high and lofty One. For it is
cursed love that runneth another way than upon Him. And for
myself, if I had ten loves, and ten souls, 0, how glad would I be,
if He would break in upon me, and take possession of them all !
Woe, woe is me that He and I are so far asunder ! I hope we
shall be in one country and one house together. Truly pain of
love-sickness for Jesus maketh me to think it long, long, long to
the dawning of that day. 0, that He would cut short years, and
months, and hours, and overleap time, that we might meet ! A.nd
iof this truth, sir, that ye profess, I avow before the world of men
and angels, that it is the way and only way to our country, the
rest are by-ways ; and that what I sufier for is the apple of Christ's
eye, even His honour as Lawgiver and King of His church. I
think death too little ere I forsook it.^ Do not, sir, I beseech you
in the Lord, make Christ's court thinner by drawing back from
Him ; it is too thin already ; for I dare pledge my heaven upon
it, He shall win this plea, and the fools that plea against Him
shall lose the wager, which is their part of salvation, except they
take better heed to their ways. Sir, free grace, that we give no
hire lor, is a jewel our Lord giveth to few. Stand fast in the
hope ye are called unto. Our Master will rend the clouds, and
^ Qu. " Sight " ?
' 'I'hat is, I think death an insufficient cause for my forsaking it.
LETTER CXCV. 335
will be upon us quickly, and clear our cause, aud bring us all out
in our blacks and whites. Clean, clean garments, in the Bride-
groom's eye, are of great worth. Step over this hand-breadth of
world's glory into our Lord's new world of grace, and ye will
laugh at the feathers that children are chasing in the air. I verily
judge, that this inns, men are building their nest in, is not worth
a drink of cold water. It is a rainy and smoky house : best we
come out of it, lest we be choked with the smoke thereof. 0,
that my adversaries knew how sweet my sighs for Christ are, and
what it were for a sinner to lay his head between Christ's breasts,
and to be over head and ears in Christ's love ! Alas, I cannot
cause paper speak the height, and breadth, and depth of it ! I
have not a balance to weigh my Lord Jesus' worth. Heaven,
ten heavens, would not be the beam of a balance to weigh Him
in. I must give over praising of Him. Angels see but little of
Him. 0 if that fair One would take off the mask off His fair face
that I might see Him ! a kiss of Him through His mask is half a
heaven. 0 day, dawn 1 0 time, run fast ! 0 Bridegroom, post,
post fast, that we may meet ! 0 heavens, cleave in two, that
that bright face and head may set itself through the clouds ! 0
that the corn were ripe, and this world prepared for His hook ! ^
Sir, be pleased to remember a prisoner's bonds. Grace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 10, 1637.
LETTER CXCV.— To Mr. Hugh M'Kaill.
My very dear Brother, — Ye know that men may take their
sweet fill of the sour law in grace's ground and betwixt the
Mediator's breasts, and this is the sinner's safest way ; for there
is a bed for wearied sinners to rest them in, in the new covenant,
though no bed of Christ's making to sleep in. The law shall
never be my doomster,^ by Christ's grace, if I get no more good
of it. I shall find a sore enough doom in the Gospel to humble
and to cast me down. It is (I grant) a good rough friend to
follow a traitor to the bar, and to back him, till he come to Christ.
We may blame ourselves, who cause the law to crave well paid
debt, to scar ^ us away from Jesus and dispute about a righteous-
ness of our own, a world in the moon, a chimera, and a night-
dream, that pride is father and mother to. There cannot be a
more humble soul than a believer ; it is no pride for a drowning
man to catch hold of a rock. I rejoice that the wheels of this
confused world are rolled and cogged, and driven according as our
Lord will. Out of whatever airt* the wind blow, it will blow us on
^ Sickle. * Prononneer of my sentence. ^ Frighten. ■* Quarter.
336 LETTEK CXCVI.
our Lord : no wind can blow our sails overboard, because Christ's
skill and the honour of His wisdom are empawned and laid down
at the stake for the sea-passengers, that He shall put them safe off
His hand on the shore, in His Father's known bounds, our native
home ground. My dear brother, scare ^ not at the cross of
Christ. It is not seen yet what Christ will do for you when it
cometh to the worst; He will keep His grace till ye be at a strait,
and then bring forth the decreed birth for your salvation. Ye
are an arrow of His own making, let Him shoot you against a wall
of brass, your point shall keep whole. I cannot, for multitude of
letters and distractions of friends, prepare what I would for the
times. I have not one hour of spare time, suppose the day were
forty hours long. Eemember me in prayer. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 5, 1637.
LETTER CXCVL— To his Reverend and Dear Brother, Mr.
David Dickson.
My reverend and dear Brother, — I fear ye have never
known me well. If ye saw my inner side, it is possible ye would
pity me, but ye would hardly give me either love or respect.
Men mistake me the whole length of the heavens. My sins
prevail over me, and the terrors of their guiltiness. I am put
often to ask, if Christ and I did ever shake hands together in
earnest. I mean not that my feast-days are quite gone, but I am
made of extremities. I pray God, ye never have the woeful and
driery ^ experience of a closed mouth ; for then ye shall judge the
sparrows that may sing in the church of Irwin, blessed birds.
But my soul has been refreshed and watered, when I hear of your
courage and zeal for your never-enough-praised, praised Master, in
that ye put the men of God, chased out of Ireland, to work. 0,
if I could confirm you ! I dare say in God's presence, that this
shall never hasten your suffering, but shall be David Dickson's
feast and speaking joy, that while he had time and leisure, he put
many to work, to lift up Jesus, his sweet Master, high in the
skies. 0 man of God, go on, go on, be valiant for that plant of
renown, for that Chief among ten thousands, for that Prince
of the kings of the earth. It is but little that I know of God, yet
this I dare write, Christ shall be glorified in David Dickson,
howbeit Scotland be not gathered. I am pained, pained, that I
have not more to give my sweet Bridegroom ; His comforts
to me are not dealt with a niggard's hand, but I would fain learn
not to idoliae comfort, sense, joy, and sweet-felt presence. All
^ Bogle. 2 Dreary.
LETTER CXCVII. 337
these are but creatures, and nothing but the kingly robe, the gold
ring, and the bracelets of the Bridegroom : the Bridegroom
Himself is better than all the ornaments that are about Him.
Now I would not so much have these as God Himself, and to be
swallowed up of love to Christ. I see, in delighting in a com-
munion with Christ, we may make more gods than one; but,
however, all was but bairn's play between Christ and me till
now. If one would have sworn unto me, I would not have
believed what may be found in Christ. I hope ye pity my pain
that 1 much, in my prison, as to help me yourself, and to cause
others to help me, a dyvour,^ a sinful wretched dyvour,^ to pay
some Oi my debts of praise to my great King. Let my God be
judge and witness, if my soul would not have sweet ease and
comfort to have many hearts confirmed in Christ and enlarged
with His love, and many tongues set on work to set on high my
royal and princely Well-Beloved. 0, that my sufferings could
pay tribute to such a King ! I have given over wondering at His
love ; for Christ hath manifested a piece of art upon me, that I
never revealed to any living; He hath gotten fair and rich
employment, and sweet sale, and a goodly market for His
honourable calling of showing mercy on me, the chief of sinners.
Every one knoweth not so well as I do, my woefully often broken
covenants ; my sins against light, working in the very act of sin-
ning, hath been met with admirable mercy ; but alas ! He will
get nothing back again but wretched unthankfulness ! I am
sure, if Christ pity anything in me, next to my sin, it is pain and
love for an armful and soulful of Himself, in faith, love, and
begun fruition. My sorrow is, that I cannot get Christ lifted oflf
the dust in Scotland, and set on high, above all the skies and
heaven of heavens. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R,
Aberdeen, May 1, 1637.
LETTER CXCVn.— To his Reverend and Dear Brother, Mr.
John Livingstone.
My reverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. I long to hear from you, and to be refreshed with the
comforts of the bride of our Lord Jesus in Ireland. I suffer with
you in grief, for the dash that your desires to be at N. E. have
received of late. But if our Lord, who hath skill to bring up His
children, had not seen it your best, it should not have befallen
you. Hold your peace, and stay yourselves upon the Holy One
of Israel. Hearken what He saith in crossing of your desires. He
will speak peace to His people. I am here removed from my
1 So. * Debtor.
Y
338 LETTEK CXCVII.
flock, and silenced, and confined in Aberdeen, for the testimony of
Jesus. And I have been confined in spirit also with desertions
and challenges. I gave in a bill of quarrels and complaints
of unkindness against Christ, who seemed to cast me over the
dyke ^ of the vineyard as a dry tree, and separated me from the
Lord's inheritance. But high, high, and loud praises be to our
royal crowned King in Zion, that He hath not burnt the dry
branch. I shall yet live and see His glory. Your mother-
church for her whoredom is like to be cast off. The bairns may
break their heart to see such chiding betwixt the husband and the
wife. Our clergy is upon a reconciliation with the Lutherans, and
the doctors are writing books and drawing up a common confes-
sion at the Council's command. Our service-book is proclaimed
with sound of trumpet. The night is fallen down upon the
prophets. Scotland's day of visitation is come. It is time for the
bride to weep, while Christ is a-saying. He wOl choose another
wife. But our sky will clear again. The dry branch of cut down
Lebanon will bud again and be glorious, and they shall yet plant
vines upon her mountains. Now, my dear brother, I write to you
for this end, that ye may help me to praise, and seek help of
others with you, that God may be glorified in my bonds. My Lord
Jesus hath taken the withered, dry stranger, and His broken-in-heart
prisoner, into His house of wine. 0 ! 0 ! If ye and all Scotland,
and all our brethren with you, knew how I am feasted ! Christ's
honeycombs drop comforts. He dineth with His prisoner, and
the King's spikenard casteth a smell. The devil cannot get it
denied but^ we suff"er for the apple of Christ's eye, His royal
prerogatives as King and Lawgiver. Let us not fear or faint.
He will have His gospel once again rouped in Scotland, and have
the matter going to voices^ to see who will say, let Christ be
crowned King in Scotland. It is true. Antichrist stirreth his tail,
but I love a rumbling and raging devil in the kirk (since the
church militant cannot, or may not want a devil to trouble her) rather
than a subtle or sleeping devil. Christ never yet got a bride
without stroke of sword. It is now nigh the Bridegroom's
entering into His chamber, let us awake and go in with Him. I
bear your name to Christ's door. I pray you, dear brother, forget
me not. Let me hear from you by a letter, and I charge you,
smother not Christ's bounty towards me. I write what I have
found of Him in the house of my pilgrimage. Remember my
love to our brethren and sisters there. The Keeper of the
vineyard watch for His besieged city, and for you.
Your brother, and follow-sufFerer, S. R
Aberdeen, Feb. 7, 1637.
1 Wall. 2 That. » Put to the vote.
LETTERS CXCVIII. AND CXCIX. 339
LETTER CXCVIIL— To Mr. Ephraim Melvin.
Reverend and dear Brother, — I received your letter, and am
contented with all my heart that our acquaintance in our Lord
continue. I am wrestling, as I dow,^ up the mount with Christ's
cross. My second is kind, and able to help. As for your ques-
tions, because of my manifold distractions and letters to multitudes,
I have not time to answer them. What shall be said in common-
for that shall be imparted to you, for I am upon these questions ;
therefore spare me a little, for the service-book would take a great
time. But I think, Sicut deosculatio religiosa imaginis, aut etiam
elementorum, est in se idololatria externa, etsi intentio deosculandi iota,
quanta in actu est, feratur in Deu^n wpMrorvTrov ; ita geniculatio coram
pane, quando, nempe, ex instituto totus homo externus et internus versari
debeat circa elementaria signa, est adoratio relativa, et adoraiio ipslus
panis. Ratio : intentio adorandi objectum materiale, non est de essentia
externce adorationis, ut patet in deosculatione religiosa. Sic, geniculatio
coram imagine Babylonicd est externa adoratio imaginis, etsi tres puer'
mente intendissent adorare Jehovam ; sic qui ex metu solo, aut spe pretii
aid inanis glorice, geniculatur coram aureo vitulo Jeroboami (quod ab ipso
rege, qui omlla religione inducius, sed libidine dominandi tantum,
vitulum erexit, factitatum esse, textus satis luculenter clamat), adorat
vitulum externa adoratione ; esto quodputaret vitulum esse meram crea-
turam, et lionore mdlo dignum : quia geniculatio, sive nos nolumus sive
volumus, ex instituto Dei et naturoe, in actu religiose, est symbolum re-
ligiosce adorationis. Ergo, sicut panis signat corpus Christi, etsi absit
actus omnis nostrce intentionis, sic religiosa geniculatio, sublatd omni in-
tentione humana, est externa adoratio panis, coram quo adoramus, ut
coram signo vicario et reprcesentativo Dei. Thus recommending you
to Grod's tender mercy, I desire that ye would remember me to God.
Sanctification shall settle you most in the truth. Grace be with
you. Your brother in Christ Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CXCIX.— To a Gentlewoman upon the Death of her
Husband.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I cannot but
rejoice and withal be grieved at your case. It hath pleased the
Lord to remove your husband (my friend, and this kirk's faithful
professor) soon to his rest ; but shall we be sorry that our loss is
his gain, seeing his Lord would want his company no longer?
Tliink not much of short summons ; for seeing he walked with his
' Can. " What he is preparing for publication.
340 LETTER CXCIX.
Lord in his life, and desired that Christ should be magnified in
liim at his death, ye ought to be silent and satisfied. When Christ
Cometh for his own He runneth fast. Mercy, mercy to the saints
goeth not at leisure ; love, love in our Redeemer is not slow ; and
withal He is homely ^ with you, who cometh at His own hand to
your house, and intromitteth, as a friend, witli anything that is
yours. I think He would fain borrow and lend with you. Now
he shall meet with the solacious - company, the fair flock, and
blessed bairn-teem ^ of the first-born, banqueting at the marriage-
supper of the Lamb. It is mercy that the poor wandering sheep
get a dyke-side in this stormy day, and a leaking ship a safe har-
bour, and a sea-sick passenger a sound and soft bed ashore. Wrath,
wrath, wrath from the Lord is coming upon this land that he hath left
behind him. Know therefore, that your Lord Jesus His wounds
are the wounds of a lover, and that He will have compassion upon
a sad-hearted servant, and that Christ hath said He will have the
husband's room in your heart. He loved 3^ou in your first husband's
time, and He is but wooing you still ; give Him heart and chair,
house and all. He will not be made companion with any other ;
love is full of jealousies, He will have all your love, and avIio should
get it but He 1 I know, ye allow it upon Him ; there are comforts,
both sweet and satisfying, laid up for you, wait on. Frist ^ Christ,
He is an honest debtor. Now for mine own case, I think some
poor body would be glad of a dauted ^ prisoner's leavings. I have
no scarcity of Christ's love. He hath wasted more comforts upon
His poor banished servant, than would have refreshed many souls.
My burden was once so heavy, that one ounce-weight would have
casten the balance and broken my back ; but Christ said, hold,
hold, to my sorrow, and hath wiped a bluthered ^ face, Avhich was
foul with weeping. I may joyfully go my Lord's errands with
wages in my hands ; deferred hopes need not to make me dead-
swier ^ (as we use to say) ; my cross is both my cross and my re-
ward. 0 ! that men would sound His high praises ! I love Christ's
worst reproaches, His glooms, His cross, better than all this world's
plastered glory ; my heart is not longing to be back again from
Christ's country, it is a sweet soil I am come to. I (if any in the
world) have good cause to speak much good of Him. 0 ! hell were
a good-cheap price to buy Him at. 0, if all the three kingdoms
were witnesses to my pained, pained soul, overcome and wounded
with Christ's love ! I thank you most kindly, my dear sister, for your
love and tender care to my brother. I will think myself obliged to
you, if ye continue his friend, he is more to me than a brother now,
^ Familiar. 2 Comforting. 3 Family.
* Trust. 6 Indulged. « Smutched.
' Extremely unwilling
LETTER CC. 341
being engaged to suffer for so honourable a Master and cause.
Pray for Chrst's prisoner, and grace, grace be vrith you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, March 7, 1636.
LETTER CC— To his Reverend and dear Brother, Mr. John
Nevay.
My reverend and dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. I have exceeding many I write to, else I would be
kinder in paper. I rejoice that my sweet Master hath any to back
Him. Thick, thick may my royal King's court be. 0, that His
kingdom might grow ! It were my joy to have His house full of
guests. Except that I have some cloudy days, for the most part I
have a king's life with Christ. He is all perfumed with the
powders of the merchant : He hath a king's face and a king's
smell : His chariot, wherein He carrieth His poor prisoner, is of
the wood of Lebanon, it is paved with love. Is not that soft
ground to walk or lie on ? I think better of Christ than ever I
did • my thoughts of His love grow and swell on me. I never
write to any of Him so much as I have felt. 0 if, if I could write
a book of Christ and of His love ! Suppose I were made white
ashes, and burnt for this same truth that men count but as knots
of straws, it were my gain, if my ashes could proclaim the worth,
.excellency, and love of my Lord Jesus. There is much telling ^
in Christ, I give over the weighing of Him ; heaven would not be
the beam of a balance to weigh Him in. What eyes be on me,
or what wind of tongues be on me, I care not. Let me stand in
this stage in the fool's coat, and act a fool's part to the rest of
this nation. If I can set my Well-Beloved on high, and witness
fair for Him, a fig for their Hosanna. If I can roll myself in a
lap of Christ's garment, I will lie there, and laugh at the thoughts
of dying bits of clay. Brother, we have cause to weep for our
harlot mother, her husband is sending her to Rome's brothel-
hi )use, which is the gate ^ she liketh well. Yet I persuade you,
there shall be a fair after-growth for Christ in Scotland, and this
church shall sing the Bridegroom's welcome-home-again to His
own house. The worms shall eat them first, ere they cause Christ
take good night at^ Scotland. I am here assaulted with the doc-
tors' guns ; but I bless the Father of lights, they draAv not blood
of truth. I find no lodging in the heart of natural men, who are cold
friends to my Master. I pray you, remember my love to that
gentleman A. C, my heart is knit to him, because he and I have
one Master. Remember my bonds, and present my service to my
1 Reckoning-. - Way. ^ Of.
342 LETTER CCI.
lord and my lady. I wish Christ may be dearer to them than to
many of their place. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, July 7, 1637.
LETTER COL— To my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Few (I believe)
know the pain and torment of Christ's fristed ^ love : fristing of
Christ's presence is a matter of torment. I know a poor soul that
would lay all oars in the water for a banquet or feast of Christ's
love. I cannot think but it must be up-taking - and sweet to see
the white and red of Christ's fair face ; for He is white and ruddy,
and the chiefest among ten thousand. Cant. v. 10. I am sure
that must be a well-made face of His, heaven must be in His
visage ; glory, glory for evermore must sit on His countenance. I
dare not curse the mask and covering that is on His face ; but O
if there were a hole in it ; 0 if God would tear the mask ; fie, fie
upon us, we were never shamed till now, that we do not proclaim
our pining and languishing for Him. I am sure, never tongue
spake of Christ as He is. I am still of that mind, and still will
be, that we wrong and undervalue that holy, holy One, in having
such short and shallow thoughts of His weight and worth. 0, if
I could have but leave to stand beside and see the Father weigh
Christ the Son, if it were possible : but how every one of them
comprehendetli another, we, who have eyes of clay, cannot com-
prehend ; but it is pity for evermore, and more than shame, that
such an one as Christ should sit in heaven His lone^ for us. To
go up thither once errand,* and on purpose to see, were no small
glory. 0 that He would strike out windows, and fair and great
lights, iii this old house, this fallen down soul, and then set the
soul near-hand Christ, that the rays and beams of light, and the
soul-delighting glances of the fair, fair Godhead, might shine in at
the windows and fill the house ! A fairer and more near and
direct sight of Christ would make room for His love ; for we are
but pinched and straitened in His love. Alas, it were easy to
measure and weigh all the love that we have for Christ by inches
and ounces ! Alas, that we should love by measure and weight,
and not rather have floods and feasts of Christ's love ! 0, that
Christ would break down the old narrow vessels of these narrow
and ebb souls, and make fair, deep, wide, and broad souls, to
hold a sea and a full tide, flowing over all its banks, of Christ's
love ! 0, that the Almighty would give me my request ! that I
might see Christ come to His temple again (as He is minting,^
' Suspended. ^ Reviving. ^ Alone.
* On purpose^ ^ Indicating hia pui-pose.
LETTER ecu. 343
and it is like/ minding to do) ; and if the land were humbled, the
judgments threatened are with this reservation, I know, if Ave shall
turn and repent. 0, what a heaven should we have on earth, to
see Scotland's moon like the light of the sun, and Scotland's sun-
light seven-fold, like the light of seven days, ia the day that the
Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke
of their wounds ! Isa. xxx. 26. Alas, that we will not pull and
draw Christ to His old tents again, to come and feed among the
lilies, till the day break and the shadows flee away ! 0, that the
nobles would go on, in the strength and courage of the Lord, to
bring our lawful King Jesus home again ! I am persuaded He
shall return again in glory to this land : but happy were they who
could help to convoy Him to His sanctuary, and set Him again
up upon the mercy-seat betwixt the cherubims. 0 sun, return to
darkened Britain ! 0, fairest among all the sons of men, 0 most
excellent One, come home again, come home, and win the praises
and blessings of the mourners in Zion, the prisoners of hope, that
wait for Thee ! I know. He can also triumph in sufl'ering, and
weep and reign, and die and triumph, and remain in prison, and
yet subdue His enemies. But how happy were I to see the coro-
nation-day of Christ, to see His mother, who bare Him, put the
crown upon His head again, and cry with shouting till the earth
should ring, "Let Jesus our King live and reign for evermore."
Grace, grace be with your ladyship.
Your ladyship's at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCn.— To Mr. Alexander Colvill of Blair.
Much honoured Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
I would desire to know how my lord took my letter I sent him,
and how he is : I desire nothing, but that he be fast and honest
to my royal Master and King. I am well every way, all praise
to Him, in whose books I must stand for ever as His debtor.
Only my silence painetli me. I had one joy out of heaven, next
to Christ my Lord, and that was to preach Him to this faithless
generation, and they have taken that from me. It was to me as
the poor man's one eye, and they have put out that eye. I know
the violence done to me, and His poor bereft bride, is come up
before the Lord ; and suppose I see not the other side of my cross,
or what my Lord will bring out of it, yet I believe the vision shall
not tarry, and that Christ is on His journey for my deliverance.
He goeth not slowly, but passeth over ten mountains at one stride.
In the meantime, I am pained with His love, because I want real
possession. When Christ cometh He stayeth not long ; but cer
* Probable.
344 LETTER CCIIT.
tainly the blowing of His breath upon a poor soul is heaven upon
earth ; and when the wind turneth into the north and He goeth
away, I die till the wind change in ^ the west, and He visit His
prisoner. But He holdeth me not often at His door. I am richly
repaid for suffering for Him. 0, if all Scotland were as I am, ex-
cept my bonds ! 0, what pain I have, because I cannot get Him
praised by my sufferings ! 0, that heaven within and without,
and the earth were paper, and all the rivers, fountains, and seas
were ink, and I able to write all the paper, within and without,
full of His praises, and love, and excellency, to be read by man
and angel ! nay, this is little, I owe my heaven for Christ, and to
desire, howbeit I should never enter in at the gates of the New
Jerusalem, to send my love and my praises over the wall to Christ.
Alas, that time and days lie betwixt Him and me, and adjourn
our meeting ! It is my part to cry, 0, when will the night be
past, and the day dawn, that we shall see one another! Be pleased
to remember my service to my lord, to whom I wrote ; and show
him, that for his affection to me, I cannot but pray for him, and
earnestly desire that Christ miss him not out of the roll of those
that are His witnesses, now when His kingly honour is called in
question. It is his honour to hold up Christ's royal train, and to be
an instrument to hold the crown upon Christ's head. Show him,
because I love his true honour and standing, that this is my earnest
desire for him. Now I bless you ; and the prayers of Christ's
prisoner come upon you ; and His sweetest presence, whom ye
serve in the Spirit, accompany you.
Yours, at all obhged obedience in Christ, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 23, 1637.
LETTEE CCIII.— To Mr. John Eow.
Eeverend and dear Brother, — I received yours. I bless His
high and great name, I like my sweet Master still the longer the
better. A sight of His cross is more awesome ^ than the weight
of it. I think the worst things of Christ, even His reproaches and
His cross (when I look on these not with bleared eyes), far rather
to be chosen than the laughter and worm-eaten joys of my adver-
saries. 0, that they were as I am, except my bonds ! My witness
is above, my ministry, next to Christ, is dearest to me of anything ;
but I lay it down at Christ's feet, for His glory and His honour
as supreme Lawgiver, which is dearer to me. My dear brother,
if ye will receive the testimony of a poor prisoner of Christ, who
dare not now dissemble for the world, I believe certainly, and
expect thanks from the Prince of the kings of the earth for my
1 Into. 2 Awful.
LETTER CCIV. 845
poor hazards (such as they are) for His honourable cause, whom
I can never enough extol for His running-over love to my sad
soul, since I came hither. 0 that I could get Him set on high
and praised ! I seek no more, as the top and root of my desires,
but that Christ may make glory to Himself, and edification to the
weaker, out of my sufferings. I desire ye would help me both to
pray and praise. Grace be with you.
Fours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, July 8, 1637.
LETTER CCIV.— To the Lady Culross.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am much
refreshed with your letter, now at length come to me. I find my
Lord Jesus cometh not in that precise way that I lay wait for
Him, He hath a gate^ of His own. O, how high are His ways
above my ways ! I see but little of Him. It is best not to ofi'er
to learn^ Him a lesson, but to give Him absolutely His own will in
coming, going, ebbing, flowing, and in the manner of His gracious
working. I want nothing but a back-burden of Christ's love : I
would go through hell, and the thick of the damned devils, to have
a hearty feast of Christ's love ; for He hath fettered me with His
love, and run away, and left me a chained man. Woe is me, that
I was so loose, rash, vain, and graceless, in my unbelieving thoughts
of Christ's love. But what can a soul under a non-entry^ (when
my rights were wadset^ and lost) do else, but make a false libel
against Christ's love 1 I know yourself, madam, and many more,
will be witnesses against me, if I repent not of my unbelief ; for I
have been seeking the Pope's wares, some hire for grace within
myself. I have not learned, as I should do, to put my stock and
all my treasure in Christ's hand ; but I would have a stock of mine
own ; and ere I was aware, I was taking hire to be the law's advo-
cate, to seek justification by works : I forgot that grace is the only
garland that is worn in heaven upon the heads of the glorified.
And now I half rejoice that I have sickness for Christ to work
upon ; since I must have wounds, well is my souP I have a day's
work for my Physician Christ. I hope to give Christ His own
calling ; it setteth Him full well to cure diseases. My ebbings are
very low, and the tide is far out, when my Beloved goeth away;
and then I cry, oh, cruelty ! to put out the poor man's one eye,
and that, that was my joy next to Christ, to preach my Well-
Beloved ; then I make a noise about Christ's house, looking un-
couth-like in at His window, and casting my love and my desires
over the wall, till God send better. I am often content my bill
^ Way. ' Teach. ^ Exclu.'iioii. * Pawned. ^ I rejoice.
346 LETTER CCIV.
lie in heaven till the day of my departure, providing I had assur-
ance that mercy shall be written on the back of it, I would not
care for on-waiting ; but when I draw in a tired arm, and empty
hand withal, it is much^ to me to keep my thoughts in order ; but
I will not get a gate for Christ's love, when I have done all I can ;
I w^ould fain yield to His stream, and row with Christ, and not
against Him. But while I live, I see that Christ's kingdom in me
will not be peaceable, so many thoughts in me rise up against His
honour and kingly power. Surely, I have not expressed all His
sweet kindness to me ; I spare to do it, lest I be deemed to seek
myself ; but His breath hath sraelled of the powder of the mer-
chants and of the King's spikenard. I think I conceive new
thoughts of heaven, because the card^ and the map of heaven, that
He letteth me now see, is so fair and so sweet, I am sure we are
niggards and sparing bodies in seeking. I verily judge, we know
not how much may be had in this life ; there is yet something be-
yond all we see, that seeking would light upon. 0, that my love-
sickness would put me to a business, when all the world are found
sleeping, to cry and knock ! But the truth is, since I came hither,
I have been wondering, that after my importunity to have my fill
of Christ's love, I have not gotten a real sign, but have come from
Him crying, Hunger, hunger. I think Christ letteth me see meat,
in my extremity of hunger, and giveth me none of it. When I am
near the apple. He draweth back His hand, and goeth away, to
cause me to follow ; and again, when I am within an arm's length
to the apple, He maketh a new break to the gate, and I have Him
to seek of new. He seemeth not to pity my dwining and my
swooning for His love, I dare sometimes put my hunger over to
Him to be judged, if I would not buy Him with a thousand years
in the hottest furnace in hell, so being I might enjoy Him. But
my hunger is fed with want and absence. I hunger and I have
not, but my comfort is to lie and wait on, and to put my poor soul
and my sufferings in Christ's hand. Let Him make anything out
of me, so being He be glorified in my salvation ; for I know I am
made for Him ! 0 that my Lord may win His own gracious end
in me ! I will not be at ease, while 1 but stand so far aback. 0,
if I were near Him and with Him, that this poor soul might be
satisfied with Himself. Your son-in-law, W. G,, is now truly
honoured for His Lord and Master's cause. When the Lord is
fanning Zion, it is a good token that he is a true branch of the
Vine, that the Lord beginneth first to dress him. He is strong in
his Lord, as he hath written to me, and his wife is his encourager,
which should make you rejoice. For your son, who is your grief,
your Lord waited on you and me till we were ripe, and brought
1 Difficult. 2 Chart.
LETTER CCV. 347
US in. It is your part to pray and wait upon Him : when he is
ripe, he will be spoken for. Who can command our Lord's wind
to blow ? I know it shall be your good in the latter end. That
is one of your waters to^ heaven, ye could not go about it ; there
are the fewer behind. I remember you, and him, and yours, as I
am able. But alas! I am believed to be something, and I am
nothing but an empty reed. Wants are my best riches, because I
have these supplied by Christ. Remember my dearest love to
your brother : I know he pleadeth with his harlot mother for her
apostasy. I know, also, ye are kind to my worthy Lady Ken-
mure, a woman beloved of the Lord, who hath been very mindful
of my bonds. The Lord give her and her child to find mercy in
the day of Christ, Great men are dry and cold in doing for me :
the tinkling of chains for Christ affrighteth them : but let my
Lord break all my idols, I will yet bless Him, I am obliged to
my Lord Lorn : I wish him mercy. Remember my bonds with
praises, and pray for me that my Lord may leaven the north by
my bonds and sufferings. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 9, 1637.
LETTER CCV.— To Alexander Gordon of Knockgray.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. There
is no question but our mother-church hath a Father, and that she
shall not die without an heir, that her enemies shall not make
Mount Zion their heritage. We see whithersoever Zion's enemies
go, suppose they dig many miles under the ground, yet our Lord
findeth them out, and He hath vengeances laid up in store for
them, and the poor and needy shall not always be forgotten. Our
hope was drooping and withering, and man was saying, " What
can God make out of the old dry bones of this buried kirk 1 " the
prelates and their followers were a grave above us : it is like ^ our
Lord is to open our graves and purposeth to cause His two slain
witnesses rise the third day. 0 how long wait I to hear our weep-
ing Lord Jesus sing again, and triumph, and rejoice, and divide
the spoil ! I find it hard work to believe when the course of pro-
vidence goeth cross-Avays to our faith, and when misted souls in a
dark night cannot know east by west, and our sea-compass seem-
eth to fail us. Every man is a believer in daylight. A fair day
seemeth to be made all of faith and hope. What a trial of gold
is it to smoke it a little above the fire ! But to keep gold perfect
yellow-coloured amidst the flames, and to be turned from vessel to
vessel, and yet to cause our furnace sound, and speak and cry the
^ On the way to. ^ Probable.
348 LETTER CCV.
praises of the Lord, is another matter. I know my Lord made
me not for fire, howbeit He hath fitted me in some measure for
the fire. I bless His high name, that I wax not pale, neither have
I lost the colour of gold, and that His fire hath made me somewhat
thin, and that my Lord may pour me in any vessel He pleaseth.
For a small wager, I may justly quit my part of this world's
laughter, and give up with time, and cast out ^ with the pleasures
of this world. I know a man who wondered to see any in this
life laugh and sport ; surely our Lord seeketh this of us, as to
any rejoicing in present perishing things. I see above all things,
and that we may sit down and fold legs and arms, and stretch
ourselves upon Christ, and laugh at the feathers that children
are chasing here. For I think the men of this world, like chil-
dren in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play and make sport
with the white foam of the waves thereof, coming in to sink and
drown them ; so are men making fools' sports with the white plea-
sures of a stormy world that will sink them. But alas, what have
we to do with their sports that they make ! If Solomon said of
laughter that it was madness, what may we say of this world's
laughing and sporting themselves with gold, and silver, and
honours, and court, and broad large conquests, but that they are
poor souls in the height and rage of a fever gone mad 1 Then a
straw, a fig for all created sports and rejoicing out of Christ. Nay,
[ think that this world at its prime and perfection, when it is come
to the top of its excellency and to the bloom, might be bought
with an halfpenny, and that it would scarce weigh the worth of a
drink of water. There is nothing better than to esteem it our
crucified idol that is dead and slain, as Paul did. Gal. vi. 14. Then
let pleasures be crucified, and riches be crucified, and court and
honour be crucified ; and since the apostle saith, the world is
crucified to him, we may put this world to the hanged man's doom
and to the gallows, and who will give much for a hanged man 1
and as little should we give for a hanged and crucified world.
Yet what a sweet smell hath this dead carrion to many fools in
the world ! and how many wooers and suitors findeth this hanged
carrion ! Fools are pulling it off the gallows and contending for
it. 0, when shall we learn to be mortified men, and to have our
fill of those things that have but their short summer-quarter of
this life 1 If we saw our Father's house, and that great and fair
city, the New Jerusalem, which is up above sun and moon, we
would cry to be over the Wciter, and to be carried in Christ's arms
out of this borrowed prison. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen, 1636.
^ Quarrel.
LETTER CCVI, 349
LETTER CCVI.— To the Laird of Carletown.
Worthy Sir, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. 1 received
your letter, and am heartily glad that our Lord hath begun to
work for the apparent delivery of this poor oppressed kirk. 0
that salvation would come for Zion ! I am for the present hang-
ing by hope, waiting what my Lord will do with me, and if it will
please my sweet Master to send me amongst you again, and keep
out a hireling from my poor people and flock. It were my heaven,
till I come home, even to spend this life in gathering in some to
Christ. I have still great heaviness for my silence and my forced
standing idle in the market, when this land hath such a plentiful
thick harvest ; but I know His judgments, Avho hath done it, past
finding out. I have no knowledge to take up the Lord in all His
strange ways and passages of deep and unsearchable providences,
for the Lord is before me, and I am so be-misted that I cannot
follow Him : He is behind me, and following at the heels, and I
am not aware of Him ; He is above me, but His glory so dazzleth
ffiy twilight of short knowledge that I cannot look up to Him :
He is upon my right hand, and I see Him not : He is upon my
left hand, and within me, and goeth and cometh, and His going
and coming are a dream to me : He is round about me, and com-
passeth all my goings, and still I have Him to seek : He is every
way higher, and deeper, and broader than the shallow and ebb
hand-breadth of my short and dim light can take up ; and there-
fore I would my heart could be silent, and sit down in the learned-
ly-ignorant wondering at that Lord, Avhom men and angels cannot
comprehend. I know, the noon-daj^ light of the highest angels,
who see Him face to face, seeth not the borders of His infmiteness.
They apprehend God near hand, but they cannot comprehend
Him. And therefore it is my happiness to look afar off and to
come near to the Lord's back parts, and to light my dark candle
at His brightness, and to have leave to sit and content myself with
a traveller's light, without the clear vision of an enjoyer. I would
seek no more till I Avere in my country, but a little watering and
sprinkling of a withered soul, Avith some half-out-breakings and
half-out-lookings of the beams and small ravishing ^ smiles of the
fairest face of a revealed and believed-on Godhead. A little of
God Avould make my soul bank-full. 0, that I had but Christ's
odd off-fallings, that He would let but the meanest of His love-
rays and love-beams fall from Him, so as I might gather and
carry them Avith me ! I Avould not be ill to please with Christ,
and veiled visions of Christ ; neither would I be dainty in seeing
and enjoying of Him. A kiss of Christ blov/n over His shoulder,
^ Qu., soal-ravisliing ?
350 LETTER CCVII.
the parings and crumbs of glory that fall under His table in
heaven, a shower like a thin May-mist of His love, would make
me green, and sappy, and joyful, till the summer-sun of an eternal
glory break up. 0, that I had anything of Christ ! 0, that I had
a sip or half a drop out of the hollow of Christ's hand of the sweet-
ness and excellency of that lovely One ! 0 that my Lord Jesus
would rue ^ upon me, and give me but the meanest alms ot felt
and believed salvation ! 0, how little were it for that infinite sea,
that infinite fountain of love and joy, to fill as many thousand
thousand little vessels the like of me, as there are minutes of hours
since the creation of God ! I find it true, that a poor soul finding
half a smell of the Godhead of Christ, hath desires paining and
wounding the poor heart so, with longings to be up at Him, that
make it sometimes think, were it not better never to have felt
anything of Christ than thus to lie dying twenty deaths under
these felt wounds for the want of Him 1 0 where is He 1 0
fairest, where dwellest Thou ? 0 never-enough- admired Godhead!
hoAV can clay win up to thee 1 How can creatures of yesterday be
able to enjoy thee 1 0 what pain is it, that time and sin should
be as so many thousand miles betAvixt a loved and longed-for
Lord, and a dwining and love-sick soul, who would rather than all
the world have lodging Avith Christ ! 0 let this bit love of ours,
this inch and half span-length of heavenly longing, meet Avith thy
infinite love ! 0, if the little I have Avere SAvallowed up Avith the
infiniteness of that excellency Avhich is in Christ ? 0, that we
little ones were in at the greatest Lord Jesus, our wants should
soon be SAvallowed up with His fulness. Grace, grace be Avith
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, May 1, 1637.
LETTEE CCVII.— To Egbert Gordon of Knockbrex.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to yon. I re-
ceived your letter from Edinburgh. I would not Avisli to see an-
other heaven while ^ I get mine own heaven, but a neAV moon like
the light of the sun, and a ncAv sun like the light of seven days,
shining upon my poor self, and the church of JeAvs and GentUes,
and upon my withered and sun-burnt mother, the Church of Scot-
land, and upon her sister churches, England and Ireland ; and to
have this done, to the setting on high our great King ; it maketh
not,' hovvbeit I were separate from Christ, and had a sense of ten
thousand years' pain in hell, if this Avere. 0 blessed nobility, 0
glorious renoAvned gentry, 0 blessed were the tribes in this land
to wipe my Lord Jesus's weeping face, and to take the sackcloth
^ Have compassion. - Till. ^ j^ ^g of qq consequence.
LETTER CCVII. 351
off Christ's loins, and to put His kingly robes upon Him ? 0, if
the Almighty would take no less wager of me, than my heaven,
to have it done ! But my fears are still for wrath once upon Scot-
land. But I know her day shall clear up, and glory shall be upon
the top of the mountains, and joy at the noise of the married wife
once again. 0, that our Lord would make us to contend, and
plead, and wrestle, by prayers and tears, for our Husband's re-
storing of His forfeited heritage in Scotland. Dear brother, I am
for the present in no small battle betwixt felt guiltiness, and
pining longings, and high fevers for my Well-Beloved's love.
Alas ! I think Christ's love playeth the niggard to me, and I know
it is not for scarcity of love, there is enough in Him ; but my
hunger j)rophesieth of in-holding and sparingness in Christ, for I
have but little of Him and little of His sweetness. It is a dear
summer^ with me; yet there is such joy in the eagerness and
working of hunger for Christ, that I am often at this, that if I
had no other heaven but a continual hunger for Christ, such a
heaven of ever-working hunger were still a heaven to me. I am
sure, Christ's love cannot be cruel, it must be a rueing^, a pitiful,
a melting-hearted love. But suspension of that love I think it
half a hell, and the want of it more than a whole hell. When I
look to my guiltiness, I see my salvation one of our Saviour's
greatest miracles either in heaven or earth. I am sure I may defy
any man to show me a greater wonder. But seeing I have no
wares, no hire, no money for Christ, He must either take me with
want, misery, corruption, or then ^ want me. 0, if He would be
pleased to be compassionate and pitiful-hearted to ray pining
fevers of longing for Him, or then ^ give me a real pawn to keep,
out of His own hand, till God send a meeting betwixt Him and
me j but I find neither as yet ; howbeit He who is absent be not
cruel nor unkind, yet His absence is cruel and unkind. His love
is like itself ; His love is His love ; but the covering and the
cloud, the vail and the mask of His love, is more wise than kind,
if I durst speak my apprehensions. I lead no process now against
the suspension and delay of God's love. I would with all my
heart frist * till a day ten heavens, and the sweet manifestations
of His love. Certainly I think I could give Christ much on His
word. But my whole pleading is about intimated and borne-in
assurance of His love. 0 if He would persuade me of my heart's
desire of His love at all. He should have the term-day of payment
at His own carving. But I know raving unbehef speaketh its
pleasure, while it looketh upon guiltiness and this body of corrup-
tion. 0, how loathsome and burdensome is it to carry about a
dead corpse, this old carrion of corruption ! 0, how stoadable ^ a
' A season of dearth. -' Compassionate. ^ Else. * Dfcfer. ^ Convenient.
352 LETTER CCVIII.
thing is a Saviour to make a sinner rid of his chains and fetters !
I have now made a new question, whether Christ be more to be
loved for giving sanctification, or for free justification? And I
hold He is more and most to be loved for sanctification : it is in
some respect greater love in Him to sanctify than to justify, for
He maketli us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture
and image, in sanctifying us. Justification doth but make us
happy, which is to be like the angels only. Neither is it such a
misery to lie a condemned man and under unforgiven guiltiness,
as to serve sin, and work the works of the devil ; and therefore, I
think, sanctification cannot be bought, it is above all price, God
be thanked for ever that Christ was a told-down price for sancti-
fication. Let a sinner (if possible) lie in hell for ever, if He make
him truly holy, and let him lie there burning in love to God, re-
joicing in the Holy Ghost, hanging upon Christ by faith and hope:
that is heaven in the heart and bottom of hell. Alas ! I find a
very thin harvest here, and few to be saved. Grace, grace be
with you.
Yours, in his lovely and longed-for Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, 1637.
LETTER CCVIII— To my Lord Craighall.
My Lord, — I persuade myself, notwithstanding of the greatness
of this temptation, ye will not let Christ want a witness of you, to
avow Him before this evil generation. And if ye advise with
God's truth (the perfect testament of Christ, that forbiddeth all
men's additions to His worship), and with the truly learned, and
with all the sanctified in this land, and with that warner within
you (that will not fail to speak against you, in God's time, if ye
be not now fast and fixed for Christ), I hope then your lordship
will acquit yourself as a man of courage for Christ, and refuse
to bow your knee superstitiously and idolatrously to wood or
stone, or any creature whatsoever. I persuade myself when ye
shall take good night at ^ this world, ye shall think it God's truth
I now write. Some fear your lordship have obliged yourself to
His Majesty by promise to satisfy his desire. If it be so, my
dear and worthy lord, hear me for your soul's good. Think upon
swimming ashore after this shipwreck, and be pleased to write
your humble apology to His Majesty ; it may be God give you
favour in his eyes. However it be, far be it from you to think a
promise made out of weakness, and extorted by the terror of a
king, should bind you to wrong your Lord Jesus. But for my-
1 Of.
LETTEK CGIX. 353
self, J give no faith to that report, but I believe ye si mil prove
fast to Christ. To His grace I recommend you.
Your lordship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. E.
Aberdeen, July 8, 1637.
LETTER CCIX.— To my Lord Cratghall.
My Lord, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am not only
content, but I exceedingly rejoice, that I find any of the rulers of
this land, and especially your lordship, so to affect Christ and His
truth, as ye dare, for His name, come to yea and nay Avith
monarchs in their face. I hope, He Avho hath enabled you for
that, "will give more, if ye show yourself courageous, and as His
word speaketh, a man in the streets for the Lord. But I pray
your lordship give me leave to be plain with you, as one who
loveth both your honour and your soul. I verily believe, there
was never idolatry at Rome, never idolatry condemned in God's
word by the prophets, il: religious kneeling before a consecrate
creature, standing in room of Christ crucified, in that very act,
and that for reverence of the elements (as our act cleareth), be not
idolatry. Neither will your intention help, which is not of the
essence of worship ; for then Aaron saying, "To-morrow shall be
a feast for Jehovah," that is, for the golden calf, should not have
been guilty of idolatry ; for he intended only to decline the lash
of the people's fury, not to honour the calf Your intention to
honour Christ is nothing, seeing religious kneeling by God's insti-
tution doth necessarily import religious and divine adoration,
suppose our intention were both dead and sleeping. Otherwise
kneeling before the image of God, directing prayer to God, were
lawful, if our intention go right. My lord, I cannot in this l^ounds
dispute ; but if Cambridge and Oxford, and the learning of Britain,
will answer this argument, and the argument '^rom active scandal,
which your lordship seemeth to stand upon, I will turn a formalist,
and call myself an arrant fool by doing what I have done in my
suffering for this truth. I do much reverence Mr. L's learning,
but, my lord, I will answer what he writes in that to pervert you
from the truth, else repute me, beside an hypocrite, an ass also,
and I hope ye shall see something upon that subject, if the Lord
permit, that no sophistry in Britain shall answer. Courtiers'
arguments, for the most part, ai'e drawn from their own skin, and
not worth a straw for your conscience. A marquess or a king's
word, when ye stand before Christ's tribunal, shall be lighter than
wind. The Lord knoweth I love your true honour and the stand-
ing of your house, but I would not your honour or house were
established upon sand, and hay, and stubble. But let me, my
354 LETTER CCIX.
very dear and worthy lord, most lium1)ly beseeck you, by the
mercies of God, by the consolations of His Spirit, by the dear
blood and wounds of your lovely Eedeemer, by the salvation of
your soul, by your compearance before the awful face of a sin-
revenging and dreadful Judge, not to get in comparison together
your soul's peace, Christ's love, and His kingly honour, now called
in question, with your place, honour, house, or ease, that an inch
of time will make out of the way. I verily believe, Christ is now
begging a testimony of you, and is saying, "And will ye also
leave me 1" It is possible the Avind shall not blow so fair for you
all your life, for coming out and appearing before others, to back
and countenance Christ, the fairest among the sons of men, the
Prince of the kings of the earth, Isa. li. 7. " Fear ye not the re-
proach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings," v. 8, " For
the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall
eat them like wool." When the Lord shall begin He shall make
an end, and mow down His adversaries, and they shall lie before
Him like withered hay, and their bloom shaken off them. Con-
sider how many thousands in this kingdom ye shall cause to fall
and stumble if ye go Avith them, and that ye shall be out of the
prayers of many who do stand before the Lord for you and your
house ; and further, when the time of your accounts cometh, and
your one foot shall be within the border of eternity, and the eye-
strings shall break, and the face wax pale, and the poor soul shall
look out at the windows of the house of clay, longing to be out,
and ye shall find yourself arraigned before the Judge of quick and
dead, to answer for the putting to your hand with the rest, con-
federate against Christ, to the overturning of His ark, and the
loosing of the pins of Christ's tabernacle in this land, and shall
certainly see yourself mired in a course of apostasy, then, then a
king's favour, and your worm-eaten honour shall be miserable
comforters to you. The Lord hath enlightened you with the
knowledge of His will : and as the Lord liveth, they lead you and
others to a cominunion with great Babel, the mother of fornica-
tions. And God said of old, and continueth to say the same to
you, " Come out of her, my people, lest ye be partakers of her
plagues." Will ye, then, go with them, and set your lip to the
whore's golden cup, and drink of the wine of the wrath of God
Almighty with them 1 0 poor hungry honour ! 0 cursed plea-
sures ! and 0 damnable ease, bought with the loss of God ! How
many shall pray for you ! What a sweet presence shall ye find of
Christ under your sufferings, if ye shall lay down your honour and
place at the feet of Christ ! what a fair recompense of reward ! I
avouch before the Lord, that T am now showing you a way how
the house of Craighall may stand on sure pillars : if ye will set it
LETTEK CCIX. 355
on rotten pillars, ye cruelly wrong your posterity. Ye have the
"word of a King, for an hundred-fold more in this life (if it be good
for you) and for life everlasting also. Make not Christ a liar, in
distrusting His promise. Kings of clay cannot back you when
ye stand iDefore Him : a straw for them and their hungry heaven
that standeth on this side of time ; a fig for the day's smile of a
worm. Consider who have gone before you to eternity, and would
have given a world for a new occasion of avouching that truth. It
is true, they call it not substantial, and we are made a scorn to
those that are at ease, for suffering these things for it ; but it is
not time to judge of our losses by the morning, stay till the even-
ing, and we shall count with the best of them. I have found my
experience, since the time of my imprisonment (my witness is
above), Christ sealing this honourable cause with another and a
nearer fellowship than ever I knew before ; and let God weigh me
in an even balance in this, if I would exchange the cross of Christ
or His truth with the fourteen prelacies, or what else a king can
give. My dear lord, venture to take the wind on your face for
Christ. I believe, if He should come from heaven in His own
person, and seek the charters of Craighall from you and a demis-
sion of your place, and ye saw His face, you would fall down at
His feet and say. Lord Jesus, it is too little for Thee. If any
man think it not a truth to die for, I am against him. I dare go
to eternity with it, that this day the honour of our royal Lawgiver
and King, in the government of His own free kingdom (who
should pay tribute to no dying king), is the true state of the ques-
tion. My lord, be ye upon Christ's side of it, and take the word
of a poor prisoner, nay the Lord Jesus be surety for it, ye have
incomparablj'- made the wisest choice. For my own part, I have
been so in this prison, that I would be half ashamed to seek more
till I be up at the Avell-head. Few know in this world the sweet-
ness of Christ's breath, the excellency of His love, which hath
neither brim nor bottom : the v/orld hath raised a slander upon
the cross of Christ, because they love to go to heaven by dry land,
and love not sea-storms. But I write it under my hand (and
would say more, if possibly a reader would not deem it hypocrisy),
my obligation to Christ for the smell of His garments, for His
love-kisses these thirty weeks, standeth so great, that I should,
and I desire also to choose to suspend my salvation, to have many
tongues loosed in my behalf to praise Him. And suppose in per-
son I never entered within the gates of the New Jerusalem, yet so
being Christ may be set on high, and I had the liberty to cast my
love and praises for ever over the wall to Christ, I would be silent
and content. But 0, He is more than my narrow praises ! 0
time, time, flee swiftly, that our communion with Jesus may be
356 LETTEE CCX.
perfected ! I wish your lordship Avoiikl urge Mr. L. to give his
mind on the ceremonies, and be pleased to let me see it as quickly
as can be, and it shall be answered. To His rich grace I recom-
mend your lordship, and shall remain,
Yours, at all respective ^ obedience in Christ, S. it.
Aberdeen, July 8, 1637.
LETTER CCX.— To the Lady Culross.
Madam, — Your letter came in due time to me, now a prisoner
of Christ, and in bonds for the Gospel. I am sentenced with de-
privation and confinement within the town of Aberdeen ; but, oh,
my guiltiness, the follies of my youth, the neglects in my calling,
and especially in not speaking more for the kingdom, crown, and
sceptre of my royal and princely King Jesus, do so stare me in
the face, that I apprehend anger in that which is a crown of re-
joicing to the dear saints of God ! This, before my compearance
(which was three several days), did trouble me, and burdeneth me
more now ; howbeit Christ, and in Him, God reconciled, met me
with open arms, and trysted ^ me precisely at the entry of the
door of the chancellor's hall, and assisted me to answer so, as the
advantage that is, is not theirs, but Christ's. Alas ! there is no
cause of wondering that I am thus borne down with challenges ;
for the world hatli mistaken me, and no man knoweth what guilti-
ness is in me, so well as these two (who keep my eyes now waking
and my heart heavy) ; I mean my heart and conscience, and my
Lord, who is greater than my heart. Show your brother, that I
desire him, while he is on the Avatch-tower, to plead with his
mother; and to plead with this land, and spare not to cry for my
sweet Lord Jesus His fair crown, that the interdicted and for-
liidden lords are plucking off His royal head. If I were free ot
challenges and a high commission within my soul, I would not
give a straw to go to my Father's house through ten deaths, for
the truth and cause of my lovely, lovely One, Jesus. But I walk
in heaviness now. If ye love me and Christ in me, my dear lady,
pray, pray for this only, that by-gones betwixt my Lord and me
may be by-gones ; and that He would pass from the summons of
His high commission, and seek nothing from me, but what He
will do for me and work in me. If your ladyship knew me as I
do myself, you would say, poor soul, no marvel. It is not my ap-
prehension that createth this cross to me, it is too real, and hath
sad and certain grounds. But I will not believe that God will
take this advantage of me when my back is at the wall. He who
forbiddeth to add affliction to affliction, will He do it Himself?
^ Respectful. - Met.
LETTER CCXI. 6b I
Why should He pursue a dry leaf and stubble? Desire Him to
spare me wow. Also the memory of the fair feast-days that Christ
and I had in His banqueting-house of wine ; and the scattered
flock, once committed to me, and now taken off my hand by Him-
self, because I was not so faithful in the end, as I was in the first
two years of my entry, when sleep departed from my eyes, because
my soul was taken up with a care for Christ's lambs, even these
add sorrow to my sorrow. Now my Lord hath only given me
this to say, and I write it under mine own hand (be ye the Lord's
servant's witness). Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ.
Welcome, fair, fair, lovely, royal King with thine own cross. Let
us all three go to heaven together. Neither care I much to go
from the south of Scotland to the north, and to be Christ's prisoner
amongst uncouth faces ; a place of this kingdom which I have little
reason to be in love with. I know Christ shall make Aberdeen
my garden of delights. I am fully persuaded that Scotland shall
eat Ezekiel's book, that is written Avithin and without, " Lamen-
tation, and mourning, and woe," Ezek. ii. 10. But the saints shall
get a drink of the well that goeth through the streets of the New
Jerusalem to put it down.^ Thus hoping ye will think upon the
poor prisoner of Christ, I pray, grace, grace be with you.
Your ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, July 30, 1636.
LETTER CCXI.— To Alexander Gordon of Earlestown.
Much honoured Sir, — I find small hopes of Q.'s business. 1
intend after the council-day to go on to Aberdeen. The Lord is
with me, I care not what man can do. I burden no man, and I
want nothing. No king is better provided than I am. Sweet,
sweet, and easy is the cross of my Lord. All men I look in the
face (of whatsoever rank, nobles and poor, acquaintance and
strangers) are friendly to me. My Well-Beloved is some ^ kinder
and more warmly than ordinary, and cometh and visiteth my soul.
My chains are overgilded with gold. Only the remembrance of
my fair days with Christ in Anwoth, and of my dear flock (whose
case is my heart's sorrow), is vinegar to my sugared wine ; yet
both sweet and sour feed my soul. No pen, no words, no ingene^
can express to you the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus.
Thus in haste, making for my palace at Aberdeen, I bless you,
your wife, your eldest son, and other children. Grace be with
you. Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S, R.
Edinburgh, Sept. 5, 1636.
' Enable them to swallow it. - Somewhat. •* Genius.
358 LETTERS CCXII. AND CCXIII.
LETTER CCXIL— To Robert Gordon of Knockbrex.
My dearest Brother,— I see Christ thinketli shame (if I may
speak so) to be in such a poor man's common ^ as mine. I burden
no man, I want nothing ; no face hath gloomed upon me since I
left you. God's sun and fair weather conveyeth me to my time-
paradise ill Aberdeen. Christ hath so handsomely fitted for my
shoulders this rough tree of the cross, as that it hurteth me no
ways. My treasure is up in Christ's coffers ; my comforts are
greater than ye can believe ; my pen shall lie for penury of words
to write of them. God knoweth I am filled with the joy of the
Holy Ghost. Only the memory of you, my dearest in the Lord,
my flock, and others, keepeth me under, and from being exalted
above measure : Christ's sweet sauce hath this sour mixed with
it ; but 0 such a sweet and pleasant taste ! I find small hopes of
Q.'s matter. Thus in haste. Remember me to your wife, and to
William Gordon. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, Sept. 5, 1636.
LETTER CCXIIL-To My Lord Lowdoun.
Right honourable and my very worthy Lord, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. Hearing of your lordship's zeal and
courage for Christ our Lord, in owning His honouralole cause, I
am bold (and I plead pardon for it) to speak in paper by a line or
two to your lordship (since I have not access any other Avay), be-
seeching your lordship by the mercies of God, and by the ever-
lasting peace of your soul, and by the tears and prayers of our
mother-church, to go on as ye have worthily begun in purging orf
the Lord's house in this land, and plucking down the sticks of
Antichrist's filthy nest, this wretched prelacy, and that black
kingdom, whose wicked aims have ever been, and still are, to make
this fat world the only compass they would have Christ and re-
ligion to sail by, and to mount up the man of sin, their god-father,
the Pope of Rome, upon the highest stair of Christ's throne, and
to make a velvet-church (in regard of parliament grandeur and
worldly pomp, whereof always their stinking breath smelleth),
and to put Christ and truth in sackcloth and prison, and to eat
the bread of adversity, and drink the water of affliction. Half an
eye of any, not misted Avith the darkness of Antichristian smoke,
may see it thus in this land ; and now our Lord hath begun to
awaken the nobles and others to plead for borne-down Christ and
His weeping gospel. My dear and noble lord, the eye of Christ
S Debt.
LETTER CCXIIl.
350
is upon you ; the eyes of many noble, many holy, many learned
and wurtliy ones in our neighbour churches about are upon you.
This poor church, your mother and Christ's spouse, is holding up
her hands and heart to God for you, and doth beseech you with
tears to plead for her Husband, his kingly sceptre, and for the
liberties that her Lord and King hath given to her, as to a free
kingdom that oweth spiritual tribute to none on earth, as being
the free-born princess and daughter to the King of kings. This
is a cause that before God, His angels, the world, before sun and
moon, needeth not to blush. 0 what glory and true honour is it
to lend Christ your hand and service, and to be amongst the re-
pairers of the breaches of Zion's walls, and to help to build the
old waste places, and stretch forth the curtains, and strengthen
the stakes of Christ's tent in this land ! 0 blessed are they who,
when Christ is driven away, will bring Him back again, and lend
Him lodging ! And blessed are ye of the Lord ; your name and
honour shall never rot or wither in heaven (at least), if ye deliver
the Lord's sheep, that have been scattered in the dark and cloudy
day, out of the hands of strange lords and hirelings, who, with
rigour and cruelty, have caused them to eat the pastures trodden
upon with their foul feet, and to drink muddy water, and who
have spun out such a world of yards of indifferencies in God's
worship, to make and weave a web for the Antichrist (that shall
not keep any from the cold), as they mind nothing else, but that
by the bringing-in of the Pope's foul tail first upon us (their
wretched and beggarly ceremonies), they may thrust in after them
the Antichrist's legs and thighs, and his belly, head, and shoulders;
and then cry down Christ and the Gospel, and up the merchandise
and wares of the great whore. Fear not, my worthy lord, to give
yourself and all ye have out for Christ and His Gospel. No man
dare say, who ever did thus hazard for Christ, that Christ paid
him not his hundred-fold in this life duly, and in the life to come,
life everlasting. This is His own truth ye now plead for, for God
and man cannot but commend you to beg justice from a just
prince for oppressed Christ, and to plead that Christ, who is the
king's Lord, may be heard in a free court to speak for Himself,
when the standing and established laws of our nation can strongly
plead for Christ's crown in the pulpits, and His chair as Lawgiver
in the free government of His own house. But Christ shall never
be content and pleased with this land, neither shall His hot fiery
indignation be turned away, so long as the prelate (the man that
lay in Antichrist's foul womb, and the Antichrist's lord bailiff)
shall sit lord-carver in the Lord Jesus his courts. The prelate
is both the egg and the nest to cleck^ and bring forth Popery.
1 Hatch.
36U LETTER CCXIV.
Plead, tlierefore, in Christ's beluilf, for the plucking down of the
nest and crushing of the egg, and let Christ's kingly office sufter
no more unworthy indignities. Be vahant for your royal King
Jesus ; contend for Him : your adversaries shall be moth-eaten
worms, and shall die as men. Christ and His honour now lieth
upon your shoulders, let Him not fall to the ground : cast your
eye upon Him, who is quickly coming to decide all the contro-
versies in Zion, and remember the sand in your night-glass will
run out. Time with wings will fly away, eternity is hard upon
you, and what will Christ's love-smiles and the light of His lovely
and soul-delighting countenance be to you in that day, when God
shall take up in His right hand this little lodge of heaven (like as
a shepherd lifteth up his little tent), and fold together the two
leaves of His tent, and put the earth and all the plenishing^ of it
into a fire, and turn this clay idol, the god of Adam's sons, into
smoke and wliite ashes ! 0 ! What hire, and how many Avorlds
would many then give to have a favourable decreet of the Judge 1
Or what money would they not give to buy a mountain, to be a
grave above both soul and body, to hide them from the awesome^
looks of an angry Lord and Judge? I hope your lordship thinketh
upon this, and that ye mind loyalty to Christ and to the king
both. Now the very God of peace, the only wise God, establish
and strengthen you upon the rock laid in Zion.
Your lordship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R,
AberdePii, Jan. 4, 1 63 ?.
LETTER CCXIV.— To a Christian Gentlewoman.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Though not
acquainted, yet at the desire of a Chiistian brother, I thought
good to write a line unto you, intreafcing you in the Lord Jesus,
under your trials, to keep an ear open to Christ, who can speak
for Himself, howbeit your visitations and your own sense should
dream hard things of His love and favour. Our Lord never
getteth so kind a look of us, nor our love in such a degree, nor our
faith in such a measure of steadfastness, as he getteth out of the
furnace of our tempting fears and sharp trials. I verily believe
(and too sad proofs in me say no less) that if our Lord would
grind our whorish lust in powdei", the very old ashes of our cor-
ruption should take life again, and live and hold us under so much
bondage, that may humble us, and make us sad, till we be in that
country, where we shall need no physic at all. 0 what violent
means doth our Lord use to gain us to Him, as if indecl we were
a prize worthy His fighting for ! And be sure, if leading would
■'■ Fnrnitiirf;. - Awful.
LETTER CCXIV. 361
do the turn, He would not use pnlliug of hair and drawing. But
the best of us will bide a strong pull of our Lord's right arm
ere we follow Him. Yet I say not this as if our Lord always
measured afflictions by so many ounce-weights, answerable to the
grain-weights of our guiltiness. I know He doth in many (and
possibly in you) seek nothing so much as faith : that can endure
summer and winter in their extremity. 0, how precious to the
Lord is faith and love, that when thrashed, beaten, and chased
away, and boasted^ (as it were) by God himself, doth yet look
warm-like, love-like, kind-like, and life-like, home-over to Christ,
and would be in at Him, ill and well as it may be ! Think not
much that your husband, or the dearest to you in the world,
proveth to have the bowels and mercy of the ostrich, hard, and
rigorous, and cruel. For Psalm xxvii. 10. The Lord taketh up
such fallen ones as these. I could not wish a more sweet life, nor
more satisfying expressions of kindness, till I be up at that Prince
of kindness, than the Lord's saints find, when the Lord taketh up
men's refuse, and lodgeth this world's out-laws, whom no man
seeketh after. His breath is never so hot, His love casteth never
such a flame, as when this world, and those who should be the
helpers of our joy, cast water on our coal. It is a sweet thing to
see them cast out, and Grod take in ; and to see them throw us
away as the refuse of men, and God take us up as His jewels and
His treasure. Often He maketh gold of dross, as once He made
the cast-away stone, the stone rejected by the builders, the head
of the corner. The princes of this world would not have our
Lord Jesus a pinning ^ in the wall, or to have any place in the
building ; but the Lord made Him the Master-stone of power and
place. God be thanked, that this world hath not power to cry us
down so many pounds, as rulers cry down light gold or light
silver. We shall stand for as much as our Master-coiner Christ,
whose coin, arms, and stamp we bear, will have us : Christ hath
no miscarrying balance. Thank your Lord, who chaseth your
love through two kingdoms, and followeth you and it over sea to
have you for Himself, as He speaketh, Hos. iii. For God layeth
up His saints, as the wale^ and the choice of all the world for
Himself; and this is like Christ and His love. 0, what in heaven,
or out of heaven, is comparal^le to the smell of Christ's garments'?
Nay, suppose our Lord would manifest His art, and make ten
thousand heavens of good and glorious things, and of new joys de-
vised out of the deep of infinite wisdom, He could not make the
like of Christ ; for Christ is God, and God cannot be made : and,
therefore, let us hold us with Clu'ist, howbeit we might have our
wale 3 and will of an host of lovers, as many as three heavens cotdd
' Thi^eatened. ^ Fasteninaf. ' Pick.
362 LETTER CGXIV.
contain. 0 that He and we were together ! O, when Christ and
ye shall meet about the outmost march ^ and borders of time and
the entry into eternity, ye shall see heaven in His face at the first
look, and salvation and glory sitting in His countenance and be-
twixt His eyes ! Faint not, the miles to heaven are but few and
short : He is making a green bed (as the word speaketh, Cant, i.)
of love for Himself and you. Thsre are many heads lying in
Christ's bosom ; but there is room for yours among the rest. And
therefore go on, and let hope go before you. Sin not in your
trials, and the victory is yours. Pray, Avrestle, and believe, and
ye §liall overcome and prevail with God as Jacob did. No windle-
straAvs,^ no bits of clay, no temptations, which are of no longer
life than an hour, will then be able to withstand you, when once
ye have prevailed with God. Help me with your prayers, that it
would please the Lord to give me house-room again to speak of
His righteousness in the great congregation, if it may seem good
in His sight. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R
Aberdeen, July 6, 1637.
^ Eoimdary ® Stalks of grasa.
THE
SECOND PART,
CONTAINING
SOME LETTERS OF THE SAME AUTHOK FROM ANWOTH, BEFORE HIS CONFINEMENT
AT ABERDEEN ; AND OTHERS FROM ST ANDKEW.S, LONDON, ETC. , AFTER
HIS ENLARGEMENT.
LETTER L— To the Viscountess of Kenmure.
I\Iadam, — All dutiful obedience in the Lord remembered. I
have heard of your ladyship's infirmity and sickness with griei,
yet I trust ye have learned to say, " It is the Lord, let Him do
whatsoever seemeth good in His eyes." It is now many years
since the apostate angels made a question, whether their will or the
will of their Creator should be done, and since that time, fro ward
mankind hath always in that same suit of law compeared to plead
with them against God in a daily repining against His will ; but
the Lord, being both party and judge, hath obtained a decreet, and
saith, Isa. xlvi. 10, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my
pleasure." It is then best for us, in the obedience of faith and in
an holy submission, to give that to God which the law of His
almighty and just poAver will have of us. Therefore, madam, your
Lord willeth you in all states of life to say, " Thy will be done in
earth, as it is in heaven," and herein shall ye have comfort, that
He who seeth perfectly through all your evils, and knoweth the
frame and constitution of your nature, and what is most healthful
for your soul, hokleth every cup of aflliction to your head with
His OAvn gracious hand. Never believe that your tender-hearted
Saviour, who knoweth the strength of your stomach, will mix that
cup with one di'achm-weight of poison. Drink then with the
patience of the saints, and the God of patience bless your physic.
I have heard your ladyship complain of deadness, and want of the
bestirring power of the life of God ; but courage, He who walked
in the garden and made a noise that made Adam hear His voice,
Avill also at some time walk in your soul and make you hear a
more sweet word. Yet ye will not always hear the noise and the
din of His feet when He walketh. Ye are at such a time, like
Jacob mourning at the supposed death of Joseph, when Joseph
364 LETTEl; 1. [PAKT II.
was living. The new creature, the image of the second Adam, is
living in you, and yet ye are mourning at the supposed death of
the life of Christ in you. Ephraim is bemoaning and mourning,
Jer. xxxi. 18, when he think eth God is far off and heareth not,
and yet God is like the Bridegroom (Cant. ii.)j standing only be-
hind a thin wall and laying to His ear, for He saith himself, v. 18,
" I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself." I have good
confidence, madam, that Christ Jesus, Avhom your soul, through
forests and mountains, is seeking, is within you. And yet I speak
not this to lay a pillow under your head, or to dissuade you from
an holy fear of the loss of your Christ, or of provoking and stirring
up the Beloved before He please by sin. I know, in spiritual con-
fidence the devil will come in, as in all other good works, and cry,
Half mine, and so endeavour to bring you under a fearful sleep,
till He whom your soul loveth be departed from the door, and
have left off knocking ; and, therefore, here the Spirit of God must
hold your soul's feet in the golden mid-line, betwixt confident
resting in the arms of Christ, and presumptuous and drowsy sleep-
ing in the bed of fleshly security. Therefore, worthy lady, so
count little of yourself, because of your own wretchedness and sin-
ful drowsiness, that ye count not also little of God in the course
of His unchangeable mercy. For there be many Christians most
like unto young sailors, who think the shore and the whole land
doth move, when the ship and they themselves are moved ; just
so, not a few do imagine that God moveth, and saileth, and
changeth places, because their giddy souls are under sail, and sub-
ject to alteration, to ebbing and flowing ; but the foundation of
the Lord abideth sure. God knoweth that ye are His own.
Wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray ; and then ye
have all the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ with-
in you. Ye have now, madam, a sickness before you : and also
after that, a death ; gather then, now, food for the journey. God
give you eyes to see through sickness and death, and to see some-
thing beyond death. I doubt not, but if hell were betwixt you
and Christ, as a river which ye behoved to cross ere ye could
come at Him, but ye would willingly put in your foot, and make
through to be at Him, upon hope that He would come in Himself,
in the deepest of the river, and lend you His hand. Now, I be-
lieve your hell is dried up, and ye have only these two shallow
brooks, sickness and death, to pass through ; and ye have also a
promise, that Christ shall do more than meet you, even that He
shall come Himself, and go with you foot for foot, yea and bear
you in His arms. 0 then ! 0 then for the joy that is set before
you, for the love of the Man (whc "^ also God over all, blessed for
ever) that is standing upon the shore to welcome you : run your
PART IT.] LETTER II. 365
race with patience. The Lord go with you. Your Lord will not
have you. nor any of His servants, to exchange for the worse.
Death in itself includeth both the death of the soul and the death of
the body ; but to God's children the bounds and the limits of death
are abridged, and drawn into a more narrow compass. So that
when ye die, a piece of death shall only seize upon you, or the
least part of you shall die, and that is the dissolution of the body ;
for in Christ ye are delivered from the second death : and there-
fore, as one born of God, commit not sin (although ye cannot live
and not sin), and that serpent shall Init eat your earthly part. As
for j^our soul, it is above the law of death. But it is fearful and
dangerous to be a debtor and servant to sin ; for the count of sin
ye will not be able to make good before God, except Christ both
count and pay for you. I trust also, madam, that ye will be care-
ful to present to the Lord the present estate of this decaying kirk.
For what shall be concluded in parliament anent ^ her, the Lord
knoweth. Sure I am, the decree of a most fearful parliament in
heaven is at the very point of coming forth because of the sins of
the land; for we "Have ca.'^t away the law of the Lord, and
despised the words of the holy One of Isi\ael," Isa. v. 24; "Judg-
ment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off;
truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter," Isa. lix. 14.
Lo the prophet, as if He had seen us and our kirk, resembleth
justice to be handled" as an enemy, holden out at the ports of our
city, so is she banished ; and truth to a person sickly and diseased,
fallen down in a deadly swooning fit in the streets, before he can
come to an house. " The priests have caused many to stumble at
the law, and have corrupted the covenant of Levi," Mai. ii. 8.
" But what will they do in the end *?" Jer. v. 3L Therefore, give
the Lord no rest for Zion ; stir up your husband, your brotlaer,
and all with whom ye are in favour and credit, to stand upon the
Lord's side against Baal. I have good hope your husband loveth
the peace and prosperity of Zion. The peace of God be upon him,
for his intended courses, anent ^ the establishment of a powerful
ministry in this land. Thus, not willing to weary your ladyship
farther, I recommend you now and always to the grace and mercy
of that God, who is able to keep you, that ye fall not. The Lord
Jesus be with your spirit. Your ladyship's servant, at all dutiful
obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, July 27, 1628.
LETTER H.— To the Parishioners of Kilmacolm.
Worthy and well-beloved in Christ Jesus our Lord,—
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your letters could not come
^ Concerning. - Eepresenteth j\istice as being treated.
366 LETTER II. [pari
11.
to my hand in a greater throng of business than I am now pressed
with at this time, when our kirk requireth the public help of us
all ; yefc I cannot but answer the heads of both your letters, with
provision that ye choose after this a fitter time for writing. 1. I
would not have you pitch upon me, as the man able by letters to
answer doubts of this kind, while there are in your bounds men
of such great parts most able for this work. I know the best are
unable, yet it pleaseth that Spirit of Jesus to blow His sweet wind
through a piece of dry stick, that the empty reed may keep no
glory to itself; but a minister can make no such wind as this to
blow, he is scarce able to lend it a passage to blow through him.
2. Know that the wind of this Spirit hath a time when it bloweth
sharp and pierceth so strongly that it would blow through an iron
door, and this is commonly rather under suffering for Christ than
at any other time. Sick children get of Christ's pleasant things
to play them withal, because Jesus is most tender of the sufferer,
for He was a sufferer Himself. 0, if I had l^ut the leavings and
the drawing of the by-board ^ of a sufferers table ! But I leave this
to answer yours.
First, ye write that God's vows are lying on you, and secuiity
strong and sib^ to nature, stealing on you who are weak. I
answer, 1. Till we be in heaven, the best have heavy heads, as is
evident, Cant. v. 1, Psalm xxx. 6, Job xxix. 18, Matt. xxvi. 33.
Nature is a sluggard, and loveth not the labour of religion : there-
fore rest should not be taken till we know the disease be over and
in the way of turning, and that it is like a fever past the cool.
And the quietness, and the calms of the faith of victory over cor-
ruption, would be entertained in place of security, so that if I
sleep, I would desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 2.
Know also, none that sleep sound can seriously complain of sleepi-
ness ; sorrow for a slumbering soul is a token of some watchful-
ness of spirit. But this is soon turned into wantonness (as grace
in us too often is abused) ; therefore, our waking must be watched
over, else sleep will even grow out of watching ; and there is as
much need to watch over grace as to watch over sin. Full men
will soon sleep, and sooner than hungry men. 3. For your weak-
ness to keep off security, that like a thief stealeth upon you, I
would say two things. (1.) To want complaints of weakness, is
for heaven and angels that never sinned, not for Christians in
Christ's camp on earth. I think our weakness maketh us the
church of the redeemed ones, and Christ's field that the Mediator
should labour in. If there were no diseases on earth, there needed
no physicians on earth : if Christ had cried down weakness, He
might have cried down His own calling; but weakness is our
' Side-table. - Akin.
PART II.] LETTEK II. 367
Mediator's world. Sin is Christ's only, only fair and market. No
man should rejoice at weakness and diseases; but I think, we may
have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because without them
Christ's fingers, as a slain Lord, should never have touched our
skin, I dare not thank myself, but I dare thank God's depth of
wise providence, that I have an errand in me, while I live, for
Christ to come and visit me, and bring Avith Him his drugs and
his balm. 0 how sweet is it for a sinner to put his weakness in
Clirist's strengthening hand, and to father a sick soul upon such a
physician, and to lay weakness before Him, to weep upon Him,
and to plead and pray ; weakness can speak and cry, when we
have not a tongue : Ezek. xvi. 6, " And when 1 passed by thee,
and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when
thou wast in thy blood. Live." The kirk could not speak one
word to Christ then, but blood and guiltiness out of measure
spake, and drew out of Christ pity, and a word of life and love.
(2.) For weakness, Ave have it, that we may employ Christ's
strength because of our weakness. Weakness is to make us the
strongest things ; that is, when having no strength of our own,
we are caiTied upon Christ's shoulders, and walk (as it were) upon
His legs. If our sinful weakness swell up to the clouds, Christ's
strength will swell up to the sun, and far above the heaven of
heavens. 2. Ye tell me that there is need of counsel for strength-
ening of new beginners ; I can say little to that, who am not well
begun myself; but I know, honest beginnings are nourished by
Him, even by lovely Jesus, who never yet put out a poor man's
dim candle, Avho is wrestling betwixt light and darkness. I am
sure if new beginners would urge themselves upon Christ, and
press their souls upon Him, and importune Him for a draught of
His sweet love, they could not come wrong to Christ. Come once
in upon the right nick and step of His lovely love, and I defy you
to get free of Him again. If any beginners fall off Christ again,
and miss Him, they never lighted upon Christ as Christ ; it was
but an idol, like Jesus, they took for Him. 3. Whereas ye com-
plain of a dead ministry in your bounds, ye are to remember, that
the Bible among you is the contract of marriage, and the manner
of Christ's conveying His love to your heart is not so absolutely
dependent upon even lively preaching, as that there is no conver-
sion at all, no life of God, but that Avhich is tied to a man's lips.
The daughters of Jerusalem have done often that which the watch-
man could not do. Make Christ your minister. He can woo a soul
at a dyke-side^ in the field ; He needeth not us, hoAvbeit the flock
be obliged to seek Him in the shepherd's tents. Hunger of
Christ's making may thrive, even under steAvards who mind not
^ The side of a wall.
368 LETTEK II. [part II.
the feeding of the flock. O blessed sou], that can leap over
a man, and look above a pulpit, up to Christ, who can preach
home to the heart, howbeit we were all dead and rotten ! 4.
So to complain of yourself as to justify God is right, and pro-
viding ye justify His Spirit in yourself; for men seldom advo-
cate against Satan's work and sin in themselves, but against God's
work in themselves. Some of the people of God slander God's
grace in their souls, as some wretches use to do, who complain and
murmur of want. I have nothing (say they), all is gone, the
ground yieldeth but weeds and windlestraws ;^ whenas their fat
harvest, and their money in bank, maketli them liars. But for
myself, alas ! I think it is not my sin, I have scarce wit to sin this
sin. But I advise you to speak good of Christ for His beauty and
sweetness, and speak good of Him for His grace to yourselves. 5.
Light remaineth, ye say, but ye cannot attain to painfulness.^
See if this complaint be not booked in the New Testament ; and
the place, Rom. vii. 18, is like this, " To will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good, I know not." But every
one hath not Paul's spirit in complaining, for often in us, com-
plaining is but an humble backbiting and traducing of Christ's
new work in the soul. But for the matter of the complaint, I
would say, the light of glory is perfectly obeyed in loving, and
praising, and rejoicing, and resting in a seen and known Lord :
but that liglit is not hereaway in any clay body ; for while we are
here, light is in the most part broader and longer than our narrow
and feckless^ obedience. But if there be liglit with a fair train
and a great back, I mean, armies of challenging thoughts, and sor-
row for coming short of performance, in what we know and see
ought to be performed, then that sorrow for not doing is accepteii
of our Lord for doing. Our honest sorrow and sincere aims, to-
gether with Christ's intercession, pleading that God would wel-
come that which we have, and forgive what we have not, must be
our life, till we be over the bound-road, and in the other country
where the law will get a perfect soul. 6. In Christ's absence,
there is (as ye write) a willingness to use means, but heaviness
after the use of them because of formal and slight performance.
In Christ's absence, I confess, the work lieth behind ; but if ye
mean absence of comfort, and absence of sense of His sweet pres-
ence, I think that absence is Christ's trying of us, not simply our
sin against Him. Therefore, howbeit our obedience then be not
sugared and sweetened with joy (which is the sweetmeat bairns
would still be at), yet the less sense and the more willingness in
olDeying, the less formality in our obedience, howbeit we think not
so ; for I believe many think obedience forma! and lifeless, exce[)t
^ Useless grass. - Pains-taking. ^ Feeble.
PART 11. J LETTER II. 369
the winr! be fair in the west, and sails filled with joy and sense,
till souls, like a ship fair before the wind, can spread no more sail ;
but I am not of their mind who think so. But if ye mean by ab-
sence of Christ, the withdrawing of His working grace, I see not
how Avillingness to use means can be at all under such an absence.
Therefore, be humbled for heaviness in that obedience, and thank-
ful for willingness : for the Bridegroom is busking^ His spouse
often times while she is half sleeping, and your Lord is working
and helping more than ye see. Also, I recommend to you heaviness
for formality and lifeless deadness in obedience. Be casten down
as much as ye will or can for deadness, and challenge that slow and
dull carcase of sin that will neither lead nor drive in your spiritual
obedience. 0 how sweet to lovely Jesus are bills and grievances
given in against corruption and the body of sin ! I would have
Christ, in such a case, fashed- (if I may speak so) and deaved^
with our cries, as ye see the apostle doth, Eom. vii. 24, ^' 0
wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of
this death 1 " Protestations against the law of sin in you, are law-
grounds why sin can have no law against you. Seek to have your
protestation discussed and judged, and then shall ye find Christ on
your side of it. 7. Ye hold that Christ must either have hearty
service or no service at all. If ye mean. He will not halve a
heart, or have feigned service, such as the hypocrites give Him, ]
grant you that. Christ must have honesty or nothing. But if yc
mean. He will have no service at all where the heart draweth
aback in any measure, I would not that were true, for my part of
heaven and all that I am worth in the world. If ye mind to walk
to heaven without a cramp or a crook, I fear you must go your
lone.'* He knoweth our dross and defects, and sweet Jesus pitieth
us when weakness and deadness in our obedience is our cross and
not our darling. 8. The liar (as ye write) challengeth the work
as formal ; yet ye bless your cautioner for the' ground-work He
hath laid, and dare not say but you have assurance in some
measure. To this I say, (1.) It shall be no fault to save Satan's
labour, and challenge it yourself, or at least examine and censure;
but beware of Satan's ends in challenging, for he mindeth to put
Christ and you at odds.^ (2.) Welcome home faith in Jesus, who
washeth still when we have defiled our souls and made ourselves
loathsome, and seek still the blood of atonement to faults little or
meikle.*^ Know the gate'^ to the well, and lie about it. (3.) Make
meikle^ of assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed. 9. Out-
breakings (ye say) discourage you, so that ye know not if ever ye
shall win again to such overjoying consolations of the Spirit in
^ Adorning. ^ Annoyed. ^ Deafened. * Alone.
® Variance. « Great. '^ Road. * Much.
2 A
370 LETTER II. [PAET II.
this life, as formerly ye had. ; and therefore a question may be, if,
after assurance and mortification, the children of God be ordinarily
fed with sense and joy? I answer, I see no inconvenience to
think it is enough in a race to see the gold at the starting-place,
howbeit the runners never get a view of it till they come to the
rink's^ end, and that our wise Lord thinketh it fittest we should
not always be fingering and playing with Christ's apples. Our
Well-Beloved, I know, will sport and play with His bride, as much
as He thinketh will allure her to the rink's^ end. Yet I judge it
not Tinlawful to seek renewed consolations, providing, (1.) the
he'cirt be submissive and content to leave the measure and timing
of them to Him. (2.) Providing they be sought to excite us to
praise, and strengthen our assurance, and sharpen our desires after
Himself. (3.) Let them be sought not for our humours or swell-
ing of nature, but as the earnest of heaven ; and I think manj''
do attain to greater consolations after mortification than ever they
had formerly. But I know our Lord walketh here still by a
sovereign latitude, and keepeth not the same way as to one hair-
breadth without a miss, towards all His children. As for the
Lord's people with you, I am not the man fit to speak to them. I
rejoice exceedingly that Christ is engaging souls amongst you.
But I know in conversion all the winning is in the first buying (as
we use to say), for many lay false and bastard foundations, and
take up conversion at their foot, and get Christ for as good as half
nothing, and had never a sick night for sin, and this maketh loose
work. I pray you dig deep ; Christ's palace-work, and His new
dwelling, laid upon hell felt and feared, is most firm : and heaven
grounded and laid upon such a hell, is surest work, and will not
wash away with Avinter storms. It were good that professors were
not like young heirs, that come to their rich estate long ere they
come to their wit, and so is seen on it i^ the tavern, and the cards,
and the harlots steal their ridges from them, ere ever they be
aware what they are doing. I know, a Christ bought with strokes
is sweetest. 2. I recommend to you conference and prayer at
private meetings : for warrant whereof, see Isa. ii. 3, Jer. i. 4, 5,
Hos. ii, 1, 2, Ezek. viii. 20-23, Mai. iii. 16, Luke xxiv. 13-17,
John XX. 19, Acts xii. 12. Col iii. 16, and iv. 6, Ephes. iv. 29,
1 Peter iv. 10, 1 Thess. v. 14, Heb. iii. 13, and x. 25. Many
coals make a good fire, and this is a part of the communion of
saints. I must entreat you, and your Christian acquaintances in
the parish, to remember me to God in your prayers, and my flock
and ministry, and my transportation and removal from this place,
which I fear at this assembly. And be earnest with God for our
^ Course's. - The result is as might be expected.
PART II.] LETTER III. 371
mother kirk. For warxt of time, I have put you all in one letter.
The rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, & R
Anv.'otli, Auir. 5, 1639.
LETTER III.— To a Christian Gentlewoman.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered to you. I was
indeed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye
were in such heaviness after your daughter's death; yet I
do persuade myself, ye know that the weightiest end of the cross
of Christ that is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Saviour:
for Isaiah saith, chap. Ixii. 9, "In all your aflElictions He is
afflicted." 0 blessed second, who suffereth with you ! and glad
may your soul be, even to walk in the fiery furnace with one like
unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage, up
your heart, when ye do tire. He will bear both you and your
burden, Ps. Iv. 22. Yet a little while and ye shall see the
salvation of God. Remember of what age your daughter was, as
long was your lease of her; if she was 18, 19, or 20 years old, I
know not, sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your lease run
out, ye can no more justly quarrel^ your great Superior for taking
His own, at His just term-day, than a poor farmer can complain
that his master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when
his lease is expired. Good mistress, if ye would not be content
that Christ would hold from you the heavenly inheritance, which
is made yours by His death, shall not that same Christ think
hardly of you, if ye refuse to give Him your daughter willingly,
who is a part of His inheritance and conquest 1 I pray the Lord
to give you all your own, and to grace you with patience to give
God his also : he is an ill debtor who payeth that which he hath
borrowed with a grudge. Indeed, that long loan of such a good
daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ (as I believe),
deserveth more thanks at your Creditor's hand, than that ye
should gloom and murmur when He craveth but His own : I
believe ye would judge them to be but thankless neighbours, who
would pay you a sum of money after this manner. But what, do
ye think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the
Almighty? Think her not absent, who is in such a Friend's
house. Is she lost to you, who is found to Christ? If she were
with a dear friend, although ye should never see her again, your
care for her would be but small, 0, now, is she not with a dear
Friend, and gone higher upon a certain hope that ye shall in the
resurrection see her again, when (be ye sure) she shall neither be
372 LETTER III. [part II.
hectic nor consumed in body 1 Ye would be sorry either to be, or
to be esteemed, an Atheist; and yet not 1, but the apostle,
1 Tb«ss. iv. 13, thinketh those to be hopeless Atheists who mourn
excessively for the dead. But this is not a challenge on my part,
I do speak this only fearing your weakness ; for your daughter
was a part of yourself, and therefore, nature in you being, as it
were, cut and halved, will indeed he grieved; but ye have to
rejoice, that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is
glorified in heaven. Follow her, but envy her not ; for indeed it
is self-love in us that maketh us mourn for them that die in the
Lord. Why ? Because for them we cannot mourn, since they are
never happy till they be dead ; therefore we mourn for our own
private respect. Take heed, then, that in showing your affection
in mourning for your daughter, ye be not, out of seli-affection,
mourning for yourself. Consider what the Lord is doing in it;
your daughter is plucked out of the fire, and she resteth from her
labours ; and your Lord (in that) is trying you, and casting you
in the fire : go through all fires to your rest. And now remember
that the eye of God is upon you, beholding your patience and
faith : He delighteth to see you in the burning bush, and not con-
sumed ; and He is gladly content that such a weak woman as ye
should send Satan away frustrate of his design. Now honour
God, and shame the strong roaring lion, when ye seem weakest.
Should such a one as ye faint in the day of adversity? Call to
mind the days of old : the Lord yet liveth ; trust in Him
although He should slay you. Faith is exceeding charitable, and
believeth no evil of God, Now is the Lord laying in the one scale
of the balance your making conscience of submission to His
gracious will ; and, in the other, your affection and love to your
daughter: which of the two will you, then, choose to satisfy?
Be wise, then, and, as I trust ye love Christ better than a siniul
woman, pass by your daughter, and kiss the Lord's rod. Men
do lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end they
may grow up high and tall. The Lord hath this way lopped
your branch, in taking from you many children, to the end
ye should grow upward, like one of the Lord's cedars, setting
your heart above, where Christ is at the right hand of the Father:
what is next, but that your Lord cut down the stock after Ha
hath cut the branches 1 Prepare yourself ; ye are nearer your
daughter this day than ye were yesterday ; while ye prodigally
spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting after her.
Eun your race with patience : let God have His own, and ask of
Him, instead of your daughter, which He hath taken from you,
the daughter of faith, which is patience, and " in patience possess
your souL" Lift up your head ; ye do not know how near your
PART IL] LETTER IV. 373
relemption doth draw. Thus recommending you to the Lord,
who is able to establish yon, I rest.
Your loving and aftectionate friend in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
.Inwoth, April 23, 1628.
LETTER IV.— To the Elect and Noble Lady, my Lady
Kenmure.
Madam, — Saluting your ladyship with grace and mercy from
God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. I was sorry,
at my departure, leaving your ladyship in grief, and Avould still
be grieved at it, if I were not assured that ye have one with you
in the furnace, " whose visage is like unto the Son of God." I am
glad that ye have been acquainted, from your youth, with the
wrestlings of God, and that ye get scarce liberty to swallow down
your spittle, being casten from furnace to furnace ; knowing if ye
were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much
of Him, He would not spend so much physic upon you. All the
brethren and sisters of Christ must be conformed to His image
and copy in suffering, Rom, viii. 17, and some do more vively^
resemble the copy than others. Think, madam, that it is a pari
of your glory to l)e enrolled among those whom one of the elders
(Rev. vii. 14,) pointed out to John : " These are they which came
out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb." Behold your Forerunner
going out of the world, all in a lake of blood ; and it is not ill to
die as He did. Fulfil, with joy, the remnant of the grounds and
remainders of the afilictions of Christ in your body. Ye have lost
a child ; nay, she is not lost to you who is found to Christ ; she is
not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which, going
out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shiueth in another
hemisphere: ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another countr}-.
If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time, that
she hath gotten of eternity ; and ye have to rejoice that ye have
now some plenishing ^ up in heaven. Build your nest upon no
tree here ; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death ; and every
tree, whereupon we would rest, is ready to be cut down, to the
end we may flee, and mount up, and build upon the rock, and
dwell in the holes of the rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your
husband, is an adulterous lover. Now it is God's special blessing
to Judah, that He will not let her find her paths in following her
strange lovers, Hos. ii. 6. " Therefore, behold, I will hedge up
her way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her
paths," V. 7. " And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall
1 Vividly. ^ Furniture.
374 LETTEE IV. [part II.
not overtake them." O, thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth
a double stone wall betwixt her and the fire of hell ! The world
and the things of the world, madam, is the lover ye naturally
affect beside your own husband, Christ. The hedge of thorns,
and the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from
this Icrrer, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children,
weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack
of worldly comfort, fear of God's anger for old, unrepented-of sins.
What lose ye, if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker 1
God be blessed, the Lord will not let you find your paths : return
to your first husband ; do not weary, neither think that death
walketh towards you with a slow pace ; ye must be riper ere ye
be shaken; your days are no longer than Job's, that were "swifter
than a post, and passed away as the ships of desire, and as the
eagle that hasteth for the prey," Job ix. 25, 26. There is less
sand in your glass now than there was yesternight ; this span-
length of ever-posting time will soon be ended ; but the greater is
the mercy of God, the more years ye get to advise ^ upon what
terms, and upon what conditions ye cast your soul in the huge
gulf of never-ending eternity. The Lord hath told you what ye
should be doing till He come; "Wait and hasten, (saith Peter)
for the coming of our Lord : " all is night that is here, in respect
of ignorance and daily ensuing troubles, one always making way
to another, as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth : therefore
sigh and long for the dawning of that morning, and the breaking
of that day of the coming of the Son of man, when the shadows
shall flee away. Persuade yourself the King is coming ; read His
letter sent before Him, Eev. iii. 11, — "Behold I come quickly."
Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern
sky, and think that ye have not a morrow ; as the wise father
said, who, being invited against to-morrow to dine with his friends,
answered, " These many days I have had no morrow at all." I
am loth to weary you ; show yourself a Christian by suffering
without murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand and seven
hundred were slain, Num. xvi. 49. " In patience possess your
soul ; " they lose nothing who gain Christ. Thus remembering
my brother's and my wife's humble service to your ladyship, I
commend you to the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus, assuring
you that your day is coming, and that God's mercy is abiding you.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, at all dutitul obedience, S. ii,.
Anwoth, Jan. 15, 1629.
^ CoHJcider.
PART II.] LETTEK V. 375
LETTER v.— To my LADY Keotiure.
Madam, — Saluting you in Jesus Christ, to my grief I must bid
you (it may be) for ever farewell in paper, having small assurance
ever to see your face again, till the last general assembly, where
the whole church universal shall meet : yet promising, by His
grace, to present your ladyship and your burdens to Him, who is
able to save you and give you an inheritance with the saints, after
a more special manner than ever I have done before. Ye are
going to a country where the Sun of Righteousness in the Gospel
shineth not so clearly as in this kingdom ; but if ye would know
where He, whom your soul loveth, doth rest, and where He feed-
eth at the noon-tide of the day, wherever ye be, "get you forth
by the footsteps of the flock, and feed yourself beside the shep-
herds' tents," Cant. i. 7. That is, ask for some of the watchmen
of the Lord's city, who will tell you truly and will not lie, where
ye shall find Him whom your soul loveth. I trust ye are so be-
trothed in marriage to the true Christ, that ye will not give your
love to any false Christ. Ye know not how soon your marriage
day will come; nay, is not eternity hard upon you? It were time,
then, that ye had your wedding garment in readiness : be not
sleeping at your Lord's coming. I pray God, ye may be upon
your feet standing when He knocketh. Be not discouraged to go
from this country to another part of the Lord's earth, " The earth
is His and the fulness thereof," Ps. xxiv. 1. This is the Lord's
lower house ; while we are lodged here, we have no assurance to
lie ever in one chamber, but must be content to remove from one
corner of our Lord's nether-house to another, resting in hope, that
when we come up to the Lord's upper-city, Jerusalem that is above,
we shall remove no more, because then we shall be at home : and
go wheresoever ye will, if your Lord go with you, ye are at home,
and your lodging is ever taken before night, so long as He, who is
Israel's dwelling-house, is your home, Ps. xc. 1. Believe me,
madam, my mind is, that ye are well lodged, and that in your
house there are fair ease-rooms and pleasant lights, if ye can in
faith lean down your head upon the breast of Jesus Christ ; and
till this be, ye shall never get a sound sleep. Jesus, Jesus be your
shadow and your covering. It is a sweet soul-sleep to lie in the
arms of Christ, for His breath is very sweet. Pray for poor friend-
less Zion. Alas ! no man will speak for her now, although at
home in her own country she hath good friends, her Husband
Christ, and His Father, her Father-in-law. Beseech your Hus-
band to be a friend to Zion, and pray for her. I have received
many and divers dashes and heavy strokes since the Lord called
me to the ministry ; but, indeed, I esteem your departure from us
376 LETTER VI. [PART 11
amongst the weightiest ; but I perceive, God will have us to be
deprived of wliatsoever we idolise, that He may have His own
room. I see exceeding small fruit of my ministry, and would be
glad to know of one soul to be my crown and rejoicing in the day
of Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain, yet my labour is
with my God, Isa. xlix. 9. I wish and pray that the Lord would
harden my face against all, and make me to learn to go with my
face against a storm. Again, I commend you, body and spirit, to
Him who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own
blood. Grace, grace, grace for ever be with you. Pray, pray
continually.
Your ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience in Christ, Sb R.
Anwoth, Sept. 14, 1629.
LETTER VL— To John Kennedy.
My loving and most aitectionate Brother in Christ,—!
salute you with grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father,
and from our Lord Jesus Christ. I promised to write to you, and
although late enough, yet now I make it good. I heard with grief
of your great danger of perishing by the sea, but of your merciful
deliverance with joy. Sure I am, brother, Satan will leave no
stone unrolled (as the proverb is) to roll you off your Rock, or, at
least, to shake and unsettle you : for at that same time, the
mouths of wicked men were opened in hard speeches against you
by land, and the prince of the power of the air was angry with
you by sea. See then how much ye are obliged to that malicious
murderer, who would beat you with two rods at one time ; but,
blessed be God, his arm is short : if the sea and winds would have
obeyed him, ye had never come to land. Thank your God, Avho
saith. Rev. i. 18, "I have the keys of hell and of death." Dent.
xxxii. 39, " I kill and I make alive." 1 Sam. ii. 6, " The Lord
bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up." If Satan were
jailer, and had the keys of death and of the grave, they should be
stored with more prisoners. Ye were knocking at these black
gates, and ye found the doors shut ; and we do all welcome you
back again. I trust ye know it is not for nothing that ye are
sent to us again : the Lord knew ye had forgotten something that
was necessary for your journey ; that your armour was not as yet
thick enough against the stroke of death. Now, in the strength
of Jesus, dispatch your business ; that debt is not forgiven, but
fristed :^ death hath not bidden you farewell, but hath only left
you for a short season. End your journey, ere the night come
upon you ; have all in readiness against the time that ye must sail
' Postponed.
FaRT II.] LETTER VI. 377
through that black and impetuous Jordan ; and Jesus, Jesus, who
knoweth both these depths, and the rocks, and all the coasts, be
your Pilot ; that last tide will not wait for you one moment ; if
ye forget anything, when your sea is full and j^our foot in that
ship, there is no returning again to fetch it. What ye do amiss
in your life to-day, ye may amend it to-morrow ; for as many suns
as God maketh to arise upon you, ye have as many new lives ;
but ye can die but once ; and if ye mar or spill ^ that business, ye
cannot come back to mend that piece of work again ; no man
sinneth twice in dying ill : as we die but once, so we die but ill
or well once. Ye see how the numl^er of your months is written
in God's book ; and as one of the Loi-d's hirelings, ye must work
till the shadow of the evening come upon you, and ye shall run
out your glass even to the last pickle^ of sand. Fulfil your course
with joy, for we take nothing to the grave with us but a good or
evil conscience. And although the sky clear after this storm, yet
clouds will engender another. Ye contracted with Christ, I hope,
when first ye began to follow Him, that ye would bear His cross ;
fulfil your part of the contract with patience, and break not to
Jesus Christ. Be honest, brother, in your bargaining with Him ;
for who knoweth better how to bring up children tlian our God 'I
For (to lay aside His knowledge, of the which there is no search-
ing out) He hath been practised in bringing up His heirs these
5000 years, and His bairns are all well brought up, and many of
them are honest men now at home, up in their own house in
heaven, and are entered heirs to their Father's inheritance. Now,
the form of His bringing up was by chastisements, scourging, cor-
recting, nurturing.^ See if He maketh exception of any of His
bairns, Eev. iii. 19, Heb. xii. 7, 8. No. His eldest Son and His
Heir, Jesus, is not excepted, Heb. ii. 10. Sufifer we must, ere we
were born God decreed it ; and it is easier to complain of His de-
cree than to change it. It is true, terrors of conscience cast us
down ; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised
up again. Fears and doubtings shake us; and yet without fears
and doubtings we would soon sleep and lose our grips of Christ.
Tribulation and temptations will almost loose us at the root ; and
yet without tribulations and temptations, we can now no more
grow, than herbs or corn without rain. Sin and Satan and the
world will say, and cry in our ear, that we have a hard reckoning
to make in judgment ; and yet none of these three, except they
lie, dare say in our face, that our sin can change the tenor of the
new covenant. Forward then, dear brother, and lose not your
grips ; hold fast the truth, for the world sell not one drachm-
weight of God's truth, especially now when most men measure
' Spoil. '-' Grain. • Discipline.
378 LETTEK VI. [PAET tt.
truth by time, like young seamen setting their compass by a cloud ;
for now time is father and mother to truth, in the thoughts and
practices of our evil time. The God of truth establish us ; for,
alas ! now there are none to comfort the prisoners of hope and
the mourners of Zion. We can do little except pray and mourn
for Joseph in the stocks : and let their tongue cleave to the roof
of their mouth, who forget Jerusalem now in her day : and the
Lord remember Edom, and render to him as He hath done to us.
Now, brother, I will not weary you, but I intreat you, remember
my dearest love to Mr. David Dickson, with whom I have small
acquaintance ; yet I bless the Lord, I know he both prayeth and
doeth for our dying kirk. Eemember my dearest love to John
Stuart, whom I love in Christ ; and show him from me, I do
always remember him, and hope for a meeting. The Lord Jesus
establish him more and more, though he be already a strong man
in Christ. Eemember my heartiest affection in Christ to William
liodger, whom I also remember to God. I wish the first news I
hear of him and you, and all that love our common Saviour in
those bounds, may be, that ye are so knit and linked and kindly
fastened in love with the Son of God, that ye may say, " Now, if
we would never so fain escape out of Christ's hands, yet love liath
so bound us that we cannot get our hands free again ; He hath so
ravished our hearts, that there is no loosing of His grips ; the
chains of His soul-ravishing love are so strong that the grave nor
death will not break them." I hope, brother, yea I doubt not of
it, but ye lay me, and my first entry to the Lord's vineyard, and
my fiock, before Him who hath put me in His work ; as the Lord
knoweth, since first I saw you, I have been mindful of you.
Marion Macnaught doth remember most heartily her love to you,
and to John Stuart. Blessed be the Lord, tliat in God's mercy I
found in this country such a "woman, to whom Jesus is dearer than
her own heart, when there be so many that cast Christ over their
shoulder. Good brother, call to mind the memory of your worthy
father, now asleep in Christ ; and, as his custom was, pray con-
tinually, and wrestle for the life of a dying breathless kirk, and
desire John Stuart not to forget poor Zion ; she hath few friends,
and few to speak one good word for her. Now I commend you,
your whole soul, and body, and spirit, to Jesus Christ and His
keeping, hoping ye will die and live, stand and fall, with the
cause of our Master, Jesus. The Lord Jesus Himself be with
your spirit.
Your loving brother in our Lord Jesuij, {i. E.
Anwotb, Feb. 2, 1632.
^AST U.] LETTEK VII. 379
LETTER VII.— To my Lady Kenmuiie.
Madaivt, — I have longed exceedingly to hear of your life, anu
health, and growth in the grace of God. I lacked the opportunity
of a bearer, in respect I did not understand of the hasty departure
of the last, by whom I might have saluted your ladyship, and
therefore I could not write before this time. I intreat you, madam,
let me have two lines from you, concerning your present condition.
I know ye are in grief and heaviness, and if it were not so, ye
might be afraid, because then your way should not be so like the
way that, our Lord saith, leadeth to the New Jerusalem. Sure I
am, if ye knew what were before you, or if ye saw but some
glances of it, ye would, with gladness, swim through the present
tioods of sorrow, spreading forth your arras, out of desire to be at
land. If God have given you the earnest of the Spirit, as part of
payment of God's principal sum, ye have to rejoice ; for our Lord
will not lose His earnest, neither will He go back or repent Him
of the bargain. If ye find at some time a longing to see God, joy
in the assurance of that sight (howbeit that feast be but like the
passover that cometli about only once a year), peace of conscience,
liberty of prayer, the doors of God's treasure casten up to the soul,
and a clear sight of Himself looking out, and saying, with a
smiling countenance, " Welcome in to me, afilicted soul." This is
the earnest that He giveth sometimes, and which maketh glad the
heart, and is an evidence that the bargain will hold. But, to the
end ye may get this earnest, it were good to come oft in terms of
speech with God, both in prayer and hearing of the word. For
this is the house of wine, where ye meet with yonr Well-Beloved ;
here it is where He "kisseth you with the kisses of His mouth," and
where ye feel the smell of His garments, and they have indeed a
most fragrant and glorious smell. Ye must, I say, wait upon
Him, and be often communing with Him, whose " lips are as lilies,
dropping sweet smelling myrrh," and by the moving thereof. He
will assuage your grief; for the Christ that saveth you is a speak-
ing Christ; the Church knoweth Him, Cant, ii,, by His voice,
and she can discern His tongue amongst a thousand. I say this
to the end ye should not love those dumb masks of Antichristian
ceremonies, that the church, where ye are for a time, hath casten
over the Christ whom your soul loveth. This is to set before you
a dumb Christ. But when our Lord cometh. He speaketh to the
heart in the simplicity of the Gospel. I have neither tongue nor
pen to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ.
When ye have sold all that ye have, and bought the field wherein
this pearl is, ye will think it no bad market ; for, if ye be in Him,
nil His is yours, and ye are in Him, therefore " because He liveth.
380 LETTER VII. [?Aiir II.
ye shall live also," John xiv. 19. And what is that else, but as if
the Son had said, I will not have heaven, except my redeemed
ones be with me ; they and I cannot live asunder, " abide in me,
and I in you," John xv. 5. 0 sweet communion, when Christ and
we are through other,^ and are no longer two ! " Father, I will
that those whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, to
behold my glory that thou hast given me," John xvii. 24. Amen,
dear Jesus, let it be according to that word. I wonder that ever
your heart should be casten down, if ye believe this truth ; and
they are not worthy of Jesus Christ, who will not suffer forty
years' trouble for Him, since they have such glorious promises :
but we fools believe those promises, as the man that read Plato's
writings concerning the immortality of the soul ; so long as the
book was in his hand, he believed all was true, and that the soul
could not die ; but so soon as he laid by the book, presently he
began to imagine that the soul is but a smoke or aiiy vapour, that
perisheth with the expiring of the breath. So we, at starts, do
assent to the sweet and precious promises ; but, laying aside God's
book, we begin to call all in question. It is faith indeed to believe
without a pledge, and to hold the heart constant at this work, and
when we doubt, to run to the law and to tlie testimony, and stay
there. Madam, hold you here ; here is your Father's testament ;
read it ; in it He hath left to you remission of sins, and life ever-
lasting. If all til at ye have here be crosses, and troubles, down-
castings, frequent desertions, and departure of the Lord, who is
suiting - you in marriage, courage ; He who is wooer and suitor,
should not be an household-man with you, till ye and He come up
to His Father's house together. He purposeth to do you good at
your latter end, Deut. viii. 16, and to give you rest from the
days of adversity, Ps. xciv. 13. " It is good to bear the yoke of
God in your youth," Lam. iii. 27. " Turn in to your stronghold
as a prisoner of hope," Zech. ix. 12. "For the vision is for an
appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie ; though
it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry,"
Hab. ii. 3. Hear Himself saying, Isa. xxvi. 20, " Come, my people,
(rejoice. He calleth on you), enter thou into thy chambers, and
shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself, as it were for a little
moment, till the indignation be past." Believe then, believe, and
be saved : think not hard, if ye get not your will, nor your de-
lights in this life ; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but
Himself. " God forbid that ye should rejoice in anything but in
the cross of Christ," Gal. iv. 16, Our church, madam, is decaying.
She is like Ephraim's cake, and gray hairs are here and there upon
her, and she knoweth it not, Hosea vii. 9. She is old and
^ Each other. " Courtinc;.
PART II.] LETTER VIIl. 381
gray-haired, near the grave, and no man taketh it to heart. Her
wine is sour and is corrupted. Now, if Phineas' wife did live,
she might travail in birth and die, to see the ark of God taken,
and the glory departing from our Israel. The power and life of
religion is away. " Woe be to us, for the day goeth away, for the
shadows of the evening are stretched out," Jer. vi. 4. Madam,
Zion is the ship wherein ye are carried to Canaan ; if ye suffer
shipwreck, you will be casten overboard, upon death and life, to
swim to land upon broken boards. It were time for us, by prayer,
to put upon our Master-Pilot Jesus, and to cry, " Master, save us,
we perish." Grace, grace be with you. We would think it a
blessing to our kirk to see you here ; but our sins withliold good
things from us. The great Messenger of the covenant preserve
you in body and spirit. Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anv. oth, Feb. 1, 1630.
LETTER VIIL— To my Lady Kexmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you. I
received your ladyship's letter, in the which, I perceive your case
in this world smelleth of worship ^ and communion with the Son
of God in His sufferings. Ye cannot, ye must not have a more
pleasant or more easy condition here than He had, who "through
afflictions was made perfect," Heb. ii. 10. We may indeed think,
cannot God bring us to heaven with ease and prosperity 1 Who
doubteth but He" can? But His infinite wisdom thinketh and de-
creeth the contrary, and we cannot see a reason of it, yet He hath
a most just reason. We never with our eyes saw our own soul,
yet we have a soul ; we see many rivers, but we know not their
first spring and original fountain, yet they have a beginning.
Madam, when ye ai'e come to the other side of the water, and have
set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back
again to the waters and to your Avearisome journey, and shall see
in that clear glass of endless glory nearer to the bottoni of God's
wisdom, ye shall then be forced to say, "If God had done other-
wise with me than he hath done, I had never come to the enjoying
of this crown of glory." It is your part now to believe and sufier,
and ho}je, and wait on. For I protest in the presence of that all-
discerning eye, who knoweth what I write and what I think, that
I would not want the sweet experience of the consolations of God
for all the bitterness of affliction : nay, whether God come to His
children with a rod or a crown, if He come Himself Avith it, it is
well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what way soever Thou come, if
we can get a sight of Thee : and sure I am, it is better to be sick,
providing Christ come to the bed-side and draAv the curtains, and
say, Courage, I am thy salvation, than to enjoy health, being lusty
1 Qu. Fellowship.
382 LETTER VIII. [part II.
and strong, and never to be visited of God. Worthy and dear
lady, in the strength of Christ, figlit and overcome. Ye are now
your lone,^ but ye may have for the seeking, three always in your
company, the Fatbar, Son, and Holy Spirit : I trust they are near
you. Ye are now deprived of the comfort of a lively ministry ; so
was Israel in their captivity; yet hear God's promise to them,
Ezek. xi. 16, "Therefore say. Thus saith the Lord God, although I
have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have
scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little
sanctuary in the countries where they shall come." Behold a sanc-
tuary ; for a sanctuary, God Himself, in the place and room of the
temple of Jerusalem : I trust in God, carrying this temple about
with you, ye shall see Jehovah's beauty in His house. We are in
great fears of a great and fearful trial to come upon the kirk of God ;
for those who would build their houses and nests upon the aslies
of mourning Jerusalem, have drawn our king upon hard and
dangerous conclusions against such as are termed Puritans, for the
rooting of them out. Our prelates (the Lord take the keys of His
house from these bastard porters) assure us that for such as will
not conform, there is nothing but imprisonment and deprivation.
The spouse of Jesus will ever be in the fire ; but I trust in my God,
she shall not consume, because of the good will of Him who dwell-
eth in the bush, for He dwelleth in it with good-will. All sort of
crying sins without controlment abound in our land ; the glory of the
Lord is departing from Israel, and the Lord is looking back over
His shoulder, to see if any will say. Lord, tarry ; and no man re-
questeth Him to stay. Corrupt and false doctrine is openly preach-
ed by the idol shepherds of the land. For myself, I have daily
griefs through the disobedience unto and contempt of the word of
God. I was summoned before the high commission by a profligate
person in this parish, convicted of incest : in the business, Mr.
Alexander Colville {for respect to your ladyship) was my great
friend, and wrote a most kind letter to me : "The Lord give him
mercy in that day." Upon the day of my compearance, the sea
and Avinds refused to give passage to the Bishop of St. Andrews.
I intreat your ladyship, thank Mr. Alexander Colville with two
lines of a letter. My wife now, after long disease and torment for
the space of a year and a month, is departed this life ; the Lord
hath done it, blessed be His name. I have been diseased of a fever
tertian for the space of thirteen weeks, and am yet in that sickness,
so that I preach but once on the sabbath with great difficulty. I
am not able either to visit or examine the congregation. The
Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your ladyship's, at all obedience, S. E.
Anwoth, June 26, 1630.
^ Alone.
PART ll] LETTER IX. 3^3
LETTER IX.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Having saluted you in the Lord Jesus, I thought it
my duty, having the occasion of this bearer, to write again unto
your ladyship, though I have no new purpose but what I wrote of
before. Yet ye cannot be too often awakened to go forward to-
wards your city, since your way is long, and (for anything ye know)
your day is short ; and your Lord requireth of you, as ye advance
in years, and steal forward insensibly towards eternity, that your
faith may grow and ripen for the Lord's harvest ; for the great
Husbandman giveth a season to His fruits, that they may come
to maturity ; and having gotten their fill of the tree, they may then
be shaken and gathered in for His use : whereas the wicked rot
upon the tree, and their branch shall not be green. Job xv. 32, 33.
"He shall shake off His unripe grapes as the vine, and shall cast
off His flower as the olive." It is God's mercy to you, madam,
that He giveth you your fill, even to loathing, of this bitter world,
that ye may willingly leave it, and like a full and satisfied ban-
queter, long for the drawing of the table : and at last, having tram-
pled under your feet all the rotten pleasures that are under sun
and moon ; and having rejoiced as though ye rejoiced not, and
having bought as though ye possessed not, 1 Cor. vii. 30, ye may,
like an old crazy ship, arrive at your Lord's harbour, and be made
welcome, as one of those who have ever had one foot loose from
this earth, longing for that place where your soul shall feast and
banqaet for ever and ever upon a glorious sight of the incompre-
hensible Trinity, and where ye shall see the fair face of the Man
Christ, even the beautiful face, that was once for your cause more
marred than any of the visages of the sons of men, Isa. lii. 14, and
was all covered with spitting and blood. Be content to wade
through the waters betwixt you and glory with Him, holding His
hand fast; for He knoweth all the fords. Howbeit ye may be
ducked, yet ye cannot drown, being in His company ; and ye may,
all the way to glory, see the way bedewed with His blood, who is
the Forerunner. Be not afraid, therefore, when ye come even to
the black and swelling river of death, to put in your foot and wade
after Him ; the current, how strong soever, cannot carry you down
the water to hell ; the Son of God His death and resurrection are
stepping-stones and a stay to you ; set down your feet by faith
upon these stones, and go through as on dry land ; if ye knew
what He is preparing for you, ye would be too glad : He will not
(it may be) give you a full draught till ye come up to the well-
head, and drink, yea drink, abundantly of the pure river of the
^\'ater of life, that proceedeth out from the throne of God, and from
the Lamb. Rev. xxii. 1. Madam, tire not, weary not, I dare find
384 LETTER IX. [PAUT II.
you the Son of God caution, when ye are got up thither, and have
casten your eyes to view the golden city, and the fair and never-
withering tree of life, that beareth twelve manner of fruits every
month, ye shall then say, four and twenty hours' abode in that
place is worth threescore and ten years' sorrow upon earth. If ye
can but say ye long earnestly to be carried up thither (as I hope,
ye cannot for shame deny Him the honour of having wrought that
desire in your soul), then hath your Lord given you earnest ; and,
madam, do ye believe that our Lord will lose His earnest, and rue^
of the bargain, and change His mind, as if He were " a man that
can lie, or the son of man that can repent"? Nay, He is unchange-
able, and the same this year that He was the former year. And
his Son Jesus, Avho upon earth ate and drank with publicans and
sinners, and spake and conferred with whores and harlots, and put
up His holy hand and touched the leper's filthy skin, and came
evermore nigh sinners, even now in glory is yet that same Lord.
His honour and His great court in heaven hath not made Him
forget His poor friends on earth : in Him, honours change not
manners, and He doth yet desire your company. Take Him for
the old Christ, and claim still kindness ^ to Him, and say, 0, it is
so, He is not changed, but I am changed. Nay, it is a part of His
unchanged love, and an article of the new covenant, to keep you
that ye cannot dispone ^ Him, nor sell Him. He hath not played
fast and loose with ns in the covenant of grace, so that we may
run from Him at our pleasure. His love hath made the bargain
surer than so ; for Jesus, as the cautioner, is bound for us, Heb. vii.
22 ; and it cannot stand with His honour to die in the burrows *
(as we use to say) and lose these, whom He must render again to
the Father, when He shall give up the kingdom to Him. Consent
and say Amen to the promises, and ye have sealed that God is
true, and Christ is yours. This is an easy market : ye but look on
with faith ; for Christ suffered all and paid all. Madam, fearing
I be tedious to your ladyship, I must stop here, desiring always to
hear that your ladyship is well, and that ye have still your face up
the mountain. Pray for us, madam, and for Zion, whereof ye are
a part. We expect a trial. God's wheat in this land must go
through Satan's sieve, but their faith shall not fail. I am still
wrestling in our Lord's work, and have been tried and tempted
with brethren Avho look awry to the Gospel. Now He that is
able to keep you until that day, preserve your soul, body and spirit,
and present you before His face, with His own Ijride, spotless and
blameless. Your ladyship's, to be commanded always in the
Lord Jesus, S. K
Anwoth, Nov. 26, 1631.
1 Eepeiit. ^ Kindred. ^ Cast him oil.
'' A Scottish law term, raeauiiiL; to fail in his GnL^^genlent.
TAUT II.] LETTER X. 385
LETTER X.— To my Lady Kenmure.
MADA:ii, — I am grieved exceedingly that your ladyship should
think, or have cause to think, that such as love you in God, in
this country, are forgetful of you. For myself, madam, I owe to
your ladyship all evidences of my high respect (in the sight of my
Lord, whose truth I preach, I am bold to say it) for His rich
grace in you. My communion ^ put off till the end of a longsome
and rainy harvest, and the presbyterial exercise (as the bearer can
inform your ladyship) hindered me to see you : and for my people's
sake (finding them like hot iron, that cooleth being out of the
fire, and that is pliable to no work), I do not stir abroad, neither
have I left them at all, since youc ladyship was in this country,
save at one time only, about two years ago ; yet I dare not say
but it is a fault, howbeit no defect in my afi'ection : and I trust to
make it up again so soon as possibly I am able to wait upon you.
Madam, I have no new purpose to write unto you, but of that
which I think, nay which our Lord thinketh, needful, that one
thing, Mary's good part, which ye have chosen, Luke x. 42.
Madam, all that God hath, both Himself and the creatures, He is
dealing and parting amongst the sons of Adam ; there are none so
poor as that they can say in His face, He hath given them nothing;
but there is no small odds betwixt the gifts given to lawful bairns
and to bastards ; and the more greedy ye are in suiting,^ the more
willing He is to give, delighting to be called open-handed. I hope
your ladyship laboureth to get assurance of the surest patrimony,
even God Himself. Ye will find in Christianity that God aimeth
in all His dealings with His childreii, to bring them to a high con-
tempt of, and deadly feud with the Avorld ; and to set an high
price upon Christ, and to think HiKi one who cannot be bought
for gold, and well worthy the fighting for. And for no other
cause, madam, doth the Lord withdraw from you the childish toys
and the earthly delights that He giveth unto others, but that He
may have you wholly to Himself. Think therefore of the Lord,
as of one who cometh to woo you in marriage when ye are in the
furnace. He seeketh His answer of you in affliction, to see if ye
will say. Even so I take Him. Madam, give Him this answer
pleasantly, and in your mind do not secretly grudge nor murmur.
When He is striking you in love, beware to strike again. That is
dangerous ; for those who strike again shall get the last blow. If
I hit not upon the right string, it is because I am not acquainted
with your ladyship's present condition; but I believe your
ladyship goeth on foot, laughing and putting on a good coun-
tenance before the world, and yet ye carry heaviness about with
^ That is, the dispensation of the Lord's Supper. - Suin^.
2 B
386 LETTER X. [PAllT 11.
you. Ye do well, madam, not to make them witnesses of your
grief who cannot be curers of it, but be exceedingly charitable of
your dear Lord. As there be some friends worldly, of whom ye
will not entertain an ill thought, far more ought ye to believe
good evermore of your dear Friend, that lovely fair Person, Jesus
Christ. The thorn is one of the most cursed, and angry, and
crabbed weeds that the earth yieldeth, and yet out of it springeth
the rose — one of the sweetest-smelled flowers, and most delightful
to the eye that the earth hath. Your Lord shall make joy and
gladness out of your afilictions ; for all His roses have a fragrant
smell. Wait for the time when His own holy hand shall hold
them to your nose ; and if ye would have present comfort under
the cross, be much in prayer ; for at that time your faith kisseth
Christ, and He kisseth the soul. And, 0, if the breath of His holy
mouth be sweet, I dare be caution, out of some small experience,
that ye shall not be beguiled ; for the world (yea, not a few ^ num-
ber of God's children) know not well what that is which they call
•^ Godhead ; but, madam, come near to the Godhead, and look
down to the bottom of the well : there is much in Him, and sweet
were that death to drown in such a well. Your grief taketh
liberty to work upon your mind, when ye are not busied in the
meditation of the ever-delighting and all-blessed Godhead. If ye
would lay the price ye give out (which is but some few years' pain
and trouble) beside the commodities ,ye are to receive, ye would
see they are not worthy to be laid in the balance together ; but it
is nature that maketh you look what ye give out, and weakness of
faith that hindereth you to see what ye shall take in. Amend
your hope, and frist ^ your faithful Lord a while : He maketh Him-
self your debtor in the new covenant ; He is honest, take His word,
Nahum i. 9, "Afiliction shall not spring up the second time ;" Rev.
xxi. 7, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things." Of all things,
then, which we want in this life, madam, I am able to say nothing,
if that be not believed which ye have, Rev. ii. 7, and Rev, iii. 5,
*' The overcomer shall be clothed in white raiment," &c., and ver.
28, " To the overcomer I will give to sit with me in my throne,
as I overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne."
Consider, madam, if ye are not high up now, and far ben ^ in the
palace of our Lord, when ye are upon a throne in white raiment at
lovely Christ's elbow. 0, thrice fools are we, who, like new-born
princes weeping in the cradle, know not that there is a kingdom
before them. Then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and ham-
mer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self-love and world-wor-
ship, and infidelity, that He may make us stones and pillars in His
Father's house, Rev. iii. 12. Madam, Mdiat think ye to take bind-
' Small. ^ Trasfc. ^ In tlio inner .apartments.
PART II.] LETTER XI. 387
ing with the fair corner-stone Jesus ? The Lord give you wisdom
to'beUeve and hope— your day is coming. I hope to be a witness
of 3^our joy, as I have been a hearer and beholder of your grief
Think ye much to follow the Heir of the crown, who had exper-
ience of sorrows, and was acquainted with grief 1 Isa. liii. It were
pride to aim to be above the King's Son. It is more than we de-
serve that we are equals in glory, in a manner. Now commend-
ing you to the dearest grace and mercy of God, I rest,
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. E.
Anwoth, Jan. 4, 1632.
LETTER XL— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Understanding a little after the writing of my last
letter, ot the going ot this bearer, I would not omit the opportun-
ity of remembering your ladyship, still harping upon that string,
which in our whole life-time is never too often touched upon, nor
is our lesson well enough learned, that there is a necessity of ad-
vancing in the way to the kingdom of God, of the contempt of the
world, of denying ourself, and bearing of our Lord's cross, which
is no less needful for us than daily food ; and among many marks
that we are on this journey, and under sail towards heaven, this is
one, when the love of God so filleth our hearts that we forget to
love and care too much for the having or wanting of other things;
as one extreme heat burneth out another. By this, madam, ye
know ye have betrothed your soul in marriage to Christ, when ye do
malce but small reckoning of all otlier suitors and Avooers, and when
ye can (having little in hand, but much in hope) live as a young
heir, during the time of his nonage and minority, being content to
be as hardly handled and under as precise a reckoning as servants,
because his hope is upon the inheritance. For this cause, God's
bairns "take well with spoiling of their goods," Heb. x. 34, "know-
ing in themselves, tliat they have in heaven a better and an enduring
substance." That day that the earth and the works therein shall
be burned with fire, 2 Pet. iii. 10, your hidden hope and your hid-
den life shall appear. And therefore since ye have not now many
years to your endless eternity, and know not how soon the sky
above your head will rive,^ and the Son of man will be seen in the
clouds of heaven, what better and wiser course can ye take than to
think that your one foot is here and your other foot in the life to
come, and to leave off loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants
that shall be made up when your Lord and ye shall meet, and when
ye shall give in your bill, that day, of all your wants here ? If your
losses be not made up, je have place to challenge the Almighty ■
» Reud.
388 LETTER XT. [PAKT II.
but it shall not be so. Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeak-
able and full of glory, and your joy shall none talce from you, John
xvi. 22. It is enough that the Lord hath promised you great things,
only let the time of bestowing them be in His own carving. It is
not for us to set an hour-glass to the Creator of time, since He and
we differ only in the term of payment. Since He hath promised
payment, and we believe it, it is no great matter ; we will put that
in His own will, as the frank buyer who cometh near to wliat the
seller seeketh, useth at last to refer the difference to his will, and
so cutteth off the course of mutual jirigging.^ Madam, do not
prig with your frank-hearted and gracious Lord, about the time of
the fulfilling of your joys : it will be, God hath said it. Bide His
harvest, wait on upon His Whitsunday. His day is better than
your day, He putteth not the hook ^ in the corn till it be ripe and
lull-eared. The great angel of the covenant bear you company,
till the trumpet shall sound and the voice of the archangel awaken
the dead. Ye shall find it your only happiness, under whatever
thing disturbeth and crosseth the peace of your mind in this life>,
to love nothing for itself, but only God for Himself It is the
crooked love of some harlots, that they love bracelets, earrings,
and rings better than the lover that sendeth them. God will not
be so loved ; for that were to behave as harlots, and not as the
chaste spouse, to abate from our love when these things are pulled
away. Our love to Him should begin on earth, as it shall be in
heaven ; for the bride taketh not by a thousand degrees so much
delight in her wedding-garment as she doth in her bridegroom ; so
we, in the life to come, howbeit clothed with glory as with a robe,
shall not be so much affected with the glory that goeth about us,
as with the Bridegroom's joyful face and presence. Madam, if ye
can win to this here, the field is won, and your mind, for anything
ye want, or for anything your Lord can take from you, shall soon
be calmed and quieted. Get Himself as a pawn, and keep Him
till your dear Lord come and loose the pawn, ^ and rue * upon you,
and give you all again that He took from you, even a thousand
talents for one penny. It is not ill to lend God willingly, Avho
otherwise both will and may take from you against your will. It
is good to play the usurer with Him, and take in, instead of ten of
the hundred, an hundred of ten, often an hundred of one. Madam,
fearing to be tedious to you, I break off here, commending you
(as I trust to do while I live), your person, ways, burdens, and all
that concerneth you, to that Almighty, who is able to bear you
and your burdens. I still remember you to Him who will cause
you one day to laugh. I expect that, whatever ye can do by word
or deed for the Lord's friendless Zion, ye will do it. She is your
^ Ohafferiry. ' Sickle. * Eelease the pledge. •* Take pity.
PART II.J LETTJiK XTT. 389
mother, forget her not ; for the Lord intendeth to melt and try
this land, and it is high time we were all upon our feet, and falling
about to try what claim we have to Christ. It is like '^ the bride-
groom will be takeR from us, and then we shall mourn. Dear
Jesus, remove not, else take us with Thee ! Grace, grace be with
you for ever.
Your ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience, S. R.
Anwotb, Jan. 14, 1632.
LETTER XII.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Your ladyship will not (I know) weary nor offend -
though I trouble you with many letters ; the memory oi what ob-
ligations I am under to your ladyship is the cause of it. 1 am
possibly impertinent in what I write, because of my ignorance of )• our
present estate. But for all that is said, I have learned of M. W.
D. that ye have not changed upon nor wearied of your sweet Mas-
ter, Christ, and His service ; neither were it your part to chango
upon Him, who "resteth in His love." Ye are among honourably
company, and such as affect grandeur and court. But, madam,
thinking upon your estate, I think I see an improvident wooer
coming too late to seek a bride, because she is contracted already
and promised away to another, and so the wooer's busking ^ and
bravery (who cometh to you, as who but he) is in vain. The
outward pomp of this busy wooer, a beguiling world, is now
coming in to suit * your soul too late, when ye have promised
away your soul to Christ many years ago. And I know,
madam, what answer ye may now justly make to the late suitor,
even this. Ye are too long of coming : my soul, the bride, is a-
way already, and the contract with Christ subscribed, and I
cannot choose but I must be honest and faithful to Him. Honour-
able lady, keep your first love, and hold the first match with that
soul-delighting lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet Jesus, fairer
than all the children of men, the Rose of Sharon, and the fairest
and sweetest-smelled rose in all His Father's garden, there is none
like Him. I would not exchange one smile of His lovely face
with kingdoms. Madam, let others take their silly feckless ^ hea-
ven in this life, envy them not ; but let your soul, like a tarrying
and mislearned child, take the dorts ^ (as Ave use to speak), or
cast at all things and disdain them, except one only; either Christ
or nothing : your Well-Beloved, Jesus, will be content that ye be
here devoutly proud, and ill to please, as one that contemneth all
husbands but Himself. Either the King's Son or no husband at
1 Probable. - Be offended. " Ornaments.
■* Sue. 3 Worthless. « Sulk.
390 LETTER XII. [part II.
all ; this is humble and worthy timbiticn. What have ye to do to
dally with a whorish and foolish world 1 Your jealous Husband
will not be content that ye look by ^ Him to another ; He will be
jealous, indeed, and offend ^ if ye kiss another but Himself. What
weights do burden you, madam, I know not ; but think it great
mercy that your Lord from your youth hath been hedging in your
out-straying aff'ections, that they may not go a-whoring from Him-
self. If ye were His bastard, He would not nurture ^ you so. If
ye were for the slaughter, ye would be fattened. But be content,
ye are His wheat growing in our Lord's field. Matt. xiii. 25, 38.
And if wheat, ye must go under our Lord's threshing instrument,
in His barnfloor, and through His sieve, Amos ix. 9, and through
His mill to be bruised, as the Prince of your salvation, Jesus, was,
Isa. liii. 9, that ye may be found good bread in your Lord's house.
Lord Jesus, bless the spiritual husbandry, and separate you from
the chaff' that dow * not bide the wind. I am persuaded your
glass is spending itself by little and little, and if ye knew who is
before you, ye would rejoice in your tribulations. Think ye it a
small honour to stand before the throne of God and the Lamb, and
to be clothed in white, and to be called to the marriage-supper of
the Lamb, and to be led to the fountain of living waters, and to
come to the well-head, even God Himself, and get your fill of the
clear, cold, sweet, refreshing water of life, the King's own well,
and to put up your own sinful hand to the tree of life, and take
down and eat the sweetest apple in all God's heavenly paradise,
Jesus Christ, your life and your Lord 1 Up your heart : shout for
joy, your King is coming to fetch you to His Father's house.
Madam, I am in exceeding great heaviness, God thinketh it best
for my own soul thus to exercise me, thereby (it may be) to fit me
to be His mouth to others. I see and hear, at home and abroad,
nothing but matter of grief and discouragement, which indeed
maketh my life bitter. And I hope in God never to get my will
in this world ; and I expect ere long a fiery trial upon the church,
for as many men almost in England and Scotland, as many false
friends to Christ, and as many pulling and drawing to pull the
crown off" His holy head, and for fear that our Beloved stay amongst
us (as if His room were more desirable than Himself) men are bid-
ding Him go seek His lodging. Madam, if ye have a part in silly
friendless Zion (as I know ye have), speak a word on her behalf
to God and man. If ye can do nothing else, speak for Jesus, and
ye shall thereby be a witness against this declining age. Now,
from my very soul, laying and leaving you on the Lord, and de-
siring a part in your prayers (as my Lord knoweth, I remember
1 Past. 2 rpake offeTice.
^ DiscipllBe. ■* Ca3X.
PART II.] LETTER XIII. 391
you), I deliver over your body, spirit, and all your necessities to
the hands of our Lonl, and remain for ever,
Your ladyship's, in your sweet Lord Jesus and mine, S, R,
Anwoth, Feb. 13, 1632.
LETTER XIIL— To my Lady KENMrRE.
Madam, — The cause of my not writing to your ladyship is not
my forgetfulness of you, but the want of the opportunity of a con-
venient bearer, for I am under more than a simple obligation to be
kind (in paper, at least) to your ladyship. I bless our Lord through
Christ, who hath brought you home again to your country, from
that place, where ye have seen with your eyes that which our
Lord's truth taught you before, to wit, that worldly gloiy is nothing
but a vapour, a shadow, the foam of the water, or something less
and lighter, even nothing ; and that our Lord hath not Avithout
cause said in His word, 1 Cor. vii. 31, " The countenance or fashion
of this world passeth away." In which place, our Lord compareth
it to an image in a looking-glass, for it is the looking-glass of
Adam's sons. Some come to the glass, and see in it the picture
of honour, and but a picture indeed ; for true honour is to be great
in the sight of God. And others see in it the shadow of riches,
and but a shadow indeed ; for dumble riches stand as one of the
maids of Wisdom upon her left hand, Prov. iii. 16. And a third
sort see in it the face of painted pleasures, and the beholders will
not believe but the image they see in this glass is a living man,
till the Lord come and break the glass in pieces, and remove the
face ; and then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say, " And behold
it was a dream." I know your ladyship thinketh yourself little in
the common of ^ this world, for the favourable aspect of any of
these three painted faces ; and blessed be our Loi'd that it is so :
the better for you. Madam, they are not wortliy to be wooers to
suit 2 in marriage your soul, that looks to a higher match than to
be married upon ^ painted clay. Know, therefore, madam, the
place whither our Lord Jesus cometh to woo a bride, it is even in
the furnace ; for if ye be one of Zion's daughters (which I ever
put beyond all question, since I first had occasion to see in your
ladyship such ]U'egnant evidences of the grace of God), the Lord,
who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem, Isa. xxxi.
9, is purifying you in the furnace. And therefore be content to
live in it, and every day to be adding and sewing-to a passment *
to your wedding garment, that ye may be at last decored ^ and
trimmed as a bride for Christ, a bride of His own busking,*^
beautified in the hidden man of the heart, f'.-.rgetting your father's
' Debt to. 2 Sue. ^ rj^^^ 4 Ornament.
^ Rendered comely. • Dracssing.
392 LETTER XIII. [part II.
houfie, " so shall the King greatly desire your beauty," Ps. xlv.
11. If your ladyship be not changed (as 1 hope ye are not), I
believe ye esteem yourself to be of those whom God hath tried
these many years and refined as silver. But, madam, I will show
your ladyship a privilege that others want, and ye have in this
case. Such as are in prosperity, and are fatted with earthly joys,
and increased with children and friends, though the word of God
is indeed written to such for their instruction ; yet to you who are
in trouble (spare me, madam, to say this ^), from whom the Lord
hath taken many children, and whom He hath exercised other-
wise, there are some chapters, some particular promises in the
word of God made, in a most special manner, which should never
have been yours, so as they noAV are, if ye had your portion in this
life, as others ; and therefore, all the comforts, promises, and
mercies God ofFereth to tlie afflicted, they are as many love-letters
written to you ; take them to you, madam, and claim your right,
and be not robbed. It is no small comfort, that God hath written
some scriptures to you which He hath not written to others. Ye
seem rather in this to be envied than pitied ; and ye are indeed in
this like people of another world, and those that are above the
ordinary rank of mankind, whom our King and Lord, our Bride-
groom Jesus, in His love-letter to his Well-Beloved spouse, hath
named, beside all the rest, and hath written comforts and His
hearty commendations, in the 56tli of Isa. ver. 4, 5, Ps. cxlvii.
2, 3, to you. Eead these and the like, and think your God is like
a friend that sendeth a letter to a whole house and family ; but
speaketh in His letter to some by name, that are dearest to Him
in the house. Ye are then, madam, of the dearest friends of the
Bridegroom. If it were lawful, I would envy you, that God
honoured you so above many of His dear children. Therefore,
madam, your part is, in this case (seeing God taketh nothing from
you, but that which He is to supply with His own presence), to
desire your Lord to know His own room, and take it even upon
Him to come in, in the room of dead children, " Jehovah, know
thy own place, and take it to thee," is all ye have to say. Madam,
I persuade myself that this world is to you an uncouth inn, and
that ye are like a traveller, who hath his bundle upon his back,
and his staff in his hand, and his feet upon the door-threshold. Go
forward, honourable and elect lady, in the strength of your Lord
(let the world bide at home and keep the house), with your face
toward Him, Avho longeth more for a sight of you, than ye can do
for Him : ere it be long He will see us. I hope to see you laugh
as cheerfully after noon, as ye have mourned before noon. The
hand of the Lord, the hand of the Lord be with you in your
^ Excuse me for saying, or Permit me to say.
PART n.] LETTER XIV. 393
journey. What have ye to Jo here 1 This is not your mountain
of rest ; arise then and set your foot up the mountain ; go up out
of the wilderness leaning upon the shoulder of your Beloved, Cant.
viii, 5. If ye knew the welcome that abideth you when ye come
home ye would hasten your pace ; for ye shall see your Lord put
up His own holy hand to your face, and wipe all tears from
your eyes ; and I trow, then ye shall have some joy of heart.
Madam, paper willeth me to end before affection. Eemember the
estate of Zion ; pray that Jerusalem may be as Zechariah prophe-
sied ; chap. xii. 3. " A burdensome stone for all," that whoso-
ever boweth down to roll the stone out of the way may hurt and
break the joints of their back, and strain their arms, and disjoint
their shoulder-blades ; and pray Jehovah that the stone may lie
still in its own place, and keep bond with the comer-stone : I hope
it shall be so ; He is a skilled Master-builder who laid it. I
would, madam, under great heaviness be refreshed with two lines
from your ladyship's pen, which I refer to your own wisdom.
Madam, I should seem undutiful not to show you that great soli-
citation is made by the town of Kirkcudbright, for to have the use
of my poor labours amongst them. If the Lord shall call, and
His people cry, who am I to resist 1 But without His seen calling,
and till the flock whom I now oversee be planted with one to whom
I dare intrust Christ's spouse, gold nor silver, nor favour of men,
I hope, shall not loose me. I leave your ladyship, praying more
earnestly for grace and mercy to be with you, and multiplied upon
you here and hereafter, than my pen can express. The Lord
Jesus be with your spirit.
Yonv ladyship's, at all obedience in the Lord, S. li,
Kirkoudbright,
LETTER XIV.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Having saluted you, with grace and mercy from God
our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, I long both to see
your ladyship and to hear how it goeth with you. I do remember
you, and present you and your necessities to Him, who is able to
keep you and present you blameless before His face with joy : and
my prayer to our Lord is, that ye may be sick of love for Him who
died of love for you ; I mean, your Saviour Jesus. And 0 sweet
were that sickness, to be soul-sick for Him ! and a living death it
were, to die in the fire of the love of that soul-lover, Jesus ! And,
madam, if ye love Him, ye will keep His commandments ; and
this is not one of the least, to lay your neck cheerfully and wil-
lingly under the yoke of Jesus Christ, For I trust your ladyship
did first conti'act and bargain with the Son of God to follow Him
394 LETTER XIV. [PAKT II.
upon these terms, that by His grace ye should endure hardship and
suffer affliction as the soldier of Christ. Tliey are not worthy of
Jesus, who will not take a blow for their Master's sake. For our
glorious peace-maker, when He came to malvc up the friendship
betwixt God and us, God bruised Him and stroke^ Him, the sinful
world also did beat Him and crucify Him ; yet He took buffets of
botli the parties : and honour to our Lord Jesus, He would not
leave the field for all that, till He had made peace betwixt the par-
ties. I persuade myself, your sufferings are but like your Saviour's
(yea, incomparably less and lighter), which are called but a
" bruising of His heel," Gen. iii. 15, a wound far from the heart.
" Your life is hid with Christ in God," Col. iii. 3, and therefore,
ye cannot be rol^bed of it. Our Lord handleth us as fathers do
their young children ; they lay up jewels in a place above the
reach of the short arm of bairns, else bairns would put up their
hands and take them down, and lose them soon. So hath our
Lord done with our spiritual life. Jesus Christ is the high coffer,
in the which our Lord hath hid our life, we children are not able
to reach up our arm so high, as to take down that life and lose it,
it is in our Christ's hand. 0, long, long may Jesus be Lord-keeper
of our life ! and happy are they that can, with the Apostle, 2 Tim.
i., lay their soul in pawn in the hand of Jesus, for He is able to
keep that which is committed in pawn to Him against that day.
Then, madam, so long as this life is nob hurt, all other troubles are
but touches in the heel. I trust you will soon be cured. Ye
know, madam, kings have some servants in their court that receive
not present wages in their hand, but live upon their hopes. The
King of kings also hath servants in His court, that for the present
get little or nothing but the heavy cross of Christ, troubles without
and terrors within ; but they live upon hope ; when it cometh to
the parting of the inheritance, they remain in the house as heirs.
It is better to be so, than to get present payment and a portion in
this life, an inheritance in this world (God forgive me, that I should
honour it with the name of an inheritance, it is rather a farm-room ),-
and then in the end to be casten out of God's house with this
word, " Ye have received your consolation, ye will get no more."
Alas ! What get they ? The rich glutton's heaven. 0, but our
Lord, Luke xvi. , maketh it a silly heaven ! He fared well (saith our
Lord) and delicately every day. 0 no more ! a silly heaven !
Truly no more, except that he was clothed in purple, and that is all.
I persuade myself, madam, ye have joy when ye think that your
Lord hath dealt more graciously with your soul. Ye have gotten
little in this life. It is true indeed. Ye have then the more to crave,
yea ye have all to crave. For except some tastings of the first fruits,
^ Struck. - Hired room.
PART II.] LETTEi; XV. 395
and some kisses of His mouth, Avhom your soul lovetli, ye get no
more. But I cannot tell you what is to come ] yet I may speak
as our Lord doth of it. The foundation of the city is pure gold,
clear as crystal : the twelve ports are set with precious stones. If
orchards and rivers commend a soil upon earth, there is a paradise
there, wherein groweth the tree of life, that beareth twelve manner
of fruits every month, which is seven score and four harvests in
the year : and there is there, a pure river of water of life, proceed-
ing out of the throne of G-od and of the Lamb ; and the city hath
no need of the light of the sun or moon, or of a candle, for the
Lord God Almighty and the Lamb is the light thereof ; madam,
believe and hope for this, till ye see and enjoy. Jesus is saying in
the Gospel, come and see : and He is come down in the chariot of
truth, wherein He rideth through the world, to conquer men's
souls, Ps. xlv. 4. And is now in the world saying, who will go
■with me 1 will ye go ? my Father will make you welcome and give
you house-room; for in my Father's house are many dwelling-
places. Madam, consent to go with Him. Thus I rest, commend-
ing you to God's dearest mercy.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, S. E.
Atiwotb.
LETTER XV.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — I am afraid now (as many others are) that at the
sitting down of our parliament, our Lord Jesus his spouse shall be
roughly handled : and it must be so, since false and declining
Scotland, whom our Lord took off the dunghill and out of hell,
and made a fair bride to Himself, hath broken her faith to her
sweet Husband, and hath put on the forehead of a whore ; and
therefore He saith He will remove : would God we could stir up
ourselves to lay hold upon Him, who being highly provoked with
the handling He hath met with, is ready to depart. Alas, we do
not importune Him, by prayer and supplication, to abide amongst
us ! If we could but weep upon Him, and in the holy pertinacy
of faith, wrestle with Him, and say, " We will not let thee go," it
may be that then. He, who is easy to be entreated, would yet,
notwithstanding of our high provocations, condescend to stay and
feed among the lilies, till that fair and desirable day break, and
the shadows flee away. Ah ! what cause of mourning is there,
when our gold is become dim, and the visage of our Nazarites,
sometimes whiter than snow, is now become blacker than a coal ;
and Levi's house, once comparable to fine gold, is now changed,
and become like vessels in whom He hath no pleasure ! Madam,
think upon this, that when our Lord, who hath His handkerchief
to wipe the face of the mourners in Zion, shall come to wipe away
396 LETTER XVI. [PAKT II.
all tears from their eyes, He may wipe yours also in the passing
amongst others. I am confident, madam, that our Lord will yet
build a new house to Himself of our rejected and scattered stones ;
for our Bridegroom cannot want a wife. Can He live a widower?
Nay, he will embrace both us, the little young sister, and the elder
sister, the church of the Jews, and there will yet be a day of it ;
and therefore we have cause to rejoice, yea, to sing and shout for
joy. The church hath been, since the world began, ever hanging
by a small thread, and all the hands of hell and of the wicked have
been drawing at the thread ; but God be thanked, they only break
their arms by pulling, but the thread is not broken, for the sweet
fingers of Christ our Lord have spun and twisted it. Lord, hold
the thread whole. Madam, stir up your husband to lay hold upon
the covenant, and to do good. What hath he to do with the
world? It is not his inheritance. Desire him to make home
over,^ and put to his hand to lay one stone or two upon the wall
of God's house before he go hence. I have heard also, madam,
that your child is removed ; but to have or want is best, as He
pleaseth. Whether she be with you or in God's keeping, think it
all one ; nay, think it the better of the two by far, that she is with
Him. I trust in our Lord that there is something laid up and
kept for you ; for our kind Lord, who hath wounded you, will not
be so cruel as not to allay the pain of your green wound ; and
therefore claim Christ still as your own, and own Him as your one
thing. So resting, I recommend your ladyship, your soul, and
spirit, in pawn to Him, who keepetli all His Father's pawns, and
will make an account of them faithfully, even to that " Fairest
amongst the sons of men," our sweet Lord Jesus, the fairest, the
sweetest, the most delicious rose in all His Father's great rield.
The smell of that rose perfume your soul.
Your ladyship's, in his sweetest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 1, 1633.
LETTER XVL— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — T determined, and was desirous also, to have seen your
ladyship, but because of a pain in my arm I could not. I know
ye will not impute it to any unsuitable forgetfulness of your lady-
ship, from whom, at my first entry to my calling in this country,
and since also, I received such comfort in my affliction, as I trust
in God never to forget it, and shall labour by His grace to recom-
pense it, the only way possible to me, and that is, by presenting
your soul, person, house, and all your necessities in prayer to Him,
whose I hope ye are, and who is able to keep you till that day of
appearance, and to present you before His face with joy. I am
' For home.
PART II,] LETTER XVI. 397
confident your ladyship is going forward in the begun journey to
your Lord and Fatlier's home and kingdom ; howbeit ye want not
temptations within and without. And wlio among the saints hath
ever taken that castle without stroke of sword 'i The chief of the
house, our elder Brother, our Lord Jesus not being excepted, who
won His own house and home, due to Him by birth, with much
blood and many blows. Your ladyship hath the more need to
look to yourself, because our Lord hath placed you higher than the
rest, and your way to heaven lieth through a more wild and waste
wilderness than the way of many of your fellow-travellers ; not
only through the midst ol this wood of thorns, the cumbersome
world, but also through these dangerous paths, the vain glory of
it : the consideration whereof hath often moved me to pity your
soul, and the soul of your worthy and noble husband. And it is
more to you to win heaven, being ships of greater burden, and in
the main sea, than for little vessels, that are not so much at the
mercy and reverence of the storms ; because they may come quietly
to their port by launching alongst the coast. For the which cause
ye do much, if in the midst of such a tumult of business, and
crowd of temptations, ye shall give Christ Jesus His own court ^
and His own due place in your soul. I know and am persuaded,
that that lovely One, Jesus, is dearer to you than many kingdoms ;
and that ye esteem Him your Well-Beloved, and the standard-
bearer among ten thousand, Cant. v. 10. And it becometh Him
lull well to take the place and the board-head in your soul before
all the world. I knew and saw Him with you in the furnace of
affliction ; for there He wooed you to Himself, and chose you to
be His ; and now He craveth no other hire of you but your love,
and that He get no cause to be jealous of you. And therefore,
dear and worthy lady, be like to the fresh river, that keepeth its
own fresh taste in the salt sea. This world is not worthy of your
soul ; give it not a good-day, Avhen Christ cometh in competition
with it. Be like one of another country ; home and stay not ; for
the sun is fallen low, and nigh the tops of the mountains, and the
shadows are stretched out in great length. Linger not by the
way : the world and sm would train you on, and make you turn
aside : leave not the way for them, and the Lord Jesus be at the
voyage ! Madam, many eyes are upon you, and many would be
glad your ladyship should spill ^ a Christian, and mar a good pro-
fessor. Lord Jesus, mar their godless desires, and keep the con-
science whole without a crack ! If there be a hole in it, so that it
take in water at a leck,^ it will with difficulty mend again. It is
a dainty, delicate creature, and a rare piece of the workmanship of
your Maker; and therefore deal gently with it, and keep it entire,
^ Influence. * Spoil. '•' Leak.
398 LETIKllXVJl. [PART II.
that, amidst this world's glory, your ladyship may learn to enter-
tain Christ ; and whatsover creature your ladyship findeth not to
smell of Him, it may have no better relish to you than the white
of an egg. Madam, it is a part of the truth of your profession, to
drop words in the ears of your noble husband continually, of
eternity, judgment, deatli, hell, heaven, the honourable profession,
the sins of his father's house : He must reckon with God for his
father's debt. Forgetting of accounts payeth not debt ; nay, the
interest of a forgotten bond runneth up v/ith God, to interest upon
interest. I know, he looketh homeward and loveth the truth ;
but I pity him with my soul, because of his many temptations.
Satan layeth upon men a burdea of cares above a load, and maketh
a pack-horse of men's souls, when they are wholly set upon this
Avorld, We owe the devil no such service ; it were wisdom to
throw off that load into a mire, and to cast all our cares over upon
God. Madam, think ye have no child ; subscribe a bond to your
Lord, that she shall be His, if He take her ; and thanks, and
praise, and glory to His holy name shall be the interest for a year's,
loan of her. Look for crosses, and while it is fair weather, mend
the sails of the ship. Now, hoping your ladyship will pardon my
tediousness, I recommend your soul and person to the grace and
mercy of our sweet Lord Jesus, in whom I am.
Your ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwortb, Nov. 15, 1633.
LETTER XVII.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madaini, — Having received a letter from some of the worthiest
of the ministry in this kingdom, the contents whereof I am desired
to communicate to such professors in these parts as I know love
the beauty of Zion, and are afflicted to see the Lord's vineyard
trodden under foot by the wild boars out of the wood who lay it
M^aste, I could not but also desire your ladyship's help, to join with
the rest, desiring you to impart it to my lord, your husband, and
if ye think it needful, I shall write to his lordship as Mr G. G.
shall advertise me. Know, therefore, that the best affected of the
ministry have thougiit it convenient and necessary at such a time
as this, that all who love the truth should join their prayers to-
gether, and cry to God with humiliation and fasting. The times,
which are agreed upon, are, the two first ^ sabbaths of February
next, and the six days intervening betwixt these sabbaths, as they
may conveniently be had, and the first sabbath of every quarter.
And the causes, as they are written to me, are these. 1. Besides
the distresses of the reformed churches abroad, the many reigning
sins of uncleanness, ungodliness, and unrighteousness in this land^,,
^ First two.
PAKT II. J LETTER XVIU. 399
the present judgments on the land, and many more hanging over
us, whereof few are sensible, or j^et know the right and true cause
of them. 2. The lamentable and pitiful estate of a glorious church
(in so short a time, against so many bonds) in doctrine, sacraments,
and discipline, so sore persecuted in the persons of faithful pastors
and professors ; and the door of God's house kept so strait by
bastard-porters, insomuch that worthy instruments, able for the
work, are held at the door — the rulers having turned over religion
into policy, and the multitude ready to receive any religion that
shall be enjoined by authority. 3. In our humiliation, besides
that we are under a necessity of deprecating God's wrath, and
vowing to God sincerely new obedience, the weakness, coldness,
silence, and lukewarmness of some of the best of the ministry, and
the deadness of professors, who have suffered the truth both se-
cretly to be stolen away, and openly to be plucked from us, would
be confessed. 4. Atheism, idolatry, profanity, and vanity would
be confessed. Our king's heart recommended to God ; and God
entreated that he would stir up the nobles and the people to turn
from their evil ways. Thus, madam, hoping that your ladysliip
Avill join with others, that such a work be not slighted at such a
necessary time, when our kirk is at the overturning, I will promise
to myself your help, as the Lord in secrecy and prudence shall
enable you, that your ladyship may rejoice with the Lord's people
Avhen deliverance shall come ; for true and sincere humiliation
come always speed, with God ; and Avhen authority, king, court,
and churchmen oppose the truth, Avhat other armour have we but
prayer and faith 1 Whereby if we wrestle with Him, there is
ground to hope that those who would remove the burdensome
stone out of its place shall but hurt their back, and the stone shall
not be moved, at least not removed. Zech. xii. 3. Grace, grace
be with you, from Him who hath called you to the inheritance ol
the saints in light. Your ladyship's, at all submissive obedience
in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. H.
Anwoth, Jan. 23, 1634.
LETTER XVIIL— To my Lady Kenmuke.
Madam, — All submissive and dutiful obedience in our Lord
Jesus remembered. I trust I need not much entreat your lady
ship to look to Him who hath stricken you at this time : but my
duty in the memory of that comfort I found in your ladyship's
kindness when I was no less heavy, in a case not unlike that,
speaketh to me to say something now ; and I wish I could ease
your ladyship at least with words. T am persuaded your physician
will not slay you but purge you : and seeing He calleth Himself
400 LETTSR xviir. [part il
the cliirurgeon, who maketh the wound and bindetb it up again
(for to lance a wound is not to kill, but cure the }Datient), Deut.
xxxii. 30, 1 Sam. ii. 6, Job vi. 18, Hos. vi. 1, I believe, faith will
teach you to kiss a striking Lord, and so acknowledge the sove-
reignty of God, in the death of a child, to be above the power of
us mortal men, who may pluck up a flower in the bud and not be
blamed for it. If our dear Lord pluck up one of his roses, and
pull down sour and green fruit before harvest, who can challenge
Him 1 for He sendeth us to His world as men to a market, wherein
some stay many hours, and eat and drink, and buy and sell, and
pass through the fair till they be weary, and such are those who
live long and get a hearty fill of this life. And others again come
slipping into the morning-market, and do neither sit nor stand,
nor buy nor sell, but look about them a little, and pass presently
home again, — and these are infants and young ones who end their
short market in the morning, and get but a short view of the fair.
Our Lord, who hath numbered man's months and set him bounds
that he cannot pass, Job xiv. 5, hath written the length of our
market, and it is easier to complain of the decree than to change
it. I verily believe, when I write this, your Lord hath taught
your ladyship to lay your hand on your mouth. But I shall be
far from desiring your ladyship, or any others, to cast by a cross
like an old useless bill ^ that is only for the fire ; but r,ather would
wish each cross were looked in the face seven times, and M^ere read
over and over again. It is the messenger of the Lord, and speaks
something ; and the man of understanding will hear the rod and
Him that hath appointed it. Try v/hat is the taste of the Lord's
cup, and drink with God's blessing, that ye may grow thereby. I
trust in God, whatever other speech it utter to your soul, this is
one word in it. Job v. 17, " Behold, blessed is the man whom God
correcteth ;" and that it saith to you, ye are from home while
here, ye are not of this world, as your Redeemer Christ was not of
this Avorld. There is something keeping for you which is worth
the having. All that is here is condemned to die — to pass away
like a snow-ball before a summer-sun ; and since death took first ^
possession of something of yours, it hath been and daily is creeping
nearer and nearer to yourself, howbeit with no noise of feet. Your
Husbandman and Lord hath lopped off some branches already, the
tree itself is to be transplanted to the high garden : in a good
time be it ; our Lord ripen your ladyship. All these crosses (and
indeed when I remember them, they are heavy and many ; peace,
peace be the end of them) are to make you white and ripe for
the Lord's harvest-hook. I have seen the Lord weaning you from
the breasts of this world : it was never His mind it should bo
^ Billefc of wood. * First took.
PART Il.'J LETTER XIX. 401
your patrimony ; and God be thanked for that ; ye look the liker
one of the heirs. Let the movables go, why not 1 they are not
yours. Fasten your grips upon the heritage ; and our Lord Jesus
make the charters sure, and give your ladyship to grow as a palm
tree on God's Mount Zion ; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the
root is fast. This is all I can do, to recommend your case to your
Lord, who hath you written upon the palms of His hands. If I
were able to do more, your ladyship may believe me that gladly
I would. I trust shortly to see your ladj^ship. Now, He who
hath called you, confirm and establish your heart in grace, unto
the day of the liberty of the sons of God. Your ladyship's, at all
submissive obedience in his sAveet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Ardwell, April 29, 1634.
LETTER XIX.— To my Lady Kenmure.
My very noble and worthy Lady,— So oft as I call to mind
the comforts that I myself, a poor friendless stranger, received
from your ladyship here in a strange part of the country, when my
Lord took from me the delight of mine eyes, as the word speaketh,
Ezek. xxiv. 16 (which wound is not yet fully healed and cured), I
trust your Lord shall remember that, and give you comfort now,
at such a time as this wherein your dearest Lord hath made you a
widow, that ye may be a free woman for Christ, who is now suit-
ing ^ for marriage-love of you; and, therefore, since you lie alone
in your bed, let Christ be as a bundle of myrrh, to sleep and lie all
the night betwixt your breasts. Cant. i. 13, and then your bed is
better filled than before. And seeing amongst all crosses spoken
of in our Lord's word, this givetli you a particular right to make
God your Husband (which was not so youi's while your husband
was alive), read God's mercy out of this visitation. And albeit I
must, out of some experience, say, the mourning for the husband
of your youth be by God's own mouth the heaviest worldly sorrow,
Joel i. 8 ; and though this be the weightiest burden that ever lay
upon your back, yet ye know (when the fields are emptied, and
your husband now asleep in the Lord) if ye shall wait upon Him,
who hideth His face for a while, that it lieth upon God's honour
and truth to fill the field and to be a husband to the widow. See
and consider then what ye have lost, and how little it is. There-
fore, madam, let me entreat you, in the bowels of Christ Jesus, and
by the comforts of His Spirit, and your appearance before Him, let
God, and men, and angels now see what is in you. The Lord hath
pierced the vessel, it Avill be known Avhether there be in it wine or
water : let your faith and patience be seen, that it may be known
^ Suing.
2 C
402 LETTER XIX. [PART II,
your only Beloved, first and last, hath been Christ. And there-
fore, now, were your whole love upon Him, He alone is a suitable
object for your love and all the affections of your soul. God hatli
dried up one channel of your love by the removal of your husband.
Let now that speat^ run upon Christ. Your Lord and Lover hath
graciously taken out your husband's name and your name out of
the summons that are raised at the instance of the terrible sin-re-
venging Judge of the world against the house of Kenmure. And
I dare say that God's hammering of you from your youth is only to
make you a fair, carved stone in the high upper temple of the New
Jerusalem. Your Lord never thought this world's fair painted
glory a gift worthy of you, and therefore would not bestow it on
you, because He is to propine^ you with a better portion : let the
movables go, the inheritance is yours. Ye are a child of the house,
and joy is laid up for you : it is long in coming, but not the worse
for that. I am now expecting to see, and that with joy and com-
fort, that which I hoped of you since I knew you fully, even that
ye have laid such strength upon the Holy One of Israel, that ye
defy troubles, and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged,
but cannot be taken. What have ye to do here 1 This world
never looked like a friend upon you — ye owe it little love — it
looked ever sour-like upon you : howbeit ye should woo it, it will
not match with you, and therefore never seek warm fire under cold
ice. This is not a field where your happiness groweth ; it is up
above, where, Rev. vii. 9, " there are a great multitude, which no
man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed
with white robes, and palms in their hands." What ye could never
get here, ye shall find there. And withal, consider how, in all
these trials (and truly they have bgen many), your Lord hath been
loosing you at the root from perishing things, and hunting after
you to grip your soul. Madam, for the Son of God's sake, let Him
not miss His grip, but stay and abide in the love of God, as Jude
saith, ver. 21. Now, madam, I hope your ladyship will take these
lines in good part, and wherein I have fallen short, and failed to
your ladyship in not evidencing what I was obliged to your more
than undeserved love and respect, I request for a full pardon
for it. Again, my dear and noble lady, let me beseech you to lift
up your head, for the day of your redemption draweth near. And,
remember, that star that shined in Galloway is now shining in an-
other world. Now I pray that God may answer His own style to
your soul, and that He may be to you the God of all consolations.
Thus I remain.
Your ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, Sep. 14, 1634.
' Flood. ^ Present.
PART II.] LETTER XX. 403
LETTER XX.— To my Lady Kenmuee.
Madam, — All dutiful obedience in our Lord remembered. I
know ye are now near one of those straits in which ye have been
before. But because your outward comforts are fewer, I pray Him,
whose ye are, to supply what ye want another way ; for howbeit
we cannot win to the bottom of His wise providence who ruleth
all, yet it is certain this is not only good Avhich the Almighty hath
done, but it is best ; and He hath reckoned all your steps to hea-
ven, and if your ladyship were through this water, there are the
fewer behind ; and if this were the last, I hope your ladyship hath
learned by on- waiting to make your acquaintance with death,
which being to the Lord, the woman's seed, Jesus, only a bloody
heel, and not a broken head. Gen. iii. 15, cannot be ill to His
friends, who get far less of death than Himself. Therefore, madam,
seeing ye know not but the joui'ney is ended, and ye are come to
the water-side, in God's wisdom, look all your papers and your
counts, and whether ye be ready to receive the kingdom of heaven
as a little child, in whom there is little haughtiness and much
humility. I would be far from discouraging your ladyship, but
there is an absolute necessity that, near eternity, we look ere we
leap — seeing no man winneth back again to mend his leap. I am
confident your ladyship thinketh often upon it, and that your old
Guide shall go before you and take your hand. His love to you
will not grow sour, nor wear out of date, as the love of men, which
groweth old and gray-haired often before themselves. Ye have so
much the more reason to love a better life than this, because this
world hath been to you a cold fire, with little heat to the body,
and as little light, jind much smoke to hurt the eyes. But, madam,
your Lord would have you thinking it but dry breasts, full of
wind and empty of food. Li this late visitation that hath befallen
your ladyship, ye have seen God's love and care in such a measure
that I thought our Lord brake the sharp point of the cross, and
made us and your ladyship see Christ take possession and infeft-
ment upon earth of Him who is now reigning and triumphing with
" the hundred forty and four thousand, who stand with the Lamb
on Mount Zion." I know the sweetest of it is bitter to you ; but
your Lord will not give you painted crosses : He pareth not all
the bitterness from the cross, neither taketh He the sharp edge
quite from it ; then it should be of your waling ^ and not of His,
which should have as little reason in it as it should have profit for
us. Only, madam, God commandeth you now to believe and cast
anchor in the dark night, and climb up the mountain. He who
hath called you, establish you and confirm you to the end. I had
^ Choosing.
404 ^ LETTEIIS XXI. AND XXII. [PART II.
a purpose to have visited your ladyship, but when I thought better
upon it, the truth is, I cannot see wliat my company could profit
you : and this hath broken off my purpose, and no other thing.
I know many honourable friends and worthy professors will see
your ladyship, and that the Son of God is with you ; to whose love
and mercy, from my soul, I recommend your ladyship, and re-
main, your ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience, in his sweet Lord
Jesus, S. lu
Anwoth, Nov. 29, 1634.
LETTER XXL— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — My humble obedience in the Lord remembered.
Know it hath pleased the Lord to let me see, by all appearance,
my labours in God's house here are at an end ; and I must now
learn to suffer, in the which I am a dull scholar. By a strange
providence some of my papers, anent the corruptions of this time,
are come to our king's hand. I know, by the wise and well
affected, I shall be censured as not wise nor circumspect enough,
but it is ordinary that that should be a part of the cross of those
who suffer for Him. Yet I love and pardon the instrument. I
would commit my life to him, howbeit by him this hath befallen
me ; but I look higher than to him. I make no question of your
ladyship's love and care to do what ye can for my help ; and am
persuaded that in my adversities your ladyship will wish me well.
I seek no other thing, but that my Lord may be honoured by me
in giving a testimony. I was willing to do Him more service •
but seeing He will have no more of my labours, and this land will
thrust me out, I pray for grace to learn to be acquaint with misery,
if I may give so rough a name to such a mark of those Avho shall
be crowned with Christ. And howbeit I will possibly prove a
faint-hearted, unwise man in that, yet, I dare say I intend other-
wise. And I desire not to go on the lee-side or sunny side of
religion, to put truth betwixt me and a storm : my Saviour did
not so for me, who, in His suffering, took the windy side of the
hill. No further, but the Son of God be with you. Your lady-
ship's, in the Lord Jesus, S. E.
Anwoth, Dec. 5, 163i.
LETTER XXIL— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — I received your ladyship's letter from I. G. I thank
our Lord ye are as well, at least, as one may be, who is nofc come
home. It is a mercy in this stormy sea to get a second wind; for
none of the saints get a first, but they must take the winds as the
TAKT II.] LETTER XXII. 405
Lord of the seas causeth them to blow ; and the inn, as the Lord
and Master of the inns hath ordered it : if contentment were here,
heaven were not heaven. Whoever seek the world to be their
bed, shall at best find it short and ill made, and a stone under
their side to hold them waking, rather than a soft pillow to sleep
upon : ye ought to bless your Lord that it is not worse. We live
in a sea where many have suffered shipwreck, and have need that
Christ sit at the helm of the ship. It is a mercy to win to heaven,
though with much hard toil and heavy labour, and to take it by
violence, ill and well as it may be : better go swimming and wet
through our waters, than drown by the way ; especially now when
truth suffereth, and great men bid Christ sit lower, and contract
himself in less bounds, as if He took too much room. I expect
our n^\\ prelate shall try my sitting : I hang by a thread, but it
is (if I may speak so) of Christ's spinning : there is no quarrel
more honest or honoui'able than to suffer for truth : but the worst
is, that this kirk is like to sink, and all her lovers and friends
stand afar off", none mourn with her, and none mourn for her.
But the Lord Jesus will not be put out of His conquest so soon
in Scotland. It will be seen, the kirk and truth will rise again
within three days, and Christ again shall ride upon His white
horse ; howbeit His horse seem now to stumble, yet He cannot
fall : the fulness of Christ's harvest in the end of the earth is not
yet come in. I speak not this because I would have it so, but
upon better grounds than my i>aked liking : but enough of this
sad subject. I long to be fully assured of your ladyship's welfare,
and that your soul prospereth, especially now in your solitary life,
when your comforts outward are few, and when Christ hath you
for the very up-taking. I know. His love to you is still running
over, and His love hath not so bad a memory as to forget you and
your dear child, who hath two fathers in heaven, the one the
" Ancient of days." I trust in His mercy. He hath something laid
up for him above, however it may go with him here. I know, it
is long since your ladyship saw this world turned your step-mother
and did forsake you. Madam, ye have reason to take in good
part a lean dinner and spare diet in this life, seeing your large
supper of the Lamb's preparing will recompense all : let it go,
which was never yours, but only in sight, not in property. The
time of your loan will wear shorter and shorter, and time is
measured to you by ounce-weights : and then I know your hope
shall be a full ear of corn and not blasted with wind : it may be
your joy, that your anchor is up within the vail, and that the
ground it is cast upon, is not false, but firm. God hath done His
part, I hope you will not deny, to fish and fetch home all your
love to Himself; and it is but too narrow and short for Him, if it
406 LETTER XXIII. [PART II.
were more : if ye were before pouring all your love (if it had been
many gallons more) in upon your Lord, if drops fell by^ in the in-
pouring, He forgiveth you. He hath done now all that can be
done to win beyond it all, and hath left little to woo your love
from Himself, except one only child : what is His purpose herein.
He knoweth best, who liath taken your soul in tutoring. Your
faith may be boldly charitable of Christ, that however matters go,
the worst shall be a tired traveller, and a joyful and sweet M^el-
come home : the back of your winter night is broken. Look to
the east, the day sky is breaking ; think not that Christ loseth
time or lingereth unsuitably. 0, fair, fair, and sweet morning !
We are but here^ as sea-passengers, if we look right, we are upon
our country coast ; our Redeemer is fast coming to take this old
worm-eaten world, like an old moth-eaten garment, in His two
hands, and to roll it up, and lay it by Him. These are the last
days, and an oath is given, Rev. x., by G-od himself, that time
" shall be no more :" and when time itself is old and gray-haired,
it were good we were away. Thus, madam, ye see I am, as my
custom is, tedious in my lines : your ladyship will pardon it. The
Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 18, 1636.
LETTER XXHI.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Right Honourable, — I cannot find time for writing some
things I intended on Job, I have been so taken up with the broils
that we are incumbered with in our calling ; for our prelate will
have us either to swallow our light over, and digest it, contrary
to our stomachs, howbeit we should vomit our conscience and all,
in this troublesome conformity ; or then^ he will try if deprivation
can convert us to the ceremonial faith. I write to your ladyship,
madam, not as distrusting your affection or willingness to help me,
as your ladyship is able, by yourself or others, but to advertise
you that I hang by a small thread. For our learned prelate, be-
cause we cannot see with his eyes, so far in a mill-stone as his
light doth, will not follow his Master, meek Jesus, who waiteth
upon the wearied and short-breathed in the way to heaven : and
where all see not alike, and some are weaker, He carrieth the
lambs in His bosom, and leadeth gently those that are with young.
But we must either see all the evil of ceremonies to be but as in-
different straws, or suffer no less than to be casten out of the
Lord's inheritance. Madam, if I had time I would write more at
length, but your ladyship will pardon me till a fitter occasion.
^ Past. 2 Here but. ^ Else,
TAKT II.J LETTEK, XXIV. 407
Grace be with you and your child, and bear you company to your
best home.
Your ladyship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
Anwoth, June 8, 1636.
LETTER XXIV.— To Earlestown, Elder.
Much honoured Sir, — I have heard of the mind and malice
of your adversaries against you : it is like ^ they will extend the
law they have in length and breadth, answerable to their heat of
mind ; but it is a great part of your glory that the cause is not
yours, but your Lord's, whom ye serve ; and I doubt not but
Christ Avill count it His honour to back His weak servant ; and it
were a shame for Him (with reverence to His holy name) that He
should suffer Himself to be in the common of ^ such a poor man as
ye are, and that ye should give out for Him, and not get in again.
Write up your depursements^ for your master Christ, and keep the
count what you give out, whether name, credit, goods, or life;
and suspend your reckoning till nigh the evening ; and remember
that a poor weak servant of Christ wrote it to you, ye shall have
Christ, a King, caution for your incomes, and all your losses.
Reckon not from the forenoon : take the word of God for your
warrant, and for Christ's act of cautionery, howbeit body, life, and
goods go for Christ your Lord, and though ye should lose the
head for Him; yet (Luke xxi. 18, 19) "There shall not one hair
of your head perish. In patience therefore possess your soul."
And because ye are the first man in Galloway called out, and
questioned for the name of Jesus, His eye hath been upon you, as
upon one whom He hath designed to be among his witnesses.
Christ hath said, Alexander Gordon shall lead the ring, in wit-
nessing a good confession ; and therefore He hath put the garland
of suffering for Himself, first upon your head. Think yourself so
much the more obliged to Him, and fear not ; for He layeth His
right hand on your head. He who was dead, and is alive, will
plead your cause, and will look attentively upon the process from
the begmning to the end ; and the Spirit of glory shall rest upon
you. (Rev. ii. 10), "Fear none of these things which thou shalt
suffer : behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye
may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days." " Be thou
faithful unto the death, and I will give thee the crown of life."
That lovely one, Jesus, who also became the Son of Man, that He
might take strokes for you, write the cross-sweetening and soul-
supporting sense of these Avords in your heart. These rumbling
wheels of Scotland's ten days' tribulation are under His look who
^ Probable. ^ Indelited to. ^ Disbuvsements.
408 LETTEli XXIV. [PAKT II,
liatli seven eyes. Take a house on your head, and slip yourself by
faith in under Christ's wings, till the storm be over. And, re-
member, when they have drunken us down, " Jerusalem will be
a cup of trembling and of poison" (Zech. xii. 2). They shall be
fain to vomit out the saints ; for " Judah (ver. 6) shall be a
hearth of fire in a sheaf, and they shall devour all the people round
about, on the right hand, and on the left." Woe to Zion's enemies,
they have the worst of it ; for we have writ for the victory. Sir,
ye were never honourable till now ; this is your glory, that Christ
hath put you in the roll with Himself and the rest of the Avit-
nesses, who are " come out of great tribulation, and have washed
their garments, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
Be not cast down for what the servants of Antichrist cast in your
teeth, that ye are a head to, and favourer of the Puritans, and
leader to that sect. If your conscience say, " Alas ! here is much
din, and little done" (as the proverb is), because ye have not done
so much service to Christ that way as ye might and should ; take
courage from that same temptation ; for your Lord Christ looketh
upon that very challenge, as a hungering desire in you to have
done more than ye did ; and that filleth up the blank, and He will
accept of what ye have done in that kind. If great men be kind
to 3^ou, I pray you overlook them ; if they smile on yon, Christ
but borroweth their face, to smile through them upon His afflicted
servant. Know the well-head ; and for all that learn the way to
the well itself. Thank God that Christ came to your house in
your absence, and took with Him some of your children. He
presumed that much^ on your love, that ye would not offend ;'-
and howbeit He should take the rest, He cannot come upon your
wrong side. I question nob, if they were children of gold,^ but
ye think them well bestowed upon Him. Expound well two rods
on you, one in your house at home, another on your own person
abroad. Love thinketh no evil ; if ye were not Christ's wheat,
appointed to be bread in His house, He would not grind you thus.
But keep the middle line, neither despise nor faint, Heb. xii. 6.
Ye see your Father is homely with you : strokes of a father
evidence kindness and care ; take them so. I hope your Lord
hath manifested Himself to you, and suggested these or more
choice thoughts about His dealing with you : we are using our
weak nioyen'^ and credit for you, up at our own court, as we dow,*
we pray the King to hear us, and the Son of man to go side for
side with you, and hand in hand, in the fiery oven, and to quicken
and encourage your unbelieving heart, when ye droop and de
spond. Sir, to the honour of Christ be it said, my ftiitli goeth with
my pen now : I am presently believing Christ shall bring you out
^ So fax. 2 Be ofjende£i_ 3Q«. "God'? influence. ^Cnn.
PART II.] LETTER XXV. 409
Truth in Scotland shall keep the crown of the causeway yet ; the
saints shall see religion go naked at noonday, free from shame and
fear of men. We shall yet divide Shechem, and ride upon the
high places of Jacob. Remember my obliged respects and iove to
my Lady Kenmure and her sweet child.
Yours, ever in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, July 6, 1636.
LETTER XXV.— To the Viscountess of Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I know ye are
near many comforters, and that the promised Comforter is near
hand also ; yet, because I found your ladyship comfortable to my-
self, in my sad days, that are not yet over my head, it is my part,
and more in many respects (howbeit I can do little, God knoweth,
in that kind), to speak to you in your wilderness-lot. I know,
dear and noble lady, this loss of your dear child came upon you,
one piece and part of it after another ; and that ye was looking for
it, and that now the Almighty hath brought on you that which
ye feared ; and that your Lord gave you lawful warning. And I
hope, for His sake, who brewed and masked^ this cup in heaven,
ye will gladly drink, and salute and welcome the cross. I am
sure, it is not your Lord's mind to feed you with judgment and
wormwood, and to give you waters of gall to drink, Ezek. xxxiv.
16, Jer. ix. 15. I know your cup is sugared with mercy; and
that the withering of the bloom, the flower, even the white and
red of worldly joys, is for no other end but to buy out at the
ground the reversion of your heart and love. Madam, subscribe
the Almighty's will ; put your hand to the pen, and let the cross
of your Lord Jesus have your submissive and resolute Amen. If
ye ask and try whose this cross is? I dare say, it is not all your
own, the best half of it is Christ's ; then your cross is no born
bastard, but lawfully begotten, " It sprang not out of the dust,"
Job V. 6. If Christ and ye be halvers^ of this suffering, and He
say, half mine, what should ail you 1 And I am sure, I am here
right upon the style of the word of God. Phil. iii. 10, "The fel-
lowship of Christ's suff'erings." Col. i. 28, " The remnant of the
afiiictions of Christ." Heb. xi. 26, "The reproacli of Christ." It
were but to shift the comforts of God, to say, Christ had never
such a cross as mine, He had never a dead child, and so this is
not His cross ; neither can He in that meaning be the owner of
this cross. But I hope, Christ, when He married you, married
you and all the crosses, and woe-hearts^ that follow you, and the
word maketh no exception, Isa. Ixiii. 9, " In all their afflictions
^ Infused. - Sharera. •* JSorrowu
410 LETTEll XXV. [part II.
He was afflicted." Then Christ bore the first stroke of this cross,
it rebounded off' Him on upon you, and ye got it at the second
hand, and ye and He are halvers^ in it. And I shall believe for
my part, He inindeth to distil heaven out of this loss, and all
others the like ; for wisdom de>''ised it, and love laid it on, and
Christ owneth it as His own, and putteth your shoulder only be-
neath a piece of it. Take it with joy as no bastard cross, but as
a visitation of God well-born ; and spend the rest of your appointed
time, till your change come, in the work of believing ; and let
faith, that never yet made a lie to you, speak for God's part of it,
" He will not. He doth not make you a sea or a whale-fish, that
He keepeth you in ward," Job vii. 12. It may be, ye think not
many of the children of God in such a hard case as yourself; but
what would ye think of some, who would exchange afflictions, and
give you to the boot 1 but I know, yours must be your own alone,
and Christ's together. I confess it seemed strange to me that
your Lord should have done that which seemeth to ding^ out the
bottom of your comforts worldly ; but we see not to the ground
of the Almighty's sovereignty ; " He goeth by on our right hand,
and on our left hand, and we see Him not." We see but pieces
of the broken links of the chain of His providence, and He coggeth
the wheels of His own providence, that we see not. 0 let the
Former work His own clay in what frame He pleaseth ! " Shall
any teach the Almighty knowledge?" If He pursue dry stubble,
who dare say, "What doest thou?" Do not wonder to see the
Judge of the world weave in one web your mercies, and the
judgments of the house of Kenraure. He can make one web of
coatraries. But my weak advice, Avith reverence and correction,
were for you, dear and worthy lady, to see how far mortification
goeth on, and what scum the Lord's fire casteth out of you. I
know ye see your knottiness, since our Lord whiteth^ and heweth,
and planeth you ; and the glancing of the furnace is to let you see
what scum or refuse ye must want,* and what froth is in nature,
that must be boiled out, and taken off in the fire of your trials.
I do not say, heavier afflictions prophesy^ heavier guiltiness; a
cross is often but a false prophet in this kind ; but I am sure, our
Lord would have the tin and the bastard metal in you removed ;
lest the Lord say, " The bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed in
the fire, the founder melteth in vain," Jer. vi. 29. And I shall
hope, that grief shall not so far smother your light, as not to
practise this so necessary a duty, to concur with Him in this
blessed design. I would gladly plead for the Comforter's part of
^ Sharers. - ] >i-ive.
* Taketh off the bark, so as to show the white wood. ■* Be deprived of.
^ rroclaim.
PAKT II,] LETTEK XXVI. 411
it, not against you, madam (for I am sure ye are not His party ^),
but against your gi'ief, which will have its own violent incursions
in your soul ; and I think it be not in your power to help it. But
I must say, there are comforts allowed upon you ; and therefore
want them not. When ye have got a running-over soul with joy
now, that joy Avill never be missed out of the infinite ocean of de-
light which is not diminished by drinking at it, or drawing out of
it. It is a Christian art, to comfort yourself in the Lord ; to say,
I was obliged to render back again this child to the Giver ; and if
I have hacl four years' loan of him, and Christ eternity's possession
of him, the Lord hath kept conditions with me. If my Lord would
not have him and me to tryst ^ both in one hour, at death's door-
threshold together, it is His wisdom so to do, I am satisfied ; my
tryst ^ is suspended, not broken off, nor given up. Madam, I
would I could divide sorrow with you, for your ease ; but I am
but a beholder, it is easy to me to speak. The God of comfort
speak to you, and allure you with His feasts of love. My removal
from my flock is so heavy to me, that it maketh my life a burden
to me ; I had never such a longing for death. The Lord help and
hold up sad clay. I fear ye sin in drawing Mr. William Dalgleish
from this country, where the labourers are few, and the harvest
great. Madam, desire my Lord Argyle to see for provision to a
pastor for this poor people. Grace be with you.
Your ladyship, at all obedience in Christ, S. li.
Kirkcudbright, Oct. 1, 1639.
LETTER XXVL— To the Persecuted Church in Ireland.
Much honoured, reverend, and dearly beloved in our
Lord, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you all. I know there are
many in this nation, more able than I, to speak to the sufferers
for, and witnesses of Jesus Christ ; yet pardon me to speak a little
to you, who are called in question for the Gospel, once committed
to you. I hope ye are not ignorant, that if peace was left to you
in Christ's testament, so the other half of the testament was a
legacy of Christ's sufferings, John xvi. 35, " These things I have
spoken, that in me ye might have peace ; in the world, ye shall
have trouble." Because then ye are made assignees and heirs to a
life-rent of Christ's cross, think that fiery trial no strange thing ;
for the Lord Jesus shall be no loser by purging the dross and tin
out of His church in Ireland : His wine-press is but squeezing out
the dregs, the scum, the froth, and refuse of that church. I had
once the proof of the sweet smell, and the honest and honourable
peace, of that slandered thing, the cross of our Lord Jesus. But
' Opponent. '^ Meet. * Meeting.
412 LETTER XXVI. [PART II.
though (alas !) tliat these golden days that then I had, be now in
a great part gone ; yet I dare say, that the issue and out-gate of
your sutferings shall be the advantage, the golden reign and do-
minion of the Gospel, and the high glory of the never-enough-
praised Prince of the kings of the earth, and the changing of the
brass of the Lord's temple among you into gold, and the iron into
silver, and the wood into brass ; " your officers shall yet be peace,
and your exactors righteousness," Isa. Ix. 17, 18. Your old fallen
walls shall get a new name, and the gates of your Jerusalem shall
get a new style; "they shall call your walls. Salvation, and your
gates. Praise." I know that deputy, prelates, papists, temporizing
lords, and proud mockers of our Lord, crucifiers of Christ for His
coat, and all your enemies, have neither fingers nor instruments of
war to pick out one stone out of your wall, for each stone of your
wall is salvation. I dare give you my royal and princely Master's
word for it, that Ireland shall be a fair bride to Jesus, and Christ
shall build on her a palace of silver. Cant. viii. 9. Therefore, weep
not as if there were no hope ; fear not, put on strength, "put on
your beautiful garments," Isa. Hi. 1. " Your foundation shall be
sapphires," Isa. liv. 11, 12. "Your windows and gates precious
stones." Look over the water, and behold and see who is on the
dry land waiting for your landing ; your deliverance is concluded,
subscribed, and sealed in heaven : your goods that are taken from
you, for Christ and His truth's sake, are but arrested and laid in
pawn, and not taken away. There is much laid up for you in His
store-house, whose the earth and the fulness thereof is ; your gar-
ments are spun, and your flocks are feeding in the fields ; your
bread is laid up for you, your drink is browen,^ your gold and sil-
ver is at the bank, and the interest goeth on and groweth ; and
yet I hear, that your task-masters do rob and spoil you and fine
you : your piisons (my brethren) have two keys, the deputy, pre-
lates, and officers keep but the iron keys of the prison wherein
they put you ; but He that hath created the smith, hath other
keys in heaven ; therefore ye shall not die in the prison : other
men's ploughs are labouring for your bread, your enemies are
gathering in your rents. He that is kissing His bride on this side
of the sea in Scotland, is beating her beyond the sea in Ireland,
and feeding her with the bread of adversity and the water of af-
fliction ; and yet He is the same Lord to both. Alas ! I fear that
Scotland be undone and slain, with this great mercy of reformation,
because there is not here that life of religion, answerable to the
huge greatness of the work that dazzleth our eyes. For the Lord
*is rejoicing over us in this land, as the bridegroom rejoiceth over
the bride, and the Lord hath changed the name of Scotland ; they
Brewed.
PART II.] LETTER XXVL 413
call us now no more forsaken nor desolate, but our land is called
Hephzibali and Beulah. Isa. Ixii. 4, " For the Lord delighteth in
us, and this land is married to Himself;" " There is now an high-
way made through our Zion, and it is called the way of holiness ;
the unclean shall not pass over it; the Avayfaring men, though
fools, shall not err in it ; the wilderness doth rejoice and blossom
as the rose : the ransomed of the Lord are returned back unto Zion,
with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads," Isa. xxxv. The
Canaanite is put out of our Lord's house ; there is not a beast left
to do hurt (at least professedly) in all the holy mountain of the
Lord ; our Lord is fallen to wrestle with His enemies, and hath
brought us out of Egypt ; we have the strength of an unicorn.
Numb, xxiii. 22. The Lord hath eaten up the sons of Babel, He
hath broken their bones, and hath pierced them through with His
arrows ; we take them captives whose captives we Avere, and we
rule over our oppressors. Isa. xiv. 2. It is not brick, nor clay,
nor Babel's cursed timber and stones, that is in our second temple ;
but our princely King Jesus is building His house all palace-work
and carved stones, it is the habitation of the Lord. We do wel-
come Ireland and England to our Well-Beloved. We invite you,
0 daughters of Jerusalem, to come down to our Lord's garden, and
seek our Well-Beloved with us ; for His love will suffice both you
and us : we do send love-letters over the sea, to request you to
come and to marry our King, and to take part of our bed ; and we
trust our Lord is fetching a blow upon the beast and the scarlet-
coloured Avhore, to the end He may bring in His ancient widow-
wife, our dear sister, the church of the Jews. 0, what a heavenly
heaven Avere it to see them come in by this mean, and suck the
breasts of their little sister, and renew their old love Avith their
first Husband, Christ our Lord ! They are booked in God's Avord,
as a bride contracted upon ^ Jesus : 0 for a sight, in this flesh of
mine, of the prophesied marriage between Christ and them ! The
kings of Tarshish and the isles must bring presents to our Lord
Jesus, Ps. Ixxii. 10. And Britain is one of the chiefest isles :
why then but we may believe that our kings of this island shall
come in, and bring their glory to the New Jerusalem, Avherein
Christ shall dwell in the latter days ! It is our part to pray, that
the kingdoms of the earth may become Christ's. Noav I exhort
you in the Lord Jesus, not to be dismayed nor afraid for the two
tails of these tAvo smoking fire-brands, the fierce anger of the
deputy Avith his civil poAver, and of the bastard prelates Avith the
power of the beast, for they shall be cut off : they may Avell eat
you and drink you, but they shall be forced to vomit you out again'
alive. If two things were firmly believed, sufferings Avould have
' To.
414 LETTER XXVI. [PART IL
no weiglit. If the fellowship of Christ's sufferings were well known,
who would not gladly take part with Jesus 1 for Christ and we
are halvers ^ and joint-owners of one and the same cross : and
therefore, he that knew well what sufferings were, as he esteemed
all things but loss for Christ, and did judge them but dung, so did
he also judge of them, that He might know the fellowship of His
sufferings, Phil. iii. 10. 0 how sweet a sight is it to see a cross
betwixt Christ and us ; to hear our Redeemer say, at every sigh
and every blow, and every loss of a believer, half mine ! so they
are called the sufferings of Christ, and the reproach of Christ, Col.
ii. 24, Heb. xi. 26. As when two are partners and owners of a
ship, the half of the gain, and the half of the loss belongeth to
either of the two ; so Christ in our sufferings is half-gainer and
half-loser with us. Yea, the heaviest end of the black tree of the
cross lieth on your Lord ; it falleth first upon Him, and it but re-
boundeth off Him upon you ; " The reproaches of them tliat re-
proached thee are fallen upon me," Ps. Ixix. 9. Your sufferings
are your treasure, and are greater riches than the treasures of
Egypt, Heb. xi. 26. And if your cross come first through Christ's
fingers, ere it come to you, it receiveth a fair lustre from Him, it
getteth a taste and a relish of the King's spikenard and of heaven's
perfume ; and the lialf of the gain, when Christ's shipful of gold
Cometh home, shall be yours. It is an augmenting of your treasure
to be rich in sufferings, " to be in labours abundant, in stripes
above measure," 2 Cor. xi. 23 ; " and to have the sufferings of
Christ abounding in you," 2 Cor. i. 5, is a part of heaven's stock.
Your goods are not lost which they have plucked from you, for
your Lord hath them in keeping ; they are but arrested and seized
upon. He shall loose the arrest. " Ye shall be fed with the heri-
tage of Jacob your father ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it," Isa. xxxviii. 14. Till I shall be in the hall-fl,oorof the highest
palace, and get a draught of glory out of Christ's hand, above and
beyond time, and beyond death, I will never, it is like,^ see fairer
days than I saw under that blessed tree of my Lord's cross. His
kisses then were king's kisses, these kisses were sweet and soul-re-
viving. One of them at that time was worth two and a half (if I
may speak so) of Christ's week-day kisses. 0 sweet, sweet for
evermore, to see a rose of heaven growing in as ill ground as hell ;
and to see Christ's love, His embracements, His dinners and sup-
pers of joy, peace, faith, goodness, long-suffering and patience,
growing and springing like the flowers of God's garden, out of such
stony and cursed ground as the hatred of the prelates and the
mahce of their high commission, and the Antichrist's bloody hand
and heart ! Is not here art and wisdom ? Is not here heaven in-
^ Partners. - Probable.
PART II.] LETTER XXVI. 415
dented in hell (if I may say so) like a jewel set with skill in a ring
with the enamel of Christ's cross ? The ruby and riches of glory,
that growth up out of this cross, is beyond telling. Now the
blackest and hottest wrath, and most fiery and all-devouring in-
dignation of the Judge of men and angels, shall come upon them
that deny our sweet Lord Jesus, and put their hand to that oath
of wickedness now pressed. The Lord's coal at their heart shall
burn them up both root and branch. The estates of great men,
that have done so, if they do not repent, shall consume away, and
the ravens shall dwell in their houses, and their glory shall be
shame. 0, for the Lord's sake, keep fast by Christ, and fear not
man that shall die and wither as the grass. The deputy's bloom
shall fail, and the prelates shall cast their flower, and the east wind
of the Lord, of the Lord strong and mighty, shall blast and break
them. Therefore, fear them not, they are but idols, that can
neither do evil nor good. Walk not in the way of those people
that slander the footsteps of our royal and princely anointed King
Jesus, now riding upon His white horse in Scotland. Let Jehovah
be your fear. That decree of Zion's deliverance, passed and sealed
up before the throne, is now ripe, and shall bring forth a child,
even the ruin and fall of the black prelates' kingdom and the
Antichrist's throne in these kingdoms. The Lord hath begun, and
He shall make an end. Who did ever hear the like of this 1
Before Scotland travailed, she brought forth ; and before her pain
came, she was delivered of a man child, Lsa. Ixvi. 7, 8. And when
all is done, suppose there Avere no sweetness in our Lord's cross ;
yet it is sweet for His sake, for that lovely one, Jesus Christ,
whose crown and royal supremacy is the question this day in
Great Britain betwixt us and our adversaries. And who would
not think Him worthy of the suffering for ? What is burning
quick 1 What is drinking of our own heart's blood 1 and what is
a draught of melted lead for His glory 1 Less than a drink of cold
water to a thirsty man, if the right price and due value were put
on that worthy, worthy Prince, Jesus. 0 ! who can weigh Him ?
Ten thousand thousand heavens would not be one scale, or the half
of the scale of the balance to lay Him in. 0 black angels, in
comparison with Him ! 0 dim, and dark, and lightless sun, in
regard of ^ that fair Sun of righteousness ! 0 feckless and worthless
heaven of heavens, when they stand beside my worthy, and lofty,
aud high, and excellent Well-Beloved ! 0 weak and infirm clay
kings ! 0 soft and feeble mountains of brass, and weak created
strength, in regard of ^ our mighty and strong Lord of armies ! 0
foolish wisdom of men and angels, when it is laid in the balance
beside that spotless substantial Wisdom of the Father ! If heaven
^ In comparison with.
416 LETTEK XXVI. [PART U.
jind earth, and ten thousand heavens, even round about these
heavens that now are, were all in one garden of paradise, decked
with all the fairest roses, flowers, and trees, that can come forth
from the art of the Almighty Himself ; yet set but our one Flower,
that groweth out of the root of Jesse, beside that orchard of pleasure,
one look of Him, one view, one taste, one smell of His sweet God-
head would infinitely exceed, and go beyond, the smell, colour,
beauty, and loveliness of that paradise. 0 to be with child of His
love, and to be suffocated (if that could be) with the smell of His
sweetness, were a sweet fill and lovely pain ! 0 worthy, worthy
loveliness ! 0 less of the creatures, and more of Thee ! 0, open
the passage of the well of love and glory on us dry pits and
withered trees ! 0, that Jewel and Flower of heaven ! If our
Beloved were not mistaken by us, and unknown to us. He would
have no scarcity of Avooers and suitors ; He would make heaven
and eai^ both see that they cannot quench His love, for His love
is a sea. 0, to be a thousand fathoms deep in this sea of love !
He, He Himself, is more excellent than heaven ; for heaven, as it
Cometh into the souls and spirits of the glorified, is but a creature ;
and He is something, and a great something, more than a creature.
0 what a life were it to sit beside this well of love, and drink and
sing, and sing and drink ; and then to have desires and soul-
faculties stretched and extended out many thousand fathoms in
length and breadth, to take in seas and rivers of love ! I earnestly
desire to recommend this love to you, that this love may cause
you to keep His commandments, and to keep clean fingers, and
make clean feet, that ye may walk as the redeemed of the Lord.
Woe, woe be to them that put on His name, and shame this love
of Christ with a loose and profane life ; their feet, their tongue,
and hands, and eyes give a shameless lie to the holy Gospel, which
they profess. I beseech you in the Lord, keep Christ, and walk
with Him ; let not His fairness be spotted and stained by godless
living. 0 ! who can find in their heart to sin against love 1 And
such a love as the glorified in heaven shall delight to dive into
and drink of for ever ; for tliey are evermore drinking in love, and
the cup is still at their head, and yet without loathing ; for they
still drink, and still desire to drink, for ever and ever ; is not this
a long-lasting supper? Now, if any of our country people, pro-
fessing Christ Jesus, have brought themselves under the stroke
and wrath of the Almighty, by yielding to Antichrist in an hair-
breadth, but especially by swearing and subscribing that blasphe-
mous oath (which is the church of Ireland's black hour of tempta-
tion), I would entreat them, by the mercies of God at their last
summons, to repent, and openly confess before the world, to the
glory of the Lord, their denial of Christ. Or otherwise, if either
PABT II.] LETTER XXVII. 417
man or woman will stand and abide by that oath, then, in the
name and authority of the Lord Jesus, I let them see that they
forfeit their part of heaven ; a-nd let them look for no less than a
back-burden of the pure unmixed wrath of God, and the plague of
apostates and deniers of our Lord Jesus. Let not me, a stranger
to you, who never saw your face in the flesh, be thought bold in
writing to you ; for the hope I have of a glorious Church in that
land, and the love of Christ, constraineth me. I know, the worthy
servants of Christ, who once laboured among you, cease not to
write to you also ; and I shall desire to be excused that I do join
with them. Pray for your sister church in Scotland, and let me
entreat you for the aid of your prayers for myself, and flock, and
ministry, and my fear of a transportation from this place of tile
Lord's vineyard. Now, the very God of peace sanctify you
throughout. Grace be with you all. Your brother and companion
in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, 1639.
LETTEE XXVIL— To his Reverend and Much Honoured Brother,
Dr. Alexander Leighton, Christ's prisoner in bonds at
London.
Reverend and much honoured Prisoner of Hope, — Grace,
mercy, and peace be to you. It was not my part, whom our Lord
hath enlarged, to forget you His prisoner. When I consider how
long your night hath been, I think Christ hath a mind to put you,
in free grace's debt, so much the deeper, as your suff'erings have
been of so long a continuance. But what if Christ mind ^ you no
joy but public joy, with enlarged and triumphing Zion ] I think,/
sir, ye wouldjoye i^ best, to share and divide your song of joy^
with^ETony and to have mystical Christ in Britain halver - and ')
' compartner with your enlargement. I am sure, your joy, border- '
ing and neighbouring with the joy of Christ's bride, would be so
(much the sweeter that it were public. I thought, if Christ had
halved my mercies, and delivered His bride and not me, that His
praises should have been double to what they are ; but now two
rich mercies, conjoined in one, have stolen from our Lord more
than half praises. 0, that mercy should so beguile us, and steal
away our counts and acknowledgments ! Worthy sir, I hope I
need not exhort you to go on in hoping for the salvation of God.
There hath not been so much taken from your time of ease and
created joys as eternity shall add to your heaven. Ye know, when
one day in heaven hath paid you, yea, and overpaid your blood,
bonds, sorrow, and sufferings, that it would trouble angels' under-
standing to lay the count of that surplus of glory which eternity can
' Intend. 2 gJiai-er.
2d
415? LETTER XXVII. [PAliT II.
and will give you. O, bub your sand-glass of sufferings and losses
Cometh to little, when it shall be counted and compared with the
glory that abideth you on the other side of the water ! Ye have
no leisure to rejoice and sing here, while time goeth about you, and
where your psalms will be short ; therefore ye will think eternity
and the long day of heaven, that shall be measured with no other
sun nor horologe than the long life of the " Ancient of days," to
measure your praises, little enough for you. If your span-length
of time be cloudy, ye cannot but think your Lord can no more
take your blood and your bands Avithout the income and recom])ense
of free grace, than H e would take the sufferings of Paul, and His
other dear servants, that were well paid home, beyond all count-
ing, Kom. viii. 18. If the wisdom of Christ hath made you Anti-
christ's eye-sore, and his envy, ye are to thank God that such a
piece of clay as ye are is made the field of glory to work upon. It
was the potter's aim that the clay should praise Him : and I hope
it satisfieth you that your clay is for His glory. 0, who can suffer
enough for such a Lord 1 and who can lay out in bank enough of
pain, shame, losses, tortures, to receive in again the free interest
of eternal glory ? 2 Cor. iv. 1 7. O, how advantageous a bargain-
ing is it with such a rich Lord ! If your hand and pen had been at
leisure to gain glory in paper, it had been but paper-glory ; but
the bearing of a public cross so long, for the now controverted
privileges of the crown and sceptre of free King Jesus, the Prince
of the kings of the earth, is glory booked in heaven. Worthy and
dear brother, if ye go to weigh Jesus's sweetness, excellency, glory,
and beauty, and lay sore against Him your ounces or drachms of
suffering for Him, ye shall be straitened two ways. 1. It will be
a pain to make the comparison, the disproportion being by no
understanding imaginable : nay, if heaven's arithmetic and angels
were set to work, they should never number the degrees or differ-
ence. 2. It should straiten you to find a scale for the balance
to lay that high and lofty One, that over-transcending Prince of
excellency into. If your mind could fancy as many created hea-
vens as time hath had minutes, trees have had leaves, and clouds
have had rain-drops, since the first stone of the creation was laid,
they should not make half a scale to bear and weigh boundless ex-
cellency into. And therefore the King, whose marks ye are bear-
ing, and whose dying ye carry about with you in your body, is, out
of all cry and consideration, beyond and above all our thoughts.
For myself, I am content to feed upon wondering sometimes, at
the beholding but of the borders and skirts of the incomparable
glory which is in that exalted Prince ; and I think ye could wish
for more ears to give Him than ye have, since ye hope these ears
PART II.] LETTER XXVIII. 419
ye now have given Him ^ shall be passages to take in the music of
His glorious voice. I would fain both believe and pray for a new
bride of Jews and Gentiles to our Lord Jesus, after the land of
graven images shall be laid waste ; and that our Lord Jesus is on
horseback, hunting and pursuing the beast ; and that England and
Ireland shall be well-swept chambers for Christ and His righteous-
ness to dwell in ; for He hath opened our graves in Scotland, and
the two dead and buried witnesses are risen again, and are pro-
phesying. 0, that ])rinces would glory and boast themselves in
carrying the train of Christ's robe-royal in their arras ! Let me
die within half an hour after I have seen the Son of God's temple
enlarged, and the cords of Jerusalem's tent lengthened, to take in
a more numerous company for a bride to the Son of God. 0, if
the corner or foundation-stone of that house, that new house, were
laid above my grave. 0 ! who can add to Him, who is that great
All ! If He would create suns and moons, new heavens, thousand
thousand degrees more perfect than these that now are ; and again
make a new creation ten thousand thousand degrees in perfection
beyond that new creation ; and again, still for eternity multiply
new heavens ; they should never be a perfect resemblance of that
infinite excellency, order, weight, measure, beauty, and sweetness
that is in Him. 0 how little of Him do we see ! 0 how shallow
are our thoughts of Him ! 0 if I had pain for Him, and shame
and losses for Him, and more clay and spirits for Him ; and that T
could go upon earth without love, desire, hope, because Christ hath
taken away my love, desire, and hope to heaven with Him ! I
know, worthy sir, your sufierings for Him are your glory : and
therefore weary not ; His salvation is near hand, and shall not
tarry. Pray for me. His grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrews, Nov. 22, 1639.
LETTER XXVHL— To Mr. Henry Stuart, his Wife, and Two
Daughters, all Prisoners of Christ at Dublin.
" Tear none of these things which ye shall sufter," &c. — Rev. ii. 10.
Truly honoured and dearly Beloved, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you, from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Think it not strange, beloved in our Lord Jesus, that Satan can
command keys of prisons, and bolts, and chains ; this is a piece of
the devil's princedom that he hath over the world. Interpret and
understand our Lord well in this ; be not jealous of His love,
^ Dr. Alexander Leighton, father of Archbishop Leighton. siiifered eleven
years' imprisonment, had his nose slit, and his ears cut off.
420 LETTER XXVIII. [PAKT II.
though He make devils and men His nnder-servants to scour the
rust off your faith, and purge you from your dross. And let me
charge you, O prisoners of hope, to open your window, and to look
out by faith and behold heaven's post, that speedy and swift sal-
vation of God, that is coming to you. It is a broad river that
faith will not look over ; it is a mighty and a broad sea, that they
of a lively hope cannot behold the furthest bank and other shore
thereof ; look over the water, your anchor is fixed within the
vail : the one end of the cable is about the prisoner of Christ, and
the other is entered within the vail, whither the Forerunner is
entered for you, Heb. vi. 19, 20. It can go straight through the
flames of the fire of the M'rath of men, devils, losses, tortures,
death, and not a thread of it be either singed or burnt; men and
devils have no teeth to bite it in two. Hold fast till He come :
your cross is of the colour of heaven and Christ, and passmented^
over with the faith and comforts of the Lord's faithful covenant
with Scotland ; and that dye and colour will abide the foul weathei,
and neither be stained nor cast the colour ; yea it reflects a scad ^
like the cross of Christ, whose holy hands many a day lifted up to
God, praying for sinners, were fettered and bound, as if these
blessed hands had stolen and shed innocent blood. When your
lovely, lovely Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no
wonder that your process be lawless and turned upside down ; for
He was taken, fettered, bufi'eted, whipped, spitted upon, before
He was convicted of any fault, or sentenced. 0, such a pair of
suff'erers and witnesses, as high and royal Jesus, and a poor piece
of guilty clay, marrowed^ together under one yoke ! 0, how lovely
is the cross with such a second ! I believe that your prison is
enacted in God's court, not to keep you till your hope breathe out
its life and last ; your cross is under law to restore you again safe
to your brethren and sisters in Christ ; take heaven and Christ's
back-bond for a fair back-door out of your suff'ering. The Saviour
is on His journey with salvation and deliverance lor Mount Zion ;
and the sword of the Lord is drunk with blood, and made fat with
fatness ; His sword is bathed in heaven against Babylon, for it is
the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompense is for
the controversy of Zion. And persuade yourselves, the streams of
the rivers of Babylon shall be pitch, and the dust of the land
" brimstone and burning pitch," Isa. xxxiv. 8. And if your deli-
verance be conjoined with the deliverance of Zion, it shall be two
salvations to you. It were good to be armed before-hand for
death, or bodily tortures for Christ ; and to think what a crown
of honour it is, that God hath given you pieces of living clay, to
be tortured witnesses for saving truth ; and that ye are so happy
^ Adorned. ^ Shadow. ' Joined.
PART II.] LETTEK XXVIII. 421
as to have some pints of blood to give out for the crown of that
royal Lord, who hath caused you to avouch Himself before men.
If ye can lend fines of three thousand pounds sterling for Christ,
let heaven's register, and Christ's count-book, keep in reckoning
your depursements^ for Him ; it shall be engraven and printed in
great letters upon heaven's throne, what you are willing to give
for Him ; Christ's papers of that kind cannot be lost or fall by.
Do not wonder to see clay boast ^ the great potter, and to see
blinded men threaten the Gospel with death and burial, and to
raze out truth's name. But where will they make a grave for the
Gospel and the Lord's bride 1 earth and hell shall be but little
bounds for their burial ; lay all the clay and rubbish of this inch
of the whole earth above our Lord's spouse, yet it will not cover
her, nor hold her down ; she shall live and not die; she shall be-
hold the salvation of God. Let your faith frist ^ God a little, and
be not afraid for a smoking fire-brand ; there is more smoke in
Babylon's furnace than there is fire. Till doomsday shall come,
they shall never see the kirk of Scotland and our covenant burnt
to ashes ; or if it should be thrown in the fire, yet it cannot be so
burnt or buried as not to have a resurrection ; angry clay's wind
shall shake none of Christ's corn ; He will gather in all His wheat
into His barn ; only let your fellowship with Christ be renewed.
Ye are sibber* to Christ now, when you are imprisoned for Him,
than before ; for now the strokes laid on you do come in remem-
brance before our Lord, and He can own His own wounds. A
drink of Christ's love, which is better than wine, is the drink-silver
which suffering for His Majesty leaves behind it. It is not your
sins which they persecute in you, but God's grace and loyalty to
King Jesus ; they see no treason in you to your prince, the king
of Britain, albeit they say so ; but it is heaven in you that earth
is fighting against, and Christ is owning His own cause. Grace is
a party that fire will not burn, nor water drown ; when they have
eaten and drunken you, their stomach shall be sick, and they shall
spue you out alive. 0, what glory is it to be suffering abjects for
the Lord's glory and royalty ! Nay, though His servants had a
body to burn for ever for this Gospel, so being that triumphing
and exalted Jesus's high glory did rise out of these flames, and out
of that burning body ; 0, what a sweet fire ! 0, what soul-re-
freshing torment should that be ! What if the pickles ^ of dust
and ashes of the burnt and dissolved body were musicians to sing
His praises, and the highness of that never-enough-exalted Prince
of ages ! 0, what love is it in Him that He will have such
musicians as we are, to tune that psalm of His everlasting praises
in heaven ! 0, what shining and burning flames of love are those,
^ Pnvraentn. - Kail against. -^ Wait for. * Nearer. 'Grains.
422 LETTER XXVIII. [PART II.
that Christ will divide His share of life, of heaven and glory with
you, Luke xxii. 2'J, John xvii. 24, Rev. iii. 21. A part of His
throne, one draught of His wine (His wine of glory and life, that
comes from under the throne of God, and of the Lamb), and one
apple of the tree of life, will do more than make up all tlie ex-
penses and charges of clay lent out for heaven. 0 ! oh, but we
have short, and narrow, and creeping thoughts of Jesus, and do
but shape Christ in our conceptions according to some created por-
traiture ! 0 angels, lend in your help to make love-books and
songs of our fair, and white, and ruddy Standard-bearer amongst
ten thousand. 0 heavens ! 0 heaven of heavens ! 0 glorified ten-
ants and triumphing householders with the Lamb, put in new
psalms and love-sonnets of the excellency of our Bridegroom, and
lielp us to set Him on high ! , 0, indwellers of earth and heaven,
sea and air, and 0 all ye created beings within the bosom of the
outmost circle of this great world, 0 come, help to set on high the
praises of our Lord ! 0 fairness of creatures, blush before His un-
created beauty ! 0 created strength, be amazed to stand before
your strong Lord of hosts ! 0 created love, think shame of thy-
self before this unparalleled love of heaven ! 0 angel of wisdom,
hide thyself before our Lord, whose understanding passeth finding
out ! 0 sun, in thy shining beauty, for shame put on a web of
darkness, and cover thyself before thy briglitest Master and
Maker ! O, who can add glory, by doing or suffering, to this
never-enough-admired-and-praised Lover ! 0, we can but bring
our drop to this sea, and our candle, dim and dark as it is, to this
clear and lightsome Sun of heaven and earth ! 0, but we have
cause to drink ten deaths in one cup dry, to swim through ten
seas, to be at that land of praises, where we shall see that wonder
of wonders, and enjoy this Jewel of heaven's jewels ! 0 death, do
thy utmost against us ! O torments ! 0 malice of men and devils,
waste thy strength on the witnesses of our Lord's testament ! O
devils, bring hell to help you, in tormenting the followers of the
Lamb ! We will defy you to make us too soon happy, and to waft
us too soon over the water, to the land where the noble plant, the
" Plant of Renown," groweth. 0 cruel time, that torments us,
and suspends our dearest enjojanents, that we wait for, when we
shall be bathed and steeped, soul and body, down in the depths of
this love of loves ! 0 time, I say, run fast ! 0 motions, mend
your pace ! 0 Well-Beloved, be like a young roe upon the moun-
tains of separations ! Post, post, and hasten our desired and
hungered-for meeting ; love is sick to hear tell of to-morrow. And
what then can come wrong to you, 0 honourable witnesses of His
kingly truth 1 Men have no more of you to work upon but some
few inches and span-lengths of sick, coughing, and phlegmatic
PART 11.] LETTER XXVIII. 423
clay : your spirits are above their benches, courts, or high com-
missions ; your souls, your love to Christ, your faith cannot be
summoned, nor sentenced, nor accused, nor condemned by pope,
deputy, prelate, ruler, or tyrant ; your faith is a free lord, and
cannot be a captive : all the malice of hell and earth can but hurt
the scabbard of a believer ; and death at the worst can get but a
clay-pawn in keeping, till your Lord make the King's keys, and
open your graves. Therefore upon luck's head (as we use to say)
take your fill of His love, and let a postway or causeway be laid
betwixt your prison and heaven, and go up and visit your treasure.
Enjoy your Beloved, and dwell upon His love, till eternity come in
tune's room, and possess you of your eternal happiness. Keep
your love to Christ, lay up your faith in heaven's keeping, and
follow the Chief of the house of the martyrs, that witnessed a fair
confession before Pontius Pilate ; your cause and His is all one.
The opposers of His cause are like drunken judges and transported,
who in their cups would make acts and laws in their drunken courts,
that the sun should not rise and shine on the earth ; and send their
officers and pursuivants to charge the sun and moon to give no
more light to the world ; and would enact in their court-books
that the sea, after once ebbing, should never flow again ; but
would not the sun, and moon, and sea break these acts, and keep
their Creator's directions 1 The devil, the great fool, and father
of these under-fools, is older and more malicious than wise, that
sets the spirits in earth on work, to contend and clash with heaven's
wisdom, and to give mandates and law-summons to our Sun, to
our great Star of heaven, Jesus, not to shine, in the beauty of His
Gospel, to the chosen and bought ones. O thou fair and fairest
Sun of Righteousness, arise and shine in thy strength, whether
earth and hell will or not ! 0 victorious, 0 royal, 0 stout, princely
soul-conqueror, ride prosperously upon truth ; stretch out thy
sceptre as far as the sun shines, and the moon waxeth and waneth.
Put on thy glittering crown, O thou Maker of kings, and make
but one stride, or one step of the whole earth, and travel in the
greatness of thy strength, Isa. Ixiii. 1, 2. And let thy apparel be
rpd, and all dyed with the blood of thy enemies : thou art tallen
righteous Heir by line to the kingdoms of the world. Laugh ye
at the giddy-headed clay-pots, and stout brain-sick worms, that
dare say in good earnest, " This man shall not reign over us ; "
as though they were casting the dice for Christ's crown, who of
them shall have it. I know ye believe the coming of Christ's
kingdom ; and that there is a hole out of your prison through
which ye see daylight. Let not faith be dazzled with the temp-
tations from a dying deputy, and from a sick prelate ; believe under
a cloud, and wait ibr Him, when there is no moonlight nor star-
4.24 LETTER XXIX. [PART II.
liglit. Let faith live and breathe, and lay hold on the sure salva-
tion of God, when clouds and darkness are about you, and
appearance of rotting m the prison before you; take heed of
unbelieving hearts, which can father lies upon Christ ; beware of,
"Doth His promise fail for evermore?" Ps. Ixxvii. 8. For it
was a man and not God that said it, who dreamed tliat a promise
of God could fail, fall a-swoon, or die. We can make God sick,
or His promises weak, when we are pleased to seek a plea with
Christ. 0 sweet, 0 stout word of faith. Job xiii. 15, "Though
He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 0 sweet epitaph, written
on the grave-stone of a dying believer, to wit, " I died hoping, and
my dust and ashes believe life ! " Faith's eyes, that can see through
a millstone, can see through a gloom of God, and under it read
God's thoughts of love and peace. Hold fast Christ in the dark ;
surely ye shall see the salvation of God. Your adversaries are ripe
and dry for the fire ; yet a little Avhile, and they shall go up in a
flame ; " The breath of the Lord, like a river of brimstone, shall
kindle about them," Isa. xxx. 33. What I write to one, I write
to you all, that are sound-hearted in that kingdom, whom, in the
bowels of Christ, I would exhort, not to touch that oath. Albeit
the adversaries put a fair meaning on it, yet the swearer must
swear according to the professed intent and godless practice of the
oath-makers, which is known to the world ; otherwise I might
swear that the creed is false, according to this private meaning
and sense put upon it. 0 let them not be beguiled, to wash per-
jury, and the denial of Christ and the Gospel, with ink-water,
some foul and rotten distinctions. Wash, and wash again and
again the devil and the lie, it shall be long ere their skin be white.
I profess it should beseem men of great parts, rather than me, to
write to you ; but I iove your cause, and desire to be excused, and
must entreat for the help of your prayers, in this my weighty
charge here, for the university and pulpit, and that ye would en-
treat your acquaintance also to help me. Grace be with you all.
Amen. Your brother and companion in the patience and kingdom
of Jesus Christ, S. R.
St Andrews, 1640.
LETTER XXIX.— For Mrs. Pont, Prisoner at Dublin.
Worthy and dear Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. The cause ye suffer for, and your willingness to suff"er, is
ground enough of acquaintance for me to Avrite to you, although
I do confess myself unable to speak for a prisoner of Christ's en-
couragement. I know ye have advantage beyond us who are not
under suffering ; for your sighing (Ps. cii. 20) is a written bill
for the ears of your head, the Lord Jesus, and your breathing
PART II.] LETTER XXIX. 425
(Lam. iii. 51), and your looking up (Ps. v. 3, and Ixix. 3) : and
therefore your meaning half-speken, half-unspoken, will seek no
jailer's leave, but will go to heaven without leave of prelate or
deputy, and be heartily welcome ; so that ye may sigh and groan
out your mind to Him, Avho hath all the keys of the king's three
kingdoms and dominions. I dare believe your hopes shall not
die ; your trouble is a part of Zion's burning, and ye know who
guides Zion's furnace, and who loves the ashes of His burnt bride,
because His servants love them, Ps. cii. 14. I believe your ashes
(if ye were burnt for this cause) shall praise Him ; for the wrath
of men and their malice shall make a psalm to praise the Lord,
Ps. Ixxvi. 10. And, fberefore, stand still and behold, and see
what the Lord is to do for this island. " His work is perfect,"
Deut. xxxii. 4. The nations have not seen the last end of His
work ; His end is more fair and more glorious than the beginning.
Ye have more honour than ye can be able to guide well, in that
your bonds are made heavy for such an honourable cause : the seals
of a controlled Gospel, and the seals by bonds, and blood, and
sufferings, are not committed to every ordinary professor. Some
that would back Christ honestly in summer-time, would but spill ^
the beauty of the Gospel if they were put to suffering. And
therefore let us believe, that wisdom dispenseth to every one here,
as He thinks good, who bears them up that bear the cross ; and
since our Lord hath put you to that part, which was the flower of
His own sufferings, we all expect that as ye have in the strengtli
of our Captain begun, so ye will go on without fainting. Provi-
dence maketh . use of men and devils for the refining of all the
vessels of God's house, small and great, and for doing of two works
at once in you, both for smoothing of a stone to make it take bond
with Christ in Jerusalem's wall, and for witnessing to the glory of
this reproached and borne-down Gospel, which cannot die, though
hell were made a grave about it. It shall be timeous ^ joy for you,
to divide joy betwixt you and Christ's laughing bride in these
three kingdoms. And what if your mourning continue till mysti-
cal Christ in Ireland and in Britain and ye laugh both together 1
Your laughing and joy were the more blessed, that one sun should
shine upon Christ, the Gospel, and you, laughing altogether in
these three kingdoms. Your time is measured, and your days and
hours of suffering from eternity were by infinite wisdom con-
sidered. If heaven recompense not to your own mind inches of
sorrow, then I must say that infinite mercy cannot get you pleased ;
but if the first kiss of the Avhite and ruddy cheek of the Standard-
bearer and " Chief among ten thousand " (Cant. v. 10) shall over-
pay your prison at Dublin in Ireland, then ye shall have no counts
1 Mar. - Seasonable
426 LETTER XXX. [PART II.
unanswered to give in to Christ. If your faith cannot see a nearer
term-day, yet let me charge your hope to give Christ a new day,
till eternity and time meet in one point. A paid sum, if ever
paid, is paid, if no day be broken to the hungry creditor ; take
heaven's bond and subscribed obligation for the sum, John xiv. 3.
If hope can trust Christ, I know He can and will pay ; but when
all is done and suffered by you, ten hundred deaths for lovely,
lovely Jesus, is but eternity's halfpenny ; figur^ and cyphers
cannot lay the proportion. 0, but the surplus of Christ's glory
is broad and large! Christ's items of eternal glory are hard and
cumbersome to telL and if ye borrow by faith and hope ten days,
or ten hundred years, from that eternity of glory that abides you,
ye are paid, and more, in your own hand. Therefore, 0 prisoner
of hope, wait on ; posting, hasting salvation sleeps not. Antichrist
is bleeding, and in the way to death ; and he bites sorest when he
bleeds fastest. Keep your intelligence ^ betwixt you and heaven,
and your court ^ with Christ ; He hath in heaven the keys of your
prison, and can set you at liberty when He pleaseth. His rich
grace support you. I pray you help me with your prayers. Grace
be with you. l^our brother, in the patience and kingdom of
Jesus Christ, S. K.
St. Andrews, 1640.
LETTER XXX.— To Mr. James Wilson.
Dear Brother, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon
you. I bless our rich and only wise Lord, who careth so for His
new creation that He is going over it again, and trying every
piece in you, and blowing away the motes of His new work in
you. Alas ! I am not so fit a physician as your disease requireth :
sweet, sweet, lovely Jesus be your Physician, where His under-
chirurgeon cannot do anything for putting in order the wheels,
paces, and goings of a married^ soul. I have little time : but yet
the Lord" hath made me so concern myself in your condition, that
1 dow * not, I dare not be altogether silent. First, ye doubt from
2 Cor. xiii. 5 whether ye be in Christ or not 1 and so, whether ye
be a reprobate or not ? I answer three things to the doubt. (1.)
Ye owe charity to all men, but most of all to lovely and loving
Jesus, and some also to yourself, especially to your renewed self ;
because your new self is not yours, but another Lord's, even the
work of His own Spirit : therefore, to slander His work is to wrong
Himself. " Love thinketh no evil!" if ye love grace, think not
ill of grace in yourself ; and ye think ill of grace in yourself when
ye make it but a bastard and a work of nature. For a holy fear
that ye be not Christ's, and withal a care and a desire to be His,
1 Correspondence. - Solicitation. '■' Qu. Marred. ■* Caii-
PART II.] LETTER XXX. 427
and not your own, is not, nay, cannot be bastard nature. The
ureat Advocate pleadetli hard for you ; be upon the Advocate's
side, 0 poor feared ^ cHent of Christ ! Stay and side with such a
lover, who pleadeth for no other man's goods but His own (for He,
if I may say so, scorn eth to be enriched with an unjust conquest) ;
and yet He pleadeth for you, whereof your letter (though too full
of jealousy) is a proof. For if ye were not His, your thouglits,
which I hope are but the suggestion of His Spirit (that only bring-
eth the matter in debate, to make it sure to you), would not be
such, nor so serious, as these. Am I His? or, Whose am I? (2.)
Dare ye forswear your owner, and say in cold blood, I am. not
His 1 What nature or corruption saith, at starts in you, I regard
not. Your thoughts of yourself, when sin and guiltiness round
you in the ear, and when ye have a sight of your deservings, are
apocrypha, and not scripture, I hope. Hear what the Lord saith
of you, "He will speak peace:" if your Master say, "I quit you," I
shall then bid you eat ashes for bread, and drink waters of gall
and wormwood. But howbeit Christ out of His own mouth should
seem to say, I came not for thee, as He did. Matt. xv. 24; yet let
me say, the words of tempting Jesus are not to be stretched as
Scripture, beyond His intention, seeing His intention in speaking
them is to strengthen, not to deceive ; and therefore here faith
may contradict what Christ seemeth at first to say, and so may ye.
I charge you, by the mercies of God, be not that ^ cruel to grace
and the new birth, as to cast water on your own coal by mis-
belief; if ye must die (as I know ye shall not), it were a folly to
slay yourself, (3.) I hope ye love the new birth and a claim to
Christ, howbeit ye do not make it good ; and if ye were in hell,
and saw the heavenly face of lovely, ten thousand times lovely
Jesus, that hath God's hue, and God's fair, fair and comely red
and white, wherewith it is beautified beyond comparison and
imagination, ye could not forbear to say, 0, if I could but blow a
kiss from my sinful mouth, from hell up to heaven, upon His
cheeks, that are as a " bed of spices, as sweet flowers," Cant. v.
13. I hope ye dare say, 0 fairest sight of heaven ! 0 boundless
mass of crucified and slain love for me, give me leave to wish to
love thee ! 0 flower and bloom of heaven and earth's love ! O
angels' wonder ! 0 thou, the Father's etei-nally sealed love ! And
0 thou, God's old delight, give me leave to stand beside thy love,
and look in and wonder, and give me leave to wish to love thee,
if I can do no more ! 2. We being born in Atheism, and baii-ns
of the house that we are come of, it is no new thing, my dear
brother, for us to be under jealousies and mistakes about the love
of God. What think ye of this, that the man Christ was tempted
' Ti'mid. - So.
428 LETTER XXX. [PAKT II.
to believe there were but two persons in tbe blessed Godhead, and
that the Son of God, the substantial and co-eternal Son, was not
the lawful Son of God? Did not Satan saj, " If thou be the Son
of God"? 3. Ye say that ye know not what to do. Your Head
said once that same Avord, or not far from it^ John xii. 27, " Now
is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?" And faith answered
Christ's, "What shall I say?" with these words, 0 tempted
Saviour, askest thou, "what shall I say?" Say, " pray. Father,
save me from this hour." What course can ye take, but pray,
and frist^ Christ's own comforts ? He is no dyvour, ^ take His
word. 0 (say ye), I cannot pray. Answer, Honest sighing is
faith breathing and whispering Him in the ear. The life is not
out of faith where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes, and
breathing towards God. Lam. iii. 36, " Hide not thine ear at my
breathing." But Avhat shall I do in spiritual exercises ? say ye.
Answer, 1. If ye knew particularly what to do, it were not a
spiritual exercise. 2. In my weak judgment, ye would ^ first say,
I will glorify God in believing David's salvation and the bride's
marriage with the Lamb, and love the church's slain Husband,
although I cannot for the present believe mine own salvation. 3.
Say, I will not pass from my claim ; suppose Christ Avould pass
from His claim to me, it shall not go back upon my side ; howbeit
my love to Him be not worth a drink of water, yet Christ shall
have it such as it is. 4. Say, I shall rather spill* twenty prayers,
than not pray at all. Let my broken words go up to heaven ;
when they come up into the great Angel's golden censer, that
compassionate Advocate will put together my broken prayers, and
perfume them. Words are but accidents of prayer. 0 (say ye), I
am slain with hardness of heart, and troubled with confused and
melancholious thoughts ! Answer : my dear brother, what would
ye conclude thence, that ye know not well who ought ^ you? I
grant, 0 my heart is hard ! 0 my thoughts of faithless sorrow !
Ergo, I know not who ought ^ me, were good logic in heaven
amongst angels and the glorified ; but down in Christ's hospital,
where sick and distempered souls are under cure, it is not worth
a straw ; give Christ time to end His work in your heart ; hold
on in feeling and bewailing your hardness, for that is softness, to
feel hardness. 2. I charge you to make psalms of Christ's praises
for His begun work of grace ; make Christ your music and your
song ; for complaining and feeling of want doth often swallow up
your praises. What think ye of those who go to hell never
troubled with such thoughts ? If your exercise be the way to hell,
God help me ; I have a cold coal to blow at, and a blank paper
for heaven : I give you Christ's caution, "^ and my heavezi surety for
1 Expect. - Debtor. ^ Shuuld. ■* W.istu. ^ Owns. ^ Sedulity.
PART II.] LETTER XXXI. " 429
your salvation. Lend Christ your melancholy, fbr Satan hath no
right to make a chamber in your melancholy ; borrow joy and
comfort from the Comforter ; bid the Spirit do His office in you ;
and remember, that faith is one thing, and the feeling and notice
of faith another ; God forbid that feeling were proprium quarto
modo, to all the saints ; and that this were good reasoning, No
feeling, no grace. I am sure, ye were not always these twenty
years by-past, actually knowing that ye live ; yet all this time ye
are living ; so is it with the life of faith. But alas ! dear brother,
it is easy for me to speak words and syllables of peace, but Isa.
Ivii. 19, telleth you, " I create peace ;" there is but one Creator,
ye know. 0, that ye may get a letter of peace sent you from
heaven ! Pray for me, and for grace to be faithful, and gifts to be
able with tongue and pen to glorify God. I forget you not.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus. S. R.
St. Amlrews, .Jan. 8, 1640.
LETTER XXXI.— To my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — I received your ladyship's letter ; but because I was
still going through the country for the affairs of the church, I have
had no time to answer it. I had never more cause to fear than I
have now, when my Lord hath restored me to my second created
heaven on earth, and hath turned my apprehended fears into joys,
and great deliverance to His church, whereof I have my share and
part. Alas, that weeping prayers, answered and sent back from
heaven with joy, should not have laughing praises ! 0, that this
land would repent, and lay burdens of praises upon the top of fair
Mount Zion. Madam, except this land be humbled, a reformation
is rather my wonder than belief at this time ; but surely it must
be a wonder, and what is done already is a wonder. Our Lord
must restore beauty to His churches without hire, for we were
sold without money, and now our buyers repent them of the bar-
gain, and would gladly give again better-cheap ^ than they bought
us : they devoured Jacob, and ate up his people as bread ; now
Jacob is grown a living child in their womb, and they would fain
be delivered of the child, and render the birth ; our Lord shall be
midwife. 0, that this land be not like Ephraim, an unwise son
that stayeth too long in the place of breaking forth of children !
Your ladyship is blessed with children, who are honoured to build
up Christ's waste places again ; I believe your ladyship will think
them well bestowed on that work, and that Zion's beauty is your
joy. This is a mark and evidence for heaven, Avhich helpeth weak
ones to hold their grip when other marks fail them. I hope your
' Cheaper.
430 LETTEli XXXI. [part II.
ladyship is at a good understanding with Christ, and that, as be-
cometh a Christian, ye take Him up aright (for many mistake and
mis-shape Christ) in His comings and goings ; your wants and falls
proclaim ye have nothing of your own, but what ye borrow (nay,
yourself is not your own) ; but Christ hath given Himself to you.
Put Christ to the bank, and heaven shall be your interest and
income ; love Him, for you cannot over-love Him ; take up your
house in Christ, let Him dwell in you and abide ye in Him, and
then ye may look out of Christ, and laugh at the clay-heavens that
the sons of men are seeking after in this side of the water.
Christ mindeth^ to make your losses grace's great advantage.
Christ will lose nothing of you ; nay, not your sins, for He hath
an use for them, as well as for your service ; howbeit ye are to
loathe yourself for these. I hope ye fetch all the heaven ye have
here in this life, from that which is up above, and that your anchor
is casten as high and deep as Christ. 0, but it is far and many
a mile to His bottom ! If I had known long since as I do now,
(though still, alas ! I am ignorant), what was in Christ, I would
not have been so late in starting to the gate to seek Him, 0,
what can I do or say to Him who hath made the north render me
back again ? A grave is no sure prison to Him for the keeping of
dry bones. Woe is me that my foolish sorrow and unbelief, being
on horseback, did ride so proudly and witlessly over my Lord's
providence ; but wdien my faith was asleep, Christ was awake ;
and now, when I am awake, I say, He did all things well. 0, in-
finite wisdom ! 0, incomparable loving kindness ! Alas, that the
heart I have is so little and worthless for such a Lord as Christ
is ! 0, what odds find the saints in hard trials, when they feel
sap at their roots, betwixt them and sun-burnt withered professors ;
crosses and storms cause them to cast their blooms and leaves.
Poor worldlings, what will ye do, when the span-length of your
forenoon's laughter is ended, and when the weeping side of pro-
vidence is turned to you 1 I put up all the favours ye have be-
stowed on my brother upon Christ's score, in whose book are many
such counts, and who will requite them. I wish yoa to be builded
more and more upon the stone laid in Zion, and then ye shall be
the more fit to have a hand in rebuilding our Lord's fallen
tabernacle in this land, in which ye shall find great peace when ye
come to grips with death, the king of terrors. The God of peace
be with your ladyship, and keep you blameless till the day of our
Lord Jesus. Your ladyship's, at all obedience in his sweet Lord
and Master, S. H.
St. Andrews.
^ latendetb.
PART 11.] LETTER XXXII. 431
LETTER XXXII.— To His Very Dear Friend, John Fennick.
Much honoured and dear Friend, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. The necessary impediments of my calling have hither-
to kept me from making a return to your letter, the heads where-
of I shall now briefly answer. As, 1. I approve your going to the
Fountain when your own cistern is dry : a difference there must
be betwixt Christ's well and your borrowed water ; and why but
ye have need of emptiness and drying up, as well as ye have need
of the well 1 Want, and a hole there must be in your vessel, to
leave room to Christ's art ; His well hath its own need of thirsty
drinkers, to commend infinite love, which from eternity did brew
such a cellar of living waters for us. Ye commend His free love ;
and it is well done : 0, if I could help you, and if I could be mas-
ter-convener, to gather an earthful and an heavenful of tongues,
dipped and steeped in my Lord's well of love, or His wine of love,
even tongues drunken with His love, to raise a song of praises to
Him, betwixt the east and west end, and furthest points of the
broad heavens ! If I were in your case (as alas ! my dry and dead
heart is not now in that garden), I would borrow leave to come
and stand upon the banks and coasts of that sea of love, and be a
feasted soul, to see love's fair tide, free love's high and lofty waves,
each of them higher than ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost
clay. 0 welcome, welcome, great sea ! 0, if I had as much love,
for wideness and breadth, as twenty outmost shells and spheres of
the heaven of heavens, that I might receive in a little flood of His
free love ! Come, come, dear friend, and be pained, that the King's
wine-cellar of free love, and His banqueting-house (0 so wide, so
stately ! O so Godlike, so glory-like !) should be so abundant, so
overflowing, and your shallow vessel so little, to take in some part
of that love. But since it cannot come in ^ you, for want of room,
enter yourself in this sea of love, and breathe under these waters,
and die of love, and live as one dead and drowned of this love.
But why do you complain of waters going over your soul, and that
the smoke of the terrors of a wrathful Lord doth almost suff"ocate
you, and bring you to death's brink 1 I know the fault is in your
eyes, not in Him : it is not the rock that fleeth and moveth, but
the green sailor : if your sense and apprehension be made judge of
His love, there is a graven image made presently, even a changed
god, and a foe god, Avho was once, " when ye washed your steps
with butter, and the rock poured you out rivers of oil " "(Job xxix.
6), a Friend-God. Either now or never let God work : ye had
never, since ye was a man, such a fair field for faith ; for a painted
hell and an apprehension of wrath in your Father, is faith's oppor-
^ Into.
432 LETTER XXXII. [PAKT II.
tunity to try what strength is in it. Now, give God as large a
measure of charity as ye have of sorrow : now see faith to be faith
indeed, if ye can make your grave betwixt Christ's feet, and say,
" Though He should slay me, I will trust in Him;" His believed
love shall be my winding-sheet, and all my grave-clothes ; I shall
roll and sew in my soul, my slain soul, in that web. His sweet and
free love. And let Him write upon my grave. Here lieth a believ-
ing dead man, breathing out and making a hole in death's broad-
side, and the breath of faith cometh forth through the hole. See
now if ye can overcome and prevail with God, and wrestle God's
tempting to death, quite out of breath, as that renowned wrestler
did, Hos. xii. 3, " And by his strength he had power with God ; "
ver. 4, " Yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed." He is
a strong man indeed, who overmatcheth Heaven's strength, and
the Holy One of Israel, the strong Lord, which is done by a secret
supply of divine strength within, wherewith the weakest, being
strengthened, overcome and conquer. It shall be great victory to
blow out the flame of that furnace ye are now in with the breath
of faith. And when hell, men, malice, cruelty, falsehood, devils,
the seeming glooms of a sweet Lord, meet you in the teeth, if ye
then, as a captive of hope, as one fettered in hope's prison, run to
your stronghold, even from God glooming to God glooming ; and
believe the salvation of the Lord in the dark, which is your only
victory ; your enemies are but pieces of malicious clay ; they shall
die as men, and be confounded. But that your troubles are many
at once, and arrows come in from all;,airts,^ from country, friends,
wife, children, foes, estate, and right-down from God, who is the
hope and stay of your soul, I confess is more, and very heavy to
be borne : yet all these are not more than grace ; all these bits of
coals, casten in your sea of mercy, cannot dry it up. Your trou-
bles are many and great, yet not an ounce-weight beyond the mea-
sure of infinite wisdom, I hope, nor beyond the measure of grace
that He is to bestow ; for our Lord never yet brake the back of
His child, nor spilt ^ His own work. Nature's plastering and coun-
terfeit work He doth often break in sherds, and putteth out a
candle not lighted at the Sun of righteousness ; but He must che-
rish His own reeds, and handle them softly ; never a reed getteth
a thrust with the Mediator's hand, to lay together the two ends of
the reed. 0 what bonds and ligaments hath our chirurgeon of
broken spirits, to bind up all His lame and bruised ones with : cast
your disjointed spirit in His lap, and lay your burden upon one
who is so willing to take your cares and your fears off you, and to
exchange and niffer ^ your crosses, and to give you new for old, and
gold for iron, even to give you " garments of praise for the spirit
* Quarters. - Spoiled. ^ Barter.
PART II.] LETTER XXXII. 433
of heaviness." It is true in a great part what ye write of this
kirk, that the letter of religion only is reformed, and scarce that;
I do not believe our Lord will build His Zion in this land upon
this skin of reformation. So long as our scum remaineth, and our
heart-idols are kept, this work must be at a stand ; and therefore
our Lord must yet sift this land, and search us with candles; and
I know He shall give and not sell us His kingdom. His grace and
our remaining guiltiness must be compared, and the one must be
seen in the glory of it, and the other in the sinfulness of it. But
I desire to believe, and would gladly hope to see, that the glancing
and shining lustre of glory, coming from the diamonds and stones
set in the crown of our Lord Jesus, shall cast rays and beams many
thousand miles about. I hope Christ is upon a great marriage ;
and that His wooing and suiting^ of His excellent bride, doth take
its beginning from us, the ends of the earth. 0 what joy and what
glory would I judge it, if my heaven should be suspended till I
might have leave to run on foot, to be a witness of that marriage
glory, and see Christ put on the glory of His last married bride,
and His last marriage love on earth, when He shall enlarge His
love-bed, and set it upon the top of the mountains, and take in the
elder sister, the Jews, and the fulness of the Gentiles ! It were
heaven's honour and glory upon earth, to be His lacquey, to run
at His horse-foot, and hold up the train of His marriage robe-royal,
in the day of our high and royal Solomon's espousals. But, 0
what glory to have a seat or bed in King Jesus's chariot, that is
bottomed with gold, and paved, and lined over, and floored within
with love, "for the daughters of Jerusalem," Cant. iii. 10. To lie
upon such a King's love, were a bed next to the flower of heaven's
glory. I am sorry to hear you speak, in your letter, of a God
angry at^ you, and of the sense of His indignation, which only
ariseth from suffering for Jesus all that is now come upon you. In-
deed apprehended wrath flameth out of such ashes as apprehended
sin, but not from suffering for Christ. But, suj)pose ye were in
hell, for by-gones and for old debt, I hope ye owe Christ a great
sum of charity, to believe the sweetness of His love. I know what
it is to sin in that kind ; it is to sin out (if it were possible) the
unchangeableness of a Godhead out of Christ, and to sin away a
lovely and unchangeable God. Put more honest apprehensions
upon Christ, put on His own mask upon His face, and not your
vail made of unbelief, which speaketh as if He borrowed love to
you, from you and your demerits, and sinful deservings. 0, no !
Christ is man, but He is not like man ; He hath man's love in
heaven, but it is lustred with God's love, and it is very God's love
ye have to do with. When your wheels go about, He standeth
1 Suing. « With.
2 £
434 LETTEll XXXII. [part II.
still. Let God be God, and be ye a man, and have ye the deserving
of man, and the sin of one, who hath suffered your Well-Beloved
to slip away, nay, hath refused Him entrance, when He was knock-
ing, till His head and locks were frozen : yet what is that to Him 1
His book keepeth your name, and is not printed and reprinted,
and changed and corrected. And why but He should go to His
place, and hide Himself^ howbeit His departure be His own good
work, yet the belief of it, in that manner, is your sin ; but wait on
till He return with salvation, and cause you to rejoice in the latter
end. It is not much to complain ; but rather believe than com-
plain, and sit in the dust, and close your mouth, till He make your
sown light grow again ; for your afflictions are not eternal, time
will end them, and so shall ye at length see the Lord's salvation ;
His love sleepeth not, but is still in working for you; His salvation
will not tarry nor linger ; and suffering for Him is the noblest
cross that is out of heaven. Your Lord had the wale ^ and choice
of ten thousand other crosses, beside this, to exercise you withal ;
but His wisdom and His love waled and chose out this for you,
beside them all ; and take it as a choice one, and make use of it,
so as ye look to this world as your stepmother, in your borrowed
prison. For it is a love-look to heaven, and the other side of the
water, that God seeketh ; and this is the fruit, the flower, and
bloom growing out of your cross, that ye be a dead man to time,
to clay, to gold, to country, to friends, wife, children, and all pieces
of created nothings ; for in them there is not a seat nor bottom
for your soul's love. 0 what room is for your love (if it were as
broad as the sea) up in heaven and in God ! and whatwould not Christ
give for your love 1 God gave so much for your soul ; and blessed
are ye if ye have a love for Him, and can call in your soul's love
from all idols, and can make a God of God, a God of Christ, and
draw a line betwixt your heart and Him. If your deliverance
come not, Christ's presence and His believed love must stand as
caution and surety for your deliverance, till your Lord send it in
His blessed time ; for Christ hath many salvations, if we could see
them ; and I would think it better-born ^ comfort and joy, that
Cometh from the faith of deliverance, and the faith of His love,
than that which cometh from deliverance itself. It is not much
matter, if ye find ease to your afflicted soul, what be the means,
either of your own wishing, or of God's choosing ; the latter I am
sure is best, and the comfort strongest and sweetest : let the Lord
absolutely have the ordering of your evils and troubles, and put
them off you, by recommending your cross and your furnace to
Him, who hath skill to melt His own metal, and knoweth well
what to do with His furnace : let your heart bo willing that God's
' Selection '■* Nobler.
PART II.] LETTEK XXXIII. 435
fire have your tin, and brass, and dross. To consent to want cor-
ruption, is a greater mercy than many professors do well know ;
and to refer the manner of God's physic to His own wisdom, whe-
ther it be by drawing blood, or giving sugared drinks : that He
cureth sick folks without^ pain, it is a great point of faith ; and
to believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as He Himself is a friend,
is also a special act of faith ; but when ye are over the water this
case shall be a yesterday, past an hundred years ere ye were born;
and the cup of glory shall wash the memory of all this away, and
make it as nothing. Only now take Christ in with you under your
yoke, and " let patience have her perfect work :" for this haste is
your infirmity. The Lord is rising up to do you good in the lat-
ter end. Put on the faith of His salvation, and see Him posting
and hasting towards you. Sir, my employments being so great,
hinder me to write at more length; excuse me. I hope to be
inindful of you. I shall be obliged to you, if ye help me with your
prayers for this people, this college, and my own poor soul. Grace
be with you. Remember my love to your wife.
Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. R
St. Andrews, Feb. 13, 1640.
LETTER XXXni.— To the Much Honoured Peter Stirling.
Much honoured and worthy Sir, — I received yours, and
cannot but be ashamed that mistaking love hath brought me in
court '^ and account in the heart of God's children, especially of
another nation. I should not make a lie of the grace of God, if I
should think I have little share of it myself. 0 how much better
were it for me to stand in the counting-table of many for a half-
penny, and to be esteemed a liker, rather than a lover of Christ !
If I were Aveighed, vanity should bear down the scale, as having
weight in the balance above me, except my lovely Saviour should
cast in beside me some of his borrowed worth. And, oh, if I
were writing now sincerely in this extenuation, which may be, and
I fear is, subtle and cozening pride ! I would I could love some-
thing of heaven's worth in you and all of your metal. 0 how
happy were I, if I could regain and conquer back from the crea-
ture my sold and lost love, that I might lay it upon heaven's
Jewel, that ever, ever blooming Flower of the highest garden,
even my soul-redeeming and never-enough-prized Lord Jesus ! 0,
that He would wash my love, and put it on the Mediator's wheel,
and refine it from its dross and tin, that I might propine and gift
that Lord, so love-worthy, with all my love ! 0, if I could set a
lease of thousands of years, and a suspension of my part ot heaven s
^ Qu. With. " Favour.
436 LETTEK XXXIV. [PART II.
glory, and frist ^ till a long day my desired salvation, so being I
could, in this lower Isitchen and under-vault of His creation, be
feasted with His love, and that I might be a foot-stool for His
glory, before men and angels ! 0, if He would let out heaven's
fountain upon withered me, dry and sapless me ! if I were but sick
of love for His love (and, oh, how woidd that sickness delight me !),
how sweet would that easing and refreshing pain be to my soul !
I shall be glad to be a witness to behold the kingdoms of the
world become Christ's. I could stay out of heaven many yeai-s,
to see that victorious triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of
His soul-conquering love, in taking into His kingdom the greater
sister, that kirk of the Jews, who sometimes courted our Well-
Beloved for her little sister (Cant. viii. 8), to behold Him set up
as an ensign and a banner of love to the ends of the Avorld. And
truly we are to believe that His Avrath is ripe for the land of
graven images, and for the falling of that millstone in the midst of
the sea. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
St. Andrews, March 6, 1640.
LETTER XXXIV.— To the Lady Fingask.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace bo to you. Though nol
acquainted, yet at the desire of a Christian, I make bold to write
a line or two unto you by way of counsel (howbeit I be most unfit
for that). I hear, and I bless the Father of lights for it, that ye
have a spirit set to seek God, and that the posture of your heart
is to look heaven-ward ; which is a work and cast of the Mediator
Christ's right hand, who putteth on the heart a new frame, for the
which I Avould have your ladyship to see a tie and bond of obedi-
ence laid upon you, that all may be done, not so much fi'om obli-
gation of law, as from the tie of free love ; that the law of
ransom-paying by Christ may be the chief ground of all your
obedience, seeing that ye are not under the law but under grace.
Withal, know that unbelief is a spiritual sin, and so not seen by
nature's light ; and that all that conscience saith is not Scripture :
suppose your heart bear witness against you, for sins done long
ago ; yet because many have pardon -with God, that have not
peace with themselves, ye are to stand and fall by Christ's esteem
and verdict of you, and not by that which your heart saith. Sup-
pose it may by accident be a good sign to be jealous of your
heavenly Husband's love, yet it is a sinful sign ; as there be some
happy sins (if I may speak so), not of themselves, but because
they are neighboured with faith and love. And so, worthy lady,
* Foi-bear.
PAliT II.J LETTER XXXIV. 437
I would have you hold by this, that the ancient love of an old
Husband standeth firm and sure ; and let faith hang by this small
thread, that He loved you before He laid the corner-stone of the
world ; and therefore He cannot change His mind, because He is
God, and rests in His love. Neither is sin in you a good reason
wherefore ye should doubt of Him, or think, because sin hath put
you in the courtesy and reverence of justice, that therefore He is
wroth with you ; neither is it presumption in you to lay the burden
of your salvation upon One mighty to save ; so being ye lay aside
all confidence in yourself, worth, and righteousness. True faith is
humble, and seeth no way to escape but only in Christ : and I
believe ye have put an esteem and high price upon Christ ; and
they cannot but believe, and so be saved, who love Christ, and to
whom He is precious ; for the love of Christ hath chosen Christ as
a lover ; and it were not like God, if ye should choose Him as
your liking, and He not choose you again ; nay, He hath prevented^
you in that ; for ye have not chosen Him, but He hath chosen
you. 0 consider His loveliness and beauty, and that there is
nothing which can commend, and make fair, heaven or earth, or
the creature, that is not in Him in infinite perfection ; for fair sun
and fair moon are black, and think shame to shine before His
fairness, Isa. xxiv. 23. Base heavens and excellent Jesus ; weak
angels, and strong and mighty Jesus ; foolish angel-wisdom, and
only wise Jesus ; short-living creature, and long-living and ever-
living Ancient of days ; miserable, and sickly, and wretched are
those things that are within time's circle, and only, only blessed
Jesus ! If ye can wind in in His love (and He giveth you leave to
love Him, and allurements also), what a second heaven's paradise,
a young heaven's glory is it, to be hot and burned with fevers of
love-sickness for Him ! and the more your ladyship drink of this
love, there is the more room and the greater delight and desire
for this love. Be homely, - and hunger for a feast and fill of His
love ; for that is the borders and march ^ of heaven. Nothing
hath a nearer resemblance to the colour, and hue, and lustre of
heaven, than Christ loved, and to breathe out love-words and
love-sighs for Him. Eemember what He is ; when twenty
thousand millions of heaven's lovers have worn their hearts thread-
bare of love, all is nothing, yea, less than nothing to His matchless
worth and excellency ; 0, so broad and so deep as the sea of His
desirable loveliness is ! Glorified spirits, triumphing angels, the
crowned and exalted lovers of heaven, stand without His loveli-
ness, and cannot put a circle on it. 0, if sin and time were from
betwixt us and that royal and King's love ! That high Majesty,
eternity's bloom, and flower of high lustred beauty, might shine
' Anticipated. - Familiar. ^ Boundary,
438 LETTER XXXV, [PART II,
upon pieces of created spirits, and might bedew and overflow us,
who are portions of endless misery and lumps of redeemed sin !
Alas, Avhat do I ? I but spill and lose words in speaking highly
of Him, who will abide and be above the music and songs of
heaven, and never be enough praised by us all ; to whose bound-
less and bottomless love I recommend your ladyship, and am,
Your ladyship's, in Christ Jesus, S, R.
St. Andrews, March 27, 1640.
LETTER XXXV.— To his Reverend and Dear Brother, Mr.
David Dickson.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Ye look like the house
whereof ye are a branch ; the cross is a part of the life-rent that
lieth to all the sons of the house, I desire to suffer with you, if I
could take a lift of your house-trial off you ; but ye have preached
it ere I knew anything of God. Your Lord may gather His roses,
and shake His apples, at which season of the year He pleaseth ;
each husbandman cannot make harvest when he pleaseth, as He
can do ; ye are taught to know and adore His sovereignty which
He exerciseth over you, which yet is lustred with mercy. The
child hath but changed a bed in the garden, and is planted up
higher, nearer the sun, where he shall thrive better than in this
out-field moor-ground. Ye must think your Lord would not want
him one hour longer ; and since the date of your loan of him was
expired (as it is, if ye read the lease), let Him have His own with
gain, as good reason were. I read on it an exaltation and a richer
measure of grace, as the sweet fruit of your cross ; and I am bold
to say, that that college, where your Master hath set you now,
shall find it. I am content that Christ is so homely ^ with my
dear brother, David Dickson, as to borrow and lend, and take and
give with him ; and ye know what are called the visitations of
such a friend ; it is to come to the house and be homely with what
is yours. I persuade myself upon His credit, He hath left drink-
money, and that He hath made the house the better of Him. I
envy not His waking love, who saw that this water was to be
passed through, and that now the number of crosses lying in your
way to glory are fewer by one than when I saw you ; they must
decrease. It is better than any ancient or modern commentary on
your text that ye preached upon in Glasgow. Read and spell
right, for He knoweth what He doth ; He is only lopping and
snedding ^ a fruitful tree, that it may be more fruitful. I congra-
tulate heartily with you. His new welcome to your new charge.
Dearest brother, go on and faint not ; something of yours is in
' Familiar. ' Pruning.
PART 11.] LETTER XXXVI. 439
heaven, beside the flesh of your exalted Saviour, and ye go on after
your own. Time's thread is shorter by one inch than it was. An
oath is sworn and passed the seals, whether afflictions will or not,
ye must grow and swell out of your shell, and live, and triumph,
and reign, and be more than conqueror ; for your Captain, who
leadeth you on, is more than conqueror, and He makes you a
partaker of His conquest and victory. Did not love to you compel
me, I would not fetch water to the well, and speak to one who
knoweth better than I can do what God is doing with him. Ee-
member my love to your wife, to Mr. John, and all friends there.
Let us be helped by your prayers, for I cease not to make mention
of you to the Lord as I dow.^ Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, vS. K
St. Andrews, May 23, 1640,.
LETTER XXXVI.— To my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Impute it not
,0 a disrespective ^ forgetfulness of your ladyship, who ministered
to me in my bonds, that I write not to you. I wish I could speak
or write what might do good to your ladyship ; especially now,
when I think ye cannot but have deep thoughts of the deep and
bottomless ways of our Lord, in taking away, with a sudden and
wonderful stroke, your brethren and friends. Ye may know, all
that die for sin, die not in sin ; and that none can teach the Al-
mighty knowledge : He answereth none of our courts^; and no
man can say, " What doest thou 1 " It is true your brethren saw
not many summers ; but adore and fear the sovereignty of the
great Potter, who maketh and marreth His clay-vessels when and
how it pleaseth Him. This under-garden is absolutely His own,
and all that groweth in it. His absolute liberty is law-biding ;
the flowers are His own ; if some be but summer apples, He may
pluck them down before others. 0, what wisdom is it to believe
and not to dispute, to subject the thoughts to His court, and not to
repine at any act of His justice ! He hath done it, all llesh be
silent. It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient,
if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and
wheels of second causes, as 0, the place ! 0, the time ! 0, if this
had been, this had not followed ! 0, the linking of this accident
with this time and place ! Look up to the master-motion and the
first wheel ; see and read the decree of heaven and the Creator of
men, who breweth death to His children, and the manner of it.
And they see far in a millstone, and have eyes that make a hole
to see through the one side of a mountain to the other, who can
^ Can. " Disrespectful. ■"' Inquirisa,
440 LETTER XXXVI. [PART II.
take up His ways ; " How unsearchable are His judgments, and
His ways past finding out ! " His providence halteth not, but
goeth with even and equal legs ; yet are they not the greatest
sinners upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. Was not time's
lease expired, and the sand of heaven's sand-glass set by our Lord
run out? Is not he an unjust debtor, who payeth due debt with
chiding ? I believe, christian lady, your faith leaveth that ^ much
charity to our Lord's judgments, as to believe, howbeit ye be in
dlood sib- to that cross, that yet ye are exempted and freed from
the gall and wrath that is in it. I dare not deny but (Job xviii.
15) "The king of terrors dwelleth in the wicked man's taber-
nacle : brimstone shall be scattered on his habitation ; " yet,
madam, it is safe for you to live upon the faith of His love, whose
arrows are over-watered and pointed with love and mercy to His
own, and who knoweth how to take you and yours out of the roll
and book of the dead. Our Lord hath not the eyes of flesh, in
distributing wrath to the thousandth generation without excep-
tion. " Seeing ye are not under the law, but under grace," and
married to another husband ; wrath is not the court that ye are
liable to. As I Avould not wish, neither do I believe, your ladyship
doth despise; so neither faint. Eead and spell aright all the
words and syllables in the visitation, and miscall neither letter nor
syllable in it. Come along with the Lord, and see, and lay no
more weight upon the law than your Christ hath laid upon it. If
the law's bill get an answer from Christ, the curses of it can do
no more. And I hope ye have resolved that if He should grind
you to powder, your dust and powder shall believe His salvation.
And who can tell what thoughts of love and peace our Lord hath
to your children 1 I trust He shall make them famous in execut-
ing the written judgments upon the enemies of the Lord ; " This
honour have all His saints," Ps. cxlix. 9 ; and that they shall bear
stones on their shoulders for building that city, that is called,
Ezek. xlvi. 35, " The Lord is there." And happy shall they be
who have a hand in the sacking of Babel, and come out in the
year of vengeance, for the controversy of Zion against the land of
graven images. Therefore, madam, let the Lord make out of your
father's house any work, even of judgment, that He pleaseth.
What is wrath to others, is mercy to you and your house. It is
faith's work to claim and challenge loving-kindness out of all the
roughest strokes of God. Do that for the Lord which ye will do
for time ; time will calm your heart at that which God hath done,
and let our Lord have it now. What love ye did bear to friends
now dead, seeing they stand now in no need of it, let it fall as
just legacy to Christ. 0, how sweet to put out many strange
iSo. »Near.
PART II.] LETTER XXXVI. 441
lovers, and to put in Christ ! It is much for our half-slain affec-
tions to part with that which we believe we have right unto ; but
the servant's will should be our will ; and he is the best servant
who retaineth least of his own will, and most of his master's.
That^ much wisdom must be ascribed to our Lord, that He
knoweth how to lead His own in-through and out-through the
little time-hells and the pieces of time-during wraths in this life ;
and yet keep safe His love, without any blur upon the old and
great seal of free election. And seeing His mountains of brass,
the mighty and strong decrees of free grace in Christ, stand sure,
and the covenant standeth fast for ever, as the days of heaven, let
Him strike and nurture,^ His striking must be a very act of
saving ; seeing strokes upon His secret ones come from the soft
and heavenly hand of the Mediator, and His rods are steeped and
watered in that flood and river of love that cometh from the God-
man's heart of our soul-loving and soul-redeeming Jesus. I hope
ye are content to frist^ the Cautioner of mankind His own con-
quest, heaven, till He pay it you, and bring you to a state of
glory, where He shall never crook a finger upon, nor lift a hand
to you again. And be content, and withal greedily covetous of
grace, the interest and pledge of glory. If I did not believe your
crop to be on the ground, and your part of that heaven of the
saints' heaven, white and ruddy, fair, fair and beautiful Jesus were
come to the bloom and the flower, and near your hook,"* I would
not write this ; but seeing time's thread is short, and ye are upon
the entry of heaven's harvest, and Christ, the field of heaven's
glory, is white and ripe-like, the losses that I write of to your
ladyship are but summer showers, that will only wet your
garments for an hour or two, and the sun of the New Jerusalem
shall quickly dry the wet coat ; especially seeing rains of affliction
cannot stain the image of God, or cause grace cast the colour. And
since ye will not alter upon Him, who will not change upon you,
I durst in weakness think myself no spiritual seer, if I should not
prophesy that daylight is near, when such a morning-darkness is
upon you ; and that this trial of your christian mind towards Him,
whom ye dare not leave, howbeit He should slay you, shall close
with a doubled mercy. It is time for faith to hold fast as much
of Christ as ever ye had, and to make the grip stronger, and to
cleave closer to him, seeing Christ loveth to be believed in, and
trusted to. The glory of laying strength upon one that is mighty
to save is more than we can think. That piece of service, of be-
lieving in a smiting Eedeemer, is a precious part of obedience.
0 what glory to Him to lay over the burden of our heaven upon
Him that purchased for us an eternal kingdom ! O blessed soul,
^ So. -Discipline. ^ Leave in his hand. '•Sickle,
442 LETTER XXXVII. fPART II.
who can adore, and kiss His lovely, free grace. The rich grace of
Christ be with your spirit.
Yours, at all obedience in Christ Jesus, S R.
Cc. Andrews, Oct. 15, 1640.
LETTER XXXVIL— To Agnes M'Math.
Dear Sister, — If our Lord hath taken away your child, your
lease of him is expired ; and seeing Christ would want him no
longer, it is your part to hold your peace, and worship and adore
the sovereignty and liberty that the Potter hath over the clay,
and pieces of clay-nothings, that He gave life unto. And what is
man, to call and summon the Almighty to his lower court down
here ? " For He giveth account of none of His doings." And if
ye will take a loan of a child, and give him back again to our
Lord, laughing, as His borrowed goods should return to Him;
believe he is not gone away, but sent before ; and that the change
of the country should make you think, he is not lost to you who
is found to Christ, and that he is now before you, and that the
dead in Christ shall be raised again. A going-down star is not
annihilated, but shall appear again. It he hath casten his bloom
and flower, the bloom is fallen in heaven in Christ's lap ; and as
he was lent a while to time, so is he given now to eternity, which
will take yourself ; and the difference ot your shipping and his
to heaven and Christ's shore, the land of life, is only in some few
years, which weareth every day shorter, and some short and soon-
reckoned summers will give you a meeting with him. But what,
with himi Nay, with better company: — with the Chief and
Leader of the heavenly troops, that are riding on white horses,
that are triumphing in glory. If death were a sleep that had no
wakening, we might sorrow. But our Husband shall quickly be
at the bed-sides of all that lie sleeping in the grave, and shall
raise their mortal bodies. Christ was death's cautioner, who gave
His word to come and loose all the clay-pawns, and set them at
His own right hand : and our cautioner, Christ, hath an act of
law-surety upon death, to render back His captives. And that
Lord Jesus, who knoweth the turnings and windings that is in
that black trance ^ of death, hath numbered all the steps of the
stair up to heaven ; He knoweth how long the turnpike is, or how
many pair of stairs high it is, for He ascended that way Himself
(Rev. i. 18), " I was dead and am alive." And now He liveth at
the right hand of God, and His garments have not so much as a
smell of death. Your afflictions smell of the children's case ; the
bairns of the house are so nurtured ; and suffering is no new life,
it is but the rent- of the sons — bastards have not so much of the
' Passscje. * Income.
TART II.] LETTER XXXVIII. 443
rent. Take kindly and heartsomoly with His cross, who never
yet slew a child with the cross. He breweth your cup, therefore
drink it patiently, and with the better will. Stay and wait on
till Christ loose the knot that fasteneth His cross on your back ;
for He is coming to deliver. And I pray you. sister, learn to be
worthy of His pains who correcteth ; and let Him wring, and be
ye washen ; for He hath a father's heart and a father's hand, who
is training you up, and making you meet for the high hall. This
school of suffering is a preparation for the King's higher house ;
and let all your visitations speak all the letters of your Lord's
summons. They cry, 1. 0 vain world! 2. 0 bitter sin! 3. 0
short and uncertain time! 4. 0 fair eternity, that is above sick-
ness and death ! 5. 0 kingly and princely Bridegroom ! hasten
glory's marriage, shorten time's short-spun and soon-broken thread,
and conquer sin ! 6. 0 happy and blessed death, that golden
bridge laid over by Christ my Lord, betwixt time's clay-banks and
heaven's shore ! "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come;" and
answer ye with them, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
Grace be with you.
Your brother, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
St. Andrews, Oct. 15, 1640.
LETTER XXXVni.— To Mr. Matthew Mowat.
Reverend and dear Brother, — What am I to answer you ]
Alas ! my books are all bare, and show me little of God ; I would
fain go beyond books into His house of love to see Himself. Dear
brother, neither ye nor I are parties worthy of His love or know-
ledge. Ah ! how hath sin bemisted and blinded us, that we can-
not see Him ! But for my poor self, I am pained and like to
burst, because He will not take down the wall, and fetch His un-
created beauty, and bring His matchless, white and ruddy face
out of heaven once errand,^ that I may have heaven meeting me
ere I go to it, in such a wonderful sight. Ye know that majesty
and love do humble, because homely love to sinners dwelleth in
Him with majesty. Ye should give Him all His own court-styles.
His high and heaven-names. What am I, to shape conceptions of
my highest Lord 1 How broad, and how high, and how deep He
is above and beyond what these conceptions are, I cannot tell ;
but for my own weak practice (which, alas ! can be no rule to one
so deep in love-sickness with Christ as ye are), I would fain add
to my thoughts and esteem of Him, and make Him more high,
and would wish a heart and love ten thousand times wider than
the utmost circle and curtain that goeth about the heaven of
^ On purpose.
■i44 LETTER XXXIX [PART II
heavens, to entertain Him in that heart and with that love. But
that which is your pain, my dear brother, is mine also ; I am con-
founded with the thoughts of Him. I know God is casten (if I
may speak so) in a sweet mouhl, and lovely image, in the person
of that heaven's jewel, the Man Christ ; and tliat the steps of that
steep ascent and stair to the Godhead, is the flesh of Christ, the
new and living way ; and there is footing for faith in that curious
ark of the humanity. Therein dwelleth the Godhead married
upon^ our humanity. I would be in heaven, suppose I had not
another errand, but to see that dainty golden ark, and God per-
sonally looking out at ears and eyes, and a body, such as we
sinners have, that I might wear my sinful mouth in kisses on Him
for evermore. And I know, all the three blessed Persons should
be well pleased that my piece of faint and created love should
first coast upon the Man-Christ ; I should see them all through
Him, I am called from writing by my great employments in this
town, and have said nothing : but what can I say of Him 1 Let
us go and see.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S, R.
St. Andrews, 1640
LETTER XXXIX.— To my Lady Kenmure,
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your ladyship. I am
heartily sorry that your ladyship is deprived of such a husband,
and the Lord's kirk of so active and faithful a friend. I know,
your ladyship long ago made acquaintance with that, wherein
Christ will have you joined in a fellowship with Himself, even with
His own cross ; and hath taught you to stay your soul upon the
Lord's good will, who giveth no account of His matters to any of
us. When He hath led you through this water, that was in your
way to glory, there are fewer behind ; and His order in dismiss-
ing us, and sending us out of the market, one before another, is to
be reverenced One year's time of heaven shall swallow up all
sorrows, even beyond all comparison ; what then will not a dura-
tion of blessedness so long as God shall live, fully and abund-
antly recompense 1 It is good that our Lord hath given a debtor,^
obliged by gracious promises, for more in eternity than time can
take from you ; and I believe your ladyship hath been now many
years advising and thinking what that glory will be which is abid-
ing the pilgrims and strangers on the earth, when they come home,
and which we may think of, love, and tliirst for, but we cannot
comprehend it, nor conceive of it as it is; far less can we ov^er-think
or over-love it. 0 so long a chapter, or rather so large a volume
^ To. ^ Apparently an acknowledgment of indebtedness.
PART II.] LETTEK XL. 445
as Christ is, in that divinity of glory ! There is no more of Him
let down now, to be seen and enjoyed by His children, but as much
as may feed hunger in this life, but not satisfy it. Your ladyship
is a debtor to the Son of God's cross, that is Avearing out love and
affiance in tlie creature out of your heart by degrees ; or rather the
obligation standeth to His free grace, who careth for your ladyship
in this gracious dispensation, and Avho is preparing and making
ready the garments of salvation for you ; and who calleth you •with
a new name, that the mouth of the Lord hath named, and purpos-
eth to make you "a crown of glory, and a roj^al diadem in the
hand of your God," Isa. Ixii. 2, 3. Ye are obliged to frist ^ Him
more than one heaven ; and yet He craveth not a long day ; it is
fast coming, and is sure payment. Though ye gave no hire for
Him, yet hath He given a great price and ransom for you ; and if
the bargain were to make again, Christ would give no less for yoa
than what He hath already given ; He is far from ruing.^ I shall
wish you no more, till time be gone out of the way, than the ear-
nest of that which He hath purchased and prepared for you, which
can never be fully preached, written, or tlioiight of, since it hath
not entered into the heart to consider it. So recommending your
ladyship to the rich grace of our Lord Jesus, I am, and rest, your
ladyship's, at all respective ^ observance in Christ Jesus, S. E.
St. Andrews.
LETTER XL.— To Mistress Taylor.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Though I have
no relation worldly, or acquaintance with you, yet (upon the testi-
mony and importunity of your elder son now at London, Avhere I
am, but chiefly because I esteem Jesus Christ in you to be in place
of all relations) I make bold in Christ to speak my poor thoughts
to you concerning your son lately fallen asleep in the Lord (who
was sometime under the ministry of the worthy servant of Christ,
my fellows-labourer, Mr. Blair, and by whose ministry I hope he
reaped no small advantage) I know grace rooteth not out the
affections of a mother, but putteth them on His wheel who maketh
all things new, that they may be refined ; therefore sorrow for a
dead child is alloAved to you, though by measure and ounce- weights :
the redeemed of the Lord have not a dominion or lordship over
their sorrow and other affections, to lavish out Christ's goods at
their pleasure : " For ye ai'e not our own, but bought with a price;"
and your sorrow is not your own, nor hath He redeemed you by
halves ; and therefore ye are not to make Christ's cross no cross.
He commandeth you to weep ; and that princely One, who took
* Tnust Him with. ^ liepenting. ^ liespectfuL
446 LETTER XL. [PAllT II.
up to heaven with Him a man's heart to be a compa.5sionate High
Priest, became your fellow and companion on earth, by weejiing
for the dead, John xi, 35. And therefore ye are to love that cross,
because it was once on Christ's shoulders before you ; so that by
His own practice He hath overgilded and covered your cross with
the Mediator's lustre. The cup ye drink was at the lip of sweet
Jesus, and He drank of it ; and so it hath a smell of His breath.
And I conceive ye love it not the worse that it is thus sugared ;
therefore drink, and believe the resurrection of your son's body :
if one coal of hell could fall off the exalted head Jesus, Jesus the
Prince of the kings of the earth, and burn me to ashes, knowing I
were a partner with Christ, and a fellow-sharer with Him (though
the unworthiest of men), I think I should die a lovely death in that
fire with Him. The worst things of Christ, even His cross, have
much of heaven from Himself ; and so hath your Christian sorrow,
being of kin to Christ's in that kind. If your sorrow were a bas-
tard, and not of Christ's house (because of the relation ye have to
Him in conformity with His death and sufferings), I should the
more compassionate your condition ; but kind and compassionate
Jesus, at every sigh ye give for the loss of your now-glorified child
(so I believe, as is meet), with a man's heart, crieth, " Half mine."
I was not a witness to his death, being called out of the kingdom ;
but ye shall credit those whom I do credit (and I dare not lie), he
died comfortably. It is true, he died before he did so much ser-
vice to Christ on earth, as I hope and heartily desire your son Mr.
Hugh (very dear to me in Jesus Christ) shall do. But that were
a real matter of sorrow, if this were not to counterbalance it, that
he hath changed service-houses, but hath not changed services or
Master, " And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God
and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him,"
Rev. xxii. 3. What He could have done in this lower house, he is
now upon that same service in the higher house ; and it is all one,
it is the same service, and the same Master, only there is a change
of conditions. And ye are not to think it a bad bargain for your
beloved son, where he hath gold for copper and brass, eternity for
time, I believe Christ hath taught you (for I give credit to such
a witness of you as your son Mr. Hugh) not to sorrow because he
died. All the knot ^ must be, he died too soon, he died too young,
he died in the morning of His life, this is all ; but sovereignty
must silence your thoughts. I was in your condition ; I had but
two children, and both are dead since I came hither. The supremo
and absolute Former of all things giveth not an account of any of
His matters. The good husbandman may pluck his roses, and
gather in his lilies at midsummer, and, for aught I dare say, in
1 Pifficultv.
PAKT II.] LETTEK XLl. 447
the beginning of the first summer month ; and he may transplant
young trees out of the lower ground to the higher, where they may
have more of the sun, and a more free air, at any season of the year.
What is that to you or me ? the goods are his own. The Creator
of time and winds did a merciful injury (if I dare borrow the
word) to nature, in landing the passenger so early. They love the
sea too well who complain of a fair wind, and a desirable tide,
and a speedy coming ashore, especially a coming ashore in that
land where all the inhabitants have everlasting joy upon their
heads. He cannot be too early in heaven ; his twelve hours were
not short hours. And withal, if ye consider this, had ye been at
his bed-side, and should have seen Christ coming to him, ye would
not, ye could not have adjourned Christ's free love, who would
want Him no longer. And dying in another land, where his
mother could not close his eyes, is not much. Who closed Moses'
eyes? and Avho put on his winding-sheet? For aught I know, nei-
ther father, nor mother, nor friend, but God only. And there is
as expedite,^ fair, and easy a way betwixt Scotland and heaven, as
if he had died in the very bed he was born in. The whole earth
is his Father's ; any corner of his Father's house is good enough to
die in. It may be the living child (I speak not of Mr. Hugh) is
more grief to you than the dead. Ye are to wait on, if at any time
God shall give Him repentance ; Christ waited as long possibly on
you and me, certainly longer on me ; and if He should deny repen-
tance to him, I could say something to that ; but I hope better
things of him. It seemeth that Christ will have this world your
step-dame ; I love not your condition the worse, it may be a proof
that ye are not a child of this lower house, but a stranger. Christ
seeth it not good only, but your only good, to be led thus to heaven ;
and think this a favour, that He hath bestowed upon you, free,
free grace, that is mercy without hire, ye paid nothing for it.
And who can put a price upon anything of royal and princely Jesus
Christ ? And that God hath given to you to suffer for Him the
spoiling of your goods, esteem it as an act of free grace also ; ye are
no loser, having Himself, and I persuade myself, if ye could prize
Christ, nothing could be bitter to you. Grace, grace be with you.
Your brother and well-wisher, S. K
London, Id 15.
LETTER XLL— To Barbara Hamilton.
Worthy Friend, — Grace be to you. I do unwillingly writo
unto you of that which God hath done concerning your son-in-law ;
only, I believe, ye look not below Christ, and the highest and most
supreme act of providence, which moveth all wheels. And cer-
' Expeditious.
448 LETTER XLI. [PART II.
tainly, what came down enacted, and concluded in the great book
before the throne, and signed and subscribed with the hand which
never did wrong, should be kissed and adored by us. We see
God's decrees, when they bring forth their fruits, all actions, good
and ill, sweet and sour, in their time ; but we see not presently
the after-birth of God's decree, to wit, His blessed end, and the
good that He bringeth out of the womb of His holy and spotless
counsel. We see His working and we sorrow ; the end of His
counsel and working lieth hidden and underneath the ground, and
therefore we cannot believe. Even amongst men, we see hewn
stones, timber, and a hundred scattered parcels and pieces of a
house, all under tools, hammers, and axes, and saws ; yet the
house, the beauty and ease of so many lodgings and ease-rooms, we
neither see nor understand for the present ; these are but in the
mind and head of the builder as yet. We see red earth, unbroken
clods, furrows, and stones ; but we see not summer lilies, roses,
and the beauty of a garden. If ye give the Lord time to work (as
often he that believeth not maketh haste, but not speed), His end
is under the ground ; and ye shall see it was your good that your
son hath changed dwelling-places, but not his Master. Christ
thought good to have no more of his service here ; yet, Kev. xxii.
3, "His servants shall serve Him;" He needeth not us or our ser-
vice either in earth or in heaven ; but ye are to look to Him, who
giveth the hireling both his leave and his wages, for his naked
aim and purpose to serve Christ, as well as for his labours ; it is
put up in Christ's account : Such a labourer did sweat forty years
in Christ's vineyard ; howbeit he got not leave to labour so long,
because He who accepteth of the will for the deed counteth so.
None can teach the Lord to lay an account ; He numbereth the
drops of rain, and knoweth the stars by their names ; it Avould
take us much studying to give a name to every star in the firma-
ment, great or small. See Lev. xiii. 1 3, " And Aaron held his
peace;" ye know his two sons were slain whilst they offered
strange fire to the Lord. Command your thoughts to be silent.
If the soldiers of Newcastle had done this, ye might have stomach-
ed ; 1 but the Aveapon was in another hand : Hear the rod what
it preacheth, and see the name of God, Micah vi. 9 ; and know
that there is somewhat of God and heaven in the rod. The majesty
of the unsearchable and bottomless ways and judgments of God
is not seen in the rod, and the seeing of them require th the eyes of
the man of wisdom. If the sufferings of some other Avith you iu
that loss could ease you, ye want them not. But He can do no
wrong, He cannot halt ; His goings are equal, who hath done it.
I know our Lord airaeth at more mortification ; let Him not como
' Usen indignant.
PART II.] LETTER XLII. 449
in vain to your honse, and lose the pains of a merciful visit. God,
the founder, never melteth in vain ; howbeit to as He seemeth
often to lose both fire and metal : but I know ye are more in this
Avork than I can be ; there is no cause to faint or weary. Grace
be with you, and the rich consolations of Jesus Christ sweeten
your cross and support you under it. I rest,
Yours, in his Lord and Master, S. R.
London, Oct. 15, 1645.
LETTER XLIL— To Mistress Hume.
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. If ye
have anything better than the husband of your youth, ye are
Jesus Christ's debtor for it ; pay not then your debts with grudg-
ing. Sorrow may diminish from the sweet fruit of righteousness ;
but quietness, silence, submission, and faith, put a crown upon
your sad losses : ye know whose voice the voice of a crying rod is,
Micah vi. 9. The name and majesty of the Lord is written on the
rod ; read and be instructed. Let Christ have the room of the
husband : he hath now no need of you, or of your love : for he
enjoyeth as much of the love of Christ as his heart can be capable
of I confess it is a dear-bought experience to teach you to under-
value the creature ; yet it is not too dear if Christ think it so. I
know that the disputing of your thoughts against his going hither,
the way and manner of his death, the instruments, the place, the
time, will not ease your spirits, except ye rise higher than second
causes, and be silent because the Lord hath done it ; if we measure
the goings of the Almighty and His ways, the bottom whereof we
see not, we quite mistake God. 0 how little a portion of God seo
we ! He is far above our ebb and narrow thoughts ; He ruled the
world in wisdom ere we, creatures of yesterday, were born, and
shall rule it when we shall be lodging beside the worms and cor-
ruption. Only learn heavenly wisdom, self-denial, and mortifica-
tion by this sad loss ; I know that it is not for nothing (except ye
deny God to be wise in all He doeth) that ye have lost one in
earth. There hath been too little of your love and heart in
heaven, and therefore the jealousy of Christ hath done this ; it is
a mercy that he contendeth with you and all your lovers ; I should
desire no greater favour for myself than that Christ laid a neces-
sity, and took on such bonds upon Himself — such an one I must
have, and such a soul I cannot live in heaven without, John x. 16.
And believe it, it is incomprehensible love that Christ saith, "If I
enjoy the glory of my Father, and the crown of heaven far above
men and angels, I must use all means, though never so violent, to
have the company of such an one for ever and ever." If with the
2f
450 LETTEK XLIII. [PART II,
eyes of wisdom, as a child of wisdom, ye justify your mother, the
wisdom of God (whose child ye are), ye shall kiss and embrace
this loss, and see much of Christ in it. Believe and submit, and
refer the income of the consolations of Jesus, and the event of the
trial, to your heavenly Father, who numbereth all your hairs.
And put Christ in his own room in your love ; it may be He hath
either been out of His own place, or in a place of love inferior to
His worth. Eepair Christ in all His wrongs done to Him, and
love Him for a Husband ; and He, " that is a Husband to the
widow," shall be that to you, which He hath taken from you.
Grace be with you. Your sympathizing brother, S. K.
London, Oct. 15, 1645.
LETTER XLin.— To Baebara. Hamilton.
Loving Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have
heard with grief that Newcastle hath taken one more in a bloody
account than before, even your son-in-law, and my friend ; but 1
hope ye have learned that^ much of Christ as not to look to
wheels rolled round about on earth. Earthen vessels are not to
dispute with their Former ; pieces of sinning clay may, by reason-
ing and contending with the Potter, mar the work of Him, " who
hath His fire in Zion and His furnace in Jerusalem ;" as bullocks,
sweating and wrestling in the furrow, make their yoke more heavy.
In quietness and rest ye shall be saved ; if men do anything con-
trary to our heart, we may ask both, who did it and, what is
done 1 and why? When God hath done any such thing, we are to
inquire who hath done it 1 and to know that this cometh from the
Lord, " who is wonderful in counsel ;" but we are not to ask what
or why] If it be from the Lord, as certainly there is no evil in
the city without him, Amos iii. 6, it is enough ; the fairest face of
His spotless way is but coming, and ye are to believe His works
as well as His word. Violent death is a sharer with Christ in
His death, which was violent. It maketh not much what way we
go to heaven ; the happy home is all, where the roughness of the
way shall be forgotten. He is gone home to a friend's house, and
made welcome, and the race is ended. Time is recompensed with
eternity, and copper with gold. God's order is in wisdom, the
husband goes home before the wife, and the throng of the market
shall be over ere it be long, and another generation where we now
are ; and at length an empty house, and not one of mankind shall
be upon the earth, within the sixth part of an hour after the earth
and the works that are therein shall be burnt up with fire. I fear
more that Christ is about to remove, when He carrieth home so
much of His plenishing ^ beforehand. We cannot teach the Al-
^ So. - Furniture.
I'AllT II.] LETTER XLIV. 451
mighty knowledge ; when He was directing the bullet against His
servant, to fetch out the soul, no wise man could cry to God,
Wrong, wrong, Lord, for he is thine own. There is no mist over
His eyes, who is "wonderful in counsel;" if Zion be buildedwith
your son-in-law's blood, the Lord (deep in counsel) can glue to-
gether the stones of Zion with blood, and with that blood which
is precious in His eyes. Christ hath fewer labourers in His vine-
yard than He had ; but some more witnesses for His cause, and
the Lord's covenant with the three nations. What is Christ's
gain is not your loss ; let not that, which is His holy and wise
will, be your unbelieving sorrow. Though I really judge I had
interest in his dead servant, yet because he now liveth to Christ,
I quit the hopes I had of his successful labouring in the ministry ;
I know he now praiseth the grace that he was to preach ; and if
there were a better thing on his head now in heaven than a crown,
or anything more excellent than heaven, he would cast it down
before His feet who sitteth on the throne. Give glory therefore to
Christ, as he now doth, and say, " Thy will be done." The grace
and consolation of Christ be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Ijord Jesus, S. E.
London, Nov. 15, 1645.
LETTER XLIV,— To the Viscountess of Kenmure,
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your ladyship. Though
Christ lose no time, yet when sinful men drive His chariot, the
wheels of His chariot move slowly. The woman, Zion, as soon as
she travailed, brought forth her children ; yea, Isa. Ixvi. 7, " Be-
fore she travailed, she brought forth ; before her pain came, she
was delivered of a man-cliild." Yet the deliverance of the people
was with the woman's going with child seventy years, that is more
than nine months. There be many oppositions in carrying on the
work ; but I hope the Lord will build His own Zion, and evidence
to us that it is done, " not by might, nor by power, but by the
Spirit of the Lord," Madam, I have heard of your infirmities of
body and sickness, I know the issue shall be mercy to you ; and
that God's purpose, which lieth hidden under-ground to you, is to
commend the sweetness of His love and care to you from your
youth. And if all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs,
heaviness, and inconstancy of the creature, be expounded (as sure
I am they are), the rods of the jealousy of a Husband in heaven,
contending with all your lovers on earth (though there were
millions of them) for your love, to fetch more of your love home to
heaven, to make it single, unmixed, and chaste to the fairest in
heaven and earth, to Jesus the Prince of ages ; ye will forgive (to
452 LETTER XLV. [PART II
borrow that word) every rod of God, and not let the sun go down
on your wrath, against any messenger of your afflicting and cor-
recting Father. Since your ladyship cannot but see that the mark
at which Christ hath aimed at these twenty-four years and above,
is to have the company and fellowship of such a sinful creature in
heaven with Him, for all eternity ; and because He will not (such
is the power of His love) enjoy His Father's glory, and that crown
due to Him by eternal generation, without you by name, John
xvii. 24, John x. 16, John xiv. 3; therefore, madam, believe no
evil of Christ ; listen to no hard reports that His rods make of
Him to you. He hath loved you, and washed you from your
sins ; and what would ye have more 1 Is that too little, except
He adjourn ^ all crosses till ye be where ye shall be out of all
capacity to sigh, or to be crossed 1 I hope ye can desire no more,
no greater, nor more excellent suit, than Christ and the fellowship
of the Lamb for evermore ; and if that desire be answered in
heaven (as I am sure it is, and ye cannot deny but it is made sure
to you), the want of these poor accidents of a living husband, of
many children, of a healthful body, of a life of ease in the world,
without one knot in the rush, are nobly made up, and may be
comfortably borne. Grace, grace be with your ladyship.
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
London, Oct. 16, 1645.
LETTER XLV.— To a Christian Friend, upon the Death
of his Wife.
Worthy Friend, — I desire to suffer with you, in the loss of a
loving and good wife, now gone before (according to the method
and order of Him whose understanding there is no searching out),
whither ye are to follow. He that made yesterday to go before
this day, and the former generation, in birth and life, to have
been before this present generation, and hath made some flowers
to grow, and die, and wither in the month of May, and others in
June, cannot be challenged in the order He hath made of things
without souls. And some order He must keep also here, that one
might bury another ; therefore I hope ye shall be dumb and silent,
because the Lord hath done it. What creatures or under-causes
do in sinful mistakes, are ordered in wisdom by your Father, at
whose feet your own soul and your heaven lieth, and so the days
of your wife. If the place she hath left were any other than a
prison of sin, and the home she is gone to any other than where
her Head and Saviour is King of the land, your grief had been
more rational ; but I trust, your faith of the resurrection of the
1 Put off.
PART II.J LBTTEK XL VI. 453
dead in Christ lo glory and immortality will lead you to suspend
your longing for her, till the morning and dawning of that day,
when the Archangel shall descend with a shout to gather all His
prisoners out of the grave up to Himself. To believe this is best
for you, and to be "silent because He hath done it" is your wis-
dom. It is much to come out of the Lord's school of trial wiser
and more experienced in the ways of God; and it is our happiness,
when Christ openeth a vein. He taketh nothing but ill blood from
His sick ones. Christ hath skill to do (and if our corruption mar
not) the art of mercy in correcting. We cannot of ourselves take
away the tin, the lead, and the scum that remaineth in us ; and if
Christ be not Master-of-work, and if the furnace goes its lone,^ He
not standing nigh the melting of His own vessel, the labour were
lost, and the founder should melt in vain. God knoweth, some of
us have lost'-^ much fire, sweating, and pains to our Lord Jesus :
and the vessel is almost marred, the furnace and rod of God spilt,^
and daylight burnt, and the reprobate metal not taken away, so
as some are to answer to the majesty of God for the abuse of
many good crosses, and rich afflictions lost without the quiet fruit
of righteousness ; and it is a sad thing when the rod is cursed,
that never fruit shall grow on it. And, except Christ's dew fall
down, and His summer sun shine, and His grace follow afflictions,
to cause them bring forth fruit to God, they are so fruitless to us
that our evil ground (rank and fat enough for briers) casteth up a
crop of noisome weeds. " The rod (as the prophet saith, Ezek.
vii. 10, 11) blossometh, pride buddeth forth, violence riseth up
into a rod of wickedness;" and all this hath been my case under
many rods since I saw you. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. K.
London, 1645.
LETTER XLVL— To a Christian Brother.
Reverend and beloved in the Lord, — It may be I have been
too long silent, but I hope ye will not impute it to forgetfulness
of you. As I have heard of the death of your daughter with
heaviness of mind on your behalf ; so am I much comforted that
she hath evidenced to yourself and other witnesses the hope of
the resurrection of the dead. As sown corn is not lost (for there
is more hope of that which is sown than of that which is eaten, 1
Cor. XV. 20) ; so also is it in the resurrection of the dead ; the
body is " sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is
soAvn in dislionour, it is raised in glory." I hope ye wait for the
crop and harvest : " For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
^ Alone. * Caused tlie loss of. ^ Llade without efcect.
454 LETTER XLVII. [PART II.
again, even so also them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with
Him." 1 Thess. iv. 1 4. Then they are not lost who are gathered
into that congregation of the first-born, and the general assembly
of the saints. Though we cannot outrun nor overtake them that
are gone before, yet we shall quickly follow them ; and the differ-
ence is, that she hath the advantage of some months or years of
the crown, before you and her mother. And we do not take it
ill if our children outrun us in the life of grace ; why then are we
sad if they outstrip us in the attainment of the life of glory 1 It
would seem that there is more reason to grieve that children live
behind us than that they are glorified and die before us. All the
difference is in some poor hungry accidents of time, less or more,
sooner or later. So the godly child, though young, died an
hundred years old • and ye could not now have bestowed ^ her
better, though the choice was Christ's, not yours. And I am sure,
sir, ye cannot now say, she is married against the will of her
parents ; she might more readily, if alive, fall in^ the hands of a
worse husband ; but can ye think that she could have fallen in ^
the hands of one better ? And if Christ marry with your house,
it is your honour, not any cause of grief, that Jesus should por-
tion any of yours, ere she enjoy your portion : is it not great
love 1 The patrimony is more than any other could give. As
good a husband is impossible ; to say a better, is blasphemy. The
King and Prince of ages can keep them better than ye can do.
While she was alive, ye could entrust her to Christ, and recommend
her to His keeping ; now by an after-faith ye have resigned her
unto Him, in whose bosom do sleep all that are dead in the Lord ;
ye would have left her to glorify the Lord upon earth, and He
hath borrowed her (with promise to restore her again, 1 Cor, xv.
53; 1 Tliess. iv. 15, 16) to be an organ of the immediate glorify-
ing of Himself in heaven. Sinless glorifying of God is better than
sinful glorifying of Him. And sure your prayers concerning her are
fulfilled. I shall desire, if the Lord shall be pleased the same way
to dispose of her mother, that ye have the same mind. Christ cannot
multiply injuries upon you ; if the fountain be the love of God (as I
hope it is), ye are enriched with losses. Ye know^ all I can say
better, before I was in Christ, than I can express it. Grace be
with you. Yours, in Christ Jesus, S. K
London, Jau. 6, 1646.
LETTER XLVII. —To a Christian Gentlewoman.
Mistress, — Grace, mercy and peace be to you. If death, which
is before you and us all, were any other thing but a friendly dis-
solution and a change, not a destruction of life, it would seem a
^ Disposed of, - Into. ^ Qu. Knew,
PART II.] LETTER XLVll. 455
hard voyage to go through such a sad and dark trance, so thorny
a valley, as is the wages of sin. But I am confident the way ye
know, though your foot never trod in that black shadow ; the loss
of life is gain to you. If Christ Jesus be the period, the end and
lodging-home, at the end of your journey, there is no fear, ye go
to a friend ; and since ye have had a communion with Him in this
life, and He hath a pawn and pledge of yours, even the largest
share of your love and heart, ye may look death in the face with
joy. If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you cannot be
kept the prisoner of the second death. But though He be the
same Christ in the other life ye found Him to be here, yet He is
so far in His excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradiations, and beams
of majesty, above what He appeared here, when He is seen as He
is, that ye shall misken^ Him, and He shall appear a new
Christ ! and His kisses, breathings, embracements, the perfume,
the ointment of His name poured out on you, shall appear to have
more of God, and a stronger smell of heaven, of eternity, of a God-
head, of majesty and glory there than here. As water at the
fountain, apples in the orchard and beside the tree, have more of
their native sweetness, taste, and beauty, than when transported
to us some hundred miles. I mean not that Christ can lose any
of His sweetness in the carrying, or that He in His Godhead and
loveliness of presence can be changed to the worse, betwixt the
little spot of the earth ye are in, and the right hand of the Father,
far above all heavens ; but the change will be in you, when ye
shall have new senses, and the soul shall be a more deep and more
capacious vessel, to take in more of Christ ; and when means, the
chariot, the Gospel that He is now carried in, and ordinances that
convey Him, shall be removed. Sure ye cannot now be said to
see Him face to face, or to drink of the wine of the highest foun-
tain, or to take in seas and tides of fresh love immediately without
vessels, midses,^ or messengers, at the fountain itself, as ye shall
do a few days hence ; when ye shall be so near as to be with
Christ (Luke xxiii. 43, John xvii. 24, Phil. i. 23, 1 Thess. iv. 17).
Ye would, no doubt, bestow a day's journey, yea, many days'
journey on eai'th, to go up to heaven, and fetch down anything of
Christ ; how much more may ye be willing to make a journey to
go in person to heaven (it is not lost time, but gained eternity) to
enjoy the full Godhead ; and tlien in such a manner, as He is not
there in His week-day's apparel as He is here with us, in a drop
or the tenth part of a night's dewing of grace and sweetness ; but
He is there in His marriage-robe of glory, richer, more costly.
more precious, in one hem or button of that garment of fountain-
majesty, than a million of worlds. 0, the well is deep ! Ye shall
' Not know. - Means.
456 LETTER XLVII. [PART II.
then think that preachers, and sinful ambassadors on earth, did
but spill 1 and mar His praises, when they spoke of Him, and
preached His beauty. Alas ! we but make Christ black and less
lovely, in making such insignificant, and dry, and cold, and low
expressions of His highest and transcendent super-excellency to
the daughters of Jerusalem, Sure I have often, for my own part,
sinned in this thing. No doubt, angels do not fulfil their task
according to their obligation, in that Christ kept their feet from
falling with the lost devils ; though I know they are not behind
in going to the utmost of created power ; but there is sin in our
praising, and sin in the quantity, besides other sins. But I must
leave this — it is too deep for me. Go and see, and we desire to go
with you ; but we are not masters of our own diet.^ If in that
last journey ye tread on a serpent in the way, and thereby wound
your heel, as Jesus Christ did before you, the print of the wound
shall not be known at the resurrection of the just. Death is but
an awsome ^ step over time and sin to sweet Jesus Christ, who
knew and felt the worst of death ; for death's teeth hurt him. We
know death hath no teeth now, no jaws, for they ai'e broken ; it is
a free prison, citizens pay nothing for the grave ; the jailer, who
had the power of death, is destroyed : praise and glory be to the
First-begotten of the dead. The worst possibly that may be, is,
that ye leave behind you children, husband, and the church of
God in miseries ; but ye cannot get them to heaven with you for
the present ; ye shall not miss them, and Chiist cannot miscount
one of the poorest of His lambs. No lad, no girl, no poor one
shall be a-missing, ere ye see them again in the day that the Son
shall render up the kingdom to his Father. The evening and the
shadow of every poor hireling is coming — the church of Christ's
sun in this life is declining low — not a soul of the militant com-
pany will be here within few generations ; our Husband will send
for them all. It is a rich mercy, we are not married to time
longer than the course be finished. Ye may rejoice that ye go
not to heaven, till ye know that Jesus is there before you, that
when ye come thither, at your first entry ye may find * the smell
of His ointments. His myrrh, aloes, and cassia. And this first sa-
lutation of His will make you find it is no uncomfortable thing to
die. Go and enjoy your gain ; live on Christ's love while ye are
here, and all the way. As for the church ye leave behind you,
the government is upon Christ's shoulders, and He will plead for
the blood of His saints. The bush hath been burning above five
thousand years, and we never yet saw the ashes of this fire : "Yet
a little while, and the vision shall not tarry ; it shall speak and
uot lie." I am more afraid of my duty than of the Head Christ's
^ SpoiL " Appointed time. ^ Solemn. ■* Perceive
PAKT II.] LETTER XLVIII. 457
government : He cannot fail to bring judgment to victory. 0,
that we could wait for our hidden life ! 0, that Christ Avould
remove the covering, draw aside the curtain of time, and rend the
heavens and come down ! 0, that shadows and night were gone,
that the day would break, and He that feedeth among the lilies
would cry to His heavenly trumpeters, make ready, let us go down
and fold together the four corners of the world, and marry the
bride. His grace be with you. Now, if I have found favour with
you, and if ye judge me faithful, my last suit to you is, that ye
would leave me a legacy, and that is, that my name be at the
very last in your prayers ; as I desire also it may be in the prayers
of those of your Christian acquaintance with whom ye have been
intimate. Your brother, in his own Lord Jesus, S. E..
London, Jan. 9, 1646.
LETTER XLVIII.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. It is the least of
the princely and royal bounty of Jesus Christ to pay a king's debts,
and not to have His servants at a loss. His gold is better than
yours, and His hundred-fold is the income and rent of heaven,
and far above your revenues. Ye are not the first Avho have
casten up your accounts that way. Better have Christ your
factor than any other ; for He tracleth to the advantage of His
poor servants. But if the hundred-fold in this life be so well told,
as Christ cannot pay you with miscounting or deferred hope ; 0
Avhat must the rent of that land be which rendereth every day,
and every hour of the years of long eternity, the whole rent of a
year, yea, of more than thousand thousands of ages, even the
weighty income of a rich kingdom, not every summer once, but
every moment ! That sum of glory will take you and all the
angels telling. To be a tenant to such a landlord, where every
berry and grape of the large field beareth no worse fruit than
glory, fulness of joy, and pleasures that endure for evermore ; I
leave it to yourself to think what a summer, what a soil, what a
garden must be there ; and what must be the commodities of that
highest land, where sun and moon are under the feet of the in-
habitants. Surely the land cannot be bought with gold, blood,
banishment, loss of father and mother, husband, wife, children.
We but dwell here, because we can do no better ; it is need, not
virtue, to be sojourners in a prison : to weep, and sigh, and, alas,
to sin, sixty or seventy years in a land of tears ; the fruits that
grow here are all seasoned and salted with sin. 0, how sweet is
it, that the company of the First-born should be divided in two
great bodies of an army, and some in their country, and some in
458 ' LETTER XLIX. [PAKT 11.
the way to their country ! If it were no more but to see once the
face of the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for eternity
with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays and beams of
matchless glory and incomparable fountain-love, it were a well-
spent journey, to creep, hands and feet, through seven deaths and
seven hells, to enjoy Him up at the well-head. Only let us not
wear}"-, the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than when we
first believed ■ strangers are not wise to quarrel with their host,
and complain of their lodging ; it is a foul way, but a fair home.
0 that I had but such grapes and clusters out of the land, as I
have sometimes seen and tasted in the place whereof your lady-
ship maketh mention ! but the hope of it in the end is a heart-
some ^ convoy in the way. If I see little more of the gold till the
race be ended, I dare not quarrel ; it is the Lord. I hope His
chariot shall go through these three kingdoms, after our sufferings
shall be accomplished. Grace be with you.
Your ladyship's, in Jesus Christ, S. R.
London, Jan. 26, 1646.
LETTER XLIX.— To Mr. J. G.
Reverend and dear Brother, — I shall with my soul desire
the peace of these kingdoms, and I do believe, it shall at last
come, as a river, and as the mighty Avaves of the sea ; but 0 that
we were ripe and in readiness to receive it ! The preserving of
two or three or four or five berries, in the utmost boughs of the
olive-tree, after the vintage, is like to be a great matter ere all be
done ; yet I know a cluster in both kingdoms shall be saved, for a
blessing is in it ; but it is not, I fear, so near to the dawning of
the day of salvation, but that the clouds must send down more
showers of blood to water the vineyard of the Lord, and to cause
it to blossom. Scotland's scum is not yet removed ; nor is Eng-
land's dross and tin taken away ; nor the filth of our blood
purged by the Spirit of judgment and the Spirit of burning ; but
1 am too much on this sad subject. As for myself, I do esteem
nothing out of heaven, and next to a communion with Jesus
Christ, more than to be in the hearts and prayers of the saints ;
I know He feedeth there amongst the lilies till the day break. But
I am at a low ebb, as to any sensible communion with Christ ;
yea, as low as any soul can be, and do scarce know where I am ;
and do now make it a question, if any can go to Him, who
dwelleth in light inaccessible, through nothing but darkness.
Sure, all that come to heaven have a stock in Christ ; but I know
not where mine is. It cannot be enough for me to believe the
» Cheerful.
PART 11,] LETTER L. 45'J
salvation of others, and to know Christ to be the Honeycomb,
the Rose of Sharon, the paradise and Eden of the saints and first-
born written in heaven, and not to see afar the borders of that
good land. But what shall I say 1 Either this is the Lord making
grace a new creation, where there is pure nothing and sinful
nothing to work upon ; or I am gone. I should count my soul
engaged to yourself, and others there with you, if ye would but
carry to Christ for me a letter of ciphers and nonsense (for I know
not how to make language of my condition), only showing that I
have need of His love ; for I know, many fair and washed ones
stand now in white before the throne, who were once as black as
I am. If Christ pass His word to wash a sinner, it is less to Him
than a word to make fair angels of black devils ; only let the art
of free grace be engaged. I have not a cautioner to give surety,
nor doth a Mediator, such as He is in all perfection, need a me-
diator. But what I need. He kuoweth ; only, it is His depth of
wisdom to let some pass millions of miles over score in debt, that
they may stand between the winning and the losing, in need of
more than ordinary free grace. Christ hath been multiplying
grace and mercy above these five thousand years ; and the latter-
born heirs have so much greater guiltiness, that Christ hath passed
more experiments and multiplied essays of heart-love on others,
by misbelieving, after it is past all question, many hundreds of
ages, that Christ is the undeniable and now uncontroverted trea-
surer of multiplied redemptions ; so now He is saying, the more of the
disease there is, the more of the physician's art of grace and tender-
ness there must be ; only I know, no sinner can put infinite grace
to it, so as the Mediator shall have difficulty or much ado, to save
this or that man ; millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to
exhaust infinite grace. I pray you (remembering my love to your
wife and friends there) let me find that I have solicitors there
amongst your acquaintance, and forget not Scotland.
Your brother, in Jesus Christ, S. K.
London, Jan. 30, 1646.
LETTER L.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — It is too like ^ the Lord's controversy with these two
nations is but yet beginning, and that we are ripened and white
for the Lord's sickle. For the particular condition your ladyship
is in, another might speak (if they would say all) of more sad
things. If there were not a fountain of free grace to Avater the
dry ground, and an uncreated wind to breathe on withered and
dry bones, we were gone. The wheels of Christ's chariot, to
^ Probable.
460 LETTER LI. [PART II.
pluck us out of the womb of many deaths, are winged like eagles.
All I have is, to desire to believe that Christ will show all good-
will to save : and as for your ladyship, I know that the Lord Jesus
carriethon no design against you, but seeketh you to save and re-
deem you : He lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to take
you up ; His way of redeeming is ravishing and taking ; there aro
more miracles of glorified sinners in heaven than can be on the
earth. Nothing of you, madam, nay, not your leaf, can wither.
Verily, it is a king's life to follow the Lamb ; but when ye see
Him in His own country at home, ye will think ye never saw Him
before : " He shall be admired of all them that believe," 2 Thess.
i. 10. Ye may judge how far all your now sad days and tossings,
changes, losses, wants, conflicts, shall then be below you. Ye
look to the cross, now it is above your head and seems to threaten
death, as having a dominion ; but it shall then be so far below
your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above it, that ye shall have
no leisure to lend one thought to old dated crosses, in youth, in
age, in this country or in that, from this instrument or from
another ; except it be to the heightening of your consolation, being
now got above and beyond all these : old age, and waxing " old
as a garment," is written on the fairest face of the creation, Ps.
cii. 26, 27. Death, from Adam to the second Adam's appearance,
playeth the king, and reigneth over all ; the prime Heir died. His
children, which the Lord hath given, follow Him ; and we may
speak freely of the life which is here ; were it heaven, there were
not much gain in godliness ; but there is a rest for the people of
God. Christ-man possesseth it now 1600 years before many of
His members j but it weareth not out. Grace be with you.
Your ladyship's, in his sweet Lord, S. E.
Lonaon, Feb. 16, IGiO.
LETTER LI.— To the Lady Ardross.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. It hath seemed
good (as I hear) to Him who hath appointed n bounds for the
number of our months, to gather-in a sheaf of ripe corn (in the
death of your Christian mother) into His garner. It is the more
evident that winter is near, when apples, without violence of wind,
do of their own accord fall oif the tree. She is now above the
winter, with a little change of place, not of a Saviour ; only she
enjoyeth Him now without messages, and in His own immediate
presence, from whom she heard by letters and messengers before.
I grant, death is to her a very new thing, but heaven was pre-
pared of old ; and Christ as enjoyed in His highest throne, and as
loaded with glory, and incomparably exalted above men n.nd angels,
PART II.] LETTER LII. 461
having such a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and musicians
above, compassing the throne with a song, is to her a new thing ;
but so new as the first summer-rose, or the first fruits of that
h(;avenly field, or as a new paradise to a traveller, broken and
worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a long and dirty
way. Ye may easily judge, madam, what a large recompense is
made to all her service, her walking with God, and her sorrows,
with the first cast of the soul's eye upon the shining and admir-
ably beautifid face of the Lamb, that is in the midst of that fair
and white army that is there ; and with the first draught and taste
of the fountain of life, fresh and new at the well-head ; to say
nothing of the enjoying of that face, without a date,i for more
than this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no
more to go thither but to suffer death to do her this piece of ser-
vice ; for by Him, who was dead, and is alive, she was delivered
from the second death. What then is the first death to the
second 1 Not a scratch of the hide of a finger, to the endless
second death. And now she sitteth for eternity meal-free," in a
very considerable land, which hath more than four summers in
the year. 0 what spring-time is there ! even the smelling of the
odours of that great and eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for
ever and ever ! What a singing life is there ! there is not a dumb
bird in all that large field, but all sing and breathe out heaven,
joy, glory, dominion, to the high Prince of that new-found land ;
and verily the land is the sweeter, that Jesus Christ paid so dear
a rent for it, and He is the glory of the land. All which, I hope,
does not so much mitigate and allay your grief, for her part (and
truly this should seem sufficient) as the unerring expectation of
the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope ye have of
the fruition of that same King and kingdom to your own soul ;
certainly the hope of it, when things look so dark-like on both
kingdoms, must be an exceeding great quickening to languishing
spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery,
to have both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at
night ! But He hath taken up your lodging for you. I can say
no more now; but I pray that the very God of peace may establish
your heart to the end. I rest, madam, your ladyship's, at all
respective ^ obedience in the Lord, S. H.
London, Feb. 24, 1646.
LETTEE LIL— To M. 0.
Sir, — I can write nothing for the present concerning these times
(whatever others may think) but that which speaketh wi'ath and
1 Period. - Without charge. ^ Respectful.
462 LETTEK Lll. [pART II.
judgment to these kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that land, re-
ceived the Gospel in truth (as I am confident ye and they did),
there is here a great departure from that faith, and our sufferings
are not yet at an end. However, I dare testify and die for it, that
once Christ was revealed in the power of His excellency and glory
to the saints there, and in Scotland, of which I was a witness ; I
pray God none deceive you, or take the crown from you. Hell or
the gates of hell cannot ravel, ^ mar, or undo what Christ hath once
done amongst you. It may be that I am incapable of new light,
and cannot receive that spirit (whereof some vainly boast) ; " but
that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled, even the Word of Life," 1 John i. 2, 3, hath
been declared to you. Thousands of thousands, walking in that
light and that good old way, have gone to heaven, and are now
before the throne ; truth is but one, and hath no numbers. Christ
and Antichrist are both now in the camp, and are come to open
blows. Christ's poor ship saileth in a sea of blood, the passengers
are so sea-sick of a high fever, that they miscall one another ;
Christ (I hope) shall bring the broken bark to land. I had rather
swim for life and death on an old plank, or a broken board, to
land with Christ, than to enjoy the rotten peace we have hitherto
had. It is like ^ the Lord will take a severe course with us, to
cause the children of the family to agree together. I conceive that
Christ hath a great design of free grace to these lands ; but His
wheels must move over mountains and rocks. He never yet wooed
a bride on earth, but in blood, in fire, and in the wilderness. A
cross of our own choosing, honeyed and sugared with consolations,
we cannot have : I think not much of a cross, when all the
children of the house weep with me and for me ; and to suffer when
we enjoy the communion of saints is not much ; but it is hard
when saints rejoice in the suffering of saints, and redeemed ones
hurt, yea, even go nigh to hate, redeemed ones. I confess, I im-
agined there had no more been such an affliction on earth, or in
the world, than that one elect angel should fight against another ;
but for contempt of the communion of saints, we have need of new-
born crosses, scarce ever heard of before. The saints are not Christ,
there is no misjudging in Him, there is much in us ; and a doubt
it is if we shall have fully one heart till we enjoy one heaven ; our
star-light hideth us from ourselves, and hideth us one from another,
and Christ from us all ; but He will not be hidden from us. I
shall wish that all the sons of our Father in that land be of one
mind, and that they be not shaken nor moved from the truth once
received. Christ was in that Gospel, and Christ is the same now
^ Tande. - Probable.
PART II. J LETTER LIIT. 463
that He was iu the prelates' time ; that Gospel cannot sink, it will
make you free and bear you out : Christ, the subject of it, is the
chosen of God, and cometh from Bozrah, with garments dyed in
blood. Ireland and Scotland both must be His field, in which He
shall feed and gather lilies. Suppose (which yet is impossible)
that some had an eternity of Christ, in Ireland, and a sweet summer
of the Gospel, and a feast of fat things for evermore in Ireland,
and one should never come to heaven, it should be a desirable life;
the King's spikenard, Christ's perfume, His apples of love, His
oint'ments, even down in this lower house of clay, are a choice hea-
ven. 0 what then is the King in His own land ! where there is
such a throne, so many king's palaces, ten thousand thousands of
crowns of glory, that want heads yet to fill them ! 0 so much
leisure as shall be there to sing ! 0 such a tree as groweth there
in the midst of that paradise, where the inhabitants sing eternally
under its branches ! To look in at a window, and see the branches
burdened with the apples of life, to be the last man that shall
come in thither, were too much for me. I pray you remember me
to the Christians there, and remember our private covenant. Grac^,
be with you. Your friend, in the Lord Jesus S, R.
London, April 17, 1646
LETTER LIIL— To Earlstown, Elder.
Sir, — I know ye have learned long ago, ere I knew anything of
Christ, that if we had the cross at our own election, we would either
have law-surety for freedom from it, or then ^ we would have it
honeyed and sugared with comforts, so as the sweet should over-
master the gall and wormwood. Christ knoweth how to breed the
sons of His house, and ye will give Him leave to take His own
way of dispensation with you ; and though it be rough, forgive
Him ; He defieth you to have as much patience to Him, as He
hath borne to you. I am sure there cannot be a drachm-weight
of gall less in your cup ; and ye would not desire He should both
afflict you and hurt your soul. When His people cannot have a
providence of silk and roses, they must be content with such an
one as He carveth out for them. Ye would not go to heaven but
with company, and ye may peiooive that the way of those who
went before you was through blood, suff'erings, and many afflictions ;
nay, Christ, the captain, went in over the door-threshold of para-
dise, bleeding to death. I do not think but ye have learned to
stoop, though ye (as others) be naturally stiff"; and that ye have
found that the apples and sweet fruits, which grow on that crabbed
tree of the cross, are as sweet as it is sour to bear it ; especially
considering that Christ hath borne the whole complete cross, and
464 LETTEK LIV. [PART II.
His saints bear but bits and chips ; as the apostle saith, " the rem-
nants or leavings of the cross." I judge you ten thousand times
happy that ever ye were grace's debtor; for certainly Christ hath en-
gaged you over head and ears to free grace ; and take the debt with
you to eternity, Immanuel's highest land, where ye find before you
a houseful of Christ's everlasting debtors, the less shame to you.
Yea, and this lower kingdom of grace is but Christ's hospital and
guest-house of sick folks, whom the brave and noble physician,
Christ, hath cured, upon a venture of life and death. And if ye
be near the water-side (as I know ye are), all that I can say is this,
sir, that I feel by the smell of that land, which is before you, that
it is a goodly country, and it is well paid for to your hand ; and
He is before you, who will heartily welcome you. 0 to suck those
breasts of full consolation above, and to drink Christ's new wine
up in His Father's house, is some greater matter than is believed !
Since it was brewed from eternity for the Head of the house, and
so many thousand crowned kings ; rubs in the way, Avhere the
lodging is so good, are not much. He that brought again from
the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the
eternal covenant, establish you to the end.
Your friend and servant, in Christ Jesus, S. R.
London, May 15, 1C46.
LETTER LIV.— To his Reverend and Worthy Brother,
Mr. George Gillespie.
Reverend and dear Brother, — I cannot speak to you. The
way ye know, the passage is free and not stopped, the print of the
footsteps of the Forerunner is clear and manifest, many have gone
before you. Ye will not sleep long in the dust before the day break:
it is a far shorter piece of the hinder end of the night to you, than
to Abraham and Moses. Beside all the time of their bodies rest-
ing under corruption, it is as long yet to their day as to your
morning light of awakening to glory ; though their spirits, having
the advantage of yours, have had now the forestart of the shore
before you. I dare say nothing against His dispensations ; I hope
to follow quickly : the heirs that are not there before you, are post-
ing with haste after you, and none shall take your lodging over
your head. Be not heavy, the life of faith is now called for : do-
ing was never reckoned in your accounts (though Christ in and by
you hath done more, than by twenty, yea an hundred gray-haired
and godly pastors), believing now is your last.^ Look to that
word, Gal. ii. 20, " Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me." Ye know the / that liveth, and the / that liveth not ; it
^ That is, the extreme or full amount of who,t you have to do.
PART II.] LETTER LV. 465
is not single ye that liveth, Christ by law liveth in the broken
debtor ; it is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living
of Christ in you. If ye look to yourself as divided from Christ, ye
must be more than heavy ; all your wants (dear brother) be upon
Him ; ye are His debtor. Grace must sum and subscribe your
accounts as paid ; stand not upon items, and small or little sancti-
ti cation : ye know, inherent holiness must stand by, when imputed
is all. I fear the clay-house is a-taking down and undermining ;
but it is nigh the dawning, look to the east, the dawning of glory
is near ; your guide is good company, and knoweth all the miles,
and the ups and clowns in the way ; the nearer the morning, the
darker. Some traveller seeth the city twetity miles off. and at a
distance ; and yet within the eighth part of a mile he cannot see it.
It is all keeping, that ye would now have, till ye need it ; and if
sense and fruition come both at once, it is not your loss : let Christ
tutor you, as He thinks good, ye cannot be marred nor miscarry
in His hand. Want is an excellent qualification, and " no money,
no price," to you (who, I know, dare not glory in your own right-
eousness) is fitness warrantable enough to cast yourself upon Him,
who justifieth the ungodly. Some see the gold once, and never
again till the race's end ; it is coming all in a sum together, when
ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it than now. " Ye are
not come to the mount that burnetii with fire, nor unto blackness,
darkness, and tempest ; but ye are come to Mount Zion, unto the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumer-
able company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the
first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all,
and the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Media-
tor of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling," &c. Ye
must leave the wife to a more choice Husband, and the children to
a better father. If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work and
covenant, against both malignants and sectaries (which I suppose
may be needful), let it be under your hand, and subscribed before
faithful witnesses.
Your loving and afflicted brother, S. R.
St. Andrews, Sept. 27, 1643.
LETTER LV.— To Mistress Gillespie.
Dear Sister, — I have heard how the Lord hath visited you in
removing the child Archibald. I hope you see the setting down
of the weight of your confidence and affection upon any created
thing, whether husband or child, is a deceiving thing ; and that
the creature is not able to bear your weight, but sinketh down to
very nothing under your confidence : and therefore ye are Christ's
2 G
466 LETTER LV. [PART II.
debtor for all providences of this kind, even in that He buildeth a
hedge of thorns in your way ; for so ye see His gracious intention
is to save you (if I may say so) whether ye will or not. It is a
rich mercy that the Lord Christ will be Master of your will and of
all your delights, and that His way is so fair for the landing of
husband and children before hand, in the country whitherto ye are
journeying. No matter how little ye be engaged to the world,
since ye have such experience of cross dealing in it ; had ye been
a child of the house, the world would have dealt more warmly with
its own : there is less of you out of heaven, that the child is there,
and the husband is there, but much more that your Head, and Kins-
man and Eedeemer doth fetch home such as are in danger to be
lost ; and, from this time forward, fetch not your comforts from
such broken cisterns and dry wells : if the Lord pull at the rest,
ye must not be the creature that shall hold when He draweth.
Truly, to me your case is more comfortable than if the fireside
were well plenished ^ with ten children. The Lord saw ye was
able, by His grace, to bear the loss of husband and child ; and that
ye were that ^ weak and tender, as not to be able to stand under
the mercy of a gracious husband, living and flourishing in esteem
with authority, and in reputation for godliness and leai-ning ; for
He knoweth the weight of these mercies would crush you and
break you ; and as there is no searching out of His understanding,
so He hath skill to know what providence will make Christ dear-
est to you ; and let not your heart say, it is an ill-waled^ dispens-
ation. Sure Christ, who hath seven eyes, had before Him the good
of a living husband and children for Margaret Murray, and the
good of a removed husband and children translated to glory.
Now He hath opened His decree to you, say, Christ hath made for
me a wise and gracious choice, and I have not one word to say on
the contrary. Let not your heart charge anything, or unbelief
libel injuries upon Christ ; because He will not let you alone, nor
give you leave to play the idolatress with such as have not that
right to your love that Christ hath. I should wish, at the reading
of this, that ye may fall down and make a surrender of those that
are gone, and these that are yet alive, to Him. And for you, let
Him have all ; and wait for Himself, for He will come and will not
tarry. Live by faith, and the peace of God guard your heart; He
cannot die whose ye are. My wife suffers with you, and remem-
bereth her love to you. Your brother in Christ, S. E..
St. Andrews, Aug. 14, 1659.
* rurnished. - So. * Badly chosen.
PART II.] LETTER LVl. 467
LETTER LVI.— To the Worthy and Much Honoured Colonel
G. Ker.
Much honoured and truly worthy, — I hope I shall not
need to show you that ye are in greater hazard from yourself and
your own spirit, which would be watched over (that your actings
for God may be clean, spiritual, purely for God, for the Prince of
the kings of the earth), than you can be in danger from your
enemies. 0 how hard is it to get the intentions so cut off from
and raised above the creature, as to be without mixture of creature
and carnal interests, and to have the soul in heavenly actings
only, only eyeing Himself, and acting from love to God, revealed
to us in Jesus Ciirist ! Ye will find yourself, your delights, your
solid glory (far above the air and breathings of mouths, and the
thin, short, poor applauses of men) before you in God. All the
creatures, all the swords, all the hosts in Britain, and in this poor
globe of the habitable world, are but under Him single ciphers
making no number, the product being nothing, and but painted
men, and jiainted swords in a brod,^ without influence from Him.
And, 0, what of God is in Gideon's sword, when it is the sword
of the Lord ! I wish a sword from heaven to you, and orders from
heaven to you to go out, and as much peremptoriness of a heavenly
will, as to say and abide by it, I will not, I shall not go out,
except thou go with me. I desire not to be rash in judging, but
I am a stranger to the mind of Christ, if our adversaries, who
have unjustly invaded us, be not now in the camp of those that
make war with the Lamb ; but the Lamb shall overcome them at
length ; for He is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and they
who are with Him are called and chosen, and faithful ; and though
ye and I see but the dark side of God's dispensations this day
towards Britain, yet the fair, beautiful, and desirable close of it
must be the confederacy of the nations of the world with Britain's
Lord of armies. And let me die in the comforts of the faith of
this, that a throne shall be set up for Christ in this island of Great
Britain (which is and shall be a garden more fruitful of trees of
righteousness, and payeth, and shall pay more thousands to the
Lord of the vineyard, than is paid in thrice the bounds of Great
Britain upon the earth), and then there can be neither papist,
prelate, cavalier, malignant, nor sectary who dare draw a sword
against Him that sitteth upon the throne. Sir, I shall wish a
clean army, so far as may be, that the shout of a King, who hath
many crowns, may be among, you ; and that ye may fight in faith
and prevail with God first. Think it your glory to have a sword
to act, and suffer, and die (if it please Him), so being ye may add
^ On a board.
468 LETTER LVII. [PART II.
anything to the declarative glory of Christ, the Plant of Eenown,
Immanuel, God with us. Happy and thrice blessed are they, by
whose actings, or blood, or pain, or loss, the diadems and rubies of
His highest and glorious crown (whose ye are) shall glister and
shine in this quarter of the habitable world. Though He need
not Gilbert Ker, nor his sword ; yet this honour have ye with his
redeemed soldiers, to call Christ High Lord General, of whom ye
hope for pay, and all arrears well told. Go on, worthy sir, in the
courage of faith, following the Lamb ; make not haste unbeliev-
ingly ; but in hope and silence keep the watch-tower and look out ;
He will come in His own time. His salvation shall not tarry ; He
shall place salvation in Britain's Zion for Israel's glory. His good
will, who dwelt in the bush and it burnt not, be yours, and with
you. I am, yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrews, Aug. 10, 1650.
LETTER LVH.— To the Worthy and Much Honoured Colonel
G. Ker.
Much honoured and worthy Sir,— What I wrote to you
before, I spoke not upon any private warrant, I am where I was ;
Cromwell and his army (I shall not say but there may be, and
are, several sober and godly amongst them, who have either joined
through mis-information, or have gone alongst with the rest in the
simplicity of their hearts, not knowing anything) fight in an unjust
cause against the Lord's secret ones ; and now, to the trampling
of the worship of God and persecuting tlie people of God in Eng-
land and Ireland, he hath brought upon his score, the blood of
the people of God in Scotland. I entreat you, dear sir, as ye de-
sire to be serviceable to Jesus Christ, whose free grace prevented
you when ye were His enemy, go on without fainting, equally
eschewing all mixture with sectaries and malignants ; neither of
the two shall ever be instrumental to save the Lord's people, or
build His house. And without prophesying or speaking further,
than He, whose I am, and whom I desire to serve in the Gospel
of His Son, shall warrant, I desire to hope, and do believe there
is a glory, and a majesty of the Prince of the kings of the earth,
that shall shine and appear in Great Britain, which shall darken
all the glory of men, confound sectaries and malignants, and re-
joice the spirits of the followers of the Lamb, and dazzle the eyes
of beholders. Sir, I suppose that God is to gather malignants and
sectaries, ere all be done, as sheaves in a barn-floor; and to bid
the daughter of Zion arise and thresh. I hope ye will mix with
none of them. I am abundantly satisfied, that our army, through
the sinful miscarriage of men, hath fallen ; and dare say, it is a
PART II.] LETTER LVIII. 469
better and a more comfortable dispensation, than if the Lord had
given us the victory, and the necks of the reproachers of the way
of God, because He hath done it. For, 1. More, blood, blasphe-
mies, cruelty, treachery, must be upon the accounts of the men
whose land the Lord forbid us to invade. 2. Victory is such a
burdening and weighty mercy, that we have not strength to bear
it as yet. 3. That was not the army, nor Gideon's three hundred
by whom He is to save us. We must have one of the Lord's
carving. 4. Our enemies on both sides, are not enough hardened,
nor we enough mortified to multitude, valour, and creatures.
Grace, grace be with you.
Your friend and servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrews, Sept. 5, 1650.
LETTER LVIIL— To the Worthy and Much Honoured
Colonel G. Ker.
Much honoured and worthy Sir, — It is considerable that
the Lord may, and often doth, call to a Avork, and yet hide Him-
self, and try the faith of His own. If I conceive aright, the Lord
hath called you to act against that enemy ; and the withdrawers
of their sword, in my weak apprehension, add their zeal unto, and
take upon them the guilt of that unjust invasion of this land,
made by Cromwell's army, and of the blood of the Lord's people
in this kingdom ; since the sword, put into the hand of His
children, is to execute wrath and vengeance upon evil doers. The
Lord's time of appearing for His broken land is reserved to the
breathings of the Spirit of the Lord, such as came upon Gideon
and Samson, and that is an act of princely and royal sovereignty
in God. Ye are, sir, to lay hold on opportunities of providence,
and to wait for Him ; as for your particular treating by yourselves
Avith the invaders of our land, I have no mind to it, and do look
upon their way as a carrying on of the mystery of iniquity (for
Babylon is a seat of many names). Sir, let this controversy stand
undecided, till the second appearance of Jesus Christ, and our
appeal lie before the throne undiscussed till that day. I hope to
lie down in the grave, in the faith of the justness of our cause. I
speak nothing of the maintaining the greatness of men, not sub-
ordinate to the Prince of the kings of the earth. I judge that
the blood of the witnesses of Jesus is found upon the skirts of this
society, as well as in Babylon's skirts. I believe the way of the
Lord is Colonel Gilbert Ker's strength and glory ; and should be
content to want my part of him (which is, I confess, precious and
dear in Christ), so he be spent in the service of Him, who will
anon make inquisition for the blood of the truly godly, which
470 LETTEK LIX. [PART II.
these men have shed after fair warning that they were the godly
of Scotland. Worthy sir, believe, faint not, set your shoulder
under the glory of Jesus, that is misi^rised^ in Scotland, and give
a testimony for Him ; He hath many names in Scotland, who
shall walk with Him in white. This despised covenant shall ruin
malignants, sectaries, and atheists. Yet a little while and behold
He Cometh, and walketh in the greatness of His strength, and
His garments dyed with blood. 0, for the sad and terrible daj;
of the Lord ujoon England, their ships of Tarshish, their fenced
cities, &c., because of a broken covenant ! A conference with the
enemy, not to hinder acting (0 that the Lord would thereby, or
some other way, remove the cloud that is over you), if authority
would concur, were to be desired; but it can hardly be expected;
however, in the way of duty and in the silence of faith go on ; if
ye perish, ye are the first of the creation with whom the Lord
hath taken that dispensation. I should humbly advise you, sir,
to look to that, " Dying and behold we live, killed all the day
long, and yet more than conquerors." There shall be the heat
and warmness of life in your graves and buried bones. But look
not for the Lord's coming the higher way only, for He may come
tlie lower way. 0 how little of God do we see, and how mysteri-
ous is He! Christ known is amongst the greatest secrets of God.
Keep yourself in the love of God, and in order to that, as far in
obedience and subjection to the king (whose salvation and true
happiness my soul desireth), and to every ordinance of man for
the Lord's sake, and to the fundamental laws of this kingdom, as
your Lord requireth. Sir, ye are in the hearts and prayers of the
Lord's people in this kingdom, and in the other two. The Lord
hath said, " There is a blessing in the cluster of grapes, destroy
it not." Grace, grace be upon the head of him that is separated
from his brethren, and the good will of Him that dwelt in the
bush be with you.
Your servant, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R,
Perth, Nov. 23, 1G50.
LETTER LIX.— To the Worthy and Much Honoured Colonel
G. Ker.
Much honoured and worthy Sir, — I know not why the
people of God should not take notice of the bonds of any who
have blood in readiness to be let out for His cause. And I judge
it was not of you, that ye died not in the undecided controversy,
which the Lord of the whole earth hath with the men whom He
hath sent against us. Dear and much honoured in the Lord, let
^ Undervalued.
PAKT II.] LETTER LX. 471
nie entreat you to be far from the thoughts of leaving this land.
I see it, and find it, that the Lord hath covered the whole land
with a cloud in His anger ; but though I have been tempted to the
like, I had rather be in Scotland, beside angry Jesus Christ,
knowing He mindeth no evil to us, than in any Eden or garden
in the earth. If we can remain united with the Lord's remnant
in the land. He layeth up wrath for all sort of adversaries in
Britain. Though I never see the glory of His glistering sword
shining in Britain, I would be solaced in the innocent thoughts
(far from revenge) that the saints shall dip their feet in the blood
of the slain of the Lord : and truly, sir, 1 suppose, ye cannot but
come to these thoughts and weak desires before the hearer of
prayers, for as little as ye think of and value yourself For me,
if I could mind you in your bonds, I purpose not to stand to the
account ye give, or thoughts ye have of yourself; though I know
ye are not a Avhit more or less before Him (who weigheth His
own according to the weight of imputed righteousness) for my
apprehensions. Christ cannot mistake you, men may, and the
calculation and esteem of free grace maketh you to be what ye
are. I hope to see you an everlastingly obliged debtor to Him,
whom ye shall praise, but never pay. And truly ye have no
riches but that debt ; and I know ye love to be engaged to Jesus
Christ, the most excellent of creditors : much joy and sweetness
may ye have in standing written in His book. I desire to do it
myself, and I would have you also highly to esteem the design of
Christ, who hath raised the riches of the glory of so much grace,
above the circle of the heaven of heavens, out of very nothings ;
and contrived His thoughts of love, so that lumps of glorified clay
should stand before Him for all ages, the burdened and loaden
debtors of free, eternally free grace. Sir, ye cannot cast the count
of the rents of your so great inheritance of glory. Grace be with
you. Your servant, in his own Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, May 18, 1651.
LETTER LX.— To the Much Honoured and Truly Worthy
Colonel G. Ker.
Habakkuk ii. 3, 4.
Much honoured and worthy Sir, — Your chains now shine
as much for Christ, the cause being His, as your sword was made
famous in acting for that cause ; and blessed are such as can wil-
lingly tender to Christ both action and blood, doing and suffer-
ing. Resisting unto blood is little for that precious and never-
enough-exalted Redeemer, who, when ye were a-buying, gave
blood somewhat dearer than ye gave for Him, even the blood of
472 LETTEK LX. [PART II.
God, Acts XX. 28. I know a man who, upon the receipt of a
letter that ye were killed, and the people of God destroyed,
"v^nshed that he might be quickly under the wall of the higher
palace, from under the dint of the storm, and who longed to have
the weather-beaten and crazy bark safely landed in that harbour
of eternal quietness. What farther service Christ hath for you I
know not ; it is enough, that in your captivity ye offer your ser-
vice to Christ ; but if I see anything, it looks like a merciful defeat.
I see the nobles and the state falling off from Christ, and the
night coming upon the prophets, which we would pray to prevent;
because it is a rare thing to see a fallen star win ever up again to
the firmament to shine. And what if this be the thick darkness
going before the break of day 1 Sure, sir, the sun shall rise upon
Scotland ; but if I shall see it, or how near it is to-day, I leave that
to Him, even unto " Jehovah, who creates upon every dwelling in
Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud, and a smoke by
day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night." But, sir, " the
wilderness shall rejoice and blossom as a rose ; " and happy he,
who hath a bone or an arm, to put the crown upon the head of
our highest King, whose chariot is paved with love : were thei'e
ten thousand millions of heavens created above these highest
heavens, and as many above them, and again as many above them,
till angels were weained with counting, it were but too low a seat
to fix the princely throne of that Lord Jesus (whose ye are) above
them all. Created heavens are too low a seat of majesty for Him.
Since then there is none equal to your Master and Prince, who
hath chosen out for you, amongst many sufferings for sin,^ that
only cross which cometh nearest in likeness to His own cross,
watered with consolations, take courage and comfort yourself in
Him, who hath chosen you to glory hereafter, and to a conformity
with Him here. We fools would have a cross of our own choos-
ing, and would have our gall and wormwood sugared, our fire
cold, and our death and grave warmed with heat of life ; but He
who hath brought many children to glory and lost none, is our
best tutor. I wish when I am sick, that He may be Keeper and
Comforter. I judge it a blessed fall, that we are forfeited heirs,
broken and out of credit, and that Christ is become a Tutor in the
place of free-will, and that we are no more our own. I am broken
and wasted with the wrath that is on the land, and have been
much tempted with a design to have a pass from Christ, which if
I had, I would not stay to be a witness of our defection for no
man's entreaty ; but I know it is my softness and weakness, who
would ever be ashore, when a fit of sea-sickness cometh on ; though
I know I shall come soon enough to that desirable country, and
1 Qu. Him ?
PART II.j LETTER LXI. 473
shall not be displaced, none shall take my lodging. Sir, many
eyes are upon you, and the godly are exceedingly refreshed that
ye listen not to the ways of many about you, who with fair words
make merchandise of souls. Sir, if the way you are in be not the
way of Christ, then woe to me, for I am eternally lost ; but truly,
the Lord Christ's dealing with Colonel Gilbert Ker hath proven
to me, that the new testament and the covenant of grace is a
piece, that a solemn meeting and assembly of all created angels,
join all their wits together, could not have devised. Since, sir, ye
paid nothing for the change that Christ made, and ye will take
that debt of free grace to heaven with you (for what was Christ
Jesus indebted to you more than to all your kindred and name 1)
therefore, since ye are made His own, follow no other way. What
is my salvation though I should lay it in pawn (it is but a poor
pledge) that this, this only is the way 1 but Christ is surety Him-
self, that it is the way ; the Forerunner went before you, and He
is safely landed, and there is a fair company before you of such
" as have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their
garments, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ; " to
whom these promises are now performed : " He that overcomes
Bhall eat of the tree of life, that is in the midst of the paradise of
God ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and
there sliall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain. He that sitteth on the throne shall
dwell among them ; they shall hunger no more, neither thii'st any
more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat ; for the
Lamb, that is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and
shall take them unto the living fountains of waters." I may, sir,
possibly keep you from better work. The God of peace, that
brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect.
Yours, in Jesus Christ, S. R.
St. Andrews, Jan. 7, 1651.
LETTER LXL— To the Much Honoured and Truly Worthy
Colonel G. Ker.
Much honoured and worthy Sir, — I have heard of your
continued captivity in England, as well as in this afflicted land ;
but go where you will, ye cannot go from under your Shadow,
which is broader than many kingdoms. Ye change lodgings and
countries : but the same Lord is before you, if ye were carried away
captive to the other side of the sun, or as far as the rising of the
morning-star. It is spoken to your mother, who hath yet received
no bill of divorce, which was written to Judah, Mic, iv. 10, "Be in
pain and labour to bring forth, 0 daughter of Zion, like a woman
474 LETTER LXI. [PART II.
ill travail : for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou
shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon, there
shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee from the
hand of thine enemies." England shall be countable for you, to
render you back, Isa. xliv. 6, " I will say to the north, give up ;
and to the south, keep not back." It is a sermon that flesh and
blood laugheth at, Ezek. xxxvii. 4, " Prophesy upon these dry
bones, and say unto them, 0 ye dry bones, hear the word of the
Lord !" It is a preaching to the cold grave, " Thus saith the Lord
unto the bones, behold I will cause breath to enter into you, and
ye shall live, and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring flesh upon
you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall
live." Eev. xx. 13, "And the sea gave up the dead that were in
it." Berwick must render back the Scottish captives, and Colonel
Gilbert Ker Avith them. Isa. xliii. 14, "For thus saith the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I have sent
to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chal-
deans, whose cry is in the ships." Deut. xxx. 4, " If any of them
be driven out to the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will
the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee."
Zech. viii. 7, " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold I Avill save my
people from the east country, and from the west country, and I
will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem,
and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and
in righteousness." Sir, ye are both booked by the Lord who writ-
eth up the people, Ps. Ixxxvii. 5, 6, and counted to the Lord, as
one of the house and stock. Ps. xxii. 30, Fear not, faint not, all
your hairs are numbered. It is the desire of the people of God,
that as your bonds hitherto have been exemplary to the strength-
ening of the feeble, and to the stopping of the mouth of the adver-
sary, without any declining to the right or left hand, so your
sufferings in the place ye now go to, may be (as we are confident
in the Lord of you, and in humility boast of His grace in you)
savoury, convincing, and like unto this honourable cause that will
prevail in Britain, contrary to all the machinations and counsels of
devils and men ; and though there were no other ink in the pen I
now write with, but some dewing of my last cooling blood, this I
purpose (His grace, whose I am, enabling me) to stand to. Sir,
we desire to adore no instruments, yet we conceive the shining and
rays of grace from the fountain Jesus Christ, the fulness of the
Godhead, bestowed on sinful men, hold forth the good thoughts of
Christ to this poor land, whose multiplied graves, and whose souls
under the altar, slain by sectaries and malignants, cry aloud to hea-
ven. I see nothing, sir, if the Lord be not near (though I dare
not say how soon) to awake for the year of Zion's controversy, Isa.
PART II.] LETTER LXI. 475
xxxiv. 5, " For my sword shall be bathed in heaven ;" behold it
shall come down upon England, and the residue of his enemies in
Scotland. Woe is me for England, that land shall be soaked with
blood, and their dust made fat with fatness ; that pleasant land
shall be a wilderness, and the dust of their land pitch; a judgment
upon their walled towns, their pleasant fields, their strong ships,
&c., if they do not repent. Ye have not, I conceive, seen such
searching and trying times as now these are, and yet the question
will be drawn to a more narrow state, and multitudes Avill yet leave
the cause ; for we took all into the covenant that oifered to build
with us, but Christ must have but a small remnant ; few nobles, if
any, few ministers, few professors ; though our way standeth un-
changed, 2 Cor. vi. 8, " By honour and dishonour, by good report,
and evil report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet
well known, as dying and behold we live, as chastened and yet not
killed." Neither is this your condition alone, but the experienced
lot of all the saints that have gone before you : it is one and the
same cross of Christ, but there be sundry faces, and diverse circum-
stances in the same remnant, the sufferings of Christ and yours.
Sir, to be delivered to soldiers and in captivity, iooketh like His
suffering, of whom Isaiah saith, chap. liii. 8, " He was taken from
prison, and from judgment ;" yea, and taken bound, John xviii. 12.
When the cause is the truth of God, the lustre and face of suffer-
ing is so much the more lovely, that it hath the hue and colour of
Christ's sufferings, who endured contradiction of sinners, and de-
spised the shame. 0, it is a great word, " Christ shamed and
Christ abased !" but thus was the Head, and so are the members
dealt with in the world : and truly anything of Christ, even the
worst of Him (to speak so), His reproach and shame, are lovely.
Though superstitious love to the material cross He suffered upon
be foolery, and doating upon the holy grave be cursed idolatry,
yet is there a communion with Him in His sufferings most desir-
able, 1 Pet. iv. 15, "But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of
Christ's sufferings :" in which sense, the cup that His lips touched
hath the sweeter taste, even though death were in it ; the grave,
because He did lie in it, is so much the softer, and the more re-
freshful a bed of rest; and that part of the sky and clouds that
the Beloved shall break through and come to judgment, it is as
lovely a piece of the created heaven as any is, if we may love the
ground He goeth on the better ; but all this is to be understood in
a spiiitual manner. The Lord calleth you, sir (upon whom the
Spirit of God and His glory resteth), to put your soul's amen to
this dispensation ; and requireth of us, that our desires follow the
now-declared decree of God, concerning the desolation of our sin-
ful land, so many ways guilty of a despised Gospel and a broken
476 LETTER LXI, [PART II,
covenant, and that with all submission. Certainly no man hath
failed more in this thing than he who writeth to you ; for 1 have
brought my health in great hazard, and tormented my spirit with
excessive grief for our present provocations and the rentings^ of our
kirk ; and I see it is a challenging of, and a bold pleading against
Him, " upon Avhose shoulder the government is," Isa. xxii. 22.
The Father hath put a glorious trust upon Christ, verse 23, "And
I will fasten Him as a nail in a sure place, and He shall be for a
glorious throne to His Father's house." Verse 24, "And they shall
hang upon Him all the glory of His Father's house, the offspring
and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups
even to all the vessels of flagons." Our unbelieving apprehensions
do so quarrel at the prosperity of enemies in an evil cause, that we
wrestle with defeats, spoiling, captivity of the godly, killing of His
people, the wasting of our land, starving and famishing of the king-
dom, which is worse than the sword ; but this is a sinful contra-
dicting of the Lord's revealed decree. His wisdom saith, " Spoiling
and desolation is best for Scotland ;" and we say. Not ; and so ac-
cuse Christ of misgovernment, and of not being true to the trust
put upon Him : but since He doth not drag the government at His
heels, but hath it upon His shoulder ; and since the nail fastened
In a sure place cannot be broken, nor can the smallest vessel fail
to find sweet security in dependence upon Him ; since all the weight
of heaven and eai'th, of redeemed saints and confirmed angels, is
upon His shoulder, I am a fool and brutish to imagine, that I can
add anything to Christ's special care of and tenderness to His peo-
ple. He who keepeth the basins and knives of His house, and
bi'ingeth the vessels back again to the second temple, Ezra i. 8-10,
must have a more tender care of His redeemed ones, than of a spoon,
or of Peter's old shoes, which yet must not be lost in his captivity,
Acts xii. 8. O, for grace to suff'er Christ to tutor His own minors
and young heirs ! But we cannot endure to be under the actings
of His government ; we love too much to be our own. 0, how
sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly in Christ ! To be out of
the creature's owning, and made complete in Christ, to live by
faith in Christ ; and to be once for all clothed with the created
majesty and glory of the Son of God, wherein He makes all His
friends and followers sharers ! To dwell in Immanuel's high and
blessed land, and live in that sweetest air, where no wind bloweth,
but the breathings of the Holy Ghost ; no seas or floods flow, but
" the pure water of life, that proceedeth from under the throne and
from the Lamb ; ' no planting but, " the tree of life, that yieldeth
twelve manner of fruits every month !" What do we here but sin
and suffer? 0, when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee
^ Rendiiigs.
PART IL] letter LXII. 477
away, and the morning of that long, long day, without cloud or
night, dawn ! The Spirit and the bride say, " Come." O when
shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say, " Come !"
Worthy sir, I mind you to the hearer of prayer. 0 help me in
that kind ! The Spirit of Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
at Ajidrews, May 14, 1651.
LETTER LXII.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. We are fallen
in winnowing and trying times ; I am glad that your breath
serveth you to run to the end, in the same condition and way
wherein ye have walked these twenty years past ; it is either the
way of peace, or we are yet in our sins, and have missed the way.
The Lord (it is true) hath stained the pride of all our glory ; and
now last of all, the sun hath gone down upon many of the pro-
phets ; but stumble not ; men are men, and God appeareth more
and more to be God, and Christ is still Christ. Madam, a stronger
than I am had almost stumbled me and cast me down. But oh
what mercy is it to discern betwixt what is Christ's and what is
man's, and what way the hue, colour, and lustre of gifts and grace
dazzle and deceive our weak eyes. 0, to be dead to all things
that are below Christ, were it even a created heaven and created
grace ! Holiness is not Christ ; nor are the blossoms and flowers
of the tree of life the tree itself. Men and creatures may wind
themselves in between us and Christ ; and therefore the Lord hath
done much to take out of the way all betwixt Him and us ; there
are not in our way now kings, or armies, or nobles, or judicatories,
or strongholds, or watchmen, or godly professors. The fairest
things, and most eminent in Britain, are stained, and have lost
their lustre ; only, only Christ keeps His greenness and beauty,
and remaineth what He was. 0 ! if He were more and more
excellent to our apprehensions than ever He was {whose excellency
is above all apprehensions), and still more and more sweet to our
taste. I care for nothing if so be I were nearer to Him, and yet
He flieth not from me ; I flee from Him, but He pursueth. I
hear your ladyship hath the same esteem of the despised cause and
covenant of our Lord ye had before. Madam, hold you there ; I
dare and would gladly breathe out my spirit in that way, with a
nearer communion and fellowship Avith the Father and the Son,
and would seek no more, but that I might die believing ; and also,
I would hope, that the earth shall not cover the blood of the godly
slain in Scotland, but that the Lord will make inquisition for their
blood, when the sufferings of the saints in these lands shall be ful-
478 LETTERS LXIIl. AND LXIV, [PART II.
filled. The good will of Him that dwelt in the bush be with
you.
Your ladyship's, at all observance, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Glasgow, Sept. 28, 1651.
LETTER LXIIL— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I know ye think
of an out-going, and that your quartering in time, and your abode
in this life is short ; for we flee away as a shadow ; the declining of
the sun, and the lengthening of the shadow, saith our journey is
short and near the end ; I speak it because I have warnings of my
removal. Madam, I know not any against whom the Lord is not ;
for he is against " the proud and lofty ; the day of the Lord is
upon all the cedars, upon all the high mountains, upon every high
tower, and upon every fenced wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish,
and upon all pleasant pictures." I know not anything comparable
to a nearness and spiritual communion with the Father and the
Son Christ ; there is much deadness and Avitheredness upon many
spirits sometimes near to God ; and I wish the Lord had not more
to saj'^, and to do against the land. Ye have, madam, in your ac-
counts, mercies, deliverances, rods, warnings, plenty of means,
consolations, when refuge failed you, when you looked on the right
hand, and behold no man would know you, nor care for your soul
when young and weak, manifestations of God, the out-goings of
the Lord for you, experiences, answers from the Lord ; by all which
ye may be comforted now, and confirmed in the certain hope, that
grace, free grace, in a fixed and established surety, shall perfect
that good work in you. Happy they Avho see not and yet believe !
Grace, grace eternally in our Lord Jesus be with you.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, May 27, 1653.
LETTER LXIV.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — I have been so long silent, that I am almost ashamed
now to speak. I hear of your weakly condition of body, which
speaketh some warning to you, to look for a longer life, where ye
shall have more leisure to praise than time can give you here. It
shall be a loss to many ; but sure, yourself, madam, shall be only
free of any loss. And truly, considering what days we are now
fallen into, if sailing were not serving of the Lord (which I can
hardly attain), a calm harbour were very good, when storms are so
high. The Forerunner, who hath landed first, must help to bring
the sea-beaten vessel safe to the port, and the sick passengers, who
PART II.] LETTER LXV. 479
are following the Forerunner, safe ashore. Much deadness prevail-
eth over sonae, but there is much life in Him, who is the resurrec-
tion and the life, to quicken. 0 what of our hid life is without us,
and how little and poor a stock is in the hand of some ! The only-
wise God supply Avhat is wanting ; the more ye want, and the
more your joy hath run on, the more is owing to you by the pro-
mise of grace; bygones^ of waterings from heaven, which your
ladyship wanted in Kenmure, Rusco, the West, Glasgow, Edinburgh,
England, &c., shall all come in a great sum together ; the marriage-
supper of the Lamb must not be marred with too large a four-
hours' refreshment. Know, madam, He who hath tutored you
from the breasts, knoweth how to time his own day-shinings and
love-visits. Grace, that runs on, be with you.
Yours, in the Lord, at all observance, S. E.
St. Andrews.
LETTER LXV.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — I confess I have cause to be grieved at my long
silence, or laziness in writing. I am also afflicted to hear that such,
who were debtors to your ladyship for better dealing, have served
you with such prevarication ; ye know crookedness is neither strong
nor long-enduring ; and ye know likewise, that these things spring-
not out of the dust. It is sweet to look upon the lawless and sin-
ful stirrings of the creatures, as ordered by a most holy hand in
heaven. 0, if some could make peace with God ! It would be
our wisdom, and afford us much sweet peace, if oppressors were
looked upon as passive insti'uments, like the saw or axe in the car-
penter's hand ; they are bidden (if such a distinction may be ad-
mitted), but not commanded of God (as Shimei was, 2 Sam. xvi.
10) to do what they do. Madam, these many years the Lord hath
been teaching you to read and study well the book of holy, holy
and spotless sovereignty, in suffering from some nigh-hand and
some far off. Whoever be the instruments, the replying of clay
to the potter, the former of all, is unbeseeming the nothing-crea-
ture. I hope He shall clear you ; but when Zion's public evils lie
not nigh some of us, and leave no impression upon our hearts, it is
no wonder that we be exercised with domestic troubles ; but I
know ye are taught of God to prefer Jerusalem to your chiefest
joy. Madam, there is no cause of fainting ; wait upon the not-
tarrying vision, for it will speak. The only wise God be with you,
and God, even your own God, bless you.
Yours, at all observance, in God, S. E.
St. Andrews, June 1657.
' Arrears.
480 ' LETTERS LXVl. AND LXVII. [PAKT II.
LETTEE LXVL— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — I should not forget you ; but my deadness under a
threatening stroke, both of a falKng church, a broken covenant, a
despised remnant, and craziness of body (that I cannot get a piece
of sickly clay carried about from one house or town to another)
lies most heavy on me. The Lord hath removed Scotland's crown,
for we owned not His crown ; we fretted at His catholic govern-
ment of the world, and fretted that He would not be ruled and
led by us, in breaking our adversaries ; and He makes us suffer
and pine away in our iniquities, under the broken government of
His house. It is like ^ it would be our snare, to be tried with the
honour of a peaceable reformation, we might mar the carved work
of His house, worse than those against whom we cry out. It is
like ^ He hath bidden us lie on our left side three hundred and
ninety days, and yet so astonishing is our stupidity, that we moan
not our sore side. Out gold is become dim, the visage of our
Nazarites is become black, the sun is gone down on our seers, the
crown is fallen from our head, we roar like bears. Lord save us
from that, "He that hath made them will not have mercy on them."
The heart of the scribe meditates terror. 0, madam, if the Lord
would help us to more self-judging, and to make sure an interest
in Christ ! Ah, we forget eternity, and it approacheth quickly.
Grace be with you.
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrews, Nov. 20, 1657.
LETTER LXVII.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — I am ashamed of my long silence to your ladyship.
Your tossings and wanderings are known to Him, upon whom ye
have been cast from the breasts, and who hath been your God of
old. The temporal loss of creatures, dear to you there, may be the
more easily endured, that the gain of One who only hath immor-
tality groweth. There is an universal complaint of deadness of
spirit on all that know God. He that writes to you, madam, is as
deep in this as any, and is afraid of a strong and hot battle, before
time be at a close ; but no matter, if the Lord crown all with the
victorious triumphing of faith. God teacheth us by terrible things
in righteousness. We see many things, but we observe nothing.
Our drink is sour ; gray hairs are here and there on us, and we
change many lords and rulers ; but the same bondage of soul and
body remains. We live little by faith, but much by sense, accord-
ing to the times, and by human policy. The watchmen sleep, and
^ Probable.
PAKT II. J LETTER LXVIIl. 481
the people perish for lack of knowlege. How can we be enlight-
ened when we turn our backs on the sun ? And must we not be
withered when we leave the fountain ? It should be my only de-
sire to be a minister, gifted with the white stone, and the new
name written on it. I judge it were fit (now when tall professors,
and when many stars fall from heaven, and God poureth the isle
of Great Britain from vessel to vessel, and yet we sit and are
settled on our lees) to consider (as sometimes I do ; but, ah !
rarely) how irrecoverable a woe it is to be under a beguile in the
matter of eternity; and what if I, who can have a subscribed testi-
monial of many who shall stand at the right hand of the Judge,
shall miss Christ's approving testimony, and be set upon the left
hand among the goats? There is such a beguile, Matt. vii. 22,
Matt. XXV. 8-12, Luke xiii. 25,26. And it befals many; and what
if it befal me, who have but too much art to cozen my own soul
and others, with the flourish of ministerial or country holiness 1
Dear lady, I am afraid of prevailing security ! we watch little (I
have mainly relation to myself) ; we wrestle little ; I am like one
travelling in the night, who sees a spirit, and sweats for fear, and
dare not tell it to his fellow for fear of increasing his own fear ;
however I am sure, when the Master is nigh His coming, it were
safe to write over a double and a new copy of our accounts, of the
sins of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, and old age. What
if Christ have another written representation of me than I have
of myself? Sure His is right; and if it contradict my mistaking
and sinfully erroneous account of myself, ah ! where am I then ]
But, madam, I discourage none : I know Christ Iiath made a new
marriage-contract of love, and sealed it with His blood, and the
trembling believer shall not be confounded. Grace be with you.
Yours, at all obedience in Christ, S. E.
St. Andrews, May 26, 1659.
LETTER LXVin.— To my Lady Kenmure.
Madam, — I should be glad that the Lord would be pleased to
lengthen out more time to you, that ye miglit yet, before your
eyes be shut, see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord,
in reviving a now-swooning and crushed land and church. Though
I was lately knocking at death's gate, yet could I not get in, but
was sent back for a time. It is well, if I could yet do any service
to Him , but ah, what deadness lieth upon the spirit ! and dead-
ness breedeth distance from God, Madam, these many years the
Lord hath let you see a clear difference betwixt those who serve
God and love His name, and those who serve Him not ; and I
judge ye look upon the way of Christ as the only best way, and
2 H
482 LETTER I.XVIII. [PAKT II.
that ye would not exchange Christ for the world's god, or their
mammon, and that ye can give Christ a testimony of Chief among
ten thousand. True it is, that many of us have fallen from our
first love ; but Christ hath renewed His first love of our espousals
to Himself, and multiplied the seekers of God, all the country
over, even where Christ was scarce named, east and west, and
south and north, above the number that our fathers ever knew.
But ah, madam, what shall be done or said of many fallen stars,
and many near to God complying woefully, and sailing to the
nearest shore 1 Yea, and we are consumed in the furnace, but
not melted ; burnt, but not purged ; our dross is not removed,
but our scum remains in us ; and in the furnace we fret, we faint,
and (which is more strange) we slumber. The fire burnetii round
about us, and we lay it not to heart ; gray hairs are upon us, and
we know it not. It were now a desirable life to send away our
love to heaven ; and well becometh it us to wait on for the ap-
pointed change, yet so as we should be meditating thus : Is there
a new world above the sun and moon 1 and is there such a blessed
company, harping and singing hallelujahs to the Lamb up above'?
Why then are we taken with a vain life of sighing and sinning 1
0, where is our wisdom, that we sit still laughing, eating, sleeping
prisoners, and do not pack up all our best things for the journey,
desiring always to be clothed with our house from above, not
made with hands ! Ah ! we savour not the things that are above,
nor do we smell of glory ere we come thither ; but we transact
and agree with time for a new lease of clay-mansions. Behold He
Cometh, Ave sleep, and turn all the work of duties into a dispute
of events for deliverance ; but the greatest haste, to be humbled
for a broken and a buried covenant, is first and last forgotten :
and all our grief is, the Lord lingers, enemies triumph, godly ones
suffer, Atheists blaspheme. Ah ! we pray not, but wonder that
Christ Cometh not the higher way, by might, by power, by gar-
ments rolled in blood ; what if He come the lower way 1 Sure
we sin in putting the book in His hand, as if we could teach the
Almighty knowledge ; we make haste, we believe not. Let the
only Avise God alone. He stirs well, He draws straight lines,
though we think and say they are crooked : it is right that some
should die and their breasts full of milk ; and yet we are angry
that God dealeth so with them. 0, if I could adore Him in His
hidden Avays, AAdien there is darkness under His feet, and darkness
in His pavilion, and clouds are about His throne ! Madam, hoping,
believing, patient praying is our life ; He loses no time. The
Lord Jesus be Avith your spirit.
Yours, at all obliged observance in Christ, S. R.
St. Andrews, Sept. 12, 16.W.
PART il] letter lxix. 483
LETTER LXIX.— To his Reverend and dear Brethren, Mr.
Guthrie, Mr. Trail, and the rest of their Brethren Im-
prisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh.
Reverend, very dear, and now much honoured prisoners
FOR Christ, — I am, as to the point of light at the outmost of
persuasion in that kind that this is the cause of Christ ye now
suffer for, and not men's interest : if it be for men, let us leave it ;
but if we plead for God, our own personal safety and man's
deliverance will not be peace. There is a salvation called the
salvation of God, which is cleanly, pure, spiritual, unmixed, near
to the holy Word of God ; it is that which we would seek, even
the favour of God that He bears to His people, not simple glad-
ness, but the gladness and goodness of the Lord's chosen. And
sure, though I be the weakest of His witnesses, and unworthy to
be amongst the meanest of them, and am afraid the cause be hurt
(but it cannot be lost) by my unbelieving faintness, I should not
desire a deliverance separated from the deliverance of the Lord's
cause and people. It is enough to me to sing when Zion sings,
and to triumph when Christ triumpheth : I should judge it an
unhappy joy to rejoice when Zion sigheth. "Not one hoof" will be
your peace. If Christ doth own me, let me be in the grave in a
bloody winding-sheet, and go from the scaffold in four quarters to
a grave or no grave, I am His debtor, to seal with sufferings this
precious truth. But oh ! when it comes to the push, I dare say
nothing, considering my weakness, Avickedness, and faintness.
But fear not ye, ye are not, ye shall not be alone, the Father is
with you ; it was not an unseasonable, but a seasonable and neces-
sary duty ye were about. Fear Him who is Sovereign ; Christ is
Captain of the castle, and Lord of the keys. The cooling well-
spring and refreshment from the promises is more than the frown-
ings of the furnace. I see snares and temptations in caijitulating,
composing, ceding, minching,^ with distinctions of circumstances,
formalities, compliments and extenuations in the cause of Christ.
A long spoon, the broth is hell-hot. Hold a distance from carnal
compositions, and much nearness to the fountain, to the favour
and refreshing light from the Father of lights, speaking in His
oracles ; this is sound health and salvation. Angels, men, Zion's
elders, eye us ; but what of all these 1 Christ is by us and looks
on us, and writes up all. Let us pray more, and look less to
men. Remember me to Mr. Scott and all the rest. Blessings be
upon the head of such as are separated from their brethren :
Joseph is a fruitful bough by a well. Grace be with you. Your
1 Mincing.
484 LETTER LXX. [PAKT II
loving brother and companion in the kingdom and patience of
Jesus Christ, S. K.
St. Andrews, 1660.
LETTER LXX.— To Mr. Robert Campbell.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Ye know this is a time in
which all men almost seek their own things, and not the things
of Jesus Christ. Ye are your lone,^ as a beacon on the top of a
mountain ; but faint not, Christ is a numerous multitude Himself,
yea, millions : though all the nations were convened against Him
round about, yet doubt not but He will at last arise for the cry
of the poor and needy. For me, I am now near to eternity, and
for ten thousand worlds I dare not adventure to pass from the
protestation against the corruptions of the time, nor go alongst
with the shameless apostasy of the many silent and dumb watch-
men of Scotland ; but I think it my last duty to enter a protesta-
tion in heaven, before the righteous Judge, against the practical
and legal breach of covenant, and all oaths imposed on the con-
sciences of the Lord's people, and all popish, superstitious, and
idolatrous mandates of men. Know that the overthrow of the
sworn reformation, the introducing of popery and the mystery of
iniquity, is now set on foot in the three kingdoms, and whosoever
would keep their garments clean are under that command,
"Touch not, taste not, handle not." The Lord calls you, dear brother,
to be still " stedfast, immovable, and abounding in the work of the
Lord." Our royal kingly Master is upon His journey, and will
come and will not tarry ; and blessed is the servant who shall be
found watching when He cometh ; fear not men, for the Lord is
your light and salvation. It is true, it is somewhat sad and com-
fortless, that ye are your lone ;i but so it was with our precious
Master ; nor are ye your lone,^ for the Father is with you. It is
possible I shall not be an eye-witness to it in the flesh ; but I
believe He comes quickly, who will remove our darkness, and
will shine gloriously in the isle of Britain, as a crowned King,
either in a formally sworn covenant, or in His own glorious way,
which I leave to the determination of His infinite wisdom and
goodness ; and this is the hope and confidence of a dying man,
who is longing and fainting for the salvation of God. Beware of
the ensnaring bonds and obligations, by anj-- hand-writ or other
ways, to give unlimited obedience to any authority, but only in
the Lord ; for all innocent self-defence (which is according to the
covenant, the word of God, and the laudable example of the
Reformed churches) is now intended to be utterly subverted and
* Alone.
PART II.] LETTER LXX. 485
condemned. And what is taken from Christ, as the flower of
His prerogative royal, is now put ujion the head of a mortal
power, which must be that great idol of indignation, that pro-
voketh the eyes of His glory. Dear brother, let us mind the
rich promises that are made to those that overcome, knowing that
those that endure to the end shall be saved. Thus recommending
you to the rich grace of God, I remain,
Your affectionate brother in Chri&t, S. R.
St. Andrews, 1661.
THE
THIRD PART.
CONTAINING
SOME MORE LETTERS OF THE SAME AUTHOR FROM ANWOTH, EDINBURGH, ETC.
LETTER I.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved and dear Sister, — My love in Christ remem-
bered. I have sent to you your daughter Grissel, with Robert
Gordon, who came to fetch her. I am in good hopes that the
seed of God is in her, as in one born of God, and God's seed will
come to God's harvest. I have her promise she shall be Christ's,
for I have told her she may promise much in His worthy name ;
for He becomes caution to His Father for all such as resolve and
promise to serve Him. I will remember her to God. I trust you
will acquaint her with good company, and be diligent to know
with whom she loveth to haunt. Remember Zion and our neces-
sities. I bless your daughter from our Lord, and pray the Lord
to give you joy and comfort of her. Remember my love to your
husband, to William, and to Samuel, your sons. The Lord Jesus
Christ be with your spirit.
Youi-s at all power in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, June 6, 1624.
LETTER IL— For Marion M'Naught.
Loving and dear Sister, — If ever you would pleasure me,
entreat the Lord for me now when I am so comfortless, and so
full of heaviness that I am not able to stand under the burden
any longer. The Almighty hath doubled His stripes upon me, for
my wife is so sore tormented night and day, that I have wondered
why the Lord tarrieth so long. My life is bitter unto me, and I
fear the Lord be my contrair party.^ It is (as I now know by
experience) hard to keep sight of God in a storm, especially when
He hides Himself for the trial of His children. If He would be
pleased to remove His hand, I have purpose to seek Him more
^ Opponent, enemy.
PAKT III.] LETTER III, 487
than I have done. Happy are they that can win away with their
soul ; I am afraid of His judgments. I bless my God, that there
is a death, and a heaven ; I would weary to begin again to be a
Christian, so bitter is it to drink of the cup that Christ drank of,
if I knew not that there is no poison in it. God give us not of
it while ^ we vomit again, for we have sick souls when God's
physic works not. Pray that God would not lead my wife into
temptation. Woe is my heart that I have done so little against
the kingdom of Satan in my calling ; for he would fain attempt
to make me blaspheme God in his face ; I believe, I believe in the
strength of Him who hath put me in his work, he shall fail in
that which he seeks. I have comfort in this, that my Captain,
Christ, hath said, I must fight and overcome the world, John
xiv. 30 ; and with a weak, spoiled, weaponless devil, John xvi.
33. " The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."
Desire Mr. Robert to remember me, if he love me. Grace, grace
be with you, and all yours ; remember Zion. There is a letter
procured from the king by Mr. John Maxwell to urge conformity,
to give the communion at Christmas in Edinburgh. Hold fast
that which you have, that no man take the crown from you. The
Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Vours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, Nov. 17, 1629.
LETTER IIL— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved and dear Sister, — My love in the Lord Jesus
remembered. I understand that you are still under the Lord's
visitation in your former business with your enemies, which is
God's dealing ; for till He take His children out of the furnace,
that knoweth how long they should be tried, there is no deliver-
ance ; but after God's highest and fullest tide, that the sea of trou-
ble is gone over the souls of His children, then comes the gracious
long-hoped-for ebbing and drying up of the waters. Dear sister,
do not faint ; the wicked may hold tiie bitter cup to your head,
but God mixeth it, and there is no poison in it : they strike, but
God moves the rod ; Shimei curseth, but it is because the Lord
bids Him. I tell you, and I have it from Him before whom I
stand (for God's people), there is a decree given out, in the great
court of the highest heavens, that your present troubles shall be
dispersed as the morning cloud, and God shall bring forth your
righteousness as the light of the noontide of the day. Let me en-
treat you in Christ's name, to keep a good conscience in your pro-
ceedings in that matter, and beware of yourself; yourself is a more
dangerous enemy than I or any Avithout you. Innocence and an up-
1 Until.
488 LETTER III. [part III.
right cause is a good advocate before God, and shall plead for you,
and win your cause. And count much of your Master's approbation,
and His smiling ; He is now as the king that has gone to a far
country. God seems to be from home (if I may say so), yet He
sees the ill servants, who say our Master deferreth His coming, and
so strike their fellow-servants. But patience, my beloved, Christ
the King is coming home, the evening is at hand, and He will ask
an account of His servants ; make a fair, clear count to Him. So
carry yourself, as at night you may say, " Master, I have wronged
none, behold, you have your own with advantage." 0 ! your soul
then will esteem much of one of God's kisses and embracements,
in the testimony of a good conscience. The wicked, howbeit they
be casting many evil thoughts, bitter words, and sinful deeds be-,
hind their back, yet they are in so doing clerks to their own pro-
cess, and doing nothing all their life, but gathering dittays^ against
themselves. For God is angry at the wicked every day ; and I
hope your present process shall be sighted one day by Him who
knoweth your just cause ; and the bloody tongues, crafty foxes,
double engrained hypocrites, shall appear as they are before His
Majest)^, when He shall take the mask off their faces ; and, 0,
thrice happy shall your soul be then, when God finds you
covered with nothing but the white robe of the saints' innocence,
and the righteousness of Jesus Christ. You have been of late in
the King's wine-cellar, where you were welcomed by the Lord of
the inn, upon condition that ye would walk in love ; put on love,
and brotherly kindness, and long-suffering ; wait as long upon the
favour and turned hearts of your enemies, as your Christ waited
upon you, and as dear Jesus stood at your soul's door with dewy
and rainy locks, the long cold night ; be angry but sin not. I
persuade myself that holy unction within you, Avhich teacheth you
all things, is also saying, Overcome evil with good. If that had
not spoken in your soul, at the tears of your aged pastor, you
would not have agreed, and forgiven his foolish son who wronged
you, but my Master bade me tell you, God's blessing shall be upon
you for it ; and from Him I say, Grace, grace, grace and everlast-
ing peace be upon you. It is my prayer for you, that your carriage
may grace and adorn the Gospel of that Lord who hath graced you.
I heard your husband is also sick ; but I beseech you in the bowels
of Jesus, welcome every rod of God ; for I find not in the whole
book of God, a greater note of the child of God, than to fall down
and kiss the feet of an angry God ; and when He seems to put you
away from Him, and loose your hands that grip Him, to look up
in faith, and say, I shall not, I will not be put away from thee,
howbeit thy Majesty draw to free Thyself off me ; yet, Lord, give
^ Accusations.
PAIIT III.] LETTEK III. 489
me leave to hold and cleave unto Thyself. I will pray that your
husband may return in peace ; your decree comes from heaven,
look up thither, " For many (says Solomon) seek the face of the
ruler, but every man's judgment cometh of the Lord ;" and be glad
that it is so, for Christ is the clerk of your process, and will see
that all go right ; and I persuade myself He is saying, " Yonder
servants of mine are wronged ; for my blood. Father, give them
justice." Think you not, dear sister, but our High Priest, our
Jesus, the Master of requests, presents our bills of complaint to the
Great Lord Justice. Yea, I believe it, since He is our Advocate,
and Daniel calls Him the Spokesman, whose hand presents all to the
Father. For other business, I say nothing, while ^ the Lord give
me to see your face. I am credibly informed, that multitudes of
England, and especially worthy preachers, and silenced preachers
of London, are gone to New England ; and I know one learned
holy preacher, who hath written against the Arminians, who is
gone thither. Our blessed Lord Jesus, who cannot get leave to
sleep with His spouse in this land, is going to seek an inn where
He will be better entertained ; and what marvel, wearied Jesus,
after He had travelled from Geneva, by the ministry of worthy
Mr. Knox, and was laid down in His bed, and reformation begun,
and the curtains drawn, had not gotten His dear eyes well together,
when irreverent bishops came in, and with the din and noise of
ceremonies, holy days, and other Eomish corruptions, they awake
our Beloved ; others came to His bedside and drew the curtains,
and put hands on His servants, banished, deprived and confined
them ; and for the pulpit they got a stool and a cold fire in the
blackness; and the nobility drew the covering off Him, and have made
Him made a poor naked Christ, in spoiling His servants of the tithes
and kirk-rents. And now there is such a noise of crying sins in
the land, as the want of the knowledge of God, of mercy and
truth ; such swearing, whoring, lying, and blood touching blood,
that Christ is putting on His clothes, and making Him like an ill
handled stranger, to go to other lands. Pray Him, sister, to He
down again with His Beloved. Eemember my dearest love to
John Gordon, to whom I will write when I am strong, and to John
Brown, Grissel, Samuel, and William ; grace be upon them. As
you love Christ, keep Christ's favour, and put not upon Him when
He sleeps, to awake Him before He please. The Lord Jesus be
with your spirit. Your brother in Christ, S. R.
Anwotli, July 21, 1630.
' Till.
490 LETTER IV. [part III.
LETTER IV.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well beloved Sister, — I have been thinking, since ray de-
parture from you, of the pride and malice of your adversaries, and
ye may not (since ye have heard the book of the Psalms so often)
take hardly with this ; for David's enemies snuffed at him, and
through the pride of their heart said, " The Lord will not require
it," Psal. X. 1 3. I beseech you, therefore, in the bowels of Christ,
set before your eyes the patience of your forerunner Jesus, " who,
when He was reviled, reviled not again ; when He suffered. He
threatened not ; but committed Himself to Him who judgeth
righteously," 1 Pet. ii. 23. And since your Lord and Redeemer,
with patience, received many a black stroke on His glorious back,
and many a buffet of the unbelieving world, and says of Himself
(Isa. i. 6), " I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them
that plucked off the hair : I hid not my face from shame and spit-
ting ;" follow Him, and think it not hard that you receive a blow
with your Lord ; take part with Jesus of His suffering, and glory
in the marks of Christ. If this storm were over, you must prepare
yourself for a new wound ; for, five thousand years ago, our Lord
pi'oclaimed deadly war betwixt the seed of the woman and the
seed of the serpent ; and marvel not that one town cannot keep
the children of God and the children of the devil ; for one belly
could not keep Jacob and Esau ; one house could not keep peaceably
together Isaac the son of the promise, and Ishmael the son of the hand-
maid. Be you upon Christ's side of it, and care not what flesh
can do ; hold yourself fast by your Saviour, howbeit you be buf-
feted, and those that follow Him; " yet a little while and the wicked
shall not be :" see 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9. " We are troubled on every
side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, but not in despair ;
persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." If
you can possess your soul in patience, their day is coming. Wor-
thy and dear sister, know to carry yourself in trouble ; and when
you are hated and reproached, the Lord shows it to you, Psal. xliv.
17, "All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee,
neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant." Psal. cxix. 92,
" Unless thy law had been my delight, I had perished in mine af-
flictions." Keep God's covenant in your trials ; hold you by His
blessed word, and sin not ; flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying,
fretting ; forgive an hundred pence to your fellow-servant, because
your Lord hath forgiven you ten thousand talents. For I assure
you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no advantage against
you, except you sin, and offend your Lord in your suff'erings; but
the way to overcome is by patience, forgiving and praying for your
enemies, in doing whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and
PART III.] LETTER V. 491
your Lord shall open a door to you in your troubles. Wait upon
Him, as the night-watch waiteth for the morning ; He will not
tarry, go up to your watch-tower, and come not down, but by prayer,
and faith, and hope, wait on. When the sea is full, it will ebb again ;
and so soon as the wicked are come to the top of their pride, and
are waxed high and mighty, then is their change approaching,
" They that believe make not haste." Remember Zion, forget her
not ; for her enemies are many, for the nations are gathered to-
gether against her : " But they know not the thoughts of the Lord,
neither understand they His counsel : for He shall gather them as
the sheaves into the floor : arise and thresh, 0 daughter of Zion,"
Mic. iv. 12, 13. Behold God hath gathered His enemies together
as sheaves to the threshing; let us stay and rest upon these promises.
Now again, I trust in our Lord you shall by faith sustain yourself,
and comfort yourself in your Lord, and be strong in His power ;
for you are in the beaten and common way to heaven, when you
are under our Lord's crosses ; you have reason to rejoice in it,
more than in a crown of gold, and rejoice and be glad to bear the
reproaches of Christ. I rest recommending you and yours for ever
to the grace and mercy of God.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 11, 1631.
LETTER v.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved in the Lord, — You are not unacquainted with the
day of our communion;^ I entreat, therefore, the aid of your prayers
for that great work, which is one of our feast days, wherein our
Well-Beloved Jesus rejoiceth, and is merry with His friends. Good
cause have we to wonder at His love, since the day of His death
was such a sorrowful day to Him, even the day when His mother,
the kirk, crowned Him with thorns, and He had many against
Him, and compeared His lone ^ in the field against them all ; yet
He delights with us to remember that day. Let us love Him, and
be glad and rejoice in His salvation. I am confident that you shall
see the Son of God that day ; and I dare in His name invite you
to His banquet. Many a time you have been well entertained in
His house, and He changes not upon His friends, nor chides them
for too great kindness ; yet I speak not this to make you leave off
to pray for me, who have nothing of myself, but in so far as daily
I receive from Him, who is made of His father a running-over
fountain, at which I and others may come with thirsty souls, and
fill our vessels ; long hath this well been standing open to us ;
Lord Jesus, lock it not up again upon us. I am sorry for our
^ Dispensation of the Lord's Supper. * Alone.
492 LETTER VI. [part III.
desolate kirk ; yet I dare not but trust, so long as there be any of
God's lost money here, He shall not blow out the candle. Lord,
make fair candlesticks in His house, and remove the blind lights.
I have been this time by-past thinking much of the incoming of the
kirk of the Jews — pray for them. When they were in their Lord's
house, at their Father's elbow, they were longing for the incoming
of their little sister, the kirks of the Gentiles. They said to their
Lord, Cant. viii. ver. 8, " We have a little sister, and she hath no
breasts, what shall we do for our sister, in the day when she shall
be spoken for f Let us give them a meeting, what shall we do
for our elder sister the Jews 1 Lord Jesus, give them breasts.
That were a glad day to see us and them both set down to one table,
and Christ at the head of the table. Then would our Lord come
shortly with His fair guard, to hold His great court. Dear sister, be
patient for the Lord's sake, under tlie wrongs that you suffer of the
wicked. Your Lord shall make you see your desire on your enemies,
some of them shall be cut off, Job xv. 33, "They shall shake off their
unripe grapes as the vine, and cast off their flower as the olive ;"
God shall make them like unripe sour grapes, shaken off the tree
with the blast of God's wrath ; and therefore pity them and pray
for them ; others of them must remain to exercise you, God hath
said of them. Let the tares grow up until harvest. Matt. xiii. It
proves you to be your Lord's wheat. Be patient, Christ went to
heaven with many a wrong. His visage and countenance was all
marred more than the sons of men. You may not be above your
Master ; many a black stroke received innocent Jesus, and He re-
ceived no mends, ^ but referred them all to the great court-day,
when all things shall be righted. I desire to hear from you, within
a day or two, if Mr. Robert remain in his purpose to come and
help us. God shall give you joy of your children. I pray for them
by their names. I bless you from our Lord, your husband and
children. Grace, grace, and mercy be multiplied upon you.
Yours, in the Lord for ever, S. R.
Anwoth, May 7, 1631.
LETTER VI.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved Sister, — My love in Christ remembered. I
have received a letter from Edinburgh, certainly informing me,
that the English service, and the organs, and King James's psalms,
are to be imposed upon our kirk, and the bishops are dealing for
a general assembly. A. R. hath confirmed the news also, and
says he spoke with Sir William Alexander, who is to come down
with his prince's warrant for that effect. I am desired, in the
^ Amends.
PART III.] LETTER VI. 493
received letter, to acquaint the best aft'ected about me with that
storm ; therefore I entreat you, and charge you in the Lord's
name, pray ; but do not communicate this to any, till I see you.
My heart is broken at the remembrance of it, and it was my fear,
and answereth to my last letter except one, that I wrote unto
you. Dearly beloved, be not casten down, but let us, as our
Lord's doves, take us to our wings, for other armour we have
none, and flee into the hole of the Rock. It is true, A. R. says,
the worthiest men in England are banished, and silenced about
the number of sixteen or seventeen choice gospel preachers, and
the persecution is already begun. Howbeit I do not write this
unto you Avith a dry face, yet I am confident in the Lord's strength,
Christ and His side shall overcome, and you shall be assured, the
kirk were not a kirk, if it were not so ; as our dear Husband in
wooing His kirk received many a black stroke ; so His bride in
Avooing Him gets many blows, and in this wooing there are strokes
upon both sides ; let it be so, the devil will not make the marriage
go back, neither can he tear the contract, the end shall be mercy.
Yet notwithstanding of all this, we have no warrant of God to
leave off all lawful means. I have been writing unto you the
counsels and draughts of men against the kirk ; but they know
not, as Micah says, the counsel of Jehovah. The great men of the
world may make ready the fiery furnace for Zion ; but trow ye
that they can cause the fire to burn 1 No, He that made the fire,
1 trust shall not say Amen to their decreet. I trust in my Lord,
that God hath not subscribed their bill, and their conclusions have
not yet passed our great King's seal. Therefore, if ye think good,
address yourself first to the Lord, and then to A. R. anent the
business that you know. I am most unkindly handled by the
presbytery ; and, as if I had been a stranger, and not a member
of that seat, to sit in judgment with them, I was summoned by
their order as a witness against B. A., but they have got no ad-
vantage in that matter. Other particulars you shall hear, God
willing, at meeting. Anent the matter betwixt you and I. E., I
remember it to God. I entreat you in the Lord, be submissive to
His will, for the higher that their pride mounts up, they are the
nearer a fall ; the Lord will more and more discover that man.
Let your husband in all matters of judgment take Christ's part for
the defence of the poor and needy and the oppressed ; for the
maintenance of equity and justice in the town ; and take you no
fear ; He shall take your part, and then you are strong enough.
What 1 howbeit you receive indignities for your Lord's sake, let it
be so. When He shall put His holy hand up to your face in
heaven, and dry your face, and wipe the tears from your eyes,
judge ye, if you will not have cause then to rejoice. Anent other
494 LETTERS VII. AND VIII. [PAKT III.
particulars, if you would speak with me, appoint any of the first
three days of the next week in Carletoun, when Carletoun is at
home, and acquaint me with your desires ; and remember me to
God, and my dearest affection to your husband, and for Zion's sake
hold not your peace. The grace of our Lord Jesus be witli you,
and your husband, and children.
Yours, in the Lord, S. E.
Amvoth, June 2, 1631.
LETTER VII. —For Marion M'Naught.
Dear Mistress, — I have not time this day to write to you ;
but God knowing my present state and necessities of my calling,
will I hope spare my mother's life for a time, for the which I have
cause to thank the Lord. I entreat you, be not cast down for
that which I wrote before to you, anent the planting of a minister
in your town : believe, and you shall see the salvation of God. I
write this, because when you suff"er my heart suffereth with you.
I do believe your soul shall have joy in your labours and holy de-
sires for that work. Grace be upon you, and your husband, and
children. Yours, ever in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER VIIL— For Marion M'Naught.
Beloved Mistress, — My dearest love in Christ remembered to
you. Know that Mr. Abraham showed me there is to be a meet-
ing of the bishops at Edinburgh shortly : the causes are known to
themselves. It is our part to hold up our hands for Zion. How-
beit it is reported they came sad from court. It is our Lord's
wisdom that His kirk should ever hang by a thread, and yet the
thread breaketh not, being hanged upon Him, who is the sure
nail in David's house, Isa. xxii. 22 ; upon whom all the vessels,
great and small, do hang, and the nail (God be thanked) neither
crooketh nor can be broken. Jesus, that flower of Jesse set with-
out hands, getteth many a blast, and yet withers not, because He
is His Father's noble rose, casting a sweet smell tlirough heaven
and earth, and must grow ; and in the same garden with Him
grow the saints, God's fair and beautiful lilies, under wind and rain,
and all sun-burned, and yet life remaineth at the root. Keep
within His garden, and you shall grow with them, till the greac
Husbandman, our dear Master-Gardener, come and transplant you
from the lower part of His vineyard, up to the higher, to the very
heart of His garden, above the wrongs of the rain, sun, or wind ;
and then wait upon the times of the blowing of the sweet south
PAKT III.] LETTER VIII. 495
and north wind of His gracious Spirit, that may make you cast a
sweet smell in your Beloved's nostrils, and bid your Beloved come
down to His garden, and eat of His pleasant fruits, Cant. iv. 16,
and He will come. You will get no more but this until you come
up to the well-head, where you shall put up your hand and take
down the apples of the tree of life, and eat under the shadow of
that tree ; these apples are sweeter up beside the tree than they
are down here in this piece of a clay prison house. I have no joy
but in the thoughts of these times. Doubt not of your Lord's part,
and the spouse's part, she shall be in good case. That word shall
stand, Hos. xiv. 5, " I shall be as the dew to Israel, he shall grow
up as the lily, and cast out his root as Lebanon ;" verse 6, " His
branches shall spread, his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his
smell as Lebanon." Isa. xi. 12, " Christ shall set up His colours,
and His ensign for the nations, and shall gather together the out-
casts of Israel." Ezek. xxxvii. 11, "Then the Lord said to me,
Son of man, these dead bones are the whole house of Israel ; be-
hold they say, our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off
for our parts ;" verse 12, " Therefore prophesy unto them, and say,
thus saith the Lord God, behold, 0 my people, I will open your
gi'aves, and cause you come up out of your graves, and bring you
into the land of Israel." These promises are not Avind, but the
breasts of our beloved Christ, which we must suck and draw com-
fort out of. Ye have cause to pity those poor creatures that stand
out against Christ and the building of His house. Silly^ men, they
have but a feckless ^ and silly ^ heaven, nothing but meat and cloth,
and laugh a day or two in the world ; and then, in a moment, go
down to the grave, and they shall not be able to hinder Christ's
building. He that is Master of work will lead stones to the wall
over their belly ; and for that present tumult, that the children of
this world raise anent the planting of your town with a pastor, be-
lieve and stay upon God (as you still shame us all in believing) j
go forward in the strength of the Lord ; and from my Lord I savj
before Avhom I stand, have your eyes upon none but the Lord oi
armies, and the Lord shall either let you see what you long to see,
or then else fulfil your joy more abundantly another way. You
and yours, and the children of God whom you care for in this town,
shall have as much of the Son of God's supjier, cut and laid down
upon your trenchers, be who he will that carveth, as shall feed you
to eternal life ; and be not cast down for all that is done, your re-
ward is laid up with God. I hope to see you laugh and leap for
joy. Will the temple be built without din and tumult? No;
God's stones of His house in Germany are laid with blood, and the
Son of God no sooner begins to chop and hew stones with His
1 Fond. a Worthless.
496 LETTER VIII, [part UI.
hammer, but as soon the sword is drawn. If the work were of
men, the world would set their shoulders to yours ; but in Christ's
work, two or three must fight against a presbytery (though His
own court) and a city. This proveth that it is Christ's errand,
and therefore that it shall thrive. Let them lay iron chains cross
over the door : stay, and believe, and wait while ^ the Lion of the
tribe of Judah come, and He that comes from heaven, clothed with
the rainbow, and hath the little book in His hand, when He takes
a grip of their chains, He will lay the door on the broadside, and
come in, and go up to the pulpit, and take the men with Him
whom He hath chosen for His work ; therefore let me hear from
you, whether you be in heaviness, or rejoicing under hope, that I
may talve part of your grief and bear it with you, and get part of
your joy, which is to me also as my own joy. And as to what are
your fears anent the health or life of your dear children, lay it
upon Christ's shoulders : let Him bear all ; loose your grips of
them all ; and when your clear Lord pulleth, let them go with
faith and joy. It is a tried faith to kiss a Lord that is taking
from you. Let them be careful, during the short time that they
are here, to run, and get a grip of the prize ; Christ is standing in
the end of their way, holding up the garland of endless glory to
their eyes, and is crying, Kun fast, and come, and receive. Happy
are they if their breath serve them to run, and not to weary, while ^
their Lord, with His own dear hand, puts the crown upon their
head. It is not long days, but good days, that make life glorious
and happy ; and our dear Lord is gracious to us, who shorteneth
and hath made the way to glory shorter than it was : so that the
crown that Noah did fight for five hundred years, children may
now obtain it in fifteen years ; and heaven is in some sort better
for us now than it was to Noah ; for the man Christ is there now,
who was not come in the flesh in Noah's days. You shall show
this to your children, whom my soul in Christ blesseth, and entreat
them, by the mercies of God and the bowels of Jesus Christ, to
covenant with Jesus Christ to be His, and to make up the bond of
friendship betwixt their souls and their Christ, that they may have
acquaintance in heaven, and a friend at God's right hand : such a
Friend at court is much worth. Now I take my leave of you,
praying my Christ and your Christ to fulfil your joy, and more
graces and blessings from our sweet Lord Jesus to your soul, your
husband's and children's, than ever I wrote of letters of A, B, C,
to you. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in my sweet Master Jesus Christ, S. E.
Auwotb, March 9, 1632.
1 UntU.
PART 111.] LETTER IX. 497
LETTER IX.— For Marion M'Naught.
Dearly beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered.
You are not ignorant what our Lord in His love-visitation hath
been doing with your soul, even letting you see a little sight of that
dark trance ^ you must go through ere you come to glory. Your
life hath been near the grave, and you Avere at the door, and you
found the door shut fast ; your dear Christ thinking it not time to
open these gates to you, till ye have fought some longer in His
camp ; and therefore He willeth you to put on your armour again,
and to take no truce with the devil, or this present world. You
are little obliged to any of the two : but I rejoice in this, that
when any of the two comes to suit - your soul in marriage, you
have an answer in readiness to tell them, " you are too long in
coming. I have many a year since promised my soul to another,
even to my dearest Lord Jesus, to whom I must be true :" and
therefore you are come back to us again to help us to pray for
Christ's fair bride, a marrow ^ dear to Him. Be not cast down in
heart, to hear that the world barketh at Chiist's strangers, both in
Ireland and in this land ; they do it because their Lord hath chosen
them out of this world ; and this is one of our Lord's reproaches,
to be hated and ill-treated by men. The silly stranger in an un-
couth country must take with smoky inns, and coarse cheer, and
a hard bed, and a barking, ill-tongued host. It is not long to-day,
and he will to his journey on the morrow, and leave them all. In-
deed our fair morning is at hand, the day-star is near the rising,
and we are not many miles from home ; what matters the ill en-
tertainment in the smoky inns of this miserable life 1 we are not
to stay here, and we will be dearly welcome to Him whom we go
to. And I hope, when I shall see you clothed in white raiment,
washed in the blood of the Lamb, and shall see you even at the
elbow of your dearest Lord and Redeemer, and a crown upon your
head, and following our Lamb, and lovely Lord, whithersoever He
goeth, you will think nothing of all these days, and you shall then
rejoice, and no man shall take your joy from you. It is certain,
there is not much sand to run in your Lord's sand-glass, and that
day is at hand, and till then your Lord in this life is giving you
some little feasts. It is true, you see Him not now, as you shall
see Him then ; your Well-Beloved standeth now behind the wall,
looking out at the window. Cant. ii. 9, and you see but a little of
His face ; then you shall see . all His face, and all the Saviour, a
long, and high, and broad Lord Jesus, the loveliest person among
the children of men. 0 joy of joys ! that our souls know there is
such a great supper preparing for us, even howbeit we he but half
" Woo. 2 Partner.
2 I
4:98 LETTER IX. [part III.
hungered of Christ here, and many a time dine behind noon, yet
the supper of the Lamb will come in time, and will be set before us,
before we famish and lose our stomachs.^ You have cause to hold
up your heart in remembrance and hope of that fair, long summer
day ; for in this night of your life, wherein you are in the body,
absent from the Lord, Christ's fair moonlight in His word and
sacraments, in prayer, feeling, and holy conference, hath shined
upon you, to let you see the way to the city. I confess our diet
here is but sparing, we get but tastings of our Lord's comforts ;
but the cause of that is not because our Steward Jesus is a niggard
and narrow-hearted, but because our stomachs are weak, and we
are narrow-hearted : but the great feast is coming, when our hearts
shall be enlarged, and the chambers of them made fair and wide,
to take in the great Lord Jesus : come in then, Lord Jesus, to hun-
gry souls, gaping for thee. In this journey, take the Bridegroom,
as you may have Him, and be greedy of His smallest crumbs ; but,
dear mistress, buy none of Christ's delicates spiritual with sin, or
fasting against your weak body : remember you are in the body,
and it is the lodging-house, and you may not, without offending
the Lord, suffer the walls of that house to fall down through want
of necessary food ; your body is the dwelling-house of the Spirit,
and therefore, for the love you carry to the sweet guest, give a
due regard to His house of clay ; when He looseth the wall, why
not, welcome Lord Jesus ? but it is a fearful sin in us, by hurting
the body by fasting, to loose one stone, or the least piece of tim-
ber in it ; for the house is not our own, the Bridegroom is with
you yet : so fast, as that also you may feast, and rejoice in Him.
I think upon your magistrates ; but He that is clothed in linen,
and hath the writer's ink-horn by His side, hath written up their
names in heaven already ; pray, and be content with His will ;
God hath a council-house in heaven, and the end will be mercy
unto you. For the planting of your town with a godly minister,
have your eye upon the Lord of the harvest; I dare promise
you, God in this life shall fill your soul with the fatness of His
house, for your care to see Christ's bairns fed ; and your posterity
shall know it, to whom I pray for mercy, and that they may get
a name amongst the living in Jerusalem : and if God portion them
with His bairns, their rent is fair, and I hope it shall be so. The
Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, ever in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Sept. 19, 1632.
' Appetites.
PART III.] LETTERS X. AND XI. 499
LETTER X.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved Sister in Christ, — You shall understand, I
have received a letter from Edinburgh, that it is suspected that
there will be a general assembly, or then ^ some meeting of the
bishops, and that at this synod there will be some commissioners
chosen by the bishop, which news have so taken up my mind, that
I am not so settled for studies as I have been before, and therefore
was never in such fear for the Avork ; but because it is written to
me as a secret, I dare not reveal it to any but to yourself, whom
I know ; and therefore, I entreat you, not for any comfort of mine,
who am but one man, but for the glory and honour of Jesus Christ,
the Master of the banquet, be more earnest with God, and in
general show others of your Christian acquaintance my fears for
myself, I can be content of shame in that work, if my Lord and
Master be honoured, and therefore petition our Lord especially to
see His own glory, and to give bread to His hungry bairns, how-
beit I go hungry away from the feast. Eequest Mr. Robert from
me, if he come not, to remember us to our Lord. I have neither
time nor a free-disposed mind to write to you anent ^ your own
case. Send me word if all your children and husband be well ;
seeing they are not yours, but your dear Lord's, esteem them but
as borrowed, and lay them down at God's feet ; your Christ to
you is better than they all. You will pardon my unaccustomed
short letter, and remember me, and that honourable feast, to our
Lord Jesus. He was with us before, I hope He will not change
upon us, but I fear I have changed upon Him ; but, Lord, let old
kindness stand ! Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XL— To Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved and dear Sister,— My tender affection in
Christ remembered. I left you in as great heaviness as I was in
since I came to this country; but I know you doubt not but (as
the truth in Christ is) my soul is knit to your soul, and to the soul
of all yours, and I would, if I could, send you the largest part of
my heart enclosed in this letter ; but by fervent calling upon my
Lord, I have attained some victory over my heart, which runneth
often not knowing whither, and over my beguiling hopes, which I
know now better than I did. I trust in my Lord, to hold aloof
from the enticings of a seducing heart, by which I am daily coz-
ened, and I mind not by His grace, who hath called me according
^ Else. 2 Respecting.
500 LETTER XI. [part III.
to His eternal purpose, to come so far within the grips of my fool-
ish mind, gripping about any folly coming in its way, as the Avood-
bine or ivy goeth about the tree. I adore and kiss the providence
of my Lord, who knoweth well what is most expedient for me, and
for you, and your children ; and I think of you as of myself, that
the Lord who (in His deep wisdom) turneth about all the wdieels
and turning of such changes, shall also dispose of that for the best
to you and yours. In the presence of my Lord, I am not able,
howbeit I would, to conceive amiss of you in that matter. Grace,
grace for ever, be upon you and your seed ; and it shall be your
portion, in despite of all the powers of darkness ; do not make
more question of this. But the Lord saw a nail in my heart loose,
and He hath now fastened it, honour be to His Majesty. I hear
your son is entered to the school ; if I had known of the day, I
would have begged from our Lord, that He would have put the
book in his hand, with His own hand ; I trust in my Lord it is so,
and I conceive hope to see him a star to give light in some room
of our Lord's house, and purpose by the Lord's grace, as I am able
(if our Lord call you to rest before me), when you are at your
home, to do to the uttermost of my power to help him every way,
in grace and learning, and his brother, and all your children, and
I hope you would expect that of me. Further you shall know,
that Mr. W. D. is come home, who saith it is a miracle, that your
husband in this process before the council, escaped both discredit
and damage : let it not be forgotten, he was in our apprehension,
to our grief, cast down and humbled in the Lord's work, in that
matter betwixt him and the bailie ; now the Lord hath honoured
him, and made him famous for virtue, honesty, and integrity, two
several times before the nobles of this kingdom. Your Lord liveth,
we will go to His throne of grace again, His arm is not shortened.
The king is certainly expected. Ill is feared ; we have cause, for
our sins," to fear that the Bridegroom shall be taken from us ; by
our sins, we have rent His fair garments, and Ave have stirred up
and awakened our Beloved ; pray Him to tarry, or then ^ to take
us with Him ; it were good that we should knock and rap at our
Lord's door. We may not tire to knock oftener than twice or
thrice, He knoweth the knock of His friends, I am still, Avhat I
was ever to your dear children, tendering their souls' happiness,
and prayiag that grace, grace, grace, mercy, and peace, from God,
even God our Father, and our Lord Jesus, may be their portion,
and that noAv while they are green and young, their hearts may
take band with Jesus the Corner-stohe, and Avin once in, in our
Lord and Saviour's house, and then they will not get leave to flit.^
Pray for me, and especially for humility and thankfulness. I have
1 Else. * Remove.
PART III.] LETTERS XII. AND XIII. 501
always remembrance of you, and your husband, and dear children.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, evermore in my dear Lord Jesus and yours, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XIL— To Marion M' Naught.
Well-beloved and dear Sister, — My love in Christ remem-
bered. God hath brought me home from a place where I have
been exercised with great heaviness ; and I have found at home
new matter of great heaviness ; yet dare not but in all things give
thanks. In my business in Edinburgh I have not sinned, nor
wronged my party, by his own confession and by the confession of
his friends ; I have given of my goods for peace, and the saving of
my Lord's truth from reproaches, which is dearer to me than all I
have. My mother is weak, and I think shall leave me alone ; but
I am not alone, because Christ's Father is with me. For your
business anent your town, I see great evidences ; but Satan and
his instruments are against it, and few set their shoulders to Christ's
shoulder to help Him ; but He will do all His lone,i and I dare
not but exhort you to believe, and persuade you that the hungry
in your city shall be fed, and the rest that want a stomach, the
parings of God's loaf will suffice them ; and therefore, believe it
shall be well. I may not leave my mother to come and confer
with you of all particulars ; I have given such directions to our
dear friend as I can, but the event is in our Lord's hand. God's
Zion abroad flourisheth, and His arm is not shortened with
us, if we could believe. There is scai-city and a famine of the word
of God in Edinburgh. Your sister, Jean, laboureth mightily in
our business ; but hath not as yet gotten any answer from I. P.
Mr. A. C. will work what he can ; my lady saith she can do little,
and that it suiteth not her nor her husband well to speak in such
an affair : I told her my mind plainly. I long to know of your
estate ; remember me heai'tily to your dear husband : grace be the
portion of your bairns. I know you are mindful of the green
Avound of our sister kirk in Ireland ; bid our Lord lay a plaster to
it. He hath good skill to do so, and set others to work. Grace,
grace upon your soul and body, and all yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XIIL— For Marion M'Naugiit.
Well-beloved and dear Sister, — I know your heart is cast
down for the desolation like to come upon this kirk, and the ap
' By himself.
502 LETTER XIII. [part III.
pearance that a hireling shall be thrust in upon Christ's ftock in
that town ; but send a heavy heart up to Christ, it shall be wel-
come. Those who are with the beast and the dragon, must make
war with the Lamb ; but the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is
the Lord of lords and King of kings, and they who are with Him
are called, and chosen, and faithful, Eev. xvii. 14. Our ten days
shall have an end ; all the former things shall be forgotten, when
we shall be up before the throne. Christ hath been ever thus in
the world. He hath always the defender's part, and hath been still
in the camp, fighting the church's battles. The enemies of the
Son of God will be fed with their own flesh, and shall drink their
own blood ; and therefore their part of it shall at last be found
hard enough ; so that we may look forward and pity them : until
the number of the elect be fulfilled, Christ's garments must be
rolled in blood. He cometh from Edom, from the slaughter of
His enemies, Isa. Ixiii. 1, "clothed with dyed garments, glorious
in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength." Who
is this (saith He) that appears in this glorious posture 1 Our great
He, that He who is mighty to save ; whose glory shineth while
He sprinkleth the blood of His adversaries and staineth all His
raiment. The glory of His righteous revenges shineth forth in
these stains; but seeing our world is not here-away, we poor
children, far from home, must steal through many waters, weep-
ing as we go, and withal believing that we do the Lord's faithful-
ness no wrong, seeing He hath said, Isa. li. 12, "I, even I, am He
that comforteth you ; who art thou that art afraid of a man that
shall die, and of the son of man that shall be made as grass ? "
Isa. xliii. 2, " When thou passest through the waters, I will be
with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee ;
when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt,
neither shall the flames kindle upon thee." There is a cloud
gathering, and a storm coming ; this land shall be turned up-side
down, and if ever the Lord spake to me (think on it), Christ's
bride will be glad of a hole to hide her head in ; and the dragon
may so prevail, as to chase the woman and her man-child over
sea ; but there shall be a gleaning, two or three berries left in the
top of the olive-tree, of whom God shall say, destroy them not,
for there is a blessing in them. Thereafter there shall be a fair
sun-blink on Christ's old spouse, and a clear sky, and she shall
sing as in the days of her youth. The Antichrist and the great
red dragon will lop Christ's branches, and bring His vine to a low
stump, under the feet of those who carry the mark of the beast ;
but the Plant of renown, the man whose name is the Branch, will
bud forth again and blossom as the rose, and there shall be fair
white flourishes again with most pleasant fruits upon that tree of
PART III.J LETTER XIV. 503
life. A fair season may He have ! Grace, grace be upon that
blessed and beautiful tree, under whose shadow we shall sit, and
His fruit shall be sweet to our taste. But Christ shall woo His
handful in the fire, and choose His own in the furnace of affliction;
but be it so, He dow^ not, He will not slay His children; love will
not let Him make a full end. The covenant will cause Him hold
his hand. Fear not then, saith the First and the Last, He who
was dead and is alive. We see not Christ sharpening and furbish-
ing His sword for His enemies ; and therefore our faithless hearts,
say, as Zion did, " the Lord hath forsaken me." But God reprov-
eth her, and saith, " Well, well, Zion, is that well said 1 think
again on it; you are in the wrong to me." Isa. xlix. 15, "Can a
woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have com-
passion on the fruit of her womb 1 yea, she may ; yet will I not
forget thee;" ver. 16, "Behold, I have engraven thee upon th3
palms of my hands." You break your heart and grow heavy, and
forget that Christ hath your name engraven on the palms of His
hands in great letters. In the name of the Son of God, believe
that buried Scotland, dead and buried with her dear Bridegroom,
shall rise the third day again, and there shall be a new growth
after the old timber is cut down. I recommend you and your
burdens, and heavy heart, to the supporting of His grace and
good-will, who dwelt in the bush, to Him who was separated from
His brethren. Try your husband afar oflf, to see if he can be in-
duced to think upon going to America. 0 to see the sight, next to
Christ's coming in the clouds, the most joyful ! our elder brethren,
the Jews and Christ fall upon one another's necks, and kiss each
other ! they have been long asunder, they will be kind to one
another when they meet. 0 day, 0 longed-for and lovely day,
dawn ! 0 sweet Jesus, let me see that sight, which will be as life
from the dead, thee and thy ancient people in mutual embraces !
Desire your daughter to close with Christ, upon terms of suffering
for Him ; for the cross is an old mealing ^ and plot of ground that
lieth to Christ's house. Our dear Chief had aye that rent lying
to His inheritance ; but tell her the day is near the dawning, the
sky is riving, our Beloved will be on us ere ever we be aware, the
Antichrist, and death, and hell, and Christ's enemies and ours
will be bound, and cast into the bottomless pit. The Lord Jesus
be with your spirit. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 22, 1635.
LETTER XIV.— To Marion M'Naught.
Loving and dear Sister, — For Zion's sake hold not your
peace, neither be discouraged, for the on-going of this persecution;
' Can. - Croft.
504 LETTER XIV. [PART III.
Jehovah is in this burning bush. The floods may swell and roar,
but our ark shall swim above the waters ; it cannot sink, because
a Saviour is in it. Because our Beloved was not let in by His
spouse when He stood at the door with His wet and frozen head,
therefore He will have us to seek Him awhile ; and while we are
seeking, the watchmen that go about the walls have stricken the
poor woman, and have taken away her veil from her : but yet a
little while and our Lord will come again. Scotland's sky will
clear again, her moment must go over ; I dare in faith say and
write (I am not now dreaming), Christ is but seeking (what He
will have and make) a clean glistering bride out of the fire. God
send Him His errand ; but He cannot Avant what He seeks. In
the meantime, one way or other He shall find or make a nest for
His mourning dove. What is this we are doing, breaking the
neck of our faith 1 We are not come as yet to the mouth of the
Red Sea ; and howbeit we were, for His honour's sake He must
dry it up. It is our part to die gripping, and holding fast His
faithful promise. If the beast should get leave to ride through
the land, and to seal such as are his, he will not get one lamb
with him, for these are secured and sealed as the servants of God.
In God's name, let Christ take His barn-floor, and all that is in
it, to a hill and winnow it ; let Him sift His corn, and sweep His
house, and seek His gold. The Lord shall cog the rumbling
wheels, or turn them, " for the remainder of wrath doth He
restrain." He can loose the belt of kings ! to God tlieir belt
wherewith they are girt is knit with a single draw-knot. As for
a pastor to your town, your conscience can bear you witness you
have done your part ; let the Master of the vineyard now see to
His garden, seeing you have gone on till He hath said, " Stand
still ;" the will of the Lord be done ; but a trial is not to give up
with God, and believe no more. I thank my God in Christ, I
find the force of my temptation abated, and its edge blunted, since
I spoke to you last. I know not if the tempter be hovering, until
he find the dam gather again, and me more secure ; but it hath
been my burden, and I am yet more confident the Lord will suc-
cour and deliver. I intend, God willing, that our communion
shall be celebrated the first Sabbath after Pasch : our Lord, that
great Master of the feast, send us one hearty and heartsome
supper ; for I look it shall be the last. But we expect, when the
shadows shall flee away, and our Lord shall come to His garden,
that He shall feed us in green pastures without fear ; the dogs
shall not then be hounded out amongst the sheep. I earnestly
desire your prayers for assistance at our work ; and i)ut others
with you to do the same. Eemember me to your husband, and
desire your daughter to be kind to Christ, and seek to win near
PART III.] LETTERS XV. AND XVI. 505
Him ; He will give her a welcome into His house of wine, and
bring her into the King's chambers ; 0 how will the sight of His
face, and the smell of His garments, allure and ravish the heart !
Now the love of the lovely Son of God be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Jesus, S. R
Anwoth, 1635.
LETTER XV.— For Marion M'Naught.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered. Having appointed
a meeting Avith Mr. D. D., and knowing that B. will not keep^
the presbyterj'-, I cannot see you now. Commend my journey to
God ; my soul blesseth you for your last letter. Be not discour-
aged, Christ will not want the isles-men, the isles shall wait for
His law. We are His inheritance, and He will sell no part of His
inheritance ; for the sins of this land, and our breach of the cove-
nant, contempt of the Gospel, and our defection from the truth.
He hath set up a burning furnace in our Mount Zion. But I say
it, and will abide by it, the grass shall yet grow green on our
Mount Zion ; there shall be dew all the night upon the lilies,
amongst which Christ feedeth until the day break, and the shadows
flee away. And the moth shall eat up the enemies of Christ, Isa. 1. 9.
Let them make a fire of their own, and walk in the light thereof,
it shall not let them see to go to their bed ; but they shall lie
down in sorrow ; therefore rejoice and believe. Tiius in haste ;
grace, grace be with you and yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XVI.— For Marion M'Naught.
Loving and dear Sister, — I fear that you be moved and cast
down because of the late wrong that your husband received in
your town-council ; but I pray you comfort yourself in the Lord,
for a just cause bides under the water only as long as wicked men
hold their hands above it ; their arm Avill weary, and then the
just cause shall swim above, and the light that is sown for the
righteous shall spring and grow up. If ye were not strangers
here, the dogs of the world would not bark at you, 2 Cor. vi. 8.
You shall see all windings and turnings that are in your way to
heaven out of God's word ; for He will not lead you to the king-
dom at the nearest ; but you must go through " honour and dis-
honour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true;"
ver. 9, " As unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold
' Attend.
506 LETTER XVI. [PART III.
we live, as chastened and not killed;" v. 10, "As sorrowful and
yet always rejoicing." The world is one of the enemies that we
have to fight with, but a vanquished and overcome enemy, and
like a beaten and forlorn soldier ; for our Jesus hath taken the
armour from it : let me then speak to you in His words, " Be of
good courage," saith the Captain of our salvation, " for I have
overcome the world." You shall neither be free of the scourge of
the tongue, nor of disgraces, even if it were bufFetings and spit-
tings upon the face, as was our Saviour's case, if you follow Jesus
Christ. I beseech you in the bowels of our Lord Jesus, keep a
good conscience (as I trust you do) : you live not upon men's
opinion ; gold may be gold, and have the king's stamp upon it,
when it is trampled upon by men. Happy are you, if, when the
world trampleth npon you in your credit and good name, yet you
are the Lord's gold, stamped with the King of heaven's image,
and "sealed by his Spirit unto the day of your redemption."
Pray for the Spirit of love, 1 Cor. xiii. 7, " Love beareth all
things, it believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all
things." And I pray you and your husband, yea, I charge you
before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, pray
for these your adversaries : read this to your husband from me ;
and let both of you " put on, as the elect of God, bowels of mer-
cies." And, sister, remember how many thousands of talents of
sins your Master hath forgiven you : forgive ye, therefore, your
fellow-servants one talent ; follow God's command in this, " and
seek not after your own heart, and after your own eyes " in this
matter, as the Spirit speaks, Numb. xv. 39. Ask never the
counsel of your own heart here ; the world will blow up your
heart now, and cause it swell, except the grace of God cause it to
fall. Jesus, even Jesus the eternal Wisdom of the Father, give
you wisdom ; I trust God shall be glorified in you ; and a door
shall be opened unto you as the Lord's prisoners of hope, as Zecha-
riah speaks. It is a benefit to you that the wicked are God's fan
to purge you ; and I hope they shall blow away no corn or spiri-
tual graces, but only your chaff". I pray you, in your pursuit,
have so recourse to the law of men, that you wander not from the
law of God. Be not cast down : if you saw Him, who is standing
on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you to land, you
would not only wade through a sea of wrongs, but through hell
itself, to be at Him ; and I trust in God you see Him sometimes.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit, and all yours.
Your brother, in the Lord, S. li.
Anwoth.
TART III.] LETTEK XVII. 507
LETTER XVII.— For Marion M'Naught.
Worthy and dear Mistress, — My dearest love in Christ re-
membered. As to the business, which I know you Avould so fain
have taken effect, my earnest desire is, that you stand still ; haste
not, and you shall see the salvation of God. The great Master-
gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a wonderful
providence, with His own hand (I dare, if it were to edification,
swear it) planted me here, where by His grace, in this part of His
vineyard, I grow. I dare not say but Satan and the world (one
of his pages, whom he sends his errands) have said otherwise ;
and here I will abide till the great Master of the vineyard think
fit to transplant me ; but when He sees meet to loose me at the
root, and to plant me where I may be more useful, both as to fruit
and shadow ; and Avhen He who planted pulleth up that He may
transplant, who dare put to their hand and hinder 1 If they do,
God shall break their arm at the shoulder-blade, and do his turn.
When our Lord is going west, the devil and world go east ; and
do you not know that it hath been ever this way betwixt God and
the world, God drawing, and they holding ; God yea, and the
world nay? but they fall on their back and are frustrate, and our
Lord holdeth His grip. Wherefore doth the world say, that our
Christ, the Goodman of this house. His dear kirk, " hath feet like
fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace " 1 (Rev. i. 15); for no
other cause, but because where our Lord setteth down His brazen
feet, He will forward ; and whithersoever He looketh, He will
follow His look ; and His feet burn all under them, like as fire
doth stubble and thorns. I think He hath now given the world
a proof of His exceeding great power, when He is doing such
great things, wherein Zion is concerned, by the sword of a Swedish
king, as of a Gideon. As you love the glory of God, pray instantly
(yea, engage all your praying acquaintance, and take their faithful
promise to do the like) for this king, and every one that Zion's
King armeth to execute the written vengeance on Babylon. Our
Lord hath begun to loose some of Babylon's corner-stones ; pray
Him to hold on ; for that city must fall, and the birds of the air
and the beasts of the earth must make a banquet of Babylon ; for
He hath invited them to eat the flesh of that whore, and to drink
her blood : and the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned
unto her, and shameful spewing shall be upon her glory. He,
whose word must stand, hath said, " Take this cup at the hand of
the Lord, and drink, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise
no more" (Jer. xxv. 27). Our Jesus setting up Himself as His
Father's ensign (Isa. xi. 10); as God's fair white colours, that His
soldiers may flock about Him : long, long may these colours stand!
•508 LETTER XVII. [PART III.
It is long since He displayed a banner against Babylon in the sight
of men and angels : let us rejoice and triumph in our God. The
victory is certain ; for when Christ and Babel wrestle, then angels
and saints may prepare themselves to sing, " Babylon the great
is fallen, is fallen." Howbeit that Prince of renown, precious
Jesus, be now weeping and bleeding in His members, yet Christ
will laugh again ; and it is time enough for us to laugh when our
Lord Christ laugheth, and that will be shortly : for when we hear
of " wars and rumours of wars," the Judge's feet are then before
the door, and He must be in heaven, giving order to the angels to
make themselves ready, and prepare their hooks and sickles for
that great harvest. Christ will be upon us in haste : watch but a
little, and ere long the skies will rive,' and that fair lovely person,
Jesus, shall come in the clouds, freighted and loaded with glory;
and then all these knaves and foxes, that destroyed the vines,
shall call to the hills, and cry to the mountains to cover them, and
hide them from the face of Him who sitteth upon the throne, and
from the wrath of the Lamb. Remember me to your husband ;
and desire him from me to help Christ, and to take His part, and
in judgment sit ever beside Him, and receive a blow patiently for
His sake ; for He is worthy to be suffered for, not only to blows,
but also to blood. He shall find that innocence and uprightness
in judgment shall hold its feet, and make him happy, when jouk-
ing 2 will not do it. I speak this, because a person said to me,
" I pray God, the country be not in worse case now, when the
provost and bailies are agreed, than formerly." To whom I replied,
" I trust the provost is agreed with the man's person, but not with
his faults." I pray for you, with my whole soul and desire, that
your children may walk in the truth ; and that the Lord luay
shine upon them, and make their faces to shine, when the faces of
others shall blush. I dare promise them in His name, whose truth
I preach, if they will but try God's service, that they shall find
Him the sweetest Master that ever they served : and desire them
from me, but to try for a while the service of this blessed Master,
and then if His service be not sweet, if it afford not what is
pleasant to the soul's taste, change Him upon trial, and seek a
better. Christ is an unknown Christ to young ones, and therefore
they seek Him not, because they know Him not. Bid them come
and see, and seek a kiss of His mouth ; and then they will find
His mouth is so sweet, that they will be everlastingly chained
unto Him by their own consent. If I have any credit with your
children, I entreat them in Christ's name to try Avhat truth and
reality there is in what I say, and leave not His service till they
have found me a liar. I give you, your husband, and them to
1 Kend. ^ Bendins.
PART III.] LETTER XVIII. 509
His keeping, to whom I have, and dare A^enture myself and soul,
even to our dear friend Jesus Christ, in whom I am, Yours,
S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XVIII.— For Marion M^Naught.
Well-beloved Sister, — My dearest love in Christ remembered
to you. Know that I am in great heaviness, for the pitiful case of
our Lord's kirk. I hear the cause why Dr. Burton is committed
to prison, is, his writing and preaching against the Arminians. I
therefore, entreat the aid of your prayers for myself, and the
Lord's captives of hope, and for Zion. The Lord hath, and daily
lets me see clearly, how deep furrows Arminianism and the fol-
lowers of it shall draw upon the back of God's Israel (but our
Lord cuts the cords of the wicked). Isa. xlix. 14, " Zion said, the
Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me." Lam. i.
2, " Zion weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are upon her
cheeks ; amongst all her lovers she hath none to comfort her ; all
her friends have dealt treacherously with her ; they are become
her enemies." Isa. i. 22, " Our silver has become dross, our wine
is mixed with water." Lam. iv. 1, " How is the gold become dim?
how is the most fine gold changed] the stones of the sanctuary are
poured out in the top of every street ;" ver. 2, " The precious sons
of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen
pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter." It is time now
for the Lord's secret ones, who favour the dust of Zion, to cry.
How long, Lord ? And to go up to their watch tower, and to
stay there, and not to come down, until the vision speak ; for it
shall speak, Hab. ii. 3. In the meantime, the "just shall live by
faith." Let us wait on, and not weary. I have not a thread to
hang upon and rest, but this one, Isa. xlix. 1 5, " Can a woman
forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on
the son of her womb ? yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget
thee ; " ver. 1 6, " Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of
my hands ; thy walls are continually before me." For all outward
helps do fail ; it is time therefore for us to hang ourselves, as our
Lord's vessels, upon "'the nail that is fastened in a sure place."
We would make stakes of our fastening, but they will break. Our
Lord will have Zion on his own nail. Edom is busy within us,
and Babel without us, against the handful of Jacob's seed. It
were best that we were upon Christ's side of it, for His enemies
will get the stakes to keep (as the proverb is). Our greatest
difficulty will be to win on upon the Rock now, when the wind
and waves of persecution are so lofty and proud. Let sweet Jesuf?
510 LETTER XIX. [PART III.
take us by the hand ; neither must we think that it will be other-
wise, for it is told to the souls under the altar, Rev. vi. 11, " That
their fellow-servants must be killed as they were." Surely it can-
not be long to-day. Nay hear Hira say, " Behold I come, my dear
bride, think not long. I shall be at you at once, I hear you, and
am coming." "Amen, even so come, Lord Jesus, come quickly;"
for the prisoners of hope are looking out at the prison windows,
to see if they can behold the King's ambassador coming with the
King's warrant and the keys. I write not to you by guess now,
because I have a warrant to say unto you, the garments of Christ's
spouse must be once again dyed in blood, as long ago her Hus-
band's were ; but our Father sees His bleeding Son. What I
write unto you, show it to I. G-. Grace, grace, grace, and mercy
be with you, your husband, and children.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XIX.— For Marion M'Naugiit.
Well-beloved and dear sister in Christ, — I could not get
an answer written to your letter till now, in respect ^ of my wife's
disease, and she is yet mightily pained. I hope that all shall end
in God's mercy. I know that an afflicted life looks very like the
way that leads to the kingdom, for the apostle. Acts xiv. 22, hath
drawn the line, and the King's market-way,^ "Through much
tribulation to the kingdom." The Lord grant us the whole
armour of God. Ye write to me concerning your people's dis-
position, how that their hearts are inclined toward the man ye
know, and whom ye desire most earnestly yourself. He would
most gladly have the Lord's call for transplantation ; for he knows
all God's plants, set by his own hand, thrive well : and if the work
be of God, He can make a stepping-stone of the devil himself, for
setting forward the work. For yourself, I would advise you to
ask of God a submissive heart. Your reward shall be with the
Lord, although the people be not gathered (as the prophet speaks) ;
and suppose the word do not prosper, God shall account you, " a
repairer of the breaches." And take Christ caution, ye shall not
lose your reward. Hold your grip fast. If ye knew the mind of
the glorified in heaven, they think heaven come to their hand at
an easy market, when they have got it for three score, or four
score years' wrestling with God. When ye are come thither, ye
shall think all I did in respect of my rich reward now enjoyed of
free grace was too little. Now then for the love of the Prince of
your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding
1 By reason. * Highway.
PART III.] LETTER XX. 511
up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-riinners ; for-
ward, faint not, forward, take as many to heaven with you as ye
are able to draw. The more ye draw with you ye shall be the
welcomer yourself. Be no niggard or sparing churl of the grace
of God ; and employ all your endeavours for establishing an
honest ministry in your town, now when ye have so few to speak
a good word for you. I have many a grieved heart daily in my
calling. I would be undone, if I had not access to the King's
chamber of presence, to show Him all the business. The devil
rages and is mad, to see the water drawn from his own mill ; but
would to God, we could be the Lord's instruments to build the
Son of God's house. Pray for me. If the Lord furnish not new
timber from Lebanon, to build the house, the work will cease. I
look to Him, who hath begun well with me, I have His hand-
writing. He will not change. Your daughter is well, and longs
for a Bible. The Lord establish you in peace. The Lord Jesus
be with your spirit.
Yours, at all power in Christ, S. R.
Anwotb.
LETTER XX.— For Marion M'Naught.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered. Our communion
is on Sabbath come eight days ; I will entreat you to recommend
it to God, and to pray for me in that work. I have more sins
upon me now than the last time. Therefore I will beseech you
in Christ, seek this petition to me from God, that the Lord would
give me grace to vow and perform new obedience. I have cause
to suit^ this of you, and show it to Thomas Carson, Fergus and
Jean Brown, for I have been, and am, exceedingly cast down, and
am fighting against a malicious devil, of whom I can win little
ground. And I would think a spoil, plucked from him and his
trusty servant, sin, a lawful and just conquest, and it were no sin
to take from him. In the name of the Good-man of our house,
our King Jesus, I invite you to the banquet. He saith, ye shall
be dearly welcome to Him. And I desire to believe (howbeit not
without great fear), He shall be as hearty in His own house, as
He has been before. For me it is but small reckoning, but I
would fain have our Father and Lord to break the fair loaf,
Christ, and to distribute His slain Son amongst the bairns of His
house. And that if any were a step-bairn, in respect of comfort
and sense, it were rather myself than His poor bairns. Therefore,
bid our Well-Beloved come to His garden and feed among the
lilies And as concerning Zion, I hope our Lord, who, Zech. ii.,
^ Entreat.
512 LETTER XXI. [PAET III.
sent His angel with a measuring-line in his hand, to measure the
length and breadth of Jerusalem, in token He would not want a
foot-length, or inch of His own free heritage, shall take order
with those, who have taken away many acres of His own land
from Him. And God will build Jerusalem in the old stead ^ and
place, where it was before, in this hope rejoice and be glad.
Christ's garment was not dipped in blood for nothing, but for
His bride whom He bought with strokes, I will desire you to
remember my old suits to God ; God's glory and the increase of
light, that I dry not up. For your town, hope and believe that
the Lord will gather in His loose sheaves among you to His barn,
and send one with a well-toothed sharp hook, and strong gardies,^
to reap His harvest. And the Lord Jesus be Husbandman, and
oversee the growing. Kemember my love to your husband and
to Samuel. Grace upon you and your children ; Lord make them
corner-stones in Jerusalem, and give them grace in their youth,
to take band with the fair chief Corner-stone, who was hewed
out of the mountain without hands, and got many a knock with
His Father's fore-hammer,^ and endured them all, and the Stone
did neither cleave nor break : upon that Stone make your soul to
lie. King Jesus be with your spirit.
Your friend, in his Well-Beloved Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXL— For Marion M'Naught.
Much honoured and dear Mistress, — My love in Christ
remembered. I am grieved at the heart to write anything to you,
to breed heaviness to you. And what I have written, I wrote it
with much heaviness. But I entreat you in Christ's name, when
my soul is under wrestlings, and seeking direction from our Lord
(to whom His vineyard belongeth), whither I shall go, give me
liberty to advise, and try all paths, to see whether He goeth
before me and leadeth me. For if I were assured of God's call to
your town, let my arm fall from my shoulder-blade, and lose
power, and my right eye be dried up, which is the judgment of
the idol shepherd, Zech. xi. 17, if I would not swim through the
water, without a boat, ere I sat His bidding. But if ye knew my
doubtings and fears in that, ye would suffer with me. Whether
they be temptations, or impediments cast in by God, I know not ;
but you have now cause to thank God ; for seeing the bishop hath
given you such a promise, he will give you an honest man, more
willingly than he will permit me to come to you. And as I ever
entreated you, put the business out of your hand in the Lord's
reverence ;^ and try of Him, if ye have warrant of Him to seek
Site. ^ Arms. ^ A laa-ge hammer wielded by both hands. '' Option,
PART III.] LETTER XXII. 513
no man in the world but one only, when there are choice of good
men to be had ; howbeit they be too scarce, yet they are. And
what God saith to me in the business, I resolve by His grace to
do, for I know not what He will do with me, but God shall fill
you with joy, ere the business be ended ; for I persuade myself
our Lord Jesus hath stirred you up already to do good in the
business, and ye shall not lose your reward. I have heard your
husband and Samuel have been sick. The Man who is called the
Branch and God's Fellow, who standeth before His Father, will
be your stay and help. Zech. xiii. 7. I would I were able to
comfort your soul; but have patience and stand still. " He that
believeth maketh not haste." This matter of Cramond cast in at
this time is either a temptation, having fallen out at this time, or
then^ it will clear all my doubts, and let you see the Lord's will.
But I never knew my own part in the business till now, I thought
1 was more willing to have embraced the charge in your town
than I am, or am able to win to. I know ye pray that God
would resolve me what to do ; and will interpret me as love
biddeth you, " which thinketh not ill, and believeth all things,
and hopeth all things." Would ye have more than the Son of
God 1 And ye have Him already, and ye shall be fed by the carver
of the meat, be that who he will ; and those who are hungry look
more to the meat, than to the carver. I cannot see you the next
week. If my lady come home, I must visit her. The week there-
after there will be a presbytery at Girtoun. God will dispose of
the meeting. Grace upon you, and your seed, and husband. The
Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Ar.woth.
LETTER XXn.— For Marion M'Naught.
Worthy and beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ remem-
bered. I have sent you a letter from Mr. David Dickson, concern-
ing the placing of Mr. Hugh Mackail with themselves ; therefore I
write to you now, only to entreat you in Christ, not to be dis-
couraged thereat ; be submissive to the will of your dear Lord,
who knoweth. best what is good for your soul and your town
both ; for God can come over greater mountains than these, we
believe ; for He worketh His greatest works, contrary to carnal
reason and means. " My ways are not," saith our Lord, " as your
ways ; neither are my thoughts as your thoughts," Isa. Iv. I am
no whit put from my belief for all that ; believe, pray, and use
means. We shall cause Mr. John Kerr, who convoyed myself to
1 Else.
2 K
514 LETTER XXllI. [PART III.
Lochinvar, to use means to seek a man, if Mr. Hugh fail us. Our
Lord has a little bride among you, and I trust He will send one
to woo her to our sweet Lord Jesus. He will not want His
wife for the suiting.^ And He has means in abundance in His
hand, to open all the slots ^ and bars, that Satan draws over the
door : He cometh to His bride leaping over the mountains, and
skipping over the hills, His way to His spouse is full of stones,
mountains, and waters ; yet He putteth in His foot and wadeth
through ; He will not want her, and therefore, refresh me with
two words, concerning your confidence, and courage in our Lord,
both about that and about His own Zion ; for He wooeth His
wife in the burning bush ; and for the good-will of Him that
dwelleth in the bush, the bush is not consumed. It is better to
weep with Jerusalem in the forenoon, than to weep with Babel
after noon, in the end of the day. Our day of laughter and re-
joicing is coming ; yet a little while and ye shall see the salvation
of God. I long to see you, and to hear how your children are,
especially Samuel. Grace be their heritage and portion from the
Lord ; and the Lord be their lot, and then their inheritance shall
please them well. Remember my love to your husband. The
Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXIII.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved Sister, — My love in Jesus Christ remembered.
Your daughter is well, thanks be to God : I trust in Him, ye shall
have joy of her. The Lord bless her. I am now presently
going about catechising. The bearer is in haste. Forget not
poor Zion, and the Lord remember you, for we shall be shortly
winnowed ; " Jesus pray for us that our faith fail not." I would
wish to see you a Sabbath with us, and we shall stir up one
another, God willing, to seek the Lord ; for it may be He hide
Himself from us ere it be long. Keep that which you have, ye
will get more in heaven. The Lord send us to the shore, out of
all the storms, with our silly^ souls sound and whole with us.
For if liberty of conscience come, as is rumoured, the best of us
all will be put to our wits to seek how to be freed. But we shall
be like those, who have their chamber to go in unto, spoken of,
Isa. xxvi. 20. Read the place yourself, and keep you within your
house while* the storm be past. If you can learn a ditty ^ against
C, try, and cause try, that we may see the Lord's righteous
judgment upon the devil's instruments. We are not much obliged
^ Wooing. ^ Bolts. 3 Weak. •* Till. ^ Charge.
PART III.] LETTERS XXIV. AND XXV. 515
to liis kindness. I wish all such wicked doers were cut off. These
in haste. I bless you in God's name, and all yours. Your daughter
desires a Bible and a gown ; I hope she shall use the Bible well,
which if she do, the gown is the better bestowed. The Lord
Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, for ever in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth
LETTER XXIV.— For Marion M'Naught.
Mistress, — My love in Jesus Christ remembered. I am in
good health, honour to my Lord, but my wife's disease increaseth
daily, to her great torment and pain night and day ; she has not
been in God's house since our communion, neither out of her bed.
I have hired a man to Edinburgh to Dr. Jeally and to John
Hamilton. I can hardly believe her disease is ordinary ; for her
life is bitter to her. She sleeps none, but cries as a woman
travailing in birth. What will be the event, He that hath the
keys of the grave knoweth. I have been many times, since I saw
you, that I have besought the Lord to loose her out of the body,
and to take her to her rest. I believe the Lord's tide of afflic-
tions will ebb again ; but at present I am exercised with the
wrestlings of God, being afraid of nothing more than this, that
God hath let loose the tempter upon my house. " God rebuke
him and his instruments." Because Satan is not cast out but hy
fasting and prayer, I entreat you, remember our estate to our
Lord, and entreat all good Christians whom you know, but espe-
cially your pastor, to do the same. It becomes us still to knock,
and to lie at the Lord's door, until we die knocking. If He will
not open, it is more than He has said in His word ; but He is
faithful. I look not to win away to my home without wounds
and blood. Welcome, welcome cross of Christ, if Christ be with
it. I have not a calm spirit in the work of my calling here, being
daily chastised ; yet God hath not put out my candle, as He does
to the wicked. Grace, grace be with you and all yours.
Yours, in his Lord, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXV.— To Marion M'Naught.
Worthy and well-beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ
remembered. I know ye have heard of the purpose of my adver-
saries, to try what they can do against me at this synod, for the
work of God in your town when I was at your communion. They
intend to call me in question at the synod for treasonable doc-
trine. Therefore, help me with your prayers, and desire your
516 LETTER XXVI. [PAET IIL
acquaintance to help me also. Your ears heard how Christ was
there. If He suffer His servant to get a broken head in His own
Kingly service, and not either help or revenge the wrong, I never
saw the like of it. There is not a night-drunkard, time-serving,
idle, idol-shepherd to be spoken against, I am the only man ; and
because it is so, and I know God will not help them, lest they be
proud, I am confident their process shall fall asunder. Only be
ye earnest with God for hearing, for an open ear, and reading of
the bill, that He may in heaven hear both parties, and judge ac-
cordingly ; and doubt not, fear not, they shall not, who now ride
highest, put Christ out of His kingly possession in Scotland. The
jiride of man and his rage shall turn to the praise of our Lord.
It is an old feud, that the rulers of the earth, the dragon and his
angels, have carried to the Lamb and His followers ; but the
followers of the Lamb shall overcome by the Word of God, and
believe this, and wait on a little, till they have got their wombfuU
of clay and gravel, and they shall know, howbeit stolen waters be
sweet, Esau's portion is not worth his hunting. Commend me to
your husband, and send me word how Grissel is. The Son of
God lead her through the water. The Lord Jesus be with your
spirit.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwotb.
LETTER XXVL— For Marion M'Naught.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered. At the desire of
this bearer, whom I love, I thought to request you, if ye can help
his wife with your advice, for she is in a most dangerous and
deadly-like condition. For I have thought she was changed in
her carriage and life this sometime by-past, and had hope that
God would have brought her home, and now by appearance she
will depart this life, and leave a number of children behind her.
If ye can be entreated to help her, it is a work of mercy. My
own wife is still in exceeding great torment night and day. Pray
for us ; for my life was never so wearisome to me. God hath
filled me with gall and wormwood ; but I believe (which holds up
my head above the water) it is good for a man (saith the Spirit of
God, Lam. iii.) " that he bear the yoke in his youth." I do re-
member you. I pray you be humble and believe ; and I entreat
you in Jesus Christ, pray for John Stuart and his wife, and desire
your husband to do the same. Remember me heartily to Jean
Brown ; desire her to pray for me and my wife ; I do remember
her. Forget not Zion. Grace, grace upon them and peace that
pray for Zion. She is the ship we sail in to Canaan. If she be
PART III.] LETTER XXVII. 517
broken on a rock, we will be cast overboard to swim to land be^
twixt death and life. The grace of Jesus be with your husband
and children.
YourS; in Christ, S. E.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXVIL— For Marion M'Naught.
Dear Sister, — I longed much to have conferred with you at
this time. I am grieved at anything in your house that grieveth
you ; and shall, by my Lord's grace, suit^ my Lord to help you to
bear your burden, and to come in behind you, and give you and
your burdens a put^ up the mountain. Know you not that Christ
wooeth His wife in the furnace'? Isa. xlviii. 10, "Behold I have
refined thee, but not with silver ; I have chosen thee in the fur-
nace of affliction ;" He casteth His love on you, when you are "in
the furnace of affliction." You might indeed be casten down if
He brought you in and left you there ; but when He leadeth you
through the waters, think ye not that He has a sweet soft hand !
You know His love-grip already ; you shall be delivered, wait on ;
Jesus will make a road, and come and fetch home the captive ;
you shall not die in prison, but your strokes are such as were
your Husband's, who was wounded in the house of His friends :
strokes were not newings^ to Him, and neither are they to you ;
but your winter-night is near spent : it is near hand the dawning ;
I will see you leap for joy ; the kirk shall be delivered. This
wilderness shall bud and grow up like a rose. Christ got a char-
ter of Scotland from His Father, and who will bereave Him of
His heritage, or put our Redeemer out of His mealing,^ until His
tack^ be run out? I must have you praying for me ; I am black-
shamed for evermore with Christ's goodness ; and, in private, on
the 17th and 18th of August, I got a full answer of my Lord to
be a graced minister, and a chosen arrow hidden in His own
quiver. But know, this assurance is not kept but by watching
and prayer ; and therefore, dear mistress, help me ; I have gotten
now, honour to my Lord, the gate*^ to 0]3en the slote,''' and shoot
the bar of His door : and I think it easy to get anything from the
King by prayer, and to use holy violence with Him. Christ was
in the Carspharne kirk, and opened the people's hearts wonder-
fully : Jesus is looking up that water, and minting ^ to dwell
amongst them. I would we could give Him His welcome homo
to the moors. Now peace and grace be upon you and all yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Aug. 20, 1633.
^ Plead with. - Push. ■^ Unfamiliar things. ■* Croft.
6 Lease. " Method. '' Bolt. » Intendins.
518 LETTER XXVIII. " [PART III.
LETTER XXVIIL— For Marion M'Naught.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered. I am in care and
fear for this work of our Lord's, now near approaching, because of
the danger of the time, and I dare not for my soul be silent ; to
see my Lord's house burning, and not cry, fire, fire ; therefore,
seek from our Lord wisdom spiritual, and not black policy, to
speak with liberty our Lord's truth. I am cast down, and would
fain have access and presence to the King that day, even howbeit
I should break up iron doors. I believe you will not forget me,
and you will desire Jean Brown, Thomas Carson, and Marion Car-
son to help me. Pray for well-cooked meat, and an heartsome
Saviour with joy crying welcome in my Father's name. I am
confident Zion shall be well ; the bush shall burn and not con-
sume, for the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush. But the
Lord is making on a fire in Jerusalem, and purposeth to blow the
bellows, and to melt the tin and brass, and bring out a fair,
beautiful bride out of the furnace, that will be married over again
upon 1 the new Husband, and sing as in the days of her youth,
when the contract of marriage is written over again ; but I fear
the bride be hidden for a time from the dragon, that pursueth the
woman with child ; but what, howbeit we go and lurk in the
wilderness for a time, for the Lord will take His kirk to the
wilderness, and speak to her heart : nothing casteth me down, but
only I fear the Lord will cast down the shepherds' tents, and feed
His own in a secret place. But let us, however matters frame,
cast over the affairs of the bride upon the Bridegroom : " the
government is upon His shoulders," and he dow ^ bear us all well
enough ; that fallen star, the prince of the bottomless pit, knoweth
it is near the time when he shall be tormented, and now in his
evening he has gathered his armies to win one battle or two in
the edge of the evening, at the sun going down ; and when our
Lord has been watering His vineyards in France, and Germany,
and Bohemia, how can we think ourselves Christ's sister if we be
not like Him, and our other great sisters 1 I cannot but think,
seeing the ends of the earth are given to Christ, Ps. ii. 8 (and
Scotland is the end of the earth), and so we are in Christ's charter-
tailzie,^ but our Lord will keep His possession. We fall by
promise and law to Christ ; He won us with the sweat of His
iDrows (if I may say so) ; His Father promised Him His life-rent
of Scotland. Glory, glory to our King, long may He wear His
crown ! 0 Lord, let us never see another King ! 0 let Him come
down like rain upon the new-mown grass ! I had you in remem-
brance on Saturday in the morning last, in a great measure, and
1 To. ' ■ Can. ^ Deed of entail
PART III.] LETTERS XXIX, AND XXX. 519
was brought thrice on end in remembrance of you in my prayer
to God. Grace, grace be your portion.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Auwoth, March 2, 1G31.
LETTER XXIX.— For Marion M'Naught.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered. Please you under-
stand, to mj^ grief, our communion is delayed till Sabbath come
eight days, for the laird and lady have earnestly desired me to de-
lay it, because the laird is sick, and he fears he be not able to
travel, because he has lately taken physic. The Lord bless that
work ; commend it to God as you love me. For I love not Satan's
thorns cast in the Lord's way. The Lord rebuke him. I trust
in God's mercy, Satan has gotten but a delay, but no free dis-
charge that his kingdom shall not be hurt. Commend the laird
to your God. I pray you advertise your people, that they be not
disappointed in coming here. Show such of them as you love in
Christ from me, that Jesus Christ will be Avelcomer when He
comes, in that He has sharpened their desires for eight days' space.
Your daughter is well, I hope, every Avay. Forget not God's kirk;
they are but bastards, and not sons and daughters, that mourn
not for Zion. Lord hear us. No further. Jesus Christ be with
your spirit. I shall remember you and your new house. Lord
Jesus go from the one house to the other.
Yours, at all power in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXX.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered. 1
hear this day your town is to choose a commissioner for the parlia-
ment, and I was written to from Edinburgh to see that good men
should be chosen in your bounds ; and I have heard this day that
Robert Glendinning or John Ewart look to be chosen. I beseecli
you see this be not : the Lord's cause craveth other witnesses to
speak for Him than such men ; and therefore let it not be said,
that Kirkcudbright, which is spoken of in this kingdom for their
religion, hath sent a man to be their mouth that will speak against
Christ. Such a time as this will not fall out once in half an age.
I would entreat your husband to take it upon him ; it is an
honourable and necessary service for Christ ; and show him, that
I wrote unto you for that effect. I fear William Glendinning hath
not skill and authority. I am in great heaviness ; pray for me,
for we must take our life in our hand in this ill time. Let us stir
520 LETTER XXXI. [PART III.
up ourselves to lay our Lord's bride and her wrongs before our
Husband and Lofd. Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, May 20.
LETTER XXXL— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved Sister, — My old and dearest love in Christ re-
membered. Know that I have been visiting my Lady Kenmure,
her child is Avith the Lord : I entreat you visit her ; and desire
the good wife of Barcaple to visit her, and Knockbrex, if you see
him in the town. My lord her husband is absent, and I think
she will be heavy : you know what Mr. W. Dalgleish and I de-
sired you to deal for, at my Lord Kirkcudbright's hand. Send me
word, if you obtained anything at my lord's hands, anent the
giving up of our names to the high commission ; for I hear it is not
for nothing that the bishop hath taken that course. Our Lord
knows best what is good for an old kirk that is fallen from her
first love, and hath forgotten her Husband days without number :
a trial is like to come on ; but I am sure our Husbandman Christ
shall lose chaff but no corn at all. Yet there is a dry wind com-
ing, but neither to fan nor to purge. Happy are they who are
not blown away with the chaff, for we will but suffer temptation
for ten days : but those who are faithful to the death, shall re-
ceive the crown of life. I hear daily what hath been spoken of
myself, most unjustly and falsely; and no marvel, the dragon with
the swing of his tail, hath made the third part of the stars to fall
from heaven, and the fallen stars would have many to fall with
them. If ever Satan was busy, now when he knoweth his time is
short, he is busy ; " yet a little while and he that shall come, will
come, and will not tarry." I know ere it be long, the Lord shall
come and redd^ all pleas betwixt us and our enemies. Now wel-
come, Lord Jesus, go fast. Send me word about Grissel your
daughter, who I remember in Christ, and desire her to cast herself
into His arms, who was born of a woman, and being the Ancient
of days was made a young weeping child. It was not for nothing
that our brother Jesus was an infant. It was, that He might pity
infants of believers, who were to come out of the womb into
the world. I believe our Lord Jesus shall be waiting on with
mercy, mercy, mercy to the end of that battle, and bring her
through with life and peace, and a sign of God's favour. I will
expect advertisement 2 from you, and especially if you fear her.
Mistress, you remember that I said to you, anent ^ your love to
me and my brother begun in Christ; you know we are here but
* Decide. " Information. ^ Coiiceruing,
PART III.] LETTER XXXII, 521
strangers, and you have not yet found us a dry well, as others
have been. Be not overcome of any susj^icion; I trust in God,
the Lord, who knit us together, shall keep us together. It is time
now that the lambs of Jesus should all run together, when the
Avolf is barking at them ; yet I know, ere God's bairns want a cross,
their love amongst themselves shall be a cross ; but our Lord giveth
love for another end. I know you will with love cover infirmities ;
and our Lord give you wisdom in all things; I think love hath
broad shoulders, and will bear many things, and yet neither faint,
nor sweat, nor fall under the burden. Commend me to your hus-
band and dear Grissel; I think on her. Lord Jesus be in the fur-
nace with her, and then she will but smoke, and not burn. De-
sire Mr. Robert to excuse my not seeing of him at his house; I
have my own reasons therefor. Grace, mercy, and peace be with
you. Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 25, 1634.
LETTER XXXIL— For Marion M'Naught.
Mistress, — My dearest love in Christ remembered. I entreat
you charge your soul to return to rest, and to glorify your dearest
Lord in believing; and know, that for the good will of Him that
dwelleth in the bush, the burning kirk shall not be consumed to
ashes; but, Deut. xxxiii. 16, "Blessing shall come on the head of
Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separate
from his brethren." And are not the saints separate from their
brethren, and sold and hated 1 For, Gen. xliv. 23, " The archers
have sorely grieved Joseph, and shot at him, and hated him;"
ver. 24, " But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his
hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of
Jacob. From Him is the shepherd and the stone of Israel ; " the
stone of Israel shall not be broken in pieces. It is hammered
upon by the children of this world, and we shall live and not die.
Our Lord hath done all this to see if we will believe, and not give
over ; and I am persuaded, you must of necessity stick by your
Avork. The eye of Christ hath been upon all this business ; and
He taketh good heed to who is for Him, and who is against
Him ; let us do our part, as we would be approved of Christ.
The Son of God is near to His enemies ; if they were not deaf,
they may hear the din of His feet : and He will come with a start
upon His weeping bairns, and take them on His knee, and lay
their head in His bosom, and dry their watery eyes ; and this day
is fast coming ; " Yet a little time, and the vision will speak, it
will not tarry," Hab. ii. 3. These questions betwixt us and our
adversaries will all be decided in yonder day, when the Son of
522 LETTER XXXII, [PART III.
God shall come and redd ^ all pleas ; and it will be seen whether
we or they have been for Christ, and who have been pleading for
Baal. It is not known what we are now, but when our Life shall
appear in glory, then we shall see who laughs fastest that day ;
therefore Ave must possess our souls in patience, and go into our
chamber, and rest while ^ the indignation be past. We shall not
weep long, when our Lord shall take us up in the day that He
gathereth His jewels; and, Mai. iii. IG, "They that feared the
Lord spoke often one to another ; and the Lord hearkened and
heard it, and a book of remembrance Avas written before Him, for
them that feared the Lord, and thought upon His name." And I
shall never be of another faith, but our Lord is heating a furnace
for the enemies of His kirk in Scotland. It is true the spouse of
Christ hath played the harlot, and hath left her first Husband ;
and the enemies think they offend not, for we have sinned against
the Lord ; but they shall get the devil to their thanks ; the rod
shall be cast into the fire, that we may sing as in the days of our
youth. My dear friend, therefore lay down your head upon
Christ's breast ; weep not, the Lion of the tribe of Judah will
arise. The sun is gone down upon the prophets, and our gold is
become dim, and the Lord feedeth His people with waters of gall
and wormwood ; yet Christ standeth but behind the wall. His
bowels are moved for Scotland. " He waiteth (as Isaiah saith)
that He may show mercy," If we could go home, and take our
brethren with us, Aveeping Avith our face toAvards Zion, asking the
way thitherward, He would bring back our captivity. We may
not think that God has no care of His honour, while men tread it
under their feet ; He will clothe Himself with vengeance, as with
a cloak, and appear against our enemies for our deliverance. Ye
Avere never yet beguiled, and God Avill not noAV begin with you ;
wrestle still Avith the Angel of the covenant, and you shall get the
blessing; fight — He delighteth to be overcome by wrestling.
Commend me to Grissel, desire her to learn to know the adver-
saries of the Lord, and to take them as her adversaries ; and to
learn to know the right gate in to the Son of God. 0 but ac-
quaintance Avith the Son of God, to say, " My Well-Beloved is
mine and I am His," is a sweet and glorious course of life, that
none know but those who are sealed and marked in the forehead
with Christ's mark, and the new name that Ch-rist writeth upon
His own, Grace, grace, and mercy be with you.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Aawoth, Sept. 25, 1634.
» Decide. « Till.
PAliT III.] LETTERS XXXIII. AND XXXIV. 623
LETTER XXXIII.— For Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved Mistress, — I charge you in the name of the
Son of God, to rest upon your Rock, that is higher than yourself;
" be not afraid of a man Avho is a worm, nor for the Son of man
who shall die." God be your fear. Encourage your husband. I
would counsel you to write to Edinburgh to some advised lawyers,
to understand Avhat your husband, as the head magistrate, may do
in opposing any intruded minister, and in his carriage toward the
new prelate, if he command him to imprison or lay hands upon
any ; and, in a word, how far he may in his office disobey a pre-
late, without danger of law ; for if the bishop come to your town,
and find not obedience to his heart, it is like ^ he will command
the provost to assist him, against God and the truth. Ye will
have more courage under the persecution ; fear not, take Christ's
caution, who said (Luke xxi. 18), "There shall not one hair of
your head perish." Christ will not be in your common to have
you giving out anything for Him, and not give you all incomes
with advantage. It is His honour His servants should not be
berried^ and undone in His service ; you were never honoured till
now. And if your husband be the first magistrate who shall
suffer for Christ's name in this persecution, he may rejoice that
Christ hath put the first garland on his head, and upon yours.
Truth will yet keep the crown of the causey ^ in Scotland ; Christ
and truth are strong enough. They judge us now ; we shall one
day judge them, and sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve
tribes. Believe, believe, for they dare not pray, they dare not
look Christ in the face ; they have been false to Christ, and He
will not sit with the wrong : ye know, it is not our cause, for if
we would quit our Lord, we might sleep for the present in a
sound skin, and keep our place, means, and honour, and be dear
to them also, but let us at once put all we have over in Christ's
hand. Fear not for my papers, I shall dispatch them ; but you
will be examined for them : the Spiiit of Jesus give you inward
peace. Desire your husband from me to prove honest to Christ ]
he shall not be a loser at Christ's hand.
Yours, ever in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, July 8, 1635.
LETTER XXXIV.— For Marion M'Naught.
YVell-beloved Sister, — My love in Christ remembered. I
hear of good news anenf* our kirk ; but I fear that our king will
not be resisted, and therefore let us not be secure and careless. I
^ Probable. ^ Plundered. ^ Causeway. * Concerning.
524 LETTER XXXIV. [PAKT III.
do wonder if this kirk come not through our Lord's fan, since
there is so much chaff in it ; howbeit I persuade myself, the Son
of God's wheat will not be blown away. Let us be putting on
God's armour, and be strong in the Lord : if the devil and Zion's
enemies strike a hole in that armour, let our Lord see to that ; let
us put it on and stand. We have Jesus on our side, and they are
not worthy such a Captain, who would not take a blow at his
back. We are in sight of His colours ; His banner over us in love ;
look up to that white banner and stand : I persuade you in the
Lord of victory. My brother writeth to me of your heaviness,
and of temptations that press you sore. I am content it be so ;
you bear about with you the mark of the Lord Jesus : so it was
with the Lord's apostle, when he was to come with the Gospel to
Macedonia. 2 Cor. vii. 5, his flesh had no rest, he was troubled on
every side, and knew not what side to turn him unto ; without
were fightings, and within were fears. In the great work of our
redemption, your lovely, beautiful, and glorious Friend, and well-
beloved Jesus, was brought to tears and strong cries, so as His
face was wet with tears and blood, arising from a holy fear and
ihe weight of the curse. Take a drink of the Son of God's cup,
and love it the better that He drank of it before you ; there is no
poison in it. I wonder many times that ever a child of God
should have a sad heart, considering what their Lord is preparing
for them. Is your mind troubled anent that business that we
have now in hand in Edinburgh 1 1 trust in my Lord, the Lord
shall in the end give to you your heart's desire, even howbeit the
business frame not ; the Lord shall feed your soul, and all the
hungry souls in that town ; therefore, I request you in the Lord,
pray for a submissive will, and pray as your Lord Jesus bids you,
" Thy Avill be done on earth as it is in heaven." And let it be
that your faith be brangied^ with temptations. Believe ye that
there is a tree in our Lord's garden that is not often shaken with
wind from all the four airts 1 ^ Surely there is none. Rebuke
your soul, as the Lord's prophet doth, Psalm xlii., " Why art thou
cast down, 0 my soul, why art thou disquieted within me 1 " That
was the word of a man, who was at the very overgoing of the brae
and mountain ; but God held a grip of him. Swim through your
temptations and troubles to be at that lovely amiable person,
Jesus, to whom your soul is dear. In your temptations run to the
promises, they be our Lord's branches hanging over the water,
that our Lord's silly ^ half-drowned children may take a grip of
them ; if you let that grip go, you will fall to the ground. Are
you troubled with the case of God's kirk 1 our Lord will evermore
have her betwixt the sinking and the swimming ; He Avill have
^ Distracted. * Quarters. •* Feeble.
PART III.] LETTER XXXIV. 525
her going through a thousand deaths, and through hell as a cripple
woman, halting and wanting the power of her one side, Micah iv.
6, 7, that God may be her staff. That broken ship will come to
land, because Jesus is the pilot. Faint not, you shall see the sal-
vation of God ; else say, that God never spake His word by my
inouth ; and I had rather never have been born, ere it were so
with me ; but my Lord hath sealed me. I dare not deny, I have
also been in heaviness since I came from you, fearing for my un-
thankfulness that I be deserted ; but the Lord will be kind to me
whether I will or not ; I repose that^ much in His rich grace, that
He will be loath to change upon me. As you love me, pray for
me in this particular. After advising with Carletoun, I have
written to Mr. David Dickson anent Mr. Hugh M'Kail, and desired
him to write his mind to Carletoun, and Carletoun to Edinburgh,
that they may particularly remember Mr. Hugh to the Lord ; and
I happened upon a convenient trusty bearer by God's wonderful
l^rovidence. No further: I recommend you to the Lord's grace,
and your husband and children. The Lord Jesus be with your
spirit. Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Edinburgh.
P.S. — Mistress, — I had not time to give my advice to your
daughter Grissel; you shall carry my words therefore to her.
Show her now, that in respect of her tender age, she is in a
manner as clean paper, ready to receive either good or ill, and
that it were a sweet and glorious thing for her to give herself up
to Christ, that He may write upon her His Father's name, and
His own new name. And desire her to acquaint herself with the
book of God ; the promises that our Lord writes upon His own,
and performeth in them and for them, are contained there. I
persuade you, when I think that she is in the company of such
parents, and hath occasion to learn Christ, I think Christ is woo-
ing her soul. And I pray God she may not refuse such a Hus-
band; and therefore I charge her, and beseech her by the mercies
of God, by the wounds and blood of Him who died for her, by the
Avorth of truth, which she heareth and can read, by the coming of
the Son of God to judge the world, that she would fulfil your joy,
and learn Christ and walk in Christ. She shall think this the
truth of God many years after this ; and I will promise to myself,
in respect of the beginnings that I have seen, that she shall give
herself to Him that gave Himself for her. Let her begin at
prayer, for if she remember her Creator in the days of her youth.
He will claim kindness- to her in her old age. It shall be a part
of my prayers, that this may be effectuate ^ in her, by Him who is
^ So. 2 Qi,. Kindred. » Effected.
526 LETTEK XXXV. [PAKT III.
able to do exceeding abundantly ; to whose grace again I recom-
mend you, n,nd her, and all yours.
LETTER XXXV.— To Marion M'Naught.
Well-beloved Sister, — I know you have heard of the success
of our business in Edinburgh. I do every presbytery day see the
faces of my brethren smiling upon me, but their tongues convey
reproaches and lies of me a hundred miles off, and have made me
odious to the bishop of St. Andrews, who said to Mr. W. D. that
ministers in Galloway were his informers, whereupon no letter of
favour could be procured from him, for effectuating ^ of our busi-
ness ; only I am brought in the mouths of men, who otherwise
knew me not, and have power (if God shall permit) to harm me ;
yet I entreat you in the bowels of Christ Jesus, be not cast down.
I fear your sorrow exceed because of this ; and I am not so careful
for myself in the matter as for you. Take courage, your dearest
Lord will light your candle, which the wicked would fain blow
out ; and as sure as our Lord liveth, your soul shall find joy and
comfort in this business ; howbeit you see all the hounds in hell
let loose to mar it ; their iron chains to our dear mighty Lord are
but straws, which He can easily break : let not this temptation
stick in your throat, swallow it, and let it go down ; our Lord
give you a drink of the consolations of His Spirit, that it may
digest. You never knew one in God's book who put to their
hand to the Lord's work for His kirk, but the world and Satan
did bark against them, and bite also where they had power. You
will not lay one stone on Zion's wall, but they will labour to cast
it down again. For myself, the Lord letteth me see now greater
evidences of a calling to Kirkcudbright than ever He did before,
and therefore pray, and possess your soul in patience. Those that
were doers in the business have good hopes that it will yet go
forward and prosper. As for the death of the King of Sweden
(which is thought to be too true) we can do nothing else but
reverence our Lord, who doth not ordinarily hold Zion on her
Rock by the sword and arm of flesh and blood, but by His own
mighty and out-stretched arm : her King, that reigneth in Zion,
yet liveth, and they are plucking Him round about to pull Him
off His throne, but His Father hath crowned Him, and who dare
say it is ill done 1 The Lord's bride will be up and down, above
the water swimming, and under the water sinking, until her
lovely and mighty Redeemer and Husband set His head through
these skies, and come with His fair court to redd ^ all their pleas
and give them the hoped-for inheritance ; and then we shall lay
1 Effecting. = Settle.
PART III.] LETTER XXXVI. 527
down our swords and triumph, and fight no more. But do not
think for all this, that our Lord and chief Shepherd will want one
weak sheep, or the silliest dying lamb that He hath redeemed.
He will tell His flock, and gather them all together, and make a
faithful account of them to the Father, who gave them to Him.
Let us learn to turn our eyes off men, that our whorish hearts
doat not on them, and woo our old Husband, and make Him our
darling, for Jer. xxv. 27; "Thus saith the Lord to the enemies
of Zion, drink ye and be drunk and spue and fall, and rise no
more, because of the sword that I send amongst you," verse 28.
" And it shall be if they refuse to take the cup in thy hand to
drink, then shall thou say to them, thus saith the Lord of Hosts,
ye shall certainly drink." You see our Lord brewing a cup of
poison for His enemies, which they must drink, and because of
this have sore bowels and sick stomachs, yea burst ; but Jer. 1. 4,
When Zion's captivity is at an end, " The children of Israel shall
come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping ;
they shall go and seek the Lord their God." Verse 5, "They
shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward, saying,
Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord, in an everlasting
covenant that shall not be forgotten." This is spoken to us and
for us, who, with woe ^ hearts, ask. What is the way to Zion 1
It is our part, who know how to go to our Lord's door, and to
knock by prayer, and how to lift Christ's slot,'-^ and shoot the bar
of His chamber door, to complain and tell Him how the Lord
handleth us, and how our King's business goeth, that He may get
up and lend them a blow, who are tigging ^ and playing with
Christ and His spouse. You have also, dear mistress, house-
troubles, in sickness of your husband and bairns, and in spoiling
of your house by thieves : take these rods in patience from your
Lord. He must still move you from vessel to vessel, aud grind you
as our Lord's wheat, to be bread in His house ; but when all these
strokes are over your head, what will ye say to see your Well-
Beloved Christ's white and ruddy face, even His face who is
worthy to bear the colours among ten thousand 1 Cant. v. Hope
and believe to the end. Grace for evermore be multiplied upon
you, your husband, and children.
Your own, in His dearest Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, December 1634.
LETTER XXXVL— To Marion M'Naught.
My dear and well-beloved in Christ,— I am yet under trial,
and have appeared before Christ's forbidden lords for a testimony
^ Sorrowful. - Bolt. ^ Sporting.
628 LETTERS XXXVII. AND XXXVIII. [PART III.
cigainst them. The chancellor and the rest tempted me with
questions, nothing belonging to my summons, which I wholly de-
clined, notwithstanding of his threats. My newly printed book
against the Arminians was one challenge ; not lording the prelates
was another. The most part of the bishops, when I came in,
looked more astonished than I, and heard me with silence : some
spoke for me, but my Lord ruled it so as I am filled with joy in
my sufferings, and I find Christ's cross sweet. What they intend
against the next day I know not. Be not secure, but pray. Our
bishop of Galloway said, if the commission should not give him
his will of me, with an oath (he said), he would write to the king.
The chancellor summoned me in judgment to appear that day
eight days. My Lord has brought me a friend from the Highlands
of Argyle, my Lord of Lorn, who hath done as much as was
within the compass of his power. God gave me favour in his
eyes. Mr, Robert Glendinning is silenced, till he accepts a
colleague. We hope to deal yet for Him. Christ is worthy to
be intrusted. Your husband will get an easy and good way of
his business. Ye and I both shall see the salvation of God upon
Joseph, separate from his brethren. Grace be with you.
S. R.
Edinburgh, 1636.
LETTER XXXVn.— For Marion M'Naught.
Honoured and dearest in the Lord, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I am well, and my soul prospereth ; I find
Christ with me ; I burden no man ; I want nothing ; no face
looketh on me, but it laugheth on me. Sweet, sweet is the
Lord's cross. I overcome my heaviness. My Bridegroom's love-
blinks fatten my weary soul. I soon go to my King's palace at
Aberdeen : tongue, and pen, and wit cannot express my joy.
Remember my love to Jean Gordon, to my sister Jean Brown, to
Grissel, to your husband. Thus in haste. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Edinburgh, April 5, 1636.
P.S. — My charge is to you to believe, rejoice, sing, and triumph:
Christ has said to me, Mercy, mercy, grace, and peace for Marion
M'Naught.
LETTER XXXVHL— For Marion M'Naught.
Worthy and dearest in the Lord, — I rejoice you are a
partaker of the sufferings of Christ ; faint not, keep breath.
PART III.] LETTER XXXIX. 529
Believe, howbeit men, and husbands, and friends proA'^e Aveak, yet
your strength faileth not. It is not pride for a drowning man to
grip to the rock. It is your glory to lay hold on your Rock. 0
woman greatly beloved, I testify and avouch it in my Lord, that
the prayers you sent to heaven these many years by-gone are
come up before the Lord, and shall not be forgotten. What is it
that will come, I cannot tell ; but I know, as the Lord liveth,
these cries shall bring down mercy. I charge you, and those
people with you, to go on without ftdnting or fear, and still
believe, and take no nay-say. If ye leave off, the field is lost; if
you can continue, our enemies shall be like a tottering wall and a
bowing fence. I Avrite it (and keep this letter), utter, utter deso-
lation shall be to your adversaries and to the haters of the virgin
daughter of Scotland. The bride shall yet sing, as in the days of
her youth : salvation shall be her Avails and buhvarks. The dry
olive tree shall bud again, and dry dead bones shall live ; for the
Lord shall prophesy to the dry bones, and the Spirit shall come
upon them, and they shall live. I rejoice to hear of John Carson ;
I shall not forget him. Remember me to Grissel, and Jean BroAvn.
Your husband hath made me heavy ; but be courageous in the
Lord. I send blessings to Samuel and William ; shoAV them that
I Avill them to seek God in their youth. Grace is yours.
Yours, in his SAveet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, July 8, 1637.
LETTER XXXIX.— To Marion M'Naught.
Much honoured and dearest in our saveet Lord Jesus, —
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord
Jesus. I knoAV the Lord will do for your town. I hear the
bishop is afraid to come amongst you, for so it is spoken in this
town 3 and many here rejoice to pen a supplication to the council,
for bringing me home to my place, and for repairing other Avrongs
done in the country: and see if you can procure that three or
four hundred in the country, noblemen, gentlemen, countrymen,
and citizens, subscribe it— the more the better. It may be it
affright the bishop, and by laAv no advantage can be taken against
you for it. I have not time to write to Carletoun and Knockbrex,
but I Avould you did speak them in it, and let them advise Avith
Carletoun. Mr. A. thinketh Avell of it, and I think others shall
approve it. I am still in good case Avith Christ; my court ^ is no
less than it Avas ; the door of the Bridegroom's house of Avine is
open, Avlien such a poor stranger as I come athort.^ I change, but
Christ abideth still the same. They have put out my one poor
^ Favour. - Athwart, or in the way.
2l
530 LETTER XL. [PART IIL
eye, my only joy, to preach Christ, and to go errands betwixt Him
and His bride. What my Lord will do with me, I know not : it
is like^ that I shall not winter in Aberdeen, but where it shall be
else, I know not. There are some blossomings of Christ's king-
dom in this town, and the smoke is rising, and the ministers are
raging ; but I love a rumbling and a roaring devil best. I beseech
you in the Lord, my dear sister, Avait for the salvation of God.
Slack not your hands in meeting to pray ; fear not flesh and blood,
we have been all over-feared,^ and that gave loons ^ the confidence
to shut me out of Galloway. Remember my love to John Carson
and Mr. John Brown, I never could get my love off that man ; I
think Christ hath something to do with him. Desire your hus-
band from me not to think ill of Christ for His cross, many mis-
ken* Christ because He hath the cross on His back ; but He will
cause us ail to laugh yet. I beseech you, as ye would do any-
thing for me, to remember my Lady Marischal to God, and her
son the Earl of Marischal, especially her Christian daughter, my
Lady Pitsligo. I shall go to death with it, that Christ will re-
turn again to Scotland, with salvation in His wings, and to Gal-
loway. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. E.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.
LETTEE XL.— For Marion M'Naught.
"And in that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people, all
that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces ; though all the people
of the earth be gathered together against it." — Zech. xii. 3.
Well-beloved Sister, — I have been sparing to write to you,
because I was heavy at the proceedings of our late parliament,
where law should have been. They would not give our Lord
Jesus fair law and justice, nor the benefit of the house, to hear
either the just grievances, or the humble supplications of the ser-
vants of God : nothing resteth, but that we lay our grievances be-
fore our crowned King Jesus who reigns in Zion. And howbeit
it be true, that the Acts of the Perth Assembly for conformity are
established, and the king's jDower to impose surplice and other
mass-apparel ujDon ministers be confirmed, yet what men conclude
is not scripture. Kings have short arms to overturn Christ's
throne ; and our Lord hath been walking and standing upon His
feet at this parliament, when fifteen earls and lords, and forty-four
commissioners for boroughs, with some barons, have voted for our
kirk, in face of a king, who, with much awe and terror (with his
own hand), Avrote up the voters for or against himself. Long be-
^ Probable. ^ Too timid. •* Fellows. ■* Do not know.
PAKT III.] LETTER XL. 531
fore this kirk, in the second psahn, the ends of the earth, Scotland
and England, were gifted of the Father to His Son Christ ; and
that is an old act of parliament, decreed by our Lord, and printed
four thousand years ago : their acts are but yet printing. The
first act shall stand, let all the potentates of the world, who love
Christ's room better than Himself, rage as they please. Though
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, yet there is a
river that cometh out of the sanctuary, and the streams of it re-
fresh the city of God. That Weil is not yet cried down in Scot-
land, nor can it dry up ; therefore still believe and trust in God's
salvation. If you knew the whole proceedings, it is the Lord's
mercy that matters have gone at our parliament as they have gone.
The Lord Jesus, in our king's ears, to His great provocation and
grief, hath gotten many witnesses ; and we saw in all, the Son of
God overturning their policy, and making the world know how
well He loveth His poor sun-burnt bride in Scotland. "The Lord
liveth, and blessed be the God of our salvation." For the matter
betwixt your husband and Carletoun, I trust in God it shall be
removed ; it hath grieved me exceedingly. I have dealt with
Carletoun, and shall deal ; put it off yourself upon the Lord that
it burden you not. I have heard of your daughter's marriage ; I
pray the Lord Jesus to subscribe the contract, and be at the ban-
quet, as He was at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. Show her
from me, that though it be true that God's children have prayed
for her, yet the promise of God is made to her prayers and faith
especially ; and therefore I would entreat her to seek the Lord to
be at the wedding. Let her give Christ the love of her virginity
and espousals, and choose Him first as her Husband, and that
match shall bless the other. It is a new world she entereth into,
and therefore she hath need of new acquaintance with the Son of
God, and of a renewing of her love to Him, whose love is better
than wine. 1 Cor. vii. 29, "The time is short, let the married be
as though they were not married : " verse 30, " They that weep as
though they wept not ; they that rejoice as though they rejoiced
not; they that buy as though they possessed not:" verse 31,
" They that use this world as though they used it not, for the
fashion of this world passeth away." Grace, grace be her portion
from the Lord. I know that you have a care on you of it, that
all be right ; but let Christ bear all. You need not pity Him {if
I may say so) ; put Him to it, He has strength enough. The Spirit
of the Lord Jesus be with you.
Your friend, in his dearest friend Christ Jesus, S. K.
Aberdeen.
532 LETTERS XLI. AND XLIl. [PART III.
LETTER XLI.— For Marion M'Naught.
My dearly and well-beloved Sister,— Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I am well, honour to God. I have been before
a court set up within me of terrors and challenges ; but my sweet
Lord Jesus hath taken the mask off His face, and said, kiss thy
fill ; and I will not sm other nor conceal the kindness of my King
Jesus. He hath broken in upon the poor prisoner's soul, like the
swelling of Jordan. I am bank and brim full, a great high spring-
tide of the consolations of Christ hath overflowed me. I would
not give my weeping for the fourteen prelates' laughter ; they have
sent me here to feast with my King; His spikenard casteth a sweet
smell. The Bridegroom's love hath run away with my heart. 0
love, love, love ! 0 sweet are my royal King's chains ! I care not
for fire nor torture. How sweet were it to me to swim the salt
sea for ray new Lover, my second Husband, my first Lord. I
charge you in the name of God, not to fear the wild beasts that
entered into the vineyard of the Lord of hosts. The false prophet
is the tail; God shall cut the tail from Scotland. Take your com-
fort and droop not, despond not ; pray for my poor flock. I would
take a penance on my soul for their salvation. I fear the entering
of a hireling upon my labours there will cut off" my life with sor-
row. There I wrestled with the angel and prevailed ; wood, trees,
meadows, and hills are my witnesses, that I drew on a fair meet-
ing betwixt Christ and Anwoth. My love to your husband, to
dear Carletoun, to my beloved brother Knockbrex. Forget not
Christ's prisoner. I long for a letter under your own hand.
Your friend, and Christ's prisoner, S. R.
Aberdeen, Nov. 22, 1637,
LETTER XLH.— For Marion M'Naught.
My dearly beloved Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you. I complain that Galloway is not kind to me in paper ; I
have received no letters these sixteen weeks but two. I am well,
my prison is a palace to me, and Christ's banqueting-house. My
Lord Jesus is as kind as they call Him. 0 that all Scotland knew
my case, and had pai-t of my feast ! I charge you in the name of
God, I charge you to believe ; fear not the sons of men, the worms
shall eat them. To pray and believe now when Christ seems to
give you a nay-say is more than it was before ; die believing, die
and Christ's promise in your hand. I desire, I request, I charge
your husband, and that town, to stand for the truth of the Gospel.
Contend with Christ's enemies ; and I pray you show all profes-
sors whom you know my case. Help me to praise. The minis-
PAllT III.] LETTERS XLIII, AND XLIV. 533
ters here envy me, they will have my prison changed. My mother
hath born me a man of contention, and one that striveth with the
Avhole earth. Eemember my love to your husband. Grace be
with you. Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Aberdeen, Jan. 3, 1637.
LETTER XLIIL— For Marion M'Naught.
Loving and dear Sister, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.
Your letter hath refreshed my soul ; you shall not have my advice
to make haste to go out of that town, for if you remove out of
Kirkcudbright they will easily imdo all ; you are God's work, and
in His way there ; be strong in the Lord ; the devil is weaker
than you are, because " stronger is He that is in you, than he that
is in the world." Your care of, and love showed towards me,
now a prisoner of Christ, is laid up for you in heaven, and you
shall know that it is come up in remembrance before God. Pray,
pray for my desolate flock, and give them your counsel, when you
meet with any of them. It shall be my grief to hear that a wolf
enter in upon my labours ; but if the Lord permit it, I must be
silent. My sky shall clear ; for Christ layeth my head in His
bosom, and admitteth me to lean there. I never knew before
what His love was, in such a measure ; if He leave me. He leaveth
tne in pain, and sick of love ; and yet my sickness is my life and
health. I have a fire within me ; I defy all the devils in hell, and
all the prelates in Scotland, to cast water on it. I rejoice at your
courage and faith. Pray still, as if I were on my journey to come
and be your pastor. What iron gates or bars are able to stand it
out against Christ 1 for when He bloweth, they open to Him. I
remember your husband. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen, March 11, 1637.
LETTER XLIV.— For GrisselFullerton.
Mistress, — Remembering well what relation I had to your dear
mother (now blessed and perfected with glory), and being confi-
dent that yourself looketh that way, which, (except I be eternally
lost) is the way of peace and of life, I should be ungrateful to for-
get those, whom, by the covenant of the Lord, I cannot but
remember to God. I shall speak nothing to you of the present
sad differences ; but if I have, or ever had any nearness to God,
that other way, which I trust I shall never follow, is the way of
man ; and for the present powers, I suffer from them, and look
for more. God hath a controversy with them ; and my soul
534 LETTERS XLV. AND XLVI. [PAET III.
enter not into their secrets. Only I would beseech, request, and
obtest you in the Lord, and by your appearance before Christ, to
follow the way of the Lord, and the steps trod by the gracious in
that place, which the Lord followed with life and power. My
heart is filled with sorrow, considering what communion with God
some of that country had, and how much they were in edifying
and helping one another in His way, and how little of that there
is now in that country. Your mother kept in life in that place,
and quickened many about her to the seeking of God. My desire
to you is, that you should succeed her in that way, and be letting
a word fall to your brethren and others, that may encourage them
to look toward the way of God ; you will have need of it ere it be
long. See how you may have a gracious minister, and no neutral
there, to succeed and follow the servant of God, now asleep in the
Lord. There is a great and wide difference between a name of godli-
ness and the power of godliness. That is hottest, when there are
fewest Avitnesses. The deadness upon many, and the defection of
the land, is great. Blessed are they who seek the Lord and His
face. I shall entreat you to remember me to your husband and
all friends. I desire to forget none who are in Christ,
Your brother, in the Lord, S. R.
Edinburgh, March 14, 1653.
LETTER XLV.— To a Gentlewoman.
Mistress, — I beseech you have me excused, if the daily employ-
ments of my calling shall hinder me to see you, according as I
would wish, for I dare not go abroad, since many of my people
are sick, and the time of our communion draweth near. But
frequent the company of your worthy and honest-hearted pastor,
Mr. Robert, to whom the Lord hath given the tongue of the
learned, to minister a word in due season to the weary. Remem-
ber me to him, and to your husband. The Lord Jesus be with
your spirit. Your affectionate friend, S. R.
LETTER XLVL— For William Fullerton, Provost of Kirkcud-
bright.
Much honoured and very dear Friend, — Grace, mercy, and
peace be to you. I am in good case, blessed be the Lord, remain-
ing here in this unco ^ town a prisoner for Christ and His truth ;
and I am not ashamed of His cross, my soul is comforted with
the consolations of His sweet presence, for whom I suffer. I
earnestly entreat you, to give your honour and authority to Christ
^ Strange.
PART III.) LETTER XLVII. 5oO
and for Christ ; and be not dismayed for flesh and blood, while
you are for the Lord, and for His truth and cause. And howbeit
we see truth put to the worse for the time ; yet Christ Avill be a
friend to truth, and will do for those, who dare hazard all that
they have for Him and for His glory. Sir, our fair day is coming,
and the court will change, and wicked men will weep after noon,
and sorer than the sons of God, who weep in the morning. Les
us believe and hope for God's salvation. Sir, I hope I need not
write to you for your kindness and love to my brother, who it
now to be distressed for the truth of God as well as I am. I
think myself obliged to pray for you, and your worthy and kind
bed-fellow and children, for your love to him and me also. I hope
your pains for us in Clirist shall not be lost. Thus recommending
you to the tender mercy and loving kindness of God, I rest.
Your very loving and affectionate brother, S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 21, 1636.
LETTER XLVH.— For the Right Honourable Viscountess
Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to your ladyship. I long
to hear from you and that dear child, and for that cause I trouble
you with letters. I am for the present thinking the sparrows and
the swallows that build their nests in Anwoth blessed birds. The
Lord hath made all my congregation desolate. Alas, I am oft at
this, " Show me wherefore thou contendest with me." 0 earth,
earth, cover not the violence done to me. I know it is my faith-
less jealousy in this my dark night, to take a friend for a foe ;
yet hath not my Lord made a plea with me. I chido with Him,
but He giveth me fair words : seeing my sins, and the sins of my
youth deserved strokes, how am I obliged to my Lord, who
amongst many crosses hath given me a waled ^ and a chosen cross,
to suffer for the name of my Lord Jesus ! Since I must have
chains. He would put golden chains on me, watered over with
many consolations. Seeing I must have sorrow (for I have sinned,
0 preserver of mankind). He hath waled ^ out for me joyful sorrow,
honest, spiritual, and glorious sorrow. My crosses come through
mercy and love's fingers, from the kind heart of a brother, Christ
my Lord ; and therefore they must be sweet and sugared. 0
what am I ! such a lump, such a rotten mass of sin, to be counted
a bairn worthy to be nurtured ^ and stricken with the best and
most honourable rod in my Father's house, the golden rod where-
with my eldest brother, though Lord, heir of the inheritance, and
his faithful witnesses, were stricken withal. It would be thoueht
^ Selected. -Chastened.
536 LETTEK XLVIL [I'ART III.
that I should be thankful and rejoice ; but my beholders and
lovers in Christ have eyes of flesh, and have made my one to be
ten ; and I am somebody in their books : my witness is above,
there are armies of thoughts within me saying the contrary, and
laughing at their wide mistake. If my inner-side were seen, my
dnng would stink, I would lose and forfeit love and respect at the
nands of any that love God ; pity would come in the place of
these. 0, if they would yet set me lower, and my "'Veil-Beloved
Ohrist higher ! I would I had grace and strength of my Lord, to
be joyful and contentedly glad and cheerful, that God's glory
might ride and openly triumph before the view of men, angels,
devils, earth, heaven, hell, sun, moon, and all God's creatures, up-
on my pain and sufferings ; providing always I felt not the Lord's
hatred and displeasure. But I fear His fair glory be but fouled in
coming through such a foul creature as I am. If I could be the
sinless matter of glorifying Christ, howbeit to my loss, pain, suf-
ferings, and extremity of wretchedness, how would my soul
rejoice ! but I am far from this. He knoweth, His love hath made
me a prisoner, and bound me hand and foot : but it is my pain
that I cannot win loose, nor get loose hands, and a loose heart, to
do service to my Lord Jesus, and to speak His love. I confess
that I have neither tongue nor pen to do it. Christ's love is more
than my praises, and above the thoughts of the angel Gabriel, and
all the mighty hosts that stand before, the throne of God. I think
shame, I am sad and cast down to think that my foul tongue and
my polluted heart should come in to help others to sing aloud the
praises of the love of Christ ; all I dow ^ is to wish the choir to
grow throng, and to grow in the extolling of Christ. Woe, woe
is me, for my guiltiness seen to few ; my hidden wounds, still
bleeding within me, are before the eyes of no men ; but if my
sweetest Lord Jesus were not still bathing, washing, balming,
healing, and binding them up, they should rot, and break out to
my shame. I know not what will be the end of my suffering : I
have seen but the one side of my cross ; what will be the other
side He knoweth who hath His fire in Zion. Let Him lead me,
if it were through hell. I thank my Lord, that my on-waiting
and holding my peace as I do, to see what more Christ will do for
me, is my joy. 0 if my ease, joy, pleasure for evermore, were
laid in wadset ^ and in pledge to buy praises to Christ ! But I am
far from this. It is easy for a poor soul, in the deep debt of
Christ's love, to spit farther than he dow^ leap or jump, and to
feed upon broad wishes that Christ may be honoured ; but in per-
formance I am stark naught. I have nothing, nothing to give
Christ but i:)Overty, except He would comprise ^ and arrest my soul,
' Can. ^ Mortgage. ^ Apprehend.
PAKT III ] LETTER XLVIII. 537
and my love (oh, oh if He would do that !) I have nothing for
Him. He may indeed seize upon a dyvour's ^ person, soul and
body ; but he hath no goods for Christ to meddle with : but how
glad would my soul be if he would forfeit ^ my love, and never
give it me again. Madam, I would be glad to hear that Christ's
claim to you were still the more, and that you were still going
forward, and that you were nearer Him. I dow^ not honour
Christ myself, but I wish all others to make sail to Christ's house;
I would I could invite you to go into your Well-Beloved's house
of wine, and that, upon my word, you would then see a new
mystery of love in Christ that you never saw before. I am some-
what encouraged in that your ladyship is not dry and cold to
Christ's prisoner, as some are. I hope it is put up in my Master's
count-book. I am not much grieved, that my jealous Husband
break in pieces my idols, tliat either they dare not, or will not do
for me. My Master needeth not their help, but they need to be
that * serviceable as to help Him. Madam, I have been that ^
bold as to put you, and that sweet child, into the prayers of Mr.
Andrew Cant, Mr. James Martin, the Lady Leyes, and some
others in this country that truly love Christ ; be pleased to let me
hear how the child is. The blessings that came upon the head of
Joseph, and the top of the head of Him who was separated from
His brethren, and the good will of Him who dwelt in the bush,
be seen upon him and you. - Madam, I can say, by some little
experience, more now than before of Christ to you. I am still
ujDon this, that if you seek, there is a pose,^ a hidden treasure, and
a gold mine in Christ you never yet saw ; then come and see.
Thus recommending you to God's dearest mercy, I rest, your own,
in his sweet Lord Jesus, at all obedience, S. R.
Aberdeen, June 17, 1637.
P.S. — My Lady Marischal is very kind to me, and her son also.
LETTER XLVin.— The Right Honourable Viscountess
Kenmure.
My very noble and dear Lady, — Grace, mercy, and peace
be to you. The Lord hath brought me safely to Aberdeen. I
have gotten lodging in the hearts of all I meet with ; no face that
hath not smiled upon me ; only the in-dwellers of this town are
dry, cold, and in general they consist of Papists, and men of
Gallio's metal, firm in no religion ; and it is counted no wisdom
here to countenance a confined and silenced minister. But the
shame of Christ's cross shall not be my shame. Queensberry's
^ Debtor's. - Foreclose the mortgage of. ^ Can. * So. ^ Concealed wealth.
538 LETTER XLVIII. [PART III.
attempt seemeth to sleep, because the bishop of Galloway was
pleased to say to the treasurer, that I had committed treason,
which word blunted the treasurer's borrowed zeal. So I thank
God, who will not have me to anchor my soul upon false ground,
or upon flesh and blood ; it is better it be fastened within the
veil. I find my old challenges reviving again, and my love often
jealous of Christ's love, when I look upon my own guiltiness.
And I verily think that the world hath too soft an opinion of the
gate to heaven, and that many shall get a blind and sad beguile
for heaven ; for there is more ado than a cold and frozen Lord,
Lord. It must be a way narrower and straiter than we conceive,
for the righteous shall scarcely be saved. It were good to take a
more judicious view of Christianity ; for I have been doubting if
ever I knew any more of Christianity than the letters of the name.
I'll not lie on my Lord, I find often much joy, and unspeakable
comfort, in His sweet presence, who sent me hither ; and I trust
this house of my pilgrimage shall be my palace, my garden of
delights, and that Christ will be kind to poor sold Joseph, who is
separated from his brethren. I would be sometimes too hot and
too joyful, if the heart-breaks at the remembrance of sin, and fair,
fair feast-days with King Jesus, did not cool me and sour my sweet
joys. O ! how sweet is the love of Christ, and how wise is that
love ! But let faith frist^ and trust a while, it is no reason sons
should off'end, that the father giveth them not twice a year hire,
as he doth to hired servants. Better that God's heirs live upon
hope than upon hire. Madam, your ladyship knoweth what
Christ hath done, to have all your love ; and that He alloweth
not His love upon your dear child ; keep good quarters with
Christ in your love. I verily think that Christ hath said, " I
must needs-force^ have Jean Campbell for myself;" and He hath
laid many oars in the water, to fish and hunt home-over your
heart to heaven. Let Him have His prey ; it is good to have
recourse often, and to have the door open to our stronghold, for
the sword of the Lord, the sword of the Lord, is for Scotland :
and yet two or three berries shall be left in the top of the olive-
tree. If a word can do my brother good in his distress, I know
your ladyship will be willing and ready to speak it, and more
also. Now the only wise God, and your only, only One, He who
dwelt in the bush, be with you. I write many kisses and many
blessings in Christ to your dear child, the blessings of his father's
God, the blessings due to the fatherless and the widow be yours
and his.
Your ladyship's, in his only, only Lord Jesus, S. R.
Aberdeen.
1 Wait. ^ Of necessity.
PART III.] LETTEK XLIX. 539
P.S, — Madam, — Be pleased at a fit time to try my Lord of
Lorn's mind, if his lordship would be pleased, that I dedicate
another work against the Arminians to his honourable name. For
howbeit I would compare no patron to his lordship : and though
I have sufficient experience of his love, yet it is possible, that
his lordship think it not expedient at this time. But I expect
your ladyship's answer. And I hope your ladyship will be
plain.
LETTER XLIX.— For the Eight Honourable, my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — I doubt not but the debt of many more than ordinary
favours to this land layeth guiltiness upon this nation. The Lord
hath put us in His books as a favoured people, in the sight of the
nations ; but we pay not to Him the rent of the vineyard ; and
Ave might have had a Gospel at an easier rate than this Gospel ;
but it would have had but as much life as ink and paper hath :
wo stand obliged to Him who hath in a manner forced His love
on us, and would but love us against our will.
Anent^ read prayers, madam, I could never see precept, pro-
mise, or practice for them in God's word ; our church never
allowed them, but men took them up at their own choice. The
Word of God maketh reading, 1 Tim. iv. 13, and praying, 1
Thess. V. 17, two different worships. In reading God speaketh
to us, 2 Kings xxii. 10, 11 ; in praying we speak to God, Ps. xxii.
2 ; xxviii. 1. I had never faith to think well of them. In my
weak judgment, it were good they were out of the service of God :
I cannot think them a fruit or effect of the Spirit of adoption,
seeing the user cannot say of such prayers, " Let the words of my
mouth, and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy
sight, 0 Lord, my strength and Eedeemer ;" which the servants
of God ought to say of their prayers, Ps. xix. 14. For such
prayers are meditations set down in paper and ink, and cannot
be his heart-meditations who useth them. The saints never used
them, and God never commanded them, and a promise to hear
any prayers, except the pouring out of the soul to God, we can
never read. As for separation from a worship for some errors of
a church, the independency of single congregations, a church of
visible saints, and other tenets of Brownists, they are contrary to
God's word. I have a treatise at the press at London against
these conceits, as things which want God's word to warrant them ;
the Lord lay it not to their charge, who depart from the covenant
of God with this land, to follow such lying vanities.
I did see lately your daughter the Lady Ardross, the Lord hath
^ With respect to.
540 LETTERS L. AND LI. [PART IIL
given her a child and deliverance. Now recommending your
ladyship to the rich grace of Christ, I rest,
Yours, at all respective^ observance in Christ, S. R.
St Andrews.
LETTER L. — To John Henderson, in Rusco.
Loving Friend, — I earnestly desire your salvation. Know the
Lord, and seek Christ ; you have a soul that cannot die. See for
a lodging for your poor soul : for that house of clay will fall ;
heaven or nothing, either Christ or nothing. Use prayer in your
house, and set your thoughts often upon death and judgment : it
is dangerous to be loose in the matter of your salvation ; few are
saved. Men go to heaven in ones and twos, and the whole world
lieth in sin. Love your enemies, and stand by the truth which I
have taught you in all things. Fear not men, but let God be
your fear. Your time will not be long; make the seeking of
Christ your daily task ; ye may, when ye are in the fields, speak
to God. Seek a broken heart for sin ; for without that there is
no meeting with Christ. I speak this to your wife, as well as to
yourself. I desire your sister in her fears and doubtings to fasten
her grips on Christ's love ; I forbid her to doubt, for Christ loveth
her, and hath her name written in His book, her salvation is fast
coming; Christ her Lord is not slow in coming, nor slack in His
promise. Grace be with you.
Your loving pastor, S. R.
Aberdeen.
LETTER LI.— To James Murray's Wife.
My very dear and worthy Sister, — You are truly blessed
in the Lord, however a sour world gloom and frown on you, if ye
continue in the faith, settled and grounded, and be not moved
away from the hope of the gospel. It is good there is a heaven,
and it is not a night-dream and a fancy. It is a wonder that men
deny not that there is a heaven, as they deny there is any way to
it but of men's making. You have learned of Christ that there is
a heaven ; contend for it, and for Christ : bear well and submis-
sively the hard thrust of this stepmother world, which God will
not have to be yours. I confess it is hard, and would God I
were able to lighten you of your burden ; but believe me, this
world, which the Lord will not have to be yours, is but the dross,
refuse, and scum of God's creation, the portion of the Lord's poor
hired servants; the moveables, not the heritage; a hard bone
^ Respectful.
PART III.] LETTER LII. 541
cast to the dogs, holden out of the New Jerusalem, whereupon
they rather break their teeth than satisfy their appetite. It is
your Father's blessing and Christ's birthright that our Lord is
keeping for you ; and persuade yourself also that (if it be good
for them and you) your seed also shall inherit the earth ; for that
is promised to them, and God's bond is as good as if He would
give every one of them a bond for thousand thousands. Ere you
were born, crosses in number, measure, and weight, were written
for you ; and your Lord will lead you through them : make Christ
sure, and the world and the blessings of the earth shall be at
Christ's back and beck. I see many professors for the fashion,
professors of glass ; I would make a little knock of persecution
ding^ them in twenty pieces, and the world would laugh at the
sherds. Therefore make fast work ; see that Christ be the ground-
stone ^ of your professioa; the sore wind and rain will not wash
away His building, His Avork hath no less date than to stand for
evermore. I should twenty times have perished in my affliction,
if I had not laid my weak back and pressing burden both upon
the stone, the corner-stone laid in Zion ; I am not twice fain (as
the proverb is), but once and for ever, of this stone. Now the
God of peace establish you to the day of the appearance of Jesus
Christ. Yours, S. E.
St, Andrews.
LETTER LH.— For the Right Honourable Viscountess
Kenmure.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and j^eace to you. I am glad to hear
that your ladyship is in any tolerable health, and shall pray that
the Lord may be your strength and rock. Sure I am, that He
took you out of the womb ; and you have been casten on Him
from the breasts ; I am confident that He Aviil not leave you till
He crown the begun work in you. There is nothing here but
divisions in the church and assembly ; for beside Brownists and
Independents (who of all that differ from us, come nearest to
walkers with God), there are many other sects here of Anabap-
tists, Libertines, who are for all opinions in religion ; fleshly and
abominable Antinomians and Seekers, who are for no church
ordinances, but expect apostles to come and reform churches;
and a world of others, all against the government of presbyteries.
Luther observed, when he studied to reform, that two-and-thirty
sundry sects arose, of all which (I have named but a part), except
those called Seekers, who were not then arisen, he said, God
should crush them, and that they should rise again, both which
^ Drive. 2 Foundation.
542 LETTER LIII. [PART III.
we see accomplished. In the assembly we have well near ended
the government, and ai-e upon the power of synods, and I hope
near at an end with them, and so I trust to be delivered from this
prison shortly. The king hath dissolved the treaty of peace at
Uxbridge, and adhereth to his sweet prelates ; and would abate
nothing but a little of the rigour of their courts, and a suspending
of laws against the ceremonies, not a taking away of them. The
not prospering of your armies there in Scotland, is ascribed here
to the sins of the land, and particularly to the divisions and back-
slidings of many from the cause, and the not executing of justico
against bloody malignants. My wife, here under the physician,
remembers her service to your ladyship. So recommending you
to the rich grace of Christ, I rest,
Your ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R
London, March 4, 1644.
LETTER LIIL— For the Right Honourable my Lady Boyd.
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace to you. I received your
letter on May 19th. We are here debating, with much conten-
tion of disputes, for the just measures of the Lord's temple. It
pleaseth God that sometimes enemies hinder the building of the
Lord's house ; but now, friends, even gracious men (so I conceive
of them), do not a little hinder the work. Thomas Goodwin,
Jeremiah Burroughs, and some others, four or five who are for the
Independent Avay, stand in our way, and are mighty opposites to
Presbyterian government. We have carried through some pro-
positions for the scripture right of presbytery, especially in the
church of Jerusalem, Acts ii. and iv. and v. and vi. and xv., and
the church of Ephesus, and are going on upon other grounds of
truth ; and, by the way, have proven that ordination of pastors
belongeth not to a single congregation, but to a college of pres-
byters, whose it is to lay hands upon Timothy and others, 1 Tim.
iv. 14; V. 17, Acts xiii. 1-3; viii. 5, 6. We are to prove that
one single congregation hath not power to excommunicate, which
is opposed not only by Independent men, but by many others :
the truth is, we have many and grieved spirits witli the work ;
and for my part, I often despair of the reformation of this land,
which saw never anything but the high places of their fathers, and
the remnant of Babylon's pollutions ; and except that not by
might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord, I should
think God hath not yet thought it time for England's deliver-
ance : for the truth is, the best of them almost have said, " a half
reformation is very fair at the first," which is no other thing, than
" it is not time vet to build the house of the Lord ;" and for that
PART III.] LETTER LIV. 543
cause many houses, great and fair, in the land are laid desolate.
Multitudes of Anabaptists, Antinomians, Familists, Separatists,
are here ; the best of the people are of the Independent way. As
for myself, I know no more if there be a sound Christian (setting
aside some, yea not a few learned, some zealous and faithful
ministers, whom I have met with) at London (though I doubt not
but there are many) than if I were in Spain, which maketh me
bless God, that the communion of saints, how desirable soever,
yet is not the thing, even that great thing, Christ and the remis-
sion of sins. If Jesus were unco,^ as His members are here, I
should be in a sad and heavy condition. The House of Peers are
rotten men, and hate our commissioners and our cause both. The
life that is, is in the House of Commons, and many of them also
have their religion to choose. The sorrows of a travailing woman
are come on the land. Our army is lying about York, and have
blocked up them of Newcastle, and six thousand Papists and
Malignants, with Mr. Thomas Sydserf and some Scottish prelates ;
and if God deliver them into their hands (considering how strong
the parliament's armies are, how many victories God hath given
them since they entered into covenant with Him, and how weak
the king is), it may be thought the land is near a deliverance ;
but I rather desire it than believe it. We offered this day to the
assembly a part of a directory for worship, to shoulder out the
service-book : it is taken into consideration by the assembly.
Your son Lindsey is well. I receive letters from him almost
every week.
Yours, at all obedience in God, S. R
London, May 25, 1644.
LETTER LIV.— For the Right Honourable Lady, my Lady
Kenmure.
Madam, — I am a little moved at your infirmity of body and
health ; I hope it is to you a real warning ; " and if in this life
only we had hope, we should be of all men the most miserable."
Sure the huge generations of the seekers of the face of Jacob's God,
must be in a life above the things that are now much taking with
us ; such as to see the sun, to enjoy this life in health, and some
good worldly accommodations too : and if we be making that sure,
it is our wisdom. The times would make any that love the Lord
sick and faint, to consider how iniquity aboundeth, and how dull
we are in observing sins in ourselves, and how quick-sighted to finil
them out in others, and what bondage we are in ; and yet very
often, when we complain of times, we are secretly slandering the
' Str.n.nn-e.
544 LETTEK LV. [PAKT III.
Lord's work and wise government of the world, and raising a hard
report of Him. " He is good, and doeth good," and all His ways
are equal. Madam, I have been holding out to some others (0 if
I could to myself) some more of this, to read and study God
well, and make the serious thoughts of a Godhead, and a God-
head in Christ, the work, and the only work, all the day. 0,
we are all little with God ! and do all without God • we sleep
and wake without Him ; we eat, we speak, we journey, we go
aboi.it worldly business and our calling, without God! And, con-
sidering what deadness is upon the hearts of many, it were
good that some did not pi'ay without God, and preach and praise,
and read and confer of God, without God. It is universally com-
plained of that there is a strange deadness upon the land and on
the hearts of His people. 0 if we could help it ! But He that
watereth every moment His garden of red wine must help it. I
believe that He will burn the briers and the thorns that come
against Him. I desire to remember your ladyship to God, but
little can I do that way. His everlasting goodness will be with
you. Yours, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
St. Andrews, July 24.
LETTER LV.— For the Right Honourable and Christian Lady,
my Lady Kenmure.
Madajni, — Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. The Lord is
gracious who keepeth your ladyship in the furnace, when many
put out their hand to iniquity one way or other. We are now
shouldering and casting down one another in the dark, and the
godly hidden from the godly. We make our own chains heavier
by joining with the Lord's enemies. Hence new sufferings to all
that dare not say, "a confederacy to those to whom this people
say a confederacy, nor fear their fear." As that is my exercise
now, who am not very far from being my lone ^ (though I know in
whom I have believed, at least I should know) in this place, so I
am afraid that the godly there comply with those declared enemies
of God. It will be our strength to walk between enemies and
malignants on either side ; this is the day of Jacob's trouble, yet
these dry bones can and must live. I know not if I shall see it,
but I hope to take this quietness and silence of faith, in the midst
of the noises of the alarm for war, to the grave with me, that the
Lord will build upon the church of Britain and Ireland a palace of
silver, enclosed with boards of cedar. Dear madam, faint not, the
night is almost gone, " for the vision is yet for an appointed time,
but at the end it shall speak, and not lie, though it tarry, wait for
it, because it will surely come, and not tarry." Madam, Aveary
^ Alone.
PAUT III.] LETTEK LVI. 545
not ; none can out-bid your lodging in heaven : there is more given
for it by Him, who hath bespoken it for Jean Campbell, and taken
it for her, than any can offer. The ransom of blood standeth. My
wife remembereth her respects to your ladyship. The child is well.
Mrs. Gillespie is well, we hear, but is not here. Grace, grace be
with you. Yours, in his own Lord Jesus Christ, S. R
St. Andrews, Jan. 28, 1653.
LETTER LVL— For the Honourable and Truly Worthy Colonel
Gilbert Ker.
Much honoured in the Lord, — How it is with you may ap-
pear by your letters to some with us. But it is the complaint of
not a few of such, who were in Christ before me, that most of us
inhabit and dwell in a parched land. The people of the Lord are
like a land not rained upon : though some dare not deny but this
is the garden of the Beloved, and the vineyard that the Lord doth
keep and water every moment : yet, 0, where are the sometime
quickening breathings and influences from heaven that have re-
freshed His hidden ones ? The causes of His with drawings are
unknown to us. One thing cannot be denied, but that ways of
high sovereignty and dominion of grace are far out of the sight of
angels and men ; yea, and so above the fixed way of free promises,
such as, " This do, and He shall breathe and blow upon His gar-
den," as He hath put forth a declaration to His hidden ones in
Scotland, that smartings, wrestlings, prayings, complaining, gracious
missing, cannot earn the visits from on high, nor fetch down
showers upon the desert. It may be, when we are saying in our
graves, our bones are dry, and our hope gone, that temporal and
spiritual deliverance may come both together ; and that He will
cause us feel, both the one way and the other, the good of His
reign who shortly cometh to the throne, Ps. Ixxii. 6, " He shall
come down like rain upon the mown grass ; as showers that water
the earth ;" verse 7, " In his days shall the righteous flourish: and
abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth;" verse 12, "He
shall deliver the needy when he crieth, and the poor also, and him
that hath no helper;" verse 14, "He shall redeem their soul from
deceit and violence : and precious shall their blood be in his sight."
And though we cannot pray home a sweet season that way, yet
Christ must bring summer with Him when He cometh. Ver. 16,
" There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of
the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon." I
know not if I apply prophecies as I would, rather than as they are;
when the one Shepherd is set over them, even He who shall stand
(0 how much do we lie) and feed in the strength of the Lord, the
2 M
546 LETTEK LVI. [PART III.
isles (and this the greatest of them), which wait for His law, are
to look for that, Ezek. xxxiv. 26 ; " And I will make them, and
the places round about my hill a blessing ; and I will cause the
shower to come down in his season. There shall be showers of
blessing." How desirable must every drop of such a shower be !
And, Hos. xiv. 5, " I will be as the dew of Israel, He shall grow
as the lily, and cast forth His roots as Lebanon ;" ver. 6, " His
branches shall spread, and His beauty shall be as the olive-tree,
and His smell as Lebanon." And, Isa. Iv. 13, "Instead of the
thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come
up the myrtle-tree : and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an
everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." Isa. xli. 19, "I will
plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah-tree, and the oil-tree."
Isa. xliv. 3, "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods
upon the dry ground : I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and
my blessing upon thine offspring." And it shall be no lost labour,
nor fruitless husbandry. Ver. 6, " They shall spring up as among
the grass, as willows by the water-courses." But when this shall
be in Scotland (and it must be) is better to believe than prophesy :
and quietly to hope and sit still (for that is yet our strength),
than to quarrel with Him, that the wheels of this cnariot move
leisurely.
Yet this can hardly say anything to us who do so much please
ourselves in our deadness, and are almost gone from godly thirst
and missing too, being half-satisfied with our witheredness. No
doubt we have marred His influences, and have not seconded nor
smiled upon His actings upon us. Nor have we been much of His
strain who (Ps. cxix.) doth eight times breathe out that suit,
" Quicken me, quicken me." So much are we desirous to be acted
upon by the Loi-d as blocks and stones ; and so prodigal are we of
His motions, as if they were no better to be husbanded. But it is
good that it is not in our power to blast and undo His breathings ;
but His wind bloweth where He listeth. Could we but lean, and
cast a quiet spirit under the dewings and showerings of Him that
every moment watereth His vineyard, how happy and blessed
were we ! We neither open nor discern His knocking, nor do we
feel His hand put in through the keyhole, nor can we give any
spiritual account of the walkings and motions of Christ, when He
standeth behind the wall, when He cometh skipping over the
mountains, when He cometh to His garden and feasteth, when He
feedeth among the lilies, when His spikenard casteth a smell,
when He knocketh and withdraweth and is nowhere to be found.
0 how little a portion of God do we see ! how little study we
God ! How rarely read we God, or are versed in the lively aji-
prehensions of that great unknown All in All, the glorious God-
PART III.] LETTER LVI. 5-17
head, and the Godhead revealed in Christ ! We dwell far from
the well, and complain but drily of our dryness and dulness. We
are rather dry than thirsty.
Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility; but for me, I
neither know what He is, nor his Son's name, nor where He dwells.
I hear a report of Christ great enough, and that is all. 0 ! what
is nearness to Him ? What is that, to be " in God," to " dwell in
God " ? What a house must that be, 1 John iv. 13. How far are
some from their house and home ! How ill acquaint with the
rooms, mansions, safety, and sweetness of holy security to be
found in God ! 0 what estrangement ! what wandering ! what
frequent conversing with self and the creature ! Is not here " the
bed shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it? and the
covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in 1 " Isa. xxviii.
20. When shall we attain to a living in only, only God ! and be
estranged from all the poor created nothings, the painted shadow-
beings of yesterday, which, an hour and less before creation, were
dark waste negatives and empty nothings, and should so have
been for eternity, had the Lord suffered them to lie there for ever !
It is He, the great He, "who sitteth upon the circle of the earth
and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to
dwell in, that bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the
judges of the earth as vanity," Isa. xl. 22, 23. And He, the only
He, and there is no He besides Him, Isa. xliii. 10, 11 ; xlv. 5.
Men or angels, they are not any of them a he to Him. But a liv-
ing, bi'eathing, dying nothing is man at his best, a sick clay-vanity;
and the angel, to Him, but a more excellent, living and under-
standing nothing. Yet we live at a distance from Him, and we
die and wither when we are out of God. 0, if we knew how
nothing we are without Him ! Sir, we desire to mind your bonds ;
and are cheered and refreshed that we hear of any of His mani-
festations, and His out-goings, which are prepared as the morning
to you. We hope, nor need we desire you not to faint, and are
confident that the anointing that abideth in you teacheth you so
much. Wait upon the speaking vision : " Behold he cometh ! be-
hold. His reward is Avith Him, and his work before Him ! " The
only wise God strengthen you with all might, according to His
glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyful-
ness.
Yours, at all observance in the Lord JesuSj S. 11.
St. Andrews, July 1653.
548 LETTERS LVII., LVIIL, AND LIX. [PAKT III.
LETTEE LVII.— For Mr. John Scot, at Oxnani.
Eeverend and dear Brother, — I saw from C. K. a testimony
of your presbytery against toleration, in which ye have been in-
strumental. The Lord give strength to do more. I think it both
rare and necessary, and would account it a great mercy, if there
were an addition of a postscript from divers ministers and elders
out of all the shires of Scotland. It is really the mind of all the
godly and tender in this land. It is believed by some, that the
protesting party hath quite given over the cause. I hope it is not
so ; but the Lord shall be yet victorious in His most despised ones.
Our darkness is great and thick, and there is much deadness ; yet
the Lord will be our light. Thus recommending you to His grace
whose you are, I am,
Your own brother in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrews, April 2, 1658.
LETTER LVIIL— For Mr. John Scot, at Oxnam.
Dear Brother, — Faint not ; but be strong in the Lord, and in
the power of His might, I look on it as a rich mercy that the
Lord is with you, strengthening you to quicken fainters, to warm
and warn any that are cold or dead, or who deaden others. Be-
lieve it will be your peace in the end. The times are sad ; yet I
persuade myself that the vision will not tarry, but Avill speak.
The Lord will loose our captive-bonds. 0, blessed he, though
alone, who is found fast and constant for the desirable interest of
Christ, My humble advice would be, that you see to the placing
of the deacon and the ruling-elder, or to anything that may weaken
the discipline. Our second Book of Discipline should be heeded:
sessions purged, 0 ! catechising and personal visiting, and speak-
ing to them sigillatim'^ concerning their interest in Christ and a
state of conversion, is little in practice. The practice of family
fasts is scarce known to be an ordinance of God. It were good
that ye should confer with godly brethren in jDrivate, concerning
the promoting of godliness, concerning Christian conference, and
praying together, worshipping of God in families, and solitary
fasts. To His grace who can direct, quicken, and strengthen you,
I recommend you, and am. Your loving brother, S, R.
St. Andrews.
LETTER LIX.— For Mr. John Scot, at Oxnam.
Reverend and dear Brother, — Your letter that came unto
me, of August 2d, to be at Edinburgh upon August 2d, was un-
^ Individually.
PAKT III.J LETTERS LX. A.ND LXI. 549
known to me by the sul)scription. But since it was written for
so honourable and warrantable a truth of Christ, as a testimony
against toleration, if my health would have permitted, and my
daily menacing gravel, I should have come to Edinburgh. What
either counsel, countenance, or clearing ye could have had from
the like of me, I cannot say, nor dare I speak much, but with a
reserve of the help of His grace. I desire to desire, and purpose
by strength from above, to own that cause, and to join with you
and some in this church, besides your presbytery, who will own
that cause. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.
This cloud will over, could we live by faith, and wait on a speak-
ing and a seemingly delaying vision. The Lord will not tarry.
Grace be with you. Many are with you, but there is One who is
above millions. Your own brother, S. R.
St. Andrews, Aus:. 8, 1658.
LETTER LX.— For Mr. John Scot, at Oxnam.
Reverend and dear Brother, — No man oweth more to the
church of God with you, than poor and wretched I. But when
weakness of body, and the Lord by it, did forbid me to under-
take a lesser journey to Edinburgh, I am forbidden far more to
journey thither. And believe it, nothing besides this doth hinder.
I am unable to overtake what the Lord hath laid upon me here ;
and therefore, I desire to submit to sovereignty, and must be
silent. If my prayers and best desires to the Lord could contri-
bute anything for promoting of His work, my soul's desire is, that
the wilderness, and that place to which I owe my first breathing,
in which I fear Christ was scarce named, as touching any reality
or power of godliness, may blossom as a rose. So desiring, and
praying that His name may be great among you, and entreating
that you may believe that the names of the Lord's adversaries
shall be written in the earth, and, that " whoso will not come up
of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem, to worship the
King, the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain," and
that the " Lord will create glory upon every assembly in Mount
Zion," I rest. Your own brother in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrews, June 15, 1655.
LETTER LXI. —To Mr. James Durham, Minister of the Gospel
at Glasgow, some few days before his Death.
Sir, — I would ere now have written to you, had I not known
that your health, weaker and weaker, could scarce permit you to
hear or read. I need not speak much. The way ye know, and
550 LETTER LXII. [PART III.
have preached to others the skill of the Guide, and the glory of
the home beyond death. And when He saith, " Come and see,"
it will be your gain to obey, and go out and meet the Bridegroom.
What accession is made to the higher house of His kingdom should
not be our loss, though it be real loss to the church of God. But
we count one way, and the Lord counteth another way. He is
infallible, and the only wise God, and needeth none of us. Had
He needed the staying in the body of Moses and the prophets. He
could have taken another way. Who dare bid you cast your
thoughts back on wife or children, when He said, " Leave them to
Me, and come up hither " 1 Or who can persuade you to die or
live, as if that were arbitrary to us, and not His alone who hath
determined the number of your months 1 If so it seem good to
Him; follow your Forerunner and Guide. It is an unknown land
to you, who were never there before ; but the land is good, and
the company before the throne desirable, and He who sitteth on
the throne is His lone ^ a sufficient heaven. Grace, grace be with
you. Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrews, June 15, 1658.
LETTER LXII. — Mr. Rutherford's Judgment, sent to some
brethren, about petitioning his Majesty after his return, and
for owning such as were censured while about so necessary a
duty.
Reverend and dear Brethren, — It is a matter of difficulty
to me to write at this distance, not having heard your debates.
It seemeth that the Lord calleth us to give information to the
king's majesty of affairs. The Lord's admirable providence, in
bringing him to his throne, and laying aside others who were
enemies to the cause and sworn covenant of God, so that now the
government is in a right line, is to be adored. Aiid I judge
(without prescribing) that some should be sent to his majesty to
congratulate that providence ; and that reason of our being so
slow in sending should be rendered. 1. We should write, not in
the name of the kirk of Scotland, but in the name of a most con-
siderable number of godly ministers, elders, and professors, who
both pray for the king, are obedient to his laws, and are under
the oath of God for the sworn reformation. 2. It is better now,
than after sentences and trouble, to have recourse to Him who is
by place parens patricB. 3. We should supplicate in all humility
for protection and countenance ; far more for lawful liberty to
fear the bond of the oath of the dreadful and most high Lord ;
avouching to his majesty, that the Lord, His holy name being
» Of Himself.
PART III.] LETTEH LXIII. 551
interposed, will own that government, and bless his majesty with
a happy and successful reign, in the owning thereof, and kissing
of the Son of God. And when the Lord shall be pleased to grant
that to us which concerneth religion, the beauty of His house,
the propagating of the Gospel, the government of the Lord's
kingdom, without Popery, Prelacy, unwritten traditions and
ceremonies, let his majesty try our loyalty with Avhat commands
he will be pleased to lay on us, and see if we be found rebellious.
4. We should disclaim such as have sinfully complied with the
late usurpers ; produce our written testimonies against them ; our
not accepting of offices and places of trust for them ; our testi-
monies against their usurpation, covenant-breaking, toleration of
all religions, corrupt sectarian ways, for which the Lord hath
broken them. 5. We are represented to his majesty as such who
would not consent that the remonstrance of the western forces
should be condemned by the commission of the general assembly;
whereas, (1.) We did humbly desire that the judicature should not
condemn nor censure that remonstrance, till the gentlemen were
heard, and their reasons discussed. (2.) Whatever demur was as
to the banding or combining part of it, we were and are obliged
to believe that they had no sectarian design therein, nor levelling
intention. (3.) They are gentlemen most loyal, and never were
enemies to his majesty's royal power; but only desired that
security might be had for religion and the people of God, and
persons disaffected to religion and the sworn covenant abandoned ;
otherwise they were, and still are, willing to hazard lives and
estates for the just greatness and safety of his majesty, in the
maintenance of the true religion, covenant, and cause of God.
The only difficulty will be, where to have fit men to send. But
as it will be both sin and shame for us to desert our undeservedly
now censured brethren, so it will be our sin and reproach sinfully
to comply^ with such things and courses as we testified against,
and confessed to God. I can say no more at present, but that I
am. Your loving brother, S. R.
St. Andrews, 1660.
LETTER LXIII.— Mr. Rutherford's Judgment of a Draught
or Minute of a Petition, to have been presented to the Com-
mittee of Estates, by those Ministers who were then prisoners
in the Castle of Edinburgh for that other well-knoAvn Petition
to his Majesty, about which they were when seized upon and
made Prisoneis.
" But that no man may mistake or judge ainiss of persons so
fixed in the cause and faithful In their generation, know tliat
552 LETTER LXIII. [PART III.
this draught vras not sent to Mr. llutherford as a paper con-
cluded and condescended upon amongst these brethren, whose
love to truth made them in all things so tender that they
were ever found to abstain from all appearance of evil ; but
it was more like the suggestion of some other men (wherein
was laid before them what kind of address would most pro-
bably please, waiving the just measures of what was simply
duty in their circumstances), than anything flowing from
themselves, as the product of a mature deliberation. And,
secondly, know (which confirmeth what was said), that what-
ever it was, or whoever gave the rise to it, yet it was never
made use of, nor presented to the committee of estates, by
any of these faithful men, whose praise, for their fidelity,
fixedness, real and untainted integrity, is in the churches of
Christ."
Dear Brother, — I am (as ye know) straitened as another
suffering man, but dare not petition this committee. 1. Because
it draweth us to capitulate with such as have the advantage of
the mount, the Lord so disposing for the present : and, to bring
the matters of Christ to yea and no (ye being prisoners and they
the powers) is a hazard. 2. A speaking to them in write,^ and
passing in silence the sworn covenant and the cause of God, which
is the very present controversy, is contrary to the practice of
Christ and the apostles, who, being accused or not accused, avouched
Christ to be the Son of God and the Messias, and that the dead
must rise again, even when the adversary misstated the question.
Yea, silence on the cause of God, which adversaries persecute,
seemeth a tacit deserting of the cause, when the state of the
question is known to beholders : and I know the brethren intend
not to leave the cause. 3. I know of no ofi"ence that you have
given (I will not say what offence may be taken) either as to the
matter or manner of your petition. For, if what you have done
be a necessary duty laid aside by others, a duty can never give
an offence to Christ, and so none to men ; but Christians will
look upon a pious, harmless, and innocent petition to the prince,
in the matter of the Lord's honour, and good of His church (though
proffered by one or two, when they are silent, whose it is to speak
and act), as a seasonable duty. 4. The draught of that petition,
which you sent me, speaketh not one word of the covenant of God,
for the adhering to which you now suffer, and which is the object
of men's hatred, and the destruction whereof is the great work
of tlie times. And your silence in this nick ^ of time appears to
be a non-confession of Christ before men ; and you want notliing
1 Writinsf. * Point
PAIIT III.] LETTER LXIII. 553
to beget an uncleanly deliverance but the profession of silence.
5. There is a promise and real purpose (as the petition sayeth) to
live peaceable under the king's authority. But, (1.) Ye do not
answer so candidlj- and ingenuously the mind of the rulers, who,
to your knowledge, mean a far other thing by authority than ye
do. For ye mean, his just authority, his authority in the Lord,
and his just greatness, is in the maintenance of true religion, as
in the covenant, confession of faith, and catechisms, is expressed
from the word of God : they mean his supreme authority, and
absolute prerogative above laws, as their acts make clear, and as
their practice is. For they refused, to such as were unwilling to
subscribe their bond, to add "authority in the Lord," or, "just
and lawful authority," or " authority as it is expressed in the cove-
nant." But this draught of a petition, under your own hand,
yieldeth the sense and meaning to them which they crave. (2.)
That authority for which they contend is exclusive of the sworn
covenant ; so that, except ye had said, " we shall be subject to
the king's authority in the Lord, or according to the sworn cove-
nant," ye say nothing to the point in hand ; and that, sure, is not
your meaning. (3.) Whoever promised so much of peaceable
living under his majesty's authority, leaving out the exposition
of the fifth commandment, as your petition doth, may upon the
very same ground subscribe the bond refused by the godly ; and
so you pass from the covenant, and make all those by-past actings
of this kirk and state, these years by-past, to be horrid rebellion.
And how deep that guiltiness draweth, consider. 6. A condem
ning of the remonstrance, simply and without any limitation and
distinction, is a condemning of many precious ones in the land,
and a passing from the Causes of God's wrath,^ which is the chiei
matter of the remonstrance. 7. That nothing is before your eyes
but the exoneration of your conscience, is indeed believed by the
godly who know you ; but a passing in silence of the honest
materials in your former petition to his majesty seemeth to be a
deserting thereof, since, in all you petition, ye do not once say ye
cannot but adhere to that pious petition, as your necessary duty.
And, that ye intend in the petition the happiness of his majesty,
is also believed. Dear brother, show to your brethren, that the
Lord Christ, in your persons, hath a stated question betwixt Him
and the powers on earth. The only wise God lead you, now when
He hath brought you forth in public, so to act as if ye did see
Jesus Christ by you, and beholding you. It is easy for such as
are on the shore to throw a counsel to those that are tossed in
the sea. But only by living by faith, and by fetching strength
and comfort from Christ, can you be victorious, and have right
1 See note on p. 27.
554 LETTER LXIV. [PAKT III.
to the precious promises " of the tree of life," " of the hidden
manna," of the gifted " morning star," and the like, made to those
who overcome, to whose strength and grace brethren, who desire
me to remember you, do recommend you. I am, dear brother,
yours, in the Lord, S. R.
St. Andrews, 1660.
LETTER LXIV.— For the Right Honourable, my Lady Vis-
countess of Kenmure.
Madam, — It is not my part to be unmindful of you. Be not
afflicted for your brother the Marquis of Argyle ; as to the main,
in my weak apprehension, the seed of God being in him, and love
to the people of God and His cause, it will be well, the making
of particular reckoning with the Lord, and of peace with God,
and owning of his cause when too many disown it, will make his
peace with the King the surer. The Lord is beginning to reckon
with such as did forsake His cause and covenant, and until we
return to Him, our peace shall not be like a river, and as the
waves of the sea. However, the opening of the bosom to take in
all the malignants can produce no better fruits. The Lord calleth
us to flee into our chambers, and shut the doors, till the indigna-
tion be over, Isa. xxvi. 20. The lily among the thorns is so
served ; He hideth Himself, and our mountain is removed and
we are troubled ; but the Lord reigneth, let the earth tremble,
and let the earth rejoice. The Lord, without blood, broke the
yoke of usurping oppressors, and laid them aside ; the same Lord
can settle throne and kingdom on the pillars of heaven ; but 0,
the controversy the Lord hath with Edom, and those who cove-
nanted with us, and then sold us ; and with those of whom the
Holy Ghost speaketh. Lam. ii. 14. "Thy prophets have seen
vain and foolish things for thee, they have not discovered thine
iniquity to turn away thy captivity, but have seen for thee false
burdens and causes of banishment." The time of Jacob's suffering
is but short, and the vision will speak, could we be from under
deadness, and watch unto wrestling and prayer with the Lord,
and live more by faith, we should be more than conquerors.
Wait upon the Lord, faint not. The Lord Jesus be with your
spirit.
Yours, at all respective ^ observance in the Lord, S. 11.
St. Andrews, July 24, 1660.
Ilespectful.
PART III.] LETTER LXV. 555
LETTER LXV.— For Mistress Craig, upon the death of her
hopeful son, who was drowned washing himself in a river in
France,
Mistress, — You have so learned Christ, as now in the furnace,
what dross, and what shining of faith may appear, must come
forth. I heard of the removal of your son Mr. Thomas. Though
I be dull enough in discerning, yet I was witness to some spiritual
savouriness of the new birth and hope of the resurrection, which
I saw in the hopeful youth, when he was, as was feared, a-dying
in this city. And since it was written and advisedly appointed,
in the spotless and holy decree of the Lord, where, and before
what witnesses, and in what manner, whether by a fever the
mother being at the bedside, or by some other way in a far
country (dear patriarchs died in Egypt, precious to the Lord, and
have wanted burials, Ps, Ixix. 3), your safest way will be to be
silent, and command the heart to utter no repining and fretting
thoughts of the holy dispensations of God. L The man is beyond the
hazard of dispute, the precious youth is perfected and glorified. 2.
Had the youth lien year and day pained beside a witnessing mother,
it had been pain and grief lengthened out to you in many portions,
and every parcel would have been a little death : now His holy
Majesty hath, in one lump and mass, brought to your ears the
news, and hath not divided the grief into many portions. 3. It
was not yesterday's thought, nor the other year's statute ; but a
counsel of the Lord of old ; and, " Who can teach the Almighty
knowledge?" 4. There is no way of quieting the mind, and of
silencing the heart of a mother, but by godly submission : the
readiest way for peace and consolation to clay-vessels is, that it is
a stroke of the potter and former of all things ; and since the holy
Lord hath loosed the grip, when it was fastened sure on your
part, I know your light, and I hope that your heart also, will yield :
it is not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the omnipotent
Lord ; let the pull go with Him, for He is strong ; and say, " Thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven." 5. His holy method
and order is to be adored ; sometimes the husband before the
wife, and sometimes the son before the mother ; so hath the only
wise God ordered : and when He is sent before and not lost, in
all things give thanks. 6. Meditate not too much on the sad
circumstances, "the mother Avas not witness to the last sigh,
possibly cannot get leave to wind the son, nor to weep over his
grave :" and " he was in a strange land." There is a like near-
ness to heaven out of all the countries of the earth. 7. This did
not spring out of the dust; feed and grow fat by this medicine
and fare of the only wise Lord. It is the art and the skill of
556 LETTER LXVI. [PART III.
faith to read what the Lord writeth upon the cross, and to spell
and construct right His sense. Often we miscall words and
sentences of the cross, and either put nonsense on His rods, or
burden his Majesty with slanders and mistakes, when He mindeth
for us thoughts of peace and love, even to do us good in the latter
end. 8. It is but a private stroke on a family, and little to the
public arrows shot against grieved Joseph and the afflicted ; but
ah ! dead, senseless and guilty people of God, this is the day of
Jacob's trouble. 9. There is a bad way of wilful swallowing of
a temptation and not digesting it, or laying it out of memory
without any victoriousness of faith. The Lord, who forbiddeth
fainting, forbids also despising. But it is easier to counsel than to
suffer : the only wise Lord furnish patience. It were not amiss
to call home the other youth. I am not a little afflicted for my
Lady Kenmure's condition. I desire, when you see her, to re-
member my humble respects to her. My wife heartily remembers
her to you, and is wounded much in mind with your present con-
dition, and suffers with you. Grace with you. Yours, in the
Lord, S. K
St. Andrews, May 4, 16G0.
LETTER LXVI.— A Letter from Mr. Samuel Eutherford
to Mr. William Guthrie, when the army was at Stirling,
after the defeat at Dunbar, and the Godly in the West were
falsely branded with intended compliance with the Usurpers,
about the time when those debates and that difference con-
cerning the Public Resolutions arose.
Reverend Brother, — I did not dream of such shortness of
breath and fainting in the way toward our country. I thought
that I had no more to do but die in my nest, and bow down my
sinful head and let Him put on the crown, and so end. I have
suffered much, but this is the thickest darkness, and the straitest
step of the way I have yet trodden. I see more suffering yet be-
hind, and I fear from the keepers of the vine. Let me obtain of
you, that you would press upon the Lord's people, that they would
stand far off from these merchants of souls come in amongst you.
If the way revealed in the Word be that way, we then know these
soul-coupers ^ and traffickers show not the way of salvation. Alas !
alas ! poor I am utterly lost ; my share of heaven is gone, and
my hope is poor, I am perished; and I am cut off from the Lord,
if hitherto out of the way ; but I dare not judge kind Christ, for
if it may be but permitted (with reverence to His greatness and
^ Merchants of souls.
PART III.] LETTER LXVII. 557
highness be it spoken), I will, before witnesses, produce His own
hand, that He said, " This is the way, walk thou in it :" and He
cannot except against His own seal. I profess I am almost broken
and a little sleepy, and Avould fain put off this body. But this
is my infirmity, who would be under the shadow and covert of
that good land, once to be without the reach and blast of that
terrible one. But I am a fool, there is none that can overbid, or
take my lodging over my head, since Christ hath taken it for me.
Dear brother, help me, and get me the help of their prayers who
are with you, in whom is my delight. You are much suspected
of intended compliance : I mean not of you only, but of all the
people of God Avith you. It is but a poor thing, the fulfilling of
^y joy ') but let me obtest all the serious seekers of his face, his
secret sealed ones, by the strongest consolations of the Spirit, by
the gentleness of Jesus Christ, that plant of renown, by your last
accounts, and appearing before God, when the white throne shall
be set up, be not deceived with their fair Avords. Though my
spirit be astonished at the cunning distinctions, which are found
out in the matters of the covenant, that help may be had against
these men ; yet my heart trembleth to entertain the least thought
of joining with those deceivers. Grace, grace, be with you, Amen.
Your own brother, in our common Lord and Saviour, S. E..
St. Andrews.
LETTER LXVIL— For my Reverend Brother, Christ's Soldier
in bonds, Mr. James Guthrie, Minister of the Gospel at
Stirling.
Dear Brother, — We are very oft comforted with the words of
promise, though we stumble not a little at the work of holy pro-
vidence. Some earthly men flourishing as a green herb, and the
people of God counted as sheep for the slaughter, and killed all
the day long. And yet both word of promise, and work of pro-
vidence, are from Him whose ways are equal, straight, holy, and
spotless. As for me, Avhen I think of God's dispensations, He
might justly have brought to the market-cross, and to the light,
my unseen and secret abominations, which would have been no
small reproach to the holy name and precious truths of Christ.
But in mercy He hath covered these, and shapen and carved out
more honourable causes of suffering, of which we are unworthy.
And now, dear brother, much dependeth upon the way and
manner of suffering; especially, that His precious truths be
owned, with all heavenly boldness ; and a reason of our hope
given in meekness and fear : and the royal crown, and absolute
558 LETTER LXVIIL [PAKT III-
supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of the kings of
the earth, avouched, as becometh. For certain it is, Christ will
reign the Fathei-'s King in Mount Zion ; and His solemn covenant
will not be buried. It is not denied, but our practical breach of
covenant first, and then our legal breach thereof, by enacting the
same mischief, and framing it into a law, may heavily provoke
our sweetest Lord. Yet there are a few names in the land that
have not defiled their garments ; and a holy seed, on whom the
Lord will have mercy, like the four or five olive-berries on the top
of the shaken olive-tree, and their eye shall be toward the Lord
their Maker. Think it not strange that men devise against you,
whether it be to exile, " the earth is the Lord's;" o_ ^ erpetual
imprisonment, the Lord is your light and liberty ; or a violent
and public death, for the kingdom of heaven consisteth in a fair
company of glorified martyrs and witnesses, of whom Jesus
Christ is the chief witness, who for that cause was born, and
came into the world. Happy are ye, if you give testimony to the
world of your preferring Jesus Christ to all powers. And the
Lord Avill make innocency and Christian loyalty of His defamed
and despised witnesses in this land, to shine to after-generations,
and will take the man-child up to God and to His throne, and
prepare a hiding-place in the wilderness for the mother, and cause
the earth to help the woman. Be not terrified ; fret not ; forgive
your enemies. Bless and curse not ; for though both you and I
should be silent, sad and heavy is the judgment and indignation
of the Lord that is abiding the unfaithful watchmen of the Church
of Scotland. The souls under the altar are crying for justice, and
there is an answer returned already. The Lord's salvation will
not tarry. Cast the burden of wife and children on the Lord
Christ. He careth for you and them. Your blood is precious
in His sight. The everlasting consolations of the Lord bear you
up, and give you hope : for your salvation (if not deliverance) is
concluded.
Your own brother, S. E.
St. Andrews, Feb. 15, 1661.
LETTER LXVHL— To Aberdeen.
Reverend and dearly beloved in the Lord, — Grace be to
you and jDeace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ. There were some who rendered thanks, with knees
bowed to Him, " of whom is named the whole family in heaven
and earth," when they heard of "your Avork of faith, and labour
of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus ;" and rejoiced
not a little, that where Christ was scarce named in savouriness
PART III.] LETTER LXVIII. 559
and power of the gospel, even in Aberdeen, there Christ hath a
few names precious to Him, who sliall walk with Him in white.
We looked on it (He knoweth, whom we desire to serve in our
spirit, in the gospel of His Son) as a part of the fulfilling of that,
" The wilderness and solitary place shall be glad for them ; and
the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose." But now it is
more grievous to us than a thousand deaths, when we hear that
you are shaken, and so soon removed from that which you once
acknowledged to be the way of God. Dearly beloved, the sheep
follow Christ, who calleth them by name; a stranger they will not
follow, but they flee from him, for they know not the voice of a
stranger. Ye know the way, by which ye were sealed to the day
of redemption ; and ye received the Spirit by the hearing of faith,
part not Avith that way, except ye see there be no rest for your
souls therein ; neither listen to them that say, many were con-
verted under episcopal, as well as under presbyterial government.
And yet the godly gave testimony against bishops ; for the in-
struments of conversion loathed episcopacy, with the ceremonies
thereof, and never sealed it with their sufferings. But we shall
desire instances of any engaged by oaths, and sufferings of the
faithful messengers of God, and the manifestation of the Lord's
presence, in the way ye now forsake, yet who turned from it, and
went one step toward sinful separation, and did it in that way ye
now aim at, and did yet flourish and grow in grace. But we can
bring proofs of many who left it, and went further on to abomin-
able ways of error. And you have it not in your power, where
you shall lodge at night, having once left the way of God, and
many we know lost peace and communion with God, and fell into
a condition of withering, and not being able to find their lovers,
were forced to return to their first husband.
We shall entreat you, consider what a stumbling it is to malig-
nant opposers of the way and cause of God, who with their ears
heard you, and with their eyes saw you, so strenuously take part
with the godly in their sufferings, and profess yourselves for reli-
gion, truth, doctrine, government of the house of God, His cove-
nant and cause ; if now you build again what you once destroyed,
and destroy what you builded ; and shall you not make yourselves,
by so doing, transgressors 1 How shall it wound the hearts of the
godly, stain the profession, darken the glory of the gospel, shake
the faith of many, weaken the hands of all, if you, and you first
of all in this kingdom, shall stretch out the hands to raze the
walls of our Jerusalem, by reason of which the Lord made her
terrible, as an army with banners 1 For when kings came, and
saw the palaces and bulwarks thereof, they marvelled and were
troubled, and hasted away, fear took hold upon them there, and
560 LETTEK LXVIII. [PART III.
pain as of a woman in travail. And we shall be grieved, if you
should be hsirs to the guiltiness of breaking down the same hedge
of the vineyard, for the which the sad indignation of God pur-
sueth this day the royal family, many nobles, houses great and
fair, and all the prelatical party in these three kingdoms. And
when your dear brethren are weak and fainting, shall we believe
that you will leave us, and be divided from this so blessed a con-
junction? The Lord Jesus Christ, we trust, shall walk in the
midst of the golden candlesticks, and be with us, if you will ba
gone from us.
Beloved in the Lord, we cannot but be persuaded of better
things of you ; and we shall not conceal from you, that we are
ignorant what to answer, when Ave are reproved on your behalf,
in regard that your change to another gospel way (which the
Lord avert) is so much the more scandalous, that the sudden
alteration, unknown to us before, now overtaketh you, when men
come amongst you, against whom the furrows of the fields of Scot-
land do complain.
Forget not, dear brethren, that Christ hath now the fan in His
hand, and this is also the day of the Lord, that shall burn as an
oven ; and that Christ now sitteth as a refiner of silver, purifying
the sons of Levi, and purging them as gold and silver, that they
may oflfer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness, and those
that keep the word of His (not their own) patience, shall be de-
livered from the hour of temptation, that shall come on all the
earth to try them. If ye exclude all non-converts from the visible
city of God, in which daily multitudes in Scotland, in all the four
quarters of the land, above whatever our fathers saw throng into
Christ, shall they not be left to the lions and wild beasts of the
forest, even to Jesuits, seminary priests, and other seducers 1 For
the magistrate hath no power to compel them to hear the gospel,
nor have ye any church power over them, as ye teach ; and they
bring not love to the gospel and to Christ out of the womb with
them, and so they must be left to embrace what religion is most
suitable to corrupt nature. Nor can it be a way approven by the
Lord in Scripture to excommunicate from the visible Church
(which is the office-house of the free grace of Christ, and His
draw-net) all the multitudes of non-converts baptized, and visibly
within the covenant of grace, which are in Great Britain, and all
the reformed churches ; and so to shut the gates of the Lord's
gracious calling upon all these, because they are not, in your
judgment, chosen to salvation, when once you are within your-
selves. For how can the Lord call Egypt His people, and Assyria
the work of His hands, and all the Gentiles (who for numbers are
as the flocks of Kedar and the abundance of the sea) the king-
PART III.] LETTER LXVIII. 561
doms of our Lord, and of His Christ, if you number infants, as
many do, and all such as your charity cannot judge converts, as
others do, among heathens and Pagans, Avho have not a visible
claim and interest in Christ? The candlestick is not yours, nor
the house ; but Christ fixeth and removeth the one, and buildeth
or casteth down the other, according to His sovereignty.
We in humility judge ourselves, though the chief of sinners, the
sons of Zion, and of the seed of Christ. If you remove from us,
and carry from hence the candlestick, let our Father be judge,
and show us why the Lord hath bidden you come out from among
us. We look upon this visible Church, though black and spotted,
as the hospital and guest-house of sick, halt, maimed, and withered,
over which Christ is Lord-Physician and Master ; and we would
wait upon those that are not yet in Christ, as our Lord waited
upon us and you both. We therefore, your brethren, children of
one Father, cannot, but with tears and exceeding sorrow of heart,
earnestly entreat, beseech, and obtest you, by the love of our
Lord Jesus Christ, by His sufferings and precious ransom He paid
for us both, by the consolations of His Spirit, by your appearance
before the dreadful tribunal of our Lord Jesus ; yea, and charge
you before God and the same Lord Jesus, "who shall judge the
quick and the dead at His appearing and in His kingdom ;" break
not the spirits and hearts of those to whom ye are dear as their
own soul. Forsake not the assemblies of the people of God ; let
us not divide. Not a few of the people of God, in this shire of
Fife, in whose name I now Avrite, dare say if ye depart, ye shall
leave Christ behind you with us, and the golden candlesticks, and
shall cast yourselves (we much fear) out of the hearts and prayers
of thousands dear to Jesus Christ in Scotland : therefore, before
ye fix judgment and practice on any untrodden path, let a day of
humiliation be agreed upon by us all, and our Father's mind and
will inquired, through our one common Saviour, And let us see
one another's faces at best conveniency, and plead the interest of
Christ and be comforted, and not be stumbled at your ways. So,
expecting your answer, we shall pray that the God of peace who
brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, may
make you perfect in every work to do His will, working in you
that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,
and I shall remain.
Your aflfectionate brother in the Lord, S. K.
St, Aiulriiws,
j5 N
FOURTH PART.
ADDITIONAL LETTEES.
LETTEE I.— To a Minister in Glasgow.
Sir, — I long to see you since you gave a public testimony for
your Master, and are become a suflferer for Him. Until I shall
be able to see you, I thought it duty to write to you that I re-
member you as I am able. Y'our zeal and faithfulness for our
Master and your mother Church have made your name honour-
able and precious among many here ; yea, have exceedingly re-
freshed the bowels of the saints. Upon my word, sir, I say the
truth, you have their hearts and their approbation to what you
have done, and that you are approven of God, I doubt not ; the
seal whereof I hope shall be in your heart, to feast your conscience
■\yith peace, and to cause your face shine in innocency. What you
have done with your fellow-witnesses, companions in tribulation,
shall turn to you for a testimony. Sir, when the General As-
sembly are gathered together to their fathers, and you wearing
your crown up at the throne and following the Lamb, your name
shall be precious and have a savour of life amongst the saints ;
you shall have your mother's blessing, I mean the Church of
Scotland, when you are dead and rotten. Though now you seem
to be a man of strife and contention, yet you are no otherways
for strife and contention than your Master before you, who came
not to send peace, but rather division and contention with the
malignant party : and union in judgment with men not tender of
our Lord's interest is a conjunction and union I hope you shall
never think desirable. Sectarian separation I am confident you
never loved, though men who are become transgressors in destroy-
ing what they have formerly been building, give it forth so.
Woe's me, sir, that amongst so many hundred ministers in the
Church of Scotland, so few are like to be found willing to give or
approve of your and others' faithful testimony. I think that
besides the evil of blindness that is in the mind of some, and the
idolizing of man's interest by others, an uncrucified world and
PART IV.] LETTER I. 563
over-loved stipends shall hinder many from coming your length.
We are debtors to you, and to our Lord Jesus Christ, that hath
given to you to care for Zion, that no man seeks after, not caring
for your own things but the things of God. Fair fall you ^ that
have quit all things to follow Him. To you and to others that
will continue with Christ in this hour of tribulation, is appointed
a kingdom. Sir, you had more credit and worldly greatness to
lose than many honest ministers ; and thanks be to God that you
have so learned Christ to be made a man for Christ of no reputa-
tion for Him. Your despised Master, who made Himself while
He was amongst us a man of no reputation, is now exalted in
glory. There is none now to gibe Him by bowing the knee, none
now to spit in His face, none now to bring Him under mocking
of the purple robe, none to put on His head a crown of thorns.
And as you now partake of His suflferings, so shall you hereafter
of His glory ; you shall sit honourably on thrones ; and when the
chief Shepherd appears, you shall receive the crown. I am con-
vinced that it is for conscience toward God that you suffer. The
bottom of your testimony and suffering is not so narrow as some
think, who study more to decline the cross than to be tender for
every truth. School heads talk of fundamentals and non-funda-
mentals, and, say they, " The present controversy is not about
fundamentals : ministers may keep their places, peace, and
stipends, and make less din." But are non-fundamentals nothing?
I would choose rather not to be brought up at school than to
grow so subtile and wily by school distinctions, to decline the
cross. Sir, you divide not from others for nothing ; you contend
not for nothmg ; you suffer not for nothing. They that will be
unfaithful in little will be unfaithful in much. Mistake me not as
if I thought the ground of your testimony a little thing and a
trifle. I think you and all that be faithful to God are bound to
follow it to bonds and to blood. That Christ ought to be a king
in Scotland, and the people ought to employ the liberty that
Christ hath bought to them with His blood, is among fundamen-
tals with me ; and whether the way man gives and allows to men
that have fought against the truth be not naturally and by inter-
pretation against this, judge. Sir, your Master did put you in
His vineyard. You have a testimony from many of a faithful
and diligent labourer. I hear that you are now violently thrust
out. I think the Spirit of Christ would teach men sobriety and
forbearance. I wish (and know you will join with me) that men's
violent dealing with you provoke not the Lord to make this the
last General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Always I
acknowledge you one ot the stars which the Lord hath in His
^ May good be to you.
564 LETTEE II, [PAUT IV.
hand, — one of the angels of the Church of Scotland, — a faithful
minister of the gospel at Glasgow. You have given a testimony
for your Master ; you shall get a meeting when He comes in the
clouds ; and though there should not be a General Assembly
henceforth in the Church of Scotland, judicially to acknowledge
you His minister, yet in the general assembly of angels and men,
that your Master in the latter day shall call in the clouds, you
shall get a testimony of a minister of the gospel ; and from the
Shepherd and the Lord, the righteous Judge, you shall receive
the crown. I think there is a necessity laid on you to preach the
gospel, and to call people to the covenant of grace, wherever you
can safely do it. I know there are many that will yet receive
you as an angel of God, and yet will be followers of you and of
Christ ; receiving the word in much affliction, with joy in the
Holy Ghost. The Lord give you in all things to approve your-
self as the minister of God, in much p^itience and affliction, — in
necessities, distresses, — in stripes, in imprisonment, — in labour,
and watching, and fasting, — by honour and dishonour, — in good
report and ill report ; for now we live if ye stand fast in the
Lord ; and the God of all peace, who hath called you to His
eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a
while, make you perfect, stablish, and strengthen, and settle you.
Remember me to those that are your companions in tribulation,
and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, and to your
wife, that will be a faithful helper to you in this time of your
affliction.
Because I am not able to see you yet, and fearing that when I
come to Glasgow I shall not find }ou there, I thought good tu
write. S. R.
LETTER n. — To a Person unknown, anent Private Worship in
Time and Place of Public.
Reverend and dear Brother, — I do not knov; a private
worship, set and intended, compatible with a public worship set
and intended. Ejaculations are fruits of public worship and
breathings of the spirit in public speaking, but they are aliqtiid
cultus piiblici, non cultus publicus (something akin to public Avorship,
but not i^ublic worship). 2. I know not a member in the kirk
who should have a worship in specie different from the worship of
the whole kirk, and so I do not see (saving better judgment) a
lawfulness of private set praying, when there is another set wor-
ship of praising, reading, &c. 3. I doubt if there should be any
set worship in the kirk to which all the hearers should not say
Amen, even the rude and unbelievers. But to a private prayer,
PART IV.] LETTERS III. AND IV. 565
when the worship is piibhc, who can say Amen? 4. I thhik the
people may all fall to their private prayers and private reading
while the minister preacheth, if he fall to praying when they are
praising or hearing the word read. 5. I dai'e not say they have
a Pharisee's mind who pray in public after a, private manner, and
join not with the public service of the kirk, but in natura ojjeris,
I think them more pharisaical than the other case is Brownish.
6. Brownism's life is in separation, but the private supplicator,
when the kirk is praising and hearing the word read, in my weak
judgment, is in the act of separation ; that I should not say they
are ignorant of BroAvnism, who object this to such as wdl not
kneel in pulpit. 7. Neither scripture nor act of our assemblies
doth allow this human custom. I thinlc they dare not be answer-
able to a General Assembly who dare call on them to censure for
a human and uiiorderly custom against the word of God so directly.
8. If such as go not to private pulpit prayer neglect private prayer
before they come in public, they deserve censure. Whatever hath
been my practice l;)efore I examined this custom, I purpose now
no more to confound worships. And thus recommending you to
the grace of God, I rest, S. II.
January 16, 1640.
LETTER III.— To Sir James Stewa-t, Lord Provost of
Edinburgh.
Eight Honourable, — The matter of my transportation is so
poor a controversy, I truly not being desirous to be the subject ot
any din in the General Assemby of the Kirk of Scotland, who have
greater business to do, and having suffered once the pain of trans-
portation, most humbly intreat your w. [worships] that favour as
to cast your thoughts upon some fitter man, for as it is unbeseem-
ing me to lie or dissemble, so I must freely show you it will but
make me the subject of suffering and passive obedience, and I
trust your w. [worships] intend not that hurt to me, and I am
persuaded it is not your mind. It shall be my prayer to God, to
send that worthy society an able and pious man. Grace be
with you.
Yours, at all humble observance in the Lord,
Samuel Kutherfokd.
St. Andrews the Last of June 1619.
LETTER IV.— To the Earl of Balcarras.
My very honourable Lord, — I am sorry that your Lordship
should be offended at any sinistrous misinformation concerning
566 LETTER V. [part IV.
your supposed discountenancing of minister^. For the general I
can say nothing, being utterly ignorant thereof. I hope your
Lordship will make the best use of it may be. For myself I owe
no thanks to any that have named me as the object of any dis-
countenancing ; for truly I value not any of those whenas the
conscience of my innocence showeth me, and for aught known to
me, truly, that I offended no nobleman in the kingdom, far less
my Lord Balcarras, whose public deservings have been such as I
esteem him to have been most instrumental in this work of God :
I hope, my Lord, you will pardon me to make a little exception
in the matter of the late sinful Engagement. And, therefore, my
Lord, I entreat you to forget that business ; for since your Lord-
ship said of me in your letter to Mr. David Forret, more than I
deserve, I shall be satisfied with it as an expiation — more than
any discountenancing of me can amount unto by millions of de-
grees, and therefore entreat your Lordship to accept of this for
any thing that any could say to your Lordship of that business.
If I had thought so much of myself as the discountenancing of me
had been a sinful neglect (whereas I know there is little ground
for the contrary), I should have spoken to your Lordship myself.
So trusting your Lordship will rest satisfied, I am, your Lordship's
at power in the Lord. S. R.
St. Andrews, Dec. 24, 1649.
LETTER v.— To Lady Ralston.
Right worthy esteemed in your excellent Lord Jesus, —
With much desire I have longed to hear how you were since I
heard of your being so near the harbour as seemed ; and now to
my great satisfaction I am informed of your recovery. As for
yourself I grant to have entered in at the ports of the mansions of
glory had been best by far, but yet to stay a little longer here is
much more comfortable to yours. Therefore, Mistress, dearly
respected in the Lord, you are even heartily welcome though to
share yet further with Zion in her manifold tribulations ; yea I
believe yourself thinks it no disadvantage, but rather one great
addition of honour to come back and bear His reproach yet more
in a world of opposition to Him. For (to speak so) it is an advan-
tage that is not to be had in heaven itself ; for although the in-
habitants of that land agree in one to sing the song of the Lamb's
praise and commendation, so it is here-away, and here only, where
we have occasion to endure shame and contradiction for His worthy
sake. Considering therefore the honour of the cross, with the
glory of the life to come, the saints are hereby rendered completely
happy and honourable. It's much selfishness (as I judge when I
PA.UT IV.] LETTER V. 567
get seen best^ into the mystery of our Lord's cross), to make post
haste to be in the land of rest, when a storm of persecution is
rising for Christ ; for the skiggard and peevish spirit loves rest
upon any terms, though never so dishonourable. It is in effect
then, far more honourable to seek conformity to Christ in His cross,
than to precipitate in desiring to be like Him in glory, and despise
and fly away from His sufferings. We use to say they are very
worthy 2 of the sweet who will not endure the sour. I think
Christ's pilgrim weeds (He being a man of sorrows and griefs) are
more honourable than ever it became the like of us to Avear,
especially considering our poor base descent, whom He will have
honoured with conformity to himself. Woe's me that I and many
the like of me within the land, look so frowardly on Christ's cross,
as though it were not His love-allowance to all His followers. It's
plainly our gross ignorance that is the cause thereof. Faith I
grant would suffer affliction for Him with good will rather than
the least iniquity should be committed, but sense loves no bands ■.
for faith keeping the sway, puts ofttimes the carnal man in bond-
age, and that occasions strife betwixt the flesh and the spirit. The
spirit smells no freedom or deliverance but that which comes from
above ; the flesh would aye have deliverance without examination
of the terms or wherefrom it comes. As it is the mark of Christ's
sheep that they will hear His voice and will not acknowledge a
stranger, so it is the mark of faith, that it wiU only receive orders
from heaven. When He declares his mind for bands it submits
to bands, not replying objections to the contrary ; and again, when
He says, " Show yourselves the prisoners of hope," it discovers
time and way, and obeys to come forth, but not till then. But the
flesh maketh ever haste, and the first and nearest ease is aye its
best choice. The Lord keep His dear people from wanting of any
exercise that is measured out by Him to them, now when He hides
His face, lest we be turned aside to strange gods ! and when He
shows Himself again (as He will assuredly do), we kea^ our change.
It is far safer to dwell a little in faith's prison than in sense's fair-
est liberty. I see nothing so comfortable an evidence of God's
staying into and healing of this broken and poor land, than that
faithful testimony of His precious servants (and strengthened only
by Him), against the late and sore defection. Yet, if the Lord
had not left us a remnant we had been as Sodom and like to
Gomorrah. And exalted be our God, only wise and free in His
love, that ever any testimony was given, for the hour of temptation
was very dark to all once ; but to some He showed much light,
and helped them with a little help. Others also, able and dear to
Him, He hath letten as yet remain under the cloud ; but the
^ Get the best sight. ^ Qu. Unworthy. •* Know.
568 LETTER VI. [PAllT IV.
mystery of His wisdom is so high in this, that I profess it may
render all flesh humble in the dust, and to glory henceforth in
nothing but in His upholding strength and free love. Always
when His due time comes He will make His servants see that
which they do not now see ; but alas ! in the meantime there is
no harder matter of our trouble to be looked to than the grievous
differences of judgments and affections among the Lord's servants,
which I know is much pondered by you, and I trust that all our
worthy dear friends will labour to the utmost, according to Christ's
command, to have the breach made up again, that Satan get not
advantage there-through ; for I think nothing makes more for His
ends than the defacing of union amongst the Lord's dear ones. I
think it should be amongst our many requests to Him in whom
all the building used to be fitly framed together in love ; yea the
obtaining of this request were a great advantage to the poor kirk.
And if the Lord take pleasure in us, there is yet hope in Israel
concerning this thing ; but if not, it is like to prove a probable
token amongst some others, of Christ's taking down His tabernacle
in this land, which if He do, we will have sad days. But the con-
sideration of His pitiful compassion holds forth ground to believa
otherwise, upon which ground it is like that He will give us a dooi
of hope, though He do not give full deliverance yet; for our hope
is not perished yet from the Lord, because men and carnal reason
say so ; for none of these are bands or rules to the Almighty, yea
Zion's lowest ebb shall be the first step to her rise. 1 have no
other reason to give, but The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall per-
form it, and in confidence of it, I remain, yours in all trouble,
October 1G51. S. li
Tender my respects to your dear husband, who is indeed preci-
ous in the account of the honest here, for his faithfulness in the
hour of temptation.
LETTEE VI— To Mr. Thomas Wylie.
Eight Eeverend, — I look on it as a significant expression of
your respect to me, and above all deserving in me, that you take
notice of any appearance of clouds or alienation of mind among
brethren, and am glad of your testimony of my brother. I had
no interest but brotherly advice and hearty desire of the real
prospering of the work of the gospel ; nor was it either necessary
or expedient, that your w[isdoms] should be troubled and put to
any presbyterial testimony, upon the ground of a private missive
letter, written by misinformation. I give credit to your testimony,
and judge much ought to be laid upon it, and shall think myself
PART IV.] LETTEli VII. 569
obliged to your w[isdoms], and look on it as a testimony of your
affectionate zeal to the work of God. The Lord of the harvest
thrust out labourers to His vineyard, and bless His work in your
hands ! Excuse me, dear and reverend, for my troubling you
with any private misunderstanding, I am not a little refreshed to
hear of your care and zeal for the house of God.
The Lord be with your spirit. Your unworthy brother and
fellow-labourer in the gospel, S. R.
St. Andrews, March 23, 1653.
LETTER Vn.— For the Truly Honourable Colonel Gilbert
Ker.
Much Honoured, — I bless the Lord for His good hand, Avho
declares that His sovereign presence is alike in England and all
places, and sways hearts as pleases Him, The book of holy
providence is good marginal notes on His revealed will, in His
word, and speaks much to us, could we read and understand what
He writes both in the one and the other. You see He is not
wanting to you ; houses and lands are His. The Lord led Abra-
ham from his own country to a land he knew not. It would ap-
pear He hath not opened His mind to you for leaving of this land,
though I be much afraid of a sick state, a sleeping ministry, a
covenant-breaking land, a number of dead professors ; all these
are gray hairs here and there on Ephraim. Sure our ruin is sure
if God let us alone ; we shall rot in our lies. But what am I to
determine of conclusions of mercy revealed to none, and thoughts
of peace in the heart of the Lord towards an undeserving land 1
I should be glad to see you, and shall desire He may lead you in
the matter of your residence whom you desire to be your guide
and counsellor. For me, I am as to my body, most weak and
under daily summons, but I sit still and read not the summons :
as to my spirit, much out of court, because out of communion
with the Lord, and far from what some time hath been; deadness,
security, unbelief, and distance from God in the use of means,
prevail more than ever. I shall desire your help for getting a
third professor. I am in this college between wind and Aveather.
Dr. Colville is for Mr. James Sharp, I am for Mr. William Rait,
but know not the event. My wife remembers her respects to you.
Grace be with you. Yours, at all obedience in God,
St. Andrews, April 2, 1654,
S. R.
Remember my love in Christ to Mr. Livingstone.
570 LETTEK VIII. [part IV.
LETTER VIII.— To the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright.
Reverend, — The desire of your w[isdoms] for union to me,^
who am below such a public mercy, and of so high concernment
to the Church of Scotland, ought to be most acceptable. The
name of peace is savoury, both good and pleasant. I so close
Avith your godly and religious aim therein, as judging the Lord
hath from heaven suggested to you, and inspired your spirits with,
a fervent thirst and intention to promote the gospel, that though
I should judge myself, as in truth I am, lower than to suit^ from
either Presbytery or Synod any favour, yet I shall, in all humility,
beseech your w[isdoms] to prosecute with the power which Christ
hath given you the work of union ; and so much the more that I
must shortly put off this my tabernacle. I offer to your w[isdoms]
serious consideration, the evident necessity of union with God,
and of a serious and sound humiliation and lying in the dust be-
fore the Lord for a broken covenant, declining from our former
love, owning of such as we sometime judged to be malignant
enemies and opposers of the work of reformation and of the sworn
covenant of God, despising of the offered salvation of the Gospel,
coldness and indifferency in purging the house of God, and other
causes of the sad judgments which we now are under. And my last
and humble suit to your w[isdoms] is, that ye would be pleased to
take in with this union the planting of the New College with a
third master. It is a matter that concerns the whole Church of
Scotland and seminary of the ministry thereof, and cannot be
done but by a General Assembly. If, therefore, you have, dear
brethren, judged me faithful of the Lord, and regard the work
of the Lord, and the promoting of the kingdom of Christ (as I
nothing doubt but it is the desire of your souls), give commission
to the brethren sent to treat for union at the meeting in Edin-
burgh or elsewhere, to join their authority and power such as
now may be had, to call, invite, and obtest some godly and able
man to embrace the charge of professor in the college of divinity
in St. Andrews. And because Mr. William Rait, minister at
Brechin, is a man for learning, godliness, prudence, and eminent
authority in the Church of Scotland, sought for to the ministry
by the town of Edinburgh, ^nd also by Aberdeen, to preach the
gospel, and to profess in the college, and hath the approbation of
the present masters of the New College, the godly ministers of
the Synod of Fife, of the Presbytery of St Andrews, ministers of
the city of St. Andrews, it is my soul's desire, and the hearty cry
of students in the college, and of the godly in the city, that Mr.
William Rait may be the man ; and that your commissioners may
' Sue for.
I'AKT IV.] LETTEliS IX. AND X. 571
he moved to deal with the commissioners of the Synod of Fife
and Apgus for that effect ; so shall you be instrumental to repair
our breaches, and build his house. So praying that your labours
may not be in vain in the Lord, I rest, — the Lord Jesus be with
your spirit, — your unworthy brother and fellow-labourer in the
Lord, S. E.
St. Andrews, the 23d October, 1659.
LETTER IX.— To John Murray, minister at Methven.
Reverend and dear Brother, — I would gladly know the
issue of your Synod. We did profess we could not be concluded
by the Synod of Fife's views of union, but upon condition of the
taking off the censures of our brethren, which we think are in-
juriously inflicted. Much is promised to us for the remedying of
these censures. I shall believe when I see their performances.
I hope you will see that the brethren get no wrong, or the house
of God in their persons, and send me a line of the conclusion of
the Synod in that business. The paper of union is very general,
and comes to no particulars ; it only tells the good of union, and
contains some obtestations to us that insinuate the unsavouriness
of irregular courses ; yet we thought it not safe to yield to any
union of that kind so long as our brethren are under the censures.
I much doubt of their honest meaning, and that barriers in the
way of entrant ministers and elders be revived ; and I see no
engagement so much as verbal for purging ; but the contrary
practice is here. Mr. Robert Anderson is as much opposed as if
he were the most corrupt sectary or Jesuit.
My wife remembers her to you. Remember me to your own
bedfellow, — Grace be with you. Your own brother, S. R.
St. Andrews, Jan. 25, 1660.
LETTER X.— To the Same.
Reverend and dear Brother, — If I rightly apprehend our
condition, we are in a way of declining. We were within these
few years more in the conscionable use of means, and the Lord
did shine upon us in some measure, and now we are fallen from
that which we were. It is judged fit by some — and many of our
solidest professors, — that if we cannot have in congregations, yet
families and private persons may have days of humiliation, at
least the last Wednesday of every month or thereabout, according
to the best conveniency of Providence. And if this were gone
about in your county and in Stirlingshire, Fife, in Merse, Teviot-
dale, the west, in Nithsdale and Galloway, and other places, it
would prove our strength and help, for we are few and very low.
572 LETTER X. [PAKT IV.
Our adversaries are not idle ; and tliere is a faintness and heartless
discouragement on the spirits of many. These are to entreat tliat
you would combine with Mr. Eobert Campbell, Mr. John Cruick-
shanks, and other of our brethren in your bounds, to stir up one
another that we may wrestle with the Lord for the remnant. I
am confident the Lord will yet be inquired of us for this. Though
the same particular day be not observed, yet where many are on
work, some salvation from the Lord's arm is to be expected. I
am decaying most sensibly, and I should look on it as a mercy if
the Lord would send a Avakening among His own ; and blessed
shall he be who shall blow the trumpet to cause other sleeping
ones awake, and shall help to build the wastes and the fallen
tabernacle of David. I shall earnestly desire you to bestir your-
selves herein. I shall write to J , and to others here, and do
the best I can to give you a convenient account, for nothing iii left
to us but that.
So remembering me to your wife, and expecting your help, I
rest, your own brother, S. R.
Mr, Eobert Anderson is most eagerly desired for by the parish-
ioners of Leu chars, and as strenuously opposed by our brethren
here.
LAST WORDS OF SAMUEL EUTHEEFOED.
Glory,) Glory Dwelleth in ImmanueVs Land.'
The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of Heaven breaks,
Tlie summer morn I've sighed for.
The fair sweet morn awakes :
Dark, dark hath been the midnight;
But dayspring is at hand.
And glory — glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land. -
Oh ! Avell it is for ever,
Oh ! well for evermore,
My nest hung in no forest
Of all this death-doom'd shore t
Yea, l^t the vain world vanish.
As from the ship the strand,
While glory — glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
There the Red Eose of Sharon
Unfolds its heartmost bloom,
And fills the air of Heaven
With ravishing perfume ; —
Oh, to behold it blossom.
While by its fragrance fann'd,
Where glory — glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land !
The King there in His beauty,
Without a veil, is seen :
. It were a well-spent journey.
Though seven deaths lay between :
The Lamb, with His fair armj^.
Doth on Mount Zion stand ;
And glory— glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
Oh ! Christ He is the fountain,
The deep sweet well of Love !
The streams on earth I've tasted,
More deep I'll drink above :
574: LAST WORDS OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.
There, to an ocean fulness,
His mercy cloth expand,
And glory — glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
E'en Anwoth was not heaven —
E'en preaching was not Christ ;
And in my sea-beat prison
My Lord and I held tryst :
And aye my murkiest storm-cloud
Was by a rainbow spann'd,
Caught from the glory dwelling
In Immanuel's land.
But that He built a heaven
Of His surpassing love,
A little New Jerusalem,
Like to the one above, —
' Lord, take me o'er the water,'
Had been my loud demand,
' Take me to love's own country,
Unto Immanuel's land.'
But flowers need night's cool darkness,
The moonlight and the dew ;
So Christ, from one who loved it,
His shining oft withdrew ;
And then, for cause of absence,
My troubled soul I scann'd —
But glory, shadeless, shineth
In Immanuel's land.
The little birds of Anwoth
I used to count them blest,^
Now, beside happier altars
I go to build my nest :
O'er these there broods no silence.
No graves around them stand,
For glory, deathless, dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
Fair Anwoth by the Sol way.
To me thou still art dear !
E'en from the verge of Heaven
I drop for thee a tear.
LAST WORDS OF SAIMUEL RUTHERFOKD. 575
Oh ! if one soul from Anwoth
Meet me at God's right hand,
My Heaven will be two Heavens,
In Immanuel's land !
I have wrestled on towards Heaven,
'Gainst storm, and wind, and tide ; —
Now, like a weary traveller,
That leaneth on his guide,
Amid the shades of evening.
While sinks life's ling'ring sand,
I hail the glory dawning
From Immanuel's land.
Deep waters cross'd life's pathway,
The hedge of thorns was sharp ;
Now these lie all behind me, —
Oh, for a well-tuned harp !
Oh, to join Halleluiah
With yon triumphant band.
Who sing, where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land !
With mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove.
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustred with His love !
I'll bless the hand that guided,
I'll bless the heart that plann'd,
When throned where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
Soon shall the cup of glory
Wash down earth's bitterest woes,
Soon shall the desert brier
Break into Eden's rose :
The curse shall change to blessing —
The name on earth that's bann'd,
Be graven on the white stone
In Immanuel's land.
Oh ! I am my Beloved's,
And my Beloved is mine !
He brings a poor vile sinner
Into His ' house of wine : '
6 LAST WORDS OF SAMUEL RUTHERFOUD.
I stand upon His merit,
I know no other stand,
Not e'en where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
I shall sleep sound in Jesus,
Fill'd with His likeness rise,
To live and to adore Him,
To see Him with these eyes :
'Tween me and resurrection
But Paradise doth stand ;
Then — then for glory dwelling
In Immanuel's land !
The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear Bridegroom's face ;
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of Grace —
Not at the crown He gifteth,
But on His pierced hand :
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel's land.
I have borne scorn and hatred,
I have borne wrong and shame.
Earth's proud ones have reproach'd me,
For Christ's thrice blessed name :
Where God His seal set fairest
They've stamp'd their foulest brand ;
But judgment shines like noonday
In Immanuel's land.
They've summoned me before them.
But there I may not come, —
My Lord says, ' Come up hither,'
My Lord says, ' Welcome home ! '
My kingly King, at His white throne,
My presence doth command,
Where glory — glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.*
* From 'Immanuers Land and other Pieces.' By Mrs. CouSTN (A. R. C).
(J. Nisbet & Co.)
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"The well-known house ot Messrs Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier, of Edinburgh, has
republished the Rev. W. H. Carslaw's edition of the Scots Worthies, and, in so doing,
has put within the reach of everybody one of the most interesting and useful books in
Scottish literature. More than one hundred years have elapsed since John Howie
issued the first edition of the famous book. No man was better fitted for the task of
embalming the worthies of the Scottish Covenant in the memories of his fellow-men,
for he was a staunch Cameronian ; his ancestors had suffered in the interests of tlie Church
of Christ in Scotland ; his home was the centre of the district in which many of the
most tragic scenes of Scottish martyrology occurred ; and, besides strict adherence to
truth, he had a literary power which awakes surprise and admiration. The book was
a household one in the Presbyterian homes in Scotland in its quaint early garb. An
edition was issued with notes by the late William M'Gavin, author of 'The Protestant;'
and other editions have followed. Mr Carslaw's has already established itself in public
favour, and well it may. It has all the quaintness of tlie original volume in a condensed
form. It abounds in illustrations of well-executed views of Covenanter localities, from
the Communion stones of Irongray to Dunnottar ; of Scottish pa.aoes, Falkland,
Holyrood, etc. ; of Scottish abbeys and churclies — indeed it might almost be called an
illustrated Gazetteer of Scotland. It likewise contains views of places in England,
Ireland, and the Continent connected with Covenanting story, such as Westminster,
Rotterdam, and Londonderry. It gives, moreover, a gallery of portraits, from George
Wishart to Robert Traill ; from Mary Queen of Soots to William III. ; and from Arch-
bishop Sharpe to Claverhouse. It is in every way elegantly and quaintly got up, the
illustrations having old-fashioned elaborately-decorated borders. We know of co
book more calculated to quicken the pulse of modern Protestantism, or to give in m
attractively biographical form the history of the Church of Scotland through the lives,
and doings, and deaths of her noblest sons. We therefore commend it to all who wish
to remember the dajs of former generations, or to understand the glorious work done
for Scotland in his chief book by the old farmer of Lochgoin." — Christian Leader.
"The Scots Worthies. By John Howie of Lochgoin. An illustrated edition, revised
from the author's original edition, by the Rev. W. H. Carslaw, M.A. — We are glad to
see this reprint of our Scottish Acta Sanctorum. It is one of the books that, lying on
cottage shelves, and conned over on cottars' Sabbath nights, has helped to make
Scotchmen what they are. It will be a sad day for Scotland when she forgets the men
whose deeds are so simply and so quaintly recorded by one who had himself the blood
of the Covenant in his veins, and whose fathers resisted unto blood. Though this
edition i= inexpensive, the illustrations are admirably executed. We counsel those
who have not the book in their libraries, to placo it there, and put it in the WKy of
their children."— C P. Record.
OUphant, Anderson, da Ferrier's Publications.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 5s.,
The Shadow of the Hand, and other Sermons.
By Rev. W. A. Gray, Elgin.
' Earnest, thoughtful, and scholarly sermons.' — Literary Churchman.
' A volume of delicate, true, and helpful delineations of certain phases of
Christian experience. . . . Conveys a most favourable impression of the
original and careful work that is being done for the pulpit by conscientious
men.' — Expositor.
' It is seldom that one meets with such sermons as these coming from
Scotland, or, for the matter of that, from England.' — The Churchman.
' The whole volume of sixteen sermons we can cordially recommend.' —
Clergyman's Magazine.
' We commend the book ... for its quiet, meditative grace, and its deep
feeling for Nature. . . . Maintains a high level of vigorous common sense,
and is as much alive to the needs and characteristics of the world of men as
to the gentler impressions of the field and sky.' — Homiletic Magazine.
'A book of thoughtful sermons by a Scotch minister.' — Christian.
'Exceedingly thoughtful, deeply spiritual and practical.' — Christian
World.
' Discourses of rare excellence. Give evidence of independent and vigor-
ous thought, and are characterised by much freshness and beaiity; no striving
after originality, and yet we have it.' — N. B. Daily Mail.
' The thoughts are fresh and vigorous ; the arrangement is clear, the tone
is devout.' — Primitive Methodist Wm'ld.
' Everything is brought to bear upon great principles of the Christian
life. Devout, evangelical, and fervent, these are very useful and practical
sermons.' — British Quarterly Review.
' Multiplied evidence of homiletic and expository skill, controlled and held
in check throughout by loyal submission to the word of God.' — British and
Foreign Evangelical Record.
' Substantial sermons, which we have read with much pleasure. We
delight in their doctrine, tone, and manner. The sermon on " Faith refusing
Deliverance" strikes us as a masterpiece; . . . fine specimens of sennons
for an educated Christian audience.' — Mr. Spurgeon in Sivord and Trowel.
' Thoughtful, practical, and extremely elegant. . . . The theories handled
are taken hold of withpower. The language in many places is exceedingly
beautiful.' — Presiyterian Messenger.
' Admirable sermons. Evangelical in sentiment, eminently practical and
useful, and abounding in fresh and attractive illustrations.' — United Presby-
terian Magazine.
' The most notable feature of the book is the amount of solid thought in
it; next we should mention the sustained and unfailing earnestness of the
sermons.' — Christian Leader.
' Remarkable for their graceful style and literary finish ; they have a fresh-
ness of thought, a clearness of expression, and a current of pathos that can-
not fail to interest.' — Aberdeen Free Press.
' Since the Eev. John Ker published his single volume of Sermons some
years ago, there has been no such suggestive volume given to the press as
this.' — Northern Whig, Belfast.
' Evidently the product of a very thoughtful and cultured mind. . . . Bear
the impress of the nineteenth century upon them.' — Belfast Witness.
'Vigorous, direct, and manly. . . . Sermons that can be read without a
sense of impatience or weariness.' — Westmoreland Gazette.
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferriefs Publications.
Fourth Edition, crown 8vo, with Portraits, price 58.,
Life and Times of George Lawson, D.D., Selkirk.
By Rev. John Macfarlane, LL.D.
Extract from Letter of Thomas Carlyle. — ' Your " Biography of
Dr. Lawson " has interested me not a little ; bringing present to me from
afar much that is good to be reminded of; strangely awakening many
thoughts, many scenes and recollections of forty, of sixty years ago— all now
grown very sad to me, but also very beautiful and solemn. It seems to me
I gather from your narrative and from his own letters a perfectly credible
account of Dr. Lawson's character, course of life, and labours in the world ;
and the reflection rises in me that perhaps there was not in the British Islands
a more completely genuine, pious-minded, diligent, and faithful man.
Altogether original, too, peculiar to Scotland, and, so far as I can guess,
unique even there and then. England will never know him out of any book ;
or, at least, it would take the genius of a Shakespeare to make him known by
that method; but, if England did, it might much and wholesomely astonish
her.'
' A book which presents not only a faithful and sympathetic narrative of
the career and works of one of the greatest Scottish divines of his day, but
many picturesque glimpses and details of Scottish life and character during
the latter half of the last, and the first decades of the present, century.' —
Scotsman.
' We are right glad to see a new edition of the " Life and Times of Dr.
liawson," for many and many a time have we been amused and refreshed by
reading its sparkling pages. ... As Boswell's " Life of Johnson " will always
remain a model of all memoirs from its admii-ing homely chattiness, so will
the " Life of Dr. Lawson " ever remain supreme among Christian literary
men as a model of how a man's portrait should be drawn.' — Sword and Trowel
'"Cockburn's Memorials," and "Carlyle's Autobiography," and "Dr.
Lawson's Life and Times " are books which will long be favourites at Scottish
firesides. In certain respects Dr. Macfarlane's " Life of Dr. Lawson" affords
the most perfect picture of Scottish life and character of the period; and the
new edition will afford many that opportunity of possessing themselves of a
book which they were deprived of by the speedy exhaustion of the early
editions.' — North British Daily Mail.
' For the charming stories that are told of the simplicity of his character,
the shrewdness of his replies, the curious results of his frequent absence of
mind, of the manner in which he comforted and counselled his friends, of the
singular honour conferred on him by the University of Aberdeen, of the
manner in which he won the hearts of the students who gathered around him
when he was appointed Professor of Theology to the Associate Synod, and of
the esteem in which he was held by rich and poor alike, we must send our
readers to the volume itself.' — Preachers' Monthly.
Oliphant, Anderson, 4" Ferrier's Publications.
New Edition, crown 8vo, cloth, price 2s. 6d.,
The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul,
arranged in the form of a continuous History. With Notes,
Critical and Explanatory, Map, Gazetteer of Places, and Ques-
tions for Examinations. By Thomas Morrison, M.A., LL.D.
' This is the second edition of a book that will doubtless extend into
farther editions. It bears throughout evidence of careful preparation, and
the style — simple, direct, and dignified — is peculiarly well adapted to the
subject-matter. The importance of having the Scripture narrative presented
in a continuous form is very great. But that is not the only value of the
book, though it is its ostensible purpose. Dr. Morrison not only supplies the
historical setting so essential to a true apprehension of the portions of Scrip-
ture dealt with, but he takes up, at convenient points, those controversies,
philosophical and religious, which had so important a bearing on the early
struggles of Christianity, and makes that bearing plain to any reader of
ordinary intelligence. With the instinct of the true teacher, he mingles com-
ment with the gospel story in such a fashion that the difficulties which
constantly present themselves to the ordinary reader of the original disappear
in the continuous narrative. The appended '' Gazetteer of Places " is a valu-
able feature of the book; and the "Miscellaneous Questions" and the Index
will be found no less valuable. Altogether, this is a book which should
command a wide circle of readers.' — Educational News.
' Dr. Momson has condensed in small compass much valuable infonnation
admirably fitted to give a clear and intelligent comprehension of the planting
of Clu-istianity.' — Canada Presbyterian,
' Dr. Morrison gives us in the most compact fonn, and in a clear and
■graceful style, the history contained in the Acts and in the Pauline Epistles.
In fact, he gives us in these 200 pages the substance of Paley, and Conybeare
and Howson. The narrative is skilfully arranged. Events are given in their
manifest order, and no light furnished by recent research or criticism is
overlooked or neglected. It would be an admirable Text-book for use in
Bible classes. The appendix, containing a full list of places mentioned in
the narrative, with brief notes of each place, adds to the value of the book.
— Presbyterian Witness^ Halifax.
' A clear and succinct narrative, with a map and notes.' — Literary World.
' The plan of the book is good, and it is admirably carried out. The author
gives, in the first place, a continuous narrative, which to a large extent serves
as a commentary on the Acts ; but inwoven with this we have what is even
more useful, a clear account of the connection between the narrative of Luke
and the Epistles of Paul. For Bible classes, and for many private students,
this latter feature of the volume makes it specially valuable.' — Scotsman.
' Excellent. By reading this continuous narrative with care, the student
will get a general idea of the history recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, and
he will also have a vivid notion of the suiTOundings of the scenes described.'
— Sivord and Trowel.
' A very useful volume. Dr. Morrison understands the wants of teachers
and pupils, and satisfactorily supplies them.' — British Weekly.
' Students of this portion of the New Testament will do well to take Dr.
Morrison as their guide and instructor.' — Christian Neios.
' We can heartily recommend this volume, which we may say is, from several
points of view, thorough — we had nearly written exhaustive.' — Schoolmaster.
' We do not know of another book of the same size in which so much infor-
mation is condensed. To Sunday-school teachers, and those who have not
time for extensive research, it is invaluable.' — Sunday School Banner.
Oliphant, Anderson, ^ Ferrier's Publication-^.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT.
NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION OF
KITTO'S DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS,
REVISED BY THE
REV. DR. PORTER,
PRESIDENT OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST ;
AUTHOR OF 'Murray's handbook of syria and Palestine,'
'the giant cities of bashan,' etc.
mitb IRumcrous illustrations.
In consequence of the First Edition, without Dr. Porter's Notes, being
now out of print, the Publishers have resolved to issue this New Edition, in
Eight Vols., for 28s. complete.
This is identical as respects Paper and Printing with the Edition hitherto
published at 48s., while the Binding is improved.
These 'Illustrations' consist of Original Readings for a Year on
subjects relating to Sacred History, BiOGRArHY, Geography, Antiquities,
and Theology. Especially designed for the Family Circle.
This Edition is revised by the Rev. Dr. Porter of Belfast, and is enriched
by numerous Notes from his pen, bringing the results of the latest researches
to bear upon the subjects treated of in the Readings.
MORNING SERIES.
Vol.
1. The Antediluvians and Patriarchs.
2. Moses and the Judges.
3. Samuel, Saul, and David.
4. Solomon and the Kings.
EVENING SERIES.
1. Job and the Poetical Books.
2. Isaiah and the Prophets.
3. Life and Death of our Lord.
4. The Apostles and the Early Church.
Each volume is complete in itself, and is sold separately, price 3s. 6d.
FOR OPINIONS OF THE PRESS SEE NEXT PAGE.
Oliphant, Anderson, ^ Ferrier's Publications.
Some Opinions of tlie Press on Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations.
' In practical service to teachers we must perhaps put Kitto first, but next
to him we think Dean Stanley takes the place of honour, at least in relation to
the Old Testament.' — Sunday School Chronicle.
' They are not exactly a Commentary, but what marvellous expositions you
have there ! You have reading more interesting than any novel that was
ever written, and as instructive as the heaviest theology. The matter is
quite attractive and fascinating, and yet so weighty, that the man who shall
study those eight volumes thoroughly, will not fail to read the Bible intelli-
gently and with growing interest.' — C. H. Spurgeon.
' I never open it without getting help, and I find that much more preten-
tious books are largely built up of his abundant materials. Do yoiu' best to
spread the book, not only among ministers, but also among Sabbath-school
teachers.' — Alex. Whyte, D.D., Free St. George's.
' I cannot lose this opportunity of recommending, in the strongest language
and most emphatic manner I can command, this invaluable series of books.
I believe, for the elucidation of the historic parts of Scripture, there is nothing
comparable with them in the English or any other language.' — John Angkll
James.
' This work has obtained, as it merits, a wide popularity. Dr. Kitto
throws light throughout the series on many obscure allusions, says many
tender and many startling things, opens his heart to the reader as he unfolds
the store of his learning — all his utterances being in harmony with his avowed
design, to make this work " really interesting as a reading-book to the family
circle, for which it is primarily intended.'" — Professor Eadie in his Life of
Dr. Kitto.
' After having consulted the best authorities on various biblical subjects, I
have been struck, in coming back to Kitto, to find unmistakable evidence that
he had gone over the same ground, and, without any display of erudition, had
given his readers the benefit of what the most observant travellers and the
best equipped scholars had written.' — J. H. Wilson, D.D., Barclay Free
Church.
' I regard the book as one full of the most healthy reading. It states the
old truth clearly, and brings to bear upon it the newest and freshest light
so as to make it interesting and memorable.' — Alexander Mair, D.D.,
Morningside.
' Witl:in a brief space, and without any parade of learning. Dr. Kitto has
brought to bear the results of his profound scholarship, of his literary experi-
ence and unaffected piety, to aid the reader of the sacred volume intelligently
to understand its import. Amidst the multiplicity of " companions " to the
Bible, we have never met with one better adapted for use, either in the private
circle or by the unlearned Christian inquirer.' — Nonconformist.
' The idea of the present work is excellent. In " Readings" designed for
each day of the year, but so brief that they may be read aloud in ten minutes,
the author goes over the outstanding facts and incidents in the sacred
narrative ; and from his boundless acquirements, sheds over them a flood of
charming illustration.' — Enr/lish Preshiiterian Messenger.
' We should wish to see this most useful book in every house. It contains
a fund of most important biblical infonnation.' — Church of England Magazine.
' For family reading, especially in households which contain intelligent
young people, these illustrations are inestimable.' — Baptist Magazine.
' One of the best books of the kind.' — Spectator.
' It is handy in shape, beautifully printed, and well adapted for the daily
use for which it was originally designed, while worthy to take its place on
the shelves of a libi-ary as a work of reference.' — Scotsman.
Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's Publications.
Extra crown 8vo, cloth, price 6s.,
Manliness, and other Sermons. By Hugh Stowell
Brown. With a Preface by Alexander Maclaren, D.D.,
Manchester.
CONTENTS :— I. Manliness.— II. ' Prepare to Meet thy God, O Israel.'—
III. The Glory of Forgiveness. —IV. Rationali.sm.- V. 'Abounding in the Work
OF THE Lord.'— VI. The Two Paths— (Part I. The Path of the Wicked ; Part II.
The Path of the Just).— VII. Waiting upon God.— YIII. The Wrestling of Jacob.
—IX. Lucre and Filthy Lucre.— X. Jacob's Answer to Pharaoh.— XI. 'Comfort
YE, CO.MFORT YE My PEOPLE.' — XII. CaRNAL WEAPONS.— XIII. NOT UNTO SiNAI, BUT
UNTO Sion.— XIV. The Salvation Army.— XV. A Prophet's Mistake.— XVI. The
Epistle of Paul to Philemon (Part I.).— XVII. The Epistle of Paul to Philemon
(Part II.). — XVIII. Little Bethlehem.— XIX. 'All Joy and Peace in Believing.'
—XX. Bags with Holes.— XXI. The Gift of Christ the Pledge of all other
Gifts.— XXII. A New Year's Sermon.
' This volume contains abundant illustrations of his homely sagacity, his
humour, his sarcasm, his boldness of rebuke, his strong, nervous, direct
style.' — Dr. Maclaren.
' In these living pages, Hugh Stowell Brown, being dead, yet speaketh;
of the now stilled voice they breathe many a tender and moving echo. By
those especially who at any period of his career enjoyed the benefit of his
pulpit ministrations this volume will be prized, not only as a memorial of the
man, but as a source of comfort, of guidance, and of help to true siiiritual
progress.' — Liverpool Post.
' The manly, vigorous language of the sermons impresses the reader with
admiration for the moral teaching conveyed in them.' — The Times.
' This volume will serve to keep alive his memory among those who knew
him, while it will, perhaps, be no less acceptable to many who had only heard
of his fame.' — Scotsman.
' People who are usually repelled by sermons will find in this volume much
to attract and charm them, for Mr. Brown, in addition to more imposing gifts,
possessed in an eminent degree the gift of "saving common sense."' —
Manchester Examiner.
' There is an air of reality about his discourses that rivets attention and
commands respect.' — Scots Observer.
' There is not a single poor or commonplace sermon in the book.' — British
Weekly.
' At length the public has the opportunity of knowing Stowell Brown in
what was the chief and the serious business of his life.' — Liverpool Mercury.
' Models of manly simplicity and robust common sense.' — A^. B. Daily Mail.
' Fresh, vigorous thought, clear, incisive style, and sound evangelical
teaching, pervaded by a truly catholic spirit, characterise these twenty-two
sermons.' — The Christian Age.
' A devout reader will hardly lay down this book ^vithout having derived
profit from its pages.' — The Record.
' It is doubtful if either a better selection of his sermons could have been
made, or a more appropriate title chosen for any collection of discourses by
him.' — Nonconfoi'mist.
' The book will amply repay thoughtful perusal.' — The Christian.
' Will be welcome to many readers.' — Scottish Leader.
Oltphant, Anderson, ^ Ferrier's Publications.
Crown 8vo, cloth, price 5s.,
The Gospel and Modern Substitutes. By Rev. A.
Scott Matheson, Dumbarton.
CONTENTS
I. The Gospel and Modern VII. The Gospel and Socialism.
Substitutes. VIII. The Gospel and Socialism —
II. The Gospel and Agnosticism. Social Grievances.
III. The Gospel and Science. IX. The Gospel and Socialism
IV. The Gospel AND Science — The — The Distribution of
Law of Heredity. Wealth.
V. The Gospel AND Science — The X. The Gospel and Pessimism.
Law of Variation. XI. The Gospel and Art.
VI. The Gospel and Positivism.
' This fresh and suggestive book.' — Dail}/ Free Press.
' Mr. Matheson shows most conclusively that if the representatives and
interpreters of the Gospel would only give effect to its wholesome teaching —
that is so human as well as divine, so far-reaching and all-embracing — many
of those modern notions and theories would have no ground to stand upon
either on account of their novelty or utility.' — Scottish Congregational ist.
' The author's aim is to claim for Christ the best of everything in Science,
Positivism, and Socialism, and to make an eirenicon between Christianity
and the systems of Comte, Darwin, Schopenhauer, and the Socialists.' —
The Bock.
'Timely and suggestive. The breadth of survey and courageous grapple
with some of the difficult social as well as the logical problems of the day
gives this book a special value. For the preacher's library, to lend to the
intelligent young men doubtfully inclined, and as a stimulus to the believer
who seeks to cope with questions which on all sides assail him, the volume
will prove most valuable.' — Illustrated Missionary News.
' We are always glad to welcome a book from a broad-minded writer like
the Rev. A. Scott Matheson. . . . Will be found helpful in enabling Christian
workers, while keeping in view the salvation of the individual as a primary
object, to extend their thoughts to the leavening of the tendencies of the day
— intellectual, social, or aesthetic — with that higher influence which ought
to radiate through them all from Christ the Saviour of the world.' — Record.
' An exceedingly suggestive volume.' — Glasgow Herald.
'Very reasonable, intelligent, and well-written.' — Scotsman.
' An apology which ought, by the force of its reasoning and the candour of
its tone, to disarm hostile criticism and win many to the faith of Christ.' —
British Weekly.
'A strong, good book, and will commend itself by its candour and sym-
pathy. ' — Nonconformist.
Post 8vo, 288 pages, cloth gilt, price 2s. 6d.
BUNYAN CHARACTERS
LECTURES DELIVERED IN
ST. GEORGE'S FREE CHURCH
EDINBURGH: BY
ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D.
CONTENTS.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
II. EVANGELIST.
III. OBSTINATE.
IV. PLIABLE.
V. HELP,
VI. MR. WORLDLY-WISEMAN.
VII. GOODWILL.
Vlir. THE INTERPRETER.
IX. PASSION.
X. PATIENCE.
XI. SIMPLE, SLOTH, AND PRESUMPTION.
XII. THE THREE SHINING ONES AT THE CROSS.
XIII. FORMALIST AND HYPOCRISY.
XIV. TIMOROUS AND MISTRUST.
XV. PRUDENCE.
XVI. CHARITY.
XVII. SHAME.
XVIII. TALKATIVE.
XIX. JUDGE HATE-GOOD.
XX. FAITHFUL IN VANITY FAIR.
XXI. BY-ENDS.
XXII. GIANT DESPAIR.
XXIII. KNOWLEDGE, A SHEHPERD.
XXIV. EXPERIENCE, A SHEPHERD.
XXV. WATCHFUL, A SHEPHERD.
XXVI. SINCERE, A SHEPHERD.
BMnburgb S. XonDon:
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER.
And all Booksellers.
Olix)hant, Anderson, ^ Ferriei'^s Publications.
Some Opinions of the Press on Dr. Alexander Wlyte's
'Bunyan Lectures.'
' Serious, scholarly, searching, and sound.' — Liverpool Mercury.
' A most acceptable addition to Bunyan literature ; the most important
that has appeared for a long time. The studies have a freshness and
power which comes of native strength, and a thorough conception of the
types of the character dealt with.' — The Rock.
' Dr. Whyto is a genius as well as John Bunyan. He has the skill to read
the great tinker's heart as well as his books, and he has added to that almost
as surpassing a gift as the tinker had of setting his stoi'y forth.' — Expository
Times.
' The modern applications of that old story of the soul's quest are indicated
by many subtle and suggestive comments which often touch to the quick the
greater as well as the lesser issues of faith and conduct. There is both
vigour and vivacity about the book, fancy and feeling, yet the tenderness is
as conspicuous as the courage ; it is the outcome of mellow experience as
well as independent thought, and multitudes vnU welcome it because of the
light which it casts, not merely on Bunyan's page, but on the battle and
burden which — in the nineteenth century no less than in the seventeenth —
confronts those who are not content to live at random.' — Sjoeaker.
' The book is one of the most searching, fearless, and powerful treatises on
personal religion we have ever read, and we wish that it may find an entrance
into all our homes, being read alike by old and young, masters and servants,
rich and poor.' — Youth.
' They are full of fine analysis and observation of character, and were
written and delivered with a view to expounding " Bunyan" for present-day
needs.' — The Bookman.
'Each lectm-e is in effect an admirable sermon, heart-searching, spirit-
stirring, glowing with faith in God and hatred of all evil. Genius is here,
and it is sanctified genius. The lecturer's words are like the piercings of a
sword, but the piercings are in kindness, and like his Master, he wounds to
heal.' — Presbyterian Witness, Halifax.
' There is mellow Scottish wisdom stamped upon every page. Nothing so
sagely conscientious, so fearlessly searching, in many ways so genially
witted, has been spoken or written amongst us for years.' — Christian Leader.
' Sincerity and fearlessness are the prevailing characteristics of all Dr.
Whyte's preaching and teaching. No more heart-searching, conscience-
pricking, soul-stirring, and sweetening book has been published since
Bunyan gave his ' ' Pilgrim's Progress" to the Church.'— North Eastern Daily
Gazette.
EDinbutgb Si XouDon:
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & F E R R I E R.
And all Booksellers.
Oliphant, Anderson, ^ Ferrier^s Publications.
Extra crown 8vo, in handsome antique cloth binding, Illustrated,
price 3s. 6d. ; Cheap Edition, linen-fibre paper cover, 2s.,
Norman Reid, M.A. By Jessie Patrick Findlay,
Author of ' The Lost Tide.'
' What I have written will give my readers some idea of ''Norman Eeid, '
on which I congratulate Mrs. Findlay very heartily. If they will get the
book for themselves, they will find it full of power and pathos, as well as of
excellent delineations of Scottish life and character.'— IFceWt/ Citizen.
' There is a firmness of touch, together with a combination of varied gifts,
that stamps the authoress as one of the most promising of the young lady
writers of fiction who have sprung up of late years in the northern kingdom.
Norman Keid is a fine sample of the best type of the young Scotch minister,
uniting scholarship and intellectual breadth with fidelity to pastoral duty,
and a comprehension of the peculiar social demands of our time upon the
Pulpit and the Church. Mrs. Findlay is destined to take high rank among
those modern teachers who utilise fiction for the highest ends.' — Christian
Leader.
' A wonderfully clever production, and possesses the merit of teaching a
valuable lesson without obtruding it, but one which all readers of the volume
will readily learn . . . The plot is finely conceived, and its denouement
equally skilfully concealed till the time arrives for its revelation.' — Southport
Visitor.
' Good from beginning to end. There are no ill-defined shadowy people in
the book — each character stands out clearly and distinctly, and the writer
has, moreover, the descriptive faculty very strongly, both as regards persons
and places.' — Dundee Advertiser.
' Mysie, the blind girl, is the sweete.st character in the story. The Scotch
housekeeper is admirable, and the native Doric true to the life.' — Brechin
Advertiser.
' A most romantic tale of middle-class life in Scotland.' — The Record.
' Some of the details of quaint Scotch customs are well worth studying.' —
Walsall Observer.
' An excellent, wholesome, and interesting story.' — Londonderry Sentinel.
' The picture of Blind Mysie is steeped in pathos, and the young-old
housekeeper Katie has a tongue of her own, which makes itself heard and
remembered.' — The Rock.
' A novel with a Scottish Presbyterian minister for its hero is a rarity, yet
the story of Norman Reid and his life in the Scottish town is full of deep and
very human interest.' — Bookseller.
' The authoress keeps her characters well together, and from first to last
of the story the interest never flags, and the reader is carried on to the end
in a maze of expectation.' — Ballymena Observer.
' A story exquisitely told, and sure to be read with avidity.' — The Witness,
Belfast.
' A conscientiously written story.' — The Academy.
OKpJiant, Anderson, ^ Ferrier's Publications.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, beautifully Illustrated, price 3s. 6d.,
Witch Winnie; The Story of *A King's Daughter.'
By Elizabeth \Y. Champney.
'American school-girls — if this story of their life be as true as it is charming
— must indeed have a good time and enjoy an amount of freedom which in
the old country is denied to their cousins. Witch Winnie, the fascinating
little heroine of the tale, is the head-centre of a naughty school faction known
as the "Hornets' Nest," but in course of time she is won over to a wiser and
more duty-loving set named the " Amen Corner." . . . The humour which
pervades this volume is abundant in quantity and transatlantic in quality.
We strongly recommend it.' — Academy.
' A delightful story. The characters are bright, joyous, and racy.' —
Preshyterian Witness, Halifax, N. S.
' Begins by recording some of the ins and outs of school-girl life, the chief
incidents depending on Witch Winnie, a wild girl, who is always "getting
into scrapes." The story grows graver as it runs on, and includes the
founding of a Home for Destitute Children.' — Literary World.
' Winnie and her companions become intei-ested in a little boy living in a
poor locality, Eicketts Court ; and by and bj', with the aid of an elderly
lady, under whom they studied botany, they formed a "King's Daughter
Ten," for the special purpose of benefiting the children in Eicketts Court.
How they succeeded, and succeeded admirably, as well as how they came to
do good to others directly and indirectly, is all told in the narrative, which
is written in a bright and attractive style, there not being a dull page from
beginning to end.' — Stirling Observer.
' Witch Winnie is a delightful girl, though wild and wayward, and though
she has a remarkable aptitude for getting into scrapes, her latest adventure
bears such important and altogether desirable results, that the most strictly
proper maiden aunt will readily forgive her. An adventure with dynamiters,
a ramble "over the hills and far away," and the account of the remarkable
restoration of a wife to her husband, form important features of the book,
which is one we can heartily recommend.' — Leytonstone Express.
' A capital story, illustrative of the good work done by the band of Christian
girls in America known as " The King's Daughters," and showing how much
young girls who are blessed with comfortable homes can do for their poorer
brothers and sisters.' — British Messenger.
' Shows how much was accomplished by a few school-girls whose somewhat
exuberantly mischievous spirits were hajDi^ily turned into a useful channel.' —
Southport Advertiser.
'Its bright and cheery pages ought to be very widely welcomed." — Perth-
shire A dvertiser.
' Eefreshing and charming as are the chapters devoted to the doings and
strifes of "The Hornets" and " Amens," the interest excited by them is
completely eclipsed by that which the sterner portions of the book awaken.' —
Northern Whig.
' Very brightly written, and the reader's interest is not once allowed to flag.
— Sheffield Independent.
'A delightful book, written in a simple and charming style.' — Dumfries
Courier.
'Unusually well illustrated, the initial drawings to the chapters being
specially well done.' — Scots Magazine.
' Perfect character sketches, pathetic, humorous, and sensational incidents
woven into a clever plot, with a noble motive, and a style which is invariably
bright and attractive, frequently witty, and in entire sympathy with all the
varied features, events, nnd characters presented, combine to render this a
book to be singled out from among a thousand.' — Liverpool Courier.
OUphanf, Anderson, ^ Ferrier^s Publications.
Extra crown 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, gilt top, price 6s.,
Maitland of Laurieston : A Family History. By Annie
S. Swan, Author of ' Aldersyde,' etc. etc.
'If Ruskin is right in his saying that the excellence of a work is in pro-
portion to the joy of the worlunan, "Maitland of Laurieston" should stand
second to none in the long list of Miss Swan's stories. In it she has written
with evident delight of scenes and people that she knows and loves. The
country round Musselburgh and Leith, the ways of village people living just
beyond the shadow of the capital, the life of students and professors in the
" grey metropolis of the North," are painted for us in fresh and brilliant
colours. In the Lothians, Miss Swan is on her native heath, and she is never
so successful when she wanders farther afield. It is always difficult to keep
up the interest of a book when the principal characters are dead or married ;
and it is a proof of Miss Swan's skill that although the wedding bells ring in
the middle of the story, we follow the characters with undiminished interest
to the end. It would be imkind to her many admirers to give even a hint of
the plot: they will prefer to know that her hand has lost none of its cunning,
and that her present story is certainly the best she has written.' — British
WeeUy.
' In " Maitland of Laurieston," Annie Swan is seen at her best.' — Northern
Daily Telegraph.
'The many admirers of Annie S. Swan will turn to her new book with
anticipations which, on finishing the story, have, they will confess, been
more than realised.'— i>Mndee Advertiser.
' This strong and wholesome story is in many respects the best of the long
series which bears Miss Swan's name.' — Methodist Times.
' An advance on the author's j^revious works.' — Record.
' The strong, sober, but hardly severe father, the gentle mother, and the
boys and girls of the Laurieston household make a delightful family group ;
indeed, all the homely rural sketches have a quite idyllic charm.' — Man-
chester Examiner.
'Miss Swan is here at her best. The plot is natural, the interest is sus-
tained throughout, and the leading characters are so associated as to bring
into striking relief their characteristics of strength or weakness.' — Brechin
Advertiser.
' There is something very winsome and wholesome about Miss Swan's art.
She can be both tender and strong.' — Hull Mail.
'A sweetly written and wholesome story.' — Scottish Leader,
' Of all the charming stories Annie S. Swan has written, she has produced
nothing better than "Maitland of Laurieston."' — Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
' We are delighted with Annie Swan's new story, which proves very clearly
that her intellect is as keen, her heart as fresh and kindly and her hand as
cunning as ever.' — Haivick Advertiser.
' The members of the Laurieston household make a picturesque family
group, the characters of the heads of the family and the boys and girls being
graphically sketched by the pen of an able writer. There is a healthy in-
fluence in all that pertains to the rural home, which teaches the reader how
to lead a natural life, and walk in the paths of virtue. Any one who knows
Mrs. Burnett- Smith's powers when dealing with scenes and characters of
Scottish rural life, will hardly need to be reminded of the idyllic charm which
surrounds her word pictures.' — Dumfries Courier.
'Very well told, and is interesting from beginning to end.' — Arbroath
Guide.
Oliphant, Anderson, dc Ferrier's Fublications.
BY ANNIE S. SWAN.
In extra crown 8vo, cloth, price 5a.,
The Gates of Eden: A Story of Endeavour.
New Edition. With Portrait of the Author.
' The subject of Miss Swan's " Gates of Eden" is one which demands, and
receives from her hand, a skilful treatment. John Bethune rears his
motherless boys in accordance with a preconceived plan. The elder is to be
a minister, the younger is to follow the plough. Circumstances seem to
favour his scheme ; for the future minister has, it appears, the advantage in
appearance, in manners, and in ability. But the real truth is different. The
depth of character and the best mental gifts really belong to the latter. How
the young man, conscieus of his power, yet stedfastly walks along the
appointed path till he is free to choose, and how, once free, he enters on his
own way and overcomes all its difficulties, is very well told in these pages.
We have not often seen a better portraiture than is that of the two brothers.
Miss Swan is too skilful to make the weaker of the two a mere foil to the
stronger. He, too, with all his faults, has virtues of his own, and the reader
is glad to see them reaching their true development before the story is
finished. The episode of the recoveiy of Willie Lorraine, a repentant
prodigal, is full of pathos; as is also the love-story of Mary Campbell. The
"Gates of Eden" is a worthy successor to the author's " Aldersyde."' —
Spectator.
' A distinct success. . . . We follow the career of twin brothers through
the book — Sandy and Jamie Bethune. Sandy, apparently getting all the
brains, is sent to St. Andrews to study, and his conceits and fine talk on his
visits home are humorously described. Then we see him transformed into
the Rev. Alexander Bethune of Lochbroom. Jamie seems fit only for the
harrows and the loom at first, but Aunt Susan always sees deeper than this,
and we read witt interest the story of his endeavour to rise to higher
things. His character is well drawn, the earnest, noble soul following
God's leading.' — British Weekly.
' The " Gates of Eden" is, like most of its predecessors, a homely tale of
Scottish life and manners. The homely dialect is given with admirable
fidelity, and there is much truthful delineation of character.' — Scotsman.
' The underlying conception — that of a contrast between two brothers,
the one brilliant, clever, and superficial, but needing stem discipline before
the real strength of his nature can be evoked; the other modest, unselfish,
but earnest and indomitable — is strongly grasped from the first, and is
wrought out with such power and consistency as to hold the reader's
attention by a kind of spell. The book is one which everybody can read
with pleasure, and from which many will profit.' — Scottish Leader.
' One of the most dramatically rendered scenes of the book is that in
which the death of old Peter Bethune is described. If the author had never
written anything else, this part of the story would justify her claim to the
place in the front rank of our most gifted literary artists.' — Northern
Ensign.
' A happy note is struck at the very outset of the " Gates of Eden," and
the quality of the good beginning is maintained throughout. . . . The best
of all the stories that we have yet received from the pen of its accom-
plished authoress.' — Kilmarnock Standard.
' Remarkably beautiful, noble in spirit, rich in pathos, strong in the
triumph of an earnest purposeful life.' — Daibj Mail.
2p
Olipfiant, Anderson, Sf Ferrie)'''s Puhlications.
Extra crown 8vo, cloth, with Illustrations and Map, price 5s.,
Calabar and its Mission. By Hugh Goldie.
'The United Presbyterian Church has reason to be proud of the men it has
sent out to the Calabar Eiver, and the work that has been done since the
foundation of its Mission there, half a century ago. The Eev. Hugh Goldie
was one of the earliest of the labourers in that field, having landed at Creek-
haven in 1847, after spending six years in mission work in the West Indies.
His book is therefore a narrative of the vicissitudes of fortune, and the
changes in the native customs and conditions of European intercourse with
this part of the Oil Eiver Protectorate during the past fifty years, by one who
has been himself an eye-witness of what he describes, or who had his
information at fii'st-hand from the other pioneers of Christianity with whom
he has been associated. The best tribute to the success of missionary effort
in this quarter is a comparison with the state of things that existed when
Messrs. Waddell, Edgerley, and Goldie were first brought into contact -vvith
the revolting and barbarous practices of the Negro tribes on the Cross and
Old Calabar Rivers, and the improved behaviour of king and people that have
come imder the influence of the Mission.' — Scotsman.
' A very valuable and ably-written history of the Mission of our Church in
Old Calabar. . . . The history of the progress is striking, and will be read
with unflagging interest.' — United Presbyterian Magazine.
'We cannot have too many such books. They furnish an "evidence of
Christianity" which it is hard indeed to gainsay or resist.' — Presbytericm
Witness.
' The book has a twofold interest and value, appealing to the student of
humanity as well as to those who are interested in Christian missions, to
the merchant as well as to the evangelist ; for the truth is that the history of
its Mission is the history of Calabar, which has just now taken an important
step in requesting to be made a British Colony.' — North British Daily Mail.
'A book of intense interest to all who have the welfare of the Christian
missions at heart. ... A clear and instructive account is given of the
country and people of Calabar, the slave trade and its abolition, and the rise
and progress of the Mission, the narrative abounding with personal and pictur-
esque details, which rivet the attention of the reader.' — Kilmarnock Standard.
' Tells of a noble work in the foreign field, which has been carried on, so to
speak, with little noise. The author has himself spent a lifetime of honour-
able service there, and he narrates the rise and progress of the Mission with
admirable fulness.' — British Messenger.
' Mr. Goldie, besides giving the history of the rise and progress of the
Mission, enters into the life, the manners, customs, etc., of the people, and
gives much most valuable information to the student of mankind. It is much
to be hoped that Mr. Goldie would give a book on the life, manners, customs,
tales, riddles of the people, etc. No one is fitted to do such a work so well,
as is shown by the way he has executed the work now under notice.' —
Aberdeen Journal.
'While singularly unjjretentious in style, is exceedingly interesting and
full of information that will be highly appreciated by ethnological students
as well as the general reader. There can be no question at all but that the
influence of the Mission on this part of the West Coast of Africa has been
wholly for good, — a fact which is not so much asserted as quietly demon-
sti-ated in Mr. Goldie's narrative.' — Scottish Leader.
' The missionaries not merely laboured with great zeal and devotion, but
have something to show as the reward of their work, in the improvement cf
the manner of life of the natives and in the exploration of the country.' —
Scots Observer,
Otiphant, Anderson, ^- Ferrier's Publication^.
Is. EDITION OF ANNIE S. SWAN'S FAVOURITE STORY.
In pocket 8vo, with Frontispiece by Elizabeth Gulland,
paper cover, Is. ; cloth, Is. 6d.,
Aldersyde. A Border Story. By Annie S. Swan.
Some Opinions of the Press on former Editions.
The Authoress has received the following Autograph Letter from Mr.
Gladstone : —
' 10 Downing Street,
' Whitehall, April 16, 18S3.
'Dear Madam, — I have now read the work which you did me the honour
to present to me with a very kind inscription, and I feel obliged to add a line
to my formal acknowledgment already sent. I think it beautiful as a work
of art, and it must be the fault of a reader if he does not profit by the
perusal. Miss Nesbit and Marget will, 1 hojie, long hold their places
among the truly living sketches of Scottish character. — I remain, your
very faithful and obedient, W. E. GLADSTONE.'
' Sir Walter Scott himself never delineated a character more true to life
than Janet Nesbit.' — Stirling Observer.
' Eloquent of character and well told.' — Athenceum.
'Full of quiet power and pathos.' — Academy.
' She has brought us into the presence of a pure and noble nature, and has
reminded us that a life of sorrow and disappointments has its deep com-
pensations, and its glorious meaning.' — Literary World.
'Hurrah! our good Scotch stories, with their dear rough old vernacular,
are not going to die out just yet, or, if at all, they are going to die hard.' —
S.S. Teachers' Magazine.
'Beautifully conceived and exquisitely wiitten.' — Airdrie Advertiser.
' One of the best Scotch tales that has appeared for many years. ... A
wealth of local colouring and fineness of touch rarely to be met in these days
of painfully analytic writing.' — Kilmarnock Herald.
' A book wo must read through at a sitting. It lays hold of our interest in
the first page, and sustains it to the end.' — Daily Review.
' Deserves to occupy a prominent and permanent jolace among Scottish
works of imagination. . . . Not a dull page in the book ; while not a
paragraph will be skipped lest some of the finer touches should be missed.' —
Kelso Chronicle.
' We have not read a fresher, livelier, or more wholesomely stimulating
story for many a dtxj.'— Kilmarnock Staiidard.
BOinburgb & Xon&on:
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER.
And all Booksellers.
Oliphant, Anderson, <^ Ferrier's Publications.
Small crown 8vo, clotli, with Portrait and Map, 160 pp., price Is.,
The Story of Stanley, the Hero of Africa, from his
Boyhood to his Marriage in Westminster Abbey. By E. A.
Macdonald. Tenth Thousand.
' How Stanley became a journalist, how he found Livingstone, how he
crossed the Dark Continent again, how reaching England he became the lion
of the city, and how at last he wooed and won the heart of Dorothy Tennant
and was married in Westminster Abbey, is told by the author in a style which
will earn for him the gratitude of all boys whose good fortune it may be to
read this "Story of Stanley." ' — Preston Guardian.
' Fascinating, well-written, and complete, being terse and vigorous in
style.' — John o' Groafs Journal.
' An exceedingly interesting book. It is not necessary to admire some of
the traits of Stanley's character in order to admit that he has acquired much
legitimate fame as an African explorer ; and in this story of his life we dis-
cover the qualities which have enabled him to attain distinction as the most
travelled man of his time.' — Northern Ensign.
' This little book will be a treasure to young people, and a useful bio-
graphical sketch to keep on the shelf along with the works which Stanley
has given to the world.' — Inverness Courier.
' Relates the life of the celebrated traveller in a very popular and attractive
manner.' — Kilmarnock Standard.
' The incidents in the exjalorer's life are graphically recounted, and within
the compass one could not well wish for a better popular biography.' —
Scottish Leader.
' Written in a very sympathetic spirit, and with a high appreciation of the
daring, pluck, and courage of the "finder of Livingstone." Every important
point in the successive journeys Stanley made into the dark interior of Africa
is noted. " The Story of Stanley'," which sells at one shilling, is a capital one
to put into a boy's hand, with the advice to read, mark, and inwardly digest it.'
— Fife Record.
' A story of engrossing interest, and is told in a simple but very fascinating
stj'le.' — Northern Daily Telegraph.
' Written in a plain but graphic manner, and is an admirable book to place
in the hands of boys, portraying as it does the life of one of our greatest
explorers.' — Beverley Guardian.
' This well-condensed and clearly written " Story." — Aberdeen Free Press.
'Mr. Macdonald has known how to study the tastes of young readers in
giving them an interesting and spirited account of the explorer's achieve-
ments.'— Scotsman.
' Briskly and intelligently told.' — Yorkshire Post.
' A capital book for boys. '— Glasgoio Herald.
' This is the story of a man who never lost an opportunity. The author
gives a capital stimulus to boys to persevere amid all difficulties, so that,
though they do not become great travellers, they may be successful men in
their several spheres of life.' — Perthshire Advertiser.
' One of the most seasonable of the gift books of the current j'ear. In a
thoroughly attractive style, the life of the hero of Africa is traced from his
boyhood to his recent marriage, every eventful incident being truthfully and
graphicplly depicted, though, of course, in a condensed form.' — Teacher's Aid.
' Into comparatively small compass he has compressed material which might
have filled volumes, but the compression has been sympathetically done, and
the narrative is still an intensely readable one.' — Literary World.
' Narrates in a lively and interesting fashion the career of the great
ti-aveller from his boyhood to his marriage in Westminster Abbey.' — Dundee
Advertiser.
OUphant, Anderson, ^ Ferrier^s Publications.
Extra crown 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, with Frontispiece, price 3s. 6d.,
An Old Chronicle of Leighton. By Sarah Selina
Hamer, Author of ' Barbara Leybourne,' etc. etc.
' A most interesting and instructive book.' — Nottingham Express.
' Fascinating as was the story of "Barbara Leybourne," by Sarah Selina
Hamer, itis now surpassed by her " Old Chronicleof Leighton," covering the
same period — between eighty and ninety years ago. A little town, with hall
and " small park near to its very heart," the " tickety-tack " of the handlooms
which comes from the cottages, so scattered that the sound scarcely reaches
the market-place ; the rectory, and the old hostelry, and the " Leighton
Arms," an old-world inn, are all described so vividly that we seem to live in
the quaint little town at the time the story opens. We strongly advise our
girl readers especially to buy the book and enjoy iV—3fethodist Recorder.
' Nothing could be more effective than the iirst view with which we are
favoured of Godfrey Leighton, the young squire, and Constance Darrington,
the rector's niece. The scene is laid in Lancashire, in the early years of the
century, when the chief topics of talk among the working-folk were bad
trade, politics, the war, and the machineiy coming in (as the employees
believed) to make matters worse. A high-toned, conscientiously executed
tale.' — Christian Leader.
' There is a strength in the writing of this book above the ordinary run of
a woman's pen.' — St. Stephen's Review.
'Miss Earner's pretty old-world story should form the Christmas present
of most mothers for their young daughters.' — Whitehall Revieiv.
' The authoress has placed her story in an old-world setting, and much of
the quaint simplicity of the days when our grandmothers were young colours
the tale.' — Dundee Advertiser.
' The interest evoked is intense, and the delineations of Quaker styles and
idiosyncrasies at once pleasing and interesting. Several of the female
characters portrayed are peculiarly beautiful, notably Ruth and Mrs. Raws-
thorn e.' — Southport Visitor.
' The pretty little Quakeress is the most attractive figure in the story.' —
Inverness Courier.
' A story of the early days of this century, when the introduction of
machinery caused so much trouble to north-country manufacturers, and a
delightful Quaker family figure largely in its pages. The author tells her
story with much quiet humour and refinement, and the volume is as pleasant
as it is pure and wholesome.' — Court Journal.
' The character of the Quakeress, Rachel Rawsthorne, is taken from life, and
she is one of the most charming people in the hook.' — Sheffield Independent.
'Most refreshing, for it is neither psychological nor theological, and it has
no word or suggestion in it to which any one could object ; yet it is an
honest, interesting tale, really well told.' — Walsall Observer.
' A charming love story in its main plot, while a host of subsidiary
characters, and many engaging pictures of manners as they appeared iu the
North of England at the beginning of this century, add to the attractiveness
of the book. The central figure of the story is a Quaker girl, whose love-
making is done with a delightful mixture of naturalness and demureness.' —
Scotsman-
' Rachel Rawsthorne is one of the most charming girls we have come
across for a long time. No wonder that Richard fell in love with this dear
demure, yet warm-hearted little Quakeress.'— (??rts^O!« Weekly Citizen.
' Clergymen and workers among the young are constantly asking — What
fiction can we safely put intu the hands of young readers ? Why do they not
obtain stories like this? ' — Hull Mail.
' A story one could not lay down unfinished.' — Leeds Times.
OUphant, Anderson, ^ Ferrier's Publicatio7is.
LIBRARY EDITION OF M'CHEYNE'S 'MEMOIR.'
Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with additional matter and newly-engraved
Portrait and facsimiles of Writing, price 5s.,
JVIEMOIR AND F^EMAINS
OF
Rev. ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE,
MINISTER OF ST. PETER'.S CHURCH, DUNDEE.
By Eev. ANDEEW A. BONAR, D.D.
'How admirable an edition is this! the best five-shilling octavo you ever
saw. And it is made richer than of old by new matter from the venerable
editor's pen.' — Expository Times.
'Among the many "ideas" which are rapidly bringing Messrs. Oliphant,
Anderson, & Ferrier to the front rank among publishers, none strikes me as
more happy than the beautiful editions they are issuing of religious classics.
The latest is Dr. Andrew Bonar's famous "Memoir and Eemains of Robert
Murray M'Cheyne." I happen to have the first edition in two small black
volumes. It was issued in 1844, and the circulation must have considerably
exceeded a hundred thousand. But no copy is so good to use as the latest,
which is a model book in every way, — binding, paper, and type, — and which
is enriched by additional notes from the pen of the revered author. It will
rank as a standard edition of an immortal book.' — The British Weekly.
' This issue of a book which has been so widely valued as to take the rank
of an Evangelical classic is enriched with facsimiles of M'Cheyne's hand-
writing, while the venerable author has introduced some additional informa-
tion on certain points. We wish the book a fresh career of usefulness in its
new form.' — Critical Review.
JEMnbucGb S. XonCion:
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER.
And all Booksellers.
THE REV. ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE
OF DUNDEE.
Memoir and Remains. A New Library Edition.
By Rev. Andrew A. BoNAft, D.D. Demy 8vo, cloth,
with newly-engraved Portrait, additional matter,
and facsimiles of Writing, price 5s.
Memoir and Remains. By Rev. Andrew A.
BoNAR, D.D. Extra crown 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d.
Additional Remains. Being Sermons and Lectures.
Extra crown 8 vo, gilt edges, 5s. Cheaper Edition, 3s. 6d.
Memoir of Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne.
By Rev. Andrew A. Bonar, D.D. (without the
Remains). Small crown 8vo, cloth, Is. 6d.
Life of Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne.
Abridged from Dr. Bonar's Memoir. Small crown
8vo, Is.
Letters to Inquirers and Young Converts.
Sewed, 6d. ; cloth, 9d.
Exposition of the Epistles to the Seven
Churches in Asia. Sewed, 6d. ; cloth, Is.
A Visit to the Holy Land, and Mission of
Inquiry to the Jews. By Rev. A. A. Bonar and Eev.
R. Murray M'Cheyne. 30th Thousand. Crown 8vo,
cloth, 3s. 6d.
BMnburgb S. Xon&on:
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER.
A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.
New Edition, demy 8vo, cloth exti-a, with numerous Illustrations,
and facsimile of original Title and Frontispiece, price 5s.,
Cloud of Witnesses : For the Royal Prerogatives of
Jesus Christ ; being the Last Speeches and Testimonies of those
who have suffered for the Truth in Scotland since the year 1680.
Reprinted from the Original Editions, with Explanatory and
Historical Notes. By the Rev. John H. Thomson.
EDINBURGH & LONDON:
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER.
And all Booksellers.
DATE DUE
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