Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 152
To the Laird of CALLY. (152)
Worthy Sir.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have been too long I confess in writing to you. My sute now to you in paper [since I have no access to speak to you as formerly] is, that 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 well nor woe, may not, cause you change your master, Christ: Keep fair to him & be honest and faithfull that he finde not a crack in you. Surely ye are now in the throng of temptations: When youth is come to it's fairest bloom, then the Devil & the lusts of a deceiving world & sin are upon horse-back and follow with up sails: If this were not, Paul needed not to have written to a sanctified & holy youth Timothy [a faithfull preacher of the Gospel] flee the lusts of youth. Give Christ your virgin-love, ye cannot put your love & heart in a better hand. O if ye knew him & saw his beauty! Your love, your liking, your heart, your desires would close with him & cleave to him. Love by nature when it seeth, cannot but cast out it's spirit and strength upon amiable objects & good things & things love-worthy: and what fairer thing then Christ? O fair sun and fair moon and fair stars, and fair flowers and fair roses and fair lilies, and fair creatures; but O ten thousand thousand times fairer Lord Jesus! Alas, I wronged him in making the comparison this way! O black sun & moon, but O fair Lord Jesus! O black flowers & black lilies & roses, but O fair, fair, ever fair Lord Jesus! O all fair things, black & deformed without beauty, when ye are beside that fairest Lord Jesus! O black heaven, but O fair Christ! O black Angels, but O surpassingly fair Lord Jesus! I would seek no more to make me happy for evermore, but a through & clear sight of the beauty of Jesus my Lord: Let my eyes enjoy his fairness & store him for ever in the face, & I have all that can be wished. Get Christ rather then gold or silver, seek Christ howbeit ye should lose all things for him: They take their marks by the moon & look asquint in looking to fair Christ, who resolve for the world & their ease, & for their honour & court & credit, or for fear of losses & a sore skin that they will turn their back upon Christ & his truth. Alas, how many blinde eyes & squint-lookers look this day in Scotland upon Christ's beauty, & they see a spot in Christ's fair face! Alas, they are not worthy of Christ who look this way upon him, & 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 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 & weary not, faint not, resolve upon suffering for Christ, but fear not ten dayes tribulation, for Christ's sowre cross is sugared with comforts & hath a taste of Christ himself. I esteem it my glory, my joy & my crown, & I bless him for this honour, to be yoked with Christ & married with him in suffering, who therefore was born & 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. O happy soul, that crosseth nature's stomack, & delighteth to gain that fair garland & crown of glory! What a feckless loss is it for you to goe through this wilderness & never taste of sin's sugared pleasures! What poorer is a soul to want pride, lust, love of the world & the vanities of this vain & worthless world! Nature hath no cause to weep at the want of such toyes as these. Esteem it your gain to be an heir of glory, O but that is an eye-look to a fair rent! The very hope of heaven under troubles, is like wind & sails to the soul, & like wings when the feet come out of the share. O for what stay we here! Up, up, after our Lord Jesus, this is not our rest nor our dwelling: What have we to doe in this prison, except onelyonly to take meat & house-room in it for a time? Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Your soul's welwisher & Christ prisoner, S. R.