Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 140
To CARDONNESS Elder. (140)
Much honoured Sir.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have longed to hear from you & to know the estate of your soul & 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 & sure work of your salvation & try upon what ground-stone ye have builded. Worthy & dear Sir, if ye be upon sinking sand, a storm of death & a blast will loose Christ & you and wash you close off the rock: O for the Lord's sake look narrowly to the work! read over your life with the light of God's day-light and sun; for Salvation is not casten down at every man's door: It is good to look to your compass & all ye have need of, ere ye take shipping; for no wind can blow you back again. Remember when the race is ended & the play either won or lost & ye are in the utmost circle & border of time & shall put your foot within the march of eternity & all your good things of this short night-dream shall seem to you like the ashes of a bleaze of thorns or straw, & 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 & homely smiles; then if ye had the charters of three worlds for all eternity. Let pleasures & gain, will & desires of this world be put over in God's hands, as arrested and fenced goods that ye cannot intromet with: Now when ye are drinking the ground of your cup & ye are upon the utmost ends of the last link of time, & old age like death's long shadow is casting a covering upon your days, it is no time to court this vain life, & to set love & heart upon it: It is near after supper, seek rest & ease for your soul in God through Christ: Beleeve me I finde it hard wrestling to play fair with Christ & to keep good quarters with him, & keep love to him in integrity & life, & to keep a constant course of sound & solid daily communion with Christ: temptatations are daily breaking the threed of that course, & it is not easie to cast a knot again, & many knots make evil work. O 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 professours cast a golden lustre, as if they were pure gold, & yet are under that skin & cover but base & reprobate mettall! And how many keep breath in their race many miles, & yet come short of the prize & 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 & slips: False under-water not seen in the ground of an enlightned conscience, is dangerous; so is often failing & 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 & break the flesh again and end in a sad war at death. O how fearfully are thousands beguiled with false hide growen over old sins, as if the soul were cured and healed! Dear Sir, I saw ever nature mighty, lofty, heady & strong in you, & it was more for you to be mortified & dead to the world then another common man: Ye will take a low ebbe, & a deep cut & a long lanc… to goe 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 & worthy Brother, with your topsail: Stoop, Stoop, it is a low entry to goe in at heaven's gates: There is infinite Justice in the party ye have to doe with, it is his nature not to acquit the guilty & the sinner: The Law of God will not want one farthing of the sinner: God forgetteth not both the Cautioner & the sinner, & every man must pay either in his own person [O 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 quite will, pleasure, wordly love, earthly hope & an itching of heart after this fairded & overguilded world, & to be content that Christ trample upon all. Come in, come in to Christ and see what ye want & finde 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 daresay, Angels pens, Angels tongues, nay as many worlds of Angels as there are drops of water in all the seas & fountains and rivers of the earth, cannot paint him out to you: I think his sweetness since I was a prisoner hath swelled upon me to the greatness of two heavens: O for a soul as wide as the outmost circle of the highest heaven that containeth all, to contain his love! And yet I could hold little of it. O world's wonder! O if my soul might but lie within the smell of his love, suppose I could get no more but the smell of it! O but it is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love! O what a sight to be up in heaven in that fair orchard of the new Paradise, & 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: Fy, sy upon us, that we have love lying rusting beside us, or which is worse, wasted away upon loathsom objects, & Christ should lie his alone. Woe, woe is me, that Sin hath made so many mad men, seeking the fool's Paradise, fire under ice, & some good and desireable thing without, and apart from Christ: Christ, Christ, nothing but Christ can cool our love's burning languor: O thirsty love, wilt thou set Christ the well of life to thy head & drink thy fill; drink and spare not, drink love & be drunken with Christ: Nay alas, the distance betwixt us and Christ is a death: O if we were clasped in other's arms! We should never twin again except heaven twinned and sundered us, & 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 & happy, and come & take Christ & all things with him: Let them beware of glassy & 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, & with the store-house of wisdom and comfort, the good word of God. Help the souls of the poor people: O that my Lord would bring me again among them, that I might tell uncouth & 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 & the sweet presence of Christ to you and yours and them. Grace, grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Your lawful and loving Pastor. S. R.