Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 142
To JEAN BROWN. (142)
MISTRESS.
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I long to hear how your soul prospereth: I earnestly desire your on-going toward your countr…y: I know ye see your day melteth away by little & little, & that in short time ye will be put beyond Time's bounds; for life is a post that standeth not still, & our joyes here are born weeping rather then laughing & they die weeping: Sin, Sin, this body of sin and corruption, imbittereth & poisoneth all our enjoyments. O that I were where I shall sin no more! O to be freed of these chains & 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 life, & like a full and sick stomack to wish at mid-supper, that the supper were ended & the table drawen, that the sick man might win to bed and enjoy rest? We have cause to tire at mid-supper of the best messes that this world can dress up for us, and to cry to God that he would remove the table & put the sin-sick souls to rest with himself. O for a long play-day with Christ, and our long lasting vacance of rest! Glad may their souls be that are safe over the fi…th, Christ having payed the fraught: Happy are they who have past their hard and wearisom time of apprentiship, and are now free-men and citizens in that joyfull high city, the new Ierusalem. Alas that we should be glad of, and rejoyce in our fetters & our prison-house & this dear Innes, a life of sin, where we are absent from our Lord and so far from our home. O that we could get bonds & law-suretiship of our love, that it fasten not it self on these clay-dreams, these clayshadows 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 countrey above, & we should look like our countrey and like strangers or people not born or brought up hereaway: 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, & 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, & when we are striken we dare not weep, but steal our grief away betwixt our Lord and us, and content our selves with stoln sorrow behinde backs. God be thanked we have many things that so stroake us against the hair, as we may pray, God keep our better home, God bless our Father's house, & not this smoke that bloweth us to seek our best lodging. I am sure this is the best fruit of the cross, when we from the hard fare of the dear Innes cry the more, that God would send a fair wind to …nd us hungred & oppressed strangers at the door of our Father's house, which now is made in Christ our kindly heritage. O then let us pull up the stakes & stoups of our tent, & take our tent on our back & goe with our flitting to our best home, for here we have no continuing city! I am waiting in hope here, to see what my Lord will doe with me: Let him make of me whath 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, & all that I can or may make is for him: I am his everlasting debter or dyvour, & still shall be; for alas I have nothing for him & he getteth little service of me! Pray for me, that our Lord would be pleased to give me houseroom, that I may serve him in the calling he hath called me unto. Grace be with you.
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus. S. R.