Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 187 – LETTER 188
To my Lady BOYD. (187)
MADAM.
GRace, mercy & peace from God our father & from our Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied upon you. I have reasoned with your son at large, I rejoyce to see him set his face in the right airth, now when the Nobles love the sunny side of the Gospel best, and are afraid that Christ want souldiers and shall not be able to doe for himself. Madam, our debts of obligation to Christ are not small, the freedom of grace & 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 in his white's, & the Idolatry and Apostacy of the time well washen with fair pretences, but the skin is black & the water foul: It were art, I confess, to wash a black Devil and make him white. I am in strange up's & down's, & 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 then my self: He hath now let me see 4 Things I never saw before 1. The supper will be great chear that is up in the great hall with the royal King of glory, when the four-hours, the standing drink in this driery wilderness is so sweet: When he bloweth a kiss a far 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 sinfull cheeks of poor sinners. O time, time, goe swiftly & 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 & look often how low the sun is: For love hath no ho, it is pained, pained in it self, till it come in grips with the party beloved. 2. I finde Christ's absence love's sickness & love's death: The wind that bloweth out of the airth where my Lord Jesus reigneth, is sweet-smelled, soft, joyfull, & heartsom to a soul burnt with absence. It is a painfull battel for a soul sick of love to fight with absence & delayes: Christ's not yet, is a stounding of all the joynts & liths of the soul: a nod of his head when he is under a mask would be half a pawne: to say, fool, what aileth thee? He is coming, would be life to a dead man. I am often in my dumb sabbaths seeking a new plea with my Lord Jesus, God forgive me: & I care not, if there be not two or three ounce weight of black wrath in my cup. For the 3 Thing, I have seen my abominable vileness: If I were well known there would none in this Kingdom ask how I doe: Men take my ten to be an hundred, but I am a deeper hypocrite & shallower professour then every one beleeveth, God knoweth I feigne not: But I think, my reckonings on the one page written in great letters, & his mercy to such a forlorn & wretched Dyvour on the other, more then 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, & upon my part despair might be almost excused, if every one in this land saw my inner side: But I know I am one of them who have made great sale & a free market to free grace: If I could be saved, as I would fain beleeve, sure I am I have given Christ's blood, his free grace & the bowels of his mercy, a large field to work upon, & Christ hath manifested his art [I dare not say, to the uttermost; for he can, if he would, forgive all the Devils & damned reprobates in respect of the wideness of his mercy] I say, to an admirable degree. 4. I am striken 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, & they are running away from Christ in troops, and I dow not mourn & 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 & wringing her hands in sackcloth & ashes. Woe, woe, woe is me, for the virgin-daughter of Scotland: Woe, woe to the inhabitants of this land, for they are gone back with a perpetual backsliding: These things take me so up, that a borrowed bed, another man's fire-side, the wind upon my face. [I being driven from my lovers & dear acquaintance & my poor flock,] finde no room in my sorrow: I have no spare of odde sorrow for these: OnelyOnly 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, then my closed mouth: But let me be miserable my self alone, God keep my dear brethren from it: But still I keep breath, & when my royal and never, never-enough praised King returneth to his sinfull prisoner, I ride upon the high places of Iacob, I divide Shechem, I triumph in his strength: If this Kingdom would glorifie the Lord in my behalf, I desire to be weighed in God's even ballance in this point, if I think not my wages payed to the full: I shall crave no more hire of Christ. Madam, pity me in this, & help me to praise him: For what ever I be, the chief of sinners, a devil & a most guilty devil, yet it is the apple of Christ's eye, his honour & glory as the head of the church, that I suffer for now, & that I will goe 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 La: and your children have a prisoner's prayers. Grace, grace be with you.
Aberd. May. 1. 1637. Your La: at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
To Mr THOMAS GARVEN. (188.)
Dear Brother.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I rejoyce that ye cannot be quite of Christ [if I may speak so] but he must, he will have you: Betake your self to Christ, my dear Brother: It is a great business to make quite of superfluities & of these 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 & mine together. I marvel not that winter is without heaven, for there is no winter within it: All the saints therefore have their own measure of winter before their eternal summer. Oh for the long day & the high sun & the fair garden & the King's great citie 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 & full ioy, & seven crosses have seven ioyes. Christ is cumbred with me [to speak so] & my cross, but he falleth not off me, we are not at variance. I finde the very glooms of Christ's wooing a soul, sweet & lovely: I had rather have Christ's buffet and love-stroke then another King's kiss: Speak evil of Christ who will, I hope to die with love-thoughts of him. Oh that there are so few tongues in heaven and earth to extoll him! I wish his praises goe not down amongst us: Let not Christ be low & lightly esteemed in the midst of us, but let all hearts & all tongues cast in their portion & contribute something to make him great in mount Zion. Thus recommending you to his grace, & remembring my love to your wife & mother & your kinde brother R. & entreating you to remember my bonds, I rest.
Aberd. Sept. 8. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.