Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 90
To ELIZABETH KENNEDY. (90)
MISTRESS.
GRace mercy and peace be unto you: I have long had a purpose of writing to you, but I have been hindred: I heartily desire that ye would minde your journey; & consider to what airth your soul setteth it's face; for all come not home at night, who suppose they have set their face heaven-ward: it is a woefull thing to die & misse heaven, & to lose house-room with Christ at night: It is an evil journey where travellers are benighted in the fields. I perswade my self that thousands shall be deceived & 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. Oh how many a poor Professor's candle is blowen out & never lighted again! I see ordinary profession, & to be ranked amongst the children of God, & to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry professors to heaven; but certainly a name is but a name, & will never bide a blast of God's storm: I counsell you not to give your soul or Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep, till ye have gotten something that will bide the fire & stand out the storm. I am sure if my one foot were in heaven & then he would say, fend thy self, I will hold my grips of thee no longer: I should goe no further; but presently fall down in as many Pieces of dead nature. They are happy for evermore who are over head & ears in the love of Christ, & know no sickness but love-sickness for Christ: & feel no pain but the pain of an absent & hidden welbeloved. We run our souls out of breath & tire them in coursing & galloping after our own night-dreams [such are the rovings of our miscarrying hearts] to get some created good thing in this life & on this side of death: We would fain slay & spin out a heaven to our solves in this side of the water; but sorrow, want, changes, crosses & sin are both woof & warp in that ill-spun web. O how sweet & dear are these thoughts that are still upon the things which are above! & how happy are they who are longing to have little sand in their glass & to have time's threed cut & can cry to Christ, Lord Iesus have over, come & fetch the driry passenger! I wish our thoughts were more frequently then they are on our countrey. O but heaven casteth a sweet smell afar off, to these who have spirituall smelling! God hath made many fair flowers, but the fairest of them all is heaven, & the flower of all flowers is Christ. O why doe we not flee up to that lovely one? Alas that there is such scarcity of love, & lovers of Christ amongst us all. Fy, fy upon us who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honours & fair persons; and doe not pine & melt away with love for Christ. O would to God I had more love for his sake. O for as much love as would lie betwixt me & heaven for his sake. O for as much love as would goe round about the earth & over the heaven, yea the heaven of heavens & ten thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, fair, onelyonly 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 & hand-breadth of love. If men would have something to doe with their hearts & their thoughts that are alwayes rolling up & down, like men with oares in a boat after sinfull vainities, they may finde great & sweet employment to their thoughts upon Christ: If these frothie fluctuaring & restless hearts of ours, would come all about Christ & look in to his love, to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy, to the unsearchable riches of his grace, to enquire after & search into the beauty of God in Christ; they would be swallowed up in the depth, & height, length, & breadth of his goodness. Oh if men would draw the curtains & look in to the inner side of the arke, & behold how the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily! O 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 highten the market & raise the price to the double for him: But alas if men & Angels were rouped & sold at the dearest price, they would not all buy a night's love or a four & twentie hours sight of Christ! O how happy are they who get Christ for nothing! God send me no more for my part of Paradise, but Christ: and surely I were rich enough & as well heaven'd as the best of them, if Christ were my heaven. I can write no better thing to you, then to desire you, if ever ye laid Christ in a count; to take him up & count over again; and weigh him again and again: And after this have no other to court your love, and to wooe 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 & his love I commend you.
Aberd. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.