Letters in Two Parts, Part 2 · LETTER 12
To my Lady KENMURE. (12)
MADAM.
YOur La: will not [I know] weary nor offend, though I trouble you with many letters; the memory of what obligations I am under to your La: is the cause of it. I am possibly impertinent in what I write, because of my ignorance of your present estate: But for all that is said, I have learned of M: W. D. that ye have not changed upon, nor wearied of your sweet Master, Christ, & his service; neither were it your part to change upon him, who resteth in his love. Ye are among honourable company & such as affect grandour & court. But, Madam, thinking upon your estate, I think I see an improvident wooer coming too late to seek a Bride, because she is contracted already & promised away to another, & so the wooer's busking & bravery [who cometh to you as who but he] is in vain: the outward pomp of this busie wooer, a beguiling world, is now coming in to sute your soul too late, when ye have promised away your soul to Christ many years agoe: And I know, Madam, what answer ye may now justly make to the late suter, even this, Ye are to long of coming: my soul, the Bride, is away already, & the contract with Christ subscribed, & I cannot cause, but I must be honest & faithfull to him. Honourable-Lady, keep your first love, & hold the first match with that soul-delighting lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet Jesus, fairer then all the children of men, the Rose of Sharon, & the fairest & sweetest smelled Rose in all his father's garden, there is none like him: I would not exchange one smile of his lovely face, with Kingdoms. Madam, let others take their silly feckless heaven in this life, envy them not, but let your soul, like a tarrowing & misiearned childe take the dorts [as we use to speak] or cast at all things & disdain them, except one onelyonly, either Christ or nothing: your welbeloved, Jesus, will be content that ye be here devotely proud & ill to please, as one that contemneth all husbands but himself: Either the King's son or no husband at all, this is humble & worthy ambition: What have ye to doe to dally with a whorish & foolish world? Your jealous husband will not be content that ye look by him to another, he will be jealous indeed & offend, if ye kiss another but himself. What weights doe burden you, Madam, I know not; but think it great mercy that your Lord from your youth hath been hedging in your out-straying affections, that they may not goe a whoring from himself: If ye were his bastard, he would not nurture you so: If ye were for the slaughter, ye would be fatned: But be content, ye are his wheat growing in our Lord's field, Matth. 13: v. 25, 38. And if wheat, ye must goe under our Lord's threshing instrument in his barn-…oor & through his sieve, Amos 9: v. 9. And through his mill to be bruised, as the Prince of your salvation, Iesus, was, Isa. 53: 9. that ye may be found good bread in your Lord's house. Lord Jesus, bless the spiritual husbandry, & separate you from the chaff that dow not bide the wind. I am perswaded your glass is spending it self by little & little, & if ye knew who is before you, ye would rejoyce in your tribulations: Think ye it a small honour to stand before the throne of God and the Lamb, & to be clothed in white, & to be called to the Marriage-supper of the Lamb, & to be led to the fountain of living waters & to come to the well-head, even God himself, & get your fill of the clear, cold, sweet, refreshing water of life, the King's own well, & to put up your now sinfull hand to the tree of life, & take down & eat the sweetest apple in all God's heavenly Paradise, Jesus Christ, your life & your Lord? Up your heart. shout for joy, your King is coming to fetch you to his father's house. Madam, I am in exceeding great heaviness, God thinking it best for my own soul thus to exercise me, thereby (it may be) to fit me to be his mouth to others: I see & hear, at home & abroad, nothing but matter of grief & discouragement, which indeed maketh my life bitter: And I hope in God never to get my will in this world, & I expect ere long a fiery trial upon the Church, for as many men almost in England & Scotland, as many false friends to Christ, & as many pulling and drawing, to pull the crown off his holy head, & for fear that our Beloved stay amongst us [as if his room were more desirable then himself] men are bidding him goe seek his lodging. Madam, if ye have a part in silly friendless Zion [as I know ye have] speak a word on her behalf to God & man: If ye can doe nothing else, speak for Jesus, & ye shall thereby be a witness against this declining age. Now from my very soul, laying & leaving you on the Lord, & desiring a part in your prayers [as my Lord knoweth, I remember you] I deliver over your body, spirit & all your necessities to the hands of our Lord, & remains for ever.
Answeth. Febr. 13. 1632. Your La. in your sweet Lord Iesus & mine. S. R.