Letters in Two Parts, Part 2 · LETTER 7
To my Lady KENMURE. (7)
MADAM.
I Have longed exceedingly to hear of your life & health, & growth in the grace of God. I lacked the opportunity of a bearer, in respect I did not understand of the hasty departure of the last, by whom I might have saluted your La: & therefore I could not write before this time. I intreat you, Madam let me have two lines from you concerning your present condition: I know ye are in grief & heaviness, & if it were not so, ye might be afraid, because then your way should not be so like the way that our Lord saith, leadeth to the new Ierusalem: Sure I am, if ye knew what were before you or if ye saw but some glances of it, ye would with gladness swim through the present floods of sorrow, spreading forth your arms out of desire to be at land: If God have given you the earnest of the Spirit as part of payment of God's principal summe, ye have to rejoyce, for our Lord will not lose his earnest, neither will he goe back or repent him of the bargain. If ye finde at some time a longing to see God, joy in the assurance of that sight [howbeit that feast be but like the Passover that cometh about onelyonly once a year] peace of conscience, liberty of prayer, the doors of God's treasure casten up to the soul; & a clear sight of himself looking out & saying with a smiling countenance, Welcome in to me, afflicted soul; this is the earnest that he giveth sometimes, & which maketh glad the heart, & is an evidence that the bargain will hold: But to the end ye may get this earnest, it were good to come oft in terms of speech with God, both in prayer & hearing of the word: For this is the house of wine, where ye meet with your Welbeloved, here it is where he kisseth you with the kisses of his mouth, and where ye feel the smell of his garments, and they have indeed a most fragrant & glorious smell: Ye must, I say, wait upon him, & be often communing with him whose lips are as lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrhe, & by the moving thereof he will asswage your grief: for the Christ that saveth you is a speaking Christ, the Church knoweth him, Cant. 2. By his voice, & she can discern his tongue amongst a thousand: I say this to the end ye should not love th…se dumb masks of Antichristian Ceremonies, that the Church where ye are for a time, hath casten over the Christ whom your soul loveth: This is to set before you a dumb Christ: …ut when our Lord cometh, …e speaketh to the heart in the simplicity of the Gospel. I have neither tongue nor pen to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ: When ye have sold all that ye have & bought the field wherein this pearl is, ye will think it no bad market, for if ye be in him, all his is yours, & ye are in him, therefore because he liveth, ye shall live also, Ioh. 14. 19. And what is that else? But as if the Son had said, I will not have heaven except my redeemed ones be with me, they & I cannot live asunder. Abide in me & I in you, Ioh. 15. 5. O sweet communion, when Christ & we are through other, & are no longer two! Father, I will that these whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, to behold my glory that thou hast given me. Ioh. 17. 24. Amen; dear Jesus, let it be according to that word. I wonder that ever your heart should be casten down, if ye beleeve this truth: & they are not worthy of Jesus Christ, who will not suffer forty years troubles for him, since they have such glorious promises: But we fools beleeve these promises as the man that read Plato's writings concerning the immortality of the soul, so long as the book was in his hand, he beleeved all was true, & that the Soul could not die; but so soon as he laid by the book, presently he began to imagine that the Soul is but a smoke or airy vapour that perisheth with the expiring of the breath: So we at starts doe assent to the sweet & precious promises, but laying aside God's book we begin to call all in question: It is faith indeed to beleeve without a pledge & to hold the heart constant at this work, & when we doubt, to run to the Law & to the Testimony & stay there: Madam, hold you here, here is your father's Testament, read it, in it he hath left to you Remission of sins & life everlasting If all that ye have here be crosses & troubles, down-castings, frequent desertions, & departure of the Lord, who is suiting you in marriage; courage, he who is wooer and suiter should not be an houshold-man with you, till ye and He come up to his father's house together: He purposeth to doe you good at your latter end. Deut. 8: 16. & to give you rest from the dayes of adversity, Psal. 94, 13. It is good to bear the yoke of God in your youth, Lam. 3: 27. Turn in to your strong hold as a prisoner of hope, Zech. 9, 12. For the vision is for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak & not lye, though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry, Hab, 2, 3. Hear himself saying, Isa, 26, 20. Come my people [rejoyce, he calleth on you] enter thou into thy chambers, & shut thy doors about thee: hide thy self as it were for a little moment, till the indignation be past. Beleeve then, beleeve & be saved: think not hard …f …e get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoyce in nothing but himself: God forbid that ye should rejoyce in any thing, but in the cross of Christ, Gal 4. 16. Our Church, Madam, is decaying, she is like Ephraim's cake, & gray hairs are here & there upon her, & she knoweth it not, Hos. 7, 9. She is old & gray haired, near the grave, & no man taketh it to heart, her wine is sowre & is corrupted. Now if Phinehas wife did live, she might travel in birth & die to see the Ark of God taken & the glory departing from our Israel: The power and life of religion is away: Woe be to us, for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out, Ier, 6, 4. Madam, Zion is the ship wherein ye are carried to Canaan, if she suffer sh…p-wrack ye will be casten over-board upon death & life, to swim to land upon broken boards: It were time for us by prayer to put upon our Master-pilot Iesus, & to cry, Master save us, we perish. Grace, grace …e with you. We would think it a blessing to our Kirk to see you here, but our sins withold good things from us. The great Messenger of the covenant preserve you in body & spirit.
Anwoth. Feb. 1. 1630. Yours in the Lord, S. R.