JOSHUA REDIVIVUS, OR MR RUTHERFOORD'S LETTERS, Divided in two Parts.  
THE FIRST, Containing these which were written from Aberdeen, where he was confined by a sentence of the High Commission, drawn forth against him, partly upon the account of his declining them, partly upon the account of his non-conformity.  
THE SECOND, Containing, some which were written from Anwoth, before he was by the Prelates persecution thrust from his Ministry; & others upon divers occasions afterward, from St Andrews, London, etc.  
Now published, for the use of all the people of God; but more particularly, for those, who now are, or afterward may be put to suffering for Christ & his cause; By A wellwisher to the work, & people of God.  
JOH. 16. 2. They shall put you out of the synagogues: Yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth God service. V. 3. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.  
2 THESS. 1: 6. Seeing it is a righteous thing with God, to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you. V. 7. And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels, etc.  
Printed in the Year M DC LXIIII   

CHRISTIAN READER.  
I Intended at first, to have given thee, the trouble of a larger Preface to these Epistles; but I perceived upon second thoughts, that as thou shouldest be at a loss in being thereby kept up too long a● the entry, so I should gain but little by following my first look; & therefore I have on purpose foreborn what I intended: Wherein as I have pleased myself no worse; so I am sure I have pleased thee much better, then if I had followed forth a design, whereby thou couldst have reaped so little advantage: And therefore leaving & laying it aside, I shall confine myself to what doth more peculiarly relat to this great, little book.  
In the entry give me leave to tell thee, that as there are many of the Author's Papers, both polemic and practical, which he intended for public use & advantage, that will never see the light; because (being like Appelles' picture which was either to be perfected by his own pencil or wholly laid aside) he carried his pen away with himself, leaving few in the generation that would undertake to follow his notion and finish it, or if they should essay it, it would be in the issue; humano capit● cervicem jungere equinam: upon which account the Church of God may lament the loss of such a Master in Israel: as the world (I say) is, at no small loss, by being robbed of so rich a treasure, which was intended for them; so, these few, which the Author did not at all intent for public use, are here sent abroad: he did violence to the desires of many in refusing to publish them (howbeit he was known to consult the satisfaction and advantage of the truly godly, more than his own contentment or ease) not because he thought them unworthy of a scholar, as not being stuffed with a great many sterile notions: If any allege this, it's non Causa pro Causa; but the true reason why he endeavoured to suppress & conceal them from the world, was, lest any man should think of him above what was meet; because (if not of the abundance of revelation, which yet God did indeed give his suffering servant, as will be clear by comparing what he foresaw, both as to the work in general, and as to some particular persons, with the event; yet) of the abundance of soul-refreshing manifestations that he had: This was the true reason which made him inexorable and kept him from listening to the most pressing & assiduous entreaties of his friends: he had many things which commended him to the people of God; but his covering his great attainments as a Christian, and the pregnancy of his parts as a scholar, with the vail of humility (which is the chief ornament of a gracious spirit) as it did render him peculiarly & deservedly dear to them; so it made both the one and the other shine more brightly, & did besides their native and intrinseck beauty, give an adventitious brightness and lustre to all that great stock of grace, and store of Parts, which were found (rara avis interris) jointly in him. It was manifest to all who were but a little acquaint with him, that his modesty and humility was such, that in all his most eminent appearances for God, he studied to disappear, lest he should by standing up, be guilty of intercepting any part of that glory, which belongs to him alone; of whom are all things, & for whom are all things: neither was he at any loss hereby; for thus he became great in the Kingdom of God: his growing downward, in that high and Gospel-adorning grace of humility, made him grow upward in favour with God and all Good men; and thus by denying himself, and seeking God alone; he both found what he sought, and got what he was not willing to take, nor would own as his due.  
But, besides this true account I have given, why the world was deprived of so useful & edifying a piece to this day; I think it should not pass without a remark, that God in his good providence, hath reserved the publication thereof, for such a time as this, wherein it seems to promise a singular advantage, beyond & above, what was probably attainable at any other season: First as to the suffering people of God, who while they are deprived of these things in public, for the most part, which comforted them over all their sorrows, & while the songs of the Sanctuary (because the Philistims have stopped most of these wells out of which they used to draw & drink with joy, that, which was sweeter to the taste, than honey to the mouth; or they have thrown that into them, which hath not only made them lose their former relish & sweetness; but hath rendered them so bitter, that they are now become gall and wormwood) are turned into howling & bitter lamentation; while it is thus I say, with the people of God, that in stead of being made glad in his house of prayer as formerly, they are sighing for the ceasing of these solemn assemblies: they may in their sad hours commune with this sufferer, who not being willing to eat his morsel his alone, speaks to them good words and comfortable: he telleth you, beloved sufferers, what a heaven is to be had in Christ's company, even when ye are put to bear the cross, & to have shame & suffering for his sake, as your inseparable companion: Neither is his discourse upon this subject, an empty or idle speculation; nay, he speaks what he knoweth: the God for whose Cause he suffered, comforted him in the like tribulation, & so he is in case to comfort you, by the comforts, wherewith he himself was comforted of God. Next, as to these of the Ministers of the Gospel, who by the violence of their Adversaries are driven from their flocks [which to a godly Minister is the greatest of afflictions] such I say, may see for strengthening of their hands, while they are put to contend with these that are too strong for them; how this noble witness, who suffered for the same cause, carried, how he acquit himself, & overcame: the Archers shot sore at him, but his bow abode in its strength●… The arms of his hands were made so strong, by the hand of the mighty God of Jacob, that he was too hard for all that entered the lists with him, & when they thought they had done sufficient, either to force him to a compliance, or to make him faint under the effects of their fury, by depriving him of his ministry, which was dearer to him then his life; he was not by all this, so much put to suffering (to speak properly) as he was for a season, a little removed from the noise & distraction that is abroad in the world, to be alone with God. O blessed solitude! O sweet society!) he was taken out of the clamour & confusion that is here below, up to the mount, where he was admitted to a near familiarity, & experienced the sweetness of that fellowship with God, which he had preached unto others: Though he was not taken from the earth; yet he was not only keeped from the evil that was then, and is now, in the world; but he enjoyed such a heaven under his heavy pressurs, that if the being about of his Master's business, had not been prized by him, as preferable to his own consolation, he would have been in hazard of forgetting the troubles of Zion, and of saying, it's good for me to be here; but he was such a servant, as made is his meat & drink to do his Master's will, he had so learned Christ, as to prefer his concernments to his Chief joy: & therefore, ye will find him often in these Epistles, feasting upon the consolations of God, with the tear in his eye, while he remembers Zion, & calls to mind the desolate condition of the flocks of Christ [particularly his own] for whom nothing was prepared. He found in his solitude such a measure of presence, as could hardly have been expected, out of the chamber of presence, where there is fullness of joy & pleasures for evermore: he know more in this happy retirement, of the excercise of them who are above (who being made Kings unto God, have crowns upon their head, & being made priests also, sacrifice these to the giver) than he could have learned, by revolving all the volumes that are written in many ages, amidst the greatest outward calm & tranquillity: This is the summer fruit which grew out of the hard tree of the cross of Christ that he was put to bear, which was so sweet to his taste, that it made him disdain the dainties of his Adversaries, & disrelish these sour & unsavoury delights of the sons of men, which however they may at first seem to have some petty sweet in them; yet they quickly set the teeth of the eater on edge, & are found bitter in the belly & of a bad digestion: These were the quiet fruits of ighteousness that his servant reaped by high sufferings for Christ, & that in such plenty, that out of his abundance, he sends some baskets of these sweet fruits abroad amongst his friends, both to bring up a good report upon his liberal Lord & Master, who allows on his followers, while they are pinched with penury of other comforts, full measure, heaped up, running over, & shaken together: And upon the cross of Christ also, to the end it might appear, that this burden is so far from embittering the life of a suffering saint, that by the contrary, as the sufferings of Christ abound in him, so his consolation also aboundeth by Jesus Christ. The publication then, I say, of these Epistles, seems in providence to be trysted on purpose, with the sufferings of his servants at this time, that we may be encouraged by his example, to a Zealous faithfulness, & a cheerful suffering, & may wax bold by his bonds, under, & in which, he did experience, much of the glorious liberty of the sons of God: How oft do we find him preferring his confinement, to all the sublunary contentments of his persecurers? here did he feed upon these pure & unmixed delights, which put such gladness in the heart, as expels all the Latent & lurking griefs that are there, and causeth the soul, while surrounded with all outward trouble to sing; while they feed upon ashes, & fill their belly with the east wind, who feast upon the tears of the people of God, and seem to have nothing else to interrupt their tranquillity, but how they may trouble the children of peace: It was under this restraint, & in this house of his bondage, when being shut up from, and spoiled of all creatur-comforts, that he found the surpassing sweetness of the consolations of God, which taste best, when they are most free of the mud, & mixture of other enjoyments: there it was where he found the truth of that saying of Augustin, Tanta est dulcedo caelestis gaudii, ut si una guttula difflueret in infernum; totam amaritudinem infer●…i absorberet: If one drop of heavenly joy should fall into hell, it would swallow up, or sweeten, all th● bitterness of that place of torment: The love of God and the joy of the Holy Ghost, was so abundantly shed abroad in his heart, while he was in the furnace, that his cross was not only made there by light & easy, & his life pleasant; but ye have him often saying (because he found by these foretastes what inconceivable consolation must be, in the immediate vision and full fruition of God) that if there were no other way, to come at the possession of that blessedness, he would, not only choose to swim through a sea of outward troubles; but he would wade through the lake of fire & brimstone, to be possessed of God himself: and there is none, who knew the gracious sobriety of this holy man, that will judge he complemented in saying so: nay, there are none, who have found what a cool refreshing shade & abundant consolation the soul finds, in the company of the son of man, while they walk with him amdist the flames of the most scorching fiery trials; but they would think strange, if he spoke otherwise. Let us then be ashamed, to scare at the cross, or at Christ's company, because of it; since it bears the man, who bears it: Let us resolve to take joyfully the ●os of all things, life itself not being excepted, in the service of such a Master, who makes us gainers by our loses, and then in a special way makes up all our wants, according to his riches in glory, when we have forsaken all to follow him: Let us study to carry in the sight of Adversaries, as men who cannot be made miserable by affliction; for if we be but indeed faithful to him, we are more happy at our worst, than we know; or rather we are only in so far miserable, as we know not how happy we are: he who is admitted to know that he hath a place in the heart of God, needs but care little what he meet with from the hand of man: this may wipe all tears from his eyes, even while he sighs out that sad word, I am poor and needy, that he knoweth, and is in case to add that other, yet the Lord thinketh upon me, & doth earnestly remember me still: And by the way (though it's neither far out of my way nor thine, nor eccentrick to my present purpose) let me say, that if the question were moved, how it cometh to pass, that he found so much, and other worthy sufferers also before him, that these things seem almost dreams, & incredible to us? truly (without speaking any thing of the absolute sovereignty of God, who may do with his own what he will, and dispense as he pleaseth, both as to measure & time) the reason may seem to be very obvious: his, & their witness-bearing for Jesus Christ, did every way, & in all respects, exceed ours: They gave to God as King's [though it was of his own they served him] their Testimonies, against the corruptions of their times, whither in King, or Parliament, or Churchmen, had so much of ministerial faithfulness, so much of freedom, so much of grave & Gospel-becoming boldness in them, so much holy zeal, even for the least of these concernments of the Kingdom of Christ [upon which we are loath to state our sufferings, or for the keeping whereof, we are unwilling to hazard the loss of any thing] that it was apparent, they loved him so well, that they loved not their lives unto the death, and that Christ could require nothing of them, as a signification of their zeal for his interests, which they were not at a point to part with, & were not ready to give away: And he upon the other hand, to make it appear, that they could not serve the Lord for nothing, and to evidence his special complacency in such a zealous frame of spirit, did, not only extraordinarily support them under their trouble, so that they did not sink, even when they seemed to others, to be pressed out of measure, & beyond strength; but did manifest himself in a most familiar manner unto them, so that when they were almost at this, that they had not whereupon to lay their head, they had then free access, to lean it & lay it on his bosom: in a word, God did declare, that he thought nothing too great, nor too good for them, who gave themselves away so entirely to him: so that if the question were asked at God, whence is it, that there is so vast a difference, betwixt his dealing with his former witnesses, & these who now give some kind of testimony to his name? He could quickly silence & put to shame the movers of that question, by sending us back, to see what a difference there is, betwixt what these worthies did & suffered for him, & what we have done; though under more obligations, at least subjective, under more oaths, Covenants, engagements, protestations, & these often reiterate, than many of them were: He met them, as men whose hearts were listed up in the ways of the Lord, as men who rejoiced & wrought righteousness, & could neither be flattered nor frowned out of their fidelity & freedom; & he hids himself from us, as it were ashamed of such witnesses, whose very testimony, is so unworthy of such a Master, & so far short of what it ought to be, as if indeed we were ashamed of him & his truth, or thought the torn & the lame, a sufficient sacrifice for him. It was not the main question of these men, in a suffering time, how much they might let go, & yet keep the substantials of religion, or how long they should be silent, out of fear, lest while they endeavoured to acquit themselves faithfully, they should both be reput rash & imprudent, & provoke the Magistrate, by venting their needless jealousies, to do what he intended not: They did not think it enough to give some oblique intimation of their dislike, or half signification of their detestation of these courses, whereby they conceived their Master's interests wronged, his prerogative encroached upon, & the whole endangered: Nay, nay, these men of God who knew the times & what Israel had to do, thought such a carriage unworthy of the Ambassadors of Christ, who are set for the defence of the Gospel, & upon the matter but as a couching of Asses under the burden: they would sooner have parted with their lives, then with one hoof of what belonged to their Master: They thought it more worthy of a watchman, to put all on their guard, upon the Least appearance of the approach of an enemy, then suffer themselves to be shamefully surprised in their security: And they thought it more like the good soldiers of Jesus Christ, to cover the ground where they stood with their dead bodies; then, as afraid or terrified by their adversaries in any thing, to make a dishonourable retreat: He who would have put them from witnessing a good confession, when the danger of the work of God, called them to cry aloud & not to spare; behov●d, not only to have threatened them (for that would not have done the business, they being men of such mettle, as could have looked death out of countenance in its most formidable shape, & carried in the face of all opposition, as these whom no affliction could make miserable) but to silence them perfectly, he behoved to have sent them into the other world; which could not be terrible to them, who had the certain expectation, that if so dismissed, they should take up their place amongst the soul under the Altar, slain for the word of God, & their testimony that they held: And I may say particularly, to the commendation of the grace of God, in this his faithful servant (who having served his generation according to the will of God, is now fallen asleep) that to the observation of all, he never was afraid of the face of man, in appearing for the interests of Christ; neither knew he what it was to be silent, when he saw these in hazard; nay, he was such a son of Levi, as knew neither friend nor brother in the matters of God: Which blessed disposition did accompany him to his grave; for though such was the indulgence of his Master to so faithful a servant, that he would have him to die in peace (though he denied him not the honour of a martyr, dying under a sentence of confinement to his own house] plucking him out of the jaws of a bloody death, wherewith he was threatened, & which was intended for him, by them whose indignation had almost come to that height, as to say upon the matter, bring him hither upon the bed that we may kill ●im: for not being satisfied with the testimony of the Physicans, nor the Magistrates, nor the Ministers of the place, certifying, that he was not able to travel to Edinburgh [as by the sequel was too sadly confirmed] he was confined in his own house, when he was not able to go a broad, & put to shame in that place, where he had deservedly gained the reput of one of the most learned & successfully laborious Doctors, that ever had filled that chair, & of one of the most faithful & diligent Minister that ever watched over, or laboured amongst a people. Ah Scotland, Scotland whither hast thou caused thy shame to go? If it had been an enemy who had sought to deal thus with thy Secrs & faithful Prophets, it had become thee better, to have hide these by fifties in caves, from the fury of their enemy's, or if thou couldst not have preserved the lives of such worthies; either to have died with them, or to have made it appear, thou only lived, to lament the loss of a greater treasure, then if thou hadst lost all the gold of Indie and Ophir; but for thy own sword to devour thy own Prophets, & that under the colour of law, what canst thou say for this that will satisfy? what Apology canst thou make to God, for misusing his Prophets & shedding the blood of the just in the midst of thee? What canst thou say for satisfying the Nations, who have heard of the renown of these men, these precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, who have been dashed in pieces in the midst of thee, & dealt with, as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter? wilt thou not be speechless, & not have wherewith to Answer him that reproveth & reproacheth thee? Canst thou look fordward, & not blush to think, what succeeding generations will say of thee? What wilt thou say, when it shall be asked, by one whom thou must Answer, what manner of men were these whose blood thou didst had? (however thou hast represented them now as malefactors, that thou mightest deal so with them; yet then must thou say) all of them were as the sons of Kings. Ah Scotland, Scotland, the most solemnly engaged to God, & the most guilty & ungrate of all the nations under the heaven: Dost thou not fear after all this, the cry of the souls under the Altar? Saying with a loud voice, how long O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge & avenge our blood, on them that dwell on the earth? Thou was once made use of as a Carpenter, to f●ay the horns of them, who did push the in heritance of the Lord; but now the spirit of the horns hath entered into the Carpenters: & dost thou think thyself secure after all this? It's true their is no visible power or party upon earth, of whom thou hast much reason to be a afraid; but remember that he who is higher than the highest regardeth, who will make inquisition for the blood of his saints which thou hast shed & his interests: If thou wilt fear nothing else, let me recommend the Scythian fear unto thee, of whom it is reported, that they fear nothing, but that the heavens should fall upon them: Alas▪ if thy enemy be above thee, how wilt thou guard thy head, o● secure thy heart, when he gives the blow, & recompenses thy way upon thine own head? but if thou wilt still go on, & in stead of smiting on thy thigh, & saying what have I done? harden thyself, & think to prosper, I shall desire Grace to have such a frame of soul, as to weep for thee in secret: But to return to my purpose from which this sad meditation hath a little withdrawn me: though such I say, was the tenderness of his master to this servant; yet when he had nothing else to complain of (being for many days together before his death, filled with as much joy of the Holy Ghost as he could hold) he went away regrating this (though with a sweet submission to his Master's will) that he died not in that bed of honour, and was not brought forth, to breathe out his life & last upon a scaffold; since his Master was dealing such favours amongst his followers (for to some (and blessed be he eternally who carried them honourably through) it was given, not only to believe; but also to suffer, and to the conviction of their enemies, as men who seemed rather to triumph over that King of terrors, then to the daunted by its dreadful aspect) & since he was taking such proofs of the fidelity & affection of some of his followers. It will not be amiss, for this purpose, to insert his own words, which were taken from his mouth, not once but often reiterate: Now [said that faithful servant, even when he was upon the threshold of glory, ready to receive the immortal crown] my tabernacle is weak, & I would think it a more glorions way of going hence, to lay down my life for the cause, at the Cross of Edinburgh or St Andrews; but I submit to my Master's will. Is it any wonder than I say, since he, & these other worthy men's way in witnessing for God, was so unlike ours & so far beyond what is to be found in our faint appearances for him, as the one keeps no proportion with the other; that there should be so remarkable a difference, betwixt his bearing witness to; & testifying his complacency in what they did, & what we do: if there be, for the most part; some proportion, betwixt the dispensation of God, & the disposition of men; What wonder; that he who admitted them to the nearest familiarity with himself, deal thus with us, & so let us know his breach of promise● nay, if there be any thing strange, & to be wondered at in this? It is rather, that he hath not been more terrible to us, by writing his displeasure against our lukwarmness in greater Characters; then that we have not been more indulgently dealt with. It is exceedingly of all our concernments, to lay this to heart, & seriously to consider, whether this be not the very thing that makes him keep a distance from us? I suppose, upon a very overly search, & survey of our way, it will be found, that by our unworthy carriage in his matters, we have rewarded this evil to our own souls: Our suffering [if it deserve that name] is with less edification & advantage to the Church, and less comfort to our own souls; because of our testimony be weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, it will be found light, and to want many pounds, not only of what it ought to have, but what theirs had, whose work was found perfect, before God. But if we be really desireous, to be dealt with as they were [& what is so desirable, next to heaven, & the coming of the Kingdom of the son of God upon the earth] let us endeavour to carry as they did: were they not men of the like passions & infirmities with us? why then, should not we aim, to be men of the like faithfulness & zeal with them: then is it, that we may hope to have sweet and halcyon days in his service; such as will make us the envy of our enemies, a comfort to our friends, & an ornament to our profession: hereby shall a good report be brought up upon the ways of God, & we shall be living witnesses, that Godliness with all disadvantages, & when accompanied with the fiery trial, is great gain, & hath its hundred fold in this life, even with persecution. Let us study to be like them in going about our Master's work, and then we have rational ground to hope, that he who showed by his dealing with the cloud of witnesses that went before us [& do still compass us about, & call us to follow on] that he was not unrighteous, to forget their zeal in doing, their patience in suffering, their work & labour of love; will also remember us, with the favour that he bore to these who went before us: then may we expect that he will say to our soul in secret, when we have faithfully acquit ourselves for him in public, go your way now, & eat your bread, though it be brown, with joy, & drink your drink, though it be not wine, with a merry heart; for I have accepted your works, & these are come up in remembrance with me. O but one of these hours, which 〈◊〉 Rutherfoord had in God's company, were worth many years suffering, & sweeting in the heat of the day! I know the Pre●●us & their Party, will think themselves at a loss, to hear of it, or have it said, that God did admit to such familiarity with himself, his faithful witness against the wickedness of their way [〈◊〉 grant indeed, it is a special prejudice to them, for though it b●●●range, yet they who persecut his favourits & followers, would even he thought to do God good service] but lest I should seem to say, that there was some singularity in God's dealing with him [which I know would great the ear of some of them, who pretend to be chief amongst the rest, that had a particular splen againe this eminent servant of Jesus Christ, I need not trouble the world in telling them who he is, that being no secret, though I know not, whether he would blush to have it said, he hated & persecuted a man, so greatly beloved of God, & dear to all his people, or if he would not rather boast of it, I owe him the charity that the latter of the two will be his choice, and that for fear of being charmed he will stop his ear from hearing that, why persecutest thou me? & will essay to justify himself, & satisfy others, by saying (according to his accustomed candour & conscience) that he was a ringleader amongst the fanatics: it will sound harsh also I know, in the ears of them, who, in joining with him, have served themselves heirs, to these, who went before them, in persecuting him, & such faith full men as he was: For as they have come in their places, so they persist in their practices, only with this difference, that in making havoc of the Church of God, they out do all that ever made Apostasy to that way, & run at that rate, in endeavouring the ruin of the work of Reformation, as if they were afraid to be outrun by any who should come after them, or have it said, that there had ever been men, who with more malice did persecut, & stretch forth their hands, not against certain of the disciples, but against the whole Church of God: Reader Pardon I pray thee, that I now and then digress in a parenthesis, while these men come my way, for thou knowest very well according to the proverb, that the devil should have his due & I desire to do them justice, & here I close it) If they should take it ill I say, to have so much said to the advantage of this worthy man, If it will be acceptable to them to hear it, I have a mind to gratify them so far, as to say, that Mr Rutherfoord was not alone in this; as his practice in that opposition, was not peculiar to himself (for he but wakled in the way of them who left him an example, to continue with Christ in his temptations) so, his privileges were not so peculiar to himself, that he had none to share with him: And therefore I say [if they can reap any satisfaction by having it said, or if they have a mind still to quarrel, see if there be any of them in case to convince me of a falsehood] that God mad it known, not only to themselves but to the world, how highly he esteemed the fidelity of others also before him, who were his constant witnesses against introducing & est bl●●hing of Prelacy in Scotland, he not only made themselves find what favourits they, were by putting them (if I may say so) upon his secrets: (for Mr Davidson, Mr Welsh, Mr Bruce & many others of the valiant soldiers of Christ & worthy witnesses in their time, were known to have been Prophets (which I could evince by many particular passages, but they deserve a more honourable mention, & it may be some will undertake it, then to be shut up within the limits of a parenthesis) particularly renowned Mr Welsh, who at home, & a broad in France, was taken notice of, as an extraordinary man, as a servant from whom his! Master did not conceal what he was about to do: not one word hath fallen to the ground, of all that, which by that Seer was foretold, concerning the trouble of Scotland: Hath not the sword of strangers, according to his prediction, been made drunk with the blood of the slain? Is not Christ crucified this day in Scotland, which he foresaw would follow? Yea, & buried too; & for fear that he should ●ise again, there is by the procurment of the chief Priests, a watch set, the great stone rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre is sealed, & all made as sure as they can: because if he rise upon them again, this last error will prove worse than the first by far: the Lord I say hath fulfiled in every circumstance the word of his servant hitherto; only the last part of it is not vet accomplished, wherein he foretelleth of the glorious resurrection of Christ crucified & buried in Scotland; but the exact accomplishment of the former, puts us in expectation of the latter, notwithstanding that the great stone of an Act res●●ssary, & many subsequent Acts suitable to that sad One, is rolled to the mouth of the s●pulehre, & not withstanding that the Priests (the Prelates I should say) have by their importunity, procured an order from the Magistrate to make it as sure as they can, & being now clothed with the for mality of that law whereby he was crucified (for alas we have a law now, by which law he must die!) they are most diligent in setting their watches & making all fast: This is the thing I say, that his sad hearted disciples are in expectation of; notwithstanding of all the endeavours of his enemies to the contrary, & then Prelacy in Scotland will breathe out its life & last together: for between Christ's rising & reigning, & their falling, there hath ever been seen amongst us, a certain connection: And truly for as great an enemy as they may think me, I would make a very friendly overture unto them (I grant I come to counsel uncalled, & I hope also, that my soul shall never enter into their secrets) & this is the advice I have to give them, that they would even look so far before their nose, as to make their Testament, so long as they are in case to go to Kirk & market; but I fear I lose my labour; for ere ever judas will part with his pieces, he is in the next door to hang himself, & who can help it) God not only dealt thus with them, I say, as to put them upon his secrets; but he made their very enemies take notice of them oftimes, as men that had been with Jesus. Hath it not been a heart-staying, & hand-strengthening, remark amongst the servants & people of God in our native Land, especially in a declining time, that God did singularly shine from heaven upon, & show his satisfaction in the way, & towards the persons of these of his servants, who stood firm in their opposition to Prelacy; and that he did as signally, one way or other, either sooner or latter, give significations of his dislike of the way & persons of them who turned aside to these crooked courses: And was it ever more visible (as to the latter part) then at this day: It may be that they will think it sufficient to convince me of a●ly, that their greatness & grandeur is such, as if they had monopolised to themselves all the riches & honour of the Nation; but if they will have patience to hear me to Amen, I may possibly convince them of a truth they, are not willing to hear; for I not only grant, that they have forgotten their Master's directions, inhibiting them, to to lift up themselves above their brethren; but I will grant them this also [for they most have much given them] that they have carried away the primacy, & precedency from the Nobility, on whose necks they now trample; but when all this is granted them, yet they have not convinced me of telling an untruth: they must have leave to put out mine & other men's eyes besides, (which we are not willing to give them; though if any man would gratify his Grace, & their Lordships, he must part with these in the first place; for an implicit faith is the basis & foundation of their Kingdom of darkness, without which, it would fall about their cars, & but overwhelm them in the rubbish, & that would be very sad to them, for I suspect they have no great mind to die) before this come so much as under debat, almost with indifferent men, whither God be angry at their way? His very giving of them up, to persecute his people & servants, says nothing, if it say not this; that what ever be their outward prosperity, he hath classed them with Pharaoh, in pouring out his plagues upon their heart: Is not this seen, that so soon as a man becomes serious in seeking of God; he becomes the butt of their malice, & the mark against which they bend their bow, & shoot the arrows of their indignation? And so soon as any begins to mind seriously the concernments of his soul, then, sine monitore, he falls in a dislike with them, & their way: I do not say, that all who hate the Prelates are Saints, for their is sufficient in their way to make them odious to others; but is not this known, that these who once begin to set their face towards God, turn their back upon them: I am sure this observation does seldom fail, or can be proved false in our native Land: And then on the other hand, since these men were exalted, do not the wicked walk on every side? Is there not a profane spirit (the constant attendant of Episcopacy in Scotland) broken loose in the land? Is there not such a flood of impiety running through the land, that carries most men down the current, as hath hardly been seen? hath not this leprosy spread itself over the whole land? So, that we are an abomination & talk to all about us: And if any would endeavour to accomplish a diligent search, to find out the fountain that casts forth this mire & dirt, to the defiling of the Land, & defacing of congregations, he would it may befind it, where it ought jest to be expected: These streams of impety & impurity run from the sanctuary, hence is it, that profanity goes forth through the whole land; & can it be otherwise when so many faithful Ministers are driven away, & men put in their places to handle the law, of most of whom without breach of Charity, it may be said, that they know not God, & care not for the souls of his people: It's under the shadow of this plant (which because it is not of our heavenly father's planting, we live under the expectation, &, though our eyes should be shut before we see it, we hope to die in the faith of its being plucked up) that these weeds have grown up, so that alas! The vineyard of the Lord of hosts, is now no more like his enclosure, it bringeth forth briers & thorns in stead of good fruit: He planted the church of Scotland a noble vine; Wholly a right seed, but since it became a seminary for Prelates, the conversation of the generality proclaims this, that we are turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto him: This is the Prelatical reformation, which is suitable to itself all along; for having purged out of the church, the faithful Ministers of Christ [& the few who are yet remaining, being in expectation of the same lot) what can follow among the people; but, that the Land should be drowned with a deluge of profanity: And are we not for the most part [Oh if with a suitable measure of sorrow I could make mention of it] as the children of the Ethiopians to him? Are not our spots, unlike the spots of his people? This observation I say, as it was a very heart-staying consideration in former times, & was in stead of many arguments amongst them who where no great disputants; so I hope: [since it was never more evident) it will still prove a heart-establishing consideration in the faith once delivered to the saints.  
Reader, how desireous soever thou mayest be, to have dead Mr Rutherfoord live, in the hearts of the present and succeeding generations, by an account of his singularly gracious life, & answerably glorious death: yet, I shall not (for that would lead me a length beyond the just limits of an Epistle, where, contrary to my purpose, I find myself almost arrived already) be able to satisfy thy desire, nor answer thy expectation. It's not my present work to tell thee, that he was a Gentleman by extraction. That he was educat at Scholes & Colleges, where he was admired for the Pregnancy of his parts, & deservedly looked upon, even then, as a person of whom great things might be expected: Of his being pitched upon for a Profession of Philosophy by the College of Edinburgh (where he was educat) when he was yet very young: Of his being called thence to the Ministry in Anwoth (to which charge be entered, by the means of that worthy Nobleman my Lord Kenmur, without giving any engagement to the Bishop) where he laboured night & day with great success, the whole country being to him, & accounting themselves, as his particular flock: There it was, where he wrote that great Masterpiece of Learning against the Arminians (which yet was but a compend of what he then intended) his Exercitationes Apologeticae: Of his persecution by the Prelates, who were so sound in the faith, as to challenge and accuse him for writing that book: Being called before their high Commission court, he appeared & declined it, as none of the Courts of Christ [nor was there need of any thing else for a confirmation that it came not from on high, but from below, save it's procedor; for its Acts had the very dy and visage of hell upon them: If they will plead that it is from above, they will be puzzled to pitch upon a period, or fix upon any other time when it came down, except with the fallen Angels; but it may be, this please such Angels of the Church [so they will be called] for they boast much of Antiquity: And truly that which gives ground ●or this conjecture, that it came down from heaven in that company, is, that it persecuts the saints, and servants of the most high; & if there were none such upon earth, it would have no work] & was by this high Commission put from his ministry, & sent to Aberdeen, where the Doctors found to their confusion, that the Puritans were Clergymen aswell as they: Of his returning to his former Charge, upon that happy change of affairs, in the Year 1638: & his being shorthly after sent to the profession of Theology in the University of St Andrews by the General Assembly (where he was also called to be worthy Mr Blair's Colleague in the Ministry) which being the seat of the Arch-pre●ate, was the very Nursery of all superstition in worship, & Error in Doctrine, & the sink of all Profanity in conversation amongst the Students: where God did so singularly second his servants indefatigable pains, both in teaching in the Schools, & preaching in the Congregation, that it became forth with a Lebanon, out of which were taken Cedars for building the house of the Lord through the whole land: Not a few of whom are this day, amongst these, who have obtained mercy of the Lord, to be his faithful witnesses, against Scotland's present, shameful, & unparaleelled defection: Of his being sent with other worthy Ministers, by the General Assembly, to the famous Synod at London; where, during the time of his abode, he published several pieces: In a word of his unparaleelled painfullness, & holy Zeal in being about his Master's business; so that he seemed to pray Constantly, to preach constantly, to catechise constantly, to be still in visiting the sick, in exhorting from house to house, to teach as much in the schools, & spend as much time with the young men, as if he had been sequestrate from all the world besides: & withal, to write as much, as if he had been constantly shut up in his closet [sufficient proof whereof, hath been given to the world, by the many pieces he hath published; but the great bulk of Manuscripts which he hath left behind him, & must lie buried with himself, will put this further out of doubt] so that one Mr Rutherfoord seemed to be many able godly men in one, or one, who was furnished with the grace, and abilities of many. It is not I say my present purpose; to give any particular account to the world of these; or of the many things he had to wrestle with, especially towards the end of his days, & of his edifying death; that may be done hereafter, by a more dexterous hand, & skilful pen, with much advantage & edification to the Church of God: Only I may say, that if amongst the heathens, Hercules was looked upon, as so far both above the applause of any, who undertook to commend him, & beyond the reach of the obloquy & reproach of any, who had so fallen out with his wits, as to derogat from his worth; that it was a Problem amongst them, whether he who undertook to praise him, or he who vented any thing to his prejudice, did commit the greatest Solecism (though it was but Belluina gloria whereof he could boast) I suppose, with more reason, among them who know better to make the true paralleel betwixt things that differ, & are more fit to judge of that, which is of true worth, & great price in the sight of God, I should seem more ridiculous to say much to the advantage of the Author, whose praise [without the help of my blunt pen] is in all the Churches of Christ; whose manner of life, in all Godliness & holy conversation, rendered him dear to the lovers of holmesses, & who hath left his name for a blessing to the chosen of God: he was a true john the Baptist indeed, totus, vox, a voice in habit, gesture, & conversation: in a word, in his life, & at his death, he obtained that mercy of the Lord, even when he said nothing, to preach to all who beheld his conversation (which was observed to be in heaven, while he conversed amongst men] that their was nothing good; but to draw near to God: And now being got up above, amongst these pages of honour, who wait upon the King's own person, & having taken up his place amongst the spirits of just men made perfect (after which this saint often panted & for which he prayed night & day) he doth by these Epistles, which he hath left behind him [wherein thou wilt perceive how his soul was drawn forth in uncessant longings after that whereof he is now possessed] cry aloud to you his companions, the saints that are in the world, to come up hither & see, that, which cannot be seen while ye are there; that, which is only worth the seeing, that, which if it were known, would make you quarrel with death for delaying to shut your eyes upon other objects: Leave the dark world (doth he say) & come up hither to this blessed land of light, where all our childish thoughts of God are gone, & evanished in this noon-day-vision, where the understanding is fully illuminat, & there is no cloud to benight or eclipse the soul in its uptaking of God, where the will hath a through compliance with, & a perfect complacency in the will of God, where the affections do eternally run in a strait line towards him, & are for ever put beyond hazard of diverting towards any other thing, or of being enamoured with any other object. Though I have no purpose, to insist on the particulars of his life, or death I say, yet before I close this section, there are two things which I cannot, I ought not, for all the haste, to conceal or let pass without a remark, because one was looked upon by many, as a thing very observable, & the other, will I know, be taken notice of, & welcomed by all the people of God: The first relats to the time when this faithful labourer was removed to his rest, which was the night following that dark, & dismal day, wherein the Act Rescissory was passed; the Lord thereby showing a special piece of indulgence to his servant, in not adding grief to his sorrow, but hiding it from these eyes, which had accoustomed themselves to trickle down without intermission, both for what he saw, & what he foresaw: Since the Parliament of Scotland, so solemnly engaged to God, would at once burst all these bonds, & cast away these Cords from them, which were neither our bondage nor our burden, but the badge of that glorious liberty, whereinto with a strong hand he had vindicat us: & upon the matter, they would needs say to the God, whose sworn subjects & servants they were, be gone from us; he would not let his faithful servant (whose zeal to the work of God was such, that if the report of this shameful revolt had not killed him at the first hearing outright; yet it alone without any other sickness, would have been more than enough, to have brought down his head with sorrow to the grave) see another sun arise upon that Land, out of which the sun of righteousness was banished by a law: And alas! Who would desire to dwell, where Christ may not reside, with freedom, honour, & safety? Who, that prefers Jerusalem to there chief joy, would love to outlive the departing of the glory? Might not Jesus Christ have said to our Parliament, for which of my good deeds is it, that ye stone me? Have I been a wilderness or land of drought unto you? Were ye not honourable & renowned amongst the Churches abroad, after ye became precious in my sight? Did I not make your Adversaries sensible, that he who touched you, touched the apple of mine eye, so long as ye were steadfast in my Covenant; & even after ye had left your first love, & declined from the integrity of your espousals, I only visited this transgression with the rod, & this iniquity with strips; nevertheless, my loving kindness did I not utterly take from you, nor suffered I my faithfulness to fail: though I punished you as a Nation, I dwelled amongst you as a Church; & I did not remove your teachers into corners, but your eyes did see these, & ye did still hear the joyful sound, &, as if all that had been to little, I gave you the desire of your heart, restored you to your civil liberties, which ye had sinned away, & set you down in a free Parliament: And do ye thus requited me? What, is this my entertainment, where I was once crowned & cried up for a King? What a strange & astonishing change is this, that the very persons who swore unto me the Oath of allegiance, & did sing in my company, spreading their garments in the way with shouting, are now crying, Crucify him, Crucify him? Shall I not have whereupon to lay my head, except it be on a cold stone in a prison, amongst a people, who after a most solemn manner, had given themselves away unto me? Can these be the very men, who with hands lifted up to heaven, did so often, & so solemnly swear, before my father, & before his holy Angels, & in the sight of all the Nations, that they would be mine; and that I should have their lives & fortunes at my disposal? Is it possible that these are the men, who carried, as if they would have plucked out their very eyes, & given them unto me, who now plate a crown of thorns & put upon my head? Is this the Nation & Parliament, who swore that they would serve the Lord their God, & that according to the Pattern showed them in the mount, & bound their soul to his obedience by an Oath, and as they should answer to him, or expect a comfortable appearance before the judge of quick and dead? Are they [might he say] the very same persons, or is it another generation, who have not heard of that solemn transaction betwixt me & the Nation, who have used me worse than the very Gaderens? though these were void of religion; yet they had so much civility, as to compliment me out of their coasts, & pray me to be gone, without committing any other Act of hostility against me, or beating me out of their borders with tuck of drum; but now, shall it be by a law, sedition, & treason, to assert any obligation to me, from all these Oaths? Shall it be a Note of incapacity for any place of trust in Church or State, to say, that the land is under the Oath of God, & that no power on earth can lose themselves, or make void that obligation as to others; nay, that the formal abjuring of these engagments to me, shall be, if not the unum necessarium; yet the sine quo non, to qualify a man, for any public employment: Ah! Scotland by dealing thus with thy Covenanted God, what hast thou done? may not God who was thy own God expostulat with thee, as he did with that people Jer. 2: 10, 11, 12. Go abroad amongst the Nations, turn over all History sacred, & profane: Call for the records of the nations, & see, if in these thou caused find any who have dealt with their God, as thou hast done? A precedent thou mayest possibly find; but a paralleel in every respect thou canst not: Thou art singular, & by thyself, in committing these two evils (but such two, as are comprehensive of all others: such two, as a third is not possible) departing from the living God, & digging to thyself broken Cisterns that can hold no water: Thou wilt find what folly is in this [I wish it be not too late] to pain thyself in digging an empty Cistern & in forsaking the fountain of all consolation, & that a broke on too: as it hath nothing in it, so it can hold nothing if it had it: is not this to commit two such evils as makes a soul or nation truly miserably: And yet this hast thou done: O! may not the heavens be astonished & horribly afraid at this requital we have given unto Jesus Christ? yea, we were so bend to backsliding, & so hasty & headstrong in departing from him, that we seemed to have lost, together with our loyalty to the son of God, all respect to our own reputation [as it often falls out, that men lose the better part of their reason, together with their religion: He who Lets go the one, does seldom retain the other] for by that very vote (never to be mentioned, without tears and detestation) whereby Christ was robbed of his prerogative, they did (besides their design) divest themselves of their own privileges, & while they un-king him, whom God hath made King in Zion, [or do that which he will-account so] they un-parliament themselves [Dirum omen to them, & it may be, a token for good to the Nation] I nothing doubt, but some of the most sagacious amongst them saw this then (though the generality without considering either the ditch they were digging for themselves, by what they did; or the danger that would follow upon their falling into it, suffered themselves to be carried down with the current, & did run as they were driven) or they have had time enough since, to think, in what capacity they could sit, & act, after that Vote; for all laws being then repealed, which did exautorat the Prelates: & incapacitat them for sitting, as one of the Estates in Parliament, & these laws then, only being in force, which made them an integral & essential part of the high court of Parliament, the third Estate was wanting, while they were away; without which the other two were not in Capacity to Act as a Parliament; & if so, they may at their own leisure consider, whether, the precious blood that they did shed after that Vote, before the close of that session, may not be required at their hands asthey would do well, to think what they would answer before men, if the question were asked, quo warranto did ye shed this blood? It may be, they would find themselves further to seek, as to what to say for satisfying any, the they found these worthies in answering all the accusations of their accusers: But what shall I say? It were more fit, to weep over this, then to write it, & to cry unto him, against whom this is done, Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace & afflict us very sore? Alas we made such haste, to pull down that beautiful house, wherein we & our fathers had praised him, & to overturn the very foundations of the dwelling place of his name to the ground; that in our precipitation to raze it, we have buried ourselves under the rubbish; for they are blind who do not see the men who have done this, snarled in the work of their own hands: & this till more come, should make the people of God Sing a Higgaion Selah. O if all who have had a hand in it, would in time bethink themselves! Sure, in that reflection, if they were serious, they would smit on their thigh, & say, Alas what have we done? The second thing that I have to acquaint the with, & wherein I know (if thou be one of them, who take pleasure in the dust of Zion's demolished walls) thou wilt have a special complacency, is, that as his servant did with much sorrow of soul foresee, Scotland's shameful revolt (which is plain by the last letter in this book) so, his Lord & Master, put him so far on this secrets, as to let him see a delivery to the church on the other side of it: Let us have but patience, there is a Plaudi●e for the saints & a song of praise for the most high, after this storm is over & ended: mourn we may & aught; but let us mourn in hope; for he is the Lord jehovah who will hasten it in his time: Which as it cannot be antedated by us, so it shall not lie in the power of all that oppose themselves to postpone it: And to that purpose, besides what thou mayest see in the last letter of this book, I shall set down some of his own words without either comment, alteration, or addition. Upon the last of Februvary 1661. Which was about a month before he died, at the close of a large Testimony he gave to the work of Reformation: These were his words (after he had been speaking of suffering for Christ,) blessed soul (said he) who loves not his life to death; for on such rests the spirit of Glory & of God, 1 Pet. 4: 14. But we cannot say, but this is a day of darkness, & a day of blasphemy, & rebuke: The Lord hath covered himself with a cloud in his anger: we looked for peace but behold evil, our souls rejoiced when his Majesty did swore the Covenant of God, & put thereto his seal & subscription, & after confirmed it by his royal promise, so, that the subjects mind blessed the Lord, & rested upon the healing word of a Prince, but ●ow Alas! The contrary is enacted by law, the carved work broken down, Ordinances defaced, so that we are brought to the former bondage, & Chaos of Prelatical confusions, & Anarchy: And the royal prerogative due to Christ, pulled off his head: we havo seen days of sorrow, & have just cause to fear we be made to read, & eat that book, wherein is written, Lamentation, & mourning, & ●●e; but we are to believe, that Christ will not so depart from the land, but a remnant shall be saved, and he shall reign a victorious conquering king to the ends of the earth: O! That there were Nations. Kindred's, tongues, & all the people of Christ's habitable world, encom passing his throne with cries, & tears for the spirit of supplication, promised to be poured upon the inhabitants of judah, for that effect. Thus he closed his Testimony: I shall only add another passage to this purpose: About two hours & an half before he was removed: Amongst other things he spoke, which did relish of heaven, & refreshed the souls of all that heard them, he had this expression: I do no ways doubt of it, but Christ will arise & wound his enemies in their ●oins: This was only taken, but the observer saith, he had many to the same purpose. Now, this was that very night, wherein the Act Rescissory was passed: As if God who had taken notice of such an high affront done to him, would let his dying servant know, to the end he might communicate it to others, that he would not only repeal that Act, but that he would rescind the rescinders: A wound in the loins, when the blow is given by the hand of him, who is God Almighty most prove mortal; If he wound them there, they most fall, though they were stronger than lions; for who may stand before him, when once he is angry? The men of might will not find their hands, when the party they engage with, is the Omnipotent God: When men are become so high, that they are too hard a party for any on earth to deal with, if their way be contrary to him, than they fall directly in his hand, to deal with them; & it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: He is such a party, as thou canst neither fight nor flee: Oh Scotland, Scotland, if thou wouldst yet think on thy way & remember this, before he come to enter the lists with thee, who quickly puts his enemies out of a posture of defence! O, if thou would yet kneel before him, whom God had made King in Zion, & kiss the son lest he be angry! For if he be angry thou must perish, & there is no way to prevent this, but to remember from whence thou art fallen & repent & do the first works.  
As for the letters themselves, I shall not offer to commend them, they had letters of recommendation deeply engraven on the hearts of all who have seen them, & can savour the things that are of God; this they had I say, amongst them who have their senses exercised to discern good & evil, long before they were made thus public in the world; so they need not my commendation, nor will the detraction of any, who have a mind for that, blast their reput; as they are above the one, so they despise the other; but sure I am, this may besaid, if thou hast any acquaintance with the sweet breathe of the spirit of God, if thou hast ever seen by tasting how good he is, or hast found what soul-anguish doth follow upon the hiding of his face from a person, who hath placed his satisfaction so entirly in the light of his countenance lifted up upon the soul, that the man cannot enjoy himself, when he doth not enjoy him, but carries as one deprived of all that, which made life more desirable than death; if thou be such I say, than thou wilt find somewhat hereto take thee: here thou wilt perceive both these conditions set before thine eye, & examplified in an eminent saint: thou wilt both find what a heaven the saints have, or is to be had in this side of glory & how, as a sensible presence makes them forget all their sorrows, so, a felt absence doth embitter a●l their other enjoyments.  
In General I may say this of these Epistles [& it may be after thou hast perused them, thou wilt seal it] that thou hast many volumes wrapped up together in a few words, a great soul shut up in a little body, much of the marrow of real religion, enclosed in every line: If thou be only taken & delighted with obstruse & highflown notions, which have not a native connexion with inflaming the heart, with love to God; but are rather the Ignis fatuus of the age, being for the most part, smoke for light, or at best, a dime flash, rising out of the darkened understanding of men, whose light, till they be illuminat from above; as it arises out of a dark dungeon; so, it leads to destruction, & in stead of directing the man who follows it, to a place of rest, it leads him to the pit, & leaves him there to perish. If thou be taken, I say with such kind of stuff; I shall not bide thee, but I know thou wilt go else where; but if thou be one, who loves not to feed upon ashes, & hast no mind to fill thy belly with that east wind, which in stead of nourishment, produceth nothing but much torment in the inward parts, I know thou wilt welcome this piece, as that which hath both meat & medicine for thy soul in it: Here thou wilt meet with one warmed with the love of God, shining & reflecting heat upon all that are about him, letting thee know from his own experience, what is to be found in a fellowship with God, & desireous of nothing so much, as that thou & others may share with him in that same love, which is better than life, & be partakers of that same blessedness, which made him boast of God all the day & bless himself in his afflicted lot: He would have thee taste of that, which made him cheerful under the cross, & put him in case, not only to look, but to laugh all his troubles out of countenance: And if thou wilt but converse with him a little, it may be, thou find thy heart burn within the while thou talkest with this warm soul, whose words seem as they drop, to cast fire in the affections, & set the heart in a flame. The Author in his other writings (which have always a special tincture of holiness; for even in following the most obstruse notion, & apparently remote from practice, thou wilt still perceive him spirare sanctitatem) he is much above many men; but in these (how low soever at the first look they may appear) he is above himself, being often, either as a man elevate above the pitch of mortality, & caught up already into the Choir of Angels, or as an Angel come down amongst men, showing the inhabitants of this lower world, somewhat of that, which will be still a great secret, while we are here, to wit, what a life they live, who see God as he is, & enjoy him.  
For the subject matter thou wilt meet with in these Epistles, I shall not say much, there is a sweet & pleasant variety of purpose to be found in them, whereof thou canst only expect a just account by a perusal of the whole; but mostly thou wilt find these things insisted upon. 1. What high springtides of joy & consolation, did fill & overflow the soul of this sufferer, so, as sometimes ye have him expressing himself as pained with a surcharge of love [O rare & blessed disease] & having nothing else to seek, there are earnest longings, after a more capacious soul, to contain more of that infinite Ocean, which hath neither brim nor bottom: This is the gain of one who can suffer the loss of all things for Christ: This is the cool refresing shade that they find in the furnace, which not only keeps the fire of affliction from scorching them, or consuming them into ashes; but makes it a more desirable lot, than what others account the best of lives: the soul amidst these flames being admitted to such a nearness with God, as causeth joy to overflow all its banks, & perfumes the heart with delight, is so far from complaining, because of the fiery trial, that the cross of Christ is more desirable to it, than a crown: and since it is there, where nex to heaven, his people enjoy most of himself, it makes them sing sweetly amidst all the outward sorrows that befall them, & puts them in case to command a consort of Music within, while others in their fool's paradise, laugh as they list, have sadness at their heart, & find themselves pierced through with many sorrows. 2. Ye have sometimes a felt emptiness (for this full feast, is not, or cannot be the ordinary diet, it may well be the extraordinary disert of the people of God, while they walk by faith & not by sight; the constancy of that joy, aswell as the fullness of it, is reserved for the chamber of presence, no saint how eminent soever, even in suffering for Christ, can expect, that all tears shall be wiped from his eyes, till he come to that land, where all the inhabitants have ever lasting joy upon their heads, and where he will be put beyond hazard of sinning, aswell as without the reach of suffering) there is sometimes a felt emptiness I say, that casts into a fever of desires: That river of God that is full of water, which did overflow & refresh the soul, running again into that sea whence it came; & in this low ebb, ye see how the patient, is pained with absence; & what a panting there is for a sensible presence; the soul as it were is evapourate in such wishes as these, O when wilt thou come unto me! Or, O when shall I come & appear before thee, & be put once for all, & for ever beyond the fear of the arising of any cloud to eclipse the light of thy countenance! The soul in this absence, is scorched with the fever & flame of burning desires; but to keep it from being burnt up, there is hope, this holds the soul in life that it expire not; this saves from swooning & perserves from sinking into despondency: And though while hope is deferred, the heart be sick; yet there is ease in this very pain, for an unerring expectation of a future good, yields a present ease to the expectant, & makes the man give himself the Check thus, why art thou cast down O my soul? This sickness was never yet unto death, but ever to the glory of God, therefore hope thou in him, for I shall yet praise him: In a word that which is principally insisted upon, in these short summaries of a communion with God, is this on the one hand, how a hungry & longing soul is filled & feasted with the Consolations of God, & when in that posture, how pufled & non-plused, as to what to think, or say of God: It knows not what to do, or how to lay out itself for him, the satisfaction that it hath in him, & the obligation it sees itself under to him, making it look one very thing it doth for him, sayeth or thinketh of him, with a kind of regrate & holy dissatisfaction: It doth not please itself in pleasing him, & though he accept what love offers, yet love desiderats so much in the offering, that it presents all with a blush: & suitable to this amiable & orderly confusion of spirit, it's greatest Oratory & Eloquence, is, a kind of abrupt, concise, & broken discourse: It is most desireous to speak, but not knowing what to say, which is not unworthy of him, it falls into silent admiration, & yet some thing it must say; wherein though, it do not please itself; yet it makes good sense before him, & is a most pleasant melody in his ears; it's then, when he seems to be so taken with that, wherein the soul finds so many failings & defects, that he says speak on, let me see that blushing countenance, ●●t me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice & thy countenance is comely. And truly thou mayest perceive much of this kind of discourse in these Epistles, whereto the holy writer was so habituat in these soliloquies with God, which were ordinary to him in his retirement, that his pen, & preaching, did ever after keep the tincture, & had the relish of that: For while many preached notions, & so●e spoke because they believed; he was perceived oftimes, not so much to speak as believing; as seeing: His being so long in the mount with God, made his face to shine ever thereafter in his public appearances: And there was some peculiar sweetness in his Phrase [especially in crying up, and commending the love of Christ: In mentioning the joy of the Holy Ghost, or the Glory of the life to come] beyond what was to be found, even with other holy men: Neither was it amongst the dry Schoolmen, nor at Arestotle his feet (though there were few in the age, so well acquaint with either) that he learned this; Nay, nay, flesh and blood did not, could not reveal it unto him, he was a student above the clouds, & there it was, where he learned these Metaphysics. This I say i the thing upon the one hand which is insisted upon, & on the other, thou hast the sad condition of a soul deprived of these sweet enjoyments: He who was just now taken in to the banqueting house, & had the banner of love for his canopy, hath that spiced wine which his soul was drinking with delight, snatched out of his hand, & is panting for a drop of the rivers of his pleasure, wherein not long ago he was bathing himself: Where upon follows a night of sorrow in the soul; because the sun that did illuminat & warm it, with his rays, is set: Then, as if the soul would break forth at many passages together, for haste to be after him, who hath withdrawn himself, it runs out at the eyes in tears, & at the mouth in complaints, because of his absence; yet faith sets down the fainter, upon the brink of the river, & puts him under an arrest (that he run not away) till the sea flow again: And desire makes him look out with a watery eye as impatient of delay, the inward Echo of the heart, in the mean time, being still this, how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long? & while he is in thi● posture, ye would not know him to be the m●n, that a few minutes since he was & a few minute hence he ma● & will be: & no wonder, sinc● that is wanting & away, which was the health of his countenance, that he look pale: As the weeping man's eye, being blinded with water, cannot take up objects as they are, especially if they be at any distance; so ye have this holy man in these heavy hours, venting his jealousies, & because of withdrawing, giving way to his sorrow: Now, as the joy of enjoying God, is by the former, made clear to be of all the greatest (for under these full manifestations, the soul may be transported to such an ecstasy of delight that for the time, whether in the body, or out of the body, the man knows not) so, the sorrow for being deprived of that, (the giver seeing it necessary, to withhold & suspend these manifestations, knowing that heaviness for a season through manifold temptations, is fit for these, who are sons of consolation & who shall have a few days hence, an everlasting year of Jubilee) is, of all sorrows seen to be the sorest & sharpest. This is soul anguish, & so l●st of any supportable: because it makes the very spirit, which if it were sound would sustain a man's infirmities, sink under it: While it is thus with him, ye may perceive that his bed cannot comfort him, nor his couch ease his complaint: And in this fever, there are some expressions dropped, which after the height is over, he doth retract, as rash & unadvised, & upon more mature deliberation, i● mad● to say, this was my infirmity: And truly he who intendeth the advantage of the whole, in his way of dealing with every member of that body, whereof he is head, hath excellently ordered this matter, that they who have the fullest feasts of joy, & are admitted to the nearest fellowship upon earth, to the end, that pride may be hide from their eyes; have ordinarily the deepest downcastings: These warm hours & hot blenks of a sensible presence, are often followed with a sharp shower & dark night of bitter desertion; so that if poor souls in reading these, should begin to think or say, Alas! We are sparingly dealt with, we are great strangers to such a favourite's feasts; let them consider also (besides that he was an Ambassador now in bonds, & so his Master allowed liberally upon him) that their soul-anguish is short of his, & so, if they consider his condition well, they will see, that though he had much yet he had nothing over; & if they take notice of the mercy that is in their own, they will perceive also, that though they have little yet they have no lake; for he abounds towards his, in all wisdom & prudence. There is a third condition spoken frequently to in these Epistles also, which lies in the middle betwixt these two: And that is, such a communion with God, as consists in the soul's being well pleased with him & being most desireous to please him in all things, abstracting from these extraordinary transpotts of joy upon the one hand, & free likewise of these deep downcastings upon the other: And this is the more ordinary way of the saints, whose daily excercise it is, to come & take out their directions from their Master, & endeavour to walk according to these, both as men who are still under their Master's eye & as these who must give an account of themselves to him: In which service, they want not their own sweet peace; for the way wherein they walk is a way of pleasantness, & all these paths are peace; though it be not such an overflowing peace, as amounts to a joy unspeakable & full of glory; for full joy is nothing else, but peace swelling without its ordinary channel & overflowing all its banks: And on the other hand, they want not their own checks & challenges, they are often before God with the tear in their eye, & knows what it is, to sigh because of a body of death within them: Because of that law which is in their members warring against that law which is in their mind, & bringing them into Captivity to the law of sin, which is in their members; yet this is short of the sorrow of some dear to him, who are made to roar, by reason of the disquietness of their heart & to cry out of the arrows of the Almighty sticking within them & the poison thereof drinking up their spirit; so that while they suffer this, they are with wi●e Heman almost distracted. These things I say, are mainly insisted upon, which according to an epistolar method, lie scattered in several parcels, up & down the book: In reading whereof, thou wilt easily perceive also, that though the whole of these Epistles may be of singular use for a Christian in every condition, yet a great many of them have a more special reference, both to the comforts & the carriage of a Christian under the Cross (whether his affliction be outward trouble, or inward soul-Excercise & terror) where he is most frequently to be found: Which is all I have to say for the matter. There are not a few in this generation I know, who will make i● their business, & think it of their interest, to deerogate from the esteem which these Epistles do justly challenge, & will readily get, from all who know how to prise things according to their worth; as knowing very well, that what respect these get & gain amongst readers, they lose; though I may truly say, & they will at last finde it so, that if they get the thing they seek by this artifice, they lose by that getting: & I may azure myself also, if these either find the a Christian or make thee such, they may well lose by this labour any esteem thou hadst for them, but they will not prosylite thee, to their profan contempt of so spiritual matter; yet I know they will essay it: First, somewhat to this purpose may be said & will be suggested by them, that here is a needless and nauseating repetition of the same thing; though it may be, they are not so displeased, that it is said often, as that it said at all; or if the frequenency of it offend them, it is out of a fear, that what is often said, be once listened to, & at hast learned. I grant that the same matter & purpose is divers times touched & insisted upon; But consider 1. that thi● is to divers persons, & is there either reason or religion in it, to envy him the Liberty of telling all the fearers of God, to whom he writs, what was done for his soul, or the people of God, the advantage of that relation? Was it not for the edification of the Church, that all who had heard of his persecution for the Gospel, should hear also, that the world, do there worst, cannot make a sufferer truly miserable, while God makes him happy in a communion with himself: The heat of persecution may dry up, or embitter all the nether springs, but then the soul hath free access to the upper, & is admitted to drink yea drink abundantly of these rivers of his pleasure: This is the spiced wine he drinks, & the meat the gets to eat in secret, which the world knoweth not of, & cannot take from him; & having found how sweet to the taste this bread of God, which comes down from heaven, is, he cannot forbear to tell others, how he is feasted; to excite desires in all to come & share with him in these dainties, & forbear to surfeit themselves with the world's deceitful meat 2. consider, that it is at divers times, & surely, he finding the consolations of God new every morning, & abounding every moment, it had been a piece of base ingratitude in him, to have made mention of that but once, which God had given him often. 3. Consider, though the same matter be often mentioned; yet it is mostly with a sweet & taking variety of phrase; he brings forth the old & new together, nay, there is ever so much new in it, as may contribute to kindle new desires in the, in order to the satisfaction of thy own soul, to seek what he found, & when thou hast fallen upon that, & art filled with it, thy practice in telling it over to others, will, without doubt, have such a coincidency with his, as will justify what he hath done, & thou wilt then judge, that an apology for publishing & frequent proclaiming the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living is either wholly superfluous. Or it doth suppose the reader not be a Christian, at least in case.  
Secondly something will be said by malicious mutterers, (I know) against the apparent courseness of some phrases, and commonness of some words made use of by the Author; who all alongst sets himself, to make use of the most ordinary expressions, which are in use among the common sort of people. Something I say, of this kind may probably be belched forth, by this carping, criticising, profane, & prejudicated age: But If they would remember, what was said (by men much more knowing then themselves, & more able to discern what ought to be spoken, both as to matter & words) to the commendation of Plautus, who made use of the most common words that were in use, amongst the most common sort of people in Rome, Si ipsae Musae loquerentur ore Plautino uterentur; they would see reason, rather to commend a dexterous making use of common phrases, in writing to people of no extraordinary capacity then take, because of this, any occasion to quarrel at, or cry down, that which is so useful & excellent: And if in the opinion of men faithful & famous in their generation, he be the best preacher to a people (and consequently writer too) Qui, quam maxime trivialiter, pueriliter, populariter docet, as to words, & phrases; I see no great reason such have to carp, or necessity I have to make an Apology: But their is sufficient to be said, if not for silencing of babblers, whose tongue hath more dimensions than their reason (which makes it not worth the while to take notice of their barking) yet for satisfying of the more sober minded. First, Consider that this disciple learned at his Master, both so to write & speak, as not to hide his purpose in a cloud of new coined words: He consulted his own reputation so little, while he sought his Master's honour, that he would rather seem a Babbler to them, who minded nothing but words; then a Barbarian to the meanest, who was taken with spiritual matter: If Christ's example, who taught these high & heavenly mysteries of salvation, by plain & obvious similitudes, be not sufficient to silence such persons, who have habituat their tongue to drop satyrs against what is good, whether persons or things; yet it is enough to guard against the prejudice of what they take liberty to say. 2. Consider, that the most common word's & ordinary phrases, in use amongst a people, may, by the greatest Orator, be very pertinently used, for illustrating & pressing his purpose: Nay, in some cases, these have a special emphasis, beyond what can be wrapped up, in a great many more count words, & seemingly neat expressions, & then, they are so far from being a blemish to a discourse, that they seem to give a kind of life, & add a certain justre to the whole frame: & thou wilt find it often fall out here, that the Author hath so happy a dexterity in making the most common (& sometimes contemptible-like) phrase, with a graceful sweetness, subservient to his purpose, that let the greatest master of words, alter but one of these words, or change one of these expressions (which if they stood not there might almost seem a Barbarism) he mars what he undertook to mend, & while he endeavours to co●…ct the Author, he leaves himself to be put in amongst the Errata. 3. Consider that a great many of the persons to whom he wrote, were no scholars, nay, had so little acquaintance With that, which passeth in the world for elegancy of speech, that he had as good have said nothing at all to them, as have made use of any other words than what are pitched upon, in expressing his purpose; & so his design being to make affection, or to move it in the hearts of these to whom he wrote, there was a necessity to suit his stile to their capacity; which condescension in him, is yet managed with so much spiritual prudence & discretion, as it is without debasing high matter or giving the least rational ground to mock at spiritual mysteries: Yea I may say further, that there is so much majesty in the strain, as that the lowness of the stile is abundantly thereby made up: And further, I might ask thee, if thou who makes the challenge dost pretend to be a Master of reason, whether he is the best Orator, who can with the least noise, cast fire into the affections of these to whom he speaks or writs, & bring down the highest mysteries in religion, to the capacity of the meanest hearer & reader, or he who wraps up plain truths & obvious purposes, in such an obscurity of phrase, & perplexing intricacy of words, as carries the matter quite beyond the reach of a vulgar capacity: without making any other impression upon the mind of the hearer, then that the man hath forgotten his message, & while he seeks himself, flights his Master's business: It often creates also a suspicion, that the writer or speaker either desires not to be understood, or, while he endeavours to sore too high above others, that is he hath fallen into such a confusion, as he knows not where to find himself? & if thou concede here, what with reason thou canst not deny, thou hast granted all against thyself, which I need seek, for putting thee to silence. 4. Consider, that though there be some here written to, of the greatest quality in the Nation, & a great many others, who are eminent for their understanding & parts, aswell as their grace; yet as these of the greatest quality & parts, may reap advantage, by what hath been written to the meanest & most obscure person; God in his providence led his servant to speak to these of understanding & parts, so, that what was particularly intended for them, might be of special use & advantage to every one: And thus all occasion of carping is taken away; unless, amongst the rest of the regularites of this time, Episcopal Authority be interposed, to make us read & understand that axiom backward, bonum quo communius eo melius, which if it be; I have no more to say, but that it is of a piece with the rest of their Reformation. I suppose by this time; it may be thought, I have said too much upon this head, since it would seem that something ought rather to be said, for making many things in them plain that are mysterious & dark; then to say so much for taking off prejudice, because of some common words & expressions; but as to that, I shall not undertake it: For there are many things in them, only intelligible by tasting: & he who wants that commentary, will never understand this text. I have no more to say, either for the one or the other, but if any dislike them, he may let them alone; for I intent to obtrude them upon none, who distastes them; yet I cannot for bear to advise even such, so far to consult their own reputation, as, by speaking against what the Author hath here written, not to discover that secret to the world, that they are persons void of a gracious principle, to whom the things that are of God are unsavoury: The wind of thy mouth, though accompanied with all the venom thou canst vomit up, will not blast the Author's reputation, it will only be a blazing of thy own shame, & then thou wilt see thyself so unhappy, as to have hit the mark at which thou didst not aim: For without doing him any hurt, who is far above thy reach, thy tongue falls upon thy own head, & in striking at one whom thou canst not wound, thy sword rebounds back upon thyself, & enters into thine own bowels; but if thou remainest a man of imperswasion, & hast so much pleasure in publishing thine own shame, I cannot help it, it is sufficient for me, to have warned thee of thy hazard; nor shall I endeavour hence forth to deprive the world of their liberty (since thou wilt have it so) to look upon thee, according to the character which thou hast given of thyself, & that is, Dost aliquid intus, to make the a man & a Christian, & since this Brutish shape pleases thee, thou mayest go eat grass & let alone this bread, which is only designed for Children? And so I leave thee to make use of that liberty, of saying what thou pleases, which thou hast now purchased with the loss of thy own reputation.  
If any think, it had been more convenient, to have concealed the names of these to whom the Author wrote, for some reasons obvious, in regard of the present Lamentable posture of affairs (when it is almost sufficient, to make a man guilty, that ever he was really zealous for God) I have only this to say for myself, that I designed their honour & not their prejudice nor hurt in prefixing their names: Neither can I well imagine (what ever others may apprehend) what prejudice they can sustain, by this; since none, or very few of them, come from the Author, as returns to any thing they had written to him; & there being no law, either discharging him to write, or any persons to receive his letters, there can be no transgression upon their part, & so nothing to ground a prejudice, or found a rational plea against them: And much less in that their names are prefixed; or if there be any thing in this blame worthy, I alone am in the transgression, who have done it without consulting themselves, or ask their consent; yet in order to the satisfaction of any, who may be offended at what is done, I have this to say for myself further, that I was induced to it, first, that thereby it might appear these were indeed the very Letters, which that faithful sufferer & witness of Jesus Christ wrote (though there is sufficient in the stile & strain to put this beyond debat) & no forgeries 2. many of these worthy persons being removed (whereby the Church of God is at a seen & sad loss, in that she is deprived of so many, who would have weeped & made supplication on her behalf in this day of her distress, when not a few of her friends have dealt treacherously with her, & are become her enemies) their Posterity might think themselves wronged, if I should have deprived their worthy Predecessors, by suppressing their names & smothering their affection to the work of God, of the honour, of making their faithfulness known to the world: And truly, I judged it the least that was due, to the memory of these, who ought to be had in everlasting remembrance, to erect this poor monument over their grave, whereby they may live amongst the posterity, when they are gone, as persons who obtained mercy of the Lord, to be faithful in their generation: & that when the account of such comes to be taken, it may be said, this & that man was borne there. 3. I did it to encourage the posterity of such, to be followers of the faith & patience of their worthy progenitor's, and that the may not, without shame & horror think of declining, or turning aside, either to the right or left hand, from the way of these dear relations, who by following the Lord fully, in an evil time, left them a noble Pattern, worthy of imitation. 4. As for such who are yet alive, I hope they will think, that God by this Providence, is making a honourable mention of their fidelity before the nations, & is remembering for them, the Love of their espousals, when they went after him; thereby to engage them, to cleave more closely, & adhere more firmly to him, with full purpose of heart when the generality have gadded about to change their way, & many of his professed disciples have gone back, & are like to walk no more with him: And upon the other hand, God will have this to be a witness before the world, against any of them, who shall depart from the good way of the Lord, & be offended in him, because of persecution: I hope what ever hazard threaten these who abide in Christ's company, that they will never forsake him, nor give him cause to say, what iniquity have ye found in me, that ye are gone far from me? But if it should prove otherwise, they may be sure, that he whose soul hath no pleasure in any man that draws back, & hats the work of such as turn aside, will count himself engaged in a peculiar way to lead them forth with the workers of iniquity; but we hope for better things of them all, though we thus speak: If none of these reasons which moved me to do this be strong enough than let it be judged my weakness, for it is more fit, that I should pass in the world as such (which is no great mistake) than these honourable & worthy persons, should suffer any prejudice, by a deed whereto they had not the least accession.  
Reader, much pains hath been taken, in collecting these together, that they might be in the hands of many (a thing greatly desired of a long time by the godly) which have been hitherto only in some broken & imperfect parcels, in the hands of a few: Several of the most correct copies that could be had, have been carefully compared, & many fruits thereby corrected, which were crept in, by their being often transcribed, & that by unskilful hands. If it fall out so (as I suppose it shall not often be found) that they who have the Autographs by them, perceive any difference in a word or sentence, betwixt this printed copy & these, let them imput it to my want of he principals; for though I had a good number of them, yet it was not possible for me to get the most part: In some very few places also, to the end that this book might be of more universal use, it may be, that a scottish word, which would have darkened the sense, or rendered the sentence wholly unintelligble to strangers, is either changed into some equivalent one, or a synonimous term inserted by it; but in most places these words are retained, without any alteration; because either alteration, or addition, would have made them less taking with, & acceptable to them, for whom they were at first written, & to these for whom they are now principally intended; because the life & emphasis of the Phrase, is often found to lie, in that very word. But having kept thee under too long an arrest in the entry, I leave thee now to peruse these profitable Epistles, which are an account of the many sweet hours & comfortable soliloquies which that eminent saint & sufferer had with God in the furnace of his affliction: Wherein there is much to be seen, beyond the ordinary attainment of a Christian, even who hath made some remarkable progress, & is no small proficient in the ways of God. I nothing doubt; but when thou perceivest, while thou readest, how much pure zeal to God, doth burn in these lines, thou wilt Lament the lose of such a blessed instrument, now, when the Church of God is brought so very low, & there are so few of all the sons whom she hath nourished & brought up, to take her by the hand. I grant it is both a rational & religious sorrow; for when we remember the many eminent lights (the removal of whom, hath brought a sad & dark night upon the Church) which did la●ly shine amongst us, & most say, they are gone who were our faithful guides, it would almost seem pardonable, to abandon ourselves to sorrow, & refuse to be comforted: Quis ●alia fando tempere● a lachrimis? Yet give me leave to suggest these things (1) Let not the tear so blind thine eye, as not to observe the goodness of God, who gave us such: It was a saying of an eminent & exercised Christian (worthy to be remembered in this present case & to be put upon record for posterity) perceiving many sorrowful, upon the removal, of one of the most burning & shining lights, that Britain had to boast of (that great Interpreter Mr Durhame I mean) turn your tears & sighs for this loss (said that worthy person) though it seem to you almost irreeparable [an age hardly producing such an other] into songs of praises, & do not so indulge your sorrow, because the Master hath called home an Ambassador, who did so faithfully & successfully negotiate for him; as ye forget in the mean time to praise the Lord of the harvest, who thrust forth such a labourer into his vineyard: Let not the greatness of your grief, make you forget the riches of his goodness to the Church of Christ in Scotland, in that there was a Mr Durhame to die out of it: So I say, when in reading of these, thou remembers that the worthy Author is gone to his rest; yet be not guilty of so much ingratitude, through the excess of thy grief, as to froget God's care of, & kindness to the Church of Scotland, who amongst others gave her a Mr Rutherfoord: one who was not only famous at home & abroad for his great Learning; but such a Minister of the Gospel, as I suppose, there is not a godly Minister in the Nation, who knew his painfulness, his tenderness, his zeal, his shining, & Gospel adorning Conversation, that will think he wrongs himself, in giving the presence to him, whose watching & weeping & unwearied pains, to propagate the truth, & profit the souls of men, made him without a match or equal & Left deep convictions of short-coming, even upon them, who may with a rational confidence, expect the approbation of well done good & faithful servants, at the day of their appearance, & die in the faith of this, that when the great shepherd shall appear, they shall receive a crown of glory, that fadeth not away. (2) If no other consideration can d●y up thy tears, or divert thy sorrow, while thou dost remember thy own & the Church's loss; yet remember that this is sufficient to make the mourn in hope; that the residue of the spirit is with him. We cannot I grant weep back again (though it's like some would be content to weep themselves blind, if that were lawful & would do it) our famous & faithful Knox's, Davidsons', Welshes, Bruces, henderson's, Rutherfoords, Gil●spies, Guthries, with a great many 〈◊〉 sides, of their brethren & companions, who did build & fight with them, & were the restorers of the breaches amongst us; whereby they obtained a good report, & are at this day of blessed memory indeed; but is there no hope to see them alive in other men's persons? I grant their is but little appearance of that, for the present: For Alas may we say, where is the●e a man of that spirit to be found? Yet let us not add this to all the rest of our provocations in this wilderness-lot, to limit the holy one of Israel; since these had nothing but what they did receive; he can furnish the Church with men of the same parts & zeal: With men who will shine in light, so, that their enemies must lay their hand upon their mouth when they have spoken; & burn in love to God & his interests: & truly it concerns all the people of God, to be much in importuning him, that he would again give us such standard bearers, & that that he would remember us now, in our low estate, by raising up such, who may be as the Charets & horsemen of Israel, when the spirit of most is under such a faint, & the men of might do not find their hands: If we were up & doing in this, which is one great part of our work in such a sad time, & gave him no rest, who knows, but he would yet breathe upon many, who are now as dry bones, without life or motion, & make them stand up for him & plead his cause against them, who have lifted up their head against heaven, & their heel against his people? They who by falling asleep, till their hair was cut, that they were not in case to shake themselves as at other times, when their enemies were upon them, might yet spill their adversaries sport, & bring down their Babel about their ears, if the spirit of the Lord came upon them as at othertimes: Or if this were not to be expected, he could raise up a generation, who would serve him with more zeal & faithfulness, than we have done, & that in such a number, as should make his Church say, who hath begotten me all these? And where have they been? It my be that he who waits to be gracious, is waiting to be en●…ated to do this good thing for us: Surely if we were a people of prayer, & particularly for this Church & Nation-mercy, we might be surprised now, when we have scarce a tokenn for good, & when our lukwarme temper hath banished the faith of such a mercy almost out of the earth, with such a re●ur●● a● that, I will clothethy Priests with salvation, & thy sai●…s ●all yet shout aloud for joy: I will pour down such a plentiful the ●sure of the spirit upon them, that by their zeal & faithfulness, the years which thi● cankerworm & caterpillar of luke warness hath eaten up, shall be restored unto you seven fold; which would carry alongst with it, the accomplishment of that other great & Gospel promise, his enemies will I cloth with shame; but upon himself shall his crown flourish. Faxit Deus, & ●es●●ness should be the constant Echo of our hearts.  
Reader there is one thing more I have to acquaint thee with, & so I have done, & that is to tell thee, that I have made bold for this once, to send these Epistles abroad into the world, without the Prelate's Imprimatur: If he please to take this for an Apology, that the Author sought not his permission to write them, which emboldened me to transmit them to thy hands, without his approbation, he may; for I am not in an humour to give him any other account of this action. I know it's very probable, that the fat of these may be the fire; for our late fulious Prelates (that Draco volans which being got upon the wing spouts down fire upon the Church, whereby the Tabernacles of God are burnt up through the land: For the appearance of this fiery meteor did always portend somewhat fatal to the Church to follow upon it) are a little more hot than their predecessors: It's true, these went so high in their persecution, & drove so hard, that it was thought scarce possible, for any to outdo them in persecuting, for they run themselves out of breath, & never drew bridle till they fell in the ditch, & we thought they had died their without succession; but Alas! The Church finds this day, that 〈◊〉 respect of their successors, they were mere novices, & had scarce served their Aprentiship in the black Art: And this puts me to think whether the people of God should not rather submit to be chastised even with this scourge of scorpions; then to wish that he would throw the ●od in the fire, lest if they were gone, & we not fit for a delivery [as indeed we are not] it should fall out with us, according to the story of the old wife of Syracuse, who was afraid of Dyon sius his death, lest the devil should succeed him: but if any should say to me, what & if be already come? For if the Holy Ghost call these men such Rev. 2: 10. Who did But cast in prison, & did but cast some in prison, may he not be said to be already come down now having great wrath; when deposition, imprisonment, banishment, yea any thing less, than declared worthy to die, is thought a savour: If any should urge me with this, I say, I confess he would pose me into an absolute silence; or force an acknowledgement from me: If the Prelates themselves who are of age, be in case to make a reply, let them answer it: For the truth is, they are so hot upon their work, that if it be a heresy to think so of them, they who plead the necessity of their office, for preventing of schism & heresy, are like to turn the better part of the world heretics; but to my purpose I say, their is some reason to fear; that this be thought very sit fuel, to make a fire in Cajapcas his hall: However, though it should be so, yet this is not the first time, that some of the worthy Author's works, have got such entertainment: & truly their is so much zeal to the interests of Christ, so much love to God, & the salvation of men, burning in these lines; that, that spirit, whose element is fire, will endeavour to blow the bellows, & seek this as a sacrifice at their hands, whose once professed sincerity, & personat zeal for God & his interests, is now broken out, in such high Acts of rebellion against him, & hatred against his servants; whereby the proverb is become plain Scottish, or Inglish, or both if ye will: Omnis Apostata secta suae Osor: But if the Prelates would take a poor Presbyter's advice, they wou● even let it alone, lest the smoke of that fire, wherein they burn this; kindle a flame of just indignation against them, in the hearts of all the lovers of God, as men who have a very perfect hatred against piety; but if they care not to be so looked upon, I have no more to say, be it so: It's like nothing that I can say, will hinder them, from puttingh this piece in his hands, to whom, as I hear, they have committed the revising of learned & worthy Mr. Wood's Testimony, etc. & who it seems, is made choice of by them, as Secretary in Chief, for fevising all such pieces, to ●i●, joannes Dunmuraeus, cum Fratri●●●●, & Collegis suis: And therefore I must leave them to their own liberty, which I only do, because I cannot help it: & I am afraid besides, lest if I should work too hard, in carrying water to cool them, I overheat myself, & leave them at last nothing, cooler than I found them: But as for thee Christian Reader; it will be a sufficient imprimatur, to tell thee, that these are MR. RUTHERFOORD'S LETTERS: Wherein he gives thee an account, of many a good day, & joyful hour, he had in his Master's company; while his fellow-servants did beat & thrust him out of the vineyard: & he invits thee to take a share of his feast, & truly I wish that both of us would go try & taste, since neither of us are like to have very good entertainment any where else.  
I have but one word more to say, for I know it's long since thou expected I should have made an end, & it's only to crave the pardon that I have not done it sooner: when I wrote the first nes. I thought to have made the end & the beginning so contiguous, that I should neither have put thee to this trouble, nor myself to the necessity of an Apology; & in order to that, I did really forbear what (as I told thee) at first I intended, & am carried this length besides my design; but if the length of what is here offend thee, thou art in case without doing me any wrong, to give thyself the same satisfaction, as if I had said nothing, by passing it, as so much waste paper, & turning over to the Epistles themselves: If thy soul be profited by these (as I hope it shall) I have my design, & all I seek of the be side, is, that thou wouldst wish his soul's welfare, who was at this little pains, in order to thine, & who desires to be reockened by thee, amongst the meanest & most unworthy of.  
The favourers of the dust of Zion, And thy Well●●●kers.   

AD LECTOREM IN EPISTOLAS.  

QVOD Chebar & Patmos, divinis Vatibus olim,  
Hoc, fuerant Sancto claustra Abredaea Viro:  
Profuit ut quondam tibi plus Ecclesia carcer,  
Libera quam patuli copia facta fort;  
Hic tibi sic scriptis carcer plus profuit ist is,  
Pulpita, quam raucâ quae sonuere tuba.  
Pharmaca in hoc prostant, contritis corde, libello,  
Hic crucis El●s●s, est via s●rata r●sis.  
Hic Amor & Christi decor, hic coelestis et aulae  
Gloria depicta est, horrida & ira Dei.  
Ardua materies, sublimibus apta cothurnis,  
Hic tenui & facilifusa, legenda stylo est.  
Lividus at voces si carpat Zoilus ullas,  
Non Divina sapit, Cor sine ment gerit.  
Praesulibus celerem attulerant haec Scripta ruinam,  
Impressa, extremum praestituuntque diem.    

READER.  
Thou may possibly find in some very few places, one letter for an other, as an (n) for an (n) etc. or a, transposition of two letters of a (:) for a (;) it may be also that the Chap. or verse be miscited, but the words being insert will easily lead the to correct that mistake. There was so much pains taken in overseeing the press to prevent misprinting, that thou wilt scarce meet with any thing that will mar the sense: yet these few, though they be not very material, I have set down to fill up this Page: In the Epistle to the Reader P. 3. l. 14. for Minister, r. Ministers. p. 10. l. 26. a afraid, r. afraid. p. 16. l. 9 & but, deal but. p. 17 l. antipen. to to, r. to. p. 25. l. 19 miserably, r. miserable. p. 32. l. 28. Arestotle, r Aristotle.  
In the Book, P. 30. l. penult. Isa. 45. r. 54 p. 60. l. 19 Act. 2. r. 1. p. 65. l. antip. Isai. 51. r. 41. p. 116. l. penult. is. r. in p. 151 l. 1. Luk. 21. r. 22. p. 204. l. 8. for, r. sort. p. 282. l. ult. bed, r. bode. p. 385. l. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, p. 398. l. 19 eek, r. seek p. 441. l. 28. you earnest, r you an earnest. p. 449. l. 33. Isa. 53. 9 r. ver. 3. p. ●64. l. 28. Deut. 32. 30. r. v. 39 ibid. Job 〈◊〉. r. 5. p. 465. l. 32. harden, r. Garden. p. 483. l. 2. Col. 2. r. 〈◊〉. p. 491. l. 33. blinced, r. blinded. ibid. l. 35. grace, r. grave. p. 492. l. 18. your. r. you, p. 496. l. 1. yet this, r. this. ibid. l. 22. witten, r. written. ibid. l. 24 Lam. 3. 51. r. 56, p. 500 l. 34. I am 3. 36. r. 56. p. 516. l. 29. Ezek. 46. r. 48. p. 527. l. 4. Levit. 13. r. 10. p. 555. l. 26. deal &.   


To Mr ROBERT CUNYNGAME, Minister of the Gospel at Holywood in Ireland. (Epist. 1.)  
Well-beloved and reverend Brother, grace mercy and peace be to you; upon acquaintance in Christ, I thought good to take the opportunity of writing to you; seeing it hath seemed good to the Lord of the harvest, to take the hooks out of our hands for a time, and to lay upon us a more honourable service, even to suffer for his name. It were good to comfort one another in writing: I have had a Desire to see you in the face, yet now being the prisoner of Christ it is taken away: I am greatly comforted to hear of your soldiers stately spirit, for your princely and royal Captain Jesus our Lord, and for the grace of god in the rest of our dear brethren with you; you have heard of my trouble I suppose, It hath pleased our sweet Lord Jesus, to let lose the malice of these interdicted Lords in his house to deprive me of my Ministry at Anwoth and to confine me, eight score miles from thence to Aberden; and also (which was not done to any before) to inhibit me to speak at all in Jesus his name, within this Kingdom, under the pain of rebellion: The cause that ripened their hatred was my book against the Arminians, whereof they accused me, these three Days I appeared before them; But let our crowned king in Zion reign, by his grace the loss is theirs, the advantage is Christ's and truths; albeit this honest cross gained some ground on me; by my heauniesse, and inward Challenges of conscience for a time were sharp, yet now for the encouragement of you all, I dare say it, and write it under my hand, welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet, Cross, of Christ: I verily think the Chains of my Lord Jesus are all overlaid with pure gold, & that his cross is perfumed, and that it smelleth of Christ, & that the Victory, shall be by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of his truth, and that Christ laying on his back, in his weak servants, and oppressed truth, shall ride over his enemy's bellies, and shall strick through Kings in the day of his wrath: It is time we laugh when he laugheth, and seeing he is now pleased to sit with wrongs for a time, it becometh us to be silent, until the Lord hath let the enemies enjoy their hungry, lean, and fecklesse paradise: Blessed are they who are content to take strokes with weeping Christ, faith will trust the Lord, and is not hasty, nor head strong; neither is faith so timorous as to flatter a tentation, or to bud and bribe the cross, It is little up or little down that the lamb and his followers can get no law-suitie, nor truce with crosses; it must be so, till we be up in our father's house; my heart is woe indeed for my mother Church, that hath played the harlot with many lovers, her husband hath a mind to sell her for her horrible transgressions, & heavy will the hand of the Lord be upon this backsliding nation. The ways of our Zion mourn, her gold is become dim, her white Nazarites are blck like a coal, how shall not the Children weep, when the husband and the mother can not agree; yet I believe Scotland's sky shall clear again, & that Christ shall build again, the old waist places of Jacob, and that our dead and dry bones, shall become ane army of living men, & that, our beloved may yet feed among the lilies, until the day break and the shadows flee away. My dear brother let us help one another with our prayers, Our king shall mowedown his enemies, and shall come from Bozra, with his garments all died in blood, and for our onsolation shall he appear, and call his wife Hephzibah, and his land Beulah; for he will rejoice over us & marry us, & Scotland shall say what have I to do any more with Idols? Only let us be faithful to him that can ride through hell, and death, upon a windlestrae, and his horse never stumble, and let him make of me a bridge over a water so that his high and holy name may be glorified in me: strokes with the sweet mediators hand, are very sweet, he was always sweet to my soul, but since I suffered for him, his breath hath a sweeter smell than before, Oh that every hair of my head, and every member, and every bone in my body, were a man to witness a fair confession for him, I would think all too little for him, when I look over beyond the line, and beyond death to the laughing side of the world, I trimmph, and ride upon the high places of Jacob, howbeit otherways I am a faint dead-hearted cowardly man; oft borne down, & hungry in waiting for the mariage-supper of the lamb; nevertheless I think it the Lords wise love that feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with wants, and desertions: I know not my dear brother if our worthy brethren, be gone to sea, or not, they are on my heart and in my prayers, if they be yet with you, salute my dear friend John Stuart, my weilbeloved brethren in the Lord, Mr Blair, Mr Hamilton, Mr Livingston, and Mr Mak-Cleland, and acquaint them with my troubles, and entreat them to pray for the poor afflicted prisoner of Christ, They are dear to my soul: I seek your prayers and theirs for my flock, their remembrance breaks my heart: I desire to love that people, and others my dear acquaintance in Christ with love in God, and as God loveth them; I know that he who sent me to the west, and south, sends me also to the north: I will Charge my soul to believe and to wait for him, and will follow his providence and not go before it, nor stay behind it. Now my dear brother taking farewell in paper, I commend you all to the word of his grace, and to the work of his spirit, to him who holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, that you may be kept spotless till the day of Jesus our Lord. I am.  
From Irwing being on my journey to Christ's palace in Aberden August 4. 1636. Your Brother in affliction in our sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.   

To his Parochiners. (2)  
DEarly beloved, & longed for in the Lord, my crown & my joy in the day of Christ: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our father, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I long exceedingly to know, if the oft-spoken-of match betwixt you & Christ holdeth; and if you follow on to know the Lord. My day thoughts, and my night thoughts are of you, while ye sleep, I am afraid of your souls that they be off the rock: next to my Lord Jesus, and this fallen kirk, ye have the greaest share of my sorrow, and also of my joy; ye are the matter of the tears, care, fear, and daily prayers of an oppressed prisoner of Christ: as I am in bonds for my high and lofty one, my Royal and princely master, my Lord Jesus; so I am in bonds for you, for I should have sleeped in my warm nest, & kept, the fat world in my arms, and the cords of my tabernacle should have been fastened more strongly, I might have sung an Evangel of Ease to my soul and you for a time, with my brethren, the sons of my mother, that were angry at me, & have thrust me out of the vineyard, if I should have been broken and drawn on to mire you the Lords flock; & to cause you eat pastures trodden upon with men's feet, and to drink foul and muddy waters: But truly the almighty was a rerror to me, & his fear made me afraid. O my Lord judge if my ministry be not dear to me, but not so dear by many degrees, as Christ Jesus my Lord: God knoweth the heavy, & sad Sabbaths I have bad since I laid down at my Master's feet my two shepherd's staves, I have been often saying as it is written, Lam. 3: 52. my enemies chased me sore like a bird without cause, they have cut off my life in the dungeon & cast a stone upon me: for next to Christ, I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights, to preach Christ my Lord, and they have violently plucked that away from me, & it was to me like the poor man's one eye, & they have put out that eye, and quenched my light in the inheritance of the Lord; but my eye is toward the Lord; I know I shall see the salvation of God, and that my hope shall not always be forgotten; And my sorrow shall want nothing to complete it, and to make me say, what availeth it me to live? if ye follow the voice of a stranger, of one that cometh in to the sheepfold not by Christ the door, but climbeth up another way, if the man build his hay and stubble upon the golden foundation, Christ jesus already laid among you, & ye follow him, I assure you the man's work shall burn & never bide God's fire, and ye & he both shall be in danger of everlasting burning, except ye repent. O if any pain, any sorrow, any loss that I can suffer for Christ, and for you were laid in pledge to buy Christ's love to you, and that I could lay my dearest joys, next to Christ my Lord in the gap, betwixt you & eternal destruction! O if I had paper as broad as heaven and earth, and ink as the sea, and all the rivers and fountains of the earth, & were able to write the love, the worth, the excellency, the Sweetness, and due praises of our dearest, and fairest well-beloved; and than if ye could read & understand it! what could I want if my ministry among you, should make a marriage between the little bride in that bounds, & the bridegroom? O how rich a prisoner were I, if I could obtain of my Lord (before whom I stand for you) the salvation of you all! O What a prey had I gotten to have you catched in Christ's net! O than I had cast out my Lords lines & his net with a rich gain! O than wel-wared pained breast and sore back, and a crazed body, in speaking early and late to you! my witness is above, your heaven would be two heavens to me, & the salvation of you all, as two salvations to me, I would subscribe a suspension, and a fristing of my heaven, for many hundred years, (according to God's good pleasure) if ye were sure in the upper lodging, in our father's house before me. I take to witness heaven and earth against you, I take instruments in the hands of that sun, & day light, that beheld us, & in the hands of the timber & walls of that kirk, if I drew not up a fair contract of marriage betwixt you & Christ, if I went not with offers betwixt the bridegroom, & you, & your conscience did bear you witness, your mouths confessed, that there were, many fair trysts, & meetings drawn on, betwixt Christ and you, at communion-feasts, & other occasions; there were braclets, jewels, rings, and love-letters, sent to you, by the bridegroom, it was told you what a fair dowry ye should have, and what a house your husband and ye should dwell in, and what was the bridgroomes' excellency, Sweetness, might, Power. The Eternity, and glory of his Kingdom, the exceeding deepness of his love, who sought his black wife through pain, fires, shame, death, & the grave; and swimmed the salt sea for her, undergoeing the curse of the law, & then was made a curse for you, & ye then consented and said, Even so I take him: I counsel you beware of the new & strange leaven of men's inventions, beside, and against the word of God, contrair to the oath of this kirk. now coming among you: I instructed you of the superstition, & Idolatry, of kneeling in the instant of receiving the Lords supper, & crosseing in baptism, and the observing of men's days, without any warrant of Christ our perfect lawgiver: Countenance not the Surplice the attire of the Mass● priest, the garment of Baal's priests, the abominable bowing to altars of tree is coming upon you: hate & keep yourselves from idols: forbear in any case to hear the reading of the new fatherless service-book, full of gross heresees, popish and superstitious errors, without any warrant of Christ, tending to the overthrew of preaching: you owe no obedience to the bastard Canons, they are unlawful, blasphemous and superstitious; all the ceremonies that lie in the Antichrists foul womb, the wares of that great mother of fornications, the kirk of Rome, are to be refused, ye see whither they lead you: Continue still in the Doctrine, which ye have received; ye heard of me the whole counsel of God, so we no cl●●ts upon Christ's robe, take Christ in his rags, & losses & as persecuted by men, & be content to sigh, and pant up the mountain, with Christ's cross on your back, let me be repute a false prophet (& your conscience once said the contrair) if your Lord Jesus shall not stand by you, and maintain you, and maintain your cause, against your enemies: I have heard, (and my soul is grieved for it) that since my departure from you, many among you are turned back from the good old way to the dog's vomit again; let me speak to these men, it was not without God's special direction, that the first sentence that ever my mouth uttered to you, was that of John Chap. 9: 39 And jesus said for judgement came I into the world that they which see not might see, & they which see might be made blind. It is possible, my first meeting & yours be, when we shall both stand before the dreadful judge of the World, & in the name & authority of the Son of God, my great King & Master, I write by these presents, summons to these men, I arrest their souls & bodies to the day of our compearance; their eternal damnation stands subscribed, and sealed in heaven; by the hand-write of the great Judge of quick & dead, and I am ready to stand up, as a preaching witness against such to their face, that day, & to say, Amen to their condemnation, except they repent: The vengeance of the Gospel is heavier, nor the vengeance of the law, the Mediators malediction and vengeance, is twice vengeance, & that vengeance is the due portion of such men, & there I leave them, as bound men, ay & while they repent & amend: You were witnesses how the Lord's day was spent, while I was among you: O sacrilegious robber of God's day, what will thou answer the Almighty, when he seeketh so many Sabbaths back again, from thee? What will the Curser, Swearer, & Blasphemer do, when his tongue shall be roasted in that broad, and burning lake of fire & brimstone? And what will the drunkard do, when tongue, lights, & liver, bones, & all, shall boil & fry in a torturing fire for he shall be far from his barrels of strong drink then, & there is not a cold well of water for him in hell? What shall be the case of the wretch, the covetous man? the opperssor? the deceaver? the earth worm, who can never get his wombfull of clay, when in the day of Christ, Gold and Silver must lie burnt in ashes, and he must compear and answer his judge, and quite his clayie and naughty heaven? woe, woe, for ever more be, to the time-turning Atheist, that hath one God, and one religion for summer, and another God, and another religion, for winter, and the day offanning; when Christ fanneth all that is in his barn floor, who hath a conscience for every fair and mercat, and the soul of him runneth upon these oiled wheels, Time, Custom, the world and Command of men: O if the careless Atheist, and sleeping man, who edgeth by all, (with, God forgive our Pastors if they lead us wrong, we must do as they command,) and lays down his head upon times bosom, and giveth his conscience to a deputy, and sleepeth so, while the smoke of hell fire fly up in his throat, and cause him start out of his dooleful bed. O if such a man would awake, many woes are for the overguilded, and gold-plastered Hypocrite, a heavy doom is for the liar and white tongued flatterer, and the fleeing book of God's ireful vengeance, twenty cubits long, and twenty cubits broad, that goeth out from the face of God, shall enter into the house, and in upon the soul of him that stealeth, and sweareth falsely by God's name, Zechar. 5: ver. 23. I denounce eternal burning, hotter than Sodoms flames, upon the men, that boil in their filthy lusts of fornication, adultery, incest, and the like wickedness; no Room, no not a foot-broad for such viledogs, within the clean Jerusalem: Many of you put off all with this, God forgive us, we know no better: I renew my old answer, 2 Thess. 1. the judge is coming in flaming fire, with all his mighty Angels to render vengeance to all these, that know not God, and believe Not. I have often told you security shall slay you, all men say they have faith, as many men and women now, as many saints in heaven; and all believe (say ye) every foul dog is clean enough, & good enough, for the clean & new Jerusalem above: Every man hath conversion, & the new birth; but it is not ●●el come; they had never a sick night for sin, conversion came to them in a night dream: in a word hell will be empty at the day of judgement, and heaven panged full: Alace it is neither easy, nor ordinary to believe & to be saved; many must stand in the end at heavens gates; when they go to take out their faith they take out a fair nothing (or as ye use to speak) a bl●●●ume: O lamentable Disappointment: I pray you, I charge you in the name of Christ, make fast work of Christ, and salvation: I know there are some believers among you; and I write to you O poor broken hearted believers, all the comforts of Christ, in the New and Old Testament are yours. O what a father & husband you have! O if I had pen, and ink, and engine, to write of him! Let heaven and earth be consolidat, in massy and pure gold, it will not weigh the thousand part of Christ's love to a soul, even to me a poor prisoner; O that is a massy and marvellous love! Men and Angels unit your force, and strength in one; ye shall not heave, nor poise it off the ground: Ten thousand thousand worlds, as many worlds, as Angels can number, and then as a new world of Angels can multiply, would not all be the balk of a balance, to weigh Christ's excellency, sweetness, and love; Put ten earth's in one, and let a rose grow greater than ten whole earths, or ten worlds, O what beauty would be in it, and what a smell would it cast! but a blast of the breath of that fairest rose in all God's Paradise, even of Christ Jesus our Lord, one look of that fairest face, would be infinitely in beauty, and smell above all imaginable, and created glory. I wonder that men dow bide off Christ, I would esteem myself blessed if I could make an open proclamation, and gather all the world, that are living upon the earth, Jew, and Gentile, and all that shall be borne, to the blowing of the last trumpet, to flock round about Christ, and to stand looking, wondering, admiring, and adoring his beauty, and sweetness; for his fire is hotter than any other fire, his love sweeter than common love, his beauty surpasseth all other beauty: When I am heavy and sad, one of his love-looks, would do me meekel world's good, o if ye would fall in love with him! How blessed were I, how glad would my soul be, to help you to love him, but amongst us all we could not love him enough, he is the Son of the Father's love, and God's delight, the Father's love lieth all upon him, o if all mankind would fetch all their love, and lay it upon him, invit him, and take him home to your houses, in the exercise of prayer, morning, and evening, as I often desired you; especially now, let him not want lodging in your houses, nor lie in the fields, when he is shut out of pulpits, and Kirks: If ye will be content to take heaven by violence, & the wind on your face for Christ and his cross, I am here one, who hath some trial of Christ's cross, I can say, that Christ was ever kind to me, but he overcometh himself (if I may speak so) in kindness while I suffer for him, I give you my word for it, Christ's cross is not so evil as they call it, it is sweet, light, and comfortable, I would not want the visitations of love, and the very breathe of Christ's mouth, when he kisseth, and my Lords delightsome smiles, and love-embracements, under my sufferings for him, for a mountain of fine gold, nor for all the honours, court, and grandour of velvet-kirk-men: Christ hath the yolk and heart of my love, I am my beloved's, and my well-beloved is mine. O that ye were all handfasted to Christ! o my Dearly beloved in the Lord, I would I could change my voice, and had a tongue tuned with the hand of my Lord, and had the art of speaking of Christ, that I might paint out unto you, the worth, and highness, and greatness, and excellency, of that fairest, and renowned bridegroom! I beseech you by the mercies of the Lord, by the sighs, tears, & heart blood, of our Lord Jesus, by the salvation of your poor and precious souls, set up the mountain, that ye and I may meet before the Lamb's throne, amongst the congregation of the first borne: Lord grant, that, that may be the trysting place, that ye and I may put up our hands together, and pluck, and eat the apples, o● the tree of life, and we may feast together, and drink together, of that pure river of the water of life, that cometh out from under the throne of God, and from the Lamb: O how little is your hand-breadth, and span length of days here, your inch of time is Less, than when ye and I parted, eternity, eternity, is coming posting on with wings, then shall every man's black's, and whit's; be brought to light. O how low will your thoughts be of this fair-skined but heart rotten apple, the vain, vain, fecklesse world, when the worms shall make their houses, in your eye holes, and shall eat a●● the flesh, from the ball of your cheeks, and shall make that body a number of dry bones! think not the common gate of serving God, as neighbour and others do, will bring you to heaven; few, few are saved, the Devil's court, is thick and many, he haththe greatest number of mankind for his vassals: I know this world is a great forest of thorns in your way to heaven, but ye most through it, acquaint yourselves with the Lord, hold fast Christ, hear his voice only, bless his name, sanctify and keep his day, keep the new commandment, love one another, let the Holy Spirit dwell in your bodies, and be clean and holy, love not the worldly not, love, and follow truth, learn to know God, keep in mind what I taught you, for God will seek ane account of it, when I am far from you: abstain from all evil and all appearance of evil, follow good carefully and seek peace; and follow after it honour your King, and pray for him; remember me to God in your prayers, I dow not forget you; I told you often, while I was with you, and now I write it again, heavy, sad, and sore, is that stroke of the Lords wrath, that is coming upon Scotland, woe, woe, woe, to this Harlotland, for they shall take the cup of God's wrath, from his hand, and drink, and spew, and fall, and net rise again. In, In, In, with speed, to your strong hold, ye prisoners of hope, & hide you there, while the anger of the Lord pass; Follow not the Pastors of this Land, for the sun is gone down upon them; as the Lord liveth they lead you from Christ, and from the good old way, yet the Lord will keep the holy City, and make this withered Kirk, to bud again like a rose, and a field blessed of the Lord. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. The prayers and blessing of a prisoner of Christ's in bonds for him, and for you, be with you all,  
AMEN.  
Aberden, July 14. 1637. Your Lawful and loving Pastor, S. R.   

To the Honourable, Reverend, and Well-beloved Professors of Christ, & his Truth in sincerity in Ireland. (3)  
DEarly beloved in our Lord, & partakers of the heavenly calling, Grace, mercy & peace be to you, from God our father, & from our Lord Jesus Christ: I always but most of all now in my bonds (most sweet bonds for Christ my Lord) rejoice, to hear of your faith, and love, & to hear that our King, our well-beloved, our bridegroom, without tireing, stayeth still to woo you, as his wife; and that persecutions, & mockings of sinners have not chased away the wooer from the house, I persuade you in the Lord, the men of God now Scattered, & driven from you; put you upon the right sent and pursuit of Christ, & my salvation on it (if ten heavens were mine) if this way, this way that I now suffer for, this way that the world nicknameth, and reproacheth, & no other way, be not the King's gate to heaven; & I shall never see God's face (and alace I were a beguiled wretch if it were so) if this be not the only saving way to heaven. Oh that you would take a prisoner of Christ's word for it, nay I know you have the greatest Kings word for it, that it shall not be your wisdom to spier out another Christ, another way of worshipping him, then is now savingly revealed to you. Therefore though I never saw your faces let me be pardoned to write to you ye honourable persons, ye faithful Pastors yet amongst the flocks, and ye sincere professors of Christ's truth, or any weak tired strayers who cast but half an eye after the bridegroom; if possibly I could by any weak experience, confirm and strengthen you, in this good way every where spoken against. I can with greatest assurance (to the honour of our highest, & greatest & dearest Lord let it be spoken) assert, (though I be but a child in Christ, and scarce able to walk, but by a hold, & the meanest and less than the least of Saints) that we do not come nigh, by twenty degrees, to the due love & estimation of that fairest among the sons of men; for if it were possible that heaven yea ten heavens, were laid in the balance with Christ, I would think the smell of his breath, above them all: sure I am he is the far best half of heaven, yea he is all heaven, and more than all heaven; & my testimony of him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten deaths, ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, and all exquisite torments; were all too little for Christ, if our suffering could be a hire to buy him: and therefore faint not in your sufferings, & hasards for him, I proclaim & cry hell, sorrow, and shame upon all lusts, upon all by-lovers, that would take Christ's room over his head in this little inch of love, of these narrow souls of ours that is due to sweetest Jesus. O highest, O fairest, O dearest Lord Jesus, take thine own from all bastard lovers! O that we could wodset, & sell all our part of times glory and times good things, for a lease, & tack of Christ for all eternity! O how are we misted, and mired with the love of things that are in this side of time and in this side of death's water! where can we find a match to Christ, or an equal or a better than he among created things? Oh this world is out of all conceit, & all love with our well-beloved. O that I could sell my laughter, joy, ease, and all for him; and be content of a straw-bed, and btead by weight, & water by measure, in the camp of our weeping Christ! I know his sackcloth and ashes, are better, than the fools laughter which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. But alace we do not harden our faces against the cold north storms, which blow upon Christ's fair face, we love well summer religion, & to be that which Sin hath made us, even as thin skinned, as if we were made of white paper, & would fain be carried to heaven in a cl●sse covered chariot, wishing from our hearts, that Christ would give us surety, & his hand write, & his seal, for nothing but a fair summer, until we be landed, in at heaven's gates; how many of us have been here deceived, & fainted, in the day of trial; amongst you there are some of this Stamp, I shall be sorry if my acquaintance A. T. hath left you, I will not believe he dare stay from Christ's side, I desire that ye show him this from me, for I loved him once in Christ, neither can I change my mind, suddenly of him. But the truth is that many both of you, & too many also of your neighbour church of Scotland, have been like a rennent that sitteth mealfree, & knoweth not his holding while his rights be questioned, and now I am persuaded, it will be asked at every one of us, on what terms we brook Christ, for we have sitten long mealfree, we found Christ without a wet foot, and He, and his gospel, came upon small charges to our Doors, but now we must wet our feet to seek him: our evil manners; and the bad fashions of a people at ease from our youth, and like Moab not casten from vessel, to vessel, Jer. 48: 11. hes made us like standing waters, to gather a foul scum, & when we are jumbled, our dregs come up, & are seen, many take but half a grip of Christ, & the wind bloweth them & Christ asunder; indeed when the mast is broken, & blown in the sea, it is ane art then to swim upon Christ, to dry land: 't is even possible that the children of God in a hard trial, lay themselves down, as hidden in the lea-side of a bush, while Christ their master be taken; as Peter did; & lurk there; while the storm be overpast: all of us know the way to a whole skin, & the singlest heart that is, hath a by-purse; that will contian the denial of Christ, & a fearful backslding. O how rare a thing is it, to be loyal, & honest to Christ, when he hath a controversy with the shields of the earth, I wish all of you, would consider, that this trial is from Christ, it is come upon you unbought (indeed when we buy a tentation with our own money, no marvel that we be not easily free of it, and that God be not at our elbow to take it off our hand) this is Christ's ordinary house-fire that he makes use of, to try all the vessels of his house Withal, & Christ now is about to bring his treasure out before sun & moon, & to tell his money, & in the telling, to try what weight of gold, & what weight of watered copper is in his house: Do not now jouke, or bow, or yield to your adversaries in a hair-breadth; Christ and his truth will not divide, & his truth hath not latitude & breadth, that ye may take some of it, & leave other some of it, nay the gospel is like a small hair, that hath no breadth & will not cleave in two, it is not possible to tryste & compound a matter betwixt Christ & Antichrist, & therefore ye must either be for Christ, or ye must be against him; It was but man's wit, & the wit of Prelates, & their god father the Pope (that man without law) to put Christ, & his prerogatives royal, & his truth or the smallest nail-breadth of his latter will, in the new calendar of Indifferencies, & to make a blank, of un-inked paper in Christ's Testament, that men may fill up, & so shuffle the truth, & matters they call indifferent thorough other, & spin both together that the Antichrists wares may sell the better, this is but the device & forged dream of men, whose consciences are made of stoutness, & have a throat that a graven image, greater than the bounds of the Kirk door, would give free passage unto; I am sure when Christ shall bring us all out in our black's, & vvhit's, at that day when he shall cry down time, and the world, & when the glory of it shall lie in white ashes, like a may flower cut down & having lost the blossom, there shall be few yea non that dare make any point that toucheth the worship & honour of our king & lawgiver, to be indifferent; O that this misled & blindfolded world, would see, that Christ doth not rise & fall, stand or lie, by men's apprehensions; what is Christ the lighter, that men do with him by open proclamation, as men do with clipped & light money; they are now crying down Christ some grain weights, & some pounds or shillings, & they will have him lie for a penny or a pound, for one, or for ane hundreth, according as the wind bloweth from the east, or from the west; but the Lord hes weighed him, & balanced him already, This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased ●ear ye him, his worth, & his weight standeth still; It is our part to cry up, up with Christ, & down, down with all created glory before him. O that I could heighten him, & heighten his name, & heighten his throne! I know, & am persuaded, that Christ shall again be high, & great in this poor withered, & sunburnt Kirk of Scotland, & that the sparks of our fire, shall flee over sea, & round about, to warm you, & other sister-churches, & that this tabernacle of David's house that is fallen, even the Son of David his waste places shall be built again, & I know the prison, crosses, persecutions, & trials of the two slain witnesses, that are now dead, & buried Rev. 11. & of the faithful professors have a backdoor & back entry of escape, & that death & hell, and the world & tortures, shall all cleave, & split in twain, & give us free passage & liberty to go through them toll-free, & we shall bring all Gods good metal out of the furnace again, and leave behind us but our dross, & our scum: we may then before hand proclaim Christ to be victorious, He is crowned King in mount Zion, God did put the crown upon his head, Psal. 2. And who dare take it off again? out of question he hath sore & grievous quarrels against his church, and therefore, He is called, Is. 39 10. He whose fire is in Zion & whose furnace is in jerusalem. But when he hath performed his work on mount Zion, all Zions haters shall be as the hungry, and thirsty man, that dreams he is eating and drinking, and behold when he awaketh he is faint, and his soul empty: and this advantage we have also, that he will not bring before sun, & moon, all the infirmities of his wife; it is the modesty of marriage-anger, or husband-wrath, that our sweet Lord Jesus will not come with chiding to the streets, to let all the world hear what is betwixt him, & us; his sweet gloomes stay under roof, and that because he is God. Two special things ye are to mind. 1. Try & make sure your profession; that ye carry not empty lamps: alace security, security is the bane, & the wrack of the most part of the world! Oh how many professors go with a golden lustre, & gold-like before men, (who are but witnesses to our white skin) & yet are but bastard & base metal: consider how fair before the wind some do ply, with up sails, and white, even to the nick of illumination, Heb. 6: 5, And tasting, of the heavenly gift, & a share and part of the holy Ghost, & the tasting of the good word of God, & the powers of the world to come: & yet this is but a false nick of renovation, and in a short time, such are quickly broken upon the rocks, and never fetch the harbour, but are sanded in the bottom of hell. O make your heaven sure, and try how ye come by conversion; that it be not stolen goods, in a white & wel-lustred profession! a white skin over old wounds maketh an undercotting conscience: false under-water not seen, is dangerous, & that is a lek, and rift in the bottom of an enlightened conscience, often falling, & sinning against light. Woe, woe is me, that the holy profession of Christ, is made a stage garment by many, to bring home a vain fame; & Christ is made to serve men's ends: this is as it were to stop an oven with a King's robes. Know. 2. except men martyr & slay the body of sin, in sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christ's martyrs, and faithful witnesses. Oh if I could be master of that house-idol myself, my own, mine, my own will, wit, credit, & ease! how blessed were I? O but we have need to be redeemed from ourselves, rather than from the Devil, & the world! learn to put out yourselves, & to put in Christ for yourselves: I should make a sweet bartering, & niffering, & give old for new, if I could shuffle out self, & substitute Christ my Lord in place of my self to say, not I, but Christ, not my will, but Christ's; not my ease, not my lust, not my feckless Credit, but Christ, Christ But alace in leaving ourselves, in s●t●ng Christ before our Idol, self, we have yet a glaik●d back-look to our old Idol. O wretched Idol, myself, when shall I see thee wholly decurted, & Christ wholly put in thy room? Oh if Christ, Christ, had the full place & room of myself, that all my aims, purposes, thoughts, & desires, would coast and land upon Christ, & not upon myself! & y●t howbeit we can not attain to this denial of me, & mine, that we can say I am not myself, myself is not myself, mine own is no longer mine own; yet our aiming at this in all we do, shall be accepted: for alace I think I shall di●, but minting & aiming to be a Christian: Is it not our comfort that Christ the mediator of the new covenant is come betwixt us, & o●od in the business, so that green & young heirs, the like 〈◊〉 sinners, have now a Tutor that is God, & now God be thanked, our salvation is bottomed on Christ: sure I am the he bottom shall never fall out of heaven & happiness to us: I would give over the bargain, a thousand times, were it not, that Christ his free grace, hath taken our salvation in hand. Pray, pray, & contend with the Lord, for your sister-Church; for it would appear the Lord is about to spier for his scattered sheep, in the dark and cloudy day. O that it would please our Lord to set up again David's old wasted, and fallen tabernacle, in Scotland; that we might see the glory of the second temple in this land! O that my little heaven were wodset, to redeem the honour of my Lord Jesus, among Jews, & Gentiles! let never dew lie upon my branches, and let my poor flower wither at the root, so being Christ were enthroned, and his glory advanced in all the world, & especially in these three Kingdoms: but I know he hath no need of me, what can I add to him? but oh that he would cause his high & pure glory run through such a foul channel as I am! & howbeit he hath caused the blossom fall off my one poor joy, that was on this side of heaven, even my liberty to preach Christ to his people, yet I am dead to that now, so being he would hew and carve glory, glory for evermore, to my royal King, out of my silence, & sufferings. Oh that I had my fill of his love, but I know ill manners make an uncouth & strange bridegroom. I entreat you earnestly for the aid of your prayers, for I forget not you, & I salute with my soul in Christ, the faithful Pastors, and honourable & worthy Professors in that Land. Now the God of peace that brought again our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great shephered of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect, in every good work, to do his will; working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, Grace, Grace be with you.  
Aberden, Feb. 4. 1638. Yours in his sweeetest Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the truly noble & elect lady my lady VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE. (4)  
Noble & elect Lady.  
THat honour that I have prayed for these sixteen years, with submission to my Lords will, my kind Lord hath now bestowed upon me; even to suffer for my royal & princely King Jesus & for his Kingly crown, & the freedom of his Kingdom, that his father hath given him. The forbidden Lords have sentenced me with deprivation, & confinement within the town of Aberden. I am charged in the King's name, to enter against the twenty day of August next, & there to remain during the King's pleasure, as they have given it out. howbeit Christ's green cross newly laid upon me, be somewhat heavy, while I call to mind the many fair days, sweet & comfortable to my soul, & to the souls of many others, & how young ones in Christ; are plucked from the breast, and the inheritance of God laid waste: yet that sweet smelled & perfumed cross of Christ, is accompanied with sweet refreshments, with the kisses of a King, with the joy of the holy Ghost, with faith that the Lord hears the sighing of a prisoner, with undoubted hope (as sure as my Lord liveth) after this night, to see day light, & Christ's sky to clear up again upon me, & his poor Kirk, & that in a strange Land amongst strange faces he will give favour in the eyes of men, to his poor oppressed servant, who dow not but love that lovely one, that princely one, Jesus the comforter of his soul. All would be well if I were free of old challanges for guiltiness, & for neglect in my calling, and for speaking too little for my welbeloveds crown, honour, & Kingdom. Oh for a day in the assembly of the saints to advocate for King Jesus! If my Lord go on now to quarrels also, I die, I cannot endure it: but I look for peace from him, because he knoweth I dow bear men's feud but I dow not bear his feud: this is my only exercise, that I fear I have done little good in my ministry: but I dare not but say, I loved the bai●●s of the wedding chamber; and prayed for & desired the thriving of the marriage, & coming of his Kingdom. I apprehend no less than a judgement upon Galloway, & that the Lord shall visit this whole nation, for the quarrel of the covenant. But what can be laid upon me, or any the like of me, is too light for Christ: Christ dow ●ear more & would bear death & burning quick, in his we●k servants, even for this honourable cause, that I now suffer for. Yet for all my complaints (& he knoweth that I dare not now dissemble) he was never sweeter, & Kinder than he is now; one kiss now, is sweeter than ten long since, sweet, sweet is his cross; light, light & easy is his yoke. O what a sweet step were it, up to my father's house thorough ten deaths, for the truth, and cause, of that unknown and so, not-halfe-wel-loved plant of renown, the man called the Branch, the chief among ten thousands, the fairest among the sons of men! O what unseen joys, how many hidden heart-burnings of love, are in the remnants of the sufferings of Christ! my dear worthy Lady I give it to your La: under my own hand (my heart-writing as well as my hand) welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet, & glorious cross of Christ, welcome sweet Jesus, with thy light cross, thou hast now gained & gotten all my love from me, ●eep what thou hast gotten. Only, woe, woe is me, for my bereft-flock, for the Lambs of Jesus, that I fear shall be fed with dry breasts, but I sparenow. Madam, I dare not promise to see your La: because of the little time I have allotted me, & I purpose to obey the King, who hath power of my body, & rebellion to Kings is unbeseeming Christ's Ministers. Be pleased to acquiant my Lady Mar with my case, I will look your La: & that good Lady will be mindful to God of the Lords prisoner, not for my cause, but for the Gospel's sake. Madam bind me more (if more can be) to your La: and write thanks to your brother my Lord of Lorne for what he hath done for me, a poor unknown stranger to his Lo: I shall pray for him, & his house, while I live, It is his honour, to open his mouth in the streets for his wronged, and oppressed master Christ Jesus. Now Madam commending your La: and the sweet child to ●he tender mercies of mine own Lord Jesus, and his good will who dwelled in the bush; I Rest.  
Edinb: July 28. 1636. Yours in his own sweetest, Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Noble & Christian Lady the VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE. (5)  
My very Honourable & dear Lady  
GRace mercy & peace, be to you, I cannot forget your La: & that sweet child, I desire to hear what the Lord is doing to you, & him: to write to me were charity, I cannot but write to my friends, that Christ hath try●ted me in Aberden, & my adversaries have sent me here, to be feasted with love-banquets with my royal, high, high, & princely King Jesus. Madam why should I smother Christ's honesty, I dare not conceal his goodness to my soul, he looked framed and uncouth-like upon me, when I came first here; but I believe himself better than his looks: I shall not again quarrel Christ for a gloom, now he hath taken the mask off his face & saith kiss thy fill, & what can I have more, while I get great heaven in my little arms. O how sweet are the sufferings of Christ, for Christ! God forgive them that raise an ill report upon the sweet cross of Christ, it is but our weak & dim eyes, that look but to the black side that makes us mistake: these who can take that crabbed-tree hand-somely upon their back, & fasten it on cannily, shall find it such a burden, as wings unto a bird, or sails to ship. Madam rue not of your having chosen the better part: upon my salvation this is Christ's truth I now suffer for, if I found but cold comfort in my sufferings, I would not beguile others, I would have told you plainly; but the truth is, Christ's crown, his sceptre, and the freedom of his Kingdom, is that, which is now called in question: because we will not allow that Christ pay tribute and be a vassal to the shields of the earth, therefore the sons of our mother are angry at us: but it becometh not Christ to hold any man's stir●up: It were a sweet and honourable death to die for the honour of that royal, & princely King Jesus: his love is a mystery to the world: I would not have believed that there was so much in Christ, as there is, Come & see maketh Christ to be known in his excellency & glory. I wish all this Nation knew how sweet his breath is, it is little to see Christ in a book, as men do the world in a card, they talk of Christ by the book & the tongue, & no more; but to come nigh Christ and hausse him, & embrace him, is another thing. Madam I write to your Honour for your encouragement in that honourable profession, Christ hath honoured you with: Ye have gotten the Sunny side of the braes, & the best of Christ's good things; he hath not given you the bastard's portion, & howbeit ye get strokes & sour looks from your Lord, yet believe his love more than your own feeling, for this world can take nothing from you, that is truly yours, & death can do you no wrong: your rock doth not ebb & flow, but your sea: that which Christ hath said he will bide by it, he will be your tutor, you shall not get your charters of heaven to play you with: It is good that ye have lost your credit with Christ, & that Lord freewill shall not be your tutor, Christ will lippen the taking of you to heaven neither to yourself, nor any deputy, but only to himself, blessed be your tutor: When your head shall appear, your bridegroom & Lord, your day shall then dawn & it shall never have an afternoon nor an evening shadow. Let your child be Christ's, let him stay beside you, as the lords pledge, that you shall willingly render again if God will. Madam I find folks here kind to me, but in the night, & under their breath; my master's cause may not come to the crown of the causey, others are kind according to their fashion, many think me a strange man, & my cause not good; but I care not much for man's thoughts or approbation: I think no shame of the cross. The preachers of this town pretend great love, but the Prelates have added to the rest this gentle cruelty (for so they think of it) to discharge me of the pulpits of this town, the people murmur, & cry out against it, and to speak truly howbeit Christ is most indulgeat to me otherwise, yet my silence on the Lord's day keeps me from being exalted above measure, & frō●●artling in the heat of my Lords love. Some people affect me, for the which cause, I hear the preachers here, purpose to have my confinement changed, to another place; so cold is northern love: but Christ and I will bear it. I have wrestled long with this sad silence, I said what aileth Christ at my service, and my soul hath been at a pleading with Christ, & at yea & nay; but I will yield to him, providing my suffering, may preach more than my tongue did; for I gave not Christ an inch but for twice as good again: in a word I am a fool, & he is God. I will hold my peace hereafter. Let me hear from your La: & your Dear Child pray for a prisoner of Christ who is mindful of your La: Remember my obliged obedience to my good Lady Marre, Grace, Grace be with you. I write & pray blessings to your sweet child.  
Aberd. Nou. 22. 1636. Yours in all Dutiefull obedience in his only Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the right honourable & Christian Lady, my Lady VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE. (6)  
MADAM.  
GRace, Mercy & peace be to you: I received your La: letter, it refreshed me in my heaviness: the blessing & prayers of a prisoner of Christ's come upon you. Since my coming hither, Galloway sent me not a line, except what my Brother, Earlstoun, & his son did write: I cannot get my papers transported: but Madam I want not kindness of one, who hath the gate of it, Christ (if he had never done more for me since I was borne) hath engaged my heart, & gained my blessing, in this house of my pilgrimage. It pleaseth my well-beloved to dine with a poor prisoner, and the King's spikenard casteth a fragrant smell: nothing grieveth me, but that I eat my feasts my alone, and that I cannot edify his saints: O that this Nation knew what is betwixt him and me, none would scar at the cross of Christ! my silence eats me up, but he hath told me, he thanketh me no less, then if I were preaching daily, he sees how gladly I would be at it, & therefore my wages are going to the fore up in heaven, as if I were still preaching Christ. Captains pay duly bedfast soldiers, howbeit they dow not march, nor carry armour; Though israel be not gathered, yet shall 〈◊〉 be glorious in the eyes of my Lord, & my lord shall be my strength, If●● 49: 5. my garland, The Banished Minister, (the te●ne of Aberden) ashameth me not: I have seen the white side of Christ's cross, lovely, hath he been to his oppressed servant: Psal. 146: 7. The Lord executeth judgement for the oppressed, he giveth food to the hungry, the Lord looseth the prisoner, the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down, the Lord preserveth the stranger. If it were come to exchanging of crosses, I would not exchange my cross with any, I am wel-pleased with Christ, & he with me; I hope none shall hear us. It's true for all this, I get my meat with many strokes, and am seven times a day up & down, & am often anxious, & cast down for the case of my oppressed brother, yet I hope the Lord will be surty for his servant. But now upon some weak, very weak experience, I am come to love a rumbling and raging devil beit, seeing we must have a devil to hold the saints waking, I wish a cumbersome devil, rather than a secure & sleeping one. At my first coming hither, I took the dorts at Christ; and took up a stomach against him, I said he had cast me over the dike of the vineyard, like a dry tree; but it was his mercy I see, that the fire did not burn the dry tree, & now as if my Lord Jesus had done the fault, & not I, (who belied my Lord,) he hath made the first mends, & he spoke not one word against me, but hath come again, & quickened my soul with his presence: nay now I think the very a●●uety, and casualties of the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord, & these comforts that accompany it, better, than the worlds set rend. O how many rich off-falling are in my King's house, I am persuaded, & dare pawned my salvation on it, that it is Christ's truth I now suffet for: I know his comforts are no dreams, he would not put his seal on blank paper, nor deceive his afflicted ones, that trust in him. Your La; wrote to me, that ye are yet an ill scholar: Madam ye must go in at heaven's gates, and your book in your hand, still learning, you have had your own large share of troubles, & a double portion; but i● saith your Father counteth you not a bastard; fu●-begotten bairns are nurtured, Heb. 12. 8. I long to hear of the child, I write the blessings of Christ's prisoner & the mercies of God to him; let him be Christ's & yours betwixt you, but let Christ ●e whole playmaker, let him be the lender, & ye the borrower, not an owner: Madam it is not long since I did write to your La: that Christ is keeping mercy for you, & I bide by it still, & now I write it under my hand: love him dearly, win in to see him, there is in him, that which you never saw, he is a●●igh, he is a tree of life, green, & blossoming, both summer and winter. there is a nick in Christianity, to the which whosoever cometh, they see and feel more than others can do: I invite you of new to come to him, Come & See will speak better things of him then I can do, come nearer, come nearer will say much. God thought never this world a portion worthy of you, he would not even you to a gift of dirt & clay, nay he will not give you Esay's portion, but reserves the inheritance of Jacob for you: are ye not well married now? have you not a good husband now? my heart cannot express what sad nights I have for the virgin daughter of my people: woe is me for our time is coming, Ezek. 7: 10. behold the day, behold it is come, the morning hath gone forth, the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded, violence is risen up in a rod of wickedness, the sun is gone down upon our prophets: A dry wind upon Scotland, but neither to fan nor to cleanse; but out of all question when the Lord hath cut down his forest, the after-growth of Lebanon shall flourish, they shall plant vines in our mountains, and a cloud shall yet fill the Temple. Now the blessing of our dearest Lord Jesus, & the blessing of him that is separate from his brethren come upon you.  
Yours at Aberden the prisoner of Christ, S. R.   

To the honourable & truly noble lady, the VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE. (7)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your La: I long to hear from you, I am here waiting if a good wind long-looked for, sha●● at length blow in Christ's sails in this land: But I wonder if Jesus be not content, to suffer more yet in his members, & cause, & beauty of his house; rather than he should not be avenged upon this land: I hear many worthy men (who see more in the Lords dealing, than I can take up with my dim sight) are of a contrait mind, & do believe the Lord is coming home again to his house in Scotland: I hope he is on his journey that way, yet I look not, but that he shall feed this land, with their own blood, before he establish his throne amongst us: I know your Honour is not looking after things here-away, ye have no great cause to think, that your stock, & principal, is under the roof of these visible heavens: & I hope ye would think yourself a beguiled and co●sened Soul if it were so, I would be sorry to counsel your La: to make a covenant with time, & this life; but rather desire you to hold in fair generals, & far off, from this ill founded heaven that is on this side of the water. It speaketh some what, when our Lord bloweth the bloom off our daft hopes in this life, & loppeth the branches of our worldly joys well nigh the root, on purpose, that they should not thrive. Lord spill my fools heaven in this life, that I may be saved for ever. A forfeiture of the saints part of the yolk and marrow, of short-laughing happiness worldly; is not such a real evil, as our blinded eyes do conceive: I am thinking long now for some deliverance, more than before; but I know I am in an error: It is possible I am not come to that measure of trial, that the Lord is seeking in his work. If my friends in Galloway would effectualy do for my deliverance, I would exceedingly rejoice: but I know not, but the Lord hath a way, whereof he will be the only reaper of praises. Let me know with the bearer, how the child is, the Lord be his Father, & Tutor, & your only comforter: There is nothing here where I am, but profanity & atheism. Grace, grace be with your La.  
Aberd. Feb. 13. 1637. Your La: at all obliged obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To the noble & Christian lady the VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE. (8)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you, I would not omit the occasion to write to your La: with the bearer: I am glad the child is well, God's favour even in the eyes of men be seen upon him: I hope your La: is thinking upon these sad & woeful days, wherein we now live; when our Lord in his righteous judgement, is sending the kirk the gate she is going, to Rome's brothel house to seek a lover of her own, seeing she hath given up with Christ her husband. O what sweet comfort, what rich salvation, is laid up for these, who had rather wash and roll their garments in their own blood, then break out from Christ by Apostasy! keep yourself in the love of Christ, & stand far aback from the pollutions of the world: side not with these times, and hold off from coming nigh the signs of a conspiracy with these, that are now come out against Christ; that ye may be One kept for Christ only: I know your La: thinketh upon this, and how ye may be humbled for yourself & this backsliding land; for javouch, that wrath from the Lord is gone out against Scotland. I think ay the longer the better of my Royal and worthy master, he is become a new well-beloved to me now, in renewed consolations, by the presence of the spirit of grace and glory: Christ's garments smell of the powder of the merchant when he cometh out of his Ivory chambers; O his perfumed face, his fair face, his lovely & kindly kisses, have made me a poor prisoner see, there i● more to be had of Christ in this life, than I believed: we think all is but a little earnest, a four hours, a small tasting we have, or is to be had in this life, (which is true compared with the inheritance) but yet I know it is more, It is the Kingdom of God within us. Woe, woe, is me, that I have not ten loves, for that one Lord Jesus, and that love faileth, & drieth up in loving him; & that I find no way to spend my love-desires, and the yolk of my heart upon that fairest, & dearest one: I am far behind with my narrow heart. O how ebb a soul have I to take in Christ's love! for let worlds be multiplied according to Angel's understanding, in millions, while they weary themselves; these worlds would not contain, the thousand part of his love. O if I could yoke in amongst the thick of Angels, & Seraphims, & now-glorified Saints; & could raise a new lovesong of Christ, before all the world! I am pained with wondering at new opened treasures in Christ, if every finger, member, bone, and joint, were a torch burning in the hottest fire in hell, I would they could all send out love-praises, high songs of praise for evermore, to that plant of renown, to that royal & high Prince Jesus my Lord: but alace his love swelleth in me, & findeth no vent: alace what can a dumb prisoner do or say for him. O for an engine to write a book of Christ and his love, nay I am left of him bound, & chained with his love, I cannot find a loosed soul to lift up his praises, and give them out to others; but oh my day light hath thick clouds, I cannot shine in his praises, I am often like a ship plying about to seek the wind, I sail at great leisure, and cannot be blown upon that louliest Lord. O if I could turn my sails to Christ's right art, & that I had my hearts wishes of his love! But, I but mar his praises, nay I know no comparison of what Christ is, and what his worth is, all the Angels, & all the glorified, praise him not so much as in halves, who can advance him or utter all his praises? I want nothing, unknown faces favour me, enemies must speak good of the truth, my master's cause purchaseth commendation. The hopes of my enlargement from appearances are cold, my faith hath no bed to sleep upon, but omnipotency. The goodwill of the Lord, & his sweetest presence be with you and that child. Grace & peace be yours.  
Aberden, 1637. Your Lae in all duty in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the right honourable & Christian Lady the VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE. (9)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your La: I would not omit to write a line with this christian bearer, one in your La: own case, driven near to Christ, in, and by, her affliction. I wish that my friends in Galloway forget me not, however it be Christ is so good, that I will have no other tutor, suppose I could have wail & choice of ten thousand beside: I think now five hundred heavy hearts for him too little. I wish Christ now weeping, suffering, & contemned of men, were more dear & desirable to many souls than he is: I am sure if the saints wanted Christ's cross, so profitable & so sweet, they might for the gain and glory of it, wish it were lawful, either to buy or borrow his cross; but it i● a mercy that the saints have it laid to their hand for nothing, for I know no sweeter way to heaven, then through free grace, & hard trials together, & one of these cannot well want another. O that time would Post faster, & hasten our long-looked for communion, with that fairest, fairest among the sons of men! O that the day would favour us, & come, and put Christ & us in others arms? I am sure a few years will do our turn, & the soldier's hourglass will soon run out. Madam look to your lamp, and look for your Lords coming, & let your heart dwell aloof from that sweet child; Christ's jealousy will not admit two equal loves in your La: heart, he must have one, & that the greatest; a little one to a creature may, & must suffice a soul married to him, your maker is your husband, Isa. 54. I would wish you well, & my obligation these many years by gone speak no less to me, but more I can neither wish, nor pray, nor desire for to your La: then Christ singled & wailed out, from all created good things: or Christ howbeit wet in his own blood, and wearing a crown of thorns. I am sure the saints at their best, are but strangers to the weight, & worth of the incomparable sweetness of Christ: He is so new, so fresh in excellency, every day of new, to these that search more and more in him, as if heaven could furnish as many new Christ's (If I may speak so) as there are days betwixt him & us, & yet he is one and the same. Oh we love an unknown lover, when we love Christ! Let me hear how the child is every way, the Prayers of a prisoner of Christ be upon him, grace for evermore even while glory perfect it, be with your La:  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the noble & Christian lady the VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE. (10)  
MADAM.  
NOtwithstanding the great haste of the bearer I would bless your La: in paper: desiring, that since Christ hath ever envied, that the world should have your love by him, that ye give yourself out for Christ, and that ye may be for no other. I know none worthy of you but Christ, Madam I am either suffering for Christ, and this is either the sure and good way, or I have done with heaven and will never see God's face (which I bless him cannot be.) I write my blessing to that sweet child that ye have borrowed from God, he is no heritage to you but a loan, love him as folks do borrowed things: my heart is heavy for you. They say the Kirk of Christ hath neither son, nor heir, and therefore her enemies shall possess her: but I know she is not that ill friended, her husband is her heir, and she his heritage. If my Lord would be pleased I would desire some were dealt with, for my return to Anwoth, but if that never be, I thank God Anwoth is not heaven, preaching is nor Christ, I hope to wait on. Let me hear how the child is, and your La: mind & hopes of him, for it would ease my heart to know that he is well. I am in good terms with Christ, but oh my guiltiness, yet he bringeth not pleas betwixt him and me to the streets, and before the sun. Grace, grace, for evermore be with your La:  
Aberd. 1637. Your La: at all obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To the right honourable & Christian Lady, my Lady VICOUNTESSE of KENMURE (11)  
MADAM.  
GRace mercy & peace to you: I am refreshed with your Letter: the right hand of him to whom belong the issues from death, hath been gracious to that sweet child, I dow not, I do not forget him, & your La: in my prayers. Madam for your own case, I love careful, and withal doing-complaints of want of practice, because I observe many who think it holiness enough, to complain and set themselves at nothing; as if to say I am sick, would cure them: they think complaints a good charm for guiltiness. I hope ye are wrestling & struggling on, in this dead age, wherein folks have lost tongue, and legs and arms for Christ. I urge upon you Madam, a nearer communion with Christ and a growing communion: There are curtains to be drawn by, in Christ, that we never saw; and new foldings of love in him: I despair that ever I shall win to the far end of that love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labour, and take pains for him; and set by so much time in the day for him; as you can: he will be win with labour. ay, his exiled prisoner sought him, and he hath rued upon me, and hath made a moan for me, as he doth for his own, Jer. 31: 20. Isa 45: 11. and I know not what to do with Christ, his love surroundeth, and surchargeth me. and burdened with it, but O how sweet & lovely is that burden, I dow not keep it within me: I am so in love with his love, that if his love were not in heaven, I would be unwilling to go there. O what weighing & what telling is in Christ's love! I fear nothing now so much, as the laughing of Christ's cross, & the love-showers that accompany it: I wonder what he meaneth to put such a slave at the board-head, at his own elbow. Oh that I should lay my black mouth to such a fair, fair, fair face as Chri●…s: but I dare not refuse to be loved, the cause is not in me why he hath looked upon me, & loved me, for he got neither bud nor hire of me, it co●t me nothing, it is good cheap love. O the many pound-weights of his love under which I am sweetly pressed! Now Madam, I persuade you, the greatest part but play with Christianity, they put it by hand easily: I thought it had been an easy thing to be a Christian, and that to see● God, had been at the next door, but oh the windings, the turnings, the up's, & the down's, that he hath led me through, and I see yet much way to the ford, he speaketh with my reins in the night season and in the morning, when I awake I find his love-arrowes that he shot at me, sticking in my heart: who will help me to praise? who will come lift with me, & set on high his great love? and yet I find that a fire-flaught of challanges will come in at midsummer, and question me, but it is only to keep a ●inner in order. As for Friends I shall not think the world, to be the world, if that well go not dry, I trust in God, to use the world as a Canny or Cunning-master do●th a knave-servant (at lest God give me grace to do so) he giveth him no handling or credit, only he intrusteth him with common errands, wherein he cannot play the knave: I pray God I may not give this world credit of my joys, and comforts, and confidence, that were to put Christ out of his office: nay I counsel you Madam, from a little experience, let Christ ke●p the great seal, & intrust him so, as to hang your vessels great and small, and pin your burdens upon the nail fastened in David's house, Isai. 22: 23. L●t me not b● well, if ever they get th● tutouring of my comforts: away, away with irresponsall Tutors, that would play me a slip, & then Christ would laugh at me, & say well-wared, try again ere ye trust. Now woe is me for my whorish mother the Kirk of Scotland; Oh who will bewail her: Now the presence of the great Angel of the covenant to be with you & that sweet child.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the right honourable & Christian Lady, my Lady KENMURE. (12)  
MADAM.  
UPon the offered opportunity of this worthy bearer I could not omit to answer the heads of your letter. 1. I think not much to set down in paper some good things anent Christ, that sealed and holy thing, & to feed my soul with raw wishes to be one with Christ; for a wish is but broken & half-love, but verily to obey this, come & see: is a harder matter. but oh I have rather smoak than fire, & guessings rather than real assurances of him: I have little or nothing to say, that I am as one who hath found favour in his eyes; but there is some pining & mismannered hunger, that maketh me miscall and nickname Christ as a changed Lord, but alace it is ill flitten. I can not bel●eve without a pledge, I cannot take God's word without a Caution; as if Christ had lost and sold his credit, and were not in my books responsal and law-biding, but this is my way, for his way is, Ephes. 1: 13. after that ye believed ye were sealed, with the holy spirit of promise. 2. Ye write that I am filled with knowledge, and stand not in need of these warnings, but certainly my light is dim, when it cometh to handy-grips: and how many have full coffers & yet empty bellies: light and the saving use of light, are far different. O What need have I to have the ashes blown away from my Dying-out fire! I may be a bookman, and be an Idiot & stark fool in Christ's way, learning will not beguile Christ, the Bible beguiled the Pharasees, & so may I be misted: Therefore as night watches hold one another waking, by speaking to one another, so have we need to hold one another on foot; sleep stealeth away the light of watching, even the light that reproveth sleeping. I doubt not but moe should fetch heaven, if they believed not heaven to be at the next door: the world's negative holiness, no adulterer, no murderer, no thief, no Cousiner, maketh men believe they are already glorified saints: but the, 6. Chap. to the, Heb: may affright us all, when we hear that men may take of the gifts, and common graces of the holy spirit, and a taste of the powers of the life to come, to hell with them: here is reprobate silver which yet seemeth to have the King's Image, and superscription upon it. 3. I find you complaining of yourself, & it becometh a sinner so to do, I am not against you in that, sense of death, is a sib friend, & and of kin and blood to life, the more sense, the more life, the more sense of sin, the less sin. I would love my pain, & sorness, & my wounds, howbeit these should bereave me of my night's sleep, better than my wounds without pain. O how sweet a thing is it, to give Christ his handful of broken arms, & legs, & disjointed bones. 4. Be not afraid for little grace, Christ soweth his livingseed, & he will not lose his seed: if he have the guiding of my stock, and state, it shall not miscarry. Our spilt works, losses, deadness, coldness, wretchedness; are the ground which the good husbandman laboureth. 5. Ye write that his compassions fail not, notwithstanding that your service to Christ miscarrieth: To the which I answer: God forbid that there were buying, and selling, and blocking for as good again, betwixt Christ and us; for then free grace might go play it, and a Saviour sing dumb, and Christ go and sleep: but we go to heaven with light shoulders, and all the bairn-time, and the vessels great and small that we have, are fastened upon the sure nail, Isa 23: 24. the only danger is, that we give grace more a do then God giveth it, that is, by turning his grace into wantonness. 6. Ye write few see your guiltiness, and ye cannot be free with many, as with me: I Answer: blessed be God, Christ & we are not heard before men's courts, it is at home betwixt him and us, that pleas are taken away: Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the right honourable & Christian Lady, my Lady KENMURE. (13)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to your La: God be thanked ye are yet in possession of Christ & that sweet child: I pray God the former may be sure heritage, & the latter a loan for your comfort; while he do good to his poor afflicted, withered mount Zion: & who knoweth but our Lord hath comforts laid up in store for her & you. I am persuaded Christ hath bought you by, the devil, & hell, & sin, that they have no claim to you; & that is a rich & unvaluable mercy. Long since, ye were half challenging deaths cold kindness, in being so slow and swier to come and lose a tired prisoner: but ye stand in need of all the erosses, losses, changes, & sad hearts that befell you since that time: Christ knoweth the body of sin unsubdued; will take them all & more: we know that Paul had need of the devil's service, to buffet him, & far more we. But my dear & honourable Lady, spend your sand-glasse well: I am sure ye have law to raise 2 suspension against all, that devils, men, friends, world, losses, hell, or sin can decree against you: it's good your crosses will but convey you to heaven's gates: In●an ●an they not go, the gate shall be closed on them, when ye shall be admitted to the throne. Time standeth not still, eternity is hard at our door. O what is laid up for you! Therefore harden your face against the wind, & the Lamb your husband is making ready for you, the bridegroom would fain have that day, as gladly as your Honour would wish to have it, he hath not forgotten you. I have heard a rumour of the Prelates purpose to banish me, but let it come if God so will, the other side of the sea is my father's ground aswell as this side: I owe bowing to God but no servile bowing to crosses, I have been but too soft in that: I am comforted that I am persuaded fully that Christ is halfer with me in this wellborn and honest cross, & if he claim right to the best half of my troubles, (as I know he doth to the whole;) I shall remit it over to Christ, what I shall do in this case: I know certainly my Lord Jesus will not mar nor spill my sufferings, he hath use for them in his house. O what it worketh on me, to remember that a stranger who cometh not in by the door, shall build hay & stubble upon the golden foundation I la●d amongst that people in Anwoth: but I know providence looketh not asquint but looketh strait out, & thorough all men's darkness: O that I could wait upon the Lord: I had but one eye, one joy, one delight, even to preach Christ, & my mother's sons were angry at me, & have put out the poor man's one eye, and what have I behind? I am sure this sour world hath lost my heart deservedly, but oh that there were a d●●es-man to lay his hand upon us both, & determine upon my part of it. Alace that innocent and lovely truth should be sold, my tears are but little worth, but yet for this thing I weep, I weep: alace that my fair & lovely Lord Jesus should be miskent in his own house, it reckoneth little of five hundred the like of me: Yet the water goeth not over faith's breath, yet our King liveth: I write the prisoners blessing, the good will, & long lasting Kindness, with the comforts of the very God of peace be to your La: & to your sweet child, grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sep. 7. 1637 Your honours at all obedience in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the much honoured JOHN GORDON, Of Cardoness elder. (14)  
MUch honoured and dearest in my Lord, Grace, mercy & peace be to you, my soul longeth exceedingly to hear how matters go betwixt you and Christ; and whether or not there be any work of Christ in that parish, that will bide the trial of fire & water: let me be weighed of my Lord in a just balance, if your souls lie not weighty upon me: you go to bed & you rise with me, thoughts of your soul (my dearest in our Lord) depart not from me in my sleep; ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, supplications, & prayers: O if I could buy your souls salvation with any suffering whatsoever, & that ye & I might meet with joy up in the Rainbow, when we shall stand before our judge! O my Lord forbid I have any hard thing to depon against you in that day! O that he who quickeneth the dead, would give life to my sowing among you! what joy is there (next to Christ) that standeth on this side of death, would comfort me more, then that the souls of that poor people were in ●afety, & beyond all hazard of losing? Sir, show the people this, for when I write to you I think I write to you all old and young. fulfil my joy and seek the Lord: Sure I am, once I discovered my, lovely, royal, princely Lord Jesus to you all. Woe, woe woe shall be your part of it for evermore, if the Gospel be not the savour of life unto life to you: as many sermons as I preached, as many sentences as I uttered, as many points of dittay shall they be, when the Lord shall plead with the world, for the evil of their doings Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won, the righteous will scarcely be saved: O what violence of thronging, will heaven take! alace I see many deceiving themselves, for we will all to heaven, now every foul dog with his foul feet will in at the nearest, to the new & clean Jerusalem: all say they have faith, & the greatest part in the world know not and will not consider, that a slip in the matter of their salvation, is the most pitiful slip that can be; & that no loss is comparable to this loss. O then see that there be not a loose pin in the work of your salvation! for ye will not believe how quickly the judge will come? & for yourself, I know that death is waiting & hover, & linger at God's command, that ye may be prepared. Then ye had need to stir you time & to take eternity, & death, to your riper advisment; a wrong step o● a wrong stot in going out of this life, in one property, is like the sin against the holy Ghost, & can never be forgiven, because ye cannot come back again thorough the last water, to mourn for it. I know your counts are many, and will take telling, and laying, & reckoning betwixt you and your Lord; fit your counts, and order them; lose not the last play, what ever ye do; for in that play with death, your precious soul is the prize: for the Lord's sake spill not the play, & lose not such a treasure. Ye know out of love I had to your soul, and out of desire I had to make an honest count for you, I testified my displeasure and disliking of your ways very often, both in private & public: I am not now a witness of your doings, but your judge is always your witness. I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the salvation of your soul, by your comforts when your eye strings shall break, & the face wax pale, & the soul shall tremble to be out of the lodging of clay; and by your compearance before your awful Judge, after the sight of this letter take a new course with your ways, and now in the end of your day, make sure of heaven: examine yourself if ye be in good earnest in Christ, for some, Heb. 6. 4. are partakers of the holy Ghost, & taste of the good word of God, & of the powers of the life to come: & yet have no part in Christ at all. Many think they believe, but never tremble: the devils are further on, than these, Jam. 2: 19 Make sure to yourself that ye are above ordinary professors; the sixth part of your span-length and hand-breadth of days, is scarcely before you: Haste, haste, for the tide will not bide: Put Christ upon all your accounts, & your secrets: Better it is that ye give him your counts in this life, out of your own hand, then that after this life, he take them from you. I never knew so well what sin was, as since I came to Aberden; howbeit I was preaching of it to you. To feel the smoke of hel's fire, in the throat, for half an hour, to stand beside a river of fire & brimstone, broader than the earth, and to think to be bound hand & foot, & casten in the midst of it, quick, & then to have God locking the prison door, never to be opened for all eternity: O how will it shake a conscience, that hath any life in it! I find the fruits of my pains to have Christ and that people once fairly met, now meeteth my soul in my sad hours, & I rejoice that I gave fair warning of all the corruptions, now entering in Christ's house, and now many a sweet, sweet, soft kiss, many perfumed well smelled kisses, & embracements, have I received of my royal Master: He & I have had much love together. I have for the present a sick, dwining life, with much pain, & much love-sickness for Christ: O what I would give to have a bed made to my wearied soul, in his bosom! I would frist heaven for many years, to have my fill of Jesus in this life, & to have occasion to offer Christ to my people: & to woo many people to Christ. I cannot tell you what sweet pain, and delight some torments are in Christ's love? I often challenge time, that holdeth us sundry. I profess to you I have no rest, I have no ease while I be over head & ears in lov's-ocean. if Christ's love, (that fountain of delight) were laid as open to me as I would wish; O how would I drink, and drink abundantly! O how drunken would this my soul be! I half call his absence cruel, and the mask & veil on Christ's face, a cruel covering, that hideth such a fair, fair face, from a sick soul. I dare not challenge himself, but his absence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart. O when will we meet! O how long is it to the dawning of the marriage-day! O sweet Lord Jesus take wide steps! O my Lord come over mountains at one stride! O my beloved flee like a roe, or young hart, upon the mountains of separation! O if he would fold the heavens together like an old cloak, & shoal time and days out of the way, & make ready in haste the lambs wife for her husband! Since he looked upon me, my heart is not mine own, he hath run away to heaven with it: I know it was not for nothing, that I spoke so meekle good of Christ to you in public. O if the heaven & the heaven of heavens were paper, and the sea ink, & the multitude of mountains pens of brass, & I were able to write that paper, within, and without, full of the praises of my fairest, my dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, and my most marrowlesse and marvellous well-beloved! woe is me I cannot set him out to men & Angels. O there are few tongues to sing lovesongs of his incomparable excellency! what can I poor prisoner do to exalt him? or what course can I take to extol my lofty, & lovely Lord Jesus? I am put to my wit's end, how to get his name made great. Blessed they who would help me in this, how sweet are Christ's backparts? O what then is in his face! These that see his face, how dough they get their eyeplucked off him again! Lookup to him and love him, O love and live. It were life to me ifye would read this letter to that people, & if they did profit by it. O if I could cause them die of love for Jesus! I charge them by the salvation of their souls, to hang about Christ's neck, & take their fill of his love, & follow him as I taught them: part by no means with Christ; hold fast what ye have received; Keep the truth once delivered, If ye or that people quite it in an hair, or in an hoof; ye break your conscience in twain: and who then can mend it, and cast, a knot on it? my dearest in the Lord stand fast in Christ: Keep the faith; contend for Christ; wrestle for him, & take men's feud for God's favour, there is no comparison betwixt these. O that my Lord would fulfil my joy, and keep the young bride to Christ: that is at Anwoth, And now whoever they be, that have returned to the old vomit since my departure; I bind upon their back, in my master's name & authority; the long-lasting weighty vengeance, and curse of God, in my Lord's name I give them a doom of black, unmixed, pure wrath, which my master shall ratify and make good, when we stand together before him: except they timously repent, and turn to the Lord. And I write to thee, poor mourning, and broken hearted believer, be who thou will, of the free salvation: Christ's sweet balm for thy wounds, O poor humble believer: Christ's kisses for thy watery checks; Christ's blood of atonement for thy guilty soul, Christ's heaven for thy poor soul, though once banished out of paradise: & my master shall make good my word ere long. O that people were wise! O that people were wise! O that people would spier out Christ, & never, est while they find him! O how shall my soul mourn in secret, if my nine year's pained head, & sore breast, and pained back, and grieved heart, and private, & public prayers to God, shall all be for nothing among that people. Did my Lord Jesus send me but to summoned you before your judge, & to leave your summons at your houses? was I sent as a witness onnly to gather your dittay's. O my God forbid: often did I tell you of a fan of God's word to come among you, for the contempt of it. I told you often of wrath, wrath from the Lord, to come upon Scotland, and yet I bide by my Master's word; it is quickly coming, desolation for Scotland, because of the quarrel of a broken covenant. Now worthy Sir, now my dear people, my joy, and my crown in the Lord, let him be your fear, seek the Lord, and his face, save your souls: doves flee to Christ's windows: pray for me, & praise for me. The blessing of my God, the prayers and blessing of a poor prisoner and your lawful pastor be upon you.  
Abrd. june. 16. 1367. Your Lawful & Loving Pastor, S. R.   

To the right honourable & Christian Lady, my Lady BOYD. (15)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ: I cannot but thank your La: for your Letter that hath refreshed my soul. I think myself many ways obliged to your La: for your love to my afflicted brother, now embarked with me, in that same cause: his Lord hath been pleased to put him upon truth's side: I hope your La: will befriend him with your counsel, and countenance in that country, where he is a stranger: & your La: needeeth not fear but your kindness to his own, shall be put up in Christ's accounts. Now Madam for your La: case, I rejoice exceedingly that the Father of lights, hath made you see, that there is a ni●● in Christianity, which ye contend to be at; & that is to quit the right eye, & the right hand, & to keep the Son of God: I hope your desire is to make him your garland, & your eye looketh up the mount, which certainly is nothing but the new creature: fear not, Christ will not cast water upon your smoking coal, & than who else dare do it, if he say nay? Be sorry at corruption & not secure, that companion lay with you in your mother's womb, & was as early friends with you, as the breath of life, & Christ will not have it otherwise; for he delighteth to take up fallen bairns & to mend broken brow●: binding up of wounds, is his office: Isai. 61. First, I am glad Christ will get employment of his calling in you, many a whole soul is in heaven, which was sicker than ye are: He is content ye lay broken arms, & legs on his knee, that he may spelk them. 2. Hiding of his face is wise love, his love is not fond, doting, & reasonless, to give your head no other pillow, while ye be in at heaven's gates, but to lie betwixt his breasts, & lean upon his bosom: Nay hisbairns, must often have the frosty cold side of the hill, & set down both their bare feet among thorns: His love hath eyes, & in the mean time is looking on. Our pride must have winter weather to rot it. But I know Christ & ye shall not be heard, ye will whisper it over betwixt yourselves, & agree again, for the Anchor-tow abideth fast within the veil; the end of it is in Chrssts ten fingers, who dare pull if he hold? I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying, fear not, I will help thee: Isa. 41: 13. fear not jacob. The sea-sick passenger shall come to Land, Christ will be the first that will meet you on the shore. I hope your La: will keep the King's highway; go on in the strength of the Lord in haste, as if ye had not leisure to speak to the Innkeepers by the way: he is over beyond time in the other side of the water who thinketh long for you. For my unfaithful self, Madam, I must say a word. At my first coming hither, the devil made many black lies of my Lord Jesus, & said the court was changed, and he was angry & would give an evil servant his leave at mid-terme; but he gave me grace not to take my leave, I resolved to bide summons, and sit, howbeit it was suggested & said, what should be done with a withered tree, but over the d●ke with it? But now, now, (I dare not, I dow not keep it up) who is feasted as his poor exiled prisoner? I think shame of the board-head, & the first mess, & the royal King's dining-hall; and that my black hand should come on such a ruler's table: but I cannot mend it, Christ must have his will; only he paineth my soul so, sometimes with his love, that I have been nigh to pass modesty, & to cry out, he hath lest a smoking burning coal in my heart, & gone to the door himself, and left me & it together; yet it is not desertion, I know not what it is; but I was never so sick for him as now. I durst not challenge my Lord, if I got no more for heaven, it is a dâting cross. I know he hath other thing to do, then to play with me, & tr●●le an apple with me, & that this feast will end. O for instruments in God's name, that this is he! and that I may make use of it, when it will be a near friend within me, & when it will be said by a challengingdevil were is my God? Since I know it will not last, I desire but to keep broken meat: but let no man after me, slander Christ for his cross. The Great Lord of the Covenant, who brought from the dead, the great shepherd of his sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish you, and keep you & yours to his appearance.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr ALEXANDER HENDERSON. (16)  
My reverend & dear Brother.  
I Received your Letters: They are as apples of gold to me, for which my sweet feasts (& they are above the deserving of such a sinner, high & out of measure) I have sadness to ballast me, & weight me a little. It is but his boundless wisdom, who hath taken the tutouring of his witless child, and he knoweth, to be drunken with comforts, is not safest for our stomaches: However it be, the din and noise and glooms of Christ's cross, are weightier than itself. I protest to you (my witness is in heaven) I could wish many pound weights added to my cross, to know that by sufferings, Christ were set forward in his kingly office in this Land. Oh what is my skin to his glory, Or my losses, or my sad heart, to the apple of the eye of our Lord, & his beloved spouse, his precious truth, his royal privileges, the glory of manifested justice in giving of his foes a dash, the testimony of his faithful servants, who do glorify him when he rideth upon poor weak worms, & triumpheth in them! I desire you to pray that I may come out of this furnace with honesty, & that I may leave Christ's truth no worse than I found it, & that this most honourable cause, may neither be stained, nor weakened. As for your case my Reverend and Dearest Brother, ye are the talking of the North and South; & looked to so, as if ye were all crystal glass, your mots and dust should soon be proclaimed, & trumpets blown at your slips: But I know ye have laid help upon one that is mighty. Intrust not your comforts to men's airy & frothy applause, neither lay your downcastings on the tongues of salt mockers, & reproachers of godliness: As deceivers & yet true, as unknown & yet well known. God hath called you to Christ's side, and the wind is now on Christ's face in this land; and seeing ye are with him ye cannot expect the lee-side, or the sunny-side of the braes: But I know ye have resolved to take Christ upon any terms whatsoever: I hope ye do not rue, though your cause be hated, & that prejudices are taken up against it; The shields of the world think our Master cumbersome wares; & that he maketh too great din, & that his cords and yoks make blains & deep scores in their neck, therefore they kick, they say this man shall not reign over us. Let us pray one for another, He who hath made you a chosen arrow in his quiver, hide you in the hollow of his hand: I am.  
Aberd. March. 9 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the right honourable my Lord LOWDON. (17)  
MY very noble & honourable Lord, Grace, mercy and peace be to you, I make bold to write to your Lo: that you may know the honourable cause ye are graced to profess, is Christ's own truth. Ye are many ways blessed of God, who hath taken upon you, to come out to the strects, with Christ on your forehead; when so many are ashamed of him, and hide him (as it were) under their cloak, as if he were a stolen Christ. If this faithless generation, (and especially the Nobles of this Kingdom,) thought not Christ dear wares, and Religion expensive, hazardous, and dangerous, they would not slip from his cause as they do and stand looking on, with their hands folded behind their back; when lowns are running away with the spoil of Zion on their back, and the boards of the Son of God's tabernacle. Law and Justice are to be had to any, especially for money, & moyen; but Christ can get no law, good cheap nor dear. It were the glory and honour of you who are the Nobles of this land, to plead for your wronged bridegroom, and his oppressed Spouse, as far as zeal & standing law will go with you. Your ordinary logic from the event (that it will do no good) to the cause (and therefore silence, is best, till the Lord put to his own hand) it is not (with reverence of your Lo: Learning) worth a straw: Events are Gods, let us do, and not plead against God's Office, let him sit at his own helm who moderateth all events. It is not a good course to complain that we cannot get a providence of gold, when our laziness, cold zeal, temporising, and faithless fearfulness spilleth good providence. Your Lo: will pardon me, I am not of that mind, that tumults or arms is the way to put Christ on his throne, or that Christ will be served & truth vindicated only with the arm of flesh and blood: nay, Christ doth his turn with less din then with garments rolled in blood. But I would, the zeal of God were in the Nobles, to do their part for Christ: and I must be pardoned to write to your Lo: this: ay dow not, I dare not but speak to others, what God hath done to the soul of his poor, afflicted, exiled prisoner: his comfort is more than I ever knew before, he hath sealed the honourable cause I now suffer for, & I shall not believe that Christ will put his Amen & ring upon an imagination: he hath made all his promises good to me, and hath filled up all the blanks with his own hand: I would not exchange my bonds with the plastered joy of this whole world. It hath pleased him to make a sinner the like of me, an ordinary banquetter in his house of wine, with that royal Princely one Christ Jesus. O what weighing! O what telling is in his love! how sweet must he be, when that black and Burdensome tree, his own cross, is so perfumed with joy and gladness! O for help to lift him up by praises, on his royal throne! I seek no more but that his name may be spread abroad in me, that meekle good may be spoken of Christ on my behalf: this being done, my losses, place, stipend, credit, case, and Liberty, shall all be made up to my full contentment, and joy of heart. I will be confident your Lo: Will go on in the strength of the Lord and keep Christ & avouch him, that he may read your name publicly before men & Angels. I will entreat your Lo: to exhort & encourage that Nobleman your Chief to do the same: but I am woe, many of you find a new wisdom, which deserveth nor such a name; it were better that men should see, that their wisdom be holy & their holiness wise: I must be bold to desire your Lo: To add to your former favours to me (for the which your Lo: hath a prisoner's blessing & prayers) this, that ye would be pleased to befriend my brother, now suffering for the same cause. For he is to dwell nigh your Lo: Bounds; your Lo: word & countenance may help him. Thus recommending your Lo: to the saving grace & tender mercy of Christ Jesus our Lord. I rest.  
Aberd. March. 9 1637. Your Lo: obliged Servant in Christ, S. R.   

To Mr. WILLIAM DALGLISH, Minister of the Gospel. (18)  
Reverend & Dear Brother,  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am well, my Lord Jesus is Kinder to me then ever he was, it pleaseth him to dine & sup with his afflicted prisoner, a King feasteth me, and his spikenard casteth a sweet smell. Put Christ's love to the trial and put upon it burdens, & then it will appear love indeed: we employ not his love, & therefore we know it not. I verily count more of the sufferings of my Lord, then of this worlds lustred & overguilded glory: I dare not say but my Lord Jesus hath fully recompensed my sadness, with his joys: my losses, with his own presence: I find it a sweet & rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with himself. Brother this is his own truth I now suffer for, he hath sealed my sufferings with his own comforts; & I know he will not put his seal upon blank paper; his seals are not dumb, nor delusive, to confirm imaginations & lies. Go on my dear Brother in the strength of the Lord, not fearing man that is a worm, or the son of man that will die. Providence hath a thousand keys to open a thousand sundry doors, for the deliverance of his own, when it is even come to a conclamatum est: Let us be faithful and care for our own part, which is to do & suffer for him, & lay Christ's part on himself, & leave it there: duties are ours, events are the Lord's: when our faith goeth to meddle with events & to hold a court (if I may so speak) upon God's providence (and beginneth to say, how wilt Thou do this, & that?) we lose ground: we have nothing to do there, it is our part to, let the Almighty exerce his own office, and stir his own helm: there is nothing left to us but to see how we may be approved of him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls (in welldoing) upon him who is God Omnipotent: and when, what we thus essay, miscarrieth; it shall neither be our sin nor cross. Brother, remember the Lord's word to Peter, Simon, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep: no greater testimony of our love to Christ can be, then to feed painfully and faithfully his lambs. I am in no better neighbourhood with the Ministers here then before; they cannot endure that any speak of me, or to me: thus I am in the mean time silent, (which is my greatest grief.) Dr Barron hath often disputed with me, especially about Arminian-controversies, and for the Ceremonies: three yokings laid him by, and I have not been troubled with him since: now he hath appointed a dispute before witnesses; I trust Christ and truth shall do for themselves. I hope Brother ye will help my people, and write to me what ye hear the Bishop is to do to them: Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Your Brother in bonds. S. R.   

To Mr HUGH M C KAILL, Minister of the Gospel. (19)  
Reverend & Dear Brother.  
I bless you for your Letter: he is come down as rain upon the mown grass, he hath revived my withered root, and he is as the dew of herbs, I am most secure in this prison, salvation is for walls in it, and what think ye of these walls? he maketh the dry plant to bud as the lily, and to blossom as Lebanon. the great husband man's blessing cometh down upon the plants of righteousness, who may say this (my dear Brother) if I, his poor exiled stranger, & prisoner may not say it? Howbeit all the world should be silent I cannot hold my peace. O how many black counts hath Christ and I rounded over together, in the house of my pilgrimage! and how sat a portion hath he given to a hungry soul? I had rather have Christ's four-hours, then have dinner and Supper both in one from any other; his dealing, and the way of his judgements pass finding out: No preaching, no book; no learning could give me that, which I behoved to come and get in this Town, but what of all this, if I were not misted, confounded, and astonished how to be thankful, and how to get him praised for evermore? And which is more, he hath been pleased to pain me with his love, and my pain groweth through want of real possession. Some have written to me that I am possibly too joyful of the cross, but my joy over-leapeth the cross, it is bounded and terminat upon Christ: I know the sun will over-cloud & eclipse, and I shall again be put to walk in the shadow, but Christ must be welcome to come and go as he thinketh meet; yet he would be more welcome to me I trow, to come then go, & I hope he pitieth and pardoneth me, in casting apples to me, at such a fainting time as this, holy and blessed is his name. It was not my flattering of Christ, that drew a kiss from his mouth, but he would send me as a spy into this wilderness of suffering, to see the land, and to try the ford, and I cannot make a lie of Christ's cross; I can report nothing but good both of him, & it, lest others should faint. I hope when a change cometh, to cast anchor at midnight upon the rock (which he hath taught me to know in this day light) whether I may run, when I must say my lesson without book, & believe in the dark. I am sure it is sin to tarrow of Christ's good meat, & not to eat when he saith, eat O well-beloved &, drink abundantly. If he bear me on his back, or carry me in his arms over this water, I hope for grace to set down both my feet on dry ground, when the way is better: but this is slippery ground, my Lord thought good I should go by an hold, & lean on my well-beloved's shoulder: it's good to be ever taking from him. I desire he may get the fruit of praises for dâting, and thus dandling me upon his knee, & I may give my bond of thankfulness; sobeing I have Christ's back-bond again for my relief, that I shall be strengthened by his powerful grace, to pay my vows to him. But truly I find we have the advantage of the braes upon our enemies, we are more than conquerors through him who hath loved us, & they know not wherein our strength lieth. Pray for me, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Your Brother in Christ, S. R.   

To my Lady Boyd. (20)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: the Lord hath brought me to Aberd: where I see God in few. This town hath been advised upon of purpose for me: It consisteth either of Papists, or men of Gallio's naughty faith, it is counted wisdom in the most, not to countenance a confined Minister, but I find Christ neither strange nor unkind; for I have found many faces smile upon me since I came hither. I am heavy and sad, considering what is betwixt the Lord & my soul, which none seeth but he. I find men have mistaken me, it would be no art (as I now see) to spin small, and make hypocrisy, seem a goodly web, and to go through the mercat as a saint among men, & yet steal quietly to hell, without observation: So easy is it to deceive men. I have disputed whether or no I ever knew any thing of Christianity, save the letters of that name: Men see but as men, and they call ten twenty, and twenty, an hundred, but O to be approved of God in the heart, & in sincerity, is not an ordinary mercy: my neglects while I had a pulpit, & other things whereof I am ashamed to speak, meet me now, so, as God maketh an honest cross, my daily sorrow, and for fear of scandal and stumbling, I must hide this day of the law's pleading: I know not, if this court kept within my soul, be fenced in Christ's name. If certainty of salvation were to be bought, God knoweth, if I had ten earths, I would not prig with God. like a fool, I believed, under suffering for Christ, that I myself should keep the key of Christ's treasures, and take out comforts, when I listed, and eat, and be fat: But I see now, a sufferer for Christ, will be made to know himself, and will be holden at the door, as well as another poor sinner; and will be fain to eat with the bairns, and to take the by-board, and glad so: my blessing on the cross of Christ, that hath made me see this. Oh if we could take pains for the Kingdom of heaven, but we sit down upon some ordinary marks of God's children; thinking we have as much as will separate us from a Reprobat, and thereupon we taken the play, and cry Holiday: & thus the devil casteth water on our fire, & blunteth our zeal and care: but I see heaven is not at the next door: & I see howbeit my challenges be many; I suffer for Christ, & dare hazard my salvation upon it, for some times my Lord cometh with a fair hour, & O but his love be sweet, delightful, & comfortable! half a kiss is sweet, but our doting love will not be content of a right to Christ, unless we get posfession; like the man who will not be content of rights to bought land, except he get also the ridges, and acers laid upon his back, to carry home with him. However it be, Christ is wise, and we are fools; to be browden and fond of a pawn in the loof of our hand: living on trust by faith, may well content us. Madam I know your La: knoweth this, and that made me bold to write of it, that others might reap some what by my bonds for the truth, for I should desire, and I aim at this, to have my lord well spoken of and honoured, howbeit he should make nothing of me, but a bridge over a water. Thus recommending your La: your son, and children to his grace, who hath honoured you with a name and room among the living in Jerusalem, and wishing Grace to be with your La: I rest.  
Aberd. Your La: in his sweetest Lord jesus S. R.   

To Mr. DAVID DICKSON, (21)  
Reverend & Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy and peace be unto you: I find great men, especially old friends scar to speak for me, but my kingly & Royal Master biddeth me try his moyen to the uttermost, & I shall find a friend at hand: I still depend on him, his court is as before, the prisoner is welcome to him, the black crabbed tree of my Lord's cross hath made Christ and my soul very entire, he is my song in the night: I am often laid in the dust with challenges and apprehensions of his anger, and then if a mountain of iron were laid upon me, I cannot be heavier: and with much wrestling I win in to the King's house of wine, and for the most part my life is joy, and such joy through his comforts, as I have been afraid to shame myself, and to cry out, for I can scarce bear what I get: Christ giveth me a measure heaped up, pressed down, and running over: and believe it, his love paineth me more than prison and banishment. I cannot get a gate of Christ's love, had I known what he was keeping for me, I would never have been so faint-hearted. In my heaviest times when all is lost, the memory of his love maketh me think Christ's gloomes are but for the fashion: I seek no more but a vent to my wine, I am smothered and ready to burst for want of a vent. Think not much of persecution, it is before you, but it is not as men conceive of it, my suggared-cross forceth me to say this to you, ye shall have wailed meat, the sick bairn is often times the spilt bairn, ye shall command all the house. I hope ye help a tired prisoner to pray and praise, had I but the annual of annual to give to my Lord Jesus, it should ease my pain; but Alace I have nothing to pay, he will get nothing of poor me, but I am woe I have not room enough in my heart for such a stranger. I am not cast down to go further North, I have good cause to work for my Master, for I am well paid before the hand, I am not behind, howbeit I should not get one smile more, till my feet be up within the King's dining-hall. I have gone through yours upon the Covenant, it hath edified my soul and refreshed an hungry man, I judge it sharp, sweet, quick, and profound: take me at my word, I fear it get no lodging in Scotland. The Brethren of Ireland write not to me; chide with them for that, I am sure that I may give you and them a commission (and I will bide by it) that you tell my beloved, I am sick of love. I hope in God to leave some of my rust, and superfluities in Aberd: I cannot get an house in this town wherein to leave drink-silver in my Master's name, save, one only, there is no sale for Christ in the North, he is like to lie long on my hand ere any accept him. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr MATHEW MOWAT. (22)  
REverend and dear brother, I am a very far misstaken man, if others knew how poor my stock were, they would not think upon the like of me, but with compassion; for I am as one kept under a strict Tutor: I would have more than my Tutor alloweth upon me, but it is good that a bairns wit is not the rule which regulateth my Lord Jesus: let him give what he will it shall ay be above merit, & my ability to gain therewith. I would not wish a better stock (while heaven be my stock) then to live upon credit at Christ's hands, daily borrowing: surely running over love, that vast, huge, boundless love of Christ (that there is telling in for man and Angel) is the only thing, I fainest would be in hands with: He knoweth I have little but the love of that love, & that I shall be happy, suppose I never get another heaven, but only an eternal lasting feast of that love: but suppose my wishes were poor, He is not poor; Christ all the seasons of the year is dropping sweetness, if I had vessels I might fill them, but my old riven, holly, and running out dish, even when I am at the well, can bring little away: Nothing but Glory will make tied, and fast, our looking and rifty vessels. Alace I have skailed more of Christ's Grace, love, faith, humility, and godly sorrow, than I have brought with me. How little of the sea can a child carry in his hand, as little dough I take away, of my great sea, my boundless & Runing-over-Christ-Jesus: I have not lighted upon the right gate of putting Christ to the bank, & making myself rich with him: my misguiding and childish trafficking, with that matchless pearl, That heaven's jewel, the jewel of the father's delights, hath put me to a great loss. O that he would take a loan of me, & my stock, and put his name in all my bonds, and serve himself Heir to the poor mean portion I have: & be countable for the talon himself! gladly would I put Christ in my room, to guide all; and let me be but a servant to run errands, & do by his direction, let me be his interdicted heir: Lord Jesus, work upon my minority, & let him win a pupil's blessing. Oh how would I rejoice to have this work of my salvation legally fastened upon Christ! a back-bond of my Lord Jesus that it should be forthcoming to the Orphan, should be my happiness: dependency on Christ, were my surest way: if Christ were my bottom I were sure enough. I thought guiding of grace had been no art, I thought it would come of will; but I would spill my own heaven yet, if I had not burdened Christ with All: I but lend my bare name to the sweet covenant, Christ behind & before, & on either side, maketh all sure: God will not take an Arminian-cautioner Freewill, a weathercock, turning at a serpent's tongue, a Tutor that couped our father Adam unto us, & brought down the house, & sold the Land, & sent the father, & mother, & all the bairns through the earth, to beg their bread: nature in the Gospel hath cracked credit. O well to my poor soul for evermore, that my Lord called grace to the council & put Christ Jesus with free merits, & the blood of God foremost in the chase, to draw sinners after a ransomer. O what a sweet block was it, by way of buying & selling, to give and tell down a ransom for grace, & glory to Dyvours! O would to my Lord, I could cause paper and ink speak the worth and excellency, the high, & loud praises of a Brother-ransomer! O the Ransomer needs not my report, but oh if he would take it, & make use of it: I should be happy if I had an errand to this world but for some few years, to spread proclamations & outcries, & love-letters, of the highness [the highness for evermore] the glory (the glory for evermore) of the Ransomer, whose clothes were wet, & died in blood; howbeit that after I had done that, my soul & body should go back to the mother nothing, that their Creator brought them once out from, as from their beginning. But why should I pine away, and pain myself with wishes, & not believe rather, that Christ will hire such an outcast as I am, a masterlesse-body, put out of the house, by the sons of my mother, & give me employment, and a calling, one way, or other, to out Christ, and his wares, to country buyers, & propose Christ unto, & press him upon some poor souls, that feigner than their life would receive him. You complain heavily, of your short coming in practice, and venturing on suffering for Christ: you have many marrows. For the first, I would not put you off sense of wretcheduesse, hold on, Christ never yet slew a sighhing, groaning child; more of that would make you won goods, and a meet prey for Christ, Alace I have too little of it! For venturing on suffering; I had not somuch free gier, when I came to Christ's camp, as to buy a sword, a wonder that Christ should not laugh, at such a soldier: I am no better yet; but faith liveth & spendeth upon our Captain's charges, who is able to pay for all: we need not pity him, he is rich enough. Ye desire me also not to mistake Christ under a mask, I bless you & thank God for it, but alace masked or bare-faced, kissing or glooming I mistake him! yea I mistake him furthest when the mask is off; for than I play me with his sweetness: I am like a child that hath a golden book, that playeth more with the ribbens, and the guilding, & the picture in the first page; then readeth the contents of it. Certainly, if my desires, to my well-beloved, were fulfilled, I could provoke devils, and crosses, & the world, & tentations to the fields: but oh my poor weakness, makes me, lie behind the bush and hide me, Remember my service and my blessing to my Lord; I am mindful of him as I am able: desire him from a prisoner, to come & visit my good master, & feel but the smell of his love: it sets him well howbeit he be young, to make Christ his garland. I could not wish him in a better case, then in a fever of love-sickness for Christ: Remember my bonds, the Lord jesus be with your spirit.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To WILLIAM HALLIDAY. (23)  
Loving friend.  
I Received your letter: I wish ye take pains for salvation, mistaken grace, & somewhat like conversion, which is not conversion, is the saddest and most doleful thing in the world: make sure of salvation, and Lay the foundation sure, for many are beguiled: Put a low price upon world's clay, put a high price upon Christ, temptations will come, but if they be not made welcome by you ye have the best of it: be jealous over yourself, & your own heart, and keep touches with God: let him not have a faint and feeble soldier of you, fear not to back Christ, for he will conquer and overcome: let no man scar at Christ, for I have no quarrels at his cross. He and his cross are two good guests, and worth the lodging: men would fain have Christ good cheap, but the mercat will not come down: acquaint yourself with prayer, make Christ your captain and your armour, make conscience of sinning when no eye seeth you. grace be with you.  
Aberd. Yours in Ch: jesus. S. R.   

To a Gentle Woman after the Death of her Husband. (24)  
DEar & loving sister, I know ye are minding your sweet country & not taking your Inns [the place of your banishmet] for your home; this life is not worthy to be the thatch or outer wall of your Lord Jesus his paradise, that he did sweat for to you, & that he keepeth for you: Short, & silly, & sand-blind were our hope, if it could not look over the water to our best heritage, and if it stayed only at home about the doors of our clay-house. I marvel not my dear sister, that ye complain that ye come short of your old wrestle you had for a blessing, and that now you find it not so, bairns are but hired to learn their lesson when they first go to school; and it is enough that these who run a race see the gold only at the starting place; and possibly they see little more of it, or nothing at all, till they win to the rink's-end and get the gold in the loof of their hand: Cur Lord maketh delicates and dainties of his sweet presence and love-visits to his own, but Christ's love under a veil is love, if ye get Christ, howbeit not the sweet and pleasant way you would have him, it is enough, for the well-beloved cometh not our way, he must wail his own gate himself. For worldly things, seeing they are meadows and fair flowers in your way to heaven, a smell in the by-going is sufficient: he that would reckon and tell all the stones in his way, in a journey of three or four hundred miles, and write up in his count book all the herbs, and flowers growing in his way, might come short of his journey, you cannot stay in your inch of time to lose your day (seeing you are in haste, and the night and your afternoon will not bide you) in setting your heart on this vain world, it were your wisdom to read your count book & to have in readiness your business against the time you come to death's waterside: I know your lodging is taken, your forerunner Christ, hath not forgotten that, & therefore you must set yourself to your one thing, which ye cannot well want. In that our Lord took your husband to himself, I know it was that he might make room for himself: he cuteth off your love to the creature, that ye might learn that God only is the right owner of your love, sorrow, loss, sadness, death, or the worst things that are, except sin: but Christ knoweth well what to make of them, & can put his own in the crosses common, that we shall be obliged to affliction, & thank God who learned us to make our acquaintance with such a rough companion, who can hale us to Christ: you must learn to make evils your great good, and to spin out comforts, peace, joy, communion with Christ, out of your troubles that are Christ's wooers sent to speak for you to himself. It is easy to get good words, and a comfortable message from our Lord, even from such rough sergeants, as divers temptations: Thanks to God for crosses, when we count and reckon our losses in seeking God, we find godliness is great gain. Great partners of a shipfull of gold, are glad to see the ship come to the harbour: surely we and our Lord Jesus together, have a shipfull of gold coming home, and our gold is in that ship. Some are so in love (or rather in lust) with this life, that they sell their part of the ship, for a little thing; I would counsel you to buy hope, but sell it not, and give not away your crosses for nothing, the inside of Christ's cross is white and joyful, and the far end of the black cross is a fair and glorious heaven of ease: and seeing Christ hath fastened heaven to the far end of the cross, & he will not lose the knot himself, & none else can, (for when Christ casteth a knot all the world cannot lose it) let us then count it exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations. Thus recommending you to the tender mercy, & grace of our Lord I rest.  
Aberd. Your Loving Brother. S. R.   

To JOHN GORDON Of Card nes Younger. (25)  
Honoured & Dear Brother.  
I Wrote of late to you: multitudes of letters burden me now. I am refreshed with your letter: I exhort you in the bowels of Christ, set to work for your soul, & let these bear weight with you, and ponder them seriously. 1. Weeping & gnashing of teeth in utter-darkness, or heaven's joy. 2. Think what ye would give for an hour when ye shall lie like dead, cold, blackened clay. 3. there is sand in your glass yet, & your sun is not gone down. 4. Consider what joy & peace is in Christ's service. 5. Think what advantage it will be to have Angels, the world, life, & death, crosses, yea and devils, all for you, as the King's sergeants, and servants, to do your business. 6. To have mercy on your seed, & a blessing on your house. 7. To have true honour, & a name on earth: that casts a sweet smell. 8. How ye will rejoice when Christ layeth down your head under his chin, & betwixt his breasts, & drieth your face, & welcometh you to glory & happiness? 9 Imagine, what pain, & torture is a guilty conscience? What slavery to carry the Devils unhonest loads? 10. Sins joys are but night-dreames, thoughts, vapours, imaginations and shadows. 11. What dignity it is to be a son of God? 12. Dominion and mastery over tentations, over the world, and sin. 13. That your enemies should be the tail, and you the head. For your bairns now at their rest, I speak to you and your wife (and cause her read this.) 1. I am a witness of Barbara's glory in heaven. 2. For the rest, I write it under my hand, there are days coming on Scotland, when barren wombs & dry breasts, and childless parents, shall be pronounced blessed: they are then in the lee of the harbour, ere the storm come on. 3. They are not lost to you, that are laid up in Christ's treasury in heaven. 4. At the Resurrection ye shall meet with them, there they are sent be●ore, but not sent away. 5. Your Lord loveth you, who is homely to take and give, borrow and lend. 6. Let not bairns be your Idols, for God will be jealous, and take away the Idol, because he is greedy of your love wholly. I bless you, your wife and children. Grace for evermore be with you.  
Aberd. Your Loving Pastor. S. R.   

To JOHN GORDON, Of Cardoness elder. (26)  
HOnourable & dearest in the Lord. Your Letter hath refreshed my soul. My joy is fulfilled, if Christ and ye be fast together: ye are my joy & my crown: ye know I have recommended his love to you. I defy the world, Satan, & sin, His love hath neither brim nor bottom in it. My dearest in Christ, I write my souls desire to you: heaven is not at the next door: I find Christianity an hard task: set to it in your evening: we would all keep both Christ & our right eye, our right hand & foot; but it will not be with us. I beseech you, by the mercies of God; and your compearance before Christ, look Christ's count book and your own together, and collation them: give the remnant of your time to your soul: this great Idol-god, the world, will be lying in white ashes, in the day of your compearance; & why should night-dreames, and day-shaddowes & water-froth, & May-flowers run away with your heart: when we win to the waterside, and black death's river brink, and put our foot in the boat, we shall laugh at our folly, Sir, I recommend you unto the thoughts of death, and how ye would wish your soul to be, when ye shall lie cold, blue, ill-smelling clay. For any hireling to be intruded, I being the King's prisoner can not say much, but as Gods minister I desire you to read, Act. 2, 15, 16. to the end, & Act. 6. 2, 3, 4, 5. & ye shall find God's people, should have a voice in choosing Church-rulers & teachers. I shall be sorry if willingly ye shall give way to his unlawful intrusion upon my labours: The only wise God direct you. God's grace be with you.  
Aberd. Your loving Pastor, S. R.   

To EARLESTOUN YOUNGER. (27)  
Much honoured & well-beloved in the Lord.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing: I must first tell you, there is not such a glassy, Icy, & slippery piece of way, betwixt you and heaven as Youth: I have experience to say with me here, and seal what I assert: the old ashes of the sins of my youth, are new fire of sorrow to me: I have seen the Devil, as it were, dead & buried, & yet rise again & be a worse Devil than ever he was. Therefore, my brother, beware of a green young Devil that hath never been buried: the Devil in his flowers (I mean, the hot fiery lusts & passions of youth) is much to be feared: better yoke with an old gray-haired, withered, dry Devil: For in youth he findeth dry sticks, & dry coals, and an hot hearth-stone, and how soon can he with his flint cast fire, and with his bellows blow it up, and fire the house: sanctified thoughts, thoughts made conscience of, and called in, and kept in awe, are green fuel, that burn not, & are a water for Satan's coal. Yet I must tell you, the whole saints now triumphant in heaven and standing before the throne, are nothing but Christ's forlorn and beggarly Dyvours: What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners? But their redemption is not only past the seals, but completed, and yours is on the wheels, and in doing: All Christ's good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow, and with a crooked leg. Christ hath an advantage of you, and I pray you let him have't, he shall find employment for his calling in you: if it were not with you as you write, grace should find no sale nor mercat in you; but ye must be content to give Christ somewhat ado: I am glad that he is employed that way: let your bleeding soul, and your sores be put in the hand of this expert physician: let young and strong corruptions, and his free grace be yoked together, and let Christ & your sins deal it betwixt them. I will be loath to put you off your fears, and your sense of deadness: (I wish it were more) there be some wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should not be soon stopped: ye must take a house beside the Physician, it shall be a miracle if ye be the first sick man he put away uncured, & worse than he found you: nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that flyting free with sinners (joh. 6. 37. And him that cometh to me, I will in no, case cast out) Take ye that: It cannot be presumption to take that as your own, when ye find your wounds stound you, presumption is ever whole at the heart, and hath but the truant-sickness, and groaneth only for the fashion: faith hath sense of sickness, and looketh like a friend to the promise, and looking to Christ therein, is glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast, as ye can have to hunger: nay Christ, I say, is not a full man's leave; his mercy sends always a letter of defiance to all your sins, if there were ten thousand more of them. I grant you, it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man, to win his meat upon hidden Christ, for then the key of his pantry door, and of the house of wine is a seeking, & cannot be had; but hunger must break thorough ironlocks. I be moan them not who can make a din, & all the fields ado, for a Lost Saviour: ye must let him hear it (to say so) upon both the sides of his head, when he hideth himself: it is no time then to be bird-mouthed and patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a delicate to a sinner; he is a miracle and a world's wonder, to a seeking and a weeping sinner, but yet such a miracle, as will be seen by them, who will come and see: the seeker, and sigher is at last a singer and enjoyer: nay, I have seen a dumb man get an alms from Christ. He that can tell his tale, and send such a letter to heaven, as he hath sent to Aberden, it is very like he will come speed with Christ. It bodeth God's mercy to complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling be with Christ till he say, How is it, Sir, that I cannot be quite of your bills, & your mislearned cries? And then hope for Christ's blessing, and his blessing is better than other ten blessings. Think not shame because of your guiltiness; necessity must not blush to beg; it standeth you hard to want Christ, and therefore that which idle onwaiting cannot do, misnurtured crying and knocking will do. And for doubtings, because ye are not as ye were long since with your master, consider three things. 1. What if Christ had such tottering thoughts of the bargain, of the new covenant, betwixt you & him, as you have. 2. Your heart is not the compass Christ saileth by: He will give you leave to sing as ye please: But he will not dance to your daft spring. It is not referred to you, and your thoughts, what Christ will do with the charters betwixt you and him, your own misbeleef hath torn them, but he hath the principal in heaven, with himself; your thoughts are no parts of the New covenant, dreams change not Christ. 3. Doubtings are your sins; but they are Christ's drugs, & ingredients, that the Physician maketh use of, for the cu●ing of your pride. Is it not suitable for a beggar, to say, at meat, God re●ard the winners? for than he sayeth, he knoweth who beareth the charges of the house. It is also meet ye should know by experience, that faith is not nature's i'll gotten bastard, but your Lords free gift, that lay in the womb of God's free grace, praised be the winner. I may add a 4. In the passing of your bill, & your charters, when they went through the Mediators great seal, and were concluded, faith's advice was not sought: saith hath not a vote beside Christ's merits, blood, blood, dear blood that came from your cautioners holy body, maketh that sure work. The use then which ye have of faith now, (having already closed with Jesus Christ for justification) is, to take out a copy of your pardon; & so ye have peace with God, upon the account of Christ: for since faith apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it, no marvel that Salvation doth not die and live, ebb, or flow, with the working of faith, but because it is your Lords honour to believe his mercy, and his fidelity, it is infinite goodness in our Lord, that misbeleef giveth a dash to our Lord's glory, and not to our Salvation: and so who ever want (yea, howbeit God here bear with the want of what we are obliged to give him, even the glory of his grace, by believing, yet) a poor covenanted sinner wanteth not: but if guiltiness were removed, doubtings would find no friend, nor life; and yet faith is to believe the removal of guiltiness, in Christ. A reason why ye get less now (as ye think) then before (as I take it) is, because at our first conversion, our Lord putteth the meat in young bairns mouths, with his own hand, but when we grow to some further perfection, we must take heaven by violence, and take by violence from Christ, what we get; and he can, and doth hold, because he will have us to draw. Remember now ye must, live upon violent plucking, laziness is a greater fault now, then long since; we love always to have the pape put in our mouth. No for myself; alace, I am not the man I go for in this nation men have not just weights to weigh me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but I am a li●●y●●●less Body, and ove● 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If Christ would refer the matter to 〈◊〉 (in his presence I speak it) I might think shame to vote my own salvation: I think Christ might say, think●● thou not shame to claim heaven, who does so 〈◊〉 for it I am very often so, that I know not whether 〈◊〉 ●●nk o● swine in the water; I find myself a bag of light froth; I would bear no weight, (but vanities & nothing's weigh in Christ's balance) if my Lord cast not in borrowed weight & metal, even Christ's righteousness, to weigh for me: the stock I have is not mine own, I am but the merchand that traffics with other folks goods, if my creditor Christ would take from me what he hath lent, I would not long keep the causey; but Christ hath made it m●●e & his: I think it manhood to play the coward, & jouke in the lee-side of Christ, and thus I am not only saved from my enemies, but I obtain the victory. I am so empty that I think it were an almsdeed in Christ, if he would win a poor prisoners blessing for evermore, and fill me with his love. I complain when Christ cometh, he cometh always to fetch fire, he is ever in haste, he may not tarry; & poor 〈◊〉 [a beggarly Dyvour,] get but a standing visit, & a standing kiss, & but, how dost thou? in the by-going. I dare not say, he is lordly because he is made a King now, at the right hand of God, or is grown miskenning & dry to his poor friends, [for he cannot make more of his kisses then they are worth:] but I think it my happiness to love the love of Christ; & when he goeth away, the memory of his sweet presence is like a feast in a dear summer. I have comfort in this, that my soul desireth that every hour of my imprisonment were a company of heavenly tongues, to praise him on my behalf; howbeit my bonds were prolonged for many hundred years. O that I could be the man, who could procure my Lord's glory to flow like a full sea, & blow like a mighty wind upon all the four Airths of Scotland, England & Ireland! O if I could write a book of his praises! O fairest among the sons of men, why stayest thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, & hasten the marriage-day, for love is tormented with delays! O Angels, O Seraphims who stand before him, O blessed Spirits who now see his face, set him on high, for when ye have worn your harps in his praises, all is too little, & is nothing, to cast the smell of the praise of that fair flower, that fragrant rose of Sharon, through many worlds! Sir, take my hearty commendations to him, & tell him that I am sick of love. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. June 16. 1637. Yours in his sweet L. jesus, S. R.   

To his Honoured & Dear Brother, ALEXAND: GORDON of KNOCKGRAY. (28)  
Dearest & truly honoured Brother,  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have seen no letter from you since I came to Aberdeen; I will no tinterpret it to be forgetfulness. I am here in a fair prison, Christ is my sweet & honourable fellow-prisoner, & I his sad & joyful Lord-prisoner, [if I may speak so.] I think this cross becometh me well, & is suitable to me in respect of my duty to suffer for Christ; howbeit not in regard of my deserving, to be thus honoured. However it be, I see Christ is strong, even lying in the dust, in prison, and in banishment. Losses & disgraces are the wheels of Christ's triumphing chariot. In the sufferings of his own saints, as he intendeth their good, so he intendeth his own glory, & that is the butt his arrows shoot at, & Christ shooteth not at the tovers, he hitteth what he purposeth to hit: Therefore he doth make his own feckless & weak nothing's, & these who are the contempt of men, a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, to thresh the mountains, & beat them small, & to make the hills as chaff, & to fan them. Isa. 51: 15, 16. What harder stuff, or harder grain for threshing out, then high and rocky mountains? But the Saints are Gods threshing instruments to beat them all in chaff: are we not Gods leem vessels, & yet when they cast us over an house, we are not broken in shards: we creep in under our Lords wings in the great shower, & the water cannot go thorough these wings. It is folly then for men to say, this is not Christ's plea, he will lose the wed-fee, men are like to beguile him: that were indeed a strange play. Nay I dare pledge my soul, & lay it in pawn on Christ's side of it, & be half-tiner half-winner with my Master: Let fools laugh the foolslaughter, & scorn Christ, & bid the weeping captives in Babylon, sing us one of the songs of Zion, play a spring to cheer up your sad-hearted God: We may sing upon lucks head before hand, even in our winter-storme, in the expectation of a summer-sun at the turn of the year: no created powers in hell or out of hell, can mar our L. Jesus his music, nor spill our song of joy: let us then be glad & rejoice in the salvation of our Lord; for faith had never yet cause to have wet cheeks, & hingingdown brows, or to droop or die: what can ail faith, seeing Christ suffereth himself, (with reverence to him be it spoken) to be commanded by it; & Christ commandeth all things: faith may dance, because Christ sings, & we may come in the Quite & lift our hoarse & rough voices, & chirp, & sing, & shout for joy with our Lord Jesus. We see oxen go to the shambles leaping & startling; We see Gods fed oxen prepared for the day of slaughter, go dancing & singing down to the black chambers of hell; & why should we go to heaven weeping, as if we were like to fall down thorough the earth for sorrow. If God were dead (if I may speak so, with reverence of him ho liveth for ever & ever) & Christ buried, & rotten among the worms, we might have cause to look like dead folks; but, the Lord liveth & blessed be the rock of our salvation, Psal. 18: 46. None have right to joy but we, for joy is sown for us, & an ill summer or harvest will not spill the crop. The children of this world have much robbed joy that is not well come: It is no good sport they laugh at: They steal joy, as it were, from God; for he commandeth them to mourn & howl: Then let us claim our ●eel-come & lawfully conquished joy. My dear Brother, I cannot but speak what I have felt, seeing my Lord Jesus hath broken a box of spikenard upon the head of his poor prisoner, & it is hard to hide a sweet smell; it is pain to smother Christ's love, it will be out; whether we will or not. If we did but speak according to the matter; a cross for Christ should have another name; yea a cross, especially when he cometh with his arms full of joys, is the happiest hard tree that ever was laid upon my weak shoulders. Christ & his cross together are sweet company & a blessed couple. My prison is my palace my sorrow is with child of joy, my losses are rich losses, my pain easy pain, my heavy days are holy & happy days. I may tell a new tale of Christ to my friend. Oh if I could make a lovesong of him, & could commend Christ & tune his praises aright! O if I could set all tongues in great Britain & Ireland, to work, to help me to sing a new song of my well-beloved! O if I could be a bridge over a water for my Lord Jesus to walk upon & keep his feet dry! O if my poor bit heaven could go betwixt my Lord & blasphemy & dishonour! (upon condition he loved me] O that my heart could say this word & bide by it for ever. Is it not great art & incomparable wisdom in my Lord, who can bring forth such fair apples, out of this crabbed tree of the cross! nay my fathers never enough admired providence, can make a fair feast out of a black Devil: nothing can come wrong to my Lord in his sweet working. I would even fall sound a sleep in Christ's arms, & my sinful head on his holy breast, while he kisseth me; were is not that often the wind turneth to the north, & whiles my sweet Lord Jesus, is, that he will neither give nor take, borrow nor lend with me: I complain he is not social, I half call him proud & lordly of his company, & nice of his looks; which yet is not true. It would content me to give, howbeit he should not take; I should be content to want his kisses at such times, providing he would be content to come near hand & take my wersh, dry & feckless kisses: But at that time he will not be entreated, but lets a poor soul stand still & knock, & never let it on him that he heareth; & then the old leave & broken meat, & dry sighs, are greater cheer than I can tell: all I have then, is, that howbeit the law & wrath have gotten a decret against me, I yet lippen that meekle good in Christ as to get a suspension, & to bring my cause in reasoning again before my well-beloved: I desire but to be heard. And at last he is content to come, & agree the matter with a fool, & forgive freely, because he is God. Oh if men would glorify him & taste of Christ's sweetness. Brother, ye have need to be busy with Christ, for this whorish-Kirk: I fear Christ cast water upon Scotland's coal; nay I know Christ & his wife will be heard, he will plead for the broken covenant. Arm you against that time. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. June. 16, 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady Kilconqhuair. (29.)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am glad to hear that you have your face homeward towards your father's house, now when so many are for a home nearer hand: but your Lord calleth you to another life & glory, then is to be found here-away: & therefore I would counsel you to make sure the charters, & rights, which ye have to Salvation. You came to this life about a necessary & weighty business, to tryst with Christ anent your precious soul, & the eternal salvation of it: this is the most necessary business ye have in this life, & your other adoés beside this, are but toys & feathers, & dreams, & fancies: this is the greatest haste & should be done first. Means are used in the Gospel to draw on a meeting betwixt Christ & you: if ye neglect your part of it, it is, as if you would tear the contract before Christ's eyes, & give up the match, that there shall be no more communing of that business. I know other lovers beside Christ are in suit of you, & your soul wanteth not many wooers, but I pray you make a chaste virgin of your soul, & let it love but one: most worthy is Christ alone of all your souls love, howbeit your love were higher than the heaven & deeper than the lowest of this earth, & broader than this world: many, alas too many, make a common strumpet of their soul, for every lover that cometh to the house. Marriage with Christ would put your love, & your heart by the gate, out of the way, & out of the eyes of all other unlawful suitors; & than you had a ready answer for all others, I am already promised away to Christ, the match is concluded, my soul hath a husband already, & it cannot have two husbands. Oh if the world did but know what a smell the ointments of Christ cast, and how ravishing his beauty, even the beauty of the fairest of the sons of men is, & how sweet & powerful his voice is, the voice of that one well-beloved! Certainly where Christ cometh, he runneth away with the souls love, so that they cannot command it. I would far rather look but thorough the hole of Christ's door, to see but the one half of his fairest, & most comely face [for he looketh like heaven] suppose I should never win in to see his excellency & glory to the full; then to enjoy the flower, the bloom, & chiefest excellency of the glory, & riches, of ten worlds. Lord send me for my part but the meanest share of Christ, that can be given to any of the indwellers of the new Jerusalem; But I know my Lord is no niggard: He can, & it becometh him well to give more, than my narrow soul can receive. If there were ten thousand, thousand millions of worlds, & as many heavens full of men & Angels, Christ would not be pinched to supply all our wants, and to fill us all. Christ is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom? This soul of ours hath love, and cannot but love some fair one: And O what a fair one, what an only one, what an excellent lovely ravishing one is Jesus! Put the beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of Paradises like the garden of Eden in one, put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colours, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all lovelyness is one, O what a fair and excellent thing would that be! & yet it should be less, to that fair & dearest well-beloved Christ then one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, & fourtains of ten thousand earths. O but Christ is heavens wonder & earth's wonder! what marvel that his bride saith, Cant 5: v. 16. He is altogether lovely. Oh that black souls will not come, & fetch all then love to this fair one! O if I could invite & persuade thousands, & ten thousand times ten thousand of Adam's sons; to flock about my Lord Jesus, & to come & take their fill of love! Oh pity, for evermore, that there should be such an one as Christ Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, & so incomparable in infinite excellency, & sweetness, and so few to take him. Oh, oh, ye poor, dry & dead souls, why will ye not come hither with your toom vessels, & your empty souls, to this huge, & fair, & deep, & sweet well of life, & fill all your toom vessels! Oh that Christ should be so large in sweetness, & worth, & we so narrow, so pinched so ebb, & so void of all happiness, and yet men will not take him! They lose their love miserably who will not bestow it upon this lovely one. Alas, these five thousand years, Adam's fools, his waster-heirs, have been wasting & lavishing out their love, and their affections upon black lovers, and black harlots: upon bits of dead creatures, and broken idols, upon this, & that feckless creature, & have not brought their love, and their heart to Jesus. O pity, that fairness hath so few lovers! O woe, woe to the fools of this world; who run by Christ to other lovers! Oh misery, misery, misery, that comeliness can scarce get three, or four hearts in a town, or a country! Oh that there is so much spoken & so much written and so much thought of creature-vanity, and so little spoken, so little written, so little thought of my great, and incomprehensible, and never-enough-wondered-at Lord Jesus. Why should I not curse this forlorn, and wretched world, that suffereth my Lord Jesus to lie his alone? O damned souls, O miskenning world, O blind, O beggarly, and poor souls, O bewitched fools, what aileth you at Christ, that you run so from him? I dare not challenge providence, that there are so few buyers, and so little sale for such an excellent one as Christ. O the depth, and O the height of my Lords ways, that pass finding out. But oh if men would once be wise, and not fall so in love with their own hell, as to pass by Christ, and misken him! But let us come near, and fill ourselves with Christ, and let his friends drink, and be drunken, and satisfy our hollow and deep desires, with Jesus. Oh come all and drink at this living well; come drink & live for ever more, come drink & welcome: welcome, saith our fairest Bridegroom, no man getteth Christ with ill will, no man cometh & is not welcome, no man cometh and ruth his voyage: all men speak well of Christ who have been at him; men and Angels who know him, will say more than I dow do, & think more of him then they can say. O if I were misted and bewildered in my Lords love! Oh if I were fettered & chained to it! O sweet pain to be pained for a sight of him! O living death, O good death! O lovely death to die for love of Jesus! Oh that I should have a sore heart & a pained soul for the wanting of the love of this, & that idol! woe, woe to the mistake of my miscarrying heart, that gapeth & cryeth for creatures, & is not pained, & cutted, & tortured, & in sorrow for the want of a souls-fill of Christ. Oh that thou wouldst come near, my Beloved: O my fairest one, why standest thou a far? come hither that I may be satiat with thy excellent love: O for an union, O for a fellowship with Jesus! O that I could buy with a price that lovely one, suppose hell's torments for a while were the price! I cannot believe but Christ will ru● upon his pained lovers, & come & ease sick hearts, who sigh and swoon for the want of Christ: who dow bide Christ's love to be nice? What heaven can there be liker to hell, then to lust, and grein, and dwine, and fall a swoon for Christ's love, and to want it? is not this hell & heaven woven thorough other? Is not this pain and joy, sweetness and sadness to be in one web, the one the woft, the other the warp. Therefore I would Christ would let us meet; and join together, the soul & Christ in others arms. O what meeting is like this, to see blackness and beauty, contemptibleness and glory, highness and baseness, even a soul and Christ kiss one another! Nay but when all is done I may be wearied in speaking and writing, but O how far am I from the right expression of Christ o● his love. I can neither speak, nor write feeling, nor ●alling, nor smeling● come feel, & smell, & taste Christ, & his love 〈…〉 d & ye shall call it more than can be spoken: to write how sweet the honeycomb it is not so lovely as to eat & suck the honey comb: ●nd night's rest in a bed of love with Christ, will say more than he 〈…〉 can think, or tongue can utter. Neither need we fear crosses, or sigh, or be sad for any thing that is on this side of heaven, if we have Christ: our crosses will never draw blood of the joy of the holy Ghost, & peace of conscience; ou● joy i● laid up in such a high place as temptations cannot climb up to take it down: this world may boast Christ; but they dare not strike, or if they strike, they break their arm in fetching a stroke upon a rock. O that we could put our treasure in Christ's hand, & give him our gold to keep, & our crown. St●iv●, Mistress, to throng thorough the thorns of this life to be at Christ: ●in● not sight of him in this cloudy, & dark day: Sleep with him in your heart in the night: Learn not at the world to serve Christ, but spear at himself the way, the world is a false copy & a lying guide to follow. Remember my love to your husband, I wish all to him I have written here. The sweet presence, the long lasting goodwill of our God, the warmly & lovely comforts of our Lord Jesus be with you. Help me his prisoner in your prayers: For I remember you.  
Aberd. Agust. 8. 1637. Yours i● his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Lady Forre● (30)  
Worthy Mistress.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you: I hear Christ hath been that Kind as to visit you with sickness, & to bring you to the door of the grave, but ye found the door shut (blessed be his glorious name) while ye be riper for eternity: He will have more service of you, & therefore he seeketh of you, that hence forth ye be honest to your new husband, the Son of God. We have all Idol-love, & are wh 〈…〉 y inclined to love other things beside our Lord; and therefore our Lord hunteth for our love, more ways than one or two. Oh that Christ had his own of us: I know he will not want you, & that is a sweet wilfulness in his Love; & ye have as good cause o● the other part to be head strong & peremptory in your love to Christ, & not to part or divide your love betwixt Him & the world; if it were more it is little enough, yea too little for Christ. I am now every way in good terms with Christ, he hath set a banished prisoner as a seal on his heart, and as a bracelet on his arm: that crabbed and black tree of the cross, laugheth upon me now: the alarming noise of the cross is worse than itself. I love Christ's glooms, better, than the world's wormeaten joys. Oh if all the Kingdom were as I am, except these bonds: my loss is gain: my sadness, joyful: my bonds, liberty: my tears comfortable. This world is not worth a drink of cold water. O but Christ's love casteth a great heat, 〈◊〉 hell & all the salt sea and the rivers of the earth cannot quench it: I remember you to God, ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ: Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 9 1637. Yours ●n his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Lady Caskiberry. (31)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear how your La: is: I know not how to requite your La: kindness, but your love to the Saints Madam, is Laid up in heaven, I know it is for your well-beloved Christ's sake, that ye make his friends so dear to you, & concern yourself somuch in them. I am in this house of my pilgrimage every way in good case, Christ is most kind and loving to my soul, it pleaseth him to feast with his unseen consolations a stranger, and an exiled prisoner, and I would not exchange my Lord Jesus, with all the comfort out of heaven: his yoke is easy and his burden light. This is his truth I now suffer for, for he hath sealed it ●ith his blessed presence, I know Christ shall yet win the day, and gain the battle in Scotland. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr. JAMES BRUCE. Minister of the Gospel. (32)  
Reverend & well-beloved Brother.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: Upon the nearest acquaintance, that we are father's children, I thought good to write to you. My case in my bonds for the honour of my royal Prince, and King Jesus, i● as good as becometh the witness of such a Sovereign King. At my first coming hither, I was in great heaviness, wrestling with challenges, being burdened in heart, (as I am yet) for my silent Sabbaths, and for a bereft people; young ones newborn plucked from the breasts, & the children's table drawn. I thought I was a dry tree cast over the dike of the vine-yard; but my secret conceptions of Christ's love, at his sweet & long-desired return to my soul, were found to be a lie of Christ's love forged by the tempter, and my own heart, and I am persuaded that it was so: Now there is greater peace and security within then before: the court is raised and dismissed for it was not fenced in God's name: I was far mistaken, who should have summoned Christ for unkindness: misted faith, & my sever conceived amiss of him: now, now, he is pleased to feast a poor prisoner, and to refresh me with joy unspeakable and glorious; so, as the holy Spirit is witness, that my sufferings are for Christ's truth, and God forbid I should deny the testimony of the holy Spirit, and make him a false witness. Now I testify under my hand, out of some small experience, that Ch●ists cause [even with the cross,] is better than the King's crown, & that his reproaches are sweet, his cross perfumed, the walls of my prison fair & large, my losses gain. I desire you, my dear Brother, help me to praise, and remember me in your prayers to God. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in our Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Lady Earlstoun. (33)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I exhort you to go on in your journey: your day is short, & your afternoon-sun will soon go down: make an end of your accounts with your Lord: for Death and Judgement are tides, that bide no man: salvation is supposed to be at the door, and Christianity is thought an easy task; but I find it hard, and the way straight and narrow, were it not but my guide is content to wait on me, and to care for a tired traveller. Hurt not your conscience with any known sin: let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God; if the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summers-loan of them, & keep good neighbourhood, to borrow & lend with him. Set your heart upon heaven, and trouble not your spirit with this clay-Idol of the world, which is but vanity, and hath but the lustre of the Rainbow in the air, which cometh and goeth with a flying March-shower: Clay is the Idol of bastards, not the inheritance of the children. My Lord hath been pleased to make many unknown faces laugh upon me, and hath made me well content of a borrowed fireside, and a borrowed bed: I am feasted with the joys of the holy Ghost, & my royal King beareth my charges honourably. I love the smell of Christ's sweet breath, better than the world's gold. I would I had help to praise him. The great Messenger of the Covenant, the Son of God establish you on your rock, & keep you to the day of his coming.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To CARLETOUN. (34)  
Worthy & much honoured.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter from my Brother, to the which I now answer particularly. I confess two things of myself. 1. Woe, woe is me, that men should think there is any thing in me: He is my witness before whom I am as crystal, that the secret hous●-devils that bear me too oft company, & that this sink of corruption which I find within, maketh me go with low sails: & if other● saw what I see, they would look by me, but not to me. 2. I know this shower of his free grace behoved to be on me, otherways I would have withered. I know also, I have need of a buffeting tempter that grace may be put to exercise & I kept low. Worthy & dear Brother in our Lord Jesus, I write that from my heart which ye now read. 1. I avouch that Christ, & sweeting, & sighing under his cross, is sweeter to me by far, than all the Kingdoms in the world could possibly be. 2. If you & my dearest acquaintance in Christ, reap any fruit by my sufferring; let me be weighed in God's even balance, if my joy be not fulfilled: What am I to carry the marks of such a great King? But howbeit I am a sink & sinful mass, a wretched captive of sin, my Lord Jesus can hew heaven out of worse timber than I am (if worse can be.) 3. I now rejoice with joy unspeakable & glorious, that I never purposed posed to bring Christ no● the least hoof or hairbreadth of truth under 〈◊〉: I desired to have & keep Christ all alone, & that he should never rub clothes with that black-skined harlot of Rome. I am now fully paid home, so that nothing aileth me for the present, but love-sickness for a ●●all possession of my fair ●t well-beloved. I would give him my bond under my faith & hand, to frist heaven an hundred years longer, so being he would lay his holy face to my sometimes wet cheeks. Oh, who would not pity me, to know how fain I would have the King shaking the tree of life upon me, or letting me in to the well of life with my old dish, that I might be drunken with the fountain, here, in the house of my pilgrimage! I cannot, nay I would not, be quite of Christ's love: H● hath left the mark behind him where he gripped: He goeth away & leaveth me & his burning love to wrestle together, & I can scarce win my meat of his love because of absence: My Lord giveth me but hungry half-kisses, which serve to feed pain & increase hunger, but do not satisfy my desires: His dieting of my soul for this race maketh me lean. I have gotten the wail & choice of Christ's crosses, even the ●ithe & the flower of the gold of all crosses, to bear witness to the truth, & herein find I liberty, joy, access, life, comfort, love, ●aith, submission, patience, & resolution to take delight in onwaiting: & with all in my race he hath come near me & let me see the gold & crown: What then want I but fruition & real enjoyment, which is reserved to my country? Let no man think he shall lose at Christ's hands in suffering for him. 4. For these present trials they are most dangerous: for people shall be stolen off their feet with well washen, & white-skined pretences of indifferency; but it is the power of the great Antichrist working in this land. Woe, woe, woe be to Apostate Scotland: there is wrath, & a cup of the red wine of the wrath of God Almighty in the Lord's hand, that they ●hall drink and spew and fall and not rise again. The star called Wormwood & Gall is fallen in the fountains, and rivers, & hath made them bitter: the sword of the Lord is ●ourbished against the Idol-shepherds of the l●nd; women shall bless the barren womb & miscarrying breasts; all hearts shall be faint, and all knees shall tremble, an end is coming, the leopard and the lion shall watch over our cities, houses great & fair shall be desolate without an inhabitant: the Lord hath said, Pray not for this people, for I have taken my p●ace from them; yet the Lord's third part shall come through the fire, as refined gold for the treasure of the Lord, & the outcasts of Scotland shall be gathered together again, & the wilderness shall blossom as the flower, & bud, & grow as the rose o● Sharon, & great shall be the glory of the Lord upon Scotland. 5. 〈◊〉 am here assaulted with the learned & pregnant wits of this Kingdom; but all honour be to my Lord, truth but laugheth at be●isted & blinded Scribes, & disputers of this world, & God's wisdom confoundeth them, & Christ triumpheth in his own strong truth, that speaketh for itself. 6. I doubt not but my Lord is preparing me for heavier trials: I am most ready at the good pleasure of my Lord, in the strength of his grace, for any thing he shall be pleased to call me to: neither shall the last black-faced messenger, Death, be holden at the door, when it shall knock. If my Lord will take honour of the like of me, how glad & joyful shall my soul be: Let Christ come out with me to an hotter battle than this, & I shall fear no flesh: I know that my master will win the day, & that he hath taken the ordering of my sufferings in his own hand. 7. As for my deliverance, that miscarrieth: I am here, by my Lord's grace, to lay my hand on my mouth, to be silent & wait on: my Lord Jesus is on his Journey for my deliverance; I will not grudge that he runneth not so fast as I would have him: Onwaiting till the swelling rivers fall, & till my Lord arise as a mighty man after strong wine, shall be my best: I have not yet resisted to blood. 8. O how often am I laid in the dust, and urged by the tempter (who can ride his own errands upon our lying apprehensions,) to sin against the unchangeable love of my Lord. When I think upon the sparrows, & swallows that build their nests in the Kirk of Anwoth, and of my dumb sabbaths, my sorrowful bl●ired eyes, look asquint upon Christ, and present him as angry. But in this trial, all honour to our princely and ●oyall ●ing, faith ●aileth ●●ir before the wi●d, with top ●aile up, and carrieth the poor passenger through. I ●ay inhibitions upon my thoughts, that they receive no slanders of my only, only Beloved: let him even ●ay out of his own mouth. There is no hope, yet I will die in that sweet beguile, 〈◊〉 is not so: I● all see the Salvation of God. Let me be deceived really, and never win to dry land, it is my joy to believe under the water, & to die with faith in my hand gripping Christ: let my conceptions of Christ's love, go to the grave with me & to hell with me, I may not, I dare not quite them. I hope to keep Christ's pawn: if he never come to lose it, let him see to his own promise. I know, Presumption, howbeit it be made of stoutness, will not thus be wilful in heavy trials. Now, my dearest in Christ, the great messenger of the Covenant, the only wise & alsufficient jehovah establish you to the end. I hear the Lord hath been at your house & hath called home your 〈◊〉 to her rest. I know, Sir, ye see the Lord losing the p●●s of your tabernacle, & wooing your love from this plastered & overguilded world; & calling upon you, to be making yourself ready to go to your father's country, which shall be a sweet fruit of that visitation. Ye know, to send the Comforter was a King, word when he ascended on high: ye have claim to, & interest in that promise. Remember my love in Christ to your father: show him, it is late & black might with him; his long lying at the waterside, is, that he may look his papers e●● he take shipping, & be at a point for his last answer before his judge & Lord. All love, all mercy, all grace, & peace, all multiplied saving consolations, all joy & faith in Christ, all stability & confirming strength of grace, & the goodwill of him that dwelled in the bush be with you.  
Aberd. 15. June. 1637. Your unworthy brother is his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To MARION M C KNAUGHT. (35)  
Worthy & dearest in the Lord.  
I Ever loved, (since I knew you,) that little vineyard of the Lord's planting in Galloway; But now much more since I have heard that he who hath his fire in Zion & his furnace in jerusalem, hath been pleased to set up a furnace amongst you, with the first in this Kingdom: He who maketh old things new, seeing Scotland an old drossy & rusted Kirk, is beginning to make a new clean bride of her & to bring a young chaste wife to himself out of the fire. This fire shall be quenched, so soon as Christ hath brought a clean spouse thorough the fire: Therefore, my dearly beloved in the Lord, fear not a worm: fear no● worm jacob, Christ i● i● that plea & shall win the plea: Charge an unbelieving heart, under the pain of treason against our great & royal King Jesus, to dependence by faith, & quiet onwaiting on our Lord: Get you in to your chambers & shut the doors about you: In, in with speed to your strong hold ye prisoners of hope, ye doves flee in to Christ's windows, till the indignation be over & the storm be passed: Glorify the Lord in your sufferings, & take his banner of love & spread over you; others will follow you if they see you strong in the Lord, their courage shall take life from your Christian carriage: look up & see who is coming, lift up your head, he is coming to save, in garments died in blood, & travelling in the greatness of his strength. I laugh, I smile, I leap for joy, to see Christ coming to save you so quickly: O such wide steps as Christ taketh! Three or four hills are but a step to him; he skippeth over the mountains: Christ hath set a battle betwixt his poor weak saints & his enemies; he waileth the weapons for both parties, & saith to the enemies, Take you a sword of steel, Law, Authority, Parliaments, & Kings upon your side, that is your armour: & he saith to his saints, I give you a feckless tree-sword in your hand, & that is suffering, receiving of strokes, spoiling of your goods, & with your tree-sword ye shall get & gain the Victory. Was not Christ dragged through the ditches of deep dist●esses, & great straits? & yet Christ who is your head hath win through with his life, howbeit not with a whole skin. Ye are Christ's members, 〈◊〉 is drawing his members thorough the thorny hedge up to heaven after him; Chris● one day will not have so much as a pained toe; but there are great 〈◊〉 & portions of Christ's mystical body, not yet within the gates of the great high city, the new Jerusalem & the dragon will strike at Christ so long as there is one 〈◊〉 member of Christ's body out of heaven. I tell you, Christ 〈◊〉 make new work out of old fore-cast●n Scotland, & gather 〈◊〉 old broken boards of his tabernacle, & pin them, & nail them together: our bills, & supplications are up in heaven Christ 〈◊〉 coffers full of them: there is mercy on the other 〈◊〉 of this hi●…, a good answer to all our bills is agreed 〈◊〉: I must tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, King Jesus ●ath done to my soul, sometimes he sendeth me out a standing drink, & whispereth a word thorough the wall; & I am well content of kindness●t the second hand, his bode is ever welcome to ●●e be what it will: but at other times he will be messenger himself, & I get the cup of salvation out of his own hand, (〈◊〉 to me) & we cannot rest till we be in others arms: and O how swèet is a fresh kiss from his holy mouth, his ●…athing that goeth before a kiss upon my poor soul, is sweet, & 〈◊〉 fault● but that it is too short: I am careless, & stand not much on this; howbeit ●oines, & back, & shoulders, & head ●ive in pieces in steping up to my father's house. I know my Lord can make long, & broad, & high, & deep glory to his name, out of this bit feckless body; for Christ looketh not what stuff 〈◊〉 ●…eth glory ou● of. My dearly beloved ye have often fr●hed 〈◊〉, but that is put up in my Master's accounts, ●e have him debtor for me, but if, ye will do any thing for me (〈◊〉 ●●ow ye will) now in my extremity, tell all my dear friends, that a prisoner is fettered, & chained in Christ's love, Lord never lo●… the fetters; & ye & they together take 〈◊〉 heartiest comm●…tions to my Lord Jesus, & thank him for a poor friend: I desire your husband to read this letter, I send him a prisoners blessing, I will be obliged to him if he will be willing to suffer for my dear Master, suffering is the professors golden garment, there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it. ye have been witnesses of much joy betwixt Christ & me at communion-feasts, the remembrance whereof [howbeit I be feasted in secret] holleth my heart, for I am put from the board-head & the kings first mess to his by-board, & his broken meat is sweet unto me: I thank my Lord for borrowed crumbs, no less than when I was feasted at the communion-table in Anwoth & Kirk●udbright: pray that I may get one day of Christ in public, as I have had long since, before my eyes be closed. Oh that my Master would take up house again, & lend me the keys of his wine-cellar again, & God send me borrowed drink till then. Remember my love to Chist's kinsmen with you. I pray for Christ's father's blessing to them all: Grace be with you: a prisoners blessing be with you: I write it, and I bide by it, God shall be glorious in Marion M ᶜ Knaught when this stormy blast shall be over. O woman beloved of God, believe, rejoice, be strong in the Lord, Grace is thy portion.  
Aberd. 15. June. 1637. Your brother in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JOHN GORDON At Risco in Galloway. (36)  
My worthy & dear Brother.  
Misspend not your short sand-glass which runneth very fast: seek your Lord in time: let me obtain of you a letter under your hand for a promise to God, by his grace to take a new course of walking with God: heaven is not at the next door: I find it hard to be a Christian; there is no little thrusting & thronging to thrust in at heaven's gates, it is a castle taken by force, many shall strive to enter in & shall not be able. I beseech & obtest you in the Lord make conscience of rash & passionate oaths, of raging & sudden revenging anger, of night-drinking, of needless companionry, of Sabbath-breaking, of hurting any under you by word or deed, of hating your very enemies. Except ye receive the Kingdom of God as a little child & be as meek & sober-minded as a babe, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God: That is a word which should touch you near, and make you stoop & cast yourself down and make your great spirit fall. I know this will not be easily done, but I recommend it to you, as you tender your part of the Kingdom of heaven. Brother, I may from new experience speak of Christ to you: Oh if ye saw in him what I see: a river of God's unseen joys hath flowed from bank to braes over my soul since I parted with you: I wish I wanted part, so being ye might have, that your soul might be sick of love for Christ, or rather satiat with him: this clay-idol the world, would seem to you then not worth a fig; time will eat you out of possession of it, when the eye strings break & the breath groweth cold & the imprisoned soul looketh out at the windows of the clay house, ready to leap out into eternity, what would ye then give for a lamp full of oil? Oh seek it now. I desire you, to correct & curb banning, swearing, lying, drinking, sabbath-breaking & idle spending of the Lords day, in absence from the Kirk, as far as your Authority reacheth in that Parish. I hear a man is to be thrust in to that place to the which I have God's right: I know ye should have a voice by God's word in that: Act. 1, 15, 16. to the end, and Act. 6, 3, 5. Ye would be loath that any Prelate should put you out of your possession earthly, & this is your right. What I write to you, I write to your wife. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14, 1637. Your loving Pastor. S. R.   

To the Lady HALHILL. (37.)  
DEar & Christian Lady, Grace, mercy & peace be to you: I longed much to write to your La: But now the Lord offering a fit occasion, I would not omit to do it: I cannot but acquaint your Lae: with the Kind dealing of Christ to my soul in this house of my pilgrimage, that your La: May know Christ is as good as he is called: For at my first entry into this trial (being easten down & troubled with challenges & jealousies of his love whose name & testimony I now bear in my bonds,) I feared nothing more, then that I was casten over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree, but blessed be his great name, the dry tree was in the fire & was not burnt, his dew came down & quickened the root of a withered plant, & now he is come again with joy, & hath been pleased to feast his exiled & afflicted prisoner with the joy of his consolations: now I weep, but am not sad; I am chastened, but I die not; I have loss, but I want nothing: this water cannot drown me, this fire cannot burn me, because of the goodwill of him that dwelled in the bush. The worst things of Christ, his reproaches, his cross, is better than Egypt's treasures. He hath opened his door & taken into his house of wine, a poor sinner, & hath le●t me so sick of love for my Lord Jesus, that if heaven were at my disposing, I would give it for Christ, & would not be content to go to heaven except I were persuaded Christ were there: I would not give nor exchange my bonds for the I'relats velvets, nor my prison for their coaches, nor my sighs for all the world's laughter: this clay idol, the world, hath no great court in my soul, Christ hath come & run away to heaven with my heart & my love, so that neither heart nor love is mine: I pray God, Christ may keep both without reversion. In my estimation, as I am now disposed, if my part of this world's clay were rooped & sold, I would think it dear of a drink of water. I see Christ's love is so Kingly, that it will not abide a marrow, it must have a throne, all alone in the soul, & I see apples beguile bairns howbeit they be wormeaten: the motheaten pleasures of this present world make bairns believe ten is a hundred & yet all that are here are but shadows; if they would draw by the curtain that is hanged betwixt them & Christ, they should think themselves fools who have so long miskenned the Son of God. I seek no more next to heaven, but that he may be glorified in a prisoner of Christ, & that in my behalf many would praise his high & glorious name, who heareth the sighing of the prisoner. Remember my service to the Laird your husband & to your son my acquaintance: I wish Christ had his young love, & that in the morning he would start to the gate to seek that which this world knoweth not & therefore doth not seek it: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the right honourable my Lord LINDSAY. (38)  
Right honourable & my very good Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your Lo: Pardon my boldness to express myself to your Lo: At this so needful a time, when your wearied & friendless mother-kirk is looking round about her, to see if any of her sons doth really bemoan her desolation: Therefore, my dear & worthy Lord, I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, pity that widow-like sister & spouse of Christ. I know, her husband i● not dead, but he seemeth to be in another country, & seeth well & beholdeth who are his true & tender hearted friends, who dare venture under the water to bring out to dry land sinking truth, & who of the Nobles will cast up their arm to ward a blow off the crowned head of our Royal lawgiver who reigneth in Zion, who will plead & contend for ●acob in the day of his controversy. It i● now time, my worthy & noble Lord, for you who are the little nurse-fathers' (under our Sovereign Prince] to put on courage for the Lord Jesus, & to take up a fallen orphan speaking out of the dust, & to embrace in your arms Christ's Bride: he hath no more in Scotland that is the delight of his eyes, but that one little sister, whose breasts were once well fashioned; She once ravished her well-beloved with her eyes, and overcame him with her beauty; She looked forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners; Her stature was like the palmtree, and her breasts like clusters of grapes, & she held the King in his galleries, Cant. 4: 9 & 6: 10. & 7: 5, 7. But now the crown is fallen from her head, and her gold waxed dim, & our white Nazarites are become black as the coal. Blessed are they who will come out and help Christ against the mighty: The shields of the earth & the Nobles are debtors to Christ for their honour, & should bring their glory and honour to the new jerusalem, Rev. 21: 24. Alas that great men should be so far from subjecting themselves to the sweet yoke of Christ, that they burst his bonds asunder, and think, they dow not go on foot when Christ is on horseback, and that every nod of Christ commanding as a King, is a load like a mountain of iron, and therefore they say, This man shall not reign over us, we must have another King then Christ in his own house. Therefore kneel to Christ and kiss the Son, and let him have your Lo: vote as your alone Lawgiver. I am sure when you leave this old waste J●nes, of this perishing life, and shall reckon with your host, & depart hence and take shipping, & make over for eternity, which is the yonder side o● time, & a sand-glass of threescore short years is running out; To look over your shoulder then, to that which ye have done, spoken, & suffered for Christ, his dear bride (that he ransomed with that blood, which is more precious than gold,] & for truth & the freedom of Christ's Kingdom; your accounts shall more sweetly smile & laugh upon you, then if you had two world's of gold to leave to your posterity. O my dear Lord, consider that our Master, eternity, judgement, & the last reckoning will be upon us in the twinkling of an eye: The blast of the last trumpet; now hard at hand, will cry down all Acts of Parliaments, all the determinations of pretended Assemblies against Christ our Lawgiver: There will be shortly a proclamation by one standing in the clouds, that time shall be no more, and that court with Kings of clay shall be no more, & prisons, confinements, forfeiturs of Nobles, wrath of Kings, hazard of lands, houses, & name for Christ, shall be no more. This world's span-length of time is drawn now to less than half an inch, and to the point of the evening of the day, of this old and gray-haired world: And therefore be fixed & fast for Christ & his truth for a time, & fear not him whose life goeth out at his nostrils, who shall die as a man. I am persuaded Christ is responsal, and law-biding, to make recompense for any thing that is hazarde●, or given out for him: losses for Christ are but our goods given out in bank in Christ's hand. King's earthly are wellfavoured little clay gods and tim's-idol, but a sight of our invisible King shall decry and darken all the glory of this world. At the day of Christ, truth shall be truth, and not treason. Alas it is pitiful, that silence, when the thatch of our Lord's house hath taken fire, is now the flower and the bloom of court and state-wisdom; And to cast a covering over a good profession, (as if it blushed at light,) is thought a canny and sure way through this life: But the safest way I am persuaded, is, to tine & win with Christ, & to hazard fairly for him; for heaven is but a company of Noble ventures for Christ. I dare hazard my soul, Christ shall grow green and blossom as the rose of Sharon yet in Scotland; howbeit now his leaf seemeth to wither and his root to dry up. Your noble Ancestors have been enrolled amongst the worthies of this nation, as the sure friends of the bridegroom and valiant for Christ: I hope, ye will follow on, to come to the streets for the same Lord; the world is still at yea & nay with Christ: it shall be your glory & the sure foundation of your house (now when houses are tumbling down, & birds building their nests, & thorns & briers are growing up where Nobles did spread a table) if you engage your estate & nobility for this noble King Jesus, with whom the created Powers of the world are still in tops: all the world shall fall before him, & (as God liveth) every arm lifted up to take the crown off his royal head, or that refuseth to hold it upon his head, shall be broken from the shoulder-blad: the eyes that behold Christ weep in sackcloth, & wallow in his blood, & will not help, even these eyes shall rot away in their eye-holes, O if ye & the Nobles of this land, saw the beauty of that world's wonder, Jesus our King, & the glory of him who is Angel's wonder & heavens wonder for excellency! Oh what would men count of clay-estates, of time-eaten life, of wormeaten & motheaten worldly glory, in comparison of that fairest, fairest of God's creation, the son of the father's delights. I have but small experience of suffering for him, but let my Judge & witness in heaven, lay my soul in the balance of justice, if I find not a young heaven, & a little Paradise of glorious comforts, & soul-delighting love-kisses of Christ, here beneath the moon in suffering for him & his truth: & that glory, joy, & peace, & fire of love, I thought had been kept while supper time, when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon Christ; I have felt it in glorious beginnings, in my bonds, for this princely Lord Jesus. Oh it is my sorrow, my daily pain, that men will not come & see: I would now be ashamed to believe that it should be possible for any soul to think that he could be a loser for Christ, suppose he should lend Christ the Lordship of Lindsay, or some such great worldly estate. Therefore my worthy & Dear Lord set your face against the opposites of Jesus, & let your soul take courage to come under his banner, to appear as his soldier for him, & the blessings of a falling Kirk, the prayers of the prisoners of hope who wait for Zions joy, & the good will of him that dwelled in the bush & it burned not, shall be with you. To his saving Grace I recommend your Lo: & your House & am still Christ's prisoner &.  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your Lo: obliged servant in his sweet Lord jesus S. R.   

To my Lord Boyd. (39)  
My very honourable & good Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am glad to hear that ye in the morning of your short day mind Christ, & that ye love the honour of his crown & Kingdom. I beseech your Lo: begin now to frame your love, & to cast it in no mould but one, that it may be for Christ only; For when your love is now in the framing, & making, it will take best with Christ: if any other then Jesus get a grip of it, when it is green & young, Christ will be an uncouth & strange world to you. Promise the lodging of your soul first away to Christ, & stand by your first covenant, & keep to Jesus, that he may find you honest. It is easy to master an arrow, & to set it right ere the string be drawn, but when once it is shot & in the air, & the flight begun, than ye have no power at all to command it: It were a blessed thing, if your love could now level only at Christ, that his fair face were the black of the mark ye shot at; For when your love is loosed, and out of your grips, & in its motion to fetch home an● Idol, & hath taken a whorish gading-journey to seek an unknown & strange lover, ye shall not then have power to call home the arrow, or to be master of your love, & ye shall hardly give Christ, what ye scarcely have yourself. I speak not this, as if youth itself could fetch heaven & Christ. Believe it my Lo: It is hardly credible what a nest of dangerous tentations youth i●, how inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, rash, profane, & careless of God, this piece of your life is, so that the devil findeth in that age a garnished & swept house for himself, & seven devils worse than himself; for then affections are on horseback, lofty & stirring, than the old man hath blood, lust, much will; & little wit, and hands, feet, wanton eyes, profane ears as his servants, & as a King's officers at command, to come & go at his will: Then a green conscience is as supple as the twig of a young tree, it is for every way, every religion, every lewd course prevaileth with it; And therefore O what a sweet couple, what a glorious yoke are youth and Grace, Christ & a youngman! This is a meeting not to be found in every town. None who have been at Christ can bring back to your Lo a report answerable to his worth; for Christ cannot be spoken of, or commended according to his worth; Come & see is the most faithful messenger to speak of him, little persuasion would prevail where this were: It is impossible in the setting out of Christ's love, to lie, and pass over truth's line: The discourses of Angels, or Love-books written by the congregation of Seraphims [all their wits being conjoined and melted in one] would for ever be in the nether side of tru● and plentifully declaring the thing as it is. The infinitness, the boundlesness of that incomparable excellency that is in Jesus, is a great word. God send me, if it were but the relics and leave, or an ounce weight or two, of his matchless love, and suppose I never got another heaven [providing this blessed fire were evermore burning] I could not but be happy forever. Come hither then and give out your money wisely for bread: Come here and bestow your love. I have cause to speak this, because except ye enjoy and possess Christ, ye will be a cold friend to his spouse; For it is love to the husband that causeth kindness to the wife. I dare swear, it were a blessing to your House, the honour of your Honour, the flower of your credit, now in your place, and as far as ye are able, to lend your hand, to your weeping Mother, even your oppressed and spoiled Mother-kirk. If ye love her and bestir yourself for her, & hazard the Lordship of Boyd for the recovery of her vail [which the smiting-watchmen have taken from her] then surely her husband will scorn to sleep in your common or reverence: Bits of Lordships are little to him who hath many crowns on his head & the Kingdoms of the world in the hollow of his hand. Court, Honour, Glory, riches, Stability of houses, Favour of Princes are all on his finger ends. O what glory were it to lend your honour to Christ, and to his Jerusalem. Ye are one of Zions' born sons, your Honourable and Christian Parents would venture you upon Christ's errands: Therefore I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the death and wounds of Jesus, by the hope of your glorious inheritance and by the comfort & hope of the joyful presence ye would have at the waterside, when ye are putting your foot in the dark grave, take courage for Christ's truth, & the Honour of his free Kingdom; for howbeit ye be a young flower and green before the sun, ye know not how soon death will cause you cast your bloom, and wither root and branch & leaves: And therefore write up what ye have to do for Christ, and make a treasure of good works, and begin in time: by appearance ye have the advantage of the braes: see what ye can do for Christ against these, who are waiting while Christ's Tabernacle fall, that they may run away with the boards thereof, and build their nests on Zion's ruins: They are blind who see not lowns now pulling up the stakes and breaking the cords & renting the curtains of Christ's (some times) beautiful tent in this land. Antichrist is lifting that tent up upon his shoulders and going away with it, & when Christ & the Gospel are out of Scotland, dream not that your houses shall thrive, & that it shall go well with the Nobles of the land; As the Lord liveth the streams of your waters shall become pitch, and the dust of your land brimstone, and your land shall become burning pitch, and the Owl and the Raven shall dwell in your houses, and where your table stood there shall grow briers, & nettles: Isa. 34: 9, 11. The Lord gave Christ and his Gospel as a pawn to Scotland, the watchmen have fallen foul, & lost their part of the pawn; & who seeth not that God hath dried up their right eye, & their right arm, & hath broken the shepherd's staves, & men are treading in their hearts upon such unsavoury salt, that is good for nothing else. If ye the Nobles put away the pawn also, & refuse to plead the controversy of Zion with the professed enemies of Jesus, ye have done with it. Oh where is the courage, & zeal now, of the ancient Nobles of this land, who with their swords & hazard of life, honour & houses brought Christ to our hands? And now the Nobles cannot be but guilty of shouldering out Christ, & murdering of the souls of the posterity, if they shall hide themselves, & lurk in the lee-side of the hill, till the wind blow down the temple of God. It goeth now under the name of wisdom, for men to cast their cloak over Christ & their profession, as if Christ were stolen goods, & durst not be avouched, though this be reputed a pi●ce of policy; yet God estemeeth such men to be but State-fool & Court-gooks, what ever they or other Heads of wit, like to them think of themselves, since their damnable silence, is the ruin of Christ's Kingdom. Oh but it be true honour, & glory, to be the fast friends of the bridegroom, & to own Christ's bleeding head, & his forsaken cause, & to contend legally, & in the wisdom of God for our sweet Lord Jesus, & his Kingly crown. But I will believe your Lo: will take Christ's honour to heart, & be a man in the streets (as the prophet speaketh) for the Lord & his truth To his rich grace & sweet presence, & the everlasting consolation of the promised comforter I recomend your Lo: & am.  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your Lo: in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To my Lady Boyd. (40.)  
My Very Honourable & Christian Lady.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter & am well pleased that your thoughts of Christ stay with you, & that your purpose still is, by all means to take the Kingdom of heaven by Violence, which is no small conquest, and it is a degree of watchfulness & thankfulness also, to observe sleepiness & unthankfulness: we have all good cause to complain of false light that playeth the thief, & stealeth away the lantern when it cometh to the practice of constant walking with God: our journey is ten times a day broken in ten pieces, Christ getteth but only broken & halfed and tired work of us, & alas too often against the hair. I have been some what nearer the bridegroom, but when I draw nigh, & see my vileness, for shame I would be out of his presence again, but yet desire of his soul-refreshing love, putteth blushing-me under an arrest. O what am I, so loathsome a burden of sin, to stand beside such a beautiful & holy Lord, such an high & lofty one who inhabiteth eternity: but since it pleaseth Christ to condescend to such an one as me, let shamefa●●eness be laid aside, & lose itself in his condescending love. I would heartily be content to keep a corner of the King's hall: Oh if I were at the yonder end of my weak desires, than should I be where Christ my Lord, & lover, lives & reigns, there I should be overlastingly solaced with the sight of his face, & satisfied with the surpassing sweetness of his matchless love: But truly now I stand in the nether side of my desires, & with a drooping head, & panting heart, I look up to fair Jesus standing a far off from us, while corruption & death shall scour & refine the body of clay, & rot out the bones of the old man of sin: In the mean time we are blessed in sending word to the beloved, that we love to love him, and till then there is joy in wooing, suiting, lying about his house, looking in at the windows & sending a poor souls groans & wishes thorough a hole of the door to Jesus, till God send a glad meeting: And blessed be God that after a low-ebbe, & so sad a word Lord jesus it is long since I saw thee, That even then, our wings are growing & the absence of sweet Jesus breedeth a new fleece of desires & longings for him: I know no man hath a velvet cross, but the cross is made of that which God will have it. But verily howbeit it be no warrantable market, to buy a cross; yet I dare not say, O that I had liberty to sell Christ's cross, lest therewith also I should sell joy, comfort, sense of love, patience & the kind visits of a bridegroom: And therefore blessed be God, we get crosses unbought & good cheap. S●●● I am, it were better to buy crosses for Christ, then to sell them; howbeit neither be allowed to us: And for Christ's joyful coming, & going which your La: speaketh of, I bear with it, as love can permit: it should be enough to me, if I were wise, that Christ will have joy & sorrow halfers of the life of the saints, and that each of them should have a share of our days, as the night and the day are kindly partners and halfers of Time, and take it up betwixt them: But if sorrow be the greediest halfer of our days here, I know joy's day shall dawn, & do more than recompense all our sad hours: Let my Lord Jesus (since he will do so) wove my bit and span-length of time, with white & black, well and woe, with the bridgroom's coming and his sad departure, as warp & woof in one web, & let the rose be neighboured with the thorn, yet hope (that maketh not ashamed) hath written a letter and lines of hope to the mourners in Zion, that it shall not be long so: when we are over the water Christ shall cry down crosses and up heaven for evermore, & down hell & down death, & down sin, & down sorrow, & up glory, up life, up joy for evermore: In this hope I sleep quietly in Christ's bosom, while he come who is not slack; & would sleep so, were it not, that the noise of the devil, & Sin's feet, & the cries of an unbelieving heart awaken me; but for the present I have nothing whereof I can accuse Christ's cross. Oh if I could please myself in Christ only! I hope Madam your Sons will improve their power for Jesus, for there is no danger, neither is there any question or justling betwixt Christ & Authority; though our enemies falsely state the question, as if Christ and Authority could not abide under one roof; the question only is betwixt Christ and men in Authority: Authority is for & from Christ, & sib to him; how then can he make a plea with it? Nay the truth is, worms & Gods of clay, are risen up against Christ. If the fruit of your La: Womb be helpers of Christ, ye have good ground to rejoice in God. All your La: can expect for your goodwill to me & my Brother (a wronged stranger for Christ) is, the prayers of a prisoner of jesus, to whom I recommend your La: & house & children, & in whom I am.  
Aberd. Sept. 8. 1637. MADAM. Your 〈◊〉: in Christ. S. R.   

To the Lady Culross. (41)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I dare not say I wonder that ye have never written to me in my bonds, because I am not ignorant of the cause; yet I could not but write to you: I know not whether joy or heaviness in my soul carrieth it away; sorrow without any mixture of sweetness, hath not often love-thoughts of Christ, but I see the devil can insinuat himself & ride his errands upon the thoughts of a poor oppressed prisoner. I am woe that I am making Christ my unfriend by seeking pleas against him, because I am the first in the Kingdom put to utter silence, & because I cannot preach my Lord's righteousness in the great congregation: I am notwithstanding the less solicitous how it go, if there be not wrath in my cup. But I know, I but claw my wounds when my physician hath forbidden me: I would believe in the dark upon luck's head, & take my hazard of Christ's goodwill & rest on this, that in my fever my Physician is at my bedside, & that he sympathizeth with me when I sigh. My borrowed house, & another man's bed & fireside & other losses have to room in my sorrow, a greater heat to eat out a less fire, is a good remedy for some burning. I believe when Christ draweth blood he hath skill to cut the right vein & that he hath taken the whole ordering and disposing of my sufferings. Let him tutor me, & tutor my crosses as he thinketh good, there is no danger nor hazard in following such a guide; howbeit he should lead me through hell, if I could put faith foremost, & fill the fieldwith a quiet onwaiting, & believing to see the salvation of God. I know Christ is not obliged to let me see both the sides of my cross, & turn it over & over, that I may see all, My faith is richer to live upon credit, & Christ's borrowed money, then to have much in my hand. Alas I have forgotten that faith in times past hath stopped a lek in my crazed bark, & hath filled my sails with a fair wind: I see it a work of God that experiences are all lost, when summons of improbation, to prove our Charters of Christ to be counterfeit, are raised against poor souls in their heavy trials: but let me be a sinner, & worse than the chief of sinners, yea a guilty devil, I am sure my well-beloved is God, & when I say Christ is God, & my Christ is God, I have said all things, I can say no more: I would I could build as much on this, my Christ is God, as it would bear, I might lay all the world upon it: I am sure Christ untried, and untaken up in the power of his love, Kindness, mercies, goodness, wisdom, long-suffering & greatness, is the rock that dim-sighted travellers dash their foot against, & so stumble fearfully. But my wounds are sorest, & pain me most, to sin against his love, & his mercy, & if he would set me & my conscience by the ears together & resolve not to rid the plea, but let us deal it betwixt us; my spitting upon the fair face of Christ's love, & mercies, by my Jealousies, unbelief, and doubting would be enough to sink me. Oh, oh, I am convinced O Lord, I stand dumb before thee for this: Let me be mine own Judge in this, and I take a dreadful doom upon me for it; for I still misbeleeve, though I have seen that my Lord hath made my cross, as if it were all Crystal, so as I can see thorough it Christ's fair face and heaven, and that God hath honoured a lump of sinful flesh and blood the like of me, 〈◊〉 to be Christ's honourable Lord-prisoner, I ought to esteem the walls of the theeves-hole (if I were shut up in it) or any stinking dungeon, all hung with tapestry, & most beautiful for my Lord Jesus, & yet I am not so shut up, but that the sun shineth upon my prison, & the fair wide heaven is the covering of it. But my Lord in his sweet visits hath done more, for he make me find that he will be a confined prisoner with me: he lieth down, & riseth up with me, when I sigh, he sigheth: When I weep, he suffereth with me; & I confess here is the blessed issue of my sufferings already begun, that my heart is filled with hunger & desire, to have him glorified in my sufferings. Blessed ye of the Lord, Madam, if ye would help a poor Dyvour, & cause others of your acquaintance in Christ help me, to pay my debt of love, even real praises to Christ my Lord. Madam let me charge you in the Lord, as ye will answer to him, help me in this duty [which he hath tied about my neck with a chain of such singular expressions of his loving kindness] to set on high Christ, to hold in my honesty at his hands, for I have nothing to give him. O that he would arrest & comprise my love & my heart for all! I am a Dyvour who have no more free goods in the world for Christ, save that, it is both the whole heritage I have & all my movables besides: Lord give the thirsty man a drink. Oh to be over the ears in the well! Oh to be swattering, & swimming over head & ears in Christ's love! I would not have Christ's love entering in me, but I would enter into it, & be swallowed up of that love. But I see not myself here, for I fear I make more of his love then of himself; whereas himself is far beyond & much better than his love. Oh if I had my sinful arms filled with that lovely one Christ! Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus who sendeth not away beggars from his house with a toom dish. He filleth the vessels of such as will come & seek: We might beg ourselves rich, [if we were wise,] if we could but hold out our withered hands to Christ, & learn to suit, & seek, ask, & knock. I owe my salvation for Christ's glory, low it to Christ, & desire that my hell, yea a new hell, seven times hotter than the old hell, might buy praises before men and Angels to my Lord Jesus; providing always I were free of Christ's hatred & displeasure. What am I to be forfeited & sold in soul & body, to have my great & royal King set on high, and extolled above all? O if I knew how high to have him set, & all the world far, far beneath the soles of his feet! Nay I deserve not to be the matter of his praises, far less to be an agent in praising of him. But he can win his own glory out of me, & out of one worse than I [if any such be] if it please his holy Majesty so to do; he knoweth that I am not now flattering him. Madam let me have your prayers, as ye have the prayers & blessing of him that is separated from his Brethren. Grace, Grace be with you.  
Aberd. June 15. 1637. Your own in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Earl of Cassills'. (42)  
My very Noble & honourable Lord.  
I make bold (out of the honourable & Christian report I hear of your Lo: having no other thing to say, but that which concerneth the honourable cause, which the Lord hath enabled your Lo: to profess) to write this, that it is your Lo: crown, your glory, & your honour to set your shoulder under the Lord's glory, now falling to the ground; & to back Christ now, when so many think it wisdom to let him send for himself: the shields of the earth ever did, & do still believe, that Christ is a cumbersome neighbour, & that it is a pain to hold up his yeas, & nay's: They fear he take their chariots, & their crowns, & their honour, from them; but my Lord standeth in need of none of them all: But it is your glory to own Christ & his buried truth, for let men say what they please, the plea with Sion's enemies in this day of Jacob's trouble, is, If Christ should be King, & no mouth steak laws but his? It concerneth the apple of Christ's eye, & his royal privileges, what now is debated: & Christ's Kingly honour is come to yea, & nay: But let me be pardoned my, my dear & Noble Lord, to beseech you by the mercies of God, by the comforts of the Spirit, by the wounds of your dear Saviour, by your compearance before the Judge of quick & dead; to stand for Christ, and to back him. Oh if the Nobles had done their part, & been zealous for the Lord it had not been as it is now; but men think it wisdom to stand beside Christ, till his head be broken, & sing dumb. there is a time coming when Christ will have a thick court & he will be the glory of Scotland, & he shall make a diadem, a garland, a seal upon his heart & a ring on his finger, of these, who have avouched him before this faithless generation: Howbeit ere that come, wrath from the Lord is ordained for this land. My Lord, I have cause to write this to your Lo: for I dare not conceal his kindness to the soul of an afflicted, exiled prisoner: Who hath more cause to boast in the Lord then such a sinner as I? Who am feasted with the consolations of Christ, & have no pain in my sufferings, but the pain of soul-sickness of love for Christ, & sorrow that I cannot get help to sound aloud the high praises of him who hath heard the sighing of the prisoner, & is content to lay the head of his oppressed servant in his bosom, under his chin, & let him feel the smell of his garments. This I behoved to write that your Lo: might know, Christ is as good as he is called, & to testify to your Lo: the cause your Lo: now professeth before this faithless world is Christ's: & your Lo: shall have no shame of it. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Your Lo: obliged Servant S. R.   

To the much honoured JOHN OSBURN, Provest of Ayr. (43).  
Much honoured Sir,  
GRrace mercy, & peace be to you; Upon our small acquaintance & the good report I hear of you, I could not but write to you: I have nothing to say, but Christ in that honourable place lie hath put you in, hath entrusted you with a dear pledge which is his own glory; & hath armed you with his sword to keep the pledge & make a good account of it to God. Be not afraid of me. Your master can mow down his enemies & make with red hay of fair flowers. your time will not be long; after your after 〈…〉 will come your evening, & after evening night: serve Christ, back him, lethis cause be your cause; give not an hair breadth of 〈◊〉 away, for it is not yours but God's: then, since ye are going take Christ's t●●ti●cat with you out of this life, Well done good & faithful servant. His well done is worth a shipfull of Good-dayes & earthly honours. I have cause to say this, because I find him truth itself: In my sad days, Christ laugheth cheerfully & saith, All will be well. Would to God, all this Kingdom, & ye, & all that know God, knew, what is betwixt me & Christ in this prison, what kisses, embracements, & love-communings: I take his cross in my arms with joy, I bless it, I rejoice in it: suffering for Christ is my garland; I would not exchange Christ for ten thousand worlds; nay [if the comparison could stand] I would not exchange Christ with heaven. Sir, pray for me, & the prayers & blessing of a prisoner of Christ meet you in all your straits. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in Christ jesus his Lord. S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON Bailiff of Ayr. (44)  
Worthy Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you in paper. Remember your Chief's speeches on his deathbed: I pray your Sir sell all & buy the pearl; time will cut you from this world's glory: Look what will do you good, when your glass shall be run out, & let Christ's love bear most court in your soul, & that court will bear down the love of other things: Christ seeketh your help in your place, give him your hand: Who hath more cause to encourage others to own Christ than I have? for he hath made me sick of love & le●t me in pain to wrestle with his love, & love is like to fall a swoon through his absence: I mean not that he deserteth me, or that I am ebb of comforts, but this is an uncouth pain. Oh that I had a heart & a love to render to him back again! O if principalities & powers, thrones & dominions & all the world, would help me to praise. Praise him in my behalf. Remember my love to your wife. I thank you most kindly for your love to my brother. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN KENNEDY, Bailiff of Ayr. (45)  
GRace, mercy and peace be unto you: Your nor writing to me, cannot bind me up from remembering you now & then, that at least ye may be a witness & a third man, to behold in paper what is betwixt Christ & me. I was in his eyes like a young Orphan, wanting known parents, casten out in the open fields; either Christ behoved to take me up, & to bring me home to his house and fireside, else I had died in the fields: & now, I am homely with Christ's love, so that I think the house mine own, & the master of the house mine also. Christ enquired not when he began to love me, whether I was fair, or black, & sunburnt? love taketh what it may have. He loved me before this time I know, but now I have the flower of his love, his love is come to a fair bloom, like a young rose opened up out of the green leaves, & it casteth a strong & fragrant smell. I want nothing but ways of expressing Christ's love: A full vessel would have a vent. O if I could smoke out & cast out coals to make a fire in many breasts of this land! Oh it is a pity that there were not many imprisoned for Christ, for no other purpose, but to write books & lovesongs of the love of Christ. This love would keep all created tongues of men & Angels in exercise, & busy, night & day to speak of it. Alas I can speak nothing of it, but wonder at three things in his love. First, Freedom. O that lumps of sin should get such love for nothing. Secondly. The Sweetness of his love, I give over either to speak or write of it, but these that feel it may better bear witness What it is: but it is so sweet that next to Christ himself nothing can match it: nay I think a soul could live eternally blessed only on Christ's love, & feed upon no other thing: yea when Christ in love giveth a blow, it doth a soul good, & it is a kind of comfort & joy to it, to get a cuff with the lovely, sweet, & soft hand of Jesus. And Thirdly, what power & strength is in his love? I am persuaded it can climb a-steep hill, & hell upon its back, & swim through the water & not dro●n, & sing in the fire & find no pain, & triumph in losles, prisons, sorrows, exile, disgrace, & laugh & rejoice in death. Oh for a yeer's lease of the sense of his love without a cloud, to try what Christ is! Oh for the coming of the bridegroom! Oh when will I see the bridegroom & the bride meet in the clouds & kiss each other! Oh when will we get our day & our hearts full of that love! Oh is it were lawful to complain of the f●mine, & want of that love of the immediate vision of God O time, time, how dost thou torment the souls of these that would be swallowed up of Christ's love, because thou movest so slowly! Oh if he would pity a poor prisoner, & blow love upon me, & give a prisoner a taste, or draught of that surpassing sweetness (which is glory as it were begun) to be a confirmation, that Christ & I shall have our fill of other for ever! Come hither O love of Christ, that I may once kiss thee before I die, what would I not give to have time that lieth betwixt Christ & me taken out of the way that we might once meet? I cannot think but ●t the first sight I shall see of that most lovely & fairest face, love shall come out of his two eyes & fill me with astonishment, I would but desire to stand at the utter side of the gates of the new Jerusalem, & look thorough a hole of the door & see Christ's face: a borrowed vision in this life would be my borrowed & begun heaven, while the long, long-looked for day dawn. It is not for nothing that it is said Colos. 1. 27. Christ in you the hope of glory. I will be content of no pawn of heaven but Christ himself; for Christ possessed by faith here is young heaven & glory in the bud: If I had that pawn I would bide horning & hell both ere I gave it again. All we have here, is scarce the picture of glory: Should not we young bairns long & look for the expiring of our minority. It were good to be daily begging propines & love-gifts, & the bridegroom's favours, & if we can do no more seek Crumbs & hungry dinners of Christ's love, to keep the taste of heaven in our mouth while supper time. I know it is far afternoon and nigh the marriage-supper of the Lamb, the table is covered already. O well-beloved run, run fast! O fair day when wilt thou dawn! O shadows flee away! I think hope & love woven thorough other, make our absence from Christ spiritual torment: It is a pain to wait on, but hope that maketh not a hamed swalloweth up that pain. It is not unkindness that keepeth Christ & us so long asunder. What can I say to Christ's love? I think more than I can say: To consider that when my Lord Jesus may take the air [if I may so speak) & go abroad; yet he will be confined & keep the prison with me: but in all this sweet communion with him what am I to be thanked, for I am but a sufferer, whether I will or not he will be kind to me, as if he had defied my guiltiness to make him unkind, so he beareth in his love on me. Here I die with wondering, that justice hindereth not love; for there are none in hell nor out of hell, more unworthy of Christ's love. Shame may confound and scar me, once to hold up my black mouth, to receive one of Christ's undeserved kisses. If my innerside were turned out, & all men saw my vileness, they would say to me, It is a shame for thee to stand still, while Christ kiss thee & embrace thee: It would seem to become me rather to run away from high love, as ashamed at my own unworthiness. Nay I may think shame to take heaven, who have so higly provoked my Lord Jesus: But seeing Christ's love will shame me, I am content to be shamed. My desire is that my Lord would give me broader & deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at his love: I would I could weigh it, but I have no balance for it. When I have worn my tongue to the stump in praising of Christ, I have done nothing to him, I must let him alone, for my withered arms will not go about his high, wide, long and broad love: What remaineth then, but that my debt to the love of Christ lie unpaid for all eternity. All that are in heaven are black shamed with his love as well as I, we must all be Dyvours together, & the blessing of that house-full, or heaven-full of Dyvours, shall rest for ever upon him. Off this Land & Nation would come & stand beside his inconceivable & glorious perfections, & look in, & love, & wonder, & adore! would to God I could bring in many lovers to Christ's house! But this Nation hath forsaken the fountain of living waters. Lord cast not water on Scotland's coal. Woe, woe will be to this Land, because of the day of the Lord's fierce anger that is so fast coming. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Your affectionate Brother in our Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JOHN KENNEDY Bailiff of Ayr. (46)  
Worthy & Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to see you in this Northern world in paper; I know it is not forgetfulness that ye write not: I am every way in good case both in soul & body, all honour & glory be to my Lord: I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the unknown Son of God. Either I know not what Christianity is, or we have stinted a measure of so many ounce weights, & no more upon holiness, & there we are at a stay, drawing our breath all our life: a moderation in God's way, now, is much in request. I profess I have never taken pains to find out him whom my soul loveth, there is a gate yet of finding out Christ, that I have never lighted upon. Oh if I could find it out! Alas how soon are we pleased with our own shadow in a glass! It were good to be beginning in sad earnest to find out God, & to seek the right tread of Christ: time, custom, & a good opinion of ourselves, our good meaning, & our lazy desires, our fair shows, & the world's glistering lustres, & these broad passements & buskings of religion, that bear bulk in the Kirk, is that wherewith most satisfy themselves: but a watered bed with tears a dry throat with praying, eyes a fountain of tears for the sins of the land is rare to be found among us. Oh if we could know the power of godliness! This is one part of my case, & an other is, that I like a fool once summoned Christ for unkindness, & complained of his sickelness & unconstaney, because he would have no more of my service nor preaching, & had casten me out of the inheritance of the Lord: And I confess now, this was but a bought plea, & I was a fool, yet he hath born with me: I gave him a fair advantage against me, but love & mercy would not let him take it: & the truth is, now he hath childed himself friends with me, & hath taken away the mask, & hath renewed his wonted favour in such a manner, that he hath paid me my hundred-fold in this life; & one to the hundred. This prison is my banqueting house, I am handled as softly & delicately as a dâted child: I am nothing behind (I see) with Christ, he can in a month make up a year's losses: & I write this to you, that I may entreat, nay, adjure & charge you, by the love of our well-beloved to help me to praise, & to tell all your Christian acquaintance to help me, for I am as deeply drowned in his debt, as any Dyvour can be: & yet in this fair sun-blenke I have something to keep me from startling, or being exalted above measure. His word is a fire shut up in my bowels, & I am weary with forbearing: the ministers in this town are saying they shall have my prison changed into less bounds, because they see God with me: my mother hath born me a man of contention, one that striveth with the whole earth. The late wrongs & oppressions done to my brother keep my sails low: yet I defy crosses to embark me in such a plea against Christ, as I was troubled with of late: I hope to overhope & overbeleeve my troubles: I have cause now to trust Christ's promise, more than his gloom. Remember my hearty affection to your wife, My soul is grieved for the success of our brethren's journey to New-England, but God hath somewhat to reveal that we see not. Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner.  
Aberd. Jan. 1. 1637. Yours in his only L. jesus. S. R.   

To MARGARET BALANTINE. (47)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: It is more than time that I should have written to you, but it is yet good time, if I could help your soul to mend your pace, & to go more swiftly to your heavenly country; for truly ye have need to make all haste, because the inch of your day that remaineth will quickly slip away, for whether we sleep or wake our glass runneth, the tide bideth no man: Beware of a beguile in the matter of your salvation: woe, woe for evermore to them that lose that prize, for what is behind when the soul is once lost; but that sinners warm their bits of clay-houses at a fire of their own kindling for a day or two, which doth rather suffocat with its smoke then warm them, & at length they lie down in sorrow & are clothed with everlasting shame. I would seek no further measure of faith to begin withal, then to believe really, & steadfastly the doctrine of God's Justice, his all-devouring wrath & everlasting burning, where sinners are burnt soul & body in a river & great lake of fire & brimstone: Then they would wish no more goods but the thousand part of a cold fountain well to cool their tongue, they would then buy death with enduring of pain & torment for as many years, as God hath created drops of rain since the creation: but there is no market in buying or selling life or death there. Oh alas the greatest part of this world run to the place of that torment rejoicing & dancing, eating, drinking & sleeping! my counsel to you is, that ye start in time to be after Christ; for if ye go quickly, Christ is not far before you: Ye shall overtake him. O Lord God, what is so needful as this, salvation, salvation: Fie upon this condemned & foolish world that will give so little for salvation. Oh, if there were a free market of salvation proclaimed in that day when the trumpet of God shall awake the dead, how many buyers would be then? God send me no more happiness but that salvation which the blind world [to their eternal woe] letteth slip through their fingers: Therefore look if ye can give out your money [as Isa: speaketh 55: 2.] for bread, & lay Christ & his blood in wodset for heaven: It is a dry & hungry bairn's-part of goods, that Esau's are hunting for here: I see thousands following the chase and in the pursuit of such things, while in the mean time they lose the blessing, & when all is done they have caught nothing to roast for supper, but lie down hungry; & besides they go to their bed [when they die] without a candle, for God saith to them, Isa: 50: 21. This shall ye have at my ha●d, ye shall lie down in sorrow: And truly this is as ill made a bed to lie upon, as one could wish; for he cannot sleep sound nor rest sweetly who hath sorrow for his pillow. Rouse, rouse up therefore your soul, & spier how Christ and your soul met together: I am sure they never got Christ who were not once sick at the yolk of the heart for him: too too many whole souls think they have met with Christ who had never a wearied night for the want of him: But alas, what richer are men that they dreamt the last night they had much gold, & when they awoke in the morning they found it was but a dream? what are all the sinners in the world in that day when heaven & earth shall go up in a flame of fire, but a number of beguiled dreamers? every one shall say of his hunting & his conquest. Behold it was a dream, every man in that day will tell his dream. I beseeeh you in the Lord Jesus, beware, beware of unsound work in the matter of your salvation, ye may not, ye cannot, ye dow not want Christ: then after this day conveen all your lovers before your soul, & give them their leave, & strike hands with Christ, that there after there may be no happiness to you but Christ, no hunting for any thing but Christ, no bed at night (when death cometh) but Christ; Christ, Christ, who but Christ. I know this much of Christ. He is not ill to befound, not Lordly of his love; woe had been my part of it for evermore, if Christ had made a dainty of himself to me; but God be thanked, I gave nothing for Christ; & now I protest before men & Angels Christ cannot be exchanged. Christ cannot be sold, Christ cannot be weighed: Where would Angels or all the world find a balance to weigh him in? All lovers blush when ye stand beside Christ, woe upon all love but the love of Christ. Hunger, hunger for evermore be upon all heavens but Christ. Shame, shame for evermore be upon all glory but Christ's glory. I cry death, death upon all lifes but the life of Christ. O what is it that holdeth us asunder! O that once we could have a fair meeting. Thus recommending Christ to you, and you to him for evermore: I rest. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JONET KENNEDY. (48)  
Loving & Dear Sister.  
GRace, mercy and peace be unto you: I received your letter: I know the savour of Christ in you (that the virgins love to follow) cannot be blown away with winds either from hell, or the evil smelled air of this polluted world: Sir for aback from the walls of this pest-house, even the pollutions of this defiling world. Keep your taste, your love and hope in heaven, it's not good your love & your Lord should be in two sundry countries. Up, up after your lover, that ye & he may be together. A King from heaven hath sent for you, by faith he showeth you the new Jerusalem, & taketh you alongst in the Spirit thorough all the ease-rooms, & dwelling-houses in heaven, & saith, All these are thine, this palace is for thee & Christ, & if ye only had been the chosen of God, Christ would have built that one house for you and himself: Now, it is for you & many also: take with you in your journey what ye may carry with you, your conscience, faith, hope, patience, meekness, goodness, brotherly kindness; for such wares as these are of great price in the high & new country whether ye go: As for other things, that are but the world's vanity & trash, since they are but the house-sweeping, ye shall do best not to carry them with you, ye found them here, leave them here, and let them keep the house. Your Sun is well turned, & low: be nigh your lodging against night. We go, one & one, out of this great market, till the town be empty, & the two lodgings Heaven & Hell be filled: At length there will be nothing in the earth but room walls & burnt ashes, & therefore it is best to make away. Antichrist & his Master are busy to plenish Hell, & to seduce many; & Stars, great church-lights, are falling from heaven, & many are miss & seduced & make up with their faith, & sell their birthright, by their hungry hunting for, I know not what: Fasten your grips fast upon Christ, I verily esteem him the best aught that I have: He is my second in prison, having him, though my cross were as heavy as ten mountains of iron, when he putteth his sweet shoulder under me & it, my cross is but a feather. I please myself in the choice of Christ, he is my wail in heaven & earth, I rejoice that he is in heaven before me, God send a joyful meeting; & in the mean time the traveller's charges for the way, I mean a burden of Christ's love to sweeten the journey, & to encourage a breathless runner, for when I lose breath climbing up the mountain, he maketh new breath. Now, the very God of peace establish you to the day of his appearance.  
Aberd. Sept. 9▪ 1637. Your● in his only Lord jesus, S. R.   

To MARGARET REID. (49)  
My very Dear & worthy Si●●er,  
GRace, mercy, & peace be to you: Ye are truly blessed of the Lord, however a lower world gloom upon you, if ye continue in the faith, grounded & settled & be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel, it is good, there is a heaven, & it is not a night dream or a fancy: It is a wonder that men deny not that there is a heaven, as they deny there is a way to it, but of men's making: You have learned of Christ that there is a heaven; contend for it, & contend for Christ; bear well & submissivily the hard cross of this stepmother world, that God will not have to be yours. I confess, it is hard, & I would I were able to ease you of your burden; But believe me, this world, [which the Lord will not have to be yours] is but the dross, the refuse & scum of God's creation, the portion of the Lord's poor hired servants; the moveables, not the heritage; a hard bone casten to the dogs holden out of the new Jerusalem, whereupon they rather break their teeth then satisfy their appetite: It is your father's blessing, & Christ's birthright, that our Lord is keeping for you; & I persuade you, your seed also shall inherit the earth (if that be good for them) for that i● promised to them, & God's bond is as good and better than if men would give every one of them a bond for thousand thousands. Ere ye was born, cross●s in number, measure & weight were written for you, & your Lord will lead you thorough them: make Christ sure, & the blessings of the earth shall be at Christ's back. I see many professors for the fashion follow on, but they are professors of glass; I would cause a little knock of persecution ding them in twenty pieces, & so the world should laugh at the shards: Therefore make fast work, see that Christ lay the groundstone of your profession, for wind & rain & speats will not wash away his building: his works have no shorter date then to stand for evermore. I should twe●ty times have perished in my affliction if I had not leaned my weak back & laid my pressing burden both upon the stone, the foundation-stone, the cornerstone laid in Zion: & I desire never to rise off this stone. Now the very God of peace confirm & establish you unto the day of the blessed appearance of Christ Jesus. God be with you.  
Aberd. Yours in his dearest Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JAMES BAUTIE. (50)  
Loving Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I received your letter & renders you thanks for the same; but I have not time to answer all the heads of it as the bearer can inform you. 1. Ye do well to take yourself at the right stot when ye wrong Christ by doubting & misbeleef, for this is to nickname Christ & term him a liar, which being spoken to our Prince would be hanging or heading, but Christ hangeth not always for treason: It is good that he may registrat a believers bond a hundred times, & more than seventy times a day have law against us, & yet he spareth us as a man doth his son that serveth him: No tender hearted mother who may have law to kill her sucking child, would put in execution that law. 2. For your failings even ye have a set tryst with Christ & when ye have a fair seen advantage by keeping your appointment with him, & Salvation cometh to the very passing of the seals: I would say two things. 1. Concluded & sealed Salvation may go through & be ended, suppose ye write your name to the tail of the Covenant with ink that can hardly be read: Neither think I ever any man's Salvation passed the seals, but there was an odd trick or slip in less or more, upon the fools part, who is infested in heaven: In the most grave & serions work of our Salvation, I think Christ had ever good cause to laugh at our filliness, & to put on us his merits, that we might bear weight. 2. It is a sweet law of the new Covenant, & a privilege of the new burgh, that the citizens pay according to their means, for the new covenant saith not so much obedience by ounce weights, & no less under the pain of damnation: Christ taketh as poor men may give, where there is a mean portion, he is content with the less; if there be sincerity: broken sums & little feckless obedience will be pardoned, & hold the foot with him: know ye not that our kindly Lord retaineth his good old heart yet? He breaketh not a bruised reed nor quencheth the smoking flax: but if the wind blow, he holdeth his hands about, it till it rise to a flame. The Law cometh on with three Oyes, with all the heart: with all the soul, & with all the whole strength: & where would poor folk like you & me furnish all these sums? it feareth me, (may it is most certain) that if the payment were to come out of our purse, when we should put our hand in our bag, we would bring out the wind or worse: But the new Covenant seeketh not heap meet nor stented obedience as the condition of it, because forgiveness hath always place. Hence I draw this conclusion: To think matters betwixt christ & us go back for want of heaped measure, is a piece of old Adam's pride, who would either be at legal payment or nothing: We would still have God in our common & buy his kindness with our merits; for beggarly pride is Devil'shonest, & blusheth to be in Christ's common, & scarce giveth God a gramercy & a lifted cap [except it be the Pharisee's unlucky God I 〈◊〉 thee] or a bowed knee to Christ: it will only give a good-day for a good-day again; & if he dissemble his kindness as it were in jest & seem to misken it, it in earnest spurneth with the heels & snuffeth in the wind, & careth not much for Christ's kindness: If he will not be friends let him go, saith pride: beware of this thief, when Christ offereth himself. 3. No marvel then of whisper, whether you be in the Covenant or not? For Pride it maketh loose work of the Covenant of grace, & will not let Christ be full bargainmaker. To speak to you particularly & shortly. 1. All the truly regenerated cannot determinately tell you the measure of their dejections, because Christ beginneth young with many & stealeth into their heart ere they wit of themselves & becometh homely with them with little din, or noise. I grant, many are blinded in rejoicing in a goodcheap conversion, that never cost them a sick night; Christ's physic wrought in a dream upon them: But for that, I would say; if other marks be found that Christ is indeed come in, never make a plea with him because he will not answer, Lord jesus how camest thou in? whether in at door or window? Make him welcome since he is come. The wind bloweth where it listeth; all the world's wit cannot perfectly render a reason, why the wind should bea month in the east, six weeks possibly in the west: & the space only of an afternoon in the south or north: Ye will not find ●●t all the nicks & steps of Christ's way with a foul do what ye can; for sometimes he will come in stepping softly, like one walking beside a sleeping person & slip to the door, & let none know he was there. 2. Ye object, the truly regenerate should love God for himself: & ye fear that ye love him more for his benefits (as incitements & motives to love him) then for himself. I Answer, to love God for himself as the last end, & also for his benefits as incitements & motives to love him, may stand well together, as a son loveth his mother because she is his mother, howbeit she be poor, & he loveth her for an apple also: I hope ye will not say that benefits are the only reason & bottom of your love; it seemeth there is a better foundation for it: Always if a hole be in it, sow it up shortly. 3. Ye feel not such mourning in Christ's absence as ye would. I Answer, that the regenerate mourn at all times, & all in alike measure for his absence, I deny: There are different degrees of mourning less or more, as they have less or more love to him & less or more sense of his absence: But, 1. Some they must have. 2. Sometimes they miss not the Lord, & then they cannot mourn, howbeit it is not long so: At least it is not always so. 3. Ye challenge yourself that some truths find more credit which you then others: Ye do well, for God is true in the least as well as in the greatest, & he must be so to you: Ye must not call him true in the one page of the leaf, & false in the other, for our Lord in all his writtings never contradicted himself yet, although the best of the regenerate have slipped here, always labour ye to hold your feet. 4. Comparing the estate of one truly regenerate [whose heart is a temple to the Holy Ghost] & yours [which is full of uncleanness & corruption] ye stand dumb & discouraged & dare not sometimes call Christ heartsomely your own. I Answer, the best regenerate have their defilements & [if I may speak so] their draff-poke that will ●log behind them all their days, & was la as they will, there will be filth in their bosom: But let not this put you from the well. 2. I Answer, albeit there be some ounce weights of carnality & some squint look, or eye in our neck to an idol, yet love in its own measure may be sound; for glory must purify & perfect our love, it will never till then be absolutely pure: yet if the idol reign & have the yolk of the heart & the keys of the house, & Christ only be made an underling to run errands, all is not right; therefore examine well. 3. There is a two fold discouragement: one of unbeleef to conclude & make doubting the conclusion for a mote in your eye, & a by-look to an idol, this is ill. There is another discouragement of sorrow for sin, when ye find a by-look to an idol: this is good & a matter of thanksgiving, therefore examine here also. 5. The assurance of Jesus' love ye say would be the most comfortable news that ever ye heard: Ans. That may stop twenty holes, & lose many objections: That love hath tellng in it I trow. Oh that ye knew & felt it as I have done! I wish ye a share of my feast; sweet, sweet hath it been to me: If my Lord had not given me his love, I would have fallen thorough the causey of Aberdeen ere now: But for you, hang on, your feast is not far off, ye shall be filled ere ye go, there is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all his bairns, & as much wine in his cellar as will quench all their thirst: hunger on, for there is meat in hunger for Christ: Go never from him, but fash him [who yet is pleased with the importunity of hungry souls] with a dish-full of hungry desires till he fill it; & if he delay, yet come not ye away, albeit ye should fall a swoon at his feet. 7. Ye crave my mind, whether found comfort may be found in prayer, when conviction of a known idol is present. I answer, an idol as an idol can not stand with found comfort; for that comfort that is gotten at Dagon's sect is a cheat or blea-flumme: yet sound comfort & conviction of an eye to an idol, may as well dwell together, as tears & joy: But let this do you no ill, I speak it for your encouragement, that ye may make the best out of your joys ye can, albeit ye find them mixed with motes. 2. Sole conviction, if alone without remorse and grief, is not enough, therefore lend it a tear if ye dow win at it. 7. Ye question, when ye win to more fervency sometimes with your neighbour in prayer then your alone, whether hypocrisy be in it, or not? I answer, if this be always, no question a spice of hypocrisy in in it, which would be taken head to; out possibly desertion may be in private, & presence in public, & then the case is clear. 2. A fit of applause may occasion by accident a rubbing of a cold heart & so heat & life may come, but it is not the proper cause of that heat: hence God of his free grace will ride his errands upon our stinking corruption, but corruption is but a mere occasion & accident; as the playing on a pipe removed anger from the prophet & made him fitter to prophesy: 2. King. 3: v. 15. 8. Ye complain of Christ's short visits, that he will not bear you company one night, but when ye lie down warm at night, ye rise cold at morning. Ans. I cannot blame you [nor any other who knoweth that sweet guest] to bemoan his withdrawings, & to be most desirous of his abode & company; for he would captivat & engage the affection of any creature that saw his face: since he looked on me & gave me a sight of his fair love, he gained my heart wholly, & got away with it: Well, well may he brook it, he shall keep it long ere I fetch it from him. But I shall tell you what ye shall do: treat him well, give him the chair & the board-head, & make him welcome to the mean portion ye have; a good supper & kind entertainment maketh the guest love the inns the better: Yet sometimes Christ hath an errand elsewhere, for mere trial, & then though ye give him king's-chear he will away; as is clear in desertions for mere trial, & not for sin. 9 Ye seek the difference betwixt the motions of the Spirit in their least measure, & the natural joys of your own heart. Ans. as a man can tell if he joy & delight in his wife, as his wife, or if he delight & joy in her for satisfaction of his lust, but hating her person, & so loving her for her her flesh & not grieving when ill befalleth her: so will a man's joy in God, and his who ●ish natural joy be discovered, if he sorrow for any thing that may offend that Lord, it will speak the singleness of his love to him. 10. Ye ask the reason why sense overcometh faith Ans. because sense is more natural, & near of kin to our own selfish & soft nature. Ye ask, if faith in that ease be found? Ans: If it be chased away, it is neither sound nor unsound, because it is not faith; but it might be & was faith before sense did blow out the act of believing. Lastly, ye ask what to do when promises are born in upon you, & sense of impenitency for sins of youth, hindereth application. I answer; if it be living sense, it may stand with application, & in this case, put to your hand & eat your meat in God's name: if false, so that the sins of youth are not repent of, then as faith & impenitency cannot stand together, so neither that sense & application can consist. Brother, excuse my brevity, for time straitneth me, that I get not my mind said in these things, but must refer that to a new occasion, if God offer it. Brother, Pray for me. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his dearest Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN STUART. Provest of Air, now in Ireland. (51)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I long to hear from you, being now removed from my flock & the prisoner of Christ at Aberd: I would not have you to think it strange that your journey to New-England hath gotten such a dash: It indeed hath made my heart heavy, yet I know it is no dumb providence but a speaking one, whereby our Lord speaketh his mind to you, though for the present ye do not well understand what he saith, however it be, he who sitteth upon the floods hath shown you his marvellous kindness in the great depths: I know your loss is great & your hope is gone far against you; But I entreat you, Sir, expound aright our Lord's laying an hindrance is the way: I persuade myself your heart aimeth at the footsteps of the flock, to feed beside the shepherd's tents, & to dwell beside him whom your soul loveth, & that it is your desire to remain in the wilderness where the woman is kept from the Dragon, & this being your desire, remember that a poor prisoner of Christ said it to you, that, That miscarried journey is with child to you of mercy & consolation: and shall bring forth a fair birth, and the Lord shall be midwife to the birth: wait on, he that believeth maketh not haste, Isa: 28. 16. I hope ye have been ask what the Lord meaneth & what further may be his will in reference to your return: my dear Brother, let God make of you what he will, he will end all with consolation, & shall make glory out of your sufferings, & would ye wish better work: this water was in your way to heaven & written in your Lord's book, ye behoved to cross it: & therefore kiss his wise & unerring providence: Let not the censures of men, who see but the out side of things [& scarce well that] abate your courage & rejoicing in the Lord, howbeit your faith seeth but the black side of providence, yet it hath a better side. & God shall let you see it. Learn to believe Christ better than his strokes, himself & his promises better than his gloomes: dashes & disappointments, are not Canonic scripture; fight for the promised land, seemed to cry to God's promise, thoulyest. If our Lord rideupon a straw, his horse shall neither stumble nor fall, Rom. 8. 28. For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, Ergo shipwrak, losses &c: work together for the good of them that love God: Hence I infer that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses or country, are God's work men set on work, to work out good to you out of every thing that befalleth you, let not the Lord's dealing seem harsh, rough, ot unfatherly, because it is unpleasant; when the Lord's blessed will bloweth cross your desires, it is best in humility to strike sail to him, and to be willing to be led any way our Lord pleaseth: it is a point of denial of yourself, to be as if ye had not a will, but had made a free disposition of it to God & had sold it over to him; & to make use of his will for your own, is both true holiness & your ease & peace: ye know not what the Lord is working out of this, but ye shall know it hereafter & what I write to you I write to your ●…ife, I compassionate her case; but entreat her not to fear or faint, this journey is a part of her wilderness to heaven & the promised land, and there are sewer miles behind, it is nearer the dawning of the day to her, then when she went out of Scotland: I would be glad to hear that ye & she have comfort & courage in the Lord. Now as concerning our Kirk: Our Service-book is ordained by open proclamation & sound of trumpet to be read in all the Kirks of this Kingdom: Our Prelates are to meet this month for It & our Canons, & for a Reconciliation betwixt us & the Lutherians. The Professors of Aberden-Universitie are charged to draw up the Articles of an Uniform Confession: But Reconciliation with Popery is intended; this is the day of Jacob's Visitation, the ways of Zion mourn, our gold is become dim, the sun is gone down upon our Prophets, a dry wind, but neither to fan nor to cleanse is coming upon this land & all our ill is coming from the multiplied transgressions of this land and from the friends & lovers of Babel amongst us, Jer: 31: 35. The violence done to me & my flesh be upon thee Babylon shall the inhabitants of Zion say & my blood upon the inhabitants of Caldea shall jerusalem say. Now for myself, I was three days before the High Commission, & accused of treason preached against our King: A Minister being witness went well nigh to swear it: God hath saved me from their malice. 1. They have deprived me of my Ministry. 2. Silenced me, that I exercise no part of the Ministerial function within this Kingdom, under the pain of Rebellion. 3. Confined my person within the town of Aberden, where I find the Ministers working for my confine meant in Caithnesse or Orknay far from them; because some people here (willing to be edified) resort to me. At my first entry I had heavy challenges within me, & a court fenced [but I hope not in Christ's name] wherein it was asserted that my Lord would have no more of my service & was tired of me: And like a fool I summoned Christ also for unkindness, my soul fainted & I refused comfort & said, what ailed Christ at me, for I desired to be faithful in his house? thus in my rovings & mistake my Lord Jesus bestowed mercy on me, who am less than the least of all saints. I lay upon the dust & bought a plea from Satan against Christ, & he was content to sell it, but at length Christ did show himself friends with me & in mercy pardoned & passed my part of it, & only complained, that a court should be holden in his bounds without his own allowance; now I pass from my compearance, & as if Christ had done the fault he hath made the mends & returned to my soul; so that now his poor prisoner feedeth on the feast of love: my adversaries know not what a courtier I am now with my Royal King, for whose crown I now suffer, it i● but our soft & lazy flesh that hath raised an ill report of the cross of Christ. O sweet, sweet is his yoke! Christ's chains are of pure gold, sufferings for him are perfumed: I would not give my weeping for the laughing of all the fourteen Prelates, I would not exchange my sadness with the world's joy. O lovely, lovely Jesus, how sweet must thy kisses be when thy cross smelleth so sweetly! O if all the three Kingdoms had part of my love-feasts, & of the comforts of a dated prisoner. Dear Brother I charge you to praise for me & seek help of our acquaintance there, to help me to praise: Why should I smother Christ's honesty to me: my heart is taken up with this, that my silence and sufferings may preach; I beseech you in the bowels of Christ to help me to praise: Remember my love in Christ to your wife, to Mr Blair & Mr Livingston, & Mr Cuninghame, let me hear from you for I am anxious what to do: If I saw a call for New-England, I would follow it. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in our Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JOHN STUART Provest of Ayr. [52.]  
Much honoured & Dearest in Christ.  
GRace, mercy & peace from God our father & from our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you: I expected the comfort of a letter to a prisoner from you ere now. I am here, Sir, putting off a part of my inch of time, & when I awake first in the morning [which is always with great heaviness & sadness] this question is brought to my mind, Am I serving God or not? Not that I doubt of the truth of this honourable cause wherein I am engaged, [I dare venture in to eternity & before my judge that I now suffer for the truth: because that I cannot endure that my Master who is a freeborn King, should pay tribute to any of the shields or potsherds of the earth: Oh that I could hold the crown upon my Princely King's head with my sinful arm, howbeit it should be stroke from me in that service from the shoulder blade] but my closed mouth, my dumb Sabbaths, the memory of my communion with Christ, in many fair, fair days in Anwoth [whereas now my master gotteth no service of my tongue as then] hath almost broken my faith in two halves; yet in my deepest apprehensions of his anger, I see thorough a cloud that I am wrong, & he in love to my soul hath taken up the controversy betwixt faith & apprehensions, and a decret is passed on Christ's side of it, & I subscribe the decret: The Lord is equal in his ways, but my guiltiness often overmastereth my believing, I have not been well known, for except as to open out-breaking I want nothing of what Judas & Cain had; only he hath been pleased to prevent me in mercy & to cast me into a fever of love for himself, & his absence maketh my fever most painful, & beside, he hath visited my soul & watered it with his comforts, but yet I have not what I would, the want of real and felt possession is my only death, I know Christ pitieth me in this. The great men my friends that did for me, are dried up like winter brooks of water: All say, no dealing for that man, ●is best will be, to be gone out of the Kingdom: so I see they tyre of me, but believe me I am most gladly content that Christ breaketh all my idols in pieces: it hath put a new edge upon my blunted love to Christ, I see he is Jealous of my love, & will have all to himself. In a word these six things are my burden. 1. I am not in the vineyard as others are, it may be because Christ thinketh me a withered tree not worthy its room, but God forbid. 2. Woe, woe, woe is coming upon my harlot-mother this Apostat-kirk, the time is coming when we shall wish for doves wings to flee and hide us, Oh for the desolation of this land. 3. I see my dear master Christ going his alone [as it were] mourning in sackeloth, his fainting friends fear that King Jesus shall lose the field, but he must carry the day. 4. My guiltiness and the sins of my youth are come up against me, and they would come in the plea in my sufferings, as deserving causes in God's justice; but I pray God for Christ's sake he never give them that room, woe's me that I cannot get my Royal, dreadful, mighty & glorious Prince of the Kings of the earth set on high. Sir, ye may help me & pity me in this, and bow your knee & bless his name, & desire others to do it, that he hath been pleased in my sufferings to make Atheists, Papists, & enemies about me, say, It is like God is with this prisoner. Let hell & the powers of hell [I care not] be let loose against me to do their worst, so being Christ & my Father, & his Father be magnified in my sufferings. 6. Christ's love hath pained me, for howbeit his presence hath shamed me and drowned me in debt, yet he often goeth away when my love to him is burning, he seemeth to look like a proud wooer who will not look upon a poor match who is dying of love, I will not say he is lordly, but I know he is wise in hiding himself from a child & a fool, who maketh an idol & a God of one of Christ's kisses, which is Idolatry: I fear I adore his comforts more than himself, and that I love the apples of life better than the tree of life. Sir write to me. Commend me to your wife, mercy be her portion. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637 Yours in his dearest Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JOHN STUART. Provest of Ayr. [53]  
Worthy and dearly beloved in our Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I was refreshed & comforted with your letter: what I wrote to you for your comfort, I do not remember, but I believe love will prophesy homeward as it would have it. I wish I could help you to praise his great and holy name, who keepeth the feet of his saints, & hath numbered all your goings. I know our dearest Lord will pardon & pass by our honest errors & mistakes when we mind his honour; yet I know none of you have seen the other half & the hidden side of your wonderful return home to us again. I am confident ye shall yet say that God's mercy blew your sails back to Ireland again. Worthy & dear Sir, I cannot but give you an account of my present state, that ye may go an errand for me, to my high & royal master, of whom I boast all the day. I am as proud of his love, [nay, I bless myself & boast more of my present lot] as any poor man can be of an earthly King's court, or of a Kingdom. First I am very often turning both the sides of my cross, especially my dumb & silent Sabbaths, not because I desire to find a crook or defect in my Lord's love, but because love is sick with fancies, & fears, whether or not the Lord hath a process leading against my guiltiness, that I have not yet well seen: I know not, my desire is to ride fair, & not to spark dirt [if with reverence of him I may be permitted to make use of such a word] in the face of my only, only well-beloved; but fear of guiltness, i● a tale-bearer betwixt me & Christ, & is still whispering ill tales of my Lord, to weaken my faith: I had rather a cloud went over my comforts by these messages, then that my faith should be hurt, for if my Lord get no wrong by me, verily I desire grace not to care what become of me. I desire to give no faith, nor credit to my sorrow, that can make a lie of my best friend Christ. Woe, woe be to them all who speak ill of Christ. Hence these thoughts awake with me in the morning & go to bed with me. Oh what service can a dumb body do in Christ's house! Oh I think the word of God is imprisoned also! Oh I am a dry tree! Alas I can neither plant, nor water! Oh if my Lord would make but dung of me, to fatten, and make fertile his own corn-ridges in mount Zion! Oh if I might but speak to three or four herd-boyes of my worthy master, I would be satisfied to be the meanest and most obscure of all the Pastors in this land, & to live in any place, in any of Christ's basest outhouses; but he saith, Sirrah, I ●ill not send you, I have no errands for you there away: My desire to serve him is sick of jealousy lest he be unwilling to employ me. Secondly, this is seconded with another, Oh all that I have done in Anwoth, the fair work that my Master began there, is like a bird dying in the shell! & what will I then have to show of all my labour in the day of my compearance before him, when the Master of the vineyard calleth the labourers, & giveth them their hire. Thirdly, but truly when Christ's sweet wind is in the right airth, I repent, & I pray Christ to take lawborrows of my quarrellous, & unbelieving sadness & sorrow [Lord rebuke them that put ill betwixt a poor servant like me, & his good master] then I say whether the black cross will or not, I must climb, hands & feet up to my Lord. I am now ruing from my heart, that I pleasure the law [my old dead husband] so far as to apprehend wrath in my sweet Lord Jesus, I had far rather take an hire to plead for the grace of God, for I think myself Christ's sworn debtor, & the truth is to speak of my Lord what I cannot deny, I am over head & ears drowned in many obligations to his love & mercy, he handleth me sometimes so, that I am ashamed almost to seek more for a four-hours, but to live content till the marriage-supper of the Lamb with that which he giveth; but I know not how greedy & how ill to please love is, for either my Lord Jesus hath taught me ill manners, not to be content of a seat except my head lie in his bosom, & except I be fed with the fattest of his house, or else I am grown impatiently dainty & ill to please, as if Christ were obliged under this cross to do no other thing but bear me in his arms, & as if I had claim by merit for my suffering for him: But I wish he would give me grace to learn to go on my own feet, & to learn to want his comforts, & to give thanks & believe, when the snn is not in my firmament, & when my well-beloved is from home & gone another errand. O what sweet peace have I, when I find Christ holdeth & I draw, when I climb up & he shutteth me down, when I grip him & embrace him, & he seemeth to lose the grips & flee away from me: I think there even is a sweet joy of faith & contentedness & peace in his very tempting unkindness, because my faith saith, Christ is not in sad earnest with me, but trying if I can be kind to his mask & cloud that covereth him, aswell as to his fair face: I bless his great name that I love his vail that goeth over his face while God send better: for faith can kiss God's tempting reproaches, when he nicknameth a sinner, a dog, not worthy to eat bread with the bairns, I think it an honour that Christ miscalleth me & reproacheth me: I will take that well of him, howbeit I would not bear it well if another would be that homely; but because I am his own [God be thanked] he may use me as he pleaseth: I must say, the saints have a sweet life betwixt them & Christ, there is much sweet solace of love betwixt him & them, when he feedeth among the lilies & cometh in to his garden & maketh a feast of honey combs, & drinketh his wine & his milk, & cryeth, Eat O friends, drink, be ye drunken O well-beloved. One hour of this labour, is worth a shipfull of world's drunken & muddy joy: nay even the gate of heaven is the sunny side the of braes & the very garden of the world; for the men of this world have their own unchristned & profane crosses & woe be to them & their cursed crosses both; for their ills are salted with God's vengeance, & our ills seasoned with our father's blessing: So they are no fools who choose Christ & sell all things for him; it is no bairns market nor a blind block, we know well what we get & what we give. Now for any resolution to go to any other Kingdom, I dare not speak one word: my hopes of enlargement are cold, my hopes of reentry to my Master's ill dressed, vine-yard again are far colder: I have no seat for my faith to sit on but bare omnipotency, & Gods holy arm & good will, here I desire to stay & ride at anchor & winter while God send fair weather again, & be pleased to take home to his house my harlot-mother: Oh if her husband would be that kind as to go & fetch her out of the brothel-house & chase her lovers to the hills, but there will be sad days ere it come to that. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in our Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady Busbie. (54)  
MISTRESS.  
ALthough not acquaint, yet because we are father's children I thought good to write unto you: howbeit my first discourse & communing with you of Christ, be in paper; yet I have cause since I came hither to have no paper-thoughts of him; for in my sad days he is become the flower of my joys, & I but lie here, living upon his love; but cannot get so much of it as fain I would have, not because Christ's love is Lordly & looketh too high; but because I have a narrow vessel to receive his love & I look too low: But I give under my own hand-write to you a testimonial of Christ & his cross, that they are a sweet couple, & that Christ hath never yet been set in his own due chair of honour amongst us all. Oh, I know not where to set him! O for a high seat to that royal princely one! O that my poor withered soul had once a running-over flood of that love, to put sap in my dry root, & that, that flood would spring out to the tongue and pen, to utter great things to the high & due commendation of such a fair one! O holy, holy, holy one! Alas there are too many dumb tongues in the world, and dry hearts, seeing there is employment in Christ for them all, and ten thousand worlds of men & Angels moe, to set on high & exalt the greatest Prince of the Kings of the earth. Woe's me that bits of living clay dare come out to rush hard heads with him, & that my unkind mother, this harlot-Kirk, hath given her sweet half-marrow such a meeting; for this land hath given up with Christ, & the Lord is cutting Scotland in two halves, and sending the worst half, the harlotsister, over to Rome's brothell-house, to get her fill of Egypt's love. I would my sufferings [nay, suppose I were burnt quick to ashes] might buy an agreement betwixt his fairest & sweetest love, & his gaddy lewd wife: Fain would I give Christ his welcome-home to Scotland again, if he would return. This is a black day, a day of clouds & darkness, for the roof-tree of my Lord Jesus his fair temple is fillen, and Christ's back is towards Scotland. O thrice blessed are they who would hold Christ with their tears & prayers! I know ye will help to deal with him, for he shall return again to this land; the next day shall be Christ's, & there shall be a fair green young garden for Christ in this land, & God's summerdew shall lie on it all the night, & we shall sing again our new marriage-song to our Bridegroom, concerning his vineyard; but who knoweth whether we shall live & see it? I hear the Lord hath taken pains to afflict and dress you as a fruitful vine for himself, grow & be green, & cast out your branches & bring forth fruit: fat and green & fruitful may ye be in the true and sappy root. Grace, grace, free grace be your portion. Remember my bonds with prayers & praises.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet L. jesus, S. R.   

To NINIAN MURE. (55.)  
Loving friend.  
I Received your letter: I entreat you now in the morning of your life, seek the Lord & his face: Beware of the follies of dangerous youth, a perilous time for your soul: Love not the world, keep faith & truth with all men in your covenants & bargains: Walk with God, for he seeth you: Do nothing but that which ye may & would do if your eyestrings were breaking, & your breath growing cold. Ye heard the truth of God from me, my dear heart; follow it & forsake it not: prise Christ & salvation above all the world: To live after the guise & course of the rest of the world, will not bring you to heaven: Without faith in Christ & repentance, ye cannot see God: take pains for salvation: press forward toward the mark of the prize of the high calling: If ye watch not against evils, night & day which beset you, ye will come behind: Beware of lying, swearing, uncleanness & the rest of the works of the flesh; because for these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience; how sweet soever they may seem for the present, yet the end of these courses is the eternal wrath of God & utter darkness, where there is weeping & gnashing of teeth. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your Loving Pastor. S. R.   

To Mr THOMAS GARVEN. (56)  
Reverend & Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I am sorry that what joy & sorrow drew from my imprisoned pen in my love-fits, hath made you & many of God's children believe, that there is something in a broken reed the like of me, except that Christ's grace hath bought such a sold body, I know not what else any may think of me, or expect from me: my stock is less [my Lord knoweth I speak truth] then many believe: my empty sounds have promised too much: I would be glad to lie under Christ's feet, & keep & receive the off-falling or the old pieces of any grace that fall from his sweet fingers to forlorn sinners: I lie often uncouth-like, looking in at the King's windows: surely I am unworthy of a seat in the King's hall-floor: I but often look afar off, both feared and framed-like to that fairest face, fearing he bid me look away from him: my guiltiness riseth up upon me & I have no answer for it: I offered my tongue to Christ & my pains in his house, & what know I what it meaneth when Christ will not receive my poor propine: when love will not take, we expone, it will neither take nor give, borrow nor lend. Yet Christ hath another sea-compass he saileth by, than my short & raw thoughts: I leave his part of it to himself. I dare not expound his dealing as sorrow & misbelief often dictateth to me: I look often with bleared and blind eyes to my Lords cross, & when I look to the wrong-side of his cross, I know I miss a step & slide: surely I see I have not legs of my own for carrying me to heaven, I must go in at heaven's gates borrowing strength from Christ. I am often thinking, Oh if he would but give me leave to love him, & if Christ would but open up his wares, & the infinite, infinite plies & windings & corners of his soul-delighting-love, & let me see it backside & fore-side, & give me leave but to stand beside it, like an hungry man beside meat, to get my fill of wondering as a preface to my fill of enjoying: but verily I think my foul eyes would defile his fair love to look to it: Either my hunger is over humble [if that may be said] or else I consider not what honour it is to get leave to love Christ. O that he would pity a prisoner, & let out a flood upon the dry ground! it is nothing to him to fill the like of me, one of his looks would do me meekle world's good & him no ill. I know I am not at a point yet with Christ's love, I am not yet fitted for so much as I would have of it; my hope sitteth neighbour with meekle black hunger, & certainly I dow not but think, there is more of that love ordained for me, than I yet comprehend, & I know not the weight of the pension the King will give me; I shall be glad, if my hungry bill get leave to lie beside Christ waiting on an answer: now I would be full & rejoice, if I got a poor man's alms of that sweetest love: but I confidently believe there is a bal made for Christ & me, & that we shall take our fill of love in it: & I often think, when my joy is run out & at the lowest ebb, that I would seek no more but my rights past the King's great seal, & that these eyes of mine could see Christ's hand at the pen. If your Lord call you to suffering, be not dismayed; there shall be a new allowance of the King for you when ye come to it: One of the softest pillows Christ hath, is laid under his witnesses head, though often they must set down their bare feet among thorns. He hath brought my poor soul to desire & wish, O that my ashes & the powder I shall be dissolved into, had well tuned tongues to praise him. Thus in haste, desiring your prayers & praises, I recommend you to my sweet, sweet Master, my honourable Lord of whom I hold all. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JEAN BROWN. (57)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am glad that ye go on at Christ's back in this dark & cloudy time: It were good to sell other things for him; for when all these days are over, we shall find it our advantage, that we have taken part with Christ. I confidently believe his enemies shall be his footstool, & that he shall make green flowers dead withered hay, when the honour & glory shall fall off them, like the bloom or flower of a green herb shaken with the wind. It were not wisdom for us to think that Christ & the Gospel will come & sit down at our fire side, nay, but we must go out of our warm houses & seek Christ & his gospel: It is not the sunny side of Christ that we must look to, & we must not forsake him for want of that, but must set our face against what may befall us in following on till he & we be through the briers & bushes on the dry ground: Our soft nature would be born through the troubles of this miserable life in Christ's arms: & it is his wisdom who knoweth our mould, that his bairns go wetshod & cold-footed to heaven. O how sweet a thing were it for us, to learn to make our burdens light, by framing our hearts to the burden and making our Lord's will a law! I find Christ & his cross not so ill to please, nor yet such troublesome guests as men call them: Nay, I think patience should make Christ's water good wine; & this dross good mettle: & we have cause to wait on, for ere it be long, our Master will be at us, & bring this whole world out before the sun & the daylight in their black's & white's: Happy are they who are found watching: Our sand-glass is not so long as we need to weary; time will eat away & root out our woes, & sorrow: our heaven is in the bud & growing up to an harvest; why then should we not follow on seeing our span length of time will come to an inch: Therefore I commend Christ to you as your last living, & longest living husband, & the staff of your old age: let him have now the rest of your days; & think not much of a storm upon the ship that Christ saileth in, there shall no passenger fall over board, but the craised ship & the sea-sick passenger shall come to land safe. I am in as sweet communion with Christ as a poor sinner can be, & am only pained that he hath much beauty and fairness, and I little love, he great power & mercy & I little faith, he much light & I bliered eyes. Oh that I saw him in the sweetness of his love & in his marriage clothes, & were over head & ears in love with that princely one Christ Jesus my Lord! Alas, my riven dish & running-out vessel can hold little of Christ Jesus. I have joy in this, that I would not refuse death before I put Christ's lawful heritage in men's trysting, & what know I, if they would have pleased both Christ & me. Alas, that this land hath put Christ to open rooping, & to an any man more b●● Blessed are they who would hold the crown on his head, & buy Christ's honour with their own losses. I rejoice to hear your son john is coming to visit Christ & taste of his love: I hope he shall not lose his pains or rue of that choice. I had always [as I said often to you] a great love to dear Mr john Brown because I thought I saw Christ in him more than in his brethren, fain would I write to him to stand by my sweet Master, & I wish ye would let him read my letter, & the joy I have, if he will appear for, & side with my Lord Jesus. Grace, grace, be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JEAN M ᶜ MILAN. (58)  
Loving Sister.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I cannot come to you to give you my counsel, & howbeit I would come I cannot stay with you; but I beseech you keep Christ, for I did what I could to put you within grips of him; I told you Christ's Testament & latterwill plainly, & I kept nothing back that my Lord gave me, & I gave Christ to you with good will: I pray you make him your own, & go not from that truth I taught you in one hair breadth, that truth shall save you if ye follow it: salvation is not an easy thing & soon gotten; I often told you few are saved, & many, many damned: I pray you make your poor soul sure of salvation, & make the seeking of heaven your daily task: if ye never had a sick night & a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ; look to the right marks of having closed with Christ, if ye love him better than the world, & would quite all the world for him then that saith the work is sound. O if ye saw the beauty of Jesus & felt the smell of his love, ye would run through fire & water to be at him: God send you him. Pray for me, for I cannot forget you. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your loving Pastor, S. R.   

To the Lady Busbie. (59)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you. I am glad to hear that Christ & ye are one, & that ye have made him your one thing: Whereas many are painfully t●…iled in seeking many things & their many things are nothing. It's only best, ye set yourself apart as a thing laid up & out of the gate for Christ alone, for ye are good for no other thing but Christ, & he hath been going about you these many years by afflictions, to engage you to himself, it were a pity & a loss to say him nay. Verily I could wish, that I could swim through hell & all the ill weather in the world & Christ in my arms; but it is my evil & folly, that except Christ come unsent for, I dow not go to seek, him: When he & I fall in reckoning, we are both behind, he in payment, & I in counting, & so marches lie still unrid & counts uncleared betwixt us. O that he would take his own blood for counts & miscounts, that I might be a free man, & none had any claim to me, but only, only Jesus. I will think it no bondage to be rooped, comprised & possessed by Christ, as his bondman. Think well of the visitations of your Lord: For I find one thing I saw not well before, that when the saints are under trials & well humbled, little sins raise great cries & war-shouts in the conscience; & in prosperity conscience is a Pope to give dispensations, & let out & in, & give latitude, & elbow-room to our heart. O how little care we for pardon at Christ's hand, when we make dispensations! And all is but bairns-play, till a cross without, beget an heavier cross within, & then we play no longer with our Idols: It is good still to be severe against ourselves, for we but transform God's mercy into an Idol, & an Idol that hath a dispensation to give for turning of the grace of God into wantonness. Happy are they who take up God, wrath, justice & sin, as they are in themselves: For we have miscarrying light that parteth with child, when we have good resolutions: But God be thanked that Salvation is not rolled upon our wheels. O but Christ hath a saving eye! Salvation is in his eyelids: When he first looked on me, I was saved; It cost him but a look to make hell quite of me: O merits, free merits, & the dear blood of God, was the best gate that ever we could have gotten of hell! O what a sweet, O what a safe & sure way is it, to come out of hell leaning on a Saviour! That Christ & a sinner should be one & have heaven betwixt them & be halvers of Salvation, is the wonder of Salvation: What more humble could love be? & what an excellent smell doth Christ cast on his lower garden, where there grow but wild flowers, if we speak by way of comparison; but there is nothing but perfect garden flowers in heaven, & the best plenishing that is there, is Christ: We are all obliged to love heaven for Christ's sake, he graceth heaven & all his father's house with his presence: He is a rose that beautifieth all the upper garden of God; a leaf of that rose of God, for smell, is worth a world: O that he would blow his smell upon a withered & dead soul, let us then go on to meet with him & to be filled with the sweetness of his love: Nothing will hold him from us; he hath decreed to put time, sin, hell, devils, men & death out of the way, & to rid the rough way betwixt us & him, that we may enjoy one another. It's strange & wonderful that he would think long in heaven without us, & that he would have the company of sinners to solace & delight himself withal in heaven. & now the supper is abiding us: Christ the bridegroom with desire is waiting on till the bride, the Lamb's wife, be busked for the marriage, & the great hall be rid for the meeting of that joyful couple. O fools, what do we here? & why sit we still? Why sleep we in the prison? Were it not best to make us wings to flee up to our blessed match, our marrow & our fellow-friend? I think, Misterss, ye are looking there-away, & this is your second or third thought: make forward, your guide waiteth on you. I cannot but bless you for your care & kindness to the saints. God give you to find mercy in that day of our Lord Jesus, to whose saving grace I recommend you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in our Lord jesus: S. R.   

To WILLIAM RIGGE. Of Athernie. (60.)  
Much honoured & worthy Sir.  
YOur letter full of complaints bemoaning your guiltiness hath humbled me; but give me leave to say, ye seem to be too far upon the law's side, ye will not gain much to be the Law's Advocate, I thought ye had not been the law's but grace's man; Nevertheless I am sure ye desire to take God's part against yourself: what ever your guiltiness be, yet when it falleth into the sea of God's mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen in the great Ocean: There is nothing here to be done, but let Christ's doom light upon the old man, & let him bear his condemnation, seeing in Christ he was condemned; for the Law hath but power over your worst half; let the blame therefore lie where the blame should be & let the new man be sure to say, I am comely as the tents of Kedar, how beit I be black & sunburnt by sitting neighbour beside a body of sin: I seek no more here but room for Grace's defence & Christ's white throne whereto a sinner condemned by the law may appeal: But the use that I make of ●t, is, I am sorry that I am not so tender & thin skinned, though I am sure Christ may find employment for his calling in me, if in any living, seeing from my youth upward I have been making up the blackest process that any minister in the world, or any other can answer to: & when I had done this, I painted a providence of my own, & wrote ease for myself & a peaceable ministry & the sun shining on me, till I should be in at heaven's gates: Such green & raw thoughts had I of God. I thought also of a sleeping Devil that would pass by the like of me, lying in moors & out-fields: So I bigged the gook's nest, & dreamt of dying at ease & living in a fools paradise; but since I came hither I am often so, as that they would have much Rhetoric that would persuade me, that Christ hath not written wrath on my dumb & silent Sabbaths [which is a persecution of the latest edition, being used against none in this land, that I can learn of besides me] & often I lie under a nonentry, & would gladly sell all my joys to be confirmed King Jesus' free tennent, & to have sealed assurances; but I see often blank papers: & my greatest desires are these two. 1. That Christ would take me in hand to cure me, & undertake for a sick man, I know I should not die under his hand: & yet in this, while I still doubt, I believe through a cloud, that sorrow which hath no eyes; hath but put a vail on Christ's love. 2. It pleaseth him often since I came hither, to come with some short blenks of his sweet love, & then because I have none to help me to praise his love, & can do him no service in my own person, [as I thought once I did in his temple] then I die with wishes & desires, to take up house & dwell at the well-side & to have him praised & set on high: But alas, what can the like of me do to get a good name raised upon my well-beloved Lord Jesus, suppose I could desire to be suspended for ever of my part of heaven for his glory? I am sure, If I could get my will of Christ's love, & could be once over head & ears in the believed, apprehended, & seen love of the Son of God, it were the fulfilling of the desires of the only happiness I would be at; but the truth is, I hinder my communion with him, because of want of both faith & repentance, & because I will make an idol of Christ's kisses: I will neither lead nor drive, except I see Christ's love run in my channel & when I wait and look for him the upper way, I see his wisdom is pleased to play me a slip & come the lower way; so that I have not the right art of guiding Christ: for there is art & wisdom required in guiding of Christ's love aright, when we have gotten it. O how far are his ways above mine! O how little of him do I see! & when I am as dry as a burnt heath in a drouthy summer, & when my root is withered, howbeit I think then that I would drink a seafull of Christ ere ever I would let the cup go from my head; yet I get nothing but delays, as if he would make hunger my daily food: I think myself also hungered of hunger; The rich Lord Jesus satisfy a famished man. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 10. Sept. 1637. Your own in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To his worthy & much honoured friend FULK ELIES. (61)  
Worthy & much honoured in our Lord  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am glad of our more than paper-acquaintance: Seeing we have one father, it reckoneth the less though we never saw one another's faces. I profess myself most unworthy to follow the camp of such a worthy & renowned captain, as Christ. Oh alas, I have cause to be grieved, that men expect any thing of such a wretched man as I am: It is a wonder to me, if Christ can make any thing of my naughty, short & narrow love to him; surely it is not worth the up-taking. 2. As for our lovely and beloved Church in Ireland, my heart bleedeth for her desolation; but I believe our Lord is only lopping the vine-trees, but not intending to cut them down or root them out. It is true, seeing we are heart-Atheists by nature, & cannot take providence aright, [because we halt & crook ever since we fell] we dream of an halting providence, as if God's yard whereby he measureth joy & sorrow to the sons of men, were crooked & unjust, because servants are on horseback & Princes go on foot; but our Lord dealeth good & evil & some one portion or other to both, by ounce-weights; & measureth them in a just and even balance. It is but folly to measure the Gospel by summer or winter-weather: The summer-sun of the saints, shineth not on them in this life: how should we have complained if the Lord had turned the same providence, that we now stomach at, up-side down, & had ordered matters thus, that first the saints should have enjoyed heaven, glory, & ease, & then Methusalem's days of sorrow & daily miseries; we should think a short heaven no heaven: certainly his ways pass finding out. 3. Ye complain of the evil of heart-atheism, but it is to a greater atheist than any man can be, that ye write to of that: Oh, light findeth not that reverence & fear as a plant of God's setting should find in our soul! How do we by nature, as others, detain & captivat the truth of God in unrighteousness, & so make God's light a bound prisoner, & even when the prisoner breaketh the jail & cometh out in belief of a Godhead, & in some practice of holy obedience; how often do we of new, lay h●nds on the prisoner and put our light again in fetters: Certainly there cometh great mist & clouds from the lower part of our soul, our earthly affections, to the higher part, which is our conscience, either natural or renewed, as smoke in a lower house breaketh up & defileth the house above: If we had more practice of obedience, we should have more sound light. I think, lay aside all other guiltiness, this one, the violence done to God's candle in our soul, were a sufficient dittay against us; for there is no helping of this, but by striving to stand in awe of God's light; lest light tell tales of us we de●re little to hear: but since it is not without God that light sitteth neighbour to will [a lawless Lord] no marvel that such a neighbour should leavens our Judgement & darken our light. I see there is a necessity that we protest against the doings of the old man, & raise up a party against our worst half to accuse, condemn, sentence, & with sorrow bemoan the dominion of sin's Kingdom & withal, make Law in the new Covenant against our guiltness; for Christ once condemned sin in the flesh & we are to condemn it over again: & if there had not been such a thing as the grace of Jesus, I should have long since given up with heaven & with the expectation to see God: But grace, grace, free grace, the merits of Christ for nothing, white & fair & large Saviour-mercy [which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy, or law-mercy; yea a thousand degrees above Angel-mercy] hath been and must be the rock, that we drowned souls must swim to: New washing, renewed application of purchased redemption by that sacred blood, that sealeth the free Covenant is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor sinner: Till we be in heaven our issue of blood will not be quite dried up, & therefore we must resolve to apply peace to our soul from the new & living way, & Jesus who cleanseth & cureth the leprous●●oul, lovely Jesus, must be our song on this side of heaven's gates: & even when we have won the castle, then must we eternally sing, Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved us & washed us in his own blood. I would counsel all the ransomed ones to learn this song, & to drink & be drunk with the love of Jesus. O fairest, O highest, O loveliest one, open the well! O water the burnt & withered travellers with this love of thine! I think it's possible on earth to build a young new Jerusalem, a little new heaven of this surpassing love. God either send m● more of this love, or take me quickly over the water, where I may be filled with his love: My softness cannot take with want; I profess I bear not hunger of Christ's love fair: I know not if I play foul play with Christ, but I would have a link of that chain of his providence mended in pining & delaying the hungry onwaiters: For myself I could wish that Christ would let out upon me more of that love: Yet to say Christ is a niggard to me, I dare not; & if I say, I have abundance of his love I should lie: I am half straitened to complain & cry, Lord jesus hold thy hand no longer. Worthy Sir, let me have your prayers in my bonds. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 7 Septr, 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord. jesus, S. R.   

To JAMES LINDSAY. (62.)  
Dear Brother.  
THe constant & daily observing of God's going alongst with you, in his coming, going, ebbing, flowing, embracing & kissing, glooming & striking giveth me [a witless & lazy observer of the Lord's way & working] an heavy stroke: could I keep sight of him, & know when I want, & carry as became me in that condition, I would bless my case. But. 1. For desertions, I think them like lying-lay of lean & weak land, for some years, while it gather sap for a better crope: It is possible to gather gold where it may be had with moon light. Oh if I could but creep one foot, or half a foot nearer in to Jesus in such a dismal night as that, when he is away: I should think it an happy absence. 2. If I knew the beloved were only gone away for trial, & for further humiliation, & not smoked out of the house with new provocations, I would forgive desertions, & hold my peace at his absence, but Christ's bought absence [that I bought with my sin] is two running boils at once, one upon either side, & what side then can I lie on? 3. I know as night & shadows are good for flowers, & moonlight, & dews are better than a continual sun; so is Christ's absence of special use, & it hath some nourishing virtue in it, & giveth sap to humility, & putteth an edge on hunger, & furnisheth a fair field to faith to put forth itself, & to exercise its fingers in gripping, it seeth not what. 4. It is mercy's wonder, & grace's wonder, that Christ will lend a piece of the lodging, & a back-chamber beside himself to our lusts, & that he & such swine should keep house together in our soul: For suppose they couch & contract themselves into little room, when Christ cometh in, & seem to lie as dead under his feet; yet they often break out again: And that a foot of the old man, or a leg or arm nailed to Christ's cross looseth the nail or breaketh out again; & yet Christ beside this unruly & misnurtured neighbour can still be making heaven in the saints one way or other, may not I say, Lord jesus, what dost thou here? Yet here he must be; but I will but lose my feet to go on into this depth & wonder, for free mercy & infinite merits took a lodging to Christ & us beside such a loath some guest as sin. 5. Sanctification & mortification of our lusts, are the hardest part of Christianity: It is in a manner as natural to us to leap when we see the new Jerusalem, as to laugh when we are tickled, joy is not under command, or at our nod when Christ kisseth: but O how many of us would have Christ divided in two halves, that we might take the half of him only & take his office jesus & salvation, but Lord is a cumbersome word, & to obey & work out our own salvation & to perfect holiness, is the cumbersome & stormy north-side of Christ, & that we eshew & shift. 6. For your question, the access that reprobats have to Christ [which is none at all, for to the Father in Christ neither can they, nor will they come, because Christ died not for them; & yet by law, God & justice overtaketh them] I say, First, there are with you more worthy & learned than I am Mrs Dickson, Blair, & Hamilton who can more fully satisfy you; but I shall speak in brief what I think of it in these assertions. 1. All God's justice toward man & Angels floweth from an act of the absolute sovereign freewill of God, who is our former & potter, & we are but clay; for if he had forbidden to eat of the rest of the trees of the Garden of Eden, & commanded Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge of good & evil, that command no doubt had been as just as this, Eat of all the trees, but not at all of the tree of knowledge of good & evil: The reason is, because his will is before his justice by order of nature, & what is his will, is his justice, & he willeth not things without himself because they are just: God cannot, God needeth not to hunt sanctity, holiness or righteousness from things without himself, & so not from the actions of men or Angels; because his will is essentially holy and just, & the prime rule of holiness & justice: as the fire is naturally light, and inclineth upward & the earth heavy, & inclineth downward. The 2 assertion then is, that God saith to reprobats believe in Christ [who hath not died for your salvation] & ye shall be saved, is just & right, because his eternal & essentially just will, hath so enacted & decreed: Suppose natural reason speak against this, this is the deep & special mystery of the Gospel. God hath obliged hard and fast all the reprobats in the visible Church to believe his promise, he that believeth shall be saved, & yet in God's decree and secret intention, there is no salvation at all decreed and intended to reprobats; and yet the obligation of God being from his Sovereign freewill, is most just, as said is in the first assertion. 3. Assertion: The righteous Lord hath right over the reprobats & all reasonable creatures that violate his commandments, this is easy. 4. Assertion: the faith that God seeketh of reprobats, is, That they rely upon Christ as despairing of their own righteousness, leaning wholly, & withal humbly, as weary & leaden, upon Christ, as on the resting stone laid in Zion; but he seeketh not that without being weary of their sin they rely on Christ, mankind's Saviour; for to rely on Christ & not to weary of sin, is presumption, not faith: faith is ever neighbour to a contrite spirit, & it's impossible that faith can be where there is not a casten down & contrite heart in some measure for sin: Now it is certain God commandeth no man to presume. 5. Assertion: then Reprobats are not absolutely obliged to believe, that Christ died for them in particular; for in truth neither reprobats nor others are obliged to believe a lie, only they are obliged to believe, Christ died for them, if they be first weary, burdened, sinsick & condemned in their own consciences, & stricken dead & killed with the law's sentence, & have indeed embraced him as offered, which is a second & subsequent act of faith, following after a coming to him, & closing with him. 6. Assertion: Reprobatsare not formally guilty of comtempt of God, & misbelief because they apply not Christ and the promises of the Gospel to themselves in particular, for so they should be guilty because they believe not a lie, which God never obliged them to believe. 7. Assertion: justice hath a right to punish reprobats, because out of pride of heart, confiding in their own righteousness, they rely not upon Christ, as a Saviour of all them that come to him: This, God may justly oblige them unto; Because in Adam they had perfect ability to do, and men are guilty because they love their own inability & rest upon themselves, & refuse to deny their own righteousness, & to take them to Christ, in whom there is righteousness for wearied sinners. 8. Assertion: It is one thing to rely, lean, & rest upon Christ in humility & weariness of spirit, & denying our own righteousness believing him to be the only righteousness of wearied sinners, & it is another thing to believe Christ died for me, john, Thomas, Anna, upon an intention & decree to save us by name. For 1. the first goeth first, the latter is always after in due order 2. The first is faith, the second is a fruit of faith. 3. The first obligeth reprobats & all men in the visible Kirk, the latter obligeth only the weary & leaden, & so only the elect & effectually called of God. 9 Assertion: It is a vain order, I know not if Christ died for me, john, Thomas, Anna by name; & therefore I dare not rely on him? The reason is, because It is not faith, to believe God's intention & decree of election at the first, ere ye be wearied: look first to your own intention & soul, if ye find sin a burden, and can, and do rest, under that burden upon Christ; if this be once, now come & believe in particular or rather apply by sense [for in my judgement it is a fruit of belief, not belief] & feeling the goodwill, intention, and gracious purpose of God anent your salvation: Hence because there is malice in reprobats and contempt of Christ, guilty they are; and justice hath law against them: And which is the mystery, they cannot come up to Christ because he died not for them; but their sin is, that they love this their inability to come to Christ, and he who loveth his chains, deserveth chains: And thus in short remember my bonds.  
Aberd. Sept, 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Earl of Cassills'. (63)  
My very honourable & Noble Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your Lo: pardon me to express my earnest desire to your Lo: for Zions' sake, for whom we should not hold our peace. I know your Lo: will take my pleading on this behalf in the better part, because the necessity of a falling & weak church is urgent. I believe your Lo: is one of Zion's friends, & that by obligation; for when the Lord shall count & write up the people, it shall be written this man was born there: Therefore because your Lo: is a born son of the house, I hope your desire is, that the beauty & glory of the Lord may dwell in the midst of the city, whereof your Lo: is a son. It must be without all doubt the greatest honour of your place & house, to kiss the son of God, & for his sake to be kind to his oppressed & wronged bride, who now in the day of her desolation beggeth help of you that are the shields of the earth: I am sure ma●y Kings, Princes & Nobles in the day of Christ's second coming, would be glad to run errands for Christ, even bore footed thorough fire & water; but in that day he will have none of their service: Now he is ask if your Lo: will help him against the mighty of the earth, when men are setting their shoulders to Christ's fair & beautiful tent in this land, to lose its stakes & to break it down, & certainly such as are not with Christ are against him: & blessed shall your Lo: be of the Lord, blessed shall your house & seed be, & blessed shall your Honour be, if ye empawnd & lay in Christ's hand the Earledom of Cassills' [& it is but a shadow in comparison of the city made without hands] and lay it even at the stake, rather than Christ & born-down truth want a witness of you, against the apostasy of this land. Ye hold your lands of Christ, your charters are under his seal, & he who hath many crowns on his head, dealeth, cutteth, & carveth pieces of this clay-heritage to men at his pleasure. It is little your Lo: hath to give him, he will not sleep long in your common, but shall surely pay home your losses for his cause. It is but our bliered eyes that look thorough a false glass to this idol-god of clay & think some thing of it: They who are passed with their last sentence to heaven or hell, and have made their reckoning & departed out of this smoky inn, have now no other conceit of this world, but as a piece of beguiling, wel-lustred clay: & how fast doth time [like a flood still in motion] carry your Lo: out of it? & is not eternity coming with wings? Court goeth not in heaven as it doth here. Our Lord, [who hath all you the Nobles lying in the shell of his balance] esteemeth you, accordingly as ye are the bridegroom's friends or foes. Your Honourable Ancestors with the hazard of their lives brought Christ to our hands, & it shall be cruelty to the posterity if ye lose him to them. One of our tribes, Levi's Sons, the watchmen, are fallen from the Lord, & have sold their mother, & their father also, and the Lord's truth, for their new velvet-world, and there satin-church. If ye the Nobles play Christ a slip, now when his back is at the wall [if I may so speak] then may we say that the Lord hath casten water upon Scotland's smoking coal: But we hope better things of you. It is no wisdom; however it be the State-wisdom now in request, to be silent, when they are casting lots for a better thing than Christ's coat. All this land, & every man's part of the play for Christ, & the tears of poor & friendless Zion [now going doollike in sackcloth] are up in heaven before our Lord, & there is no question but our king & Lord shall be master of the fields at length, & we would all be glad to divide the spoil with Christ, & to ride in triumph with him; but Oh how few will take a cold bed of straw in the camp with him! How fain would men have a wel-thatched house above their heads, all the way to heaven? And many now would go to heaven the land way [for they love not to be sea-sick] riding up to Christ upon footmantles, & rattling coaches, & rubbing their velvet with the Princes of the Land, in the highest seats. If this be the way Christ called straight & narrow. I quite all skill of the way to salvation. Are they not now rooping Christ & the Gospel? Have they not put our Lord Jesus to the market & he who outbideth his fellow, shall get him? O my Dear & Noble Lord, go on [howbeit the wind be in your face] to back our princely Captain, be courageous for him: fear not these who have no subscribed lease of days, the worms shall eat kings, let the Lord Jehovah be your fear: And then, as the Lord liveth the victory is yours. It is true many are striking up a new way to heaven, but my soul for theirs, if they find it, & if this be not the only way whose end is Christ's father's house: And my weak experience since the day I was first in bonds hath confirmed me in the truth & assurance of this: Let doctors & learned men cry the contrair, I am persuaded this is the way: the bottom hath fallen out of both their wit & conscience at once, their book hath beguiled them, for we have fallen upon the true Christ. I dare hazard, if I alone had ten souls, my salvation upon this stone that many now break their bones upon. Let them take this fat world, Oh poor and hungry is their paradise! Therefore let me entreat your Lo: By your compearance before Christ, now while this piece of the afternoon of your day is before you, [for ye know not when your sun will turn, & eternity shall benight you] let your glory, honour & might worldly, be, for our Lord Jesus: And to his rich grace, & tender mercy, and to the neverdying comforts of his gracious Spirit I recommend your Lo: And Noble house.  
Aberd. Sept. 9 1637. Your Lo: at all obedience. S, R.   

To the Lady Largirie. (64)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, Mercy & Peace be to you. I hope ye know what conditions passed betwixt Christ & you at your first meeting: Ye remember he said, your summer days would have clouds and your rose a prickly thorn bend it: Christ is unmixed in heaven, all sweetness and honey, here we have him with his thorny and rough cross; yet I know no tree beareth sweeter fruit than Christ's cross, except I would raise a lving report on it: It is your part to take Christ as he is to be had in this life: Sufferings are like a wood planted round about his house, over door and window: If we could hold fast our grips of him; the field were won: Yet a little while and Christ shall triumph: Give Christ his own short time to spin, out these two long threads of heaven and hell to all mankind, for certainly the thread will not break; and when he hath accomplished his work in mount Zion and hath refined his silver, he will bring new vessels out of the furnace, and plenish his house and take up house again. I counsel you to free yourself of clogging temptations, by overcoming some, & contemning others; and watching over all: abide true and loyal to Christ, for few now are fast to him: they give Christ blank paper for a bond of service and attendance, now when Christ hath most ado: to waste a little blood with Christ, and to put out part of this drossy world in pawn over in his hand, as willing to quite it for him, is the safest cabinet to keep the world in: But these who would take the world & all their flitring on their back & run away from Christ, they will fall by the way & leave their burden behind them, & be taken captive themselves. Well were my soul to put all I have; life & soul, over in Christ's hands; let him be forthcoming for all. If any ask, how I do? I answer, none can be but well that are in Christ: And if I were not so, my sufferings had melted me away in ashes and smoke; I thank my Lord that he hath something in me that this fire cannot consume. Remember my love to your husband & show him from me, I desire that he may set aside all things & make sure work of salvation, that it be not a seeking when the sand-glass is run out, & time & eternity shall tryst together: There is no errand so wieghty as this: O that he would take it to heart. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Yours in Christ jesus his Lord. S. R.   

To the Lady DUNGUEIGH. (65)  
MISTRESS.  
I Long to hear from you, & how ye go on with Christ: I am sure that Christ & ye once met: I pray you fasten your grips; there is holding & drawing & much sea-way to heaven, & we are often sea-sick; but the voyage is so needful, that we must on any terms take shipping with Christ. I believe it is a good country we are going to, & there is ill lodging in this smoky house of the world, in which we are yet living. Oh that we should love smoke so well & clay, that holdeth our feet fast! It were our happiness to follow on after Christ, & to anchor ourselves upon the rock in the upper side of the vail. Christ & Satan are now drawing to parties, & they are blind who see not Scotland divided in two camps, & Christ coming out with his white banner of love, & he hangeth that over the heads of his soldiers: And the other Captain, the Dragon, is coming out with a great black flag, & crieth, the world, the world, case, honour, & a whole skin, and a soft couch, & there lie they, & leave Christ to fend for himself: My counsel is that ye come out & leave the multitude & let Christ have your company: Let them take clay & this present world who love it: Christ is a more worthy & noble portion: Blessed are these who get him: It is good ere the storm rise to make ready all, & to be prepared to go to the camp with Christ, seeing he will not keep the house, nor sit at the fireside with couchers: A shower for Christ is little enough Oh I find all too little for him! Woe, woe, woe's me, that I have no propine for my Lord Jesus: My love is so feckless that it is a shame too offer it to him. Oh if it were as broad as heaven, as deep as the sea, I would gladly bestow it upon him! I persuade you God is wring grapes of red wine for Scotland, & this land shall drink & spew & fall: His enemies shall drink the thick of it & the grounds of it: But Scotland's withered tree shall blossom again, & Christ shall make a second marriage with her, & take home his wife out of the furnace; but if our eyes shall see it, he knoweth who hath created time. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord, jesus. S. R.   

To JONET MCCULLOCH. (66)  
Loving Sister.  
GRace, mercy, & peace be to you: Hold on your course, for it may be, I will not soon see you: venture through the thick of all things after Christ, & tine not your Master Christ in the throng of this great market. Let Christ know how heavy & how many a stone weight you & your cares, burdens, crosses, & sins are; let him bear all: Make the heritage sure to yourself, get charters & writs passed & through, & put on arms for the battle, & keep you fast by Christ, & then let the wind blow out of what airth it will, your soul will not blow in the sea. I find Christ the most steadable friend and companion in the world to me now: the need & usefulness of Christ i seen best in trials. Oh if hebe not well worthy of his room! Lodge him in house & heart; & stir up your husband to seek the Lord: I wonder he hath never written to me: I do not forget him. I taught you the whole counsel of God & delivered it to you, it will be inquired for, at your hands, have it in readiness against the time that the Lord ask for it: make you to meet the Lord; & rest & sleep in the love of that fairest among the sons of men: Desire Christ's beauty: give out all your love to him & let none fall by: Learn in prayer to speak to him: help your mother's soul, & desire her from me to seek the Lord & his salvation, it's not soon found, many miss it. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your Loving Pastor. S. R.   

To my Lord CRAIGHALL. (67)  
My Lord.  
I cannot expound your Lo: contrary tides and these tentations wherewith ye are assaulted to be any other thing but Christ trying you, & saying unto you & will ye also leave me. I am sure Christ hath a great advantage against you, if ye play foul play to him, in that the holy Spirit hath done his part, in evidencing to your conscience, that this is the way of Christ wherein ye shall have peace, & the other, as sure as God liveth, the Antichrist's way: Therefore as ye fear God, fear your light & stand in awe of a convincing conscience: it is far better for your Lo: to keep your conscience, & to hazard in such a honourable cause, your place; then wilfully & against your light to come under guiltiness: Kings cannot heal broken consciences; & when death & judgement shall comprise your soul, your counsellors & others cannot become caution to Justice for you. Ere it be long our Lord will put a final determination to Acts of Parliament & men's laws, & will clear you before men & Angels of men's unjust sentences. Ye received honour, & place, & Authority, & riches & reputation from your Lord, to set forward & advance the liberties & freedom of Christ's Kingdom: Men whose consciences are made of stoutness, think little of such matters, which notwithstanding encroach directly upon Christ's prerogative royal. So would men think it a light matter for VZZah to put out his hand to hold the Lord's falling ark, but it cost him his life. And who doubteth but a carnal friend will advise you to shut your window & pray beneath your breath: Ye make too great a d●● with your prayers, so would a head-of-wit speak, if ye were in Daniel's place: But men's overguilded reasons will not help you when your conscience is like to rive with a double charge. Alas, alas, when will this world learn to submit their wisdom to the wisdom of God. I am sure your Lo: hath found the truth; go not then to search it over again; for it is ordinary for men to make doubts, when they have a mind to desert the truth. King's are not their own men, their ways are in God's hand. I rejoice & am glad that ye resolve to walk with Christ, howbeit his court be thin. Grace be with your Lo:  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your Lo: in his sweet Master and Lord jesus, S. R.   

To WILLIAM RIGGE. of Atherny. (68)  
Worthy & much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: How sad a prisoner would I be, if I knew not that my Lord Jesus had the keys of the prison himself, & that his death & blood hath bought a blessing to our crosses aswell as to ourselves. I am sure, troubles have no prevailing right over us, if they be but our Lord's Sergeants to keep us in ward while we are in this side of heaven: I am persuaded also, that they shall not go over the bound-road, nor enter in to heaven with us; for they find no welcome there, where there is no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain: & therefore we shall leave them behind us. Oh if I could get as good a gate of sin, even this woeful & wretched body of sin, as I get of Christ's cross! Nay indeed I think the cross beared b●th me & itself, rather than I it, in comparison of the tyranny of the lawless flesh & wicked nighbour that dwelleth beside Christ's new creature: But Oh, this is that which presseth me down, & pai●eth me: Jesus Christ in his saints sitteth neighbour with an ill second, corruption, deadness, coldness, pride, lust, worldliness, self-love, security, falsehood, & a world of ●o● the like, which I find in me, that are daily doing violence to the new man. O but we have cause to carry low sails, & to cleave fast to free grace, free, free grace! Blessed be our Lord that ever that way was found out: If my one foot were in heaven & my soul half in, if freewill & corruption were absolute Lords of me, I should never win wholly in. O but the sweet, new & living way that Christ hath struck up to our home, be a safe way! I find now presence & access a greater dainty than b●fore, but yet the bridegroom looketh through the lattes & thorough the hole of the door. O if he & I were in fair dry land together in the other side of the water. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 30. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S R.   

To the Lady KILCONQUHAIR. (69)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter: I am heartily content ye love & own this oppressed and wronged cause of Christ, & that now wh●n so many are miscarried, ye are in any measure taken with the love of Jesu●: weary not, but come in & see if there be not more in Christ then the tongue of men & Angels can express: If ye seek a gate to heaven, the way is in him, or, he is it: What ye want is treasured up in Jesus, & he saith, all his are yours, even his Kingdom, he is content to divide it betwixt him & you, yea his throne & his glory, Luk. 21. 29. joh. 17. 24. Rov. 3. 21. & Therefore take pains to climb up to that besieged house to Christ: for devils, men & armies of temptations are lying about the house to hold out all that are out; & it is taken with violence: It is not a smooth & easy way, neither will your weather be fair & pleasant; but whosoever saw the invisible God & the fair city, make no reckoning of loss●s or crosses: in ye must be, cost you what it will; stand not for a price & for all that ye have, to win the castle; the rights to it are won to you, & it is disponed to you in your Lord Jesus' testament, & see what a fair legacy your dying friend Christ hath left you: And there wanteth nothing but possession. Then get up in the strength of the Lord; get over the water to possess that good land: It is better than a land of olives & wine-trees, for the tree of life that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month is there before you, & a pure river of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, is there. Your time is short, therefore lose no time: Gracious & faithful is he who hath called you to his Kingdom & glory. The city is yours by free conquest & by promise, & therefore let no uncouth Lord-idol put you from your own. The devil hath cheated the simple heir of his Paradise, & by enticing us to taste of the forbidden fruit, hath, as it were, bought us out of our kindly heritage: But our Lord, Christ Jesus, hath done more than bought the devil by, for he hath redeemed the wodset & made the poor heir free to the inheritance. If we knew the glory of our elder brother in heaven, we would long to be there to see him, & to get our fill of heaven: We children think the earth a fair garden, but it is but God's out-field & wild, cold, barren ground: All things are fading that are here: It is our happiness to make sure Christ to ourselves. Thus remembering my love to your husband & wi●king to him what I write to you, I commit you to God's tender mercy.  
Aberd. Sepr. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady CRAIGHALL. (70)  
Honourable and Christian Lady.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I cannot but write to your La: of the sweet & glorious terms I am in with the most joyful King that ever was, under this well thrifing & prosperous cross: it is my Lord's salvation wrought by his own right hand, that the water doth not suffocat the breath of ●●pe & joyful courage in the Lo●d Jesus: For his own person is still in the camp with his poor soldier. I see, the cross is tied with Christ's hand to the end of an honest profession: We are but fools to endeavour to lose Christ's knot. When I consider the comforts of God, I durst not consent to sell or wod-set my short life-rent of the cross of the Lord Jesus. I know that Christ bought with his own blood a right to sanctified & blessed crosses, in as far, as they blow me over the water to my long desired home: & it were not good that Christ should be the buyer & I the seller. I know time & death shall take sufferings fairly off my hand: I hope we shall have an honest parting at night, when this piece cold & frosty afternoon-tide of my evil & rough day, shall be over: Well is my soul of either sweet or sour that Christ hath any part or portion in: if he be at the one end of it, it hall be well with me. I shall die ere I libel faults against Christ's cross; it hall have my testimonial under my hand, as an honest & saving mean of Christ for mortification & faith's growth. I have a stronger assurance since I came over Forth, of the excellency of Jesus than I had before. I am rather about him then in him, while I am absent from him in this house of clay: But I would be in heaven for no other cause, but to essay & try, what boundies joy it must be, to be over head & ears in my well-beloved Christ's love. O that fair one hath my heart for evermore! but alas, it is over little for him! O if it were better & more worthy for his sake! O if I might meet with him face to face in this side of eternity, & might have leave to plead with him that I am so hungered & famished here, with the niggardly portion of his love that he giveth me! O that I might be carver & steward my sel● at mine own will of Christ's love! [if I may lawfully wish this] then would I enlarge my vessel [alas, a narrow & ebb soul] & take in a sea of i▪ love. My hunger for it is hungry & lean in believing that ever I shall be satisfied with that love, so fain would I have, what I know I cannot hold. O Lord Jesus, delightest thou, delightest thou to pine & torment poor souls with the want of thy incomparable loved. O if I durst call thy dispensation cruel! I know thou thyself a●t mercy without either brim or bottom; I know tho● art a God bankfull of mercy & love, but Oh alas, little of it cometh my way: I die to look a far off to that love, because I can get but little of it: But hope saith, this providence shall ere long look more favourably upon poor bodies, & me also. Grace be with your La: Spirit.  
Aberd. Sept. 10. 1637. Yours La: in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr JAMES HAMILTON. (71)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
PEace be to you from God our father and from our Lord Jesus: I am laid low when I remember what I am, and that my outside casteth such a lustre when I find so little within. It is a wonder that Christ's glory is not defiled in running through such an unclean & impure channel: But I see Christ will be Christ in the dreg and refuse of men: his art, his shining wisdom, his beauty speaketh loudest in blackness, weakness, deadness, yea in nothing. I see, nothing, no money, no worth no good, no life, no deserving is the ground that omnipotency delighteth to draw glory out of. O how sweet is the inner side of the walls of Christ's house, and a room beside himself! my distance from him maketh me sad. O that we were in others arms! O that the middle things betwixt us were removed! I find it a difficult matter to keep all stots with Christ: when he laugheth I scarce believe it, I would so fain have it true. But I am like a low man looking up to a high mountain, whom weariness and fainting overcometh. I would climb up, but I find that I do not advance in my journey as I would wish: Yet I trust he shall take me home against night. I marvel not that Antichrist in his slaves is so busy, but our crowned King seeth and beholdeth, and will arise for Zion's safety. I am exceedingly distracted with letters and company that vilite me; what I can do, or time will permit, I shall not omit: Excuse my brevity, for I am straitened. Remember the Lord's prisoner: I desire to be mindful of you. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr GEORGE DUMBAR. (72)  
Reverend & Dear beloved in the Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Because your words have strengthened many, I was silent expecting some lines from you in my bonds, & this is the cause why I wrote not to you: but now I am forced to break off and speak. I never believed till now, that there was so much to be found in Christ in this side of death and of heaven. O the ravishments of heavenly joy that may be had here, in the small glean of comforts that fall from Christ! what fools are we who know not and consider not the weight and the telling that is in the very earnest-penny & the first fruits of our hoped for harvest! How sweet, how sweet is our infeftment? O what then must personal possession be? I find that my Lord Jesus hath not miscooked or spilt this sweet cross, he hath an eye on the fire and the melting gold, to separate the mettle and the dross. O how much time would it take me, to read my obligations to Jesus my Lord, who will neither have the faith of his own to be burnt to ashes; nor yet will have a poor believer in the fire to be half raw, like Ephraim's unturned caked this is the wisdom of him who hath his fi●el● Zion and his furnace in Jerusa●em. I need not either bud or flatter temptations, cress', nor strive to buy the Devil or this malicious world by, or redeem their kindness with half a han-breadth of truth: He who is surety for his servant for good doth power fully overrule all that. I s●e my prison hath neither lock nor door; I am free in my bonds, and my chains are made of rotten straw, they shall not bide one pull of faith. I am sure they are in hell who would exchange their torments with our crosses, suppose they should nev●r be delivered, & give twenty thousand years torment to boot, to be in our bonds for ever: & therefore we wrong Christ who si●…h & fear & doubt & despond in them. Our suff●●ings are washen in Christ's blood as well as our souls; for Christ's merits bought a blessing to the crosses of the sons of God; and Jesus hath a back-bond of all our temptations, that the free warders shall come out by law and justice, in respect of the infinite and great sum that the Redeemer paid. Our troubles owe us a free passage through them: devils and men and crosses are our debtors, and death and all storms are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water fraught-fr●e, & to set the travellers in their own known ground: Therefore we shall die & yet live: we are over the water [some way] already; we are married, & our tocher-good is paid; we are already more than conquerors: If the devil and the world knew how the court with our Lord shall go, I am sure they would hire death to take us off their hand; our sufferings are the only w●ack & ruin of the black Kingdom: and yet a little & the Antichrist must play himself with the bones & slain bodies of the Lamb's followers; but withal we stand with the hundred forty & four thousand who are with the Lamb upon the top of ●ount Zion: Antichrist & his followers are down in the valley ground, we have the advantage of the hill: our temptation are always beneath, our waters are beneath our breath; as dying and behold we live: I never heard before of a living death, or a quick death, but ours: our death i● not like the common death; Christ's skill, his handy work & a new cast of Christ's admirable art may be seen in our quick death. I bless the Lord that all our troubles come through Christ's singers, & that he casteth sugar among them, and casteth in, some ounce weights of heaven and of the spirit of glory [that resteth on suffering believers] in our cup in which there is no taste of hell. My dear Brother, ye know all these better than I: I send water to the sea, to speak of these things to you: But it easeth me to desire you to help me to pay tribute of praise to Jesus. O what praises I owe him! I would I were in my free heritage, that I might begin to pay my debts to Jesus. I entreat for your prayers & praises: I forget not you.  
Aberd. Sept. 17. 1637 Your brother and fellow sufferer in and for Christ. S. R.   

To Mr DAVID DICKSON. (73)  
Reverend and well-beloved brother in the Lord.  
I Bless the Lord who hath so wonderfully stopped the on-going of that lawless process against you. The Lord reigneth, & hath a saving eye upon you & your ministry, & therefore fear not what men can do. I bless the Lord that the Irish ministers find employment, & the professors comfort of their ministry: Believe me, I durst not, as I am now disposed, hold an honest brother out of the pulpit: I trust, the Lord shall guard you & hide you in the shadow of his hand: I am not pleased with any that are against you in that. I see this, in prosperity men's conscience will not start at small sins: But if some had been where I have been since I came from you, a little more would have caused their eye water & troubled their peace. O how ready are we to incline to the world's-hand? Our arguments being well examined are often drawn from our skin: the whole skin & a peaceable tabernacle is a topic maxim in great request in our Logic. I find a little breirding of God's seed in this town, for the which the Doctors have told me their mind, that they cannot bear with it, and have examined and threatened the people that haunt my company: I fear I get not leave to winter here, and whether I go, I know not; I am ready at the Lord's call. I would I could make acquaintance with Christ's cross, for I find, comforts lie to, & follow upon the cross. I suffer in my name by them: I take it as a part of the crucifying of the old man: Let them cut the throat of my credit & do as they like best with it, when the wind of their calumnies hath blown away my good name from me in the way to heaven, I know Christ will take my name out of the mire & wash it & restore it to me again. I would have a mind (if the Lord would be pleased to give me it] to be a fool for Christ's sake. Sometimes while I have Christ in my arms, I fall asleep with the sweetness of his presence, & he in my sleep stealeth away out of my arms, & when I awake I mis● him. I am much comforted with my Lady Pi●sligo, a good woman & acquainted with God's ways. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 11. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord. jesus, S. R.   

To the right honourable, my Lord LOWDOUN. (75.)  
Right honourable.  
GRace mercy & peace be to your Lo: I rejoice exceedingly that I hear your Lo: hath a good mind to Christ & his now-born-down truth. My very dear Lord, go on in the strength of the Lord to carry your honour & worldly glory to the new jerusalem: For this cause your Lo: received these of the Lord: this is a sure way for the establishment of your house if ye be of these who are willing in your place to build Zion's old waste places in Scotland. Your Lo: wanteth not God's & man's law both, now to come to the streets for Christ: & suppose the bastard laws of man were against you, it is an honest & zealous error, if here ye slip against a point or punctilio of standing policy: when your foot slippeth in such known ground as is the royal prerogative of our high & most truly dread sovereign [who hath many crowns on his head] & the liberties of his house, he will hold you up. Blessed shall they be who take Babel's little ones & dash their heads against stones: I wish your Lo: have a share of that blessing with other worthy Nobles in our land. It is true, it is now accounted wisdom for men to be partners in pullen up the stakes & looing the cords of the tent of Christ: but I am perswaded, that that wisdom is cried down in heaven, & shall never pass for true wisdom it● the Lord, whose word crieth shame upon wit against Christ & truth: & accordingly it shall prove shame & confusion of face in the end. Our Lord hath given your Lo: 〈◊〉 of a better stamp, & learning also wherein year not behind th' disputer and the s●●be. O what a blessed thing i● it to see Nobility, Learning & Sanctification, all co cur in one! For these ye owe your sell to Christ & his kingdom: God hath be-wildered & b●-misted the wit & the learning of the scribes & disputer of this time; they look asquint to the Bible: This blinding & be-●…ing world blindfoldeth men's light, that they are afraid to see strait out b●fore them, nay their very light playeth the knave, or wo●s, to truth. Your Lo: knoweth, within a little while, Policy against trut● will blu●h, & the works of men shall burn, even their spider-w●b, who spin out many hundred els & webs of indifferency in the Lord's worship, moe than ever ●oses, who would have an●oof m●●t rial; & Daniel, who would have a look out at a wi●dow a matter of life & death, than ever [I say] these men of God dreamt of. Alas, that men dare shape, carve, cut & clip our King's princely Testament in length and breadth and in all dimensions answerable to the conceptions of such policy as a h ad-of-wit thinketh a safe and trim way of serving God. How have men forgotten the Lord, that they dàre go against even that truth which once they preached themselves, howbeit their sermons now be as thin sown as strav-berri●s in a wood or wilderness. Certainly the sweetest & safest course is, for this short time of the afternoon of this ol● & declining world, to stand for Jesus: he hath said it & it is our part to believe it, that ere is be long Time shall be no more, and the heaven shall wax old as a garment: 〈◊〉 Do we not see it already an old holly & threadbare garment? doth not or ple & la●e ature t●●l us, that the Lord will fold up the old garment, 〈◊〉 and lay it aside, & that the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll & this pest-house shall be burnt with fire, & that both plenishing & walls shall melt with fervent heat? for at the Lord's coming he will do with this earth as men do with a leper house, he will burn the walls with fire & the plenishing of the house also, 2 Pet. 3, 10, 11, 12. My very Daer Lord, how shall ye rejoice in that day to have Christ, Angels, heaven, & your own conscience to smile upon you. I am persuaded one sick night through the terrors of the Almighty, would make men [whose conscience hath such a wide throat as an image like a Chathedral Church would go down it] have other thoughts of Christ and his worship then now they please themselves with. The scarcity of faith in the earth saith, We are hard upon the last nick of time: Blessed are these who keep their garments clean against the bridegroom's coming: There shall be spotted clothes & many defiled garments at his last coming; & therefore few found worthy to walk with him in white. I am persuaded, my Lord, this poor travelling woman, our pained Church, is with child of victory & shall bring forth a man-child that shall be caught up to God & his throne, howbeit the Dragon [in his followers] be attending the childe-birth-pain, as an Egyptian midwife, to receive the birth & strangle it: Isa. 29: 8. But they shall be disappointed who thirst for the destruction of Zion, they shall be as when a hungry man dreameth that he eateth but behold he awaketh & his soul is empty, or when a thirsty man dreameth, that he drinketh but behold he awaketh & is faint & his soul is not satisfied: so shall it be, I say, with the multitude of all the nations that fight against mount Zion. Therefore the weak, & feeble, these that are as signs & wonders in Israel, have chosen the best side, even the side that victory is upon; & I think, this is no evil policy. Verily for myself, I am so well pleased with Christ & his noble & honest-born cross, this cross that is come of Christ's house, & is of kin to himself, that I should weep if it should come to niffering & bar●●ring of lots & condition with these that are at ease in Zion: I hold still my choice & bless myself in it. I see, & I believe there is salvation in this way that is every where spoken against: I hope to go to eternity & to venture upon the last evil to the saints, even upon death, fully persuaded that this only, even this, is, the saving way for rackel consciences & for weary & laden sinners to find ease & peace for evermore into: & indeed it is not for any worldly respect that I speak so of it: the weather is not so hot that I have great cause to startle in my prison, or to boast of that ●ntertainment that my good friends the Prelates, intent for me, which is banishment, if they shall obtain their desire & effectu at what they design; but let it come, I rue not that I made Christ my wail & my choice; I think him ay the longer the better. My Lord, It shall be good service to God to hold your noble friend & Chief upon a good course for the truth of Christ. Now the very God of peace establish your Lo: in Christ Jesu● unto the end.  
Aberd. Sept, 10. 1637. Your Lo: in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Laird of GAITGIRTH. (76)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I can do no more but thank you in paper, & remember you to him whom I serve, for your kindness & care of a prisoner. I ble●s the Lord, the cause I suffer for needeth not to blu●h before Kings: Christ's white, honest & fair truth needeth neither wax pale for fear, nor blush for shame. I bless the Lord who hath graced you to own Christ now, when so many are afraid to profess him, & hide him for fear they suffer loss by avouching him. Alas that so many in these days are carried with the times: As if their conscience rolled upon oiled wheels so do they go any way the wind bloweth them, & because Christ is not market-sweet, men put him away from them. Worthy & much honoured Sir, go on to own Christ & his oppressed truth: The end of sufferings for the Gospel is rest and gladness: light & joy is sown for the mourners in Zion and the harvest [which is of God's making for time & manner] is near: Crosses have right & claim to Christ in his members, till legs & arms & whole mystical-Christ be in heaven: There will be rain & hail & storm●●n the saints clouds, ever till God cleanse with fire the works of creation, & till he burn the botch-house of heaven & earth that men's sin hath subjected unto vanity. They are blessed who suffer & sin not, for suffering is the badge that Christ hath put upon his followers. Take what way we can to heaven, the way is hedged up with crosses, there is no way, but to break through them; wit & wiles, shifts & laws will not find out a way about the cross of Christ but we must through, one thing by experience my Lord hath taught me, that the waters betwixt this & heaven may all be ridden if ●e be well horsed, I mean if we be in Christ, & not one shall drown by the way but such as love their own destruction. Oh if we could wait on for a time & believe in the dark the salvation of God At least we are to believe good of Christ till he give us the slip [which is impossible] & to take his word for caution that he shall fill up all the blanks in his promises & give us what we want: but to the unbeliever Christ's Testament is white, blank, unwritten paper, worthy and dear Sir, set your face to heaven & make you to stoop at all the low entries in the way: that ye may receive the Kingdom as a child: without this, he that knew the way said, there is no entry in. O but Christ be willing to lead a poor sinner! O what love my poor soul hath found in him in the house of my pilgrimage! Suppose love in heaven and earth were lost, I dare swear it may be found in Christ. Now the very God of peace establish you till the day of the glorious appearance of Christ.  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady GAITGIRTH. (77)  
Much honoured & Christian Lady.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear how it goeth with you & your children: I exhort you not to lose breath nor to faint in your journey: The way is not so long to your home as it was, it will wear to one step or an inch at length, & ye shall come ere long to be within your arm-length of the glorious crown. Your Lord Jesus did sweat & pant ere he got up that mount, he was at father save me with it, it was he who, Psal. 22: 14. said. I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint [Christ wa● as if they had broken him upon the wheel] my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels v. 15. My strength is dried up like a po●sheard: I am sure ye love the way the better that his holy feet trod it before you: Crosses have a smell of crossed & pained Christ. I believe your Lord will not leave you to die your alone in the way. I know ye have sad hours when the comforter is hid under a vail & when ye inquire for him, & find but a toom nest: This I grant is but a cold good-day when the seeker misseth him whom the soul loveth; but even his unkindness is kind, his absence lovely, his mask a sweet fight, till God send Christ himself in his own sweet presence: make his sweet comforts your own, & be not strange & shame fast with Christ: homely dealing is best for him, it is his liking. When your winter storms are over, the summer of your Lord shall come: Your sadness is with child of joy, he will do you good in the latter end. Take no heavier lift of your children then your Lord alloweth, give them room beside your heart, but not in the yolk of your heart, where Christ should be; for than they are your idols, not your bairns: if your Lord take any of them home to his house before the storm come on, take it well, the owner of the orchard may take down two or thr●…●pples off his own trees before midsummer & ere they get the harvest sun, & it would not be seemly that his servant, the gardener, should chide him for it: Let our Lord pluck his own fruit at any season he pleaseth; they are not lost to you, they are laid up so well as that they are coffered in heaven where our Lord's best jewely lie: They are all free goods that are there, death can have no law to arrest any thing that is within the walls of the new jerusalem. All the saints, because of sin, are like old rusty horologies that must be taken down, & the wheels scoured & mended, & set up again in better case than before: Sin hath rusted both soul & body: our dear Lord by death taketh us down to scour the wheels of both, & to purge us perfectly from the root and remainder of sin, & we shall be set up in better case than before. Then pluck up your heart, heaven is yours, & that is a word few can say. Now the great Shepherd of the sheep & the very God of peace confirm & establish you to the day of the appearance of Christ our Lord.  
Aberd. 7 Sept. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To his revend & very dear brother Mr GEORGE GILLESPIE. [78]  
My very Dear Brother.  
I Received yours: I am still with the Lord, his cross hath done that which I thought impossible once: Christ keepeth tryst in the fire & water with his own, & cometh ere our breath go out & ere our blood grow cold. Blessed are they whose feet escape the great golden net that is now spread: it is our happiness to take the crabbed, rough & poor side of Christ's world, which is a lease of crosses & losses for him; for Christ's in comes & casualties that follow him are many: & it is not a little one, that a good conscience may be had in following him this is true gain & most to be laboured for & loved. Many give Christ for a shadow, because Christ was rather beside their conscience in a dead & reprobate light, then in their conscience. Let us be ballasted with grace, that we be not blown over & that we staggar not. Yet a little while & Christ & his redeemed ones shall fill the field & come out victorious: Christ's glory of triumphing in Scotland is yet in the bud & in the birth, but the birth cannot prove an abortive: He shall not faint nor be discouraged till he have brought forth judgement unto victory. Let us still mind our Covenant: & the very God of peace be with you.  
Aberd. 9 Sept. 1637. Your Brother in Christ. S. R.   

To Mr MATHEW MOWAT. (79)  
Reverend & Dear Brother.  
I Am refreshed with your letters: I would take all well at my Lord's hands that he hath done, If I knew I could do my Lord any service in my suffering: suppose my Lord would make a stop-hole of me to fill a hole in the wall of his house, or a pin in Zion's new work: For any place of trust in my Lord's house, as steward or chamberlain, or the like: surely I think myself [my very dear brother, I speak not by any proud figure or trope] unworthy of it; nay I am not worthy to stand behind the door: if my head & feet & body were half out, half in, in Christ's house, so I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my grieving & lovesick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at work & speaking in our Lord Jesus his name, I think myself but an out-cast or outlaw chased from the City to lie on the hills & live amongst the rocks & out-fields. O that I might but stand in Christ's outhouse, or hold a candle in any low vault of his house! But I know this is but the vapours that arise out of a quarrelous & unbelieving heart, to darken the wisdom of God. And your fault is just mine, that I cannot believe my Lord's bare & naked word: I must either have an apple to play me with & shake hands with Christ, & have seal, caution, & witness to his word, or else I count myself loose; how beit I have the word & faith of a King. Oh, I am made of unbelief & cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground! Alas, Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying-waters, as a dyvour & a cozener! We can make such a Christ as temptations [casting us in a night-dream] doth feign & devise [& tempeations represent Christ ever unlike himself] & we in our folly listen to the tempter. If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would my soul be: But I myself [which is my greatest evil] often mistake the cross of Christ: For I know if we had wit & knew well that ease slayeth us fools, we would desire a market where we might barter or niffer our lazy ease with a profitable cross; howbeit there be an out-cast natural betwixt our desires & tribulation: But some give a dear price & gold for physic which they love not & buy sickness, howbeit they wish rather to have been whole then to be sick. But surely. Brother, ye shall not have my advice [howbeit alas I cannot follow it myself] to contend with the honest & faithful Lord of the house; for go he or come he, he is ay gracious in his departure: There are grace & mercy & loving kindness upon Christ's backparts: & When he goeth away, the proportion of his face, the image of that fair sun that staveth in eyes, senses & heart after he is gone, leaveth a mass of love behind it in the heart. The sound of his knock at the door of his beloved after he is gone & passed, leaveth 〈◊〉 share of joy & sorrow both: So we have something to feed upon till he return, & he is more loved in his departure, & after he is gone then before, as the day in the declining of the sun & toward's the evening is often most desired. And as for Christ's cross I never received evil of it, but what was of mine own making: when I miscooked Christ's physic, no marvel that it hurt me: For since it was on Christ's back it hath always a sweet smell & these 1600 Years it keepeth the smell of Christ; nay it is elder than that too, for it is a long time since Abel first hanseled the cross & had it laid upon his shoulders & down from him all alongst to this very day all the saints have known what it is. I am glad that Christ hath such a relation to this cross, & that it is called the cross of our Lord jesus, Gal. 6: v. 14. His reproaches, Heb. 13: 13. As if Christ would claim it as his proper goods, & so it cometh in the reckoning among Christ's own property: If it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is not the author nor owner of sin, would not own it. I wonder at the enemies of Christ [in whom malice hath run away with wit, & will is up & wit down] that they would essay to lift up the stone laid in Zion: surely it is not laid in such sinking ground as that they can raise it or remove it; for when we are in their belly & they have swallowed us down, they will be sick & spew us out again. I know Zion & her Husband cannot both sleep at once: I believe our Lord once again shall water with his dew the withered hill of mount Zion in Scotland & come down & make a new marriage again, as he did long since. Remember our Covenant: Your excuse for your advice to me is needless: Alas, many sit beside light as sick folks beside meat & cannot make use of it. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Your brother in Christ, S. R.   

To Mr JOHN MIEN. (80)  
Dear Brother.  
I Received your letter: I cannot but testify under mine own hand, that Christ is still the longer the better, & that this time is the time of loves. When I have said all I can, others may begin & say, I have said nothing of him. I never knew Christ to ebb or flow, wax or wane: his winds turn not when he seemeth to change, it is but we who turn our wrong side to him. I never had a plea with him in my hardest conflicts but of mine own making. Oh that I could live in peace & good neighbourhood with such a second, & let him alone! My unbelief made many black lies, but my recantation to Christ is not worth the hearing. Surely he hath born with strange gâdes in me: He knoweth my heart hath not natural wit to keep quarters with such a Saviour. Ye do well to fear your own backsliding: I had stood sure, if I had in my youth borrowed Christ to be my bottom: But he that beareth his own weight to heaven, shall not fail to slip & sink. Ye had no need to be barefooted among the thorns of this apostate generation, lest a stob strike up in your foot & cause you to halt all your days: And think not, Christ will do with you in the matter of suffering as the Pope doth in the matter of sin: Ye shall not find that Christ will sell a Dispensation or give a Dyvour's Protection against crosses: Crosses are proclaimed as common Accidents to all the saints, & in them standeth a part of our communion with Christ: But there lieth a sweet casuality to the cross; even Christ's presence & his comforts when they are sanctified. Remember my love to your father & mother. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 7. Sept. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN fleming. Bailiff of Leith. (81)  
Much honoured in the Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am still in good terms with Christ, however my Lord's wind blow, I have the advantage of the calm & sunny side of Christ. Devils, & hell, & Devil's servants, are all blown blind in pursuing the Lord's little Bride: They shall be as a night-dream who fight against mount Zion. Worthy Sir, I hope ye take to heart the worth of your calling: This great fair & meeting of people will skaile, & the port is open for us: As fast as time weareth out, we flee away: Eternity is at our elbow. O how blessed are they who in time make Christ sure for themselves; Salvation is a great errand; I find it hard to fetch heaven. Oh that we could take pains on our lamps for the Bridegroom's coming! the other side of this world will be turned up incontinent, & up shall down, & these that are weeping in sackcloth shall triumph on white horses, with him whose name is The word of God. These dying idols, the fair: creatures that we whorishly love better than our Creator, will pass away like snow water. The Godhead, the Godhead, a communion with God in Christ, to be halvers with Christ of the purchased house & inheritance in heaven, should be your scope & aim. For myself, when I lay my counts, O what telling, O what weighing is in Christ! O how soft are his kisses! O love, love surpassing in Jesus! I have no fault to that love, but that it seemeth to deal niggardly with me: I have little of it. O that I had Christ's seen & read band, subscribed by himself, for my fill of it! What garland have I, or what crown, if I looked right on things, but Jesus? Oh there is no room in us on this side of the water for that love! This narrow bit earth & these ebb & narrow souls can hold little of it because we are full of rifts. I would glory, glory would enlarge us [as it will] & make us tied, & close up our seams & rifts, that we might be able to comprehend it, which yet is incomprehensible. Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON Of Earlestoun. [82.)  
Much honoured Sir.  
HOwbeit I would have been glad to have seen you; yet seeing our Lord hath been pleased to break the snare of your adversaries, I heartily bless our Lord on your behalf. Our crosses for Christ are not made of iron, they are softer and of more gentle mettle: It is easy for God, to make a fool of the Devil the father of all fools. As for me, I but breath out what my Lord breatheth in: The scum & froth of my letters, I father upon my own unbelieving heart. I know your Lord hath something to do with you, because Satan & malice have shot sore at you; but your bow abideth in its strength. Ye shall not by my advice be a halver with Christ, to divide the glory of your deliverance betwixt yourself & him; or any other second mean whatsoever: Let Christ [as it setteth him well] have all the glory, & triumph his alone. The Lord set himself on high in you: I see Christ can borrow a cross for some hours, & set his servants beside it, rather than under it, & win the plea too, yea & make glory to himself & shame to his enemies & comfort to his children out of it: But whether Christ buy or borrow crosses, he is King of crosses, & King of Devils, & King over hell, & King over malice: When he was in the grave, he came out, & brought the keys with him: he is Lord-Jaylor, nay what say I, he is Captain of the castle, & he hath the keys of death's hell; & what are our troubles but little deaths: & he who commandeth the great castle commandeth the little also. 2. I see, a hardened face & two skins upon our brows, against the winter hail, & stormy wind, is meetest for a poor traveller in a winter journey to heaven. O what art is it to learn to endure hardness & to learn to go bare footed either through the devil's fiery coals or his frozen waters! 3. I am persuaded a sea-venture with Christ maketh great riches: Is not our King Jesus his ship coming home, & shall not we get part of the gold? Alas, we fool's miscount our gain when we seem losers. Believe me, I have no challenges against this wellborn cross, for it is come of Christ's house & is honourable & his propine, To you it is given to suffer. O what fools are we to undervalue his gifts, & to lightly that which is true honour! For if we could be faithful, our tackling shall not lose, nor our mast break, nor our sails blow into the sea. The bastard crosses, the kinless & base-born crosses of worldlings for evil doing, must be heavy & grievous; but our afflictions are light & momentany. 4. I think myself happy that I have lost credit with Christ, & that in this bargain I am Christ's sworn dyvour, to whom he will lippen nothing, no not one pin in the work of my salvation: Let me stand in black and white in the Dyvourbook be o'er Christ, I am happy that my salvation is concredited to Christ's mediation: Christ oweth no faith to me, to lippen any thing to me; but O what faith & credit I owe to him! Let my name fall & let Christ's name stand in honour with man & angel. Alas, I have no room to spread out my affection before God's people, & I see not how I can shout out & cry out the loveliness, the high honour & the glory of my fairest Lord Jesus. Oh that he would let me have a bed to lie in, to be delivered of my birth, that I might paint him out in his beauty to men as I dow. 5. I wondered once at providence & called white providence black & unjust, that I should be smothered in a town where no soul will take Christ off my hand: But providence hath another lustre with God, then with my bliered eyes. I proclaim myself a blind body who know not black & white in the uncouth course of God's providence. Suppose Christ would set hell where heaven is & devils up in glory beside the elect Angels [which yet cannot be] I would I had a heart to acquiesce in his way without further dispute. I see, infinite wisdom is the mother of his judgements & his ways pass finding out. 6. I cannot learn, but I desire to learn to bring my thoughts, will, & lusts, in under Christ's feet, that he may trample upon them: But alas, I am still upon Christ's wrong side. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 12. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus: S. R.   

To ROBERT LENNOX. Of Disdove. [83]  
Worthy & dear Brother.  
I Forget you not in my bonds: I know ye are looking to Christ, & I beseech you, follow your look. I can say more of Christ now by experience [though he be infinitely above & beyond all that can be said of him] then when I saw you. I am drowned over head & ears in his love. Sell, sell, sell all things for Christ. If this whole world were the balk of a balance, it should not be able to bear the weight of Christ's love; man & angels have short arms to fathom it: Set your feet upon this piece blue & base clay of an overguilded & fair plastered world; an hours kissing of Christ is worth a world of worlds. Sir, make sure work or your salvation, build not upon sand, lay the foundation upon the rock in Zion: strive to be dead to this world & to your will & lusts: Let Christ have a commanding power & a King throne in you: Walk with Christ, howbeit the wind should take the hide off your face: I promise you Christ will win the field: Your pastors cause you to err; except you see Christ's word, go not one foot with them: Countenance not the reading of that Romish Service-book: Keep your garments clean, as ye would walk with the Lamb clothed in white. The wrongs I suffer are upon record in heaven: our great Master & Judge will be upon us all, & bring us before the sun in our black's & white's: Blessed are they who watch & keep themselves in God's love. Learn to discern the Bridegroom's tongue, & to give yourself to prayer & reading. Ye was often a hearer of me: I would put my heart blood upon the doctrine I taught, as the only way to salvation: go not from it, my dear Brother. What I write to yourself, I write to your wife also. Mind heaven & Christ, & keep the spunk of the love of Christ you have gotten; Christ shall blow on it, if ye entertain it, & your end shall be peace. There is a fire in our Zion; but our Lord is but seeking a new Bride refined & purified out of the furnace. I assure you, howbeit we be nicknamed Puritan, all the powers of the world shall not prevail against us: Remember, though a sinful man write it to you, these people shall yet be in Scotland as a green olive-tree & a field blessed of the Lord, & it shall be proclaimed, up, up with Christ, & down, down with all contrary powers. Sir, pray for me, [I name you to the Lord] for further evil is determined against me. Remember my love to Christian Murray & her daughter: I desire her in the edge of her evening to wait a little, the King is coming, & he hath something, that she never saw, with him: heaven is no dream: Come & see will teach her best. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To MARION McKNAUGHT: [84]  
Dearest in our Lord jesus.  
COunt it your honour that Christ hath begun at you to fine you first: Fear not, saith the Amen, the true & faithful witness: I write to you, as my Master liveth, upon the word of my royal King, continue in prayer & in watching, & your glorious deliverance is coming: Christ is not far off, a fig, a straw for all the bits of clay that are risen against us: Ye shall thresh the mountains & fan then like chaff, Isa. 41. If ye slack your hands at your meetings & your watching to prayer, than it would seem our rock hath sold us; but be dililigent & be not discouraged. I charge you in Christ rejoice, give thanks, believe, be strong in the Lord: That burning bush in Galloway & Kirk●…dbright shall not be burnt to ashes; for the Lord is in the bush. Be not discouraged that banishment is to be procured by the King's warrant to the Council, against me: the earth is my Lords; I am filled with his sweet love; & running over: I rejoice to hear ye are in your journey: such news as I hear of all your faith & love, rejoice my sad heart. Pray for me, for they seek my hurt, but I give myself to prayer. The blessing of my Lord & a prisoner of Christ's blessing be with you. O chosen & greatly beloved woman, faint not: Fie, fie, if ye faint now: Ye lose a good cause: double your meetings; cease not for Zion's sake, & hold not your peace till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in Christ jesus his Lord. S. R.   

To THOMAS CORBET. [85]  
Dear friend.  
I Forget you not: It shall be my joy that ye follow after Christ till ye find him: My conscience is a feast of joy to me, that I sought in singleness of heart, for Christ's love, to put you upon the King's highway to our Bridegroom & our father's house: Thrice blessed are ye, my dear Brother, if ye hold the way: I believe, ye and Christ once met, I hope ye will not sunder with him: Fellow the counsel of the man of God Mr William Dalgl●ish. If ye depart from what I taught you in a hairbreadth, for f●ar or favour of men or desire of ease in this world, I take heaven & earth to witness that ill shall come upon you in end. Build not your nest here: This world is an hard ill made bed, no rest in it, for your soul: awake, awake, & make haste to seek that pearl Christ, that this world seeth not. Your night and your Master Christ, will be upon you within a clap; your hand-breadth of time will not bide you: Take Christ, howbeit a storm follow him: howbeit this day be not yours & Christ's, the morrow will be yours & his. I would not exchange the joy of my bonds & imprisonment for Christ, with all the joy of this dirty & soul-skinned world. I have a love-bed with Christ, & am filled with his love. I desire your wife to do what I write to you: Let her remember how dear Christ would be to her, when her breath turneth cold, & the eyestrings shall break. O how joyful should my soul be, to know that I had brought on a marriage betwixt Christ & that people, few or many: if it be not so, I will be woe to be a witness against them. Use prayer, love not the world, be humble and esteem little of yourself; love your enemies & pray for them; make conscience of speaking truth when none knoweth but God. I never eat, but I pray for you all. Pray for me: Ye & I shall see one another up in our father's house. I rejoice to hear that your eye is upon Christ. Follow on, hang on, & quite him not. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
Aberd. 1637. Your affectionate Brother in our Lord jesus, S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON of Earlestoun. (86.)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter which refreshed me: Except from your son & my brother; I have seen few l●tters from my acquaintance in that country, which maketh me heavy: But I have the company of a Lord, who can teach us all to be kind & hath the right gate of it: though for the present I have seven up's & down's every day, yet I am abundantly comforted & feasted with my King & well-beloved d●ily. It pleaseth him to come & dine with a sad prisoner, & a solitary stranger: His spikenard casteth a smell, yet my sweet hath some sour mixed with it; wherein I must acquiesce, for there is no reason that his comforts be too cheap, seeing they are delicates, why should he not make them so to his own? But I verily think now, Christ hath led me up to a nick in Christianity that I was never at before, I think all before was but childhood & bairns-play. Since I departed from you, I have been scalded, while the smoke of hell's fire went in at my throat, & I would have bought peace with a thousand years' torment in hell: & I have been up also, after these deep downcastings & sorrows, before the Lamb's white throne in my father's inner court, the great King's dining-hall, & Christ did cast a cove●ing of love over me, he hath casten in a coal in my soul, & it is s●oking among the straw & keeping the hearth warm: I look back to what I was before, & I laugh to see the sand-houses I built when I was a child●. At first the remembrance of many fair feast-days with my Lord Jesus in public, which are now changed into silent sabbaths, raised a great tempest, & [if I may speak so] made the Devil a do in my soul: the devil came in, & would prompt me to make a plea with Christ, & to lay the blame on him as a hard master: But now these mists are blown away, & I am not only silenced as to all quarrelling, but fully satisfied. Now I wonder that any man living can laugh upon the world or give it a hearty good-day. The Lord Jesus hath handled me so, that as I am now disposed, I think never to be in this world's common again for a night's lodging: Christ beareth me good company; he hath eased me when I saw it not, lifting the across off my shoulders, so that I think it to be but a feather, because underneath are everlasting arms. God forbid, it came to bartering or niffering of crosses, for I think my cross so sweet, that I know not where I would get the like of it. Christ's honey-combs drop so abundantly that they sweeten my gall: Nothing breaketh my heart but that I cannot get the daughters of jerusalem to tell them of my bride-groom's glory: I charge you in the name of Christ, that ye tell all ye come to, of it, & yet it is above telling & understanding. Oh if all the kingdom were as I am, except my bonds! they know not the love-kisses that my only Lord Jesus wasteth on a dâted prisoner. On my salvation, this is the only way to the new city. I know Christ hath no dumb seals; would he put his privy seal upon blank paper? he hath sealed my sufferings with comforts. I write this to confirm you. I write now what I have seen as well as heard. Now & then my silence burneth up my spirit: But Christ hath said, thy stipend is running up with interest in heaven as if thou wert preaching: And this from a King's mouth rejoiceth my heart. At other times, I am sad for dwelling in Kedar's tents: There are none [that I yet know of] but two persons in this town, that I dare give my word for: And the Lord hath removed my brethren & my acquaintance far from me: & it may be, I be forgotten in the place, where the Lord made me the instrument to do some good. But I see this is vanity in me: Let him make of me what he pleaseth, if he make salvation out of it to me. I am tempted & troubled that all the fourteen Prelates should have been armed of God against me only, while the rest of my brethren are still preaching: But I dare not say one word but this, it is good, Lord jesus, beacuse thou hast done it. Woe is me for the virgin daughter, woe is me for the desolation of the virgin daughter of Scotland! O if my eyes were a fountain of tears to weep day & night for that poor widow Kirk, that poor miserable harlot! Alas that my father hath put to the door my poor harlot mother! Oh for that cloud of black wrath & fury of the indignation of the Lord, that is hanging over the Land. Sir, write to mel beseech you: I pray you also, be kind to my afflicted brother. Remember my love to your wife: & The prayers & the blessing of the prisoner of Christ be on you. Frequent your meetings for prayer & communion with God, they would be sweet meering to me.  
Aberd. 16. Febr. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex. (87)  
My Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be multiplied upon you: I am almost wearying, yea wondering that ye write not to me; though I know it is not forgetfulness. As for myself, I am every way well, all glory to God: I was before at a plea with Christ, but it was bought by me & unlawful; because his whose providence was not yea & nay to my yea & nay, & because I believed Christ's outward look better than his faithful promise: Yet he hath in patience waited on, while I'be come to myself, & hath not taken advantage of my weak apprehensions of his goodness: Great & holy is his name: He looketh to what I desire to be, & not to what I am. One thing I have learned, If I had been in Christ by way of adhesion only, as many branches are, I should have been burnt to ashes, & this world should have seen a suffering minister of Christ turned (of something once in show] into unsavoury salt. But my Lord Jesus had a good eye that the tempter should not play foul play, & blow out Christ's candle; he took no thought of my stomach, & fretting & grudging humour, but of his own grace: when he burned the house he saved his own goods: And I believe, the devil & the persecuting world shall reap no fruit of me, but burnt ashes: for he will see to his own gold, & save that from being consumed with the fire. O what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! Who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goeth through his mill & his oven, to be made bread for his own table: Grace tried is better than grace, & it is more than grace, it is glory in its infancy. I now see, godliness is more than the outside & this world's passements & their buskings: Who knoweth the truth of grace without a trial? O how little getteth Christ of us, but that which he winneth, [to speak so] with much toil & pains! And how soon would faith frieze without a cross! How many dumb crosses have been laid upon my back, that had never a tongue to speak the sweetness of Christ, as this hath? when Christ blesseth his own crosses with a tongue, they breathe out Christ's love, wisdom, kindness & care of us. Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know he is no idle husbandman, he purposeth a crop. O that this white withered lay-ground were made fertile to bear a crop for him, by whom it is so painfully dressed, & that this fallow ground were broken up! Why was I [a fool] grieved that he put his garland & his rose upon my head, the glory & honour of his faithful witnesses? I desire now to make no more pleas with Christ: Verily he hath not put me to a loss by what I suffer, he oweth me nothing; for in my bonds, how sweet & comfortable have the thoughts of him been to me: where in I find a sufficient recompense of reward! How blind are my adversaries who sent me to a banqueting house, to a house of wine, to my lovely Lord Jesus his love-feasts, & not to a prison or place of exile? Why should I smother my husband's honesty, or sin against his love, or be a niggard in giving out to others, what I get for nothing. Brother, eat with me & give thanks: I charge you before God, that ye speak to others, & invite them to help me to praise. Oh my debt of praise, how weighty is it, & how far run up! Oh that others would lend me to pay, & learn me to praise! Oh, I a drowned Dyvour! Lord Jesus, take my thoughts for payment. Yet I am in this hot summer-blenk with the tear in my eye; for, by reason of my silence, sorrow, sorrow hath filled me: My harp is hanged upon the willow trees, because I am in a strange land. I am still kept in exercise with envious brethren: My mother hath born me a man of contention. Write to me your mind anent Y. C. I cannot forget him, I know not what God hath to do with him: & your mind anent my Parishioners behaviour, & how they are served in preaching, or if there be a Minister as yet thrust in upon them, which I desire greatly to know, & which I much fear. Dear Brother, ye are in my heart, to live & to die with you. Visit me with a letter; Pray for me: Remember my love to your wife. Grace, grace be with you: & God who heareth prayer visit you, & set it be unto you according to the prayers of.  
Aberd. Jan. 1. 1367. Your own Brother & Christ's Prisoner. S. R.   

To my well-beloved & reverend brother Mr ROBERT BLAIR. [88]  
Reverend & dearly beloved Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace from God our father & from our Lord Jesus Christ be to you: It is no great wonder, my Dear Brother, that ye be in heaviness for a season, & that God's will in crossing your design & desires to dwell amongst a people whose God is the Lord, should move you: I deny not, but ye have cause to inquire what his providence speaketh in this to you; but God's directing & commanding will, can by no good logic, be concluded from events of providence. The Lord sent Paul many errands for the spreading of his Gospel, where he found lions in his way: a promise was made to his people of the holy land & yet many nations in the way fight against, & ready to kill them who had the promise, or keep them from possessing that good land which the Lord their God had given them. I know ye have most to do with submission of spirit; but I persuade myself, ye have learned in every condition wherein ye are cast, therein to be content, & to say, good is the will of the Lord, let it be done. I believe, the Lord tackleth his ship often to fetch the wind, & that he purposeth to bring mercy out of your sufferings & silence, which [I know from mine own experience] is grievous to you: s●eing he knoweth our willing mind to serve him, our wages & stipend is running to the fore with our God; even as some tick soldiers get their pay when then they are bed-●ast & not able to go to the fields with others. Though Israel be not gathered yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord & my God shall be my strentgh, Isa. 49: 3. & we are to believe it shall be thus ere all the play be played, jer. 51: 35. The violence done to me & my flesh, be upon Babylon, & the great whore's lovers, shall the inhabitants of Zion say, and my blood be upon Caldea, shall jerusalem say & Zech. 12: 2. Behold, I will make jerusalem a cap of trembling to all the people about, where they shall be in the siege bosh against judah and jerus them v. 3. And is that day, I will make jerusalem a burden so 〈…〉 stone for all people, they that burden themselves with it, shall be broken in pieces: though all the people of the earth be gathered against it. When they have eaten & swallowed us up, they shall be sick & vomit us out living men again: the devil's stomach cannot digest the Church of God. Suffering is the other half of our ministry, howbeit the hardest: For we would be content our King Jesus would make an open proclamation & cry down crosses; & cry up joy, gladness, ease, honour, & peace; but it must not be so; through many aff●ctions we must enter into the Kingdom of God: not only by them, but through them must we go: & wiles will not take us by the cross: It is folly to think, to steal to heaven with a whole skin. For myself I am here a prisoner confined in Aberd●…n, threatened to be removed to Caithness, because I desire to edify in this town; & I am openly preached against in the pulpits in my hearing, & tempted with disputations by the Doctors, especially by D. B. Yet I am not ashamed of my Lord Jesus his garland & crown: I would not exchange my weeping with the fourteen Prelate, painted laughter. At my first coming here, I took the Dorts at Christ & would forsooth summoned him for unkindness; I sought a plea of my Lord & was tossed with challenges, whether he loved me or not? & disputed all over again that he had done to me; because his word was a fire shut up in my bowels & I was weary with forbearing; because I said I was cast out of the Lord's inheritance: but now I see I was a fool: My Lord miskend all & did bear with my foolish jealousies & miskend that ever I wronged his love, and now he is come again with mercy under his wings: I passed from my [O witless] summons: he is God [I see] & I am man. Now it hath pleased him to renew his love to my soul, & to dâte his poor prisoner. Therefore, my dear Brother, help me to praise, & show the Lord's people with you, what he hath done to my soul, that they may pray & praise: & I charge you, in the name of Christ, not to omit it; for, for this cause I write to you that my sufferings may glorify my royal King & edify his church in Ireland. He knoweth how one of Christ's love-coals hath burnt my soul with a desire to have my bonds to preach his glory, whose cross I now bear. God forgive you if ye do it not; But I hope the Lord will move your heart to proclaim in my behall, the sweetness, excellency & glory of my royal King. It is but our soft flesh that hath raised a slander on the cross of Christ; I see now the white side of it: My Lord's chains are all overguilded. O if Scotland & Ireland had part of my feast! & yet I get not my meat but with many strokes. There are none here to whom I can speak; I dwell in Kedar's tents. Refresh me with a letter from you: Few know what is betwixt Christ & me. Dear Brother, upon my salvation, this is his truth that we suffer for: Christ would not seal a blank charter to souls. Courage, courage, joy, joy for evermore! O joy unspeakable & glorious! Oh for help to set my crowned King on high! O for love to him who is altogether lovely! That love which many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown! I remember you, & I bear your name on my breast to Christ: I beseech you forget not his afflicted prisoner. Grace, mercy & peace be with you. Salute in the Lord from me Mr Cuninghame, Mr Livingston, Mr Ridge, Mr Colwart, etc.  
Aberd. Feb. 7. 1637. Your Brother & fellow prisoner. S. R.   

To JOHN KENNEDY Bailiff of Ayr. (89:)  
Worthy & well-beloved Brother  
GRace mercy & peace be unto you: I am yet waiting what our Lord will do for his afflicted church, & for my reentry to my Lord's house. Oh that I could hear the forfeiture of Christ [now casten out of his inheritance] recalled & taken off by open proclamation, & that Christ were restored to be a Free holder and a landed Hieritour in Scotland: & That the courts fenced in the name of the bastard Prelates [their God-father's the Pop's Bailiffs & Sheriffs] were cried down! Oh how sweet a sight were it to see all the Tribes of the Lord in this land fetching home again our banished king Christ to his own palace, his Sanctuary and his throne! I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith shall outwatch all this winter night & not nod or slumber, till my Lord's summer day dawn upon me. It is much if faith & hope in the sad nights of our heavy trial escape with a whole skin, & without crack or crook: I confess unbelief hath not reason to be either father or mother to it: [for unbelief is always an irrational thing] but how can it be, but such weak eyes as ours must cast water in a great smoke; or that a weak head should not turn giddy when the water runneth deep and strong? But God be thanked that Christ in his children can endure a stress & storm: howbeit soft nature would fall down in pieces. Oh that I had that confidence as to rest rest on this, though he should grind me into small powder, & bray me into dust, & scatter the dust to the four winds of heaven; that my Lord would gather up the powder & make me up a new vessel again to bear Christ's name to the world: I am sure that love bottomed & seated upon the faith of his love to me would desire & endure this, & would even claim & thriep kindness upon Christ's strokes, & kiss his lovely glooms: & both spell & read salvation upon the wounds made by Christ's sweet hands. Oh that I had but a promise from the mouth of Christ, of his love to me; & then howbeit my faith were as tender as paper I think longing & dwining & griening of sick desires would cause it bide out the siege, till the Lord came to fill the soul with his love: & I know also in that case faith should abide green & sappy at the root, even at mid winter, and stand out against all storms: However it be I know Christ winneth heaven in despite of hell; But I owe as many praises & thanks to free grace as would lie betwixt me & the utmost border of the highest heaven, suppose ten thousand heavens were all laid above other: But oh I have nothing that can hire or bud grace, for if grace would take hire it were no more grace; but all our stability, & the strength of our salvation is anchored & fastened upon free grace: and I am sure Christ hath by his death & blood casten the knot so fast that the fingers of devils & hel-fuls of sins cannot lose it; & that bond of Christ [that never yet was nor never shall nor can be registrated] standeth surer than heaven or the days of heaven, as that sweet pillar of the covenant, whereupon we all hang: Christ and all his little ones under his two wings, & in the compass or circle of his arms, is so sure, that cast him and them in the ground of the sea, he shall come up again & not lose one: An odd one cannot, nor shall not be lost in the telling. This was always God's aim since Christ came in the play betwixt him & us, to make men dependent creatures, and in the work of our salvation to put created strength, & arms, & legs of clay, quit out of play, & out of office & court: & now God hath substituted in our room & accepted his Son the mediator for us & all that we can make. If this had not been I would have skinked over & foregone my part of paradise & salvation, for a breakfast of dead motheaten earth; but now I would not give it, nor let it go for more than I can tell: & truly they are silly fools, and ignorant of Christ's worth [& so full ill trained and tutoured] who tell heaven & Christ over the board, for two feathers or two straws of the devil's painted pleasures, only lustred in the utter side. This is our happiness now, that our reckonings at night when eternity shall come upon us, cannot be told; we shall be so far gainers & so far from being supper expended [as the poor fools of this world are, who give out their money & get in but black hunger] that Angels cannot lay our counts nor sum our advantage & incomes. Who knoweth how far is it to the bottom of our Christ, & to the ground of our heaven? Who ever weighed Christ in a pair of balances? Who hath seen the foldings, & plies, and the heights and depths of that glory which is in him and kept for us? Oh for such a heaven as to stand afar off and see & love and long for him; while time's thread be cut, and this great work of creation dissolved at the coming of our Lord! Now to his Grace I recommend you. I beseech you also pray for a reentry to me into the Lord's house, if it be his good will:  
Aberd. Jan. 6. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus: S. R.   

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 hindered: I heartily desire that ye would mind your journey; & consider to what airth your soul setteth its face; for all come not home at night, who suppose they have set their face heaven-ward: it is a woeful thing to die & miss heaven, & to lose houseroom with Christ at night: It is an evil journey where travellers are benighted in the fields. I persuade myself 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 blown 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 counsel 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 thyself, I will hold my grips of thee no longer: I should go 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 well-beloved. We run our souls out of breath & tyre 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 thread cut & can cry to Christ, Lord jesus have over, come & fetch the driry passenger! I wish our thoughts were more frequently than they are on our country. O but heaven casteth a sweet smell afar off, to these who have spiritual smelling! God hath made many fair flowers, but the fairest of them all is heaven, & the flower of all flowers is Christ. O why do we not flee up to that lovely one? Alas that there is such scarcity of love, & lovers of Christ amongst us all. Fie, fie upon us who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honours & fair persons; and do 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 go round about the earth & over the heaven, yea the heaven of heavens & ten thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only 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 do with their hearts & their thoughts that are always rolling up & down, like men with oars in a boat after sinful vainities, they may find great & sweet employment to their thoughts upon Christ: If these frothy 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 inquire 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 ark, & behold how the fullness 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 heighten 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 & twenty 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 heavened 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 woo 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 jesus, S. R.   

To JONET KENNEDY. (91)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: Ye are not a little obliged to his rich grace who hath separat you for himself, & for the promised inheritance with the saints in light, from this condemned & guilty world: Hold fast Christ, contend for him, it is a lawful plea to go to holding & drawing for Christ; & it is not possible to keep Christ peaceably, having once gotten him, except the devil were dead. It must be your resolution to set your face against Satan's northern tempests & storms for salvation: Nature would have heaven come sleeping to us in our beds: we would all buy Christ, sobeing we might make price ourselves; but Christ is worth more blood & lives then either ye or I have to give him. When we shall come home & enter to the possession of our brother's fair kingdom, & when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, & when we shall look back to pains & sufferings; then shall we see life, & sorrow, to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory: & that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome-home to heaven. O what then will be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses! O how weighty & of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles be! O when once he shall thrust a wearied traveller's head betwixt his blessed breasts, the poor soul shall think one kiss of Christ hath fully paid home forty or fifty years wet feet, & all its sore hearts & light sufferings it had in following after Christ! O thrice blinded souls whose hearts are charmed & bewitched with dreams, shadows, feckless things, night-vanities & night fancies of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us who sit still fettered with the love & liking of the loan of a piece dead clay. O poor fools who are beguiled with painted things & this world's fair weather & smooth promises, & rotten wormeaten hopes! may not the devil laugh to see us give out our souls & get in but corrupt & counterfeit pleasures of sin. O for a sight of eternity's glory, & a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage-supper! halt a draught or a drop of the wine of consolations that is up in our banqueting house, out of Christ's own hand would make our stomaches loathe the brown bread & the sour drink of a miserable life. O how far are we bereavest or wit, to chase & hunt & run, till our souls be out of breath after a condemned happiness of our own making! & do we not sit far in our own light, to make it a matter of bairns-play to skink & drink over paradise & the heaven that Christ did sweat for, even for a blast of smoke & for Esau's morning break-fast? O that we were out of ourselves & dead to this world, & this world dead & crucified to us, & then we should be close out of love & conceit of any masked & fairded lover whatsoever: then Christ would win & conquer to himself a lodging in the inmost yolk of our heart: then Christ should be our night-song & our morning-song: then the very noise & din of our well-beloved's feet when he cometh, & his first knock or rap, at the door should be as the news of two heavens to us. Oh that our eyes & our soul's-smelling should go after a blasted & sunburnt flower, even this plastered fair out-sided world, & then we have neither eye nor smell for the flower of I●sse, for that plant of renown, for Christ the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! O let some of us die to feel the smell of him, & let my part of this rotten world be forfeited & sold for evermore, providing I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ! I know it is sometimes at this, Lord, what wilt thou have for Christ? But O Lord canst thou be budded or propined with any gift for Christ? O Lord, can Christ be sold, or rather may not a poor needy sinner have him for nothing? If I can get no more, O let me be pained to all eternity with longing for him. The joy of hungering for Christ, should be my heaven for evermore. Alas that I cannot draw souls & Christ together: but I desire the coming of his Kingdom, & that Christ [as I assuredly hope he shall] would come upon withered Scotland as rain upon the new mown grass. O let the king come! O let his Kingdom come! O let their eyes rot in their eye holes who will not receive him home again to reign & rule in Scotland! Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord. jesus, S. R.   

To his Reverend & Dear Brother, Mr DAVID DICKSON. (92)  
Reverend & dearest. Brother.  
WHat joy have I out of heaven's gates, but that my Lord Jesus be glorified in my bonds? Blessed be ye of the Lord who contribut any thing to my obliged & indebted praises: dear Brother help me a poor dyvour to pay the interest, for I cannot come nigh to render the principal: It is not jest nor sport which maketh me to speak & write as I do: I never before came to that nick or pitch of a communion with Christ that I have now attained unto, for my confirmation. I have been these two Sabbaths or three in private, taking instruments in the name of God, that my Lord Jesus & I have kissed each other in Aberden, the house of my pilgrimage: I seek not an apple to play me with he knoweth, whom I serve in the spirit but a seal; I but beg earnest, & am content to suspend & frist glory while supper time: I know this world will not last with me; for my moonlight is noonday light, & my four-hours above my feasts when I was a preacher; at which times also, I was embraced very often in his arms: But who can blame Christ to take me on behind him [if I may say so] on his white horse or in his chariot paved with love through a water: Will not a father take his little dated Davie in his arms, & carry him over a ditch or a mire? my short legs could not step over this lair or sinking mire & therefore my L: Jesus will bear me thorough: If a change come & a dark day, so being that he will keep my faith without flaw or crack, I dare not blame him; howbeit I get no more while I come to heaven: But ye know the physic behoved to have sugar, my faith was fallen a swoon, and Christ but held up a swooning man's head: Indeed I pray not for a Dâted Bairn's diet, he knoweth I would have Christ sour or sweet; any way. sobeing it be Christ indeed: I stand not now upon paired apples or sugared dishes; but I cannot blame him to give, & I must gape and make a wide mouth: since Christ will not pantry-up joys, he must be welcome who will not bide away: I seek no other fruit but that he may be glorified: he knoweth, I would take hard fare to have his name set on high. I bless you for your counsel: I hope to live by faith and swim without a mass or bundle of joyful sense under my chin; at lest to venture albeit I should be ducked. Now for my case I think the Council should be essayed, and the event referred to God: Duties are ours and event are God's. I shall go through yours upon the Covenant at leisure, & write to you my mind thereanent; & anent the Arminian Contract betwixt the father & the son. I beseech you set to, to go through scripture: yours on the Hebrews is in great request with all who would be acquaint with Christ's Testament. I purpose God willing to set about Hosea & to try if I can get it to the press here. It refresheth me much that ye are so kind to my brother, I hope your counsel shall do him good, I recommend him to you, since I am so far from him: I am glad that the dying servant of God, famous and faithful Mr Cuninghame sealed your ministry before he fell asleep: Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Much honoured WILLIAM RIG of Athernie. (93)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your long-looked-for & short letter; I would ye had spoken more to me who stand in need: I find Christ as ve write ay the longer the better, & therefore cannot but rejoice in his salvation, who hath made my chains my wings, & hath made me a King over my crosses & over my adversaries: glory, glory, glory to his high, high & holy name: Not one ounce, not one grain-weight more is laid on me, than he hath enabled me to bear: And I am not so much wearied to suffer as Sion's haters are to persecute. Oh if I could find a way in any measure to strive to be even with Christ's love, but that I must give over! Oh who would help a dyvour to pay praises to the King of saints, who triumpheth in his weak servants? I see if Christ but ride upon a worm, or a feather, his horse will neither stumble nor fall: The worm Jacob is made by him a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth to thresh the mountains, & beat them small, & to make the hills as chaff & to fan them, so as the wind shall carry them away, & the whirlwind shall scatter them. Isa. 41: 14, 15, 16. Christ's enemies are but breaking their own heads in pieces upon the rock laid in Zion, & the stone is not removed out of its place: Faith hath cause, to take courage from our very afflictions, the devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith & patience of the saints: I know he but heweth & polisheth stones all this time for the new Jerusalem: But in all this, three things have much moved me, since it hath pleased my Lord to turn my moon light into daylight. First, he hath yoked me to work, to wrestle with Christ's love of longing, wherewith I am sick, pained, fainting & like to die, because I cannot get himself, which I think a strange sort of desertion; for I have not himself [whom if I had my love-sickness would cool & my fever go away, at least I should know the heat of the fire of complacency, which would cool the scorching heat of the fire of desire] & yet I have no penury of his love, & so I dwin, I die, & he seemeth not to rue on me. I take instruments in his hand that I would have him; but I cannot get him, & my best cheer is black hunger: I bless him for that feast. Secondly, old challenges now & then revive & cast all down, I go halting & sighing, fearing there be an unseen process yet coming out, & that heavier than I can answer: I cannot read distinctly my Surtie's act of cautionary for me in particular, & my discharge; & sense rather than faith assureth me of what I have: So unable am I to go but by an hold. I could [with reverence of my Lord] forgive Christ, if he would give me as much faith as I have hunger for him: I hope the pardon is now obtained, but the peace is not so sure to me as I would wish: Yet, one thing I know; there is not a way to heaven but the way he hath graced me to profess & suffer for. Thirdly, woe, woe is me for the virgin daughter of Scotland and for the fearful desolation & wrath appointed for this land; And yet all are sleeping, eating and drinking, laughing and sporting, as if all were well. Oh our dim gold, our dumb, blind pastors, the sun is gone down upon them, and our Nobles bid Christ send for himself if he be Christ: It were good we should learn in time the way to our strong hold. Sir howbeit not acquainted remember my love to your wife, I pray God establish you.  
Aberd. March. 9 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JOHN EWART Bailiff of Kirkcudbright. (94)  
My very worthy & dear Friend.  
I Cannot but most kindly thank you for the expressions of your love: your love & respect to me is a great comfort to me. I bless his high & glorious name that the terrors of great men, have not affrighted me from open avouching of the Son of God; nay his cross is the sweetest burden that ever I bore: It is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship to carry me forward to my harbour. I have not much cause to fall in love with the world; but rather to wish that he who sitteth upon the floods would bring my broken ship to Land, & keep my conscience safe in these dangerous times: for wrath from the Lord is coming on this sinful Land. It were good that we prisoners of hope knew of our strong hold to run to, before the storm come on: Therefore Sir I beseech you by the mercies of God and comforts of his Spirit, by the blood of your Saviour, & by your compearance before the sin-revenging Judge of the world, keep your garments clean & stand for the truth of Christ, which ye profess: When the time shall come that your eye strings shall break, your face wax pale, your breath grow cold, & this house of clay shall totter, & your one foot shall be over the march in eternity, it shall be your comfort & joy that ye gave your name to Christ. The greatest part of the world think heaven at the next door, & that Christianity is an easy task; but they will be beguiled. Worthy Sir, I beseech you make sure work of salvation: I have found by experience that all I could do, hath had much ado in the day of my trial; & therefore lay up a sure foundation for the time to come. I cannot requite you for your your undeserved favours to me & my nowafflicted brother; but I trust to remember you to God: remember me heartily to your kind wife.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his only Lord jesus. S. R.   

To WILLIAM FULLERTON. Provest of Kirkcudbright. (95)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I am obleiged to your love in God: I beseech you Sir let nothing be so dear to you as Christ's truth, for salvation is worth all the world; & therefore be not afraid of men that shall die: the Lord shall do for you in your suffering for him, & shall bless your house & seed, & ye have God's promise that ye shall have his presence in fire, water & in seven tribulations. Your day will wear to an end, & your sun go down: in death it will be your joy that ye have ventured all ye have for Christ, & there is not a promise of heaven made but to such as are willing to suffer for it: it is a Castle taken by force. This earth is but the clay-portion of bastards, & therefore no wonder the world smile on its own; but better things are laid up for hi● lawfully begotten bairnes; whom the world hateth: I have experience to speak this: for I would not exchange my prison & sad nights with the court, honour, & ease of my adversaries: My Lord is pleased to make many unknown faces to laugh upon me, & to provide a lodging for me: & he himself visiteth my soul with feasts of spiritual comforts. O how sweet a Master is Christ! Blessed are these who lay down all for him. I thank you kindly for your love to my distressed brother. Ye have the blessing & prayers of the prisoner of Christ to you, your Wife & Children. Remember my love & blessing to William & Samuel: I desire them in their youth to seek the Lord & fear his great name, to pray twice a day [at least] to God, & to read God's word, to keep themselves from cursing, lying & filthy talking. Now the only wise God & the presence of the Son of God be with you all.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the worthy & much honoured Mr ALEXANDER colvil, Of Blair. (96)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: The bearer hereof M. R. F. is most kind to me; I desire you to thank him: But none is so kind as my only royal King & Master, whose cross is my garland: The King dineth with his prisoner & his spikenard casteth a smell: He hath led me up to such a pitch & nick of joyful communion with himself, as I never knew before: When I look back to by-gones, I judge myself to have been a child at A, B, C. with Christ. Worthy Sir, pardon me, I dare not conceal it from you, it is as a fire i● my bowels: In hi● presence who seeth me I sp●ak it, I am pained, pained with the love of Christ; he hath made me sick & wounded me: Hunger for Christ out-runneth faith: I miss faith more than love. O if the three Kingdoms would come & see! O if they knew his kindness to my soul! It hath pleased him to bring me to this, that I will not strike sails to this world nor flatter it, nor adore this clay idol that fools worship: As I am now disposed, I think I will neither borrow nor lend with it; & yet I get my meat from Christ with nurture; for seven times a day I am lifted up & casten down. My dumb Sabbaths burden my heart & make it bleed: I want not fearful challenges & jealousies sometimes of Christ's love, that he hath casten me over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree: But this is my infirmity: By his grace I take myself in these rave: It is kindly that faith & love both be sick, & fevers are kindly to most joyful communion with Christ. Ye are blessed who avouch Christ openly before the Princes of this Kingdom, whose eyes are upon you: It is your glory to lift him up on his throne, to carry his tr●in & bear up the hem of his robe royal: He hath an hiding place for M. A. C. against the storm: go on & fear not what man can do: The saints seem to have ●he worst of it, [for apprehensions can make a lie of Christ & of his love] but it is not so: Providence is not rolled upon unequal & crooked wheels: All things work together for the good of these who love God & are called according to his purpose. Ere it be long we shall see the white side of God's Providence. My Brother's case hath moved me not a little: He wrote to me your care & kindness. Sir, the prisoner's blessings & prayers I trust shall not go by you. He that is able to keep you & to present you before the presence of his face with joy, establish your heart in the love of Christ.  
Aberd. 19 Febr. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To EARLESTOWN Younger. (97)  
Honoured & Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter which refreshed my soul. I thank God the court is closed, I think shame of my part of it: I pass now from my unjust summons of unkindness libelled against Christ my Lord: He is not such a Lord & Master as I took him to be, verily he is God, & I am dust & ashes: I took Christ's glooms to be as good as Scripture speaking wrath, but I have seen the other side of Christ & the white side of his cross now. I behoved to come to Aberdeen to learn a new mystery in Christ, that his promise is better to be believed then his looks, & that the devil can cause Christ's glooms speak a lie to a weak man: Nay, verily I was a child before, all by-gones are but b●irns play: I would I could begin to be a Christian in sad earnest: I n●ed not blame Christ if I be not one, for he hath showed me heaven & hell in Aberdeen: But the truth is, for all my sorrow, Christ is nothing in my debt; for his comforts have refreshed my soul: I have heard & s●en him in his sweetness, so, as I am almost saying, it is not he that I was wont to meet with: He laugheth more cheerfully, his kisses are more sweet & soul-refreshing than the kisses of the Christ I saw before were [though he be the same] or rather, the King hath led me up to a measure of joy & communion with my Bridegroom, that I never attained to before; so that often I think, I will neither borrow nor lend with this world, I will not strike sail to crosses nor flatter them, to be quite of them as I have done. Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! So I may get my heartful of my Lord Jesus. I have been so near him as I have said, I take instruments this is the Lord, leave a token behind thee that I may never forget this. Now what can Christ do more to dâte one of his poor prisoners? Therefore, Sir, I charge you in the name of my Lord Jesus, praise with me & show to others what he hath done unto my soul. This is the fruit of my sufferings that I desire Christ's name may be spread abroad in this Kingdom in my behalf. I hope in God not to slander him again; yet in all this I get not my feasts without some mixture of gall; neither am I free of old jealousies, for he hath removed my lovers & friends far from me, he hath made my congregation desolate & taken away my crown: & my dumb sabbaths are like a stone tied to a bird's foot that wanteth not wings, they seem to hinder me to fleo: Were it not that I dare not say one word, but, Well done, Lord jesus. We can in our prosperity sport ourselves & be too bold with Christ, yea be that insolent as to chide with him; but under the water we dare not speak. I wonder now of my sometimes boldness, to chide & quarrel Christ, to nickname Providence when it stroaked me against the hair; but now swimming in the waters, I think my will is fallen to the ground of the water: I have lost it. I think I would fain ●et Christ alone & give him leave to do with me what he pleaseth, if he would smile upon me. Verily we know not what an evil it is to spill & indulge ourselves, & to make an idol of our will: I was once, I would not eat except I had wailed meat; now I dare not complain of crumbs & pairings under his table: I was once that I would make the house ado, if I saw not the world carved & set in order to my liking; now I am silent when I see God hath set servants on horseback, & is fattening & feeding the children of perdition. I pray God I never find my will again: Oh if Christ would subject my will to his & trample it under his feet, & liberate me from that lawless Lord. Now Sir, in your youth gather fast, your sun will mount to the Meridian quickly & thereafter decline: Be greedy of grace: Study above any thing, my dear Brother, to mortify your lusts. Oh but pride of youth, vainty, lust, idolising of the world & charming pleasures, take long time to root them out! As far as ye are advanced in the way to heaven, as near as ye are to Christ as much progress as ye have made in the way of mortification, ye will find that ye are far behind & have most of your work before you. I never took it to be so hard, to be dead to my lusts & to this world: When the day of visitation cometh & your old idols come weeping about you, ye will have much ado not to break your heart, it's best give up in time with them, so as ye could at a call quite your part of this world for a drink of water or a thing of nothing. Verily I have seen the best of this world, a motheaten, thread bare coat: I purpose to lay it aside being now holly & old. O for my house above not made with hands! Pray for Christ's prisoner & write to me: Remember my love to your mother: Desire her from me to make for removing; the Lord's tide will not bide her; & to seek an heavenly mind, that her heart may be often there. Grace, be with you.  
Aberd. Feb. 20. 1637. Yours & Christ's prisoner. S. R.   

To ROBERT GLENDINING [98]  
My Dear Friend  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I thank you most kindly for your care of me, & your love and respective kindness to my brother in his distress: I pray the Lord ye may find mercy in the day of Christ, & I entreat you Sir to consider the times ye live in, & that your soul is of more worth to you then the whole world, which in the day of the blowing of the last trumpet shall lie in white ashes, as an old castle burnt to nothing: & Remember that judgement & eternity is before you. My dear & worthy friend, let me entreat you in Christ's name, & by the salvation of your soul, & by your compearance before the dreadful & sin-revenging judge of the world, make your accounts ready: read them ere ye come to the water side; for your afternoon will wear short, & your sun fall low and go down: & ye know that this long time your Lord hath waited on you: O how comfortable a thing shall it be to you when time shall be no more & your soul shall depart out of the house of clay to vast & endless eternity, to have your soul dressed up & prepared for your bridegroom! No loss is comparable to the loss of the soul, there is no hope of regaining that loss. O how joyful would my soul be to hear that ye would start to the gate, & contend for the crown, & leave all vanities, & make Christ your garland! Let your soul put away your old lovers & let Christ have your whole love: I have some experience to write of this to you: My witness is in heaven, I would not exchange my chains & bonds for Christ, & my sighs ●or ten worlds glory. I judge this clay-idol that Adam's sons are rouping & selling their souls for, not worth a drink of cold water. O if your soul were in my soul's stead, how sick would ye be of love for that fairest one, that fairest among the sons of men! Mayflowers & morning vapours & summer mist posteth not so fast away as these wormeaten pleasures that we follow: We build castles in the air, & night dreams are our day idols that we dote on: Salvation, Salvation is our only one necessary thing. Sir, call home your thoughts to this work, to inquire for your well-beloved: This earth is the portion of bastards, seek the son's inheritance, & let Christ's truth be dear to you. I pawned my salvation on it that this is the honour of Christ's Kingdom, I now suffer for [& this world I hope shall not come between me & my garland] & that this is the way to life. When ye & I shall lie lumps of pale clay upon the cold ground, our pleasures that we now naturally love, shall be less than nothing in that day: dear Brother, fulfil my joy & betake you to Christ without further delay, ye will be fain at length to seek to him or do infinitely worse. Remember my love to your wife, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To WILLIAM GLENDINING. [99]  
Well-beloved & dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I thank you most kindly for your care & love to me, & in particular to my brother in hi● distress in Edinburgh: Go on thorough your waters without wearying, your guide knoweth the way, follow him & cast your ca●es & tentation upon him: & let not worms, the sons of men affright you; they shall die & the moth shall eat them: keep your garland, there is no less at the stake in this game betwixt us & the world than our conscience & salvation: we have need to take heed to the game, & not to yield to them: Let them take other things from us; but here, in matters of conscience we must hold & draw with Kings, & set ourselves in terms of opposition with the shields of the earth. O the sweet communion for evermore that hath been between Christ & his poor prisoner! He wearieth not to be kind: He is the fairest sight I see in Aberd: or any part that ever my feet were in. Remember my hearty kindness to your wife, I desire her to believe & lay her cares on God, & make fast work of salvation. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his only Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JEAN BROWN. [100]  
Well-beloved and dear Sister.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter, which I esteem an evidence of your Christian affection to me, & of your love to my honourable Lord & Master. My desire is that your communion with Christ may grow, & that your reckonings may be put by hand with your Lord, ere ye come to the water side. O who knoweth how sweet Christ's ' kisses are! who hath been more kindly embraced & kissed then I his banished prisoner? If the comparison could stand, I would not exchange Christ with heaven itself: He hath left a dart & arrow of love in my soul, & it paineth me till he come & take it out: I find pain of these wounds because I would have possession. I know now this wormeaten apple, the plastered rotten world, that the silly Children of this world are beating & buffetting & pulling others ears for; is a portion for bastards good enough: & that is all they have to look for. I offend not that my adversaries stay at home at their own fireside with more yearly rent than I; should I be angry that the goodman of this house of the world casteth a dog a bone to hurt his teeth? he hath taught me to be content with a borrowed fireside & an uncouth bed: & I think I have lost nothing, the in come is so great. O what telling is in Christ! O how weighty is my fair garland, my crown, my fair supping-hall in glory, where I shall be above the blows and buffet of Prelates! Let this be your desire & let your thoughts dwell much upon that blessedness that abideth you in the other world: The fair side of the world will be turned to you quickly, when ye shall see the crown: I hope ye are near your lodging: O but I would think myself blessed for my part to win the house before the shower come on! For God hath a quiver full of arrows to shoot at & shower down upon Scotland. Ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. I desire Patrick to give Christ his young love even the flower of it, and put it by all others it were good to start soon to the way: He should thereby have a great advantage in the evil day. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Yours in his only Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr JOHN FERGUSHILL. [101]  
Reverend and well-beloved in the Lord.  
I Was refreshed with your letter: I am sorry for that linger and long some visitation that is upon your wife; but I know ye take it as a mark of a lawfully begotten child & not of a bastard to be under your father's rod: till ye be in heaven it will be but foul weather, one shower up & another down: The lintel-stones & pillars of the new Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God's hammer & tool, than the common side-wall stones: & if twenty crosses be written for you in God's book, they will come to ninteen & then at last to one, & after that nothing but your head betwixt Christ's breasts for evermore: & his own soft hand to dry your face & wipe away your tears. As for public sufferings for his truth, your Master also will see to these: Let us put him in his own office, to comfort & deliver: the gloom of Christ's cross is worse than itself. I cannot keep up what he hath done to my soul: My dear Brother, will I not get help of you to praise & to lift Christ up on high? He hath pained me with his love, & hath left a love arrow in my heart that hath made a wound & swollen me up with desires, so, that I am to be pitied for want of real possession: love would have the company of the party loved: & my greatest pain is the want of him, not of his joys & comforts, but of a near union, & communion. This is his truth I am fully persuaded I now suffer for: For Christ hath taken upon him to be witness to it, by his sweet comforts to my soul; & shall I think him a false witness, or that he would subscribe blank paper? I thank his high and dreadful name, for what he hath given, I hope to keep his seal & his pawn till he come & lose it himself. I defy hell to put me off it, but he is Christ & he hath met with his prisoner: & I took instruments in his own hand, that it was he & no other for him. When the Devil fenceth a bastard court in my Lord's ground & giveth me forged summons, it will be my shame to misbeleeve after such a fair broad seal: & yet Satan & my apprehension sometimes make a lie of Christ, as if he hated me; but I dare believe no evil of Christ: if he would cool my lovefever for himself with real presence & possession, I would be rich; but I dare not be mislearned and seek more in that kind; howbeit it be no shame to beg at Christ's door. I pity my adversaries, I grudge not that my Lord keepeth them at their own fireside, & hath given me a borrowed b●d & a borrowed fireside. Let the goodman of the house cast a dog a bone why should I offend? I rejoice that the broken bark shall come to land, & that Christ will on the shore welcome the sea-sick passenger. We have need of a great stock against this day of trial that is coming; neither chaff nor corn in Scotland, but it shall once pass thorough God's sieve. Praise, praise, & pray for me; for I cannot forget you: I know ye will be friendly to my afflicted brother, who is now embarked in the same cause with me: Let him have your counsel & comforts. Remember my love in Christ to your wife, her health is coming and her salvation sleepeth not. Ye have the prayers and blessing of a prisoner of Christ Sow fast, deal bread plentifully: The pantry door will be locked on the bairns in appearance ere long. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord. jesus, S. R.   

To his reverend & dear Brother, Mr ROBERT DOUGLASS. [102]  
My very reverend and dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to see you in paper. I cannot but write to you that this which I now suffer for, is Christ's truth; because he hath been pleased to seal my sufferings with joy unspeakable & glorious: I know he will not put his seal upon blank paper: Christ hath not dumb seals, neither will he be witness to a lie. I beseech you, my dear Brother, help me to praise & to lift Christ up on his throne above the shields of the earth. I am astonished & confounded at the greatness of his Kindness to such a sinner. I know, Christ & I shall never be even, I shall die in his debt: He hath left an arrow in my heart that paineth me for want of real possession: & hell cannot quench this coal of God's kindling. I wish no man slander Christ or his cross for my cause; for I have much cause to speak much good of him: He hath brought me to a nick & degree of communion with himself that I knew not before. The din & gloom of our Lord's cross, is more fearful & hard then the cross itself: He taketh the bairns in his arms when they come to a deep water, at least when they lose ground, & are put to swim, than his hand is under their chin. Let me be helped by your prayers, & remember my love to your kind wife. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 7. 1637. Your Brother and Christ's prisoner. S, R.   

To his loving friend JOHN HENDERSON. (103.)  
Loving friend.  
COntinue in the love of Christ & the doctrine which I taught you faithfully & painfully according to my measure: I am free of your blood: Fear the dreadful, name of God: Keep in mind the examinations which I taught you, & love the truth of God. Death, as fast as time flieth, chaseth you out of this life: It is possible ye make your reckoning with your judge before I see you; let salvation be your care night & day, & set aside hours & times of the day for prayer. I rejoice to hear that there is prayer is your house: See that your servants keep the Lord's day. This dirt & god of clay, I mean the vain world, is not worth the seeking. An hireling pastor is to be thrust in upon you, in the room to which I have Christ's warrant & right: Stand to your liberties, for the word of God alloweth you a vote in choosing your Pastor. What I write to you, I write to your wife: commend me heartily to her. The grace of God be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Your loving friend and Pastor. S. R.   

To Mr HUGH HENDERSON. (104)  
My reverend and dear Brother.  
I hear ye bear the marks of Christ's dying about with you, & that your brethren have cast you out for your Master's sake: Let us wait on till the evening & till our reckoning in black & white come before our Master. Brother, since we must have a devil to trouble us, I love a raging devil best: Our Lord knoweth what for of devil we have need of: It is best Satan be in his own skin & look like himself: Christ weeping looketh like himself also, with whom Scribes & Pharisees were at yea & nay & sharp contradiction. Ye have heard of the patience of job, when he lay in the ashes, God was with him clawing & curing his scabs, & letting out his boils, & comforting his soul, & he took him up at last: That God is not dead yet, he will stoop & take up fallen bairns: many broken legs since Adam's days hath he spelked, & many weary hearts hath he refreshed. Bless him for comfort: Why? None cometh dry from David's well; let us go amongst the rest & cast down our toom buckets into Christ's Ocean & suck consolations out of him: We are not so sore stricken, but we may fill Christ's hall with weeping: We have not gotten our answer from him yet: Let us lay up our broken pleas to a full sea, & keep them till the day of Christ's coming: We and this world will not be even till then: They would take our garment from us, but let us hold & them draw. Brother, it is a strange world if we laugh not: I never saw the like of it, if there be not paiks the man for this contempt done to the Son of God? We must do as these who keep the bloody napkin to the Bailiff & let him see blood: we must keep our wrongs to our Judge & let him see our bluddered & foul faces: Prisoners of hope must run to Christ with the gutters that tears have made on their cheeks. Brother, for myself, I am Christ's dâted one for the present, & I live upon no deaf nuts [as we use to speak] he hath opened fountains to me in the wilderness: Go look to my Lord Jesus, his love to me is such that I defy the world to find either brim or bottom in it. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Your Brother in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady ROBERTLAND. [105.]  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I shall be glad to hear that your soul prospereth & that fruit groweth upon you after the Lord's husbandry & pains in his rod, that hath not been a stranger to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kindness that he will take the scum off us in the fire: Who knoweth how needful winnowing is to us, & what dross we must want ere we enter into the Kingdom of God? So narrow is the entry to heaven that our knots, our bunches & lumps of pride, and self-love, & idol-love, & world-love must be hammered off us, that we may throng in, stooping low & creeping thorough that narrow & thorny entry. And now for myself, I find it the most sweet & heavenly life, to take up house & dwelling at Christ's fireside, & set down my tent upon Christ that foundation-stone, who is sure & faithful ground & hard under foot. Oh if I could win to it & proclaim myself not the world's debtor, nor a lover obliged to it; & that I mind not to hire or bud this world's love any longer; but defy the kindness & feud of God's whole creation whatsomever; especially the lower vault & clay part of God's creatures, this vain earth: For what hold I of his world? A borrowed lodging & some years' houseroom, & bread & water, & fire & bed & candle, etc. are all a part of the pension of my King & Lord to whom I owe thanks & not to a creature. I thank God that God is God, & Christ is Christ, & the earth the earth, & the Devil the devil, and the world the world, & that sin is sin, and that every thing is what it is: Because he hath taught me in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus, nor to intermix him with creature-vanities, nor to spin or twine Christ or his sweet love in one web, or in one thread with the world and the things thereof. Oh if I could hold and keep Christ all alone and mix him with nothing! O if I could cry down the price and weight of my cursed self and cry up the price of Christ, and double & triple and augment and heighten to millions the price & worth of Christ! I am [if I durst speak so & might lawfully complain] so hungredly tutoured by Christ Jesus my liberal Lord, that his nice love which my soul would be in hands with, flieth me; & yet I am trained on to love him, & lust & long & die for his love whom I cannot see: it is a wonder to pine away with love for a covered & hid lover, & to be hungered with his love, so as a poor soul cannot get his fill of hunger for Christ: It is hard to be hungered of hunger, whereof such abundance for other things is in the world: But sure if we were tutors and stewards and Masters, and Lordcarvers of Christ's love, we should be more lean & worse fed than we are: Our meat doth us the more good, that Christ keepeth the keys, & that the wind & the air of Christ's sweet breathing & of the influence of his spirit is locked up in the hands of the good pleasure of him, who bloweth where he listeth: I see there is a sort of impatient patience required in the want of Christ as to his manifestations, & waiting on: They thrive who wait on his love & the blowing of it & the turning of his gracious wind; & they thrive who in that onwaiting make haste and din and much ado for their lost and hidden Lord Jesus: However it be, God feed me with him any way. If he would come in, I shall not dispute the matter, where he got a hole, or how he opened the lock: I should be content that Christ and I met, suppose he should stand on the other side of hell's lake and cry to me, Either put in your foot & come through, else ye shall not have me at all. But what fools are we in the taking up of him and of his dealing! He hath a gate of his own beyond the thoughts of men, that no foot hath skill to follow him: But we are still ill Scholars and will go in at heaven's gates wanting the half of our lesson, and shall still be bairns so long as we are under time's hands, and till eternity cause a sun to arise in our souls that shall give us wit. We may see how we spill and ma● our own fair heaven and our salvation, and how Christ is every day putting in one bone or other in these fallen souls of ours, in the right place again: and that in this side of the new jerusalem, we shall still have need of forgiving and healing grace. I find crosses Christ's carved work that he marketh out for us, and that with crosses he figureth & pourtraieth us to his own image, cutting away pieces of our ill & corruption: Lord cut, Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do any thing that may perfect thy Father's image in us & make us meet for glory. Pray for me [I forget not you] that our Lord would be pleased to lend me houseroom to preach his righteousness & tell what I have heard & seen of him. Forget not Zion that is now in Christ's calms & in his forge: God bring her out new work. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Jan. 4. 1638. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Earl of Cassills'. [106]  
Right honourable & my very good Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your Lo: I hope your Lo: Will be pleased to pardon my boldness, if [upon report of your zealous & forward mind that I hear our Lord hath given you in this his honourable cause, when Christ & his Gospel are so foully wronged] I speak to your Lo: in paper, entreating your Lo: to go on in the strength of the Lord toward, and against a storm of Antichristian wind, that bloweth upon the face of this your poor mother-Church, Christ's lily amongst the thorns. It is your Lo: Glory & happiness when ye see such a blow coming upon Christ, to cast up your arm to prevent it: Neither is it a cause that needeth to blush before the sun, or to flee the sentence or censure of impartial beholders, seeing the Question indeed [if it were rightly stated] is about the Prerogative royal of our princely & royal lawgiver, our Lord Jesus, whose ancient march-stones & land-bounds our bastard Lords, the earthly generation of tyrannising Prelates, have boldly & shamefully removed: & they who have but-half an eye may see that it is the greedy desires of time-idolizing Demas' and the itching scab of ambitious and climbing Diotrephes' [who love the goat's life to climb till they cannot find a way to set their soles on ground again] that hath made such a wide breach in our Zion's beautiful walls: and these are the men who seek no hire for the crucifying of Christ, but his coat. Oh how forlorn & desolate is the Bride of Christ made to all passers by! Who seeth not Christ buried in this land, his prophets hidden in caves, silenced, banished & imprisoned; Truth weeping in sackcloth before the Judges, Parliament & the Rulers of the land? But her bill is cast by them, & Holiness hideth itself, fearing the streets for the reporoaches & persecution of men: Justice is fallen a swoon in the gate, & the long shadows of the evening are stretched out upon us: Woe, woe to us, for our day flieth away: what remaineth but that the Antichrist set down his tent in the midst of us, except your Lo: & others with you read Christ's supplication, & give him that which the most lewd and scandalous wretches in this land may have before a judge, even the poor man's due, law and justice for God's sake. O therefore, my noble & dear Lord, as ye have begun, go on in the mighty power and strength of the Lord, to cause our Lord in his Gospel and afflicted members laugh, & to cause the Christian Churches [whose eyes are all now upon you] to sing for joy, when Scotland's moon shall shine like the light of the sun, & the sun like the light of seven days in one: ye can do noless then run & bear up the head of your dying & swooning mother-Church, & plead for the production of her ancient charters: They hold out and put out, they hold in and bring in at their pleasure men in God's house; they stole the keys from Christ and his Church, and came in like the thief & the robber, not by the door Christ; & now their song is, Authority, Authority, obedience to Church-governors. When such a bastard & lawless pretended stepdame as our prelacy is gone mad, it is your place who are the Nobles to rise & bind them; at least, law should fetter such wild bulls as they are, who push all who oppose themselves to their domination. Alas! What have we lost since Prelates were made Master coiners to change our gold in brass, and to mix the Lord's wine with their water? Blessed for ever shall ye be of the Lord if ye help Christ against the mighty, and shall deliver the flock of God scattered upon the mountains in the dark & cloudy day, out of the hands of these idol-shepherds. Fear not men that shall be moth-eaten-clay that shall be rolled up in a chest, & casten under the earth: Let the holy one of Israel be your fear, & be courageous for the Lord and his truth. Remember your accounts coming upon you with wings, as fast as time posteth away: Remember what peace with God in Christ & the presence of the Son of God in the revealed & felt sweetness of his love, will be to you, when eternity shall put time to the door, & ye shall take good-night at Time, & this little shepherd's tent of clay, this Inns of a borrowed earth. I hope your Lo: is now & then sending out thoughts to view this world's naughtiness & vanity & the hoped-for glory of the life to come, & that ye resolve that Christ shall have yourself & all yours at command for him, his honour & Gospel. Thus trusting your Lo: Will pardon my boldness, I pray that the only wise God, the very God of peace, may preserve, strengthen & establish you to the end.  
Aberd. 1637. Your Lo: at all command & obedience in Chrst. S. R.   

To the Lady ROWALAND. [107]  
MADAM.  
THough not acquainted I am bold in Christ to speak to your La: in paper: I rejoice in our Lord Jesus on your behalf, that it hath pleased him [whose love to you is as old as himself] to manifest the savour of his love in Christ Jesus to your soul; in the revelation of his will & mind to you, now, when so many are shut up in unbelief. O the sweet change ye have made, in leaving the black kingdom of this world & sin, & coming over to our bridegroom's new kingdom, to know & to be taken with the love of the beautiful Son of God. I beseech you, Madam, in the Lord make now sure work, & see that the old house be casten down, & razed from the foundation, and that the new building of your soul be of Christ's own laying; for then wind and storm shall neither lose it, nor shake it asunder. Many now take Christ by guess: Be sure that it be he, and only he whom ye have met with: His sweet smell, his lovely voice, his fair face, his sweet working in the soul will not lie, they will soon tell if it be Christ indeed [& I think your love to the saints speaketh that it is he] & therefore I say, be sure that ye take Christ himself, & take him with his father's blessing: his father alloweth him well upon, you, your lines are well fallen, it could not have been better, nor so well with you if they had not fallen in these places: In heaven or out of heaven there is nothing better, nothing so sweet & excellent as the thing ye have lighted on, & therefore hold you with Christ: Joy, much joy may ye have of him: But take his cross with himself cheerfully: Christ and his cross are not separable in this life; howbeit Christ & his cross part at heaven's door, for there is no houseroom for crosses in heaven: one tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, or thought of trouble cannot find lodging there: they are but the marks of our Lord Jesus down in this wide inns & stormy country on this side of death: Sorrow & the saints are not married together, of suppose it were so, heaven shall make a divorce. I find his sweet presence eateth out the bitterness of sorrow & suffering. I think it a sweet thing that Christ saith of my cross Halfmine, & that he divideth these sufferings with me & taketh the largest share to himself; nay that I & my whole cross are wholly Christ's. O what a portion is Christ! O that the saints would dig deeper in the treasures of his wisdom & excellency! Thus recommending your La: to the goodwill & tender mercies of our Lord, I rest  
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637 Yours La: in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON. Of Knockbrex. (108)  
My very worthy & dear Friend.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: Though all Galloway should have forgotten me I would have expected a letter from you ere now: But I will not expound it to be forgetfulness of me. Now, My dear Brother, I cannot show you how matters go betwixt Christ and me: I find my Lord going and coming seven times a day: His visits are short, but they are both frequent & sweet. I dare not for my life think of a challenge of my Lord: I hear ill tales, & hard reports of Christ from the Tempter and my flesh; but love believeth no evil: I may swear that they are liars, and that apprehensions make lies of Christ's honest and unalterable love to me. I dare not say that I am a dry tree, or that I have no room at all in the vineyard; but yet I often think that the sparrows are blessed who may resort to the house of God in Anwoth, from which I am banished. Temptations that I supposed to be stricken dead and laid upon their back, rise again and revive upon me; yea. I see that while I live temptations will not die: The devil seemeth to brag & boast as much, as if he had more court with Christ than I have, & as if he had charmed & blasted my ministry that I shall do no more good in public; but his wind shaketh no corn: I will not believe Christ would have made such a mint to have me to himself, and have taken so much pains upon me as he hath done, and then slip so easily from possession, and lose the glory of what he had done; Nay, since I came to Aberden I have been taken up to see the new land, the fair palace of the Lamb: And will Christ let me see heaven to break my heart, & never give it to me? I shall not think my Lord Jesus giveth a dumb earnest, or putteth his seal● to blank paper, or intendeth to put me off with fair and false promises: I see that now, which I never saw well before. 1. I see faith's necessity in a fair day is never known aright; but now I miss nothing somuch as faith: Hunger in me runneth to fair and sweet promises, but when I come, I am like a hungry man that wanteth teeth, or a weak stomach having a sharp appetite that is filled with the very sight of meat; or like one stupefied with cold under the water that would fain come to land, but cannot grip any thing casten to him: I can let Christ grip me, but I cannot grip him: I love to be kissed and to sit on Christ's knee; but I cannot set my feet to the ground, for afflictions bring the cramp upon my faith: All I dow do is to hold out a lame faith to Christ, like a beggar holding out a stump in stead of an arm or leg and cry Lord jesus work a miracle. O what would I give to have hands & arms to grip strongly & fold heart somly about Christ's neck, & to have my claim made good with real possession! I think my love to Christ hath feet abundance, & ruinneth swiftly to be at him, but it wanteth hands and fingers to apprehend him. I think I would give Christ every morning my blessing, to have as much faith as I have love & hunger; at least I miss faith more than love & hunger. 2. I see mortification, & to be crucified to the world is not so highly accounted of by us as it should be. O how heavenly a thing is it to be dead & dumb & deaf to this world's sweet music! I confess it hath pleased his Majesty to make me laugh at children who are wooing this world for their match: I see men lying about the world, as Nobles about a King's court; & I wonder what they are a doing there: As I am at this present I would scorn to court such a feckless & petty Princess, or buy this world's kindness with a bow of my knee. I scarce now either hear or see what it is that this world offereth me; I know it's little it can take from me, & as little it can give me. I recommend Mortification to you above any thing: For alas we but chase feathers flying in the air, & tyre our own spirits for the froth & overguilded clay of a dying life: One sight of what my Lord hath let me see within this short time is worth a world of worlds. 3. I thought courage in the time of trouble for Christ's sake, a t●ing that I might take up at my foot, I thought the very remembrance of the honesty of the cause would be enough; but I was a fool in so thinking: I have much ado now, to win to one smile; but I see joy groweth up in heaven, & it is above our short arm: Christ will be steward & dispenser himself, & non● else but He: Therefore, now, I count much of one dram weight of spiritual joy; one smile of Christ's face, is now to me as a Kingdom, & yet he is no niggard to me of comforts: Truly I have no cause to say that I am pinched with penury or that the consolations of Christ are dried up, for he hath poured down rivers upon a dry wilderness the like of me to my admiration: & in my very swoonings he holdeth up my head, & stayeth me with flagons of wine & comforteth me with apples: My house & bed is strewed with kisses of love. Praise, praise with me. O if ye & I betwixt us could lift up Christ upon his throne, howbeit all Scotland should cast him down to the ground! My Brother's case toucheth me near, I hope ye will be kind to him & give him your best counsel: Remember my love to your Brother, to your wife & G. M. desire him to be faithful & repent of his hypocrisy, and say that I wrote it to you: I wish him salvation: Write to me your mind anent. C. E. And C. Y. And their wives. & I. G. Or any others in my parish: I fear I am forgotten amongst them; but I cannot forget them. The prisoner's prayers and blessing come upon you: Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Feb, 9 1637. Your Brother in the Lord jesus▪ S. R.   

To my lord BALMERINOCH. [109]  
My very Noble & truly honourable Lord.  
I Make bold to write news to your Lo: from my prison, though your Lo: have experience more than I can have. At my first entry here, I was not a little casten down with challenges for old unrepented of sins, & Satan & my own apprehensions made a lie of Christ, that he had casten a dry withered tree over the dike of the vineyard; but it was my folly, blessed be his great name the fire cannot burn the dry tree: He is pleased no● to feast the exiled prisoner with his lovely presence, for it suiteth Christ well to be kind, & he dineth & suppeth with such a sinner as I am. I am in Christ's tutouring here; He hath made me content with a borrowed fireside, & it casteth as much heat, as mine own: I want nothing at all but real possession of Christ: And he hath given me a pawn of that also, which I hope to keep till he come himself to lose the pawn. I cannot get help to praise his high name: He hath made me a King over my losses, imprisonment, banishment & only my dumb sabbaths stick in my throat: But I forgive Christ's wisdom in that: I dare not say one word: He hath done it & I will lay my hand upon my mouth: If any other had done it to me, I could not have born it. Now My Lord, I must tell your Lo: That I would not give a drink of cold water for this clay idol, this plastered world. I testify & give it under mine own hand, that Christ is most worthy to be suffered for. Our lazy flesh [which would have Christ to cry down crosses by open proclamation] hath but raised a slander upon the cross of Christ. My Lord, I hope ye i will not forget what he hath done for your soul: I think ye are n Christ's count-book as his obliged debtor. Grace, grace be with your spirit.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Your Lo: obliged Servant, S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON. Of Knockgray. (110)  
Dear. Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace, be to you: I long to hear how your soul prospereth: I expected letters from you ere now. As for myself I am here in good case, well feasted with a great King: At my first coming here, I was that bold as to to take up a jealousy of Christ's love: I said I was cast over the dike of the Lord's vineyard as a dry tree; but I see if I had been a withered branch, the fire would have burnt me long ere now: blessed be his high name who hath kept sap in the dry tree: & now as if Christ had done the wrong, he hath made the mends, & hath miskent my rave [for a man under the water cannot well command his wit, far less his faith & love] because it was a fever, my Lord Jesus forgave me that among the rest: He knoweth, in our afflictions we can find a spot in the fairest face that ever was, even in Christ's face: I would not have believed that a gloom should have made me to misken my old Master; But we must be whiles sick: Sickness is but kindly to both faith & Love. But O how execedingly is a poor dâted prisoner obliged to sweet Jesus! My tears are sweeter to me, than the laughter of the fourteen Prelates to them: The worst of Christ, even his chaff, is better than the world's corn. Dear Brother, I beseech you, I charge you in the name & authority of the Son of God, help me to praise his highness, & I charge you also to tell all your acquaintance, that my Master may get many thanks. O if my hairs, all my members and all my bones, were well tuned tongues to sing the high praises of my great & glorious King! Help me to lift Christ up upon his throne, & to lift him up above all the thrones of the clay Kings, the dying scepter-bearers of this world. The prisoner's blessing, the blessing of him that is separated from his brethren, be upon them all who will lend me a lift in this work: Show this to that people with you to whom sometimes I preached. Brother, my Lord hath brought me to this, that I will not flatter the world for a drink of water: I am no debtor to clay, Christ hath made me dead to that: I now wonder that ever I was such a Child long since, as to beg at such beggars: Fie upon us, who woo such a black skinned harlot; when we may get such a fair, fair match up in heaven. Oh that I could give up with this clay-idol, this masked painted overguilded dirt, that Adam's sons adore! We make an idol of our Will: as many jousts in us as many Gods: We are all God-makers: We are like to lose Christ the true God in the throng of these new & false Gods. Scotland hath cast her crown off her head: The virgin Daughter hath lost her garland: woe, woe to our harlot mother: Our day is coming, a time when women shall wish they had been childless, & fathers shall bless miscarrying wombs & dry breasts: many houses, great & fair, shall be desolate. This Kirk shall sit on the ground all the night & the tears shall run down her cheeks: The sun hath gone down upon her Prophets: Blessed are the prisoners of hope who can run in to their strong hold, & hide themselves for a little till the indignation be overpast. Commend me to your Wife, your Daughters, your Son in law, & to A. T. write to me of the case of your Kirk. Grace be with you. I am much moved for my Brother, I entreat for your kindness & counsel to him.  
Aberd. Feb. 23. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady MARRE Younger. (111.)  
My Very noble & dear Lady.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your La: letter, which hath comforted my soul. God give you to find mercy in the day of Christ. I am in as good terms and court with Christ, as an exiled oppressed prisoner of Christ can be: I am still welcome to his house, he knoweth my knock & letteth in a poor friend: Under this black rough tree of the cross of Christ, he hath ravished me with his love, & taken my heart to heaven with him: well & long may he bruik it. I would not niffer Christ with all the joys that man or Angel can devise beside him. Who hath such cause to speak honourably of Christ as I have? Christ is King of all crosses & he hath made his saints little Kings under him, & he can ride & triumph upon weaker bodies than I am [if any can be weaker] & his horse will neither fall nor stumble. Madam, your La: hath much ado with Christ for your soul, husband, children, & house: Let him find much employment for his calling with you; for he is such a friend as delighteth to be burdened with suits and employments, and the more ye lay on him and the more homely ye be with him, the more welcome. O the depth of Christ's love! It hath neither brim nor bottom. O if this blind world saw his beauty! When I count with him for his mercies to me, I must stand still & wonder & go away as a poor dyvour who hath nothing to pay: Free forgiveness is my payment. I would I could get him set on high, for his love hath made me sick & I die except I get real possession. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1367. Your La: at all obedience in Christ. S. R.   

To JAMES Mc ADAM. (112)  
My very dear & worthyfriend.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear of your growing in grace, & of your advancing in your journey to heaven: It will be the joy of my heart to hear that ye hold your face up the braes & wade through tentations without fearing what man can do. Christ shall, when he ariseth, mow down his enemies & lay bulks [as they use to speak] on the green & fill the pits with dead bodies, Psal. 110: 6. they shall lie like handfuls of withered hay when he ariseth to the prey. Salvation, Salvation is the only necessary thing: this clay-idol, the World, is not to be sought, it is a morsel not for you, but for hungerbitten bastards. Contend for Salvation: Your Master Christ, won heaven with strokes: It is a besieged castle, it must be taken with violence. Oh, this world thinketh heaven but at the next door, & that godliness may sleep in a bed of downs till it come to heaven; but that will not do it. For myself, I am as well as Christ's prisoner can be: For by him, I am master & King of all my crosses; I am above the prison & the lash of men's tongues: Christ triumpheth in me. I have been casten down & heavy with fears & hunted with challenges, I was swimming in the depths; but Christ had his hand under my chin all the time & took good heed that I should not lose breath: And now I have gotten my feet again, & there are love-feasts of joy & springtides of consolation betwixt Christ & me: We agree well, I have court with him, I am still welcome to his house. O my short arms cannot fathom his love! I beseech you, I charge you help me to praise: Ye have a prisoner's prayers, therefore forget me not. I desire Sibilla to remember me dearly to all in that Parish who know Christ, as if I had named them. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my very dear Brother WILLIAM LIVINGSTONE. (113)  
My very dear Brother.  
I Rejoice to hear that Christ hath run away with your young love & that ye are so early in the morning matched with such a Lord; for a young man is often a dressed lodging for the devil to dwell in: be humble and thankful for grace, & weigh it not so much by weight as if it be true: Christ will not cast water on your smoking coal, he never yet put out a dim candle that was lighted at the sun of righteousness. I recommend to you prayer & watching over the sins of your youth; for I know missive letters go between the Devil & young blood; Satan hath a friend at court in the heart o● youth, & there, pride, luxury, lust, revenge, forgetfulness of God are hired as his agents: happy is your soul if Christ man the house & take the keys himself & command all [as it suiteth him full well to rule all where ever he is] keep him & entertain Christ well, cherish his grace, blow upon your own coal, & let him tutor you. Now for myself, know I am fully agreed with my Lord: Christ hath put the father & me in other's arms, many a sweet bargain he made before, & he hath made this among the rest. I reign as King over my crosses, I will not flatter a temptation nor give the Devil a good word, I defy Hell's iron gates: God hath passed over my quarrelling of him at my entry here, & now he feedeth & feasteth with me: praise, praise with me & let us exalt his name together.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Your brother in Christ, S. R.   

To WILLIAM GORDON. of White park. (114)  
Worthy Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I long to hear from you: I am here the Lord's prisoner & patient, handled as softly by my Physician as if I were a sick man under cure. I was at hard terms with my Lord & pleaded with him; But I had the worst side: It is a wonder he should have suffered the like of me to have nicknamed the Son of his love Christ, & to call him a changed Lord who had forsaken me; but misbelief hath never a good word to speak of Christ. The dross of my cross, gathered a scum of fearsin the fire, doubtings, impatience, unbelief, challenging of providence as sleeping, & not regarding my sorrow; but my gold smith Christ was pleased to take off the scum & burn it in the fire: And blessed be my finer he hath made the metal better & furnished new supply of grace to cause me hold out weight & I hope hath not loosed one grain weight by burning his servant. Now his love in my heart casteth a mighty heat: He knoweth that the desire I have to be at himself paineth me: I have sick nights & frequent fits of love-fevers for my well-beloved: Nothing paineth me now but want of presence: I think it long till day: I challenge time as too slow in its pace, that holdeth my only, only fair one, my love, my well-beloved from me: O if we were together once! I am like an old crazed ship that hath endured many storms & that would fain be in the lee of the shore, & feareth new storms: I would be that nigh heaven, that the shadow of it might break the force of the storm & the crazed ship might win to land. My Lord's s●n casteth a heat of love & beam of light on my soul. My blessing thrice every day upon the sweet cross of Christ: I am not ashamed of my garland The banished ●inister. [which is the term of Aberden] Love, Love defieth reproaches: The love of Christ hath a croslet of proof on it, & arrows will not draw blood of it: We are more than conquerors through the blood of him that hath loved us, Rom. 8. The devil, & the world they cannot wound the love of Christ. I am further from yielding to the course of defection then when I came hither: sufferings blunt not the fiery edge of love: Cast love in the floods of hell it will swim above: it careth not for the world's busked and plastered offers. It hath pleased my Lord so to line my heart with the love of my Lord Jesus, that as if the field were already won, & I on the other side of time, I laugh at the world's golden pleasures & at this dirty Idol that the sons of Adam worship: This wormeaten God, is that which my soul hath fallen out of love with. Sir, ye were once my hearer: I desire now to hear from you & your wife: I salute her & your children with blessings: I am glad that ye are still hand-fasted with Christ: go on in your journey & take the city by violence: Keep your garments clean: Be clean virgins to your husband the Lamb: the world shall follow you to heaven's gates; & ye would not wish it to go in with you: Keep fast Christ's love: Pray for me as I do for you: the Lord Jesus be with your Spirit.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr GEORGE GILLESPIE. [115]  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
I Received your letter: as for my case Brother, I bless his glorious name, my losses are my gain, my prison a palace, & my sadness joyfulness. At my first entry, my apprehensions wrought so upon my cross, that I bec●me jealous of the love of Christ, as being by him thrust out of the vineyard, & I was under great challenges, [as ordinarily melted gold casteth first a drossy scum, & Satan & our corruption form the first words that the heavy cross speaketh & say ●od is angry. He loveth you not.] But our apprehensions are not cannonicall: they dite lies ' of God & Christ's love; but since my spirit was settled, & the clay fallen to the bottom of the well, I see better what Christ was doing: And now my Lord is returned with salvation under his wings, now I want little of half a heaven, & I find Christ every day so sweet, comfortable, lovely & Kind, as three things only trouble me. 1. I see not how to be thankful, or how to get help to praise that royal King who raiseth up these that are bowed down. 2. His love paineth me & woundeth my soul, so as I am in a fever for want of real presence. 3. An excessive desire to take instruments in God's name, that this is Christ & his truth I now suffer for, yea the apple of the eye of Christ's honour, even the Sovereignty & royal privileges of our King & lawgiver Christ: & therefore let no man scar at Christ's cross, or raise an ill report upon him or it; for he beareth the sufferer & it both. I am here troubled with the disputes of the great Doctors [especially with D. B. in Ceremonial & Arminian controversies for all are corrupt here] but I thank God, with no detriment to the truth, or discredit to my profession: So than I see that Christ can triumph in a weaker man nor I, & who can be more weak? But his grace is sufficient for me. Brother remember our old Covenant, & pray for me, & write to me your case. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JOHN MIEN. (116)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I wonder ye sent me ●ot an answer to my last letter; for I stand in need of it: I am still 〈◊〉 some piece of court with our great King, whose love would cause a dead man speak & live: whether my court will continue or not, I cannot well say; but I have his ear frequently & [to his glory only I speak it] no penury of the love-kisses of the Son of God: He thinketh good to cast apples to me in my prison to play withal; lest I should think long & faint: I must give over all attempts to fathom the depth of his love: all I can do is but to stand beside his great love, & look & wonder: my debts of thankfulness affright me: I fear my Creditor get a Dyvour-bill & a ragged account: I would be much the better of help: O for help, & that ye would take notice of my case: Your not writing to me maketh me think ye suppose that I am not to be bemoaned, because he is comfortable; but I have pain in my unthankfulness, & pain in the feeling of his love, while I am sick again for real presence, & real possession of Christ; yet there is no gooked [if I may speak so] nor fond love in Christ: He casteth me down sometimes with challenges for old faults, & I know, he knoweth well that sweet comforts are swelling & therefore sorrow must make a vent to the wind: my dumb sabbaths are undercotting wounds: The condition of this oppressed kirk, & my brother's case [I thank you & your wife for your kindness to him] hold my sore smarting & keep my wounds bleeding; but the groundwork standeth sure. Pray for me. Grace be with you. Remember meto your wife.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr THOMAS GARVEN. (117)  
Reverend and dear Brother.  
I Bless you for your letter: it was a shower to the new mown grass: The Lord hath given you the tongue of the Learned: Be fruitful & humble: It is possible ye come to my case, or the like; but the water is neither so deep, nor the stream so strong as it is called: I think my fire is not hot, my water dry land, my loss rich loss. O if the walls of my prison be high, wide & large, & the place sweet! No man knoweth it, no man I say knoweth it [my Dear Brother] so well, as he & I, no man can put it down in black & white as my Lord hath sealed it in my heart: My poor stock is grown since I came to Aberden: And if any had known the wrong I did in being jealous of such an honest lover as Christ, who witheld not his love from me, they would think the more of it; but I see he must be above me in mercy: I will never strive with him: To think to recompense him is folly: If I had as many Angel's tongues as there have fallen drops of rain since the creation, or as there are leaves of trees in all the forests of the earth, or stars in the heaven to praise; yet my Lord Jesus would ever be behind with me: We will never get our accounts sitted: A pardon must close the reckoning; for his comforts to me in this his honourable cause, have almost put me beyond the bounds of modesty; howbeit I will not let every one know what is betwixt us: Love, love [I mean Christ's love] is the hottest coal that ever I felt: O but the smoke of it be hot! Cast all the salt sea on it, it will flame, hell cannot quench it: Many, many waters will not quench love: Christ is turned over to his poor prisoner in a mass & globe of love: I wonder he should waste so much love upon such a waster as I am; but he is no waster but abundant in mercy: He hath no niggards alms when he is pleased to give. O that I could invite all the nation to love him! Free grace is an unknown thing: This world hath heard but a bare name of Christ & no more: There are infinite plies in his love, that the saints will never win to unfold: I would it were better known & that Christ got more of his own due then the doth. Brother, ye have chosen the good part who have taken part with Christ: Ye will see him win the field, & ye shall get part of the spoil when he divideth it: They are but fools who laugh at us; for they see but the backside of the moon; yet our moonlight it better th●n their twelve-hours-sun: We have gotten the new heavens & as a pledge of that the bridegroom's love-ring: The children of the wedding chamber have cause to skip & leap for joy, for the marriage supper is drawing nigh & we find the fours-hours sweet & comfortable. O time be not slow! O sun move speedily, & hasten our banquet? O bridegroom be like a roe, or a young hart upon the mountains! O well-beloved run fast that we may once meet! Brother, I contain myself for want of time: Pray for me: I hope to remember you. The goodwill of him who dwelled in the bush, the tender mercies of God in Christ every you: Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To BETHAIA AIRD. [118]  
Worthy Sister.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I know ye desire news from my prison, & I shall show you news. At my first entry hither, Christ & I agreed not well upon it: The devil made a plea in the house & I laid the blame upon Christ; for my heart was fraughted with challenges, & I feared that I was an outcast, & that I was but a withered tree in the vineyard, & but held the sun off the good plants with my idle shadow, & therefore my Master had given the evil servant ●he fields to fend him: Old guiltiness said [as witness] all is true: My apprehensions were with child of faithless fears, & unbelief put a seal & Amen to all. I thought myself in a hard case: Some said I had cause to rejoice that Christ had honoured me to be a witness for him: & I said in my heart these are words of men who see but mine outside & cannot tell if I be a false witness or not. If Christ had in this matter been as wilful & short as I was, my faith had gone over the braes & broken its neck; But we were well met, a hasty fool & a wise patient & meek Saviour: he took no law-advantage of my folly, but waited on till my ill blood was fallen & my drumbled & troubled well began to clear: He was never a whit angry at the feverraving of a poor tempted sinner; but he mercifully forgave, & came (as it well becometh him) with grace & new comfort to a a sinner, who deserved the contrary: And now he is content to kiss my black mouth, to put his hand in mine, & to feed me with as many consolations as would feed ten hungry souls; Yet I dare not say he is a waster of comforts, for no less would have born me up, one grain weight less would have casten the balance. Now, who is like to that royal king crowned in Zion? where will I get a seat for royal Majesty to set him on? If I could set him as far above the heavens as thousand thousands of heights devised by men & Angels, I would think him but too low. I pray you for God's sake, my dear Sister, help me to praise: His love hath neither brim nor bottom: His love is like himself, it passes all natural understanding: I go to fathom it with my arms, but it is, as if a child would take the globe of sea & land in his two short arms: Blessed & holy is his name. This must be his truth I now suffer for, for he would not laugh upon a lie, nor be witness with his comforts to a night-dream. I entreat for your prayers, & the prayers & blessing of a prisoner of Christ be upon you. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in his s●eet Lord jesus S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON Of Knockgray. (119)  
Dear Brother.  
I Have not leisure to write to you: Christ's ways were known to you, long before I [who am but a child] known any thing of him. What wrong & violence the Prelates may by God's permission do unto you for your trial, I know not; but this I know that your ten day's tribulation will end: Contend to the last breath for Christ. Banishment out of these Kingdoms is determined against me as I hear; this land dow not bear me: I pray you, recommend my case & bonds to my brethren & sisters with you: I intrust more of my spiritual comfort to you & them that way, my dear Brother, then to many in this Kingdom besides. I hope, ye will not be wanting to Christ's prisoner. Fear nothing, for I assure you, Alexander Gordon of Knockgray shall win away & get his soul for a prey: And what can he then want that's worth the having? Your friends are cold [as ye write] & so are these in whom I trusted much: Our husband doth well in breaking our idols in pieces: dry wells send us to the fountain. My life is not dear to me, sobeing I may fulfil my course with joy. I fear you must remove if your new hireling will not bear your discountenancing of him; for the Prelate is afraid Christ get you, & that he hath no will of. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord & Master, S. R.   

To JOHN FLEMING, Bailisse of Leith [120]  
Worthy & dearly beloved in the Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I received your letter: I wish I could satisfy your desire in drawing up and framing for you a Christian directory: But the learned have done it before me more judiciously than I can; especially Mr Rodgers, Greenhame & Perkins; not withstanding, I shall show you what I would have been at myself [howbeit I I came always short of my purpose.] 1. That hours of the day less or more time, for the word & prayer, be given to God, not sparing the twelfth hour or midday, howbeit it should then be the shorter time. 2. In the midst of worldly employments, there would be some thoughts of sin, judgement, death & eternity, with a word or two of ejaculatory prayer [at least] to God. 3. To beware of wandering of heart in private prayers. 4. Not to grudge howbeit ye come from prayer without sense or joy: Down-casting, sense of guiltiness & hunger is often best for us. 5. That the Lord's day from morning to night be spent always either in private or public worship. 6. That words be observed, wandering and idle thoughts be avoided, sudden anger & desire of revenge, even of such as persecute the truth, be guarded against; for we often mix our zeal with our own wild fire. 7. That known, discovered & revealed sins that are against the conscience be eshewed as most dangerous preparative, to hardness of heart. 8. That in dealing with men, faith & truth in covenants & traffiquing be regarded, that we deal with all men in sincerity, that conscience be made of idle & lying words, & that our carriage be such as that they who see it, may speak honourably of our sweet Master and profession. 9 I have been much challenged. 1. For not referring all to God as the last end: That I do not eat, drink, sleep, journey, speak and think for God. 2. That I have not benefited by good company, & that I left not some word of conviction even upon natural and wicked men, as by reproving swearing in them, or because of being a silent witness to their loose carriage, & because I intended not in all companies to do good. 3. That the woes & calamities of the Kirk & particular professors have not moved me. 4. That the reading of the life of David, Paul & the like when it humbled me, I [coming so far short of their holiness] laboured not to imitate them afar off at least, according to the measure of God's grace. 5. That unrepented sins of youth were not looked to & lamented for. 6. That sudden stir of pride, lust, revenge, love of honours were not resisted & mourned for. 7. That my charity was cold. 8. That the experiences I had of God's hearing me in this & the other Particular, being gathered; yet in a new trouble I had always [once at least] my faith to seek, as if I were to begin at A. B. C. Again. 9 That I have not more boldly contradicted the enemies speaking against the truth, either in public church-meetings, or at tables, or ordinary conference. 10. That in great troubles I have received false reports of Christ's love & misbeleeved him in his chastning, whereas the event hath said all was in mercy. 11. Nothing more moveth me & weighteth my soul, then that I could never for my heart in my prosperity, so wrestle in prayer with God, nor be so dead to the world, so hungry & sick of love for Christ, so heavenly minded, as when ten stone weight of a heavy cross was upon me. 12. That the cross extorted vows of new obedience which ease hath blown away as chaff before the wind. 13. That practice was so short & narrow, & light so long & broad. 14. That death hath not been often meditated upon. 15. That I have not been careful of gaining others to Christ. 16. That my grace & gifts bring forth little or no thankfulness. There are somethings also whereby I have been helped: As, 1. I have benefited by riding alone a long journey, in giving that time to prayer. 2. By abstinence & giving days to God. 3. By praying for others; for by making an errand to God for them; I have gotten something for myself. 4. I have been really confirmed in many particulars that God heareth prayers, and therefore I used to pray for any thing of how little importance soever. 5. He enabled me to make no question that this mocked way, which is nicknamed, is the only way to heaven. Sir, these & many more occurrences in your life would be looked unto: &, 1. Thoughts of Atheism would be watched over as If there be a God in heaven: Which will trouble & assault the best at some times. 2. Growth in grace would be cared for above all things, & falling from our first love mourned for. 3. Conscience made of praying for the enemies who are blinded. Sir, I thank you most kindly for your care of my brother & me also: I hope it is laid up for you and remembered in heaven. I am still ashamed with Christ's kindness to such a sinner as I am: He hath left a fire in my heart that hell cannot cast water on to quench or extinguish it. Help me to praise and pray for me: for ye have a prisoner's blessing & prayers. Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 15. 1367. Yours in Christ jesus S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON of Knokbrex. (121)  
My very dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I thought to have answered your two letters upon this occasion; though I cannot say all that I would. Your timeous word [not to delight in the cross, but in him who sweeteneth it] came to me in due time: I find the consolations & off-falling that follow the cross of Christ so sweet, that I almost forget myself: my desire & purpose is, when Christ's honey combs drop, neither to refuse to receive & feed upon his comforts, nor yet to make joy, my bastard-god, or my new found heaven: But what shall I say? Christ very often in his sweet comforts cometh unsent for, & it were a sin to close the door upon him: It is not unlawful to love & delight in Christ's apples, when I am not dottingly wooing, nor eagerly begging kisses: but when they come clean from the timber [like kindness itself that cometh of its own accord] then I cannot but laugh upon him, who laugheth upon me: If joy & comforts came single & alone, without Christ himself, I think I would send them back again the gate they came, and not make them welcome; But when the King's train cometh, and the King in the midst of the company, O how am I overjoyed with floods of love! I fear not that too great speats, of love wash away the growing corn, & lose my plants at the roots: Christ doth no skaith where he cometh; but certainly I would wish such spiritual wisdom as to love the bridegroom better than his gifts, his propines, or drink-money. I would be further in upon Christ then at his joys; they but stand in the utter side of Christ: I would wish to be in as a seal on his heart, in where his love & mercy lodgeth, beside his heart. My well-beloved hath ravished me; but it is done with consent of parties, & it is allowable enough: But my dear Brother, ere I part with this subject, I must tell you, [that ye may lift up my King in praises with me] Christ hath been keeping something these fourteen years for me, that I have now gotten in my heavy days, that I am in for his name sake; even an opened coffer of perfumed comforts & fresh joys coming new, & green, & powerful from the fairest, fairest face of Christ my Lord. Let the sour law, let crosses, let hell be cried down: Love, love hath shamed me from my old ways. Whether I have a race to run or some work ado, I see not; but I think, Christ seemeth to leave heaven [to say so] & his court, & come down to laugh & play & sport with a daft bairn. I am not this plain with many I write to: It is possible I be misconstructed & deemed to seek a name; but my witness above knoweth, I seek to have a good name raised upon Christ. I observe it to be our folly, to seek little from Christ; because our four-hours may not be our supper: nor our propine sent by the Bridegroom our tocher-good; nor our earnest our principal sum: But I trow few of us know how much may be had of Christ for a four-hours & a propine & earnest: We are like the young heir who knoweth not the whole bounds of his own Lordship. Certainly it is more than my part to say, O sweetest Lord jesus, what ho● beit I were split & broken in five thousand shards or bits of clay, so being every sheard ●ad a heart to love thee, & every one as many tongues as there are stars in heaven to sing praises to thee, before man & angel for evermore? Therefore if my sufferings cry goodness, & praise, & honour upon Christ, my stipend is well paid. Each one knoweth not what a life Christ's love is: Scar not at suffering for Christ, for Christ hath a chair & a cushion & sweet peace for a sufferer: Christ's trencher from the first mess of the high-table is for a sinful witness. O than Brother, who but Christ! Who but Christ? Hold your tongue of lovers where he cometh out! O all flesh, O dust & ashes, O Angels, O glorified spirits, O all the shields of the world, be silent before him, come hither & behold our Bridegroom, stand still & wonder for evermore at him! Why cease we to love & wonder, to kiss & adore him? It is a hard matter that days lie betwixt me & him & hold us asunder. O how long, how long! O how many miles are there to my Bridegroom's dwelling house! It is a pain to frist Christ's love any longer: But it may be a drunken man lose his feet & miss a step. Ye write to me, hall bi●ks are slippery: I do not think my dâting world will still last, & that feasts will be my ordinary food: I would have humlity, patience & faith, to set down both my feet when I come to the north-side of the cold & thorny hill. It is ill my common to be swier to go an errand for Christ, & to take the wind upon my face for him. Lord, let me never be a false witness to deny that I saw Christ take the pen in his hand & subscribe my writes. My Dear Brother, ye complain to me ye cannot hold sight of me; but were I a footman I should go at leisure, but sometimes the King taketh me into his coach, & draweth me; & then I ontrun myself; but alas I am still a forlorn transgressor: O how unthankful! I will not put you off your sense of deadness, but let me say this, who gave you Proctor-fee, to speak for the law, that can speak for itself, better than ye can do? I would not have you to bring your dittay in your own bosom with you to Christ: Let the old man & the new man be summoned before Christ's white throne, & let them be confronted before Christ, & let each one of them speak for themselves: I hope howbeit the new man complain of his lying among the pots, which maketh the believer look black; yet he can say also, I am comely as the tents of Kedar: Ye shall not have my advice not to bemoan your deadness: but I find by some experience [which ye knew before I knew Christ] it suiteth not a ransomed man of Christ's buying, to go & plea for the sour law, our old forecaste● husband; for we are now not under the law [as a covenant] but under grace: Ye are in no man's common but Christ's: I know he bemoaneth you more than ye do yourself: I say this, because I am wearied of complaining. I thought it had been humility to imagine that Christ was angry with me, both because of my dumb sabbaths & my hard heart, but I feel now nothing but aching wounds: my grief whether I will or not swelleth upon me: But let us die in Grace's hall-floor pleading before Christ: I deny nothing that the Mediator will challenge me of; but I turn it all back upon himself: Let him look his own old counts if he be angry, for he will get no more of me: when Christ saith I want Repentance: I meet him with this, True Lord; but thou art made a King & Prince to give me Repentance Act. 5● 31. When Christ bindeth a challenge upon us, we must bind a promise back upon him: Be woe & lay yourself in the dust before God [which is suitable] but withal let Christ take payment in his own hand, & pay himself, off the first end of his own merits; else he will come behind for any thing we can do. I am every way in your case, as hard hearted & dead as any man; but yet I speak to Christ through my sleep: Let us then proclaim a free market for Christ & swear ourselves bare, & desire, & cry on him to come without money & buy us, & take us home to our ransom-payer's fireside, & let us be Christ's free-boarders: because we dow not pay the old, we may not refuse to take on Christ's new debt of mercy: Let us do our best, Christ will still be behind with us, & many terms will run together: For my part let me stand for evermore in his book for a forlorn Dyvour: I must desire to be this far in his common of new, as to desire to kiss his feet: I know not how to win to a heartsom fill & feast of Christ's love; for I dow neither buy, nor beg, nor borrow: & yet I cannot want it: ay dow not want it. O if I could praise him! yea I would rest content with a heart submissive & dying of love for him; & howbeit I won never personally in at heaven's gates; O would to God I could send in my praises to my incomparable well-beloved, or cast my lovesongs of that matchless Lord Jesus over the walls, that they might light in his lap before men & Angels! Now, grace, grace be with you. Remember my love to your wife & daughter & brother john.  
Aberd. June. 11. 1638. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON, Of Earlestown. (122)  
Much honoured & worthy Sir.  
GRace, Mercy & peace be unto you: I long to hear from you: I received few letters since I came hither: I am in need of a word: A dry plant would have some watering: My case betwixt Christ my Lord & me standeth between love & jealousy, faith & suspicion of his love: It is a marvel he keepeth house with me: I make many pleas with Christ, but he maketh as many agreements with me: I think his unchangeable love hath said, I defy thee to break me & change me: If Christ had such changeable & new thoughts of my salvation as I have of it, I think I should then be at a sad loss: He humoureth not a fool like me in my unbelief, but rebuketh me & ●athereth kindness upon me: Christ is rather like the poor friend & needy prisoner [begging love] then I am: I cannot for shame get Christ said Nay of my whole love; for he will not want his errand for the seeking: God be thanked my bridegroom tireth not of wooing: Honour to him he is a wilful suitor of my soul: But as love is his, pain is mine that I have nothing to give him: His count-book is full of my debts of mercy, kindness & free love towards me: Oh that I might read with watery eyes! O that he would give me the interest of interest to pay back! Or rather my soul's desire is, that he would comprise my person, soul & body, love, joy, [confidence, fear, sorrow & desire, & drive the Puynd, & let me be rouped, & sold to Christ, & taken home to my creditor's house & his fireside. The Lord knoweth, if I could, I would sell myself without reversion to Christ. O sweet Lord Jesus make a market, & overbid all my buyers! I dare swear there is a Mystery in Christ which I never saw: A mystery of love. O if he would lay by the lap of the covering that is over it, & let my griening soul see it! I would break the door & be in upon him, to get an wombfull of love; for I am an hungered & famished soul. Oh Sir, if ye or any other would tell him, how sick my soul is, dying for want of a hearty draught of Christ's love. Oh if I could dote [if I may make use of that word in this case] as much upon himself as I do upon his love: It is a pity that Christ himself, should not rather be my heart's choice than Christ's manifested love: It would satisfy me in some measure, if I had any bud to give for his love; shall I offer him my praises? Alas he is more than praises! I give it over to get him exalted according to his worth, which is above what can be known; yet all this time I am tempting him to see if there be both love & anger in him against me. I am plucked from his flock [dear to me] & from feeding his lambs: I go therefore in sackcloth as one who hath lost the wife of his youth: Grief & sorrow are suspicious & spew out against him the smoke of jealousies, & I say often, Show me wherefore thou contendest with me? Tell me Lord, read the process against me: but I know I cannot answer his allegiance: I will lose the cause when it cometh to open pleading. Oh if I could force my heart to believe dreams to be dreams! Yet when Christ giveth my fears the lie & saith to me thou art a liar, than I am glad. I resolve to hope to be quiet & to lie on the brink upon my side, till the water fall & the ford be ridable, & howbeit there be pain upon me in longing for deliverance, that I may speak of him in the great congregation; yet I think there is joy in that pain & on waiting: & I even rejoice that he putteth me off for a time & shifteth me: Oh if I could wait on for all eternity, howbeit I should never get my soul's desire, sobeing he were glorified! I would wish my pain & my ministry could live long to serve him, for I know I am a clay vessel & made for his use. O if my very broken shards could serve to glorify him! I desire Christ's grace to be willingly content, that my hell [excepting his hatred & displeasure, which I put out of all play [for submission to this is not called for] were a preaching of his glory to men and Angels for ever & ever! When all is done what can I add to him? or what can such a clay-shadow as I do? I know he needeth not me: I have cause to be grieved and to melt away in tears [if I had grace to do it, Lord grant it to me] to see my well-beloved's fair face spitted upon by dogs, to see lowns pulling the crown off my royal King's head, to see my harlot-mother & my sweet father agree so ill, that they are going to skail and give up house: My Lord's palace is now a nest of unclean birds. Oh if harlot, harlot Scotland would rue upon her provoked Lord; & pity her good husband, who is broken with her whorish heart! But these things are hid from her eyes. I have heard of late of your new trial by the Bishop of Galloway: Fear not clay & worm's meat: Let Truth & Christ get no wrong in your hand: it is your gain, if Christ be glorified, & your glory to be Christ's witness: I persuade you, your sufferings are Christ's advantage & victory; for he is pleased to reckon them so. Let me hear from you: Christ is but winning a clean Kirk out of the fire: He will win this play: He will not be in your common for any charges ye are at in his service: He is not poor to sit in your debt: He will repay an hundred fold more, it may be even in this life. The prayers & blessing of Christ's prisoner be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your Brother in his sweet Lord. jesus, S. R.   

To his Reverend & loving Brother. Mr JOHN NEVAY. (123)  
Reverend & Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I received yours o●● april 11. As I did another of March 25. and a letter for Mr Andrew Cant. I am not a little grieved that our mother-church is running so quickly to the brothel-house, & that we are hiring lovers, & giving gift; to the great mother of fornications: Alas that our husband is like to quite us so shortly! It were my part [if I were able] when our husband is departing, to stir up myself to take hold of him & keep him in this land; for I know him to be a sweet second, & a lovely companion to a poor prisoner: I find my extremity hath sharpened the edge of his love & Kindness, so as he seemeth to devise new ways of expressing the sweetness of his love to my soul: Suffering for Christ is the very element wherein Christ's love liveth, & exerciseth itself, in casting out flames of fire & sparks of heat, to warm such a frozen heart as I have: And if Christ weeping in sackeloth be so sweet, I cannot find any imaginable thoughts to think what he will be, when we clay-bodies [having put off mortality] shall come up to the marriage-hall, & great Palace, & behold the King clothed in his robes royal, sitting on his throne. I would desire no more for my heaven beneath the moon, while I am sighing in this house of clay, but daily renewed feasts of love with Christ, & liberty now & then to feed my hunger with a kiss of that fairest face, that is like the sun in his strength at noonday. I would willingly subscribe an ample resignation to Christ of the fourteen Prelacies of this land, & of all the most delightful pleasures on earth, & forfeit my part of this clay-God, this earth which Adam's foolish children worship, to have no other exercise but to lie in a love-bed with Christ, & fill this hungered, & famished soul with kissing, embracing & real enjoying of the Son of God: And I think than I might write to my friends. That I had found the golden world, & look out & laugh at the poor bodies who are slaying one another for feathers: For verily, Brother, since I came to his prison I have conceived a new & extraordinary opinion of Christ which I had not before; for I perceive we frist all our joys to Christ, till he & we be in our own house above, as married parties; thinking that there is nothing of it here to be sought or found, but only hope & fair promises: & that Christ will give us nothing here but tears, sadness, crosses: & that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers of that high garden of Paradise above, till we come there: Nay, but I find it is possible to find young glory & a young green Paradise of joy even here: I know Christ's kisses will cast a more strong & refreshful smell of incomparable glory & joy in heaven; then they do here: Because a drink of the well of life up at the well's head, is more sweet & fresh by far, then that which we get in our borrowed, old, running-out vessels & our wooden dishes here; yet I am now persuaded it is our folly to f●●st all, till the term day; seeing abundance of earnest, will not diminish any thing of our principal sum: We dream of hunger in Christ's house while we are here, although he alloweth feasts upon all the bairns within God's household: It were good then to store ourselves with more borrowed kisses of Christ, & with more borrowed visits till we enter Heirs to our new inheritance, & our Tutor put us in possession of our own, when we are past minority. Oh that all the young heirs would seek more & a greater & a nearer communion with my Lord-tutour, the prime heir of all, Christ! I wish for my part I could send you & that gentleman, who wrote his commendations to me, in to the kings innermost cellar & house of wine, to be filled with love: A drink of this love is worth the having indeed: We carry ourselves but too too nicely with Christ our Lord, & our Lord loveth not niceness & dryness & uncouthness in friends: Since need force we must be in Christ's common, then let us be in his common; for it will be no otherways. Now for my present case in my imprisonment, deliverance [for any appearance I see] looketh could like: My hope if it looked to or leaned upon men, should wither soon at the root like a May-flower: Yet I resolve to ease myself with onwaiting on my Lord, & to let my faith swim where it looseth ground: I am under a necessity either offainting [which I hope my master of whom boast all the day shall avert] or then to ●ay my faith upon omnipotency, & to wink & stick by my grip: And I hope my ship shall ride it out, seeing Christ is willing to blow his sweet wind in my sails & mendeth & closeth the leks in my ship, & ruleth all: It will be strange if a believing passenger be casten ●ver beard. As for your Master, My Lord & my Lady I will be loath to forget them: I think my prayers [such as they are] are due debt to him, & I shall be fa● more engaged to his Lo: if he be fast for Christ (as I hope he will) now when so many of his coat & quality slip from Christ's back & leave him to send for himself. I entreat you remember my love to that woe thy Gentleman A. C. who salated me in your letter: I have heard that he is one of my Master's friends, for the which cause I am tied to him: I wish he may more & more fall in love with Christ. Now for your question as far as I rawly conceive: I think God is praised two ways: First, by a concional profession of his highness before men, such as is the very hearing of the word, & receiving of either of the Sacraments, in which acts by profession, we give out to men, that he is our God, with whom we are in covenant, & our Lawgiver: Thus eating & drinking in the Lord's supper, is an annunciation & profession before men, that Christ is our slain Redeemer: Here because God speaketh to us, not we to him, it is not a formal thanks giving; but an annunciation, or predication of Christ's death, concional, not adorative; neither hath it God for the immediate object, and therefore no kneeling can be here. Secondly, there is another praising of God, formal, when we are either formally blessing God, or speaking his praises: And this I take to be twofold: 1. When we directly & formally direct praises and thanksgiving to God: This may well be done kneeling in token of our recognizance of his highness; yet not so, but it may be standing or sitting, especially seeing joyful elevation [which should be in praising] is not formally signified by kneeling. 2. When we speak good of God, & declare his glorious nature & attributes, extolling him before men, to excite men to conceive highly of him: The former I hold to be worship every way immediate, else I know not any immediate worship at all: the latter hath God for the subject, not properly the object, seeing the predication is directed to men immediately, rather than to God; for here we speak of God by way of praising, rather than to God: And for my own part, as I am for the present minded, I see not how this can be done kneeling seeing it is praedicatio Dei & Christ●, non laudatio aut benedictio Dei: But observe that it is formal praising of God & not merely concional, as I distinguished in the first member: for in the first member any speaking of God or of his works of creation, providence & redemption, is indirect & concional praising of him, & formally preaching or an act of teaching, not an act of predication of his praises; for there is a difference betwixt the simple relation of the virtues of a thing, which is formally teaching, & the extolling of the worth of a thing by way of commendation, to cause others to praise with us. Thus recommending you to God's grace, I rest.  
Aberd. June. 15. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr J. R. (124.)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: upon the report I hear of you [without any further acquaintance except our straitest bonds in our Lord Jesus] I thought good to write unto you, hearing of your danger to be thrust out of the Lord's house for his name sake: Therefore my earnest & humble desire to God is, that ye may be strengthened in the grace of God, & by the power of his might to go on for Christ, not standing in awe of a worm that shall die. I hope ye will not put your hand to the ark to give it a wrong totch & to overturn it, as many now do, when the archers are shooting sore at Joseph, whose bow shall abide in its strength: We owe to our royal King & Princely Master a testimony. O how blessed are they who can ward a blow off Christ & his born-down truth! Men think Christ a gone man now, & that he shall never get up his head again: And they believe his court is failed, because he suffereth men to break their spears & swords upon him, and the enemies to plough Zion, & make long & deep their furrows on her back: But it would not be so, if the Lord had not a sowing for his ploughing: What can he do, but melt an old drossy Kirk, that he may bring out a new bride out of the fire again 〈◊〉 I think Christ is just now repairing his house, & exchanging his old vessels with new vessels, & is going through this land and taking up an inventure & a roll of so many of Levi's sons & good Professors, that he may make them new work for the second temple: And whatsoever shall be found, not to be for the work shall be casten over the wall: When the house shall be builded, he shall lay by his hammers as having no more to do with them: It is possible he do worse to them then lay them by: & I think the vengeance of the Lord & the vengeance of his temple shall be upon them: I desire no more but to keep weight when I am passed the fire: & I can now in some weak measure give Christ a testimonial of a lovely & loving companion under suffering for him. I saw him before but afar off; his beauty to my eye's sight groweth: a fig, a straw for ten worlds plastered glory & for childish shadows: The idol of clay [this God, the world] that fools fight for. If I had a lease of Christ of my own dating [for whoever once cometh nigh hand & taketh a hearty look of Christ's inner side, shall never wring nor wrestle themselves out of his love-grips again] I would rest contented in my prison; yea in a prison without light of sun or candle, providing Christ & I had a love-bed, not of mine but of Christ his own making; that we might lie together among the lilies, till the day break & the shadows flee away. Who knoweth how sweet a drink of Christ's love is? O but to live on Christ's love is a King's life! The worst things of Christ even that which seemeth to be the refuse of Christ, his hard cross, his black cross, is white & fair: & the cross receiveth a beautiful lustre & a perfumed smell from Jesus, Mydear Brother, scar not at it. While ye have time to stand upon the watch tower & to speak, contend with this land, plead with your harlot-mother, who hath been a treacherous half-marrow to her husband jesus: For I would think liberty to preach one day, the root & top of my desires, & would seek no more of the blessings that are to be had on this side of time, till I be over the water; but to spend this my crazed clay-house in his service & saving of souls: But I hold my peace because he hath done it: my shallow & ebb thoughts are not the compass Christ saileth by: I leave his ways to himself for they are far, far above me: Only I would contend with Christ for his love and be bold to make a plea with Jesus my Lord for a heart-fill of his love; for there is no more left to me. What standeth beyond the far end of my sufferings, and what shall be the event he knoweth, and I hope to my joy shall make me know, when God shall unfold his decrees concerning me; for there are windings and too's and froes in his ways which blind bodies like us cannot see. This much for further acquaintance: So recommending you & what is before you to the grace of God, I rest.  
Aberd. June 16. 1637. Your very loving Brother in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr WILLIAM DALGLEISH. (125)  
Reverend & well-beloved Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be unto you: I have heard somewhat of your trials in Galloway: I bless the Lord who hath begun first in that corner to make you a new Kirk to himself: Christ hath the less ado behind, when he hath refined you. Let me entreat you, my dearly beloved, to be fast to Christ: My witness is above, My dearest Brother, that ye have added much joy to me in my bonds, when I hear that ye grow in the grace and zeal of God for your Master. Our ministry whether by preaching or suffering, will cast a smell through the world both of heaven & hell, 2 Cor. 2: 15, 16. I persuade you, my dear Brother, there is nothing out of heaven, next to Christ, dearer to me then my ministry, & the worth of it in my estimation is swelled & paineth me exceedingly; yet I am content for the honour of my Lord, to surrender it back again to the Lord of the vineyard: let him do with me & it both what he thinketh good: I think myself too little for him: & let me speak to you, how kind a fellow prisoner is Christ to me! Believe me, this kind of cross [that would not go by my door, but would needs visit me,] is still the longer the more welcome to me: It's true my silent sabbaths have been & are still as glassy ye, whereon my faith can scarce hold its feet, & I am often blown on my back, and off my feet, with a storm of doubting; yet truly my bonds all this time cast a mighty and rank smell of high and deep love in Christ: I cannot indeed see through my cross to the far end; Yet I believe I am in Christ's books, & in his decree [not yet unfolded to me] a man triumphing, dancing & singing over on the other side of the red sea, & laughing & praising the lamb over beyond time, sorrow, deprivation, prelate's indignation, losses, want of friends & death: Heaven is not a foul flying in the air (as men use to speak of things that are uncertain) nay it is well paid for, Christ's comprizement lieth on Glory, for all the mourners in Zion, & shall never be loosed: Let us be glad & rejoice that we have blood, losses, & wounds to show our Master & Captain at his appearance, and what we suffered for his cause. Woe is me, my dear Brother, that I say often I am but dry bones, which my Lord will not bring out of the grave again, & that my faithless fears say, Oh I am a dry tree that can bear no fruit, I am an useless body who ●an beget no children to the Lord in his house. Hopes of deliverance look cold & uncertain & afar off, as if I had done with it: it is much for Christ [if I may say so] to get Lawborrows of my sorrow, & of my quarrellous heart: Christ's love playeth me fair play, I am not wronged at all; but there is a tricking and false heart within me, that still playeth Christ foul play: I am a cumbersome neighbour to Christ: It is a wonder that he dwelleth beside the like of me; yet I often get the advantage of the hill above my temptations, & then I despise the temptation, even hell itself & the stink of it, & the instruments of it, and am proud of my honourable Master: And I resolve whether contrary winds will or not to fetch Christ's harbour: & I think a wilful & stiff contention with my Lord Jesus for his love very lawful: it's sometimes hard to me to win my meat upon Christ's love, because my faith is sick, & my hope withereth, & my eyes wax dim, & unkind & comfort-eclipsing clouds go over the fair, & bright, & light S●n-Jesus: And then when I & my temptation tryste the matter together, we spill all through unbelief: Sweet, sweet for evermore would my life be, if I could keep faith in exercise: But I see my fire cannot always cast light. I have even a poor man's hard world, when he goeth away: But surely since my entry hither, many a time hath my fair sun shined without a cloud: Hot & burning hath Christ's love been to me: I have no vent to the expression of it: I must be content with stolen & smothered desires of Christ's glory: O how far is his love behind the hand with me! I am just like a man, who hath nothing to pay his thousands of debt: All that can be gotten of him is to se●●e upon his person: Except Christ would se●●e upon myself, & make the readiest payment that can be of my heart & love to himself, I have no other thing to give him: If my sufferings could do beholders good, & edify his Kirk, & proclaim the incomparable worth of Christ's love to the world, O then how would my soul be overjoyed, & my sad heart cheered and calmed! Dear Brother, I cannot tell what is become of my labours among that people: If all that my Lord builded by me be casten down, & the bottom fallen out of the profession of that parish, & none stand by Christ, whose love I once preached, as clearly & plainly as I could [though far below its worth & excellency] to that people; if so, how can I bear it? & If another make a foul harvest where I have made a painful & honest sowing, it will not soon digest with me: but I know his ways pass finding out: Yet my witness both within me & above me knoweth, & my pained breast upon the Lord's day at night, my desire to have had Christ awful & amiable & sweet to that people, is now my joy: & it was my desire & aim to make Christ & them one: If I see my hopes die in the bud ere they bloom a little, & come to no fruit I die with grief. O my God seek not an account of the violence done to me by my brethren; whose salvation I love & desire: I pray that they & I be not heard as contrary parties in the day of our compearance before our judge, in that process led by them against my ministry, which I received from Christ: I know a little inch, & less than the third part of this span-length & hand-breadth of time which is posting away will put me without the stroke & above the reach of either brethren or foes: And it is a short-lasting injury done to me & to my pains in that part of my Lord's vineyard: O how silly an advantage is my deprivation to men, seeing my Lord Jesus hath many ways to recover his own losses, & is irresistible to compass his own glorious ends, that his lily may grow amongst thorns, & his little Kingdom exalt itself, even under the swords & spears of contrary powers! But, my dear Brother, go on in the strength of his rich grace whom ye serve: Stand fast for Christ: Deliver the Gospel off your hand, & your ministry to your Master with a clean & undefiled conscience: Lose not a pin of Christ's tabernacle: Do not so much as pick with your nail at one board or border of the ark: Have no part or dealing upon any terms, in a hoof, in a closed window, or in a bowing of your ●…nce, in casting down of the temple: But be a mourning & speaking witness again them who now ruin Zion. Our Master will be on us all in a clap ere ever we wit: That day will discover all our white's & our black's concerning this controversy of poor oppressed Zion: Let us make our part of it good, that it may be able to abide the fire when hay and stubble shall be burnt to ashes: Nothing, nothing [I say nothing] but sound sanctification can abide the Lord's fan: I stand to my testimony that I preached often of Scotland: Lamentation, mourning & woe abideth th●● O Scotland: O Scotland, the fearful quarrel of a broken Covenant standeth good with thy Lord. Now, remember my love to all friends, & to all my parishioners as if I named each one of them particularly: I recommend you & God's people committed by Christ to your trust, to the rich grace of our alsufficient Lord. Remember my bonds: Praise my Lord who beareth me up in my sufferings: As ye finde occasion [accorcording to the wisdom given you] show our acquaintance what the Lord hath done to my soul: This I seek not verily to hunt my own praise, but that my sweetest & dearest Master may be magnified in my sufferings I rest.  
Aberd. June 17. 1637. Your brother in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To MARION MCKNAUGHT. (126)  
Dear beloved in our Lord jesus Christ.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Few know the heart of a stranger & prisoner, I am in the hands of mine enemies: I would honest & lawful means were essayed for bringing me home to my charge, now when Mr A. R. & M H. R. are restored. It concerneth you of Galloway most to use supplications and addresses for this purpose, and try if by fair means I can be brought back again: As for liberty, without I be restored to my flock, it is little to me, for my silence is my greatest prison: However it b●, I wait for the Lord, I hope not to rot in my sufferings: Lord give me submission to wait on my heart is sad that my days flee away & I do no service to my Lord in his house, now when his harvest and the souls of perishing people require it; but his ways are not like my ways, neither can I find him out. O that he would shine upon my darkness, and bring forth my morning light from under the thick cloud, that men have spread over me! O that the Almighty would lay my cause in a balance and weigh me, if my soul was not taken up, when others were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a Bride in that part of the land! but that day that my mouth was most unjustly and cruelly closed, the bloom fell off my branches, and my joy did cast the flower; How beit I have been casting myself under Christ's feet, and wrestling to believe under a hidden and covered Lord; yet my fainting cometh before I eat, and my faith hath bowed with the sore cast and under this almost insupportable weight: O that it break not! I dare not say that the Lord hath put out my candle, and hath casten water upon my poor coal, and broken the stakes of my tabernacle; But I have tasted bitterness and eaten gall & wormwood since that day, my Master laid bonds upon me to speak no more: I speak not this because the Lord is uncouth to me, but because beholders that stand on dry land see not my sea-storm: The witnesses of my cross are but strangers to my sad days & nights. O that Christ would let me alone & speak love to me & come home to me & bring summer with him! O that I might preach his beauty & glory as once I did, before my clay-tent be removed to darkness, & that I might lift Christ off the ground & my branches might be watered with the dew of God, & my joy in his work might grow green again & bud & send out a flower! But I am but a short sighted creature & my candle casteth not light afar off: He knoweth all that is done to me, how that when I had but one joy & no more, & one green flower that I esteemed to be my garland, he came in one hour & dried up my flower at the root, & took away mine only eye, & mine only one crown & garland: What can I say? Surely my guiltiness hath been remembered before him, & he was seeking to take down my sails & to land the flower of my delights, and to let it lie on the coast like an old broken ship that is no more for the sea: But I praise him for this wailed stroke, I welcome this surnace, God's wisdom made choice of it for me, & it must be best because it was his choice. O that I may wait for him till the morning of this benighted Kirk break out! This poor afflicted Kirk had a fair morning; but her night came upon her before her noonday, & she was like a traveller forced to take house in the morning of his journey: & now her adversaries are the chief men in the land, her ways mourn, her gates languish, her children sigh for bread, and there is none to be instant with the Lord, that he would come again to his house & dry the face of his weeping spouse & comfort Zion's mourners, who are waiting for him: I know, he shall make corn to grow upon the top of his withered mount Zion again. Remember my bonds & forget me not: Oh that my Lord would bring me again amongst you with abundance of the Gospel of Christ! But O that I may set down my desires where my Lord biddeth me! Remember my love in the Lord to your husband, God make him faithful to Christ, & my blessing to your three children. Faint not in prayer for this Kirk: Desire my people not to receive a stranger & intruder upon my ministry: let me stand in that right & station that my Lord Jesus gave me. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord and Master, S. R.   

To JOHN GORDON. At Risco. (127)  
Dear Brother.  
I Earnestly desire to know the case of your soul, & to understand that ye have made sure work of heaven & salvation. 1. Remember, Salvation is one of Christ's dainties he giveth but to a few. 2. That it is violent sweeting & striving that taketh heaven. 3. That it cost Christ blood to purchase that house to sinners & to set mankind down, the King's free tenants & freeholders'. 4. That many make a start toward heaven who fall on their back & win not up to the top of the mount, it plucketh heart & legs from them, & they sit down & give it over, because the devil setteth a sweet smelled flower to their nose [this fair busked World] wherewith they are bewitched & so forget or refuse to go forward. 5. Remember, many go far on & reform many things & can find tears as Esau did, & suffer hunger for the truth as judas did, & wish & desire the end of the righteous as Balaam did, & profess fair & fight for the Lord as Saul did, & desire the saints of God to pray for them as Pharaoh & Simon Magus did, & prophesy & speak of Christ as Caiaphas did, walk softly & mourn for fear of judgement as Ahab did, & put away gross sins & idolatry as jehu did, & hear the word of God gladly & reform their life in many things according to the word as Herod did, & say, Master, to Christ, I will follow thee whither soever thou goest, as the man who offered to be Christ's servant, Math. 8. & may taste of the virtues of the life to come & be partaker of the wonderful gifts of the holy spirit & taste of the good word of God, as the Apostates who sin against the Holy Ghost, Heb 6. & yet all these are but like gold in clink & colour & watered brass & base mettle. These are written that we should try ourselves & not rest till we be a step nearer Christ than sunburnt & withering professors can come, 6. Consider, it is impossible that your Idol-sins & ye, can go to heaven together, & that they who will not part with these, can indeed love Christ at the bottom; but only in word & show: which will not do the business. 7. Remember how swiftly God's post, time, flieth away, & that your forenoon is already spent, your afternoon will come & then your evening & at last night, When ye cannot see to work: let your heart be set upon finishing of your journey, & summing & laying your accounts with your Lord. O how blessed shall ye be, to have a joyful welcome of your Lord at night! How blessed are they who in time take sure course with their soul! Bless his great name for what ye possess in goods & children, ease & worldly contentment, that he hath given you; & seek to be like Christ in humility & lowliness of mind, & be not great & entire with the world: make it not your God nor your lover that ye trust into; for it will deceive you: I recommend Christ & his love to you in all things, let him have the flower of your heart & your love, set a low price upon all things but Christ, & cry down in your thoughts clay & dirt that will not comfort you, when ye get summons to remove, & compear before your Judge, to answer for all the deeds done in the body. The Lord give you wisdom in all things: I beseech you sanctify God in your speaking, for holy and reverend is his name: & be temperate & sober, companionry [as it is called] is a sin that holdeth men out of heaven. I will not believe that ye will receive the ministry of a stranger, who will preach a new & uncouth doctrine to you: Let my salvation stand for it, if I delivered not the plain & whole counsel of God to you in his word. Read this letter to your wife, & remember my love to her, & request her to take heed to do what I write to you: I pray for you & yours. Remember me in your prayers to our Lord, that he would be pleased to send me amongst you again. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your lawful & loving Pastor, S. R.   

To Mr HUGH HENDERSON. (128)  
Reverend and dear Brother.  
WHo knoweth but the wind may turn in to the West again upon Christ & his desolate bride in this land? And that Christ may get his summer by course again; for he hath had ill weather this long time, & could not find law or justice for himself & his truth these many years. I am sure, the wheels of this crazed & broken Kirk run all upon no other axletree, nor is there any other to roll them, & cog them, & drive them, but the wisdom & good pleasure of our Lord: And it were a just trick & glorious, of never-sleeping providence, to bring our brethren's darts they have shot at us, back upon their own heads: Suppose they have two strings in their bow, & can take one as another saileth them, yet there are more than three strings upon our Lord's bow; and besides he cannot miss the white that he shooteth at. I know, he shuffleth up & down in his hand the great body of heaven & earth, & that Kirk & Commonwealth are in his hand, like a stock of Cards, & that he dealeth ●he play to the mourners in Zion and these that say, lie down, that we may go over you, at his own sovereign pleasure: And I am sure, Zion's adversaries in this play shall not take up their own stakes again. O how sweet a thing it is to trust in him! When Christ hath sleeped out his sleep [if I may speak so of him who is the watchman of Israel that neither slumbereth nor sleepeth] and his own are tried, he will arise as a strong man after wine, and make bare his holy arm, and put on vengeance as a cloak, and deal vengeance thick & double amongst the haters of Zion. It may be we see him sow and send down maledictions & vengeances as thick as drops of rain or hail upon his enemies: For our Lord oweth them a black day & he useth duly to pay his debts neither his friends & followers, nor his foes & adversaries shall have it to say, that he is not faithful & exact in keeping his word. I know no bar in God's way but Scotland's guiltiness, & he can come over that impediment & break that bar also, & then say to guilty Scotland as he said Ezek. 36. Not for your sakes, etc. Onwaiting had ever yet a blessed issue, & to keep the word of God's patience keepeth still the saints dry in the water, cold in the fire, & breathing & blood-hot in the grave. What are prisons of iron walls & gates of brass to Christ? Not so good as feal dikes, fortifications of straw, or old tottering walls: If he give the word, than the chains will fall off the arms & legs of his prisoners. God be thanked that our Lord Jesus hath the tutouring of King and Court and Nobles, and that he can dry the gutters and the mires in Zion, and lay causeys to the Temple with the carcases of bastard Lord-Prelats & idol-shepherds: The corn on the housetops got never the husband-man's prayers, & so is seen on it, for it filleth not the hand of mowers. Christ & truth & innocency worketh even under the earth, & verily there is hope for the righteous: We see not what conclusions pass in heaven anent all the affaris of God's house: we need not give hire to God to take vengeance of his enemies; for Justice worketh without hire. O that the seed of hope would grow again and come to maturity! And that we could importune Christ & double our knocks at his gate, & cast our cries & shouts over the wall, that he might come out & make our jerusalem the praise of the whole earth, & give us Salvation for walls & bulwarks! If Christ bud & grow green and bloom & bear seed again in Scotland. & his father send him two summers again in one year, & bless his crop; O what cause have we to rejoice in the free salvation of our Lord & to set up our banners in the name of our God O that he would hasten the confusion of the leprous strumpet, the mother & mistress of abominations in the earth, & take graven images out of the way, & come in with the jews in troops, & agree with his old out cast & forsaken wife, & take them in again to his bed of love! Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in our Master and Lord, S. R.   

To the Lady LARGIRIE. [129.]  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I exhort you in the Lord to go on in your journey to heaven, & to be content of such fare by the way as Christ & his followers have had before you; for they had always the wind on their faces, & our Lord hath not changed the way to us for our ease; but will have us following our sweet guide. Alas how doth sin dog us in our journey & retard us! What fools are we to have a bygod or an other lover or match to our souls beside Christ? It were best for us like ill bairns [who are best heard at home] to seek our own home, & to sell our hopes of this little clay Inns & idol of the earth, where we are neither well summered nor well wintered. Oh that our souls would fall so at odds with the love of this world, as to think of it as a traveller doth of a drink of water, which is not any part of his treasure, but goeth away with the using; for ten miles' journey maketh that drink to him as nothing! O that we had as soon done with this world and could as quickly dispatch the love of it! But as a child cannot hold two apples in his little hand, but the one putteth the other out of its room; so neither can we be masters and Lords of two loves: Blessed were we if we could make ourselves masters of that invaluable treasure the love of Christ; or rather suffer ourselves to be mastered and subdued to Christ's love, so as Christ were our all things, & all other things our nothings & the refuse of our delights. O let us be ready for shipping against the time our Lord's wind & tide call for us! Death is the last thief that shall come without din or noise of feet, & take our souls away, & we shall take our leave at Time & f●ce Eternity, & our Lord shall lay together the two sides of this earthly Tabernacle & fold us & lay us by, as a man layeth by his clothes at night, & put the one half of us in a house of clay, the dark grave, & the other half of us in heaven or hell. Seek to be found of your Lord in peace & gather in your flitting & put your soul in order, for Christ will not give a nail-breadth of Time to our little sand-glass. Pray for Zion, & for me his prisoner, that he would be pleased to bring me amongst you again full of Christ & fraughted & laden with the blessings of his Gospel. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his only Lord and Master, S. R.   

To EARLESTOWN Younger [130]  
Worthy & dearly beloved in the Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you: I remain still a prisoner of hope, & do think it service to the Lord to wait on still with submission, till the Lord's morning-skie break & his summer day dawn: for I am persuaded it is a piece of the chief errand of our life, that God sent us for some years down to this earth among devils & men, the firebrands of the devil, & temptations, that we might suffer for a time here amongst our enemies; otherwise he might have made heaven to wait on us at our coming out of the womb, and have carried us home to our country, without letting us set down our feet in this knotty and thorny life; but seeing a piece of suffering is carved to every one of us, less or more, as infinite wisdom hath thought good, our part is to harden and habituat our soft and thin skinned nature to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, woe hearts, as these that are looked upon by God, Angels, men & devils. O what folly is it to sit down & weep upon a decree of God, that is both dumb & deaf at our tears, & must stand still as unmovable as God who made it, for who can come behind our Lord to alter or better what he hath decreed & done? It were better to make windows in our prison & to look out to God & our country Heaven, & to cry like fettered men who long for the King's free air, Lord, let t●y Kingdom come: O let the Bridegroom come! And O day, O fair day, O everlasting summer day, dawn and shine out, break out from under the black night sky and shine! I am persuaded, if every day, a little stone in the prison walls were broken, & thereby assurance given to the chained prisoner lying under twenty stone of irons upon arms & legs, that at length his chain should wear in two pieces, & a hole should be made at length as wide as he might come safely out to his long desired liberty; he would in patience wait on till time should hole the prison wall & break his chains: The Lord's hopeful prisoners under their trials are in that case: Years & months will take out now one little stone, then another, of this house of clay, & at length time shall win out the breadth: of a fair door and send out the imprisoned soul to the free air in heaven, and time shall fil● off by little and little our iron bolts, which are now on legs and arms, & out-date and wear our troubles threadbare and holly, and then wear them to nothing: For what I suffered yesterday I know shall never come again to trouble me. O that we could breathe out new hope and new submission every day in Christ's lap! For certainly a weight of glory well weighed [yea increasing too a far more exceeding and eternal weight] shall recompense both weight and length of light and clipped and short-dated crosses: Our waters are but ebb and come neither to our chin nor to ●he stopping of our breath. I may see [if I would borrow eyes from Christ] dry land and that near: Why then should we not laugh at adversity and scorn our short-born and soon-dying temptations: I rejoice in the hope of that glory to be revealed, for it is no uncertain glory we look for; our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as, I imagine so, or it is likely; but the cable, the strong tow of our fastened anchor, is the oath and the promise of him who is eternal verity, our Salvation is fastened with God's own hand and with Christ's own strength to the strong stoup of God's unchangeable nature. Mal 3. 6. I am the Lord, I change not, and therefore ye sons of jacob are not consumed: We may play and dance and leap upon our worthy and immovable rock: the ground is sure and good and will bide hell's brangling and devils brangling and the world's assaults. Oh if our faith could ride it out against the high and proud winds and waves, when our sea seemeth all to be on fire! O how oft do I let my grips go! I am put to swimming and half sinking: I find the devil hath the advantage of the ground in this battle, for he fighteth in known ground in our corrupt nature: Alas that is a friend near of kin and blood to himself, and will not fail to fall foul upon us: And hence it is that he who saveth to the uttermost and leadeth many sons to glory, is still righting my salvation and twenty times a day I ravel my heaven, & then I must come with my ill raveled work to Christ to cumber him [as it were] to right it & to seek again the right end of the thread, & to fold up again my eternal glory with his own hand, & to give a right cast of his holy & gracious hand to my marred & spilt salvation: Certainly it is a cumbersome thing to keep a foolish child from falls & broken brows, & weeping for this & that toy, & rash running & sickness & bairns diseases; ere he win through them all, and win out of the mires, he costeth meekle black cumber and fashrie to his keepers: And so is a believer a cumbersome piece of work and an ill raveled hesp [as we use to say] to Christ: But God be thanked, for many spilt salvations and many ill raveled hesps hath Christ mended since first he entered tutor to lost mankind. O what could we bairns do without him! how soon would we mar all? But the less of our weight be upon our own feeble legs, and the more that we be on Christ the strong Rock the better for us: It is good for us that ever Christ took the cumber of us: it is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens upon Christ, and to make him all we have, root and top, beginning and ending of our salvation: Lord hold us ●ere. Now to this tutor and rich Lord I recommend you: Hold fast till he come and remember his prisoner. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his and your Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr WILLIAM DALGLEISH. [131]  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter. I bless our high and only wise Lord who hath broken the s●are that men had laid for you, & I hope that now he shall keep you in his house in despite of the powers of hell. Who knoweth but the streets of our jerusalem shall yet be filled with young men & with old men & boys & women with child & that they shall plant vines in the mountains of Samaria. I am sure, the wheels, paces & motions of this poor Church, are tempered & ruled not as men would, but according to the good pleasure & infinite wisdom of our only wise Lord. I am here waiting in hope, that my innocency in this honourable cause shall melt this cloud that men have casten over me. I know my Lord had his own quarrels against me & that my dross stood in need of this hot furnace; but I rejoice in this, that fair truth, beautiful truth, [whose glory my Lord cleareth to me more & more] birth me company, & that my weak aims to honour my Master in bringing guests to his house, now swell upon me in comforts, & that I am not afraid to want a witness in heaven, that it was my joy to have a crown put upon Christ's head in that country. O what joy would I have to see the wind turn upon the enemies of the cross of Christ, & to see my Lord Jesus restored with the voice of praise to his own f●ee throne again, & to be brought amongst you to see the beauty of the Lord's house! I hope that country will not be so silly, as to suffer men to pluck you away from them, & that ye will use means to keep my place empty & to bring me back again to the people to whom I have Christ's right and his Church's lawful calling. Dear Brother, let Christ be dearer & dearer to you, let the conquest of souls be top and root, flower and bloom of your joys and desires in this side of sun and moon: and in the day when the Lord shall pull up the four stakes of this clay tent of the earth, & the last pickle of sand shall be at the nick of falling down in your watch-glass, & the master shall call the servants of the vincyard to give them their hire; ye will esteem the bloom of this world's glory like the colours of the rainbow, that no man can put in his purse & treasure: Your labours & pains shall then smile upon you. My Lord now hath given me experience [howbeit weak & small] that our best fare here is hunger; we are but at God's by-board in this lower house, we have cause to long for suppertime & the high table, up in the high palace: This world deserveth nothing but the utter court of our soul. Lord hasten the marriage-supper of the Lamb. I find it still peace to give up with this present world as with an old decurted & castoff lover: My bread & drink in it, is not so much worth, that I should not loathe the Inns, & pack up my desires for Christ, that I have sent out to the feckless creatures in it. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your affectionate Brother & Crhist's prisoner. S. R.   

To the Laird of CALLY. (132)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear how your soul prospereth: I have that confidence that your soul mindeth Christ & salvation: I beseech you in the Lord give more pains & diligence to fetch heaven, than the countrey-sort of lazy professors; who think their own faith & their own godliness, because it is their own, best; & content themselves with a coldrife custom & course, with a resolution to summer & winter in that sort of profession, that the multitude and the times favour most, and are still shaping and clipping and carving their faith, according as it may best stand with their summer-sun and a whole skin; and so breath out both hot and cold in God's matters, according to the course of the times: This is their compass they sail toward heaven by, in stead of a better. Worthy & dear Sir, separate yourself from such, and bend yourself to the utmost of your strength & breath, in running fast for salvation, and in taking Christ's Kingdom, use violence: It cost Christ and all his followers sharp showers and hot sweats ere they won to the top of the mountain: But still our soft nature would have heaven coming to our bedside when we are sleeping, & lving down with us, that we might go to heaven in warm clothes; but all that came there ●ound wet feet by the way, & sharp storms that did take the hide off their face, & ●ound to's & froes & up's & down's & many enemies by the way. It is impossible a man can take his lusts to heaven with him, such wares as these will not be welcome there. O how loath are we to forgo our packalds & burdens that hinder us to run our race with patience! It is no small work to displease & anger nature, that we may please God. O if it be hard to win one foot or half an inch out of our own will, out of our own wit, out of our own ease & worldly lusts, & so to deny ourselves, & to say, It is not I but Christ, not I but grace, not I but God's glory, not I but God's love constraining me, not I but the Lord's word, not I but Christ's commanding power as King in me! O what pains & what a death is it to nature, to turn me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit, over in, my Lord, my Saviour, my King & my God, my Lord's will, my Lord's grace! But alas that idol, that whorish creature myself, is the master-idol we all bow to: What made Evah miscarry? & what hurried her headlong upon the forbidden fruit, but that wretched thing herself? What drew that brother-murtherer to kill Abel? That wild himself What drove the old world on to corrupt their ways? Who but themselves, & their own pleasure? What was the cause of Solomon's falling into idolatry & multiplying of strange wives? What but himself, whom he would rather pleasure then God. What was the hook that took David & snared him first in adultery but his self-lust, & then in murder but his self-credit & self-honour? What led Peter on to deny his Lord? Was it not a piece of himself & self-love to a whole skin? What made judas sell his Matter for 30 pieces of money, but a piece of self-love idolising of avaritions self? What made Demas to go off the way of the Gospel, to embrace this present world? even self love & love of gain for himself: Every man blameth the devil for his sins, but the great devil, the house-devil of every man, the house-devil that eateth & lieth in every man's bosom, is that idol that killeth all, himself. O blessed are they who can deny themselves & put Christ, in the room of themselves! O would to the Lord, I had not a myself, but Christ; nor a my lust, but Christ, no● a my ease, but Christ; nor a my honour, but Christ! O sweet word, Gal. 2: 20. I live no more, but Christ liveth in me! O if every one would put away himself, his own self, his own ease, his own pleasure, his own credit, & his own twenty things, his own hundred things, that he setteth up as idols above Christ! Dear Sir, I know ye will be looking back to your old self & to your self-lust & self-idol that ye set up in the lusts of youth above Christ. Worthy Sir, pardon this my freedom of love: God is my witness that it is out of an earnest desire after your soul's eternal welfare, that I use this freedom of speech. Your sun I know is lower & your evening sky and sunset nearer than when I saw you last: Strive to end your task before night, and to make Christ yourself, and to acquaint your love and your heart with the Lord Stand now by Christ and his truth, when so many fail foully and are false to him: I hope ye love him and his truth, let me have power with you to confirm you in him. I think more of my Lord's sweet cross then of a crown of gold and a free Kingdom lying to it. Sir, I remember you in my prayers to the Lord, ●…ding to my promise: Help me with your prayers that our Lord would be pleased to bring me amongst you again with the Gospel of Christ: Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweetest Lord and Master, S. R.   

To JOHN GORDON Of Cardoness younger. (133).  
Dear beloved in our Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long exceedingly to hear of the case of your soul which hath a large share both of ●y prayers & careful thoughts. Sir, remember that a precious treasure & prize is upon this short play that ye are now upon, even the eternity of well or woe to your soul standeth upon the little point of your ill or well employed short & swift posting sand-glass: Seek the Lord while he may be found, the Lord waiteth upon you: Your soul is of no little price: gold or silver of as much bounds as would cover the highest heavens round about, cannot buy it: To live as others do & to be free of open sins that the world crieth shame upon, it will not bring you to heaven: as much civility & countrey-discretion as would lie between you & heaven, will not lead you one foot or one inch above condemned nature: & therefore take pains upon seeking of salvation, & give your will, wit, humour the green desires of youth's pleasures, off your hand to Christ, It is not possible for you to know, till experience teach you, how dangerous a time Youth is: It is like green & wet timber; when Christ casteth fire on it, it taketh not fire: There is need here of more than ordinary pains; for corrupt nature hath a good backfriend of Youth, & sinning against light will put out your candle & stupefy your conscience & bring upon it more cover & skins & less feeling & sense of guiltiness, & when that is done the Devil is like a mad horse that hath broken the bridle & runneth away with his rider whither he listeth. Learn to know that which the Apostle knew, the deceitfulness of sin: strive to make prayer & reading & holy company & holy conference your delight, & when delight cometh in, ye shall by little & little smell the sweetness of Christ, till at length your soul be over head & ears in Christ's sweetness: then shall ye be taken up to the top of the mountain with the Lord, to know th● ravishments of spiritual love & the glory & excellency of a s●en, revealed, felt & embraced Christ: & than ye shall not be able to lose yourself off Christ & to bind your soul to old lovers: then & never till then are all the paces, motions, walkings & wheels of your soul in a right tune & in a spiritual temper: But if this world & the lusts thereof be your delight, I know not what Christ can make of you, ye cannot be mettle to be a vessel of glory & mercy: as the Lord liveth, thousand thousands are beguiled with security, because God & wrath & judgement is not terrible to them: stand in awe of God, & of the warnings of a checking & rebuking conscience: make others to see Christ in you moving, doing, speaking & thinking; your actions will smell of him, if he be in you: there is an instinct in the new born babes of Christ, like the instinct of nature, that leads birds to build their nests & bring up their young & love such & such places as woods, forests & wildernesses better than other places: The instinct of nature maketh a man love his mother-countrey above all countries: The instinct of renewed nature & supernatural grace, will lead you to such & such works, as to love your country above, to sigh to be clothed with your house not made with hands, & to call your borrowed prison here below a borrowed prison, & to look upon it servant-like & pilgrim-like: And the pilgrim's eye & look, is a disdainful like discontented cast of his eye, his heart crying after his eye, Fie, fie, t● is is not like my country. I recommend to you the mending of a hole & reforming of a failing, one or other, every week, & put off a sin or a piece of it, as of anger, wrath, lust, intemperance, every day, that ye may more easily master the remnant of your corruption. God hath given you a wife, love her & let her breasts satisfy you, & for the Lord's sake drink no waters but out of your own cistern, strange wells are poison. Strive to learn some new way against your corruption from the man of God M. W. D. or other servants of God: sleep not sound till ye find yourself in that case, that ye dare look death in the face & durst hazard your soul upon eternity. I am sure many els & inches of the short thread of your life are by hand, since I saw you: and that thread hath an end, and ye have no hands to cast a knot & add one day or a finger-breadth to the end of it: When hearing and seeing and the utter walls of the clay-house shall fall down & life shall render the besieged castle of clay to death & judgement, & ye find your time worn ebb & run out, what thoughts will ye then have of idol-pleasures, that possibly are now sweet? what bud or hire would ye then give for the Lord's favour? & what a price would ye then give for pardon? It were not amiss to think, what if I were to receive a doom & to enter into a surnace of fire & brimstone? What if it come to this: that I shall have no portion but utter darkness? And what if 〈◊〉 be brought to this, to be banished from the presence of God & to be given over to God's sergeants, the Devil & the power of the second Death? Put your soul by supposition in such a case, & ●…sider what horror would take hold of you & what then ye would esteem of pleasing yourself in the course of sin! O dear Sir, for the Lord's sake awake to live righteously & love your poor soul, & after ye have seen this my letter, say with yourself, the Lord will sack an account of this warning I have received. Lodge Christ in your family. Receive no stranger hireling as your Pastor. I bless your children. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your lawful and loving Pastor. S. R.   

To my Lord BOYD. [134]  
My very honourable & good Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your Lo: Out of the worthy report that I hear of your Lo: zeal for this born down & oppressed Gospel, I am bold to write to your Lo: beseeching you by the mercies of God, by the honour of our royal and princely King Jesus, by the sorrows, tears & desolation of your afflicted mother-church, & by the peace of your conscience & your joy in the day of Christ, that your Lo: would go on in the strength of your Lord and in the power of his might, to bestir yourself for the vindicating of the fallen honour of your Lord Jesus. O blessed hands for evermore that shall help to put the crown upon the head of Christ again in Scotland! I dare promise in the name of our Lord that this shall fasten & fix the pillars & the stakes of your own honourable house upon earth, if ye lend & lay in pledge in Christ's hand [upon spiritual hazard] life, estate, house, honour, credit, moyen, friends, the favour of men [suppose King's with three crown●] sobeing ye may bear witness & acquit yourself as a man of valour and courage to the Prince of your salvation, for the purging of his temple & s●…eeping out the Lordly Diotrephes's, time-courting Demas', corrupt Hymeneus' & Philetus' & other such oxen that with their dung defile the Temple of the Lord. Is not Christ now crying, Who will help me? Who will come out with me, to take part with me & share in the honour of my victory over these mine enemies who have said: We ●ill not have this man to rule over us; My very honourable and dear Lord, join, join [a● ye do●] with Christ, he is more worth to you & your posterity then this world's May flowers & withering Riches & Honour, that shall go away as smoke & vanish in a night-vision, & shall in one half hour after the blast of the Archangel's trumpet, lie in white ashes. Let me beseech your Lo: to draw by the lap of Time's curtain & look in through that window to great & endless Eternity, & consider if a worldly price [suppose this little round clay globe of this ashy & dirty earth, the dying idol of the fools of this world were all (your own] can be given for one smile of Christ's Godlike & soul ravishing countenance, in that day when so many joints and knees of thousand thousands wailing shall stand before Christ trembling, shouting & making their prayers to hills & mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the face of the Lamb. O how many would sell Lordships & Kingdoms that day & buy Christ! But Oh the market shall be closed & ended ere then. Your Lo: hath now a blessed venture of winning court with the Prince of the Kings of the earth: He himself weeping, truth born down, & fallen in the streets & an oppressed Gospel, Christ's bride with watery eyes & spoiled of her vail, her hair hanging about her eyes forced to go in ragged apparel, the banished, silenced & imprisoned prophets of God, who have not the favour of liberty to prophesy in sackcloth, all these I say, call for your help: Fear not worms of clay, the moth shall eat them as a garment, let the Lord be your fear, he is with you & shall fight for you: thus shall ye cause the blessing of these who are ready to perish come upon you, & ye shall make the heart of this your mother-Church to sing for joy. The Lamb & his armies are with you & the Kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's. I am persuaded there is not another Gospel nor another saving truth, then that which ye now contend for, I dare hazard my heaven & salvation upon it, that this is the only saving way to glory. Grace, grace be with your Lo:  
Aberd. 1637. Your Lo: at all respective obedience in Christ. S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON. Bailiff of Ayr. (135)  
Worthy Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you. Our Lord is with his afflicted Kirk, so that this burning bush is not consumed to ashes. I know submissive onwaiting for the Lord shall at length ripen the joy & deliverance of his own, who are truly blessed onwaiters: What is the dry & miscarrying hope of all them who are not in Christ, but confusion & wind? O how pitifully and miserably are the children of this world beguiled, whose wine cometh home to them water, & their gold brass & tin! And what wonder that hopes builded upon sand, should fall & sink? It were good for us all to abandon the forlorn & blasted & withered hope we have had in the creature, & let us henceforth come & drink water out of our own well, even the fountain of living waters, & build ourselves & our hope upon Christ our rock: But alas that natural love that we have to this borrowed home that we were born in, and that this clay-city, the vain earth, should have the largest share of of our heart! Our poor lean and empty dreams of confidence in something beside God are no further traveled then up & down the naughty & feckless creatures. God may say of us, as he said, Amos 6: 13. Ye rejoice in a thing of noug●t. Surely we spin our spider's web with pain, and build our rotten and tottering house upon a lie and falsehood and vanity. O when will we learn to have thoughts higher than the sun and moon, and learn our joy, hope, confidence and our soul's desires to look up to our best country, and to look down to clay tents set up for a night's lodging or two, in this unknown land, & laugh at our childish conceptions & imaginations that suck our joy out of creatures, woe, sorrow, losses & grief. O sweetest Lord Jesus! O fairest Godhead! O flower of man & angels, why are we such strangers to, & far-off beholders of thy glory? O it were our happiness for evermore, that God would cast a pest, a botch, a leprosy upon our part of this great whore, a fair and well busked World, that clay might no longer deceive us! but O that God may burn and blast our Hope hereaway, rather than our Hope should live to burn us! Alas the wrong side of Christ [to speak so] his blackside, his suffering side, his wounds, his bare coat, his wants, his wrongs, the oppressions of men done to him, are turned towards men's eyes & they see not the best & fairest side of Christ, nor see they his amiable face and his beauty, that man and angels wonder at. Sir, lend your thoughts to th●se things, & learn to contemn this world, & to turn your eyes and heart away from beholding the masked beauty of all things under Time's law and doom: See him who is invisible and his invisible things, draw by the curtain and look in with liking and longing to a Kingdom undefiled that fadeth not away, reserved for you in the heaven: This is worthy of your pains and worthy of your soul's sweeting and labouring & seeking after night and day: Fire will flee over the earth and all that is in it, even destruction from the Almighty: Fie, fie upon that hope that shall be dried up by the root! Fie upon the drunken night-bargains, And the drunken and mad covenant that sinners make with death and hell after cups, and when men's souls are mad and drunken with the love of this lawless life! They think to make a nest for their hopes, and take quarters and conditions of hell and death, that they shall have ease, long life, peace, & in the morning when the last trumpet shall awake them, than they rue the block. It is time & high time for you to think upon death and your accounts, and to remember what ye are, where ye will be before the year of our Lord 1700. I hope ye are thinking upon this: pull upon your soul and draw it aside from the company that it is with, and round & whisper in to it news of eternity, death, judgement, heaven and hell. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON, Of Earlestown. (136)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: It is like if ye the Gentry & Nobility of this nation, be men in the streets [as the word speaketh] for the Lord, that he will now deliver his flock & gather & rescue his scattered sheep from the hands of cruel & rigorous Lords, that have ruled over them with force. O that mine eyes might see the moonlight turn to the light of the sun! But I still fear the quarrel of a broken Covenant in Scotland standeth before the Lord: However it be, I avouch it before the world, the tabernacle of the Lord shall again be in the midst of Scotland, and the glory of the Lord shall dwell in beauty as the light of many days in one, in this land, O what could my soul desire more next to my Lord Jesus, while I am in this flesh, but that Christ & his Kingdom might be great amongst Jews & Gentiles, & that the Isles [& amongst them, overclouded & darkened Britan] might have the glory of a noon-day's sun! Oh that I had any thing [I will not except my part in Christ] to wodset or lay in pledge to redeem & buy such glory to my highest & royal Prince, my sweet Lord Jesus! my poor little heaven were well bestowed, if it could stand a pawn for ever to set on high the glory of my Lord; But I know, he needeth not wages nor hire at my hand: Yea, I know, if my eternal glory could weigh down in weight it's alone, all the eternal glory of th● blessed Angels & of all the spirits of just & perfect men glorified & to be glorified, Oh alas, how far am I engaged to forgo it for, and give it over to Christ; sobeing he might thereby be set on high above ten thousand thousand millions of heavens, in the conquest of many, many nations to his Kingdom! Oh that his Kingdom would come! O that all the world would stoop before him! O blessed hands that shall put the crown upon Christ's head in Scosland! But alas, I can scarce get leave to ware my love on him: I can find no ways to ●u● my h●at upon Christ & my love that I with my soul bestow on him, it is like to die upon my hand, & I think it no bairns-play to be hungered with Christ's love: To love him & to want him wanteth little of hell. I am sure he knoweth how my joy would swell upon me from a little well to a great sea, to have as much of his love & as wide a soul answerable to comprehend it, till I cried, hold Lord, no more: But I find he will not have me to be mine own steward nor mine own carver: Christ keepeth the keys of Christ [to speak so] & of his own love, and he is a wiser distributer than I can take up: I know there is more in him then would make me run over like a coast-full-sea. I were happy for evermore to get leave to stand but beside Christ and his love, and to look in, suppose I were interdicted of God to come near hand, touch or embrace, kiss or set too my sinful head and drink myself drunken with that lovely thing. God send me that I would have, for I now verily see, more clearly than before, our folly in drinking dead waters & in playing the whore with our soul's love upon running-out wells, & broken shards of creatures of yesterday, whom Time will unlaw with the penalty of losing their being & natural ornaments. O when a soul's love is itching [to speak so] for God, and when Christ in his boundless and bottomless love, beauty and excellency cometh & rubbeth up & exciteth that love, what can be heaven if this be not heaven? I am sure this bit feckless, narrow & short love of regenerated sinners was born for no other end, but to breath & live and love & dwell in the bosom and betwixt the breasts of Christ: Where is there a bed or a lodging for the saints love but Christ? O that he would take ourselves off our hand, for neither we nor the creatures can be either due conquest or lawful heritage to love! Christ & none but Christ is Lord & proprietour of it. Oh alas, how pitiful is it that so much of our love goeth by him! O but we be wretched wasters of our soul's love! I know it is the deep of bottomless, and unsearchable providence, that the saints are suffered to play the whore from God, and that their love goeth a hunting, when God knoweth it shall roast nothing of that at suppertime: The renewed would have it otherwise; & why is it so, seeing our Lord can keep us without nodding, tottering or reeling, or any fall at all? Our desires I hope shall meet with perfection; but God will have our sins an office-house for God's grace, & hath made sin a matter of an unlaw & penalty for the Son of God's blood; & howbeit sin should be our sorrow, yet there is a sort of acquiescing & resting upon God's dispensation required of us, that there is such a thing in us as Sin, whereupon mercy, forgiveness, healing, curing, in our sweet Physician, may find a field to work upon. O what a deep is here, that created wit cannot take up! However matters go, it is our happiness to win new ground daily in Christ's love, and to purchase a new piece of it daily and to add conquest to conquest, till our Lord Jesus & we be so near other, that Satan shall not draw a straw or a thread betwixt us. And for myself, I have no greater joy in my well-favoured bonds for Christ, then that I know, time shall put him & me together; & that my love & longing hath room & liberty amidst my bonds & foes [whereof there are not a few here of all ranks] to go visit the borders & utter coasts of my Lord Jesus' country & see at least afar off & darkly, the country which shall be mine inheritance, which is my Lord Jesus' due, both through birth and conquest. I dare avouch to all that know God, that the saints know not the length & largeness of the sweet earnest & of the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this side of the water, if we should take more pains: And that we all go to heaven with less earnest & lighter purses of the hoped-for sum, than otherwise we might do, if we took more pains to win further in upon Christ, in this pilgrimage of our absence from him. Grace, grace & glory be your portion.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN LAWRIE. (137)  
Dear Brother.  
I Am sorry that ye or so many in this Kingdom should expect so much of me an empty reed: Verily I am a naughty & poor body: But if the tinkling of my Lord Jesus' iron chains on legs & arms could sound the high praises of my royal King, whose prisoner I am, O how would my joy run over! If my Lord would bring edification to one soul by my bonds, I am satisfied; but I know not what I can do to such a princely & beautiful well-beloved: He is far behind with me: Little thanks to me to say to others, his wind bloweth on me who am but withered & dry bones: But since ye desire me to write to you, either help me to set Christ on high for his running-over love, in that the heat of his sweet breath hath melted a frozen heart, else I think ye do nothing for a prisoner. I am fully confirmed that it is the honour of our Lawgiver I suffer for now: I am not ashamed to give out letters of recommendation of Christ's love to as many as will extol the Lord Jesus & his cross. If I had not sailed this sea-way to heaven, but had taken the land-way as many do, I should not have known Christ's sweetness in such a measure: But the truth is, let no man thank me; for I caused not Christ's wind to blow upon me: His love came upon a withered creature whether I would or not; [& yet by coming it procured from me a welcome] A heart of iron & iron doors will not hold Christ out: I give him leave to break iron locks & come in, & that is all: & now I know not whether pain of love for want of possession, or sorrow that I dow not thank him, paineth me most: but both work upon me. For the First, O that he would come & satisfy the longing soul & fill the hungry soul with these good things? I know indeed my guiltiness may be a bar in his way, but he is God, & ready to forgive: And for the other, woe, woe is me that I cannot find a heart to give back again my unworthy little love for his great seafull of love to me: O that he would learn me this piece of gratitude! O that I could have leave to look in thorough the hole of the door to see his face & sing his praises! or could break up one of his chamber windows to look in upon his delighting beauty, till my Lord send more: any little communion with him, one of his love-looks should be my begun heaven: I know he is not Lordly, neither is the bridegroom's love proud, though I be black & unlovely & unworthy of him. I would seek but leave, & withal, grace, to spend my love upon him: I counsel you to think highly of Christ & of free, free grace more than ye did before; for I know that Christ is not known amongst us; I think I see more of Christ then ever I saw, & yet I see but little of what may be seen: O that he would draw by the curtains & that the King would come out of his gallery & his palace, that I might see him! Christ's love is young glory & young heaven: It would soften hell's pains to be filled with it: What would I refuse to suffer, if I could but get a draught of love at my hearts desire? O what price can be given for him! Angel's cannot weigh him, O his weight, his worth, his sweetness, his overpassing beauty! If men & Angels would come & look to that great & Princely one, their ebbeness would never take up his depth, their narrowness would never comprehend his breadth height & length: If ten thousand thousand worlds of Angels were created, they might all tyre themselves in wondering at his beauty, & begin again to wonder of new. O that I could win nigh him to kiss his feet, to hear his voice, to find the smell of his ointments! But Oh alas I have little, little of him; yet I long for more! Remember my bonds & help me with your prayers for I would not niffer or exchange my sad hours with the joy of my velvet-adversaries. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. June. 10. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr JAMES FLEMING. (138)  
Reverend & well-beloved in our Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter, which hath refreshed me in my bonds. I cannot but testify unto you, my dear Brother, what sweetness I find in our Master's cross; but alas, what can I either do or suffer for him? If I my alone had as many lives as there have been drops of rain since the creation, I would think them too little for that lovely one, our well-beloved; but my pain and my sorrow is above my sufferings, that I find not ways how to set out the praises of his love to others: I am not able by tongue, pen or sufferings to provoke many to fall in love with him, but he knoweth whom I love to serve in the spirit, what I would do & suffer by his own strength, sobeing I might make my Lord Jesus lovely & sweet to many thousands in this land. I think it amongst God's wonders that he will take any praise or glory or any testimony to his honourable cause, from such a forlorn sinner as I am: But when Christ worketh he needeth not ask the question by whom he will be glorious: I know, seeing his glory at the beginning did shine out of poor nothing to set up such a fair house for man & Angels, & so many glorious creatures to proclaim his goodness, power & wisdom, if I were burnt to ashes, out of the smoke and powder of my dissolved body he could raise glory to himself: His glory is his end, Oh that I could join with him to make it my end! I would think that fellowship with him sweet & glorious. But alas, few know the guiltiness that is on my part, it is a wonder that this good cause hath not been marred and spilt in my foul hands: But I rejoice in this that my sweet Lord Jesus hath found something ado, even a ready market for his free grace and incomparable and matchless mercy in my wants: Only my loathsome wretchedness and my wants have qualified me for Christ and the riches of his glorious grace, he behoved to take me for nothing or else to want me: Few know the unseen & private reckonings betwixt Christ and me; yet his love, his boundless love would not bide away nor stay at home with himself, & yet I dow not make it welcome as I ought, when it's come unsent for and without hire. How joyful is my heart that ye write ye are desirous to join with me in praising; for it is charity to help a Dyvour to pay his debts; but when all have helped me, my name shall stand in his count-book under ten thousand thousands of sums unpayed: But it easeth my heart that ●is dear servants will but speak of my debts to such a sweet creditor. I desire he may lay me in his own balance & weigh me, if I would not fain have a feast of his boundless love made to my own soul and to many others. One thing I know, we shall not all be able to come near his excellency with eye, heart or tongue; for he is above all created thoughts; All nations before him are as nothing & as less than nothing, he fits in the circuit of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before him! O that men would praise him! Ye complain of your private case: Alas, I am not the man who can speak to such an one as ye are: Any sweet presence I have had in this town is [I know] for this cause, that I might express & make it known to others: but I never find myself nearer Christ and with that royal and Princely One, then after a great weight and sense of deadness & gracelesness! I think the sense of our wants, when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them and ●an make a din because we want him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door to Christ: & when we think we are going backward because we feel deadness, we are going forward: For the more sense the more life, & no sense argueth no life. There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ, then to bring our wounds & our sores to him. But for myself, I am ashamed of Christ's goodness & love since the time of my bonds, for he hath been pleased to open up new treasures of love & felt sweetness, & give visitations of love & access to himself in this strange land. I would think a fill of his love, young & green heaven: & when he is pleased to come, & the tide is in, & the sea full, & the King & a poor prisoner together in the house of wine, the black tree of the cross is not so heavy as a feather. I cannot, I dow not but give Christ an honourable and glorious testimony: I see, the Lord can ride through his enemy's bands & triumph in the sufferings of his own, & that this blind world seeth not, that Suffering is Christ's armour wherein he is victorious: & they that contend with Zion, see not what he is doing when they are set to work as under-smiths & servants to the work of refining of the saints [Satan's hand also by them is at the melting of our Lord's vessels of mercy] and their office in God's house, is to scour & cleanse vessels for the King's table. I marvel not to see them triumph & sit at ease in Zion, our father must lay up his rods and keep them carefully for his own use: our Lord cannot want fire in his house, his furnace is in Zion & his fire in jerusalem: but little know the adversaries the counsel & the thoughts of the Lord. And for your complaints of your ministry, I now think all I did too little: Plainness, freedom, watchfulness, fidelity, shall swell upon you in exceeding large comforts in your sufferings: The feeding of Christ's lambs in private visitations, & catechising, in painful preaching, & fair, honest & free warning of the flock is a sufferer's garland. O ten thousand times blessed are they, who are honoured of Christ to be faithful and painful in wooing a Bride to Christ! My dear Brother. I know ye think more on this than I can write, & I rejoice that your purpose is, in the Lord's strength to back your wronged Master & to come out & call yourself Christ's man, when so many are now denying him, as fearing that Christ cannot do for himself & them. I am a lost man for ever, or this, this is the way to Salvation, even this way that they call Heresy, that men now do mock & scoff at. I am confirmed now that Christ will accept of his servants sufferings as good service to him at the day of his appearance, & that ere it be long he will be upon us all, & men in all their black's & white's shall be brought out before God Angels and men. Our Master is not far off: Oh if we could wait on & be faithful! The good will of him who dwelled in the bush, the tender favour & love, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Help me with your pravers, & desire from me, other brethren to take courage for their Master.  
Aberd. Aug. 15. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr JOHN MIEN. (139)  
Worthy & dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have been too long in answering your letter, but other business took me up. I am here waiting if the fair wind will turn upon Christ's sails ●o Scotland, & if deliverance be breaking out to this overclouded & benighted Kirk. Oh that we could contend by prayers & supplications with our Lord for that effect! I know he hath not given out his last doom against this land. I have little of Christ in this prison, but groan & longings & desires: All my stock of Christ is some hunger for him [And yet I cannot say but I am rich in that] my faith & hope & holy practice of new obedience are scarce worth the speaking of: But blessed be my Lord who taketh me, light & clipped & naughty & feckless as I am. I see Christ will not prig with me nor stand upon stepping stones, but cometh in at the broad side without ceremonies or making it nice, to make a poor ransomed one his own. O that I could feed upon his breathing & kissing and embracing, & upon the hopes of my meeting and his, when love-letters shall not go betwixt us, but he shall be messenger himselfthen: But there is required patience on our part till the summer-●●uit in heaven be ripe for us; it is in the bud, but there be many things to do before our harvest come: And we take ill with it & can hardly endure to set our paper-face to one of Christ's storms, and to go to heaven with wet feet & pain & sorrow: We love to carry heaven to heaven with us, & would have two summers in one year, and no less than two heavens; but this will not be for us, one, & such an one, may suffice us well enough: The man Christ got but one only, and shall we have two? Remember my love in Christ to your Father & help me with your prayers. If ye would be a deep Divine, I recommend to you Sanctification: Fear him, & he shall reveal his Covenant to you. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Jan. 5. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To CARDONNESS Elder. (140)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have longed to hear from you & to know the estate of your soul & the estate of that people with you: I beseech you Sir, by the salvation of your precious soul and the mercies of God, make good & sure work of your salvation & try upon what groundstone ye have builded. Worthy & dear Sir, if ye be upon sinking sand, a storm of death & a blast will lose Christ & you and wash you close off the rock: O for the Lord's sake look narrowly to the work! read over your life with the light of God's daylight and sun; for Salvation is not casten down at every man's door: It is good to look to your compass & all ye have need of, ere ye take shipping; for no wind can blow you back again. Remember when the race is ended & the play either won or lost & ye are in the utmost circle & border of time & shall put your foot within the march of eternity & all your good things of this short night-dream shall seem to you like the ashes of a bleaze of thorns or straw, & your poor soul shall be crying, Lodging, lodging, for God's sake: Then shall your soul be more glad at one of your Lord's lovely & homely smiles; then if ye had the charters of three worlds for all eternity. Let pleasures & gain, will & desires of this world be put over in God's hands, as arrested and fenced goods that ye cannot intromet with: Now when ye are drinking the ground of your cup & ye are upon the utmost ends of the last link of time, & old age like death's long shadow is casting a covering upon your days, it is no time to court this vain life, & to set love & heart upon it: It is near after supper, seek rest & ease for your soul in God through Christ: Believe me I find it hard wrestling to play fair with Christ & to keep good quarters with him, & keep love to him in integrity & life, & to keep a constant course of sound & solid daily communion with Christ: temptatations are daily breaking the thread of that course, & it is not easy to cast a knot again, & many knots make evil work. O how fair have many ships been plying before the wind, that in an hour's space have been lying in the sea bottom! How many professors cast a golden lustre, as if they were pure gold, & yet are under that skin & cover but base & reprobate mettle! And how many keep breath in their race many miles, & yet come short of the prize & the garland! Dear Sir, my soul would mourn in secret for you, if I knew your case with God to be but false work: Love to have you anchored upon Christ maketh me fear your tottering & slips: False under-water not seen in the ground of an enlightened conscience, is dangerous; so is often failing & sinning against light: Know this, that these who never had sick nights nor days in conscience for sin, cannot have but such a peace with God, as will undercot & break the flesh again and end in a sad war at death. O how fearfully are thousands beguiled with false hide grown over old sins, as if the soul were cured and healed! Dear Sir, I saw ever nature mighty, lofty, heady & strong in you, & it was more for you to be mortified & dead to the world than another common man: Ye will take a low ebb, & a deep cut & a long lanc● to go to the bottom of your wounds in saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for Christ: Be humbled, walk softly; down, down for God's sake, my dear & worthy Brother, with your topsail: Stoop, Stoop, it is a low entry to go in at heaven's gates: There is infinite Justice in the party ye have to do with, it is his nature not to acquit the guilty & the sinner: The Law of God will not want one farthing of the sinner: God forgetteth not both the Cautioner & the sinner, & every man must pay either in his own person [O Lord save you from that payment] or in his cautioner, Christ. It is violence to corrupt nature for a man to be holy, to lie down under Christ's feet, to quite will, pleasure, worldly love, earthly hope & an itching of heart after this fairded & overguilded world, & to be content that Christ trample upon all. Come in, come in to Christ and see what ye want & find it in him: He is the short cut [as we use to say] and the nearest way to an outgate of all your burdens: I dare avouch ye shall be dearly welcome to him, my soul would be glad to take part of the joy ye should have in him. I daresay, Angels pens, Angels tongues, nay as many worlds of Angels as there are drops of water in all the seas & fountains and rivers of the earth, cannot paint him out to you: I think his sweetness since I was a prisoner hath swelled upon me to the greatness of two heavens: O for a soul as wide as the outmost circle of the highest heaven that containeth all, to contain his love! And yet I could hold little of it. O world's wonder! O if my soul might but lie within the smell of his love, suppose I could get no more but the smell of it! O but it is long to that day when I shall have a free world of Christ's love! O what a sight to be up in heaven in that fair orchard of the new Paradise, & to see and smell and touch and kiss that fair field-flower, that ever green tree of life! His bare shadow were enough for me, a sight of him would be the earnest of heaven to me: Fie, sy upon us, that we have love lying rusting beside us, or which is worse, wasted away upon loathsome objects, & Christ should lie his alone. Woe, woe is me, that Sin hath made so many mad men, seeking the fool's Paradise, fire under ice, & some good and desirable thing without, and apart from Christ: Christ, Christ, nothing but Christ can cool our love's burning languor: O thirsty love, wilt thou set Christ the well of life to thy head & drink thy fill; drink and spare not, drink love & be drunken with Christ: Nay alas, the distance betwixt us and Christ is a death: O if we were clasped in other's arms! We should never twin again except heaven twinned and sundered us, & that cannot be. I desire your children to seek this Lord: Desire them from me to be requested for Christ's sake to be blessed & happy, and come & take Christ & all things with him: Let them beware of glassy & slippery youth, of foolish young motions, of worldly lusts, of deceivable gain, of wicked company, of cursing, lying, blaspheming and foolish talking: Let them be filled with the Spirit, acquaint themselves with daily praying, & with the store-house of wisdom and comfort, the good word of God. Help the souls of the poor people: O that my Lord would bring me again among them, that I might tell uncouth & great tales of Christ to them! Receive not a stranger to preach any other doctrine to them. Pray for me his prisoner of hope, I pray for you without ceasing: I write my blessing, earnest prayers, the love of God & the sweet presence of Christ to you and yours and them. Grace, grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your lawful and loving Pastor. S. R.   

To the Earl of LOTHIAN. (141)  
Right honourable & my very worthy and Noble Lord.  
OUt of the honourable & good report that I hear of your Lo: goodwill & kindness in taking to heart the honourable cause of Christ & his afflicted Church & wronged truth in this land, I make bold to speak a word in paper to your Lo: at this distance, which I trust your Lo: will take in good part. It is your Lo: honour & credit to put to your hand [as ye do, all honour to God] to the fa●ling & tottering tabernacle of Christ in this your mother-Church, & to own Christ's wrongs as your own wrongs. O blessed hand which shall wipe and dry the watery eyes of our weeping Lord Jesus, now going mourning in sackcloth in his members, in his spouse, in his truth & in the prerogative royal of his Kingly power! He needeth not service and help from men, but it pleaseth his wisdom to make the wants & losses, sores and wounds of his spouse, a ●ield & an office-house for the zeal of his servants to exercise themselves in: Therefore, my noble & dear Lord, go on, go on in the strength of the Lord against all opposition to side with wronged Christ: The defending & warding of strokes off Christ; his Bride, the King's daughter, is like a piece of the rest of the way to heaven, knotty, rough, stormy & full of thorns: Many would follow Christ, but with a reservation, that by open proclamation Christ would cry down crosses, & cry up fair weather & a summer-skie & sun till we were all fairly landed at heaven. I know your Lo: hath not so learned Christ, but that ye intent to fetch heaven, suppose your father were standing in your way, & to take it with the wind on your face; for so both storm & wind was on the fair face of your lovely forerunner Christ all his way. It is possible the success answer not your desire in this worthy cause: what then? Duties are ours but events are the Lord's: & I hope, if your Lo: & others with you shall go on, to dive to the lowest ground & bottom of the knavery & perfidious treachery to Christ, of the cursed & wretched Prelates, the Anti-Christ's firstborn & the first fruit of his foul womb, & shall deal with our Sovereign [Law going before you] for the reasonable & impartial hearing of Christ's bill of complaints, & set yourselves singley to seek the Lord & his face, your righteousness shall break through the clouds, that prejudice hath drawn over it: & ye shall in the strength of the Lord bring our banished & departing Lord Jesus home again to his Sanctuary. Neither must your Lo: advise with flesh & blood in this, but wink, & in the dark reach your hand to Christ & follow him. Let not men's fainting discourage you, neither be afraid of men's canny wisdom, who in this storm take the nearest shore & go to the lee & calm side of the Gospel, & hide Christ [if ever they had him] in their cabinets, as if they were ashamed of him, or as if Christ were stolen wares & would blush before the sun. My very dear & noble Lord, ye have rejoiced the hearts of many, that ye have made choice of Christ & his Gospel, whereas such great temptations do stand in your way: But I love your profession the better that it endureth winds: If we knew ourselves well, to want temptations is the greatest temptation of all: Neither is father nor mother, nor court, nor honour, in this overlustred world with all it's paintry & fairding any thing else, when they are laid in the balance with Christ; but feathers, shadows, night-dreams & straws. O if this world knew the excellency, sweetness & beauty of that high & lofty one, that fairest among the sons of men! verily they should see, if their love were bigger than ten heavens, all in circles without other, that it were all too little for Christ our Lord. I hope your choice shall not repent you, when life shall come to that twilight betwixt Time & Eternity, and ye shall see the utmost border of Time & shall draw the curtain & look in to Eternity, & shall one day see God take the heavens in his hands & fold them together like an old holly garment, & set on fire this clay-part of the creation of God, & consume away in smoke & ashes the idol-hopes of poor fools, who think there is not a better country than this low country of dying clay. Children can not make comparison aright betwixt this life and that to come; & therefore the babes of this world who see no better, mould in their own brain a heaven of their own coining, because they see no further than the nearest side of Time. I dare lay in pawn my hope of heaven that this reproached way, is the only way of peace: I find it is the way that the Lord hath sealed with his comforts now in my bonds for Christ: & I verily esteem & find chains & fetters for that lovely one Christ, to be watered over with sweet consolations & the love-smiles of that lovely Bridegroom, for whose coming we wait: & when he cometh, then shall the black's & white's of all men come before the sun, then shall the Lord put a final decision upon the pleas that Zion hath with her adversaries: And as fast as Time posteth away [which neither sitteth, nor standeth, nor sleepeth] as fast is our hand-breadth of this short winter-night flying away & the sky of our long lasting day drawing near its breaking. Except your Lo: be pleased to plead for me against the tyranny of Prelates, I shall be forgotten in this prison: for they did shape my doom according to their new lawless Canons, which is, that a deprived minister shall be utterly silenced & not preach at all, which is a cruelty contrary to their own former practices. Now the only wise God, the very God of peace confirm, strengthen & establish your Lo: upon the stone laid in Zion & be with you for ever.  
Aberd. 1637. Your Lo: at all respective obedience in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

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 country: 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 joys 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 lose 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 stomach to wish at mid-supper, that the supper were ended & the table drawn, that the sick man might win to bed and enjoy rest? We have cause to tyre 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 sinsick souls to rest with himself. O for a long playday with Christ, and our long lasting vacance of rest! Glad may their souls be that are safe over the fi●th, Christ having paid the fraught: Happy are they who have past their hard and wearisome time of apprenticeship, and are now freemen and citizens in that joyful high city, the new jerusalem. Alas that we should be glad of, and rejoice in our fetters & our prisonhouse & this dear Inns, 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 itself 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 country above, & we should look like our country 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 stricken we dare not weep, but steal our grief away betwixt our Lord and us, and content ourselves with stolen sorrow behind backs. God be thanked we have many things that so stroke 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 Inns cry the more, that God would send a fair wind to ●…nd us hungered & 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 & go 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 do 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 debtor 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 jesus. S. R.   

To ROBERT STUART. (143.)  
My Very dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Ye are heartily welcome to my world of suffering & heartily welcome to my Master's house, God give you much joy of your new Master: If I have been in the house before you, I were not faithful to give the house an ill name, or to speak evil of the Lord of the family: I rather wish God's Holy Spirit [O Lord breath upon me with that Spirit] to tell you the fashions of the house. One thing I can say, by onwaiting ye will grow a great man with the Lord of the house: Hang on till ye get some good from Christ: Lay all your loads & your weights by faith upon Christ: Ease yourself & let him bear all: he can, he dow, he will bear you, howbeit hell were upon your back. I rejoice that he is come & hath chosen you in the furnace, it was even there where ye & he set tryst, that is an old gate of Ch●ist's, he keepeth the good old fashion with you, that was in Hosea's days, Host 2, 14. Therefore behold I will allure her & bring her to the wilderness and speak to her heart: There was no talking to her heart while he & she were in the fair & flourishing city & at ease; but out in the cold, hungry, waste wilderness, he allureth her, he whispered in news into her ear there, & said, Thou art mine. What would ye think of such a bed? Ye may soon do worse than say, Lord holds all, Lord jesus a bargain be it, it shall not go back on my side. Ye have gotten a great advantage in the way to heaven, that ye have started to the gate in the morning: Like a fool as I was, I suffered my sun to ●e high in the heaven and near afternoon, before ever I took the gate by the end: I pray you now, keep the advantage ye have: My heart, be not lazy, set as quickly up the b●ae on hands & feet, as if the last pickle of sand were running out of your glass, & death were coming to turn the glass: & be very careful to take heed to your feet in that slippery & dangerous way of youth, that ye are walking in: The devil & temptations now have the advantage of the braes of you, & are upon your wand-hand & your working hand: Dry timber will soon take fire: Be covetous & greedy of the grace of God, & beware that it be not holiness that cometh only from the cross, for too many are that way disposed, Psal. 78. 34. When he slew them then they sought him & they returned & enquired early after God. v. 35. Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth and they lied unto him with their tongues. It is a part of our hypocrisy to give God ●air white words, when he hath us in his grips [if I may speak so] & to flatter him till we win to the fair fields again. Try well green godliness, and examine what it is ye love in Christ: if ye love but Christ's sunny side, & would have only summer-weather & a land-gate, not a sea-way to heaven, your profession will play you a slip, and the winter-well will go dry again in summer: Make no sports nor bairns-play of Christ: But labour for a sound & lively sight of sin, that ye may judge yourself an undone man, a damned slave of hell & sin, one dying in your own blood, except Christ come and rue upon you, & take you up; and therefore make sure & fast work of conversion: Cast the earth deep; and down, down with the old work, the building of confusion that was there before, & let Christ lay new work & make a new creation within you: look if Christ's rain goeth down to the root of your withered plants, and if his love wound your heart while it bleed with sorrow for sin, & if ye can pant & fall a swoon & be like to die for that lovely one, Jesus: I know Christ will not to be hid where he is, grace will ever speak for itself, be fruitful in welldoing: The sanctified cross, is a fruitful tree, it bringeth forth many apples. If I should tell you by some weak experience what I have found in Christ, ye or others could hardly believe me: I thought not the hundred part of Christ long since that I do now, though alas my thoughts are still infinitely below his worth. I have a dwining, sickly and pained life for a real possession of him, and am troubled with lovebrashes and love-fevers, but it is a sweet pain: I would refuse no conditions, not hell excepted [reserving always God's hatred] to buy possession of Jesus; but alas I am not a merchant who have any money to give for him, I must either come to a good cheap market where wares are had for nothing, else I go home empty: But I have casten this work upon Christ to get me himself: I have his faith & truth & promise [as a pawn of his] all engaged, that I shall obtain that which my hungry desires would be at, & I esteem that the choice of my happiness: And for Christ's cross, especially the garland & the flower of all crosses, to suffer for his name, I esteem it more than I can write or speak to you: And I write it under mine own hand to you, it is one of the steps of the ladder up to our country, & Christ [who ever be one] is still at the heavy end of this black tree, & so it is but as a feather to me: I need not run at leisure because of a burden on my back, my back never bore the like of it, the more heavily crossed for Christ, the soul is still the lighter for the journey. Now would to God, all coldblooded, faint-hearted soldiers of Christ, would look again to Jesus & to his love, & when they look, I would have them to look again & again, & fill themselves with beholding of Christ's beauty, & I dare say then, that Christ should come in great court & request with many: The virgins would flock fast about the Bridegroom, they would embrace and take hold of him & not let him go. But when I have spoken of him till my head rive, I have said just nothing, I may begin again: A Godhead, a Godhead is a world's wonder: Set ten thousand thousand new made worlds of angels and elect men, & double them in number, ten thousand, thousand, thousand times, let their heart & tongues be ten thousand, thousand times more agile & large, than the heart & tongues of the Seraphims that stand with six wings before him, Isa. 6. 2. When they have said all for the glorifying & praising of the Lord Jesus, they have but spoken little or nothing: his love will bide all possible creatures to praise. Oh if I could wear this tongue to the stump in extolling his highness! but it is my daily growing sorrow, that I am confounded with his incomparable love, & he doth so great things for my soul, & he got never yet any thing of me worth the speaking of. Sir, I charge you help me to praise him: It is a shame to speak of what he hath done for me & what I do to him again. I am sure, Christ hath many drowned Dyvours in heaven beside him, & when we are convened, man & angel, at the great day in that fair last meeting, we are all but his drowned Dyvours: It is hard to say who oweth him most: If men could do no more, I would have them to wonder: If we cannot be filled with Christ's love; we may be filled with wondering. Sir, I would I could persuade you to grow sick for Christ & to long after him, & be pained with love for himself; but his tongue is in heaven, who can do it! To him & his rich grace I recommend you. I pray you, pray for me & forget not to praise.  
Aberd. June. 17. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady GAITGIRTH. (144)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to know how matters stand betwixt Christ and your soul: I know ye find him still the longer the better: time cannot change him in his love: ye may yourself ebb & flow, rise & fall, wax & wane, but your Lord is this day as he was yesterday: & it is your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon wheels of your own making, neither have ye to do with a Christ of your own shaping: God hath singled out a Mediator, strong & mighty, if ye & your burdens were as heavy as ten hills or hells, he is able to bear you & save you to the uttermost: Your often seeking to him cannot make you a burden to him. I know, Christ compassionateth you & maketh a moan for you in all your dumps, & under your downcasting; but it is good for you that he hideth himself sometimes, it is not niceness dryness, nor coldness of love, that causeth Christ withdraw & slip in under a curtain & a vail, that ye cannot see him; but he knoweth, ye could not bear with up-sailes, a fair gaile, a full moon & a high springtide of his felt love, & always a fair summer-day & a summer-sun of a felt & possessed & embracing Lord J●sus: His kisses & his visits to his dearest o●es are thin sown: He could not let out his rivers of love upon his own, but th●se rivers would be in hazard to lose a young plant at the root; & he knoweth this of you: Ye should therefore first Christ's kindness as to it's sensible and full manife●●ations, till ye and he be above sun & moon: that is the country where ye will be enlarged for that love which ye dough not now contain. Cast the burden of your sweet babes upon Christ, & lighten your heart by laying your All upon him, he will be their God. I hope to s●e you up the mountain yet, & glad in the salvation of God: Frame yourself for Christ & gloom not upon his cross. I find him so sweet, that my love, suppose I would charge it to remove from Christ, it would not obey me: His love hath stronger fingers then to let go its grips of us bairns, who cannot go but by such a hold as Christ. It is good that we want legs of our own, since we may borrow from Christ: & it is our happiness that Christ is under an act of cautionry for heaven, & that Christ is booked in heaven as the principal debtor for such poor bodies as we are. I request you, give the Laird your husband thanks for his care of me, that he hath appeared in public for a prisoner of Christ: I pray & write mercy & peace & blessings to him & his. Grace, grace be with you for ever.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus S. R.   

To Mr JOHN FER GUSHILL. (145.)  
Reverend & Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: My longings & desires for a sight of the new builded tabernacle of Christ again in Scotland, that tabernacle that came down from heaven, hath now taken some l●fe again, when I see Christ making a mint to sow vengeance among his enemies. I care not, if this land be ripe for such a great wonderful mercy; but I know he must do, when ever it is done, without hire. I find the grief of my silence & my f●ar to be holden at the door of Christ's house swelling upon me: & the truth is, were it not that I am dâted now & then with pieces of Christ's sweet love & comforts, I fear I should have made an ill browst of this honourable cross, that I know such a soft & sillyminded body as I am, is not worthy of: For I have little in me but softness & superlative & excessive apprehensions of fear & sadness & sorrow, & often God's terrors do surround me, because Christ looketh not so favourably upon me, as a poor witness would have him: And I wonder how I have passed a year & a quarter's imprisonment without shaming my sweet Lord, to whom I desire to be faithful; & I think I shall die but even minting & aiming to serve & honour my Lord Jesus: Few know how toom & empty I am at home; but it is a part of Marriage-love & husband love, that my Lord Jesus goeth not to the streets with his chiding against me: It is but stolen & concealed anger that I find & feel, & his glooms to me are kept under roof, that he will not have mine enemies hearing what is betwixt me & Christ: And believe me, I say the truth in Christ, the only gall and wormwood in my cup, & that which hath filled me with fear; hath been, lest my sins, that sun & moon & the Lord's children were never witness to, should have moved my Lord to strike me with dumb sabbaths: Lord pardon my soft & weak jealousies, if I be here in an error. My very dear Brother, I would have looked for more large & more particular letters from you, for my comfort in this; for your words before have strengthened me: I pray you, mend this: & be thankful & painful while ye have a piece or corner of the Lord's vineyard to dress. O would to God, I could have leave to follow you to break the clods! but I wish I could command my soul silence & wait upon the Lord. I am sure while Christ lives I am well enough friend-stead: I hope he will extend his Kindness & power for me; but God be thanked, it is not worse with me then a cross for Christ & his truth. I know he might have pitched upon many more choice & worthy witnesses, if he had pleased; ●ut I seek no more [be what timber I will, suppose I were made of a piece of hell] then that my Lord in his infinite art, hue glory to his name & enlargement to Christ's Kingdom out of me. C● that I could attain to this, to desire that my part of Christ might be laid in pledge for the heightening of Christ's throne in Britain! Let my Lord redeem the pledge, or, if he please, let it sink & drown unredeemed: But what can I add to him? Or what way can a smothered and born-down prisoner set out Christ in open market as a lovely & desirable Lord to many souls? I know he sith to his own glory better than my ebb thoughts can dream of, & that the wheels & paces of this poor distempered Kirk are in his hands, & that things shall roll as Christ will have them: Only, Lord tryst the matter so, as Christ may be made a householder & Lord again in Scotland, and wet faces for his departure, may be dried at his sweet & much desired welcome-home. I see in all our trials, our Lord will not mix our wares & his grace over head through other; but he will have each man to know his own, that the like of me ma● say in my sufferings, This is Christ's grace, & this is but my course stuff, this is free grace & this is but nature and reason: We know what our legs would play us, if they should carry us through all our waters: and the least thing our Lord can have of us, is, to know we are grace's debtors, or grace's dyvours, & that nature is of a base house & blood, & grace is better born & of● in & blood to Christ & of a better house. Oh that I were free of that Idol that they call myself, & that Christ were for myself, & myself a decurted cipher & a denied & forsworn thing! But that proud thing myself, will not play except it ride up side for side with Christ, or rather have place before him. O myself, another devil, as evil as the prince of devils, if thou could give Christ the way & take thine own room, which is to sit as low as nothing or corruption! O but we have much need to be ransomed & redeemed by Christ from that master-tyrant, that cruel & lawless Lord, ourselves! Nay, when I am seeking Christ & out of myself, I have the third part of a squint eye upon that vain, vain thing, myself, myself, & something of mine own: But I must hold here. I desire you to contribute your help, to see if I can be restored to my wasted & lost flock: I see not how it can be; except the Lords would procure me a liberty to preach; & they have reason: 1. Because the opposers & my adversaries have practised their new Canons upon me, whereof one is, That no deprived Minister preach under the pain of excommunication. 2. Because my opposing of these Canons was a special thing that incensed Sidserf against me. 3. Because I was indicially accused for my book against the Arminians, & commanded by the Chancellor to acknowledge I had done a fault in writing against Dr jackson, a wicked Arminian. Pray for a room in the house to me. Grace, grace be, [as it is] your portion.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN STUART. Provest of Air, (146.)  
Worthy Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long for the time when I shall see the beauty of the Lord in his house, & would be as glad of it, as of any sight on earth, to see the halt, the blind & the lame, come back to Zion with supplications, jer. 31, 8, 9 going & weeping & seeking the Lord, ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward jer. 50. 5, 6. & to see the woman travelling in birth, delivered of the man child, of a blessed Reformation. If this land were humbled, I would look that our sky should clear & our day dawn again, & ye should then bless Christ who is content to save your travel, & to give himself to you in pure ordinances on this side of the sea. I know, the mercy of Christ is engaged by promise to Scotland, notwithstanding he bring wrath, as I fear he shall, upon this land. I am waiting on for enlargement, & half content that my faith bow, if Christ while he bow it, keep it unbroken; for who goeth through a fire without a mark or a scald. I see the Lord making use of this fire to scour his vessels from their rust. Oh that my will were silent & as a child weaned from the breasts! Psal. 130. But alas, who hath a heart that will give Christ the last word in flyting, & will hear & not speak again? Oh contestations & quarrellous replies [as a soon saddled spirit, I do well to be angry, even to the death, jon. 4: 9] Smell of the stink of strong corruption! O blessed soul that could sacrifice his will & go to heaven having lost his will & made resignation of it to Christ! I would seek no more but that Christ were absolute King over my will, & that my will were a sufferer in all crosses, without meeting Christ with such a word, why is it thus? I wish still that my love had but leave to stand beside beautiful Jesus, & to get the mercy of looking to him & burning for him, suppose possession of him were suspended & fristed, till my Lord fold together the leaves & two sides of the little shepherd's tents of clay. Oh what pain is in longing for Christ under an overclouded and eclipsed assurance! What is harder than to burn and dwine with longings and deaths of love, & then to have blanks & uninked paper for assurance of Christ in real fruition or possession? O how sweet were one line or half a letter of a written assurance under Christ's own hand! But this is our exercise daily, that guiltiness shall overmist and darken assurance: It is a miracle to believe, but for a sinner to believe is two miracles. But O what obligations of love are we under to Christ, who beareth with our wild apprehensions, in suffering them to nickname sweet Jesus & to put a lie upon his good name! If he had not been God; and if long-suffering in Christ were not like Christ himself, we should long ago have broken Christ's mercies in two pieces, & put an iron bar upon our own salvation, that mercy should not have been able to break or overleap; but long-suffering in God, is God himself, & that is ou● salvation, & the stability of our heaven is in God: He knew (who said Christ in you the hope of glory. Col. 1. 27. For our hope & the bottom & pillars of it is Christ-God] sinners are anchor-fast & made stable in God: So that if God do not change (which is impossible] then my hope shall not fluctuat. O sweet, stability of su●e-bottomed salvation! Who could win heaven if this were not? & who could be saved if God were not God, & if he were not such a God as he is? O God be thanked that our Salvation is coasted & landed & shored upon Christ, who is master of winds & storms! & what sea-winds can blow the coast or the land out of its place? Bulwarks are often casten down, but coasts are not removed; but suppose that were, or might be, yet God cannot reel nor remove. Oh that we go from this strong & unmoveable Lord, & that we lose ourselves (if it were in our power) from him! Alas, our green & young love hath not taken with Christ, as being unacquainted with him: He is such a wide & broad & deep & high & surpassing sweetness, that our love is too little for him: But O if our love, little as it is, could take ba●d with his great & huge sweetness and transcendent excellency! O thrice blessed & eternally blessed are they, who are out of themselves & above themselves, that they may be in love united to him! I am often rolling up & down the thoughts of my faint & sick desires of expressing Christ's glory before his people; but I see not through the throng of impediments, & cannot find eyes to look higher, and so I put many things in Christ's way to hinder him, that I know he would but laugh at, & with one stride set his foot over them all. I know not if my Lord will bring me to his sanctuary or not; but I know he hath the placing of me either within or without the house, & that nothing will be done without him: But I am often thinking & saying within myself, that my days flee away, and I see no good, neither yet Christ's work thriving; and it is like the grave shall prevent the answer of my desires of saving souls as I would: But alas I cannot make right work of his ways, I neither spell nor read my Lord's providence aright: My thoughts go a way, that I fear they meet not God; for it is like God will not come the way of my thoughts: & I cannot be taught to crucify to him my wisdom & desires, & to make him King over my thoughts; for I would have a Princedom over my thoughts & would boldly & blindly prescribe to God, & guide myself in a way of my own making: But I hold my peace here, let him do his will. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweetest Lord and Master, S. R.   

To CARSLUTH. (147)  
Much honoured Sir.  
I Long to hear how your soul prospereth. I earnestly desire you to try how matters stand between your soul & the Lord: think it no easy matter to take heaven by violence: Salvation cometh now to the most part of men in a night dream: there is no scarcity of faith now, such as it is; for ye shall not now light upon the man, who will not say he hath faith in Christ: But alas! dreams make no man's rights. Worthy Sir, I beseech you in the Lord, give your soul no rest till ye have real assurance & Christ's rights confirmed & sealed to your soul: The common faith & countrey-holiness & week-day's zeal that is among people, will never bring men to heaven: Take pains for your salvation, for in that day when ye shall see many men's labours & conquests & idol-riches lying in ashes, when the earth & all the works thereof shall be burnt with fire, O how dear a price would your soul give for God's favour in Christ! It is a blessed thing to seek Christ with up-sun, & to read over your papers & soul-accounts with fair daylight: It will not be time to cry for a lamp when the Bridegroom is entered into his chamber & the door shut. Fie, fie upon blinded & base souls who are committing whoredom with this idol-clay & hunting a poor wretched hungry heaven, a hungry breakfast, a day's meat, from this hungry world, with the forfeiting of God's favour & the drinking over their heaven over the board [as men use to speak] for the laughter & sports of this short forenoon! All that is under this vault of heaven & betwixt us & death, & in this side of sun & moon, are but toys, night-visions, head-fancies, poor shadows, watery froth, godless vanities at their best, & black hearts & salt & sour miseries sugared over & confected with an hour's laughter or two & the conceit of riches, honour, vain, vain Court & lawless pleasures. Sir, if ye look both to the laughing side & the weeping side of this world, & if ye look not only upon the skin and colour of things, but in to their inwards & the heart of their excellency, ye shall see that one look of Christ's sweet & lovely eye, one kiss of his fairest face, is worth ten thousand worlds of such rotten stuff as the foolish sons of men set their heart upon. Oh Sir, turn, turn your heart to the other side of things, & get it once free of these entanglements, to consider Eternity, Death, the clay-bed the Grave, awsom Judgement, everlasting burning quick in Hell, where Death would give as great a price [if there were a Market where Death might be bought & sold] as all the world. Consider heaven & glory: But alas, why speak I of considering these things which have not entered into the heart of man to consider? Look into these depths [without a bottom] of loveliness, sweetness, beauty, excellency, glory, goodness, grace & mercy that are in Christ, & ye shall then cry down the whole world & all the glory of it, even when it is come to the summer-bloom, & ye shall cry up with Christ, up with Christ's father, up with eternity of glory. Sir, there is a great deal of less sand in your glas● then when I saw you, & your afternoon is nearer eventide now than it was. As a flood carried back to the sea, so doth the Lord's swi●t post, Time, carry you & your life with wings to the grave: Ye eat & drink, but Time standeth not still; ye laugh, but your day fleeth away, y● sleep, but your hours are reckoned & put by hand. O how soon will Time shut you out of the poor & cold & hungry Inns of this life! & then what will yesterday short-born pleasures do to you, but be as a snowball melted away many years since, or worse; for the memory of these pleasures useth to fill the soul wit● bitterness: Time & experience will prove thi● to be true, & dying men, if they could speak, would make this good: Lay no more on the creatures than they are able to carry: Lay your soul and your weights upon God: Make him your only, only best beloved: Your errand to this life is to make sure an eternity of glory to your soul, & to match your soul with Christ: your love, if it were more than all the love of Angels in one, is Christ's due: Other things worthy in themselves, in respect of Christ are not worth a windlestraw, or a drink of cold water. I doubt not but in death ye will see all things more distinctly, and that then the world shall bear no more bulk than it is worth, & that then it shall couch & be contracted into nothing, & ye shall see Christ longer, higher, broader & deeper than ever he was. O blessed conquest to lose all things & to gain Christ! I know not what ye have if ye want Christ: Alas, how poor is your gain if the earth were all yours in f●ee heritage, holding it of no man of clay, if Christ be not yours? O seek all midses, lay all oars in the water, put forth all your power, & bend all your endeavours to put away & part with all things, that ye may gain & enjoy Christ: try & search his word, & stri●e to go a step above & beyond ordinary professors, & resolve to sweat more & run faster than they do for Salvation: men's midway, cold and wise courses in godliness, and their neighbour-like cold & wise pace to heaven, will cause many a man want his lodging at night & li● in the fields. I recommend Christ & his love to your seeking, & yourself to the tender mercy & rich grace of our Lord. Remember my love in Christ to your wife: I desire her to learn to make her soul's anchor fast upon Christ himself: Few are saved: Let h●r consider what jo● the smiles of God in Christ will be, & what the love-kisses of sweet, sweet Jesus, & a welcome home to the new jerusalem from Christ's own mouth, will be to her soul; when Christ shall fold together the clay tent of her body and lay it by his hand for a time, till the fair morning of the general resurrection. I avouch before God, man and Angel, that I have not seen, nor can imagine a lover to be comparable to lovely Jesus: I would not exchange or niffer him with ten heavens: If heaven could be without him, what could we do there. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your soul's eternal wellwisher, S. R.   

To CASSINCARRIE. (148.)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I have been too long in writing to you. I am confident ye have learned to prize Christ & his love & favour more than ordinary professors, who scarce see Christ with half an eye, because their sight is taken up with eyeing & liking the beauty of this over-guileded world that promiseth fair to all its lovers, but in the push of a trial when need is, can give nothing but a fair beguile. I know ye are not ignorant that men come not to this world as some do to a market, to see and be seen, or as some come to behold a May-game, and only to behold and to go home again: Ye came hither to treat with God & to tryst with him in his Christ, for salvation to your soul, & to seek reconciliation with an angry and wrathful God in a covenant of peace made to you in Christ, & this is more than an ordinary sport or the play that the greatest part of the world give their heart unto: And therefore, Worthy Sir, I pray you by the salvation of your soul and by the mercy of God & your compearence before Christ, do this in sad earnest, & let not salvation be your by-work or your holy-day's task only, or a work by the way: For men think that this may be done in three day's space on a featherbed, when death & they are fallen in hands together, and that with a word or two they shall make their soul-matters right: Alas, this is to ●it loose and unsure in the matters of our salvation: Nay, the seeking of this world & the glory of it, is but an odd & by-errand that we may slip, sobeing we make salvation sure. Oh when will men learn to be that heavenly wise as to divorce from & free their soul of all Idol-lovers, and make Christ the only only One, and trim & make ready their lamps while they have time and day! How soon will this house skail and the Inns where the poor soul lodgeth fall to the earth! How soon will some few years pass away, & then when the day is ended & this life's lease expired, what have men of world's glory, but dreams & thoughts? O how blessed a thing is it to labour for Christ & to make him sure! Know and try in time your holding of him and the rights and charters of heaven, and upon what terms ye have Christ and the Gospel, and what Christ is worth in your estimation, and how lightly ye esteem of other things and how dearly of Christ! I am sure if ye see him in his beauty and glory, ye shall see him to be all things, and that incomparable jewel of gold that ye should seek, howbeit ye should sell, wod-set & forfeit your few years portion of this life's joys. O happy soul for evermore who can rightly compare this life with that long-lasting life to come, & can balance the weighty glory of the one, with the light golden vanity of the other! The day of the Lord is now near hand, & all men shall come out in their black's & white's as they are: There shall be no borrowed lying colours in that day, when Christ shall be called Christ & no longer nicknamed: now men borrow Christ & his white colour & the lustre & fairding of Christianity; but how many counterfeit masks will be burnt in the day of God, in the fire, that shall burn the earth & the works that are in it: And howbeit Christ have the hardest part of it now, yet in the presence of my Lord whom I serve in the spirit, I would not niffer or exchange Christ's prison, bands & chains, with the gold chains & Lordly rents, & smiling & happy-like heavens of the men of this world. I am far from thoughts of repenting because of my losses & bonds for Christ, I wish all my adversaries were as I am except my bonds. Worthy, worthy, worthy for evermore is Christ, for whom we should suffer pains like hell's pains, far more the short hell that the saints of God have in this life. Sir, I wish your soul may be more acquainted with the sweetness of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aboard. 1637. Yours in his only Lord & Master, S. R.   

To his Parishioners at Anwoth. (149).  
Dear beloved in our Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace from God our father & from our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied upon you: I long exceedingly to hear of your on-going & advancement in your journey to the Kingdom of God: My only joy out of heaven is, to hear that the seed of God sown among you is growing & coming to an harvest; for I ceased not while I was among you, in season & out of season [according to the measure of grace given unto me] to warn & stir up your minds, & I am free from the blood of all men, for I have communicated to you the whole counsel of God: And I now again charge & warn you in the great & dreadful name, and in the sovereign authority of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; and I beseech you also by the mercies of God, and by the bowels of Christ, by your appearance before Christ Jesus our Lord, by all the plagues that are written in God's book, by your part of the holy city, the new Jerusalem, that ye keep the truth of God as I delivered it to you, before many witnesses, in the sight of God and his holy Angels; for now the last days are come & coming when many forsake Christ Jesus, & he saith to you, will ye also leave me? Remember that I forewarned you to forbear the dishor ouring of the Lord's blessed name, in swearing, blaspheming, cursing, And the prefaning of the Lord's sabbath; willing you to give that day from morning to night to praying, praising, hearing of the word, conferring, and speaking not your own words but God's word, thinking and meditating on God's nature, word and works; And that every day at morning and at right [at least] ye should sanctify the Lord by praying in your houses publicly in the hearing of all; that ye should in any sort forbear the receiving of the Lord's supper, but after the form that I delivered it to you, according to the example of Christ our Lord, that is, that ye should sit as banquetters, at one table with our King, & eat & drink, & divide the elements one to another: The timber & stones of the church walls shall bear witness that my soul was refreshed with the comforts of God in that supper; and that crossing in baptism was unlawful and against Christ's ordinances; And that no day [besides the sabbath which is of his own appointment] should be kept holy, and sanctified with preaching & the public worship of God for the memory of Christ's birth, death, resurrection & ascension; seeing such days so observed are unlawful, will-worship, and not warranted in Christ's word; And that every thing in God's worship not warranted by Christ's Testament & word, was unlawful; And also, that Idolatry, worshipping of God before hallowed creatures, & adoring of Christ by kneeling before bread & wine was unlawful; And that ye should be humble, sober, modest, forbearing pride, envy, malice, wrath, hatred, contentim, debate, lying, slandering, stealing, & defrauding your neighbours in grass, corn or cattle, in buying or selling, borrowing or lending, taking or giving, in bargains or covenants; And that ye should work with your own hands, & be content with that which God hath given you; That ye should study to know God & his will, and keep in mind the doctrine of the Catechism which I taught you carefully, and speak of it in your houses and in the fields, when ye lie down at night, and when ye rise in the morning; That ye should believe in the Son of God and obey his commandments, and learn to make your accounts in time with your judge, because death & judgement are before you: And if ye have now penury and want of that word which I delivered to you in abundance; yea [to God's honour I speak it, without arrogating any thing to myself, who am but a poor empty man] ye had as much of the word in nine years while I was among you, as some others have had in many. Mourn for your loss of time & repent: My soul pitieth you that ye should suck dry breasts, & be put to draw at dry wells. O that ye would esteem highly of the lamb of God, your well-beloved Christ Jesus, whose virtues and praises I preached unto you with joy, & which he did countenance & accompany with some power; and that ye would call to mind the many fair days and glorious feasts in our Lord's house of wine, that ye and I have have had with Christ Jesus! But if there be any among you that take liberty to sin, because I am removed from amongst you, and forget that word of truth which ye heard, and turn the grace of God into wantonness; I here under my hand in the name of Christ my Lord, write to such persons all the plagues of God & the curses that ever I preached in the pulpit of Anwoth against the children's of disobedience: And as the Lord liveth the Lord Jesus shall make good what I write unto you: Therefore, Dear beloved, fulfil my joy: Fear the great and dreadful name of the Lord: seek God with me, Scotland's judgement sleepeth not, awake & repent: the sword of the Lord shall go from the North to the South, from the East to the West and through all the corners of the land, and that sword shall be drunk with your blood amongst the first; & I shall stand up as witness against you, if ye do not amend your ways and your doings, and turn to the Lord, with all your heart: I beseech you also my beloved in the Lord, my joy & my Crown, offend not at the sufferings of me, the prisoner of Jesus Christ; I am filled with joy and with the comforts of God: Upon my salvation I know & am persuaded it is for God's Truth and the Honour of my King & Royal Prince Jesus I now suffer: and howbeit this town be my prison, yet Christ hath made it my palace, a garden of pleasures, a field & orchard of delights: I know likewise albeit I be in bonds, that yet the word of God is not in bonds, my spirit also is in free ward: Sweet, sweet have his comforts been to my soul: my pen, tongue and heart have not words to express the kindness, love & mercy of my well-beloved to me in this house of my pilgrimage. I charge you to fear & love Christ, & to seek a house not made with hands, but your father's house above: This laughing and white skinned world beguileth you; & if ye seek it more than God, it shall play you a slip, to the endless sorrow of your heart: Alas, I could not make many of you fall in love with Christ, howbeit I endeavoured to speak much good of him, & to commend him to you [which as it was your sin, so it is my sorrow] yet once again suffer me to exhort, beseech & obtest you in the Lord, to think of his love & to be delighted with him, who is altogether lovely: I give you the word of a King ye shall not repent it: ye are in my prayers night & day, I cannot forget you: I do not eat, I do not drink, but I pray for you all: I entreat you all & every one of you to pray for me. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 23. 1636. Your lawful & loving Pastor, S. R.   

To the Lady CARDONNESS. [150]  
MISTRESS.  
I Beseech you in the Lord Jesus make every day more & more of Christ, & try your growth in the grace of God, & what new ground ye win daily on corruption; for travellers are day by day either advancing further on, & nearer home, or else they go not right about to compass their journey: I think still the better & better of Christ: Alas I know not where to set him, I would so fain have him high! I cannot set heavens above heavens till I were tired with numbering, & set him upon the highest step & story of the highest of them all: But I wish I could make him great through the world, suppose my loss & pain & shame were set under the soles of his feet, that he might stand upon me. I request you faint not because this world & ye are at yea & nay, & because this is not a home that laugheth upon you, The wise Lord who knoweth you will have it so, because he casteth a net for your love to catch it & gather it in to himself; therefore bear patiently the loss of children and burdens and other discontentments either within or without the house: Your Lord in them is seeking you, and seek ye him: Let none be your love & choice, & the flower of your delights but your Lord Jesus: Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion; for it will not fall you to get two portions, and to laugh twice, and to be happy twice, and to have an upper-heaven and an under-heaven too: Christ our Lord & his saints were not so; & therefore let go your grip of this life & of the good things of it: I hope your heaven groweth not hereaway: Learn daily both to possess & miss Christ in his secret bridegroom-smiles: He must go & come because his infinite wisdom thinketh it best for you: we will be together one day: We shall not need to borrow light from sun, moon or candle: There shall be no complaints on eiher side in heaven: There shall be none there but He & we, the bridegroom & the bride; Devils, temptations, trials, desertions, losses, sad hearts, pain & death shall all be put out of play, & the Devil must give up his office of Tempting: O blessed is the soul whose hope hath a face looking strait out to that day! It is not our part to make a treasure here: Any thing under the covering of heaven we can build upon, is but ill ground, & a sandy foundation: Every good thing except God wanteth a bottom, & cannot stand its alone; how then can it bear the weight of us? Let us not lay a load upon a windlestraw, there shall nothing find my weight or found my happiness, but God: I know all created power should sink under me, if I should lean down upon it; & therefore it is better to rest on God then sink or fall: & we weak souls must have a bottom & being-place; for we cannot stand our alone: let us then be wise in our choice, & choose & wail our own blessedness, which is to trust in the Lord: Each one of us hath a whore & idol besides our husbend Christ: But it is our folly to divide our narrow & little love: It will not serve two, best then hold it whole & together, & give it to Christ; for than we get double interest for our love, when we lend it to, & lay it out upon Christ, & we are sure besides, that the stock cannot perish. Now, I can say no more, remember me: I have God's right to that people; howbeit by the violence of men, stronger than I, I am banished from you & chased away: The Lord give you mercy in the day of Christ: It may be God clear my sky again; howbeit there is small appearance of my deliverance: But let him do with me what seemeth good in his own eyes: I am his clay, let my porter frame & fashion me as he pleaseth. Grace be with you,  
Aberd. 1637. Your lawful & loving Pastor, S. R.   

To SIBILLA Mc ADAM. (151)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I can bear witness in my bonds that Christ is still the longer the better, & no worse, yea, inconceivably better than he is, or can be called: I think it half an heaven to have my fill of the sm●ll of his sweet breath, & to sleep in the arms of Christ my Lord with his left hand under my head, & his right hand embracing me: There is no great reckoning to be made of the withering of my flower, in comparison of the foul & manifest wrongs done to Christ: Nay, let never the dew of God lie upon my branches again, let the bloom fall from my joy and let it wither, let the Almighty blow out my candle; sobeing the Lord might be great among Jews & Gentiles, and his oppressed church delivered: Let Christ fare well, suppose I should eat ashes: I know he must be sweet himself, when his cross is so sweet: And it is the part of us all, if we marry Himself, to marry the crosses, losses, & reproaches also that follow him; for mercy followeth Christ's cross: His prison for beauty is made of marble & ivory, his chains that are laid on his prisoners are golden chains, & the fighes of the prisoners of hope are perfumes with comforts, the like whereof cannot be bred of found in this side of sun & moon: Follow on after his love, ●ire not of Christ; but come in and see his beauty & excellency, & feed your soul upon Christ's sweetness: This world is not yours, neither would I have your heaven made of such mettle as mire & clay: Ye have the choice & wail of all lovers in heaven or out of heaven when ye have Christ, the only delight of God his father: Climb up the mountain with joy & faint not; for time will cut off, the men who pursue Christ's followers: Our best things here have a worm in them: Our joys besides God; in the inner half are but woes & sorrows: Christ, Christ is that which our love and desires, can sleep sweetly & rest safely upon. Now, the very God of peace establish you in Christ: Help a prisoner with your prayers, and entreat that our Lord would be pleased to visit me with a fight of his beauty in his house, as he hath sometimes done. Grace, be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Laird of CALLY. (152)  
Worthy Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have been too long I confess in writing to you. My suit now to you in paper [since I have no access to speak to you as formerly] is, that ye would lay the foundation sure in your youth: When ye begin to seek Christ, try I pray you upon what terms ye covenant to follow him, and lay your accounts what it may cost you; that summer nor winter, nor well nor woe, may not, cause you change your master, Christ: Keep fair to him & be honest and faithful that he find not a crack in you. Surely ye are now in the throng of temptations: When youth is come to its fairest bloom, than the Devil & the lusts of a deceiving world & sin are upon horseback and follow with up sails: If this were not, Paul needed not to have written to a sanctified & holy youth Timothy [a faithful preacher of the Gospel] flee the lusts of youth. Give Christ your virgin-love, ye cannot put your love & heart in a better hand. O if ye knew him & saw his beauty! Your love, your liking, your heart, your desires would close with him & cleave to him. Love by nature when it seeth, cannot but cast out it's spirit and strength upon amiable objects & good things & things loveworthy: and what fairer thing than Christ? O fair sun and fair moon and fair stars, and fair flowers and fair roses and fair lilies, and fair creatures; but O ten thousand thousand times fairer Lord Jesus! Alas, I wronged him in making the comparison this way! O black sun & moon, but O fair Lord Jesus! O black flowers & black lilies & roses, but O fair, fair, ever fair Lord Jesus! O all fair things, black & deformed without beauty, when ye are beside that fairest Lord Jesus! O black heaven, but O fair Christ! O black Angels, but O surpassingly fair Lord Jesus! I would seek no more to make me happy for evermore, but a through & clear sight of the beauty of Jesus my Lord: Let my eyes enjoy his fairness & store him for ever in the face, & I have all that can be wished. Get Christ rather than gold or silver, seek Christ howbeit ye should lose all things for him: They take their marks by the moon & look asquint in looking to fair Christ, who resolve for the world & their ease, & for their honour & court & credit, or for fear of losses & a sore skin that they will turn their back upon Christ & his truth. Alas, how many blind eyes & squint-lookers look this day in Scotland upon Christ's beauty, & they see a spot in Christ's fair face! Alas, they are not worthy of Christ who look this way upon him, & see no beauty in him why they should desire him! God send me my fill of his beauty, if it be possible that my soul can be full of his beauty here: But much of Christ's beauty needeth not abate the eager appetite of a soul [sick of love for himself] to see him in the other world, where he is seen as he is. I am glad with all my heart that ye have given your greenest morning age to this Lord Jesus: Hold on & weary not, faint not, resolve upon suffering for Christ, but fear not ten day's tribulation, for Christ's sour cross is sugared with comforts & hath a taste of Christ himself. I esteem it my glory, my joy & my crown, & I bless him for this honour, to be yoked with Christ & married with him in suffering, who therefore was born & therefore came into the world that he might bear witness to the truth. Take pains above all things for salvation, for without running, fight, sweeting, wrestling, heaven is not taken. O happy soul, that crosseth nature's stomach, & delighteth to gain that fair garland & crown of glory! What a feckless loss is it for you to go through this wilderness & never taste of sin's sugared pleasures! What poorer is a soul to want pride, lust, love of the world & the vanities of this vain & worthless world! Nature hath no cause to weep at the want of such toys as these. Esteem it your gain to be an heir of glory, O but that is an eye-look to a fair rent! The very hope of heaven under troubles, is like wind & sails to the soul, & like wings when the feet come out of the share. O for what stay we here! Up, up, after our Lord Jesus, this is not our rest nor our dwelling: What have we to do in this prison, except only to take meat & houseroom in it for a time? Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your soul's wellwisher & Christ prisoner, S. R.   

To WILLIAM GORDON. At Kenmure. (153  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have been long in answering your letter, which came in good time to me. It is my aim & hearty desire that my furnace, which is of the Lord's kindling, may sparkle fire upon standers by, to the warming of their hearts with God's love. The very dust that falleth from Christ's feet, his old ragged clothes, his knotty & black cross, is sweeter to me then Kings golden crowns & their time-eaten pleasures: I should be a liar & false witness, if I should not give my Lord Jesus a fair testimonial with my whole soul: my word I know will not heighten him, he needeth not such props under his feet to raise his glory high: But Oh that I could raise him the height of heaven & the breadth & length often heavens in the estimation of all his young lovers! for we have all shapen Christ but too narrow & too short, & form conceptions of his love in our conceit very unworthy of it. Oh that men were taken & catched with his beauty & fairness! They would give over playing with idols, in which there is not halfroom for the love of one soul to exspatiat itself, & man's love is but heart-hungered in gnawing upon bare bones & sucking at dry breasts: It is well warred they want who will not come to him who hath a world of love & goodness & bounty for all. We seek to thaw our frozen hearts at the cold smoke of the short-timed creature, & our souls gather neither heat nor life nor light, for these cannot give to us what they have not in themselves. Oh that we could thrust in through these thorns & this throng of bastardlovers, & be ravished & sick of love for Christ! We should finde some footing & some room & sweet ease for our tottering & wirless souls in our Lord. I wish it were in my power after this day, to cry down all love but the love of Christ, & to cry down all Gods but Christ, all Saviour's but Christ, all welbeloveds but Christ, & all soul-suters, all love-beggers but Christ. Ye complain that ye want a mark of the sound work of grace & love in your soul. For answer, consider for your satisfaction (till God send more) 1. joh. 3: 14. And as for your complaint of Deadness & Doubtings, Christ I hope will take your deadness & you together: They are bodies full of holes, running boils, & broken bones that need mending, that Christ the Physician taketh up: whole vessels are not for the Mediator Christ's art: Publicans, sinners, whores, harlots, are ready market-wares for Christ: The only thing that will bring sinners within a cast of Christ's drawing arm, is, that which ye write of, some feeling of death & Sin that bringeth forth complaints: & therefore out of sense complain more, & be more acquaint with all the cramps, stitches & soul-swooning that trouble you: The more pain & the more night-watching & the more fevers, the better: A soul bleeding to death till Christ were sent for & cried for in all haste to come & stem the blood & close up the hole in the wound, with his own hand & balm, were a very good disease when many are dying of a whole heart. We have all too little of hell-pain & terrors that way: Nay, God send mesuch a hell as Christ hath promised to make a heaven out of. Alas, I am not come that far on in the way as to say in sad earnest, Lord jesus, great & sovereign Physician, here is a pained patient for thee. But the thing that we mistake, is the want of victory, we hold that to be the mark of one that hath no grace: Nay, I say, the want of fight were a mark of no grace, but I shall not say, the want of victory is such a mark. If my fire & the Devil's water make crackling like thunder in the air, I am the less feared; for where there is fire, it is Christ's part that I lay & bind upon him to keep in the coal, and to pray the father that my faith fail not, if I in the mean time be wrestling & doing and sighing and mourning: For prayer putteth not Paul's devil [the prick in the flesh & the messenger of Satan] to the door at first, but our Lord will have them trying every one another and let Paul send himself by God's help, God keeping the stakes & moderating the play: And ye do well not to doubt if the groundstone be sure, but to try if it be so, for there is great odds between doubting that we have grace & trying if we have grace: the former may be sin, but the latter is good. We are but loose in trying our free-holding of Christ & making sure work of Christ: Holy fear is a searching the camp that there be no enemy within our bosom to betray us, & a seeing that all be fast & sure: For I see many lecking vessels fair before the wind, & professors who take their conversion upon trust, & they go on securely & see not to the under-water till a storm sink them: Each man had need twice a day & oftener, to be riped & searched with candles. pray for me that the Lord would give me houseroom again to hold a candle to this dark world. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord & Master, S. R.   

To MARGARET FULLERTON. (154)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am glad that ever ye did cast your love on Christ, fasten more and more love every day upon him. O if I had a river of love, a sea of love that would never go dry, to bestow upon him! But alas the pity, Christ hath beauty for me, but I have not love for him. O what pain is it to see Christ in his beauty, & then to want a heart & love for him! But I see, want we must, till Christ lend us, never to be paid again. O that he would empty these vaults and lower houses of these poor souls, of these bastard and base lovers which we follow! And verily I see no object in heaven or in earth that I could beware this much of love upon that I have, but upon Christ. Alas that clay and time and shadows run away with our love, which is ill spent upon any but upon Christ: each fool at the day of judgement shall seek back his love from the creatures, when he shall see them all in a fair fire, but they shall prove irresponsall debtors: And therefore best here look ere we leap, and look ere we love. I find now under his cross that I would fain give him more than I have to give him, if giving were in my power: But I rather wish him my heart then give him it, except he take it and put himself in possession of it [for I hope he hath a market-right to me, since he hath ransomed me] I see not how Christ can have me. O that he would be pleased to be more homely with my soul's love, and to come in to my soul and take his own! But when he goeth away & hideth himself, all is to me that I had of Christ, as if it had fallen in the seabottom. Oh that I should be so fickle in my love, as to love Christ only by the eyes and the nose! That is, to love him only in as far as fond & foolish sense carrieth me & no more: And when I see not, & smell not, and touch not, than I have all to seek. I cannot love parquier, nor rejoice parquier: But this is our weakness till we be at home & shall have aged men's stomaches to bear Christ's love. Pray for me, that our Lord would bring me back to you with a new blessing of the Gospel of Christ. I forget not you. Grace. grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To WILLIAM GLENDINING. (155.)  
Dear Brother.  
YE are heartily welcome to that honour that Christ hath made common to us both, which is to suffer for his name: Verily I think it my garland & crown, & if the Lord should ask of me my blood & life for this cause, I would gladly in his strength pay due debt to Christ's honour & glory in that kind. Acquaint yourself with Christ's love & ye shall not miss to find new golden mines & treasures in Christ: Nay truly, we but stand beside Christ, we go not in to him to take our fill of him. But if he should do two things, 1. Draw the curtains & make bare his holy face, & then 2. Clear our dim & bleared eyes to see his beauty & glory, he should find many lovers. I would seek no more happiness but a sight of him so near hand as to see, hear, smell, & touch & embrace him: But oh, closed doors & vails & curtains & thick clouds hold me in pain while I find the sweet burning of his love that many waters cannot quench! O what sad hours have I when I think, that love of Christ scarreth at me & bloweth by me! If my Lord Jesus would come to bargaining for his love, I think he should make price himself, I should not refuse ten thousand years in hell, to have a wide soul enlarged & made wider, that I might be exceedingly [even to the running over] filled with his love. O what am I to love such an one, or to be loved by that high & lofty One! I think the Angels may blush to look upon him, & what am I to file such infinite brightness with my sinful eyes? O that Christ would come near & stand still & give me leave to look upon him! For to look seemeth the poor man's privilege, since he may for nothing & without hire behold the sun. I should have a King's life, if I had no other thing to do, but for evermore to behold & eye my fair Lord Jesus: Nay, suppose I were holden out, at heaven's fair entry, I should be happy for evermore to look through an hole in the door & see my dearest & fairest Lords face. O great King, why standest thou aloof? Why remainest thou beyond the mountains? O well-beloved, why dost thou pain a poor soul with delays? a long time out of thy glorious presence is two deaths & two hells to me; We must meet, I must see him, I dow not want him: hunger & longing for Christ hath brought on such a necessity of enjoying Christ, that cost me what it will, I cannot but assure Christ, I will not, I dow not want him: For I cannot master or command Christ's love: nay, hell [as I now think] & all the pains in it laid on me alone, would not put me from loving: Yea, suppose my Lord Jesus would not love me, it is above my strength or power to keep back or imprison the weak love I have, but it must be out to Christ: I would set heaven's joy aside, & live upon Christ's love it's alone: Let me have no joy but the warmness & fire of God's love, I seek no other: God knoweth, if this love be taken from me, the bottom is fallen out of all my happiness & joy; & therefore I believe, Christ will never do me that, as to bereave a poor prisoner of his love, it were cruelty to take it from me, & he who is kindness itself cannot be cruel. Dear Brother, weary not of my sweet Master's chains, we are so much the sibber to Christ that we suffer: Lodge not a hard thought of my royal King: rejoice in his cross: Your deliverance sleepeth not, he that will come is not slack of his promise: Wait on for God's timeous salvation, ask not when or How long? I hope he shall lose nothing of you in the furnace, but dross: Commit your cause in meekness [forgiving your oppressors] to God, and your sentence shall come back from him laughing: Our Bridegroom's day is posting fast on, & this world, that seemeth to go with a long and a short foot, shall be put in two ranks: Wait till your ten days be ended and hope for the crown, Christ will not give you a blind in the end. Commend me to your wife and father, & to Bailiff M. A. And send this letter to him. The prayers of Christ's prisoner be upon you, & the Lord's presence accompany you.  
Aberd. July. 6. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ROBERT LENNO X. of Disdove. (156.)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I beseech you in the Lord Jesus make fast and sure work of life eternal: Sow not rotten seed, every man's work will speak for itself what his seed hath been. O how many see I, who sow to the flesh! Alas what a crop will that be, when the Lord shall put in his hook to reap this world, that is ripe & white for judgement. I recommend to you holiness & sanctification, & that ye keep yourself clean from this present evil world: We delight to tell our own dreams, & to flatter our own flesh with the hope we have: It were wisdom for us to be free, plain, honest & sharp with our own souls, and to charge them to brew better, th●t they may drink well and far well, when time is melted away like snow in a hot summer. O how hard a thing is it to get the soul to give up with all things on this side of death and doomsday! We say we are removing and going from this world; but our heart stirreth not one foot off its seat. Alas I see few heavenly minded souls that have nothing upon the earth, but their body of clay going up and down this earth, because their soul & the powers of it are up in heaven, & there, their hearts live, desire, enjoy, rejoice. Oh mens souls have no wings, and therefore night and day they keep their nest and are not acquaint with Christ! Sir, take you to your one thing, to Christ, that ye may be acquainted with the taste of his sweetness & excellency, & charge your love not to dote upon this world; for it will not do your business in that day, when nothing will come in good stead to you, but God's favour: Build upon Christ some good, choice & fast work; for when your soul for many years hath taken the play & hath posted & wandered through the creatures ye will come home again with the wind: They are not good, at least not the souls good, it is the infinite Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your hunger after happiness: otherwise there shall still be a want of satisfaction to your desires: And if he would cast in ten worlds in your desires, all shall fall thorough, & your soul shall still cry red hunger, black hunger: But I am sure there is sufficient for you in Christ, if ye had seven souls & seven desires in you. Oh if I could make my Lord Jesus market-sweet, lovely desirable & fair to all the world both to Jew and Gentil! O let my part of heaven go for it, sobeing he would take my tongue to be his instrument, to set out Christ in his whole braveries of love, virtue, grace, sweetness & matchless glory, to the eyes & hearts of Jews & Gentiles! But who is sufficient for these things? O for the help of Angels tongues to make Christ eye-sweet and amiable to many thousands! O how little doth this world see of him, & how far are they from the love of him, seeing there is so much loveliness, beauty and sweetness in Christ that no created eye did ever yet see! I would that all men knew his glory, and that I could put many in at the bridegroom's chamber door to see his beauty, & to be partakers of his high and deep and broad and boundless love. O let all the world come nigh and see Christ, and they shall then see more than I can say of him! O if I had had a pledge or pawn to lay down for a seafull of his love! that I could come by somuch of Christ, as would satisfy griening and longing for him, or rather increase it, till I were in full possession! I know we shall meet & therein I rejoice. Sir, stand fast in the truth of Christ, that ye have received: Yield not to winds, but ride out & let Christ be your anchor & the only He, whom ye shall look to see in peace: Pray for me his prisoner, & that the Lord would send me among you to feed his people. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN FLEMING Bailiff of Leith. (157)  
Worthy Sir.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: The Lord hath brought me safe to this strange town: Blessed be his holy name, I find his cross easy and light, and I hope he shall be with his poor sold Joseph, who is separated from his brethren: His comforts have abounded towards me, as if Christ thought shame [if I may speak so] to be in the common of such a poor man as I am, and would not have me lose any thing in his errands: My enemies have, beside their intention, made me more blessed, and have put me in a sweeter possession of Christ, then ever I had before: Only the memory of the fair days I had with my well-beloved amongst the flock entrusted to me, keepeth me low, and soureth my unseen joy: But it must be so, and he is wise who tutoureth me this way: For that which my brethren have and I want, and others of this world have, I am content, my faith will frist God my happiness: No Son offendeth that his father giveth him not hire twice a year, for he is to abide in the house, when the inheritance is to be divided: It is better God's children live upon hope then upon hire. Thus remembering my love to your worthy and kind wife: I bless you and her and all yours in the Lord's name.  
Aberd. Sept 20. 1637. Yours in his only, only Lord jesus. S. R.   

To WILLIAM GLENDINING. Bailiff of Kirkcudbright. [158]  
Worthy Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am well, honour be to God, & aswell as a rejoicing prisoner of Christ can be, hoping that one day He for whom I now suffer shall enlarge me, & put me above the threatenings of men: I am sometimes sad, heavy & casten down at the memory of the fair days I had with Christ in Anwoth, Kirk cudbright & cet: The remembrance of a feast increaseth hunger in a hungry man; but who knoweth but our Lord will yet cover a table in the wilderness to his hungry bairns & build the old waste places in Scotland, & bring home Zion's captives: I desire to see no more glorious sight, till I see the Lamb on his throne, then to see Mount Zion all green with grass, & the dew lying upon the tops of the grass, & the crown put upon Christ's head in Scotland again: And I believe it shall be so, & that Christ shall mow down his enemies & fill the pits with their dead bodies. I find people here dry & uncouth: A man pointed at for suffering dare not be countenanced; so that I am like to sit mine alone upon the ground: But my Lord payeth me well home again, for I have neither tongue nor pen nor heart to express the sweetness & excellency of the love of Christ: Christ's honey-combs drop honey & sloods of consolation upon my soul: My chains are gold: Christ's cross i● all overguilded and perfumed: His prison is the garden and orchard of my delights: I would go through burning quick to my lovely Christ: I sleep in his arms all the night & my head betwixt his breasts: My well-beloved is altogether lovely: This is all nothing to that which my soul hath felt: Let no man for my cause scar at Christ's cross: If my stipend, place, country, credit, had been an Earledom, a Kingdom, ten Kingdoms and a whole earth, all were too little for the crown and sceptre of my royal King: Mine enemies, mine enemies have made me blessed: They have sent me to the bridegroom's chamber: Love is his banner over me: I live a King's life: I want nothing but heaven, and the possession of the crown, my earnest is great, Christ is no niggard to me. Dear Brother, be for the Lord Jesus and his heartbroken bride. I need not [I hope] remember my distressed brother to your care. Remember my love to your wife. Let Christ want nothing of us: His garments shall be rolled in the blood of the slain of Scotland. Grace, grace be with you: pray for Christ's prisoner.  
Aberd. Sept. 21. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON. Of Knockbrex. (159]  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am by God's mercy come now to Aberden, the place of my confinement, & settled in an honest man's house: I find the town's-men cold & general & dry in their kindness, yet I find a lodging in the heart of many strangers: My challenges are revived again, & I find old sores bleeding of new; so dangerous & painful is an undercotted conscience; yet I have an eye to the blood that is physic for such sores: But verily I see Christianity is conceived to be more easy & lighter than it is; so that I sometimes think I never knew any thing, but the letters of that name; for our nature contenteth itself with little in godliness. Our Lord, Lord, seemeth to us ten Lord Lords: little holiness in our balance is much because it is our own hol●ness, & we love to lay small burdens upon our soft natures, & to make a fair courtway to heaven: And I know it were necessary to take more pains than we do, & not to make heaven a city more easily taken than God hath made it: I persuade myself many runners shall come short & get a disappointment. Oh how easy is it to deceive ourselves, & to sleep & wish that heaven may fall down in our laps! Yet for all my Lord's glooms I find him sweet, gracious, loving, kind, & I want both pen & words to set forth the fairness, beauty & sweetness of Christ's love, & the honour of this cross of Christ, which is glorious to me, though the world thinketh shame thereof: I verily think that the cross of Christ would blush & think shame of these thin-skined worldlings, who are so married to their credit that they are ashamed of the sufferings of Christ. O the honour to be scourged, stoned with Christ, & to go through a furious-faced death to life eternal! But men would have Lawborrows against Christ's cross. Now, My dear Brother forget not the prisoner of Christ; for I see very few here who kindly fear God. Grace be with you. Let my love in Christ & hearty affection be remembered to your kind wife, to your Brother john & to all friends. The Lord Jesus be with your Spirit.  
A-bed. Sept. 20. 1636. Yours in his only, only Lord jesus, S. R.   

To EARLESTOWN Younger. 160.  
Much Honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am well, Christ triumpheth in me, blessed be his name: I have all things, I burden no man: I see this earth and the fullness thereof is my father's: sweet, sweet is the cross of my Lord: The blessing of God upon the cross of my Lord Jesus: My enemies have contributed [beside their design] to make me blessed: This is my palace, not my prison, especially, when my Lord shineth & smileth upon his poor afflicted & sold Joseph, who is separated from his brethrens: But often he hideth himself, & there is a day of law, & court of challenges within me; I know not if fenced in God's name, but Oh my neglects! Oh my unseen guiltiness! I imagined that a sufferer for Christ kept The keys of Christ's treasure, & might take out his wombfull of comforts when he pleased; but I see a sufferer & witness will be holden at the door aswell as another poor sinner, & be glad to eat with the bairns & to take the by-board. This cross hath let me see that heaven is not at the next door & that it is a castle not soon taken: I see also, it is neither pain nor art to play the hyprocrite: We have all learned to sell ourselves for double price & to make the people who call ten twenty, & twenty an hundred esteem us half-gods, or men fallen out of the clouds: But Oh sincerity, sincerity, if I knew what sincerity meaneth. Sir, lay the foundation thus & ye shall not soon shrink nor be shaken: Make tied work at the bottom, & your ship shall ride against all storms, if with all your anchor be fastened upon good ground, I mean with in the vail; & verily I think this is All, to gain Christ: All other things are shadows, dreams, fancies & nothing. Sir, remember my love to your mother: I pray for mercy & grace to her: I wish her on-going toward heaven: As I promised to write, so show her, I want nothing in my Lord's service, Christ will not be in such a poor man's common as mine. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 22. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN GORDON. (161)  
Worthy & dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I have been too long in writing to you, but multitude of letters taketh much time from me. I bless his great name whom I serve in the spirit, if it came to voting amongst Angels and men, how excellent and sweet Christ is, even in his reproaches and in his cross; I cannot but vote with the first, that all that is in him, both cross & crown, kisses & glooms, embracements and frownings and strokes are sweet and glorious: God send me no more happiness in heaven or out of heaven, but Christ: For I find this world when I have looked upon it on both sides, within & without, & when I have seen even the laughing and lovely-like side of it, to be but a fool's idol, a clay prison: Lord, let it not be the nest that my hope buildeth in. I have now cause to judge my part of this earth not worth a blast of smoke or a mouthful of brown bread. I wish my Hope may take a running-leap & skip over Time's pleasures, Sin's plastering & gold-●o●e, this vain earth, & rest upon my Lord. O how great is our night-darkness in this wilderness! To have any conceit at all of this world, is, as a man would close his handful of water and holding his hand in the river, say, all the water of the flood is his, as if it were indeed all within the compass of his hand: Who would not laugh at the thoughts of such a crackbrain? Verily they have but an handful of water & are but like a child clasping his two hands about a night-shadow, who idolise any created hope, but God. I ligh lie & put the price of a dream or fable or black nothing upon all things, but upon God & that desirable & loveworthy one my Lord Jesus: Let all the world be nothing [for nothing was their seed & mother] & let God be all things. My very dear Brother, know ye are as near heaven as ye are far from yourself & far from the love of a bewitching & whorish world: For this World in its gain and glory, is but the great and notable common whore that all the sons of men have been in fancy & lust withal these 5000 years: the children that they have begotten with this uncouth & lustful lover are but vanity, dreams, golden imaginations & night-thoughts: For there is no good ground here under the covering of heaven for men & poor wearied souls to set down their foot upon. O he who is called God, that one whom they term jesus Christ, is worth the having indeed, even if● had given away all without my eye-holes, my soul and myself for sweet Jesus my Lord! O let the claim be canceled that the creatures have to me, except that claim my Lord jesus hath to me! Oh that he would claim poor me, my silly, light & worthless soul! O that he would pursue his claim to the utmost point & not want me! For it is my pain & remediless sorrow to want him. I see nothing in this life but sinks & mires & dreams & beguiling ditches & ill ground for us to build upon. I am fully persuaded of Christ's victory in Scotland, but I fear this land be not yet ripe and white for mercy: Yet I dare be halfer [upon my salvation] with the losses of the church of Scotland, that her foes afternoon shall sing dole & sorrow for evermore, and that her joy shall once again be cried up & her sky shall clear: But vengeance & burning shall be to her adversaries & the sinners of this land. Oh that we could be awakened to prayers & humiliation! Then should our sun shine like seven suns in the heaven, than should the temple of Christ be builded upon the mountains tops, & the land from coast to coast should be filled with the glory of the Lord. Brother, your day-task is wearing short, your hourglass of this span-length and hand-breadth of life will quickly pass, & therefore take order & course with matters betwixt you and Christ before it come to open pleading there are no quarters to be had of Christ in open judgement. I know ye see your thread wearing short, & that there are not many inches to the threed's end, and therefore lose not time. Remember me his prisoner, that it would please the Lord to bring me again amongst you with abundance of the Gospel. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr HUGH Mc KAILL. (162)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
I thank you for your letter: I cannot but show you that as I never expected any thing from Christ but much good & kindness, so he hath made me to find it in the house of my pilgrimage? And believe me, Brother, I give it to you under mine own hand-writ, that who so looketh to the white side of Christ's cross and can take it up handsomely with faith and courage shall find it such a burden as 〈◊〉 are to a ship or wings to a bird. I find my Lord hath overguilded that black tree & hath perfumed it & oiled it, with joy & consolation. Like a fool once I would chide & plead with Christ & slander him to others of unkindness, but I trust in God not to call his glooms unkind again, for he hath taken from me my sackcloth, & I verily cannot tell you what a poor sold joseph & prisoner [with whom my mother's children were angry] doth now think of kind Christ: I will chide no more, providing he will quite me all by-gones; for I am poor. I am taught in this ill weather to go on the lee-side of Christ & to put him in between me and the storm, & I thank God I walk on the sunny side of the braes. I write it, that ye may speak in my behalf the praises of my Lord to others, that my bonds may preach. O if all Scotland knew the feasts & love-blenks & visits that the Prelates have sent me unto! I will verily give my Lord Jesus a free discharge of all that I like a fool, laid to his charge, & beg him pardon to the mends. God grant that in my temptations I come not on his wrong side again, and never again fall a raving against my Physician in my fever. Brother, plead with your mother while ye have time: A pulpit would be a high feast to me, but I dare not say one word against him who hath done it, I am not out of the house as yet, my sweet Master saith, I shall have houseroom at his own elbow, albeit their synagogues will need force cast me out. A letter were a work of charity to me. Grace be with you. Pray for me.  
Aberd. Novemb. 22. 1636. Your Brother & Christ's prisoner, S. R.   

To JAMES MURRAY. (163)  
Dear Brother.  
I Received your letter: I am in good health of body, but far better in my soul. I find my Lord no worse than his word, I will be with him in trouble is made good to me now: He heareth the sighing of the prisoner. Brother, I am comforted in my royal Prince and King: This world knoweth not our life, it is a mystery to them: We have the sunny side of the world, and our Paradise is far above theirs, yea our weeping above their laughing, which is but like the crackling of thorns under a pot; And therefore we have good cause to fight it out, for the day of our Laureation is approaching. I find my prison the sweetest place that ev r I was in, my Lord Jesus is kind to me, and hath taken the mask off his face, and is content to quite me, all by-gones: I dare not complain of him. And for my silence, I lay it before Christ, I hope it shall be a speaking silence: He who knoweth what I would, knoweth that my soul desireth no more, but that King Jesus may be great in the North of Scotland, in the South and in the East & West, through my sufferings for the freedom of my Lord's house and Kingdom. If I could keep good quarters in time to come with Christ, I would fear nothing: But Oh! Oh! I complain of my woeful out-breaking; I tremble at the remembrance of a new outcast betwixt him and me, and I have cause, when I consider what sick & sad days I have had for his absence who is now come. I find Christ dough not be long unkind, our Ioseph's bowels yern within him, he cannot smother love long, it must break out at length. Praise, praise with me Brother, & desire my acquaintance to help me: I dare not conceal his love to my soul, I wish you all a part of my feast, that my Lord Jesus may be honoured: I allow you not to hide Christ's bounty to me, when ye meet with such as know Christ. Ye write nothing to me what are the cruel mercies of the Prelates towards me: The ministers of this town, as I hear, intent that I shall be more strictly confined, or else transported, because they find some people affect me. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Nou. 21. 1637. Yours in the Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN FLEMING. Bailiff of Leith. (164)  
My very worthy friend.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter: I bless my Lord through Jesus Christ, I find his word good, Isa, ●8, ●0. I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. And Psal. 91. 15. I will be with him in trouble. I never expected other at Christ's hand, but much good & comfort, & I am not disappointed: I find my Lord's cross overguilded & oiled with comforts: My Lord hath now shown me the white side of his cross: I would not exchange my weeping in prison with the fourteen Prelates laughter amidst their hungry 〈◊〉 lean joys. This world knoweth not the sweetness of Christ's love, it is a mystery to them. At my first coming here, I found great heaviness, especially because it had pleased the Prelates to add this gentle cruelty to my former sufferings [●or it is gentle to them] to inhibit the Ministers of the town to give me the liberty of a pulpit: I said, what adeth Christ at my service? But I was a fool, he hath chided himself friends with me: If ye & others of God's children shall praise his great name who maketh worthless men witnesses for him, my silence & sufferings shall preach more than my tongue could do; if his glory be seen in me I am satisfied; for I want no kindness of Christ: And Sir, I dare not smother his liberality: I write it to you, that ye may praise, & desire your brother & others to join with me in this work. This land shall be made desolate, our iniquities are full: the Lord saith, we shall drink & spew & fall. Remember my love to your good kind wife. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Nou. 23. 1636. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To EARLESTOWN ELDER. Rev. 12: 11. And they overcame the Dragon by the blood of the Lamb & the word of their testimony, & they loved not their lives unto the death. (165)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to see you in paper & to be refreshed by you. I cannot but desire you & charge you to help me to praise him, who feedeth a poor prisoner with the fatness of his house. O how weighty is his love! O but there is much telling in Christ's kindness! The Amen, the faithful & true witness hath paid me my hundred fold well told & one to the hundred: I complained of him, but he is owing me nothing now. Sir, I charge you to help me to praise his goodness, & to proclaim to others my Bridegroom's kindness, whose love is better than wine. I took up an action against Christ & bought a plea against his love, & libelled unkindness against Christ my Lord, & I said, this is my death, he hath forgotten me: But my meek Lord held his peace & beheld me, & would not contend for the last word of flyting, & now hath chided himself friends with me: And now I see, he must be God & I must be flesh: I pass from my summons, I acknowledge he might have given me my fill of it & never troubled himself: But now he háth taken away the mask, I have been comforted, he could not smother his love any longer to a prisoner & a stranger: God grant that I may never buy a plea against Christ again, but may keep good quarters with him. I want no kindness, no love-token; but Oh, wise is his love! for notwithstanding of this hot summer-blenk, I am keeped low with the grief of my silence, for his word is in me as a fire in my bowels, and I see the Lord's vineyard laid waste, & the heathen entered into the sanctuary, and my belly is pained and my soul in heaviness, because the Lord's people is gone into captivity & because of the fury of the Lord & that wind, [but neither to fan nor to purge] that is coming upon Apostate Scotland. Also I am kept awake with the late wrong done to my brother, but I trust ye will counsel & comfort him. Yet in this mist I see & believe, the Lord will heal this halting Kirk & will lay her stones with fair colours & her foundations with Saphires, & will make her windows of Agates & her gates Carbuncles, Isa. 54. 11, 12. And for brass he will bring gold: He hath created the smith that form the sword, no weapon in war shall prosper against use Let us be glad & rejoice in the Lord, for his Salvation is near to come. Remember me to your wife & your son john: And I entreat you to write to me. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Decemb. 30. 1636. Yours in his only, only Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr JOHN FERGUSHILL. [166]  
Reverend & well-beloved in our Lord jesus.  
I Must still provoke you to write by my lines, whereat ye need not wonder; for the cross is full of talk, & speak it must, either good or bad: Neither can grief be silent. I have no dittay nor indictment to bring against Christ's cross, seeing he hath made a friendly agreement betwixt me & it, & we are in terms of love together: If my former miscarriages, & my nowsilent sabbaths seem to me to speak wrath from the Lord, I dare say, it is but Satan borrowing the use & loan of my cowardly & feeble apprehensions, which start at straws: I know faith is not so saint & foolish, as to tremble at every false alarm; Yet I gather this out of it, Blessed are they who are graced of God 〈◊〉 guide a cross well, & that there is some art required herein. I pray God I may not be so ill friend-stead, as that Christ my Lord should leave me to be my own Tutor & my own Physician. Shall I not think but my Lord Jesus who deserveth his own place very well, will take his own place upon him, as it becometh him, & that he will fill his own chair? For in this is his office, to comfort us, & thes that are casten down in all their tribulations. 2 Cor. 1. 4. Alas I know I am a fool to seek an hole or defect in Christ's way with my soul. If I have not a stock to pre sent to Christ at his appearance, yet I pray God I may be able with joy, faith & constancy, to show the Captain of my savation in that day, a bloody head that I received in his service: howbeit my faith hang by a small tack & thread, I hope the tack shall not break: & howbeit my Lord get no service of me but broken wishes; yet I trust these shall be accepted upon Christ's account. I have nothing to comfort me, but that I say, Oh will the Lod disappoint an hungry onwaiter? The smell of Christ's wine & apples which surposse the uptaking of dull sense, bloweth upon my soul, & I get no more for the mean time: I am sure to let a famishing body see meat & give him none of it, is a double pain: Our Lord's love it not so cruel as to let a poor man see Christ & heaven & never give him more, for want of money to buy; nay, I rather think Christ such fair market-wares, as buyers may have ●it out money & without price: And thus I know it shall not stand upon my want of money; for Christ upon his own charges must buy my wedding garment, & redeem the inheritance which I have forfeited, & give his word for one the like of me, who am not law-biding of myself: Poor folks must either borrow or beg from the rich, & the only thing that commendeth sinners to Christ is extreme necessity & want: Christ's love is ready to make & provide a ransom & money for a poor body who hath lost his his purse. Ho, ye that have no money come & buy Isa: 55. 1. That is the poor man's market. Now Brother I see old crosses would have done nothing at me, & therefore Christ hath taken a new fresh rod to me, that seemeth to talk with my soul, & make me tremble. I have often more ado now with faith when I lose my compass, & am blown on a rock, than these who are my beholders standing upon the shore are aware of: a counsel to a sick man is sooner given then taken: Lord send the wearied man a borrowed bed from Christ: I think often it is after supper with me, & I am heavy: O but I would sleep sound with Christ's left hand under my head & his right hand embracing me: the devil could not spill that bed. When I consider how tenderly Christ hath cared for me in this prison, I think he hath handled me as the bairn that it pitied & bemoaned: I desire no more till I be in heaven; but such a feast & fill of Christ's love as I would have: This love would be fair & adorning passements, which would beautify & set forth my black unpleasant cross: I cannot tell, my Dear Brother, what a great lead I would bear if I had a hearty fill of the love of that lovely one, Christ jesus: Oh if ye would seek & pray for that to me! I would give Christ all his love styles and titles of honour if he would give me but this; nay, I would sell myself (if I could) for that love. I have been waiting to see what friends of place & power would do for us; But when the Lord looseth the pins of his own Tabernacle, he will have himself to be acknowledged as the only builder up thereof, & therefore I would take back again my hope that I lent and laid in pawn in men's hands & give it wholly to Christ: it is no time for me now to set up idols of my own, it were a pity to give an ounce weight of hope to any besides Christ: I think him well worthy or all my hope, though it were as weighty as both heaven & earth: Happy were I, if I had any thing that Christ would seek or accept of: But now alas I see not what service I can do to him, except it to be talk a little & babble upon a piece of paper, concerning the love of Christ. I am often as if my faith were wedset so that I cannot command it, and then when he hideth himself, I run to the other extreme, in making each wing and toe of my case as big as a mountain of iron: And then misbelief can spin out an hell of heavy & desponding thoughts; then Christ seeketh lawborrows of my unbelieving apprehensions, & chargeth me to believe his daylight at midnight: But I make pleas with Christ, though it be ill my common so to do: It were my happiness when I am in his house of wine & when I find a feast-day, if I could hearken & hear for the time to come, Isa: 42. 3. But I see we must be off our feet in wading a deep water; & then Christ's love findeth timeous employment at such a dead lift as that: And besides, after broken brows, bairns learn to walk more circumspectly: If I come to heaven any way, howbeit like a tired traveller upon my guide's shoulder, it's good enough for these who have no legs of their own for such a journey: I never thought there had been need of so much wrestling to win to the top of that ste●p mountain as now I find. Woe's me for this broken & backsliding Church, it is like an old bowing wall, leaning to the one side, & there is none of all her sons who will set a prop under her: I know I need not bemoan Christ; for he careth for his own honour more than I can do; but who can blame me to be woe [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had grace so to do] to see my well-beloved ', fair face spitted upon, & his crown plucked off hi● head, & the ark of God taken & carried in the Philistines ca●t, and the ●ine put to carry it who will let it fall to the ground? The Lord put to his own helping hand. I would desire you to prepare yourself for a fight with beast, ye will not get leave to steel quietly to heaven in Christ's company without a conflict & a cross. Remember my bonds, & praise my second, & fellow prisoner, Christ. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in Christ jesus his Lord. S. R.   

To WILLIAM GLENDINNING. (167)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Your ease is unknown to me, whether ye be yet our Lord's prisoner at W●gton or not: However it be, I know our Lord jesus hath been enquiring for you, & that he hath honoured you to bear his chains, which is the golden end of his cross, & so hath wailed out a chosen & honourable cross for you: I wish you much joy & comfort of it, for I have nothing to say of Christ's cross but much good, I hope my ill word shall never meet either Christ or his sweet & easy cross. I know he seeketh of us an outcast with this house of clay, this mother-prison, this earth, that we love fall well: & verily, when Christ snuffeth my candle & causeth my light to shine upward, it is one of my greatest wonders that dirt & clay hath so much court with a soul not made of clay, & that our soul goeth out of kind so far; as to make an idol of this earth, such a deformed harlot, as that it should wrong Christ of our love. How fast, how fast doth our ship sail! And how fair a wind hath Time to blow us off these coasts & this land of dying & perishing things! And alas, our ship saileth one way & fleeth many miles in one hour to hasten us upon eternity, & our love & hearts are sailing close back over & swimming towards ease, lawless pleasure, vain honour, perishing riches, & to build a fool's nest I know not where, & to lay our eggs within the sea-mark, & fasten our bits of broken anchors upon the worst ground in the world, this fleetting & perishing life; & in the mean while, time & tide carry us upon another life, & there is daily less & less oil in our lamp, & less & less sand in our watch-glass. O what a wise course were it for us, to look away from the false beauty of our borrowed prison, & to mind & eye & lust for our country! Lord, Lord, take us home. And for myself, I think, if a poor, weak, dying sheep seek for an old dike & the lee-side of an hill in a storm, I have cause to long for a covert from this storm in heaven: I know none will take my room over my head there; But certainly sleepy bodies would be at rest & a well made bed, & an old crazed bark at a shore, & a wearied traveller at home & a breathless horse at the rink's end. I see nothing in this life but sin & the sour fruits of sin: And O what a burden is sin; & what a slavery & miserable bondage is it, to be at the nod & yeas & nay's of such a lord-master as a body of sin! Truly when I think of it, it is a wonder that Christ maketh not fire & ashes of such a dry branch as I am. I would often lie down under Christ's feet, & bid him trample upon me, when I consider my guiltiness: But seeing he hath sworn that sin shall not lose his unchangeable covenant, I keep houseroom amongst the rest of the ill learned bairns, & must cumber the Lord of the house with with the rest, till my Lord take the fetters off legs & arms, & destroy this body of sin, & make a hole or a breach in this cage of earth, that the bird may flee out and the imprisoned soul be at liberty. In the mean time the least intimation of Christ's love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the Bridegroom holdeth me in some joyful onwaiting, that when Christ's summer-birds shall sing upon the branches of the tree of life, I shall be tuned by God himself to help them to sing the home-coming of our well-beloved & his Bride to their house together. When I think of this, I think winters & summers & years & days & time do me a pleasure that they shorten this untwisted & weak thread of my life, & that they put sin & miseries by hand, & that they shall carry me to my Bridegroom within a clap. Dear Brother, pray for me, that it would please the Lord of the vineyard to give me houseroom to preach his righteousness again to the great congregation. Grace, grace be with you. Remember me to your wife.  
Aberd. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady CULROSS. Rev. 7: 14. These are they which came out of great tribulation, & have washed their robes & made them white in the blood of the Lamb. [168]  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be multiplied upon you: I greatly long to be refreshed with your letter: I am now [all honour & glory to the King eternal, immortal & invisible] in better terms with Christ than I was. I like a fool summoned my husband & Lord, & libelled unkindness against him, but now I pass from that foolish pursuit, I give over the plea, he is God & I am man: I was losing a fast stone & digging at the groundstone [the love of my Lord] to shake & unsettle it, but God be thanked, it is fast, all i● sure: In my prison he hath shown me daylight; he dow not hide his love any longer: Christ was disguised & masked, & I apprehended it was not he, & he hath said It is 〈…〉, be not afraid: And now his love is better than wine. Oh that all the virgins had part of the Bridegroom's love, whereupon he maketh me to feed! Help me to praise: I charge you, Madam, help me to pay praises, & tell others, the daughters of Jerusalem, how kind Christ is to a poor prisoner: he hath paid me my hundred fold, it is well told me & one to the hundred: I am nothing behind with Christ: Let not fools, because of their lazy soft flesh, raise a slander & an ill report upon the cross of Christ, it is sweeter than fair: I see, grace groweth best in winter: This poor, persecuted Kirk, this lily amongst the thorns, shall blossom and laugh upon the gardener, the husband-man's blessing shall light upon it. Oh if I could be free of jealousies of Christ after this, & believe & keep good quarters with my dearest husband! for he hath been kind to the stranger: & yet in all this fair hot summer-weather, I am keeped from saying 〈◊〉 is good to be here, with my silence, & with grief to see my mother wou ded & her vail taken from her, & the fair Temple casten down: & my belly is pained, my soul is heavy for the captivity of the daughter of my people, & because of the fury of the Lord & his fierce indignation against Apostate Scotland. I pray you, Madam, let me have that which is my prayer here, that my sufferings may preach to the four quarters of this land, and therefore tell others how openhanded Christ hath been to the prisoner and the oppressed stranger: Why should I conceal it? I know no other way how to glorify Chri●t, but to make an open proclamation of his love, and of his his soft and sweet kisses to me in the furnace, & of his fidelity to such as suffer for him. Give it me under your hand that ye will help me to pray & praise, but rather to praise & rejoice in the salvation of God. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Dec. 30. 1636. Yours in his dearest & only, only Lord jesus, S. R   

To the Lady CARDONNESS. (169)  
My dearly beloved & longed for in the Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear how your soul Prospereth & how the Kingdom of Christ thriveth in you. I exhort you & beseech you in the bowels of Christ faint not, weary not: There is a great necessity of heaven, ye must needs have it: All other things, as houses, lands, children, husband, friends, country, credit, health, wealth, honour, may be wanted; but Heaven is your one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be taken from you: See that ye buy the field where the pearl is, sell all & make a purchase of salvation: think it not easy, for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory: Many are lying dead by the way that are slain with security. I have now been led by my Lord Jesus to such a nick in Christianity as I think little of former things. Oh what I want! I want so many things, that I am almost ask if I had any thing at all: Every man thinketh he is rich enough in grace, till he take out his purse & tell his money, & then he findeth his pack but poor & light in the day of a heavy trial. I found I had not to bear my expenses, and should have fainted if want & penury had not chased me to the store-house of all. I beseech you, make couscience of your ways, deal kindly & with conscience with your Tenants: to fill a breach or a hole make not a greater breach in the conscience: I wish plenty of love to your soul: let the world be the portion of bastards, make it not yours: after the last trumpet is blown, the world & all its glory will be like an old house that is burnt to ashes, & like an old fallen castle without a roof. Fie, fie upon us fools who think ourselves debtors to the world. My Lord hath brought me to this, that I would not give a drink of cold water for this world's kindness: I wonder that men long after, love, or care for these feathers: it is almost an uncouth world to me to think, that men are so mad as to block with dead earth: to give cut conscience & to get in clay again, is a strange bargain. I have written my mind at length to your husband, write to me again his case, I cannot forget him in my prayers, I am looking Christ hath some claim to him: My counsel is, that ye bear with him when passion overtaketh him, A soft answer putteth away wrath, answer him in what he speaketh & apply yourself in the fear of God to him, & then ye will remove a pound weight of your heavy cross that way, & so it shall become light. When Christ hideth himself, wait on & make di● till he return, it is not time then to be carelessly patient; I love it to be grieved when he hideth his smiles: yet believe his love in a patient onwaiting and believing in the dark: Ye must learn to swim & hold up your head above the water, even when the sense of his presence is not with you, to hold up your chin: I trust in God, he shall bring your ship safe to land. I counsel you to study sanctification, & to be dead to this world: urge kindness on Knockbrex, labour to benefit by his company, the man is acquaint with Christ. I beg the help of your prayers, for I forget not you: counsel your husband to fulfil my joy & to seek the Lord's face, show him from me that my joy & desire is to hear he is in the Lord, God casteth him often in my mind, I cannot forget him, I hope Christ & he have something to do together: Bless john from me, I write blessings to him & to your husband & the rest of your children. Let it not be said, I am not in your house, through neglect of the Sabbath-exercise.  
Aberd. Febr. 20. 1637. Your lawful & loving Pasior in his only, only Lord, S. R.   

To JONET McCULLOCH. [170]  
Dear Sister.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I am as well as a prisoner of Christ can be, feasted & made fat with the comforts of God: Christ's kisses are made sweeter to my soul then ever they were. I would not change my Master with all the Kings of clay upon the earth. O, my well-beloved is altogether lovely & loving! I care not what flesh can do. I persuade my soul, I delivered the truth of Christ to you, slip not from it for no boasts or fear of men: If ye go against the truth of Christ that I now suffer for, I shall bear witness against you in the day of Christ. Sister, fasten your grips fast on Christ, follow not the guises of this sinful world: Let not this clay-portion of earth take up your soul, it is the portion of bastards, & ye are a child of God, therefore seek your father's heritage, send up your heart to see the dwelling house & fair rooms in the new City: Fie, sy upon these who cry up with the World & down with Conscience & Heaven: We have bairns wits, & therefore we cannot prise Christ aright. Counsel your husband & mother to make them for eternity, that day is drawing nigh. Pray for me the prisoner of Christ; I cannot forget you.  
Aberd. Febr. 20. 1637. Your lawful Pasior & Brother, S. R.   

To my Lord CRAIGHALL. [171]  
My Lord.  
I Received Mr Ls letter with your Lo: & his learned thoughts in the matter of Ceremonies: I owe respect to the man's learning, for that I hear him opposite to Arminian Heresies: but [with reverence of that worthy man] I wonder to hear such popish-like expression as he hath in his letter, as, Your Lo: may spare doubtings when the King & Church have agreed in the settling of such orders, & the Church's direction in things indifferent & circumstantial [as if Indifferent & Circumstantial were all one] should be the rule of every private Christian. I only viewed the papers in two hour, space, the bearer hasting me to write. I find the worthy man not so seen in this controversy, as some turbulent men of our country, as he calleth refusers of conformity: And let me say it, I am more confirmed in nonconformity, when I see such a great 〈◊〉 it play the agent so slenderly; but I will lay the blame on the weakness of the cause, not on the meanness of Mr Ls. learning. I have ever been & still I am confident that Britain cannot answer one argument a scandalo, & I longed much to hear Mr L. speak to the cause, & I would say, if some ordinary Divine had answered as Mr L. doth, that he understood not the nature of a Scandal: but I dare not vilify, that worthyman so. I am now upon the heat of some other employment, I shall, but God willing, answer this to the satisfying of any not prejudged. I will not say that every one is acquaint with the reason in my letter from God's presence & bright shining face in suffering for this cause, Aristotle never knew the medium of the clusion, & Christ saith few know it. See Rev. 2. 17. I am sure a conscience standinginaw of the Almighty, & fearing to make a little hole in the bottom for fear of under-water, is a strong medium to hold off an erroneous conclusion in the least wing or lithe of sweet, sweet Truth, that concerneth the royal Prerogative of our Kingly & highest Lord Jesus: And my witness is in heaven, I saw neither pleasure nor profit nor honour to hook me or catch me in entering in prison for Christ, but the wind on my face for the present: & if I had loved to sleep in a whole skin with the ease & present delight that I saw on this side of sun & moon, I should have lived at ease in good hopes to far as well as others. The Lord knoweth, I preferred preaching of Christ & still do, to any thing next to Christ himself, & their new Canons took my one, my one joy from me, which was to me as the poor man's one eye that had no moe, & alas, there is little lodging in their heart for pity or mercy, to pluck out a poor man's one eye for a thing indifferent, id est, for knots of straws & things [as they mean] off the way to heaven. I desire not that my name take journey & go a pilgrim to Cambridge, for fear I come in the ears of Authority: I am sufficiently burnt already. In the mean time be pleased to try if the Bishop of Saint Andrew's, & Glasgow, Galloway's Ordinary, will be pleased to abate from the heat of their wrath and let me go to my charge. Few know the heart of a prisoner, yet I hope the Lord shall hew his own glory out of as knotty timber as I am. Keep Christ, my dear & worthy Lord: pretended paper-arguments from angering the mother-Church that can reel & nod & stagger, are not of such weight as peace with the father & husband: let the wife gloom, I care not, if the husband laugh, Remember my service to my Lord your father, & Mother, & your Lady. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Jan. 24. 1637. Yours at all obodience in Christ, S, R.   

To his Reverend & dear Brother Mr ROBERT BLAIR. (172).  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
THe reason ye gave for your not writing to me, affecteth me much & giveth me a dash, when such an one as ye conceive an opinion of me or any thing in me: The truth is, when I come home to myself, O what penury do I find, and how feckless is my supposed stock, & how little have I! He to whom I am as crystal & who seeth through me & perceiveth the least mote that is in me, knoweth that I speak what I think & am convinced of: But men cast me through a gross & wide sieve: my very dear Brother, the room of the least of all saints is too great for the like of me: But lest this should seem art to fetch home reputation I speak no more of it: It is my worth to be Christ's ransomed sinner & sick one: His relation to me, is, that I am sick & He is the physician of whom I stand in need: Alas, how often play I fast & lose with Christ: He bindeth I lose, he buildeth I cast down, he t●immeth up a salvation for me & I mar it, I cast out with Christ & he agreeth with me again twenty times a day, I forfeit my Kingdom & heritage, I lose what I had; but Christ is at my back, and following on to stoop & take up that falleth from me: Were I in heaven & had the crown on my head, if Freewill were my tutor I should lose heaven; seeing I lose myself, what wonder I should let go & lose Jesus my Lord: O well to me for evermore that I have cracked my credit with Christ, & cannot by law at all borrow from him upon my feckless & worthless bond & faith! for my faith & reputation with Christ, is, that I am a creature that God will not put any trust into; I was, & am bewildered with temptations, & wanted a guide to heaven. O what have I to say of that excellent, surpassing & supereminent thing they call The Grace of God, the way of free redemption in Christ! And when poor poor I, dead in law, was sold, fettered & imprisoned in Justice's closest ward, which is hell & damnation; when I a wretched one lighted upon noble jesus, eternally kind jesus, tender hearted jesus, nay, when he lighted upon me first & knew me, I found that he scorned to take a price or any thing like hire of Angels, or Seraphims, or any of his creatures; and therefore I would praise him for this, that the whole army of the redeemed ones sit rentfree in heaven: Our holding is better than Blench: We are all Freeholders', & seeing our eternal feuduty is but thanks, Oh woeful me that I have but spilt thanks & broken, lame & miscarried praises to give him, & so my silver is not good & current with Christ, were it not that free merits have stamped it & washen it & me both! And for my silence, I see somewhat better through it now: If my high & lofty one, my princely & Royal Master say, Hold, hold thy peace, I lay bonds on thee thou speak none, I would fain be content, & let my fire be smothered under ashes, without light or flame, I cannot help it, I take laws from my Lord, but I give none. As for your journey to F. ye do well to follow it: The camp in Christ's ordinary bed: A carried bed is kindly to the Beloved down in this lower house: It may be, & who knoweth but our Lord hath some Centurions ye are sent to: Seeing your angry mother denieth you lodging & houseroom with her, Christ's call to unknown faces must be your second wind, seeing ye cannot have a first. O that our Lord would water again with a new visit this piece withered & dry hill of our widow-mount Zion! my Dear Brother, I will think it comfort if ye speak my name to our well-beloved: wherever ye are I am mindful of you. O that the Lord would yet make the light of the moon in Scotland like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven fold brighter. For myself, as yet I have received no answer whither to go: I wait on: O that Jesus had my love! Let matters frame as they list, I have some more to do with Christ; yet I would fain we were nearer. Now, the great shepherd of the sheep, the very God of peace, establish & confirm you till the day of his coming.  
Aberd. Sept. 9, 1637. Yours in his lovely & sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady CARLETON. (173)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: My soul longeth once again to be amongst you, & to behold that beauty of the Lord that I would see in his house: But I know not if he in whose hands are all our waves seeth it expedient for his glory; I owe my Lord [I know] submission of spirit, suppose he should turn me into a stone or pillar o● salt. Oh that I were He, in whom my Lord could be glorified, suppose my little heaven were forfeited to buy glory to him before men and Angels, suppose my want of his presence, and separation from Christ were a pillar as high as ten heavens for Christ's glory to stand upon above all the world! What am I to him? How little am I [though my feathers stood out as broad as the morning light] to such a high, to such a lofty, to such a never-enough admired & glorious Lord? My trials are heavy, b●cause of my sad sabbaths; but I know they are less than my high provocations: I seek no more but that Christ may be the gainer and I the loser, that he may be raised and heightened, and I cried down, and my worth made dust before his glory. Oh that Scotland, all with one shout, would cry up Christ, and that his name were high in this land! I find the very utmost borders of Christ's high excellency and deep sweetness heaven and earth's wonder. O what is he, if I could win in to see his inner side! Oh I am run d●y of loving and wondering and adoring of that greatest & most admirable one! Woe, woe is me I have not half-love for him! Alas what can my drop do to his great sea! What gain is it to Christ that I have casten my little sparkle in his great fire! What can I give to him? Oh that I had love to fill a thousand worlds, that I might empty my soul of it all upon Christ! I think I have now just reason to quite my part of any hope or love that I have to this scum and the refuse of the dross of God's work-man●hip, this vain earth: I owe to this stormy world [whose kindness 〈◊〉. heart to me hath been made of iron, or of a piece of a wild sea-Island, that never a creature of God yet lodged in] not a look: I owe it no love, no hope; & therefore Oh if my love were dead to it, & my soul dead to it! What am I obliged to this house of my pilgrimage? A straw for all that God hath made, to my soul's liking, except God & that lovely one jesus Christ: Seeing I am not this world's debtor, I desire I may be striped of all confidence in any thing but my Lord, that he may be for me, & I for my only, only, only Lord; that he may be the morning & evening-tide, the top & the root of my joys, & the heart & flower & yolk of all my soul's delights. O let me never lodge any creature in my heart & confidence! Let the house be for him: I rejoice that sad days cut off a piece of the lease of my short life, & that my shadow [even while I suffer] weareth long, & my evening hasteneth on: I have cause to love home with all my heart, & to take the opportunity of the day to hasten to the end of my journey, before the night come on wherein a man cannot see to walk or work; that once after my falls I may at, night fall in, weary and tired as I am, in Christ's bosom, & betwixt his breasts: Our prison cannot be our best country: This world looketh not like heaven & the happiness that our tired souls will be at; & therefore it were good to seek about for the wind, & hoist up our sails towards our new Jerusalem, for that is our best. Remember a prisoner to Christ. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his only Lord & Master, S. R.   

To my Lord CRAIGHALL. (174)  
My Lord.  
I Received one letter of your Lo: from C & another of late from A. B. wherein I find your Lo: in perplexity what to do: But let me entreat your Lo: not to cause yourself mistake Truth & Christ, because they seem to encounter with your peace & ease: My Lord, remember that a prisoner ●ath written it to you, As the Lord liveth, if ye put to your hand with other Apostates in this land, to pull down the sometime beautiful tabernacle of Christ in this land, & join hands with th●m in one hairbreadth to welcome Antichrist to Scotland, there is wrath gone out from the Lord against you & your house. If the terror of a King hath overtaken you, & your Lo: looketh to sleep in your nest in peace & to take the nearest shore, there are many ways, too too many ways how to shift Christ with some ill-washen and foul distinctions; but assure yourself, suppose a King should assure you he would be your God [as he shall never be, for that piece of service] your clay-god shall die and your carnal counsellors, when your conscience shall storm against you, & ye complain to them, they will say, What is that to us? Believe not that Christ is weak, or that he is not able to save: Of two fires that ye cannot pass, take the least: Some few years will bring us all out in our black's and white's before our Judge, Eternity is nearer to you than ye are aware of: To go on in a course of defection, when an enlightened conscience is stirring, & looking you in the face, & crying within you, That ye are going in an evil way, is, a step to the sin against the holy Ghost: Either many of this land are near that sin, or else I know not what it is: And if this for which I now suffer be not the way of peace, & the King's highway to salvation, I believe there is not a way at all: There is not such breadth and elbow-room in the way to heaven as men believe, Howbeit this day be not Christ's, the morrow shall be his: I believe assuredly our Lord shall repair the old ●a●e places and his ruined house in Scotland; & this wilderness shall yet blossom as the rose. My very worthy & dear Lord, Wait upon him who hideth his face from the house of Jacob & look for him: wait patiently a little upon the bridegroom's return again, that your soul may live and ye may rejoice with the Lord's inheritance: I dare pawned my life and soul for it, if ye take this storm with bor●-down Christ, your sky shall quickly clear, & you● fair morning dawn. Think [as the truth is] that Christ is just now saying, And will ye also leave me? Ye have a fair occasion to gratify Christ now, if ye will stay with him, & want the night's sleep with your suffering Saviour one hour, now when Scotland hath fallen asleep and leaveth Christ to fend for himself. I profess myself but a weak feeble man, when I came first to Christ's camp I had nothing to maintain this war or to bear me out in this encounter, and I am little better yet; but since, I find furniture, armour and strength from the consecrated Captain, the Prince of our salvation, who was perfected though suffering, I esteem suffering for Christ a King's life: I find that our wants qualify us for Christ; & howbeit your Lo: write, ye despair to attain to such a communion & fellowship [which I would not have you to think] yet would ye nobly and courageously venture to make over to Christ, for his honour now lying at the stake, your estate, place and honour; He would lovingly and largely requite you, and give you a King's word for a recompense: Venture upon Christ's come, and I dare swear ye shall say as it is Psal: 16: 7. I bless the Lord who gave me counsel. My very worthy Lord, many eyes in both the kingdoms are upon you now, and the eye of our Lord is upon you, acquit yourself manfully for Christ: Spill not this good play: Subscribe a blank submission, and put it in Christ's hands: Win, win the blessings and prayers of your sighing and sorrowful mother-church seeking your help: Win Christ's bond [who is a King of his word] for a hundred fold more even in this life. If a weak man hath passed a promise to a King to make a slip to Christ [if we look to flesh & blood I wonder not of it, possibly. I might have done worse myself, but] add not further guiltiness to go on in such a scandalous and foul way: Remember that there is a we, ●oe to him by whom offences come: This woe came out of Christ's m●ut●, and it is heavier than the woe of the Law: It is the Mediato●'s vengeance, & that is two vengeances to these who are enlightened: Free yourself from unlawful anguish about advising and resolving: When the truth is come to your hand, hold it fast, go not again to make a new search and enquiry for truth: It is easy to cause conscience believe as ye will, not as ye know: It is easy for you to cast your light into prison, and detain God's truth in unrighteousness; But that prisoner will break ward to your incomparable torture: Fear your light, and stand in awe of it, for it is from God: Think what honour it is in this life also to ●e ●nrolled to the succeeding ages amongst Christ's witnesses, standing against the reentry of Antichrist: I know certainly your light looking to two ways, and to the two sides, cryeth shame upon the course that they would counsel you to follow: The way that is halfer and compartner with the smoke of this fat world & with ease, smelleth strong of a foul & false way. The Prince of peace, he who brought again from the dead, the great shepherd of his sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish you, and give you sound light, & counsel you to follow Christ. Remember my obliged service to my Lord your Father, & Mother, & your Lady. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Agust. 10. 1637, Your Lo: at all obliged obedience in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JEAN GORDON. (175)  
My very dear & loving Sister.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you: I exhort you to set up the brac to the King's city that must be taken with violence: Your afternoon's sun is wearing low: Time will eat up your frail life like a worm gnawing at the root of a May-flower: Lend Christ your heart: Set him as a seal there: Take him in within, & let the world and children stand at the door; they are not yours, make you and them for your proper owner, Christ: It is good He is your husband and their father: What missing can there be of a dying man, when God filleth his chair? Give hours of the day to prayer: Fash Christ [If I may speak so] and importune him, be often at his gate, give his door no rest; I can tell you he will be found: O what sweet fellowship is betwixt him and me! I am imprisoned, but he is not imprisoned: He hath shamed me with his kindness: He hath come to my p●ison & run away with my heart & all my love: Well may he brook it: I wish my love get never an owner but Christ: Fie, fie upon old lovers that held us so long asunder! We shall not parr now: He & I shall be heard before he win out of my grips: I resolve to wrestle with Christ ere I quite him: But my love to him hath casten my soul in a fever, & there is no cooling of my fever till I get r●all possession of Christ: O strong, strong love of Jesus, thou hast wounded my heart with thine arrows! O pain! O pain of love io● Christ! Who will help me to praise? Let me have your prayers. Grace be with you,  
Aberd. March. 13. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To GRISSAL FULLERTON. (176)  
Dear Sister.  
I Exhorr you in the Lord to seek your one thing, Mary's good part that shall not be taken from you: Set your heart & soul on the children's inheritance: This clay-idol the world, is but for Bastards & ye are his lawful begotten child: Learn the way [as your dear mother hath hath gone before you] to knock at Christ's door: Many an alms of mercy hath Christ given to Her, & hath abundance behind to give to you: Ye are the seed of the faithful & born within the Covenant, claim your right. I would not exchange Christ Jesus for ten worlds of glory: I know now [blessed be my teacher] how to shut the lock & unbolt my well-beloved's door, & he maketh a poor stanger welcome when he cometh to his house: I am swelled up & satisfied with the love of Christ that is better than wine: It is a fire in my soul; let hell & the world cast water on it, they will not mend themselves: I have now gotten the right gate of Christ: I recommend him to you above all things: Come & find the smell of his breath: See if his kisses be not sweet: He desireth no better than to be much made of: Be homely with him & ye shall be the more welcome: Ye know not how fain Christ would have all your love. Think not this is imaginations & bairns-play we make din for: I would not suffer for it if it were so: I dare pawned my heaven for it, that it is the way to glory: Think much of truth, & abhor these ways devised by men in God's worship. The Grace of Christ be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To PATRICK CARSEN, (177)  
Dear & loving friend.  
I Cannot but upon the opportunity of a bearer exhort you to re●gn● the love of your youth to Christ, & in this day while your sun is high and your youth serveth you, to seek the Lord and his face; for there is nothing out of heaven so necessary for you as Christ: And ye cannot be ignorant but your day will end, & the night of death will call you from the pleasures of this life, & a doom given out in death standeth for ever as long as God liveth. Youth ordinarily is a Post & ready servant for Satan to run errands; for it is a nest for lust, cursing, drunkenness, blaspheming of God, lying, pride & vanity. O that there were such an heart in you as to fear the Lord, & to dedicate your soul & body to his service: When the time cometh that your eyestrings shall break, & your face wax pale, and legs & arms tremble, & your breath grow cold, & your poor soul look out at you● prisonhouse of clay to be set at liberty; then a good conscience & your Lord's favour shall be worth all the world's glory: Seek it as your garland & crown. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1636. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To JOHN CARSEN. (178)  
My well-beloved & dear friend.  
EVery one seeks not God, & far fewer find him, because they seek amiss: He is to be sought for above all things, if men would find what they seek: Let feathers & shadows alone to children & go seek your well-beloved: Your only errand to the world, is, to woo Christ; therefore put other lovers from about his house, & let Christ have all your love, without miniching or dividing it: It is little enough if there were more of it: The serving of the world & sin hath but a base reward, & smoke in stead of pleatures, & but a night-dream for true case to the soul: Go where ye will your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom: Come in to him & lie down & rest you on the slain Son of God & inquire for him: I sought him, & now a fig for all the wormeaten pleasures, & motheaten glory out of heaven, since I have found him, & in him all I can want or ●ish: He hath made me a King over the world: Princes cannot overcome me: Christ hath given me the marriage-kiss, & he hath my ma●●ing- love: We have made up a full bargain that shall not go back on either side: O if ye and all in that country knew what sweet terms of mercy are betwixt him & me! Grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 11. 1637, Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To my Lady BOYD. [179]  
MADAM.  
I Would have written to your La: ere now, but people's believing there is in me that which I know there is not, hath put me out of love with writing to any; for it is easy to put religion to a market & public fair, but alas it is not so soon made eye-sweet for Christ: My Lord seeth me a tired man far behind: I have gotten much love from Christ, but I give him little or none again: My whiteside cometh out in paper to men, but at home & within, I find much black work, & great cause of a low sail & of little boasting; & yet Howbeit I see challenges to be true, the manner of the Tempter's pressing of them is unhonest, & in my own thoughts knavish-like: My peace is, that Christ may find sale & ●uting of his wares in the like of me, I mean for saving grace: I wish all professors to fall in love with Grace; All ou● songs should be of his freegrace: We are but too lazy and careless in seeking of it: It is all our riches we have here, & glory in the bud: I wish I could set out ●ree Grace: I was the Law's man & under the Law, & under a curse; but Grace brought me from under that hard Lord, & I rejoice that I am Grace's Freeholder: I pay tribute to none for heaven, seeing my land & heritage holdeth of Christ my new King: Infinite wisdom hath devised this excellent way of Free-holding for sinners: It is a better way to heaven then the old way that was in Adam's days: It hath this fair advantage that no man's emptiness & want layeth an inhibition upon Christ or hindereth his salvation: [& that is far best for me] but our new Landlord putteth the names of Dyvours & Adam's forlorn Heirs, & beggars & crooked & blind in the free charters: Heaven & Angels may wonder that we have gotten such a gate of sin & hell: Such a back-entry out of hell as Christ made & brought out the captives by, is, more than my poor shallow thoughts can comprehend: I would think sufferings, glory [& I am sometimes not far from it] if my Lord would give me a new alms of free grace. I hear that the Prelates are intending banishment for me; but for more grace, & no other hire, I would make it welcome: The bits of this clay-house, the earth, & the other side of the sea, are my father's: If my sweet Lord Jesus would bud my sufferings with a new measure of grace, I were a rich man: But I have not now of a long time found such high springtides as formerly: The sea is out, & the wind of his Spirit calm, & I cannot buy a wind, or by requesting the sea cause it to flow again; only I wait on, upon the banks & shore-side, till the Lord send a full sea, that with up-sailes I may lift up Christ: Yet sorrow for his absence is sweet, & sighs with Saw ye him whom my soul loveth, have their own delights: Oh that I might gather hunger against his long-looked for return! Well were my soul if Christ were the element, mine own element, & that I loved & breathed in him, & if I could not live without him: I allow not laughter upon myself when He is away; yet He never leaveth the house, but the leaveth drink-money behind him, & a pawn that he will return: Woe, woe to me if he should go away & take all his flitting with him: Even to dream of him is sweet: To build a house of pining wishes for his return, to spin out a web of sorrow & care & languishing & sighs, either dry or wet as they may be, because he hath no leisure (if I may sp●a● so) to make a visit, or to see a poor friend, sweeteneth & refre●heth the thoughts of the heart: A misty dew will stand for rain, & do some good, & keep some greenness in the herbs, till our Lord's clouds ●ue upon the earth, & send down a watering of rain: Truly I think Christ's misty dew a welcome message from heaven till my Lord's rain fall: Woe, woe is me for the Lord's vineyard in Scotland: Howbeit the Father of the house embrace a child, & feed him & kiss him; yet it is sorrow and sadness to the children, that our poor mother hath gotten her leave, & that our Father hath given up house: It is an unheartsom thing to see our Father & mother agree so ill, yet the Bastards if they be fed care not: O Lord cait not water on Scotland's smoking coal. It is a strange gate the saints go to heaven, our enemies often eat & drink us, & we go to heaven through their bellies & stomaches, & they vomit the church of God undigested among their hands, & even while we are shut up in prisons by them, we advance in our journey. Remember my service to my Lord, your kind Son, who was kind to me in my bonds, & was not ashamed to own me: I would be glad that Christ got the morning-service of his life now in his young years: It would suit him well to give Christ his young & green love: Christ's stamp and seal would go far down in a young soul, If he would receive the thrust of Christ's stamp: I would desire him to make search for Christ, for Nobles now are but dry friends to Christ. The Grace of God our Father, & the goodwill of him who dwelled in the bush be with your La.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the Lady CARDONNESS ELDER. (180.)  
Worthy & well-beloved in the Lord  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you in paper, that I may know how your soul prospereth: My desire & longing in, to hear that ye walk in the truth, & that ye are content to follow the despised, but most lovely Son of God: I cannot but recommend him unto you as your husband, your well-beloved, your portion, your comfort & your joy: I speak this of that lovely one, because I praise & commend the ford [as we use to speak] as I find it: He hath watered with his sweet comforts an oppressed prisoner: He was always kind to my soul, but never so kind as now in my greatest extremittes: I dine & sup with Christ: He visiteth my soul with the visitations of love in the night-watches. I persuade my soul that this is the way to heaven, & his own Truth, I now suffer for: I exhort you in the name of Christ to continue in the truth which I delivered to you: Make Christ sure to your soul; for your day draweth nigh to an end: Many slide back now, who seemed to be Christ's friends, & prove dishonest to him: But be ye faithful to the death, & ye shall have the crown of life: This span-length of your days, whereof the Spirit of God speaketh, Psal. 39 will within a short time, come to a finger-breadth & at length to nothing: O how sweet & comfortable shall the feast of a good conscience be to you, when your eyestrings shall break, your face wax pale, & the breath turn cold, & your poor soul come sighing to the windows of the house of clay of your dying body, & shall long to be out, & to have the jailor to open the door, that the prisoner may be set at liberty: Ye draw nigh the waterside, look your accounts: Ask for your guide to take you to the other side: Let not the world be your portion; What have ye to do with dead clay? Ye are not a bastard but a lawful begotten child; therefore set your heart on the inheritance; Go up before hand and see your lodging: Look through all your father's rooms in heaven, in your father's house are many dwelling-places: Men take a sight of lands ere they buy them: I know Christ hath made the bargain already: But be kind to the house ye are going to, & see it often: Set your heart on things that are above, where Christ is, at the right hand of God: Stir up your husband to mind his own country at home: Counsel him to deal mercifully with the poor people of God under him: They are Christ's & not his; therefore desire him to show them merciful dealing & kindness, & to be good to their souls. I desire you to write to me: It may be that my Parish forget me; but my witness is in heaven I dow, not, I do not forget them: theyare my sighs in the night & my tears in the day: I think myself like an husband plucked from the wife of his youth: O Lord be my Judge what joy it would be to my soul to hear, that my ministry hath left the Son of God among them, & that they are walking in Christ! Remember my love to your Son and Daughtre: Desire them from me to seek the Lord in their youth, and to give him the morning of their days: Acquaint them with the word of God & prayer. Grace be with you. Pray for the prisoner of Christ: In my heart I forget you not.  
Aberd. March. 6. 1637. Your lawful & loving Pastor, in his only Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr. JAMES HAMILTON. (181)  
Reverend & dearly beloved in our Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Our acquaintance is neither in bodily presence, nor in paper, but as sons of the same father & sufferers for the same truth. Let no man doubt but the state of our question we are now forced to stand to by suffering exile & imprisonment, is, If jesus should reign over his Kirk or not? Oh if my sinful arm could hold the crown on his head, howbeit it should be stricken off from the shoulderblade. For your ensuing & feared trial, my very dearest in our Lord jesus, Alas what am I to speak, to comfort a soldier of Christ, who hath done an hundred times more for that worthy & honourable cause then I can do? But I know these whom the world was not worthy of, wandered up & down in deserts & in mountains & in dens & caves of the earth, & that while there is one member of mystical Christ out of heaven, that member must suffer strokes till our Lord Jesus draw in that member within the gates of the new jerusalem, which he will not fail to do at last; for not one toe or finger of that body but it shall be take in within the city. What can be our part in this pitched battle betwixt the Lamb & the Dragon? But to receive the darts in patience, that rebound off us on upon our sweet Master, or rather light first upon him & then rebound off him upon his servants. I think it a sweet Northwind that bloweth first upon the fair face of the chief among ten thousand & then lighteth upon our sinful & black faces: When once the wind bloweth off him upon me, I think it hath a sweet smell of Christ, & so must bosom more than a single cross. I know ye have a guard about you, & your attendance & train for your safety, is far beyond your pursuers force or fraud: It is good under feud to be near our war-house & strong hold: We can do but little to resist them who persecut us & oppose him, but keep our blood & our wounds to the next Court-day, when our complaints will be read: If this day be not Christ's, I am sure the morrow shall be his. As for any thing I do in my bonds when now & then a word falleth from me, alas it is very little! I am exceedingly grieved that any should conceive any thing to be in such a broken, & empty reed, let no man impute it to me that the free & unbought wind [for I gave nothing for it] bloweth upon an empty reed: I am his overburdened debtor. I cry down with me, down, down with all the excellency of the world, & up, up with Christ: Long, long may that fair One, that holy One be on high: My curse be upon them that love him not. O how glad would I be if his glory would grow out & spring up out of my bonds & sufferings! Certainly since I became his prisoner, he hath won the yolk & heart of my soul: Christ is even become a new Christ to me & his love greener than it was, & now I strive no more with him, his love shall carry it away: I lay down myself under his love, I desire to sing & to cry & to proclaim myself even under the water, in his common, & eternally indebted to his kindness: I will not offer to quite commons with him [as we use to say] for that will not be: All, all for evermore be Christ's. What further trials are before me I know not, but I know Christ will have a saved soul of me, over on the other side of the water, in the yonder side of crosses & beyond men's wrongs. I had but one eye & that they have put out: My one joy, next to the flower of my joys, Christ, was to preach my sweetest, sweetest Master and the glory of his Kingdom, and it seemed no cruelty to them to put out the poor man's one eye. And now I am seeking about to see if suffering will speak my fair One's praises, & I am trying if a dumb man's tongue can raise one note or one of Zion's springs to advance my well-beloved's glory: Oh if he would make some glory to himself out of a dumb prisoner! I go with child of his word, I cannot be delivered, none here will have my Master, Alas! What aileth them at him? I bless you for your prayers, add to them praises: As I am able I pay you home. I commend your diving in Christ's Testament, I would I could set out the dead man's goodwill to his friends in his sweet Testament: Speak a prisoner's hearty commendations to Christ: fear not, your ten days will over. These that are gathered against mount Zion, their eyes shall melt away in their eye-holes and their tongues consume away in their mouths, & Christ's withered garden shall grow green again in Scotland: My Lord Jesus hath a word hid in heaven for Scotland, not yet brought out. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. July. 7. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To MISTRESS STUART. [182]  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am sorry that ye take it so hardly that I have not written to you. I am judged to be that which I am not: I fear if I were put in the fire, I should melt away & fall down in shards of painted nature: For truly I have little stuff at home, that is worth the eye of God's servants: If there be any thing of Christ's in me (as I dare not deny some of his work) it is but a spunk of borrowed fire that can scarce warm myself & hath little heat for standers by: I would said have that which ye and others believe I have, but ye are only witnesses to my utter side and to some words in paper. Oh that he would give me more than papergrace or tongue-grace! Were it not that want paineth me, I should have skailed house & gone a begging long since, but Christ hath left me with some hunger that is more hot than wise, & is ready often to say, If Christ longed for me as I do for him, we should not be long in meeting, and if he loved my company aswell as I do his, even while I am writing this letter to you, we should flee in other's arms: But I know there is more will than wit in this languor & pining love for Christ, & no marvel; for Christ's love would have hot harvest long ere midsummer: But if I have any love to him, Christ hath both love to me & wit to guide his love: & I see, the best thing I have, hath as much dross beside it, as might curse me & it both; & if it were for no more, we have need of a Saviour to pardon the very faults and diseases & weakness of the new man, & to take away [to say so] our godly sins, or the sins of our sanctification & the dross & scum of spiritual love: woe, woe is me! O what need is there then of Christ's calling to scour & cleanse & wash away an ugly old body of sin, the very image of Satan! I know nothing surer than that there is an office for Christ among us: I wish for no other heaven in this side of the last sea, that I must cross, than this service of Christ, to make my blackness beauty, my deadness life, my guiltiness sanctification: I long much for that day when I will be holy: O what spots are yet unwashen! O that I could change the skin of the leopard and the Moor, and niffer it with some of Christ's fairness! Were my blackness & Christ's beauty carded through other [as we use to speak] his beauty & holiness would eat up my filthiness: But Oh I have not casten old Adam's hue & colour yet! I trow the best of us hath a smell yet of the old loathsome body of sin & guiltiness: Happy are they for evermore who can employ Christ & set his blood & death on work, to make clean work to God, of foul souls: I know, it is our sin, that we would have sanctification on the sunny side of the the hill, & holiness with nothing but summer, & no crosses at all: Sin hath made us as tender as if were made of paper or glass. I am often thinking what I would think of Christ & burning quick together, of Christ & torturing & hot melted lead poured in at mouth & navel: yet I have some weak experience [but very weak indeed] that suppose Christ & hell's torments were married together & if there were no finding of Christ at all, except I went to hell's furnace, that there & in no other place I could meet with him, I trow, if I were as I have been since I was his prisoner, I would beglodging for God's sake in hell, hottest furnace, that I might rub souls with Christ: But God be thanked I shall find him in a better lodging: We get Christ better cheap than so, when he is rouped to us, we get him but with a shower of summertroubles in this life, as sweet & as soft to believers as a May-dew. I would have you & myself helping Christ mystical to weep for his wife, & O thatf we could mourn for Christ buried in Scotland, & for his two slain witnesses killed, because they prophesied! If we could so importune & solicit God, our buried Lord & his two buried witnesses should rise again: Earth & clay and stone will unto bear down Christ & the Gospel in Scotland. I know not if I will see the second temple & the glory of it; but the Lord hath deceived me if it be not to be reared up again: I would wish to give Christ his welcome-home again: My blessing, my joy, my glory & love be on the home-comer. I find no better use of suffering then that Christ's winnowing putteth chaff & corn in the saints to sundry places, and discovereth our dross from his gold, so, as corruption and grace are so seen, that Christ saith in the furnace, that is mine & this is yours: The scum & the grounds, thy stomach against the persecuters, thy impatience, thy unbelief, thy quarrelling, these are thine: And faith, onwaiting, love, joy, courage, are mine. Oh let me die one of Christ's onwaiters & one of his attendants: I know your heart & Christ are married together, it were not good to make a divorce: Rue not of that meeting & marriage with such a husband: Pray for me his prisoner. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To Mr HUGH Mc KAILL. (183)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter, I bless you for it: My dry root would take more dew & summer-rain than it getteth, were it not Christ will have dryness & deadness in us to work upon: If there were no timber to work upon, art would die & never be seen: I see, grace hath a field to play upon & to course up & down in our wants, so that I am often thanking God, not for guiltiness, but for guiltiness for Christ to whet & sharpen his grace upon: I am half content to have boils for my Lord Jesus' plasters: sickness hath this advantage that it draweth our sweet Physician's hand & his holy & soft fingers to touch our withered & leper skins: it is a blessed fever that fetcheth Christ to the bedside: I think my Lord's How dost thou with it, sick body? Is worth all my pained nights: Surely I have no more for Christ but emptiness & want; take or leave, he will get me no other wise. I must sell myself & my wants to him, but I have no price to give for him: If he would put a fair & a real seal upon his love to me, & bestow upon me a larger share of Christ's love [which I would fainest be in hands with of any thing, I except not heaven itself] I should go on sighing & singing under his cross: But the worst is, many take me for somebody, because the wind bloweth upon a withered prisoner: But the truth is, I am both lean and thin in that wherein many believe I abound. I would [if bartering were in my power] niffer joy with Christ's love & faith, & in stead of the & hot sunshine, becontent to walk under a cloudy shadow with more grief & sadness, to have more faith & a fair occasion of setting forth & commending Christ, & to make that lovely One, that fair One, that sweetest and dearest Lord Jesus, market-sweet for many ears & hearts in Scotland: and if it were in my power to roup Christ to the three Kingdoms & withal to persuade buyers to come, and to take such sweet wares as Christ, I would thin● to have many sweet bargains betwixt Christ & the sons of men. I would I could be humble & go with a low sail, I would I had desires with wings & running upon wheels, swift & active & speedy in longing for Christ's honour: But I know my Lord is as wise here, as I dow be thirsty, & infinitely more zealous of his honour than I can be hungered for the manifestation of it to men & angels: But Oh that my Lord would take my desires off my hand, & add a thousand-fold more unto them, and sow spiritual inclinations upon them, for the coming of Christ's Kingdom to the sons of men, that they might be higher and deeper & longer & broader! For my longest measures are too short for Christ, my depth is ebb, & the breadth of my affections to Christ narrow & pinched. Oh for an engine & a wit to prescribe ways to men how Christ might be all, in all the world! Wit is here behind affection, & affection behind obligation. Oh how little dough I give to Christ: and how much hath he given me! Oh that I could sing grace's praises, & love's praises! Seeing I was like a fool, solisting the Law & making moyen to the Law's court for mercy, & found challenges that way; but now I deny that Judge's power; for I am Grace's man; I hold not worth a drink of water of the Law or of any Lord but Jesus: And till I bethought me of this, I was slain with doubtings and fears & terrors. I praise the new court, & the new Landlord, & the new Salvation purchased in Jesus his name & at his instance: Let the old man, if he please, go make his moan to the Law & seek acquaintance thereaway, because he is condemned in that Court: I hope, the new man & I, & Christ together shall not be heard: and this is the more soft and the more easy way for me & for my cross together: Seeing Christ singeth my welcome-home, and taketh me in & maketh short counts & short work of reckoning betwixt me & my Judge, I must be Christ's man & his Tenant & subject to his Court: I am sure, suffering for Christ could not be born otherwise: But I give my hand & my faith to all who would suffer for Christ, they shall be well handled & fare well in the same way, that I have found the cross easy & light. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. July. 8. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON. Of Garlock. (184)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: If Christ were as I am, that time could work upon him to alter him, or that the morrow could be a new day to him, or bring a new mind upon him, as it is to me a new day, I could not keep a house or a covenant with him: But I find Christ to be Christ, & that he is far, far, even infinite heaven's height above man: And that is all our happiness. Sinners can do nothing but make wounds that Christ may heal them, and make debts that he may pay them, and make falls that he may raise them, & make deaths that he may quicken them, & spin out & dig hells to themselves that he may ransom them: Now I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free Grace of God & a free ransom given for sold souls: Only, alas guiltivess maketh me ashamed to apply Christ, & to think it pride in me to put out my unclean & withered hand to such a Saviour! but it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a ship-broken soul, to run himself a shore upon Christ: Suppose once I be guilty, need force I cannot, I dow not go by Christ: We take in good part that pride, that beggars beg from the richer: & who is so poor as we, & who is so rich as he who selleth fine gold, Rev. 3: 18. I see then, it is our best [let guiltiness plead what it listeth] that we have no mean under the covering of heaven but to creep in lowly & submissively with our wants to Christ: I have also cause to give his cross as good name & report. O how worthy is Christ of my feckless & light suffering, & how hath he deserved it at my hands, that for his honour & glory I should lay my back under seven hell's pain in one, if he call me to that! but alas my soul is like a ship run on ground through ebbeness of water: I am sanded, and and my love is sanded: I find not how to bring it on float again, it is so cold and dead that I see not how to bring it to a flame: Fie, fie upon the meeting that my love hath given Christ: woe, woe is me, I have a lover Christ, & yet I want love for him: I have a lovely & desirable Lord who is loveworthy, & who beggeth my love & heart & I have nothing to give him. Dear Brother, come further in on Christ & see a new treasure in him: come in & look down & see Angels wonder, & heaven & earth's wonder of love, sweetness, majesty & excellency in him. I forget you not, pray for me that our Lord would be pleased to send me among you again, fraughted & full of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To JOHN BELL Elder. (185)  
My very loving friend  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have very often & long expected your letter, but if ye be well in soul & body I am the less solicitous: I beseech you in the Lord Jesus to mind your country above, & now when old age, the twilight going before the darkness of the grave, & the falling low of your sun before your night, is now come upon you, advise with Christ ere ye put your foot in the ship & turn your back on this life: Many are beguiled with this, that they are tree of scandalous & crying abominations; but the tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is for the fire: the man that is not born again cannot enter into the kingdom of God: common honesty will not take men to heaven: Alas that men should think they ever met with Christ, who had never a sick night through the terrors of God in their soul or a sore heart for sin: I know the Lord hath given you light & the knowledge of his will, but that is not all, neither will that do your turn: I wish you an awakened soul, & that ye beguile not yourself in the matter of your salvation. My dear Brother, search yourself with the candle of God, & try if the life of God & Christ be in you: Salvation is not casten to every man's door: Many are carried over see & land to a far country in a ship, whileas they sleep much of all the way: but men are not landed at heaven sleeping: The righteous are scarcily saved, and many run as fast as either ye or I, who miss the prize and the crown: God send me salvation, and save me from a disappointment, and I seek no more: Men think it but a strided or a step over to heaven, but when so few are saved, even of a number like the sand of the sea, but a handful & a remnant (as God's word saith) what cause have we to shake ourselves out of ourselves & to ask our poor soul, whether goest thou? where shalt thou lodge at night? Where are thy charters and writes of thy heavenly inheritance? I have known a man turn a key in a door & lock it by: Many men leap over [as they think] & leap in. O see! see that ye give not your salvation a wrong cast, & think all is well & leave your soul loose & uncertain: look to your building, & to your groundstone, & what signs of Christ are in you, & set this world behind your back: It is time now in the evening, to cease from your ordinary work, & high time to know of your lodging at night: It is your Salvation that is in dependence, & that is a great & weighty business, though many make light of the matter. Now, the Lord enable you by his grace to work it out.  
Aberd. 1637. Your lawful and loving Pastor, S. R.   

To WILLIAM GORDON Of Robertown. (186)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: So often as I think on our case in our soldier's night-watch, & of our sighting life in the fields, while we are here: I am forced to say, prisoners in a dungeon condemned by a judge, to want the light of the sun and moon & candle, till their dying day, are no more, nay not so much to be pitied as we are; for they weary of their life, they hate their prison: But we fall to in our prison, where we see little, to drink ourselves drunk with the night-pleasures of our weak dreams, & we long for no better life than this; but at the blast of the last trumpet, & the shout of the Archangel, when God shall take down the shepherd's tent of this fading world, we shall not have somuch as a drink of water of all the dreams that we now build on. Alas that the sharp & bitter blasts on face & sides which meet us in this life, have not learned us mortification, & made us dead to this world! We buy our own sorrow, & we pay dear for it, when we spend out our love, our joy, our desires, our confidence upon an handful of snow & ice that time will melt away to nothing, & go thirsty out of the drunken Inns when all is done: Alas that we inquire not for the clear fountain; but are so foolish as to drink foul muddy & rotten waters even till our bedtime; & then in the resurrection when we shall be awakened, our yesternight's sour drink & swinish dregs shall rift up upon us, and sick, sick shall many a soul be then: I know no wholesome fountain but one: I know not a thing worth the buying but heaven: And my own mind is, if comparison were made betwixt Christ & heaven, I would sell heaven with my blessing & buy Christ. Oh if I could raise the market for Christ, & heighten the market a pound for a penny, & cry up Christ in men's estimation ten thousand talents more than men think of him! But they are shaping him & crying him down & valuing him at their unworthy halfpenny, or else exchanging & bartering Christ with the miserable old fallen house of this vain world, or then they lend him out upon interest & play the usurers with Christ: Because they profess him & give out before men that Christ is their treasure & stock, & in the mean time, praise of men, & a name, & case, & the summmer-sun of the Gospel is the usury they would be at, so when the trial cometh, they quite the stock for the interest & lose all: Happy are they who can keep Christ by himself alone, and keep him clean and whole till God come & count with them. I know in your hard and heavy trials long since, ye thought well and highly of Christ; but truly no cross should be old to us: We should not forget them, because years are come betwixt us and them, & cast them by hand as we do old clothes: We may make a cross old in time, new in use, & as fruitful as in the beginning of it: God is where and what he was seven years ago, what ever change be in us: I speak not this, as if I thought ye had forgotten what God did to have your love long since; but that ye may awake yourself in this sleepy age, & remember fruitfully of Christ's first wooing and suiting of your love both with fire & water, & try if he got his answer, or if ye be yet to give him it: For I find in myself that water runneth not faster through a sieve, than our warn slip from us; for I have lost & casten by hands many summons the Lord sent to me, & therefore the Lord hath given me double charges, that I trust in God shall not rive me. I bless his great name who is no niggard in holding in crosses upon me, but spendeth largely his rods, that he may save me from this perishing world: how plentiful God is in means of this kind is esteemed by many, one of God's unkind mercies; but Christ's cross is neither a cruel nor unkind mercy, but the love-token of a father. I am sure a lover chase us for our well & to have our love, should not be run away from or fled. God send me no worse mercy than the sanctified cross of Christ portendeth, & I am sure I should be happy & blest. Pray for me that I may find houseroom in the Lord's house to speak in his name. Remember my dearest love in Christ to your wife. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1636. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

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 rejoice 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 soldiers and shall not be able to do 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 Apostasy 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 than myself: He hath now let me see 4 Things I never saw before 1. The supper will be great cheer that is up in the great hall with the royal King of glory, when the four-hours, the standing drink in this dreary 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 sinful cheeks of poor sinners. O time, time, go 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 itself, till it come in grips with the party beloved. 2. I find 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, joyful, & heartsom to a soul burnt with absence. It is a painful battle for a soul sick of love to fight with absence & delays: Christ's not yet, is a stounding of all the joints & liths of the soul: a nod of his head when he is under a mask would be half a pawn: 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 do: Men take my ten to be an hundred, but I am a deeper hypocrite & shallower professor than every one believeth, God knoweth I feign 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 than 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 believe, 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 stricken 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 & wring 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 fireside, the wind upon my face. [I being driven from my lovers & dear acquaintance & my poor flock,] find no room in my sorrow: I have no spare of odd sorrow for these: Only 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, than my closed mouth: But let me be miserable myself 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 sinful prisoner, I ride upon the high places of jacob, I divide Shechem, I triumph in his strength: If this Kingdom would glorify the Lord in my behalf, I desire to be weighed in God's even balance in this point, if I think not my wages paid 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 go 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 rejoice that ye cannot be quite of Christ [if I may speak so] but he must, he will have you: Betake yourself 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 city 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 joy, & seven crosses have seven joys. Christ is cumbered with me [to speak so] & my cross, but he falleth not off me, we are not at variance. I find the very glooms of Christ's wooing a soul, sweet & lovely: I had rather have Christ's buffet and love-stroke than 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 extol him! I wish his praises go 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, & remembering my love to your wife & mother & your kind brother R. & entreating you to remember my bonds, I rest.  
Aberd. Sept. 8. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Laird of MONCRIEFE. (189)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Although not acquaint, yet at the desire of your worthy sister, the Lady Ley's, & upon the report of your kindness to Christ & his oppressed truth, I am bold to write to you, earnestly desiring you to join with us [so many as in these bounds profess Christ] to wrestle with God one day of the week, especially the Wedensday, for mercy to this fallen & decayed Kirk, and to such as suffer for Christ's name, & for your own necessities & the necessities of others who are by covenant engaged in that business: For we have no other armour in these evil times but prayers, now when wrath from the Lord is gone out against this back-sliding land: for ye know we can have no true public fasts, neither are the true causes of our humiliation ever laid before the people. Now, very worthy Sir, I am glad in the Lord, that the Lord reserveth any of your place, or of note, in this time of common Apostasy, to come forth in public to bear Christ's name before men, when the great men think Christ a cumbersome neighbour and that religion carrieth hazards, trials & persecutions with it. I persuade myself, it is your glory & your garland & shall be your joy in the day of Christ, & the standing of your house & seed to inherit the earth, that ye truly & sincerely profess Christ: Neither is our King, whom the father hath crowned in mount Zion, so weak, that he cannot do for himself & his own cause. I verily believe, they are blessed who can hold the crown upon his head and carry up the train of his robe royal, and that he shall yet be victorious and triumph in this land. It is our part to back our royal King, howbeit there were not six in all the land to follow him. It is wisdom now to take up and discern the devil & the Antichrist coming out in their whites, & the Apostasy & Idolatry of this land washen with foul water: I confess it is art to wash the Devil till his skin be white: For myself, Sir, I have bought a plea against Christ since I came hither, in judging my princely Master angry at me, because I was cast out of the vineyard as a withered tree, my dumb sabbaths working me much sorrow: But I see now sorrow hath not eyes to read love written upon the cross of Christ, & therefore I pass from my rash plea: Woe, woe is me that I should have received a slander of Christ's love to my soul: & for all this, my Lord Jesus hath forgiven all, as not willing to be heard with such a fool, & is content to be as it were confined with me & to bear me company & to feast a poor oppressed prisoner. And now I write it under my hand, Worthy Sir, that I think well & honourably of this cross of Christ: I wonder that he will take any glory from the like of me: I find that when he but sendeth his hearty commendations to me, & but bloweth a kiss afar off, I am confounded with wondering what the supper of the Lamb will be, up in our father's dining-palace of glory, since the four-hours in his dismal wilderness, & when in prisons & in our sad days a kiss of Christ is so comfortable, O how sweet & glorious shall our case be, when that fairest among the sons of men shall lay his fair face to our now sinful faces, & wipe away all tears from our eyes! O Time, Time, run swiftly & hasten that day! O sweet Lord Jesus, come flying like a roe or a young hart! Alas that we blind fools are fallen in love with moonshine & shadows! how sweet is the wind that bloweth out of the airth where Christ is! Every day we may see some new thing in Christ, his love hath neither brim nor bottom. Oh if I had help to praise him! He knoweth if my sufferings glorify his name, & encourage others to stand fast for the honour of our supreme Lawgiver Christ, my wages then are paid to the full. Sir, help me to love that never-enough praised Lord. I find now that the faith of the saints under suffering for Christ is fair before the wind & with full sails carried upon Christ, & I hope to lose nothing in this furnace but dross; for Christ can triumph in a weaker man than I am, if there be any such: And when all is done, his love paineth me & leaveth me under such debt to Christ as I can neither pay principal nor interest. Oh if he would comprise myself, & if I were sold to him as a bondman, & that he would take me home to his house & fireside; for I have nothing to render to him! Then after me let no man think hard of Christ's sweet cross, for I would not change my sighs with the painted laughter of all my adversaries. I desire grace in patience to wait on, & to lie upon the brink till the water fill & flow: I know he is fast coming. Sir, ye will excuse my boldness, & till it please God I see you, ye have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ, to whom I recommend you & in whom I rest.  
Aberd. May, 14. 1637. Yours at all obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To JOHN CLERK. (190.)  
Loving Brother.  
HOld fast Christ without wavering, & contend for the faith, because Christ is not easily gotten nor kept: The lazy professor hath put heaven [as it were] at the very next door, & thinketh to fly up to heaven in his bed and in a night-dream; but truly that is not so easy a thing as most men believe: Christ himself did sweat ere he won this city, howbeit he was the freeborn Heir. It is Christianity, My heart, to be sincere, unfeigned, honest & upright-hearted before God, & to live & serve God, suppose there were not one man or woman in all the world dwelling beside you to eye you: Any little grace that ye have, see that it be sound & true: Ye may put a difference betwixt you and reprobats if ye have these marks. 1. If ye prise Christ & his truth so, as ye will sell all & buy him & suffer for it. 2. If the love of Christ keepeth you back from sinning more than the Law or fear of hell. 3. If ye be humble, & deny your own will, wit, credit, ease, honour, the world & the vainity & glory of it. 4. Your profession must not be barren & void of good works. 5. Ye must in all things aim at God's honour, ye must eat, drink, sleep, buy, sell, sit, stand, speak, pray, read, and hear the word with a heart-purpose that God may be honoured. 6. Ye must show yourself an enemy to sin, and reprove the works of darkness, such as drunkenness, swearing & lying, albeit the company should hate you for doing so. 7. Keep in mind the truth of God that ye heard me teach, and have nothing to do with the corruptions and new guises entered into the house of God. 8. Make conscience of your calling, in covenants, in buying & selling. 9 Acquaint yourself with daily praying, commit all your ways & actions to God by prayer, supplication & thank giving, and count not much of being mocked; for Christ Jesus was mocked before you. Persuade yourself that this is the way of peace and comfort I now suffer for, I dare go to death & in to eternity with it, though men may possibly seek another way. Remember me in your prayers, & the state of this oppressed Church. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your soul's Wellwisher. S. R.   

To CARDONNESS Elder. (191)  
Much honoured Sir.  
I long to hear how your soul prospereth: I wonder that ye write not to me, for the holy Ghost beareth me witness, I cannot, I dare not, I dow not forget you, nor the souls o these with you, who are redeemed by the blood of the greaf Shepherd: Ye are in my heart in the night watches, ye are my● joy & crown in the day of Christ: O Lord bear witness, if my soul thirsteth for any thing out of heaven, more than for your salvation: Let God lay me in an even balance & try me in this. Love heaven let your heart be on it: Up, up & visit the new land & view the fair city & the white throne & the Lamb, the bride's husband, in his bridegroom's clothes sitting on it: It were time your soul should cast itself & all your burdens upon Christ. I beseech you by the wounds of your Redeemer, & by your compearance before him & by the salvation of your soul, lose no more time, run fast for it is late: God hath sworn by himself who made the world and time, that time shall be no more, Rev. 10 Ye are now upon the very border of the other life; your Lord cannot be blamed for not giving you warning: I have taught the truth of Christ to you & delivered unto you the whole counsel of God, & I have stood before the Lord for you, & I shall yet still stand: awake, awake to do righteously: Think not to be eased of the burdens & debts that are on your house, by oppressing any or being rigorous to these that are under you: remember how I endeavoured to walk before you in this matter as an example: behold here am I, witness against me, before the Lord & his Anointed, whose ox or whoseass have I taken? Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Who knoweth how my soul feedeth upon a good conscience, when I remember how I spent this body in feeding the lambs of Christ? At my first entry hither, I grant, I took a stomach against my Lord, because he had casten me over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree, & would have no more of my service: My dumb sabbaths broke my heart, and I would not be comforted: but now he whom my soul love this come again, and it pleaseth him to feast me with the kisses of his love: A King dineth with me and his spikenard casteth a sweet smell: The Lord my witness is above, that I write my heart to you, I never knew by my nine years preaching, so much of Christ's love, as he hath taught me in Aberden by six month's imprisonment. I charge you in Christ's name help me to praise & show that people & country, the loving kindness of the Lord to my soul, that so my sufferings may someway preach to them when I am silent: He hath made me know now better than before, what it is to be crucified to the world: I would not now give a drink of cold water for all the world's kindness: I owe no service to it: I am not the flesh's debtor: My Lord Jesus hath dâted his prisoner, & hath thoughts of love concerning me: I would not exchange my sighs with the laughing of my adversaries. Sir, I write this to inform you, that ye may know it is the truth of Christ I now suffer for, & he hath sealed nay sufferings with the comforts of his spirit on my soul, & I know he putteth not his seal upon blank paper. Now, Sir, I have no comfort earthly, but to know that I have espoused, and shall present a bride to Christ in that congregation. The Lord hath given you much, and therefore he will require much of you again: Number your talents & see what ye have to render back again, ye cannot be enough persuaded of the shortness of your time: I charge you to write to me, & in the fear of God be plain with me, whether or no ye have made your salvation sure, I am confident & hope the best, but I know your reckonings with your Judge are many and deep. Sir, be not beguiled, neglect not your one thing [Philip. 3, 13] your one necessary thing [Luke 10: 42] the good part that shall not be taken from you. Look beyond time: things here are but moonshine, they have but children's wit who are delighted with shadows & deluded withfeathers flying in the air. Desire your children in the morning of their life to begin & seek the Lord, & to remember their Creator in the days of their youth [Eccles. 12: 1.] to cleanse their way by taking heed thereto according to God's word [Ps. 119: 9] youth is a glassy age: Satan finds a swept chamber [for the most part] in youth-hood, & a garnished lodging for himself & his train: Let the Lord have the flower of their age: The best sacrifice is due to him: Instruct them in this, that they have a soul, & that this life is nothing in comparison of eternity: They will have much need of God's conduct in this world, to guide them by these rocks upon which most men split; but far more need when it cometh to the hour of death & their compearance before Christ. O that there were such a heart in them to fear the name of the great & dreadful God, who hath laid up great things for these that love & fear him! I pray that God may be their portion. Show others of my parishioners, that I write to them my best wishes and the blessings of their lawful Pastor: Say to them from me, that I beseech them by the bowels of Christ, to keep in mind the Doctrine of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which I taught them; that so they may lay hold on eternal life, striving together for the faith of the Gospel, & making sure salvation to themselves: Walk in love & do righteousness: seek peace, love one another, wait for the coming of our Master & Judge: Receive no doctrine contrary to that which I delivered to you: If ye fall away & forget it & that Catechism which I taught you, & so forsake your own mercy, the Lord be judge betwixt you & me, I take heaven & earth to witness, that such shall eternally perish; but if they serve the Lord, great will their reward be, when they & I shall stand before our Judge. Set forward up the mountain to meet with God: climb up, for your Saviour calleth on you. It may be, God call you to your rest when I am far from you, but ye have my love & the desires of my heart for your souls welfare. He that is holy, keep you from falling & establish you, till his own glorious appearance.  
Aberd. 1637. Your affectionate & lawful Pastor, S. R.   

To CARDONNESS Younger. (192.)  
Much honoured Sir.  
I Long to hear whether or not your soul be hand-fasted with Christ: Lose your time no longer: Flee the follies of youth: Gird up the loins of your mind, & make you ready for meeting the Lord. I have often summoned you, & now I summoned you again, to compear before your Judge, to make a reckoning of your life: while ye have Time, look upon your papers & consider your ways: O that there were such an heart in you, as to think what an ill conscience will be to you, when year upon the border of eternity, & your one foot out of time! O then, ten thousand thousand floods of tears cannot extinguish these flames, or purchase to you one hour's release from that pain! O how sweet a day have ye had! But this is a fair day that runneth fast away, see how ye have spent it, & consider the necessity of salvation: & tell me [in the fear of God] if ye have made it sure: I am persuaded ye have a conscience that will be speaking somewhat to you: Why will ye die & destroy yourself? I charge you in Christ's name to rouse up your conscience, & begin to indent & contract with Christ in time while salvation is in your offer: This is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation: play the merchant, for ye cannot expect another market-day when this is done; therefore let me again beseech you to consider in this your day, the things that belong to your peace, before they be hid from your eyes. Dear Brother, fulfil my joy, & begin to seek the Lord while he may be found: Forsake the follies of deceiving & vain youth: Lay hold upon eternal life: Whoring, night-drinking, & mispending of the sabbath, & neglecting of prayer in your house, & refusing of an offered salvation, will burn up your soul with the terrors of the Almighty, when your awakened conscience shall flee in your face. Be kind & loving to your wife, make conscience of cherishing her and not being rigidly austere. Sir, I have not a tongue to express the glory that is laid up for you in your father's house, if ye reform your doings and frame your heart to return to the Lord. Ye know this world is but a shadow, a short-living creature, under the law of time; within less than fifty years, when ye look back to it, ye shall laugh at the evanishing vanities thereof, as feathers flying in the air, and at the houses of sand within the sea-mark, which the children of men are building: Give up with courting of this vain world: Seek not the bastard's moveables, but the Son's heritage in heaven. Take a trial of Christ, look unto him & his love shall so change you, that ye shall be taken with him & never choose to go from him: I have experience of his sweetness in this house of my pilgrimage here: My witness who is above, knoweth, I would not exchange my sighs & tears with the laughing of the fourteen Prelates: There is nothing will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ, come and see will speak best to your soul: I would fain hope good of you: be not discouraged at broken & spilt- resolutions, but to it, & to it again: Woo about Christ, till ye get your soul espoused as a chaste virgin to him: Use the means of profiting with your conscience: Pray in your family, & read, the word: Remember how our Lord's day was spent when I was among you: It will be a great challenge to you before God, if ye forget the good that was done within the walls of your house on the Lord's days, & if ye turn aside after the fashions of this world, & if ye go not in time to the kirk to wait on the public worship of God, & if ye tarry not at it, till all the exercises of religion be ended: Give God some of your time both morning & evening & afternoon, & in so doing, rejoice the heart of a poor oppressed prisoner. Rue upon your own soul, & from your heart fear the Lord. Now he that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of his sheep, by the blood of the eternal Covenant, establish your heart with his grace, & present you before his presence with joy.  
Aberd. 1637. Your affectionate & loving Pastor, S. R.   

To CARLETOWN. (193)  
Much honoured Sir.  
I Will not impute your not writing to me, to forgetfulness: how ever, I have one above who forgetteth me not, nay, he groweth in his kindess: It hath pleased his holy Majesty to take me from the pulpit & teach me many things in my exile & prison that were mysteries to me before: As, 1. I see his bottomless & boundless love & kindness, & my jealousies & rave, which at my first entry into this furnace were so foolish & bold, as to say to Christ, who is truth itself, in his face, thou liest. I had well nigh lost my grips: I wondered if it was Christ or not, for the mist & smoke of my perturbed heart, made me mistake my Master Jesus: My faith was dim & hope frozen & cold, & my love which caused jealousies, it had some warmness & heat & smoke but no flame at all: yet I was looking for some good of Christ's old claim to me: I thought I had forfeited all my rights, but the tempter was too much upon my counsels & was still blowing the coal: Alas I knew not well before how good skill my Intercessor and advocate, Christ, hath of pleading, and pardoning me such follies: Now he is returned to my soul with healing under his wings, and I am nothing behind with Christ now, for he hath overpaid me by his presence, the pain I was put to by onwaiting, and any little loss I sustained by my witnessing against the wrongs done to him. I trow it was a pain to my Lord to hide himself any longer: In a manner he was challenging his unkindness & repented him of his glooms, & now what want I on earth that Christ can give to a poor prisoner? O how sweet and lovely is he now! Alas that I can get none to help me to lift up my Lord Jesus upon his throne above all the earth! 2. I am now brought to some measure of submission, and I resolve to wait till I see what my Lord Jesus will do with me: I dare not now nick name or speak one word against the allseeing & overwatching providence of my Lord: I see, providence runneth not on broken wheels; but I like a fool carved a providence for mine own ease, to die in my nest, & to sleep still till my grey hairs, and to lie on the sunny side of the mountain in my ministry at Anwoth: But now I have nothing to say against a borrowed fireside & another man's house, nor Kedars tents where I live, being removed far from my acquaintance, my lovers & my friends: I see God hath the world on his wheels & casteth it as a potter doth a vessel on the wheel: I dare not say that there is any inordinate or irregular motion in Providence; The Lord hath done it, I will not go to law with Christ, for I would again nothing of that. 3. I have learned some greater mortification & not to mourn after or seek to suck the world's dry breasts: Nay, my Lord hath filled me with such dainties, that I am like to a full banquettor who is not for common cheer. What have I to do to fall down upon my knees & worship mankind's great idol, The World? I have a better God than any clay-God; Nay, at present as I am now disposed, I care not much to give this world a discharge of my life-rent of it, for bread & water: I know it is not my home, nor my father's house; it is but his footstool, the outer clo●ster of his house, his out-field & moor-ground: Let bastards take it, I hope never to think myself in its common for honour or riches, nay now, I say to laughter, Thou art madness. 4. I find it most true, that the greatest temp●… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to live without temptations if my waters should stand, they would rot: Faith is the better of the free air, & of the sharp winter-storm in its face: Grace withereth without adversity: The Devil is but God's Master-fencer to teach us to handle our weapons. 5. I never knew how weak I was till now, when he hideth himself, & when I have him to seek seven times a day. I am a dry & withered branch & a piece of a dead carcase, dry bones & not able to step over a straw: The thoughts of my old sins are as the summons of death to me: And of late my Brother's case hath stricken me to the heart; when my wounds are closing, a little rifle, causeth them to bleed afresh: So thin-skined is my soul, that I think it is like a tender man's skin, that may touch nothing: ye see how short I would shoot of the prize, if his grace were not sufficient for me. Woe's me for the day of Scotland, Woe, woe is me for my harlot-mother; for the decree is gone forth: women of this land shall call the childless & miscarrying wombs blessed: The anger of the Lord is gone forth & shall not return till he perform the purpose of his heart against Scotland: Yet he shall make Scotland a new sharp instrument having teeth to thresh the mountains & fan the hills as chaff. The prisoners blessing be upon you.  
Aberd. March. 14. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Lady BUSBIE. (194)  
MTSTRESS.  
I Know ye are thinking sometimes what Christ is doing in Zion, & that the haters of Zion may get the bottom of our cup & the burning coals of our furnace, that we have been tried in these many years by gone. O that this Nation would be awakened to cry mightily unto God, for the setting up of a new tabernacle to Christ in Scotland. O if this Kingdom kne● how worthy Christ were of his room! His worth wa● eve● above man's estimation of him: And for myself I a● pained at the heart, that I cannot find myself disposed to leav● myself & go wholly in to Christ: Alas that there should b● o●e bit o● me out of him, and that we leave too much liberty and latitude for ourselves, and our own ease, and credit, & pleasures; & so little room for All-love-worthy Christ! O what pains & charges it costeth Christ ere he get us, & when all is done we are not worth the having: It is a ●ond●r that he should seek the like of us, but love overlooketh blackness and ●ecklesness; for if it had not been so, Christ would never have made so fair & blessed a bargain with us, as the covenant of Grace is. I find that in all our sufferings, Christ is but ●iddi●g marches, that every one of us may say, Mine & T●ine, and that men may know by their crosses, how weak a bottom nature is to stand under a trial; that then, which our Lord intendeth in all our sufferings, is, to bring Gra●e in ●●uit a●d request amongst us: I would succumb and ●●me sho●t of hea en, if I had no more but my own strength to support me, and if Christ should say to me, Either do or die, it were easy to determine what should become of me, the choice were easy, for I behoved to die, if Christ should pass by wit● straitened bowel▪ and who then would take us up in our straits? I know we may say that Christ is kindest in his love, when we are at our weakest, and that if Christ had not been to the fore in our sad days, the waters had gone over our soul: His mercy ha●h a ●et period and appointed place, how far & no further the s●a of affliction shall flow, and where the waves thereof shall be stayed; he prescribeth how much pain and sorrow both for weight and measure, we must have: Ye have then good cause to recall your love from all lovers and give it to Christ: He who is afflicted in all your afflictions, looketh not o● you i● your sad hours with an insensible heart or dry eyes: All the Lords saints may see, that it is lost love wh●ch is bestowed upon this perishing world: death & judgement will make men lament that ever their miscarrying heart▪ ●arryed them to lay & lavish out their love upon false appearances right-dreams. Alas that Christ should far the worse, because o● 〈◊〉 own goodness, in making peace & the gospel to ride together, & that w● have never yet weighed the worth of Christ in his ordinances, & that now we are like to be deprived of the well, ere we have tasted the sweetness of the water: it may be with water● eyes 〈◊〉 a w●t face and wearied feet, we seek Christ & shall not find● him. ●h that this land were humbled in time, and by prayers, ●●ye & humiliation, would bring Christ in at the churchdoor again, now, when his back is turned toward us, and he is gone to the threshold & his one foot [as it wer●] is out of the ●oor: I am sure his departure is our deserving, we have bought it with our iniquities; for even the Lord's own children are fallen asleep: And alas professors are made all of shows & fashions, and are not at pains to recover themselves again: Every one hath his set measure of faith & holiness, and contenteth himself with a stinted measure of godliness, as if that were ●●ough to bring them to heaven: We forget, that as our gifts and light grow, so God's gain and the interest of his talents should grow also, and that we cannot pay God with the old use and wont [as we use to speak] which we gave him seven years ago; for this were to mock the Lord and to make price with him as we list. O what difficulty is there in our christian journey, & how often come we short of many thousand things that are Christ's due, and we consider not how far our dear Lord is behind with us! Mistress, I cannot render you thanks as I would for your kindness to my Brother, ●n oppressed stranger; but I remember you unto the Lord as I am able: I entreat you think upon me his prisoner, & pray that the Lord would be pleased to give me ●oom to speak to 〈◊〉 people in his name. Grace grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637 Yours in his sweet Lor● and Master. S. R.   

To FULWOOD Younger. (195)  
Much honoured Sir  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Upon the report of this worthy bearer concerning you, I thought good to spea● a wo●d to you: It is enough for acquaintance that we are one in Christ: My earnest desire to you is, that ye would in the fear of God, compare your inch & hand-breadth of time with vast Eternity, & your thoughts of this now fair, blooming and green world, with the thoughts ye shall have of it, when corruption & worms shall make their houses in your eye-holes, & shall eat your flesh & make that body dry bones; if ye do so, I know then, that your light of this world's vanity shall be more clear than now it is: And I am persuaded ye shall then think, that men's labours for this clay-idol are to be laughed at: Therefore come near and take a view of that transparent beauty that is in Christ, which would busy the love of ten thousand millions of world's & Angel's, & hold them all at work: Surely I am grieved that men will not spend their whole love upon that royal & princely Well-beloved, that High & lofty One: For it is cursed love that runneth another way then upon him. And for myself, if I had ten loves & ten souls, O how glad would I be if he would break in upon me & take possession of them all! Woe, woe is me, that He & I are so far asunder! I hope we shall be in one country & one house together: truly pain of love-sickness for Jesus, maketh me to think it long, long, long to the dawning of that day. Oh that he would cut short years & months & hours, & overleap Time, that we might meet! And for this truth, Sir, that ye profess, I avow before the world of men & Angels, that it is the way & only way to our country, the rest are byways; & that what I suffer for, is the apple of Christ's eye, even his honour as Lawgiver & King of his Church. I think death too little ere I forsook it. Do not, Sir, I beseech you in the Lord, make Christ's court thinner by drawing back from him, it is ●oo thin already; for I dare pledge my heaven upon it, he shall win this plea, & the fools that plea against him shall lose the wager which is their part of salvation, except they take better heed to their ways. Sir, free grace that we give no hire for, is a jewel our Lord giveth to few: Stand fast in the hope ye are called unto: Our Master will rend the clouds & will be upon us quickly, & clear our cause, & bring us all out in our black's & white's: Clean, clean garments in the Bridegroom's eye, are of great worth: Step over this hand-breadth of world's glory, in to our Lord's new world of grace, & ye will laugh at the feathers that children are chase in the air. I ve●●ly judge that this Inne●, men are building their nest in, is not worth a drink of cold water. It is a rainny and smoky house, b●st we come out of it, lest we be choked with the smoke thereof. O that my adversaries knew how sweet my sighs for Christ are, & what it were for a sinner to lay his head between Christ's breasts, & to be over head & ears in Christ's love! Alas, I cannot cause paper speak the height & breadth & depth of it! I have not a balance to weigh my Lord Jesus' worth, heaven, ten heavens would not be the beam of a balance, to weigh him in. I must give over praising of him, Angels see but little of him: O if that fair one, would take off the mask off his fair face, that I might see him▪ a kiss of him through his mask is half a heaven. O day, dawn! O time, run fast! O Bridegroom, post, post fast that we may meet! O hea vens, cleave in two, that, that bright face & head may set itself through the clouds! O that the corn were ripe & this world prepared for his hook! Sir, be pleased to remember a prisoner's bonds. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. July. 10. 1637, Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr HUGH M C KAILL. (196)  
My very dear Brother.  
YE know, that men may take their sweet fill of the sour Law in Grace's ground & betwixt the Mediator's breasts, and this is sinner's safest way; for there is a bed for wearied sinners to rest them in, in the new Covenant, though no bed of Christ's making to sleep in: The Law shall never be my doomster by Christ's grace, if I get no more good of it: I shall find a sore enough doom in the Gospel to humble & to cast me down: It is [I grant] a good rough friend to follow a traitor to the bar & to back him till he come to Christ: We may blame ourselves who cause the Law to crave well paid debt, to scar us away from Jesus & dispute about a righteousness of our own, a world in the moon, a chim●rd, & a night-dream, that pride is Father & mother to: There cannot be a more humble soul then a believer, it is no pride for a drowning man to catch hold of a rock. I rejoice that the wheels of this confused world, are rolled & cogged & driven according as our Lord will: Out of whatever airth the wind blow, it will blow us on our Lord: No wind can blow our sails overboard; because Christ's skill, & the honour of his wisdom are empawned & laid down at the stake for the sea-passengers, that he shall put them safe off his hand on the shore, in his father's known bounds, our native homeground. My dear Brother, scar not at the cross of Christ: It is not seen yet, what Christ will do for you, when it cometh to the worst: He will keep his grace till ye be at a straight, & then bring forth the decreed birth for your salvation: Ye are an arrow of his own making, let him shoot you against a wall of brass, your point shall keep whole. I cannot for multitude of letters & distractions of friends prepare what I would for the times: I have not one hour of spare time, suppose the day were forty hours long. Remember me in prayer: Grace be with you.  
Aberd. Sept. 5. 1637. Your in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R,   

To his Reverend & Dear Brother Mr DAVID DICKSON. (197)  
My Reverend & Dear Brother.  
I Fear ye have never known me well: If ye saw my innerside, it is possible ye would pity me, but ye would hardly give me either love or respect: Men mistake me the whole length of the heavens: My sins prevail over me & the terrors of their guiltiness: I am put often to ask, if Christ & I did ever shake hands together in earnest, I mean not that my feast-days are quite gone; but I am made of extremities: I pray God ye never have the woeful & dreary experience of a closed mouth; for than ye shall judge the sparrows that may sing in the Church of Irwin, blessed birds: But my soul hath been refreshed & watered, when I hear of your courage & zeal for your never-enough-praised, praised Master, in that ye put the men of God, chased out of Ireland, to work: O if I could confirm you! I dare say in God's presence, That this shall never hasten your suffering, but shall be David Dickson's feast and speaking joy, that while he had time and leisure, he put many to work, to lift up jesus, his sweet Master, high in the skies. O man of God, go on, go on, be valiant for that plant of renown, for that chief among ten thousands, for that Prince of the Kings of the earth: It is but little that I know of God, yet this I dare write, Christ shall be glorified in David Dickson, howbeit Scotland be not gathered: I am pained, pained, that I have not more to give my sweet bridegroom: His comforts to me are not dealt with a niggard's hand, but I would fain learn not to idolise comfort, sense, joy, and sweet felt-presence: All these are but creatures, and nothing but the kingly robe, the Gold-ring and the Bracelets of the Bridegroom: The Bridegroom himself is better than all the ornaments that are about him. Now, I would not so much have these, as God him s●l●, & to be swallowed up of love to Christ: I see in delighting in a communion with Christ, we may make more Gods than one●, but however, all was but bai●ns-play between Christ & me till now: If one would have sworn unto me, I would not have believed, what may be found in Christ: I hope ye pity my pain that much in my prison, as to help me yourself, & to cause others help me a Dyvour, a sinful wretched Die your to pay some of my debts of praise to my great King: Let my God be judge & witness, if my soul would not have sweet ease & comfort, to have many hearts confirmed in Christ, & enlarged with his love, & many tongues set on work to set on high my Royal & princely well-beloved. O that my sufferings could pay tribute to such a King! I have given over wondering at his love: for Christ hath manifested a piece of art upon me, that I never revealed to any living: He hath gotten fair and rich employment, & sweet sale, & a goodly market for his honourable calling of showing mercy, on me the chief of sinners: Every one knoweth not so well as I do, my woefully oftenbroken covenants: My sins against light working in the very act of sinning, hath been met with admirable mercy: But Alas! He will get nothing back again but wretched unthankfulness! I am sure, if Christ pity any thing in me, next to my sin, it is pain of love for an armful & soul-full of himself, in faith, love & begun fruition: My sorrow is, that I cannot get Christ lifted off the dust in Scotland, & set on high above all the skies & heaven of heavens.  
Aberd. May. 1. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To His Reverend & dear Brother Mr JOHN LIVINGSTONE. (198)  
My Reverend & dear Brother  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I long to hear from you, & to be refreshed with the comforts of the bride of our Lord Jesus in Ireland: I suffer with you in grief, for the dash that your desires to be at N. E: have received of late: But if our Lord, who hath skill to bring up his children, had not seen it your best, it should not have befallen you: Hold your peace & stay yourselves upon the holy one of Israel: harken what he saith in crossing of your desires, he will speak peace to his people. I am here removed from my flock, & silenced & confined in Aberden, for the testimony of Jesus: And I have been confined in spirit also with desertions & challenges: I gave in a bill of quarrels & complaints of unkindness against Christ, who seemed to cast me over the dike of the vineyard as a dry tree, & separated me from the Lord's inheritance: But high, high & loud praises be to our royal crowned King in Zion, that he hath not burnt the dry branch: I shall yet live & see his glory. Your Mother-church for her whoredom is like to be cast off: The bairns may break their heart to see such chiding betwixt the husband & the wife. Our Clergy is upon a Reconciliation with the Lutherians, & the Doctors are writing books, & drawing up a Common Confession at the Council's command: Our Service-book is proclaimed with sound of trumpet: The night is fallen down upon the P'rophets: Scotland's day of visitation is come: It is time for the bride to weep, while Christ is a saying, He will choose another wife: But our sky will clear again: The dry branch of cutdown Lebanon will bud again & be glorious, & they shall yet plant vines upon our mountains. Now, My dear Brother, I write to you for this end, that ye may help me to praise, and seek help of others with you that God may be glorified in my bonds. My Lord, Jesus hath taken the withered dry stranger & his broken-in-heart prisoner, in to his house of wine: O! O, If ye & all Scotland, & all our brethren with you, knew how I am feasted! Christ's hon●combs drop comforts: He dineth with his prisoner, & the King's spikenard casteth a smell: The Devil cannot get it denied, but we suffer for the apple of Christ's eye, his royal prerogatives as King & Lawgiver: Let us not fear or faint, He will have his Gospel once again rouped in Scotland, & have the matter going to voices, to see who will say, let Christ be crowned King in Scotland: It is true, Antichrist stirreth his tail, but I love a rumbling & raging Devil in the kirk [●nc● the Church militant cannot, or may not want a Devil to trouble her] rather than a subtle or sleeping Devil: Christ never yet go● a bride without stroke of sword: It is now nigh the bridegroom's entering in to his chamber, let us awake & go in with him: I bear your name to Christ's door: I pray you, Dear Brother, forget me not: Let me hear from you by Letter, & I charge you, smother not Christ's bounty towards me: I write what I have found of him in the house of my pilgrimage. Remember my love to all our brethren & sisters there. The keeper of the vineyard watch for his besieged city & for you.  
Aberd. Feb. 7. 1637. Your brother & fellow sufferer, S. R.   

To Mr EPHRAIM MELVIN. (199)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
I Received your letter & am contented with all my heart that our acquaintance in our Lord continue. I am wrestling as I dow, up the mount with Christ's cross: My second is kind & able to help. As for your questions, because of my manifold distractions, & letters to multitudes, I have not time to answer them: What shall be said in common for that, shall be imparted to you; for I am upon these questions: therefore spare me a little; for the Service-book would take a great time● but I think, Sicut deosculatio religio sà imaginis aut etiam el●mentorum, est in se idololatria externa, etsi intentio deosculandi tota quanta in actu est, feratur in Deum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it a geniculatio coram pane, quando nempe ex instituto totus homo externus & internus ver sar● debeat circa elementaria signa, est adoratio relativa, & adoration sius panis. Ratio: Intentio adorandi objectum materiale, non est de essentiâ externae adorationis, ut pate● i● deosculatione religio sà. Sic geniculatio coram imagine Babylonicâ, est externa adoratio imaginis, etsitr●s pueri ment intendissent adorare jehovam. Sic qui ex metu solo, aut spe pretij aut inanis gloria, geniculatur coram aureo vitulo jeroboami (quod ab ipso rege, qui nullà religione induct●s, sed libidine domin●ndi tantum, vitulumerexit, factitatum esse, textus satis luculenter clamat) adorat vitulum externâ adoratione, esto quod putaret vitulum esse meram creaturam, & honore nullo dignum: quia geniculatio, sive nos nolum●s sive volumus, ex instituto Dei & naturae, in actu religioso, est symbolum religiosae adorationis: Ergo sicut panis signat corpus Christi etsi absit actus omnis nostrae intentionis, sic religiosae geniculatio sublatâ omni intentione humanâ, est externae adoratio paniscoram quo adoramus, ut coram signo vicario & repraesentativo Dei: Thus recommending you to God's tender mercy, I desire that ye would remember me to God: sanctification shall settle you most in the truth. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Your Brother in Christ jesus, S. R.   

To a Gentle woman upon the death of her husband. [200]  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I cannot but rejoice, and withal be grieved at your case: It hath pleased the Lord to remove your husband, [my friend, & this Kirk's faithful professor] soon to his rest; but shall we be sorry, that our loss is his gain, seeing his Lord would want his company no longer; think not much of short summons, for seeing he walked with his Lord in his life & desired that Christ should be magnified in him at his death, ye ought to be silent and satisfied: When Christ cometh for his own, he runneth fast; mercy, mercy to the saints goeth not at leisure; love, love in our Redeemer is not slow, & withal he is homely with you, who cometh at his own hand to your house and intrometeth as a friend with any thing that is yours: I think he would fain borrow & lend with you. Now he shall meet with the solacious company, the fair flock and blessed bairn-time of the firstborn, banqueting at the marriage-supper of the Lamb. It is mercy that the poor wand. i●g sheep get a dike-fide in this storn i● day, and a lecking ship a safe harbrie, & a sea-sick passenger a sound and soft bed a shore. Wrath, wrath, wrath from the Lord i● coming upon this land that he hath left behind him: know therefore that your Lord Jesus his wounds, are the wounds of a lover, and that he will have compassion upon a sad hearted servant and that Christ hath said, he will have the husband's room in your heart, he loved you in your first husband's time, and he is but wooeing you still, give him heart and chair, house and all; he will not be made companion with any other, love is full of Jealousies, he will have all your love, and who should get it but He? I know ye allow it upon him, there are comforts both sweet & satisfying, laid up for you, wait on, first Christ, he is an honest debtor. Now for mine own case, I think some poor body would be glad of a dâted prisoner's leave, I have no scarcity of Christ's love, he hath wasted more comforts upon his poor banished servant, then would have refreshed many souls: my burden was once so heavy that one cunce weight would have casten the balance & broken my back, but Christ said, hold, hold to my sorrow, & hath wiped a bluchered face, which was foul with weeping. I may joyfully go● my Lord's errands with wages in my hands; deferred hopes need not to make me dead swier [as we use to say] my cross is both my cross & my reward, Oh that men would sound his high praises! I love Christ's worst reproaches, his glooms, his cross, better than all this world's plastered glory, my heart is not longing to be back again from Christ's country, it ' a sweet soil I a● co●e to I, [if any in the world] have good cause to speak much good of him. O Hell were a good cheap price to buy him a●! Oh if all the three Kingdoms were witnesses to ●y pained, pained soul, overcome & wounded with Christ's love! I thank you most kindly, my dear Sister, for your love & render care to my brother, I will think myself obliged to you if ye continue his friend, he is more to me then a brother now, being engaged to suffer for so honourable a master and cause. pray for Christ's prisoner, and Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. March. 7. 16●6. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To His reverend & dear Brother Mr JOHN NEVAY. (201)  
My reverend & dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have exceeding many ●w●ite to, else I would be kinder in paper. I rejoice that my sweet Master hath any to oack him: Thick, thick may my royal King's Court be: O that his Kingdom, might grow! It were my joy to have his house full of guests. Except that I have some cloudy days for the most part I have a King's life with Christ, he is all perfumed with the powders of th● merchant, he hath a King's face & a King's smell, his chariot wherein be carrieth his poor prisoneri of the wood of Lebanon, it is paved with love, is not that soft ground to walk or lie on? I think better of Christ then ever I did, my thoughts of his love grow & swell on me, I never write to any of him so much as I have felt. Oh if If could write a book of Christ & of his love! Suppose I were made white ashes & burnt for this same truth that men count but as knots of straws, it were my gain, if my ashes could proclaim the worth, excellency & love of my Lord Jesus: There is much telling in Christ, I give over the weighing of him, Heaven would not be the beam of a balance to weigh him in. What eyes be on me, or what wind of tongues be on me, I care not: Let me stand in this stage in the fools coat & act a fools part to the rest of this nation: If I can set my well-beloved on high & witness fair for him, a fig for their Hosanna: If I can roll myself in a lap of Christ's garment, I will ●e there & laugh at the thoughts of dying bits of clay. Brother, we have cause to weep for our harlot-mother, her husband is sending her to Rome's brothell-house, which is the gate she liketh well: Yet I persuade you, there shall be a fair after-growth for Christ in Scotland, & this Church shall sing the Bridegroom's welcome-home again to his own house: The worms shall eat them first ere they cause Christ take good-night at Scotland. I am here assaulted with the Doctor's gun, but I bless the father of lights they draw not blood of truth. I find no lodging in the heart of natural men, who are cold friends to my Master: I pray you, Remember my love to that Gentleman A. C. My heart is knit to him, because he & I have one Master. Remember my bands, & present my service to my Lord & my Lady: I wish Christ may be dearer to them, then to many of their place. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. July. 5. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To my Lady BOYD. [202.]  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Few [I believe] kn●w the pain & torment of Christ's fristed love, fristing of Christ's presence is a matter of torment. I know a poor soul that would lay all oars in the water for a banquet or feast o●● Christ's love. I cannot think but it must be uptaking & sweet to see the white & red of Christ's fair face; for he is white & ruddy & the chiefest among ten thousands. Cant, 5, 10. I am sure that must be a well made face of his, heaven must be in his visage; glory, glory for evermore must ●it on his countenance. I dare not curse the mask & covering that is on his face, but O if there were a hole in it! O if God would tear the mask! Fie, fie upon us, we were never shamed till now● that we do not proclaim our pining & languishing for him. I am sure, nev●r tongue spoke of Christ as he is: I am still of that mind and still will be, that we wrong & undervalue that holy, holy One in having such short and shallow thoughts of his weight & worth. O if I could have but leave to stand beside & see the Father weigh Christ the Son, if it were possible! But how every one of them comprehendeth another, we who have eyes of clay cannot comprehend: But it is pity for evermore & more than shame, that such an one as Christ, should sit in heaven his alone for us: To go up thither one's errand and on purpose to see, were no small glory. O that he would strike out windows & fair and great lights in this old house, this fallen down soul, and then set the soul near hand Christ, that the rays & beams of light & th' soul-delighting glances of the fair, fair Godhead, might shine in at the windows & fill the house! A fairer & more near & direct sight of Christ would make room for his love, for we are but pinched & straitened in his love: Alas it were easy to measure & weigh all the love that we have for Christ by inches and ounces! Alas that we should love by measure & weight, and not rather have floods & feasts of Christ's love! Oh that Christ would break down the old narrow vessels of these narrow & ebb souls; & make fair, deep, wide & broad souls, to hold a sea & a full tide flowing over all its banks, of Christ's love! Oh that the Almighty would give me my request! That I might see Christ come to his temple again [as he is minting & its like minding to do] & if the land were humbled, the judgements threatened are with this reservation I know, if we shall turn and repent. O what heaven should we want on earth, to see Scotland's moon like the light of the Sun & Scotland's sun-light seven fold like the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people & healeth the stroke of their wounds! Isa. 30: 26. Alas that we will not pull & draw Christ to his old tents again, to come & feed among the lilies till the day break & shadows flee away! O that the Nobles would go on in the strength & courage of the Lord to bring our lawful King Jesus home again! I am persuaded he shall return again in glory to this land, but happy ●ere they who could help to convoy him to his sanctuary & set him again up upon the mercy-seat betwixt the Cher●b●ms. O Sun return to darkened Britain! O fairest among all the sons of men! O most excellent One, come home again, come home & win the praises & blessings of the mourners in Zion, the prisoners of hope that wait for thee! I know he can also triumph in suffering, & weep & reign, & die & triumph, & remain in prison & yet subdue his enemies: But how happy were I to s●e the coronation day of Christ, to see his mother who bore him put the crown upon his head again, & cry with shouting till the earth should ring, Let jesus our King live & reign for evermore! Grace, grace be with your La.  
Aberd. 1637. Your La: at all obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To Mr ALEXANDER colvil. Of Blair. (203.)  
Much honoured Sir.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I would desire to know how my Lord took my letter I sent him, & how he is: I desire nothing but that he be fast and honest to my royal Master & King. I am well every way, all praise to him in whose books I must stand for ever as his debtor: Only my silence paineth me: I had one joy out of heaven next to Christ my Lord, & that was to preach him to this faithless generation, & they have taken that from me: It was to me as the poor man's one eye & they have put out that eye. I know the violence done to me & his poor berest Bride, is come up before the Lord: & suppose I see not the other side of my cross, or what my Lord will bring out of it; yet I believe the vision shall not tarry, & that Christ is on his journey for my deliverance, he goeth not slowly but passeth over ten mountains at one stride: In the mean time, I am pained with his love, because I want real possession, when Christ cometh he stayeth not long, but certainly the blowing of his breath upon a poor soul is heaven upon earth, & when the wind turneth into the North & he goeth away, I die till the wind change in the West & he visit his prisoner: But he holdeth me not often at his door. I am richly repaid for suffering for him. O if all Scotland were as I am, except my bonds! O what pain I have, because I cannot get him praised by my sufferings! O that heaven, within and without, & the earth were paper, & all the rivers, fountains & s●as were ink, & I able to write all the paper within & without, full of his praises & love & excellency, to be read by man & Angel! Nay this is little, I owe my heaven for Christ, & to desire, howbeit I should never enter in at the gates of the new jerusalem, to send my love & my praises over the wall to Christ. Alas that Time & Days lie betwixt him & me, & adjourn our meeting! It is my part to cry, O when will the night be past & the day dawn, that we shall see one another! Be pleased to remember my service to my Lord to whom I wrote, & show him, that for his affection to me, I cannot but pray for him & earnestly desire that Christ miss him not out of the roll of these who are his witnesses, now, when his kingly honour is called in question: It is his honour to hold up Christ's royal train & to be an instrument to hold the crown upon Christ's head: Show him, because I love his true honour & standing, that this is my earnest desire for him. Now I bless you, & the prayers of Christ's prisoner come upon you, & his sweetest presence whom ye serve in the spirit accompany you.  
Aberd. June. 23. 1637. Yours at all obliged obed●ince in Christ, S. R.   

To Mr JOHN ROW. (204)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
I Received yours: I bless his high & great name, I like my sweet Master still the longer the better: A sight of his cross is more awsom than the weight of it. I think the worst things of Christ, even his reproaches & his cross [when I look on these not with bleared eyes] far rather to be chosen then, the laughter & wormeaten joys of my adversaries. Oh that they were as I am, except my bonds! My witness is above, my Ministry next to Christ is dearest to me of any thing; but I lay it down at Christ's feet for his glory & his honour as supreme Lawgiver, which is dearer to me. My dear Brother, if ye will receive the testimony of a poor prisoner of Christ, who dare not now dissemble for the world, I believe certainly & expect thanks from the Prince of the Kings of the earth, for my poor hazards [such as they are] for his honourable cause, whom I can ever enough extol for his running-over love to my sad soul, since I came hither. O that I could get him set on high & praised! I seek no more as the top & root of my desires, but that Christ may make glory to himself & edification to the weaker out of my sufferings. I desire ye would help me both to pray & praise, Grace be with you.  
Aberd. July. 8. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Lady CULROSS. (205)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am much refreshed with your letter, now at length come to me. I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in that precise way that I lay wait for him, he hath a gate of his own: O how high are his ways above my ways! I see but little of him: It is best not to offer to learn him a lesson, but to give him absolutely his own will in coming, going, ebbing, flowing & in the manner of his gracious working. I want nothing but a back burden of Christ's love: I would go through hell & the thick of the damned Devils to have a hearty feast of Christ's love, for he hath fettered me with his love, & run away & left me a chained man. Woe is me that I was so loose, rash, vain & graceless in my unbelieving thoughts of Christ's love: But what can a soul under a nonentry [when my rights were wod-set and lost] do else, but make a false libel against Christ's love? I know yourself, Madam, and many moe will be witnesses against me, if I repent not of my unbelief; for I have been seeking the Pope's wares, some hire for grace within myself: I have not learned as I should do, to put my stock & all my treasure in Christ's hand, but I would have a stock of mine own, & ere I was aware, I was taking hire to be the Law's advocate, to seek Justification by works: I forgot that grace is the only garland that is worn in heaven upon the heads of the glorified. And now I half rejoice that I have sickness for Christ to work upon: since I must have wounds, well's my soul I have a day's work for my Physician Christ: I hope to give Christ his own calling, it setteth him full well to cure diseases. My ebbings are very low & the tide is far out when my Beloved goeth away; & then I cry, Oh cruelty! to put out the poor man's one eye & that, that was my joy next to Christ, to preach my well-beloved, than I make a noise about Christ's house, looking uncouth-like in at his window & casting my love & my desires over the wall, till God send better. I am often content my bill lie in heaven, till the day of my departure, providing I had assurance that mercy shall be written on the back of it: I would not care for onwaiting, but when I draw in a tired arm & empty hand withal, it is much to me; to keep my thoughts in order; but I will not get a gate for Christ's love: When I have done all I can I would fain yield to his stream, & row with Christ & not against him. But while I live, I see, that Christ's Kingdom in me will not be peaceable, so many thoughts in me rise up against his honour & kingly power. Surely I have not expressed all his sweet kindness to me, I spare to do it lest I ●e deemed to seek myself; but his breath hath sinelled of the powder of the merchants & of the King's spikenard. I think I conceive new thoughts of heaven, because the Card & the Map of Haven that he letteth me now see, is so fair, & so sweet: I am sure we are niggards & sparing bodies in seeking: I verily judge, we know not how much may be had in this life, there is yet something beyond all we see, that seeking would light upon. O that my love-sickness would put me to a business, when all the world are sound sleeping, to cry & knock! But the truth is, since I came hither, I have been wondering, that after my importunity to have my fill of Christ's love, I have not gotten a real sign, but have come from him crying, hunger, hunger. I think Christ letteth me see meat in my extremity of hunger, & giveth me none of it: When I am near the apple he draweth back his hand & goeth away, to cause me follow: And again when I am within an arm-length to the apple he maketh a now break to the gate, & I have him to seek of new: He seemeth not to pity my dwining & my swooning for his love. I dare sometimes put my hunger over to him to be judged, if I would not buy him with a thousand years in the hottest furnace in hell, sobeing I might enjoy him: But my hunger is fed with want & absence: I hunger & I have not, but my comfort is to lie & wait on, & to put my poor soul & my sufferings in Christ's hand: Let him make any thing out of me, sobeing he be glorified in my salvation, for I know I am made for him: O that my Lord may win his own gracious end in me! I will not be at ease, while I but stand so far aback: O if I were near him & with him, that this poor soul might be satisfied with himself! Your son in law W. G. is now truly honoured for his Lord and Master's cause: when the Lord is fanning Zion, it is a good token that he is a true branch of the vine, that the Lord beginneth first to dress him: He is strong in his ●●r● as he hath written to me, and his wife is his encourager, which should make you rejoice. For your son, who is your grief, your Lord waited on you and me till we were ●ipe and brought us in: It is your part to pray & wait upon him; When he i● ripe he will b● spoken for, who can command our Lord's wind to blow? I know it shall be your good in the latter end: That is one of your waters to heaven, ye could not go about it, there are the fewer behind. I remember you & him & yours, as I am able: But alas, I am believed to be something, & I am nothing but an empty reed: Wants are my best riches, because I have these supp●…ed by Christ, Remember my dearest love to your brother: I know he pleadeth with his harlot-mother for her Apostasy. I know also ye are kind to my worthy Lady Kenmure. a woman beloved of the Lord, who hath been very mindful of my bonds: The Lord give her to find mercy & her child in the day of Christ. Great men are dry and cold in doing for me, the tinkling of chains for Christ, affrighteth them; but let my Lord break all my idols, I will yet bless him. I am obliged to my Lord Lor●: I wish him mercy. Remember my bonds with praises, and pray for me that my Lord my leaven the North by my bands & sufferings. Grace be with you.  
Aberd. July 9 1637, Yours ●his s swe Lord jesus, S. R.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON. Of Knockgray. (206.)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you. There is no question but our mother-church hath a father & that she shall not die without an heir, that her enemies▪ hall not make mount Zion the● heritage. We see, whethersoever Zion's enemies go, suppose they dig many miles under the ground, yet our Lord findeth them out, and he hath vengeances laid up in ●or● for them, & the poor & needy shall not always be forgotten. Our hope was drooping & withering, & man was saying, what can God make out of the old dry bones of this buried Kirk? The Prelates & their followers were a grave above us: it is like our Lord is to open our graves & purposeth to cause his two slain witnesses rise the third day, O how long wait I to hear our weeping Lord Jesus sing again & triumph & rejoice & divide the spoil! I find it hard work to believe when the course of providence goeth cross-ways to our faith, & when misted souls in a dark night cannot know East by West, & our sea Compass seemeth to fail us: Every man is a believer in daylight: A fair day seemeth to be made all of faith & hope: What a trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the fire? But to keep gold perfect ●ellow-coloured amidst the flames & to be turned from vessel to vessels, & yet to cause out furnace sound & speak & cry the praises of the Lord, is another matter. I know my Lord made me not for fire, howbeit he hath fitted me in some measure for the fire. I bless his high name that I wax not pale, neither have I lost the colour of gold and that his fire hath made me somewhat thin & that my Lord may pour me in any vessel he pleaseth: For a small wager I may justly quite my part of this world's laughter, & give up with time, & cast out with the pleasures of this world. I know a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh & sport: surely our Lord seeketh this of us, as to any rejoicing in present perishing things. I see above all things, & that we may sit down & fold legs & arms & stretch ourselves upon Christ & laugh at the feathers that children are chase here: For I think the men of this world like children in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play & make sport with the white foam of the waves thereof, coming in to sink & drown them; so are men making fool's sports with the white pleasures of a stormy world that will sink ●em. But alas, what have we to do with their sports that they make! If Solomon said of Laughter that it was madness, what may we say of this world's laughing & sporting themselves with gold & silver & honours & court & broad large conquests, but that they are poor souls in the height and rage of a fever gone mad? Then a straw, a fig for all created sports and rejoicing out of Christ: Nay I think that this world at its prime & perfection, when it is is come to the top of its excellency and to the bloom, might be bought with an half penny, & that it would scarce weigh the worth of a drink of water: There is nothing better than to esteem it our crucified idol, that is dead & slain, as Paul did; ●al. 6, 14. Then let pleasures be crucified, & riches be crucified, & court & honour be crucified, & since the Apostle faith, the world is crucified to him, we may put this world to the hanged man's doom and to the gallows, & who will give much for a hanged man? & as little should we give for a hanged & crucified world: Yet what a sweet smell hath this dead carrion to many fools in the world, and how many wooers and suitors findeth this hanged carrion? Fools are pulling it off the gallows and contending for it. O when shall we learn to be mortified men, & to have our fill of these things that have but their short summer-quarter of this life! If we saw our father's house and that great and fair city, the new jerusalem which is up above sun & moon, we would cry to be over the water & to be carried in Christ's arms out of this borrowed prison. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To the ●aird of CARLETOUN. (207)  
Worthy Six.  
GRace, mercy and peace be to you: I received your letter & am heartily glad that our Lord hath begun to work for the apparent delivery of this poor oppressed Kirk: O that salvation would come for Zion! I am for the present hanging by hope, waiting what my Lord will do with me, & if it will please my sweet Master to send me amongst you again, & keep out a hireling from my poor people & flock: It were my heaven till I come home, even to spend this li●e in gathering in some to Christ. I have still great heaviness for my silence & my forced standing idle in the market, when this land hath such a plentiful thick harvest; but I know, his judgements who hath done it, pass fi●…ding out: I have no nowledge to take up the Lord in all his strange ways 〈◊〉 passages of deep & unsearchable providences, for the Lord is b●fore me & I am so bemisted that I cannot follow him: He is behind me and following at the heels and I am not aware of him, he is above me, but his glory so 〈◊〉 my twilight of short knowledge▪ that I cannot look up to him: He is upon my right hand, and I see him no: He is upon my left hand and within me and goeth and comes, & his going & coming are a dr●a●… to me: He is round about me & comp●…th ●l my going a●d still I have him to eek: He is every way higher & deeper & broad●r than the shallow & ebb hand-breadth of my sho●t & d●… light can take up, & therefore I would my heart could be silent & sit down in the learnedly-ignorant wondering at that Lord, whom m n & Angels ca●not comprehend. I know, the noon-day-light of the highest Angels, who see him face to face, seeth not the borders of his infiniteness: They apprehend God near hand, but they cannot comprehend him: And therefore it is my happiness to look afar off and to come near to the Lord's back parts, & to light my dark candle at his brightness, & to have leave to sit & content myself with a traveller's light, without the clear vision of an enjoyer. I would seek no more till I were in my country, but a little watering & sprinkling of a withered soul, with some half out breaking's & half-outlookings of the beam and small ravishing smiles of the fairest face of a revealed & believed on Godhead: A little of God would make my soul bankfull. O that I had but Christ's odd off fall, that he would let but the meanest of his love-rayes & love-beams fall from him, so, as I might gather & carry them with me! I would not be ill to please with Christ and veiled visions of Christ, neither would I be dainty in seeing and enjoying of him▪ A kiss of Christ blown over his shoulder, the parings and crumbs of glory that fall under his table in heaven, a shower like a thin May-mist of his love, would make me green and sappy & joyful, till the summer-sun of an eternal glory break up. O that I had any thing of Christ! O that I had a sip or half a drop out of the hollow of Christ's hand, of the sweetness & excellency of that lovely One! O that my Lord Jesus would ●ue upon me, & give me but the meanest alms of felt & believed salvation! O how little were it for that infinite sea, that infinite fountain of love & joy, to fill as many thousand thousand little vessels the like of me, as there are minutes of hours since the creation of God I find it true that a poor soul finding half a smell of the Godhead of Christ, hath desires paining & wounding the poor heart so, with longings to be up at him, that make it sometimes think, were it not better never to have felt any thing of Christ then thus to lie dying twenty deaths under these felt wounds for the want of him? O where is he! O fairest! Where dwellest thou? O never enough admired Godhead! how can clay win up to thee? How can creatures of yesterday be able to enjoy thee? O what pain is it, that time & sin should be as so many thousand miles betwixt a loved & longed-for Lord & a dwining & lovesick soul, who would rather than all the world have lodging with Christ! O let this bit love of ours, this inch & half span-length of heavenly longging, meet with thy infinite love! O if the little I have were swallowed up with the infiniteness of that excellency which is in Christ! O that we little ones were in at the greatest Lord Jesus! our wants should soon be swallowed up with his fullness. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. May. 1. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON. Of Knockbrex. (208)  
Dear Brother.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I received your letter from Edinburgh. I would not wish to see another heaven wh●●e I get mine own heaven, but a new moon like the light of the sun, & a new sun like the light of seven days shining upon my poor self & the Church of jews & Gentiles, & upon my withered & sunburnt mother, the Church of Scotland, & upon her sister Churches, England & Ireland; & to have this done to to the setting on high our great King: it maketh not, howbeit I were separate from Christ & had a sense of ten thousand years' pain in hell, if this were. O blessed Nobility, O glorious renowned Gentry, O blessed were the tribes in this land to wipe my Lord Jesus' weeping face, & to take the sackcloth off Christ's loins & to put his kingly robes upon him! O if the Almighty would take no less wager of me then my heaven, to have it done! But my fears are still for wrath once upon Scotland: But I know her day shall clear up & glory shall be upon the top of the mountains and joy at the noise of the married wife once again. O that our Lord would make us to contend & plead & wrestle by prayers & tears for our husband's restoring of his forfeited heritage in Scotland. Dear Brother, I am for the present in no small battle betwixt felt guiltiness and pining longings & high fevers for my well-beloved's love. Alas! I think Christ's love playeth the niggard to me, & I know, it is not for scarcity of love, there is enough in him; but my hunger prophesieth of in-holding and sparingness in Christ, for I have but little of him and little of his sweetness: It is a dear summer with me, yet there is such joy in the eagerness & working of hunger for Christ, that I am often at this, that if I had no other heaven but a continual hunger for Christ, such a heaven of ever-working hunger, were still a heaven to me. I am sure, Christ's love cannot be cruel, it must be a rueing, a pitiful, a melting-hearted love: But suspension of that love▪ I think it half a hell, & the want of it more than a whole hell. When I look to my guiltiness, I see my salvation one of our Saviour's greatest miracles either in heaven or earth: I am sure, I may defy any m●n to show me a greater wonder, but seeing I have no wares, no hire, no money for Christ, he must either take me with want, misery, corruption, or then want me. O if he would be pleased to be compassionate and pitiful hearted to my pining fevers of longing for him, o● then give me a real pawn to keep, out of his own hand, till God send a meeting betwixt him & me! But I find neither as yet; howbeit he who is absent be not cruel nor unkind, yet his absence is cruel and unkind: His love is like itself, his love is his love; but the cove●ing & the cloud, the vail & the mask of his love, is more wise than kind, if I durst speak my apprehensions. I lead no process now against the suspension & delay of God's love: I would with all my heart frist till a day, ten heavens and the sweet manifestations of his love: Certainly I think I could give Christ much on his word: But my whole pleading is about intimated & bornin assurance of his love. O if he would persuade me of my heart's desire of his love at all, he should have the term-day of payment at his own carving: But I know, raving unbeleef speaketh its pleasure; while it looketh upon guiltiness and this body of corruption. O how loathsome & burdensome is it to carry about a dead corpse, this old carrion of corruption! O how steadable a thing is a Saviour to make a sinner rid of his chains & fetters! I have now made a new question, Whether Christ be more to be loved for giving Sanctification, or for free Justification? And I hold he is more & most to be loved for Sanctification: it is in some respect greater love in him to sanctify then to justify, for he maketh us most like himself in his own essential portraiture & image, in sanctifying us: Justification doth but make us happy, which is to be like the Angels only: Neither is it such a misery to lie a condemned man & under unforgiven guiltiness, as to serve sin & work the works of the Devil; & therefore I think Sanctification cannot be bought, it's above all price, God be thanked for ever that Christ was a told down price for Sanctification: Let a sinner [if possible] lie in hell for ever, if he make him truly holy, & let him lie there burning in love to God, rejoicing in the Holy Ghost, hanging upon Christ by faith & hope; that is heaven in the heart and bottom of hell. Alas, I find a very thin harvest here & few to be saved! Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. 1637. Yours in his lovely & longed-for Lord ●●sus, S. R.   

To my Lord CRAIGHALL. (209)  
My Lord.  
I Persuade myself, notwithstanding of the greatness of this temptation, ye will not let Christ want a witness of you, to avow him before this evil generation. And if ye advise with God's truth, the perfect testament of Christ, that forbiddeth all men's additions to his worship, & with the truly learned & withal the sanctified in this land, & with that warner within you [that will not fail to speak against you in God's time, if ye be not now fast & fixed for Christ] I hope then your Lo: will acquit yourself as a man of courage for Christ, & refuse to bow your knee superstitiously & idolatrously to wood or stone or any creature whatsoever. I persuade myself when ye shall take good-night at this world, ye shall think it God's truth I now write. Some fear your Lo: have obliged yourself to his Maj: by promise to satisfy his desire: If it be so, my dear & worthy Lord, hear me for your soul's good: Think upon swimming a shore after this ship wrack, & be pleased to write your humble Apology to his Majesty, it may be God give you favour in his eyes: However it be, far be it from you to think, a promise made out of weakness & extorted by the terror of a King, should bind you to wrong your Lord Jesus. But for myself, I give no faith to that report, but I believe ye shall prove fast 〈◊〉 Christ: To his grace I recommend you.  
Aberd. July. 8. 1637. Your Lo: at all obedience in Christ. S. R.   

To my Lord CRAIGHALL. (210.)  
My Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am not only content but I exceedingly rejoice, that I find any of the Rulers of this Land, & especially your Lo: so to affect Christ and his truth, as ye dare for his name come to yea & nay with Monarches in their face. I hope he who hath enabled you for that, will give more, if ye show yourself courageous, & as his word speaketh, a man in the streets for the Lord: But I pray your Lo: give me leave to be plain with you, as one who loveth both your honour & your soul. I verily believe, there was never Idolatry at Rome, never Idolatry condemned in God's word by the Prophets, if religious kneeling before a consecreate creature standing in room of Christ crucified, in that very act, & that for reverence of the Elements (as our Act cleareth) be not Idolatry. Neither will your intention help, which is not of the essence of Worship: for then Aaron saying, To morrow shall be afeast for jehovah, that is, for the golden Calf, should not have been guilty of Idolatry; for he intended only to decline the lash of the people's fury, not to honour the Calf: Your intention to honour Christ is nothing, seeing religious kneeling by God's institution doth necessarily import religious & divine adoration, suppose our intention were both dead & sleeping: Otherwise kneeling before the Image of God, directing prayer to God, were lawful, if our intention go right. My Lord, I cannot in this bounds dispute, but if Cambridge & Oxford & the learning of Britain will answer this argument, & the argument from active scandal, which your Lo: seemeth to stand upon, I will turn a formalist & call myself an arrant fool by doing what I have done in my suffering for this truth. I do much reverence Mr Ls. learning, but my Lo: I will answer what he writes in that to pervert you from the truth, else repute me beside an hypocrite, an ass also, & I hope ye shall see something upon that subject, if the Lord permit, that no sophistry in Britain shall answer. Courtier's arguments for the most part, are drawn from their own skin, & are not worth a straw for your conscience. A Marquis or a King's word, when ye stand before Christ's tribunal, shall be lighter than wind. The Lord knoweth I love your true honour & the standing of your house, but I would not your honour or house were established upon sand, & hay & stubble. But let me, my very dear & worthy Lord, most humbly beseech you by the mercies of God, by the consolations of his Spirit, by the dear blood & wounds of your lovely Redeemer, by the salvation of your soul, by your compearance before the awful face of a sin-revenging & dreadful Judge, not to set in comparison together your soul's peace, Christ's love & his Kingly honour now called in question, with your place, honour, house, or ease, that an inch of time will make out of the way. I verily believe, Christ is now begging a testimony of you, & is saying, And will ye also leave me. It is possible the wind shall not blow so fair for you all your life, for coming out & appearing before others to back & countenance Christ the fairest among the sons of men, the Prince of the Kings of the earth. Isa. 51. 7. Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revile. v. 8. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, & the worm shall eat them like wool. When the Lord shall begin, he shall make an end, & mow down his adversaries, and they shall lie before him like withered hay, & their bloom shaken off them. Consider how many thousands in this Kingdom veshall cause to fall & stumble, if ye go with them, & that ye shall be out of the prayers of many who do stand before the Lord for you & your house: & further, when the time of your accounts cometh, & your one foot shall be within the border of eternity, & the eyestrings shall break, & the face wax pale, & the soul shall look out at the windows of the house of clay, longing to be out, & ye shall find yourself arraigned before the Judge of quick & dead to answer for the putting to your hand with the rest, confederate against Christ, to the overturning of his Ark & the losing of the pins of Christ's tabernacle in this land, & shall certainly s●e yourself mired in a course of Apostasy, then, than a King's favour & your wormeaten honour shall be miserable comforters to you. The Lord hath enlightened you with the knowledge of his will: & as the Lord liveth, they lead you and others to a communion with great Babel, the mother of fornications: & God said of old, & continueth to say the same to you, Come out of her my people, lest ye be partakers of her plagues: will ye then go with them, & set your lip to the whore's golden cup, & drink of the wine of the wrath of God Almighty with them? O poor hungry honour! O cursed pleasures! And O damnable ease, bought with the loss of God How many shall pray for you! What a sweet presence shall ●…efinde of Christ under your sufferings, if ye shall lay down your honour & place at the feet of Christ! What a fair recompense of reward! I avouch before the Lord that I am now showing you a way how the house of Craighall may stand on sure pillars: If ye will set it on rotten pillars, ye cruelly wrong your posterity: Ye have the word of a King for an hundred fold more in this life [if it be good for you] & for life everlasting also: Make not Christ a liar, in distrusting his promise. Kings of clay cannot back you when ye stand before him, a straw for them & their hungry heaven that standeth on this side of time, a fig for the dayes-smile of a wo●m. Consider who have gone before you to eternity & would have given a world for a new occasion of a vouching that truth: It's true, they call it not substantial, and we are made a scorn to these that are at ease, for suffering these things for it; but it is not time to judge of our losses by the morning, stay till the evening & we shall count with the best of them. I have found by experience since the time of my imprisonment [my witness is above] Christ feeling this honourable cause with another & a nearer fellowship than ever I knew before, and let God weigh me in an even balance in this, if I would exchange the cross of Christ or his truth with the fourteen Prelacies or what else a King can give. My dear Lord, venture to take the wind on your face for Christ: I believe, if he should come from heaven in his own person, & seek the charters of Craighall from you, & a dimission of your place, & ye saw his face, ye would fall down at his feet and say, Lord jesus, it is too little for ●…ee. If any man think it not a truth to die for, I am against him: I dare go to eternity with it, that this day the honour of our royal Lawgiver & King in the Government of his own free Kingdom [who should pay tribute to no dying King] is the true state of the question. My Lord, be ye upon Christ's side of it, & take the word of a poor prisoner, nay the Lord Jesus be surety for it; ye have incomparably made the wisest choice: for my own part, I have been in this prison that I would be half a hamed to seek more, till I be up at the wellhead. Few know in this world the sweetness of Christ's breath, the excellency of his love which hath neither brim nor bottom: the world hath raised a slander upon the cross of Christ, because they love to go to heaven by dry land & love not sea-storms: But I write it under my hand [& would say more, if possibly a reader would not deem it hypocrisy] My obligation to Christ for the smell of his garments, for his love-kisses these thirty weeks, standeth so great, that I should, & I desire also to choose to suspend my salvation, to have many tongues loosed in my behalf to praise him: & suppose in person I never entered within the gates of the new ●erusalem, yet sobeing Christ may be set on high & I had the liberty to cast my love & praises for ever over the wall to Christ, I would be silent & content. But O he is more than my narrow praises! O time, time, flee swiftly, that our communion with Jesus may be perfected. I wish your Lo: would urge Mr L. to give his mind in the Ceremonies & be pleased to let me s●e it as quickly as can be, & it shall be answered. To his rich grace I recommend your Lo: & shall remain.  
Aberd. Juny 8. 1637. Yours at all respective obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To the Lady CULROSS. (211)  
MADAM.  
YOur letter came in due time to me, now a prisoner of Christ & in bonds for the Gospel: I am sentenced with deprivation, & confinement within the town of Aberdeen: but Oh my guiltiness, the follies of my youth, the neglects in my calling, & especially in not speaking more for the Kingdom, crown & sceptre of my royal & princely King jesus, do so stare me in the face, that I apprehend anger in that which is a crown of rejoicing to the dear saints of God This before my compearance [which was three several days] did trouble me, & burdeneth me more now; howbeit Christ, & in him, God reconciled, met me with open arms, & trysted me precisely at the entry of the door of the Chancellour's hall, & assisted me to answer so, as the advantage that is, is not theirs but Christ's. Alas! There is no cause of wondering that I am thus born down with challenges, for the world hath mistaken me, & no man knoweth what guiltiness is in me, so well as these two [who keep my eyes now waking & my heart heavy] I mean, my Heart & Conscience, & my Lord who is greater than my Heart. Show your brother that I desire him while he is on the watchtower to plead with his mother, & to plead with thi●land, & spare not to cry for my sweet Lord Jesus his fair crown, that the interdicted & forbidden Lords are plucking off his royal head. If I were free of challenges & a High Commission within my soul. I would not give a straw to go to my father's house through ten deaths for the truth & cause of my lovely, lovely one▪ jesus: But I walk in heaviness now. If ye love me & Christ in me, my dear Lady, pray, pray for this only, that by-gones betwixt my Lord & me may be by-gones, & that he would pass from the summons of his High Commission, & seek nothing from me, but what he will do for me & work in me. If your La: knew me as I do myself, ve would say, Poor soul, no marvel. It is not my apprehension that createth this cross to me, it is too real & hath sad & certain grounds. But I will not believe that God will take this advantage of me, when my back is at the wall: He who forbiddeth to add affliction to affliction, will he do it himself? Why should ●e pursue a dry lea● & stubble? Desire him to spare me now. Also the memory of the fair feast-days that Christ & I had in his banqueting house of wine, & the scattered flock once committed to me & now taken off my hand by himself, because I was not so faithful in the end, as I was in the first two years of my entry, when sleep departed from my eyes, because my soul was taken up with a care for Christ's lambs, even these add sorrow to my sorrow. Now my Lord hath only given me this to say, & I write it under mine own hand [be ye the Lord's servant's witness] Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ: welcome fair. fair, lovely, royal King with thine own cross: Let us all three go to heaven together. Neither care I much to go from the South of Scotland to the North, & to be Christ's prisoner amongst 〈◊〉 couth faces, a place of this Kingdom which I have little reason to be in love with. I know, Christ shall make Ab●rdeen my garden of delights. I am fully persuaded that Scotland shall ●at Ez●kiel's book that is written within & without; Lamen●… & mourning & ●oe. Ezek. 2, 10. But the saints shall get a drink of the well that goeth through the streets of the n●w jerusalem to put it down. Thus hoping ye will think upon the poor prisoner of Christ, I pray, Grace, grace be with you.  
Edinb. July. 30. 1636. Your La: in his sweet Lord jesus, S. 〈◊〉.   

To ALEXANDER GORDON. of Earlestown. (212)  
Much honoured Sir.  
I Find small hopes of Qs. business: I intent after the Councel-day to go on to Aberdeen: The Lord is with me, I care not what man can do. I burden no man, & I want nothing: No King is better provided than I am: Sweet, sweet & easy is the cross of my Lord: All men I look in the face [of whatsoever rank, Nobles & poor, acquaintance & strangers] are friendly to me. My well-beloved is some kinder & more warmly then ordinary, & cometh and visiteth my soul: My chains are overguilded with gold. Only the remembrance of my fair days with Christ in Anwoth, & of my dear flo●● [whose case is my heart's sorrow] is vinegar to my sugared wine, yet both sweet & sour feed my soul: No pen, no words, no engine can express to you, the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus. Thus in haste, making for my palace at Aberdeen, I bless you, your wife, your eldest son & other children. Grace, grace be with you.  
Edinb. Sept. 5. 1636. Your in his only, only Lord jesus. S. R.   

To ROBERT GORDON of Knockbrex. (213.)  
My dearest Brother.  
I See Christ thinketh shame [if I may speak so] to be in such a poor man's common as mine. I burden no man, I want nothing, no face hath gloomed upon me since I left you. God's son & fair weather conveyeth me to my time- Paradise in Aberdeen. Christ hath so handsomely fitted for my shoulders this ●●ugh ●●ee of the cross, as that it hurteth me no ways. My treasure is up in Christ's ●●ffers, my comforts are greater than ye can believe: my per shall ye for penury of words to write of them. God knoweth▪ I am filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost. Only the memory of you, my dearest in the Lord, my flock & others▪ keepeth me under, & from being exalted above measure: Christ's sweet sa●… hath this sour mixed with it; but O such a sweet & pleasant taste! I find small hopes of Qs: matter. Thus in haste. Remember me to your wife, & to William Gordon. Grace be with you.  
Edinb. Sept. 5. 1636. Yours in his only, only Lord jesus, R. S.   

To my Lord LOWDOUN. (214)  
Right honourable & my very worthy Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Hearing of your Lo: zeal & courage for Christ our Lord, in owning his honourable cause, I am bold [& I plead pardon sor it] to speak in paper by a line or two to your Lo: [since I have not access any other way] beseeching your Lo: by the mercies of God, & by the everlasting peace of your soul, & by the tears & prayers of our mother-Church, to go on as ye have worthily begun, in purging of the Lord's house in this land & plucking down the sticks of Antichrist's filthy nest, this wretched Prelacy, & that black Kingdom, whose wicked aims have ever been & still are, to make this fat world the only Compass they would have Christ and Religion to sail by, and to mount up the man of sin, their godfather the Pope of Rome, upon the highest stair of Christ's throne, and to make a velvet-Church [in regard of Parliament-grandour & worldly pomp, whereof always their stinking breath smelleth] & to put Christ & truth in sackcloth & prison, & to eat the bread of adversity and drink the water of affliction: Half an eye of any not misted with the darkness of Antichristian smoke, may see it thus in this land: & now our Lord hath begun to awaken the Nobles & others to plead for born-down Christ & his weeping Gospel: My dear & noble Lord, the eye of Christ is upon you; the eyes of many noble, many holy, many learned & worthy ones in our neighbour Churches about are upon you: This poor Church, your mother & Christ's spouse, is holding up her hands & heart to God for you, and doth beseech you with tears to plead for her husband, his Kingly Sceptre, & for the liberties that her Lord & King hath given to her, as to a free Kingdom, that oweth spiritual tribute to none on earth, as being the freeborn Princess & daughter to the King of Kings. This is a Cause that before God, his Angels, the World, before Sun & Moon, needeth not to blush. O what glory & true honour is it to lend Christ your hand & service, & to be amongst the repairers of the breaches of Sion's walls, & to help to ●uild the old waste places, and stretch forth the curtains & strengthen the stakes of Christ's tent in this land! O blessed are they, who, when Christ is driven away, will bring him back again & lend him lodging! And blessed are ye of the Lord; your name & honour shall never rot or wither in heaven [at least] if ye deliver the Lord's sheep that have been scattered in the dark & cloudy day, out of the hands of strange Lords & hirelings, who with rigour & cruelty, have caused them to eat the pastures trodden upon with their foul feet, & to drink muddy water, & who have spun out such a world of yards of ●ndifferencies in God's Worship, to make & wove a web for the Antichrist [that shall not keep any from the cold] as they mind nothing else, but that by the bringing in of the Pope's foul tail first upon us [their wretched and beggarly Ceremonies] they may thrust in after them, the Antichrist's legs & thighs & his belly, head & shoulders, & then cry down Christ & the Gospel & up the merchandise & wares of the great whore. Fear not, my worthy Lord, to give yourself & all ye have, out for Christ & his Gospel: No man dare say who ever did thus hazard for Christ, that Christ paid him not his hundred fold in this life duly, & in the life to come, life everlasting. This is his own truth ye now plead for, for God and man cannot but commend you to beg justice from a just Prince for oppressed Christ, & to plead that Christ, who is the King's Lord, may be heard in a free court to speak for himself, when the standing & established laws of our nation can strongly plead for Christ's crown in the pulpits, & his chair as Lawgiver in the free Government of his own house: But Christ shall never be content & pleased with this land, neither shall his hot fiery indignation be turned away, so long as the Prelate, [the man that l●y in Antichrist's foul womb & the Antichrist's Lord Bailiff] shall sit Lord-carver in the Lord Jesus his courts: The Prelate is both the egg & the nest to cleck & bring forth Popery: Plead therefore in Christ's behalf for the plucking down of the nest & crushing of the egg, & let Christ's Kingly Office suffer no more unworthy indignities. Be valiant for your royal King Jesus, contend for him; your adversaries shall be motheaten worms, and shall die as men: Christ and his honour now lieth upon your shoulders, let him not fall to the ground: Cast your eye upon him who is quickly coming to decide all the controversies in Zion, & remember the sand in your night-glass will run out: Time with wings will fly away, Eternity, is hard upon you, & what will Christ's love-smiles & the light of his lovely & soul delighting countenance be to you in that day, when God shall take up in his right hand this little lodge of heaven [like as a shepherd lifteth up his little tent] & sold together the two leaves of his tent, & put the earth & all the plenishing of it into a fire, & turn this clay-Idol, the god of Adam's sons, in to smoke & white ashes! O what hire & how many worlds would many then give to have a favourable decreet of the Judge! Or what monies would they not give to buy a mountain to be a grave above both soul & body, to hide them from the awsom looks of an angry Lord & Judge! I hope, your Lo: thinketh upon this, & that ye mind loyalty to Christ & to the King both. Now the very God of peace, the only wise God, establish & strengthen you upon the rock laid in Zion.  
Aberd. Jan. 4. 1638. Your Lo: at all obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To a Christian Gentlewoman. (2●5)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Though not acquainted, yet at the desire of a Christian brother, I thought good to write a line unto you, entreating you in the Lord Jesus under your trials, to keep an ear open to Christ, who can speak for himself, howbeit your visitations and your own sense should dream hard things of his love and favour: Our Lord never getteth so kind a look of us, nor our love in such a degree, nor our faith in such a measure of steadfastness, as he getteth out of the furnace of our tempting fears & sharp trials. I verily believe [& too sad proofs in me, say no less] that if our Lord would grind our whorish lust in powder, the very old ashes of our corruption should take life again, and live and hold us under so much bondage that may humble us & make us sad, till we be in that country where we shall need no Physic at all. O what violent means doth our Lord use to gain us to him, as if indeed we were a prize worthy his fight for! And be sure if leading would do the turn, he would not use pulling of hair and drawing: But the best of us will bide a strong pull of our Lord's right arm ere we follow him: Yet I say not this as if our Lord always measured afflictions by so many ounce weights answerable to the grain weights of our guiltiness: I know he doth in many [and possibly in you] seek nothing so much as faith that can endure summer and winter in their extremity. O how precious to the Lord is faith and love, that when threshed, beaten, and chased away, and boasted [as it were] by God himself, doth yet look warm-like, love-like, kindlike, and life-like home-over to Christ, & would be in at him, ill & well as it may be! Think not much that your husband or the dearest to you in the world, proveth to have the bowels & mercy of the Ostrich, hard & rigorous & cruel: For Psal. 27. 10. The Lord taketh up such fallen ones as these. I could not wish a more sweet life nor more satisfying expressions of kindness till I be up at that Prince of kindness, than the Lord's saints find when the Lord taketh up men's refuse & lodgeth this world's outlaws whom no man seeketh after: His breath is never so hot, his love casteth never such a flame, as when this world and these who should be the helpers of our joy, cast water on our coal: It is a sweet thing to see them cast out, & God take in, & to see them throw us away as the refuse of men, & God take us up as his jewels & his treasure: Often he maketh gold of dross, as once he made the castaway stone, the stone rejected by the builders, the head of the corner. The Princes of this world would not have our Lord Jesus a pin in the wall or to have any place in the building, but the Lord made him the Master-stone of power & place. God be thanked that this world hath not power to cry us down so many pounds, as rulers cry down light gold, or light silver: We shall stand for as much as our master-coiner Christ, whose coin, arms & stamp we bear, will have us: Christ hath no miscarrying balance. Thank your Lord, who chaseth your love through two Kingdoms & followeth you & it over sea, to have you for himself, as he speaketh Host 3. For God layeth up his saints as the wail & the choice of all the world for himself, & this is like Christ & his love. O what in heaven or out of heaven is comparable to the smell of Christ's garments! Nay, suppose our Lord would manifest his art, & make ten thousand heavens of good & glorious things, & of new joys devised out of the deep of infinite wisdom, he could not make the like of Christ, for Christ is God, & God cannot be made: & therefore let us hold us with Christ, howbeit we might have our wail & will of an host of lovers, as many as three heavens could contain. O that he & we were together! O when Christ & ye shall meet about the outmost march & borders of time & the entry into eternity, ye shall see heaven in his face at the first look, & salvation & glory sitting in his countenance & betwixt his eyes! Faint not, the miles to heaven are but few & short: he is making a green bed [as the word speaketh Cant. 1.] of love for himself & you: There are many heads lying in Christ's bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest: And therefore go on & let hope go before you: Sin not in your trials, & the victory is yours: pray, wrestle & believe, & ye shall overcome & prevail with God as jacob did: No windlestraws, no bits of clay, no temptations which are of no longer life than an hour, will then be able to withstand you, when once ye have prevailed with God. Help me with your prayers, that it would please the Lord to give me houseroom again, to speak of his righteonsness in the great congregation, if it may seem good in his sight. Grace, grace be with you.  
Aberd. Jan. 6. 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.    

THE SECOND PART.  
Containing Some letters of the same Author, from Anwoth, before his confinement, at Aberdeen: And others from St Andrews, London, etc. after his enlargement.  

To the Vicountess of Kenmure. (1.)  
MADAM..  
ALL dutiful obedience in the Lord remembered: I have heard of your La: Infirmity and sickness with grief yet I trust ye have learned to say. It is the Lord, let him do whatsoever seemeth good in his eyes. It is now many years since the Apostate Angels made a question, whether their will or the will of their Creator should be done, & since that time, fr●ward mankind hath always in that same suit of Law compeared, to plead with them against God, in a daily repining against his will: but the Lord being both party & Judge, hath obtained a decreet & saith, Isa. 46. 10. My counsel shall stand, & I will do all my pleasure. It is then best for us in the obedience of faith & in an holy submission, to give that to God which the Law of ●is almighty & just power will have of us. Therefore, Madam, your Lord willeth you in all states of life to say Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven: & herein shall ye have comfort, that he who seeth perfectly through all your evils, & knoweth the frame & constitution of your nature, & what is most healthful for your soul, holdeth every cup of affliction to your head with his own gracious hand: Never believe that your tenderhearted Saviour who knoweth the strength of your stomach, will mix that cup with one dram weight of poison: Drink then with the patience of the saints, & the God of patience bless your Physic. I have heard your La: complain of deadness & want of the bestirring power of the life of God, but courage, he who walked in the garden & made a noise that made Adam hear his voice, will also at sometimes walk in your soul & make you hear a more sweet word: Yet ye will not always hear the no●se & the din of his feet when he walketh: Ye are at such a time like jacob mourning at the supposed death of joseph, when Joseph was living: The new creature, the image of the second Adam is living in you, & yet ye are mourning at the supposed death of the life of Christ in you: Ephraim is bemoaning & mourning, jer. 31. 18. When he thinketh God is far off & heareth not, & yet God is like the Bridegroom, Cant. 2. standing only behind a thin wall & laying to his ear, for he saith himself, ver 18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. I have good confidence, Madam, that Christ Jesus whom your soul through forests & mountains is seeking, is within you: And yet I speak not this to lay a pillow under your head, or to dissuade you from an holy fear of the loss of your Christ or of provoking & stirring up the beloved before he please, by sin. I know, in spiritual confidence the Devil will come in, as in all other good works, & cry half mine, & so endeavour to bring you under a fearful sleep, till he whom your soul loveth be departed from the door & have left off knocking & therefore, here the Spirit of God must hold your souls feet in the golden mid-line betwixt confident resting in the arms of Christ, & presumptuous and drowsy sleeping in the bed of fleshly security. Therefore, worthy Lady, so count little of yourself, because of your own wretchedness and sinful drousiness, that ye count not also little of God in the course of his unchangeable mercy: For there be many Christians, most like unto young sailors, who think the shore & the whole land doth move, when the ship & they themselves are moved; just so, not a few do imagine that God moveth & saileth & changeth places, because their giddy souls are under sail & subject to alteration, to ebbing & flowing; but the foundation of the Lord abideth sure. God knoweth that ye are his own: Wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray, & then ye have all the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ within you. Ye have now, Madam, a sickness before you & also after that a death, gather then now food for the journey: God give you eyes to see through sickness & death, & to see something beyond death. I doubt not but if hell were betwixt you & Christ, as a river which ye behoved to cross ere ye could come at him, but ye would willingly put in your foot & make through to be at him, upon hope that he would come in himself in the deepest of the river & lend you his hand. Now I believe your hell is dried up & ye have only these two shallow brooks, Sickness & Death, to pass through, & ye have also a promise that Christ shall do more than meet you, even that he shall come himself & go with you foot for foot, yea & bear you in his arms. O then! O then for the joy that is set before you! For the love of the man [who is also God over all, blessed for ever] that is standing upon the shore to welcome you, run your race with patience: The Lord go with you. Your Lord will not have you nor any of his servants to exchange for the worse. Death in itself includeth both the death of the soul & the death of the body, but to God's children the bounds & the limits of death are abridged & drawn into a more narrow compass: So that when ye die, a piece of death shall only seize upon you, or the least part of you shall die, & that is the dissolution of the body; for in Christ ye are delivered from the second death: & therefore, as one born of God commit not sin [although ye cannot live & not sin] & that serpent shall but eat your earthly part? As for your soul, it is above the law of Death: But it is fearful & dangerous to be a debtor and servant to sin, for the count of sin ye will not be able to make good before God, except Christ both count & pay for you. I trust also, Madam, that ye will be careful to present to the Lord the present estate of this decaying Kirk: For, what shall be concluded in Parliament anent her, the Lord knoweth: sure I am, the decree of a most fearful Parliament in heaven, is at the very point of coming forth, because of the sins of the land: For, We have cast away the law of the Lord and despised the words of the holy one of Israel, Isa. 5, 24. judgement is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off, truth is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter. Lo, the prophet, as if he had seen us & our Kirk, resembleth justice to be handled as an enemy holden out at the ports of our city, so is she banished: & Truth to a person sickly & diseased, fallen down in a deadly swooning sit in the streets before he can come to an house: Isa. 59 14. The Priests have caused many to stumble at the Law, & have corrupted the Covenant of Levi: Mal. 2. 8. But what will they do in the end? jer. 5 31. Therefore give the Lord no rest for Zion. Stir up your husband, your brother, & all with whom ye are in favour and credit, to stand upon the Lord's side against Baal. I have good hope your husband loveth the peace & prosperity of Zion: The peace of God be upon him for his intended courses anent the establishment of a powerful Ministry in this land. Thus not willing to weary your La: further, I recommend you now, & always, to the grace & mercy of that God who is able to keep you that ye fall not. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
Anwoth. July. 27. 1628. Your La: servant at all dutiful obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To the Parishioners of KILMACOLME. (2)  
Worthy & well-beloved in Christ jesus our Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Your letters could not come to my hand in a greater throng of business than I am now pressed with at this time, when our Kirk requireth the public help of us all; yet I cannot but answer the heads of both your letters, with provision that ye choose after this, a fitter time for writing. 1. I would not have you pitch upon me as the man able by letters to answer doubts of this kind, while there are in your bounds, men of such great parts, most able for this work: I know the best are unable, yet it pleaseth that Spirit of Jesus to blow his sweet wind through a pi●ce dry stick, that the empty reed may keep no glory to itself; but a Minister can make no such wind as this to blow, he is scarce able to lend it a passage to blow through him. 2. Know that the wind of this Spirit hath a time when it bloweth sharp & pierceth so strongly that it would blow through an iron door, & this is commonly rather under suffering for Christ then at any other time: Sick children get of Christ's pleasant things to play them withal, because Jesus is most tender of the sufferer, for he was a sufferer himself. O if I had but the leave & the drawing of the by-board of a sufferer's table! But I leave this to answer yours.  
First, ye write that God's vows are lying on you, & security strong & ●●b to nature, stealing on you who are weak. I answer, 1. Till we be in heaven the best have heavy heads, as is evident Cant. 5. 1. Psal. 30. 6. job. 29. 18. Matth. 26. 33. Nature is a sluggard & loveth not the labour of religion: Therefore rest should not be taken till we know the disease be over & in the way of turning, & that it is like a fever past the cool: And the quietness & the calms of the faith of victory over corruption, would be entertained in place of security, so that if I sleep, I would desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 2. Know also, none that sleep sound can seriously complain of sleepiness, sorrow for a slumbering soul, is a token of some watchfulness of spirit: But this is soon turned into wantonness, [as grace in us too often is abused] therefore our waking must be watched over, else sleep will even grow out of watching, & there is as much need to watch over grace, as to watch over sin: full men will soon sleep & sooner than hungry men. 3. For your weakness to keep off security, that like a thief stealeth upon you, I would say two things. 1. To want complaints of weakness, is for heaven & Angels that never sinned, not for Christians in Christ's camp on earth: I think our weakness maketh us the Church of the redeemed ones & Christ's field that the Mediator should labour in: If there were no diseases on earth, there needed no Physicians on earth: If Christ had cried down weakness, he might have cried down his own calling; but weakness is our Mediator's world, Sin is Christ's only, only fa e & market; no man should rejoice at weakness & diseases, but I think we may have a sort of gladness at boils & sores, because without them, Christ's fingers as a slain Lord should never have touched our skin. I dare not thank myself, but I dare thank God's depth of wise Providence, that I have an errand in me, while I live, for Christ to come & visit me & bring with him his drugs & his balm. O how sweet is it, for a sinner to put his weakness in Christ's strengthening hand & to father a sick soul upon such a Physician & to lay weakness before him, to weep upon him & to plead & pray! weakness can speak & cry when we have not a tongue. Ezek 16. 6. And when I passed by thee & saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. The Kirk could not speak one word to Christ then, but blood & guiltiness out of measure, spoke, & drew out of Christ pity & a word of life and love. 2. For weakness, we have it, that we may employ Christ's strength because of our weakness: Weakness is to make us the strongest things, that is, when having no strength of our own, we are carried upon Christ's shoulders & walk [as it were] upon his legs: If our sinful weakness swell up to the clouds, Christ's strength will swell up to the sun and far above the heaven of heavens. 2. Ye tell me that there is need of counsel for strengthening of new beginners, I can say little to that, who am not well begun myself; but I know, honest beginnings are nouri head by him, even by lovely Jesus, who never yet put out a poor man's dim candle, who is wrestling betwixt light & darkness. I am sure if new beginners would urge themselves upon Christ, & press their souls upon him & importune him for a draught of his sweet love, they could not come wrong to Christ: Come once in upon the right nick & step of his lovely love, & I defy you to get free of him again: If any beginners fall off Christ again & miss him, they never lighted upon Christ as Christ; it was but an idol, like Jesus, they took for him. 3. Whereas ye complain of a dead Ministry in your bounds, ve are to remember that the Bible among you, is the contract of Marriage, & the manner of Christ's conveying his love to your heart, is not so absolutely dependent upon, even lively preaching, as that there is no conversion at all, no life of God, but that, that is tied to a m●n's lips: The daughters of jerusalem have done often that, which the watchmen could not do: Make Christ your Minister, he can woo a soul at a dike-fide in the field, he needeth not us, howbeit the flock be obliged to seek him in the shepherd's tents: Hunger of Christ's making may thrive, even under stewards who mind not the feeding of the flock, O blessed soul, that can leap over a man and look above a pulpit up to Christ, who can preach home to the heart, howbeit we were all dead & rotten! 4. So to complain of yourself as to justify God is right, and providing ye justify his Spirit in yourself; for men seldom advocate against Satan's work & sin in themselves, but against God's work in themselves: some of the people of God slander God's grace in their souls as some wretches use to do, who complain & murmur of want, I have nothing [say they] all is gone, the ground yieldeth but weeds & windlestraws; when as their fa● harvest, & their money on bank maketh them liars. But for myself, alas! I think it is not my sin, I have scarce wit to sin this fin: But I advise you to speak good of Christ, for his beauty & sweetness, & speak good of him for his grace to yourselves. 5. Light remaineth, ye say, but ye cannot attain to painfulness: See if this complaint be not booked in the new Testament, & the place Rom. 7 18. Is like this, To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I know not. But every one hath not Paul's spirit in complaining: For often in us, complaining is but an humble back biting & traducing of Christ's new work in the soul. But for the matter of the complaint I would say: The light of glory is perfectly obeyed in loving and praising and rejoicing & resting in a seen & known Lord; but that light is not hereaway in any clay body, for while we are here, light i● in the most part broader & longer than our narrow & feckless obedience: But if there be light with a fair train & a great back, I mean, army's of challenging thoughts & sorrow for coming short of performance in what we know & see aught to be performed, than that sorrow for not doing is accepted of our Lord for doing: Our honest sorrow & sincere aims, together with Christ's intercession pleading that God would welcome that which we have & forgive what we have not, must be our life, till we be over the bound-road & in the other country, where the law will get a perfect soul. 6. In Christ's absence there is [as ye write] a willingness to use means, but heaviness after the use of them, because of formal & slight performance. In Christ's absence I confess the work lieth behind, but if ye mean absence of comfort & absence of sense of his sweet presence, I think that absence is Christ's trying of us, not simply our sin against him: Therefore howbeit our Obedience then, be not sugared and sweetened with joy [which is the sweet meat bairns would still be at] yet the less sense & the more willingness in obeying, the less formality in our obedience, howbeit we ●●in● not so; for I believe many think obedience formal & lif les, except the wind be fair in the West, and sails filled with joy and sense, till souls like a ship fair before the wind can spread no more sail; but I am not of their mind who think so. But if ye mean by absence of Christ, the withdrawing of his working grace, I see not how willingness to use means can be at all under such an absence: Therefore be humbled for heaviness in that obedience, & thankful for willingness: for the Bridegroom is busking his Spouse often times while she is half sleeping, & your Lord is working & helping more than ye see. Also I recommend to you Heaviness for formality & lifeless deadness in obedience: Be casten down as much as ye will or can, for deadness, and challenge that slow & dull carcase of sin that will neither lead nor drive in your spiritual obedience. O how sweet to lovely Jesus are bills and grievances given in against corruption & the body of fin! I would have Christ, in such a case, fashed [if I may speak so] & deaved with our cries, as ye see the Apostle doth, Rom. 7, 24. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! Protestations against the law of sin in you, are law-grounds why sin can have no law against you: Seek to have your Protestation discussed & judged, & then shall ye find Christ on your side of it. 7. Ye hold that Christ must either have hearty service or no service at all: If ye mean he will not half a heart or have feigned service, such as the hypocrites give him, I grant you that: Christ must have honesty or nothing: But if ye mean, he will have no service at all where the heart draweth aback in any measure, I would not that were true, for my part of heaven and all that I am worth in the world: If ye mind to walk to heaven without a cramp or a crook, I fear ye must go your alone: He knoweth our dross & defects, & sweet Jesus pitieth us when weakness & deadness in our obedience is our cross & not our darling. 8. The liar [as ye write] challengeth the work as formal, yet ye bless your cautioner for the groundwork he hath laid & dare not say but ye have assurance in some measure. To this I say. 1. It shall be no fault to say Satan's labour, & challenge it yourself, or at least examine & censure; but beware of Satan's ends in challenging, for he mindeth to put Christ & you at odds. 2. Welcome home faith in Jesus, who washeth still when we have defiled our souls and made ourselves loathsome, & seek still the blood of atonement to faults little or meekle: Know the gate to the well & lie about it. 3. Make meekle of assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed. 9 Out-breaking [ye say] discourage you, so that ye know not if ever ye shall win again to such overjoying consolations of the Spirit in this life, as formerly ye had, & therefore a question may be, If after assurance & mortification, the children of God be ordinarily fed with sense & joy? I answer, I see no inconvenience to think, it's enough in a race, to see the gold at the starting place; howbeit the runners never get a view of it till they come to the rink's end, & that our wise Lord thinketh it fittest we should not always be singering & playing with Christ's apples. Our Well-beloved, I know, will sport & play with his Bride, as much as he thinketh will allure her to the rink's end: Yet I judge it not unlawful to seek renewed consolations, providing first, the heart be submissive & content, to leave the measure & t●…ing of them to him. 2. providing they be sought to excite us to praise, & strengthen our assurance, and sharpen our desires after himself. 3. Let them be sought not for our humours or swelling of nature; but as the earnest of heaven: & I think many do attain to greater consolations after mortification then ever they had formerly: But I know, our Lord walketh here, still by a sovereign latitude, & keepeth not the same way as to one hairbreadth without a miss, towards all his children. As for the Lord's people with you, I am not the man fit to speak to them. I rejoice exceedingly that Christ is engaging souls amongst you: But I know in conversion all the winning is in the first buying [as we use to say] for many lay false & bastard foundations, & take up conversion at their foot, & get Christ for as good as half nothing, and had never a sick night for sin, & this maketh loosework: I pray you dig deep, Christ's Palace-work, & his n●w dwelling laid upon hell felt & feared, is most firm: And heaven grounded & laid upon such a hell, is surest work & will not wash away with winter-storms. It were good that Professors were not like young heirs that come to their rich estate long ere they come to their wit, and so is seen on it: the tavern & the cards and the harlots, steal their ridges from them ere ever they be aware what they are doing. I know, a Christ bought with strokes is sweetest. 2. I recommend to you conference & Prayer at Private Meetings, for warrant whereof see Isa. 2, 3. jer. 50, 4, 5. Host 2, 1 2. Ezech. 8, 20, 21, 22, 23. Mal. 3, 16. Luk. 24, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. joh. 20, 19 Act. 12. 12. Col. 3, 16. & 4. 6. Eph. 4, 29. 1 Pet. 4, 10. 1 Thess. 5, 14. Heb. 3, 13, & 10, 25. Many coals make a good fire, & this is a part of the communion of saints. I must entreat you & your Christian acquaintances in the Parish to remember me to God in your prayers, & my flock & ministry, & my transportation & removal from this place, which I fear at this assembly: And be earnest with God for our mother Kirk. For want of time I have put you all in one letter: The rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  
Anwoth August. 5. 1639. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus. S. R.   

To a Christian Gentlewoman. (3)  
MISTRESS.  
MY love in Christ remembered to you: I was indeed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness after your daughter's death; yet I do persuade myself, ye know, that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Saviour, for Isaiah saith 62. 9 In all your afflictions ●e is afflicted: O blessed second who suffereth with you! & glad may your soul be, even to walk in the fiery furnace with one like unto the Son of man, who is also the Son of God. Courage, up your heart, when ye do tyre he will bear both you & your burden, Psal. ●5. 22. Yet a little while & ye shall see the salvation of God. Remember of what age your daughter was, as long was your lease of her: if she was 18, 19, or 20 years old, I know not, sure I am, seeing her term was come & your lease run out, ye can no more justly quarrel your great Superior for taking his own at his just terme-day, than a poor farmer can complain, that his Master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is expired. Good Mistress, if ye would not be content that Christ would hold from you the heavenly inheritance, which is made yours by his death, shall not that same Christ think hardly of you, if ye refuse to give him your daughter willingly, who is a part of his inheritance & conquest? I pray the Lord to give you all your own, & to grace you with patience, to give God his also: he is an ill debtor who payeth that which he hath borrowed, with a grudge: indeed that long loan of such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ [as I believe] deserveth more thanks at your Creditor's hand, then that ye should gloom & murmur when he craveth but his own: I believe ye would judge them to be but thankless neighbours, who would pay you a sum of money after this manner. But what, do ye think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? think her not absent who is in such a friend's house: Is she lost to you who is found to Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although ye should never see her again, your care for her would be but small: Oh now, is she not with a dear friend, & gone higher upon a certain hope that ye shall in the Resurrection see her again, when [be ye sure] she shall neither be hectic nor consumed in body! Ye would be sorry either to be, or to be esteemed an Atheist, & yet not I, but the Apostle, 1 Thess. 4● 13. thinketh these to be hopeless Atheists who mourn excessively for the dead: but this is not a challenge on my part, I do speak this only fearing your weakness; for your daughter was a part of yourself, & therefore nature in you being as it were cut & halved, will indeed be grieved, but ye have to rejoice that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven: Follow her, but envy her not, for indeed it is self-love in us that maketh us mourn for them that die in the Lord: Why? because for them we cannot mourn, since they are never happy till they be dead; therefore we mourn for our own private respect: take heed then that in showing your affection in mourning for your daughter, ye be not out of self-affection mourning for yourself. Consider what the Lord is doing in it, your daughter is plucked out of the fire & she resteth from her labours, & your Lord in that is trying you & casting you in the fire: Go through all fires to your rest, & now remember that the eye of God is upon you, beholding your patience & faith: he delighteth to see you in the burning bush & not consumed, & he is gladly content that such a weak woman as ye, should send Satan away frustrate of his design: Now honour God & shame the strong roaring lion, when ye seem weakest: Should such a one as ye faint in the day of adversity? Call to mind the days of old, the Lord yet liveth, trust in him although he should stay you: faith i● exceeding charitable & believeth no evil of God. Now is the Lord laying in the one scale of the balance your making conscience of submission to his gracious will, & in the other your affection & love to your daughter, which of the two will ye then choose to satisfy? Be wise then, & as I trust ye love Christ better than a sinful woman, pass by your daughter & kiss the Lord's rod. Men do lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end they may grow up high & tall: The Lord hath this way lopped your branch, in taking from you many children, to the end ye should grow upward like one of the Lord's cedars, setting your heart above where Christ is at the right hand of the father: what is next, but that your Lord cut down the stock after he hath cutted the branches? Prepare yourself, ye are nearer your daughter this day than ye were yesterday, while ye prodigally spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting after her: Run your race with patience: let God have his own, & ask of him in stead of your daughter which he hath taken from you, the daughter of faith, which is Patience, & in patience possess your soul. Lift up your head, ye do not know how near your redemption doth draw. Thus recommending you to the Lord who is able to establish you, ●●●st.  
Anwoth. April 23. 1628. Your loving & affects not f●… in the Lord jesus S. R.   

To the elect & noble Lady my Lady Kenmure. (4)  
MADAM.  
SAluting your La: with grace & mercy from God our father & from am Lord Jesus Christ, I was sorry at my departure, leaving your La: in grief, & would still be g●…d at it, if I were not assured that ye have one with you in the furnace, 〈◊〉 visage is like unto the Son of God: I am glad that ye have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestle of God, & that ye getscarce liberty to swallow down your spittle, being casten from furnace to furnace, knowing if ye were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of him, he would not spend so much Physic upon you. All the brethren & sisters of Christ must be conform to his image & copy in suffering. Rome, 8, And some do more vively resemble the copy then others: Think Madam, that it is a part of your glory to be enroled among these, whom one of the Elders, Rev. 7, 14. pointeth out to john, th●se are they which came out of great tribulation, & have washed their robes & made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Behold your forerunner going out of the world all in a lake of blood, & it is not ill to die as he did: Fulfil with joy the remnant of the grounds & remainders of the afflictions of Christ in your body. Ye have lost a child: Nay: She is not lost to you, who is found to Christ, she is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight doth not die & vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere: ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another country: If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time, that she hath gotten of eternity: & ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing up in heaven: Build your nest upon no tree here, for ye see God hath sold the forest to death, and every tree whereupon we would rest, is ready to be cut down, to the end we may flee & mount up & build upon the rock & dwell in the holes of the rock. What ye love besides Jesus your husband, is an adulterous lover: Now it is God's special blessing to judah that he will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers, Host 2, 6. Therefore behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, & make a wall, that she shall not find her paths, v. 7. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtakè them. O thrice happy judah, when God buildeth a double stone-wall betwixt her & the fire of hell! The World & the things of the World, Madam, is the lover ye naturally affect beside your own husband, Christ: The hedge of thorns & the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of worldly comfort, fear of God's anger for old unrepented of sins: What lose ye, if God twist & ●let the hedge daily thicker? God be blessed, the Lord will not let you find your paths: Return to your first husband: Do not weary, neither think that Death walketh towards you with a slow pace, ye must be riper ere ye be shaken: your daves are no longer than Iob's, that were swifter than a post & passed away as the ships of desire & as the Eagle that hasteth for the prey, job. 9: 25, 26. There is less sand in your glass now, then there was yesternight, this span-length of ever-posting time, will soon be ended: But the greater is the mercy of God, the more years ye get to advise upon what terms & upon what conditions ye cast your soul in the huge gulf of never-ending Eternity: The Lord hath told you what ye should be doing till he come, wait & hasten [saith Peter] for the coming of our Lord: All is night that is here, in respect of ignorance & daily ensuing troubles, one always making way to another, as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth; therefore sigh & long for the dawning of that morning, & the breaking of that day of the coming of the Son of man, when the shadows shall flee away: Persuade yourself, the King is coming: read his letter sent before him, Rev. 3. 11. Behold, I come quickly: Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky, & think that ye have not a morrow: As the wise father said, who being invited against to morrow to dine with his friends, answered, These many days I have had no morrow at all. I am loath to weary you: Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand & seven hundred were slain, Numb. 16. 49. In patience possess your soul, they lose nothing who gain Christ. Thus remembering my brother's & my wife's humble service to your La: I commend you to the mercy & grace of our Lord Jesus, assuring you, that your day is coming & that God's mercy is abiding you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
Anwoth. Jan. 15. 1629. Yours in the Lord jesus at all dutiful obedience, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (5.)  
MADAM..  
SAluting you in Jesus Christ, to my grief I must bid you [〈◊〉 may be] for ever farewell in paper, having small assurance 〈◊〉. to see your face again, till the last general Assembly, where the whole church universal shall meet: Yet promising by his grace to present your La: & your burdens to him who is able to save you & give you an inheritance with the saints, after a more special manner then ever I have done before. Ye are going to a country where the Sun of righteousness in the Gospel shineth not so clearly as in this Kingdom; but if ye would know where he whom your soul loveth doth rest & where he feedeth at the noon-tide of the day, where ever ye be, get you forth by the footsteps of the stock & feed yourself beside the shepherd's tents. Cant. 1, 7. that is, ask for some of the watchmen of the Lord's city, who will tell you truly, & will not lie, where ye shall find him whom your soul loveth. I trust ye are so betrothed in marriage to the true Christ, that ye will not give your love to any false Christ: Ye know not how soon your marriage-day will come, nay, is not Eternity hard upon you? It were time then that ye had your wedding garment in readiness, be not sleeping at your Lord's coming: I pray God, ye may be upon your feet standing when he knocketh. Be not discouraged to go from this country to another part of the Lord's earth, the earth is his & the fullness thereof, Psal. 24, 1. This is the Lord's lower house, while we are lodged here we have no assurance to lie ever in one chamber, but must be content to remove from one corner of our Lord's nether-house to another, resting in hope, that when we come up to the Lord's upper city, jerusalem that is above, we shall remove no more; because than we shall be at home. And go wheresoever ye will, if your Lord go with you, ye are at home, & your lodging is ever taken before night, so long as he who is Israel's dwelling house is your home, Psal. 90, 1. Believe me Madam, my mind is that ye are well lodged & that in your house there are fair ease-rooms & pleasant lights, if ye can in faith lean down your head upon the breast of Jesus Christ, & till this be, ye shall never get a sound sleep: Jesus, Jesus be your shadow & your covering: It is a sweet soul-sleep to lie in the arms of Christ, for his breath is very sweet. Pray for poor friendless Zion; Alas! No man will speak for her now, although at home in her own country she hath good friends, her husband Christ, & his father, her father in law: Beseech your husband to be a friend to Zion & pray for her. I have received many & divers dashes & heavy strokes since the Lord called me to the Ministry, but indeed I esteem your departure from us amongst the weightiest: but I perceive God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolise, that he may have his own room. I see exceeding small fruit of my Ministry, & would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown & rejoicing in the day of Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain, yet my labour is with my God, Isa. 49, 9 I wish & pray that the Lord would harden my face against all, & make me to learn to go with my face against a storm. Again I commend you, body & spirit to him who hath loved us & washed us from our sins in his own blood. Grace, grace, grace for ever be with you. Pray, pray continually.  
Anwoth. Sept, 14. 1629. Your La: at all dutiful obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To JOHN KENNEDY. (6.)  
My loving & most affectionate brother in Christ.  
I Salute you with grace, mercy & peace from God our father, & from our Lord jesus Christ. I promised to write to you, & although late enough, yet now I make it good. I heard with grief, of your great danger of perishing by the sea, but of your merciful deliverance with joy. Sure I am, Brother, Satan will leave no stone unrolled [as the proverb is] to roll you off your rock, or at least to shake & unsettle you: For at that same time, the mouths of wicked men were opened in hard speeches against you by land, & the Prince of the power of the air was angry with you by sea: See then how much ye are obliged to that malitions murderer, who would beat you with two rods at one time, but blessed be God, his arm is short: If the sea & winds would have obeyed him, ye had never come to land: Thank your God who saith: Rev. 1, 18. I have the keys of hell and of death. Deut, 32, 39 I kill and I make alive. 1, Sam. 2, 6. The Lord bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. If Satan were jailer and had the keys of Death & or the Grave, they should be stored with more prisoners. Ye were knocking at these black gates and ye found the doors shut, and we do all welcome you back again: I trust ye know it is not for nothing, that ye are sent to us again: The Lord knew ye had forgotten something that was necessary for your journey, that your armour was not as yet thick enough against the stroke of death: Now in the strength of Jesus, dispatch your business: that debt is not forgiven, but fristed: Death hath not bidden you farewell, but hath only left you for a short season: End your journey ere the night come upon you, have all in readiness against the time that ye must sail through that black & impetuous jordan, & Jesus, Jesus who knoweth both these depths & the rocks & all the coasts, be your Pilot: That last tide will not wait for you one moment: if ye forget any thing, when your sea is full & your foot in that ship, there is no returning again to fetch it: What ye do amiss in your life to day, ye may amend it to morrow: for as many suns as God maketh to arise upon you, ye have as many new lives: but ye can die but once, & if ye mar or spill that business, ye cannot come back to mend that piece of work again: No man sinneth twice in dying ill: As we die but once, so we die but ill or well once. Ye see now the number of your months is written in God's book, & as one of the Lord's hirelings, ye must work till the shadow of the evening come upon you, & ye shall run out your glass even to the last pickle of sand: fulfil your course with joy, for we take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience. And although the sky clear after this storm, yet clouds will engender another: Ye contracted with Christ, I hope, when first ye began to follow him, that ye would bear his cross; fulfil your part of the Contract with patience & break not to Jesus Christ: Be honest, Brother, in your bargaining with him, for who knoweth better how to bring up children then our God? For [to lay aside his knowledge, of the which there is no searching out] he hath been practised in bringing up his heirs these 5000 years, & his bairns are all well brought up, & many of them are honest men now at home up in their own house in heaven, & are entered heirs to their father's inheritance: Now the form of his bringing up was by chastisements, scourging, correcting, nurturing: See if he maketh exception of any of his bairns, Rev. 3. 19 Heb. 12. 7, 8. No: His eldest Son & his heir, jesus, is not excepted. Heb. 2. 10. Suffer we must, ere we were born God dcreed it, & it is easier to complain of his decree then to change it. It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down, & yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again; fears & doubtings shake us, & yet without fears & doubtings we would soon sleep and lose our grips of Christ; tribulation & tentations will almost lose us at the root, & yet without tribulations & temptations we can now no more grow, than herbs or corn without rain. Sin & Satan & the World will say & cry in our ear that we have a hard reckoning to make in Judgement, & yet none of these three, except they lie, dare say in our face that our sin can change the Tenor of the new Covenant. Forward then, dear Brother, & lose not your grip, hold fast the Truth, for the world sell not one dram weight of God's truth, especially now when most men measure Truth by time, like young seamen setting their Compass by a cloud: For now Time is father & mother to Truth in the thoughts & practices of our evil Time. The God of Truth establish us; for Alas! Now there are none to comfort the prisoners of hope & the mourners in Zion: We can do little except pray & mourn for Iosep● in the stocks: And let their tongue cleave to the roof of their mouth, who forget jerusalem now in her day: And the Lord remember Edom & render to him as he hath done to us. Now, Brother, I will not weary you, but I entreat you remember my dearest love to Mr David Dickson; with whom I have small acquaintance, yet I bless the Lord, I know he both prayeth & doth for our dying Kirk. Remember my dearest love to john Stuart, whom I love in Christ, & show him from me, I do always remember him, & hope for a meeting: The Lord Jesus establish him more & more, though he be already a strong man in Christ. Remember my heartiest affection in Christ to ●illiam Rodger, whom I also remember to ●od: I wish the first news I hear of him & you & all that love our common Saviour in these bounds, may be, that ye are so knit & linked & kindly fastened in love with the Son of God, that ye may say, now if we would never so fain escape out of Christ's hands, yet love hath so bound us, that we cannot get our ●ands f●ce again, he hath so ravished our hearts, that there is no losing of his grips, the chains of his soul-ravishing love are so s●rong, that the Crave nor Death will not b●●●k them. I hope, Brother, yea I doubt not of it, but ye lay me & my first entry to the Lord's vineyard, & my flock before him who hath put me in his work, as the Lord knoweth since first I saw you, I have been mindful of you. Marion Mcknaught doth remember most heartily her love to you & to john Stuart: Blessed be the Lord, that in God's mercy I found in this country such a woman, to whom Jesus is dearer than her own heart, when there be so many that cast Christ over their shoulder. Good Brother, call to mind the memory of your worthy father now asleep in Christ, & as his custom was, pray continually, & wrestle for the life of a dying breathless Kirk: And desire john Stuart not to forget poor Zion, she hath ●ew friends & few to speak one good word for her. Now I commend you, your whole soul & body & spirit to Jesus Christ & his keeping, hoping ye will die & live, stand & fall, with the cause of our Master, Jesus: The Lord Jesus himself be with your spirit.  
Anwoth. Feb. 2. 1637. Your loving Brother in our Lord jesus, S. R.   

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 entreat 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 than your way should not be so like the way that our Lord saith, leadeth to the new jerusalem: 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 sum, ye have to rejoice, for our Lord will not lose his earnest, neither will he go back or repent him of the bargain. If ye find 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 only 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 Well-beloved, 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 myrrh, & by the moving thereof he will assuage 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, joh. 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, joh. 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. joh. 17. 24. Amen; dear Jesus, let it be according to that word. I wonder that ever your heart should be casten down, if ye believe 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 believe 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 believed 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 do assent to the sweet & precious promises, but laying aside God's book we begin to call all in question: It is faith indeed to believe 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, downcastings, frequent desertions, & departure of the Lord, who is suiting you in marriage; courage, he who is wooer and suitor should not be an houshold-man with you, till ye and He come up to his father's house together: He purposeth to do you good at your latter end. Deut. 8: 16. & to give you rest from the days 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 lie, 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 [rejoice, he calleth on you] enter thou into thy chambers, & shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, till the indignation be past. Believe then, believe & be saved: think not hard ●f ●e get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself: God forbid that ye should rejoice in any thing, but in the cross of Christ, Gal 4. 16. Our Church, Madam, is decaying, she is like Ephraim's cake, & grey hairs are here & there upon her, & she knoweth it not, Host 7, 9 She is old & grey haired, near the grave, & no man taketh it to heart, her wine is sour & 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 overboard upon death & life, to swim to land upon broken boards: It were time for us by prayer to put upon our Master-pilot jesus, & 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 withhold 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.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (8)  
MADAM.  
GRace mercy & peace be multiplied upon you: I received your La: letter, in the which I perceive your case in this world smelleth of a fellowship & communion with the Son of God in his sufferings: Ye cannot, ye must not have a more pleasant or more easy condition here, than he had, who through afflictions was made perfect, Heb. 2: 10, We may indeed think, Cannot God bring us to heaven with ease & prosperity? Who doubteth but he can? But his infinite wisdom thinketh & decreeth the contrary, and we cannot see a reason of it, yet he hath a most just reason: We never with our eyes saw our own soul, yet we have a soul; we see many rivers, but we know not their first spring & original fountain, yet they have a beginning. Madam, when ye are come to the other side of the water & have set down your foot on the shore of glorious Eternity, & look back again to the waters & to your wearisome journey, & shall see in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God's wisdom; ye shall then be forced to say, If God had done otherwise with me than he hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory. It is your part now to believe & suffer & hope & wait on, for I protest in the presence of that all-discerning eye, who knoweth, what I write & what I think, that I would not want the sweet experience of the consolations of God, for all the bitterness of affliction: nay, whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well: Welcome, welcome Jesus, what way soever thou come, if we can get a sight of thee: & sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside & draw the curtains & say, Courage, I am thy salvation, them to enjoy health being lusty & strong, & never to be visited of God. Worthy & de a● Lady, in the strength of Christ, fight & overcome: Ye are now your alone, but ye may have for the seeking, three always in your company, the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit: I trust they are near you. Ye are now deprived of the comfort of a lively Ministry, so was Israel in their captivity, yet hear God's promise to them, Ezek. 11: 16. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God, Although I have cast them far off among the heat e● & although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will be to them as a little Sanctuary in the countries where they shall come: Behold a Sanctuary, for a Sanctuary, God himself in the place & room of the Temple of jerusalem: I trust in God, carrying this Temple about with you, ye shall see Iehovah's beauty in his house. We are in great fears of a great & fearful trial to come upon the Kirk of God; For these who would build their houses & nests upon the ashes of mourning jerusalem, have drawn our King upon hard & langerous conclusions against such as are termed Puritans, for the rooting of them out. Our Prelates [the Lord take the keys of his house from these bastard-porters] assure us, that for such as will not confor●, there is nothing but Imprisonment & Deprivation● The Spouse of Jesus will ever be in the fire, but I trust in my God, she shall not consume, because of the goodwill of him who dwelleth in the bu●h for he dwelleth in it with good will. All sort of crying sins without controlment abound in our Land 〈◊〉 the glory of the Lord is departing from Israel, & the Lord is looking back over his shoulder, to see if any will say, Lord tarry, & no man requesteth him to stay. Corrupt & false doctrine is openly preached by the Idol-shepherds of the Land. For myself, I have daily griefs through the disobedience unto, & contempt of the word of God. I was summoned before the High Commission by a profligate person in this Parish, convicted of incest: in the business Mr Alexander colvil [for respect to your La:] was my great friend, & wrote a most kind letter to me: The Lord give him mercy in that day. Upon the day of my compearance, the sea & winds refused to give passage to the Bishop of St Andrews. I entreat you La: thank Mr Alexander colvil with two lines of a letter. My wife now after long disease & torment, for the space of a year & month, is departed this life: the Lord hath done it, blessed be his name. I have been diseased of a fever tertian for the space of thirteen weeks, & am yet in that sickness, so that I preach but once on the sabbath with great difficulty: I am not able either to visit or examine the Congregation. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
Anwoth. 26. June. 1630. Your La: at all obedience, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE (9)  
MADAM.  
HAving saluted you in the Lord Jesus, I thought it my duty, having the occasion of this bearer, to write again unto your La: though I have no new purpose but what I wrote of before: Yet ye cannot be too often awakened to go forward towards your city, since your way is long, and [for any thing ye know] your day is short; & your Lord requireth of you as ye advance in years, & steal forward insensibly towards eternity, that your saith may grow and ripen for the Lords harvest, for the great husbandman giveth a season to his fruits that they may come to maturity, & having gotten their fill of the tree, they may then be shaken & gathered in for his use; whereas the wicked rot upon the tree, & their branch shall not be green. Job. 15. 32. 33. He shall shake off his unripe grapes as the vine, and shall cast oft his flower as the olive. It is God's mercy to you, ●adam, that 〈◊〉 giveth you your fill, even to loathing, of this bitter world, that ye may willingly leave it, & like a full and satisfied banquetter, long for the drawing of the table; and at last having trampled under your feet, all the ●otten pleasure that are under un & Moon; and having rejoiced as though ye rejoiced not, and having bought as though ye possessed not, 1 Cor. 7. 30. Ye may like an old crazy ship, arrive at your Lord's harbour, & be made welcome, as one of these who have ever had one foot loose from this earth, longing for that place where your soul shall feast & banquet for ever & ever, upon a glorious sight of the incomprehensible Trinity, & where ye shall see the fair face of the man Christ; even the beautiful face that was once for your cause more marred than any of the visages of the sons of men. Isa: 52, 14. And was all covered with spitting & blood: Be content to wade through the waters betwixt you & glory with Him, holding his hand fast, for he knoweth all the fords: Howbeit ye may be ducked, yet ye cannot drown, being in his company: & ye may all the way to glory, see the way bedewed with his blood who is the forerunner: be not afraid therefore, when ye come even to the black & swelling river of death, to put in your foot & wade after him; the current how strong soever cannot carry you down the water to Hell, the Son of God, his death & resurrection are stepping-stones & a stay to you: set down your feet by faith upon these stones, & go through as on dry land: If ye knew what he is preparing for you, ye would be too glad; he will not [it may be] give you a full-draught, till ye come up to the wellhead, and drink, yea drink abundantly of the pure river of the water of Life, that proceedeth out from the Throne of God and from the Lamb. Rev. 22, 1. Madam, ●tire not, weary not, I dare find you the Son of God caution when ye are got up thither, and have casten your eyes to view the golden city and the fair & never-withering tree of Life, that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, ye shall then say, four and twenty hours abode in that place is worth threescore & ten years' sorrow upon earth. If ye can but say, ye long earnestly to be carried up thither [as I hope you cannot for shame deny him the honour of having wrought that desire in your soul] then hath your Lord given you earnest: And, Madam, do ye believe that our Lord will lose his earnest, & rue of the bargain, & change his mind, as if he were a man that can lie, or the son of man that can repent? Nay, he is unchangeable, & the same this year that he was the former year: And his Son Jesus, who upon earth eat & drank with publicans & sinners, & spoke & conferred with whores & harlots, & put up his holy hand and touched the lepers filthy skin, & came evermore nigh sinners; even now in glory, is yet that same Lord: His honour & his great court in leaven hath not made him forget his poor friends on earth: In him, honours change not manners, and he doth yet desire your company: Take him for the old Christ, and claim still kindness to him, and say, Oh it is so, He is not changed, but I am changed: Nay, it is a part of his unchangeable love, and an article of the new covenant to keep you that ye cannot dispon him, nor sell him: He hath not played fast and loose with us in the Covenant of Grace, so, that we may run from him at our pleasure: His love hath made the bargain surer than so; for Jesus, as the cautioner is bound for us, Heb, 7, 22. And it cannot stand with his honour to die in the burrows [as we use to say] and lose these whom he must render again to the father, when he shall give up the Kingdom to him: Consent and say Am●… to the promises, and ye have sealed That God is tru●… and Christ is yours: This is an easy market: Ye but look on with faith; for Christ suffered all and paid all. Madam, fearing I be tedious, to your La: I must stop here, desiring always to hear that your La: is well, and that ye have still your face up the mountain. Pray for us, Madam, and for Zion whereof ye are apart: We expect a trial: God's wheat in this land must go through Satan's sieve, but their faith shall not fail. I am still wrestling in our Lord's work, and have been tried and tempted with brethren who look awry to the Gospel. Now he that is able to keep you until that day, preserve your soul, body & spirit, & present you before his face with his own Bride, spotless & blameless.  
Anwoth. Nou. 26. 1631. Your La to be commanded always in the Lord jesus. S R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (10.)  
MADAM.  
I Am grieved exceedingly that your La: should think, or have cause to think that such as love you in God, in this country, are forgetful of you: For myself, Madam, I owe to your La; all evidences of my high respect (in the sight of my Lord, whose truth I preach, I am bold to say it) for his rich grace in you: My Communion put off till the end of a longsom & rainny harvest & the Presbyterial exercise [as the bearer can inform your La:] hindered me to see you: And for my people's sake [finding them like hot iron, that cooleth being out of the fire, and that is pliable to no work] I do not stir abroad, neither have I left them at all since your La: was in this country, save at one time only, about two years ago; yet I dare not say but it is a fault, howbeit no defect in my affection: and I trust to make it up again, so soon as possibly I am able, to wait upon you. Madam, I have no new purpose to write unto you, but of that which I think, nay, which our Lord thinketh needful, that one thing, Mary's good part, which ye have chosen, Luk: 10, 42. Madam, all that God hath, both himself and the creatures, he is dealing and parting amongst the sons of Adam: There are none so poor as that they can say in his face, He hath given them nothing; But thereiss no small odds betwixt the gifts given to lawful bairns and to bastards: And the more greedy ye are in suiting, the more willing he is to give, delighting to be called open handed: I hope your La: laboureth to get assurance of the surest patrimony, even God himself; ye will find in Christianity, that God aimeth in all his dealings with his children, to bring them to a high contempt, of and deadly feud with the world, and to set an high price upon Christ, & to think him one who cannot be bought for gold, & well-worthy the fight for: And for no other cause, Madam, doth the Lord withdraw from you the childish toys & the earthly delights that he giveth unto others; but that he may have you wholly to himself: Think therefore of the Lord, as of one who cometh to woo you in marriage, when ye are in the furnace; He seeketh his answer of you in affliction, to see if ye will say even so I take him: Madam, give him this answer pleasantly, & in your mind do not secretly grudge nor murmur: When he is striking you in love, beware to st●…e again: That is dangerous, for these who strike again, shall get the last blow: If I hit not upon the right string, it is because I am not acquainted with your La: present condition; But I believe your La: goeth on foot laughing & putting on a good countenance before the world, & yet ye carry heaviness about with you: Ye do well, Madam, not to make them witnesses of your grief who cannot be curer● of it: But be exceeding charitable of your dear Lord: As there be some friends worldly of whom ye will not entertain an ill thought, far more ought ye to believe good evermore of your dear friend, that lovely fair person jesus Christ The thorn is one of the most cursed & angry & crabbed weeds, that the earth yieldeth, & yet out of it springeth the Rose, one of the sweetest smelled flowers & most delightful to the eye, that the earth hath: Your Lord shall make joy & gladness out of your afflictions, for all his roses have a fragrant smell: wait for the time when his own holy hand shall hold them to your nose, & if ye would have present comfort under the cross, be much in prayer, for at that time your faith kisseth Christ & he kisseth the soul, & O if the breath of his holy mouth be sweet! I dare be caution, out of some small experience, that ye shall not be beguiled; for the world [yea, not a few number of God's children] know not well what that is, which they call a Godhead: But Madam, come near to the Godhead & look down to the bottom of the well, there is much in him, & sweet were that death to drown in such a well: Your grief taketh liberty to work upon your mind, when ye are not busied in the meditation of the eveedelighting & all-blessed Godhead. If ye would lay the price ye give out [which is but some few years pain & trouble] beside the commodities ye are to receive, ye would see they are not worthy to be laid in the balance together; but it is Nature that maketh you look what ye give out, & weakness of Faith that hindereth you to see what ye shall take in. Amend your hope & frist your faithful Lord a while, he maketh himself your debtor in the new Covenant, he is honest, take his word, Na●um. 1. 9 Affliction shall not spr●…g up the second time. Rev. 21. 7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things. Of all thing. then which ye want in this life, Madam, I am able to say nothing, if that be not believed which ye have, Rev. 2, 7. & Rev. 3. 5. the overcomer shall be clothed in white raiment, etc. & ver: 8. 〈…〉 the overcomer I will give to sit ●ite me 〈◊〉 my throne 〈◊〉 I overcame & am set down with my father in his throne. Consider, Madam, if ye are not high up now, & far been in the palace of our Lord, when ye are upon a throne in white raiment at lovely Christ's elbow. O th' ice fools are we, who like new born Princes weeping in the cradle, know not that there is a Kingdom before them! Then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us, & strike off the knots of pride, self-love, & world-worship & infidelity, that he may make us stones and pillars in his father's house. Rev. 3, 12. Madam, what think ye to take binding with the fair cornerstone jesus? The Lord give you wisdom to believe & hope, your day is coming: I hope to be a witness of your joy, as I have been a hearer & beholder of your grief. Think ye much to follow the heir of the crown, who had experience of sorrows & was acquainted with grief, Isa 53. It were pride to aim to be above the King's son: It is more than we deserve that we are equals in glory, in a manner. Now commending you to the dearest grace & mercy of God, I rest.  
Anwoth. Jan. 4. 1632. Your La: at all obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (11)  
MADAM.  
UNderstanding, a little after the writing of my last letter, of the going of this bearer, I would not omit the oppornity of remembering your La: still harping upon that string, which in our whole life-time is never too often touched upon, nor is our lesson well enough learned, that there is a necessity of advancing in the way to the Kingdom of God, of the contempt of the world, of denying ourselves & bearing of our Lord's cross, which is no less needful for us then daily food: & among many marks that we are on this journey & under sail toward heaven, this is one, when the love of God so filleth our hearts, that we forget to love & care too much for the having or wanting of other things, as one extreme heat burneth out another. By this, Madam, ye know ye have betrothed your soul in marriage to Christ, when ye do make but small reckoning of all other suitors or wooers, & when ye can [having little in hand, but much in hope] live as a young heir, during the time of his nonage & Minority, being content to be as hardly handled & under as precise a reckoning, as servants, because his hope is upon the inheritance: For this cause God's bairns take well with spoiling of their goods; Heb. 10. 34. knowing in themselves that they have in heaven a better, & an enduring substance. That day that the earth & the works therein shall be burnt with fire, 2 Pet. 3. 10. your hidden hope & your hidden life shall appear: & therefore since ye have not now many years to your endless eternity, & know not how soon the sky above your head will rive, & the Son of man will be seen in the clouds of heaven, what better & wiser course can ye take then to think that your one foot is here & your other foot in the life so come, & to leave off loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants that shall be made up when your Lord & ye shall meet, & when ye shall give in your bill, that day, of all your wants here? If your losses be not made up, ye have place to challenge the Almighty, but it shall not be so, Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable & full of glory, & your joy shall none take from you. joh. 16, 22. It is enough that the Lord hath promised you great things, only let the time of bestowing them be in his own carving: It is not for us to set an hourglass to the creator of time, since he & we differ only in the t●…e of payment: Since he hath promised payment & we believe it, it is no great matter, we will put that in his own will, as the frank buyer who cometh near to what the seller seeketh, useth at last to refer the difference to his will & so cutteth off the course of mutual prigging. Madam, do not prigge wish your frank-hearted & gracious Lord about the time of the fulfilling of your joys, it will be, God hath said it, bide his harvest, wait on upon his Whitsorday: His day is better than your day, he putteth not the hook in the corn till it be ripe & full-eared: The great Angel of the covenant bear you company, till the trumpet shall sound & the voice of the Archangel awaken the dead. Ye shall find it your only happiness under whatever thing disturbeth & ●●●sseth the peace of your mind in this life, to love nothing for itself, but only God for himself: It is the crcoked love of some harlots, that they love bracelets, earrings, & rings better than the lover that sendeth them: God will not be so loved, for that were to behave as harlots & not as the chaste Spouse, to abate from our love when these things are pulled away: Cur love to him should begin on earth as it shall be in heaven, for the Bride taketh not by a thousand degrees so much delight in her wedding garment, as she doth in her Bridegroom; so we in the life to come, howbeit clothed with glory as with a robe, shall not be so much affected with the glory that goeth about us, as with the Bridegroom's joyful face & presence. Madam, if ye can win to the here, the field is won; & your mind, for anything ye want or for any thing your Lord can take from you, shall soon be calmed & quieted: Get himself as a pawn & keep him, till your dear Lord come & lose the pawn, & ●ue upon you & give you all again, that he took from you, even a thousand talents for o●e penny: It is not ill to lend God willingly, who otherwise both will & may take from you against your will: It is good to play the ●surer with him, & take in, in stead of ten of the hundred, an hundred often, an hundred of one. Madam, fearing to be tedious to you, I break off here, commending you [as I trust to do, while I live] your person, ways, burdens & all that concerneth you, to that Almighty who is able to bear you & your burdens: I still remember you to him who will cause you one, day to laugh. I expect that what ever ye can do by word or deed, for the Lord's friendless Zion, ye will do it: She is your mother, forget her not, for the Lord intendeth to melt & try this land, & it is high time we were all upon our feet, & falling about to try what claim we have to Christ: It is like the the Bridegroom will be taken from us & then we shall mourn: Dear jesus, remove not, else take us with thee! Grace, grace be with you for ever.  
Anwoth, 14. Jan. 1632. Your La: at all dutiful obedience, S. R.   

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 busy wooer, a beguiling world, is now coming in to suit your soul too late, when ye have promised away your soul to Christ many years ago: And I know, Madam, what answer ye may now justly make to the late suitor, 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 & faithful to him. Honourable-Lady, keep your first love, & hold the first match with that soul-delighting lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet Jesus, fairer than 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 child take the dorts [as we use to speak] or cast at all things & disdain them, except one only, either Christ or nothing: your well-beloved, 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 do 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 do 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 go a whoring from himself: If ye were his bastard, he would not nurture you so: If ye were for the slaughter, ye would be fattened: But be content, ye are his wheat growing in our Lord's field, Matth. 13: v. 25, 38. And if wheat, ye must go under our Lord's threshing instrument in his barn-door & through his sieve, Amos 9: v. 9 And through his mill to be bruised, as the Prince of your salvation, jesus, 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 persuaded your glass is spending itself by little & little, & if ye knew who is before you, ye would rejoice 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 wellhead, 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 sinful 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 than himself] mwn are bidding him go 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 do 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 jesus & mine. S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (14)  
MADAM.  
THe cause of my not writing to your La: is not my forgetfulness of you, but the want of the opportunity of a convenient bearer, for I am under more than a simple obligation to be kind [in paper, at least] to your La: I bless our Lord through Christ, who hath brought you home again to your country from that place where ye have seen with your eyes that which our Lord's truth taught you before, to wit, that worldly glory is nothing but a vapour, a shadow, the foam of the water, or something less & lighter, even nothing, & that our Lord hath not without cause said in his word, 1 Cor. 7. 31. The countenance or fashion of this world passeth away: In which place our Lord compareth it to an Image in a looking-glass, for it is the looking-glass of Adam's sons: Some come to the glass & see in it the picture of Honour and but a picture indeed, for true Honour is to be great in the sight of God; & others see in it the shadow of Riches, & but a shadow indeed, for durable Riches stand as one of the maids of Wisdom upon her left hand, Prov. 3. 16. & a third sort see in it the face of painted Pleasures, & the beholders will not believe but the Image they see in this glass is a living man, till the Lord come & break the glass in pieces & remove the face, & then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say, And behold it was a dream. I know your La: thinketh yourself little in the common of this world, for the favourable aspect of any of these three painted faces, & blessed be our Lord that it is so, the better for you: Madam, they are not worthy to be wooers to suit in marriage your soul, that looks to an higher match then to be married upon painted clay: know therefore, Madam, the place whither our Lord Jesus cometh to woo a Bride, it is even in the furnace: for if ye be one of Zion's daughters (which I ever put beyond all question, since I first had occasion to see in your La: such pregnant evidences of the grace of God) the Lord who hath his fire in Zion & his furnace in jerusalem, Isa. 31: 9 is purifying you in the furnace. And therefore be content to live in it, and every day to be adding & sowing-to a pasment to your wedding garment, that ye may be at last decored & trimmed as a Bride for Christ, a Bride of his own busking, beautified in the hidden man of the heart, forgetting your Father's house, so shall the King greatly desire your beauty, Psal. 45: 11. If your La: be not changed (as I hope ye are not) I believe ye esteem yourself to be of these whom God hath tried these many years & refined as silver. But, Madam, I will show your La: a privilege that others want & ye have in this case: Such as are in prosperity & are fatted with earthly joys, & increased with children & friends, though the Word of God is indeed written to such for their instruction, yet to you [who are in trouble] spare me, Madam, to say this [from whom the Lord hath taken many children, & whom he hath exercised otherwise] there are some chapters, some particular promises in the Word of God, made, in a most special manner, which should never have been yours so, as they now are, if ye had your portion in this life as others: & therefore, all the comforts, promises & mercies God offereth to the afflicted, they are as many love-letters written to you; take them to you, Madam, & claim your right & be not robbed: It is no small comfort that God hath written some Scriptures to you, which he hath not written to others, ye seem rather in this to be envied then pitied, & ye are indeed in this, like people of another world & these that are above the ordinary rank of mankind, whom our King & Lord, our Bridegroom jesus, in his love-letter to his well-beloved Spouse, hath named beside all the rest, & hath written comforts and his hearry commendations, in the 56 of I saiah, vers 4, 5. Bsal. 147, 2, 3, to you: Read these & the like, & think your God is like a friend that sendeth a letter to a whole house & family, but speaketh in his letter to some by name that are dearest to him in the house: Ye are then, Madam, of the dearest friends of the Bridegroom: If it were lawful, I would envy you, that God honoured you so above many of his dear children. Therefore, Madam, your partis, in this case [seeing God taketh nothing from you, but that which he is to supply with his own presence] to desire your Lord to know his own room, & take it even upon him to come in, in the room of dead children, jehovah know thy own place & take it to thee, is all ye have to say: Madam, I persuade myself, that this world is to you an uncouth Inns, & that ye are like a traveller who hath his bundle upon his back & his staff in his hand & his feet upon the door-threshold: Go forward, honourable & elect Lady, in the strength of your Lord [let the world bide at home & keep the house] with your face toward him who longeth more for a sight of you, than ye can do for him: ere it be long he will see us: I hope to see you laugh as cheerfully afternoon, as ye have mourned beforenoon: The hand of the Lord, the hand of the Lord be with you in your journey: What have ye to do here? This is not your mountain of rest, arise then and set your foot up the mountain, go up out of the wilderness leaning upon the shoulder of your Beloved, Caent, 8, v. 5, If ye knew the welcome that abideth you when ye come home, ye would hasten your pace, for ye shall see your Lord put up his own holy hand to your face & wipe all tears from your eyes, & I trow, than ye shall have some joy of heart. Madam, paper willeth me to end before affection: Remember the estate of Zaon, pray that jerusalem may be as Zechariah prophesied, Ch. 12: 3. A burdensome stone for all, that whosoever boweth down to roll the stone out of the way, may hurt & break the joints of their back & strain their arms & disjoint their shoulderblades, & pray jehovah that the stone may lie still in its own place & keep bond with the cornerstone, I hope it shall be so, he is a skilled Master-builder who laid it. I would, Madam, under great heaviness be refreshed with two lines from your La: pen, which I refer to your own wisdom. Madam, I would seen undutiful not to show you that great solistation is made by the town of Kircudbright for to have the use of my poor labours amongst them: If the Lord shall call & his people cry, who am I to resist? but without his seen calling & till the flock whom I now oversee, be planted with one to whom I dare intrust Christ's Spouse, gold nor silver nor favour of men, I hope, shall not lose me. I leave your La: praying more earnestly for grace & mercy to be with you & multiplied upon you here & hereafter, than my pen can express. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
Kirkcudbright. Your La at all obedience in the Lord, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (15.)  
MADAM.  
HAving saluted you with grace & mercy from God our father & from our Lord Jesus Christ, I long both to see your La: & to hear how it goeth with you; I do remember you, & present you & your necessities to him who is able to keep you & present you blameless before his face with joy: & my prayer to our Lord is that ye may be sick of love for him who died of love for you, I mean, your Saviour Jesus: And O sweet were that sickness to be soul-sick for him! And a living death it were, to die in the fire of the love of that soul-lover, jesus! And Madam, if ye love him ye will keep his commandments, & this is not one of the least, to lay your neck cheerfully & willingly under the yoke of Jesus Christ: For I trust your La: did first contract and bargain with the Son of God to follow him upon these terms, that by his grace ye should endure hardship & suffer affliction as the soldier of Christ: They are not worthy of Jesus who will not take a blow for their Master's sake: For our glorious peacemaker, when he came to make up the friendship betwixt God & us, God bruised him & struck him, the sinful world also did beat him and crucify him; yet he took buffets of both the parties, and honour to our Lord Jesus, he would not leave the field for all that, till he had made peace betwixt the parties. I persuade ●y self, your sufferings are but like your Saviour's [yea incomparably less & lighter] which are called but a bruising of his ●eel. Gen. 3. 15, a wound far from the heart: Your life is hid with Christ in God, Col. 3. 3. And therefore ye cannot be robbed of it. Our Lord handleth us as fathers do their young children; they lay up jewels in a place above the reach of the short arm of bairns, else ●ai●ns would put up their hands & take them down & lose them soon: So hath our Lord done with our spiritual life, Jesus Christ is the high coffer in the which our Lord hath hid our life, we children are not able to reach up our arm so high as to take down that life & lose it, it is in our Christ's hand: O, long, long may Jesus be Lord-keeper of our life! & happy are they that can with the Apostle, 2 Tim. 1. lay their soul in pawn in the hand of Jesus, for he is able to keep that which is committed in pawn to him against that day. Then, Madam, so long as this life is not hurt, all either troubles are but touches in the heel: I trust ye will soon be cured. Ye know, Madam, Kings have some servants in their court that receive not present wages in their hand, but live upon their hopes: The King of Kings also hath servants in his court that for the present get little or nothing but the heavy cross of Christ, troubles without & terrors within, but they live upon hope, when it cometh to the parting of the inheritance, they remain in the house as heirs: It is better to be so, then to get present payment & a portion in this life, an inheritance in this world [God forgive me that I should honour it with the name of an inheritance, it is rather a farme-room] & then in the end to be casten out of God's house with this word, Ye have received your consolation, ye will get no more: Alas! What get they? The rich glutton's heaven: Oh but our Lord, Luk. 16. maketh it a silly heaven! He fared well [saith our Lord] & delicately every day: Oh no more! A silly heaven! Truly no more, except that he was clothed in purple, & that is all: I persuade myself. Madam, ye have joy when ye think that your Lord hath dealt more graciously with your soul. Ye have gotten little in this life: It is true indeed: Ye have then the more to crave, yea ye have all to crave: For except some tastings of the first fruits & some kisses of his mouth whom your soul loveth, ye get no more: But I cannot tell you what is to come; yet I may speak as our Lord doth of it: The foundation of the city is pure gold, clear as crystal, the twelve ports are set with precious stones: If orchards & rivers commend a soil upon earth, there is a Paradise there, wherein groweth the tree of life that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, which is seven score & four harvests in the year, & there is there, a pure river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God & of the Lamb, & the city hath no need of the light of the sun or moon or of a candle, for the Lord God Almighty & the Lamb is the light thereof. Madam, believe and hope for this, till ye see & enjoy: Jesus is saying in the Gospel, Come & see; & he is come down in the chariot of Truth wherein he rideth through the world to conquer men's souls, Psal. 45. 4. & is now in the word saying, Who will go with me? will ye go? my Father will make you welcome & give you houseroom, for in my Father's house are many dwelling places: Madam, consent to go with him. Thus I rest, commending you to God's dearest mercy.  
Anwoth. Yours in the Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (16.)  
MADAM.  
I Am afraid now [as many others are] that at the sitting down of our Parliament, our Lord Jesus his Spouse shall be roughly handled: And it must be so, since false & deelining Scotland, whom our Lord took off the dunghill & out of hell, & made a fair Bride to himself, hath broken her faith to her sweet husband, & hath put on the forehead of a whore; & therefore he saith he will remove: would God we could stir up ourselves to lay hold upon him, who being highly provoked with the handling he hath met with, is ready to depart! Alas, we do not importune him by prayer & supplication, to abide amongst us● If we could but we●p upon ●●m & in the holy pertinacy of faith, wrestle wit●… & say We will not let thee go, it may be that then, he who is easy to be entreated would yet, notwithstanding of our high provocations, condescend to stay & feed among the lilies, till that fair & desirable day break and the shadows fl●e away. Ah! What cause of mourning is there? When our gold is become dim, & the visage of our Nazarites sometimes whiter than snow, is now become blacker than a coal, & Levi's house, once comparable to fine gold, is now changed, & become like vessels in whom he hath no pleasure. Madam, think upon this, that when our Lord who hath his handkerchief to wipe the face of the mourners in Zion, shall come to wipe away all tears from their eyes, he may wipe yours also in the passing amongst others. I am confident, Madam, that our Lord will yet build a new house to himself, of our rejected and scattered stones: for our bridegroom cannot want a wife: Can he live a widow? Nay, he will embrace both Us the little young sister, & the elder sister The church of the jews, & there will yet be a day of it; & therefore we have cause to rejoice, yea to sing & shout for joy. The Church hath been ●nce the world began, ever hanging by a small thread, & all the hands of hell & of the wicked have been drawing at the thread, but God be thanked they only break their arms by pulling, but the thread is not broken, for the sweet fingers of Christ our Lord have spun and twisted it: Lord hold the thread whole! Madam, stir up your husband to lay hold upon the Covenant, & to do good: What hath he to do with the World? It is not his inheritance: Desire him to make him home over, & put to his hand to lay one stone or two upon the wall of God's house before he go hence. I have heard also, Madam, that your child is removed: But to have or want is best as he pleaseth: Whether she be with you or in God's keeping, think it all one; nay think it the better of the two by far, that she is with him. I trust in our Lord that there is something laid up and kept for you; for our kind Lord who hath wounded you, will not be so cruel as not to allay the pain of your green wound; & therefore claim Christ still as your own, & own him as your One thing. So resting I recommend your La: your soul & spirit in pawn to him who keepeth all his father's pawns, & will make an account of them faithfully, even to that fairest amongst the sons of men, our sweet Lord Jesus, the fairest, the sweetest, the most delicious rose in all his father's great field: The smell of that rose perfume your soul.  
Anwoth. April. 1. 1633. Your La: in his sweetest Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (17)  
MADAM.  
I Determined & was desirous also to have seen your La: but because of a pain in my arm I could not: I know ye will not impute it to any unsuitable forgetfulness of your La: from whom at my first entry to my calling in this country, & since also, I received such comfort in my affliction, as I trust in God, never to forget it, & shall labour by his grace to recompense it the only way possible to me, & that is, by presenting your soul, person, house & all your necessities, in prayer, to him (whose I hope ye are, &) who is able to keep you till that day of appearance, & to present you before his face with joy. I am confident your La: is going forward in the begun journey to your Lord & father's home & Kingdom; howbeit ye want not temptations within & without: And who among the saints hath ever taken that castle without stroke of sword? The chief of the house, our elder brother our Lord jesus, not being excepted, who won his own house & home, due to him by birth, with much blood & many blows. Your La: hath the more need to look to yourself, because our Lord hath placed you higher than the rest, and your way to heaven lieth through a more wild and waste wilderness then the way of many of your fellow-travellers, not only through the midst of this wood of thorns The cumbersome world, but also through these dangerous paths The vain glory of it: The consideration whereof hath often moved me to pity your soul, & the soul of your worthy & noble husband: And it is more to you to win heaven, being ships of greater burden, and in the main sea, then for little vessels that are not so much in the mercy and reverence of the storms, because they may come quietly to their port by launching alongst the coast: For the which cause ye do much, if in the midst of such a tumult of business, & crowd of temptations, ye shall give Christ Jesus his own court & his own due place in your soul. I know & am persuaded that, that lovely one jesus is dearer to you then many Kingdom, and that ye esteem him your well-beloved and the standard-bearer among ten thousand Cant. 5, 10, And it becometh him full well to take the place and the board-head in your soul, before all the world: I knew, & saw him with you in the furnace of affliction; for there he wooed you to himself, & chose you to be his, & now he craveth no other hire of you but your Love, & that he get no cause to be jealous of you: And therefore, Dear & Worthy Lady, be like to the fresh river, that keepeth its own fresh taste in the salt sea. This world is not worthy of your soul: Give it not a good-day when Christ cometh in competition with it. Be like one of another country: Home & stay not; for the sun is fallen low, & nigh the tops of the mountains, & the shadows are stretched out in great length: linger not by the way: The world and sin would train you on & make you turn aside: Leave not the way for them, & the Lord Jesus be at the voyage! Madam, many eyes are upon you, & many would be glad your La: should spill a Christian, and ma● a good professor: Lord Jesus mar their godless desires, & keep the conscience whole without a crack! If there be a hole in it, so that it take in water at a leck, it will with difficulty mend again: It is a dainty delicate creature, & a rare piece of the workmanship of your maker; & therefore deal gently with it, & keep it entire, that amid●● this world's glory, your La: may learn to entertain Christ, & whatsoever creature your La: findeth not to smell of him, it may have no better relish to you then the white of an egg. Madam, it is a part of the truth of your profession, to drop words in the ears of your Noble husband continually, of Eternity, Judgement, Death, Hell, Heaven, The honourable Profession, The sins of his Father's House: He must reckon with God for his father's debt: Forgetting of accounts payeth not debt: Nay, the interest of a forgotten bond runneth up with God to interest upon interest: I know he looketh homeward & loveth the truth; but I pity him with my soul, because of his many temptations: Satan layeth upon men a burden of cares above a load, & maketh a packhorse of men's souls, when they are wholly set upon this world: We owe the Devil no such service; It were wisdom to throw off that load into a mire, & to cast all our cares over upon God. Madam, think ye have no child: Subscribe a bond to your Lord, That she shall be his if he take her, & thanks & praise & glory to his holy name, shall be the interest for a year's loan of her: Look for crosses, & while it is fair weather, mend the sails of the ship. Now, hoping your La: will pardon my tediousness, I recommend your soul & person to the grace & mercy of our sweet Lord Jesus, in whom I am  
Anwoth, Nou. 15. 1633. Your La: at all dutiful obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (18)  
MADAM.  
HAving received a letter from some of the worthiest of the Ministry in this Kingdom, the contents where of I am manred to communicate to such professors in these parts as I know love the beauty of Zion, & are afflicted to see the Lord's vineyard froden under foot by the wild boars out of the wood, who lay it waste; I could not but also desire your La: help, to join with the rest, desiring you to impart it to my Lord your husband, & if ye think it needful, I shall write to his Lo: as Mr G. G. shall advertise me. Know therefore that the best affected of the Ministry have thought it convenient & necessary at such a time as this, that all who love the truth should join their prayers together, & cry to God with humiliation & fasting: The times which are agreed upon, are, the two first sabbaths of February next, & the six days interveening betwixt these sabbaths, as they may conveniently be had, & the first sabbath of every Quarter: And the Causes, as they are written to me, are these. 1. Besides the distresses of the Reformed Churches abroad, the many reigning sins of uncleanness, ungodliness & unrighteousness in this land, the present judgements on the land, & many more hanging over us, whereof few are sensible, or yet know the right & true cause of them. 2. The lamentable & pitiful estate of a glorious Church [in so short a time, against so many bonds] in Doctrine, Sacraments & Discipline, so sore persecuted, in the persons of faithful Pastors and professors, and the door of God's house kept so straight, by Bastard-Porters, in so much, that worthy instruments, able for the work, are held at the door, the Rulers having turned over Religion into Policy, & the Multitude ready to receive any Religion that shall be enjoined by Authority. 3. In our Humiliation, besides that we are under a necessity of deprecating God's wrath, & vowing to God sincerely new obedience, the weakness, coldness, silence & luke warmness of some of the best of the Ministry, & the deadness of Professors, who have suffered the truth both secretly to be stolen away & openly to be plucked from us, would be confessed. 4. Atheism, Idolatry, profanity & vanity would be confessed: Our King's heart recommended to God, & God entreated that he would stir up the Nobles & the People to turn from their evil waves. Thus, Madam, hoping that your La: will join with others, that such a work be not slighted at such a necessary time, when our Kirk is at the overturning: I will promise to myself your help, as the Lord in secrecy & prudence shall enable you, that your La: may rejoice with the Lord's people when deliverance shall come; for true & sincere humiliation came always speed with God: And when Authority, King, Court & Churchmen oppose the truth, what other armour have we but prayer & faith? Whereby if we wrestle with him, there is ground to hope that these who would remove the burdensome stone out of its place shall but hurt their back, & the stone shall not be moved, at least not removed, Zech: 12: 3. Grace, grace be with you, from him who hath called you to the inheritance of the saints in light.  
Anwoth. Jan. 23. 1634. Your La: at all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (19)  
MADAM.  
ALl submissive & dutiful obedience in our Lord Jesus remembered: I trust I need not much entreat your La: to look to him who hath stricken you at this time, but my duty in the memory of that comfort I found in your La: kindness, when I was no less heavy in a case not unlike that, speaketh to me, to say something now: & I wish I could ease your La: at least with words. I am persuaded your Physician will not slay you, but purge you: & seeing he calleth himself the Chirurgeon who maketh the wound & bindeth it up again, [for to lance a wound is not to kill, but cure the patient] Deut. 32. 30. 1 Sam. 2: 6. job 6: v. 18. Host 6. 1. I believe, Faith will teach you to kiss a striking Lord, & so acknowledge the sovereignty of God [in the death of a child] to be above the power of us mortal men, who may pluck up a flower in the bud & not be blamed for it: If our dear Lord pluck up one of his Roses, and pull down sour & green fruit before harvest, who can challenge him? For he sendeth us to his world as men to a market, wherein some stay many hours, & eat & drink, & buy & sell, & pass through the fair, till they be weary, & such are these who live long & get a hearty fill of this life: And others again come slipping in to the morning-market, & do neither sit nor stand, nor buy nor sell, but look about them a little & pass presently home again, and these are infants & young ones, who end their short market in the morning, & get but a short view of the fair: Our Lord, who hath numbered man's months & set him bounds that he cannot pass, job. 14, 5. hath written the length of our market, & it is easier to complain of the decree then to change it. I verily believe when I write this, your Lord hath taught your La: to lay your hand on your mouth: But I shall be far from desiring your La: or any others to cast by a cross, like an old useless bill that is only for the fire, but rather would wish, each cross were looked in the face seven times, & were read over & over again: It is the Messenger of the Lord, & speaks something, & the man of understanding will hear the rod & him that hath appointed it: Try what is the taste of the Lord's cup, & drink with God's blessing, that ye may grow thereby. I trust in God, whatever other speech it utter to your soul, this is one word in it, job. 5. 17. Behold, blessed is the man whom God correcteth: And that it saith to you, Ye are from home while here, ye are not of this world, as your Redeemer, Christ, was not of this world: There is something keeping for you, which is worth the having: All that is here is condemned to die, to pass away like a snowball before a summer-sun: & since Death took first possession of something of yours, it hath been & daily is creeping nearer & nearer to yourself, howbeit with no noise of feet. Your husbandman & Lord hath lopped off some branches already, the tree itself is to be transplanted to the high harden; in a good time be it, our Lord ripen your La: all these crosses [& indeed when I remember them, they are heavy & many: peace, peace be the end of them] are to make you white & ripe for the Lord's harvest-hook. I have seen the Lord weaning you from the breasts of this world: it was never his mind it, should be your patrimony, & God be thanked for that, ye look the liker one of the heirs: let the moveables go, why not? They are not yours: fasten your grips upon the heritage; & our Lord Jesus make the charters sure, & give your La: to grow as a palmtree on God's mount Zion, howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast. This is all I can do, to recommend your case to your Lord, who hath you written upon the palms of his hand: if I were able to do more, your La: may believe me, that gladly I would. I trust shortly to see your La: Now he who hath called you, confirm & establish your heart in grace unto the day of the liberty of the sons of God.  
Ardwell, April 29. 1634. Your La: at all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (20)  
My very Noble & worthy Lady.  
SO oft as I call to mind the comforts that I myself, a poor friendless stranger, received from your La: here in a strange part of the country, when my Lord took from me the delight of mine eyes, as the word speaketh, Ezek. 24. 16. [which wound is not yet fully healed & cured] I trust your Lord shall remember that & give you comfort now at such a time as this, wherein your dearest Lord hath made you a widow that ye may be a free Woman for Christ who is now suteing for marriage-love of you; & therefore since you lie alone in your bed, let Christ be as a bundle of myrrh to sleep & lie all the night betwixt your breasts, Cant. 1, 13. & then your bed is better filled then before: And seeing amongst all crosses spoken of in our Lord's word, this giveth you a particular right to make God your husband, [which was not so yours while your husband was alive] read God's mercy out of this visitation: And albeit I must out of some experience say, the mourning for the husband of your youth, be, by God's own mouth the heaviest worldly sorrow, joel 1. 8. & though this be the weightiest burden that ever lay upon your back; Yet ye know [when the fields are emptied & your husband now asleep in the Lord] if ye shall wait upon him who hideth his face for a while, that it lieth upon God's honour & truth to full the field & to be a husband to the widow: See & consider then what ye have lost & how little it is. Therefore, Madam, let me entreat you in the bowels of Christ Jesus & by the comforts of his Spirit & your appearance before him, let God & men & Angels now see what is in you: The Lord hath pierced the vessel, it will be known whether there be in it wine or water: let your faith & patience be seen, that it may be known, your only beloved first and last hath been Christ: And therefore now were your whole love upon him, he alone is a suitable object for your love and all the affections of your soul: God hath dried up one channel of your love by the removal of your husband, let now that speat run upon Christ. Your Lord & lover hath graciously taken out your husband's name & your name out of the summons that are raised at the instance of the terrible sin-revenging Judge of the world against the house of the Kenmure: And I dare say that God's hammering of you from your youth is only to make you a fair carved stone in the high upper temple of the new jerusalem: Your Lord never thought this world's vain painted glory a gift worthy of you; & therefore would not bestow it on you, because he is to propine you with a better portion: Let the moveables go, the inheritance is yours: Ye are a child of the house & joy is laid up for you, it is long in coming, but not the worse for that. I am now expecting to see, & that with joy & comfort, that which I hoped of you since I knew you fully, even that ye have laid such strength upon the Holy One of Israel that y ●sie troubles, & that your soul is a castle that may be be●●●ged but cannot be taken. What have ye to do here? This would never looked like a friend upon you, ye owe it little love, it looked ever sowre-like upon you: Howbeit ye should woo it, it will not match with you; & therefore never seek warm fire under cold ice: This is not a field where your happiness groweth, it is up above, where, Rev. 7. 9 there are a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, & Kindred's, & people, & tongues standing before the throne & before the Lamb, clothed with w●●te robes, & palms in their hands: What ye could never get here, ye shall find there. And withal consider how in all these trials [& truly they have been many] your Lord hath been losing you at the root from perishing things, & hunting after you, to grip your soul: Madam for the Son of God's sake, let him not miss his grip, but stay & abide in the love of God, as jude saith, ver: 21 Now, Madam. I hope your La: will take these lines in good part, & wherein I have fallen short & failed to your La: in not evidencing what I was obliged to your more than undeserved love & respect, I request for a full pardon for it. Again, my dear & noble Lady, let me beseech you to list up your head, for the day of your redemption draweth near: And remember, that star that shined in Galloway is now shining in another world. Now I pray that God may answer his own stile to your soul, & that he may be to you the God of all consolations. Thus I remain.  
Anwoth. Sept. 14. 1634. Your La: at all dutiful obedience in the Lord, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (21)  
MADAM.  
ALl dutiful obedience in our Lord remembered. I know ye are now near one of these strairs in which ye have been before: But because your outward comforts are fewer, I pray him whose ye are, to supply what ye want, an other way: for howbeit we cannot win to the bottom of his wise Providence who ruleth all: yet it is certain, this is not only good which the Almighty hath done, but it is best: & he hath reckoned all your steps to heaven, & if your La: were through this water, there are the fewer behind; & if this were the last, I hope your La: hath learned by onwaiting to make your acquaintance with Death, which being to the Lord, the woman's seed jesus, only a bloody heel & not a broken head, Gen. 3: 15. cannot be ill to his friends, who get f●r less of Death than himself: Therefore, Madam, seeing ye know not but the journey is ended & ye are come to the waterside, in God's wisdom look all your papers & your counts, & whether ye be ready to receive the Kingdom of heaven as a little child, in whom there is little haughtiness & much humility. I would be far from discouraging your La: but there is an absolute necessity, that near eternity, we look ere we leap, seeing no man winneth back again to mend his leap. I am confident your La: thinketh often upon it, & that your old guide shall go before you & take your hands His love to you will not grow sour nor wear out of date, as the love of men, which groweth old & grey haired often before themselves. Ye have so much the more reason to love a better life than this, because this world hath been to you a cold fire, with little heat to the body & as little light, & much smoke to hurt the eyes: But, Madam, your Lord would have you thinking it but day breasts, full of wind & empty of food. In this late visitation that hath befallen your La●e ●e have seen God's love & care in such a measure, that I thought, our Lord broke the sharp point off the cross, & made us and your La: see Christ take possession, and infestment upon earth of him who is now reigning & triumphing with the hundred forty & four thousand, who stand with the Lamb on mount Zion. I know, the sweetest of it, is bitter to you; but your Lord will not give you painted crosses: He paireth not all the bitterness from the cross, neither taketh he the sharp ●dge quite from it, than it should be of your wailing & not of his, which should have as little reason in it, as it should have profit for us. Only, Madam, God commandeth you now to believe & cast anchor in the dark night, & climb up the mountain: He who hath called you, establish you & confirm you to the end. I had a purpose to have visited your La: but when I thought better upon it, the truth is, I cannot see what my company could profit you: & this hath broken off my purpose, & no other thing. yknow many honourable friends & worthy professors will see I our La: & that the Son of God is with you, to whose love & mercy, from my soul, I recommend your La: & remain  
Anwoth. Nou. 29. 1634. Your La at all dutiful obedience in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (22)  
MADAM.  
MY humble obedience in the Lord remembered: Know, it hath pleased the Lord to let me see, by all appearance, my labours in God's house here are at an end, & I 〈◊〉 now learn to suffer, in the which I am a dull Scholar. By a strange Providence, some of my papers anent the corruptions of this time, are come to our King's hand: I know, by the wise & well affected, I shall be censured as not wise nor circumspect enough, but it is ordinary, that, that should be a part of the cross of these who suffer for him: Yet I love & pardon the instrument, I would commit my life to him, howbeit by him this hath befallen me; but I look higher than to him. I make no question of your La: love & car to do what ye can for my help, & am persuaded that in my adversities our La: will with me well. I seek no other thing, but that my Lord may be honoured by me in giving a ●…ony: I was wi●ling to do him more service, but seeing he will have no more of my labours & this land will thrust me out, I pray for grace to learn to be acquaint with misery, i●● may give so rough a name to such a mark of these who shall be crowned with Christ: And howbeit I will possibly prove a faint-hearted unwise man in that, yet I dare say, I intent otherwise: And I desire not to go on the lee-side or sunny-side of Religion, to put Truth betwixt me & a storm; my Saviour did not so for me, who in his suffering took the windy side of the hill. No further, but the Son of God be with you.  
Anwoth. Dec. 5. 1634. Your La: in the Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (23.)  
MADAM.  
I Received your La; letter from I. G. I thank our Lord, ye are as well, at least as one may be, who is not come home: it is a mercy in this stormy sea to get a second wind, for none of the saints get a first, but they must take the winds as the Lord of the seas causeth them to blow, & the Inn as the Lord & Master of the Inns hath ordered it: if contentment were here, heaven were not heaven: Who ever seek the world to be their bed, shall at best find it short & ill made, & a stone under their side to hold them waking rather then a soft pillow to sleep upon: Ye ought to bless your Lord that it is not worse: we live in a sea where many have suffered ship wrack, and have need that Christ sit at the helm of the ship: it is a mercy to win to heaven, though with much hard toil & heavy labour, & to take it by violence ill & well as it may be: better go swimming & wet through our waters, then drown by the way; especially now when Truth suffereth, & great men bid Christ sit lower & contract himself in less bounds, as if he took too much room. I expect our new Prelate shall try my sitting: I hang by a thread, but it is (if I may speak so] of Christ's spinning, there is no quarrel more honest or honourable, then to suffer for truth: but the worst is, that this Kirk is like to sink, & all her lovers & friends stand afar off, none mourn with her & none mourn for her. But the Lord Jesus will not be put out of his conquest so soon in Scotland; it will be seen, the Kirk & Truth will rise again within three days, & Christ again shall ride upon his white horse, howbeit his horse seem now to stumble, yet he cannot fall: the fullness of Christ's harvest in the end of the earth is not yet come in. I speak not this because I would have it so, but upon better grounds than my naked liking: but enough of this sad subject. I long to be fully assured of your La: welfare & that your soul prospereth, especially now in your solitary life, when your comforts outward are few, & when Christ hath you for the very uptaking. I know, his love to you is still running over, & his love hath not so bad a memory as to forget you, & your dear child, who hath two fathers in heaven, the one the Ancient of days: I trust in his mercy, he hath something laid up for him above, however it may go with him here, I know it is long since your La: saw this world turned your stepmother & did forsake you. Madam, ye have reason to take in good part a lean dinner & spare diet in this life, seeing your large supper of the Lamb's preparing will recompense all. let it go, which was never yours, but only in sight, not in property: the time of your loan will wear shorter & shorter, & time is measured to you by ounce-weights: & then I know, your hope shall be a full ear of corn & not blasted with wind: it may be your joy, that your anchor is up within the vail, & that the ground it is cast upon, is not false but firm. God hath done his part, I hope ye will not deny to fish & fetch home all your love to himself, & it is but too narrow & short for him, if it were more: if ye were before pouring all your love [if it had been many gallons more] in upon your Lord, if drops fell by in the inpouring, he forgiveth you: he hath done now all that can be done, to win beyond it all, & hath left little to woo your love from himself, except one only child: what is his purpose herein, he knoweth best, who hath taken your soul in tutouring: Your faith may be boldly charitable of Christ, that however matters go, the worst shall be a tired traveller, & a joyful & sweet welcome-home: the back of your winter-night is broken: Look to the East, the day sky is breaking: think not that Christ loseth time or lingereth unsutably. O fair, fair, & sweet morning! We are but here as sea-passengers, if we look right, we are upon our countrey-coast, our Redeemer is fast coming to take this old wormeaten world, like an old motheaten garment, in his two hands, & to roll it up & lay it by him. These are the last days, & an oath is given, Rev. 10. by God himself, that Time shall be no more: & when Time itself is old & gray-haired, it were good we were away. Thus, Madam, ye see I am, as my custom is, tedious in my lines: your La: will pardon it. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
Anwoth. January. 18. 1636. Your La: at all obedience in Christ. S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (24)  
Right honourable.  
I Cannot find time for writing some things I intended on job, I have been so taken up with the broils that we are encumbered with in our calling: for our Prelate will have us either to swallow our light over & digest it contrary to our stomaches, howbeit we should vomit our conscience & all, in this troublesome Conformity; or then he will try if Deprivation can convert us to the Ceremonial faith. I write to your La: Madam, not as distrusting your affection or willingness to help me, as your La: is able by yourself or others, but to advertise you, that I hang by a small thread: for our learned Prelate, because we cannot see with his eyes, so far in a millstone as his light doth, will not follow his Master, meek Jesus, who waiteth upon the wearied & shortbreathed in the way to heaven: & where all see not alike & some are weaker, he carrieth the lambs in his bosom, & leadeth gently these that are with young. But we must either see all the evil of Ceremonies to be but as indifferent straws, or suffer no loss then to be easten our of the Lord's inheritance. Madam, if I had time, I would write more at length, but your La: will pardon me till a fitter occasion. Grace be with you and your child, and bear you company to your best home.  
Anwoth. June. 8. 1636. Your La: in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To EARLESTOWN Elder. (25.)  
Much honoured Sir.  
I Have heard of the mind & malice of your adversaries against you: It's like they will extend the law they have, in length & breadth answerable to their heat of mind; but it is a great part of your glory that the cause is not yours, but your Lords whom ye serve, & I doubt not but Christ will count it his honour to back his weak servant, & it were a shame for him (with reverence to his holy Name) that he should suffer himself to be in the common of such a poor man as ye are, & that ye should give out for him & not get in again: Write up your depursments for your Master Christ, & keep the count what ye give out, whether name, credit, goods, or life, & suspend your reckoning till nigh the evening, & remember that a poor weak servant of Christ wrote it to you, ye shall have Christ, a King, caution for your incomes & all your losses: Reckon not from the forenoon: Take the word of God for your warrant, and for Christ's act of cautionry; howbeit body, life & goods go for Christ your Lord, & though ye should lose the head for him; yet Luk 21. 18. There shall not one hair of your head perish. ver. 19 in patience therefore possess your soul: & because ye are the first man in Galloway called out & questioned for the name of Jesus, his eye hath been upon you as upon one whom he hath designed to be among his witnesses: Christ hath said, Alexander Gordon shall lead the ring in witnessing a good confession; & therefore he hath put the garland of suffering for himself first upon your head: think yourself so much the more obliged to him, & fear not; for he layeth his right hand on your head: He who was dead & is alive will plead your cause, & will look attentively upon the process from the beginning to the end, & the Spirit of glory shall rest upon you. Rev. 2: 10. Fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer, behold the Devil shall cast some ●f you into prison that ye may be tried, & ye shall have tribulation ten days: Be thou faithful unto the death, & I will give thee the crown of life: That lovely one esus, who also became the Son of man that he might take strokes for you, write the cross-sweetning & soul-supporting sense of these words in your heart: These rumbling wheels ●f Scotland's ten day's tribulation are under his look who hath seven eyes: Take a house on your head, & slip yourself by faith in under Christ's wings, till the storm be over: And remember when they have drunken us down, jerusalem will be a Cup of trembling & of poison, Zech. 12: 2. They shall be fain to vomit out the saints; for judah, v. 6. Shall be a hearth of ●ire in a sheaf, & they shall devour all the people round about, on the right band & on the ●ft. Woe to Zion's enemies; they have the worst or it; for we have write for the victory. Sir, ye were never honourable till now: this is your glory that Christ hath put you in the roll with himself, and the rest of the witnesses, who are come out of great tribulation, & have washen their garments & made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Be not cast down for what the servants of Antichrist cast in your t●eth, that Year ahead to, and favourer of the Puritans, & leader to th●●●●ct, if your conscience say, Alas, here is much din & little done [is the proverb is] because ye have not done so much service to Christ that way as ye might & should: Take courage from that same temptation; for ●our Lord Christ looketh ●po● that very challenge as an hungering desire in you to have done more than ye did, & that filleth up the blank, & he will accept of what ye have done in that kind. If great men be kind to you, I pray you overlook them; if they smile on you, Christ but borroweth their face to smile through them upon his afflicted servant: know the wellhead, & for all that, learn the way to the well itself. Thank God that Christ came to your house in your absence & took with him some of your children: He presumed that much on your love, that ye would not offend; & howbeit he should take the rest, he cannot come upon your wrong side: I question not, if they were children of gold, but ye think them well bestowed upon him: Expound well two rods on you, one in your house at home, another on your own person abroad: Love thinketh no evil: If ve were not Christ's wheat appointed to be bread in his house, he would not grind you thus: But keep the middle line, neither despise nor faint. Hebr 12. 6. Ye see your father is homely with you: Strokes of a father evidence kindness & care, take them so: I hope your Lord hath manifested himself to you and suggested these or more choice thoughts about his dealing with you: we are using our weak moyen & credit for you, up at our own court; as we dow we pray the King to hear us, & the Son of man to go side for side with you, & hand in hand in the fiery oven, & to quicken & encourage your unbelieving heart when ye droop & despond. Sir, to the honour of Christ be it said, my faith goeth with my pen now, I am presently believing Christ shall bring you out, Truth in Scotland shall keep the crown of the causey yet: the saints shall see Religion go naked at noonday free from shame & fear of men: We shall yet divide Sechem & ride upon the high places of jacob. Remember my obliged respects & love to my lady Kenmure & her sweet child.  
Anwoth. July 6. 1636. Yours ever in his sweet Lord jesus, S, R.   

To the Vicountess of KENMURE. (26)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I know ye are near many comforters & that the promised comforter is near hand also: yet because I found your La: comfortable to myself in my sad days that are not yet over my head, it is my part and more in many respects [howbeit I can do little, God knoweth, in that kind] to speak to you in your wilderness-lot. I know, Dear & Noble Lady, this loss of your dear child came upon you, one piece & part of it after another, & that ye was looking for it, & that now the Almighty hath brought on you that which ye feared, & that your Lord gave you lawful warning, & I hope for his sake who brewed & masked this cup in heaven, ye will gladly drink, and salute & welcome the cross. I am sure, it is not your Lord's mind to f●ed you with judgement & worm wood, & to give you waters of gall to drink, Ezek. 34. 16. jer. 9 15. I know your cup is sugared with mercy, & that the withering of the bloom, the flower, even the white & red of worldly joys, is for no other end, but to buy out at the ground the reversion of your heart and love. Madam, subscribe the almighty's will, put your hand to the pen, & let the cross of your Lord Jesus have your submissive and resolute AMEN. If ye ask and try whose this cross is? I dare say, it is not all your own, the best half of it is Christ's; then your cross is no born bastard, but lawfully begotten, It sprang not out of the dust, job. 5. 6. if Christ & ye be halvers of this suffering, & he say half mine, what should ail you? & I am sure, I am here right upon the stile of the word of God. Phil. 3. 10. The fellowship of Christ's sufferings, Col. 1. 29. The remnant of the afflictions of Christ. Heb. 11. 28. The reproach of Christ It were but to shi●t the comforts of God, to say, Christ had never such a cross as mine, he had never a dead child, & so this is not his cross, neither can he in that meaning be the owner of this cross: but I hope, Christ when he married you, married you and all the crosses & wo●-hearts that follow you, & the word maketh no exception. Isa. 63. 9 In all their afflictions he was afflicted: Then Christ bore the first stroke of this cross, it rebounded off him on upon you, & ye got it at the second hand, & ye and he are halvers in it: And I shall believe for my part, he mindeth to distil heaven out of this loss and all others the like: for wisdom devised it, and love laid it on, and Christ owneth it as his own, and putteth your shoulder only beneath a piece of it: take it with joy as no bastard cross, but as a vintation of God, well born; and spend the rest of your appointed time till your change come in the work of believing; and let faith, that never yet made a lie to you, speak for God's part of it, he will not, he doth not make you a sea or a whalefish, that he keepeth you inward, lob. 7. 12. It may be, ye think not many of the children of God in such a hard case as yourself, but what would ye think of some who would exchange afflictions & give you to the boot; but I know, yours must be your own alone and Christ's together. I confess it seemed strange to me, that your Lord should have done that which seemeth to ding out the bottom of your comforts worldly; but we see not to the ground of the almighty's sovereignty, he goeth by on our right hand, & on our left hand, & we see him not: We see but pieces of the broken links of the chain of his providence, and he coggeth the wheels of his own providence that we see not. O let the former work his own clay in what frame he pleaseth! Shall any teach the Almighty knowledge? If he pursue dry stubble, who dare say, what dost thou? do not wonder to see the Judge of the world wove in one web, your mercies, & the judgements of the house of the Kenmure: he can make one web of contraries. But my weak advice, with reverence & correction, were for you, Dear & worthy Lady, to see how far mortification goeth on, & what scum the Lord's fire casteth out of you. I know ye see your knottiness, since our Lord whyteth & heweth & plaineth you, & the glanceing of the furnace is to let you see, what scum or refuse ye must want, & what froth is in nature, that must be boiled out, & taken off in the fire of your trials. I do not say, heavier afflictions prophesy heavier guiltiness; a cross is often but a false prophet in this kind: but I am sure, our Lord would have the tin & the bastard mettle in you, removed, lest the Lord say, the bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed in the fare, the founder melteth in vain. jer. 6, 29, And I shall hope, that grief shall not so far smother your light as not to practice this so necessary a duty to concur with him in this blessed design. I would gladly plead for the comforter's part of it, not against you, Madam, [for I am sure ye are not his party] but against your grief, which will have it's own violent incursions in your soul, & I think it be not in your power to help it; But I must say, there are comforts allowed upon you, & therefore want them not: When ye have gotten a running-over soul with joy now, that joy will never be miss out of the infinite Ocean of delight which i● not diminished by drinking at it, or drawing out of it. It is a Christian art to Comfort yourself in the Lord, to say, I was obliged to render back again this child to the giver, & if I have had four years' loan of him, & Christ eternitie's possession of him, the Lord hath keeped condition with me. If my Lord would not have him & me to tryst both in one hour at death's door threshold together, it is his wisdom so to do, I am satisfied, my tryst is suspended, not broken off, nor given up. Madam, I would I could divide sorrow with you for your ease; But I am but a beholder, it is easy to me to speak: The God of comfort speak to you, & allure you with his feasts of love. My removal from my flock is so heavy to me, that it maketh my life a burden to me; I had never such a longing for death: The Lord help & hold up sad clay. I fear ye sin in drawing Mr William Dalgleish from this country, where the labourrers are few and the harvest great: Madam, desire my Lord Argyle to see for provision to a Pastor for this poor people. Grace be with you.  
Kircudbright, Octob. 1. 1639. Your La: at all obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To the persecuted Church in Ireland. (27)  
Much honoured, reverend & dearly beloved in our Lord.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you all: I know there are many in this Nation, more able than I, to speak to the sufferers for, & witnesses of Jesus Christ; yet pardon me to speak a little to you, who are called in question for the Gospel once committed to you. I hope ye are not ignorant that if peace was left to you in Christ's Testament, so the other half of the Testament was a legacy of Christ's sufferings. joh. 16: 35. These things I have spoken that in me ye might have peace, in the world ye shall have trouble. Because than ye are made assignayes & he●●s to a life-rent of Christ's Cross, think that fiery trial no strangething: For the Lord Jesus shall be no loser by purging the dross & tin out of his Church in Ireland: his wine press is out squising out the dreg, the scum, the froth & refuse of that Church. I had once the proof of the sweet smell, & the honest & honourable peace, of that slandered thing, the Cross, of our Lord Jesus: But though [Alas!] that these golden days that then I had, be now in a great part gone; yet I dare say, that the issue & outgate of your sufferings shall be the advantage, the golden reign & dominion of the Gospel, & the high glory of the never-enough-praised Prince of the Kings of the earth, & the changing of the brass of the Lord's temple among you into gold & the iron into silver & the wood into brass, your officers shall yet be peace, & your exactors righteousness, Isa. 60: v. 17, 18. Your old fallen walls shall get a new name, & the gates of your jerusalem, shall get a new stile; they shall call your walls, Salvation, & your gates, Praise. I know that Deputy, Prelates, Papists, temporising Lords & proud mockers of our Lord, crucifiers of Christ for his coat, & all your enemies, have neither fingers nor instruments of war to pick out one stone out of your wall, for each stone of your wall is Salvation. I dare give you my royal & Princely Master's word for it, that Ireland shall be a fair Bride to Jesus, & Christ shall build on her a palace of silver, Cant. 8: 9 Therefore weep not, as if there were no hope; fear not, put on strength, put on your beautiful garments, Isa. 52: 1. Your foundation shall be saphires, Isa. 54: 11, 12. Your windows & gates precious stones. Look over the water & behold & see who is on the dry land waiting for your landing: Your deliverance is concluded, subscribed & sealed in heaven: Your goods that are taken from you for Christ & his truth's sake, are but arrested & laid in pawn & not taken away: There is much laid up for you in his store-house, whose the earth & the fullness thereof is: your garments are spun, & your flocks are feeding in the fields, your bread is laid up for you, your drink is browen, your gold & silver is at the bank, & the interest goeth on & groweth, & yet I hear that your taskmasters do robe & spoil you & fine you: your prisons [my brethren] have two keys, the Deputy, Prelates & Officers keep but the iron keys of the prison wherein they put you; but he that hath created the smith hath other keys in heaven, therefore ye shall not die in the prison: other men's ploughs are labouring for your bread, your enemies are gathering in your rents. He that is kissing his Bride on this side of the sea in Scotland, is beating her beyond the sea in Ireland, and feeding her with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, and yet he is the same Lord to both. Alas! I fear that Scotland be undone and slain with this great mercy of Reformation, because there is not here that life of Religion, answerable to the huge greatness of the work that dazleth our eyes: For the Lord is rejoicing over us in this land as the Bridegroom rejoiceth over the Bride, & the Lord hath changed the name of Scotland, they call us now no more Forsaken nor Desolate, but our land is called Heph Zibah & Beislah, Isa. 62: 4, for the Lord delighteth in us, & this land is married to himself: there is now an high way made through our Zion; & it is called the way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it, the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err in it: the wilderness doth rejoice & blossom as the rose: the ransomed of the Lord are returned back unto Zion, with songs & everlasting joy up on their heads, Isa. 35. The Canaanite is put out of our Lord's house, there is not a beast left to do hurt [at least professedly) in all the holy mountain of the Lord: our Lord is fallen to wrestle with his enemies, & hath brought us out of Egypt: we have the strength of an Unicorn. Numb. 23: 22. The Lord hath eaten up the sons of Babel, he hath broken their bones & hath pierced them through with his arrows: we take them captives whose captives we were, & we rule over our oppressors, Isa, 14: 2. It is not brick nor clay nor Babel's cursed timber & stones, that is in our second temple: but our Princely King ●esus is building his house all palace-work & carved stones, it is the habitation of the Lord: We do welcome Ireland and England to our Well-beloved: we invite you, O daughters of jerusalem, to come down to our Lord's garden and seek our Well-beloved with us, for his love will suffice both you & us: we do send love-letters over t●e sea, to request you to come & to marry our King & to take part of our bed: & we trust our Lord is fetching a blow upon the Beast & the scarlet-coloured Whore, to the end he may bring in his ancient widow-wife, our dear Sister, the Church of the jews. O what a heavenly heaven were it to see them come in by this mean, & suck the breasts of their little Sister, & renew their old love with their first husband, Christ, our Lord! They are booked in God's word as a Bride contracted upon Jesus: O for a sight in this, flesh of mine, of the prophesied marriage between Christ & & them! The Kings of Tarshish & the Isles, must bring presents to our Lord Jesus. Psal. 72: 10. And Britain is one of the chiefest Isles: Why then but we may believe that our Kings of this Island shall come in & bring their glory to the new jerusalem, wherein Christ shall dwell in the latter days? It is our part to pray that the Kingdoms of the earth may become Christ's. Now I exhort you in the Lord Jesus not to be dismayed nor afraid for the two tails of these two smoking firebands, the fierce anger of the Deputy with his Civil Power, and of the bastard Prelates with the Power of the Beast, for they shall be cut off: They may well eat you and drink you, but they shall be forced to vomit you out again alive. If two things were firmly believed, sufferings would have no weight: If the fellowship of Christ's suffering were well known, who would not gladly take part with Jesus? For Christ & we are halvers & joint owners of one & the same cross: & therefore he that knew well what sufferings were, as he esteemed all things but loss for Christ & did judge them but dung, so did he also judge of them that he might know the fellowship of his sufferings. Philip. 3: 10. O how sweet a sight is it, to see across betwixt Christ & us, to hear our Redeemer say at every sigh & every blow, & every loss of a believer, half mine! So they are called the sufferings of Christ, & the reproach of Christ, Col. 2: 24. Heb. 11: 26. As when two are partners & owners of a ship, the half of the gain & half of the loss belongeth to either of the two; so Christ in our sufferings is half-gainer & half-loser with us: Yea, the heaviest end of the black tree of the cross lieth on your Lord, it falleth first upon him, & it but reboundeth off him upon you: The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. Psal. 69: 9 Your sufferings are your treasure, & are greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, Heb, 11; 26. And if your cross come first through Christ's fingers ere it come to you, it receiveth a fair lustre from him, it getteth a taste & a relish of the King's spikenard & of heaven's perfume, & the half of the gain, when Christ's ship full of gold cometh home, shall be yours: It is an augmenting of your treasure to be rich in sufferings, to be in labours abundant, in stripes above measure, 2. Cor. 11: ver. 23. & to have the sufferings of Christ abounding in you 2. Cor. 1: 5. is a part of heaven's stock: Your goods are not lost which they have plucked from you, for your Lord hath them in keeping; they are but arrested & seized upon, he shall lose the arrest: Ye shall be fed with the heritage of jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, Isa. 38. 14. Till I shall be in the hall-floor of the highest palace and get a a draught of glory out of Christ's hand above and beyond Time and beyond Death, I will never it's like see fairer days, than I saw under that blessed tree of my Lord's cross: His kisses than were King's kisses, these kisses were sweet and soul-reviving, one of them at that time was worth two and a half [if I may speak so] of Christ's weekdays kisses. O sweet, sweet for evermore, to see a rose of heaven growing in as ill ground as hell, and to see Christ's love, his embracements, his dinners and suppers of joy, peace, faith, goodness, long-suffering and patience, growing and springing like the flowers of God's garden, out of such stony and cursed ground as the hatred of the Prelates and the malice of their High Commission & the Antichrist's bloody hand & heart! Is not here art and wisdom? is not here heaven indented in hell [if I may say so] like a jewel set with skill in a ring with the enamle of Christ's cross? The ruby & riches of glory that groweth up out of this cross, is beyond telling. Now the blackest & hottest wrath & most fiery & all-devouring indignation of the Judge of men & Angels, shall come upon them that deny our sweet Lord Jesus & put their hand to that oath of wickedness now pressed: the Lord's coal at their heart shall burn them up both root and branch: the estates of great men that have done so, if they do not repent, shall consume away, & the ravens shall dwell in their houses, & their glory shall be shame. O for the Lord's sake, keep fast by Christ, & fear not man that shall die & wither as the grass: the Deputy's bloom shall fall, & the Prelates shall cast their flower, & the East wind of the Lord, of the Lord strong & mighty, shall blast & break them: therefore fear them not, they are but idols that can neither do evil nor good. Walk not in the way of these people that slander the footsteps of our royal & princely anointed King jesus, now riding upon his white horse in Scotland: let jehovah be your fear. That decree of Zion's deliverance, passed & sealed up before the throne, is now ripe, & shall bring forth a child, even the ruin & fall of the Irelats black Kingdom & the Antichrist's throne in these Kingdoms: the Lord hath begun & he shall make an end. Who did ever h●ar the like of this? Before Scotland traveled, she brought forth, & before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child. Isa. 66. 7. 8. And when all is done, suppose there were no sweetness in our Lord's cross, yet it is sweet for his sake, for that lovely one, jesus Christ, whose Crown and Royal Supremacy is the question this day in Great Britain betwixt us & our adversaries: & who would not think him worthy of the suffering for? what is burning quick? what is drinking of our own heartblood? & what i● a draught of melted lead, for his glory? less than a drink of cold water to a thirsty man, if the right price & due value were put on that worthy, worthy Prince jesus. O who can weigh him! Ten thousand thousand heavens would not be one scale, or the half of the scale of the balance, to lay him in. O black Angels, in comparison of him! O dim & dark & lightless Sun, in regard of that fair Sun of Righteousness! O feckless & worthless heaven of heavens, when they stand beside my worthy & lofty & high & excellent Well-beloved! O weak & infirm clay-Kings! O soft & feeble mountains of brass, & weak created strength, in regard of our mighty & strong Lord of armies! O foolish wisdom of men & Angels, when it is laid in the balance beside that spotless substantial wisdom of the Father! If heaven & earth & ten thousand heavens, even round about these heavens that now are, were all in one garden of Paradise, decked with all the fairest roses, flowers & trees that can come forth from the art of the Almighty himself; yet set but our one flower that groweth out of the root jesse, beside that orchard of pleasure, one look of him, one view, one taste, one smell of his sweet Godhead would infinitely exceed & go beyond the smell, colour, beauty & loveliness of that Paradise. O to be with child of his love, & to be suffocate [if that could be] with the smell of his sweetness, were a sweet fill & lovely pain! O worthy, worthy loveliness! O less of the creatures & more of thee! O open the passage of the well of love & glory on us, dry pits & withered trees! O that jewel & flower of heaven! If our Beloved were not mistaken by us & unknown to us, he would have no scarcity of wooers & suitors, he would make heaven & earth both see that they cannot quench his love, for his love is a sea: O to be a thousand fathoms deep in this sea of love! He, He Himself is more excellent than heaven: for Heaven, as it cometh into the souls & spirits of the glorified, is but a creature, & He is something, & a great something, more than a Creature. Oh what a life were it to sit beside this well of love, & drink & sing, & sing & drink, & then to have desires & soul-faculties stretched & extended out many thousand fathoms in length & breadth, to take in seas & rivers of love! I earnestly desire to recommend this love to you, that this love may cause you to keep his commandments, & to keep clean fingers & make clean feet, that ye may walk as the redeemed of the Lord. Woe, woe be to them that put on his name, & shame this love of Christ with a loose & prophanelife: their feet, tongue, & hands & eyes give a shameless lie to the holy Gospel which they profess. I beseech you in the Lord, keep Christ & walk with him, let not his fairness be spotted & stained by godless living. Oh who can find in their heart to sin against love? And such a love as the glorified in heaven shall delight to dive into & drink of for ever, for they are evermore drinking-in love, & the cup is still at their head, & yet without loathing, for they still drink & still desire to drink for ever & ever: is not this a long lasting supper? Now if any of our countrypeople professing Christ Jesus, have brought themselves under the stroke & wrath of the Almighty, by yielding to Antichrist in an hairbreadth, but especially by swearing & subscribing that blasphemous Oath (which is the Church of Ireland's black hour of temptation) I would entreat them, by the mercies of God at their last summons, to repent & openly confess before the world, to the glory of the Lord, their denial of Christ: Or otherwise, if either man or woman will stand & abide by that Oath, then in the name & authority of the Lord Jesus, I let them see that they forfeit their part of heaven, & let them look for no less than a back-burden of the pure unmixed wrath of God & the plague of Apostates & deniers of our Lord Jesus. Let not me a stranger to you, who never saw your face in the flesh, be thought bold in writing to you: For the hope I have of a glorious Church in that land, and the love of Christ constraineth me. I know, the worthy servants of Christ who once laboured among you, cease not to write to you also, & I shall desire to be excused that I do join with them. Pray for your Sister Church in Scotland, & let me entreat you for the aid of your prayers for myself & flock & ministry, & my fear of a transportation from this place of of the Lord's vineyard. Now the very God of peace sanctify you throughout. Grace be with you all.?  
Anwoth. 1639. Your brother and companion in the Kingdom and patience of jesus Christ, S. R.   

To his reverend & much honoured Brother, Dr WILLIAM LIGHTON, Christ's prisoner in bonds at London. (28)  
Reverend & much honoured prisoner of hope.  
GRace, mercy, & peace be to you: It was not my part whom our Lord hath enlarged, to forget you his prisoner. When I consider how long your night hath been, I think Christ hath a mind to put you in free grace's debt, so much the deeper, as your sufferings have been of so long a continuance. But what if Christ mind you no jo● but public joy with enlarged & triumphing Zion: I think, Sir, ye would love it best to share & divide your song of joy with Zion, & to have mystical Chri●● in Eritain halfer & compartner with your enlargement. I am sure, your joy bordering & neighbouring with the joy of Christ's Bride, would be so much the sweeter that it were public. I thought, if Christ had halved my mercies, and delivered his Bride and not me, that his praises should have been double to what they are: But now two rich mercies conjoined in one have stolen from our Lord more than half-praises: Oh that mercy should so beguile us, and steal away our counts and acknowledgements! Worthy Sir, I hope I need not exhort you to go on, in hoping for the salvation of God: There hath not been so much taken from your time of ease & created joys, as Eternity shall add to your heaven: Ye know when one day in heaven hath paved you, yea, & overpayed your blood, bonds, sorrow & sufferings, that it would trouble Angels understanding to lay the count of that superplus of glory, which Eternity can & will give you. O but your sand-glass of sufferings & losses, cometh to little, when it shall be counted and compared with the glory that bideth you on the other side of the water! Ye have no leisure to rejoice & sing here while time goeth about you, & where your Psalms will be short, therefore ye will think Eternity & the long day of heaven that shall be measured with no other sun nor horologe then the long life of the Ancient of days, to measure your praises, little enough for you: if your span-length of time be cloudy, ye cannot but think, your Lord can no more take your blood & your band without the income & reeompence of free grace h●…e would take the sufferings of Paul & his other dear servants that were well paid home beyond all counting, Rom. 8: 18. If the wisdom of Christ hath made you Antichrist's eyesore & his envy, ye are to thank God that such a piece of clay as ye are, is made the field of glory to work upon: it was the potter's aim that the clay should praise him, & I hope it satisfieth you that your clay is for his glory. Oh who can suffer enough for such a Lord! & who can lay out in bank enough of pain, shame, losses, tortures, to receive in again the free interest of eternal glory? 2 Cor. 4: 17. O how advantageous a bargaining is it with such a rich Lord! If your hand & pen had been at leisure to gain glory in paper, it had been but paper-glory: but the bearing of a public cross so long for the now controverted privileges of the crown & sceptre of free King Jesus, the Prince of the Kings of the earth, is glory booked in heaven. Worthy & dear Erother, if ye go to weigh Jesus his sweetness, excellency, glory & beauty, & say fore-against him your ounces or drams of Suffering for him, ye shall be straitened two ways. 1. It will be a pain to make the comparison, the disproportion being by no understanding imaginable: nay, if heaven's Arithmetic & Angels were set to work, they should never number the degrees of difference. 2. It should straiten you to find a scale for the balance to lay that High & Lofty One, that overtranscending Prince of excellency into: If your mind could fancy as many created heavens as time hath had minutes, trees have had leaves & clouds have had rain drops, since the first stone of the creation was laid, they should not make half a scale to bear & weight boundless excellency it to. And therefore the King whose marks ye are bearing & whose dying ye carry about with you in your body, is out of all cry & consideration beyond & above all our thoughts. For myself, I am content to feed upon wondering sometimes at the beholding but of the borders & skirts of the incomparable glory which is in that exalted Prince: & I think ye could wi●h for more ears to give him then ye have, since ye hope these ears ye now have give him, shall be passages to take in the music of his glorious voice. I would fain both believe & pray for a new Bride of jews & Gentiles to our Lord Jesus, after the land of graven images shall be laid waste; & that our Lord Jesus is on horseback hunting & pursuing the beast, & that England & Ireland shall be well sweeped chambers for Christ and his righteousness to dwell in: for he hath opened our graves in Scotland, & the two dead & buried witnesses are risen again & are prophesying. O that Princes would glory & boast themselves in carrying the train of Christ's tobe royal in their arms! Let me die within an half-hour after I have seen the Son of God his temple enlarged, & the cords of I●rusalem's tent lengthened, to take in a more numerous company for a Bride to the Son of God. Oh if the corner or foundation-stone of that house, that new house, were laid above my grave! O who can add to him, who is that great ALL: If he would create suns & moons; new heavens, thousand thousand degrees more perfect than these that now are, & again make a new creation ten thousand thousand degrees in perfection beyond that new creation, & again still for eternity multiply new heavens, they should never be a perfect resemblance of that infinite excellency, order, weight, measure, beauty & sweetness that is in him. O how little of him do we see! O how shallow are our thoughts of him! Oh if I had p●in for him, & shame & losses for him & more clay & spirits for him, & that I could go upon earth without love, desire, hope, because Christ hath taken away my love, desire & hope to heaven with him! I know, Worthy Sir, your sufferings for him are your glory, & therefore weary not, his salvation is near hand and shall not tarry. Pray for me: his grace be with you.  
St Andrew's. Nou. 22. 1639. Yours in his sweet Lor● jesus, S, R.   

To Mr HENRY STUART, his Wife, & two Daughters, all Prisoners of Christ at Dublin.  Rev. 2: 10. Fear none of these things, which ye shall suffer, etc. (29.) 
Truly Honoured & Dear beloved.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you, from God our father & our Lord Jesus Christ. Think it not strange, beloved in our Lord jesus, that Satan can command keys of prisons & bolts & chains; this is a piece of the Devil's Princedom that he hath over the world: interpret & understand our Lord well in this: be not jealous of his love, though he make devils and men his under-servants to scour the rust off your faith & purge you from your dross. And let me charge you, O prisoners of hope, to open your window & to look out by faith, & behold heavens post, that speedy & swift salvation of God, that is coming to you; it is a broad river that faith will not look over; it is a mighty & a broad sea that they of a lively hope cannot behold the furthest bank & other shore thereof: Look over the water, your anchor is fixed within the vail, the one end of the cable is about the prisoner of Christ, & the other is entered within the vail, whither the forerunner is entered for you, Heb. 6: 19, 20. It can go strait thorough the flames of the fire of the wrath of men, devils, losses, tortures, death, and not a thread of it be either singed or burnt; men and devils have no teeth to bite it in two: Hold fast till he come: Your cross is of the colour of heaven & Christ, & pasmented over with the faith & comforts of the Lord's faithful Covenant with Scotland; & that die & colour will abide the foul weather, & neither be stained nor cast the colour; yea it reflects a scad like the cross of Christ, whose holy hands, many a day lifted up to God praying for sinners, were fettered and bound, as if these blessed hands had stolen & shed innocent blood: When your lovely, lovely Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no wonder that your process be lawless and turned upside down; for he was taken, fettered, buffeted, whipped, spitted upon, before he was convicted of any fault, or sentenced. Oh, such a pair of sufferers and witnesses, as high and royal Jesus and a poor piece guilty clay marrowed together, under one yoke! O how lovely is the cross with such a second! I believe that your prison is enacted in God's court, not to keep you till your hope breath out its life & last: Your cross is under law to restore you again safe to your brethren & sisters in Christ: take heaven and Christ's back-bond for a fair backdoor out of your suffering. The Saviour is on his journey with salvation and deliverance for mount Zion & the sword of the Lord is drunk with blood and made fat with fatness, his sword is bathed in heaven against Babylon, for it is the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompenses for the comtroversie of Zion: And persuade yourselves, the streams of the rivers of Babylon shall be pitch, and the dust of the land brimstone and burning pitch, Isa. 34: 8. And if your deliverance be conjoined with the deliverance of Zion, it shall be two salvations to you. It were good to be armed before hand for death or bodily tortures for Christ, and to think what a crown of honour it is, that God hath given you pieces of living clay to be tortured witnesses for saving truth, and that ye are so happy as to have some pints of blood to give out for the crown of that royal Lord, who hath caused you to avouch himself before men. If ye can lend fines of three thousand pound sterling for Christ, let heaven's register and Christ's count-book keep in reckoning your depursments for him: It shall be engraven & printed in great letters upon heaven's throne, what you are willing to give for him: Christ's papers of that kind cannot be lost or fall by. Do not wonder to see clay boast the great potter, & to see blinced men to threaten the Gospel with death & burial & to raze out Truth's name: but where will they make a grace for the Gospel & the Lord's bride! Earth & hell shall be but little bounds for their burial: lay all the clay & rubbish of this inch of the whole earth above our Lord's spouse, yet it will not cover her nor hold her down; she shall live & not die, she shall behold the salvation of God. Let your faith frist God a little & be not afraid for a smoking firebrand: there is more smoke in Babylon's furnace then there is fire: till doomsday shall come, they shall never see the Kirk of Scotland & our Covenant burnt to ashes, or if it should be thrown in tho fire, yet it cannot be so burnt or buried, as not to have a resurrection: angry clay's wind shall shake none of Christ's corn; he will gather in all his wheat into his barn: only let your fellowship with Christ be renewed: ye are sibber to Christ now when you are imprisoned for him, than before; for now the strokes laid on you, do come in remembrance before our Lord, & he can own his own wounds: a drink of Christ's love, which is better than wine, is the drink-silver which Suffering for his majesty leaves behind it: it is not your sins which they persecute in you, but God's grace, & loyalty to King Jesus: they see no treason in you to your Prince, the King of Britain, albeit they say so, but it is heaven in your that earth is fight against, & Christ is owning his own cause: grace is a party that fire will not burn, not water drown: when they have eaten & drunken you, their stomach shall be sick, & they shall spew you out alive. O what glory is it to be suffering abjects, for the Lord's glory & royalty! Nay, though his servants had a body to burn for ever, for this Gospel, so being that triumphing & exalted Jesus his high glory did rise out, of these flames & out of that burning body, Oh, what a sweet fire! O what soul-refreshing torment should that be! What if the pickles of dust & ashes of the burnt & dissolved body, were musicians to sing his praises, & the highness of that never-enough-exalted Prince of ages? O what love is it in him, that he will have such musicians as we are to tune that Psalm of his everlasting praises in heaven! Oh what shining & burning flames of love are these, that Christ will divide his share of life, of heaven & glory with you. Luk. 22. 29. joh. 17: 24. Rev. 3: 21. A part of his throne, one draught of his wine (his wine of glory & life, that comes from under the throne of God & of the Lamb) & one apple of the tree of life will do more than make up all the expenses & charges of clay, lent out for heaven. Oh! Oh but we have short & narrow & creeping thoughts of Jesus, & do but shape Christ in our conceptions according to some created portraiture! O Angels, lend in your help to make love-books & songs of our fair & white & ruddy standard-bearer amongst ten thousand! O heavens! O heaven of heavens! O glorified tenants & triumphing householders' with the Lamb, put in new Psalms & love-sonnets of the excellency of our bridegroom & help us to set him on high! O indwellers of earth & heaven, sea & air! & O all ye created beings within the bosom of the outmost circle of this great world! O come help to set on high the praises of our Lord! O fairness of creatures, blush before his uncreated beauty! O created strength, be amazed to stand before your strong Lord of hosts! O created love, think shame of thyself before this unparallelled love of heaven! O angel-wisdom, hide thyself before our Lord whose understanding passeth finding out! O sun in thy shining beauty, for shame put on a web of darkness & cover thyself before thy brightest master & maker! O who can add glory by doing or suffering, to this never-enough-admired and praised lover! Oh we can but bring our drop to this sea, and our candle, dim and dark as it is, to this clear and lightsome sun of heaven and earth! Oh but we have cause to drink ten deaths in one cup dry, to swim through ten seas, to be at that land of praises, where we shall see that wonder of wonders & enjoy this jewel of heaven's jewels! O death, do thy outmost against us! O torments! O malice of men & devils, waste thy-strength on the witnesses of our Lord's testament! O devils, bring hell to help you in tormenting the followers of the Lamb! we will defy you to make us too soon happy, & to waft us too soon over the water to the land where the noble plant, the plant of venown groweth. O cruel Time, that torments us & suspends our dearest enjoyments that we wait for, when we shall be bathed & steeped, soul & body, down in the depths of this love of loves! O Time, I say, run fast! O motions, mend your pace! O Well-beloved, be like a young Roe upon the mountains of Separations! Post, post; & hasten our desired & hungered-for meeting: love is sick to hear tell of to morrow. And what then can come wrong to you, O honourable witnesses of his Kingly truth? Men have no more of you to work upon, but some few inches and span-lengths of sick, coughing and phlegmatic clay: your spirits are above their benches, courts, or High Commissions: your souls, your love to Christ, your faith, cannot be summoned not sentenced nor accused nor condemned by Pope, Deputy, Prelat, Ruler or Tyrant: your faith is a free Lord, & cannot be a captive: all the malice of hell & earth, can but hurt the scabbard of a believer: & death at the worst can get but a clay-pawne in keeping till your Lord make the King's keys & open your graves. Therefore upon luck's head [as we use to say] take your fill of his love, and let a post way or a causey be laid betwixt your prison and heaven, and go up & visit your treasure: Enjoy your Beloved & dwell upon his love, till Eternity come in Time's room & possess you of your eternal happiness: Keep your love to Christ, lay up your faith in heaven's keeping; & follow the chief of the house of the Martyrs, that witnessed a fair confession before Pontius Pilate; your cause and his is all one. The opposers of his cause are like drunken Judges & transported, who in their cups would make Acts & Laws in their drunken courts, that the Sun should not rise and shine on the earth, and send their Officers & Pursuivants to charge the Sun and Moon to give no more light to the world, & would enact in their Court-bookes that the Sea after once ebbing should never flow again: But would not the Sun & Moon & Sea break these Acts & keep their Creator's directions. The Devil, the great fool & father of these under-fools, is older & more malicious than wise, that sets the spirits in earth on work to contend & clash with heaven's wisdom, and to give mandates and law summons to our Sun, to our great Star of heaven, jesus, not to shine, in the beauty of his Gospel, to the chosen and bought ones, O thou fair and fairest Sun of righteousness, arise and shine in thy strength, whether earth and hell will or not! O Victorious! O Royal! O stout Princely soul-conqueror, ride prosperously upon truth, stretch out thy Sceptre as far as the Sun shines & the Moon waxeth & ●…aineth! Put on thy glistering crown, O thou maker of Kings! & make but one stride or one step of the whole earth, & travel in the greatness of thy strength, Isa. 63: 1, 2. & let thy apparel be red & all died with the blood of thy enemies: Thou art fallen righteous heir by line to the Kingdoms of the world. Laugh ye at the giddyheaded clay pots & stout brainsick worms, that dare say in good earnest, this man shall not reign over us: as though they were casting the dice for Christ's crown, who of them shall have it. I know, ye believe the coming of Christ's Kingdom, and that their is a hole out of your prison through which ye see daylight: let not faith be dazzled with the temptation from a dying Deputy & from a sick Prelate: believe under a cloud, & wait for him, when there is no moonlight nor starlight: Let faith live & breath and lay hold on the sure salvation of God, when clouds and darkness are about you and appearance of rotting in the prison, before you: take heed of unbelieving hearts which can father lies upon Christ: beware of, Doth his promise fail for evermore? Psal. 77. 8. For is was a man and not God that said it, who dreamt that a promise of God could fail, fall a-swoon or die: we can make God sick or his promises weak, when we are pleased to seek a plea with Christ. O sweet! O stout word of faith, job. 13. v. 15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. O sweet Epitaph written on the grave-stone of a dying believer! To wit, I died hoping, & my dust & ashes beleevelife. Faith's eyes, that can see thorough a millstone, can see thorough a gloom of God, and under it read God's thoughts of love and peace. Hold fast Christ in the dark: surely ye shall see the savation of God. Your adversaries are ripe and dry for the fire, yet a little while and they shall go up in a flame: the breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone shall kindle about them, Isa. 30: 33. What I write to one, I write to you all, that are sound hearted in that Kingdom, whom in the bowels of Christ, I would exhort not to touch that Oath; albeit the adversaries put a fair meaning on it, yet the swearer must swear according to the professed intent & godless practice of the oath-breakers, which is known to the world: otherwise I might swear that the Creed is false, according to yet this private meaning & sense put upon it. Oh let them not be beguiled to wash petjury and the denial of Christ and the Gospel with ink-water, some foul and rotten distinctions: Wash and wash again and again the devil & the lie, it shall be long ere their skin be white. I profess, it should beseem men of great parts, rather than me, to write to you; but I love your C●use, & desires to be excused, and must entreat for the help of your prayers in this my weighty charge here for the University and Pulpit, & that ye would entreat your acquaintance also to help me. Grace be with you all. Amen.  
St. Andrew's. 1640. Your brother & companion in the patience & Kingdom of jesus Christ, S. R.   

For Mistress PONT prisoner at Dublin. (30)  
Worthy & dear Mistress.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you. The cause ye suffer for 〈◊〉 your willingness to suffer, is ground enough of acquaintance, for me to write to you; although I do confess myself unable to speak for a prisoner of Christ's encouragement. I know ye have advantage beyond us, who are not under suffering: for your sighing [Psal. 102. 20.] is a witten bill, for the ears of your Head, the Lord Jesus; & your breathing, Lam. 3. 51. and your looking up, Psal. 5. 3. & 69. 3. And therefore your meaning half spoken, half unspoken, will seek no jaylor's leave, but will go to heaven without leave of Prelate or Deputy, & be heartily welcome: so that ye may sigh and gro●n out your mind to him who hath all the keys of the King's three Kingdoms and dominions: I dare believe your hope shall not die; your trouble is a part of Zion's burning, and ye know who guides Zion's furnance, and who loves the ashes of his burnt Bride, because his servants love them, Psal. 102. 14. I believe your ashes, if ye were burnt for this cause, shall praise him: For the wrath of men & their malice shall make a psalm to praise the Lord, Psal. 76: 10. & therefore stand still & behold & see what the Lord is to do for this Island; his work is perfect, Deut. 32: 4. the nations have not seen the last end of his work; his end is more fair & more glorious than the beginning. Ye have more honour than ye can be able to guide well, in that your bonds are made heavy for such an honourable cause. The seals of a controlled Gospel, & the seals by bonds & blood & sufferings, are not committed to every ordinary professor. Some that would back Christ honestly in summertime, would but spill the beauty of the Gospel, if they were put to suffering. And therefore let us believe, that wisdom dispenseth to every one here as he thinks good who bears them up that bear the cross: & since our Lord hath put you to that part which was the flower of his own sufferings, we all expect that as ye have in the strength of our Captain begun, so ye will go on without fainting. Providence maketh use of men & devils for the refining of all the vessels of God's house, small & great, & for doing of two works at once in you, both for smothing of a stone to make it take bond with Christ in Ierusalem's wall, & for witnessing to the glory of this reproached & born down Gospel, which cannot die though hell were made a grave about it. It shall be timous joy for you to divide joy betwixt you & Christ's laughing Bride, 〈◊〉 these three Kingdoms: & what if your mourning continue till mystical Christ in Ireland & in Britain & ye laugh both together? your laughing & joy were the more blessed, that one sun should shine upon Christ, the Gospel, & you, laughing altogether, in these three Kingdoms. Your time is measured & your days & hours of suffering from eternity were by infinite wisdom considered: If heaven recompense not to your own mind inches of sorrow, than I must say that infinite mercy cannot get you pleased: but if the first kiss of the white and ruddy cheek of the standard, bearer and chief among ten thousand [Cant. 5: 10] shall over-pay your prison at Dublin in Ireland, than ye shall have no counts unanswered, to give in to Christ: if your faith cannot see a nearer term-day; yet let me charge your hope to give Christ a new day till eternity & time meet in one point: a paid sum, if ever paid, is paid, if no day be broken to the hungry creditor: take heaven's bond & subscribed obligation for the sum, john 14. 3. If Hope can trust Christ, I know he can, & will pay: but when all is done & suffered by you, ten hundred deaths for lovely, lovely Jesus, is but eternitie's half penny; figures & cyphers cannot lay the proportion. O but the super-plus of Christ's glory is broad & large! Christ's Item's of eternal glory are hard & cumbersome to tell, & ifye borrow by faith & hope ten days or ten hundred years from that eternity of glory that abides you, ye are paid & more in your own hand. Therefore, O prisoner of hope, wait on! posting, hasting salvation sleeps not. Antichrist is bleeding & in the way to death, & he bites forest when he bleeds fastest. Keep your intelligence betwixt you & heaven, & your court with Christ: he hath in heaven the keys of your prison, & can set you at liberty when he pleaseth: His rich grace support you. I pray you help me with your prayers. Grace be with you.  
St Andrews 1640. Your brother in the patience & Kingdom of jesus Christ, S. R.   

To Mr JAMES WILSON. (31)  
Dear Brother  
GRace, mercy & peace be multiplied upon you: I bless our rich & only wise Lord, who careth so for his new creation, that he is going over it again & trying every piece in you, & blowing away the motes of his new work in you. Alas! I am not so fit a Physician as your disease requireth: sweet, sweet, lovely Jesus be your Physician, where his under-Chirurgians cannot do any thing for putting in order the wheels, paces, & goings of a marred soul. I have little time; but yet the Lord hath made me so concern myself in your condition that I dow not, I dare not be altogether silent. First, ye doubt from. 2 Cor. 13: 5. whether ye be in Christ or not, & so whether ye be a reprobate or not? I answer three things to the doubt. 1. Ye owe charity to all men, but most of all, to lovely & loving Jesus, & some also to yourself, especial to your renewed self; because your new self is not yours but another Lord's, even the work of his own Spirit: therefore to slander his work is to wrong himself: Love thinketh no evil: if ye love Grace, think not ill of Grace in yourself; and ye think ill of Grace in yourself, when ye make it but a bastard and a work of nature: for a holy fear that ye be not Christ's, and withal a care and a desire to be his & not your own, is not, nay cannot be bastard nature. The great Advocate pleadeth hard for you, be upon the Advocate's side, O poor feared client of Christ! stay & side with such a lover, who pleadeth for no other man's goods but his own [for he, if I may say so, scorneth to be enriched with an unjust conquest] and yet he pleadeth for you, whereof your letter [though too too full of jealousy] is a proof: for if ye were not his, your thoughts, which I hope are but the suggestion of his Spirit (that only bringeth the matter in debate to make it sure to you) would not be such nor so serious as these, am I his? or whose am I? 2. Dare ye forswear your owner, and say in cold blood, I am not his? what nature or corruption saith at starts in you, I regard not: your thoughts of yourself, when sin and guiltiness round you in the ear, and when ye have a sight of your deservings, are Apocrypha and not Scripture, I hope. Hear what the Lord saith of you, he will speak peace: if your Master say, I quite you, I shall then bid you eat ashes for bread and drink waters of gall and wormwood. But howbeit Christ out of his own mouth should seem to say, I came not for thee, as he did Matth. 15: 24. yet let me say, The words of tempting Jesus are not to be stretched as Scripture beyond his intention, seeing his intention in speaking them is to strengthen, not to deceive: & therefore here Faith may contradict what Christ seemeth at first to say, and so may ye. I charge you by the mercies of God, be not that cruel to Grace and the new birth as to cast water on your own coal by misbelief: If ye must die (as I know ye shall not) it were a folly to slay yourself. 3. I hope ye love the new birth & a claim to Christ, howbeit ye dow not make it good: & if ye were in hell & saw the heavenly face of lovely, ten thousand times lovely jesus, that hath God's hue and God's fair, fair and comely red and white wherewith it is beautified beyond comparison and imagination, ye could not forbear to say, Oh! if I could but blow a kiss from my sinful mouth, from hell up to heayen upon his cheeks, that are as a bed of spices as sweet flowers, Cant. 5: 13. I hope ye dare say, O fairest sight of heaven! O boundless mass of crucified & slain love for me, give me leave to wish to love thee! O flower and bloom of heaven & earth's love! O Angels wonder! O thou the Father's eternally sealed love! & O thou God's old delight! give me leave to stand beside thy love & look in & wonder, & give me leave to wish to love thee, if I can do no more. 2. We being born in atheism & bairns of the house that we are come off, it is no new thing, my dear Brother, for us to be under jealousies & mistakes about the love of God: what think ye of this that the man Christ was tempted to believe there were but two Persons in the blessed Godhead, & that the Son of God, the substantial, & coerernal Son, was not the lawful Son of God? Did not Satan say, If thou be the Son of God? 3. Ye say that ye know not what to do? Your Head said once that same word or not far from it, joh. 12. 27. Now is my soul troubled, & what shall I say? & faith answered Christ's What shall I say? with these words, O tempted Saviour, askest thou What shall I say? say, pray, Father save me from this hour. What course can ye take but pray & first Christ his own comforts? He is no dyvour, take his word. Oh [say ye] I cannot pray! Ans. Honest sighing is faith breathing & whispering him in the ear: the life is not out of faith, where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes & breathing towards God, Eam. 3: 36. Hide not thine ear at my breathing. But what shall I do in spiritual exercises, say ye? Ans. 1. If ye knew particularly what to do, it were not a spiritual exercise. 2. In my weak judgement, ye would first say, I will lorifie God in believing David's Salvation & the Bride's Marriage with the Lamb, & love the Church's stain husband, although I cannot for the present believe mine own Salvation. 3. Say, I will not pass from my claim, suppose Christ would pass from his claim to me, it shall not go back upon my side; howbeit my love to him be not worth a drink of water, yet Christ shall have it such as it is. 4. Say, I shall rather spill twenty prayers then not pray at all; let my broken words go up to heaven: when they come up into the great Angels golden censer, that compassianat Advocate will put together my broken prayers & perfume them: Words are but Accidents of Prayer. Oh [say y] I am slain with hardness of heart; & troubled with confused and melancholious thoughts? Ans. My dear Brother, What would ye conclude thence, that ye know not well who ought you? I grant, Oh my heart is hard! Oh my thoughts of faithless sorrow! Ergo, I know not who ought me; were good Logic in heaven amongst Angels & the glorified: but down in Christ's Hospital, where sick and distempered souls are under cure, it is not worth a straw. Give Christ time to end his work in your heart: hold on in feeling & bewailing your hardness, for that is softness to feel hardness. 2. I charge you to make Psalms of Christ's praises for his begun work of Grace, make Christ your Music & your song, for Complaining & feeling of want doth often swallow up your Praises. What think ye of these who go to hell, never troubled with such thoughts? If your exercise be the way to hell, God help me; I have a cold coal to blow at, and a blank paper for heaven: I give you Christ caution, & my heaven surety for your Salvation. Lend Christ your Melancholy; for Satan hath no right to make a chamber in your Melancholy; borrow joy & comfort from the Comforter; bid the Spirit do his office in you: & remember, that faith is one thing, and the feeling & notice of faith another: God forbid that feeling were Proprium quarto modo to all the Saints, & that this were good reasoning, No feeling, no grace: I am sure ye were not always these twenty years bypast, actually knowing that ye live, yet all this time ye are living: so is it with the life of faith. But Alas! Dear Brother, it is easy for me to speak words & syllables of peace, but Isa. 57 19 telleth you, I create peace: there is but one Creator, ye know: O that ye may get a Letter of peace sent you from heaven! Pray for me, & for grace to be faithful, & gifts to be able with tongue & pen to glorify God. I forget you not.  
St. Andrew's Jan 8. 1640. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady BOYD. (32)  
MADAM.  
I Received your La: letter: but because I was still going through the country for the affairs of the Church, I have had no time to answer it. I had never more cause to fear than I have now, when my Lord hath restored me to my second created heaven on earth, & hath turned my apprehended fears into joys and great deliverance to his Church, whereof I have my share and part. Alas that weeping prayers answered and sent back from heaven with joy, should not have laughing praises! O that this land would repent and lay burdens of praises upon the top of fair mount Zion. Madam, except this land be humbled, a Reformation is rather my wonder, than belief at this time: but surely it must be a wonder, and what is done already is a wonder: our Lord must restore beauty to his Churches without hire; for we were sold without money, and now our buyers repent them of the bargain, and would gladly give again better cheap than they bought us: they devoured jacob and eat up his people as bread; now jacob is grown a living child in their womb, and they would fain be delivered of the child and render the birth: Our Lord shall be midwife. O that this land be not like Ephraim an unwise son, that stayeth too long in the place of breaking forth of children! Your La: is blessed with children who are honoured to build up Christ's waste places again: I believe your La: will think them well bestowed on that work, and that Zion's beauty is your joy, this is a mark and evidence for heaven which helpeth weak ones to hold their grip when other marks fail them. I hope your La: is at a good understanding with Christ, and that, as becometh a Christian, ye take him up aright [for many mistake and misshape Christ] in his come and goings: Your wants and falls proclaim ye have nothing of your own but what ye borrow (nay, your self is not your own) but Christ hath given himself to you: Put Christ to the bank and heaven shall be your interest and income: Love him, for ye cannot overlove him: Take up your house in Christ, let him dwell in you and abide ye in him, & then ye may look out of Christ and laugh at the clay-heavens that the sons of men are seeking after in this side of the water. Christ mindeth to make your losses grace's great advantage: Christ will lose nothing of you, nay, not your sins, for he hath an use for them aswell as for your service, howbeit ye are to loathe yourself for these. I hope ye fetch all the heaven ye have here in this life, from that which is up above, and that your anchor is casten as high and deep as Christ: O but it's far & many a mile to his bottom! If I had known long since as I do now (though still, alas! I am ignorant) what was in Christ, I would not have been so late in starting to the gate to seek him. O what can I do or say to him who hath made the North render me back again! A grave is no sure prison to him for the keeping of dry bones. Woe's me that my foolish sorrow and unbelief being on horseback did ride so produly & witlessly over my Lord's Providence: but when my Faith was asleep, Christ was awake, & now when I am awake I say he did all things well. O infinite wisdom! O incomparable loving kindness! Alas that the heart I have is so little & worthless for such a Lord as Christ is! O what odds find the saints in hard trials, when they feel sap at their roots, betwixt them and sunburnt withered professors: crosses and storms cause them to cast their blooms and leaves: poor worldlings what will ye do when the span-length of your forenoon's laughter is ended and when the weeping side of Providence is turned to you? I put up all the favours ye have bestowed on my Brother upon Christ's score, in whose book are many such counts & who will requite them. I wish you to be builded more and more upon the stone laid in Zion & than ye shall be the more fit to have a hand in rebuilding our Lord's fallen tabernacle in this land, in which ye shall find great peace when ye come to grips with Death the King of terrovis. The God of peace be with your La: and keep you blameless till the day of our Lord Jesus.  
St Andrews. Your La: at all obedience in his sweet Lord & Master, S. R.   

To his very dear friend JOHN FENNICK. (33)  
Much honoured & dear friend.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: The necessary impediments of my calling have hitherto kept me from making a return to your letter, the heads whereof I shall now briefly answer. As. 1. I approve your going to the fountain, when your own Cistern is dry: A difference there must be betwixt Christ's well & your borrowed water, & why but ye have need of emptiness & drving up, aswell as ve have need of the well? want & a hole there must be in our vessel, to leave room to Christ's art; his well hath its own need of thirsty drinkers, to commend infinite love, which from eternity did brew such a cellar of living waters for us. Ye commend his free love; & it's well done: Oh if I could help you, & if I could be master-conveener to gather an earthfull & an heaven-full of tongues dipped and steeped in my Lord's well of love or his wine of love, even tongues drunken with his love, to raise a song of praises to him, betwixt the East & West-end & furthest points of the broad heavens! If I were in your case [as alas! my dry & dead heart is not now in that garden] I would borrow leave to come & stand upon the banks & coasts of that sea of love, & be a feasted soul to see Love's fair tide, free Love's high and lofty waves, each of them higher than ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost clay: O welcome, welcome, great sea! O if I had as much love for wideness and breadth, as twenty outmost shells and spheres of the heaven of heavens, that I might receive in a little flood of his free love! Come, come, dear Friend, & be pained that the King's wine-cellar of free love & his banqueting house [O so wide, so stately! O so Godlike, so glory-like!] should be so abundant, so overflowing, & your shallow vessel so little to take in some part of that love: but since it cannot come in you for want of room, enter yourself in this sea of love, & breath under these waters, & die of love, & live as one dead & drowned of this Love. But why do ye complain of waters going over your soul, & that the smoke of the terrors of a wrathful Lord, doth almost suffocate you & bring you to death's brink? I know the fault is in your eyes, not in him; it's not the rock that fleeth & moveth, but the green sailer: if your sense & apprehension be made judge of his love, there is a graven image made presently, even a changed God & a foe-God, who was once [when ye washed your steps with butter, & the rock poured you out rivers of oil, job. 29. 6.] a friend-God: either now or never let God work; ye had never since ye was a man, such a fair field for faith: for a painted hell & an apprehension of wrath in your father, is faith's opportunity to try what strength is in it: now give God as large a measure of charity as ye have of sorrow; now see faith to be faith indeed, if ye can make your grave betwixt Christ's feet, & say, Though he should flay me, I will trust in him; his believed love shall be my winding-sheet, & all my grave-cloaths; I shall roll & sow in my soul, my slain soul, in that web, his sweet & free love: & let him write upon my grave Here lieth a believing dead man, breathing out and making an hole in death's broad side, & the breath of faith cometh forth through the hole. See now if ye can overcome & prevail with God, & wrestle God's tempting to death & quit out of breath, as that renowned wrestler did, Hos 12. 3. And by his strength he had power with God. v. 4. Yea he had power over the Angel & prevailed. He is a strong man indeed who overmatcheth heaven's strength and the holy One of Israel, the strong Lord: which is done by a secret supply of divine strength within, wherewith the weakest being strengthened, overcome and conquer. It shall be great victory to blow out the flame of that furnace year now in, with the breath of faith: & when hell, men, malice, cruelty, falsehood, Devils, the seeming glooms of a sweet Lord, meet you in the teeth, if ye then as a captive of Hope, as one fettered in Hope's prison, run to your strong hold, even from God glooming to God glooming, & believe the salvation of the Lord in the dark, which is your only victory: your enemies are but pieces of malicious clay, they shall die as men & be confounded. But that your troubles are many at once, & arrows come in from all airths, from country, friends, wife, children, foes, estate, & right down from God who is the hope & stay of your soul, I confess is more & very heavy to be born; yet all these are not more than Grace, all these bits of coals casten in your sea of mercy cannot dry it up: your troubles are many & great, yet not an ounce-weight beyond the measure of infinite wisdom, I hope, not beyond the measure of grace that he is to bestow; for our Lord never yet broke the back of his child, nor spilt his own work: nature's plastering & counterfeit work he doth often break in shards, & putteth out a candle not lighted at the Sun of righteousness; but he must cherish his own reeds & handle them softly, never a reed getteth a thrust with the Mediator's hand to lay together the two ends of the reed. O what bonds & ligaments hath our Chirurgeon of broken spirits, to bind up all his lame & bruised ones with! cast your disjointed spirit in his lap, & lay your burden upon one who is so willing to take your cares & your fears off you, & to exchange & niffer your crosses, & to give you new for old & gold for iron, even to give you garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness. It's true in a great part what ye write of this Kirk, that the letter of Religion only is reform & scarce that: I do not believe out Lord will build his Zion in this land, upon this skin of Reformation: so long as our scum remaineth & our heart-idols are keeped, this work must be at a stand; and therefore our Lord must yet sift this land and search us with candles; and I know, he shall give and not sell us his Kingdom: his Grace and our remaining guiltiness must be compared, & the one must be seen in the glory of it and the other in the sinfulness of it: But I desire to believe and would gladly hope to see, that the glancing and shining lustre of glory, coming from the diamonds and stones set in the crown of our Lord Jesus, shall cast rays and beams many thousand miles about. I hope Christ is upon a great Marriage, and that his wooing and suiting of his excellent Bride, doth take its beginning from us the ends of the earth. O what joy and what glory would I judge it, if my heaven should be suspended, till I might have leave to run on foot, to be a witness of that Marriage-glory, & see Christ put on the glory of his last married Bride and his last Marriage-love on earth, when he shall enlarge his love-bed and set it upon the top of the mountains, and take in the elder Sister, the jews, and the fullness of the Gentiles! It were heaven's honour & glory upon earth, to be his lackey to run at his horsefoot and hold up the train of his Marriage-roberoyal, in the day of our high a●d royal Solomon's espousals. But O what glory to have a seat or ●e● in King jesus his chariot, that is bottomed with gold & paved and lined over and floored within with Love, f● the daughters of jerusalem! Cant. 3. 10. To lie upon such a King's love, were a bed next to the flower of heaven's glory. I am sorry to hear you speak in your Letter, of a God an●ry at you, and of the sense of his indignation, which only ariseth from suffering for Jesus, all that is now come upon you: Indeed apprehended wrath flameth out of such ashes as apprehended sin; but not from suffering for Christ: But suppose ye were in hell for by-gones and for old debt, I hope ye owe Christ a great sum of charity to believe the sweetness of his love: I know what it is to sin in that kind, it is to sin our [if it were possible] the unchangeableness of a Godhead out of Christ, & to sin away a lovely & unchangeable God. Put more honest apprehensions upon Christ, put on his own mask upon his face, and not your vail made of unbelief, which speaketh, as if he borrowed love to you, from you and your demerits & sinful deservings. Oh no! Christ is man, but he is not like man; he hath man's love in heaven, but it is lustred with God's love, & it is very God's love, ye have to do with: When your wheels go about, he standeth still: Let God be God and be ye a man, and have ye the deserving of man & the sin of one who hath suffered your Well-beloved to slip away, nay hath refused him entrance, when he was knocking till his head and locks were frozen: Yet what is that to him? his book keepeth your name, and is not printed and reprinted and changed and corrected: And why but he should go to his place & hide himself? Howbeit his Departure be his own good work, yet the belief of it in that manner is your sin: But wait on till he return with Salvation and cause you rejoice in the latter end. It is not much to complain: but rather believe then complain, and sit in the dust and close your mouth, till he make your swoon light grow again; for your afflictions are not eternal, Time will end them, & so shall ye at length see the Lord's salvation: his love sleepeth not, but is still in working for you, his Salvation will not tarry nor linger, & Suffering for him is the noblest cross that is out of heaven: Your Lord had the wail & choice of ten thousand other crosses beside this, to exercise you withal; but his wisdom & his love wailed and choosed out this for you, beside them all, & take it as a choice one, & make use of it, so, as ye look to this world as your stepmother in your borrowed prison: For it is a love-look to heaven and the other side of the water, that God seeketh: & this is the fruit, the flower & bloom growing out of your cross, that ye be a dead man to time, to clay, to gold, to country, to friends, wife, children, & all pieces of created nothings, for in them there is not a seat nor bottom for your soul's love. O what room is for your Love [if it were as broad as the sea] up in heaven and in God and what would not Christ give for your love? God gave so much for your soul, & blessed are ye, if ye have a love for him & can call in your soul's love from all idols, and can make a God of God, a God of Christ & draw a line betwixt your heart and him. If your deliverance come not, Christ's presence and his believed love must stand as caution and surety for your deliverance, till your Lord send it in his blessed time: for Christ hath many Salvations, if we could see them: and I would think it better born comfort and joy that cometh from the faith of deliverance and the faith of his love, then that which cometh from deliverance itself. It is not much matter, if ye find ease to your afflicted soul, what be the means, either of your own wishing, or of God's choosing; the latter I am sure is best and the comfort strongest and sweetest: let the Lord absolutely have the ordering of your evils & troubles, and put them off you by recommending your cross and your furnace to him, who hath skill to melt his own mettle and knoweth well what to do with his surnace: let your heart be willing that God's fire have your tin and brass and dross: to consent to want corruption is a greater mercy than many professors do well know, and to refer the manner of God's Physic to his own wisdom, whither it be by drawing blood, or giving sugared drinks that cure sick folks without pain, it is a great point of faith; and to believe Christ's cross to be a friend as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith: but when ye are over the water, this case shall be a yesterday past an hundred years ere ye were born, & the cup of glory shall wash the memory of all this away and make it as nothing: Only now take Christ in with you under your yoke, and let patience have her perfect work, for this haste is your infimity. The Lord is rising up to do you good in the latter end, put on the faith of his salvation & see him posting & hasting towards you. Sir, my employments being so great, hinder me to write at more length excuse me: I hope to be mindful of you. I shall be obliged to your if ye help me with your prayers for this people, this College, & my own poor soul. Grace be with you. Remember my love to your wife.  
St Andrews. Feb. 13. 1640. Yours in Christ jesus. S. R.   

To the much honoured PETER STIRLING. (34)  
Much honoured & worthy Sir.  
I Received yours, & cannot but be ashamed that mistaking love hath brought me in court & account in the heart of God's children, especially of another nation: I should not make a lie of the grace of God, if I should think I have little share of it myself: O how much better were it for me to stand in the counting table of many for a halfpenny & to be esteemed a liker rather than a lover of Christ! If I were weighed, vanity should bear down the scale, as having weight in the balance above me; except my lovely Saviour should cast in beside me some of his borrowed worth; & Oh if I were writing now sincerely in this extenuation, which may be & I fear is, subtle & cozening pride! I would I could love something of heaven's worth in you & all of your mettle. O how happy were I, if I could regain & conquer back from the creature my sold & lost love, that I might lay it upon heaven's jewel, that ever, ever blooming flower of the highest garden, even my soul-redeeming & never-enoughprized Lord Jesus! O that he would wash my love & put it on the Mediator's wheel & refine it from its dross & tin, that I might propine & gift that Lord so loveworthy, with all my love! Oh if I could set a lease of thousands of years & a suspension of my part of heaven's glory, & frist till a long day my desired salvation, sobeing I could in this lower kitchen & under-vault of his creation, be feasted with his love, & that I might be a footstool for his glory before men & Angels! Oh if he would let out heaven's fountain upon withered me, dry & sapless me! If I were but sick of love for his love [& O how would that sickness delight me!] How sweet would that easing & refreshing pain be to my soul! I shall be glad to be a witness to behold the Kingdom: of the world become Christ's: I could stay out of heaven many years to see that victorious triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of his soul-conquering love, in taking in to his Kingdom the greater Sister, that Kirk of the jews, who sometimes courted our Well-beloved for her little Sister, Cant. 8: 8. to behold him set up as an ensign & a banner of love to the ends of the world. And truly we are to believe that his wrath is ripe for the land of graven images, & for the falling of that millstone in the midst of the sea. Grace be with you.  
St Andrews March. 6. 1640. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the Lady FINGASK. (35.)  
MADAM.  
GRace mercy & peace be to you: Though not acquainted, yet at the desire of a Christian, I make bold to write a line or two unto you by way of counsel [howbeit I be most unfit for that] I hear, and I bless the father of lights for it, that ye have a spirit set to seek God, and that the posture of your heart is to look heaven-ward; which is a work and cast of the Mediator Christ's right hand, who putteth on the heart a new frame, for the which I would have your La: to see a tye & bond of obedience laid upon you, that all may be done not so much from obligation of Law, as from the tye of free love; that the law of ransom-paying by Christ may be the chief ground of all your obedience, seeing that ye are not under the Law but under Grace: withal know that unbeleef is a spiritual sin & so not seen by nature's light, & that all that Conscience saith is not Scripture: Suppose your heart bear witness against you for sins done long ago; yet because many have pardon with God, that have not peace with themselves, ye are to stand & fall by Christ's esteem & verdict of you & not by that which your heart saith: Suppose it may by accident be a good sign to be jealous of your heavenly husband's love, yet it is a sinful sign: as there be some happy sins [If may speak so] not of themselves but because they are neighboured with faith and love: and so, worthy Lady, I would have you hold by this that the ancient love of an old husband standeth firm and sure, and let faith hang by this small thread, that he loved you before he laid the cornerstone of the world, & therefore, he cannot change his mind because he is God, and rests in his love; neither is sin in you, a good reason wherefore ye should doubt of him, or think because sin hath put you in the courtesy and reverence of justice, that therefore he is wroth with you: Neither is it presumption in you to lay the burden of your salvation upon one mighty to save; so being ye lay aside all confidence in your self-worth & righteousness. True faith is humble & seeth no way to escape but only in Christ: And I believe ye have put an esteem & high price upon Christ: & they cannot but believe, & so be saved, who love Christ and to whom he is precious: for the love of Christ hath chosen Christ as a lover, & it were not like God, if ye should choose him as your liking & he not choose you again, nay he hath prevented you in that, for ye have not chosen him but he hath chosen you. O consider his loveliness & beauty, & that there is nothing which can commend & make fair, heaven or earth, or the creature, that is not in him, in infinite perfection, for fair sun and fair moon are black and think shame to shine before his fairness, Isa. 24, 23. Base heavens & excellent Jesus: weak Angels, & strong & mighty Jesus: foolish angel-wisdom & only wise Jesus: short-living creature & long living & everliving Ancient of days: miserable & sickly & wretched are these things that are within times circle & only, only blessed Jesus! If ye can wynd-in in his love: [and he giveth you leave ●o love him & allurements also] what a second heaven's paradise, a young heaven's glory is it, to be hot & burned with fevers of love-sickness for him? & the more your La: drink of this love, there is the more room & the greater delight & desire for this love: be homely & hunger for a feast & fill of his love, for that's the borders & march of heaven: nothing hath a nearer resemblance to the colour & hew & lustre of heaven; then Christ loved, & to breath out love-word, & love-sighs for him. Remember what he is: when twenty thousand millions of heavens lovers have worn their hearts threadbare of love, all is nothing, yea less than nothing to his matchless worth & excellency: O so broad & so deep as the sea of his desirable loveliness is! Glorified spirits, triumphing Angels, the crowned & exalted lovers of heaven, stand without his loveliness & cannot put a cricle on it. O if sin & time were from betwixt us, & that royal & King's love! That high Majesty, eternitie's bloom & flower of high-lustred beauty might shine upon pieces of created spirits, & might bedew and overflow us who are portions of endless misery & lumps of redeemed sin: Alas what do I! I but spill & lose words in speaking highly of him, who will bide & be above the music & songs of heaven, & never be enough praised by us all, to whose boundless & bottomless love I recommed your La: & am.  
St Andrews. March. 27. 1640. Your La: in Christ jesus, S. R.   

To his reverend & dear Brother Mr DAVID DICKSON. (36)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
YE look like the house whereof ye are a branch: the Cross is a part of the life rend that lieth to all the sons of the house. I desire to suffer with you, if I take a lift of your housetrial off you: but ye have preached it ere I knew any thing of God: your Lord may gather his roses, & shake his apples, at what season of the year he pleaseth; each husbandman cannot make harvest when he pleaseth, as He can do: ye are taught to know & adore his sovereignty which he exerciseth over you, which yet is lustred with mercy: the child hath but changed a bed in the garden, & is planted up higher nearer the sun, where he shall thiiven better then in this out-held moor-ground: Ye must think your bold would not want him one hour longer, & since the 〈◊〉 of your loan of him was expired [as it is, if ye read the ●eas●] let him have his own with gain, as good reason were. I read on it an exaltation & a richer measure of grace, as the s●…t fruit of your cross: and I am bold to say, that, that College where your Master hath set you now, shall find it. I am content that christ is so homely with my dear Brother David Dickson, as to borrow & lend, & take & give with him, & ye know what are called the visitations of such a friend, it ' s to come to the house & be homely with what is yours: I persuade my sel● upon his credit, he hath left drink-money, and that he hath made the house the better of him. I envy not his waking love; who saw that this water was to be passed through & that now the number of crosses lying in your way to glory, are fewer by one than when I saw you; they must decrease: it is better than any ancient or modern commentary on your Text that ye preach upon in Glasgow: read and spell right, for he knoweth what he doth, he is only lopping & snedding a fruitful tree that it may be more fruitful. I congratulate heartily with you, his new welcome to your new charge. Dearest Brother, go on & faint not, something of yours is in heaven, beside the flesh of your exalted Saviour, & ye go on after your own: time's thread is shorter by one inch than it was: an oath is sworn & passed the seals; whether afflictions will or not, ye must grow & swell out of your shell, & live & triumph & reign, & be more than conqueror, for your captain who leadeth you on, i● more than conqueror, and he makes you a partaker of his conquest and Victory. Did not love to you compel me, I would not fetch water to the well, & speak to one who knoweth b●…ter than I can do, what God is doing with him. Remember my love to your wife, to Mr john, & all friends there. Let us be helped by your prayers, for I cease not to make mention of you to the Lord as I dow. Grace be with you.  
St Andrews. May. 28. 16●0. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady BOYD. (37)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Impute it not to a disrespective forgetfulness of your La: who ministered to me in my bonds, that I write not to you: I wish I could speak or write what might do good to your La: especially now, when I think ye cannot but have deep thoughts of the deep & bottomless ways of our Lord, in taking away, with a sudden & wonderful stroke your brethren & friends. Ye may know, all that die for sin, die not in sin, & that none can teach the Almighty knowledge, he answereth none of our Courts, & no man can say, What dost thou? It's true, your brethren saw not many summers; but adore & fear the sovereignty of the great Potter, who maketh & marreth his clay-vessels when & how it pleaseth him. This under-garden is absolutely his own & all that groweth in it, his absolute liberty is law-biding, the flowers are his own, if some be but summer-apples he may pluck them down before others. O what wisdom is it to believe & not to dispute, to subject the thoughts to his Court & not to repine at any act of his justice! He hath done it, all flesh be silent: it is impossible to be submissive & religiously patient if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings & wheels of second causes, as, Oh the place! Oh the time! Oh if this had been, this had not followed! Oh the linking of this accident with this time & place! Look up to the Master-motion & the first wheel, see & read the decree of heaven & the Creator of men, who breweth death to his children & the manner of it: & they see far in a millstone, & have eyes that make a hole to see through the one side of a mountain to the other, who can take up his ways: How unsearchable are his judgements, & his ways past finding out! His Providence halteth not, but goeth with even & equal legs: yet are they not the greatest sinners, upon whom tower of Siloam fell: was not time's lease expired, & the sand of heaven's sand-glass set by our Lord, run out? Is not he an unjust debtor who payeth due debt with chiding? I believe, Christian Lady, your faith leaveth that much charity to our Lord's judgements, as to believe, how beit ye be in blood sib to that cross, that yet ye are exempted & freed from the gall & wrath that is in it. I dare not deny but (job. 18: 15.) the King of terrors dwelleth in the wicked man's tabernacle: brimstone shall be scattered on his habitation: yet, Madam, it is safe for you to live upon the faith of his love, whose arrows are over-watered & pointed with love & mercy to his own, & who knoweth how to take you & yours out of the roll & book of the dead. Our Lord hath not the eyes of flesh in distributing wrath to the thousand generation without exception. Seeing ye are not under the Law, but under Grace & married to another husband: Wrath is not the Court that ye are liable to. As I would not wish, neither do I believe, your La: doth despise; so neither faint: read & spell aright all the words & syllabes in the visitation, & miscall neither letter nor syllable in it. Come along with the Lord, & see, & lay no more weight upon the Law then your Christ hath laid upon it: If the Law's bill get an answer from Christ, the curses of it can do no more: And I hope ye have resolved that if he should grind you to powder, your dust & powder shall believe his salvation: And who can tell what thoughts of love & peace our Lord hath to your children? I trust he shall make them famous in excuting the written judgements upon the enemies of the Lord, this honour have all his saints, Psal. 149: 9 & that they shall bear stones on their shoulders, for building that city that is called, Ezek. 46: 35. The Lord is there: & happy shall they be who have a hand in the sacking of Babel, & come out in the year of vengeance for the controversy of Zion, against the land of graven images. Therefore, Madam, let the Lord make out of your father's house any work, even of judgement, that he pleaseth: What i● wrath to others, is mercy to you & your house. It is Faith's work to claim and challenge loving kindness out of all the roughest strokes of God. Do that for the Lord, which ye will do for time; time will calm your heart at that which God hath done, & let our Lord have it now. What love ye did bear to friends now dead, seeing they stand now in no need of it, let it fall as just legacy to Christ. O how sweet to put out many strange lovers, & to put in Christ! It is much for our half-slain affections to part with that which we believe we have right unto; but the servant's will should be our will, & he is the best servant who retaineth least of his own will & most of his Master's. That much wisdom must be ascribed to our Lord, that he knoweth how to lead his own in-through and out-through the little time-hells and the pieces of time-during wraths in this life, & yet keep safe his love without any blur upon the old & great seal of free Election: And seeing his mountains of brass, the mighty & strong decrees of free grace in Christ, stand sure, & the Covenant standeth fast for ever as the days of heaven, let him strike & nurture, his striking must be a very act of saving; seeing strokes upon his secret ones, come from the soft & heavenly hand of the Mediator, & his rods are steeped & watered in that flood & river of love that cometh from the God-man's heart of our soul-loving & soul-redeeming JESUS. I hope ye are content to frist the Cautioner of mankind his own conquest, heaven, till he pay it you & bring you to a state of glory, where he shall never crook a finger upon, nor lift a hand to you again: And be content, & withal greedily covetous of Grace, the interest & pledge of Glory. If I did not believe your crop to be on the ground, & your part of that heaven of the saints heaven, white & ruddy, fair, fair & beautiful Jesus, were come to the bloom & the flower, & near your hook I would not write this; but seeing time ' thread is short, & ye are upon the entry of heaven's harvest, & Christ the field of heaven's glory is white & ripe-like, the losses that I write of to your La: are but summer-showers that will only wet your garments for an hour or two, and the Sun of the new jerusalem shall quickly dry the wet coat; especially seeing rains of Affliction cannot slain the image of God or cause Grace cast the colour: And since ye will not alter upon him, who will not change upon you, I durst in weakness think myself no spiritual Seer, if I should not prophesy, that daylight is near when such a morning-darkness is upon you & that this trial of your Christian mind towards him whom ye dare not leave howbeit he should slay you, shall close with a doubled mercy. It is time for faith to hold fast as much of Christ as ever ye had & to make the grip stronger & to cleave closer to him, seeing Christ loveth to be believed in & trusted to: The glory of laying strength upon one that is mighty to save, is more than we can think: That piece of service of believing in a smiting Redeemer is a precious part of obedience. O what glory to him to lay over the burden of our heaven upon him that purchased for us an eternal Kingdom! O blessed soul who can adore & kiss his lovely, free Grace. The rich grace of Christ be with your spirit.  
St. Andrews. Octob. 15. 1640. Yours at all obedience in Christ jesus, S. R.   

To AGNES MCMATH. (38)  
Dear Sister.  
IF our Lord hath taken away your child, your lease of him is expired, & seeing Christ would want him no longer, it is your part to hold your peace, & worship & adore the sovereignty & liberty that the potter hath over the clay & pieces of clay-nothings that he gave life unto: And what is man to call & summoned the Almighty to his lower Court down here? For he giveth account of none of his doings: And if ye will take a loan of a child & give him back again to our Lord, laughing, as his borrowed goods should return to him, believe he is not gone away, but sent before, & that the change of the country should make you think, he is not lost to you who is found to Christ, & that he is now before you, & that the dead in Christ shall be raised again: A going down star is not annihilat, but shall appear again: If he have casten his bloom & flower, the bloom is fallen in heaven in Christ's lap; And as he was lent a while to Time, so is he given now to Eternity, which will take yourself: And the difference of your shipping & his, to heaven & Christ's shore, the land of life, is only in some few years, which weareth every day shorter, & some short & soon-reckoned summers will give you a meeting with him; but what? with him? ●●y, with better company, with the chief & leader of the heavenly troops that are riding on white horses, that are triumphing in glory. If Death were a sleep that had no wakening, we might sorrow: But our Husband shall quickly be at the bedsides of all that lie sleeping in the grave, & shall raise their mortal bodies. Christ was Death's Cautioner, who gave his word to come & lose all the clay-pawnes & set them at his own right hand, & our Cautioner, Christ, hath an Act of Law-surety upon Death to render back his captives: And that Lord Jesus, who knoweth the turnings & windings that is in that black trance of Death, hath numbered all the steps of the stair up to heaven; he knoweth how long the turnpike is or how many pair of stairs high it is, for he ascended that way himself. Rev. 1: 18. I was dead & am alive. & now he liveth at the right hand of God, and his garments have not so much as a smell of death. Your afflictions smell of the children's case, the bairns of the house are so nurtured, & Suffering is no new life, it is but the rent of the sons, bastards have not so much of the rent: take kindly & heartsomly with his cross, who never yet slew a ehilde with the cross: He breweth your cup, therefore drink it patiently & with the better will: Stay & wait on, till Christ lose the knot that fasteneth his cross on your back, for he is coming to deliver: & I pray you, Sister, learn to be worthy of his pains who correcteth, & let him wring, & be ye wa●hen, for he hath a father's heart & a father's hand who is training you up & making you meet for the high hall. This School of Suffering is a preparation for the King's higher house: & let all your visitations speak all the letters of your Lord summons: they cry. 1. O vain World! 2. O bitter Sin! 3 O short & uncertain Time! 4. O fair Eternity; that is above sickness & Death! 5. O Kingly & Princely Bridegroom! Hasten Glory's Marriage, shorten Time's short-spun & soon-broken thread, & conquer Sin! 6. O happy & blessed Death, that golden bridge laid over by Christ my Lord betwixt Time's clay-banks & heaven's shore! & the Spirit & the Bride say Come, & answer ye with them, Even so, come Lord ●esus! Come quickly! Grace be with you.  
St Andrews. Octob. 15. 1640. Your brother in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To Mr MATHEW MOWAT. (39)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
WHat am I to answer you? Alas! my books are all bare & show me little of God: I would fain go beyond books in to his house of love, to see himself. Dear Brother, neither ye nor I, are parties worthy of his love or knowledge. Ah! how hath sin bemisted & blinded us that we cannot see him? But for my poor s●lf, I am pained & like to burst, because he will not take down the wall, & fetch hi● uncreated beauty, & bring his matchless, white & ruddy face out of heaven one's errand, that I may have heaven meeting me ere I go to it, in such a wonderful sight: ye know that Majesty & Love do humble, because homely love to sinners dwelleth in him with Majesty: Ye should give him all his own court-stiles, his high & heaven-names. What am I to shape conceptions of my highest Lord? How broad & how high & how deep he is above & beyond what these conceptions are, I cannot tell: but for my own weak practice [which alas! can be no rule to one so deep in love-sickness with Christ as ye are] I would fain add to my thoughts & esteem of him, & make him more high, & would wish an heart & love ten thousand times wider than the outmost circle & curtain that goeth about the heaven of heavens, to entertain him in that heart & with that love. But that which is your pain, my dear Brother, is mine also, I am confounded with the thoughts of him: I know God is casten [if I may speak so] in a sweet mould & lovely image, in the person of that heaven's jewel, the man Christ, & that the steps of that steep ascent● stair to the Godhead is the flesh of Christ, the new & living way; & there is footing for faith in that curious Ark of the humanity: therein dwelleth the Godhead married upon our Humanity. I would be in heaven, suppose I had not another errand, but to see that dainty golden Ark & God personally looking out at ears & eyes & a body such as we sinners have, that I might wear my sinful mouth in kisses on him for evermore: & I know all the Three blessed Persons should be well pleased, that my piece of faint & created love should first coast upon the man Christ; I should see them all through him. I am called from writing by my great employments in this town, & have said nothing: but what can I say of him: Let us go & see.  
St Andrews. 1640. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (40)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your La: I am heartily sorry that your La: is deprived of such an husband, & the Lord's Kirk of so active & faithful a friend. I know your La: long ago made acquaintance with that wherein Christ will have you joined in a fellowship with himself, even with his own Cross, & hath taught you to stay your soul upon the Lord's goodwill, who giveth not account of his matters to any of us: When he hath led you through this water that was in your way to glory, there are fewer behind: & his order in dismissing us, & sending us out of the market, one before another, is to be reverenced. One year's time of heaven shall swallow up all sorrows, even beyond all comparison: What then will not a duration of blessedness so long as God shall live fully and abundantly recompense? It is good that our Lord hath given a debtor obliged by gracious promises, for more in Eternity then Time can take from you: & I believe, your La: hath been now many years advising & thinking what that Glory will be which is abiding the pilgrims & strangers on the earth, when they come home, & which we may think of, love & thirst for, but we cannot comprehend it, nor conceive of it as it is, far less can we over-think or overlove it. O so long a Chapter, or rather, so large a Volume, as Christ is in that Divinity of Glory! There is no more of him let down now to be seen & enjoyed by his children, but as much as may feed hunger in this life, but not satisfy it. Your La: is a debtor to the Son of God's Cross, that is wea●ing out love and affiance in the creature, out of your heart by degrees: or rather, the obligation standeth to his free grace, who careth for your La: in this gracious dispensation, and who is preparing & making ready the garments of Salvation for you, & who calleth you with a new name that the mouth of the Lord hath named, & purposeth to make you a crown of glory & a royal diadem in the hand of your God. Isa. 62. 2. 3. Ye are obliged to frist him more than one heaven, & yet he craveth not a long day, it is fast coming & is sure payment. though ye gave no hire for him, yet hath he given a great price & ransom for you: & if the bargain were to make again, Christ would give no less for you then what he hath already given; he is far from ruing. I shall wish you no more till Time be gone out of the way, than the earnest of that which he hath purchased & prepared for you, which can never be fully preached, written or thought of, since it hath not entered into the heart to consider it. So recommending your La: to the rich grace of our Lord Jesus, I am & rests  
St Andrews Your La: at all respective observance in Christ jesus, S, R.   

To Mistress TAYLOR. (41)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Though I have no relation worldly or acquaintance with you, yet (upon the testimony & importunity of your Elder son now at London, where I am, but chiefily because I esteem Jesus Christ in you to be in place of all relations] I make bold in Christ to speak my poor thoughts to you concerning your Son lately fallen asleep in the Lord [who was some time under the ministry of the worthy servant of Christ, my fellow-labourer Mr Blair, and by whose ministry I hope he reaped no small advantage] I know, grace rooteth not out the affections of a mother, but putteth them on his wheel who maketh all things new, that they may be refined, therefore sorrow for a dead child is allowed to you, though by measure & ounce-weights; the redeemed of the Lord have not a dominion or Lordship over their sorrow & other affections, to lavish out Christ's goods at their pleasure; for ye are not your own, but bought with a price, & your sorrow is not your own, nor hath he redeemed you by halves; & therefore ye are not to make Christ's cross no cross: He commandeth you to weep, & that Princely one who took up to heaven with him a man's heart, to be a compassionate high priest, became your fellow & companion on earth by weeping for the dead joh. 11: 35. And therefore ye are to love that cross, because it was once on Christ's shoulders before you; so that by his own practice he hath overguilded and covered your cross with the Mediator's lustre: The cup ye drink was at the lip of sweet Jesus, & he drank of it, & so it hath a smell of his breath: And I conceive ye love it not the worse that it is thus sugared, therefore drink & believe the resurrection of your Son's body: If one coal of hell could fall off the exalted head jesus, Jesus the Prince of the Kings of the earth, & burn me to ashes, knowing I were a partner with Christ, & a fellow-sharer with him [though the unworthiest of men] I think I should die a lovely death in that fire, with him: The worst things of Christ, even his cross, have much of heaven from himself, & so hath your Christian sorrow, being of kin to Christ's in that kind: If your sorrow were a Bastard, & not of Christ's house [because of the relation ye have to him in conformity with his death & sufferings] I should the more compassionate your condition; but kind & compassionate Jesus, at every sigh ye give for the loss of your now-glorified child [so I believe, as is meet] with a man's heart cryeth half mine. I was not a witness to his death, being called out or the Kingdom; but ye shall credit these whom I do credit (& I dare not lie) he died comfortably: It is true he died before he did so much service to Christ on earth, as I hope & heartily desire your Son Mr Hugh [very dear to me in Jesus Christ] shall do: But that were a real matter of sorrow, if this were not to counterbalance it, that he hath changed service-houses, but hath not changed services or master Rev. 22: 3. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God & of the Lamb shall be in it, & his servants shall serve him. What he could have done in this lower house, he is now upon that same service in the higher house, & it is all one, it is the same service & the same Master, only there is a change of conditions: And ye are not to think it a bad bargain for your beloved son, where he hath gold for copper & brass, Eternity for Time. I believe Christ hath taught you [for I give credit to such a witness of you as your Son Mr Hugh] not to sorrow because he died: All the knot must be, he died too soon, he died too young, he died in the morning of his life, this is all; but sovereignty must silence your thoughts: I was in your condition, I had but two children, & both are dead since I came hither: The supreme and absolute former of all things giveth not an account of any of his matters: The good husbandman may pluck his roses, & gather in his lilies at midsummer, & for aught I dare say, in the beginning of the first summer-moneth: & he may transplant young trees out of the lower-ground to the higher, where they may have more of the sun & a more free air, at any season of the year: what is that to you or me: The goods are his own. The Creator of time & winds did a merciful injury [if I dare borrow the word] to nature, in landing the passenger so early. They love the sea too well, who complain of a fair wind & a desirable tide, and a speedy coming ashore, especially a coming ashore in that land where all the inhabitants have everlasting joy upon their heads: He cannot be too early in heaven: His twelve hours were not short hours: And withal if ye consider this, had ye been at his bedside, and should have seen Christ coming to him, ye would not, ye could not have adjourned Christ's free love, who would want him no longer: And dying in an other land where his mother could not close his eyes, is not much: who closed Mose's eyes? And who put on his winding-sheet? For aught I know, neither father nor mother nor friend, but God only: And there is as expedite, fair & easy a way betwixt Scotland & heaven, as if he had died in the very bed he was born in: The whole earth is his father's: Any corner of his father's house is good enough to die in. It may be, the living child (I speak not of Mr. Hugh) is more grief to you then the dead: Ye are to wait on, if at any time God shall give him repentance: Christ waited as long possibly on you & me, certainly longer on me: & if he should deny repentance to him, I could say some thing to that; but I hope better things of him: It seemeth that Christ will have this world your stepdame: I love not your condition the wo●se, it may be a proof that ye are not a child of this lower house, but a stranger: Christ seeth it not good only, but your only good, to be lead thus to heaven: & think this a favour, that he hath bestowed upon you, Free, free grace, that is, mercy without hire, ye paid nothing for it: And who can put a price upon any thing of Royal and Princely Jesus Christ? And that God hath given to you to suffer for him the spoiling of your goods, esteem it as an act of free grace also: Ye are no loser, having himself: And I persuade myself, if ye could prise Christ, nothing could be bitter. to you. Grace, grace be with you.  
London: 1645. Your Brother & Wellwisher, S. R.   

To BARBARA HAMILTON. (42)  
Worthy Friend.  
GRace be to you: I do unwillingly write unto you of that which God hath done concerning your son in law; only, I believe ye look not below Christ and the higest and most supreme act of providence, which moveth all wheels: And certainly what came down enacted & concluded in the great book before the throne, & signed & subscribed with the hand which never did wrong, should be kissed & adored by us: we see God's decrees, when they bring forth their fruits, all actions, good & ill, sweet & sour in their time; But we see not presently the afterbirth of God's decree, to wit, his blessed end & the good that he bringeth out of the womb of his holy & spotless counsel: we see his working, & we sorrow: The end of his counsel & working lieth hidden & underneath the ground, & therefore we cannot believe: Even amongst men, we see hewn stones, timber & an hundred scattered parcels & pieces of an house, all undertools, hammers & axes & saws; yet the house, the beauty & ease of so many lodgings & ease-rooms, we neither see nor understand for the present: these are but in the mind & head of the builder as yet: we see red earth, unbroken clods, furrows & stones; but we see not summer-lilies, roses, & the beauty of a garden: If ye give the Lord time to work [as often he that believeth not, maketh haste, but not speed] his end is under the ground, & ye shall see it was your good that your Son hath changed dwelling-places, but not his Master: Christ thought good to have no more of his service here, yet Rev. 22: 3. His servants shall serve him: He needeth not us or our service, either in earth or in heaven: But ye are to look to him, who giveth the hireling both his leave & his wages for his naked aim & purpose to serve Christ, as well as for his labours: It is put up in Christ's account, such a labourer did sweat forty years in Christ's vineyard, howbeit he got not leave to labour so long, because he who accepteth of the will for the deed, counteth so: None can teach the Lord to lay an account: He numbereth the drop of rain, & knoweth the stars by their names: It would take us much studying to give a name to every star in the firmament, great or small. See Leu. 13: 13. And Aaron held his peace: Ye know his two Sons were ●●ain, whilst they offered strange fire to the Lord: Command your thoughts to be silent: If the soldiers of Newcasile had done this, ye might have stomached, but the weapon was in another hand: Hear the rod what it preacheth, & see the name of God, M●…. 6. 9 And know that there is somewhat of God & Heaven in the ●od: The Majesty of the unsearchable & bottomless ways & judgements of God is not seen in the rod, & the seeing of them requires the eyes of the man of wisdom. If the sufferings of some other with you in that loss could ease you, ye want them not: But He can do no wrong, he cannot halt, his goings are equal who hath done it. I know our Lord aimeth at more mortification: let him not come in vain to your house, & lose the p●ins of a merciful visit: God, the founder, never melteth in vain; howbeit to us, he seemeth often to lose both fire & mettle: But I know year more in this work than I can be: There is no cause to faint or weary. Grace be with you, & the rich consolations of Jesus Christ sweeten your cross & support you under it. I rest.  
London, Octob. 15. 1645. Yours in his Lord & Master, S. R.   

To Mistress HUME. (43.)  
Loving Sister.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you; If ye have any thing better than the husband of your youth, ye are Jesus Christ's de●ter for it: Pay not then your debts with grudging: Sorrow may diminish from the sweet fruit of righteousness; but quietness, silence, submission & faith, put a crown upon your sad losses: ye know whose voice the voice of a crying rod is. Micah. 6. 9 The name & majesty of the Lord is written on the rod, read & be instructed: Let Christ have the room of the husband, he hath now no need of you or of your love; for he enjoyeth as much of the love of Christ as his heart can be capable of: I confess it is a dear-bought experience to teach you to undervalue the creature; yet it is not too dear if Christ think it so. I know that the disputing of your thoughts against his going thither, the way & manner of his death, the instruments, the place, the time, will not ease your spirit, except ye rise higher than 2. causes, & be silent because the Lord hath done it: If we measure the goings of the Almighty & his ways, the bottom whereof we see not, we quite mistake God: O how little a portion of God see we! He is far above our ebb & narrow thoughts: He ruled the world in wisdom, ere we creatures of yesterday were born, & shall rule it when we shall be lodging beside the worms & corruption: Only, learn heavenly wisdom, self-denial & mortification by this sad loss: I know that it is not for nothing (except ye deny God to be wise in all he doth) that ye have lo● one in earth: There hath been too little of your love & heart in heaven, & therefore the jealousy of Christ hath done this: It is a mercy that he contendeth with you & all your lovers: I should desire no greater savour for myself, then that Christ laid a necessity & took on such bonds upon himself; Such an one I must have, & such a soul I cannot live in heaven without. joh. 10. 16. And believe it, it is incomprehensible love, that Christ saith, If I enjoy the glory of my father, & the crown of heaven far above men & Angels, I must use all means, though never so violent, to have the company of such an One, for ever & ever: If with the eyes of wisdom, as a child of wisdom, ye justify your mother The wisdom of God [whose child ye are] ye shall kiss & embrace this loss, & see much of Christ in it: Believe & submit, & refer the income of the consolations of Jesus, & the event of the trial to your heavenly father, who numbereth all your hairs: And put Christ in his own room in your Love: It may be he hath either been out of his own place, or in a place of love inferior to his worth: Repair Christ in all his wrongs done to him, & love him for a husband, & he is a husband to the widow shall be that to you, which he hath taken from you. Grace be with you.  
London. Octob. 15. 1645. Your sympath Zing Brother. S. R.   

To BARBARA HAMILTON. (44)  
Loving Sister.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I have heard with grief, that Newcastle hath taken one more, in a bloody account, than before; even your Son in Law, & my friend. But I hope ye have learned that much of Christ, as not to look to wheels rolled round about on earth: Earthen vessels are not to dispute with their Former: pieces of sinning-clay may by reasoning & contending with the Potter, mar the work of him, who hath his fire in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem, as bullocks sweeting & wrestling in the furrow make their yoke more heavy: In quietness & rest ye shall be saved: If men do any thing contrary to our heart, we may ask both who did it? And what is done? And why? When God hath done any such thing we are to inquire who hath done it? And to know that this cometh from the Lord, who is wonderful in counsel: but we are not to ask what? or why? If it be from the Lord [as certainly their is no evil in the city without him Amos. 3. 6.] it is enough the fairest face of his spotless way is but coming, & ye are to believe his works aswell as his word. Violent death is a sharer with Christ in his death, which was violent: it maketh not much what way we go to heaven: the happy home is all, where the roughness of the way shall be forgotten: He is gone home to a friend's house and made welcome, and the race is ended: Time is recompensed with eternity, and copper with gold: God's order is in wisdom, the husband goes home before the wife, and the throng of the marker shall be over ere it be long, and another generation where we now are, and at length an empty house, and not one of mankind shall be upon the earth within the sixth part of an hour after the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up with fire: I fear more that Christ is about to remove when he carrieth home so much of his plenishing before hand: we cannot teach the Almighty knowledge: when he was directing the bullet against his servant, to fetch out the soul, no wise man could cry to God, Wrong, wrong Lord, for he is thine own: There is no mist over his eyes who is wonderful in counsel: If Zion be builded with your son in law's blood, the Lord [deep in counsel] can glue together the stones of Zion with blood, and with that blood which is precious in his eyes: Christ hath fewer labourers in his vineyard than he had; but some more witnesses for his cause and the Lord's Covenant with the three Nations. What is Christ's gain is not your loss: Let not that which is his holy and wise will be your unbelieving sorrow: Though I really judge I had interest in his dead servant; yet because he now liveth to Christ, I quite the hops I had of his successful labouring in the ministry: I know he now praiseth the grace that he was to preach: And if there were a better thing on his head now in heaven then a crown, or any thing more excellent than heaven, he would cast it down before his feet, who sitteth on the throne: Give glory therefore to Christ as he now doth, and say, Thy will be done. The grace and consolation of Christ be with you.  
London. Nov: 15. 1645. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the vicountesse of KENMURE. (45)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to your La: though Christ lose no time; yet when sinful men drive his chariot, the wheels of 〈◊〉 chariot move slowly: The woman Zion as soon as she traveled brought forth her children, yea Isa. 66: 7. before she traveled she brought f●rth, before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child: Yet the deliverance of the people was with the woman's going with child seventy years, that is more than nine months: There be many oppositions in carrying on the work; but I hope the Lord will build his own Zion, & evidence to us that it is done not by might not by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. Madam, I have heard of your infirmities of body & sickness: I know the issue shall be mercy to you, & that God's purpose, which lieth hidden underground to you, is, to commend the sweetness of his love, & care to you from your youth: And if all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs, heaviness & inconstancy of the creature, be expounded [as sure I am they are] the rods of the jealousy of an husband in heaven, contending with all your lovers on earth (though there were millions of them) for your love, to fetch more of your love home to heaven, to make it single, unmixed & chaste to the fairest in heaven & earth, to Jesus the Prince of ages, ye will forgive [to borrow that word] every rod of God, & not let the Sun go down on your wrath against any messenger of your afflicting & correcting Father. Since your La: cannot but see, that the mark at which Christ hath aimed at, these twenty four years and above, is, to have the company & fellowship of such a sinful creature in heaven with him for all eternity, and because he will not (such is the power of his love) enjoy his father's glory and that crown due to him by eternal generation, without you by name, joh. 17: 24. joh. 10: 16. joh. 14: 3. Therefore Madam believe no evil of Christ: Listen to no hard reports that his rods make of him to you: He hath loved you & washed you from your sins, & what would ye have more? Is that too little, except he adjourn all crosses till ye be where ye shall be out of all capacity to sigh or to be crossed? I hope ye can desire no more, no greater, nor more excellent suit, than Christ & the fellowship of the Lamb for evermore: And if that desire be answered in heaven (as I am sure it is, & ye cannot deny but it is made sure to you) the want of these poor accidents of a living husband, of many children, of an healthful body, of a life of case in the world, without one knot in the rush, are nobly made up & may be comfortably born. Grace, grace be with your La:  
London. October. 16. 1645. Your La: at all obedience in Christ. S. R.   

To a Christian friend upon the death of his wife. (46)  
Worthy friend.  
I Desire to suffer with you in the loss of a loving & good wife, now gone before, [according to the method & order of him of whose understanding there is no searching out] whither ye are to follow: He that made yesterday to go before this day, & the former generation, in birth & life, to have been before this present generation, & hath made some flowers to grow and die & wither in the month of May, & others in june, cannot be challenged in the order he hath made of things without souls: And some order he must keep also here, that one might bury another: Therefore I hope ye shall be dumb & silent because the Lord hath done it: what creatures or under-causes do in sinful mistakes, are ordered in wisdom by your Father, at whose feet your own soul & your heaven lieth, & so the days of your wife. If the place she hath left were any other than a prison of sin, & the home she is gone to, any other then where her ●ead & Saviour is King of the land, your grief had been more rational; But I trust your faith of the resurrection of the dead in Christ, to glory & immortality, will lead you to suspend your longing for her, till the morning & dawning of that day, when the Archangel shall descend with a shout, to gather all his prisoners out of the grave up to himself: To believe this is best for you, & to be silent because he hath done it, i● your wisdom: It is much to come out of the Lord's School of trial, wiser & more experienced in the ways of God: And it is our happiness, when Christ openeth a vein, he taketh nothing but ill blood from his sick ones: Christ hath skill to do (and if our corruption mar not) the art of mercy in correcting: we cannot of ourselves take away the tin, the lead & the scum that remaineth in us: And if Christ be not Master-of-work, & if the furnace go its alone, he not standing nigh the melting of his own vessel, the labour were lost & the founder should melt in vain: God knoweth some of us have lost much fire, sweeting & pains to our Lord Jesus, & the vessel is almost marred, the furnace & rod of God spilt, & daylight burnt, & the reprobat mettle not taken away, so as some are to answer to the Majesty of God for the abuse of many good crosses & rich afflictions lost without the quiet fruit of righteousness: And it is a sad thing when the rod is cursed that never fruit shall grow on it, & except Christ's d●w fall down, & his summer-sunshine, & his grace follow afflictions, to cause them bring f●rth fruit to God, they are so fruitless to us that our evil ground [rank & fat enough for briers] casteth up a crope of noisome weeds: The rod [as the prophet saith, Ezek 7: 10, 11.] blossometh, pride buddeth forth, violence riseth up into a rod of wickedness, & all this hath been my case under many rods since I saw you. Grace be with you.  
London 1645. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To a Christian Brother. (47)  
Reverend & beloved in the Lord.  
IT may be I have been too long silent, but I hope ye will not impute it to forgetfulness of you. As I have heard of the death of your daughter with heaviness of mind on your behalf, so am I much comforted, that she hath evidenced to yourself & other witnesses, the hope of the resurrection of the dead: as sown corn is not lost [for there is more hope of that which is sown, then of that which is eaten. 1 Cor. 15. 42.] so also is it in the resurrection of the dead; the body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. I hope ye wait for the crope & harvest, 1 Thess. 4. 14. For if we believe that jesus died & rose again, even so also them which sleep in jesus will God bring with him: then they are not lost who are gathered in to that Congregation of the firstborn & the General Assembly of the Saints: though we cannot outrun nor overtake them that are gone before, yet we shall quickly follow them, & the difference is, that she hath the advantage of some months or years of the Crown, before you & her mother: & we do not take it ill, if our children outrun us in the life of grace, why then are we sad if they outstrip us in the attainment of the life of glory? It would seem that there is more reason to grieve that children live behind us, then that they are glorified & die before us: all the difference is in some poor hungry accidents oftime, less or more, sooner or later: so the godly child, though young, died of an hundred years old: & ye could not now have bestowed her better, though the choice was Christ's, not yours: & I am sure, Sir, ye cannot now say, she is married against the will of her parents; she might more readily, if alive, fall in the hand of a worse husband, but can ye think that she could have fallen in the hands of one better? and if Christ marry with your house, it is your honour not any cause of grief, that Jesus should portion any of yours ere she enjoy your portion, is it not great love? the patrimony is more than any other could give as good a husband is impossible; to say a better, is blasphemy. The King & Prince of ages can keep them better than ye can do: while she was alive, ye could intrust her to Christ & recommend her to his keeping, now by an after-faith ye have resigned her unto him, in whose bosom do sleep all that are dead in the Lord: ye would havelent her to glorify the Lord upon earth, & he hath borrowed her [with promise to restore her again, 1 Cor. 15: 53. 1 Thess. 4: 15. 16:] to be an organ of the immediate glorifying of himself in heaven: sinless glorifying of God is better than sinful glorifying of him. And sure your prayers concerning her are fulfilled: I shall desire, if the Lord shall be pleased the same way to dispose of her mother, that ye have the same mind: Christ cannot multiply injuries upon you, if the fountain be the love of God (as I hope it is) ye are enriched with losses. Ye know all I can say, better, before I was in Christ, than I can express it. Grace be with you.  
London. Jan. 6. 1646. Yours in Christ jesus, S. R.   

To a Christian Gentlewoman. (48)  
MISTRESS.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: If Death, which is before you & us all, were any other thing but a friendly dissolution, & a change, not a destruction of Life, it would seem a hard voyage to go through such a sad & dark trance, so thorny a valley, as is the wages of sin: but I am confident, the way ye know, though your foot never trod in that black shadow: the loss of life is gain to you: if Christ Jesus be the period, the end & lodging-home at the end of your journey, there is no fear ye go to a friend: & since ye have had a communion with him in this life, & he hath a pawn & pledge of yours, even the largest share of your love & heart, ye may look Death in the face with joy: If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you cannot be kept the prisoner of the second Death. But though he be the same Christ in the other life, ye found him to be here, yet he is so far in his excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradiations & beams of Majesty, above what he appeared here, when he is seen as he is, that ye shall misken him, & he shall appear a new Christ, & his kisses, breathe, embracements, the perfume; the ointment of his name poured out on you, shall appear to have more of God, & a stronger smell of heaven, of eternity, of a Godhead, of Majesty & glory there, then here: As water at the fountain, apples in the orchard & beside the tree, have more of their native sweetness, taste & beauty, then when transported to us some hundred miles. I mean not that Christ can lose any of his sweetness in the carrying, or that he in his Godhead and lovileness of presence, can be changed to the worse, betwixt the little spot of the earth ye are in, and the right hand of the father far above all heavens; but the change will be in you, when ye shall have new senses, and the soul shall be a more deep & more capacious vessel to take in more of Christ; and when means, the chariot, the Gospel that he is now carried in, and ordinances that convey him, shall be removed: sure ye cannot now be said to see him face to face, or to drink of the wine of the highest fountain, or to take in seas and tides of fresh love, immediately, without vessels, mids or messengers, at the fountain itself, as ye shall do a few days hence: when ye shall be so near as to be with Christ, Luk. 23: 43, joh, 17: 24. Phil. 1: 23. 1 Thess. 4: 17. ye would no doubt bestow a day's journey, yea, many day's journey on earth, to go up to heaven and fetch down any thing of Christ: how much more may ye be willing to make a journey, to go in person to heaven [it is not lost time, but gained eternity] to enjoy the full Godhead, & then in such a manner as he is not there in his weekdays apparel, as he is here with us, in a drop or the tenth part of a night's dewing of grace & sweetness, but he is there in his Marriage-robe of glory, richer, more costly, more precious, in one hem or button of that garment of fountain-majesty, than a million of worlds. O the well is deep! ye shall then think that Preachers & sinful Ambassadors on earth, did but spill & mar his praises, when they spoke of him and preached his beauty. Alas! we but make Christ black & less lovely, in making such insignificant & dry & cold & low expressions of his highest and transcendent super-excellency, to the daughters of jerusalem. Sure, I have often for my own part sinned in this thing: No doubt, Angels do not fulfil their task according to their obligation, in that Christ kept their feet from falling with the lost Devils, though I know they are not behind in going to the utmost of created power: but there is sin in our praising, & sin in the quantity, besides other sins: but I must leave this, it is too deep for me: Go & see & we desire to go with you: But we are not masters of our own diet. If in that last journey ye tread on a serpent in the way, & thereby wound your heel, as Jesus Christ did before you, the print of the wound shall not be known at the resurrection of the just. Death is but an aw●om step over Time & Sin to sweet Jesus Christ, who knew & felt the worst of Death, for Death's teeth hurt him: We know Death hath no teeth now, no jaws, for they are broken: it is a free prison, Citizens pay nothing for the Grave, the Jailor who had the power of Death is destroyed, praise & glory be to the first begotten of the dead. The worst possibly that may be, is, that ye leave behind you, children, husband, & the Church of God in miseries; but ye cannot get them to heaven with you for the present, ye shall not miss them, & Christ cannot miscount one of the poorest of his lambs: no lad, no girl, no poor one shall be a missing, ere ye see them again, in the day that the Son shall render up the Kingdom to his Father. The evening & the shadow of every poor hireling is coming, the Church of Christ's Sun in this life is declining Low, not a soul of the Militant company will be here within few Generations, our Husband will send for them all. It is a rich mercy, we are not married to Time longer than the course be finished. Ye may rejoice that ye go not to heaven till ye know that Jesus is there before you, that when ye come thither, at your first entry ye may find the smell of his ointments, his Myrrh, Aloens & Cassia: and this first salutation of his will make you find, it is no uncomfortable thing to die. Go and enjoy your gain, live on Christ's love while ye are here, and all the way, as for the Church ye leave behind you, the Government is upon Christ's shoulders, and he will plead for the blood of his Saints: The bush hath been burning above five thousand years & we never yet saw the ashes of this fire: yet a little while & the vision shall not tarry, it shall speak & not lie. I am more afraid of my duty, then of the Head, Christ's government, he cannot fail to bring judgement to victory. O that we could wait for our hidden life! O that Christ would remove the covering, draw aside the curtain of time, and rend the heavens & come down! O that shadows & night were gone, that the day would break, & he that feedeth among the lilies would cry to his heavenly trumpeters, mark ready, let us go down & fold together the four corners of the world & marry the Bride. His grace be with you. Now if I have found favour with you & if ye judge me faithful, my last suit to you is, that ye would leave me a legacy, & that is, that my name be at the very last in your prayers, as I desire also it may be in the prayers of these of your Christian Acquaintance with whom ye have been intimate.  
London. Jan. 9 1646. Your Brother in his own Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (49)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: It is the least of the princely & royal bounty of Jesus Christ, to pay a King's debts & not to have his servants at a loss: his gold is better than yours, & his hundred fold is the income & rent of heaven & far above your revenues: ye are not the first who have casten up your accounts that way: better have Christ your factor then any other, for he tradeth to the advantage of his poor servants. But if the hundred fold in this life be so well told, as Christ cannot pay you with miscounting or deferred hope, O what must the rent of that Land be, which rendereth every day, & every hour of the years of long Eternity, the whole rent of a year, yea, of more than thousand thousands of ages, even the weighty income of a rich Kingdom, not every summer once, but every moment! That sum of glory will take you & all the Angels telling. To be a Tenant to such a Landlord, where every berry & grape of the large field beareth no worse fruit than glory, fullness of joy & pleasures that endure for evermore, I leave it to yourself to think what a summer, what a soil, what a garden, must be there, and what must be the commodities of that highest Land, where Sun & Moon are under the feet of the inhabitants: Surely the Land cannot be bought with gold, blood, banishment, loss of father & mother, husband, wife, children: We but dwell here because we can do no better; it is need, not virtue, to be sojourners in a prison; to weep & sigh, & Alas! to sin 60 or 70 years in a land of tears: the fruits that grow here are all seasoned & salted with sin. O how sweet is't that the company of the first born should be divided in two great bodies of an Army, & some in their country, & some in the way to their country! If it were no more but to see once the face of the Prince of this good land, & to be feasted for eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the rays & beams of matchless glory & incomparable fountain-love, it were a well spent journey to creep, hands & feet, through seven deaths & seven hells, to enjoy him up at the wellhead. Only let us not weary, the miles to that Land are fewer & shorter then when we first believed: strangers are not wise to quarrel with their Host & complain of their lodging; it's a foul way, but a fair home. O that I had but such grapes & clusters out of the Land, as I have sometime seen & tasted in the place where of your La: maketh mention! but the hope of it in the end is a heartsom convoy in the way: if I see little more of the gold till the race be ended, I dare not quarrel: it is the Lord: I hope his chariot shall go through these three Kingdoms, after our suffering shall be accomplished. Grace be with you.  
London. Jan. 26. 1646 Your La: in jesus Christ, S. R.   

To Mr I. G. (50)  
Reverend & dear Brother  
I shall with my soul desire the peace of these Kingdoms, & I do believe, it shall at last come as a river & as the mighty waves of the sea; but O that we were ripe & in readiness to receive it! The preserving of two or three or four or five berries in the outmost boughs of the Olive-tree after the vintage, is like to be a great matter ere all be done: yet I know, a Cluster in both Kingdoms shall be saved, for a blessing is in it: but it is not [I fear] so near to the dawning of the day of Salvation, but that the clouds must send down more showers of blood, to water the vineyard of the Lord, & to cause it to blossom. Scotland's scum is not yet removed, nor is England's dross & tin taken away, nor the filth of our blood purged by the spirit of judgement & the spirit of Burning. But I am too much on this sad subject. As for myself, I do esteem nothing out of heaven and next to a communion with Jesus Christ, more, then to be in the hearts & prayers of the saints: I know, he feedeth there amongst the lies till the day break: but I am at a low ebb, as to any sensible communion with Christ, yea, as low as any soul can be, & do scarce know where I am, & do now make it a Question, If any can go to him who dwelleth in light inaccessible through nothing but darkness? Sure, all that come to heaven have a stock in Christ, but I know not where mine is: It cannot be enough for me to believe the Salvation of others, & to know Christ to be the honeycomb, the Rose of Sharon, the Paradise & Eden of the Saints & firstborn written in heaven, & not to see afar the borders of that good land: But what shall I say? Either this is the Lord making grace a new creation, where there is pure nothing & sinful nothing to work upon, or I am gone. I should count my soul engaged to yourself & others there with you, if ye would but carry to Christ for me a letter of cyphers & nonsense [for I know not how to make language of my condition] only showing that I have need of his love; for I know, many fair & washen ones stand now in white before the throne, who were once as black as I am. If Christ pass his word to wash a sinner, it is less to him then a word to make fair Angels of black Devils: Only let the art of free Grace be engaged. I have not a Cautioner to give Surety, nor doth a Mediator, such as he is in all perfection, need a Mediator: But what I need, he knoweth: only, it is his depth of wisdom to let some pass millions of miles over score in debt, that they may stand between the winning & the losing, in need of more than ordinary free grace. Christ hath been multiplying Grace & Mercy above these sieve thousand years, & the latter born heirs have so much greater guiltiness, that Christ hath passed more experiments & multiplied essays of heart-love on others, by misbelieving, after it is passed all question many hundreds of ages, that Christ is the undeniable & now uncontroverted Treasurer of multiplied redemptions; so now he is saying, The more of the disease there is, the more of the Physician's art of Grace & tenderness, there must be: Only I know, no sinner can put infinite Grace to it, so as the Mediator shall have difficulty or much ado to save this or that man: Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite Grace. I pray you [remembering my love to your wife & friends there] let me find that I have Solicitors there amongst your acquaintance, and forget not Scotland.  
London. Jan. 30. 1646. Your Brother in jesus Christ, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. [51]  
MADAM.  
IT is too like, the Lord's controversy with these two Nations is but yet beginning, & that we are ripened & white for the Lord's sickle. For the particular condition your La: is in, another might speak, (if they would say all) of more sad things. If there were not a fountain of free Grace to water the dry ground & an uncreated wind to breath on withered & dry bones, we were gone. The wheels of Christ's Chariot to pluck us out of the womb of many deaths, are winged like Eagles. All I have, is, to desire to believe that Christ will show all goodwill to save, & as for your La: I know that the Lord Jesus carrieth on no design against you, but seeketh you to save & redeem you: He lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to take you up: His way of redeeming is ravishing & taking: There are more miracles of glorified sinners in heaven, then can be on the earth. Nothing of you, Madam, nay not your leaf can wither: Verily it is a King's life to follow the Lamb: But when ye see him in his own country at home, ye will think ye never saw him before: He shall be admired of all them that believe, 2 Thess 1: 10. Ye may judge how far all your now sad days & toss, changes, losses, wants conflicts, shall then be below you. Ye look to the Cross, now it's above your head & seems to threaten Death as having a Dominion; but it shall then be ●o far below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above it, that ye shall have no leisure to lend one thought to old-dated crosses, in youth, in age, in this country or in that, from this instrumet or from another, except it be to the heightening of your consolation; being now got above & beyond all these. Old age & waxing old as a garment is written on the fairest face of the Creation, Psal. 102: 26, 27. Death from Adam to the second Adam's appearance playeth the King & reigneth over all, the prime heir died, his children which the Lord hath given follow him; & we may speak freely of the life which is here, were it heaven, there were not much gain in godliness: but there a is a rest for the people of God, Christ-man possesseth it now 1600. years before many of his members, but it weareth not out. Grace be with you.  
London. Febr. 16. 1646. Your La: in his sweet Lord, S. R.   

To the Lady ARDROSS. (52)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: It hath seemed good [as I hear] to him who hath appointed a bounds for the number of our months, to gather-in a sheaf of ripe corn [in the death of your Christian Mother] into his garner: It's the more evident that winter is near, when apples without violence of wind, do of their own accord fall off the tree. She is now above the winter, with a little change of place, not of a Saviour, only she enjoyeth him now without messages & in his own immediate presence, from whom she heard by letters & messengers before. I grant, Death is to her a very new thing, but Heaven was prepared of old: & Christ, as enjoyed in his highest throne & as loaden with glory & incomparably exalted above men & Angels, having such a heavenly Circle of glorified harpers & Musicians above, compassing the throne with a song, is to her a new thing; but so new, as the first summer-rose or the first fruits of that heavenly field, or as a new Paradise to a traveller broken & worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a long & dirty way. Ye may easily judge, Madam, what a large recompense is made to all her service, her walking with God, & her sorrows, with the first cast of the soul's eye upon the shining & admirably beautiful face of the Lamb that is in the midst of that fair & white Army that is there, & with the first draught & taste of the fountain of life fresh & new at the wellhead: To say nothing of the enjoying of that face without a date, for more than this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no more to go thither, but to suffer Death to do her this piece of service: For by him who was dead & is alive, she was delivered from the second death: What then is the first death to the second? Not a scratch of the hide of a singer, to the endless second death. And now she fits for eternity mealfree, in a very considerable Land, which hath more than four summers in the year: O what Springtime is there! Even the smelling of the odours of that great & eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for ever & ever? What a singing life is there? There is not a dumb bird in all that large field, but all sing & breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion, to the high Prince of that new found Land. And verily the Land is the sweeter, that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it, & he is the glory of the Land. All which, I hope, doth not so much mitigate & alley your grief for her part [& truly this should seem sufficient] as the unerring exprctation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope ye have the the fruition of that same King and Kingdom to your own soul: Certainly, the hope of it when things look so dark-like on both Kingdoms, must be an exceeding great quickening to languishing spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery to have both a bad way all the day, & no hope of lodging at night? But He hath taken up your lodging for you. I can say no more now but I pray that the very God of peace may establish your heart to the end. I rest.  
London. Febr. 24. 1646. MADAM. Your La: at all respective obedience in the Lord. S. R.   

To M. O. (53)  
Sir.  
I can write nothing for the present concerning these times [what ever others may think] but that which speaketh wrath & judgement to these Kingdoms. If ever ye, or any of that Land received the Gospel in truth [as I am confident, ye and they did] there is here a great departure from that faith, and our sufferings are not yet at an end. However, I dare testify and die for it, that once Christ was revealed in the power of his excellency and glory to the saints there, and in Scotland, of which 〈◊〉 was a witness. I pray God, none dceeive you or take the crown from you: Hell or the gates of Hell cannot ravel, mar, or undo what Christ hath once done amongst you. It may be that I am uncapable of new light, & cannot receive that Spirit [whereof some vainly boast) but that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, & our hands have handled, even the word of life, 1 joh. 1: 2, 3. hath been declared to you: Thousands of thousands walking in that light & that good old way, have gone to heaven & are now before the throne: Truth is but one, & hath no numbers. Christ & Antichrist are both now in the camp, & are come to open blows: Christ's poor ship saileth in a sea of blood, the passengers are so sea-sick of a high fever, that they miscall one another, Christ [I hope] shall bring the broken bark to land: I had rather swim for life & death on an old plank, or a broken board, to land with Christ, then enjoy the rotten peace we have hitherto had. It is like, the Lord will take a severe course with us, to cause the children of the family agree together. I conceive that Christ hath a great design of free grace to these Lands; but his wheels must move over mountains & rocks: He never yet wooed a Bride on earth, but in blood, in fire, & in the wilderness. A cross of our own choosing, honeyed & sugared with consolations, we cannot have: I think not much of a cross when all the children of the house weep with me & for me, & to suffer when we enjoy the communion of Saints, is not much; but it is hard when Saints rejoice in the suffering of Saints & redeemed ones hurt, yea, even go nigh to hate redeemed ones. I confess, I imagined there had no more been such an affliction on earth, or in the world, than that one elect Angel should fight against another: but for contempt of the communion of Saints, we have need of newborn crosses, scarce ever heard of before: the saints are not Christ, there is no misjudging in him, there is much in us, & a doubt it is, if we shall have fully one heart till we enjoy one heaven: our starlight hideth us from ourselves, & hideth us one from another, & Christ from us all; but he will not be hidden from us. I shall wish that all the sons of our father in that Land be of one mind, & that they be not shaken nor moved from the Truth once received: Christ was in that Gospel, & Christ is the same now that he was in the Prelate's time: That Gospel cannot sink, it will make you free & bear you out. Christ, the subject of it, is the chosen of God, & cometh from Bozrah, with garments died in blood. Ireland & Scotland both must be his field in which he shall feed & gather lilies: suppose [which yet is impossible] that some had an eternity of Christ in Ireland, & a sweet summer of the Gospel, & a feast of fat things for evermore in Ireland, & one should never come to heaven, it should be a desirable life; the King's spikenard, Christ's perfume, his apples of love, his ointments, even down in this lower house of clay, are a choice heaven: O what then is the King in his own land! where there is such a throne, so many King's palaces, ten thousand thousands of crowns of glory that want heads yet to fill them: O so much leisure as shall be there to sing! O such a tree as groweth there in the midst of that paradise, where the inhabitants sing eternally under its branches! To look in at a window & see the branches burdened with the apples of life, to be the last man that shall come in thither, were too much for me. I pray you remember me to the Christians there & remember our private Covenant. Grace be with you.  
London April 17. 1646. Your friend in the Lord jesus, S. R.   

To EARLESTOWN Elder. (54)  
Sir.  
I Know ye have learned long ago, ere I knew any thing of Christ, that if we had the Cross at our own election, we would either have law-surety for freedom from it, or then we would have it honeyed & sugared with comforts, so, as the sweet should overmaster the gall & wormwood. Christ knoweth how to breed the sons of his house, & ye will give him leave to take his own way of dispensation with you, & though it be rough, forgive him: he defieth you to have as much patience to him, as he hath born to you. I am sure, there cannot a dram-weight of gall be less in your cup, & ye would not desire, he sold both afflict you & hurt your soul. When his people cannot have a Providence of silk & roses, they must be content with such an one as he carveth out for them: ye would not go to heaven but with company, & ye may perceive that the way of these who went before you, was through blood, sufferings, & many afflictions: Nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door-threshold of Paradise, bleeding to death. I do not think but ye have learned to stoop, though ye (as others) be naturally stiff, & that ye have found that the apples & sweet fruits which grow on that crabbed tree of the Cross are as sweet as it is so ●re to bear it; especially considering that Christ hath born the whole complete Cross, & his Saints bear but bits & chipes, as the Apostle saith The remnants or leave of the Cross. I Judge you ten thousand times happy that ever ye was Grace's debtor, for certainly Christ hath engaged you over head & ears to free Grace, & take the debt with you to Eternity, Immanuel's. highest land, where ye find before you a house-full of Christ's everlasting debtors; the less shame to you. Yea, & this lower Kingdom of Grace is but Christ's Hospital & Guesthouse of sick folks, whom the brave & noble Physician Christ hath cured upon a venture of life & death. And if ye be near the waterside [as I know ye are] all that I can say is this, Sir, that I feel by the smell of that land which is before you, that it's a goodly Country, & it is well payed-for to your hand, & he is before you who will heartily welcome you. O to suck these breasts of full consolation above, & to drink Christ's new wine up in his father's house, is some greater matter than is believed! since it was brewed from eternity for the head of the house, & so many thousand crowned Kings: Rubs in the way where the lodging is so good are not much. He that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal Covenant, establish you to the end.  
London May 15. 1646. Your friend and servant in Christ jesus, S. R.   

To his reverend & worthy Brother Mr G. GILLESPIE. (55)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
I Cannot speak to you: the way ye know the passage is free & not stopped, the print of the footsteps of the forerunner is clear & manifest, many have gone before you: Ye will not sleep long in the dust before the day break: it is a far shorter piece of the hinder-end of the night to you, then to Abraham & Moses, beside all the time of their bodies resting under curruption, it is as long yet to their day as to your morning light of awaking to glory; though their spirits having the advantage of yours, have had now the fore-start of the shore before you. I dare say nothing against his dispensation: I hope to follow quickly: The heirs that are not there before you, are posting with haste after you, & none shall take your lodging over your head. Be not heavy, the life of faith is now called for: doing was never reckoned in your accounts, (though Christ in & by you hath done more, then by twenty, yea an hundred gray-haired & godly Pastors) believing now is your last: Look to that word: Gal. 2: v. 20. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: Ye know the I that liveth, & the I that liveth not: It is not single Ye that liveth, Christ by law liveth in the broken debtor: It is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living of Christ in you: If ye look to yourself as divided from Christ, ye must be more than heavy: All your wants [dear Brother] be upon him, ye are his debtor, Grace must sum & subscribe your accounts as paid: stand not upon Items, & small or little Sanctification: ye know, inherent Holiness must stand by, when imputed is all. I fear the clay-house is a-taking down & undermining; but it is nigh the dawning, look to the East, the dawning of glory is near: your Guide is good company & knoweth all the miles & the up's & down's in the way; the nearer the morning, the darker. Some traveller seeth the city 20 miles off & at a distance; & yet within the eight part of a mile, he cannot see it. It is all keeping, that ye would now have, till ye need it: & if sense & fruition come both at once, it is not your loss: let Christ tutor you as he thinks good; ye cannot be marred nor miscarry in his hand. Want is an excellent qualification, & no money, no price, to you [who, I know, dare not glory in your own righteousness] is ritness warrantable enough to cast yourself upon him who justifieth the ungodly. Some see the gold once, & never again till the race's end: it is coming all in a sum together, when ye are in a more gracious capacity to tell it then now. Ye are not come to the mount that burneth with fire, nor unto blackness, darkness & tempest; but ye are come to mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly jerusalem, & to an innumerable company of Angels, to the general Assembly & Church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, & to God the judge of all, & the Spirits of just men made perfect, & to jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant, & to the blood of sprinkling, etc. Ye must leave the wife to a more choice husband, & the children to a better father. If ye leave any testimony to the Lord's work & Covenant, against both Malignants & Sectaries [which I suppose may be needful] let it be under your hand & subscribed before faithful witnesses.  
St Andrews. Sept. 27. 1648. Your loving & afflicted Brother, S. R.   

To Mistress GILLESPIE. (56)  
Dear Sister.  
I have heard how the Lord hath visited you in removing the child Archibald. I hope ye see the setting down of the weight of your confidence & affection upon any created thing, whether husband or child, is a deceiving thing, & that the Creature is not able to bear your weight, but sinketh down to very nothing under your confidence: and therefore ye are Christ's debtor for all providences of this kind, even in that he buildeth an hedge of thorns in your way, for so ye see, his gracious intention is to save you [If I may say so] whether ye will or not. It is a rich mercy that the Lord Christ will be Master of your will and of all your delights, and that his way is so fair for the landing of husband & children beforehand in the country wherherto ye are journeying. No matter, how little ye be engaged to the world, since ye have such experience of cross-dealing in it: had ye been a child of the house, the world would have dealt more warmly with its own: there is less of you out of heaven that the child is there and the husband is there, but much more that your Head and Kinsman & Redeemer doth fetch home such as are in danger to be lost: & from this time forward, fetch not your comforts from such broken cisterns & dry wells: if the Lord pull at the rest, ye must not be the creature that shall hold when he draweth. Truly to me your case is more comfortable, then if the fireside were well plenished with ten children: the Lord saw ye was able by his grace to bear the loss of husband and child, & that ye are that weak and tender as not to be able to stand under the mercy of a gracious husband living, & flourishing in esteem with Authority, and in reputation for Godliness and Learning: for he knoweth the weight of these mercies would crush you and break you: and a there is no searching out of his understanding, so he hath skill to know what providence will make Christ dearest to you: and let not your heart say, it is an ill wa●led dispensation: sure Christ who hath seven eyes, had before him, the good of a living husband and children for Margaret Murray, & the good of a removed husband and children translated to glo●y; now he hath opened his decree to you: say, Christ hath made for me a wise and gracious choice, and I have not one word to say on the contrary. Let not your heart charge any thing, or Unbeleef libel injuries upon Christ; because he will not let you alone, nor give you leave to play the idolatress with such as have not that right to your love that Christ hath. I should wish, at the reading of this that ye may fall down and make a surrender of these that are gone and these that are yet alive, to him: and for you, let him have all, and wait for himself, for he will come & will not tarry: live by faith, and the peace of God guard your heart: he cannot die whose ye are. My wife suffers with you & remembreth her love to you.  
St Andrews. August. 14. 1649 Your brother in Christ, S. R.   

To the worthy & much honoured Colonel G. KER. (57)  
Much honoured & truly worthy.  
I hope I shall not need to show you that ye are in greater hazard from yourself and your own spirit, which would be watched over [that your actings for God may be clean, spiritual, purely for God, for the Prince of the Kings of the earth] then ye can be in danger from your enemies. O how hard is it to get the intentions so cut off from, and raised above the creature, as to be without mixture of creature and carnall-interests, & to have the soul in heavenly actings only, only eveing himself and acting from love to God revealed to us in Jesus Christ! Ye will find yourself, your delights, your solid glory [far above the air & breathe of mouths, & the thin, short, poor applauses of men] before you in God. All the creatures, all the swords, all the hosts in Britain and in this poor glob of the habitable world, are but under him single cyphers making no number, the product being nothing, & but painted men & painted swords in a broad, without influence from him: And O what of God is in Gideon's sword when it is the sword of the Lord! I wish a sword from heaven to you, & orders from heaven to you to go out, & as much peremptoriness of a heavenly will, as to say & abide by it, I will not, I shall not go out, except thou go with me. I desire not to be rash in judging, but I am a stranger to the mind of Christ, If our Adversaries who have unjustly invaded us be not now in the camp of these that make war with the Lamb; but the lamb shall overcome them at length, for he is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, & they who are with him are called & chosen & faithful: & though ye & I see but the dark side of God's dispensations this day towards Britain, yet the fair beautiful & desirable close of it must be the confederacy of the nations of the world with Britain's Lord of Armies: & let me die in the comforts of the faith of ●●i, that a throne shall be set up for Christ in this Island of great Britain [which is & shall be a garden more fruitful of trees of righteousness, & payeth & shall pay more thousands to the Lord of the vineyard than is paid in thrice the bounds of great Britain upon the earth] And then there can be neither Papist, Prelate, Cavalier, Malignant, nor Sectary who dare draw a sword against him, that sitteth upon the throne. Sir, I shall wish a clean Army so far as may be, that the shout of a King, who hath many crowns, may be among you, & that ye may fight in faith and prevail with God first. Think it your glory to have a sword to act, & suffer, and die (if it please him) so being ye may add any thing to the declarative glory of Christ, the plant of renown, Immanuel God with us: Happy & thrice blessed are they by whose actings, or blood, or pain, or loss; the diadems & rubies of his highest & glorious crown (whose ye are) shall gli●ter and shine in this quarter of the habitable world: Though he need not Gilbert Ker nor his sword; yet this honour have ye with his redeemed soldiers, to call Christ High Lord General, of whom ye hope for pay, and all areers well told: Go on worthy Sir, in the courage of faith, following the Lamb, make not haste unbeleevingly; but in hope & silence keep the watch tower & look out, he will come in his own time, his salvation shall not tarry, he shall place salvation in Britain's Zion, for Israel his glory. His good will who dwelled in the bush & it burned not, be yours, & with you, I am.  
St Andrews. August. 10. 1650. Yours in his sweet Lord jesus, S R.   

To the worthy & much honoured, Colonel G. KER. (58)  
Much honoured & worthy Sir.  
WHat I wrote to you before I spoke not upon any private warrant: I am where I was, Cromwell and his [I shall not say but there may be, & are, several sober & godly amongst them, who have either joined through misinformation, or have gone alongst with the rest in the simplicity of their hearts, not knowing any thing] fight in an unjust cause, against the Lord's secret ones: & now to the trampling of the worship of God & persecuting the people of God in England & Ireland, he hath brought upon his score, the blood of the people of God in Scotland: I entreat you, Dear Sir, as ye desire to be serviceable to Jesus Christ, whose free grace prevented you, when ye were his enemy, go on without fainting, equally eschewing all mixture with Sectaries & Malignants, neither of the two shall ever be instrumental to save the Lords people, or build his house: And without prophesying or speaking further than he whose I am, & whom I desire to serve in the Gospel of his son, shall warrant; I desire to hope, & do believe there is a glory, & a majesty of the Prince of the Kings of the earth, that shall shine & appear in great Britain, which shall Darken all the glory of men, confound Sectaries & Malignants, & rejoice the spirits of the followers of the Lamb, & dazzle the eyes of beholders. Sir, I suppose that God is to gather Malignants & Sectaries ere all be done, as sheaves in a barn-floor; & to bid the Daughter of Zion arise & thresh: I hope ye will mix with none of them: I am abundantly satisfied that our Army through the sinful miscarriage of men hath fallen, & dare say, it is a better & a more comfortable dispensation, then if the Lord had given us the victory and the necks of the reproachers of the way of God, because he hath done it: For. 1. More blood, blasphemies, cruelty, treachery, must be upon the accounts of the men, whose land the Lord forbade us to invade. 2. Victory is such a burdening & weighty mercy, that we have not strength to bear it as yet. 3. That was not the Army nor Gideon's three hinderth, by whom he is to save us. We must have one of the Lord's carving. 4. Our enemies on both sides, are not enough hardened nor we enough mortified to multitude, valour, & Creatures. Grace grace be with you.  
St Andrews. Sept. 5. 1650. Your friend & servant in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the worthy & much honoured Colonel G. KER. (59)  
Much honoured & worthy Sir.  
IT is considerable; that the Lord may, & often doth call to a work, & yet hide himself, & try the faith of his own: If I conceive aright, the Lord hath called you to act against that enemy, & the withdrawers of their sword, in my weak apprehension, add their seal unto, & take upon them the guilt of that unjust invasion of this Land, made by Cromwel's Army, & of the blood of the Lord's people in this Kingdom; since the sword put into the hand of his Children is to execute wrath & vengeance upon evil doers: the Lord's time of appearing for his broken Land, is reserved to the breathe of the Spirit of the Lord, such as came upon Gideon & Samson, & that is an Act of princely & royal sovereignty in God: Ye are, Sir, to lay hold on opportunities of providence & to wait for him. As for your parcular treating by yourselves with the invaders of our land, I have no mind to it, & do look upon their way as a carriing on of the mystery of iniquity [for Babylon is a seat of many names] Sir, let this controversy stand undecided till the second appearance of Jesus Christ, & our Appeal lie before the throne undiscussed till that day: I hope to lie down in the grave, in the faith of the justness of our cause: I speak nothing of the maintaining the greatness of men, not subordinate to the Prince of the Kings of the earth: I Judge that the blood of the witnesses of Jesus is found upon the skirts of this society; asweel as in Babylon's skirts: I believe the way of the Lord is Col: Gilbert Ker's strength, & glory, & should be countent to want my part of him (which is, I confess, precious & dear in Christ) so, he be spent in the service of him, who will anon make inquisition for the blood of the truly godly, which these men have shedafter fair warning that they were the godly of Scotland. Worthy Sir, believe, faint not, set your shoulder under the glory of Jesus, that is misprised in Scotland, & give a testimony for him, he hath many names in Scotland who shall walk with him in white: This despised Covenant shall ruin Malignants, Sectaries & Atheis●s: Yet a little while & behold he cometh, & walketh in the greatness of his strength, & his garments died with blood. Oh for the sad & terrible day of the Lord upon England, their ships of Tarshish, their fenced Cities, etc. because of a broken Covenant! A conference with the & enemy, not to hinder Acting [O that the Lord would thereby or some other way remove the cloud that is over you] if authority would concur, were to be desired, but it can hardly be expected; however in the way of duty & in the silence of faith go on, if ye perish, ye are the first of the creation with whom the Lord hath taken that dispensation. I should humbly advise you Sir, to look to that, Dying & behold we live, killed all the day long, & yet more than conquerors. There shall be the heat & warmness of life in your graves, & buried bones: But look not for the Lord's coming the higher way only, for he may come the lower way: O how little of God do we see, & how mysterious is he! Christ known is amongst the greatest secrets of God: Keep yourself in the love of God, & in order to that, as far in obedience & subjection to the King (whose salvation & true happiness my soul desireth) & to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, & to the foundamentall laws of this kingdom, as your Lord requireth. Sir, ye are in the hearts & prayers of the Lord's people in this kingdom, & in the other two: The Lord hath said, There is a blessing in the cluster of grapes, destroy it not. Grace, grace be upon the head of him that is separated from his brethren, & the goodwill of him that dwelled in the bush be with you.  
Perth 23. Nou. 1650. Your servant in his sweet Lord jesus, S. R.   

To the worthy & much honoured, Colonel G. KER. (60.)  
Much honoured & worthy Sir.  
I know not why the people of God should not take notice of the bonds of any, who have blood in readiness to be let out for his cause: And I judge it was not of you, that ye died not in the undecided controversy, which the Lord of the whole earth hath with the men, whom he hath sent against us. Dear & much honoured in the Lord, Let me entreat you to be far from the thoughts of leaving this Land: I see it, & find it, that the Lord hath covered the whole land with a cloud in his anger; but though I have been tempted to the like, I had rather be in Scotland, beside angry Jesus Christ, knowing he mindeth no evil to us; then in any Eden or garden in the earth: If we can remain united with the Lords remant in the land, he layeth up wrath for all sort of Adversaries in Britain: Though I never see the glory of his glistering sword shining in Britain, I would be solaced in the innocent thoughts [far from revenge] that the saints shall dip their feet in the blood of the s●ain of the Lord: & truly Sir, I suppose, ye cannot but come to these thoughts & weak desires, before the hearer of prayers, for as little as ye think of, & value yourself: for me, if I could mind you in your bonds, I purpose not to stand to the account ye give, or thoughts ye have, of yourself; though I know ye are not in a whit more or less before him (who weigheth his own according to the weight of imputed righteousness,] for my apprehensions. Christ cannot mistake you men may, & the calculation & esteem of free grace maketh you to be what ye are. I hope to see you an everlastingly obliged debtor to him, whom ye shall praise, but never pay: And truly, ye have no riches but that debt, and I know ye Love to be engaged to Jesus Christ, the most excellent of creditors: much joy & sweetness may ye have in standing written in his book: I desire to do it myself, & I would have you also, highly to esteem the design of Christ, who hath raised the riches of the glory of so much grace, above the Circle of the heaven of heavens out of very nothings, & contrived his thoughts of love, so, that ' lumps of glorified clay, should stand before him for all ages, the burdenes & loaden debtors of free, eternally free grace. Sir, ye cannot cast the count of the rents of your so great inheritance of glory. Grace be with you.  
Edinb: May. 18. 1651. Your servant in his own Lord jesus, S. R.   

[To the much honoured & truly worthy, Colonel G. KER. Habakuk 2: 3, 4. (61.)  
Much honoured & worthy Sir.  
YOur chains now shine as much for Christ, the cause being his, as your sword was made famous in acting for that cause: And blessed are such as can willingly tender to Christ both action & blood, doing & suffering: Resisting unto blood is little for that precious & never-enough exalted Redeemer, who when ye were a buying, gave blood somewhat dearer than ye gave for him, even the blood of God, Act. 20: 28. I know a man who upon the receipt of a letter that ye were killed, & the people of God destroyed, wished that he might be quickly under the wall of the higher palace, from under the dint of the storm, & who longed to have the weatherbeaten & crazy bark safely landed in that harbour of eternal quietness. What further service Christ hath for you I know not, it is enough, in that your captivity ye offer your service to Christ; but if I see any thing it looks like a merciful defeat. I see the Nobles & the State falling off from Christ, & the night coming upon the Prophets, which we would pray to prevent, because it is a rare thing to see a fallen star win ever up again to the firmament to shine: And what if this be the thick darkness going before the break of day. Sure, Sir, the Sun shall rise upon Scotland; but if I shall see it, or how near it is to day, I leave that to him, even unto jehovah, who creates upon every dwelling in mount Zion, & upon her assemblies a cloud, & a smoke by day, & the shining of a flaming fire by night. But, Sir, the wilderness shall rejoice & blossom as a rose, & happy he, who hath a bone or an arm, to put the Crown upon the head of our highest King, whose chariot is paved with love: were there ten thousand millions of heavens created above these highest heavens, & again & as many above them, & as many above them, till Angels were wearied with counting, it were but too low a seat to fix the princely throne of that Lord Jesus [whose ye are] above them all: Created heavens are too low a seat of majesty for him. Since than there is none equal to your master & Prince, who hath chosen out for you amongst many sufferings for sin, that only cross, which cometh nearest in likeness to his own cross, watered with consolations, take courage, & comfort yourself in him who hath chosen you to glory hereafter & to a conformity with him here: we fools would have a cross of our own choosing, & would have our gall & wormwood sugared, our fire cold, & our death & grave warmed with heat of life; but he who hath brought many children to glory & lost none, is our best Tutor. I wish when I am sick that he may be keeper & comforter. I judge it a blessed fall, that we are forfeited Heirs, broken & out of credit, & that Christ is become a Tutor in the place of Freewill, & that we are no more our own. I am broken & wasted with the wrath that is on the land, & have been much tempted with a design to have a Pass from Christ, which if I had, I would not stay to be a witness of our defection for no man's entreaty; but I know it is my softness & weakness who would ever be ashore when a fit of sea-sickness cometh on; Though I know I shall come soon-enough to that desirable country, & shall not be displaced, none shall take my lodging. Sir, many eyes are upon you, & the Godly are exceedingly refreshed that ye listen not to the ways of many about you, who with fair words make merchandise of souls. Sir, if the way you are in be not the way of Christ, than woe to me, for I am eternally lost; but truly, the Lord Christ's dealing with with Col: Gilbert Ker hath proven to me that the new restament & the covenant of grace is a piece, that a solemn meeting and assembly of all created Angels, join all their wits together, could not have devised: since Sir, ye paid nothing for the change that Christ made, & ye will take that debt of free grace to heaven with you, [for what was Christ Jesus indebted to you more than to all your kindred & name?] Therefore since ye are made his own, follow no other way. What is my salvation though I should lay it in pawn, [It is but a poor pledge] that this, this only is the way; but Christ is surety himself that it is the way, the forerunner went before you, and he is safely landed, & there is a fair company before you of such as have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their garments, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; to whom these promises are now performed, he that overcomes shall eat of the tree of life, that is in the midst of the Paradise of God, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall therebe any more pain: He that siteth on the throne shall dwell among them; they shall hunger no more neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall take them unto the living fountains of waters. I may, Sir, possibly keep you from better work: The God of peace th●t brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect.  
St. Andrews. Jan. 7. 1651. Yours in jesus Christ. S. R.   

To the much honoured and truly worthy, Colonel G. K E R. (62)  
Much honoured and worthy Sir.  
I have heard of your continued captivity in England as well as in this afflicted land; but go where ye will, ye cannot go from under your shadow, which is broader than many Kingdoms: Ye change lodgings and countries, but the same Lord is before you: if ye were carried away captive to the other fide of the sun, or as far as the rising of the morningstar; It is spoken to your Mother who hath yet received no bill of divorce, which was written to Judah. Mic: 4: 10: Be in pain and labour to bring forth, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in travel: for now shall thou go fort●out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon, there shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies. England shall be countable for you, to render you back, Isai. 44: 6. I will say to the North give up, and to the South, keep not back. It's a sermon that flesh and blood laughteth at, Ezek. 37: 4. Prophesy upon these dry bones, and say unto them; O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! It is a preaching to the cold grave. Thus saith the Lord unto the bones, behold I will cause breath enter into you, and ye shall live, and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin & put breath in you & ye shall live. Rev. 20: 13. And the sed gave up the dead that were in it. Berwick must render back the Scottish captives, & Col. Gilbert Ker with them. Isa. 43: v. 14 For thus saith the Lord your Redeemer the holy one of Israel, for your sake I have sent to Babylon, & have brought down all their Nobles, and the Chaldeans whose cry is in the ships. Deut. 30: 4. If any of them be driven out to the utmost parts of heaven, from 〈◊〉 will the Lord thy God gather thee, & from thence will he fetch thee Zech. 8: 7. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold I will save my People from th● cast country, and from the west country, and I will bring them and they shall dwell in the midst of jerusalem, & they shall be my People, & I will be their God in truth & in righteousness. Sir, ye are both booked by the Lord, who writeth up the People Ps. 87: 5, 6. And counted to the Lord, as one of the house & stock. Ps. 22: 30. Fear not, faint not, all your hairs are numbered. It is the desire of the People of God, that as your bonds hitherto have been exemplary, to the strengthening of the seeble, & to the stopping of the Mouth of the adversary, without any declining to the right or left hand, so your sufferings in the place ye now go to, may be [as we are confident in the Lord of you, and in humility boast of his grace in you] savoury, convincing, and like unto this honourable cause, that will prevail in Britain, contrary to all the Machinations and counsels of Devils & men, & though there were no other ink in the pen I now write with, but some dewing of my last cooling blood, this I purpose [his grace, whose I am, enabling me] to Stand too. Sir, we desire to adore no instruments, yet we conceive the shining & rays of grace from the fountain jesus Christ, the fullness of the Godhead, bestowed on sinfulmen, hold forth the good thoughts of Christ to this poor land, whose multipied graves, and whose souls under the Altar, slain by Sestaries & Malignants, cry aloud to heaven: I see nothing Sir, if the Lord be not near [though I dare not say how soon] to awak for the year of Zion's controversy, Isai. 34: 5. for my sword shall be bathed in heaven. behold it shall come down upon England and the residue of his enemies in Scotland. Woe is me for England, that land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness: That pleasant land shall be wilderness, & the dust of their land pitch: A judgement upon their walled towns ' th●… pleasant fields, their strong ships &c, if they do not repent. Ye have not I conceive, seen such searching & trying times as now these are, & yet the question will be drawn to a more narrow state & multitudes will yet leave the cause; for we took all in to the Covenant that offered to build with us, but Christ must have but a small remnant: few Nobles if any, few Ministers, few Professors; though our way standeth unchanged, 2 Cor. 6: 8. by honour & di honour by good report & evil report, as dece●…ers & yet true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold we live, as chastened and yet not killed. Neither is this your condition alone, but the experienced lot of all the saints that have gone before you. It is one & the same cross of Christ, but there be sundry faces & divers circumstances in the same remnant, the sufferings of Christ, & yours. Sir, to be delivered to Soldiers, & in captivity, looketh like his sufferings, of whom Isaiah saith Chap. 53: 8. he was taken from prison, & from judgement, yea & taken bound, joh. 18: 12. when the cause is the truth of God, the lustre and face of suffering is somuch the more lovely, that it hath the hue & colour of Christ's sufferings, who endured contradiction of sinners, and despised the shame: O it is a great word, Christ shamed and Christ abased! but thus was the Head & so are the members dealt with in the world: and truly any thing of Christ even the worst of him (to speak so) his reproach and shame are lovely. Though superstitious love to the material cross he suffered upon, be foolery, & doting upon the holy grave be cursed idolatry; yet is there a communion with him in his sufferings most desirable, 1 Pet. 4: 15. but rejoice in as much as ye are Partakers of Christ's sufferings: in which sense, the cup that his lip touched, hath th● sweeter taste, even though death were in it: The grave, because He did lie in it, is so much the softer, & the more refreshful a bed of rest: And that part of the sky & clouds that the Beloved shall break through & come to judgement, it is as lovely a piece of the created heaven as any is, if we may love the ground he goeth on the better; But all this is to be understood in a spiritual manner. The Lord calleth you, Sir, [upon whom the Spirit of God & his glory resteth] too put your soul's Amen to this dispensation, & requireth of us that our desires follow the now-declared decree of God concerning the desolation of our sinful land, so many ways guilty of a despised Gospel and a broken Covenant, and that with all submission: Certainly no man hath failed more in this thing than he who writeth to you; for I have brought my health in great hazard, and tormented my spirit with excessive grief so▪ our present provocations & the renting of our Kirk; and I see it is a challenging of, & a bold pleading against him, upon whose ●…er the government is, Isa. 22: 2●. The Father hath ●ut a glorious 〈◊〉 〈…〉 Christ, v. 23. & I will fasten him as a na●… a sure place, and he shall be for a glorious throne to his Father's house. v. 24. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity; from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of slagons. Our unbelieving apprehensions do so quarrel at the prosperity of enemies in an evil cause, that we wrestle with defeats, spoiling, captivity of the Godly, killing of his people, the wasting of our land, starving and famishing of the Kingdom, which is worse than the sword; but this is a sinful coutradicting of the Lord's revealed decree: His wisdom saith Spoiling & desolation is best for Scotland, & we say, Not, & so accuse Christ of misgovernment, & of not being true to the trust put upon him: But since he doth not drag the government at his heels, but hath it upon his shoulder, & since the 〈◊〉 fastened in a sure place cannot be broken, nor can the smallest vessel fail to find sweet security in dependence upon him, since all the weight of heaven & earth, of redeemed saints & confirmed Angels, is upon his shoulder; I am a fool, & brutish to imagine, that I can add any thing to Christ's special care of & tenderness to his people: He who keepeth the basons & knives of his house, & bring●th the vessels back again to the second temple Ezra: 1: 8, 9, 10. must have a more tender care of his redeemed ones, then of a spoon, or of Peter's old shoes, which yet must not be lost in his captivity Act. 12: 8. O for grace to suffer Christ to tutor his own Minors & young Heirs! But we cannot endure to be under the actings of his government: We love too much to be our own: O how sweet to be wholly Christ's, & wholly in Christ! To be out of the creatures owning, & made complete in Christ, to live by faith in Christ, & to be once for all clo●… with the 〈◊〉 Majesty & glory of the Son of God, wherein he makes all his friends and followers sharers! To dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and live in that sweetest air, where no wind bloweth, but the breathe of the Holy Ghost! No seas or sloods flow, but the pure water of life, that proceedeth from under the throne and from the Lamb: No planting but the tree of life, that yieldeth twelve manner of fruits every month: What do we here but fin and suffer? O when shall the night be gene, the shadows 〈◊〉 away and the morning of that long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn! The Spirit & the Bride say Co●…, O when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say Come! Worthy Sir, I mind you to the hearer of prayer, O help me in that kind! The Spirit of Jesus be with your Spirit.  
S. Andrews, May. 14. 1651. Yours in his only, only Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (63)  
MADAM.  
GRace● mercy & peace be to you: We are fallen in win●owing & trying times: I am glad that your breath serveth you to run to the end, in the same condition & way wherein ye have walked these twenty years past: It is either the way of peace, or, we are yet in our sins, & have miss the way: the Lord [it's true] hath stained the pride of all our glory, & now last of all the sun hath gone down upon many of the Prophets; but stumble not, men are men, & God appeareth more & more to be God, & Christ it still Christ. Madam, stronger than I am, had, almost stumbled me & cast me down; But O what mercy is it, to discern betwixt what is Christ's & what is man's, & what way the hue, colour & lustre of gifts & grace, dazzle & deceive our weak eyes! Oh to be dead to all things that are below Christ, were it even a created heaven & created grace! Holiness is not Christ, nor are the blossoms & flowers of the tree of life, the tree itself: Men & creatures may wind themselves in between us & Christ; & therefore the Lord hath done much to take out of the way all betwixt him and us: There are not in our way now, Kings, or Armies, or Nobles, or Judicatories, or strong holds, or watchmen, or godly professors: The fairest things & most eminent in Britain are stained and have lost their lustre: Only, only Christ keeps his greenness & beauty, & remaineth what he was: Oh! If he were more & more ezcellent to our apprehensions then ever he was [whose excellency is above all apprehensions] & still more & more sweet to our taste, I care for nothing, if so be I were nearer to him, & yet he flieth not from me, I flee from him, but he pursueth. I hear your La: hath the same esteem of the despised cause & Covenant of our Lord, ye had before: Madam, hold you there: I dare & would gladly breathe out my spirit in that way, with a nearer communion & fellowship with the Father & the Son, & would seek no more, but, that I might die, believing: And also I would hope that the earth shall not cover the blood of the Godly slain in Scotland; but that the Lord will make inquisition for their blood, when the sufferings of the saints in these lands shall be fulfilled. The goodwill of him that dwelled in the bush be with you.  
Glasgow. Sept: 28. 1651. Your La: at all observance in the Lord jesus, S. R   

To my Lady KENMURE. (64.)  
MADAM.  
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I know, ye think of an out-going & that your quartering in Time, and your abode in this life is short; for we flee away as a shadow, the declining of the Sun & the lengthening of the shadow saith, our journey is short & near the end: I speak it because I have warnings of my removal. Madam, I know not any, against whom the Lord is not: for he is against the proud and lofty, the day of the Lord is upon all the Cedars, upon all the high mountains, upon every high tower and upon every fenced wall, upon all the ships of Tarshish &, upon all pleasant pictures. I know not any thing comparable to a nearness & spiritual communion with the Father & the Son Christ: there is much deadness & witheredness upon many spirits, sometimes near to God: and I wish the Lord have not more to say & to do against the Land. Ye have, Madam, in your accounts, mercies deliverances, rods, warnings, plenty of means, consolations, when refuge failed you, when ye looked on the right hand, & behold no man would know you nor care for your soul, when young & weak, manifestations of God, the out-going of the Lord for you, experiences, answers from the Lord; by all which ye may be comforted now & confirmed in the certain hope that Grace, free Grace in a fixed & established Surety, shall perfect that good work in you: happy they who see not & yet believe. Grace, grace eternally in our Lord Jesus be with you.  
Edinburgh. May. 27. 1653. Yours in the Lord jesus, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (65)  
MADAM.  
I have been so long silent that I am almost ashamed now to speak. I hear of your weakly condition of body which speaketh some warning to you, to look for a longer life, where ye shall have more leisure to praise then Time can give you here: it shall be a loss to many, but sure, yourself, Madam, shall he only free of any loss. And truly considering what days we are now fallen into, if failing were not serving of the Lord [which I can hardly attain] a calm harbour were very good, when storms are so high: The forerunner who hath landed first, must help to bring the sea-beaten vessel safe to the port, & the sick passengers who are following the forerunner, safe ashore. Much deadness prevaile●…h over some; but there is much life in him who is the resurrection and though life, to quicken. O what of our hid life is without us, & how little & poor a stock is in the hand of some! The only wise God supply what is wanting: the more ye want, & the more your joy hath run on, the more is owing to you by the promise of Grace: by gons of waterings from heaven, which your La: wanted in Kenmure, Rusco, the West, Clasgow, Edinburgh, England, etc. Shall all come in a great sum together: the marriage-supper of the Lamb must not be marred with too large a fourhours-refreshment. Know, Madam, he who hath tutoured you from the breasts, knoweth how to time his own day-shinings & love-visits. Grace that runs on, be with you,  
St. Andrews. Yours in the Lord at all observance: S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (66)  
MADAM.  
I Confess I have cause to be grieved at my long silence or Laziness in writing: I am also afflicted to hear, that such, who were debtors to your La: for better dealing, have served you with such prevarication: Ye know crookedness is neither strong nor long-enduring, & ye know likewise that these things spring not out of the dust: It's sweet to look upon the lawless & sinful stir of the creatures, as ordered by a most holy hand in heaven O if some could make peace with God It would be our wisdom, & afford us much sweet peace, if oppressors were looked upon as passive instruments, like the saw or axe in the Carpenter's hand; they are bidden [if such a distinction may be admitted] but not commanded of God (as Shimei was, 2. Sam. 16: 10.) to do what they do. Madam, these many years the Lord hath been teaching you, to read & study well the book of holy, holy & spotless sovereignty, in suffering from some nigh hand & some far off: Whoever be the instruments, the replying of ●lay to the Potter, the Former of all, is unbeseeming the nothing creature: I hope he shall clear you, but when Zion's public evils lie not nigh some of us, & leave no impression upon our hearts, it is no wonder that we be exercised with domestic troubles; but I know ye are taught of God to prefer Jerusalem to your chiefest joy. Madam, there is no cause of fainting: Wait upon the not-carrying vision, for it will speak. The only wise God be with you, & God even your own God bless you.  
St Andrews June. 1657. Yours at all observance in God, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. [67.]  
MADAM.  
I Should not forget you; but my deadness under a threatning-stroke, both of a failing Church, a broken Covenant, a despised remnant, & craziness of body [that I cannot get a piece sickly clay carried about from one house or town to another] lies most he●vy on me: The Lord hath removed Scotland's crown; for we owned not his crown; we fretted at his Catholic Government of the world, & fretted that he would not be ruled & led by us, in breaking our adversaries; & he makes us suffer & pine away in our in quities under the broken Government of his house. It's like, it would be our snare to be tried with the honour of a peaceable Reformation, we might mar the carved work of his house worse than th●se against whom we cry out. It's like he hath bidden us lie on our left side three hundred & ninety days, & yet so astonishing is our stupidity, that we ●…oan not our sore side: Our gold is become dim the visage of our Nazarites is become black, the Sun is gone down on our See●s, the crown is fallen from our head, we roar like bears. Lord save us from that, He that hath made them, will not have me●●, on them. The heart of the Scribe meditats terror. Oh, Madam if the Lord would help to more, self-judging, and to make sure an interest in Christ! Ah, we forget eternity, & it approacheth quickly. Grace be with you.  
St Andrew's, 20 Nou. 1657. Your La: at all obedience in the Lord, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. (68)  
MADAM.  
I am ashamed of my long silence to your L●: Your tossing & wander are known to him, upon whom ye have been cast from the breasts, & who hath been your God of old. The temporal loss of creatures dear to you there, may be the more easily endured, that the gain of one who only hath immortality groweth. There is an universal complaint of deadness of spirit on all that know God; he that writes to you, Madam, is as deep in this as any, & is afraid of a strong & hot battle before time be at a close; but no matter if the Lord crown all with the victorious triumphing of faith. God teacheth us by terrible things in righteousness: we see many things, but we observe nothing. Our drink is sour, grey hairs are here & there on us, & we change many Lords & Rulers; but the same bondage of soul & body remains: We live little by faith, but much by sense, according to the times, & by humane policy: The watchmen sleep, & the people perish for lack of knowledge. How can we be enlightened when we turn our back on the Sun? And must we not be withered when we leave the fountain? It should be my only desire to be a minister gifted with the white stone & the new name written on it. I judge it were fit [now when tall Professors, & when many stars fall from heaven, & God poureth the Isle of great Britain from vessel to vessel, & yet we sit & are settled on our lees] to consider [as sometimes I do, but, ah, rarely] how irrecoverable a ●oe it is, to be under a beguile in the matter of eternity; & what if I who can have a subscribed testimonial of many, who shall stand at the right hand of the judge, shall miss Christ's approving testimony, & be set upon the left hand among the goats? there is such a beguile, Math. 7: 22. Math. 25: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Luke 13. 25, 26. And i● befalls many, & what if it befall me, who have but too much art to cousin my own soul & others with the flourish of ministerial or Countrey-holiness? Dear Lady, I am afraid of prevailing security, we watch little, [I have mainly relation to myself] we wrettle little: I am like one travelling in the night, who sees a Spirit & sweats for fear, & dare not tell it to his fellow for increasing his own fear; however, I am sure when the Master is nigh his coming, it were safe to write over a double & new copy of our accounts, of the sins of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, & old age. What if Christ have another written representation of me than I have of myself, sure his is right, & if it contradict my mistaking & sinfully erroneous account of myself, ah where am I then? But, Madam, I discourage none, I know Christ hath made a new marriage contract of love, & sealed it with his blood, & the trembling believer shall not be confounded. Grace be with you.  
St Andrews, May 26. 1659. Yours at all obedience in Christ, S. R.   

To my Lady KENMURE. [69]  
MADAM.  
I should be glad that the Lord would be pleased to lengthen our more time to you, that ye might yet before your eyes be shut, see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord, in reviving a now-swooning and crushed Land & Church. Though I was lately knocking at death's gate, yet could I not get in, but was sent back for a time. It is well, if I could yet do any service to him; but ah what deadness lieth upon the spirit! & deadness breedeth distance from God. Madam, These many years the Lord hath let you see a clear difference betwixt these who serve God, 〈◊〉 love his name, & these who serve him not: & I judge ye look upon the way of Christ as the only best way, & that ye would not exchange Christ for the world's God, or their Mammon, & that ye can give Christ a testimony of chief among ten thousand: True it is, that many of us have fallen from our first love; but Christ hath renewed his first love of our espousals to himself, & multiplied the seekers of God all the country over, even where Christ was scarce named, East & West & South & North, above the number that our fathers ever knew. But ah! Madam, what shall be done or said of many fallen stars, and many near to God, complying woefully and failing to the nearest shore? Yea, & we are consumed in the furnace but not melted, burnt but not purged, our dross is not removed, but our scum remains in us: & in the furnace we fret, we faint & [which is more strange] we slumber: The fire burneth round about us, & we lay it not to heart: Grey hairs are upon us & we know it not. It were now a desirable life to send away our love to heaven, & well becometh it us to wait on for the appointed change, yet so as we should be meditating thus, Is there a new world above the Sun & moon, & is there such a blessed company harping & singing Hallelujahs to the lamb up above? Why then are we taken with a vain life of sighing & sinning? O where is our wisdom that we sit still laughing, eating, sleeping prisoners, & do not pack up all our best things for the journey, desiring always to be clothed with our house from above, not made with hands! Ah, we savour not the things that are above, nor do we smell of glory ere we come thither, but we transact & agree with Time for a new lease of clay-mansions: Behold he cometh we sleep, & turn all the work of duties into a dispute of events for deliverance; but the greatest haste, to be humbled for a broken & a buried Covenant, is first & last forgotten: And all our grief is, the Lord lingers, enemy's triumph, Godly ones suffer, Atheists blaspheme. Ah, we pray not! but wonder that Christ cometh not the higher way by might, by power, by garments rolled in blood! What if he come the lower way? sure, we sin in putting the book in his hand, as if we could teach the Almighty knowledge: we make haste, we believe not: Let the only wise God alone, he stirs well, he draws strait lines, though we think & say they are crooked: It is right that some should die & their breasts full of milk, & yet we are angry that God dealeth so with them. O if I could adore him in his hidden ways, when there is darkness under his feet & darkness his pavilion & clouds about his throne! Madam, hoping, believing, patient praying is our life: he lo●●s no time. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.  
St Andrews 12: Sept. 16●5. Yours at all obliged observance in Christ. S. 〈◊〉.   

To his reverend & dear Brethren. MR GUTHRIE, MR TRAIL, And the rest of their Brethren imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh. (70.)  
Reverend, Very Dear, & now much honoured Prisoners for Christ.  
I Am, as to the point of light, at the out-most of perswassion in that kind, that this is the cause of Christ ye now suffer for, & not men's interest: If it be for men, let us leave it; but if we plead for God, our own personal sa●… and man's deliverance will not be peace. There is a salvation called the salvation of God, which is cleanly, pure, spiritual, unmixed, near to the holy Word of God; it is that which we would seek, even the favour of God that he bears to his people, not simple gladness, but the gladness & goodness of the Lord's chosen: And sure [though I be the weakest of his witnesses & unworthy to be among the meanest of them, & 〈◊〉 afraid the Cause be hurt [but it cannot be lost] by my unbelieving faintness] I should not desire a deliverance separated from the deliverance of the Lord's Cause & People: It is enough to me to sing when Zion sings, & to triumph when Christ triumpheth. I should judge it an unhappy joy, to rejoice when Zion sigheth. Not one hoof will be your peace. If Christ doth own me, let me be in the grave in a bloody winding-sheet, & go from the scaffold in four quarters to a grave, or no grave, I am his debtor to seal with sufferings this precious truth; but Oh when it comes to the push, I dare say nothing, considering my weakness, wickedness & faintness! But fear not ye, ye are not, ye shall not be alone, the Father is with you: It was not an unseasonable, but a seasonable & necessary duty, ye were about: Fear him who is Sovereign, Christ is Captain of the Castle, & Lord of the keys. The cooling wellspring & refreshment from the promises, is more than the swooning of the furnace. I see snares & temptations in capitulating, composing, ceding, minching with distinctions of circumstances, formalities, compliments & extenuations in the Cause of Christ: A long spoon, the broth is hell's hot: Hold a distance from carnal compositions, & much nearness to the fountain, to the favour & refreshing light from the Father of lights, speaking in his oracles; this is sound health & salvation. Angels, men, Zion's Elders eye us; but what of all these, Christ is by us & looks on us & writes up all: Let us pray more & look less to men. Remember me to Mr Scot & all the rest. Blessings be upon the head of such as are separated from their Brethren: joseph is a fruitful bough by a well. Grace be with you.  
S. Andrew's, 1660. Your loving Brother & companion in the Kingdom & patience of jesus Christ, S. R.   

To Mr ROBERT campbel. (71.)  
Reverend & dear Brother.  
YE know this is a time in which all men almost seek their own things & not the things of Jesus Christ: year your alone, as a beacon on the top of a mountain; but saint not, Christ is a numerous multitude himself, yea millions: though all the nations were convened against him round about, yet doubt not but he will at last arise for the cry of the poor & needy. For me, I am now near to eternity, & for ten thousand worlds I dare not adventure to pass from the Protestation against the corruptions of the time, nor go alongst with the shameless apostasy of the many silent & dumb watchmen of Scotland: but I think it my la ●●my to enter a Protestation in heaven before the righteous Judge, against the practical & legal breach of Covenant, and all Oaths imposed on the consciences of the Lord's people, & all Popish, superstitious and idolattous mandates of men: Know that the overthrow of the 〈◊〉 Reformation, the introducing of Popery & the Mystery of Iniquity, is now set on foot in the three Kingdoms, & whosoever would keep their garments clean are under that command, Touch not, 〈◊〉 not, handle not. The Lord calls you, Dear Brother, to be still steadfast, unmoveable, a●d abundant in the work of the Lord. Our royal Kingly Master is upon his journey, & will come & will not ●●rry, & bl●ssed is the servant who shall be found watching, when he cometh: fear not men, for the Lord is your light & salvation. It is true, it's somewhat sad & comfortless that ye are your alone, but so it was with our precious Master: nor are ye your alone, for the father is with you. It is possible I shall not be an eye-witness to it to the flesh, but I believe he comes quickly, who will remove our darkness, & will shine gloriously in the Isle of Britain, as a crowned King, either in a formally sworn Covenant, or in his own glorious way, which I leave to the determination of his infinite wisdom and goodness: & this is the hope & confidence of a dying man who is longing & fainting for the salvation of God. Beware of the ensuaring bonds and obligations by any hand-writ or other waves, to give unlimited obedience to any authority, but only in the Lord: for all innocent self-defence, [which is according to the Covenant, the Word of God & the laudable example of the Reformed Churches] is now intended to be utterly subverted and condemned: and what is taken from Christ, as the slower of his Prerogative Royal, is now put upon the head of a mortal power, which must be that great, idol of 〈◊〉 that provok●… the eyes of his glory. Dear Brother, let us 〈◊〉▪ the rich promises that are made to these that overcome, knowing that these that endure to the end shall be saved. Thus recommending you to the rich grace of God, I remain.  
St. Andrews. 1661. Your affectionate Brother in Christ.   
FINIS.