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 UNITED STATES OF AMEKIC 
 
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 GARDEN OF SPICES: 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE 
 
 jjettgious letters of |jeu. Jjamufl |[tttkrfarJ, 
 
 REV. LEWIS R. DUNN: 
 
 HISTORICAL AXD BIOGRAPHICAL ESS A K 
 
 REV. A. C. GEORGE, D. D., 
 
 An Introduction by Rev. T. L. Cnyler, D. D. 
 
 
 CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 
 
 NEW YORK: CARLTON & LANAHAN. 
 
 1869 
 
OF C9NORB**] 
 WASHINGTON] 
 
 -f£ 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S6S, by 
 
 HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of Ohio. 
 
||uMishsrs' Mxrtics* 
 
 SINGULAR coincidence attended the pro- 
 duction of this valuable volume. The 
 names of Rev. L. R. Dunn, of Jersey 
 City, New Jersey, and Rev. A. C. George, of St. 
 Louis, Missouri, are found on the title-page. The 
 minds of these two ministers were simultaneously 
 drawn to the precious Letters of Rutherford, and 
 both were impressed with the idea of the value of a 
 volume of extracts of the holy and devout sayings 
 of this remarkable man. Both, one in the far East 
 and one in the far West, spent most of the Winter 
 of 1867-68 in selecting and arranging extracts for 
 a volume. In the Spring of 1868 Mr. Dunn sub- 
 mitted his arrangement to the Book Concern in New 
 York, and Dr. GEORGE submitted his collections to 
 the Book Concern in Cincinnati. The editors of 
 
4 Publishers" Notice. 
 
 books in the two departments soon passed upon the 
 volumes submitted to them, and recommended them 
 for publication. Just before commencing the work 
 of publishing them it was discovered that each 
 Concern was about to issue nearly the same book. 
 Notice was given to the two compilers, and they 
 met with their manuscripts in Chicago, and, on 
 comparison, it was found, strangely enough, that 
 the extracts and arrangement of the two compilers 
 were almost identical. It was amicably agreed 
 that the selection of extracts made by Mr. Dunn 
 should be the basis of publication, and the intro- 
 duction to the work which had been procured 
 from Dr. Cuyler should be retained, and the ex- 
 cellent biographical essay of Dr. George should 
 precede the work. In this form the book is now 
 published. We trust that the fact of these two 
 minds being drawn to the same work is indicative 
 of a want for it, and of the welcome the public 
 will give it, while the fact that the extracts made 
 by two different persons were nearly the same, is 
 evidence that the selection is the best that could 
 be made from The Letters of Rutherford. 
 
able af Cm^tBtxts. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 7 
 
 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY, ... 13 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Christ, 35 
 
 SECTION II. 
 The Cross and the Crown, 57 
 
 SECTION III. 
 Suffering for Christ, 79 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 Tm: World and Christ 90 
 
 SECTION V. 
 I Tow to Seek Christ, 101 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 Tin Higher Life, 108 
 
6 Table of Contents. 
 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 Rutherford's Rules for Holy Living, 
 
 PAGE. 
 139 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 
 The Uses of Affliction, 
 
 146 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 
 Faith and Assurance, 
 
 l6l 
 
 SECTION X. 
 
 
 The Minister's Joys and Sorrows, .... 
 
 168 
 
 SECTION XI. 
 
 
 The Riches of Free Grace, 
 
 174 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 
 
 Our Departed Children — Not Lost, but Gone Before, 
 
 197 
 
 SECTION XIII. 
 
 
 The Saints Exhorted to Diligence, .... 
 
 
 SECTION XIV. 
 
 
 Warnings and Entreaties, 
 
 238 
 
 SECTION XV. 
 
 
 The Heavenly Vision 
 
 264 
 
trtratluctkm* 
 
 BY THEODORE L. CUYLER, D. D. 
 
 .;.\1^/ N the Southern coast of Scotland — almost 
 a&% in sight from the decks of the Cunard 
 steamers as they pass into Liverpool — lies 
 the parish of Anworth. In this ancient parish 
 there was standing not many years since — and per- 
 haps is standing to this hour — an ancient and rustic 
 church. The swallows, during many a Summer, 
 built their nests in the crannies of its roof; the 
 crumbling walls were garnitured with moss, and 
 festooned with creeping vines. In the new College 
 of Edinburgh its rusty key still hangs, as a precious 
 relic of the era of the "Solemn League and Cove 
 nant." The old oaken pulpit is still preserved. 
 And well it may be ; for in that pulpit once stood 
 a man of whom it used to be said that he was 
 
S JXTRODUCTION. 
 
 always praying, always preaching, always visiting 
 the sick, always catechising, and always studying 
 the Word of God. He it was who uttered that 
 memorable saying to his beloved people : " My wit- 
 ness is above that your heaven would be two 
 heavens to me, and the salvation of you all as 
 two salvations unto me." That was the pulpit of 
 Samuel Rutherford — glory of all devout Scotch- 
 men. The Savory Bible-Saturated discourses, once 
 preached in that hallowed place to weeping and 
 melted auditors, have, for the most part, perished 
 long ago. But still that pastor is remembered, and 
 will be while there are loving Christian hearts on 
 earth. His world-known "Letters" will be Ruther- 
 ford's enduring memorial. More than two centuries 
 ago they were written — in the dark troublous days 
 of obstinate King Charles the First — yet the smell 
 of the myrrh and the cassia has never departed 
 from this Garden of Spices. The delicious aroma 
 of devotion breathes from every line. Without any 
 special interest as descriptive or historical letters — 
 devoid of all literary ambitions and all theological 
 dissertations — they live, and will ever live, from the 
 perennial Christliness that pervades them. They 
 are the artless love-letters of a holy heart on fire 
 with the love of Jesus. The sainted M'Cheyne 
 
INTR OD UCTION. Q 
 
 was wont to make his Rutherford a companion for | 
 the closet. Cecil styled it "one of my classics." 
 Richard Baxter said : " Hold off the Bible, and such 
 a hook the world never saw." This sounds extrava- 
 gant to those who have never gone into this Gar- 
 den of Spices for themselves, and plucked the 
 purple clusters from laden trellises, and inhaled 
 the heavenly perfumes that linger on the air. 
 
 The copy of Rutherford's Letters which stands 
 on our bookcase — an excellent reprint by the Car- 
 ters — is too thoroughly pencil-marked for any one 
 else's ownership. It is hard to keep your pencil 
 from making note of such a passage as this: "Wel- 
 come, welcome Jesus, in what way soever thou 
 comest, if we can but get a sight of thee. And 
 sure I am that it is better to be sick, providing that 
 Christ come to the bedside, and draw aside the cur- 
 tains and say, Courage, I am thy salvation, than to 
 enjoy lusty health, and never to be visited by God."/ 
 Or such a terse, epigrammatic sentence as the fol- 
 lowing : " His loved ones are most tried ; the lintel- 
 stones and pillars of his new Jerusalem suffer 
 more knocks of God's hammer than the common 
 side-wall stones." Sometimes his soul is rapt into 
 a sort of delirium of heavenly love, as when, in 
 writing to Lady Kenmure, he says : " Honorable 
 
io Introduction. 
 
 Lady, keep your first love — hold the first match 
 with that soul-delighting Bridegroom, our sweet, 
 sweet Jesus, the Rose of Sharon, and the sweetest- 
 smelled rose in all his Father's garden. I would 
 not exchange one smile of his lovely face for king- 
 doms. Let others take their silly feckless heaven 
 in this life. Put up your heart. Shout for joy. 
 Your King is coming to fetch you to his Father's 
 house." In writing of the indestructibility of the 
 Church, he says : " That bush has been burning 
 these four thousand years, but no man has yet seen 
 the ashes of that fire." 
 
 For that Church he underwent sore and harass- 
 ing persecutions. He was confined for two years 
 at Aberdeen, but "found Jesus sweet to him in that 
 place." He used to date his letters "from Christ's 
 palace in Aberdeen ;" and the very stones in the 
 walls of his dreary apartment "glittered in his eyes 
 like rubies." On his way from home thither he 
 spent a night with Dickson, the author of the in- 
 comparable hymn, 
 
 " O ! mother dear, Jerusalem." 
 
 They had a night like that which Great Hear-t and 
 Old Honest spent with the hospitable Gaius in Bun- 
 yan's allegory ; for they were both pilgrims, halting 
 
INTR OD UCTION. 1 1 
 
 for a few hours on their march to the Celestial 
 City. 
 
 As soon as the confinement at Aberdeen ended 
 Rutherford hastened back to his hungry flock of 
 shepherds and fishermen in the parish of Anworth. \\\\ 
 From thence he was called to a Professor's chair at 
 St. Andrews, but was soon deposed by the Govern- 
 ment, and his works were burned in Edinburgh by 
 the hands of the common hangman. He was also 
 summoned before Parliament on a false charge of 
 treason. But the summons came too late. He was 
 on his dying bed, and calmly remarked that he had 
 got another summons before a Superior Judge, and 
 sent this message: "I behoove to answer my first 
 summons ; and, ere your day, I will be where too 
 few kings and great folk ever come." 
 
 On his dying bed he cried out : " O ! for arms to 
 embrace him! O! for a well-tuned harp!" Like 
 some other departing saints, he seemed to have a 
 premonition of the very time when he should pass 
 over the unbridged river ; and on the last afternoon 
 of his life he said : " This night will close the door, 
 and fasten my anchor within the vail ; and I shall 
 go away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning. 
 There is nothing now between me and the resur- 
 rection; but, 'This day thou shalt be with me in 
 
1 2 INTR OD UCTIOA 7 . 
 
 Paradise.' " As the enrapturing visions of the open 
 gate broke upon his failing eyes, he exclaimed, 
 " Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanucl 's Land 7" With 
 this shout of triumph on his lips he passed through 
 the gate into the city. 
 
 When the news reached Parliament that he was 
 dying, it was voted that he should not die in the 
 College as a Professor. Lord Burleigh arose and 
 said, " You can not vote him out of heaven." Nor 
 could they vote him out of the hearts of tens of 
 thousands who have found in that orchard of spirit- 
 ual delights which his fervid piety planted for them, 
 some of the sweetest satisfactions their souls shall 
 feed on this side of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 The nearer we come to our home the nearer 
 some books grow to us. And upon that shelf of 
 our inner sanctum, on which we lay our Pilgrim's 
 Progress, the Saint's Rest, and Thomas a Kempis, 
 we should have a place, too, for Samuel Ruther- 
 ford's Letters. 
 
I^fstovkal im& §§z®%mf\ud ^sssg. 
 
 BY A. C. GEORGE, D. D. 
 
 HE most difficult works to write," says 
 Bishop Edward Thomson, "are those on 
 practical religion. They seem the easiest. 
 The soul full of Christian feeling is apt to say, 
 'That which is in me as a well of living water 
 must refresh other thirsty souls.' But when they 
 draw it forth and present it to the public it has lost 
 the vivacity of the fountain, and is warm, tasteless, 
 sickening. Next to novels, the press pours forth 
 no stream of equal fullness with that of religious 
 literature. And next to novels, we must say, no 
 streams dry up so soon. 'What time they wax 
 warm they vanish ; when it is hot they are con- 
 sumed out of their place.' 
 
 "Unlike fiction, however, they are not injurious 
 
14 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 in their brief day. They refresh some thirsty trav- 
 elers in their course. But they are chiefly like the 
 speeches of social meetings or most sermons, very 
 comforting to the pious listeners, but forgotten 
 almost as soon as last week's meals. Evermore 
 must this bread be given. 
 
 "The great religious works in which deepest 
 piety, keenest thought, and richest imagination 
 form an indissoluble and almost divine unity are 
 the rarest of human productions. God seems to 
 confer this gift most sparingly, as if he would com- 
 pel the human soul to his own Book. When con- 
 ferred, it ever dwells in the full splendors of that 
 Book, like Mercury in the blaze of the sun, and 
 seems to be, as it really is, 'Bright effluence of 
 bright essence increate.' Of these few Jeremy 
 Taylor's Holy Dying, Pilgrim's Progress, Religio 
 Medici, Christian Morals of Sir Thomas Browne, 
 Pascal's Thoughts, Augustine's Confessions, Her- 
 bert's Poems, and Rutherford's Letters are not only 
 specimens, but nearly the whole repertorium." 
 
 Rutherford's Letters ought to be more generally 
 known and more highly appreciated by the relig- 
 ious world. But many of them are obsolete in 
 manner and matter; taken together, they form a 
 volume of wearisome bulk, and they contain many 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 15 
 
 things which are no longer of interest to the gen- 
 eral reader. We have collated in this volume some 
 of his most precious sayings, arranged under appro- 
 priate heads. For meditation in the closet, for the 
 garniture of sermons, and for the joy of devout 
 souls they are unsurpassed. In this brief historical 
 and biographical essay it is our aim to put the 
 reader of these extracts en rapport with the life 
 and times of this saintly man, and thus enable 
 him to appreciate, as he could not otherwise, the 
 strength, beauty, and excellence of this marvelous 
 experience of the love of Christ. 
 
 Samuel Rutherford was born in the year 1600, 
 in Nisbet, a village of Roxburghshire, close to the 
 Teviot, in the parish of Crailing, in Scotland. He 
 appears to have had some opportunities for early 
 instruction, and in 1621, just as he came to man- 
 hood, he obtained the degree of Master of Arts 
 from the University of Edinburgh. We do not 
 know at what period he was led by the Holy Spirit 
 into the kingdom of Christ, but we often hear him 
 complaining of a misspent youth. '"Like a fool 
 as I was," is his earnest exclamation, " I suffered 
 my sun to be high in the heaven and near after- 
 noon before ever I took the gate by the end." In 
 1627 he was settled, as minister of the parish, in 
 
\6 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 Anworth, and from that time forward, by voice and 
 pen, by labors and sufferings, he contributed might- 
 ily to Scotland's covenanted work of reformation. 
 His "Letters" have long been regarded as a relig- 
 ious classic, and thousands have feasted on them as 
 on the manna of God. They were written, at inter- 
 vals, during a period extending from 1628 to 1661, 
 a most eventful period in the history of Christian 
 civilization. The reign of Charles the First, the 
 attempt to obtrude Episcopacy upon Scotland, the 
 solemn League and Covenant, civil war in Scotland 
 and England, the triumph of the Parliament, the 
 establishment of the English commonwealth, the 
 execution of the monarch, the protectorate of Oli- 
 ver Cromwell, his death and the restoration of the 
 royal house, with a general reaction from Presby- 
 terianism to Episcopacy — such were some of the 
 significant occurrences of those pregnant years. It 
 was a period of earnest thought, violent conten- 
 tions, frequent persecutions for opinion's sake, and 
 wasting factions in Church and State. Penal laws 
 were enacted against Catholics, and their enforce- 
 ment rigidly demanded. It was a time fertile in 
 religious disputes, and the followers of Calvin and 
 the followers of Arminius were greatly incensed 
 against each other. The former were accused of 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 17 
 
 fatalism and the latter of Pelagianism, and neither 
 party could conceive how the other could possibly 
 belong to the kingdom of grace or hope for the 
 realm of glory. The liturgy and worship of the 
 English Episcopal Church certainly bore some re- 
 semblance to the Romish superstition which the 
 body of the nation, and the Puritans in particular, 
 held in the greatest detestation. Many wise and 
 excellent men dreaded the surplice and the priestly 
 vestments as they shuddered at sin and shrunk 
 from the prospect of eternal ruin. 
 
 " The same horror against Popery," says the his- 
 torian Hume, "with which the English Puritans 
 were possessed was observed among the populace 
 in Scotland, inflamed into a higher degree of feroc- 
 ity; a panic fear of Popery was easily raised, and 
 every new ceremony or ornament introduced into 
 divine service was part of that great mystery of 
 iniquity which, from the encouragement of the king 
 and the bishops, was to overspread the nation. 
 
 "The liturgy which the king, from his own au- 
 thority, imposed on Scotland was copied from that 
 of England ; but, lest a servile imitation might 
 shock the pride of his ancient kingdom, a few alter- 
 ations, in order to save appearances, were made 
 in it, and in that shape it was transmitted to the 
 
iS Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 bishops at Edinburgh. But the Scots had univer- 
 sally entertained a notion that, though riches and 
 worldly glory had been shared out to them with a 
 sparing hand, they could boast of spiritual treasures 
 more abundant and more genuine than were en- 
 joyed by any nation under heaven. Even their 
 Southern neighbors, they thought, though sepa- 
 rated from Rome, still retained a great tincture of 
 the primitive pollution, and their liturgy was repre- 
 sented as a species of mass, though with some less 
 show and embroidery. Great prejudices, therefore, 
 were entertained against it, even considered in 
 itself; much more when regarded as a preparative 
 which was soon to introduce into Scotland all the 
 abominations of Popery. And, as the very few 
 alterations which distinguished the new liturgy 
 from the English seemed to approach nearer to 
 the doctrine of the real presence, this circumstance 
 was deemed an undoubted confirmation of every 
 suspicion with which the people were possessed." 
 The result was the formation of the celebrated 
 "Covenant," which was signed by all classes, with- 
 out distinction of rank or condition. It consisted 
 of a solemn renunciation of Popery, and of a bond 
 of union by which the subscribers engaged to re- 
 sist all religious innovations, to defend each other 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 19 
 
 against all opposition whatsoever, and to seek, in 
 all things, the glory of God and the honor and 
 advantage of their king and country. None but 
 rebels and traitors, it was thought, would withdraw 
 themselves from so salutary and so pious a com- 
 bination. 
 
 The doctrine also prevailed in Scotland that the 
 ecclesiastical authority was totally independent of 
 the civil, and that no act of Parliament, nothing 
 but the consent of the Church itself, could justify- 
 any change in religious worship or discipline. " The 
 independency of the ecclesiastical upon the civil 
 power," says a historian, "was the old Presbyterian 
 principle which had been zealously adopted at the 
 Reformation, and which, though James and Charles 
 had obliged the Church publicly to disclaim it, had 
 been secretly adhered to by all ranks of people. 
 It was commonly asked whether Christ or the king 
 were superior, and, as the answer seemed obvious, 
 it was inferred that the assembly, being Christ's 
 council, was superior, in all spiritual matters, to 
 the Parliament, which was only the king's." 
 
 The genius of this religion was, unquestionably, 
 to exalt the individual because of the sacredness 
 of his Christian character, his accountability to 
 God, and the heavenly grace and testimony which 
 
20 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 he received ; and so the Kirk became the home, 
 despite inconsistency and the spirit of persecution, 
 of freedom of conscience and religious liberty. And 
 from these grew up the noblest forms of our Chris- 
 tian civilization. 
 
 It is true that toleration of religious differences 
 was not practiced ; this great lesson of love the 
 whole Christian world still had to learn. The 
 Covenanters were not alone in requiring, as a 
 condition of toleration, the acceptance of certain 
 doctrines and compliance with certain forms of re- 
 ligious worship. 
 
 "To have forced Prelacy upon Scotland," says 
 Froude, "would have been to destroy the life out 
 of Scotland. Thrust upon them by force, it would 
 have been no more endurable than Popery. They 
 would as soon, perhaps sooner, have had what the 
 Irish call 'the rale thing' back again. The polit- 
 ical freedom of the country was soon wrapped up 
 in the Kirk ; and the Stuarts were perfectly well 
 aware of that, and for that very reason began their 
 crusade against it. And now suppose the Kirk had 
 been the broad, liberal, philosophical thing which 
 some people think it ought to have been, how would 
 it have fared in that crusade ; how, altogether, would 
 it have encountered those surplices of Archbishop 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 21 
 
 Laud or those dragoons of Claverhouse ? It is hard 
 to lose one's life for a 'perhaps;' and philosophical 
 belief, at the bottom, means a 'perhaps,' and noth- 
 ing more. For more than half the seventeenth 
 century the battle had to be fought out in Scotland 
 which, in reality, was the battle between liberty and 
 despotism ; and where, except in an intense, burn- 
 ing conviction that they were maintaining God's 
 cause against the devil, could the poor Scotch peo- 
 ple have found the strength for the unequal strug- 
 gle which was forced upon them? Toleration is a 
 good thing in its place, but you can not tolerate 
 what will not tolerate you and is trying to cut your 
 throat. Enlightenment you can not have enough 
 of, but it must be true enlightenment, which sees a 
 thing in all its bearings. In these matters the vital 
 questions are not always those which appear on the 
 surface, and in the passion and resolution of brave 
 and noble men there is often an inarticulate in- 
 telligence deeper than what can be expressed in 
 words. Action will sometimes hit the mark when 
 the spoken word either misses it or is but half the 
 truth." 
 
 The Covenanters fought their battle in the name 
 of God, and achieved a victory ; the spirit of toler- 
 ation, a more philosophic Christian unity, a great 
 
22 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 increase of material resources, a larger liberty of 
 thought and action, and many other blessed results 
 of human progress, came later, but came certainly, 
 as the fruit of these early triumphs. 
 
 In the midst of such scenes passed the life and 
 labors of Samuel Rutherford. He was a Cal- 
 vinist, a Presbyterian, a Covenanter, and, withal, a 
 right royal follower of King Jesus. He commenced 
 his parish work in Anworth "without," as he says, 
 "giving any engagement to the Bishop." In 1636 
 he published his celebrated work against Arminian- 
 ism, entitled, " Exercitationcs de Gratia! 1 He was 
 called before the High Commission Court, July 27, 
 1636, because of non-conformity to the acts of Epis- 
 copacy, and also, it is said, because of his work 
 against the Arminians. The Court deprived him 
 of his ministerial office, which he had now' exer- 
 cised for nine years in Anworth, and banished him 
 to Aberdeen. He was not in prison, but in exile, V 
 having the liberty of the town, and many of his 
 most charming letters were written from " Christ's 
 Palace in Aberdeen." Presbytery being fully re- 
 stored by the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, Ruther- 
 ford was constrained, through the loving advice of 
 his brethren, to accept, the following year, the Pro- 
 fessor's Chair in St. Andrews. In July, 1643, ^ e 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 23 
 
 was one of the commissioners from Scotland to the ! 
 Westminster Assembly. It is said that there yet 
 remains, in the library of the Edinburgh University, 
 a sketch of the Shorter Catechism as it came from | 
 his hand. While resident in London he wrote and 
 published a number of his controversial works. / 
 Returning home to St. Andrews, he resumed his 
 labors, both in the College and in the pulpit, with 
 all his former zeal. 
 
 In 1660, his published work, "Lex Rex," was 
 taken notice of by the Government ; for, reasonable 
 as it is in defense of the liberty of subjects, its 
 spirit of freedom was intolerable to rulers who were 
 gradually advancing to acts of cruelty and death. 
 Indeed, it was so hateful to them that they burnt it, 
 first at Edinburgh by the hands of the hangman ; 
 and then, some days after, by the hands of the 
 infamous Sharpe, under the windows of its author's 
 College in St. Andrews. He was next deposed 
 from all his offices ; and, last of all, summoned to 
 answer at next Parliament on a charge of high 
 treason. But the summons was too late. He was 
 already on his death-bed, and, on hearing of the 
 summons, calmly remarked, that he had got another 
 summons before a superior Judge and Judicatory, 
 and sent the message : " I behoove to answer my first 
 
24 Historical and Biographical Essa y. 
 
 summons ; and, ere your day arrive, I will be where 
 few kings and great folks come" 
 
 The following epitaph is on his tombstone, in 
 the church-yard of the Chapel of St. Regulus : 
 
 1 " What tongue, what pen, or skill of men, 
 Can famous Rutherford commend ! 
 His learning justly raised his fame, 
 True greatness did adorn his name. 
 He did converse with things above, 
 Acquainted zvith ImmanueVs /ozv." 
 
 The elaborate works of Rutherford, which he 
 designed for public edification, are no longer in 
 print, and are willingly forgotten ; but his religious 
 "Letters," designed only for private use, are as 
 honey and the honeycomb, and are, in doctrine 
 and experience, as well adapted now as when first 
 written to minister consolation to pious souls. 
 There are between three and four hundred of these 
 " Letters ;" many of them have become obsolete, 
 or refer to matters of no present interest to the 
 Church ; and the extracts given in this volume will 
 thoroughly impress the reader with the genius and 
 spirit of Rutherford. No alteration has been made 
 in the text, except by rendering some obscure 
 Scotch phrases into comprehensible English. The 
 quaintness of the original has been preserved, 
 
Historical and Biographical Essa y. 25 
 
 except where ambiguity or indelicacy of expression 
 demanded a change. 
 
 This book is a companion for the closet, and the 
 more it is read, and the more thoroughly the reader 
 imbibes its spirit, the more certainly will it be a 
 feast of fat things to his soul. The ripest experi- 
 ences of a thoroughly devout nature are here pre- 
 sented, and though some forms of expression may 
 seem objectionable, none can doubt the sincerity, 
 fervency, earnestness, and purity of the saintly, de- 
 voted, and eloquent author. 
 
 Rutherford was purged from earthly dross in the 
 furnace of severe afflictions. His first wife died 
 after many months of wearisome illness, during 
 which she was "sore tormented night and day." 
 The lambs of his household flock were also gathered 
 to the bosom of the Chief Shepherd. He was pros- 
 trated by a severe fever, which held him for weeks 
 at death's door. He was deposed from his ministry 
 and banished from his flock by a persecuting hier- 
 archy ; and, what was still more painful to endure, 
 he was visited, at a critical juncture in his ministry, 
 with the reproaches of his brethren. He exclaims 
 pathetically, " It is hard when saints rejoice in the 
 sufferings of saints, and redeemed ones hurt, and go 
 nigh to hate redeemed ones ;" and he adds heavily : 
 
26 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 "A doubt it is if we shall have fully one heart till 
 we shall enjoy one heaven." 
 
 His ministerial faithfulness was proverbial. "He 
 has time to visit," says Bonar, in a biographical 
 sketch of him — a sketch to which we are largely in- 
 debted for facts and suggestions herein contained — 
 "for he rises at three in the morning, and then 
 meets his God in prayer and meditation, and has 
 space for study besides. He takes some days for 
 catechising. He never fails to be found at the sick- 
 beds of his people. Men said of him : ' He is 
 always praying, always preaching, always visiting 
 the sick, always catechising, always writing and 
 studying.' He was known to fall asleep at night 
 speaking of Christ, and even to speak of him during 
 his sleep. Indeed, himself speaks of his dreams 
 being of Christ. 
 
 " His preaching could not but arrest attention, 
 though his elocution was not good, and his voice 
 rather shrill. He was, according to Wodrow, ' one 
 of the most moving and affectionate preachers in 
 his time, or perhaps in any age of the Church.' 
 Especially when he came to dwell upon the subject 
 he so delighted in, Jesus Christ, his manner grew 
 so animated that it seemed as if he would have 
 flown out of the pulpit. An English merchant said 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 27. 
 
 of him in days when controversy might have turned 
 him to other themes : ' I went to St. Andrews, 
 where I heard a sweet, majestic-looking man, [R. 
 Blair,] and he showed me the majesty of God. 
 After him I heard a little fair man, [Rutherford,] | 
 and he showed me the loveliness of Christ! 
 
 "Anworth was dear to him as the sphere ap- 
 pointed him by his Master, more than because of 
 the fruits of his labors. Two years after being set- 
 tled there, he writes : ' I see exceedingly small fruit 
 of my ministry. I would be glad of one soul, to be 
 a crown of joy and rejoicing in the day of Christ.' 
 His people were ' like hot iron, which cooleth when 
 out of the fire.' Still he labored in hope, and 
 labored often almost beyond his strength. Once he 
 says, 'I have a grieved heart daily in my calling.' 
 He speaks of his pained breast, at another time, on 
 the evening of the Lord's Day, when his work was 
 done. But he had seasons of refreshing, to his own 
 soul at least, especially when the Lord's Supper was 
 dispensed. Of these seasons he frequently speaks. 
 He asks his friend, Marion Macknaught, to help 
 with her prayers on such an occasion, 'that being 
 one of the days wherein Christ was wont to make 1 
 merry with his friends.' It was often, then, that 
 with special earnestness he besought the Father to 
 
2S Historical and Biographical Essa y. 
 
 distribute ' the great Loaf, Christ, to the children of 
 his family.' 
 
 "Anworth Church was filled, but not altogether 
 by parishioners. Many came from great distances ; 
 among others, several that were converted, seven- 
 teen years before, under John Welsh, at Ayr. These 
 all helped him by their prayers, as did also a goodly 
 number of godly people in the parish itself, who 
 were the fruit of the ministry of his predecessor. 
 Yet over the unsaved he yearned most tenderly. 
 At one time we hear him say, 'I would lay my 
 dearest joys in the gap between you and eternal 
 destruction.' At another, ' My witness is in heaven : 
 your heaven would be two heavens to me, and your 
 salvation two salvations.' He could appeal to his 
 people: 'My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts 
 are of you ;' and he could appeal to God : ' O my 
 Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me ; but 
 not so dear by many degrees as Christ my Lord." 
 
 "All classes of people of Anworth were objects 
 of his care. He maintained a friendly intercourse 
 with people of high rank, and many of his letters 
 are addressed to such persons. But the herd boys 
 were not beneath his special attention. He writes 
 of them when at Aberdeen, and exclaims, ' O ! if I 
 might but speak to thee, or your herd boys, of my 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 29 
 
 worthy Master.' He had a heart for the young of 
 all classes, so that he could say of two children of 
 one of his friends, ' I pray for them by name ;' and 
 could thus take time to notice one : ' Your daughter 
 desires a Bible and a gown. I hope she shall use 
 the Bible well, which if she do the gown is the 
 better bestowed.' He lamented over the few that 
 cry 'hosanna' in their youth. 'Christ is an tui- 
 known Christ to young ones, and therefore they 
 seek him not because they know him not.' He 
 dealt with individual parishioners so closely and so 
 personally as to be able to appeal to them that he 
 had so done. He addresses one of them, Jean 
 M'Millan : ' I did what I could to put you within 
 grips of Christ ; I told you Christ's testament and 
 latter-will plainly.' He so carried them about with 
 him, — like the priest with the twelve tribes on his 
 breast-plate — that he could declare to Gordon of 
 Cardoness, ' Thoughts of your soul depart not from 
 me in my sleep. My soul was taken up when others 
 were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a 
 bride in that part of the land,' namely, Anworth. 
 He so prayed over them and for them that he fears 
 not to say : ' There I wrestled with the angel and 
 prevailed. Woods, trees, meadows, and hills are 
 my witnesses that I drew on a fair match betwixt 
 
30 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 Christ and Anworth.' It is related that on first 
 coming to the parish there was a piece of ground 
 on Mossrobin farm, where on Sabbath afternoon the 
 people used to play at foot-ball. On one occasion 
 he repaired to the spot and pointed out their sin, 
 calling on the objects round to be witnesses against 
 them if they persevered, especially three large stones, 
 two of which still remain, and are called ' RutJicr- 
 forcVs witnesses.' 
 
 "All that is told us of his death-bed is character- 
 istic of the man. He said when asked, 'What 
 think ye now of Christ ?' — ' I shall live and adore 
 him. Glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land.' The 
 same afternoon he said : ' I shall sleep in Christ, 
 and when I awake I shall be satisfied with his like- 
 ness.' Once he cried aloud, 'O for arms to em- 
 brace Him ! O for a well-tuned harp !' This last 
 expression he used more than once, as if already 
 stretching out his hand to get his golden harp, and 
 join the redeemed in their new song. He also said 
 on another occasion : ' I hear him saying to me, 
 " Come up hither." ' His little daughter Agnes, 
 only eleven years of age, stood by his bedside ;Tie 
 looked on her, and said : ' I have left her upon the 
 Lord.' Well might the man say so, who could so 
 fully testify of his portion in the Lord as a goodly 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 31 
 
 heritage. To four of his brethren, who came to 
 see him, he said : ' My Lord and Master is chief of 
 ten thousands of thousands. None is comparable 
 to Him in heaven, or in earth. Dear brethren, do 
 all for Him. Pray for Christ. Preach for Christ! 
 He seemed to know the hour of his departure, not 
 perhaps so surely as Paul, (2 Tim. iv, 6,) or Peter, 
 (2 Peter i, 14,) yet still in a manner that seems 
 to indicate that the Lord draws very near his serv- 
 ants in that hour, and gives glimpses of what he 
 is doing. On the last day of his life, in the after- 
 noon, he said : ' This night will close the door, and 
 fasten my anchor within the vail, and I shall go 
 away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning.' 
 And so it was. He entered Immanuel's land at 
 that very hour, March 20, 1661, at his house in St. 
 Andrews, and is now — as himself would have said — 
 ' sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty,' till the 
 Lord come. One of his dying sayings was : ' There 
 is nothing now between me and the resurrection, 
 but, " This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." ' 
 And Livingstone records that his last words were : 
 * Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land !' " 
 
 His "Letters" are a source of unfailing delight 
 to all who love the name of Jesus, who rejoice in 
 the riches of free grace, who seek to increase in 
 
32 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 holiness, who feel the need of consolation in sick- 
 ness and trials, and who would catch a glimpse, 
 through faith, of the heavenly inheritance. Hatred 
 of sin, love of sanctification, content, and even joy 
 in sorrow, a disposition to magnify the Lord Jesus, 
 and a longing for the " mountain of myrrh and the 
 hill of frankincense," was his constant experience. 
 And may such be the experience of all who peruse 
 these precious pages ! 
 
 "The whole soul of the redeemed," some one 
 has said, "falls consciously and completely into the 
 whole soul of the Redeemer. To him in such a 
 state how precious is his Lord and Lover! How 
 he dotes on him ; how he longs to see him, to hear 
 his voice, to feel his arms of love about him, to 
 rest his weary head on his sympathizing breast, to 
 look into his eyes, burning with love, with eyes 
 that speak again ! How he delights in the sense 
 of this companionship, this oneness of being and 
 blessing, and is supremely happy in the feeling that 
 death hath no dominion over it — nay, that death 
 only insures it a greater fullness ; that it is, as 
 marriage to betrothed ones, the consummation of 
 felicity. 
 
 "This holy passion of love is the highest, the 
 only real expression of Christian experience. It 
 
Historical and Biographical Essay. 33 
 
 finds utterance from end to end of the Book of 
 God. It is the breathing of David, Solomon, Paul, 
 and John. It is the prayer and discourse of Christ. 
 It has carried multitudes through bloodiest deaths, 
 
 'Who clasp the stake with a light laugh, 
 And wrap their burning robes round, praising God.' 
 
 It has blossomed into the most passionate poetry. 
 No lover's dictionary contains such vehement long- 
 ings, such sweeps of infinite and inexpressible long- 
 ing and exhausting devotion as the hymns of the 
 Church." 
 
 And the religious "Letters" of Rutherford are 
 sacred lyrics. They drop sweetness. They bloom 
 with a celestial fragrance. They sing in the hearts 
 of the devout like the songs of the angels. They 
 seem echoes from the harps of the glorified. 
 
 Rutherford will never be forgotten, for the mem- 
 ory of the just is imperishable. He has achieved 
 immortality for earth and heaven. He will be a 
 witness for Jesus through the ages — a witness to 
 the sweetness, the sufficiency, and the eternity of 
 his love! 
 
 "As 'mid the ever-rolling sea 
 The eternal isles established be, 
 'Gainst which the billows of the main 
 Fret, rage, and break themselves in vain ; 
 3 
 
34 Historical and Biographical Essay. 
 
 As in the heavens the urns divine 
 
 Of golden light forever shine; 
 
 Though clouds may darken, storms may rage, 
 
 They still shine on from age to age; 
 
 So, through the ocean-tide of years, 
 The memory of the just appears; 
 So, through the tempest and the gloom, 
 The good man's virtues light the tomb." 
 
|tei. 
 
 DARE say that angels' pens, angels' tongues, 
 nay, as many worlds of angels as there are 
 drops of water in all the seas, and fountains, 
 and rivers of the earth, can not 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 utmost circle 
 of the highest heaven, that containeth all, to con- 
 tain his love ! And yet I could hold but little of it. 
 O what a sight, to be up in heaven, in that fair 
 orchard of the New Paradise, and to see, and smell, 
 and touch, and kiss that fair field-flower, that ever- 
 green Tree of Life! His bare shadow would be 
 enough for me ; a sight of him would be the earn- 
 est of heaven to me. 
 
36 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Fie, fie upon us who love fair things, as fair gold, 
 fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honors, 
 and fair persons, and do not pine and melt away 
 with love to Christ! O, would to God I had more 
 love, for his sake! O for as much as would lie 
 betwixt me and heaven, for his sake! O for as 
 much as would go round about the earth, and over 
 the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten 
 thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, 
 fair, only fair Christ! 
 
 Suppose that our Lord would manifest his art, 
 and make ten thousand heavens of good and glori- 
 ous things, and of new joys devised out of the 
 deep of infinite wisdom. He could not make the 
 like of Christ, for Christ is God, and God can not 
 be made. O, when Christ and you shall meet 
 about the utmost boundary of time and the entry 
 into eternity, you shall see heaven in his face at 
 the first look, and salvation and glory sitting in his 
 countenance and betwixt his eyes! 
 
 O how shallow a soul I have to take in Christ's 
 love ; for let worlds be multiplied, according to 
 angels' understanding, in millions, till they weary 
 themselves, these worlds could not contain the 
 
Christ. 37 
 
 thousandth part of his love ! O that I could join 
 in among the throng of angels, and seraphim, and 
 now glorified saints, and could raise a new love- 
 song to 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 fires in hell, I would 
 that they could all send out love-praises, high songs 
 of praise forever more to that Plant of Renown, 
 to that Royal and High Prince, Jesus my Lord! 
 
 O that my hairs, all my members, and all my 
 bones were well-tuned tongues, to sing the high 
 praises of my great and glorious King ! Help me 
 to lift up Christ upon his throne, and to lift him 
 up above all the thrones of the clay kings, the 
 dying scepter-bearers of this world! 
 
 Surely, running over love, that vast, huge, 
 boundless love of Christ, is the only thing I 
 most fain would be in hands with. He knoweth 
 that I have little but the love of that love; and 
 thus I shall be happy, suppose I never get another 
 heaven, but only an eternal feasting 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 
 
3S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 my old, riven, and running-out dish, even when I 
 am at the well, can bring little away. Nothing but 
 glory will make tight and fast on leaking and rifty 
 vessels. Alas! I have spilled 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 am I able 
 to take away of my great Sea, my boundless and 
 running-over Christ Jesus ! 
 
 O, would to my Lord that I could cause paper 
 and ink to speak the worth and excellency, the 
 high and loud praises of a Brother-ransomer ! The 
 Ransomer needeth not my report; but O, that he 
 would take it and make use of it! I should be 
 happy if I had an errand to this world but for 
 some few years, to spread proclamations, and out- 
 cries, and love-letters of the highness, the highness 
 forever more, the glory, the glory forever more of 
 the Ransomer whose clothes were wet and dyed in 
 blood! 
 
 The love of Christ would keep all created 
 tongues of men and angels in exercise, and busy 
 day and night, to speak of it. Alas ! I can speak 
 nothing of it, but wonder at three things in his love. 
 
Christ. 39 
 
 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 those 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 that a soul 
 could live eternally blessed on Christ's love, and 
 feed upon no other thing : yea, when Christ in love 
 giveth a blow, it doeth a soul good ; and it is a kind 
 of comfort and joy to it, to get a cuff, with the 
 lovely, sweet, and soft hand of Jesus. And, thirdly, 
 what power and strength are in his love ! I am 
 persuaded it can climb a steep hill with hell upon 
 its back ; and swim through water and not drown ; 
 and sing in the fire and find no pain ; and triumph 
 in losses, prisons, sorrow, exile, disgrace, and laugh 
 and rejoice in death. 
 
 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 my debt to the love of 
 Christ lie unpaid to all eternity? 
 
 We are all obliged to love heaven for Christ's 
 sake. He graceth heaven and all his Father's 
 
4 o A Garden of Spices. 
 
 house with his presence. He is a Rose that beauti- 
 fieth all the Upper Garden of God — a leaf of that 
 rose of God for smell is worth a world. 
 
 If I had as many angels' 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 
 of stars in the heavens to praise, yet my Lord Jesus 
 would never get his due from me. 
 
 Now who is like to that royal King, crowned in 
 Zion ! Where shall 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 hights de- 
 vised by men and angels, I should think him but 
 too low. His love hath neither brim nor bottom ; 
 his love is like himself, it passeth all natural under- 
 standing. I go to fathom it with my arms, but it is 
 as if a child would take the globe of sea and land 
 in his two short arms — blessed and holy is his 
 
 Christ's love is young glory and young heaven ; 
 it would soften hell's pain to be filled with it. 
 What would I refuse to suffer, if I could get but a 
 draught of love at my heart's desire.? O, what 
 
Christ. 
 
 4i 
 
 price can be given for Him ! Angels can not weigh 
 him. 0, his weight, his sweetness, his overpassing 
 beauty! If men and angels would come and look 
 to that great and princely One, their shallowness 
 could never take up his depth, their narrowness 
 could never comprehend his breadth, hight, and 
 length. If ten thousand thousand worlds of angels 
 were created, they might all tire themselves in 
 wondering at his beauty, and begin again to wonder 
 of new. O, that I were able to come near him, to 
 kiss his feet, to hear his voice, to feel the smell 
 of his ointments ! But, O, alas ! I have little of 
 him ! Yet I long for more. 
 
 O ! that the heaven, and the Heaven of heavens 
 were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude 
 of mountains pens of brass, and I able to write my 
 dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, 
 and my most unequaled and marvelous Well-Be- 
 loved ! Woe is me, I can not set him out to men 
 and angels ! I am put to my wit's end how to get 
 his name made great. How sweet is Christ's back ! 
 O, what there is in his face ! Those that see his 
 face, how are they able to get their eye plucked off 
 him again ! 
 
42 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 O that 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, and 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, and is nothing to cast the smell 
 of the praise of that fair flower, that fragrant Rose 
 of Sharon — through many worlds ! 
 
 When I have spoken of Christ till my head tire, 
 I have said just nothing. I may begin again. A 
 Godhead, a Godhead is a world's wonder. Let 
 ten thousand thousand new-made worlds of angels 
 and elect men, and double them in number ten 
 thousand, thousand, thousand times ! let their heart 
 and tongues be ten thousand thousand times 
 more agile and large than the heart and tongues 
 of the seraphims that stand with six wings before 
 him, when they have said all for the glorifying and 
 praising of the Lord Jesus, they have but spoken 
 little or nothing. O that I could wear this tongue 
 to the stump in extolling his Highness ! 
 
Christ. 43 
 
 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 com- 
 parison this way ! O black sun and moon ; but 
 O fair Lord Jesus ! O black flowers, and black 
 lilies and roses ; but O fair, fair, ever fair Lord 
 Jesus ! O all fair things, black and deformed, 
 without beauty when ye are beside this fairest 
 Lord Jesus ! O black heaven ! but O fair Christ ! 
 
 black angels ! but surpassingly fair Lord Jesus ! 
 
 1 would seek no more to make me happy for ever- 
 more, but a thorough and clear sight of Jesus my 
 Lord. Let my eyes enjoy his fairness, and stare 
 him forever in the face, and I have all that can 
 be wished. Get Christ rather than gold or silver ; 
 seek Christ, howbeit you should lose all things for 
 him. 
 
 My word, I know, will not highten him. He 
 needeth not such props under his feet to set his 
 glory high ; but O that I could raise him the 
 hight of heaven, and the breadth and length of 
 ten heavens, in the estimation of all his young 
 lovers ! For we have all shapen Christ but too 
 
44 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 narrow and too short, and formed conceptions of his 
 love in our conceit very unworthy of it. 
 
 I never write to any of him as much as I have 
 felt. O that 1 could write a book of Christ, and of 
 his love ! Suppose I were made white ashes, and 
 burnt for this same truth, that men count but as 
 knots of straw, it were my gain, if my ashes could 
 proclaim the worth, excellency, and love of my Lord 
 Jesus. There is much telling of Christ : I give 
 over the weighing of him ; heaven would not be 
 the beam of a balance to weigh him in. 
 
 I can not think but it must be exhilarating and 
 sweet to see the white and red of Christ's fair face ; 
 for he is white and ruddy, and the " Chiefest among 
 ten thousand." I am sure that must be a well-made 
 face of his ; heaven must be in his visage ; glory, 
 glory for evermore must sit on his countenance. I 
 dare not curse the mask and covering that are 
 on his face ; but O that there were a hole in it ! 
 O that God would tear the mask ! 
 
 O what am I to love such a One, or to be loved 
 by that high and lofty One ! I think the angels 
 may blush to look upon him ; and what am I to 
 
Christ. 45 
 
 defile such infinite brightness with my sinful eyes ! 
 O that Christ would come near, and stand still, 
 and give me leave to look upon him ! For to look 
 seemeth the poor man's privilege, since he may for 
 nothing, and without hire, behold the sun. I should 
 have a king's life, if I had no other thing to do than 
 for evermore to behold and eye my Lord Jesus ! 
 
 Come near, and take a view of that transparent 
 beauty which is in Christ, which would bury the 
 love of ten thousand millions of worlds and angels, 
 and hold them all at work. Surely I am grieved 
 that men will not spend their whole love upon that 
 royal and princely well-beloved, that high and lofty 
 One — for it is cursed love that runneth another way 
 than upon him. 
 
 O what a Father and Husband you have ! O 
 that I had pen and ink, and genius to write of him ! 
 Let heaven and earth be consolidated into many 
 and pure gold, it will not weigh the thousandth part 
 of Christ's love to a soul, even me, a poor prisoner. 
 O that is a massy and marvelous love ! Men and 
 angels ! unite your force and strength in one, ye 
 shall not heave, nor poise it off the ground. Ten 
 thousand worlds — as many worlds as angels can 
 
46 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 number, and then as a new world of angels can 
 multiply, would not all be the beam of a balance to 
 weigh Christ's excellency, sweetness, and love. Put 
 ten earths into one, and let a rose grow greater than 
 ten whole earths, or whole 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. 
 
 If there were ten thousand thousand millions 
 of worlds, and as many heavens, full of men and 
 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 ? 
 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 colors, all tastes, all 
 joys, all loveliness, all sweetness, in one. O what 
 a fair and excellent thing would that be ? And yet 
 it would be less to that fair, and dearest well-be- 
 loved Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole 
 seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand 
 earths. 
 
Christ. 47 
 
 The discourses of angels, or love-books written 
 by the congregation of seraphim — all their wits 
 being conjoined and melted into one — would forever 
 be in the nether side of truth, and of plentifully 
 declaring the thing as it is. The infiniteness, the 
 boundlessness of that incomparable excellency that 
 is in Jesus, is a great word. God send me, if it 
 were but the relics and leaven of an ounce weight 
 or two, of his matchless love ; and suppose I never 
 got another heaven — provided this blessed fire were 
 evermore burning — I could not but be happy forever. 
 
 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 into one web, or into one thread with 
 the world, and the things thereof. O that I could 
 hold and keep Christ all alone, and mix him with 
 nothing! O that I could cry down the price and 
 weight of my cursed self, and cry up the price of 
 Christ, and double and triple, and augment and 
 highten to millions, the price and worth of Christ ! 
 
 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 
 
4S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 that he is the far best half of heaven ; yea, he is all 
 heaven, and more than all heaven ; and my testi- 
 mony 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 or hazards 
 for him. O that I could sell my laughter, joy, ease, 
 and all for him, and be content with a straw-bed, 
 and bread by weight, and water by measure, in the 
 camp of our weeping Christ ! I know that his sack- 
 cloth and ashes are better than the fool's laughter, 
 which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. 
 
 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, and dark, and lightless sun, in re- 
 gard of that fair Sun of Righteousness ! O, unsub- 
 stantial and worthless heavens of heavens when 
 they stand beside my worthy, and lofty, and high, 
 and excellent Well-beloved! O, weak and infirm 
 clay kings! O, soft and feeble mountains of brass, 
 and weak created strength, in regard of our mighty 
 and strong Lord of armies! O, foolish wisdom of 
 men and angels, when it is laid in the balance 
 
Christ. 49 
 
 beside that spotless, substantial wisdom of the 
 Father ! 
 
 O, who can add to Him who is that great All? 
 If he would create suns and moons, new heavens, 
 thousand and thousand degrees more perfect than 
 those that now are, and again make a new creation 
 ten thousand thousand degrees in perfection beyond 
 that new creation, and again, still for eternity mul- 
 tiply new heavens, they should never be a per- 
 fect resemblance of that infinite excellency, order, 
 weight, measure, beauty, and sweetness that is in 
 him! 
 
 O, O, but we have short, and narrow, and creep- 
 ing thoughts of Jesus, and do but shape Christ in 
 our conceptions, according to some created por- 
 traiture ! O, angels, lend your help ! O, heaven 
 of heavens ! O, glorified tenants and triumphing 
 households with the Lamb, put in new psalms and 
 love-sonnets of the excellency of our Bridegroom, 
 and help us set him on high ! O, indwellers of 
 earth and heaven, sea and air, and O, all ye created 
 beings within the bosom of the utmost circle of 
 the great world, O come help us to set on high 
 the praises of our Lord ! 
 4 
 
50 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Remember what He is. When twenty thousand 
 millions of heaven's lovers have worn their hearts 
 threadbare of love, all is nothing, yea, less than 
 nothing, to his matchless worth and excellency ! 
 O, so broad and so deep as the sea of his desirable 
 loveliness is ! 
 
 Were there ten thousand millions of heavens 
 created above these highest heavens, and again as 
 many above them, and 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 above them all; created heavens are too low 
 a seat of majesty for him. If Christ doth own me, 
 let me be in the grave in a bloody winding-sheet, 
 and go from the scaffold to four quarters — to be 
 cut into four quarters — to grave or no grave. 
 
 They lose nothing who gain Christ. 
 
 When you have sold all that you have, and 
 bought the field wherein this pearl is, you will 
 think it no bad market ; for if you be in him, all 
 his is yours, and you are in him; therefore, "be- 
 cause he lives, you shall live also." And what is 
 that else, but as if the Son had said, "I will not 
 have heaven, except my redeemed ones be with 
 
Christ. 51 
 
 me ; they and I can not live asunder ; abide in 
 me and I in you." O, sweet communion, when 
 Christ and we are promiscuously united, and are 
 no longer two ! 
 
 There is none like him. I would not exchange 
 one smile of his lovely face with kingdoms ! Let 
 others take their poor heaven in this life. Envy 
 them not ; but let your soul, like a pettish and ill- 
 bred child, object to all things and disdain them, 
 except one only. Either Christ or nothing ! Either 
 the King's Son, or no husband at all. This is hum- 
 ble and worthy ambition. 
 
 All lovers, blush when ye stand beside Christ ! 
 Woe upon all love but the love of Christ ; hunger, 
 hunger for evermore be upon all heaven but Christ ; 
 shame, shame for evermore be upon all but Christ's 
 glory! I cry, death, death be upon all manner of 
 life but the life of Christ! O, what is it that hold- 
 eth us asunder' 1 
 
 When the time shall come that your eye-strings 
 shall break, and your face wax pale, your breath 
 grow cold, and this house of clay shall totter, 
 and your one foot shall be over the boundary in 
 
52 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 eternity, it will be your comfort and joy that you 
 gave your name to Christ. The greatest part of 
 the world think heaven at the next door, and 
 that Christianity is an easy task; but they will 
 be beguiled. 
 
 The Church hath been, since the world began, 
 ever hanging by a small thread, and all the hands 
 of hell and 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 bro- 
 ken, for the sweet fingers of Christ our Lord have 
 twisted it. Lord, hold the thread whole! 
 
 You never knew one in God's Book who put 
 their hand to the Lord's work for his Church but 
 the world and Satan did bark against them, and 
 bite, also, when they had power. You will not lay 
 one stone on Zion's wall but they will labor to cast 
 it down again. 
 
 To want complaints of weakness is for heaven 
 and angels that never sinned, not for Christians in 
 Christ's camp on earth. I think that our weakness 
 maketh us the Church of the redeemed ones, and 
 Christ's field that the mediator should labor in. If 
 there were no diseases on earth there needeth no 
 
Christ. 53 
 
 physicians on earth. No man should rejoice at 
 weakness and diseases, but I think that we may- 
 have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because, 
 without them, Christ's fingers, as a slain Lord, 
 would 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 and visit me, and bring 
 with him his drugs and his balm. Weakness can 
 speak and cry when we have not a tongue. Weak- 
 ness is to make us the strongest things ; 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. 
 
 I must have you praying for me. I am utterly 
 ashamed for evermore with Christ's goodness ; and, 
 in private, on the 17th and 18th of August, I got a 
 full answer of my Lord to be a graced minister, and 
 a chosen arrow hidden in his own quiver. But 
 know that this assurance is not kept but by watch- 
 ing and prayer ; and, therefore, help me. I have 
 gotten now — honor to my Lord — the way to open, 
 and push aside the bar of his door ; and I think it 
 easy to get any thing of the King by prayer, and to 
 use holy violence with him. 
 
54 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 As for the Church, 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, and we never yet saw the 
 ashes of this fire ; yet a little while, and the vision 
 shall not tarry; it will speak and not lie. I am 
 more afraid of my duty than of the head, Christ's 
 government. 
 
 I shall be glad to be a witness to behold the 
 kingdoms of the world become Christ's. I could 
 stay out of heaven many years to see that victori- 
 ous, triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of 
 his soul-conquering love in taking into his kingdom 
 the greater sister, that Church of the Jews, who 
 formerly counted our well-beloved for her little sis- 
 ter — Canticles viii, 8 — to behold him set up as an 
 ensign and a banner of love to the ends of the 
 world ! 
 
 I had rather mar twenty prayers than not pray 
 at all. Let my broken words go up to Heaven : 
 when they come up into the great angel's golden 
 censer, that compassionate Advocate will put to- 
 gether my broken prayers, and perfume them. 
 Words are but accidents of prayer. 
 
Christ. 55 
 
 "He had power over the angel, and 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, be- 
 ing strengthened, overcome and conquer. It shall 
 be great victory, to blow out the flame of that fur- 
 nace you are now in with the breath of faith ; and 
 when hell, men, malice, cruelty, falsehood, devils, 
 the seeming frowns of a sweet Lord, meet you in 
 the teeth, if you then, as a captive of hope, as one 
 fettered in hope's prison, run to your stronghold, 
 even from God frowning to God frowning, and be- 
 lieve the salvation of the Lord in the dark, which is 
 your only victory, your enemies, that are but pieces 
 of malicious clay, shall die as men, and be con- 
 founded. 
 
56 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Jesus, I love thy charming name : 
 
 'T is music to mine ear : 
 Fain would I sound it out so loud, 
 
 That earth and heaven should hear. 
 
 Yes, thou art precious to my soul, 
 
 My transport and my trust : 
 Jewels to thee are gaudy toys, 
 
 And gold is sordid dust. 
 
 All my capacious powers can wish 
 
 In thee doth richly meet : 
 Not to mine eyes is light so dear, 
 
 Nor friendship half so sweet. 
 
 Thy grace still dwells upon my heart, 
 
 And sheds its fragrance there ; 
 The noblest balm of all its wounds, 
 
 The cordial of its care. 
 
 I '11 speak the honors of thy name 
 
 With my last laboring breath ; 
 Then, speechless, clasp thee in mine arms, 
 
 The antidote of death. 
 
 Doddridge. 
 
II. 
 
 Ik frogs and ife mam. 
 
 WEET, sweet is his cross ; light, light and 
 easy is his yoke. O what a sweet step 
 were it up to my Father's house through 
 ten deaths, for the truth and cause of that unknown, 
 and so not half well-loved, Plant of Renown, the 
 Man called the Branch, the Chief among ten thou- 
 sand, 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 ! 
 Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet and glorious cross 
 of Christ ; welcome, sweet Jesus, with thy light 
 cross ; thou hast now gained and gotten all my 
 love from me ; keep what thou hast gotten. 
 
 Those who can take that crabbed tree hand- 
 somely upon their back, and fasten it with skillful 
 
58 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 adaptation, shall find it such a burden as wings are 
 unto a bird, or sails to a ship. 
 
 If it were come to exchanging of crosses, I would 
 not exchange my cross with any : I am well-pleased 
 with Christ, and he with me. 
 
 I find that my Lord hath over-gilded that black 
 tree — the cross — and hath perfumed it, and oiled it 
 with joy and consolation. Christ beareth me good 
 company; he hath raised me, when I saw it not, 
 lifting the cross off my shoulders, so that I think it 
 to be but a feather, because underneath are ever- 
 lasting arms. God forbid it come to bartering or 
 exchanging of crosses ; for I think my cross so 
 sweet that I know not where I would get the like 
 of it. Christ's honeycombs drop so abundantly that 
 they sweeten my gall. 
 
 I find Christ, aye the longer the better, and 
 therefore can not but rejoice in his salvation, who 
 hath made my chains my wings, and hath made me 
 a king over my crosses, and over my adversaries. 
 Glory, glory, glory to his high and 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 
 
The Cross and the Crown. 59 
 
 much wearied to suffer as Zion's haters are to 
 persecute. 
 
 My cross is both my cross and my reward. 
 that men would sound his high praises! I love 
 Christ's worst reproaches, his frowns, his cross, 
 better than all the world's plastered glory : my heart 
 is not longing to be back again from Christ's 
 country: it is a sweet soil I am come to. 
 
 Some have written to me that I am possibly too 
 joyful of the cross ; but my joy overleapeth the 
 cross, it is bounded and terminated upon Christ. I 
 know that the sun will overcloud and eclipse, and 
 that I shall again be put to walk in the shadow ; but 
 Christ must be welcome to come and go, as he 
 thinketh meet. 
 
 Thanks to God for crosses ! When we count 
 and reckon our losses in seeking God, we find that 
 godliness is great gain. Great partners of a shipful 
 of gold are glad to see the ship come to the harbor : 
 surely we and our Lord Jesus together have a ship- 
 ful 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 
 
60 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 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 farthest end of the black cross is a fair and 
 glorious heaven of ease ; and seeing Christ has 
 fastened heaven to the far end of the cross, and 
 he will not loose the knot himself, and none else 
 can — for when Christ tieth a knot all the world 
 can not loose it — let us, then, count it exceeding 
 joy when we fall into divers temptations. 
 
 Would to God that all this kingdom, and all 
 that know God, knew what is betwixt Christ and 
 me in this prison — what kisses, embracements, and 
 love communions. 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. 
 
 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 shoulder. Christ and his cross 
 
The Cross and the Crown: 6i 
 
 together are sweet company, and 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 and happy days. 
 
 The worst thing of Christ, even that which 
 seemeth to be the repose of Christ, his hard cross, 
 his black cross, is white and fair; and the cross 
 receiveth a beautiful luster and a perfumed smell 
 from Jesus. 
 
 I know that 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, and re- 
 proaches, also, that follow him ; for mercy followeth 
 Christ's cross. His prison, for beauty, is made of 
 marble and ivory ; his chains, that are laid on his 
 prisoners, are golden chains ; and the sighs of the 
 prisoner of hope are perfumed with comforts, the 
 like whereof can not be bred or found on this side 
 of sun and moon. 
 
 I bless his high and great name that I like my 
 sweet Master still, the longer the better; a sight 
 of his cross is more awful than the weight of 
 it. I think the worst things of Christ, bear his 
 
62 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 reproaches and his cross — when I look on these not 
 with bleared eyes — far rather to be chosen than the 
 laughter and boon-laden joys of my adversaries. 
 
 As for Christ's cross, I never received evil of it 
 but what was of mine own making : when I mis- 
 cooked Christ's physic no marvel that it hurt me ; 
 for, since it was on Christ's back, it hath always 
 a sweet smell; and these 1,600 years it keepeth the 
 smell of Christ : nay, it is older than that too, for 
 it is a long time since Abel first handled the cross, 
 and had it laid upon his shoulder ; and down from 
 him, all along to this very day, all the saints have 
 known what it is. I am glad that Christ hath such 
 a relation to this cross, and that it is called the 
 cross of our Lord Jesus, and his reproach, as if 
 Christ would claim it as his proper goods, and so 
 it cometh into the reckoning among Christ's prop- 
 erty : if it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is 
 not the author or owner of sin, would not own it. 
 
 Take his cross with him cheerfully. Christ and 
 his cross are not separable in this life ; howbeit, 
 Christ and his cross part at heaven's door, for there 
 is no house-room for crosses in heaven. One tear, 
 one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one 
 
The cross and the Crown. 63 
 
 thought of trouble, can not find lodging there ; they 
 are but the marks of our Lord Jesus down in this 
 wide inn, and stormy country on this side of death : 
 sorrow and the saints arc not married together; 
 or, suppose it were so, Heaven would make a 
 divorce. 
 
 Fasten your hold upon Christ. I verily esteem 
 him the best possession that I have. He is my 
 Second in prison. Having him, though my cross 
 were heavy as ten mountains of iron, when he 
 putteth his sweet shoulder under me and it, my 
 cross is but a feather. 
 
 I give under my own handwriting a testimonial 
 of Christ and his cross, that they are a sweet couple, 
 and that Christ hath never yet been set in his due 
 chair of honor among us all. O, I know not where 
 to set him ! O for a high seat to that royal, princely 
 One ! O that my poor soul had once a running-over 
 flood of that love, to put sap into my dry root, and 
 that that flood would spring out to the tongue and 
 the pen, to utter great things to the high and due 
 commendation of such a fair One! O holy, holy, 
 hoi}- One ! Alas! there are too many dumb tongues 
 in the world, and dry hearts, seeing there is employ- 
 ment in Christ for them all, and ten thousand worlds 
 
64 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 of angels and men more, to set on high and exalt 
 the greatest prince of the kings of the earth. 
 
 I dare not expound his dealing, as sorrow and 
 weak faith often dictate to me: I look often with 
 bleared and blind eyes to my Lord's cross ; and 
 when I look to the wrong side of his cross, I know 
 that I miss a step and slide ; surely I see that I 
 have not legs of my own for carrying me to heaven ; 
 I must go in at heaven's gates, borrowing strength 
 from Christ. 
 
 Christ is King of crosses, and King of devils, 
 and King over hell, and King over malice. When 
 he was in the grave he came out and brought the 
 keys with him. He is Lord Jailer : nay, what say 
 I ? He is Captain of the Castle, and he hath the 
 keys of death and hell : and what are our troubles 
 but little deaths ; and he who commandeth the 
 great Castle commandeth also the little. 
 
 Alas, we fools miscount our gain when we seem 
 losers ! Believe me, I have no accusations against 
 this well-born cross, for it is come of Christ's 
 house, and is honorable, and is a gift ; " To you it 
 is given to suffer." O, what fools are we to under- 
 value his gifts, and to make light of that which is 
 
The Cross and the Crown. 65 
 
 true honor! For if we could be faithful our tack- 
 ling shall not loose, or our mast break, or our sails 
 blow into the sea. The bastard crosses, the kinless 
 and base-born crosses of worldliness, for evil-doing 
 must be heavy and grievous ; but our afflictions are 
 light and momentary. 
 
 How sad a prisoner should I be if I knew not 
 that my Lord Jesus had the keys of the prison 
 himself, and that his death and blood have bought 
 a blessing to our crosses as well as to ourselves ! I 
 am sure that 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 
 boundary -line, nor enter into heaven with us ; for 
 they find no welcome there, where "there is no 
 more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither any 
 more pain ;" and, therefore, we shall leave them 
 behind us. 
 
 I find crosses to be Christ's carved work that 
 he marketh out for us, and that with crosses he 
 figureth and portrayeth us to his own image, cut- 
 ting away pieces of our ill and corruption. " Lord, 
 cut ; Lord, carve ; Lord, wound ; Lord, do any thing 
 5 
 
66 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 that may perfect the Father's image in us and make 
 us meet for glory!" 
 
 If your cross come through Christ's fingers ere 
 it come to you, it receiveth a fair luster from him, 
 it getteth a taste and relish of the King's spike- 
 nard and of heaven's perfume, and the half of the 
 gain, when Christ's shipful of gold cometh home, 
 shall be yours. 
 
 Till I shall be on the hall floor of the highest 
 palace, and get a draught of glory out of Christ's 
 hand, above and beyond time, and beyond death, I 
 shall never, it is like, see fairer days than I saw 
 under that blessed tree of my Lord's cross. 
 
 Your cross is of the color of heaven and Christ, 
 and bedecked with the faith and comfort of the 
 Lord's faithful covenant; and that dye and color 
 can abide fair weather, and neither be stained nor 
 cast the color ; yea, it reflects a gleam of light like 
 the cross of Christ, whose holy hands, many a day 
 lifted up to God in prayer for sinners, were fettered 
 and bound, as if those blessed hands had stolen 
 and shed innocent blood. When your lovely, lovely 
 Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no 
 
The Cross and the Crown. 67 
 
 wonder that your process be lawless and turned 
 upside down ; for he was taken, fettered, buffeted, 
 spit upon, whipped before he was convicted of any 
 fault or sentenced. O, such a pair of sufferers and 
 witnesses as high and royal Jesus and a poor piece 
 of guilty clay paired together under one yoke ! O, 
 how lovely is the cross with such a record ! 
 
 Since, then, there is none equal to your Master 
 and Prince, who hath chosen out for you, among 
 many sufferings for sin, that only cross which com- 
 eth nearest in likeness to his own cross, plated 
 with consolation, take courage and comfort your- 
 self in him who hath chosen you to glory hereafter, 
 and to conformity with him here. We fools would 
 have a cross of our own choosing, and would have 
 our gall and wormwood sugared, our fire cold, and 
 our death and grave warmed .with heat of life ; but 
 he who hath brought many children to glory and 
 lost none is our best tutor. I wish that when I 
 am sick he may be keeper and comforter. 
 
 When you are come to the other side the water, 
 and have set down your foot on the shore of glori- 
 ous eternity, and look back again to the waters, and 
 to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that 
 
68 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom 
 of God's wisdom, you 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 the 
 crown of glory." 
 
 Look for crosses, and while it is fair weather 
 mend the sails of the ship. 
 
 Your Lord will not give you painted crosses. 
 He pareth not all the bitterness from the cross, 
 neither taketh he the sharp edge quite from it ; 
 for in that case it should be of your selecting, and 
 not of his, which would have as little reason in it 
 as it would have profit for us. 
 
 Now, I persuade you that the greatest part but 
 play with Christianity ; they put it by hastily and 
 easily. I thought it had been an easy thing to be 
 a Christian, and that to seek God had been at the 
 next door ; but O, the windings and turnings, the 
 ups and the downs that he hath led me through, 
 and I see yet much way to the ford. 
 
 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 
 
The Cross and the Crown. 69 
 
 that my Guide is content to wait on me, and to 
 care for a tired traveler. 
 
 I find one thing which I saw not well before: 
 that when the saints are under trials and well hum- 
 bled, little sins raise great cries and war-shouts in 
 the conscience, and in prosperity conscience is a 
 Pope, to give dispensations, and let out and in, and 
 give latitude and elbow-room to the heart. O, how 
 little care we for pardon at Christ's hand when we 
 make dispensations ! And all is but child's play 
 till a cross without begets a heavier cross within, 
 and 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, and an idol 
 that' hath a dispensation to give for the turning of 
 the grace of God into wantonness. 
 
 I look not to win a way to my home without 
 wounds and blood. Welcome, welcome cross of 
 Christ, if Christ be with it. Christ hath so hand- 
 somely fitted for my shoulders this rough tree of 
 the cross as that it hurtcth me nowise. My treas- 
 ure is up in Christ's coffers; my comforts are 
 greater than you can believe; my pen shall lie for 
 penury of words to write of them. God knoweth 
 that I am filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost. 
 
70 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Now, I testify under my hand, out of some 
 small experience, that Christ's cause, even with the 
 cross, is better than the King's crown, and that his 
 reproaches are sweet, his cross perfumed, the walls 
 of my prison fair and large, and my losses gain. 
 
 How am I obliged to my Lord, who, among 
 many crosses, hath given me a selected and chosen 
 cross, to suffer for the name of my Lord Jesus! 
 Since I must have chains, he would put golden 
 chains on me, plated over with many consolations ; 
 seeing I must have sorrow, he hath selected out 
 for me joyful sorrow. My crosses come through 
 mercy and love's fingers, from the kind heart of a 
 brother, Christ my Lord, and therefore they must 
 be sweet and sugared. O, what am I, such a lump, 
 such a rotten mass of sin, to be counted a child 
 worthy to be nurtured and stricken with the best 
 rod in my Father's house, the golden rod wherewith 
 my eldest brother, the Lord, heir of the inheritance, 
 and his faithful witnesses were stricken withal! 
 
 It is good that your crosses will but accompany 
 you to heaven's gates ; in can they not go ; the 
 gates shall be closed upon them when you shall be 
 admitted to the throne. Time standeth not still: 
 
The Cross and the Crown. 71 
 
 eternity is hard at our door. 0, what is laid up for 
 you ; therefore harden your face against the wind ; 
 and the Lamb, your husband, is making ready 
 for you ! 
 
 They are blessed who suffer and sin not, for 
 suffering is the badge which Christ hath put upon 
 his followers. Take what we can to heaven, the 
 way is hedged up with crosses ; there is no way 
 but to break through them. Wit and wiles, shifts 
 and laws will not find a way around the cross of 
 Christ, but we must through. One thing, by expe- 
 rience, my Lord hath taught me, that the waters 
 betwixt this and heaven may all be ridden if we be 
 well horsed — I mean if we be in Christ — and not 
 one shall drown by the way but such as love their 
 own destruction. 
 
 Think not Christ will do with you in the matter 
 of suffering as the Pope doth in the matter of sin. 
 You shall not find that Christ will sell a dispensa- 
 tion, or give a bankrupt's protection against crosses. 
 Crosses are proclaimed as common accidents to all 
 the saints, and in them standeth a part of our com- 
 munion with Christ ; but there lieth a sweet casu- 
 alty to the cross, even Christ's presence and his 
 comforts, when they are sanctified. 
 
72 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 What God layeth on let me suffer; for some 
 have one cross, some seven, some ten. some half a 
 cross ; yet all the saints have whole and full joy, 
 and seven crosses have seven joys. Christ is cum- 
 bered with me — to speak so — and my cross, yet he 
 doth not separate himself from me, we are not 
 at variance. 
 
 I see that the cross is tied, with Christ's hand, 
 to the end of an honest profession. We are but 
 fools to endeavor to loose Christ's knot. 
 
 Verily, for myself, I am so well pleased with 
 Christ and his noble and honest-born cross, this 
 cross that is come of Christ's house and is of kin 
 to himself, that I should weep if it should come to 
 exchanging and bartering of lots and conditions 
 with those who are "at ease in Zion." I hold still 
 my choice, and bless myself in it. I hope to go to 
 eternity, and to venture on the last evil to the 
 saints, even upon death, fully persuaded that this 
 only, even this, is the saving way for wicked con- 
 sciences, and for weary and laden sinners to find 
 ease and peace for evermore in. 
 
 We love well Summer religion, and to be that 
 which sin has made us, even as thin-skinned as if 
 
The Cross and the Crown. 73 
 
 we were made of white paper, and would fain be 
 carried to heaven in a close-covered chariot, wishing 
 from our hearts that Christ would give us surety 
 and his hand-writing, and his seal for nothing but 
 a fair Summer, until we be landed in at heaven's 
 gates. 
 
 Your Lord hath the pick and choice of ten 
 thousand other crosses besides this, to exercise you 
 withal ; but his wisdom and his love selected and 
 chose out this for you besides them all ; and take it 
 as a choice one and make use of it, so as you look 
 to this world as your step-mother in your borrowed 
 prison. For it is a love-look to heaven and the 
 other side of the water that God seeketh ; and this 
 is the fruit, the flower and bloom growing out of 
 your cross, that you be a dead man to time, to clay, 
 to gold, to country, to friends, wife, children, and all 
 pieces of created nothings ; for in them is not a seat 
 nor bottom for soul's love. 
 
 You may judge how far all your now sad days, 
 and tossings, changes, losses, wants, conflicts, shall 
 then be below you. You look to the cross — now it 
 is above your head, and seemeth to threaten death, 
 as having a dominion ; but it shall then be so far 
 below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above 
 
74 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 it, that you shall have no leisure to lend one thought 
 to antiquated crosses, in youth, in age, in this coun- 
 try, or in that, from this instrument or from another, 
 except it be to the hightening of your consolation, 
 being now got above and beyond all these. 
 
 When his people can not 'have a providence of 
 silk and roses, they must be content with such an 
 one as he carveth out for them. You would not go 
 to heaven but with company ; and you may per- 
 ceive that the way of those who went before you 
 was through blood, sufferings, and many afflictions : 
 nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door- 
 threshold of Paradise, bleeding to death. I do not 
 think but you have learned to stoop, and that you 
 have found that the apples and sweet fruits which 
 grow on that crabbed tree of the cross are as sweet 
 as it is sour to bear it ; especially considering that 
 Christ hath borne the whole complete cross, and 
 that his saints bear but bits and chips ; as the 
 Apostle says, "the remnants, or bearings of the 
 cross." 
 
The Cross and the Crown. 75 
 
 THE W 'AY OF THE CROSS, THE WAY OF LIGHT: 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF ROSEGARTEN. 
 
 Through the cross comes the crown; when the cares of 
 this life, 
 
 Like giants in strength, may to crush thee combine, 
 Never mind, never mind; after sorrow's sad strife 
 
 Shall the peace and the crown of salvation be thine. 
 
 Through woe comes delight; if at evening thou sigh, 
 And thy soul still at midnight in sorrow appears, 
 
 Never mind, never mind, for the morning is nigh 
 Whose sunbeams of gladness shall dry up thy tears ! 
 
 Through death comes our life ; to the portal of pain, 
 
 Through time's thistle-fields, are our weary steps driven; 
 
 Never mind, never mind, through this passage we gain 
 The mansions of light and the portals of heaven. 
 
A Garden of Spices. 
 
 The £ross and the Ijeart, 
 
 [At Sorrento, Italy, is a curious poetical inscription engraved on a slab of marble 
 inserted in the outer wall of a church. It begins and ends alternately with the 
 Italian words for cross and heart. The following is said to be, as near ; 
 a literal translation.] 
 
 Cross, most adored, to thee I give my heart; 
 Heart I have not, except to love thy cross. 
 Cross, thou hast won my wayward, alien heart; 
 Heart, thou hast owned the triumph of the cross. 
 Cross, tree of life, to thee I nail my heart ; 
 Heart can not live that lives not on the cross. 
 Cross, be thy blood the cleaning of my heart ; 
 Heart, be thy blood an offering to the cross. 
 Cross, thou shalt have the homage of my heart; 
 Heart, thou shalt be the temple of the cross. 
 Cross, blessed is he who yields to thee his heart ; 
 Heart, rest secure, thou cleavest to the cross. 
 Cross, key of heaven, open every heart; 
 Heart, every heart, receive the holy cross. 
 
The Cross and the Crown 77 
 
 The Grass. 
 
 Greater the cross the nearer heaven ; 
 Godless to whom no cross is given ! 
 The noisy world, in masquerade, 
 Forgets the grave, the worm, the shade; 
 Blessed is yon dearer child of God, 
 On whom he lays his cross, the rod. 
 
 Blessed by whom most the cross is known ; 
 God whets us on his grinding-stone ; 
 Full many a garden 's dressed in vain 
 Where tears of sorrow never rain. 
 In fiercest flames the gold is tried, 
 In griefs the Christian 's purified. 
 
 Midst crosses Faith her triumph knows ; 
 The palm-tree pressed more vigorous grows ; 
 Go, tread the grapes beneath thy feet, 
 The stream that flows is full and sweet; 
 In trouble virtues grow and shine 
 Like pearls beneath the ocean brine. 
 
 Crosses abound ; love seeks the skies ; 
 Blow the rough winds, the flames arise ; 
 When hopeless gloom the welkin shrouds, 
 The sun comes laughing through the clouds 
 The cross makes pure affection glow 
 Like oil that on the fire we throw. 
 
7S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Who wears the cross prays oft and well ; 
 Bruised herbs send forth the sweetest smell: 
 Were ships ne'er tossed by stormy wind 
 The pole-star who would care to find? 
 Had David spent no darksome hours 
 His sweetest song had ne'er been ours. 
 
 From trouble springs the longing hope, 
 From the deep vale we mount the slope; 
 Who treads the desert's dreariest way 
 For Canaan most will long and pray; 
 Here finds the trembling dove no rest, 
 Flies to the ark and builds her nest. 
 
 Heavy the cross, e'en death is dear, 
 The sufferer sings — his end is near; 
 From sin and pain he bursts away, 
 Trouble shall die that very day. 
 The cross, yon silent grave adorning, 
 Bespeaks a bright, triumphant morning. 
 
 Greater the cross, the lovelier rays 
 The crown prepared of God displays ; 
 Treasure, by many a conqueror won 
 Who wears it now before the throne. 
 O, think upon that jewel fair 
 And heaviest griefs are light as air 
 
 Dear Lamb of God, enhance thy cross 
 More and yet more ; all else is dross ; 
 Let ne'er a murmur mar my rest, 
 Plant thy own patience in my breast; 
 To guard me faith, hope, love combine 
 Until the glorious crown be mine. 
 
III. 
 
 luffmtig for f tat. 
 
 fJi^HEY are not worthy of Jesus who will not 
 take a blow for their Master's sake. As for 
 v our glorious Peace-maker, when he came to 
 make up the friendship betwixt God and us, God 
 bruised him, and struck him ; the world, also, did 
 beat him and crucify him ; yet he took buffets of 
 both the parties ; and — honor to our Lord Jesus — 
 he would not leave the field for all that till he had 
 made peace betwixt the parties. 
 
 I pray for grace to learn to be acquainted with 
 misery — if I may give so rough a name to such a 
 mark of those who shall be crowned with Christ. 
 And, howbeit, I may possibly prove a faint-hearted, 
 unwise man in this, yet I dare to say that I intend 
 
So A Garden of Spices. 
 
 otherwise ; and I desire not to go on the lee-side, 
 or sunny-side of religion, to put truth betwixt me 
 and a storm — my Savior did not so for me, who in 
 his suffering took the windy side of the hill. 
 
 If ye were not strangers here the dogs of the 
 world would not bark at you. The world is one 
 of the enemies that we have to fight with, but a 
 vanquished and overcome enemy, and like a beaten 
 and forlorn soldier ; for our Jesus hath taken the 
 armor from it. You shall neither be free from the 
 scourge of the tongue, nor of disgraces, even if it 
 were buffeting and spitting upon the face, as was 
 our Savior's case, if you follow Jesus Christ. 
 
 Strokes with the sweet Mediator's hand are 
 very sweet : he has always been sweet to my soul ; 
 but since I suffered for him his breath has a sweeter 
 smell than before. O 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 should 
 think all too little for him. When I look over be- 
 yond the line, and beyond death, to the laughing 
 side of the world, I triumph and ride upon the high 
 places of Jacob ; howbeit, otherwise, I am a faint, 
 dead-hearted, cowardly man, often borne down, and 
 
Suffering for Christ. Si 
 
 hungry in waiting for the marriage-supper of the 
 Lamb! 
 
 Suffering is the professor's golden garment ; 
 there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it. 
 
 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 habit- 
 uate our soft and thin-skinned nature to endure fire 
 and water, devils, lions, men, losses, grieved hearts, 
 as those that are looked upon by God, angels, men, 
 and devils. 
 
 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 see that the Lord can ride through his enemies' 
 hands, and triumph in the sufferings of his own ; 
 and that this blind world seeth not that sufferings 
 are Christ's armor, wherein he is victorious ; and 
 they who contend with him see not what he is 
 doing, when they arc set to work, as undcr-smiths 
 and servants to this work of refining of the saints; 
 
S3 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 and their office in God's house is to scour and 
 cleanse vessels for the King's table. 
 
 I have but small experience of suffering for 
 him ; but let my Judge and Witness in heaven lay 
 my soul in the balance of justice, if I find not a 
 young heaven, a little paradise of glorious comforts 
 and soul-delighting love kisses of Christ here be- 
 neath the moon, in suffering for him and his truth ; 
 and that the glory, joy, and peace, and fire of love, 
 which I thought had been kept until supper-time, 
 when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon 
 Christ, I have felt in glorious beginnings in my 
 bonds for this princely Lord Jesus. 
 
 I know that as night and shadows are good for 
 flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a 
 continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, 
 and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and 
 giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on 
 hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put 
 forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in catching it 
 seeth not what. 
 
 I find that his sweet presence casteth out the 
 bitterness of sorrow and suffering. I think it a 
 
Suffering for Christ. S3 
 
 sweet thing that Christ saith of my cross, "Half 
 mine ;" and that he divideth these sufferings with 
 me, and taketh the larger share to himself; nay, 
 that I and 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 and ex- 
 cellency ! 
 
 It should be enough to me, if I were wise, that 
 Christ will have joy and sorrow halvers in the life 
 of the saints, and that each of them should have a 
 share in our days, as the night and day are kindly 
 partners and halvers of time, and take it up betwixt 
 them. But if sorrow be the greedier halver of our 
 days here, I know that joy's day shall dawn, and do 
 more than recompense all our sad hours. Let my 
 Lord Jesus — since he willeth to do so — weave my 
 bit and span-length of time with white and black, 
 weal and woe, with the Bridegroom's coming and his 
 sad departure, as warp and woof in one web ; and 
 let the rose be neighbored 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 ; 
 and down hell, and down death, and down sin, and 
 
S4 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 down sorrow ; and up glory, up life, up joy for ever- 
 more. 
 
 Our sufferings are washed in Christ's blood, as 
 well as our souls ; for Christ's merits brought a 
 blessing to the crosses of the sons of God. We are 
 over the water some way already ; we are married, 
 and our marriage -portion is paid ; we are already 
 more than conquerors, " as dying, and behold we 
 live." I never before heard of a living death, or a 
 quick death, but ours : our death is not like the 
 common death ; Christ's skill, his handiwork, and 
 a new cast of Christ's admirable act, may be seen in 
 our quick death. I bless the Lord that all our 
 troubles come through Christ's fingers, and 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, into one cup, in 
 which there is no taste of hell. 
 
 I hope you are not ignorant, that as peace was 
 left to you in Christ's testament, so the other half 
 of the testament was a legacy of Christ's sufferings. 
 "These things I have spoken, that in me ye might 
 have peace ; in the world ye shall have tribulation." 
 Because, then, you are made assigns and heirs to a 
 
Suffering for Christ. S$ 
 
 life-rent of Christ's cross, think that fiery trial no 
 strange thing. 
 
 Therefore, if my sufferings cry goodness, and 
 praise, and honor upon Christ, my stipend is well 
 paid. Boggle not at sufferings for Christ ; for Christ 
 hath a chair, and a cushion, and sweet peace for a 
 sufferer ; Christ's trencher from the first mess of the 
 high table is for a sinful witness. O, then, brother, 
 who but Christ! who but Christ! 
 
 If you go to weigh Jesus, his sweetness, ex- 
 cellency, glory, and beauty, and lay opposite to him 
 your ounces, or drachms of suffering for him, you 
 will be straitened in two ways: I. It will be a 
 pain to make the comparison, the disproportion 
 being by no understanding imaginable ; nay, if 
 Heaven's arithmetic and angels were set to work 
 they should never number the degrees of differ- 
 ence. 2. It would straiten you to find a scale for 
 the balance to lay that high and lofty One, that 
 over-transcending Prince of Excellency in. If your 
 mind could fancy as many created heavens as time 
 hath had minutes, trees have had leaves, and clouds 
 have had rain-drops, since the first stone of the 
 creation was laid, they would not make half a 
 
S6 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 scale in which to bear and weigh boundless ex- 
 cellency. 
 
 If the fellowship of Christ's sufferings were well 
 known, who would not gladly take part with Jesus ? 
 For Christ and we are halvers and joint-owners of 
 one and the same cross ; and, therefore, he that 
 knew well what sufferings were, did judge of them, 
 that he might know " the fellowship of his suffer- 
 ings." O, how sweet a sight is it to see a cross 
 betwixt Christ and us ; to hear our Redeemer say, 
 at every sigh and every blow, and every loss of a 
 believer, "Half mine!" The heaviest end of the 
 black tree of the cross lieth on your Lord ; it falleth 
 first upon him, and it but reboundeth off him upon 
 you. 
 
 O what glory is it to be suffering objects for the 
 Lord's glory and royalty ! Nay, though his servants 
 had a body to burn forever for this Gospel, so being 
 that the high glory of triumphing and exalted Jesus 
 did rise out of these flames, and out of that burning 
 body, O what a sweet fire ! O what soul-refreshing 
 torment that would be ! What if the grains of dust 
 and ashes of the burnt and dissolved body were 
 musicians to sing his praises, and the highness 
 
Suffering for Christ. 87 
 
 of that never-enough exalted Prince of ages ? 
 what love is it in him that he will have such mu- 
 sicians as we are to tune that psalm of his ever- 
 lasting praise in heaven ! 
 
 It were good to be armed beforehand for death 
 or bodily tortures for Christ ; and to think what a 
 crown of honor it is that God hath given you pieces 
 of living clay, to be tortured witnesses for saving 
 truth ; and that you 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* 
 
 Men have no more of you to work upon than 
 some inches, and span-lengths of sick, coughing, 
 and phlegmatic clay. Your souls, your love to 
 Christ, your faith, can not be summoned, nor sen- 
 tenced, nor accused, nor condemned, by Pope, 
 deputy, prelate, ruler, or tyrant. Your faith is a 
 free lord, and can not be a captive. All the malice 
 of hell and earth can but hurt the scabbard of a 
 believer ; and death, at the most, can get but a 
 
 * This was written to Mr. Henry Stuart, his wife, and two daugh- 
 ters — all prisoners of Christ at Dublin — 1640. 
 
88 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 clay-pawn in keeping till your Lord make the 
 king's keys, and open your graves. 
 
 Your afflictions smell of the children's care. 
 The children of the house are so nurtured ; and 
 suffering is no new life, it is but the rent of the 
 sons ; bastards have not so much of the rent. Stay 
 and wait on till Christ loose the knAt that fasteneth 
 his cross on your back ; for he is coming to deliver. 
 This school of suffering is a preparation for the 
 King's higher house. O happy and blessed death, 
 that golden bridge laid over by Christ my Lord 
 between time's clay banks and heaven's shore ! 
 
 "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of 
 Christ's sufferings ;" in which sense the cup that 
 his lip touched hath the sweeter taste, even though 
 death were in it : the grave, because he did lie in it, 
 is so much the softer, and the more refreshing, a 
 bed of rest ; and that part of the sky and clouds 
 that the Beloved shall break through and come to 
 judgment 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. 
 
Suffering for Christ. 89 
 
 Christ haved*. tinsesn, hut not to&naum, 
 
 Jesus, these eyes have never seen 
 
 That valiant form of thine ! 
 The vail of sense hangs dark between 
 
 Thy blessed face and mine ! 
 
 I see thee not, I hear thee not; 
 
 Yet art thou oft with me ; 
 And Earth hath ne'er so dear a spot 
 
 As where I meet with thee. 
 
 Like some bright dream, that comes unsought, 
 
 When slumbers o'er me roll, 
 Thine image ever fills my thought, 
 
 And charms my ravished soul. 
 
 Yet though I have not seen, and still 
 
 Must rest in faith alone, 
 I love thee, dearest Lord ! and will — 
 
 Unseen, but not unknown. 
 
 When death these mortal eyes shall seal, 
 
 And still this throbbing heart, 
 The rending vail shall thee reveal, 
 
 All trlorious as thou art. 
 
IV. 
 
 Ik Arid and rftofet. 
 
 i OU will find, in Christianity, that God aim- 
 eth, in all his dealings with his children, to 
 bring them to a high contempt of, and 
 deadly feud with the world ; and to set a high 
 price upon Christ, and to think him one who can 
 not be bought for gold, and well worthy the fight- 
 ing for. And for no other cause doth the Lord 
 withdraw from you the childish toys and the earthly 
 delights that he giveth unto others, but that he 
 may have you wholly to himself. 
 
 O, alas! the greatest part of this world run to 
 the place of that torment, rejoicing, and dancing, 
 eating, drinking, and sleeping! Salvation, salva- 
 tion ! fie upon this condemned and foolish world that 
 
The World and Christ. qi 
 
 would give so little for salvation. 0, if there were 
 a free market for salvation proclaimed in that day, 
 when the trumpet of God shall awake the dead, how 
 many buyers would be there? God, send me no 
 more happiness than that Salvation which the 
 blind world — to their eternal woe — letteth slip 
 through their fingers. 
 
 His breath is never so hot, his love casteth 
 never such a flame as when this world, and those 
 who should be the helpers of our joy, cast waters 
 on our coal. It is a sweet thing to see them cast 
 out, and God take in ; and to see them throw us 
 away as the refuse of men, and God take us up as 
 his jewels and treasures. 
 
 O, that I could give up with this clay-idol, this 
 masked, painted, over-gilded dirt that Adam's sons 
 adore! We make an idol of our will. As many 
 lusts in us, as many gods ; we are all god-makers ; 
 we are all like to lose Christ, the true God, in the 
 throng of these new and false gods. 
 
 O, if this world knew the excellency, sweetness, 
 and beauty of that high and lofty One, that fairest 
 among the sons of men, verily they would see that 
 
92 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 if their love were bigger than ten heavens — all in 
 circles beyond each other — it were all too little for 
 Christ, our Lord. I hope that your choice will not 
 repent you, when life shall come to that twilight 
 between time and eternity, and you shall see the 
 utmost border of time, and shall draw the curtain, 
 and look into eternity, and shall one day see God 
 take the heavens in his hands and fold them to- 
 gether like an old, worn-out garment, and set on 
 fire this clay part of the creation of God, and con- 
 sume away, into smoke and ashes, the idle hope of 
 poor fools who think there is not a better country 
 than this low country of dying clay. 
 
 Alas, that we should be glad of and rejoice in 
 our fetters and our prison-house, and this dear inn, 
 a life of sin, when we are absent from our Lord, 
 and so far from our home. O, that we could get 
 bonds, and low suretyship of our love, that it fasten 
 not itself on these clay-dreams, these clay-shadows, 
 and worldly vanities! We might be oftener seeing 
 what they are doing in heaven, and our hearts more 
 frequently upon our sweet treasure above. We 
 smell of the smoke of this lower house of the earth, 
 because our hearts and our thoughts are here. If 
 we could haunt up with God, we should smell of 
 
The World and Christ. 
 
 93 
 
 heaven, and of our country above, and we should 
 look like our country, and like strangers or people 
 not born or brought up hereaway. Our crosses 
 would not leave their mark upon us if we were 
 heavenly-minded. 
 
 Put Christ's love to the trial, and put upon it 
 our burdens, and then it will appear love indeed. 
 We employ not his love, and, therefore, we know it 
 not. I verily count the sufferings of my Lord 
 more than this world's lustrous and over-gilded glory. 
 I dare not say but my Lord Jesus hath fully rec- 
 ompensed my sadness with his joys, my losses 
 with his own presence. I find it a sweet and rich 
 thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, 
 my afflictions for that sweet peace I have with 
 himself. 
 
 This world is not worth a drink of cold water. 
 O, but Christ's love casteth a great heat. Hell, 
 and all the salt sea, and the rivers of the earth can 
 not quench it. 
 
 I am still welcome to his — Christ's — house. 
 He knoweth my nook, and letteth in a poor friend. 
 Under this black, rough tree of the cross of 
 Christ, he hath ravished me with his love, and 
 
94 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 taken my heart to heaven with him. Well and 
 long may he enjoy it! I would not exchange 
 Christ with all the joys that man or angel can 
 devise beside him. Who hath such cause to speak 
 honorably of Christ as I have? Christ is king of 
 all crosses ; and he hath made his saints little kings 
 under him ; and he can ride and triumph upon 
 weaker bodies than I am — if any can be weaker — 
 and his horse will neither fall nor stumble. 
 
 For I think the men of this world, like children 
 in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play and 
 make sport with the white foam of the waves 
 thereof, coming in to sink and drown them ; so are 
 men making fool's sports with the white pleasures 
 of a stormy world that will sink them. 
 
 Nay, I think that this world, at its prime and 
 perfection, when it is come to the top of its excel- 
 lency, and to the bloom, might be bought with an 
 half-penny ; and 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 and 
 slain, as Paul did. Then let pleasures be crucified, 
 and riches be crucified, and court and honor be cru- 
 cified ; and twice the apostle saith the world is 
 crucified to him. We may put this world to the 
 
The World and Christ. 95 
 
 hanged man's doom, and to the gallows ; and whc 
 will give much for a hanged man? And as little 
 should we give for a hanged and crucified world. 
 
 While you have time, look upon your papers, 
 and consider your ways. O, that there were such 
 an heart in you as to think what an ill conscience 
 will be to you when you are upon the border of 
 eternity, and your one foot out of time ! O, then, 
 ten thousand thousand floods of tears can not ex- 
 tinguish these flames, or purchase to you one 
 hour's release from pain. You know that the 
 world is but a shadow, a short, living creature, 
 under the law of Time. Within less than fifty 
 years, when you look back to it, you shall laugh at 
 the vanishing vanities thereof, as feathers flying in 
 the air, and as the houses of sand within the sea- 
 mark, which the children of men are building. 
 
 O, that there is so much spoken, and so much 
 written, and so much thought of creature vanity; 
 and so little spoken, so little written, and 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 alone? O 
 
g6 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 damned souls! O mistaken 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 hight of my 
 Lord's ways, that pass finding out! But O, that 
 men would once be wise, and not fall so in love with 
 their own hell, as to pass by Christ and not recog- 
 nize him ! O, come, all, and drink at this living 
 well ; come, drink, and live for evermore ; come, 
 drink, and welcome! "Welcome," saith our fairest 
 Bridegroom ; no man getteth Christ with ill-will ; 
 no man cometh and is not welcome ; all men speak 
 well of Christ who have been at him ; men and 
 angels who know him will say more than I am able 
 to, and think more of him than they can say. 
 
 Oxe hour of this labor is worth a shipful of the 
 world's drunken and muddy joy ; nay, even the way 
 of heaven is the sunny side of the brae, and the 
 very garden of the world ; for the men of this world 
 have their own unchristened and profane crosses ; 
 and woe be to them and their cursed crosses both ; 
 for their ills are salted with God's vengeance, and 
 our ills seasoned with our father's blessing ; so that 
 
The World and Christ. 97 
 
 they are no fools who choose Christ, and sell all 
 things for him ; it is no children's market, nor a 
 blind bargain ; we know what we get and what we 
 give. 
 
 I think I have just reason to quit my part of 
 any hope or love that I have to this scum, and the 
 refuse of the dross of God's workmanship — this 
 vain earth. I owe to this stormy world not a look ; 
 I owe it no love, no hope ; and, therefore, O, that 
 my love were dead to it, and my soul dead to it! 
 What, am I obliged to this house of my pilgrim- 
 age ! Seeing I am not this world's debtor, I de- 
 sire that I may be stripped of all confidence in any 
 thing but my Lord, that he may be for me, and I 
 for my only, only, only Lord ; that he may be the 
 morning and evening tide, the top and the root of 
 my joys, and the heart, and flower, and yolk of all 
 my soul's delights. 
 
 If it come to voting among angels and men, 
 how excellent and sweet Christ is, even in his re- 
 proaches and in his cross ! I can not but vote with 
 the first, that all that is in him, both cross and 
 crown, pines and glooms, embracements and frown- 
 ings, and strokes, are sweet and glorious. God, 
 7 
 
9S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 send me no more happiness in heaven, or out of 
 heaven, than Christ ; for I find this world, when 
 I have looked upon it on both sides, within and 
 without, and where I have seen even the laughing 
 and lovely side of it, to be but a fool's idol, a 
 clay prison. 
 
 O, what odds find the saints in hard trials when 
 they feel sap at their roots, betwixt them and sun- 
 burned, 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? 
 
 Mistaken grace, and 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 the world's clay ; put a high 
 price upon Christ. 
 
 Worldly glory is nothing but a vapor, a 
 shadow, the foam of the water, or something less, 
 and lighter — even nothing. "The countenance 01 
 fashion of this world passeth away. In which 
 
The World and Christ. 
 
 99 
 
 place our Lord compareth it to an image of a 
 looking-glass, for it is the looking-glass of Adam's 
 sons. Some come to this glass and see in it the 
 picture of honor, and but a picture indeed, for true 
 honor is to be great in the sight of God ; and 
 others see in it the shadow of riches, and but a 
 shadow indeed, for durable riches stand as one of 
 the maids of wisdom upon the left hand ; and a 
 third see in it the face of painted pleasures, and 
 the beholders will not believe ; but the image which 
 they see in this glass is a living man, till the Lord 
 come and break the glass in pieces, and remove the 
 face; and, then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say: 
 " And behold it was a dream !" 
 
 Christ is worth more than all the world's May- 
 flowers, and withering riches, and honor, that shall 
 go away as smoke, and vanish in a night vision, and 
 shall, in one half hour after the blast of the arch- 
 angel's trumpet, lie in white ashes. Let me beseech 
 you, draw aside the lap of time's curtain, and look 
 in through the window, to great and endless eter- 
 nity, and consider if a worldly price — suppose this 
 round, clay globe were all your own — can be given 
 for one smile of Christ's godlike and soul-ravishing 
 countenance, in that clay, when so many joints and 
 knees of thousand thousands wailinc shall stand 
 
ioo A Garden of Spices. 
 
 before Christ, trembling, shouting, and making their 
 prayers to hills and mountains to fall upon them, 
 and hide them from the face of the Lamb. 
 
 Let the world be the portion of bastards, make 
 it not yours ; after the last trumpet is blown, the 
 world and all its glory will be like an old house that 
 is burnt to ashes, and like an old fallen castle with- 
 out a roof. Fie, fie upon us fools ! who think our- 
 selves 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 a strange world to me, to think that men 
 are so mad as to bargain with dead earth ; to give 
 out conscience, and get in clay again, is a strange 
 bargain. 
 
v. 
 
 OUJ to 
 
 <j<MT wore not wisdom for us to think that Christ 
 j^SfJ an( i tne Gospel would come and sit down at 
 our fireside ; nay, but we must go out of 
 our warm houses, and seek Christ and his Gospel. 
 It is not the sunny side of Christ that we must look 
 to, and we must not forsake him for want of that ; 
 but must set our face against what may befall us in 
 following on, till he and we be through the briers 
 and bushes, on the dry ground. Our soft natures 
 would be borne through the troubles of this miser- 
 able life in Christ's arms ; and it is his wisdom, who 
 knoweth our soft mold, that his children go wet- 
 shod and cold-footed to heaven. O how sweet a 
 thins were it for us to learn to make our burdens 
 
102 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 light, by framing our hearts to the burden, and 
 making our Lord's will a law. 
 
 I often told you that few are saved and many 
 damned. I pray you to make your poor soul sure 
 of salvation, and the seeking of heaven your daily 
 task. If you never had a sick night and a pained 
 soul for sin, you have not yet lighted upon Christ. 
 Look to the right marks of having closed with 
 Christ. If you love him better than the world, and 
 would quit all the world for him, then that saith the 
 work is sound. O if you saw the beauty of Jesus, 
 and smelled the fragrance of his love, you would 
 run through fire and water to be at him. 
 
 I rejoice to hear that Christ hath run away with 
 your young love, and that you 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 ; and weigh 
 it not so much by weight as if it be true. 
 
 We carry ourselves but too nicely with Christ 
 our Lord ; and our Lord loveth not niceness, and 
 reserve and dryness in friends. Since need-force 
 that we must be under obligations to Christ, then 
 
Ho w to Seek Christ. 103 
 
 let us be under obligation ; for it will be no other- 
 wise. 
 
 Remember that many go far on, and reform 
 many things, and can find tears, as Esau did ; and 
 suffer hunger for truth, as Judas did ; and wish and 
 desire the end of the righteous, as Balaam did ; and 
 profess fair, and fight for the Lord, as Saul did ; and 
 desire the saints of God to pray for them, as Pharaoh 
 and Simon Magus did ; and prophesy, and speak of 
 Christ, as Caiaphas did ; and walk softly, and mourn 
 for judgments, as Ahab did ; and put away your sins 
 and idolatry, as Jehu did ; and hear the word of God 
 gladly, and reform their life in many things, as 
 Herod did; and say "Master" to Christ, "I will 
 follow thee whither thou goest," as the man who 
 offered to be Christ's servant ; and may taste of the 
 virtues — or powers — of the world to come, and be 
 partakers of the wonderful gifts of the Holy Ghost, 
 and taste of the good word of God — and yet all 
 these are but like gold in clink and color, and are 
 plated silver and base metal. 
 
 Seek the Lord while he may be found : the Lord 
 vvaiteth upon you. Your soul is of no little price. 
 Gold or silver of as much bounds as would cover 
 
icq A Garden of Spices. 
 
 the highest heaven round about, can not buy it. To 
 live as others do, and to be free of open sins, that 
 the world crieth shame upon, will not bring you to 
 heaven. 
 
 A soul bleeding to death till Christ were sent 
 for, and cried for in all haste, to come and stem the 
 blood, and close up the hole in the wound with his 
 own hand and balm, were a very good disease, when 
 many are dying of a whole heart. We have all too 
 little of hell-pain and terrors that way; nay, God 
 send me such a hell as Christ hath promised to 
 make a heaven of. Alas, I am not come so far on 
 the way as to say in sad earnest, " Lord Jesus, great 
 and 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, say I, the want of fighting 
 were a mark of no grace ; but I shall not say the 
 want of victory is such a mark. 
 
 Many are beguiled with this, that they are free 
 of scandalous and crying abominations ; but the 
 tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is for the 
 fire ; the man that is not born again can not enter 
 into the kingdom of God — common honesty will not 
 
How to Seek Christ. 105 
 
 take men to heaven. Alas, that men should think 
 that ever they met with Christ, who had never a 
 sick night, through the terrors of God in their souls, 
 or a sore heart for sin ! 
 
 I want nothing but a back-burden of Christ's 
 love — I would go through hell, and the throng of 
 the damned devils, to have a hearty feast of Christ's 
 love ; for he hath fettered me with his love, and 
 run away, and left me a chained man. 
 
 Every man hath conversion, and the new-birth ; 
 but it is not lawfully attained — 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 judgment, and heaven crammed full. Alas ! 
 it is neither easy nor ordinary to believe and to be 
 saved. Many must stand, in the end, at heaven's 
 gates : when they go to take out their faith they 
 take out a fair nothing, or an illusion. I pray you, 
 in the name of Christ, make fast work of Christ 
 and salvation. 
 
 Christ must have honesty or nothing — but if 
 you mean that he will have no service at all, where 
 the heart draweth back in any measure, I would not 
 
106 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 that were true, for my part of heaven, and all that I 
 am worth in the world. If you mind to walk to 
 heaven without a cramp or a halt, I fear that you 
 must go alone. 
 
 I pray you to dig deep. Christ's palace work, 
 and his new dwelling, laid upon hell felt and feared, 
 is most firm ; and heaven grounded and laid upon 
 such a hell is surest work, and will not wash away 
 with Winter storms. Many lay false and bastard 
 foundations, and take up conversion at their foot, 
 and get Christ for as good as half nothing, and had 
 never a sick night for sin, and this maketh loose 
 work. 
 
 Hold on in feeling and bewailing your hard- 
 ness ; for that is softness to feel hardness. Re- 
 member faith is one thing, and the feeling and 
 notice of faith another. I am sure you were not 
 always actually knowing that you live ; yet all the 
 time you are living : so it is with the life of faith. 
 
How to Seek Christ. 107 
 
 Borne, fosus; and ^ome ^uijckl#. 
 
 Jesus, I love ; come, dearest name ! 
 
 Come, and possess this heart of mine. 
 I love, though 't is a fainter flame, 
 
 And infinitely less than thine. 
 
 ! if my Lord would leave the skies, 
 Dressed in the rays of mildest grace, 
 
 My soul would hasten to my eyes, 
 To meet the pleasures of his face. 
 
 How would I feast on all his charms, 
 
 Then round his lovely feet intwine ! 
 Worship and love in all their forms 
 
 Should honor beauty so divine. 
 
 In vain the tempter's flattering tongue; 
 
 The world in vain should bid me move — 
 In vain ; for I should gaze so long, 
 
 Till I were all transformed to love. 
 
 Then, mighty God ! I 'd sing and say, 
 
 " What empty names are crowns and kings ! 
 
 Among them give these worlds away, 
 These little, despicable things." 
 
 1 would not ask to climb the sky, 
 Nor envy angels their abode: 
 
 I have a heaven as bright and high 
 In the blest vision of my God. 
 
VI. 
 
 HERE is a degree 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 and see" will speak 
 better things of him than I can do. "Come 
 nearer" will say much. 
 
 I verily think, now, that Christ hath led me up 
 to a notch in Christianity that I was never at be- 
 fore ; I think all before was but childhood and 
 children's play. 
 
 Either I know not what Christianity is, or we 
 have stinted a measure of so many ounce-weights 
 and no more upon holiness, and there we are at a 
 
The Higher Life. 109 
 
 stand, drawing our breath all our life — a modera- 
 tion in God's way, now, is much in request. I 
 profess that I have never taken pains to find out 
 him whom my soul loveth ; there is a way yet of 
 finding out Christ that I have never lighted upon. 
 
 that I could find it out! 
 
 If you would be a deep divine, I recommend to 
 you Sanctification. 
 
 Sanctification will settle you most in the truth. 
 O, his perfumed face, his fair face, his lovely and 
 kindly kisses have made me a poor prisoner ; see that 
 there is more to be had of Christ in this life than I 
 had believed. We think all is but a little earnest, a 
 slight afternoon refreshment, a small tasting which 
 we have, or that 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. 
 
 The King dineth with his prisoner, and his 
 spikenard casteth a smell. He hath led me to 
 such a pitch and degree of joyful communion with 
 himself as I never knew before. When I look 
 back to the things passed, I find myself to have 
 been a child at A, B, C, with Christ. Pardon me, 
 
 1 dare not conceal it from you, it is as a fire in my 
 
no A Garden of Spices. 
 
 bowels in his presence who seeth me as I speak it. 
 I am pained, pained with the love of Christ; he 
 hath made me sick and mended me ; hunger for 
 Christ outrunneth faith ; I miss faith more than love. 
 
 I have now been led by my Lord Jesus to such 
 a degree in Christianity, that 1 think but little of 
 former things. O, what I want ! I want so many 
 things that I am almost asking if I have any thing 
 at all. Every man thinketh that he is rich enough 
 in grace till he take out his purse and tell his 
 money, and then he findeth his pack but poor and 
 light in the day of a heavy trial. I found that I had 
 not to bear my expenses, and I should have fainted 
 if want and penury had not chased me to the store- 
 house of all. 
 
 I counsel you to study Sanctification, and to 
 be dead to this world. 
 
 Christ's love surroundeth and surchargeth me. 
 I am burdened with it ; but, O, how sweet and 
 lovely is that burden ! I can not keep it within me ; 
 I am so in love with his love, that if his love were 
 not in heaven, I should be unwilling to go thither. 
 O what weighing and what blessing is in Christ's 
 
The Higher Life. hi 
 
 love ! I fear nothing now so much as the laughing 
 of Christ's cross, and the love-showers that accom- 
 pany it. I wonder what he meaneth to put such a 
 slave at the head of the table at his own elbow. 
 
 Light, and the saving use of light, are far dif- 
 ferent. O, what need, then, have I to have the 
 ashes blown away from my dying-out fire! I may 
 be a bookman, and be an idiot and stark fool in 
 Christ's way. Learning will not beguile Christ. I 
 doubt not but more would fetch heaven, if they be- 
 lieved not heaven at the next door. The world's 
 negative holiness maketh many believe they are 
 already glorified saints ; but the sixth chapter to 
 the Hebrews 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 
 world to come, to hell with them. 
 
 It is not jest nor sport which maketh me to 
 speak and write as I do. I never before came to 
 that degree or pitch of communion with Christ 
 that I have now attained to. 
 
 Now, I rejoice exceedingly that the Father of 
 lights hath made you see that there is a degree in 
 
ii2 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Christianity which you contend to be at ; and that 
 is to quit the right eye, and the right hand, and to 
 keep the Son of God. 
 
 Again, I wish no man to 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 notch and degree of communion with himself 
 that I knew not before. 
 
 I have not lighted upon the right way of put- 
 ting Christ to the bank, and 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, 
 and my stock, and put his name in all my bonds, 
 and serve himself heir to the poor, mean portion 
 which I have, and be accountable for the talent 
 himself! 
 
 I am in as sweet communion with Christ as a 
 poor sinner can be ; and am only pained that he 
 hath much beauty and fairness, and I little love ; he 
 great power and mercy, and I little faith ; he much 
 light, and I bleared eyes. O, that I saw him in the 
 
The Higher Life. 113 
 
 sweetness of his love, and in his marriage clothes, 
 and were over head and ears in love with that 
 princely one, Christ Jesus, my Lord! Alas! my 
 riven dish and running-out vessel can hold little of 
 Christ Jesus ! 
 
 I may, from new experience, speak of Christ to 
 you. O, that you saw in him what I see ! A river 
 of God's unseen joys hath flowed from bank to brae 
 over my soul since I parted with you. I wish that 
 I wanted part, so you might have : that your soul 
 might be sick of' love for Christ, or rather satiated 
 with him. 
 
 Love, love — I mean Christ's love — is the hottest 
 coal that ever I felt. O, but the smoke of it is 
 hot ; cast all the salt sea on it, it will flame ! Hell 
 can not quench it ; many, many waters will not 
 quench love. Christ is turned over to his poor 
 prisoner in a mass and globe of love ; I wonder that 
 he should waste so much love upon such a waster 
 as I am ; but he is no waster, but abundant in 
 mercy. Free grace is an unknown thing. This 
 world hath heard but a bare name of Christ, and 
 no more. There are infinite plies in his love that 
 the saints will never attain to unfold. 
 8 
 
ii4 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Every one hath his set measure of faith and 
 holiness, and contenteth himself with but a stinted 
 measure of godliness, as if that were enough to 
 bring him 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 can not 
 pay God with the old use and wont — as we used 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! and 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. 
 
 Christ's comforts to me are not dealt with a 
 niggard's hand, but I would fain learn not to idol- 
 ize 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 himself, and 
 to be swallowed up of love to Christ. I see that 
 in delighting in a communion with Christ, we may 
 make more gods than one ; but, however, all was 
 
The Higher Life. 115 
 
 mere child's play between Christ and me till now. 
 If one would have sworn unto me, I would not 
 have believed what may be found in Christ. 
 
 I have now made a new question, Whether 
 Christ be more to be loved for giving sanctification 
 or for free justification ? And I hold that he is 
 more and most to be loved for sanctification. It 
 is, in some respects, greater love in him to sanctify 
 than to justify ; for he maketh us most like himself 
 in his own essential portraiture and image in sanc- 
 tifying us. Justification doth but make us happy, 
 which is to be like angels only ; neither is it such 
 a misery to lie a condemned man, and under unfor- 
 given guiltiness, as to serve sin, and work the works 
 of the devil ; and, therefore, I think sanctification 
 can not be bought, it is above price. God be 
 thanked forever, that Christ was a told-down price 
 for sanctification ! Let a sinner — if possible — lie in 
 hell forever, if he make him truly holy, and let him 
 lie there burning in love to God, rejoicing in the 
 Holy Ghost, hanging upon Christ by faith and 
 hope ; that is heaven in the heart of hell. 
 
 Vi;kily, since I came to this prison, I have con- 
 ceived a new and extraordinary opinion of Christ 
 
n6 A Garde at of Spices. 
 
 which I had not before ; for I perceive we postpone 
 all our joys of Christ, till he and we be in our own 
 house above, as married parties, thinking there is 
 nothing of it to be sought or found here but only 
 hope and fair promises ; and that Christ will give us 
 nothing here but tears, and sadness, and crosses ; 
 and that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers 
 of that high garden above, till we come there. Nay, 
 but I find that it is possible to find young glory, and 
 a young, green paradise of joy even here. I know 
 that Christ's kisses will cast a more strong and re- 
 freshing smell of incomparable glory and joy in 
 heaven than they do here ; because a drink of the 
 well of life up at the well's head is more sweet and 
 fresh by far than that which we get in our borrowed, 
 old, running-out vessel, and our wooden dishes here ; 
 yet, I am now persuaded it is our folly to postpone 
 all till the term-day, seeing abundance of earnest 
 will not diminish any thing of our principal sum. 
 
 O, that all the young heirs would seek more, and 
 a greater and near communion with my Lord tutor, 
 the prime heir of all, Christ ! 
 
 Sanctified thoughts, thoughts made conscience 
 of, and called in and kept in awe, and given fuel that 
 burn not, and are a water for Satan's coal. Yet, I 
 
The Higher Life. 117 
 
 must tell you that the whole saints, now triumphant 
 in heaven, and standing before the throne, are noth- 
 ing bui Christ's forlorn and beggarly bankrupts. 
 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. 
 
 Nothing, nothing, I say nothing but sound sanc- 
 tification can abide the Lord's face. 
 
 I know that there is more in Christ than would 
 make me run over like a coastful sea. 
 
 Try and search his Word, and strive to go a step 
 above and beyond ordinary professors ; and resolve 
 to sweat more and run faster than they do for sal- 
 vation. Men's midday, cold, and wire pace to 
 heaven will cause many a man to want his lodgings 
 at night, and to lie in the fields. 
 
 Alas ! it were easy to measure and weigh the 
 love we have for Christ by inches and ounces ! 
 Alas ! that we should love by measure and weight, 
 and not rather have floods and feasts of Christ's 
 love! O, that Christ would break down the old, 
 
n3 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 narrow vessels of these narrow and shallow souls, 
 and make fair, deep, wide, and broad souls, to hold 
 a sea and a full tide flowing over all banks of 
 Christ's love! 
 
 I can say, by some little experience, more now 
 than before of Christ to you. I am still upon this, 
 that if you seek, there is a hoard, a hidden treas- 
 ure, and a gold mine in Christ you never yet saw. 
 
 I recommend to you holiness and sanctification, 
 and that you keep yourself clean from this present 
 evil world. 
 
 But, if I have any love to him, Christ hath both 
 love to me and wit to guide his love ; and I see that 
 the best thing I have hath as much dross beside 
 me as might curse me and it both ; and, if it were 
 for no more, we have need of a Savior to pardon 
 the very faults, and diseases, and weaknesses of the 
 new man, and to take away — to say so — our godly 
 sins, or the sins of our sanctification, and the dross 
 and scum of spiritual love. 
 
 Happy are they for evermore who can employ 
 Christ, and set his blood and death on work, to 
 make clean work to God of foul souls. I know that 
 
The Higher Life. 119 
 
 it is our sin that would have sanctification on the 
 sunny side of the hill, and holiness with nothing 
 but Summer, and crosses not at all. Sin has made 
 us as tender as if we were made of paper or glass. 
 
 I think that I conceive new thoughts of heaven, 
 because the chart and the map of heaven, which 
 he letteth me now see, is so fair and so sweet. I 
 am sure that we are niggards, and sparing bodies 
 in seeking. I verily judge that we know not how 
 much may be had in this life ; there is yet some- 
 thing beyond all we see, that seeking would light 
 upon. 
 
 I think it is possible on earth to build a young, 
 new Jerusalem, a little, new heaven of this surpass- 
 ing love. God, either send me more of this love, 
 or take me quickly over the water, where I may 
 be filled with his love. 
 
 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, one issue of 
 blood shall not be quite dried up ; and, therefore, 
 we must resolve to apply peace to our souls from 
 
120 A Garden of Sp/ces. 
 
 the new and living way ; and Jesus — who cleanseth 
 and cureth the leprous soul — lovely Jesus, must be 
 our song on this side of heaven's gates ; and even 
 when we have won the castle, then must we eter- 
 nally sing, " Worthy, worthy is the Lamb who hath 
 saved us, and washed us in his own blood." 
 
 Sanctification and the mortification of our 
 lusts are the hardest part of Christianity. It is, in 
 a manner, as natural for us to leap when we see 
 the new Jerusalem, as to laugh when we are 
 tickled ; joy is not under command, nor at our nod 
 when it kisseth : but O, how many of us would 
 have Christ divided into two halves, that we might 
 take the half of him only, and take his office — 
 Jesus and salvation! but "Lord" is a cumbersome 
 word, and to obey and work out our salvation and 
 perfect holiness is the cumbersome and stormy 
 north side of Christ, and that which we eschew 
 and shift. 
 
 I can say more of Christ now by experience — 
 though he be infinitely above and beyond all that 
 can be said of him — than when I saw you ; I am 
 drowned over head and ears in his love. Sell, sell, 
 sell all things for Christ ! If this whole world were 
 
The Higher Life. 121 
 
 the beam of a balance it would not be able to bear 
 the weight of Christ's love ; men and angels have 
 short arms to fathom it. Set your feet upon this 
 piece blue and base clay of an over-gilded and fair- 
 plastered world ; an hour's kissing of Christ's is 
 worth a world of worlds. 
 
 I never believed, till now, that there was so 
 much to be found in Christ, on this side of death 
 and of heaven. O, the ravishments of heavenly joy 
 that may be had here, in the small gleanings and 
 comforts that fall from Christ! What fools are we 
 who know not, and consider not the weight and 
 telling that is in the very earnest penury, and the 
 first-fruits of our hoped-for harvest ! How sweet, 
 how sweet is our enfeofftment ! O, what then must 
 personal precision be ! 
 
 I will not smother nor conceal the kindness of 
 my King Jesus. He hath broken in upon the poor 
 prisoner's soul like the swelling of Jordan ! I am 
 bank and brimful ; a great, high Spring-tide of the 
 consolations of Christ hath overflowed me. They 
 have sent me here to feast with my king. His 
 spikenard casteth a sweet smell. The Bridegroom's 
 love hath run away with my heart ; O, love, love, 
 
122 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 love ! 0, sweet are my royal king's chains ! I 
 care not for fire nor torture. How sweet were it 
 to me, to swim the salt sea for my new lover, my 
 second husband, my first Lord! 
 
 My desire and purpose is, when Christ's honey- 
 combs drop, neither to refuse to receive and feed 
 upon his comforts, nor yet to make joy my bastard 
 god, or my new-found heaven. I can not but 
 laugh upon him who laugheth upon me. If joy 
 and comforts come single and alone, without Christ 
 himself, I would send them back again the way 
 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 I am overjoyed with floods 
 of love ! I fear not that too great deluges of love 
 wash away the growing corn, and loose my plants 
 at the roots. Christ doeth no harm when he com- 
 eth. I would further in upon Christ, than at his 
 joys. They but stand in the outer side of Christ ; 
 I would wish to be in as a seal upon his heart ; in, 
 where his love and mercy lodgeth beside his heart. 
 
 Christ hath been keeping something these four- 
 teen years for me, that I have now gotten in my 
 heavy days that I am in for his name's sake ; even 
 
The Higher Life. . 123 
 
 an opened coffer of perfumed comforts, and fresh 
 joys, coming new, and green, and 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 of my old ways. Whether I 
 have a race to run, or some work to do, I see not ; 
 but I think Christ seemeth to leave heaven — to say 
 so — and his court, and come down to laugh, and 
 play, and sport with a foolish child. 
 
 I am every way in your case, as hard-hearted, 
 and as dead as any man ; but yet I speak to Christ 
 through my sleep. 
 
 Certainly, it is more than my part to say, " O, 
 sweetest Lord Jesus, what, howbeit I were split and 
 broken into five thousand shreds, or bits of clay, so 
 being that every shred had a heart to love thee, and 
 every one as many tongues as there are in heaven 
 to sing praises unto thee, before men and angels 
 for evermore !" 
 
 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 and 
 spirits of the glorified, is but a creature ; and he is 
 
124 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 something, and a great Something, more than a 
 creature. O, what a life were it to set beside this 
 Well of love, and drink and sing, and sing and 
 drink ; and then to have desires and soul-faculties 
 stretched and extended out many thousand fathoms 
 in length and breadth, to take in seas and rivers of 
 love ! 
 
 Howbeit, our obedience be not sugared and 
 sweetened with joy, yet, the less sense, and the 
 more willingness in obeying, the less formality in 
 our obedience ; howbeit, we think not so ; for I be- 
 lieve that many think obedience formal and lifeless, 
 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. 
 
 If I were in your case I would borrow leave to 
 come and stand upon the banks and coasts of that sea 
 of love, and be a feasted soul, to see love's fair tide, 
 free love's high and lofty waves, each of them highei 
 than ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost clay. 
 O, welcome, welcome, great sea ! O that I had as 
 much love for wideness and breadth as twenty out- 
 most shells and spheres of the heaven of heavens, 
 
The Higher Life. 125 
 
 that I might receive in a little flood of his love! 
 Come, come, dear friend, and be pained that the 
 King's wine-cellar of free love, and his banqueting- 
 house — O so wide, so stately! — O so God-like, so 
 glory-like! — should be so abundant, so overflowing, 
 and your shallow vessel so little, to take in some 
 part of that love. But since it can not come into 
 you, for want of room, enter yourself into this sea 
 of love, and breathe under these waters, and die of 
 love, and live as one dead and drowned of this love. 
 
 O that I could let a lease of thousands of years, 
 and a suspension of my part of heaven's glory, and 
 postpone possession till a long day, qf my desired 
 salvation, so being that I could, in this lower kitchen 
 and under-vault of his creation, be feasted with his 
 love, and that I might be a footstool to his glory 
 before men and angels ! O that he would let out 
 heaven's fountain upon withered me, dry and sapless 
 me ! If I were but sick of love for his love — and 
 O, how would that sickness delight me ! — how sweet 
 should that easing and refreshing pain be to my 
 soul! 
 
 O, Plow sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly 
 in Christ ! — to be out of the creature's owning, and 
 
i26 A Gardex of Spices. 
 
 made complete in Christ — to live by faith in Christ, 
 and to be once for all clothed with the created 
 majesty and glory of the Son of God, wherein he 
 maketh 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 
 breathings of the Holy Ghost ; no seas nor floods 
 flow, but the pure waters 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 ! 
 
 Holiness is not Christ ; nor are the blossoms 
 and flowers of the tree of life the tree itself. Men 
 and creatures may wind themselves betwixt us and 
 Christ ; and therefore the Lord hath done much to 
 take out of the way all betwixt him and us. 
 
 Our Lord handleth us as fathers do their young 
 children. They lay up jewels in a place above the 
 reach of the short arms of children, else the children 
 would put up their hands and take them down and 
 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 
 
The Higher Life. 127 
 
 clown that life and lose it. It is in our Christ's 
 hand. O, long, long may Jesus be lord-keeper of 
 our life ! and happy are they that can with the 
 apostle lay their soul in pawn in the hand of Jesus ; 
 for he is able to keep that which is committed in 
 pawn against that day. Then, so long as this life is 
 not hurt, all other troubles are but touches in the 
 heel. 
 
 "My Well-beloved is mine, and I am his," is a 
 sweet and glorious course of life, that none know 
 but those who are sealed and marked in the fore- 
 head with Christ's mark, and the new name that 
 Christ writeth upon his own. 
 
 O that we could wait for our hidden life! O 
 that Christ would remove the covering, throw aside 
 the curtain of time, and rend the heavens, and come 
 down ! O that shadows and night were gone, that 
 the day would break, and that he who feedeth 
 among the lilies would cry to his heavenly trum- 
 peters, "Make ready, let us go down and fold to- 
 gether the four corners of the world, and marry the 
 bride !" 
 
 O what pains, and what a death it is to nature, 
 to turn me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit over 
 
12S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 unto my Lord, my Savior, my King, and my God, 
 my Lord's will, my Lord's grace ! What made 
 Esau miscarry? and what hurried Eve headlong 
 upon the forbidden fruit but that wretched thing, 
 herself? What drew that brother-murderer to kill 
 Abel? — that wild himself. What drove the Old 
 W T orld on to corrupt their ways ? What but them- 
 selves, and their own pleasures ? What was the 
 cause of Solomon's falling into adultery and multi- 
 plying of strange wives ? What but himself, whom 
 he would rather pleasure than God ? What was 
 the hook that took David and drawed him first in 
 adultery, but his self-lust ; and then in murder, but 
 his self-credit and self-honor? What led Peter on 
 to deny his Lord ? Was it not a piece of himself, 
 and self-love to a whole skin? What made Judas 
 sell his Master for thirty pieces of money but a 
 piece of self-love, idolizing of avaricious self? What 
 made Demas go off the way of the Gospel to em- 
 brace this present world ? Even self-love and 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 and lieth in 
 every man's bosom, is that idol that killeth all — 
 himself. O blessed are they who can deny them- 
 selves, and put Christ in the room of themselves! 
 
The Higher Life. 129 
 
 O would to the Lord that I had not a myself, but 
 Christ ; not a my ease, but Christ ; not a my honor, 
 but Christ ! O sweet Word ! " 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, and his own twenty things, 
 his own hundred things, which he setteth up as 
 idols above Christ ! 
 
 Learn to put out yourselves, and to put in 
 Christ for yourselves ; it would make a sweet barter- 
 ing and exchanging, and give old for new, if I could 
 shuffle out self, and substitute Christ, my Lord, in 
 place of myself; to say, "Not I, but Christ; not m} 
 will, but Christ's ; not my ease, not my lust, not my 
 worthless credit, but Christ, Christ." O wretched 
 idol, myself! when shall I see thee wholly discarded, 
 and Christ wholly put in thy room ? O that Christ, 
 Christ had the full place and room of myself! That 
 all my aims, purposes, thoughts, and desires, would 
 coast and land upon Christ, and not upon myself! 
 and, howbeit, we can not attain to this denial of me 
 and mine that we can say, "I am not myself; my- 
 self is not myself; mine own is no longer mine 
 own ;" yet our aiming at this in all we do shall be 
 accepted. 
 
 9 
 
130 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 I hope I shall not need to show you that you are 
 in greater hazard from yourself and your own spirit, 
 which should be watched over — that your actings for 
 God may be clean, spiritual, purely for God, for the 
 prince of the Kings of the earth — than you can be 
 in danger from your enemies. O, how hard it is 
 to get the intentions so cut off from, and raised 
 above the creature, as to be without mixture of 
 creature and carnal interest, and to have the soul 
 in heavenly acting, only eyeing himself, and act- 
 ing from love to God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ. 
 You will find yourself, your delights, your solid 
 glory — far above the air and breathings of mouths, 
 and 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 globe of the 
 habitable world, are but under him single ciphers 
 making no number of the product, being nothing 
 but painted men, and painted swords in a board, 
 without influence from him. 
 
 You will take a low ebb, and a deep cut, and a 
 long lance, to go to the bottom of your wounds, in 
 saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for 
 Christ. Be humbled ; walk softly ; down, clown, 
 for God's sake, my dear and worthy brother, with 
 
The Higher Life. 131 
 
 your top-sail ; stoop, stoop ! it is a low entry to go 
 in at heaven's gate. 
 
 I AM like a child that hath a gilded book that 
 playeth with the ribbons, and the gilding, and the 
 picture on the first page, but readeth not the con- 
 tents of it. Certainly, if my desires to my well- 
 beloved were fulfilled, I could provoke devils, and 
 crosses, and the world, and temptations to the field ; 
 but O, my poor weakness maketh me lie behind the 
 bush and hide 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, he 
 so beareth his love on me. Here I die with won- 
 dering that justice hindereth not love ; for there are 
 none in hell or out of hell more unworthy of 
 Christ's love. Shame may confound and frighten 
 me once to hold up my black mouth to receive one 
 of Christ's undeserved kisses. If my inner side 
 were turned out and all men saw my vileness, they 
 would say to me, "It is a shame for thee to stand 
 still till Christ kiss thee, and embrace thee." It 
 would seem to become me rather to run away from 
 
132 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 his love, as ashamed at my own unworthiness ; nay, 
 I may be ashamed to take heaven, who have so 
 highly provoked my Lord Jesus ; but, seeing 
 Christ's love will shame me, I am content to be 
 ashamed. 
 
 I have seen my abominable vileness ; if I were 
 well known, there would be none in this kingdom 
 to ask how I do. Many take my ten for a hund- 
 red, but I am a deeper hypocrite and a shallower 
 professor than every one believeth ; God knoweth 
 I feign not. But, I think, my reckonings on the 
 one page, written in great letters, and his mercy to 
 such a wretched, forlorn, bankrupt on the other, to 
 be more than a miracle. If I could be saved — as I 
 would fain believe — sure I am that I have given 
 Christ's blood, his free grace, and the bowels of his 
 mercy, a large field to work upon, and Christ hath 
 manifested his art, I dare not say to the uttermost; 
 but, I say, to an admirable degree. 
 
 We may blame ourselves who cause the law to 
 crave well-paid debt, to scare us away from Jesus, 
 and dispute about a righteousness of our own, a 
 world in the moon, a chimera, and a night-dream, 
 that pride is father and mother too. There can not 
 
The Higher Life. 133 
 
 be a more humbled soul than a believer; it is no 
 pride for a drowning man to catch hold of a rock. 
 
 When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my sal- 
 vation is one of our Savior's greatest miracles, 
 either in heaven or earth ; I am sure I may defy 
 any man to show me a greater wonder. 
 
 I am laid low when I remember what I am, and 
 that my outside casteth such a luster, when I find 
 so little within. It is a wonder that Christ's glory 
 is not defiled, running through such an impure and 
 unclean channel. But I see Christ will be Christ 
 in the dreg and refuse of men. His art, his shining 
 wisdom, his beauty speak loudest in blackness, 
 weakness, deadness ; yea, in nothing. I see noth- 
 ing, no money, no worth, no good, no life, no de- 
 serving is the ground that Omnipotency delighteth 
 to draw glory out of. 
 
 "You write to me," he says, "that elevated places 
 arc slippery." I do not think my fondling would 
 well still last, and that feasts will be my ordinary 
 food. I would have humility, patience, and faith to 
 set down both my feet when I come to the north 
 side of the cold and thorny hill. It ill becomes me 
 
134 -4 Garden of Spices. 
 
 to be reluctant to go an errand for Christ, and to 
 take the wind upon my face for him. 
 
 I find men have mistaken me ; it would be no 
 art — as I now see — to spin fine, and make hypoc- 
 risy seem a godly web, and go through the market 
 as a saint among men, and yet steal gently to hell, 
 without observation ; so easy is it to deceive men. 
 
 It is now many years since the apostate angels 
 made a question whether their will or the will of 
 their Creator should be done ; and, since that time 
 forward, mankind hath always, in that same suit of 
 law, appeared to plead with them against God in 
 daily repining against his will ; but the Lord, being 
 both party and judge, hath obtained a decree, and 
 saith, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my 
 pleasure." It is, then, best for us, in the obedience 
 of faith, and in a holy submission, to give that to 
 God which his almighty and just power will have 
 of us. 
 
 I was once that I would make the house ado, if 
 I saw not the world carved and set in order to my 
 liking ; now, I am silent. I pray God that I may 
 never find my will again. O, that Christ would 
 
The Higher Life. 135 
 
 subject my will to his, and trample it under his feet, 
 and liberate me from that lawless lord ! 
 
 O, blessed soul! that could sacrifice his will, 
 and go to heaven having lost his will, and made res- 
 ignation of it to Christ ! I would seek no more 
 than that Christ were absolute king over my will, 
 and that my will were a sufferer in all crosses with- 
 out meeting Christ with such a nod. "Why is it 
 thus ?" 
 
 Let not the Lord's dealing seem harsh, rough, or 
 unfatherly, because it is unpleasant. When the 
 Lord's blessed will bloweth across your desires, it is 
 best, in humility, to strike sail to him, and to be will- 
 ing to be led any way our Lord pleaseth. It is a 
 point of denial of yourself to be as if you had not a 
 will, but had made a free disposal of it to God, and 
 had sold it over to him ; and to make use of his will 
 for your own, is both true holiness, and your ease 
 and peace ; you know not what the Lord is making 
 out of this, but you shall know it hereafter. 
 
 Let the only wise God alone, he steereth well ; 
 he dravvcth straight, though we think and say they 
 are crooked. It is right that some should die and 
 their breasts full of milk ; and yet, we are angry 
 
136 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 that God dealeth so with them. O, that I could 
 adore him in his hidden ways, when there is dark- 
 ness under his feet, and darkness in his pavilion, 
 and clouds are about his throne! Hoping, believ- 
 ing, patient praying is our life. He loseth no time ! 
 
 "$.hid£ in Me, and $ in fou/' 
 
 That mystic word of thine, O sovereign Lord ! 
 
 Is all too pure, too high, too deep for me; 
 Weary of striving, and with longing faint, 
 
 I breathe it back again in prayer to thee. 
 
 Abide in me, I pray, and I in thee : 
 
 From this good hour, O ! leave me nevermore ; 
 
 Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed, 
 The life-long bleeding of the soul be o'er. 
 
 Abide in me; o'ershadow by thy love 
 
 Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin; 
 Quench ere it rise, each selfish, low desire ; 
 
 And keep my soul as thine, calm and divine. 
 
 As some rare perfume in a vase of clay 
 Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, 
 
 So, when thou dwellest in a mortal soul, 
 
 All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown. 
 
The Higher Life. 137 
 
 Abide in me. There have been moments blest 
 When I have heard thy voice and felt thy power; 
 
 Then evil lost its grasp ; and passion hushed, 
 Owned the divine enchantment of the hour. 
 
 These were but seasons beautiful and rare ; 
 
 Abide in me, and they shall ever be : 
 Fulfill at once thy precept and my prayer; 
 
 Come, and abide in me, and I in thee. 
 
 Harriet Bkechbr Stowh. 
 
 The Hidden &ife. 
 
 To tell the Savior all my wants, 
 
 How pleasing is the task ! 
 Nor less to praise him when he grants 
 
 Beyond what I can ask. 
 
 My laboring spirit vainly seeks 
 
 To tell but half the joy ; 
 With how much tenderness he speaks, 
 
 And helps me to reply. 
 
 Nor were it wise, nor should I choose, 
 
 Such secrets to declare: 
 Like precious wines, their taste they lose, 
 
 Exposed to open air. 
 
f3S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 But this with boldness I proclaim, 
 Nor care if thousands hear ; 
 
 Sweet is the ointment of his name : 
 Nor life is half so dear. 
 
 And can you frown, my former friends, 
 Who knew what once I was, 
 
 And blame the song that thus commends 
 The man who bore the cross ? 
 
 Trust me, I draw the likeness true. 
 
 And not as fancy paints; 
 Such honor may he give to you ! 
 
 For such have all his saints. 
 
VII. 
 
 Jtttferjford'a lute of Aolg tiring. 
 
 HAT hours of the day, less or more time, 
 for the Word and prayer, be given to God, 
 not sparing the twelfth hour, or midday, 
 hovvbeit it should then be the shorter time. 
 
 i. In the midst of worldly employments there 
 should be some thoughts of sin, death, judgment, 
 and eternity, with a word or two at least of ejacu- 
 latory prayer to God. 
 
 2. To beware of wandering of heart in private 
 prayer. 
 
 3. Not to grudge, howbeit you come from prayer 
 without sense of joy — down-casting, sense of guilti- 
 ness, and hunger, are often best for us. 
 
 4. That the Lord's day, from morning to night, 
 be spent always cither in private or public worship. 
 
140 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 5. That words be observed, wandering and idle 
 thoughts be avoided, sudden anger and desire of 
 revenge, even of such as persecute the truth, be 
 guarded against ; for we often mix our zeal with our 
 wild-fire. 
 
 6. That known, discovered, and revealed sins, 
 that are against the conscience, be eschewed, as 
 most dangerous preparatives to hardness nf heart. 
 
 7. That in dealing with men, faith and truth in 
 covenants and trafficking be regarded ; that we deal 
 with all men in sincerity ; that conscience be made 
 of idle and lying words ; and that our carriage be 
 such, as that they who see it, may speak honorably 
 of our sweet Master and profession. 
 
 things fobiclj $nmbleb pirn. 
 
 1. Not refusing 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 ; 
 and 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 wit- 
 ness to their loose carriage, and because I intended 
 not in all companies to do good. 
 
RUTHERFORD'S RULES OF HOLY LIVING. 141 
 
 3. That the woes and calamities of the Church, 
 and of particular professors, have not moved me. 
 
 4. That at the reading the life of David, Paul, 
 and the like, when it humbled me, I — coming far 
 short of their holiness — labored 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, and lamented for. 
 
 6. That sudden stirrings of pride, lust, revenge, 
 love of honors, were not resisted and mourned for. 
 That my charity was cold. 
 
 7. That the experiences I had, of God's hearing 
 me, in this and 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. 
 
 8. That I have not more boldly contradicted the 
 enemies speaking against the truth, either in public, 
 or at tables, or ordinary conference. 
 
 9. That in great troubles I have received false 
 reports of Christ's love, and not believed aright in 
 his chastening: whereas the event hath said, "All 
 was in mercy." 
 
 10. Nothing more moveth me, and depresseth 
 my soul, than that I could never for my heart, in 
 
142 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 my prosperity, so wrestle in prayer with God, nor 
 be so dead to the world, so hungry and sick of love 
 for Christ, so heavenly-minded, as when ten-stone 
 weight of a heavy cross was upon me. 
 
 ii. That the cross extorted vows of new obedi- 
 ence, which ease hath blown away, as chaff before 
 the wind. 
 
 12. That practice was so short and narrow, and 
 light so long and broad. 
 
 13. That death hath not been often meditated 
 upon. 
 
 14. That I have not been careful of gaining 
 others to Christ. 
 
 15. That my grace and gifts bring forth little 
 or no thankfulness. 
 
 (L&bat gibeb jpim. 
 
 1. I have benefited by riding alone a long 
 journey, in giving that time to prayer. 
 
 2. By abstinence, in 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 par- 
 ticulars, that God heareth prayer; and therefore I 
 
RUTHERFORD'S RULES OF HOLY LIVING. 143 
 
 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. 
 
 O, we are little with God! and do all without 
 God ! We sleep and wake without him : we eat, we 
 speak, we journey, we go about worldly business, 
 and our calling without God! 'And, considering 
 what deadness is upon the hearts of many, it were 
 good that some did not pray without God, and 
 preach and praise, and read and confer of God, 
 without God. 
 
 Thtj W\\\ be Bans. 
 
 My Jesus, as thou wilt! 
 
 may thy will be mine ! 
 Into thy hand of love 
 
 1 would my all resign. 
 Through sorrow, or through joy, 
 
 Conduct me as thine own, 
 And help me still to say, 
 My Lord, thy will be done ! 
 
i44 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 
 
 If needy here and poor, 
 Give me thy people's bread, 
 
 Their portion rich and sure. 
 The manna of thy word 
 
 Let my soul feed upon ; 
 And if all else should fail, 
 
 My Lord, thy will be done. 
 
 My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 
 
 If among thorns I go, 
 Still sometimes here and there 
 
 Let a few roses blow. 
 But thou on earth along 
 
 The thorny path hast gone ; 
 Then lead me after thee, 
 
 My Lord, thy will be done. 
 
 My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 
 
 Though seen through many a tear, 
 Let not my star of hope 
 
 Grow dim, or disappear. 
 Since thou on earth hast wept 
 
 And sorrowed oft, alone, 
 If I must weep with thee, 
 
 My Lord, thy will be done ! 
 
 My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 
 
 If loved ones must depart, 
 Suffer not sorrow's flood 
 
 To overwhelm my heart. 
 
RUTHERFORD'S RULES OF HOLY LIVING. 145 
 
 For they are blest with thee ; 
 
 Their race and conflict won, 
 Let me but follow them ; 
 
 My Lord, thy will be done ! 
 
 My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 
 
 When death itself draws nigh, 
 To thy dear wounded side 
 
 I would for refuge fly : 
 Leaning on thee, to go 
 
 Where thou before hast gone : 
 The rest as thou shalt please. 
 
 My Lord, thy will be done. 
 
 My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 
 
 All shall be well for me : 
 Each changing future scene 
 
 I gladly trust with thee. 
 Straight to my home above 
 
 I travel calmly on, 
 And sing, in life or death, 
 
 My Lord, thy will be done. 
 
 SCHMUCK. 
 IO 
 
VIII. 
 
 |k |ses 0f Jjiiriion. 
 
 Ji^O you who are in trouble there are some 
 chapters, some particular promises in the 
 Word of God, made in a most especial 
 manner, which should never have been yours, so as 
 they now are, if you had your portion in this life as 
 others have ; and, therefore, all the comforts, prom- 
 ises, and mercies which God ofiereth to the afflicted 
 are as so many love-letters written to you. Take 
 them to you, and claim your right, and be not 
 robbed. It is no small comfort that God hath 
 written some Scriptures to you which he hath not 
 written to others : you seem rather, in this, to be 
 envied than pitied ; and you are, indeed, in this like 
 people of another world, and those that are above 
 the ordinary rank of mankind, whom our King and 
 
The Uses of Affliction. 
 
 '47 
 
 Lord, our Bridegroom Jesus, in his love-letter to his 
 well-beloved Spouse, hath named beside all the 
 rest, and hath written comforts and his hearty com- 
 mendation. 
 
 I am taught in this ill-weather to go on the lee- 
 side of Christ, and to put him in between me and 
 the storm. I thank God I walk on the sunny side 
 of the brae. 
 
 O what sweet comfort, what rich salvation, are 
 laid up for those who had rather wash and roll their 
 garments in their own blood than break out from 
 Christ by apostasy ! 
 
 My burden was once so heavy that one ounce- 
 weight would have cast the balance, and broken my 
 back ; but Christ said, " Hold, hold ! " to my sorrow, 
 and hath wiped a blurred eye which was foul with 
 weeping. I may joyfully go my Lord's errands, with 
 wages in my hands. 
 
 Intrust not your comforts to men's airy and 
 frothy applause, neither lay your down-castings on 
 the tongues of bitter mockers and reproaches of 
 godliness. God hath called you to Christ's side, 
 
14S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 and seeing you are with him, you can not expect the 
 lee-side, or the sunny side of the brae. 
 
 He hath made all his promises good to me, and 
 hath the most warm, sheltered, and comfortable 
 position— filled up all the blanks with his own hand. 
 I would not exchange my bonds with the plastered 
 joys of this whole world. It hath pleased him to 
 make a sinner, the like of me, an ordinary banqueter 
 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 per- 
 fumed with joy and gladness ! 
 
 Christ's honeycombs drop honey and floods of 
 consolation upon my soul ; my chains are gold ; 
 Christ's cross is all over-gilded 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, and my 
 head betwixt his breasts: my well-beloved is alto- 
 gether lovely— this is all nothing to that which my 
 soul has felt. If my stipend, place, country, credit, 
 had been an earldom, a kingdom, ten kingdoms, and 
 a whole earth, all were too little for the crown and 
 
The Uses of Affliction. 149 
 
 scepter 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 noth- 
 ing but heaven, and possession of the crown ; my 
 
 I see many professors, for the sake of appear- 
 ance, follow on ; but they are professors of glass. 
 I would cause a little knock of persecution break 
 them in twenty pieces, and so the world would 
 laugh at the shreds. Therefore make fast work. 
 See that Christ lay the foundation of your profes- 
 sion ; for wind, and rain, and floods, will not wash 
 away his building. I should twenty times have per- 
 ished in my affliction if I had not leaned my weak 
 back and laid my pressing burden both upon this 
 stone, the Foundation-stone, the corner-stone laid 
 in Zion ; and I desire never to rise off this stone. 
 
 If your Lord call you to suffering be not dis- 
 mayed ; there shall be a new allowance of the King 
 for you when you 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 
 
150 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 desire and wish, O that my ashes, and the powder 
 I shall be dissolved into, had well-tuned tongues to 
 praise him ! 
 
 I never find myself nearer Christ, that royal 
 and princely One, than after a great sense and 
 weight of deadness and gracelessness. I think that 
 the sense of our wants, when withal we have a rest- 
 lessness, and a sort of spiritual impatience under 
 them, and can make a din, because we want Him 
 whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open 
 door to Christ ; and when we think we are going 
 backward, because we feel deadness, we are going 
 forward ; for the more sense the more life ; and no 
 sense argueth no life. There is no sweeter fellow- 
 ship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our 
 sores to him. 
 
 I find my prison the sweetest place that ever I 
 was in. My Lord Jesus is kind to me, and hath 
 taken the mask off his face, and is content to quit 
 me of all matters by-past. 
 
 Nature's plastering and counterfeit he doth 
 often break in shreds, and putteth out a candle not 
 lighted at the Sun of Righteousness ; but he must 
 
The Uses of Affliction. 151 
 
 cherish his own reeds, and 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 bands and ligaments hath our chirurgeon of 
 broken spirits to bind up all his lame and bruised 
 ones with ! Cast your disjointed spirit into his 
 lap ; and lay your burden upon one who is so will- 
 ing to take your cares and your fears off you, and 
 to exchange and barter your crosses, and to give 
 you new for old, and gold for iron — even to give 
 you garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness. 
 
 There is no way of quieting the mind, and of 
 silencing the heart of a mother — on the loss of her 
 child — but godly submission. The readiest way for 
 peace and consolation to clay-vessels is, that it is a 
 stroke of the potter and former of all things ; and 
 since the holy Lord hath loosed the hold, when it 
 was fastened sure on your part. I know that your 
 light, and I hope that your heart also, will yield. 
 It is not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the 
 omnipotent Lord. Let the pull go with him, for he 
 is strong; and say, "Thy will be done!" 
 
 O what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to 
 the furnace of my Lord Jesus ! Grace tried is bet- 
 
152 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 ter than grace, and it is more than grace : it is glory 
 in its infancy. Who knoweth the truth of grace 
 without a trial? And how soon would faith freeze 
 without a cross ! How man)- 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, and 
 care of us. Why should I start at the plow of my 
 Lord, that maketh deep furrows in my soul? I 
 know that he is no idle husbandman, he purposeth 
 
 But Christ knoweth what to make of them — 
 crosses, sorrow, loss, sadness, death — and can so 
 connect himself with the cross, that we shall be 
 obliged to affliction, and thank God, who taught us 
 to make our acquaintance with such a rough com- 
 panion who can lead us to Christ. 
 
 O, it is a pity that there were not many impris- 
 oned for Christ, were it for no other purpose than to 
 write books and love-songs of the love of Christ ! 
 
 I feared that I was cast over the dike of the 
 vineyard as a dry tree. But, blessed be his great 
 
The Uses of Affliction. 153 
 
 name, the dry tree was in the fire and was not 
 burnt : his dew came down and quickened the root 
 of a withered plant, and now he is come again with 
 'oy, and hath been pleased to feast his exiled and 
 afflicted prisoner with the joy of his consolations. 
 Now, I weep, but am riot sad ; I am chastened, but 
 I die not ; I have loss, but I want nothing ; this 
 water can not drown me, this fire can not burn 
 me, because of the good-will of him who dwelt in 
 the bush. 
 
 The dross of my cross gathereth a scum of fears 
 in the fire, doubting, impatience, unbelief, accusa- 
 tions of Providence as sleeping, and as not regard- 
 ing my sorrow ; but, my goldsmith, Christ, was 
 pleased to take off the scum, and burn it in the 
 fire. And, blessed be my refiner, he hath made 
 the metal better, and furnished new supply of 
 grace to cause me to hold out weight ; and I hope 
 he hath not lost one grain-weight by burning his 
 servant. 
 
 I find it to be most true that the greatest 
 temptation out of hell is to live without tempta- 
 tions. If my waters should stand, they would rot. 
 Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp, 
 
i54 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Winter storm in its face. Grace withereth without, 
 adversity. The devil is but God's master-fencer, to 
 teach us to handle our weapons. 
 
 I have some experience to write of this to you. 
 My witness is in heaven, that I would not exchange 
 my chains and bonds for Christ, and my sighs, for 
 ten worlds' glory. 
 
 Our husband doeth well in breaking our idols 
 to pieces ; dry wells send us to the fountain. 
 
 I never knew, by my nine years' preaching, so 
 much of Christ's love, as he has taught me in 
 Aberdeen,* by six months' imprisonment. He hath 
 made to know now, better than before, what it is 
 to be crucified to the world. 
 
 O, O, I AM convinced, O Lord, I stand dumb 
 before thee for this ; let me be my own judge in 
 this, and I take a dreadful doom upon me for it ; 
 for I do not still believe aright, though I have seen 
 that my Lord hath made my cross as if it were all 
 crystal, so as I can see through it Christ's fair face 
 and heaven, and that God hath honored a lump of 
 
 * The place to which he was banished. 
 
The Uses of Affliction. 155 
 
 sinful flesh and blood, the like of me, to be Christ's 
 honorable lord-prisoner. I ought to esteem the 
 walls of the thieves' hole — if I were shut up in it — 
 or any stinking dungeon, all hung with tapestry, 
 and most beautiful for my Lord Jesus. 
 
 But my Lord, in his sweet visits, hath done 
 more ; for he maketh me to find that he will be 
 a confined prisoner with me. He lieth down and 
 riseth up with me ; when I sigh, he sigheth ; when 
 I weep, he suffereth with me ; and I confess that 
 here is the blessed issue of my sufferings, already 
 begun, that my heart is filled with hunger, and de- 
 sire to have him glorified in my sufferings. 
 
 I believe that when Christ draweth blood, he 
 hath skill to cut the right vein ; and that he hath 
 taken the whole ordering and disposing of my suf- 
 ferings. Let him tutor me, and tutor my crosses, 
 as he thinketh good. 
 
 I find that my extremity hath sharpened the 
 edge of his love and kindness, so that he seemeth 
 to desire new ways of expressing the sweetness of 
 his love to my soul. Suffering for Christ is the 
 very element wherein Christ's love liveth, and exer- 
 ciseth itself in casting out flames of fire, and sparks 
 
156 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 of heat to warm such a frozen heart as I have ; and 
 if Christ, weeping in .sackcloth, be so sweet, I can 
 not find any imaginable thoughts to think what he 
 will be when we clay-bodies — having put off mortal- 
 ity — shall come up to the marriage-hall and great 
 palace, and behold the king clothed in his robes 
 royal, sitting on his throne ! 
 
 Losses and crosses 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, and that is the butt his arrows shoot 
 at ; and Christ shooteth not at random, he hitteth 
 what he purposeth to hit. What harder stuff or 
 harder grain for thrashing out than high and 
 rocky mountains ; but the saints are God's thrash- 
 ing instruments to beat them all into chaff. Are 
 we not God's earthen vessels? and yet, when they 
 cast us over an house we are not broken into 
 shreds. We creep in under our Lord's wings in 
 the great shower, and the water can not come 
 through those wings. 
 
 I know that Christ bought with his own blood 
 a right to sanctified and blessed crosses, in as far as 
 they blow me over the water to my long-desired 
 
The Uses of Affliction. 157 
 
 home ; and it were not good that Christ should be 
 the buyer and I the seller. I know that time and 
 death shall take sufferings fairly off my hand. I 
 hope we shall have an honest parting at night, when 
 this cold and frosty afternoon-tide of my evil and 
 rough day shall be over. 
 
 The glancing of the furnace is to let you see 
 what scum or refuse you must want, and what froth 
 is in nature that must be boiled out, and taken off 
 in the fire of your trials. I do not say that heavier 
 afflictions prophesy heavier guiltiness ; a cross is 
 often but a false prophet of this kind ; but I am sure 
 that our Lord would have the tin and the bastard 
 metal in you renewed. 
 
 It is much to come out of the Lord's school of 
 trial wiser and more experienced in the ways of 
 God, and it is our happiness when Christ openeth 
 a vein that he taketh nothing but ill blood from his 
 sick ones. Christ hath skill to do, and, if our con- 
 ceptions mar not, the art of mercy in correcting. 
 We can not, of ourselves, take away the tin, the 
 lead, and the scum that rcmaineth in us ; and if 
 Christ be not master of work, and if the furnace go 
 I))' itself alone — he not standing by the melting of 
 
158 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 his own vessel — the labor were lost, and the founder 
 should melt in vain. God knoweth some of us 
 have lost much fire, sweating, and pains to our 
 Lord Jesus ; and the vessel is almost marred, the 
 furnace and rod of God spoiled, and daylight burnt, 
 and the reprobate metal not taken away, so as some 
 are to answer to the majesty of God for the abuse 
 of many good crosses, and rich afflictions lost with- 
 out the quiet fruit of righteousness ; and it is a sad 
 thing when the rod is cursed that never fruit shall 
 grow on it. And except Christ's dew fall down, and 
 his Summer sun shine, and his grace follow afflic- 
 tions, to cause them to bring forth fruit to God, 
 they are so fruitless to us that our evil ground — 
 rank and fat enough for briers — casteth up a crop 
 of noisome weeds. 
 
 Fellowship in Suffering, 
 
 Humbly while my soul doth prove, 
 Sweetest joys of pardoning love, 
 Still, my Savior, doth it yearn 
 Love's deep mystery to learn ; 
 In the shadow of thy cross, 
 Counting earthly gain but loss, 
 
The Uses of Affliction. 759 
 
 Breathing still its fervent plea 
 For a closer life with thee, 
 By that high and holy thing: 
 Fellowship in suffering. 
 
 O, my Lord, the crucified, 
 Who for love of me hast died, 
 Mold me by thy living breath 
 To the likeness of thy death ! 
 While the thorns thy brow entwine, 
 Let no flower-wreath rest on mine. 
 In thy hands the cruel nail, 
 Blood-sweat on thy forehead pale — 
 Clasp me to thy wounded side, 
 O, my Lord, the crucified! 
 
 Hands love-clasped through charmed hours. 
 
 Feet that press the bruised flowers, 
 
 Is there naught for you to dare, 
 
 That ye may his signet wear? 
 
 In this easy, painless life, 
 
 Free from struggle, care, and strife, 
 
 Ever on my doubting breast 
 
 Lies the shadow of unrest ; 
 
 This no path that Jesus trod — 
 
 Can the smooth way lead to God ? 
 
 But when chastening strifes descend, 
 Welcoming as friend doth friend, 
 Thy dear tokens, Lord, I know, 
 And to thee unerring go. 
 Blessed tears flow warm and free, 
 Thou dost love me, even me. 
 
160 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Pomp, and ease, and praise of men. 
 All are loathed and scorned then, 
 Since, my Lord, my love hath died, 
 Mocked, and scourged, and crucified. 
 
 By the agony and pain 
 Of the torture-stricken brain, 
 By the riches of thy love, 
 Let not suffering barren prove ! 
 Pledge and emblem 'twould remain, 
 Of the dark and sullen pain, 
 Where nor love, nor God doth live, 
 And the blessed word, forgive, 
 Comes not with its subtile art, 
 Softening, healing any heart. 
 
 In the little islet, Time, 
 
 Of eternity sublime, 
 
 Standing on the sloping brink, 
 
 Let me of thy chalice drink, 
 
 Be baptized with thy baptism, 
 
 And be crowned with thy love-chrism. 
 
 Slain with thee in darkest hour, 
 
 Feel thy resurrection's power, 
 
 Till where thou art I may be 
 
 Perfected, dear Lord, with thee. 
 
IX. 
 
 I 
 
 sritl and Vmnmcz 
 
 IE believing, die with Christ's promise in 
 your hand. Faith hath cause to take 
 courage from our very afflictions: the 
 devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and 
 patience of the saints. I know that he but heweth 
 and polisheth stones all this time for the New 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Duties are ours ; events are the Lord's. When 
 our faith goeth to meddle with events, and to hold a 
 court — if I may so speak — upon God's providence, 
 and beginneth to say, " How wilt thou do this and 
 that?" we lose ground. We have nothing to do 
 there. It is our part to let the Almighty exercise 
 his own office, and steer his own helm. There is 
 ii • 
 
1 62 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 nothing left to us but to see how we may be ap- 
 proved of him, and how we may roll the weight 
 of our weak souls in well-doing upon him, who is 
 God Omnipotent ; and when what we thus essay 
 miscarrieth, it will neither be our sin nor cross. 
 
 Faith may dance because Christ singeth ; and 
 we may come into the choir, and lift our hoarse and 
 rough voices, and chirp, and sing, and shout for joy 
 with our Lord Jesus. We see oxen go to the 
 shambles leaping and running: we see God's fed 
 oxen, prepared for the day of slaughter, go dancing 
 and singing down to the black chambers of hell ; 
 and why should we go to heaven weeping as if we 
 were to fall down through the earth for sorrow? 
 If God were dead — if I may speak so with reverence 
 to him who liveth forever and ever — and Christ 
 buried and rotten among the worms, we might have 
 cause to look like dead folks ;, but " the Lord liveth, 
 and blessed be the rock of our salvation." None 
 have right to joy but we ; for joy is sorrow for us, 
 and an ill Summer or harvest will not spoil the cross. 
 
 I find it hard to believe, when the course of 
 Providence goeth cross-wise to our faith, and when 
 bewildered souls, in a dark night, can not know east 
 
Faith and Assurance. 163 
 
 by west, and our sea-compass seemeth to fail us. 
 Every man is a believer in daylight — a fair day 
 seemeth to be made all of faith and hope. What a 
 trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the fire ? 
 But to keep gold perfectly yellow-colored amidst the 
 flames, and to be turned from vessel to vessel, and 
 yet to cause our furnace to sound, and speak, and 
 cry the praises of the Lord, is another matter. I 
 know that my Lord made me not for fire ; howbeit 
 he hath fitted me, in some manner, for the fire. I 
 bless his high name that I wax not paler, neither 
 have I lost the color of gold, and that his fire hath 
 me somewhat fluid, and that my Lord may pour me 
 into any vessel he pleaseth. 
 
 And your fault is just mine, that I can not be- 
 lieve my Lord's bare and naked word. I must either 
 have an apple to play me with, and shake hands with 
 Christ, and have real security, and witness to his 
 ward, or else I count myself loose ; howbeit, I have 
 the word and faith of a king. O, I am made of 
 unbelief, and can not swim but where my feet touch 
 the ground ! Alas, Christ is presented to me under 
 my temptations as lying waters, as a bankrupt and 
 a cozener! We can make such a Christ, as tempt- 
 ations casting us in a night-dream, do feign and 
 
164 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 desire ; and temptations represent Christ ever unlike 
 himself, and we, in our folly, listen to the tempter. 
 
 Make meikle — much — of assurance, for it keepeth 
 your anchor fixed. 
 
 A question may be, "If after assurance and 
 mortification, the children of God be ordinarily fed 
 with sense and joy?" I answer, I see no incon- 
 venience to think it is 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 race's 
 end. Yet I judge it not unlawful to seek renewed 
 consolations, providing, 1. The heart be submissive 
 and content to leave the measure and timing of 
 them to him. 2. Providing they be sought to excite 
 us to praise, and strengthen our assurance, and 
 sharpen our desires after himself. 3. Let them be 
 sought, not for our humors or swelling of nature, 
 but as the earnest of heaven ; and I think many 
 do attain to greater consolations after mortification 
 than ever they had formerly. 
 
 Be content to wade through the waters betwixt 
 you and glory with him, holding his right hand 
 fast ; for he knoweth all the fords. Howbeit you 
 
Faith and Assurance. 165 
 
 may be ducked, yet you can not drown, being in 
 his company ; and you may, all the way to glory, 
 see the way bedewed with his blood, who is the 
 Forerunner. Be not afraid, therefore, when you 
 come to the black and swelling river of death, to 
 put in your feet and wade after him. The current, 
 how strong soever, can not carry you down the 
 water to hell : the death and resurrection of the Son 
 of God are stepping-stones and a stay to you ; set 
 down your feet by faith upon these stones, and go 
 through as on dry land. 
 
 Think not much of short summons : 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, and, withal, he is familiar 
 with you, who cometh at his own hand to your 
 house, and intermeddleth as a friend with every 
 thing that is yours. 
 
 Providence hath a thousand keys to open a 
 thousand sundry doors for the deliverance of his 
 own, when it is even come to a desperate case. 
 Let us be faithful ; and care for our own part, which 
 is to do and suffer for him, and lay Christ's part on 
 himself, and leave it there. 
 
i66 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 The end of his counsel and working lieth hid- 
 den and underneath the ground ; and, therefore, we 
 can not believe. Even amongst men, we see hewn 
 stones, timber, and an hundred scattered parcels 
 and pieces of an house, all lesser tools, hammers, 
 and axes, and saws ; yet the house, the beauty and 
 ease of so many lodgings and rooms for repose, we 
 neither see nor understand for the present : these 
 are but in the mind and head of the builder as 
 yet. We see red earth, unbroken clods, furrows 
 and stones ; but we see not Summer lilies, roses, 
 and the beauty of a garden. If you give the Lord 
 time to work — as often he that believeth not maketh 
 haste, but not speed — his end is under ground, and 
 you shall see that it was for your good. 
 
 "It is I; be not &fraid." 
 
 Tossed with rough winds, and faint with fear, 
 Above the tempest, soft and clear, 
 What still small accents greet mine ear ? 
 'T is I ; be not afraid. 
 
Faith and Assurance. 167 
 
 'Tis I, who led thy steps aright; 
 'T is I, who gave thy blind eyes sight ; 
 'T is I, thy Lord, thy Life, thy Light; 
 'T is I; be not afraid. 
 
 These raging winds, this surging sea, 
 Bear not a breath of wrath to thee ; 
 That storm has all been spent on me. 
 'Tis I; be not afraid. 
 
 The bitter cup fear not to drink ; 
 I know it well — O ! do not shrink ; 
 I tasted it o'er Kedron's brink; 
 
 'T is I; be not afraid. 
 
 Mine eyes are watching by thy bed, 
 Mine arms are underneath thy head, 
 My blessing is around thee shed ; 
 
 'T is I; be not afraid. 
 
 When on the other side thy feet 
 Shall rest 'mid thousand welcomes sweet, 
 One well-known voice thy heart shall greet ; 
 'T is I; be not afraid. 
 
 From out the dazzling Majesty, 
 Gently he'll lay his hand on thee, 
 Whispering, "Beloved, lovest thou me?" 
 'T was not in vain I died for thee ; 
 
 'T is I; be not afraid. 
 
Ifa JJmtster'ij lop and Jjorrmua. 
 
 .i 
 
 SEE exceedingly small fruit of my ministry, 
 and would be glad to know of one soul to 
 be my crown of rejoicing in the day of 
 Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain, yet 
 my labor is with my God. I wish and pray that 
 the Lord would harden my face against all, and 
 make me to learn to go with my face against the 
 storm. 
 
 It is — I know by experience — hard to keep sight 
 of God in a storm, especially when he hideth him- 
 self for the trial of his children. Grieved is my 
 heart that I have done so little against the kingdom 
 of Satan in my calling ; for he would fain attempt to 
 make me blaspheme God to his face. I believe, I 
 
The Minister's Joys and Sorrows. 169 
 
 believe in the strength of him who hath put me into 
 his work, that he — Satan — shall fail in that he seek- 
 eth. I have comfort in this, that my captain Christ 
 hath said I must fight and overcome the world ; and 
 with a weak, spoiled, and weaponless devil. "The 
 Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing 
 in me." 
 
 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 and boast 
 as much as if he had more court with Christ than I 
 have ; and as if he had charmed and blasted my 
 ministry, that I shall do no more good in public ; 
 but this wind shaketh no corn. 
 
 It were my heaven, till I come home, even to 
 spend this life in gathering in some to Christ. 
 
 O that he who quickeneth the dead would give 
 life to my sinning among you ! What joy is there — 
 next to Christ — that standeth on this side of death, 
 which would comfort me more than that the souls 
 of that poor people were in safety, and beyond all 
 hazard of being lost! 
 
170 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 I am grieved that I am making Christ not a 
 friend, by seeking accusations against him, because 
 I am the first in the kingdom put to utter silence ; 
 and because I can not preach my Lord's righteous- 
 ness in the great congregation. 
 
 that I could buy your soul's salvation with 
 any suffering whatsoever, and that you and I might 
 meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall 
 stand before the Judge ! O, my Lord, forbid that I 
 have any thing in witness against you in that day ! 
 
 1 would postpone heaven for many years to 
 have my fill of Jesus in this life, and to have occa- 
 sion to offer Christ to my people, and to woo many 
 people to Christ. 
 
 O, how my soul will mourn in secret if my nine 
 years' pained head, and aching breast, and pained 
 back, and grieved heart, and private and public 
 prayers to God, will all be for nothing among that 
 people! Did my Lord Jesus send me but to sum- 
 mon you before your judge, and to leave you sum- 
 mons at your houses ? Was I sent as a witness 
 only to gather your indictments ? O, may God 
 forbid ! 
 
The Minister's Joys and Sorrows. 171 
 
 I persuade you, my dear brother, that there is 
 nothing out of heaven — next to Christ — dearer to 
 me than my ministry ; and the worth of it, in my 
 estimation, is swelled, and paineth me exceedingly ; 
 yet I am content, for the honor of my Lord, to sur- 
 render it back again to the Lord of the vineyard ; let 
 him do with it and me both what he thinketh good ; 
 I think myself too little for him. 
 
 I had one joy out of heaven, next to Christ my 
 Lord, and that was to preach him to this faithless 
 generation ; and they have taken that from me ; it 
 was to me as the poor man's one eye, and they have 
 put out that eye. 
 
 What could I want if my ministry among you 
 should make a marriage between the little bride in 
 those bounds and the Bridegroom? O, how rich a 
 prisoner were I if I could obtain of my Lord the 
 salvation of you all! O, what a prey I had gotten 
 to have you catched in Christ's net! O, then, I 
 had cast out my Lord's lines and his net with a 
 rich gain ! O, then, well-expended, pained breast, 
 and sore back, and crazed body, in speaking early 
 and late to you! My witness is above; your heaven 
 would be tivo heavens to vie, and the salvation of you 
 
172 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 all as two salvations to mc. I would subscribe a 
 suspension and a postponement of my heaven for 
 many hundred years — according to God's good 
 pleasure — if you were sure in the upper lodging, in 
 our father's home, before me. 
 
 O, if I might but speak to thee or your herd- 
 boys of my worthy Master, I would be satisfied to 
 be the meanest and most obscure of all the pastors 
 in this land, and to live in any place, in any of 
 Christ's basest outhouses. 
 
 Pray for my flock. There I wrestled with the 
 angel and prevailed. Wood, trees, meadows, and 
 hills are my witnesses that I drew on a fair meeting 
 betwixt Christ and Anworth. 
 
 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 and hold 
 up sad clay! 
 
 Let me die within half an hour after I have seen 
 the temple of the Son of God enlarged, and the 
 cords of Jerusalem's tent lengthened to take in a 
 more numerous company for a bride to the Son of 
 
The Minister's Joys and Sorrows. 173 
 
 God. O, that the corner, or foundation-stone of 
 that house, that new house, were laid above my 
 
 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 favor of God that he beareth 
 to his people ; not simple gladness, but the gladness 
 and goodness of the Lord's chosen. And sure — 
 though I be the weakest of his witnesses, and un- 
 worthy to be among the meanest of them, and am 
 afraid that the cause be hurt, but it can not be lost 
 by my unbelieving faintness — I would not desire a 
 deliverance separated from the deliverance of the 
 Lord's cause and people. It is enough to me to 
 sing when Zion singeth ; and to triumph when 
 Christ triumpheth. I should judge it an unhappy 
 joy to rejoice when Zion sigheth. 
 
XI. 
 
 |k |i<te of |r« I 
 
 •-• nracc. 
 
 S 1T 
 
 jyi AM heartily sorry that your ladyship is de- 
 f I! prived of such a husband, and the Lord's 
 Kirk of so active and faithful a friend. I 
 know your ladyship long ago made acquaintance 
 with that, wherein Christ will have you to be joined 
 in a fellowship with himself, even with his own 
 cross ; and hath taught you to stay your soul upon 
 the Lord's good-will, 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 ; and his order in dismissing us, and 
 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 com- 
 parison. What, then, will not a duration of bless- 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 175 
 
 edness, so long as God shall live, fully and abund- 
 antly recompense? It is good that our Lord hath 
 given a debtor, obliged by gracious promises, far 
 more in eternity than time can take from you. 
 And I believe that your ladyship hath been now 
 many years advising and thinking what that glory 
 will be, which is abiding the pilgrims and strangers 
 on the earth, when they come home, and which we 
 may think of, love and thirst for, but we can not 
 comprehend it nor conceive of it as it is, far less can 
 we over-think or over-love it. O, so long a chap- 
 ter, or rather so long a volume as Christ is, in that 
 divinity of glory! There is no more of him let 
 down now, to be seen and enjoyed by his children, 
 than as much as may feed hunger in this life, but 
 not satisfy it. Your ladyship is a debtor to the 
 Son of God's cross, that is wearing out love and 
 affiance in the creature, out of your heart by de- 
 grees ; or rather the obligation standeth to his free 
 grace who careth for your ladyship in this gracious 
 dispensation ; and who is preparing and making 
 ready the garments of salvation for you ; and who 
 calleth you with a new name, that the mouth of the 
 Lord hath named ; and purposeth to make you a 
 crown of glory, and a royal diadem in the hand of 
 your God. Ye are obliged to postpone to him 
 
T76 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 more than one heaven; and yet he craveth not a 
 long day ; it is fast coming, and is sure payment. 
 Though ye gave no hire for him, yet hath he given 
 a great price and ransom for you : and if the bar- 
 gain were to make again, Christ would give no less 
 for you than what he hath already given — he is far 
 from rueing. I shall wish you no more, till time 
 be gone out of the way, than the earnest of that 
 which he hath purchased and prepared for you; 
 which can never be fully preached, written, or 
 thought of since it has not extended into the heart 
 to consider it. 
 
 And be content, and withal greedily covetous of 
 grace, the interest and pledge of glory. 
 
 I see there is a necessity that we protest against 
 the doings of the Old Man, and raise up a party 
 against our worst half, to accuse, condemn, sentence, 
 and with sorrow bemoan the dominion of sin's king- 
 dom ; and withal make law, in the New Covenant, 
 against our guiltiness; for Christ once condemned 
 sin in the flesh, and we are to condemn it over 
 again. And if there had not been such a thing as 
 the grace of Jesus, I should have long since given 
 up with heaven, and with the expectation to see 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 177 
 
 God. But grace, grace, free grace, the merits of 
 Christ for nothing, white and fair, and large Savior- 
 mercy — which is another sort of thing than crea- 
 ture-mercy, or law mercy ; yea, a thousand degrees 
 above angel-mercy — have been, and must be, the 
 rock that we drowned souls must swim to. New 
 washing, renewed application of purchased redemp- 
 tion, by that sacred blood that sealeth the free cov- 
 enant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor 
 sinner. Till we be in heaven our issue of blood 
 shall not be quite dried up ; and, therefore, we 
 must resolve to apply peace to our souls from the 
 new and living way ; and Jesus — who cleanseth and 
 cureth the leprous soul — lovely Jesus, must be our 
 song on this side of heaven's gates ; and even when 
 we have won the castle, then must we eternally 
 sing, " Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved 
 us, and washed us in his own blood." 
 
 Ye must be content to give Christ somewhat to 
 do. 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 and your sins deal it betwixt them. 
 I shall be loth to put off your fears, and your sense 
 
17S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 of deadness — I wish it were more — there be some 
 wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should 
 not be soon stopped. You must take a house be- 
 side the physician. It will be a miracle if ye be 
 the first sick man whom he put away uncured, and 
 worse than he found you. 
 
 I wish all professors to fall in love with grace. 
 All our songs should be of his free grace. We are 
 but too lazy and careless in seeking of it ; it is all our 
 riches we have here, and glory in the bud. I wish 
 that I could set out free grace. I was the law's 
 man, and under the law, and under a curse ; but 
 grace brought me from under that hard lord, and I 
 rejoice that I am grace's freeholder. I pay tribute 
 to none for heaven, seeing my land and 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 than the old 
 way that was in Adam's days. 
 
 If there was not a fountain of free grace to wa- 
 ter dry ground, and an uncreated wind to breathe 
 on withered and 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 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 179 
 
 I have is to desire to believe that Christ will show 
 all good-will to save ; and, as for your ladyship, I 
 know that our Lord Jesus carrieth on no design 
 against you, but seeketh to save and redeem you. 
 He lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to 
 take you up. His way of redeeming is ravishing 
 and taking ; there are more miracles of glorified sin- 
 ners in heaven than can be on earth. Nothing of 
 you, madam, nay, not even your leaf, can wither. 
 
 I conceive that Christ hath a great design of 
 free grace to these lands ; but his wheels must 
 move over mountains and rocks. He never yet 
 wooed a bride on earth but in blood, in fire, and in 
 the wilderness. A cross of our own choosing, hon- 
 eyed and sugared with consolations, we can not 
 have. I think not much of a cross, when all the 
 children of the house weep with me and for me ; 
 and to suffer when we enjoy the communion of the 
 saints, is not much ; but it is hard when saints 
 rejoice in the suffering of saints, and 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 as that 
 one elect angel should fight against another ; but, 
 for contempt of the communion of saints, we have 
 
i So A Garden of Spices. 
 
 need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of be- 
 fore. The saints are not Christ ; there is no mis- 
 judging in him, there is much in us ; and a doubt it 
 is if we shall have fully one heart till we shall 
 enjoy one heaven. 
 
 Therefore, worthy lady, so count little of your- 
 self, because of your own wretchedness and sinful 
 drowsiness, 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 and the whole land do move, when 
 the ship and they themselves are moved ; just so, 
 not a few do imagine that God moveth, and saileth, 
 and changeth places, because their giddy souls are 
 under sail, and subject to alternation, to ebbing and 
 flowing — but the foundation of the Lord abideth 
 sure. God knoweth that ye are his own. Wrestle, 
 fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray ; and 
 then ye have all the infallible symptoms of one of 
 the elect of Christ within you. 
 
 If God has 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 nor repent him of the 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. iSi 
 
 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 thrown open to 
 the soul, and a clear sight of himself looking out, 
 and saying, with a smiling countenance, "Welcome 
 to me, afflicted soul," this is the earnest that he 
 giveth sometimes, and which maketh glad the heart, 
 and is an evidence that the bargain will hold. 
 
 I must say, the saints have a sweet life between 
 them and Christ. There is much sweet solace of 
 love between him and them, when he feedeth among 
 the lilies, and cometh into his garden, and maketh 
 a feast of honeycombs, and drinketh his wine and 
 his milk, and crieth, " Eat, O Friends ; drink, yea, 
 drink abundantly, O Well-beloved." One hour of 
 this labor is worth a shipful of the world's drunken 
 and muddy joy: nay, even the gate of heaven is 
 the sunny side of the brae, and the very garden of 
 the world ; for the men of this world have their own 
 unchristened and profane crosses ; and woe be to 
 them and their cursed crosses both; for their ills 
 arc salted with God's vengeance, and our ills sea- 
 soned with our Father's blessing: so that they are 
 
1 82 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 no fools who choose Christ, and sell all things for 
 him ; it is no bairn's market, nor a blind bargain ; 
 we know well what we get, and what we give. 
 
 There can not be a more humble soul than a 
 believer ; it is no pride for a drowning man to catch 
 hold of a rock. 
 
 Ye may put a difference betwixt you and repro- 
 bates, if ye have these marks: i. If ye prize Christ 
 and his truth so as ye will sell ali and buy him, 
 and 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, and deny your own 
 will, wit, credit, ease, honor, the world, and the 
 vanity and glory of it. 4. Your profession must , 
 not be barren and void of good works. 5. Ye must 
 in all things aim at God's honor ; ye must eat, drink, 
 sleep, buy, sell, sit, stand, speak, pray, read, and hear 
 the Word, with a heart-purpose that God may be 
 honored. 6. Ye must show yourself an enemy to 
 sin, and reprove the works of darkness, such as 
 drunkenness, swearing, and lying, albeit the com- 
 pany should hate you for so doing. 7. Keep in 
 mind the truth of God, that ye heard me teach, and 
 have nothing to do with the corruptions and new 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 1S3 
 
 guises entered into the house of God. 8. Make 
 conscience of your calling, in covenants, in buying 
 and selling. 9. Acquaint yourself with daily pray- 
 ing ; commit all your ways and actions to God, by 
 prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving ; and count 
 not much of being mocked ; for Christ Jesus was 
 mocked before you. 
 
 Faith's eyes, that can see through a mill-stone, 
 can see through a frown of God, and under it read 
 God's thoughts of love and peace. 
 
 Understanding, a little after the writing of my 
 last letter, of the going of this bearer, I would not 
 omit the opportunity of remembering your Lady- 
 ship, still harping upon that string which, in our 
 whole lifetime, 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 
 ourself, and of bearing of our Lord's cross ; which 
 is no less needful for us than daily food. And 
 among many marks that we are on this journey, 
 and under sail toward heaven, this is one, when the 
 love of God so filleth our hearts that we forget to 
 love and care too much for the having or wanting 
 
1S4 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 of other things ; as one extreme heat burnetii out 
 another. By this, madam, ye know that ye have 
 betrothed your soul in marriage to Christ, when ye 
 do make but small reckoning of all other suitors or 
 wooers, and when ye can — having little in hand, but 
 much in hope — live as a young heir during the time 
 of his nonage and minority, being content to be as 
 hardly handled, and under as precise a reckoning as 
 servants, because his hope is upon the inheritance. 
 For this cause God's children take well with the 
 spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves that 
 they have in heaven a better and an enduring sub- 
 stance. That day that the earth and the works 
 therein shall be burned with fire, your hidden hope 
 and your hidden life shall appear. And, therefore, 
 since ye have not now many years of your endless 
 eternity, and know not how soon the sky above your 
 head shall rive, and the Son of Man be seen in the 
 clouds of heaven, what better and wiser course can 
 ye take than to think that your one foot is here, and 
 your other foot in the life to come, and to leave off 
 loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants that shall 
 be made up, when your Lord and ye shall meet, and 
 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 accuse the Almighty ; but it shall not 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 185 
 
 be so. Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable 
 and full of glory, and your joy shall none take from 
 you. 
 
 Dear Lady, I am afraid of prevailing security. 
 We watch little — I have relation mainly to myself — 
 we wrestle little. I am like one traveling in the 
 night who seeth a spirit, and sweateth for fear, and 
 dareth not to tell it to his fellow for fear of increas- 
 ing his own fear. However, I am sure, when the 
 Master is nigh his coming, it were safe to write over 
 a double and a new copy of our accounts of the sins 
 of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, and old age. 
 What if Christ have another written representation 
 of me than I have of myself — sure he is right — and 
 if it contradict my mistaking and sinfully erroneous 
 account of myself, ah! where am I then? But, 
 madam, I discourage none ; I know that Christ 
 hath made a new marriage-contract of love, and 
 scaled it with his blood, and the trembling believer 
 shall not be confounded. 
 
 Madam, a stronger than I am had almost stum- 
 bled me and cast me down ; but, O, what mercy is 
 it to discern between what is Christ's and what is 
 man's, and what way the hue, color, and luster of 
 
1S6 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 gifts of grace dazzle and deceive our weak eyes ! O, 
 to be dead to all things that are below Christ, were 
 it even a created heaven and created grace ! Holi- 
 ness is not Christ ; nor are the blossoms and flowers 
 of the Tree of life the tree itself. Men and creatures 
 may wind themselves between us and Christ ; and, 
 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, nor armies, nor nobles, nor judi- 
 catories, nor strongholds, nor watchmen, nor godly 
 professors. The fairest things, and most eminent 
 in Britain, are stained, and have lost their luster; 
 only, only Christ keepeth his greenness and beauty, 
 and remaineth what he was. 
 
 Ye hold that Christ must either have hearty 
 service, or no service at all. If ye mean that he 
 will not halve 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 
 back 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 halt, I fear that ye must go alone. He 
 knoweth our dross and defects ; and sweet Jesus 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 187 
 
 pitieth us, when weakness and deadness in our obe- 
 dience is our cross, and not our darling. 
 
 Ye live not upon men's opinion ; gold may be 
 gold, and have the King's stamp upon it, when it is 
 trampled upon by men. Happy are ye if, when the 
 world trampleth upon you in your credit and good 
 name, yet, ye are the Lord's gold, stamped with the 
 King of Heaven's image, and sealed by his Spirit 
 unto the day of your redemption. Pray for the 
 spirit of love. Love "beareth all things, believeth 
 all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all 
 things." 
 
 It is a miracle to believe, but for a sinner to be- 
 lieve is two miracles. 
 
 Ye write, that God's vows are lying on you ; 
 and security, strong, and akin to nature, stealing on 
 you who are weak. I answer: 1. Till we be in 
 heaven, the best have heavy heads, as is evident. 
 Nature is a sluggard, and loveth not the labor of 
 religion ; therefore, rest should not be taken till we 
 know that the disease is over, and in the way of turn- 
 ing, and that it is like a fever past the cool : and the 
 quietness and the calms of the faith of victory over 
 
1 88 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 corruption should be entertained in the place of 
 security ; so that if I sleep I should desire to sleep 
 faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 2. Know, also, that 
 none who 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 ; and 
 there is as much need to watch over grace as to 
 watch over sin : full men will soon sleep, and sooner 
 than hungry men. 
 
 All, all for evermore be Christ's. What further 
 trials are before me I know not ; but I know that 
 Christ will have a saved soul of me, over on the 
 other side of the water, on the yonder-side of crosses, 
 and beyond men's wrongs. 
 
 Madam, I have been holding out to some others — 
 O, if I could to myself — some more of this, to read 
 and study God well, and make the serious thoughts 
 of a Godhead, and a Godhead in Christ, the work, 
 and the only work, all the day. O, we are little with 
 God ! and do all without God ! We sleep and wake 
 without him ; we eat, we speak, we journey, we go 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 1S9 
 
 about worldly business, and our calling without God ! 
 And, considering what deadness is upon the hearts 
 of many, it were good that some did not pray with- 
 out God, and preach and praise, and read and confer 
 of God, without God. 
 
 But seeing I have no wares, no hire, no money 
 for Christ, he must either take me with want, mis- 
 ery, corruption, or otherwise, want me. O, that he 
 would be pleased to be compassionate and pitiful- 
 hearted to my pining fevers of longing for him ; or 
 then give me a real pawn to keep out of his own 
 hand, till God send a meeting betwixt him and me. 
 I lead no process now against the suspension and 
 delay of God's love. I would with all my heart 
 postpone till a day ten heavens, and the sweet man- 
 ifestations 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 making. 
 O how loathsome and burdensome it is to carry 
 about a dead corpse, this old carrion of corruption ! 
 O how available a thing is a Savior, to make a sin- 
 ner rid of his chains and fetters ! 
 
 I know that my Lord made me not for fire, how- 
 beit he hath fitted me in some measure for the fire. 
 
190 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 O, thrice blessed, and eternally blessed are 
 they who are out of themselves, and above them- 
 selves, that they may be in love united to him ! 
 
 Long-suffering in God, is God himself, and 
 that is our salvation, and the stability of our heaven 
 is in God. 
 
 Madam, subscribe to the Almighty's will ; put 
 your hand to the pen, and let the cross of your Lord 
 Jesus have your submissive and resolute Amen. 
 
 I owe as many praises and thanks to free grace 
 as would lie betwixt me and the utmost border of 
 the highest heaven — suppose ten thousand heavens 
 were all laid above each other. But, O, I have 
 nothing that can hire or bribe grace ; for if grace 
 would take hire it were no more grace ; but all our 
 stability and the strength of our salvation is an- 
 chored and fastened upon free grace ; and I am sure 
 that Christ hath, by his death and blood, tied the 
 knot so fast that the fingers of the devils and hell- 
 fuls of sins can not loose it ; and that bond of 
 Christ — which never yet was, nor ever shall, nor 
 can be protested — standeth surer than heaven, or the 
 days of heaven, as that sweet pillar of the covenant 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 191 
 
 whereon we all hang. Christ, with all his little ones 
 under his two wings, and in the compass or circle 
 of his arms, is so sure, that cast him and them into 
 the bottom of the sea, he shall come up again and 
 not lose one. 
 
 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 quit of 
 me ! O, but merits, free merits, and the dear blood 
 of God, were the best way that we ever could have 
 gotten cut of hell ! O, what a sweet, O what a safe 
 and sure way is it to come out of hell leaning on a 
 Savior! That Christ and a sinner should be one, 
 and have heaven betwixt them, and be halvers of 
 salvation, is the wonder of salvation. 
 
 Salvation, salvation is our only necessary thing. 
 
 God hath singled out a mediator strong and 
 mighty ; if you and your burdens were as heavy as 
 ten hills or hells, he is able to bear you, and save 
 you to the uttermost. 
 
 Sinners can do nothing but make wounds, that 
 Christ may heal them ; and make falls, that he may 
 
192 A garden of Spices. 
 
 raise them ; and make deaths, that he may quicken 
 them ; and spin out, and dig hells for 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, and a free ransom given for sold 
 souls ; only, alas ! guiltiness maketh me ashamed to 
 apply to Christ, and to think it pride in me to put 
 out my unclean and withered hand to such a Savior. 
 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 ashore upon Christ. 
 
 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 is my soul ! I have a day's work for my physi- 
 cian, Christ. I hope to give Christ his own calling ; 
 it setteth him full well to cure diseases. 
 
 O, what have I to say of that excellent, sur- 
 passing, and super-eminent thing they call the grace 
 of God — the way of free redemption in Christ ! 
 And when poor, poor I, dead in law, was sold, fet- 
 tered, and imprisoned in justice's closest ward, 
 which is hell and damnation ; when I, a wretched 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 
 
 i93 
 
 one, lighted upon noble Jesus, eternally kind Jesus, 
 tender-hearted Jesus ; nay, when he lighted upon 
 me first, and knew me, I found that he scorned to 
 take a price, or any thing like hire, of angels or ser- 
 aphim, or any of his creatures ; and, therefore, I 
 would praise him for this, that the whole army of 
 the redeemed ones sit, rent-free, in heaven. Our 
 holding is better than a nominal rent ; we are all 
 free-holders. And seeing that our eternal yearly 
 rent is only thanks, O, woeful me ! that I have but 
 spoiled thanks, lame, and broken, and miscarried 
 praises to give him, and so my money is not good 
 and current with Christ, were it not that free 
 merits have stamped it, and washed it and me both ! 
 
 Whatever your guiltiness be, yet, when it fall- 
 eth into the sea of God's mercy, it is but like a 
 drop of blood fallen into the great ocean. 
 
 I am Christ's sworn bankrupt, to whom he will 
 intrust nothing ; no, not one pin in the work of my 
 salvation. Let me stand in black and white in the 
 bankrupt roll before Christ. I am happy that my 
 salvation is accredited to Christ's mediation. Christ 
 oweth no faith to me, to intrust any thing to me ; 
 but, O, what faith and credit I owe to him ! Let 
 •3 
 
194 A Gakden of Spices. 
 
 my name fall, and let Christ's name stand in honor 
 with men and angels. 
 
 Christ hath been multiplying grace by mercy 
 above these five thousand years ; and the latter- 
 born heirs have so much greater guiltiness that 
 Christ hath passed more experiments and multi- 
 plied essays of heart-love on others, by misbeliev- 
 ing after it is past all question, many hundreds of 
 ages that Christ is the undeniable and non-uncon- 
 troverted treasurer of multiplied redemptions. So, 
 now he is saying, " The more of the disease there is, 
 the more of physician's art of grace and tenderness 
 there must be." Only, I know, that 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 can not come 
 near to exhaust infinite grace. 
 
 Think you it will be a small honor to stand be- 
 fore the throne of God and the Lamb, and to be 
 clothed in white, and to be called to the marriage- 
 supper of the Lamb, and to be led to the "fount- 
 ain of living waters," and to come to the well-head, 
 even God himself, and get your fill of the clear, 
 cold, sweet, refreshing waters of life — the King's 
 
The Riches of Free Grace. 195 
 
 own well — and to put up your own single hand to 
 the tree of life, and take down and eat the sweetest 
 apple in all God's heavenly paradise — Jesus Christ, 
 your life and your Lord. Up your heart! Shout 
 for joy! Your king is coming to fetch you to his 
 father's house. 
 
 I must tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, 
 king Jesus, has done to my soul. Sometimes he 
 sendeth me a slight refreshment, and whispereth a 
 word through the wall; and I am well content of 
 kindness at the second hand ; his offer is ever wel- 
 come to me, be what it will. But at other times he 
 will be messenger himself, and I get the cup of sal- 
 vation out of his own hand, and we can not rest 
 till we be in other's arms ; and O, how sweet is a 
 fresh kiss from his holy mouth ! I am careless, and 
 stand not much on this ; howbeit loins, and back, 
 and shoulders, and head rive in pieces in stepping 
 up to my father's house. I know that my Lord can 
 make long, and broad, and high, and deep glory to 
 his name out of this worthless body ; for Christ 
 looketh not what stuff he maketh glory out of. 
 
 But, since he doth not drag the government at 
 his heels, but hath it upon his shoulder; and, since 
 
196 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 that nail fastened in a sure place can not be broken, 
 nor can the smallest vessel fail to find sweet secur- 
 ity in dependence upon him ; since all the weight of 
 heaven and earth, of redeemed saints and confirmed 
 angels is upon his shoulder, I am a fool, and brutish 
 to imagine that I can add any thing to Christ's 
 special care of, and tenderness to his people. He 
 who keepeth the basins and knives of his house, 
 and bringeth the vessels again to the second temple, 
 must have a more tender care of his redeemed ones 
 than of a spoon, or of a Peter's old shoes, which yet 
 must not be lost in his captivity. 
 
XII. 
 
 ::;* 
 
 jjepaded ilttldro. 
 
 'NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE.' 
 
 !lF you would not be content that Christ 
 should hold from you 'the heavenly inherit- 
 ance, which is made yours by his death, 
 shall not that same Christ think hardly of you, if 
 you refuse to give him your daughter willingly, who 
 is a part of his inheritance and conquest? 
 
 But what? Do you think her lost, when she is 
 but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty ? Think 
 not her absent who is in such a friend's house. Is 
 she lost to you, who is found in Christ? If she 
 were with a clear friend, although you should never 
 
19S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 see her again, your care of her would be but small. 
 O, now, is she not with a dear friend, and gone 
 higher, upon a certain hope that you shall, in the 
 resurrection, see her again, when — be sure — she 
 will neither be hectic, nor consumed in body ! 
 
 Your child is not sent away, but only sent be- 
 fore ; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, 
 doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another 
 hemisphere ; you see her not, yet she doth shine 
 in another country. If her glass were but a short 
 hour, what she wanteth of time, that she hath gotten 
 of eternity; and you have to rejoice that you have 
 now some furniture up in heaven. Build your nest 
 upon no tree here; for you see God hath sold the 
 forest to death ; and every tree, whereupon you 
 would rest, is ready to be cut down, to the end that 
 we might fly and mount up and build upon the 
 Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. 
 
 Take kindly and heartsomely with his cross 
 who never yet slew a child with the cross. He 
 breweth your cup ; therefore drink it patiently, and 
 with the better will. He hath a father's heart and 
 a father's hand, who is training you up, and making 
 you meet for the high hall. Let all your visitations 
 
Our Departed Children. 199 
 
 speak all the letters of your Lord's summons. 
 They cry, " O, vain world ! O, bitter sin ! O, short 
 and uncertain time! O, fair eternity, that is above 
 sickness and death ! O, kingly and princely Bride- 
 groom, hasten glory's marriage, shorten time's short 
 span, and soon-broken thread, and conquer sin! O, 
 happy and blessed death !" 
 
 I believe that faith will teach you to kiss a 
 striking Lord, and to acknowledge the sovereignty 
 of God in the death of a child, to be above the 
 power of us mortal men, who may pluck a flower in 
 the bud and not be blamed for it. If our dear Lord 
 pluck up one of his roses, and pull down sour and 
 green fruit before the harvest, who can challenge 
 him? 
 
 It were but to shift the comforts of God to say, 
 " Christ had never such a cross as mine ; he had 
 never a dead child ; and so this is not his cross, 
 neither can he, in that meaning, be the owner of 
 this cross ;" but I hope that Christ, when he married 
 you, married you and all the crosses and grieved 
 hearts that follow you ; and the Word maketh no 
 exception. " In all their afflictions he was afflicted." 
 Then Christ bore the first stroke of this cross : it 
 
200 A Gardex of Spices. 
 
 rebounded off him upon you, and you get it at the 
 second hand, and he and you are halvers in it. He 
 mindeth to distill 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. It may 
 be that you think not many of the children of God 
 in such a hard case as yourself; but what would 
 you think of some, who would exchange afflictions, 
 and give you to the boot ? But I know that yours 
 must be your own alone, and Christ's together. 
 
 He commandeth you to weep ; and that princely 
 One who took up to heaven with him a man's heart, 
 to be a compassionate High Priest, became your 
 Father and Companion on earth, by weeping for the 
 dead. And, therefore, you are to lose that cross, 
 because it was once on Christ's shoulders before 
 you ; so that by his own practice he hath over- 
 gilded and covered your cross with the Mediator's 
 luster. The cup you drink was at the lip of sweet 
 Jesus, and he drank of it ; and so it hath a smell of 
 his breath, and I conceive that you love it not the 
 worse because it is thus sugared ; therefore think 
 and believe the resurrection of your son's body. 
 
 And dying in another land, where his mother 
 
Our Departed Children. 201 
 
 could not close his eyes, is not much. Who closed 
 Moses' eyes ? and who put on his winding-sheet ? 
 For aught I know, neither father nor mother, but 
 God only. And there is as expeditious, fair, and 
 easy a way betwixt Scotland and 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. 
 
 As sown corn is not lost — for there is more hope 
 of that which is sown than of that which is eaten — 
 I hope that you wait for the crop and harvest. 
 Then they are not lost who are gathered into that 
 congregation of the First-born, and the General 
 Assembly of the saints. Though we can not out- 
 run nor overtake them that are gone before, yet we 
 shall quickly follow them : and the difference is that 
 they have the advantage of some months or years 
 of the crown before you. And 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 be- 
 hind us, than that they are glorified and die before. 
 While your child was alive you could intrust her to 
 Christ, and recommend her to his keeping ; won by 
 
202 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 an after-faith, you have resigned her unto him in 
 whose bosom do sleep all that are dead in the Lord. 
 You would have lent her to glorify the Lord upon 
 earth, and he hath borrowed her — with promise to 
 return her again — to be an organ of the immediate 
 glorifying of himself in heaven. Sinless glorifying 
 of God is better than sinful glorifying of him. 
 
 Believe that your child is not gone away, but 
 sent before ; and that the change of the country 
 should make you think that he is not lost to you, 
 who is found to Christ. A going-down sun is not 
 annihilated, but shall appear again. If he hath shed 
 his bloom and flower, the bloom is fallen in heaven, 
 into Christ's lap. And the difference of your ship- 
 ping and his to heaven and Christ's shore, the land 
 of life, is only in some few years, which weareth 
 every day shorter, and some short and soon-reckoned 
 Summers will give you a meeting with him. But 
 what with him ? Nay, with better company, with 
 the Chief and Leader of the heavenly troops, that 
 are riding on white horses, that are triumphing in 
 glory. 
 
Our Departed Children. 203 
 
 0ur Chilton, 
 
 'The Beautiful vanish, and return not.' 
 
 They are stricken, darkly stricken ; 
 
 Faint and fainter grows each breath, 
 And the shadows round them thicken, 
 
 Of the darkness that is Death. 
 We are with them — bending o'er them — 
 
 And the soul in sorrow saith, 
 ; ' Would that I had pass'd before them, 
 
 To the darkness that is Death !" 
 
 They are sleeping, coldly sleeping, 
 
 In the graveyard, still and lone, 
 Where the winds, above them sweeping, 
 
 Make a melancholy moan. 
 Thickly round us — darkly o'er us — 
 
 Is the pall of sorrow thrown ; 
 And our heart-beats make the chorus 
 
 Of that melancholy moan. 
 
 They are waking, brightly waking, 
 From the slumbers of the tomb, 
 
 And, enrobed in light, forsaking 
 Its impenetrable gloom. 
 
204 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 They are rising — they have risen — 
 
 And their spirit-forms illume, 
 In the darkness of Death's prison, 
 
 The impenetrable gloom. 
 
 They are passing, upward passing, 
 
 Dearest beings of our love, 
 And their spirit-forms are glassing 
 
 In the beautiful Above. 
 There we see them — there we hear them — 
 
 Through our dreams they ever move, 
 And we long to be anear them, 
 
 In the beautiful Above. 
 
 They are going, gently going, 
 
 In their angel-robes to stand, 
 Where the River of Life is flowing, 
 
 In the far-off, silent Land. 
 We shall mourn them — we shall miss them — 
 
 From our broken little band; 
 But our souls shall still caress them 
 
 In the far-off, silent Land. 
 
 They are singing, sweetly singing, 
 
 Far beyond the vale of Night — 
 Where the angel-harps are ringing, 
 
 And the Day is ever bright. 
 We can love them — we can greet them — 
 
 From this land of dimmer light, 
 Till God takes us hence to meet them, 
 
 Where the day is ever bright. 
 
 \V. D. Gallagher. 
 
XIII. 
 
 lite mhtta Mtcrted to ptigenrc. 
 
 EXHORT you not to lose breath, nor 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, and ye shall come erelong 
 to be within your arm-length of the glorious crown. 
 Your Lord Jesus did sweat and pant ere he got up 
 that mount ; he was at " Father, save me," with it. 
 It was he who said, " I am poured out like water ; all 
 my bones are out of joint." Christ was as if they 
 had broken him upon the wheel. "My heart is 
 like wax ; it is melted in the midst of my bowels." 
 "My strength is dried up like a potsherd." I am 
 sure ye love the way the better, that his holy feet 
 trod it before you. Crosses have a smell of crossed 
 and pained Christ. I believe that your Lord will 
 
2o6 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 not leave you to die alone in the way. I know that 
 ye have sad hours, when the Comforter is hid under 
 a vail, and when ye inquire for him, and find but an 
 empty 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 sight till God send Christ himself, 
 in his own sweet presence. Make his sweet com- 
 forts your own, and be not strange, and shame-faced 
 with Christ. Familiar 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 than your 
 Lord alloweth. Give them room beside your heart, 
 but not in the yolk of your heart, where Christ 
 should be; for then 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 
 three apples off his own trees, before midsummer, 
 and ere they get the harvest sun ; and 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 ; 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 207 
 
 they are laid up so well as that they are coffered in 
 heaven, where our Lord's best jewels 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. 
 
 Little holiness in our balance is much, because 
 it is holiness ; and we love to lay small burdens on 
 our soft natures, and to make a fair court-way to 
 heaven ; and I know it were necessary to take more 
 pains than we do, and not to make heaven a city 
 more easily taken than God hath made it. I per- 
 suade myself that many runners will come short, 
 and shall get a disappointment. O, how easy it is 
 to deceive ourselves, and to sleep and wish that 
 heaven may fall down into our laps ! 
 
 On-waiting had ever yet a blessed issue ; and to 
 keep the Word of God's patience, keepeth still the 
 saints dry in the water, cold in the fire, and breath- 
 ing and blood-hot in the grave. 
 
 I charge you, in the name of God, I charge you 
 to believe. Fear not the sons of men, the worms 
 shall cat them. To pray and believe now, when 
 Christ seemeth to give you a denial, is more than 
 
2oS A Garden of Spices. 
 
 it was before. Die believing, die with Christ's 
 promise in your hand. 
 
 Hold on your course, for it may be that I shall 
 not soon see you : you venture through the thick of 
 all things after Christ, and lose not your master — 
 Christ — in the throng of this great market. Let 
 Christ know how heavy, and how many a stone- 
 weight you, and your cares, burdens, crosses, and 
 sins are. Let him bear all. Make the heritage 
 sure to yourself: get charters and writs passed and 
 through ; and put on arms for the battle, and keep 
 you fast by Christ, and then let the wind blow out 
 of what quarter it will, your soul shall not be blown 
 into the sea. 
 
 Yet this can hardly say any thing to us who do 
 so much please ourselves in our deadness, and are 
 almost gone from godly thirst and missing too, be- 
 ing half-satisfied with our witheredness. No doubt 
 we have marred his influences, and have not sec- 
 onded nor smiled upon his actings upon us, nor 
 have we been much of his strain who doth eight 
 times breathe out that suit, "Quicken me, quicken 
 me." So much are we desirous to be acted upon by 
 the Lord as blocks and stones ; and so prodigal are 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 
 
 209 
 
 we of his motions, as if they were no better to be 
 husbanded ; but it is good, that it is not in our 
 power to blast and undo his breathings ; but his 
 wind bloweth where he listeth. Could we but learn 
 and cast a quiet spirit under the dewings and show- 
 erings of him that every moment watereth his vine- 
 yard, how happy and blessed were we ! We neither 
 open, nor do we discern his knocking, nor feel his 
 hand put in through the keyhole, nor can we give 
 any spiritual account of the walkings and motions 
 of Christ, when he standeth behind the wall, when 
 he cometh skipping over the mountains, when he 
 cometh to his garden and feasteth, when he feedeth 
 among the lilies, when his spikenard casteth a smell, 
 when he knocketh and withdraweth, and is no where 
 to be found. O, how little a portion of God do we 
 see ! How little study we God ! how rarely read we 
 God, or are versed in the lively apprehensions of that 
 great unknown All in All, the glorious Godhead, and 
 the Godhead revealed in Christ ! We dwell far from 
 the well, and complain but dryly of our dryness and 
 dullness : we are rather dry than thirsty. 
 
 Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility ; 
 
 but for me, I neither know what he is, nor his 
 
 Son's name, nor where he dwelleth. I hear a 
 
 report of Christ's great enough, and that is all. 
 
 14 
 
210 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 O, what is nearness to him ? what is that to be " in 
 God," to "dwell in God?" What a house must 
 that be ! How far are some from their house and 
 home — how ill acquainted with the rooms, man- 
 sions, safety, and sweetness of holy security to be 
 found in God ! O, what estrangement, what wan- 
 dering, what frequent conversing with self and the 
 creature ! " Is not here the bed shorter than that a 
 man can stretch himself on it, and the covering 
 narrower than that he can wrap himself in it?" 
 When shall we attain to a living in only, only God, 
 and be estranged from all the poor created noth- 
 ings, the painted shadow-beings of yesterday, which 
 an hour and less before creation were dark waste 
 negatives and empty nothings, and should so have 
 been for eternity had the Lord suffered them to lie 
 there forever? 
 
 Consider, it is impossible that your idol-sins 
 and ye can go to heaven together, and that they 
 who will not part with these can not indeed love 
 Christ at the bottom, but only in word and show, 
 which will not do the business. Remember how 
 swiftly God's post, time, flieth away, and that your 
 forenoon is already spent, your afternoon will come, 
 and then your evening, and at last night, when ye 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 211 
 
 can not see to work ; let your heart be set upon the 
 finishing of your journey, and the summing and 
 laying of 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 souls ! 
 
 I hope I shall not need to show you that ye 
 are in greater hazard from yourself and your own 
 spirit — which should be watched over, that your 
 actings for God may be clean, spiritual, purely for 
 God, for the Prince of the kings of the earth — than 
 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 carnal interest, and to have the 
 soul in heavenly actings only eyeing 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 and breathings of 
 mouths, and the thin, short, poor applauses of 
 men — before you in God. 
 
 Happy are they for evermore who can employ 
 Christ and set his blood and death on work, to 
 make clean work to God of foul souls. I know 
 
2r2 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 that it is our sin that would have sanctification on 
 the sunny side of the hill, and holiness with noth- 
 ing but Summer, and crosses not at all. 
 
 Sir, make sure work of your salvation ; build not 
 upon sand ; lay the foundation upon the rock in 
 Zion. Strive to be dead to this world, and to your 
 will and lusts. Let Christ have a commanding 
 power and a king's throne in you. Walk with 
 Christ, howbeit the world should take the skin off 
 your face ; I promise you that Christ will win the 
 field. Your pastors cause you to err. Except you 
 see Christ's word, go not one foot with them. Coun- 
 tenance not the reading of that Romish service- 
 book. Keep your garments clean, as ye would walk 
 with the lamb clothed in white. The wrongs which 
 I suffer are recorded in heaven ; our great Master 
 and Judge will be upon us all, and bring us before 
 the sun in our blacks and whites ; blessed are they 
 who watch and keep themselves in God's love. 
 Learn to discern the Bridegroom's tongue, and to 
 give yourself to prayer and reading. Ye were often 
 a hearer of me. I would put my heart's blood on 
 the doctrine which I taught as the only way to 
 salvation ; go not from it, my dear brother. What 
 I write to you I write to your wife also. Mind 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 213 
 
 heaven and Christ, and keep the spark of the love 
 of Christ which you have gotten. Christ will blow 
 on it if ye entertain it, and your end shall be 
 peace. There is a fire in our Zion, but our Lord 
 is but seeking a new bride, refined and purified out 
 of the furnace. I assure you, howbeit we be nick- 
 named Puritans, that all the powers of the world 
 shall not prevail against us. Remember, though a 
 sinful man write to you, that those people shall be 
 in Scotland as a green olive-tree and a field blessed 
 of the Lord, and that it shall be proclaimed, "Up, 
 up with Christ, and down, clown with all contrary 
 powers !" 
 
 And I verily think that the world hath too soft 
 an opinion of the way to heaven, and that many 
 shall get a blind and sad beguilement for heaven, 
 for there is more ado than a cold and frozen " Lord, 
 Lord." It must be a way narrower and straighter 
 than we conceive, for the righteous shall scarcely 
 be saved. It were good to take a more judicious 
 view of Christianity, for I have been doubting if 
 ever I knew any more of Christianity than the let- 
 ters of the name. I will not lie on my Lord. I 
 find often much joy and unspeakable comfort in 
 His sweet presence who sent me hither, and I 
 
214 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 trust this house of my pilgrimage shall be my pal- 
 ace, my garden of delights, and that Christ will be 
 kind to poor sold Joseph, who is separated from his 
 brethren. 
 
 We are but loose in trying our free-holding of 
 Christ and making sure work of Christ. Holy fear 
 is a searching of the camp, that there be no enemy 
 within our bosom to betray us, and a seeing that 
 all be fast and sure, for I see many leaky vessels 
 fair before the wind, and professors who take their 
 conversion upon trust, and they go on securely, and 
 see not the water in the hold till a storm sink them. 
 
 I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I 
 earnestly desire you to try how matters stand be- 
 tween your soul and the Lord. Think it no easy 
 matter to take heaven by violence. Salvation com- 
 eth 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 to give 
 your soul no rest till ye have real assurance, and 
 Christ's rights confirmed and sealed to your soul. 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 215 
 
 The common faith, and country holiness, and week- 
 day 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 labors, and 
 acquisitions, and idol-riches lying in ashes, when 
 the earth and all the works thereof shall be burned 
 with fire, O how dear a price would your soul give 
 for God's favor in Christ ! It is a blessed thing to 
 see Christ with up-sun, and to read over your 
 papers and soul accounts with fair daylight. It 
 will not be time to cry for a lamp when the Bride- 
 groom is entered into his chamber and the door 
 shut. 
 
 We would all be glad to divide the spoil with 
 Christ, and to ride in triumph with him ; but O, 
 how few will take a cold bed of straw in the camp 
 with him! How fain would men have a well- 
 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 foot-mantles and rattling coaches, 
 and rubbing their velvet with the princes of the 
 land in the highest seats. If this be the way that 
 Christ called straight and narrow, I quit all skill of 
 the way to salvation. Are they not now auctioning 
 
2i 6 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Christ and the Gospel ? Have they not put our 
 Lord Jesus to the market, and he who outbiddeth 
 his fellow shall get him ? 
 
 O, my dear and noble lord, go on, howbeit the 
 wind be in your face, to back our princely Captain. 
 Be courageous for him. Fear not those 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 that many are striking up a new way to 
 heaven, but my soul for theirs if they find it, and 
 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 and assurance of this. Let doctors and 
 learned men cry the contrary, I am persuaded that 
 this is the way. The bottom hath fallen out of 
 both their wisdom and 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. O, poor and hungry is their paradise! 
 Therefore let me entreat your lordship, by your 
 appearing before Christ now, while this piece of the 
 afternoon of your day is before you — for ye know 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 217 
 
 not when your sun will turn and eternity shall 
 benight you — let your worldly glory, honor, and 
 might be for our Lord Jesus. And to his rich 
 grace and tender mercy, and to the never-dying 
 comforts of his gracious Spirit I recommend your 
 lordship and your noble house. 
 
 Every man blameth the devil for his sins, but 
 the great devil, the house-devil of every man, the 
 house-devil that eateth and lieth in every man's 
 bosom is that idol that killeth all himself. O, 
 blessed are they who can deny themselves, and put 
 Christ in the room of themselves ! O, would to 
 the Lord that I had not a myself, but Christ ; nor 
 a my lust, but Christ ; nor a my ease, but Christ ; 
 nor a my honor, but Christ ! O, sweet word ! " 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, and his own 
 twenty things, his own hundred things which he 
 setteth up as idols above Christ ! Dear sir, I know 
 that ye will be looking back to your old self, and to 
 your self-lust and self-idol which 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 
 
21S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 desire after your soul's eternal welfare that I use 
 this freedom of speech. Your sun, I know, is 
 lower, and your evening sky and sunsetting 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 
 fall foully and are false to him. I hope that 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 than of a crown of gold and a free 
 kingdom lying to it. 
 
 Strive to make prayer, and reading, and holy 
 company, and holy conference your delight ; and 
 when delight cometh in ye shall by little and little 
 smell the sweetness of Christ, till at length your 
 soul be over head and ears in Christ's sweetness. 
 Then shall ye be taken up to the top of the mount- 
 ain with the Lord, to know the ravishments of spir- 
 itual love, and the glory and excellency of a seen, 
 revealed, felt, and embraced Christ ; and then ye 
 shall not be able to loose yourself oft" Christ and 
 to bind your soul to old lovers ; then, and never till 
 then, are all the paces, motions, walkings, and wheels 
 of your soul in a right tune and in a spiritual temper. 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 219 
 
 I believe your lordship is one of Zion's friends, 
 and that by obligation ; for when the Lord shall 
 count and write up the people, it shall be written, 
 "This man was born there :" therefore, because your 
 lordship is a born son of the House, I hope your de- 
 sire is, that the beauty and glory of the Lord may 
 dwell in the midst of the city, whereof your lord- 
 ship is a son. It must be, without all doubt, the 
 greatest honor of your place and house, to kiss the 
 Son of God, and for his sake to be kind to his 
 oppressed and wronged bride, who, now in the day 
 of her desolation, beggeth help of you, that are the 
 shields of the earth. I am sure that many kings, 
 princes, and nobles, in the day of Christ's second 
 coming, would be glad to run errands for Christ, 
 even barefooted, through fire and water; but in that 
 day he will have none of their service. Now he is 
 asking, if your lordship will help him against the 
 mighty of the earth, when men are setting their 
 shoulders to Christ's fair and beautiful Tent in this 
 land, to loosen its stakes, and break it down ; and 
 certainly such as are not with Christ are against 
 him ; and blessed shall your lordship be of the 
 Lord, blessed shall your house and seed be, and 
 blessed shall your honor be, if ye empawned and 
 laid in Christ's hand the Earldom of Cassillis — and 
 
220 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 it is but a shadow in comparison of the city made 
 without hands — and laid it even at the stake, rather 
 than Christ and borne-down truth have not a wit- 
 ness of you against the apostasy of this land. Ye 
 hold your lands of Christ, your charters are under 
 his seal, and he who hath many crowns on his head, 
 dealeth, cutteth, and carveth pieces of this clay- 
 heritage to men, at his pleasure. It is little that 
 your lordship 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 bleared eyes 
 that look through a false glass to this idol-god of 
 clay, and think something of it. They who are 
 passed with their last sentence to heaven or hell, 
 and have made their reckoning, and departed out 
 of this smoky inn, have now no other conceit of 
 this world, but as a piece of beguiling well-lustered 
 clay. 
 
 Hold fast Christ without wavering, and 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, and 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 be- 
 lieve ; Christ himself did sweat ere he won this city, 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 221 
 
 howbeit he was the free-born heir. It is Chris- 
 tianity, my heart, to be sincere, unfeigned, honest, 
 and upright-hearted before God ; and to live and 
 serve God, suppose there was not one man nor 
 woman in all the world dwelling beside you, to eye 
 you. Any little grace that ye have, see that it be 
 sound and true. 
 
 But if this world and the lusts thereof be your 
 delight, I know not what Christ can make of you ; 
 ye can not be metal to be a vessel of glory and 
 mercy. As the Lord liveth, thousand thousands 
 are beguiled with security, because God, and wrath, 
 and judgment are not terrible to them. Stand in 
 awe of God, and of the warnings of a checking and 
 rebuking conscience. Make others to see Christ in 
 you, moving, doing, speaking and thinking : your 
 actions will smell of him, if he be in you. 
 
 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 hunger-bitten bastards. 
 Contend for salvation. Your master, Christ, won 
 heaven with strokes ; it is a besieged castle, it must 
 be taken with violence. O, this world thinketh 
 heaven but at the next door, and that godliness may 
 
222 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 sleep in a bed of down, till it come to heaven ! — but 
 that will not do it. 
 
 Serve Christ, back him ; let his cause be your 
 cause ; give not an hair-breadth of truth away ; for 
 it is not yours, but God's. Then, since ye are go- 
 ing, take Christ's certificate with you out of this 
 life — " Well done, good and faithful servant !" His 
 "well-done" is worth a shipful of "good-days" and 
 earthly honors. I have cause to say this, because 
 I find him Truth itself. In my sad days, Christ 
 laugheth cheerfully, and saith, "All will be well!" 
 
 Therefore, kneel to Christ, and kiss the Son, 
 and let him have your lordship's vote, as your only 
 Lawgiver. I am sure that when you leave the old 
 waste inn of this perishing life, and shall reckon 
 with your host, and depart hence, and take ship- 
 ping, and make over for eternity, which is the yonder 
 side of time — and a sand-glass of three-score short 
 years is running out — to look over your shoulder, 
 then, to that which ye have done, spoken, and 
 suffered for Christ, his dear bride — that he ran- 
 somed with that blood which is more precious than 
 gold — and for truth, and the freedom of Christ's 
 kingdom, your accounts will more sweetly smile 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 223 
 
 and laugh upon you than if you had two worlds of 
 gold to leave to your posterity. O my dear Lord, 
 consider that our Master, eternity, and judgment, 
 and the last reckoning, will be upon us in the twink- 
 ling of an eye. The blast of the Last Trumpet, 
 now hard at hand, will cry down all acts of Parlia- 
 ment, all the determinations of pretended assem- 
 blies against Christ our Lawgiver. There will be 
 shortly a proclamation by One standing in the 
 clouds, that time shall be no more, and that courts 
 with kings of clay shall be no more ; and prisons, 
 confinements, forfeitures of nobles, wrath of kings, 
 hazard of lands, houses, and 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 gray- 
 haired world ; and, therefore, be fixed and fast for 
 Christ and his truth for a time ; and fear not him 
 whose life goeth out at his nostrils, who shall die as 
 a man. I am persuaded Christ is responsible, and 
 law-biding, to make recompense for any thing that 
 is hazarded or given out for him — losses for Christ 
 are but our goods given out in bank in Christ's 
 hand. Kings earthly are well-favored little clay 
 gods, time's idols ; but a sight of our invisible King 
 shall decry and darken all the glory of this world. 
 
224 A Gardex of Spices. 
 
 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 bloom of court and state wisdom ; 
 and to cast a covering over a good profession — as 
 if it blushed at light — is thought a prudent and sure 
 way through this life ; but the safest way, I am per- 
 suaded, is to lose and win with Christ, and to hazard 
 fairly for him ; for heaven is but a company of noble 
 ventures for Christ. I dare hazard my soul that 
 Christ will grow green, and blossom like the Rose 
 of Sharon yet in Scotland ; howbeit now his leaf 
 seemeth to wither, and his root to dry up. 
 
 Ye are the seed of the faithful, and born within 
 the covenant. Claim your right. I would not ex- 
 change Christ Jesus for ten worlds of glory : I know 
 now — blessed be my Teacher — how to push back 
 the lock, and unbolt my Well-beloved's door — and 
 he maketh a poor stranger welcome when he cometh 
 to his house. I am swelled up and satisfied with 
 the love of Christ, that is better than wine. It is a 
 fire in my soul : let hell and the world cast water 
 on it, they will not mend themselves. I have now 
 gotten the right way of Christ. I recommend him 
 to you above all things. Come and find the smell 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 225 
 
 of his breath ; see if his kisses be not sweet ; he 
 desireth no better than to be much made of. Be 
 familiar with him, and ye shall be the more wel- 
 come — ye know not how fain Christ would have all 
 your love. 
 
 Grace, mercy, and 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, and your 
 afternoon-sun will soon go clown. Make an end 
 of your accounts with your Lord ; for death and 
 judgment are tides that wait for 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 strait and narrow, were it not that my Guide 
 is content to wait on me, and to care for a tired 
 traveler. Hurt not your conscience with any known 
 sin. Let your children be as so many flowers, bor- 
 rowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank 
 God for a Summer loan of them, and keep on the 
 most intimate terms 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 luster of the rainbow in the air, which cometh 
 and gocth with a flying March shower. Clay is the 
 idol of bastards, not the inheritance of the children. 
 
226 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 I rejoice to hear that Christ hath run away with 
 your young love, and 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, and 
 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 and watching over the sins of your youth, 
 for I know that missive letters go between the devil 
 and young blood. Satan hath a friend at court in 
 the heart of youth, and there pride, luxury, lust, 
 revenge, forgetfulness of God are hired as his 
 agents. Happy is your soul if Christ man the 
 house, and take the keys himself and command all, 
 as it suiteth him full well to rule all wherever he 
 is. Keep Christ and entertain him well, cherish 
 his grace, blow upon your own coal, and let him 
 tutor you. 
 
 Happy are they who are found watching. Our 
 sand-glass is not so long as we need to weary. 
 Time will eat away and root out our woes and sor- 
 rows. Our heaven is in the bud, and growing up 
 to a harvest ; why, then, should we not follow on, 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 227 
 
 seeing our span-length of time will come to an 
 inch ? Therefore I commend Christ to you as your 
 last living and longest living husband, and the staff 
 of your old age. Let him now have the rest of 
 your days. And think not much of a storm upon 
 the ship that Christ saileth in ; there shall no pas- 
 senger fall overboard, but the crazed ship and the 
 seasick passengers shall come to land safe. 
 
 Ye are truly blessed of the Lord, however a 
 sour world frown upon you, if ye continue in the 
 faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away 
 from the hope of the Gospel. It is good that there 
 is a heaven, and 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, and contend for 
 Christ ; bear well and submissively the hard cross 
 of this step-mother world, that God will not have to 
 be yours. I confess it is hard, and I would I were 
 able to ease you of your burden, but believe me 
 that this world — which the Lord will not have to 
 be yours — is but the dross, the refuse, and scum of 
 God's creation, the portion of the Lord's poor hired 
 servants ; the movables, not the heritage ; a hard 
 
228 A Garden of Sp/ces. 
 
 bone casten to the dogs, holden out of the New 
 Jerusalem, whereupon they rather break their teeth 
 than satisfy their appetite. It is your Father's 
 blessing and Christ's birthright that our Lord is 
 keeping for you, and I persuade you that your 
 seed, also, shall inherit the earth — if that be good 
 for them — for that is promised to them, and God's 
 bond is as good and better than if men would give 
 every one of them a bond for a thousand thousands. 
 
 I persuade my soul that this is the way to 
 heaven, and his own truth I now suffer for. I 
 exhort you, in the name of Christ, to continue in 
 the truth which I delivered unto 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, and prove dishonest to him ; but 
 be ye faithful to the death, and ye shall have the 
 crown of life. This span-length of your days 
 whereof the Spirit of God speaketh shall, within 
 a short time, come to a finger-breadth, and at 
 length to nothing. O, how sweet and comfortable 
 will the feast of a good conscience be to you when 
 your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, 
 and the breath turn cold, and your poor soul come 
 sighing to the windows of the house of clay of your 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 229 
 
 dying body, and shall long to be out, and to have 
 the jailer to open the door, that the prisoner may be 
 set at liberty ! Ye draw nigh the water side ; look 
 to your accounts ; ask for your Guide to take you 
 to the other side. Let not the world be your por- 
 tion ; what have ye to do with dead clay ? Ye are 
 not a bastard, but a lawfully begotten child; there- 
 fore set your heart on the inheritance. Go up be- 
 forehand 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 view 
 of lands ere they buy them. I know that Christ 
 hath made the bargain already ; but be kind to the 
 house ye are going to, and see it often. Set your 
 heart on things that are above, where Christ is at 
 the right hand of God. 
 
 Now, sir, in your youth gather fast ; your sun 
 will mount to the meridian quickly, and thereafter 
 decline. Be greedy of grace. Study, above any 
 thing, my clear brother, to mortify your lusts. O, 
 but pride of youth, vanity, lust, idolizing of the 
 world, and 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 
 
230 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 mortification, ye will find that ye are far behind, 
 and have most of your work before you. I never 
 took it to be so hard to be dead to my lusts and to 
 this world. When the day of visitation cometh, 
 and your old idols come weeping about you, ye 
 will have much ado not to break your heart ; it is 
 best to give up in time with them, so as ye could 
 at a call quit 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, threadbare coat. 
 I purpose to lay it aside, being now old and full of 
 holes. O for my house above not made with hands ! 
 
 Your sun is well turned and low ; be nigh your 
 lodging against night. We go one and one out of 
 this great market, till the town be empty, and the 
 two lodgings, heaven and hell, be filled. At length 
 there will be nothing in the earth but empty walls 
 and burnt ashes, and therefore it is best to make 
 away. Antichrist and his master are busy to re- 
 plenish hell and to seduce many, and stars, great 
 Church-lights, are falling from heaven, and many 
 are misled and seduced, and are content with their 
 faith, and sell their birthrights, by their hungry 
 hunting, for I know not what. Fasten your hold 
 surely upon Christ. I verily esteem him the best 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 231 
 
 possession 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 shoul- 
 der under me and it my cross is but a feather. I 
 please myself in the choice of Christ ; he is my 
 hold in heaven and earth. I rejoice that he is in 
 heaven before me. God send a joyful meeting, and 
 in the mean time the traveler's charges for the way ; 
 I mean a burden of Christ's love, to sweeten the 
 journey and to encourage a breathless runner, for 
 when I lose breath climbing up the mountain he 
 maketh new breath. 
 
 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 sickle to reap this world, that 
 is ripe and white for judgment! 
 
 I recommend to you holiness and sanctification, 
 and that you keep yourself clean from this present 
 evil world. We delight to tell our own dreams, and 
 to flatter our own flesh with the hope which we 
 have : it were wisdom for us to be free, plain, honest, 
 and sharp with our own souls, and to charge them 
 
232 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 to brew better, that they may drink well, and fare 
 well, when time is melted away like snow in a hot 
 Summer. 0, 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 that 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 and the powers of it are up in heaven, and 
 there their hearts live, desire, enjoy, rejoice. O ! 
 men's souls have no wings, and, therefore, night and 
 day they keep their nest, and are not acquainted 
 with Christ. Sir, take you to your one thing, to 
 Christ, that ye may be acquainted with the taste 
 of his sweetness and excellency, and 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 favor. Build upon 
 Christ some good, choice, and fast work ; for when 
 your soul for many years hath taken the play, and 
 hath posted and wandered through the creatures, ye 
 will come home again with the wind — they are not 
 good, at least not the soul's good. It is the infinite 
 Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your 
 hunger after happiness ; otherwise there shall still 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 233 
 
 be a want of satisfaction to your desires ; and if he 
 should cast in ten worlds into your desires, all shall 
 fall through, and your soul will still cry, " Red 
 hunger, black hunger ;" but I am sure there is 
 sufficient for you in Christ, if ye had seven souls 
 and seven desires in you. 
 
 The last tide will not wait for you one moment : 
 if ye forget any thing, when your sea is full and 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, and if ye mar or 
 spoil that business ye can not 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 how the number of your months 
 is written in God's book ; and as one of the Lord's 
 hirelings, ye must work till the shadow of the even- 
 ing come upon you, and ye shall run your glass 
 even to the last grain of sand. Fulfill 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. 
 
234 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Madam, as to your own case, I love careful, and, 
 withal, doing complaints of want of practice, be- 
 cause 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 com- 
 plaints a good charm for guiltiness. I hope that ye 
 are wrestling and 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 past in Christ that 
 we never saw, and new foldings of love in him. I 
 despair that ever I shall get to the far end of that 
 love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore dig 
 deep, and sweat, and labor, and take pains for him, 
 and set by as much time in the day for him as you 
 can ; he will be won with labor. 
 
 Salvation is not an easy thing, and soon got- 
 ten. I often told you that few are saved, and many 
 damned: I pray you to make your poor soul sure 
 of salvation, and the seeking of heaven your daily 
 task. If ye never had a sick night and 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, and 
 
The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 235 
 
 would quit all the world for him, then that saith 
 the work is sound. O, if ye saw the beauty of 
 Jesus, and smelled the fragrance of his love, you 
 would run through fire and water to be at him! 
 God send you him. 
 
 When Christ hideth himself, wait on, and make 
 din till he return ; it is not time then to be care- 
 lessly patient. I love to be grieved when he hideth 
 his smiles ; yet believe his love in a patient on-wait- 
 ing and believing in the dark. Ye must learn to 
 swim and 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 that 
 he will bring your ship safe to land. I counsel 
 you to study sanctification, and to be dead to this 
 world. 
 
 O how little is your handbreadth 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 blacks and whites be brought to light. O 
 how low will your thoughts be of this fair-skinned 
 but heart-rotten apple, the vain, vain, foolish world, 
 when the worms shall make their houses in your 
 
27,6 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 eye-holes, and shall eat off the flesh from the ball 
 of your cheeks, and shall make that body a number 
 of dry bones ! Think not that the common way 
 of serving God, as neighbors and others do, will 
 bring you to heaven. Few, few are saved. The 
 devil's court is thick and many : he hath the greatest 
 number of mankind for his vassals. I know this 
 world is a forest of thorns in your way to heaven ; 
 but you must go 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 world : lie not, love 
 and follow truth : learn to know God : keep in mind 
 what I taught you ; for God will seek an account 
 of it when I am far from you : abstain from all evil, 
 and all appearance of evil : follow good carefully : 
 seek peace and follow after it : honor your King, 
 and pray for him : remember me to God in your 
 prayers, I do not forget you. 
 
 Satan layeth upon men a burden of cares above 
 a load, and maketh a pack-horse of men's souls, 
 when they are wholly set upon this world. We owe 
 the devil no such service. It were wisdom to throw 
 
The Saixts Exhorted to Diligexce. 237 
 
 off that load into a mire, and cast all our cares over 
 upon God. 
 
 Let pleasures and gain, will and desires of this 
 world, be put over into God's hands, as arrested and 
 fenced goods, that ye can not intermeddle with. 
 Now, when ye are drinking the grounds of your 
 cup, and ye are upon the utmost end of the last link 
 of time, and old age, like death's long shadow, is 
 casting a covering upon your days, it is no time to 
 court this vain life, and to set love and heart upon 
 it. It is near after-supper ; seek rest and ease for 
 your soul in God through Christ. 
 
 I long exceedingly to know if the oft-spoken-of 
 match betwixt you and Christ holdeth, and if ye 
 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 
 greatest 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. 
 
XIV. 
 
 Januiiga and Intreaiws 
 
 AM glad to hear that you, in the morning 
 r^JJ of your short clay, mind Christ, and that 
 
 you love the honor of his crown and king- 
 dom. I beseech your lordship to begin now to 
 frame your love, and to cast it in no mold but one, 
 that it may be for Christ only, for when your love 
 is now in the framing and making it will take best 
 with Christ. If any other than Jesus get a hold of 
 it when it is green and young, Christ will be a cold 
 and strange world to you. Promise the lodging of 
 your soul first away to Christ, and stand by your 
 first covenant and keep to Jesus, that he may find 
 you honest. It is easy to master an arrow and to 
 set it right ere the string be drawn, but when once 
 it is shot and in the air, and the flight begun, then 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 
 
 239 
 
 ye have no more 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 grasp, and in its motion to fetch 
 home an idol, and hath taken a whorish gadding 
 journey to seek an unknown and strange lover, ye 
 shall not then have power to call home the arrow 
 or to be master of your love, and ye will hardly 
 give Christ what ye scarcely have yourself. 
 
 I speak not this as if youth itself could fetch 
 heaven and Christ. Believe it, my lord, it is hardly 
 credible what a nest of dangerous temptations youth 
 is ; how inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, 
 rash, profane, and careless of God this piece of your 
 life is, so that the devil findeth in that age a gar- 
 nished and well-swept house, and seven devils worse 
 than himself, for then affections are on horseback, 
 lofty and stirring; then the old man hath blood, 
 lust, much will, and little wit, and hands, feet, wan- 
 ton eyes, profane ears as his servants, and as king's 
 officers at command, to come and go at his will. 
 Then a green conscience is as easily bent 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 
 
240 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 yoke are youth and grace, Christ and a young man ! 
 This is a meeting not to be found in every town. 
 None who have been at Christ can bring back to 
 your lordship a report answerable to his worth, for 
 Christ can not be spoken of or commended accord- 
 ing to his worth. "Come and see" is the most 
 faithful messenger to speak of him ; little persua- 
 sion would prevail where this was. 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 seraphim — all 
 their wits being conjoined and melted into one — 
 would forever be in the nether side of truth and of 
 plentifully declaring the thing as it is. The infinite- 
 ness, the boundlessness of that incomparable excel- 
 lency that is in Jesus is a great word. God send 
 me, if it were but the relics and leavings, or an 
 ounce weight or two of his matchless love ; and 
 suppose I never got another heaven — provided 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 hither and 
 bestow your love. 
 
 I entreat you now, in the morning of your life, 
 to seek the Lord and his face. Beware of the folly 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 241 
 
 of dangerous youth — a perilous time for your soul. 
 Love not the world. Keep faith and truth with all 
 men in your covenants and bargains. Walk with 
 God, for he seeth you. Do nothing but that which 
 ye may and would do if your eye-strings were break- 
 ing and your breath growing cold. Ye heard the 
 truth of God from me, my dear heart ; follow it and 
 forsake it not. Prize Christ and salvation above all 
 the world. To live after the guise and course of 
 the rest of the world will not bring you to heaven ; 
 without faith in Christ and repentance ye can not 
 see God. Take pains for salvation ; press forward 
 toward the mark for the prize of the high calling ; 
 if ye watch not against evils night and day which 
 beset you ye will come behind. Beware of lying, 
 swearing, uncleanness, and 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 and utter darkness, where there is weeping and 
 gnashing of teeth. 
 
 I think I have just reason to quit my part of 
 any hope or love that I have to this scum, and the 
 refuse of the dross of God's workmanship, this vain 
 16 
 
242 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 earth. I owe to this stormy world — whose kindness 
 and heart to me have been made of iron, or a piece 
 of a wild sea-island that never a creature of God 
 lodged in — not a look ; I owe it no love, no hope ; 
 and, therefore, O that my love were dead to it, and 
 my soul dead to it ! What am I obliged to this 
 nouse of my pilgrimage ? A straw for all that God 
 hath made to my soul's liking except God and that 
 lovely One, Jesus Christ. Seeing I am not this 
 world's debtor, I desire that I may be stripped of 
 all confidence in any thing but my Lord, that he 
 may be for me, and I for my only, only, only Lord, 
 that he may be the morning and evening tide, the 
 top and the root of my joys, and the heart, and 
 flower, and yolk of all my soul's delights. O, let 
 me never lodge any creature in my heart and con- 
 fidence ! Let the house be for him. I rejoice that 
 sad days cut off a piece of the lease of my short 
 life, and that my shadow, even while I suffer, wear- 
 cth long, and my evening hasteneth on. I have 
 cause to love home with all my heart, and to take 
 the opportunity of the day to hasten to the end of 
 my journey before the night come on wherein a 
 man can not see to walk or work, that once after 
 my falls I may at night fall in, weary and tired as 
 I am, into Christ's bosom and betwixt his breasts. 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 243 
 
 Our prison can not be our best country. This 
 world looketh not like heaven and the happiness 
 that our tired souls would be at, and therefore it 
 were good to seek about for the wind, and hoist up 
 our sails toward our New Jerusalem, for that is 
 our best. 
 
 I have heard of your daughter's marriage. I 
 pray the Lord Jesus to subscribe the contract and 
 to be at the banquet, as he was at the marriage in 
 Cana of Galilee. Show her from me that, though 
 it be true that God's children have prayed for her, 
 yet the promise of God is made to her prayers and 
 faith especially, and therefore I would entreat her 
 to seek the Lord to be at the wedding ; let her give 
 Christ the love of her virginity and espousals, and 
 choose him first as her husband, and that match 
 shall bless the other. It is a new world she enter- 
 eth into, and therefore she hath need of new ac- 
 quaintance with the Son of God, and of a renewing 
 of her love to him whose love is better than wine. 
 "The time is short, let the married be as though 
 they were not married ; they that weep as though 
 they wept not ; they that rejoice as though they re- 
 joiced not ; they that buy as though they possessed 
 not ; they that use this world as though they used 
 
244 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 it not ; for the fashion of this world passeth away." 
 Grace, grace be her portion from the Lord. I know 
 that you have a care on you of it that all be right, 
 but let Christ bear all. You need not pity him — if 
 I may say so ; put him to it, he is strong enough. 
 
 It is impossible that a man can take his lusts 
 to heaven with him ; such wares as these will not 
 be welcome there. O, how loth are we to forego 
 our packs and burdens that hinder us to run our 
 race with patience ! It is no small work to dis- 
 please and 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, our own wit, out of our own ease 
 and worldly lusts, and so to deny ourself and 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 in me!" O, what pains and 
 what a death is it to nature to turn me, myself, my 
 lust, my ease, my credit over unto my Lord, my 
 Savior, my King, and my God, my Lord's will, my 
 Lord's grace ! 
 
 Death is the last thief, that will come without 
 the least din or noise of feet and take our souls 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 
 
 HS 
 
 away, and we shall take our leave of time and face 
 eternity ; and our Lord will lay together the two 
 sides of this earthly tabernacle, and fold us and lay 
 us by as a man layeth by clothes at night, and put 
 the one half of us in a house of clay, the dark 
 grave, and the other half of us in heaven or hell. 
 Seek to be found of your Lord in peace, and gather 
 in your household goods and put your soul in order, 
 for Christ will not give a nail-breadth of time to our 
 little sand-glass. 
 
 Sleep not sound till ye find yourself in that 
 case that ye dare look death in the face, and durst 
 hazard your soul upon eternity. I am sure that 
 many ells and inches of the short thread of your life 
 are past since I saw you: and that thread hath an 
 end ; and ye have no hand to cast a knot, and add 
 one day or a finger-breadth to the end of it. When 
 hearing, and seeing, and the outer walls of the clay- 
 house shall fall down, and life shall render the be- 
 sieged castle of clay to death and judgment, and ye 
 find your time worn shallow and run out, what 
 thoughts will you then have of idol-pleasures that 
 possibly are now sweet ? What bribe or hire would 
 you then give for the Lord's favor ? and what a 
 price would ye then give for pardon ? It were not 
 
246 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 amiss to think, " What if I were to receive a doom, 
 and to enter into a furnace of fire and brimstone? 
 What if it come to this, that I shall have no portion 
 but utter darkness? And what if I be brought to 
 this, to be banished from the presence of God, and 
 to be given over to God's sergeants, the devil, and 
 the power of the second death ?" Put your soul, by 
 supposition, in such a case, and consider what horror 
 would take hold of you, and what ye would then 
 esteem of pleasing yourself in the course of sin. 
 O, dear sir, for the Lord's sake, awake to live right- 
 eously, and love your poor soul ! 
 
 O sacrilegious robber of God's day, what wilt 
 thou answer the Almighty when he seeketh so 
 many Sabbaths back again from thee ? What will 
 the curser, swearer, and blasphemer do, when his 
 tongue shall be roasted in that broad and burning 
 lake of fire and brimstone ; and what will the 
 drunkard do, when tongue, lungs, and liver, bones 
 and all, shall boil and shall fry in a torturing fire ? 
 He shall be far from his barrels of strong drink 
 then, and there is not a cold well of water for him 
 in hell. What shall be the case of the wretch, the 
 covetous man, the oppressor, the deceiver, the earth- 
 worm, who can never get his fill of clay, when, in 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 247 
 
 the day of Christ, gold and silver must lie burnt 
 in ashes, and he must appear and answer his Judge, 
 and quit his clayey and empty heaven ? Woe, woe, 
 for evermore, be to the time-turning atheist, who 
 hath one god and one religion for Summer, and 
 another god and another religion for Winter, and 
 the day of fanning, when Christ fanneth all that is 
 in his barn-floor — who hath a conscience for every 
 fair and market, and the soul of him runneth upon 
 these oiled wheels, time, custom, the world, and 
 command of men. O that the careless atheist and 
 sleeping man, who edgeth past all with "God for- 
 give our pastors if they lead us wrong, we must do 
 as they command," and layeth down his head upon 
 time's bosom, and giveth his conscience to a deputy, 
 and sleepeth so until the smoke of hell-fire fly up in 
 his throat, and cause him to start out of his doleful 
 bed! O that such a man would awake! Many 
 woes are for the over-gilded and gold-plastered 
 hypocrite. A heavy doom is for the liar and white- 
 tongued flatterer ; and the flying book of God's fear- 
 ful vengeance, twenty cubits long and ten 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. 
 I denounce eternal burning, hotter than Sodom's 
 
248 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 flames, upon the men that boil in filthy lusts of for- 
 nication, adultery, incest, and the like wickedness ; 
 no room, no, not a foot-broad, for such vile dogs 
 within the clean Jerusalem. Many of you put off 
 all with this, " God forgive us, we know no better :" 
 I renew my old answer, The Judge is coming in 
 flaming fire, with all his mighty angels, to render 
 vengeance to all those that know not God, and 
 believe not. I have often told you that security will 
 slay you. All men say they have faith — as many 
 men and women now, as many saints in heaven — 
 and all believe — say ye — that every foul dog is clean 
 enough, and good enough, for the clean and new 
 Jerusalem above. Every man hath conversion and 
 the new birth ; but it is not well 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 judgment, and heaven crowded 
 full. Alas! it is neither easy nor ordinary to be- 
 lieve and to be saved. Many must stand, in the 
 end, at heaven's gates: when they go to take out 
 their faith they take out a fair nothing, or — as 
 ye use to speak — an illusion. O, lamentable dis- 
 appointment! I pray you, I charge you, in the 
 name of Christ, make fast work of Christ and sal- 
 vation. 
 
Warnings and Entrea ties. 249 
 
 I know that ye are not ignorant that men come 
 not to this world as some do to a market, to see 
 and to 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, and to negotiate 
 with him in his Christ for salvation to your soul, 
 and to seek reconciliation with an angry, wrathful 
 God, in a covenant of peace made to you in Christ ; 
 and this is more than 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, 
 and your appearing before Christ, do this in sober 
 earnest, and 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 clone in three days' 
 space on a feather-bed, when death and they are 
 fallen in hands together, and that with a word or 
 two they shall make their soul-matters right. Alas ! 
 this is to sit loose and unsure in the matters of our 
 salvation. Nay, the seeking of this world, and of 
 the glory of it, is but an odd and by-errand that we 
 may slip, so being we make salvation sure. O, 
 when will men learn to be so heavenly-wise as to 
 divorce from and free their soul of all idol-lovers, 
 and make Christ the only, only One, and trim and 
 
250 A Gardex of Spices. 
 
 make ready their lamps, while they have time and 
 day ! How soon will this house perish, and the inn 
 where the poor soul lodgeth fall to the earth ! How 
 soon will some few years pass away ; and then, 
 when the day is ended, and this life's lease expired, 
 what have men of world's glory but dreams and 
 thoughts? O, how blessed a thing is it to labor 
 for Christ, and to make him sure ! Know and try 
 in time your holding of him, and the title-deeds 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 other 
 things, and how highly Christ ! I am sure that 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 that ye should sell, 
 alienate, and 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, and can balance the weighty glory of the 
 one with the light golden vanity of the other ! 
 
 1 must first tell you that there is not such a 
 glassy, icy, and slippery piece of way betwixt you 
 and heaven as youth ; and I have experience to say 
 with me here, and to seal what I assert. The old 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 251 
 
 ashes of the sins of my youth are now fire of sorrow 
 to me. I have seen the devil, as it were, dead and 
 buried, and yet rise again, and 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 
 and 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, and dry coals, 
 and a 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, and are a water for 
 Satan's coal. 
 
 I exhort you in the bowels of Christ, set to 
 work for your soul, and let these bear weight with 
 you, and ponder them seriously: First. Weeping 
 and gnashing of teeth in utter darkness or heaven's 
 joy. Secondly. Think what ye would give for an 
 hour, when ye shall lie like dead, cold, blackened 
 clay. Thirdly. There is sand in your glass yet, and 
 your sun is not gone down. Fourthly. Consider 
 what joy and peace arc in Christ's service. Fifthly. 
 Think what advantage it will be to have angels, the 
 
252 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 world, life and death, crosses, yea, and devils, all for 
 you, as the King's sergeants and servants, to do 
 your business. Sixthly. To have mercy on your 
 seed, and a blessing on your house. Seventhly. To 
 have true honor, and a name on earth that casteth a 
 sweet smell. Eighthly. How ye will rejoice when 
 Christ layeth down your head under his chin, and 
 betwixt his breasts, and drieth your face, and wel- 
 cometh you to glory and happiness. Ninthly. Im- 
 agine what pain and torture is a guilty conscience ; 
 what slavery to carry the devil's dishonest loads. 
 Tenthly. Sin's joys are but night-dreams, thoughts, 
 vapors, imaginations, and shadows. Eleventhly. 
 What dignity it is to be a son of God. Twelfthly. 
 Dominion and mastery over temptations, over the 
 world and sin. Thirteenthly. That your enemies 
 should be the tail and you the head. 
 
 My earnest desire to you is that ye would, in the 
 fear of God, compare your inch and handbreadth 
 of time with vast eternity, and your thoughts of 
 this now fair, blooming, and green world with the 
 thoughts which ye will have of it when corruption 
 and worms will make their houses in your eye-holes, 
 and eat your flesh, and make that body dry bones. 
 If ye so do, I know then that your light of this 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 253 
 
 world's vanity shall be more clear than now it is, 
 and I am persuaded ye will then think that men's 
 labors 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 worlds 
 and angels, and hold them all at work. Surely, I 
 am grieved that men will not spend their whole 
 love upon that royal and princely Well-beloved, 
 that high and lofty One, for it is cursed love that 
 runneth another way than upon him. And for 
 myself, if I had ten loves and ten souls, O how 
 glad would I be if he would break in upon me and 
 take possession of them all ! Woe, woe is me that 
 he and I are so far asunder! I hope we shall be 
 in one country and one house together. Truly, 
 pain of love-sickness for Jesus maketh me to think 
 it long, long, long to the dawning of that day. O, 
 that he would cut short years, and months, and 
 hours, and overleap time, that we might meet! 
 
 I earnestly desire your salvation. Know the 
 Lord and seek Christ. You have a soul that can 
 not die ; seek for a lodging for your poor soul, for 
 that house of clay will fall ; heaven or nothing, 
 cither Christ or nothing. Use prayer in your house, 
 
254 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 and set your thoughts often upon death and judg- 
 ment. It is dangerous to be loose in the matter of 
 your salvation. Few are saved ; men go to heaven 
 in ones and twos, and the whole world lieth in sin. 
 Love your enemies, and stand by the truth which I 
 have taught you in all things. Fear not men, but 
 let God be your fear. Your time will not be long ; 
 make the seeking of Christ your daily task ; ye 
 may, when ye are in the fields, speak to God. Seek 
 a broken heart for sin, for without that there is no 
 meeting with Christ. 
 
 I CAN not but, upon the opportunity of a bearer, 
 exhort you to resign the love of your youth to 
 Christ, and 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 neces- 
 sary for you as Christ. And ye can not be igno- 
 rant that your day will end, and that the night of 
 death shall call you from the pleasures of this life ; 
 and a doom given out in death standeth forever, as 
 long as God liveth. Youth, ordinarily, is a post, 
 and ready servant for Satan to run errands, for it is 
 a nest for lust, cursing, drunkenness, blaspheming 
 of God, lying, pride, and vanity. O, that there 
 were such a heart in you as to fear the Lord and 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 255 
 
 to dedicate your soul and body to his service! 
 When the time cometh that your eye-strings shall 
 break, and your face wax pale, and legs and arms 
 tremble, and your breath grow cold, and your poor 
 soul look out at your prison-house of clay to be set 
 at liberty, then a good conscience and your Lord's 
 favor shall be worth all the world's glory. Seek it 
 as your garland and crown. Grace be with you. 
 
 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 and sin that bringeth forth 
 complaints ; and therefore, out of sense, complain 
 more and be more acquainted with all the cramps, 
 stitches, and soul-swoonings that trouble you. The 
 more pain, and the more night-watching, and the 
 more fevers the better. A soul bleeding to death 
 till Christ were sent for, and cried for in all haste to 
 come and stem the blood, and close up the hole in 
 the wound with his own hand and balm were a very 
 good disease when many are dying of a whole heart. 
 We have all too little of hell-pain and terrors that 
 way; nay, God send me such a hell as Christ hath 
 promised to make a heaven of. Alas ! I am not 
 come so far on in the way as to say in sober earn- 
 est, " Lord Jesus, great and sovereign physician, 
 
256 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 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, 
 say I, the want of fighting were a mark of no grace, 
 but I shall not say the want of victory is such a 
 mark. 
 
 All that is under this vault of heaven, and be- 
 twixt us and death, and on this side of sun and 
 moon are but toys, night-visions, head-fancies, poor 
 shadows, watery froth, godless vanities, at their 
 best, and black hearts, and salt and sour miseries, 
 sugared over and confected with an hour's laughter 
 or two, and the conceit of riches, honor, vain, vain 
 court, and lawless pleasures. Sir, if ye look both 
 to the laughing side and to the weeping side of 
 this world, and if ye look not only upon the skin 
 and color of things, but into their inwards and the 
 heart of their excellency, ye shall see that one look 
 of Christ's sweet and 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 
 hearts upon. O, sir, turn, turn your heart to the 
 other side of things, and get it once free of these 
 entanglements, to consider eternity, death, the clay 
 bed, the grave, awful judgment, everlasting burning 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 257 
 
 quick in hell, where death would give as great a 
 price — if there were a market wherein death might 
 be bought and sold — as all the world. Consider 
 heaven and glory ; but, alas ! why speak I of con- 
 sidering those things which have not entered into 
 the heart of man to consider? Look into those 
 depths — without a bottom — of loveliness, sweetness, 
 beauty, excellency, glory, goodness, grace, and mercy 
 that are in Christ, and ye shall then cry down the 
 whole world, and all the glory of it, even when it is 
 come to the Summer bloom, and ye shall cry, "Up 
 with Christ, up with Christ's Father, up with eter- 
 nity of glory !" Sir, there is a great deal less sand 
 in your glass than when I saw you, and your after- 
 noon is nearer eventide now than it was. As a 
 flood carried back to the sea, so doth the Lord's 
 swift post, time, carry you and your life with wings 
 to the grave. Ye eat and drink, but time standeth 
 not still ; ye laugh, but your day fleeth away ; ye 
 sleep, but your hours are reckoned and laid aside. 
 O, how soon will time shut you out of the poor, 
 and cold, and hungry inn of this life ; and then 
 what will yesterday's short-born pleasures do to 
 you, but be as a snow-ball melted away many years 
 since, or worse, for the memory of these pleasures 
 useth to fill the soul with bitterness? Time and 
 17 
 
258 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 experience will prove this to be true, and 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, and 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 straw or a drink of cold water. I doubt 
 not but in death ye shall see all things more dis- 
 tinctly, and that then the world shall bear no more 
 bulk than it is worth, and that then it shall couch 
 and be contracted into nothing; and ye shall see 
 Christ longer, higher, broader, and deeper than ever 
 he was. O, blessed acquisition, to lose all things 
 and 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 free heritage, holding it 
 of no man of clay, if Christ be not yours ! O, seek 
 all aids, lay all oars in the water, put forth all your 
 power, and bend all your endeavors to put away and 
 part with all things, that ye may gain and enjoy 
 Christ! Try and search his word, and strive to go 
 a step above and beyond ordinary professors, and 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 259 
 
 resolve to sweat more and run faster than they do 
 for salvation. Men's midday, cold, and wise courses 
 in godliness, and their neighbor-like, cold, and wise 
 pace to heaven will cause many a man to want his 
 lodging at night, and to lie in the fields. I recom- 
 mend Christ and his love to your seeking, and 
 yourself to the tender mercy and rich grace of 
 our Lord. 
 
 The Lord hath given you much, and therefore 
 he will require much of you again. Number your 
 talents, and see what you have to render back ; ye 
 can not be enough persuaded of the shortness of 
 your time. I charge you to write to me, and in the 
 fear of God to be plain with me, whether or not ye 
 have made your salvation sure. I am confident, 
 and hope the best, but I know that your reckonings 
 with your Judge are many and deep. Sir, be not 
 beguiled, neglect not your one thing, your one nec- 
 essary thing, 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 and deluded with feath- 
 ers flying in the air. Desire your children in the 
 morning of their life to begin and seek the Lord, 
 and to remember their Creator in the days of their 
 
260 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 youth, to cleanse their way by taking- heed thereto 
 according to God's Word. Youth is a glassy age. 
 Satan finds a swept chamber, for the most part, in 
 youth-hood, and a garnished lodging for himself and 
 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, and that this 
 life is nothing in comparison of eternity. They 
 will have much need of God's conduct in this 
 world to guide them past those rocks upon which 
 most men split, but far more need when it cometh 
 to the hour of death and their appearing before 
 Christ. O, that there were such a heart in them 
 to fear the name of the great and dreadful God, 
 who hath laid up great things for those that love 
 and fear him! I pray that God may be their 
 portion. 
 
 Take a trial of Christ. Look unto him and his 
 love will so change you that ye shall be taken with 
 him, and never choose to go from him. I have 
 experience of his sweetness in this house of my 
 pilgrimage here. My Witness who is above know- 
 eth that I would not exchange my sighs and tears 
 with the laughing of the fourteen prelates. There 
 is nothing that will make you a Christian, indeed, 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 261 
 
 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 and spoiled resolutions, but to it and to it 
 again. Woo about Christ till ye get your soul es- 
 poused as a chaste virgin to him. Use the means 
 of profiting with your conscience, pray in your 
 family, and read the Word. Remember how our 
 Lord's day was spent when I was among you ; it 
 will be a great accusation to you before God if ye 
 forget the good that was done within the walls of 
 your house on the Lord's day, and if ye turn aside 
 after the fashions of this world, and if ye go not in 
 time to the kirk to wait on the public worship of 
 God, and if ye tarry not at it till all the exercises 
 of religion be ended. Give God some of your time, 
 both morning, and evening, and afternoon, and in so 
 doing rejoice the heart of a poor oppressed prisoner. 
 
 I long to hear whether or not your soul be affi- 
 anced to Christ. Lose your time no longer; flee 
 the follies of youth, gird up the loins of your mind, 
 and make you ready for meeting the Lord. I have 
 often summoned you, and now I summon you 
 again, to appear before your Judge to make a reck- 
 oning of your life. While ye have time look upon 
 
262 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 your papers and consider your ways. O that there 
 were such a heart in you as to think what an ill 
 conscience will be to you when ye are upon the 
 border of eternity and your one foot out of time! 
 O, then ten thousand thousand floods of tears can 
 not 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 run- 
 neth fast away ; see how ye have spent it, and con- 
 sider the necessity of salvation, and tell me, in the 
 fear of God, if ye have made it sure. I am per- 
 suaded that ye have a conscience that will be 
 speaking somewhat to you. Why will ye die and 
 destroy yourself? I charge you in Christ's name 
 to rouse up your conscience and begin to indent 
 and 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 
 can not expect another market-day when this is 
 done. Therefore let me again beseech you to con- 
 sider, in this your day, the things that belong to 
 your peace before they be hid from your eyes. 
 Dear brother, fulfill my joy, and begin to seek the 
 Lord while he may be found ; forsake the follies 
 of deceiving and vain youth ; lay hold upon eter- 
 nal life. 
 
Warnings and Entreaties. 263 
 
 Knocking at the Boor. 
 
 In the silent midnight watches 
 
 List thy bosom's door, 
 How it knocketh, knocketh, knocketh, 
 
 Knocketh evermore ! 
 Say not 't is thy pulse's beating, 
 
 'T is thy heart of sin; 
 'T is thy Savior knocks, and crieth, 
 
 "Rise and let me in!" 
 
 Death comes down with reckless footsteps 
 
 To the hall and hut; 
 Think you death will tarry knocking 
 
 When the door is shut? 
 Jesus waiteth, waiteth, waiteth, 
 
 But the door is fast; 
 Grieved, away thy Savior goeth, 
 
 Death breaks in at last. 
 
 Then 't is thine to stand entreating 
 
 Christ to let thee in, 
 At the gate of heaven beating, 
 
 Wailing for thy sin ! 
 Nay, alas ! thou guilty creature, 
 
 Hast thou then forgot? 
 Jesus waited long to know thee, 
 
 Now he knows thee not. 
 
XV. 
 
 tsum. 
 
 REJOICE in the hope of that glory to be 
 revealed ; for it is no uncertain glory which 
 we look for. Our hope is not hung upon 
 such an untwisted thread as, " I imagine ;" or, " It is 
 likely;" but the cable, the strong hawser of our 
 fastened anchor, is the oath and 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 stake of God's unchangeable nature. 
 
 O sweet stability of sure-bottomed salvation! 
 Who could attain to heaven if this were not so? 
 And who could be saved, if God were not God, 
 and if he were not such a God as he is ? O God be 
 thanked that our salvation is coasted, and landed 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 265 
 
 and stowed upon Christ, who is Master of winds 
 and storms ! And what sea-winds can blow the 
 coast of the land out of its place ? Bulwarks are 
 often cast down, but coasts are not removed: but 
 suppose that were, or might be, God can not reel 
 nor remove. 
 
 It is a broad river that faith will not look over : 
 it is a mighty and a broad sea that they of a lively 
 hope can not behold the furthest bank and 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, and the other is entered 
 within the vail, whither the Forerunner is entered 
 for you. It can go straight through the flames 
 of the fire of the wrath of men, devils, horses, tor- 
 ture, death, and not a thread of it be singed or 
 burnt. Men and devils have no teeth to bite it 
 in two. 
 
 Death is but an awsome step over time and sin 
 to sweet Jesus Christ, who knew and 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 jailer, who had the power of death, is 
 
266 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 destroyed — praise and glory be to the First-begotten 
 of the dead. 
 
 You may rejoice that you will not get to heaven 
 till you know that Jesus is there before you: that 
 when you come thither, at your first entry, you may 
 feel the smell of his ointments, his myrrh, aloes, and 
 cassia. And this first salutation of his will make 
 you find it is no uncomfortable thing to die. 
 
 No son is offended that his father give him not 
 line twice a year; for he is to abide in the house, 
 when the inheritance is to be divided. It is better 
 that God's children live upon hope than upon hire. 
 
 If it were no more than once to see the face of 
 the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for 
 eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the 
 rays and beams of matchless glory, and incompar- 
 able fountain-love, it were a well-spent journey to 
 creep hands and feet through seven deaths and 
 seven hells, to enjoy him up at the well-head. Only 
 let us not weary — the miles to that land are fewer 
 and shorter than when we first believed. Strangers 
 are not wise to quarrel with their host, and com- 
 plain of their lodging. It is a foul way, but a fair 
 home. 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 267 
 
 It hath seemed good to Him to gather in a sheaf 
 of ripe corn, in the death of your Christian mother, 
 into his garner. It is the more evident that Winter 
 is near, when apples, without violence of wind, fall 
 of their own accord off the tree. She is now above 
 the Winter, with a little change of place, not of a 
 Savior: only she now enjoyeth him without mes- 
 sages, and in his own immediate presence. I grant 
 that death is to her a very new thing ; but heaven 
 was prepared of old ; and Christ — as enjoyed in his 
 highest throne, and as loaded with glory, and in- 
 comparably exalted above men and angels, having 
 such a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and mu- 
 sicians 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 traveler broken and 
 worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a 
 long and dirty way. 
 
 Certainly the sweetest and safest course is, 
 for this short time of the afternoon of this old and 
 declining world, to stand for Jesus: he hath said it, 
 and it is our part to believe it, that it, ere it be long, 
 "Time shall be no more, and the heaven shall wax 
 old as doth a garment." Do we not see it already 
 
268 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 an old and threadbare garment, full of holes ? Doth 
 not halting and lame nature tell us that the Lord 
 will fold up the old garment and lay it aside ; and 
 that the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll, 
 and this pest-house shall be burnt with fire, and that 
 both furniture and walls shall melt with fervent heat ? 
 For at the Lord's coming he will do with this earth 
 as men do with a lazaretto, he will burn the walls 
 with fire, and the furniture of the house also. 
 
 The day is near the dawning ; the sky is rising ; 
 our Beloved will be on us ere ever we be aware. 
 The Antichrist, and death, and hell, and Christ's 
 enemies and ours, shall be bound, and cast into the 
 bottomless pit. 
 
 In the mean time the least imitation of Christ's 
 love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the 
 Bridegroom holdeth me in some joyful on-waiting, 
 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 and his bride to their house to- 
 gether. When I think of this, I think Winters and 
 Summers, and years and days, and time, do me a 
 pleasure, that they shorten this untwisted and weak 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 269 
 
 thread of my life, and that they put sin and miseries 
 quickly aside, and that they shall carry me to my 
 Bridegroom in a clap. 
 
 We have gotten the new heavens, and as a 
 pledge of that the Bridegroom's love-ring. The 
 children of the wedding-chamber have cause to skip 
 and leap for joy ; for the marriage-supper is draw- 
 ing nigh, and we find the slight repast sweet and 
 comfortable. O time, be not slow! O sun, move 
 speedily, and hasten our banquet ! O Bridegroom, 
 be like a roe, or a young hart on the mountains ! 
 O Well-beloved, move fast, that we may once meet ! 
 
 What would I not give to have time, that lieth 
 betwixt Christ and me, taken out of the way, that 
 we might once meet ? I can not think but that, at 
 the first sight I shall see of that most lovely and 
 fairest face, love will come out of his two eyes, and 
 fill me with astonishment. I would but desire to 
 stand at the outer side of the gates of the New 
 Jerusalem, and look through a hole of the door and 
 see Christ's face. A borrowed vision in this life 
 would be my borrowed and begun heaven, till the 
 long, long-looked-for day dawn. All that we have 
 here is scarce the picture of glory. It were good to 
 
270 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 be daily begging presents and love-gifts, and the 
 Bridegroom's favors ; and, if we can do no more, to 
 seek crumbs and hungry dinners of Christ's love, to 
 keep the taste of heaven in our mouth until supper- 
 time. O, Well-beloved, run, run fast! O fair day, 
 when wilt thou dawn ! O shadows, flee away ! It 
 is a pain to wait on, but hope, that maketh not 
 ashamed, swalloweth up that pain. 
 
 It is a dear Summer with me ; yet there is much 
 joy in the eagerness and working of hunger for 
 Christ, that I am often at this, that if I had no other 
 heaven than a continual hunger for Christ, such a 
 heaven, of ever-working hunger, were still a heaven 
 to me. 
 
 I dare not accuse himself — Christ — but his ab- 
 sence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart. 
 O when shall we meet? O how long is it to the 
 dawning of the marriage-day ! O sweet Lord Jesus, 
 take long steps. O, my Lord, come over mountains 
 at one stride. O, my Beloved, flee like a roe, or a 
 young hart upon the mountains of separation ! O 
 that he would fold the heavens together like an old 
 cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and 
 make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her Hus- 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 271 
 
 band ! Since he looked upon me my heart is not 
 my own, he hath run away to heaven with it. 
 
 Alas ! I can not cause paper to speak the hight, 
 and breadth, and depth of Christ's love ! I have not 
 a balance to weigh the worth of my Lord Jesus. 
 Heaven, ten heavens, would not be the beam of a 
 balance to weigh him in. I must give over praising 
 him. Angels see but little of him. O that that 
 fair one would take 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 heavens, cleave in two, that that bright face and 
 head may set itself through the clouds! O that 
 the corn were ripe, and this world prepared for his 
 sickle ! 
 
 Some travelers see the city twenty miles off, and 
 at a distance ; and yet, within the eighth part of a 
 mile, they can not see it. It is all keeping that you 
 would now have, till you need it ; and if sense and 
 fruition come both at once it is not your loss. Let 
 Christ tutor you as he thinketh good ; you can not 
 be marred nor miscarry in his hand. Some see the 
 gold once, and never again till the races end — it is 
 
272 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 coming all in a sum together — when you are in a 
 more gracious capacity to tell it than now. You 
 are not come to the mount, etc. Heb. xii, 18-24. 
 
 What do we here but sin and suffer? O, when 
 shall the nights be gone, the shadows flee away, and 
 the morning of that long, long day, without cloud 
 or night, dawn ! The Spirit and the bride say, 
 "Come." O, when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, 
 and the Bridegroom say, "Come?" 
 
 O cruel time, that tormenteth us, and sus- 
 pendeth our dearest enjoyments that we wait for, 
 when we shall be bathed and steeped, soul and 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 on the mountains 
 of separation ! Post, post, and hasten our desired 
 and hungered-for meeting — love is sick to hear tell 
 of to-morrow. 
 
 It is my happiness to look afar off, and to come 
 near to the Lord's back parts, and to light my dark 
 candle at his brightness, and to have leave to sit 
 and content myself with a traveler's light, without 
 the clear vision of an enjoyer. I would seek no 
 more till I were in my country than a little watering 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 273 
 
 and sprinkling of a withered soul, with some half 
 outbreakings and half outlooking of the beams 
 and small ravishing smiles of the fairest face of a 
 revealed and believed-on Godhead. A little of God 
 would make my soul full from bank to bank! O, 
 that I had but Christ's odd off-fallings, that he 
 would let the meanest of his love-rays and love- 
 beams fall from him, so as I might gather and carry 
 them with me ! O, that I had any thing of Christ ! 
 O, that I had a sip or half a drop out of Christ's 
 hand of the sweetness and excellency of that lovely 
 One ! O, that my Lord Jesus would rue upon me 
 and give me but the meanest alms of felt and be- 
 lieved salvation! O, how little were it for that 
 infinite Fountain of love and joy to fill as many 
 thousand thousands of little vessels the like of me 
 as there are minutes of hours since the creation 
 of God ! 
 
 I find when he but sendeth his hearty com- 
 mendations to me, and 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 short refreshment in this dismal 
 wilderness, and when in prisons, and in our sad 
 days a kiss of Christ are so comfortable. O, how 
 18 
 
274 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 sweet and glorious shall our case be when that 
 fairest among the sons of men will lay his fair face 
 to our now sinful faces and wipe away all tears 
 from our eyes! O, time, time, run swiftly, and 
 hasten this day ! O, sweet Lord Jesus, come fly- 
 ing like a roe or a young hart! Alas! that we, 
 blind fools, are fallen in love with moonshine and 
 shadows ! How sweet is the wind that bloweth 
 out of the quarter where Christ is ! Every day we 
 may see some new thing in Christ ; his love hath 
 neither brim nor bottom. 
 
 Christ is unmixed in heaven, all sweetness and 
 honey. Here we have him with his thorny and 
 rough cross, yet I know no tree that beareth 
 sweeter fruit than Christ's cross, except I would 
 raise a lying 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 gripe 
 of him the field were won. Yet a little while and 
 Christ shall triumph. 
 
 Till we be in heaven the best have heavy 
 heads. Nature is a sluggard, and loveth not the 
 labor of religion ; therefore rest should not be taken 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 275 
 
 till we know that the disease is over and in the 
 way of turning, and that it is like a fever past the 
 cool, and the quietness and the calms of the faith 
 of victory over corruption should be entertained in 
 the place of security, so that if I sleep I should 
 desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 
 
 If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you 
 can not be kept the prisoner of the second death. 
 But though he is the same Christ in the other life 
 that you found him to be here, yet he is so far in 
 his excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradiations, and 
 beams of majesty above what he appeared here, 
 when he is seen as he is, that you shall not recog- 
 nize him, and he shall appear a new Christ ; and 
 his kisses, breathings, embracements, the perfumes, 
 the ointment of his name poured out on you shall 
 appear to have more of God, and a stronger smell 
 of heaven, of eternity, of a Godhead, of majesty, 
 and glory there than here, as water at the fountain, 
 apples in the orchard and beside the tree have 
 more of their native sweetness, taste, and beauty 
 than when transported to us some hundred miles. 
 I mean not that Christ can lose any of his sweet- 
 ness in the carrying, or that he, in his Godhead 
 and loveliness of presence, can be changed to the 
 
276 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 worse betwixt the little spot of the earth that you 
 are in and the right hand of the Father, far above 
 all heavens ; but the change will be in you, when 
 you shall have new senses, and the soul shall be a 
 more deep and 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, you can 
 not 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, mediums, or messengers, at the 
 Fountain itself, as you will do a few days hence, 
 when you shall be so near as to be with Christ. 
 
 If you knew what he is preparing for you you 
 would be too glad. He will not, it may be, give 
 you a full draught till you come up to the well-head 
 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." I dare find 
 you the Son of God surety that when you have got 
 up thither, and have cast your eyes to view the 
 golden city and the fair and never-withering "tree 
 of life, which beareth twelve manner of fruits every 
 month," you will then say, " Four and twenty hours' 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 277 
 
 abode in that place is worth threescore and ten 
 years' sorrow upon earth." 
 
 Take Christ's security you shall not lose your 
 reward. Hold your gripe fast. If you knew the 
 mind of the glorified in heaven — they think heaven 
 came to their hand at an easy market when they 
 have got it for threescore or fourscore years' wres- 
 tling with God. When you are come thither you 
 shall think that all which I did in respect of my 
 rich reward, now enjoyed of free grace, was too 
 little. Take as many with you to heaven as you 
 are able to draw ; the more you draw with you, you 
 shall be the welcomer yourself. 
 
 I wish that our thoughts were more frequently 
 upon our country. O, but heaven casteth a sweet 
 smell afar off to those who have spiritual smelling! 
 God hath made many fair flowers, but the fairest 
 of them all is heaven, and the flower of all flowers 
 is Christ. 
 
 When we shall come home and enter to the 
 possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and our 
 heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of 
 glory, and when we shall look back to pains and 
 
27S A Garden of Spices. 
 
 sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow to be 
 less than one step or stride from a prison to glory, 
 and that our little inch of time-suffering is not 
 worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven. 
 
 Faint not ; the miles to heaven are few and 
 short. There are many heads lying in Christ's 
 bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest. 
 
 There is a great necessity of heaven ; you must 
 needs have it ; all other things, as houses, land, 
 children, husband, friends, country, kindred, health, 
 wealth, honor, may be wanted, but heaven is your 
 one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be 
 taken from you. See that you buy the field where 
 the pearl is. Sell all and make a purchase of sal- 
 vation. 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. 
 
 Set your heart on the inheritance. Go up be- 
 forehand 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 view 
 of lands ere they buy them. I know that Christ 
 hath made the bargain already, but be kind to the 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 279 
 
 house you are going to, and see it often. Set your 
 heart on things that are above, where Christ is at 
 the right hand of God. 
 
 Happy are they who are found watching. Our 
 sand-glass is not so long as we need to weary. 
 Time will eat away and root out our woes and sor- 
 row. Our heaven is in the bud and growing up 
 to a harvest. Why, then, should we not follow on, 
 seeing our span-length of time will come to an inch ? 
 
 I accuse time as too slow in its pace that hold- 
 eth my only, only fair One, my Love, my Well- 
 beloved from me. O, that we were together once! 
 I am like an old crazed ship that hath endured 
 many storms, and fain would be in the lee of the 
 shore, and feareth new storms. I would be so nigh 
 heaven that the shadow of it might break the force 
 of the storm, and the crazed ship might get to 
 land. My blessing thrice every day upon the cross 
 of Christ. 
 
 We shall be together one day. We shall not 
 need to borrow light from sun, moon, or candle. 
 There shall be no complaints on either side in 
 heaven. There shall be none there but him and us, 
 
280 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 the Bridegroom and the bride ; devils, temptations, 
 trials, desertions, loves, sad hearts, pain, and death 
 shall be all put out of play, and the devil must give 
 up his office of tempting. O, blessed is the soul 
 whose hope hath a face looking straight out to that 
 clay! It is not our part to make a treasure here; 
 any thing under the covering of heaven which we 
 can build upon is but ill ground and a sandy foun- 
 dation. Every good thing except God wanteth a 
 bottom and can not stand alone. 
 
 A King from heaven hath sent for you ; by faith 
 he sheweth you the New Jerusalem, and taketh you 
 along in the Spirit through all the rooms for repose 
 and dwelling-houses in heaven, and saith, "All these 
 are thine ; this palace is* for thee and Christ ;" and, 
 if you only had been the chosen of God, Christ 
 would have built that one house for you and him- 
 self; now it is for you and many others also. Take 
 with you in your journey what you may carry with 
 you, your conscience, faith, love, patience, meek- 
 ness, goodness, brotherly kindness, for such wares 
 as these are of great price in the high and new 
 country whither you go. As for other things, which 
 are but the world's vanity and trash, since they are 
 but the house-sweepings, you will do best not to 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 2S1 
 
 carry them with you. You found them here, leave 
 them here and let them keep the house. 
 
 You know when one day in heaven hath paid 
 you, yea, and overpaid your blood, bonds, sorrow, 
 and sufferings that it would trouble angels' under- 
 standing to state the count of that surplus of glory 
 which eternity can and will give you. O, but your 
 hour-glass of sufferings and losses cometh to little 
 when it shall be counted and compared with the 
 glory that abideth you on the other side of the 
 water! You have no leisure to rejoice and sing 
 here, while time goeth about you, and where your 
 psalms will be short ; therefore you will think eter- 
 nity and the long day of heaven, that shall be meas- 
 ured with no other sun nor horologe than the long 
 life of the Ancient of Days, to measure your praises, 
 little enough for you.* 
 
 *This was written to Rev. Dr. Leighton, a Presbyterian, who, 
 for writing a book entitled Zion's Plea against Prelacy, was sen- 
 tenced, in 1630, to imprisonment during life, to pay a fine of ,£10,000, 
 to be publicly whipped at Westminster, to have one of his ears cut 
 off, one side of his nose slitted, and to be branded with a burning 
 iron on one cheek with S. S. as a sower of sedition, and on another 
 clay to be again publicly whipped and pilloried at Chcapside, to have 
 his other ear cut off, his other nostril slitted up, and his other cheek 
 branded with S. S. On November 16, 1630, Dr. L. underwent half 
 of this fiendish sentence, and on that day week, the sores on his 
 
2S2 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 Jesus, that flower of Jesse, set without hands, 
 getteth many a blast, and yet withereth not, because 
 he is the Father's noble Rose, casting a sweet smell 
 through heaven and earth, and must grow ; and in 
 the same garden with him grow the saints, God's 
 fair and beautiful lilies, under wind and rain, and 
 all sunburned, and yet life remaineth at the root. 
 Keep within the garden and you shall grow with 
 them, till the great Husbandman, our dear Master- 
 gardener come, and transplant you from the lower 
 part of his vineyard up to the higher, to the very 
 heart of his garden, above the wrongs of the rain, 
 sun, or wind, and then wait upon the times of the 
 blowing of the sweet south and north wind of his 
 gracious Spirit, that may make you cast a sweet 
 smell in your Beloved's nostrils ; and let your Be- 
 loved come down to his garden and eat of his 
 pleasant fruits. And he will come. You will get 
 no more than this until you come up to the Well- 
 head, where you shall put up your hand and take 
 
 back, head, and face being yet unhealed, he was mercilessly whipped 
 at Cheapside by the hangman, who had previously been purposely 
 intoxicated, was exposed in the pillory for nearly two hours in a hard 
 frost and a fall of snow, had his other ear cut off, and his other nos- 
 tril slitted up and his other cheek branded, and afterward, being 
 unable to walk, was carried to the Fleet prison, in which he lay till 
 liberated by the Long Parliament. 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 283 
 
 down the apples of the Tree of life, and eat under 
 the shadow of that Tree. Those apples are sweeter 
 up beside the Tree than they are down here in this 
 piece of a clay-prison house. I have no joy but in 
 the thoughts of these times. 
 
 Violent death is a sharer of Christ in his death, 
 which was violent. It maketh not much what way 
 we go to heaven — the happy home is all, where the 
 roughest of the way shall be forgotten. God's order 
 is in wisdom. The husband goeth home before the 
 wife, and the throng of the market 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 car- 
 rieth home so much of his furniture beforehand. 
 
 Better have Christ your factor than 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 can not pay you with miscounting, or de- 
 ferred hope — O, what must the rent of that land be, 
 which rendereth every day and hour of the years of 
 
2S4 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 long eternity the whole rent of a year, yea, of more 
 than thousand thousands ages, even the weighty 
 income of a rich kingdom, not every Summer once, 
 but every moment. That sum of glory will take 
 you and all the angels to tell. To be a tenant to 
 such a Landlord, where every berry and grape of 
 the large field beareth no more fruit than glory, full- 
 ness of joy, and pleasures that endure for evermore ! 
 I leave 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 the 
 sun and the moon are under the feet of the inhabit- 
 ants ! Surely the land can not be bought with 
 gold, blood, banishment, loss of father, husband, 
 wife, children. 
 
 We are not to stay here, and we shall be dearly 
 welcome to Him whom we go to. And I hope that 
 when I shall see you clothed in white raiment, 
 washed in the blood of the Lamb, and shall see 
 you even at the elbow of your dearest Lord and 
 Redeemer, and a crown upon your head, and follow- 
 ing our Lamb and lovely Lord whithersoever he 
 goeth, you will think nothing of all these days, and 
 you will then rejoice, and your joy no man taketh 
 from you. And it is certain that there is not much 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 285 
 
 sand to run in your Lord's sand-glass, and that day 
 is at hand, and, till then, your Lord in this life is 
 giving you some little feasts. It is true that you 
 see him not now as you will see him then. Your 
 Well-beloved standeth now behind the wall, looking 
 out at the window, and you see but little of his 
 face — then you shall see his face and all the Sav- 
 ior — a long, and high, and broad Lord Jesus — the 
 most lovely person among the children of men. O 
 joy of joys ! that our souls know there is such a 
 great supper preparing for us. 
 
 The King's spikenard, Christ's perfumes, 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 kings' 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, and see the branches burdened with the 
 apples of life — to be the last man that shall come 
 in thither, were too much for me. 
 
286 A Garden of Spices. 
 
 The Blessed Gauntry. 
 
 For thee, O dear, dear Country, 
 
 Mine eyes their vigils keep; 
 For very love, beholding 
 
 Thy happy name, they weep : 
 The mention of thy glory 
 
 Is unction to the breast, 
 And medicine in sickness, 
 
 And love, and life, and rest. 
 
 They stand, those halls of Zion, 
 
 Conjubilant with song, 
 And bright with many an angel, 
 
 And all the martyr throng : 
 The Prince is ever in them, 
 
 The light is aye serene, 
 The pastures of the blessed 
 
 Are decked in glorious sheen. 
 
 There is the throne of David, 
 
 And there, from toil released, 
 The shout of them that triumph, 
 
 The song of them that feast ; 
 And who, beneath their Leader, 
 
 Have conquered in the fight, 
 Forever and forever 
 
 Are clad in robes of white. 
 
The Heavenly Vision. 287 
 
 Thoughts of Home; 
 
 I 've been thinking of home, of "my Father's house, 
 
 Where the many mansions be," 
 Of the city whose streets are paved with gold, 
 Of its jasper walls, so fair to behold, 
 
 Which the righteous alone shall see. 
 
 I 've been thinking of home, where they need not the light 
 
 Of the sun, nor moon, nor star; 
 Where the gates of pearl "are not shut by day, 
 For no night is there," but the weary may 
 
 Find rest from the world afar. 
 
 I 've been thinking of home, of the river of life 
 
 That flows through the city so pure; 
 Of the tree that stands by the side of the stream, 
 Whose leaves in mercy with blessings teem, 
 
 The sin-wounded soul to cure. 
 
 I 've been thinking of home, of the loved ones there, 
 
 Dear friends who have gone before, 
 With whom we walked to the death river side, 
 And sadly thought, as we watched the tide, 
 
 Of the happy days of yore. 
 
288 A Garden of spices. 
 
 I 've been thinking of home, and my heart is full 
 
 Of love for the Lamb of God, 
 Who his precious life as a ransom gave 
 For a simple race, e'en our souls to save 
 
 From justice's avenging rod. 
 
 I 've been thinking of home, and I 'm homesick now; 
 
 My spirit doth long to be 
 In "the better land," where the ransomed sing 
 Of the love of Christ, their Redeemer, King, 
 
 Of mercy so costly, so free. 
 
 I 've been thinking of home, yea, "home, sweet home; 
 
 O, there may we all unite 
 With the white-robed throng, and forever raise 
 To the triune God sweetest songs of praise, 
 
 With glory, and honor, and might! 
 
J 
 

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