S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
[XCV.—To the Right Honourable and Christian Lady, the Viscountess of Kenmure.]
(CHRIST'S CROSS SWEET—HIS COMING TO BE DESIRED—JEALOUS OF ANY RIVAL.)
M ADAM,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship. I would not omit to write a line with this Christian bearer; one in your Ladyship's own case, driven near to Christ, in and by her affliction. I wish that my friends in Galloway forget me not. However it be, Christ is so good, I will have no other tutor, suppose I could have wale and choice of ten thousand beside. I think now five hundred heavy hearts for Him too little. I wish that Christ, now weeping, suffering, and contemned of men, were more dear and desirable to many souls than He is. I am sure that if the saints wanted Christ's cross, so profitable, and so sweet, they might, for the gain and glory of it, wish it were lawful either to buy or borrow His cross. But it is a mercy that the saints have it laid to their hand for nothing; for I know no sweeter way to heaven than through free grace and hard trials together; and one of these cannot well want another.
O that time would post faster, and hasten our looked-for communion with that fairest, fairest among the sons of men! O that the day would favour us and come, and put Christ and us into each other's arms! I am sure that a few years will do our turn, and the soldier's hour-glass will soon run out. Madam, look to your lamp, and look for your Lord's Coming, and let your heart dwell aloof from that sweet child. Christ's jealousy will not admit of two equal loves in your Ladyship's heart. He must have one, and that the greatest; a little one to a creature may and must suffice a soul married to Him. "Thy Maker is thine Husband" (Isa. liv. 5). I would wish you well, and my obligations these many years byegone speak no less to me; but more I can neither wish, nor pray, nor desire for your Ladyship, than Christ singled and waled out from all created good things, or Christ howbeit wet in His own blood, and wearing a crown of thorns. I am sure that the saints, at their best, are but strangers to the weight and worth of the incomparable sweetness of Christ. He is so new, so fresh in excellency every day of new, to those that search more and more in Him, as if heaven could furnish us as many new Christs (if I may so speak) as there are days betwixt Him and us; and yet He one and the same. Oh, we love an unknown lover when we love Christ!
Let me hear how the child is every way. The prayers of a prisoner of Christ be upon him. Grace for evermore, even whill glory perfect it, be with your Ladyship.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,