[CXXXVI.—To Robert Glendinning, Minister of Kirkcudbright.]
(PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD—CHRIST HIS JOY.)
M Y DEAR FRIEND,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I thank you most kindly for your care of me, and your love and respective[229] kindness to my brother in his distress. I pray the Lord that ye may find mercy in the day of Christ; and I entreat you, Sir, to consider the times which ye live in, and that your soul is more worth to you than the whole world, which, in the day of the blowing of the Last Trumpet, shall lie in white ashes, as an old castle burned to nothing. And remember that judgment and eternity is before you. My dear and worthy friend, let me entreat you in Christ's name, and by the salvation of your soul, and by your compearance before the dreadful and sin-revenging Judge of the world, to make your accounts ready. Redd them ere ye come to the water-side; for your afternoon will wear short, and your sun fall low and go down; and ye know that this long time your Lord hath waited on you. Oh, how comfortable a thing it will be to you, when time shall be no more, and your soul shall depart out of the house of clay to vast and endless eternity, to have your soul dressed up, and prepared for your Bridegroom! No loss is comparable to the loss of the soul; there is no hope of regaining that loss. Oh, how joyful would my soul be to hear that ye would start to the gate, and contend for the crown, and leave all vanities and make Christ your garland! Let your soul put away your old lovers, and let Christ have your whole love.
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. I judge this clay-idol, which Adam's sons are rouping, and selling their souls for, not worth a drink of cold water. Oh, if your soul were in my soul's stead, how sick would ye be of love for that fairest One, that Fairest among the sons of men! May-flowers, and morning vapour, and summer mist, posteth not so fast away as these worm-eaten pleasures which we follow. We build castles in the air, and night-dreams are our daily idols that we doat on. Salvation, salvation is our only necessary thing. Sir, call home your thoughts to this work, to inquire for your Well-beloved. This earth is the portion of bastards: seek the Son's inheritance, and let Christ's truth be dear to you.
I pawn my salvation on it, that this is the honour of Christ's kingdom which I now suffer for (and this world, I hope, shall not come between me and my garland); and that this is the way to life. When ye and I shall lie lumps of pale clay upon the ground, our pleasures, that we now naturally love, shall be less than nothing in that day. Dear brother, fulfil my joy, and betake you to Christ without further delay. Ye will be fain at length to seek Him, or do infinitely worse. Remember my love to your wife. Grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, March 13, 1637.