M UCH HONOURED AND WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing.
I must first tell you, 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 ashes of the sins of my youth are new 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 grey-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. Yet I must tell you, that the whole saints now triumphant in heaven, and standing before the throne, are nothing but Christ's forlorn and beggarly dyvours. What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners? But their redemption is not only past the seals, but completed; and yours is on the wheels, and in doing.
All Christ's good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow, and with a crooked leg. Christ hath an advantage of you, and I pray you to let Him have it; He will find employment for His calling in you. If it were not with you as ye write, grace should find no sale nor market in you; but 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 loath to put you off your fears, and your sense of deadness: I wish it were more. There be some wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should not be soon stopped. Ye must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first sick man whom He put away uncured, and worse than He found you. Nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free with sinners. "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out" (John vi. 37). Take ye that. It cannot be presumption to take that as your own, when you find that your wounds stound you. Presumption is ever whole at the heart, and hath but the truant sickness, and groaneth only for the fashion. Faith hath sense of sickness, and looketh, like a friend, to the promises; and, looking to Christ therein, is glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast as ye can have to hunger. Nay, Christ, I say, is not a full man's leavings. His mercy sendeth always a letter of defiance to all your sins, if there were ten thousand more of them.
I grant you that it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man to win his meat upon hidden Christ: for then the key of His pantry-door, and of the house of wine, is a-seeking and cannot be had. But hunger must break through iron locks. I bemoan them not who can make a din, and all the fields ado, for a lost Saviour. Ye must let Him hear it (to say so) upon both sides of His head, when He hideth Himself; it is no time then to be bird-mouthed and patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a delicacy to a sinner. He is a miracle, and a world's wonder, to a seeking and a weeping sinner; but yet such a miracle as shall be seen by them who will come and see. The seeker and sigher, is at last a singer and enjoyer; nay, I have seen a dumb man get alms from Christ. He that can tell his tale, and send such a letter to heaven as he hath sent to Aberdeen, it is very like he will come speed with Christ. It bodeth God's mercy to complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling be with Christ till He say, "How is it, sir, that I cannot be quit of your bills, and your misleared cries?" and then hope for Christ's blessing; and His blessing is better than ten other blessings. Think not shame because of your guiltiness; necessity must not blush to beg. It standeth you hard to want Christ; and, therefore, that which idle on-waiting cannot do, misnurtured crying and knocking will do.
And for doubtings, because you are not as you were long since with your Master: consider three things. 1st, What if Christ had such tottering thoughts of the bargain of the new covenant betwixt you and Him, as you have? 2ndly, Your heart is not the compass which Christ saileth by. He will give you leave to sing as you please, but He will not dance to your daft spring. It is not referred to you and your thoughts, what Christ will do with the charters betwixt you and Him. Your own misbelief hath torn them; but He hath the principal in heaven with Himself. Your thoughts are no parts of the new covenant; dreams change not Christ. 3rdly, Doubtings are your sins; but they are Christ's drugs, and ingredients that the Physician maketh use of for the curing of your pride. Is it not suitable for a beggar to say at meat, "God reward the winners"?[293] for then he saith that he knoweth who beareth the charges of the house. It is also meet that ye should know, by experience, that faith is not nature's ill-gotten bastard, but your Lord's free gift, that lay in the womb of God's free grace. Praised be the Winner! I may add a 4thly, In the passing of your bill and your charters, when they went through the Mediator's great seal, and were concluded, faith's advice was not sought. Faith hath not a vote beside Christ's merits: blood, blood, dear blood, that came from your Cautioner's holy body, maketh that sure work. The use, then, which ye have of faith now (having already closed with Jesus Christ for justification) is, to take out a copy of your pardon; and so ye have peace with God upon the account of Christ. For, since faith apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it, no marvel that salvation doth not die and live, ebb or flow, with the working of faith. But because it is your Lord's honour to believe His mercy and His fidelity, it is infinite goodness in our Lord, that misbelief giveth a dash to our Lord's glory, and not to our salvation. And so, whoever want (yea, howbeit God here bear with the want of what we are obliged to give Him, even the glory of His grace by believing), yet a poor covenanted sinner wanteth not. But if guiltiness were removed, doubtings would find no friend, nor life; and yet faith is to believe the removal of guiltiness in Christ. A reason why ye get less now (as ye think) than before, as I take it, is, because, at our first conversion, our Lord putteth the meat in young bairns' mouths with His own hand; but when we grow to some further perfection, we must take heaven by violence, and take by violence from Christ what we get. And He can, and doth hold, because He will have us to draw. Remember now that ye must live upon violent plucking. Laziness is a greater fault now than long since. We love always to have the pap put in our mouth.
Now for myself; alas! I am not the man I go for in this nation; men have not just weights to weigh me in. Oh, but I am a silly, feckless body, and overgrown with weeds; corruption is rank and fat in me. Oh, if I were answerable to this holy cause, and to that honourable Prince's love for whom I now suffer! If Christ should refer the matter to me (in His presence I speak it), I might think shame to vote my own salvation. I think Christ might say, "Thinkest thou not shame to claim heaven, who doest so little for it?" I am very often so, that I know not whether I sink or swim in the water. I find myself a bag of light froth. I would bear no weight (but vanities and nothings weigh in Christ's balance) if my Lord cast not in borrowed weight and metal, even Christ's righteousness, to weigh for me. The stock I have is not mine own; I am but the merchant that trafficketh with other folks' goods. If my creditor, Christ, should take from me what He hath lent, I should not long keep the causeway; but Christ hath made it mine and His. I think it manhood to play the coward, and jouk in the lee-side of Christ; and thus I am not only saved from my enemies, but I obtain the victory. I am so empty, that I think it were an alms-deed in Christ, if He would win a poor prisoner's blessing for evermore, and fill me with His love. I complain that when Christ cometh, He cometh always to fetch fire; He is ever in haste, He may not tarry; and poor I (a beggarly dyvour) get but a standing visit and a standing kiss, and but, "How doest thou?" in the by-going. I dare not say He is lordly, because He is made a King now at the right hand of God; or is grown miskenning and dry to His poor friends: for He cannot make more of His kisses than they are worth. But I think it my happiness to love the love of Christ: and when He goeth away, the memory of His sweet presence is like a feast in a dear summer. I have comfort in this, that my soul desireth that every hour of my imprisonment were a company of heavenly tongues to praise Him on my behalf, howbeit my bonds were prolonged for many hundred years. Oh that I could be the man who could procure my Lord's glory to flow like a full sea, and blow like a mighty wind upon all the four airths of Scotland, England, and Ireland! Oh, if I could write a book of His praises! O Fairest among the sons of men, why stayest Thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run, run, 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, the fragrant Rose of Sharon, through many worlds!
Sir, take my hearty commendations to Him, and tell Him that I am sick of love.
Grace be with you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.