I believe that ye and Christ once met; I hope ye will not sunder with Him. Follow the counsel of the man of God, Mr. William Dalgleish. If ye depart from what I taught you in a hair-breadth, for fear or favour of men, or desire of ease in this world, I take heaven and earth to witness that ill shall come upon you in the end. Build not your nest here. This world is a hard, ill-made bed; no rest is in it for your soul. Awake, awake, and make haste to seek that Pearl, Christ, that this world seeth not. Your night and your Master Christ will be upon you within a clap; your hand-breadth of time will not bide you. Take Christ, howbeit a storm follow Him. Howbeit this day be not yours and Christ's, the morrow will be yours and His. I would not exchange the joy of my bonds and imprisonment for Christ, with all the joy of this dirty and foul-skinned world. I have a love-bed with Christ, and am filled with His love.
I desire your wife to do what I write to you. Let her remember how dear Christ will be to her, when her breath turneth cold, and the eye-strings shall break. Oh, how joyful should my soul be, to know that I had brought on a marriage betwixt Christ and that people, few or many! If it be not so, I shall be wo to be a witness against them. Use prayer: love not the world: be humble, and esteem little of yourself. Love your enemies, and pray for them. Make conscience of speaking truth, when none knoweth but God. I never eat, but I pray for you all. Pray for me. Ye and I shall see one another up in our Father's house. I rejoice to hear that your eye is upon Christ. Follow on, hing on, and quit Him not. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your affectionate brother, in our Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, 1637.
[CCLXV.—To Mr. George Dunbar.]
[George Dunbar was minister of Ayr. Adhering with zeal to Presbytery, he was summoned before the High Commission Court in the beginning of the year 1622. On appearing, he gave in a paper declining its authority; but the Court passed sentence of deprivation upon him, and condemned him to be confined within Dumfries. He was ejected from this charge also. When the messenger of the Court came to his house on this last occasion, either to summon him or to intimate his sentence, a young daughter of his said, "And Pharaoh's heart is still hardened!" while all that Dunbar said was to bid his wife "prepare her creels again;" for, on the former occasion, the children, being young, behoved to be carried away on horseback in creels (Livingstone's "Characteristics"). He was for a long time prisoner at Blackness; but at length, being banished by the Privy Council, he removed to Ireland. He first preached at Carrickfergus, and ultimately settled at Larne, where he discharged his ministry with diligence and success. On being deposed by the Bishop of Down, in 1634, for nonconformity, he came over to Scotland, and after the triumph of Presbytery, in 1638, became minister of the parish of Calder, in Lothian, where he died.]