ABERDEEN, _Jan. 24, 1637_.
[179] John Spottiswoode.
[180] James Law, Bishop of Glasgow, was the deputy of Sydserff, the
Bishop of Galloway.
[181] Arguments drawn from the risk of provoking.
LXXXVII.--_To_ ELIZABETH KENNEDY.
[ELIZABETH KENNEDY was the sister of Hugh Kennedy, Provost of Ayr, and
a woman as eminent for piety and prayer as her brother. Wodrow records
of her that, being much afflicted with the stone, she was advised to
submit to a surgical operation. Several meetings for prayer took place
among the godly at Ayr in reference to her case. When the surgeon came
to perform the operation, one of these meetings was going on in the
house, and they continued so long in prayer as nearly to exhaust his
patience; but before they had concluded, the stone dissolved, and
without surgical aid she obtained immediate relief. (_Wodrow's_
"Analecta," vol. ii.)]
(_DANGER OF FORMALITY--CHRIST WHOLLY TO BE LOVED--OTHER OBJECTS OF
LOVE._)
MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I have long had a
purpose of writing unto you, but I have been hindered. I heartily
desire that ye would mind your country, and consider to what airt your
soul setteth its face; for all come not home at night who suppose that
they have set their face heavenward. It is a woful thing to die, and
miss heaven, and to lose house-room with Christ at night: it is an
evil journey where travellers are benighted in the fields. I persuade
myself that thousands shall be deceived and ashamed of their hope.
Because they cast their anchor in sinking sands, they must lose it.
Till now I knew not the pain, labour, nor difficulty that there is to
win at home: nor did I understand so well, before this, what that
meaneth, "The righteous shall scarcely be saved." Oh, how many a poor
professor's candle is blown out, and never lighted again! I see that
ordinary profession, and to be ranked amongst the children of God, and
to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry
professors to heaven. But certainly a name is but a name, and will
never bide a blast of God's storm. I counsel you not to give your
soul or Christ rest, nor your eyes sleep, till ye have gotten
something that will bide the fire, and stand out the storm. I am sure,
that if my one foot were in heaven, and if then He should say, "Fend
thyself, I will hold my grips of thee no longer," I should go no
farther, but presently fall down in as many pieces of dead nature.
They are happy for evermore who are over head and ears in the love of
Christ, and know no sickness but love-sickness for Christ, and feel no
pain but the pain of an absent and hidden Well-beloved. We run our
souls out of breath and tire them, in coursing and galloping after our
night-dreams (such are the rovings of our miscarrying hearts), to get
some created good thing in this life, and on this side of death. We
would fain stay and spin out a heaven to ourselves, on this side of
the water; but sorrow, want, changes, crosses, and sin, are both woof
and warp in that ill-spun web. Oh, how sweet and dear are those
thoughts that are still upon the things which are above! and how happy
are they who are longing to have little sand in their glass, and to
have time's thread cut, and can cry to Christ, "Lord Jesus, have over;
come and fetch the dreary[182] passenger!" I wish that our thoughts
were more frequently than they are upon our country. Oh, 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. Oh! why do we not fly
up to that lovely One? Alas that there is such a scarcity of love, and
of lovers, to Christ amongst us all! Fie, fie, upon us, who love fair
things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair
honours, and fair persons, and do not pine and melt away with love to
Christ! Oh! 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! But, alas! I have nothing for Him, yet
He hath much for me. It is no gain to Christ that He getteth my
little, feckless span-length and hand-breadth of love.
[182] Sorrowful.
If men would have something to do with their hearts and their
thoughts, that are always rolling up and down (like men with oars in a
boat), after sinful vanities, they might find great and sweet
employment to their thoughts upon Christ. If those frothy,
fluctuating, and restless hearts of ours would come all about Christ,
and look into His love, to bottomless love, to the depth of mercy, to
the unsearchable riches of His grace, to inquire after and search into
the beauty of God in Christ, they would be swallowed up in the depth
and height, length and breadth of His goodness. Oh, if men would draw
the curtains, and look into the inner side of the ark, and behold how
the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in Him bodily! Oh! who would not
say, "Let me die, let me die ten times, to see a sight of Him?" Ten
thousand deaths were no great price to give for Him. I am sure that
sick, fainting love would heighten the market, and raise the price to
the double for Him. But, alas! if men and angels were rouped, and sold
at the dearest price, they would not all buy a night's love, or a
four-and-twenty-hours' sight of Christ! Oh, how happy are they who get
Christ for nothing! God send me no more, for my part of paradise, but
Christ: and surely I were rich enough, and as well heavened as the
best of them, if Christ were my heaven.
I can write no better thing to you, than to desire you, if ever ye
laid Christ in a count, to take Him up and count over again: and weigh
Him again and again: and after this have no other to court your love,
and to woo your soul's delight, but Christ. He will be found worthy of
all your love, howbeit it should swell upon you from the earth to the
uppermost circle of the heaven of heavens. To our Lord Jesus and His
love I commend you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,