(_PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD--CHRIST HIS JOY._)
MY 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.
[229] Perhaps this word means kindness that had respect to his special
needs.
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,