(_WARNING AND ADVICE AS TO THINGS OF SALVATION._)
MUCH HONOURED SIR,--I long to hear whether or not your soul be
hand-fasted with Christ. Lose your time no longer: flee the follies of
youth: gird up the loins of your mind, and make you ready for meeting
the Lord. I have often summoned you, and now I summon you again, to
compear before your Judge, to make a reckoning of your life. While ye
have time, look upon your papers, and consider your ways. Oh that
there were such an heart in you, as to think what an ill conscience
will be to you, when ye are upon the border of eternity, and your one
foot out of time! Oh then, ten thousand thousand floods of tears
cannot extinguish these flames, or purchase to you one hour's release
from that pain! Oh, how sweet a day have ye had! But this is a
fair-day that runneth fast away. See how ye have spent it, and
consider the necessity of salvation! and tell me, in the fear of God,
if ye have made it sure. I am persuaded that ye have a conscience that
will be speaking somewhat to you. Why will ye die, and destroy
yourself? I charge you in Christ's name, to rouse up your conscience,
and begin to indent and contract with Christ in time, while salvation
is in your offer. This is the accepted time, this is the day of
salvation. Play the merchant; for ye cannot expect another market-day
when this is done. Therefore, let me again beseech you to "consider,
in this your day, the things that belong to your peace, before they be
hid from your eyes." Dear brother, fulfil my joy, and begin to seek
the Lord while He may be found. Forsake the follies of deceiving and
vain youth: lay hold upon eternal life. Whoring, night-drinking, and
the misspending of the Sabbath, and neglecting of prayer in your
house, and refusing of an offered salvation, will burn up your soul
with the terrors of the Almighty, when your awakened conscience shall
flee in your face. Be kind and loving to your wife: make conscience of
cherishing her, and not being rigidly austere. Sir, I have not a
tongue to express the glory that is laid up for you in your Father's
house, if ye reform your doings, and frame your heart to return to the
Lord. Ye know that this world is but a shadow, a short-living
creature, under the law of time. Within less than fifty years, when ye
look back to it, ye shall laugh at the evanishing vanities thereof, as
feathers flying in the air, and as the houses of sand within the
sea-mark, which the children of men are building. Give up with
courting of this vain world: seek not the bastard's moveables, but the
son's heritage in heaven. Take a trial of Christ. Look unto Him, and
His love will so change you, that ye shall be taken with Him, and
never choose to go from Him. I have experience of His sweetness, in
this house of my pilgrimage here. My Witness, who is above, knoweth
that I would not exchange my sighs and tears with the laughing of the
Fourteen Prelates.[272] There is nothing that will make you a
Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ. "Come and
see," will speak best to your soul. I would fain hope good of you. Be
not discouraged at broken and spilled resolutions; but to it, and to
it again! Woo about Christ, till ye get your soul espoused as a chaste
virgin to Him. Use the means of profiting with your conscience; pray
in your family, and read the word. Remember how our Lord's day was
spent when I was among you. It will be a great challenge to you before
God, if ye forget the good that was done within the walls of your
house on the Lord's day; and if ye turn aside after the fashions of
this world, and if ye go not in time to the kirk, to wait on the
public worship of God, and if ye tarry not at it, till all the
exercises of religion be ended. Give God some of your time both
morning and evening, and afternoon; and in so doing, rejoice the heart
of a poor oppressed prisoner. Rue upon your own soul, and from your
heart fear the Lord.
[272] The Bishops whom the King sought to thrust on Scotland.
Now He that brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of His
sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, establish your heart with
His grace, and present you before His presence with joy.
Your affectionate and loving pastor,