[311] Is left there unreaped; Ps. cxxix. 8.
CXCV.--_To the_ LADY LARGIRIE.
[She was wife of the proprietor of Castermadie, in the Stewartry
of Kirkcudbright. The place was called also _Largero_, or
Largerie, in the parish of Twynholm, near Kirkcudbright.]
(_CHRIST THE EXCLUSIVE OBJECT OF LOVE--PREPARATION FOR DEATH._)
MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I exhort you in the
Lord, to go on in your journey to heaven; and to be content with such
fare by the way as Christ and His followers have had before you; for
they had always the wind on their faces, and our Lord hath not changed
the way to us for our ease, but will have us following our sweet
Guide. Alas, how doth sin clog us in our journey, and retard us! What
fools are we, to have a by-good, or any other love, or match, to our
souls, beside Christ! It were best for us, like ill bairns, who are
best heard at home, to seek our own home, and to sell our hopes of
this little clay inn and idol of the earth, where we are neither well
summered nor well wintered. Oh that our souls would so fall at odds
with the love of this world, as to think of it as a traveller doth of
a drink of water, which is not any part of his treasure, but goeth
away with the using! for ten miles' journey maketh that drink to him
as nothing. Oh that we had as soon done with this world, and could as
quickly despatch the love of it! But as a child cannot hold two apples
in his little hand, but the one putteth the other out of its room, so
neither can we be masters and lords of two loves. Blessed were we, if
we could make ourselves master of that invaluable treasure, the love
of Christ; or rather suffer ourselves to be mastered and subdued to
Christ's love, so as Christ were our "all things," and all other
things our nothings, and the refuse of our delights. Oh let us be
ready for shipping, against the time our Lord's wind and tide call for
us! Death is the last thief, that will come without din or noise of
feet, and take our souls away, and we shall take our leave of time,
and face eternity; and our Lord will lay together the two sides of
this earthly tabernacle, and fold us, and lay us by, as a man layeth
by clothes at night, and put the one half of us in a house of clay,
the dark grave, and the other half of us in heaven or hell. Seek to be
found of your Lord in peace, and gather in your flitting, and put your
soul in order; for Christ will not give a nail-breadth of time to our
little sand-glass.
Pray for Zion, and for me, His prisoner, that He would be pleased to
bring me amongst you again, full of Christ, and fraughted and loaden
with the blessing of His Gospel.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his only Lord and Master,