ABERDEEN, _July 13, 1637_.
CCXXVI.--_To the_ LADY KILCONQUHAR.
[LADY KILCONQUHAR, whose maiden name was Helen Murray, being the
third daughter of Sir Archibald Murray of Blackbarony, was the
wife of Sir John Carstairs of Kilconquhar, in the county of Fife.
Her mother, Margaret Maule, was of the family of Panmure. Their
youngest daughter, Bethia, in 1656, married Thomas Rigg of
Athernie. The house of Kilconquhar (called Kinneucher by the
people) is near the loch and the village, with Elie not far off
on one side, and Balcarras on the other. The loch with its swans,
the woods, and the sea so near, make it a pleasant spot.]
(_THE INTERESTS OF THE SOUL MOST URGENT--FOLLY OF THE WORLD--CHRIST
ALTOGETHER LOVELY--HIS PEN FAILS TO SET FORTH CHRIST'S UNSPEAKABLE
BEAUTY._)
MISTRESS,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I am glad to hear that
ye have your face homewards towards your Father's house, now when so
many are for a home nearer hand. But your Lord calleth you to another
life and glory than is to be found hereaway; and, therefore, I would
counsel you to make sure the charters and rights which ye have to
salvation. You came to this life about a necessary and weighty
business, to tryste with Christ anent your precious soul, and the
eternal salvation of it. This is the most necessary business ye have
in this life; and your other adoes beside this are but toys, and
feathers, and dreams, and fancies. This is in the greatest haste, and
should be done first. Means are used in the Gospel to draw on a
meeting betwixt Christ and you. If ye neglect your part of it, it is
as if ye would tear the contract before Christ's eyes, and give up the
match, that there may be no more communing about that business. I know
that other lovers beside Christ are in suit of you, and your soul hath
many wooers; but I pray you to make a chaste virgin of your soul, and
let it love but one. Most worthy is Christ alone of all your soul's
love, howbeit your love were higher than the heaven, and deeper than
the lowest of this earth, and broader than this world. Many, alas! too
many, make a common strumpet of their soul for every lover that cometh
to the house. Marriage with Christ would put your love and your heart
by the gate, out of the way, and out of the eye of all other unlawful
suitors; and then you have a ready answer for all others, "I am
already promised away to Christ; the match is concluded, my soul hath
a husband already, and it cannot have two husbands." Oh, if the world
did but know what a smell the ointments of Christ cast, and how
ravishing His beauty (even the beauty of the fairest of the sons of
men) is, and how sweet and powerful His voice is, the voice of that
one Well-beloved! Certainly, where Christ cometh, He runneth away with
the soul's love, so that it cannot be commanded. I would far rather
look but through the hole of Christ's door, to see but the one half of
His fairest and most comely face (for He looketh like heaven!),
suppose I should never win in to see His excellency and glory to the
full, than enjoy the flower, the bloom, and the chiefest excellency of
the glory and riches of ten worlds. Lord, send me, for my part, but
the meanest share of Christ that can be given to any of the indwellers
of the New Jerusalem. But I know my Lord is no niggard: He can, and it
becometh Him well to give more than my narrow soul can receive. If
there were ten thousand thousand millions of worlds, and as many
heavens full of men and angels, Christ would not be pinched to supply
all our wants, and to fill us all. Christ is a well of life; but who
knoweth how deep it is to the bottom? This soul of ours hath love, and
cannot but love some fair one. And oh, what a fair One, what an only
One, what an excellent, lovely, ravishing One, is Jesus! Put the
beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of paradises, like the garden
of Eden in one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colours,
all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all loveliness, in one: oh, what
a fair and excellent thing would that be! And yet it would be less to
that fair and dearest Well-beloved, Christ, than one drop of rain to
the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand earths.
Oh, but Christ is heaven's wonder, and earth's wonder! What marvel
that His bride saith (Cant. v. 16), "He is altogether lovely!" Oh that
black souls will not come and fetch all their love to this fair One!
Oh, if I could invite and persuade thousands, and ten thousand times
ten thousand of Adam's sons, to flock about my Lord Jesus, and to come
and take their fill of love! Oh, pity for evermore, that there should
be such a one as Christ Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, and so
incomparable in infinite excellency and sweetness, and so few to take
Him! Oh, oh, ye poor, dry, and dead souls, why will ye not come hither
with your toom vessels, and your empty souls, to this huge, and fair,
and deep, and sweet well of life, and fill all your toom vessels? Oh
that Christ should be so large in sweetness and worth, and we so
narrow, so pinched, so ebb, and so void of all happiness. And yet men
will not take Him! They lose their love miserably, who will not bestow
it upon this lovely One. Alas! these five thousand years, Adam's
fools, his waster (Prov. xviii. 9) heirs, have been wasting and
lavishing out their love and their affections upon black lovers, and
black harlots, upon bits of dead creatures, and broken idols, upon
this and that feckless creature; and have not brought their love and
their heart to Jesus. Oh, pity, that Fairness hath so few lovers! Oh,
wo, wo to the fools of this world, who run by Christ to other lovers!
Oh, misery, misery, misery, that comeliness can scarce get three or
four hearts in a town or country! Oh that there is so much spoken, and
so much written, and so much thought of creature vanity; and so little
spoken, so little written, and so little thought of my great, and
incomprehensible, and never enough wondered at Lord Jesus! Why should
I not curse this forlorn and wretched world, that suffereth my Lord
Jesus to lie His lone? O damned souls! O miskenning world! O blind, O
beggarly and poor souls! O bewitched fools! what aileth you at Christ,
that you run so from Him? I dare not challenge providence, that there
are so few buyers, and so little sale for such an excellent one as
Christ. (O the depth, and, O the height of my Lord's ways, that pass
finding out!) But oh, if men would once be wise, and not fall so in
love with their own hell as to pass by Christ, and misken Him! But let
us come near, and fill ourselves with Christ, and let His friends
drink, and be drunken, and satisfy our hollow and deep desires with
Jesus. Oh, come all and drink at this living well; come, drink and
live for evermore; come, drink and welcome! "Welcome," saith our
fairest Bridegroom. No man getteth Christ with ill will; no man cometh
and is not welcome. No man cometh and rueth his voyage; all men speak
well of Christ who have been at Him: men and angels who know Him will
say more than I dow do, and think more of Him than they can say. Oh,
if I were misted and bewildered in my Lord's love! Oh, if I were
fettered and chained to it! Oh, sweet pain, to be pained for a sight
of Him! Oh, living death, oh, good death, oh, lovely death, to die for
love of Jesus! Oh that I should have a sore heart, and a pained soul,
for the want of this and that idol! Wo, wo to the mistakings of my
miscarrying heart, that gapeth and crieth for creatures, and is not
pained, and cut, and tortured, and in sorrow, for the want of a
soul's-fill of the love of Christ! Oh that Thou wouldst come near, my
Beloved! O my fairest One why standeth Thou afar! Come hither, that I
may be satiated with Thy excellent love. Oh for a union! oh for a
fellowship with Jesus! Oh that I could buy with a price that lovely
One, even suppose that hell's torments for a while were the price! I
cannot believe but Christ will rue upon His pained lovers, and come
and ease sick hearts, who sigh and swoon for want of Christ. Who dow
bide Christ's love to be nice? What heaven can be there liker to hell,
than to lust, and green, and dwine, and fall a swoon for Christ's
love, and to want it? Is not this hell and heaven woven through-other?
Is not this pain and joy, sweetness and sadness, to be in one web, the
one the weft, the other the warp? Therefore, I would that Christ would
let us meet and join together, the soul and Christ in each other's
arms. Oh what meeting is like this, to see blackness and beauty,
contemptibleness and glory, highness and baseness, even a soul and
Christ, kiss each other! Nay, but when all is done, I may be wearied
in speaking and writing; but, oh, how far am I from the right
expression of Christ or His love? I can neither speak nor write
feeling, nor tasting, nor smelling: come feel, and smell, and taste
Christ and His love, and ye shall call it more than can be spoken. To
write how sweet the honeycomb is, is not so lovely as to eat and suck
the honeycomb. One night's rest in a bed of love with Christ will say
more than heart can think, or tongue can utter. Neither need we fear
crosses, nor sigh nor be sad for anything that is on this side of
heaven, if we have Christ. Our crosses will never draw blood of the
joy of the Holy Ghost, and peace of conscience. Our joy is laid up in
such a high place, as temptations cannot climb up to take it down.
This world may bost Christ, but they dare not strike; or, if they
strike, they break their arm in fetching a stroke upon a rock. Oh that
we could put our treasures in Christ's hand, and give him our gold to
keep, and our crown. Strive, Mistress, to thring through the thorns of
this life, to be at Christ. Tine not sight of Him in this cloudy and
dark day. Sleep with Him in your heart in the night. Learn not at the
world to serve Christ, but speer at Himself the way; the world is a
false copy, and a lying guide to follow.
Remember my love to your husband. I wish all to him that I have
written here. The sweet presence, the long-lasting good-will of our
God, the warmly and lovely comforts of our Lord Jesus, be with you.
Help me His prisoner in your prayers; for I remember you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,