(_INCREASING EXPERIENCE OF CHRIST'S LOVE--SALVATION TO BE MADE SURE._)
WORTHY AND DEAR BROTHER,--I forget you not in my bonds. I know that
you are looking to Christ; and I beseech you to follow your look. I
can say more of Christ now by experience (though He be infinitely
above and beyond all that can be said of Him), than when I saw you. I
am drowned over head and ears in His love. Sell, sell, sell all things
for Christ. If this whole world were the balk of a balance, it would
not be able to bear the weight of Christ's love; men and angels have
short arms to fathom it. Set your feet upon this piece of blue and
base clay of an over-gilded and fair plastered world. An hour's
kissing of Christ's is worth a world of worlds.
Sir, make sure work of your salvation: build not upon sand; lay the
foundation upon the rock of Zion. Strive to be dead to this world, and
to your will and lusts; let Christ have a commanding power and a
king's throne in you. Walk with Christ, howbeit the world should take
the hide off your face: I promise you that Christ will win the field.
Your pastors cause you to err. Except you see Christ's word, go not
one foot with them. Countenance not the reading of that Romish
service-book. Keep your garments clean, as ye would walk with the Lamb
clothed in white. The wrongs which I suffer are upon record in heaven.
Our great Master and Judge will be upon us all, and bring us before
the sun in our blacks and whites: blessed are they who watch and keep
themselves in God's love. Learn to discern the Bridegroom's tongue,
and to give yourself to prayer and reading. Ye were often a hearer of
me. I would put my heart's blood on the doctrine which I taught, as
the only way to salvation: go not from it, my dear brother. What I
write to you, I write to your wife also. Mind heaven and Christ, and
keep the spunk of the love of Christ which you have gotten. Christ
will blow on it if ye entertain it; and your end shall be peace. There
is a fire in our Zion, but our Lord is but seeking a new bride,
refined and purified, out of the furnace. I assure you, howbeit we be
nicknamed Puritans, that all the powers of the world shall not prevail
against us. Remember, though a sinful man write it to you, that those
people shall be in Scotland as a green olive-tree, and a field blessed
of the Lord; and that it shall be proclaimed, "Up, up with Christ,
and down, down with all contrary powers."
Sir, pray for _me_ (I name _you_ to the Lord), for further evil is
determined against me.
Remember my love to Christian Murray and her daughter. I desire her,
in the edge of her evening, to wait a little; the King is coming, and
He hath something that she never saw with Him. Heaven is no dream.
"Come and see" will teach her best. Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,