To the much honoured JOHN GORDON, Of Cardoness elder. (14)

MUch honoured and dearest in my Lord, Grace, mercy & peace be to you, my soul longeth exceedingly to hear how matters goe betwixt you and Christ; and whether or not there be any work of Christ in that parish, that will bide the triall of fire & water: let me be weighed of my Lord in a just bal∣lance, if your souls lie not weighty upon me: you goe to bed & you rise with me, thoughts of your soul (my dearest in our Lord) depart not from me in my sleep; ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, supplications, & prayers: O if I could buy your souls salvation with any suffering whatsoever, & that ye & I might meet with joy up in the Rain-bow, when we shall stand be∣fore our judge! O my Lord forbid I have any hard thing to depon against you in that day! O that he who quickneth the dead, would give life to my sowing among you! what joy is there (next to Christ) that standeth on this side of death, would comfort me more, then that the souls of that poor people were in •afety, & beyond all hazard of losing? Sir, shew the people this, for when I write to you I think I write to you all old and young. fulfill my joy and seek the Lord: Sure I am, once I discovered my, lovely, royall, princely Lord Jesus to you all. Woe, woe woe shall be your part of it for evermore, if the Gospel be not the savour of life unto life to you: as many sermons as I preach∣ed, as many sentences as I uttered, as many points of dit∣tay shall they be, when the Lord shall plead with the world, for the evil of their doings Beleeve me, I finde heaven a city hard to be won, the righteous will scarcely be saved: O what violence of thronging, will heaven take! alace I see many deceiving them selves, for we will all to heaven, now every foul dog with his foul feet will in at the neerest, to the new & clean Jerusalem: all say they have faith, & the greatest part in the world know not and will not consider, that a slip in the Page  38 matter of their salvation, is the most pitifull slip that can be; & that no losse is comparable to this losse. O then see that there be not a loose pin in the work of your salvation! for ye will not be∣leeve how quickly the judge will come? & for your self, I know that death is waiting & hovering, & lingering at Gods command, that ye may be prepared. Then ye had need to stir you time & to take eternity, & death, to your riper advisment; a wrong step o• a wrong stot in going out of this life, in one property, is like the sin against the holy Ghost, & can never be forgiven, because ye can∣not come back again thorow the last water, to mourn for it. I know your counts are many, and will take telling, and laying, & reckoning betwixt you and your Lord; fit your counts, and order them; lose not the last play, what ever ye doe; for in that play with death, your precious soul is the prize: for the Lords sake spill not the play, & lose not such a treasure. Ye know out of love I had to your soul, and out of desire I had to make an honest count for you, I testified my displeasure and dis∣liking of your wayes very often, both in privat & publike: I am not now a witness of your doings, but your judge is alwayes your witness. I beseech you by the mercies of God, by the salvation of your soul, by your comforts when your eye strings shall break, & the face wax pale, & the soul shall tremble to be out of the lodging of clay; and by your compearance before your awfull Judge, after the sight of this letter take a new course with your wayes, and now in the end of your day, make sure of heaven: examine your self if ye be in good earnest in Christ, for some, Heb. 6. 4. are partakers of the holy Ghost, & taste of the good word of God, & of the powers of the life to come: & yet have no part in Christ at all. Many think they beleeve, but never tremble: the devils are further on, then these, Jam. 2: 19. Make sure to your self that ye are above ordinary professors; the sixth part of your span-length and hand∣breadth of dayes, is scarcely before you: Haste, haste, for the tide will not bide: Put Christ upon all your accounts, & your secrets: Better it is that ye give him your counts in this life, out of your own hand, then that after this life, he take them from you. I never knew so well what sin was, as since I came to Aberden; Page  39 howbeit I was preaching of it to you. To feel the smoke of hel's fire, in the throat, for half an hour, to stand beside a river of fire & brimstone, broader then the earth, and to think to be bound hand & foot, & casten in the midst of it, quick, & then to have God locking the prison door, never to be opened for all eternity: O how will it shake a conscience, that hath any life in it! I finde the fruits of my pains to have Christ and that people once fairly met, now meeteth my soul in my sad hours, & I rejoyce that I gave fair warning of all the corrup∣tions, now entring in Christs house, and now many a sweet, sweet, soft kisse, many perfumed well smelled kisses, & embrace∣ments, have I received of my royall Master: He & I have had much love together. I have for the present a sick, dwining life, with much pain, & much love-sickness for Christ: O what I would give to have a bed made to my wearied soul, in his bo∣some! I would frist heaven for many yeers, to have my fill of Jesus in this life, & to have occasion to offer Christ to my people: & to wooe many people to Christ. I cannot tell you what sweet pain, and delight some torments are in Christs love? I often challenge time, that holdeth us sundry. I profess to you I have no rest, I have no ease while I be over head & ears in lov's-ocean. if Christs love, (that fountain of delight) were laid as open to me as I would wish; O how would I drink, and drink abundantly! O how drunken would this my soul be! I half call his absence cruell, and the mask & vaile on Christs face, a cruell covering, that hideth such a fair, fair face, from a sick soul. I dare not challenge himself, but his absence is a mountain of iron upon my heavie heart. O when will we meet! O how long is it to the dawning of the marriage-day! O sweet Lord Jesus take wide steps! O my Lord come over mountains at one stride! O my beloved flee like a roe, or young hart, upon the mountains of separation! O if he would fold the heavens together like an old cloak, & shovle time and dayes out of the way, & make ready in haste the lambs wife for her hus∣band! Since he looked upon me, my heart is not mine own, he hath run away to heaven with it: I know it was not for no∣thing, that I spake so meekle good of Christ to you in publike. Page  40 O if the heaven & the heaven of heavens were paper, and the sea inke, & the multitude of mountains pens of brasse, & I were able to write that paper, within, and without, full of the praises of my fairest, my dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, and my most marrowlesse and marvellous welbelo∣ved! woe is me I cannot set him out to men & Angels. O there are few tongues to sing love-songs of his incomparable excellen∣cy! what can I poor prisoner doe to exalt him? or what course can I take to extoll my lofty, & lovely Lord Jesus? I am put to my wits end, how to get his name made great. Blessed they who would help me in this, how sweet are Christs back-parts? O what then is in his face! These that see his face, how dow they get their eyeplucked off him again! Lookup to him and love him, O love and live. It were life to me ifye would read this letter to that people, & if they did profit by it. O if I could cause them die of love for Jesus! I charge them by the salvation of their souls, to hang about Christs neck, & take their fill of his love, & follow him as I taught them: part by no means with Christ; hold fast what ye have received; Keep the truth once delivered, If ye or that people quite it in an hair, or in an hoof; ye break your conscience in twain: and who then can mend it, and cast, a knot on it? my dearest in the Lord stand fast in Christ: Keep the faith; contend for Christ; wrestle for him, & take mens feud for Gods favour, there is no comparison betwixt these. O that my Lord would fulfill my joy, and keep the young bride to Christ: that is at Anwoth, And now whoever they be, that have returned to the old vomit since my de∣parture; I binde upon their back, in my masters name & autho∣rity; the long-lasting weighty vengeance, and curse of God, in my Lords name I give them a doom of black, unmixed, pure wrath, which my master shall ratifie and make good, when we stand together before him: except they tim∣ously repent, and turn to the Lord. And I write to thee, poor mourning, and broken hearted beleever, be who thou will, of the free salvation: Christs sweet balme for thy wounds, O poor humble beleever: Christs kisses for thy watery checks; Christs blood of atonement for thy guilty soul, Christs Page  41 heaven for thy poor soul, though once banished out of paradise: & my master shall make good my word ere long. O that peo∣ple were wise! O that people were wise! O that people would spier out Christ, & never, est while they finde him! O how shall my soul mourn in secret, if my nine yeers pained head, & sore breast, and pained back, and grieved heart, and privat, & publike prayers to God, shall all be for nothing among that people. Did my Lord Jesus send me but to summond you be∣fore your judge, & to leave your summonds at your houses? was I sent as a witness onnly to gather your dittay's. O my God for∣bid: often did I tell you of a fan of Gods word to come among you, for the contempt of it. I told you often of wrath, wrath from the Lord, to come upon Scotland, and yet I bide by my Masters word; it is quickly coming, desolation for Scotland, because of the quarrell of a broken covenant. Now worthy Sir, now my dear people, my joy, and my crown in the Lord, let him be your fear, seek the Lord, and his face, save your souls: doves flee to Christs windows: pray for me, & praise for me. The blessing of my God, the prayers and blessing of a poor prisoner and your lawfull pastor be upon you.