To Mr MATHEW MOWAT. (79)

I Am refreshed with your letters: I would take all well at my Lord's hands that he hath done, If I knew I could doe my Lord any service in my suffering: suppose my Lord would make a stop-hole of me to fill a hole in the wall of his house, or a pinning in Zion's new work: For any place of trust in my Lord's house, as steward or chamberlain, or the like: surely I think my self [my very dear brother, I speak not by any proud figure or trope] unworthy of it; nay I am not worthy to stand behinde the door: if my head & feet & body were half out, half in, in Christ's house, so I saw the fair face of the Lord of the house, it would still my grieuing & love-sick desires. When I hear that the men of God are at work & speaking in our Lord Jesus his name, I think my self but an out-cast or out-law chased from the City to lie on the hills & live amongst the rocks & out-fields. O that I might but stand in Christ's out-house, or hold a can∣dle in any low vault of his house! But I know this is but the vapours that arise out of a quarrellous & unbeleeving heart, to darken the wisdom of God. And your fault is just mine, that I cannot beleeve my Lord's bare & naked word: I must either have an apple to play me with & shake hands with Page  165 Christ, & have seal, caution, & witness to his word, or else I count my self loose; how beit I have the word & faith of a King. Oh, I am made of unbelief & cannot swim but where my feet may touch the ground! Alas, Christ under my temptations is presented to me as lying-waters, as a dyvour & a cousener! We can make such a Christ as temptations [cast∣ing us in a night-dream] doeth feign & devise [& tempe∣ations represent Christ ever unlike himself] & we in our folly listen to the tempter. If I could minister one saving word to any, how glad would my soul be: But I my self [which is my greatest evil] often mistake the cross of Christ: For I know if we had wit & knew well that ease slayeth us fools, we would desire a market where we might barter or niffer our lazie ease with a profitable cross; howbeit there be an out-cast natur∣al betwixt our desires & tribulation: But some give a dear price & gold for physick which they love not & buy sickness, howbeit they wish rather to have been whole then to be sick. But surely. Brother, ye shall not have my advice [howbeit alas I cannot follow it my self] to contend with the honest & faithfull Lord of the house; for goe he or come he, he is ay gracious in his departure: There are grace & mercy & lov∣ing kindness upon Christ's back-parts: & When he goeth away, the proportion of his face, the image of that fair sun that staveth in eyes, senses & heart after he is gone, leaveth a mass of love behinde it in the heart. The sound of his knock at the door of his beloved after he is gone & past, leaveth 〈◊〉 share of joy & sorrow both: So we have something to feed upon till he return, & he is more loved in his departure, & after he is gone then before, as the day in the declining of the sun & toward's the evening is often most desired. And as for Christ's cross I never received evil of it, but what was of mine own making: when I miscooked Christ's physick, no marvel that it hurt me: For since it was on Christ's back it hath alwayes a sweet smell & these 1600 Years it keepeth the smell of Christ; nay it is elder then that too, for it is a long time since Abel first hansel'd the cross & had it laid upon his shoulders & down from him all alongst to this very day all the saints have Page  166 known what it is. I am glad that Christ hath such a relation to this cross, & that it is called the cross of our Lord Iesus, Gal. 6: v. 14. His reproaches, Heb. 13: 13. As if Christ would claim it as his proper goods, & so it cometh in the reckoning among Christ's own property: If it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is not the author nor owner of sin, would not own it. I wonder at the enemies of Christ [in whom malice hath run a∣way with wit, & will is up & wit down] that they would essay to lift up the stone laid in Zion: surely it is not laid in such sink∣ing ground as that they can raise it or remove it; for when we are in their belly & they have swallowed us down, they will be sick & spue us out again. I know Zion & her Husband can∣not both sleep at once: I beleeve our Lord once again shall water with his dew the withered hill of mount Zion in Scot∣land & come down & make a new marriage again, as he did long since. Remember our Covenant: Your excuse for your advice to me is needless: Alas, many sit beside light as sick folks beside meat & cannot make use of it. Grace be with you.