Vol 16 - TO JOHN GORDON, OF CARDONESS, ELDER.

TO JOHN GORDON, OF CARDONESS, ELDER.
Much honored and dearest in the LORD,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! My soul longed', exceedingly to hear how matters go between you and CHRIST; and whether or not there be any work of CHRIST in that parish, that will abide the trial of fire and water. Let me be weighed of my LORD in a just balance, if your souls he not weighty upon me. You go to bed and you rise with me; thoughts of your soul depart not from me in my sleep; ye have a great part of my tears, sighs, and prayers. O that I could buy your soul's salvation with any suffering whatsoever, and that ye and I might meet with joy before our Judge! O may my Lon') forbid that I should have any thing against you in that day! O that He who quickeneth the dead would give life to my sowing among you! What joy, on this side of death, would comfort me more, than that the souls of that poor people were in safety Sure I am, that once I discovered my lovely LORD JESUS to you all: woe shall be your part for evermore, if the Gospel be not the savor of life unto life to you. Believe me, I find heaven a city hard to be won. " The righteous scarcely are saved." O what violence of thronging will heaven take! Alas, I see many deceiving themselves; for we will all profess to go to heaven. Now, every foul dog, with his foul feet, will in to the new and clean Jerusalem. All say they have faith; and the greatest part in the world know not, and will not consider, that a slip in the matter of their salvation, is the most pitiful slip that can be, and that no loss is comparable to this loss. Ye will not believe how quickly the Judge will' come. And for yourself, I know that death is waiting, and hovering, and lingering at GOD’s command, that ye may be prepared. Then ye had need to stir your time; a wrong step in going out of life is like the sin against the HOLY GHOST, and can never be forgiven, because ye cannot come back again, through the last water, to mourn for it. Lose not the last play, whatever ye do; for, in that play with death, your precious soul is the prize: for the Loiad's sake lose not such a treasure. Ye know, out of love to your soul, and out of desire to make an honest account for you, I testified my disliking of your ways very often, both in private and public. I am not now a witness of your doings, but your Judge is always 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, and the face wax pale; and the soul tremble to be out of the lodging of clay, and by your appearance before your awful Judge, after the sight of this letter take a new course; and now, in the end of your day, make sure of heaven. Examine yourself, if ye be in good earnest in CHRIST. Many think they believe, but never trembler the devils. are further on than these. Make sure to yourself that ye are above ordinary professors; the sixth part of your spanlength of days is scarcely before you: haste, haste; for the tide will not abide. I never knew so well what sin was; as since I came to, Aberdeen, although I was preaching of it to you. To feel the smoke of hell's fire in the throat for half an hour, to stand beside a river of fire ands brimstone broader than the earth, and to' think of being. bound hand and foot, and cast into the midst of it quick, and then to have God locking the prison door, never to be' opened for all eternity O how will it shake a conscience' that has any life in it! I find that the fruits of my pains, to have CHRIST and that people united, now meet my soul in my sad hours; and I rejoice that T gave fair warning of all the corruptions now entering into CHRIST'S house. I profess to you, I have no’ rest, I have no ease, until I" be over head and ears in love's ocean. If CHRIST'S love (that fountain of delight) were laid as open to me as I could wish, O' how would I drink, and a drink abundantly!" I half call his absence cruel, and the veil on CtintsT's face a cruel covering, that hideth such a fain face from a sick soul. I dare not challenge himself; but his absence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart, O when shall we meet O how long is it to the dawning of the marriageday O 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." Since he looked upon me, my heart is not mine own: he has gone away to heaven with it. I know it was not for nothing, that I spoke so much good of CHRIST to you in public. O that the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude of mountains pens of brass, and I were able to write that paper, within and without, full of the praises of my Well beloved! Woe is me, I cannot worthily set him out to men and angels. O, there are few tongues to sing his incomparable excellency! What can I, a poor prisoner, do to exalt him Or what course can I take to extol my Lout) JESUS I am put to my wits' end, how to get his name made great. Blessed be they who would help me in this! Those that see his face, how can they get their eyes plucked from him again Look up to him, and love him O love and live! It were life to me, if ye would read this letter to that people, and if they did profit by it. O that I could cause them to die of love for JESUS! I charge them, by the salvation of their souls, to cleave toCHRIST, and 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 quit it an hair, 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; and take men's feuds for GOD's favor;—there is no comparison between these.
O that my LORD would fulfill my joy, and keep the young bride to CHRIST that is at Anwoth! And as to those, whoever they be, that have returned to the old vomit since my departure, I bind upon their back, in my Master's name and authority, the long lasting, weighty vengeance and curse of GOD: in my Lo R u's name, I give them a doom of black, unmixed, pure wrath, which my Master shall ratify and make good, when we stand together before him, except they repent, and turn to the LORD. And I write to thee, poor mourning and brokenhearted believer, be who you wilt, of the free salvation CHRIST'S sweet balm for thy wounds, O: poor humble believer; CHRIST'S blood of atonement for thy guilty soul; CHRIST'S heaven for thy poor soul, though once banished out of Paradise: And my Master shall make good my word before long. O that people were wise! O that people would never rest until they find him! O how shall my soul mourn in secret, if my nine years' pained head, and sore breast, and pained back, and grieved heart, and private and public prayers to GOD, shall all be for nothing among that people! Did my LORD JESUS send me but to summon you before your Judge, and to leave your summons at your houses O my GOD, forbid! Often did I tell you of a fan of GOD's word to come among you, for the contempt of it. I told you often of wrath, wrath from the LORD, to come upon Scotland'; it is quickly coming. Now, my dear people, my joy and my crown in the LORD, " let Him be your fear;" seek the LORD and his face, and save your souls. Doves, flee to CHRIST'S windows! Pray for me, and praise for me. The blessing of my GOD, and the prayers and blessing of a poor prisoner, be upon you!
Aberdeen,
Your lawful and loving Pastor,
June 16, 1637.
S. R.