Vol 16 - TO THE PROFESSORS OF CHRIST IN IRELAND.

TO THE PROFESSORS OF CHRIST IN IRELAND.
DEARLY beloved in our LORD, and partakers of the heavenly calling. Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you, from GOD our FATHER, and from our LORD JESUS CHRIST! I always, but most of all now in my bonds, (most sweet bonds for CHRIST my LORD) rejoice to hear of your faith and love, and to hear that our King, our well beloved, our spiritual Bridegroom, without tiring, stayeth still to woo you as his Bride; and that persecutions and mockings of sinners have not chased away the wooer from the house. My salvation on it, (if ten heavens, were mine,) if this way that I now suffer for, this way that the world reproacheth, and no other way, be not the' King's gate to heaven; and I shall never see GOD's face, if this be not the only saving way' to heaven. O that you would take the word of a prisoner of CHRIST for it! Nay, I know you have the greatest King's word for its that it shall not be your wisdom to seek another CHRIST, Or another way of worshipping him, than is now savingly revealed to you. Therefore, though I never saw your faces; let me be pardoned fey writing to you, ye faithful pastors yet amongst the flocks, and ye sincere professors of CHRIST'S truth, or any weak and tired strayers, who cast an eye after the Savior, if possibly I may confirm and strengthen you in this good way, every where spoken against.’ Man with greatest assurance (to the. honor of our LORD let it be spoken) assert, though I be but a child in CHRIST, and the meanest, and less than the least of saints, that we do not come nigh to the due love and estimation of that fairest among the sons of men. He is all heaven, and more than all heaven i and my testimony of him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten deaths, ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, were all too little for CHRIST, if our sufferings could be a hire to buy him. Therefore faint not in your sufferings and hazards for him. I proclaim and cry, Hell, sorrow, and shame upon all lusts, upon all by lovers, that would take CHRIST'S room over his head, in this little inch of love of these narrow souls of ours! O highest, O fairest, O dearest LORD JESUS, take thine own from all rival lovers. O that we. could sell. all our part of time's glory, and time's good things, for a lease of CHRIST for all eternity! O how are we misled and polluted with the love of things that are on this side of time, and on this side of death's water! Where can we find a match to CHRIST, among created things I know that his sack does and ashes are better than the fool's laughter, which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. But, alas! we do not harden our faces against the cold north storms, which blow upon CHRIST's face; we love well summer religion, and to be that which sin has made us, even as thin skinned as if we were made. of white paper, and would fain be carried to heaven in a covered chariot, wishing from our hearts that CHRIST would give us surety for nothing. but a fair summer, until we be landed at heaven's gate. How many of us have been here deceived, and fainted in the day of trial Amongst you there are some of this stamp. And now I am persuaded, it will be asked of every one of us, on what terms we keep Cunrsv. We found, CHRIST without a wet foot; and he, and his Gospel, came upon small charges to our doors; but now we must wet our feet to seek him. O how rare a thing is it to be loyal to CHRIST, when he has a controversy with the shields of the earth! I wish all of you would consider, that this trial is from CHRIST; it is come upon you unbought; (indeed, when we buy a temptation with our own, money, no marvel if we be not easily free of it, and if GOD be not at our elbow to take it off our hand;) this is CHRIST's ordinary housefare, of which he makes use, in order to try all the vessels of his house withal; and CHRIST now is about to bring his treasure out before sun and moon, and to tell his money, and in the telling, to try what weight of gold, and what weight of copper, is in his house. Do not now bow, or yield to your adversaries an hairbreadth: CHRIST and his truth will not divide; and his truth hall Hot latitude, that ye may: take some of, and leave, other some of it. Nay, the Gospel is like a small hair, that has. no breadth, and will not delve in two. It is not possible to twist anti compound a matter between CHRIST and Antichrist; and therefore you must, either be for CHRIST, or ye must be against him. O that this. misled and blindfolded world would see, that CHRIST does not rise and fall by men's apprehensions! What is CHRIST the lighter, because men do with him, by open proclamation, as men do with clipped and light money They are now crying down CHRIST; and they will have him taken for a penny or a pound, for one or for a hundred, according as the wind bloweth from the East or from the West. But the LORD has weighed him, and balanced him already: " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him:" his worth and his weight are the same still. It is our part to cry, " Up, up with CHRIST; and down, down with all created glory before him! " O that I could heighten him, and heighten his name, and heighten his throne! I know that death and hell, and the world and tortures, shall all cleave and split in twain, and give us free passage to go through; and we shall bring all Gov's good metal out of the furnace again, and leave! Behind us nothing but our dross and our scum. We may, then, beforehand proclaim CHRIST to be victorious. He is crowned King in Mount Zion;. GOD did. put the crown upon his head, (Psal. 2:) and who dare take it off again Out of question; he has sore and grievous quarrels against his church;' and therefore he is called, (Isa. ixxi. 9,) " He whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem." But, when he has performed his work on Mount Zion, all Zion's haters shall be as the hungry and thirsty man, that' dreams he is eating and drinking, and behold, when he awaketh, he is faint, and his soul empty. And this advantage we. have also, that he will not bring before sun and moon all the infirmities of his church. Our kind Lord will not come with chiding to the streets, to let all the world hear what is between• him and us. Two special tf ings ye are to. mind:—l. Try and make sure your profession, that ye carry not empty lamps. Alas, security, security, is the bane and the wreck of the most part of the world! O how many professors go with a golden. lustre before men, and yet are bastard and base metal!
Consider how fair before the wind some do ply, and yet in a. short time such are quickly broken' upon the rocks, and never fetch the harbor, but are sanded in the bottom of hell. O make your heaven sure, and try how ye come by conversion; that it be not stolen goods, in a white well lustred profession; a white skin over old wounds. A fault under water, not seen, is dangerous; and so is a leak in the bottom of an enlightened conscience, often falling, and sinning against light. Woe, woe is me, that the holy profession of CHRIST is made a stage garment by many, to bring home a vain fame; and CHRIST is made to serve men's ends! This is, as it were, to stop an oven with a King's robes.—Know, 2, Except men martyr and slay the body of sin, in sanctified self denial, they shall never be CHRIST'S martyrs and faithful witnesses. O if I could be master of that house idol, myself, my own, mine,—my own will, wit, credit, and ease,—how blessed were I! We need to be redeemed from ourselves, rather than from the Devil and the world! Learn to put out yourselves, and to put in CHRIST for yourselves. I should make a sweet bartering, if I could substitute CHRIST in. place of myself; so as to say, " Not I, but CHRIST; not My' will but CHRIST'S; not my ease, not my credit, but CHRIST, CHRIST:" O that CHRIST had the full place of myself; that all my aims, purposes, thoughts, and desires, would land upon CHRIST, and not upon myself! Let never dew he upon my branches, and let my poor flower wither at the root, so that CHRIST were enthroned, and his glory advanced in all the world, and especially in these three kingdoms. But I know he has no need of me; what can I add to him But O that he would cause his high and pure glory to run through such a foul channel as. I am! And although he has caused the blossom to fall off my one poor joy, that was on this side of heaven, even my liberty to preach CHRIST to his people; yet I am dead to that now, so that he would hew and carve glory, glory for evermore, to my royal King, out of my sufferings. O that I had my fill of his love! I entreat you earnestly for the aid of your prayers, for I forget not you; and I salute with my soul the faithful Pastors, and honorable and worthy professors, in that land. "Now the GOD of peace, that brought again our Lord JESUS from the dead, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting Covenant, make you perfect in every good work, to do his will; working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight!" Grace, grace be with you!
Aberdeen,
Yours in JESUS,
Feb. 4, 1638.
S. R.