Lviii. to Lady Robert Land

Like many other of the great ladies of the Covenant, some of whom we

have already met in these letters, and others of whom are in the full

collection, Lady Robertland was a woman of deep personal faith and of

devoted service to the cause of Christ. She was noted, too, for her

witty and fascinating conversation and her way of illustrating

spiritual truth by most vivid and homely similes and parables.

MISTRESS, -- Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. -- I shall be glad to

hear that your soul prospereth, and that fruit growth upon you, after

the Lord's husbandry and pains, in His rod that has not been a stranger

to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kindness that He will take the

scum off us in the fire. Who knoweth how needful winnowing is to us,

and what dross we must want ere we enter into the kingdom of God? So

narrow is the entry to heaven, that our knots, our bunches and lumps of

pride, and self-love, and idol-love, and world-love, must be hammered

off us, that we may thring in, stooping low, and creeping through that

narrow and thorny entry.

And now for myself, I find it the most sweet and heavenly life to

take up house and dwelling at Christ's fireside, and set down my tent

upon Christ, that Foundationstone, who is sure and faithful ground and

hard under foot. I thank God that God is God, and Christ is Christ, and

the earth the earth, and the devil the devil, and the world the world,

and that sin is sin, and that everything is what it is; because He has

taught me in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus, nor to

intermix Him with creature-vanities, nor to spin or twine Christ or His

sweet love in one web, or in one thread, with the world and the things

thereof. Oh, if I could hold and keep Christ all alone, and mix Him

with nothing! Oh, if I could cry down the price and weight of my cursed

self, and cry up the price of Christ, and double, and triple, and

augment, and heighten to millions the price and worth of Christ. But we

are still ill scholars, and will go in at heaven's gates wanting the

half of our lesson; and shall still be bairns, so long as we are under

time's hands, and till eternity cause a sun to arise in our souls that

shall give us wit. We may see how we spill and mar our own fair heaven

and our salvation, and how Christ is every day putting in one bone or

other, in these fallen souls of ours, in the right place again; and

that on this side of the New Jerusalem, we shall still have need of

forgiving and healing grace. I find crosses Christ's carved work that

He markets out for us, and that with crosses He figureth and portrayeth

us to His own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption.

Lord cut, Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do anything that may perfect Thy

Father's image in us, and make us meet for glory.

Pray for me (I forget you not) that our Lord would be pleased to lend

me house-room to preach His righteousness, and tell what I have heard

and seen of Him. Forget not Zion that is now in Christ's caums, and in

His forge. God bring her out new work. Grace, grace be with you.

ABERDEEN, Jan 4, 1638