Grace, grace be with you.
and then wear them to nothing; for what I suffered yesterday, I know, shall never come again to trouble me.
Oh that we could breathe out new hope, and new submission every day, into Christ's lap! For, certainly, a weight of glory well weighed, yea, increasing to a far more exceeding and eternal weight, shall recompense both weight and length of light, and clipped, and short-dated crosses. Our waters are but ebb, and come neither to our chin, nor to the stopping of our breath. I may see (if I would borrow eyes from Christ) dry land, and that near. Why then should we not laugh at adversity, and scorn our short-born and soon-dying temptations? I rejoice in the hope of that glory to be revealed, for it is no uncertain glory which we look for. Our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as, "I imagine so," or "It is likely;" but the cable, the strong towe of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him who is eternal verity. Our salvation is fastened with God's own hand, and with Christ's own strength, to the strong stoup of God's unchangeable nature, I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons ofJacob are not consumed" (Mal. iii. 6). We may play, and dance, and leap upon our worthy and immoveable Rock. The ground is sure and good, and will bide hell's brangling, and devils' brangling, and the world's assaults.
Oh, if our faith could ride it out against the high and proud waves and winds, when our sea seemeth to be all on fire! Oh, how oft do I let my grips go! I am put to swimming and half sinking. I find that the devil hath the advantage of the ground in this battle; for he fighteth on known ground, in our corrupt nature. Alas! that is a friend near of kin and blood to himself, and will not fail to fall foul upon us. And hence it is, that He who saveth to the uttermost, and leadeth many sons to glory, is still righting my salvation; and twenty times a-day I ravel my heaven, and then I must come with my ill-ravelled work to Christ, to cumber Him (as it were) to right it, and to seek again the right end of the thread, and to fold up again my eternal glory with His own hand, and to give a right cast of His holy and gracious hand to my marred and spilled salvation. Certainly it is a cumbersome thing to keep a foolish child from falls, and broken brows, and weeping for this and that toy, and rash running, and sickness, and bairns' diseases; ere he win through them all, and win out of the mires, he costeth meikle black cumber and fashery to his keepers. And so is a believer a cumbersome piece of work, and an ill-ravelled hesp (as we use to say), to Christ. But God be thanked; for many spilled salvations, and many ill-ravelled hesps hath Christ mended, since first He entered Tutor to lost mankind. Oh, what could we bairns do without Him! How soon would we mar all! But the less of our weight be upon our own feeble legs, and the more that we be on Christ the strong Rock, the better for us. It is good for us that ever Christ took the cumber of us; it is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens upon Christ, and to make Him all we have, root and top, beginning and ending of our salvation. Lord, hold us here.
Now to this Tutor, and rich Lord, I recommend you. Hold fast till He come; and remember His prisoner.
Grace, grace be with you.
Yours, in his and your Lord Jesus,
ABERDEEN, 1637. S. R.