Vol 16 - TO JOHN KENNEDY, BAILLIE OF AYR.

TO JOHN KENNEDY, BAILLIE OF AYR.
Worthy and clear Brother,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I am every way in good case, both in soul and body;--all honor and glory be to my LORD! I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the unknown Son of GOD. Either I know not what Christianity is, or we have stinted a measure of holiness; and there we are at a stay, drawing our breath all our life. A moderation in Go D's way, now, is much in request. I profess, I have never taken pains to find out him whom my soul loves; there is a gate yet of finding out CHRIST, that I have never lighted upon. O that I could find it out! Alas, how soon are we pleased with our own shadow in a glass! It were good to begin in sad earnest to find out GOD, and to seek the right tread of CHRIST. Time, custom, a good opinion of ourselves, our good meaning, our lazy desires, our fair shows, and the world's glistering lustres, are that wherewith most satisfy themselves: but a bed watered with tears, a throat dry with praying, eyes as a fountain of tears for the sins of the land, are rarely to be found among us. O that we could know the power of GODliness! This is one part of my case; and another is, that I, like a fool, once summoned CHRIST for unkindness, and complained of his fickleness and unconstancy, because he would have no more of my service nor preaching, and had cast me out of the inheritance of the LORD:, and I confess now I was a fool; yet he has borne with me. I gave him a fair advantage against me, but love and mercy would not let him take it; and the truth is, now he has chided himself friends with me, and has taken away the mask, and hash renewed his wonted favor in such a manner, that he has paid me my " hundred fold in this life." I write this to you, that I may entreat, nay, adjure and charge you, by the love of your Well-beloved, to help me to praise, and to tell all your Christian acquaintance to help me, for I am deeply drowned in his debt: and yet I have something to keep me from being exalted above measure; his word is a fire shut up in my bowels, and I am weary with forbearing. Grace be with you! Pray for the prisoner.
Aberdeen,
Yours in his only LORD JESUS,
Jan. 1, 1637. S. R.