Vol 16 - TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOCKBREX.

TO ROBERT GORDON, OF KNOCKBREX
DEAR BROTHER,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you! I received your letter from Edinburgh. I would not wish to see another heaven, until I get mine own heaven; but a new moon like the light of the sun, and a new sun like the light of seven days, shining upon my poor self, and the Church of Jews and Gentiles, and upon my withered and sunburnt mother the Church of Scotland, and upon her sister churches England and Ireland; and to have this done, to the exaltation of our great King: It matters not, although 1: were separate from CHRIST, and had a sense of ten thousand years' pain in hell, if this were. Dear brother, I am for the present in no small battle between felt guiltiness, and pining longings for my Wellbeloved. Alas! I think CHRIST'S love playeth the niggard to me; and I know it is not a scarcity of love, there is enough in him: but my hunger prophesieth sparingness in CHRIST; for I have but little of him, and little of his sweetness; yet there is such joy in hunger for CHRIST, that if I had no other heaven but a continual thirst for CHRIST, this were still a heaven to me. I am sure CHRIST'S love cannot be cruel; it must be a pitiful, a melting hearted love: but suspension of that love, I think, is half a hell, and the want of it is a whole hell. When I look to my guiltiness, I see my salvation one of my Savior's greatest miracles either in heaven or earth; I am sure, I may defy any man to show me a greater wonder: but seeing I have no hire, no money for CHRIST, he must either take me with want, misery, and corruption, or want me. I have now made a new question, whether CHRIST be more to be loved for giving sanctification, or for free justification And I hold he is more to be loved for sanctification. It is in some respect greater love in him to sanctify than to justify; for he maketh us most like himself, in his own essential portraiture and image, in sanctifying us: justification does but make us happy, which is to be like the angels only. Neither is it such a misery, to he a condemned man, as to serve sin, and work the works of the Devil; and therefore, I think, sanctification cannot be bought, it is above price. GOD be thanked for ever, that CHRIST was a price for sanctification. Let a sinner (if it were possible) he in hell for ever if he make him truly holy, and let him he there burning in love to GOD, rejoicing in the HOLY GHOST, and hanging upon CHRIST by faith and hope, that is heaven in the heart and bottom of hell. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his lovely and longedfor LORD JESUS,
Aberdeen, 1637.
S. R.