Vol 16 - TO ELIZABETH KENNEDY.

TO ELIZABETH KENNEDY.
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you!. I have long had a purpose of writing to you. I heartily desire that ye would mind your country; for all come not home at night, who suppose they have set their face heavenward. It is a woeful thing, to die and miss of heaven! I persuade myself; that thousands shall be deceived and ashamed of their hope; because they cast their anchor in the sinking sands, Till now, I knew not the pain, labor, or difficulty that. there is to win home; nor did I understand so well, before this, " The righteous"' shall " scarcely be saved." Oh how many a poor• professor's candle is blown out, and never lighted again! I see that to be ranked amongst the children of GOD, and to have a name among men, is now thought good enough to carry professors to, heaven: but certainly, a name is but a name, and will never abide the blast of GOD’s storm. I counsel you, not to give your soul or CHRIST rest, nor your eyes sleep, till ye have gotten something, that will abide the fire, and stand out the storm. I am sure, that even if my one foot were in heaven, and he should then say, " Fend thyself, I will. hold thee no longer, 'I should go no further,' but presently fall down in as many pieces of dead nature. They are happy for evermore, who are swallowed up in the love of CHRIST, and know no sickness but that of desire after CHRIST. We run our souls out of breath, and tire them, in coursing and gallopping after our own dreams, to get some created good thing on this side of death. We would fain stay, and spin out a heaven to ourselves, on this side of the water; but sorrow, want, changes, crosses, and sin, are both woof and warp in. that ill spun web. O how sweet and dear are those thoughts, that are still upon " the things which are above! And how happy are they, who are longing to have time's thread cut, and can cry to CHRIST, "LORD JESUS, come over, come and fetch the dried passenger! " I wish our thoughts were more frequently than they are upon our country. Heaven casteth a sweet odor afar off, to those that have spiritual senses! GOD has made many fair flowers; but the fairest of them all is heaven; and the flower of all flowers is CHRIST. O why do we not flee up to that lovely one Alas! that there is such scarcity of love, and lovers of CHRIST, among us all! Fie, fie, upon us, who love fair things, as fair gold, fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honors, and fair persons; and do not pine and melt away with love to CHRIST. O, would to GOD that I had more love for his sake! O for as much love as would he between me and heaven! O for as much love as would go round about the earth, and over the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds, that I might fix it all upon CHRIST! But, alas! I have nothing for Him; yet he has much for me: it is no gain to CHRIST, that he getteth my little spanlength and handbreadth of love. If men would have something to do with their hearts and their thoughts, which are always rolling up and down after sinful vanities, they may find great and sweet employment for their thoughts in CHRIST. If these frothy. and restless hearts of ours would come all about CHRIST, and look into his love, his bottomless love, into the depth of his mercy, into the unsearchable riches of his grace, so as to search into the beauty of GOD in CHRIST; they would be swallowed up in the depth and height, the length and breadth, of his goodness. O if. men would draw the curtains, and look into the inner side of the ark, and behold how the "fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily," who would not say, " Let me die, let me die ten times, to get a sight of him!" Ten thousand deaths were no great price to give for him. I am sure that ardent love would heighten the market, and raise the price to the double for him. But, alas, if men and angels were sold at the dearest, they would not all buy a. sight of CHRIST. O how happy are they, who get CHRIST for nothing! GOD send me no more for my part of paradise, but CHRIST; and surely I were rich enough, and as well heavened as the best of them, if CHRIST were my heaven. I can write no better thing to you, than to desire you to weigh him again and again; and, after this, have no other to gain your love, but CHRIST: he will be found worthy of all your love; although it should swell from the earth to the uppermost circle of the heaven of heavens. To our LORD JESUS and his love I commend you.
Aberdeen, 1637.
Yours in Jesus,
S.R.