Vol 16 - TO EARLSTOUN, YOUNGER.

TO EARLSTOUN, YOUNGER.
Worthy and dearly beloved in the LORD,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be to you!' I long to hear from you: I remain still a prisoner of hope, and think it service to the LORD, to wait on still with submission, till the LORD's morning sky break, and his summer day dawn. GOD sent us down to this earth, among devils and men, the firebrands of the Devil, and temptations, that we might suffer for a time; otherwise he might have made heaven wait on us at our coming out of the womb, and have carried us home to our country, without letting us set down our feet in this thorny life. But seeing that a piece of suffering is carved for every one of us, less or more, as infinite wisdom has thought good, our part is to harden and habituate our soft and thin skinned nature to endure fire and water, devils, lions, men, losses, and sad hearts, like persons whose behavior is inspected by GOD, angels, men, and devils. O what folly is it, to sit down and weep upon. a decree of GOD, that is as unmoveable as GOD who made it! For who can come behind our LORD, to alter or better what he has decreed and done It were better to make windows in our prison, and to look out to GOD, and to our country heaven, and to cry, like fettered men who long for the King's free air, "LORD, let thy kingdom come! O let the Bridegroom come! O fair day, O everlasting summer day, dawn and shine out, break out from under the black sky I" If every day a little stone in the prison walls were broken, and thereby assurance given to the chained prisoner, lying, under twenty stone of irons upon arms and legs, that at length his chain should wear into two pieces, and a hole should be made, so wide that he might come safely out to his longdesired liberty; he would in patience wait on. The LORD's prisoners are in that case: years and months will take out now one little stone, then another, of this house of clay, and at length time shall win out the breadth of a fair door, and send out the imprisoned soul to the free air in heaven. O that we could breathe out new hope, and new submission, every day! For certainly a weight of glory (yea, a far more exceeding and eternal weight) shall recompense, both in weight and length, our light and shortdated 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 I rejoice in the hope of that glory to be revealed, fgr it is no uncertain glory we look for: our hope is not hung upon an untwisted thread; but our anchor of salvation is fastened with GOD's own hand, and with CHRIST'S own strength. O that our faith could ride it out against the high and proud winds and waves, when our sea seems all to be on fire! O how oft do I let my grasp go! I am put to swimming and halfsinking. I find the Devil has the advantage of the ground in our corrupt nature: alas! that is a friend near of kin to himself, and will not fail to fall foul upon us. But the less of our weight is upon our feeble legs, and the more on CHRIST the strong rock, the better for us. It is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens upon CHRIST, and to make him the root and top, the 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. Grace, grace be with you!
Yours in his and your Lo RD JESUS, Aberdeen, 1637.
Aberdeen, 1637.
S. R.