Vol 16 - TO THE LADY BUSBIE.

TO THE LADY BUSBIE.
MADAM,
GRACES mercy, and peace, be to you! I am glad to hear that CHRIST and ye are one; and that ye have made him your one thing, where many are painfully toiled in seeking many things, and their many things are nothing. It is best that ye should set yourself apart, as a thing laid up for CHRIST alone. He has been going about you these many years, by afflictions, to engage you to himself; it were a pity and a loss to say him nay. Verily I could wish that I could swim through hell, and all the ill weather in the world, with CHRIST in my arms; but it is my evil and folly, that, except CHRIST come unsent for, I dare not go to seek him. Think well of the visitations of your LORD: for I find one thing, which I saw not well before, that when we are under trials, little sins raise great cries in the conscience; whereas in prosperity, conscience is a Pope, to give dispensations, and let out and in, and give latitude and elbowroom to our heart. O how little care we for pardon at CHRIST'S hand, when we make dispensations! And all is but children's play, till a cross without beget a heavier cross within, and then we play no longer with our idols. It is good still, to be severe against ourselves; for else we but transform GOD's mercy into an idol, and an idol that has a dispensation to give for turning the grace of GOD into wantonness. O CHRIST has a saving eye! Salvation is in. his eyelids. When he first looked on me, I was saved; it cost him but a look to make hell quit of me. O, free merits, and the precious blood of God! What a safe and sure way is it, to come out of hell leaning on the SAVIOR! That CHRIST and a sinner should be one, and have heaven between them, is the wonder of salvation. What an excellent fragrance does CHRIST cast on his lower garden, where there grow but wild flowers, if we speak by way of comparison! But there is nothing but perfect gardenflowers in heaven. We are all obliged to love heaven for CHRIST'S sake. He graced' heaven and all his Father's house with his presence. He is the rose that beautifieth all the upper garden of GOD; a leaf of that rose of GOD, for fragrance, is worth a world. O that he would blow his fragrance upon a withered and dead soul! Let us then go on to meet him, and to be filled with the sweetness of his love. Nothing will hold him from us; he has decreed to put time, sin, hell, devils, men, and death out of the way, and to rid the rough way between us and him, that we may enjoy one another. It is wonderful, that he would have the company of sinners to delight himself with in heaven. And now the supper is waiting for us. CHRIST the Bridegroom is waiting with desire, till the Bride, the LAMB'S wife, be ready for the marriage. O fools, what do we here And why sit we still Why sleep we in the prison Were it not best to make us wings, to fly up to our blessed LORD, and our fellow friends GOD give you to find mercy in that day of our LORD JESUS, to whose saving grace I recommend you.
Yours in our LORD JESUS,
Aberdeen, 1639.
S. R.