Vol 16 - TO MR. GEORGE DUMBAR.

TO MR. GEORGE DUMBAR.
Reverend and dearly beloved in the Lord
Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you! Because your words We strengthened many, I was silent, expecting Some lines from' you inn My bonds; and this IS the cause why I wrote not to you but now I am forced to speak. I never, believed till now, that there was so much to be found in CHRIST, on this side of death and of heaven. Q the ravishments of heavenly joy, that may be had here, in the small gleanings and comforts that fall from CHRIST! What fools are we, who know not, and consider not the weight that is in the very earnest penny, and the first fruits of our hoped for harvest! O what then must personal possession be! I see that my prison has neither lock nor door; I am, free in my bonds; and my chains are made of rotten straw;’ they shall' not abide one pull of faith. I, am suee; they in hell would, exchange the torments with our crosses, suppose they should never be delivered; and would give twenty thousand years’ torment to boot, to be in our bonds for ever: And therefore we wrong CHRIST, who sigh, and fear, and doubt, and despond in them. Our sufferings are washed in CHRIST'S blood, as well as our souls; for CHRIST'S merits bought a blessing on the crosses of the sons of GOD. Our troubles owe us a free passage through them: Devils and men, and crosses, are our debtors; death and all storms are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water freight free, and to set the travelers in their own known ground; and our sufferings are the ruin of the black kingdom. But withal, we stand with the " hundred forty and four thousand," who are with the LAMB upon the top of Mount Zion: Antichrist and his followers are down in the valley; we have the advantage of the hill; our temptations are always beneath; our waters are beneath our breath; " as dying, and behold we live." I bless the Lour., that all our troubles come through CHRIST'S fingers, and that he casteth in some ounce weights of heaven, and of the spirit of glory, (which resteth on suffering believers) into our cup, in which there is no taste of hell. My dear Brother, ye know all these better than I; I send water to the sea, to speak of these things to you; but it easeth me to desire you to help me to pay tribute of praise to JESUS. O what praises I owe him! I would I were in my free heritage, that I might begin to pay my debts to JESUS. I entreat for your prayers and praises: I forget not you.
Your brother and fellow sufferer, in and for CHRIST,
Aberdeen, Sept. 17, 1637.
S. R.