To the Lady Forret — Letter 30

Worthy Mistress.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to hear from you. I hear Christ has been that kind as to visit you with sickness and to bring you to the door of the grave, but you found the door shut (blessed be his glorious name) while you be riper for eternity. He will have more service of you, and therefore he seeks of you, that henceforth you be honest to your new husband, the Son of God. We have all idol-love and are wholly inclined to love other things besides our Lord; and therefore our Lord hunts for our love more ways than one or two. Oh that Christ had his own of us. I know he will not want you, and that is a sweet willfulness in his love. And you have as good cause on the other part to be headstrong and peremptory in your love to Christ, and not to part or divide your love between him and the world. If it were more, it is little enough — indeed, too little for Christ. I am now every way in good terms with Christ; he has set a banished prisoner as a seal on his heart and as a bracelet on his arm. That crabbed and black tree of the cross laughs upon me now. The alarming noise of the cross is worse than itself. I love Christ's frowns better than the world's worm-eaten joys. Oh if all the kingdom were as I am, except these bonds. My loss is gain; my sadness, joyful; my bonds, liberty; my tears, comfortable. This world is not worth a drink of cold water. O but Christ's love casts a great heat — hell and all the salt sea and the rivers of the earth cannot quench it. I remember you to God; you have the prayers of a prisoner of Christ. Grace, grace be with you.

Aberdeen, March 9, 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.