To the Lady Halhill — Letter 37

Dear and Christian Lady, grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I have long desired to write to your ladyship, and now the Lord offering a fitting occasion, I would not omit to do it. I cannot but acquaint your ladyship with the kind dealing of Christ to my soul in this house of my pilgrimage, that your ladyship may know Christ is as good as he is called. For at my first entry into this trial — being cast down and troubled with doubts and jealousies of his love, whose name and testimony I now bear in my bonds — I feared nothing more than that I was thrown over the wall of the vineyard as a dry tree. But blessed be his great name, the dry tree was in the fire and was not burned; his dew came down and quickened the root of a withered plant, and now he is come again with joy, and has been pleased to feast his exiled and afflicted prisoner with the joy of his consolations. Now I weep, but am not sad; I am chastened, but I do not die; I have loss, but I want nothing. This water cannot drown me, this fire cannot burn me, because of the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush. The worst things of Christ — his reproaches, his cross — are better than Egypt's treasures. He has opened his door and taken into his house of wine a poor sinner, and has left me so lovesick for my Lord Jesus, that if heaven were at my disposing, I would give it for Christ, and would not be content to go to heaven unless I were persuaded Christ were there. I would not exchange my bonds for the prelates' velvets, nor my prison for their coaches, nor my sighs for all the world's laughter. This clay idol, the world, holds no great place in my soul; Christ has come and run away to heaven with my heart and my love, so that neither heart nor love is mine. I pray God, Christ may keep both without return. In my estimation, as I am now disposed, if my portion of this world's clay were auctioned and sold, I would think it too dear at the price of a drink of water. I see Christ's love is so kingly that it will not endure a rival; it must have a throne, all alone in the soul. And I see that earthly pleasures deceive children, though they are worm-eaten; the moth-eaten pleasures of this present world make children believe ten is a hundred, and yet all that are here are but shadows. If they would draw aside the curtain that is hung between them and Christ, they should think themselves fools who have so long overlooked the Son of God. I seek no more next to heaven, but that he may be glorified in a prisoner of Christ, and that on my behalf many would praise his high and glorious name, who hears the sighing of the prisoner. Remember my respects to the laird your husband, and to your son my acquaintance. I wish Christ had his young love, and that in the morning he would start to the gate to seek that which this world knows not and therefore does not seek. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Aberdeen, March 14, 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.