To Marion McKnaught — Letter 84

Worthy and dear brother.

I do not forget you in my bonds. I know you are looking to Christ, and I beseech you, follow your look. I can say more of Christ now by experience — though he is infinitely above and beyond all that can be said of him — than when I saw you. I am drowned over head and ears in his love. Sell, sell, sell all things for Christ. If this whole world were the arm of a balance, it would not be able to bear the weight of Christ's love; man and angels have short arms to fathom it. Set your feet upon this little blue and base clay of an over-gilded and well-plastered world; an hour's kissing of Christ is worth a world of worlds. Sir, make sure work of your salvation; build not upon sand, lay the foundation upon the rock in Zion. Strive to be dead to this world and to your will and lusts. Let Christ have a commanding power and a king's throne in you. Walk with Christ, though the wind should take the skin off your face. I promise you Christ will win the field. Your pastors cause you to err; unless you see Christ's word sanction it, go not one foot with them. Do not countenance the reading of that Roman Service Book. Keep your garments clean, as you would walk with the Lamb clothed in white. The wrongs I suffer are on record in heaven; our great Master and Judge will be upon us all, and bring us before the sun in our blacks and whites. Blessed are they who watch and keep themselves in God's love. Learn to discern the bridegroom's voice, and give yourself to prayer and reading. You were often a hearer of me; I would put my heart's blood upon the doctrine I taught as the only way to salvation. Go not from it, my dear brother. What I write to yourself, I write to your wife also. Mind heaven and Christ, and keep the spark of the love of Christ you have received. Christ shall breathe on it, if you tend it, and your end shall be peace. There is a fire in our Zion, but our Lord is but seeking a new bride, refined and purified out of the furnace. I assure you, though we are nicknamed Puritans, all the powers of the world shall not prevail against us. Remember — though a sinful man writes it to you — these people shall yet be in Scotland as a green olive tree and a field blessed of the Lord, and it shall be proclaimed: 'Up, up with Christ, and down, down with all contrary powers.' Sir, pray for me — I name you to the Lord — for further evil is determined against me. Remember my love to Christian Murray and her daughter. I desire her, in the edge of her evening, to wait a little — the King is coming, and he has something, that she never saw, with him. Heaven is no dream; 'come and see' will teach her best. Grace, grace be with you.

Aberdeen, September 13, 1637. Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.