MUCH HONOURED AND WELL-BELOVED IN THE LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. Your letters give a dash to my laziness in writing.
I must first tell you, that there is not such a glassy, icy, and slippery piece of way betwixt you and heaven, as Youth; and I have experience to say with me here, and to seal what I assert. The old ashes of the sins of my youth are new fire of sorrow to me. I have seen the devil, as it were, dead and buried, and yet rise again, and be a worse devil than ever he was; therefore, my brother, beware of a green young devil, that hath never been buried. The devil in his flowers (I mean the hot, fiery lusts and passions of youth) is much to be feared: better yoke with an old grey-haired, withered, dry devil. For in youth he findeth dry sticks, and dry coals, and a hot hearth-stone; and how soon can he with his flint cast fire, and with his bellows blow it up, and fire the house! Sanctified thoughts, thoughts made conscience of, and called in, and kept in awe, are green fuel that burn not, and are a water for Satan's coal. Yet I must tell you, that the whole saints now triumphant in heaven, and standing before the throne, are nothing but Christ's forlorn and beggarly dyvours. What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners? But their redemption is not only past the seals, but completed; and yours is on the wheels, and in doing.
All Christ's good bairns go to heaven with a broken brow, and with a crooked leg. Christ hath an advantage of you, and I pray you to let Him have it; He will find employment for His calling in you. If it were not with you as ye write, grace should find no sale nor market in you; but ye must be content to give Christ somewhat to do. I am glad that He is employed that way. Let your bleeding soul and your sores be put in the hand of this expert Physician; let young and strong corruptions and His free grace be yoked together, and let Christ and your sins deal it betwixt them. I shall be loath to put you off your fears, and your sense of deadness: I wish it were more. There be some wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should not be soon stopped. Ye must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first sick man whom He put away uncured, and worse than He found you. Nay, nay, Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free with sinners. "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out" (John vi. 37). Take ye that. It cannot be presumption to take that as your own, when you find that your wounds stound you. Presumption is ever whole at the heart, and hath but the truant sickness, and groaneth only for the fashion. Faith hath sense of sickness, and looketh, like a friend, to the promises; and, looking to Christ therein, is glad to see a known face. Christ is as full a feast as ye can have to hunger. Nay, Christ, I say, is not a full man's leavings. His mercy sendeth always a letter of defiance to all your sins, if there were ten thousand more of them.
I grant you that it is a hard matter for a poor hungry man to win his meat upon hidden Christ: for then the key of His pantry-door, and of the house of wine, is a-seeking and cannot be had. But hunger must break through iron locks. I bemoan them not who can make a din, and all the fields ado, for a lost Saviour. Ye must let Him hear it (to say so) upon both sides of His head, when He hideth Himself; it is no time then to be bird-mouthed and patient. Christ is rare indeed, and a delicacy to a sinner. He is a miracle, and a world's wonder, to a seeking and a weeping sinner; but yet such a miracle as shall be seen by them who will come and see. The seeker and sigher, is at last a singer and enjoyer; nay, I have seen a dumb man get alms from Christ. He that can tell his tale, and send such a letter to heaven as he hath sent to Aberdeen, it is very like he will come speed with Christ. It bodeth God's mercy to complain heartily for sin. Let wrestling be with Christ till He say, "How is it, sir, that I cannot be quit of your bills, and your misleared cries?" and then hope for Christ's blessing; and His blessing is better than ten other blessings. Think not shame because of your guiltiness; necessity must not blush to beg. It standeth you hard to want Christ; and, therefore, that which idle on-waiting cannot do, misnurtured crying and knocking will do.