VIII. The Liar (John viii. 44), as ye write, challengeth the work as formal; yet ye bless your Cautioner for the ground-work He hath laid, and dare not say but ye have assurance in some measure. To this I say: 1. It shall be no fault to save Satan's labour, and challenge it yourselves,[403] or at least examine and censure; but beware of Satan's ends in challenging, for he mindeth to put Christ and you at odds. 2. Welcome home faith in Jesus, who washeth still, when we have defiled our souls and made ourselves loathsome; and seek still the blood of atonement for faults little or meikle. Know the gate to the well, and lie about it. 3. Make meikle of assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed.
[403] To anticipate Satan by jealously searching into it yourselves.
IX. Outbreakings, ye say, discourage you, so that ye know not if ever ye shall win again to such overjoying consolations of the Spirit in this life, as formerly ye had; and, therefore, a question may be, If, after assurance and mortification, the children of God be ordinarily fed with sense and joy? I answer: I see no inconvenience to think it is enough, in a race, to see the goal at the starting-place, howbeit the runners never get a view of it till they come to the rink's end; and that our wise Lord thinketh it fittest that we should not always be fingering and playing with Christ's apples. Our Well-beloved, I know, will sport and play with His bride, as much as He thinketh will allure her to the rink's end. Yet I judge it not unlawful to seek renewed consolations, providing, 1. The heart be submissive, and content to leave the measure and timing of them to Him. 2. Providing they be sought to excite us to praise, and strengthen our assurance, and sharpen our desires after Himself. 3. Let them be sought, not for our humours or swellings of nature, but as the earnest of heaven. And I think many do attain to greater consolations after mortification, than ever they had formerly. But I know that our Lord walketh here still by a sovereign latitude, and keepeth not the same way, as to one hair-breadth, without a miss, toward all His children. As for the Lord's people with you, I am not the man fit to speak to them. I rejoice exceedingly that Christ is engaging souls amongst you; but I know that, in conversion, all the winning is in the first buying, as we used to say. For many lay false and bastard foundations, and take up conversion at their foot, and get Christ for as good as half-nothing, and had never a sick night for sin; and this maketh loose work. I pray you to dig deep. Christ's palace-work, and His new dwelling, laid upon hell felt and feared, is most firm: and heaven, grounded and laid upon such a hell, is surest work, and will not wash away with winter storms. It were good that professors were not like young heirs, that come to their rich estate long ere they come to their wit; and so is seen on it. The tavern, and the cards, and the harlots steal their riches[404] from them, ere ever they be aware what they are doing. I know that a Christ bought with strokes is sweetest. 4. I recommend to you conference and prayer at private meetings; for warrant whereof, see Isa. ii. 3; Jer. l. 4, 5; Hos. ii. 1, 2; Zech. viii. 20-23; Mal. iii. 16; Luke xxiv. 13-17; John xx. 19; Acts xii. 12; Col. iii. 16, and iv. 6; Ephes. iv. 29; 1 Pet. iv. 10; 1 Thess. v. 14; Heb. iii. 13, and x. 25. Many coals make a good fire, and that is a part of the communion of saints.
[404] Some read "ridges," _q.d._, their acres of land.
I must entreat you, and your Christian acquaintance in the parish, to remember me to God in your prayers, and my flock and ministry, and my transportation[405] and removal from this place, which I fear at this Assembly,[406] and be earnest with God for our mother-kirk. For want of time, I have put you all in one letter. The rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Yours, in his sweet Lord Jesus,