ye? I want a heart to come with, and I want ornaments, and excellent robes. I would ask this question at you, want ye imperfections? O, say ye, I have many then ye want not something to come with and that is answered in that letter of his name, He is gracious; there is a blessed freedom in the exercise of his love. The third objection that stops you from closing with Christ, is this, I have not only offended this day, but I have done it of old: and that is answered from that letter of his name, He is long-suffering. Christ cannot be out-wearied in long-suffering. The fourth objection is this, O, I am not only a sinner, but I shall tell you a confession of faith, Job xxii. 5, Are not my sins great? And is not that answered from that letter of his name, He is abundant in grace and goodness? O that noble victory that love shall have over justice, if we may imagine that there can be any contest between them; for this court hath reconciled righteousness and love; Righteousness and love did kiss each other. The fifth objection is this, O how many covenants have I broken, and how dare I to come to Christ? Is not that answered from that letter of his name, He is abundant in truth? I shall tell you Christ's carriage and believers' in the way to heaven, in one word; there is not a day but we lose our grips of Christ; but O, he never loses his grips of us. Did ye never see friends embrace each other? So it is, when we lose our grips of Christ, those everlasting arms of his embrace us those arms that did first pluck us out of hell, have to pull us into heaven. O for that pull that we shall never desire another. : The sixth objection is this, I know, Christ is gracious; but here the debate stands, I know not if he will be merciful to me; I think, he will name his curses to me; and is there not a letter in our blessed Lord's name that answers that too, He keeps mercy unto thousands? Friends, (if I may call you so) what wot ye, but ye are among those, Exod. xxxiv. 7. And if ye be in amongst them, O bless him for it. I think, if there were no more in scripture to commend precious Christ, it were more than sufficient. Are there not thousands in heaven, sirs? O but we will be a fair company, if we were once all together; we shall be like olive plants round about his table. O blessed be he, that hath his quiver full of these blessed thousands. Now have ye any more to say? Yes, I have one thing, and if it were answered, I ought to debate no more: what is that? I am under the power of sin against light, and after resolutions, and under breach of covenants at sacraments: and do ye think, that I dare come to Christ? Yes, ye shall never be welcomer, than when ye bring a burden on your back. Were ye under sins against light, and against free love, and after vows? Yet there is a letter in his name that answers that; O read it, for it is full of love, He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. Ye think, what needs all these three words? They are not needless repetitions, but that ye may be persuaded that there is no sin ye can be under, but love can answer it; love was never put to a non-plus; yet all your objections may be cut off with this, It is his will, that we should believe on him, * * * * * and in hopes that ye will engage, we give you the sacrament, Take and eat: This is even like two married persons, putting their hands to a contract: here the great seal is put to Christ's contract; and all that is required of you, is, to put to your hands to the contract. O, say ye, I cannot write-yet say, we will put our hand to Christ's, and let him lead the pen, and say, even so, I take him to be my Lord and Husband, and do vow and covenant to be a dutiful wife unto him. Eat and drink upon these terms. Do ye not think that there are many eyes in heaven? And yet (if so we may speak) there is not one eye in heaven, that is not fixed on him. Are there not many hands in heaven? And would you know what they are doing? They are all taking Christ in their arms. And is not this a mystery, that so many thousands should get a grip of Christ at once? O but they be a heartsome company! They are eyewitnesses to our communion this day. Though, I think, if they reflect on us, they would even pity us, that there is so great difference between us and them. I shall say no more; but, O to have been present when that glorious person Jesus Christ was hanging between heaven and earth! What would you have said? Might you not have cried out that word that David hath to another purpose, Let thy hand be against me and my father's house? What hath that spotless Lamb done? I shall not determine that question, whether angels, and Abraham, and the twelve patriarchs saw, when he was hanging between heaven and earth? But such a sight it was, as we desire, ye may have your faith in exercise upon-viz: a crucified Saviour. I shall give you three parts of his blessed body, that ye should kiss at a communion. There are some that cannot kiss his mouth, it is a great act of presumption; but they would kiss his feet, to testify their love; and his hands, to testify their subjection; and they may kiss his rosy lips, that once waxed pale, to testify their communion and fellowship with him. I would say this now, let this bread be a witness against you in the day of the Lord, if ye be not content to take him. I remember a word of one that was determined in a thing, and was desired to be deliberate he answered, "There needed no deliberation in so good a thing." So I think, ye need no advisement to take Christ. Ye may take him upon implicit faith; for he will not disappoint you: take him upon his word. Himself make you to do so. Amen, and Amen. A LETTER, SENT FROM MR. ANDREW GRAY, WHEN HE WAS UPON HIS DEATH-BED, ΤΟ MY LORD WARRISTOUN. My Lord, Ir may seem strange, that after so long interruption of intercourse with your Lordship by letters, I should write to you at this juncture of time, wherein there seems to be a toleration of tongues, and lusts, and religion, where many do by their practice speak, "our tongues are our own." I am afraid that sad word be spoken to Scotland yet seven times more, That whereas he hath chastised with whips, he will do it by scorpions, and his little finger shall be heavier than his loins in former times. If our judgments that seem to approach, were known, and those terrible things in righteousness, by which he, whose furnace is in Jerusalem, is like to speak to us, were seen and printed on a board, it might make us cry out, "Who shall live when God doth these things, and who can dwell with everlasting burnings?" He hath broken his staff of bands, and is threatening to break his staff of beauty, that his covenant which he hath made with all the people, might be broken. Is it not to be feared, that the sword of the justice of God is bathed in heaven, and will come down to make a sacrifice, not in the land of Idumea, or Bozrah, but on those that were once his people, who have broken his everlasting covenant, and changed his ordinances? What shall Scotland be called? Loruhamah and Lo-ammi, which was termed Beula and Hephziba, A people delighted in, and married to the Lord. I think, that curse in Zeph. i. 17, is much accomplished in our days, They walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord. Does not our carriage under all these speaking and afflicting dispensations, fighting against God in the furnace, and our dross not departing from us, speak this with our hearts, That for three transgressions, and for four, he will not turn away the punishment of the covenanted lands? And this shall be our blot in all generations: "this is that Scotland that in its afflictions sins more and more." It is no wonder, then, that we be put to our, How long, how long, wilt thou hide thy face? How long wilt thou forget, O Lord? O Lord, how shall thy jealousy burn like a fire, and we hear the confused noise of war, and of rumours of war? Since God has put it, How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? Jer. xxxi. 22, are we not gadding about to change, turning his glory into shame, and loving lying vanities? And A LETTER TO MY LORD WARRISTOUN. 499 there are four How longs, that God is put to lament over Scotland, and which are most in Luke ix. 41, How long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Is not Christ necessitated to depart, and to make us a land sown with salt and grass in our most frequented congregations? Ay, believe it, ere it be long, these two words shall be our lot-there is that in Jer. ii. 31, O generation, see ye the word of the Lord; when those that would not hear him in his word, shall see him in his dispensations; when all our threatenings shall be preached to our eyes. And that word in Hosea vii. 12, I will chastise them as their congregation hath heard. O shall poor Scotland serve herself heir to the sins of the Gadarenes, to desire Christ to flit out of her coasts, and to subscribe the bill of divorcement (in a manner) before Christ subscribe it? It is like, those three sad evidences of affliction that are in Isa. xlvii. 11, shall come upon us in their perfection. I shall add no more on a sad subject. My Lord, not being able to write to you with my own hand, I have thought fit to present these few thoughts unto you by the hand of a friend. I know not, (I will not limit him) but I may soon stand within that judgment-hall, where that glorious and spotless High Priest doth sit, with that train that doth fill the temple: and, O to be among the last of those that are bidden come in, and partake of that everlasting peace! O what a poor report will the messengers of the covenant and gospel make to him whom men crucify in their hearts, to whom I may apply these words, by allusion, "The morning of conversion is to them as the terrors of death, and as the terrors of the breaking in of the day to the destroying them?" What a poor account will some of us make, as to the answer of our conscience, and the answer of his pains taken upon us, and the answer of his promises, and the answer of his threatening, and the answer of his commands, and the answer of our light? Now, not to trouble your Lordship, whom I highly reverence, and unto whom my soul was knit in the Lord, I only ask that you would bespeak my case to the great Master of requests, and spread my broken case before him, who has pleaded the desperate case of many, according to the sweet word in Lamentation iii. 58. This is all, at this time, from one in a very weak condition, in a great fever, who, for much of seven nights, has sleeped but little at all, but has been kept in a right sad and grievous torment from his hand, with many sad particulars and circumstances. I shall say no more, but I am yours in some single respects, I hope, I may say, dying in Christ. Let these represent my respects to your Lady and children. FINIS. PUBLISHED BY GEORGE KING, ST. NICHOLAS STREET, ABERDEEN, AND ROBERT KING, PETERHEAD; And may be procured, by order, through any Bookseller in the United Kingdom. Leighton's Rules for a Holy Life, Christ is All, by Wilcox, Baxter's Fifty Reasons why a Sinner ought to turn to God without Delay, Kennedy's Hymns for Sabbath Schools, Malan's Eldest Son, Watts' End of Time, Maclaurin's Glorying in the Cross of Christ, Serious Addresses to Unprofitable Hearers, Hill's Discourses to Christian Parents, Fragrance from faded flowers, or Memoirs of the Family of Hawes' Lectures to Young Men, Pearce on Death, with a Recommendatory Preface by the Rev. A. Thomson, Aberdeen, Stewart's Letters on the Divinity of Christ, and on the Trinity, Watson's Body of Practical Divinity, in a Series of Sermons Paterson's Church History, 2 vols. Vol. 1. Scripture History; Vol. 2. History of the Church, from the Christian era, to the commencement of the 19th century, Newton's, John (of London) whole Works, including Letters to a Wife, and Olney Hymns, 4 vols. 8vo. D. CHALMERS & co. PRINTERS, ABERDEEN. |