XLIII. To ROBERT BROWN OF CARSLUTH

Robert Brown of Carsluth owned considerable property in Galloway.

WORTHY SIR, — I beseech you in the Lord to give your soul no rest till ye have real assurance, and Christ’s rights confirmed and sealed to your soul. Take pains for your salvation; for in that day when ye shall see many men’s labours and conquests and idol-riches lying in ashes, when the earth and all the works thereof shall be burnt with fire, oh how dear a price would your soul give for God’s favor in Christ! It will not be time to cry for a lamp when the Bridegroom is entered into His chamber and the door shut. Look into those depths (without a bottom) of loveliness, sweetness, beauty, excellency, glory, goodness, grace, and mercy, that are in Christ; and ye shall then cry down the whole world, and all the glory of it, even when it is come to the summer-bloom; and ye shall cry, ‘Up with Christ, up with Christ’s Father, up with eternity of glory!’ Sir, there is a great deal less sand in your glass than when I saw you, and your afternoon is nearer even-tide now than it was. As a flood carried back to the sea, so does the Lord’s swift post, Time, carry you and your life with wings to the grave. Ye eat and drink, but time standeth not still; ye laugh, but your day fleeth away; ye sleep, but your hours are reckoned and put by hand. Oh how soon will time shut you out of the poor, and cold, and hungry inn of this life! And then what will yesterday’s short-born pleasures do to you, but be as a snow-ball melted away many years since? O blessed conquest, to lose all things, and to gain Christ! I know not what ye have, if ye want Christ! Alas! How poor is your gain, if the earth were all yours in free heritage, holding it of no man of clay, if Christ be not yours!

I recommend Christ and His love to your seeking; and yourself to the tender mercy and rich grace of our Lord. Remember my love in Christ to your wife. I desire her to learn to make her soul’s anchor fast upon Christ Himself. Few are saved.

Your soul’s eternal well-wisher.

ABERDEEN, 1637