(Continued from page 119.)
The pastor being struck with fear and astonishment at the reckoning of those fearful sins, which my Lord had kept close, notwithstanding of such fair appearance of a sound mark of grace in his soul as he had conceived, did then stand up and read unto him the first eight verses of the sixth to the Hebrews, and discoursed to him of the far on-going of reprobates in the way of heaven, and of their taste of the good Word of God, and of the virtues of the life to come, and yet are but reprobates; and cited also Rev. xxi., “But the fearful, and unbelievers, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death;” and told him what everlasting burning was. And with that the pastor turned his back upon him, and
said, “Now, my Lord, I have not one word of mercy from my LORD to say to you. God hath sealed up my lips that I dare speak nothing to you but one thing, The wrath and ire of God Almighty.”
My Lord hearing this with tears, cried out so, that they heard him in the withdrawing room, and in all the houses about. Then he said, “God armed in wrath is coming against me to beat out my brains; I would die, I would not die; I dare not live. O what a burden is the hand of an angry God! Oh! what shall I do? Is there no hope of mercy?” Thus in a fearful agony he lay a long time weeping, so that those who attended brake in, and said, “The pastor had no skill, he would kill him;” and others said, “I pray you beware, you will not fail to thrust him in despair.” The pastor, not content with those speeches, did bear with them, and went to a quiet part, and sought from God his salvation, and words from God to speak to this patient; and some said that the pastor was a miserable comforter.
After this, another pastor came to visit my Lord, to whom my Lord said, “He hath slain me;” and before the pastor could speak for himself, my Lord said, “Not he hath slain me, but the Spirit of God in him.” The pastor said, “Not I, but the Law hath slain you; and my Lord, I say yet again, the God of heaven hath a terrible process against your father’s house, and a deep and a bloody controversy with the stones and the timber of the house of Kenmure; and my Lord, your name is in the process, see how you can free yourself: God is not mocked.”
The other brother read to him the history of Manasseh’s most wicked life, and how the Lord was entreated of him, and gave him mercy; but the former pastor went still upon wrath, and asked of him, saying, “My Lord, you are extremely pained, I know now, both in body and mind: what think you of the lake of fire and brimstone, of everlasting burnings, and of utter darkness, with the devil and his angels?”
My Lord said, “Woe is me! what can I think of it? I think if I should suffer my thoughts to dwell upon it any space, it were enough to cause me go out of my wits; but I pray you man, what shall my soul do?” The pastor answered, “My Lord, I am where I was. God knoweth I dissemble not, I have not one word of mercy to speak to you; only I know Christ hath not given out the doom against you, the sentence is yet suspended: therefore mourn and sorrow for the offending of your God.”
The pastor said, “What, my Lord, if Christ had given out a sentence of condemnation, and come to your bed-side and told you of it, would you not still love him, and trust in him, and hang upon him?”
My Lord said, “God knoweth I durst not challenge him; yea, howbeit he should not love me, yet I will still love him; yea, though the Lord should slay me, yet I will trust in him, I will lie down at God’s feet; let him trample upon me: I will die if I die at Christ’s feet.”
The pastor finding my Lord claiming kindness to Christ, and hearing him cry often, “O Son of God! where art thou, when wilt thou come to me? Oh for a love look!” Then the pastor said, “Is it possible, my Lord, that you can love and long for Christ, and he not love and long for you, or can love and kindness stand only upon your side? Is your poor feeckless unworthy love greater than infinite love? seeing he hath said, (Isa. xlix. 15.) ‘Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should
not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.’ Verse 16, ‘Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;’ and therefore your loving and longing for Christ is a fire of God’s kindling; my Lord, persuade yourself, you are graven on the palms of God’s hands.’
Upon this, my Lord, with a hearty smile, looked about to a gentleman, a good Christian, whom he had commanded to attend his body till his dying hour. “Man, (saith my Lord,) I am written upon the palms of Christ’s hands, he will not forget me; is not this brave talking?” The pastor, finding him weaker, said, “My Lord, the marriage-day is drawing near; make ready the marriage-robes; set aside all care of your estate and the world, and give yourself to meditation, prayer, and spiritual conference.”
He was observed after that to be always upon that exercise; and when none was near him he was overheard praying, and many times when to our sense he was sound sleeping, he was at prayer. After a sleep he called for the pastor, and said, “I have been troubled in my sleep with this, that being at peace with God, I am not also at peace with men, and therefore send for such a kinsman, (with whom I am not reconciled,) as also for a minister that had before offended me, that I may friend with them;” which was done quickly.
When the preacher came, he said, “I have ground of offence against you as a natural man, and now I do to you what all men breathing could not have moved me to do; but now, because the Holy Spirit commands me, I must obey, and therefore I freely forgive you, as I would wish you to forgive me. You are in an eminent place; walk before God, and be faithful in your calling, and take heed to your steps: walk in the right road, hold your eye right; for all the world, decline not from holiness, and take example by me.”
To his cousin he said, “Serve the Lord, and follow not the footsteps of your father-in-law (he had married the Bishop of Galloway’s daughter). Learn to know that you have a soul; for I say to you, the thousandth part of the world knoweth not they have a soul: the world liveth without any sense of God.”
He willed the pastor to sleep in a bed made upon the ground beside himself within the chamber, and urged him against his will to lie down and sleep, and said, “You and I have a far journey to go, make you [ready] for it.” Some four nights before his death he would drink a cup of wine to the pastor, who answered, “I receive it, my Lord, in hope you shall drink of the pure river of water of life proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb;” and when the cup was in his hand, with a smiling countenance, he said, “I think I have good cause to drink with a good will to you.”
After some heaviness, the pastor said, “My Lord, I come with news to you.” He answered, “What be they?” The pastor answered, “Be not afraid of death and judgment, because the process that your Judge had against you is cancelled and rent in pieces, and Jesus Christ hath trampled it under his feet: your dittay [indictment] is burnt.” My Lord said very pithily, with a smile, “O that is a lucky tale: I will then believe and rejoice: for sure I am that Jesus Christ and I once met, and will he
not come again?” The pastor said, “My Lord, you have gotten the first-fruits of the Spirit, the earnest, and Christ will not lose his earnest: therefore the bargain betwixt Christ and your soul holdeth.”
He asked the pastor, “What is Christ like that I may know him?” The pastor answered, “He is like love, and altogether lovely (Cant. v. 6.) Love cannot but be known wheresoever it is.”
The pastor said, “My Lord, if you had the man Christ in your arms very now, would you not thrust him to your heart, howbeit your breasts and side be pained with a stitch?” He answered, “God knoweth, I would forget my pain, and thrust him into my heart; yea, if I had my heart in the palm of my hand, I would give it him, and think it too unworthy a gift for him.”
He complained of Jesus Christ’s going and coming. “I find,” said he, “my soul drowned with heaviness. When the Lord cometh he stayeth not long.”
The pastor said, “Woers dwell not together, but married folks take up house together and sunder not. Jesus Christ is now wooing, and, therefore, he feedeth his own with hunger, which is as growing meat, as the sense of his presence.”
He said often, “Son of God, when wilt thou come? God is not as man that he should change, or as the son of man that he should repent. Those that come to Christ he casteth not away, but raiseth them up at the last day.”
Still, after peace and full assurance of reconciliation, he cast back his eyes to his sins and mourned.
The pastor discoursed to him of the new Jerusalem, and the glory of our Father’s house up above; and said, “What will you think, my Lord, when Christ shall dry your watery eyes, and wipe all tears from your face, and lay your head upon his breast, and embrace you in his arms, and kiss you with the kisses of his mouth?”
He said, “I want words to say what I think, but I know heaven is above the commendation of all earthly men, howbeit they had the tongues of angels.”
He was heard to say in his sleep, “My well-beloved is mine, and I am his.” Being asked if he had been sleeping, he said he was asleep, but he remembered he was giving a claim to Christ in his sleep.
Another time, after sleep, he wakened with exceeding great joy not long before his death, saying, “I have felt an extreme sweetness, which did arise from the lower parts of my body, and come up to my heart as sweet perfume, and so filled it that I was not able to contain the same, but as a precious perfume it diffused itself through the whole rooms about me with a most delicate or odoriferous smell.”
The doctor of physic desired him to say over the words again, which he did, and said he felt joy unspeakable and glorious.
After a sound sleep in the dawning, the pastor said, “My Lord, where lay Christ all night? Did not your well-beloved lie as a bundle of myrrh betwixt your breasts?” He answered, “Nay, not betwixt my breasts, but within my breasts, locked in my heart.”
He asked, “When will my heart be loosed, and my tongue untied, that I may express the sweetness of the Law of God to my own soul?” And
before the pastor answered anything, he answered himself, “Even when the wind bloweth.”
Being asked by the pastor if ever he had benefited by the word of God in public, which he had heard preached these many years, he answered, “I never came to your communion but I was filled with the sense of God, and Christ was powerfully borne in upon my soul, that do my best I was not able to hold him out, but in would he be, whether I would or not; but oh, oh! my woeful outbreakings, for the saints! I was inclined to. The devil and temptations took me at such a nick as I could not win by unhurt; but, oh! strong, strong Jesus. O the deep of his love that would not want me!”
Being asked what was his judgment anent the ceremonies now entered in the kirk of God, he answered, “I think, and am persuaded in my conscience, they are superstitious, idolatrous, and anti-Christian, and come from hell; and I repute it a mercy that my eyes shall not see the desolation that shall come upon this poor church. It’s plain Popery that’s coming among you. God help you; God forgive the nobility; for they are either key-cold, or ready to welcome Popery, whereas they should resist; and wee be to a dead, time-serving, and profane ministry: they are but a company of dumb dogs.”
He called his Lady, and a gentleman who was a friend to his Lady, and had come from the East country a good way to visit him with the pastor: [he] caused shut the chamber-door upon all others, and from his bed directed his speech to the gentleman, saying, “I ever did find you kind and honest to me all the time of my life, therefore I must now give you a charge which you shall deliver to all the noblemen you know, and with whom you are acquainted. Go through them, and tell them all how heavy I have found the weight of the Lord’s hand upon me for not giving testimony for the Lord my God when I had occasion once in my life at the last Parliament. For this foul fault how fierce have I felt the wrath of the Lord my God! My soul hath raged and roared. I have been ript up to the heart. Tell them that they will be as I am now. Encourage others that stood for the Lord. Tell them that failed, that as ever they would wish to have mercy when they are as I am now, they should repent, and crave mercy from God. Would to God I had such an occasion again to testify my love to the Lord! For all the earth should I not do as I have done, tell them.”
To a gentleman, a kinsman of his, he said, “I love your soul, and I love your body; you are a blessed man if you understand it, because ye may have the blessed means of the word preached beside you; and seeing you are but a tender man of body, I would not have you to drown yourself so much with trysting and fasheries of this world (as I did): who knows but you may be the first man may follow me. My greatest grief is, that I had not the occasion of good means as you have; and if you yourself make not the right use of the occasion of your means, one day they shall be a witness against you. Alas! take example by me; I was a fool, and lifted up with folly; and now, when I was at the very top, I was taken by the Lord when I expected least. The Lord hath smitten me; therefore take example by me, and leave the world and the fasheries of friends timeously, tender your soul, and tender your worn body. If I were to
- Printed thus in former editions. Should it be sins?
live in the world again, I should not vex and fash myself so much as I did, but should dwell at the Rusco the most part of my life, that I might have the happiness of the exercise of hearing God’s word preached as you have; good cousin,2 use the counsel of your pastor.’
To a lord, that was his brother-in-law—’Mock not at my counsel, my Lord. In case you follow the course you are in, you shall never see the face of Jesus Christ; you are deceived with the merchandise of the whore that makes the world drunk out of the cup of her fornications; your soul is builded upon a sandy foundation. When you come to my estate, you will find no comfort in your religion; you know not what wrestlings I have had before I came to this estate of comfort. The kingdom of heaven is not gotten with a skip or leap, but with much seeking, thrumbling, and thrusting.’ My Lord Herries not liking this discourse, did press to break it off by these words, saying, ‘My Lord, I thank you kindly, I am content to see your Lordship so resolved; if I had known of your Lordship’s sickness, I had seen you sooner.’ My Lord Kenmure answered, ‘I pray God give you grace to make good use of your coming: seeing you are now come, contemn not good counsel, for I have interest in your Lordship, and love your soul, and I must exoner myself as I will be answerable to God.’
To a lady, that was his own sister3—’Who knows, sister, if the words of a dying brother may prevail with a living sister. Alas! you incline to a rotten religion. Fie, cast away these rotten dregs; they will not avail you when you are brought to this case as I am. The half of the world is ignorant and goeth to hell, and knoweth not that they have a soul; it’s a wonder to see any to know that they have a soul: read the Scriptures, they are plain Scottish language to all who desire wisdom from God, and to be led to heaven.’
To a gentleman, his neighbour—’Your soul is in a dangerous case, but you see it not; and as long as you are in the case you are in you will never see it. I pray you, as you love the salvation of your soul, leave these courses; you must seek out another way to heaven than you are in, else you land at hell. There are small means of instruction to be had because the most part of the ministry are profane and ignorant. Search God’s Word for the good old way, and search and find all your own ways.’
To a gentleman, his cousin, he said, ‘You are a young man, and know not well what you are doing; seek God’s direction for wisdom in your affairs, and you shall prosper; and learn to know you have need of God to be your friend.’
To another cousin—’David, you are an aged man, and you know not well what an accompct you have to make; and if you were in the case I am in, you would count more of your accompcts than you do. I know you better than you believe, for you worship God according to man’s devices; you believe lies of God; your soul is in a fearful case; and until you know the truth, you shall never see your own way aright.’
To a young man, his neighbour—’Because you are but a young man, beware of temptations and snares; and above all, be careful to keep yourself in the use of means; resort to good company; and howbeit you be nicknamed a Puritan, and mocked, yet care not for that, but
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Supposed to be John Gordon of Cardoness.
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Lady Herries.
rejoice and be glad, that they who are scorned and scoffed by this godless and vain world, and nicknamed Puritans, would admit you to their society; for I must tell you, when I am at this point as you see me, I get no comfort to my soul by any second means under heaven but from those who are nicknamed Puritans. They are the men that can give a word of comfort to a wearied soul in due season, and that I have found by experience since I did lie down here.”
To one of his natural sisters—”My dove, thou art young, and, alas, ignorant of God! I know thy breeding and thy upbringing well enough; seek the Spirit of regeneration. Oh! if thou knew it, and felt the power of that Spirit as I do now; think not all is gone because your brother is dead; trust in God, and your Father liveth, and beware of the follies of youth; give yourself to reading and praying, and careful hearing of God’s word: and take heed whom you hear, and how you hear. God be with you.”
To another pastor—”Mr. James,4 it’s not holiness enough to be a minister, for you ministers have your own faults, and those more heinous than others. I pray you be more painful in your calling, and take good heed to the flock of God; and know that every soul that perisheth by your negligence shall be counted to you soul-murderers before God; think not but such a man as I may at this time give a wise man counsel. Take heed in these dangerous days how you lead the people of God, and take heed to your ministry.”
(To be continued.)