A Letter from Aberdeen Prison

My Dear Brother,

Grace, mercy and peace be multiplied upon you. I am almost wearing, yea wondering, that ye write not to me: though I know it is not forgetfulness. As for myself, I am every way well, all glory to God. I was before at a quarrel with Christ (but it was bought by me and unlawful), because His whole providence was not yea and nay to my yea and nay, and because I believed Christ's outward look better than His faithful promise. Yet He hath in patience waited on, while I be come to myself, and hath not taken advantage of my weak apprehensions of His goodness. Great and holy is His name!

Oh, what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of My Lord Jesus! Who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is that goeth through His mill, and His oven, to be made bread for His own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy! I now see that godliness is more than the outside, and this world's decorations and adornments. Who knoweth the truth of grace without a trial? And how soon would faith freeze without a cross!

Why should I start at the plough of my Lord that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know that He is no idle Husbandman, He purposeth a crop. I desire now to make no more quarrels with Christ. Verily He hath not put me to a loss by what I suffer; He oweth me nothing; for in my bonds how sweet and comfortable have the thought of Him been to me, wherein I find a sufficient recompense of reward!

How blind are my adversaries who sent me to a banqueting house, to a house of wine, to the lovely feasts of my lovely Lord Jesus, and not to a prison, or place of exile! Why should I smother my Husband's honesty, or sin against His love, or be a niggard in giving out to others what I get for nothing? Brother, eat with me, and give thanks.

Dear brother, ye are in my heart, to live and to die with you. Visit me with a letter. Pray for me. Remember my love to your wife. Grace, grace be with you; and God, who heareth prayer, visit you, and let it be unto you according to the prayers of