works, in a fhort time, and one of the greatest things that befal men, fhall be effectuate in the twinkling of an eye, which is one of the shortest. I affure you, he put the thief on the crofs through all his defires, convictions, converfion, justification, fanctification, etc. In fhort time, and left nothing to bemoan, but that there did not remain time enough to glorify him upon earth, that had done all thefe things for him. Go on then and let your intent be ferioufnefs; the greatness of your forrow, and the height of love, in a manner, make a compenfation for the fhortnefs of time, and go on, though ye your felves have gone fhort way, for where these things are, one hour will perform more than thousands where there were not, either fuch enforcements or power, and be perfwaded in this, you have him as much and more haftning than yourselves, for you may know his motion by your own, they being both fet forward by him: And dear friends, be not terrified at the manner of your death, which to me feems to be the eafieft of all, where you come to it without pain, and in perfect judgment, and go through fo fpeedily, before the pain be felt, the glory is come? but pray for a greater measure of his prefence, which only can make a pafs through the hardest things cheerful and pleafant. I bid you farewel, expecting though our parting be fad, our gathering fhall be joyful again. Only our great advantage in the café you are in, is, to credit him much, for that is his glory, and engages him to perform whatever ye have credited him with. No more, but avow boldly to give a full teftimony for his truths, as you defire to be avowed of him. Grace, Mercy and Peace be with you.

DONALD CARGIL

To the Prifoners in the Correction-houfe of Edinburgh.

D

Ear Friends, I think ye cannot but know that I am both concerned and afflicted with your condition, and I would have written fooner, and more,, if i had not feared that you might have been jealous (under your diftempers) that I had been feducing you to follow me, and not God, and truth. It had been my earneft and frequent prayer to God, (as he himfelf knows) to be led in all truths, I judge I have been in this graciously anfwered; but I defire none, if they themselves judge it not to be truth, to adhere to any thing that I have either preached, written, or done, to any hazard, much more to the lofs of life: But I have been afflicted with your condition and could not but be more, if God's great graciousness in this begun difcovery, and your fincerity and finglenefs gave me not that God's purpofe is to turn this to the great mercy of his

F

1

poor Chruch and yours, if ye marr it not; and yet the great fin, and pillar of Satan, that is in this fnare, makes me tremble It was God's mercy to you, that gave you fuch convictions, that made you, at leaft, fome of you once to part with thefe men: And it was undoubtedly your fin, that you continued not fo, but after convictions, did caft your felves in new tenip tations; for convictions ought to be tenderly guided, left the fpirit be grieved from whom they come; but this fecond difcovery tho' it be with a fharper rebuke, as it makes God's mercy wonderful, fo it fhall render your perfeverance in that courfe finful and utterly inexcufeable, for God has broken the fnaré, and it will be your great fin, if you go not out with great hafte, joy, and thankfulness, when God's wonderful difcovery has made fuch a way for your delivery; for God having now fhown you the ring leaders and authors of these opinions, to be perfons of fuch abominations, calls you not only to deny credit to them, but alfo to make a ferious fearch of their tenets, which will, I know, by his grace bring you undoubtedly to fee that these things are contrary both to God's glory and truth that they fo much pretend to.

And now dear friend, as I cannot be tender enough of you, who in your zeal and fingleness have been mifled; for tho this did bewray a great fimplicity and unwatchfulness, yet it did alfo betoken fome zeal and tenderne fs, that being beguiled, it was in things that were vailed and bufked with fome pretences to God's glory, and publick reformation: And on the other hand, I cannot have great enough abhorrence to the perfons, who knowing themfelves to be of fuch abominations, and give out themselves to be of fuch familiarity with God, and of fo clear illumination, to make their delufions more paffing with devout fouls Let nothing make you think this is malignity, or natural enmity against the power of Godliness, or progrefs in reformation, that is venting itself in men: For tho' I cannot win forward as I ought, yet I have rejoiced to fee others go forward. And I am fure, there lyes in this bed, within you, a viper, and a child, Satan transforming himself unto an angel or light, has put these two together, to make it paffing with fome, and to be fpared of others, who are of tenderness. But my foul's defire is, to kill the ferpent and to keep the child alive; And God is calling you loudly to fever the good from the bad, and the wit of Satan's fubtility has mixed together, and to deliver yourselves fpeedily, as a roe from the hand of the hunter; and not only return, but bitterly mourn for your high provoking of God, in offering fuch foul facrifices to his glory, and fewing your old clouts upon that new garment: in your making the enemy more to defpite that caufe and company

who are enough defpifed already, and difcouraging thofe who were following and going forward with you in that which was right, fo that now neither have they heart nor hand for the work, nor can they look out till God recover them again. There is much in the whole of thofe, that may, and does weigh. and overwhelm fome fpirits: Bur there is nothing in all their cogitations about it that they found comfortable, unless it he, that he is cleared in affling us, and continuing to afflict us, becaufe there were fuch perfons among us I fpeak this but of some of you, and beloved by us, tho' ignorantly; and we wish that this be the last and great ftop that was to be removed, before his coming to revenge himself, and reign. I would not fay, but by this alfo he thewed his tenderness, of prefer ving integrity of doctrine and found reformation, and his purpofe not to suffer errors and herifies to profper. This I told you, when I met with you, that there were fome things ye were owning which were highly approved of God; fuch as, an inward heart-love and zeal to God's glory, which I perceived to be in fome of you, fo far as it can be perceived and setting up that before you, as your end, in purfuing it always as your work, and a forgetting of all other things in regard of it, excepting only thefe things without which we cannot glorify him, (as a work-man that intends his work, mult mind his tools) even our own falvation, and the falvation of all others, as if they were not things wherein he is greatly glorified, for his glory is in righteoufnefs and mercy, and in, and by thefe, is the falvation of man infallibly advanced, and to thefe it is inLeparably connected.

1

Next, I would advife you, to fet apart more, yea, much more of your time, for humiliation, fafting and prayer, in fuch an exigence, when the judgment of God appeared to be so near and fo great, fo that it be done without fin, for God cannot be glorified by fin; for if my lie hath more abounded to his glory, why am I judged as a finner? I was against fuch as deny nature, and others, their right dues, for he that allows dues to others, allows them to be paid alfo And we must be like prifoners, who are of great debt and honeft hearts, who know they cannot pay every one their full fums, yet are refolved to give every one fome, and to the greatest moft, and to the reft accordingly: And as there cannot be a total abstainance from meat without felf murder, fo there cannot be a total denying others their dues, such as the benevolence of husband and wife, and a total abftaining from work, without a trangreffion of God's commandments and laws, which can never be a glo rifying of him, which the more impartially they are keeped, The more he is glorified. Next, ways are allowed of him, that

話

ye may make yourselves free, fo much as in you lies, of all the publick defections. Whatever may involve you in thefe, or contribute to their upholding, without either an overpowering force, or an indifpenfible neceffity: For I may buy meat and drink in neceffity, whatever ufe the feller make of that money I gave for my meat and drink. Next, he allows thefe particulars of reformation, fuch as change of the names of days, of weeks, of terms of the year, and fuch like, warranted by the word and example of the Chriftians in fcripture, that have been neglected before in our reformation; fo that there be not too much religion placed in these things, and other things more weighty (which undoubtedly have more moral righteoufnefs in them) made little in regard of them; but in thefe good things Satan will quickly (if it be not already,) over-drive you in your progrefs, and leave you only to hug a fpurious birth. But there are other things that ye maintained when I fpoke with you (and the viper has more fince appeared) as truths and parts of God's glory, that are utterly contrary to, and inconfiftent to the glory of God. As firft, Laying afide of publick preaching, fome of them faying no lefs, nor they had no miffing of it; fo that ye thought, "Ye had reigned as kings without us, and would to God ye had reigned." Your flourishing fhould have delighted, though we had not been the inftruments and means thereof: But alas! this your liberety, that you fo much bragged of, would have lafted but a little while, and was among your other beguiles; and was nothing. elfe but Satan ftirring you about to giddinefs, and raifing of fantaftick fumes to the tickling of the imagination: But leaving. you altogether without renovation of heart, or progress in fanctification: So that I cannot compare this your liberty to any thing elfe, but to an enchanted fabrick, where the poor guefts, only placed in imaginaton, imagine themselves to be in a pleafant place, and at a royal entertainment; but when God comes, and delufion evanifheth, they will find themselves caft in fome remote wilderness, and they left full of aftonithment and fears."

.

I told you, while I was with you, that the Devil was fowing tares among your thin wheat, but I was not long from you, exercifed in thoughts about you but I faw clearly, there was focery in the bufincis: And now, I tell you, I fear focerers alfo, I know I have fpoken this against my own life, if they get the power they defire; but I am in a defiance of them, and I know alfo in a defence by him who hath preferved, and know will preferve me, till my work be finished. But if your liberty that you talked of had been true, it would at least have frayed tul it had brought you to other thoughts,

other works, and other comforts, and it might have been easily difcerned not a true liberty, but a temptation that led you from publick preaching, the great ordinance of God's glory, and inen's good. As the Apoftle has that word, "Forbidding us "to preach to the Gentiles:" But efpecially to leave publick ordinances at this time, when they are the only standards standing which hows Satan's victory against Christ's kingdom in Scotland not to be complear.

Yet, dear friends, when you hear this, let not Satan caft you as far to the other fide, for it is rare to fee the most devout fouls altogether out from under his delufions and temptations, as to make you believe that it is impoffible to attain unto any thing of certitude of truth, liberty, manifeftations and com nunion with God, if that which feemed to be fo firm, be delufions; but fhall Saran have fuch power to make men believe lies, and fhall not God go infinitely beyond him, in making men to fee and believe truth? There were many that thought themselves at the height of affurance, when under the greatest temptations, as Pfai xxiii.". Verily I have cleanfed my hands in vain." And yet they have a greater certainty when they come to fee, that there is no fuch unquietnefs of spirit under this, as they found in the former. And fecing it is fo, reft not till ye attain that affurance of your own intereft, and of his main truths, which is both above doubt and defect, that ye may be able to fay, " Now we believe, and are fure.

But in the next place, ye will join with none in publick wor ship, but these who have infallible figns of regeneration. This feems fair, but it is both falfe and foul. Falfe, because of its false foundation, viz. That the certainty of one's interest in Chrift may be known, by another. Whereas the fcripture fays, "That none knows it, but he that has it? Foul alfo, for this difdain has prade in it, and pride is always foul, and tho' there be a difference amongst men, and that we thould have regard of repentance, and brokenness of heart, yet thefe who have well. fought and feen their own filthinefs, will judge themselves the perfons, of any, that thould be thrust out of the affemblies of God's people, and that not only in regard of what they have been, but also in regard of what they daily are. Next, ye would have all to be prayed to eternal wrath, who have departed and made defection in this time; alas! we need not blow them away, the great part is going faft enough that ways but this I am fure, is not to give God his glory, but to take from him, and limit him in his freedom and choice, in the greatnefs of his pardon. It is remarkable that the angels in their glory to God, joined alfo with it, Good will to men Next, ye have rejected the Plaims, with many other things, by a paper come