Walter Pringle

The expectation of gain maketh the labouring man to rise timely in the morning, that he may go about his toilsome work. This thought made me rise out of my bed this morning, desiring to employ my little pains in those things which perish not. And O! what profit and advantage were it, if by anything I insert here, I could do any good to the immortal souls of you, my dear children! You are often in my thoughts, and the matter of my prayers: for the more I am separate from you here, the more pressing and fervent my desires are to have you with me for ever in my Father’s kingdom; into which, when once I am entered, I cannot come back to inform you of these everlasting joys and pleasures: God alloweth of no such mean. Therefore, while yet in this world, desire I to leave this as my last will to you. O flee from the wrath and condemnation of the great and dreadful God, with more speed and diligence than if thousands of most cruel enemies were pursuing you with drawn swords at your heels. There is a possibility of escaping from men and their strokes are but of short endurance; but you may see in the 139th Psalm, that “there is no hiding or escaping from the Almighty,” neither is there any delivery for those who are once shut down into that bottomless pit of utter darkens’s; but these wretches must there endure unspeakable torment in everlasting flames, burning without the least comfort of light. “O! who can dwell with devouring fire,” in that place where all sorrows, sickness, filthiness, and pains, will be confined? Among all these thousands of devils and damned souls, there will not be the least grain weight of pity one toward another. Serious thoughts of hell are certainly a strong motive to move a soul to come into Jesus Christ; but I Verily believe that a view of God’s excellent, wonderful, and free loving-kindness, is a far more prevailing motive. o how strong are these cords of love! None but they that feel them know, and what they know is only this, that they who are once tied in them, and drawn with them, can never break or come out of them. O sweet and pleasant chains! It is only true liberty to be in them; it is true health to be sick of love to this lovely one. What a delightful thing is it to “sit or stand under his banner of love!” It is our heaven here, and it is the heaven of angels and saints above; who have no other, will never desire any other food but this his love, which had no beginning, and never will have any end. The soul which once getteth a true taste of it will ever desire more of it. WE cannot send up so useful a petition as to pray that this love may be shed abroad in our hearts, and it were our wisdom often every hour to repeat this desire in our thoughts, when we may not conveniently utter it with our lips. This jewel, is so to speak, the first mover of all other graces; and it will shine in heaven when they shall cease. This maketh the sourjourning saints endure and cheerfully suffer all things, finding the sharpest afflictions and heaviest crosses easy and light. My children, God, who only knoweth the heart, knoweth how earnestly I am to have you live this excellent life of faith in Jesus Christ, which worketh by love. It is as a fire in my bosom, the desire I have t have you fully persuaded of these truths, which both know and feel. There is none in the world whose happiness I desire more than yours, who are to me as dear as mine own soul. I shall not give over to pray for you so long as I am in this life.
From the Memoirs of Walter Pringle.