ANWOTH, _July 27, 1628_.
[87] "In reference to her,"--alluding to the known design of Charles
I. to enforce conformity to Episcopacy.
[88] The Marquis of Argyle.
IV.--_To the Elect and Noble Lady, my_ LADY KENMURE, _on occasion of
the death of her infant daughter_.
(_TRIBULATION THE PORTION OF GOD'S PEOPLE, AND INTENDED TO WEAN THEM
FROM THE WORLD._)
MADAM,--Saluting your Ladyship with grace and mercy from God our
Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,--I was sorry, at my departure,
leaving your Ladyship in grief, and would still be grieved at it, if I
were not assured that ye have One with you in the furnace, whose
visage is like unto the Son of God. I am glad that ye have been
acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings of God, and that ye get
scarce liberty to swallow down your spittle, being casten from furnace
to furnace, knowing if ye were not dear to God, and if your health did
not require so much of Him, He would not spend so much physic upon
you. All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conform to His
image and copy in suffering (Rom. viii. 29). And some do more vively
resemble the copy than others. Think, Madam, that it is a part of your
glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders pointed out to
John, "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
Behold your Forerunner going out of the world all in a lake of blood,
and it is not ill to die as He did. Fulfil with joy the remnant of the
grounds and "remainders of the afflictions of Christ" in your body
(Col. i. 24). Ye have lost a child: nay she is not lost to you who is
found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto
a star, which going out of our sight doth not die and evanish, but
shineth in another hemisphere. Ye see her not, yet she doth shine in
another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth
of time that she hath gotten of eternity; and ye have to rejoice that
ye have now some plenishing up in heaven. Build your nest upon no tree
here; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death; and every tree
whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end we may
fly[89] and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes
of the Rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an
adulterous lover. Now it is God's special blessing to Judah, that He
will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers.
"Therefore, behold I will hedge up her way with thorns, and make a
wall that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her
lovers, but she shall not overtake them" (Hos. ii. 6, 7). O thrice
happy Judah, when God buildeth a double stone wall betwixt her and the
fire of hell! The world, and the things of the world, Madam, is the
lover ye naturally affect beside your own husband Christ. The hedge of
thorns and the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from
this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children,
weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of
worldly comfort, fear of God's anger for old unrepented-of sins. What
lose ye, if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker? God be
blessed, the Lord will not let you find your paths. Return to your
first husband. Do not weary, neither think that death walketh towards
you with a slow pace. Ye must be riper ere ye be shaken. Your days are
no longer than Job's, that were "swifter than a post, and passed away
as the ships of desire, and as the eagle that hasteth for the prey"
(ix. 25, 26, margin). There is less sand in your glass now than there
was yesternight. This span-length of ever-posting time will soon be
ended. But the greater is the mercy of God, the more years ye get to
advise, upon what terms, and upon what conditions, ye cast your soul
in the huge gulf of never-ending eternity. The Lord hath told you what
ye should be doing till He come. "Wait and hasten," saith Peter, "for
the Coming of our Lord." All is night that is here, in respect of
ignorance and daily ensuing troubles, one always making way to
another, as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth; therefore sigh and
long for the dawning of that morning, and the breaking of that day of
the Coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away.
Persuade yourself the King is coming; read His letter sent before Him,
"Behold, I come quickly" (Rev. iii. 11). Wait with the wearied
night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky, and think that ye
have not a morrow. As the wise father said, who, being invited against
to-morrow to dine with his friend, answered, "Those many days I have
had no morrow at all." I am loth to weary you. Show yourself a
Christian, by suffering without murmuring, for which sin fourteen
thousand and seven hundred were slain (Numb. xvi. 49). In patience
possess your soul. They lose nothing who gain Christ. Thus remembering
my brother's and my wife's humble service to your Ladyship, I commend
you to the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus, assuring you that your
day is coming, and that God's mercy is abiding you. The Lord Jesus be
with your spirit.
Yours in the Lord Jesus at all dutiful obedience,