ABERDEEN, _Feb. 9, 1637_.
XCIII.--_To the Honourable and truly Noble Lady, the_ VISCOUNTESS OF
KENMURE.
(_GOD'S DEALINGS WITH SCOTLAND--THE EYE TO BE DIRECTED HEAVENWARD._)
MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.--I long to hear
from you.
I am here waiting, if a good wind, long looked for, will at length
blow into Christ's sails, in this land. But I wonder if Jesus be not
content to suffer more yet in His members and cause, and in the beauty
of His house, rather than He should not be avenged upon this land. I
hear that many worthy men, who see more in the Lord's dealings than I
can take up with my dim sight, are of a contrary mind, and do believe
that the Lord is coming home again to His house in Scotland. I hope He
is on His journey that way; yet I look not but that He will feed this
land with their own blood, before He establish His throne amongst us.
I know that your honour is not looking after things here-away. Ye have
no great cause to think that your stock and principal is under the
roof of these visible heavens; and I hope that ye would think yourself
a beguiled and cozened soul if it were so. I should be sorry to
counsel your Ladyship to make a covenant with time, and this life; but
rather desire you to hold in fair generals, and afar off from this
ill-founded heaven that is on this side of the water. It speaketh
somewhat when our Lord bloweth the bloom off our daft hopes in this
life, and loppeth the branches off our worldly joys, well nigh the
root, on purpose that they should not thrive. Lord, spill my fool's
heaven in this life, that I may be saved for ever. A forfeiture of the
saint's part of the yolk and marrow of short-laughing worldly
happiness, is not such a real evil as our blinded eyes conceive.
I am thinking long now for some deliverance more than before. But I
know I am in an error. It is possible I am not come to that measure of
trial which the Lord is seeking in His work. If my friends in Galloway
would effectually do for my deliverance, I should exceedingly rejoice;
but I know not but the Lord hath a way whereof He will be the only
reaper of praises.
Let me know with the bearer how the child is. The Lord be his father
and tutor, and your only comforter. There is nothing here, where I am,
but profanity and atheism. Grace, grace, be with your Ladyship.
Your Ladyship's, at all obliged obedience, in Christ,