(_GOD'S METHOD IN AFFLICTION--FUTURE GLORY._)
MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to your Ladyship.--I am heartily
sorry that your Ladyship is deprived of such a husband, and the Lord's
kirk of so active and faithful a friend.[430] I know your Ladyship
long ago made acquaintance with that wherein Christ will have you to
be joined in a fellowship with Himself (even with His own cross), and
hath taught you to stay your soul upon the Lord's good-will, who
giveth not account of His matters to any of us. When He hath led you
through this water that was in your way to glory, there are fewer
behind: and His order in dismissing us, and sending us out of the
market, one before another, is to be reverenced. One year's time of
heaven shall swallow up all sorrows, even beyond all comparison. What,
then, will not a duration of blessedness so long as God shall live,
fully and abundantly recompense! It is good that our Lord hath given a
debtor, obliged by gracious promises, far more in eternity than time
can take from you. And I believe that your Ladyship hath been, now
many years, advising and thinking what that glory will be, which is
abiding the pilgrims and strangers on the earth when they come home,
and which we may think of, love, and thirst for. But we cannot
comprehend it nor conceive of it as it is; far less we can over-think
or over-love it. Oh, so long a Chapter, or rather so large a Volume,
as Christ is, in that Divinity of Glory! There is no more of Him let
down now to be seen and enjoyed by His children, than as much as may
feed hunger in this life, but not satisfy it. Your Ladyship is a
debtor to the Son of God's cross, that is wearing out love and
affiance in the creature out of your heart by degrees. Or rather the
obligation standeth to His free grace who careth for your Ladyship in
this gracious dispensation; and who is preparing and making ready the
garments of salvation for you; and who calleth you with a new name,
that the mouth of the Lord hath named; and purposeth to make you a
crown of glory, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God (Isa. lxii.
2, 3). Ye are obliged to frist Him more than one heaven; and yet He
craveth not a long day; it is fast coming, and is sure payment. Though
ye give no hire for Him, yet hath He given a great price and ransom
for you; and if the bargain were to make again, Christ would give no
less for you than what He hath already given. He is far from ruing. I
shall wish you no more (till time be gone out of the way), than the
earnest of that which He hath purchased and prepared for you, which
can never be fully preached, written, or thought of, since it hath not
entered into the heart to consider it.
[430] Hon. Sir Henry Montgomery of Giffen, her Ladyship's second
husband, died about this time. See Letter III.
So, recommending your Ladyship to the rich grace of our Lord Jesus, I
am, and rest, your Ladyship's at all respectful observance in Christ
Jesus,