Vol 16 - TO MY LADY KENMURE.

TO MY LADY KENMURE
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 you have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings, of GOD, and that ye are cast from furnace to furnace; knowing that, if ye were not dear to GOD, he would not spend so much physic upon you. All the brethren and sisters of CHRIST must be conformed to his image in suffering'; and some do more closely 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 (Revelation 7:14) pointed out to Joan, " 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 Fore-runner going out of the world, all in a lake of blood; and it is not ill to do as he did. Fulfil with joy in your body the remnant of the afflictions of CHRIST. 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 a star, which, going out of our sight, does not die and vanish,, but shineth in another hemisphere: ye see her not, yet she does shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wants of Time, that she has gotten of Eternity.-Build your nest upon no tree here.: for ye see GOD has sold the forest to death; and every tree, whereupon we would rest, is ready to be cut down, to the end that we may flee 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; (Hosea 2:6-7;) " 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." O thrice happy JUDAH, when GOD buildeth a stone wall between her and the fire of hell! The world and the things of the world, are 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, are the thorny edge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, iniquity of the times, uncertainty of estate, lack of worldly comfort, and fear of GOD’s anger for old unrepented sins. What lose ye, if GOD twist 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 walks towards you with a slow pace; ye must be riper before ye be shaken. Your days are no longer than Jon's,, that were " swifter than a post, and passed away as the ships of desire, and as the eagle that hasteth for the prey." (Job 9:25-26.) 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 ye cast your soul into the huge gulf of never-ending eternity. The LORD has told you what ye should be doing till he come: " Wait and hasten (says ST. 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 that the King is coming. Read his letter sent before him, (Revelation 3:11,) " Behold, I come quickly.", 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 friends, answered, " Those many days, I had no morrow at all." I am does to weary you: show yourself a Christian, by suffering without murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand seven hundred were slain. (Nunn. 16:49.) In patience possess your soul. They lose nothing, who gain CHRIST. 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 Logs JESUS be with your Spirit.
Anwoth,
Yours in the LORD JESUS,
Jan. 15, 1629.
At all dutiful obedience,
S. R.