Vol 16 - TO THE VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.

TO THE VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.
MADAM,
GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you! I know that ye are near many comforters, and that THE promised COMFORTER is near also; yet, because I found your Ladyship comfortable to myself in my sad days, it is my part (although I can do little, Got, knows,) to speak to you in your wildernessIot. I know, dear and noble lady, that this loss of your dear child came upon you one part after another; ye were looking for it; and now the ALMIGHTY has brought on you that which ye feared; your LORD gave you lawful warning: and I hope that, for his sake; who brewed this cup in heaven, ye will gladly drink it, and salute and welcome the cross. I am sure, it is not your LORD'S mind to feed you with judgment and wormwood. I know that your cup is sweetened `with’ mercy; and that'the withering of the bloom, the flower of worldly joys, is for no other end but to buy out the' reversion of your heart and love. Madam, subscribe to the ALMIGITY'S will put your hand to the pen;’ and let the cross of your Lord JESUS have your submissive and resolute Amen.' If ye ask and try whose this cross is, I dare say, it his not all your own; the best half of it is CHRIST'S. `’ (isa.`1xiii.9.) "'In all their afflictions he was afflicted." CHRIST bore the first stroke of this cross; and it rebounded from Him upon you. And I believe, for my part, that he intends to distil heaven out of this loss, and all others of the like kind; for wisdom devised it, and love laid it on,’ and CHRIST owneth it as his own, and putteth your shoulder only beneath a piece of it. Take it with joy as no bastard cross, but as a visitation of Go), wellborn; spend the rest of your appointed; time, till your, change come, in the work of believing and let faith, that never yet made a he to you, speak for. God's, part, of it: he will not, he does not make you " a sea or a whale, that he keepeth you in ward." ( Job 7:12.) It may, be ye think that, not many of the children, of GOD are in, such a hard case as yourself; but what would ye think, of " some,: who would exchange afflictions, and give you to the boot, But I know, yours must be your own alone, and CHRIST's together, I confess it seemed strange to me, that your LORD should have done that, which seems, to destroy all your worldly comforts: but we see not the ground of the ALMIGHTY'S Sovereignty. He goes by on our righthand, and on our lefthand, and we see him not. We see but pieces of the broken links of the chain of his Providence; and he coggeth the wheels of his own Providence, that we see not. O let the Former work his own clay in what frame he pleases! Shall any teach the ALMIGHTY " knowledge' If he pursue dry stubble, who dare say, " What dost thou", Do not wonder to see the Judge of the world weave, in one web, your mercies, and the judgments of the house of Kenmure: He can make one web of contraries. But my weak advice is that you, dear and worthy Lady, should see how far mortification goes on, and what scum the Lord’s fire casteth out of you. I know, ye, see your knottiness, since our Lord heweth and planeth you; and the glancing; of the furnace is to let you see what, froth is in nature, that must he boiled out, and taken off in the fir of your trials; I do not say, that heavier afflictions prophesy hearer guiltiness;—A, Gross is often but a false prophet in this kind. But I am sure that our Lord would have the tin and the bastardmetal in you removed; lest the lord say, " The bellows are burned, the lead is, consumed in the fire, the founder melteth in vain”; (Jeremiah 6:29.), And I (shall hope, that grief will not, so far smother your light, as, to make; you omit to practice the necessary; duty pf concurring with, him in this blessed, design. It is, a, Christian art, to comfort yourself in the Lo u n; to say, " I was obliged to render back this thild to the' Giver; and if I have had four years' Lord of him, and CHRIST eternity's possession of him, the Lord has kept condition with me." Madam, I would I could divide sorrow with you, for your ease; but I am but a beholder: It is easy to me to speak: the GOD of Comfort speak to you, and allure you with his love! My removal from my flock is so heavy to me, that it maketh my life a burden to me; I had never such a longing for death the LORD help and hold up sad clay!
Your Ladyship’s at all obedience in Chain,
S. R.