Lxxi. to Lady Ardross

MADAM, -- Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. It has seemed good (as I

hear) to Him, who has appointed bounds for the number of our months, to

gather in a sheaf of ripe corn (in the death of your Christian mother)

into His garner. She is now above the winter, with a little change of

place, not of a Savior; only she enjoyeth Him now without messages, and

in His own immediate presence, from whom she heard by letters and

messengers before.

I grant, death to her is a very new thing, but heaven was prepared of

old. And Christ (as enjoyed in His highest throne, and as loaded with

glory, and incomparably exalted above men and angels, having such a

heavenly circle of glorified spirits above, compassing the throne with

a song) is to her a new thing; but so new as the first summer rose, or

the first-fruits of that heavenly field, or as a new paradise to a

traveler, broken and worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a

long and dirty way.

You easily judge, Madam, what a large recompense is made to all her

service, her walking with God, and her sorrows, with the first cast of

the soul's eye upon the shining and admirably beautiful face of the

Lamb, that is in the midst of that fair and white army that is there;

and with the first draught and taste of the fountain of life, fresh and

new at the well-head.

And now she sitteth for eternity mail-free, in a very considerable

land, which has more than four summers in the year. Oh, what

spring-time is there! Even the smelling of the odors of that great and

eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for ever and ever! What a singing

life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field; but

all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion to the high

Prince of that new-found land. And, verily, the land is the sweeter

that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it. And He is the glory of

the land: all which, I hope, does not so much mitigate and allay your

grief for her part (though truly this should seem sufficient), as the

unerring expectation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the

hope you have of the fruition of that same King and kingdom to your own

soul. Certainly the hope of it, when things look so dark-like on both

kingdoms, must be an exceedingly great quickening to languishing

spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery, to have

both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at night! But He has

taken up your lodging for you.

I can say no more now; but I pray that the very God of peace may

establish your heart to the end.

LONDON, Feb. 24, 1646