WORTHY AND DEAR MISTRESS,--My dearest love in Christ remembered. As to the business which I know you would so fain have taken effect, my earnest desire is, that you stand still. Haste not, and you shall see the salvation of God. The great Master Gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a wonderful providence, with His own hand (I dare, if it were for edification, swear it), planted me here,[107] where, by His grace, in this part of His vineyard, I grow.--I dare not say but Satan and the world (one of his pages whom he sends on his errands) have said otherwise. And here I will abide till the great Master of the Vineyard think fit to transplant me. But when He sees meet to loose me at the root, and to plant me where I may be more useful, both as to fruit and shadow, and when He who planted pulleth up that He may transplant, who dare put to their hand and hinder? If they do, God shall break their arm at the shoulder blade, and do His turn. When our Lord is going west, the devil and world go east; and do you not know that it hath been ever this way betwixt God and the world--God drawing, and they holding, God "yea," and the world "nay"? But they fall on their back and are frustrate, and our Lord holdeth His grip.
[107] At Anwoth.
Wherefore doth the word say, that our Christ, the Goodman of this house, His dear kirk, hath feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace (Rev. i. 15)? For no other cause but because where our Lord setteth down His brazen feet, He will forward; and whithersoever He looketh, He will follow His look; and His feet burn all under them, like as fire doth stubble and thorns. I think He hath now given the world a proof of His exceeding great power, when He is doing such great things, wherein Zion is concerned, by the sword of the Swedish king,[108] as of a Gideon. As you love the glory of God, pray instantly (yea engage all your praying acquaintance, and take their faithful promise to do the like) for this king, and every one that Zion's King armeth, to execute the written vengeance on Babylon. Our Lord hath begun to loose some of Babylon's corner stones. Pray to Him to hold on, for that city must fall, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth must make a banquet of Babylon; for He hath invited them to eat the flesh of that whore, and to drink her blood. And the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto her, and shameful spewing shall be upon her glory. He whose word must stand hath said, "Take this cup at the hand of the Lord, and drink and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more" (Jer. xxv. 27). Our Jesus is setting up Himself, as His Father's ensign (Isa. xi. 10), as God's fair white colours, that His soldiers may all flock about Him. Long, long may these colours stand. It is long since He displayed a banner against Babylon in the fight of men and angels. Let us rejoice and triumph in our God. The victory is certain; for when Christ and Babel wrestle, then angels and saints may prepare themselves to sing, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen." Howbeit that Prince of renown, precious Jesus, be now weeping and bleeding in His members, yet Christ will laugh again; and it is time enough for us to laugh, when our Lord Christ laugheth,--and that will be shortly. For when we hear of wars and rumours of wars, the Judge's feet are then before the door, and He must be in heaven giving order to the angels to make themselves ready, and prepare their hooks and sickles for that great harvest. Christ will be upon us in haste; watch but a little, and ere long the skies will rive, and that fair lovely person, Jesus, shall come in the clouds, freighted and loaded with glory. And then all these knaves and foxes that destroyed the vines shall call to the hills, and cry to the mountains to cover them, and hide them from the face of Him who sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
[108] Gustavus Adolphus.