MADAM,--The cause of my not writing to your Ladyship was not my forgetfulness of you, but the want of the opportunity of a convenient bearer; for I am under more than a simple obligation to be kind (on paper, at least) to your Ladyship. I bless our Lord, through Christ, who hath brought you home again to your own country from that place,[132] where ye have seen with your eyes that which our Lord's truth taught you before, to wit, that worldly glory is nothing but a vapour, a shadow, the foam of the water, or something less and lighter, even nothing; and that our Lord hath not without cause said in His Word, "The countenance," or fashion, "of this world passeth away" (1 Cor. vii. 31)--in which place our Lord compareth it to an image in a looking-glass, for it is the looking-glass of Adam's sons. Some come to the glass, and see in it the picture of _honour_,--and but a picture indeed, for true honour is to be great in the sight of God; and others see in it the shadow of _riches_,--and but a shadow indeed, for durable riches stand as one of the maids of Wisdom upon her left hand (Prov. iii. 16); and a third sort see in it the face of painted _pleasures_, and the beholders will not believe but the image they see in this glass is a living man, till the Lord come and break the glass in pieces and remove the face, and then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say, "And behold it was a dream." I know your Ladyship thinketh yourself little in the common of this world, for the favourable aspect of any of these three painted faces; and blessed be our Lord that it is so. The better for you, Madam; they are not worthy to be wooers, to suit in marriage your soul, that look to no higher match than to be married upon painted clay. Know, therefore, Madam, the place whither our Lord Jesus cometh to woo a bride, it is even in the furnace: for if ye be one of Zion's daughters (which I ever put beyond all question, since I first had occasion to see in your Ladyship such pregnant evidences of the grace of God), the Lord, who hath His fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. xxxi. 9), is purifying you in the furnace. And therefore be content to live in it, and every day to be adding and sewing-to a pasment to your wedding garment, that ye may be at last decored and trimmed as a bride for Christ, a bride of His own busking, beautified in the hidden man of the heart. "Forgetting your father's house, so shall the King greatly desire your beauty" (Psalm xlv. 11). If your Ladyship be not changed (as I hope ye are not), I believe ye esteem yourself to be of those whom God hath tried these many years, and refined as silver. But, Madam, I will show your Ladyship a privilege that others want, and ye have, in this case. Such as are in prosperity, and are fatted with earthly joys, and increased with children and friends, though the Word of God is indeed written to such for their instruction, yet to you, who are in trouble (spare me, Madam, to say this), from whom the Lord hath taken many children, and whom He hath exercised otherwise, there are some chapters, some particular promises in the Word of God, made in a most special manner, which should never have been yours, so as they now are, if you had your portion in this life, as others. And, therefore, all the comforts, promises, and mercies God offereth to the afflicted, they are as so many love-letters written to you. Take them to you, Madam, and claim your right, and be not robbed. It is no small comfort, that God hath written some scriptures to you, which He hath not written to others. Ye seem rather in this to be envied than pitied; and ye are indeed in this, like people of another world, and those that are above the ordinary rank of mankind, whom our King and Lord, our Bridegroom Jesus, in His love-letter to His well-beloved spouse, hath named beside all the rest. He hath written comforts and His hearty commendations in the 54th of Isaiah, 4, 5; Psalm cxlvii. 2, 3, to you. Read these and the like, and think your God is like a friend that sendeth a letter to a whole house and family, but speaketh in His letter to some by name, that are dearest to Him in the house. Ye are, then, Madam, of the dearest friends of the Bridegroom. If it were lawful, I would envy you, that God honoured you so above many of His dear children. Therefore, Madam, your part is, in this case (seeing God taketh nothing from you but that which He is to supply with His own presence), to desire your Lord to know His own room, and take it even upon Him to come in, in the room of dead children. "Jehovah, know Thy own place, and take it to Thee," is all ye have to say.
[132] Edinburgh.