MUCH HONOURED AND WORTHY SIR,--I have heard of your continued captivity in England, as well as in this afflicted land. But, go where ye will, ye cannot go from under your Shadow, which is broader than many kingdoms. Ye change lodging and countries; but the same Lord is before you, if ye were carried away captive to the other side of the sun, or as far as the rising of the morning star. It is spoken to your mother (who hath yet received no bill of divorce), which was written to Judah, "Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies" (Micah iv. 10). England shall be accountable for you, to render you back: "I will say to the north, 'Give up;' and to the south, 'Keep not back'" (Isa. xliii. 6). It is a sermon that flesh and blood laugheth at: "Prophesy upon these dry bones, and say unto them, 'O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!'" It is a preaching to the cold grave: "Thus saith the Lord unto the bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live'" (Ezek. xxxvii. 4, 5, 6). "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it" (Rev. xx. 13). Berwick must render back the Scottish captives, and Colonel Gilbert Ker with them. "For thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans whose cry is in the ships" (Isa. xliii. 14). "If any of thine be driven out to the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee" (Deut. xxx. 4). "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save My people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness" (Zech. viii. 7, 8). Sir, ye are both booked by the Lord who writeth up the people (Ps. lxxxvii. 5, 6), and counted to the Lord as one of the house and stock (Ps. xxii. 30). Fear not, faint not; all your hairs are numbered.
It is the desire of the people of God, that, as your bonds hitherto have been exemplary to the strengthening of the feeble and to the stopping of the mouth of the adversary, without any declining to the right or left hand; so your sufferings in the place ye now go to, may be (as we are confident in the Lord of you, and in humility boast of His grace in you) savoury, convincing, and like unto this honourable cause, that will prevail in Britain, contrary to all the machinations and counsels of devils and men. And though there were no other ink in the pen I now write with but some dewing of my last cooling blood, this I purpose (His grace, whose I am, enabling me) to stand to. Sir, we desire to adore no instruments; yet we conceive the shining and rays of grace from the Fountain, Jesus Christ, the fulness of the Godhead, bestowed on sinful men, hold forth the good thoughts of Christ to this poor land, whose multiplied graves, and whose souls under the altar, slain by Sectaries and Malignants, cry aloud to heaven.
I see nothing, Sir, if the Lord be not near (though I dare not say how soon) to awake for the year of Zion's controversy. "For my sword shall be bathed in heaven" (Isa. xxxiv. 5). Behold, it shall come down upon England, and on the residue of His enemies in Scotland. Wo is me for England! That land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness; that pleasant land shall be a wilderness, and the dust of their land pitch; a judgment upon their walled towns, their pleasant fields, their strong ships, etc., if they do not repent.