Grace be with you.
not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the omnipotent Lord. Let the pull go with Him, for He is strong; and say, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
5. His holy method and order is to be adored. Sometimes the husband before the wife, and sometimes the son before the mother. So hath the only wise God ordered; and when he is sent before, and not lost, in all things give thanks.
6. Meditate not too much on the sad circumstances, the mother was not witness to the last sigh; possibly, cannot get leave to wind the son, nor to weep over his grave;" and, "he was in a strange land!" There is a like nearness to heaven out of all the countries of the earth.
7. This did not spring out of the dust. Feed and grow fat by this medicine and fare of the only wise Lord. It is the art and the skill of faith to read what the Lord writeth upon the cross, and to spell and construct right His sense. Often we miscall words and sentences of the cross, and either put nonsense on His rods, or burden His Majesty with slanders and mistakes, when He mindeth for us thoughts of peace and love, even to do us good in the latter end.
8. It is but a private stroke on a family, and little to the public arrows shot against grieved Joseph, and the afflicted, but ah! dead, senseless, and guilty people of God. This is the day of Jacob's trouble!
9. There is a bad way of wilful swallowing of a temptation, and not digesting it, or laying it out of memory without any victoriousness of faith. The Lord, who forbiddeth fainting, forbiddeth also despising.1 But it is easier to counsel than to suffer: the only wise Lord furnish patience.
It were not amiss to call home the other youth. I am not a little afflicted for my Lady Kenmure's condition. I desire you, when ye see her, to remember my humble respects to her. My wife heartily remembereth her to you; and is wounded much in mind with your present condition, and suffereth with you.
Grace be with you.
Yours in the Lord,
ST. ANDREWS, AUG. 4, 1660. S. R.