the sharpeft severity of his juftice) refuseth to give a particular account of his matters and motions, hath wonderfully flooped and condescended to give this general, fweetly fatisfactory account, That they shall work for good, even their fpiritual good and profit, the purging of fin, and their further participation of bis boliness: O that all the gracioufly fincere lovers of God, and the effectually called according to his pur pofe, might, from the lively faith of this, be perfwaded and prevailed with to fet themselves down at the receipt of these customs from the many croffes and afflictions that come their way, with a fixed refolution to fuffer none of them to pafs without paying the custom impofed by the King! The faithful, diligent, clofs and conftant following of this employmeht would unfpeakably inrich, and more than make up all their loffes, infinitely beyond what gathering in the customs of the rareft and richest commodities of both the Indies could poffibly do, were they all ingroffed and monopolized to that moft honourable society of the godly; and would help them to bear out a great fpiritual rank and port, fuitable to the ftate of the King, and as it becometh them that are privileged to be collectors of fuch customs under him.

'Tis now, noble Madam, a long time, not far from towards 30 years (whatever was before) fince your Ladyfhip was known by fome to be helped, thro' grace, feriously to fit down at the receipt of thefe cuftoms from the crofs and afflicting difpenfations which then occured to you, whereby you did obfervably improve, better and increase your fpirirual stock and state, fomeway to the admiration of ftandersby: and fince that time, for moft part of it, you have been, in the holy providence of God, tried with a tract of tribulations, each of them more trying than another; and fome of them fuch, that I think (as once the bleft author of this treatife on occafion of a fad and furprising ftroke, the removal of the defire of his eyes, his gracious and faithful wife, after a while's filence, with much gravity and great compofure of fpirit, faid, Who could perfwade me to believe that this is good, if God had not faidit ?) if all the world had faid and fworn it, they could very hardly, if at all, have perfwaded you to believe that they were good: But, fince God, that cannot lie, hath faid it, there is no room left to debate or doubt of it, let be to deny it. And if your Ladyfhip (as I hope you have) hath been all this while gathering up the cuftoms

cuftoms of fpiritual good and gain, impofed upon these many, various, and great tribulations, wherewith the Lord, no doubt on a bleffed defign of fingular good to you, hath thought fit to exercise you beyond moft perfons living, at leaft of your fo noble ftation and extraction; O what a vaft ftock and treasure of rich and foul-inriching precious experiences of the good and profit of all these afflictions and tribulations mu you needs have lying by you! What humility and foft walking! what contrition and tendernefs of heart! what frequency and fervency! what seriousness and fpirituality in prayer! what fitting alone, and keeping filence, because he bath done it! what juftifying of God, and afcribing righteousness to him, in all that he hath done! what fweet foliloquies, communings with the heart on the bed, self-searchings and examinations! what delightfom meditations on God, and on his law! what mortification of lufts! what deadness and deniedness to, and what weanednefs from, all creature-comforts and delights of the fons of men! what folicitous fecuring of the grand intereft, amidst these shakings loose of all other interefts! what coveting of,and complacency in,fellowship with God the Father, and with his Son Jefus Chrift, while your other fellowship is made defolate! what accounting of all things,fo much in account amongst men,to be but lofs and dung in comparifon of the excellency of the knowledge of Jefus Chrift the Lord! what growing difconformity to the world, by the renewing of your mind! what tranfforming into the image of God, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord! what exemplary holiness in all manner of converfation! what poftponing of all particular and felf-interefts to the publick intereft of his glory! what waitings and longings for the coming of his kingdom! what defires and defigns faithfully to ferve your generation according to his will! and, when that is done, what gronings to be unclothed, and clothed upon with your boufe from above! and what lively longings,with fweet fubmiffions to his will, to be diffolved, and to be with Jefus Chrift, which is beft of all! How much in the mean time of a ftranger's and pilgrim's deportment, with published, practical, plain declarations to the world that this is not your country, but that you are in expectation of one, even a heavenly country, fo that God is not ashamed to be called your God! Finally, What practical and experimental knowledge of, and clear infight in, that notable and none-fuch art of making out of God, and making up in him, what is miffing amongst the

creatures! a little of whom can go far, inconceivably far, to fill up much empty and void room, thro' the removal of many and moft choice creature comforts! What poffible lofs or want is it that cannot be made up in him who is God allfufficient, and in whom, whatever is defirable and excellent amongst them all, is to be found in an eminently tranfcendent and infinitely more excellent way; and from whom, as the inexhaustibly full fountain, and incomprehenfibly vaft, immenfe, foreless, boundless, and bottomlefs ocean of all delightful, defirable, imaginable, and poffible perfections, the fmall drops, and little rivulets of feeming and painted perfections, fcattered amongst the creatures, iffue forth! O beautiful and bleft fruits of afflictions, yet not brought forth by afflictions of themselves, but by his own grace working together with, and by them! a part of whose royal and incommunicable prerogative it is (not communicate nor given out of his own hand to any difpenfation, whether of ordinances, or of providences more fmiling or more crofs, abftractly from his bleffing and grace) to teach to profit! If your Ladyfhip be not thus inriched, and if your ftock and revenug be not thus bettered, I take it for granted that it is your burden, and more afflicting to you than all your other af flictions; and that it is withal fingly aimed at by you, and diligently driven as your greateft defign in the world. I could from my own particular certain knowledge and obfervation, long ago, and of late (having had the honour and happiness to be often in your company, and at fome of the loweft ebbs of your outward profperity) and from the knowledge of others more knowing and obferving than I, fay more of your rich incomes of gain and advanrage, of your improvement, of the countervailings of your damage, and of the up-makings of all your lofies this way, than either my fear of incurring the conftruction of a flatterer with fuch as do not know you as I do, will permit; or your chriftian modefty, fobriety and felf-denial will admit : and to undertake to fay all that might truly, and without complementing (too too ordinary in epiftles dedicatory) be faid to this purpose, would be thought by your Ladyship as far below you to crave, or expect, as it would be above me fuitably to perform.

Now, Madam, being fully perfwaded that this favoury, found, folid, foul-fearching and foul-fettling treatife, will

be

be acceptable to, and improved by your Ladyfhip, for furtherance of this your fpiritual good and advantage, beyond what it will be to and by moft others; I find no need of any long confultation with myfelt, to whom to addrefs its dedication; you having in my poor efteem, on many accounts, the deferved preference of many (to fay no more) ladies of honour now living: and fince withal I nothing doubt, had the precious, and now perfected author been alive, and minded the publication of it with a dedication to any noble lady, yourself would have been the person, of whom, I know, he had a high esteem, having himself, before his death, fignified his purpose of dedicating his piece on the Canticles to your Ladyship's noble and much-noted fifter-in-law, my lady viscounters of Kenmure. It needs no epiftles of commendation to you, who was fo throughly acquainted with its author; the reading of it will abundantly commend itfelf, and as a piece, tho' pofthumous, of his work, commend him in the gates. I fhall only now fay, which will much endear it to you, and to all the honeft-hearted ftudents of holiness, that it is for moft part very practical (and what is polemick in it, at that time much called for, is by a true information of the judgment directly levelled at a fuitable practice) and your Ladyfhip knoweth, that the power, yea, the very foul and life of religion lieth in the due practice of it: and indeed we know no more in God's account than we do, thro' grace, fingly and seriously defign and endeavour to practife; they all, and they only, having a good understanding that do bis commandments; and to do and keep them, being his peoples wisdom and understanding in the fight of the nations, who bear of thefe ftatutes, and are constrained to fay, Surely this is a wife and understanding people. The greatest measure of merely apprehenfive and fpeculative knowledge of the truths and will of God, doth not make truly wife, because not wife to falvation; nor evidenceth the perfons that have it to be really happy, the Lord not having pronounced them to be fuch that only know, but who knowing these things do them; tho', alas, many, not at all, or but very little confidering this, feek to know only, or mainly, that they themselves may know, or that they may make it known to others that they do know (a notable difappointment of the end of all found scripture-theology, which is as to the whole, and every part, head, and article thereof, practice, and not mere speculation) the great

foul

foul-ruining practical error of many profeffors of this knowing age upon the one hand; as there is another error in praetice, lamentably incident to not a few well-meaning fouls, on the other hand, whereby,defiring and delighting only to hear, read, and know what speaks to their prefent cafe and fpiritual exercise, or immediately preffeth fomewhat in practice, they much weary of, and liften but little to, what ferveth for more full and clear information of their judgments in the literal meaning of the fcriptures, in the doctrinal part of religion, and in what may increafe, better, and advance their knowledge in the principles thereof, till they be found in the faith, eftabli(bed in the prefent truth, and have their loins girt about with it: whereby it comes to pafs, that altho' fome fuch may, thro' grace,have chofen the better part which will not be taken from them; yet they are not only thro' their ignorance filled with many confufions, and with perplexing, and almost inextricable fears and doubts about their own spiritual itate and condition, but are also imminently exposed to the dreadful hazard of being catched and carried away as a ready prey by every error and fect-mafter, plaufibly pretending but any the leaft refpect to the practice and power of godlinefs; which hath been very prejudicial to the church of God in all ages, and moft obfervably in this, as there is much ground to fear it may yet further be, if we be tried with warm and fuitable tentations. Happy therefore, yea, thrice happy they, who are,by the skill and conduct of him that is given to be a Leader and Pilot to his people, helped to ftem the port, and to fteer a ftraight and steady course betwixt the fhelves and rocks of these extremes on the right and left hand, on which thousands have fplit and made fhipwreck; and to make it their business, as to feek diligently after knowledge of the truths of religion, to cry and life up their voice for it as for filver and for hid treasure, and to run to and fro, thro' the ufe of all divinely appointed means, that knowledge may be increased; fo, vigorously to drive it as their defign, to practife all they know,and to have their practice foot-fide with, and marching up the full length of, their knowledge and profeffion. That your Ladybip may more and more (as you thro' grace already in a great measure do) thus ftem the port, fetching fome more wind to fill your fails from God's bleffing on this judgment, inftructing and affection-moving practical treatife, till you arrive with a plerophory of faith, with up-fails, top and top-gallant, at that peaceful port and heavenly harbour of rest, prepared for the people of God, is the serious defire of,

Noble Madam,

Tour Ladyfoip's much obliged and devoted fervant for Chrift's Jake.