ANDREW GRAY

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LETTER TO LORD WARRISTON

My Lord,
It may seem strange that after so long an interuption of intercourse with your lordship by letters, I should at this juncture of time write to you, wherein there seems to be a toleration of tongues, and lusts, and religion, wherein many by their practise say "Our tongues are our own". I am afraid that sad word shall be spoken in Scotland yet seven times more, "that whereas He hath chastised with whips, He will do it with scorpions, and His little finger shall be heavier than His loins in former times" If our judgements that seem to approach were known, and these terrible things in righteousness, by which He whose furnace is in Jerusalem is like to speak to us, were seen and printed on a board, it might make us cry out "Who shall live when God doth these things, and who can dwell with ever-lasting burnings?".
He hath broken His staff of Bands, and is threatening to break His staff of Beauty, that his covenant which He hath made with all the people might not be broken. Is it not to be feared that "the sword of the justice of God is bathed in heaven, and will come down to make scarifice, not in the land of Idumea or Bozrah, but on those who were once His people, who have broken His everlasting covenant, and changed His ordinance?" What shal Scotland be called? Lorunamah and Lo-Ammi, which was termed Beulah and Hephzibah, 'A people delighted in, and married to the Lord'. I think that curse in Zeph. 1:17 is much accomplished in our days, 'they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord'. Does not our carriage under all these speaking and afflicting dispensations, fighting against God in the furnace, and our dross not departing from us, speak this with our hearts, 'that for three transgressions, and for four, He will turn away the punishment of these covenanted lands?' And this shall be our blot in all generations - 'This is that Scotland that in its afflictions sins more and more'. It is no wonder, then, that we be put to our 'How long, how long wilt thou hide thy face? How long wilt thou forget, O Lord? O lord, how shall thy jealousy burn like a fire, and we hear the confused noise of war and of rumours of war?'
God has put it, 'How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? (Jer. xxxi:22) Are ye not gadding about to change, turning his glory into shame, and loving lying vanities? And there are four "how longs" that God is put to lament over Scotland, and which are most in Luke ix:41 'How long shall I be with you and suffer you?' Is not Christ neccessitate to depart, and to make us a land sown with salt and grass in our most frequented congregations? Ay, believe it, ere it be long these two words shall be our lot. there is that in Jer.ii:31, 'O generation, see the Word of the Lord;' when those that would not hear Him in His word shall see Him in his dispensations, when all our threatenings shall be preached to our ears; and that word in Hosea vii: 12 ' I will chastise them as their congregations have heard.' Oh, shall poor Scotland serve themselves heirs to the sins of the Gadarenes, to desire Christ to flit out of their coasts, and to subscribe the bill of divorce (in a manner) before Christ subscribe it? It is like these three sad evidences of affliction that are in Isa. xlvii: 11 'shall come upon us in their perfection'. I shall add no more on a sad subject.
My Lord, not being able to write to you with my own hand, I have thought fit to present these few thoughts unto you by the hand of a friend.
I know not (I will not limit Him) but I may stand within that judgement-hall where that glorious and spotless High Priest doth sit, with that train that does fill the temple; and oh, to be among the last of those that are bidden to come in, and partake of that everlasting feast! O what a poor report will the messengers of the covenant and Gospel make, whose image they crucify in their hearts, to whom I may apply these words by allusion, ' the morning of conversion is to them as the terrors of death, and as the terrors of breaking-in of the day to the destroying of them'. what a poor account will some of us make, both as to the answer of our conscience, and the answer of His pains taken upon us, and as to the answer of His promises, and to the answer of His threatenings, and as to answer of our light? Now, not to trouble your lordship, whom i also highly reverence, amd my soul was knit unto, in the Lord, but that you would bespeak my case to the great Master of requestes, and my broken case before Him who has pleaded the desperate case of many, according to the sweet word in Lam. iii: 56 - this is all at this time from one in a weak condition, in a great fever, who for much of seven nights has but slept little at all, but has been kept in a right sad and grievous torment from His hand, with many other sad particulars and circumstances.
I shall say now no more, but I am yours in some single respects, I hope I may say, dying in Christ.
ANDREW GRAY

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