ANDREW GRAY
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
Home | Sermons | Links |
Literature | Photos