DONALD CARGILL - LETTER before going into exile in Holland
Dear Friends
I cannot but be grieved to go from my
native land, and especially from that part of it for which and with which I
desired only to live, yet the dreadful apprehensions I have of what is coming
upon this land may help to make me submissive to this providence, though more
bitter. You will have snares for a little, and then a deluge of judgments. I do
not speak this to affright any, much less to rejoice over them, as if I were
taken and they left, or were studying by these thoughts to alleviate my own lot
of banishment; though I am afraid that none shall bless themselves long upon
the account that they are left behind. But my design is to have you making
yourselves prepared for snares and judgments that ye may have both the greatest
readiness and the greatest shelters, for both shall be in one.
Clear
accounts and put off the old; for it is like that what is to come will be both
sudden and surprising, that it will not give you time for this. Beware of
taking on new debt. I am afraid that the so things which many are looking on as
favours are but come to bind men together in bundles for a fire. I am sure if
those things be embraced, there shall not be long time given for using of them;
and this last of their favours and snares is sent to men to show that they are
that which otherwise they will not confess themselves to be. Tell all that the
shelter and benefit of this shall neither be great nor long, but the snare of
it shall be great and prejudicial. As for myself, I think for the present He is
calling me to another land ; but how long shall be my abode, or what employment
He has for me there, I know not, for 1 cannot think He is taking me there to
live and lurk only.
I rest,
DONALD CARGILL
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