[ 8 ]
of our land. Seeing; all this with the home coming to my house, which I never thought to have enjoyed, until Christ had been restored to his rights; for, O Lord, thou knowest I desired not delivery, till it had come with Zions. I say, this cast me into a great grief; Lord thou knowest my burthen, it is not hid from thee, and this is all my comfort, O the depths, the intricate dispensations, I have been trysted with, since I came out of that foresaid castle, if it were not that my care and Zions is somewhat levelled alike, surely I should sink beneath the dream; but the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it: Lord help me, that I weary not before it be at an end: Would it not affect any soul, that ever had any love to Christ, to see the sad fruit of a personal delivery, every one running out of the furnace, after the world, and alter their own rights and privileges,without being concerned to enquire how Christ is invested in his rights and prerogatives. Oh! is this all the gratitude we have shown him for all his loving kindnefs to us in the wilderness? For his feeding, cloathing, and preserving in despite of enemies. Is this all we have rendered to him, to run as so many sheep out of a fold, every one to what he could win at, without ever looking and considering what was their duty to do in such a time for Christ and his cause. O wrath is gone out against us! plague upon plague is the portion alotted for the professors of this generation. O Lord, I fear I and many others have been building upon a sandy foundation! Suffering more out of an expectation of a temporal delivery, than out of love to Christ and his cause! The event of the sufferings of Scotland speaks out the truth of this, the fight whereof, has made my heart to tremble. Therefore, O Lord! I desire that thou would discover the deceit of my heart in this, with a true sense of it upon my spirit, that I may mourn in secret places for it, and give me thy assisting grace, and helping hand in this reeling, fainting and failing time, that I may be helped in singleness and uprightness of heart, and in sincerity without hypocrisy or guile, to lay that foundation one right, which is Jesus Christ! O come and give thy consent to this covenant and bargain this day! Let thy presence shew thy satisfaction in it, that I may win to the faith, that not only I have covenanted with thee, but that thou has condescended in thy infinite love to covenant with me, and has made it sure in every thing. Now Lord, I desire to enter in co-
