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 in Scotland should cease; upon which every body should believe the deliverance was eomecome [sic], and consequently would fall fatally secure. But I tell you, said he. you will be all very far mistaken; for both England and Scotland will be scourged by foreigners, and a set of unhappy men in these lands taking part with them, before any of you can pretend to be happy, or get a thorough deliverance, which will be a more severe chastisement than any other they have met with, or can come under, if that were over.

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FROM

ALEXANDER PEDEN,

To the Prisoners in July 1685.

Long to hear from you, how you spend your time, and how the grace of God grows in your hearts. I know ye, and other of the Lord’s people, by reason of the present trial, have got up a fashion of complaining upon Christ; but I defy you to speak an ill word of him, unless ye wrong him. Speak as you can, and spare not; only I request that your expressions of Christ be suitable to your experience of him. If ye think Christ’s house be bare and ill-provided. and harder than ye looked for, assure yourselves Christ minds only to diet, and not to hunger you; our Steward kens when to spend and when to spare. Christ knows full well, whether heaping or straking agrees best with our narrow vessels for both are alike to him: Sparing will not enrich him, nor will spending impoverish him. He thinks it ill won that is holden off his people. Grace and glory comes out of