as if there were no balm
in Gilead; neither suffer your minds so far to miscarry as to think that
ye wish well to the church, and are heartily sorry that matters frame with
her as they do, whilst, in the meantime, you essay no means, you take no
pains and travail for her help. When king Ahasuerus had given forth a
decree for the utter extirpation of the Jews, Mordecai feared not to tell
Esther, that if she should then hold her peace enlargement and deliverance
should arise unto the Jews from another place, but she and her father's
house should be destroyed; whereupon she, after three days' humiliation
and prayer to God, put her very life in hazard by going in to supplicate
the king, which was not according to the law, Esth. iv. But now, alas!
there are too many professors who detract themselves from undergoing
lesser hazards for the church's liberty, yea, from using those very
defences which are according to the laws of the kingdom. Yet most certain
it is, that without giving diligence in the use of the means, you shall
neither convince your adversaries, nor yet exonerate your own consciences,
nor, lastly, have such comfort in the day of your suffering as otherwise
you should. I know that principally, and, above all, we are to offer up to
God prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, which are the
weapons of our spiritual warfare, Heb. v. 7; but as this ought to be done,
so the achieving of other secondary means ought not to be left undone.

If you disregard these things whereof, in the name of God, I have
admonished you, and draw back your helping hands from the reproached and
afflicted cause of Christ, for which we plead, then do not put evil far
from you, for wrath is determined against you. And as for you, my dear
brethren and countrymen of Scotland, as it is long since first
Christianity was preached and professed in this land, as also it was
blessed with a most glorious and much-renowned Reformation:(43) and,
further, as the gospel hath been longer continued in purity and peace with
us than with any church in Europe: moreover, as the Church of Scotland
hath treacherously broken her bonds of oath and subscription wherewith
other churches about us were not so tied; and, finally, as Almighty God,
though he hath almost consumed other churches by his dreadful judgments,
yet hath showed far greater long-suffering kindness towards us, to reclaim
us to repentance, though, notwithstanding all this, we go on i