herefore happy are ye, albeit ye be not great
in other gifts, if so be that ye know this; for the Lord, He has some
gifts of His own bestowing allanerly (only), whilk He will bestow upon
the meanest, and yet He will deny them to the proudest; even as the tops
of the mountains, they will be dry and have no dew, while as the valleys
will be wet with it. So those who exalts themselves high, and boasts
themselves of their other gifts, of their knowledge, learning,
experience, &c., the Lord will, for all that, ofttimes leave them void
of saving and sanctifying grace.

"From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth." That is,
as the dew is multiplied upon the earth, so sall thy people be. This is
are ordinar phrase in Scripture. Hushai says to Absalom, "Convene the
people from Dan to Beersheba, and then we sall light upon David as the
dew lighteth upon the ground; and then there sall not be left of him and
of all the men that are with him so much as one." And this phrase is
well set down, Is. liv., "Rejoice, O barren, and thou that didst not
bear, break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not
travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the
married wife." And therefore He uses this form of speech, v. 2, "Enlarge
thy tents, and let them stretch the curtains of thy habitations;
lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes." And all these things are
requisite to be done when the people of God are multiplied thus.

Let us observe here, if the Word of God continue in this land, in the
purity thereof, and the sacraments be rightly administrate, the people
of God will then multiply exceedingly here. The chiefest city in this
land, they are forced to marvel where the people has been in former
times that are in it now, so that they cannot get kirks to contain them.
And they think, if the gospel continue in the purity thereof, all the
kirks that they are building, with the rest, sall have enough ado to
contain them. And it is a marvel to consider how the Lord has
multiplied His people, at this time. This is not that we are to glory in
multitudes, but to let you see the great work of God, Who has multiplied
His people thus. And as it was at the beginning of the plantation of the
Christian religion, there was three thousand converted at one preaching
of the apostle, I will not say that there has been three thousand
converted at a preaching here, but I may say this, that at one preaching