Thirdly, Wo, wo is me for the virgin-daughter of Scotland, and for the fearful desolation and wrath appointed for this land! And yet all are sleeping, eating and drinking, laughing and sporting, as if all were well. Oh, our dim gold! our dumb, blind pastors! The sun is gone down upon them, and our nobles bid Christ fend for Himself, if He be Christ. It were good that we should learn in time the way to our stronghold.
Sir, howbeit not acquainted, remember my love to your wife. I pray God to establish you.
Yours in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Aberdeen, March 9, 1637.
[CXV.—To Mr. Alexander Henderson.]
[Alexander Henderson, the well-known hero of the Second Reformation, was born in the year 1583, and received his education at the University of St. Andrews. After having taught for several years a class of philosophy and rhetoric in that University, he obtained a presentation to the parish of Leuchars, in 1612. Being at that time unimpressed with spiritual truth, he was a defender of the principles and measures of the prelatic party in the Church. His settlement was on these accounts so unpopular, that on the day of his ordination the church-doors were secured by the people, and the members of Presbytery, together with the presentee, were obliged to break in by the window. But his soul was soon after visited by the Holy Spirit, and underwent an entire change. He became leader in effecting that revolution in the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland which commenced about the year 1637. He was Moderator of the famous Assembly which met at Glasgow in 1638, and by that Assembly was translated to Edinburgh. In the civil war, Henderson was appointed by the Covenanters to act as one of their commissioners in treating with his Majesty Charles I. In 1642 he was delegated by the Commission of the General Assembly to sit as one of their commissioners in the Westminster Assembly of Divines, which kept him in London for several years. He died on the 12th of August 1646, in the 63rd year of his age, shortly after his return from England. Baillie, in his speech to the General Assembly in the following year, pronounced him, "the fairest ornament after Mr. John Knox, of incomparable memory, that ever the Church of Scotland did enjoy.">[
(SADNESS BECAUSE CHRIST'S HEADSHIP NOT SET FORTH—HIS CAUSE ATTENDED WITH CROSSES—THE BELIEVER SEEN OF ALL.)
