“Did Heaven look on
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls: Heaven rest them now.”
This is the oft repeated apprehension of a pious heart which fears still its own weakness, and finds, in the inscrutable and most awful visitatings of God a merited blow—a chastener of its still corrupt desires—a lesson to unlink it yet more from its grasp on mortality.
Immediately again Macduff prays to heaven—and in the same page Malcolm says:
“Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments.”