Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 106 – LETTER 107
To the Earle of Cassills. [106]
Right honourable & my very good Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to your Lo: I hope your Lo: Will be pleased to pardon my boldness, if [upon report of your zealous & forward minde that I hear our Lord hath given you in this his honourable cause, when Christ & his Gospel are so foully wronged] I speak to your Lo: in paper, entreating your Lo: to goe on in the strength of the Lord toward, and against a storm of Antichristian wind, that bloweth upon the face of this your poor mother-Church, Christ's lilie amongst the thorns. It is your Lo: Glory & happiness when ye see such a blow coming upon Christ, to cast up your arm to prevent it: Neither is it a cause that needeth to blush before the sun, or to flee the sentence or censure of impartial beholders, seeing the Question indeed [if it were rightly stated] is about the Prerogative royal of our princely & royal law-giver, our Lord Jesus, whose ancient march-stones & land-bounds our bastard Lord's, the earthly generation of tyrannizing Prelats, have boldly & shamefully removed: & they who have but-half an eye may see that it is the greedy desires of time-idolizing Demas's and the itching scab of ambitous and climbing Diotrephes's [who love the goat's life to climb till they cannot finde a way to set their soles on ground again] that hath made such a wide breach in our Zion's beautifull walls: and these are the men who seek no hire for the crucifying of Christ, but his coat. Oh how forlorn & desolate is the Bride of Christ made to all passers by! Who seeth not Christ buried in this land, his prophets hidden in caves, silenced, banished & imprisoned; Truth weeping in sackcloth before the Judges, Parliament & the Rulers of the land? But her bill is cast by them, & Holiness hideth it self, fearing the streets for the reporoaches & persecution of men: Justice is fallen a swoon in the gate, & the long shadows of the evening are stretched out upon us: Woe, woe to us, for our day flyeth away: what remaineth but that the Antichrist set down his tent in the midst of us, except your Lo: & others with you read Christ's supplication, & give him that which the most lewd and scandalous wretches in this land may have before a judge, even the poor man's due, law and justice for God's sake. O therefore, my noble & dear Lord, as ye have begun, goe on in the mighty power and strength of the Lord, to cause our Lord in his Gospel and afflicted members laugh, & to cause the Christian Churches [whose eyes are all now upon you] to sing for joy, when Scotland's moon shall shine like the light of the sun, & the sun like the light of seven dayes in one: ye can doe noless then run & bear up the head of your dying & swooning mother-Church, & plead for the production of her ancient charters: They hold out and put out, they hold in and bring in at their pleasure men in God's house; they stole the keys from Christ and his Church, and came in like the thief & the robber, not by the door Christ; & now their song is, Authority, Authority, obedience to Church-Governours. When such a bastard & lawless pretended step-dame as our prelacy is gone mad, it is your place who are the Nobles to rise & binde them; at least, law should fetter such wilde bulls as they are, who push all who oppose themselves to their domination. Alas! What have we lost since Prelats were made Master coiners to change our gold in brass, and to mix the Lord's wine with their water? Blessed for ever shall ye be of the Lord if ye help Christ against the mighty, and shall deliver the flock of God scattered upon the mountains in the dark & cloudy day, out of the hands of these idol-shepherds. Fear not men that shall be moth-eaten-clay that shall be rolled up in a chest, & casten under the earth: Let the holy one of Israel be your fear, & be couragious for the Lord and his truth. Remember your accounts coming upon you with wings, as fast as time posteth away: Remember what peace with God in Christ & the presence of the Son of God in the revealed & felt sweetness of his love, will be to you, when eternity shall put time to the door, & ye shall take good-night at Time, & this little shepherd's tent of clay, this Innes of a borrowed earth. I hope your Lo: is now & then sending out thoughts to view this world's naughtiness & vanity & the hoped-for glory of the life to come, & that ye resolve that Christ shall have your self & all yours at command for him, his honour & Gospel. Thus trusting your Lo: Will pardon my boldness, I pray that the onelyonly wise God, the very God of peace, may preserve, strengthen & establish you to the end.
Aberd. 1637. Your Lo: at all command & obedience in Chrst. S. R.
To the Lady ROVVALAND. [107]
MADAM.
THough not acquainted I am bold in Christ to speak to vour La: in paper: I rejoyce in our Lord Jesus on your behalf, that it hath pleased him [whose love to you is as old as himself] to manifest the savour of his love in Christ Jesus to your soul; in the revelation of his will & minde to you, now, when so many are shut up in unbelief. O the sweet change ye have made, in leaving the black kingdom of this world & sin, & coming over to our bridegroom's new kingdom, to know & to be taken with the love of the beautifull Son of God. I beseech you, Madam, in the Lord make now sure work, & see that the old house be casten down, & razed from the foundation, and that the new building of your soul be of Christ's own laying; for then wind and storm shall neither loose it, nor shake it asunder. Many now take Christ by guess: Be sure that it be he, and onelyonly he whom ye have met with: His sweet smell, his lovely voyce, his fair face, his sweet working in the soul will not lye, they will soon tell if it be Christ indeed [& I think your love to the saints speaketh that it is he] & therefore I say, be sure that ye take Christ himself, & take him with his father's blessing: his father alloweth him well upon, you, your lines are well fallen, it could not have been better, nor so well with you if they had not fallen in these places: In heaven or out of heaven there is nothing better, nothing so sweet & excellent as the thing ye have lighted on, & therefore hold you with Christ: Joy, much joy may ye have of him: But take his cross with himself cheerfully: Christ and his cross are not separable in this life; howbeit Christ & his cross part at heaven's door, for there is no house-room for crosses in heaven: one tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one losse, or thought of trouble cannot finde lodging there: they are but the markes of our Lord Jesus down in this wide innes & stormy countrey on this side of death: Sorrow & the saints are not married together, of suppose it were so, heaven shall make a divorce. I finde his sweet presence eateth out the bitterness of sorrow & suffering. I think it a sweet thing that Christ saith of my cross Halfmine, & that he divideth these sufferings with me & taketh the largest share to himself; nay that I & my whole cross are wholly Christ's. O what a portion is Christ! O that the saints would dig deeper in the treasures of his wisdom & excellency! Thus recommending your La: to the goodwill & tender mercies of our Lord, I rest
Aberd. Sept. 7. 1637 Yours La: in his sweet Lord Iesus, S. R.