Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 210
To my Lord CRAIGHALL. (210.)
My Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: I am not onelyonly content but I exceedingly rejoyce, that I finde any of the Rulers of this Land, & especially your Lo: so to affect Christ and his truth, as ye dare for his name come to yea & nay with Monarchs in their face. I hope he who hath enabled you for that, will give more, if ye shew your self couragious, & as his word speaketh, a man in the streets for the Lord: But I pray your Lo: give me leave to be plain with you, as one who loveth both your honour & your soul. I verily beleeve, there was never Idolatry at Rome, never Idolatry condemned in God's word by the Prophets, if religious kneeling before a consecrate creature standing in room of Christ crucified, in that very act, & that for reverence of the Elements (as our Act cleareth) be not Idolatry. Neither will your intention help, which is not of the essence of Worship: for then Aaron saying, To morrow shall be afeast for Iehovah, that is, for the golden Calf, should not have been guilty of Idolatry; for he intended onelyonly to decline the lash of the people's fury, not to honour the Calf: Your intention to honour Christ is nothing, seeing religious kneeling by God's institution doeth necessarily import religious & divine adoration, suppose our intention were both dead & sleeping: Otherwise kneeling before the Image of God, directing prayer to God, were lawfull, if our intention goe right. My Lord, I cannot in this bounds dispute, but if Cambridge & Oxford & the learning of Britain will answer this argument, & the argument from active scandal, which your Lo: seemeth to stand upon, I will turn a formalist & call my self an arrant fool by doing what I have done in my suffering for this truth. I doe much reverence Mr Ls. learning, but my Lo: I will answer what he writes in that to pervert you from the truth, else repute me beside an hypocrite, an ass also, & I hope ye shall see something upon that subject, if the Lord permit, that no sophistry in Britain shall answer. Courtiers arguments for the most part, are drawn from their own skin, & are not worth a straw for your conscience. A Marquess or a King's word, when ye stand before Christ's tribunal, shall be lighter then wind. The Lord knoweth I love your true honour & the standing of your house, but I would not your honour or house were established upon sand, & hay & stubble. But let me, my very dear & worthy Lord, most humbly beseech you by the mercies of God, by the consolations of his Spirit, by the dear blood & wounds of your lovely Redeemer, by the salvation of your soul, by your compearance before the awfull face of a sin-revenging & dreadfull Judge, not to set in comparison together your soul's peace, Christ's love & his Kingly honour now called in question, with your place, honour, house, or ease, that an inch of time will make out of the way. I verily beleeve, Christ is now begging a testimony of you, & is saying, And will ye also leave me. It is possible the wind shall not blow so fair for you all your life, for coming out & appearing before others to back & countenance Christ the fairest among the sons of men, the Prince of the Kings of the earth. Isa. 51. 7. Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings. v. 8. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, & the worm shall eat them like wool. When the Lord shall begin, he shall make an end, & mow down his adversaries, and they shall lie before him like withered hay, & their bloom shaken off them. Consider how many thousands in this Kingdom veshall cause to fall & stumble, if ye goe with them, & that ye shall be out of the prayers of many who doe stand before the Lord for you & your house: & further, when the time of your accounts cometh, & your one foot shall be within the border of eternity, & the eye-strings shall break, & the face wax pale, & the soul shall look out at the windows of the house of clay, longing to be out, & ye shall finde your self arraigned before the Judge of quick & dead to answer for the putting to your hand with the rest, confederate against Christ, to the overturning of his Ark & the loosing of the pins of Christ's tabernacle in this land, & shall certainly s…e your self mired in a course of Apostasie, then, then a King's favour & your worm-eaten honour shall be miserable comforters to you. The Lord hath enlightened you with the knowledge of his will: & as the Lord liveth, they lead you and others to a communion with great Babel, the mother of fornications: & God said of old, & continueth to say the same to you, Come out of her my people, lest ye be partakers of her plagues: will ye then goe with them, & set your lip to the whore's golden cup, & drink of the wine of the wrath of God Almighty with them? O poor hungry honour! O cursed pleasures! And O damnable ease, bought with the loss of God! How many shall pray for you! What a sweet presence shall …efinde of Christ under your sufferings, if ye shall lay down your honour & place at the feet of Christ! What a fair recompence of reward! I avouch before the Lord that I am now shewing you a way how the house of Craighall may stand on sure pillars: If ye will set it on rotten pillars, ye cruelly wrong your posterity: Ye have the word of a King for an hundred fold more in this life [if it be good for you] & for life everlasting also: Make not Christ a liar, in distrusting his promise. Kings of clay cannot back you when ye stand before him, a straw for them & their hungry heaven that standeth on this side of time, a fig for the dayes-smile of a wo…m. Consider who have gone before you to eternity & would have given a world for a new occasion of a vouching that truth: It's true, they call it not substantial, and we are made a scorn to these that are at ease, for suffering these things for it; but it is not time to judge of our losses by the morning, stay till the evening & we shall count with the best of them. I have found by experience since the time of my imprisonment [my witness is above] Christ fealing this honourable cause with another & a nearer fellowship then ever I knew before, and let God weigh me in an even ballance in this, if I would exchange the cross of Christ or his truth with the fourteen Prelacies or what else a King can give. My dear Lord, venture to take the wind on your face for Christ: I beleeve, if he should come from heaven in his own person, & seek the charters of Craighall from you, & a dimission of your place, & ye saw his face, ye would fall down at his feet and say, Lord Iesus, it is too little for …ee. If any man think it not a truth to die for, I am against him: I dare goe to eternity with it, that this day the honour of our royal Law-giver & King in the Government of his own free Kingdom [who should pay tribute to no dying King] is the true state of the question. My Lord, be ye upon Christ's side of it, & take the word of a poor prisoner, nay the Lord Jesus be surety for it; ye have incomparably made the wisest choice: for my own part, I have been in this prison that I would be half a hamed to seek more, till I be up at the well-head. Few know in this world the sweetness of Christ's breath, the excellency of his love which hath neither brim nor bottom: the world hath raised a slander upon the cross of Christ, because they love to goe to heaven by dry land & love not sea-storms: But I write it under my hand [& would say more, if possibly a reader would not deem it hypocrisie] My obligation to Christ for the smell of his garments, for his lovekisses these thirty weeks, standeth so great, that I should, & I desire also to chuse to suspend my salvation, to have many tongues loosed in my behalf to praise him: & suppose in person I never entered within the gates of the new …erusalem, yet sobeing Christ may be set on high & I had the liberty to cast my love & praises for ever over the wall to Christ, I would be silent & content. But O he is more then my narrow praises! O time, time, flee swiftly, that our communion with Jesus may be perfected. I wish your Lo: would urge Mr L. to give his minde in the Ceremonies & be pleased to let me s…e it as quickly as can be, & it shall be answered. To his rich grace I recommend your Lo: & shall remain.
Aberd. Juny 8. 1637. Yours at all respective obedience in Christ, S. R.