Letters in Two Parts, Part 1 · LETTER 214
To my Lord LOWDOUN. (214)
Right honourable & my very worthy Lord.
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: Hearing of your Lo: zeal & courage for Christ our Lord, in owning his honourable cause, I am bold [& I plead pardon sor it] to speak in paper by a line or two to your Lo: [since I have not access any other way] beseeching your Lo: by the mercies of God, & by the everlasting peace of your soul, & by the tears & prayers of our mother-Church, to goe on as ye have worthily begun, in purging of the Lord's house in this land & plucking down the sticks of Antichrist's filthy nest, this wretched Prelacy, & that black Kingdom, whose wicked aims have ever been & still are, to make this fat world the onelyonly Compass they would have Christ and Religion to sail by, and to mount up the man of sin, their god-father the Pope of Rome, upon the highest stair of Christ's throne, and to make a velvet-Church [in regard of Parliament-grandour & wordly pomp, whereof alwayes their stinking breath smelleth] & to put Christ & truth in sack-cloth & prison, & to eat the bread of adversitie and drink the water of affliction: Half an eye of any not misted with the darkness of Antichristian smoke, may see it thus in this land: & now our Lord hath begun to awaken the Nobles & others to plead for born-down Christ & his weeping Gospel: My dear & noble Lord, the eye of Christ is upon you; the eyes of many noble, many holy, many learned & worthy ones in our neighbour Churches about are upon you: This poor Church, your mother & Christ's spouse, is holding up her hands & heart to God for you, and doeth beseech you with tears to plead for her husband, his Kingly Scepter, & for the liberties that her Lord & King hath given to her, as to a free Kingdom, that oweth spiritual tribute to none on earth, as being the free-born Princess & daughter to the King of Kings. This is a Cause that before God, his Angels, the World, before Sun & Moon, needeth not to blush. O what glory & true honour is it to lend Christ your hand & service, & to be amongst the repairers of the breaches of Sion's walls, & to help to …uild the old waste places, and stretch forth the curtains & strengthen the stakes of Christ's tent in this land! O blessed are they, who, when Christ is driven away, will bring him back again & lend him lodging! And blessed are ye of the Lord; your name & honour shall never rot or wither in heaven [at least] if ye deliver the Lord's sheep that have been scattered in the dark & cloudy day, out of the hands of strange Lords & hirelings, who with rigour & cruelty, have caused them to eat the pastures troden upon with their foul feet, & to drink muddy water, & who have spun out such a world of yards of …ndifferencies in God's Worship, to make & weave a web for the Antichrist [that shall not keep any from the cold] as they minde nothing else, but that by the bringing in of the Pope's foul tail first upon us [their wretched and beggerly Ceremonies] they may thrust in after them, the Antichrist's legs & thighs & his belly, head & shoulders, & then cry down Christ & the Gospel & up the merchandise & wares of the great whore. Fear not, my worthy Lord, to give your self & all ye have, out for Christ & his Gospel: No man dare say who ever did thus hazard for Christ, that Christ payed him not his hundred fold in this life duely, & in the life to come, life everlasting. This is his own truth ye now plead for, for God and man cannot but commend you to beg justice from a just Prince for oppressed Christ, & to plead that Christ, who is the King's Lord, may be heard in a free court to speak for himself, when the standing & established laws of our nation can strongly plead for Christ's crown in the pulpits, & his chair as Law-giver in the free Government of his own house: But Christ shall never be content & pleased with this land, neither shall his hot fiery indignation be turned away, so long as the Prelate, [the man that l…y in Antichrist's foul womb & the Antichrist's Lord Bailiffe] shall sit Lord-carver in the Lord Jesus his courts: The Prelate is both the egge & the nest to cleck & bring forth Popery: Plead therefore in Christ's behalf for the plucking down of the nest & crushing of the egge, & let Christ's Kingly Office suffer no more unworthy indignities. Be valiant for your royal King Jesus, contend for him; your adversaries shall be moth-eaten worms, and shall die as men: Christ and his honour now lieth upon your shoulders, let him not fall to the ground: Cast your eye upon him who is quickly coming to decide all the controversies in Zion, & remember the sand in your night-glass will run out: Time with wings will flye away, Eternity, is hard upon you, & what will Christ's lovesmiles & the light of his lovely & soul delighting countenance be to you in that day, when God shall take up in his right hand this little lodge of heaven [like as a shepherd lifteth up his little tent] & sold together the two leaves of his tent, & put the earth & all the plenishing of it into a fire, & turn this clay-Idol, the god of Adam's sons, in to smoke & white ashes! O what hire & how many worlds would many then give to have a favourable decreet of the Judge! Or what moneyes would they not give to buy a mountain to be a grave above both soul & body, to hide them from the awsom looks of an angry Lord & Judge! I hope, your Lo: thinketh upon this, & that ye minde loyalty to Christ & to the King both. Now the very God of peace, the onelyonly wise God, establish & strengthen you upon the rock laid in Zion.
Aberd. Jan. 4. 1638. Your Lo: at all obedience in Christ, S. R.