To the Right Honourable My Lord Lindsay — Letter 38

Right honorable and my very good Lord.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to your lordship. Pardon my boldness in expressing myself to your lordship at this so needful a time, when your weary and friendless mother-church is looking round about her, to see if any of her sons truly bewails her desolation. Therefore, my dear and worthy Lord, I beseech you in the tender mercies of Christ, pity that widow-like sister and spouse of Christ. I know her husband is not dead, but he seems to be in another country, and he sees well and beholds who are his true and tender-hearted friends — who dare venture under the water to bring to dry land a sinking truth, and who among the nobles will cast up their arm to ward a blow off the crowned head of our royal Lawgiver who reigns in Zion, and who will plead and contend for his people in the day of his controversy. It is now time, my worthy and noble Lord, for you who are the little nurse-fathers of the church, under our Sovereign Prince, to put on courage for the Lord Jesus and to take up a fallen orphan speaking out of the dust, and to embrace in your arms Christ's bride. He has no more in Scotland that is the delight of his eyes, but that one little sister, whose breasts were once well fashioned. She once ravished her beloved with her eyes and overcame him with her beauty; she looked forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners; her stature was like the palm tree, and her breasts like clusters of grapes, and she held the King in his galleries — see (Song of Solomon 4:9, 6:10, and 7:5-7). But now the crown is fallen from her head, and her gold has grown dim, and our noble ones are become black as coal. Blessed are they who will come out and help Christ against the mighty. The shields of the earth and the nobles are debtors to Christ for their honor, and should bring their glory and honor to the new Jerusalem — see (Revelation 21:24). Alas, that great men should be so far from subjecting themselves to the sweet yoke of Christ, that they burst his bonds asunder and think they cannot walk when Christ is on horseback, and that every nod of Christ commanding as a King is a load like a mountain of iron. And therefore they say: This man shall not reign over us — we must have another king than Christ in his own house. Therefore kneel to Christ and kiss the Son, and let him have your lordship's allegiance as your alone Lawgiver. I am sure, when you leave this old, decaying house of this perishing life and shall reckon with your host and depart hence and take shipping and make over for eternity — which is on the far side of time — and an hourglass of sixty short years is running out: to look over your shoulder then at what you have done, spoken, and suffered for Christ, his dear bride whom he ransomed with that blood more precious than gold, and for truth and the freedom of Christ's kingdom — your accounts shall more sweetly smile and laugh upon you than if you had two worlds of gold to leave to your posterity. O my dear Lord, consider that our Master, eternity, judgment, and the last reckoning will be upon us in the twinkling of an eye. The blast of the last trumpet, now hard at hand, will cry down all acts of parliaments, all the determinations of pretended assemblies against Christ our Lawgiver. There will shortly be a proclamation by one standing in the clouds, that time shall be no more, and that court with kings of clay shall be no more, and prisons, confinements, forfeitures of nobles, wrath of kings, hazard of lands, houses, and reputation for Christ, shall be no more. This world's span of time is drawn now to less than half an inch, and to the point of evening, of this old and gray-haired world. And therefore be fixed and fast for Christ and his truth for a time, and fear not him whose life goes out at his nostrils, who shall die as a man. I am persuaded Christ is answerable and law-abiding, to make recompense for anything that is hazarded or given out for him; losses for Christ are but our goods given out in trust in Christ's hand. Earthly kings are well-favored little clay gods and time's idol, but a sight of our invisible King shall discredit and darken all the glory of this world. At the day of Christ, truth shall be truth and not treason. Alas, it is pitiful that silence, when the thatch of our Lord's house has taken fire, is now the flower and bloom of court and state wisdom, and to cast a covering over a good profession — as if it blushed at light — is thought a safe and sure way through this life. But the safest way, I am persuaded, is to lose and win with Christ, and to venture fairly for him, for heaven is but a company of noble venturers for Christ. I dare stake my soul: Christ shall grow green and blossom as the rose of Sharon yet in Scotland, though now his leaf seems to wither and his root to dry up. Your noble ancestors have been enrolled among the worthies of this nation as the sure friends of the bridegroom and valiant for Christ; I hope you will follow on, to come to the streets for the same Lord. The world is still at odds with Christ; it shall be your glory and the sure foundation of your house — now when houses are tumbling down and birds building their nests and thorns and briars are growing up where nobles once spread a table — if you engage your estate and nobility for this noble King Jesus. With him the created powers of the world are still at war; all the world shall fall before him, and as God lives, every arm lifted up to take the crown off his royal head, or that refuses to hold it upon his head, shall be broken from the shoulder. The eyes that behold Christ weep in sackcloth and wallow in his blood, and will not help — even those eyes shall rot away in their sockets. O if you and the nobles of this land saw the beauty of that world's wonder, Jesus our King, and the glory of him who is angels' wonder and heaven's wonder for excellence! Oh, what would men count of clay-estates, of time-eaten life, of worm-eaten and moth-eaten worldly glory, in comparison of that fairest, fairest of God's creation — the Son of the Father's delights! I have but small experience of suffering for him, but let my judge and witness in heaven lay my soul in the balance of justice, if I find not a young heaven and a little paradise of glorious comforts and soul-delighting love-kisses of Christ here beneath the moon in suffering for him and his truth. And that glory, joy, peace, and fire of love I thought had been kept until supper time, when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon Christ — I have felt it in glorious beginnings, in my bonds, for this princely Lord Jesus. Oh, it is my sorrow and my daily pain that men will not come and see. I would now be ashamed to believe that it should be possible for any soul to think that he could be a loser for Christ, even if he should lend Christ the lordship of Lindsay or some such great worldly estate. Therefore, my worthy and dear Lord, set your face against the opponents of Jesus, and let your soul take courage to come under his banner, to appear as his soldier for him. And the blessings of an afflicted church, the prayers of the prisoners of hope who wait for Zion's joy, and the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush and it burned not, shall be with you. To his saving grace I recommend your lordship and your house, and am still Christ's prisoner.

Aberdeen, September 7, 1637. Your lordship's obliged servant in his sweet Lord Jesus, S. R.