To the Earl of Cassilis — Letter 63

My very honorable and noble Lord.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to your lordship. Pardon me in expressing my earnest desire to your lordship for Zion's sake, for whose sake we should not hold our peace. I know your lordship will take my pleading on this behalf in the better part, because the necessity of a falling and weak church is urgent. I believe your lordship is one of Zion's friends, and that by obligation; for when the Lord shall count and write up the people, it shall be written: 'This man was born there.' Therefore, because your lordship is a born son of the house, I hope your desire is that the beauty and glory of the Lord may dwell in the midst of the city of which your lordship is a son. It must be, without all doubt, the greatest honor of your place and house to kiss the Son of God, and for his sake to be kind to his oppressed and wronged bride, who now in the day of her desolation begs help of you who are the shields of the earth. I am sure many kings, princes, and nobles in the day of Christ's second coming would be glad to run errands for Christ, even bare-footed through fire and water; but in that day he will have none of their service. Now he is asking if your lordship will help him against the mighty of the earth, when men are setting their shoulders to Christ's fair and beautiful tent in this land to loosen its stakes and break it down. Certainly such as are not with Christ are against him. And blessed shall your lordship be of the Lord, blessed shall your house and seed be, and blessed shall your honor be, if you pledge and lay in Christ's hand the earldom of Cassilis — which is but a shadow in comparison of the city made without hands — and lay it even at stake, rather than let Christ and downtrodden truth want a witness from you, against the apostasy of this land. You hold your lands of Christ; your charters are under his seal. And he who has many crowns on his head deals, cuts, and carves pieces of this clay heritage to men at his pleasure. It is little your lordship has to give him; he will not rest long in your debt, but shall surely repay your losses for his cause. It is but our bleared eyes that look through a false glass at this idol-god of clay and think something of it. Those who are past with their last sentence to heaven or hell, and have made their reckoning and departed out of this smoky inn, now have no other opinion of this world but as a piece of deceiving, well-burnished clay. And how fast does time — like a flood ever in motion — carry your lordship out of it? And is not eternity coming on wings? Court life does not go on in heaven as it does here. Our Lord, who has all of you the nobles lying in the cup of his balance, esteems you accordingly as you are the bridegroom's friends or foes. Your honorable ancestors with the hazard of their lives brought Christ to our hands, and it shall be cruelty to posterity if you lose him to them. One of our tribes — the sons of Levi, the watchmen — has fallen from the Lord and has sold their mother and their father also, and the Lord's truth, for their new velvet world and their satin church. If you the nobles play Christ a trick, now when his back is at the wall, if I may so speak, then may we say the Lord has cast water upon Scotland's smoking coal. But we hope better things of you. It is no wisdom — however it be the state-wisdom now in fashion — to be silent when they are casting lots for something better than Christ's coat. All this land, and every man's part in the play for Christ, and the tears of poor and friendless Zion — now going mournfully in sackcloth — are up in heaven before our Lord. And there is no question but our King and Lord shall be master of the field at length, and we would all be glad to divide the spoil with Christ and to ride in triumph with him. But oh, how few will take a cold bed of straw in the camp with him! How eagerly would men have a well-thatched house above their heads all the way to heaven? And many now would go to heaven by the land route — for they love not to be seasick — riding up to Christ on horseback and in rattling coaches, rubbing their velvet with the princes of the land in the highest seats. If this be the way Christ called strait and narrow, I give up all pretense to knowledge of the way to salvation. Are they not now auctioning Christ and the gospel? Have they not put our Lord Jesus to market, and whoever outbids his fellow shall get him? O my dear and noble Lord, go on — though the wind be in your face — to back our princely Captain; be courageous for him. Fear not those who have no signed lease of days; the worms shall eat kings. Let the Lord Jehovah be your fear, and then, as the Lord lives, the victory is yours. It is true many are striking up a new way to heaven, but my soul for theirs if they find it, and if this be not the only way whose end is Christ's Father's house. My weak experience since the day I was first in bonds has confirmed me in the truth and assurance of this. Let doctors and learned men cry the contrary — I am persuaded this is the way. The bottom has fallen out of both their wit and conscience at once; their book has deceived them, for we have found the true Christ. I dare hazard — if I alone had ten souls — my salvation upon this stone that many now break their bones upon. Let them take this fat world; oh, poor and hungry is their paradise! Therefore let me entreat your lordship, by your appearance before Christ now while this piece of the afternoon of your day is before you — for you know not when your sun will turn and eternity will be night about you — let your glory, honor, and worldly might be for our Lord Jesus. And to his rich grace, and tender mercy, and to the never-dying comforts of his gracious Spirit, I commend your lordship and noble house.

Aberdeen, September 9, 1637. Your lordship's at all obedience, S. R.