[171] Spin fine.
LXXVIII.--_To my_ LORD BOYD.
[ROBERT, seventh LORD BOYD, was the only son of Robert, sixth
Lord Boyd, by Lady Christian Hamilton, mentioned in the preceding
letter. His father (who was cousin of the famous Robert Boyd of
Trochrig, two miles from Girvan, and under whom he studied at
Saumur) died in August 1628, at the early age of 33. Young Robert
was served heir to his father the 9th of May 1629. His earthly
course was, however, brief; for he died of a fever on the 17th of
November 1640, aged about 24. He was married to Lady Anne
Fleming, second daughter of John, second Earl of Wigtown. Lord
Boyd warmly espoused the side of the Covenanters; and though not
a member of the General Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638, he
attended its meetings and took a deep interest in its
proceedings.]
(_ENCOURAGEMENT TO EXERTION FOR CHRIST'S CAUSE._)
MY VERY HONOURABLE AND GOOD LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to your
Lordship. Out of the worthy report that I hear of your Lordship's zeal
for this borne-down and oppressed Gospel, I am bold to write to your
Lordship, beseeching you by the mercies of God, by the honour of our
royal and princely King Jesus, by the sorrows, tears, and desolation
of your afflicted mother-Church, and by the peace of your conscience,
and your joy in the day of Christ, that your Lordship would go on, in
the strength of your Lord, and in the power of His might, to bestir
yourself, for the vindicating of the fallen honour of your Lord Jesus.
Oh, blessed hands for evermore, that shall help to put the crown upon
the head of Christ again in Scotland! I dare promise, in the name of
our Lord, that this will fasten and fix the pillars and the stakes of
your honourable house upon earth, if you lend and lay in pledge in
Christ's hand, upon spiritual hazard, life, estate, house, honour,
credit, moyen, friends, the favour of men (suppose kings with three
crowns), so being that ye may bear witness, and acquit yourself as a
man of valour and courage to the Prince of your salvation, for the
purging of His temple, and sweeping out the lordly Diotrepheses,
time-courting Demases, corrupt Hymenæuses and Philetuses, and other
such oxen, that with their dung defile the temple of the Lord. Is not
Christ now crying, "Who will help Me? who will come out with Me, to
take part with Me, and share in the honour of My victory over these
Mine enemies, who have said, We will not have this man to rule over
us?"
My very honourable and dear Lord, join, join (as ye do) with Christ.
He is more worth to you and your posterity than this world's
May-flowers, and withering riches and honour, that shall go away as
smoke, and evanish in a night vision, and shall, in one half-hour
after the blast of the archangel's trumpet, lie in white ashes. Let me
beseech your Lordship to draw by the lap of time's curtain, and to
look in through the window to great and endless eternity, and consider
if a worldly price (suppose this little round clay globe of this ashy
and dirty earth, the dying idol of the fools of this world, were all
your own) can be given for one smile of Christ's God-like and
soul-ravishing countenance. In that day when so many joints and knees
of thousand thousands wailing shall stand before Christ, trembling,
shouting, and making their prayers to hills and mountains to fall upon
them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb, oh, how many would sell
lordships and kingdoms that day, and buy Christ! But, oh, the market
shall be closed and ended ere then! Your Lordship hath now a blessed
venture of winning court with the Prince of the kings of the earth. He
Himself weeping; truth borne down and fallen in the streets, and an
oppressed Gospel; Christ's bride with watery eyes and spoiled of her
veil, her hair hanging about her eyes, forced to go in ragged apparel;
the banished, alienated, and imprisoned prophets of God, who have not
the favour of liberty to prophesy in sackcloth, all these, I say, call
for your help. Fear not worms of clay; the moth shall eat them as a
garment. Let the Lord be your fear; He is with you, and shall fight
for you; and ye shall make the heart of this your mother-Church to
sing for joy. The Lamb and His armies are with you, and the kingdoms
of the earth are the Lord's. I am persuaded that there is not another
gospel, nor another saving truth, than that which ye now contend for.
I dare hazard my heaven and salvation upon it, that this is the only
saving way to glory.
Grace, grace, be with your Lordship.
Your Lordship's at all respectful obedience in Christ,