(_IDOLATRY CONDEMNED._)
MY LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I am not only content,
but I exceedingly rejoice, that I find any of the rulers of this land,
and especially your Lordship so to affect Christ and His truth, as
that ye dare, for His name, come to yea and nay with monarchs in their
face. I hope that He who hath enabled you for that, will give more, if
ye show yourself courageous, and (as His word speaketh), "a man in the
streets," for the Lord (Jer. v. 1). But I pray your Lordship, give me
leave to be plain with you, as one who loveth both your honour and
your soul. I verily believe that there was never idolatry at Rome,
never idolatry condemned in God's word by the prophets, if religious
kneeling before a consecrated creature, standing in room of Christ
crucified, in that very act, and that for reverence of the elements
(as our Act cleareth), be not idolatry.[273] Neither will your
_intention_ help, which is not of the essence of worship; for then,
Aaron saying, "To-morrow shall be a feast for Jehovah," that is, for
the golden calf, should not have been guilty of idolatry: for he
_intended_ only to decline the lash of the people's fury, not to
honour the calf. Your intention to honour Christ is nothing, seeing
that religious kneeling, by God's institution, doth necessarily import
religious and divine adoration, suppose that our intention were both
dead and sleeping; otherwise, kneeling before the image of God and
directing prayer to God were lawful, if our intention go right. My
Lord, I cannot in these bounds dispute; but if Cambridge and Oxford,
and the learning of Britain, will answer this argument, and the
argument from active scandal, which your Lordship seemeth to stand
upon, I will turn a formalist, and call myself an arrant fool (by
doing what I have done) in my suffering for this truth. I do much
reverence Mr. L.'s[274] learning; but, my Lord, I will answer what he
writeth 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, and are not worth a straw for your conscience. A Marquis' or
a King's word, when ye stand before Christ's tribunal, shall be
lighter than the wind. The Lord knoweth that I love your true honour,
and the standing of your house; but I would not that your honour or
house were established upon sand, and hay, and stubble.
[273] See Letter XCII.
[274] Probably Mr. Loudian. Letter LXXXVI., note.
But let me, my very dear and worthy Lord, most humbly beseech you, by
the mercies of God, by the consolations of His Spirit, by the dear
blood and wounds of your lovely Redeemer, by the salvation of your
soul, by your compearance before the awful face of a sin-revenging and
dreadful Judge, not to set in comparison together your soul's peace,
Christ's love, and 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 believe that Christ is now begging a testimony of
you, and is saying, "And will ye also leave Me?" It is possible that
the wind shall not blow so fair for you all your life, for coming out
and appearing before others to back and countenance Christ, the
fairest among the sons of men, the Prince of the kings of the earth.
"Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their
revilings: for the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm
shall eat them like wool" (Isa. li. 7, 8). When the Lord will begin,
He will make an end, and mow down His adversaries; and they shall lie
before Him like withered hay, and their bloom be shaken off them.
Consider how many thousands in this kingdom ye shall cause to fall
and stumble, if ye go with them; and that ye shall be out of the
prayers of many who do now stand before the Lord for you and your
house. And further; when the time of your accounts cometh, and your
one foot shall be within the border of eternity, and the eyestrings
shall break, and the face wax pale, and the poor soul shall look out
at the windows of the house of clay, longing to be out, and ye shall
find yourself arraigned before the Judge of quick and dead, to answer
for your putting to your hand, with the rest confederated against
Christ, to the overturning of His ark, and the loosing of the pins of
Christ's tabernacle in this land, and shall certainly see yourself
mired in a course of apostasy--then, then, a king's favour and your
worm-eaten honour shall be miserable comforters to you! The Lord hath
enlightened you with the knowledge of His will; and as the Lord
liveth, they lead you and others to a communion with great Babel, the
mother of fornications. God said of old, and continueth to say the
same to you, "Come out of her, My people, lest ye be partakers of her
plagues." Will ye, then, go with them, and set your lip to the whore's
golden cup, and drink of the wine of the wrath of God Almighty with
them? Oh, poor hungry honour! Oh, cursed pleasure! and, oh, damnable
ease, bought with the loss of God! How many will pray for you! what a
sweet presence shall ye find of Christ under your sufferings, if ye
will lay down your honours and place at the feet of Christ. What a
fair recompense of reward! I avouch before the Lord that I am now
showing 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), and for life everlasting also. Make not
Christ a liar, in distrusting His promise. Kings of clay cannot back
you when you stand before Him. A straw for them and their hungry
heaven, that standeth on this side of time! A fig for the day's-smile
of a worm! Consider who have gone before you to eternity, and would
have given a world for a new occasion of avouching that truth. It is
true they call it not substantial, and we are made a scorn to those
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, and
we will count with the best of them.
I have found by experience, since the time of my imprisonment (my
witness is above), that Christ is sealing this honourable cause with
another and a nearer fellowship than ever I knew before; and let God
weigh me in an even balance 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 believe that if He should come from heaven in His own
person, and seek the charters of Craighall from you, and a demission
of your place, and ye saw His face, ye would fall down at His feet and
say, "Lord Jesus, it is too little for Thee." If any man think it not
a truth to die for, I am against him. I dare go to eternity with it,
that this day the honour of our Lawgiver and King, in the government
of His own free kingdom (who should pay tribute to no dying king), is
the true "state of the question."[275] My Lord, be ye upon Christ's
side of it, and take the word of a poor prisoner (nay, the Lord Jesus
be surety for it), that ye have incomparably made the wisest choice.
For my own part, I have so been in this prison, that I would be
half-ashamed 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 go to heaven by
dry land, and love not sea-storms. But I write it under my hand (and
would say more, if possibly a reader would not deem it hypocrisy),
that my obligation to Christ for the smell of His garments, for His
love-kisses these thirty weeks, standeth so great, that I should (and
I desire also to choose to) suspend my salvation, to have many tongues
loosed in my behalf to praise Him. And, suppose in person I never
entered within the gates of the New Jerusalem, yet so being Christ may
be set on high, and I had the liberty to cast my love and praises for
ever over the wall to Christ, I would be silent and content. But oh,
He is more than my narrow praises! O time, time, flee swiftly, that
our communion with Jesus may be perfected!
[275] "_Status quæstionis_," a phrase in logical works--the way of
stating a matter to be discussed.
I wish that your Lordship would urge Mr. L. to give his mind in the
ceremonies; and be pleased to let me see it as quickly as can be, and
it shall be answered.
To His rich grace I recommend your Lordship, and shall remain,
Yours, at all respectful obedience in Christ,