ABERDEEN, _Sept. 5, 1637_.
CCXXXI.--_To the Right Honourable my_ LORD LINDSAY.
[JOHN, TENTH LORD LINDSAY, resided at Byres, a house near _Balgonie_,
which in old charters is mentioned along with _Pitcruvie_ as belonging
to the Lindsays. He was the son of Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay, by his
wife Lady Christian Hamilton, eldest daughter of Thomas, first Earl of
Haddington. (See Letter LXXVII.) He was born about 1596, and was
created Earl of Lindsay, 8th May 1633. On the 23rd of July 1644 he was
constituted Lord High Treasurer of Scotland; and on the forfeiture of
Ludovick, Earl of Crawford, he had the title and estate of that
nobleman conferred on him by Act of Parliament, 26th July the same
year, so that he was thereafter designed Earl of Crawford and Lindsay.
Having entered with zeal into the "Engagement" for raising an army to
attempt the rescue of the King in 1648, he was deprived of his offices
by the Act of Classes, and excluded from Parliament till King Charles
II. came to Scotland in 1650, when a coalition of parties took place.
For the same reason, he fell under a censure of the church; but was
restored in July 1650. On the Restoration, he was reinstated in his
offices of High Treasurer of Scotland and Extraordinary Lord of
Session. He warmly opposed the Act Rescissory, annulling all the
Parliaments since 1633, as a terrible precedent, destroying the whole
security of government. In 1633, scrupling to take the declaration, he
resigned his situation as Lord High Treasurer for Scotland. Next year
he gave up his place of Extraordinary Lord of Session, and retired to
his country seat. "He was a man of great virtue, of good abilities,
and of an exemplary life in all respects. He died at Tyninghame in
1676, aged about eighty" (Douglas' "Peerage"). Rutherford's treatise,
entitled "A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Paul's Presbytery in
Scotland, printed at London in 1642," is dedicated to this nobleman.]
(_THE CHURCH'S DESOLATIONS--THE END OF THE WORLD, AND CHRIST'S
COMING--HIS ATTRACTIVENESS._)
RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY GOOD LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to
your Lordship.--Pardon my boldness to express myself to your Lordship
at this so needful a time, when your wearied and friendless
mother-kirk is looking round about her, to see if any of her sons doth
really bemoan her desolation. Therefore, my dear and worthy Lord, I
beseech you in the bowels of Christ, pity that widow-like sister and
spouse of Christ. I know that her Husband is not dead, but He seemeth
to be in another country, and seeth well, and beholdeth who are His
true and tender-hearted friends, who dare venture under the water to
bring out to dry land sinking truth; and who of the nobles will cast
up their arm, to ward a blow off the crowned head of our royal
Lawgiver who reigneth in Zion, who will plead and contend for Jacob in
the day of his controversy.
It is now time, my worthy and noble Lord, for you who are the little
nurse-fathers, 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 hath no more in
Scotland that is the delight of His eyes, than that one little sister,
whose breasts were once well-fashioned. She once ravished her
Well-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 the
galleries" (Cant. iv. 9; vi. 10; vii. 5, 7). But now the crown is
fallen from her head, and her gold waxed dim, and our white Nazarites
are become black as the 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 honour, and should bring their
glory and honour to the New Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 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 dow not go
on foot when Christ is on horseback, and that every nod of Christ,
commanding as 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 vote, as your alone
Lawgiver. I am sure that when you leave the old waste inn of this
perishing life, and shall reckon with your host, and depart hence, and
take shipping, and make over for eternity, which is the yonder side of
time (and a sand-glass of threescore short years is running out), to
look over your shoulder then to that which ye have done, spoken, and
suffered for Christ, His dear Bride that He ransomed with that blood
which is more precious than gold, and for truth, and the freedom of
Christ's kingdom, your accounts will 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, and 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
Parliament, all the determinations of pretended assemblies, against
Christ our Lawgiver. There will be shortly a proclamation by One
standing in the clouds, "that time shall be no more," and that courts
with kings of clay shall be no more; and prisons, confinements,
forfeitures of nobles, wrath of kings, hazard of lands, houses, and
name, for Christ, shall be no more. This world's span-length of time
is drawn now to less than half an inch, and to the point of the
evening of the day of this old gray-haired world. And, therefore, be
fixed and fast for Christ and His truth for a time; and fear not him
whose life goeth out at his nostrils, who shall die as a man. I am
persuaded Christ is responsal and law-biding, to make recompense for
anything that is hazarded or given out for Him. Losses for Christ are
but our goods given out in bank, in Christ's hand. Kings earthly are
well-favoured little clay-gods, time's idols; but a sight of our
invisible King shall decry 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 hath 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 the
light), is thought a canny and sure way through this life. But the
safest way, I am persuaded, is to tine and win with Christ, and to
hazard fairly for Him; for heaven is but a company of noble venturers
for Christ. I dare hazard my soul, that Christ will grow green, and
blossom like the Rose of Sharon yet in Scotland, howbeit now His leaf
seemeth to wither, and His root to dry up.
Your noble ancestors have been enrolled amongst the worthies of this
nation, as the sure friends of the Bridegroom, and valiant for Christ:
I hope that you will follow on to come to the streets for the same
Lord. The world is still at yea and nay 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 briers
are growing up, where nobles did spread a table), if you engage your
estate and nobility for this noble King Jesus, with whom the created
powers of the world are still in tops. All the world shall fall before
Him, and (as God liveth!) every arm lifted up to take the crown off
His royal head, or that refuseth to hold it on His head, shall be
broken from the shoulder-blade. The eyes that behold Christ weep in
sackcloth, and wallow in His blood, and will not help, even these eyes
shall rot away in their eye-holes. Oh, if ye 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
excellency! 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 the glory, joy, and peace,
and fire of love, which I thought had been kept whill supper-time,
when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon Christ, I have felt
in glorious beginnings, in my bonds for this princely Lord Jesus. Oh!
it is my sorrow, 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, suppose he should
lend Christ the Lordship of Lindsay, or some such great worldly
estate. Therefore, my worthy and dear Lord, set now your face against
the opposites of Jesus, and let your soul take courage to come under
His banner, to appear, as His soldier, for Him; and the blessings of a
falling kirk, the prayers of the prisoners of hope who wait for Zion's
joy, and the good-will of Him who 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, and your Lordship's obliged servant, in his
sweet Lord Jesus.