CCLXXXI.--_To my_ LORD LOUDOUN.
(_TRUE HONOUR IN MAINTAINING CHRIST'S CAUSE--PRELACY--LIGHT OF
ETERNITY._)
RIGHT HONOURABLE AND VERY WORTHY LORD,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you.--Hearing of your Lordship's zeal and courage for Christ our Lord
in His honourable cause, I am bold (and plead pardon for it) to speak
in paper by a line or two to your Lordship, since I have not access
any other way, beseeching your Lordship, by the mercies of God, and by
the everlasting peace of your soul, and by the tears and prayers of
our mother-church, to go on, as ye have worthily begun, in purging of
the Lord's house in this land, and plucking down the sticks of
Antichrist's filthy nest, this wretched Prelacy, and that black
kingdom whose wicked aims have ever been, and still are, to make this
fat world the only compass they would have Christ and religion to sail
by, and to mount up the Man of Sin, their godfather the Pope of Rome,
upon the highest stair of Christ's throne, and to make a velvet church
(in regard of Parliament grandeur and worldly pomp, whereof always
their stinking breath smelleth), and to put Christ and truth in
sackcloth and prison, and to eat the bread of adversity and drink the
water of affliction. Half an eye of any, not misted with the darkness
of antichristian smoke, may see it thus in this land. And now our Lord
hath begun to awaken the nobles and others to plead for borne-down
Christ and His weeping Gospel.
My dear and noble Lord, the eye of Christ is upon you; the eyes of
many noble, many holy, many learned and worthy ones, in our
neighbouring churches about, are upon you.[392] This poor church,
your mother and Christ's spouse, is holding up her hands and heart to
God for you, and doth beseech you with tears to plead for her Husband,
His kingly sceptre, and for the liberties that her Lord and King hath
given to her, as to a free kingdom that oweth spiritual tribute to
none on earth, as being the freeborn princess and daughter to the King
of kings. This is a cause that, before God, His angels, the world,
before sun and moon, needeth not to blush. Oh, what glory and true
honour is it to lend Christ your hand and service, and to be amongst
the repairers of the breaches of Zion's walls, and to help to build
the old waste places, and stretch forth the curtains, and strengthen
the stakes of Christ's tent in this land! Oh, blessed are they who,
when Christ is driven away, will bring Him back again, and lend Him
lodging! And blessed are ye of the Lord! Your name and honour shall
never rot nor wither (in heaven at least), if ye deliver the Lord's
sheep, that have been scattered in the dark and cloudy day, out of the
hands of strange lords and hirelings, who with rigour and cruelty have
caused them to eat the pastures trodden upon with their foul feet, and
to drink muddy water; and who have spun out such a world of yards of
indifferences in God's worship, to make and weave a web for the
Antichrist (which shall not keep any from the cold); as they mind
nothing else, but that, by the bringing in of the Pope's foul tail
first upon us (their wretched and beggarly ceremonies), they may
thrust in after them the Antichrist's legs and thighs, and his belly,
head, and shoulders; and then cry down Christ and the Gospel, and up
the merchandise and wares of the great whore. Fear not, my worthy
Lord, to give yourself, and all ye have, out for Christ and His
Gospel. No man dare say (who did ever thus hazard for Christ), that
Christ paid him not his hundred-fold in this life duly, and, in the
life to come, life everlasting. This is His own truth that ye now
plead for; for God and man cannot but commend you to beg justice from
a just prince for oppressed Christ, and to plead that Christ, who is
the King's Lord, may be heard in a free court to speak for Himself,
when the standing and established laws of our nation can strongly
plead for Christ's crown in the pulpits, and His chair as Lawgiver in
the free government of His own house. But Christ will never be content
and pleased with this land, neither shall His hot, fiery indignation
be turned away, so long as the prelate (the man that lay in
Antichrist's foul womb, and the Antichrist's lord-bailiff) shall sit
lord-carver in the courts of the Lord Jesus. The prelate is both the
egg and the nest to cleck and bring forth Popery. Plead, therefore, in
Christ's behalf, for the plucking down of the nest, and the crushing
of the egg; and let Christ's kingly office suffer no more unworthy
indignities. Be valiant for your royal King, Jesus; contend for Him:
your adversaries shall be moth-eaten worms, and die as men. Christ and
His honour now lie on your shoulders, let Him not fall to the ground.
Cast your eye upon Him who is quickly coming to decide all the
controversies in Zion. And remember that the sand in your night-glass
will run out; time with wings will flee away. Eternity is hard upon
you; and what will Christ's love-smiles, and the light of His lovely
and soul-delighting countenance, be to you in that day, when God shall
take up in His right hand this little lodge of heaven (like as a
shepherd lifteth up his little tent), and fold together the two leaves
of His tent, and put the earth and all the plenishing of it into a
fire, and turn this clay-idol, the god of Adam's sons, into smoke and
white ashes! Oh, what hire and how many worlds would many then give to
have a favourable decreet of the Judge! Oh, what moneys would they not
give, to buy a mountain to be a grave above both soul and body, to
hide them from the awesome looks of an angry Lord and Judge! I hope
that your Lordship thinketh upon this, and that ye mind loyalty to
Christ, and to the King both.
[392] We have already seen (note to Letter CXVI.) that John, Earl of
Loudon, was one of the Scottish nobles who most zealously espoused the
cause of the Second Reformation. In all the measures of the
Covenanters for promoting the cause of the Covenant, he took a leading
part; and from his high character, as well as his distinguished
talents, his party reposed in him with the utmost confidence. Wodrow
describes him as "a nobleman of excellent endowments, great learning,
singular wisdom and conduct, bewitching eloquence, joined with
remarkable resolution and courage."
Now the very God of peace, the only wise God, establish and strengthen
you upon the rock laid in Zion.
Your Lordship's at all obedience in Christ,