Part 570

I have cause to speak this, because, except you possess and enjoy Christ, ye will be a cold friend to His spouse; for it is love to the husband that causeth kindness to the wife. I dare swear it were a blessing to your house, the honour of your honour, the flower of your credit, now in your place, and as far as ye are able, to lend your hand to your weeping mother, even your oppressed and spoiled mother-kirk. If ye love her, and bestir yourself for her, and hazard the Lordship of Boyd for the recovery of her vail, which the smiting watchmen have taken from her, then surely her Husband will scorn to sleep in your common, or reverence. Bits of lordships are little to Him who hath many crowns on His head, and the kingdoms of the world in the hollow of His hand. Court, glory, honour, riches, stability of houses, favour of princes, are all on His finger-ends. Oh what glory were it to lend your honour to Christ, and to His Jerusalem! Ye are one of Zion's born sons; your honourable and Christian parents would venture you upon Christ's errands. Therefore, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, by the death and wounds of Jesus, by the hope of your glorious inheritance, and by the comfort and hope of the joyful presence ye would have at the water-side, when ye are putting your foot in the dark grave, take courage for Christ's truth, and the honour of His free kingdom. For, howbeit ye be a young flower, and green before the sun, ye know not how soon death will cause you cast your bloom, and wither root, and branch, and leaves; and, therefore, write up what ye have to do for Christ, and make a treasure of good works, and begin in time. By appearance ye have the advantage of the brae. See what ye can do for Christ, against those who are waiting whill Christ's tabernacle fall, that they may run away with the boards thereof, and build their nests on Zion's ruins. They are blind who see not louns now pulling up the stakes, and breaking the cords, and rending the curtains of Christ's sometime beautiful tent in this land. Antichrist is lifting that tent up upon his shoulders, and going away with it; and when Christ and the Gospel are out of Scotland, dream not that your houses shall thrive, and that it will go well with the nobles of the land. As the Lord liveth! the streams of your waters shall become pitch, and the dust of your land brimstone, and your land shall become burning pitch, and the owl and the raven shall dwell in your houses; and where your table stood, there shall grow briers and nettles (Isa. xxxiv. 9, 11). The Lord gave Christ and His Gospel as a pawn to Scotland. The watchmen have fallen foul, and lost their part of the pawn; and who seeth not, that God hath dried up their right eye, and their right arm, and hath broken the shepherds' staves, and that men are trading in their hearts upon such unsavoury salt, that is good for nothing else! If ye, the nobles, put away the pawn also, and refuse to plead the controversy of Zion with the professed enemies of Jesus, ye have done with it. Oh! where is the courage and zeal now of the ancient nobles of this land, who with their swords, and hazard of life, honour, and houses, brought Christ to our hands? And now the nobles cannot but be guilty of shouldering out Christ, and of murdering the souls of their posterity, if they shall hide themselves, and lurk in the lee-side of the hill, till the wind blow down the temple of God. It goeth now under the name of wisdom, for men to cast their cloak over Christ and their profession; as if Christ were stolen goods, and durst not be avouched. Though this be reputed a piece of policy, yet God esteemeth such men to be but state fools and court gowks,[345] whatever they, or other heads-of-wit[346] like to them, think of themselves; since their damnable silence is the ruin of Christ's kingdom. Oh, but it be true honour and glory to be the fast friends of the Bridegroom, and to own Christ's bleeding head, and His forsaken cause, and to contend legally, and in the wisdom of God, for our sweet Lord Jesus, and His kingly crown! But I will believe that your Lordship will take Christ's honour to heart, and be a man in the streets (as the prophet speaketh) (Jer. v. 1) for the Lord and His truth. To His rich grace and sweet presence, and the everlasting consolation of the promised Comforter, I recommend your Lordship, and am your Lordship's, in his sweet Lord Jesus,