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,