_January 16, 1640._
[414] Savours of the sect called "Brownists."
[415] While at the same time I may add.
CCXCI.--_To MR. HENRY STUART, his Wife, and two Daughters, all Prisoners of Christ at Dublin._
[HENRY STUART was a gentleman of considerable property in Ireland. He himself, his wife, and family, consisting of two daughters and a domestic servant named James Gray, having refused to swear the "Black Oath," were carried to Dublin by a serjeant-at-arms, and placed in close and rigorous confinement. On the 10th of August 1639, all of them were brought to trial in the Star Chamber. Stuart, being permitted to speak in his own defence, declared before the court, that he had no objection whatever to take the former part of the oath, "promising _civil allegiance_, but that he could not take the latter part, which he conceived bound the swearer to yield unlimited _ecclesiastical obedience to the King_." Wentworth, who presided at the trial, in reply, admitted that this interpretation of the oath was quite correct, and concluded by pronouncing the sentence of the court. Stuart was fined £5000, and his wife a similar sum; his daughters, £2000 each; and Gray although only a servant, £2000; a sum of £16,000 in all; and they were to be detained at Dublin in prison till these exorbitant fines were paid. They were at length liberated by the Irish Parliament, which set itself in 1641 to remedy the evils of Strafford's Government, after they had suffered an imprisonment of a year and three months. But Stuart's property having been confiscated by Strafford, the family were reduced to great poverty. He retired to Scotland, of which he was a native, and applied, in the month of September 1641, to the Parliament sitting at Edinburgh, to recommend to the English Parliament to take measures for enabling him to recover his property. The Scottish Parliament did so, but the result of their application is unknown (Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland," vol. i.).]
(_FAITH'S PREPARATION FOR TRIAL--THE WORLD'S RAGE AGAINST CHRIST--THE IMMENSITY OF HIS GLORIOUS BEAUTY--FOLLY OF PERSECUTION--VICTORY SURE._)
"Fear none of these things, which ye shall suffer," etc.--REV. ii. 10.
TRULY HONOURED, AND DEARLY BELOVED,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus.
Think it not strange, beloved in our Lord Jesus, that Satan can command keys of prisons, and bolts, and chains. This is a piece of the devil's princedom that he hath over the world. Interpret and understand our Lord well in this. Be not jealous of His love, though He make devils and men His under-servants to scour the rust off your faith, and purge you from your dross. And let me charge you, O prisoners of hope, to open your window, and to look out by faith, and behold heaven's post (that speedy and swift salvation of God), that is coming to you. It is a broad river that faith will not look over: it is a mighty and a broad sea, that they of a lively hope cannot behold the furthest bank and other shore thereof. Look over the water; your anchor is fixed within the vail; the one end of the cable is about the prisoner of Christ, and the other is entered within the vail, whither the Forerunner is entered for you (Heb. vi. 19, 20). It can go straight through the flames of the fire of the wrath of men, devils, losses, tortures, death, and not a thread of it be singed or burnt: Men and devils have no teeth to bite it in two. Hold fast till He come. Your cross is of the colour of heaven and Christ, and passmented over with the faith and comforts of the Lord's faithful covenant with Scotland: and that dye and colour will abide foul weather, and neither be stained nor cast the colour. Yet, it reflects a scad like the cross of Christ, whose holy hands, many a day lifted up to God, praying for sinners, were fettered and bound, as if those blessed hands had stolen, and shed innocent blood. When your lovely, lovely Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no wonder that your process be lawless and turned upside down; for He was taken, fettered, buffeted, whipped, spitted upon, before He was convicted of any fault, or sentenced. Oh, such a pair of sufferers and witnesses, as high and royal Jesus and a poor piece of guilty clay marrowed together under one yoke! Oh, how lovely is the cross with such a second!