[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.)
R IGHT 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.
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.