[CCXXXII.—To my Lord Boyd.]
(SEEKING CHRIST IN YOUTH—ITS TEMPTATIONS—CHRIST'S EXCELLENCE—THE CHURCH'S CAUSE CONCERNS THE NOBLES.)
M Y VERY HONOURABLE AND GOOD LORD,—Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.—I am glad to hear that you, in the morning of your short day, mind Christ, and that you love the honour of His crown and kingdom. I beseech your Lordship to begin now to frame your love, and to cast it in no mould but one, that it may be for Christ only; for when your love is now in the framing and making, it will take best with Christ. If any other than Jesus get a grip of it, when it is green and young, Christ will be an unco and strange world to you. Promise the lodging of your soul first away to Christ, and stand by your first covenant, and keep to Jesus, that He may find you honest. It is easy to master an arrow, and to set it right, ere the string be drawn; but when once it is shot, and in the air, and the flight begun, then ye have no more power at all to command it. It were a blessed thing, if your love could now level only at Christ, that His fair face were the black of the mark ye shot at. For when your love is loosed, and out of your grips, and in its motion to fetch home an idol, and hath taken a whorish gadding journey, to seek an unknown and strange lover, ye shall not then have power to call home the arrow, or to be master of your love; and ye will hardly give Christ what ye scarcely have yourself.
I speak not this, as if youth itself could fetch heaven and Christ. Believe it, my Lord, it is hardly credible what a nest of dangerous temptations youth is; how inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, rash, profane, and careless of God, this piece of your life is; so that the devil findeth in that age a garnished and well-swept house for himself, and seven devils worse than himself. For then affections are on horseback, lofty and stirring; then the old man hath blood, lust, much will, and little wit, and hands, feet, wanton eyes, profane ears, as his servants, and as a king's officers at command, to come and go at his will. Then a green conscience is as supple as the twig of a young tree. It is for every way, every religion; every lewd course prevaileth with it. And, therefore, oh, what a sweet couple, what a glorious yoke, are youth and grace, Christ and a young man! This is a meeting not to be found in every town. None who have been at Christ can bring back to your Lordship a report answerable to His worth; for Christ cannot be spoken of, or commended according to His worth. "Come and see," is the most faithful messenger to speak of Him: little persuasion would prevail where this was. It is impossible, in the setting out of Christ's love, to lie and pass over truth's line. The discourses of angels, or love-books written by the congregation of seraphim (all their wits being conjoined and melted into one), would for ever be in the nether side of truth, and of plentifully declaring the thing as it is. The infiniteness, the boundlessness of that incomparable excellency that is in Jesus, is a great word. God send me, if it were but the relics and leavings, or an ounce-weight or two, of His matchless love; and suppose I never got another heaven (provided this blessed fire were evermore burning), I could not but be happy for ever. Come hither, then, and give out your money wisely for bread; come hither, and bestow your love.
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,
S. R.
Aberdeen, Sept. 7, 1637.