Rutherford Revised (232)

232. To my Lord Boyd     From Aberdeen Sept 7 1637
( See letter 78.)

My very honourable and good Lord, - Grace mercy and peace be to you. I am glad to hear that you, in the morning of you short day, mind Christ, and you love the honour of His crown and kingdom. I beg your Lordship, to begin now to frame your love, and to cast it in only one mould, 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 gets a grip when it is green and young, Christ will be an uncommon and strage world to you. Promise that your soul will be first away with Christ, and stand by your first covenant, and keep to Jesus, that he may find you honest. It is easy to master and arrow , and set it right, before the string is drawn; but when once it is shot, and in the air, and the flight begun, then you have no more power at all to command it. It would be a blessed thing if your love could now set on Christ only, that His fair face was the bulls eye you shot at. For when your love is set loose to fetch home an idol, and has taken an immoral wandering journey, to seek an unknown and strange lover, you will not have power to call home the arrow, or to be master of your love: and you will hardly give Christ what you scarcely have yourself. 
   I do not speak this as if youth itself could fetch heaven and Christ. Believe it, my Lord, it is hardly credible what a nest of dangerous temptations is youth; hoow inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, rash, profane, how careless of God, this piece of your life is; so that he devil finds in that age a prepared and well swept house for himself and seven devils worse than himself. For then the  old man has blood, lust, much will and lacks intelligence, and hands, feet and wandering eyes, profane ears as his servants, and as a king's officers to commend, to come and go at his will. Then a young conscience is as supple as the twig of a young tree. It is the same for every way, every religion; every lewd course prevails with it. And therefore, oh what a sweet couple, what a glorious joining are youth and grace, Christ and a young man! This is a meeting one does not find in every town. None who have been witth Christ can bring back o your Lordship a report commensurate with His worth; for Christ canon be seen of, or commended according to His worth. 'Come and see,' is he most faithful messenger to speak Him: where he is little persuasion is needed. In the setting out of Christ's love, it is impossible to lie and pass over truth's line. The discourses od angels, or love books written by the congregation of seraphim (all their understanding being joined and melted into one) would forever be on the far side of truth, and of plentifully declaring the thing as it is, the infiteness, the boundlessness of that incomparable excellency that is in Jesus, is a great word. God send me as it were only the relies and scraps, or an ounce weight or two of this matchlesss love; and suppose I never got another heaven (provided this blessed fire was for evermore burning) I could only be happy for ever. Come here then, and give your you money wisely for bread; come here and give your love. 
   I have reason to say this, because unless you possess and enjoy Christ; you will be a cold friend to His spouse; for it is love to the husband that causes kindness to the wife. I dare swear it was a blessing to your family, the honour of your honour, the flower of your credit, now in your place, and as far as you are able, to lend your hand to your weeping mother, even your oppressed and spoiled mother church. If you love her, and stir yourself for her, and risk the Lordship of Boyd for the recovery of her veil, which the hitting watchmen have taken from her, then surely Her Husband will refuse to sleep. Bits of lordships are little to Him who has many crowns on His head, and the kingdoms of the world in the hollow of His hand. Bank, glory, honour, riches, stability of families, favour of princes, are all at His finger tips. Oh what glory it is to lend your honour to Christ, and to His Jerusalem! You are one of Zion's born sons; your honourable and Christian parents would send you on Christ's work. Therefore, I beg you by the mercies of God, by The death and wounds of Jesus, by the hope of your glorious inheritance, and ye the comfort and hope of the joyful presence you would have at the water side when you are putting your foot in the dark grave, take courage for Christ's truth, and the honour of His free kingdom. For though you are a young flower, and green before the sun, you do not know how soon death will make you lose your bloom, and wither, root and branch and leaves; and therefore, write up what you have to do for Christ, and make a treasure of good works, and begin in time. It looks like you have the advantage of the hill. See what you can do for Christ, against those who are waiting for Christ's tent to fall, that they can run away with he wood from it, and build their nests on Zion's ruins. They are blind who do not now see fools pulling up the stakes, and breaking he ropes and tearing the curtains of Christ's sometimes buautiful tent in this land. Antichrist is lifting up that tent on his shoulders, and going away with it; and when Christ and the Gospel are out of Scotland, do not dream that your families will thrive, and that it will go well with the nobles of the land. As he Lord lives, the streams of your waters will become pitch, and the dust of your land brimstone, and your land will become burning pitch, and he owl and the raven will live in your houses, and where your table stood, thorns and nettles will grow Is 34:9,11)The Lord gave Christ and His Gospel as a loan to Scotland. the watchmen have gone wrong and lost their part of the loan; and who does not see that God has dried up their right eye, and their right arm, and has broken the shepherds. crooks, and that men are trading in their hearts on such tasteless salt which is good for nothing else! If you, the nobles also put away the loan, and refuse to plead the controversy of Zion with the professed enemies of Jesus, you will have done with it. Oh, where is the courage and zeal now of the ancient nobles of this land, who with their swords, and risk of life, honour and families, brought Christ to our hands? And now the nobles can only be gulity of shouldering out Christ, and of murdering the souls of their posterity, if they hide themselves and lurk on the sheltered side of the hill until the wind blows down the temple of God. It is now called wisdom, for men to throw their coat over Christ, and their profession: as if Christ was stolen goods and dare not be owned. Though this is reputed to be policy, yet God reckons such men to be only state fools and  court dunces, whatever they people like them think of themselves; since their damnable silence is the run of Christ's kingdom. Oh, but it is true honour and glory to be firm friends with 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 believe that your Lordship will take Christ's honour to heart, and be a man in he streets (as the prophet says) (Jer 5:1) for the Lord and His truth. To His rich grace and sweet presence, and the everlasting consolation of the promised Comfotwe, I commend your Lordship, in his seweet Lord Jesus,  S,R.