Rutherford Revised (281)

281. To my Lord Loudon    From Aberdeen 4 Jan 1638

(Se letters 116,258)

Right honourable and very worthy Lord, - Grace, mercy and peace be to you.- Hearing of your Lordship's zeal and courage for Christ our Lord, in His honourable cause, I am bold (and plead pardon for it) to write a line to two to your Lordship, since I have no other way of access, begging your Lordship by the mercies of God, and by the everlasting peace of your soul, and by the tears and prayers of our mother church, to go on as you have worthily begun, in purging of the Lord's house in this land, and plucking down the stick's of Antichrist's fifty nest, this wretched Prelacy, and the black kingdom whose aims have ever been, and still are, to make this fair world the only compass they would have Christ and religion sail by, and mount up the Man of Sin, their godfather the Pope of Rome, on the highest stair of Christ's throne, and to a velvet church(in regard of Parliament grandeur and worldly pomp, of which their stinking breath always smells), and put Christ and truth in sackcloth and prison, and to eat the bread of adversity and drink the water of suffering. Half an eye of anyone, no clouded with the darkness of anti christian smoke, may see it so in this land. And now our Lord has begun to awaken the nobles and others to plead for suppressed Christ and His weeping Gospel.
   My dear and noble Lord,the eye of Christ is on you; the eyes of many noble, many holy, many educated and worthy ones, in our neighbouring churches around, are on you. This poor church, your mother and Christ's spouse, is holding up her hands and heart to God for you, and begs you with ears to plead for her Husband, His kingly sceptre, and for the liberties her Lord King has given her, as a free kingdom that owes spiritual tribute to no-one on earth, as being the freeborn princess and daughter to the King of kings. This is a cause then before God, His angels, the world, before sun and moon need not blush. Oh, what true honour and glory it is to lend Christ you had and your service, and to be among the repairers of he holes in Zion's walls, and to help build the old waste places, and stretch out the curtains, and strengthen the poles 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 a house! And you are blessed by the Lord! Your name and honour will never rot or wither (in heaven at least), if you 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 made then eat the pastures trodden on 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 will not keep any from the cold) as they mind nothing else, except that by bringing in the Pope's foul tail first on us (their wretched and beggarly ceremonies), they may push 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 goods and merchandise of he great whore. Do no fear my worthy Lord, to give yourself and all you have, out for Christ and His gospel. No man dare say (who did ever so risk for Christ) that Christ did not pay him his hundredfold due in this life, and in the life to come, life everlasting. This is His own truth for which you now plead; for God and man can only commend you to beg justice from a just prince for oppressed Christ, and to plead the 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. Bu Christ will never be content and pleased with this land, neither will His hot, fiery indignation be turned away, as long as the bishop (the man who laying Antichrist's foul womb, and the Antichrist's lord bailiff) will, sit lord carver in the courts of the Lord Jesus. The bishop is both egg and the nest to cluck and bring out Popery. Plead therefore on Christ's behalf for the plucking down of the nest, and the crushing of he egg; and let Christ's kingly office suffer no more unworthy indignities. Be valiant for you royal King Jesus; fight for Him: your enemies will be moth eaten worms, and die as men. Christ and His honour now lie on your shoulders, do not let Him fall to the ground. Put your eye on Him who is quickly coming, to decide all the controversies in Zion. And remember the sand in your hourglass will run out; time will fly away with wings. Eternity is close to you, and what will Christ's love smiles, and the light of His soul delighting face, be to you in that day, when God will take up in His high hand this little house of heaven,  (like a shepherd lets up his little tent). and fold together the two sides of His tent, and put the earth and all its contents into afire, and turn his clay idol, the god of Adam's sons, and smoke and white ashes! Oh, what pay and how many worlds would many of them give to have a favourable decision from the Judge! Oh, what money would they not give, to buy a mountain to be a grave above both soul and body, to take them from the awesome looks of an angry Lord and Judge! I hope your Lordship thinks on this, and you give loyalty to Christ, and to the King both.
   Now the very God of peace, the only wise God, establish and strengthen you on the rock laid in Zion.
   Your Lordship's, at all obedience in Christ, S R.