As for your fellow-Subjects I shall dispose them for I abhorre the word divide into two sorts Those in generall throughout this Kingdome and those in particular against whom ye now bear Armes As for your fellow Subjects taken in the Generalitie throughout this Kingdome if you do not know their miserable deplorable state and condition as 't is confessed you of this County have had the least experimentall knowledge of the miserie of this Kingdome of any County within it though you have contributed as much towards it as any be pleased at your leisure to read but those sad and lamentable descriptions of the most distressed and most to be bewailed conditions of other people and Nations as they are for our warning if we had the grace to have taken it here and there drawne ready to our hands by the finger of God in holy records and then lay them together and therein you may behold your poore fellow-subjects distresses and miseries alreadie felt and further threatned as lively represented as if they had been the prototypes and these the ectypes or expresses they the first draughts and these the copies or if you will they the copies after which our curst school-masters have taught the inslaved subjects of this Kingdom to write and that in their own blood I will only point ye to some few for your better direction in examining the rest which are very numerous Isaiah Chap. 3. from ver 1. to ver 10. and from ver 12. to ver 16. Chap. 9. from ver 13. to the end Chap. 19. ver 2.3 Chap. 24. ver 1.2.3 Chap. 34. ver 2.3.5.6 Chap. 59. from ver 2. to ver 16. Jerem. 4. ver 20.21.22 Chap. 4. from ver 1. to ver 18. and from v. 26. to the end Chap. 6. from ver 7. to ver 16. Ezek. Chap. 22. from ver 4. to ver 14. and from ver 18. to ver 23. and from ver 25. to the end Micah Chap. 2. from ver 1. to ver 12. and Chap. 3 throughout I have directed you to such places as doe divers of them record the sinnes as well as the punishments of such and such people because they are the forest punishments where any people are delivered up to commit such sinnes and such sinnes are the assured forerunners of the most destructive miseries as wel as the causes of them And whereas I have cited but here and there a portion of Scripture you can scarce turne amisse any where where judgements are mentioned as inflicted or threatned but what is so mentioned is either in part or in the whole alreadie fulfilled upon this Nation or the fullfilling thereof within a little time may be now justly feared there being so little signe of repentance the onely meanes to prevent it to be found amongst us And what County of this Kingdome hath cast in more to the filling up the measure either of this Nations iniquities or their other miseries then you of this And do ye think that ye shall goe unpunished No I pray God that you be not made to drink the very dregs of the cup of Gods fury and vengeance Isa 51.17 Ezech. 23. and to wring or such them out as Isaiahs expression is or as Ezekiet expresseth it that thy sisters cup the cup of which the other parts of this Kingdome have alreadie drunk and are now a drinking be not given into thy hand and thou made to drink deep and large till thou be laughed to scorne and had in dirision till thou be filled with drunkennesse and sorrow with the cup of astonishment and desolation Your late madnesse and sottishnesse in imbroyling your selves in a new Warre and in imbruing your hands in your Brethrens blood when you might have avoided it is a terrible simptome of such drunkennesse Jerem. 25.15 16. And this brings me without any interruption from the Consideration of the state and condition of your fellow-subjects in Generall to the consideration of those your fellow-subjects in particular against whom ye now bear armes For Christs sake and your owne consider well who they are against whom yee are now risen with so much and so strange fury and violence Are they not such as besides their being created after the Image of their Creator and yours an Argument of power sufficient to deterre any that bear the same Image from attempting ought against the blood of such especially if that one terrible sentence were but thought on Gen. 9.5 6. AND SURELY THE BLOOD OF YOUR LIVES WILL I REQUIRE AT THE HAND OF EVERY BEAST WILL I REQUIRE IT AND AT THE HAND OF MAN AT THE HAND OF EVERY MANS BROTHER WILL I REQUIRE THE LIFE OF MAN WHOSO SHEDDETH MANS BLOOD BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED for in the Image of God made he man Besides that I say are they not such as for whom Christ who was the expresse Image of his Father shed his most precious blood and doe by their being Christians carry in them the Image of Christ And doe you not tremble to shed their blood for whom Christ shed his or can yee call your selves Christians and yet persecute and murther those whom Christ calls his and that must be acknowledged by your selves to be more his then your selves if you would not measure your selves onely by your selves 2 Cor. 10 12. Acts 9.4 Colos 1.24 but by those rules which Christ hath prescribed why Christ accounts the perspecuting and afflicting of such as the persecuting and afflicting of himselfe and so the shedding of their blood will be reputed as the shedding of his To come a little neerer you though no relation should be nearer or dearer to you then that of Christian Are they not Christians of the same particular profession of Faith with you at least so many of you as call your selves Protestants and professe to be of the same Faith with the established Church of England And will ye take the Swords Pistolls Poynadoes and other bloody instruments out of the Jesuites and Jesuited Papists hands and clap them into your fellow-Protestants sides that they may hereafter with their knives cut your throats Ye have indeed divers of you that you might render them the more odious and those whom ye have ingaged against them the lesse suspicious and the more bloody raised rumor upon rumour lie upon lie and slander upon slander and cast them all upon them particularly that grand cheating slander wherewith the poore people have been so often fooled into blood that the principall men among them by name the Earle of Norwich and the Lord Capell are great Papists whereas the Kingdome knowes and so do many of you that raised and fomented that lie that both these right honourable personages are as sound firme religious Protestants as any in this Nation and if you were but as farre from Poperie as they you would both abhorre so to bely them and tremble to appeare in Armes against them And what I say of those two may I am confident
I have but a few words to adde concerning the Kings Party who are by divers more distrusted then the King and then I close up this first Consideration How the Kings loyal and faithful Subjects who in obedience to Gods command and in conscience of that duty in fidelity to the established Religion of the Church of England in testimony of that fidelity in love to their Soveraignes supereminent Graces and vertues and in gratitude to God and him for his exercising them in his regall and Christian government of them and this whole Kingdome for so many yeares together and which must not be forgotten in the discharge of the many naturall and civill bonds of Allegiance and for the performing of those many sacred and solemne vowes and oathes made to God for the strengthening those bonds have adheared unto and assisted his Majesty in the defence of the established Religion in the preservation of his sacred person Honour and dignity and in the maintainance of his just power rights and prerogatives together with their own and your just lawes liberties and properties How I say those faithfull and loyall Subjects of the King for their adhearing to and assisting of their King upon these grounds in these wayes and to these ends have beene reproached slandered plundered hunted up and down imprisoned sequestred banished sold as slaves and for slaves starved hanged and otherwise murthered their wives and children abused oppressed forced to live upon the charity of others or otherwise made weary of their lives are things so well known to your selves and to the world that if there be any thing that makes you to doubt of the charity of the Kings Party t is the consciousnesse of your owne Parties unchristian unexampled cruel barbarous in-sufferable and with any but God and them unpardonable dealing with them and theirs And therefore if any of you should come into their power and they should exercise that power upon you to their utmost of fury and vengeance they could not deale so ill with you as you have done with them except they should act over your owne Tragicall practises upon your selves and yet still they would come farre short of you because they should doe what they so did but by way of recompence where t is first deserved and they thereunto deeply provoked whereas you did it only in pure malice without any desert or provocation at all more then what your owne false feares and jealousies fained and fancied And if they should march your crucltie as farre as they were able and reward you according to your wayes and according to your doings which is Gods usual way of dealing with men when no other way will doe good on them As it would be most just with God so the most of men would be ready to justifie them in it and so should I if these two cautions or conditions were truly observed 1. If they had Gods command for it 2. And if they could doe it without intermixing their own revenge with it But because they have no assurance of the former and may be assured that they cannot observe the latter and therefore how glorious or just soever it is for God to use whomsoever he please as the executioners of his vengeance upon others yet t is but unhappy and uncomfortable for any to be made such instruments and executioners upon these and such like reasons I tremble to thinke of any such retaliation and I have many other reasons to assure me that they will abhorre to practise it For how ill soever you and your lying Prophets have voyced them or how deeply soever ye have reprobated and damned them the Kings party have to my knowledge been better instructed both from Christ and his Gospel and from those dispensers thereof which you for other ends forced unto them as also from their very sufferings which you without cause have loaded them withall They have beene taught to recompence to no man evill for evill Rom. 12.17 Mat. 6.15 Mat. 18.12 they have beene taught that if they forgive not men their tresspasses neither will their father forgive them theirs They have been taught to forgive their brethren not till seven times but till seventy times seuen They have been taught that how highly soever their fellow servants have sinned against them yet in respect of their sinning against their own Lord and and theirs t is not so much as the debt or dammage of an hundred pence to ten thousand talents Cap. cod and therefore as they hope to be forgiven of their Lord their trespasses so can they from their hearts forgive their fellow servants and brethren their trespasses In a word Mat. 5.44 They have beene taught to love their enemies to blesse those that curse them to doe good to those that hate them and to pray for those which despitefully use them and persecute them Thus hath their Master and his Ministers taught them whilst your Masters and their and your new teachers Jud. 5.23 Ier. 48. v. 10. Exo. 32. v. 20. have corrupted and perverted severall Texts of Scripture to in-courage you in blood and crueltie As Curse ye Meroz Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they came not c. Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood Consecrate your selves to day to the Lord every man upon his sonne and upon his brother Rase it Rase it even to the foundation or as another translation reade the words Down with it downe with it even to the ground c. Ps 137. And happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones Neither have the sufferings of the Kings party taught them any other lesson For knowing what a double blessing is pronounced and a manifold reward is promised to such sufferers as they have beene As blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousnesse sake for theins is the kingdome of heaven Mat. cap. 5. v. 10 11 12. and againe Blessed are yee when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evill against you falsly for my sake Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you They would not part from their clayme to that blessing and their interests in that reward and so loose the honour and comfort of all their sufferings by seeking revenge on their revilers and persecutors for ten thousand times more than you or your estates could advantage them This I know to be the resolution of some of that party and I have good cause to beleeve it will be the practise of very many for they could never have suffered so much and so chearfully had not these and the like principles of Grace beene in them And therefore it may well be hoped that he that hath layde such a foundation in them will perfect the building Phil. r. 6. and he that hath begun so good a worke in them
will performe and sinish it untill the day of Jesus Christ And for the rest of that party whom ye most feare t is wisdome to feare them so much as not to exasperate them more Yet thus fearre I dare undertake for them were my undertaking worthy of your notice taking That were you in their power as many of them have beene in yours you should finde the most prophane and rude among them lesse cruell in their cruelties they and their fellows afore have found than many of your pretending Saints and holy ones in those which they call their mercie But the fault is your owne if you runne your selves upon any such hazard For make your peace with God and he will make your enemies to be at peace with you Prov. 16.7 and returne to your Soveraigne and there is none that have hazarded their lives and lost their liberties and estates for him their Religion Lawes liberties and propertie but would be ready and willing upon a resettlement of all these without any more blood and other publike calamities to catch at and embrace any reasonable propositions and kisse the beautifull feete of such propounders As therefore yee have tryed many other waies for procuring peace and they have all failed you so be intreated for Christs sake who is the Prince of peace and the propitiation for our sinnes to make tryall of this way of acknowledging your sinnes and forsaking them which never yet failed any and which is so infallible as that God himselfe gives that as the reason of his giving over people when their sinnes are come to their full measure and they ripe for ruine to blindnesse and heardnesse of heart Isa 6.10 Mat. 1.3.15 Act. 28.27 implying that if a people did turne from their sinnes unto him he could not but heale them Turne thou us O Lord and we shall be turned Turne thou us and we shall be healed Let that be your dayly prayer to God Come let us returne unto the Lord. For he hath wounded and he will heale us he hath smitten and he will bind us up Ier. 31 Hos 6.1 let that be your constant exhortation to one another and practise your selves what you shall so exhort others And the Lord heare and accept you in both Having repented of your sinnes and in particular of your Rebellion Blood guiltinesse and other iniquities and impieties attending them The next thing that you are besought to consider is the present state and condition of Religion here in this Kingdome That the Church of England in its Reformed established Religion was not onely a defence and refuge but the glory and honour of all the Reformed Churches in Christendome cannot justly and therefore I hope will not be denyed by any of those Churches if it should wee are able to evince it out of the mouths of their own most learned and eminent Preachers and Professors And had not those unhappy div sions breaking out as they did prevented it the Christian world had in all probabilitie ere this seen the happy fruits thereof in the harmonious and of them and us much desired conformity of other reformed Churches especially the more Eastern as well in Discipline as Doctrine so far as conformity in Discipline could have been conveniently observed in severall Nationall Churches This the Tobiahs and Sanballets of the Church of Rome have known and maligned so long that their attempts against this Church and the established Religion thereof have been more and more industriously and eagerly prosecuted then against any Church whatsoever though they have not omitted any opportunitie of practising their complotted designes upon any of the Reformed Churches or the members thereof And having tryed all the other wayes and courses that they could invent and some of them such as I hope will never be forgotten of this Nation Some few yeares before the beginning of this Parliament Cardinall Richeleiu the Politique favourite of France and gracious sonne of Rome used all his art and skill to kindle a fire against us in Scotland which art and skill of his prospered too much there by the unskilfulnes and imprudence of some of our managers of Church affairs here in England No sooner was that fire kindled but Emissaries of Rome were sent thither to inflame it and the better to effect it some of them pretended great love and affection to a new Reformation of that Kirke even to a seeming disclaiming and detesting of their own About the same time there were not a few of those Incendiaries dispatcht hither into England to practise upon those of this Kingdome that were disaffected to the established Government of this Church or that distasted some new rites and practises too much favoured and countenanced by some of the Governours thereof and so far had they within a short time crept into the favours and Counsels of some leading men of each sort that this Church and State began to be much distempered Insomuch that our most Gracious and Religious Soveraign next under Christ the prime defender of our Faith and nursing Father of our Church and Common-weale whom they had many other wayes assaulted but found impregnable was perswaded for the peace and safety of both his Kingdoms to call a Parliament and within a while after for the peace and security of all his three Kingdomes the third being also then inflamed to derive unto them greater liberty of continuance but otherwise not of any power then ever Parliament had and as we finde by sad and wofull experience then they had grace to make good use of The Jesuites and Jesuited party finding this advantage and feeling by the Pulse of the chief of the disaffected and discontented part of that great Assembly how their hearts stood inclined they applyed themselves to them in all wayes and services possible One Jesuite well known to the most reverend and Religious the Primate of Ireland his Grace was a constant Tabler and Counsellor to the Lord Brooks an active furious driver on of the mad factious peoples desperate turbulencies Others applyed themselves to others whom I forbear to name Only one passige I must not omit Before those worthy members of the honourable Houses of Lords and Commons that held firm to their duty and allegiance were forced from their stations so bold were those Romanists grown that an honourable member of the House of Commons was earnestly importuned by one of them an acquaintance of his to recommend a Petition to the House in behalf of the Romish party for the taking off all penall laws from them which he refusing to doe and expostulating with the Gentleman about it as suspecting that be came to intrap him and to render him more distastfull to the factious party and so more disserviceable to his King and Country the Gentleman replyed that he was very much mistaken for that Petition would finde better acceptance in the House then he thought for And accordingly it being soon after presented there by another who may
be presumed to account it an honour to him to be known by such a motion viz. Mr. MARTIN it was seconded and entertained by some of the greatest pretenders of Reformation in that assembly till one of courage and esteem stood up and said He was sorry that he had lived to see a Petition of that nature finde such favour in that place wherein those prudent lawes against which it petitioned had been upon so good and just grounds and with so much wisdome and deliberation framed and thereupon it was for that time waved and laid aside Since that how far the Jesuites and Jesuited party have proceeded and suceeded in their prosecuting of that designe of a toleration is sufficiently visible in the fruits thereof to every seeing eye But because the greater part of men will neither see nor heare or if they doe dare not speak what they see or heare how prejudiciall or destructive soever it be to Religion or ought else that good is I shall in the cause of Religion adventure a little further in the discovery of the designes of those professed enemies thereof I have been assured by a person of Honour that the Protestants of France had towards the beginning of these unnaturall and unchristian wars resolved upon a Declaration against the Parliament and Subjects of England their taking up of Arms against their King and had published it had not the forenamed Cardinall dashed it and underhand wrought them to too much approbation thereof rendering by that one subtill act of his the said Protestants odious to their own Soveraign for approving such Antiregal Antimonarchicall attempts and also advancing thereby his own designe of fomenting our destructive divisions But to return neerer home Who but the Jesuites and Jesuited Papists began that Rebellion in Ireland And who but their favourors here in England drove it on to that height by making those Rebels desperate in selling their lands and Voting them and theirs to ruine past all hope of mercy by detaining the King from going thither in Person to quiet that Rebellion when he so graciously offered it and so piously endeavoured it by diverting those fair full free running streames of bounty and liberality flowing all this Kingdome through towards the reliefe of the distressed Protestants of Ireland into those foule black bloody rivers of Warre and Rebellion overflowing this whole Kingdome to the wasting and weakening if not to the ruining and destroying of the now despised Protestants of England and lastly by the withholding and delaying all along from the first to the last the necessary supplies of men moneys armes and other provisions from that Kingdome notwithstanding the Kings often and often calling upon the Houses to be mindefull thereof and conjuring them thereto as appears by his many Messages and Declarations to that purpose and notwithstanding the loud and dolefull cryes of the Protestants of that Kingdome from the greatest to the least so constantly ecchoing in their ears If the Jesuites and Jesuited Papists of this Kingdome had not their hands deep in all this and too prevalent a power with those that had the power of ordering that businesse better let any man that knowes one hand from another judge But to come yet nearer those incendiaries of Nations and perturbers of the peace of Christendome are fowly belyed by one whose brother hath been one of them these many yeares and he himselfe is now theirs and was then litle better If there were not in and about the Citty of London and in and neere the Armies about 3 weekes or a month before that heavy blow at Nazeby above sevenscore Jesuites and other Romish Priests known the most of them to him which kept correspondence diverse of them and gave intelligence to them at Westminster and served them both in keeping off assistance from the King from Princes of their Religion and in betraying the Kings counsels and the resolutions of his Army which they by their instruments and favourers crowded into those quarters got knowledge of to the adverse party so that they could draw the kings Army into what part of the kingdome they pleased and there fight them or not fight them as they saw the advantage Insomuch that a Noble Colonell of the Kings Party and a man of good estate and credit being then a Prisoner in the Counter in Southwarke and having there fed at his table and preserved the author of this information that had been a prisoner in the same prison but was then by his Brothers meanes set at liberty was about that time before mentioned advised upon those grounds and some other by the said informer and that in gratitude as he affirmed knowing no other way of acknowledging his bounty and liberality towards him forthwith to make his composition and peace with the Parliament for that the King would without all peradventure yet the King was at that time in as high and hopefull condition as ever he had been in from the beginning of these warres be brought very low Strange propheticall counsaile aâ— that time had not the counselour had too strong presumption to conclude from And now to speake a litle upon mine own more immediate knowledge Travelling beyond the seas in the company of a Romish Priest borne in England and another English Gentlemen of the same religion after some warme dispute between us I was told by the Priest that I need not be so hot and zealous for my religion for so said he we have now as good cardes to shew for our Religion in England as you have for yours for we perceive you are a Protestant of the established Church of England and if you and such as you doe ever enjoy your Religion there againe it must be by a Tolleration and so shall we enjoy ours I replyed that I hoped God would disappoint them of their hopes but since that I found they had too much cause so to presume for I was no soonet arrived here in England but being constrained to attend some Parliament men at Westminster I heard a Gentleman who by his habit and discourse seemed one of credit and trust among the Romanists soliciting another Gentleman whose Father had been a Parliament man but was then dead for the assisting him by his friends in the promoting of a Petition for a Toleration of their Religion and he told him amongst other discourse what progresse he had made therein both with some prime Commanders of the Army and with divers members of the House of Commons whose names for the present I conceale and that he had delivered three Petitions to that purpose into the hands of three of the House of Commons who had undertaken the recommending them to the House and promised him their best furtherance therein so that he did not much doubt of the successe but yet should be obliged to him if he would be pleased to contribute thereto The party solicited replied He should doe him any service and the Petition desired no more then
he apprehended to be according to the judgement of the times in point of liberty of Conscience when I heard this and observed how liberty of conscience was every where contended for I no longer wondered at the cooling Cards which the Priest gave me for I perceived they of his part had plaid their Cards so well that they might afforded any of us the knowledge of such a triumph nor did I then think it strange which but a few dayes before I admired that so many Jesuits and other Priests did daily flock into this Kingdome from France Flanders and the Countries adjacent and all by the way of Holland there having been nine or ten such newly shipt at the Brill under the same Convoy if not in the same Vessell that Master Strickland the Parliaments Agent for Holland came over in about Michaelmas last and multitudes of them more have been there and in other Parts of the Low Countries past for England within few moneths when God knows many worthy Ministers of the Church of England driven beyond the Seas choose rather to endure some hardship there amongst strangers then yet to adventure the hazard of worse usage here in their own Country These things I thought it my duty to acquaint you with as I have done others already upon all occasions both in publike and in private and though perhaps they may be sleighted by some engaged with the Sectaries calling themselves Protestants or quarrelled by others that are professed Papists I solemnly avouch before the Almighty God of truth that I have not falsifyed in the least particular of what I have spoken upon mine own knowledge nor varied so far as my memory would serve me from what others and they men of known honour and honesty have informed me I know well that t is a foule sinne to speake wickedly for God or to talke deceatfully for him Job 13.7 as Job sometimes intimated to his friends and I abhor to be charged with a Romish trick my self whilest I endeavour to discover some of theirs Had divers of this Nation but that courage and spirit as to speak what they know to this purpose and but that love and zeale to the established Protestant Religion as to thinke it worthy of their adventuring that courage and spirit which they have in that service you would finde that all this little that I have said is scarce the gleanings to their harvest or an handfull to their Barnsfull for the clearing this discovery of the Jesuits and Jesuited Papists having their hands deep in all our miseries and a desperate designe upon our Religion And let such take heed that God doe not one day require it at their hands in vengeance for that they did it not when he required it of them in dutie I know there are some in this Kingdome of the Romish Religion that have given ample and honourable testimonies of their Allegiance and fidelity to their Soveraign and of their love to their Country for which they deserve all Christian and civill respect and honour that can be shewn them and that makes me so often to use that limitation of Jesuites and Jesuited to distinguish them from such which as hath been often and truly said like Sampsons Foxes look contrary wayes to our furious Separatists and other Sectaries but joyn with them in the setting this Kingdome on fire But t is to be feared that if Religion should come again to be contested for betwixt the Protestants and Papists here in England which God of his mercy forbid the most moderate and loyall amongst the Popish party would loose no advantage that they could catch or lay hold on for the exalting of their own Religion and the pulling down and destroving ours And t is certain that since the first Reformation of Religion in this Kingdome they never had so great advantages given them to that purpose It was a frequent saying of an ancient and knowing Dr. in Cambridge that had very much observed as well as too much served the times in alteration of Religion and I have heard it severall times cited by a most learned and reverend Professor of that University in his Commencement Orations That if ever Popery came into this Land again to have any power it would be by the Precisian called then the Puritan And what an open broad way the Precisians or Puritans properly so called have made for Popery to march in or to use the Prophet Ezekiels expression how they have opened the sides of this Church to those enemies of that Faction to enter and repossesse her Ezeck 25 v. 9. and what arms and amunition of all sorts they have furnished them with and what ayde and encouragement of all kindes they have given them to make good their entrance and keep their possession is very deplorable to consider and much more deplorable that t is not considered as it should The most learned and acute Divines and Artists are driven from the Schools and Colledges in both Universities The most Orthodox and conscientious Pastors and Teachers are forced from their Pulpits and Pastorall charges The most reverend and renowned Bishops are cast out of their Bishopricks and Episcopall power and jurisdictions and all these are robbed and deprived of their lively-hoods and necessary subsistance yea many of them of their lives and all others that shall succeed them of all hopes of any honourable encouragements And what then may not the enemies of our Religion doe when so much is already done to their hands towards the undoing of this lately most flourishing but now languishing Church of England Who shall dare to take up the weapons or venture on an encounter with the Adversary when all our stout Champions are gone and onely Children and weaklings with unexpert Tradesmen and Mechanicks are left to graple with Giants and experienced warriers Take away the encouragements and you take away the sinâ—ws of warre who will goe to war at their own costs especiall when they know where good pay and good preferment too are to be had in another service There are too few that serve God out of pure zeale and meer conscience In the combate between the Flesh and the Spirit the Flesh ought to be mortified and kept down as much as possibly may be but in all incounters wherein the Flesh is to joyn with the Spirit against a third adversary there t is best to let the Flesh have its neceslaries yea and its honest allurements and encouragements to or else the Spirit will be but ill assisted and served by it It hath been severall times attempted and the poore simple Country people have been put upon it and incited to it with much earnestnesse and no little deceit That all Tithes should also be taken away from the Clergie and the Ministery be provided for by way of Pension or Benevolence And truely were I one of the Church of Rome or wisht well to the returning of her power and tyranny into this Nation I would
some members chosen for this County in answer to some of yours concerning the receiving of contribution from Popish Recusants upon the Propositions for Horses Money or Plate at the beginning of these wars In which letters you were told as some of you have confessed That it was the sense of the House that contribution should be received from Popish Recusants provided that it were such as might witnesse their affection to the cause and not argue onely a desire to save themselves or to that effect And whether they did then contribute with you or not to the raysing of that cursed warre to be sure except as I said but now some few of them they have from that time to this contributed very little to the King for his defence against it And I beseech God that that war seconded by this may contribute no more to the terrible designes of some of that party though there need no other contribution to the exalting of the Throne of Antichrist 2 Thes 2. then the sending of a people strong delusion that they should believe a Lie there needs nothing to be said for the demonstrating how fouly and grosly we of this Nation have been so deluded and are contented if not desirous still so to be I remember well and shall do whilest I have breath what I heard fall from the mouth of that Apostolicall I wish I might not in that particular say that Propheticall Preacher the matchlesse Primate of Ireland matchlesse for the Graces of God in him as well as for that Grace of Primacy conferred on him in one of his constant Lords day Sermons in Oxford I feare not said he those Feltmakers Weavers Coblers c. that are risen up amongst us sowers of Sedition and broachers of Heresies and Errours but those with whom I feare we shall have the strongest struggling are those Giant-like Jesuits trained up men of warre from their youth these these are they whom we have all cause to feare as those with whom wee shall have the last and sorest pull for our Religion God grant it prove not so But if we go on in the rending and tearing out one anothers thoats and the Hereticks and Schismaticks go on in their rending and tearing the very bowels of our Church who can expect lesse Who is there that hath read or heard of Christs way in planting and propagating of his Gospell of truth and in acquainting men with the mysteries of Godlinesse and of the way in Antichrist in planting and propagating his Doctrine of lyes and in possessing men with the mystery of iniquity that can expect from Sects of Heresie and Schisme sown by the enemy in the furrows of mens hearts filled with malice and all uncharitablenesse and watered with the bloods of so many thousands of their fellow Christians any other Harvest then of Popery and Antichristianisme Be ye then supplicated O all yee that have any love unto or care of the preservation of the true Protestant Religion to take the sad deplorable condition thereof into your most serious consideration and speedily to apply your selves with all your art and skill and with all your might and power to the resisting and countermining of its openly professed and secretly conspiring enemies and to the ayding and assisting of its known and by these late persecutions and temptations throughly tryed friends Think soberly and sadly with your selves God's cleansing your thoughts from all selfe-favour and brother-prejudice being first implored whether they to whom in the beginnings of these miseries you first adhered and who then made you so many faire and large promises and tooke some solemne Protestations Vows and Oathes in the presence of God to Defend and Maintaine the true Established PROTESTANT RELIGION have made good those promises Protestations Vows and Oaths yea or no. If they have what meanes the lowing and bellowing of such herds of notorious abominable Hereticks of all sorts and the bleating and bawling of such flocks of furious Schismaticks of all cuts in every corner of this Kingdome Yea what meane those favourable excuses and defensive Apologies published to the Kingdome in one of the late Declarations in answer to the Scots that complained thereof What meanes also their suppressing and silencing of all or the most of the known religious Orthodox Protestant Preachers throughout the Kingdome sequestering their livings and clapping them up into Prisons and then setting up Antinomian Anabaptisticall Socinian Jesuiticall and other notoriously hereticall Teachers and lying Prophets in their roomes What meanes the blasting of the established Doctrine of the Church of England as being corrupt and erroneous such as needs Reformation What meanes the blaspheming the Lords Prayer and Apostles Creed commonly so called and rejecting them from being publikely used in anie Congregations And what meanes the casting out and condemning the whole Book of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments which had so often and so long been found and made use of as one of our strongest out-workes and fortifications against Popery and other Heresies as well as an incomparable and unparallelled rule and forme of publike Worship and Devotion In a word what meanes the entertaining of Petitions for the Toleration of Popery forbearing only the granting them their requests till the people be a little better prepared by that Doctrine of Liberty of Conscience Bethinke your selves also whether they to whom ye now give up your selves to serve with your lives and estates and joyne with in all their rebellions and bloodie enterprizes have not sufficiently declared their disaffection unto yea and their hatred and detestation of the true Protestant Religion What meane else their retaining only such Chaplains amongst them as hold far more principles of the Popish Religion then Protestant and have expressely renounced the established Protestant Religion of the Church of England Or why doe they like those Rebells against the house of David make to themseves both high places to worship in and Priests of the lowest of the people to minister unto them And why do they proclaime the liberty of being of any Religion or of no Religion at all rather then of the established Religion of our Church If there be anie so stupid as to thinke that the leading-men either at Westminster or in the Army or their active adherents are at the present men of other affections and resolutions more then what the present oppositions and their want of power to withstand them and to crush the opposers to pieces do constraine them to dissemble I shall admire their stupidity and lament their weaknesse unlesse they can produce some better evidence of their retracting their former errors of their repenting of their former iniquities and of their returning to their God and to their duties then their own bare words so often broken and contradicted by their actions And yet which of you can shew so much as the Armies words for any good intended by them either to this Church or Common wealth or so much
the most inferiour of which companie carries better blood in their veines because untainted then the proudest Adversarie that fights against them and I trust God will preserve it as preciously and the Citie wherein they are High exceeding high alreadie is the Honour of that Citie for being the Citie wherein Lucius Helena and Constantine the first Christian King Empresse and Emperour in the world were borne And it may please the Lord in his mercie notwithstanding our multiplied iniquities crying so loud for the contrarie to rayse its honour yet much higher by making it the Citie wherein King Charles the most Religious of Christian Kings the Established Religion of the Church of England the Helena or Empresse of Christian Religion and the Incomparable Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome which for equitie and Christianitie deserve the Crowne Imperiall of the World shall be preserved from ruine and be restored to their pristine glory The same Almightie God that wrought that first great Work in that Citie is all-sufficiently able there even there to accomplish this second And we humbly beseech him that neither their nor our sinnes may separate betweene his blessing and their Loyall and Christian indeavours to that purpose and whatever the successe be that that Citie nor those Worthies that are in it may never want their due honour nor his gracious protection and comforts But suppose the worst Suppose that by your ingagement against that Citie and those Worthies in it their Enemies should prevaile over them to their and this whole Kingdomes further weltering in blood must not their and the rest of the blood of this Kingdome be charged upon your score When as if you had but sat still and not ingaged against them as you were by many bonds never to be cancelled obliged to doe there had not beene in all probalitie at this time any Enemies to Peace or thirsters after Blood that durst to have showne themselves so throughout the whole Nation And therefore what will God say or doe unto you when he comes to make inquisition for blood to avenge it This is the bloody Countie that had Peace layd at their feet and trampled on it that had Peace brought home to their doores and not onely shut it out but called to bloodie Warre to enter in that had many thousands of their fellow Brethren and Neighbours that would have ventured their lives to have preserved them in Peace and they chose rather to lose many of their owne lives to take away some of theirs They loved not Peace therefore it shall be farre from them they delighted in Warre therefore shall it cleave close to them and they thirsted for blood therefore shall they be drunke with their owne blood Doe not thinke that I speake more in Gods Name then I have warrant from Gods Word for though ye have bin too long used so and abused by such lying Prophets Search the Scriptures and observe from thence what God speakes of the shedding of blood and you I find that I speak very sparingly as having regard to your infirmities For there God tells you That shedding of blood is one of those crying sinnes which makes a land to mourne and every one that dwelleth therein to languish Hos 4. v. 2.3 That blood defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein or there can be no expiation for the Land but by the blood of him that shed it and that If a people would have God to dwell among them they must not so defile the land which they inhabit Numb 35. v. 33.34 That the shedding of innocent blood is such a sinne that of all other horrid sinnes the Lord will not pardon 2 King 24. v. 4. And therefore no satisfaction was to be taken for the life of a murtherer which was guiltie of death but he was to be surely put to death Numb 35. v. 31. with a multitude of other sayings on that subject that are to be trembled at by the Rebellious Subjects of this Kingdome 'T is true if a man killed any person unawares there were Cities of refuge appointed by God for such a one to flye unto from the avenger of blood but Oh my poore Countrey-men what Cities of refuge can ye fancie to your selves who wilfully murther your brethren And what lesse can the King say of you then this or to this effect The Countie of Suffolke 't is the most Rebellious Countie of all my Dominions For when one of my Kingdomes moved not against me when a second rose up for me and when the third Petitioned for me from almost all parts and tooke up Armes for me in most parts they of Suffolke neither Petitioned for me nor moved for me but rose up against me and when Rebellion was expiring its last poysonous breath they hazarded their owne lives to prolong its life and to preserve the lives of those Rebells that seeke nothing more then to take away mine When thousands of my Loyall Subjects were indeavouring to fetch me out of my Cruell Bondage and Imprisonment then they helpt to besiege and imprison to kill murther those very Subjects and when others with them were making what haste they could to set my Crowne againe firme on my head and to restore me againe to those Rights Honours and Comforts which I was wont to injoy they did what they could to throw my Crowne back againe to the ground and to keepe mine Honour still in the dust and me from all hopes of enjoying any Rights or externall Comforts here in this life Thus have they indeavoured to continue and adde to my Miseries who have therefore indured such Miseries in such Extremities because I would not yeeld to the delivering up of them amongst others to extreme Slavery and Tyranny Thus have they not onely fought against me without a cause but for the love that I had unto them they take now my contrarie part and have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my good will But I give my selfe unto Prayer Stirre up thy selfe and awake to my judgement even unto my Cause my God and my Lord. Judge me O Lord according to thy righteousnesse and let them not rejoyce over me Psal 35. Let them not say in their hearts Ah so would we have it Let them not say We have swallowed him up Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoyce at my hurt Let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnifie themselves against me Let them shout for joy and be glad that favour my righteous Cause yea let them say continually Let the Lord be magnified which hath pleasure in the prosperitie of his servant and my tongue shall speake of thy righteousnesse and of thy prayse all the day long Amen Amen But what then will all the other Counties of England say of you O bewitched besotted Countie of Suffolke They that had lived in peace and plentie all these times when in the most