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lord_n	earth_n	let_v	people_n	10,338	5	5.1151	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66765	Paralellogrammation an epistle to the three nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, whereby their sins being parallel'd with those of Judah and Israel, they are forewarned, and exhorted to a timely repentance, lest they incur the like condempation : to render it the more effectual, some considerable notions are therein expressed touching ceremonies, and things indifferent, the Lords supper, the civil government, the taking of oaths, the mark of the beast, the library of conscience, the great Sabbath, and the two witnesses, with other particulars of concernment interwoven / written by Geo. Wither.	Wither, George, 1588-1667.	1662 (1662)	Wing W3176; ESTC R11575	78,735	140

Plaisters and like the old Egyptians their true types encrease the works of Bondage and Slavery to the suppressing of GOD's People within their Jurisdictions because they perceive them endeavouring to separate from them But the time is near wherein the true Israelites and their Oppressors will receive the Rewards respectively prepared and due unto them by GOD's Judgments promenced against the one and his gracious Promises to the other though his Enemies struggle yet against him like Pharoah and his Armies in the Red Sea when their Chariot-wheels were taken off and while the waves on either side stood heaped up ready to swallow them The Grand City being divided into three parts will ere long fall with every subordinate Power Kingdom City and Society thereto belonging and wo to all them who have not separated from her by repentance Her abominations are come into remembrance before GOD Her sins are almost full ripe and she is become an habitation of Devils and a receptacle for every unclean bird all Nations have drunk the Cup of her Fornications and are besotted and bewitched with her Sorceries and Inchantments The Merchants of the Earth are enriched by the abundance of her carnal Delicacies and by her Traffick in spiritual and temporal Merchandizes for they have traded together not only for Gold Silver Pretious Stones Pearls fine Linnen Silks Purple Scarlet Vessels of Brass Iron Wood and Marble Spices Odours Oyntments Oyl Wine Wheat Beasts and Chariots but also for the Bodies and Souls of men according to what was prophesied pretending to settle upon their Chapmen Possessions in Heaven that they might cheat them and their Heirs of their Inheritances upon Earth Their Formal Devotions being of the same nature and value with such as were in use among the old Heathen Idolaters and for the most part borrowed from their Idol Temples will not avail them in the day of their Visitation but be cast out as unholy things fit for nothing but to be trampled under foot and destroyed with all those Trumperies which the Founders of the Mystery of Iniquity have raked together out of Judaism and Gentilism to trim up a will-Worship They who dote on them shall perish with them and GOD's People whom they now oppress and reproach shall be delivered from their scorns and oppressions If they with whom GOD hath intrusted the Civil Power shall joyn with her in oppressing his People he himself will deliver them from all their oppressive Actings and Constitutions who by a corrupt exercise of their Authority are more or less at enmity with his Kingdom and persecutors of his Saints as turbulent and seditious Persons for professing their Consciences and not complying with them in their Abominations and vain Inventions repugnant to the dictates of his Word and Spirit who is their Soveraign Paramount Yea so many of the Civil Governors and Magistrates as in their publick or personal actings adhere finally to Antichristianism in the essentials thereof shall be therewith destroyed But they who Conform to the Kingdom and Government of Christ shall be thereunto admitted and therewith honoured Be wise therefore O ye Kings and learn what ye are to do you that are Judges of the People Let not the Kings and Rulers of the Earth bind themselves together in their Counsels against the LORD and his Anointed nor the murmuring People imagine vain things For GOD who sits in Heaven derides their attempts and maugre all their opposition will set his King upon the holy Hill of Sion Psal 2. Amen These things considered our future Repentance and Reformation will not alone consist in forsaking our Transgressions against the moral Law and the impudent prophaness whereof we are guilty by meer carnal sins but in timely disserting also every spiritual wickedness by coming out of Babylon and desisting from complying with her and especially by razing out the Mark of the Beast if we have in any mode received it which is not to be performed by a local departure or separation but by a relinquishment of their Superstitions and Idolatries and by avoiding the mark of the Beast both in the hand and forehead which I conceive not to be any thing forcibly imposed upon men against their wills as Oaths Stigmatizings or Conformity with them in things indifferent But I judge that Mark to be a voluntary approving the Power of the Beast and an adhering to him or his Image by justifying their tyrannies professing their Idolatries and by openly or secretly persecuting the followers of the LAMB For these Qualifications knit together with an c will make such a perfect Character whereby to distinguish them from the Disciples of Christ that they shall be priviledged to buy and sell or to enjoy any place of Power Honour or Profit within his usurped Jurisdiction which he exerciseth at several times and under various Notions For I conceive that the first and second Beast mentioned in the Revelation as also the Image of the Beast The Skarlet Whore with her Cup of Fornications The Red Dragon The False Prophet the seven Heads the ten Horns the smoke which ascended out of the Bottomless Pit and the Locusts proceeding out of that smoak do all together make up but one Mystical Body of Iniquity as it was by degrees produced active and manifested in several times according to the true nature thereof in every particular part The first Beast being the fourth and last humane tyranny described by Daniel in the last of the four Beasts whereof he had a Vision in the Raign of Belshazer is that Monster out of which all the Appurtenances of the said Mystery successively branched The second Beast is that mixture of temporal and spiritual Oppressions and Wickednesses which sprouted up from the first by Sa●anical Delusions and fleshly Impostures It is called the Image of the Beast because of the manifold resemblances which it retains of heathenish Romes Cruelties Pride and Superstitions and their forming of it into that Image was partly as I judge to colour and countenance their Novelties and wicked Impostures with an appearance of venerable Antiquity and with a successive Authority which is one of their chief boasts and it was partly to share also among themselves the Dignities and Profits which were formerly enjoyed by the Flamines Arch-Flamines and other Priests among the Gentiles who had large Priviledges and Possessions It is expressed by a Red Dragon in respect of the bloody Persecutions thereby raised in the Primitive Church It is called a Whore arrayed in Scarlet with a golden cup of Fornications in her hand to signifie the carnal Pompe and Pleasures whereby it should infatuate and bewitch the great men of the World It is likened to a False Prophet to intimate the counterfeit Sanctity and Gravity whereby it should delude foolish Kings and Nations The Smoke ascending out of the bottomless Pit implies the Jugglings and Sophistications whereby they should becloud the Truth and darken mens understandings with fictitious Glosses and false Interpretations The

whilst I lived as just occasions and opportunities should from time to time be offered so far forth as GOD shall give me Grace And I do now by this Premonitory and Exhortatory Epistle exhibite to your serious considerations that which Providence hath lately offered unto mine preaching in my Laymode the Doctrine of Repentance which is to us as necessary to prepare the way of our LORD Christ at this near approach of his second Coming as it was in that Generation whereto it was preached by John the Baptist at his first Coming in the flesh That Premonitor was single in his work being thereto extraordinarily designed and qualified I am but one among many thereto fitted in some degree by GOD's ordinary dispensations Nevertheless by a Medium having an Allusion to his imitation though much differing from it For as he was prepared for his work in that Generation by returning from conversing among men into a desolate place or Wilderness so I have been prepared for that which I have to do by conversing among men in the world And as he finished his Life and Testimony against the corruption of his Generation in a Prison so peradventure must I yea without peradventure if GOD himself prevents it not with whose good pleasure I shall be well pleased Suffer me therefore with your patience to prosecute my work and let it not be supposed that I have herein acted without Commission nor let this Allusion to John Baptist be misconstrued as if I thereby arrogated or sought to insinuate an opinion that I am somewhat more than I am for I conceive my self to be one of the least in the Kingdom of Heaven and to be by the Grace of GOD onely that which I am having neither Mission nor Commission but that of GOD's Word and Spirit whereby every true Servant of his is qualified called and authorized to prosecute the particular Services whereto he is appointed in his Time and Place During five or six eminent Publick Changes for about sixty years together I have had place means and opportunity otherwhile as a private and sometimes as a publick person to be an occular or an ear-witness of many of the most signal transactions in these three Nations relating to their general well or ill being and was also a diligent Observer somewhat sooner than most other men of my years of the Peoples Manners in private aswell concerning GOD as Men even in persons of all Degrees and Professions from the highest to the lowest inclusively as may partly appear by those Observations Oriations and Reproofs which I have heretofore published from time to time and for which I began to suffer as I now do nigh fifty years past But my Endeavours having had little good effect hitherto notwithstanding the various and manifold inter-changes of Judgments and Mercies wherewithal GOD hath provoked us nor by the frequent Applications which his Ministers have made of them as occasions were offered I not thinking my self discharged from what I undertook am willing to adventure the loss of more labour to prevent if it be possible that which I fear may ensue And to that end am induced to add this Expedient hoping and believing that some of this Generation will be hereby awakened out of their security when they have herewithal considered in how many evident Particulars GOD hath verified my Presages to these Nations lately and long ago published when there was little fear of such Events The Generality in my apprehension is more infatuated and much more wicked than when I first took notice of the world and so insnarled with all manner of Confusions in things both Divine and Civil that unless we speedily and more strenuously return to GOD by Repentance Faith and Prayer that we may be disentangled all the great hopes of the Temporal Prosperity which is by some lately conceived will quite fail them and all the severe Judgments heretofore inflicted upon our true Types Judah and Israel will be shortly executed upon us I heartily pray we may escape them and to that intent forewarn you by these Presents before it is too late Not being thereto moved by such Phanatick Impulses as those are by some judged to be whereby GOD hath enclined many of his Servants on whom you impose contemptible names in various Modes to awaken you out of your dreams and security But I have attempted it upon those Motives whereby they and I have been warrantably provoked to be Remembrancers for your weal and safety though maligned and persecuted for our good will and that which inclined me to write unto you in this manner was thus occasioned I lately making use of my ordinary Contemplative Object the written Word of God the better to preserve my Faith and Dependance in and upon him in these my Bands and having in particular refreshed my memory with what the Prophets left recorded touching the Prevarications of the Children of Israel and the Inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem on whom the Judgments fore-declared were afterward inflicted for their obstinate impenitence I perceived them to be so like us and we so like them both in our transgressions and wilfulness that the Contemplation thereof moved me to make this Premonitory Address and to preface it with such Preoccupations as I thought needful and a brief Recapitulation of those Omitions and Commitions wherewith I found the Jews to have been charged by their own Prophets hoping the Exemplification of such Premonitions so authorized and having such notorious Events shall so prevail that when you have observed what they did what you have done and find it testified by your own Consciences how you parallel them in the same and the like sins you will not be so stupid as to think if you continue in them that you can possibly escape the like Judgements in regard as the Crimes are the same or equivolent so you have the same Accusers and the same Judge with not a few Witnesses and Aggravations of your Guiltiness Reade hear and heed then what Impeachments the Prophets of GOD have in several times drawn up against his own chosen People with what was threatned and befel them afterward for their perversness and impenitency The Prophet Isaiah personates the LORD accusing them to be Rebellious Children an ignorant inconsiderate People laden with iniquity A seed of evil doers corrupting each other perverse in their wayes to the provoking of his Anger and still more and more apostatizing notwithstanding their frequent corrections and fatherly admonitions That they were head-sick heart-sick and unsound in every part from head to foot That nothing would work upon them to amendment insomuch that but for a Remnant which he had preserved among them they had been like Sodom and Gomorrah The said Prophet testifies that they had made their Worship of GOD their Sacrifices and all their outward services of him even those which he himself had commanded to be as abominable or as little regarded as those which he required not at their hands

weak nor cured those that were sick nor bound up that which was broken nor sought out that which was lost nor brought home that which went astray but ruling over them by force and cruelty caused the Flocks to be scattered and wander throughout the Earth Chapt. 34. Consider to whom this may be applied and who as they did have set their thresholds by God's thresholds and their posts by his posts as it is said the Jews did Ezek. 43. The Prophet Daniel confesseth in his Prayer that their Kings their Princes their Fathers and the whole house of Israel had been transgressors against GOD's Laws and despisers of his Prophets and Servants The Prophet Hosea calls them the Children of Whoredom and Covenant-breakers Hos chap. 2. He charges them with being inconsiderate of their own wayes corrupters of their Kings by making them sport and rejoycing their hearts with wickedness and delighting their Princes with lyes That upon their Festivals they made their Kings or themselves or both sick with Bottles of Wine meaning as I conceive that they were drunk For it is usually said that Great men are sick when they are distempered with drink and poor men drunk and peradventure they then drank healths as in these times until they had by drinking healths to others drunk away their own health The same Prophet sayes also that they caused their Kings to stretch out their hands to Scorners which may peradventure signifie the giving of their hands to be kissed by unworthy persons as a testimony that they are in their favour He further charges them to be Adulterers heated with Lust like Ovens and that their Kings and Judges were apostatized through neglect of GOD. Chap. 7. That they had likewise set up Kings which he intended not to set over them and such Princes as he approved not of which sin Samuel laid also to their charge when they desired a King like other Nations Moreover he impeaches them for Covenant-breaking for transgressing against the Laws of their Maker and being forgetful of him and become strangers unto him for building such Temples and making such Fortifications as he approved not of Chap. 8. And addeth that they were a Vine bearing fruit to themselves onely That they had sworn falsly in their Covenants plowed for wickedness reaped Iniquity fed upon the fruit of Lyes and confided in their own strength and Policy chap. 10. Joel particularizeth such Judgments as were approaching for their sins and exhorts them to speedy Repentance Amos complains that neither Judgements nor Mercies prevailed to reform them That their sins had made their Fasts Oblations and other pious duties abominable to the LORD That they deferred the evil day and caused the Thrones of Oppression to be exalted That they stretched themselves upon their couches and beds of Ivory chearing their hearts with variety of Musick whilst the People of GOD were oppressed and their sufferings by them unregarded Micaiah chargeth those who were in Authority with meditating mischiefs upon their beds at night and executing it in the morning as also with coveting and violently taking away other mens Houses and Inheritances Chap. 2. He charges their Princes and Rulers with ignorance in Judgment with hating that which is good with loving that which is evil with plucking the skins of the People from their flesh tearing the flesh from the bones and quite devouring them He accuses their Prophets of leading the People into errors of being contentious and quarrelsome with such as fed them not according to their unsatiable longings of building up Sion with Blood and Jerusalem with Iniquity He affirmed that the Heads of the People judged for reward that the Priests taught for hire and that their Prophets prophesied for money Chap. 3. He impeached the Nation of fraud and lying of deceitfulness in their Trading and of using falshood in their weights and measures Chap. 6. He complained that good and righteous men were perished out of the Land that they lay in wait for Blood hunting their Brethren as with Nets and plaid upon both hands in their prosecutions of evil That their Princes were greedy of Gifts and Bribes plotters of mischief and the best of them but a Bryar or a Thorn That Children dishonoured their Parents That Kinsmen were treacherous to each other That the most dangerous Enemies were men of the same houshold and that neither Friends Guides Guardians or they who lay in each others bosoms were to be trusted Chap. 7. The Prophet Zephaniah attested that their Princes were like roaring Lyons and ravenous Wolves gnawing the very Bones of the People That their Prophets were light treacherous persons their Priests violaters of the Laws and polluters of the Sanctuary Chap. 3. Haggai upbraids them with neglect of GOD's House and suffering that to be waste whilst they were curiously trimming up their own habitations Zechary declares the hypocrisie of their Fasts affirming that they were deaf to all good Counsel and that because they would not listen unto GOD he would not hearken unto them Chap. 7. Malachi charges their Priests both with offering polluted Bread and with making the Table of the LORD contemptible which last mentioned crime is now almost epidemical These Presentments were made and recorded by twelve good and lawful men and are a Breviate but of some of those Transgressions which are enumerated in the books of the Prophets and charged upon the Jews by their Mouths and Pens before and after the Babylonish Captivity even whilest interchanges of Judgments and Mercies were frequently dispensed to reclaim them to the manifesting of GOD's wonderful patience and long-suffering during their Prevarications Of his Patience we have had the like experience as also how unjustly some of his Messengers whom he hath sent to reconcile us unto him by Repentance are traduced and persecuted as seditious persons troublers of the common Peace and disaffected to Civil Governments To the sins aforementioned I might add the manifold Provocations of the Kings Princes Priests and People of that Nation in those dayes wherein they seemed to serve GOD with most uprightness The Patriarchs when they were but one Family during the life of Jacob failed grosly and Moses gave a true character of their Posterity in his time as also what they would afterward prove So did the Prophet David in his Generation who though he was a wise King and probably endeavoured their Reformation as much as in him lay complained that there was no good man left that there was no trust to be reposed in Princes and charged them who were in Authority with establishing wickedness by Law particularly enveighing in Psal 82. against the corruptions of those Congregations of the Mighty which I conceive were equivolent with our Parliaments Councils and supream Judicatories as being extreamly depraved yea he personates GOD himself standing where he beholds their proceedings and sharply reproving them for their unjust accepting of the persons of the wicked for negligence in executing Justice on the behalf of the

Proclamation and afterwards a Covenant voluntarily and conscientiously made or was at least pretended by Prince Priests and People for the breach whereof Confiscation of Goods and Exclusion from the Congregation was menaced but how far forth it was put in execution it appears not no had any wrong been done thereby because that is no wrong which is done to a man by his own consent no nor that which is done against his will if it be purposed for his wel-being and cannot have any effect to his hurt nor fail of that good which is pretended which inforcing the Conscience can never produce but the contrary rather for GOD is never wel-pleased with any service unwillingly done though the performance be good in it self and is alwayes highly displeased with every one who for fear favour or for any other end whatsoever acteth or speaketh against his Conscience and no doubt as highly offended with all those who offer violence to the Consciences of other men in regard it is not only injurious to men but a presumptuous offence also against a Prerogative due and proper to Him alone If these Prevarications be found among us be it known that they are surer tokens of GOD's Indignation than those which we call Plague-tokens are of their near approaching deaths who are visited with the Pestilence yet we have lately had other signs and tokens which are both Presignificators of the General Judgment and of the National Calamities which will come upon particular Nations and Persons when their sins grow ripe according to what our Saviour Christ foretold Luke 21. 25. where it is said There shall be signs in the Sun the Moon and the Stars and upon the Earth distress of Nations with perplexity the Sea and the Waves voaring mens hearts failing in looking after those things which are coming upon the Earth for the Powers of Heaven shall be shaken c. We have seen these or such like signs whether taken in a metaphorical or a literal sense and the sign also of the Prophet Jonas mystically revived in some of the Saints of GOD whose Judgments are begun upon those of his own Houshold and his Justice and Mercy have been manifested upon many of them in our sight Moreover though we who believe his Word have therein sufficient manifestations and look for no other signs of what is approaching yet GOD hath vouchasafed to Unbelievers in these dayes what he denied to the like unbelieving and adulterous Generation heretofore if what hath been credibly reported may be credited For we have heard of more strange Prodigies dreadful Apparitions and unusual Visions in the Air upon the Waters and on the Earth within a few years than I have read recorded in all humane Stories since the coming of Christ in the flesh and they are the more to be considered in regard GOD hath been pleased to give us Signs of what he intends though as I said before he denied Signs to those who desired them and forasmuch as they made us no whit the better it implies an experimental verifying of this saying They who will not believe Moses and the Prophets will not believe one sent from the dead If the Signs and Wonders lately averred be true or but in part true as I am perswaded they are though I never saw any such then they are very considerable And no less considerable or significant are they if feigned or delusions seeing they declare this Generation to be presumptuously wicked beyond all before them as daring to make aver and publish Lies of that nature If they are true they are the Finger of GOD pointing to somewhat whereof they are Signs and which ought to be heeded yea though they are but delusions of the Fancy they are terrible Signs of affrighted and self-condemning Consciences Those Apparitions which we see or fear to see upon the Earth shew us from whence all our troubles come even from our Earthly-mindedness and the Signs which men see or think they see in the Heavens invite us to look up unto those Hills from whence cometh our Salvation We have yet other Signs of what is approaching and of what will certainly ensue if not prevented by Repentance and they are very significant and observable though very few heed them or think themselves therein concerned GOD foretold the obstinate Jews that he would provoke them by such as they reputed a foolish People and so have we been provoked by some among us whose persons words and actions appear unto the greatest number of us not only foolish and contemptible but impudent and wicked also Such were they and their Actings who came naked into our Publick Assemblies and by what spirit soever they were thereto moved were Signs which I believe GOD permitted to signifie that he will openly discover our Shame and strip us naked from all those Fig-leaves which we have patched together to hide it and take from us all those things which we have made our chief delight pride and ornament And I am perswaded those signal Actings of that nature which were personated by some of the Prophets were in their times reputed as ridiculous and scandalous as the extravagancies which have been seen in our dayes They likewise whom ye term Quakers and who with much resolution and patience do sustain the Persecutions whereby they are prosecuted in all places Even they as I believe are instrumental by a Divine Dispensation signally to foreshew that Contempt which GOD will bring upon our false Worship false Honour vain Complements Hypocrisies Superstitions Formalities in Piety counterfeit Morality and Dissimulations with GOD and Men. Many take great offence at them and I do believe because it hath been averred unto me by conscientious men that some so called have professed and taught erroneous and scandalous Doctrines for there is no Dispensation whereinto the Devil hath not screwed many of his Instruments to disparage and hinder what was thereby intended but I do profess that none among all them of whose Principles and Conversation I have had opportunity to take notice hath appeared otherwise to me than a truly honest and pious man and though their language and manners are offensive to many they are not so to me because if they be not taken up with an affectation to singularity whereof I cannot judge unless I could see their hearts they seem to me such as are essential to their Dispensation and had GOD fitted me for the same work I should have done as some of them do though I will not justifie all that some of them do Habakkuk in his mode and at such a time as this was a Quaker So likewise was Ezekiel the Prophet and a sign to the Jews by GOD's Dispensation in his time as appears Ezek. 12. 17. The Word of the LORD came unto me saying Son of man eat thy bread with quaking and drink thy water with trembling and carefulness and say unto the People of the Land thus saith the LORD GOD of the Inhabitants of Jerusalem

white Ephod or Surplice of a sincere unbyassed Conscience and repair to that Urim and Thummin whereby the Secrets of the LORD are in all straits and difficulties made known to such as fear him And in the mean time I being neither for or against the Power of Kings or the Priviledges of the People further than they are agreeable to the Laws of GOD and Nature will declare what my own practice hath been in these late staggering times hoping it may be of good use to some and no way hurtful to any Though I have been oft Imprisoned and my honest and peaceable Intentions questioned upon misapprehensions and mis-informations I never endeavoured ought by Factious Confederacy with others or in my single Capacity by Word or Writing against the Supream Person or Power in being It is otherwise affirmed by some who I think neither know what I have done written or said but by hear-say and a Person of some quality who seldom read ought save scurrilous and obscene Pamphlets charged me before many in my absence to have been a Troubler and Scandalizer of all Governments now fifty years Ahab in such-like words charged Elias to be the Troubler of Israel because he had reproved his wickedness who was the greatest troubler thereof in his time and the same troublesomness is imputed to every one in his time who conscientiously reproveth Vice when Wickedness and Folly are predominant how modestly soever he doth it But if all my Actings Writings and Speakings were known and considered it would manifestly appear that neither my Principles or Endeavours ever tended to ought destructive or dishonorable to the Supream Magistrate possessing the Throne but to that which was for the preservation of his honour and safety if rightly understood and that I have unfeignedly exhorted others to the like obedience To our present Governor I have no way failed in obedience since his Restauration and think these Nations more than ordinary obliged to that duty in regard GOD hath given them those Governments and that King which the greatest number of them desired when they called him Home unto them from a long Exile As also because I am confident that miraculous Restoration was vouchsafed to be a Test both of His and our Obedience to GOD's Commands and of our conformity to that which he justly expects should be performed by King and People to Him and by them reciprocally to each other According to proof thereof upon the Test such will be the sequels respectively to all Parties for I am not deceived in the Say-Master nor is this unwarantably declared by me though I my self am but one in the Furnace of Purgation and Probation among the rest GOD brought in the King without blood-shed and without being ingaged to any except only in a few Promises upon the word of a King that he might depend on GOD only and dispense Justice and Mercy impartially to all which my hope is he will do when he is dis-intangled from such inconveniencies thereto obstructive as his late troubles occasioned and when he is better acquainted with the temper and constitution of these Nations to which he was long a stranger even from his Infancy I pray GOD that neither our sins nor his own nor their Actings who are to him what the Sons of Zerviah were to David prove hinderances thereunto by being too hard for him of which I am somewhat fearful This brings to mind the third Branch of my Memorandum afore-mentioned which I had almost forgotten and which concerns those as aforesaid whom GOD hath now put visibly under subjection to him and whose distempers were much allayed by many fair Promises or pretendings at least that they should enjoy their Consciences and those estates which were granted and as they thought secured unto them by the Publick Faith of the Nations The neglect of Performance to those purposes according to expectation though outward clamors were upon vain hopes awhile calmed may have evil effects when least feared For Unfaithfulness and Unmercifulness GOD will avenge though men wink at it especially a National unfaithfulness if not repented and satisfied for seasonably in some measure whatsoever colourable excuses may be alleaged will be avenged as is manifest in the Case of the Gibeonites All the Three Nations are engaged by their Common Faith given in pledge directly or indirectly both for the Liberty of Conscience in relation to GOD and for making good in some proportion those Debts and Contracts whereunto many were drawn under Pious and Civil pretences authorized by that visible Power which was then in being and countenanced and submitted unto by the most eminent Persons of all Degrees Judgements and Professions as well as by the greatest number of the People without any open contradiction Thereupon they contributed their Estates for support of that which they thought a lawful Power even to the ruining of many of their Families as it hath since happened who submitted thereunto conscientiously in the simplicity of their hearts as many others did by compulsion and some for sinister respects in obedience only to them who acted in the Name of a Lawful Supream Authority which in reason excuses them who are not to judge the Actings of their visible Superiors submitted unto by the whole Nation or the greatest part thereof as aforesaid The Power now in being also together with many eminent Members of the former Power seemingly at least to be concurrent did if I and many other mistake not voluntarily pretend both before and after the Restoration of this Power to indulge tender Consciences and to make some competent satisfaction to them who had conscientiously hazarded their Persons and trusted out their Estates as aforesaid and who justly expect that their Loyal submission without blood-shed should be rewarded according to explicite or implicite Promises and Declarations wherein they confided and for which hoping it will be at last performed they do patiently suffer in the mean time beseeching GOD to remove the Confusions and Burthens wherewithal they and many other in these Nations are at this present oppressed and involved Now then that their and our Prayers may be effectual to incline GOD to have Mercy upon us all in general let the neglect of that expected Indulgence be taken into consideration and somewhat be performed according to what is hoped for to testifie our thankful acknowledging the large extent of GOD's Mercy both to King and People for bringing us so peaceably into a way of Reconciliation which may possibly be perfected and continued if we prudently and gratefully persue it and not make our selves liable again to those great debts and trespasses which were forgotten by taking our Brethren by the throats for failings less considerable and by unmerciful destroying them and their Families especially by being severe unto them for seeming deficiences relating to GOD and the Conscience with which none have ought to do but GOD only who is the proper Judge between Himself and mens Consciences But for