houre Immediately after Prayer the sicke party said He was now most happy since God and Man had forgiven him and told the Minister hee was certaine God pardoned him all his finnes The Minister answered It was well if his assurance were on good grounds He replied That he was sure of it for Christ had taken away all his sinnes which God had in his sicknesse set before his eyes yea and some such finnes as he did not know or beleeve formerly to have beene sinnes but now Christ had borne them all on his owne shoulders and eased him of all that heavy burthen with many other most heavenly and divine expressions And being neere his death even the night before he died he said Hee assuredly saw Christ in a vision appearing unto him and telling him that his sinnes were pardoned and that he had a Cause on earth and that the Parliament of England defended it and that in the yeere of our Lord Christ 1644. the Parliament should obtaine a great victory over the Kings Forces and that then there should bee none of those wicked Ministers that had mis-led Gods people left among them and that from that time the Parliament should prosper but in the meane season that the rod of the wicked should rest on the backs of his righteous ones And after this hee lay glorying and rejoycing in the forgivenesse of his sinnes and even triumphing over death till the time of his departure which was the next day This relation was testified both by the said learned reverend and religious Divine who was often with him in his said sicknesse and heard most of his expressions and also by another religious Gentleman who was also then present and heard what is here delivered as aforesaid Also one Thomas Clarke a ranke malignant young man and servant to one Master Travill a merchant of London 3. One Thomas Clarke also a merchants man in London a notable malignant his penitent confession on his death-bed in honour of the Parliament being in the yeere 1643 stricken with sicknesse of which he died about three dayes before his death one William Coote a neighbour of his comming to visit him in this his sicknesse and having sate a while with him as he was going away the sick party desired him to stay a little and told him that hee would now say more to him then he had done to any which was this I am now sayes hee strongly perswaded in my heart that the Parliament maintains a right cause and at last shall have victory over the Kings Forces for they he said fought for Antichrist and he confest withall that he had lived a very sinfull life and was most of all grieved that he had spoken so much against the Parliament for which he wished he could now weep teares of blood together with very many patheticall speeches to this purpose and shortly after it departed this life This I have also from very honest and religious hands and testimony who have faithfully informed me of the truth thereof as having been both eye and ear-witnesses of the same In September also 1643. one Master Whitleigh in Golding lane in London with his wife Mistresse Whitleigh both of them very religious Christians 4. A remarkable example of one Master Whitleigh and his wife who deserted the Cause of the Parliament and truly fearing the Lord came with their foure children not long before to London from Tewksbury in Gloucestershire principally desiring to remove thence because of the wicked conversation of the Cavaliers billeted where he lived And hee having formerly served in the Parliaments Army against the Kings Forces but being now at London and for about three moneths space void of imployment resolved to give over service in the wars as finding a timorous fearfulnesse in himselfe to adventure any more into the Parliaments Army thereupon at last he had some thoughts to goe into New-England and advising with his wife who also was most unwâ—lâ—ing hee should any more put himselfe into the Service of the Parliament but by all meanes began to strengthen his resolution to goe away for New-England Whereupon he peremptorily now resolving to depart thither with his wife and children presently laid out thirty pounds for their passage by Sea and as much more for provision of necessaries to the voyage But being ready to depart the Lord suddenly struck him very sicke and in his sicknesse he was very much troubled in his minde lamenting and crying out very much against the sinne of Cowardise and Fearfulnesse which hee conceived to bee the ground of his intended removall to new-New-England and therefore much distrusting his soules estate cryed out often That he had sinned against God in cowardly deserting his holy Cause yet earnestly praying the Lord to forgive him this sinne promising and protesting that if the Lord vouchsafed to restore him to health and strength againe he would resolutely goe on to spend every drop of the blood in his veines for the Parliaments Cause and afterward blaming his wife for giving her consent and incouraging him therein he shortly after died yet before his departure he testified abundance of comfort and assurance of Gods favour and the pardon of his sin Immediately also after his death it so pleased the Lord that his wife fell so distracted that three or foure women could scarcely hold her downe in her bed and she taking no sustenance but what was forced into her mouth for many dayes she still in all this time of most sad perplexity crying out That she had sinned against God in counselling and incouraging her deceased husband to forsake Gods Cause and thereby she feareâ— she had beene the cause of his death And thus she lay divers dayes in much misery crying out of this her sinne and craving pardon of God for it And about the end of September aforesaid my godly friend from whom I had this relation comming occasionally to her house to see her found that her raging fits had left her but her spirits much spent and she lying speechlesse so that he knew not how to administer a word of comfort to her in that case wherefore being about to depart thence shee looked stedfastly on him reached out her hand to him which he tooke in his being as cold as clay and therewith spake many comfortable words unto her and ere he departed she manifested very much consolation in her soule both by words though faintly and gestures also and in a most happy and comfortable condition departed this life also the very next morning after his departure from her This relation I say I had from a very religious Citizen of London and faithfull servant of the Lord who himselfe was with Mistresse Whitleigh thus departing and whose own Sister lived close by these parties was well acquainted with them both in their lives and death and whose testimony I know to be without exception There was also about the time of the first victories of the famous and
us that grand Ringleader and accursed contriver of all these our present mischiefes and miseries next to our sinnes yea the very head and heart of Clergy and Laick-Malignants according to their owne Popish distinction I meane the Arch-Prelate of Canterbury on whom it most neerly and closely fell out by divine providence so strangely and even admirably ordering it 9. Gods hand against Malignants in Doctor Laighton made master Lambeth house now converted from a Palace to a Prison Namely that that honest and religious Gentleman Doctor Laighton that great and grievous Sufferer for the cause of Christ under the cruell tyranny of that foresaid popish Persecuter should not onely live to see himselfe delivered out of the snare but his old grand Adversary himselfe to come into it in his stead and that the said Arch-Prelate should be fast lockt up as a traiterous prisoner in the Tower of London whiles this good Doctor is made Lord and Master of the Prelates Palace at Lambeth and this said pompous or rather popish palace where so many precious Saints and servants of the Lord had beene most wickedly arraigned and condemned to prison should now be turned into a prison to lock up most loose and prophane Malignants a most strange and admirable hand of God certainly against them Yea and I might here againe remember them of that most remarkable overture of things among us in these later times namely how it most admirably pleased the Lord to bring it so to passe by his all overpowring hand of providence that the Arch-Prelate of Canterbury being imprisoned in the Tower of London as an Arch-Traitor to our Church and State the Parliament should be pleased to cause the said Arch-Prelates lodgings in the Tower to be searched for dangerous traiterterous Papers Books and VVritings and who must be the man fixed on for the performance of this service but that most famous and faithfull 10. Gods hand against Malignants in Master William Prynnes formerly a great sufferer by the Arch Prelate of Canterbury being sent to search the said Arch-Prelates lodging in the Tower pious and patient Saint and Sufferer for Christ and his Cause Master William Prynne who coming into the said Arch-Prelates bed-chamber betimes in the morning with a guard of Souldiers to secure the businesse and approaching the Prelates bedside before he was uâ— the Prelate asked him who he was This precious and sweet Gentleman answered my name is Prynne VVhat sayes the Prelate are you he that suffered Yea sayes Master Prynne I am he whom you most unjustly and injuriously persecuted Just as good Joseph said to his brethren at the time of his discovering and making himselfe knowne unto them I am Joseph whom ye sold into Egypt O what a stab to the heart should this have bin to this persecuting Prelate at that word I am that Prynne whom you caused so grievoâ—sly and so unjustly to suffer had not his heart bin more hard adâ—mantine then a nether mil-stone Gen. 45. 4. and most extremly cauterized yea stigmatized with the hottest iron of most desperate impenitency and that then Master Prynne proceeding to the due execution of the charge and trust reposed in him by the Parliament should justissimâ illâ coelesti Lege-Talionis most justly Justissima coelestis Lex-Talionis I say search the Pockets of the Prelates wearing clothes before he would suffer him to put them on and rise out of his bed directly as he and some of his popishly affected Confederates had formerly dealt with some most eminent Members of a Parliamâ—nt formerly dissolved and as he had caused Master Prynnes owne Chamber and Study and many others also to be often most violently broken into and searched to the deeply indangering of their precious lives which undoubtedly he greedily hunted after if it might have beene As was done to reverend Master Henry Burtons house and study but therein praised be the Lord God gave this curst Cow according to the Proverbe or rather raging fat Bull of Bashan short hornes the Lords good providence and their owne innocence happily preventing this bloody designe of theirs And might not here now this Arch-Prelate on the serious consideration of these Premises in just remorse of Conscience have cryed out against himselfe like that heathenish King Adonibezeck Judges 17. had he not had as I toucht before a more then heathenish obdurate and impenitent heart Thus and thus have I done to others and now am I thus justly served by them onely with this difference That I am used farre more mercifully then I used them I might here also adde and copiously commemorate unto our mole-eyed Malignants Gods admirable providence in so strangely ordering and disposing of things by this present most memorable Parliament 11. Gods hand against the Malignant party in the Trienniall Parliament not onely to contrive a most free and spontaneous or voluntary consent of all the three Estates in Parliament to the setling of a Trienniall Parliament for the future rectifying of things amisse in Church and State and the more prudent and provident moderation and government of all sorts of State-affairs but also I say that both King Peers and Commons even both Houses of Parliament with his Majesty should so admirably and unanimously make it indissoluble and but by the sword like Alexanders Gordian knot which now the Kings Popish and Atheisticall Army is impiously and I trust fruitlesly labouring to do irrevocable Act That this present Parliament should not bee dissolved nor broken up 12. And especially in a perpetuated Parliament but by the joynt and unanimous consent of both Houses of Peers and Commons Which Act of theirs as it were perpetuating this Parliament by I say a most strange providence of God what a most admirable Block it hath laid in all the wicked wayes of that viperous generation of Atheists Papists and Malignants mightily thwarting crossing and crushing their most desperate and deepest designes I am not able I acknowledge to expresse it and onely Time is able to make it manifest to the glory of God and wonder-striking astonishment in the hearts of both Good and Bad. And though in the last yet not in least place I might here put our Malignants in remembrance for they are as we all see too willing to forget and slight both Gods hand against them and his great mercies towards us how by meanes of this present most pious Parliament 13. Gods hand against the Malignants cause in Church-government and matters of Religion Gods hand hath beene most admirably bent against them and their most impious Cause both in the expulsion and I trust in the Lord utter extirpation of that most Antichristian and tyrannicall Hierarchie of popish Prelates and that most especially by their owne proud practises and desperate designes even against the Parliament it selfe witnesse their Petition to the King that spoiled their sitting in Parliament Arminian Doctors and most scandalous Priests those sonnes of
renowned Towne of Manchester in Lancashire 5. One Master Standidge a Lancashire Gentleman deserting the Parliament suddenly slaine in the act of his defection in the yeere 1642. one M. Standidge a Gentleman of Lancashire who had formerly beene a man much ingaged in his affections for the Parliaments Cause and had oftentimes expressed so much both by his stiffe contendings with some that were very neere and deare unto him as also by his practice and assistance given to the said Cause But afterward by the slye insinuations and perswasions of some seeming friends neere about him but especially being at last overswaied and prevailed with as was strongly supposed by the Lord Strange then a great but blessed be God a most unsuccessefull stickler for the Kings party he being very intimate with the said Lord Strange This said Gentleman did at last so much crosse his owne former practice and good esteeme he had and held of the Worke and Cause of God in the Parliaments proceedings that he most unworthily quite deserted it yea so farre as to take up Armes against it and as he was in person in command and going against that honest famous and victorious Town of Manchester in the Lord Stranges Army the Lord God of Heaven in apparent displeasure met with him in this most disloyall Apostacie and going against God and his Cause For as he was going to take Horse upon some designe neere to the said Town of Manchester a bullet suddenly hit him and kil'd him presently not directly from the Towne but the bullet glancing upon a wall reached him with a gliding blow and so cut him short of his purpose and gave him the sad reward of his unhappy backsliding This I have from such unquestionable and religious testimony of a godly friend and neighbour of mine as I know to be without all just exception And is not here now one would thinke testimony enough for thee O incredulous Malignant yea even from the mouthes of two Converts formerly of thine owne ranke and rotten condition but now and that upon their death-beds and the words of dying men we know doe or ought to take deepe impression making ingenious confession of their and your folly and madnesse in so injuriously opposing the pious and just proceedings of the Parliament But now take one more to cleare these truths yet more abundantly 6. A most remarkable relation of Master Joseph Latch a Merchant his great misery for deserting the Parliament and his mercifull recovery yea one of no lesse moment and materiality then any of the former and most worthy serious notice and observation namely of one Master Ioseph Latch a Merchant in Bashingshall-street in London who having by Gods blessing upon his endeavours in his calling gotten a good estate and being a pious young Gentleman and well affected to the publike good of the Kingdome in the beginning of this Parliamentary warre and set forth two Horses for the said service at his owne proper charge but having some considerable goods at Bristoll which he desired to convey to Manchester by land in which land-passage a protection from the King was necessary for their safe convoy thorow Shrewsbury where lay a Garrison of the Kings Cormorants upon this occasion hee forced himselfe to goe to Oxford to procure such a protection Thus then he tooke his journey thither where he was no sooner arrived but it pleased the Lord it should so fall out that he was presently espied by one that had beene a Malignant neighbour of his in London a Lawyer by whose meanes he was presently apprehended as a Spie on which suspicion hee was instantly clapt up prisoner in the Castle and immediatly after was fetcht before the Councell-Table and in danger of his life But having there very good friends of the Kings party namely Sir George Binion Sir Nicholas Crispe and Mr. Bradborne his kinsman and others he was by the Kings owne Warrant set at liberty and entertained at Sir George Binious lodgings and yet againe for all this Smith that hellish Cerberus the Provost-marshall fetcht him out of Bynions lodgings at eleven of the clocke at night and carried him to prison againe Whereupon Bynion went againe to the King together with Mr. Bradborne told His Majesty of it who seemed much discontented thereat and presently sent a Squire of His body with a Commission to lay Smith by the heeles for his presumption and to enlarge Mr. Latch yea and that without taking the Oxford Protestation lest thereby his estate in London should have been seized on by the Parliament as the estate of a Swornemalignant yet with a private serious promise and engagement to Bynion that he would never hereafter put forth himselfe in any publique service for the Parliament So he at last returned safely home and in order to his promse was now growen very shy of serving with his Company according to the Ordinance of the Militia and shortly after through the ill-advice of a very malignant companion of his made over his estate into Holland put off his house in Bashing shall-street and then withdrew his person also into Holland Thus our Engglish Jonas would have fled from Nineve to Tarshish but God raised a storme in his conscience which drove him backe to our London Nineve there to cry repentance intending there to have lived till these times might change and thus he quite deserted the Parliament But he had not beene there above three weekes or a moneth but that it pleased God he fell sicke there and had a great and restlesse desire to come backe againe into England and accordingly having a fit opportunity imbarked himselfe and was brought backe sicke to London that thus by the providence of God so ordering it he might manifest his repentance here where he had finned and be an example to others both of the horrour which arises out of a guilty conscience sensible of apostacy from a good Cause and also from our Parliamentary Protestation and Covenant to maintaine the same Thus then I say being come off the water on Munday Sept. 25. 1643. he went to a friends house of his one Mr. Lacey in Canon-street where he went sicke to bed and in two daies his sicknesse and corscience working together he much desired to speake with some godly Minister Whereupon one was sent for who accordingly came to him on the Wednesday night but knowing nothing of his defection from the Parliament and hearing a good report of his former honest conversation he onely questioned him about his faith in Christ whereunto receiving an apposite answer he held out unto him some promises of the Gospell wherein his soule might cleave unto the Lord and having commended him unto the grace of God departed for that time but Mr. Latch found such sweetnesse in those promises that he still would be asking when that Minister would come againe That Thursday and Friday past and the Minister not sent for but on the Saturday following he called very
earnestly for the said Minister and would not be satisfied without him so he being sent for came to him that Saturday at night and found him very anxious about getting Christ he oft saying if I have not Christ I must perish eternally But immediately after as a man swallowed up of despaire and drenched in the wrath of God he cried out I am in Hell I am in Hell Then an honest young Gentleman his loving friend who had been his fellow-apprentise and unto whom he had used to unbosome himselfe stept to the Minister and told him what was the cause of all this horrour of conscience in him and so related to him the substance of all fore-mentioned Then the said Minister went againe to M. Latch and asked him if he had taken the Kings Protestation at Oxford who answered no yet still rejected in a desperate manner all the comfortable words that were alledged for his faith to rest upon still crying out I am in hell I sinke lower and lower O was there ever such an hypocrite as I am and therefore I must be damned and I alone must have my portion with Iudas and be an example to all the world and lie in hell to all eternity in so denying the Parliament and goe saies he to his brother that stood by him and tell such an one and such an one two persons to whom he had neere relation that if they hold on their way they must burne in hell as I doe and neither his godly friend nor the Minister could perswade him that he was out of Hell yet the Minister still most piously wrestling against his despaire told him that Hell was not above ground in the Land of the living and therefore he was not yet in Hell but that he should goe to Hell shortly if he would not believe in Christ Jesus and then told him he would pray for him But he replied you shall save the Flocke of Christ but you cannot save me I am past prayer And with the like lamentable speeches as of a man in the very torments of the damned he did oft interrupt the Minister in his prayer and so continued in this despairing fit till after prayer Then the Minister charged him to hearken to him saying You never you assure me tooke the Protestation at Oxford against the Parliament but Peter denied Christ with an Oath yea and with a Curse too yet he went out and wept bitterly and was restored to grace and favour againe Christ saith Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest you are weary and heavy laden come to Christ believe in him and he will ease you and will blot out your iniquities for his owne names sake At which words he suddenly raised up himselfe in his bed and with exceeding earnestnesse of spirit put forth strong cries unto God saying Lord helpe mine unbeliefe Lord helpe mine unbeliefe Lord helpe mine unbeliefe three times together and immediately thereupon burst forth into exceeding great comfort saying O wonderfull mercy Christ is come to fetch me out of Hell and I shall not perish my cries have entered into the eares of the Lord of Sabbath who hath now given sweet rest to my soule And thus with many heavenly expressions of Christs wonderfull mercy toward him he continued at least two houres full of sweet raptures and ravishments of soule and besought the Minister and his friends about him to make knowne these things and how gracious and mercifull Christ had been unto him and this also he desired them to take speciall notice of namely that he protested that what he had said as before was not out of any lightnesse or distemper of his braine but in sensible apprehensions of his soule and what Christ had dictated to him in whose armes he said he now was most sweetly imbraced and that he had now found as he had often heard that as the way to Heaven was by the gates of Hell so he had found it true and had not onely gone by the gates of Hell but even through Hell it selfe but now Christs glorious mercy had fetcht him forth and therefore he prayed them againe to tell and publish abroad what great things Christ had done for him and then all that were present went againe to prayer and he prayed with them and when his breath failed he would lift up his hands but before prayer was quite ended he most sweetly expired as he said in the Armes of his sweet Saviour Christ Jesus leaving the Minister and his Christian friends who had been sorrowfull witnesses of the former dreadfull peoplexities and horrour of his conscience now most abundantly cheered and full of comfort and consolation in the Lord for this admirable gracious change and conclusion And now I hope I have fully performed what I promised at the beginning and have copiously confirmed the truchs I intended to deliver and represent in this my Looking-glasse And now I shall onely desire to summe up all in a very succinct hortatory observation of all hitherto delivered in this our Malignants mirrour or Looking-glasse And first I desire to speake a word or two to our cowardly Neuters and faint hearted deserters of Gods Cause in this our Parliament wherein I feare too many even of Gods children and otherwise good Christians I hope are too guilty That since the Parliaments cause is unquestionably Gods cause and that our Malignants have clearely seene that God is so jealous of this his honourable Cause that he will not spare even his owne Servants if they either reject or neglect his Cause before men and that he will certainly sooner or later wound their consciences with terrour if they thinke to wound his cause with either treachery or timidity and base cowardise let them not I say thinke to sleepe in a whole skin to shrinke their necks out of the coller and doe well enough for all that for certainely God can and will find them out at last as they also may have seene in these former examples of two or three even of Gods deare children who like Ionas would needs be flying from God and his cause one into New-England and another into Holland but how the Lord found them out caused them to see their faithlesse folly and ere he was reconciled to them smarted them both soundly for it and though he come slowly and as the observation is with Leaden-heeles yet will come sorely and with Iron-hands as hath been here before most evidently seen And let them often ruminate and remember and that with trembling what the Spirit of God saies in the booke of the Revelations Revel 21. 7. 8. He that overcommeth that is Heb. 3. 12. which stands close to God and his cause without fainting or giving over shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my sonne But the fearefull and unbelievers see here O cowardly Newters to thy shame and terrour who are put in the very
bounds as not to breake out to do that mischiefe unto His which their malignant adversaries most desperately and divellishly intended to have done unto them Malignants are but Gods drudges and scull-boyes to his Church and children Nay wherein they are yet farre more miserable yea most miserable of all God most wisely and wonderfully makes them in this their intended malice and mischiefe to be but as it were the very drudges and scull-boyes of his Church and children and to doe them farre more good than hurt in scouring and refining them from their drosse and filth contracted from the rubbish of the world in this life yea and by their malignant plottings fighting and spighting Reverend and religious Mr. Marshall cursing swearing jesting and jeering at truth and holinesse they shall as a most holy and reverend Minister of the Lord said exceedingly helpe forward promote and advance Gods cause yea more many times than many of the choice friends thereof and yet which I say is the height or rather the depth of their misery when they have thus done Gods worke though they little thought it and never intended it they themselves like the blinde builders of Noahs Arke who were after it drowned in the Deluge shall be so farre from having any part or portion in the comfortable issue prosperity of his cause that they shal die in their sinne and be everlastlingly damned and perish for their paines therein if I say in the interim God in his infinite boundlesse rich mercy gives them not space and grace to repent What an unexpressible sad condition are ye then in O most miserable Malignants if you could but see this your wicked worke and this your wretched wages as aforesaid even with prophane Esau Hebr. 12. 16. 1 King 21. 20. thus to strive and struggle to sell away as 't was said of Ahab that he sold himselfe to worke wickednesse your blessed Birth-right of life and salvation I speake here the pure language of Canaan maugre the false and flâ—shie conceits and whimsies of our impious Antinomians those slye and jugling underminers of Christian humiliation for sinne A just objurgation to Antinomians by way of a briefe digression and of all other holy duties under a colour of their either ignorant or perverse wresting and misapplying of Gods eternall decree of salvation and free grace to his children Yea I say of those unjust and injurious scandalizers of our venerable pious and most painfull Pastors falsly terming them Legall Preachers and pressers of performance of holy duties in our owne strength and abilities a most grosse scandall and aspersion audaciously cast on them by these Satans Seeds-men of sedition and division in point of Religion Pardon good Reader this glancing digression of zeale in me and now to go on to struggle I say with prophane Esau to sell your blessed Birth-right of life and salvation for a poore base and beggarly morsell of meat or messe of pottage of worldly pelâ—e carnall pleasure and pretended peace forsooth which shall all perish in the use of them and prove unto you nothing but meere vaniâ—y and vexation of spirit Cease then I beseech you O most unholy and unhappy Malignants cease I say and that timely too thus to fret and fume to swear and swagger and to shew your selves such palpable and apparent fighters against God such banders and combiners against Christ in his precious and peculiar members whom though you doe in your life and healthy times scorne and contemne The esteeme that Malignants have of Round-heads in the times of their sicknesse and distresses yet in times of sicknesse or extreme straits and heavy pressures and conscience-distresses these are the onely men you fare the better for these are the men I say that you are often enforced even out of Conscience to send for in your sicknesse especially when you thinke 't is a sicknesse to death to pray for you counsell and comfort you yea and ofttimes in health too are constrained to confesse of them 1 Sam. 24. 17. and to say with wicked Saul to holy David Thou art more righteous than I for thou hast rewarded me good whereas I have rewarded thee evill And therefore truly friends in these like cases I may greatly and most justly feare and I beseech you marke well what I now shall say unto you and feare and tremble at it too that most of the Grandees and Cosmopolites of these our abominably back sliding and apostatizing times most of them I say for I beleeve that they doe not all fight against God upon one and the same principle especially our learned knowing Courtiers Marke this O our learned and knowing Malignants Prelates scandalous Priests and intelligent Protestants at large I greatly feare I say that they come as neere to that sinne that terrible and unpardonable sinne against the holy Ghost and are as deeply plunged into it as ever any Apostate before them which sinne if I mistake not is wilfully The sinne against the holy Ghost knowingly maliciously and perseveringly to persecute and prosecute with all spight and bitternesse of spirit the Truth and true Professors thereof eo nomine because it is and they know it is the Truth of God and therefore they cannot abide it because their owne workes being darknesse they love darknesse more than light 2 Thes 2. 10. 11 12. And that there are such to be found the Apostle Paul testifies and their desperate condition too and I make no doubt but some of them have or will bee enforced ere they dye to acknowledge and cry out I have credibly heard that a some of the Kings Cormorants or Cavaliers have in our late wars cryed out Let us be gon for God fights against us as Serjeant-Major-Generall Basset a Royalist who at the dissolution of the siege at Plimouth spake the very words to one of our Commanders in our works at his going away if not true penitence yet in damnable despaire with that accursed Apostate Julian the heathenish Emperour Vicisti Galilae vicisti So these You have overcome us O Puritans and Round heads you have overcome us for Gods judgements have overtaken us in contending against you And therefore I may and must say unto you all who ever you be in this case and persist therein as Simon Peter said to Simon Magnus You are certainly in the gall of bitternesse in thus abusing the Spirit of grace and his peculiar and precious jewels pray therefore O yet pray if peradventure this sinne may be forgiven you which indeed is the ultimum refugium the last and best refuge and hope you have yet most unlikely to helpe you if not serious and seasonable For he that turnes away his eare from hearing the Law that is from loving God and goodnesse his Cause his Saints and Servants even his very prayers are an abomination to the Lord. And then you may with wicked Esau begge the blessing you so