renew as I may say revow and publish to the whole world to Gods high honour and our unexpressible comfort their cordiall and zealous detestation of Heresies Schismes and Blasphemous Opinions together with their religious resolution peremptorily to proceed agaidst them and for fuller satisfaction herein I will give the Reader their one words in that most excellent Ordinance of theirs worthy to be ingraven by us in fair Characters of Gold which were as followeth Die Jovis Febr. 4 1646. An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assombled concerning the growth and spreading of Errours Heresies and Blasphemies setting apart a day of publik Humiliation to seeke Gods assistance for the suppressing and preventing the same THE Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England having entred into a solemn-Covenant to endeavour sincerely really and constantly the Reformation of Religion in Doctrine Discipline and Worship and the extirpation of Popery Superstition Heresie Schisme Prophanenesse and whatsoever shall bee found contrary to sound Doctrin and the power of godlynesse and having found the presence of GOD wonderfully assisting us in this cause especially since our engagement in pursuance of the said Covenant Have thought it fit least we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues to set forth this our deep sense of the great dishonour of God and perillous condition that this kingdom is in through the abominable blasphemies mark their zealous expressions here and damnable Heresies vented and spread abroad therein tending to the subverssion of the faith contempt of the Ministery and Ordinances of Jesus Christ And as we are resolved to imploy and improve the utmost of our power that nothing be said or done against the Truth but for the Truth so wee desire that both our selves and the whole kingdome may bee deeply humbled before the Lord for that great reproach and contempt which hath been cast upon his Name and saving Truths and for that swift destruction which we may justly feare will fall upon the immortall soules of such who are or may be drawne away by giving heed to seducing Spirits In the hearty and tender compassion whereof Wee the said Lords and Commons doe order and ordaine that Wednesday being the 10th day of March next to be set apart for a day of publick Humiliation for the growth and spreading of Errours Heresies and Blasphemies to bee observed in all places within the kingdome of England and dominion of Wales and town of Berwick and to seek to God for his direction and assistance for the suppression and preventing the same And all Ministers are hereby enjoyned to publish this present Ordinance upon the Lords day preceeding the said 10th of March See hence then may dear Presbyterian Brethren first as I toucht before if here be not singular encouragement unto you all in City and Country to set seriously and speedily upon this worke of modest and lawfull petitioning as a foresaid Secondly whether you are not most likely to receive kind acceptance in so doing and thanks for your paines and care therein And thirdly if the Parliamentary Independents hinder not as they are most likely to be the main if not only obstacles therein what unquestionable good desired success as by this excellent Ordinance may easily be gathered is likely to follow thereon And fourthly and lastly consider from all the foresaid premises thus now put together whether all truly pious Protestants and Presbyterians over the whole kingdome have not as great and just cause to bend all their zeale and combined power of Petitioning aginst the Sectaries and Schismaticks in Parliament as the unquestionable causes of the great growth of all the Errours and Schismes among us and as the most unhappy obstructers and hinderers of the most long and zealously desired building and settlement of the Presbyterian Church-Government as ever they had against Papists Prelates or Royall-Malignants Which if they see not certainly they are wilfully blind or if seeing yet are basely content willingly to yeeld to a most ignominious and slavish security and Laodiceanluke-warmnesse to the unexpressible misery that inevitably accompanyes the being justly spued out of Gods presence and protection of love by most lewdly allowing a most abhominable Toleration of all religions and so by an unquestionable consequence of having no religion among us and then also no God to helpe us O then that it would please the Lord to put into the hearts of his honest and heroick Servants both in City and Country now againe most stoutly and strenuously to shew their godly zeal and faithfull fervour of Spirit against those enemies of our Covenant in this the Churches as great necessity and importunity as ever it was in with a joynt and unanimous consent as then they most happily and honourably did and that with singular approbation and commendation of both Houses of Parliament and with desired successe too to petition Both Houses in a warrantable modest fair and befitting manner for the removeall of the persons of such Parliamentary Independents out of their Houses as are the known fautors and favourers of all Schismaticall Covenant-contemners and Ordinance violaters in reference to their contempt and obstructing of the Presbyterial Church-Government and power of godlynesse even as perniciously and impiously though more clandestinely and craftily as ever the Popish Lords Prelates or Malignants formerly were in their way and therein most invincibly to endeavour the just exonerating of our soules of the kingdomes great and groaning spirituall grievances the best way of all others to remove all our temporall disturbances also in the unsufferable abuses both of God and man among us even the intolerable growth and spurious spreading of blasphemies heresies errours and schismes together with the most abhominable impunity of the Broachers and Abettors of them and for the holy and happy compassing and completing of one of the maine ends of our sacred Covenant with our God and with our most loyall and loving brethren of Scotland namely the solid and substantiall setling of the Presbyterian Church-Discipline according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed-Churches And O that it might please the Lord who has the hearts of all men in his hands and who can most easily turne them as the Rivers of water to put into the hearts of our most renowned noble and precious Patriots the unbyassed and honourable Presbyterian friends of Truth and pious Peace in Both Houses of Parliament who cordially and christianly casting away all ignoble selfe-seeking aymes and interests do religiously and conscientiously cohere and correspond with sound and settled judgements and resolutions to set up Christs kingdome according to the Apostolicall institution in Gods word to be happy and honourable means for the more smooth and certaine carrying on of this said blessed businesse to purge if it bee possible Both their Houses in general and inparticular of al Committees from such incompetent and unequall judges as Sectaries and Independents are who ever they be from sitting in such seates of Iudicature to hear over-rule vote and determine such waighty Causes as are matters of Religion and Church-Reformation as wherein they themselves are so faulty and offensive yea devoted enemies to the Church and Children of God in poynt of Godly-Government and Church-discipline wherein that the Lord the great God of wisdome the only guider of every good action and the only giver of every good gift would direct and erect the hearts of our truly pious Parliamentary Patriots and sound Presbyterian Lords and Commons with profound wisedome impregnable fortitude of Spirit and invincible Christian Courage impartially and efficaciously to vote act and execute in pursuance also of their most excellent and religious Ordinance against the growth of damnable errours and blasphemies forementioned in the first place to remove those sorely offensive rubs and Remora's out of their Houses which thus have and doe and till they bee removed unquestionably will most sadly interrupt impede and retard the somuch and so long desired glorious work of Reformation it is and ever shall be a speciall part of my most serious and incessant prayers That so this being at length holily and happily effected Iudgement may run downe in our streets like waters and Righteousnesse as a mighty and strong streame That so our God may in Christ take pleasure in us and delight to doe us good all our dayes and to our succeeding Posterity after us Amen A Post-script CHristian Reader I have thought fit in this last place to desire thee to take serious notice but not without a most deep sigh from thy Soul that whereas the Parliament intended as we then hoped to have done some great and remarkable work for the just impeding of the growth of blasphemous Errours Schismes and Heresies among us as is most abundantly evident by that most excellent Ordinance of the 4th of March 1646 forementioned yet notwithstanding that Ordinance and the solemn day of Humiliation kept over the whole kingdome the 10th of March following nothing hath been done therein ever since which is now above 5. Moneths past but contrariwise a most foule and filthy greater growth and increase of them in all parts and places of the kingdome without the least controul or restraint by any authority O consider I beseech thee good Reader in the feare of the Lord what a horrid and hideous face of most abhominable hypocrysie and dissimulation does this neglect therein represent to the Lord our God and the whole world unto our everlasting indelible shame And vvhence my Christian Brethren can you possibly conceive this most black sin hath its rise and originall but mainly if not only from the Sectaries in our Parliament who as we have apparently seen all along have without all question most strongly and strangely and yet most craftily and cunningly crost and crusht all motions and means of carrying on this or any other waighty work of Reformation among us And will not our God be avenged on such a genearation as this And shall they prosper shall they escape or shall they be delivered that do such things and that thus break their Covenant with their God Ezekiel 17.15 16. FINIS
and Independents every where are most deeply dyed even in grain with this foule and faulty spot which is not the spot of Gods Children but Deut. 32.5 of a perverse and crooked generation let these following testimonies fallen out besides their manifold former Calumnies and Slanders by them cast upon the pious Presbyterian Church-Government and upon the Reverend and pious Pastours and faithfull friends and furtherers of it published in their most wicked printed Pamphlets and recited by Reverend and religious Mr Edwards in the third part of his Gangrana p. 200 201 202 203 c. and whereof I my selfe together with many other religious and substantiall Citizens of London were eye and eare witnesses at Westminster be sufficient to demonstrate and make evident to any impartial and unprejudiced Christian or that is not wickedly obstinate and wilfully incredulous which were as follow I being on Tuesday Februarie 2. 1646. and on the Thursday following Febr. 5th in the afternoon at the Committe for Complaints to heare the examination of one Kiffin a Glover a sly and sottish Mechanicall preaching Anabaptist and one Mr. Knowles another of his Anabaptisticall brethren which last had cast off his former regular Ordination in the Church of England as being sinfull forsooth as himselfe then confest and had a pretended Ordination from a true reformed-Church as he falsly termed it in a private House by a company of Sectaries there disorderly assembled Together also with one Gorton another Non-sense Anabaptisticall Preacher forsooth and a most notorious base fellow and audacious Malefactor in New-England who had there been fetter'd in Irons and whipt and was like to have been hang'd for his most impious and audacious blasphemies and misdemeanours upon occasion of the mentioning whereof in that Court I heard an eminent Independent Gentl. of that Committee say openly in the face of the Court I sayes hee ye may see how they begin already what think ye will they not do hereafter if they get power and may be suffered And with the said Gorton was then also examined one Patience a Botcher or Tayler ordained also forsooth to bee a Preacher in a true reformed-Church as he also falfly and foolishly termed it in a House in Bell-Alley in Colleman-Street by the Saints forsooth of that Church Men and Women Hee-Saints and Shee-Saints and all of them it seemes Church-Officers with them upon tryall of his gifts by these Saints as thus he also himselfe confest At the hearing of whom examined my heart was at the first affected with no little joy and comfort to heare and observe even all along the Christian Courage and godly Zeal of that ancient and pious Patriot Sir Robert Harlow religious and renowned Major Generall Massey Colonell Hollys Mr. Tate Mr. Baynton and some other worthy Presbeterian Members of the House then present at this Committee as formerly at another sitting I observed the singular zeale of my most highly honoured good friend Mr. Grimstone much honoured Colon. Harvy and others both in their frequently and fervently speaking and pleading for the Cause of God then in agitation before them But when I on the other side saw and observed in this Committee very many known and professed Independents to sit as Iudges there and too frequently and fiercely me thought to act and plead for yea and to put words into the mouths of those Delinquent Sectaries and though all of them were I say known adversaries to our pious Presbyterian Church-Government intended as we stedfastly hope by the better-part of the honourable Parliament yet these I say to sit as Iudges there and to speake such encouraging words and that in open Court to the Delinquents and then also to have power to Vote on their behalfes and contrawise also to observe and heare them use such discouraging carriages and dishearting expressions to the honest and pious Covenant-engaged and Ordinance animated Prosecutors of the Offenders This made me fetch a deep Sigh indeed as being much amazed at it and I must confesse my heart was very much daunted and damped with griefe to see and observe such a most unequall and palpably injurious mismanaging of so great and godly a work as we hoped and expected this would and should have been unto us And it was indeed unto me a wonderfull and strange Paradox of Prudence and Iustice as I humbly conceive that the apparent and profest enemies of the presbyterian-Presbyterian-Cause and Reformation should thus sit as Judges and Parties to affront us and frown upon us for our loyall religious and just actings against such crafty and accursed adversaries of the Truth Which made me begin seriously to consider with my self how improbable if not almost impossible it was for us in such a case and condition of times and things ever to expect a full and free course or current of justice against them And hereupon indeed my sad thoughts began to reflect backward and to think upon the by-past-times of the tyrannicall Prelates when pious and peaceable Professours were under the names and notions of factious and Scismaticall cited in their High-Commission-Courts and there judged by those known enemies of their causes where indeed I confesse they were all profest adversaries but here our truly seditious and Schismaticall Delinquents and the honest prosecutors of them also find an unhappy mixture of Foes with Friends whereby though the pious Professors themselves could there find indeed neither expect any justice yet the wicked Apparators and Persecutors of those true Saints and Servants of the Lord were countenanced and encouraged by those their Prelaticall Masters yea and liberally rewarded by them But here in this Committee for Complaints where the cause being far otherwise the case is also in some sense clean contrary and if I may be humbly bold to speak plain English in some respects with us much worse and more unjust when the most pernicious and audacious Schismaticall offenders are familiarly much countenanced and encouraged and the honest and Covenant-Conscientious Prosecutors of them are disgraced flouted frown'd upon yea and imprisoned for their pious pains and religious actings for God and his most righteous Cause whereby I say our Case is thus like to be far worse than that of the Prelates dayes comparatis comparandis and our grievances yea I say our Soul grievances so far we fear from being redressed that they are like to be much more encreased if this most unjust course of judicature should which God forbid be continued and that Sectaries be thus suffered both in Parliament and country-Committees to sit as uncontroleable Iudges who are so far from either doing or suffering justice to be done upon the most seditious and factious disturbers of our pious Peace and unquestionable Truths of God and of all godly ecclesiasticall and civill Order that they both countenace at least as much as in their power and policy consists and truly that 's not little now adayes and very greatly encourage them in their unsufferable Schismaticall impundencies and blasphemous
commend and encourage in their most erroneous yea blasphemous and seditious practises witness blasphemous Best that bold and abominable Beast indeed not worthy to live seditious lying Lilburne Overton and such like turbulent trash who though some of their persons are I confess or have bin but with no little struggling only imprisoned where truly they are just as the Romish Jesuites were better maintained than abroad yet are still strangely permitted to foment and scatter in scurrillous Pamphlets their most blasphemous opinions and pernicious practises yea and are most unworthily and wickedly justified and commended even by very many of our Sectarian disaffected Members of Parliament Alasse what 's become now adayes of the pristine power dignity equity gravity and awefull and lawfull severity of our former ancient English-Parliaments Heretofore it was as terrible criminall and punishable to speak especially to write against the justice acts and edicts of the Parliaments of England as to speak or write treason against the Person or Crown of the King But that now in these our dayes every base and ignoble Sectarie should be thus permitted presumptuously to speak write and preach against it and that with the most false and ignominious acrimony of spirits and pens that possibly may be I am confidently perswaded it is not to be paralell'd by any by-past ages or Histories What hath amiable Astraea quite forsaken our Parliaments on earth and is impartiall and Majesticall justice no where to be found for if not there where shall we find it Shall honest peaceable and humble hearted Presbyterians be thus enforced which God forbid and which as yet we heartily abhorre to feare and suspect that those audacious and contumelious aspertions and we hope and believe most slanderous Calumnies of seditious lying Lilburne and the rest of his rebelliously rayling and scribling Comrades are like to prove too true assertions and all because of such delatory obstructions yea even vitious violations and infringements of the course and current of justice and the Subjects hereditary just Liberties equally as precious to them as due priviledges are to the Parliament God forbid I say we should have continued cause to feare it But if it be otherwise How then comes it to passe that the wheeles of the glorious worke of a deeply desired and most duely promised and long expected Reformation turne and roule so slowly and heavily How is it that Votes and Ordinances for the advancement of pure Religion the power of godlinesse and our Covenanted Presbyterian Church Discipline are so extremely delayed and with such admired difficulty even as it were but pedetentim or guttatim obtained and produced and when any doe come forth how is it that they are so void of expected and necessitated strength and corroboration for their work intended or rather by some but deceitfully pretended But only by reason as it is Vox populi which men commonly say is Vox Dei that those disaffected Members especially of the Honourable House of Commons doe so craftily and vigilantly watch their owne seasonable opportunities by the improvident and sometimes I confesse necessitated absence and thereby paucity too often of the honest and truly pious and zealous Presbyterian party either to null them or at least to delay obstruct and invalidate them and to make them of little or no solid use when they come forth unto us Wherein also which fetches a most just and deep figh from my soule the known Independents are not a little backt and abetted a most foule shame to be spoken of them by many who formerly at least in shew were clearely for us but now a-dayes though we beleive not properly principled the Schismeticall-way yet are mightily byassed wheeled and blown about I know not by what unhappy fate or flate of winde unlesse as I heare and 〈◊〉 a Golden-ayre or Silver-blast in voting and acting for the 〈◊〉 almost on all occasions who they are I spare to name though I could many of them Et digito monstrare quod his est but they themselves best know and are conscious to their own hearts of this their great evill of so unworthy doubling Tergiversation and though we pitty and pray for their Soules yet they may and must be assured we look upon their persons with very sore-eyes and sowr faces Great and grave Senators of England I speake to the truly pious Presbyterian party thereof in both Houses I beseech you for the Lords sake think often and earnestly on that faithfull for heaven and earth shal perish before one jot or title of Gods Word shal not come to passe yea think upon even with trembling that fearefull threatning of the Lord our God Jerem. 48 19. which also I have formerly made serious use of in another piece of mine entituled Instices Plea Cursed be he that doth the worke of the Lord negligently or deceitfully as some translations notably render it and cursed is he that withholdeth his sword from bloud Yea I say from bloud when the Lord requires it even the bloud of Blasphemers and bloudy Malignants especially in these our late and most lamentable lawlesse Wars on the Royall Party for then to spare is so farre from Piety or pitty that it is egregious impiety to God and our sacred Covenant and Diabolicall cruelty against men yea and a most dangerous hazarding of the ruine of your own lives if not of Parliament State and the whole Kingdome as Ahab for sparing Benhadad and Saul for sparing Agagg found it too true and we may justly feare the like when such whom God hath appointed to death live so confident and that not without cause that the bitternesse of the feare of death is over past with them and all by reason of the strange Impunity of the bloudy Impiety even of grand Offenders of all sorts to this very day There was a time I must and doe ingeniously confesse when the great and then very just apologie and plea of our great and wise Parliamentary Master Builders why the work of Reformation in Religion for I desire mainely to harp upon this string as the summum though I will not say Vnicum necessarium and speedier building of Gods House Church-Discipline went not on more soundly and seriously was That the prudence and providence of the Parliament must first see to the very being before the well being of the Kingdome which then indeed was in continuall hazard of ruine and destruction by the great hostile powers on the Kings party True I easily and willingly grant this But now that the Lord hath most graciously banisht those our great and just feares hath like dust dispell'd our enemies and given us opportunity even ever since the ruine of Sir Iacob Ashleys forces and the rendition of Oxford to build our own houses in most sweet security and which we doe indeed with both hands but scarcely care to build Gods House with one hand O what now hinders this best and most blessed worke but onely and unquestionably these
impieties both against God and Man and all under base and abusive pretences of tendernesse of Conscience forsooth and Christian Liberty to speake and do whatsoever they list without controle otherwise they cry out of Antichristian Persecution But mark here good Reader what wise King Solomon most pertinently sayes to this very purpose even touching Impunity to be the grand cause of the great growth of Impiety yea and of Impudency also therein Ecclesiastes 8.11 Because sentence against an evill work is not speedily executed therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them mark this notable and emphaticall expression to doe evill And certainly if ever this Scripture is now adayes to the full confirmed to the unexpressible griefe of our Soules be it spoken But now to come to a more particular manifestation of the truths which I only in briefe have mentioned before concerning the most irregular and extrajudiciall and inequitable carriage of things by our Sectarian Judges in the Court of the Committee for Complaints at Westiminster to the palpable and apparent heartning and animating of the most notorious Schismaticks in their most blasphemous and impious pranks and practices and to the most strange and almost incredible disheartning as much as in them is of the pious Presbiterian-Partie from their just zeal and commendable activity in the Cause of GOD and forwarding the work of Reformation Witnesse first therefore I say for confimation of these my affirmations the most unequall and unwarrantable miscarriage of things by some of the disaffected party of the foresaid Committee at the examination of an old and bold blasphemous Schismatick commonly called the Chicken-man who after this notorious Sectarie had made a repetition whereunto he was commanded by the Court of his Sermon forsooth which he had Preached or rather prated in a private house for which he was complained of and when he had and a ciously delivered even in the face of the Court divers very dangerous and most false opinions of his yet was so far and free from punishment or somuch as any bare discouragement for ought we yet can heare or know that one of the said Committees was heard to say to one of his disaffected brethren of this Committee sitting by concerning this beggerly Chicken-man and his impious preaching here is Gold in an earthen vessell And the said Chicken-man himselfe confessed as will be testified that he had 5 s given him by some of the said Committe for his brave boldnesse it should seeme in thus affronting the authority of Parliament Witnesse likewise the great encouragement and countenancing of the Schismaticall impiety and disorderly audaciousnesse of those two foresaid Anabaptists Mr. Knowlis and Kiffin the Glover at their examination forementioned at the very beginning whereof an eminent disaffected Member of the Committee stood up and the Court being set and the pious Chair-man in his place bee spake very much in the first place to the Chair-man and very affectionately in those Schismaticks behalfe whereby they might easily see and know before haud they had at least one fast friend in the Court for a fair proceeding for them in their examination which I humbly conceive and verily beleeve was never denyed them or otherwise intended toward them And when Kiffin in particular was closely examined for his disorderly and Schismaticall private preaching as never having been duly ordained thereunto another of the Committee did in my sight and hearing even as it were check the religious Chaire-man learned and much honoured Colonell Leigh for justly endeavoring strickly to examine the said Delinquent And this same Gentl. to the said Anabaptists farther great encouragement at the same time apparantly justified and that in the face of the Court those audacious fellowes in their unordained and irregular preaching even contrary to the Parliaments own Ordinance using these words or the like in effect That the Parliament did not intend nor was it as he conceived the sense of the House by that Ordinance to hinder guifted-men from Preaching this being one thing 〈◊〉 which many had fought and spent their bloud and ventur'd their â—ives but it was mainly to restraine Prelaticall and Iesuiticall â—reaching which was a meanes to encourage the Cavaleers and Maligâ—ants against the Parliament And when some of the honest and religious Witnesses gave in their testimony against the Delinquent divers of the audacious and unruly Anabaptists and other sorts of Sectaries whereof there were very many then in the Court and so use to be to affront and floute the Presbyterian Citizens with unsufferable scoffs and jeeres to their faces fell a hissing and to loud laughing at the Witnesse to the great offence and disturbance of the Court which I my selfe heard and saw round about me and noble Sir Robert Harlow most zealously and justly finding much fault with their so uncivill and unmannerly miscarriage of themselves and expressing much displeasure at it One of the disaffected Members of the Committee put a smooth jeere upon it and said He conceived it was rather an acclamation or applauding of the witnesse than any disparagement to him Which how likely hissing and laughing mixt together can make up such a sense let any judicious man judge Witnesse here also that most licentious and illegitimate abuse offered to the Liberty of the free-born Subjects and Citizens of London in that palpable and most worthily punishable affront and illegall imprisonment of those 3. worthy religious discreet and conscientiously active Gentl. and Citizens of London Captiane Wigmerpoole Mr. Patrick Bamford and Mr. Valentine Feige who were all three at one instant most injuriously imprisoned for only acting about a most honest Petition and Remonstrance which was to have been recommended by the Citizens to the Lord Major and Common-Councell of London to be by them presented to the Parliament in the name of the whole City and all this in such a regular and modest manner as had been by the Parliament it selfe ordered and prescribed to them yet notwithstanding I say for this honest and orderly acting of theirs these 3 aforesaid Gentl. were imprisoned by some Sectarian Parliament-Members contrary to the intention and order of Parliament as that whole Committee for Complaints publikely acknowledged in Court and worthy Sr. William Strickland who then sate in the Chair protested against it as unlawfull and none of his act or consent And those Schismaticall Members that commanded this most unlawfull imprisonment being since that discovered who they are And shall the Sectarian Party complain as in Teuledaye's seditious cause they did of wrong done to them in the obstructing and hindring their most pernicious and seditious petitions and dare they most abusively impeach 11. worthy Members of the House of Commons for this very thing as one soule fault and offence against the subject but indeed mainly because they are faithfull Presbyterians And shall not these Sectarian-Members be much more justly impeached of most illegall and injurious infringement of the Subjects Libertyes
Parliamentary Schismaticks these our meere pretending Master Builders who prove indeed the main-molesters of it And dare they indeed call and count themselves Master Builders and yet still are the principall causes that Gods house must either lye wast as much as in them is as being most unwilling some of them that we should have any Government at all or at best now and then permit it to be patch't up with such poore peices as I toucht before as rather amaze us with sorrow to see than animate us with any just comfort to enjoye whereof I said before truly I know no greater ground or unquestionable cause to complaine next to our grosse ingratitude to God for so great a good as is Opportunity now so long and so fairly offered us but so loosly and lazily if not lewdly abused by us than the intollerable I had almost said the inexpiable impiety of the impunity of our unsufferable Schismaticks and Sectaries especially the admitting tollerating of men disaffected to Church discipline at the Fountain head whereby all the streams of justice and equity thence issuing into City or Country are lamentably poysoned and polluted a thing most worthy of unexpressible punishment and thus suffering Independents to sit in such prime places of Iudicature and in Parliamentary and Country Committees to the most strange and strong obstruction and impeding of all our hopes or happinesse from our most renowned Parliament in generall even the pious Presbiterian-party thereof in both the most Honourable Houses Well though these our disaffect Pretenders smooth up themselees and wipe their lips with an All is well with them yet let them give mee leave to tell them one thing ' to their just shame and sorrow of Soule if it may be and that is what a Heathen Prince hath pronounced against them and t is backt also with Scripture authority and approbation viz. That honest-hearted King of a Heathen King Darius into whose heart the Lord having put a resolution to forward the building of Gods House at Ierusalem Ezra 6. Which work had been much opposed and impeded by the enemies thereof yet now I say the King having resolved that the work should be seriously set upon and that none should hinder it the Text sayes ver 11. He made a Decree that whosoever should go about or endiavour to alter the Kings word therein the timber of his house should be pull'd down and a Gibbet should be made thereof and he to be destroyed and hanged thereon and that his house should be made a jaxe or dunghill for this even for daring to be so bold and impious as to offer to hinder the work of building of Gods House Mark this O all ye Schismaticall-spirits who now adayes so impiously and audaciously have so long and lewdly endeavoured to hinder the building of Gods House among us in England even the glorious worke of Reformation in Religion the settlement of the purity of Doctrin and of the godly order and holy harmony of Church-Discipline Hear it I say and tremble at it and bee asham'd to heare a heathen-King so zealous for God and you to be so cold and so justly to pronounce your deserved punishment and take heed least the Lord the righteous judge if too long and impenitently provoked by you even for this this great Sin of thus impeding opposing the blessed work of a thorough Reformation among us be most severely revenged on you And let me tel you al my dear brethren in general both one another and my self too never let us think t is possible that our temporall affaires of full trading paying of the Kingdoms debts ease of excise and other tedious taxations freedome from fears of new wars and commotions among our selves the totall disbanding of our Armies dismantling of Garrisons and sueh like desired nationall comforts shall thrive and prosper or answer our hopes and expectations so long as Religion in its power and purity is so slighted Gods faithfull and painfull Ministers are so wickedly denyed not only honourable but even competent maintenance and are besides so scorned and abused and so long as Gods House Church-Discipline is so strangely neglected and delayed and all sorts of Schismes Erronrs Heresies and most blasdhemous Opinions are with such accursed and most impious impunity permitted among us and especially I say that horrid and kingdome confounding sin of thus most fearfully violating our sacred and solemn Covenant with our God wherein with deep attestations and protestations holding up our hands and lifting up our hearts to the high God of heaven we vowed the utter ruinating and extirpating of all those forementioned sores evills and plague provoaking crying-crimes yea and whatsoever else was contrary to the power of Godlinesse Touching which Covenant heare me but one word more ô all ye of the Schismaticall generation in generall concerning your most unconscionable and double dealing and deluding of us therein also and then I shall hasten to the maine thing I ayme at in this discourse which is that having so conspicuously and evidently layd open the heart grinding and grieving Sore and Core of the kingdomes present and pressing sorrow I may also humbly make bold to tender the application of a Plaisture which I humbly conceive is most likely by Gods blessing to make an undoubted comfortable cure thereof but to the thing in hand In the dayes of rare Queen Elizabeth of ever blessed memory and so along to later times wee all know or have heard how the crafty Romish Iesuits having found by long experience that their tying up of the Consciences of their Popish-Proselytes from taking the Oath of Supremacy and from receiving the Sacrament of the Lords Supper with us Protestants whom you know they called and counted Hereticks proved a great prejudice to the progresse and growth of their great designe Vniversall Papall-Monarchy at last they grew so cunning and crafty that for the advancement and propagating of the Catholick Cause as they call'd it they would give dispensations by the Popes indulgences to take that Oath and to Communicate with us in the Lords Supper also if they were put unto it rather I say than to hinder their other dark and devillish designe And is it not just thus with our palpable and Jesuiticall-Spirited Independents and Sectaries that generation of Iuglers if ever there were any in the world now adayes among us I mean mainly the subtile Seducers and learned Ringleaders of them for was there not a time and that not long time agone when their novell and most nauseous upstart-Schisme beganne first to rise and grow up among us that O then for an Independent a Separatist or Sectary to be put to the taking of our sacred and solemn Covenant O it was most tart and terrible and would by no means be endured by them but they startled at it and flew from it as from a hideous Hobgobling or a Noli me tangere But now of later times and in these our more moderene