only the Godly and Elect shall reign the wicked being every where destroyed That it is lawful for the people to cast off their Governours And although the Apostles had no secular Jurisdiction yet the Ministers of their Church had power from God to use the Civil sword and by force to set up a new Common-wealth c. Whose Dreams and Dotage saith my Author were confuted by many Learned men Melancton Justus Menius and Urbanus Regius whose Writings are extant p. 15. The Holy Word of God either in the Old or New Testament giving so little ground for this Principle and the practises that issue from it that Thomas Muncer the Ringleader of all that uproar and Confusion that Germany was involv'd in about Anno 1525. is forced to pretend to Divine Revelations for it and by this seduced his Followers That he had received a Command from God to kill and root up all wicked Princes and Magistrates and to chuse better in their places p. 2. But as our Blessed Saviour hath commanded us to give to Paganish and Heathen Caesars or Kings their Due by way of Reverence Subjection and Maintenance to support their Authority so well knowing how backward many that professed themselves to be his Followers would be to it and how forward the enemies of his Gospel would be to calumniate his Disciples unjustly as we find they did his Followers Acts 17. 17. for such as did act and were disobedient to the decrees of Caesar he therefore giveth us a President for our Imitation shewing how exceeding tender he was in this particular to avoid all appearance of any such practise as might flow from this Principle Therefore saith he lest we should offend them lest they should take scandal at our refusal of what was required for Caesars Maintenance he worketh a Miracle saith he to Peter Go thou to the Sea and cast thy Hook and take up the fish that first cometh and in his mouth thou shalt find a piece of silver this take and give them for me and thee Mat. 17. 27. The same mind that was in Christ Jesus was also in his Blessed Apostles Saint Peter to prevent the Scandals that might be taken or given by the Saints scattered throughout the world knowing the enemies of the Gospel were apt to speak evil of them as evil doers 1 Pet. 2. 12. adviseth them by well doing to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men But how this should be done he tels us v. 13 14. By submitting your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether to the King as Supream or to Governours as those which are sent by him c. And the Apostle Paul in stead of directing the Godly to depose or oppose their Kings Governours and such as were in Authority that they being suppressed as wicked and ungodly they might then lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness c. He adviseth them instead of making Insurrections to make Intercessions to be much in Prayer and Supplications for them And that it seems is the Scripture way of procuring peaceable and quiet times with all Godliness and Honesty under their Government And as the Scriptures evidence that they which are Saints have no warrant from them to invade the rights of the Magistrate to rule but threaten Resistance against them with Damnation Rom. 13. So that they have as little to invade the rights of their Fellow-Subjects upon the same account that they are Prophane Wicked and Ungodly And that therefore we may impose a Government upon them to which they have no Inclination and by Sequestration take away their Estates if they will not comply with us therein For God hath set a double Hedge about their Propriety viz. the Municipal Law of the Land and the Moral Law of the Lord. All the Commandments of the Second Table being as a Fence set about his Right to Rule Govern and be Governed according to Law Command 5. about his Life Com. 6. about his Estate Com. 8. about his Good Name Com. 9. And that nothing that doth belong to him be so much as coveted or unlawfully desired by us Com. 10. And to conclude the Holy Ghost doth expresly characterize those for wicked and ungodly men that are injurious to others in any of these Particulars Job 16. 10 11. Psal 73. 12. Jud. 15. and in many other places where we shall find that not only those that swear and take Gods Name in vain and other waies violate the First Table are pronounced impious and ungodly but so also are those which break the Second in reference to our Neighbours Rights and Proprieties and therefore such cannot then be Saints themselves The Objections which are made against the Scriptures I have alleadged which require obedience to the King as Supream and consequently condemns the doctrine of deposing dethroning and murthering of Kings because wicked and ungodly or Hereticks as the Papists phrase it I say the Objections which are made against them by Bellarmine and other Popish Authors from whence those that write in the defence and justification of what hath been acted since the Treaty at the Isle of Wight had their main Arguments you may find them answered by Mr. Robert Bolton in his Sermon before the Judges pag. 15. where you will find their impiety and simplicity fully demonstrated to which I refer you Pardon me I beseech you that I have been so long upon this last Conclusion for I now look upon this principle as that which hath been the Principal cause of that confusion which hath befallen this Land of our Nativity And thus now having by the Collections and the Conclusions drawn from them made it evident That we have deceived our selves and shall deceive others if we still persist in making the particular private designs of some in subverting the Antient Government of the Nation to be the concernment of the Kingdom which as Mr. Sedgwick saith is large and consisteth of King Lords and Commons and that if Monarchy be restored and that in the Family of our late King this is not to Apostatize from the Cause in which we first ingaged For we find M. Sedgwick affirming who ever saith so doth lie grossely If it should be objected What are all these quotations to us of the Gathered Churches to the Independent Party These particular Passages are charged by Mr. Sedgwick only upon some of the Army that were guilty but they belong not to us To which I Answer I wish from my very soul they did not But I beseech you bear with my plain dealing and let us all lay our hands upon our hearts and make a serious reflexion upon our selves The Eye that seeth all other things cannot see it self but by reflexion and we that can see and highly aggravate the Moats that are in the eye of others cannot see the Beams that are in our own without a due reflexion upon and a sincere inspection into our selves It is that which of
what was written by Mr. William Sedgwick in his Book called Justice upon the Armies Remonstrance Wherein were many Passages which would we have hearkened unto as coming from an intimate friend might have prevented those woful confusions and revolutions of Government that have since befallen the Nation and that reproach that is come upon Religion But he as soon fell from those serious convictions he tendred to our Party And by his Book called A new View of the Armies Remonstrance which he made to issue out after the other unsaith what in his Book aforesaid he had presented in many passages thereof I wish from my soul that we had hearkned to those many Christian Counsels that were given us in those daies And that although we could not through prejudice receive them from the Parties above-named yet that we might have considered what our Friend in Justice upon the Armies Remonstrance said unto us But though it be too late in reference to what is past yet that we may not through the high opinion that we have of our own waies as to the Piety and Justice of them that all others have been injurious to us and we are the only innocents of this Island Which as I have said before is the great impediment to that Moderation and Christian Condescention which I desire may be amongst us That we may no longer I say persist in the Justification of our selves for what is past and desist from any further endeavours of interrupting the Publick Peace and Settlement of these Nations for the time to come that we may be delivered from those corrupt and destructive Principles to all Civil Government which many of us are infected with that we may not too much deject our selves at these our present disappointments as if now a Knife were put to the Throat of the Publick Interest of the Nation as some have spoken in plain English I shall present you with some remarkable passages in our aforesaid Author Justice upon the Armies Remonstrance which may be of singular use to us for those ends and purposes aforesaid Considering they come from one who is neither of the Episcopal or Presbyterian Party I shall begin with what I named last in the first Place as being that which I find doth most perplex our Spirits That now by the Current of the times the publick Interest of the Nation for which we have so long contended in our late wars against the King and his Family is like to fall to the ground and our Government by a Common-wealth to return to King-ship again in the same Family Now to undeceive us and deliver us from this fundamental errour consider what Mr. Sedgwick saith in his Justice upon the Armies Remonstrance p. 22. saith he In the proposing of such an Interest as ye hold forth to be the ground of the Quarrel namely the things before expressed ye lie grossely For these things as ye propose them were never thought of in the beginning of the Quarrel Yea the Parliament and we also protested to the contrary never to alter the Government never to alter the Fundamental Laws yea to protect and defend the Kings Person c. For saith he p. 9. That which ye offer is not the publick Interest but your own particular Interest It is very clear that this is not half the Interest of the Kingdom t is much too narrow for a rich honourable Nation Generally ye know the people of England desire Peace Setled Religion Established Truth Freedom of Trade and this with his Majesty their King that he may Govern them according to their honest and known Lawes that they may live in Prosperity and Honour For your devised things ye propose the people know them not and less affect than know them They are invented only to please and secure your selves And to pull down Monarchy ye are but a part And alas an Inconsiderable Part of the Kingdom not one of an Hundred will own what ye set down for the Publick Interest a diseased Part ye are a Bone started out of his place a Piece of Timber gone from the whole Frame of the Kingdom which is large and consisteth of King Lords and Commons with innumerable excellent Branches that grow from these Further p. 11. This is a great fault that ye all along carry the Publick Interest in opposition to the King which is a wicked thing to divide them which God hath joyned wherein ye indeed destroy and mangle not only the Kingdom but the Word Interest which is of a uniting signification Interesse is to be in or amongst each other The Publick hath his Interest in the King and the King his Interest in the Publick for they have the same Esse or Interest which is to be in each other The King is in the People and the People in the King And though saith he ye will disjoyn your selves from Kings God will not who is the King of Kings neither will I. And therefore as he acknowledgeth p. 44. It is the Peoples right to have a King So of himself he saith I confess it is my Birth-right to have relation to a King and if I am denied it I am denied my native right And saith he in the same page For the King against whom ye go in full cry I have this to say to check your violent course That he had and hath a true lawfull right in the Kingdom and to the Kingdom and as good as any man hath to any thing he possesseth His Crown Revenue and Dignity is as truly his Birthright and inheritance as another mans house or lands and he that denieth this is wilfully blind These quotations do sufficiently evidence how much we have been mistaken and that the publick interest hath not been driven on whatever hath been pretended But because I find that many of us are dull and slow of heart to believe it Out of my unfained desire that you may lie under the same Convictions I now do my self as to this particular I shall present you with a passage out of the said Author which speaketh very plain English Saith he Pag. 23. I must deal plainly with you and my self too it is so grosse that it cannot be concealed That we had Designs of Particular Interest and advantage when we began the Warre therefore the publick interest of the Nation hath been but a pretence There was this in our minds and hath been in our minds continually That the King and his party were wicked men and not worthy and fit for their places and power they had And that we were the Saints the Godly and they did properly belong to us That the Saints are to have the high places of the earth and that now is the time for these things to be performed and that no body is now fit to administer Justice to rule over men but our selves And therefore we were alwaies glad of any of the Kings waies that tended to difference and breach Glad when he left his
conscientious and pious men to be offended at the persecutions of the Prelates and their superstitious injunctions and innovations and consequently what need there was of a Reformation in Church Government Sir Edward Deering my Lord Digby and others of their own party have declared by the former quotations But how this blessed work hath miserably miscarried in all our hands hinc illae lachrimae I know the Presbyterian party are apt to say if we Independents had not interposed this work of Reformation had gon on with speed their Government had been setled in the Nation not considering that the progresse that they had made therein by the sword would like the Commonwealth we have been raising all this while require the continuance of the same to support and bear it up at vast charges The Government aforesaid being not only dissatisfactory and displeasing to our late King but to the greatest part of the Nobility Gentry and Commons of the Land besides our selves especially as universal conformity thereunto by the Covenant was intended Now to avoid these extreams into which we saw both others run before us even of a violent absolute and universal compulsion of conformity that nothing in Matters of Religion might be urged that might go against our Consciences and that according to our Principle that particular Congregations are Independent and subject to no Censure from any other Church but that of non-communion We have given a boundless lawless toleration to all corrupt and erroneous Opinions from the Anti-Trinitarian to the Quaker wherein though we have run into much Confusion and Disorder yet have we therein come nearer to the Judgment of Mr. Hales before quoted than either the Presbyterian or Episcopal Party themselves who in his Discourse about dealing with erring Christians doth neither approve of the High Commission Court or of a Covenant to swear down the Extirpation of Errour Heresie and Schisme * Or any other way of severity For saith he P. 55. Severity against and separation from Heretical companies took its Beginning from the Hereticks themselves and if we search the Stories we shall find that the Church did not at the first arising thrust them from her themselves went out And as for severity that which the Donatists sometimes spake in their own defence Illam esse veram Eccclesiam quae persecutionem patitur non quaefacit She was the true Church not which raised but which suffered persecution was de facto true for a great space For when Heresies and Schismes first arose in the Church all kinds of violence were used by the erring Factions but the Church seemed not for a long time to have known any use of a sword but only of a Buckler and when she began to use the Sword some of her best and chiefest Captains much disliked it The first Law that ever was made in this kind was enacted by Theodosius against the Donatists but with this restraint that it should extend against none but such as were tumutuous and till that time they were not so much as toucht with any mulct though but pecuniary til that shameful outrage committed against Bishop Maximian whom they beat down with Bats and Clubs even as he stood at the Altar so that not so much the Errour of the Donatists as their Riots and Mutinies were by Imperial Lawes restrained Thus sar Learned Pious and Moderate Mr. Hales of whose Judgment had the Episcopal Party been in the time of their Government these troubles in the Church had never been raised nor had these miseries come upon the King and Kingdom And were but what he hath written seriously pondered by considering Christians of all Parties it would pluck up the cause of all our Divisions by the roots As I shall therefore commend to you all * Who shall be called to advise about matters of Religion his Works set forth by Mr. Pearson aforesaid so this one particular Passage more amongst the rest It is not saith he p. 54. It is not the variety of Opinions but our own perverse wills who think it meet that all should be conceited as our selves are which hath so inconvenienced the Church Were we not so ready to anathematize each other where we concur not in opinion we might in hearts be united though in our tongues we were divided and that with singular profit to all sides It is the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of peace and not Identity of Conceit which the Holy Ghost requireth at the hands of Christians This short Quotation giveth us a true account of the Cause and Cure of all our Church Dissentions and Divisions Now that these Rents and Schisms may not grow wider but be healed up and I hope therein offer the sense of very many Church-Members I say I shall humbly propound this expedient Let but the Episcopal and Presbyterian Parties abandon and renounce their Principle of universal Conformity and compulsion and we of the Gathered Churches ours of a universal toleration and liberty for Conscience They exercising no other compulsive power over tender Consciences than what they are furnished with from the Word of God and we expecting and requiring no other liberty from them than what the Word of God allowes us And no doubt but we shall find the Son of Righteousness arising upon us with healing under his wings and give us all that unity of Spirit which is the Bond of Peace though we have not Identity of Conceits and Apprehensions and will make us all to be of one Heart though we are not all of one mind By what way of Government this may be best effected I leave to the Advice of an Assembly of Religious and Learned Ministers of all Parties whom no doubt the Parliament will speedily summon and to the Result and determinations of the Parliament thereupon in reference to Church-matters I hope all sober and moderate Independents if not very weak in judgment or strongly possest with prejudice and many other corruptions therein will humbly submit to acquiesce therein And not only so but also to the judgment of that great Council in reference to what they have voted not only of the way of Government by Monarchy but also to the Government of his Majesty Whose Gratious Declaration of a free and general pardon to all his Subjects how faulty soever excepting only such as shall be here after excepted by Parliament which cannot now be many considering the chiefest are gone down into the dust And also of Liberty to tender Consciences and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of Opinion in matters of Religion that do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom I say these Offers of Grace and Mercy from his Majesty whom many of our Consciences tell us we have so much offended and exposed to such great afflictions and Sufferings should now melt our hearts through great contrition and penitential remorse for what is past and work us to Resolutions of all due Loyalty and Subjection to his Government for the time to come and that not for fear but for Conscience sake Methinks God having as we ought to judge in Charity by his Gracious expressions turned his Royal heart towards us how should it turn our hearts to be Loyal towards Him and make us now to make good what I now believe 〈…〉 by his Royal Father in the Advice he gave to him before 〈…〉 when Prince In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Wales saith he None will be more Loyal and Faithful to you and me than those Subjects who sensible of their Errours and great Injuries shall feel in their own Soules most vehement Motives to Repentance and earnest desires to make some reparation for their former defects Nay this Confidence his Late Majesty had of his most offending Subjects that he further saith in the said Advice For those that repent of any defect in their Duty to me I believe ye shall find them truly zealous to repay with Interest that Loyalty and Love to You that was due to Me. Surely by what I have so largely insisted upon in all this Discourse we of the Gathered Churches cannot be so stupid but needs must be brought to a sense of this that we have been exceeding defective in our Duty to the Late King The Presbyterian Party in England and Scotland about the Late Kings Death and since have Some of them suffering death and banishment c. testified their Repentance for their Defects in their Duty to the Late King by their Loyalty to his Majesty Methinks we should no longer lie under the same reproof as they did 2 Sam. 19. 12. Wherefore are ye the last in bringing back the King Well nunquam sera est ad bonosmores via Let us therefore though we have set out after others yet let us overtake them in the speedy and vigorous expressions of our Repentance for the Defects of our Duty to the Late King by our Love and Loyalty to our present Soveraign Let our Contentions now be turned into this Christian emulation which Party of us shall be most pious towards God most Loyal toward the King and most loving to one another And then no doubt if our waies please the Lord he will make not only our enemies to be at peace with us but us to be at peace amity with all dissenting brethren they with us will give us favour in the eyes of the Authority of the Nation the King and Parliament AMEN FINIS In the Integrity of my heart have I done this Gen. 20. 5. Salem Philalathes and a Church-member
necessity must go before Repentance even Consideration before Conversion Psal 119. I considered my waies and turned my feet c. Now therefore let me entreat you to consider The Nation being as I have said before divided into three Parties which of them have longest persisted in those waies that Mr. Sedgwick chargeth upon the Army and in the justification of them which of our Gathered Churches declared the trouble of our hearts and our great dislike of the Armies disobedience to the Authority of the Lords and Commons that raised them that bewailed the great severity and John of Leyden-like cruelty they afterwards exercised when fire came out of the Bramble and consumed the Cedars of Lebanon which of us professed with Holy Jacob Gen. 49. 6 7. Into their secret let not my Soul come my Glory be not thou joyned with their Assembly Cursed be their wrath for it was fierce their anger for it was cruel But rather blessed them and God for it joyning with them in daies of Rejoycing and Thanksgiving accounting the other Parties refusing but old and new Malignants I desire you also to consider what Party have enriched themselves with the spoil which Mr. Sedgwick speaketh of That have as I said before not only bid the Army God speed and so are partakers of all their evil deeds but have joyned with them and have owned them in all those woful changes and Revolutions that our eyes have seen we have been for all Governours and Government but the right except a few fifth Monarchy men that are only for King Jesus We have been for a Common-wealth without King and House of Lords for a Protector and his Son for a Common-wealth again and then for that most dangerous Committee of Safety erected by the Souldiery that did so much threaten the Ruine and Eradication of the Magistracy and Ministry of this Nation and last of all for the last Sediment of the House of Commons also many of us unnaturally complying with them in their horrid violence upon the City for declaring for a free Parliament To which Free Parliament also how much we have shewed our aversness and how well we have wished to Col. Lambert and his Party whom many of us hoped would interrupt their Meeting together is notorious to the world otherwise I should not have spoken so freely thereunto Let us therefore upon these Considerations take shame to our selves get our proud hearts humbled our Soules softned our Spirits cooled the heates and animosities of our minds abated and make all our harsh censuring judging and accusing of others to terminate in the accusing judging and condemning of our selves And let us in these dayes wherein of late we have seen our selves so much neglected by the Nation so few of us being put either into the Militia in City or Country or by the people of this Nation chosen for their Representatives in Parliament let us be so far from censuring and judging of them for prophane and ungodly in so doing imputing it only to the enmity that is in the hearts of all unregenerate and unconverted men to the power of Godliness But let us who have so much denied the Power of it as we have done judge and condemn our selves for that Cruelty Injustice and Usurpation of ours over them of which we have given them just occasion to be so sensible of for these many years I do profess it is that which much saddens my Spirit to observe that we that do profess our selves to be Saints and to be of such scrupulous and tender Consciences that in the Circumstantials of the Worship of God we will do nothing without an express Command though it be no where forbid but all must be according to the Pattern in the Mount dare not communicate with any at the Lords Table but such as we account for Saints like our selves though Christ did with Judas or baptize our young Infants because we find no express Command for it in the New Testament Many of which Judgment renouncing the Ministry of this Nation as coming from the Pope and yet that many of us should carry on the * See Mr. Strongs Serm. Preached at Pauls Nov. 5. 1653. Pag. 19. Papists designs all this while and act from their Popish and Antichristian Principles against Magistrates because Hereticks or ungodly and go against the express Precepts and Presidents of our Lord and Master Christ I say this should very much humble us especially to consider That such as make not that high Profession with us should stumble at the Scandals we give and they take at our Principles and Practises in reference to Civil Government And that the Prophane Rabble of the world Swearers Drunkards and Sabbath-breakers Whoremongers and such like Flagitious Sinners should exceed us in Loyality to our Native Prince when as the Scriptures even the New Testament is as clear and express in the charging of that upon our Consciences as to hear to pray to meditate to walk with God and to fear his Dreadful Name And therefore we shall find that to fear God and honour the King are joyned together by the Holy Ghost 1 Pet. 2. 17. Giving us to understand that the contempt of this Precept which answers to the Fifth Commandment is not only inconsistent with the true fear of God but also drawes after it the Breach of all the rest of the Commandments of the Second Table Rebellion Treason Regicide Paracide and all kind of Murder Injustice Cruelty and Oppression the slanderous defaming and devouring of our Neighbours Good name of all which I could wish that our own times did not give too full proof and evidence of the same Let us therefore upon all these Considerations be moved to the exercise of Repentance as to these particular sins To think upon Restitution without which as one of the Fathers hath it non remittitur peccatum nisi restituetur ablatum And let us be perswaded to give over the reproaching of such who are for a regulated Monarchy that desire the Throne may be established in Righteousness I say let us no longer revile them with the odious Name of Cavee and Malignant which words ye know are frequent amongst us with which now we are apt to brand all that are not of our Party Whereas if we would look into the first remonstrance of the Parliament we should find the Malignant Party to be described to be such as would introduce erroneous Doctrines into the Church endeavour to subvert the Fundamental Lawes and Government of the Nation to erect an arbitrary power to distemper the Army that then was in the North and to bring it up to overaw the Parliament By all which Characters my Friends I fear the Name doth most properly belong to our selves And let us now get out of these Extreams into which we have so madly run for some misse-misse-governments in the King to cut him off and cast off all Kingly Government and upon selfish designs to erect a
Common-wealth which Mr. Sedgwick calleth a Hoddy Doddy and all Breach such a one as derogates from the Majesty of God and the wisdom of man Though it had a precious Foundation and the Mortar thereof was tempered even with the Blood of all degrees of men in the Kingdom and of all Parties but our own and hath consumed more Millions then any if not all the Kings of England ever did I say let us be weaned from this Novelty and now let our Spirits be reconciled to Kingly Government again Even that Ancient Government by Kings which oweth its Original to the Ancient of Daies who hath said By me Kings reign and to Jesus Christ who is the Lord of Lords the King of Kings the true Fountain of Honour That Government by which God hath promised in Gospel times that his Church shall be provided for and protected that Kings shall be their Fathers and Queens their Nursing Mothers That Government in the want of which we have found by experience all those wickednesses perpetrated as were done in those daies when there was no King in Israel Judg. 17. 6. 19. 1. That Ancient way of Government by which God ruled his people of old even by Moses who was King in Jesurun and by which this Nation hath been Governed for many hundred years and never by a Common-wealth before I say let us by these Arguments shake hands and be friends again with Kingly Government with which we have been at odds these many years And to bring us together again I shall to these Arguments give you one Quotation more from our Friend Mr. Sedgwick saith he P. 11. Kingliness agreeth with all Christians they who are of a Royal Nature and made Kings with Christ cannot but be Friends to it It is a Bastard Religion that is inconsistent with the Majesty and Greatness of the most absolute Monarch And such Spirits are strangers from the Kingdom of Heaven and know not the Glory in which God liveth and are of narrow and evil minds that are corrupt themselves and not able to bear Greatness and so think God cannot or will not qualifie men for such high Places with answerable and proportionable Goodness and Power In my mind there is very much of Truth in this Quotation and I wish he be of the same mind still that then uttered it Without all doubt they which know any thing of the waies of Gods administrations either in the Kingdom of Grace or of Glory should not be of Anti-monarchical Spirits Their Spirits as he saith are narrow their Minds are evil Especially those amongst us who have loaded with such reproaches him whom I am apt to believe the Divine Providence hath so wonderfully preserved to rule these three Kingdoms And now the very naming of Providence doth furnish me with a most cogent Argument in my judgment to prevail with us all to incline to what I move you For how hath the Divine Providence overturned overturned overturned all the waies of Government we have attempted to set up contrary to the Right both of Prince and People as Mr. Sedgwick teacheth us Doubtless we have cause to fear we have highly offended in walking so by Providence making that to legitimate those Actions of ours for which the Word gave no warrant but condemned rather This was the Argument by which we answered all our Opposers Oh the Providence of God hath declared from Heaven the justness of our Cause and Waies Our Protector though in his long Speech at the Dissolution of the Parliament so called Jan. 22. 1654. he doth very much in many places press all to observe the voice of Providence which had done such great things wondering that they could not proceed further to the Settlement of the Government of the Nation according to his desire for which he broke them up yet he was somwhat loath to own the Providence of God therein For saith he I cannot apprehend what it is I would be loath to call it a Fate that were too Paganish a Word but there is somthing in it that we have not our expectation P. 26. And sure there was the Divine Providence counter-working But how evidently it hath appeared since is our Duty as Christians to own and acknowledge especially since this remarkeable passage in his Speech aforesaid P. 27. As for this Cause it is either of God or man If it be of God it will bear up if it be of man it will tumble as every thing that hath been of man hath done since the World began And as this is so the all wise God deal with it Now let us who have made the Providence of God our Rule contrary to this express Command amongst others that we should do no evil that good might come of it Let us I say as becometh Christians acknowledge the all-wise Providential Dispensations in so stupendiously tumbling down the chief Actors and Agitators in those unwarrantable waies we have too too much owned and justified Truly me thinks the strange Tumblings that we have seen since the Protector was laid in his Grave and how by an evil Spirit the all-wise God hath sent among the men of Sechem he hath so strangely Judg. 9. 23. tumbled down the Family of Abimelech I say that the neer Relations of the Old Protector should be so instrumental in pulling down the New One and in that to lay the Foundations of that Disgrace that is come upon themselves And how strangely the Providence of God hath brought about the Calling of this Parliament defeated Col. Lambert since his escape scattering the Disturbers of the Nations Peace and disappointed their hopes of hindring the peaceable Meeting of this great Convention I say these strange and most admirable Providences which would fill a Volume with the Observations of all the Circumstances of them should now convince us that it is hardkicking against the pricks and should very much bring us into a low Opinion and esteem of our selves and encline us to a peaceable and Christian Accommodation with all Parties and to shew forth more Moderation of mind than we have yet made known to the World It is only for these ends that I have spoken so home and dealt so impartially with you being acquainted with the temper of many of your spirits which require it But if any Prophanatick shall make this cursed use of what I have written as thereby to heighten that hatred of holiness that is so natural to all unregenerate men or to harden himself in his way of wickedness stumble and be scandalized at the fallings of some I have here presented I say no more to him but at his eternal peril be it For though it be true which our Saviour hath said Wo be to them by whom offences come so it is as true also Wo be to the world Matth. 18. 7. because of offences As for many of the late Kings Party that have been the greatest sufferers for him I fear not that any such ill