but their reasonable service and cause their return'd answers to speak nothing but O Lord God most mercifull we prostrate our selves at thy feet and confesse our former numberlesse number of sins of rebellion against thee our God in sleighting thy precepts in fighting against thine Anoynted Servant our Soveraign and supream Governour the King in destroying our fellow-subjects their persons and estates which we should have preserved offending contrary to the principles of our Religion the practice and commands of Christ Jesus and the established Laws of England For all which we repent we repent we repent and cast our selves into thy arms of mercy Thus do good Father to all such who have erred and gone astray from thy paths and this even before thy battering decree for an everlasting destruction both of soul and body issueth forth And all this grant for the onely merits of thy Son our Saviour Christ Jesus Because in the originall of this bloody Rebellion the plot like the former and untill now unparallel'd Powder-plot * Gunpowder-Treason was laid so deep under ground covered over with more seemingly innocent materialls to make it thereby more invisible to the eye That indeed being intentionally this very designe acted and this but that conspiracy actually effected In the first were combining Papists fighting under the bloody Banner and obeying the commands of Antichrist the Pope In the second are pretending Protestants being such onely nomine non re making use of the same Papisticall and Antichristian bloody principles means and method both of them obedient children of the same father of lies the devill and enemies to the Gospell of Christ Jesus In the first they resolved at one blow by their suddenly consuming powder to destroy Rem Regem Regimen Regionem Religionem but execution was by the miraculous mercy of the God of Heaven prevented In the second These with a kind of unthought-of whiter Powder Pretences of a glorious Reformation and setting Christ upon his Throne Christi nomine armati tamen conâ—ra Christum dimicantes have by the permission of the same God now displeased and angry with a sinfull people actually brought to passe and accordingly have ruined the King's Majesty destroyed our Government Religion Laws and Liberties But How long Lord how long wilt thou be angry for ever shall thy jealousie burn like fire See O Lord we are all thy people Isa 64.9 10 11. thy holy Cities are a wildernesse Zion and Jerusalem are a desolation Our holy and our beautifull houses where our fathers praised thee are destroyed and our pleasant things laid waste O remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low Because this Rebellious Designe in the beginning was I say a mystery to most of the common people I shall now unveil it that so all such who formerly have been misleadd or still ignorantly persist in such bloody waies may return repent and do their first works lest God come against them in judgment in this world and they receive the reward of Traitors with Faulks Percy and their complices here or with Corah and his company be in an instant swallowed up into an eternal grave Because former antient and meer or if you will Athesticall Polititians like your Water-men on the Thames seldome or never directed their faces the same way they steered their courses untill they were arriv'd at the pretended end of their short voyage their primarily resolved ends And in regard our modern Polititians have walked in the self same paths trode those very steps with this addition onely that they have gone beyond all former Presidents in their excessive and accumulative wickednesse themselves being become the onely black and bloody copies for the imitation of the worst of men in future ages yet if it be possible these times which cannot easily find place in my belief can produce a generation of men so impudently bad that will not look pale and start at such unparallel'd patterns of superlative villanies reserving choice of them for their exemplary presidents For in respect of comparison I challenge the whole world since the reduction of the first rude Chaos into an orderly division untill this new Chaos of Anarchicall confusion in these daies of ours Let the best travelling brain therein whose busie studies have been onely Historically employ'd in collecting the successive vices of all generations let him sum up all those collections and out of them abstract the quintessence of Hypocrisie and Ambition the poyson of Rebellion and Treason the rancour of Envy and Hatred the venome of malitious Murderers and of all other conglomer ata facinora monstrous sins hainous crimes that ever were committed and let him contract the spirits of all those into one entire heap nay let him by his chymicall brain once more distill the quintessence of that hypocriticall and ambitious quintessence the poyson of that treacherous and rebellious poyson the venom of that malitiously murdering venom yet after all this the comparison will not hold in the least proportion These worst and latest times by their over-ballancing ponderous weighty crimes will mount those lighter faults of former ages into the aire Tam ingeniose sumus literis diabolicis diserti men are grown such proficients in destructive bloody doctrines and diabolicall actions Thus Lord are sinners by addition of sin to sin and aggravation of that addition by an obstinately continuance therein become incomparably sinfull But Father of mercies reward us not according to our deserts but spare us good Lord spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most pretious blood Now at last and the better to make a progression in my intended purpose I shall shew you the method of these latter Polititians styling themselves Christians agreeing with the former professed Atheisticall ones with the premised addition that these titular Christians have out-stripp'd the antiquated Atheists in their most unchristian hypocriticall and bloody practises To this end I shall by a seeming way of propounding questions give a resolution to all unprejudiced eyes and ears in that respect Can any age afford a people professing so seemingly well and acting so really desperately ill Review the then Petition Decemb. 1642. accompanying that grand Remonstrance or rather that plotted foundation of sedition laid purposely for other intended superstructures to cheat the common sort of people into an assisting conspiracy there you shall find them petitioning for the uniting of all loyall and obedient Subjects Who are these but Subjects by the Law declared to the supream Governour the King Obedient Subjects that joyn together in the same fundamentall truths against a Popish faction who had as in the Declaration is pretended a resolution to alter the Religion of the Kingdom Who can these be but true Protestants of England the onely prevailing parties against the Popish and Jesuitized strongest holds Yet in their united actions and doctrinall principles how do these two factions joyn
Servants nay Submissive Slaves to the imperious Propositions of their owne Created Servants That they who in prosecution of an unchristian unlawfull bloody designe of taking away the power of the King justly by law and reason declared His of forcing away his Negative Voyce in a Lawfull Parliament depriving him of the Command of the Militia of bloodily changing the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Goverment from Monarchicall to Aristocraticall from Episcopall to Presbyterian Witnesse the transactions to passe over other Treaties of that too-late tedious and most unfortunate Treaty in the Isle of Wight in the managing whereof neither Law Reason nor Religion urg'd by our dear Soveraign could work the Commissionated Treatours or rather the factious Commissionating Rooting Traytors in the House to Condescentions more than what ranne paralell and agreed with their most unjust demands of all his Regall Power and wholly altering the government of his Kingdomes Witnesse also the first insisted-on Proposition wherein Good Prince before they will proceed He must contrary to Reason Religion and Law declaratorily Justify their unjust Actions of Rebellion and treason against him and Condemne his own Just defence as unjust The prevaling faction in the Houses still upon Receipt of his Majesty's Concessions and Answers to their demanding Propositions Voting Not Satisfactory Not Satisfactory O fatall Word Not untill his Princely tender Care of his Subjects perceiving the * First Plotters Faction's resolutions to perfect their bloudy designe and his desire of Peace reconciliation and stopping of that issue of blond by themselves first made in his Kingdoms at last his own Royal Interest laid aside condescended so much to their demands that as a King he had nothing more to condescend unto nor they more of his Regall Power to demand These men who thus unlawfully prosecuted and persecuted his Sacred Majesty with distroying Armies thereby to wrâ—st away his lawfull power upon Pretences of a Fundamental Law never heard of never practised before in the Houses not so much as groundded upon the least imaginary authority of Common Reason much lesse the law of the Land and the Protestant Religion had all their bloudily acquired power snatched from them by * Army those I say whom first they impowered to offer bloudy force to his Majesty upon grounds as ayry groundless and unlawfull as pretences of Common Right and distribution of Justice as if Confusion were that Right and unparalelld injustice were the distribution of Common right and Justice year 1641 Some of these Ambitious and Factious Members who by invited tumults of the Citty-rabble forced his Majesty for the Security of his person from his royall pallace at Whitehall and soon after many of their then fellow-members contrary to the Priviledge of all reasonable parliaments were uncivilly forced out of the House by their menaces and conspiring Votes because they would not be voting Conspirators with them in their Trayterous designes against their King Country the truly fundamentall Laws of the Land Some of these I say Parl. were as absurdly thrust out of the House by Pride and his Complices the army 's imps birds of their owne hatching instruments of their owne framing upon accusation of being fomenters of a New War hinderers of Perfecting an intended Reformation or more truly of Com-pleating a pre-resolved resolution or rather a Jesuitized independent designe somwhat more bloudy than the Presbyterian Thus Deus omnipotens in aetennum Justus Thy actions O Lord are all Justice thy deeds Righteousness it self Thou therefore the fountain of all wisdome that dost oftentimes proportion and symbolize both for quality and quantity mens punishments to their Sins thereby by plain demonstrative signes inviting them to repentance Grant good Father that all such guilty persons thus reading their iniquities in their punishment may repent them of their fo mer Sins that so thou mayst pardon their transgressions and remember their offences no more To this purpose restore O Lord unto them the Purity of reason as men A Zealous unmoved fixednesse in thy true religion the Christian Protestant faith Loyalty and faithfull obedience to their undoubted Soveraign and Lawfull King Cha. the Second c. and these not verbally but really expressed by actions beseeming men whose reason not humorous opinion is their guide By deeds befitting Christian Protestants whose * Scripture directing rule is the unerring Word not groundlesse faincyed revelations the Suggestions of the deceiving Angelicall Divell and not the Perswasions of thee who art the God of Spirits By actions becoming Subjects whose obedience without interruption willingly followeth the smooth Current of an Established Law not hurryed along by the tumultuous Torrents of arbitrary Ordinances nor Obedientially swimming in the troublesome Waters of mens Corupt wills O Father of mercyes whatsoever punishments Thou in thy Just judgment for our manifold sinnes shalt inflict upon us give us not over to a generall infatuation of Spirit a benummednesse in our Understanding and Reason lest we degenerating into the nature of beasts with Nebuchadnezzar be design'd to graze in the feilds with beasts that perish O everliving God Deprive us not of thy Candlesticke thy gospell of truth lest for want of true guides we all become blind and like them leading one another irrecoverably fall into the Ditch of everlasting destruction O Let not my Lord be angry and thy Servant shall speak but this Once Father of Mercies as we desire that thy word may still Continue a Lanthorn to our feet and thy Precepts a directing Light to our Paths so we humbly beseech thee that out of thy infinit Loving kindnesse thou wouldst look upon us and not take from us our Established ancient fundamentall Lawes That so our Corrupt Natures may still by them be rectified the extravagant excurrences of our Obstinate perverse Wills and actions may be limitted lest Ambition Sedition Treason Perjury Rebellion Murder Sacriledge Regicidism Envy Hatred Tyranny Oppression and all manner of wickednesse becoming particular Commanding Lawes we like Ravenous Wolves devour one another And in order to this great mercy good God restore unto us our great Law-maker Preserver and Protectour thy Servant our Soveraign the much wronged Princely Son of a more injured Murdered Martyr'd Royal Father Cha the Second of Great Brittaine King c. Put the Sword and Scepter into his hands Place the Crown upon his Head Thou who art able and Powerfull in Extremities in this his extremity shew thy Ability and Power O Lord as thou hast designed him our Supream Governour so in order to his possession of thine own designed Government prepare the hearts of all his Subjects with submissive obedience unto him as to thy Vice-gerent on earth work into their spirits a sensiblenesse of their former erroneous practises against his Royall father and let their endeavours for the restoration of his Princely son to his father's Throne evidence to the world their unfeigned repentance for their sins committed against Thee the King of kings in
Faction alwayes had and still possesse all possible means tending to this end As at first in having the Command of London that Magazin of mony and men and with them a great part of the Nation and now all under their power besides his Majesty's Revenues Pallaces Bishops lands the Estates of many of his loyall-Subjects Excise and other Contributions by which helps the Faction hath rather bought victories than really fought for them the Silver Bullet burying more of the King's Army alive in prisons than the Enemy's Cannons did ever wound in the field Again consider that his Majestie 's party excepting some few Judasses did fight out of a religious Conscienciousnesse loyall affection to their God Soveraign and Country and not for a pecuniary reward onely Consider also that his Majesty wanted those means and wayes of procuring men and mony which the Faction had alwayes in aboundance That his armies were but as an handfull the Faction's numerous However take serious notice that the King and his party have Scripture Reason and Law on their Side but the Faction neither Therefore look to it you Continuing Sinfull adherers Never did National Sinns long escape the heavy hand of an Avenging God and if England London expect to be freed their hopes will deceive them Isaiah 30th 1 2 c. Jerem 9th 13 14 15. Further Consider the Vanity of pleading success also a way of justification of the worst of actions In respect of religion as Christians The people of God almost in all ages having been worsted in that respect God's intent in suffering the enemyes of his Church to prevail being only to try the faith and patience of his children to make them humble Acts 14.22 Gal. 6.14 fitting them thereby for Himselfe In respect of their Eternall well being in heaven and in reference to his owne honour upon earth that so his People coming as it were like pure gold out of the furnace of affliction they may be as shining and burning lamps for after-ages to walk by Again consider that the flock of Christ alwayes was little therefore to have Sucesse by power of a multitude is no argument of being Christians That as I have already inserted for the most part the Church was under Persecution and affliction therefore Prosperity is no ground of Saintship as the Faction pretend Hebr. 12 2. Math. 5.4 Be advised therefore my dear Country-men beware of acting and maintaining any thing against right Reason In it self both a sin and a punishment How many men so contrary to common sense and reason did following the deceiving sense of the Faction account and highly cry up Cromwel's marching into Scotland No invasion of that Kingdom where he could not ground the least pretence of a quarrell 1650. in his own unjust construction the end of his march being onely in prosecution of his first resolv'd-upon Designe of ruining his Majesty and Royall Family destroying our and their Laws and Liberties only to mount himself into the chair of Supremacy Neverthelesse many were possessed with such a sottish kind of stupidity Futall Worcest a sure presager of utter destruction as to esteem his majesty's last March out of Scotland into England with resolves only to Regain his right and that he might restore his subjects to their Religion Laws and Liberties to be an Invasion of England O Anglia Anglia quae vos dementia cepit Be for the future therefore advised keep closer to the Scriptures and right reason Approve follow and act nothing but what they warrant or is deducible from them for if you once but slipp from that firm Square you Tumble from once errour to another like a man fallen from the top of a Steep hill never resting untill you come to the bottom where without the Infinitely preserving mercy of God you will receive the reward of Such your wilfull Neglect even destruction Isaiah 30th 12 th 13. verses Again If God should continue still punishing England beware of making your selves Instrumentall-scourging Rodds in his hands which his will being performed he alwaies casteth into the fire But O holy blessed and glorious Trinity have mercy upon us miserable sinners Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou any further vengeance of our sinnes spare us good Lord spare thy people whom thou hast redeem'd with thy precious bloud and be not angry with us for ever To this pupose we beseech thee to give us true repentance to forgive us all our Sinnes negligences and ignorances and to endue us with the grace of thy holy Spirit to amend our lives acording to thy holy Word For my part I call heaven and earth to witnesse I have now sett before you life and death blessing and cursing Choose life for why will you dy O England why will you destroy your selves O people of Great Brittain Why will you not turn to the God of heaven with whom are treasures of mercy O ye Citizens of London Turn ye Turn ye from your evill wayes by a serious suddain unfeigned repentance that so God may return unto us in loving kindnesse by restoring to us our Governours as in former dayes K. Charles and cause us again to fit peaceably under our owne vines That our religion in purity may practically be revived That we may enjoy Pastors and Teachers that may again feed us with true knowledge understanding That our lawes and liberties may be continued That Great Brittain may be preserved from this Imminent and Eminent Menacing Ruine That God may be glorified in our preservation and not in our absolute destruction That all our Souls at the great day of Account may be everlastingly saved Amen Amen Amen FINIS