A PROTESTANT LETTER TO THE Lords in the Tower.  
My Lords;  
NOw methinks you begin to smell a Parliament; it will not be long, I believe, before they will have another lash at your Backs; your Impeachment is past, and nothing remains but your Trial, how well you are prepared for it, the Pope and your own Consciences can tell: You have seen the Success of your poor Brother Stafford; no Proofs were sufficient to Convince him, nor no Arguments strong enough to Persuade him from dying a supposed Martyr: the Pope may well boast of his Fidelity, for he Sealed his Death with his precious Blood, and choked his Conscience, it's believed, with a Lie; no Art could work a Contrition in him; the Advice of the Priests and Jesuits stuck to him like Birdlime, and hardened him like the nether Millstone; He was Canon proof against all Protestant Advice, and chose rather to give both Soul and Body, Reputation and Honour to the Pope's Service, than one Grain of Confession to the World; He was certainly as strong a Pillar as ever supported the Plot: though he reeled and revealed a little to the Lords, yet he made you a sufficient Recompense at the Hour of Death: With what Fire or with what Liquor you tempered this Steel so hardly, I know not; but it's most certain, the Devil himself could have done no more than he did at his dying Hour; for which in Rome, France and Hell, he may well be dignified with the Title of Saint Stafford: But ah! methinks he meets but with a bad Requital for his Constancy to you, and his Infidelity to his own Soul; I am afraid he is now heard to Curse his Nine-Pin Companions for his Zeal to the Roman Sea; now he sees the Priests with other Eyes than he did before; since he swallowed the forbidden Fruit his Eyes are open; and now, I doubt, he Roars and Howls at the remembrance of that last lost Hour upon Tower-Hill; it's well if he has not taken up his Lodging in Hell, where there is room enough for all Impenitent Sinners, Faelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum; Happy may it be for you, if you lay his Misery to Heart, I hope none of you will be so in love with Hell (as cold Wether as now it is) as to take the same measures, to die the same Death, repeat the same Lies which he did; I hope God has not left you all to the hardness of your own Hearts; it would be a hard case, if none of you should have Sense, Honesty and Repentance; methinks some of you should have the Fears of Death, the Terrors of Hell, and the Pangs of an evil Conscience upon you; its strange to see so many hardened Villains part with their Lives and their Souls upon such easy terms, as good Protestants believe Jack Catch has been an Eye Witness to. How can you think that God will be mocked with such a seeming show of Repentance, with such a superficial Confession, as theirs have been, who have left their Speeches as Witnesses of their Wickedness? Oh! do not flatter yourselves with such a good conceit of such Pernicious Footsteps; you are yet on this side of the Grave, and Death and Hell are at some distance from you; you have yet an opportunity to do good, and be good, to save your Lives, and to save your Souls; Oh! do not trifle away such a blessed opportunity. All the Mischief that has ensued, or may ensue upon Stafford's denial, will certainly be placed upon his account; he will be severely dealt with for those Lies at his last Breath. You may possibly blind the World, but you cannot draw a deceitful Curtain between God's Eyes and your Sins; he sees your Hearts and knows your Ways; How can you be sensible of it, and yet persist in your Wickedness? Lend an Ear to Conscience, it will teach you better things than ever you yet learned from any of your Ghostly Fathers; it will teach you to unbowel yourselves of all your burdensome Sins to God, in an Unfeigned manner; it will make you disgorge yourselves of your Plots, and engage you to Plot for your Soul's safety, and your Body's security: Do not imitate those who rather choose to go to Hell with a Plot in their Hearts, than divulge it: Think it not a shame to be eased of so shameful a Religion, as requires your Secrecy to your Eternal Destruction: Let not the Priests Hoodwink you, or Blindfold you, and then lead you to Hell; God has given you time and means to Work out your Deliverance here, and your Salvation hereafter; Oh! Woe be to you if you neglect so great Salvation: The dividing your Heads from your Bodies is an easy Punishment, but the dividing your Souls from God is unsufferable; for who can dwell with devouring Fire? Who can dwell with everlasting Burn?  
I beseech you, My Lords, spread Death and Hell before you; look a little beyond the Grave; have some Serious Thoughts of the condition they are in, who, we believe, were Brethren with you in Iniquity; and then I doubt not, but it will work a Reformation in you.  
J. B. February, the 14th, 1680.   

London, Printed in the Year, 1680.