A WORD OF Advertisement & Advice TO THE GODLY IN SCOTLAND.  
By a Scotch Man, and a Cordial Wellwisher to the Interest of the Godly in Scotland, both in CIVILS and SPIRITUALS.  Words in season are like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Open rebuke is better than secret love: Faithful are the wounds of a Friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. 
Edinburgh, Printed by Evan Tyler, 1651.   

Dear Friends,  
BEing desirous (in this hour of Darkness and sad trial and trouble) to be useful to you, my dear Friends in the Lord, being amazed and astonished to see you after twelve or fourteen years Remonstrating, Petitioning, and these backed with your sw rds in your hand, against King, Parliament and Committees and indeed the whole Authorities of the Land for your just freedom and Liberties in Spiritual and Civil things; I say, to see the result of such a business to be as it is this day; Is that which should put all the People of God in this Land, upon the trial and enquiry after the causes of this (I may say) your being so strangely deserted of God. And that I may, as your Christian Friend, be helpful to you in this, I shall go back to the beginning of these great Transactions, and shall go along with you in so much of the Progress of business to this day, as I have either been a witness unto, or can truly inform myself of, at least so much of them as may make it appear, what hath been your former practices, and the principles and ends carrying you on in these; and because the business is soweighty, and you so much concerned, and I so unfit to meddle therewith, I shall therefore beg of the Lord (that where I may mistake matter of Fact, or shall come short of the full representing thereof) that ye (who may be better acquainted with the whole of Affairs than myself) may deal so ingenuously with yourselves, as to follow out your own knowledge and experiences in these; And more to consider what I drive at, than what I speak in particulars, which, I say, is to be helpful to you in your search.  
Dear Friend, Ye may remember that in the beginning of this weighty business, that which did engage you the people of God (for to you only I speak) was your being oppressed in your consciences in spiritual things by the King, and those employed by him, and the connivance and concurrence of these that were the Representative of Church and State, together with the Tyranny and Oppressions exercised over your Persons and Estates in several things; to be freed of these, the attaining, establishing and increase of just Freedom in both these, was that which chief did engage you in the Work: There were many that did go on upon corrupt principles and ends, whom the Lord made use of for the time, and discovered many of them since (and will more) that they were not, nor are suitable Instruments for carrying on of such a Work: And though many of yourselves did not distinctly and particularly conceive what was the interest of the business you were engaged for at first; yet these who saw a far off, knew much of it in the time: And these who were the people of God indied, found and held it forth as their duty, to be carried on by the Providences of the Lord, to many things in which they were matterially engaged, that they did not at first clearly apprehend in particulars: And so all along every new discovery of duty, in the taking away of any thing that did appear to be inconsistent with the being or well-being of that which ye had primarily engaged yourselves unto (or the establishing of any thing that might advance it) did make manifest the rottenness of more or fewer mers principles in engaging therein, by their falling off, or becoming Enemies to it: And how often have I heard it preached, That this work would have none to follow it, but such as were truly godly, and that every corrupt man would fall off from it, when the true interest of the work did not consist with his corrupt interest?  
Dear Friends, Be pleased to consider the rise of this great business; Were not many of you panting after, praying for it, years before it came? Were there not private persons in the beginning that did own it against the King, and the Authorities of the Nation? The state of the cause being as it was, could any be friends to it, but such as were truly godly? Or could any first or last own it, without a contradiction, but such? And hath not your experience all along made this evident unto you, that both Persons and Interests which (at first) you thought might be suitable for the business, and might consist with it, have proved otherwise? Have not they either left you, or you them?  
In the beginning, it was thought by some, that it was enough to be afraid of the Service-Book; But how miserable had you still been, if the Lord had suffered you to rest there, or had inclined the King's heart to grant it; and how far short had it been of those farther degrees of just freedom, the Lord hath since carried you out to the owning of, and adventuring for, let your consciences tell you: And so all along adhering to this foundation, to wit (the freeing yourselves from Oppressions in your Consciences, Persons and Estates, and the establishing and carrying on your just freedom in these, not (so much) as Scots men, as the people of God) ye have been carried on in ways ye have not known nor foreseen, looking always upon it as your duty (and practising it) and for it abandoning (or declaring against) every person, interest, power, or authority in less or more, as they did prove inconsistent with the work or enemies to it, or retarders thereof, or insuitable instruments: And I do appeal to your experience, (what ever thoughts you might have in the beginning) if it be cosistant with, that which is really and indeed the work of God either with its being or well being, Not to be in the hands of suitable Instruments (I mean) such as are really Godly, and minds it upon that account: And if so? how much less can it be consistant with it, to be managed by a number of men, who are enemies to the Work, haters of you and the power of godliness, minding nothing but themselves and their own interest, being underminers of the things they profess to maintain, and cannot be otherways: And indeed to my understanding, that which hath been the contest for some years bygone, hath much differed from (or rather let me say, exceeded) what it was in the beginning: at first the sum of your Petitioning was to be freed from the Service-Book, and Book of Canons, afterwards ye slew so high as to strike at the root, Episcopacy and all that Roman Hierarchy; and for a long time the supplicating against these, the Coveranting against these, the defending yourselves against such as would continue these yokes upon you (with some smaller things which had relation to Civil Privileges) seemed chief (if not wholly) to be the state of the quarrel: Afterwards you were carried on further and further in owning what was necessary for advancing the great business you were engaged into, and dis-owning what you saw destructive to it, as the King's Negative Vote in Parliament and General Assemblies, the uncertainty of the calling of Parliaments, and establishing a Committee of Estates in the Intervales of Parliament, etc.  
But after all these were obtained by a wonderful Series of Providence, carrying you along, and countenance you, being freed from the Service-Book, Episcopacy and the rest, your Enemies being vanquished, the powers of the Nation (in appearance) friendly to you, and countenancing the business; the King, the great opposer thereof made in a manner to approve you in all you had done, by his ratifying all in Parliament; so that you could desire nothing of him outwardly but you had it, Ordinances in purity, none to manage the business but such as were professed Friends to the work; yet for all this were you not still at a loss, all you had gotten every day ready to be betrayed, every farther degree of freedom opposed.  
Dear Friend, consider (I conceive the stress of the matter lies here) that which has been your hurt & hindrance all along, hath been not so much open enemies as dissembling profane men among you, haters of godliness and the Godly, and of any appearance of God (in discovering of duties in order to the carrying on of the great Work, or in abandoning what was discovered to be inconsistent or incongruous therewith) engaged in the business upon corrupt accounts, ready always to betray it into the hands of enemies, and while avowing themselves, and continuing professed Friends, opposing and retarding good motions, raising Factions against you, and the true interest of the cause, and by these great pretences and professions of being for the Covenant and Work of God becoming so numerous in Judicatories, that they have carried all before them: I shall instance the year 1648. Did not that Parliament then become so highly Malignant, that many (if not all) that were Godly in the Parliament, (though I do not say that all who went along with them in the Protestation, did it upon a right account, as has appeared since) were forced to protest and leave the House, and yet all the while none pretending more for the Cause of God and Covenant than they, while they were carrying on their Malignant Designs, and persecuting all the Godly in Scotland, who did not go along with them. And indeed can you say but all along (though sometimes you have been more at one in carrying forward some outward thing) there has been real and visible distances and heart burn betwixt you the Godly, and such as were engaged in the business upon a wrong account, they sometimes whispering that good motions coming from you, did smell of Sectarisme and new light, or by raising Factions against you, to the dividing of Judicatories, and so at best clogging you in the way, and making the Work halt, to the sadding of the Spirits of all honest men, that were looking on. So that I say, the great contest of late, and that which hath had a great influence upon all the late transactions, these five or six years, hath been by whose hands that so generally professed, should be managed, and who could justly and rightly claim an Interest in it as Friends, or suitable instruments thereto, and who were enemies; I appeal to your own experience what was in this before the year 1648. how honest men were under-mined by a Faction, that partly had engaged with them in the beginning, and partly had crept in by professing themselves to go along with them in the Work, by taking the Covenant (which by the way I desire you to take notice, whether it has not been to large a rule in so searching a business) did they not see themselves undermined a long time before it came to so direct a breach as afterwards it did, and yet they professing themselves Friends to the Covenant and Work, they could not be rid of them, till themselves were shuffled to the door: And though these that did then protest, seemed to be unanimous in what they did in their ends moving them to it, and their principles carrying them on in it, & all that did follow thereupon, yet I dare appeal to such of you as were then acquainted with business, if many of these that did protest were not in their judgements for an engagement at that same time, and that their searing from it, was their seeing it chief carried on by such as they judged to be enemies to their ruling of matters though professed friends to the Work; the power of managing businesses being likely to be established in their hands. This I can aver from some of the Protesters themselves, that at a close Committee of the chief of the Protesters, it was resolved to possess Berwick, and Carlisle, long  it was surprised by Duke Hamilton, and that party.  
And though the way you were then necessitated to (you owning yourselves at first, but as private men, and the party in Scotland risen in Arms and standing for the Covenant and interest of the people of God) was an extraordinary remedy, you being expressly tied in the Covenant to maintain the Privileges of Parliament, yet under that notion, and upon that account that you were the People of God, and them that had only the true interest to profess yourselves Friends to the Cause, Covenant, and interest of the People of God, and such as only could rightly challenge a privilege to manage these and places of trust in the Kingdom, and yet all this while you were nothing but private men, there being a Committee of Estates appointed, that you could not say, but they were lawfully constituted: they having established the foresaid Committee as the Authority of the Kingdom, in the interval of the Parliament; upon the foresaid account & of their evil managing of business, through their becoming enemies to the Work and people of God as you then thought you did rise in Arms against them, and did not only oppose their Authority, but did break them so, as to be no. Authority at all; and moreover, did constrain them to condescend that you should be a Committee of Estates: Being thus a Committee, you did set down Rules for calling a new Parliament, you did (contrary to the Fundamental Laws of Scotland, whereby every Freeholder, having a Forty shilling Land holden of the King, hath the privilege to vote in choosing Commissioners, and to be chosen) debar any from voting in Elections, or being Elected, that had voted in Parliament to the Engagement, 1648. or in the Committee of Estates, had taken the Oath for carrying on thereof, or had subscribed the Bond for promoving the same, or had taken the Oath in Committees of shires for the advancing of it, or had given obedience in an active way, to the Acts enjoining the Levies, etc. for carrying on the said Engagement. I insist the longer upon this, and do make all these digressions, that it may appear that it was only by private men all this was done. It is said, that they were protesters in Parliament, yet I think it is obvious to any that understands, that though your Protestation was a testimony, and gave you the greater clearness to act against that against which you had born your testimony, yet it did not enstate you in any condition of being a Judicatory, or Public Persons, you having lest the Parliament upon your Protestation; and though some of you were appointed Members of the Committee of Estates, yet that same Parliament in that same Act did declare, That all who were nominated to be of that Committee, should, at their first sitting, take the Oath for the faithful carrying on of that Engagement, and otherwise, not to sit or vote, nor have any place therein; moreover, those that then you looked upon as your Enemies, having got by you to Sterling, and having taken in the Town, and routed your Forces there, and you being at Fawkirk, and your men daily leaving you, and you becoming more and more inconsiderable, you did (that I may omit nothing so far as I can remember, that was matter of Fact, it being the chief part of my design to help you in your search, by remembering you of all the several Transactions about and since that time) judge it necessary to invite the English Army to your assistance; and this (as I am informed) by the advice of the Kirk, though they had formerly, in their Pulpits and Remonstrances, declared them to be an Army of Sectaries; And how useful their incomming was to you, and how they did carry themselves, you may remember; and what was the nature of their desires to the Committee of Estates (notwithstanding what they had met with from the Parliament of Scotland, yea and from many of yourselves, as you may know in particulars) neither desiring recompense from you for the injuries England and themselves had received, nor desiring greater security from you, but that you should establish the power of the Kingdom in the hands of honest and godly men, however prejudiced against them, and for the others, that they should not be employed without England's consent.  
And notwithstanding you were a party separated from the rest, upon so honest an account, and had taken such extraordinary ways; yet since it hath evidently appeared that some, if not many, if not the greatest part, did protest in Parliament, and rise in Arms, and proceed in the business upon unsound ends and principles, which did appear to such of you as were acquainted with the business, and did see a far off, not long after they were reestablished in power, by their jealousies of honest men, their labouring to get such into Judicatories, and Armies, and places of Trust, as would serve their corrupt interest, and their discountenancing and opposing of godly men; And ever since your divisions and jealousies have grown, the seed of the Serpent and of the women, hath distinctly appeared, even in that little handful, that seemed to be separated for the Lord, and for his people's interest; and how these have retarded you in your Progress (after solemn acknowledgements of miscarriages in Omissions, and Commissons, and solemn Engagements to duties) of advancing the power of godliness, in countenancing of it, and establishing the power of the Kingdom in the hands of such as were godly, and discountenancing and purging out such as were otherwise. How they have laboured to entangle you into the Yoke of Bondage you had formerly been serving under, how they have made you fall backward, and how they have entangled and ensnared you and themselves, and the Kingdom, in many sorrows, is apparent this day to these that runs by, I chief mean in the whole business with the King: These men, though they were as busy and forward for bringing in the English Army as any, and had as much intimacy with them, yet seeing their way which they did walk into in England, to be inconsistent with their interest (the chief of them being Lords) and being apprehensive that the godly in Scotland might comply with that Interest of Levelling, at least the Arbitrary and absolute way of great men; and withal, the Ministers being possessed with prejudices against them, as appehending them to be Enemies to them as Ministers, though indeed, (as appears only to their Arbitrary way) in spiritual things, and there too much meddling in Civil things, or at least, that they are no great friends to these, together with the Commissioners carrages at London; all these did concur to procure, that notwithstanding of all the former courtesies received from them, within a few weeks after the English Armies going out of Scotland, there was nothing almost to be heard in Pulpits but the Army of Sectaries, the perfidious Murderers, filthy Dreamers, Contemners of Authority, Razers of the foundations of Government, Alterers thereof contrary to the Covenant, and therefore perfidious Covenant-breakers; the Kirk must put out a Declaration to this, and the State approve it; and these that were looked upon as Instruments of your deliverance, whose assistance the Kirk themselves thought fit to take in a few weeks before, may not be spoken of but with Indignation: Whereas when these things are examined which they did after they went out of Scotland, I suppose it will be found their necessity was as great, that put them on to do these things, and the hazard as eminent to the interest of all the Godly in England, yea Scotland also, and of all they had been fight for the foregoing year, as that which put you to rise in Arms, and to do all that followed upon it in 1648. I shall for this only instance, the Letter written by the chief Rulers in Scotland to the Principal Leaders of the English Army, presently after their departure out of Scotland, pressing them to break the Treaty with the late King at the Isle of Wight, and that unless it were broken, all the Godly in England and Scotland would be ruined. And moreover, was there any more irregularity in their proceed then in yours, yea I offer it to your serious consideration from what has been, and might be said, if there were not more in yours then in theirs; Things being thus carried on, upon, and by the corrupt interest of Lords and Gentlemen their dependers, and the interest of the Ministers, you the Godly were entangled and ensnared, and made to go along upon fair pretences of duty & conscience, not seeing the design of those whose interest lay in the business. Upon the pretence of duty, the outing some members of the Parl. of England, is taken notice of as a breach of Covenant, notwithstanding that the same Party had broken the Committee representing the Parl. of Scotland, as is before expressed: And that our own Commissioners had written home, that the Parliament of England were going on in a Treaty with the King, and were likely to close in a way, wherewith they were dissatisfied, and that they had left out Scotland's interest. The proceed against the King, & the taking of his life must be also protested against, notwithstanding his continued and confirmed obduredness in his ways, & all the Justice the Covenant ties to against Delinquents, and the execution of Justice upon severals of our own acting only by virtue of his Commissions, and that he were himself oft by us declared a Murderer, the grand Murderer, guilty of all the Innocent blood had been shed in the three Kingdoms, & that we had no tie upon us for the preservation of his Person by the Covenant, otherwise then as in the defence and preservation of Religion and Liberty. If it be objected, that they were not a free constituted Judicatory that did the thing, and so upon that account it was murder: Let it be considered upon the same consideration, if it may not be as strongly cleared, that james Grahame, and all that died upon a Scaffold since 1648. were murdered, since it may be made appear, that according to the strict account of the Laws of this Nation, there has not been a free nor right constituted Parliament since 1648. as appears by what is aforesaid concerning the constituting of the Parliament that sat down the fourth of january 1649. As a duty the King that now is, behoved to be proclaimed immediately, though then engaged and running headlong in his Father's steps, Commissioning Prince Rupert, james Grahaem, Ormond, making an open and avowed Peace with the Irish Rebels, to which height his Father never came: Commissioners are sent to him, and though at that time through the strength of his passion to the way his heart was engaged unto, and the apparent hopes in Ireland (whether he also sent his goods) he was kept from any seeming condescendence to their desires, Yea though they were exceedingly baffled and slighted; yet the Lords seeing no consistency at all betwixt those in England, and their Prerogative Interest as Lords, and finding a spirit of levelling (as they named it) beginning to break out, honest men beginning to think, and to make it appear they thought the Lords interest to be exorbitant and tyrannical, and that the most of them were enemies to Piety and pious men, and to motions tending to the countenancing of both, and that they were friends to the getting in, and keeping in naughty men in places of trust, with a design to uphold their interest and greatness, and beginning then to look after their liberty in those things that great men had encroached upon them, these considerations though so slighted, as aforesaid, did move them under the notion of duty to press a second address. In which many Godly men were ensnared by condescending unto it upon this attempt, that they were desirous to shun the scandal of being complyers with these they called Sectaries, who had declared against Monarchy: how that business was carried on many of you know better than myself. An Express being sent to the Isle of jarsey to the King, by his return a Treaty was desired at Breda; the King writing to the Committee of Estates (naming them so) which he had not formerly done, (though then only with a Proviso in order to that Treaty:) The same day and place that the King wrote to the Committee of Estates, he did write to James Graham, relating the former Commission given him to come into Scotland, giving him an account of all passages between him and them in Scotland, and pressing him vigorously to prosecute the business, and the rather, because he thought his coming to Orkney had occasioned the sending of that second address unto him, and he was hopeful his vigorous prosecuting of that which he had entrusted him with, should be a means to make the Committee fall lower in their conditions. And though the Copy of this Letter came to Scotland, and was known by the Committee of Estates before they fell upon their Instructions, notwithstanding of all this, these who had projected the business would go on, and did prosecute it with so much heat and earnestness, that the business, both in Instructions and Commissioners, was concluded by the Committee of Estates, although the Parliament were to sit down within four or five days after. Those of you that were upon public business, may remember how the whole matter was carried, being huddled over, and over-hasted, so as might have rendered the business suspicious to any that were not much left of God; to some it did clearly appear to be carried on by way of design. Though the shenning of scandal made some honest men go along in it; yet I think that which partly did entangle severals, was the expectation they had that the King would not agree to the Instructions. As for the carrying on of the Treaty, and the managing of it in Holland, I refer that to the causes of the Commissions Fast appointed when they sat at Sterling, and to the Westland Remonstrances of Kirk and Army.  
My design in all this is, that you may take notice how a party and faction, even of those whom the Lord had separated from the rest of the Nation (pretending as highly as ever) has carried aside and entangled the Godly, and undermmed you. And when in part your snare is discovered unto you (though with the price of many sorrows to yourselves and much misery to the Land) now they begin to appear in their own colours.  
My dear Friends, Give me leave in a Christian freedom to expostulate with you, and from what I have laid down before you, either as matter of Fact, or as your received principles, to speak freely my own heart unto you, what my thoughts reach unto, concerning your present low condition, as what may have had a great hand in the Providence of God to make your condition as it is. I think it may appear unto you from what hath been said (though I should add nothing) that there is a distinct interest of the People of God, from all worldly interests; that it does also clearly appear, that your mingling yours therewith, and your complying and joining with Malignant and carnal Instruments, in prosecution thereof hath had no small influence in bringing you to so low a condition as you are at this day. Yea, and which is a greater abomination, and also exceedingly tending thereto, when you and your brethren in England did fall into mistakes and differences together, have you not strengthened the hands of your and their enemies by declaring one another's Infirmities to the world, and not only so; Have not you, the people of God, sided with the men of the world, in their way of reproaching your Brethren, Yea, have not you made them Judges of the differences between you and them, which is contrary to that of the Apostle, even in Civil things betwixt such as are Saints indeed, that they should not bring their causes before the Heathen Judges, much less their spiritual differences? And whether the generality of the Parliament and General Assembly of Scotland hath been any other, upon a true account, but heathen judges (in respect of the appearances of God in them in their public actings or private walkings) I leave it to your serious consideration. And I appeal to yourselves, whether you have not in an implicit way, for the most part, f llowed their judgements, especially the Kirk, and how (by so doing) you have been entangled and ensnared (if you will not see) you shall see.  
Consider how the Lord condescends to your weakness, by writing in great Letters your sin and your snare in these, by discovering to you what I have asserted both of Kirk and State: You are not strangers to proceed at St. Johnston, how these men are now not ashamed to profess their ways before the Sun, all their fair pretences, whereby they have ensnared you, are now coming out in their own colours: I need not name the particulars, they being so evident; these men that have heightened prejudices between you and your Brethren in England upon fair pretences, who were judges and Parties, whose guilty conscierces told them, they deserved to be so dealt with, as their brethren had been dealt with by the Godly in England, whom the Lord had so strangely raised up for that Work, and did clearly see they should be so dealt with by you, when you should come to understand your own interest, and the true interest of that which you had primarily engaged yourselves unto: And therefore notwithstanding they did make use of you, and did entangle you with good pretences, yet yourselves know they were always jealous of you, and did hate you in their hearts; and for the Kirk, what they are become (I mean the generality of them) how great Traitors to their own Professions and Declarations, Preach, Warn, and Remonstrances, & to the interest of all the Godly in Scotland) is evident (passing all other things) by their sense of the Westland Remonstrance, and their going along with that Parliament at St. johnston, and by their late Warnings, Remonstrances, Declarations and Acts, and all these under the pretence of good Patriots, which is an evidence, that their interest is worldly, and not Spiritual, and hath the Mark of the Beast upon it.  
Dear Friends, I humbly suppose it does not become you to be implicit in receiving any thing of consequence from the best of men, much less from such as these have been and are, ye who have jesus Christ to be your Light and Councillor, and the anointing from above, and should know that all men are liars, and ready to be biased with Interest, How unbeseeming is it for you, especially in these days, to be implicit in your belief, or in receiving any thing off man's hand, without examination: How much this hath prevailed amongst you, and how ye have loved tohave it so, is obvious, and how these lords over the conscience, have pursued its being so, as hath also appeared in their peremptoriness in acts questionable in themselves, their naming all the English Army Sectaries and Blaspemous, without exceptions, Enemies to the People of God and to godliness, Their bitter way of expressing of this, without (clearly or scarce at all) refuting their Error, or showing what they held, their labouring to wrest every thing to the worst sense, or to put such a construction, for the which there was not the least shadow of a ground, their giving it as the note of a Sectary in him that should question their way in these, or should forbear to go along with them, or should question the matter, or whether that which they did assert to be Error, was so or no, calling these problematique questions, tending to rend the Church: and for Professors, notwithstanding it be a duty prescribed unto, and commended in the people of God, especially into a day of darkness and difficulty, to speak often one to another, to exhort, to rebuke, to be free one with another; yet I appeal to one and all of you, if their hath not been, and is such a spirit even amongst you, that you could not, nor cannot bear any thing differing from your own opinion (or rather the opinion of the Kirk) whether in Doctrine, Discipline, or the business of the time, notwithstanding the most of you (give me leave in Christian freedom to speak without offence) could not give a reason for what you held or practised, especially in these things relating to the times, but were implicitly led by other men's judgements, which is your reproach, your sin and your snare this day, and hath not had (I dare confidently say it) the least hand in bringing you into the posture you are at present: Doth not the language of all these, call upon you to separate from worldly interests and carnal men as much as you can, and from an implicit, carnal blind way of fearing or trusting man? Is it not evident, that it hath been the design of God from the beginning of this work to have it so? Have not all his dispensations from time to time signified this? yea, does not (as hath been said) your own principles and practices hold out so much? Hath not your opposing of this (by your labouring to join the seed of the Woman and of the Serpent together, and to mingle their Interests) again and again brought contempt and disappointment upon you? Have they not constantly (pretend what they will) laid you by, and set up themselves? (and if this hold in Civil things, how much more in Spiritual) And do not you clearly see it cannot be otherwise? Is it not as clear as the light, that if this Parliament at St. Johnston were desolved, and another called according to the Laws of the Kingdom, I dare say, and it is known to you, it might well be worse, it could not be better, the result of so many years professing and fight for a Covenant (chief relating to Religion) a Nation wholly almost overgrown with Malignants, Enemies to you, and to what the Covenant chief drives at.  
And for the Kirk, I offer it to your consideration, whether the generality of them be not godless, selfseeking men, I do not only mean this Commission that goes along with the present State, but any Assembly that hath been, or is likely to be in haste; and for such as are godly, I shall wish that too many (even of these) have not more an eye to the upholding of an Arbitrary Power, unto their meddling in Civil matters, then to the holding forth of jesus Christ, and the interest of the People of God: Hath it not been a snare to themselves, and to all honest men in Scotland, especially to such as were in judicatories and Armies, Ministers (though good men) meddling so much in the business of the time, their way being when they were disaffected with the State, to declare out of the Pulpits their faults, as also to put forth Declarations thereanent, which at the best did tend to nothing but to make the State Hypocrites, and to the deceiving of themselves and all honest men, for the State seeing their way (in preaching and declaring against them) to tend much to the weakening of their Authority and Designs, did study how to carry on their Designs with the fairest outside that might be: I shall give one particular instance, which is this, their forcing of the King to subscribe (passing all their former and late proceed with him, and with the State) that Declaration, wherein he declares all the friends of the Covenant to be his friends, and the enemies thereof to be his: What a strange way that was for them to draw up a Declaration of that nature, and to compel him to subscribe it, by a Declaration of abandoning his interest, if he should refuse to do it, I leave to the serious consideration of all godly Ministers and Professors; and what hath been the sad consequencies of proceed in this kind, and I hope it will not be understood as if I spoke against good men, whom I honour, or against the Ministry, my desire being only to take notice of those things whereby they have wronged themselves and the people of God.  
My dear Friends, It doth more than evidently appear, that upon all the considerations spoken of, you must either abandon your own Interest, and all you have been fight, wrestling and praying for, or else you must (as the people of God) and only upon that account, own what is your own Interest, and the true Interest of that which is the Work indeed, in following the Lamb in his quarrel against the Beast, in crushing, opposing, dashing in pieces, laying aside, and treading upon every thing that stands in the way of his exalting in the midst of his People, or would uphold false Christ's in more or less the power of the Beast, whether it be King or Kingness or Parliaments, or Interests of Nations, or Governments, or be it what it will: Oh if you were once joined together upon this account, how should you be made to revive, and your reproach taken away? let it not be a stumbling-block in your way, that thus did the Sectaries (so called) in England, I do not question, but the Lord in his present dispensations is letting you see your sin and error in condemning your Brethren in England, for that which materially (at least) was and is your Duty: what better was their condition there, or in probability would have been than yours, had not the Lord raised up their Spirits to the consideration of the continual hazard they were exposed to, by suffering their Interest to be managed by a number of men, who minded not the Interest of the People of God, nor the true Interest of the Nation, and were upon the closing of a Treaty, wherein they were to give up the Interest of the Godly, and what they had been fight for, to the will and power of him who was the greatest Delinquent in the three Kingdoms, till (I say) the Lord raised up their Spirits to be instrumental, in laying aside those unsuitable dangerous Instruments, and to persecute all that has followed upon't, wherein how they have been countenanced and carried through, is obvious: And truly I am persuaded, that ill the Lord shall be pleased to open your eyes (as I hope he will) to see it your duty to take the like course, and to see yours and their Interest to be one, and your Enemies one, (though your differences in some things should continue) till something of both these, ye shall be haunted with sorrows, and distresses, and disappointments, and disasters one after another, (let me say this without offence) I am far from justifying those in England, in all the circumstances either of their way there, or of their coming into Scotland, and shall not say, but that there has been not only an offence taken by you, but also an offence given, especially in the way of their coming into Scotland, though they have this to say for themselves; First, that a Treaty was denied, unless they would deny the capacity they stood into, and the resolved desperate carrying on the Treaty with the King, notwithstanding all the discoveries of him and of his designs; and our example eleven years ago, who entered England with an Army for matters merely concerning Scotland, without any call from any Public Judicatories, and yet were owned by the Godly in England, and that during the time of the Treaty, an about, and after the close of it, Prince Rupert was at Sea robbing their Ships, destroying their Trade by virtue of this King's Commissions, Ormond in Ireland in the Head of the Popish Army, and several Commissions issued forth to severals in England.  
Dear Friends, If you can look upon them as Brethren (as I am sure they are at least the generality of the leading, counselling Party, and such as are Godly that adhere to them) It is your duty to forgive and forget, though they have done you an Injury. They say, you have wronged them, and yet they profess themselves not only willing to forgive you, but to follow you with all kindness and respect, and to be useful to you, though it were by laying their Bones in the dust for you. If there be Differences amongst you, can there be no mids but to destroy one another? this seems to be a strange Paradox and device of Satan, that you think you cannot stand except they fall, they do not think so, they profess themselves not only willing, but desirous, that your interest, as the Godly in Scotland should stand, though you should differ in judgement from them: Can Christ's Kingdom be divided against itself, truly it is nothing of Christ that would labour to divide his People in affections, and will plead their destroying one of another.  
Dear Friends, remember their professions of love to you when they came into this Nation, and what a bitter return was made to them in your name: what a Christian reply from them, what a meeting from you, and how unwilling they were the Business should be decided by blood, and how bloodthirsty you were (bear the expression) none more earnest upon fight then you, notwithstanding all their continuing their professions of love, and their moderate carrying of themselves in the Country, and their returning in their way towards England, how eager were even you the Godly in their pursuit, how did you long for their ruin (whose preservation I dare say, as Instruments, was and is yours) and did conclude them all men ruined and broken, whom the Lord would in an outward way own no more: after the Lord had made you flee before them, (they being necessitated to fight, being environed upon All hands) yet notwithstanding all the advantage they had, did they not follow you as much as ever, and ra her more? And the Lord having in a singular way separated you from that Crew ye were entangled with, and ye beginning to see the errors of former ways in some things at least, and being in a Capacity to own your Interest, and dissatisfied in what had formerly been the state of the Quarrel, and with the State and the Treaty at Breda, and your Brethren in the English Army having renewed their Professions of love to you, and their desire to confer with you, and to have a cessation of Arms, and to some of you, having gone a great length in particulars, to evidence the reality of their Professions of Love, and after the State and Kirk had in such a way declared against your Remonstrance, and though in it you had taken away that which was positively and unquestionably the state of the Quarrel, and had (to my nderstanding) put nothing in the room of it, yet your desire to fight with them was so great, notwithstanding of all these, that before you should miss an opportunity, ye would rather fall in upon their Quarters upon the Lord's day morning: And how strangely ye were broken, and what were the particular remarkable passages, they know best that were there only it is generally remarked, that at Musleburgh, at Dunbar and at Hamilton, the honest men got the saddest blows. However, they continue their professions of Love to you, even to this day, notwithstanding of all they have met with from you then, and I dare say from knowledge, that since Hamilton, if it had pleased the Lord to have opened your eyes to have known what was truly your interest & your duty, it might have been in the power of the Godly of Scotland, not only to have preserved their own interest, but the interest of the Nation: and if it should yet please the Lord to open your eyes, I am very confident it should not only tend to your good, but to the good of the Land, and to the rectifying and composing present differences and distances, and perhaps the Lords design is to make each of you useful in convincing one another in the extremes that either of you (it may be) hath been inclining to, if ye were once together as Brethren, Conferring Exhorting, Reproving, and Watching over each other, and Forbearing, Forgiving, and Loving each other, and not as Enemies, reproaching, contemning, smiting, taking advantage, raising and fomenting prejudices one against another. Dear Friends, I hope you will not be offended with my Freedom, which is, not to lay open your nakedness, but to show the kindness & tendernss of these whom ye have looked upon as your Enemies, that ye maybe persuaded to meet them with the like: Sure I am it is the Design of God, to have his People one, & to cause them follow him together with one heart, at least it is his promise it shall be so; And that the Whore that sits upon the many waters shall be destroyed, and that the Kingdoms of the world shall become the Kingdoms of his Son, and I hope he will not lose you, even to make you instrumental in this great Work he is about, for it is his time to build up Zion, not to destroy her, nor no part of her, and if it were not for this, I should have been laid by from meddling into any business so weighty as this is: I know it is such a way, as the wayfaring man, though a fool cannot err therein.  
FINIS.