An ANSWER To the LETTER Directed to the Author OF JUS POPULI, By a Friend of the Authors.  
Printed in the Year 1671   

An Answer to the letter directed to the Author of JUS POPULI, By a Friend of the Authors.  
SIR,  
At the first view of your Letter to my friend I begun to apprehend you had transformed yourself into an Apostle of Christ, borrowed a mantle of light, and perceiving you so cunning as from a plausible misapplication of the gospel precepts of charity, meekness, patience, & the like graces to study your advantages against a just and zealous indignation occasioned by provocations which might almost excuse the greatest excess, the least I could expect was a non-contradicting practice; but how quickly am I relieved of these apprehensions? And how much more happily have you yourself detected that which, though by me evinced by clearest arguments, yet could not have been so much as named without your complaint of reviling and persecution; if your insinuation of a brotherly respect, and fair professions of Christian charity freedom from wrath, malice, and bitterness, pity, compassion, a deep and affecting concernment for God's glory and religious advancement, high pretendings for humility, meekness, and true holiness, a tender regard to the union of Christ's body, and daily panting for an escape from the contentions and confusions here below, unto these regions of peace and joy above, even unto the undervaluing of Episcopacy aswell as Presbytery had been followed with an uniform strain in all other parts, they might have proven very pernicious deceive; but seeing that, beside the slay and scornful mixtures which obviously bewray themselves through the whole tenor of your Letter, you are often transported to the very rudest and foulest eruptions, accusing your opposite as a scurrilous bouffon, bloody incendiary, agent of heel, equal to Beelzebub, guilty of the crime of Cham, and in hazard of Canaan's curse; unjust, malicious and cruel in reproaches, nay in the gall of bitterness, and finally whom in the first page you accosted as your brother, representing him in the last as guilty of rebellion and treason, worthy to be made an example to all such desperate incendiaries, sure I am that he, who cannot in these variant methods discern your hypocrisy, must yet acknowledge a strength of malice above its subtlety. However Sir in return to the acceptable deliverance you have given me from meddling further in such naughty stuff, all the use I make of this observation shall be to let you see that you are but a man of like passions with us, and that though the insolence of the Surveyer did in effect constrain my friend to some heat and sharpness, yet we do also know in its exigence how to cut off occasion from them which desire it, and to redargue your vain glorying in the milder & calmer graces (so to speak) by a more consistent imitation, in which resolution I address myself to a short review of your Letter.  
And first taking God to witness of these groans and tears which our furious distempers do draw from some of you, whom we so much persecute, you fall into your heavy regrates to see the great designs of Godliness and piety suffering so much from some who pretend so highly, and yet are more concerned for a few inconsiderable opinions and niceties then for charity, meekness, unity, and obedience to Authority, or for carrying on the great end for which Christ died etc. Sir, though I may not directly call in question your truth and sincerity in this appeal, yet seeing that all men know how that you or at least most of that party whereunto you associate did with hands lifted up to the most high God engage sincerely, really, and constantly to own and maintain these things which you do here plainly disowne and blaspheme, give me leave to remember you that though deceivers may deceive themselves aswell as others, yet God will not be mocked. If these furious and unchristian distempers, the object of your groans and tears, and the persecutions that you mention be indeed nothing else then the zealous dissent and testimony of such who, in the fear of the same high and holy Lord God whom you attest, dare not comply with the present manifest baksliding, and for which they have been greivously vexed, and if this your Character of their way as fury be only either from delusion of interest or delicacy of humour, it is much to be feared that he who is the true and faithful witness shall one day witness against you and not for you; one thing I am persuaded of, that whoever at present is a true mourner before the Lord and as in his sight, doth not more find the reigning sins of the Land and the desolations and profanations of God's sanctuary to be his principal motive, than the causes which you assign to be false and deceitful. The great designs of godliness do certainly suffer much, And O that God would as manifestly declare the authors of these sufferring, as all men know their beginnings. That we are the men you point at by this overconcernement for a few inconsiderable and disputable opinions is aboudantly obvious, but seeing you are not ashamed to term these things in considerable and disputable, which yet do as certainly, both by their institution, and in our experience, conduce to the great ends of holiness and happiness, as from Scripture and clear reason they were evidently determined, and by most righteous and solemn laws and cannons and sacred oaths established amongst us, it were unreasonable for me to redargue your imputation, as for your prejudicial comparing of Ordinances with Duties, and your endeavours, by magnifying the ends of religion, to vilify its midses as mere niceties, it is a piece of art so frequently practised by G. B. in his dialogues, and by his antagonist so soberly and convincingly discovered, that I need to add nothing, only let me tell you that he who truly values the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, as he will assuredly dear esteem all his purchase for, & gifts unto his Church, so in these bacsliding, oppositions, and overturnings which we have seen, he cannot but judge your comliant charity, unseasonable meekness, easeful peace, censpiring unity, and excessive obedience to man's authority, to be at best the delusions of a lukewarm indifferent; you say There is a generation who was once by appearance seriously minding their souls, but now are taken off that noble exercise; thus you discern the change but cannot discern its causes, nay of these you are so willingly ignorant that while you refer them to foolish and unlearned questions, you altogether dislemble who were the first movers; this poor Church was enjoying (although with some infirmity) our Lords pure ministry and Government, and then These excellent lessons of charity, patience, humility, meekness, and true holiness, though not in your perverse application, were in some request, when, behold, as if we had been delivered from our civil bondage to commit all these abominations, a furious tempest of perjury, violence, and apostasy broke in upon us, not only to the subversion of the Lords work, but to the laying waste of all religion and conscience, what mad and untractable questions, and unreasonable and violent dispute a faithful remnant have since been exercised with the Lord knoweth, this one thing I am assured of that whatever advantage you may take of failings, whereunto you force them, and however you may vaunt yourself in empty professions, yet, by their constant steadfastness in midst of so many trials, they have witnessed a measure of true Charity, patience, humility, meekness, and holiness that shall be remembered for a testimony for God and his truth to all generations; passing therefore your groundless and childish reflection of our speaking against Bishops, as if what you observe most we were best pleased with, and your more absurd and ridiculous retortion as if we had ruined religion, betrayed Christ, and sold him for the gratifying forsooth of our humours and passions (a strange price) when as the real money that your Bishops received for him is to be found in their coffers, the blood of his saints in their skirts, and under the colour of a name the very scandal and scorn of all religion in their lives; Omitting also that most censorious calumny of our censuring, traducing, railing, forging, and publishing of lies which you cast upon us without the least verification, and contrary to the evidence of that profanity, falsehood, and perjury on your part that i● sufficient to justify the highest accusation, I wish you could yet consider and lay to heart that it is not by the noncompliance and testifying of our Lords faithful members against corrupt bakstiders that the ligaments of his body are dissolved, but by the breaking of his bonds asunder, and casting away of his coards from you, that your party have rebelled against the Lord our Head and King, and laboured for the very destruction of piety and true religion among us. If with these things you were rightly and deeply affected your soul would rather abhor the wicked, who have marred and removed our true peace, then testify an aversion for such who, at their own cost, dare not join in your sinful confederacy, & in place of precipitating an escape from the contentions and confusions here below by your airy aspire to these regions of peace and joy above you would prefer for a time that warfare of faith and patience, against the wickedness, slander, and persecutions of this evil generation whereunto the Lord hath called us. Sir this is the path that these have trodden who out of great tribulation are arrived, and do stand before the throne in white with their palms of victory, singing a new song. Your excessive charity towards anungodly world, and fond and sinful courting of peace on any terms will but in end deceive you, the narrow way of life admits not of your latitude, & heaven knows not your comprehension.  
In the next place you are for Jeremiah's wilderness, and upon the wings of the same fancy you flee also to David's retirement, why? would you so soon leave these assemblies of treacherous men which you did freely choice? or doth the not ceding of a small afflicted party to all your imposings seem to you so terrible a storm and tempest? Nay certainly, were there no other argument, the obvious easiness of the execution with your contrair forbearance is eneug he to redargue these your wishes either of a wretched peevishness, or a worse dissimulation.  
You forbidden my friend to think that all this is the effect of your zeal for Episcopacy, And I dare affirm that without your suggestion it had never come into his thought, the giddy instability of the now-Bishop of Dumblaines weak Fantastic brain, dissatisfied with both prelacy and Presbytery, whom neither the small cure of Newbottle, nor the more abstract retreat of the college of Edenburrough, nor his own choice the Bishopric of Dumblaine could formerly six, and the present accession of Glasgow doth as little please, and yet in discourse always longing either for the shaddes of the grave or the rest above, is not so rare a thing but you may be tainted by the same or the like malady.  
But the cause of your weariness is your solicitude for the great Bishop of souls, whom my friend you say is doing what in him lies to depose from his Government and Kingdom, which you add is neither in meats nor drinks, neither in Episcopacy nor Presbytery, but in righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost: what a bold accusation have we here? The zeal of Christ's government and Kingdom is that which in a manner eats up my friend, he asserts not only its internal and spiritual power, but also its external and visible administration, consisting in these laws and ordinances which our Lord by virtue of that All-power given unto him hath expressly appointed, and the whole scope of his writing is in defence of righteousness, and to establish the peace and joy of all its followers, and yet you are confident to say without any reason, that he is doeg what in him lies to depose him. It's true the Kingdom of God is neither in meats nor drinks, and thereby all the trash of your unwarranted ceremonies is evidently rejected, but if under this you judge the usurpation of Episcopacy & ordinance of Presbytery to be equally comprised, I really fear that in the temptation the same error may substitute to you the Mess and the Lords supper, or the Alcoran and the Bible with the same persuasion.  
The next thing that occurs is your opinion of Episcopacy, and I am assured that as to this whole paragraph you may already find yourself so exactly and fully answered in a little treatise anent the late accommodation, that according to your own verdict all that read it will account you deceived if you let it pass without a reply.  
As to what ensues, viz, your resolution to forbear both raillery and injury, and yet immediately objecting dull buffonrie, your mien and i'll phrased boast of causing flashes of a left handed wit rebound, your purpose of seriousness which yet you only term a serious mood and is not indeed more permanent, your promise not to raill, observed just aswell as you have done other promises and vows far more important, and the prejudice which you endeavour to insinuat from the alleged general dislike even of good Ministers of our own persuasion against my friend's book; As to these things I say I shall content myself with the naked observation, only as to this last I may affirm it upon good ground that, what ever dislike some good men's over-kinde charity or civility towards you, or the temper of their particular dispositions may make them express of this book in certain circumstantial points, yet the substance of the work both for acuteness and solidity hath the very consentent approbation of all of our way, and is also acknowledged for such by many of yours, nay further I am persuaded that as none of your champions have as yet ventured upon its resutation, so while reason and right remain among men it shall always be esteemed a Master piece for just liberty and against tyranny.  
1. But now you begin your ontset, and for the first attack you object against its raillery and reviling, the first as scurrilous, foolish, light, course, dull, flat, a puddle and kennel of putrid matter, and the latter as bitter and unexamplified railing against the laws of nature, civility, and Scripture, foolish and Inpious insulting, unjust, cruel, and what not; intermixing with both all the little arts of flyteing, such as a seeming tenderness to condescend on particulars, indirect insinuations rather than plain censures, a high and serious charge as before the great God, and then shutting up all as if you had said nothing, with a Lord rebuke thee? And all this we must believe to be said without railing in sober sadness, and in a humble submission to the Lords indignation, but as there can be no reason rendered to persuade this last part, unless it be that the words are yours, and delivered by you in one of your serious modes, so I am certain that he who examines these your reflections, together with the other passages that I observed in the entry by the rules which ye adduce against my friend will find you by these alone equally reproved.  
And really since you must acknowledge that an apparent necessity of a retaliation hath therein transported you far beyond your ordinary strain, I almost wonder how you could go thorough with such a long wound invective, haling and houting my friend both before God and men, without the least remembrance of the provocations he had received, but it is aboundently manifest that however you have treated him with much severity, yet you have used his antagonist the Surveyer with a slighting silence & contempt nothing inferior; waving therefore these idle and endless strive, all that I return to these your objections of raillery and railing is first that your offering to dash his whole book and every page of it with scurrile raillery is an untruth so manifestly injurious, that I am persuaded, were it not to serve a visible design of slighting arguments which you cannot answer, all your confidence durst not have averred it: I grant his animadversions upon the surveyors preface with the postscript of the book are by a just indignation proportioned to their subjects, but as it is only from some little seeming advantages which you thence endeavour to wrest that you have assumed the courage to appear against my friend in print, so I must conclude that your attempt by such a groundless slander to discredit these sound rational and close reasonings wherewith the Author doth in other parts prove his assertions above your faculty of replying, is but a disingenuous artifice.  
Next as for your charge of railing and reviling it is such an ordinary topic with all such as cannot bear the freedom of truth that it very little amuseth me, only let me remember you that seeing malice and not the matter is the sting of reviling, unless you had evinced this to be an ingredient in my friends representations your clamours are but an empty sound: to call perjury, violence, irreligion and wickedness by their own names and in due season to testify both against these abominations and their Authors and actors with that burning zeal and cordial resentment that all men own to the glory of God and honour of his holy name is so far from contradicting any gospel precept, that it is an indispensible duty, and often proves an effectual means for the reclaiming even of these who seem at first to be the objects of its vehemency; whither my friend was indeed acted by the power and influence of this motive I am not careful to inquire, the thing itself doth so evidently declare it, yet if I might be heard to name evil things without the censure of evil speaking, and if there be any place for gentleness, meekness, and love, in testifying against such perverse transgressors, I find it in my heart to say as in the sight and fear of the great God, & in a very serious and humble frame, with no other design then that of God's glory and my countries' good, that such hath been the heinous and notorious apostasy of our days, carried on by a perjury so gross and black, and a violence so irrational, and since attended with such an utter abnegation of conscience, insolent scorn of religion, and unexampled increase of all wickedness, that it may not only justify upon the matter all that my friend hath said either against the course or its abettors, but upon impartial reflection must of necessity move every serious Christian to horror, & every sober man to astonishment. And therefore,  
In the third place, though you go about to stage him before the world for a despiser of dominions and a speaker evil of dignities, yet lest the hearts of evil doers be more obdured, and their hands strengthened by your flatteries, and since I know you will no deign to read Naphthalies' plain and unanswerable narrative, give me leave but to touch a few particulars of our backslidings and grievances in his vindication.  
And first I shall only name that one act amongst many, the act rescissory, whereby at one blow a parliament, notwithstanding their oaths and engagements to God, and their trust for defence of rights and liberties from the people, do not only overturn the work of God, but remove the very foundations of all security amongst men. 2. Breach of Covenant whereby I am assured we have seen an oath, taken with the most unanimous and hearty consent of the people, and the most profound reverence and observable presence of God, and confirmed by all the authority both of Church and State, King and Parliament, violate by the same generation in the height of pride, scorn, and irreligion. 3. The persecutions both of Mimsters and people that have ensued, what by death, banishment, imprisonment, fining, consigning and the like rigours for no other reason at the bottom then because the sufferers could not break the same Covenant wherein both they & their adversaries stood equally engaged. And 4. The universal profanity and wickedness that these strange bakesliding have either directly introduced or thereto visibly tempted and encouraged.  
Sir. I do not desire you to take these things upon my trust, no, this were not more unreasonalbe then unnecessary, but if you could lay aside your affected abstractions, and pretended elevations I doubt not but a very stender examination would render you so convinced of all that I have here affirmed, that in place of judging my friend his lifting up his voice to show the people their transgressions, exciting of both King and people to repent and execut judgement and righteousness, the language of an incendiary, or his denouncing of woes against a rebellious house and hypocritical generation the office of an agent of hell; you should by harkening, and fearing bear witness to his fidelity.  
I have not in the foregoing discourse taken notice of these slanders of dislovaltie and ingratitude wherewith you think to make us odious, this is a theme so trite and tossed on both hands, that though in this matter, I might with an hundredfold more evidence demonstrat your flattery than you can exprobat to us the least misdemaner, yet in real duty to his Majesty I choice rather to wave it. Neither as to your Bishops and clergy, a company of men of whom all men except themselves, are now wearied and ashamed, am I more inclined to meddle. Only Sir, if the unpassion at and disinteressed composure of my heart, either as to their persons or petty fortunes, with all the professions wherewith yourself do labour to persuade your sincerity may obtain from you the belief that you expect of us viz, that I design not your infamy but your resormation, I would say that if to despise the holiness of God and trample underfoot his truth be to blaspheme him, if to acknowledge another supreme and all-determining Governor in the Church then Christ the Lord be to renounce him, if to smite his Ministers and scatter his flocks be to destroy his Church, if to practise, indulge, or connive at all wickedness and repute Conscience the only eyesore be to overthrow religion, if to put to death banish and spoil faithful men be to persecut the saints, your Bishops and clergy, notwithstanding of your few insinuat and seeming exceptions, will ever to all discerning inquirers be found even by your own Characters the just object of all men's indignation; how then they will bear the Lords or what they may look for in the end I pray God that both you and they may in time consider.  
Your next attempt upon my friend concerns the matter of his book, and you say the whole design of it is to provoke to rebellion, a high charge indeed, but as suddenly deserted, for you are not for ravelin into this entangled matter which you conceive to be without both your own and my friend's sphere, how Sir; are allegiance and rebellion (The common concerns of the meanest, and the great flattering and boasting themes of your preachers discourses) so great mysteries? Or is this only a declining shift like to that basle which you design by saying that my friend's book is but Lex Rex put into another method, an allegation not more contrary to its manifest tenor then reflecting upon the surveyer whom you would have with so much heat and confidence to have vented things before confuted with very little notice taken of the answers? But the things you cannot explicat Alexander like you can cut off by two positions the first that by immemorial possession and a long tract both of law and practise the King of Scotland is an absolute Sovereign, accountable only to God and not to be controlled by the force of his subjects, but more especially that the subjects of Scotland are bound to obey all laws enacted in Parliament, or at least to submit to the enacted mulcts and punishments, How plentifully hast thou declared the thing as it as? Both first and second, viz. that the Kings of Scotland are Absolute, and that at least in King and Parliament there is such an absolute power as may in no case be controlled or resisted, are indeed the contradictions of the greatest part of my friend's book, but are contradictions alone sufficient refutations? or shall your bare assertions be received against the most undeniable evidence. The certain and clear constitution of this Kingdom consisting of King and Parliament, the express establishment by uncontroverted Law, I. 6. P. 7. C. 130. of the honour and authority of Parliament upon the free votes of the three Estats thereof, the known restrictions of the King's sovereign power who by himself alone can neither make laws, impose taxes, nor so much as put away one foot of his annexed patrimony; and lastly the frequent approven and authorized resistances and oppositions made against maleversing Princes, especially that made by the Nobles against King James the third fully approven by the 14. Act 1. P. Ja. 4. extant in the old editions in the black letter as they call it, but industriously left out in that of Scheens (the tittle of the act is The proposition of the debate of the field of Striviling. The words after the preface are. That the hail body of the Parliament and ilk an for himself declarit and concludit that the slaughter committit and done in the seld of Striviling quhair our soverane Lordis father happened tp be slain, & uthers divers his Barronis & liegis was allutterly in their default and colourit dissait done be him and his perverst counsel divers times besoir the said field. And that our soverane Lord that now is and the true Lords and barronis that was with him in the same field war innocent free and quite of the said slaughters done in the said field and all pursuit of the occasion and cause of the samin. These are the words, and the act is declared to be sealed by the King's great seal and the seals of part of the three estates) these I say as to your first position are such manifest redargutions, that before equal judges I could undertake, upon the hazard of my life, for the asserting of this one point, to obtain you convict of high treason as a leesing-maker betwixt the King and his subjects, and an impugner of the authority of the three Estates: but retracting a little as to this head concerning the King's power by acknowledging that it hath been called in question, you say my friend hath the honour to be the first who controverts the authority of King and Parliament as is evidently confirmed by the perpetual practice of Scotland before year 1648. But as it is incontroverted that laws agreed to by King and Parliament are indeed the ordinary binding laws until by the same authority they be repealed; so seeing its uttermost import is that the same sovereign authority, which in absolute Kingdoms is in the Prince alone, is with us divided betwixt, and subjected unto, both King and Parliament, it is evident that this doth no more afford us any special determination, than it doth conclude my friend to be singular for asserting the lawfulness of resisting even the princes who are reput absolute in case of their intolerable oppressions, wherein he hath thou sands of concurrents.  
But not to trifle with you, my friend allegeth the King's limited power, and maketh use of the authority of the Parliament in justification of the resistances made by us in the years. 1639. And 40. And 43. whereby superaddeing to our natural and common right these civil and positive privileges he accumulateth an unanswerable vindication. As for other times wherein, the hypothesis varying, both King and Parliament became our party, what could be more reasonable then to show that even the most absolute politic Empire that can be lawfully set up by men is liable to these employed yea indispensable conditions and exceptions, which in the case of an insupportable perversion do certainly warrant the people's  resistance, to which if you judge the inquiry into the rise of Magistracy, the nature of a compact betwixt a King and his subjects, and the precedents of these two absolute Kingdoms of judah and Israel recorded and approven in Scripture to be impertinent, I confess your reasons are above my reach. I grant therefore that the subjects of Scotland are obliged to acknowledge with all due obedience and submission the sovereign authority of King and Parliament, and that this is the only supreme authority known amongst us; but as the consent, contract, and trust by which this authority is constitute are by their express end and the supposed superior rules of reason most certainly qualified, both as to the point of obedience which is by all acknowledged, and also as to that of submission by none disowned in its constraining exigence; so I plainly affirm that not only there was never a surrender made by any people in terminis disclaiming the lawfulness of resistance in every case, and though the pressures should be the most injust and violent; but that a surrender of that nature were in itself utterly unlawful, and no ways obligatory, for seeing it were unquestionably contrair to the law of God for any people in the certain imminency of visible destruction to betray themselves and their posterity in their lives, religion, or liberties by a wilful and explicit acquiescence, it must necessarily follow that either the controverted general surrender, by reason of the tacit exceptions pleaded, hath not the same import, or that in this respect it is equally sinful.  
But to this you object that if such submission be unlawful than they are self murderers who suffer willingly when they are in a capacity to resist, and this you second with an affected Alas for the aspersion that thence would ensue upon the glorious martyrs as self murderers. It's answered that he who from the mere sense of such a promised submission suffers himself, in a clear capacity to resist, to be killed, is either a malicious or stupid self murderer, I nothing doubt, but seeing that to renounce a privilege, and to forbear its excercise are things so vastly different, that oftentimes the contradiction of the former is the latters greatest praise, the causes and motives which induced these glorious witnesses into quiet forbearing, and their voluntary and cheerful sufferings are so noble and conspicuous, that I will not so much as call in question their capacity, though for the most part by providence wisely overruled, either to vindicat their immortal fame, or relieve myself of your pitiful sophistry. But here you think that my friend will look to escape by the distinction of religion when it becomes a right settled by law from what was before it was so established, But seeing it is evident that he only makes Law an accession to that liberty which we have by God and natures original grant, your delusive self-conceit that suggested unto you this apprehension, and your weak opinion that a right righteously and necessarily established by Law can as easily by a contrary Law be renversed are equally contemptible.  
In the next place after a preface of your religious preferring of God's commandments to the King's Laws, you fall upon an inference which you say my friend doth thence draw. viz. because when the Magistrate commands what is contrary to God's Law we are not bound to obey him, therefore when he punisheth contrary to that same Law we are not bound to suffer, And for this indeed you treat him as Magisterially as if he were really that school boy to whom you do dully resemble him, but sparing to inquire where it is that you do find him barely delivering this consequence, and not being permitted in this place to explain how that, regard to the Prince, his place & character, and the general ends thereof, and how that many considerations of prudence, charity, and patience may in lighter occasions persuade to subjection, where its proper and formal reason hath no immediate force, I shall only say that the comparing of the limitation of our obedience with the case of our suffering is of excellent use, in as much as it showeth, first, that as a people's indefinite surrender though chief respecting their obedience doth nevertheless imply its tacit exceptions, so the seeming generality of the same surrender is no argument to exclude all conditions in the point of subjection, next that seeing a discretive judgement is allowed to the people in the matter of obedience, there can be no reason wherefore in the matter of suffering a thing far more obvious and dignoscible the same should by the men of your way be so much decried. Thirdly since it is certain that subjection to suffering was directly commanded by God, and consented to by the people only for the securing of our obedience, it may well be concluded that as in inferior unjust sufferings our resistance is mostly restricted not by virtue of our formal obligation to subjection, but by the forementioned influences, so when by notorious and insufferable perversions all these are cut off and both the place is plainly forefeited, prudence befooled, charity rendered desperate, and patience turned into stupidity, the liberty of resistance must of necessity be conceded. As for the reason of disparity by you adduced, viz. That in the case of the King's sinful command God's countermand of our obedience is supposed to be clear, whereas our sufferings are not countermanded though he punish unjustly, I shall not reply to you that in the case of a stupid casting away of life or liberty even sufferings aswel as sinful obedience are certainly countermanded, but the thing I would have you to advert to is, that seeing it is not so much the obligation as the right and liberty of defence which we plead for, and seeing in the case of intolerable sufferings the same is no less clearly warranted then sinful suffering appears to be countermanded, the difference by you asserted is but claudicant and insufficient.  
But now you are weary of tracing my friends politics, and truly considering how samely you have done it, I wonder you have traced them so far, only let me tell you that if you shall be pleased to give me any further provocation upon this subject, I here offer to make good all that my friend hath asserted in maintenance of the People's rights and liberties to the most critic, if impartial, of your adherents.  
You add that it is your chief design to prove that matters of Religion are not to be decided by the sword. Pray Sir, speak plainly, you know and are persuaded that we are neither for the propagation of Religion, nor determining in its matters by the sword, all that we maintain is that in the case of unjust suffering for the sake of Religion, however the honour and excellency of the cause may much allay a man's smart, and make him cheerfully to undergo it, even to a not-accepting, & seeming contempt of deliverance; yet he hath the Privilege of common defence no less then in other occasions, which if he find the interest of Religion's preservation to concur it ought so much the more to animat his resolution, now if this be a spirit totally different from Christ's who came not to destroy the Law but teacheth us to fulfil all righteousness, I leave it to your own second thoughts. Christ's Kingdom is indeed not of this World & that he did most evidently demonstrat by telling that if his Kingdom were of this World than would his servants fight, and therefore seeing that even for his own rescue he had not called them when he might have had ten Legions of Angels upon his desire, that his Kingdom was not from thence could not be doubted; but to turn this over as if our Lord had said, Because my Kingdom is not of this World, therefore my servants may not fight, so much as for their own preservation, is a manifest ranversing of both the text and the truth.  
Next you tell us, That to stir up to Religion's defence by its value is but an ignorant though plausible mistake; but as your persuading us to abandon the maintenance of Religion by the firmness of God's decree, and our Lord's Kingdom, sounds more like the Turkish error of unalterable fate, then to a Christian deference to divine providence, which always admits of our lawful concourse; and as this your doctrine is most palpably contradicted by the constant practice of the whole Christian World, who with might and maine do arm for, and stand to the defence of Religion against the invasion of infidels; so your extenuation as if the hazard of our lives, fortunes, and liberties were not to be regarded, is but an insipid deceitful affectation: if God in the dispensations of his holy and wise providence especially by bringing us under the power of men, subject us to suffering and call for a testimony, it is most certain that neither ought Religions concern to discourage nor the considerations of life, fortune, and liberty in the least to demur us, but thence to infer, that in case either a Nation or a Person (for as to the point in general there can be no difference) be unjustly and violently invaded for Religion, they ought without further care in a tempting confidence, that Religion cannot be endangered by the World's opposition, and a base and unrequired abjection of themselves and their interests foolishly throw Religion and all down headlong unto the rage of in jury and tyranny, is a doctrine too agreeable to the Devil's temptation for to deceive any rational man. The truth of the matter therefore is, that as we ought neither to flight nor apprehend too much our own prejudice, so it is from patiented and not by stupid sufferings that our holy profession receives the advantage.  
But to this you subioine your grand discovery viz. that the great design of the gospel is to elevat our minds to a noble contempt of the world, and a just disreguard of our bodies, etc. whence persuading patience, trust in God, and submission to his will you conclude, let all the world judge whether suffering so like to it or fight speaking out a froward and impatient mind do best agree with this temper and design.  
Sir, if I may so far digress under your conduct, I would say in the first place, that the great design of the Gospel is to reconcile sinners unto God through Jesus Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; your representing it by elevations of mind and neglectings of the body doth savour too rankely of that dangerous error of making the righteousness of Christ a mere help to ours, and the Gospel only the perfection of morality, next I say that setting aside the necessity and beauty of every duty in its season, if it were all your intention to commend suffering above fight, I would not only with you in your judicious discerning prefer patiented suffering to passionate and impatient fight (things which I suppose were never before compared) but even in humanity, let be in Christianity, advance the palm of a well composed, and resolved patience; above the laurel of a warlike though righteous triumph. But because your rise taken from the design of the Gospel doth plainly enough insinuat that it is the particular fightings for religion which you go about to decry, it is in thithat I desire more distinctly to know your consequence; seeing the same arguments of heavens hope, and this world's contempt do equally mitigat the passions, and depretiat the worldly prizes of all wars whatsomever, to admit that Religion doth allow all other lawful wars except what is levied in its own defence is evidently in an excess of self denial to make it deny nay destroy itself, but seeing all the pretensions that we have here repeated out of the late dialogues of the Gospel's design, spirituality of Religion, the probability by sufferings of advance to the Gospel, and carnality of fight are already sufficiently discussed by their answerer I shall at present content myself to pass them with a few remarks. As 1. That seeing you are upon the persecuting side (pardon to truth the uneasiness of the expression) or at least do exhort to patience your antagonists & not your partakers in the same cause, you must permit us to apprehend design aswel as truth in all your reasonings 2. Although if the will of God be so the Gospel excellently instruct to suffering, yet it neither condemneth lawful wars, nor is it imaginable wherefore defensive wars being allowed, a defensive war upon the most injurious provocation viz. persecution for Religion should not be accounted most righteous. 3. That though patiented suffering and holding fast of his name under persecution be a strong and convincing evidence of our faith and hope, yet as our Lord by retaining the dispensation in his own hand hath only commanded unto us the manner of our suffering, and having expressly permitted flight hath not engaged us to run upon it, so to use the right and capacity which God giveth of self defence without furious passion or revengeful design can neither be reprehended nor suspected, I know a wicked man may fight courageously for Christ, and so have some blasphemers and Atheists suffered constantly, but seeing we have seen the same persons, with the same strength of grace, both offer themselves resolutly, and suffer in testimony even of their fight most patiently, you must pardon us to regard the truth more than your cavilling exceptions.  
But in the following section you go about to disprove defensive wars against persecutions for religion by our Lords precepts and practices, who you say blessed those who should suffer jor him. And why not? Surely they are pronounced blessed and they shall be blessed, But he threatened them that drew the sword, well, for him you dare not add, and against him is not doubted, nay suppose it had been against Peter attempting his personal deliverance it had given you no advantage, since he also rebuked him as Satan for desiring him to spare himself; he blessed likewise the peace maker's entituling them the children of God, and our hearts desire is that God would raise up to us a true peacemaker, to reduce you unto wisdom, whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. The incendiaries of war are indeed no where pronounced happy and the boutefeus of rebellion are certainly the children of him who was a murderer from the beginning; but, Sir, is this fair dealing? The question that you move and have to prove is, that my friend is an incendiary and boutefeu and behold without any reason offered, you not only conclude him but condemn him, it were undoubtedly as easy and abundantly just for me to inquire where perjurious persecuters are pronounced happy, &c, but I will not so much as retort or retaliat with such expressions, such as breathe out war and cruelty know not what spirit, they are of and our prayer to God is that they who breathing out threaten and slaughter against us term just defence and necessary resistance war and cruelty may at length have their eyes opened, All in the Gospel-dispensation is truly gentle and peaceable; and yet of all things in the world it hath been most reproached for tumult and sedition; but the great consolation of all its followers is, that its author the God of peace will one day make known all false pretenders, and its Lord the Prince of Peace for their persecutions here will in the end bless with everlasting peace all its true lovers, when according to the excellent order of the Gospel's rule of peace the Kingdom of God shall be fully revealed in righteousness first, and then in peace and joy in the holy ghost.  
But you say that all this viz a nonresistance of, and submission to persecution was signally confirmed by our masters unexampled sufferings, and yet you know so well that the free and voluntary sufferings of our Lord are in themselves no less unexampled than unimitable, and that it is the manner and not the matter thereof that we are to follow, that I cannot but doubt your sincerity, Christ not only refused the aid of the sword but came into the world willingly, went up to jerusalem steadfastly, exposed himself knowingly, and lastly would not ask the assistance of legions of Angels ready at his desire that the Scriptures signifying how that he ought to have suffered might be fulfilled; and is it possible that you can think, that these specific acts are for our imitation? But you say that he entailed perdition on these that should draw the sword to wit all these that are not warranted to do it by the Magistrate. How long will you love vanity and seek after losing? Our Lord in that place doth most plainly, for the averting of Peter's unseasonable zeal, and the comforting of all his Disciples, denounce that all these who take the sword unjustly shall perish by the sword, and. Rev. 13.10. we have the parallel place more fully set down he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword (spoken of persecuting Magistrates aswel as others) Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints, And yet you have the confidence to smooth it over as if this sad doom had been pronounced not only against Peter but all such as shall be by the force of oppression constrained to their own defence.  
You add that he witnessed that good confession before Pilate that Caesar needed apprehend no hazard from his Kingdom, since it not being of this world was not to be fought for. And do you indeed think that this is the emphasis of that good confession viz to satisfy Caesar's unjust fears? O perverse flattery! The excellent goodness of our Lord's confession cannot but be sweetly relished by every serious Christian to lie in these words thou sayest that I am a King to this end was I borne and for this cause came I unto the world that I should bear witness unto the truth, how then are you not ashamed not only to wrest it unto the pitiful interest of Princes; but to misconstrue the whole passage as if our Lord in purging himself by a voluntary and free forbearance of the affectation of a worldly Kingdom did in effect disowne all defensive arms to the encouraging and strengthening of the most bloody tyrants.  
You think it strange that through the whole Gospel we should meet with repeated blessings on these that suffer, but never one upon such as fight; but if our Lord having declared that he came not to destroy the Law of righteousness did accommodat his encouragements to his Apostles, unto the dispensation foe his providence under which for the greater glory of the power of his free grace he thought good to gather and train up his Church, should you or any else be thereat stumbled; for my part when I reflect upon both the sufferings and grace of the primitive times and how the Lord did order them, I rather wonder at that admonition by you observed that they should sell their coats to buy swords; but you say had the Disciples understood this of the material sword either their practices or writings should have had some vestiges of that sense, by the which very argument a man may as easily deny that the Purse there spoken of is to be taken for a material one; but seeing the tenor of the context and relation made by the Lord to their former mission do exhibit the meaning with that evidence as cannot be convelled, for want of an unoccasioned confirmation, I go on to examine the rest of your gloss upon the place; and taking notice that the Disciples at the time by presenting two swords did show that they understood the Lord to speak of a material sword you say that by his answer it is enough, which cannot relate to the two swords produced no wise enough for eleven persons, he corrects their error & breaks off their purpose as if he had said, enough of this, or no more of it, since he saw they misunderstood his former words of a sword. Thus rather than to assent to truth you would have our Lord by such a stop tacitly to acknowledge his own inadvertency, but the passage is too obvious to be thus abused, in as much as our Lord having before both signified and prepared for his own imminent departure, forewarns them by the necessity, of a purse and a sword of the straits and dangers that would ensue, whereupon they, its like, out of their blind and forward desire to have him delivered from the hand of the jews lay hold on his words and show him two swords, probably with a confident remembrance of his former miracles, and this their precipitancy our Lord according to the meek and sweet composure to his patience now entering upon his sufferings thinks fit to restrain with this short correction it is enough, i. e. it is enough at this season, there must be no resistance in my voluntary suffering: whether then yours or this explication be the more genuine I refer it to the discerning of all understanding men.  
But yet from all this you say it will easily appear to one who examines the matter without prejudice whether suffering or fight have the clearest characters of Christ's meekness. Sir though the nature of war being considered, the comparison of suffering and fight in the point of meekness seems almost to be inept, yet if you will be pleased to advert how that our Lord aswell in his victorious triumph as in his lowest sufferings is represented in the Revel: under the same figure of the Lamb, its like you may come to understand that that calm staidness of mind, which by all is reput the truest mark of the noblest courage, may in a Christian champion be yet further advanced and beautified with his Master's meekness.  
Your last argument against defensive arms upon the account of religion is that the doctrine of suffering tends most to the recommending of the Christian religion to all Princes and Stats, whereas the doctrine of defence may prepossess their minds with the deepest prejudices, etc. Thus to carry your cause you care not what you say, this argument can have no process unless we suppose in all Princes and States a most irrational aversion for religion, viz, such as cannot endure that it should pretend to any manner of right or comport with its professors at a lower rate than the absolute subjection of their lives and liberties; upon this account, and yet without the least check of correction, you bestow upon it a whole long paragraph. But seeing that all we plead amounts to no more than that religion the great instructor of righteousness may not deprive us of all right, and that its high honour may not depress men below the condition of slavery, you must pardon me to think your insinuation more odious than obliging.  
But for to mend your error you add that indeed the Alcoran incites to kill all who are not Musulmans but our holy profession rejects carnal weapons from its defence. Who heard ever such distraction? Can we not detest the Mahometan Barbarity of forcing religion by the sword, unless we lay open all Christendom to their rage and cruelty? Or is your mind so blinded by your design that you could not perceive the fair and rational midse of the lawfulness of self defence against intolerable oppression, and that aswell yea rather when inflicted for, and leveled to destroy religion, then in the case of any other unjust pretence, without either impinging upon the turkish violent propagations on the one hand, or betraying the cause of religion by a base stupidity upon the other? Religion certainly in itself is no occasion of wars, but if your Musulemans' make it so, must we therefore abandon both it and ourselves to their pleasure? And if unjust wars do arise from your lusts may not a just opposition very well consist, nay be warranted by that which enjoins the mortifying of them all? Sir your lapses here are so gross and raw against all right and reason that I am ashamed to draw forth against you positive conclusions.  
To these things you subjoin the praise of Religion, For the allegiance towards Princes and peaceableness towards fellow subjects which it teacheth, thence commending both its innocency & the great security it giveth unto all societies, but say you, the doctrine of resistance will change its whole visage so that this daystar whose aspects are benign will look like a fierie-eomet blazing wars, etc. Sir, this charge appears to be so weighty that I willingly wave its extravagance, that I may meet with its reason, For (you continue) if this principle be drunk in by Christian societies they may for ever despair of peace, since all cannot be of one mindein matters of Religion, and the side or party oppressed would undoubtedly raise stirs. But seeing the principle you inveigh against is in effect none other than that right of self-preservation most deeply engraven in nature's tables, to which we plead, that Religion according to its dignity, in the case of persecution, intending the injury, may make no exception, is it not evident that your arguing against this Privilege as a novel seditious conceit is in effect nothing else save a colourable pretext, thorough which Religion is only struck at as in its nature altogether unpeaceable and the very seed of endless contentions? But the matter is plain, the right self-defence is the principal reason both of the institution and continuance of Government, Religion in itself is one, simple, most pure, and peaceable; all contended for, is, that such as by embracing of it do become partakers of the highest blessing may not therefore forfeit the most common rights, if this be to turn this heavenly and benign star of Religion unto a fiery blazing comet, and not rather by maligning it, with all the perversities of its adversaries, unless it be made obnoxious to all their injuries, either to render it odious to Princes, or liable to all the arbitrary imposings and persecutions of tyranny, let all men judge; it is true that by reason of man's corruption a harmony in Religion is scarce to be attained, but because error and irreligion will always be stirring, persecuting, and provoking to stirs and tumults, must therefore the truth and its professors be stupidely submitted to their lust and rage? You say, That even we ourselves would finde it a hard pull to govern at this rate, specially if we keep up our quarrels both at toleration and moderation. How? Would we find it so hard a task by keeping faith to retain both obedience and peace, and by pleasing God to please all men? That this was the true Crisis of our affairs in the late revolution I believe thousands do now see, who then would not, as for your objecting of our quarrels at toleration and moderation, is not this a strange envy, that because we cannot stretch to a compliance with all the present evil courses, therefore even our just hatred at error and heresy specially seeing it was so very dissoyal and seditious must also be reckoned to our disadvantage.  
After this you tell us that from this principle there were no peace to be expected from Papists. And to deal fairly and shortly with you I freely accord that if the Papists did hold the truth, and were therefore intolerably persecut, they might very lawfully resist in their own necessary defence; but since they both practise gross idolatry and other abominations, and are also restless in their wicked machinations, it is evident that they could as little reclaim against deserved punishment under the notion of persecution, as at present they are largely indulged.  
For a conclusion than you tell us that the doctrine of patiented peaceable suffering excludes all hazards, and is therefore more for the interest of mankind and peace of societies. And certainly that which surrenders all hath no hazard to apprehend. But if the Christian world had been of your opinion, how had its religion long since been swallowed up of Turkism? And if our fathers in the first dawnings of reformation had not after a noble conflict of martyrdoms and persecutions discerned the times, and laid hold on the opportunity, I am sure in all probability Scotland had been to this day as France, and worse, and the United as the Spanish Netherlands, and all Germainie under one cloud. If you do therefore judge Religion to be of the interest of mankind do not deny it the liberty of a right nor deprive it of its just privilege, seeing on the one hand this is not more iniquous and in effect impossible, then on the other your pretendings to peace by such arguing do visibly tend to the ruin of truth.  
Having gone this far with my friend you desire him to look bacl seriously upon these two different methods of advancing religion that he may see whether of them will preponderat. But Sir if I may prevail with you in any thing, I earnestly obtest you to use more ingenuity, did ever we assert or practise the advancing of religion by fight? Or did we at any time in order to this end so much as lay suffering and fight in one balance? Or lastly must I again inculcat that all that we maintain, is, that in case of violent persecution for religion the oppressed may lawfully assume their own defence as upon the provocation of any other injury whatsomever.  
After this, dissembling your knowledge of our aversion for war, not capable to be engaged but by manifest extremity, you please yourself with some few speculations of the advantages of peace and disadvantages of war: but seeing such little arts are sufficiently discussed by the simple noticing, let us hear how you make it out by Scripture instance that fight is not a method approved of God for advancing his cause, And for eschewing cavil, I am here willing to think that by advancing of his cause you only mean the preservation of religion and its professors against their persecutors, and your first instance is of the Israelits who while in Egypt long oppressed in their religion and liberty though very numerous and in a probable capacity yet made no attempt by force for their own delivery. But pray Sir do you think the Israelites in their bondage could have fought with weapons when they were denied straw? Or doth not such headless quibbling as manifestly conclude that because of their constrained subjection under their several oppressors the time of the judges, therefore their after vindications of their liberty were sinful, but the truth is seeing that if God so ordered the matter in his providence as the israelites neither did nor could endeavour their own liberty, that he might in his own way manifest his glory, your inference that therefore either they might not have done it lawfully, or that we are obliged to imitat their forced and simple omissions is not worth the noticing, and really this reasoning is so weak and pitiful that I am almost ashamed to have repeated it.  
The next instance which you promise shall be yet stronger (as truly it had need) is taken from the ten tribes non resistance to Jeroboams defection, but knowing that they willingly walked after the commandment, and that if they had had the smallest measure of that zeal for religion which they testified for their own liberty, they had not so tamely complied in that bakessiding, you recurre to the silence of the Prophets telling us that if popular reformation had been the people's ductie certainly they had exhorted to it. Well Sir, is this your stronger reasoning? The Prophets by all the pains and industry they did use could ot awake this stubborn people to repentance, and yet because forsooth they did not expressly excit them active to reform, who were in effect to have been its only objects, from this you conclude that the thing was not their duty.  
But you add that though Achab added the idolatry of Baal to the sin of the Calves, yet Eliah never stirred up the people to arms, is not this solid arguing? The people of Israel had at this time so deeply revolted that when the Prophet put it home to them, if the Lord be God follow him, but if Baal then follow him, they answered not a word, yea afterward when he was forced to flee from Jezabels' rage he thought he had been the only seeker of the true God left in Israel, & yet without any regard to a most manifest unlikeliehood you think because the Prophet did not preposterously call them to it, that therefore (notwithstanding all that my friend hath said for it) national reformation was not their part, the absurdity of which argument is so much the more gross, that even in the same Prophet and people after a due preparation you may find your assertion contradicted, in as much as immediately upon the back of their acknowledgement of the Lord to be God Elijah said unto them (the King being present) take the Prophets of Baal, let none of them escape, etc. a very probable intimation that not only they might have done it, though the King had countermanded, but that even without Eliah's exhortation it had been nothing beside their duty.  
From Israel you pass to Judah and finding there the like defections you repeat to us the same observes, but seeing that all the Prophets do testify aloud of the universal bakesliding of that people together with their Kings, and Isaiah and jeremiah do expressly and frequently complain that none did call for justice, or plead for truth, etc. And that they were not valiant for the truth, as it is evident that they are thereby charged with lukewarmness in the cause of God, so it seems that for the generality they were no less perverse in heart then their ringleaders in these defections, as these very persecutions perhaps of faithful dissenters under Manasse whom you vainly represent as ignorant of our politics may very plainly evince? And as for that of Libnah seeing the Scripture expressly saith, that they did revolt from under the hand of the King (and not from under Judah as the Edomits did) Because he had forsaken the Lord God of his Fathers, your questioning its approbation, because of the not ensuing of the like practice, is both presumptuous against Scripture evidence, and derogatory from the praise of all more noble and rare exploits.  
Having proposed your instances as we have heard, you seal them with a grave truly you must confess these instances to be strong, and really since you deal so obligingly with my friend as not to force him by any reason, I believe if the thing were a matter of compliment he would in civility cede it, but seeing it is truth we contend for, without further canvasing of what you subjoine of the nature of Moses dispensation or the Gospels call to the Cross, I frankly leave it as you do with all free minds to consider whether your poor blind negatives be of any moment to preponderat that clear light of reason which shineth in our assertions, and is confirmed both by old testament examples and new testament approbations, as my friend & the answerer of the dialogues do evidently hold out.  
As to your ensuing section anent the first ages of the Church their unacquaintedness with this doctrine and your boasting Historical observe, that until Pope Gregory the 7th his days it was unheard of in the Church, with your endeavours to render it odious by the patrociny of Canonists and Jesuits it is so exactly the same with the discourse of the dialogues, and is by the answerer so clearly discussed, that I am not afraid to oppose his single reply to your vain repetitions; one thing I must tell you, that seeing you cannot deny that about and after Constantine's days when Christians arrived to a greater consistency and better capacity not only did Constantine himself with the express approbation & assisting presence of the Godliest teachers in these times fight against Licinius for his persecutions, but also both the oppressed Christians in the east did assert by arms the liberty of the Gospel against Jovius, Maximinus and at other times and in other places they implored the aid of Christian and orthodox Emperors against pagan and Arrian persecuters, your endeavour to put a tashe upon these practices as criminal which yet all the after ages of the Church have approven, and to evade by saying that the doctrine was not then owned which was only not expressly maintained, because not contradicted, is nothing at all ingenuous; & therefore since it is certain that even the most excellent truths have been liable to the foulest abuses, neither your odious dating of the doctrine of resistance from a notorious Papal rebellion, nor your futilous essay to make men believe that its only propagators were the Pope's Parasites do deserve any further notice.  
And now we are come to the close of your Letter, wherein conceiting that either you have made sure our conviction, or discovered our cure to be with men impossible you think good to give a testimony to yourself, which I am persuaded, considering the folly or falsehood of the poor purpose that I have perused, among all that have written on the subject you deserve least. But if you miss of your own praise, you are resolved my friend shall far no better, and therefore, as if this were the first of it, you pretend constraint for one severe word to tell him, whom almost in the beginning you termed an agent of hell, as evil as Beelzebub, that you do fear him to be in the gall of bitterness, Sir, although such reproaches be to me very light, yet I wish that for your own souls good you would seriously ponder that to undervalue the grace, and despise the glory of the work and cause of God that we have seen in the land, to strengthen the wicked in their wickedness, & add affliction to these whom for conscience only men do persecute, are characters of this wretched and woeful state, equal (if not worse) to what appeared in him against whom these words were first pronounced, whether your preceding discourse and subsequent stricture in this place against the cause of God do partake of these evils I leave it with yourself.  
Your last observe is upon my friend's postscript, occasioned by the Bishop of St Andrews his affirming in a sermon that the subjects lives were more the Kings than their own, and his passage so moves your spleen, that it is evident you resolve to be behind with him in nothing, and therefore after you have charactered him as insolent, guilty of rebellion, and treason, all the difference betwixt you and him is that what the postscript would have done by Saint Andrew's upon himself in a just consonancy to and punishment of his lying flattery, you would have the King for no cause to inflict on my friend as real demerit. But that which I concern myself most to notice, is the medium that you use to convince us of the truth of the Bishop's position, viz. that because a subject committing a capital crime hath no right to be the executioner of justice on himself, therefore his life is more in the King's power then in his own but not to differ with you about their pitiful words which were that all men's lives are in the King's hand and hold of him, what ever agreement or place the argument may have as to the Bishop, and amongst his complices, persons its like conscious of their own guilt, yet sure I am as all honest men are without the compass of such a title, so he must be a fool aswell as a knave that will hold a plain forfiture to the King to be a good tenor of him; the Bishop no doubt thought he had passed a great compliment upon his Majesty when by putting his life in the King's power he gave more unto him than he hath himself, but when you come to be his interpreter how strangely do you mis-serve them both? the Bishop by supposing him to be criminal, and foe making him by right to amitt what he thought he had freely given, and the King, by presenting him with nothing else then the forefeited lives of wretched caitiffs in place of the loyal resignation of free lieges; but leaving these your follies which if they had escaped my friend had no doubt been lashed by you as dull buffonries and the coursest of raillery without either edge or point, the truth is our lives are not our own; all souls are mine saith the Lord, and therefore as we neither can give them up absolutely unto the Prince his arbitrary disposal, not hath the Lord even in the case of the most atrocious crime obliged the criminal to be felo dese and his own executioner, so all the power the Magistrate can pretend is only founded in the sentence of righteous Law, by which the person guilty, losing his right, is therefore both by the will of God, and his own consent subjected to the Magistrates execution and how much this doth militat both against the Bishop's flattery and the pretensions of tyranny all sober men may preceive.  
Thus Sir in place of your examining my friend's book in bulk, evident enough by the grossness of your reflections, I have considered your Letter by retail, wherein I am assured you will see that I have omitted to answer nothing except such things as silence will best reprove, What satisfaction you will find in my reply dependeth upon yourself: only in this I think I merit your acknowledgement that by my prevention I have delivered you our of my friends hands, who probably would have searched you out in a more accurate manner, if my sineere endeavours shall produce to you any greater advantage, it is according to the serious desire of one who though he hath no reason to be more, yet subscribeth himself,  
SIR, Your real wellwisher.   

PAg. 6. lin. 3. read sufferings. Pag. 9 l. 3. r. enough, p. 10. l. 1. r. doing. p. 17. l. 12. r. Skeens. p. 25. l. 1. r. this.  
FINIS.