Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Blood, DEMANDING REAL Commonwealth-Justice: OR A LETTER To the SPEAKER of the present House of Commons.  
By Captain William Bray; From his Captivity in Windsor-Castle.  ROM. 2.2, 6. 
But we are sure that the judgement of God is according to truth, against them which commit such things; Who will render to every man according to his deeds.  
Imprinted at London, 1649.   

Mr. Speaker,  
I Did long since make my APPEAL in Parliament (as the fundamental, Legal birthright of the People) for righteousness and justice, and might have expected, that after such glorious and unparallelled Declarations, Covenants, Imprecations, Engagements, and actions; I should have had a Legal, righteous, Christian, Parliamentary, and impartial hearing, between the General and Me, according to the Ancient and just constitution of Authority in its first institution in Scripture, Deut. 1.16, 17. and according to the many obligations that lie upon you from the Commands thereof, Deut. 16.19, 20. 
‖ Is not judgement wrested hitherto, when instead of a hearing I have a prison, and an illegal one too; contrary to the infallible and fundamental Rights of the people, and of just Government.  Thou shalt not wrest Judgement; Thou shalt not respect persons: That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, 2 Chron. 19. 6●7. The contrary is abhorred, and judgement denounced against it, Esay 1.23, 24 Jerem. 5.28, 29. & 22.16, 17, 18. & Amos 5.12. & 6.12, 14. Mich. 3.9, 11. Job 20.6, 7, 19 Though his Excellency mount up to the Heavens, and his head reach to the clouds; yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he, because he hath oppressed, Acts 10.34. James 2.9.  
You have cut off the late King, 
A just, substantial and irrevocable Covenant, or Oath cannot be acted contrary unto, without the guilt of perjury & unspeakable damage to the people.  so arbitrarily and forcibly, violating the Laws and Liberties of the People, you have solemnly Sworn and Covenanted to sight for, and maintain the Laws and Liberties of the people, and wished the wrath and vengeance of Heaven and Earth to fall upon you if you did not maintain the laws and liberties, as I have declared in my third appeal for Common-wealth-Justice, which remains dead in your hands (as I hear) and he that delivered it to you (viz. Cornet Cheeseman) was imprisoned by Lieutenant General Cromwell, etc.  
By Arbitrariness, lawlessenesse, power, force, strength or the sword (for it will amount to no other as to men) the Lord Jesus the precious Son of the Most High, and the head of Saints was Crucified, butchered and massacred in his Liberties, 
Mat. 10.30.  Freedoms and Rights of his humanity etc. as appears by the whole Scriptures of his Life, the confessions of his Judge, and his sufferings. God, the People, the Laws and Conscience, 
Mat. 7.12.  are to be accounted unto for the loss of the meanest Member, or of any person or persons unjustly destroyed; For the Lord and a just Law, tender innocent Blood and the Liberties of his People; Christ the glorious Son of God perfectly declared the Laws of nature and justice.  
You profess yourselves Christians, yet in this you live beneath the Common principles of nature, and in the path of former Tyrants whose blood you have spilt as water upon the ground; if you walk contrary to the Law of nature, by power you justify the Crucifying, butchering and massacring of the Lord jesus, etc. and so fill up more and more the measure of bloody abominations.  
I have not only been stifled in the rights of nature according to the reason of God, 
If a man should complain to a Justice of Peace that such a man robbed him or sought his life, would it be just that the Justice of Peace should commit the accuser or complainer, and also to the Jurisdiction of him that robbed him etc. What Law, Scripture, Principles of God or nature is for this?  and been dealt with contrary to the Scriptures, and sent to an unlawful Prison, and to the Jurisdiction of him that hath dealt cruel y, barbarously, unnaturally, unchristian like, and tyrannically with me to my unsupportable damage, loss and prejudice, as to humane considerations; But the Warrant by which I am committed is contrary to Law, Generals being no crimes in Law; The Lord Cooks 2 part of Inst. fol. 52, 53.315.318.511.615.616. 1 par. Book Dec. pa. 38.77.20.845. and the Votes upon the impeachment of the eleven Members and the Petition of Right the third of King C. and the Act that abolished the Star-Chamber. And I am also committed (by the words of the Warrant) during pleasure; whereas if the Warrant had been legal it would & should have been, Till delivered by due course of Law (righteousness or justice.) And here, after I have expended myself and wasted my precious days and time in the Commonwealth in expectation of a glorious issue of the blood that hath been shed: I have been barbarously kept in prison without any humane consideration all the while for my subsistency, far beyond the deal of the late King, etc.  
Sir, I have only this as my last unto you or your House (seeing I have been so much neglected by you in the cause of Justice, and consequently of the people, so that neither love to justice, nor importunity, hath moved you from me nor from others, neither for me nor for others) that you would move the House that I may have freedom from my oppressive and illegal Imprisonment and bonds, and have reparations for the same according to declared principles of the Almighty God, Nature, Scripture, the splendid Declarations of yourselves and my Adversary, acknowledged reason, and the fundamental Justice, Law, and Constitution of the Nation; and that I may have the undoubted freedom of a Commoner, a Christian, and member of the People, to follow my Appeal in freedom, temperance and judgement (which is certainly to come, at which Felix trembled) and to have a lawful, impartial and public hearing, according to the nature of Law, Righteousness, and the being and honour of Authority: and if neither will be heard by your House, I desire you to acquaint them that the Nature of Justice, and the aforementioned principles do requre a just respect from them to me, and for my subsistency in prison (which the King himself granted to his prisoners, and so was more just and merciful as to humane considerations) I having not had any just allowance from them since my barbarous and arbitrary imprisonment; knowing that I have been cruelly and arbitrarily dealt with by the General, to my great damage, as my third Appeal expresses. Which cruelty and injustice (considering my almost seven year's Service in the Wars, for the cause of the kingdom) is one of the manifold occasions and engagements to an adamanine heart, much more to a true Patriot. And therefore now I will (the Lord willing) shut up my mouth, if I cannot have justice by this last Address, and will surrender up my Body, Spirit and Cause to the high and mighty God, Judge, and Father, before whom all things are naked & bare; and appeal to the next free Representative or Parliament, in whom I hope there will be faithfulness, holiness, wisdom and justice. And however my enemies may deal with my body, whether by murder, or otherwise (I being under the illegal Jurisdiction of my Adversary, who hath dealt cruelly and unjustly with me) yet my Cause shall live in the presence of the Lord, and the Generations present and to come, and shall be brought forth in the eternal judgement, where my Adversary shall not appear in his gallant Equipage, and where his large Sums and Lands of the Commonwealths, or being General of an Army (which should be the Peoples) shall be found too light; and where he shall have no Parliaments to terrify from the doing of justice.  
And if they do murder me, I shall go before, 
The Grandees of the Army said in Deel of the 14. of June, That Justice is one of the witnesses of God in the earth. Beware.  and they will follow after. And moreover, let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, my blood may as sensibly rise, as living blood in the hearts (if not faces) of your House who have unjustly committed me to the Jurisdiction of my adversary, who, its probable, thirsts after my blood, aswel as to rob and deprive me of my liberties and rights. But I trust, the Lord will make me willing to resign up my blood aswel as my Liberties to satisfy his pleasure aswel as the cruelty and inhumanity of Justice-enemies, for in a due and serious consideration it is the Lords and the People's. Sir, I hope you will excuse me, that I speak what I do, and consider that the Lord hath given me an opportunity to hold forth his Excellency and Sovereignty against one that is called Excellency; and nature hath given me an occasion, as to my Country, and myself, and also that the Tyranny and cruelty I am under is no small force upon my spirit. So leaving you and your House to the judgement of the great day of the Lord, and the Lords faithful people in the Land, I take my last farewell, and rest,  
Yours, If you will be the Nations, WILL. BRAY. From my cruel, arbitrary and causeless Prison and Indurance (by that everlasting (to be) accursed principle by which Abel, Naboth, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and many in our late days were crucified and massacred.)  
FINIS.