THE BALANCE PUT INTO THE HAND OF EVERY RATIONAL English Man, To Poise the State of this Kingdom; suppose to be Deformed in the year 1639.  
Cried up to be Reform in the year 1646.  
The Change of an Age.  
London Printed in the Year of Reformation, M. D.C.XLVI. march 22   

The Balance Put into the hands of every Rational English Man, to Poise the State of this Kingdom.  
IT is no safe task in a time like this, to write truth of Men and Manners, the visible Authors, and known means of so unexampled distraction, and confusion: when ti's destructive, but to be in suspect to observe them: And 'tis an unsufferable weight to be borne by any Man, who can make title to understanding; to hear with silence, people pretending to Religion, and to nothing else; crying up against reason, a Reformation, in which themselves are (however in themselves insensibly) to the stranger standers by visibly ruined. Provoked therefore by my compassion to my Country, the seat of minds as unnatural as the war, by which it languisheth, and by pity of my gulled (because willing to be gulled) Countrymen, I have endeavoured to convince the opiniators of a Reformation: by putting yesterday and to day, this and the end of the preceding septenary in the Balance. And therefore invite such who are in any capacity of being advised, to a retrospection, so fare as the year 1639. Where they may if they look not thorough State-spectacles, see a King selected, whose Royal, or Christian reputation Fame dared not; could not, with so much as a whisper, sully: Rich in the accumulate hearts of a Numerous, and Loyal people, happy, eminently happy, in his Royal Consort; and in the pledges of their mutual loves, and of our succeeding, (hopefully succeeding) peace, in their assured succession: Strong in Arms, and stored with crowded Magazines of all Military provisions; Predominant at Sea above his Ancestors, by a formidable Navy; and in an instant able to confront an Army, (to say no more) in the Field, like a King of such a Kingdom: A Court in which (himself being precedent) the Men and Manners completed an Academy.  
They may see a Church full of light, Order and Discipline, having a form beautiful, and an inside garnished, and enriched with as much (not to swell the comparison) Learning, and Piety, as observation, or story can attribute to any since Christianity was a profession. Those then inconsiderable few the opposers, or interrupters of its peace, and Government; being persons of as obscure mark, as of clandestine and mycheing motion, skulking like young Foxes, and no sooner unkenneld, but as Vermine pursued; the General Odium being contracted upon them: They may see a Nobility, Lustrous, like mirrors by the Suns, their Princes, reflex, in the badges of their honour, and office, a flourishing Gentry, plentifully sharing dignities, and trusts in the Military, and civil Magistracy. An obedient, peaceful, and contented Cominalty; the number of the factions of all conditions, scarce justifying the name of a number: Cities exemplary to our neighbours for their Government, and envied by them for their opulency in present have, and assured growth in an increasing Trade, Universities both of Divinity, the Arts, and Laws Common, and Civil, beyond any foreign example: Store with able professors, sedulous, and well-mannered Students; taught by Learned and frequent Lectures, in all Studies, and rudiments, conducing to the building up of men, for a succession of Ministers, and Counsellors: a Land populous, plenteous, at unity with itself; the gaze and envy of foreign Nations, and in so high a degree of happiness, as to be almost incapable of a degree of happiness in addition, or diminution, no means but miracle, or war to abate it to misery, and the means to beget such a war to the best understanders, appearing to be of no less extent than a miracle. It is the height of unhappiness, to look backward at so much of blessing, and to say it was. Consider the present reformed condition of all these; And see a King rejected, and in his good name of King, and Christian blasphemed: Poor by the loss of the deceived, seduced hearts, of an abused and misguided people; Divorced from his injuriously maligned (because exemplary faithful) Consort: distanced from the sight of his dear and Princely Issue, dispersed like a scattered Covye; that succession, of whose likelihood, each man had cause to joy in, being become disputable; a King reduced to less power, Armature, or store, than the Master of a private family, and frighted from a visible storm, to an uncertain, and now failing shelter. A Court vanished, and no footsteps left of its former beauty, and civility; a Church shuffled to indistinction; degrees unadmitted, Sects, and Schisms, Heresies, and Blasphemies, in this time, and Kingdom, vying with all those of past Ages, and foreign Nations; and in number, partaken and countenanced by Grandees of the new State, and walking in foro uncontroled; and like the wild Boars of the Forest, rooting up the established Religion, while he ancient, and true Protestant changes turns, with the last age's Separatist; and serves God in corners, to avoid reproach.  
A Nobility clouded by their Sun's Eclipse, and the Fogs arising from their inferiors, and their own degenerate spirits; their very honours being made arbitrary, and no longer theirs, than the common throng shall continue them in vogue, which is always dated with their subservience to the better felt, then discovered faction: A Gentry discountenanced by an introduced party, awed by Tenants, and Servants, impoverished by long Sequestrations, and second purchases of their lawful, and not to any subjects single, or aggregate, by any act forfeitable inheritance. A giddy Commonalty, and tumultuous, fond of new words, who would have something, and otherways then it was; but what, how much, and how done they are not bound to discover, till they know themselves; Their freedom lost, nay rather given away, liberty of person, property of estate, reputation, and good name, being become mere Notions, and by law not preservable, nor vindicable. City's dispeopled, untraded by the obstruction, and impoverished by the charge of a continued war, and as much confounded in Government, as opinion; Universities, and Inns of Courts motlied by a miscellany of families, a mixture of beardless, and brainless Professors, and Governors: a Junior bachelor, and a Signior fellow, being terms convertible, lectures of law neglected, and of Divinity, and Arts performed by such, who are therefore unfit to read, because not used to hear. The refusal of a not understood, or to well understood Covenant; being enough to break laws of pious founders of Colleges, and establishment of a succession of learned, and religious Princes to the disseizing, and ejection of many, and the most able Masters, Fellows, and Scholars, from their lawful and rightful freeholds; by the supply of whose rooms, a man would guess that there were a design to increase, and propagate Devotion by an Introduction of Ignorance. And all this justified by sons of the same sister-mothers'. Lawyer's pleading, and Ministers preaching Ordinances, against the known Laws of God, and he Nation: A Land more then skimed of its Inhabitants, and generally harassed, and worn out by pays, and quarterings, grown almost wild in want of husbandry, and so much at enmity with itself, that there is hardly found a single, and that a faithful friendship, or good neighbourhood: And all this by a war, raised by ourselves for Reformation sake; acted, and prosecuted by, and upon ourselves, as if we had in he dark, lost the spirit of sober Christians, and groped out the fury of inflamed Bacchinalls, and could find no place to scour our long rusted swords, other than our own bowels. It is a heightened and superlative affliction to a diseased person, so only to be made to understand his defects, as to know them to be irreparable.  
Hold now an even hand, and poise these two conditions impartially, and tell me, tell thyself, where lies the improvement? Where the Reformation? If yet to be expected, where the foundation is laid for such a hoped superstructure? Sure Commonwealths, and Churches have not a Philosophical Generation, the new out of the perversion, the corruption of the ancient Government; the new out of the extirpation, the annihilating the established old religion; And if so great tempests, and earthquakes of Drums and Artillery, subversions and immersions, of persons and estates: Such unreckonable expense of a Kingdom coined (to effect) forsupplyes, and such inundations, and overwhelmings of blood, beget but a bare promise of such an issue, what remains for the Nation to undergo before its production? Doubtless this birth can at these rates be attended with no less than a desolation, when there shall be too few left, and those too much enfeeble to fall out about the enjoyment of so great a happiness.  
Reason was given to man for a direction, as well as a distinction, and generally we believe our eyes above any assertions: Poor self-deceiving Englishman, who canst not be sensible how fantastic thy opinionate Reformation is, how real the devastation of thy substance, and canst find a hope that the one will improve, and not a fear that the other may inmpaire; As thou art only miserable in a proportion at present from thyself; so the remaining degrees which thou art to take in misery, are not to be proceeded in without thy consent to a continued vassilage.  
It is just with God, and abates of the condemnation of imposing Man to lay burdens, and use goads on those who will be beasts by disavowing their reason, or pinning it upon opinion of another's infallibility; and as just to strike him blind, who will not see an object of his mark, in other colours, or dimensions, then what are rendered by another's spectacles.   
FINIS.