Mutatus Polemo REVISED, BY Some Epistolary Observations of a Country Minister, a Friend to the Presbyterian Government. Sent up to a Reverend Pastor in London. Whereunto is annexed A Large TRACTATE, Discussing the CAUSES betwixt Presbyter, SCOTLAND, and Independent, ENGLAND. As it was sent (in a Letter enclosed) to the REVISER, And Penned by C. H. Esquire.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Lucian. Factiosus odit plus quàm duos: Wisdom gins at the end. 
London, Printed for Robert White. 1650.   

The Printer to the Reader.  
Judicious Reader,  
Such I conceive only fit to peruse this following Piece: I lately printed a Book, entitled, Mutatus Polemo, or, The horrible Stratagems of the Jesuits during our Civil wars, etc. In which there is promised a second grand Discovery, which is by many (far and near) very much enquired after, and which I understand will be ready for the Press, as soon as the Author is returned from his Circuit, which in short time is expected; and hearing that there were some sheets relating to that Book in the custody of some worthy men, I forthwith made strict enquiry after them, being not only much desirous to know what they might import, but I thought also I might have been disappointed of having the second Copy: at last I happily met with a Friend, who not only helped me to the sight hereof, but moreover told me he could wish it were made public; which (Courteous Reader) I have now done, partly for his desire, but principally for thy satisfaction: And I have been bold also to entitle it, Mutatus Polemo Revised; which to my judgement seems very proper for the first subject, it being the pro and con arguings of an able Country Minister concerning that Book: But for this second Piece here, I dare say it will speak for itself; thou canst not rightly understand either, unless thou hast read Mut. Pol. yet I recommend them to thy perusal, because I am confident it will wonderfully inform thee in many great mysteries and passages of these times, to thy great contentment: Read, consider, and be wise; I for my part have all I looked for, if (the Book selling well) I shall herein have advantaged the Public, mine own, and thy private good; which is the earnest desire, and studious endeavour of  
13. Novemb. 1650. Thy well-wishing Friend, R. W.   

Worthy Sir, and dear Fellow-Labourer in the Lord JESUS CHRIST.  
NO sooner had I cursorily run over this Book which herewithal I send you, but forthwith a great controversy arose in the discourse of my mind concerning many matters: as first, What should all Mr.— my Stationer to send me down that piece which he knew would scarce obtain a perusal at my hands; and secondly, when indeed I had first scanned it, it could not by and by work upon me that it was any other but the fictitious vanity of some idle Wit; yet a while I suspended that my conceit, till I had once again warily conned it over: And first of all for the Title, (so far must I display mine own weakness to the world) I profess I do not understand that Aenigma of Mutatus Polemo; happily it may be a pretty conceit of the witty Novice, and worth the enquiring after; I beseech you (Sir) let us see one line of your London interpretation in your next.  
At the first view of the Frontispiece, verily I was (for the present) much startled, when I found the Jesuit to be closed with the godly party of the Presbytery, and all to draw on the old Catholic Cause; but turning over leaf, and finding it dedicated to the Lord Precedent, I began to resolve it was merely an invented and composed thing of some of their own party; yet when again in the Epistle I find him gravely acknowledging his deserts of a Rope and Death, (its true) it a little stumbled me, not much, I confess; all might be juggling yet for all this; But Sir, when he comes to his Reader, in good sooth he grapples shrewdly with my belief, and does assure us that some of our greatest Statesmen knew the reality of these things already, and so shall we also in another Discovery of his, now fitting for the Press, etc.  
Certainly Sir, the man is not mad to engage the Public State, and his particular reputation, (whom (he says) we shall be acquainted with hereafter) and all for the confirmation of a Novel Invention.  
But (Sir) let us speak impartially, I profess I am personally convinced of the truth of the generality of his discovery; when I see he sticks not to tell us whose Convert he was, even that incomparable Divine, (as he indeed fitly calls him) (and I may add moreover that sometimes worthy friend and acquaintance of mine) Mr. G. of C.C. in Oxford, now in that House a Principal, of which I myself was once a mean member. And to be brief (Sir) its some little satisfaction to me, that he is really a Novice as he pretends (but I mean in Independency;) because truly if you mark, he is somewhat too acutely facete; he is not sufficiently initiated in their Tone and Dialect: and besides his description of Places, and his so home-particularizing of so many sundry eminent persons, both French, Welsh, English, and Scotch, makes me think otherwise of it then a Romance: Truly then if so be, as he promises, he will speedily undertake the Ministry, I am confident he will not (as indeed he may not) be ashamed of the great service he hath done to the Church of God wards, and his Country, in this pithy (and in my second thought) serious Relation of his.  
And now Sir, let me ask leave to extract out of that piece of his some sad Observations which too nearly relate unto us, who have all along been professed parties of the Presbytery; In truth they lie very heavy upon (and oppress) my spirit, and concerning which (good Sir) I earnestly desire (and in the Bowels of Jesus Christ conjure you) to send down your serious and  opinion, that so we of your friends in the Country, by your judicious holdings forth, and the workings of the Lords Spirit upon us, may be rightly informed in that which we are too willing to stand in doubt of.  

Page 1.  For indeed, as the Novice gins, here are things discovered to my sense which have lain long buried in deep vaults below the guesses of ordinary men.  
And now first (Sir) Though I could willingly pretermit and neglect that same shrewd Character which he very homely bestows on the late King (and which in very truth our Brethren, as well as the Independent may acknowledge to be too too like him) yet I cannot but call to mind his obstinacy (as he calls it) especially against the Reformation and Covenant of God, even during the time the Lord was pleased to make us his instruments of affliction unto him, I mean all the imprisonment, contempt, and hardships he endured at our hands, before Providence gave us power not longer over him; No doubt some of his Sycophant creatures have been so carnally minded, as to predicate this to be a certain constancy in him, which verily (it should seem) was a mere natural implacability incident to Princes, and inherent in him; who when he once hated any man (as he did us, equal with the Independent) he would never be perfectly reconciled to him; nor would he (you know) be moved to take the Lords Covenant by our persuasions, in the I'll of Wight, though never so convincing; and for his servility to those whom he loved for his own ends, we are satisfactorily persuaded the Novice is in the right: Certainly a Digby could make him forsake his own judgement, and a Rupert his knowledge.  
Yet verily I do not approve of that expression of the Novices, when he says, that by the art of Dissimulation which he had in him, he could (when he saw occasion) close with the most mortal of his enemies; in good truth Sir, this is not so, for at our great Treaty with him, nor at Holdenby before that, we could not make him yield to us; we were glad (you know) for some secret reasons of State, and for fear of stooping to our fellows, (and so to lose the best end of the staff) to subscribe unto him in most things (I grieve to speak it) which were prejudicial, yea truly diametrically opposite to our promised Reformation; then certainly if I am not much out, the Novices meaning herein must be this, his running to the Scots.  
Again, verily it is a bitter wipe given us, in laying it to the charge of us who are the Lords Ministers; and of that honest godly party, (who once would not treat with him upon any terms, till he acknowledged himself the great murderer of all the dear Saints and Servants of God which have fallen and perished since the commencement of England, and Ireland's civil wars; which no question (according to the Novices computation) do amount to above the number of five hundred thousand poor Christians:) 
Page 2.  That now we (because not employed in the business, and that the Lord did not call some of us (but some of our Brethren) to be actors in that glorious unparallelled piece of justice) cry him up in our Pulpits for a Saint and a Martyr, and the Lords instrument of Justice for Regicides and murderers; Nay (says he) (and I would some of us had given him the lie, and not such occasion to say so) that we scarce allow him second to Jesus Christ.  
Truly (Sir) you must help me to evade this Dilemma; whether it be righteously done of us (I say) to force our King (if innocent) to confess an infinite guilt of most horrid murders; or (when guilty) after he hath received the due justice of a murderer, to proclaim him innocent, and denounce his must just Judges murderers.  
Well, Let us now pass on to the Argument of Polemo's Story, as it gins: This King of ours (it seems) went to the Scots; there are some, (and indeed a great sum) can testify this; but to what end can a man imagine he should be induced to cast himself rather on the Scotch then the English Bottom? Certainly (quoth Polemo) he well hoped to have out-witted, out-deceited them; perchance he did not think that worthy the term of Fraus, which was done but Fallere fallentes: But what says he further to this? No, he went not to them as imagining they were more true or generous than the English, but because he knew they were more easily wrought upon and divided from their fellow Covenanters then are we English.  
Ah Sir! Consider I beseech you, what a Byter this is to our Brethren; Alas, do we not see this fulfilled in their unrighteous present transactions and ungodly accord with him whom we have great cause to fear (with a godly jealousy) hath even yet a Design against the Covenant of God, and every one of the godly Party (let him be Independent or Presbyterian) that was in the least manner an enemy to the abominations of his wicked father, who is now dead and gone?  
I profess (Sir) I am not satisfied in his oral submission, nor that extorted Declaration; 'tis a difficult thing for our Brethren to answer that one Objection of our Parliament; That This day they should proclaim him a follower of, and a goer on in all the evil of his father's footsteps; and To morrow (forsooth in one nights sleeping) declare him sufficiently purified, an absolute Convert: Dear Sir, I fear juggling and selfishness to be crept into the hearts of our Brethren: Ah that the Lord would infuse a discerning spirit into them, that they may not be given over to believe lies: Ah that they may not be drawn aside by enchanting Court-spells; ah that they may give over to fall out about Empire; and the Lord grant that they may yet at last desire amicably to compose such trivial concernments, as may accidentally intervene between the fellow-Saints of God; that so once again a way may be m●de open for us to go on hand in hand in the prosecution of a Blessed Reformation.  
But next the story leads me off from ourselves to that good old friend of ours the Catholic: A quawm (should seem) comes generally over their stomaches, and they were weary of any longer marching o'the Royal score, merely because they say Monarchy (I will not say Tyranny) and not so much as pretence of Religion was aimed at by the King and his Cavies.  
And here first, Sir, Polemo calls a friend of yours and mine (Oxford) to witness the truth of his subsequent Relation, and having told us the factions and fractions of the Great ones there, he descends strangely to particularise the persons, offices, characters, and foreign negotiations of some men, as particularly the pilgrimage of one (Sir John Kempsfield) to Rome, and from thence hastily dispatched by the Pope in a secret employment to Ireland, and yet (he says) he dares not divulge all he knows of the persons of some men now acting for the Restauration, not of Charles, but the etc.— yet a horrible large Catalogue we shall shortly have (O that we could see it once) of Devils in men's shapes; yea (he says) in Ministers too, crept in to undermine us.  
Ah (Sir) I am weary of sighing all the day long, when I consider, a Jesuit may more safely and covertly walk under the guise of a Presbyter, than any other borrowed shape he can assume; Ah that there should be such an hole in the holy Covenant to let him creep through into the Pulpit amongst us! assuredly (dear Sir) I begin to be fearful, and am almost of opinion that many whom we now deem to be zealous for our cause of God, and conscientious, adherers to the Covenant of God and their Principles; that many of those (I say) whom we take to be faithful dispensers of the Lords mysteries, and whom the enemy term Rigid Ones: are (if the truth were known) (and the Lord enable this Polemo to make it out unto us according to his promise) very Agents to, and Instruments for the Pope.  
Truly Sir, in this scruple of conscience, I am also much dissatisfied, why we should keep such a spudder in the Pulpit, in matters merely civil and politic; alas Sir, let us preach Jesus Christ, and desire to know nothing else; Ah me! how do some of our brethren (especially amongst ye at London) make us shrewdly suspect them (whom otherwise the world must have in great reverence and estimation, for their eminent worthiness in Gospel-pains-taking) when the whole scope of their exercises is to set the people a madding, and to spawle so so much in the face of Authority; enough to make that ununreasonable Hydra rise up, and tear in pieces our fellow-Saints, whom ('tis true) the Lord hath set over us, and yet to be our servant Governors.  

Pag. 5.  But on, next he tells us the Good Catholic is quite turned Presbyter, and doth now clearly relinquish the Royal Cause, so much as that he is resolved to assist us with some grand pieces of his Treachery; not doubting but that we shall serve to add vigour to their cause, as more able and apt Instruments than were the harebrained Cavaliers.  
Verily (Sir) if his reasons hold water to prove this, we shall be with some reluctancy and grief of spirit enforced to acknowledge the pernicious evil of our Presbyterian Discipline: what? a Papist be able to cloud himself under the holy walkings of a Presbyter? O lamentable! let us hear his reasons I pray (Sir) and the great Jehovah be pleased to work an information upon all our spirits.  
He urges (you see in the Book) that they have more hopes by us, than they had by the Bishops: and here a Dominican Father shows us how; to wit, That if the points of our Religion, (where I conceive he hints at Auricular Confession and Penance) with their Discipline and Policy (no doubt he means our owning a Kirk-Chair-Infallibility) were seriously considered; that there is no form of Religion in the world does so nearly adhere to, and consent with the true Catholic Faith, though he denies it to be super veritate fundatum, as theirs is, (because perchance we so much stand upon our Kirk, and they upon their Church.)  
He proceeds on with his Reasons, because we of the Ministry are so mutable and given to change; so that he concludes a probable hope of our conversion to them in the end.  
O (Sir) that our unmoveableness in the ways of worship, godliness, and walkings with God could supply us with an Argument to repel this undeniable objection of theirs; Oh dear God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we do confess and acknowledge the instabilities and waver of our opinions in many fundamentals and sound points; Ah (Sir) help me to deny that Marginal witness he there inserts against us [A Common-Prayer-Directory-Covenanting-Royall-Assembly-Engaging Ministers of England:] Let me tell you (Sir) though we seem out of some humane carnal concernments so much to boggle at the engaging to the present Government; yet I profess it was indeed an odder change in us to run point-blank against all those former oaths we had so often taken, at our several Degrees and taking Orders; then now but to make a promise (by subscription) of being obedient to that Government which the Lord himself doth indubitately own to be over us by his perspicuously appearing manifold providences and bringings about; it doth not trouble me (though indeed it was contrary to our many oaths) that we have laid aside the Bishops; but it grieves my spirit when I consider we could heretofore so easily swallow a Camel, and that we should now so nicely strain at a Gnat.  

Pag. 6.  Next, for that which he calls Volaticum jus jurandum, our Covenant, how can we deny but that our Brethren make the main use of it now for a pick-quarrel with England? which (as we have grounds to suspect) if the French have put them upon, then assuredly some body hath given an assurance of his firm conversion to the Faith Catholic, and we of the Presbytery the only staff He intends to lean upon, which truths of his assertion, that he may the more clearly hold forth, you see he sticks not to tell us the particular services and good turns they did us, for the advancement of, and twisting together the Catholick-Covenant-Cause.  

Pag. 7.  Certainly we cannot choose but see day all abroad at this great hole, and through these crannies we cannot but espy the Jesuitical closings with us; [I pray God it be not ours with them; as in the business of France and Ireland:] For (as he goes on) it should seem when he ruled the roast, the Jesuits were better able in any notion to disguise themselves under our Discipline then any other; because alas we were so credulously formal, that whosoever would but turn Covenanter, we were eftsoon confident he must be an honest man, if he had been the highest Cavalier, jesuit, or King himself; which if the last had, as his son now has done with his whole fry of jesuites and Malignants about him; I am subject to believe with the Novice, they would, and these will (if the Lord avert it not) in short time reduce England to a more sad condition then all we have hitherto sustained; for (let us speak soberly Sir) if the late ungodly King had but come in by that cobbled Treaty of the Isle of Wight, there would (I am confident) hardly a month have commenced before we should have had some of our now best standing heads lopped off: and I profess I have often feared with myself, that such as you and I should scarce have been seated in those affluent Benefices, and creaturely full enjoyments which we undisturbedly may (if we will) now enjoy under these our gracious Governors.  

Pag. 8.  Ah Sir, what can we imagine but that when we three (you know whom I mean) are but once joined, but the effects will be most sad? To us especially; for whosoever stands, we must fall.  
I will not touch upon the sound reasons which in his 8. pag. he urgeth for this passage; they indeed make me silent to give a Response to him or them; for truly I cannot deny that the bloody intentions of the Cavaliers to us-wards, and so consequently our just provocations against them must needs render us both one with another impossibly reconcilable.  

Pag. 9  But let us us suppose now, that if our brethren (with the assistance we could wish them, and the Cavaliers will bring them) should prevail against our present Government, and lay England flat on their backs, what benefit can we of all men propound or imagine to ourselves? for surely the Cavalier would fly high, and stand on tiptoe, outvying us both for service and desert, when at the most we do but wish well, and are said to bawl a little in the Pulpit, when in the mean while they are now suffered and let in to act in the field, whose number also and considerableness every man knows much surmounts us in England, and ('tis thought by the young King's * pitching on his knees, and their so lifting up their heads in Scotland since the last Bang) not a whit inferior, if not over-topping us there also; why then, no question when our old friends are destroyed, our old Enemy and we must go to it again; and I hope we have little hopes that the Catholic will take our parts, unless (as he promises,) he will the weakest side, till we have totally ruined and confounded each other.  
And now Sir I will leave his happy digression to yourself to read, in his 9 pag. and come back with him to his place of employment, which he says was Oxford, which being surrendered, he with his fellow-Iesuites have not (it seems) been idle to stir up sad contentions betwixt the Brethren and people of God.  

Pag. 10.  And now they have altered their outward Guise, and appear almost in all manner of species, in hopes to work more good upon us for the Catholic cause: and what do they now? but down to Newcastle hie they to the King, where 
Pag. 11.  they then (it seems) had hopes (so long since) to exasperate our Brethren against England, which (had they no● feared the King's fickleness) they would then have put in action, but also that they over much doted on the great sum.  

Page 12.  But mark (Sir) Here he says they found, even in our brethren's army, unpardonable Cavaliers and Delinquents more than a good many; yea known Priests and Jesuits (which truly afflicts my soul to consider it should so be in those times of zealous profession to the contrary) to have more than private admittance; yea public acception amongst them, not only to the number of two Regiments of Catholics, 
Page 13.  but one whole Regiment of them reduced under the Lord Synclare, who shrouded a Papist under a Presbyterian walking, which verily is able to grieve any godly Professor to think it could be possible: Nay more, Montross, who since I doubt is executed rather out of a Royal Polity than a zealous Piety, and (O monstrous) Irish Rebels then to be joined with, (as we cannot deny now they are) for a war then against England as now: But alas, our Brethren then feared the imputation of Covenant-breakers, which all moderate men would have accused them of, had they then begun; and whether they have fairly cast it upon England by a two or three years' procrastination, let the Lord judge; I fear, but am silent.  
But methinks (in good sooth) Polemo does a little excuse our brethren's selling the King, when he says their surrendering of him was to no other intent but to furnish them with matter for a new falling out with England, being so cunning as to consider that our English Parliament 
Page 14.  (being thus necessitated) could do no less in Justice, upon the great head of their evils, then what might furnish them with new pretences for an Invasion, and bear them out in the opinion of seduced Englishmen, for their endeavouring to raise up new distempers amidst us: Of two evils verily this is their greatest, if they had taken money for their King, all moderate men would in part have excused them, 
Page 15.  if it had not been upon such unrighteous grounds and evil designs as are these: so that it seems an hard Problem to me, whether they are more glad they had so much for him, or less sorry they were so conveniently rid of him.  

Page 16.  And now (Sir) our Novice (like a mad Rambler) flies out into many several odd passages and stories; nay, he descends to several particulars of persons and places, running on in a pretty wild Discourse, but very strongly confirming his Relation by indubitate circumstances, which hoping you have well weighed, I shall pass over many pages together, for indeed my design at first was no other but to touch upon that which most touches those of our party; and where it is possible to wipe off that dirt which is thrown in the face of us that have not yet stooped to bow our knee unto Baal, nor gone back from the Covenant of God.  

Page 17.  But the next place he leads us to, is, to that Mother of Reformation, that Metropolis of Scotland, Edinburgh; for (to the anguish of my soul he speaks it) 
Page 18.  A Catholic delights in no air (besides his own) so well as in a Presbyterian; where (belike) Montril was at that time egging on our Brethren to fall out with England, though there were indeed mature deliberations had upon his Proposals, because they savoured too much of a French-English-King, and no English-Scotch-King; 
Page 19  nor were our Brethren so valiantly foolish to fall on when the Independent stood so prepared for them; they only made some flourishes, as I profess verily I fear they now do, merely to enhance the price of a second bargain.  

Page 20 Page 21. Page 22. Page 23.  Besides this great skip, many pages more do I now willingly run over, as particularly the horrible cunning actings of Hambleton, Montril and the Jesuits; it's indeed a fit Lecture for the Cavalier then us, though most horribly have we both of us been deluded by Royal tricks: the gracious God be pleased to open their and our eyes, that we may see and understand his ways, and the evil of our misleadings.  
Ay, but (Sir) I beseech you, in the name of Jesus Christ, let the words of that cunning Merchant Montril never departed out of your breast; O how prophetic are they? truly it's a very great discovery, and worthy our perpetual consideration; 
Page 24.  I mean that additional good news which he spoke to the comfort of the Jesuit which came unto him about carrying on their plots in Scotland: I doubt not (quoth he) by what I have already brought to pass with the Scots and English, but to see our three enemies beaten by themselves, and his Banner of Christ, and Standard of his Master, to be in time erected amongst us Heretics, for so you see they account us, Never a Barrel the better Herring.  
O then (good Sir) should not this induce us to be all one in one, as it becometh the Saints and servants of Jesus Christ? shall we rather desire to be governed by a foreign French Foe, than a Native-English friend? Fie on this carnal mindedness, this selfishness, and desire of rule and government which thus rules and rages even in the breasts of holy professors; truly this becometh not the dear Saints of God.  

Pag. 25.  But that which is the most intolerable burden upon my spirit, is, when I consider they say they had great hopes by the King and his party, but more now then ever, if but we of the honest party, and those old Reprobate Malignants could be ever brought so to shake hands (though but with the teeth outward) as to be both willing to accept of aid from the French King; which truly I doubt is now past bringing to pass in Scotland; and (by our Country Club-meetings of both parties) too near wrought already here in England: the Jesuit did not doubt but to see this done, and verily without doubt it is; for so much have they wrought upon the nice dissatisfactions even of some of the godly party, that I think many of us (the more our madness is to be pitied, if not punished) would be now very glad to accept of aid, 
Pag. 26.  not only from a Foraigner, the French, but (ah me) the Irish, any body, yea, & the profane common enemy to boot, being (for aught I see) most of us very ready to join with any enemies, that we may but ruin and overthrow our fellow-Saints and friends.  

Pag. 27.  Alack, Sir, it should seem our stirring foreign enemy is not wanting of some shrewd Agents of theirs, even in the very Counsels and Armies of our State, who are now stirring up of Feuds, Divisions & Rebellions amongst ourselves, against those whom the Lord hath appointed over us; the truth on't is, the Jesuits are strange spirits; and when I read a touch of the Novices, that the Levelling party was a plot of theirs to put us in a combustion: 
Pag. 28.  O Sir, how did it grieve me that it broke off so abruply, that there was no more of that weighty secret discovered; 
Pag. 29.  questionless he hath revealed more of that to those who think it convenient in their deep judgements, not (as yet) to have it vulgarly made known.  

Pag. 30.  To conclude Sir, I must now pass over many most considerable Pages and passages, being resolved (as before said) to meddle with nothing of of the Historical part of Polemo, but what concerns our Party, though I also confess, it is impossible by way of Letter to touch upon one quarter of that which too too nearly relates to us.  
But the Novice makes a great leap now, and in a trice has us over to France, and tells us many rare intervening Occurrences during his abode there; indeed wonderfully (as to delight and information) worth a man's reading; Amongst all that which must grieve us to consider, was that, when he came to the English Court at Germains, than was there great good hopes, that something might be done that year for the obtaining of that pretty prey of England; but speedily it was annihilated; I pray Sir mark the reason, because our discontented Party had not wholly fallen off and deserted our Parliament, but that it is reserved even for this years work: having now so gotten the start of us, and such a power over our judgements by reason of our young Kings seeming penitence and compliance; 
Pag. 31.  and again, the death of the old King (which they so much hoped for, that are now so great pretending friends to the young one) they did not doubt but would very sufficiently exasperate and provoke us, 
Pag. 32.  and make us eager (out of our mad malice) to take in him, who hath not only followed such profane, ungodly and lascivious ways, as to have begot a Bastard in France, 
Pag. 33.  but his Brother also to be made a Cardinal, and he himself turned downright Papist, and declares that he will turn Turk (or any thing) to be revenged of the English, not saying which of us he means; 
Pag. 34. Pag. 35. Pag. 36.  without doubt we shall be served all alike, how confident soever our hitherto indiscreet resolutions have rendered him and the Pope that we will be their main aiders; which in truth Sir, would be a great infatuation in us, if we should, when we so clearly perceive such daily discoveries of horrid practices against us; which are more abundantly evident in this Relation of the Novices, than I have time or patience to discuss upon: I have here written a letter to you; but methinks it swells into a thing like a Pamphlet; truly it is not so intended, therefore I beseech you let none (if any) but old friends peruse it; for it may be dangerous in these times, for men of your and my profession to be known but to have been what notwithstanding they now really profess to be convinced in. Liberavi animam meam, I have unburthened my spirit (under God) to you, and earnestly desire your answer to this, with as much moderation as the Spirit will give you utterance; and without fail (good Sir) be pleased to send me down the second part of Mutatus Polemo, whatsoever it cost. I must indeed ascribe the instrumental part of my convincement to the sound Reasons of that wonderful Relation; and I discover also a certain Providence working me hereunto, because it was (I profess) a fortnight and upwards (before ever I chanced to come by the sight of Polemo) that this Epistolary Tractate (which herewithal I send you) was brought unto me from Mr. C.H. a young Gentleman of a very noble Family, and whom we take to be a great Wit in the Country, who writ it to me in answer of some Queries and objections I had made concerning the present Ruptures between our Brethren and England, Independent and Presbyter. It seems now to me somewhat strange that his judgement should jump so even with future Discoveries; it will be worth your reading, though prolix; only perchance your gravity may not in all things approve of his sometimes harsh language. I will not keep back so much as his superscription; 'tis somewhat rugged at first view; but take it thus as it follows.  
So I rest Sir, Yours, etc. P. C.   

To all our once Brethren (and now Enemies of England) and to all our Never-Enemies, but dear friends of Scotland, the Saints and honest Party there: But in particular, to my well-deserving Friend and Neighbour, Mr. P. C. Minister of Ma— in Essex, Salvation in Christ.  
SIR,  

I Will not cease to write, lest the Cause of England should seem to want Pen as well as Pike-men, and thus much dare I boast of it, that in my own opinion I am the weakest defender of it, of all those that pretend any abilities to maintain it: its true also, there may be so much vanity in my conceit, as that I may expect applause for daring to speak a word in the behalf of poor Truth; To put this out of doubt, I request you Sir to communicate it to none but such as yourself, wavering dissatisfied ones: truly I more fear I may unhappily incur offence (if it were made public) for presuming to meddle with State-matters, so high above the reach of a private Gentleman: But if sometimes perchance I seem a little malapert in my State-reasonings; Methinks I forthwith contemplate the Blessed change (our mouths were bunged up in Kings and Bishops times;) the Liberty of speech wherewith we are now indulged, which is indeed evermore to be found in a well-policed Commonwealth.  

1.  And now it is mine intent (Mr. C.) to speak of those rascally people (whom you would fain vindicate) and of their design to conquer us, which (according to the Covenant) they will change when they please into a necessity of defending themselves: This argument (I conceive) you suppose they may thank you for; and yet truly (Sir) I have an opinion, that as basely fraudulent as they have ever been with England, they are surely now more rational then to expect that from a Republic, which they were used to receive at the hands of Kings, that we should not only thank them for the wrong they have done us, but pay them also for their pains: That's for your first Quaery.  
2. I much muse at those whose Covenanting consciences can permit them to take part with Danish, Swedish, Scotch, French, Irish, I know not how many foreign Enemies against their own Native friends. Alas, what is't you would have, Government? well, is that it? or else you will resolve not to be governed; If ye cannot have all ye would, ye will yet still keep a stir for more than ye should, or can in reason expect: Nay, I will put the case higher; suppose it were (as ye insinuate) even forbidden to make profession of some certain truths; Methinks men should not by and by turn Traitorous Rebels, and oppose themselves to an established order of a Commonwealth; But what truths are ye prohibited the profession of? show them, and if you have not Remedy, then continue Traitors (in God's Name I will not say, but) with a witness; for my own part I would be (or at least reputed to be) so obedient a Commonwealths man, as to yield to some Laws, though the dictate of my reason should tell me they were perverse, but it should be by my silence: But blessed be the holy Name of God, we are not reduced to this predicament, there is none of you but (if ye will) may enjoy the dearly purchased liberty of our times: That's for your second.  
3 Though you seem to be merry concerning some passages at our last conference; yet let me tell you, perchance I am not less than you seemingly take me for: To speak truth, I am a very good Englishman, and do passionately love my Country, maugre Covenanting pretensions to delude me; but whether I am fit to be reputed (as you would fain have me think you do) a sound Politician; or how I should come acquainted with State Affairs, by sometimes reading a Diurnal as you do, this I know not; questionless I have more courage than strength, & more zeal than knowledge to serve the Public: but were I arrived to so noble a Culmen as to say I could advance the Public good by my single Pen [which I neither dare nor can believe;] or that I could clearly demonstrate to our neighbour Hollanders, or the miserably poor envassaled slaves of France, that in England all things are now changed into the better, under so blessed an Alteration, as that of a Kingly Tyranny into a free State, which hath confirmed us in a most precious Liberty, and that it is not only apparent, that in a few years trial it will enrich us, but make us also more formidable, and much increase our courage, when it shall be seen we fight not so much for the glorious advancing of one single Family, as the preservation of a Public Interest, Religion and Liberty: yet all this while there is not so great a praise redounds to me, as you are pleased to bestow, but I must wholly ascribe it to the felicity of the Times in which we have lived to see this change: And yet if in high State matters (my modesty bids me say) I am unworthy to obtain a rank amongst politic men, there is none of our Governors can deny me one amongst Commonwealthsmen; if my capacity be inconsiderable, my public zeal (at least) deserves not to be rejected: briefly Sir, for an answer to this third of yours, I only tell you it pitifully grieves me to see so many such (English) spirits as yourself, who are so vexed at their own good, and cannot endure their happiness, but would again fain be under their old yoke of Regal Tyranny; any Governors but the present should seem would please you; all present transactions thwarts your Politics; it would not be blasphemy for me to say, that God himself cannot make the Presbytery Governors to please them, because the more they are after his own heart, the less will he be after theirs; so much for that.  

4.  And fourthly, I cannot but vex to see how you torture men with that other Quaerie of yours, not with the strength, but poorness of it;— What had we to do, what need had we to invade, or make war with our Brethren [Rebels] of Ireland and Scotland? Can not our Ambition be sated with one Kingdom? Ah Sir, But if our Governors had been dormant, if our Cromwell had still stayed at London, than (when all our throats had been ready to be cut) ye would have roared louder, that it had been an infatuation in them to have been so supine, as to suffer the common or a foreign enemy to over run and come up to us; But you have done well to stitch this Querie with a wonder from God, if your men cannot beat us, your children shall, your little boy at York (which you have made grow out of the belly of this Quaerie) who cries Stolen bear for want of a King; is not he enough to convince us forsooth? In very deed a goodly childish question; and thus ye fight against our States managing of Affairs, like foolish Welshmen with old Proverbs, and like besotted Englishmen with new miracles, because ye cannot touch it with good reasons: but next ye make a Resolve upon this Quaerie, and take it for granted, that now surely it cannot be otherwise, but that Scotland must be the Aceldama for Independents; so that truly to me it seems an hard definition, whether ye err more out of a pusillanimous infirmity, or inveterate malice, or whether ye stand more in need of the remedies of Physic, or that of the Laws; certainly ye are mad, and ye must be whipped; Really Sir, it grieves me to see, how ye abuse that benefit of liberty merely against those who have procured it for ye: that's for that.  

5.  But ye come powdering with your fifth, in all post haste; ye object, and tell me, that the States must needs receive a very great disadvantage from the rigour used towards (and so consequently the discontent of) a very considerably numerous party of formerly our Brethren here in England, which by our harshness have been necessitated to separate from amongst us; show us where the rigour was, and tell us what you mean by this word Harshness, or else I shall be enforced to answer you harshly in a word: It is much better to have a weak cowardly enemy to contest with, than an ambitious-cold-brawling friend to preserve.  

6.  For your sixth Sir, Methinks when I maturely excogitate with myself, the Slavery we have waded through, and the Liberty we now may enjoy, those passed pains should be our present contentments; either the good which now we may upon sure grounds hope for, should much solace our imaginations; or at least the Royal evils which we have suffered and outliven, must needs content our memory: Surely then (kind Sir) every generous soul cannot but be passionately affected with, and as it were resolutely interess himself against the rude calumniations and dirty bespatring which some of ye black coats (and blacker mouths) dare vomit and spew out of your Pulpits in the very face of Authority; what wild stupididity possesses ye silly pettish elves? Ye can Saint a Tyrant, your quondam mortal Foe; ye extol to the skies (since ye yourselves brought him to the block) him, whom even a world (yea even of his very foreign friends) ingenuously acknowledge to be the greatest Bloudshedder of this last Century; It's a great wonder to me to see how the Royalists hug the memory of their late weakling-Idol; why is it? but because (as his son now does at times to serve his turn) he deserted them in plain ground; they are right Spaniels, the more endeared to him, because he was the principal cause of their so often sound basting and utter ruin; but for ye secondary adopted foundlings of the Presbytery, that ye should begin so strangely to lessen the number of those thousands who (as ye often bragged) would never bow the knew to Baal: this is much the greater wonder of the two: The Cavaliers made a God of the first, and ye a Calf of the second: 'tis very pretty to observe how oddly ye are resolved, sometimes for Monarchy, and then presently you could find in your hearts to have a Commonwealth, rather than relinquish a fat Benefice: how strangely do your great London Brethren Weathercock it about! Those Cawdries, Hudsons, Ashes, Robin-Hoods, etc. whatsoever is commanded by Authority, they will be sure to run Counter; if an act of thanksgiving be emitted to be observed on Tuesday, we shall be sure to have it in some by-corner, but on their own Kirks-day-Friday: truly they may do well to imitate the Moors who (say they) on the same day do evermore use to make public prayers and meetings for the restitution of the Kingdom of Granada, but bitterly curse the memory of the last King who could not defend it against Ferdinand.  

7.  But seventhly, you stand much upon your Conscience Scruples, these (forsooth) must be the Cover-sluts for all your sneaking-hypocritical Rogueries, and Pulpit-Impostures; O what witched faces do ye there make? what caterwauling howl? what religious rail? Really I look upon this thing called Royal Presbytery as a mere monster, whose figure can not be delineated, as ye have now farced and pieced it up with your very godly Brethren the Cavaliers, with your holy Brethren the Scots, and with your I know not what brethren the Irish, true it seems at the first view (when a man considers your seduced numbers) to be of a very formidable and great bulk; but this gross thumping body of yours consists of several pieces and patches, some Popish, some Prelatical, some Directory, and yet most-Common Prayer, and some [Confess] Mass-book: Truly Sir, ye shall find, that after it hath had two or three sound Scotch-shaking, that it holds together rather by Ligaments than Nerves: I confess ye have many Classes and Asses, that is, members amongst you, but they are very uglily proportioned, not well compacted: the Head grows out of the Breech, ye make a Cushion of it for your Repentant-Close-stool: to speak more properly, ye walk up and down, tip and tail, I know not how, but the Cavalier says, Hand over head.  
But behold a little poor people gone to whip the breech of this great Garragantulus; those whom a supreme Providence hath called and lifted up to humble the pride and insolency, both of a Monarchick and Presbyterian Tyranny, who though they are inconsistent, aim both at that one thing: behold (I say) those little hills of Pencland, who were able to brave and resist an whole Kingdom of the one sort, and all the forces of the other: Poor contemptible souls! The weak things of this world hath our God chosen to confound the mighty: I can compare our Army in Scotland to nothing so fitly as those small grains of sand, wherewith the Lord bridles in the furious insultings of the main; it was your own boast Sir, that they would scarce serve for a Breakfast to that Nation; Indeed I hope so, and believe you; brag on ye English Apostates; surely those several atchivements made under Straughan, Massey, Montgomerey, etc. since our first marching into that Hell upon Earth, which ye lately so much vaunted of, were victories so dear bought that your good Brethren had ere this time been finally defeated, had they gained many such; but I am forced to acknowledge that the false news of the Irish Rebels your other brethren's successes, and that the Plague hath much infested the poor English Protestant there; this indeed hath given you much cause thus to elevate & heighen your spirits; but this cannot much perplex the honest heart; for I dare pawn my Reputation it will in time appear that ye have not only confederated with the gross Papist, but joined tails, or rather Heads with the very Jesuit; yet I beseech you Sir, nicely to take notice of this one sentence: There is yet whereby ye may be troubled, where ye think yourselves so secure, not that I say we have a plot to outvie you, and bid higher for the Papist then have ye; we should then be so far from being confident as now ye are by it, that we should evermore doubt of our future prosperity: But who can be ignorant, that if the honest godly Englishman, whom your party have seduced and divided from us, should again reunite themselves, return to their obedience and wits, and at last smell out that ungodly knavery which the Brethren have lately fobbed into their pretended King's Declaration; or if your other dear fellow-Saints the Cavaliers shall henceforth surcease to lend their hands, blood, and estates to the propagating of their first enemies rascally designs, and resolve henceforth to be true to their Country, knowing that the plot is carried by you as destructively fierce against them as any other party whatsoever, against whom ye more grin your teeth; then assuredly all the plots and devices that are now machined against England, or any of us all, be we what we will be that are your enemies, would presently burst and shiver in pieces, and the best Scotified Presbyter of you all, be like an old dusty-rusty Jack, (never more able to turn any way) having lost some of your master wheels.  
But this let me add moreover to your Brother-Royalist his comfort; we have known the man, that having been overcome, hath finally endangered the Conqueror, though but with the broken end of a sword, and to have slain him to whom even now he was an humble petitioner for his life. Noble Gentlemen Cavaliers, ye often use to boast that you could not have been vanquished, had not that base foreign Scotch Nation been brought in assistant against you: You say also ye cannot be in a worse condition than ye have been and are through their do; and the most reservedly ingenuous and politic amongst you do often inculcate it to one t'other, That you cannot expect the least kind of good by the Presbyter; why then my lads, all I shall say to you is, in good troth take the opportunity which is presented to you, Bang 'em back and sides. But you will say; And what shall we be the better, when this is done? I answer from my heart, I verily imagine and suppose, that by many degrees will you be more happy, safe and free, then when you once find yourselves reduced under the intolerable humour and strictness of that uncouth Discipline; your King (if Presbyter be Presbyter) shall not be in a capacity to help you, nor shall it be held lawful (when all is done) to let him know that you have helped him; but he must still be enforced to disclaim you in the Bundle and Pack so his father's English murders, and his own French sins with the rest of his House, etc. But thus much by the way to the old Enemy your new brethren.  

8  Next, for that great strength of yours you so boasted of in your last; let me tell you (Sir) Formidable beginnings have many times had ridiculous conclusions: Your brethren (its confessed) looked very big and high at the beginning of those clandestine undertake of theirs, having twisted and wound in so many considerable Parties to their assistants; as not only the Prelatical Protestant, the English Dissatisfied one, but the Jesuited-Popeling also; the Lutherane and Calvinist they have made sure of they think; as having Swethland and Denmark, Holland and the Huguenots at their devotion; France no doubt is involved into the grand Interest; and for Spain and the Pope (not to mention the Portugal) these all are obliged to come in, upon the score of the Irish conjunction: but really (under the favour of your wise judgement) I for my part cannot see how this Rope of Sand should long hold fast together, being subdivided into so many strangely odd Interests; these no doubt have all their ends as well as the Scots, and (I suppose) 'tis easily judged how discrepant they are: But it seems the brethren having brought their work (as they conceived) to a pretty perfection, dared to resolve to stand o' their own bottom; what else made them lately pretend the laying aside of the royal party? what else made them vex and hate to think or permit that any gallant piece of action or noble employment should by any means be atcheived by the English now amongst them in the way of military exploit, though Massinians, and can bring their compurgators that they never had the least spice of Cavalerisme in them? what else (I say) but merely out of a timerousness, that these should hereafter stand up with them as Competitors of the glory of their English conquest; and (which is the main) in the reward of the Action in good English- Dust; nay (which is more than all this) what else made them, as they we●… even upon the nick (as we say) of bobbing and whyffling off their new King, after they had so ceremoniously admitted him into that stately sweet hogsty of Edinburgh? I'll warrant ye shall find hereafter that if God bestows a victory upon our Cromwell over the rougher sort of Presbyterian Jockey pigs, their young King shan't be a jot sorry for't, but rather exult, and rejoice at it; for certainly he already percieves what they are resolved to do, if they can do aswell without him; but its true they have not yet turned him a grazing; they quickly drew in their horns; and do yet still (for fear of a checkmate) keep the youth a cockhorse; and perchance for hopes of a better market: But for any minion or friend of his in the whole world besides himself, they care not if he were hanged upon as tall a Gallow-tree as wicked Haman, and as honourably interred under it as poor Montross: surely this is a great demonstration of the undeniableness of this your eighth query— That they love him wonderfully; what they will do for him I will not say; but of a truth they are resolved to do much with him:  
But the monstrous body with which you would fain startle us country people with, that they are now threescore, now an hundred thousand; without question (Sir) it hath its wounds and infirmities which much infested it, and which do not cease to be dangerous, though for the present they are plastered over with some appearance of sanity; We shall (I dare warrant ye) live to see a shrewd ulcer breaking out between their bawdy Kirk, and their lousy State, if ever the Nobility or Gentry (such sneaking ones as they are) shall but dare peep their snouts above the Pulpit, the Kirk shall firk them, amongst them ye shall have some wagtaile-fawning curs, yea even of the laird Presbyters that shall (suddenly after the first Presbyterian rout) be ready (out of pure fear of being overtoped by the ranting Cavalry) to turn Idolisers of their new Rag, till they stir up an immortal feud betwixt themselves and the right reverend Kirkmen; and then hay by the Jolt-heads they gang, (the Devil part'em) and will (as the other year) be again ready to call upon our Cromwell for another assistance; Nay that young English-Scotch-Danish-French-Jermin-Gentleman will (without doubt) (when he hath adopted good store of these rascal Favourites) begin to speak We and Us, and (with our Cromwel's help, let him give them but one sound bang) will (in spite o' their hearts) screw them our, and himself into all the chief sway, and then as you were; this is all the hopes we have, that at last they will be necessitated to be friends with us; but surely 'tis their curse, they will not see; let them embrace it, let them like fine boys kiss the rod; and repose trust to his feigned meer-knavish conversion; they shall to their grievous experience find in time (when the Lord pleaseth,) that they have but put confidence in the Caresses of a Courtesan; it may chance come to light hereafter that they may owe thanks to the Mother for making the son so good a boy; and that it was her strict command that he should rather play small game with the brethren, then sit out of any Throne▪ surely its very improbable that they can believe in good earnest his mother (or him) to be cordially serious; and yet you see what Polity makes men feign to be credulous of: It is not likely, that both he and she, that have always made profession of levity in their religion aswell as conversation, should now be constant for the love of either an old Pedlar or a new-cobled Kirk; but it's very probable that the Appeals so made on both our sides, the sighs of the people of God, the blood of the dear Saints, the violations and horrid plunderings they have used in England, with other ill consequences of this their new raised war, will mount up to the very throne of God, and pluck down his vengeance upon these (generally acknowledged) perfidious false people, that maugre all overtures on our side for prevention, will yet be the causes of so many renewed mischiefs amongst us: Alas! If the Lord understand and regard the crying petitions of the young Ravens in their nests, will he not hear his people, who incessantly solicit him, humbly demauding only a reason of the insufferable injuries which have been done them? If the blood's voice of Abel ascended up to him, shall the blood of an Innumerable number of poor Christians (which is again like to be shed out by these Cainish brethren) be dumb, without making any noise at all? shall the complaints, the imprecations, and the last dying groans of the dear English hearts that fall by the sword in Scotland (and their Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, Wives and Sisters sighs here in England for them) be utterly quite lost? The Lord (the avenger of perfidy, and of the violated truces of brethren of one faith) will he always suffer religion and Covenant pretences to be made an Instrument for the introducing of tyranny, and that this only should be made use of to cheat the world, and to seduce poor innocent ignorant ones? Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum?  
If the Lord count our hairs, will he not have regard of the sighs of his Saints? will he not gather up their tears? will he despise their prayers that so wrestle with him? No, No; let us be confident our God is for us, and that the astutious perfidy of our lose brethren is not hid from his eyes; We have had many sure signs that the Lord is on our side, concerning the certainty of which it is not lawful for his people to doubt: If the Lord had not decreed in his everlasting determinate will powerfully to secure and go along with his people, to relieve them now (in these last times) from their long bondage and oppression, if the Lord had not a desire to make us overcome, if he would have deferred the Term of our libery, he would not surely all along so miraculously have shown himself a man of war in those incredible appearances he hath been pleased to discover for the good of his people, and the happiness of this Age; verily the Lord could no longer refuse the struggle and necessities of his Saints that had such great need of his help and deliverance; By the help of our God there is now nothing so difficult before our eyes, but we may be confident of, that he will ere long bring to pass for his Glory and names sake: Ah then (good Sir) cease all of you to take distaste at the holy designs of our just Governors; let not their erterprises (for the Lord's sake) be an occasion of jealousy to any soul; all that look upon them without a blindfolded prejudice, though but at a great distance, must needs acknowledge them to be selfdenying (and not selfseeking) justiciaries; surely they have consecrated their hands and hearts to the Lord; their Arms protect none but the Lord's cause; and the most refractory of England will be constrained in time to confess that they are like the targets which fell from heaven to guard the Romans which gathered them up: Ah let mothers now rejoice at their fertility, and bless the Lord, because they may now rest confident (if the Lord continue his goodness unto us) that they shall procreate children that shall be more happy than ever their poor ignorantly blind fathers were, and who shall even henceforth live in a blessed liberty by the benefit of our Commonwealth.  
Verily Sir, we Englishmen may look upon our Governors as the resolved Enemies of wicked, profane, and ungodly men; and merely the protectors of the godly party; alas they seek for no other fruit from the great victories the Lord is pleased to accumulate upon them, but his glory, and the security of England's Commonwealth; Nor do they post up and down in a restless toil (those dear instruments of the Lord) their Army, and indefatigably turmoil themselves but to procure its deliverance from that ancient Tyranny and thraldom, which for these many hundred years (under splendid titles) we have been confounded and involved into: truly we have just cause to hope and believe that they have sound learned that rule of the Apostle, To do good to all men but especily to those of the household of faith; and hereby they will serve as a kind of animated law to those that are gently alured & led on by their godly conversation; certainly this exemplariness of theirs is a kind of command, which not only we (their religiously well-affected friends) but even the most Traitorous Apostates amongst ye cannot rationally disobey; Alas (Sir) by them we now really possess what the bowels of our sad Progenitors so much (and long, but in vain) yearned after; we all confess with you (Sir) that a good King is good, if there were (the world over) such a thing to be found in Rerum natura; yet the maxim tells us, that it is much more glorious to restore liberty to a Commonwealth, then to be so: how much more is it then Renownedly glorious to alter and convert the Tyrannies of a bad King into the liberties of a free Commonwealth, and those even so precious ones, that we cannot hardly now contemplate any thing of so great esteem unto us, which we may not hope they will in time procure for us? As for me (kind neighbour) whether it be that I am passionate for that liberty and freedom in my walkings with God, the sweetness whereof I have already tasted; or whether the transparent light of present felicities somewhat over-dazels my ravished intellect; or that the mere love of truth makes me thus write, most assured it is they are the promptings, and guidances of the Spirit of God overflowing me.   

Secunda Pars.  
ANd now Sir my next task is to make good that promise of mine in the superscription; I have something to say to the seduced Scotch, as well as the blind English Presbyter; what is this our old brother Scotland stands aghast at? He stands affrighted (and seriously I cannot much blame them) at the very approach of our Cromwell; what pity 'tis to see how they refuse and deny that good fortune which comes to find them? their consent is only asked to take the grievous yoke of Tyranny off their necks, that where godly men suffer, or weak men groan, they may be released & set free: Alack! they are so timerously aguish, they will cherish their disease; they have not the courage (though they have the strength) to take Physic and make use of proffered remedies; what fatal and wretched stupidity is this in them? have they not eyes to see the inundation of miseries which are over-rushing them, and ready to swallow them up? is not that common bruit (in Rome and France, and most Catholic kingdoms of Europe) of their young Kings turning Papist able to awaken them from their sordid drowsy cowardliness? Shall that for ever hereafter be spoken of the Scots which was related of the people of Asia, That for freemen they were of no reckoning or account; but that they made very excellent slaves, and were very good to uphold an insupportable Tyranny for want of having the valour to resist it? Because their King is not yet come to his highest pin (or that they have hitherto had a pretty nimble way to cut them off in their career;) or because they are reserved for the last Act of the Tragedy after Independents (and Cavaliers too, as they think) therefore they absolutely conclude themselves perpetually secure; Because the poison of Popery and Cavalerisme hath not yet dispersed over all their Members, and entrenched upon their very heart, and that very death doth not yet gripe them, they imagine they are in very good state and condition; Because the Pope doth not openly declare what he hopes and intends to bring to pass by him who (its thought) is really his Proselyte, will they be so mad as to think (or is it that they know themselves to be so slighted, scorned and inconsiderable a people) that he doth not so much as dream of them as well as that sweet morsel of England? Assuredly if they should see in Edinburgh a man providing great store of all sorts of materials for a structure, and forthwith make ready a place in a very fair seat, to employ those utensils, without doubt they would say that surely he meant to erect a very fair house, though they saw neither the walls set up, or foundations laid; and can they be so perversely wilful, that notwithstanding they see such huge Popeling preparations in almost all Catholic parts, yet they will not understand what kind of fabric is in time hoped to be set up both with them and us? To be sure, if they suffer the young Popified blade to manage his work a little further, till it be completely accomplished, that is, if they go on to accept of his formal Recantations (for which without doubt (as in time may be proved) he hath Dispensations sufficient) it will then no longer be in their power to oppose him; for that all his retractations are indeed disguised, deceitful, and complemental; and verily it is impossible (as he hath been principled under his father and since beyond sea) to live under him, and in liberty; they must of necessity be put to this Dilemma, and choose one of these two things, either to be his vassals, or his enemies, and see which they love best, an intolerable long slavery, or a short just war.  
Yet indeed though at present the face of things look so oddly in Scotland, affairs are not so incurably altered in that Region as some suppose and wish: Nature surely hath preserved some remainder of good seed, she can yet raise up some stout and courageous spirits (from that ancient principle of libert, which may not as yet be totally extinguished) from amongst them: They have as great quondam experience of throwing Tyrants overboard as any people under heaven; I say methinks nature and experience might distil some drops of blood purely British amongst them, amidst that corrupted mass it now labours under; It cannot be but sometimes they call to mind the neat feats their fathers have been forced to use to get off those iron yokes from about their necks: It cannot be that the ingenuity of that Northern people should suffer them to lie still under that heavy pressure of Regality; it's a shame that the learned abilities of that people should now be converted to mere nought else but to flatter and smooth up a young Tyrant, which they ought to make use of to excite people to recover their liberties: It's a shame that they are active and valiant only for another, not themselves, and that their spirit and courage should take pains only to strengthen a dominion that will finally oppress them; if peradventure they undertake actions, which from an accidental success be reputed full of gallantry, it is the glory but of one man, not of them; by this they gain nothing but companions in slavery, they render not the state of their Country to a better plight, but make the power of a foreigner more formidable; their chains become more gltitering and strong, not lighter and more lose: And now (Sir) I hope the Lord will put it into some of their hearts, that they may make some reflection hereupon, and that all that I have said may not fall to the ground: perchance that magnanimity which in times of yore was known to be in the Scot (and now supposed to be dead) is but dormant; perhaps the sick, the seduced ones, will at length get up, and the heart of that people return from its swoon; let them but once begin to add vigour to that prudence they have been observed to have, and to arm good counsels, and they shall soon find that the fury with which they are possessed against the English Brethren shall not so much overbalance their reason, as for some few years bypast it hath hitherto done; then will they speedily be induced with much courage and generosity to accompany their sister England in those excellent wise managements, whereof she reads Lectures of Heroic gallantry to all Christendom: Our Cromwell hath a resolution too magnanimous and sublime to do any low thing in this occasion, if they will but call unto him: Those miracles of victories which the Lord hath wrought by him (which even his very old enemies with horror and submission confess and admire) those Declarations of his often sent unto you, which breathe nothing but liberty and love of your Country, the abode he long since made with you at Edinburgh, when at your beck he posted for your succour, his noble comportment and pious conversation amongst you, can furnish you with none but fair hopes, and auspicious presages, if ye will embrace his proffers; Thus we your Brethren Englishmen think fit to call upon you, yea to cry on high; That liberty is not defended by fear, nor will the future violences of your Prince be ever repelled by a secure softness.  
But you urge, we are Presbyterians, and you are not; you are Independents, but we are not: Ah brethren, is it not convenient that we unite ourselves against a common enemy? against him who is not for any zeal to Religion, but the Kingly Interest of a Crown, and revenge both upon you and us. He doth not covet (as the Apostle did) the unbelievers, but those things which are theirs: Have ye never read of that Stoic and Epicure, two men who made profession of a contrary Phlosophy, and were of two opposite Sects, and that in a most violent manner, yet could presently be brought to accord when there was a question of delivering their Country from slavery; and for a while could lay their opinions aside to join their interests together? would to God we could do so; yet there is none desires you to relinquish your opinions (according to your present light) in your ways of worship of God, but in an amicable way to compose such trivial impertinencies concerning which we have so often (to no purpose) sent overtures unto you: ye know that a man once in danger of drowning, indifferently catches hold of whatsoever is obvious to his sight or sense, though it be a naked sword, or hot iron: I have seen two beasts fight that would presently part and fall upon a third common enemy; shall we be worse than beasts? is there such a necessity in it, that you must needs divide from us your heretofore Brethren, and unite and join interest with strangers, enemies, aliens, foreigners, Danes, Swedes, French, Dutch, (O horrible) Irish too? etc. I must confess self-preservation is the most pressing, if not the most legal of all duties; but have a care Brethren that you have not learned this maxim out of Machiavelli, That its convenient for a Christian to agree with the Turk against a Christian; for in danger (saith he) Honesty and fair-dealing may be laid aside, and but what seems best may be undertaken; this is but to defend a man's self with the left hand. Now let the world be Moderators whether you have not gone these sinister ways to work: Good God what (I trow) is the end and object of your designs? what is there in the cause under which you now warfare, that either a learned Doctor may be able to maintain, or that a conscientious Presbyter dare excuse?  
I see I must once more impeach you of the highest piece of perfidy, and pursue you to the inmost retreats of your plots, and see whether (as the world gives out) your Nation in general, or that black counsel, (under which you now labour) be least innocent or most viperous? True, ye paint over your pretences with the guilded colour of righteousness, but (seriously) wise men judge that there is nothing but a desire to become masters of other men's habitations, which makes ye so often desirous to go out of your own; It was ever the custom of you cold Northern ones to come before you were bid, and to creep nearer the Sun: Lord what a many arguments (which now lie in English Jaques) were there once raked up to prove the conveniency of our Union, and your naturalisation? what oldd remnants were there scraped up to assert the legality of your Sixth Jemmies' transplantation (as intricate as a Welsh Pedigree) and because (forsooth descended from a seventh Henry) we must be your fellow-slaves: and this unhappy fancy of yours, bringing your third Hobby-Horse because his sons-son, will (in the end) certainly prove fatal to you, if you be not the more timely wise: ye ran well, who hindered you that ye might not obtain that precious liberty chalked out by us unto you? ye were at your own disposition, ye might have been what ye had desired; but (ah me!) in the midst of peace ye have the spirit of war, and a seditious will, and when ye once made us believe ye were at rest, ye only then plotted how ye might be more active: these tricks will prove State-Torments to you in the end; ye will not be at quiet till ye have the rule of our Church and Sat; Really a man may read in the white-livered physiognomy of ye Scots, and our Presbyters, that innate, Covetousness in them to rule and reign, which burns and consums ye within, and is the true internal sign that makes them look as they do.  
'tis true! your Duke Hamilton (who paid so dear for our University Earldom) is now dead; but his instructions live still, and are now as vigorously on foot amongst you as ever, though you invited us when you were well knocked, and humbly cried Peccavimus, a sinful engagement, because ye saw that unless you took in that young Renegado into your pack, it would be as unfeisable for you to win England as those Kingdoms and Provinces which Galileo points out unto you in the Moon; but now (I'll warrant) by his help ye are as sure as a gun; In good sober sadness the extravagancy of your designs is worthily to be jeered at, they are so contemptibly ridiculous in the thoughts of all knowing men; would to God ye did but in part understand how mightily you and your Dagon Presbytery is generally laughed at in this our Commonwealth.  
But should seem the great wrong we have done you, and that which most offends you is our being free? you will find something or you will quarrel at a straw; look thorough all our Histories, and we find that as long as Scotland has had a neighbour, there never wanted brawlings; either by good will or by force ye will enter upon, and have to do with the affairs of England; truly (my brethren) ye have always been taken for very bad Accomodators of differences; Is this your stating the Cause to fight us? if so? for what is it I beseech you? Is it for the reinstallment of your old Popish Bishop, or for the reinvestment of your new sinful King whom you have made to confess so great a contraction of the guilt of heinous sins, and horrid bloody crimes, that you have even persuaded the world he is fit to be hanged, drawn and quartered by the Laws of God and men; at least we for our parts much doubt that Jus divinum of your rotten debauched Kirk; how you can or dare maintain his compurgation upon a mere formally hypocritical verbal submission, and that for a Jack-a-Lent, who would rather turn Linkboy to you then sit out; for God's sake how comes it to pass that ye have not excommunicated him all this while, as well as any other of your sinners; will ye make him confess guilt and yet say he is not so? or can ye dare say that his guilt is not within the line of his excommunication? if ye do, I dare say ye are all a company of rascally veillacons. In the Spanish Schools (I have read) it was once a very hot dispute; and there was cutting and flashing for it to some purpose, whether the Indians were of the race of Adam (their gold mine's made them Scot-like deny their fraternity) or a middle bastard species between a man and an Ape? I wonder they had forgot you, what can any man make of you? you will have a King and no King, a sinner and no sinner, a righteous person, and yet his whole house and himself bloody monstrous incarnate devils; Well, if he be such an one as ye have made him confess (and we have not reason to deny) then (I will not say) the habit of Tyranny, but without question the Tyranny of habit hath got such predominancy over him, that according to his instilled principles which have been drawn from the blood, and been breed in his bone, will hardly out of the flesh, unless it be let out the same way his Tyrant fathers was: In the interim me thinks the visible apparancy of his detestable horridness should at least palliate and allay your groundless inveterateness against us; but why speak I? it must be the Lords work, not mine, not man's; I see you must be constrained to be happy in stead of being miserable! O how wonderfully are you infatuated? See you not he hath a direful plot upon you as well as us? but your Grandees have possessed you to the contrary, 'twas warily done of them; all the hopes ye can possibly expect, is that you shall be the next after us: do ye not perceive the pernicious evil of this deceit? but (you say) you will not account it so, when its like to be profitable to those that are deceived; we shall answer you in your own terms; so neither doth violence deserve that name, when it shall convert to the commodity and advantage of those who must be enforced to embrace their own felicity; ye must therefore even patiently take what falls, though hitherto ye have denied that good fortune which requests admission to you.  
But next, ye will say the death of his father is that which sticks most to your stomaches: I verily conceive ye are angry because ye had not the hap to do it yourselves; I know not how many above twenty ye had then made it: but dare ye say it was unjust, when we can borrow some old arguments of your Nation, not only of your very Buchanan and Knox to prove the legality of it in lesser circumstances of crime, but also of your new Declarations against this very person himself; ye never had the breeding to put a Tyrant so mannerly to death, but in a butcherly roguish way of secret murder; we the people of England did not do it in hugger mugger after your manner of Prime Execution, but in the public place of Justice, which though it were indeed an high piece of Judicature, yet according to that generally received maxim: All that is above Justice, is not therefore unjust, especially in matters of State; As we say in Divinity, matters of Faith are above reason, yet not against it.  
But alas ye are so blinded with the avarice of English gifts which ye were wont to receive here from your Scotch Kings and so wedded to your own interests, that through the traverses of profit ye will not see the good of that glorious piece of Justice, nor (but merely in policy though ye confess it in your own hearts,) will ye acknowledge it to be so; yet now (if ye will) may you vindicate your perishing honours, in justly serving the sinful son the same sauce we did the bloody Father; ah let your public liberty be evermore dearer to you then your particular good; you have been animated sufficiently hereunto by the generosity of many of your Ancestors, nor shall ye be unfortified in the designs which ye ought to put in ●re for them aintenance thereof, if you please to make use of those, who not out of fear but love had yet rather be your friends then enemy.   

Tertia Pars.  
ANd now I speak to ye the honest party left amongst the Scots, be not ye terrified by the roaring-Megs of your Kirk-Governors threats; turn your eyes Englandward, and behold a proffered succour for you against all those that would oppress you; alas, the liberty wherewith ye are now flattered, it's but a counterfeit one, no way true and solid: he that never was without a burden at his back, knows not what it is to be at ease; ye that have so long groaned under a Kingly and Presbyterian Tyranny, know not what it is to be at liberty, nor will your Task masters learn (unless you document them out of our English Rules) how to put a stop and moderation to the filthy avarice and boundless ambition of their hearts, nor will ever cease to increase their Tyranny, and your bonds, while you so Ass-like suffer yourselves to be fool-riden.  
Now to excite you hereunto, let me tell you, That the justice of every cause for taking up arms divides itself into one of these three branches. 
1  First, To revenge injuries received; and upon this score (next to your freedom) are we now come down amongst you; or 
2  secondly, to defend men from Tyranny; upon this we first began, and hope to see you make an end: or 
3  thirdly, To give Laws to them that have none; which indeed neither have you now in their due course, nor had we while we were necessitated to receive so insufferable injuries, having no bulwark of defence against oppressing Tyranny: now (my Brethren) all these three are honest, necessary and just causes upon which ye may boldly, safely, and piously adventure; upon this ye that are feeble may lean; ye that are weary of your insupportable burdens, may rest yourselves; ye that are tied and bound with the chains of your oppressors, may set yourselves at liberty; he that dies in this quarrel (if it were possible) let him covet to live again that he may be once more slain.  
A lack a day! what strange appearance is it amongst you, that small faults (peccadilloes comparatively) should be punished in a subject (when commissioned to act them) yea and that even with a kind of barbarous death! and monstrous horrid ones connived at, yea adored in that sinful one who daily added encouragements to his commissioned Agent: O horrible! that the enormousness of the action should be that which Authoriseth the crime, and justifieth the criminal; certainly (I say) there is no appearance of equity or that which you call righteousness in this; seriously ye seem wholly to be led by the Dictate of that Tragic Poet so often chanted on the theatres, and so familiarly quoted by Tyrants; That in matters of Polity and States, and to command, it is at any time lawful for a Prince to violate Right; but it must be observed in any thing else: Truly the deceivers of this Age do much wrong thus to seduce souls in covering such horriblenesses as these under the notion and name of Righteousness; neither I suppose can it be amiss for me (or any English Gentleman) to show ye your own condemnation in such wiles as these, carried on under the guise of that which some men have been so much mistaken as to term Prudence in you, but is indeed naught else but a subtlety of spirit which ye the people of Scotland have been ever observed to have (at your finger's ends) in your most absolutely seeming honest confederacies and transactions; And yet (let us speak soberly) though so many Judgements have in fore times accounted you the stately cunning Sophisters of the world (in which perchance that strict Mistress Poverty may much help you) in my opinion (and 'tis more than one Doctors) ye are fit to be reckoned with those Platonics, who are said to have some rational intervals, and are but sometimes in their right wits; we are able to show you, to your shame and grief, where you have ridiculously over-shot yourselves; I believe hereafter your mouths will water after some of our Commonwealth-liberty; o' my credit ye will be of our opinion by that time ye have been Kinged a little longer; but by this (I trow) ye think ye shall pay us Dingdong; that ye have strucken us as dead as a Doore-nail; you imagine you have out-witted us. I pray bring me word about this time twelve month.  
Yet (Brethren) we are not in despair but hope still for your good, that you may imitate that Enarchus, who having as was believed for a while departed this life, at last came again to himself, and assured the standers by, that he was well, but that if he had continued a little longer in his ecstasy, he had died in good earnest: My Brethren, Hear I beseech you what I say; Do but you (or any English seduced one's of your party) with calm sights and uninteressed judgements consider affairs (as they are now necessitated) in the purity of their being, and not behold them obliquely through those passions which perplex you and in the infection of a malicious avarice which so altars you, and o' my soul ye would soon come to us in a Christian, brotherly, and amicable composure, and eftsoon (with us) turn enemies to all Usurpers of the Liberties of their Country: what stupidity is it in you to suffer your Country to be devasted, eternally ruined, and to let out so much of your own heart blood, and all for the humour and support of a wicked youth, and an unlucky family? what senselesness is it in you to invent all possible ways to lose your own rest, so as ye may be but able to disquiet another's? But know ye (poor silly hearts,) it is not so with us; All the advantages we expect from our victories over you, is but a common felicity both, to you and us, even an universal good; that Justice may reign in both our Nations, that Piety may be extolled, Liberty enlarged, Oppression cut off and lastly, nothing but what may procure us Reputation abroad, and a good Conscience at home.  
But ' should seem our war in Scotland can neither be ended by Treaty, nor Victory; not by the first, ye will accept of no overtures of Peace we make unto you; and when we conclude about Trivials, (as Prisoners or the like) ye will keep your word no longer with us than ye have the first occasion to break it; ye will make our General afraid to treat with you, when hereafter ye may be enforced to beg it at his hand; fie on this every way perfidiousness; and secondly, you will never be quiet, but when ye are not able to stir; alas, your hearts for the most part (and yet I say we hope there are some amongst you that are not so) are clearly bend against God's people; ye have an inveterate malice against us; but be assured (its the infallible Oracle of Truth) That wisdom enters not into malicious souls: ye are the children of this generation, which pass in the world for wiser ones then the children of light; yet surely your wisdom is foolishooss with God; and there is no more prudence without his fear, than a building without a foundation, which if the world be not mightily deceived, is your now new clouted Monarchy: though we will also be ready to confess, that for the particular part of your Stuart he hath not in all things played the fool (though in most things the Knave) but like him we read of in Luke's Gospel 
Luke. 16.8. , though he hath been unjust he is to be commended, because he hath done so wisely for himself in so strangely befooling you; No doubt but his fancy ran the same way the other unjust Stewards did, and said with himself 
Ver. 3.  (as ver. 3.) what shall I do? I cannot dig, and to beg I am ashamed 
Ver. 4.  (ver. 4.) I know what I will do, that when I am put out of the Stewardship, they may receive me into their houses: which ye have done, and I suppose will hardly get him out again without our help.  
Thus wise hath the Boy been to get an house over his head; but let us have a care that we reckon not Cheaters amongst men of skill, and that we do not call Cunning Virtue, or Deceit Wisdom: without question the Times and his Tutors have taught him the Legerdemain, even the very Art of Fallacy: 'tis impossible (as his education hath been) but that he is endued with a certain learned and disciplined kind of naughtiness and State-Knavery, even a System of Machavilian Rules and Precepts to help him aspire to his pernicious ends: the villainy of all the Runagate Scots in Europe, is not able to compose and impose one Covenant, Oath, Abjuration, or Declaration, so damnably bitter (though it were to execrate his father & friends for damned murderers) but he is doctrinated and resolved to down with it: O the conscience of a wicked man, much more of a debauched bankrupt youth, what will it not reach to? 'tis written of Hippolytus that Euripides made him cry out in one of his Tragedies, I have sworn with my tongue but not with my mind; judge ye whether he hath not after this sort swallowed down your Covenant, (without doubt the poor young man is cordially converted to you) and hath satisfied his holy Father so much therein, that he cannot in equity deny him a Dispensation for any future compliance of his with you: O grievous! how obdurate and seared is his conscience, that it can suffer any weight upon it, or that it can recede from any thing how fundamental soever, which his conscience dictates to be just, and eagerly pursue and follow on the contrary? He hath not wanted some English Prelatical Casuists I dare say (such as his Father had concerning a business of blood) who could find out very godly reasons (no doubt) wherefore it might be thus lawful for him to play the Devil and Hypocrite, and persuade him that he shall be innocent, let him be ever so guilty.  
O Lord! Can the rest and quiet of any man's soul (who is not purely Infidel) be established by such soft-easie means as this? will the poor soul of a man depend on the subtlety of a Knave Doctor? A Prince that made the glory of God his object, in the most advantageous business which could be proposed to him, if he already were assured of the prosperity of the success, and were not grounded in the goodness of the cause, would surely make a stop upon this very difficulty, and stoutly refuse both Crowns and Sceptres, were they presented to him, and laid down at his feet.  
But ('tis true) many men become pretty Physicians (they think so at least) by the frequency and strength of their own diseases; and questionless this young man hath gotten that miserable Science which many men learn by their faults and misfortunes, that is— (if not bettered by them) to do or turn any thing for advantage, (for whom misery makes not better it makes worse;) Certainly the fortune of this House of Stuarts having assembled so many fatal events, and called down divine judgements upon almost each soul of (and Parttaker with) the family; & having made this Stripling see (as it were in a throng) such a number of affairs and vicissitudes; he must needs have a certain kind of abridged experience, and be even rudimented in the Epitome of that which his Grandsire called Kingcraft, which in downright terms (of strict Divinity, not fast-and-loose Policy) is plain knavery; yet (to speak moderately) so harsh and rigid an education hath not been unprofitable unto him; his tempest hath taught him the Art of swimming, Adversity hath read him such strange Lectures which he will make use of all his life, and (without dispute) he hath not lost his time in that sad School he hath been trained up.  
But this is the gallant Lad at whose beck ye are resolved to engage your whole State, lives, and fortunes: alas, are ye distract of your wits? have your mad furies (anent yourselves) no medium or intermission? we hope it is not so, though indeed the most part of ye Northern people are many times accustomed to rageing, but ye have only some raptures and sudden motions; 'tis pretty odd to observe how quick your resolutions are, ye use no discourse, nor make use of reason to a war, but collecting all your vigour together, and casting out all your choler at first ye make an extreme fierce kind of French onset as if the Devil drove ye, or a Lesly led you on; after which finding a more gallant resistance than ye expect (and the property of your violence being to endure but awhile, if Straughan and your Pulpiteers be not present with their reason and arguments to keep fire to it) then at last as ye seemed to be more than men at the beginning, ye become less than women in the prosecution of your erterprises, and as if ye went out of the fit of a Fever, after ye have been a little roused, ye languish in a Lethargy, keeping yourselves close in holes within the bounds of a Lethee-Lake, ordinarily flying, though our Army put you not to flight, and yielding yourselves when they take you not; ye never consider how ye shall overcome, but how bravely you shall march up to the good City without resistance, and thus your weakness as well as necessities carries you on to desire extremes and impossibilities, precipitating the course of Providence which ye would fain lead and not follow, as if it were your Providence and not Gods; and when it (also) lights upon you in a most miraculously heavy measure, ye are (Infidel-like) ready to term it no other but a mere accidental event: Ye (blind Bayards) will wilfully blindfold yourselves, and not discern these obvious discoveries of Providence which the Lord does as it were daily make out to your terror and the amazement of well-nigh the whole people of the Universe; I am not able to speak them, but admire; verily the modesty of an Orator's stile agrees not with actions so divine, so unheard of, so little credible, which have been (through his actuating power) performed by his poor Instruments, our Army: but all that I can say more in this particular, is, Let him be owned, who hath owned his.  
But all this will not induce you to sit quiet at home; ye would fain have one bout more with England for good and all; what? If the baseness of your Country prompts ye to find out more happy dwellings, and a more favourable air then that of your birth; If the Lord of Hosts by a strong Providence shall again and again send ye back to inhabit your own wilderness, and to endure the rigour of your everlasting winter, will ye yet still dare to oppose his Power by encroaching upon us? Keep ye back ye sharking companions, ye black patch of fair England; ye fawning Peripatetics to the luxurious Courts of Princes; we Freemen cannot name ye without discomposing our mouths, and wounding English ears; we are resolved not to be, rather than ye shall be any thing amongst us; ye have nothing to colour your Travelling Invasions of us, but the revenge of an old Tyrant, and the introducing of a New: this pretence shall never carry thorough your silly designs: Do ye know the just hatred which the generality (now) of us in England do immortally bear them both? Certainly it must never have an end; it deservedly accompanied the First the latter part of his life, and followed him to his grave, nor will the curses of the poor innocent Fatherless children and widows suffer him to enjoy in safety the common Asylum of the miserable: And for the Second, whose future felicity must of necessity be founded upon blood, deaths ruins, 'tis so doleful and portentous an object to the generality of true English Spirits, that we cannot so much as away with the thought of him: we look not upon him (as ye do) as a Sol oriens, by whose Rays ye think to warm your fingers once again in England; but we English Gentlemen behold him as an Ominous Comet with dissheveled bloody locks, which threatens (the most moderate Transgressor against him of us all) with a million of (not to be endured) miseries and mischiefs; there can be no favourable aspect expected from him by any of us; but his Malignant Influence must of necessity be abhorred by all of us; He is the Serpent whose breath we see has poisoned a whole people of ye: he is that young wild Boar of the Forest, which (like his Ancestor-Tyrants) would fain make havoc of all about the City; but blessed be God, we have an Heros yet left in England (if he be not now in Scotland) perchance you have found him there) who (with God's help, we doubt not) will be able to cleanse our Country (happily yours too) of such a Monster; and I pray you was there ever a more cruel, & more formidable one then that Tyranny which now menaces the smothering of our Infant Republic in the Cradle, and the transmuting of our new begun Liberty into pristine slavery?  
Yet I say, if the Lord should send him upon us, it is in his wrath and in the day of his fury: He is the evil wherewith the Holy Prophets threaten us, the effect of Gods disesteemed Providence, and the boding Executioner of Vengeance upon us: The Lord may please (as Psal. 16.) to put the Sword of the Almighty into the hands of his enemies; Yet woe unto Ashur (cryeth the Lord by Isaiah) notwithstanding he is the Rod of the Lords fury, and his staff, and his indignation is in his hand: But woe, woe, woe, be unto ye Brethren, because ye have gone down into Egypt for aid; yet we fear ye not, for the Egyptian is man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit: nay more, ye have gone even unto an Esau for aid, of whom it was said that he should live by his Sword, which Paul gives for an infallible Character and example of a Reprobate: Take heed good Brethren (I speak to those who have not back-slidden with a perpetual back-sliding) if there be any such (as we hope there are yet some few amongst you) surely the Lord doth not only abhor and detest Tyrants, but also the people who are confederate with them, and adhere unto their Party.  
Let us now a while consider the stratagems of this Lad, and what his present Plots are upon you: no doubt his last play was to deceive those whom he could not overcome; & be confident, Neighbours, that when he sees it is not unfeasable to delude you with words, he is not unfurnished with double-meaning ones, ye shall have mountainous promises [merely to draw you in,] upon England; nay, ye shall have oaths (which before he took them) he has sworn and is engaged to violate; and I dare warrant ye, that (as cleanly as ye think ye have purged his Family) he is not yet for all this without some Craftsmen about him, those apostatised Kirk-worthies who are now endeared against you, and who will assuredly day and night labour to lay Hooks, Gynns and Snares for you: He hath brought out of France his Mother's Coffers, and the Pope's Cabinet nets, so subtle, that if ye have not a special care, the most cunningest, nay the most honestest of ye will be caught in his Puppy-snatch; his penitential hypocrisy and fawning deportment amongst you, will in short time (ye shall see) even bewitch the poor people, and pervert the fidelity of your most eminent Kirk-Captains: But alas, we passionately pity you, ye will not believe truth to be truth, either because ye have not been accustomed to it, or perchance because ye think it not better than falsehood, and that ye ought to measure the value of the one, and of the other, by the profit which comes from them: Be not deceived (Sirs) the benefit which ye think ye shall gain by him, will verily be desolation and utter ruin, and to expect fair dealing from him, is a solecism and contradiction in reason; questionless he thinks that a good conscience is extremely inconvenient for him that has such high designs, as for Three Kingdoms at a clap; and for matters of faith, be assured this matters not at all with him, for he cannot ignorant of that ancient Monarchical Maxim: That the advantages of Religion, are for Princes; the scruples of conscience and nice doubts, merely for their silly Subjects; and that real piety may in State-matters be dangerous, but the appearance always necessary: These Maxims cannot politicly hold inconvenient in the height of his great Tempest; and in the height of such extremities he is now involved in; So that (in a word) we may conclude, He is resolved to destroy all, or possess all, what he cannot enjoy, he will strive to ruin.  
And if so, we Englishmen, before whose eyes is the fear of the Lord, and tender love of his people, cannot choose but take for our Pattern him that was named the mildest and meekest man upon earth, even Divine Moses, who (being yet a private man, and having then no Authority) but only seeing the affliction of his brethren, believed he was obliged to secure them, and to begin the deliverance of his People by the slaughter of an Egyptian, who smote an Israelite: How much more reason than (I say) have we (into whose hands the Lord hath put his Sword) to make use thereof to punish that Tyrant, who would fain be the destroyer, and is already the scourging Oppressor of the Lords dear People, even thirsting after the blood of his Saints? we would not covet his punishment were there any other way inventible to put a period to the horrid evil of his bloody designs: We desire not the death of men, not even of our Commonwealths Enemies, but we only try what is to be done to bring them to God's ways, and light of truth; yet nevertheless we are necessitated to provide against their being dangerous to the Public; and where we can safely avoid the depriving them of life, we only deprive them of their power and venom, and (the holy Name of our God be magnified) the Lord hath now put us into such a blessed posture and condition) that if our 
Presb. Pap. Royal.  Three grand Enemies, should in never so dangerous a Rebellion join all at once together against the State, we have Four means to scatter and tread them down; and such is the vigilant Prudence of our Governors, that many silly men (which otherwise sure enough would) are not permitted the leisure to turn Rebels, which should they, certainly they would be surprised between the thought and the execution.  
True, our English-apostate-brethrens do vainly imagine their clandestine interactings and correspondencies with you to be absolutely impossible to be found out; yet let me tell you (and them too) a word in your ear, we know as much of your news as if we had a Secretary in your darkest Counsels: Alas, how do these poor men deliberate and plot to cast themselves into miserable dangers? and yet our Governors provide for their safety by looking warily unto them; is not this to preserve Suicides, those that would fain destroy themselves? that now they shall not dare (what they otherwise inevitably would) utterly undo themselves and whole Families: They would fain strike one stroke in your Covenant-quarrel; but lo! ere they be ready to lift up their hand, Providence meets with them, and they find it seized upon: Now they imagine they shall be able to raise up hundred thousands by your youth's Commission, and that ye two Breethers shall shortly share England amongst ye; but presently they find themselves (for rare miracles of madness) either chained up with the Lions in the Tower, or fettered with their fellows in Newgate.  
Yet our Governors are very loath to proceed to violent remedies; but (as with some 
Gel. Ashley, etc.  now) they most time's use gentle preservatives; no doubt they have found out that excellent temper between Punishment and Impunity, and are willing (where they may safely venture) to take the mean between Rigour and Indulgency: foolish pity must needs be very dangerous in a young Republic, that retains in the bowels of it an infinite number of diversly-interessed Traitors; surely people would never have believed that there had been so many score of damnable conspiracies against this our State, if they had not sometimes seen the Conspirators totter and grow shorter by the Head: I wonder who can be so senseless as to counsel our Parliament, that they would sit down and suffer themselves to have their throats cut; who is that pretty fellow (forsooth) that out of pure well-affectedness would advise them even quietly and patiently to fall into the snares and plots that are laid for them, that so they may show to the world they are as magnanimous as Cavaliers, who scorn to be a whit afraid or appalled at the most visible dangers; this is dainty-fine-wise-loving-counsel indeed! No my Brethren, It is an  severity for them to prevent danger, by the death of those whom they have just cause more then to suspect; Yea, it is lawful for them (upon a bare suspicion) to secure themselves who are the Guardians of the people; surely if the Authors of our Commonwealths disorders had (as many of them have) been opportunely seized upon; besides that, some had been preventingly saved; there had been also happily spared a great number of others lives, and all the blood have been preserved which hath been spilt since our last new Rebellions: And for the future, if the ill-winds which so bluster out of the Pulpits be but shut up, soon will the Sea abate its boisterous surges, and quit its Popular ragings.  
But some Asinego's must by all means have nothing but a certain kind of scrupulous justice; they would have punctilio's and set forms observed in the heat of a war; know ye not that Silent leges inter arma? Rebels, forsooth, and Traitors may not be punished or prosecuted but in a mere Law form: 'tis pretty! shall we stay till they have ruined and overturned the State, that so we may proceed against them legally? we must have all things to a tittle, to an hair's breadth, done in a form; which to observe in some Terms of Law, will assuredly suffer all Laws to perish: This summum jus is summa injuria, this extreme right is an extreme injustice; and it would surely be a sin against reason in this case of present emergency, not to sin against those Forms brought in by the first 
William the Conqerour.  Bastard-causer of our woes. The wisdom of our Governors must in many things ease Justice, by making speed, Mora trahit periculum, Delays evermore prove dangerous: Their prudence must henceforth more severely prevent those mischiefs and insurrections, whose punishment in short time may otherwise be either impossible or dangerous.  
And for Justice, it is only exercised upon the actions of men, but the watchful cautelousness of our Governors must have a right over their very thoughts and secretest intentions; their wary wisdom must extend itself very far before what is to come, and having respect to the public Interest, they must provide for the good of posterity: and to this end they must (in a war especially) make use of such means which happily the Royal Laws of England have not ordained, but which Necessity justifieth, and which would not be good if they were not carried on to a good end; for the public profit is many times raised by the loss of particular malefactors; we sometimes recoveringly secure life by the loss of some one member, which we willingly part with to preserve the whole: In this only we commend the Northwind, which though it throws down trees, and ruins houses, yet it purgeth the air; and truly in those wonderful vicissitudes and odd conjunctures of times which our Patriots have felt and waded through; men of moderation, and of great abilities too, must think it wonderful discretion, and a most provident guidance in them, that they have not quite lost the State, and ere this time, let it fall all to shivers.  
And certainly they are infinitely sensible of the miseries and complaints of the woeful people; and yet for a while they cannot choose but make them grow lean by healing them: but short pains are in a wise willingness to be undergone when they produce long prosperities: we cannot in reason desire to be discharged of those burdens, which to be rid of, would occasion the bringing in of more insupportable ones upon us: It is very just we should do something of our parts, when we covet to be sharers in the future liberty. I have read of a great pit once opening itself in the middle of Rome's City, which the dainty Roman Ladies well-hoping to have stopped, threw all their riches and jewels into it: The case is our own, the gap of envassalage, and the deep gulf of Slavery gapes at this time so wide upon us, that we shall be all wholly swallowed up, if we endeavour not to put a stop to its voracity: 'Twas a gallant action of those men of Carthage, who in a Critical time of most important necessity cut off all the hair of their heads and gave it to the public to make cords for Engines [and money is the sinews] of war; If our condition then be such, and such it is, let all moderate men judge whether we are not mad to complain, and very unjust to murmur; shall Englishmen be said to be more eager for base wealth, then precious liberty, which procures it? shall we be penny wise and pound foolish? shall we be afraid to part with a little (a little-little while) to save our country from perpetual bondage, when we see fair Ladies (those Roman dainty Dames) were once content to relinquish more than black patches, even their very Jewels for such an end? We have this comfort however, that it is not a Bawdy-Court Royal, it is not the luxury and Riot of our Governors, as it was of our Kings in times of yore, that spends and consumes our sweat and labour in Hawks, Hounds, gaudy-clothes, Scotch Beggars, and almost an Army of Lurdane-Domesticks; the gaudy pleasure-some entertainments of our Governors costs no man breathing a penny; the money which they draw from their people is only to rig a gallant Navy at Sea; to maintain a most victoriously deserving Army by Land, and not diverted to Royal Privy-purse uses, as 
K. Ja. gave once to a beggarly Scot so much, for a jest little less than blasphemy.  fifteen hundred pounds for a smooth jest, or 
K. Charles was often at so great expenses for such pastimes.  thirty thousand pound a night in few hours time sqandred away to celebrate Masques and Mummeries; or to present Comedies, Revels, Triumphs, Puppet-plays: In our days we have seen more labour and cost spent to have some profane Plays acted, then to make war against a public Enemy, and keep the State in safety.  
But it's true! for these later years expenses and contributions have been exceeding great, but they have been also exceeding necessary: The poor people have paid much; but it hath been their own ransom; surely we cannot buy the liberty of our country at too dear a rate, nor the future quietness of our obliged posterity, who shall ever hereafter find themselves (at our charges) freed from all heavy pressures and exactions.  
But our Parliament (say some) hath in small time levied millions; what then? let us I pray consider also what (in small time) they have beyond the hopes of their friends, and thoughts of their enemies wonderfully effected: they have long managed (as I may so speak) hot, chargeable, and many wars; they have defeated three parties five times, and now are doing the sixth; they have taken by force of arms more than an whole kingdom of Garrisoned Towns; they have well near cleansed three Nations of almost an innumerable number of vipers, the common-Enemy; and they have— I know not what to say how; or how to say what they have done! let God have the glory.  
And yet maugre all this we will still be the workmen and Engineers of our own Ruin; our Enemies now afresh build their bulwarks, and raise their Forts against us under no other shadow or blind but that base one of Presbytery; even those are now turned Enemies, who are maintained, and have grown great and most opulent under the protection of these our defenders; they have in very warm places been nourished, yea in the very Bosoms of our Governors; Certainly (we hope) it was not the weakness, but without question it is the overmuch clemency of the Masters, that have been the cause of the daring aspire of these underling servants; The Parliament have hitherto but a little softly pruned the disorder of these outrageous ones, by gently touching its branches and slips; but if ever they mean to continue a Free state (oh may they pardon my boldness) they must resolve (and that speedily) to lay the Axe close to its trunk and root; for every rational man must now conclude, That more mercy to the obstinate Presbyter will be mere cruelty to our present Commonwealth; They must no longer be soothed in their Villainies, but chastised for their Treacheries; for indeed we stand upon a ticklish vertical point; and 'tis a choice piece of discretion in State-Governours, to be able as well to know when to punish severely for an evil, as to reward justly for a good service: hereby they will avoid a dangerous lenity, and not fall into a Timorous weakness; for they must as well banish all softness as rashness in the administration of justice; this is the way which they must make when they can find none else, this points them out their deliverance from present hard passages, and is the only means to stay up our state from point of falling which these men hope they have reduced it to; So that if ever this Government (whereof these troublesome fellows have suffered us hitherto to see but the Picture;) should shoot forth, and appear yet more transparently glorious to all the world; (which it will do when these selfish Remora's are once removed) it would certainly owe the main part of its birth and vigour to that most necessary piece of justice, of cripping and cutting off these superfluous-hasty overgrowing branches.  
And I cannot but wonder what makes these men all abroad awake to dream so (as they do) of Empire and dominion: certainly they are very unfit ones to bear rule; for (we see) so far would they have been from being good Masters, that they will not be so much as tolerable servants; verily they must give us better examples of obedience, before we intent to submit to them, if their hopes should come to pass (as God forbidden) to be our Dominators: The truth on't is, they are not valiant, though they now seem so foolhardy; there's nothing in the world hath made them thus malapertly desperate but the goodness of our Parliament; In a word, they are the superfluities of a Commonwealth; Members (I cannot brook to call them,) but if they be, they are fit to be cut off from a Common society, and (of all men in the world) most fit to people and set up their Dagon discipline amongst wild Boars in a Desert.  
And yet the Image and shadow of this their new stamped Form of Religion is that wherewith they hope they shall in time be able to cheat all the world: to speak truly, they are the Pharises of the earth, they make clean the outside of the Cup [the shell of Religion] but are full of Pride, Avarice, and Filth within: They make a fairer show with their wickedness, than some do with real goodness itself: To what end (think ye) have those Pulpit-squawlers of theirs heretofore so much exclaimed against the Prelatical-lawn sleeves? but that their Giddy-Duncery would not permit them to be of the number of those vaunting (yet learned) Bishops; and thus they seemed to despise the others vainglorious insolence; yet not out of a pious humility, but an emulating Pride: For I challenge the whole rabble of those Rabsheka Rabbis, and all consciously obedient meek-spirited men, to witness whether the Generality of these Priestly-Presbyter-Lurdanes [above fifty to one:] are not a company of seditiously covetous, insolently proud, wretchedly lecherous and nonsensically dull Idols: There is scarce a Priest of them, that is not either a Traitor to his country, a groping usurer, or a ridiculously Proud ignorant; and yet for all this there are a company of honest Godly and yet seduced poor souls, that make a judgement of the sanctity of these impostors, merely from the outside and external appearance of their feigned humility, and sniffling Hypocrisy; but let them look upon them with an  judgement and observation, and they shall soon find them to be the stirrers up of Rebellion and Mutiny, workers of iniquity, powerful in their malice, daring to lift up their polluted hands to heaven, imploring, what? Why, that God would be pleased to send another more bloody war amongst his poor people: Monstrum horrendum! horresco referens: and what is it makes them so impiously mad? I'll tell you; when they were permitted to eat some of their elder-brother-Bishops fat-Cathedrall morsels, 'twas all well, it went down sweetly; but since authority hath converted it to better, more pious and public uses; what say they to't now? nothing but Church robbing and sacrilege is heard in their mouths. Though they would have the name Bishop confounded into Presbyter; yet the large maintenance they concieve very fit to be still kept up; I'll undertake if the young man will but make them a promise of being Abby-lubbers, that they shall be all Bishops, Deans, Canons, Archdeacon's, &c. they shall then Roar up his most sacred Majesty in their Pulpits ten degrees above their most holy Covenant or Kirk and anathematise all that do not sincerely acknowledge him the Lords anointed, and the next (if not equal) to Jesus Christ; such as these they are, and yet they cease not with all their might to pretend devotion for truth, when they only make it their main virtue superstitiously to cry up their Scotch Presbytery founded on policy, to debase the present English authority raised by providence. O how valiantly will they rail nonsense in a Pulpit, when they think there is no man able to answer them! Their zeal (which according to the meaning of the Spirit of God) ought to devour themselves, they employ to set on fire, and ruin the republic by their Jesuitical fomentations: They are now effronted, and become daringly bold to oppose Authority in a most insolent manner, and all their doting scruples (forsooth) must pass currant for positive Doctrines; they are too impudent to ask pardon for their preterite villainies, they will rather ask leave to commit more, that so they may (as we say) sin with Authority against the present Government. These Impostors begin now to appear to the world in their genuine species; they are now generally looked upon as men, who have only put on the vizard of a specious formal devotion, that under that they may the more cunningly cheat the poor silly people into future cumbustions: for do we not daily see how they mingle God among their wild passions, absolutely engaging him in their mundane Interests, and employing him upon all their politic occasions: what do they else when they blasphemously term that Masterpiece of their plots to be the Covenant of God? yea, the Lords holy Covenant: Let no man henceforward talk to me of the piety of a Mutineer Presbyter, though I cannot deny, but gladly acknowledge that there are many amongst them (though men secular) eminently spiritual, and who by an hoped wise-compliance may in time shine as stars of the first magnitude in the established Firmament of our (from above illuminated, and abroad illuminateing) Republic; but certainly a great part of them have nothing but a dull imitation of real godliness: True, the grand Seducers can do rarely well: but in what? in amusing their Congregations with fine countenances, busying themselves rather to order the motions of the head, rather to appear in certain postures of the face, and to tune their nostrils a note above Ela, then to correct the exorbitancies of their irregular ambitions: What is their admired Preaching, but pitiful Prating? when in their Pulpits they are aimingly witty, and remarkably ridiculous, seeming zealous, really Traitors: what is it but a certain lazy life they are enured to, which they disguise under the pretence of sweeting in the Pulpit? a very idle employment which a many of them think they do very worthily discharge, when they do nothing else but mumble over some confused words, and innumerable battologies and contradictions; what do they but teach the people that they are bound in conscience to betray their Country, and pluck out the bowels of their own Mother? what do they but adulterate the Text? and turn almost all words from their Orthodox and ancient Etymology, that so they may the more unespiedly propagate their avaricious ambitions, earthly-Interests? How often (I pray you) have we heretofore heard them quote a Text which made against Disobedience— when they first gave fire to the Gun? and how often do we now hear them mention a word for obedience, when they would fain set all on fire again? verily I fear they are of incurable dispositions, and that mild physic will scarce do them good; if not, I fear, (and why say I so?) I hope a generally-violent purge must be tried upon their bodies.  
For (alas) how vain are their fragil enterprises! they are like the start of a man in a dream, they take pains to trouble themselves to no purpose, but to ruin themselves and families: O admirable! do they not all this while observe and perceive a superior power (cooperating in an unusual method of miracle) which all along hitherto hath from an high, turned topsie-turvie all their treacheries and combinations? do they not understand and see all humane prudence leveled and brought down by the force of an all-swaying Providence? assuredly their good Brethren do now look upon them as the evil Angels who tempted and inspired them with the first fury of arms, which have ever since so unluckily succeeded: O strange! O monstrous! that the ambitious discontents of some particular men should beget such vast public miseries, and open a National war? and yet for all this, we hope Providence will in short time so order and alter affairs, that henceforce they shall grow angry at less charges then for these last two years they have done; their ill humours for the future may chance spend themselves in their Study, not the Pulpit, so that when once these fiery brains are but quenched, (for a Cooler will hardly serve their turn) then eftsoon shall our Commonwealth be no more troublesome to be governed, than a well ordered Oeconomie; all will then obediently submit to the All-ruling power of God: for, (let us speak rationally) what infatuated man is there (think you, that will hereafter be ready to join with the Beaten-Presbyter, as he doth now with the overcome Cavaliers? who is there that will add his own misfortunes to those of another, and follow the example of those men who have already lost themselves? Who can as much as dream (or hope) for new stirs and insurrections, if he will but call to mind what he hath seen God perform and bring to pass by his glorious Instruments, our Parliament? which he must of necessity do, if he hath not altogether lost his memory: What atheistical rashness must that soul be guilty of, who still dares place himself in opposition to the irresistible Providence of the great and terrible Jehovah? And truly as for our future hopes of success in Scotland; the Lords (quondam, and late) appearances are more known and visible to us then to doubt of that now; nay, as things stand at present there, it would be feasable (in humane conjecture) for an unfortunate man to compass; much rather will it be easy for him with whom the Lord hath so often and undoubtedly declared himself to be.  
So that certainly, if there be any religious prudence at all remaining in the breasts of the Presbyters (as most men say 'tis all humanely-politick) ye will now no longer covet reputation by a false ostentation of constancy (as you would have it termed) to your absolute Enemy the King, and your private Interest the Covenant: Do you but consult a little with your present condition, and no longer flatter yourselves (to no purpose) with your past hopes of domination; and surely ye can then be no longer upheld but with some small despair, which will a little weakly for a while support you; for, all the hopes ye have now must be from no other but your French Friends, and Irish colleagues, it's verily thought the best string of your Bow is already twanged; nay, more, perchance your King will shortly be ganging, and then ye must expect no brethren; I mean, nothing but that Brat of the Keevenant will then be left at your doors, which once being stripped naked (and so ye consequently despoiled of your humane advantages) and its limping deformity laid open to the world, ye will then every day lose your old stickling Patriots; nor may ye ever expect to get new ones, when men shall once perceive how religiously they have been gulled: Some indeed may perchance hold up still, for a hoped commodity, or out of a popular humour of applause, being ambitious to be thought constant men, and unmoveable ones; but these, I mean your dull Pulpit-roarers, will at last leave ye in the lurch too, (and they begin pretty well already) but especially when they shall perceive the Brethren foiled, the King (God bless us) run away, or ready to be trafficked for, and lastly (which is durissimus sermo) the enlightened Parishioners yield down no more milk; an hundred pound a year or never a penny will (without dispute) much turn the by as of their overhasty resolutions; and surely the most obstinate will no longer torment themselves to support and dispute a cause as unfortunate as false, so often debelled by Providence, so solemnly lost in appeals to, and so utterly forsaken and relinquished of both God and man; so that now the worst ye pragmatical false Brethren can do, is to show your teeth, and wish ill; yet I humbly conceive, ye will not shortly dare to rant it as you have done; if so, I know no remedy, but your mouths must be bunged up: And what matters it though you do? Dum aliis illustribus balbutientes stigmata parant imprimere: while babblers thus go on to set marks of infamy on our famously undaunted Governors, Suam ipsimet ariditatem, tumoremque ventilant, ye vent your own dull dryness, and arrogant pride.  
Now as for my part (kind friend) I have not spared to speak my opinion; and have herein shown you, that I have no fancy to murmur (as some of you oddly do) against the present established Government, nor have I a mind to find fault with what passeth over my head: for indeed (Sir) what God placeth over us, is above us: If any— are bad, to those I give my silence, but neither will I forbear to speak worthily of those that are good, nor to praise that which is commendable, viz. A free State before an Enslaving Monarchy.  
And 'tis my desire (Mr. C.) that you will now be pleased to bear witness that rational men, and that also (though you were lately pleased to urge to the contrary) Gentleman and Scholars too, those that know what to say for themselves are well-affected to the Independent Party; yet in these lines I desire you rather to blame my zeal then my roughness, (I prithee mistake me not) rather my violence then lazy slackness, that I have not all this while sent you an answer; now I have, and you had sooner had it, had not the death of your old Lady, my dear Mother, commanded mine attendance almost as far as Leicester since I received yours. I pray let none peruse it but of your own Tribe or Fraternity; for should I desire otherwise, I should seem to heal those that are well: and besides, (though I can hardly think it so serviceable) there may be a danger of pressing it for a Soldier to march under the black and white colours; I have no glory that way, nor do I delight to 
Gentilium est de crepundiis cernere.  trifle away my time: Non ego ventosae plebis suffragia venor:  
Nor have I aimed at your applause of a witty man; keep that for yourself, because indeed few say so of ye; I have been herein very cautelous in aggravations, which I may properly call retaliations, I take no felicity herein; yet I assure you I desire not to hinder those wavering one's amongst you, that find themselves guilty, speedily to have remorse: I have satisfied mine own conscience, and I hope I have yours also, and I cannot help it if any of ye Presbyters (Priests or Laics) shall with your wounded faces at any time behold your scars when ye see yourselves in this Glass, this volant Discourse of mine; for ye are observed to be towards yourselves lusci & lippi, erga alios lyncei; the mote in your brother's eye, seems greater than the beam in your own. Well, I confess there may be much more said, to what generals I have here touched upon; if this doth not sufficiently make it out, in the next I will more plainly hold it forth, and then Tincta Lycambaeo sanguine tela dabo; And till then, though I am hardly a wellwisher to any obstinate ones, I shall not upon any just occasion cease to be  
Thy Servant, C. H. Sa. Wal. i●…  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Pind.  2 Chron. 19.2. 
— Shouldst thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from the Lord.  
FINIS.