A SOBER CAUTION TO THE COMMON COUNCIL of the City of LONDON, For procuring his Majesty to come to a Personal Treaty.  
By a wellwisher to the City and Kingdom.  
Printed in the Year 1648.   

A timeous Caution to the Common Council of London.  
words in due season are like apples of gold in pictures of silver: It is now seasonable, if ever, for every conscientious and knowing man, that hath the fear of God, the honour of his King, or the good of this Kingdom before his eyes, timeously to endeavour the Re-enthroning of our most gracious Sovereign, the settling of Religion, and the establishment of the known Laws of the Land.  
To you therefore of the Common Council, I humbly and earnestly address myself; That you would speedily set upon the release of his Majesty, that is worth ten thousand of us, whose soul longs after peace, and whose heart and tongue dictate and declare the same. Believe him, trust him, rely upon him, (peruse his most gracious Messages for peace) and you shall find the fruit of your obedience, an Act of Indemnity for what is past, and a well grounded peace for the time to come. After you have surveyed his constancy, observe the two Houses who scarce go to bed and rise in the same mind, who once in a month are mad of a new fangle either in Church or State. How many several faces have they shown this City of late years, nay of late months? For the King, against the King; for the Scots, against the Scots; for the City, against the City; for the Army, against the Army, and now for the Army again. Believe their guilded promises, and they will load you with immunities, but take heed lest those links of pretended privileges, prove not chains to fetter you in the conclusion.  
Trust to their rewards and expect the like of the eleven Members, who for their good service to them were forced to fly the Kingdom to save their lives. Rely upon them and you shall have that which is designed that gallant Citizen Colonel Browne and all his adherents, destruction for their fidelity. If the demolishing of your works which were cast up with so much indefatigable pains and cost, will make you strong, and the pulling down of your chains will assure your safety, their resolve is to make you invincible: if to clap up the Lord Mayor just upon the neck of an Election (to serve their own ends) be a City privilege, doubt not there is not a man amongst you upon the least distaste, but shall have his fill of it.  
If it be music to your ears to hear a Thanksgiving Sermon for the murdering of your sons and servants before your doors, you shall never want of such harmony. Look upon the Army now under the command of the L. Fairfax, and observe how they have plotted all along their pactises to hid their horrid proceed under the vizor of godliness? Entertain discourse with them, and you shall hear nothing from them, but of the new man of mortification, self denial and the like. I do not know what they mean by their selfe denial, unless it be to self deny themselves into all the power and purses of the Kingdom: that is their scope and absolute end, else why have they imprisoned their King? why have they seized all the strongest holds of this Land, and invested what Militia they possibly can in their own hands? why else do they at this time subtly plot, and cunningly contrive, the utter undoing of all those Citizens that at this time speak the least tittle against that bloody Traitor Skippon, in ejecting him out of his tyrannical power? How many have they imprisoned within these few days, and for no other end, but because their interest is peace?  
O that you would seriously consider of this, and that you would choose rather to die like men, then to live in perpetual slavery. Can any man amongst you that hath the least spark of common sense or reason, imagine, That it is possible for you to be safe when your neighbour Counties are harassed, their estates seized, their wives big with child threatened to be pistold, their horses plundered, their cattles driven away, their corn destroyed, so that a speedy famine is inevitably threatened. Think your Poor people will in short time rise and cut your throats for want of bread, if not prevented by your timely discretion.  
Be wise therefore in time, lest you be the Epilogue of this sad Tragedy: snort not in supine security: when your neighbour's house is of a flame, think not that yours is fire proof. They have not wanted a will, but they have wanted power to cut your throats; in short time it is to be feared they will have both. You nourish a Snake in your bosoms, (I mean Skippon) you have given him warmth, and he will sting you to death. You suffer Warner to trample upon your necks; you could offer violence to a just King, let not such a Rebel hold the Sword in his hand. He hath sold himself to do wickedness, and struck hands with those that have drawn the sword of rebellion, and thrown away the scabbard; he is familiar with none but such whose rebellion have made them despair of the King's mercy, such as have dipped their feet in innocent blood, and are resolved to wade up to the chin.  
Resolve to call a common Hall, fear not the menaces of a few implacable spirits, who are so deeply interested in this hellish rebellion, that like the Devil they compass Sea and Land to make themselves proselytes; harken no longer to their witchcraft, for their end is to hedge you in to guard their own lives and estates which lay at stake, to engage you in the same bottom, to make you as irrecoverable Traitors as themselves, and then their votes are fully completed, and your ruin is brought home to your doors.  
It makes me to stand at a gaze, and wonderment, to see so many wise men to be rocked in a cradle of good words, into such a Lethargy of destruction; what is there nothing to awaken you? have you all drank of the Lethean well? hath the spirit of slumber so infatuated you that you will die in your nests? me think the menaces from heaven against Rebellion should unlock your benumbed senses: me thinks the justness of the King's cause, the holiness of his life, his clemency, his justice, his sufferings, his patience in adversity, should thaw your hearts, and melt you into obedience: me thinks the good affections of all the Counties round about you, should be an example to you; and will you only stand out? will you only be notorious in this that you began, increased, and fomented this Rebellion? and will you end in it too? repent in time, and set upon the work now ye have an opportunity, else if the King come upon you as Traitors, and so you receive the recompense of Rebellion; the long sword of Heaven▪ either the noisome Pestilence, or the meager faced Famine, sweep you away and your places be no more seen: if neither of these premises have power to make you malleable, me thinks the epidemical decay of trade, and the fear of those numerous growing evils upon you, by reason of the shipping now ready to turn those streams which were wont to fill you with abundance and plenty, should stir you up: if all these prove ineffectual, think that if fire and brimstone from heaven destroy you not, the justly discontented party of this Kingdom, resiant in the City (maugre all orders, ordinances of exile) for their revenge, for the intolerable injuries offered them by you, will see this City (once the glory of this Nation) consumed into a model of ashes.  
In the name of God what is it that should so bewitch you into your present condition? is it fear that you should offend the Parliament, and so run a hazard the loss of your estates? if this be it. I wonder when you will be free of this slavish passion! nay, if the scale be heavy on Fairfax his side, there is not an estate in this City worth a halfpenny, longer than they please: sure I am the eleven Members thought they had dealt wisely enough to save their estates, but an Independent juggle unhinged them in a moment, and sent them packing into a strange Country: or do you begin to idolise your Dagon Parliament, because they grow kind to the City in uncaging your Aldermen? thank them for nothing, it is as meeere a cheat, as arrant an imposture as ever was; had they had a plenary power to put their hellish designs in execution, those grave, loyal, and honest Aldermen should not have drawn breath at this hour, nor must they look for freedom longer than the Army keeps out of the walls of this City.  
Take but this pregnant example of their actions: the Essex Gentlemen were thanked for their Petition at first (a mere formality) many Surrey men had their throats cut for begging the same; that which was a virtue in them and countenanced at the beginning of this Parliament, is now become a sin impardonable: Petitions are the undoubted Privileges of the Subject, yet this liberty in three weeks hath cost the County of Kent three hundred thousand pounds; what is this but the height of robbery? it may be justly maintained that the Parliament and Army are the greatest thiefs in the world; for first they take our purses, and then they gag our mouths that we must not speak.  
I. D.  
FINIS.