AN APOLOGY FOR THE ROYAL PARTY: Written in a LETTER To a Person of the Late COUNCIL of STATE.  
By a Lover of Peace and of his Country.  
WITH A TOUCH At the Pretended PLEA FOR THE ARMY.  
Anno Dom. MDCLIX.   

AN APOLOGY FOR THE ROYAL PARTY: Written in a LETTER to a Person of the late COUNCIL of STATE, By a Lover of Peace and of his Country: With a Touch at the pretended Plea for the Army.  
SIR,  
THe many Civilities which you are still pleased to continue to me, and my very great desire to answer them in the worthiest testimonies of my zeal for your service, must make my best Apology for this manner of Address; if out of an extreme affection for your noblest Interest, I seem transported a little upon your first reflections, and am made to despise the consequence of entertaining you with such Truths, as are of the greatest danger to myself; but of no less import to your happiness, and, which carry with them the most indelible Characters of my Friendship. For if as the Apostle affirms, For a good man, some would even dare to die, why should my Charity be prejudged, if hoping to convert you from the error of your way, I despair not of rendering you the Person for whose preservation there will be nothing too dear for me to expose?  
I might with reason believe that the first election of the Party wherein you stood engaged, proceeded from inexperience and the mistake of your zeal; not to say from your compliances to the passions of others; because I both knew your education, and how obsequious you have always showed yourself to those who had then the direction of you: But, when after the example of their conversion, upon discovery of the Impostures which perverted them; and the signal indignation of God, upon the several Periods which your eyes have lately beheld, of the bloodiest Tyrannies, and most prodigious oppressors that ever any age of the world produced, I see you still persist in your course, and that you have turned about with every revolution which has happened: when I consider, what contradictions you have swallowed, how deeply you have engaged, how servilely you have flattered, and the base, and mean submissions by which you have dishonoured yourself, and stained your noble Family; not to mention the least refinement of your religion or morality (besides that you have still preserved a civility for me, who am ready to acknowledge it, and never merited other from you) I say, when I seriously reflect upon all this; I cannot but suspect the integrity of your procedure, deplore the sadness of your condition, and resolve to attempt the discovery of it to you, by all the instances, which an affection perfectly touched with a zeal for your eternal interest can produce. And who can tell, but it may please Almighty God, to affect you yet by a weak instrument, who have resisted so many powerful indications of his displeasure at your proceed, by the event of things?  
For, since you are apt to recriminate, and after you have boasted of the prosperity of your cause, and the thriving of your Wickedness (an Argument far better becoming a Mahometan then a Christian) let us state the matter a little, and compare particulars together; let us go back to the source, and search the very principles; and then see, if ever any cause had like success indeed; and whether it be a just reproach to your Enemies, that the judgements of God have begun with them, whilst you know not yet, where they may determine.  
First then, be pleased to look North-wards upon your Brothers the Scots, 
Richlieu  who (being first instigated by that crafty Cardinal to disturb the growth of the incomparable Church of England, and so consequently the tranquillity of a Nation, whose expedition at the Isle of Re, gave terror to the French) made Reformation their pretence, to gratify their own avarice, introduce themselves, and a more than Babylonish Tyranny, imposing upon the Church and state, beyond all impudence or example. I say, look upon what they have gotten, by deceiving their Brethren, selling their King, betraying his son, and by all their perfidy; but a slavery more than Egyptian, and an infamy as unparalled, as their treason and ingratitude.  
Look nearer home on those whom they had engaged amongst us here, and tell me if there be a Person of them left, that can show me his prize, unless it be that of his Sacrilege, which he, or his Nephews must certainly vomit up again: What is become of this ignorant and furious zeal, this pretence of an universal perfection in the Religious and the Secular, after all that blood and Treasure, Rapine and Injustice, which has been exhausted, and perpetrated by these sons of Thunder? Where is the King, whom they swear to make so glorious, but meant it in his Martyrdom? Where is the Classis, and the Assembly, the Lay-elder; all that gear of Scotish discipline, and the fine new Trinkets of Reformation? Were not all these taken out of their hand, while now they were in the height of their pride and triumph? And their dull General made to serve the execution of their Sovereign, and then to be turned of himself as a property no more of use to their designs? Their riches, and their strength in which they trusted, and the Parliament which they even idolised, in sum, the prey they had contended for at the expense of so much sin and damnation, seized upon by those very instruments, which they had raised to serve their insatiable avarice, and prodigious disloyalty. For so it pleased God to chastise their implacable persecution of an excellent Prince, with a slavery under such a Tyrant, as not being contented to butcher even some upon the Scaffold, sold divers of them for slaves, and others he exiled into cruel banishment, without pretence of Law, or the least commiseration; that those who before had no mercy on others, might find none themselves; till upon some hope of their repentance, and future moderation, it pleased God to put his hook into the nostrils of that proud Leviathan, and send him to his place, after he had thus mortified the fury of the Presbyterians. For unless God himself should utter his voice from Heaven, yea, and that a mighty voice, can there any thing in the world be more evident, than his indignation at those wretches and bare fact Impostors, who, one after another, usurped upon us, taking them off at the very point of aspiring, and praecipitating the glory and ambition of these men, before those that where, but now, their adoarers, and that had prostituted their consciences to serve their lusts? To call him the Moses, the Man of God, the Joshua, the Saviour of Israel; and after all this, to treat the Thing his son with addresses no less than blasphemous, whose Father (as themselves confess to be the most infamous Hypocrite and proflegate Atheist of all the Usurpers that ever any age produced) had made them his Vassals, and would have entailed them so to his posterity for ever?  
But behold the scene is again changed, not by the Royal party, the Common Enemy, or a foreign power; but by the despicable Rump of a Parliament, which that Mountebank had formerly served himself of, and had raised him to that pitch, and investiture: But see withal, how soon these triflers and puppets of policy are blown away, with all their pack of models and childish Chimeras, nothing remaining of them but their Coffin, guarded by the Soldiers at Westminster; but which is yet less empty than the heads of those Politicians, which so lately seemed to fill it.  
For the rest, I despise to blot paper with a recital of those wretched Interludes, Farces and Phantasms, which appeared in the several intervals; because they were nothing but the effects of an extreme gyddiness, and unparallelled levity. Yet these are those various despensations and providencens in your journey to that holy land of purchases and profits, to which you have from time to time appealed for the justification of your proceed, whilst they were, indeed, no other than the manifest judgements of God upon your rebellion and your ambition: I say nothing of your hypocritical fasts, and pretended humiliations, previous to the succeeding plots, and suppositions Revelations, that the godly might fall into the hands of your Captains, because they were bugbears, and became ridiculous even to the common people.  
And now Sr. if you please, let us begin to set down the product and survey the success of your party; and after all these faces and vertigo●, tell me ingenuously, if the single chastisement with is fallen up one afflicted man, and his loyal subjects, distressed by the common event of wa● want of treasure, the seizure of his Fleet, forcing him from his City, an● all the disadvantages that a perfidious people could imagine; but in fin● the crowning him with a glorious Martyrdom for the Church of God, and the liberty of his people (for which his blood doth yet cry aloud for vengeance) be comparable to the confusion which you (that have been the conquerors) have suffered, and the slavery which you are like to leave to the posterities which will be born but to curse you, and to groan under the pressures which you bequeath to your own flesh and blood? For to what a condition you have already reduced this once flourishing kingdom, since all has been your own, let the intolerable▪ oppressions, taxes, Excises, sequestrations, confiscations, plunders, customs, decimations, not to mention the plate, even to very thimbles and the bodkins (for even to these did your avarice descend) and other booties, speak: All this dissipated and squandered away, to gratify a few covetous and ambitious wretches, whose appetites are as deep as hell, and as insatiable as the grave; as if (as the Wiseman speaks) our time here were but a market for gain.  
Look then into the Churches, and the manners of the people, even amongst your own Saints, and tell me, if since Simon Magus was upon the earth, there were ever heard of so many Schisms, and Heresies, of Jews and Socinians, Quakers, Fifth-monarchy-men, Arians, Anabaptists, Independents, and a thousand several sorts of Blasphemies and professed Atheists, all of them spawned under your government; and then tell me what a Reformation of Religion you have effected?  
Was there ever in the whole Earth (not to mention Christendom alone) a perjury so prodigious, and yet so avowed as that by which you have taken away the estate of my L. Craven, at which the very Infidels would blush, a Turk or Sythian stand amazed?  
Under the Sun was it never heard, that a man should be condemned for transgressing no law, but that which was made after the fact, and abrogated after execution; that the Posterities to come might not be witnesses of your horrid injustice: Yet thus you proceeded against my L. Stafford. How many are those gallant persons whom after articles of war, you have butchered in cold-blood, violating your promises against the Laws of all Nations civil, or barbarous; and yet thus you dealt in the case of my L. Capel, Sr. J. Stawell and others.  
Is not the whole nation become sullen and proud, ignorant and suspicious, incharitable, cursed, and in fine, the most depraved and perfidious under heaven? and whence does all this proceed, but from the effects of your own examples, and the impunity of evil doers?  
I need not tell you how long Justice has been sold by the Comittes, and the Chair-men, the Sequestrators, and Simoniacal Tryers, not to mention the late Courtiers, and a swarm of Publicans who have eaten up the people as if they would eat bread.  
Will you come now to the particular misfortunes, and the evident hand of God upon you for these actions (for he has not altogether left us without some express witnesses of his displeasure at your do.) Behold then your Essex and your Warwick, your Manchester, Browne, Ferfaix, and your Waler, (whom once your Books stilled the Lord of Hosts) Cashiered, Imprisoned, suspected and disgraced after all their services. Hotham, and his Son came to the block: Stapleton had the burial of an Ass; and was thrown into a town Ditch. Brooks and Hamden signally slain in the very act of rebellion and Sacrilege; your atheistical Dorislaw, Ascam, and the Sodomitical Ariba, whom though they escaped the hand of Justice, yet Vengeance would not suffer to live: What become of Rainsburrow? Ireton perished of the Plague, and Hoyle hanged himself; Staplie died mad, and Cromewell in a fit of raging; and if there were any others worthy the taking notice of, I should give you a list of their names and of their destinies, but it was not known whence they came which succeeded them; nor had they left any memory behind them, but for their signal wickednesses, as he that set on fire the Ephesian Temple to be recorded a Villain to posterity. Whereas those noble souls whom your inhumanity, (not your virtue) betrayed, gave proof of their extraction, Innocency, Religion and Constancy under all their Trials and Tormentors; and those that died by the sword, fell in the bed of honour, and did worthily for their Country; their Loyalty and their Religion, will be renowned in the History of Ages, and precious to their memory, when your names will rot with your Carcases, and your remembrance be as dung upon the face of the earth. For there is already no place of Europe where your infamy is not spread, whilst your persecuted Brethren rejoice in their sufferings, can abound, and can want, blush not at their actions, nor are ashamed at their addresses, because they have suffered for that which their Faith and their Birth, their Laws, and their liberties have celebrated with the most glorious Inscriptious, and everlasting Eulogies,  
And if fresher instances of all these particulars be required, cast but your eye a little upon the Army's pretended plea, which came lately a birding to beat the away before them, charm the ears of the vulgar, and captivate the people; That after all its Pseudo-politicks and irreligious Principles, is at last constrained to acknowledge your open and prodigious violations, strange and illegal actions, (as in terms it confesses) of taking up arms, raising and forming Armies against the King, fight against his person, imprisoning, impeaching, arraigning, trying, and executing him: banishing his Children, abolishing Bishops, Deans and Chapters; taking away Kingly Government, and the House of Lords, breaking the crowns, selling the Jewels, Plate, Goods, Houses and Lands belonging unto the Kings of this Nation, erecting extraordinary High-Courts of Justice and therein impeaching, arraigning, condemning, and executing many pretended notorious Enemies to the public peace; when the laws in being, and the ordinary Courts of Justice could not reach them: by strange and unknown practices in this Nation, and not at all justifiable by any known laws and statutes, but by certain diabolical principles of late distilled into some persons of the Army, and which he would entitle to the whole, who (abating some of their Commanders, that have sucked the sweet of this doctrine) had them never so much as entered into their thoughts, nor could they be so depraved, though they were Masters only of the Light of nature to direct them. For Common sense will tell them, that whoever are our lawful superiors, and invested with the supreme Authority, either by their own virtue, or the people's due election, have then a just right to challenge submission to their precepts, and that we acquiesce in their determinations; since there is in nature no other expedient to preserve us from everlasting confusion: But it is the height of all impertinency to conceive, that those which are a part of themselves, and can in so great a body, have no other interests, should fall into such exorbitabitant contradiction to their own good, as a child of four years old would not be guilty of; and as this Phamphleter wildly suggests in pp. 6. 11. 27. etc. did they steer their course by the known laws of the Land, and as obedient Subjects should do, who without the King and his Peers, are but the Carcase of a Parliament, as destitute of the Soul which should inform and give it being. But if so small a handful of men as appeared in the Palace-Yard without consent of a quarter of the English Army, much less of the tenthousandth part of the free people that are not clad in red, shall disturb and alter a Government when it thinks fit to set aside a few imperious officers, who plainly seek themselves, and derive their Commissions from a superior to whom they swear obedience, (I mean not here the Rump) who shall ever hope, or live to see any government established in these miserably abused Nations? For I dare report myself to the ingenuity of the very Soldiers themselves, if they, who have effected all these changes by your wretched instigations, and blind pretences, imagine themselves the people of this Nation, but as a very small portion of them, compared to the whole, and who are maintained by them, to recover and protect the Civil Government, according to the good old laws of the Land; not such as they themselves shall invente from day to day, or as the interests of some few persons may engage them.  
But if the essential end of Rulers be the common peace, and their Laws obliging as they become relative: restore us then to those under which we lived with so much sweetness and tranquillity, as no age in the world, no government under Heaven could ever pretend the like. And if the people (as you declare) are to be the Judges of it, summon them together in a Free Parliament, according to its legal Constitution; or make a universal Balott, and then let it appear, if Colonel Lambert and half a dozen Officers, with all their seduced Partisans, make so much as a single cipher to the Sum Total. And this shall be enough to answer those devious Principles set down in the Porch of that specious Edifice; which being erected upon the Sand, will (like the rest that has been daubed with untempered mortar) sink also at the next high wind that blows upon it. But I am glad it is at last avowed, upon what pretexts that late pretended Parliament have pleaded on the behalf of themselves and party, their discharge from all the former Protestations, Engagements, solemn Vows, Covenants, with hands (as you say) lift up to the most high God, as also their Oaths and Allegiance, etc. because I shall not in this discourse be charged with slandering of them, and that the whole World may detest the Actions of such perfidious Infidels, with whom nothing sacred has remained inviolable.  
But there is yet a piece of Artifice behind, of no less consequence than the former, and that is, a seeking to persuade the present Army, that They were the men, who first engaged thus solemnly to destroy the Government under which they were born, and reduce it to this miserable condition: whereas it is well known by such as converse daily with them, that there is hardly one of ten amongst them, who was then in Arms, and that it was the Zelots under Essex, Manchester, Waller, and the succeeding Generals, who were the persons of whose perfidiousness he makes so much use of, and that the present Army consist of a far more ingenuous spirit, and might in one moment vindicate this aspersion, make their conditions with all advantage, and these nations the most happy people upon the Earth, as it cannot be despaired but they will one day do, when by the goodness of Almighty God, they shall perfectly discern through the mist which you have cast upon their eyes, lest they should discover the Imposture of these Egyptian Sorcerers.  
But now he comes next to glorify the late Northern Expedition, and because it should look more dreadful, he reckons up a horrible Plot of the poor Cavaliers conspiring with Sir Geo. Booth; whereas (God knows) 'twas a thing wholly managed by some of their own party, whom the Rump had disobliged, and that could have no other effect, then to show the judgements of God, upon so many as it involved under a Calamity, which their former Actions had deserved; though, under the pretence of it, and because there was want of prey, many innocent persons were seized upon, and imprisoned with them.  
And now, Sir, if after all this injustice, and impiety on your parts, you have prosecuted that with the extremest madness, which you esteemed criminal in your enemies, viz. To arrogate the supreme power to a single person, condemn men without Law, execute, and proscribe them with as little: Impressed for your Service, violate your Parliaments, dispense with your solemn Oaths; in sum, to mingle Earth and Heaven by your unarbitrary proceed: All which, not only your printed books, this pretended plea; but your Actions have abundantly declared; have you not justified the Royal party, and pronounced them the only honest men which have appeared upon the stage, in Characters as plain, that he which runs may read, whilst yet you persecute them to the death? Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, that perpetratest these things; For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; seeing thou that judgest dost the same things. But thinkest thou this, O man, that thus judgest them which do such things, and dost the same, that thou shalt escape the vengeance of God? I tell ye nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.  
Truly, Sir, when I compare these things together, and compare them I do very often, consider the purchases which you have made, and the damnation you have certainly adventured; the despite you have done to the name of Christ, the Laws of Common humanity which you have violated, the malice and the folly of your proceed; in fine, the confusion which you have brought upon the Church, the State, and yourselves; I adore the just and righteous judgement of God; and (howsoever you may possibly emerge, and recover the present rout) had rather be a sufferer amongst those whom you have thus afflicted, and thus censure, then to enjoy the pleasures of your sins for that season you are likely to possess them: For if an Angel from heaven should tell me you had done your duties, I would no more believe him, then if he should preach another Gospel, then that which has been delivered to us; because you have blasphemed that holy Profession, and done violence to that Gracious Spirit, by whose sacred dictates you are taught to live in obedience to your Superiors, and in Charity to one another; covering yet all this Hydra of Impostures with a mask of Piety and Reformation, whilst you breathe nothing but oppression, and lie in wait to deceive. But O God how long shall the Adversary do this dishonour, how long shall the Enemy blaspheme thy name, for ever? They gather them together against the soul of the Righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. Lo these are the ungodly, these prosper in the world, and these have riches in possession: And I said, then have I cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. Yea, and I had almost said as they; but lo, than I should have condemned the generation of thy Children. Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me, until I went into the Sanctuary of God; then understood I the end of these men. Namely, how thou dost set them in slippery places, castest them down and destroyest them.  
O how suddenly do they consume, perish, and come to a fearful end!  
We have seen it, indeed Sir, we have seen it, and we cannot but acknowledge it the very finger of God, mirabile in oculis nostris; and is that, truly, which even constrains me out of Charity to your Soul, as well as out of a deep sense of your Honour, and the Friendship which I otherwise bear you, to beseech you to re-enter into yourself, to abandon those false Principles, to withdraw yourself from these Seducers, to repent of what you have done, and save yourself from this untoward generation: There is yet a door of Repentance open, do not provoke the Majesty of the great God any longer, which yet tenders a Reconciliation to you. Remember what was once said over the perishing Jerusalem. How often would have gathered you together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wing● and ye would not? Behold, your House is left unto you desolate.— For 〈◊〉 not think it impossible, that we should become the most abandoned, a●● barbarous of all the nations under heaven. You know who has said i●, He turneth a fruitful land into a Wilderness, for the iniquity of them that i● habit therein. And truly, he that shall seriously consider the sad Carast●●●…phe of the Eastern Empire, so flourishing in piety, policy, knowledge, liter●…ture, and all the excellencies of a happy and blessed people; would almo●● think it impossible, that in so few years, and a midst so glorious a light learning and Religion, so sudden, and palpable a darkness, so stran●●… and horrid a barbarity should overspread them, as now we behold in 〈◊〉 that goodly tract of the Turkish dominions: And what was the cause of a this, but the giddiness of a wanton people, the Schisms and the Heresi●… in the church, and the prosperous successes of a rebellious Imposto●… whose steps we have pursued in so many pregnant instances, giving countenance to those unheard of impieties, and delusions, as if God be not infinitely merciful, must needs involve us under the same disasters? For, whi●●t there is no order in the Church, no body of Religion agreed upon, no government established, and that every man is abandoned to his own deceitful heart: whilst learning is decried, and honesty discountenanced, rapit●… defended, and virtue finds no advocate; what can we in reason expect● but the most direful expressions of the wrath of God, a universal desolation, when by the industry of Satan and his crafty Emisaries, some desperate enthusiasm, compounded (like that of Mohomet,) of Arian, Socinian, Jew Anabaptist, and the impurer Gnostick, something I say made up of all these heresies, shall diffuse itself over the Nation, in a universal contagion, and nothing less appear then the Christian which we have ingratefully renounced?  
For this plague is already beginning amongst us, and there is none to take the Censer, and to stand between the living and the dead, that we be not consumed as in a moment; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord. Let us then departed from the tents of these wicked men (who have brought all this upon us) and touch nothing of theirs, lest we be consumed in all their sins.  
But you will say, the King is not to be trusted: judge not of others by yourselves; did ever any man observe the least inclination of revenge in his breast? has he not besides the innate propensity of his own nature to gentleness, the strict injunctions of a dying Father and a Martyr, to forgive even greater offenders than you are? Yes, I dare pronounce it with confidence, and avouch it  all assurance, that there is not an individual all amongst you, whose crimes are the most crimson, whom he will not be most ready to pardon, and graciously receive upon their repentance; nor any thing that can be desired of him, to which he would not cheerfully accommode, for the stopping of that torrent of blood, and extreme confusion, which has hitherto run, and is yet imminent over us. Do but reason a little with yourself, and consider sadly, whether a young Prince, mortified by so many afflictions, disciplined by much experience, and instructed by the miscarriages of others, be not the most excellently qualified to govern and reduce a people, who have so successesly tried so many governments, of old, impious and crafty Foxes, that have exercised upon us the most intolerable Tyrannies that were ever heard of?  
But you object further, that he has lived amongst Papists, is viciously inclined, and has wicked men about him: What can be said more unjustly, what more malicious? And can you have the foreheads to tell us he has lived amongst Papists to his prejudice, who have proscribed him from Protestants, persecuted him from place to place, as a Patridg on the Mountains? You may remember who once went to Achich the King of Gath, and changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands; had many great infirmities, and was yet a man after Gods own heart; Whilst the Catholic King was your Ally, you had nothing to do with Papists, it was then no crime: God is not mocked, away with this respect of persons: But where is it you would have him to be? The Hollander dares not afford him harbour, lest you refuse them yours: The French may not give him bread for fear of offending you; and unless he should go to the Indies, or the Turk (where yet your malice would undoubtedly reach him) where can he be safe from your revenge? But suppose him in a Papist Country, constrained thereto by your incharity to his Soul as well as body; would he have condescended to half so much, as you have offered for a toleration of Papists, he needed not now have made use of this Apology, or wanted the assistance of the most puissant Princes of Christendom to restore him, of whom he has refused such conditions as in prudence he might have yielded to, and the people would have gladly received; whilst those who know with what persons you have transacted, what truck you have made with the Jesuits, what secret Papists there are amongst you, may easily divine why they have been no forwarder to assist him, and how far distant he is from the least wavering in his Faith. But since you have now declared that you will tolerate all Religions, without exception; do not think it a sin in him, to gratify those that shall most oblige him.  
For his virtues and Morality, I provoak the most refined Family in this Nation to produce me a Relation of more piety and moderation; show me a Fraternity more spotless in their honour, and freer from the exorbitances of youth, than these three Brothers, so conspicuous to all the world for their Temperance, Magnanimity, Constancy, and Understanding; a friendship and humility unparallelled and rarely to be found amongst the severest p rsons, scarcely in a private family. It is the malice of a very black Soul, and a virulent ●●●egado (of whom to be commended were the utmost infamy) that has interpreted some compliances, to which persons in distress are sometimes engaged, with those whom they converse withal, to his Majesty's disadvantage: whilst these filthy dreamers defile the flesh themselves, and thinking it no sin to despise dominion, speak evil of dignities, and of the things which they know not. But woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Kain, and run greedily after the error of Balaam, for reward, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.  
For the rest, I suppose the same was said of Holy David, when in his extreme calamity, he was constrained to fly from Saul. For every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became Captain over them. And to this retinue, has your malice and persecution reduced this excellent Prince; but he that preserved him in the Wood, and delivered David out of all his troubles, shall likewise in his appointed time, deliver him also out of these distresses.  
I have now answered all your calumnies, and have but a word to add, that I may yet incline you to accept of your best interest, and prevent that dreadful ruin which your obstinacy does threaten. Is it not as perspicuous as the Sun, that it lies in your power to reform his Counsel, introduce yourselves, make what composition you can desire, have all the security that mortal men can imagine, and the greatest Princes of Europe to engage in the performance? This were becoming worthy men, and honourable indeed; this ingenuous self-denial: And it is no disgrace to reform a mistake, but to persist in it lies the shame. The whole Nation require it of you, and the laws of God command it, you cannot, you must not defer it. For what can you pretend that will not then drop into your bosoms? The humble man will have repose, the aspiring and ambitious, honours: The Merchant will be secure, Trades immediately recover, alliances will be confirmed, the Law's reflourish, tender Consciences considered, present purchasers satisfied; The Soldier paid, maintained and provided for; and what's above all this, Christianity and Charity will revive again amongst us, Mercy and Truth will meet together; righteousness and peace shall kiss each other.  
But let us now consider on the other side, the confusion, which must of necessity light upon us if we persist in our rebellion and obstinacy; We are already impoverished, and consumed with war and the miseries that attend it; you have wasted our treasure, and destroyed the Woods, spoilt the Trade, and shaken our properties; a universal animosity is in the very bowels of the Nation; the Parent against the Children, and the Children against the Parents, betraying one another to the death; in sum, if that have any truth which our B. Saviour has himself pronounced, That a Kingdom divided cannot stand, it is impossible we should subsist in the condition we are reduced to. Consider we again, how ridiculous our late proceed have made us to our neighbours round about us. Their Ministers laugh at our extram giddiness, and we seem to mock at their addresses: for no sooner do their credentials arrive, but behold the scene is changed, and the Government is fled, he that now acted King, left a fool in his place, and they stand amazed at our Buffoonery and madness.  
What then may we imagine will be the product of all these disadvantages, when the Nations that deride and hate us, shall be united for our destruction; and that the harvest is ripe for the sickle of their fury? shall we not certainly be a prey to an inevitable ruin, having thus weakened ourselves by a brutish civil war, and cut off those glorious Heros, the wise and the valiant, whose couragein such a calamity we shall in vain imploar, that would bravely have sacrificed themselves for our delivery? Let us remember how often we have served a foreign people, and that there is nothing so confident, but a provoaked God can overthrow.  
For my part, I tremble, but to consider what may be the issue of these things, when our iniquities are full, and that God shall make inquisition for the blood that has been spilt; unless we suddenly meet him by an unfeigned repentance, and turn from all the abominations by which we have provoaked him; And then, it is to be hoped, that he who would have compounded with the Father of the faithful, had there been but ten Righteous men in Sodom; and that spared Nineveh that populous and great City; will yet have mercy on us, harken to the prayers, and have regard to the tears, of so many Millions of people, who day and night do interceded with him: The Priests and Ministers of the Lord weeping between the porch and the Altar, and saying, Spare thy people O Lord, spare thy People, and give not thine Inheritance to reproach.  
And now I have said what was upon my Spirit for your sake, when, for the satisfaction of such as (through its effect upon your soul) this Address of mine may possibly come to, I have religiously declared, that the Person who writ it, had no unworthy or sinister design of his own to gratify, much less any other party whatever; as being neither Courtier, Soldier or Churchman, but a plain Country Gentleman, engaged on neither side, who, has had leisure, (through the goodness of God) candidly, and without passion to examine the particulars which he has touched, and expects no other reward in the success of it, than what Christ has promised in the Gospel; The Benediction of the peace maker; and which he already feels in the discharge of his Conscience; being for his own particular, long since resolved with himself, to persist in his Religion, and his loyalty to the death, come what will; as being fully persuaded, that all the persecutions, losses, and other accidents which may arrive him for it here, are not worthy to be compared to that eternal weight of glory which is to be revealed hereafter; and to the inexpressible consolation, which it will afford on his Deathbed, when all these guilded pleasures will disappear, this noise, and empty pomp; when God shall set all our sins in order before us; and when, it is certain, that the humble, and the peaceable, the charitable and the meek shall not lose their reward, nor change their hopes, for all the Crowns and the Sceptres, the Laurels, and the Trophies, which ambitious and self seeking men contend for, with so much Tyranny and injustice.  
Let them therefore no longer deceive you, dear Sr. and as the guise of these vile men is, tell you they are the Godly-party, under which for the present they would pass, and courage themselves in their wickedness, stopping their ears, and shutting their eyes against all that has been taught and practised by the best of Christians, & holiest of Saints these sixteen hundred years: You shall know them by their fruits, do men gather Grapes of Thorns, or Figs of Thistles? But so, being miserably galled with the remembrance of their impieties, and the steps by which they have ascended to those fearful precepices, they seek to allay the secret pangs of a gnawing worm, by adopting the most prodigious of their crimes into a Religion fitted for the purpose, and versatile as their giddy interest, till at last, encouraged by the number of thriving Proselytes and successes, they grow seared and confident; swallowing all with ease, and passing from one heresy to another; whilst yet they are still pursued, and shall never be at repose: For Conscience will at last awake, and then how frightful, how deplorable, yea, how inexpressably sad will that day be unto them! For these things have they done, and I held my tongue (saith God) and they thought wickedly, that I am such a one as themselves; but I will reprove them and set before them the things that they have done. O consider this ye that forget God, lest he pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you!  
And now Sir, you see the liberty which I have taken, and how far I have adventured to testify a friendship which I have ever professed for you: I have indeed been very bold; but it was greatly requisite; and you know that amongst all men, there are none which more openly use the freedom of reprehension, than those who love most: Advices are not rejected by any, but such as determine to pursue their evil courses; and the language which I use, is not to offend, but to beseech you to return. I conjure you therefore to re-enter into yourself, and not to suffer these mean and dishonourable respects, which are unworthy your nobler spirit, to prompt you to a course so deformed, and altogether unworthy your education and Family. Behold your friends all deploaring your misfortunes, and your Enemies even pity you; whilst to gratify a few mean and desperate persons, you cancel your duty to your prince, and disband your Religion; dishonour your name, bring ruin and infamy on your posterity.  
But when all this shall fail (as God forbidden a title of it should) I have yet this hope remaining; that when you have been sufficiently sated with this wicked course, wandered from place to place, government to government, sect to sect, in so universal a deluge, and find no repose for the sole of your foot, (as it is certain you never shall) you will at last with the peaceful Dove, return to the Ark from whence you fled, to your first principles, and to sober counsels; or with the repenting Prodigal in the Gospel, to your Father which is in heaven, and to the Father of your Country: For in so doing, you shall not only rejoice your servant, and all good men, but the very Angels which are in heaven, and who are never said to rejoice indeed, but at the Conversion of a sinner.  
This 27. Octob. 1659. Et tu conversus, converte Fratres.  PSAL. 37. 
10. Yet a little while, and the ungodly shall be clean gone, thou shalt look after his place, and he shall be away.  
36. I myself have seen the ungodly in great power, and flourishing like a green Bay-tree.  
37. I went by, and lo he was gone; I sought him, but his place could no where be found.  
38. Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right: For that shall bring a Man peace at the last.   

I request the Reader to take notice, that where, mentioning the Presbyterian, I have let fall expressions, somewhat relishing of more than usual asperity; I do by no means intent it to the prejudice of many of that Judgement, who were either men of peaceable spirits from the beginning; or that have of late given testimony of the sense of their error, whilst they were abused by those specious pretences I have reproved; but I do regard them with as much charity and affection, as becomes a sincere Christian, and their Brother.  
FINIS.