The Humble PETITION OF THE Well-affected Commons of England: PRESENTED To the two Honourable Houses of PARLIAMENT, for a speedy Reformation,( which hath been long expected) both in CHURCH and STATE.  
Submissively Supplicating That Grand ASSEMBLY; That they would be pleased to Propound to, and Advice with the Grave and Reverend SYNOD Concerning the premises.  
Printed in the year. 1643.   

The humble Petition of the well-affected Commons, &c.  
Humbly Sheweth,  
BEfore we presume to relate our great grievances, our grievous Perplexities, our present sorrows, and personal Sufferings; Give us leave( we humbly beseech you) ●o commemorate to the world your grand cares for the public good, your unwearied labours, your incessant pains, your indefatigable industry, your late-sittings, and early risings, your unanimous consent, and determinate Resolution, not to desert the Cause, which you are resolved to maintain with your Lives and Fortunes. And though these your valiant Determinations have animated the blood-thirsty Papists to combine and confederate themselves in a hostile manner, with a powerful Army now in the very bowels of the Nation; yet nevertheless, such is your undaunted Prowis, that ye have already prepared, and raised an Army of Horse and Foot to meet and oppose them in the open Field. The Romanists have been a long time Arch enemies to our kingdom, and our Religion; from time to time they have been the onely Incendaries and Contrivers of the miseries and distractions of this Land. They have recrwted their Forces by the assistance of foreign Nations, some of the Rebels lately in Ireland are joined unto them, they have now m●ny strings to the bow of their expectation in the Northern parts, and have strongly fortified their party by the aid and concurrence of the friends of Anti Christ, or( at least) of those who are friend● of his friends and Adherents. Their only end and aim is to introduce the Species and form of Popery into this Land; and their Superlative design is to abolish, and quiter extirpate,( if it were possible) our true Protestant Religion.  
To what a height of Insolence are they now arrived at? Certainly that saying of the lyric Poet may be truly verified of them; One word in the Verse onely inverted;  
— Audax omnia Perpeti;  
Gens Romana ruit pervetitum Nefas.  
Against these your Arch-enemies who are insatiate after our blood, and implacable in their rage and mal●ce against us, you have forthwith impressed men for Service, and raise this City and Kingdom, as one man, to subdue and subjugate them, who would tyramnize, and make Slaves of us. Eo Pede, quo caepisti pergas, As you have bravely begun, so( In Gods Name) go on: Go on and Prosper; The Lord of hosts, and God of Battailes go along with your Army, Teach their hands to war, and their fingers to Fight; And for yourselves( Ye Worthies of this our Israel) the more ze●lous you are now for God, the more gracious will he be still to you; As you maintain his Cause, so will he maintain you in his Cause, In the prosecution whereof, an eternity of famed doth attend you here on earth, an Immortality of Glory shall crown you hereafter in Heaven.  
As we have thus in unfeigned and hearty thankfulness made a real and true Confession of this great Councells valour and integrity,( you being the Aggregate ●ody of the whole Kingdome● in which respect it is impossible, that such a grave Senate, the great council of the King and kingdom should err, or do any injury, Vel ex odio, Vel ex Livore;) So in the next place; We the humble and poor Commons of distressed, and almost destroyed England, do as in a Map present unto you our manifold Miseries which we have a long time sustained, and sad Calamities, which for these many yeers we have groaned under, and are now grown such an intolerable, and unsupportable weight and burden, that we are no longer able to undergo them. The distempers and distractions of this our languishing Kingdom are various, and indeed innumerable; yet nevertheless,( for brevity sake) we will reduce them to three he●ds: Matter of Religion. Justice. And the Liberty and Propriety of the Subject. How this Land hath lamentably suffered of late yeers in all these, the woeful History of these times doth sufficiently testify. To these three( with the leave and favour of this Honourable Court) we may allude the approved Opinion of learned Physitians; who hold that in the Body natural there are three main principles, Namely; Cor, Caput, & Jecur; the Heart, the Head, and the Liver; Now if any these be infected, or any ways distempered, the whole body suffers: And as it is in the Body natural, so it is in the Body politic. The truth is, that the Heart, Head, and Liver of this Commonwealth hath been dangerously sick; so perilously sick, that had it not been for the sage advice, and mature council of this renowned Assembly( the great physician, the Parliament) the body politic of this State had long ere this been brought to an utter dissolution. The diseases of the State grow on, more and more, like a violent Torrent, they are likely to overwhelm the whole Kingdom, what with Innovasions in point of Religion, corrupting in matters of Justice, and violation of the Subjects Liberty, and Propriety in his estate, this whole land strangely suffers, his Majesty of latter times hath been miserable misled and mis-informed by his Councellors in matters of State-policy; by his Clergy, in matter of Conscience; and by his Judges, in matters of Justice: And therefore that the Grandia Regni, the great affairs of the Kingdom have so unfortunately been miscarried, the fault is not in him, but in them.  
The KING of himself is like the sun in the Firmament, which shines gloriously of itself, but when it is obnubilated, it is in regard of the interposition of some clouds about it: In like manner there is a Malignant Party, which stands between the Prince and his People; This is not one of the least grievances which we undergo, and for the timely redress thereof, that saying of Solomon( of mortal men, of immortal memory) is worthy to be embraced, Take away the wicked from before the KING, that his Throne may be established in righteousness. The two supporters of the KINGS throne, are Mercy, and Justice; unless Delinquents and Malignants be removed from his Majesties presence, his throne will hardly be settled and established in righteousness.  
That the administration of Justice hath been perverted it is too evident, for a long time the laws have lain still, and not been put in execution: We all know, that the world cannot afford, nor the wit of man cannot invent better laws then this kingdom now enjoys; All the defect is, only want of execution: And that the Subject hath been oppressed of late dayes, we the poor Commons of England are to too sensible, we have been deprived of our Liberties, by the imprisonment of our bodies, and detained of our Property by the pillaging of our goods; all which we know is contrary to the Liberty of the Subject, and quiter opposite to the known and fundamental laws of this Land. But our greatest grievance which goes nearest to our hearts, is the violating of our Religion, our Religion, which is dearer then our Lives, Liberties and Fortunes: How is the face of it besmeared? how is the purity of it defiled.  
These premises considered in the aforesaid grievances related, our submissive Supplication unto this Honourable Assembly is, that you would be pleased( for under God is lies in your power) to take these into your grave and judicious consideration, and forthwith to redress, and to administer timely remedies to these emergent maladies both in Church and Commonwealth: You have been long, and now are upon the happy work of Reformation. Reformation is that which you endeavour for, and we all pray for; we doubt not but that God in his good time will grant it, and make you the happy instruments in the accomplishment thereof.  
And because the main matter in the Reformation of this Land consists in the abolishing of Popery, the extirpating of arminianism, and purging of our Church from those errors & Innovations, with which of latter times she hath been defiled, Therefore our humble suite unto this renowned Senate is, that you would be pleased in the first place in your consultations, to enter upon the Reformatton of Religion, that it may be settled and established in this kingdom in the Primitive Purity thereof, that so the wholesome and Soul-saving doctrines and tenets of our Mother the Church of England may be truly taught and preached, and the two Sacraments( as they ought to be) rightly administered. To the end, our last Supplication( which is not the least) is, that you would be pleased, to give Order to the Reverend SYNOD of divines now assembled,( as we know your vigilancy and endeavour in this kind is not wanting) that they have a special care in this particular, and not be tardy in the performance, but with all possible expedition to hasten so good and pious a work: The glory whereof will be Gods, the Honour yours, the benefit and happiness the whole kingdoms.  
And We your daily Orrators shall( as We are perpetually obliged) pray, &c.  
FJNJS.