A LETTER FROM A NOBLEMAN Of this Kingdom, (Now in Arms for his King and Country) To the Lord SAY, seriously inviting him to his Allegiance.   printer's or publisher's device 
July 18th LONDON, Printed in the year, 1648.   

A Letter from a Noble man of this Kingdom (now in Arms for his King and Country) to the Lord Say, seriously inviting him to his Allegiance.  
BEcause I know (my Lord) you are wise, and capable of conviction, and for that you are noble by extraction, whereunto I also pretend: I cannot doubt of your kind acceptance of a Letter which shall accent Truth, and breathe Love: were you a Plebeian, believe it and Phlegmatic, I would not spend either time or paper to reduce you to a fond understanding. Deeply (Right Honourable) prudent men err, and there is no such irremediable defection from Virtue and Religion, as when a sapient head hath occasionally slipped from truth; so unwilling is humane nature to confess an error: Which to do, Divinity accounts it most honourable, most truly Religious. Is it that specious pretence of God's Cause which led you on these 7 years into horrid Rebellion against your natural Prince, meriting: better things at your hands, even by personal favours? Does the Law seem to afford a chasm or riffe, wherein to hid the guilt without immediate repentance inexpiable? Does it by any inversion seem to justify your transactions? Or does (which is most probable) a sweet ambience of supereminent liberty and command over your fellow Subjects, subjecting them to despotical and Arbitrary Votes, illaqueate your understanding? Verily Sir, one of these three or all, must undeniably be granted to be ground, to every prospective Epicle appear to be the foundation; whereupon, so unhappily hitherto the artificial Babel you have raised, is laid. I desquire them respectively I will examine them impartially. I am a Gent. a Christian, a Protestant, a man qualified, even for an Ordinance of Parliament: Nay, truly to speak, no less a lover of your natural endowments, then admiring your advised wickedness. Pardon that biting truth, which your hodiernall perpetrations and guilt hath wrung from me, your amazed friend. God's Cause can be concentred in nothing, but in Religion. What offers our second Solomon hath made for the establish of the Soul of the world, need I tell you? Discipline is a shell, no art can make it analogically comparate to dogmatic truth, not adequate unto it, no Scripture susceptible of such a stretch, that it can be justly asserted, it is necessarily enjoined to be identical in all polities: it is necessary, but in spene may admit of alteration. 'tis not that hath made you burn with zeal, we know you are of a more plausible conscience. How the seem of our Law will statuminate, will justify you: I would you would discover, and send me, and all Lawyers away with conviction. Hath an English Prince a natural and politic capacity inseparably joined? None denies it. Is it high Treason to maintain, our Sovereign ought to be obeyed rather out of a respect unto His politic capacity than His natural? Raise the means of the conscious spevers they have signed it with their blood. Else may Rebellion be made a justifiable trade, and His Majesty properly enstiled the King of Devils. These are not (noble Lords) the addle issue of a melancholy brain, but subuxt with rights reason, use it rightly,; and see your slips. Stawell was fined for his Delinquence against the Parligment, for levying War against the King, he stands indicted, strange contradictions no whimsy of virtually trasmitted power from His Majesty unto His Subjects will vindicate that device from being rightly honoured with the title of the most absolute piece of senseless iniquity in the world. Are you a afraid to trust the King? Greater security than an act of Parliament, you can never have; fight on till doomsday: which I guess by the Symptoms of maritime aspects to be approximant and ready to show her face. But there is a sweet covenant, whose sanction must be regarded, as to eradication of the hierarchy, which the King denies, because inconsistent with damnable sacrilege, the main cause which makes scarlet gown men arch up their eyebrows on Thanksgiving-days for Victories, for air, for the Echo of the vain rumurst for shedding innocent blood, and deep depopulating England the late gem and Ormusium of the universe; their  the knack of interest, and in that I fear, your honour hopes to share: suspend a while your judgement in the covenants seen, till it be defined, what scene it will bear, in malis promissis rescinde fidem, is a gloden rule, excellent Aphorism. I tell you once more, our Law can protect itself without a Sword. England will bleed her vital breath, and never close her orifice of necessities, till our excellent Law be suffered to inchannell itself rightly to the ocean of Honour. Who sees not with what cables she is made to retain some vessels, and how easily she lets go the other flat bottomed Barges of our unhappiness? How is he constrained to yelp ruin to wisely qualified and religious how smoothly she utters Placentia to the hellish Caterpillars of this our Isle? There is not the least shadow of Law on your side, there must then be still behind, Execrable in Moral Policy, that other presumption strongly fortified with vehement probability, since that your Lordship and others hath to long in gross, and wallowed in the Royal Bath of Sovereignty. Is it possible a few transient hours of impety in this Tabernacle, in this subterlunary habitation, can transport such a star of humane reason beyond its due course? dares it encounter with Charles-wain? and unhinge Religion, Laws, make common Equity a foolery, do such actions as were never exemplifyed, since this Island lost the name of Olbion. Must Religion upon Machiavillian principles be collaterally respected, and premised, as worthy some animadvertence, because she hath a quality to harness high shoes unto the carriages of Hell watraved aims? See, see, (thou great engrosser of Policy) those paths which conduct to thy future happiness our immediate tranquillity, so humane, (for 'tis thy miseries thou dost see) what opportunity is. yet left by heaven's indulgence unto thee, to return and: ingremiate thyself with him, who will forgive thee: Whose Virtues, whose Religion hath startled Europe, and begot just obloqui upon our Nation, for abusing Sovereignty, for subiecting Piety itself in abstruse to the whistle of contemptible villainy. I burst with grief, what remedy? 'tis thy soul I love; 'tis thy actions I abhor: which should I comprobate, that God, which for our great sins hath unchained Hell's Bandogs these seven years elapsed last, would expunge my name out of the Book of Life.  
Be not (I conjure you) any longer so desperate an enemy to your own Eternity.  
FINIS.