PACIFICUS, OR The Peace-maker.  
MOTIVES FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION: Directed to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common council.  
 
LONDON, Printed May 24. MDCXLVIII.   

To the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, and the Right Worshipful the Aldermen, and the Common council of the City of LONDON in Common council assembled, these present.  
My Lord and Gentlemen,  
THe great respect I bear to yourselves and City( the strength and glory of this island) and the sad sense of those desolating calamities so visibly imminent over it and the whole Nation hath moved me to take the boldness to represen● unto you the sense of the wiser sort of men in the Country, and what their expectation is from you in their present perplexity, and how deeply you will share in the hatred and Countries curse, if their expectation be frustrate by you. The glory, happiness, and stability of this kingdom as a Body politic is( under God) without controversy in a constant Monarch and seasonable Parliaments. The latter to invent and find out good laws; the other to confirm and execute them by his Ministers. How grievous the want of either of these is to the weal of this Nation( while we have been under a King without seasonable Parliaments, or under a Parliament without the concurrence of a King) our late experience hath made so sensible, that to endeavour any demonstration of it, were to hold a candle to the Sun. An end of this misery( unless God raise up some powerful Mediators by mutual compliance to work some accommodation) is among the things rather to be desired then hoped for. The Parliament is gone so far on the one side, and the Countries begin to rise so high on the other, and the provacations permitted by God of that quality, that in the eye o●●eason, without some extraordionary interposition from earth or heaven, either King or Parliament must fall; and with the one the glory, safe●y, and quiet of this English Nation; and with the other the freedom of it; and on it must needs follow the exceeding dang●●s of all those that have been the Parliaments supporters in this unnatural War, wherein how great a share you are supposed to have had, you very well know. Now on whom are the eyes of all the men of England fixed to expect a vigorous mediation for mutual compliance, but on you of the City of London? God hath made you the great Chamber of this Nation: Treasure to nourish an Army cannot( or very hardly) be had without you; and( if entire) none can command your tr●asure without your consent. Hereby your weight is able to balance right against either party that would enthrall it; and there is as great expectation from your goodness, as from your power. The famed of your forwardness in Religion( that teacheth and persuadeth unity and peace); the not obscure evidences of your dislike of those ways of injustice, pressures, and distance with the King( which occasions our present complaints and fears) nourishes hopes, that whatever providences shall make you more able to stand up for a good accommodation, they shall not make you less willing. Other visible help there is none; Strangers do not so much regard us: Our Brethren of Scotland are so divided, and so affected, that the one party is feared to incline to keep up the Parliament without the King; the other to set up the King, not with, but against the Parliament; which are the two extremes which threaten our ruin. Besides, help from them would neither come on terms so suitable to an exhausted Kingdom, nor so honourable as from an home hand. Our expectation therefore is from you, that you would set your hearts to endeav●ur some expedient between King and Parliament, that both may be united, neither laid aside nor ruined; that neither privilege may swallow up sovereignty, nor sovereignty devour privilege; nor either of them overthrow the Laws, Liberties and Properties of this long flourishing Kingdom. Wherein the Country are too royal( as it often happens that one extreme begets another) let your wisdom rectify them: wherein they are( according to Scripture, and the engagement of divers Oaths) loyal, let your conjunction strengthen them. If your co●currence be required to continue the rejection of the King, let your ears be deaf, and your purses sealed; for thatis one of the sourses of our miseries: If the like be required to the suppression of the Parliament, be therein like affencted; for if the former be Scylla, this is Charybdis: but upon an overture of reconciliation show yourselves, show yourselves as willing to buy Peace as Truth, though at a dear rate; for that's never dear, which is the onely safeguard to all that's left. Remember your engagements to both, as well in regard of your dependence on both, as of your solemn Protestations and Covenants to preserve the rights and dignities of the one, with the privileges & safety of the other, and accordingly desert neither in what is good. While things have been pendulous, and were onely feared, how heavy have you felt it in your trading? But if the fire once breaks out, your miseries must and will increase with extremities. If your endeavours might prevent your own, your Cities, and Countries ruin, and you act not, either benumbed with base fear, or slothful for want of needful zeal, what guilt will be charged on you from God to draw upon you his heavy curse? for he that hinders not 
Qui non vetat peccare 〈◇〉 posset, ●u ●et.  when he may, promotes calamity. Had Hester such masculine resolution to engage for her peoples safety, with this, If I perish, I perish? and such bowels to fall down at the feet of her Lord with tears beseeching him; resenting it as a burden her heart could not endure, to see the evil that should come on her people? And shall any be so effeminate as to stick at ways wherein( and that but perhaps) they may meet with frowns? Can any sit still and see desolation coming on his people like an armed man, and not thrust himself into the breach with all his might, lest he should see their destruction, and red his own accessarinesse to it written in his own conscience with black characters? And what an eye will the Country have upon you, if you appear not for a general reconcilement in this exigent? & of what consequence may it be? If they being discontented should with-hold provisions, it would be but a little loss to them; but how many of your poor Citizens must suddenly pine away, strike thorough for want of the fruits of the earth? and what ill blood may that cause against them, whose neglect of the Countries interterest and desires hath alienated the hearts, and secluded the store of the Country from them? In brief, without a wonder there must be a new War, or a reconcilement between King and Parliament, and the burdened and incensed Kingdom. If a new War▪ how gri●vous is it like to be, and of how dangerous consequence? The Scots are supposed to come in numerous, and this is a peeled Kingdom: not onely for their sins blasted from heaven in the last harvest; but devoured also by souldiers, who usually make no spare, who ever else want. Though no stroke be struck, how must this increase the samine, and by consuming scant provisions make many perish by hunger? But if once blood be drawn between forces so numerous, so enraged on both sides, what rivers of blood are like to follow? And how much of it,( yea all of it) will be charged on them, who might & should have prevented it by any compliance not sinful? in which war ●f you engage, you must be sure to maintain it to the exhausting of your treasure, and blood too( as formerly) if need require. And if in it you prevail, what shall you get, but still exalt those over you, who when they need you not, you know how they love you, by their indignities put upon you, threatenings against you, and impeachments preferred against the fairest flowers of your society? But if the War miscarry, what will be the center wherein all the read lines of disdain, envy and revenge will meet, but London? Your rich spoil must be designed as sometimes that of Egypt was to Nebuchadnezzar's army for their wages in their hard service in the siege of Tyre. But above all,( which I hope will lye next your hearts) how is Religion( which is held forth as the greatest grievance, and most plausible pretence of a new War) like to suffer by a new War now? What scandal lies upon it by the present condition of our sovereign? how do we justify the doctrine of Papists against heretical Kings, so declaimed against by all Protestant writers, and by none more, or more convincingly, then by the glorious lights of England? How will religion by a new War be weakened, to endanger it to become a prey to the common enemy? and what hazard shall Religion run? If you prevail in it, what hath, what is likely to be the issue of it, but the heightening of Sectaries, who many of them are as bitter enemies to ord●rly reformation, and as mischievous to Religion( by disgracing our ministry and Ordinances) as any other, because their calumnies are more headed? But if you miscarry, what can you expect but the ch●sing away your most precious Ministers, the return of all former superstitions and slaveries, and to have no footsteps left of your begun and longed for reformation? All which hazards and evils may be prevented by a seasonable reconciliation. And all this while, what shall become of distressed Ireland? can it do otherwise then either bleed, or at least languish to death? Appear therefore, and that seasonably and vigorously, for a reconcil●ment between King and Parliament, that before the Scots enter in ● way of hostility, there may be an application to his Majesti● by both Na●ions, not by way of Imposition, but Treaty, with ●●soluti●● to give or take satisfaction, and that both in what shall be deman●●d from and for the King. And though it be not fit to pr●scrib● a place, yet sith the spirits of many people are so incensed at that trap wherein he now lies taken and held, it need not be deemed uncivil to move( some things first granted for security, which former offers may assure us his majesty will not now deny) for a place of treaty, of mor● honour, freedom and conveni●ncy for returns, then that Castle wherein now he is, as in a prison. And why should not London be deemed as fit a place for Treaty as any other? Certainly in the circumstance tha● things are now, it seems to be the safest and fittest place: for the bringing of the King thither, would either abate the height of ind●gnation conceived by the Countries for his restraint and exile, or prevent that dangerous confluence to him that other places would give more opportunity for. And the City and Parliament being now reunited, such a grant to them as this( so greatly for their honour) would make the union more deeply cordial, and engage the City to improve their power for the Parliaments security in a masculine 〈◇〉( confidence or liberty in speech) for the good of the Kingdom. It may be some may whisper that the King is wilful, he relents not, no good will be done on him, nor can be expected from him by a Treaty. But let charity silence such evil surmises, And consider his writings, whether they speak not in a mind calmed, a spirit willing to hear, as well as able to speak reason.  
Sadly ponder what scandals have been given him by their miscarriages who take upon them to bechastisers of him, what little encouragement he hath had to be yielding, when he must yield all or none, and that without debate whatever scruple he hath, and yet without any thing of moment ascertained to him or his: but if these things be debated with him, why may we not hope, that he that is so rational, when reason is shewed and scruples removed, may be convinced and won to what is rational, especially when he shall be informed what honour, authority and security shall remain to him and his posterity? Be not therefore discouraged, but pursue this work of general reconcilement, wherein you will have the hearts, the heads, the hands, the tongues of good and wise men with you. And( which is most encouraging) his assistance who hath promised joy to the Counc●llours, Prov. 12. 10. and blessedness to the makers of Peace. Mat. 5. 9.  
Signed on the behalf of the whole Ki●gdome. PACIFICUS.   

Postscript.  
REader, the copy of this Letter coming into my hands, and considering with myself, that the intention of the pious Author might be prevented by the unfaithfulness or other defect of them through whose hands it was transmitted to be presented to the Lord Maior and Common council; I held it requisite for the welfair of this City and Kingdom, to endeavour the printing of it. I shall further crave leave of the Author to enlarge one consideration by him already briefly hinted; for where he saith that without some extraordinary interposition either King or Parliament must fall, the danger of leaving the determination of this controversy to the sword is plainly implyed: We have seen by experience that the present Army, having subdued those against whom they were sent forth, aspired so high as to dictate to the Parliament from whom they at first received their Commission, and refused to disband. And if now for the sins of this land God shall permit the madness of the people to give opportunity to the rage of provoked and implacable men to become predominant, though much may be by them pretended for the King in what they shall attempt; nevertheless as Solomon saith,( Prov. 14. 28.) In the multitude of people is the Kings honour, and in the want of people is the destruction of the Prince, who knoweth what havoc will be made when such men shall come in by the power of the sword, which distinguisheth not between friend or foe; the insatiable soldier takes all for enemies that hath any thing to lose, the Conqueror claims the estate of all whom he vanquesheth as his own; how many rich men have been plundered by the Souldiers of the one party as enemies to the King, and of the other party as disaffected to the Parliament? where then will be the honour of the King, or safety of the people? Nor can any one promise himself safety from what he may expect from the known wisdom and clemency of our royal sovereign, for in such an universal confusion no regard can be expected either of the Kings honour or royal authority; The prevention of all which mischiefs is not to be expected without an honourable and free Treaty with his Majesty, which is the intent and scope of this pious Letter.  
FINIS.