Mr. William Sedgwicks' LETTER To his Excellency Thomas Lord Fairfax, General of the Parliaments Forces, In prosecution of his Answer TO THE Remonstrance of the ARMY.  
Printed in the Year 1649.   

My Lord,  
YOU drive furiously over the necks of King and Parliament, Laws, Covenants, Loyalty, Privilege, and no humane thing can stand before you: You are now faced by the majesty and light of God, while you are asleep in a dark night of earthly affairs: You have appealed to God in your second Declaration, but did not expect so sudden an answer: 'Tis eternal and almighty truth that must and will prevail; if you come into it, 'twill save you; if you turn from it, you forsake your own mercy; if you oppose it, you dash yourselves in pieces; you cannot go from it, or besides it, but into the darkness of hell: The Lord is here obbraiding your unbelief, but mourning over his Jerusalem; with love to your persons, but with fierce anger against your practices: I would you had those lively and fresh evidences of your personal and everlasting good in your own breasts, as I have; your eternal state is sure; 'tis your present wander that are here condemned; Blindness hath happened to you in part; and this is the time of casting you away; you will have a time of being received again; you are now broken off through unbelief, you will be graffed in again: 'Tis your fault now, you shall have a restoring; you will wonder to behold so much goodness to your enemies, and so much severity to you. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God How unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out! I have reproved you sharply or cuttingly, it's proper for you, with vengeance to save you, and to pull you as firebrands out of the fire; your condition requires it; Gentleness is abused, mercy despised, you have a long time trampled upon kindness, and obstinately refused the word of the Lord: You must remember my Sermon to you at Windsor upon that Text. Overturn, overturn, overturn; 'tis Scripture still, and that word lives in and upon you. Saltmarsh his message quickly followed it, Depart from the tents of these unrighteous men, he lives still: And Mr. Pinnels Admonition from the Lord following that: These, and other testimonies against you, have been slighted and disobeyed; your sins grow greater, and the anger of God hotter against you; your reprieve is not your salvation; you are grown to a height of confidence and presumption upon your successes; your necks are as iron, and your brows brass; and you walk  in your way, triumphing as the only Princes in the earth, as sit to sway the Sceptre of England, and all nations; as the only righteous, honourable people in the world; the great Lords of the Land: Therefore it pleases me to pour contempt upon you, to be shod with scorn and indignation, and so trample upon Princes as mortar. Except I should deal thus with you, you would not be sensible of what I say, being hardened against mercy; and having done all you have done against love; Prosperity slays fools, and therefore the rod is fit for their backs.  
I know my dealing is just and righteous to such as you are, being (as Phil. 3.18, 19) Enemies to the Cross of Christ; seeming friends to his Gospel, Ministry, and Kingdom, but enemies to his Cross: You hate to think that those fair beginnings of your peace and deliverance, should come to end in shame and death; you cannot think of leaving your hopes of outward glory, and lying down quietly, to let the world trample upon you: This you count folly, whose end is Destruction: Destruction you practise, 'tis your work, 'tis your end, you cannot see beyond it, and you are hastening to it, it is the centre to which you tend; and therefore I cannot but show it you, that you may stop your course before the pit shut her mouth upon you: whose God is their belly; Your faith, understanding & God, is sunk into your bellies, and your rule, your strength, your confidence is only in sensual and brutish things; your raised spirits into the things of God are buried in an inferior region of gross, dull, carnal affairs, and except I should pierce deep, your slow bellies would not find ears: Indeed you are so lost and drowned in sensible things of the world, and so eager in seeking for those things your belly, your carnal affections require of you, that I doubt you will be deaf to what I say. Whose glory is in their shame; you are full of glory in your great things that you have done; wonderful things, a mighty presence of God. But in sum, what is it? You have torn a poor, sinful Kingdom in pieces; You have executed wrath upon your Brethren, Friends and Countrymen; You have laid desolate your Father the King, the Parliament your Mother, your own Country; this is your glory to be executioners; Assyria the rod of my anger: What a crown is this? Have you restored, blessed, healed, comforted, saved any? No, you have but plunged the Kingdom and yourselves into a pit of darkness and confusion: When the things of God are proposed to you, to suffer for others, to love enemies, to do good to all, to bless all; you glory in your shame, and say, you serve the Lord in this, and there be lower as well as higher dispensations: You are indeed servants of God, so was Nabuchadnezzar, so is the Devil; and you do the work of God, but 'tis base drudgery, 'tis his strange work, to be instruments of his vengeance; and 'tis a lower dispensation indeed, to dispense curses, not blessings, to be below in hell, exercised in the wrath of God; not above in heaven in the glory and love of God; and for sons, heirs, so you would be thought, to take pleasure in such mean employment, is vile and unworthy: Who mind earthly things; this is another property of yours, your minds are now captived to the earth, deep in the lower parts of the earth, pleading the earthly cause of earthly people, or digging caves and holes in the earth to secure an earthly peace to yourselves.  
‛ Its high time to withstand you, and to rebuke this destroying Angel; for 'tis not men only that suffer from your violence, but the Lord; your sword go so deep, That it peirces thorough his soul also: You are gone so far in dissolving the foundations of government, that you are come to him that upholds the pillars of the earth: You reach to the head of principalities and powers, to the Lord who is the author and upholder of all these things; he is in these poor, broken and despised Ordinances of his, and sensible of every blow that is given to them: You have digged thorough the wall of flesh and men, and broke down that partition wall that divided them from God; and now you are in the bowels of the Lord, these miserable, broken powers are now the Lord: Go on to tear and rend, you will at last look upon him whom you have pierced, and mourn.  
The King and Parliament cry unto God in their distress, saying, Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not, Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer. Though you in the greatness of your faith, and confidence in your privileges, as high as Abraham and Israel in your literal form, do not know them, yet the Lord owns them, and will hear their cry and deliver them.  
Your proceed are against the Lord; and though you say these things you do must be done till Christ come; and when he comes, then 'tis true, there will need none of these things to secure yourselves, but as yet you must act as men: In this, you say, your Lord delays his coming, and so drunk with your prosperity and victories, you beat your fellow servants.  
But here you will find your Lord in an hour that you were not ware of: You say he will come and destroy you and your ways in time, but he is already upon you, and you are not ware of it, and cuts you asunder; opens your inward parts, divides the secrets of your hearts, and appoints you a portion with hypocrites and unbelievers, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth: You act against God, and God against you; Your souls loathe him, his soul loathes you.  
Finally, Here's nothing written but what was written in your hearts; 'tis the opening your own souls; 'tis but what you have feared, and that punishment which your own humiliations and confessions have acknowledged just and due to you: Nothing but what I have suffered for acting in those ways in which you are; What measure hath been measured to me by God, that do I measure to you: And as I lay it on you, so I suffer it with you, and shall be content to suffer till you are restored from this condition of shame and wrath, to honour and love, and so dwell with you in these everlasting burn, which will purify you from all your filth.  
Till then, Farewell. I am W. Sedgwick.