the bear, the Grecian the leopard, the Roman a compound of the former three, most strange and dreadful, Dan. vii.

Their oppressing, plundering, ravishing, murdering, not only the bodies, but the souls of men, are large explaining commentaries of such similitudes.

Your Honours have been famous to the end of the world for your unparalleled wisdom, courage, justice, mercy, in the vindicating your civil laws, liberties, &c. Yet let it not be grievous to your Honours' thoughts to ponder a little, why all the prayers, and tears, and fastings, in this nation, have not pierced the heavens, and quenched these flames; which yet who knows how far they will spread, and when they will out!

Your Honours have broke the jaws of the oppressor, and taken the prey out of his teeth, Job xxix. 17. For which act, I believe, it hath pleased the Most High God to set a guard, not only of trained men, but of mighty angels, to secure your sitting, and the city.

I fear we are not pardoned, though reprieved. Oh! that there may be a lengthening of London's tranquillity, of the parliament's safety, by [shewing] mercy to the poor! Dan. iv. [27.]

Right Honourable, soul yoke, soul oppressions, plunderings, ravishings, &c., are of a crimson and deepest dye, and I believe the chief of England's sins-unstopping the vials of England's present sorrows.

This glass presents your Honours with arguments from religion, reason, experience: all proving that the greatest yokes yet lying upon English necks, the people's and your own, are of a spiritual and foul nature.

All former parliaments have changed these yokes according to their consciences, popish or protestant. It is now your Honour's turn at helm, and as [is] your task so I hope [is] your resolution-not to change: for that is but to turn the wheel, which another parliament, and the

very next, may turn again; but to ease the subjects and yourselves from a yoke (as was once spoke in a case not unlike, Acts xv. [10]) which neither you nor your fathers were ever able to bear.

Most noble senators; your fathers, whose seats you fill, are mouldered, and mouldering their brains, their tongues, &c., to ashes in the pit of rottenness: they and you must shortly, together with two worlds of men, appear at the great bar. It shall then be no grief of heart that you have now attended to the cries of souls, thousands oppressed, millions ravished, by the acts and statutes concerning souls not yet repealed-of bodies impoverished, imprisoned, &c., for their souls' belief: yea, slaughtered on heaps for religious controversies, in the wars of present and former ages.

66

saying of a

Bohemia.

'Notwithstanding the success of later times, wherein The famous sundry opinions have been hatched about the subject of late king of religion, a man may clearly discern with his eye, and as it were touch with his finger, that according to the verity of holy scripture, &c., men's consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained. And whensoever men have attempted any thing by this violent course, whether openly or by secret means, the issue hath been pernicious, and the cause of great and wonderful innovations in the principallest and mightiest kingdoms and countries," &c.1

It cannot be denied to be a pious and prudential act for your Honours, according to your conscience, to call for the advice of faithful counsellors in the high debates concerning your own, and the souls of others.

Yet, let it not be imputed as a crime for any suppliant to the God of heaven for you, if, the humble sense of what their souls believe, they pour forth, amongst others, these three requests at the throne of grace:

1 [See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, p. 217. Hanserd Knollys Society, 1846.]

First. That neither your Honours, nor those excellent and worthy persons whose advice you seek, limit the Holy One of Israel to their apprehensions, debates, conclusions, rejecting or neglecting the humble and faithful suggestions of any, though as base as spittle and clay, with which sometimes Christ Jesus opens the eyes of them that are born blind.

Secondly. That the present and future generations of the sons of men may never have cause to say that such a parliament, as England never enjoyed the like, should model the worship of the living, eternal, and invisible God, after the bias of any earthly interest, though of the highest concernment under the sun. And yet saith the learned Sir Francis Bacon (however otherwise persuaded, yet thus he confesseth), "Such as hold pressure of conscience, are guided therein by some private interests of their own."

Thirdly. [That] whatever way of worshipping God your own consciences are persuaded to walk in, yet, from any bloody act of violence to the consciences of others, it may never be told at Rome nor Oxford, that the parliament of England hath committed a greater rape than if they had forced or ravished the bodies of all the women in the world.

And that England's parliament, so famous throughout all Europe and the world, should at last turn papists, prelatists, Presbyterians, Independents, Socinians, Familists, Antinomians, &c., by confirming all these sorts of consciences by civil force and violence to their consciences.3

Essay of Religion. [Eos qui conscientias premi, iisque vim inferri suadent, sub illo dogmate, cupiditates suas subtexere, illamque rem eua interesse, putare. De Unitate Ecclesiæ.]

3 It is rarely seen that ever persons were persecuted for their conscience, but by such persecution they were confirmed and hardened in their conscience.

TO EVERY COURTEOUS READER.

WHILE I plead the cause of truth and innocency against the bloody doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, I judge it not unfit to give alarm to myself, and to [all] men, to prepare to be persecuted or hunted for cause of conscience.

Whether thou standest charged with ten or but two talents, if thou huntest any for cause of conscience, how canst thou say thou followest the Lamb of God, who so abhorred that practice?

If Paul, if Jesus Christ, were present here at London, and the question were proposed, what religion would they approve of the papists, prelatists, Presbyterians, Independents, &c., would each say, Of mine, Of mine?

But put the second question: if one of the several sorts should by major vote attain the sword of steel, what weapons doth Christ Jesus authorize them to fight with in his cause? Do not all men hate the persecutor, and every conscience, true or false, complain of cruelty, tyranny, &c.?

Two mountains of crying guilt lie heavy upon the backs of all men that name the name of Christ, in the eyes of Jews, Turks, and Pagans.

First. The blasphemies of their idolatrous inventions, superstitions, and most unchristian conversations.

Secondly. The bloody, irreligious, and inhuman oppressions and destructions under the mask or veil of the name of Christ, &c.

Oh! how likely is the jealous Jehovah, the consuming fire, to end these present slaughters of the holy witnesses in a greater slaughter! Rev. v.

Six years preaching of so much truth of Christ as that time afforded in K. Edward's days, kindles the flames of Q. Mary's bloody persecutions.

Who can now but expect that after so many scores of years preaching and professing of more truth, and amongst so many great contentions amongst the very best of protestants, a fiery furnace should be heat, and who sees not now the fires kindling?

I confess I have little hopes, till those flames are over, that this discourse against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience should pass current, I say not amongst the wolves and lions, but even amongst the sheep of Christ themselves. Yet, liberavi animam meam, I have not hid within my breast my soul's belief. And, although sleeping on the bed either of the pleasures or profits of sin, thinkest thou thy conscience bound to smite at him that dares to waken thee? Yet in the midst of all these civil and spiritual wars, I hope we shall agree in these particulars,

First. However the proud (upon the advantage of a higher earth or ground) overlook the poor, and cry out schismatics, heretics, &c., shall blasphemers and seducers escape unpunished? Yet there is a sorer punishment in the gospel for despising of Christ than Moses, even when the despiser of Moses was put to death without mercy, Heb. x. 28, 29. He that believeth shall not be damned, Mark xvi. 16.

Secondly. Whatever worship, ministry, ministration,