After such amazements and assaults upon Our Patience, as no times of malice or cruelty can paralel (not excluding those of Pharaoh and Herod, holding the comparison to our humane condition;) After we have circumspectly measured the madnesse of Our People with the raging of the Seas and noise of the waves, (the extent of which com­parisons none can reach but He who holds the waters in His Fist, and weighs the winds in a Ballance;) We are led to contemplate the Chaos from whence God raised the goodly structure which we continu­nually behold.

And finding the Light to be the begnning of the Creation, We thought fit to separate you from the present confusion fallen upon Our people, even you whom Our Ancestors have clarified from the com­mon sort, and therefore dignified, that by your prudence the misguidings and wanderings of Our meaner Subjects may be undeceived and reduced, who do now. (after the rash rejection of Our glori­fied Fathers prophetique Admonitions) feel the fruits of their follies to become their own ruine, beyond their wisdom and power to redeem.

How often We have visited them with Meeknesse and Clemency in our Messages and Invitations from the Courts of Prin­ces, whom, (for their onely sakes, Our Predecessors have made their enemies) even when their offered powers would have en­abled Us to correct Our most rigid Rebels, cannot by Us (without regret for such enforcements) be remembred; Nor are Our Subjects themselves without a sad sense of this, who, following their ambitious and avaritions blinde Conductors, are fallen into Laberinths of enmities with those Princes, whereout their deepest subtleties cannot bring them.

Happily by your instructions they may learn the Truth of this from their inconstant similitude the Seas, wch for many hundred of years, have by the Wisdom of our Ancestors their Princes, embraced them as their dearest Friends, as well conveighing them with their Merchandize to the utmost parts of the World, as also returning them with such fraights, as have made their Ware­houses the Magazines of other Countries, whereas at present (though they be the chief Proprietors of the Worlds Food and cloa­thing, and Navigation) even those Seas, for want of a lawful Soveraignty, deny them further Tutelage; The Ports of their an­tient Allyes refuse them Trade or Harbourage; And England which sate as a Virgin Queen upon the Waters, is Deflored, Ravished, and carried Captive into their Ports who formerly thought no Wealth too pretious to woe her.

We say we look upon your Lordships shining as Tapors to our blinded Subjects, and as Light-houses to their Unpiloted Rov­ings, which Office we consider to be to you also a Dignity, formerly belonging to the Lamps of the Church, though now they are under a Bushel; As for the giddy multitude we pitty them with that Christian Proverb, ‘ Eheu quam honeste miserii erant,’ for by imitateing their Superiors they think they do well.

When we behold the Robes of some mens Consciences, who visit us in Corporal Rags (the best Purchases their Loyalty can make) we rest assured, that you who have this Worlds Wealth and not the Priviledge to use it, cannot enchain your Noble Souls to such slavery; Nor is it our desire to invite you to violence, but the Peace which we wish to your Bodies and Souls, we equally present in our daily Prayers for you, together with the meanest of our Subjects, and seeing your Christianity com­mands your Brotherly Love even to your most inferiour Nighbours, you cannot better testifie the same, then by your exam­ple to bring them into the Way of Truth, which they shall never find in the Paths of Rebellion.

Again we call upon you our Peers, who cannot be unsensible that the Streams of your own Honour must necessarily faile, when the Fountain which should feed them is diverted; We advise yon to learn of the Hebrews, who after that absence of their King David (more then seven times doubled by Our sufferings) grew to contention for bringing home their persecuted Prince.

Nor are the opportunities difficult to your performance, there having been, in these many years of Our pilgrimage, di­vers assemblings of Our Subjects, which still continuing, you may, if you please, impart unto them such provident Instructi­ons, as may return them to their antient Duty and future welfare, the after fruits whereof none of you need to doubt; if you reflect upon the Felicities which all your Ancestors have enjoyed under the Raigns of Our Predecessors; The inferiour sort having alwayes before them that formidable affrightment of present beggary and continued want of Trade, so long as they [...]hall persist in disobedience to theirs and your injured and oppressed Soveraign.