FOrasmuch as I have appeared. In an Exhomation to tenderness of Blood [...] the Clause [...] before you; I think it my duty to give on what further grounds and authority I have for the same, which for modesty's sake I did the forbear in the audience, of Others that might make a wrong use of it, and that I might have the better accep [...]ce with you in what I have to say, by presenting it to your selves alone, who have peculiar Interest in it. For though you have heare what I have said, yet you have not heard all I have to say which therefore I here bring forth to you, desiring that the Father of Lights would so shine unto you, that what is of God here presented ye may own it, may be [...] and made One with it, and may [...] principle, and may not be prevened in it by the Peoples assuming it [Page 4]but that in this you may (goe before the People and may derive the light of it to the people, [...] [...] ­thy of your place to do.

First then, (not to meddle with your qualification as to an authority given you by man;) I do (Hypo­thetically) (and only so) acknowledg you to have the Cognizance of this Cause, and to have the right of deciding it; if that the Lord do set up himself in you, and bring forth himself in and by your judgment, that i [...], If you be able to search into, and [...]y open the Root of all our Evil, the Root of those Calamities brought upon this Na­tion by the Evil Instruments therein

This Root I have laid forth to you; and it is Babylon, the King of Babylon. Babylon is the strange Land in which the Israel of God is Detained Cap­tive from the Lord and his presence: and this Land is Our flesh, [...] the dark state of things wherein the Lord is hid, under which he is vayl'd and lies buried. For He is the breath of our no­strils, and the blood in our Veins; By him Kings reign, and Princes decree Justice, &c. and all forms of Government, and persons o [...] Governors not in Union with Him (with the Spirit of Justice and righteousness as 'tis in him) are vain Idols, having Eys but see not, and Hands, but can doe nothing that is truly excellent and glorious.

The King of [...] Babylon, Is the glory of our flesh, the goodliness of it, Isa. 40. Which makes us put Confidence in it, we trim and dresse up our own way, our own flesh, and fleshly forms, and cloath them with names of God, and Judges, but these [Page 5]being destitute of the Spirit and power of God, and righteousness, become to us as broken pitchers.

Now Babylon is a mystery, Rev. 17 5. the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth. I finde in Scripture two descriptions or names of Anti­christ: He is cal'd, The Man of Sin; All other wickedness is but the weakness, and may be easier Convinced and dealt withall. But Antichrist is the Man of Sin, and hath gotten into the Temple of God, into lawfull powers and administrations; and thence is the rise of our present miseries. It hath not been as the Murther Committed by a Thief on the high-way, for Lucre-sake, or of an Enemy upon a private grudge, that hath none o­ther but such base pretences of Covetousness or Revenge for it self; but here hath been power a­gainst power. One lawful power exercising it self against another lawfull power, through the deceit of this Man of Sin, that hath broken off the power and authority of the King from the End of it, which is the good of his people in truth, which is the Law and Compass that should regulate it, and this hath been through that darknesse whereby Satan hath blinded his eyes that he could not see his own glory and greatness to ly in, and to be up­held by the flourishing and happy Condition of his People.

And secondly, Antichrist is call'd, The Mother of Harlots; all Other wickednesses are but the Daughters, Babylon is the Mother, and this Mother is a Mystery, its hard lighting on her; Indeed, none [Page 6]Can search her out, and deal with her but the Lord; and therefore it is said, He shall Consume Antichrist with the Spirit of his Mouth, and the brightness of his Coming.

Now if the Lord be Come in this brightness to destroy Antichrist by you, I am sure He will first destroy it in you; and if so, then: beleeve we shall see you (I am sure I must) judg your selve: first of those things for which ye Condemn your Prisoner: and that indeed might lay the founda­tion of a sweet and holy proceeding, and a happy Conclusion of this Tryall. This, if any thing would melt the King, and both He and you would as Jacobs sons fall on the neck of Ioseph the Lord Jesus whom ye have sold; nay whom ye have cruci­fied One aswell as th'other, though your crimes may admitt of graduall difference: For have not wee through that poor dark selfish spirit, divided our selves and our good, from the good and great­nesse of the King; Have not we been that to him, that he hath been to us? Have we not borne him and his greatnesse as a burthen that we would be glad of an occasion to cast off? I do not say but we have liberties, and we may stand for out liberties. Babylon were not a mystery, if it did not get into interests and wayes that are righteous in them­selves, but whether were not these rights and inte­rests of the people pleaded and managed in the dark, aswell as was the prerogative of the King through which darknesse the Consistency of the Kings greatnesse with the peoples freedom and the amia­ble reflection that these mutually Cast one upon the [Page 8]other, and the joy they take one in another was not seen, and so ye opposed your selves one to another in the dark [...] seeking to swallow up the other into it self, which were made not to thrive, but in u­nion together.

And the Root of all this disowning and incom­plyance with one another, is for that we have not held the head, from whom the whole body being knit together by joynes and bands, hath nou­rishment ministred, and increaseth with the in­creasings of God; which head is the Lord: But our union hath not been in him but in weak com­pacts of our own: we have not seen our selves, King and People springing up from one root, and issuing from one fountain, even the Lord; that we are his image and glory in all this variety and subordination of States; and that all these are not so in themselves; but that they are in each other as they are all in unity in their Original.

For certainly, whatever unlikelihood and dis­appearance of this there is in what we have known of these subordinations, as they have subsisted and acted in this dark, corrupt and fleshly state; yet I have so much faith to beleeve; yea in the light of the thing I see it in God, That King and People do subsist and have a glorious interest in each other: and that it shall appear when the Crea­tion that is now in pain is delivered, that all the Majesty that dwels in the person of a King, it is indeed the Peoples; and all the peace and flou­rishing [Page 8]of a People, it is the Kings, and they shall possesse, and be possessed each of other. The King shall not have an envious eye against his people nor the people against the King; each shall be sa­tisfied with their own, and each shall rejoyce in the others wealth. The people shall cast glory upon their King, and Kings shall throw love and riches upon their People, and each shall think, while the other hath it, himself hath it, and that they have not the lesse for the others having much. Thus it is between the Lord and his Christ, thus it is between Christ and his Church; and thus shall it be be­tween Kings and their People. We have seen and convers'd with these Relations only in their weak­ness, and so cannot beleeve this of them: But the Lord hath a portion in these things, He made them not in vain, they shall be restored. The Creature (yea, this Creature Magistracy or Polity) shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God; and sure the day of its Redemption draws nigh.

For the Lord hath thrown it into the Furnace, and the flames are hot about it. Fire hath come out of Abimelech, to consume the men of Sechem; and fire is [...] out of Sechem to destroy Abimelech. And under this notion, I confesse, do I look upon this Tryall of the King: and so I can freely acknow­ledge as the righteous Award and Judgement of the Lord, under whose mighty hand we have suf­fered all these Wars. For who gave Jacob to the spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the Lord, against whom they had sinned?

[Page 7]But the end of the Lords judging is purifying. not de­stroying, and if the Lord have pleasure in you; He may make you not only Tormentors, but Judges; he may bring you forth to act in the light, and to be Instruments in the hand of God, of that judgement upon the King that shall be saving even to pull him as a firebrand out of the fire of Ty­ranny over his people, which hath throwen him into this fire of the wrath of his people. For a Judge is not suffici­ently accomplisht and instructed for his Office if he have not a power to release as well as to condemne, to save as well as to destroy, as Pilate could say to our Saviour, Have not I power to Crucifie thee; and power to release thee? Other­wise ye answer not your Originall patterne the Lord who where there are two parts, as flesh and spirit proceeds with that distinction, as that while his left hand brings destruction to the flesh, his right hand carries salvation to the spirit. And if the day of the Lord be risen upon you and he have made you able to judge and discerne the hidden principles of things, ye will exercise this discret [...]on between the lawfull Authority invested in the Person of the King and his unlaw­full usurpation; ye will damne this and save the other bring­ing it forth from all its drosse and flesh (that hath made it not onely unprofitable but hurtfull) as a vessell for the finer, So shall ye be Repairers of our breaches indeed and Restorers of paths to dwell in: And if ye doe this, the Sword whereby ye must doe it is the Sword of Christs mouth; The Spirit of the Lord: If this Spirit have brought forth the Person of our Lord Jesus in you, who is the true pattern of Government, and of all things doe ye bring forth this pattern in your judgement; Arraigne the King not at the barr of man, but at the tribunall of Jesus Christ; shew (for who but a King can judge a King?) what the Spirit and the Government of Christ in union with Man is, and compare the King and [Page 8]his government by this patterne in the mount, and shew him his failings his narrownesse of Spirit and principle not com­prehending his people in himselfe as Christ does, not living in their wealth and prosperity as his owne as Christ does, not bearing wi [...]h their weaknesses as Christ does, not empty­ing himselfe to make them rich and happy as Christ does, and save the King a labour of recriminating you; confesse to him you have beene in the darke too, and not seeing the person a [...]d majesty of the Lord in him, ye have not been in such a naturall and affectionate complyance with his honour and grea [...]nesse as the Memb [...]rs are with the Head: But if ye are not able so to deale wi [...]h him. Th [...]n turne him over to those that can and to [...]he justice and mercy of the Nation and heare what that will speake for him. And in behalfe of the life of the King we alleadge.

That this warr that h [...]th been upon us was by the judge­ment of the Lord, the Lord did bid the Sword devour and Eate flesh: A Kingdome is not so easily, nor ordinarily set on flame by Civill Waris without the speciall hand of God, the Causes are long a working, and the matter was long a gathering: If the Lord had not sent an evill Spirit univer­sally among us, it was not the Exorbitancy of the will of one man, as ye say the King is that could have throwen us in­to these fl [...]mes; The Lord used the King as an Instrument of his wrath towards us, and us as Instruments to powre wrath upon him.

2 That in the procuring this wrath, had our share with the King, wee was overcome of this evill; Hee could have brought no evill upon us, had not we had it in us. Vnder the weight of our flesh aswell as his own, did his Government groan and bow down: the Kingdome and its policy (nei­ther King nor People) stood in the Lord, in that Union and glory in Spirit, and so fell and withered was gathered and burnt.

[Page 9]Therefore now it concerns both him and us to humble our selves under the mighty hand of God, till he exalt us in his due time, and not to seek satisfaction on one another, other then by being examples to each other of a better carriage grounded on a better principle and union for the future: If we will doe justice (as indeed we must) and take revenge, it must be on that King of Babylon, that dark deviding principle that is in both sides, that devided us first f [...]om God our root, and then from one another in subordination to the Lord. And we ought not to do any other justice upon him then we shall submit to be done by him upon us: (which is onely the just and equal settling of our distinct Interests) we being both in the transgression that caused the war meritoriously, for as for the immediate acting of it; I look upon it rather as the judgement of God upon our sin, then the sin it self which went long before.

3 That the King being supposed in the Law, to be an In­fant, and to act alwayes by his Instruments and Officers of State, both in judging what is right and wrong, and in exe­cuting, if inquisition be made for the acting this war upon the People, it seems much more equall to be made among those his evill Counsellours and Instruments, without whom he could have decreed nothing as Right or Law, nor have exe­cuted any purpose of war in his heart, for his supposed rights. And if by the liberty of Conferring honour and greatnesse on Subjects, he hath been enabled to have such powerfull influence on them, as to create evill Instruments for any pur­pose, that power may be considered and deposited in safer custodie till the kingdom shall find their Princes worthy of it.

4 Not onely did his Judges and Privie Counsellors, and evill Instruments about him, that were not of either House Parliament, but also divers Lords and Members of both Houses of Parliament concur to the betraying of the Kings [Page 10]Conscience, to the leavying and prosecuting the warre; and if it was not the mercy of God to him to enable him to di­stinguish between these evill Counsellours, and th [...]se that dissented, He is the object of pitty in himselfe, as he was th [...]reby the Actor of our misery.

5. To execute the King for what he did in prosecuion of the War, so undertaken, wherein he h [...]zarded his Person, and put his Cause to the decision of bat [...]ell, and especially in a Treaty, and after so many invitations to a composure, is to shed the blood of War in Peace (which is condemned by an authen [...]ick pen in the like case, though the manner of the ex­ecution vary) and seems no way consistent with the honour of the Faith of the Nation, that was g [...]ven him in severall Treaties.

9 That he being a Prisoner of warre, and wholly in our power to regulate the exercise of his prerogative as may make it wholsom to the Nation: we are upon all the advan­tage that may be desired, to shew generosity, and it seems both unsouldierly and unmanly not to be able to give him h [...]s life at least, and a distrusting of God, (who if he shall de­spise this goodnes of the Lord towards him) can goe beyond him again wherein he shall deal proudly.

7 All the power of Arms being now in the hands of that party in the Kingdome, that are commonly reputed more fa­mous for their Religion and tendernesse: O let him not be cryed down by you! who should be able to bring forth the mercy of the great God to sinners, if not you that have found mercy? Let not your way wherin you walke in a difference from the more carelesse sort of professor be written to ge­nerations in this bloody Letter. To this I shall adde that if God have appeared yet, and come forth to you, no other­wise then as upon Mount Sina; there are some standing and walking amongst you daily, that have seen him upon Mount [Page 11]Sion, and have found such mercy, that they are able to shew as great mercy as this, that is now askt for the King: and if you have it not; you must give them leave to say, That might their Votes be heard, No man should fall in Israel this day; for doe we not now know that the Lord Jesus hath obtained the Kingdome this day in their hearts, and is bring­ing forth his new Heavens and his new Earth, wherein righ­teousnesse shall dwell; yea, they see his footsteps taking hold of the world, to set up a new Administration of Justice and every thing, for with the sword of his mouth [...]ill he slay the wicked: he is so comming in his People, as shall cloath them with terrour to their enemies, that they shall not need the Sword of man to defend them, but the majestie and brightnesse of the Lord cloa [...]hing their Persons, shall judge and reprove the world ei [...]her into love and union with them, or in [...]o subjection under them. To this administration that is holy, pure, and gracious, and not in letter, but in spirit, not in forme but in power; have all former dark and earthly ad­ministrations hitherto served, and till th [...]s we groan and are afflicted under the manifold and wofull miscarriages of all Administrators in the dark, and in the letter onely. And in the in [...]erest of [...]he glory of this Image and appearance of God to be made forth among men in this first hands [...]ll of saving the King (as well) as out of tend [...]rnesse to [...]he justice of the thing doe I plead thus:

I have not spoken all this as forgetting or unsensible of the great and high provocations of the King, in the late horrid War, as well as his former miscarriages in Govern­ment, if the Lord intend mercy to his soule, He will accuse and judge himself more then I can or is meet to detain you by: and the world shall hear of his unfaigned sorrow and repentance, as it hath been fild with the story of his sins; but this I know through the Lords mercy, and confesse I am one [Page 12]with him (that is my flesh is) in al the wickednes he hath done: and out of my own heart must I coppy forth my accusation against him, and so let every one think that judges another.

1 If it be objected this plea may be against all Execution of justice though for the horridst facts as murther &c.

I answer no, the Case is farre different between the Ex­ercise of an unlawfull act by no authority, as in the case of Theeves and murderers by the high way, and the abuse of a lawfull authority as the King did in his misdeeds. This lat­ter Crime is aggravated towards God, but not so lyable to the stroake of man. Or if a divorse may be made between that person and the exercise of that authority he hath so a­bused (which I leave to others to judge) its not so clear that it should be expiated with the losse of life, because the per­son offended not, but the King, and not the King, but his instruments. I speak not as to the Lord.

2 If it be objected, that blood is required by the law of God for blood; I answer, first, for blood shed in war we finde no account exacted in the case of Abner, 2 Sam. 3. but Abners blood avenged on Joah by Davids appointment af­ter Solomon had the Kingdome.

2 Nor for bloodshed in Peace is there an indispensable necessitie of making expiation by blood: for though I am not of their minde, that think it not lawfull or Christian like, to shed blood in any Case, for any Crime; yet I think it not to be indispensably charged upon the maigstrate, to shed blood for blood, but there may be divers causes to over rule it: The execution of Justice being for the Comonwealth, and not the Common-wealth for the execution of Justice, and there­fore the Magistrate hath power to save and remit capitall Crimes as well as to punish them, when it is for the Com­mon-wealth.

Nay thirdly, I conceive that whensoever blood may be [Page 13]spared, that is, those evils may be avoided, and those advan­tages obtained without shedding of blood, it ought to be spa­red: And that the Kingdome cannot be settled, and the like mischiefes prevented (so farre as in man) for the future with­out shedding of the Kings blood doth not appear to me, nor I dare say to many more, as the probability of as great evils to ensue from home, from abroad (which God prevent) by taking away the Kings life, able to ballance the security we promise our selves thereby is evident to all men: Therefore pollicie cals not for this piece of Justice. And for that con­ceit of a Sacrifice to God it is legall and Jewish, having no­thing in it of the light and grace of the Gospel, much lesse suitable to the elevation of these times, its to deny the sacri­fice of Christ; then which there is no other but the sacrifice of praise and of a broken and contrite Spirit, which is also his.

May wee beg the life of the King, wee may be thought to run a great hazard, should he come again to be a scourge to the King­dome, but the love of God that comes forth in us to save him will provide better things in him. Wee have travaild of him once alrea­dy by our Prayers, it may be we must travaile of him a second time, Wee are content.

He that is without sin, let him throw the first stone.