yes. Truly Sir, I hope all of us have so: That God, who we know
is a King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; that God with whom there
is no respect of Persons; that God, who is the Avenger of
innocent Blood; We have that God before us; that God, who does
bestow a curse upon them that with-hold their hands from
shedding of blood, which is in the case of guilty malefactors,
and that do deserve death: That God we have before our eyes. And
were it not that the conscience of our duty hath called us unto
this place, and this imployment, Sir, you should have had no
appearance of a Court here. But, Sir, we must prefer the
discharge of our duty unto God, and unto the kingdom, before any
other respect whatsoever. And although at this time many of us,
if not all of us, are severely threatened by some of your party,
what they intend to do, Sir, we do here declare, That we shall
not decline or forbear the doing of our duty in the
administration of Justice, even to you, according to the merit
of your Offence although God should permit those men to effect
all that bloody design in hand against us. Sir, we will say, and
we will declare it, as those Children in the Fiery Furnace, that
would not worship the golden image, that Nebuchadnezzar had set
up, 'That their God was able to deliver them from that danger
that they were near unto'; But yet if he would not do it, yet
notwithstanding that they would not fall down and worship the
Image. We shall thus apply it; That though we should not be
delivered from those bloody hands and hearts that conspire the
overthrow of the kingdom in general, of us in particular, for
acting in this great Work of Justice, though we should perish in
the Work, yet by God's grace, and by God's strength, we will go
on with it. And this is all our resolutions, Sir, I say for
yourself, we do heartily wish and desire that God would be
pleased to give you a sense of your sins, that you would see
wherein you have done amiss, that you may cry unto him, that God
would deliver you from Blood-guiltiness. A good king was once
guilty of that particular thing, and was clear otherwise, saving
in the matter of Uriah. Truly, Sir, the Story tells us that he
was a repentant king: and it signifies enough, that he had died
for it, but that God was pleased to accept of him, and to give
him his