lorious and
triumphing a successe, that the Enemy hath fallen every where before you,
and there is none left to appear against you. These things as they be the
matter of our refreshment and of your glory, so doe they lay a strong
obligation upon your Honours to walke humbly with your God, and to improve
the power he hath put into your hands for the advancement of the Kingdom
of his Son, and bringing forth of the head-Stone of his House. The slow
progresse of the work of God hath alwaies been the matter of our sorrow,
which is now increased by the multiplication of the spirits of errour and
delusion, that drowne many souls into perdition, and so strengthen
themselves that they shall afterward be laboured against, with more pains
then successe, if a speedy and effectuall remedie be not provided. And
therefore as the servants of the living God, who not onely send up our
supplications daily for you, but have hazarded our selves in your defence,
We do earnestly beseech your Honors in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to give
unto him the glory that is due unto his Name, by a timous establishing all
his Ordinances in the full integritie and power thereof, according to the
League and Covenant. As long as the Assembly of Divines was in debate, &
an enemy in the fields, we conceived that these might be probable grounds
of delay, which being now removed out of the way, we do promise to our
selves from your Wisdom, Faithfulnesse, and Zeale, the perfiting of that
which was the main ground of our engagement, and a chief matter of
consolation unto us in all our sad and heavy sufferings, from the hand of
a most cruell Enemy. We know that there is a generation of men who retard
the work of Uniformity, and foment jealousies betwixt the Nations,
studying if it were possible, to break our bands asunder; But we trust,
that he that sits in the Heaven will Laugh, and that the Lord shall have
them in derision, that he shall speak to them in his wrath and vex them in
his sore displeasure, and notwithstanding of all that they can do, set his
King upon his holy hill of Sion, and make these Nations happy in the sweet
fruits of Unity in Truth and Peace. The searcher of hearts knows that we
desire to hold fast the band of our Covenant, as sacred and inviolable;
being perswaded that the breach of so solemne a tye could not but hasten
down upon our heads a curse and vengeance from the righteous Judge of the
world, and involve these Kingdoms in sader calamitie