That this great Council and College of Physicians hath a dangerously sick Patient to look after, Three Nations, and the Church of God in them, like the man between Jerusalem and Jericho, wounded and hal• dead, 1we have had these many years the best, o• rather worst assurance that may be, by feeling the sickness; so that there need be n• further proof of it. We have seen and fel• with sorrow and amazement, the honour o• ⟨p. 27⟩the Parliaments of England shamefully assaulted, Princes bleeding out their Souls, sojourning in Mesech, and in the Tents of Kedar; Peers and Patriots secluded from 2their Honourable and Rightful Trust; the great Council of the Nation sesquidimiated; a learned and faithful Ministry reproached, ready to be sacrificed, brought to the brow of the precipice; Ordinances decried, Errors, and Heresies cumulated, the Public worship of God interrupted, the Assemblies of his people on his own day, profanely affronted by Mechanics, working their ordinary works in our Churches and Pulpits: We have seen and felt our Laws and our Foundations threatened, our Ships broken, our Trade obstructed, our Treasures exhausted, our Merchants discouraged, our Religion crumbled, our Church-Congregations shamed and defiled with the impure and obscene intrusion of naked persons, clothed with nothing but dung and impudence. We have heard of families raised upon the ruins of others, and of families ruined by perjurious crimina•ons. Indeed, we have seen and heard of more evils and confusions, then the hour of a Sermon, or the length of an History can well enumerate. If sins, if sorrows, if shame, if fear, if dangers, if frenzies, if quakings, if convulsions, if breach upon breach, if ⟨p. 28⟩change upon change, if divided minds, if dis-jointed hearts, if inconsistent interests, if incoherent designs, if vicissitudes of Government as mutable as the courses of the Moon, if Altar against Altar, Doctrine against Doctrine, Worship against Worship, Post by post, threshold by threshold, be symptoms of a sick body; certainly this great College of Physicians hath a very sick patient to look 3after.
That this great Council and Colledge of Physitians hath a dangerously sick Patient to look after, Three Nations, and the Church of God in them, like the man between Jerusalem and Jericho, wounded and hal• dead, 1we have had these many years the best, o• rather worst assurance that may be, by feeling the sickness; so that there need be n• further proof of it. We have seen and fel• with sorrow and amazement, the honor o• ⟨p. 27⟩the Parliaments of England shamefully assaulted, Princes bleeding out their Souls, sojourning in Mesech, and in the Tents of Kedar; Peers and Patriots secluded from 2their Honorable and Rightful Trust; the great Council of the Nation sesquidimiated; a learned and faithful Ministry reproached, ready to be sacrificed, brought to the brow of the precipice; Ordinances decried, Errors, and Heresies cumulated, the Publick worship of God interrupted, the Assemblies of his people on his own day, profanely affronted by Mechanicks, working their ordinary works in our Churches and Pulpits: We have seen and felt our Laws and our Foundations threatned, our Ships broken, our Trade obstructed, our Treasures exhausted, our Merchants discouraged, our Religion crumbled, our Church-Congregations shamed and defiled with the impure and obscene intrusion of naked persons, cloathed with nothing but dung and impudence. We have heard of families raised upon the ruines of others, and of families ruined by perjurious crimina•ons. Indeed, we have seen and heard of more evils and confusions, then the hour of a Sermon, or the length of an History can well enumerate. If sins, if sorrows, if shame, if fear, if dangers, if frenzies, if quakings, if convulsions, if breach upon breach, if ⟨p. 28⟩change upon change, if divided mindes, if dis-joynted hearts, if inconsistent interests, if incoherent designs, if vicissitudes of Government as mutable as the courses of the Moon, if Altar against Altar, Doctrine against Doctrine, Worship against Worship, Post by post, threshold by threshold, be symptoms of a sick body; certainly this great Colledge of Physitians hath a very sick patient to look 3
- 1Luke 10. 30.
- 2Psal. 120. 5.
- 3Ezek. 43. 8.
