An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

Quest. But will some say, Oh killing is a grievous thing, we never were acquainted with killing as we have been of l•te; were it not better we were all at peace than that still so much blood should be shed?

Quest. But will som say, Oh killing is a grievous thing, we never were acquainted with killing as we have been of l•te; were it not better we were all at peace than that still so much blood should be shed?

Answ. God forbid any of us should be bloody men or desire the shedding of blood. No, let us all labour to have peace tha• ⟨p. 51⟩there may be no more bloodshed. Take this speech barely considered and it is a good speech, and we are all I hope of the same mind, Cursed be that man I say that shall not yield to this. But certainly peace though upon hard terms, it were to be desired, if that peace would save blood; though half our estates went for it; But what if it prove that that peace we talk of should be a means of more bloodshed? If you should let in such men into your City as bloody Papists, French, Walloons, and Irish Rebels, and that merely upon their bare word that they would do you no hurt, do not you think if they were once in, that you would every night be in danger of massacring? and would there not be much more bloodshed than yet hath been? Therefore let not men say that those are bloody men that will not yield up their throats to bloody men, that will stand up to defend their brethren from being massacred; but they stand up and take up Arms, not to shed blood but to prevent the shedding of blood: For certainly if the City and Country had in the beginning of these wars rose up as one man and gone into the field, they might have saved abundance of blood that hath been shed. Many thousands that have now lost their lives might have been preserved if you had took up Arms to more purpose sooner than you did: But when every County looks to it self, and the enemy goes to such a County and there sheds blood, and then to another and there sheds blood, and you sit still and do nothing, God may require the blood of your brethren at your hands; and you cannot clear your selves from being guilty of the shedding of the blood of your Brethren when you do not appear to the uttermost you are able to subdue the power of those that shed their blood. We cannot see any way to keep the blood that i now in our veins, but by subduing the Malignant and Antichristian party that have already tasted so much of the blood of the Saints, that they are like the Country-mans dog—