A letter from the Assembly of Divines in England, and the commissioners of the…

In these deplorable calamities are we involved: and in the midst of these troublesome times, have the honourable Houses of Parliament, called this Assembly, to give them our best Counsel for the Reformation of the Church, for the purging and preserving of Religion: and require us to make Gods Word only our Rule, and to endeavour the nearest conformity to the best Reformed Churches, and uniformity in all the Churches of the three Kingdoms. And in this work we are now exercised, though the enemy hath stirred up the heart of our ⟨p. 8⟩dear and dread Sovereign against us also: Yet through the good hand of God upon us, we have made some comfortable beginnings: The work is his, who commands us not to despise the day of small things.

In these deplorable calamities are wee involved: and in the midst of these troublesome times, have the honorable Houses of Parliament, called this Assembly, to give them our best Counsell for the Reformation of the Church, for the purging and preserving of Religion: and require us to make Gods Word onely our Rule, and to indevour the neerest conformity to the best Reformed Churches, and uniformity in all the Churches of the three Kingdomes. And in this work wee are now exercised, though the enemy hath stirred up the heart of our ⟨p. 8⟩deare and dread Soveraign against us also: Yet through the good hand of God upon us, wee have made some comfortable beginnings: The work is his, who commands us not to despise the day of small things.

Thus (Reverend and Dear Brethren) we have given you the face, or rather the shadow, (for what words are able to express the face?) of our miserable condition in England: Our civill Liberties in danger to be lost, our goods spoiled, our houses plundered, our blood poured out in every corner: (things though otherwise very precious to us we omit to mention.) If our God will lay our bodies as the ground, and as the dust under their feet; the will of the Lord be done: Might our blood be a Sacrifice to ransom the rest of the Saints of Christ from antichristian fury, most gladly would we offer it upon this service. But that which breaks our hearts is, the danger we behold the Protestant Religion, and all the Reformed Churches in at this time. We know their rage is insatiable, and will not be quenched with our blood: their fury is kindled against us, not as we are sinful men, but as men engaged in the defence of the true Religion, and panting after a right Reformation: And if once the Lord deliver us as a prey into their teeth, Oh the darkness and horror, the bondage, slavery and persecution, which all who will not receive the mark of the beast, are like to be wrapped in, in these three woeful Kingdoms! And not here only, but they are like to attempt the same in all the Reformed Churches in Europe. Your own thoughts can easily suggest unto you, with what rage the beast which came out of the bottomless pit, the Woman who hath thus long drunk the blood of the Saints is filled now before her utter destruction, against that Virgin Company that follow the Lamb.