All your former Letters were most acceptable, and full of refreshment unto us, being taken as the earnest of a more full and constant fellowship, longed after and hoped for: And this your last, although full of sadnesse and sorrow, yet accounted of us all most worthy of our tenderst affection and best respects, both for your cause who sent it, and for these worthy witnesses which did attest it: Wherein as you have given unto us no small evidence, not only of your love, but also of trust and friendly respect, by choosing to poure out your grieved souls in our bosome; so we shall with, and Godwilling endeavour, that you may really finde some measure of brotherly compassion in our receiving thereof. For these your sad expressions of deep sorrow, being as you have given us to conceive but a part of your complaint, and a lamentation lesse then the causes doth require, cannot but melt every heart, wherein there is any the least warmnesse of the love of Christ and his Saints: And what Childe of the Bridegrooms chamber, can hear the voice of so many friends of the Bridegroom, lamenting for the evils which have befallen Christs Bride in England, in the very night before her expected espousals, and not sit down and mourn with them except his heart be fallen asleep and frozen within him? This pitiful condition of our sister Church in England hes matter enough we confesse to move, yea, to rend our bowels. If we should weigh this your heavie grief in the scales of common reason, we behoved either to stand aloof from your plague as men astonished, or sink down in heavinesse and be swallowed up of sorrow: but when we ponder your sad condition in the Ballance of the Sanctuary, we finde that nothing hath as yet befallen unto you, save that which hath been the exercise of the Saints in former times, who have been made to sit down for a while in the shadow of death before the day of their deliverance. We finde nothing but that which may be a fit Preparation for a comfortable out-gate from all your troubles. What if it was necessary in the wise dispensation of Almighty GOD, that a People in great estimation for wisedome and power, such as England, should be thus farre humbled, as you declare, to the end that your deliverance maybe seen hereafter to be of the Lord, and not of your selves? What if the Lord would not draw back his hand from the Wine-presse wherein you now lye, till he should draw forth from you these pitiful expressions of your low estate, and so provide himself witnesses against the day to come, that he may have the greater and purer glory in your salvation, and your gloriation may be in the Lord alone! Dear Brethren, comfort your selves in the Lord; this sowing in tears, doth promise a reaping in joy, and who knoweth how soon he will give to you who are mourners in Zion, beauty for ashes, the oyle of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heavinesse; That you may be called the