“Dear Robin, our fleshly reasonings ensnare us. These make us say, heavy, sad, pleasant, easy. Was not there a little of this, when Robert Hammond, through dissatisfaction too, desired retirement from the army, and thought of quiet in the Isle of Wight? Did not God find him out there? I believe he will never forget this. And now I perceive he is to seek again, partly through his sad and heavy burthen, and partly through dissatisfaction with friends’ actings. Dear Robin, thou and I were never worthy to be doorkeepers in this service. If thou wilt seek, seek to know the mind of God in all that chain of providence, whereby God brought thee thither, and that person to thee: how before and since God has ordered him, and affairs concerning him. And then tell me, whether there be not some glorious and high meaning in all this, above what thou hast yet attained. And laying aside thy fleshly reasoning, seek the Lord to teach thee what it is; and he will do it. “You say, ‘God hath appointed authorities among the nations, to which active or passive obedience is to be yielded. This resides in England in the parliament. Therefore active or passive,’ &c. Authorities and powers are the ordinance of God. This or that species is of human institution, and limited, some with larger, others with stricter bands, each one according to his constitution. I do not, therefore, think the authorities may do any thing, and yet such obedience due; but all agree there are cases in which it is lawful to resist. If so, your ground fails, and so likewise the inference. Indeed, dear Robin, not to multiply words, the query is, whether ours is such a case? This ingeniously is the true question. To this I shall say nothing, though I could say very much; but only desire thee to see what thou findest in thy own heart, as to two or three plain considerations. First, Whether _salus populi_ be a sound position? Secondly, Whether in the way in hand, really and before the Lord, before whom conscience must stand, this be provided for; or the whole fruit of the war like to be frustrated, and almost like to turn to what it was, and worse? And this contrary to engagements, declarations, implicit covenants with those who ventured their lives upon those covenants and engagements, without whom perhaps, in equity, relaxation ought not to be. Thirdly, Whether this army be not a lawful power called by God to oppose and fight against the King upon so stated grounds; and being in power to such ends, may not oppose one name of authority for those ends as well as another? the outward authority that called them, not by their power making the quarrel lawful; but it being so in itself. If so, it may be, acting will be justified _in foro humano_. But truly these kind of