‘And you talk of a communion of saints: had ever the saints such a communion as this, to defraud one another for money; and profess a Redeemer, and are servants to the devil, and your own lusts, in all the motions and temptations thereof, and are led captive at his will? But what redemption is this you witness? So long as sin, the partition wall between God and you, stands still whole in your wills, you will be drunk, swear, lie, and commit adultery, dissemble, and satisfy your lusts in all things, and say we are redeemed; yet commit all these abominations and live in them, under a pretence of a profession, and going to the idols’ temple once a week. Did ever Jesus Christ redeem such a people, or dwell in such a people? Those whom he hath redeemed, he hath freed from the servitude of sin, by separating them from sin, and reconciling them to God, from whence they are fallen by sin: for God and sin cannot dwell in one. And to such he saith, “Be ye holy, for I am holy:” and as he is the “Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world,” now see, how is your sins taken away, when the kingdom of darkness doth wholly rule in you, and leads you into works and ways of darkness? Are you reconciled to God, and have you fellowship with him? Are not you yet strangers to him, and worship an unknown God? “For he that commits sin, hath not seen him, neither known him,” and so worship, they know not what, in formal and superstitious worships.’ Thus J. Nayler wrote: but I now break off that I may not be tedious. So zealous was he before his fall; which was wholly of another nature than the common sins and transgressions; for, by the wiles of Satan, he accepted the idolatrous honour that some persons gave him, instead of which he ought to have reproved them; and thus was he so stupified in his understanding, that he imagined the bowing and kneeling before him, was not done on account of his person, but for Christ: and with this false opinion he blinded himself for a time, till it pleased God to pity him, and to give him light again; after he had suffered such an unheard of punishment for his transgression, as is already related in this history. And because his freedom of speech against unrighteousness of all sorts, and his preaching, ran very sharp upon all, several were angry with him, became his enemies, and took occasion from his crime to revenge themselves fiercely upon him, by making him suffer a cruel punishment, which was no ways proportionable to his transgression. But herein barbarous cruelty played its part so much, that the soberest inhabitants did detest it, and therefore a petition was presented to the parliament, desiring a discharge of part of the punishment, of which the first subscriber was colonel Scroop, who was governor of Bristol.