‘And whereas you now say, that none but a regal authority can stifle; it is true, you have tried parliaments and protectors, (as you called them,) and parliaments again; and to make them then work for you, your priests used these arguments to them, to wit, That in the late wars they had exposed lives, liberties, estates, and relations, with all other personal advantages, in maintaining the just proceedings of parliaments, and from them you then claimed our stifling, as the price of your prayers, purses, hazards, losses, banishment, and blood, as may be read in the Westmoreland petition against us, which thou hast printed in page 197 and 198. And was not this power that which you then called the common enemy, in the same petition, page 200, which you now cry to, and would put him upon that work against us now, as defender of your faith, &c. Ah! a faithless generation have you been to God and man, may you not be ashamed of this work, to print it, and send it to king Charles, and call him to defend it, and patronize it: how hath envy bereaved you of your reasonableness? Shall he who defends this, defend either faith or truth? But this is, that you may cover yourselves with your shame and envy, that both king and people, and parliaments, may see what a generation you are, that will run under any power to get your bloody ends; but indeed true to none; for if it was true, that you were so faithful to that parliament, with your prayers, purses, and blood, as there you plead, then is your faith but new, which now you would have defended; but if not true, then how great deceivers, and how little to be trusted, or defended, in your cruel designs. ‘“The king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established for ever. But, if a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.” Prov. xxix. 12, 14. ‘And to thee, who hast set forth this book of mischief, I say with the Scriptures, “Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous, spoil not his resting place. For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” Prov. xxiv. 15, 16. See also Mich. vii. 8. J. N.’ _In answer to the book._