TO THE IMPARTIAL READER.[229]
This Letter I acknowledge to have received from Mr. Cotton, whom for his personal excellencies I truly honour and love: yet at such a time of my distressed wanderings amongst the barbarians, that being destitute of food, of clothes, of time, I reserved it, though hardly, amidst so many barbarous distractions, and afterward prepared an answer to be returned.
Mr. Cotton’s reluctancy in himself concerning the way of persecution.
In the interim, some friends being much grieved, that one, publicly acknowledged to be godly, and dearly beloved, should yet be so exposed to the mercy of a howling wilderness in frost and snow, &c.: Mr. Cotton, to take off the edge of censure from himself, professed both in speech and writing, that he was no procurer of my sorrows.
Some letters then passed between us, in which I proved and expressed, that if I had perished in that sorrowful winter’s flight, only the blood of Jesus Christ could have washed him from the guilt of mine.
An unmerciful speech from a merciful man.
His final answer was, “Had you perished, your blood had been on your own head; it was your sin to procure it, and your sorrow to suffer it.”
Here I confess I stopped, and ever since suppressed mine answer; waiting, if it might please the Father of mercies, more to mollify and soften, and render more humane and merciful, the ear and heart of that otherwise excellent and worthy man.
God’s wisdom in the season of publishing this letter.