‘Friend,
‘The inclosed I do commend unto thee to present unto the house, and to endeavour sincerely the reading of it in your assembly; for it is of special concernment to you all; and in the name of the Lord, and by his Spirit, I do charge thee not to be negligent in this matter, as though it were not of worth to you; and I do lay it upon thee, as thou wilt answer the contrary at the dreadful day of God, when the King of Righteousness shall judge thee and all mankind.
E. BURROUGH.’
The 24th of the Eleventh month, 1659.
This parliament did so lord it, that about fifteen hundred military officers were cashiered, and others put into their places.
About this time George Fox the younger wrote also a letter to the parliament and the army, which was as followeth:
‘Your day into darkness is turned; the sun is gone down over you. You have had a large day, and power given unto you, to have done the will of God, but you have abused the power, and slighted your day; and you have refused to do the Lord’s work, and have sought to serve yourselves, and not the Lord; therefore in justice and righteousness, is the day wherein you might have wrought for God, taken from you; and the thick dark night of confusion is come upon you, wherein you are groping and stumbling, and cannot work; the decree is gone out, and sealed against you, and it cannot be recalled; you are not the men, (as ye stand,) in whom God will appear to work deliverance for his people, and creatures; and yet deliverance shall come, but not according to man’s expectations. But as for you, ye have rejected the counsel of the Lord, and grieved his Spirit, and he hath long borne you; yea, you are departed from the Lord, and his presence is departed from you; indeed he hath hewed with you, and if you had been faithful to the end, he would have honoured and prospered you, and would have been your sufficient reward: ye were his axe, but you have boasted yourselves against him; therefore as you have beaten, and hewed, and broken others, even so must you be beaten, hewed, and broken; for you have grievously provoked the Lord; and if he should now suffer that tree, which ye have cut, to fall upon you, and to break part of you, it were just.
‘O ye treacherous, wilful, proud, self-seeking people, who have despised the counsel of the Lord, and would not take warning, though he hath sent his prophets and servants early and late among you, some of whom you have imprisoned and despitefully used; what will ye do now? Whom will ye now flee unto for help; seeing ye are departed from the Lord, and are now rending and tearing, biting and devouring one another, for proud, ambitious, self ends? (Mark.) If you would now build again the thing that you once destroyed, that shall not be able to hide or shelter you from the wrath of the Lamb; that way whereby you think to strengthen yourselves, thereby shall you make yourselves much weaker, and help forward your own destruction; you are now but a rod, remember your end, which hastens greatly. Now breach upon breach, insurrection upon insurrection, overturning upon overturning, heaps upon heaps, division upon division shall there be, until he come to reign, whose right it is; and all nations must bow before him, else he will break them with his iron rod.
‘They that trust in, or lean upon you for help, it is as if they leaned upon a broken reed, which is not able to help itself, nor others; indeed you have been made to do many good things, but you would not go through with the work which God will have accomplished, and therefore are these things come upon you; therefore tremble and dread before the Lord, ye who have been as strong oaks, and tall cedars, for now shall your strength fail you, and you shall be weak, even as the weakest of men; but if you would yet believe in the light, and truly submit to God’s righteous judgments, many of you might come to witness your souls saved, in the day of the Lord; though many of your bodies are to be thrown by, because of your grievous backslidings, as not counted worthy to be the Lord’s workmen.
‘There is a small remnant yet among you, for whom my soul breathes, who may be winnowed out; and if they will own the judgments of the Lord, and truly and thoroughly deny themselves, and follow his leadings, he will heal their backslidings, and purge them, that so they may be instruments in his hand: but they that will continue with you in your sins, shall partake with you of your judgments.