After such amazements and assaults upon Our Patience , as no times of malice or cruelty can paralel ( not excluding those of Pharaoh and Herod , holding the comparison to our humane condition ; ) After we have circumspectly measured the madnesse of Our People with the raging of the Seas and noise of the waves , ( the extent of which comparisons none can reach but He who holds the waters in His Fist , and weighs the winds in a Ballance ; ) We are led to contemplate the Chaos from whence God raised the goodly structure which we continunually behold .

And finding the Light to be the begnning of the Creation , We thought fit to separate you from the present confusion fallen upon Our people , even you whom Our Ancestors have clarified from the common sort , and therefore dignified , that by your prudence the misguidings and wanderings of Our meaner Subjects may be undeceived and reduced , who do now . ( after the rash rejection of Our glorified Fathers prophetique Admonitions ) feel the fruits of their follies to become their own ruine , beyond their wisdom and power to redeem .

How often We have visited them with Meeknesse and Clemency in our Messages and Invitations from the Courts of Princes , whom , ( for their onely sakes , Our Predecessors have made their enemies ) even when their offered powers would have enabled Us to correct Our most rigid Rebels , cannot by Us ( without regret for such enforcements ) be remembred ; Nor are Our Subjects themselves without a sad sense of this , who , following their ambitious and avaritions blinde Conductors , are fallen into Laberinths of enmities with those Princes , whereout their deepest subtleties cannot bring them .

Happily by your instructions they may learn the Truth of this from their inconstant similitude the Seas , wch for many hundred of years , have by the Wisdom of our Ancestors their Princes , embraced them as their dearest Friends , as well conveighing them with their Merchandize to the utmost parts of the World , as also returning them with such fraights , as have made their Ware-houses the Magazines of other Countries , whereas at present ( though they be the chief Proprietors of the Worlds Food and cloathing , and Navigation ) even those Seas , for want of a lawful Soveraignty , deny them further Tutelage ; The Ports of their antient Allyes refuse them Trade or Harbourage ; And England which sate as a Virgin Queen upon the Waters , is Deflored , Ravished , and carried Captive into their Ports who formerly thought no Wealth too pretious to woe her .

We say we look upon your Lordships shining as Tapors to our blinded Subjects , and as Light-houses to their Unpiloted Rovings , which Office we consider to be to you also a Dignity , formerly belonging to the Lamps of the Church , though now they are under a Bushel ; As for the giddy multitude we pitty them with that Christian Proverb , Eheu quam honeste miserii erant , for by imitateing their Superiors they think they do well .

When we behold the Robes of some mens Consciences , who visit us in Corporal Rags ( the best Purchases their Loyalty can make ) we rest assured , that you who have this Worlds Wealth and not the Priviledge to use it , cannot enchain your Noble Souls to such slavery ; Nor is it our desire to invite you to violence , but the Peace which we wish to your Bodies and Souls , we equally present in our daily Prayers for you , together with the meanest of our Subjects , and seeing your Christianity commands your Brotherly Love even to your most inferiour Nighbours , you cannot better testifie the same , then by your example to bring them into the Way of Truth , which they shall never find in the Paths of Rebellion .

Again we call upon you our Peers , who cannot be unsensible that the Streams of your own Honour must necessarily faile , when the Fountain which should feed them is diverted ; We advise you to learn of the Hebrews , who after that absence of their King David ( more then seven times doubled by Our sufferings ) grew to contention for bringing home their persecuted Prince .

Nor are the opportunities difficult to your performance , there having been , in these many years of Our pilgrimage , divers assemblings of Our Subjects , which still continuing , you may , if you please , impart unto them such provident Instructions , as may return them to their antient Duty and future welfare , the after fruits whereof none of you need to doubt ; if you reflect upon the Felicities which all your Ancestors have enjoyed under the Raigns of Our Predecessors ; The inferiour sort having alwayes before them that formidable affrightment of present beggary and continued want of Trade , so long as they ●hall persist in disobedience to theirs and your injured and oppressed Soveraign .