to their place and vocation, with the
Estates now conveened, in any lawful and possible course which may most
conduce to the good of Religion and Reformation, the honour and happinesse
of the Kings Majestie, the deliverance of their Brethren of England from
their present calamitous condition, and to the perpetuating of a firme and
happy peace betwixt the Kingdomes.

_The Assemblies Answer to the right reverend the Assembly of Divines in
the Church of England._

_Right reverend and dearly beloved,_

As the sufferings of Christ abound in you, So our heartie desire to God
is, that your consolations may much more abound by Christ. The perusing of
your Letter, produced in every one of us such a mixture of affections, as
were at the laying of the foundation of the second Temple, where there was
heard both shouting for joy, and weeping aloud; We rejoyced that Christ
our Lord had at last in that Land created a new thing, in calling
together, not as before of a Prelaticall Convocation to be task-masters
over the people of the Lord, but an Assembly of godly Divines, minding the
things of the Lord, whose hearts are set to purge the defiled House of GOD
in that Land: yet this our joy was not a little allayed by the
consideration of the sad and deplorable condition of that Kingdome, where
the high provocations of so many years, the hellish plots of so many
enemies in a nick of time, have brought in an inundation of over-flowing
calamities: We know you are patiently bearing the indignation of the Lord,
because you have sinned against him, till he throughly plead your cause,
and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon, who now laugh among themselves,
while you are fed with the bread of tears, and get tears to drink in great
measure, being on the mountains like the doves of the valleyes, all of you
mourning every one for his iniquitie.

It is now more nor evident to all the Kirks of Christ, with what
implacable fury and hellish rage, the bloud-thirstie Papists, as _Babylon_
without, and the Prelaticall Faction, the children of _Edom_ within,
having adjoyned to themselves many malignant adherents, of time-serving
Atheists, haters of holinesse, rejecters of the yoke of Christ, (to whom
the morning light of Reformation is as the shadow of death) have begun to
swallow up the inheritance of the Lord, and are not easily satisfied in
making deep and long furrowes on your backs. We cannot say that the
loudnesse of your cry surpasseth the