To the Right Honourable the Commons of England, Assembled in Parliament

Sirs,

IT has always suited the wisdom of God, to do great things in difficult seasons. He sets up walls in troublous times (Daniel 9:25). His builders must hold swords and spears, as well as instruments of labor (Nehemiah 4:16). Yes, while sin continues in its course here (which began in Heaven, and having contemporized with the Earth, shall live for ever in Hell), great works for God will cause great troubles among men. The holy, harmless reconciler of heaven and earth, bids us expect the sword, to attend his undertakings for, and way of making peace (Matthew 10:34). All the waves in the world, arise to their height and roaring from the confronting of the breath of God's spirit, and the vapors of men's corruptions. Hence seasons receive their degrees of difficulty, according to the greatness and weight of the works which in them God will accomplish. To their worth and excellency is man's opposition proportioned. This, the instruments of his glory in this generation, shall continually find true to their present trouble, and future comfort.

As the days approach for the delivery of the decree, to the shaking of Heaven and Earth, and all the powers of the World, to make way for the establishment of that kingdom which shall not be given to another people (the great expectation of the Saints of the most high before the consummation of all) so tumults, troubles, vexations and disquietness, must certainly grow and increase among the sons of men.

A dead woman (says the Proverb) will not be carried out of her house under four men. Much less will living men, of wisdom and power, be easily and quietly dispossessed of that share and interest in the things of Christ, which long continued usurpation, has deluded them into an imagination of being their own inheritance. This then being shortly to be effected, and the scale being ready to turn against the man of sin, notwithstanding his balancing it in opposition to the witness of Jesus, with the weight and poise of earthly power, no wonder if heaven, earth, sea, and dry land, be shaken in their giving place to the things that cannot be moved. God Almighty having called you forth (Right Honorable) at his entrance to the rolling up of the nations' heavens like a scroll, to serve him in your generation in the high places of Armageddon, you shall be sure not to want experience of that opposition which is raised against the great work of the Lord, which generally swells most, against the visible instruments thereof.

And would to God, you had only the devoted sons of Babel to contend withal, that the men of this shaking earth were your only antagonists: that the malignity of the dragon's tail, had had no influence on the stars of heaven, to prevail with them to fight in their courses against you. But jacta est alea, the providence of God must be served, according to the discovery made of his own unchangeable will, and not the mutable interests and passions of the sons of men. For verily the Lord of Hosts has purposed to pollute the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the Earth (Isaiah 23:9).

The contradictions of sinners against all that walk in the paths of righteousness and peace, with the supportment which their spirits may receive (as being promised) who pursue those ways, notwithstanding those contradictions, are in part discovered in the ensuing sermon; the foundation of that whole transaction of things, which is therein held out, in reference to the present dispensations of providence (being nothing but an entrance into the unraveling of the whole web of iniquity, interwoven of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, in opposition to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus) I chose not to mention. Neither shall I at present add anything thereabout, but only my desire that it may be eyed as the granted basis of the following discourse. Only by your very favorable acceptation of the making out those thoughts, which were the hasty conception, and like Jonah's Gourd, the child of a night or two (which with prayer for a rooting in the hearts of them to whom they were delivered, had certainly withered, in their own leaves, had they not received warmth and moisture from your commands in general, and the particular desires of many of you, to give them a life of a few days longer) I am encouraged to the annexing of a few lines, as a free-will offering to attend the following product of obedience.

Now this shall not be to the opposition which you do and shall yet further meet withal, but as to the causes, real, or pretended, which are held forth as the bottom of that contradiction wherewith on every side you are encompassed.

The things in reference whereunto, your proceeding is laden with such criminations, as these sad days of recompense, have found to be comets portending no less than blood, are first civil, then religious.

For the first, as their being beyond the bounds of my calling, gives them sanctuary from being called forth to my consideration, so neither have I the least thoughts with Absalom of a more orderly carrying off of affairs, might my desires have any influence into their disposal. Waiting at the throne of grace, that those whom God has intrusted with, and enabled for the transaction of these things, may be directed and supported in their employment, is the utmost of my undertaking herein.

For the other, or religious things, the general interest I have in them as a Christian, being improved by the super-added title of a minister of the Gospel (though unworthy the one name, and the other) gives me not only such boldness as accrues from enjoyed favor, but also such a right as will support me to plead concerning them, before the most impartial judicature.

And this I shall do (as I said before) merely in reference to those criminations, which are laid by conjectural presumptions on your Honorable Assembly, and made a cause of much of that opposition and contradiction you meet withal. Now in particular, it is the toleration of all religions or invented ways of worship, wherein your constitutions are confidently antedated in many places of the nation, the thing itself withal, being held out, as the most enormous apprehension, and desperate endeavor for the destruction of truth and godliness that ever entered the thoughts of men, professing the one and the other. The contest hereabout, being adhuc sub Judice, and there being no doubt, but that the whole matter, commonly phrased as above, has (like other things) sinful and dangerous extremes. I deemed it not amiss, to endeavor the pouring a little cold water upon the common flames, which are kindled in the breasts of men about this thing. And who knows, whether the words of a weak nothing, may not by the power of the Fountain of Beings, give some light into the determination and establishment of a thing of so great concernment and consequence, as this is generally conceived to be. What is in this my weak undertaking, of the Lord, I shall beg of him, that it may be received, what is of myself I beg of you that it may be pardoned. That God Almighty would give you to prove all things that come to you in his way, and to hold fast that which is good, granting you unconquerable assistance, in constant perseverance, is the prayer of,

Your devoted Servant in our dearest Lord: JOHN OWEN. Coggeshall, Feb. 28.