John Suckling

“ Imaginary cords, that seem to fasten man to heaven, have tied things here below surer together than any other obligation. If it be liberty of conscience they ask, 'tis a foolish request, since they have it already, and must have it in despite of power. ”

“ But that you do and say things in Scotland now (my lord) unfit for a good subject to hear, I should have hoped your lordship, by a true relation of the passages there, would have disabused your humble servant here. Distance and men's fears have so enlarged the truth, and so disproportioned everything about the town, that we have made the little troop of discontents a gallant army, and already measure no Scotchman but by his evening shadow. ”

“ There are, sir, here that have an opinion, necessity, not good nature, produced this treaty, and that the same necessity which made them thus wise for peace will make them as desperate for war, if it succeed not suddenly.
Some conceive little distrusts among themselves will facilitate the work, and that the danger, now grown nearer, will divide the body, by persuading each man to look to his own particular safety. So we see men in ships, while there is hope, assist each other ”

“ The thing I most wonder at is, that our old friend should be so much mistaken as to call Scotland the breech of the kingdom, since you know that is a part of all the rest most subject, and is still put to endure the lash, so that in all likelihood it should rather be your country than ours. ”

“ In great mutinies or insurrections of this nature pretentions speciously conscionable were never wanting, and indeed are necessary; for rebellion is itself so ugly, that did it not put on the vizard of religion, it would fright rather than draw people to it, and being drawn, it could not hold them without it. ”

“ The truth is, we here consider the Scottish affair much after the rate the mortals do the moon: the simpler think it no bigger than a bushel, and some (too wise) imagine it a vast world, with strange things undiscovered in it—certainly two ill ways of casting it up, since the first would make us too secure, the other too fearful. ”

“ Some are scandalized at the word of union, and protest they find no resemblance betwixt this new Covenant and our Saviour's. Others wonder why they would make use of religion rather than their poverty for the cause of their mutining, since the one is ever suspected, and the other none would have disputed. ”

“ If the exercise of that liberty, 'tis dangerous; for not three men are of the same opinion in all, and then each family must have a war within itself. Look upon their long preparations (and consider withal prophecy is sealed, and therefore they could not foretell this book should be sent unto them) , and you will conclude they rather employed Conscience, than Conscience employed them. Enquire after their leaders, and you will hardly find them apostles, or men of such sanctity that they should order religion. ”

“ The enemy is not yet much visible: (it may be, it is the fault of the climate, which brings men as slowly forwards as plants:) but it gives us fears that the men of peace will draw all this to a dumb show, and so destroy a handsome opportunity, which was now offered, of producing glorious matter for future chronicle. ”

“ It is none of the least discourtesies money hath done us mortals, the making things, easy in themselves and natural, difficult. Young and handsome people would have come together without half this trouble, if that had never been. ”

“ William Shakespeare makes Henry Hotspur quarrel so highly with his fellow-rebels, and for his sake I have been something curious to consider the scantlet of ground that angry monsieur would have had in, but cannot find it could deserve his choler, nor any of the other side ours, did not the king think it did. ”

“ Alderman) not so much out of fear for myself as care for you; for though you write in the present tense, and use the particle now, which is a kind of an exclusive word, yet it is well enough known a Scotchman at all times might speak what an Englishman durst not hear. It seems (sir) strange to me, that in the beginning of your letter you give us the name of rebels, when none are more his majesty's most humble subjects than we, as in the front of our petitions and messages most plainly appears. ”