the Prince should often appear unto his People in Majesty and that the Courtiers should keep good houses And if they will do no more to do but as much as the Beasts and Birds being irrational creatures do by their bodies natural make it their greatest care to protect and preserve the Head of our Body Politique and the honor and dignity of it and keep it above water And now that by his gracious Government and return to us like the Sun to dispel the cold and uncomfortableness which the Winter of his absence had almost for ever fastned upon us Cum fixa manet reverentia patrum Firmatur seâ—ium juris priscamquè resumunt Canitiem leges when our Parliaments and our just and ancient Laws are again restored Claustrisque solutis Tristibus exsanguâ—s andent procedere leges and released from their former affrights and terrors Not endeavour to abridge or endanger the hopes of our future happiness by being to sparing unto him that was not so unto us Jam captae vindex patriae Ut sese pariter diffudit in omnia regni Membra vigor vivusquè redit color urbibus aegris and redeemed our happiness from its Captivity But rather imitate the Clergie of the Bishopricks of Gloucester Chester Oxford Peterborough and Bristol who in the fourth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth finding those Bishopricks to be much impoverished by the Earl of Leicester and some other who in their vacancies had gotten away a great part of the Revenues thereof did by their Benevolences for some years after enable the Bishops thereof in some tolerable degree to maintain their Hospitalities And our long ago departed Ancestors who took it ill in the Reign of King John with whom they had so much and more then they should contended for their Liberties that Hubert Arch-bishop of Canterbury should keep a better House and Feast at Easter then the King And that Cardinal Woolsey in the Reign of King Henry the Eight should keep as great a state at Court as the King exercise as great an Authority in the Country for Pourveyance as the King and forbid Pourveyance to be made in his own Jurisdictions which made an addition to the Articles of High Treason or great Misdemeanors charged upon him by the Commons in Parliament brought up to the House of Peers by Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert afterward a learned Judge of the Court of Common pleas So that our King may not for want of his antient rights of Pourveyance or an Allowance or Compositions for them the later of which as a means to make so unquestionable a right and priviledge of the Crown of England to be alwayes gratefull and welcome to them was fiâ—st designed set on foot contrived by Sir David Brook Serjeant at Law unto King Henry the Eighth and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the Reign of Queen Mary and happily effected or brought to perfection in or about the 4 th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth be necessitated to retrench or lay down his Royal Housekeeping and Hospitalities or deprived of his means of Charity and Magnificence which Jacob Almansor the learned Arabian King who lived in Anno 654. and conquered Spain was in his swarthy Dominions so carefull to preserve as after that he had given audience unto Suitors which were some dayes in every week he usually caused a publique cry to be made that all of them as well rich as poor should stay and take their refections and to that end furnished Tables for them with such abundance of provisions as became the house of so mighty a King And that if any forreign King or Prince should as Cecily Sister to the King of Sweden and Wife to the Marquess of Baden did by a far a long Voyage come from the North into England to visit our Queen Elizabeth and see the splendour of her Court which as to her Charity splendour and Hospitality though so over-sparing in other things and so unwilling to draw monyes out of her Subjects purses as she lost the fair hopes and opportunity of regaining Calais which was so much desired by her was very plentifully and magnificent and with the allowance of many more Tables then have been in the times of her Successors they may return into their Country as that Princess did with a wonder at it and not be constrained to say as was once said of the glory of the Temple of Jerusalem Who is left amongst you that saw this house in her first glory and how do you see it now and that returning into the former good wayes manners and custome of England we may not be damnati fatâ— populi but virtute renati And that to that end we shall do well to leave ouâ— new and untrodded By-wayes of Error made by the Raiser of Taxes and the Filchers of the Peoples Liberties in the Glory of anothers Kingdome now we have so wofully seen felt heard and understood so very many mischiefs and inconveniences already happened and if not speedily prevented are like to be a great deal more and hearken unto the voyce and dictates of the Laws of God and Nature the Laws of the Land and Nations Reason and Gratitude and let our Posterity know that the honor of our King and Country is dear unto us and that whatever becomes of our own Hospitalities we shall never be willing to let the Vestaâ— Fire of the British and English Hospitalities although most of our own are either extinguished or sunk into the Embers go out or be extinct in our King Palaces or to abjure or turn out of its course so great part of the Genius of the Nation but that we shall continue the duties of Praeemption and Pourveyance which are as old as the first Generations of Mankind and as antient as the duty of reverence of Children to their Parents Dent Fata Recessum FINIS Accompts inter Evidentia Comitis Oxon. Stows Survey of London Sieur Colberts Remonstrance of the benefit of the Trade to be driven by the French in the East-Indies Lessius de Just. Jur. lib. 2. cap. 21. n. 148. Cokes 4. part Institutes 12 Ed. 4. c. 8. 25 H. 8. cap. 2. Epist. Rom. 6. Speed Hist. of England Heylin hist. Ecclesiae Anglicanae domes reformatae Waler Max. lib. 8. cap. 5. Cicero in oratione pro Muroena Gervasius Tilburiensis Assisa panis cervisiae and a Statute for punishing the breach thereof by Pillory and Tumbrell Anno 51 H. 3. Rot. Fin. 11 E. 2. Cokes 1. part Institutes 70 Rot. parl 25 â— 3. m. 56. Inter Recorda in Recept Scaccarii inter Fines de tempore H. 3. Speed Hist. of Great Britain M. S. in custodia Gulielmi Dugdale Spelman Annotat. ad Concilia decreta leges Ecclesiastica 349. Asser Menevensis de gestis Alfredi 19. 23. Henry Huntingdon and William Malmesbury de gestis regum Angliae Speed History of England Stows Survey
the Reign of King Henry the 3. bring an Assise or Action against him for it for as for our Industrious Speed setting forth in his History of England that Rhese ap Gruffith Prince of Wales coming out of Wales as far as Oxford to treat of a Peace with King Richard the First did take it in so high a scorn and indignation that the King came not in person to meet him as he returned home into his own Country without saluting the King though Earl John the Kings only Brother had with much honour conducted him from the Marches of Wales thither and that by that means the hopes of the expected peace vanished and came unto nothing hath observed that the meanest from whom love or service is expected will again expect regard And therefore the care of our Kings was not a little imployed in that way of imparting of their favours and increasing and cherishing the love and good will of their people when King Henry the Seventh whose troubles and tosses of fortune before he came unto the Crown had together with his learning and princely education made him a great Master in Policy and good Government and one of the wisest Kings that ever swaied the English Scepter did in his prudent Orders concerning his Court and Houshold and the State and Magnificence which he desired to be observed therein communicated unto me by my worthy and learned Friend William Dugdale Esquire Norroy King at Armes out of an ancient Manuscript sometimes in the custody of Charles de Somerset Knight Lord Herbert and Gower Chamberlain unto that King amongst many other Orders for the honour of the King and his House ordain that If any straunger shall come from any Noble-man or other the Gentilmen Huysshers ought to sette him in suche place convenient within the Kyngs Chamber as is mete for hym by the discrecion of the Chamberlain and Huyssher and to comaunde service for hym after his degree and the sayd Huyssher ought to speke to the Kings Almoigner Kerver and Sewer to reward hym from the Kings Board this is to say if the said Straunger happen to come whan the Kyng is at dynner Item The Gentilman Huyssher if there come any honourable personnes to the Kyng at any other tyme they ought to call with thaym the sayd personnes to the Seller Pantry and Buttry and there to commaund forth such brede mete and drynke as by his discretion shall be thought metely for thaym and this in no wise not to be with sayd in noon of thies Offices aforesayd It is to the Kings honor Item that no Gentilman Huyssher bee so hardy to take any commaundement upon him but that it may be with the Kings honor by hys discretion in these matiers to myspende the Kings vitail but where as it ought to be and if he doo he is nat worthy to occupy that rowme but for to abide the punishment of my Lord Chamberlain Item A Gentilman Huyssher ought to commaund Yeomen Huysshers and Yeomen to fetche bred ale and wine at afternoon for Lords and other Gentilmen being in the Kings Chamber whan the caas soâ— shall requyre Which and the like Magnificences of Hospitality in the Houses and Courts of our Kings and Princes supported by the Pourveyances without which the elder Kings of England before the Conquest could not have been able to susteyn the charge of their great and yearly solemn Festivals at Christmas Easter and Pentecost when ex more obsequii vinculo antiquissimo as that great and learned Antiquary Sir Henry Spelman hath observed by duty and antient custome the Lords and Barons of England did never fail to come to the Kings Palace where the Magna Concilia wittena gemotes conventus sapientum now called Parliaments were at those times to be holden and kept cum ad Curiam personam ejus exornandum tum ad consulendum de negotiis regni statuendumque prout fuerat necessarium providere de rebus illis Rex solebat corona redimitus profastu Regio se in omnibus exhibere for the honor of the King and his Court who then with his Crown upon his head and other Princely habiliments did use to shew himself unto the people and advise what was necessary to be done for the good of the Kingdom And was such an attendant upon the Grandeur and Honour of their Monarchy as it began with it and continued here amongst us till the Councill of some foolish and factious Shrubs had by a fire kindled in our then unhappy Kingdome overturned our Cedars of Libanon and made an accursed and wicked Bramble their Protector and was so necessary to the Government and Authority of our Kings and the encrease and preservation of the love and obedience of the people as we find it neither repined nor murmured at in the Reign of King Alfred who being of an almost unimitable piety and prudence and to whom this Nation ows a gratefull memory for his division of the Kingdom into Shires and Hundreds and for many a Politique Constitution did now almost 800 years ago keep a most Princely and magnificent House and a numerous company of Servants gave enterteynment of diet and lodging to many of the sons of his Nobility who were therein trayned up to all manner of Courtly and honourable exercises had three Cohorts or Bands of Life-guards every Cohort according to the ancient computation consisting if they were Horse of 132 and of Foot of a great many more the first Company attending in or about his Court or House night and day for a moneth and returning aftewards home to their own occasions tarried there by the space of two moneths the second Cohort doing likewise as the first and the third as the second by their turns and courses and had a good allowance of money and victualls in the House or Court of the King who had his ministros nobiles qui in curio Regio vicissim commorabantur in pluribus ministrantes ministeriis noble and great Officers in his Court which attended in their courses and took so much care also for them as in his last Will and Testament he gave cuilibet Armigerorum suorum to every one of his Esquires 100 marks Or that King Hardi Canutus caused his Tables to be spread four times every day and plentiously furnished with Cates and commanded that his Courtiers Servants and Guests should rather have superfluities then want any thing That William Rufus when he had built Westminster Hall 270 foot in length and 74 in breadth thought it not large enough for a Dyning Room King Richard the Second kept a most Royall Christmas where was every day spent 26 or 28 Oxen 300 Sheep with Fowl beyond number and to his Houshold came every day to meat ten thousand people as appeared by the Messes told out from the Kitchin unto three hundred Servitors and was able about two years before when the Times began to be
his men wear the same colour of Livery that the Kings servants did Or that it was ill done by the Parliament in the 14 th year of the Reign of that King when they petitioned him that the Prerogative of him and his Crown might be kept and that all things done to the contrary might be redressed Or that the Lords Spirituall and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled in the 16 th year of the said Kings Reign did not well understand the good of the Kingdom when upon a Debate and consideration of the Popes Usurpation and Incroachments upon the Kings Regalities and his Holiness Provisions made for Aliens and Strangers by the benefices of the Church of England they did unanimously declare that they and all the Leige Commons of the Realm would stand with the King and his Crown and Regality in the cases aforesaid and in all other cases attempted against him his Crown and Regality in all points to live and to dye Or that our forefathers were not to be imitated in their stout assertions of the Rights of their Kings and their Regalities when in their zeal thereunto Humphry Duke of Glocester when the Pope had wrote Letters in the Reign of King Henry the Sixth in derogation of the King his Regality and the Church-men durst not speak against them he did throw his Letters and Missive into the fire and burn them Or that it can be well done by us to withhold from him that small retribution of Pourveyance which is a Duty established by a fourfold obligation composed of a Right or Duty a very antient Custome backt by the Laws of God Nature and Nations the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and a contract made and continued by the people to their Kings built upon the best and greatest of considerations which the Prophet David in the 15 th Psalm if it had not been as it is beneficiall to the people but to some loss or damage adviseth not to be broken and enforce him for want of it to give over his Housekeeping and deprive him of that Loadstone which might amongst many other of his daily graces and favours attract and draw unto him the love and affections of his people the most iron rusty hearted Clowns or leave our Trajan no wall for his â—erba Parietaria sweet smelling flower to grow upon Or that it can be any honour for our Lords and Ladies who received their honour from the King and his Progenitors and were in the Saxon Times called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lords and Ladies from their Hospitalities and giving of bread to see and not seek or help to remedy the greatest dishonour which in the consequence of it was ever put upon the Fountain of honour and a King of England in Solio in his Throne and full possession of his Kingdome and so much the more and without an example because it is not in the Time of a Rebellion but a happy Restauration and in the time of Peace after an end or conclusion of an intestine and barbarous Warre and so notorious as it hath been told in the Streets of Gath and Askalon and stirred up some unmannerly fancies and pictures made by some of our envious Neighbours in reproach of it Or that there can be any reason that those that think it reason that the King should recompence them for their losses and damages susteyned in his service in doing their duty unto him should not be as willing to give him an ease in his losses by any agreement made with them which proves to be prejudiciall or a damage unto him or that we may not give our selves in assurance that the Baronage of England who in a Parliament in the 20 th year of the Reign of King Henry the Third refused to consent to an Act of Parliament for the legitimation of such children as were botâ— before marriage to Parents afterwards married and clapping their hands upon their swords cryed una voce with one voice nolumus mutare leges Angliae we will never consent to change the laws of England would now if they were living say more and bewail the downfall of the Honor of their King and Country And not only they but all the then hospitable Gentry and Commonalty of England Lament to see so good and gracious a King allied to all the greatest Houses and Princely Families of Christendome by a discent farre beyond the most antient of them and an extraction of blood equalling if not surpassing the greatest of them and as well deserving of his People want the means to support a Magnificence as high and illustrious as any of his Royall Progenitors and not to be able for want of his Pourveyance to give his Servants Diet or Wages and that some of the principall of them as the Treasurer and Comptroller being sworn by the Orders of the House that all things in the Kings House be guided to the Kings most worship and that they search the good old rule worshipfull and profitable of the Kings Court used before time and them to keep and better if they can should have so much cause as they have to weep as the Priests did at the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and complaining that the beauty is departed from the Kings house his Servants are become like Harts that find no Pasture and they that did feed plentifully are desolate in the Streets Wonder what wild Boar out of the Forrest or Fox out of the Wood have so destroyed and laid wast the Vineyards and the Gardens the Beds of Spices the Roses of Sharon and the Lilies of the Vallies that some of our Temples should be gloriously re-edified and our Zion repaired and yet the glory of our Solomon and his housekeeping not restored but his Servants ruined and their names as to their pay and maintenance blotted out of the Registers that the Winter should be past the Rain over and gone the Flowers appear on the earth the time of the singing of the Birds come and the voyce of the Turtle heard in our Land and the State and Magnificence of our Solomon and his Royall housekeeping which would have heretofore astonished a Queen of Sheba should be now most needlesly exchanged for a desolation and bear all the marks upon it of a languishing Honour That the Courts and Palace of our most gracious King Charles the Second by a mischance of quitting his Rights of Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them should as to many of its Attendants have all the year turned into an Ember week and be about Noon or Dinner time like the silence and want of Company at Midnight or a representation of the middle Isle of the Cathedrall of St. Pauls in London destitute of all its Walkers or Company but such as had nothing to buy their Dinner withall which heretofore begot the reproachfull adage or saying usually cast upon such men of distress
of England of permitting their Officers and Servants to take what the King pleased out of Forreign Commodities and Merchandize brought into England upon payment of such rates as he pleased which amount unto no small yearly profit for an Exchange and grant by the Merchants Strangers of three pence per pound now called the Petit Customes of all forreign Merchandises imported except Wines for every Sack of Wool forty pence for every 300 Wolfels forty pence and for every last of Leather to be exported half a mark over and above the Duties payable by Denizens were but rightly estimated Or the benefits which the Subiects of England have had and received by the Act of Parliament made in Anno 14 Ed. 3. granting that all Merchants Denizens and Aliens may freely and safely come into the Realme of England which before they could not or durst not adventure to do without speciall licence and safe conduct under the great or some part of the Seal of England with their Goods and Merchandize and safely tarry and return paying the Subsidies and Customes reasonably due together with the ease and benefit but to the great loss and damage of the Crown which the Merchants of England as well as those of forreign Parts have by the loss of Calais since Queen Maries time and the remove of the Staple from thence whither all Goods Exported out of England were to be first brought a Custome Inward the second time paid and for so much which may be believed to be the greatest part as was again from thence Exported into other Countries the Customes a third time paid which made the Customes and Subsidies only for Goods Exported in the later end of the Reign of King Edward the Third and during the Reigns of King Richard the Second Henry the Fourth Henry the Fifth and the beginning of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth as appeareth by the Records of the Exchequer to amount unto threescore or threescore and ten thousand pounds per annum which according to the valuation of mony at this day saith Sir John Davies the ounce of Silver being raised from twenty pence unto five shillings would amount unto two hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum And the difference betwixt the payment of Customes and Subsidies then paid three times over for one and the same thing and the payment of it but once as is now used with many other great benefits beyond a valuation not here particularized And consider how unworthy it would be for the Natives and People of England after many Knights Fees and Lands freely given and granted by the Kings Royall Progenitors to their Forefathers and their Heirs to be holden by Knight-service and in Capite of which if the sixty thousand Knights Fees and more reckoned by antient Authors should be no greater a number then ten thousand and valued but at twenty pounds per annum as they were reckoned in anno primo Edwardi secundi they would amount unto two hundred thousand pounds per annum and if but at three hundred pounds per annum which is now the least â—mprovement would amount unto three Millions per annum besides great quantities of other Lands being twice or thrice as much more in the severall Reigns of his Majesties Royall Progenitors freely granted and given unto otheâ—s of them and their Heirs to be holden in Socage to endeavour to extinguish the right use of them and forget their Obligations to their Prince and Common Parent and his Royall Progenitors And in too many of their Actions and business cozen or beg all they can from him and in stead of saying Domine quid retribuam Lord what shall I render unto thee for all thy benefits make it the greatest of their care imployment and business not only to take but keep from him all they can even at the same time when they had obteyned of him an unparralleld Act of Indempnity and Oblivion and to to forget all their evil designes and offences intended or committed against him and his blessed Father and to pardon and give them as much as fifteen or sixteen millions sterling in the Arrears of his own Revenue and two or three hundred millions Sterling at least for the forfeiture of theirs And might have remembred how they promised him their lives and fortunes and to be his Tenants in Corde and with what a Princely and Fatherly affection he told their Representatives that he was sorry to see so many of his good people come to see him at Whitehall and had no meat to feed or entertain them and how ashamed and unwilling they are in their ordinary and daily Actions and Affairs to come behind or be upon the score one to another in their reciprocations retributions and retorns of gratitudes and take it to be a disparagement not to out-vie or undo one another therein how willingly they can part with their money to their children at School to make Oblations or Presents to their School-masters at their Intermissions or Breaking up of School at Christmas Easter or Whitsontyde a course newly invented by School-masters to better their Allowances and Incomes and chargeable enough to the Parents as may appear by the Offerings at a Christmas made unto some Capital School-Masters which have singly amounted unto five or six hundred pounds which with the Beds and Furniture and silver Spoons to be brought thither by the Boarders and left behind them at their departure do make as great or a greater charge to many Parents then what they were ever rated for the Pourveyance And how accustomed and willing an expence all people are desirous to put themselves unto pro honestate domus for the good and content of any Inne Tavern or Alehouse to make them some recompence for but coming into those houses upon any occasion or necessity of business And can notwithstanding so readily finde the way to that unchristian River of Lethe and sinne of unthankfulness which God and all good men do abhorre and the most fierce and savage of the Beasts of the field Fowls of the Ayr do scorn to be guilty of and make it their business to desire the King to foregoe his Pourveyance and take a seeming recompence of fifty thousand pounds per annum for it of the moyty of the Excise to be raised out of the Moans and Laments of the multitude which are the labouring and poorer sort of the people to free richer and better able from their heretofore small Payments or Contributions in Cattle and other Provisions for the Royall Pourveyance now that England enjoyeth a greater plenty then ever it did by some hundred thousand Acres of Fenne Lands drained many Forests and Chases deafforrested mâ—ny Parks converted unto Tillage or Pasture great quantities of other Lands inclosed and as much or more of Abby and Religious Lands retorned into Lay-hands fewer Taxes and publique Assessments by one to ten then are in the Kingdomes and Dominions of Spain France Empire of
perpetual Almes 22 Acres of Land and half of a Marâ—e-pit to pray for the souls of his Lord King Henry and of him and his Wife And as Geffrey de Clintoâ— did in the Reign of King Henry the Third and William de Whaplode in or about the 27 th year of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth should be so willing to un-English themselves and by a loathsome and ugly ingratitude and for the saving sparing of so inconsiderable an yearly charge as their Oblations in the Royal Pourveyance or Compositions for them amounted unto make us to be every day more and more a by-word reproch and scorn to the Nations round about us and entail upon us those dishonors mischiefs inconveniences damages and accumulations of evils which may sooner be foreseen and prevented then remedied And to fasten it on and be very sure not to fail of it will be content so as with the rich man in the Gospel they may fare diliciously live wantonly and give entertainment to all their excesses of pride and vanity to make themselves slaves to sin and fool away their happiness and if Lazarus be after his death carried with Angels into Abrahams bosome it shall never trouble them untill death and the fate of mortality shall bring them to be at leisure to think better of it Can without any remorse of conscience fear of Hell honor and welfare of their Nation care of Heaven after ages or posterity see the piety good old virtues Customes and Manners of England murdered and do all that they can to extirp and destroy them root and branch And whilst too many of our Gentry can leave the Jack-daws to be Stewards of their formerly better employed stately well-built houses in the Country bring their Wives and Children to London and make some little Lodgings or houâ—es there to be their residence to learn what vices are most in fashion spend fifty or one hundred pounds at a time in a Treatment or Tavern at London and be cheated and cozened an half or a third part in the reckoning make a Feast at their Lodgings or Houses enough to puzle Lucullus or Vitellius Cooks or Professors in the Art of Gluttony at three or five hundred pounds charges have their Oleo's Haut gousts Ambiges costly Gallimauphries or Hotch potches laid altogether in a dish and that dish so big as the door must needs be taken off the hinges to make a stately passage to bring it in and after some hours spent in heightning and pleasing their appetites and adoring Bacchus their drunken Diety can let some of their Mortgaged Mannors and Lands run about the streets by day and night in Coaches with dores and glass Windows and be at the yearly charges of maintaining a couple or more of Coach-horses as much fatted and pampered more then needs to be as would provide more then a yoke or two of fat Oxen to kill at Christmas when they shall be so good as to observe such Christian Festivals and instead of four or six proper serving men as their old hospitable Grandâ—ires had in constant pay or salary to attend or fight for them upon no Tavern or Alehouse â—ray or Quarrels but just occasions have only one or two Foot-boyes dressed up like some ridiculous Antiques to wait upon the Coach by getting up before or behind it Can see virtue and honestly only laid up in Books and Speculations and be read as Romances and things impracticable truth reason and conscience greatly talked of and a part of almost every mans daily pretences but used as vagabonds incertilaris without any habitations and very little to be seen but the names of them made use of as the Gibeonites did their mouldy bread old shoes and garments only for the people to cozen and cheat one another Trade the great Diana of our Ephesus by a strange abuse of it come to be the greatest cheat oppression and tyranny of the Nation and Gods providence vouched for their thriving by it the numbers of the poor and oppressed daily multiplyed priâ—e knavery cheating and complement those termini convertibiles not mercy and truth kissing each other and making a League to cozen and deceive all such as are not of their trim society And whilst they are chanting to the sound of the viols drinking wine in Boules and stretching themselves upon their Couches can without any brotherly kindness or compassion behold the sighing of the poor and needy the widows and the fatherless the misery of multitudes and those that have none to help them will not deal their bread to the hungry nor bring the poor which are cast out into their houses will not cover the naked but hide themselves from their own flesh will not undo the heavy burdens nor let the oppressed go free But do all that they can not only to banish the Kings hospitality and his accustomed Royalties and magnificence from his Court and Palaces and as if he and his Servants were in a continual â—it of a fever enforce them by withholding his Pourveyance or Compositions for them whilst they themselves do feast and revel in their own houses to a thinne and sparing diet and as to many of them none at all but to destroy the greatest and best part of the Hospitality of the Nation which was wont to make those suâ—ves potentes benificentiae nexus quibus seu compedibus animi illigâ—ntur those gratefull as Marsellaer very well observeth impressions of benefits which do as it were charme and oblige the minds and affections of mankind A custome so antient as it was no strangerâ— to Abraham the friend of God when he sitting in his Tent dore in the Plains of Mamre invited the three then unknown Angels and feasted them nor to the Father of the Excellent meek and humble Rebecca when as Abrahams Servant or Embassadour was so well as he was enterteyned before it was known from whence he came and what his message was and which the Jews ever after were so unwilling to part with as the good Nehemiah many ages after could in his then no great plenty or felicity keep a great house hospitality and many tables aswell for the Heathen as 150 of the Jews and Rulers and hath been justly accompted to be such a religious duty as St. Paul allowed of the Agapes love or neighbourly Feasts and exhorted the Hebrews to let broâ—therly love continue and not to be forgetfull to entertain strangers for thereby some meaning their old father Abraham have unawares entertained Angels And being the love and delight of the Almighty that gave us all good things which we possesse was also the Treasury and keeper of the peoples love and as much as concerned peace and good will unto men a part of the blessed song of the Angels at the Birth of our Redeemer and in our Ancestors dayes was best of all supported by a generous and well ordered frugality and by the old Romans held to be