Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	cause_n	manage_v	opposer_n	139	4	16.0497	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88204	The just defence of John Lilburn, against such as charge him with turbulency of spirit.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1653 (1653)	Wing L2123A; Thomason E711_10; ESTC R207124	13,471	11

Upon this I was fetched out of bed and house by a party of horse and foot in such a dreaded manner as if I had been the greatest traitor to the laws and liberties of England that ever was the souldiers being raise onely against such traitors and not to seize upon men that strove for their restoration but now the case was altered ' and I must be no less then a traitor and so taken and so declared all over England with my other fellow-sufferers and all clapt up prisoners in the Tower and after a while close prisoners and then not only aspersed to be factious and turbulent but Atheists and Infidels of purpose to fit us for destruction And though after a long and tedious imprisonment they could never finde whereof legally to accuse us for any thing they put us in prison yet scrap'd they up new matter against me from the time they gave me liberty to visit my sick and distressed family a thing heathens would have been ashamed of but who so wicked as dissembling Christians and upon this n●w matter small as it was what a Tryal for my life was I put upon what an absolute resolution did there appeare to take away my life but God and the good Consciences of twelve honest men preserved me and delivered me of that their snare which smote them to the heart but not with true repentance for then had they ceased to pursue me but just before that my Tryal it is not to be forgotten how a Declaration was set forth by the then Councel of State signifying my complyance with young Charles Stuart just as now was published in print upon the very morning I was brought to the Sessions-house yea and the same papers brought into the now Parliament of purpose to bespeak and prevent the effect of those Petitions then presented in my behalf and to turn the spirits of the House against me so that nothing is more evident then that the same hand still stones me and for the same cause and that I may be murdered with some credit first they kill me with slanders but as they in wickedness so God in righteousness and the Consciences of good men in matter of Justice is still the same and I cannot doubt my deliverance God and the Consciences of men fearing him more then men freeing me from this danger I endeavoured to settle my self in some comfortable way of living trying one thing and another but being troubled with Excise wherein I could not snerk like other men I was soon tired and being dayly applyed unto for Counsel by friends I resolved to undertake mens honest causes and to manage them either as Sollicitor or Pleader as I saw cause wherein I gave satisfaction And amongst others I was retained by one Master Jos Primate in a cause concerning a Colliery which I found though just to have many great opposers and chiefly my ingaged adversarie Sir Arthur Haselrige one that did what he could to have starved me in prison seizing one my moneys in the North when I had nothing to maintaine my self my wife and children this cause had many traverses between the Committee in the North and the Committee for sequestration at Haberdashers-Hall And so much injustice appeared unto me to have been manifestly done that I set forth their unworthiness as fully as I was able and at length the cause being to recerve a final determination before that Committee I with my Client and other his councel appeared daily for many dayes proving by undeniable arguments from point to point the right to be in Master Primate but Sir Arthur Haselrige a Member of Parliament and Councel of State and a mighty man in the North and in the Army so bestirred himself That when Judgement came to be given it was given by the major Vote against my Clyent quite contrary to the opinions of most that heard it and to my Clients and my understanding against all equity and conscience Whereupon my Client by his petition appealed to the Parliament wherein he supposeth that Sir Arthur had over-awed the Committee to give a corrupt Judgement And being questioned avowed the petition to be his own and cleared me from having any hand therein The house were in a great heart and quarrelled my giving out the petitions before they were received by them though nothing was more common but order a rehearing of the whole matter by a large Committee of Members of the house in the Exchequer-Chamber where notwithstanding the right appeared as clear as the Sun when it shines at noon-day to be in my Clint to all by-standers not preingaged yet whilst it was in hearing long before the report was made I had divers assured me I should be banished and when I demanded for what cause I could get none but that I was of a turbulent spirit It was strange to me nor could I believe a thing so grosly unjust could be done and provided nothing against it But upon the report of Master Hill the lawyer most false as it was the House was said to have passed Votes upon me of seven thousand pound fine and perpetual banishment And upon the Tusday after called me to their Bar and commanded me to kneel once twice and again which I refusing and desiring to speak they would not suffer me but commanded me to withdraw and the next news I heard was that upon paine of death I must within twenty depart the land which though altogether groundless yet finding all rumors concurring in their desperate resolutions thought it safest to withdraw for a season into some parts beyond the seas and so I did where I had been but a very short time but I saw a paper intituled An Act in execution of a Judgement give in Parliament for the banishment of Lieut. Col. John Lilburne and to be taken as a felon upon his return c. at which I wondered for I was certaine I had received no Charge nor any form of trial nor had any thing there laid to my Charge not was never heard in my defence to any thing Nevertheless there I continued in much danger and misery for above sixteen moneths my estate being seized by Sir Arthur at length understanding the dissolution of the Parliament I concluded my danger not much if I should return and having some incouragement by my wife from what my Lord General Cromwell should say of the injustice of the Parliaments proceedings and of their pretended Act I cast my self upon my native country with resolutions of all peaceable demeanor towards all men but how I have been used thereupon and since the Lord of heaven be judge between those in power and me It being a cruelty beyond example that I should be so violently hurried to Newgate and most unjustly put upon my trial for my life as a Felon upon so groundless a meer supposed Act notwithstanding so many petitions to the contrary And now that all men see the grosness of their cruelty and bloody

manifested and he shall finde that for no other cause have I been reputed so ever since to this very day and that it shall be any mans portion that doth so About this time the Army began to dispute the command of Parliament and that as they largely declared because the Parliament had forsaken their rule the fundamental Laws of England and exercised an arbitrary and tyrannical power over the consciences lives liberties and estates and instanced in me and others who had been long illegally imprisoned These now espousing the publike Cause and that their onely end was that the ancient Rights and Liberties of the people of England might be cleared and secured not onely prevailed with me but thousands others in London Southwark and most places thorowout the Land so to adhere unto them as notwithstanding great preparations against them both by Parliament and City of London yet they prevailed without bloodshed A friendship they should not have forgotten Obstacles being thus removed I who with many others had adhered to them daily solicited the performance of the end of this great undertaking and engagement viz. the re-establishment of the fundamental laws but as it appeared then in part and more plainly since there being no such real intention whatever had been pretended upon this our solicitation the countenances of the great ones of the Army began to change towards us and we found we were but troublesome to them and accounted men of turbulent and restless spirits but at that time the Agitators being in some power these aspersions were but secretly dispersed We seeing the dangerous consequence of so suddain a defection from all those zealous promises and protestations made as in the presence of God and having been instrumental in their opposition of the Parliamentary authority and knowing that in our consciences nor in the sight of God we could not be justified except we persevered to the fulfilling of the end The restauration of the Fundamental Laws and Rights of the Nation and I especially who had spilt both my own and other mens bloods in open fight for the attainment thereof look'd upon my self as no other or better then a murtherer of my brethren and Country-men if I should onely by my so doing make way for raising another sort of men into power and so enable them to trample our Laws and Liberties more under foot then ever Upon these grounds I ceased not day nor night to reduce those in chiefest power into a better temper of spirit and to perswade them to place their happiness not in Absoluteness of domination but in performance of their many zealous Promises and Declarations made with such vehemencie of expression as in the presence of God and published in print to all the world urging what a dishonour it would be to the whole Army to have their faith so broken and violated that though they might succeed in making out power and domination to some few of them yet God could not be satisfied nor their consciences be at peace This was my way to most of them for a long time but I may truely say with David They plentifully payd me hatred for my good will and for my good counsel for so I believe time will prove it though now they seem to ride on the wings of prosperity with their ill-gotten wealth and power they layd snares to take away my life And in order thereunto I with others being at the prosecuting of a Petition one of their officious Spyes lays an accusation against me at the House of Commons bar where clayming a Tryal at Law for any thing could be alleadged against me and denying their Authority as to be my Judges and for maintaining that I ought not to be tryed in any case but by a Jury of my Neighbourhood For this doing I was sent again prisoner to the Tower where I continued for many months and then again accounted a factious seditious and turbulent fellow that owned no Authority and that would have no Government the cause being still the same for that I would not renounce the Law my birthright and submit to the wills of men in power which as an English man I am bound to oppose But new Troubles appearing and the great ones being in supposition they might once more need their dissatisfied friends after a sore imprisonment I obtained my liberty and so much ●hew of respects as to have the damages alotted for my sufferings under the Star-chamber sentence ascertained but not the least motion towards the performance of publike engagements but only as troubles came as about that time they did appear upon the general rising coming in of Hamil●on Goring and the like then indeed promises were renewed and tears shed in token of repentance and then all again embraced as Friends all names of reproach cease turbulent and leveller and all and welcome every one that will now but help and this trouble being but over all that ever was promised should be faithfully and amply performed but no sooner over then all again forgotten and every one afresh reproached that durst but put them in minde of what they so lately had promised yea all such of the Army under one pretence or other excluded the Army and so nothing appearing but a making way for Absoluteness and to render the Army a meer mercenary servile thing sutable to that end that might make no conscience of promises or have any sense of the Cause for which they were raised Perceiving this I with others having proved all their pretences of joyning in an Agreement of the People to be but delusion and that they neither broke the Parliament in pieces nor put the King to death in order to the restauration of the Fundamental Laws of the Nation whatever was pretended but to advance themselves I having been in the North about my own business while those things were done and coming to London soon after and finding as to the Common Freedom all things in a worse condition and more endangered then ever made an application to the Councel of the Army by a Paper wherein were good grounds of prevention but some there making a worse use thereof interpreted the same a disturbance of the Army earnestly moving they might get a Law to hang such as so disturbed them affirming they could hang twenty for one the old Law could do Whereupon we applyed our selves to the new purged Parliament with a Paper called The Serious Apprehensions unto which obtaining no answer I endeavoured to have gotten hands to another Paper to be presented to the House which was printed under the title of The second Part of Englands new Chains discovered wherein was laid open much of what since hath been brought upon the Nation of will and power which at this day deserveth to be read by all that conceive me to be of a turbulent spirit wherein they will finde the cause still the same viz. my constant adherence to the known rights of the nation and no other