A DECLARATION Of some PROCEEDINGS of Lt. Col. Iohn Lilburn And his ASSOCIATES WITH Some Examination and Animadversion upon Papers lately Printed and scattered abroad One called The earnest Petition of many Free-born People of this Kingdome Another The mournfull Cries of many thousand poor Tradesmen who are ready to famish for want of Bread Or The Warning Tears of the Oppressed Also a Letter sent to KENT Likewise a true Relation of Mr. Masterson's Minister of SHOREDITCH Signed with his owne hand Published by Authority for the undeceiving of those that are misled by these Deceivers in many places of this Kingdom Prov. 18.17 He that is first in his Cause seemeth just but his neighbour commeth and searcheth him 2 Tim. 3.13 But Evill men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived London Printed for Humphrey Harward and are to be sold at his Shop the Crown and Bible at Budge-Row-End near Canning-street Anno Domini MDCXLVIII A Declaration c. THere can be nothing more evident to any that will give themselves leave maturely to weigh and compare the past and present state of affaires in this Kingdome with an impartiall Judgement than that all the pressures formerly imposed the late Warre the present distempers and future threatned danger thereby doe all grow out of the same root and flow from the same fountaine and will lead if they be pursued to one and the same end Even that which was first in the intention of the first Designers The setling of Tyranny and inslaving the People And although he that shall look upon these things only en passant will scarce believe that such different Principles and pretentions as are held out to view should serve the same ends And though it should seem there could be nothing at greater distance to the intention of some who are abused into these distempers than to promote slavery and hasten ruine Yet they who are uninteressed and uningaged in them and instructed in and convinced of the Grand Designe of those who began our troubles and how it is still carryed on can both see the Artifice by which they are raised and fomented and the End to which they tend and where at they are like to arrive There is no need to reckon up what the state of this Kingdom was before the breaking out of these troubles being in such condition of wealth and all mnaner of prosperity as made it the Subject of Envie to those who knew not what was designed against it But no lesse than an absolute Tyranny would please the King to command the hearts of his people by a just Government according to the Lawes and the Limits of his Trust and there by to command their persons and purses and all for the good of all was beneath Royallity And that it was fitter for a King to take than ask was then State Doctrine and the practise suitable We were to be modelled to a forreign pattern and in pursuance thereof all manner of Arbitrary exactions and impositions were laid upon the people the particulars will not be forgotten this Age and need not a recapitulation A Consumption had seized the people and their usuall Physick was denyed them and when t was grown dangerous even to sigh for a Parliament the Kings necessities by the stirres in Scotland inforce him to call one But that was not the first the King had broken and he then knew well enough when it would not serve his turne and verefie Edicts How to keep it from serving the people for the recovery of their Liberty His necessities encrease this present Parliament is called and in regard of so many broken before this was not able to serve the necessities of the Kingdome unlesse it were put beyond his power to break And therefore was continued by Law till the Houses by joynt consent should dissolve it Now the King being fast as to usuall Court Stratagems hath recourse to force deales with one Army tempts another frustrate in both impeacheth Members comes himselfe to fetch them nothing takes He retires into the North resolves a Conquest of the Parliament the People the Lawes and though to blind the short-sighted multitude He forbids the repaire of Papists to the Court yet his principall Assistants in it are those his good Subjects He set up his Standard raiseth an Army maketh Warre against the Parliament and Kingdome and put it to the tryall of the Sword whether he shall govern by the Lawes or by his Will without Law In the prosecution of which appeal to the Lord of Hosts he hath lost his Cause which stands determined against him by a full Conquest of all his forces And thereby an happy opportunity given not only to deliver from those late Exactions and to make their returne impossible but for the recovery and establishment of all that just Freedome that may make a people happy as they stand in the Naturall Constitution and Civill Consociation and distinct and mutuall relations of the people of England if themselves hinder not The way of force being at an end but there being no end of the malice of our Enemies but the slaverie of the Nation and the ruine of all those faithfull Patriots that hath hitherto hindred it They convert now their whole industry to the mannage of that Maxime Divide and Rule as to the only Engine left them to attaine their ends yet this is not now first in practice amongst them it hath had its part during all the time of the Warre though not so strenuously pursued while they had other hopes by raising and fomenting of factions and divisions in all places Armies Councels Cajoling all sorts by all those Artifices whereby their Interests humours and discontents might be wrought upon Thus they have had their Emissaries under every disguise who have laboured to divide the people among themselves and Characterize that division by distinguishing Names and to divide them all from the Parliament by severall pretences that it being naked of the protection of their force might be unable to protect the people by their Authority The Pulpits have served the Kings Interest while they thought they pursued their owne The Instruments putting them on being a New Malignant party under a disguise they not discerning they were acted by the old one through the entremise of these and while they have divided the people they have left them lesse able to defend themselves Division among themselvs is not al they divide also from the Parliament for the people being wont to believe what ever they hear from that place by those men have from thence been abated in their respect and opinion of the Parliament Hence the City Remonstrance and hence the first visible turne to their Actings toward the Parliament The same Instruments tell the souldiers of their Arrears strengthen their reflections upon their merit help them to heighten the sense of their present wants and sufferings and in the meane time labour all they can possibly both in
the wrong of all the rest The whole Iudgment of the Kingdom is in the Iudgment of the Houses you can represent your own pressures but not those of all the Kingdom for you are not all the Kingdom You may account that your pressure which others and as many as you may judg their benefit and the Houses trusted by all must judg what is good for all To the Supream Authority of England the Commons Assembled in Parliament The earnest Petition of many Free-born People of this Nation SHEWETH THAT the devouring fire of the Lords wrath hath burnt in the bowels of this miserable Nation until it s almost consumed That upon a due search into the causes of Gods heavy Judgments we find a a Aâ—ns 5.9 10 11 12. Micah 2 2.3 Micah 3.3 4 9.10.11.12 Habba 2.8.17 Joel 3.3 that in justice and oppression have been the common National sias for which the Lord hath threatned woes confusions and desolations unto any People or Nation Woe saith God to the oppressing City Zeph. 3.1 That when the King had opened the Flood-gates of injustice and oppression b b See the Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom Decem. 1641. p. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 14 15. upon the people and yet peremptorily declared that the people who trusted him for their good could not in or by their Parliam nt require any account of the discharge of his trust and when by a pretended negative vo ce c c See the Kings Answer to the Parliaments Remonst of May 19 1642. 1 part book Decla page 254 284 285. See the Kings Answer to the Parl. Decla of May 26. 1642. page 298. to Laws he would not suffer the strength of the Kingdom the d d See the Ordinance for the Militia Feb. 1641 1 book Decla page 89 pa. 96 105 106. 114 126 175 176 182 243 289 292 Militiâ— to be so disposed of that oppressionâ— might be safely remedied oppressors brought to condign punishment but raised a War e e See the Parliaments Votes May 20 1642 1 part Book Decla 259 see also page 5â—9 576 577 580 584 617. to protect the subvertors of our Laws and Libe ties and maintain Himself to be subject to no accompt even for such oppressions and pursuing after an oppressive power the Judg of the Earth with whom the Throne of iniquity can have no fellowship hath brought him low and executed fierce wrath upon many of his adâ—…râ—nts That God expects Justice from those before whose eyes he hath destroyed an unjust generation Zeph. 3.6.7 and without doing justly and releeving the oppressed God abhors fastings and praye s and accounts himself mocked Esa 5 8.4 5 6 7. Mic. 6.6 7 8. That our eyes fail with looking to see the Foundations of our Freedoms and Peace secured by this Honorable House and yet we are made to depend upon the Will of the King and the Lords which were never chosen or betrusted by the People to redress their grievances And this Honorable House which formerly declared that they were the representative of al England betrusted with our Estates Liberties and Lives 1 part Book of Decla 264.382 do now declare by their practise that they will not redress our grievances or settle our Freedoms unless the King and the Lords will That in case you should thus proceed Parliaments wil be rendered wholly useless to the People and their happiness left to depend solely upon the Will of the King and such as he by his Patents creates Lords and so the invaluable price of all the precious English blood spilt in the defence of our freedoms against the King shal be imbezelled or lost and certainly God the avenger of blood wil require it of the obstructors of justice and freedom Iudges 9.24 That though our Petitions have been burned and our persons imprisoned reviled and abused only for petitioning yet we cannot despair absolutely of all bowels of compassion in this Honorable House to an inslaved perishing people We still nourish some hopes that you wil at last consider that our estates are expended the whole trade of the Nation decayed thousands of families impoverished and merciless Famine is entered into our Gates and therefore we cannot but once more assay to pierce your eares with our dolefull cries for Iustice and Freedom before your delays wholly consume the Nation In particular we earnestly intreat First That seeing we conceive this Honorable House is intrusted by the People with all power to redress our grievances and to provide security for our Freedoms by making or repealing Laws errecting or abolishing Courts displacing or plaecing Officers and the like And seeing upon this consideration we have often made our addresses to you and yet we are made to depend for all our expected good upon the wils of others who have brought all our misery f f See the Kings Decla of the 12 Aug. 1642. 1 part book Decla page 522 526 528 548 pa. 617. upon us That therefore in case this Honorable House wil not or cannot according to their trust relieve and help us that it be clearly declared That we may know to whom as the Supream power we may make our present addresses dresses before we perish or be inforced to flie to the prime Laws of nature g g See 1 part book decla pa. 44.150 382 466 637 699 or refuge 2. That as we conceive all Governors and Magistrates being the ordinance h h See Col. Nath. Fines his Speech against the Bishops Canons made in 164â— in a book called Speeches and Passages of Parliament from 3 Nove. 1640. to June 1641 page 50.51 52. of mâ—n before they be the ordinance of God and no Authority being of God but what is erected by the mutuall consent of a People and seeing this Honorable House alone represents the People of this Nation that therefore no person whatsoever be permitted to exercise any power or Authority in this Nation who shal not clearly and confessedly receive his power from this House and be always accountable for the discharge of his trust to the People in their Representers in Parliament If otherwise that it be declared who they are which assume to themselves a power according to their own Wills and not received as a trust from the People that we may know to whose Wils we must be subiect and under whom we must suffer such oppressions as they please without a possibillity of having Iustice against them 3. That considering that all iust Power and Authority in this Nation which is not immediatly derived from the People can be derived only from this Honorable House and that the People are perpetually subiect to Tyranny when the Iurisdiction of Courts and the Power and Authority of Officers are not clearly described and their bounds and limits i i See your Remonstrance of the state of the kingdom book decla pag 6 8 See also the Acts made this Parliament that
the Houses and among the people to hinder the advancing or levie of moneys to satisfie them And what workings there hath been both toward and in the Army under the Command of Sir Thomas Fairfax to breed faction and division there to irritate it or to break it by whom it was done and whose interest those men carried on all men know And how incredible soever it seem yet even the Cries for liberty endeavors of levellinâ— perfectly play the Kings Game his Tyranny can with greater ease overflow a levell then where it meets with the opposition of the power of the Kingdom in the Parliament The Instruments of those designes know that it is impossible for Tyranny ever to grow again upon Us till that power be taken away or disabled by which it hath been broken and our right recovered and that so long as the people acknowledge their Protectors and own their Protection they will be safe under it The Woolves perswade the Sheep if the Dogs were away there would be a happy peace between them The difficulty now is to make the Sheep believe they are Woolves that make the overture The truth is t is the greatest pity in the world that plain and simple integrity and well-meaning innocency should be deceived But their unhappinesse is there is nothing easier it is necessary the Serpent the Dove should go together else he that only consults his own Candor and Integrity will never believe that another mans Propositions or Designs have any worse principle When Absolon went about to dethrone his father there followed him three hundred men from Jerusalem that went in the simplicity of their hearts knowing nothing the man pretended only a Religious Vow and these poor believed him And every age produceth sufficient numbers of as little foresight and there is no doubt but if many among those that promote the dividing destructive Agreement of the people and indeavor an Anarchicall levelling had had but as much light to have judged the designs of their leaders and to have foreseen the end of their motions as they have good meaning their Musters had never swelled to the numbers they account them though in that there is very little credit to be given to their own Roll. It hath not been the least part of the Art of those that drive on these designs to imploy such to serve their turns whose former merit might seem to priviledge a mistake in their duty and that it must be ingratitude at least if not cruelty in the Parliament to proceed to any severe animadversion against men of so much merit as the Leaders or so large and good affection as their followers In which Stratagem they have not failed for by the Parliaments lenity and forbearance toward such men in hope they would see their mistakes and return to the wayes of their duty and safety they are grown to that height both by making Combinations Printing and dispersing all manner of false and scandalous Pamphlets and Papers against the Parliament to debauch the rest of the people gathering monyes and making Treasurers and Representons of themselves as it is necessary to obviate by present and effectuall means And the Parliament can no longer suffer them in these seditious wayes without deserting their trust in preserving the Peace of the Kingdom and the freedome and property of peaceable men Among all the Instruments they have out-witted to carry on their designs with this sort of people there are none have visibly done them more service then Lieutenant Col. Iohn Lilburn a man who hath made himselfe sufficiently known to the world by those heaps of scandalous Books and Papers that he hath either written or owned against the House of Peers and such as have done him greatest courtesies filled with falshoods bitternesse and ingratitude whereby he hath given himself a Character sufficient to distinguish him with the Judicious from a man walking according to the rules of sobriety and the just deportment of a Christian 'T is true he suffered much from the Bishops in the time of their exorbitancies and he was one of the first the Parliament took into their care for liberty and redresse But the present temper of his spirit gives some ground to beleeve that he added much to the weight of his pressures by his want of meeknesse to bear what Providence had laid him under 'T is also true that he hath done good service for the Parliament and adventured his life and lost of his blood in the Common Cause But some that know him well observe that he brought not the same affections from Oxford that he was carried prisoner thither withall though indeed he hath also done service since that time And the Parliament hath not been unmindfull either of his sufferings or of his services but hath given him severall sums of money notwithstanding the Committee of Accounts reported to the House that in their judgements there was nothing due to him But let his services be as great as himself or his friends will have them yet 't is possible for a man to reflect too much upon his own desert and mens overvaluing their services have oftentimes produced such subsequent Actions as have buried their first merit in a punishment It is very probable many of those that he misleads into these dangerous Actions look upon him as a Martyr in the Cause against the Bishops and believe that all his zeal is only for the promotion of Righteousnesse and just things and for the Vindicating and Asserting the peoples liberty against Oppression and Violence and that only by Petition and indubitably just and allowed way for all men to seek their grievances by and by which they may without offence addresse to any authority or greatnesse whatsoever To take off this disguise and disabuse well meaning men who cannot judge him by his Character drawn of himself by himself in his severall books It will be necessary to give the world a Narrative of what his deportment and carriage was toward the House of Peers upon which he was imprisoned it having yet been spread to the World only as he and his friends have pleased to dresse it all which is taken out of the Records of that House and is as followeth UPon the publishing of a Book by him written called The just mans Iustification and complaint thereof made to the House It was Ordered the 10. of Iune 1646. That Lieutenant Colonel Iohn Lilborne shall appeare and answer such things as he stands charged with concerning a Book entituled The just mans Iustification The 11. of Iune he appeared and there delivered at the Barre a paper entituled The Protestation Plea and Defence of Lieut. Col. Iohn Lilborn given to the Lords at their Barre the 11. of Iune 1646. with his Appeal to his proper and legall Tryers and Judges the Commons of England assembled in Parliament In which Protestation after he hath acknowledged an Obligation to the House for dealing justly and honourably with him
Authorities and Quotations of Magna Charta Statutes Comments on them Declarations of c. Speeches in Parliament to what purpose serve these Would you have the Parliament bound in their Parliamentary proceedings by precedent Lawes Were not those Lawes made by Parliament and is it not the proper work of the Parliament to repeale as well as to make Lawes Els why doe you desire in your twelfth Particular to have the Statutes there mentioned repealed Either put out your Margent and deceive not the ignorant with a shew of that which signifies nothing or els reconcile it with your text unlesse you meane to say you will appoint the Parliament what Lawes they shall repeale and by what they shall govern themselves If it be onely to tell them what hath been done before you may take notice that there are these in that House to which you addresse that can as well tell what the Law new is or heretofore was without your Index as they are able to judge what is necessary for the present or for the future without your advice or intimation But you would faine make the People believe the Parliament neither have wisdome enough to know how nor fidelity enough to make them willing to discharge their trust unlesse you direct and incite them The Petition is large to give it an answer in proportion were to write a volume which few could buy and fewer would read and perhaps there is somthing of policy in the length least their seduced numbers should be satisfied by a just confutation Yet because perhaps there are some among them of that sort of people to whom a word is enough therefore they may please to consider 'T is called onely the Petition of many Free-borne people of this Nation 't is not then by your own confession of all or of the major part remember this and be modest for once act not as if you were all But why many Free-borne People of this Nation are there any Englishmen that are not Free-borne why doe you distinguish your selves what need of that Epithete while you addresse to the House of Commons who have asserted and by the blessing of God upon the Councells and Forces of the Parliament vindicated the English Freedome from the Common Enemy under the slavery of whom by these your dividing distempers and weake and out-witted designes you seek to returne and carry the Kingdome with you To give it the more Authority the prefacing part of it is forc'd to speak Scripture but not with the Idiome of the Spirit that wrote it your Hebrew hath much of Ashdod the breathings of that Spirit are purity and peace and the fruits of that Spirit are love joy peace and the rest of that Catalogue You begin with a sad complaint that the fire of the Lords wrath hath been among us which must be acknowledged and it may be justly conceived it is so still what meane else the distempers of the people that will not be healed and the actings of division together with the Cries for peace But to say as you do that it is almost consumed were to lie against the truth and sin against that mercy which he hath remembred in the middest of his wrath This Kingdome hath found the effects of the rowlings of his bowells while it hath been under his chastising rod that bush hath burned but 't is not consumed and 't is an evidence that God is in it 'T is true in many places of the Land the scarres of great wounds remaine but not as in Germany the lands in England are not untilled for want of men the thistles grow not in the furrowes of the field the Oxen are yet strong to labour and the Sheep bring forth their thousands if you had not intended an ill use of the complaint the matter would have borne a mixture of thanks but if seems you had rather God should lose the praise of his mercy then you would omit this Engine to move the People to murmure and discontent 'T is true that for injustice and oppression God hath threatned woes confusion and desolation to any People or Nation but if your search had been as due as you affirme it was you might have found other besides those which you may light upon perhaps if you would make a review It is not to be denied that oppression and injustice cause loud cries to heaven onely remember justice is to render to every one his owne and not to doe to another what you would not should be done to you The rich may be oppressed as well as the poore propriety is to be preserved to all and a poore man that oppresseth the poore is like a sweeping raine that leaveth no food You observe the Kings oppressions and how God hath brought him low and executed fierce wrath upon his adherents Why will ye suffer your selves to be abused by those adherents into those dividing destructive courses whereby you contribute directly to the restoring of the Kings affaires you are acted by his Counsells and you will not see it and every man shall be the Enemy of the people that tels you of it and if his party shall againe get head to the indangering of the Kingdome which God forbid thank your owne petulant importune and unseasonable interpellations of those Councells by which through the blessing of God your deliverance had been perfected if your selves had not hindred can you believe the Kings Counsells are changed or that he wants a party waiting an oportunity to bring that upon you which you feare and complaine of why doe you then give them hope and the Parliament worke who have yet so much to doe to preserve the vitalls and recover strength that they cannot attend to prescribe a topike to cure the Morphew on the face trust them with your cure and allow it time over-hasty ones prove palliate ones and not sound It is the Patients part to declare his griefe and take his Physick but he must let the Physitian write the Recipe if he desires the cure should succeed That your Petitions were burned and your selves imprisoned onely for petitioning serves to irritate and inrage those whom you have misled and deceived a Petition may well deserve to be burned and the Petitioners punished if the matter be unjust false scandalous seditious read over some of your old copies and see if there be none of those faults 't is true it is your liberty to Petition and it is also your duty to acquiesce in the Parliaments jugement upon it a Petition is to set forth your grievances and not to give a rule to the Legislative Power if you meane it shall be an Edict which you must compose and the Parliament must verifie call it no more a Petition You say your Estates are expended how come you then to lay Contributions upon your selves for the promoting these destructive designes is that the way to reimburse your selves or is it to enable you to fly to the prime laws of nature
a necessity that the Legislative power should be in several and distinct bodies for the review of what might else be perhaps at first overseen There is scarce any man but findes that revising in the morning his evenings conceptions he meets with something or other to be added or altered 3. Are not all Officers and Ministers of Iustice and all other Civill Officers all military Officers both by sea and land chosen and put into their places by both Houses of Parliament wherein as in all other things the Commons have a Negative Vote 4. Is not there a Committee that hath been a good while since appointed to receive Informations of grievances and propound them with remedies to the House What addresse have you made to them Have they refused to take your Informations Why doe you complain before you have been refused redresse 5. You complaine of the imprisonment of faithfull and publike spirits for matters not criminall and would have no imprisonment to be but for crimes according to Law But are there not some actions in these unsetled times that may deserve a punishment for which no former Law hath explicitely provided any You would have no man kept in prison longer than till he be delivered by due course of Law You know there are two wayes of delivery by due course of Law And he that hath deserved the one should not complaine he is still a Prisoner And for what is a Crime the party guilty is no Judge it cannot be denyed that as the Parliament is the supream Judge so it is the most competent and if they Judge it necessary that seditious Incendiaries should be restrained for the Peace of the Kingdome must they give an account to the Delinquents of the reason of their Actions 6. You would have the Lawes in our known tongue and all writings and proceedings in the present knowne hands they have been so heretofore What are you now the better for it Which of you understand the Saxon Lawes written in the then vulgar tongue And the Norman-French though not then Nationall yet was very generally understood And if most of the Petitioners shall look upon the language of two or three Centuries past they will meet with so many words they understand not as will disable their understanding of the sense of those they doe And if those which are in other tongues were in English there were a possibility you might mistake them as well as you doe those that already are so And if there should be a disuse in the Courts of writing those hands which now are obsolete to vulgar use the reading of those hands might in time come to be lost and thereby a losse of all the Records that are written in them 7. If any shall denie to doe you Justice according to Magna Charta unlesse he may sell it why doe you not accuse the man Strike not through all by such oblique insinuations but let the guilty bear his shame and punishment You might have taken notice that the Parliament hath doubled the salaries of the Judges but to pay all ministeriall Officers from the publick Treasurie were to waste the States treasure to maintaine the quarrels of the contentious against them that are peaceable 8. You would have no Judge continue for above three years What shall he doe the rest of his life Were not this to put them upon the temptation of the unjust Steward You will say he may returne to private practice at the Barre againe Will any of you when he hath set up for himself for the space of three yeares be content to serve journeyman for the rest of his life If it be so comely or easie a matter Why did Lieutenant Colonel Lilburn refuse the Command of a Troup of Horse offered him in the Army of Sir Thomas Fairfax because he had the title of a Lieutenant Colonel before And would not accept of lesse than a Regiment Consider who they are that binde heavie burthens for other men and grievous to be borne but themselves will not touch them with one of their fingers 9. For the buying of Offices suppose both parties agreed yet he must have a large purse who can buy of a Parliament and 't will be hard where so many must be bribed to be secret in all 10. For that speedy tryall of offenders your desire may interferre with Justice matter cannot be alwayes presently proved Will you free a man accused of murther done the day before the Assises because that which hath vehement presumptions cannot have a legall Evidence till some dayes after 11. The Monopolies you so much complain of are condemned by Law You may take your course against any and no man can hinder you If there be any Monopolizer in the House why doe you not declare it to the House and prove it Have they not formerly put out some for that offence if there be none there that piece might have been spared 12. You complain That the Members of the House of Commons are chosen onely by Free-holders and not by all the free-borne people of the Kingdome If you conceive it be an Injury to all the rest that they are chosen only by Free-holders Consider seriously and then tell Us whether it be not an injury to all the rest that they so chosen must be directed and ordered by you Tell the world how you came by your Priviledge To make a Collection of such as this is of some things good with a mixture of divers mistakes in the rest and then magistically obtrude it upon the House presently to passe and confirme the highest affront to the Legislative power and the highest injury to your free-borne fellowes that can be well imagined 13. You take notice of the shame of the Nation by the begging of the poor and it is undeniably a great one and Peace being setled the remedy of it were one of the most desirable things to be undertaken and this Kingdom wants not materialls for industry and there is not any doubt that the encouragement of fishing in this Kingdome might produce it a profit of exceeding value but doe You not know that the Parliament hath had so hard a taske to preserve the Land that they have had no time left to improve those advantages of the Sea neither can they give industry to men which if any will exercise in it they may be sure of all acceptation And certainly that and divers other things for the good of the Kingdome have been thought upon by the Parliament though you would faine have the world believe they mind nothing unlesse You be their remembrancers and had been in effect before this time had not such consultations been diverted by the necessity of providing against these and some other distempers In the meane time till care can be taken for prevention of beggery increase not their number by the addition of your selves neglect not your Callings forbear your clandestine Contributions You may perhaps thrive in your own way but