Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	king_n	kingdom_n	treaty_n	2,512	5	9.3701	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88202	Ionahs cry out of the whales belly: or, Certaine epistles writ by Lieu. Coll. Iohn Lilburne, unto Lieu. Generall Cromwell, and Mr. John Goodwin: complaining of the tyranny of the Houses of Lords and Commons at Westminster; and the unworthy dealing of divers (of those with him that are called) his friends. To the man whom God hath honoured, and will further honour, if he continue honouring him, Lieu. Generall Cromwell at his house in Drury Lane, neare the red-Lion this present.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2122; Thomason E400_5; ESTC R201740	21,051	15

be held asleepe with security till destruction be even at their dores and ready to seale vpon them whereas if ye plaid the faithfull watchmen to your native Country as you ought to doe to warne them betimes of the danger they are in by the tyrannicall treacherous vilians amongst you they would easily be awakned and provide for their own safety by the speedy destruction of those that would destroy them which is but just and reasonable 1 part book Declarations page 150. I can now say no more at present but that I was yours and still am Englands Cordiall Freind John Lilburne Aprill 10. 1647. For the Honorable Lieutenant Generall CROMWELL this present at St. Albons Honoured Sir NOthing indears my heart so much to any man or men in the world as honestie integritie and justice the contrarie of which makes me abhor those in whom I find it although never so great and potent Sir I shall without much complement return you many and hearty thankes for your active paines and upon those representations I have of your present courage I doe assure you I would willingly be a Pioneer with you and hazard if I had them a million of lives for you But never was I so afraid of all mine enemies as of divers of those great ones I have looked upon as your chieife Councellors Sir your delay hath given extraordinarie heart to your adversaries who under hand make large preparations against you and unexpressible sadding of spirit to all your cordiall friends insomuch that I for my part have even despaired of any good from you the which hath not in the least quenched my resolutions but more fully fixed me with magnanimity flowing from the God of valour and courage to die upon my own and my old principles I am very confident that if you delay a few dayes longer you unavoidably involve thi● k●ngdome in a large effusion of blood † For your adversaries in Parliament being so false and faithlesse as by their constant actions they have declared themselves to bee they will give you good words their faith and promises to lull you asleep that so underhand in the time of your Treaty they may themselves to be able to cut your throats which is the daily worke they secretly go about And then have at you with a vengeance What I have to begge and intreat of you as for my life is First immediatly to march with a Declaration of peace and love to the body of the Citie the doing of which will enable your friends here I confidently hope to doe your worke for you in sequestring the ●● Members As for justice at present you nor any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot expect it For the Iudges at Westminste H●●l by Law are no Iudges See the 27 H. 8. 2● and 〈◊〉 Ordinance of Parliament by law can take away ●o 〈◊〉 life I am sure of it See the 2 part instit fol. 41 48. ● part fol. 22. 4. part fol. 23 25. 48 ●0 〈…〉 Declaration But if you should say it is but iust that an Ordinance should take away the lives of those that have made them take away the lives of others yet I say the most of the members are so guilty that they will never condemne thee The second thing I begge of you is That with all candor you endevour to understand the King and let him understand you and deale with him as becomes honest men that play above boord and doe their actions as in the sight of God for the good of all I have in th●s particular fully by word of mouth communicated my mind to Tim Trevers to be communicated to you And this if I were with you upon my life I durst dispare against you all that as things stand both in point of policy honesty and conscience you must apply to the King without which the peace of the Kingdome can never be setled and by Parliament having so tyrannized that they are grown as hatefull to iust man as the Divell And doe confidently believe hee will grant any thing that is rationall that you or the Kingdome can desire at his hands for their future good security and preservation Now one thing I shall prop●und to your consideration That you be not deceived by your Scout-master generall Watson who I am apt confidently to beleeve will never honestly and uprightly adventure the ●aking of his finger either for God his Countrey or the Army further then he may be thereby of the stronger side and be a gainer As for Dr. Stanes whatever you think of him I averre he is a iuggling knave the which I told you above two yeares agoe at Ilchester and I will iustifie it and am confident will deceive you in the day of triall And as for Nath Rich you your selfe know him to be a iuggling paltry base fellow Remember what you told him to his face in his own Chambers in Fleetstreet before me and my wife and two more at the time Manchesters treason was upon examination And besides his own Captain Lieutenant in my chamber some weekes since shewed me such letters of his to him under his own hand that gives mee cause to iudge him fully to be a iuggling dissembling treacherous He●-hearted base fellow which I desire you and all the honest men in the Army to beware of as of a plague and pest And if hee shall finde himselfe aggrieved at it I say tell him I will to his teeth with my sword in my hand in any ground in England iustifie what I say * And this I say to you that it is but iust and fit that those that pretend to bee reformers reforme first at home lest they render them ridiculous to all that setiously look upon their actions Sir in the way of iustice and single-hearted righteousnesse in the midst of all miseries I am 22. Iune 1647 Yours untill death Iohn Lilburne The Bearer by word of mouth hath from me more to say to you For Lieutenant Generall Cromwell this with speed present at Wickham Honored Sir MY thoughts about the procedings of some of your great ones in the Armie have been exceedingly perplexed which hath set my braines upon an unwearied study which in an Epistle would be too large to expresse unto you onely I cannot for former engagements sake and the common good but acquaint you with the 〈…〉 of them before I print them You cannot but know that you severall times in a forcible manner kept mee in Manchesters Army when I would for that basenesse and treachery acted there have deserted it and have betaken my selfe to travels Remember our discourse at Banbury c. And you know when he and you came to contest I stood close to you and to truth and Justice then on your side without feare or double ends Although both Watson your Scout-master Generall and Staines your Muster-master Generall with Coll. Nat. Rich your darling plaid the paltry Knaves and jugled with you of which in part

were raised by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled at Westminster for the defence of the King and Parliament the true Protestant Religion not the Scotch Iewish Antichristian inslaving Presbytery and the Lawes and Liberties of the Kingdome not the Arbitrary wills of the Houses as appeares by the Ordinance of the 15. Feb. 1644. 2. part book Declar. fol. 599. which positively commands Sir Thomas Fairfax from time to time to submit to and obey all such orders and directions as he shall receive from both Houses of Parliament or from the Committee of both Kingdomes Yet now he and his Army apprehending and beleeving that the wicked and swaying Faction in both Houses would destroy them and inslave the whole Kingdome doe not onely dispute the two Houses orders and commands but also positively disobey them as unjust tyrannicall and unrighteous And being now thereby dissolved into the originall law of Nature hold their swords in their hands for their own preservation and safety which both Nature and the two Houses practices and * See the ● part bo declar p. 44. 93 94 150 202 205 307 382 277 269 279 446 496 637 690 700 7●7 722 723 726 728 Declarations teaches them to doe and justifies them in and now act according to the principles of Saifety flowing from Nature Reason and Justice agreed on by common consent and mutuall agreement amongst themselves in which every individuall private Souldier whether Horse or Foot ought freely to have their vote to chuse the transactors of their affaires or else in the fight of God and all rationall men are discharged from obeying stooping or submitting to what is done by them And that they doe now act upon the foresaid Principles is cleare by their printed ingagement of the 5. of July 1647. called A solemne engagement of the Army under the command of his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax read assented unto and subscribed by all Officers and Souldiers of the severall Regiments at the generall Randezvouz neer Newmarket In which agreement or solemn engagement they say That the Souldiers of this Army finding themselves so stopt as before they there declare in their due regular way of making known their just grievances and desires to and by their Officers were inforced to an unusual but in that case necessary way of correspondencie and agreement amongst themselves to chuse out of the severall Troops Companies severall men and those out of their whole number to chuse two or more for each Regiment to act in the name and behalfe of the whole Souldery of the respective Regiments Troops and Companies And a little fu●ther they expresse themselves thus We the Officers and Souldiers of several Regiments hereafter named are now met at a general Rendezvouz have subsubscribed vnto the said solemne engagement and doe hereby declare agree and promise to and with each other and to and with the Parliament and Kingdome as followeth First that we shall cheerfully and readily disband c. having first such satisfaction and security in these things as shall be agreed unto BY A COVNCELL TO CONSIST OF THOSE GENERALL OFFIGERS OF THE ARMY who have concurred with the Army in the premises WITH TWO COMMISSION OFFICERS AND TWO SOVLDIERS TO BE CHOSEN FOR EACH REGIMENT who have concurred and shall concurre with us in the premises and in this agreement And by the Major part of such of them who shall meet in Councell for that purpose when they shall bee thereunto called by the Generall Secondly that without such satisfaction and security as aforesaid we shall not willingly disband nor divide nor suffer our selves to be disbanded or divided So that by these words in their agreement you see the foresaid position proved that they act by mutuall consent or agreement Now to have this agreement or solemne ingagement invaded or broken either by the subtilty fraud or power of the Officers and a power assumed by themselves to act all their chiefe businesse contrary to this Agreement is an action that merits a kicking if not worse out of the Army to all those Officers be they what they will be that were chiefe actors and contrivers of it For the most Divellish subtile undermining and destroying way that can bee taken by the greatest haters of the Army Stapleton Hollis or the Assembly to destroy and overthrow them and to have their wills not onely of them but also of all that wish them well is by their pecuniary charmes flateries gifts bribes promises or delusions to put the officers by their agents upon the invading and infringing the essentiall and common rights of the Army before expressed which within a little while will beget such pride scorne and contempt in the Officers against the Souldiers who to their eternall praises be it spoken did the work to their hands and acted at the beginning like prudent and resolved men when all or most of the Officers sate still like so many Drones and Snekes as will breed unquenchable heart-burnings in the Souldiers against them which will speedily draw them into discontents and factions against them which of necessity will speedily break out into civil broyls amongst them so undoubtedly destroy them for what occasions all the warres in the world but invading of rights And what occasioned all the late broyles betwixt the King and the two Houses but the invasion of rights And what hath occasioned the present difference betwixt the two Houses and the Army but the two Houses invading their rights and endeavouring to make them slaves by arbitrary Lording over them by proclaiming them traytors for endevouring to acquaint them with their grievances and invasion of the common and agreed of rights before mentioned of the privat Souldiers of the Army by the Councell of Warre c. will evedently and apparantly occasion the same betwixt the Officers and Souldiers of the Army And therefore accursed be he that is the causer or contriver of it For if it be treason in a Kingdome as Str●fford and Canterbury found it to be to endevour the subversion of the fundamentall Lawes and Rights of the Kingdome can it bee lesse then treason in the Army for any of their Officers to endeavour the subversion of their essentiall fundamentall Lawes Rights and agreements expressed in their foresaid solemne Engagements And truly being more then jealous that it was the study labour and practice of some Officers in the Army to invade the foresaid rights of the privat Souldiers of the Army which if continued in will destroy them and so by consequence the whole Kingdome and my selfe For if they doe not deliver us from vassalage wee are perfect slaves and so made by the treachery of our Servants our Trustees in Parliament And therefore out of love and affection to my native countrey and my owne Being I could doe no lesse then by my writing c. endevour the prevention of it and also give a hint of those that my often intelligence told me againe and again

to say unto you in the wards of Iob chap 32.21 22. Let me not pray you accept any mans person neither let me give flattering titles unto man for I know not to give flatering titles in so doing my maker would soon take me away Now deer Sir knowing that you cannot but know that it is a saying of the Spirit of God That faithfull are the wounds of a Friend but deceitfull are the k●sses of an Enemy I come now downright to unbowell my mind unto you and truly to tell you that in my thoughts I look upon the redeemed ones of Iesus Christ in England in as low and sad a condition almost as the Iews were in the third of Esther when Haman upon this false suggestion to K Hashuerosh That there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed amongst the people in all the provinces of the Kingdome and their lawes are divers from all people neither keep they the Kings lawes therefore it is not for the Kings profit to suffer them had obtained a Decree to destroy them all and therefore as poore Mordicai in the bitternesse of his spirit in the fourth chapter sayd unto Queen Esther so say I to thee thou great man Cromwell Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the Parliament House more then all the rest of the Lambs poore despised redeemed ones and therefore O Cromwell if thou altogether holdest thy peace or stoppest or underminest as thou dost our and the Armies petitions at this time then shall enlargement and deliverance arise to us poore afflicted ones that have hithertoo doted too much upon thee O Cromwell from another place then from you silken Independents the broken reeds of Egypt in the House and Army but thou and thy Fathers House shall be destroyed but who knoweth whether thou art come out of thy sicknesse and to such a height in the kingdome for such a time as this And therefore if thou wilt pluck up thy resolutions like a man that will persevere to be a man for God and goe on bravely in the feare and name of God and say with Esther If I perish I perish but if thou would not know that here before God I arraigne thee at his dreadfull Barre and there accuse thee of delusions and faire words deceitfully for betraying us our wives and children into the Haman-like tyrannicall clutches of Ho●●is and Stapleton both now impeached and the rest of that bloody and devouring faction that hath designed us to utter ruine and destruction and this land and kingdome to vassalage and slavery against whom we are sufficiently able to persevere our selves if it were nor for thee O Cromwell that art led by the nose by two unworthy covetous earth-wormes Vaine and St. Iohn I mean young Sir Henry Vaine and Sollicitor St. Iohn whose basenesse I sufficiently anatomized unto thee in thy bed above a yeare agoe in Colonel Mountagues house in the Pears as thou canst not but very well remember and which I am resolved to the purpose shortly to print * See the last page of the Outcries of the oppressed Commons and the Resolved mans Resolution p. 6. 7 8 9 10. O Cromwell I am informed this day by an Officer out of the Army and by another knowing man yesterday that came a purpose to me out of the Army That you and your Agents are likely to dash in peeces the hopes of our outward preservation Their petition to the House and will not suffer them to petition till they have laid down their Armes because forsooth you have engaged to the House they shall lay down their Armes whensoever they shall command them although I say no credit can be given to the Houses Oathes and engagements to make good what they have promised And if this be true as I am too much afraid it is then I say Accursed be the day that ever you had that influence among them and accursed be the day that ever the House of Commons bribed you with a vote of 2500. l. per annum to betray and destroy us Sir I am jealous over you with the hight of godly jealousie that you like Ephesus have forsaken your first love and zeale * Which is very probable for Peter to save himselfe forswore and denyed his Master Matth. 26.72.73 yea and for feare playd also the hypocrite and dissembler for which Paul reproved and blamed him to his face Galat. 2. for which I am most heartily sorry and should be very glad I were mistaken and upon manifestation of which from you I should very gladly cry you peccavi for my present heat But Sir if these Army newes be true I must bid you for ever Farewell and must hereby declare my selfe an avowed enemy to your selfe-pecuniary interest and all your copartners and shall with more zeale bend all my abilities against you all and unmask you to my friends then my adversaries the tyrannicall and arbitrary Lords doe the worst you can to my throat which you used jestingly to say you would cut so soon as ever I fell out with you Sir I have but a life to lose and know that to die to me is gaine being now crucifi●d to the world and it to me and being now sufficiently able to trust God with my Wife and Children but by the strength of God I am resolved Sampson like to sell my life at as deare a rate as I can to my Philistine Adversaries that shall either by force without law endevour to destroy me or by treachery to undoe me And if the Army doe disband before they petition I and all such as I am must truly lay the whole blame upon you and truly declare the House of Commons bribe Cromwel to betray the liberties of England into their tyrannicall fingers Sir is it not the Generals Commission to preserve the lawes and liberties of England And how can he those with him without being esteemed by all men that are not bribed or preferre their own base interest before the common safety the basest of men to lay down their Armes upon any conditions in the world before they see the lawes and universall well known liberties of England firmly setled especially seeing as I will undertake publickly and I hope shortly to prove the Parliament tyrannizeth ten times more over us then ever the King did * See my printed Epistle to Colonel Martin of the 31. of May 1647. page 6 7 8 36 37 38 48 49 to 56. And see the first part of the justification of the Kings Government against the Parliament page 3 4 5 to the end And Mr. Richard Overtons Appeale dated Iuly 1647. and I will maintain it that by the law of this Kingdome it is ten times easier to prove it lawfull for us to take up Armes against them in the wayes they now go then it was for them to take up Arms when they did against the King And I professe I would doe it if I were rationably able to doe

it to morrow For if as they have often said That tyranny be resistable then it is resistable in a Parliament as well as a King Sir I am not mad nor out of my wits but full of apprehensions of slavish consequences reason and zeale and should bee glad it could speedily and iustly be cooled by you before it flame too high which you will further understand I have grounded cause to make it if you seriously read and ponder this inclosed Letter sent to Mr. Iohn Goodwin which with this I have sent by the gravest wisest and fittest messenger I could think of and though a Feminine yet of a gallant and true masculine Spirit And so I commit you to the wisest disposing of our wise God and shall rest till I heare from you From my soule-contented captivity in the Tower of London for the Lawes and liberties of England against the tyranny of the house of Lords and their associates Lords would be this 25 March 16●7 Yours in much iealousie of you Iohn Lilburne To his much honoured and much respected friend Mr. John Goodwin at his House in Swan-Alley in Colemanstreet these Honoured and worthy Sir I Am necessitated to write a few lines unto you about a businesse that doth very much concerne mee but in the first place I desire to make my engaged acknowledgement unto you and your congregation for your large kindesses manifested unto me in this my present imprisonment in supplying my necessities in which particular I must ingeniously confesse I am more obliged to you singly then to all the Congregations in and about London and yet notwithstanding have in some other things just cause to think my selfe more injured by some of your congregation then by all the avowed and professed adversaries I have in England for against them I have a defence but against a secret adversary being a pretended friend I have none but am thereby subject to an unapprehended destruction That which I have to lay to the charge of some of your members is That they have improved all their power interest and ability to hinder all effectuall meanes whatsoever that tended to procure my deliverance from a tyrannicall captivity and not only mine but all the rest of my afflicted fellow-Commoners that are in the same affliction with me as Mr Richard Overton his wife and brother Mr. Iohn Musgrave Mr. Larners servant c. for besides what they have done in London to crush all Petitions that tended to my just deliverance they have improved their interest to destroy the Petition of Buckingham shire and Hartford Shire which was principally intended for the good of the prerogative Prisoners my selfe Mr. Overton c. for upon Munday last Lieut. Collonell Sadler came to the Randevous at Saint Albones and therein the name of diverse knowing men of Mr. John Goodwines Congregation improved all his interest utterly to destroy the Petitioner so that what he did then and Mr. Fe●ke an Independant Minister who lives at or about Hartford who being lately at London brought downe such discouraging newes that some of eminent quality of the Petitioners told me in these words That if it had not been for the base unworthy undermining dealing of some of Mr. John Goodwins Congregation they had had a thousand subscriptions for an hundred they have now and a thousand to have come in person with the Petitioner for every hundred they had Sir I cannot but stand amazed to thinke with my selfe what should be the ground and reason of these mens preposterous actings point blanke destructive to the welfare of every honest man in the Kingdom and particularly the destruction of * Who hath never beene out of the clutches of tyrants this ten years who have severall times made me spend my selfe to my very shirt me and my poor distressed Family and truly in my own thoughts I think I could easily fix upon those worldly wise prudentiall men in the Parliament * The chief of which I conceived to be you Sir Hen. Van● and Soliciter St. John whose aims I conceived are to be Lord Treasurer Lord Keeper or if they misse of the titles yet to enjoy the power and profit thereof or else to be as neare it as may be that set them at work on purpose to keepe the people from seeking for their owne liberties and freedomes that so they may not be disturbed in the enjoyment of their great and rich places which I am afraid they prise above the welfare of all the godly men in England and the Lawes liberties and freedomes thereof for all their great and g●lded professions and truly as much cause have I administred to me particularly and publiquely to fall foule upon them and their proud imperious unjust and selfe interests as they under-hand have fallen upon me my liberty and welfare but by reason of those many engagements by which I stand obliged to your selfe for your so stout deep engagement for the publick welfare of all those that thirst after either morrall or religious righteousnesse I could do no lesse but write these lines unto you before I put my necessitated resolution unto reall action and earnestly to entreat you to spare so much time from your weighty emploiments as to do mee the favour to let me speake a few words with you and if you please to bring Mr. Price along with you So with my truest respect presented to you I commit you to the protection of the most High and rest Your true and reall friend to serve you JO. LILBVRNE From the Tower this 13. of Feb. 1646. A second letter to Leiu Generall Cromwel to presse home the former Honored Sir I writ a large letter to you of late and by the bearer of it I received a verball answer from you by an other freind of Bristow at a distance I understood a litle from you but neither of them satisfactory to me nor any thing else that I have lately heard from you or any of your over wise friends that are not able to trust God with three halfe pen●e so that my spirit is as high as it was when I last writ to you and altogether unsatisfied But in regard my soul earnes towards you I cannot but once again by this true friend write two lines unto you to tell you that I cānot sit still though I dy for it and see you that are reputed honest conscientious men be the betrayers and destroyers of your poore native Countrey and the lawes and liberties thereof * For while you sit in the House in silence and publish nothing to the publike view of your dislike of the base things that are continually Acted in the House you are in the sight of men approvers of them all yea and treacherous betrayers of your Friends and Country Who think all is well because that you are reputed honest men sit there and they see nothing of your dislike of any thing done there and therefore are subject to

of proceedings in the way of Justice as the foresaid petitioners averre who although they bee impeached of treason in the highest nature and the particulars of their impeachment declared and prosecuters with witnesses upon oath ready avowedly to make it good yet are they suffered to walk at liberty by the Parliament contrary to the declared and known law of the land and the universall practice of the lawes of the Kingdome in all Ages yea and their own in the case of the Earle of Strafford Bishop of Canterbury Judge Battlet with many others who they required and caused immediatly to be secured and imprisoned upon a generall impeachment without declaring any particulars in the least O brave iudging Parliament who have forgot to be iust and visibly mind and practice nothing but playing at Hocus Pocus and the protecting of treason cheating knavery and roguery in each other for which they deserve the most transcendent punishment that ever amongst men was inflicted vpon Villaines Tyrants and Traytors to their trust but not destroyed in prison without and against Law which if I can help it I will not be without a witnesse or if I have done no evill which my adversaries declare I have not in that as yet they have layd nothing to my charge then I require immediatly to be delivered with just reparations and this I know lies in your power to effect in three dayes if you please And so desiring the God of Councell to direct you I rest From my causelesse captivity in the Tower of London this first of July 1647. Your true friend in the wayes of Justice and Truth till death Iohn Lilburne I shall conclude with the Copie of a letter I sent Lieutenant Generall Cromwell into the West Decemb. 9. 1645. Deare and Honourable Sir THe endearednesse of my affections towards You for those excellencies that I have seene in you and for those reall respects that I have enjoyed from you but especially in that God hath honoured you and counted you worthy to be a Patron to his people ties me to have high and honourable thoughts of you and by how much the more my esteeme is of you by so much the more do I judge it my duty to speak my mind freely and plainly to you although in the eye of the world yea by thousands of degrees below you and I hope you will make no other constructions of my words then that they are the cleare demonstrations of the cordiall affections of a reall plaine and single hearted friend of yours who you very well know was never skilfull in the wicked art of flattery colloging or d●ssimulation From my Brother have I by two letters received an invitation as comming from your selfe to come down into the Army but I beseech you give me leave to informe you that the foyles affronts and undermining usages that I met with not from you but others of more quality then honesty when I was last in the Army hath stucke in my stomack ever since could never yet be disgested by me though I do protest I highly honour your selfe and could willingly if I know my owne heart lay downe my life for you your honour and reputation as soone as for my father that begot me or the dearest friend I have upon the face of the earth Yet so deepe impression hath the dealings with my selfe and others of my deare friends that I have taken notice of both before that time and since from one and the same parties taken upon my spirit that I have many times and still do in a manner scorne to take imployment under those persons where the son or sons of Machevell hath such sway power and authority by advice policies and counsels as the party or parties that I know abused me hath in your Army and give me leave without passion to tell you that I say you your self harbour in your brest a Snake or Snakes although you will not know it you and I say there are those that have no small influence into you that if the wheele of honour and profit shall turne round every day in the weeke they are able to carry themselves so that they shall be no losers by it yea and are able and have principals to do it to give the t●●est words in the world to you or any other honest man they deale with when they intend to cut your throat and supplant and undermine you and this I am able to make good Sir you may remember what you used to say That it was the greatest honour and glory that my Lord of Manchester ever had in the world that he was a Commander of so many of Gods people and give mee leave to say the same to you and also give mee leave to tell you that that which lost my Lords estimation amongst Gods people was the harkning to the evill advice of those that had as specious pretenses as those I meane above you and I wish that your harkning to theirs may not eclips though I hope it will never lose that respect that flowes from Gods people towards you Sir I run not at random but speake upon grounds from something lately come unto my knowledge and observation and I have now discharged my duty and my conscience take it as you please and when you and I meet I shall clearly lay downe my grounds unto you if you please to give me leave which I shall take for a greater honour then if I had been one in the new Model of Dukes Barons lately so made by vote for my part I will not take upon me now to give you advice but shal leave you to the wise Counseller of all his who tels me honesty is the best policy and uprightnes begets bouldnes neither have I any thing now to desire of you for my selfe or any of my friends being resolved by the goodnesse of God patiently to be content with my portion though it be but bread and water with the enjoiment of the cordial affections of the simple and contemned people of God and rather here hazard my selfe in seeking for justice and right which is my due then to go abroad to venter my life againe in fighting I know not wherefore as I have done hitherto unlesse it be to set up tyranny violence injustice and all manner and kind of basenesse So craving pardon for my boldnesse and it may be too plain lines I commit you to the protection of the most High with as much sincerity and uprightnesse as I doe my owne soule And shall ever remaine London this 9. Decemb. 1645. Your faithfull plain and truth-telling friend and servant John Lilburne The Postscript It may be divers may demand to know the reason wherefore I write and caused to be printed the fore-going Epistles unto whom at present I returne this answer That because the Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax is not now an Army acting by a Commission either from the King or the two Houses for although they