to nine Arguments you rayl against the Church Ministers Worship Government saying They are Antichristian and Diabolical and in your Book intituled Englands Birthright you rail against the whole State and exclaim against the political form of Government so that you have shewed your self an open enemy both to Church and State what hath moved you to be so I cannot say whether it were the overflowings of your refractory mind or whether spiritual pride moved you to write and divulge that which might make you to be famous and known to be a man walking contrary to all men or whether seditious ends perswaded you in hope to be made the head of some Faction and so to become great by unlawful and irregular courses while you thought that to you and your complices the giddy multitude would flock in heaps and have said Virifratres quid agimus whereunto it is likely you would have returned and Answer far unlikely to that of St. Peter perhaps thus such and such men are unworthy to govern pluck them down such and such are the dear children of God let them be advanced but what ever your ends were I am sure they have produced dire effects And now Sir I beseech you let me a little dispute with you and now God willing I shal prove evidently unto you that the course you and your adherers have hitherto taken hath been both seditious and rediculous and I appear to the Censure of the most carping and critical whatsoever whether I do not sufficiently prove it IN all causes belonging either to Church or Commonwealth wee are to have regard what mind the complaining part do bear whether of Amendment or of Innovation your common Objection is why must not men speak of Abuses Yes but with a desire to cure the part afflicted not to destroy the whole another great fault is your manner of complaining not only because it is for the most part in bitter and reproachful tearms but also because it is unto the common people incompetent and insufficient Judges both to determine any thing amisse for want of skil and also to amend which discovereth your intent rather to be destructive then corrective Again those very exceptions which you take are frivolous and impertinent some things indeed you have accused as impious which if they may appear to be such God forbid they should be maintained nor ought it to be sufficient for you to say we wil take away this because a better may be devised For wee oftentimes conceive amisse when we compare those things that are in devise with those that are in practice for the imperfections of the one are hid til by time and tryal they are discovered the others are already manifest and open to all Therefore Mr Lilburne be perswaded by him whom I beleeve you ranek amongst your enemies and that for the good both of your soul and body to abandon the spirit of disaffection and consider that our Savior saith It is impossible but that there should be offences but wo be to those by whom they are given Consider also that except you and I and all men else resolve to agree together as much as in us lies in all peace and unity we shal never enjoy happiness or tranquility for by these our dissentions we do but as it were with foolish Priam pul down our wals to let in our enemies to this purpose Mr. George Wither excellently wel saith which his Verses because they are worthy to be written and to be taken to heart by all the Commons of this Kingdome I shal here insert them By us together therefore and alone Our duties must respectively be done According to the Commons interest And to the faculties by us possest Vnited and asunder with such care To heed each others counsel doubts and fear And with such mutual readinesse to add All comforts all good helps that may be had And all indearments that may knit together Our Forces and our Loves to one another That none may come betwixt us or find way To mixt with us our Counsels to betray This last will more indanger us then all The strength of Spain and France united shall If we prevent it not Thus far he and we undoubtedly shal find his words as Oracles if the subjects of this Kingdome agree not together and live in love and unity ruine and destruction wil inevitably follow he that spake all truth hath pronounced that a kingdome divided against it self cannot stand and shal we be so foolish as to delude our selves with vain hopes that his words shal not be fulfilled if not one jot or tittle which Gods Prophets have said shal fal to the ground as God hath said they shal not surely what God himself hath said shal be made good O! that God would therefore put it into the hearts of all men to relinquish al Sedations and Factious Proceedings and that each man might emulate his Neighbor only striving who should become most vertuous SOME OBSERVATIONS ON Master Lilburnes last Booke intituled An Anotomy of the Lords Tyranny NOw Sir you having strugled long both against King Lords and Commons and now at length are appealed from the Lords house to the Commons Barr before whom you cannot want of a Just and Legal Trial that glorious Court which both is and shal be for ever famous for unexampled vertue mercy Justice and all those vertues necessarie to flourish in so glorious a Senate wil determine no doubt as shal be according to your deservings yet now your spirits are elevated and you sing aloud potior voto yet it is not the dutie of a good Christian so much to insult over those he hath vanquisht for in your Book intituled An anotomy of the Tyranny of the House of Lords you have a very triumphant title and a man may guesse by the very contents of it that your spirits are now elevated to a more ample height then when you received that Order Die Martis 23. Iunij 1646. you dedicate your Book to the Honorable Committee appoiuted to consider of the privilidges of the Commons thus May it please this Hoonrable Committee in obedience to your Command and Order the sixth of Novemb. last I here humbly present you with the Narration under my hand which by word of mouth I made unto you upon Fryday last of my particular sufferings since my Commitment by the Lords This your glorious title I envy not but shal desire the Honorable Committe may find that which so many men have doubted not to reside in you to wit Religion and Fidelity so that men may repent them of the former ill conceits they had of your and sing your praises for the furture yet I cannot but wonder at the recapitulation you make in your said book intituled An Anotomy of the Lords Tyranny so often recited in your former Books to wit of your stubborn and uncivil carriage to the House of Peers I must tel you that in so doing your glory is your shame
Distressed Christian you espying a Ring on his finger upbraided your soldiers that they took it not off who replying they could not get it off it having bin so long worn by the party that the flesh had overgrown it your counsel to them was this why then cut off his finger and all ah where then was your Christian Piety to wil so bloody an act Sir I know wel you have shewed your self a man sufficiently valiant and have been an instrument of advancing the Publick good therfore you are the more to be admired that you should so horribly revolt and become an enemy to them who have esteemed nothing too dear to purchase lawful immunities and to promote the Gospel of Christ here I cannot but wonder at one passage inserted in your last book intituled Londons Liberty in chains discovered where so much you tryumph at the Recantation of one White a Warder of the Tower setting forth in Print that you chose for umpires to take up the matter those Knights Sir Iohn Strangewayes Sir Lewis Divet c. prisoners in the Tower that sometime bare Arms against this present Parliament and did their utmost endeavors to impede the settling of that Reformation for which you fought by reading which passage the shallowest capacity may conceive that you look more then one way and hide two faces under one hood is there any followship betwixt God and Mammon betwixt Light and Darknesse Can you be a sincere desirer of the Commons Liberties and yet hold correspondency and comply with those that would have enslaved them May not GOD say to you as once to that lukewarm Congregation Revel 3. verse 13. Novi te neque frigidum â—eque fervidum utinam esses itaque quoniam topidus es evomam te ex â—â—e meo I need not English this to you for I may suppose you understand Latin else you would never have inserted a whole Page of it in your last Book called Londons Liberty in chains discovered and yet it may be you are as ignorant as you were some few moneths since when you solemnly protested in one of your Books that the Latin tongue was unknown unto you and this I am moved to think because that order you then cited was framed to your hand and you needed but to coppy it out I much wonder that your wisdome foresaw not the Aspersions that the divulging of such a passage might draw upon you but it is just with God that those men which trust so much to their own Abilities as I am confident you do should being left to themselves discover that of themselves which if another should relate they would be greatly inraged For my own part I wish your release from trouble with your infranchisement and I sympathize of anothers afflictions having my self drank of those bitter waters But this let the world know with mee Maris Coelique temperiem turbines tempestateâ—que commendant habet has vices conditie Mortalium vt adversa secundis adversis secunda nascantur occultaâ— utrorumque semina Deus plerumque bonorum malorum causa sub diversa specie latent Storms and tempests contribute to the clearnesse of the Heavens and the smoothnesse of the Sea the condition of Mortals hath this property that Adversities grow out of Prosperities and Prosperities from Adversities God hideth from us both the seeds of the one and the other and oftentimes the causes of blessings and evils are covered under one and the same appearance And now Sir I hope for the future there wil be no more occasion of trouble betwixt you and me and I shal hope you wil no more vilifie me in Print which if you shal my frailty is such that I shal not so far regulate my passion as to sit stil and not Answer you I have hopes this Letter may be a means to quench that fier your Anagram says you burn in and not augment it which if it shal I find but what I expect and what I have lately read in one of the best of our modern Poets Master Withers a man worthy of all honor yet too much addicted to your own Fancies wherefore perhaps you wil the more willingly hear him Who saith But faulty men accus'd if stil they find Their power continue feel another mind Vnto their guiltinesse they malice add They grow revengeful mischievous and mad Plunge in the toil strive strugle scratch and tear Rage like a Tigre roar out like a Bear And are so nettled that you may behold Their guiltinesse before the same is told Yes and by hearing them ere them you see May know what vermine and what beasts they bee I pray Sir read these Verses o're again and mark whether the Poet hath not rightly Characterized you and set forth the nature the world hath found to be in you in as ample a manner as if he had wrote it of your own Person I much admire Sir that trouble and contention so much pleaseth your mind you keep the field continually and are still brandishing your weapon I mean the two-edged sword your tongue against some party or parties if you should continue in your critticall course you wil be esteemed the only Momus and Zoilus of the Age and the Poets wil forget those two others so notoriously known and instead of them celebrate your name which wil be for your infinite dishonor But Sir now I shal come up more close unto you and desire of you if you shal so please to shew some particular Relations or some infallible Arguments that may prove I have dealt Currishly with you or charge it on my own conscience if you can to the uttermost if in my Famers fam'd the ground of your malice I have calumniated you the least but what is sufficiently evident to all men I extracted most of it out of your own Books I mean the passages you boastingly relate of your superbious carriage to those you ought to honor and reverence I mean the House of Peers and I confess I was mightily troubled to see a man do that which was contrary to GODS expresse Command and then to make his so doing known to the world in Print as glorying in it which was the true cause that moved me to Answer to those your Vindicators the one the Author of The Iust Man in Bonds the other naming his Pamphlet A Pearl in a Dunghil this was it that moved me to reply to wit that I might let those men see they stood for his cause whose actions rather merited an open Recantation then a publick Vindication and also that your self might know how much you swerved from the ways of godliness and from the obedience God commandeth you to yeeld to your superiors And I must tel you Sir although perhaps you see it not no man desiring to know his own imperfections you have occasioned to the Commonwealth much vexation and to the Church of God much trouble For in a Book said to be written by you intituled An Answer
ANIMADVERSIONS UPON Iohn Lilburnes Two last Books the one Intituled Londons Liberty in Chaines discovered the other An anatomy of the Lords Cruelty Published according to Order LONDON Printed for Joseph Pots and are to be sold at his shop in the Old Bayly neer the Sessions house 1646. To Lieutenant Collonel John Lilburne SIR I Had thought that you like the generous Mastive would have passed by and taken no notice of the snaps and snarles of such Curs as I am for so you are pleased to tearm me in the â—9 page of your empty Pamphlet intituled Londons Liberty in chains discovered where your Ignorance saith that you look to be vilified and reproached as you have been formerly by such barking Curs as are S. Shipard who during the time of your close confinement nibled at your heels but though it was your pleasure venerable Sir to bestow an Epithite upon me only worthy to be annexed to your own name to wit BARKING CVR in so saying although perhaps you know it not Obscurus est tuus sermâ— although I and the world know Dicis non aliud quám merum mendacium yet herein you perhaps bestowed on me not so evil a tearm as you imagined for you resemble me to those harmless currs that bark yet bite not wherefore for so saying I am something engaged to you but for your own part you are a man I had almost said Cur that not only bark but bite too and by that means you have proved the PROVERB of no validity which saith Canes qui multum latrant raro mordent that is Dogs that bark much seldome bite You have bitten many men Mechanick men great men yea Peers of the Land you have bitten the Noble Earl of Manchester Colonel King and others and you know that Dogs teeth are something venemous and if drawing salves be not suddenly applyed the parties wound so bitten wil wrancle and fester You also know that a Dogs tongue hath the vertue to heal also with licking the wound which useful property although for ought I know you may so much degenerate from your kind as to want yet I rather incline to conceive the evil of your mind wil not suffer your tongue to do that good for which it was given you For most men know that you have wounded and bitten many but no man can remember that you ever endeavored to heal any or to make them amends for your injuries But to return from whence I digrest Although as I said before it pleased you to shew from what gentle stock you came by your gentle tearm Curr yet why have you curtail'd and excorciated my name saying S. Shipard when my name is Simon Shepard I cannot perswade myself you should be so meanly lettered as not to have some insight in the Art of spelling although you have ere now been found faulty in that kind by Mr Prynne and others I rather think you did it on purpose reserving the meaning thereof to your self for what reasons I care not but Sir by this means I am fully satisfied concerning a point which Ptolomei averreth to wit that from the benevolent or malevolent positure of the Sun and Moon at each others ascending sign at time of birth is discerned the love and hatred twixt any two and this by your means without seeing of Lillie But Sir forasmuch as hereafter you may again have occasion to use my name and that you may no more mistake in setting down i for e I shal here insert both your name and my own for those that shal read this Letter to judge I perswading my self it will go through many hands ere it arrive at yours you and I wil imagine a multitude of spectators while we throw the DODOCHEDRON DIE while we take to pieces and ransack our names and beleeve it Sir the ANAGRAM of a NAME is worthy of observation it often being as useful to certifie as the calculating of a Nativity I shal presume first to begin with yours and afterwards shal insert my own JOHN LILBVRNE Anagram Loe J-Burne hie Behold the Anagram sayes you burne high And not alone you make the Kingdome fâ—ie Now Sir in recompence of your favorable mitigation in tearming me only a barking Curr whereas if it had pleased you to have been rigorous you might have rancked mee with your self and Overton and have said biting Cur therefore Deign to accept of an Accrostick on your own name each letter thereof placed is as capital forme as where you were stiled DEFENDER OF THE FAITH Pray read An Accrostick Sonnet I whilome was a Warrior bold On Horseback charg'd the Foe Having men under me inrol'd Now ah it is not so Loo now because I Libels fram'd In Prison I am laid Lyons are my Associates tam'd Because to much I said Unto mee Independants Bow Reverencing mee as one Nere would Conformity Allow Even as Overton Thus much Sir for your sollace and delight Now Sir I shal insert my own name with an Anagram which if it shal distaste pardon my ignorance of the rellish of your pallate SIMON SHEPPARD Anagram No man pries headiness in me None ere abus'd me in this Kind but Thee For ne're no man pry'd headiness in Mee Yet cause Thy heady giddiness I blam'd Am I by thee vile fool a Cur-dog nam'd Accrostick Sonnet Since Thou O Lilburne angry art In truth dear Sir I care not for 't My mind 's not sorry that I fram'd Or that I wrote the Famer's fam'd Nor shal I bee by wisemen blam'd Shut up Thy Press and Rayl no more Having no matter now in store Except old Statutes for to cite Peecing Thy Books with infinite Articles Orders Proclamations Rerages Dammages Taxations Desist from such like fond Relations Now Sir although your splenitick humor shal perswade you the next time you mention my name to cal me biting Curr yet I hope you wil write my name more properly then before and say Shepard and not Shipard Moreover Sir I shal entreat you to take not see that though my weapon hath been hitherto a pen and not a pike yet the wise have reported that a Scholler may sooner become a Soldier than a Soldier a Scholler and although I hope you have Repented of your Rigorous Proceedings during the time you were a Commander imployed to vindicate a Righteous Cause yet I wonder how your mind assisted you to twit the Royal Party bloody and barbarous I confesse and yet your own conscience not to whisper you in the ear and tell you how cruel you your self were during the time you had a Commission I shal instance one tale to you related to me by a faithful honest man whose neer friend one Mr William Hagar surprized by your soldiers as be was walking in a garden the place I need not name I suppose you wel remember it and rifting him to his bare skin drove him before them ten miles til he came in your presence who were so void of humanity that instead of comforting a
for your standing up for the rights and priviledges of the people I honor and esteem you but for your superbious and unwarrantable carriage to your superiors I contemn and despise you the subjects of this Kingdome have been a long time enslaved and like foolish prisoners played with their fetters it hath pleased God now to open a way to their infranchisement O! let it be done in a fair and regular manner let us not be so unmannerly to caâ—ve to our selves since there are those appointed who are both able and willing to to distribute unto us and let us not while we go about to enjoy the immunities of Magna Charta break and infringe Gods Commandements And now Sir for all your great skil in the Law I must tell you that you are very grosly mistaken in one point which you recite page the 10. of your Anotomy of the Lords Tyranny Where you say To speak truly the Parliament are not nor ought not to medle with causes betwixt party and party that are decidable at the common law they being the supream Iudicature of the Kingdom and the last refuge to appeal to in case of injustice elsewhere and so may properly be called Iudge of Iudges rather then Iudge of particular causes and parties I pray Sir let me demand of you one thing what renowneth a King more although to speak truly he is appointed by God only to look after the good of the people in general to appoint over them prudent and faithful Governors and to see them execute Justice and Judgement yet I say what hath renowned them more then to bee so tenderly zealous over the welfare of their subjects as to deign to fill up the seat of Justice with their Persons and to hear the particular complaints of each peculiar subject and indeed Equity commandeth it should be their constant imployment but that the possibility thereof is taken away by reason if it were so they must with Moses sit each day from morning til night and yet the people depart unheard so is it with that great Counsel the Parlament of England it is for their everlasting Fame and Honor to decide pettie causes whereby they shaw their pious care of the Commons happiness now this sometimes they leave undone not because it doth not belong to them to hear private causes but because they are not able to decide affairs of State and private affairs between man and man also therefore is your Argument waved that it belongeth not to the Parliament to hear private causes Again I wonder you should cast such an Aspersion on the Lords as you do in the 14. page of you Book intituled An anotamy of the Lords Tyranny you say The Lords have been the principal instruments to engage this Kindome in a bloody Warr That they set us a fighting to unhorse and dismount our old Riders and Tyrants that so they might get up and ride themselves Where in saying so O how much do you mistake your selfe it is evident to the whole kingdome that the Lords have been the Composers and not the fomenters of the common troubles had they sided with the Malignant and Royall partee I fear it had not been with us as now it is but it fareth with you as with the Poet Homer who never writ well of any whose actions were never so meriting that disturbed his Country so you delight to say the worst you can and to Maligne any be they never so innocent that have taken part any way against you which is in you a very great over-sight Again I esteem you very incorrigible that you should desire as in the Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny pag. 19. That you hope the Honourable House when they have judged your cause will not onely cause the Lords to restore the charges you have been at during the time of your Imprisonment but will also grant you ample repairations for your hard and unjust sufferings Your sufferings your selfe occasioned by your sturdy and imperious carriage to the Lords who you not onely resisted but reviled and is it any reason that when a man shall wilfully set fire on his house and goods his neighbours should be constrained to make him reparation I trow not so is it in your case your own obstinacy perhaps hath impoverished your state and therefore the Lords must make up the breach and restore unto you the monies your folly hath caused you to expend for which there is no reason or the least colour but you seem to urge some reasons in page the 20. why it should be so where you say That the Kings constant custome was to provide lodging dyer and to pay the Fees of all those he committed to the Tower but the Lords for no cause at all having committed you thither put you to pay all the vast extravagances and Fees Alas sir the reason thereof might be this The Lords know what a numerous multitude of Sectaries were your Idolaters and they in not providing for your entertainment in the Tower would put them to the test and thereby would give you occasion to find your friends indeed from your friends in shew and all this was for your information in that point and you have found during your imprisonment in the Tower very much accommodation from those of your society have neither wanted as is credibly reported for either good cheer or wine a certain Symptome of their affection towards you and now it being fairely hoped by you as perhaps it may certainly happen that you shall be delivered out of bonds O that God would put it into your heart to do as you once protested to the Lieutenant of the Tower upon condition he would admit you the Society of your wife and friends to wit that you would not write a line in the way of controversie which would be for your exceeding great availe but I fear it will be with you as with those superstitious sea-men who being in an hideous and threatning storme in danger to loose their lives with their fraught make solemn protestation to some Saint that if they will appease the fury of the tempest and allot them safe harbour they will offer up to their shrine large gifts which notwithstanding when the waves are silent and they arive on shore they forget to do so it is to be feared that you when you are again at liberty and injoy those immunities you did ere your confinement will be the same man still and steer a course as irregular as ever before but I hope the Lord will guide your heart better and quiet your troublesome spirit and unite your heart to his Church and people that now at length we may have peace and union among our selves and not suffer us while we Tithe Mint and Cummin to leave undone the more necessary duties not suffer us while we are busied to finde fault and to urge needless disputations to forget those duties necessary for the saving of our souls that we may no longer be a scorn to our neighbouring Nations who clap their hands and rejoyce to behold our divisions and distractions hoping thereby to make themselves Lords over us but he that ruleth the heavens and the earth I hope will so Order the Councels and consultations of our happy Parliament that by them as his Instruments he will settle his true worship in this Kingdome and cause the Natives thereof to injoy peace truth and happinesse FINIS