Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	law_n	work_n	2,920	5	6.2264	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30697	The poor mans friend, or A narrative of what progresse many worthy citi- [sic] of London have made in that godly work of providing for the poor With an Ordinance of Parliament for the better carrying on of the work. Published for the information and encouragement of those, both in city and countrey, that wish well to so pious a work.	Bush, Rice.; England and Wales. Parliament. Proceedings. 1647-12-17.	1650 (1650)	Wing B6231A; ESTC R214161	19,460	30

to us that God requires us to take care of others as well as of our selves And to this end the Lord gives us command that we become eies to the blinde ears to the deaf and that we cloath the naked feed the hungry and bring the stranger to our house and threatens judgements to such as doe or shall neglect the same Upon consideration whereof and the great neglect of this so weighty a duty that is both commanded and commended by God as a great work of charity to whom an account must one day be given whether we have fed the hungry cloathed the naked visited the sick and imprisoned c. And according to our doings herein shall we be rewarded or condemned at that day when that sentence of Christ shall be pronounced Matth. 25.41 Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels And also observing those many good laws formerly made in this Kingdom and of how little use they have been to this day hath moved me with others to search out the cause thereof and to endeavour to put life into those laws which I had almost said were dying An account whereof I shall briefly give unto you Brother It is not my purpose here to look so far back as to make mention of what others have long since done nor to insist at all upon that book set forth by King Charles wherein are many excellent orders and directions the which might seem to be sufficient to doe the work in hand viz. the regulating and relieving the poor but is found by experience to miss of its desired end namely the putting life into Laws formerly made concerning the poor as aforesaid But my purpose is here to set forth the late endeavours of divers well affected men within this City and the suburbs and that in brief thus About five years since a gentleman having observed the good government of the poor in other Kingdoms and the ill government of them in this being grieved in minde to observe the aged blinde lame and sick neglected with many poor families almost starved little children lie in the streets under stals and such like places uneducated being stirred with zeale addresses himself to many Knights and Burgesses of the house as also to the L. Major of London and many of his brethren the Aldermen with divers other well affected Citizens as also many Justices of the peace and others of the out parts of the said City did endeavour to possesse them with the goodnesse necessity and consequence of relieving and setting the poor to work and likewise did procure divers meetings within the City of men affecting this pious design where the undertaking was generally liked and commended by all and many sad reports and complaints were then and there made of the miseries that many poor families did endure which the present experience of these times proves to be true and of the wickednesse and vile abuses committed by vagrants and counterfiets and of the great neglect of our Laws in that particular and also of the great wast and losse of food made within the City sufficient to maintain one half of the indigent poor therein as is probably conceived together with the not improvement of our native commodities abuses in Trade increase of Ale houses with many other things not yet sufficiently provided for by any Law or statute within the Kingdome or these laws or statutes not now put in execution and therefore fit to be considered of and remedied at this time of reformation for the generall good of the poor Many moneths were spent in meetings in this way of complaining and the Gentlemens good resolutions commonly ended with the meeting till at last it was moved that there might be a time and place appointed for a constant meeting and that some way might be thought on effectually to prosecute those good thoughts and endeavours and to procure the removall of all those evils At our meeting we took into our consideration that beyond the sea viz the Lowcountries by setting their poor on work most of those evils are removed and remedied and those places blessed of God and inriched And likewise that in some Towns in this our Kingdom is not a begger or idle person to be seen as Norwich Ipswich Dorchester and other places to their great honour and that in this City is nothing wanting which those other parts and places doe enjoy that might conduce to the regulating and effectuall relieving of the poor yet that we might the better herewith possesse our selves and be the better able to possesse and perswade others we did desire every man to deliver in writing his thoughts which way it were best and might be done with most advantage the which was performed and those propositions brought in were by Mr Steel Counsellour at Law abbreviated and the substance of the whole was by him drawn into three heads viz. First Of Government Secondly Stock Thirdly Account And upon each Head divers particulars such as were conceived most necessary to carry on the work when a Committee of Aldermen and Common Counsell should be procured and appointed for that end and purpose Which to procure Octob. 7. 1645. we with many others both Ministers and Citizens petitioned the then L. Major and Common Counsell desiring them to take into their consideration the multitude of poor in and about the City their misery necessity disorder and increase and what remedies were fit to be applied thereto with such propositions as we should tender to them tending to the relief of the said poor The Common Counsell granted what we desired and withall ordered that Committee to consider of an Act made six or eight years before with an intent to create a Corporation that should take care to see the Laws and Statutes concerning the poor put in execution The said Committee after many meetings and much debate did agree that it was necessary that there should be a Corporation made consisting of eight Aldermen and thirty two Commoners Freemen of the City chosen out of each ward respectively and to that end drew a draught which being agreed upon after many alterations by councell is by M. Maynard and M. Hayle Counsellors at Law in a short draught perfected and approved as fit to passe the House and to establish a Corporation who might afterwards gain an enlargement of power as occasion should require But after much attendance and many obstructions and other new alterations a long draught for an Ordinance was agreed upon and committed to Coll. Veun a Member of Parliament to obtain the power of the Parliament to confirm it But through the multitude of their affairs and length of the Ordinance we could not in six moneths procure it to be read and committed whereupon by advise we drew up a short petition and representation of our complaints and desires to the House of Lords The Lords readily embrace this pious and charitable work and to their great honours within

poverty of these parts the disease discovered is half cured as saith the Physitian to which answereth most fitly our generall corporation but more particularly the causes of our poverty I shall lay down negatively and affirmatively First Negatively What is not the cause as First Not want of Laws Secondly Not want of Officer to put those Laws in execution Thirdly Not want of time to take it into consideration Fourthly Not want of advice or incitation thereunto Fiftly Of materials to work on Sixtly Of work and work-houses if well considered Seventhly Nor yet of stock to perform it But affirmitively in generall for want of an improvement and well ordering Laws officers time materials poor c. The grievances thus stated I come to the remedies and do conceive and it agrees with the sence of those active Gentlemen that did use to meet to prosecute this work that as the opposite vertues is the best cure for any sin so is the opposites of all these evils a proper cure for all such maladies and for your more ease and satisfaction herein I will give an instance or two by which you may judge of the rest The Law saith Provide houses and work apprehend the vagrant set to work the destitute and then fine the giver and the Constable that admit any to beg But instead of execution and practic we say the cost of building houses will be great there will be losse by work let the poor beg they will get more by their complaint then we can do by cessing and infer why should the giver be fined when the poor is almost starved why the Constable fine for not apprehending when there is no work to set the poor unto thus inverting the right way of our fathers we are altogether out of order and the consequence is to all men evident that Foolish pity spoils a well governed City and Kingdom A second instance The poor of this City are all Tradesmen and are poor because trade failes and trade fails for want of stock of utterance change of fashions c. provide stock utterance c. and your poor cease Thirdly Some are poor not for want of stock or vent but by reason of ill husbandry cure them of that prevent their lavish expence and you prevent their poverty Fourthly Some can work but will not make them work and their labour will maintain them Fiftly Pride is one chief cause of poverty and theft too many servants now adaies exceeds their master and mistresses and to maintain the same steal it from them they serve and especially maid servants usually spend all they get on fine apparel and then marry and having nothing whereby to follow any calling soon after fall into poverty whereas were they prevented of such extravagant expence they might as heretofore was usuall in their service save and lay up something to help them afterwards Sixtly Many are poor by reason of sicknesse lamenesse plague or the like and having by means thereof lost their stock or credit are never able to recover themselves which might be much abated if not removed by some setled course for physick chirurgery Pesthouses c. as in other parts it is But against me I know will be alledged that I have all this time but brought you into a wood and there left you prescribe a ready way to help all this and then you do something For satisfaction hereto consider the remedies hinted already in this discourse with such as you shall finde in Stanley Robinson Lee and others who in their writings have hinted something this way and for your better encouragement I will methodize to you their sense First Number your poor by which you shall know two things 1. What poor you have 2. Whether the poor that oppresse you be your poor Secondly View your poor and hereby you shall know how many with work will maintain themselves and what the charge would be to releeve the rest Thirdly Fill your Hospitals that are already furnished with stock and all necessary provisions and see that the most necessitous be first there provided for Fourthly Keep such as you commit to Bridewell in custody untill it appears they have some place and imployment to go unto so should not Bridewell want company to grinde brasell or to turne the mill Fiftly Divide your ground so that the poor be not in one division and their stock in another division but as equall as may be that so each division may have encouragement to set their poor on work Sixtly For this City 't is needfull to provide four work houses and them to be distinguished the east west north and south workhouses and to divide the City into four parts accordingly for one or two Parishes are not sufficient for a work-house to build it to furnish it to maintain manufactures in it Seventhly As also to distinguish your poor belonging to each quarter by badges to prevent straglers Eighthly It is necessary likewise to appoint a place in each Ward to receive stuffe from their Generall store-house for such as work at home and to receive in the work so wrought back again paying for the same according to the worth thereof for the better ease and accommodation of the said indigent poor and of the Corporation as also to receive such food as might be frugally saved and prudently ordered multiplied and disposed in such sort as that it may be sufficient to stop the mouths of such as complain We are almost starved and prevent the mention of that sad disease in the weekly bills of mortality Ninethly For the better effecting of the former rules its necessary that a Register book be kept for the poor in each Ward and each Parishes poor be distinctly set down with their charge and abilities and that they be truly represented by some appointed and sworn for that purpose and those severely punished if they fail for their neglect and perjury in a matter of that consequence Tenthly That certain known rules for relief be set down the family of four children to be provided for before that of three so that some receive not all others none at all as now it is but following the wise counsel of our fore-fathers discovered by their good Laws donations and foundations or the laudable practice of other parts of this Kingdom and elsewhere Eleventhly That care be taken that by releeving one poor we make not another as is 1. The very forme of government in Bridewell by multiplying apprentices to the destruction of a trade as also through pity to strangers to undoe our own poor as may and doth appear in the Weavers case stated to the Committee of Parliament 2. By allowing multiplicity of Ale-houses to the relief of a few and the utter undoing of many 3. By allowing Hucsters by means whereof our poor house-keepers especially buy their food at the third or fourth hand with Costermongers and such like callings that tend only to the spoil of young fruit and enhancing

fourteen daies caused an Ordinance to be drawn up and the same soon after concluded and sent down unto the Commons which was likewise by them committed and perfected and sent down to the right Honourable John Warner then Lord Major of London and the Corporation appointed for that purpose to put in execution the afore-mentioned Ordinance which Ordinance I have here inserted Die Veneris 17. Decemb. 1647. An Ordinance for the Relief and Imployment of the Poor and the Punishment of Vagrants and other disorderly Persons VVHereas the Necessity Number and Increase of the Poor is very great within the City of London and Liberties thereof for want of the due execution of such wholesome Laws and Statutes as have been formerly made For remedy thereof and for other the purposes herein after specified Be it and it is Ordained by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled That from henceforth there be and shall be a Corporation within the said City of London and Liberties thereof consisting of a President Deputy to the President a Treasurer and fourty Assistants whereof the Lord Major of the said City for the time being to be the President eight of the said Assistants to be of the Aldermen of the said City for the time being and the other thirty and two to be Free-men of and Inhabitants in the said City chosen out of the severall Wards of the said City equally and that John Warner Sir George Clarke John Foulke William Gibbs Samuel Avery John Bide George Witham Thomas Viner Aldermen of the said City shall be the first eight Aldermen of the present Assistants and that Francis Waterhouse shall be the present Deputy to the said President And that Maurice Gething shall be the present Treasurer and that John Offeild Richard Morrall James Russell Walter Pell Ralph Hough Robert Mainwaring Anthony Webster William Adams Richard Glide William Jesson Tempest Milner Thomas Arnold William Kendall Toby Lisle Nathaniel Hall Humphrey Hawley William Antrobus John Green Edmund Whitwell John Cooke Robert Meade Robert Dallison William Bromewich John Everet Thomas Clowes John Jones John Bellamy Abraham Chamberlaine John Babbington Richard Garsorth John Perryn and Stafford Clare shall be the other thirty two Assistants And that the Deputy and Treasurer from henceforth shall be Eligible by the Common Councell of the said City yearly on the 25th of June or at the next Common Councell following or within twenty eight daies next after the said 25th of June and that such two of the eight Aldermen being Assistants and eight of the other thirty two Assistants as the said Common Councell shall think fit shall fall off or be amoved yearly at the said day and time of election and that two other Aldermen and eight other Commoners Citizens of and Inhabitants in the said City shall be yearly elected by the said Common Councell on the day and time aforesaid to be Assistant in the place of such as shall so fall off or be amoved And it is further Ordained that the said President Deputy Treasurer and Assistants for the time being shall for ever hereafter in name and fact be one Body Politique and Corporate in Law to all intents and purposes and shall have a perpetuall Succession and shall be called by the name of The President and Governours for the Poor of the City of London and Liberties thereof And by that name shall and may without Licence in Mortmeine purchase or receive any Lands Tenements or Hereditaments not exceeding the yearly value of two thousand pounds of the Gift Alienation or Devise of any Person or Persons who are hereby without further Licence enabled to give the same and any Goods Chattels or Summes of Money whatsoever to the use intent and purpose hereafter limited and appointed And sue or plead and be sued or impleaded by the name aforesaid in all Courts and places of Judicature within this Realm And the said Corporation or any nine of them whereof the said President or any of the said Aldermen or the Deputy to the President or the said Treasurer to be one shall have hereby power and authority from time to time to meet and keep Court for the ends and purposes herein expressed at such time and place as the said President or his Deputy shall appoint And shall have hereby authority from time to time to make and appoint a common Seal for the use of the said Corporation and to chuse such Officers and them or any of them from time to time to remove as they shall see cause and upon the removall or death of them or any of them to chuse others in their places for the carrying on of this work and to make and give such reasonable allowance to them or any of them out of the Stock and Revenue belonging to the said Corporation as they shall think fit and shall have hereby full power and authority to doe and execute all such other Acts and things as are hereby ordained and appointed for the effecting the work hereby intended to be done and executed And be it ordained by the authority aforesaid for the further relief and employing of the said poor within the said City and liberties thereof that the said Corporation or any nine of them whereof the said President or any of the said Aldermen or the Deputy to the President or the said Treasurer to be one shall have power to Erect one or more Work-houses for receiving relieving and setting the poor on work and one or more houses of Correction for punishing of Rogues Vagabonds and Beggers as they shall think fit And be it further ordained by the Authority aforesaid that in regard of the great inequality in the ordering and relieving of the poor through the different abilities of the severall and respective Wards in the City of London and Liberties thereof the said Corporation or any Nine of them shall hereby be authorised with consent of the Common Councell of the said City to divide the severall Wards with the poor and stock to them belonging into four equall parts or proportions for the more effectuall and indifferent relief of the poor and the avoiding future differences and dissentions between the rich and the poor Parishes provided this division of the said City and Liberties thereof shall not be any prejudice to the relief of those parts of Parishes which lie without the Liberties of the City which Parishes lie part within the Liberties and part without but that those parts which lie without the Liberties of the City shall and may have such relief from Parishes within the City as formerly they have had And be it ordained by the Authority aforesaid That for the further relief and imploying of the said poor within the said City and Liberties if the said Corporation shall finde that the Annuall Rates and Levies or other Stock come to their hands shall not be sufficient for the effecting the purposes aforesaid that then and from time to time it shall and may