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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	affection_n	good_a	great_a	824	5	2.2463	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88267	The upright mans vindication: or, An epistle writ by John Lilburn Gent. prisoner in Newgate, August 1. 1653. Unto his friends and late neighbors, and acquaintance at Theobalds in Hartford-shire, and thereabouts in the several towns adjoyning; occasioned by Major William Packers calumniating, and groundlesly reproaching the said Mr John Lilburn.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1653 (1653)	Wing L2197; Thomason E708_22; ESTC R202736	33,340	35

wrath and malice in your own heart as rather sooner as I have often told my poor simple wise to hazard your life and well-being then ever suffer me again to breath in Englands Ayr in peace security and quietness In which regard I told her if she were wise she would willingly permit me according to my own well and rationally grounded genius to scuffle neither with small nor great but you alone as the chief author of my banishment and chief Patron and true earthly causer of all the grand mischiess and Tyranny acted in poor England yet though I could not draw her to that I so penned my said Address as that if upon the speedy delivery of it my Pass were denyed or delayed I could in my own thoughts make sufficient use of the publishing and printing of it and therefore confidently believing you would be like that grand Ty●ant Pharoah hardened in heart to your own destruction I got 1000 of them in these parts printed in Dutch and English and immediately sent another copy to Paris to be printed in French and English there and also sent another copy to Amsterdam to be printed in Dutch and Latin there which I hope if it be not already done it will be speedily done and another copy by another hand then my wife to be printed besides the original I sent to London but my wife having heard of it hath most irrationally hindered it so that now I must take some other course to get it printed whether she will or no let the issue be good or bad I care not and fully understanding by this Post by six or seven several Letters that my desired Pass is delayed which I have cause by the length of time to take for an absolute denyal and also have too just cause to judge that you alone are the principal cause of it in which regard not to complement with you which now I scorn but in my own imagination to leave you amongst all rational men the more without excuse I send you these lines upon which most particularly I do most heartily and earnestly entreat you who I know is able with the bare lifting up of your finger if you please to send me speedily without any the least further delay my Pass to return into the Land of my nativity from my causless illegal and unjust banishment and if when I come into England you have any thing to say to me for any evil I have done you either in word or action or any way else I do hereby engage to give you real satisfaction face to face either first as a Christian or secondly as a rational man or thirdly as a sturdy though very much wounded and cut fellow that dare yet subscribe himself From Dunkirk Monday the 2 of June 1653. Dutch or New stile Honest and stout JOHN LILBURNE that neither fears death nor hell men nor Devils A second piece that I intended when I begun this to have produced to evince my strong and earnest affection to my native country and its liberties and freedomes and my constant study to indeavour its welfare even while I was beyond the seas whilst I was daily strugling with the complotted-designes of my death by the barbarous wicked and most vile agents of Master Thomas Scot the Generals Secretary of State and as I am informed is yet his bosome cabinet and darling friend although in all manner of wickedness and baseness he is so vile and putrified that I am confident honest Job would have scorned to have set so unworthy a man with the dogs of his flock I say the second piece that I intended to produce was an Epistle writ by me from Bridges in Flanders the last of October last English stile unto Colonel Martin which is printed beyond Sea at the latter end of a book Intituled John Lilburn revived and which hath so many clear demonstrations in it of my true affection to my Native Country and its welfare and prosperity and that in the way of a Commonwealth rightly constituted that by no understanding man that shall read it can I I am confident of it in the least be judged a man in league with any manner of Royallist in the world to do England or its liberties and freedoms the least hurt in the earth but it would make this Epistle much too long and take up too much of my precious time to look after my second tryal drawing on so nigh at hand as Wedensday come seven dayes is and that with that fury and rage that I understand the General c. drives it on with and therefore I shall here earnestly desire some of the seriousest amongst you for your further satisfaction in this point to make a journey to London to one very well known to the most if not all of you and that is Master William Kiffin one judged even by my great adversaries sufficiently well-affected to the present interest that now rules and ask him but these two questions First whether since my aboad in Flanders c. beyond the seas he did not receive divers letters from me Secondly desire to know of him the particular contents of those letters and particularly whether divers of them were not fill'd with as clear demonstrations of my real affection to the welfare of England as any letters possible could be filled and whether they did not selve him often to use for the good of England or no. But now my friends should I put you upon a serious consideration of the publike wayes of Major William Packer and his great masters truly I think I might truly aver that all the histories of the whole world will not afford a generation of men that in printed Declarations have promised more to a people of good and in actions done less then they there being not the least suitableness in the world betwixt their publike Declarations and their Actions for although it was onely Law and Liberty that declaredly we fought to secure for these eleven together against the King yet I would now but ask any ingenious man in England this question Whether there be any law in reality liberty or propriety left in England but the Generals will and pleasure who although he was but a mean man a while ago and now at most but the peoples daily hired and paid mercenary servant Doth he no pick and cull Parliaments at his pleasure and when those that he hath left hath given him and his associates out of that that is none of their own many thousand pound lands of inheritance a yeer doth he not at his pleasure pluck them up by the too●s although by his consent and seeking they had hem'd themselves about with divers laws to make it treason for any man or men of England whatsoever but to indeavor to raise force against them to dissolve them and doth not he and his Officers when they have created necessities of their own making without the least shaddow of Parliamentary authority expresly against the

The Upright Mans Vindication OR An Epistle writ by JOHN LILBURN Gent. Prisoner in Newgate August 1. 1653. Unto his Friends and late Neighbors and Acquaintance at Theobalds in Hartford shire and thereabouts in the several Towns adjoyning Occasioned by Major William Packers calumniating and groundlesly reproaching the said Mr John Lilburn Gentlemen and Christian Friends IT is the saying of Solomon who therein was guided by the infallible Spirit of God That a good name is better then precious Ointment Eccles 7.1 And that a good name is rather to be chosen then great riches Prov. 22.1 And that a good report maketh the bones fat In which consideration give me leave to appeal to all the unbiassed and understanding people amongst your selves that knew me and observed my walkings and actings while I lived amongst you for a justification of my integrity uprightnesse meeknesse gentlenesse and single-hearted walking amongst you to be really so far as man was able to judge to be such as it became one that owned and sensibly injoyed by faith the choicest of spirituall Union and communion with the Lord of life and glory and groundedly expected looked and longed for a blessed immortality with the Lord of life and glory when this fading or earthly house or tabernacle of mine shal be dissolved And that believed and declared that the grace of God in particular had appeared to my soul for that end to teach me to deny ungodlinesse and worldly lusts and to live soberly and godly in this present evil world abstaining as much as in me a poor frail man lies from the very appearance of evil and in all my actions to the utmost of my power and ability to let my light really and indeed and in truth so shine before and among men that as Christ himself saith they seeing my good works might glorifie my father which is in heaven and to do to all men as I would they should do to me which as to men is the onely or principal badge or mark of a true Christian indeed and not in the least to do evil that good may come thereby I say you know my walking while I was with you to be in sincerity peace meekness and uprightness and in the demonstrations of true love and friendship as became a Christian which made me willing many times in publike in prayer amongst you largely to spend some time effectually to declare unto you that infinitness of fulness faithfulness truth and loving kindness that I had found in the Lord of Hosts the Lord Jehovah my long enjoyed and long experienced enjoyed Rock of Salvation who I often truly told you is and was long since largely become my sensible lot portion joy and rejoycing and was the onely single good that the soul of a Beleever could glory and rejoyce in all earthly delights of riches honour greatness pleasure and all relations whatsoever in comparison of him were but fading vanities fly-blown cobweb moth-eaten contents and delights And yet in the midst of all these Declarations of mine amongst you of the goodness and kindness of the Lord Almighty manifested unto my soul nothing at the same time was more frequent and common amongst my great potent and seeming religious adversaries then with confidence to brand me for an Athiest a denyer of God and the Scripture Just as Major William Packer a great seeming-religious man amongst you now doth both to several of you and others as my certain Intelligence from some amongst your selves by Letters c. inform me brand for an hypocrite an apostate and a great combining enemy with the Nations enemies beyond the seas against its welfare peace and freedom which although they be things my soul detests and abhors as I do the divel and although I am confident no honest man in the world that really and experimentally knows me can really in the least beleeve these things spoke against me to be true or that there is any other ground or reason to report them then the Machiavilian devises of guilded pretended religious men by craft cunning deceit cruelty policy and shedding of bloud got into great places and power which they would keep in their own hands arbitrarily by will and pleasure to destroy all the lives liberties and properties of all the honestest and quick-sighted people of England at their pleasure Yet notwithstanding I judge my self obliged in duty and conscience to my self and the Nations welfare to make an Apology unto you to open your eyes to see clearly through those foggy dark mists that the said Major Packer would cunningly cast before your eys for the keeping of his rich and great place and interest up that hath raised him from the Dunghil or a mean condition to be one of the arbitrary and cruel Lords or unjust Task masters of the people of England And I shal begin the said Apology with the inserting here my honest Addres from Calis which the world for the reason declared in the 38 P. of my late printed Trial never saw the true Copy of which said Address thus followeth For the Honourable the Councel of State sitting at White Hall in London these present MAy it please you to vouchsafe me liberty to acquaint you that being at Calis by the means of our last Tuesday Post I saw and read a print●ed address unto you made by some honest and well-minded people of Colchester as I have cause to judge them by those honest though somewhat too general things that they desire of you in their said address by which I perceive you are a kinde of a setled power in Engl. unto whom by that as the very first paper I have seen of that nature I apprehend the honest and national people of England expect great matters from you in reference to your assisting in the setling in a rational security of their laws liberties and freedoms the dear purchased and true price of all the late bloud and mony shed and spent in the late wars In which regard I am imboldened my self by these lines to make this address unto you although I must truly acquaint you that upon my wifes comming to Bridges in Flanders to me and fully informing me that General Cromwel and Major General Harrison with other Marshal men had by force and violence dissolved the Parliament for their wicked unrighteous and unjust actions and being very confident that they never did an action nor could of more injustice and unrighteousness then their voting to banishment of me without ground or cause and thereby also robbing me of my estate and of all the comforts of this life in which tyrannical Votes or sentence I dare avow it and upon my life in particulars maintain it they have dealt more cruelly more unjustly more illegally more unrighteously and more harshly with me then ever they dealt with the most professed enemy that they have had in England Scotland or Ireland in arms against them or any that they have supposed did aid assist or abet those

thee to use the contrary thou canst and knowest how to apply thy self thereto And therefore for a great man but especially for one newly attained to his greatnesse it beboves him saith he to have a mind so disposed as to turn and take the advantage of all winds and fortunes and as formerly I said not for sake the good while he can but to know how to make use of the evil upon necessity And therefore let him saith he seem to him that sees and hears him all pitty all faith all integrity all religion but there is not any thing more necessary for him to seem to have saith he then this last quality viz to seem to be religious because all men in generall judge thereof rather by the sight then by the touch for every man can come to see what thou seemest to be but few men come to perceive and understand what thou art indeed and reality For saith he if great men can feign and dissemble throughly other men are so simple and yeeld so much to the present necessities that he that hath a mind to deceive shall alwaies find another that will be deceived it being natural common to the vulgar to be over-taken with the apprehension and event of a thing seldome or never rightly and truly weighing and examining the righteousnesse and Justice of the way and means that great men use to attain to their ends And at the same time when I seriously considered the high pretences of the Major Generals Lambert and Harrison to Justice and Righteousnesse in its purity and height and the seeming contrariety of intrests betwixt them and their General it made me seriously to think of what I have with a great deal of observation read in those most excellent and famous Roman and Greek Historians Titus Livius and Plutark of the Triumvery of Rome consisting of Lepidus Anthony and Augustus Caesar whose intrests the said Authors plentifully shews in many things were as inoonsistent with each other as light is with darknesse yet they all could agree in the main viz. to make a sacrifice of each others choicest and dearest friends that each other of them hated or that they knew were or had bin great lovers of the liberties freedoms of Rome which some 100 of years before then had been one of the most famousest most splendidest and gloriousest Common-wealths in the whole world by means of which they not onely brought into their native Country and City most horrible and bloudy massacres and wars but also totally subdued the liberties of their famous Common wealth the people whereof could never regain them again to this day although it be above 1600 years ago and in conclusion the two eldest Triumveries viz. Lepidus and Anthony were cheated and outed of their Government and one or both of them of their lives and the youngest viz. Augustus Caesar carried the bell away of the whole and thereby made himself Emperour of the world then in subjection to Rome and the grounds and reasons of all these and many more considerations of my then perplexed conceptions arise from your foresaid answer and speeches to my wife c. for can there be any difficulty or danger or dishonour in it if you were willing at all to let me come into England to break a particular Act of Parliament in my particular case of so high and palpable injustice when you have accounted it no difficulty danger nor dishonour unto your to break or at least all of you to approve of the breaking and dissolving of that Parliament by force of arms that made the said particular unjust and unrighteous Act that were setled in their power and secured in the continuance of it by so many Acts of Parliament divers of which made it Treason for any English man or men so much as to go about or but attempt or indeavour to dissolve them without their own free consents and which some of your very selves had been formerly active upon most strict penalties even of losing the benefit of all Law and being esteemed no Englishmen to force the people to take an oath or ingagement to be true to them to maintain preserve them so that I confess this piece of your answer was then such a riddle to me as I could then no otherwise unfold it then as is alredy before declared In the second place as for that part of your Answer that tels her there will speedily be a new Parliament that will relieve me which very thing is a greater mystery to me then the former because that in all the readings that ever I read in my life in divine or humane Authors I reade but of three wayes of governing the world or the poople thereof the First is immediately by inspiration and visible or evident command from God himself and such was Moses Government and the Judges of Israel But I beleeve all of you nor none of you will so much as pretend to so immediate and evident conversing with God as Moses and several of the Judges of Israel did in your governing the people of England if you do I hope you will shew the people of England at least those that you judge honest and have no more upon your own declared principles forfeited their hereditary birth rights of injoyment of their fundamental lawes liberties and freedoms then any one of you have done your commission And also carry them where they shall evidently hear the voyce of God speaking unto you thereby infallibly guiding and directing you after which if then they will not beleeve your special assignation from God to be Englands Law givers and Rulers you will shew them your signes and wonders that by the power of God therein and thereby you will confound and destroy as Moses did grand unbeleevers and rebellers For without all these things all your pretences to walk in Moses and the Judges arbitrary steps in giving a law unto and by will and pleasure governing the people of England will be but meer impostorisms for which you can expect from God and the people of England no other recompence but what Impostors received in Moses time The second kinde of Government or way of administration of Government is by Conquest and such was Nimrods the mighty Hunter which is so mightily condemned even by the declarations of your own selves for a beastly inhumane and unnatural government as nothing can be more and therefore although at present I have not your printed papers or declarations at Calis by me yet by the strength of my memory I dare avow that in one of your printed papers published by you to justifie your late proceedings against the late executed King Conquest is called a title or government fit to be amongst Bears and Woolves but not amongst men and say I much less Christians but much less of all other amongst the pretended refined'st of Christians as you would have men judge you to be Reade but your late Acts Declarations and

shall undoubtedly make England to be either honoured courted and respected by all neighbouring Princes and Commonwealths round about her even Holland it self or else undoubtedly shall make her to be feared and dreaded of all those that refuse to do the former and that this shall be done by honourable and just ways in every particular 2. I will lay down such honest just rational and feasible grounds as if speedily and effectually persued in the eye of reason shall undoubtedly make England in Trade and Traffick in one year or two at the most more to flourish in Trade and Traffick then ever it did before the late Wars yea even to equallize and go beyond Amsterdam and Holland in its greatest glory which in their true and natural effects shall much increase the people and inhabitants of England and in particular shall make thousand and ten thousands of Watermen more then now they have which are and must be now the Bulworks of England shall raise the price of Land and by consequence of all commodities produced by it the Loans of which at the present is like to break the poor Husband-man and in a very short time shall ease the people of three quarters at least of their present charges in Taxes and Excize and for the future the middle sort of people shall not bear half so much as they do now in proportion nor the richest be opprest at all nor compelled to pay above their proportion which with Gods blessing in a very few moneths shall produce to whole England such peace and plenty as shall evidently yielde an unoppressive way and means to give to every Souldier now in Arms in England c. and settle upon him and his heirs for ever without alienation so many Acres of Land as shall be worth ten pound or fifteen pound sterling a year and upon every poor decayed house keeper like the Law Agraria amongst the Romans shall settle for ever so many Acres of Lands as shall be worth after the first years husbandry to him and his heirs for ever five pound or fixe pound sterling per year and shall also provide for all the old and lame people in England that are past their work and for all Orphans and Children that have no estate nor parents that so in a very short time there shall not be a Beggar in England nor any idle person that hath hands or eyes by meanes of all which the whole Nation shall really and truly in its Militia be ten times stronger formidabler and powerfuller then now it is all which if you get me home in safety and thereby free me from the murtherous dealings of Mr Thomas Scot and his cursed and blood thirsty Associates if by evident reason and demonstration I do not make all the abovesaid things apparent to your Commissioners chosen by you to discourse with me upon the premises let me dye and be esteemed for ever by you all the veriest Cheat and Rogue that ever in your lives you had to deal withall Therefore as you love your own welfare and the welfare and happinesse of the Land of your Nativity act vigorously stoutly industriously and unweariedly night and day for the preservation of your own interest liberties and welfare very much concerned in your speedy getting me a Pass for which I shall account my self as much obliged to you all that are vigorous actors in it as ever man did to a generation of men in the world so with my honest and truest love to you all I rest Yours faithfully if his own J. LILBURN From my present Lodging at the Silver Lyon in Ca ●●is this present Saturday June 4th 1653. And because in the latter end of my fore-going Address from Calis Pag. 19. there is mention made of one Letter being written from Dunkirk which probably may come to the knowledge of the Councel of State which will not please them and seeing the said Letter is constantly hit in my friends teeth as my information tels me by Major Packer himself and other of his great Masters as if it were fully fraught with treason felony or the highest manifestation of malice and hatred to my native Country that possible can be expressed and though since my coming into England I have made it my studied work rather to heal and close up breaches betwixt me and my potent adversaries then to make them in the least wider and therefore in my three first Addresses to the Councel of State I did in sincerity and truth proffer them what ever in my imagination could be proffered by a rational peaceable just and honest man but yet notwithstanding that my life and innocent bloud ever since hath been with that eagerness persued and stil is ordered to be persued and no ear at all in the least will be given to any of those many Petitions or thousands and ten thousands well affect●d people that hath constantly been endeavoured to be presented to the Parliament for me that I am confident I may justly say the persecution raised and persued against my innocent life is farre beyond the persecution in bloudy Queen Maries time that was raised and persued against the righteous and just Martyrs or any of them For in the first place she dealt in that particular so justly with them that she made them known and declared Laws to walk by and to take heed of before that ever she went about in any the least ki●de to punish them but no such thing in the least is there in my case although our Governours pretend to be a thousand times more righteous and godly then she was and yet in actions even in my present particular are abundantly more abhominable in wickedness and thirsting after innocent bloud then she was And besides we have in England been fighting pretendedly for the securing of our Lawes and Liberties for this ten or eleven years together and yet fall far short of bloudy and wicked Queen Mary in outward justice and righteousness Who secondly would never have any of the righteous Martyrs condemned but she would have them to have due process of Law and fair hearings and trials and their crimes and offences laid unto their charges and either proved against them face to face or confessed by them But no such things at all in the least is there in my case for I never had any due process of Law in my life about my banishment nor no crime in the least laid unto my charge nor never saw accuser nor witness against me nor never was asked the question what I could say for my self nor never permitted to speak one word for my self and yet Major William Packer and his great pretended Religious Masters General CROMWEL Major Genereal HARRISON and Major General DESBOROVGH are the onely men that principally persue my life upon this score to have it taken away from me which is a deliberated and a consulted action of higher tyranny I am confident of it them ever was acted by the greatest Tyrannical