Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	answer_n	letter_n	receive_v	778	5	5.2253	4	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

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

you complained before me and my wife to Rich his face in your owne chamber at Dillinghams house and called him before us base Rascall and cowardly and perfidious fellow with much more I very well remember You cannot but know that all my present sorrowes are come upon me by Manchesters meanes and his creatures for my zeale to truth and justice against him and all his treacherous confederates who had as I conceive eare now got the gallowes if you had followed him with as much vigour and strength as you should and I was made beleeve you would But you pluckt your head out of the * Accursed bee the vote of the House of Commons which voted you 2500 l per annum which vote and nothing else hath kept Manchesters head upon his shoulders coller and I was catched in the bryers and have been exposed to a thousand deaths by my imprisonment c. most illegally barbarously and tyrannically and the House of Commons would do me no justice though I turned I think as many stones to procure it as any man whatsoever in England could But was betrayed and unworthily disserted both by your selfe Henry Martin † Reade my late Epistle to him page 1 2 3. 4 5 6 c. now in Print Dated 31. of May. 1647 and all my friends there whose actions to me are nothing else but declara●ions of your selfe seekings without purely eyeing either Trust or Justice for which God undoubtedly will lash and scurge you And when I saw that they wou●d not heare regard or receive but burnt or sleighted all those just Petitions I set underhand on foot for Justice and my liberty I applyed my selfe vagarously unto the honest blades the private Souldiers I meane of the Army though I have nothing to speake of your gallant Generall to me in a manner a stranger but prayses And when by much indust●y with much of position from your selfe and others of your fellow Grandees in the Army I had been instrumentall with the expence of a great deale of money and with all the interest and industry I had in the world acted both night and day to settle the Souldiers in a compleat and just posture by their faithfull agitators chosen out by common consent from amongst themselves as resolute s●● and just instruments to effect my Liberty to give a checke to tyranny and settle the peace and justice of the Kingdome not looking for any good at all from your selfe and the rest of your fellow great ones that truly in my apprehension are transendently degenerated have bought and sold and intend visibly more fully to do it the Lawes Liberties and Justice of the Kingdom for your owne ends and greatnesses which opinion is every day confirmed and strengthned in me in that you have not only done it alreadie but goe on still and intend more fully to do it in that in a manner you have rob'd by your unjust subtiltie and shifting trickes the honest and gallant agitators of all their power and authority and solely placed 〈◊〉 in a thing called a Counsell of Warre or rather a Cabenet Junio of seven or eight proud selfe ended fellowes that so you may without controule make up your owne ends for I know your practises of old which I am credibly informed is lately renued and the chiefest of them before mentioned whom I c. have experience sufficiently of are as base as base can be And will sell Christ their Country friends relations and a good conscience for a little money or worldly honour And yet some of them must be the chiefe and only men to place and displace all Officers in the Armie And the aforesaid two general Officers were as I am confidently informed from a good hand moved for by your selfe at a Councell of Warre to be the mannagers of the charge against the eleven Members although your selfe I dare aver it believes That put them both together they have not so much courage as to encounter with a Wesell or a Poulecat much lesse with such sons of Anak as the eleven Members are and I am sure both of them put together hath not so much honestie as will fill a Tailors thimble much lesse so much as will make them deny their lives liberties and interests which of necessitie they must have that resolutely and faithfully undertake that imployment yet as I am tould they had been the men if your wise son Ireton had not been apprehensive that the Councell of warre had lost all their braines at their departure Sir in short what I heare not once twise thrise nor a dozen times from you hath so perplexed my spirit and fil'd me with amazement that thereby I must as a faithfull plaine dealer tel you that I am necessitated wholly to withdraw my present good thoughts from you and others with you and must and will print my conceptions to the view of the world that so you may delude and destroy honest simple hearted plain dealing men no longer cost it what it will I valew it not being necessitively compelled either to remove every stone that lyes in my way that hinders me from obtaining my just ends Justice and my just liberty or else to power out my bowels upon them with lifting them and I sufficiently heare of the Jeeres plottings and contrivings of your favourites against me and all such as I am Therefore doe you and they looke to your selves as well as you can for the uttermost of my strength and interest shall speedily be amongst you publiquely unlesse you speedily and effectually without complement take some speedy course that I face to face may speake my mind to your selfe of which I desire a positive and satisfactory answer within foure dayes at the farthest I desire no favour from Lords or Commons c. but if I have transgressed the Law let me fully be punished by the Law * And by the Law of this Kingdom which by all your oathes you your selfe have sworn to maintaine there ought to bee Gaole deliveries three times a yeare and more oftner if need required 4. Ed. 3. 2. see the oppressed mans expressions declared pag. 3. 4. part Iustit cap. 30. pag. 168. 169. And all this is for that end that the prisoner may have according to the 29. chap. of Magna Charta the Kings Coronation oath speedy Justice not be destroy'd by a long lingring imprisonment which the Law abhorres and therefore the late impeached members in their own case lately in their petition to the House tells them That delayes of Iustice is equally forbidden with the deniall of Iustice and yet I have above a whole yeare been imprisoned by the Lords and can come to no triall though I have with earnestnesse sought it neither have I any accusation or crime layd unto my charge or so much as any witnesse or informer to appeare against me to the transcendent violation of all the lawes of the land and contrary to all Rules