THE LAMENTATION OF A Bad Market:  
OR, Knaves and Fools foully foiled, and fallen into a pit of their own digging: Wherein their late Errors are lamentingly laid down by one of the Brethren of that Function.  
Snatched from their Convention Table, AND Published to the end, that against the next time the People shall be either so Mad or Foolish to believe them, or trust them, they may learn more wit, and proceed more gradually, and not so much to Phaetonize.  When Thiefs fall out, honest Men come by their Goods again. 
London, Printed at the Charge of John Lambert, Charles Fleetwood, Arthur Hesilrig, and — Hewson the Cobbler, and are to be distributed to the fainting Brethren. 1660.   

THE LAMENTATION OF A Bad Market.  
Friends and Brethren,  
THe cause of this Convention of the Saints, is to condole and lament our great and manifold Losses and Crosses have beset us, and compassed us round about, to the utter overthrow of our great and glorious Cause, and ourselves and Honours like wise. This day not to be observed as hitherto have been, for Victories and Triumphs over our Enemies, but to be kept as a solemn day of Expostulation, wherein we must with grief, and sighs, and sobs, and bitterness of spirit, round up our Master for his perfidious leaving of us, and deal toward us. Why should he thus reward his Saints with evil for good? We that have sought the advancement of his Kingdom both night and day, by Plots, Devices, Stratagems, Fire, Ruins, Blood, all that either we, or he himself to help us, could invent; and that yet he should forsakes us, cuts our very hearts, so that scarcely for anguish of spirit shall we be able to look him in the face.  
Let us see and examine ourselves, what we think may be the reasons of his late withdrawing from us, and his cancelling of our Commissions in such strange and unexpected manner; Was it because we proceeded too rashly in the Rule and Governing of his Kingdoms, and flocked too throngingly to the Throne of Dignity, thereby to shorten, not prolong his Reign on Earth? or for that we have been too mindful of private Interest? or what should be the reasons of his thus, sclipsing our Grandeur, think ye, my Brethren? Oh Lucifer! Lucifer! why hast thou forsaken us, and left thine own people in the day of Adversity? Why wilt thou not continue thy wont goodness to thy chosen ones? but suffer them thus to be trodden under, and insulted over by the Enemies of both thy, Cause and ours, by both thy Enemies and our Enemies? Thou canst not say thou hast ever found us unfaithful to thee in our Calling and Employments; and wherefore then hast not thou protected us, and taken away that black vail which hath covered our eyes, but suffered us thus to be besotted and beguiled? Well, seeing it is thus, we are resolved to be angry with thee; and if we were but certain of making our escapes out of that Gin, Net and Trap thou hast caught us in, we could almost abandon thy Banners, under which we have thus long fought. Why hast thou thus painted and bespotted the immaculate Garments and White Robes of thine Elect with the dust of the earth?  
Oh Brethren! that we had but had the policy of the Monks, than should not we have been reduced to that low ebb which now we are. Friends, seeing we have begun, let us search ourselves to the bottom, and recount what we were in the days of old: Were not we the despised of the Nation? Were not we contented with the meanest Cottages to cover our heads, the like Food to sustain ourselves, and the poorest Weeds to cloth ourselves? In those days we took no thought, neither were our heads busied with National Occurrences, the Secrets of Kingdoms, Kings and Princes, the acquaintance of Powers, and Exercise of Powers, Ruling and Dominion, Governments in Church and State? Our chiefest cover and business than were to get bread to seed ourselves, and Clothes to cover our nakedness, and to become the best Workmen in the several Trades and Occupations our Fathers gave us education in, as Thimble-makers, Razor-makers, Tailors, Cobblers, Carpenters, Weavers, Brewers Pedlars, and such like Vocations: Then were we happy, m friends, and lived in peace, sucking Consolation and Nourishment from the Pottage-pot, Beef and Bag-pudding. O that we had never known or been instructed in the Rudiments of Ambition, but had delighted in the Precepts of Content! O that our Master had never charmed us into an aspiring vain, unless withal he had given us more sober and politic heads, for the management of our Affairs of such a vast Circumference! O what fools were we, that when we had mounted two or three steps, and with the fattening Coniolation of a suitable portion of King's Lands, Queens, Bishops, Deans and Chapters, and other Sequestered Lands and Estates, as were allotted unto us, we could not rest contented there, but must still be fluttering with our ambitious Wings at the Helm, and nothing will satisfy Cobblers and Brewers, but Crowns and Sceptres. We might have taken our Brother the Neapolitan Massionelloes Chance into our consideration, which (it may be) if our ambitious eyes had not been dazzled with the glittering hopes of Gold and Honour, but that we could have had a serious reflection on the same, would have given some check to our haughtiness, and a Rein to our furious current. But we (like Icarus) must mount, and stand in competition with the Sun, till that he melts the Wings of our Ambition like wax, and plunges our brazen faces into the deeps: Nothing but Phaeton's request will give satisfaction unto us, and I think we have seconded him indifferent well, to our own sorrow and destruction.  
O that we had trodden the path that our good Master Oliver lest behind him! and that the fleetwood's had not dealt so rashly with his successor in disinthronizing him, and in time questionless we might have charmed him by the Spiritual conversations of Goodwin, Sterrey and Peter's, into a fit composure, and tempered constitution to have preserved us in our several mounted Stations, as his father had done before him. O that the Hopes of the Flee woods had not been so mighty, and the Ambition of the lambert's so great! then, even in this day, might we have been wallowing in our far Live, as the Sow walloweth in the mine; but now we cannot, with the Dog, return to his vomit. O that we had had b●● so much wit as to have avoided the long Treaties, tedious Meetings and Prolongations in the terrible season which the politic Monk put upon us. Had we well noted that State-Aphorism (viz.) Delays breed Danger, than had we not been in this drooping and low estate we are reduced unto. But we were confident in the arm of our strength, and did not dread or fear the Enemies that were risen up against us and our Cause: All the care we took was to provide bags to part the spoil of another Sequestration, but now our bags are rend from us.  
How much would we now give, to have had then a spirit of foreseeing and foreknowing; then surely we should, if not with victory, have come off with a complying Plaudite, and not with such a hissing Reproach as is attributed unto us. Friends, to see how we have been fooled, is doleful and soul-cutting to rehearse; for whilst we stand scussling, fight, struggling, snarling and contemning for the Bone, the Owner watches his opportunity, and comes and snatcheth away the Meat from us. and leaves us to eat each other for hunger, and in a far worse estate than at the beginning. Truly, friends, we are in a very sad condition, and have brought our Hogs to a very fair Market, but have made but a soul price of them I'll assure you. Now the people have found out what we are, and what way all our actions bend their course, now that our Cause is quite split, and our Honour laid in the dust, our acts of Injustice laid open before them, they will stone us if we pass along the streets. We have received the Mark of the Beast in our foreheads, and the very Children will smell us out, even as the Cat doth the Mouse, and hunt us up and down more than ever they did Marriot: So that to stay here, we dare not, for fear of the Judge who is at the door, and will reward every one according to their several deeds, whether good or evil, for him or against him. And to fly into Foreign Nations, will be far worse than to abide here; for there the verystones in the street will rise up against, and accuse such vile Traitors as we, anp we shall be murdered like so many Dogs. Men and Brethren, what shall we do?— In my judgement, our only way is to march under the several Banners of our Professions, and several Occupations, Trades and Vocations, to meet our Landlord, and cry Pecavimus with Halters enriching our Necks. O beloved, that in this our day of Adversity, we were become, as once, honest Thimble-makers, Cutlers, Cobblers, Beewers, Tailors, Carpenters, Weavers, Tinkers! then should we take quiet sleeps, than would not fears and dangers in the night's alarm us, and rouse us from our pillows: Now we shall be subject unto continual fears, ever expecting and looking for a Messenger to be sent unto us, to call us to an account, by our Landlord's order: We have broken the Covenants in our Leases, and have suffered his Lands and Tenements to be run over with ruin; we have forfeited for nonpayment of Rent, Service, Homage and Fealty, against Law and Equity, and a strong Covenant in our Leases to that purpose: We have prohibited his entrance to view the state of the reparations of his Messages, Lands and Tenements: We have persecuted and killed his Servants and Friends, whom for that purpose he has so often sent unto us: And what can ye name that we have not done? Finally, Brethren what account shall we give of our Stewardship? and which of us shall have that impudent boldness as to look him in the face? Whether shall wesly for resuge, or unto whom for protection? The fight of the King will cut us like a twoedged Sword; who shall abide his presence? We have digged a pit, and are fallen into it ourselves: how shall we then escape? we have invented and prepared mischief for others, and it is returned upon our own pates: Who shall pity us? who shall save us? who shall deliver us?  
Now thou our strength hath left us all,  
For people to deride our fall:  
Our wicked actings great and small,  
Shall condemn us ith'Judgement-Hall.  
Ambition's wings are melted,  
Out Honour with dirt is pelted,  
And we are left besmelted,  
'Cause we must needs be Belted.  
Oh! that as first we did begin  
With a Cobbler's Awl, and a Tailor's Pin;  
With Carpenter's Rule, Brewer's Sling,  
Weavers Trade, Pedlars Pack,  
Tinker's Budget, Miller's Sack:  
We could but now to work again,  
All in our pristine Trades amain:  
O then how happy should we be,  
If of our Honour we were free,  
And could but cry, God Trading send,  
And grant us Peace unto 〈…〉  
THE END.