ANIMADVERSIONS UPON john Lilburnes Two last Books, the one Entitled London's Liberty in Chains 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 Bailie near the Session's house. 1646. To Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne. SIR, I Had thought, that you, like the generous Mastive, would have passed by, and taken no notice of the snaps and snarls of such Curs as I am; for so you are pleased to term me, in the ●9. page of your empty Pamphlet, entitled, London's 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, nibbled at your heels; but though it was your pleasure, venerable Sir, to bestow an Epithet upon me, only worthy to be annexed to your own name, to wit BARKING CURIO, in so saying, although perhaps you know it not, Obscurus est tuus serm●; although I, and the world know, Dicis non aliud, quám merum mendacium; yet herein, you perhaps bestowed on me not so evil a term as you imagined; for you resemble me to those harmless curs that bark, yet by't 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 by't 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 seldom by't: You have bitten many men, Mechanic men, great men, yea, Peers of the Land, you have bitten the Noble Earl of Manchester, Colonel King, and others: and you know that Dog's teeth are something venomous, and if drawing salves be not suddenly applied, the party's wound, so bitten, will wrancle and fester. You also know, that a Dog's tongue hath the virtue to heal also, with licking the wound, which useful property, although for aught I know you may so much degenerate from your kind as to want, yet I rather incline to conceive the evil of your mind will 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 endeavoured to heal any, or to make them amends for your injuries: But to return from whence I digressed. Although, as I said before, it pleased you to show from what gentle stock you came by your gentle term, Cur, yet why have you curtailed and excorciated my name, saying S. Shipard, when my name is Simon Shepard; I cannot persuade 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 yourself, for what reasons I care not: but Sir by this means I am fully satisfied concerning a point which Ptolemy 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 Lily: 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 shall here insert both your name and my own, for those that shall read this Letter to judge, I persuading myself it will go through many hands ere it arrive at yours, you and I will imagine a multitude of spectators, while we throw the DODOCHEDRON DIE, while we take to pieces, and ransack our names, and believe it Sir the ANAGRAM of a NAME is worthy of observation, it often being as useful to certify, as the calculating of a Nativity; I shall presume first to begin with yours, and afterwards shall insert my own. (JOHN LILBURNE) Anagram. Lo J-Burne high. Behold the Anagram says (you burn high) And not alone, you make the Kingdom (f●ie). Now Sir in recompense of your mitigation, in terming me only a barking Cur, whereas if it had pleased you to have been rigorous, you might have ranked me with yourself 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 form as where you were styled DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. Pray read. (An Accrostick Sonnet). I whilom was a Warrior bold On Horseback, charged the Foe, Having men under me enrolled, Now ah, it is not so. Loo now because I Libels framed In Prison I am laid, Lions are my Associates (tamed) Because to much I said. Unto me Independants Bow, Reverencing me, as one Near would Conformity Allow, Even as Overton. Thus much Sir for your solace and delight. Now Sir I shall insert my own name, with an Anagram, which if it shall distaste, pardon my ignorance of the relish of your palate. (SIMON SHEPPARD). Anagram. No man pries headiness in me. None ere abused me in this Kind but Thee, For ne'er no man pried headiness in Me; Yet cause Thy heady giddiness I blamed Am I by thee, vile fool, a Cur-dog named. (Accrostick Sonnet). Since Thou, O Lilburne, angry art, In truth, dear Sir, I care not for't, My mind's not sorry that I framed, Or that I wrote the Famer's famed, Nor shall I be, by wisemen blamed. Shut up Thy Press, and Rail no more, Having no matter, now in store, Except old Statutes for to cite, Piecing Thy Books, with infinite Articles, Orders, Proclamations, Rearages, Damages, Taxations, Desist from such like fond Relations. Now Sir although your splenitick humour shall persuade you, the next time you mention my name, to call me biting Cur, yet, I hope, you will write my name more properly than before, and say Shepard, and not Shipard: Moreover Sir, I shall 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 Scholar may sooner become a Soldier, than a Soldier a Scholar: and although I hope you have Repent of your Rigorous Proceed during the time you were a Commander employed to vindicate a Righteous Cause, yet I wonder how your mind assisted you to twit the Royal Party (bloody and barbarous I confess) and yet your own conscience not to whisper you in the ear, and tell you, how cruel you yourself were during the time you had a Commission: I shall instance one tale to you, related to me by a faithful honest man, whose near friend, one Mr William Hagar, surprised by your soldiers, as be was walking in a garden; the place I need not name; I suppose you well remember it, and rifting him to his bare skin, drove him before them ten miles, till he came in your presence, who were so void of humanity, that instead of comforting a 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 been 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 will so bloody an act. Sir, I know well you have showed yourself a man sufficiently valiant, and have been an instrument of advancing the Public good, therefore 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, entitled, London's Liberty in chains discovered, where so much you triumph 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 Knight's Sir john Strangewayes, Sir Lewis Divet, etc. prisoners in the Tower, that sometime bare Arms against this present Parliament, and did their utmost endeavours to impede the settling of that Reformation for which you fought; by reading which passage the shallowest capacity may conceive, that you look more than one way and hid two faces under one hood; is there any followship betwixt God and Mammon, betwixt Light and Darkness? 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, ●eque fervidum; utinam esses; itaque quoniam topidus es, evomam te ex ●●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, London's Liberty in chains discovered, and yet it may be you are as ignorant as you were some few months 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 copy it out; I much wonder that your wisdom 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 enraged. For my own part, I wish your release from trouble, with your enfranchisement, and I sympathise of another's afflictions, having myself drank of those bitter waters. But this let the world know with me, Maris Coelique temperiem turbines tempestate●que, commendant; habet has vice's conditie Mortalium ut adversa secundis, & adversis secunda nascantur, occulta● utrorumque semina Deus, & plerumque bonorum, & malorum causa sub diversa specie latent; Storms and tempests contribute to the clearness of the Heavens, and the smoothness 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 will be no more occasion of trouble betwixt you and me, and I shall hope you will no more vilify me in Print, which if you shall, my frailty is such, that I shall not so far regulate my passion, as to sit still and not Answer you. I have hopes this Letter may be a means to quench that fire your Anagram says you burn in; and not augment it, which if it shall, I find but what I expect, and what I have lately read, in one of the best of our modern Poet's Master Withers, a man worthy of all honour, yet too much addicted to your own Fancies, wherefore perhaps you will the more willingly hear him. Who saith. " But faulty men accused, if still they find " Their power continue, feel another mind " Unto their guiltiness, they malice add, " They grow revengeful, mischievous, and mad: " Plunge in the toil, strive, struggle, scratch, and tear, " Rage like a Tiger, roar out like a Bear: " And are so nettled, that you may behold " Their guiltiness, before the same is told: " Yes and by hearing them, ere them you see, " May know what vermin, and what beasts they be. I pray Sir read these Verses o'er again and mark whether the Poet hath not rightly Characterised 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 twoedged sword, your tongue, against some party, or parties; if you should continue in your critical course, you will be esteemed the only Momus and Zoilus of the Age, and the Poets will forget those two others so notoriously known, and instead of them celebrate your name, which will be for your infinite dishonour. But Sir now I shall come up more close unto you, and desire of you, if you shall so please, to show 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 famed (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 honour 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 GOD'S express 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 Just Man in Bonds, the other naming his Pamphlet (A Pearl in a Dunghill); 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, than a public Vindication; and also that yourself might know how much you swerved from the ways of godliness, and from the obedience God commandeth you to yield to your superiors. And I must tell 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, entitled, An Answer to nine Arguments, you rail against the Church, Ministers, Worship, Government, saying, They are Antichristian, and Diabolical; and in your Book entitled England's Birthright, you rail against the whole State, and exclaim against the political form of Government; so that you have showed yourself 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 persuaded 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 shall prove evidently unto you, that the course you, and your adherers have hitherto taken, hath been both seditious and ridiculous; 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, we 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 terms, but also, because it is unto the common people incompetent and insufficient Judges, both to determine any thing amiss, for want of skill, 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 forbidden they should be maintained, nor ought it to be sufficient for you to say we will take away this, because a better may be devised: For we oftentimes conceive amiss when we compare those things that are in devise with those that are in practice, for the imperfections of the one are hid till by time and trial they are discovered, the others are already manifest and open to all: Therefore Mr Lilburne be persuaded by him whom, I believe, 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 Saviour saith It is impossible but that there should be offences, but woe 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 shall never enjoy happiness or tranquillity; for by these our dissensions, we do but, as it were with foolish Priam, pull down our walls to let in our enemies; to this purpose Mr. George Whither excellently well saith, which his Verses, because they are worthy to be written and to be taken to heart by all the Commons of this Kingdom, I shall 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 possessed, United, and asunder, with such care To heed each others counsel, doubts and fear; And with such mutual readiness to add All comforts, all good helps that may be had, And all endearments that may knit together Our Forces, and our Loves to one another: That none may come betwixt us, or find way To mixed with us, our Counsels to betray: This last will more endanger us then all The strength of Spain and France, united, shall, If we prevent it not. Thus far he, and we undoubtedly shall find his words as Oracles, if the subjects of this Kingdom agree not together, and live in love and unity, ruin and destruction will inevitably follow; he that spoke all truth hath pronounced, that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand; and shall we be so foolish as to delude ourselves with vain hopes, that his words shall not be fulfilled; if not one jot or tittle which Gods Prophets have said shall fall to the ground, as God hath said they shall not; surely what God himself hath said shall be made good; O! that God would therefore put it into the hearts of all men to relinquish all Sedations and Factious Proceed and that each man might emulate his Neighbour only striving who should become most virtuous SOME OBSERVATIONS ON Master Lilburnes last Book entitled An Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny. NOw Sir you having struggled long both against King, Lords, and Commons, and now at length are appealed from the Lords house to the Commons Bar, before whom you cannot want of a Just and Legal Trial, that glorious Court, which both is and shall be for ever famous for unexampled virtue, mercy, Justice, and all those virtues necessary to flourish in so glorious a Senate, will determine no doubt as shall be according to your deservings: yet now your spirits are elevated and you sing aloud, potior voto, yet it is not the duty of a good Christian so much to insult over those he hath vanquished; for in your Book, entitled, An anatomy of the Tyranny of the House of Lords, you have a very triumphant title, and a man may guess 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. junij 1646. you dedicate your Book to the Honourable 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 Friday last of my particular sufferings since my Commitment by the Lords. This your glorious title I envy not, but shall desire the Honourable 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, entitled, An Anatomy 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 tell you that in so doing your glory is your shame, for your standing up for the rights and privileges of the people, I honour and esteem you, but for your superbious and unwarrantable carriage to your superiors, I contemn and despise you; the subjects of this Kingdom 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 enfranchisement, O! let it be done in a fair and regular manner; let us not be so unmannerly to ca●ve to ourselves, 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 God's Commandments. And now Sir, for all your great skill in the Law, I must tell you that you are very grossly mistaken in one point, which you recite page the 10. of your Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny. Where you say; To speak truly, the Parliament are not, nor ought not, to meddle with causes betwixt party and party, that are decidable at the common law, they being the supreme judicature of the Kingdom, and the last refuge to appeal to, in case of injustice elsewhere, and so may properly be called judge of judges, rather than judge 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 be 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 employment, but that the possibility thereof is taken away, by reason if it were so, they must with Moses, sit each day from morning till night, and yet the people depart unheard; so is it with that great Counsel the Parliament of England, it is for their everlasting Fame and Honour to decide petty 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, entitled, An anatomy of the Lords Tyranny; you say, The Lords have been the principal instruments to engage this Kingdom in a bloody War, That they set us a fight to unhorsed 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 yourself, it is evident to the whole kingdom, that the Lords have been the Composers and not the fomenters of the common troubles, had they sided with the Malignant and Royal party, 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 Malign any be they never so innocent that have taken part any way against you, which is in you a very great oversight. 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 only 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 yourself occasioned by your sturdy and imperious carriage to the Lords, who you not only 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 moneys 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 custom was, to provide lodging, dyet, 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 show, 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 Symptom of their affection towards you, and now it being fairly 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 controversy, which would be for your exceeding great avail, but I fear it will be with you, as with those superstitious seamen, who being in an hideous and threatening storm in danger to lose 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 arrive on shore they forget to do so; it is to be feared that you when you are again at liberty, and enjoy 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 ourselves, 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 find 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 rejoice 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 Counsels and consultations of our happy Parliament, that by them as his Instruments, he will settle his true worship in this Kingdom and cause the Natives thereof to enjoy peace truth and happiness. FINIS.