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What? A Little Finger Heavier than Former Loins?


 

Chapter III.

Containing several dismal doleful cries and outcries, which pierce the ears and heart of his Excellent Majesty, the King of Kings. And how the King of Heaven changes the great ones of the earth.

1.

Thus saith the Lord:

be silent
O all flesh
before the Lord

be silent
O lofty
haughty great ones
of the earth

there are so many
bills of indictment
against thee
that both heaven and earth
blush thereat

how long shall I hear
the sighs and groans
and see the tears of poor widows?

and hear curses
in every corner
and all sorts of people crying out
oppression
oppression
tyranny
tyranny
the worst of tyranny
unheard of
unnatural tyranny

O my back
my shoulders
O tithes
excise
taxes
pollings

&c.

O Lord!
O Lord God Almighty!

what?
a little finger heavier than former loins?

what have I engaged my goods
my life

&c.

forsook my dearest relations
and all for liberty and true freedom
for freedom from oppression
and more laid on my back

&c.


2.

Mine ears are filled brim full
with confused noise
cries and outcries

O the innumerable complaints and groans
that pierce my heart

through and though

O astonishing complaints

was ever the like ingratitude
heard of since the world stood?
what?
best friends
surest friends
slighted
scorned
and that which comes from them

in the basest manner

condemned
and some rewarded with prisons
some with death?

O the abominable perfidiousness
false-heartedness
self-seeking
self-enriching
and kingdom-depopulating
and devastating

&c.

these and divers of the same nature
are the cries of England
and can I any longer forbear?
I have heard
I have heard
the groaning of my people
and now I come to deliver them
saith the Lord

woe be to Pharaoh
King of Egypt

you great ones
that are not tacked nor tainted
you may laugh and sing
whom this hits it hits
all whom it concerns
by what name or title soever
dignified or distinguished


3.

You mostly hate those

called Levellers

who

for ought you know

acted as they did
out of sincerity
simplicity
and fidelity of their hearts
fearing lest they should come under
the notion of covenant-breakers
if they did not so act

which if so
then were they most barbarously
unnaturally
hellishly murdered
and they died martyrs for God
and their country

and their blood cries 
vengeance
vengeance
in mine ears
saith the Lord


4.

Well!
let it be how it will
these Levellers

so called

you mostly hated
though in outward declarations
you owned their tenants 
as your own principle

so you mostly hate me

saith the Lord

though in outward declarations
you profess me
and seem to own me
more than a thousand
whom you despise
and account worse than yourselves
who are nearer
the Kingdom of Heaven
than yourself

you have killed Levellers

so called

you also

with wicked hands

have slain the Lord of life
who am now risen
and risen indeed

and you shall know
and feel it with a witness

to Level you in good earnest
and to lay low all high hills
and every mountain that is high
and lifted up

&c.


5.

Well!
once more read
Jam. 5.1. to 7
ye have killed the just
ye have killed
ye have killed
ye have killed the just

the blood cries in mine ears
vengeance
vengeance mine
I will recompense

Well!
what will you do with Bray
and the poor prisoners
elsewhere?
you know not what you do
you little know
what will become of you

one of you had best remember
our dream about your fathers moule

once more know that Sword-Levelling is not my principle; I only pronounce the righteous judgements of the Lord upon earth, as I dare

6.

Neither do I forget 
the hundred spent in superfluous dishes

at your late great London feast
for I know what

when hundreds of poor wretches
died with hunger

I have heard a sound in mine ears
that no less than a hundred died in one week
pined and starved with hunger

howl
you great ones
for all that feast days dole

hear your doom




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