THe Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament having thought fit, that a Collection shall be made for the distressed people of the Town of Taunton (as by the Ordinance now read appears:) That you may be the better quickned to se­cond it with a free Contribution; It is thought fit that thereunto should be subjoyned, a brief Delineation of their pressing Miseries; They being such as call for tenderest bowels of compassion from all that bear the name of Chri­stians: It is notoriously known to all the Kingdom, That the said Town hath for these two years past, endured all the calamities almost that War (the sharpest of all outward judgements) can bring upon a people: The first of these two years they lay groaning and fainting under that Affliction, of which the poor oppressed Church complains, Lam. 1.5. Their Adversaries were the Chief; and they that hated them, ruled over them: So that they were deprived, many of them in an instant, of their liberties, by close imprisonment; of their estates, by Plunder, and by heavy impositions; of their dearest Friends, by flight; yea (which is yet sad and dolefull) of their Ordinances and their God. The latter of them, they endured three as sharp & cruell Sieges from a bloody Enemy, as ever any place hath suffered since the Wars began; in which their houses were consumed by fire, their persons slain, the Famine and the sword contended which should prey upon them first; poor Mothers looking when the time would come, that they should hear the Children cry for bread, and there would be none to give them; When they should see them swoon in the top of every street, as Lam. 2.11. However, God upholds their spirits with unshaken resolution in the midst of fire and blood; and in the end; wrought out a great sal­vation for them, whose almost matchlesse magnanimity, and resolute Defence of that place, hath put a greater stop to the proceedings of the King, in hindring His Recruits, and opened a more fair advan­tage to the Reducing of the Western parts, then can be easily expressed.

But yet by these calamaties and troubles, the estates of those who have escaped the sword, are utterly exhausted and consumed, five hundred of their houses burnt down to the ground, (being one half of the Town) by which almost one thousand Families are turned harbourlesse and helplesse to the mercy of their Neighbours, who can only melt upon them, and weep over them, but are not able to relieve them.

And therefore, you that have escaped these miseries, are earnestly besought to look upon this sad Di­stressed Town, (sometimes the most eminent of those parts for building and scituation, and which is more, for Piety and true Religion) now by the just displeasure of the Lord against it, raked in its own ashes, reduced almost to the extreamity of misery and want, for the Defence of that Cause which you Professe, and take upon you to maintain: Listen and hear it crying to you in the Churches Lamen­tation; See if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger: and do not stop your eares against their cry for pitty from you, lest the Lord deal accordingly with you, and stop his eares against your cryes for mercy, when you have most need of it. In such a singular and extraordinary case as this, stir up your selves to do some extraordinary thing; Do not draw out your purses only to your poor distressed Brethren, but your very souls too, as the Prophet speaks: This is your duty, and this will be your policy, if you desire to save your persons, houses and estates, from that heavy misery which hath exposed them to your mercy.