A Counter-buff TO Lysimachus Nicanor: Calling himself a Jesuit.  
By PHILOPATRIS.  
Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine cunctos Ducit, & immemores non sinit esse sui.  
Printed Anno Domini, 1640.   

A Counter-buff TO Lysimachus Nicanor. A pretended Jesuite.  
I Cannot now but give my grief a tongue,  
Since innocence, and virtue suffer wrong;  
Since calumny, and falsehood strive to wound  
Our mother's breast, and purpose to confound  
That Covenant, the Popish hirelings foil,  
Heaven's herald sent to bless North-Britains soil:  
A band of truth and power, the prelates baine,  
Which with our dearest blood we will maintain,  
As sworn, God's purer worship to defend,  
Our King to serve, our straying faults to mend.  
Illustrius Trajan, though a pagan prince,  
After much blood of Christians, did dispense  
With the remainder of that heaven-blessed band.  
Who through a Red sea fraunghed their longed-for land.  
Whiles by proconsul Pliny he was informed,  
That Christians in their lives were more reformed, 
Plinius secundus.   
Nor then was vented forth, by false report,  
And that in sober way they did resort  
To private meetings, whereunto their God  
They sweetly sang, some divine hymn or ode,  
Committing nothing worthy Caesar's wrath.  
Whence all inditements, sentences of death  
Were straight repealed, and Christians were set free,  
Dispensed to brook peace, truth, and liberty.  
The like our hope and trust assures us, shall  
Unto our native homebred Caesar fall:  
Whiles by some worthy Plin', it shall be told him,  
That in the arms of love we still enfold him,  
That the pure incense of our sacred prayers,  
Maugre the spite and pride of all gainsayers,  
Is daily for his safety poured forth,  
And since no earthly thing is of more worth,  
Nor life and fortunes, we shall both employ,  
For thrice-blessed Charles, the centre of our joy:  
So that we brook in full integrity,  
With peace and truth, our ancient liberty.  
Then false Lysimachus, thou runnigate,  
That seems to pry into the soul of state,  
That personates a subtle Jesuit,  
And yet art known a homebred parasite,  
That hath belched forth a rhapsody of lies,  
And 'gainst thy country false coined calumnies▪  
Thou by our Statutes hast deserved to die  
An ignominious death, for such a lie,  
As may breed discord twixt the King and State,  
Is death: here many laws I may repeat,  
And practics too, 
M. Thomas Rosse.  but these are all so clear,  
As need no glossing: only I will here  
Touch one for all: A Scot of ancient race,  
A scholar too, as thou art, lived a space  
In England's Court, and for some private hate,  
A pasquil did against his country wreat,  
As thou hast done in fouler sort, more full  
Of viled aspersions, from thy frantic skull.  
Well then King James of lasting memory,  
Who could not brook that any calumny  
Should be aspersed upon his native land,  
After some trial there, he gave command,  
The Lybeller should home go, and sustain,  
Of doom unpartial laws th' unpitied pain.  
And here being tried, judged and adjudged, they found,  
That he should loss his head, and faulty hand,  
Which straight was done in public view; and so  
I think the matter with thyself will go.  
For we do sure expect our sovereign  
Will send thee home, that here thou mayst sustain,  
Due punishment: But since that thy offence  
Is worse nor his, the judges may dispense  
With headings blow; and make thee climb the top  
Of some cursed tree, come down into a rope,  
Nor shall this one jest more in silence rote.  
Which careless I, had now almost forgot,  
Of a Polonian swain, more curious  
Nor wise or learned, called Stercovius.  
Hither he came clad all in antique sort,  
Where seen in streets, the subject of a sport,  
He soon became to childish gazers, who  
With skrieches and clamours hiss him to and fro,  
Till forced he was with shame and speed to pack him,  
And to his feet and loathsome cabin take him:  
Where in a furious and choleric mood,  
He nothing breathed but fire, revenge and blood,  
And fondly swore, our nations overthrow,  
He should adventure, with a sudden blow  
Of his both pregnant and pernicious pen,  
Like to a fierce and fearful powder train.  
Thus fraught with fury, home to Pole he goes,  
To wreak his splen on his imagined foes:  
And there his pen he loosed, and with more spite,  
Nor hell had taught him thoughts, he did indite  
A legend of reproaches, stufed with lies,  
Was bold to print, and vent those calumnies,  
Against the Scots, their manners and their fame,  
Of purpose to obscure their splendide name,  
In all that Eastern clime, and tract of ground,  
Where squadrons of our Nation did abound,  
Whence some choice men of ours, did take in hand,  
To supplicat the Princes of that land,  
Their wrong for to redress: so with great pain,  
Great search, and length of time their point they gain,  
For all vast Teutons states, the Spruch, the Dan,  
Dispatch, and arm with power some trusty man,  
Stercovius to pursue in any ground,  
Take and arraign him where he may be found,  
Which is with great turmoil and travel done,  
Yet things well acted are performed soon:  
For this sly fox, hunted from hole to hole,  
At length is catched, and unresolved did those  
His head, divorce, which from his body fell  
Low to the ground, his soul I cannot tell  
Which way it went, for most unworthy I,  
That should into th' Eternals secrets pry.  
Now since by law of Nations, foreign Princes,  
Have granted patents throughout their Provinces,  
A slanderer thus to take and apprehend,  
Who did a stranger Nation vilipend,  
What shall our sovereign do? when it be's known,  
How falsely thou hast lied against thine own.  
But now thy piece I must anatomize,  
And try with lynx's sight what therein lies;  
First for the bulk though spacious to the eye,  
It's pestered with a full hydropsy,  
And from a liver rotten, drenched, and spent,  
Poison for blood throughout the veins are sent:  
The frontespiece unmaskes an hypocrite,  
While thou strives to play the Jesuit,  
Whence in egregious sort, thou lies, and fails  
In every point of thy false parallels:  
Daring compare our true reformed land,  
Unto the bloodhound, hell-inspired band  
Of those, who still are hatching dreadful things,  
And hunt the precious lives of sacred Kings.  
Next with what impudent and flinty face!  
Thou makes the bloody league, a leading case  
To our blessed Covenant the powerful mean,  
God and our Kings true service to maintain.  
For of that league was not a monster made,  
A French-like body, with a Spanish head;  
Which broached that traitorous blot by hell's device,  
To shake, and sack the glorious flower de Lice.  
They traitors were, times stories sure relate,  
To God and man to Prince, and to the state:  
We patterns here of love, of truth, of zeal,  
Opposed right in a contrare parallel,  
Have vowed, and sworn our lives and goods to spend,  
God's truth, our Prince, and country to defend:  
So are thy words like flowers but sap or root,  
Which only to repeat, is to confute.  
Again thou sayst, we sympathize with thee,  
And strive t'eclipse the rays of majesty,  
Pressing what's proper unto God alone,  
A Monarchs sacred person to dethrone,  
Of independent power him to deprive,  
And call in doubt his high prerogative.  
To this our talion statute, we oppose,  
Which doth as treason hatchers judge all those, 
I. 6. p. 11. c. 49.   
Who dare accuse, and cannot prove a treason:  
Thus guilty thou's be found by law and reason.  
For since an hundred and eight Kings have sent,  
To royal Charles a pierlesse monument,  
A Crown untouched, since famous Fergus hand,  
First healed the helm of our sea-bordering land;  
And that twixt us, and England rival hate,  
Like time spent almanacs, worn out of date,  
Is turned to peace, hatched in Eliza's reign,  
And consummate by our blessed sovereign,  
Thrice sacred James, that heaven-predestined one,  
Who should rule Britain, long disjoined alone:  
And that by Charles late reign, that love knot tied,  
Should while as time doth last, unloosed abide:  
We here before th'Almighty now protest,  
And by Him swear, that in our loyal breast  
So damned a devilish thought did never enter,  
But full resolved, shall life and all adventure,  
T' uphold the pillars of that monarchy,  
Which destined was by Heaven, great Charles for Thee,  
Brooked by so many Kings, thy brave forbears,  
Now thirty less than twice a thousand years:  
Nor that against our neighbours was intend,  
Any invasive power or force to send,  
But In defence, our royal emblamed word;  
A lion crowned, a sceptre, and a Sword,  
Adorn our arms unstained, since Alexander  
Began to kythe the Eastern world's commander:  
A Thistle here is seen, and seems this way,  
None can unpunished me provoke to say,  
Of all these mottoes here unfold the sense,  
We take no arms but in our just defence:  
If England will invade, untwist that band,  
Which long hath kept the one and other land  
In peace and love, and on our bounds encroach,  
By sea or land, we must bide their reproach,  
And then our courage taught by wit and skill,  
And skill by courage armed, resolve we will  
The hazard of a war to under go,  
And set our face 'gainst our invading foe,  
The world's great Judge no doubt, in whom we trust,  
Will be our safeguard, as our cause is just,  
By him confirmed, unmovable we stand,  
And shall preserve our never conquered land.  
A multitude fit and composed in arms,  
T' invade, or to repel by force, all harms,  
Under a certain law, 
Eips. de militia Rom. dial. 2.  an armies called,  
We on this part defensive, unapaled,  
Resisting force, are forced to take in hand  
This war, to brook the freedom of our land,  
As our ancestors old, of far-spread name,  
Who traced in true record of endless fame,  
Have left that jewel unstained liberty,  
To be enjoyed by their posterity.  
And should not now their fair example tie us,  
Though all the furies were let loose to try us,  
The same to do, and to our offspring leave,  
What from our father's old we did receive;  
Lest they should curse these dismale days, and say,  
We did Religion and our State betray.  
But O His colours shine into the field,  
To whom we should our lives and fortunes yield,  
And not resist our answers short and plain,  
Which as the law of nature all maintain,  
To be eternal sure and immutable,  
An universal law, just, firm, and stable:  
Whence flows that source of laws, which bindeth all,  
Of Nations, civil, and municipal,  
What men intend, (to keep this sweet soft breath  
Unharmed by fierce assaults of threatning death)  
Is done by law, 
L. 3. F. de Just. & jure. L. Scientiae 49.§ 4. F. ad L. Aquil.  and may in their defence,  
Armed force repel, by force and violence:  
And so defend we should▪ being forced thereto,  
And in this case all's lawful that we do.  
All fair means are assayed, our Prince to please,  
We bend our thoughts the lion's wrath t'appease,  
And in a most obsequious sympathy,  
We supplicat for peace, we call, we cry,  
Which if it please him flatly to refuse,  
By this necessity, we cannot choose  
But rise in lawful arms, and not neglect  
Religion, Laws, and country to protect.  
A wise man should, 
Terent.  the comic soothes it so,  
Try every way before to arms he go,  
For by one tempest of a civil broil,  
Which riseth in a late calm settled soil,  
The Prince is more prejudged, nor granting to them  
Much liberty; yea, though he should undo them,  
He's sharesman of the harm, can but obtain,  
In end with certain loss, 
Bacon Es. say 29.  uncertain gain.  
A foreign war was well compared of late▪  
To heat of exercise into a state,  
But bad distempers of intestine war,  
Like to those bloud-corrupting fevers are;  
Then if whole Britain in combustion be,  
It followeth sure, the head cannot be free:  
For in each symptom of a sharp disease,  
The head doth with the body sympathize.  
O had I here the power, the place, the skill,  
To vent my well-set thoughts, as I have will,  
By truth emboldened then, I should explain  
Our country's case to my dread sovereign,  
Show him the pathway, for his joys increase,  
To solace in the multitude of peace,  
To keep that band untwist, his people's love,  
Which is the surest tye a prince can prove,  
Let pure Religion strength and vigour take,  
By reason of a state-confirmed act:  
Give way to justice, and our laws restore  
Unto the sense and force they were before:  
Banish foul gamesters flatly from the play,  
And chase ear-pleasing sycophants away:  
Unmask their face, and to a trial bring,  
The source from whence these poisoned waters spring:  
And namely this, and such false lybellers,  
Seditious sowers of mischief and jars:  
Then our enlightened King with favours eye,  
Through clear, not gommie spectacles shall see  
Of loyal Subjects, here a heaven-blessed brood,  
In faith, Religion, and allegiance good:  
Then shall Jehova shower on him his grace,  
And breath to all his kingdom's truth and peace:  
And whiles the sun, light to the world shall bring,  
A race of Kings from forth his loins shall spring.  
Those mang-merd priests, 
Rabelais calls them so.  drunk with the dregs of sin,  
When they a novice to confess begin,  
They make him first bread-band his guiltiness,  
And all his sinful thoughts, words, deeds, express:  
This done, they tax and charge him with such crimes,  
As never practised were in former times;  
Thus to that youngling sins are taught and shown,  
Which heretofore were neither heard nor known.  
So by that other parallel of thine,  
Thou calls in question if by power divine,  
Or people's suffrage, Monarchs are enthroned,  
By whom, and why uncrowned, and how reponed,  
But whiles thou seems t'unmask a verity,  
Thou over-shades the royal majesty,  
And in quottations hath so far deborded,  
That people will believe what is recorded,  
They'll tender all thou sayst, and not purloin,  
But take these vented pieces for good coin,  
Their faith is stung, they'll surely trust these men,  
So Naive-lie represented by thy pen:  
And if these errors be, thou dost unfold them,  
For men cannot believe what's never told them.  
Those tender points thus pressed, and other things,  
Shall make thee sure, a darling unto Kings:  
But when thy stuff be's tried by lynx's eye,  
Thou shalt as thou deserves exalted be,  
As Haman was great in Assuerus Court:  
But as thou scoffs a Prince, thou makes a sport  
Of sacred Scripture, and a nose of wax,  
Causing her rays on dunghills to reflex:  
Thus God, the King, Nobles, and people be  
Scorned, wronged, detracted, and railed upon by thee,  
What this deserves, let justice to it look,  
There needs no ditty, but cast up thy book.  
Yet since thou didst divinity profess,  
As by those ragged rhapsodies I guess.  
From David's mouth thine errors I proclaim,  
Unto the world, are symbols of thy shame:  
First in a scorners chair thou sits, 
Psal. 1. 1.  and thus  
Thou art denied these blessings poured on us,  
Did ever scorn flow from so foul a mouth,  
As his, who flouts and scoffs God's sacred truth.  
And next, thou shalt not in God's tents abide,  
Nor in his all o're-topping hill reside,  
Since thou hast loosed the arrows of thy tongue. 
Psal. 15. 3.   
And done thy country and thy neighbour wrong.  
King David hates a two tongued hypocrite, 
Ps. 26. 4.   
And these that in malicious lies delight:  
Thou styles thyself a Jesuit, and so  
For a diguised liar thou must go.  
That Kingly prophet truly hath foretold, 
Pl. 31. 18.   
That thy sharped tongue, which is, and hath been bold  
The righteous to traduce, shall silenced be,  
Hath not this judgement justly ceased on thee.  
And of those curses thou shalt have a share, 
Ps. 35. 11.   
Which 'gainst false witnesses pronounced are,  
Thou art a witness false, and strives to move,  
Our Prince to quite his ancient kingdom's love.  
Thou art prohibit with thy lips profane, 
Ps. 50. 16.   
God's sacred will and precepts to explain,  
Since thou hast datted flames of infamy,  
Against their fame, 
Ps. 50. 20.  who brethren were to thee.  
But here I pause, and leaves the rest to those,  
Who more exact can pay thee home in prose,  
Who shall uncace thy waires, let all men know,  
That they be not upright though seeming so:  
I'll only point at some unwarranted places,  
Which 'mongst thy parallels thou interlaces.  
In down right terms, in speeches plain and free,  
Thou dares defend that thrice damned liturgy,  
Which had almost intoxicate our State,  
But is abolished and suppressed of late,  
Which is in sound, in sense, in words express,  
The smooth framed model of an English mass.  
Yet thou forsooth, must by thy pen defend it,  
Though King and Church, hath simply it suspendit:  
Thus sure thou wouldst, if urged thereto, maintain  
The Jewish talmude, Turkish alcorane.  
In these foregoing themes, 
Paral. 2.  thou proves that we  
Press to supplant a sure-fixt monarchy,  
But in the following head, thou speaks beguesse, 
Paral. 3.   
And leaves the great point, brands us with the less,  
forgetful that a base and lying slave,  
A good and ready memory should have.  
In this our heinous crime thou qualifies,  
And loses some small shots of calumnies,  
Where greatest should be last) shows our intent,  
To lose the reins of Church government,  
That Church affairs should not be ruled by Kings,  
With many moe absurd, and futill things:  
So that thou seems to quite, 
Epanorthosis.  what's first and past,  
And by correcting takes thee to the last.  
But to that speech we answer all in one,  
Our King's chief ruler of the Church alone,  
And hath such power in that government, 
J. 6. p. 18. c. 1. & p. 20. c. 6.   
As is explained by acts of Parliament,  
From which true Subjects never can debord,  
So of both states he is the sovereign Lord.  
Then with a daring boldness, thou reviles  
That sacred name, and with base skurrill styles,  
(Though in a roguish comic jesting sort)  
Thou makes of it a scene, a skuff, a sport,  
And calls him only executioner  
Of laws, 
Pag. 11.  and worse, a servile officer,  
Or H. and least that this for thine should go,  
Thou scoffing tells that men will say it's so:  
Thus traced thou hast by thy pernicious pen,  
What never yet was said or thought by men.  
A fellow here was pinioned on high, 
This was Ard. Cornuall a town officer.   
Convict for high contempt of majesty,  
Whiles his Prince portraiture exposed to seal,  
He on a gibbet hung, fixed with a nail:  
And though the poor soul harboured no intent  
His King to wrong: yet his dire punishment  
(So precious is the shadow of a King)  
Was sealed, that he on that cursed tree should hing,  
And that the long-fixt tree should be o'er thrown,  
Burnt, and its ashes in the air be blown;  
How can our Prince then brook that round-spun speech,  
Whiles thou makes men compare him to an H?  
Till the like doom pass on thy book and thee,  
As on that panel and his fatal tree.  
Then thou at random runs in full carriers,  
Darting thy spite against our noble peers,  
Against our pastors, and the common sort,  
Extracts the chemic substance of a sport:  
And like that howling hellhound Cerberus,  
Thou barks not simply at our cause, and us,  
But dares disgorge thy hell envenomed splen,  
Against the splendour of heroic men.  
Shall famous Lesly now become the scope  
Of thy envy, or thinks thou to unprope  
His sure fixed worth, whose truly noble spirit,  
Whose wit-mixt valour, whose transcending merit,  
Hath imped his virtue in the wings of fame,  
And reared eternal trophies to his name,  
Is tried to be, and so styled in all parts,  
A never conquered, conqueror of hearts,  
Is wooed by kings, who would their states assure  
From all disasters, so they could procure  
His stay with them, (by his directive aid)  
In all exploits to be their martial head.  
Then here thy tainted conscience is appealed,  
If thou esteem him truly paralleled,  
With damned Loyola, author of that sect,  
Who did such hireling as thyself infect  
With bloud-imbrued maxims of Estate,  
For that red front, thy war presaging hate,  
The programe of thy book, declares a will,  
So thou hadst pour thy mother's blood to spill:  
Since each draught of Loyola limned by thee,  
And thus compared, proves an arrant lie,  
As who would parallel this raying light,  
With that dark shadow of the sable night,  
Or purer white with black, or good with evil,  
Man with a beast, an angel with a devil.  
It's known our general is of noble birth,  
Of famous parents sprung, in place and worth,  
Excelling whiles they lived: but in their son,  
Thrice happy two, that left us such a one;  
To whom the heavens their treasures did impart,  
A Cupid's body, and a Mars' heart;  
Of mixed heroic gifts a sympathy,  
Courage with grace, valour with modesty.  
Then like a swinish base pedantic slave, 
Rachel Arnot.   
Thou makes thy snout dig in a matron's grave,  
Snuff at her asses, though now ne'er there be,  
Since she did change her mansion lustres three.  
Blind mole ta'en in thy work, harsh screaching owl,  
Thou bankrupt chyding beast, thou envy's soul,  
That strives to bite heaven's guest, a glorious ghost,  
Who in celestial bowers amid the host,  
Of glory raying angels, doth receive  
Such joys as God can give or man can crave.  
Cursed be thy pen, 
Levit. 19 14.  cursed thy immortal hate,  
For envy should prove stingless after fate,  
So all thou writes are hellish calumnies,  
Which take their influence from the prince of lies:  
Curse not the deaf, (this sacred text I find,  
Nor cast a stumbling block before the blind,  
The Lord forbids thee this, (the precept's plain)  
I'll not obey, thou answers him again,  
But will offend and curse, (thy words are clear)  
The blind and deaf, that neither see nor hear.  
And thus far I: the rest I leave to those  
Whose divine thoughts and pen can well disclose.  
Thy devilish cabal, hell-inspired Art,  
And snares to trap thy mother, pierce her heart. 
Who thus complains of her unnatural son, personating a Jesuit, and who hath dispersed (under that guise) false calumnies against the whole Estates of Scotland, and so deserves that punishment set down in Scripture, Exod. 21. 17.   
That pasquiller that would me thus disgrace,  
And with such spite, spit in his mother's face.  
God's curse attends him, threatened by his word,  
O than I crave, that Justice scales, and sword  
May weigh and punish: may my native Prince  
Try and revenge his guilt, and his offence.  
And now thou King of kings, enthroned above,  
By whom King's reign, by whom they live and move,  
Inspire in my Prince breast, a spirit of peace,  
And shower on him thy favours and thy grace,  
Command, Lord, thy vicegerent, tell him plain,  
He should thy truth, and calm of peace maintain.  
He cannot force belief, let him secure  
Thy divine worship here, as true and pure.  
Appease his wrath, let not my lion roar,  
Nor dart his thunder on his native shore,  
So we shall praise Thee, who for ever reigns,  
And whose transcending power all powers restrains.  
FINS.