A VINDICATION OF THE CLERGY, From the Contempt imposed upon them by the Author of The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion.  
WITH Some short Reflections UPON HIS Further Observations.  
Facit Indignatio  
LONDON: Printed by Andr. Clark for Hen. Brome, at the Gun at the West-end of S. Paul's. 1672.   

To the Reader.  
THere came out not long since, a Discourse, under this following Title;  
The GROUNDS and OCCASIONS of the CONTEMPT of the CLERGY and RELIGION Enquired into; in a Letter Written to R. L.  
So that here is first, a Contempt, Presupposed; with a search into The Grounds and Occasions of it: and Then, a Resolution upon the Question, Pag. 3. That Ignorance and Poverty are the Grounds and Occasions of that Contempt. After which, the Author of this Letter takes wonderful pains to Prove the Clergy contemptible, by Endeavouring to make them so. First, he dresses you up a Vicar in a Fools-Coat, with a Capon's Feather in his Cap, and then laughs at him. But all this while; he tells us in his Preface, That he has a most solemn Reverence for the Clergy in General; and Especially for that of England. Now how to reconcile The Clergy in the Preface, with the Clergy in the Text, and Title-Page, I cannot imagine; for he has a solemn Reverence it seems, for the One, and A Contempt for the Other: Unless he will say, that he speaks of an Utopian Clergy, Before, and After; and of the English Clergy in the Middle; or that by the Clergy in General, he Intends the Clergy with Restriction. But without more ado; It is the Generality of the English Clergy, that he is Pleased to divide into Fools and Beggars; And when he has framed to himself, out of Plays, Clubs, Old Stories, Fancy and Invention, a Pitiful, Comical, senseless Sir John, without either Brains, Mode, or Money; This is it, which he delivers over to the World for the Character of That Clergy. And it is as Pleasantly Drawn, as if Sir Roger himself had set for his Picture. We shall refer the Merit of the Cause to its Proper place, and only offer a word or two at Present, by way of Enquiry into the Grounds and Occasions of his Enquiry.  
Does he make this Enquiry, for the Information of Himself, or of Others? If the former; why does he Publish it? If the latter; I would fain know, to what End, and with what design the Thing is done, unless it be to Unhinge the Government. The first Point in Consideration, is This; Whether the Clergy be contemptible, or Not? Whereupon, most Naturally Follows, in the very next Place, This Question, Whether or no shall the People Believe their Teachers; and follow their Guides? For most undoubtedly, they will do, or not do, the one, and the other, according to the opinion they have of them, or Reverence for them. Again: If he tells the People but What they knew before, he might have saved himself that Labour: But if he Pretends to a further discovery, It looks as if his Business were not so much to show that the Clergy are contemptible, as to Procure that they may be thought so; and in a word, to set up the Church for a Jack-a-Lent, for every Man to throw a Cudgel at: Especially considering that the whole Project is Carried on with the Spirit, and Liberty of a Farce; and Calculated, so Pat, to the Meridian of the Rabble; that if Merry Andrew had but hit upon it time Enough; 'Tis forty to one we should have seen the whole Story, ere this, in a Puppet-Play. And why all this to the People? Alas! They cannot help it, unless they should fall to their old Trade of Reformation again, and one would Think we have had Enough of that Already. Nay, put the Case, that the Monkey-Tricks, Apes-faces, and Fooleries, which he fastens upon our Clergy, were all True; (The contrary whereof is as clear as the Sun) He's but an ungracious Child yet, that lays open the nakedness of his Mother.  
Nor indeed does the stress of this Imputation lie so heavy upon the Illiterate, Imprudent or Necessitous part of the Clergy, as upon the Government itself. For, without dispute, those miserable Creatures which he makes himself so merry withal, would be Wiser, and Wealthier if they could: But the Charge lies upon their Superiors, for Choosing and Providing no better: And this is no other than the old Trick over again, of wounding our Governors through the sides of their Ministers; and tearing the Government all to Pieces, under Colour of mending it.  
Neither will it much help the matter, to say that this Enquiry was not intended so much for a Remonstrance to the People, of the despicable Faculties, and Estate, of their Spiritual Guides: as for a Hint to Authority, in order to their better Provision, and supply. For first; there is no proportion at all betwixt the Dignity of the Subject, and the manner of handling it: betwixt the solemnity of the Pretence; and the licentious Freedom of the Style: which runs altogether in a vein of Popular Humour, and Drollery: and it is not usual for Men to address, to Kings, or Parliaments in Raillery or Burlesque. Now as there is a Certainty of Mischief on the one hand, there is not so much as any Probability (I might have said Possibility) of Benefit on the other. For,  
Secondly, Beside the Indecency, and Incongruity of the Application, The Inquisitor seems to be no less Mistaken in his Expedient, than in his Method. For it may be Observed, that notwithstanding his distribution into Fools, and Beggars; All his Beggars, are Fools too over and above; and subjected indifferently upon both Accounts, to Derision, and scorn. So that unless he can find a way to Cure Their Ignorance, as well as Their Poverty, when our Governors shall have done their best upon the Point of Maintenance and Revenue, we shall be still as much at a loss as ever, upon the more material Points of Learning and Sufficiency, Except he would have the Clergy new-modelled, and the Poor Fools he talks of, turned to Grass again by Hundreds, with Whites Centuries of Scandalous and Insufficient Ministers, and then the Work were done.  
And yet after all this appearance of Mischief, Intended, and Contrived, I have still the Charity to Persuade myself that it is all but Chance-medley, and that the Gentleman has no malice in his Heart. Not only because he Gives us to Understand in his Preface, (by way of Anticipation) that he is no Malcontent, either Ecclesiastical, or Civil, whatever he may seem to be; but a man may gather as much, methinks, from the very Air of his Writing, which savours more of a Droll, than of a Mutineer. But this does not acquit him yet of Great Inadvertency, in a freedom of this nature. These Squibs and Crackers may do well Enough, in a fitting place, or season; but such a Pamphlet to the Multitude, and in This Juncture too, is like a Firework into the Powder-Room, it blows up all into Confusion: And though it may provoke Laughter, and make sport for a while; yet in the End, it runs naturally into Sedition and Schism.  
I know very well, that in a second Letter of Observations upon an Answer to the former; our Author would be thought to take another Bias, in turning the Point of the satire upon the Nonconformists: but that shift will not square at all with the scope of his Pretensions. For in stead of small, and Beggarly Allowances, they have just none at all; neither is their Ignorance, a scandal to our Ministry, but on the contrary, an Honour, and Advantage, upon the comparison.  
To Close up all in a Syllable; There's a pretty Fardel of Tales bundled together, and they have had the hap to fall into such hands as had rather lose a Friend (not to say their Country) than a Jest. We shall proceed now to a Consideration of the Letter itself.   

A VINDICATION OF THE CLERGY.  
THe Gentleman our Author is pleased to spend so much Ink and Compliment upon in his doughty Letter, you must suppose to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some Man of Parts; because he tells us he hath always been a devout Admirer, as well as strict Observer of his Actions, and hath constantly taken a great delight to concur with Him in his very Thoughts: And who do you guests this may be? Truly I am of the opinion he so far Apes Antoninus, as that he writes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and means his own dear Self in plain English: T. B. and R. L. are intended only for Blinds: Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit vivere: So far let him go for a Politician. What a Churchman he is, he would next insinuate by professing that he hath a greater kindness for our Mother of England, than for the painted Lady at Rome, or any Lecturing-Gossip of Geneva, Amsterdam, etc. But all this while he desires not to be called her Son, contenting himself to be only much her Servant, in divulging her pretended faults, and propounding Reformation-work, as if he had been Secretary to some Committee of plundered Ministers in those blessed Times.  
That the value of our Clergy is or hath been lessened, he refers to two very plain things, the Ignorance of some of them, and the Poverty of others. These are the jachin and Boaz, the two Pillars or Poles on which his Airy Castle hangs; which if we shall chance to subvert or unhinge, let the Giant that built and swaggers in't, look to himself. 
— Quid enim tent are nocebit?  (I can't forbear a scrap of the Poet now and then, though I know it troubles him vilely.)  
Now that I may not be altogether without method, I shall lay down three plain Propositions, against his two plain Things, which (I doubt not) will make it as clear as any Demonstration in Euclid, that my Gentleman had better have employed his time, which lay so much upon his hands, in pilling of Straws, or catching Butterflies, than in picking of holes in a Canonical Coat.  
The first is this, That neither Ignorance nor Poverty do always necessarily infer contempt.  
The second, That Ignorance and Poverty are most injuriously fastened upon the present English Clergy.  
The third, That if the English Clergy be not duly valued, but lie under some contempt, it is to be attributed to other, and those far different reasons.  
And first of the first, That neither Ignorance nor Poverty do always necessarily infer contempt. Not that I am much in love with either of them, or intent to write a Panegyrique in their Commendation; but only vindicate their innocence so far, as to show, that admitting my Adversaries bold Hypothesis were true, viz. That the English Clergy is both poor and ignorant, (which we are to examine in due time) yet it would not follow that their contempt must needs be derived from those two sources: for it is well known to all that are versed in Things and Books bearing date a little before yesterday, that a great part of Mankind have and do still account Poverty a thing sacred, and make Ignorance the Mother of their Devotion, as well as Admiration. First, as for Ignorance, however it may render private men inconsiderable, yet it hath no such necessary influence and effect on public Persons, (bating me that mortal sin of a School-distinction) whose reputation and esteem is not ever built upon, or preserved by their Learning and Knowledge, but sometimes to be attributed purely to the dignity of their Rank and Place. Though the Mayor of the Town be but a Thatcher, and guilty of so little Scholarship, that he goes about to read his Commission with the wrong end upwards; yet by virtue of his Gown, Mace, and other Ensigns of Power and Government, he shall command an awe and respect from all the Neighbourhood under his Jurisdiction: And 'tis neither necessary nor true de facto, that all Princes prove as Learned as Moses, or as Wise as Solomon: some have had such ordinary natural or acquired personal abilities, that they have been fain to leave the management of their Affairs wholly to the Wisdom of their Councils: yet all this while their Subjects have not withheld due Honour and Obedience from them, since their sacred Function and Sovereign Authority are of themselves sufficient Guards to the Imperial Crown. Where the word of a King is, there is Power, (saith Solomon) whether, like some Alexander, he is wont to sleep with Homer, or Plato under his Pillow, or spend his most serious hours, with Domitian, in that malancholique employment of catching and stabbing of Flies. Now although Moses (by reason of the advantage of his Education, as he was the reputed Son of Pharaoh's Daughter) was learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians; yet we no where read that Aaron was any great Scholar, but only capacitated to be a Mouth to Moses, whilst Moses was to him in stead of God: And that he and his Posterity (upon whom that Priesthood was entailed) were had in great honour by the People, is to be attributed to their stupendiously solemn Consecration, their rich Attire, and distinguishing Vestments, their Mitres and holy Crowns, and their sacred Unction, designed on purpose to beget and maintain a venerable esteem of them in men's Minds, together with Gods express command they should not be evil spoken of, Exod. 22.28. and his severe Judgements upon such as did not respect their persons, Lam. 4.16. And I appeal to the whole Series of the Jewish Dispensation, whether those Priests must needs be all profound Doctors and Rabbis, whose business was to rive Oxen, (not Texts) blow Trumpets, offer Incense, and the like: here was no need of quick Parts, ample Faculties, or much-acquired Knowledge; and yet their Ministry and Persons (for their Orders sake) were never suspected of contempt. Again, if it were worth the while to rake in the Dunghill of Pagan Idolatry, it would easily appear what ignorant and stupid Wretches their Priests generally were, and yet had the People in great awe. Not to insist upon the savage, obscene, and villainous Rites of the more barbarous Nations; their sacrificing Men and Children to the Devil, and worshipping all manner of things for Deities, excepting only the true God that made the World; I shall only note in transitu how things stood with the Romans who pretended to be the civilised People: for whatever Pliny boasts to the contrary, their hands also were frequently dipped in Humane Blood, as Tertullian and Lactantius have observed; and their Superstitions were as nonsensically ridiculous, as numerous. And however their Priests by the Devil's delusions seemed to presage future evens from the Entrails of Beasts, flight of Birds, and the like; yet they were not required to be any great Conjurers at Learning: all the Accomplishments their Curiones, Augurs, Flamines, Pontifices, Salii, Aruspices, and the rest of their Orders pretended to, were only such as these, That they were of Body unmaimed, legal Years, could butcher and dress a Bullock, and it may be dance handsomely, and sing indifferently, and eat well; a steady Hand, an acute Knife, agile Body, and wide Throat, were then mighty Breeding: And a little Education qualified their Vestal Virgins to trim up a Lamp, and worship the Palladium, and those Penates said to be brought from Troy for a lucky Pawn of the lastingness of their Empire. So far was Ignorance from breeding contempt, that the Politicians in those days seem to me to use it as the great mean to preserve the respect of all their Religious Rites and Persons also. They knew the Vulgar do more earnestly admire little things and devices hid from them, thinking some great virtue or mystery couched under whatsoever they understand not. And he that hath but half an eye may see, that Rome Christian (who will needs be Sovereign Lady of the Religious, as her old Grandam was of the Heathen World) proceeds upon the very same principle, having established Ignorance by a Law, and requiring Mass to be said constantly in an unknown Tongue; unknown, I say, as well to the Priest who reads it oftentimes, as to the People that hear it. What mean all their fictitious Relics, those many Loads of Timber, (as they would make) said to be pieces of our Saviour's Cross; the infinite number of forged Nails, vended for those that pierced his Hands and Feet; Iohn Baptist's Head preserved miraculously in two or three several places; Ioseph's Humm, the Virgin Mary's Milk? etc. These and a thousand such little Inventions, and Legendary Tales, as they are undeniable Arguments of a Catholic stupidity amongst them, so they were never intended to expose their Clergy, who are believed to work new Miracles every day by a careful application and management of the old.  
Lastly, To look a little more homewards: We are none of us such Fools, but our Mistress Experience may inform us, that the most rude and illiterate Men have sometimes been admired and followed by the multitude, as the only powerful and heavenly Preachers, whilst in the interim a wise and very learned Clergy hath been despised, ejected, and put to silence under pretence of Insufficiency. What Parts or Learning were those Mountebank Divines guilty of in the late times of Rebellion, who yet made a shift to Preach almost all England out of their Wits? Were not Confidence, and Ignorance, antique Gestures, piteous Faces, canting Phrases, and earnest Tautologies, all the Rhetoric most of them pretended to? Did they not dawb miserably with untempered Mortar? and in stead of St. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (rightly dividing) did they not mangle and tear the good Word of God, and jumble and dash the sacred Texts, those Orient Pearls, so rudely one against another, till all were broke in pieces? Did they not give Glasses at random, and make false Consequences without fear or wit, often laying the whole weight of the Story upon some slender Circumstance, as that Dives went to Hell because he was Rich, and the like? Yet these were the only Boanerges in those days, who like a Land-stood carried all before them. Populus aliquando vult decipi, especially when Authority (though but usurped) favours the design: For had they enquired into the Cheat, they might easily have discovered that many of these painful Bawlers were no more Scholars than those Geese which saved the Capitol.  
Then how egregiously is our wise Clergy-mender mistaken here in one moiety of his Hypothesis? Alas! Ignorance is so far from exposing a public Person, that (allowing him Power and Authority with it) it is the only way to rear and advance his esteem amongst the generality of Mankind, who are themselves unlearned; and if the Preachers great business be to influence and engage the People's affections for that end, he must be sure to meddle with none but Thimble and Bodkin Divinity, he must renounce his vain Philosophy, he must beware of all Carnal, though never such Rational Discourses; take all his Books and burn them, (there is a private Text for that, Act. 19) and teach wholly by the Spirit, and then his business is done, Never man spoke like this man.  
Secondly, That Contempt was ever Poverties fatal Handmaid, is one Doctor's judgement indeed; but if he be found singular, what if he should talk rather like an Apothecary in that too? Surely the intelligent part of Mankind don't use to judge of things by their gaudy outside, to esteem the Horse by his Trappings, the Ass by his burden, or the Man's Worth by his Wealth. Quantum quisque suâ nummorum— is only a mistake of the seduced Vulgar: And that end of Latin borrowed of a certain Satirist, 
Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se  
Quam quòd ridiculos homines facit—  amounts to no more than this, that Poverty (abstractly considered without all intrinsic Worth and Parts) makes men ridiculous amongst flouting Heathen: (for 'tis well known that the Principles of Christianity oblige us to make such Men objects rather of our Pity and Charity:) for even the sober Heathen had brains enough to distinguish between a Philosopher and an Idiot, a good Man and a bad; and none but Fools amongst them were wont to put the Man into one Scale, and the Money into the other, and thereby guests at his just price. You don't find any of their Learned Deifying Money, but all unanimously declaiming against it, as an old Enemy of Virtue, by men's abuse, as Euripides complains, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythagoras in his Golden Precepts recommends not Gold to his Disciples, but pure beaten Virtue, and a moderation of all extravagant Passions. And I remember a great Proficient in Epicurus his School, (if yet he was not more his own Master) doth not only, like an arch Wag, laugh at all the rest of the vulgar Deities, but professedly lashes the blind God of Wealth (as if he were a blind Bear) through many of his Dialogues, especially that cleped Timon, where he tells you, that Pride, Ostentation, Effeminacy, Violence and Fraud, do ever crowd in at the door with Plutus, whereas Labour, Wisdom, Temperance, Fortitude, and a world of other Virtues, are wont to march under the Conduct of Poverty. Amongst the various Sects of Philosophers, only the Peripatetics seem to have a kindness for Money, as one necessary ingredient for making up the Golden Calf of their Summum Bonum: the rest generally declare against it, and value a Philosopher in his threadbare Cloak, or Cynical Tub, above Croesus and Midas, those gingling Packhorses, or Alexander that prodigious Robber, with all his spoils. The Stoics in particular profess themselves Volunteers for Poverty, and speak more sense (whether dissembling or in earnest, is not a halfpenny matter) to render Riches contemptible, than some body else can do Poverty, with all the artifices he has. In a word, a man might be honest, virtuous and wise in those days, though he was not Master of both the Indies: nay, such an one, though brought to his shifts by Tyranny or Chance, and forced to the servile office of drawing water merely to get bread, should be gladly received, and easily believed by the best of Men.  
But we need not stand to the verdict of these Ethnic Oracles only, since Christ's own Jury of Life and Death, his Apostles, have given it against our Adversaries false Indictment: St. Peter, their Foreman, speaks the sense of all the rest, (excepting only judas, who for his love of Mammon amongst other reasons fell from his place) Silver and Gold have I none. The Kingdom Christ claimed was purely spiritual, and that old Sophisters large offer not likely therefore to succeed, when he said, All these will I give thee, etc. He required the first Promulgers of his Gospel, to forsake all when they followed him, to carry neither purse nor scrip in their journey, that the World might be convinced he stood not in need of any common helps and artifices to plant his holy Religion, and persuade Men to embrace it: for the more low and improbable means and instruments are, the more admirable certainly is the effect: it made the arrogant Greeks themselves pluck in their horns, when they met with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a poor Mechanic beating them at their own Weapon; that a parcel of mean illiterate Fishermen, and such like, should reform a debauched World, and plant the Christian Faith in all Nations, is argument enough that the Hand of God was in all this, who works his Will to the more advantage sometimes by balking the assistance of the Rich and Learned: And though when the Church was under persecution, those primitive Christians laid all their Estates at the Apostles feet; yet they employed them wholly for the Churches public use, and are not believed to have licked their fingers, and enriched themselves thereby. I never heard that St. Peter himself left one penny stock in his pretended Successors Coffer.  
'Tis true indeed, since the World is come into the Church, and Kings have embraced and undertaken to defend the Faith, the face of things is most reasonably altered, and a competent Patrimony settled upon the Church in general: That of Rome in particular is pretty well to live, as we say, for matter of maintenance, and many of her Grandees may possibly keep up their Reputation by their vast Wealth, and outward Splendour: but yet every body knows, that several of their Religious Orders are professed Mendieants, and sworn Votaries to Poverty; and these are so far from being laughed at, that they are had in mighty reverence and superlative admiration by all of that Belief. Nor do I see that accidental must needs make a Clerick ridiculous, more than wilful Poverty; nay, without all peradventure, the former deserves most to be pitied, as being sometimes many an honest Man's inevitable doom, as well as Iob's and Lazarus', whilst the latter is of mere affectation, and superstitious choice.  
And therefore I would entreat our wise Author to suppose a thing that may be for once, for you see he is very prodigal of Hypotheses that may not be. Suppose a Church under the persecution of Rebels, and sacrilegious Usurpers, where the rich and fattest Parsons are found the greatest Delinquents, plundered, sequestered, and brought to want of bread, having no clothes almost left to their backs, excepting only a Stone-Doublet; imagine, I say, they are confined like St. Paul, and have no other work but to convert jailors, sing Psalms with their feet in the Stocks, and preach to the Spirits in prison: if these learned and sacred Persons be deemed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the World by an uncircumcised Crew of Miscreants, whose fault is that? Neither their Poverty, nor Exile, nor all their sufferings, impair their Reputation amongst sober, religious, and loyal Persons, who rather admire and applaud their resolved Fidelity to God and the King, let Men and Devils do their worst. Benè facere & malè audire Regium est: the dirt and reproaches cast upon them by foul-mouthed Men, rebounds all upon themselves; their unjust slanders are our highest honour, their detractions add to our esteem; the blots and false aspersions they cast upon our good names, do but, as so many spots, set off their beauty: indeed, if Cato, if Laelius, if the Scipio's should contemn and defame me, (saith Seneca) I should be moved; but let the Rabble say what they will: Mean while, 'twere strange to say these worthy Men were thus despised and handled because they were poor, whereas the contrary is most manifest; their fair Revenues, Lands and Dignities, the Gold and Silver Vessels of the Temple, etc. were the undoubted baits that tempted the avarice of Men sacrilegiously disposed, to fall foully and falsely upon their Reputation.  
Now from the Premises, every Novice in Logic may infer, that the Ignorance of a Clergyman doth not necessarily render him contemptible with the vulgar, nor his Poverty amongst the wise and learned; and consequently that my first Proposition is true.  
But what if it be? will he say; if the second be false, you are but where I left you. Not so neither, under favour, I conceive a little ground is gained of him (more perhaps than he can allow the Vicar for his Glebe) thereby: for if public Persons are not always, nay very seldom, contemptible for their own either Ignorance or Poverty, than there is some way made for my third Proposition, which will be sure to meet with him at the long run, and inform him, that if our present Clergy want an inch of that respect due to their Function, it is to be attributed to far different reasons, and neither of those two upon which he hath founded his pretty little Church-History.  
But what his modesty supposeth and granteth to make himself merry, I shall take the boldness to deny, and maintain the contrary; which is my second Proposition, That Ignorance and Poverty are most injuriously fastened upon the present English Clergy.  
In order to the clearing hereof, it must be first stated how far we are agreed, and wherein we differ; and then I shall leave it to impartial Readers to believe and judge who hath greatest reason and truth of his side.  
We are agreed in the first place (I presume) whom we mean by the present English Clergy, viz. such Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, as are now (or were at least about last Michaelmas-Term) actually preferred in the Church of England. So that we exclude first, all that having sometime been of our Clergy, are since dead, and so cannot the jure render such as are now alive contemptible: for what is that to me, if my Predecessor forty or fifty years ago could not say his Commandments, or tell how many Apostles our Lord had, or that he baited a white Bear now and then in his Sermons, or talked beside the Cushion? There's not the same reason for Preaching sure, as for Original Sin, that it should be entailed upon all Posterity; and yet our Author is so ingenuous as to produce instances before he was born (the truth whereof might perhaps be questioned too) to serve his present purpose, as you shall see anon.  
Secondly, we exclude also all the Nonconforming Brethren, of what Sect or Party soever, who have indeed excluded themselves to our hands, by departing schismatically from our Communion. We intent not to answer for their ridiculous extravagancies in the Pulpit, more than their other faults: for what do their gross abuses of Preaching concern the Orthodox Clergy, who abhor to tread in their steps? Men may as well charge upon us the old Monk's Proof of a plurality of Worlds, from that Text, St. Luke 17.17. Anon decem facti sunt mundi? or the ignorance of those two other Disputants, who having resolved that ten thousand Spirits might dance upon a Needle's point, could not determine where the Piper must stand all this while. Yet this will be found too some bodies close way of reasoning; some factious Separatists have used foolish Phrases and childish Metaphors in their Preachments, ergo, the English Clergy is Ignorant.  
Secondly, We are agreed further against the brainsick Catharists conceit, and expect not to see a Clergy made up all of Saints and Worthies. It is supposed on both sides▪ that every Vicar is not obliged to be as rich as the Vicar of Rome; and that two or three in a County may be connived at, although they be not altogether as learned as Saint Augustine. We know full well that there is no Profession in Nature wherein all are improved to the same Perfection: There was, and always will be an Ignoramus or two amongst the Lawyers, some Quacks and Empirics amongst Physicians, some Idiots in the Schools of Philosophers, and Dunces in the number of pretended Scholars, some poor Gentry amidst the rich, to make up the Harmony of things; and that it were a downright piece of Sophistry to condemn any whole Profession and Order of Men, for the ignorance, mistakes, and absurdities of some few Individuals thereunto belonging. Thus far I must hold my Gentleman's Nose to the Grindstone, and make him agreed whether he will or no; for otherwise he fights with his own shadow, and father's faults upon the Clergy, which are either committed by those who are not of that rank, or are not a sufficient number to make a denomination.  
So that the great difference or Ball of contention between us, is, Whether the generality, or at least a great part of our present English Clergy deserve the brands of poor and ignorant, or not? He does not only take it for granted all along, but expressly affirms it, and that with a Witness, pag. 81. (as if the Lord's Lot were a mere Lottery, wherein there are an hundred Blanks for one Prize) but my second Proposition doth with as much Confidence and more Reason deny it.  
First, As for Ignorance, I blush for him, to think he could find no where to fasten that, but upon one of the most learned Churches in the World; which as it hath always been able to deal with the formidable Roman Giants on the one hand, and those undermining Separatists on the other, (for Papist and Puritan, like Sampson's Foxes, though looking and running two several ways, yet are ever joined together in the Tail) so I am bold to say, it is now more plentifully furnished with Men of singular Worth, universal Knowledge, and great Clerks, than ever it has been since the Reformation.  
Now although he can expect but little favour from me, yet I will do him the justice to believe he never intended to bring our Reverend Prelates into his Indictment, nor yet the worthy Deans, and other Dignitaries in the Church, Men generally of known Abilities, some of whose Works do not only praise them in the Gates, but are also famous throughout the World. Nor do I think him so ingrateful to our Universities, as to deny that they now flourish more than heretofore with all sorts of good Literature, very learned Men, and accurate Preachers. Nor do I believe he aims at the City, since they are fully satisfied in the Labours of their Pastors, unless they quarrel them sometimes for their too much Humane Learning, Reason, and Morality, as being hard words many of them were not brought up to. No, the Ignorance he upbraids us with, must be amongst us in the Country, or no where. Now it is not probable there should be many Dunces amongst the Parsons, considering they hold their Benefices either from the Broad Seal, (for obtaining which 'twere great rashness to think they give not as ample Testimony of their Parts, as a Man must do for his Truth and Honesty before he can procure an ordinary Brief) or from some Spiritual or Temporal Lord, (and it were somewhat saucy to think either of them keeps a Fool for his Chaplain) or some Collegiate Society, (and 'twere as strange they should search all about for an Hocus, when they have so many good Scholars at home unemployed, and fit to present) or some Civil Incorporation or Company, (and they are not so easily bribed, but will have their choice of several persons all of good note) or last, from some private Patron; and there lies all the danger, lest he having an Oak Tree, or good Horse to sell, should close with his best Chapman, and require no more Latin skill in his Clerk, than to render [Quantum dabis?] into current English Money. But I hope such sordid practices are very rare; I'm sure 'tis below the Spirit of a true English Gentleman, (who can sacrifice his whole Estate to serve his King and Church) to stoop to such a pitiful Bribe or Bargain, forgetting Honour and Conscience both at once: Besides, if any that wear that Name be so far degenerated, as to expose a Benefice to Sale; yet where is that bold Son of Simon, who shall dare to be the Buyer? He must be a prodigious Sot indeed, who will pawn his own Soul, by living in a continued perjury, to be put into a capacity of saving other men's: So improbable it is there should be many ignorant Parsons. And if I may guests at other Dioceses by this, I must tell our pragmatical Author, that I know very few Parsons who will turn their backs of him in any solid piece of old Learning, many of them being aware of his new Philosophy too.  
But the whole strain of his Book tells us, he aims at a cowardly triumph over the little Vicars and Curates, though he is not likely to have his end of them neither. One of them has answered him already, (but that he was so civil to his old Acquaintance, as to be too too free and prodigal in his Concessions) and, for aught he shall ever know the contrary, I may be another.  
As for the Vicars and Curates in Cities and Corporations, (which make a considerable part of the Nation) himself grants they are mostly very learned and judicious persons: but then he tells us a piece of worshipful News, that Christ came not to save Mayors and Aldermen, and Merchants only, but Countrypeople also, whereby he requires me to follow him into the Villages, to find out that Ignorance we are Nosed withal, and hitherto are at a loss for. And the truth is, I have made it more my business than ever he hath done, to inquire into these Men of a low Church-Dispensation, (as we must phrase it) and will maintain it against him or any other, be he never so confidently ingenious, that many of them are Men of very considerable Worth, and want nothing but a little of his boldness to show their Parts, and a Friend at Court to provide them of good Benefices. The generality of them (though perhaps they aspire not to be made the King's Professors, nor can split the hair exactly in determining the five Points, or confuting Transubstantiation, yet) are very sufficiently qualified for the discharge of their Cures. Nay, there's scarce any amongst 'em all, but preacheth once every Sunday, and that with good gravity, honest sobriety, and to take satisfaction of his Parishioners; and if there be here and there one less knowing than others, you shall be sure to find him at it twice a day, Bishop Andrew's his old Rule being worn out in some places, viz. He that preaches twice every Sunday, usually prates once. In a word, if upon due examination our Author had found but ten men of worth amongst all the Vicars of England, had he been a merciful Chastiser, he might have found out a very good Precedent, to have spared the rest for their sakes: But since he writes at random of Men he hath never studied, and hath taken so much pains to impose upon the World, with a parcel of prodigious Whiskers dressed a la mode, since we defy him to pick out Ten amongst us all who have not Learning enough to discharge our places, let him hereafter keep his Ignorance to himself, for it belongs to very few of our Profession.  
Nor is he much more ingenuous in representing the Poverty of our inferior Clergy, (for them alone he must mean) by making it far more extreme and desperate than in truth it is. For if any man hath such a miraculous Faith, as to take his word, rather than believe his own eyes, he must needs fancy them a company of sneaking Mendicant Friars, who live from hand to mouth, who are pinched with want of the common necessaries of life, and spend all their days in studying only to stave off those two troublesome Creditors, the Back and Belly.  
Indeed it must be confessed that the Church of England is not now so rich, fat, and well-liking, as she was in diebus illis his days, and consequently not able to settle such plentiful Portions upon her younger Children as she would: for she lost a considerable Collop by the Pope, (however our Author is so civil to the old Gentleman, as not to mention him) who laid a fair foundation of Sacrilege, by impropriating 3845. of the 9284. Parishes then in England, as Doctor Basire notes out of Cambden. And when she had somewhat picked up her crumbs again, by the accession of new Revenues, King Henry the Eighth knowing as infallibly as the Pope himself, that the Church-Lands were very good Lands, could not forbear writing after his Holiness' Copy, but gave her such a tearing Purge, that she hath never recovered her Complexion since. Not to mention how far Queen Eliz. did patrizare, thanks be to God our Vicarages are not all so poor as they left them; for, however our Author's memory fails him again, he speaks not a syllable of any late Augmentations: No, he never heard that our Reverend Bishops, and Deans, and Chapters, have (by the gracious Intimation, and to the eternal Honour of His present Majesty) competently augmented most, if not all the small Vicarages belonging to them respectively. And now I have told him, it would be a good jest indeed if he should write an effectual piece to make the Sky fall; I mean, to persuade all other Impropriation-mongers to follow so good an Example, and bring them to some satisfaction however, for I despair he should ever win them to refund the whole, and make us all Parsons again, although it be a grievance to our Consciences, that Vicarages and Sacrilege came first into England together from Rome, and in the same Cloak-bag; and besides, Experience tells us, that Church-Lands (like the Ark of God amongst the Philistims) have been but a plague to the Families, and a canker in the Estates of their Purchasers, as saith the Heathen Prophet,— Vix gaudet tertius Haeres.  
Now though we dare not be so bold as to say with my Lord Bacon, that all Parliaments since the 27 and 31 of King Henry the Eighth, stand obliged to God in Conscience to reduce the Patrimony of the Church, (to which he adds, that since they have debarred Christ's Spouse of a great part of her Dowry, it were reason they made her a competent jointure) yet thus much we dare boldly say, that our gracious Sovereign and this present Parliament have already given a signal earnest of their pious intentions, by restoring that part of the Church's Patrimony which was bought and sold by those unhallowed Rumpers; and our little Historian was unworthy to mention that Noble Act, (reserved for some great Hand to record it) for which their Names shall be had in everlasting remembrance.  
In the mean time, those Vicars whose Incomes are but small as yet, content themselves to make a Virtue of Necessity, and cut their Coat according to their Cloth. Enough sometimes is as good as a Feast, and a Dinner of Herbs is more pleasant and acceptable to some, than a stalled Ox attended with all varieties is to others. Not one of an hundred of the Clergy but is as well provided for as those the Poet cries up for the happy Men, Queis Deus parcâ dedit quod satis est manu. Indeed I have oft admired to observe how contentedly, yea, how plentifully several of them live upon a little; and though I have imputed it somewhat to their own prudence, frugality, temperance, and cutting off many artificial necessities others create to themselves; yet I could not but call to mind the Widows Cruise of Oil; and Barrel of Meal that never consumed while they were feeding a Prophet, and almost fancied God gave them Blessings other Men know not of, and made some secret addition to their store: Nay, I have known some of them grow insensibly into the number of the Rich, whilst many of their Neighbours have (by their own imprudence, or some unlucky accident) lived to bury fair Estates before them, and left nothing when they died but a Wife perhaps, and five or six pretty Children; by way of Legacy to the Parish. However, admitting they steer but Agur's middle course between the two extremes all their lives, it is sufficient for my present purpose; and I have reason to conclude, that Poverty as well as Ignorance is most injuriously attributed to the generality of our present English Clergy, Quod erat demonstrandum.  
Now though I am not obliged to take any notice of the Gentleman's whole subsequent Discourse, because it is built upon a false foundation, viz. A pair of Principles of his own forging; yet for diversions sake, we'll give him his Hypothesis for once, provided he never ask it more, to see what work he makes on't: we'll allow him to stand in the Air with Archimedes, only to see what Knacks and Feats of Activity he is dexterous at.  
When he hath told us with much modesty, that the generality of our Clergy are Fools and Beggars, parti per pale, he proceeds to give us a reasonable account both of their Ignorance and Poverty.  
A great part of their pretended Ignorance, he lays upon the old-fashioned methods and discipline of Schooling, to assure us he is a wellwisher to some new Model, he knows not what, but is content at present to be only so far a Regulator, as to mention some very mischievous abuses of Youth in common Schools, which I shall inquire into by and by: for it were not amiss to inform him by the way, that all Men are not of the Fanatic Skip-Iack's mind, for new Models and Methods, (more than for new Moons, and new Gods) provided the old have been found by long experience neither uncertain nor ineffectual. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says plodding Aristotle, and 'tis as true as if Cartes himself had said it, That changing foundations is oftentimes of dangerous consequence. Historians do but laugh at the mighty devices of projecting Nero, to cut a Channel from the Lake Avernus, to the mouth of Tiber, and pierce the massy Ithmus in Achaia, as vain attempts to shorten Voyages, and (as it were) cross the Sea by Land. Thus Nicanor Seleucus went about to cut the Straight between the Euxine and Caspian Seas; and Cleopatra, 
Camer. Medit.  that which divideth the Red Sea from Egypt: yet none of them brought their design to effect, but only made themselves ridiculous, for Men were still fain to go the old way. And truly the device of training up Boys after a new method, may be ingenious and plausible in the Theory, but perhaps not so practicable and successful as the old. Good Counsels have ofttimes bad events; and all Reformers ought to reflect upon that famous Axiom of the Schools, Bonum ex causâ integrâ, Malum ex quolibet defectu, so far, as to remember, that all circumstances must concur to make the Model complete, since one considerable defect or mistake in Ichnography, mars the whole project: Old Methods may have their imperfections and superfluities, but yet it argues no great wisdom to abandom them for any new ones suspected to be guilty of as many more. I now proceed to consider the abuses our Author observes in the old received way of School-Education.  
The first is, That Boys are kept in pure slavery to Latin and Greek words, till 16 or 17 years of age: so that if you will believe him, Rider's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are the only Books they do, or at least need converse with for that purpose. To remedy this abuse, (which yet is of his own making) he starts the fancy of putting them upon English Authors: that doubtless would be as pleasing as Tityrus' Apples and Nuts to them who are naturally inclined to ease and idleness, but would not so well satisfy their Parents, who send them to School chiefly to learn Amo's and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 's, for so we are taught to call the Greek and Latin Tongues. But that they should fall upon Geometry and Philosophical Discourses for that end, rather than Homer, Virgil, Tully, etc. is such a monster, as the teeming Africa ne'er brought forth the fellow of it: 'twere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed, to put Boys upon puzzling their tender Brains about crabbed Theories, and knotty Problems, such as grown Men of the profoundest judgements can scarcely fathom or understand; as if Herculeses Shoes would fit a Dwarf, as if Lambs could wade where Elephants are forced to swim, and every little Philistim could play at Quarterstaff with Goliah's Beam.  
There is indeed a sort of Philosophy, which, as it was calculated for the nonage of the World, so it is still best accommodated and suited to younger Capacities, I mean, Poetry, the old Philosophy of all, flourishing many Ages before Aristotle was born. So M. Tyrius calls it in one of his Sermons, (and he was a pretty good Preacher for a Moral Man) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; etc. Arts and Sciences were then in their infancy, and their way of teaching was not to tell downright truth, reason home and bluntly, and make irresistible Demonstrations; but to insinuate Virtue and Knowledge by merry Tales, and innocent Fictions; and if I mistake not, they borrowed that mode, as many other things, from the Hebrews, who used then to be instructed about high and heavenly matters by Types and Shadows taken from below. Now give me leave to show our Author the difference even in his own story of Phaeton, which he imagines to be so tedious to Boys: but that's his error, they naturally love stories; and though they have not capacity enough to understand a Logical Definition of Rashness, and conceive a clear notion of Presumption; yet they will easily apprehend the moral of that Fable, and tell you the Young Man had better have taken his Father's dissuasive,— (non est mortale quod optas) and that none but Fools will venture on difficult Tasks they are not able to manage; and consequently I infer, that to put Boys upon the most sublime and solid parts of Learning, were to make them hazard Phaeton's destiny, i. e. breaking the neck of all their parts: so that let him be as singularly wise as he will, and spend his breath in vain, which might have better served to cool his Chicken-broth, the Books ordinarily read in Schools, will still be found most proper for Boys, in order to their gaining those two famous Languages, and sowing the seeds of Knowledge in their Minds.  
Another abuse of Youth, and loss of time, he reckons the Homerick rumblers, and large Repetitions of other Authors appointed sometimes for their Breakfasts, which he will have to be as dreadful to them as an old Parliament-Fast, (an odd similitude by the way; and had the Parson used it, 'twould have been laughed at sufficiently; for let the World judge if any Text in the Bible be not more like an ingenious Picture, than a Breakfast is like a Fast) whereas indeed they are not tiresome to any but Dolts and unhewen Blockheads, who are never likely to be fashioned into Mercuries. Now if he alone be ignorant that this practice of common Schools is not only pardonable, but of very excellent use, who can help it? Every body else knows, that Children have a moist and supple Brain, like soft Wax, capable of any impressions, and that Memory is the most early faculty of the Soul, which exerts itself in the very dawning of Sense and Cogitation, (whereupon Plato calls it the Mother of the Muses) and is in its prime and meridian vigour before Imagination or Fancy, much less Understanding and Judgement, come perfectly to them; these requiring a much different, if not quite contrary temperature: And common experience tells us, that we remember nothing so firmly and lastingly as what we did and learned in our younger years; and that Grammar and Languages are gotten chiefly by Memory, and therefore more easily attained by Boys than grown Men. The learned Spaniard in his Trial of Wits, observes very well, that if a Biscain of thirty or forty years old come to dwell in Castille, he will never master and speak that Language cleverly; whereas if he comes a Boy, he grows such a proficient thereat in two or three years, that one would swear he was born in Toledo. If Memory therefore be the first and principal faculty to be improved for gaining Languages, it was capriciously done to blame the custom of common Schools for what they ought rather to be commended, viz. as well for exercising a Lad's memory often in the general, as for committing high and brave-sensed Poems to it in particular, since out of that, as the common Storehouse, the Fancy is afterwards enriched and raised to an aptitude for Eloquence and Poetry, and the judgement also by degrees comes acquainted with the nature of things, be they never such high Moralities.  
Nor do I know any such silly Academics as he describes, who upon reading Tully's Offices, and the best Poets over again at their maturer years, do not take double delight and satisfaction to one that never saw them before.  
As for that Objection in the close of his Paedagogical abuses, I suppose it was started more to dally and play with, than to answer: for it is most true still, that all mischiefs and faults in Schooling refer as well to other learned Professions, as to the Clergy, and it neither is by him, nor can be made out by all the Logicks in Europe, how it should come to pass that the very same method of Schooling daily produces more learned Lawyers, more eminent Physicians, and yet more ignorant Divines than ever.  
The next complaint he makes, is of the inconsiderate sending all sorts of Lads to the University; which because it is the first truth he hath yet spoken, I shall be so civil as to grant it, (not absolutely, and for his sake, but) upon condition I be allowed to interpose some Remarks and Animadversions upon his Discourse thereof.  
Doubtless Socrates was in the right, that, as his Mother, though an expert Midwife, could not deliver a Woman who was not with Child; so neither could her Son make his Scholars bring forth any Science, unless they had understanding to conceive it. And Cicero might have been so wise as to have examined his Son Mark's Parts before he sent him to Athens: for albeit he committed him to an able Tutor Cratippus his care; yet the Lad proved but a Codshead, and the Orator was forced to confess at last, that resisting Nature was but like the Giants fight against the Gods. Galen's Father was better advised when he put him upon the study of Physic, perceiving he had a singular wit and inclination for that Science; though Lucian's Parents again were as much out, who concluded by the Bulls, Horses, and Men of Wax he delighted to make in his Childhood, his Genius more suited with being a Statuary, than a Philosopher. However, it is a truth generally confessed, that Lads ought to have Parts and Capacities for those Professions to which they are respectively designed. What if a Boorish Parent be so partial or ignorant, as to think his great Head is an infallible sign the Boy will make a sound Philosopher, or able Theologue? Other Men know, that the biggest Oranges have the hardest and thickest Sculls, and afford the least quantity of Juice: And what if a fond Mother, by the advice of the small Pedant at the sign of the very same little House by the Church-yard-side, be resolved to make her Zon Dick a Scholard, (of all the rest?) Certainly Tutors are neither bound to work Miracles, nor yet to accept of Hobson's choice: for (whatever is suggested to the contrary) I have known divers returned by the next Carrier, as insufficient, to the place of Execution from whence they came. But all this while let Examinations in the University be never so strict, some will prove Dunces to the World's end, through their idleness, misplacing their Studies, or decay of their Parts, and others be rejected who might have proved Miracles of the Age, though at present they seemed to be of slow and heavy Parts: for we have no infallible Standard whereby to know assuredly this Lad will, and that other can never make a Scholar.  
My Spanish Author (honest john Huarte, who seems to be as well skilled in this affair as my English one, yea, as T. B. and R. L. put together) tells it me for a very truth, that there is sometimes a certain dulness in Children, which argues a greater wit in another age; and some Boys of quick Parts, and a ready Ingeny, like Summer-fruits, have flagged and withered in a short space, and according to the Proverb, Soon ripe, soon rotten, proved very ordinary and dull Men. And therefore I cannot but commend and recommend the practice of the Jesuits in this, who make not a rash judgement of Child's faculties whilst they are cunning their first Elements, but stay till they come to years of discretion, and then make a close enquiry what they are, and which way their Parts lie, whether to Poetry, Physic, Oratory, History, Mathematics, Law or Divinity; and then, by confining them to that particular Study, bring them to a considerable perfection therein, whilst others gargling all manner of Books that come next, content themselves with a smattering of all kinds of Learning, but prove excellent in none. To sum up this particular, it appears by the premises, that though we may be sometimes deceived in guessing at a Lads parts, yet most certainly those Parents and Grammaticasters' are blame-worthy, who pitch upon the most unlikely of all the number for the Scholar; and Universities, are not much more to be excused if they receive such an one upon their request or commendation.  
After ability in reference to Parts, I must follow my Leader to examine the Lad's abilities in Purse: And 'tis denied to be any common practice for Parents or Friends to send a Boy to the University, who sit not down first and count the cost and charges, and intent not to contribute something at least to his subsistence: if they do, I would fain know what Tutor will admit him, unless he resolves to be a Father to him, and adopting him for his own, designs to furnish him with all necessaries for Back and Belly, as well as those for the Head. It must be confessed indeed, that all have not so large Incomes as some; but yet withal, that they whose supplies are two profuse, are in a fairer way to miscarry than such as have rather too little: many are forced, for want of that same, to live in honest servitude, and the narrow compass of Scissors; what then? Must it therefore follow they are condemned to such drudgeries as Chamber-sweeping, Water-fetching, and buying of Butter and Eggs? That's as very a Flame as all the rest: No, the main duty required at their hands, is only to hold a Trencher, and College-Commons will not keep them at that from morning till night, but afford them sufficient intervals as well for their Studies as Recreations. What Man is ignorant that too large Allowances often make Lads prove idle and debauched? whereas on the contrary, they whose maintenance is short, as knowing what they must trust to, and being to lay the foundation of their own fortunes, and live by their wits, are usually the closest Students, and make the most eminent Scholars. Venture Magister artis, was Persius' Motto, and Pythagoras his Golden Scrap— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— attributes a kind of Omnipotence to Necessity. Poor Lads may be supposed to bring a considerable stock of Parts along with them, though little else, and their own wants will spur up their industry to improve them to the utmost, and therefore to shut our School-doors against all of inferior quality and low fortunes, were an incomparable device to advance all learned Professions, or rather to stock an University with a loitering kind of cattle, commonly called Drones and Dunces. Indeed the project of maintaining all there till they come to be Masters in Arts, I could like well, but that, upon consideration of the premises, I find it equally impossible with the rest of his easy Proposals? What then? Must they down at four years' end upon the top of the Pack, and thence skip into the Pulpit? More words to a bargain sure; let the young Man stay till he be out of his time, before he sets up for himself: How then must he live till he come to be of Spiritual age? for Philosophy is a very idle thing when one is cold, and the small Systeme will not satisfy Nature: Is the Bishop of the Diocese bound to give him Orders to keep him from starving, or being a Parish charge? No danger of that, because he is too young, but that we are told there is a thing called a Dispensation to be got, which will make you as old as you please. I thought he had been old enough without a Dispensation to have had more wit and manners than to slander and revile Gods high Priests, by making the World believe every Novice may (prece vel pretio) procure holy Orders. Doth not the Canon of the Church say, 
Q. Eliz. Can. Ch. 1. 1597.  That if any Bishop Ordain a Man either without a Title, or under Age, he is for every such default liable to Suspension for a whole year? There is indeed a Proviso, that Fellows of Colleges (who are required by their local Statutes to be in Orders at such a prefixed time) be dispensed with in respect of their want of Age; but what is that to Country Parishes? That there may be, or is actually a frequent abuse in this particular, (as he would needs intimate) is no less than a downright forgery. Now whereas he inquires how all those striplings that commence yearly must live till they come to an holy maturity, I answer first in general, that they do live somewhere; and though we daily meet with jews, Greeks, Polonians, Hungarians, Germans, and other Foreign Pretenders to Learning, begging our Charity, either indirectly, by admitting our Names into their Calendar of great Men, or directly in their Latin Gibberish; yet (such provisions there are made in England, that) we seldom find one of those hundreds of our own Nation brought to such extremities. Secondly, and more particularly I answer, That many of those Commencers design no other but the Gentleman's Calling; many more betake themselves to the Law, Civil or Common, and to Physic; several who intent the Ministry, have competent Estates of their own; and himself grants that well nigh a fifth part are preferred in the University: all these deducted out of his two hundreds, the Remanent will not be very great, (and considering they are none of them more immortal than other Men) if he please, he may assign them to be Governors of Grammar Castles, or recommend them to some good Gentleman's Houses, to be their children's Tutors, and their own Companions. Indeed if our Gentry entertain Scholars to save a Servants Wages, (sometimes crowding in the looking after a couple of Geldings into the Ten Pounds a year) and allow them little more respect than they do their Cooks and Butlers; or keep the young Levite against the small Vicarage falls, to put my Cousin Abigail fairly off with it, I must confess it to be an intolerable fault. I confess I've read of a certain Roman Lady, who received Thesmopolis the Stoic into her Family, and to testify the singular respect and kindness she had for him, committed her beloved Bitch (I've quite forgot her Name) now very pregnant, to his care and tuition; and who so fit as the Philosopher to be trusted with such a jewel in his bosom? For, as they journeyed, she had the advantage of easing Nature against his prominent-silver- Beard; and not long after, by his careful management of the Natural Causes, deposited her precious Whelps in his learned Lap. Whether Lucian made the story to jeer the Stoic, or Lady, or both, or tells it for a true relation, it matters not, since he was but a mere Stoic, and she but a Heathen Madam. But there's as little wit as truth in that fetch, that any Christened English Gentleman should make the same person his own Confessor (or Companion at least) and the Groom of his Horse's Bedchamber. His Tales are not well laid together: for is it not extremely probable, that one who rubs his Horses scabby heels, should be such excellent company for Sir john, that he, forsooth, must be called down to say grace to every Health? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉! What a petulancy of humour is this, to invent such foppish Chimaeras not only to abuse the Clergy and its Candidates, but to disoblige the Gentry also into the bargain? But stay! whither will this Chevalier Errand lead me? for like a Dog that hath lost the scent, he is continually roving about for new Game. You see what a Preacher he's likely to make, if ever he be effectually called by some fat Benefice, where Henry the Eighth took no Toll; for he is quite run from his Text; and if you please to call in about seven Pages backwards, you'll find him there only preparing his Lads for the University, whereas here he hath packed them down into Country again, and makes them stand sighing and picking their teeth, while the Knight and my Lady are at their Dainties. And because he is used to confess every one's faults but his own, I must tell him he forgets himself much, and is preposterous: for had he designed to treat us methodically, our first course should have been School-Butter, College-Commons the second, and the Chickens and Tarts reserved till the last: and yet the Man is so confident as to say, he now passeth from Schooling to the Universities. Which, that he may not seem to do very abruptly, he interlopes here one thing more to bring the Boys and his Discourse together, that is, a good constitution of Body necessary for Students. Well! how shall we do to know this? Why, repair to the Physicians, cries he: Very good; but the best of them pretend to no more than good Guessers, whether at Health or Diseases, and unless they had a Spirit of Prophecy, and could foretell a Boy's Quomodo valet seven years hence, or could fix a healthy constitution where they find it, or when they pleased, the whole fabric of this advice will prove (says my Author) as thin as a piece of Metaphysics: for if it be lawful for us to believe our own Senses in this Sceptical Age, Constitutions are as variable as the Moon, (supposing no change of Diet, Air, or wont Exercises, for these make them vary more still) and sickly puling Children often prove the more healthy and robust Men; and again, lusty promising Boys do as often grow Consumptive and infirm at riper years, by reason of some inward defect in the vital parts, which the most Microscopical Physician could never discover, till he was sent for to dissect the Body.  
Nor should he have needed to argue pro and con, whether by following his idle Crotchets Universities should abate of their number and ancient splendour: for if ever they be induced thereby to change theit laudable customs, for his Eutopian Experiments, I'll venture to give him my Mother for a Maid.  
As for ours, he professeth a great esteem for them, and their Governors' Wisdom, (just as he complemented the Clergy in the beginning of his Book) and therefore he doth not prescribe them any new Scheme of Education: but yet such a rare Architect he is, that you'll find him building presently above the Top-stone of Wisdom's own laying. Not that he doth determine positively whether the Old or New Philosophy be the best, not he for the World; but only tells us in short, that Aristotle's Monarchy is long since at an end, (and all the old motheaten Statutes (which mention him honourably) out of date, together with a certain little Oath thereunto belonging) and we are at present absolutely under the Government of a Democracy, or new Commonwealth of Atoms. To let that pass, I shall inquire into those two things that so much obstruct University-improvements, and he intends to regulate perhaps, but not till the King makes him our visitor; one whereof he reckons a defect, the other an abuse. The great defect is, that English Exercises are not imposed upon Lads, especially such as are designed for the Pulpit: A pretty piece of Reformation indeed, though he must not think to claim the honour of being its first Inventor: for there was a time when those heavenly Reformers at Westminster voted down Latin for the Language of the Beast, and were clearly for throwing the whole practice of the Law into an English Model. In imitation of them, the famous Culpepper brought the design to admirable effect in Physic; (Bonds, you see, could oblige, and Purges work then without Latin.) Nor was it reasonable that Divinity should stand out: for, to make a Through-Reformation, the Independents, Anabaptists, Antinomists, and other Factions, set up public Schools in St. Paul's, and other places, (by the connivance of one Tyrannus, but not him in the Acts) wherein they frequently held Declamations and Disputations in their Mother-Tongue, to train up the Old, and gain New Proselytes to their several Parties: so that he must not have the credit of this project. But that he may go to work more like a Philosopher than they, he pretends to back his design with some Reasons. The first is, That the Language learned Men must live by, is the English, there being no use of Latin in the Country, but only to checquer Sermons, and make Salvetoes to some Dominatio vestra. Bate me an Ace, quoth Bolton! The Language Plum-sellers indeed and Cheese-mongers live by, is the English, and 'tis enough for them to read English Histories, Romances and Plays, if not too much. But hath the Parson no more use for Latin? Hath he none but the Assemblies Notes, and English Divines to consult? Hath he neither Councils nor Fathers, Philosophers nor Historians, Orators nor Poets, Commentatours nor Critics, nor any Books in other Languages to advise with, to perfect his own Knowledge, and convince all Gainsayers? If it be said that Preaching, Oh Preaching, that's the All of his business, the very Marrowbone of the matter; yet there will be some use of Latin however, till Lycosthenes, Polyanthaea's, and the Germane Systems be done into English; for these are the only worthy Authors a great part of our Clergy are allowed by him. But in earnest, what a strange Caprice is this, to put young Scholars upon reading English Writers, as if the Language of their Country would not be familiar to them as well as others without all this stir? Those old Dotards, our wise Founders and Forefathers, thought they rather ought to be interdicted English Authors, and confined wholly to Latin; it being too sad a truth, that many Lads of very good Parts, having (by their Schoolmasters neglect) no great skill in the Greek and Latin, sit down at English altogether, and by this means are perfect strangers to the most learned Writers in the World.  
Thus much I could grant him, were it for his purpose, that English can't be throughly understood and mastered without a competent skill in Grammar, and the Greek and Latin, from which many of our English words have their origine▪ which is the reason that Boys and Women, though speaking indifferently well, yet seldom or never write true English. Nor is there any thing but vain merriment in that observe, that some young conceited Students write bombast and highflown Epistles into the Country. Is this for want of English? No, nor for want of Ignorance; but a childish affectation of being out of the vulgar road, and rather for want of Brains and Latin: for I never yet met with a Lad that could give you an ingenious and pithy Discourse in Latin, but he could frame you the same with ease and advantage in his Native Dialect.  
Another Argument he brings to commend English Exercises, is, That they are so far from hindering their Latine-improvement, that they tend very much to its advantage. Nay then, gentlemans, look to your Pockets, and let them read English, English, English, to the end of the Chapter. And how is this Paradox proved? Why, by telling you a small story of a certain Academic Youngster, (Nicholas Nemo by name) who having finished his postures at Table's end, made a silly Oration in Latin, (though he gives it in English, and who knows whether it be faithfully translated?) wherein he complains that his Muse and half ne'er drank above size q. of Helicon; that he hath neither Stars nor Glories, Phrases nor Pearls, nothing but a shady Grove, or purling stream to describe, & c And so, for fear of wounding your patience, he makes his Leg, and exit: fare him well! Granting all this were as true as that the Sea burns, though 'tis hardly that, yet what doth it argue? Yes, he tells us, That if the Lad had first determined in English what he intended to say in Latin, he would have discerned and avoided all these impertinencies; which is a postulatum we do absolutely deny: for had he taken that course, he could but have done his best, his utmost still, although it must cost him double the pains; and 'tis a fond thing to imagine the Boy is wiser in English than in Latin, supposing he understands both. The true reason why he made such a Chicken-broth Discourse, was, not for want of skill in English or Latin, but for want of fancy and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Parts, Judgement and Years; for Child is but Child, and Boy is but Boy still, however this Man's Geese must be all Swans, his imaginary Lads able to declaim against Quinctilian, and cope with Cicero himself at a solid and fleshy Oration: so that if any one be so childish as to believe he comes to the University to learn English, let him know he is abused, and made to begin at the wrong end. Let him read and digest the best Greek and Latin Authors for his purpose first, and lay in a stock of substantial Learning both Ancient and Modern; and then when he comes of age, and years of discretion, (before he engage in the Pulpit) we'll give him leave to read the choicest English Books to advance his stile, and give him a perfect command of his Mother Tongue.  
The other Indictment he draws up against Universities, is for retaining an ancient custom of joquing, as if himself were all this while grave and serious, or above those small Dispensations. Like another Beardless Apollo, he summons all Tripus', Praevaricator's, and Terraefilius' to Parnassus, to give them fair warning that nothing must henceforth go for Wit, but what is full measure according to his Standard. As for their little conceits, he knocks them all o'th' head with one solid and ponderous Argument, viz. They are useful neither in Law, Physic, nor Divinity, Ergo, they are good for nothing: Tanquam ex Tripode quidem dictum! But Sir Tripus would answer him with a non sequitur: for they are not only innocent Recreations of themselves, (when they quit their subjects indeed to fall foul upon Governments, Persons, and Functions, like you know who, they expect to be called eoram Nobis, and sent to Bocardo or the Black Rod, without Bail or Mainprize) but of excellent use too if handsomely managed; it is to be considered that Laughter is a great Promoter of Health in general, and an easy Amulet against some distempers that hang about sedentary Men in particular: it unbends the Mind, loosens the distended Nerves of the Soul, and revives its drooping Spirits after a wonderful manner; and why then must it be deemed a Capital Crime to interpose one merry Scene, to set off a serious and tedious Act, more resembling a Long-Parliament Fast than I know what? And if Saint john diverted himself sometimes in playing with Partridges, whilst he was writing his mysterious Apocalypse, why may not grave Men have their Spleens tickled, though but with Straws and Feathers, rather than crack their Sculls with Voluminous Positions, long-winded Speeches, and endless Disputes about some Cross-grained Theory? Wherefore 'tis not material though these lighter and more airy kind of Exercises are not, nor ever were intended to be useful in Law, Physic, or Divinity, so long as they have a laudable end, and wholesome effect of their own. Nor is it necessary one that hath got the right knack of joquing, should follow that trade all his life, more than he who happens to act a Fool's part well in two or three Plays, may be supposed never after to quit the Stage. Dulce est desipere in loco; a prudent Man at different times and places knows when to be in jest or earnest. No Man ever dreamt that King james made Dull-man in Ignoramus a Bishop, for acting a Dull-man all his life, but for being one of the wisest Men in the company, as he afterwards approved himself.  
In the next place, (like some Sir Politic Would_be) he traduces our Terraefilius' and Praevaricator's not a little, in representing them as Nibblers at an ambiguous word, and Quibblers upon lily's Poetry, or at best but Tossers of an Axiom out of Logic, with a Hocas Pocas, &c. whereas they oftentimes produce as good fancy, ingenious humours, lively action, well contrived Ironies, merry Fictions, mimical Gestures, and Burlesque Descriptions, as any I find in his little Letter, yea or the great Don of Mancha. In a word, this difficult Province being usually assigned to the choicest Wits, it is unreasonable to fancy they must needs prove jack-puddings in the Pulpit or elsewhere, especially when we recount how many of them of late years have arrived at considerable Preferments both in Church and State.  
And now let the World judge if these two little things are not mighty Obstructions to a Clergy-man's improvement in Academic Studies! Indeed if he could have impeached our Universities of some real abuses, as that kissing goes by favour, I mean, that a great number of the Youth are committed to the care of such Tutors, whose ignorance hath made them sordidly servile, and their flattery preferred them to be Favourites; or of such others who are of too large Principles and Practices in their Religion, and own no other, perhaps, but Hobbs' Creed; or could he have complained justly, that our Degrees lie as open as the Highway for all Comers; that Hands and Seals to Letters Testimonial are common as Stones in the Streets, and never denied to the most incorrigible Dunces, and the like, he might have lighted on something that did really incommode all learned Professions, especially the Clergy; but since he could find no such Camel-like faults amongst them worth the mending, I wonder he should be so Boyish as to make all this noise and straining merely to catch a few Gnats.  
From the University he persecutes the Clergyman into the Pulpit; and though he confesses he has no Authority to give Rules of Preaching, yet you must expect him to be as free of his Censures thereof, as if he were Archbishop of the Province.  
Now as we advance to inquire into His abuses of Preaching, I must needs whisper an old advice into his ear, ut Titulum Legat. For if I well remember, he is now inferring the Contempt of the Clergy from the Topick of their Ignorance: And is it not strange any Man in his wits should go about to prove that, from the towering Eloquence, and profound Learning of some, and the abundance of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, said to lard the Sermons of others? Besides, 'tis strange any Man should be so loftily eloquent, and deeply learned as to want common prudence, and not consider his audience, and distinguish between an University and a Country Pulpit. But the Plot is very visible; for, resolving to hook in the whole Clergy into his Lob's Pound before he had done, he hath now divided them into two Reverend Classes, of learned Madmen, and ignorant Fools. 'Tis well his word is no slander. In the mean time, it's oft the People's more than Preacher's fault he is not clearly understood, who being either captious or obnoxious (like the old Pharisees) will shut their eyes against Truths made out as clear as the Sun, because against the grain, and not for their turn; and though with Saint Paul he reason plainly of those plain Doctrines, Righteousness, Temperance, and judgement to come; yet like Felix touched to the quick, they either bid him go his way for this time, and stay till they send for him, or cry out with Festus, The Man is certainly besides himself.  
Now I know no Law he transgresses if the Preacher now and then quote a Greek or Latin Author in a vulgar Auditory: None but Calumny itself would have charged him at a venture with Ostentation and Vanity. Why might he not rather do it to distinguish him from a Gifted Brother in a Conventicle, who talks all of his own head in homespun English? And why not to show that very learned Men are of his Opinion, and that he desires not his Auditors to believe it because he said it, but because it is true? Authority is a more effectual Argument ad hominem, than a Demonstration, because seldom taken. What though few or none understand him those very words, so long as they apprehend him in much more than they can remember? Should he discourse all in English, and like a Scholar, he must not expect to be intelligible all along to common capacities, more than those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a Chapter of St. Paul read in English.  
There is a sort of Preaching our Author seems to favour, (if he favour any) by dividing a Text into one part, I mean, by making a long continued Harangue upon some certain subject; which, if well examined, would be found more useless and unprofitable than those said to be spiced full of Latin, partly for its want of method and due helps of memory, and partly for being full of Latinized-affected-English. For I'll assure you, the Vulgar understand Saint Chrysostome's easy Greek, and Saint Austine's, nay Tertullian's African Latin, as well as they do the particular passages, and whole frame and drift of such a Discourse. They know not without an Interpreter what you mean by your rational Notions, ingenious Principles, and sublime Moralities; your fervid Parturiencies, parturient Agonies, and zealous Presages of the People; your Accommodations and interchangeable Ratifications of Peace; your adjusting differences between the Animal and Divine Life, and a thousand more some of our pretended Masters of Reason have raked out of Gazettes and late Rodomontado Authors, to make them a Schibboleth of distinction, whereby they would be thought wiser than the common Herd of Mortals. Every Man in his way; yet they are not always the wiser and more rational part of Mankind, who are so charitable as to think themselves so.  
But the Greek and Latin Shreds are not always lost; for there is sometimes an alwise Patron, or all-understanding Justice of Peace at Church. Not to envy him his wont happiness in Epithets, though he lay it down dogmatically for a certain Maxim, That there is as great a future reward in saving one that takes Collection, as the best Man in the Parish, and consequently they should be preached at both alike; yet other Men think they may warrantably take more pains to convert a potent and public Person, than any one of the little People, because in gaining him they usually gain half a Parish. Harmonides the Minstrel being now Master of his Art, asked his Tutor Timothy what course he must take to get him a Name and esteem all over Greece? his answer was, That it would be a tedious and endless piece of work to show his skill to every ordinary Mechanic, besides that such are no competent Judges: But the most compendious way to do his business, was to give a Specimen of his Art to some few of the Potentates, of the chief and leading Men in all Greece, and when they are possessed (said he) with an Opinion of thy Excellency, all the World will presently commend and admire thee by their example, as Lucian tells the Story. And we know that the World lives more by Example than Precept, that the Farmer is ordinarily of his Landlord's Religion, and that 'tis sometime more in His than the Parson's power to make his Tenant a good Churchman, or an idle Sectary.  
But our Saviour and his Apostles (saith he) make no such distinction in their Discourses. A Metaphor taken from the Fanatic way of arguing; because they did not in some Circumstances, we may not in any. What if our Saviour's Auditors were all of a piece, all of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or at least the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; the Text doth not say any of the Learned, or any Knights and Squires were there: Nay, another private Text asks the Question, (which I take for little less than an universal Negative) Have any of the Rulers, or of the Pharisees believed on him? The Gospel was first preached to the Poor, and not many Wise, not many Noble were called, they being loath to stoop from their Grandeur, and renounce all their Carnal Wisdom, as it required: but since the Learned and Noble have embraced the Faith, surely there's more use of Learning and Eloquence to convert and confirm them, than the rude Vulgar.  
As for the sequel of his Discourse about Preaching, an hundred to one if it be not like something or other. It is not like the Picture of a French Lady, who gave the Painter five Livres more than ordinary to correct the defects of Nature's Pencil, and make her an exact Beauty: But rather like some Dutch piece representing a company of Antics and Apes-faces, where every one squines or grins, snears or mumps even as it pleased the Painter. Or if you will, 'tis like a Pedlar's Stall, I have seen, managed by the little john of all Trades in his narrow-brimmed Beaver pinched to a point; how busily he struts about, crying, (Come buy my rattling Metaphors, my Gingerbread Similitudes, my dainty laced Prefaces, ingenious Pictures, exact Compasses, jews-trumps, Hobby-Horses, Thimbles and Bodkins, Divine Knicknacks and Conceits: Here's your Aqua fortis, Sal Armoniac, Tops, Pears, and Pomegranates, Violins, Trebles and Jingles, new Songs, new Moons, new Almanacs, new; see here, what is't you lack?) till all the Infantry in Town flock about him to gaze at his little less than Tredeskin-variety of Miracles. Even so—  
But in earnest, let's inquire seriously into the main things he says make Preachers ridiculous, i. e. Harsh Metaphors, childish Similitudes, foolish Prefaces, affected Divisions, cunning Doctrines, odd Expressions, and such like, and how far they are true, or concern the present Clergy.  
In the first place, we are much obliged to the Gentleman that he doth not confine and tie us up so strictly, as that we must upon all occasions call a Spade a Spade, (at our peril) but allows us the common privilege of all Orators, to use Improprieties sometimes, whether Similes at large, or Metaphors, which are the same thing contracted into one word, provided they be grave, decent, significant and pertinent: and had he denied us, the case would not have been much altered; for we are not to learn from him what singular use there may be of them many times for informing Vulgar judgements, and influencing their Affections; which is a reason special enough why our Saviour used this way of Preaching.  
But secondly, We deny all those instances to be ridiculous which he is pleased to vend for such. For what if a Text should chance to be like an ingenious Picture, or Moses' Rod, or Noah's Dove, yea or like the very Man going to jericho? Where's the false Latin all this while, provided the Application be natural and apposite? Every Mechanic can tell him, that Similitudes are not designed to agree as one Plain doth with another; if they touch but in one point, as a Globe upon a Plain, it is sufficient. And if he quarrel with these and such like Comparisons, he is in a fair way to fall foul upon the most sober and even sacred Writings. What if the Preacher should upon occasion compare a Cloud to a Man's Hand, wise speeches to Apples of Gold in pictures of Silver, (provided they be not ingenious Pictures) Israel to the dust of the Earth, job to a Cruddled Cheese, Man to a wild Ass' Colt, and his own dung, Confidence to a broken Tooth, Spirits to Frogs, the Soul to the Chariots of Amminadab, Hezekiah to a Weaver, a Crane and Swallow, the Jews to roaring Bears, the Word of God to Fire, a Hammer and a Sword, the Kingdom of Heaven to a Grain of Mustardseed, a little Leaven, a Net, a lost Groat, the Son of Man himself to a Shepherd, a Lamb, a Lion, a Vine, a Branch, with hundreds more of that nature? I'll assure you it may be done soberly and significantly, for it has been done; and none but a profane Wit would dare to play with the least and smallest things when once made sacred.— Procul O procul ite Profani.  
But amongst the rest of his Prefaces, I wonder he could not light upon one grown too common of late, and is perhaps more needless (to say no more) than any he hath mentioned; I mean, a long conceived Prayer before Sermon, wherein the Preacher presents God Almighty with a large train of Titles, and recommends several persons to him under the notion of Right Honourable, Reverend, Worshipful, Learned and Worthy, Earls, Bishops, Knights, Doctors, Esquires, Gentlemen, Mr. Proctors, Mr. Taxers, etc. He could have told them that God Almighty needed not to be informed of any Man's Worth or Quality, and that those Titles were improper to be offered up to God in a solemn Prayer, but to be directed to the People in an Exhortation (according to the LV Canon) to mind them of that due respect they owe to their Superiors. But because he says nothing hereof for some reasons best known to himself, I shall for others say no more.  
Thirdly, You must know that our ingenuous Author hath lately been with the Man among the Tombs, and raked in dead men's Ashes for several of the Stories he entertains you with. For instance, that Text against Nonresidence and the device of the Triangular Heart, are both as old as Paul's. He that could not run without feet, was a famous Divine in his time, (he tells you) but that was long before himself was out o'th' shell. Parson Slip-stocking, and the Author of the Discoveries, and many others whose Ghosts he brings in, have long since quitted the Stage; and admitting they were once of our Church, and did any of them act their parts ridiculously, yet what is that to the present Clergy? If he can't find in his heart to speak well of the Dead, and bury their infirmities with them, yet 'tis the height of injustice to charge the Living with their personal faults.  
Fourthly, You may guests he was once of Mr. nigh's, or Mr. Calamy's, or some such Reformado Congregation, or at least hath frequented Conventicles since more than the Church, by a great deal of the idle stuff, and lamentable fooleries he hath the honour to bring to light, it being well known, that canting expressions, and all that way of talking, is the proper and Characteristical note of a Separatist: And if he had been as ingenuous as the worthy Author of the Friendly Debates, he would have set the saddle upon the right Horse, and not have pinned the extemporary effusions, sanctified nonsense, and intolerable fooleries of those factious Pulpiteers and Intruders, upon that Church they made it their whole business to pluck down by way of Reformation. It is no news to tell how instrumental many of the precious Authors he citys, were in that Great Work. Nor is it any Miracle that Preaching was abused in those days, when a learned Orthodox Clergy was silenced for their malignant Loyalty, and their Pulpits filled with Shoemakers, Tailors, Weavers, Thresher's, Cobblers, Tinkers, Brewers, Bakers, Fishmongers, Woolcombers, and all manner of Russet-Rabbies, and Mechanic Divines: No wonder if there was rare work made with Texts and Preachments, when every one borrowed his Similitudes and Language from his own Trade, comparing jacob to a Threshing-Worm, Repentance to a Bulrush, Man's Body to an Apple, his Soul to an Oyster, etc. But to lay their grievous extravagancies at the door of the present Church, is done so like a faithful Historian, as if the Sacrilege, Murders, Treasons and Regicide of those black-souled Rumpers should be unreasonably wrested to reflect upon this present most Loyal and Renowned Parliament.  
Lastly, The residue of those little passages and stories he laughs at, are either purely of his own invention, or abused and perverted into ridiculous by his Additions or Explications: Whereby it appears his Genius inclines him to Plays, Poetry and Romances, rather than History: in those indeed he hath no Law, but to write what he and his Muses please; but in this he must expect to be confined wholly to Truth.  
Now I demand what mortal Man ever heard such terms as Starboard and Lar-board, Sterns and Fore-castles in a Sermon, since Pulpits made of Ships Beaks have been out of fashion? No, no, they are his own, as well as the rering, flanking, entrenching and storming a Text, together with those touches of Ptolemy's Systeme, solid Orbs, and the points of the Compass, and comparing the Moon, Mercury and Venus to Violins and Trebles, all his own, devised merely to give us some hints of his general Accomplishments. First he gives you a taste of his skill in Navigation, then in Military Discipline; for I can assure you he hath seen a Ship, and heard of a Fight: but for Astronomy, Oh Astronomy!— let him alone; and yet, if he make no better use on't, it is to be feared he was born under a threepenny Planet, (whether according to the Old or New Hypothesis it matters not) however he talks sometimes of keeping Ten Footboys, and being Secretary of State.  
Again, Those choice Phrases of hacking, hewing, and splitting of Texts, (soft and gentle Metaphors taken from riving a tender Oak) making Faith, Hope and Charity a little Ring of Bells, together with the Latin Materials, Hic labour, hoc opus— silvestrem tenui— be all his own still. And if he be so good at the Forge, and can beat you an entire Fiction out of his own Brain, no wonder he hath a little dexterity at the File and Hammer, to work his matter into what shape he please, to add or detract, bend or straighten it as occasion serves. Indeed he wrists men's Sermons like a Nose of Wax, as Heretics deal by the holy Scriptures, and makes the poor Parson wind and turn all manner of ways, as a Rider would do his Spanish jennet. For instance, the story of making Christ a Shopkeeper, (however it comes not in hobbling with a reverence be it spoken) is most shamefully misrepresented, the greatest part of it owning no other Author but himself. He must pardon me if I credit my own Ears more than his lavish Pen, and any Man that will believe his own Eyes, may find the truth of what I say by consulting the Copy.  
Another he brings in Preaching about Episcopacy, from that Text Acts 16.30. Sirs, What must I do to be saved? And this (I must tell you) is nothing more than a confident Calumny: for Episcopacy was not the business of that Sermon. 'Tis true, the Preacher did by the way reflect upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (for it doth signify Lords in plain English) and thence insinuate what respect and honour was given to the Apostles and Pastors of the Church by those Primitive Converts: but that he should infer, that Bishops were formerly Peers of the Realm, and did hereby claim their privilege of sitting in the House of Lords, is such a monstrous forgery as you can scarce match it in all Lucian, though he is so civil as to tell us beforehand his true Histories are all false. And yet when his hand was in, he could not forbear slandering another person of Worth, with another of the same; who, though he did from that Text in St. Matthew, Seek ye the Kingdom of God— Observe in transitu, that Monarchy was the best of Governments, as bearing a nearer resemblance to that of God himself, than any Aristocracy or Commonwealth; yet that he should use any such ridiculous Expressions as those,— It is not said the Parliament of God, the Army of God, or the Committee of Safety of God,— is a great untruth, second to none but that I told you of before; so easy a thing it is for a Splenetic Momus to take every thing by the wrong handle, and make that look ridiculous which was spoken never so well and soberly. Now (as we use to say, ex pede Herculem) by these instances you may judas of the rest, and guests at the Man's Ingenuity, the greatest part of all those Absurdities charged upon Preaching being either his own, or none of ours, who have but the least relation (so much as that of Journeymen) to the present Clergy. Wherefore, to shut up this Stage, though we account of such as tell us of our faults truly, modestly, and in private, as of our best Friends; yet we shall beware of them that do not only publish and divulge our private failings to reproach and upbraid us, but make them ten times more than we acknowledge, as of the most illnatured and pernicious of all our Enemies.  
And so I pass on to his second Topick, the Clergy's Poverty, to examine whether he hath betrayed more integrity in representing that. And because I have already showed that the generality even of our Inferior Clergy are not so dismally poor and shrimped things as he makes them, I shall content myself with some short Remarks upon him now, to leave a little room for my third and last Proposition, which, I presume, will end the whole Controversy.  
And here he proceeds to talk after the old wild rate, and hath set the second Part to the same Tune exactly with the first, taking the same extravagant liberty in his Expressions, Figures and Forgeries. There is the never-enough-to-be-commended Irony, that dispatcheth one half of the business, and what remains is made good by the prodigious all-confounding Hyperbole, by which he can blow up a Fly into the full proportion of five hundred Camels put together. When he seems to commend, he mostly jeers; what he pities, he abuseth: when he would deplore his Clergies ruinous Circumstances, he only laughs till the tears stand in his eyes. Take him at one end of his Glass, and he'll show you a Molehill grown up into a Mountain; and if there be occasion to look at the other, high jingo, tanutus— the old massy Mountain dwindles presently into a young Molehill. At first he makes a formal face like some piteous Statue in the Wall, that would have us believe it bears up the whole Fabric by its shrugging; as if it were a burden to his little Conscience that our Clergy is not so well provided for as the Priesthood of old: but all he drives at in the end, is only to let off a Querk or two, and certify Mankind that the Souls of Men are a greater charge than Sheep and Oxen, and that Money and Victuals were not Types and Shadows to cease with the Ceremonial Law. At length he shows upon the High Rope, and advances to the top of his design, his elaborate Description of the Vicar, which, that it might be to the life, he hath ransacked all the Romances and Plays written since the King came in, for Accoutrements to make him the most despicable Lazarillo in Nature: For he discovers him walking pensively alone in his Churchyard, either without a Cassock, or without Breeches, (according as it happened to be the Breeches or Cassock-year) and studying merely how to live; casting with himself what Pigs, Geese and Apples are towards, who is likely to marry or die next, and sadly remembering that the last Kilderkin of Drink is near departed, and that all his Treasure is reduced to one single Groat. Returning to the little Hut, his Mansion-house, he meets with new disasters to enhance his sorrows, a scurvy Mole had ploughed up most of his Globe, and the malicious Crows trampled down the remaining Grass: then sweep comes the Kite, and robs him of the most hopeful Chick in all the brood: And to make up the Scene and ruin him quite, the Jackdaws and Starlings (idle Birds that they are!) scattered and carried away forty or fifty of the best Straws from his Thin-thatched Roof. Thus racked and tortured, he tries to weather out his melancholy by retiring into the little hole over the Oven, called his Study, (contrived there, I suppose, to save firing) a pretty little Vatican, the whole furniture whereof is a Germane Systeme, a Geneva Bible and Concordance of the same, a Budget of old stitched Sermons, some broken Girts, with two or three yards of Whipcord behind the door, and a Saw and Hammer to prevent Dilapidations. But finding his Family cannot be maintained with Texts and Contexts, (the Child in the Cradle crying all this while for want of Milk) down he creeps again, and betakes himself to those Heavenly employments, of filling the Dung-Cart in dry weather, pilling of Hemp, and heating the Oven in wet; and, to evidence his willingness to turn a Penny in an honest way, one day he went to Market upon a Pannier with Turkeys and Geese bobbing out their heads under his Canonical Coat: but alas, alas, in his absence the beloved Duck miscarries, or the never-failing Hen forsakes her wont Nest, at which he either runs raving about the Yard like a Lunatic, or else confines himself to the little Hole aforesaid, being even overwhelmed with grief and despair.— Now did you ever meet with such a Romantic Whimsy as this in all your Travails? Do you believe he really thinks this is a Man of God he thus sets out, and makes so bold with? Doth he not fully betray that mighty reverence he has for the holy Profession, thus to prevaricate, and coin an Eutopian Vicar merely to laugh at? Besides, granting there ever was such a forlorn Creature as he describes, yet how ridiculous a thing is this new way of Argumentation which concludes from Particulars? For if you will take his word for good Logic, one instance or two reflects disparagement, and procures a general disesteem to all that Order of holy Men, pag. 98. As much as to say, that, if some of the Gentry of England, being decayed in their Estates through their Loyalty to the King, or by their own imprudence, their Children come to be Tapsters or Ostlers, or any other servile Officers, there must needs be a blot in the Scutcheons of all the rest, though never so flourishing, till Doomsday.  
Now I shall not undertake to answer his mad Description, but only crave leave to tell you a Story, and give him the honour of bearing a considerable part in it, which (though it be a mere Fiction, and you are requested beforehand not to believe it, yet) may seem perhaps as probable and plausible as that he makes no scruple to publish for true.  
Spending some time in my Travails at the famous Hecdecapolis, I was conducted to a certain Covent of the Eleutheri, who are said to have been formerly a Religious Order, and I guess they might, by the ruins of a Chapel I found there, (looking now like a decayed Dovecote, from which the Inhabitants are fled for self-preservation) and many ancient Inscriptions in the Walls and Windows: but since they are irregular and free from all Laws, Vows and Duties, (however it came to pass) having no Obligations upon them but to live as their own Genius shall prompt them. In habit they differ not much from other Covents in Greece, excepting only this, that they more resemble some of the old conceited Philosophers by their Beards, which are above a Cubit long, and set accurately in mood and figure. But lest I be mistaken, you must know they hate to be very like those Old Men either in their Opinions or Beards; for whereas they used to hang their Beards before in the natural place, these wear them most behind in opposition: besides, their Beards were truly and properly their own; but these by keeping their Heads too hot, have none of their own, (40 or 50 Straws of natural Thatch growing upon the place, being with them almost a Miracle) but make them artificial ones of the Manes of certain She-Asses, cut off once in so many years for that purpose. As for Diet, I know no Covent in Europe which outdoes them; for rejecting all the old methods of living upon Bread, Water and Herbs, and such mean Dispensations, they are plentifully furnished with all sorts of provisions, from the Wing of an Ox to the Leg of a Lark, all manner of varieties Seas or Rivers produce, together with all kinds of Vehicles, commonly called Liquors, from the most Chemically prepared and spirituous, down to those of the inferior Brewhouse. Nor do I speak all this by conjecture or hear-say, but as I found by experience; for one of the Fraternity perceiving me curious and inquisitive, as strangers use to be, would needs engage me to eat at their common Table to see their fashions, which I was easily persuaded to, as well to gratify my hunger as curiosity: the manner whereof was briefly thus: We being summoned together by their Automaton or Clock, and the Table spread, Proclamation was presently made by one of the Machine's or Novices, in this short Grace, Ede, Bibe, Lude, and then down sat every one as he pleased, and fell to where he liked best. But they had the strangest names for their Meats as well as all things else, that, had not I kept to my old rule of believing my senses, had I not seen and scented good store of real Provender before me, I should have thought myself decoyed to some Magical Banquet: for they called a good round Pudding, a solid Orb, (the Plumbs resembling fixed Stars;) a Collar of Brawn, a Callous Cylinder; a Shoulder of Mutton, a Triangle; a couple of Capons, Platonic Eunuches; a Veal Pie, a Pentagone; a French Quelque Chose, a fortuitous concourse of delicious Atoms; and the Chafing-Dish under it, an Hypothesis; Sausages, a Dish of Circles; a heap of wild Fowl, a Pyramid, to mention no more. If they want any thing, they disdain to ask it in the Language other Men use, but one cries, Transfuse me some brisk Lyaean Blood into that same Flute; another, Reach hither a few of those Saline Particles; a third, Pray anatomize that Quadrupede, and accommodate me with a quantum of the Spina dorsi; and much more I either understood not, or was not then at leisure to remember. When they had taken a free Dose of the Creature, as they call it, and their Bellies were grown hard as Drums, the Room began to echo with their swaggering and bidding defiance to all the Learned Men that ever were in the World, always excepting themselves. One calls the Stoics Fools for resisting Natural Causes, and curbing their Appetites; and the Pythagoreans Madmen for abstaining superstitiously from good wholesome Flesh: another doth but name Aristotle with his green Bag of Occult Qualities under his Cloak, and all the Company laugh out right, as if they had found a Mare's-Nests a third brags of the antiquity of their Order, pretending with those Arcadians they are elder than the Moon, and had a state of Preexistence: a fourth relates his Telescope-Travels, how many Stars he found out that never were seen before, and peopled with Inhabitants: another jeers Ptolemy's Systeme off the Hinges, for by this time it was a Demonstration that all the World turned round. But I took special notice of one above the rest, (called Boccaline Junior, Secretary to the Order) who in less than an hours space, beginning with a Preface from Adam, ran through all Ages, Nations, and Orders of Men, and abused them pleasantly as he went: At first I took him for a Conjurer, for he could raise the Ghosts of a hundred old Philosophers, and make them all dance after his Pipe; he could make a Cat to speak; he could transform a Man into an Ass; dress the wisest up like Fools; and play with Religion itself, as if it were an old Dotage; but afterwards I understood he did all this by the Art of Memory, and only repeated the several Acts, Dogmes, Resolves, and Philosophical Decrees, (clubbed and agreed upon by a Grand Committee of the whole House) which he is to keep by his place. Thus when they had filled their Bellies with Laughter, and other good Cheer, the Company broke up, and each retired to their several apartments: only my friendly Guardian took me aside, and honoured me further with a sight of their Public Library, which I wondered to find so thin of Books, their whole store being only Epicurus' Works, Lucian's Dialogues, Cartes, Hobbs, and two or three more modern Authors, with two large Files, one of Gazettes, and the other of Philosophical News-Books; but he soon resolved me, by informing me that those Shelves were not long since crowded with all sorts of ancient Authors, but by a common decree they had lately Voted them all to be burnt, as so much useless Lumber obstructing the growth and perfection of Arts and Sciences; and were agreed upon a new Model of Learning, more compendious and demonstrative than the old, which was shortly to be published. At the far end of the Room he showed me a pair of fair Globes, full of Atoms as they could hold, which (he told me in my ear) were Materials to make new Worlds: for if one take never so many Bushels out, they still continue topful, being supplied, he said, by a constant Effiuvium from some invisible Rock or Mine. The Classes formerly filled with Books, were now taken up with all sorts of Mathematical Instruments, Glasses, Potguns, Crucibles, Powder of Experience, Louse-Traps, Skeletons of Ants, Fleas, and other little Gentlefolk, Tubes for Transfusion, the the Spleens of Gnats yet alive, several Limbs of Chimaeras, divers pairs of Unicorn's Horns, Phoenix's Feathers, Remora's Fins, and ten thousand Mechanical Knacks I cannot reckon. When I had sufficiently admired all these Rarities, I desired to be satisfied what Principles their Order owned? He was somewhat shy in answering at first, but when I importuned him, he told me, they embraced few of those vulgarly received, some of their main and fundamental ones being to doubt of all things that are not demonstrated, gratify their appetites, preserve themselves, Philosophise freely, laugh at all the World for their ignorance, and close with no Sect of Religion, but comply outwardly with that which is most in fashion, with this proviso, That they may abstain from Superstitious fasting-days and fasting-nights, and all other morose means of Mortification, they acknowledging no other but the present Life. And thus in short, having thanked him for all his Cavilities, I took solemn leave of him at his Covent-Gate, and now return home again to my little Doctor of Atoms, (not doubting but he will candidly interpret Trick for Trick, and swallow one Pill himself for those many he hath offered a whole Clergy) who by this time finds it to his purpose to caution us, that we have a special care of comparing Ours with the Primitive Church under Persecution, or the present small-preferred Clergy in that of Rome: for if we do, it is a plain case that Poverty doth not always expose to Contempt, for than they were more obnoxious than we; it was not Money, but something else that preserved their esteem, the want whereof may possibly lessen ours, as I shall prove before I have done. And though he be seldom or never in, yet by and by he is still farther out, in giving us a reason why our Liturgy hath not its just estimation in Cities and Corporations; namely, because it is sometimes read there by unlearned Men: for he must either make us believe, that there were never any such cattle in England as the famous Smectymnuans, whose task it was to Pray and Preach it out of reputation, to make room for their goodly Directory, or that the whole Tribe of Adoniram are since cut off and extinct, and done't carry on the same work still in their private Meetings, or at least that their giddy Followers would quickly forsake Conventicles, if they could hear the Church's Prayers read constantly by some Reverend Prelate, or Learned Priest.— credat judaeus apella!  
His last complaint is, that 'tis a great hazard if so Poor a Clergy be not idle, intemperate and scandalous. This indeed was an old Article devised by foul-mouthed Sequestrators, against such as were fat and full, whose very Benefices were scandalous, but never urged before against the twenty or thirty pound Men: And all Calumnies ought to have some little probability in them, or the Devil himself cannot believe them. He told you before that his Vicar had but one Groat in the House, and who can imagine he should break an entire Sum to spend his Penny, especially when there is an Execution out against it too for Milk and Eggs? Nor is it likely those Parishioners should be so bountiful as to bear him out, whom he had described before to cheat him of his Geese and Pigs, and have so despicable an opinion of him for his tattered old fashioned Habit. Thus he has done with his Grounds of the Clergies disesteem, Ignorance and Poverty, before I proceed to mine, I must consider a little those particular Occasions (he says) concur to make them so pitifully Poor and Contemptible.  
The first whereof he makes the great scarcity of Livings in respect of that infinite number who either post, or (to show the vigilance of our Pastors) steal into Holy Orders; there being scarce employment for half of those that undertake that holy Office: so that, unless they should take up the Romish Tricks of rambling up and down to cry Pardons, Indulgencies, etc. or unless we had some vent for our Learned ones beyond Sea, as we have for other Commodities with which the Nation is over-stocked, one moiety of the Clergy must be condemned to beg or starve. But art thou in earnest, my excellent Contriver? Is the holy Function grown such a mere Drug in England, that it lies so much upon our hands? Have we so many Tun of Divines to spare? (a mannerly Comparison, pardonable from none but an empty Hogshead:) so many hundreds ready to mount upon Pegasus, and ride down Sun and Moon for 25 or 30 l. a year? If this be true, then certainly it is not probable, that, having so great choice, we should be so meanly provided at home, as he hath been lamenting all along, but rather (small Preferments being better than none) that all our Churches and Chapels are filled with Persons of no inferior Worth. But is it so in very deed, that we have scarce employment for half their number? What then becomes of the other half? Who maintains them? or do they live upon the Camelion's Diet? or how got they into Orders? Either they were Ordained to a Title, or not; if to a Title, (be it Spiritual or Temporal) there is somewhat to live on; if to none, their Spiritual Fathers are bound to provide for and maintain them by Law: so that here is yet no visible necessity of recurring to the Old Ordinance of clapping under Deck again for Transportation. But that one half of the Priests and Deacons now in England are Ordained to no manner of Title (as he would persuade the World to the great disparagement of our Prelacy) is a wild supposal savouring neither of Wit nor Truth. All that the greatest candour can say in his excuse, is only this, That upon the Kings Return possibly there were fuller Ordinations than before or since, the Bishops not knowing but there might be a scarcity and want of Clergymen to supply the places of those intruding Lay-brothers, besides that the Church's Lands lately alienated were now restored, and the holy Profession began to retrieve its former Reputation: And if we be at present over-stocked, I have given the true reason of it, the only ill consequence whereof will be this, that unless our Reverend Bishops shall please to hold their hands awhile, the old ones are not likely to be worn out first; I mean, many Persons of good Worth and Learning will be fain to spin out their days in a College Cell, who might have done better service abroad in their Generation.  
The next thing so much concurring to heighten our Clergies Poverty and Disesteem, he lays at the Gentry's door, wherein he shows himself as much a Gentleman, as a Master of Reason. Indeed I thought he owed abundance of thanks to his Stars, if he came off fairly in the business of my Cousin Abigail: But in for a thousand, in for fifteen hundred; and having already set out the Clergy, he now proceeds to render the Gentry also ridiculous. But have not the Gentry and Nobility too deserved better at our hands, than thus to be traduced, for dedicating some of their Sons to God's Service?. Is this so ready a way to bring more Contempt upon the Clergy, and not rather a mean to redeem their credit, to make Church and State a compacted Body of one common interest, and keep a fair correspondence between Clergy and Laity, and prevent all future quarrels between them, which used to be grounded upon an old mistake, that they are naturally as little related, as the outward and the inward Man, or the Flesh and Spirit? Yea, but (he says) they design the weak, lame, and most ill-favoured of their Children for the Ministry, having just limbs enough to climb the Pulpit, and an eye or two to find out the day of the month, and then leave them to God's blessing and the warm Sun, without one penny of Money, or inch of Land, excepting only a small stock to buy a broad Hat at second hand, and a small Systeme or two of Faith, whereupon you shall meet with few of them worth above two Spoons and a Pepper-Box, besides their Spiritualities. And now, Gentlemen, as you were. A very pretty Relation indeed! which if it were true, I would fain ask our little-mighty Oracle whether it reflects more upon the Clergy or Gentry? Oh! without doubt it adds a great lustre to the Family, and commends his Paternal Wisdom, Care, and impartial Providence, when a Father leaves a thousand Pounds per annum to his eldest Son, and and plentiful Portions to all the rest of the Brethren, excepting only the Divinity Thing, who is left so poor it can but just creep, having nothing but two Spoons and a Pepper-Box to keep it from starving. But the World is grown too wise to account all Gold that glitters, or to shut their eyes till they be trepanned into the belief of a falsehood, though never so plausibly varnished over with specious Whimsies, and merry-mad Conceits.  
In the little residue of his Letter, he plays the mere Child, and takes great pains to blow up a few Bubbles and Crystalline Globuli into the Air, standing at gaze after them till they burst and vanish: only in the close of all, he reminds his Reader, that he found the word Religion in the Title▪ And how much he hath betrayed in the whole Book, let other Men judge, and himself consider whether he be not obliged to a second Epistle, to beg pardon of God and Man for writing the Name of Religion upon such a Fardel of scandalous Petulancies and Legendary Tales, unless he will be so ingenuous (now the High-Commission-Court is asleep) to undergo a voluntary Penance at some convenient Market-Cross, with the Title of his Accusation written under him, The Author of the Contempt of the Clergy and of Religion. Where I shall leave him, and proceed to my third and last Proposition, which is this, That if the English Clergy be not truly valued, it is to be attributed to other, and those far different Reasons: which once demonstrated and made good, it will appear evidently that his Letter being built upon a wrong Foundation, falls of itself, and may be burnt without any prejudice to Truth or Reason, and consequently I hope the deluded World will be undeceived.  
We must confess to our sorrow more than shame, that the holy Function hath been little set by, nay much disparaged and affronted of late years amongst us, (for by the Grace of God they have deserved better at the hands of Men than every rash young Shimei will allow them) the true Reasons whereof will soon appear, if we consider who and what manner of Persons they are who do most industriously throw Contempt upon them; and they must be either our professed Enemies, or pretended Friends. Now our Church's Enemies are reducible to three principal Herds or Bands: The first whereof are the openly debauched, profane, and Men Atheistically disposed, who think they were born at all adventures, and came into the World, as the Leviathan was sent into the Deep, merely to sport and take their pastime therein; who are as wise in their own eyes as David's Fool, and say in their hearts, There is no God; who laugh at all things sacred, as being out of their Element, and make no more account of Religion than of an ordinary piece of State-Policy. It may be they wear the name of Christians at large, and own themselves of ours rather than any other Church for fashion's sake, or saving their credit, or some secular interest: but if you examine their Principles and Practices more narrowly, they will be found to belong rather to the Devil's Chapel. For were they hearty and in earnest, they could not possibly differ from all Sects of Religionists in the World, who do constantly admire and reverence their respective Priests and Preachers in what quality or circumstances soever they be. But the Grandees and most robust among these modern Sadduces done't levelly their scoffs and reproaches so low as the inferior Clergy, the little Vicars and Curates (that were impar congressus, and a fitter task for some young beginner, some Novice in Raillery, who hath just parts and skill enough to make a Cobweb-Net that will take the lesser Flies) but aim rather at the chiefest of our Church-Governors, it being a more noble Conquest, a more sure and expedite way to wound Religion (that's the great project) through their sides. They are so far from accounting the Elders that rule never so well worthy of double, nay single Honour, that they fear not to revile God's highest Priests, to deride, slander and lampoon the most renowned Prelate, even when he hath his most solemn audience, when he is delivering his Embassy from the great Monarch of Heaven, to his Vicegerent here on Earth. So that it is no fault of our Religion, or of the Ministry thereof, but ruinous decay of Christian Piety supplanted of late by Unchristian Practice, (for the true Causes whereof, I refer my Readers to that excellent Tractate, whose Author's Name the World is hitherto unworthy of) which prompts this Herd of brutish Hectors to defy and contemn our Clergy and Religion both.  
A second Band of our Church's Enemies are the Popish Recusants, who, taking the advantage of our late intestine differences; and having learned of St. Peter's pretended Successor to fish most advantageously in troubled waters, have much augmented, if not doubled their ancient number. And he that made such a grievous complaint of our being so much over-stocked with Divines, had never heard of the Jesuits brags beyond Sea sure, Sir Edwin Sandys tells us of, that the English Seminaries abroad send forth more Priests than our two Universities at home do Ministers: And where should the Scene of their Action be laid more properly than in their own Country? What greater service can they do the Court of Rome, than to infect and poison their Native Air with foreign Vapours? Who more fit to throw the Kingdom into a Church-relapse, than they who are so well acquainted with the Temper, Language, Manners, Customs, Laws and Religion of the Country? It is not to be questioned but they, and all the Proselytes they either find, or make amongst us, are no Favourers of our Religion or Clergy, but do privately and openly (when they dare) calumniate and decry both, as destructive to the Game and Interest they are to manage; and the true and only reason of their contemning and vilifying us, is an eager desire of enlarging their own Territories, that the Romans might come in once again, and take away both our Place and Nation. And therefore that our Church neither is, nor expects to be prized by them, more than others they are pleased to call Heretics, (because they cannot digest their corrupt Innovations for current Gospel) is their Goodness more than our Desert.  
The third and last Body of our Church's Enemies, are the Fanatic Recusants in the other extreme: for though Manasseh declares fiercely against Ephraim, and Ephraim exclaims as much against Manasseh; yet both combine and unite their forces against the Common Enemy, poor judah. And truly to speak freely, and give these latter their due, I must needs say the Church of England hath suffered very much of late in her Reputation by their means: for they are a sort of clamorous Zealots, restless and troublesome Saints, as ever pretended to be of Christ's retinue, who are for reforming Church and State, and all things but themselves and their own pernicious Opinions. Seneca's character of unstable Men seems to be calculated particularly for them, Nihil liberè volunt, nihil absolutè, nihil semper: for they know not what they would have; and if you grant all their unreasonable demands, they are not satisfied, but still crying with the Daughters of the Horseleech, Give, give. They had too precise thoughts of themselves to continue in our Communion; and therefore, like the young brood of Vipers, made their way through their Mother's Bowels to procure their own liberty: And that there might be room for a new Model of Government, necessity obliged them to pluck down the old one first. To this end all their artifices, especially Preachments, were directed, they crying out against Episcopacy, as the children of Edom did of old against jerusalem, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground; making nothing to call it opprobiously the Prelatical Faction, (though themselves are forced to confess it is such a Faction as hath troubled the Church ever since the Apostles times) and by this means they quickly begat an odium in men's Minds as well against the ancient Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, as against the Persons of the Bishops and Orthodox Clergy for their sakes. To them we owe all that Anarchy in Spiritual and Civil Matters, which, like a thick Cloud, did so long overspread us, and broke out at length into Thunder and Lightning about our ears; 'twas the fruit of their worthy Labours that our Goshen was turned into an Egypt by Usurping Tyrants who knew not joseph, and the Rod of Aaron served for no other use a long time but to scourge the Sons of Levi. Nor is it any wonder that the prejudices they raised against our Liturgy and its Assertors are not yet worn out, considering how presumptuously and in despite of all Law both Sacred and Civil, the Nonconformists still keep up their private Conventicles to confirm the Brethren in all the false Notions they had formerly imbibed. But all this while the true reason that this whole Party (taking in all its subdivisions) despise and oppose our Reverend Clergy, is, for their constant and approved Loyalty to God and the King, and sticking close to both in all Wethers, it being their most sacred Principle, Not to meddle with them that are given to Change.  
How great a part of the Nation these three Squadrons of our Church's Enemies make, is too sad a Theme for me to enlarge upon; they have overspread the Land like Locusts, and 'twould puzzle a very good Arithmetician to compute them; it is sufficient for my present purpose that none of them dislike our Clergy either for their Ignorance or Poverty, (for the more Rich and Learned it is, the worse they hate or envy it) but upon vastly different Motives; the first speak evil of them (and all things sacred) purely on the account of their own irreligion; the second, for their opposing the corrupted Doctrine and Discipline of Rome; the third, for their malignant Loyalty and resolved Obedience to God and his Church, maugre all Scotish Covenants or Geneva Models.  
The residue of the Nation we shall allow to be either in reality or pretence at least so far the Church's Friends, as that they are not likely to be tempted in haste to throw off her Communion upon any score; and yet I must freely grant, that neither have many of them so just an esteem and value for the holy Function as they ought to have.  
However, if we find out a more probable and substantial Reason why they are also wanting in their due estimation of the Priesthood, than either of those two our small Conjecturer hath hit upon, his business, I presume, will be completely done; he may even sit him down and guests again, or rather take the Poet's advice along with him for the future, 
Sumite materiam vestris qui scribitis aequam  
Viribus—  and choose some fitter subject for him and his idle Muses to play with next time, and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not intrude into those things he understands not.  
Now if we would speak out, and answer plainly and truly how it comes to pass that so many of our pretended Friends give us not due respect and honour, we must say it is because our Clergy are not publicly allowed the Authority due to their Function, and necessary for executing the power of the Keys; I mean, the want of that godly Discipline of Confession and Penance in the Primitive Church, which our Church of England hath long since wished for, and Sir Edwin Sandys saith might have been better restored in all the reformed Churches to its Primitive sincerity, than utterly abolished and neglected as in most places it is: for although we do justly charge the present Church of Rome for corrupting and degenerating from this ancient holy Discipline by their notorious abuses of it, particularly by their laying the main stress and efficacy of it, upon the definitive sentence of Absolution, (which, according to the Trent Council, is given before any fruits of Repentance are produced, and requires no after penance, but a few Ave mary's and Pater Nosters, with some easy Alms to them that are able, and a little fasting to such as are willing; and sometimes for horrible Blasphemies, and other lewdnesses, imposeth only the bare saying of their Beads thrice over, which they may dispatch too as they go in the streets:) their believing and teaching that by such like Penances the debt of temporal punishment is redeemed after the sin is pardoned, the people all this while making account of Confession as professed Drunkards do of vomiting, and the Priest using it as a Pick-lock to tyrannize over, and torture men's Consciences, and make way for the dangerous delusions of Indulgences; yet, I say, no Reformed Church can excuse itself, which to avoid their extravagant abuses, is fallen into the other extreme, and lets the sober use of so excellent a piece of Discipline grow into utter desuetude and neglect: for it must not, it cannot be denied in the first place, but that the power of the Keys (to be executed not only in admitting Disciples to Church-membership by Baptism, but also in rejecting Heretical, Schismatical and immoral Professors, and then absolving and readmitting them into Communion, upon their unfeigned submission, and demonstrations of sincere Repentance) is founded immediately upon our Lords own Institution, and the Apostles and their Successors to the World's end, derive their Authority from, and act by the same Commission given them, St. Matth. 18.18. Whatsoever ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye lose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven; or as it is explained and renewed, St. john 20.23. Whole sins soever ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose sins soever ye retain, they are retained.  
Nor, Secondly, can it be denied by any Man that is acquainted with the Sects of the Montanists, Novatians, Donatists, and Meletians, and understands the practice of the Primitive Church, legible in the Writings of the Apostles, ancient Fathers and Councils, (particularly that of Elvira in Spain, held divers years before that at Nicaea, and therefore counted as ancient as any the Church hath) but that the cure of sin by penance is an unquestionable Tradition of the Apostles. Not to mention many other obvious Texts to that purpose, the most natural and primary meaning of St. Paul's charge to Timothy, 1 Tim. 5.22. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins, must needs be fetched from that known Apostolical Custom, of admitting lapsed Christians to penance and the Prayers of the Church by imposition of hands.  
Thirdly and lastly, Secret Confession of Sins (otherwise not notorious) in order to their cure, hath been the inviolate practice of the Western (bating their abuses aforesaid) and also of the Eastern Churches, particularly that of Constantinople, even to this day; and it is recommended and pressed as a duty incumbent on the generality of Christians, as well by the ancient Fathers as modern Authors both of the Roman Church, and also of the Reformation. The Augustine Confession says peremptorily, Impium esset ex Ecclesiâ tollere privatam Absolutionem, That it were an ungodly, a sacrilegious thing to rob the Church of Christ of private Absolution. And Chemnitius in his Examen Concil. Trid. gives a fivefold account of the use and profitableness of this Discipline of private Confession.  
1. For the information of the ignorant concerning the true knowledge, the degrees and heinousness of sin, and the right way of performing repentance.  
2. For Physic, viz. how each sin is so to be cured and mortified, that it may be avoided for the future, and what amendment of life is to be opposed to such and such sins.  
3. For Counsel, that in doubtful cases Pastors may advise and instruct their Flocks out of God's Word.  
4. For Spiritual Comfort, to relieve disturbed Consciences.  
Lastly, (because Absolution is to be given only to such as appear truly penitent) that the Pastor himself may be assured whether he ought to bind or lose.  
Our Church of England in particular refuseth the benefit of it to none, urgeth it in extremis, and requires it for quieting of troubled Consciences, as is manifest in her several Offices of the Communion, and the Visitation of the sick. Notwithstanding all this, woeful experience tells us, that the practice of this holy Discipline hath been declining every day more and more ever since that desperate opinion was first broached in the World, That Men are justified by believing they are predestinated to life, (which resolves all Christian Duties into a new notion of Faith, little different from a strong fancy) and is now grown almost utterly out of fashion amongst us, and never (I fear) likely to recover its ancient practice. Now the want of this most reasonable and necessary Discipline, is attended with very many dangerous consequences, such as these: The practice of religious Duties in general runs to decay: Men grow accustomed to, and at length hardened in their sins, by satisfying themselves with a superficial repentance, or none at all: They content themselves with a palliative cure ofttimes in stead of a sound one, by reason of their own ignorance or partiality; for every Man hath not skill enough to be his own Physician; and they that have, do wilfully mistake sometimes a Cordial for a Corrosive: They rush unworthily upon that Tremendum Evangelit Mysterium, (as Saint Augustine calls the Sacrament of the Eucharist) without due preparation: They fall into Heresies and Errors by leaning to their own understanding, by misinterpreting or mis-applying the holy Scriptures, and not consulting with, and submitting to better Judgements: Their Consciences are seldom quiet, but like the troubled Sea, boysing up despairing thoughts, because they apply not themselves to the Delegates and Commissaries of Him, whom the Winds and the Sea obeyed, I mean, the Priests of the living God: They venture their Salvation upon slender and uncertain Evidences, and hinder their Pastor from doing the best Offices he can for them, (and most likely to succeed) in order thereunto: All that they will allow him, is, to shoot at rovers, and preach his heart out in chastising sin in general, whereas an occasional private conference with Him now and then, were much more probable to effect their particular cure. No Man ever doubted, but one good remedy well applied by a skilful Hand, is more likely to cure a Man of the Gout or Dropsy, than the hearing of five hundred Anatomy-Lectures to that purpose. And amongst many other ill conseqences, this is evidently one, That the power of the Keys is in part taken away, the due Authority of the Priesthood restrained and impaired, and consequently their esteem lessened, their Function not valued as it ought to be by the People, and their Persons sometimes exposed to Contempt: And therefore let but this ancient holy Discipline be restored amongst us, either by a public Act of the Church, or by the unanimous practice of those that profess themselves of our Communion, and then let common sense judge if these effects will not necessarily follow upon it: The Life of Religion will quickly grow more into fashion: Men will be more careful of discharging their Baptismal Vow, more afraid of sin, more sincere in their Repentance, Fast, Prayers, and Works of Charity, and consequently the People must needs believe that their Pastors belong to God more than ordinary Folks; they cannot but have a hearty respect, and honourable esteem for their Spiritual Guides and Physicians, who watch daily over their Souls, by whose prudent Conduct, faithful Advices, and ghostly Comfort, they live quietly and peaceably here in all Godliness and Honesty, and in the end attain to Everlasting Life.   

The Conclusion.  
NOw having so fair an occasion offered, give me leave to expostulate a while with all those who profess themselves of our Communion, and yet do not heartily respect and value the holy Function, merely because they neglect the use of that Catholic and Apostolic Discipline aforesaid, and I have done.  
When our Enemy's reproach us, we can bear it cheerfully, rejoicing (with the Apostles, Acts 5.41.) that we are counted worthy to suffer shame for his Name. But if you that are our Companions and dear Brethren, who walk together with us to the House of God as Friends, Psal. 55. who have eaten frequently (not of our Bread perhaps, as David complains, but) of the Bread of Life administered by us; if You also undervalue our Persons or Office when we deserve it not, (so far we are compelled to boast of our Infirmities) Forgive us this wrong. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉;— an undeserved slight from her own Sons is the greatest stab you can make at your indulgent Mother's Heart. Wherefore let me beseech you in Her Name to take these few short particulars into your most serious and impartial thoughts.  
Consider, First, that whilst you continue unkind towards us, you are all this while much more cruel to yourselves: for we lose only a Temporal Good, your favour, but you deprive yourselves of many Spiritual Comforts, and possibly hazard your Eternal too.  
Consider, Secondly, that you are easily persuaded to send for a Physician when you lie sick of a malignant Fever, and to conceive a good opinion of him when (under God) he restores you from Death to Life; and what should be the reason that a mortal Body is prized so highly above an immortal Soul? or what prudence is it to be more solicitous for preserving a Temporal, than for securing an Eternal Life? Neither Physician is likely to do you much service, if you defer consulting them till the last gasp upon your Deathbed, as the manner of some is; and if you be shy of discovering your Disease to either, what expectations can you reasonably have of being cured? Si erubescat aegrotus Medico vulnus confiteri, quod ignorat Medicina, non curate, saith St. Hierome upon this very subject: Although our Lord and Master hath committed the power of the Keys to us, yet you must give us power to exercise them upon you by your own voluntary act, or you cannot reap due advantage by them.  
Consider, Thirdly, that the Apostles express command is general, that ye should confess your sins one to another, St. james 5.16. Now the reason of that command is clear both by the Context and the reason of the thing, viz. that ye may have the benefit of the Prayers, and Christian advice of others, no Man being a competent judge in his own cause. Much more than ought you to unbosom yourselves, and disclose your grievances to your Pastors, who are presumed to be best able to solve your doubts, and supply your spiritual wants, and who only are entrusted by Christ as his Delegates to absolve sincere Penitents from all their sins.  
Consider, Fourthly, that you have been often importuned in the former Exhortation before the Communion, to repair to your own, or (in case of his sickness, impotent age, or any like infirmity) some other discreet and learned Minister of God's Word, and to open your grief to Him, that ye may receive ghostly comfort, counsel and Absolution for the relief of your distressed Consciences. And how many sad instances did our late Times produce of those, who by neglecting this (very) old Christian Duty, and puzzling their Brains with new Notions of Gods unsearchable Decrees, not only lost their Wits, but fell into utter despair of ever being saved?  
Consider, Lastly, how provident and tender your Mother the Church is, lest your secrets should be at any time betrayed, your privacies made public by an unfaithful or imprudent Confessor: for in her 113 Canon she pronounces such an one Irregular ipso facto: that is to say, the party so offending doth not only forfeit all the Ecclesiastical Preferments which he hath at the present, but renders himself uncapable of receiving any other for the time to come: and Confession made upon such security, will be as saving to the fame of the Penitent, as the Absolution to his Soul, as the Learned Doctor H. well observes.  
And so I conclude all with my hearty Prayers to God for you, that He would enlighten and quit your Minds from all Prejudices, and incline your Wills to the unanimous and speedy practice of so important a Christian Duty, (or Privilege rather) so immediately concerning the advancement of God's Glory, the redeeming the Honour of His Priests, and the eternal Salvation of your own Souls, through Christ our lord Amen. Amen.   

POSTSCRIPT.  
THese Papers had long since been in the Press, but that I heard of a second Part of the Contempt of the Clergy coming out, by the same Author, which I was willing to see and peruse before I published them. And although I find it to be another man's Province to make a Reply to that, (if yet such a trifling piece of Impertinence be worthy of any) and am resolved not to be so pragmatical, as to thrust my Sickle into another man's Field; yet I think myself concerned briefly to animadvert upon those particular passages therein, whereby the Author seems to mince the matter, and excuse himself, or put by the thrusts, and weaken any argument I have made against his first Letter. I begin with those passages, where he altars the scene, and commends the Learning and Wisdom of our Clergy, which (saith he, pag. 33.) the whole world have always admired, and have reason still to do, and our Adversaries to dread, And again, pag. 35. I know no reason to deny that the Clergy of the Land doth daily considerably improve. And again, pag. 184. It is a sign of nothing but perfect madness, ignorance, and stupidity not to acknowledge that the present Church of England affords as considerable Scholars, and as solid and eloquent Preachers, as are any where to be found in the whole Christian World. This is somewhat like; I hope we shall bring him to speak truth in time. Now our Clergy is either strangely improved in a very short space, or else T. B. hath changed his mind; for it is not a year ago since he laid the imputation of Ignorance and Folly upon the very same Clergy to which he now attributes so much Learning and Wisdom. I have already shown that his first Letter is built upon a false foundation, and consequently, that the superstructure thereof is as weak and senseless, as if he had spoiled so much paper to give us an account of the grounds and reasons why a Tub should hold as much water with a Carp of twenty inches long in it, as without it, when all this while, upon experiment, there is no such matter: and I have only this to say now, that he makes us but a poor requital in this; He first breaks our head, and then pretends to give us a Plaster. He calls us all at naught, and then says he did not design or intend us harm: He wounds and stabs our Reputation so deep, that it's past his skill to cure it suddenly (as good a Mountebank as he would be thought) without leaving a dreadful scar behind; and he is much obliged to the world, if they will rather credit these his second thoughts, and take them to be as unalterable as his last Will and Testament.  
In the next place he is forced to confess what I had urged at large against him, by acquainting us (p. 62.) who they were he chiefly intended to charge with rude, immodest, and almost blasphemous discourses in the Pulpit, and putting them off with those little mollifying sentences, as it were, as I may so say, and with reverence be it spoken; they were those (says he) who in the late times (and have not as yet left it off) called themselves God's special Saints, his Favourites, and (as I may so say) his Intimadoes, but in reality were more Oliver's than Gods; (meaning, I suppose, St. Hugh Peter, who was canonised at Charing-Cross, and the rest of those Trumpeters of Sedition who were Chaplains to that Grand Usurper.) And again, to stop the Non-Conformists mouth, he tells them (p. 101.) that their dear Brethren are as much concerned as any body else (in his first Letter) and have as great a share in those Instances that are produced out of idle Sermons: So that his way of arguing is most prodigiously clear and convincing (as I have formerly intimated.) Peter and Sterry, etc. preached Rebellion, and Treason, and Blasphemies: ergo, the present Clergy did cut off the Kings Head. Now I appeal to all mankind, if it be fair play to make a Linsey-woolsey History of Conformists and Non-conformists, of the Loyal and Orthodox Sons of Levi, and those perfidious Apostated Sons of Korah, without all manner of distinction, (they being of more irreconcilable Principles and Practices, than a Protestant and a Papist,) and then father the faults of the guilty upon the innocent; as Nero charged the Christians with firing of Rome, when he knew it was done by himself, and his own Faction. Nay, he is not content to do it himself only, but brings in the reverend Mr. Thorndike to bear false witness for him (pag. 81. of the first Letter) by wresting his words from their intended and plain sense, as his manner is: for the usual Preaching Mr. Th. chastiseth as a hindrance rather of Salvation, is that of the factious Separatists, (not of our Orthodox Clergy) whom he there calls their Preachers, and charges them further with their Will-worship Prayers after Sermon, whereby evil Doctrine (saith he) is repeated to God, for a blessing of his Spirit upon it, as you may see at large in his Book of Just Weights and Measures, cap. 22. pag. 152, 153. And therefore this ingenuous Gentleman must not think to shelter himself under the sober Author of the Friendly Debate his wing (although he would fain make him his Voucher and Parallel, page 83.) for the comparison (as I may so say) is very odious. A Garment suited to the fickle Moon, cannot well fit the constant Sun. Surely there is some small difference between one that relates the true and real absurdities of false Brethren, spurious Churchmen, who have renounced the Faith of English Christians; and another, that presumes to pin false stories and fooleries upon our true genuine and learned Clergy: as much as to say, because that Author calls it murder to kill a man upon the King's High way, ours may be allowed to say it is also murder for a Judge to sentence a Felon to die, upon Conviction, or for the Executioner to do his Office.  
In other places he makes a face as if he had a mind to commence Modesty, eat his words, repent of his manner of expression, and persuade us of his good meaning, and honest intentions at the bottom: for he says (pag. 81.) I am not yet come to that degree of self-conceit and confidence, as to recommend my own words, phrase, or style; and I had rather the Answerer should find fault with the manner of my expression, and delight himself in thinking, that it is not suitable to the subject, than be guilty of so much folly and impudence, as vigorously to maintain or magnify the same: Only thus much Sir (speaking to R. L. his endeared Friend) may possibly be believed by you, and perhaps by some few besides, that I did not put in one idle or extravagant word on purpose to render any of the Clergy contemptible, but did only just endeavour to keep people awake till they read it. And again (pag. 91.) In my first Letter I did rather make it my business to give a short History of what was derided or blamed, than study to invent or complain of what might be represented unprofitable, or ridiculous: And (pag. 101.) It was altogether against my design to bring any of the Clergy into contempt, etc. A fair profession one would think, but it must be examined with much tenderness and charity, or there will be found very little of reality in it: For if it be folly and Impudence to maintain the style and manner of expression in the first Letter, as not suitable to the subject, why does he carry on the Metaphor, and continue the same strain in the second? He says further, he did not put in one idle or extravagant word (into the first part) on purpose to make any of the Clergy Contemptible; and 'tis strange men will not believe him, when they find it one great business of his second Adventure, to keep people awake still, that is, to rake up some hundreds of idle extravagant words, merely to expose his Answerer, who is one of the Clergy. No question it was altogether against his Design to bring his Answerer (and the rest of his Brethren) into Contempt, when he laughs all along, rather than writes at him, and only tickles the skirts of the business with affected flourishes, answering his most material objections, with fine stories of a Cock and a Bull, and Heyte Teyte's, or to morrow morning I found a Horse-shoe; but I must tell him, that, to persuade the world we intent no hurt, and design honestly, when our actions visibly run counter, is an old, an antiquated cheat that will not down with wise men now adays, being fit to be owned by none but such ungodly miscreants, as could take up Arms against, and at length murder their lawful Sovereign, under pretence of meaning well all this while, and intending only to make him a glorious King.  
To proceed; better late than never, (p. 86.) he takes notice that the Bishops have augmented the Vicarages in their gift, (and who knows but he intended to put in the Deans and Chapters too) and tells us of sums of money employed towards the redeeming of the great Tithes, of Impropriations restored, and of the good Inclinations of this present Parliament, etc. but this should have been done in his first Letter by right, and perhaps he had done it there, but that he did not think on't; or rather because he did think on't: for it would have taken off somewhat from the Poverty and shrimpedness of his Clergy, he was then describing. However he falls to salving again at the foot of this page, saying, I hope I have said nothing to abate the charity, or good purposes of pious Benefactors, or to stop the assisting hands of our present Governors. No? then he is infinitely obliged to them that they don't believe him; for if all those he calls the Poor Clergy, be so Ignorant as he makes them, (assigning the particular reasons to show it impossible it should be otherwise, viz. their mean Education, want of Money, Books, Time, and such other things, without which few men prove very great Scholars) 'Tis pity their maintenance should be made better; 30 l. per an. being rather too large and magnificent an allowance for such pitiful fellows as he most invidiously and falsely makes them. But thanks be to God, our present Governors and Benefactors don't take all for current Gospel that every gifted Lay-Brother talks at rovers, knowing full well that the generality even of our inferior Clergy are of good worth and note; and see no shadow of reason in both his Letters (nor ever will in an hundred more of the same stamp) to alter their noble and pious Intentions.  
Lastly, whereas he fancies (page 101.) that, if any are so weak, and so regardless as to mistake him, (viz. by thinking his design was to bring the Clergy into Contempt) they are either some of the giddy and soft-headed Non-Conformists, or some of the idle and inconsiderable Laity, I must assure him that a very great part of the Orthodox Clergy and most considerable Laity too are very much of the same opinion, it being past their skill to find out any more rational and plausible end that should prompt him to make such an Adventure in English, since, had he clothed his Discourse in (that so much despised thing called) Latin, it could not have been half so obnoxious. And albeit in the sequel of his discourse he bids the Papists, Non-Conformists, conceited new Philosophists, modish Gallants, Hectors, and Atheists of the age hold their tongues, showing he can make the best of them all ridiculous if he please; yet what satisfaction is this to the injured Clergy? he sends them more company indeed, but such as they never much delighted in; and he must not think he can undeceive such men with as much ease as he hath deceived them: for (let him write till Doomsday to the contrary) they will take him at his first word, and believe he hath given them susfficient reason, grounds, and occasion to blaspheme the holy Function. In the mean time, since, a man of this Author's parts and confidence may play with any other subject in the world as well as this, and abuse any profession of men whether Gentry, Lawyers, Physicians, Citizens, etc. whilst he takes the liberty of saying what he pleases, by inventing false stories, adding to, perverting, and wresting such as are, in part, true, and carrying on the whole work of a Romancer, I hope all sober Christians, will think never the worse of, but rather increase their esteem and good opinion of so Reverend and Learned a Clergy.  
FINIS.